Taking It Back by Joseph Talluto Page B

longer than Jacob’s Christmas list. The military might be somewhere in Colorado or Wyoming and there might be a bunch of people on boats in the Pacific Ocean.”
    Tommy and Sarah digested the news, then Sarah spoke up. “In all honesty, I’d rather be where we are than looking for help from the government.”
    “Amen.” Tommy and I spoke together.
     

9
     
    We drove for a few minutes, then Sarah slammed on the brakes, tossing the car into a shambles and nearly causing the cars behind us to pile up.
    “What the hell?” Tommy yelled, pushing a pack off his head.
    Sarah didn’t say anything, she just pointed out the window.
    A grey mist was undulating on the horizon, ebbing and flowing like a grim tide. Staring closely at it, I realized it was not a mist at all. It was a mass of zombies and they were headed in the same direction we were. I looked ahead to their destination and my heart sank. They were going to Coal City. The town was going to be hit sometime soon.
    Sarah looked at me and my mind was racing. We needed to get to the town to warn them of the approaching swarm, but I didn’t want to just drive ahead of the masses just to bring them to their dinner. I looked at my map and followed Dresden Road which led to Coal City. If we followed that road, we would surely be seen by the horde and they would follow us to the town. Looking at the size of that swarm, we were facing two or three thousand undead.
    I stared at the map until the answer came to me. I turned to Sarah and told her to turn around and go back to the last intersection. She looked at me quizzically, but hurried to comply. When we had started east again, and were moving away from the horde, I outlined my plan.
    “We’re heading to the railroad. The line runs alongside the town itself and we should be able to stay out of sight of the main horde,” I said, pointing to the rail lines coming up fast. “At most, we will have a few miles to go.”
    “Are we walking?” Tommy asked.
    “Have to, unless there is a service road,” I said.
    As luck would have it, there wasn’t any road, so when we reached the railroad, we had to ditch the cars. We packed up as much as we could, taking every weapon and round of ammo we had. We put the generator in the car and packed as much food and water as we could. Hopefully the supplies we left behind would be here when we got back, if ever.
    We moved along the railroad track at a steady clip, walking briskly, but not so fast we would be exhausted if we had to run. We had about two miles to go, if I read the map correctly. Sarah walked behind me, followed by Tommy and the others. Charlie brought up the rear.
    Tommy spoke up. “I really hate being exposed like this. I feel like we’re going to suddenly be surrounded.”
    I pointed to the graying horizon. “We will be if we don’t get to that town.”
    “What if the town is already dead?”
    “We’ll burn down that bridge when we come to it,” I said.
    “Backup plan?”
    “Got one.” I did, but it was iffy at best and required more than my allotted lifetime share of luck.
    Tommy went silent again. We moved closer to the town, and I could see a multi-colored barrier sticking up out of the ground. It stretched for about two miles off to the west and out of sight to the south. I wondered what it was made of for a while, but when we got closer, I realized it was made of the same thing that we had made our first fence out of. Surrounding the better part of the town was a line of cargo containers. I noticed some containers standing away from the fence and wondered briefly what they were out there for, but I figured they must have been leftovers.
    We moved closer to the town and I started to see people standing on the containers, watching us approach. There were three of them, all armed with what looked like to be scoped rifles. If it came to a shooting, we were going to catch the short end of it. I hoped it wouldn’t but I had learned a while ago that things