parking lot. Roaring in
to the lot I spun the wheel and jammed on the brakes, the truck coming to a
stop in a cloud of tire smoke after sliding sideways for twenty feet. The
female was thrown off balance, staying on the truck with the grip of only one
hand.
In a flash I had
my door open and jumped out, raising my pistol to acquire my target. I was
shocked to see that the female had already regained her balance and had her
feet under her ready to spring. Without hesitating I fired and the heavy
hollow point slug nearly decapitated the body. She flopped dead onto the hood
and I had to walk around and drag the body off the truck.
“Fuck these
things are fast!” I said to myself as I hurried back to the driver’s side of
the cab.
Back in the
relative safety of the truck I checked the area and saw no immediate danger. A
quick search of the duffel bags yielded the GPS I’d found as well as an old
school road map. I handed Rachel the GPS and some batteries and asked her to
get it running while I checked the map. I also reminded her to keep watch so
we didn’t get surprised again.
The map was hard
to see and I reached up to turn on the reading light before I realized how dark
it had gotten. The clouds had made it to us and the low bellies were swollen
with rain. As I watched the first drops struck the windshield, slowly at first
then quickly becoming a torrential downpour.
The noise of the
rain on the metal roof of the truck was almost deafening, but nothing compared
to the bone jarring blast of sound from thunder that cracked right over our
heads. The thunder had blasted at the same time as we saw the brilliant flash
of lightning so it had to be very close.
Dog started
whining and Rachel turned to comfort him as another blast of lightning lit the
world around us with a strobe effect. In the strobe I could see shambling and
running figures coming towards us. Damn it, I just needed two minutes to look
at a map.
Stomping on the
throttle we roared out of the parking lot and turned north away from the main
road that seemed to have a good population of infected. We were quickly in
residential neighborhoods, most of the houses smaller ranch style homes that
had been built in the 70s and 80s as Atlanta continued to sprawl and the
northern suburbs boomed.
The rain was
relentless, now driven at an angle by the rising wind. Water was coming in
around my duct tape reinforcement of the windshield so the glass was wet inside
and out. Visibility wasn’t much more than to the end of the hood.
We passed
another park, barely visible in the rain, then back into another neighborhood
of single story homes, these slightly newer and mostly constructed of the brick
that is so common in construction in the Atlanta area. We didn’t see a light,
movement or an infected anywhere and I started to think we should shelter in
one of the homes for the night.
The problem was
that we had no way of knowing if a house was occupied by people hiding out,
full of infected, or sitting empty. I had no desire to shoot it out with a
homeowner who was just defending his home. Neither did I really want to open a
front door and have to deal with the infected lady of the house.
The storm made
my decision for me. The rain increased in volume and the wind picked up,
rocking the three ton truck like it was a Tonka Toy. Lightning continued to
flash overhead and we watched a tree explode on a ridgeline directly in front
of us when lightning stuck it.
“OK, enough,” I
said. “See any good possibilities?”
Rachel peered
through the storm as I drove, then suddenly sat up and pointed, “There! The
one with the garage door up.”
I spotted the
house she pointed out. It was a small brick one story with an attached two car
garage. The house was dark and the front door closed, but the garage was open
and empty. I was willing to take the odds that this house had been abandoned
in a hurry.
I turned into
the driveway
to the lot I spun the wheel and jammed on the brakes, the truck coming to a
stop in a cloud of tire smoke after sliding sideways for twenty feet. The
female was thrown off balance, staying on the truck with the grip of only one
hand.
In a flash I had
my door open and jumped out, raising my pistol to acquire my target. I was
shocked to see that the female had already regained her balance and had her
feet under her ready to spring. Without hesitating I fired and the heavy
hollow point slug nearly decapitated the body. She flopped dead onto the hood
and I had to walk around and drag the body off the truck.
“Fuck these
things are fast!” I said to myself as I hurried back to the driver’s side of
the cab.
Back in the
relative safety of the truck I checked the area and saw no immediate danger. A
quick search of the duffel bags yielded the GPS I’d found as well as an old
school road map. I handed Rachel the GPS and some batteries and asked her to
get it running while I checked the map. I also reminded her to keep watch so
we didn’t get surprised again.
The map was hard
to see and I reached up to turn on the reading light before I realized how dark
it had gotten. The clouds had made it to us and the low bellies were swollen
with rain. As I watched the first drops struck the windshield, slowly at first
then quickly becoming a torrential downpour.
The noise of the
rain on the metal roof of the truck was almost deafening, but nothing compared
to the bone jarring blast of sound from thunder that cracked right over our
heads. The thunder had blasted at the same time as we saw the brilliant flash
of lightning so it had to be very close.
Dog started
whining and Rachel turned to comfort him as another blast of lightning lit the
world around us with a strobe effect. In the strobe I could see shambling and
running figures coming towards us. Damn it, I just needed two minutes to look
at a map.
Stomping on the
throttle we roared out of the parking lot and turned north away from the main
road that seemed to have a good population of infected. We were quickly in
residential neighborhoods, most of the houses smaller ranch style homes that
had been built in the 70s and 80s as Atlanta continued to sprawl and the
northern suburbs boomed.
The rain was
relentless, now driven at an angle by the rising wind. Water was coming in
around my duct tape reinforcement of the windshield so the glass was wet inside
and out. Visibility wasn’t much more than to the end of the hood.
We passed
another park, barely visible in the rain, then back into another neighborhood
of single story homes, these slightly newer and mostly constructed of the brick
that is so common in construction in the Atlanta area. We didn’t see a light,
movement or an infected anywhere and I started to think we should shelter in
one of the homes for the night.
The problem was
that we had no way of knowing if a house was occupied by people hiding out,
full of infected, or sitting empty. I had no desire to shoot it out with a
homeowner who was just defending his home. Neither did I really want to open a
front door and have to deal with the infected lady of the house.
The storm made
my decision for me. The rain increased in volume and the wind picked up,
rocking the three ton truck like it was a Tonka Toy. Lightning continued to
flash overhead and we watched a tree explode on a ridgeline directly in front
of us when lightning stuck it.
“OK, enough,” I
said. “See any good possibilities?”
Rachel peered
through the storm as I drove, then suddenly sat up and pointed, “There! The
one with the garage door up.”
I spotted the
house she pointed out. It was a small brick one story with an attached two car
garage. The house was dark and the front door closed, but the garage was open
and empty. I was willing to take the odds that this house had been abandoned
in a hurry.
I turned into
the driveway
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