Four months.
It has been four months since I left with Bill and the others, heading towards another small town called Millstone. It did not take us long to get there, maybe a few hours at most. What kept us there was the situation.
We had found the town in a sorry state. The streets were filled with infected and the inhabitants were huddled in their homes helplessly fending them off. Driving through the hordes proved impossible. John had been driving his old pickup truck with two of the others ahead of Bill and me, who were in Gertrude’s old suburban along with two more people. Both vehicles had been packed to the brim with supplies, namely water for use and trade. John, who was ahead of our vehicle by a fair distance, apparently had only seen a few infected as he approached. He decided he would drive down the road anyways, hoping if he drove slowly enough, they might eventually move like cattle or deer. Unfortunately, they seemed to be attracted by the noise of the engine. By the time Bill and I drove up to the town, they had been completely surrounded.
“They almost came out of nowhere,” John had said afterword, “They shambled from the alleys and other streets. I’ve never seen so many, especially not so close.”
He had also described how they looked, but the last thing I want to immortalize in writing is his description.
For the moment, we were at a loss of how to go about the situation. The last thing we wanted was for the horde to swarm both cards, but we couldn’t just leave John and the others to fend for themselves while they were stuck in the middle of a wave of walking corpses. Luckily, one of the locals apparently noticed us and acted before we had the chance. From where he was, John heard the gunshot better, but neither vehicle could quite tell where it came from. Gradually, the horde started funneling in the direction of the gunshots, and a local waved to John’s vehicle from one of the buildings.
“Everyone, bring as much of our supplies as you can manage,” Bill had said as we parked alongside John, “We don’t know how long that horde will stay away. If it does come back, we won’t know how long it will take before we can get into our vehicles again.”
As Bill commanded, we funneled out of the car and swiftly unpacked, taking as much as we could into the safety of the indoors. The person who waved us down, a middle-aged balding man, held the door open for us and kept an eye on where the horde had gone. Eventually, we were all inside with nearly two-thirds of our supplies with us.
The building we had entered looked as though it had aged poorly over the past few years. Trash littered the ground and the paint chipped from the walls. It had various tables strewn throughout the place, as though it was once a dinner. Once everyone was inside, the balding man and Bill blocked the door with a few of the tables. After the doors were secured, the man breathed heavily, bending over with his hands on his knees with exhaustion.
“What the hell were y’all thinking, huh? Damn well drove ‘bout every one of those things to this place,” he said, “Thank god for whoever saved your sorry hides with that gunshot, but who the hell knows how they are doing now.”
“Sorry about that,” Bill said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Well that sure does make me feel so much better,” the man said irritably before standing up and extending his hand, “Charles, but friends (or at least the ones I once had) call me Chuck.”
“Bill. This is John,” Bill gestured to him and Charles shook his hand as well, “And the rest. We’re a group from down south, town of Cormac. Heard of it?”
“Course, y’all had the only grocery store that’s not in a city. I might be wrongly assuming, but you worked there, right? What were you…the butcher?”
“That I was.”
“Really,” Charles paused for a moment to look at the rest of the group, “Well, what are y’all doing up here? How’s it in Cormac?”
Bill spent a fair time talking with Charles about the situation there and about the mission to trade and help any settlement we came across. As he was explaining, however, a man slightly older than both of them burst through a back door of the building carrying a shotgun in tow. He wore the clothes of a long-time farmer—worn jeans, a dirty, moth torn work shirt, and muck-covered boots—and had the complexion of a tobacco chewer.
“The fuck was y’all thinkin’ bringin’ all the god-damn zombie-ass corpses outta the woodwork like a bucha bloody heifers? Wasted a good shell on clearin’ that horde offa you, y’all better make it worthwhile.”
“Sorry about my friend here,” Charles said, stepping between the farmer and the rest of the group, “He means nothing by it. Rex,” he turned to the farmer, “These folks here are friends from down south, from Cormac. They came with supplies for…trade an-and supply.”
“Really,” he said, looking uneasily at the rest of us, “That true?”
“About as true as it can be, I’m Bill…”
Introductions aside, they explained the situation. Apparently, the horde that plagued the town had been there for some time. It had come from further north—whether from another town or city, they weren’t sure exactly. All they knew was that the horde was there and (from what they could clearly see) it was there to stay. Because of the horde, they had said, they couldn’t even check on the other residents as well. A few had walkie-talkies and used them sparingly to check in on each other, but there were still a number of previously known to be alive dwellers who had not been heard from in some time. Even those they knew were still kicking were still running low on supplies and at risk of starving or running out of water. The town was in a desperate way. So, what could we do? We stayed.
We stayed and help the town. For four months we waited there. I kept pushing for us to return to Cormac—John arguing by my side—but Bill refused to budge. By the second month, my arguments with Bill became more frequent.
“We can’t just leave these people in this situation without doing something,” Bill had said.
“But what about the situation we may have left Cormac in,” I replied, “I need to know that Max is okay!”
“Max will be fine; Gertrude is with her.”
“Him.”
“Regardless, you are not the only one with family there to go back to. The difference between there and here, however, is that they have walls and protection, and the people of Millstone don’t. For God’s sake, Dan,” he stopped and turned to look at me directly. We were walking along the rooves of the town’s main street stores, looking to see if any of the locals waved us down for help. By the second month since our arrival, it had become the main way of communication throughout the town, “Look at what we’re doing. We’re literally staring down at the town’s public enemy number one, and you want to leave them to it? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we should take one of the vehicles and send half of our people back to Cormac to say, I don’t know,” I was furious at that point, trying my hardest to avoid yelling and accidentally attracting the horde, “That we’re okay?”
“And what, lead this horde there instead? I know you’re desperate to see Max, Dan. I get it,” I watched as Bill’s eyes melted like they always did when he gave me this talk. They became watery and distant—like he was looking through me into some long-lost memory. He put his hand on my shoulder as he continued, “We will go back eventually. You will get the luxury of going back to Max. But some of us…some of us won’t ever be able to have that again. Just…help me make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone here, okay?”
Four months later, and walking through the charred remains of what was Cormac made me resent Bill more than the four months away ever had.
Finding the burnt-edged journal with a large “M” written on its first page made me hate him.
Reading the journal made me want to hurt him.
Finding Gertrude made me want to kill him.
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