Chapter 4
Dany didn’t quite know what to think. An elderly woman came in bearing two plates of food, followed by a younger woman carrying two as well. The ladies deposited what they were carrying in the middle of the table and sat down. The two men came in and the older one asked the younger to bring another plate. The women introduced themselves and invited Dany to sit so many times that she finally took a seat to get them to stop asking. Then the conversation revolved around her. She told them the minimum that she could, and asked her own burning question of how they could have maintained this lifestyle in the face of what was going on. The answer was so simple she almost slapped her forehead when she heard it. The farmhouse was so far out of the way that not many of the zombies came around. When they did it was in groups of one or two and they were easily dispatched. Dany spent the rest of the meal in silence as the family discussed farm matters. She slipped little pieces of food to Regan every now and then and could tell by how furiously she was wagging her tail that she found this meal to be the best she’d had in a long time.
The young woman ushered her up to a spare room to sleep for the night, and Dany wasn’t going to argue. She lay down and her eyes were closed within minutes of her head hitting the pillow. Regan jumped up on the bed and lay down by her feet, facing the door. She hadn’t forgotten that it was her job to protect Dany.
Morning dawned bright and full of hope. The older woman had repacked Dany’s backpack until it was so full of food she thought it might split at the seams. There were even a few bones wrapped up for Regan. Dany thought that maybe she could find a place like this for her and Regan to live if the quarantine didn’t pan out. The pair was getting ready to head out when the young man came up to her and silently waited for her to acknowledge him.
“Yes? Is there something I can do for you?” There was a little sarcasm in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. The boy didn’t say a word, just stuck out his hand, waiting for her to put hers under his. Hesitantly she reached out, and he gave her a key. A car key, she realized. “What’s this?”
“It’s the key to my brother’s car. He doesn’t need it anymore. You go ahead and take it. It’s fully gassed up. Should get you a few hours closer to where you’re going.”
“Tell your brother thank you for me.”
“I can’t tell him anything. He’s dead.” With that, the boy spun around and walked away from her, leaving her standing there, feeling like a complete ass. She flushed a dark red. Gripping the key, she called to Regan to follow her. There were a few cars in the driveway, so she inspected the key. It had the Ford symbol on it, and she looked up to see a new Ford Focus sitting almost right in front of her.
“Guess that’s our ride. Let’s get out of here before guilt eats me alive.” Regan woofed and Dany opened the passenger side for her. She climbed in, and Dany threw her backpack on the floor after her. Climbing into the seat, she thought back on how lucky she’d been so far. She might just make it to that quarantine after all. The car took her a hundred and fifty miles into Pennsylvania before it was out of gas. That wasn’t bad in Dany’s opinion. That left her with practically only the other half of the state left to go. Fort Dix, New Jersey was barely inside the border, so she was getting pretty close. Hope dared to raise its head for the first time during the trip. Once she left the car on the highway, she decided to go ahead and stay out in the open so she could see what was coming at her. It would also be easier to mark off her progress on the map if she could see the mile markers and the signs for the cities that were coming up. She wasn’t the only one that had left a car in the middle of the road, so she knew there would be somewhere safe for the two of them to sleep when the sun went down.
Dany had done something that she never expected to do since the outbreak began. She let her guard down. Regan was happily loping along at her side while she was skipping and running and sometimes just walking and whistling. It was almost like a normal outing for a young lady and her pet…almost. Regan heard it first, and she gave a sharp bark. Her lips pulled back to show her teeth and she stepped in front of Dany, causing her to stop walking and draw her machete.
“What is it, girl? What do you hear?” Dany was already in a defensive stance, weapon raised to striking position. They were just getting ready to cross an overpass that went over a river. She had seen signs earlier stating that there was a danger for flash floods in the area. What she saw next chilled her to the bone. Five of the zombies were rising out of the creek bed. They must have died in a flash flood, and stayed there until fresh meat made them dig their way to the top in order to give chase. “Brace yourself, Regan. This is not going to be pretty.” The zombies came at them in a slow but disgusting pack. It was the first time that she had seen them bunch together like that. Maybe it was coincidence, or maybe they were getting smarter. Dany shuddered, she didn’t want to think about the possibility of the latter. The group was now about five feet in front of her, and Regan leapt at the leader, taking her down to the ground. The others would have stopped to try to tear the dog apart, if Dany hadn’t been right in front of them. Her succulent flesh called to them like a haunting melody. “And here we go,” Dany muttered under her breath. One of the zombies broke away from the other three in its eagerness and lunged for Dany. She neatly cut its head off with one downward swing. Another came at her, and she did a backhanded slash, coming to rest about six inches deep in its rotted head. It fell to the ground, the weight of its body pulling it free from her blade. The last one was closer to her now, within arm’s reach, actually, and she had to take a quick two steps back in order to have room to swing her machete. Regan pranced up to her proudly, with the zombie’s head hanging by its hair out of her mouth. It was almost like she was saying, ‘Look, mama, I helped’. Regan smiled at her and thanked her before telling her it was time to move on.
According to the mile marker, she’d covered thirty miles that day. It seemed like it had barely been five. All she could see was open road and mountains to one side of the highway. It would have been beautiful if she was passing this way in a car with her family, headed for vacation. Now it only served as a landmark to help her navigate her way. After that attack, she was tired and sore. Some of those zombies had been fresh, so it took a little extra effort to knock their heads off. Dany squinted her eyes against the setting sun and made out a little dot on the horizon. Thinking it was a car, she broke into a jog. Regan kept pace with her, woofing happily at the opportunity to stretch her legs. It took about twenty minutes to reach the dot, which was indeed a car. She checked the interior quickly, as the sun was now more than half below the horizon line. There were no zombies trapped inside the car. Good. That was Step One on her check list. Step Two was seeing if the door was unlocked. It was, and she opened the back door so Regan could get in. She shut the door and threw herself into the front of the car, just as the sun dipped down and disappeared. She locked the doors and curled up between the seats as best she could. It had been a trying day for her, and she hoped tomorrow would be better.
Morning came, and Dany was glad that it didn’t start the same way as the last time she’d slept in a car. There were no zombies shaking the car, trying to get to her when she sat up to take a look around. She hadn’t noticed it in the dark, but the keys to the car were still in it. Out of curiosity, she turned it on to see if it had any gas left. It had a half a tank. She woke up Regan to share the good news and she promptly climbed into the passenger seat and put a paw on the window, signaling that she would like to poke her head out once they were on the road. The half tank got her to within fifteen miles of the Jersey border. Dany jumped out of the car with newfound energy. They were going to make it. She was walking with an extra bounce in her step as they continued on towards the border. Dany’s guard was down again, and she didn’t even notice it this time. She was happily skipping down the highway as the bridge that would c
onvey them to the New Jersey side of the river loomed into sight before them.
“We’re going to make it, Regan. We’re going to make it for all of those people that couldn’t make it. Everything is going to be ok for us.” Happy thoughts really hadn’t been with her as of late, but this time she was going to let them lift her up. The bridge was cluttered with cars trying to leave, but there were roadblocks up, and no car had made it past. Looking at the sheer number of people that must have occupied those cars, and wondering if they had been eaten, or turned, or both, made Dany give the cars as wide a berth as she could manage on a bridge. There was a quiet rumbling sound that came to her ears, and she stopped walking and leaned in the direction she thought it had come from. It sounded like an old army diesel engine that belonged to one of the large supply trucks that used to come around and give out those meals in bags that tasted like cardboard.
The wind changed direction and the sound was carried away from her. She was torn between trying to find whatever had made that sound and finding the quarantine before the night was over. Maybe she would even risk her flashlight and continue on through the night. She would do anything to get to safety, now that it was so tangible.
She’d made it ten miles into New Jersey before the worst of the bombing could be seen. Even though it had been a year ago, it still looked fresh. Corpses littered the streets. If she looked at them closely, she could see teeth marks on them as well as the burns from the bomb fallout. Dany averted her eyes and tried to let her gaze glide over the bodies as quickly as she could, only stopping on them long enough to ensure that it wasn’t a zombie. She saw a handmade sign up ahead that read ‘Quarantine 5 miles’ with an arrow pointing towards a road that curved off into the woods. That was exactly where she was going.