The Dead Chapter 14

Book 1: The Dead

Chapter 14

We had no choice but to keep driving, full speed ahead. We were lucky in that the shape of the Ute and its height meant that few, if any, of the dead would do much damage to the car when we hit them. It wouldn't, however, stop them from attack the three of us on the back, or pulling us off the car. We knelt down and gripped onto the sides as the Ute gained speed, hurtling towards the mass of the dead stampeding towards us. As I braced for impact I could see those dead that came from the traffic jam getting further and further away. We hit the front line of the mob, the Ute lost a large amount of speed but kept going, throwing deadmen in every direction. The impact shook the Ute and I almost lost my grip but I managed to hang on. Monica wasn't so lucky.

She fell off the back, several of the dead that were chasing us only a few metres away. Wendy had seen what had happened, called to Todd and he stopped the car. Caleb and I went to help her, but one of the dead had reached us and began trying to climb over the side. As Caleb stayed and struggled to keep the Ute safe from the dead I jumped off and ran to Monica. She was already pulling herself of the floor when I reached her and pulled her to her feet. I heard the Ute’s engine and turned to see they were driving to get away from the swarming mob. At first I feared they would leave us, but then they began to turn in a large circle, keeping a distance between them and the dead, but coming back for us. It was then I knew I had made the right decision, surrounding myself with friends, I wouldn’t trust a stranger to come back. We had gotten lucky when Monica, Caleb and Brooke had joined us, but if our encounter at the clinic had shown us anything, it’s that Todd’s ‘wolves’ definitely can and do exist.

But due to the wideness of the Ute’s turn, that gave the deadmen from the traffic jam plenty of time to catch up with us. Monica bent and picked up her axe and swung it at the first deadman. She hit it square in the face and it fell but the axe was stuck fast and there was another behind it. I tried to get there but in my way was what used to be an old woman. By the time I had smashed her head in, which is a psychological trauma I know I’m going to have to deal with later, the next deadman had knocked her to the ground and was fighting with her, and I was still too far away to help. Before I had even thought the idea my body reacted, pulling my gun out of its holster, raised it and fired.

Monica screamed when the gun went off and the deadman collapsed on her, covering her in blood and brain matter. I realised that I should have aimed for a different area, and I hoped to god that she wasn’t infected, even though with all that she had gone through it would be a miracle if she didn’t have on open wound or even a scrape. The thought crossed my mind that if she was infected we should leave her behind, but then I remembered the feeling I had when the Ute began to drive away, I wouldn’t want to wish that on anyone, even if they were only an infected stranger. I ran over as she pushed the deadman’s corpse off of her. By this time the Ute was close but so were the dead horde. I ran faster than I’ve ever ran, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it, but just as a deadman reached for me, Caleb reached me first, pulling us onto the Ute.

…

Monica cleaned herself up, she found several scrapes, but none were bleeding. But we still couldn’t relax, we didn’t know how this worked, simply having broken skin in contact with infected blood could be enough. None of us mentioned it though, we all already knew what each other were thinking, and none of us needed, or wanted, to say it. Caleb had found another bike with some fuel in it. We decided to stop for the night when we found a group of cars that we could siphon fuel from. Once again we parked the Ute and the bike in a nearby garage and took shifts, although it was more difficult now that there were less of us, each of us would get less sleep. Not that we did much sleeping anyway.

As we sat around a fire Todd had made I considered Monica. She still hadn’t talked much since we met her, but she was strong and helpful, and from what I could gather, intelligent. After thinking about what happened at the clinic and today I realised just how much of a risk she took joining us. Caleb was running from deadmen, Brooke had crashed into Daphne and Simon, but Monica was given a choice. If we were different people, like those at the clinic, she would have put herself in potential danger. Not that those marauders would have asked her to join them anyway. I wondered how many other groups were out there, how big they are, whether they are in a worse or better position than we were. And whether we would ever meet one that could work with us. I wondered about the benefits and repercussions to raising our number, more people would increase our chance at defending ourselves, but would also make us better targets. Also, more people require more food, and as the days past and electricity fails finding fresh, healthy food in random houses will become harder and harder.

The next morning we delayed our task even more by making modifications to the Ute. We used a large wooden board we had found along with tools inside a shed to block the broken window. We also used other wooden planks to extend the walls of the back, try to make it harder for the dead to climb over the sides. It was shoddy work. Wendy, Monica and I only had year 7 technologies experience, and Todd and Caleb had little more. But it was a simple task and eventually it was finished, making me feel a bit more confident at our chances. We left our campsite, driving on, and with clear directions. It wouldn’t take us even half a day to reach the hospital. I just wondered how long it would be until we returned, and how many of us would be left.