Blood pounded in Eric’s ears like a war drum as the still of the truck cab was broken with the ragged gulps of air flooding in and out of terrified lungs as the truck tore down the dirt road. The truck fled down from the house like a scolded dog, fear rolling off it in waves. The wheel shuddered just a few millimeters from left to right as Eric’s hands twitched and shook. Brian’s kids were hunkered down beyond the view of the trucks back window Eric’s eyes straining to catch them in the glare of the rearview mirror. Jenna was shaking back and forth against Brian’s gentle reassuring hand placed on her right thigh.
The truck tires hit the asphalt of the main road and the wheel spun to the right under Eric’s hand. The tires squealed as the traction of the tires caught and pulled them with a jolt down the road towards Rearden. No one spoke the soft cries and whimpers from the back seat the only soundtrack to the trucks crazed sprint from the clutches of the dead. The speedometer read fifty-two and Eric kept his foot hard on the gas pedal as the truck swooped up and down small desert hills and as they crested one such hill the feed supply store and Rearden came into view. The truck didn’t slow as it flew past the dozen or so businesses lining Main Street but as he scanned the windows on his side of the street Eric could see signs of the dead stirring behind the glass of display windows for insurance company and a dentist’s office.
The lack of earsplitting scream told him that Jenna and her kids hadn’t seen the zombies as they drove through town. He had no idea but imagined that the same scene was unfolding in gruesome symmetry on the other side of the street but if Brian had actually seen anything he wasn’t talking. The little group ran like a dying man from the reaper through the town and out the other side of Main Street in seconds and then they were again surrounded by the empty desert dotted farmlands.
Just remembering the GPS device like plucking a pleasant image from a fading dream Eric dug in the pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out the device which he slipped into the cigarette lighter input and flicked the on switch. The screen flashed to life and the loading icon came up as the little black box searched for a satellite to guide it. At least the satellite network but up and running for awhile, there was no way for the living dead to get at them unless they now had to content with space zombies. Eric felt a tickle in his throat as he imagined what space zombies would look like as they tried floated through space and tried to swap at satellites like they were flies. He swallowed the little chuckle but it wouldn’t die as it traveled into his chest before he knew it his laughter was rolling inside the cab of the truck like a mad man waving goodbye to reality as that last trace of sanity sailed away.
Brian looked across his wife’s lap at Eric who was struggling to brush away streams of tears that were slipping down through the four day stubble on his face. The man’s stare was hard and concerned the idea that he had just delivered his family into the hands of a man who had lost his handhold on reality flaring in his eyes. Eric waved his hand in front of his face trying his best to assure the farmer that he was in fact okay. He tried to speak and the only thing that managed to find an escape through his lips were words that only added fuel to his laughter, “space zombies.”
The farmer’s grim façade cracked an instant later and within seconds he was laughing uncontrollably along as he stared out the window at the farm land. The seeing their dad laughing for the first time in days the two boys opened up with laughter and started using a few actions figures that they had salvaged from their rooms to mime a space battle with zombies and humans. Shannon pulled her eyes away from the wheat yellow desert grass out her window and watched the boys for a few seconds before she started to laugh trying her best to use her hands to stifle the unrestrained belly laughs coming out of her. Jenna broke a smile and began to chuckle quietly to herself but her iron resolve held for only a few seconds before she was on the verge of rolling on the floor.
They laughed for long minutes as the truck slowed. By the time that Eric was able to subdue the laughter bubbling in his chest his stomach ached as if he’d been hit in the gut with a sledgehammer. The faint artificial chime of the GPS device as it successfully linked to a satellite snuffing out the last traces of mirth on his face. Eric pulled the device close to him deciphering the map in a few quick seconds. They had five miles to drive straight down the road before hanging a left on Deer road and heading into the nature preserve at McClellan. They continued on in silence but the faint brushstrokes of smiles were masterfully painted on the faces of every man, woman, and child in the truck as they drove on.
They arrived at the farmhouse just twenty minutes behind the rising sun. They farmhouse was already buzzing with activity. Eric struggled to find a parking space waved along by a grisly man in his thirties wearing a camouflage jacket and a hunter orange hat. He pulled the truck around the back of the farmhouse were a small group of men were inspecting the vehicles already set in two orderly lines, making notes of scratch paper as they took a few minutes at each car to spot check the thing. Armando, Sanchez’s brother seemed to be in charge of the group and as he spotted Eric climbing from the truck he gave a thumbs up and yelled across the hard, “Hey hermano, is it true that geriatric Air force guy kicked your head in?”
Eric smiled at the memory just two days old and yelled back, “I don’t think it was that bad. I got a few shots in myself.”
“Not the way I heard it man. If you can’t take beat a guy who’s old enough to know what Jesus ate for breakfast how am I supposed to trust you to fight off the zombies?” Armando’s teeth shone ivory white in the early morning light. Had the guy found a bleaching kit in all the junk they have grabbed on the way out of Rearden the first time and if so why bother using it?
“I’m looking for your brother Armando do you know where I can find him?” Eric looked over the weary family huddled together around the truck. Brian and Jenna pressed their children into a tight knot between them shielding them from the threat they imagined Eric’s people might represent.
“Yeah he’s in with the other’s planning the next step. Last I knew they were fighting over whether we needed to get building supplies, fuel, machinery, or supplies for protection. I wouldn’t bother trying to talk any sense into any of them, It’s a really gangbang of stupidity in there if you don’t count my brother.”
Eric pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. It had been three days with the members of Rearden and however few or many of them seemed involved in the planning process for their little community they seemed to always create more problems than they solved. Turning to the farmer and his family Eric jerked his head to the side asking them to follow him, “we might as well introduce you to the man tentatively running the show and she what we can do for you and where he can put you guys for the time being.”
Eric led the way into the farmhouse, up a set of a dozen stairs into the mudroom in back of the house and then through the kitchen and into the dining room. Clustered around the table in varying degrees of frustration and simmering anger a half dozen men sat. Sanchez was there as well as Charles. Dan whole looked happy to see Eric alive smiled as the younger man entered the room. The three other men were unknown to Eric on a personal level but the familiarity they had seemed to have with Charles and Dan suggested that they were from Rearden. Whatever the men had been discussing before Eric barged in sat unfinished on their lips as Sanchez broke the silence, “so you made it back alive, and Travis too?”
“Yeah we made it out alright, the kids out back talking to Armando, real gear head that kid.” Eric wore a half smile on his face born from sarcasm. “I wanted to introduce you to a few new additions and get them settled in before we get our hands dirty with the next step.”
Eric shuffled to the right of the door giving Brian and his family room enough to enter the room and be seen by everyone at the table. Eric pointed casually as he introduced everyone from Brian all the way down to his youngest son Jameson. When he was done with introductions Sanchez pushed back his chair and walked over to Brian with his right hand out. The two men shook hands firm and the electric pulse of respect transmitted between the two men in that most simple of gestures.
“Good to have you with us Brian. Glad that Eric here and Travis got you all out safely though I imagine from the look in Eric’s eyes here that it was a struggle.” Sanchez’s eyes muddy brown eyes caught Eric’s and the man smiled briefly and winked before turning back to the drained family in front of him. “We’ve got a rotating system of using the house rooms and beds and the few tents that people packed before coming here. Eric, my deputy Kirk, and myself were scheduled for the beds tonight but I’d be willing to bet we’d trade our turns so you and yours can have a comfortable first night here.”
“Not a problem for me at all,” Eric nodded as he looked between Sanchez and Brian before moving to the table and taking up a seat among the gathered members of their little planning council. Eric closed his eyes and spent a few minutes taking deep breathes and holding them until his lungs threatened to burst before letting the air out in a long hiss through his tight closed lips. It was an old relaxation technique his Dad had taught him when he was a kid and it helped to release the tension in his back and shoulders while Sanchez mapped out the general rules of the community springing up around the farmhouse. Sanchez clapped Brian on the shoulder before sending them off to the upper rooms with a smile and a grateful word.
The council sitting around the table listened as the lead heavy march of feet up the stairs slowly receded. When the sound died away Sanchez turned to his eyes on the men gathered around the table. “Alright gentlemen it’s time we get down to business.”