chapter four: day one.
Three years.
That's how long I've been waiting, holed up in my childhood home since the beginning of the end. The last two years it's just been me and Alice, just waiting for someone, for something, for anything. And then all the sudden, three years wasn't enough and she's gone and soon I will be too.
It took three years of waiting for something to finally change, and it also kinda took eight hours, because that's how long it took between deciding to leave and having the car packed and ready as the sun slips above the trees.
My mom's car keys jingle in my back pocket. A letter to my brother sits on the kitchen table. Everything's been settled.
I fidget with the photograph in my pocket-a last minute grab before I left the house for the last time. Carl's standing up ahead of me, looking at the map, and so I pull it out and run my fingertips over the polaroid's waxy surface. I have a few others of my family already packed away, but this one is different. It's the only photo I have of my father.
It was taken in a bar in southern Georgia where my mom used to live back in the nineties. She's fresh faced and beautiful, in her early twenties, wild curls pinned back to show her face. My dad stands beside her, one muscular arm thrown half-hazardly around her shoulders, with a lopsided smirk and dark eyes. I'm convinced I've got the same eyes as him-so dark they'd be mistaken for black if it weren't for the warmth behind them.
"-hey, Jasper?"
I shove the picture deep into my pocket. "Yeah?"
He folds the map back up and slides it into his back pocket. "Didn't change your mind, did you?"
"Not a chance."
I stand at the end of the driveway staring up at the house I grew up in; the house where the world ended, where my mom died, and where me and Alice survived for three years.
"You know, I've haven't left this town since everything happened. Never even really been away from the house since it started." I tell Carl, staring up at my bedroom window. "Not for more than a day or two."
"Don't worry. I have." Carl says, probably thinking I'm scared by the idea. Which I'm not, not exactly anyways. I feel more nostalgic, with a strange feeling that nothing would ever be the same again. "I won't let anything happen to you."
Maybe it won't be so bad after all.
We're fucked. Completely. Within one hour.
Carl's laying on his back on the asphalt, looking up at the stupid, stupid truck that went and broke down so fast, leaving us deserted in the middle of the highway beside a huge pileup. I remember my mom spitting curses at the damn thing, even back before the end of the world. Some things never change.
I'm standing on top of the cab, acting at lookout while Carl tries to figure out if it's worth saving. Even though I hate the thing as much as my mom did, I hope it is. It's something from home, and if not we would have to find ourselves another vehicle.
Footprints, dozens of blood red footprints stain the concrete just ahead of me, heading back in the direction we came. What's left of a mangled body lies in the grass in their wake, nothing but bones and muscle tissue left behind. I'm hoping to get out of here before we meet its friends.
"So I fixed the muffler for now, but we got a flat tire. I can replace it, but I'm gonna need something to hold the car up. Some tools too." Carl says finally, standing and brushing his hands off on his jeans. "Still, it's not gonna be permanent. But I can keep it running a bit longer."
I remember the auto parts store about half a mile back. At least we had a little good luck mixed with the bad. "There's a store a little ways back."
"Yeah, I remember." He leans his head against the truck. "We can't carry all this. We could push it to the side of the road, hide it with some branches maybe."
From my spot on top of the truck, I can see a dozen others just like it. A few with a cover for the bed of the truck. "I got another idea."
Ten minutes later, the truck looks like it's part of the pileup and we're well on our way to what will hopefully be our salvation.
"It's not the first time it broke down. My mom used to hate the thing but my brother always found a way to fix it." I say, relishing in the memories of 'helping' him, doing more damage than help.
"What's your brother's name?"
I appreciate him not asking what 'was' your brothers name, as the few people I came across always did, assuming him dead. Although the more I see, the less I can blame them. "Cole."
"Where was he went it happened?"
"He was eighteen, last I saw him, twenty one as of a few weeks ago. He had just started college in Ohio. He couldn't get a flight out before the airports closed." It was as simple and stupid as that.
He nods. "You haven't heard from him since?"
"He promised he'd find a way home." I say simply, not caring if he believes me or not. "That alone, I wouldn't blame you thinking he might be dead. But I'd know if my brother was dead."
Carl nods again, but he's lost in his own thoughts, probably about his own family, and we walk on past sun baked cars and bones left behind in the grass until we reach what used to be civilization.
If auto parts stores were dirty and a little sketchy before, it's a hundred times worse now. Dust is caked to the inside glass, making it impossible to see through. Dead bodies in various states of decay are littered outside. I guess lots of people had car trouble when the world ended. Look how it ended up for them.
Carl pushes on the doors. They're unlocked, but something is blocking them from the inside. I watch as he steps back, sliding his knife through the door handles before knocking on the dirty glass and waiting.
But that's not where the walkers come from. Three walkers emerge from the area behind the store, two from the left and one from the right.
"Carl!" I warn, backpedaling to get more distance from them. "I got the left."
I pull your machete and start towards the closest on my left. It was a young boy, probably a little older than Alice, with a vicious bite torn out of his neck. I kill it at the same time Carl yanks his knife back out from the door and starts on the one to the right. Smart, not using his gun to attract more, even if his silencer muted the sound a little.
The second one is faster and stands a bit taller than me, moving in wild, jerky movements. I move back, letting it get close before leaping out of the way a time so that it falls. But as it does, the stained doors to the auto parts store burst open.
Walkers pour out of the storefront, half a dozen maybe. The walker below me screams a snarl, reminding me of its existence, and I slam your boot down on its neck and drive the machete into its eye.
"Jasper!" Carl warns.
"I see them!"
I flip the safety off my moms gun, shooting twice with the tiny pistol before hitting my mark, taking out the walker closest to Carl. I curse the gun as it takes a moment to reload, then take out the next closest, but they're closing in on him.
"Hey! Over here! C'mon!" I scream at the walkers, moving close enough that a few turn in my direction, their longing eyes now set on me instead. "That's right. Keep it coming."
And they do.
There's a few deserted cars in the tiny parking lot, and I climb on top of the closest one; a faded red SUV. From your new vantage point, I can see Carl dodging and doubling pack, only three walkers left spread out around him now. I aim, and take out one more before dealing with my own. They can't reach me as long as I keep in the middle, so I save the bullets and take them out one by one with the machete.
Carl finds me when its finally over, bloodstained but no worse for wear. Chest heaving as the adrenaline slowly begins to fade, you nod to him.
"I'm good." He answers, catching his own breath. "Are you?"
I slide down off of the SUV, careful not to land on any of the bodies. "Never better."
He vaguely gestures to the store. "At least we know there's probably nothing left in there."
As it turns out, he's right. They even have the part we need, and the tools we're missing we find in the glove box of a car in the pileup we pass on the way back. Good luck in the bad.
"Those gunshots are gonna draw walkers from every direction," Carl warns as we reach the truck. "We should find you a better gun. Where'd you get that one?"
I look at the small pistol in your belt. "It was my mom's. But you're right. Takes too long to reload and I've run through almost all my bullets."
"We'll find you something good. Something with a silencer." He says, sitting on the ground besides the flat tire. "Were you ever taught how to shoot?"
I shake my head. "Trial and error."
"I can show you how. My dad, he's better at it. He used to teach classes…hopefully we'll find him before you have to put up with me."
While Carl works on the truck, I take advantage of the time by looting cars. I'm rewarded with a couple packs of gum, a handful of peppermints, a rabbit foot keychain, and a melted big cat bar. I skip from top of car to car like stepping stones to get back, noticing a few widespread walkers beginning to emerge way off in the distance. I decide to stay put on top of one of the tallest cars; a jacked up truck a few feet away from the truck to keep lookout.
"Where'd you learn about cars?"
Carls voice is muffled, coming from underneath the truck. "Uh, Daryl I guess. He'd always be working on his motorcycle, and I'd watch. Eventually he taught me a little. Glenn too."
I lay on my stomach, leaning down so I can hear him better. "Glenn and Maggie, you said they're together right?" From under the truck, he nods. "What about Daryl, he with anyone?"
"Nope. Just Daryl."
I stand, wishing I had binoculars or something to see the wide expanse in front of you better. There's a single walker, about a mile away, and another a mile beyond that. I turn, looking out over the pile up, imagining being caught up in it, here in the middle of nowhere when everything went down. And then I see something moving between the cars. And then many, many more somethings coming straight towards us.
My head whips around, and I stare at the damn truck. The wheel was already replaced, the other discarded to the side. "Carl, how long until it's fixed?"
"I'm pretty much done now-"
"Good." I say quickly, cutting him off and dropping to the ground. "Because a herd is gonna be here in about three minutes." He looks up at me, wide eyed and I stare right back. "Hurry."
I'm shoving everything back into the cab, throwing the keys in the drivers seat before climbing the truck again to check our time. It's less than I thought. "Carl!"
"I'm done! It's done. Let's go. Get in."
I don't have to be told twice. I slam the door closed behind me, locking them for good measure as the herd appears in the rearview mirror. There's only one problem.
The car wont start.
"Carl-"
"It's fixed." He says, exasperated, looking back over his shoulder at the walkers get closer and closer. If we had to run, we had to do it now. "Just…try it again."
The engine sputters hopelessly when I turn the key, giving out to an angry humming sound. "Carl!"
"It should work!"
The walkers reach the back of the truck. At closer look, there's about fifty at least, all riddled with bullet holes from someone who didn't know better. I hear their nails dragging down the paint, eyes locked on us through the mirror. We could still run. Leave all our shit and come back for it later. Because this way, I'm not sure there's going to be a later.
I turn the keys again, the engine sputtering for longer this time before giving out. Again. The walkers reach the windows, banging and snarling against the now blood stained glass.
"Carl!"
He lunges across the center console, turning the key hard in the ignition on last time. The engine sputters differently for half a second, then the engine growls. I slam on the gas, jerking us back as the truck shoots forwards, crunching over walkers as the herd converges in the space where the truck was seconds earlier.
A second passes. Then two.
"Holy shit."
Carl breathes a laugh, running a hand through his hair as he leans back in his seat. Relief growing as more and more distance is put between us and them. "Yeah."
"Another two seconds and-"
"I know. I know."
We drive in silence for the next few minutes, words only shared to figure out which way to go. Miles pass us by, through deserted towns and depilated buildings, past dead and walking dead alike. The more I see, the more glad I am that I never went farther to see if things were any better anywhere else. Things aren't better. All things considered, I know we were pretty damn fortunate to have the luck we had where we were.
"How far is the prison from here?" I ask, nodding to a passing town sign.
He watches it as it passes. "Probably two hours by car. Actually, go left up here."
Instead of keeping on the highway, I do what he says and turn off an exit. The shelter the massive trees lining either side of the road gave us is gone, and I suddenly feel exposed. "Why?"
I watch as the train tracks converge with the street. Brick and stone buildings line the once quaint streets, King County plastered to nearly every store sign. Two walkers snarl at you from underneath an overturned car, but other than them you don't see any others.
"I used to live here." I look at him and he clears his throat, sitting up. "That's not why we're here though. There's a water tower a little ways that way. I'd rather keep away from any more herds. Wanna take a better look at what we're walking into?"
I stop the car in front of a towering, faded rust colored water tower with King County painted across the center, and nod. "I'm game."
We leave almost everything in the car, locking the doors for good measure. There isn't a soul in sight-we hadn't even seen more than a handful of walkers.
The base of the thing has a little cover, a few trees and bushes that were probably once part of a nice town landscaping plan. The ladder twists up the side of the structure, leading to a thin balcony that surrounds the massive tank. It's two hundred feet up, easy.
"Not scared of heights, are you?"
I slip ahead of him, climbing up a dozen rings before answering. "Not even a little."
The wind grows stronger as we climb, the humid air a little cooler. Rust crumbles off the rungs into my palms. Even though I'm really not afraid of heights, I don't look down until I reach the top.
When I was younger, I used to sit on the roof and look out at the neighborhood as it became increasingly deserted. This is like that, only multiplied by a hundred. I can see for miles in every direction; the train tracks disappearing into the trees, the lake we used to go to in the summer, burnt out buildings, and miles and miles of smashed cars and small packs of walkers as far at the eye can see, and somehow I feel safest here, a quarter mile into the sky where nothing can touch us.
"Wow."
Carl braces both his hands against the railing, looking out with a strange expression on his face. I know that it's probably been months, even years since he's last been in his home town.
He points to an area a little ways off main street. "See that neighborhood over there, the one that's all burned out?" He asks, and I nod. "That house there, with the swings in the back? That was my house."
There seems to be an endless forest on one side of the highway we're traveling down, and an endless field on the other. But then far, far down past it, civilization starts again.
"That's where were headed, isn't it?"
"You catch on quick."
I swing down so I'm sitting off the edge, legs dangling over open air. The breeze is beautiful here, the thick Georgian heat forgotten for a moment.
"It's the herd from the road." He says, and just like that the moment is gone.
I stand, following his finger to the herd of walkers staggering down the middle of the highway. For a split second, they looked like unsettlingly like people. I haven't seen that many people in one place since before the turn.
"They're closer than I thought they'd be. Maybe they followed something." He looks for a second longer. "We shouldn't shoot any guns or make any loud noise. They're too close. It'll draw them."
"This'd make a good camp for the night. I don't mean now-" I say, looking at the late afternoon sun beating overhead. We don't have time to stop, we have places to be and people to find. Still, I wish we could live in the clouds for a bit longer. "Just in general."
He considers it a moment, nodding, then holds out his hand towards the ladder. Ladies first. I take the rungs two at a time, descending quickly. Until-
"Walkers!"
On second thought, maybe it's not the best place to camp. Nearly a dozen walkers have seemingly appeared from nowhere and now cluster around the base of the ladder, hands reaching. Another walker a quarter mile away stumbles closer, drawn by the growing noise.
"We might have a problem…"
Carl hesitates on the ladder just above me, moving so he's sitting through the bars. I climb further up, out of reach of their grabbing hands so I can hear him better above the wind.
"What do we do? The noise is just gonna draw more…much longer and the herd from the road..." I say mostly to myself, realizing the growing gravity of the situation.
He nods. "I'm thinking.."
I take in your surroundings. The ladder descended straight into the middle of them all, not an option. There's enough trees, bushes and benches around that once we made it to the ground, if we did, we'd have cover. The trees. If I climbed just a little lower, I could make it the short distance to the closest tree, maybe draw them away.
It's risky, sure, but I've felt oddly bold since leaving the house. I'm a survivor, I always will be, but now Alice's survival isn't dependent on my own. I'm responsible for myself only now. And I know I can do this.
I look at Carl. "I might not be able to fix cars or know a ton about guns, but picking locks and tree climbing? I'm your girl."
"You can pick locks?"
If I weren't hanging over open air and a dozen walkers, I'd laugh. "Not the point. I can make it to that tree, maybe the next one from there and draw them away. Then we can just run for the car." I climb down two rungs, judging the distance. It's almost three feet from here to the strongest part of the branch.
"And if you fall?" Carl calls from above.
I keep my gaze focused on the branch. "So cover me in case I do."
"Jasper, you cant actually- oh shit."
For a brief second, I'm flying. And then I wrap my arms around the branch, using the momentum from the jump to curl my legs around the it. It holds, and I pull myself up, the rough bark digging into my palms.
I meet Carl's wide eyes from across the short expanse, his finger on the trigger of his gun. The walkers have noticed too, and move faster than I thought, half of them crowding around the base of the tree while the rest still strain towards Carl.
Well, shit.
I climb lower until I reach a strong, lower hanging branch that's a little more than six feet off the ground. The walkers are close now, fingers scraping the bottom of the branch I walk on. I pull the machete, balancing with on hand on a lower branch and swing the machete with the other, driving it into the tallest walker.
Three fall, but the rest are too short to reach. So I sit on the branch, feet pulled up out of their reach, one leg hooked around a branch and begin to lean back, straining to reach the next closest walker.
"Jasper!" I start, then pull yourself back up and look at Carl. "You can't be serious."
"I got this." I insist. "Probably."
Carl just stares, then promptly stands, puts away his gun, and jumps.
He catches himself on the same branch, using his arms to pull himself up more easily. The rest of the walkers follow, gathering all together again. There are two more that are tall enough to be within reach and I take care of them before Carl reaches me.
He looks unsure, but he nods. "You've done this before?"
"Yeah. I got this…just hold my feet in case I don't got this."
I swing my leg back around the branch, machete in one hand and the other holding myself up out of reach, Carl's hands around my ankles, and I lean back into open air above the walkers. The first few aren't much shorter and aren't hard to take out. The remaining five are more difficult, forcing me to inch lower and lower until I'm hanging upside down like a little kid on monkey bars.
I swing the machete at an angle, burying the blade in the walkers forehead. It sticks and it takes a moment to yank free, distracting me from the walker until its inches away from my face. Until it's disfigured face is replaced with Carl's very much not disfigured face. I gasp for air, feeling the blood rushing back away from your head, and realize that I've lost count of how many times he's saved my life by now.
There's only one left, and Carl jumps down first, drawing the thing off while I get to the car. He meets me there, the thing still a few yards off, driving off before it can even reach the truck. Carl ends up in the drivers seat, but after moving the car out of the walker's sight, he lets the truck stall to a stop at the edge of town.
"What's wrong?" I ask, suddenly looking him over for some kind of wound, or god forbid a bite mark.
He holds out a steady hand in an 'it's okay' gesture. "I haven't driven much before is all. We were at the prison, someone else always drove and then after I just walked…"
"So lemme get this straight. You can fix a car but you can't drive one?"
"Yeah, shut up."
I laugh outright. It's such a mundane problem to have and it reminds me of how things were like before. "I'll show you."
I spend the next stretch of highway showing Carl how to drive. He picks it up quickly, and within an hour he's a better driver than I think my mom ever was. I spend the time I have in the passengers seat writing messages to his people on signs on whatever we come across. It's not much, but it's what we've got.
After driving in circles for a few hours, the sun is low in the sky. We make it back to the same stretch of highway, a few dozen miles beyond Carl's hometown. Night is coming quickly, and we need to find some place safe.
Carl stops the car in the middle of the street, just ahead of another small pile up, and pulls out the map. While he follows roads with his finger, I pull a bottle of water and some granola bars out from the stash of supplies in the back.
As I do, my hand brushes against a set of old CD's my mom kept in her car. I grab one at random-some country playlist-and slide it into the player, sighing as familiar music fills the car.
Carl's mouth twitches at the sound of the music, but he keeps looking at the map. "We could go through Athens and head south…probably find some place to stay outside of Monroe…" He's saying, in a way that's mostly to himself. "Keep clear of Atlanta completely."
"How bad is Atlanta?" I ask, suddenly more curious than ever about the state's capital. I knew it got bombed pretty early on because of the infected, and that's when cell towers were cut off for good.
Carl just shakes his head. "Herds in the thousands. I don't think there's anyone left."
A bloody handprint slams against the glass, two more following it. In the dusk, the shapes you thought to be bodies in the road turn to walkers. Dozens of them right on top of us, seemingly from out of nowhere.
"Drive!"
Carl doesn't hesitate, slamming his foot down on the gas pedal. The engine makes a strained noise as the truck struggles to pull over the walkers bodies, then jolts us back as it finally crushes them under tire. He pulls the car to a sudden left, bypassing the pile up and going off road to get around it, slamming into more walkers.
The car makes that horrible sound again, but thankfully keeps going, pulling just out of reach of the herd and hurtling down the road, only slowing when you reach clear pavement.
In the dark, I can't see it, only the spray of blood that covers the windshield as the car barrels over the walker, catching on something and begining to spin. I barely have time to scream before the car flips, tumbling over and over off the road. And then, silence.
I'm disoriented, drifting in and out of awareness, faintly aware of a metallic taste in my mouth and a sharp ache in my foot. I choke on smoke, fire and metal burning all around me, unable to see or breathe.
The truck is upside down, crushed metal surrounding me. The supplies I've gathered over months-food, medical supplies, tools- are strewn across the road, burning too. I drag myself out of the gaping hole where the passenger door once was, and lay on the pavement, watching as the engine bursts into brilliant flames in the darkening sky.
A single walker is ahead of the rest, peeling skin and reaching arms-and then all of the sudden I'm very, very conscious. I gasp for breath, scrambling backwards on my hands and knees as I fumble for the gun, and shoot the damn thing through the side of it's eye. It falls dead inches in front of me, the gunshot only urging on the rest of the same massive herd from earlier as they let out a collective snarl.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
"CARL!"
