"Sonuvabitch!" Cameron shouted as he swerved everywhere he could to avoid crashing into other cars.
"Did you seriously take us on the highway?" Marge screamed from the back seat. "How stupid can you be?"
"Well sorry for wanting to get out of here as fast as possible!" he yelled, having to slam the brakes, and barely dodging an oncoming car. Fucking asshole!
It was complete chaos. Not only was the highway jammed with cars that were both running and crashed, but also people (alive and dead) were running every which way. Cameron really wanted to avoid hitting anybody alive, but it was difficult to tell one from the other. It also didn't help that people were trying to get in front of him, desperately waving him down.
But there was no way. Not only would his car most likely get overrun by zombies, other desperate survivors would try to hop on too.
"Out of the way," he snarled, honking his horn. In the back Marge was comforting her crying son.
Then up ahead appeared what looked like a wall of cars. No less than twenty were piled up end to end, leaving no room for Cameron to squeeze through. But all was not lost: in the lane divide, splitting up west and eastbound traffic, he spotted a gap that was only supposed to be used by emergency personnel.
Well fuck that!
Cameron slammed on the brakes, and made a sharp left turn through the gap. He turned right, now driving on the wrong side of the highway, which actually turned out to be a blessing. There were only a few cars that were foolhardy enough to venture into the city, and all Cameron had to do was stay on the shoulder to avoid incoming traffic.
In his pocket Cameron's cell phone vibrated again. He ignored it. It took every ounce of concentration to avoid hitting people that hopped over the lane divide and try to desperately wave him down. The vibrating stopped, but a few seconds later it started up again. "Fuck!" Cameron quickly dug into his pocket and threw the phone in the back to Marge. "Tell whoever the hell that is I'm driving!"
"Hello?" she answered. "I'm a friend. Cameron's driving trying to get out of the city…. Yes, but we had to go back—to get my son!" Cameron ran into a zombie that ended up under the wheels. "Your mom wants you to call her back," Marge told him.
A few minutes later the surrounding area had less development, and the cars began to thin out some. That didn't mean they were in the clear though. Cars were still crashed all over, with zombies and/or people running around. Still, he felt it was clear enough to go through the next gap in the divider, just because he felt more comfortable on the right side of the highway.
When Cameron passed through a stretch of highway that was miraculously empty, he pulled off to the side. In the rearview mirror he saw smoke billowing up to the sky, and on the road tiny figures were gradually getting bigger. Zombies were following them but they wouldn't reach them for a few minutes.
"What do we do?" Marge asked, poking her head to the front.
He sighed as he spotted the fuel gauge. "Get gas." Cameron went to the GPS to find the nearest gas station.
Two minutes later Cameron pulled off on the next exit. A mile or so later he found the gas station. It was peaceful at the station, which most likely meant that the infection didn't reach there yet.
"Keep me covered," Cameron told Marge as he got out of the car. So while Cameron filled up the gas tank, Marge kept an eye out with the gun at the ready. Inside the shop he saw that the gas station attendant was nervously looking at them.
When Cameron was finished, he moved the car next to the shop.
"Grab everything you can," he said. Cameron's provisions would only last him day or two now that he had picked up stragglers, so it was time to do some shopping.
"Stay here, sweetie," Marge said to her son.
"No, mommy," he pleaded, but he resigned to staying in the car.
"I don't want any trouble," the station attendant told them, raising his hands.
"Sorry," Marge said, sticking the run in her pocket. Together, she and Cameron grabbed all the chips, donuts, and other snacks they could carry, along with a couple of gas cans. The attendant was even more amazed as they brought all that to the front, and Cameron paid with his parent's credit card. On the TV was continuing coverage of the mess back in the city, with the anchors slowly losing composure.
"Are the riots that bad?" the man asked nervously.
Cameron and Marge looked at each other.
"Worse," Marge answered.
They took all their purchases back to the car, Cameron filled up the gas cans, and they were on the road again.
"Now what do we do?" Marge asked back in the rear.
"How should I know?" He didn't get back on I-80, worried that they would end up going through population centers. So instead he took the back roads west, where he noticed that the sun was steadily going down. Checking the clock on the dashboard, he was stunned to see it was almost seven in the afternoon. Cameron had just been sitting at home as if nothing were happening a mere four hours ago. And as cliché as it may have sounded, it really did feel as if a lifetime went by.
He decided it was time to gather his thoughts. So, the group consisted of a high school kid, a pencil pusher (to the best of his knowledge), and a child; with only a pistol with a single clip and a shovel. Well in the few zombie media Cameron had come across the people in it were no better off. But then again there was always that one gun wielding badass with a shit load of ammunition, which his "team" lacked.
Cameron remembered when he first saw the Dawn of the Dead remake, and how he constantly thought what a bunch of shit heads they all were—especially towards the end! Run away to an island in the middle of a lake? Did they honestly think they were the only ones that came up with that? And even if they stayed alive on that island, what the fuck then? I would've survived, he thought back then. Well now was his chance to prove it.
"Canada!" Marge suddenly blurted out.
"Canada?"
"Yeah, those things would freeze in the winter, right? It's our best shot. Just keep heading west until we hit Iowa, then we turn north."
Those directions were really goddamn vague, and at the next gas stop (God willing) he'd have to pick up a tourist map of the area. But for a lack of a better idea, Cameron just said, "Canada it is then."