Carey was kneeling before a seventh floor window scanning the approaches to the Tipton with a pair of high powered binoculars and nothing she saw did much to improve her mood. "Why don't you all go and do whatever zombies do somewhere else already?" she said to herself. If she had to name an epicenter for the zombies in Boston, it seemed to be the hotel and the surrounding ten or so blocks. "Shit." Carey pulled the binoculars away from her face.
In her heart of hearts, Carey already knew that, one way or the other, she wouldn't be finding her boys in the hotel. The rational part of her knew that next to nothing could survive in this city for almost two weeks. As resourceful as Zack and Cody were, they weren't survivalists. The irrational part of her, the part that usually yelled the loudest, refused to give up hope. She had to know. She had to see with her own eyes that they boys weren't in there waiting for her or she would never forgive herself.
"Gotta make a move soon, Carey Marie," she said quietly. "Food won't last much longer." She was right. It had taken her almost two days of skulking through Boston to reach the hotel and the better part of a third reconnoitering the area and she hadn't found much to replenish her dwindling supplies. Carey was two blocks away and the hotel might as well have been on the surface of the moon with all the zombies between her and the building.
"Sure could use one of those tanks right now," she mumbled as she picked the binoculars back up, thinking about the Abrams back in Central Park. Carey sighed aloud and was a little surprised when she heard her echo.
That was one of the most disconcerting parts of all this, she'd decided. Zombies aside, a city that once fed and sheltered millions becoming almost completely silent was a mindtrip and a half. All she heard was the low rumble of thousands of zombies moaning and shuffling along. No birds, no dogs, no horns, no stray radio coming from an open window, no rap music blaring from a car loaded with idiots (though, if she was being honest, she would not have minded if someone set a plague of zombies loose on the hip-hop community years ago), no voices yelling "move it, asshole" in that distinctly Bostonian accent, no police sirens, no four a.m. garbage trucks...
"Wait a second." Carey got to her feet, wincing at the momentary pins-and-needles feeling, and skulked out of the office and to the other side of the building. She found a window looking out on her previous path and trained the binoculars on the street. "Where is it?" she said as an idea began to come together in her mind. Somewhere back there, a handful of blocks before she'd reached her current hideout, she'd passed a garbage truck. "I know you're there, you big piece of crap. Where are you? Aha, there you are," she said as she spotted it. It was ten blocks away, parked in front of a Starbucks if she remembered correctly. It wasn't a sixty ton tank but it would do the job. Assuming it would start. Assuming the keys were in it. Assuming she could-
"Enough. It's as good an idea as any right now. I sure can't just waltz across the street and into the hotel." Carey returned to the first room and gathered up her meager gear. She stealthily made her way down the stairs and crouched beside the lobby door. Carey checked her gun and found it fully loaded. She took a deep breath and gently pushed the door open. She edged her way out and began round two of the Boston Crawl.
She arrived at the garbage truck half an hour later and completely out of breath. She ducked behind a wrecked car and gathered herself, trying to will any ideas of failure from her mind. The doors will be unlocked, the keys will be in the ignition, and it will start right up she said over and over again. Her mantra firmly in her head, she crept to the passenger door and pulled up on the handle. It moved and the door began to slowly swing open. "One for one so far," she whispered as she stuck her head inside.
Carey vomited from the smell. She looked up and over the seat and saw the remains of what had once been a man slumped over the seat. His body had bloated from decomposition and stretched his clothes like a sausage casing. She wiped her face and pulled herself up and into the truck, forcing herself to breath through her mouth as she pulled the door closed. He wasn't dressed in a uniform and Carey's heart began to sink. If he had died in here, it couldn't be because he was too stupid to start the truck up. He died in here because he wasn't the driver and he found a place to escape the zombies. "Shit." How long had he lasted in here before he died? she wondered.
Carey was just about to admit defeat and leave the man to his grave when she had an idea. She almost hoped she was wrong, that the man didn't die with salvation mere inches above his head. Carey pulled the driver's side visor down but no keys fell out. "Last chance," she whispered as she pulled the passenger's visor. A mass of keys fell into her lap and she was conflicted.
"Oh, man," she said as she turned to the corpse. "Buddy, I am so sorry. So, so sorry." She sat back against the seat for a moment as she tried to play out the last days of the anonymous man's life. Scared out of his mind, probably in hysterics as he ran down the street. He found the truck and pulled himself inside and hoped to wait out the zombies. Wait for help to arrive. Might have gone mad as the horde pressed itself against the truck. Probably ducked low to stay out of sight. Likely died of dehydration instead of going out there. "So sorry," she repeated.
She steeled herself for what she was about to do. Carey reached over the man and opened his door. She returned to her side of the truck, still gagging slightly, and said a few silent words before placing her back against the door and pushing the body with her legs. She got him to the edge of the seat at her full stretch. Carey was afraid he wasn't going to go out and she'd have to push him with her hands but gravity thankfully took over and he toppled over and onto the concrete with a sound like nothing other than an overripe watermelon. "Gallagher," Carey said as she scooted over into the driver's seat and closed the door. She didn't look down.
Keys in hand, Carey began sticking them into the slot until she found the right one. "And the right one better be here," she said as she went through them. One finally fit and Carey took a breath as she turned it and hoped. The engine roared to life and she allowed herself a small cheer. She settled into a comfortable position and fastened her seat belt as she became the focus of every zombie's attention.
They heard the sound of the engine, that much was certain. The zombie closest to her, a shambling wreck wearing red-splattered coveralls and only half a face, did a graceless undead pirouette and started moving in her direction. Carey scanned the instrument panel. "How do I move the dumpster-lifter-thing?" she swore under her breath until she found the switch. The large metal bar lowered, leaving it in front of the truck with the steel arms pointing forward. He, or maybe she, Carey couldn't really tell, was a dozen yards from her when she slammed the gear shift into drive and stepped on the gas. Three seconds later the thing was run under the truck like a rogue plastic bag.
The truck continued accelerated despite hitting zombies in twos and threes as she drove. By the time she'd made it through the fourth block, she'd gotten the metal beast over thirty and was nearing forty as the Tipton came into view. And a problem suddenly rose to the top of her mind. How the hell was she going to stop this thing? She focused on the front of the building and grinned. "Oh Zack and Cody would love this!" Carey said as she plowed through uncountable numbers of the lurching dead, feeling only slight bumps as they either bounced off or were driven over or, in a few cases, run through. Scenes from the old Dukes of Hazzard show she grew up with played in her mind's eye, updated to show Bo and Luke Duke (played by Johnny Depp and George Clooney, respectively) jumping a garbage truck instead of the General Lee, over Roscoe P. Coltrane's squad car.
The steps to the lobby were growing huge in front of her and Carey gripped the wheel tightly and wondered for the first time if her idea was so grand after all. She hit the bottom step and the garbage truck bounced and the wheel was nearly jerked out of her hands. Things seemed to run at quarter-speed as the truck caught air and sailed up and over the remaining steps. Carey saw a zombie staring at her out of the corner of her eye and noticed the smallest details of his burned shoulder before everything was thrown back to full speed as she crashed through the doors and a few feet of the bricks above them and careened through the lobby.
Thankfully for Carey, the majority of her forward momentum had been expended as she broke through the stonework or she would have ended her drive by burying the truck under the remains of one of the massive weight-bearing walls. She slammed on the brakes and came to a halt a few feet away from the reception desk. The top few inches of the windshield was spidered and there were a handful of spots on the roof where the metal had been peeled away by the impact. All things considered, she thought she came through the controlled crash rather well. Carey shook her head and retrieved the shotgun from the floor of the truck. She racked it and pushed her door open, knocking a zombie off its feet and to the floor.
Fighting her way to the stairwell, the shotgun's loud cry reverberated off the walls as she cleared a path. Carey felt one coming up behind her and she spun around and slammed the butt of the gun into its face. "Gross," she said to herself as she fed more shells into the receiver on a dead run. A double tap put down a zombie by the door and she launched herself up the steps. Carey realized how out of shape she was as she reached the twelfth floor. "Getting...old...sucks," she panted as she paused and leaned against the wall to catch her breath. A minute of rest and a quick sip of water later, she was on the move again.
When she arrived on their floor, the first thing Carey did was complete a circuit through the halls and put down any zombies she found. Confident that her back was clear for the time being, she returned to their door and put a hand on the knob. A whirlwind of emotions flew through her as she turned it. She wanted them to be in there waiting for her, she wanted them to have gotten the hell out of the suite, she wanted to step through and everything would be normal again. She quashed them all down and pushed the door open and stepped into the empty suite.
"Well, that's good. I think," she said after she did a quick look-through. Carey went to her room and dug a fresh set of clothes out. She was more than a little disgusted when she nearly had to cut her jeans off. They were so caked with gore and grime that they'd almost adhered to her. She wanted a shower more than just about anything but that wasn't happening so she simply redressed in another pair of jeans and a comfortable shirt. "Travelin' clothes," she said to no one.
Carey stuffed another change of clothes in a small overnight bag and sat on her bed. The twins weren't here. She'd fought her way back into the city to find the suite empty. Where did she go now? Was there a point to go anywhere now? Her boys could be positively anywhere out there. Now that the urge to get back to the hotel and see for herself was sated, she felt adrift. Carey frowned as she stood up. No! She hadn't given up before and she wasn't going to give up now.
"I don't know where I'm going but I'm sure the hell not staying in Boston," Carey exclaimed as she snatched the bag from the bed and slipped it over her shoulder before gathering the rest of her gear. "Maybe it's time to go find a nice island in the Caribbean and see if any cabana boys made it." She left the bedroom and stopped by the couch and looked around the suite, trying to burn as many details of the place she'd spent the last few years as she could to memory. Each discoloration on the wallpaper and spot on the carpet brought thoughts to the surface of her brain; some happy, others sad.
Carey was looking at the kitchen when she saw the dry-erase board hanging crooked on the refrigerator. She cocked an eye at it and tried to make out the scribble from the couch but couldn't. She all but leaped to it, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest as she set the shotgun on the counter and pulled the board from the door.
Mom, we're heading to Aunt Jolene's farm. Hope to see you there. Love you so much, Zack and Cody, it read. A warm smile slid across her face as she read it again and again. "Brilliant," she muttered. "The farm's in the absolute center of cow turd and corn country. Genius, Cody, pure genius."
Her purpose suddenly renewed, Carey gave the board one last look and set it back in its proper space just below the boys' most recent report cards. The irony of repeatedly telling Zack that yes, algebra is important made her smile. "Sorry, honey. I lied." She picked the gun back up and started for the door. She was already turning over the routes in her head, trying to pick out the ways that would take her away from the major cities without adding too much extra distance to her trip. "I need to find a map," she declared after running a dozen scenarios through her head. Carey shut their door and started back down the hallway to the stairwell.
Going down twenty three flights was infinitely easier than going up the same number. She reached the bottom and peeked through the glass panel. The lobby was just as full as she left it, she noticed, but the zombies seemed to be staying more or less away from the garbage truck. Carey was just beginning to puzzle over this when she realized that she'd left it running. She started to chide herself when she laughed out loud. "Yeah, because nine out of ten cars stolen in Boston are stolen by zombies. Right, Carey, right."
She opened the door and laid a path of blood and zombie pieces to the truck. As she climbed up and into the cab, she absently reflected on how detached she was about what she'd just done. Before the world had gone to hell she would get a little squeamish whenever there was a drop of blood on a television show. She'd just spilled enough on the lobby's floor to put the old Carey into a catatonic state but the new Carey just reloaded the gun and kept going. She shook her head and filed the thought away for when she had more time to dwell on it.
Once again strapped in, Carey popped the truck into gear and stepped on the gas. She speared one of the overstuffed couches with the lift's arms and was thinking about how to shake it off when she saw what a great battering ram it made. She aimed for the great hole she'd made earlier and gunned it, not able to hold in a gleeful whoop when the truck became air-born on the steps. She crashed back to the ground and broke the couch into many ugly floral pieces. Most fell away from the bars but one stubbornly held on. Carey fixed this problem by hitting the dump switch. The bars raised and the eyesore remnant lifted out of sight.
She stayed off the main roads as much as she could and off the expressways completely as she made her way out of Boston. She'd made the mistake of trying to weave her way through the masses of cars left abandoned on the highway on her trip to the city and wasn't going to make it again. Not much of her trek into Boston could have been considered a success, she figured. Boston's approaches were almost as big a disaster as trying to leave New Jersey.
"Wasn't that one hell of a mess?" She thought aloud as she continued west. It had been. The shit had hit the fan from almost the instant she'd stepped off the ramp from the George Washington and back onto terra firma. If she didn't know better, she'd have sworn that someone had firebombed the Jersey side of the bridge and turned it into a labyrinth of zombies. She had lost count of the times she'd nearly been infected by the time she'd cleared the city and made it into comparatively open country a few miles away.
She'd spent that night in an apartment building overlooking the river and was awoken by gunshots in the early morning. Carey stole to the window and looked out to see...what was she seeing? Gangs? "Are you kidding me?" she'd whispered as she looked on. Within a minute she was sure. Survivors were down there shooting at each other instead of zombies. "What the hell is wrong with people?"
Having no answer other than sheer stupidity and the inability to accept that turf wars were so last month, she tried to go back to sleep but found it elusive. With a sigh, Carey hauled herself out of bed and dressed for the day. She crept out of the building after a quick breakfast and headed a dozen blocks north before turning back towards the river, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the gangs as she could.
Carey had appropriated a motorcycle shortly before she crossed into Connecticut. She was eating lunch in a community park, the bike parked a short distance away and her helmet laying on the picnic table beside her, when a man rushed her at her from behind a set of rest rooms. He knocked her off the table and onto the dirt before she knew what hit her.
"No women in a while," he said as he crawled on top and pawed at her shirt. "Long while."
"You son of a bitch! Get the hell off me," Carey had screamed as she pounded on his chest and shoulders, forgetting about the fact that noise brought zombies in her struggles.
"Nope, nope. Not until we have sexy time," the man said with a sick grin. He'd popped the top button on her shirt and was working for the rest when she grabbed the back of his head and pulled down with all of her might while raising her own head. Her forehead smashed into his nose with a crunch and he instantly rolled away. "You bitch!"
"You want more?" Carey screamed back, her rage exploding as the suddenness of the attack wore off. Adrenaline flooded into her system and her hands unconsciously balled into fists.
"Fuck you!" he yelled and charged at her. Blood streamed from his ruined nose but he paid it no mind. He launched himself at her and she avoided the tackle and clipped him as he ran past. He sprawled face-first into the ground but was back up almost immediately. "Rape!" he yelled through a dirty face and Carey couldn't help but be mildly amused as she slowly backed up to the picnic table and the shotgun that was resting against one of the benches.
He had paused once he regained his feet and seemed to be studying her. Carey took the opportunity to do the same. He was obviously crazy. Most likely came completely unhinged after everything fell apart. She'd seen it happen more than a few times back in New York. There, the poor souls were medicated. Things were going to get ugly here. He was wearing hospital scrubs and one boot and one..was that a house slipper? She thought it was. He was also wraith thin, she noticed just as she started speaking.
"You have two choices, pal," she told him as she picked up the shotgun. One, you go your way and I go mine and we both forget about this ever happening. Two, you come after me again and I'll put you down." That was definitely the New Carey talking, she decided as she brushed some dry grass from her hair. The man took two steps toward her and stopped. He was testing her. He cocked his head to the side and looked at her like an owl with his eyes focused on the barrel of the gun.
Carey was suddenly aware of how much noise they'd made in the past thirty seconds and was itching to get out of here before the whole town fell in around them. No time for games. "Buddy, you take one more step and we're going to recreate a scene from the movie Pulp Fiction. Ever heard of it?" He looked like he was mulling her question over for a few seconds but only scoffed. "Not a Tarantino fan? Philistine."
The crazy man yelled out some indecipherable word before rushing at her again. She lowered the shotgun a few inches and shot him in the groin. The man fell in a heap a few feet away from her with his hands clutching at what remained. The fight had drained out of him and all that was left was moans and whimpers.
She looked around and saw the first of what would undoubtedly be at least dozens of zombies heading her way. Carey turned her gaze to the man laying on the ground nearby and was struck by indecision. Part of her wanted to make him suffer for what he had tried to do. She wanted him to be eaten by zombies. A deep breath later and she really couldn't do it even if she wanted to. No one deserved that. She sighed and put two rounds in the man's back. "I just killed a man," she said to the approaching horde. Carey loaded two more shells into the gun and put the helmet back on her head, fastening the chin strap as she got to the motorcycle. She kicked it to life and gingerly took off.
The garbage truck had died about a mile back but Carey wasn't that sad about it. It handled like a cinder block and the air conditioning barely worked but it got her out of the city and that was the important part. She struck out on foot into the afternoon sun with the shotgun leaning on a shoulder.
"A beer would be nice right about now," she said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "A margarita would be better. A Washington apple would be even better. However, since I haven't seen a bar in the last few miles, I guess this water will have to do." She pulled a bottle from her pack and drained almost half of it in one gulp.
Carey walked for another two miles before calling it a day. It wasn't just hot, it was brutal. She picked a house at random and unceremoniously let herself in. She hadn't seen anywhere near as many deadheads (her name for them) since she got out of the city proper. Was it something about the city that called the zombies back to it after they rose or reanimated or whatever they did? She wasn't sure and it wasn't important.
Carey was poking around in the kitchen for supplies when she saw a key rack near the back door. Closer inspection showed a Dodge key hanging from a fob and she glanced out the window and into the driveway. Sure enough, there was a Dakota pick-up sitting out back. "In a perfect world there'll be a full tank of gas," she said as she tossed and caught the keys. She pulled the curtain back and looked up at the sky and saw that she had a few good hours of daylight left. Now that she wasn't going to have to walk she didn't suddenly didn't feel so tired.
"Let's see if we can get Kansas a little closer before we turn in," she said as she opened the back door and stepped quickly to the truck.
Sorry for the delay but the NCAA tournament derailed this story many times. Obviously it hasn't gone the way I wanted At All but then again it hasn't since 1986. (That was one hell of a party!) Oh well. Gotta say I'm pulling for UCONN now though. Not because I'm a BigEast homer but because I nearly went to school there back in the day. Storrs was nice but I decided it was just too far away and stayed home instead. Also, if UK wins my entire family will be insufferable for at least two months. Stupid rednecks.
Anyway, I felt I needed a little break from the twins and wanted to tell a little more of Carey's story. Zack and Cody will be back in the next chapter though so don't worry. I guess that's all for now. Go Huskies.