Lyrics to Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu by Johnny Rivers (1972)
They left the next morning at dawn, when the sky was light pink and the birds sang happily from the trees. Before sunrise, Lynn dug a grave behind the restaurant - despite the relative chill of night, she was sweating profusely by the time she was three feet in, and paused to strip to her white under shirt. Lincoln drifted back and forth between her and Luan, standing guard over both - Luan fell into a fitful, nightmare haunted sleep long after the gunshot rang out, and she woke often with muttered moans trembling on her lips. Lynn considered giving her a sedative from Lisa's bag, but decided against it: She needed Luan to be as able and clear-headed as she could be in case something bad happened and they had to leave in a hurry.
Losing Lisa was a blow in more ways than one: She was the group medic and general intellect. She mended cuts and burns, picked the right plants to eat and use as medicine. Without her, Lynn felt so lost and overwhelmed that she might as well have buried Luan, Lincoln, and herself right along with her.
"Do me a favor," she said over her shoulder at one point. Her arms quivered with exhaustion and her back ached. "Get the Atlas from the Bronco and plan a route. I wanna leave as soon as we're done." Call it irrational, but she wanted as far away from this terrible place as possible, the sooner the better.
Lincoln nodded silently and went off, leaving her alone with the night.
Later, as the first amber rays of the new sun spread through the trees, she carried Lisa out from the freezer and to eternity, her legs dangling over one arm and her head resting limply against the other. Last night, she was hot with fever, now she was cold as clay, and heavy. She laid her in the hole, covered her with the sheet, and filled it in, wincing at every clump of dirt that broke over the little girl. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
When she was done, she used the flat end to pat the earth down, went over to the treeline, and found two crooked sticks that she tied together in a cross with fishing line. She jammed it into the ground at the head of the grave, then went inside to fetch Lincoln and Luan.
The funeral was a quiet, somber affair, the three of them standing around the dirt patch and staring at the cross. After the events of the past two months - the collapse of society and the slow dwindling of their family - none believed in God, and neither had Lisa, so no words of everlasting life were spoken, no assertions that she was in a better place were made. Luan tried to speak at one point, but broke down crying and buried her face in Lincoln's chest; he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and fought back his own tears. Lynn, for her part, was spent - she cried her pain as she dug the grave. Like eating while you cook.
Lincoln helped Luan to the Bronco, then helped Lynn pack their things up - they left the sleeping bag Lisa died in.
"What are we doing?" she asked Lincoln as she rolled up her bag. She knelt on the floor, still in just her jeans ad her tank top.
"We have two choices," Lincoln said, "we can follow 33 over the mountain, or we can backtrack to Sugar Grove and take Route 25."
Lynn nodded and paused, glancing over her shoulder. "Which way do you think we should take?" she asked. She needed him to be strong just the same as he needed her to be strong. She couldn't do this alone...she'd proven that repeatedly.
For a moment he considered, then sighed. "I don't know. 33's the main road through the mountains, a lot of people probably took it toward the end to get away. It might be blocked. The other road might be clear, but if it isn't, we might not be able to turn around."
That made sense - many mountain roads are narrow and edged the abyss. If they came across stalled traffic, they'd be libel to roll the Bronco off the the side and kill themselves. 33 was wider, two lanes. If they had to backtrack, it would be easier. "33 first and 25 as a last resort?" Lynn asked.
Lincoln nodded. "Yeah, that."
She got to her feet and brushed past him. "Let's go.'
Outside, Luan sat in the back seat hugging herself and gazing absently out the window. "She's cracking," Lynn commented.
Lincoln unslung his bag and opened the hatch. "Aren't we all?" He shoved his bag in, then held his hand out to take Lynn's. She hesitated, then turned it over. He was right, they were all cracking up - nightmares, overwrought nerves, mental wounds not healing...but as long as they survived, it didn't matter. As long as she could keep her brother and sister safe, she would be okay.
Lincoln slammed the door, then went around to the passenger side and climbed in, unshouldering his rifle and propping it between his legs. Lynn spared one final glance at Fatboy's, and her eyes went to that damn pig, a bullet hole between its beady little eyes. How's your pork, you bastard?
Behind the wheel, she pulled the seatbelt over her lap and clicked it in place, darting her eyes up to the rearview mirror: Luan stared into space, her eyes as faraway as Lisa's were before she died. She looked at Lincoln, who grimaced tightly. She wondered again if she should give her sister something, but again decided against it. She threw the Bronco into drive and pulled out of the lot fronting the restaurant, the tires crunching gravel and kicking up clouds of dust.
For the first mile, 33 kept straight and true, passing a run of shotgun shacks and elapdated trailers, then curved up to the left, beginning its ascent. A faded wooden sign on the right screamed that they were now entering the George Washington National Forest - raised yellow lettering over a portrait of an unsmiling Washington. Lynn wondered after the things he must have seen from his post by the roadway these past few months. In the last few weeks, the highways were crazily jammed, sometimes for miles on end. In mid-June, the government declared martial law and the military closed all of the major roads. Since leaving Royal Woods, they'd come across more back-ups than they could count, and a few times they even stumbled across military blockades - tanks, humvees, and helicopters abandoned by the wayside. She imagined he saw more than he ever cared to.
After the bend, Lynn eased up on the gas and swerved to avoid a station wagon sitting horizontally across the yellow lines, its roof rack filled with luggage and its doors standing open. She glanced at Luan again. No change.
Two miles later, the dark silence became too much to bear. "Get that tape out of the glovebox," Lynn said. Lincoln looked at her as though she were crazy. Music? No, she didn't want music, but she didn't want to stew either: If she did she'd go crazy.
Silently obeying, Lincoln opened the glovebox and rummaged through fast food napkins, registration papers, and roadmaps before pulling a plastic cassette case out and opening it. Ahead, a brown and gold police car with PENDLETON COUNTY SHERIFF across the door sat in the opposite lane, facing up the mountain. Lincoln shoved the tape into the deck, and upbeat piano driven rock filtered from the speakers. Lynn swung wide around a silver minivan resting on its side.
I wanna to jump but I'm afraid I'll fall
I wanna to holler but the joint's too small
Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu
The road wound around a steep rock face. To the right, the world opened up - a panorama of blue mountains and clear, empty skies. Lynn glimpsed a river making its way through a valley, a small town built up along its banks. Around the bend, a camouflage hummer stood angled across both lanes, the ground littered with spent shell casings and dead bodies. Lynn decelerated and passed on the inside, the driver door coming close to scraping the rock. "I don't like the looks of this," she said. More bodies were scattered across the road on the other side, rotted by the sun and picked clean by wildlife.
Want some other's baby that ain't all
I wanna to kiss her but she's way too tall
Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu
They were encountering too much traffic, and something told Lynn it would only get worse the higher they got. The mountain straddled the West Virginia/Virginia border, half in one state and half in the other. There were couple of fairly large towns on the Virginia side, and the DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia metro area was only a hop, skip, and a jump away. As the situation in the cities deteriorated, people flocked to the countryside for safety, but wound up bringing death with them. There were garbled reports in the last days of tent cities springing up in the Rockies and in the deserts of the Southwest only to be overrun as quickly as they appeared.
"It doesn't look good," Lincoln agreed.
The road curved again, and a lined of cars marched crookedly along the opposite lane. Lynn noted the bullet holes in the windshields and front ends - here and there dead bodies were slumped over the seats. A soldier lay sprawled on his back in their lane, and Lynn had no choice but to run him over, the sickening thu-thunk of his torso being crushed under the wheels eliciting a miserable moan from Luan.
"Should we go back?" Lynn asked. She genuinely didn't know - there was a winch on the front and back of the Bronco, so they could move just about anything out of their way if they had to. It would take time, but they had nothing but time...and a vague hope that D.C. would provide safety...a hope that had cost most of Lynn's family their lives.
I wanna to squeeze her but I'm way too low
I would be runnin' but my feet's too slow
Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too
I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu
"Should we go back?" she asked again, sharper this time.
"I don't know," Lincoln replied just as keenly and threw up one hand. "We've seen worse. We can probably do it."
Lynn glared at him, then turned back to the road. Twenty feet up, a section of the guard rail was missing, and a Humvee with a roof mounted machine gun sat in the middle of the road. She couldn't pass on the inside, and if she tried on the out, there was a very good chance they'd plunge over the side.
They'd have to move it.
Great.
Sighing, she let up on the gas even more until they were crawling, then pulled to a stop less than three feet from the Humvee's rear. She put the Bronco in park and threw open the door, giving Lincoln an expectant look. He grabbed his rifle and got out, a gust of warm wind rustling his cowlick. Lynn grabbed a pair of work gloves from the console and got out, going around to the front and standing next to Lincoln with her hands on her hips. "Stand watch," she said and glanced at him, squinting against the glare of the early morning sun.
Without word, he hefted the M-16 and started walking along the gravel shoulder to see what waited around the next bend. Lynn turned, grabbed the metal hook, and pulled it from its coil. She knelt, threw a nervous glance over her shoulder, then, holding the winch in one hand, she pressed her stomach flat to the pavement and wiggled under the Humvee. She'd done this a thousand times since leaving Royal Woods, and now she worked with cool and certain efficiency, looping the line around the rear axle and snagging the hook back on the cord; she gave it a test pull, it held, and she nodded.
Crawling out from underneath, she took the gloves off and shoved them into her back jeans pocket, then went around the driver side of the Humvee. Lincoln was up the road a half mile, staring beyond the next bend. She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled; he turned, and she gestured him to come back.
Figuring there might be something in the Humvee they could use, she pressed her forehead against the glass and held her hands up on either side to shield out the glare of the sun. There were no ghouls inside, so she pulled back, opened the door, and climbed in, one knee planting into the seat. She searched methodically from front to back, finding first a Sig P320 pistol, which she slipped into the small of her back, then a a fist aid kit under one of the seats. Lincoln opened the rear passenger door and joined the hunt, whistling after a moment. "What'cha got?" she asked and slipped between the front seats. Lincoln knelt in front of a box, and when he moved, she saw it: Packages upon packages of MREs - meals ready to eat. She came over and dropped to her knees next to him. She picked up one of the pouches and examined it. "Chilli with beans and cornbread," she said with an appreciative nod. "Nice find, Linc."
"There's enough in here to feed an army," he deadpanned...and for some reason Lynn found that so funny she burst out laughing. Lincoln started laughing too, and like a fire feeding on oxygen, it grew until they were both crying, all of the stress, agony, and horror of the past twenty-four hours...of the past two months...coming out in the form of shrieking laughter.
When the storm passed, Lynn shook her head and sniffed. "Feed an army. Heh. You're a loser." A sudden and overwhelming affection for her brother came upon her like a tidal wave, so intense it brought tears to her eyes.
He and Luan were it.
She knew that the moment that thing bit Lisa on the neck, but only now, looking at her brother's tired half-grin and weary eyes did it fully sink in. The urge to sweep him into her arms and hug him flowed through her, and she almost did it. I can't lose him, she thought, or Luan. Over the past three months, she'd lost everything and everyone she had ever loved, her life whittled down to a single boy and a single girl - if she could, she'd hold them close and never let go.
Unfortunately, she couldn't. They still had 160 miles ahead of them before…
Lynn frowned. Before what?
Since leaving Royal Woods, she held the promise of Washington the way a little girl might a teddy bear on a dark and stormy night; if only they could get there, things would be normal again. She and her family would be safe, and they could begin to pick up what remained of their lives. They would be fewer in numbers and not without wounds, but they would have each other. With every sister who fell by the wayside, that hope grew just a little dimmer. Now there were only three of them, and as they drew closer to the urban sprawl along the Potomac, the number of ghouls would only increase. They say it's always darkest before the dawn - in this case, it was most dangerous before the safety.
If there was safety
She shoved that thought aside. We're not doing this again, she told herself, not right now. Instead, she took a deep breath. "Grab that box and come on."
At the back of the Bronco, Lynn opened the hatch and Lincoln slid the box into a gap, grunting and straining to make it fit. Lynn's eyes drifted to the rolling vista in the south, green, gentle slopes and rising knobs crowded by stately trees. How many miles could you see with the naked eye? Five? Ten? What about from the summit?
And, God, what waited at the summit?
When Lincoln slammed the door, she jumped a little. "See anything out there?" he asked and twisted around to follow her gaze.
"Just empty world," she said.
Behind the wheel, she started the engine and turned the radio off. Reaching under the dash, she cranked the knob on the face of the CB and raised the volume - the hiss of dead air. She kept the CB off for the most part, the endless pool of static depressing. At least twice a day, though, she put it on and hoped for the faint murmur of distant voices like the ones they heard back in Ohio - whoever it was, they were so far away that their words were barely audible over the white noise.
She glanced in the rearview mirror; Luan's head rested against the window, her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted. Good. Lynn hoped she slept long and deep.
Throwing the Bronco into reverse, she glanced at Lincoln, who stood on the side of the road. He nodded, and she backed slowly up, the Bronco dragging the Humvee ponderously from its spot, the engine straining and whining. God, please, don't break down. Please, please, please.
When there was enough space to pass, she cut the ignition while Lincoln went over to disconnect the towline. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she jumped out, grabbing the 30.06 as she went. Linc, you gotta wait for a watch; no matter how safe you think you are...you're not.
Fighting back a stern rebuke, she held the rifle crossways and walked up to the Humvee's back bumper - Lincoln's legs jutted out from underneath. She glanced up the slanting highway. "How'd it look up there?" she asked, a gust of already heated wind whipping through her bangs.
"All clear," Lincoln said. He slid out with the hook in his hand; Lynn took it and coiled it back around the winch while Lincoln got up and dusted himself off.
"Let's hope it stays that way," she said and patted the Bronco's hood.
It didn't.
Three miles later, they came to a smash-up that blocked the way - three cars bumper to bumper to bumper, the front end of the latter two crumpled and the back end of the first caved inward. Lynn sighed in frustration and pulled to the shoulder, parking along the guardrail, then got out, Lincoln climbing over the console and following because if he went out his door, he'd fall a million feet to his death, and considering the mood Lynn was in, she'd follow.
Standing side-by-side, she and Lincoln examined the damage. "Looks like it we pull one, the others will come with," she said.
Lincoln shrugged. "They might." He glanced down the tilted road which made an soft C-shape from where they stood. "We could just push them," he said and looked at her. "Let gravity do our light work."
"We can't push all three," she countered.
He sighed. "Yeah. I guess not."
They were forced to use the winch again, Lincoln hooking it to the first car and standing aside as Lynn backed up, pulling forward; it separated from the car behind it with an eerie shriek of rending metal. They repeated the process with the second car. "We can push this one," Lincoln said and nodded at the third. By now they'd been on the mountain close to three hours, and dark storm clouds were beginning to amass in the west like a swarm of demonic locust. The first two cars were parked in front of the Bronco, their noses facing up the mountain.
Lynn looked anxiously at the advancing storm clouds, then at Lincoln. "Alright."
They got behind, one on either side, and pushed, knees bending, teeth grinding; thick dust coated the frame, and their hands slipped. Shortly, the front tires began to turn, and the car drifted forward, picking up speed as it went. They stood back and watched it crash into the guardrail, its rear wheels lifting momentarily off the ground. "I wonder how much force it'd take to break through," Lincoln said.
Lynn nodded to the cars lined up in front of the Bronco. "Take one of those and find out."
The wind picked up and rain droplets pelted Lynn's face. God, moving cars in a downpour sounded like exactly what she didn't want to do.
Four miles later, they reached the summit - a wide, flat plateau overlooking vast expanses of forest and brooding skies. Lightning crackled in the coming tempest, and peals of thunder rolled across the heavens like the angry rumbles of a god awakened by the antics of a fallen world. On the right, a white two story house with clapboard siding and a covered porch stood between the road and a sheer drop, its roof and shutters deep green. On the left, a blue sign with white cursive writing rose from tall grass. A painting of a cardinal perched on a flowering dogwood graced the upper right hand corner.
WELCOME TO VIRGINIA.
Ahead was -
"Son of a bitch," Lincoln muttered.
Near Columbus, they encountered the largest traffic jam any of them had ever seen: All four lanes of the interstate were jammed solid, and overturned cars littered the grassy median. Though Route 33 was half as wide, the snarl here was somehow worse. Two olive green Humvees with roof mounted 50 cals sat nose-to-nose across the highway, and beyond them was an apocalyptic din of stalled vehicles packed three deep in places, cars pressed tight against both the rockface and the guardrail: The people inside would have had to crawl through a window to get out. Not that they had the chance: Many windshields were shattered, grills and hoods pockmarked by long ago gunfire. A few bodies lie sprawled on this side of the roadblock, and on the other, Lynn glimpsed at least two slumped out driver side windows.
She pressed the brake and put it in park, then looked at Lincoln. "Yeah," she drew, "we're not getting past that." From here she could see at least a mile of highway snaking along the mountain, and the jam went all the way back.
"No, we're not," Lincoln agreed and slumped back in his seat with a sigh. The rain picked up and started to fall in earnest, droplets splattering the windshield and drumming on the roof. Thunder rumbled, and a bolt of lightning split the day, making Lynn jump.
This was bullshit: Now they had to backtrack all the way to Sugar Grove, some twenty miles. Going down the mountain would be easier than coming up was, but they still had to go slow. Then there was Brandywine...just the thought of seeing it again, of seeing that horrible place where her little sister young life ended, her eyes big and fearful and her hand clutching desperately please don't let me die alone filled Lynn with dread. Beyond that, the road to Sugar Grove was littered with stalled vehicles, which meant lots of crawling and swerving. By the time they got there, half the day would be gone, and God alone knew what kind of condition Route 25 was in.
Thunder crashed.
Plus the storm.
Lynn glanced at her brother...then at the house. Lincoln followed her gaze. "What's one day?" she asked.
Lincoln thought a moment, then shook his head. "Nothing."
He paused.
"Nothing at all."