A Thousand Miles To Nowhere: An Apocalypse Thriller Read online

  If only it had been rain.

  2

  Always When I Sleep

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Little bare feet sprinted across the thin, brown carpet that had been pressed down to the point it provided no cushion for the feet and was stained heavily by the wear of black rubber shoe soles.

  Michael looked around frantically for a place to hide. His eyes darted left to right then left again while taking short, fast breaths that only heightened his nervousness. He heard his older brother’s voice from a back room as he counted down from ten; he was already at six. His gaze darted around. He was lost in the most horrific feeling of panic he had ever felt. Then, he spotted it—the hall closet. A thin, white door with a fist-sized hole in it and smeared with tiny black fingerprints. A faded gold knob barely hung on by a single screw and a couple of broken toothpicks. Behind that cheap interior door was salvation.

  “Three…two…”

  Michael barely opened the door before one and sealed himself inside the dark closet. He tucked himself away just as the words, “Ready or not, here I come,” echoed off the bare walls of this year’s family home. Next year, it would be a different closet in a different house on a different street. But for now, this was his home, and this was his closet. So, that was where he hid.

  His heart pounded with the anxiety of knowing his older brother was on the move to search for him. He felt like helpless prey as he thought, My brother will never look in here, oblivious to the fact that he would usually hide in that same closet whenever he wasn’t able to find a new place to hide.

  The little boy tucked himself farther into the closet’s abyss. He pulled a brown suede jacket with tassels off a hanger and threw it over his body. It smelled of cigarette smoke and stale beer. Another smell permeated the jacket, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

  His brother’s footsteps creaked nearby and caused Michael’s heart to pound even faster. It felt like a racecar engine at full speed in his chest. He closed his eyes tightly and hoped his ability to hide was better than his brother’s ability to seek.

  He’ll never look in here, he’ll never look in here, he repeated over and over in his head. But the door popped open with a single, nerve-wrenching click, and the bright lights of the hall flooded in. He was caught.

  “Found you, Mikey,” Matty said.

  “Hey, no fair. You always find me,” Michael cried out.

  “I can’t help it that you don’t know how to hide better.”

  “I’m tired of this game. Let’s play something else. Let’s go outside and play war.”

  “No. You always cry because I’m better than you and kill you.”

  The teasing words stung Michael’s young heart. Of course, Matty was better. He was older and smarter. That was how it worked. The older brother was supposed to be better, or at least, that was what Matty had convinced him to think.

  “Fine,” Michael said as he stood up and pushed his way out of the closet.

  He discarded the eighties-style suede jacket on the floor and pulled a smaller, black leather jacket off a hanger in protest. He called for his mother as he stomped down the hallway toward the backyard glass sliders.

  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” he called out, leaving Matty behind.

  Matty walked toward his room and let his little brother run off to their mother and cry, but something popped and cracked in the distance. It was loud and startled him. The noise wasn’t anything he had ever heard before. Or, at least, he didn’t think he had. There was a strange familiarity to it. The closest thing he could relate the sound to was firecrackers, those little ones that came in packs of twenty or rolls of a hundred. He loved to light the big ones off in the middle of the street. The disturbance would cause his neighbor to chase him off.

  Another pop, crack. Matt dropped down to his floor and looked around. He was in his room, but the noises sounded close as if they were coming from inside, but he couldn’t see where exactly. And why had he dropped to the ground so quickly? He thought it was weird he knew to get low. Something instinctual fueled his actions now. He saw his little brother outside his window as he cried out for their mother. The distant sound of his voice calling out, “Mommy, Mommy” was songlike as he stretched out the two syllables.

  Another pop, crack, much louder and closer than the last two. His little brother didn’t seem to notice as he walked past the window and out of Matty’s sight deeper into the backyard. Was his mother outside lighting off firecrackers?

  The air grew pungent, like urine mixed with rotten eggs. He sniffed the carpet but it only smelled like his mother’s cigarettes. More pops now, several in a row like an entire pack of firecrackers going off all at once—pop, pop, pop, pop, followed by sharp snaps and pings. The sounds echoed with a fury that no longer sounded like fireworks, and the smell grew stronger. It burned his nose, almost choked him like a throatful of dust and smoke.

  The noises grew louder and faster, and the smell consumed his senses. Made him gag. A woman screamed in pain. His thoughts exploded as the world around him became dark and small.

  Then he woke up.

  The rapid succession of semi-automatic gunfire filled Matt’s ears as he departed his dreamworld and arrived back in reality. The dream had felt so real, so close to him. His brother Michael, seconds ago, had been in front of him within arm’s reach. They were children again, and it hurt to wake up and be confronted with the painful reality his little brother was nothing more than dreams and memories.

  He sat up out of his sleep sack and smacked the crown of his head on the granite ceiling of his cave wall. The hit blinded him momentarily and sent a rush of blood and what felt like fire through his face. He didn’t have time to think about how badly his head hurt. He rationalized that he hadn’t passed out and didn’t feel anything wet. Therefore, he’d survive long enough to do work.

  “What the hell did I wake up to?” he mumbled to no one but himself as he reached around blindly in the darkness. He reached out with shaking hands in search of his weapon system. Then, he found it—the bulk of his vest with three little pockets stuffed full of stainless steel, filled with green-tipped equalizers. All of it wrapped up in a brown nylon package.

  He leaned over and slipped the vest on over his head and quickly secured the Velcro into place. No time to adjust for comfort. Just go. He grabbed his AR at the head of his sleeping bag and rolled out of the opening.

  It was dark without a moon to light the night. He could only hear the screams of Steve and Tara as they barked at each other over the sound of gunfire. Another sound filled the air that rumbled with earthquake-like intensity.

  His feet kicked up little bits of gravel and sand as he stomped in his merino wool socks toward the fight, toward the chaos. Dust and smoke filled the air with bright flashes of light that signaled another shot fired. He ran in a haze of confusion toward the flashes of light until he found himself face-to-face with a massive horde of withered dead.

  Withered fucking zombies, he thought. Well, fuck us.

  The sight of so many withered was overwhelming. There had to be several thousand smashed together. The mass of lifeless bodies was so large it filled the canyon from side to side with no end in sight. His viewpoint wasn’t the best, but it was good enough to suggest he, Steve, and Tara were raw meat for the picking if they didn’t act fast.

  The withereds’ sunbaked limbs of wrinkled flesh pressed firmly against one another as they meandered thoughtlessly toward sound and smell. The sight reminded Matt of being a small child in a theme park, but instead of families angrily speed-walking toward a ride or an overpriced restaurant, it was a horde of the undead that shambled toward their free dinner and the only family Matt had left.

  He was frozen in place, like the earth had reached up and turned his limbs into roots, grounding him on the granite and sandstone rocks of the canyon’s cave system. It took Tara’s scream to snap him out of his trance. Her cry was followed by a blast of stones, limbs, and heat that erupted a few feet in
front of her body. Debris blew up around her as she shielded her face with her arms. Shrapnel blasted every inch of her exposed body as she was thrown backward and crashed into a massive desert boulder with a cactus growing out of the middle of it. The limbs of the plant broke and collapsed under her weight and landed on the ground next to her body. A messy concoction of arms, legs, and dried organs sprawled out on the landscape.

  Tara didn’t move.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The words spewed out of Matt’s mouth like blood sprayed from an artery. He scanned the carnage to look for Steve. His eyes locked onto a shadowy image that moved through the space created by the explosion. It was Steve as he ran through the horde toward Tara. He picked her up and attempted to put her body across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, but got kicked instead. She screamed obscenities at him louder than the horde’s roar.

  “I’m fucking fine! Put me down, dammit.”

  The dead quickly filled the void created by the explosion and closed in on Steve and Tara. Matt finally began to engage. He created time for Steve to move away to safety and space—very little space, but enough to allow his teammates to move off the killing field toward his position. It was possible they didn’t know where he was. He hoped as he fired his muzzle flash would act as a beacon.

  Matt’s first magazine emptied fast. Round after round penetrated dry, rotted bodies that spewed thick, tar-like blood. Matt wondered if their blood pooled and stuck to their veins and arteries or if the heart still pumped the goo. It didn’t matter, at least not at that moment. With each busted body that fell, another filled its place. The supply of withered seemed endless.

  Matt dropped his second magazine and replaced it as Tara climbed up the face of a large cave opening to safety. She pulled herself up and over the rocks, Steve a single step behind. Any farther, and he would have been consumed by the horde. She reached down, helped Steve up, and brought him to safety as several mouths clanked and chopped broken teeth at his boot heel. As they both stood above the horde only a few feet out of reach, Matt stopped firing. They ran toward him.

  He dropped his magazine and checked his remaining rounds, noting it was still mostly full. He placed it back in the well and secured it with a click, then tapped and tugged it to make sure. On the ground lay his two empty mags and a collection of spent brass. He picked up his gear and shoved it into his cargo pocket as Steve and Tara approached.

  “You two okay?”

  “Yeah, brother, we are now. Thank you,” Steve responded through deep heaves of heavy breaths.

  “Tara?” Matt asked.

  Tara’s hands and face were cut up from the blast. Her skin was red from the heat of the explosion and small bits of sand stuck to blood as it leeched from her skin.

  “Yeah…yeah, I’m good,” she huffed out. “My face hurts and my hands—” She looked at the back of her hands. “My hands burn.”

  “Sorry, I tossed that grenade, thinking—”

  Tara cut him off with a wave of her hand. “It’s fine. It saved me. I’d be one of them had you not. Actually, I’d probably be dead.”

  She managed a smile. She wasn’t mad. Scared, yes. She would have done the same.

  Steve walked over to console her, but she put both of her hands up to stop him. “It’s fine…really.” This was not the time to be empathetic. She was one of them, not some wimp who needed warm hugs and attention because she’d gotten hurt. She was a warrior and preferred to be treated as such.

  “What’s not fine is that most of our gear is down there,” Tara continued.

  She pointed to the caves where she and Steve had been resting. The hungry groans of the horde still resonated through the night air.

  “Yeah, bro, we don’t have our packs, just our rifles and vests,” Steve added. “That horde got on us quick. We barely had time to grab our vests. It happened so fast. One second, we were resting. The next, they were on us…couldn’t hear them approach until it was too late.”

  Matt was surprised none of them had heard the horde earlier in the night. For them to get hit so suddenly, so hard and fast, shocked him. It wasn’t uncommon to be surprised by a few stragglers or even a small horde, but one so big was absurd.

  “I should have set up watch. My complacency almost got us killed. It won’t happen again,” Matt said.

  “Any one of us should have suggested it, brother, but we didn’t. It’s not on you. It’s on us,” Steve said.

  Matt smiled. He appreciated the understanding but the reality was, he was their team leader. It was his responsibility to keep them safe, and he’d failed them.

  “No way we can get any of your gear?” Matt asked.

  “Nope. Mine’s in my cave, but to get to it would require me going back the way we came and that, brother, won’t be happening,” Steve said.

  “Tara?”

  “Same.”

  “All right, not much we can do about that now,” Matt said.

  “I knew this trip was too quiet,” Steve added.

  Matt thought back to when Steve had decided it was a good time to announce the trip had been so quiet. It didn’t seem to matter who said it or when. But it never failed that the moment someone opened their mouth to mention something, something always happened. Instead of chastising Steve, Matt decided it was best to let the past be the past and move forward. They needed to get back to the survivors.

  “I’ve got enough supplies to get us back home if we move fast,” Matt said.

  “What home?” Tara asked. “We don’t have a home anymore.”

  She made a good point. They didn’t have a home, but there were people who depended on them to return.

  “You’re right, Tara. We don’t. So let’s get back to Greg and Jody and the others, so we can figure out what we’ll be doing next. We’ll stop in Julian to rest.”

  Steve looked back over the horde and saw them en masse for the first time. His previous vantage point kept him focused on the immediate issues, like not dying. And what he saw was far worse than he’d realized while engaged in the fight. Dust had settled in a large, singular cloud overhead as the myriad of withered shuffled and shambled around looking for their lost prey. He turned away. Tara stood next to him. The adrenaline of the fight must have worn off, because she had tears in her eyes and streaks running down her face.

  Steve and Tara had grown up together in Camp Oliver, both without families of their own. They’d seen friends come and go from their home. They’d both lost friends to sickness, to accidents, and to the many ailments that presented themselves in the wastelands. And this wasn’t their first fight with withered zombies. But this was the first time Steve had ever seen Tara so visibly shaken.

  She won’t admit the pain she feels inside. She’ll never admit it. It’s just not her.

  His heart ached for her. Everything about the trip was wrong. He hated it. He reached out and grabbed her hand as it trembled ever so slightly. It was more for him than her. He needed to feel her right then. She looked at him and bit her lip, then pulled away.

  When they arrived at the old apple town of Julian a little over a day later, they collapsed onto the cracked asphalt road that ran straight through the center of town. It was like some magical force pushed them over. Their bodies were fatigued from continuous movement and withdrawals from the adrenaline dump of the withered attack. They hadn’t stopped. They hadn’t slept. They’d just kept moving.

  With each attempt to stand, Tara’s legs buckled and sent her back down. She rolled onto her back and groaned. Her body trembled from malnourishment. The cuts on her hand and face were still fresh, but fortunately weren’t infected. They needed to rest. They needed to eat and drink water. And now that they were in the safe haven of Julian, they could rest—they didn’t have a choice.

  Julian had once been a flourishing tourist community, tucked neatly on the outskirts of San Diego County. It had been home to the best apple pies in all of California. Families would walk down the short strip of Main Street, coming and going from appl
e pie shops and mom-and-pop restaurants, and stay in quaint little bed-and-breakfasts. Now, it was nothing more than an abandoned town that provided temporary refuge for Matt and his team before and after missions. No more apple pie and cider. No more homemade biscuits and gravy. No more room service.

  There on Main Street where Highway 79 and 78 came to a T, they lay broken and beaten, unable to stand, unable to walk, barely able to crawl.

  What she wouldn’t have given for a bed and breakfast, Tara thought as they all began to drift off and succumb to weakness.

  Howls and laughs from a pack of feeding coyotes shot them all back to reality. It sounded like a horde ready to consume them. A quick look around confirmed it was no horde, just hungry coyotes somewhere off in the distance.

  Matt sat up with a pained grunt. His body popped and cracked as he situated himself on the hard pavement road. He shifted and stretched as his muscles protested. He could taste the stank of bad breath as he wiggled his tongue around his mouth.

  “Water, we need water,” he croaked.

  Steve and Tara began to come alive, moving about much the same way as Matt. Tara rubbed her face with her hands and used her fingers to wipe the crust from her eyes.

  “I need to clean my cuts before they get infected,” she said in a raspy voice.

  Matt watched as she tried to spit but couldn’t. Thick strings of spittle clung to her cracked lips.

  Steve could barely open his eyes as he sat up drunkenly next to her.

  “The spring behind the post office. We can use that,” he said as he rubbed his throat. “I can go. Matt, give me your bladder.”

  “No, I need to go to. I need to clean these cuts,” Tara insisted.

  Matt stood, then reached down to help Steve up. “We all go.”

  Steve took his hand and stood, then helped Tara to her feet. Her legs buckled at first but eventually steadied. The first few steps were forced. But eventually, his feet numbed as he headed off toward the spring. His body dragged along as best as it could. Had anyone been alive to see them, they would have thought they looked like a pack of zombies roaming lifelessly through the streets.