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Eric and Mark just stood there,
looking around. The scene before them stunned them into absolute
silence. It was straight out of any zombie movie they had ever seen.
Nothing in life had ever prepared them for something like this. Movies
are a fantasy of someone’s imagination, not reality. They exchanged a
shocked look. Finally, they were able to take a breath. Many a night
they had sat up, discussing what the end of the world would be like.
They
tried very hard to be reasonable and practical about their expectations
of what it could be. They both had come to the conclusion that they
would have plenty of time to get to the retreat. People would not react
as fast as they would. People would not understand what the event,
whatever it was, meant. With everyone being confused about whatever had
happened, they figured they would be able to get safely away before the
realization of the situation became apparent. At the first sign of
trouble, they would head straight there. They would get the retreat
secured and that would be that.
And now here they were, days
later, looking at the zombie movie scene. They both thought of what they
had been through to get to this point. All the things that had happened
and all the horrible things that they had seen went through their minds
like a slide show. The future looked mighty dim. They were still a long
way from the retreat. Mark hadn’t said anything to Eric, but he was
really worried about their ammo situation. After their very first
firefight, they were down by twenty-five. He had one hundred and three
bullets left for the 30-30, and Eric had sixty-seven shotgun shells left
for his 12 gauge.
They were going to have to
avoid people and shootouts as much as possible. Not that they were
looking for any situations like that, but now it was a top priority to
avoid them at all costs. Well, not at the cost of their lives, but just
about anything else. If they ran out of ammo, they would be dead meat,
literally, no question about it. This scene proved it beyond a shadow of
a doubt. There were some people walking around in a daze. A lot of them
were just staring straight ahead. Most didn’t even notice Mark and Eric
at all. They just looked right through them. It was down right creepy.
No one spoke. They just stared at nothing. It was like these people were
dolls or mannequins or something not alive. It sent a chill up their
spines. Bonfires and cars were burning. Up ahead, they could hear some
yelling and screaming by a large bonfire.
They stayed about five paces
apart. They staggered apart to make themselves harder targets to hit.
They were disciplined and had practiced this many times. They stayed in
the shadows as much as possible, trying to avoid getting to close to
anyone. No telling how people would react when they encountered them.
They had already witnessed many scenes straight from hell. This was a
very uncertain world now.
Eric was in the lead when he stopped
abruptly and looked at the overpass ahead. His spidey
senses were tingling. He smiled, thinking of a moment in the Spiderman
movie. What he felt was kind of like that. He had learned years ago to
listen to his senses, but he had learned to pay special attention to
this kind of a danger tingle. He moved over to the ditch and used hand
signals to Mark to indicate what he was doing. When Mark reached him,
they both bent down, looking all around.
Mark
asked, “What’s up?”
“Not sure. But something doesn’t
feel right.” Eric looked around for a minute. “We |
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Reality Bites Book
