Derek Goodman - The Reanimation of Edward Schuett

Even though their route took them right past Salt Lake City, they didn’t try to go in. Considering the shape the van was in after the accident, they figured that stopping anywhere they didn’t have to might result in a whole lot of unwanted attention. It didn’t seem like it would be much of a problem, considering they thought they were in good shape until they at least got through Wyoming. They had enough fuel to go for a while, and they’d bought enough extra at Zappy’s that, as long as they ate sparingly, they would have enough until the morning. It was still a risk, considering the onboard map said there wouldn’t be any communities on their route after this until they reached Laramie, but Liddie told Edward it was a risk they should take. After all, Salt Lake was a mid-country city with a reputation for taking matters into their own hands, and if they recognized Edward as the Z7 they certainly wouldn’t wait for any official authorities to pick him up.

Neither of them noticed the first problems with the van until they started through the Rocky Mountains. Edward thought he heard the engine cough a little, but the noise didn’t repeat for long enough that he almost started to think it was his imagination. As the roads became steeper the noise occurred more frequently. By the time they had nothing surrounding them but large ledges of rock on one side and steep drops into pine forests on the other, they both knew they were in serious trouble.

They pulled over for a while for Edward to take a look under the hood, but that didn’t do them much good. Edward only had a very basic idea of how to fix a car, just enough that he had been able to keep his family’s car going long enough for payday to roll around so he could get someone else to fix it properly. Even that much knowledge wouldn’t help at all here, though. For starters, the van didn’t have anything in the way of emergency tools except for the spare tire and a jack. Vehicles like this had never been intended to go out this far from civilization, way beyond the motor pool and the CRS’s own mechanics. And even if they did have things to fix it with, Edward wouldn’t know where to start. This thing was fifty years beyond anything he had ever messed around with, and many of the components and gadgets under the hood were completely unrecognizable to him. Liddie couldn’t help out, either. All her expertise had been in administration, with a little bit of knowledge for scientific equipment. This kind of thing had always been done for her. At no time in her life had she even needed to change a flat tire.

Even with so little idea of car mechanics between them, it was obvious to see what had happened. From somewhere under various wires and tubes Edward pulled a putrid green finger, and it looked like there might be other pieces still in there. When they’d smashed the zombie, not all of it had ended up on the road and windshield. Some of it had gone through the front grill or under the severely dented hood. Edward took some time removing everything he could find, but several of the auto parts looked like they had been worn or broken from sharing their already cramped space with rotting body parts.

They briefly debated what to do. There was nothing else they could do but continue along and hope none of the damage was severe enough to strand them before they got to Laramie.

Through most of the Rockies, Edward thought fortune had smiled on them. It wasn’t until they started coming back down again out of the mountains that the simple engine coughs became more like burps, and soon were accompanied by groans and screeches. Liddie winced at every noise.

“How much further do we have until Laramie?” Edward asked when the first barely-noticeable tendril of smoke appeared at the edge of the hood.

“Thirty miles,” Liddie said. “Or at least I think. Whatever’s happening with the hood, I think it’s messing up the computer system, too. The map keeps shifting on the screen.”

Thirty miles. Edward nodded. They could still make that. Even if the van broke down before they made it there, it should still be close enough that they could walk there. Or at least he could walk there. Unfortunately, Liddie might be a different story. The land around them was mountainous with very little else on the landscape except grass and the highway. There weren’t many places she could go for cover if zombies were around, and with night approaching again she might not see them coming. He could try keeping them away, but he still didn’t trust his strange little pheromone ability enough to test her life with it. Even worse, they’d been eating and drinking sparingly all day. That didn’t leave them with a lot of energy to head out for another thirty miles on foot. Edward was pretty certain he could manage if he had to, since the CRS had tested his abilities to continue on for a time without food or water, but again Liddie didn’t have that advantage.

“Just keep going,” Edward said. “Maybe we can still make it.”

In response, the van made a very loud and unhappy thump from under the hood. The smoke immediately got much worse.

“Shit,” Edward said.

“Keep trying to go?” Liddie asked.

“That depends,” Edward said. “Does this model of van have any known tendency to explode?”

“Um, there might have been a recall at one point…”

“No, you know what? It’s probably much better if I don’t know. Looks like this is all she wrote. Pull over.”

Liddie pulled over to the shoulder and killed the ignition. There was a noise like something breaking under the hood. Edward seriously doubted that anything would happen if she tried turning the key again.

“Okay, so now what?” Edward asked.

Liddie stared at the blank monitor on the dashboard where the map had been. “Well, we sure are not going to be getting to Illinois any time soon.”

“And Laramie?” he asked. “Any chance we’ll find a way to continue on from there?”

“I don’t really know,” Liddie said. “It depends if someone has a vehicle we can buy with what little money we have, which I don’t think is likely. And that would only be if the residents are friendly to outsiders.”

“Do you have any reason to believe they wouldn’t be?”

“This is mid-country. No one is friendly to outsiders. But I can’t recall hearing about anything worse than normal from around here. I guess we really won’t know one way or the other until we actually make it there.”

“Do you think they would recognize me there?” Edward asked.

“No more or less reason than anywhere else,” Liddie said. “I don’t know. Is there anything you can do to make yourself look less like you?”

“Nothing more than what I’m already doing,” he said as he rubbed his chin. He hadn’t shaved since the escape from Stanford, but he only barely had any stubble. That was one of the bizarre little details of being a Z7, apparently. Before, he’d been the kind of person who could get five o’clock shadow half an hour after shaving. Now it took days before there was enough hair on his face to bother going over it with a razor.

“Guess it will have to be enough,” Liddie said. “Come on, let’s get going.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” Edward said, gesturing at the sky behind them. The sun was already low over the mountains.

“Maybe not,” she said. “For all we know, if we come in after dark they’ll mistake us for reanimated and aim for our heads. But what are we even going to do until then?”

“We’ve got a little bit of food left,” he said, “but maybe we should leave that until the morning. You know, make sure we’re as full as we can be before the walk. Thirty miles on foot is not exactly going to be easy.”