Joseph Talluto - White Flag of the Dead

“You all ready?” Nate said gruffly, always getting to the point. His breath came out in a thick mist.

“Pretty much, just need to get people in the vehicles and rolling.” I replied, checking my gear and clothing. I was grateful for the heavy clothing as the wind tried its best to find every way in to freeze me.

“You know you’re leaving me the two biggest problems I never want to deal with.” Nate said cryptically.

I knew what he was talking about. Kevin Pierce and Frank Stearns had taken up residence as roommates, and one could only guess at the depth of their conspiring. More than once I had regretted not letting the zombies kill Pierce and Stearns, but I wasn’t one for outright murder. I shrugged. “Can’t be helped. I can’t take them with, as they are nothing but leeches, but I may offer you a solution.”

Nate was all ears. I explained about how Frank seemed to be calculating when he learned what was in his pack, and I suggested that Nate send Frank and Kevin out on long-range recon. “Chances are, they will think they are being clever, especially if you and others ride them pretty hard here at home.” I said.

Nate seemed to consider it. “What about Pierce’s boy?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not a factor. He knows his dad abandoned him and his mother, and wants nothing to do with him. He’ll be glad his dad is gone. In all honesty, the way the boy has taken to training, I’d say he was looking to take dad out at some point.”

Nate snorted. “Can’t argue with that. That kid fights like he’s possessed. More than once Carl has complained of bruises and cuts from that little guy.”

“Just keep him focused and try to get him to forget about revenge. He’ll only get killed.” I warned, placing a second handgun in the door basket on the CR-V.

“Got it. By the way, I got something for you, if you want it.” Nate reached into his rucksack and pulled out a radio. “I found these in that old guy’s house we checked out last week. The batteries are good, and the range is supposed to be fifteen miles.”

I looked over the radio. It looked like a Motorola on steroids. I tucked it into the center console. “Thanks, man. I was wondering how we were going to communicate. Hopefully it will work.”

Nate held out his hand. “See you in the spring, Chief. Take care of my little buddy.”

I shook Nate’s hand. “You got it. Remember the plan. Push out the fence at every opportunity, and take out the houses one at a time. If the zombies freeze, hunt them out and kill as many as you can. With any luck, you’ll be at the river before I will.”

That was essential to the plan. Nate was to push out West as far as he dared, and I was going to make my big push in the North. The idea was to expand our bases as much as possible, clearing as much territory of zombies as possible. We wanted to have rivers as our borders, and it could be done, but in order to contain the contagion, we were going to have to implement a burning policy. Any homes not made at least half of brick were to be burned to the ground. There weren’t enough people left to occupy them, and they were going to decay anyway. Removing the homes gave the land back to nature, which would provide us with food and materials we needed to rebuild. A pipe dream, but it was all I had. Homes were to be stripped of anything useful, but if they were filled with infected, they were to be burned immediately. Rivers were to be our highways, since most of the highways were choked with cars we couldn’t get out of the way. We were lucky with the route to Joslin, but I doubted the way North would be clear. We would have to see.

I went to the condos and stopped at the second floor one. They were a family that was watching Jake for me while I was getting ready. I found him playing with a small set of cars, laughing as he knocked them together. He smiled as he saw me and offered me one of the cars.

“You ready to go, little guy?” I asked Jake as I picked him up. He smiled again and tried to eat the car. I snared his coat and thanked Mrs. Bose for watching him and headed out to the vehicle. Charlie was there, and the other vehicles were filling up as well. I buckled Jakey into his car seat and he squeaked when he saw his traveling companion would be his beloved baby sitter, Kristen. She smiled at him and made peek-a-boo motions, which made him laugh.

I waved at the other cars and the drivers waved back, indicating they were ready. I jumped into the driver’s seat and headed out, waving at the people who had come out to see us leave. Everyone smiled and waved, except for two of them. Frank and Kevin were standing together near the gate, and they just glared at me as I drove past. I decided to stop the car and address the issue.

“So long Frank. I’ll see you in the spring.” I said.

“Good bye, Talon. Its been a slice.” said Frank, snickering. Kevin giggled as well.

“Nate’s in charge, Frank.” I said, enjoying the look on his face. “I told him to keep order here any way he saw fit. Sucks to be you.” I figured helping the cause a little wouldn’t hurt.

Kevin and Frank didn’t reply, they just turned away and I could see Nate glowering at them in my mirror. Let the games begin, I thought. I motioned to the gatekeeper, and he signaled the watchtower, who gave him a thumbs-up. The gate swung open, and we drove through, heading towards the interstate and hopefully a new home.

We drove out and I reflected on the past few months. Sometimes I joked with Tommy that had I known the world was going to end up like this, I would have just shot myself and saved myself the trouble. But I was never one to give up that quickly. Besides, I found myself thinking less and less about what life was like before and found myself looking forward to the challenges that faced me now. Gone were the tedious duties of school administration, gone were the meetings and parent phone calls and the conferences. We have been driven to the brink of destruction. The only question remaining was “Will you die today or tomorrow?” I thought about the rest of the world. I had no idea what had become of the government, the rest of the country, the rest of the world. For all I knew, we were the last.

We moved quickly down I-80 and I took the exit to I-355. I was taking a long detour, but the hope was to reach our destination quickly by avoiding population centers. The last time we moved through a town, a thousand ghouls followed us. I wasn’t keen on a repeat.

We moved north and slowly came to a halt. The road was jammed with cars, running about a mile back from the toll booths. So much for the Open-Road Tolling concept. I looked left for a way around as Charlie looked right. He shook his head at me at the same time I shook my head at him. We would have to go back. There was no way to get through, and we could see many of the cars were occupied. It would be suicide to try and move through that mess. Maybe if I had an interstate snow plow, but not a mini-SUV.

We turned around and headed back down the on-ramp and back onto the west-bound lane of I-80. It still felt weird driving on the left side of the road, even though I knew no traffic was headed my way. I got back onto LaGrange road and headed north. Oh, well. Nothing is ever easy. Charlie had Kristen pass up his rifle, and he stuck it out the window to signal to the cars behind us that it was time to be ready. We were moving into potential hostile territory, and we needed to be prepared.

On my right was a subdivision, and we could already see dozens of zombies moving in between the houses. Many of the homes were burned out-husks, and many had windows broken in or doors torn from their hinges. I could see smoke coming from a few homes that were still smoldering. This neighborhood had been hit hard. I doubted anyone was alive in there. Nearly every home had a mailbox with a white flag on it. It made sense. Lots of these people commuted to the city where they likely picked up the virus. We moved by as quickly as we could, but we were running into some traffic that we had to go around. I angled onto the shoulder, and managed to avoid some of the worst snarls. But I couldn’t avoid them all. A big SUV was jammed on the shoulder, and I couldn’t go any further unless I moved the stupid thing. I parked the SUV and got out, Charlie coming with me. Jakey was sleeping, so I told Kristen to get in the driver’s seat to be ready to move if needed.