Mark Clodi - Discovery

The three of them filed out, leaving the bodies in the basement where they were. In a little over three hours they had the town filled with the first zombies that led the Denver horde. Red finished up putting the last undead he could squeeze into a barn and locking them in and then went to find Nita and Hugh. He could sense where other zombies were with relative ease, the more intelligent a zombie was the shorter the range of his ability to sense them. Nita and Hugh only knew where Red was when he wanted them to know. Concentrating he found that the two were over near the main exit to the town from interstate eighty. A few minutes later he approached a bemused Hugh and Nita standing by a red cargo van on the shoulder of the road.

“What is so funny?”

Hugh hooked a thumb in Nita's direction, “Her.”

Turning to Nita, Red asked, “What?”

“Don't you feel them?” she asked him, pointing at the van.

“You didn't!” then Red concentrated on the van and found that it was crammed full of slightly moving undead. Quickly counting he came up with thirty one zombies, “A new record!” Red walked around to the front of the van where the bodies were pressed up against the windshield and wiggling. “I think this van is larger than the last one.”

“That's what I said!”

“It is not! Look it is the same model and everything, but there was one difference.” Nita said.

“What?” the men asked at the same time.

“No bench seat in back. I got the extra three where the bench seat was. So does it count?”

Slowly Red nodded, “Why sure. I mean it is your game if you think it counts, then it does.”

Nita nodded, “I guess, but I wanted to see if you thought it was cheating because there wasn't a seat in back.” The three of them left the slightly bouncing van behind them as they walked back onto the highway.

“No, I think it is good. Hugh?”

“I think it counts. Thirty one, no kids. Why do you like cramming zombies into cars anyway?”

Nita shrugged as they moved along, “I don't know, it is something to do. I could get into the Guinness book of records with it, if we bring that back.”

Red laughed, “Always thinking ahead Nita!”

“Yeah, of course, why shouldn't I? Now if I could just lose this momma fat….”

The men groaned and trudged through the warm afternoon.

The smoke was pouring from the town up ahead, not from one place but from several different spots. Max handed the binoculars back to Stewart.

“Yep it is burning up ahead. Tom that is North Platte?”

“Yes. It looks like the first fire is at the Wal Mart on the north side of the highway and the other one is at a hotel to the south of it.”

Stewart nodded while taking a closer look. “So which way do we have to go to get to your parent's farm?”

“North. Through town would be easiest. Either that or we head back about fifteen miles. There is only the one bridge here, or we could go past it and go up through the industrial park by the golf course….”

Stewart lowered her binoculars and turned to Tom, “It is your call, the Wal Mart is probably burning, but I don't see anyone or anything moving around up there. How far north of town do you live?”

“Oh not far at all, just out of town turn right and then take the third left. The farm is at the end of that road. Just north and east of town.”

“Do we need anything from the town?” Stewart asked all of them.

“No. We have enough food to get through the night. But we better get moving if we want to be bedded down before sunset. I don't want to be poking around a farm in the dark.” said Max, then he hastily added, “I mean, if your parents aren't there Tom.”

It was close to sunset now, with the harsh heat of the mid afternoon finally fading. They group was down to two vehicles again, Stewart's Denver Police Cruiser and Max's minivan. The wrecker had started overheating a couple of hours ago and Max had concluded there must have been two sets of gears in the vehicle and he had been running the truck in the 'low' gear range. The engine got so hot they had decided to dump the truck and stick to the vehicles they were used to. They had not had to move any wrecks off the road since the morning, which made the decision easier and they left all but one of the diesel fuel cans with the truck as well, which freed up a little more room in the two vehicles they did have.

Tom and Stewart got into the cruiser while Max and Amelia hopped into the van. Seth, Nick and Riley were in the back of the cruiser and the rest of the kids were in the minivan. Opening the van door Max sat down into the middle of an argument between Cory and Kenny.

“You have to keep your shoes on!” Kenny insisted.

“No! Leave me alone!”

“Put them on! That is a rule! You have to wear shoes!”

“What is going on guys?” Max asked sliding the van into gear as Amelia hopped into the passenger seat.

“He won't wear his shoes Max!” Kenny said.

“I don't have to!” Cory yelled back.

“Kenny? What have I told you about that?”

“Uh, but he is in the car. In the car you have to wear your shoes.”

“Kenny didn't you ever go over to a friend's house?”

“One time I did, yeah, I didn't like it. They didn't play right.”

“So things were different at their house than at your house?”

“Yeah and I didn't like it. They messed up the rules.”

“That is what I mean here, in our van the rules are different. There are not any rules about keeping your shoes on.”

“But Max he is barefoot! He doesn't even have socks on! When you go out of the house you have to have shoes and socks on. Always!”

“What about if you go swimming?”

Kenny laughed, “No! Not then. I got to go swimming once, they had a sprinkler, it was inside over the pool and water would fall down on you. I didn't wear shoes then.”

“So sometimes you didn't have shoes on when you were outside the house.”

“I always had shoes on in the car. Always.”

“Well in our car you can wear shoes or go barefoot or just wear socks, those are the rules.”

“Okay. But if you have shoes on you have to wear socks. And if you are barefoot you have to keep your slippers on.”

“No, no Kenny. You don't in our car, you can wear any combination of shoes, socks, bare feet, flip-flops or sandals or even boots if you want to. It is completely up to each person. Okay? So please leave Cory alone.”

Kenny seemed to sulk, then asked, “Could I go ride with Policeman Stewart?”

“No!” Max and Amelia said at the same time. They pair of them had long ago given up on telling him that Stewart was a nickname and that she was a police woman.

They settled back and Max pulled out after Stewart, who was proceeding down the interstate slowly. Jessica and Erin were sitting in the middle seat, with the boys in the third row. The girls were coloring pictures when Jessica wrinkled her nose and said, “Phew! Who farted?”

Erin said, “Eeew!” and a moment later Max and Amelia were hit with a stench rolling in from the back seat, where Kenny sat with a happy smile on his face. Cory was studiously not looking at any of them, remaining focused on a hand held video game.

“Alright, boys who did it?” asked Amelia rolling down her window. Max rolled his down as well and turned the air conditioning on 'max'.

“Did what?” asked Kenny.

“Made the smell!”

“Farted!” said Jessica, leaning forward to breath in the smoke tinged air from behind Max.

“Not me.” said Kenny.

“Me either.” Cory replied, “It's him.” he said pointing his finger at Kenny.

“Uh-uh!”

“Is so! He took off his shoes and the smell came out!”