Mark Clodi - Discovery

The glass sweeping was done and Tom had both tires changed after that. They left the other rims and tires by the side of the road, stacked up, one on the other. Tom didn't know how to operate the machines to take the bad tires off the rims and the machines required electricity to work anyway. Tom had mentioned that he had seen a video on youtube about how to re-inflate and reseat a tire using gasoline, but Max and Stewart were not ready to try that yet, not until they absolutely needed to.

Tom backed the cruiser up to just below the crest of the hill and Nick climbed in and waited with him, rolling the back window down and sitting facing backward with his rifle ready. Down below, near the van Amelia had the girls leaning with their rifles out too, though they were pointed in a more skywards direction.

Stewart and Max again found themselves crouched near the crest of the hill. “Should we try to unhook the car or just get in, start it up and go like hell?” asked Max.

“I'll get the truck, you ambush anyone who comes after me, but lets have a look see again to make sure nothing has changed.” Stewart and Max exchanged weapons, giving her the shotgun and him the comparatively longer ranged hunting rifle.

Both of them moved forward again in a half crouch, staying low in the ditch between the two ribbons of highway. They could not see anything. Ducking lower Max looked under the cars as best he could, looking for legs and feet of people who might be hiding under the vehicles. He didn't see anything. Looking at Stewart, she shook her head at him and then proceeded to move forward towards the object of their desire. Max went prone, with his gun pointed towards the vehicle. Stewart ran in a half crouch towards it and made it to the door. She swung it open, pointed her gun inside and hopped in when nothing jumped out at her. Sensing movement off to one side Max turning his head slightly, but not his gun, he saw a fast zombie rushing to get around to the back passenger corner of the wrecking truck. Some slower zombies were moving along behind it, there were also some of moderate speed in the pack as well. The zombies had stayed out of sight in the pile of vehicles in the middle of the two roads, it was not the first time they had run into this type of ambush.

The slow zombies were not Max's problem. He put his eye back down to sight along the rifle barrel. The fastest zombie was good, using cover as best he could to keep from being seen by Stewart, who probably only suspected he was there. However it was obvious he did not see Max and was making no attempt to hide from him. The zombie Max was watching may very well have been 'Paul' of the A-1 towing service, he was dressed in black work boots, not for show either Max could see them under the vehicles as the thing moved from place to place. Those boots had uncounted stories on them, one for every scuff, scrape and scar marring their surface. Paul's jeans, when Max could see them looked to be stained black over their natural faded blue color, probably it was blood. The man looked too young to own his own business, but if his business only consisted of towing, maybe he was the owner. The super zombie's blond hair was clipped short and he had a tan line across his forehead, as if he were used to wearing a hat. Paul's eyes were almost black, like he had been in a serious fist fight and lost. Max had not seen any bruising of that sort on a super zombie before, it wasn't just around his eyes either, his eyes themselves looked like black pupils. Reasoning with it was probably not out of the question, but bullets were simpler.

Paul's head popped up between the wrecker and the vehicle it was towing, right where Max suspected it would. He let his breath out and pulled the trigger. Even three days ago he would not have made the shot, it was eighty yards or so in low wind conditions and a human head is a small target. However Max had been getting a lot of practice in the last few days and the back of the very surprised zombie's head blew a small mist of red into the afternoon air. Turning sideways, but very slowly Max trained his rifle on who he thought was the second fastest zombie. The almost intelligent ones were looking for the shooter, they didn't have him spotted yet and that hindered their ability to take cover. Max shot another one before they pinpointed his location. They took cover from him at precisely the wrong moment, leaving their slower walking kin still advancing on the wrecker. It was the wrong moment because Stewart had hopped out of the wrecker to make sure the super zombie was dead. This put her parallel to the other zombies, and provided them with no cover from her. Three quick shotgun blasts rang out, then a fourth one. Max got up and was running forward, pausing only to knock off one of the slow zombies before it reached the back of the car attached to the wrecker. In a few minutes all the zombies were down again, permanently.

Max grinned at Stewart, while still keeping watch beyond her.

“That went better than expected.” he said.

“We are getting good, let's just not get cocky. You reloaded?”

“Yep, like you taught me.”

“Good. Do you think that is all of them?”

“I don't have any tingly sensations that make me think we are being watched, if that is what you mean.”

“I don't either and it was. I think we either got them all or scared any other super zeds off.” Although Stewart was half joking about the tingling sensations, they had all seemed to notice that their senses seemed extra sharp. Stewart chalked it up to the way they had to live these days, that they were all getting back to their more raw, brutal instincts. Max was not so sure, he thought the experience was shaping them into fighters and survivors, but something else seemed to be going on as well. Max had been shot, grazed really, about a week ago and the wound was almost fully healed. It seemed unnatural. Tom, for instance, had felt sure his arm or collarbone had been broken back at the MAC Co. building where they worked. Yet he had discarded his sling last night after only having it on for six days. He said he felt fine. Max knew better than to talk to Stewart about it, she didn't like to think about the changes that they had gone through and talking about it, meant thinking about it.

Trisha was back. Bill was relieved when she pulled in after being gone for over four hours. He wanted to be mad, in fact he approached the car angry, then stopped and checked his emotions, she was back with John and that is all that mattered. The car was filled to the brim with goods, in fact it was riding pretty low on its chassis, making Bill wonder just what did she buy?

“Howdy.” Bill said without any fanfare when Trisha finally shut off the car in the garage.

“You mad? You are aren't you?”

She always could read him. Bill sighed heavily, “Let's just say I was growing concerned. Cable is down, the regular stations are broadcasting news of some fighting going on in Nebraska and even in Kansas City. You two weren't back and with the cell phones out…I was concerned.”

“We had guns. You knew we would be safe.”

Bill wanted to point out that other people had guns too, but eighteen years of marriage had taught him that pointing out every flaw, every problem with every statement, only led to more arguing. Besides, he was not mad, he told himself again. Instead he said, “Holy Christ on a crutch, did you leave anything in the store?”

“Not much.” Trisha admitted sheepishly.

“Any money left?”

“Well, I kept the receipts in case we need to send the kids to college after all. I still have about twelve hundred.”

Bill didn't know precisely how much was in the 'college' fund, it was Trisha's idea to hold back some money for the kids education and she had an uncanny ability to know when Bill had any extra money. For years now she had hit him up for every ten, twenty or even more that he had in his wallet and vanquished it to the mysterious 'college fund' she kept for the kids. He thought it had to be around ten thousand dollars. Some people would have been worried about having that much money in the house, but Bill wasn't, if Trisha hid the money so well he couldn't find it, and he had looked, then he was pretty sure it was not going to walk out the door with their television if a burglar came calling.