Roderick (1)

I shone my flashlight over the truck and called out, “Hello?” into its empty windows. There was blood on the outside of the door, which made me assume that whoever the driver had been had been pulled out.

No reply.

I grabbed my crowbar and crawled into the driver’s seat. I jimmied open the panel beneath the steering wheel and connected what wires need to be connected in order to hotwire a car. It was my second time ever doing it, so I moved carefully to not trigger the alarm. Once it agreed to work for me, I turned on the radio and listened.

I flipped up and down the spectrum, past radio stations outside of the quarantine, and finally fell upon one that was a recorded broadcast by the government.

Between the static I got a few words.

[…nearest police station…evacuation…]

I took it to mean that we had to escape to a police station. I turned put the car into drive and awkwardly drove off onto the road. I’d never driven a truck before.

I was thinking about an escape. All I’d ever known was running the past few days, running and killing. My crowbar had done more than simply helped me break into cars and hotwire them.

It was while driving past the park ranger’s station that I heard the transistor in the backseat spark to life. I stopped, set it to park, and crawled back to have a look-see. I saw its bright green lettering flashing, something about some station it’d “found”. All I could hear was someone frantically trying to say something, but it was too quiet to make out any words. I fumbled around the knobs and buttons and came across the volume control.

[please help me please oh god] It sounded like a teenage girl, although I wasn’t sure.

I found a microphone, and quickly spoke once I found the button that’d allow it to receive audio. “Hello? Where are you? Maybe I can help?”

[hello?] she said cautiously.

“Hey, where are you?” I asked.

[who is this?] she asked, suddenly sounding skeptical and calm.

“I’m a policeman. My name is Roderick,” I said. It was a small lie. I’d never had any interest in police work, but I considered myself to be a fine individual.

[Roderick you said? how did you find this]

“Back of a pickup truck, why?”

[my father is the only one who knows this frequency], she said, [is he alright?]

“I didn’t see him,” I said, honestly, “I just found the truck and I needed a ride… So…”

There was a moment of silence on the other end. [he told me he was going to find supplies], she said. [please give him his truck back]

“I can help you though,” I said. “I mean there are reasons why he wouldn’t be with his truck. And I saw an awful lot of zombies back there. I don’t think he’s doing so hot right now.” There was silence from the other side, “Listen, I’m trying to get to the police station in ‘Clark. If you’re on the way there I can break you out. I mean, are you surrounded or what?” I considered going back though, even though I’d said I wouldn’t.

[kinda…] she began coughing.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

[yeah. I'm surrounded.]

Wary suddenly, I made a mental note that I would drive past wherever she was. I wouldn’t waste time on someone that might be showing signs of infection. “So… where are you?”

I didn’t hear her response, if there was one, because I heard a shout and turned my head towards the source, to look straight into the barrel of an over-large revolver. “Get out of my truck, mister.” He spoke with a thick southern drawl.

He had a thick mustache perched over trembling lips. His chin quivered too, and it was then I realized that he had never fired the revolver at a living thing before. Or at least, I felt certain he hadn’t. “Listen, buddy, we can coexist right here. I figured the owner of this truck was long dead. Given the smashed windows and blood, ya know. You can have it back,” I said. With that, I slowly grabbed the door handle and gripped the crowbar with my other hand. “We can team right the fuck up.”

“No sir,” he said. He backed up far enough that I wouldn’t be able to smash in his head with the crowbar.

When I opened the door I tossed my crowbar at his feet and then held both hands up. He lowered his gun slightly, although if he pulled the trigger he’d still probably have gotten me in the chest or legs. I stepped aside slowly, “Why not?” I asked. “Your impression of me right now is that I’m a desperate survivor. Hell, I’m desperate enough to believe that you aren’t some cannibal or vampire. What harm could I—”

“Do I look like a vam’per to you?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I said. When he raised his gun again I held by hands out and said, “Just kidding. Chill.”

“No, you’re not jokin’. I’m not gonna kill you though,” he said. “Walk over to the station there. And maybe I won’t injure you.”

“Yes sir,” I said, now feeling quite agitated. He was going to leave me out here. And the zombies were probably going to be closing in at any second. As I stepped back, I said, “You’re the worst sort of asshole, you know that? I’m going to die and you’re going to go on living. I was going to save your daughter, but you’ve wasted enough time here to last two lifetimes. She’s probably succumbed to her infection.”

“How did you know that?” He said. When I grinned (I was so surprised I was right) he pointed the gun at the ground and fired, wasting a perfectly good bullet, “How did you know that?” He repeated.

“I could hear it in her voice, when she hesitated. She sounded a bit hysterically paranoid.” I made great efforts to pronounce every syllable in hysterically paranoid. I figured it would make me sound more intelligent.

“You some kind of doctor?” He asked.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation.

“Do you know a cure?” He asked, his aim wavering.

“We both know there’s no cure,” I said, not wanting to promise something there was no chance of delivering.

“Then get over to that station,” he said, his aim steadying. “And keep your hands in the air until I’m gone.”

I’d really been hoping that I could lie my way into a ride. I was no doctor, but if I could make him believe it, I could get him to let his guard down, smash his head in while he wasn’t looking, and take the truck. “Yes sir,” I said again. I turned and walked away, keeping my hands up. I practically jogged over to it, with the headlights placing the shadow against the wall. I set my hands against their shaded copies and waited. I heard the truck peel away, and the headlights passed.

I was left in the pitch dark of the night. Back to where I started. No ride, a crowbar, and a grenade. My shirt was starting to smell seriously shitty and I was not feeling ready to spend the rest of the night living in terror.

I heard a groan drift down the wind. “Fuck.”

I walked around to the side of the ranger station and found the front door. It was locked, but the crowbar was quite handy in smashing the window, giving me ample opportunity to reach my hand in and flip the lock to its friendliest position. I stepped in and closed it behind me. I saw a bookshelf and quickly flipped it down, and pushed it in front of the door. I walked to the receptionist desk and crawled behind it. I sat down and hoped that the zombies would move on if they couldn’t see me. Yet I could hear them getting closer.

By the number of their growls, moans, and shuffling feet, I knew they were numerous. Too many for my crowbar. I felt the grenade in my pocket, and wondered how it’d feel to pull the pin and wait for it to go off. I’d place it right beside my heart, I thought. I might not even feel a thing.

I could hear them outside the window now, and decided it was too early to give up. I turned around and searched through the shelves in the receptionist’s desk. Papers, pencils, pens, and other things that were completely useless.

Until I reached under the chair and felt the pistol taped there. I ripped it off and by its weight I figured it had a few bullets left in it. If nothing else, it might help me make an escape. I didn’t consider myself to be a marksman by any stretch of the imagination, but if there weren’t a proper swarm of them I knew I wouldn’t need to do much aiming. Just walk up to them until they were about arm’s length away, and then it’d be near impossible to miss.

I stood up, and looked at them. All I could see was their outlines, but they weren’t swaying, or attempting to break in. I wondered if something else had gotten their attention.

I heard the sound of someone running.