Zombie Exodus Novel, Chapter 6 - Uncle Lou (Patreon)

Uncle Lou sped off the on-ramp and veered past the wreckage of an over-turned truck. In his rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of a man climbing out of the driver’s side window, but even at a distance, Uncle Lou knew the man had turned. Most people he saw now were turned. As the ranks of the living dead grew in the city, the uninfected masses fled outward, and they were becoming infected or dying and resurrecting as the undead. Professor Larkin’s words were true—we’ve lost. Civilization was ending and the new breed of man was devolved into mindless shells of their former selves made only to spread disease and to consume.

Uncle Lou wondered how he had stayed alive. He defied the odds: in his fifties, overweight, sluggish. He had all the trappings of a sedentary life. Even on his lunch truck, he spent most of the day sitting on a bench by the grill and fryer and left the running around to his wife or workers. Besides cooking, his only real skill in life was figuring out ways to use the least amount of effort for common chores and tasks. He sliced whole tomatoes with a gizmo Ron Popeil sold him late one night through an infomercial. He drove his truck an extra five miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays to the one gas station with a friendly attendant who would pump diesel gas. To stock the truck with produce, he signed up for free delivery from a local farmer who was gracious enough to carry it on the truck. As the apocalypse rolled on, Uncle Lou realized the danger was ever magnified for someone who could not outrun a zombie or outfight a bandit. Until now, he had at least out-lucked them.

He had stuck to back roads and hit route 73, lesser-known and lesser-travelled than the interstates and freeways. They were a mess of dead people and dead cars, mostly filled with the swelling population of zombies. On his police scanner, he heard the military used route 73 for travel and so he reasoned they would keep it clear of hazards and the living dead.

A sheet of gray stretched across the sky, and a few drops hit the windshield. Uncle Lou drove the car around a bend past mile-marker 249 and saw a series of barricades stretched across the road a half mile away. Trucks lined up end-to-end, blocking all four lanes to the metal guard rails, beyond which on the right stood a dense forest and the left a deep plain of grass and weeds, littered with the broken carcasses of small cars. Several soldiers stood behind the blockades, all armed with rifles and had the dress of military but wore mismatched uniforms or camouflage jackets with blue jeans. One wore a copper-painted helmet with a blue star that reminded Uncle Lou of World War II memorabilia he saw on an episode of Pawn Kings. One truck appeared as an Army food supply vehicle, while the other was unmarked and white with graffiti sprawled near the rear bumper. 

As Uncle Lou’s car approached the blockade, a soldier broke off from the pack, tossed a smoking cigarette across the guard rail, and waved both arms overhead in a signal to stop. Thunder crackled overhead, and rain came in a sudden downpour, coating the windshield, and cutting visibility. Uncle Lou took his foot off the gas and coasted. The hairs on the back of his neck poked up, and his stomach churned like a washing machine. Everything felt wrong, but Marie was somewhere on the other side of this roadblock. His car slowed but kept enough speed over the slick road. Another soldier, tall and lean with a high-powered rifle and scope, aimed toward the car. A shot ripped off the hood, and Uncle Lou heard a pop in his right ear which warbled sound like it was filling with water. 

“Oh god, oh god,” he yelled and felt the side of his head. No blood ran out. I’m not hit. He opened his mouth wide until his jaw click and some sound came back.

The first soldier yelled and waved with his rifle, and now that Uncle Lou drew closer, he saw the man wore a ski mask and goggles like a reject from a Mad Max film. The soldier next him was equally animated but pointed to the tree line of the forest, from which a row of shambling figures arose with a deep bellow that stretched over the highway over the roar of the car motor. They marched in a line like Civil War gunmen but toppled over the guard rail as they approached the blockade and became simple targets for the false soldiers.

Uncle Lou saw his opportunity and jammed his foot to the gas pedal. His sedan lurched forward, and the masked gunmen turned down his rifle. Three quick shots struck the hood of the car but sounded little more than hard plops of rain. The car sped toward the barricades, and at three-hundred feet from impact, Uncle Lou realized his tiny vehicle would be demolished when it hit either truck and in the process kill him. Not much of a plan, Uncle Lou thought as another second lapsed and another seventy-five feet closer to devastation. A shot fired, this time cracking the windshield. A hole formed dead-center and rippled spider webs through the glass. Uncle Lou pressed the pedal to the floorboard, and the car jerked over the rain-slick road. He did not want to die, had no desire to leave the world in a glorious last charge, nor did he expect a sudden miracle from the heavens to carry him over the blockade. He knew no other way than straight to Marie and his children. Up ahead, the lead soldier ran along the wooden barricades and drew the attention of his group, and all four scattered away. One dove under the white truck, another vaulted over the guard rail into the corpses of the infected forest zombies killed minutes ago, and the other danced about in indecisive folly, second-guessing their own actions.

Hail Mary, full of grace, recited Uncle Lou under his breath and gunned toward the center of the two barricades. The Lord is with thee…

And then he saw it—a break in the guard rail, maybe the width of two car lengths, leading to the high-grass field. In that moment, he spun the wheel, and the car veered sideways. It hydro-planed through a puddle and shot a wave six-foot high, and fishtailed in one smooth arc. Uncle Lou’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and he felt weightless in the drift and not in control of the car’s motion, but as it peeked at the outer edge of the turn, the wheels caught the asphalt and sped through the narrow rail opening like a cannonball. The car bounced in the transfer from road to grass, and he corkscrewed the wheel in the opposite direction. His large body slammed into the driver’s side door, and the car rocked. The right-side wheels left the ground, but Uncle Lou steadied the vehicle. It flopped down and picked up speed around the side of the Army truck. Shots burst around the car like fireworks. The air smell dank from the rain, and lightning touched the horizon far in the distance, but Uncle Lou brought the car back on the road and left the blockade far behind before the bandits could make chase.