The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Sixteen - Day 8

Driving on the wrong side of the highway threw me off balance. A lifetime of sticking to the right side of the road ingrained in my mind that doing otherwise was dangerous. As we rolled along the deserted stretch of pavement, I kept expecting to suddenly find myself in a head on collision, despite common sense telling me that wasn't likely to happen anymore.

Over on the other side of the road, the line of stopped cars stretched on. A few zombies emerged from the traffic jam as we drove by. Some car doors stood open as if the occupants had fled in a hurry. But I didn't see anyone who appeared to still be alive.

We drove for more than a mile before finally coming to the reason for the stopped traffic. Military trucks had been parked sideways, blocking the road just past the next exit. Orange cones had attempted to direct traffic down the off ramp, but stubborn drivers had apparently refused to exit, instead backing up traffic in the long lines of cars we had just passed.

Our side of the highway was blessedly open, and we breezed right on by the road block. Further up the road, we were forced back to the correct side of the highway when we found the matching road block for traffic that had been traveling in the opposite direction. The jam of cars on that side seemed significantly smaller, leaving me guessing that more people had been attempting to run away from the city than towards it.

The landscape around us had been changing. More and more of the view through the windows was filling with trees. The tires hummed along the deserted road, the silence eventually wearing on my nerves. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been in a car without playing music. That was one of the things I'd noticed about the end of the world, it was much quieter now.

A car sat abandoned in the middle of the right lane ahead. The driver door stood open. We hadn't passed any parked cars since the roadblock, and this one stood out for that fact. Shawn slowed down as we drove by and I pressed my face to the glass, attempting to pick up any clues about whoever had been inside.

The hot pink steering wheel cover and a small stuffed butterfly hanging from the rearview mirror caught my eye as we drove by. There wasn't a person in sight and I felt a flash of pity for whoever had owned the car. Seemingly, she had been female. And young. I hoped that she wasn't out there alone.

I looked back to the guy on my left. I was grateful to not be on my own. I doubted I would make it very long without someone to watch my back. We all had to sleep sometime. Now that we were out of the relative safety of the office building, we would have to be on guard every second. And it didn't hurt that fate had dropped me in front of someone who had proven capable, with enough decency to team up with a strange woman.

The guys could have chosen to ignore the pitiful looking wreck that tumbled out of the bathroom. Or worse.

Shaking my head to clear those thoughts, I asked, "Are we close?"

"Yeah. If I'm remembering right, we take the next exit. There will be a really small town, and then nothing but mountains."

True to his word, a few minutes later Shawn drove down the off ramp. We slowed down as we entered what appeared to be the main street of the smallest town I'd encountered in my life. I wasn't sure it even qualified as a town. Maybe a village?

On the right, a long, single story brick building squatted in a lot of overgrown weeds. A crumbling area of blacktop led to rusted playground equipment. The sign out front declared it to be an elementary school, but by the looks of the place, it had been out of use for much longer than a week.

To the left, a tiny square building was labeled as the post office. Rusty red smears marred the white paint on the door. Next to the post office was a gas station with only two pumps and an attached diner that looked like the type of place truckers would have frequented. The large pane of glass on the front had been broken.

A few small roads, practically one lane and with no lines, shot off left and right from the main road. We passed a fire station, it's one bay door open and the truck not inside. A few older houses stood next to a trailer court. That was where we spotted the first group of zombies. There were a half a dozen of them, and my stomach clenched as I got my first good look at a small child who had become one of the undead.

She cocked her head and watched our vehicle with the others, then sprinted along behind them as they gave chase, her too short legs not able to keep up.

Turning away from the window, I stared resolutely ahead as Shawn stepped on the gas, leaving the group behind. We were abruptly through the town and the trees closed in around the road. It couldn't have taken more than twenty seconds to drive from end to end, even at a slower speed. He hadn't been kidding when he said it was a really small town.

The road gradually began to incline. Steep, rocky ground rose sharply to our left. The trees were thick and only occasionally broken by cabin like homes perched on the side of the mountain. The ground on the other side of the road fell away into more trees.

We had been driving for a while, and I was sure that it had to be nearly noon, but the trees blocked a lot of the light. It made it seem much later in the day than it actually was. We had traveled miles from that little town when the car finally began to slow again.

"I'm not sure where the turn is," Shawn answered my unasked question when I looked his way.

The first indication that we had finally arrived was the large, wooden sign partially covered by growing trees to the right of the road. Right below the sign, a gravel road wound through the brush and disappeared into the trees. The gravel crunched under the tires when we made the turn.

A bridge that looked less than trustworthy crossed a shallow stream. I held my breath until we crunched onto the gravel on the other side, and looked ahead as we rounded the final turn to our destination.

A low, log building was directly ahead, several small cabins flanking it and fading into the gloomy trees. We had made it to the summer camp.