After 30 Days

Twenty-Nine - Day 56

This chapter is dedicated to one of the kindest souls I've ever met. Many people will miss you, lady. Rest easy.

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We had a flat tire, or rather, a going flat tire. On the highway. Near a city. Before, the few zombies that were nearby didn't seem like so much of a problem. But in our current situation, there were way more zombies out there than anyone was comfortable with.

I looked up front at the dash again. I would have had no clue what that ominous little symbol meant. But the suv couldn't have cared less about my ignorance. The light was still lit.

"We must have punctured a tire trying to get around all of the crap all over the road back there," Bill muttered to himself, looking anxiously at the light.

"What do we do now? I don't think stopping to change a tire is going to work here," Maya asked.

She was right. A few badly decomposed zombies were shuffling along the highway at the speed of a turtle. They wouldn't be too much trouble, but the real problem was the zombie following that had started to grow behind us. As we had gotten closer to a once populated area, the zombie numbers had grown, and they had been attracted to our vehicles as we drove by. I knew what I would see through the back window without having to actually turn my head and look.

Still far enough behind us to not be a real threat, they would close the distance quickly if we stopped moving.

"We're going to have to keep going and hope the tire holds out long enough to find a better place to change it," Bill said quietly. "You'd better radio the truck and tell them what's going on."

She raised the radio in her hand, "Marcus, Sam, we have a bit of a situation back here."

There was a long pause before their reply came through.

"Yeah? What's the problem Maya?"

"We have a flat."

"Well," the tone of the voice made me grind my teeth. "That's inconvenient."

I looked over at Shawn, "Why do we have to have these two with us again?" My lack of patience for the pair was making me short tempered.

Everyone chose to ignore my completely sarcastic remark. After a long pause, the radio crackled to life again.

"How bad is it? Can you keep going for a while?"

"I think we're going to have to," Maya sent back.

"Alright. We'll start looking for a safe place to stop."

The city was looming now. Our path on the highway rose slightly above it and gave a bird's eye view of the destruction below. The streets were empty and desolate, nothing but abandoned cars and trash blowing in the wind. As we drove further, we found a pocket of zombies crowded into an intersection, milling around. All it took was for a few of them to notice us up on the highway and the whole terrible mass of them surged in our direction.

There was no clear path for them to reach us up on the road. The steep incline and uneven terrain would slow all but the most nimble zombie down. They weren't going to be an immediate problem. That didn't stop them from looking insanely creepy though, flowing along down there like some sort of demented river of the damned.

The highway was littered with dead cars and growing numbers of zombies. Being this close to what had been a populated city came with obvious risks. It was the whole reason we had stayed on abandoned back roads that wound their way from one tiny town to another on our meandering trip south. It took a lot longer to get anywhere, but we figured that it had to be much safer.

Zombies now bounced off of the front and sides of the suv, but thankfully not in numbers large enough to bog us down.

An expectant silence had settled over us and I was pretty sure we all simultaneously noticed when the suv developed a shudder. I glanced at Shawn. He was looking behind us, a worried frown tugging the corners of his mouth.

The flat was getting worse. I had no idea just how far a vehicle could go once the tire was completely flat. Could you just drive along indefinitely on the rim if you didn't care about ruining it?

The answer seemed to be yes. Or, maybe, for now. But our speed slowed to a crawl. The truck got far enough ahead of us that I thought, for a second, that the two guys were going to just keep going and leave us behind. Their taillights lit up finally, and we crept along until we were just behind them again.

A few faster zombies had caught up with us, and they kept pace, blasting screams that had everyone's already frayed nerves ready to snap.

Bill muttered a curse as he wrestled with the steering wheel, trying to guide the suv around yet another part of the highway that was littered with trash. The big vehicle shuddered and the flat tire rhythmically thumped along the asphalt. The zombie who had taken a liking to the window nearest my face kept pace with us easily, clawing at the glass. The already dirty surface was only getting filthier as pink tinged saliva flew every time the zombie shrieked.

That feeling of claustrophobia that had nearly brought on a panic attack earlier was back.

It felt like a small lifetime, but in reality was less than an hour, before we had wound our way past the bulk of the city. The suv had been limping along, struggling to keep going on an increasingly mutilated rim, and everyone inside had stayed silent. Listening intently to the strange sound the flat tire was making against the road.

The zombies scratching at the outside of the vehicle insured that the stink of death never abated the entire time. But a new smell began to permeate the air inside the suv.

It smelled like something foul burning.

I realized what the smell must mean a split second before Shawn said quietly, "The tire is on fire."

I'd been staring nearly trancelike at the zombie outside my window for a while, not wanting to take my eyes off of that threat, and had completely missed the black smoke that had begun to leave a faint trail from the opposite side of the suv. I saw it now.

Almost hysterically, the thought flashed through my mind that I had the answer to my earlier question. No, you could not drive around indefinitely on a flat tire. Eventually, the thing would have more than it could take, and fiery death would follow.

"We have to get out of here now," Maya sounded exactly like I felt, like she was barely keeping it together. She raised the radio. "Hey, we've gone as far as we can back here. We're going to need some help."

The response was immediate. "We haven't found a safe place to stop yet."

"It's to late for that. We're on fire!"

The smoke trail had thickened into a black plume that was impossible to miss. When the radio crackled back to life next, I thought I caught the tail end of an impressive curse word, then, "There's a lot of zombies around both of these cars. Getting from yours to ours isn't going to be easy."

The statement didn't seem to warrant an answer and Maya kept quiet.

After a second Marcus said, "Alright. We will circle back to you. Be ready, when we get close enough, you all hurry up and get in the back. There isn't enough room up here in the cab for you."

The zombie nearest my face chose that moment to pound the window and press it's snarling face up to the glass. Rex couldn't contain himself any more and began to growl menacingly. Embarrassingly, I yelped and scooted further from the window.

Dubiously, I eyed the zombie, then the cloud of black filling the air behind us. I wasn't sure what was safer, staying inside a burning car, or getting out with the small crowd of too fresh zombies that had gathered.