I’m wracked with worry at the thought of being that exposed on the freeway, but I agree anyway. If we hit the car jackpot and find one we can drive, we could be in Seattle in a matter of hours. The prospect of that is too attractive to ignore.
So we scamper down an embankment toward the freeway. An access road runs alongside it. It’s close enough to see everything on the freeway, but it’s less exposed than walking right on I-90. The wide-open plains of central Washington have few places to hide.
The cars didn’t seem too far from our vantage on the railroad bridge. But it seems to take forever. What was once a couple of specks on the horizon slowly take shape. As we get closer, it’s clear there was a large pileup.
It’s a real mess. An overturned semitruck stretches across the freeway. Several cars are intertangled in the wreckage.Carsis a generous description. More like twisted masses of steel and glass. The wreck blocks all the westbound lanes from the middle barrier past the shoulder, which is fortunate because quite a few abandoned cars are lined up behind the wreckage.
Walking among the vehicles is a ghastly affair. Many of them have the fully decayed remains of their former owners. I’ve seen enough rotting corpses recently, so I steer clear of these cars and let Aiden inspect them. I take the empty ones.
Of all the cars I check, only two still have keys. And in both cases, the batteries are dead. All the cars are newer models, too, meaning hot-wiring or compression starting them is not an option.
A large smashing sound startles me. Aiden stands by a car with the rear side window freshly missing, holding his rifle backward.
“Warn me before you do that next time! I almost pissed my pants,” I shout with a slight laugh.
“Sorry. Will do.”
Aiden reaches into the broken window, opens the back door, and enters the car. I shudder as he reaches over a figure in the front seat. It’s too much for me, so I avert my eyes. A second later, the door slams shut.
“No luck. Dead battery.”
We finish searching the remaining cars with the same result. This must have happened long ago. Every battery is dead. If we hadn’t lost the battery jump starter, we’d be driving along the freeway at this moment, headed for home.
“Well, I guess we should keep going,” Aiden says. “Let me scout the freeway real quick.” He scales the overturned semi by climbing the undercarriage and hoists himself up to the top.
Through the binoculars, he checks the road. “Well, I don’t see any abandoned cars nearby. Oh, wait. Maybe I see one.”
He reaches out and points. Far off, a glint of metal catches the sun. But then that glint of metal moves.
“Shit! A car is coming this way,” Aiden yells. “Quick, hide!”
At the same instant, something moves in one of the cars Aiden checked. Out of the open door a large man lumbers, clothes tattered, veins bulging. Infected.
He sees Aiden first and starts running toward him.
“Aiden, watch out!”
As I shout, the Infected man turns toward me. He looks at me with those vacant eyes and starts racing my way.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ellensburg
AIDEN
So many terrible things are unfolding at once, like I’m watching a horror movie on fast-forward. The glint of light on the horizon has become two pickup trucks, the sound of their throaty engines faintly audible.
Then Zach cries out, and I turn to see an Infected man heading toward him. I aim my rifle at the Infected, knowing the gunshot will immediately advertise our presence to the trucks. But it doesn’t matter. I have to protect Zach.
I’ve got the man in the sights of my rifle, but then Zach jumps into an empty SUV. The Infected gets there seconds later and pounds his fists on the window, but Zach is safe.
Zach is safe.
I let out a massive sigh of relief.
“Hey, fucker! Over here!” I wave my hands to get the Infected’s attention. He turns quickly and starts my way.
I sprint to the other end of the semi, then jump off. I land hard on the roof of a nearby car, rolling into the fall and smashing my shoulder on the pavement. The impact makes me shout in pain.
