First Activation

“I think I know exactly where you mean. We drove past that house a few times when visiting Linda’s parents and always talked about living there. It was our dream place.”

“What’s it like for us?” I asked.

“Great, it’s big, surrounded by a large garden, and it’s just off the main route. I think we should go there and not the farm.”

“How far is it from here?”

“About seventy miles, not far,” Bernie replied.

“Okay, it sounds good. We can take a car from Queens Boulevard and drive directly there.”

“Guys, I know the way there, nearly the entire route is on highways,” Bernie said, sounding more enthusiastic about leaving the apartment.

“I still think we should go to the farm. It’s going to be better for supplies,” Lea replied.

“We don’t know that. Besides, we’re leaving today for Orange County and the farm will be close by, at least give Bernie a choice of location,” I said.

“Yeah, give Bernie the choice. He’s agreed to come along,” Jack added.

“Fine,” Lea said rolling her eyes. Bernie smiled.

“Right, let’s get ready,” Jack replied.

I checked my weapon, put yesterday’s shopping in my backpack and moved towards the door, “Come on then, there’s no point hanging around.”

Once we left the apartment and started heading towards Queens Boulevard, I knew we had made the right decision. The air was thick with the stench of death. It would only get worse in the more heavily populated areas. Most corpses were now three days old. I looked at one whose skin was beginning to become discoloured; the body looked unnaturally swollen in the morning sun. The city would be unbearable in another two days.

Once on the road and heading away from Manhattan, we approached a right hand drive SUV that had pulled to the side of the road. Two people were sprawled outside the passenger door. One with gouges in his face and neck, surrounded by a pool of congealed blood. The other, with blood all over his hands had vicious red-scarred flesh around his mouth and a can of lighter fluid near his hand.

Jack found the keys on the ground next to the driver’s feet. The ignition key was crusted in blood and had a piece of twisted flesh hanging off it. He used the driver’s sweater to wipe the key clean and started the vehicle’s engine. It rolled over smoothly and the dashboard indicated that the fuel tank was three quarters full. Bernie drove again, I took the other front seat, Jack and Lea jumped into the back.

I surveyed the scene on the opposite side of the road as we turned on to the Long Island Expressway, this was new territory, but it had a similar feel to Queens Boulevard. Some cars had been used as weapons, others had pulled over, and corpses were spread in and amongst them. I stared at a man with a shredded face, his upper torso was hanging through a car windshield and a hawk was sitting on his head. Bernie brought the SUV to an abrupt, screeching, halt, causing the hawk to fly away and I felt myself strain against the seat belt.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking for signs of danger.

Jack poked his head between the front seats, “What is it, Bernie?”

“Guys, look down there to the right, there’s two men standing outside Aldi.”

“I can see them, they’re carrying shotguns.” Lea pointed from the back seat.

I looked down to the right of the vehicle and saw the two men staring over at us. They were about seventy yards away in front of the store entrance. Around thirty corpses were piled in the middle of the car park close by. The shotguns were pointed in our direction.

“What shall we do? Do you reckon they’re like us?” Bernie asked.

“At this range, they could still be dangerous, I have a feeling that if there are two just standing on guard, then others will be close by,” Jack said.

“I don’t know. Remember that man on the bridge I told you about? He killed two people and ran away. There are other bad people out here,” Lea replied.

Lea’s earlier revelation suggested that not everyone had been affected in the same way. We thought we had the pattern worked out, kill-suicide, perhaps there was another trend we were yet to discover. The one common theme was the need to kill, but the men below weren’t showing any signs of this.

“I’m going to get out and call over to them; we should at least give them a chance,” I said.

“I’m coming with you; it will show them there are two of us,” Jack replied.

“Are you sure about this guys?” Bernie said.

“Let’s go,” I said, and detached my seatbelt. Jack did the same.

I exited the SUV and walked to the side of the road, Jack joined me. We were in an elevated position above the two men, whose shotguns were still aimed in our direction. I heard the noise of electric windows being lowered behind us.

“Lower your weapons, we don’t mean you any harm,” I shouted over.

“There’s four of us here, we’re not trying to kill anyone,” Jack added.

One man lowered his weapon, and I felt a rush of excitement. He said something to the other man, and then walked towards us, holding out the shotgun to one side in his right hand.