8/5 p1

This is it. Final stretch now. We make it or die in the next blocks.

We spent last night exhausted on top of the office building roof. Got about four hours of sleep before the sun rose. It burned my eyes and woke me to the aching of my shoulder, nearly torn out of it’s socket. My eyes burned in their sockets, dry and painful. Not that anyone else was better off.

“Goddamn that crossbow. Goddamn that ladder. Goddamn them moaners. Goddamn.” Dave muttered, in between pained grunts. The wound of his arm had bled through the bandage last night, dark brown caking the is rumpled green army jacket.

James groaned like a dying dog. “Dreamt I went to exams in my underwear. Then in the middle of explaining to the proctor, in exacting detail, why I’d done such a thing, he turned dead and chased me out the room. Guess my blasted nightmares can’t keep up.”

The old man grunted. “Jimmy, could you doctor up my arm over again?”

While James complained about how “Jimmy just isn’t my name, I insist you stop calling me that,” I tended to our breakfast. Turns out that my near brush with gravity had been more than near for much of our food. We still have clam chowder, dehydrated mashed potatoes and more Spam. Not bad, really, but not great.

Dave and James, still complaining about his grievous nickname, go for the clam chowder, which leaves me with spam and half a bottle of water.

Not as bad as it sounds when you’re hungry.

Sporting a new bandage, the old man gets moving again. Amazing how unshakable that man is.

“Here’s it all. Got six more blocks. Got my scattergun, lost half the shells. Chow supply’s nixed. I’m only half a man with this taped up. Jim, you got that splitter still?”

By way of answer, James raised the smooth wood handle of his ax.

“And Mike, your bat still thumps like new.”

I nod.

“We still got Molly’s and flares, but down here we’d be dialing the reaper to use ‘em. Too much that’ll burn, no control. Aint an option. And we still have those six damn blocks.”

We turn to our vantage point then. This area’s business of various sorts. Travel bureau’s close by, then some mixed offices and shops. A car dealership to the right of the street takes up two blocks, which ends off about where the waste treatment plant starts.

And of course, the moaners. They stand and sit throughout the streets, vacant and empty. More part of the burned up landscape than anything else. Many meander aimlessly, shuffling left and right with slow, unexcited steps.

James shakes his head. “How do you propose we make our way through them? Doesn’t seem that they take kindly to our presence.”

We mull that. Goners are bad news, worst part being when they see you. Then their rotten greeting tells everyone around them about you, and they mob you. That’s when it gets desperate. So, the smart thing is to keep them from seeing you. In this situation, that gives us only one option.

James doesn’t like it. “I understand your point, Mike. You’re quite right. However, the problem is that just as much as they don’t see us, we wouldn’t see them. Electricity is on the fritz around here, in case you haven’t noticed. Going through the buildings guarantees we find unpleasant surprises in the closet”

I lose it a little here. Quietly, but with real heat, I say “Damnit! I know. James, I don’t want to die. We’ve scraped by the skin of our teeth too many times. Luck’s not on our side every damn time. This. Is suicide. And I don’t like suicide, because that involves me dying. We don’t even know if your sister’s alive. We don’t know if we can even get inside the damn building fence. All I know is that there are way more dead and gone then us. I’m only along for this ride because you’re the only damn living people who haven’t shot at me. That’s as far as it goes between you and I. So stop trying to get me fucking killed.”

For all I can tell James wants to snap back, the old man gets in first. He’s surprised. Guess he didn’t know that I’m not a fan. “Shit, son. That’s the only reason you’re here? Can’t wait to get outta the bush?”

I nod.

The aging vet sighs. Then he looks to James. “Not the time to argue. Mikey here’s on the dime about getting in. We can’t get them locals riled up, so we got to sneak in all quiet. If we want to succeed, this is the only way. No John Wayne, no guns blazing.”

James obviously wants to argue. I think he’s shocked that I haven’t drunk the kool aid over his idiot plan. But he knows he can’t get out of this. We distribute the rest of the goods, all the while discussing the details of our plan. James gets the rest of my meds, I take the bulky molotov cocktails, and Dave’s pack gets the flares and the pittance of food we have.

And that’s it. We’re heading into the throat of the goners. And our only chance at living is to hope they don’t realize.