Nick hesitated. They guy looked like an asshole, but the guilt he was already feeling for abandoning his mother was gnawing at him from the inside. And out here, stuck on the road, trapped in cars, these people would be in even more danger from roaming packs of the undead. “Hey man.” He splayed his hands out at his sides and took a few steps towards the guy’s car.

“Get your piece of shit off the fuckin’ road!”

Other drivers were starting to honk now, and Nick could feel the heat rising in his scalp at all the attention. “Listen, buddy, you don’t want to be stuck out here when *they* get here.”

“They?” The guy was in his thirties or forties, had close-cropped hair, and maybe a day’s worth of stubble. “The fuck are you talking about?”

Nick looked off towards the distant city with what he hoped was a solemn and portentous expression. “They. Walkers. The risen. That what should not be. The unquiet dead. ” He snapped his gaze to the other driver. “Zombies.”

The guy stared at Nick for a long moment, nose wrinkled, lip curled, before he began rapidly rolling up his driver’s side window.

He didn’t believe him? But he had to. Nick hastened to the side of his car. “I’m serious, mister! It’s a matter of life and death!”

The man was on his phone now, glancing at Nick occasionally. Nervously.

Calling the cops, maybe? Nick didn’t know. He felt a moment of panic before realizing there wasn’t really anything the police could do – not now, with the roads so wound up, and not later, after the dead had devoured what was left of society. Nick couldn’t do anything either – not to save his mom, this guy, or anybody. Maybe not even himself, if he didn’t get a move on. His stomach felt, for a moment, like the elevator he was on had suddenly dropped and then – nothing. He felt nothing. Not fear, not shame, not regret… maybe resignation.

The chorus of honking was growing louder, but it felt distant. Muted.

He couldn’t save the people out here. The truth of what was happening was too fantastic. He couldn’t do anything for them… but maybe spare them a moment’s frustration. He shot the guy a weak thumb’s up then returned to his car, opened the door, released the break, and eased the car off the road.

The guy very carefully avoided looking at Nick as he rolled into the spot he’d left behind.

“Fuck you, buddy,” Nick muttered. “That was probably the most movement you’ll see in the next hour, you should be grateful. I’m glad you’re going to get eaten by the ravenous dead.” Except, he really wasn’t. Not, like, a lot.

He shouldered his pack and started trotting up the shoulder. The crunch of gravel and roadside grass brushing his calves helped center him, returned him to the here and now. Ditching the car had been an impulse that felt like instinct, but it was a five-hundred mile hike to the border, and then another few hundred into Ontario to the cabin. More if he avoided major roads and cities – which, shortly, would be a matter of survival. And he was leaving behind a month’s worth of canned foods boxed up in the trunk.

But maybe there was a closer option. Back when he was a kid, Nick’s dad would take him out to the local forest preserve – Blackwoods, he thought the name was. Maybe a national park, he wasn’t sure. But it was fairly isolated, not too crowded, and – most importantly – not too far. Maybe five or ten miles. He could make that.

It’d be a place to hide out for awhile… not too far, though, so if it turned out he WAS being a dipshit (as was always a possibility) he could laugh the whole thing off as a weekend vacation. Ditching the car would be harder to internalize, but the turn-off was behind him now, and he’d never be able to get back there driving.

But if it was just the weekend… there’d be a lot of abandoned cars. Even if nothing was happening. He might be able to just get back in and drive home Monday, if nothing was up. And even if it was… maybe he’d be able to hike back and get the canned goods out of his trunk at some point.

A more realistic destination in mind, Nick hoisted his backpack and headed back the way he’d come. A ten mile hike. He could handle that, right?

***

He’d gone up the Interstate three or four miles, and it’d been the same the whole way. Cars packed against cars, the occasional wreck… and the occasional commercial corridor of a strip mall or truck stop diner and gas station. Most of them, Nick noted, were empty, unopened, with empty parking lots. Was this it?

Was this how the collapse started, a shut down Denny’s and 76 station in the middle of nowhere? The wrecks were a little more concerning, all the wrecks were on the empty south-bound side. With so little traffic, what’d hit them? Had they swerved? Could a zombie take out a car? And were things so bad that emergency vehicles couldn’t get out to them?

Nick didn’t know. He didn’t want to look too closely – it was a mercy he had three lanes of stalled traffic in the way.

It was a relief when he reached the county route branching off the interstate. He felt less exposed. The scenery was more normal, less a reminder of what was happening. He could just walk without thinking, focused on his increasingly sore feet.

***

Ten miles turned out to be a lot more than Nick thought it was. It wasn’t like he’d never gone hiking before. He had. With his dad, ten or so years ago. Between the ages of eight and twelve they’d head out a few times each summer and the occasional winter to hike, fish, camp, generally bond over wilderness adventures. Of course, that was over a decade ago, when Nick’d been in much better shape, and it’d been about familial bonding and father-son time rather than abandoning society to the hungry jaws of the dead.

Other than that, very familiar. Like the blisters he was getting on his feet. So familiar. He could tell without checking exactly where the blisters were forming and how bad they’d be in the morning.

It was dusk when Nick’s grueling eight-hour hike brought him to the forest preserve, and his aching feet were grateful that he’d had the foresight to wear his sturdy hiking boots around the house for the last few days to start breaking them in. Despite his weariness, despite the pain in his back and legs, despite the encroaching darkness, he was grateful that he’d reached his destination.

For the past few hours he’d been walking down secluded country lanes, using his phone’s remaining charge sparingly to follow the route Google had plotted. He remembered that the campsites had had electrical hookups, but he’d have to get there before he could recharge… and without the phone he’d be hopelessly lost. The woods had been a welcome sight, as sparse as they were before reaching Blackwoods. Plenty of fields, smaller towns that were easy to skirt, isolated farmsteads.

And then he saw it – the sturdy wooden sign proclaiming the entrance to the Blackwoods Nature Preserve. He recognized it even now, unchanged and unchanging, from his youth. He’d made it.

He was, for the moment, safe. Ish.