A bit darker, this one. Enjoy!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7: The Road

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The drive there was one in silence. Most of them were too busy thinking of their loved ones to make conversation. As they drove down the street, destruction could be seen everywhere. Cars that had crashed into signposts or fire hydrants, causing streams of water to shoot up 10 feet into the air. Vandalized buildings and homes simply left abandoned as people dropped everything to get out of dodge.

The lack of people left the road eerily empty. Not a soul could be seen anywhere. Having seen the rampaging horde just a few blocks inwards towards the city, suddenly converging on their position, John shivered at the thought.

Although empty of people, cars seemed to have veered every which way on and off the road, sometimes smashing into other vehicles or running through the walls of buildings.

As John tried to maneuver the car through the road of broken vehicles, a man came running up to them, slamming his hands on the roof of the car to stop it. John hit the brakes hard, causing everyone's heads to whip forward, except Sam's who had forgotten to wear his seatbelt and slammed headfirst into the car seat head support.

"Ouch. What the hell was that." Sam said while rubbing his red nose.

"Please! Stop!" the man moved towards the driver side window and rapped his knuckles against it. The windows were tinted so he couldn't see who was inside.

"Please, my wife and my baby boy, we need to get out of the city. Could you give us a lift."

"Car is full" John's muffled voice could be heard through the door.

"Sir. I'm sure you can fit just two more people. My son is just a year old. I promise, I'll pay you. Anything you want. We can't get out of this city alone." The man pleaded.

The windows rolled down slowly. The man had a look of relief on his face which soon vanished as he was looking down the muzzle of a gun.

"Car is full. Go get your own ride." John said coldly.

"I-I-I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Just calm down. I'll leave. Just-just don't shoot" the man said as he slowly backed away from the car with his hands up. A woman came from behind some rubble with a small boy wrapped up in her arms.

"Honey? What did they say?"

"Let's go. Come on. We have to go." The man took the woman by the arm and quickly left through an alleyway.

John sighed and put the gun down and rolled up the windows, proceeding to drive again.

"Why didn't we give those people a ride?" Jacob asked.

"There's not enough room." John answered.

"We could have squeezed them in." John hesitated before giving Jacob the straight answer.

"They might have been bad people, Jacob."

"But what if they weren't? They had a baby. Parents wouldn't be bad people."

"Yeah well, some are." Sophia said more to herself than to Jacob. John shot her a look but she made no indication that she saw him. "I'm sure they'll find their own way. They're adults, you know. They can fend for themselves." John reasoned. Jacob remained silent after that.

John sighed. Jacob was always soft hearted. He simply could not leave someone alone if he saw them in trouble. John feared for his brother. In the current, rapidly changing world, a soft heart was a weakness that could get break you or kill you. John didn’t want Jacob to be tainted by the world that was growing crueler each passing minute.

They left the road and exited the suburbs, making their way through back roads towards the west of the city, only skirting the edge of the area without ever going in. It would take longer but it was much safer.

The military must have already gone through most of the outskirts, picking up people and killing the infected as there were very few encounters.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As John drove down the road, he saw smoke rising over the crest of the hill before him. Slowing down the car, they reached the top and looked down to see a 14-car crash piled up completely blocking the road.

“Damn.” He whispered. There was simply no way of getting through this way, as either side of the road was bordered by a dense line of trees.

Turning around, he set the car in reverse and attempted to backtrack through another road. But as he twisted his body to see behind him, he cursed. 300 meters behind their car, a large group of infected people were coming towards them. They must have been attracted by the sound of destruction that arose from the crash and explosions. John counted around 30 people.

Some of the infected had similar marks of mutilation adorning their bodies in various places. Others didn’t even have any visible wounds that may have caused the transfer of the infection. Each and every one of the infected had their sights on the untouched Escalade.

How did they know we’re even inside? He wondered. Their windows were tinted and they had not moved in a while. Did they hear us? Or perhaps they just have an excellent sense of smell, John hypothesized.

He simply could not figure out how they had been targeted by that group of infected. Thinking of fighting through that horde, the blood drained from his face as cold sweat appeared on his back and forehead.

“John. In front.” Sophia said hurriedly. John turned his head back to the front to see that through the black smoke and wreckage. Blurry figures could be seen moving towards them.

“Shit. We’re surrounded. You think we can take them?” David asked as he kept an eye on the ones in the back while taking out his gun.

“You’re not really thinking of going out there, are you?” Sam asked.

“Well, it’s either that or die. I’m not quite done living yet, so I guess we are.” John said, also taking out two guns.

“We’ll leave the car and Jacob to you, Sam. Can you do that?” John asked. Sam slowly took out his gun and cocked it.

“Just make sure they don’t get in the car.” John added, seeing Sam’s lingering reluctance.

“No...no I got this. You can count on me.” Sam hurriedly replied. John just nodded in approval.

“Jacob, close your eyes and cover your ears and sit on the floor.” Jacob followed and huddled himself in the leg space between the seats, his hands tightly holding his ears while his eyes were squeezed shut.

He turned to David and Sophia.

“Ready?” He asked them. They replied with a nod.

“Sophia and David, you clear out the back, make a path for the move through. I’ll back the car out while keep the guys up front in check. Ready?” Confirming the two’s resolve, he turned the safety off his gun.

“Let’s go.”

Sophia and David simultaneously opened their doors and stepped out, quickly turning towards the back while raising the pistols in their hands. Moments later, the staccatoed rhythm of gunfire could be heard as one by one, the approaching infected were taken down. Because it was the first time they fired a gun, often, the bullets would fly right by the infected people’s heads or lodge itself in their necks, shoulders, or chests.

As John rolled down the windows on either side of the front seats, he yelled out to the two outside, “make those bullets count! We don’t have all the ammo in the world!”

“Yeah, easier said than done, friend.” David’s shout could be heard as he replied over the gunfire.

John opened his door and half stepped out of the car, propping himself up between the floor of the car and the door, as he hoisted his two pistols towards the dozen or so people walking towards them through the wreckage.

“If any of you aren’t infected, lie down on the ground or you will be shot!” John sent out a warning shout to those coming through the smoke as he could not recognize the distinctive characteristics of the infected through the smoke screen.

Seeing none comply with his warning, he opened fire.

Looking at his right pistol first, he aimed down the iron sights and shot the closest man directly in the head, causing him to fall backwards due to the impact.

He then looked down the sights of his left pistol and did the same with a nearby woman.

Continuously alternating sights between the two, slowly mowed down the line of infected walking towards him.

After a solid 5 minutes of gunfire, the crowd had been reduced to a handful of stragglers who were easily dispatched by the pair outside. The wreckage side had no more infected coming out of the smoke either.

With a sigh they remained stock still,.waiting to see if anything else would come to surprise them. They were only greeted with silence.

Holstering their guns in their pockets after switching back the safety, they returned to the car while John set the car in reverse and backed out of the road.

“Any more, and I would have been a walking dead man. I’m out of ammo.” David exclaimed as he checked his gun’s magazine. John tossed him a full one from his supply and continued driving backwards.

John glanced over and saw that Sophia was silent, simply staring at her gun.

“You alright?” He asked her. She looked up, “Yeah, it’s nothing. I’m fine.” She avoided the question and simply put her gun away and started looking through her bag of supplies.

John decided not to pry. If she didn’t want to talk about what was on her mind, who was he to force it out of her.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As they drove down the road, Jacob had fallen asleep in Sam’s lap, while the others were starting to nod off into the land of dreamless rest. They had had a long day, and the fatigue and mental strain were finally catching up to them.

John struggled to stay awake. He looked over at the sleeping figure of Sophia. Her brown hair cascaded down either side of her head, resting softly on her small shoulders as her chest rose up and down gently. She seemed so peaceful. Any man or woman before everything happened would have never imagined this innocent looking girl could mercilessly shoot dozens of people in the head.

Shaking his head to clear himself of morbid thoughts, he almost didn’t see the infected shuffling by, almost running into them. Suddenly recalling something from earlier that day, he stopped the car.

“Fuck.” He whispered. He unbuckled his seatbelt while the others slowly woke up from their light nap.

“What is it?” David asked.

John didn’t say anything and opened the car door to get out.

“John, what are you doing? What’s wrong?” David persisted to ask.

John had already left the car and were walking towards that small group of infected he had seen earlier. He stopped a good two dozen meters from them and simply stared at them in shock.

The others had already gotten out and walked up next to John.

“John, man what is up wit-. Oh shit.” David was getting annoyed but upon seeing what had stopped John, he exclaimed in surprise.

Jacob, rubbing his eyes, while making his way out of the car, walked up to them sleepily.

“What is it? Are we there, yet?” He asked.

What he saw stopped him in his tracks, dropping the blanket he had been carrying.

In front of them were a pair of infected. They were the ones that had stopped the car back in the city.

“Looks like they made it out, but were infected at some point down the line.” Sophia observed, regret filling her voice.

“John, can we save them? They’re sick. Dad can help them if we bring them, right?” Jacob asked, tugging the lab coat of his older brother. He couldn’t accept the fact that the kind couple from just a few hours earlier could fall to this state.

John didn’t say anything. A dark shadow was cast over his face. He had a mixed expression of guilt, sadness, and regret. Guilt that he had not taken the two in. Sadness that they had not survived. Regret and self-loathing for not doing more for others in their time of need.

Didn’t I want to be a doctor? He thought. Doctors are supposed to help people like them in their time of need, but I- but I just abandoned them. I killed them. I. Killed. Them. He cursed himself internally. Although he had killed before, it was in self defence against people that were already too far gone.

This couple...This couple was still healthy and alive when they had asked for help. There was room in the car, but John just couldn’t take the risk.

He knew what he had to do, the only thing he could do to ease the guilt racking his heart and the suffering he knew that the couple had to have had endured. He pulled out his gun and walked towards them.

“John, no!” Jacob yelled, pulling John’s sleeve as hard as he could, but John would not be stopped, he could not be stopped.

“Please, John! We can save them! We can help them! You don’t have to do this.” Jacob pleaded through a river of tears.

Sam knelt on the ground, praying for forgiveness. David walked away, pacing in circles in an attempt to cool his head.

John turned to look at Jacob with guilt evident in his eyes. He slowly but firmly forced Jacob’s grip off him.

“I have to do this, Jacob. They’re too far gone and it was my fault.” John said.

“You couldn’t have known.” Sophia stepped up, trying to console John.

“No...no but I did. We all knew what waited for them out there but I let them go. This is on me. I’ve got to see it through.” John said, raising his gun towards the infected man. His gun hand was shaking and he couldn’t get a clear shot.

Sighing out of exasperation he lowered the gun, putting it in his other hand while he looked at his right hand, squeezing it tight, digging in so hard that it cut off circulation to his fingers.

He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as a trickle of a tear fell down his cheek. If one listened closely, they could hear him with shaking breath counting: “one...two...three...one...two...three”. But no matter how much he counted, the light would not gather. Try as he might, at that moment he could not make that ball of happiness diffuse. It was like the happiness, the light, had gone and hid itself in the deepest recesses of his mind.

Exasperated, he opened his eyes, putting his gun back in his right hand and walked briskly up to the man, aiming at nearly point black range. There would be no chance at missing.

Jacob made no noise.

Sam looked up from his prayer, staring at John.

David stopped pacing.

Sophia simply continued to look on.

All eyes were on him.

He made the shot.

BANG.

A few seconds later, again.

BANG.

All was quiet after that. Two fresh corpses lie before him, a man and a woman. John lowered his gun arm, loosening his grip so that the gun would drop to the ground.

John looked at the corpses with dead eyes and slowly looked down the road a little further, which was blocked by the couple’s bodies.

What he saw, made him take a step back, tripping over himself and falling on his rear.

He just sat there and pulled his legs towards his body. Covering his face, he started weeping.

The others walked up next to him to see what had caused his current state and they too, began to cry.

Laid before them near the bodies of the couple was a bloodied human infant, headless and gutted lying on the road.