Lilly in the rear of the cab, and Josh in the front, barely able to stretch his massive body out across the two large bucket seats.
The next day, Josh and Bob get lucky and find an overturned panel van a mile to the west, its rear axle broken but the rest of it intact, its gas tank almost full. They siphon eighteen gallons into three separate containers, and make it back to the Ram before noon. They take off and make their way southeast—crossing another twenty miles of fallow farmland—before stopping for the night under a desolate train trestle, where the wind sings its constant mournful aria through the high-tension wires.
In the darkness of the reeking truck, they argue about whether they should keep moving or find a place to light. They bicker about petty things—sleeping arrangements, rationing, snoring, and stinky feet—and they generally get on each other’s nerves. The floor space inside the camper is less than a hundred square feet, much of it covered with Bob’s cast-off detritus. Scott and Megan sleep like sardines against the back hatch while Bob tosses and turns in his semisober delirium.
They live like this for almost a week, zigzagging in a southwesterly direction, following the tracks of the West Central Georgia Railway, scavenging fuel when they can. Tempers strain to the breaking point. The camper walls close in.
In the dark, the troubling noises behind the trees get closer every night.
* * *
One morning, while Scott and Megan slumber in back, Josh and Lilly sit on the Ram’s front bumper, sharing a thermos of instant coffee in the early-morning light. The wind feels colder, the sky lower—the smell of winter in the air. “Feels like more snow’s coming,” Josh softly observes.
“Where’s Bob gone off to?”
“Says he saw a creek off to the west, not far, took his fishing rod.”
“Did he take the shotgun?”
“Hatchet.”
“I’m worried about him, Josh. He’s shaking all the time now.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“Last night I saw him sucking down a bottle of mouthwash.”
Josh looks at her. Lilly’s injuries have almost completely healed, her eyes clear now for the first time since the beating. Her bruises have all but faded, and she removed the bandages around her ribs the previous afternoon to find that she could walk almost normally without them. But the pain of losing Sarah Bingham still gnaws at her— Josh can see sorrow etched on her sleeping face, late at night. From the front seat, Josh has been watching her sleep. It’s the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He longs to kiss her again but the situation hasn’t warranted such luxuries. “We’ll all be doing a lot better when we find some real food,” Josh says then. “I’m getting mighty tired of cold Chef Boyardee.”
“Water’s getting low, too. And there’s something else I’ve been thinking about that’s not exactly giving me a warm, cozy feeling.”
Josh looks at her. “Which is?”
“What if we run into another swarm? They could push the damn truck over, Josh. You know it as well as I do.”
“All the more reason to keep moving, keep heading south, below the radar.”
“I know, but—”
“More likely to find supplies, we keep moving.”
“I understand that but—”
Lilly stops when she sees the silhouette of a figure way off in the distance, maybe three hundred yards away, up on the train trestle, moving this way, following the tracks. The figure’s long, narrow shadow, outlined in the dust motes of morning sunlight, flickers down through the slatted ties and crossbeams—moving too fast to be a zombie.
“Speak of the devil,” Josh says when he finally recognizes the figure.
The older man approaches, carrying an empty bucket and collapsible fishing rod. He trundles along quickly between the rails, urgency burning on his face. “Hey, y’all!” he calls down breathlessly to them as he reaches the stepladder near the overpass.
“Keep it down, Bob,” Josh cautions him, walking over to the base of the trestle, Lilly at his side.
“Wait’ll you see what I found,” Bob says, descending the ladder.
“Catch a big one, did ya?”
He hops to the ground. He catches his breath, his eyes shimmering with excitement. “No, sir, didn’t even find the goddamn crick.” He manages a gap-toothed grin. “But I did find something better.”
* * *
The Walmart sits at the intersection of two rural highways, a mile north of the train tracks, its tall interstate sign with its trademark blue letters and yellow starburst visible from the elevated trestles along the woods. The closest town is miles away, but these isolated big box stores have proven to be lucrative retail outlets for farming communities, especially ones this close to a major interstate like U.S. 85—the Hogansville exit only seven miles to the west.
“All right … here’s what I’m thinking,” Josh says to the others, after pulling up to the lot entrance, which is partially blocked by an abandoned flatbed truck, its front end wrapped around a sign pole. The cargo—mostly lumber—lies strewn across the wide lanes leading into the vast parking lot, which is littered with wrecks and abandoned vehicles. The massive low-slung superstore in the distance looks deserted but looks can be deceiving. “We check out the lots first, make a few circles, just get the lay of the land.”
“Looks pretty empty, Josh,” Lilly comments as she chews on her thumbnail in the rear berth. For the entire fifteen-minute journey across dusty back roads, Lilly has chewed every available fingernail down to the quick. Now she gnaws on a cuticle.
“Hard to tell just by looking,” Bob pipes in.
“Keep your eyes peeled for walkers or any other movement,” Josh says, putting the truck into gear and slowly bumping over the spilled lumber.
They circle the property twice, paying closest attention to the shadows of loading docks and entranceways. The cars in the lot are all empty, some burned to blackened husks. Most of the store’s glass doors are blown out. A carpet of broken shards glistens in the cold afternoon sun across the front entrance. The store inside is as dark as a coal mine. Nothing moves. Inside the vestibule, a few bodies litter the floor. Whatever happened here happened a while ago.
After his second sweep, Josh pulls up to the front of the store, puts the truck in park, leaves the engine idling, and checks the last three rounds nestled in the cylinder of his .38 police special. “Okay, I don’t want to leave the truck untended,” he says and turns to Bob. “You got how many shells left?”
Bob snaps open the squirrel gun with trembling hands. “One in the breech, one in my pocket.”
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking—”
“I’m going with you,” Lilly says.
“Not without a weapon you aren’t, not until we know it’s safe in there.”
“I’ll grab a shovel from the back,” she says. She glances over her shoulder and sees Megan’s face in the window, owlish and expectant as she cranes her neck to see through the windshield. Lilly looks back at Josh. “You’re gonna need another pair of eyes in there.”
“Never argue with a woman,” Bob mumbles, jacking open the passenger door and stepping out into the windy, raw air of the late-autumn afternoon.
They go around back, open the camper’s rear hatch, and tell Megan and Scott to stay in the cab with the truck idling until the all-clear signal comes; and if they see any trouble, they should blast the horn like crazy. Neither Megan nor Scott puts up much of an argument.
Lilly grabs one of the shovels, and then follows Josh and Bob across the cement threshold of the store’s front facade, the sounds of their footsteps crackling over broken glass drowned by the wind.
Josh forces one of the automatic doors open and they enter the vestibule.
* * *
They see the old man without a head lying on the stained parquet near the entrance in a dried pool of blood —now as black as obsidian—the ragged threads of his viscera blossoming out of his neck. Pinned to the little blue
