Ken nodded, 'It can't hurt.'
'Are you really Muslim?'
'Are you really an atheist?'
'Touche Mohammad. Let's leave religion alone, okay? I won't kick you in the ass when you are on the prayer mat three times a day and you won't issue any Fatwas against my ass? Agreed?'
Ken laughed and said, 'Agreed. I am not a very good Muslim.'
'That's okay; I'm not a very good atheist.' This prompted a general round of laughter from the car.
They traveled about ten miles west before coming across 'Mark's Motorcycles', it was on the right in a good location with a decent sized cross street, the windows of the show room had been smashed in, but there were still motorcycles inside and the building was long and low, promising more out of site. It looked like the place sold on and off road motorcycles and that they could get what they needed from them on the way back. There were more zombies shuffling around this part of town, no doubt the group from Doraville was out of the area controlled by the other group of zombies.
Everything still went smoothly until they got up to highway seven, both lanes of traffic were jammed with wrecks. Highway thirty two was squeezed under another highway and between the rail road on one side and the embankment on the other there was no room to pass the jammed together vehicles. The wrecks had burned too, the tires and even paint were burned off all of the vehicles leaving only skeletal sheet metal frames. Moving the vehicles would take time. The truck drivers had pulled to one side of the road to discuss what to do.
'Go up the on ramp to highway seven there and then cross the median and take the off ramp down on the other side of this mess.' said Bob.
'Sure we can get by that way, but what about bringing the buses back?' countered Steve. 'Maybe spending a few hours clearing this would save us six hours with the buses coming back. I don't think they would make it across a grassy median.'
'What if there are guardrails?' asked Dora.
Both men laughed at that, 'No problem, we brought the torches with us.' said Bob.
'No, that is what I mean, why bother going through the median if there isn't an emergency crossing somewhere close, just go up, find a spot where the roads are close and cut through the guardrails.' said Dora patiently.
The men shut up and then Steve nodded, 'Yeah, that would work. And would only take us a half an hour.'
'See? You keep me around for a reason, let's go up onto seven Bob and see what is there, with luck we won't have to do anything but drive.'
They drove their vehicles back to the on ramp and their luck held, there was an emergency turn around about a quarter of a mile down highway 7. Bob guided them through the median and headed back to highway thirty two, where there were a couple of parked cars in his way across the road. These were arranged end to end across the road, put there on purpose and were just a little too narrow to navigate through. Cautiously the boy named Seth hopped out of the truck and approached them, he got down on his stomach and looked for feet behind the vehicles, then tip toed to the first car and peered inside. He sprang back as a zombie hit the inside window hard enough to crack it. A greasy black stain was left on the inside window as the thing backed off and then slammed the glass again. Seth looked back at the truck and then pointed behind them.
Dora looked in the side mirror and saw a line of undead shambling up over the embankment on the western side of the highway. 'Shit, horde alert people!'
Ken turned his head and looked at the oncoming mob. 'See any fast ones?'
A gunshot rang out and they all craned their heads around to see Seth put a second shot into the zombie in the car blocking the way. He checked the car out, then reached in and released the emergency brake after a couple of seconds.
The black pickup gently moved against the front side of the car and started pushing forward. Seth ran around the back of the truck climbed into the bed on top of the gas cans, aiming his pistol at the oncoming mob. Ken lowered his window, as did Jane in the back seat, both aimed their weapons at the mob, but did not fire. At the front of the line the black truck had pushed the car around until it was at an angle facing the way they wanted to go, then it reversed into a slow zombie and re-aligned to bump the back of the car, as it started forward a faster zombie ran up and jumped into the bed of the pickup. Seth was ready for it and fired point blank towards the zombie's head. His shot hit it in the lower jaw and passed through the thing's neck, not slowing it in the least. It landed on the boy and continued to roll sideways carrying him out of the pickup and to the pavement below. Seth fell hard and his pistol skidded away, stopping under the slowly rolling car in front of them. As he watched the car's tire rolled up against his gun and stopped, wedging it under the tire.
The zombie lowered its head to Seth's throat, but was not able to bite him, the damage to its lower jaw was not healed yet. Seth screamed and put his hand against the thing's neck and pushed it backwards, even with this leverage he was only able to move the zombie back an inch or so. The zombie started pushing forward against the boy's arm moving closer and closer, Seth watched as the jaw mended itself together and started opening and closing. Screaming incoherently Seth struggled with the zombie as its teeth clamped down on one side of his neck. It had barely torn a hole in his flesh when a gunshot rang out and it jerked sideways from a clean head shot, the noise was deafening. Steven kicked the body off of Seth and gave the boy a hand up. The truck Seth had been in was still moving forward slowly, apparently unaware that it had lost the passenger in the bed.
'You okay?' Steve asked.
Seth put his hand to his neck and pulled it away, bright red blood glistened on his palm. 'Oh fuck, he got me!'
Steve pushed the boy's head over to one side and looked at the bite mark. Behind him the people from his truck were shooting zombies with their shotguns, up ahead the lead truck's brake lights came on and it started backing up. Taking a rag out of his pocket Steve dabbed at Seth's wound and said, 'I think you are okay, it looks like he just tore it, and didn't get it infected.'
'But you don't know for sure!'
'No, I don't know for sure. Give it two days. Dora's suburban pulled up beside them, she rolled down the driver's side window and asked, 'He get bit?'
'It tore the skin, we don't know what will happen yet.'
Dora looked into the car, frantically trying to find something, she came up with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and tossed it to Steve, who liberally dosed Seth with the liquid. By the time he was done, Dora had bandages to hand to him. When Steve finished binding the wound the other truck had backed up far enough for Bob to ask if Seth was alright.
'No thanks to you, yeah.' Dora replied, 'What the hell was that, driving off and leaving him there?'
'I didn't see him get hit, I was trying to get the road clear and saw him in the rear view after Steve hopped out to help.'
'Well he got tagged by the zed. We are not sure if it is infected or not yet. You need to keep a better eye on him.'
'Yeah, yeah. Sure Dora, you think I wanted him bit? Why are you so upset about this?'
'Because we have a human shortage and this kid is important, he is going to be riding one of the motorcycles, right?'
'Well, yeah, that is why we brought him.'
'But if we can't even get a motorcycle without him getting killed, how likely do you think the rest of the board is going to be to let him and others his age ride as scouts? They will point at this and say, 'See? The juniors shouldn't be used for this sort of thing', then I will have to fight to use him, and we need him Bob. We really need him.'
Shaking his head in agreement, 'You're right, you're always right. I'm sorry, I should've paid better attention to where Seth was.'
Dora stared at him a moment, as if trying to see if he was just placating her or sincere. Finally she gave him a curt nod and Bob let out a sigh of relief, 'Can we get out of here now?' behind the suburban more zombies were falling to shotguns, but the crowd of them was growing faster than they could be killed.
'Yeah, let's get the buses and get back.' Dora answered. Seth hopped back into the lead vehicle and the
