“No,” the girl said, shaking her head. “I shot him but he knocked me over and crawled into the bathroom. I can’t get in.”
Big Mack sighed, weighing his options. Killing Bobby now would be best in the long run, but it seemed there were a lot of people in this caravan who were loyal to a fault to the man. He had taken them in when everyone else roving the country was intent on murder and pilfering. Big Mack raised his gun, pointing it at the teen girl. It never crossed her mind to lift her own gun, she just looked at Big Mack stupidly.
“What are you doing? Help me get him,”
“I’m sorry kid, I really am,” Big Mack said before squeezing the trigger, his bullet catching the girl in the forehead, throwing her back against the bathroom door. Big Mack stepped forward and knocked calmly on the bathroom door. “She’s gone,” he said.
There was a sharp click and the door was unlocked and then swung inward. Bobby stood naked, clutching his stomach where he had been shot, his blood running red and hot through his fingers, falling to splatter on the tiles of the bathroom floor. “That little bitch,” Bobby said, looking down at the girl’s corpse.”
“You need a doctor,” Big Mack said simply before turning and heading back to the front door.
“Big Mack,” Bobby called, stumbling forward to sit on the end of the bed. Big Mack didn’t answer but he paused in the doorway, turning his head slightly to show he was listening.
“Thank you,” Bobby said.
Big Mack shrugged his shoulders and walked outside. The whole caravan was up and out on the path that ran in front of the motel’s doors. “Bobby needs a doctor or the closest thing you people got,” Big Mack called before disappearing back into his own room, followed by Toga and Willy.
Later in the day, with the sun already starting it’s decent and spraying the sky with deep oranges the caravan gathered in the parking lot. The teen girl’s father was in the center of the group, with Bobby himself standing beside the man. Big Mack thought perhaps Bobby was going to send the man away, force him out to try his luck alone, but Bobby instead pulled a gun from his waist line and blew the man’s head off. The crowd cheered and Big Mack knew he had made the right choice. These people were Bobby’s through and through.
They stayed one more night in the motel but left early the next day. Bobby seemed intent on getting to Covington quickly, and Big Mack wondered aloud to Toga and Willy while they rode if this caravan didn’t have much in the way of a doctor and Bobby was hedging his bets that those gathering in the sea side town would. Still the going was slow with the caravan, and Big Mack thought more than once about simply driving past everyone else while they stopped to move another mess of cars from their path, but something told him he didn’t want Bobby mad at him. Like it or not he was Bobby’s guy, at least until he could get his ass on a ship and away from this nightmare.
The sky was dark and the stars were twinkling brightly by the time Big Mack could smell the sea. It was salty and sharp, the kind of smell you can taste on the tip of your tongue. Twenty minutes after being able to smell it, Big Mack could see it. The caravan pulled off the highway, running up a steep exit ramp, and when the road turned downwards they could see Covington, Florida and the ocean beyond. At night the ocean was a black mass of rolling darkness, with lines of white as the bubbling surf crashed into the beach.
Big Mack had known people would be gathering in Covington, but he was unprepared to see just how many had made it there. The town was alive and buzzing, even at this late hour. Huge walls had been constructed to block off what appeared to be six or so blocks to Big Mack. As he neared the walls he realized they were a melded mess of metal. There were buses, cars, giant sheets of scrap metal, and much more, and someone with a rifle stood on top of the wall at ten foot intervals. The ships weren’t expected to be leaving for another two weeks at least, so those who had gathered here first had gotten busy securing the place.
Even though the ships weren’t scheduled to leave for a while yet, there was already a mess of them in the water, some moored to the docks, some floating a ways off the coast. These ships were mostly smaller, privately owned pleasure boats, but there was one barge, massive and floating a mile off shore.
As the caravan made its way to the wall they passed a number of zombies, no doubt drawn to the massive amount of people in one place, but they passed even more corpses that had been put down and left to rot in the streets. Big Mack maneuvered to the front of the line, cruising slowly next to Bobby’s truck as they finally reached the wall and came to a stop in front of what was obviously a gate. The gate looked to be made of semi truck grills melted and welded together, and two men stood just inside them. They swung the gates open slightly to allow a third man to step out, but Big Mack wouldn’t have even been able to get his bike through the gap. The man walked towards Bobby’s truck, stepping between his window and Big Mack on his bike. He looked at them both, twisting his head, as if deciding who was in charge. Bobby answered his question by rolling down the window.
“We have some things to go over before you all can go in,” The man said in a surprisingly low voice.
“Can’t we
