“We just need to find a different kind of antibiotic. It’s not like I’m a pharmacist or something.” Yue interrupted. She was in a state of extreme frustration. She’d done everything she could think of to do for their dad and he still wasn’t doing better. Based on how his wounds looked today he was starting to do a lot worse.
“I’m not saying to start picking out my coffin just yet. I’m saying that you will not risk your lives to try and save mine. I want the three of you focused on each other. You’re going to have to do things to survive. I want you to do them with a clear conscience. At the end of the day all that really matters is the three of you surviving. Just keep going north until you find somewhere you can live your lives.” Bart said. A little dramatically to Yue’s ear. LeBron and Drew seemed to be eating it up though.
“You’re not dying. You’re going to rest in the back seat and suck down medicine until you’re good to go. Now shut up and go to sleep. No more talk. You’re depressing me.” Yue finished talking giving Bart a kiss on his forehead to show she loved him. Bart was already fast asleep. She hoped he’d at least heard her little speech before he closed his eyes to rest. His forehead felt like it was on fire to Yue’s lips when she kissed it.
In the last lingering rays of light, they all got out to stretch and relieve themselves. Drew walked over to the truck when he was done and rubbed his hands over the side of it. Yue saw him and asked what he was doing.
“Come check this crap out.” Drew said in an awed sounding voice.
LeBron and Yue had been on the opposite side of the truck. They walked over and stared in awe at what Drew had noticed. There were some pretty massive dents in the side of the Expedition that hadn’t been there before.
“Are those from the surgers?” LeBron asked.
“I don’t remember pissing off any water buffalo at the drive thru safari today.” Drew responded.
“You’ve been waiting to say that ever since you saw these dents, haven’t you?” Yue asked. She meant it as a joke, but it came out flat. The size of those dents meant the surgers were even stronger than they’d thought.
“I guess that explains the crawlerz being able to beat their way through the wall and right into our bathroom hideout.” LeBron said seriously.
Touching the dents and feeling how deep they were was sobering for all of them. If they’d gotten cornered or not been able to drive away as quickly as they had they’d probably already be dead. It brought home to them in a big way that they needed to avoid populated areas. Yue climbed in the truck after LeBron thinking to herself that the selection of the baseball field had been an excellent choice. She couldn’t even imagine driving through a city like Leesburg at night with those things running around hunting them.
Drew took first watch. They left the engine running but had the air on very low to try and conserve gas. None of them were sure if that actually helped or not but they figured they should at least try. It wasn’t like they could go to the local gas station and get a fill-up. If they wanted gas or groceries or anything else, they’d be digging through people’s houses rather than through the mostly ripped apart husks of grocery stores and gas stations.
In the woods across the field from where they were camped for the night several piles of leaves began shifting around as the sun descended further from the sky. The crawlerz who’d tunneled into the leaves had been running through the woods earlier chasing vague sounds they’d heard on the wind. When they’d sensed the sun coming up the pack of five had quickly buried themselves in the mud and muck to keep the light from piercing their brains with it’s painful images.
They stood in the woods now attracted to another sound. The sound of an engine running somewhere nearby. They meandered around for a minute getting a fix on the sound. Once one of them figured it out they all sprinted out of the woods towards the Expedition on the other side of the baseball diamond. They ran unnaturally fast without making a sound. Their blood lust lending them the energy needed to virtually fly across the field to attack.
Chapter 21: Death by the Dashboard Lights
Drew was staring out the front window of the truck mechanically loading bullets into extra rifle magazines when he thought he saw something in the side mirror on the passenger side. He leaned over to get a better look right as LeBron managed to roll onto his finger and wake up moaning in pain.
“You ok?” Drew asked shifting back into the driver’s seat. He glanced back to see LeBron waving his hand around in the air like that was going to somehow help with the pain. Yue had been pretty stingy with the pain pills for LeBron. She’d kept him on high strength Tylenol. Drew was thinking they should let him pop a Demerol if it’d shut him up. He was going to give away their location if he kept hurting himself and yelling like that.
“Yeah I’m great man. I’m going to take a quick whiz since I’m up. Probably get attacked by a raccoon and it’ll bite my stupid finger.” LeBron said.
“If a raccoon bites something while you’re outside taking a whiz you better hope it’s your finger.” Drew joked as LeBron pulled up on his door handle. The overhead dome light popped on when the door opened. Drew was wondering how to turn that off when the back window shattered.
LeBron immediately tried
