“Stop showing off and just drop the guy. Dad told us not to try for headshots unless they were close. Also, he’s wearing a helmet genius.” She said.
LeBron muttered something under his breath in reply then dropped the barrel down slightly to sight in on the area around the guys heart instead. The fireman was already running full speed at them again. LeBron focused on his breathing like his dad had showed him and let the sound of the gun firing surprise him. A small red geyser erupted out of the front of the man’s coveralls, but he kept coming. LeBron put a few more bullets into the fireman’s chest.
The man finally collapsed onto the ground. He was still struggling to move his body to get at them until he eventually just lay there without moving in a slowly widening pool of blood. Drew kept the vehicle sitting where he’d stopped for LeBron to shoot. None of them said anything for a minute while LeBron slowly pulled his rifle back into the truck. It was like they’d hit a new level of wanton killing. LeBron was shaking.
“I thought you were going to let him try to punch through the stop sign.” Drew joked from the front seat as he started driving up the ramp past the body of the fireman.
“We went with the not letting it into the car to eat us alive plan instead.” Yue responded rubbing LeBron’s back.
“Alright. Let’s stick with that plan. Where to today kids?” Drew called out jauntily trying to raise everyone’s spirits. He didn’t like the weird place they’d all gone after dropping that guy.
“North.” LeBron said quietly trying to join in on the banter.
Drew nodded. That was definitely still the plan. They’d talked it over during the day with Bart joining in the discussion during those periods of time he was actually awake. They’d continue heading north and hopefully come up with a more detailed plan along the way. Worst case they’d get far enough north that the humidity and heat wouldn’t suck so much before they ran out of gas. They were planning on travelling exclusively during daylight hours. The infected people in the surger phase would get less and less as time went on making daytime the safe time.
The turnpike was deserted other than that one infected fireman they’d killed on the onramp. They drove past a toll plaza and kept on going. Once they passed the toll plaza there was pretty much nothing else to see until they reached the merger with I-75. They’d only been driving on the interstate for a few minutes when they saw a car on the side of the road. Two men were working on changing a tire. There was another car sitting behind that one with a woman and a few kids in it.
Drew slowed down to see if they could help. The men changing the tires stood up and turned around with long guns in their hands. The expressions on their faces made it obvious what’d happen if Drew pulled over. LeBron gave the men a jaunty wave as Drew accelerated past them. That was the kind of world it was now. You looked out for yourself and your family. Everyone else could go to hell. He could get used to that.
Chapter 23: Don’t be a Hero
For whatever reason the interstate was packed in comparison to the turnpike. After passing the people working on changing their tire the traffic picked up to the point where it was almost like a normal day. Albeit a normal day where every car speeding up to pass you had to be considered a threat. Not to mention the random surgers who’d jump out on the road and try to beat their way into the truck. They did get to test out the stop sign idea and it worked. It was a good thing it worked because they needed to do it for another window after driving the interstate gauntlet for less than an hour. The surger who’d smashed that window had almost made it into the front passenger seat. A very freaked out Drew had come close to losing control of the truck. He’d screamed out in surprise while pulling the trigger on his pistol as fast as he could to get rid of the unwanted hitchhiker.
“Do you guys think it’ll be the crawlerz who get us or just some regular people who need gas?” LeBron asked. It was a dark question around a dark topic but very relevant to their situation.
“We avoid everybody. Drew if you see a pretty girl on the side of the road showing some leg, I want you to drive like the devil himself is chasing us. The same if you see a little kid or an old woman. It‘s a different world today than it was a couple of months ago. People will cut our throats now for the jugs of gas we have in the trunk.” Bart advised seriously from the third row.
“What if we see a kitten who really looks like it could use some milk?” Drew asked with a straight face.
“Runover that little thieving furball. Milk don’t grow on trees.” LeBron said smirking.
“Good lord. We could’ve picked from like a million different kids to adopt. It’s like we used up all of our luck when we got Yue.” Bart said shaking his head and trying to hold back an errant grin.
“You absolutely should’ve stopped while you were ahead.” Yue said.
The good-natured back and forth in the car kept going as Yue leaned back and listened. Her brothers busy competing to see who could come up with the hardest type of hitchhiker for them
