Blake nodded at Mort. Then he whispered, "Plenty ofdead hiding in the closets and basements too."
He waved his hand at Blake, resentful that he would evenquestion his strategy. Blake was supposed to be his guy. No matter what theywere supposed to stick together. That he thought differently pissed him off.
"Well, what do we think?" Lou asked.
"The houses, man. There's food, shelter, whatever weneed," Mort answered. Mort looked around for agreement, but all he sawwere chewed lips and doubt.
"I don't know," Clara said, "there'sprobably a lot less of those things in the tunnel."
"Yeah, but in that tunnel, we don't got no place togo," Mort countered. He did not want to go into the tunnel. He had a badfeeling about it. "I'd rather go the freeway route than the tunnel route,but I 'm telling you, that neighborhood is the way to go."
Joan was the next to add her two cents. "It seems tome that we have enough food and water. Our main goal should be to avoid thosethings at all costs. We know they're going to be on the freeway. We knowthey're going to be in those houses." Joan pointed up the hill, where thetops of fancy houses could be seen poking out of the tree tops. "In thetunnel, there might not be any. I'm all for a day without seeing any of thosethings."
"You and me both," Katie added.
"Nah, man. I don't wanna go in that tunnel,"Mort said, almost on the verge of panic. "I'm telling you, that way isdeath. Ain't nothin' in that tunnel but death." Mort could feel himselflosing the battle. He turned to Blake and said, "Tell 'em, man."
Blake looked at Mort, as if to say, "I'msorry." Then he looked at Lou and the others. Blake didn't talk as much aswhen Mort had first met him, but when he did speak, everyone listened. "Igotta agree with Joan on this one. The tunnel. It's less reward, but less riskas well, and if there's one thing we have plenty of, it's risk. So I saytunnel."
"Alright. Tunnel it is," Lou said.
Mort felt panic rise up in his chest. His instinct toldhim not to go into the tunnel. There was something bad in there. He knew it. He stood at a loss for words. He searched his mind for something to say,anything that would make the others choose a different route. Hell, they couldtake the highway if they wanted, just not that tunnel. The words weren't there,just that sensation in his chest, a weight that seemed to want to drive himstraight down to the ground. He felt like giving up. He felt like lying on theground and waiting for the dead to eat him.
Blake put an arm around his shoulder and said, "It'sgoing to be alright. That's what I'm here for."
The words didn't make Mort much better, but the feelingof panic lessened just a little bit. He took a deep breath, and then he wasready. The others were looking at him, Katie with a cocked eyebrow. "I'mok," he said. "We can do this."
"Alright, first thing we need to do is grab someflashlights. Let's search these cars up here and see if there's anything we canuse. I don't wanna be stumbling around in the dark," Lou said.
It made perfect sense to Mort, and it delayed theinevitable, which was fine with him. Hopefully, at any moment, a horde of deadthings would come pouring out of the tunnel, cutting off that avenue of escape.Then they would have to go through the neighborhood. Lou walked up to the cabof a pickup truck and peered inside. There was no one in it, so he pulled thedoor open and climbed inside. The truck smelled clean, perhaps a little dusty,but clean.
He leaned across the seat and pulled open the glove box.He ran his hand through the papers, tossing them on the floor. They wereuseless now. No one needed to register their car. There was no one left to payoff a car insurance claim. If you wrecked your car now, you just hopped inanother abandoned vehicle, hoped the battery wasn't dead, and then turned thekey. Mort wondered how long that would last.
How long would the cars of the present make it withoutthe constant maintenance needed to keep them running. Was there anyone left whocould still repair a vehicle? He supposed somewhere there was, but it wasn'tanyone in their crew. He slammed the glove box shut and hopped out of thevehicle, Blake stood next to the door, his eyes off in the distance, watchingevery methodical step of the dead that were following them from the city. Mortwatched his fingers re-grip his rifle, and he knew that their break fromrunning, however brief, was almost over.
Lou stepped up to the next car, a silver SUV. The doorhung wide open, but smudges of brownish blood were dried on the window and theseat, so he walked around to the passenger side and pulled it open. The insideof this car didn't smell all that great. He wondered if the driver had diedinside.
The keys still hung in the ignition. Whoever had beendriving this car had most likely waited in line like everyone else, caught in atraffic jam that was never going to clear. When the dead had crawled throughthe city, the driver had joined them. Mort ripped open the glove box. He wasonly delaying the inevitable by fantasizing about the past.
In the glove box, Mort found an actual pair of gloves. Howabout that? Mort thought. An actual pair of gloves in the glove box.What were the odds? He took out the gloves and shoved them into thepocket of his olive drab military jacket. If they didn't fit him, maybe someoneelse could use them.
Underneath the gloves, he found more useless papers thathe tossed on the floor of the SUV. Then he found what he was looking for, asmall black cylinder, heavy, with
