Running To Escape: A Sam & JR Zombie Thriller

more humans were caught and overcome. A group of four undead monsters turned toward NW Cache Road and stumbled and slipped up the grass covered embankment toward his line of stalled traffic. Sam sat and slammed the door shut behind him. He jiggled the truck forward and back before he drove on the left shoulder. An SUV behind him honked viciously as he pulled out in front of it. He drove until he reached a spot where he was positive the truck, with the high and heavy camper on the back, could safely cross the median to the east bound lanes. Other drivers had the same intention, but some failed. More cars were stuck in the ditch the further he drove. People from those cars ran south across the highway to escape. He pushed the horrendous thought out of his mind that those people would soon be dead. He would bet his future that more zombies would be encountered further south into town. He couldn’t save them all; he would pick the time and place where he fought the undead. Sam finally waited his turn and crossed the median at a crossing for emergency vehicles only. He waited for three cars ahead of him to bull their way into the other lanes of slow moving traffic.

Accelerating in the eastbound lanes, Sam glanced across the highway and saw zombies beating on the glasses and clawing to reach cowering people still inside the line of westbound cars he had escaped. At least most had enough sense to stay in the relative safety of their metal and glass boxes. Several people were out of their cars running away. Sam feared for them. Running in the high July temperature was futile; he knew the undead could stumble along for days without resting. They required neither food nor water. Out in the open, they would eventually catch even a capable sprinter. Pulling to the shoulder on the left side of the road, he used one of his .40 caliber handguns from forty feet to put head shots into three zombies chasing a family. Five shots to stop three stumbling monsters wasn’t good enough; he’d need to improve quickly in order to live. He chastised himself; shoot high on the skull. The brain is the target. Nothing else matters. Just hitting the lower skull was a waste of bullets. The two adults and two children crammed into the back seat of a large Buick sedan that had turned around on the narrow shoulder. Then it took off east on the shoulder in the wrong direction toward another emergency vehicle turnaround a short distance away.

Pounding on the side of his truck’s cab caused Sam to swing his handgun across to the passenger side window. He almost shot a young couple with a child pleading to get in his truck. There was no choice but to help them. He flipped the door locks switch, and they scrambled inside. Both adults spoke at once until the man nudged the woman holding the small child. The blonde woman was wide-eyed and close to being hysterical. Sam guessed the adults were each twenty-five to twenty-eight, and the child maybe three. All three slender and blond. “What the hell’s going on? Are those things what I think they are? Zombies? But that can’t happen, can it?” Both adult hitch-hikers were clearly frightened and lost as to what to do. It was too bad they, like most people, had dismissed the zombie rumors over the last six months. Now millions of deniers were face to face with the reality of undead evil. He clicked his right turn signal and pulled back onto the highway amid gawking motorist driving like foreign tourist.

“I’m Sam, yeah they’re the real deal. I’m going north to Apache; where do you want me to drop you?”

“I’m Tom Haden and Clarise is my partner. My car got stuck in the drainage ditch trying to cross the median back there. Since you’re going north, can you drop us at my dad’s house in Richard’s Spur?”

“Sure, but I thought that old place was an abandoned ghost town.”

“It almost is; my dad is one of about a dozen or so folks who still hang on there. That’s only because he works at the quarry and is close to his job. I need to warn him and make plans to leave.”

When they were on Interstate 44 North approaching Fort Sill, Sam again ran into congested traffic as Army MPs directed vehicles in the southbound lanes away from Lawton and into the northbound lanes. Most people looked confused and irritated. Some stopped to argue or demand answers and were told forcefully to move on due to an emergency to the south. They were in for a grand shock now that they were finally faced with the fact of the zombie invasion being real. Rumors of it approaching had floated for weeks, but most people laughed it off as impossible fantasy. Most of the few who believed it might be real assumed the authorities and army troops would deal with it. Tom cuddled Clarise as she whimpered and reassured the two- or three-year-old child.

As he drove, Sam ignored his passengers and thought back eleven days to a previous talk with Charlie. His dad’s best friend was an avid gun collector. Charlie Wilcox lived on the south side of Apache, Oklahoma, on a hundred and sixty acres of hilly woodland. Charlie and Ilene derided Sam when he wanted to buy guns because of the zombie hordes in Europe and Asia.

“Sam,” Charlie said patiently in his laid back manner as he spoke in a fatherly tone, “surely you don’t believe those wild rumors about dead people walking and biting people like that crazy show on TV.” Ilene grinned and snickered ludicrously.

“Yes. I do believe it; I’ve followed it on the internet for many months. It’s real and it’s here. They’ve entered the US through International Airports on the