The Lost Gods by Horace Brickley Read Free Book Online Page B

and said, “The upside of my baby here is that I don't have to reload it.”
    Adam nodded and put his gun back into its holster.
    They quickened their pace. Jesse wanted answers. He did not want to believe Adam's story about the scream. The idea of reanimates screaming or, worse, communicating worried him. Jesse's knowledge of history had taught him that communication was the first step of many in humanity's quick rise to the top of the food chain.
    Ahead was the freeway sign. It bore the message, “ Zombiedale Population: 2.” Adam had painted it on one of their missions to check cars for essential supplies. An upended cargo van blocked the northern onramp: a barrier of crushed and twisted steel. On the southern onramp, a silver sedan was stuck between a lifted pick-up truck and the guardrail.
    The hill steepened. Sweat ran down Jesse’s brow. He heard Adam’s labored breathing. The road cut a swath between two thick gatherings of evergreen trees. On their right was a tall concrete wall. Ahead was another tangled mass of vehicles. A gnarled blockade: an escape gone awry.
    “Shit,” said Adam, and he pointed up ahead.
    “We going through that mess, or are we heading into the woods?” he asked
    “We might find something useful in the cars,” said Jesse.
    “Or, we might get ambushed. ”
    “We've only got a few hours left of daylight, so I say we stay on the road . The underbrush in that forest is going to be thick and slippery.”
    Adam said nothing in reply; he motioned for Jesse to lead the way. They walked up to the wreckage. The wi ndows were all smashed. All of the cars were empty. Their mangled doors prevented entry into the vehicles’ cabins.
    “There's no blood on those windows,” said Jesse.
    “The rain could have washed away the blood, or maybe those dead fucks are clean eaters,” said Adam.
    “Yeah,” said Jesse, and he started to speak again, but the words dissipated in his head before forming a c oherent thought.
    Adam leaned down next to a blue compact car's open fuel filler door, and sniffed.
    “No gas. It doesn't even smell like it ever had gasoline in it.”
    “This must have happened after I went downtown .”
    “Why did you go downtown anyways?”
    “They got into our house .”
    “Never mind, you don’t have to tell me. ”
    “No, it's all right,” said Jesse. After a quiet moment, he began, “When they came in the first time. My brot her, father, and I fought them off. They had busted through the side door and had attacked mom, but we managed to save her from getting eaten. Mom was scared and wanted to — just go into the forest, or to head to Seabeck and hope for the best. My brother was keen on the idea too. The problem was they were all out of shape and mom had never set foot out of suburbia. We would have been fucked. It was a bad idea.”              
    Jesse paused for a while and paced in a narrow gap amid the mass of cars. He stopped, tilted his head back, and swallowed hard.
    “So, dad and I convinced them it was better to stay and wait it out,” his voice wavered and his eyes glazed over. “We barricaded the house up tight. Mom had been bitten, but she was fine. It didn’t get infected. Everything was fine for a while.
    "What finally did it was the second big attack. I was upstairs reading and killing time, and everyone was downstairs getting ready for dinner. We were having some awful concoction of canned food. Our typical post-apocalypse sodium and protein overload was about to be served, when they started to pound on all sides of the house. It was like they were trying to get in from every side simultaneously. They were bashing in the back door, the front door, the windows, and the barricade where the sliding glass door used to be. In a few minutes, they were already inside the garage. That whole day had seemed like a normal day at home, and then the noise and chaos of it all was overwhelming. The poun ding was deafening. We were fine and then we