Free Dead Highways (Book 3): Discord by Richard Brown

right next to the interstate.”
    “It’s close,” Robinson agreed.
    “Maybe too close.”
    “Nah, I think we’ll be fine. We won’t have to cross the interstate. We’ll stay west of it.”
    I relaxed back. “Okay.”
    “Aamod, go ahead and turn around,” Robinson said. “Looks like we need to go back a few streets. Stop when you see Belfast.”
    A minute later, we turned right down Belfast Street, heading west. Ever since crossing Claiborne, we’d entered a residential housing area. Most of the homes were old and falling apart in a myriad of ways, especially the farther we went down Belfast. Chain-linked fences enclosed unkempt lawns where grass and weeds grew to new heights. Cars and trucks long past the point of realistically being restored sat on concrete blocks. Everything needed a fresh coat of paint.
    One thing that surprised me about New Orleans was how just about every house had a front porch. On the east coast of Florida, where I had lived all my life, it was rare to see a house with a front porch. Florida people liked their porches in the back of the house, with an inground swimming pool and a seven-foot privacy fence to make sure they never had to see or talk to their neighbors.
    “Let me know when to turn,” Aamod said.
    “I will.” Robinson consulted the map, still open in his lap, as we continued to plow forward. “We’ll be turning soon.”
    We turned right at the end of Belfast and went north along a narrow road that ran beside a concrete irrigation ditch. The ditch was almost as wide as the road. The water was a greenish-gray color, impossible to see how deep it went, at least from the backseat of a moving vehicle.
    We came upon an overpass. Hundreds of the undead shuffled along twenty feet above us as we rolled by underneath them.
    “That was Earhart we just passed,” Robinson said.
    “Well, that wasn’t so hard,” Ted remarked. “Just took a little rerouting, huh?”
    “So we’re almost there?” I said.
    “Yeah, only one major highway left to cross,” Robinson replied, his face buried in the map. “Can’t just drive around this one, or under it. But don’t worry, I’ve got an idea.”
    I had learned in no short time that if someone tells you not to worry…
    Start worrying.

Chapter 92
     
    “ That’s your idea,” Bowser said. “Hell no, man. You’ve gotta be kidding.”
    “You got a better idea,” Robinson snapped back. “Go ahead, spit it out.”
    The narrow road we’d been traveling north down curved to the east and ran alongside a major highway. The last and final highway we needed to cross in order to reach Dixon looked to be the largest we had come upon yet. It was six lanes wide, all clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic. A huge number of zombies, larger than the horde back on Claiborne, trudged westward, weaving in and out of the parked cars.
    With no way to cross in the SUV, or by foot, we turned around and went back to where the narrow road had curved to the right. And it was there that we now stood on the side of the road, huddled around the outside of the SUV, looking into the drainage ditch and considering Robinson’s suggestion.
    I stared into the swampy-looking water, speechless. This was not what I had expected.
    Peaches grumbled. “I don’t really want to go in there.”
    “Neither do I,” Robinson said, laughing. “But it can get us across safely.”
    Bowser shook his head defiantly and crossed his arms. “You don’t know that. Something could be in the water. Maybe a snake…or even a gator.”
    Robinson snickered. “A gator? Come on man. There’s no gators in there.”
    “He’s right,” Ted chimed in. “Not likely to be gators in there.”
    “Even if there was a gator in there, which there isn’t,” Robinson began, “I’d still rather take my chances with a gator than the hundreds, maybe thousands of people on the highway.”
    Ted sighed. “We all agree we can’t cross that highway on foot, right? Can we veto that idea right