Free Least Likely To Survive by Lisa Biesiada Page A

of Super Zombies loomed on the horizon.  The end of the world just kept getting better and better.
     
     
     
    We continued down 84, and soon we reached Abilene.  It was bigger than I had expected.  It reminded me of what the Springs had looked like when I had driven through the day before.  All around I could see the signs of life, or at least what used to be life.  The road was soon congested with other cars to the point we were creeping down the interstate, and the whole city seemed to be on fire. 
    How is it that every city was burning?  We weren’t at war for crying out loud.  Maybe the mayhem of zombies eating everyone brings out the pyro in people and they get the insatiable urge to light shit on fire.  I could relate; I had wanted to light many a thing on fire in my day.
    There were so many cars blocking the interstate, we made the decision to exit onto Old U.S. 80, thinking we could cut through town, and pick the interstate back up on the other side.  We made it to 1 st Street, and navigated our way slowly through the heart of town.
    The devastation was massive.  It had been less than a month since the virus had gone mainstream, and already the population was decimated. It was gruesome; like the town had literally been painted red.  Everywhere you looked was more blood, and more body parts.  Outside my window I could see bloody handprints on the doors of the cars smashed into each other, blood on walls; blood on the ground… There was just so much blood.  It was like being on the set of a horror film, where the director has just gone batshit crazy and soaked everything in corn syrup.  Except this was real.  Very, very real and it fucking smelled terrible. 
    The sun was high, and it being April… well let’s just say things bake in Texas.  I was pretty sure the whole state was just one big rotting corpse at the moment. 
    That thought in mind, I reached into the console and grabbed a stick of gum.  Unwrapping it and popping it into my mouth, I offered Jack a piece.  “Want one?”
    “Sure, thanks,” as he reached over and accepted the stick.  He shoved it into his mouth and through the chewing; “Now I smell minty rotting flesh.”
    “That’s exactly why I thought of the gum in the first place,” I laughed at our shared thought.
    We were both still busy rubbernecking when Jack spoke. “Look at this place.  It’s a fucking war zone, and we’re not even in a major city yet.  I’ve never seen so much blood outside of a set.”
    “My thoughts exactly.  I was just thinking how it looks like a director went mad with corn syrup.”  I reached over to the stereo and started flipping through the dials, thinking there might be an emergency channel or something.
    “They don’t actually use corn syrup anymore.  It’s just a synthetic fake blood.  Looks more realistic, but tastes like shit.”  He looked over at me, and then looked at the radio I was playing with.  “Do you think they have something on now?”
    “That’s what I was hoping for.”  All the channels were still playing the soothing sounds of static.  I had to turn the stereo back off before the fucking white noise drove me nuts.
    We had passed the heart of Abilene, and were almost to the edge of town when something caught my attention a ways off the road.  It was a Taco Bell, which I’ll admit isn’t unusual to see, but it had a giant white sheet of what appeared to be paper towels hanging off the front, with giant black letters spelling out ‘HELP ALIVE INSIDE’.  Damn.  Now we were gonna have to stop.
    “Angie, look at the Taco Bell.”  Jack pointed in the direction I had been looking.  “We have to stop and see if they’re still alive.”  He began steering towards the next exit, speeding up as he went.
    “Okay, I understand that we are capable, but do we really have to stop to help?  I mean, fuck, look at the crowd of zombies milling about.  What are the chances those people are still alive