The Struggle for Life

I am out in M__a’s diner in what I guess used to be Montana. I guess it was “Mama’s” but who knows someone vandalized the sign before the place was abandoned. I am hunting out some infected in this area, of all places for they tend to migrate to place with medium cool temperatures, since its august Montana sounds pretty good. It’s like hunting you have to be quiet and know where your prey is in order to find ‘em. I walked inside the establishment to look for any possible corpses or usable vaccine sources… and what I found changed my life… and I think just about everyone else in the country now had a chance at survival. A little boy, abandoned but alive pointing his gun at me at first, then slowly lowering it. Kid had been bitten and scratched up, but his wounds were… old, how?.... he was not turned? You were only eligible for the vaccine once your were 21 and willing to join the military due to low supplies. This kid might be naturally immune… “Hey buddy, what’s your name?” I asked. “M..mmm.max...C...Cah...Carter, who are you?” he asked in a very scared voice. “ names Liz, I work for the Government, I collect anything that I find that could be used to produce a vaccine, so the rest of the people can live a life immune to all these walking freakbags across the country.” I replied. He looked astonished, as if he didn’t know there was a vaccine needed to be immune, or the fact there were even living people still left. “Can you take me somewhere, somewhere safe” he asked. I replied “of course I can Max, grab whatever you got that’s yours ammunition, food, and the like, and we’ll go to Seattle back where I need to return some things to, it's safe” He then inquired” what is a Seattle?” I shook my head knowing it’d be a long trip full of questions, I said “you’ll see bud, it’s a haven of humanity” and off we went in my jeep.

Liz and Max, the anti pandemic, immune to death via the infection, it’s not the only worry out there, but just knowing that we are both immune to the best of my knowledge is comfort enough, any sort’a certainty and safety can be pretty much thrown out outside the walls so this was nice. As we drove down what was interstate 90, now more of a maze of abandoned cars and a few infected we had to stop as we extracted some gas out of a couple cars along the way. You'd be surprised how many of these have almost full tanks. Pour souls got robbed at the pump then of their lives. However some of poor souls had been infected, and put to an end with a few quick shots by me, I walked over to a couple of bodies to retrieve specimen samples. With the coast now clear I decided to extract a little bit more gas out of an old taxi I saw abandoned to fill up one of our reserve gas cans, the yellow taxi hadn’t been touched probably 2 or 3 years, a film of moss and mold was growing upon it, the planet was trying to reclaim its resources, a cool look at nature indeed mother nature was ready to swallow it back down. As I pulled the last bits of gas I saw Max walking around, against my telling him, of course what do you expect out of a 12 year old, let's be honest, he proceeded to trip after I gave him "the get the hell back in the jeep glare" at first I overlooked his trip then, gunfire whizzed by my head, Bandits…we are about to get ambushed, damn it Max hit a trip wire, they know we're here….####. I don’t know what these guys ever want from people like me, do they just like hate the government or something, want me jeep, I dunno?

I ducked behind the taxi hiding from the gunfire coming from the other side, thank goodness I took most of the gas out of that thing, and it's like using a bomb for cover, not your best decision, probably be your last, that’s natural selection for ya right there I tell you what. Only two or three guys, not a big Group, I leaned out around the front bumper firing off a few rounds at one of the men hiding behind the guard rail, the next 2 guys weren’t much harder targets, no sense of where to hide, behind sign and a top a flipped truck, I put them out of their misery, they'd probably an infected's new chew toy soon enough based on their survival skills, I did 'em a favor. I went over to the Bandits, looted em of a lighter and a few rounds. I was about to get in the jeep, then I noticed Max was still cowering in fear next to the same line he tripped over, poor kid shouldn’t have to see stuff like this go down, but whatever, he stays 'round me he'll get used to it, I look like John Wayne out there in one of those old westerns my grandpa used to watch, mowing bad guys down like a lawn of flesh with merely a pistol. The epitimy of being on tough son of a gun, being a total one man army… mostly because Max has defense, and is too scared to use it, but as I have said before, what do you expect, he's like 12.

A few more hours pass, very quiet indeed its night time now, and we are about 10 miles out of Seattle, almost there, now here's the question, do I want the headlights on. The cloak of night does not favor me, I drive with no lights, I still attract attention due to the motor, not much, but I can't see what is ahead or after me or, I put my lights on, and all of the sudden I turn into the biggest target of all time. "Lets go no lights" I said to Max "I want them on, I am scared" he said, I replied" now , now Max, you know they'll see us better, I don’t think you want that." Should'a just listened to the kid, Damn It LIZ!!! shoulda eaten my words right there, but nope, nope, can't be that easy, the moment I am done saying were better off without light an infected got its way on to the hood, pretty impressive for a decaying corpse to jump on a moving vehicle might I add. So I threw the lights on and decided to just gun it the rest of the way, insert star trek we need more power captain joke here.. yes you heard me right there. For when you plow enough infected you eventually slow down to gruesome stuff happening, I think you can figure out what's happening, just pretend they duct taped a table on the grill and are having a tea party if your squeamish… too bad the there's no table, or tea, or fully intact bodies for that matter. Max and I finally are getting in sight of the front gate and….