The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,43
to keep their voices down and make as little noise as possible during their exile in this barren hinterland.
As darkness closes in that first night, and the temperature nose-dives, Josh runs the engine as long as possible, then resorts to running the heater off the battery. He knows he can’t keep this up for long. They cover the broken sleeper window with cardboard and duct tape.
They each sleep fitfully that night in the cramped quarters of the truck—Megan, Scott, and Bob in the camper, Lilly in the rear of the cab, and Josh in the front, barely able to stretch his massive body out across the two large bucket seats.
The next day, Josh and Bob get lucky and find an overturned panel van a mile to the west, its rear axle broken but the rest of it intact, its gas tank almost full. They siphon eighteen gallons into three separate containers, and make it back to the Ram before noon. They take off and make their way southeast—crossing another twenty miles of fallow farmland—before stopping for the night under a desolate train trestle, where the wind sings its constant mournful aria through the high-tension wires.
In the darkness of the reeking truck, they argue about whether they should keep moving or find a place to light. They bicker about petty things—sleeping arrangements, rationing, snoring, and stinky feet—and they generally get on each other’s nerves. The floor space inside the camper is less than a hundred square feet, much of it covered with Bob’s cast-off detritus. Scott and Megan sleep like sardines against the back hatch while Bob tosses and turns in his semisober delirium.
They live like this for almost a week, zigzagging in a southwesterly direction, following the tracks of the West Central Georgia Railway, scavenging fuel when they can. Tempers strain to the breaking point. The camper walls close in.
In the dark, the troubling noises behind the trees get closer every night.
* * *
One morning, while Scott and Megan slumber in back, Josh and Lilly sit on the Ram’s front bumper, sharing a thermos of instant coffee in the early-morning light. The wind feels colder, the sky lower—the smell of winter in the air. “Feels like more snow’s coming,” Josh softly observes.
“Where’s Bob gone off to?”
“Says he saw a creek off to the west, not far, took his fishing rod.”
“Did he take the shotgun?”
“Hatchet.”
“I’m worried about him, Josh. He’s shaking all the time now.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“Last night I saw him sucking down a bottle of mouthwash.”
Josh looks at her. Lilly’s injuries have almost completely healed, her eyes clear now for the first time since the beating. Her bruises have all but faded, and she removed the bandages around her ribs the previous afternoon to find that she could walk almost normally without them. But the pain of losing Sarah Bingham still gnaws at her—Josh can see sorrow etched on her sleeping face, late at night. From the front seat, Josh has been watching her sleep. It’s the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He longs to kiss her again but the situation hasn’t warranted such luxuries. “We’ll all be doing a lot better when we find some real food,” Josh says then. “I’m getting mighty tired of cold Chef Boyardee.”
“Water’s getting low, too. And there’s something else I’ve been thinking about that’s not exactly giving me a warm, cozy feeling.”
Josh looks at her. “Which is?”
“What if we run into another swarm? They could push the damn truck over, Josh. You know it as well as I do.”
“All the more reason to keep moving, keep heading south, below the radar.”
“I know, but—”
“More likely to find supplies, we keep moving.”
“I understand that but—”
Lilly stops when she sees the silhouette of a figure way off in the distance, maybe three hundred yards away, up on the train trestle, moving this way, following the tracks. The figure’s long, narrow shadow, outlined in the dust motes of morning sunlight, flickers down through the slatted ties and crossbeams—moving too fast to be a zombie.
“Speak of the devil,” Josh says when he finally recognizes the figure.
The older man approaches, carrying an empty bucket and collapsible fishing rod. He trundles along quickly between the rails, urgency burning on his face. “Hey, y’all!” he calls down breathlessly to them as he reaches the stepladder near the overpass.
“Keep it down, Bob,” Josh cautions him, walking over to the base of the trestle, Lilly at his side.
“Wait’ll you see what I found,” Bob says, descending the ladder.