As Steve Riley parked the Bronco in front of a row of residential homes in San Juan Capistrano, he realized it had been three days since him, Chris Butler, and Chris Adamson had left San Diego to head towards Arizona to meet up with family. Three days since they had docked from their diving trip, still blissfully unaware that the world had gone to shit and zombies were now a thing – a disgustingly, terrifyingly real THING.
And, he also realized, traffic on the 91 before would have been a cake walk compared to the shit on the roads now – every freeway, every road, seemed to be filled with abandoned cars, blocked by a multi-car pile up, covered in bodies, or brimming with the undead. A trip from San Diego to San Juan Capistrano took less than two hours before, and that was in bad traffic, but now the road conditions were so terrible that it took them longer to drive than it probably would have to walk that same distance.
But luckily the last couple miles had been almost normal driving – aside from the occasional zombie shambling along the side of the road, you’d almost be able to pretend nothing was wrong. Almost. But the streets were too quiet, too empty, and while the intersections were clear you could still see signs of recent crashes – too much broken glass, too many pieces of metal to have occurred when emergency services were still operational. One intersection they had recently passed through had been surrounded by blackened husks that had once been stores. They had burned long enough to start warping the metal beams inside, and so now all that remained was a sad, drooping remnant of what once may have been a florist, bakery, or coffee shop.
“Hey, we gonna sit here all day or what?” Butler’s deep voice from the passenger seat broke through Steve’s thoughts.
“Sure, seems like a nice neighborhood to die in.” Steve replied with a shake of his head before rubbing his eyes. “We might be able to get some gas siphoned out of some of the cars here, and probably check what we can find in the houses for supplies. We’ve still got room in the back.”
“I’ll get the gas cans,” Adamson said before reaching into the back of the Bronco to grab some of the empty gas cans.
“Ugh, I think I see a body over there. Think it’s actually dead or… you know?” Butler said cautiously as he pointed near a porch.
“Go check it out, just don’t scream like a banshee again and you should be fine.” Adamson said with a snicker as he and Butler got out of the Bronco.
“That was one fucking time, Adamson. And I recall you screamed too, asshole.”
“We all screamed, so drop it.” Steve replied in an annoyed tone as he stepped out of the bronco and quietly closed the door behind him. “Keep your eyes peeled, weapons ready, and always stay in view of each other.”
Their weapons were almost entirely melee, the only exceptions were a M&P 9 pistol and a Remington 870 shotgun they’d found lying next to a police cruiser. They had very little ammo, and since sound drew zombies like moths to a flame, they had yet to use them and mostly relied on a the melee weapons – Adamson had his metal bat and hatchet, Butler had his knife and crowbar, and Steve carried a machete and wooden bat.
Alice I. Lunsford 