This Would Be Paradise (Book 2)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 2

The next morning flew by in a rush. I had finished most of the packing the previous day, so that wasn't so much the issue. We both were reluctant to leave our safe haven. Being on the road meant being out in the open and who knows what was out there. I pulled the couch away from the door and fresh air swept through the musty room.

By the time we were done, the car's trunk and back seat were crammed full. We looked like we were living in our car, which I suppose was the case. I always thought I would be destitute after finishing school with all my loans, but I never pictured it like this.

"Bailey!"

I turned to face Chloe, who was pointing at an infected that had decided to wish us farewell. I picked up my axe and started towards it.

"Get in the car!"

I didn't bother to look back, instead keeping my eyes on the creature in front of me. It was an old lady once, her purple suit stained with blood. It snapped its teeth and made a low rasping sound as I approached.

"What? No goodbye?" It took me a minute to realize I had said that out loud.

I raised the axe and brought it down square in the middle of the things forehead. It dropped like a sack of potatoes and I yanked my axe free. I had raided the houses nearby too for supplies and if I had to guess, this one was a resident of the teapot wallpaper house. But I must have missed her when I did my earlier sweep. I wiped my axe off on the overgrown lawn and went back to the car. Chloe had gotten in the passenger's side. I slid into the drivers and started the Mazda.

"You ready?"

Chloe nodded and I reversed out of the driveway, taking one last look at our temporary home. We were followed out of town by investigating infected drawn by the noise. The mob behind us almost made me feel like I was being run out of town. All they needed were torches and pitchforks. A short laugh escaped my lips and Chloe sent me a questioning glance.

"You have the maps?" I asked, more as a way to distract her attention.

She held them up, "Yep."

Chloe unfolded the Louisiana one that I had planned our route on. Using what John and Taylor had taught me about reading maps, I figured that we would get the majority of our interstate driving done today, landing one town away from New Orleans outskirts. Gas was precious, so I couldn't speed excessively, keeping the odometer at fifty miles per hour. Strangely, that speed felt relatively fast, I guess anything would when you weren't driving alongside other vehicles.

I had forged a circle on the area of the laminated map where I guessed John's shop to be. All I needed to find was the Brookshire grocery store we had raided that first time and I could backtrack from there.

The interstate was barren; any vehicles on the road were unmoving and looked long abandoned. There were a few infected that had managed to get themselves onto the highway, but we easily avoided them. It was around any turnoff that the road started to become congested and I had to carefully maneuver around parked vehicles.

As we inched past a blockade of left behind cars, an infected threw itself at the passenger's side door and Chloe screamed. I reared the Mazda to the right and squished the infected against the car it had popped out of. A nasty crunching sound, like cracking all your knuckles at once, echoed into the cabin of the car. Chloe's window had become a mess and I had to pull over once we were on another clear stretch of asphalt.

I took out a handful of napkins I had found and got out of the car. We couldn't afford for my vision to be impeded. The side of the car was scratched up from my defensive driving, the red primer showing in spots. I hope John wasn't too attached to this paint job. I threw the messy wad of napkins on the ground before entering the car again.