We Go On (THE DELL) Read Online Free Page A

into them with
limited ammo might be more dangerous than the groups of un-dead we would surely
encounter.
    Memphis was the closest place with a bridge across the
Mississippi, but I felt sure they had been destroyed at the same time as the
ones in St. Louis. Crossing the big river would be a problem. I still thought
that someplace in the Ozarks would be a great first stop. We could hold up,
scavenge supplies, and find ammo for our weapons. A new vehicle had to be
pretty high on our list. The old Buick ran but it wasn't very reliable and
there was no way I'd try a long trip like to Nashville in it.
    The route I decided on continued with highway 67 to
Pocahontas, Arkansas. From there, a combination of highways 62 and 115 would
get us west to Smithville. There I decided to go north, staying away from the
bigger towns like Batesville. So, it would be Maxville instead, where we'd pick
up 58 West to Guion. A bridge crossed the White River there and I hoped it
would still be intact. From Guion, we'd continue south and pick up 14 West to
the area of Mountain View. Mountain View sat in the edge of the Ozark National
Forest and I felt sure, with the hunting and fishing there, we'd be able to
find stores that had ammo. It was also a great place to camp and vacation, so I
hoped to find a deserted cabin where we'd be safe.
    Before, that trip would have been a one day drive and I'd
have felt good enough after to chase Kat around the cabin. In those first few
days traveling, twenty miles was an epic trip. The further we went the more
abandoned cars, wrecks, and zombies we had to deal with. The creatures were
everywhere now. We'd figured out by slowing down to around ten miles an hour we
could drive through them. It’s too fast for them to get at the doors but slow
enough we didn’t damage the vehicle to the point it wouldn't run. We hadn't
seen any living people yet. My paranoia said that’s a good thing but it
would’ve been swell to have a few more pairs of eyes to help keep watch.
    Around noon we were nearing a small town in Arkansas. The
sign on the outskirts said Corning. I knew that Highway 67 turned west here on
its way to Pocahontas. There was a lot of smoke on the horizon. Once I noticed
it, I started looking around and saw smoke all around us. It was like the whole
world was on fire. We didn't know then how right that assessment was.
    People, in an attempt to destroy the zombies, had set fires.
While doing the job, it had the nasty side effect of setting everything around
on fire. Imagine twenty or thirty of those things walking around, on fire,
bumping into stuff. The fire destroyed them but not fast. This along with the
fact there wasn’t anybody minding the store in power plants and appliances were
still plugged in and working in the deserted houses. There were a lot of fires
in those first weeks.
    The dead owned Corning. We didn't try to stop, just
continued west. The dead owned the world now. The trip to Mountain View took
around three months. We'd stop when we could find some place we trusted.
Sometimes we drove all day. Sometimes we'd spend as much as a week at a place.
During those three months we had our first encounters with the road gangs,
gangs of criminals, murderers, and rapists. The zombies were bad, the road
gangs were worse. They were equal opportunity killers. We saw evidence of their
atrocities in towns and on the side of the roads.
    We learned a lot on that trip. We also started collecting
survivors along the way. It wasn't intentional, it just seemed people needed
something to hold onto and we had a plan. Most of the survivors we ran into
those first weeks were just trying to stay alive day to day. They hadn't thought
of a plan. I think they were still under the illusion this wasn't real or would
be over in a few weeks.
    By the time we got to Mountain View, we had a group of about
fifty. That number fluctuated as high as fifty-nine but attrition had brought
it lower. There was a lot of combat in those first