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Regrettable Circumstances: Episode 3, Part 1

Leon, James and Keith sat in the living room. They heard the door beginning to splinter. They all stood up. Leon looked to Keith and asked, "Well, this is it. Can I smoke in here now that we're gonna either all die or leave?" "Yeah. I don't think it will hurt anything now that we're being besieged. Give me one too." Leon raised his eyebrow. "They kill you, ya know." He said. "Yeah, can't live forever." They both lit up. Just about then the door gave out.

The living dead rushed into the living room and were mowed down by the three M-4's firing on full auto. "Rena! Come on! We're getting the hell outta here!" Called Keith. Rena hastily ran out of the rec room and met up with the group. Leon took out the .357 and handed it to Rena. She didn't want to take it. "Take it! You might need it!" She finally took it. The group moved outside, with Keith helping Leon move quickly. Another wave of zombies came at them halfway between the truck and the house. Rena and James were further ahead, and Keith and Leon were behind them. The zombies came at them from both sides. Leon and James were firing in one direction, and Keith was firing in the other. They quickly ended up in a nasty melee. A zombie was on top of Rena, gnashing its teeth at her viciously as she struggled to keep it away from her throat. James had a zombie pinned to the ground with one arm and was holding another one away from him with his other. A zombie lunged at Keith and pushed him into Leon, knocking Leon down, and a zombie began trying to bite Leon. He was holding it at bay with his crutch. Keith was wrestling with the zombie that lunged at him. The tide turned in the survivor's favor when Rena finally got the .357 against her attacker's head and pulled the trigger. Blood and chunks of skull blew out the other side of its head and she got its body off of her finally, James picked the zombie off the ground by its shirt and swung it into the other zombie and proceeded to bludgeon the two to death with the butt of his M-4, Leon finally managed to get the zombie that was attacking him into a choke-hold with the crutch and break its neck, and Keith was fighting a losing battle with the last zombie, so James bludgeoned it to death too. "Come on, let's go! There's more of them comin' from over there!" James yelled and pointed at another horde of zombies coming from around the side of the cabin. Rena ran to her station wagon, started the engine, and drove past the truck. She waited as the other survivors piled into the truck. James started it, put it into reverse, and made another quick, clumsy turn-around and headed down the road. They survived once again, but it almost turned out badly this time.

They drove for fifteen minutes until they were on a lonely stretch of road high in the mountains. Rena turned on her turn signal to give the truck advance warning that she was going to pull over. Finally she slowed and came to a stop at the shoulder of the road and the truck fell in behind her. She got out and came to the window of the truck. "Where are we going to go now?!" She said in a hysterical fashion. "I came to this cabin because it was the last place I had to go!" James tried to calm her down. "There's lots of places we could go, we just haven't thought of them yet." James began to think hard of a new place to go. Finally he said, "I can't think of any place right now, but they're out there, we'll bump into one sooner or later." Rena calmed down a little, but not much. "So what now?! Are we just gonna drive around 'til we find a place?! Oh wait, I forgot! The gas stations don't have power, so we'll end up running out of gas and getting eaten alive by a mob of those monsters!" James began talking before she finished her sentence. "Rena. Rena. RENA!" She finally paid attention to him. "We'll be fine, I won't let anything happen to us. We took care of the creeps back there just fine, and we'll do it again if we have to." "We didn't handle them fine! They almost got us. We barely got away with out lives. We didn't, say again DIDN'T, get away with any food, or water, or anything else." She said. "And we didn't get away with even one bottle of Jack!" Leon piped in. All three of the other survivors said in unison, "Shut up!" "Hey, I'm just sayin', I woulda liked to have at least one. Helps with the pain." James leaned across Keith and pulled Leon close and whispered loudly in his ear, "You're not helping matters, I'm trying to calm her down so we don't have a problem, so just be quiet. Let me handle this." James pushed Leon back to how he was sitting, patted his good shoulder, and turned back to Rena. "Rena, let's just pull off the beaten trail a ways and talk this out. We'll come to some sort of plan, we'll be fine." Rena didn't look like she accepted it readily, but finally sighed and said, "You lead, I'll follow." She went back to her station wagon and waited for the truck to pass her, then she followed it when it did. James pulled off the road into the woods, and the station wagon followed. The station wagon had a hard time making it through the moderately rough terrain, but James made sure to go where a two-wheel drive vehicle could go. They finally stopped about a mile away from the road. Leon, James, and Keith got out of the truck and got into the station wagon to discuss their next destination together.

"We don't have a lot of time to talk, the creeps'll find us if we stay here too long." Said James. "Well, any suggestions, anybody?" Asked Rena, who finally calmed down enough to talk rationally. "It seems that the creeps haven't got a sense of direction, and they just wander around in large groups. They probably cover any ground that is passable at some point or another. Be that the case, we would probably be best off in some place that's a pain in the ass to get to." Suggested Leon thoughtfully. "Right, but, where exactly would that be?" Asked Keith. "If we could find some island somewhere, and get to it, that would be exactly what we need." Said Rena. They all looked at her before Keith replied. "Rena. That doesn't really help. The nearest island to us would be Hawaii, and that island is so populated that there's probably a ton of creeps there too." He said. "Wait, wait a minute. I think Rena's on the right track, here. There's a whole shit-ton of islands in the world. If we could make our way to the coast, we could get a boat. I bet there's a ton of abandoned boats in the docks." Said James. "Just one problem. None of us know how to survive without some supplies. There's years worth of supplies in most of these towns, and it seems there's a lot of creeps wandering out of the towns now that there's no food there normally. So I would say we should keep doin' what we been doin, just goin' from place to place, and movin' on when the shit hits the fan." Leon suggested. They all looked at him like he said the stupidest thing they ever heard. "Leon, this almost killed us several times already. Do you really think it's a good idea?" Asked Keith. "Hell yes I do. Actually, if we could get to one of those, uh, what do you call them..." Leon snapped his fingers and squeezed his eyes shut tightly. "Well they got those concrete walls up around them. They're like these places where the military has bases. Impenetrable without some big guns." Leon finished. Keith began to catch on and nodded his head. "Leon, that's the best idea yet, except for the island one." Keith said. "I don't know where we would find one of those, though, and I bet they're already taken by someone." James said. "Then we should just build our own, one bit at a time. Make a nice, sturdy wall, a couple of hidden escape tunnels, a few buildings, we should build it in the desert. Somewhere that's in the middle of nowhere kinda, but close enough to the towns to go back for supplies 'til we figure out how to survive without getting supplies from towns." Said Leon. James fiddled with his beard as he thought for a moment. "It's a stretch, but it sounds like our best bet. It won't be done this year, though. That's gonna take so long that we might be dead before it's done." "Well, it doesn't have to be that big." Said Keith. "I'm starting to think Leon's right, all we can really do is just go from place to place. I just had a thought, if we get trapped inside, we will just starve to death slowly. I don't want to die like that." "So, we're going to the desert?" Asked Rena. "No. Maybe, but not for sure." Said James. "Well, we have to get out of here, before they come. And it's getting really cold out, we need to find a place to go or something." Replied Rena.

They finally decided what to do. James and Leon got into the Ford, and Ken stayed in the station wagon with his cousin because he wanted to spend some time with her. James took the lead in the Ford, and Rena followed. It took them two hours to reach the bottom of the mountain. Once they got to the bottom of the mountain, they began heading North...

They drove several hundred miles North until the gas gauge in the truck was on empty. James looked up and saw a sign that announced a nearby town by the name of Arch Point. The sign advertised a Chevron gas station about 10 miles ahead. They drove another mile, and the truck's engine suddenly died. James pounded the seat behind him in frustration. "You got a gas can in the back?" He asked Leon. "No. I did, but I think I ended up taking it out just before the shit hit the fan back in Newcastle." The station wagon came to a stop behind them. James got out and walked up to the window, and Rena rolled it down. "You guys got a gas can in here?" Rena shook her head. "I don't normally need one." James ran a hand through his hair again. "Well, we're gonna need to go get one." He turned to the truck. "Leon! We're going to need to go into town, come on!" Leon got out and hobbled over to the station wagon and got in. James got in too. Rena drove into town. The town was a ghost town. Rancid corpses lay strewn through the street with maggots crawling all over them, and the air was filled with flies and the stench of decay. Rena drove slowly through all this. "We're gonna need to find an automotive store or something. Maybe a Wal-Mart." James said. Rena nodded her head to acknowledge that she understood. It wasn't long before they saw an auto parts store. Rena parked the station wagon in front of it. The air was still and the smell of decay hung heavily like a death shroud over the four survivors. The four of them got out and moved inside, getting their weapons ready. The store was dark, the only windows were in the front and dirty gray light filtered through them. From the back of the store, something could be heard banging almost rhythmically against something. It sounded like a piece of sheet metal had come loose from the wall and was banging against the wall in the wind. The only problem was, there wasn't any wind. The four went to see what it was. They found it in the office. A decaying zombie with its face almost entirely rotted to the skull was handcuffed to a metal desk, and the desk was bolted to the floor. The zombie was pounding on the desk trying to get it to let it go. James hit it in the back of the head once with the back end of his M-4, breaking the back of its skull. It was then silent. They went to the front of the store again and began looking for the gas cans. It didn't take them long to find them. The four of them each took a 4 gallon can and went back to the station wagon. Rena started it and they proceeded to said Chevron to get the gas. The streets weren't deserted anymore. The mobs weren't very big, but they were much larger than those that the survivors expected to see. The zombies didn't pay attention to the station wagon, though, because they were too busy stripping the festering meat off of the corpses' bones. The survivors got to the gas station and James did just what he did last time; he got the ratchet set out and set to work opening the seal on the underground storage tank that was marked GASOLINE in engraved, stenciled letters. He got it off and used the hose to fill the four gas cans. When he was done he asked Rena, "Rena, how much gas do you have in your car?" Rena got in, turned the key, and waited for the needle to stop rising. She finally responded. "Quarter tank." James instructed her to pull her car back, next to the port, so he could fill it. It took fifteen minutes, and James had to restart the siphon several times, and they all stood and watched the wandering undead devour the rotting corpses in the streets. "Appetizing, isn't it." James said, more of a statement than a question. "Oh yeah. They make it look soooo good that I just wanna go and have a bite of... maggot infested rotting meat myself." Leon's tone was sarcastic at first, then switched to disgust as he described the meat, then he grimaced and began looking nauseaous. James checked the gas level in the station wagon and was satisfied. "Okay, let's get out of here before the creeps decide they want some fresher meat after all." They got in Rena's station wagon and went back to the truck. They put the sixteen gallons of gas in it and it fired right up. "I can drive now. Think my leg's healed enough to handle the clutch." Said Leon. "You sure? It's got a pretty hard clutch ya know." "Yeah, I know. Of course I know, James, it's my truck after all." Leon got in the driver's seat and tried the clutch. He seemed to have some difficulty but he managed to do it. He put it in second and started down the road. "While we're in town, we should get some ammo. We barely have any left." Said Leon. "Yeah. And we should fill the truck up the rest of they way and fill the gas cans in the back too while we're at it."

They found a sporting goods store that had the type of ammo the M-4's used, and Leon took some shotgun shells and .357 bullets as well. They went to the gas station and filled the truck and the gas cans. They were ready to go now. They continued on their way North. They drove late into the evening, until they reached a dirt road that turned off into the desert. They drove down it and parked for the night. "We should be far enough away from everything that we'll be safe." Said Leon. "I wouldn't count on it, that's what I thought about the cabin." Leon opened the barrel of the shotgun and pushed a shell in each barrel. "Well, they better stay the hell away or they're gonna get an all you can eat buffet of buckshot." "Fair enough." Said James. Leon slept in his truck, and the other three found room in the station wagon. Leon was awoken the next morning by banging on his window. He looked up and nearly pissed himself when he saw a decayed head slamming itself into the window. He sat up, irritated, opened the door, and slammed the zombie onto the ground. He got out and shot it in the face with the shotgun before it could do anything. He turned around and saw more wandering around the field. They were all alerted by the gunfire and started coming at him. He looked at the station wagon quickly to see if they were aware of the situation. A startled Rena was looking around, awoken by the shotgun firing. Leon got in the truck and started it, and began driving circles as Rena started her car and got going.

The next town wasn't more than an hour's drive, and it was a good thing because all four of the survivors were hungry. They drove into the town. The zombies were everywhere here, moping around the streets like a town full of decaying drunkards. They noticed the vehicles as soon as they got into town. The zombies began swarming the vehicles.

The truck didn't have a problem wading through the mob that was forming around it, but the station wagon was getting bogged down by the corpses. Body parts were starting to collect under the wheel wells and the tires didn't have any traction on the slimy mass of corpses that was under it.

The body parts in the wheel wells of the station wagon finally piled up enough to jam the wheels from moving. It was unable to move. Leon noticed the vehicle stuck in the center of a huge mob, and he had to act fast if he wanted to save them.

Leon sped up and circled the station wagon, coming up behind it and hitting it from behind. He began pushing it through the mob. The truck was strong and it didn't even slow it down. As soon as they were out of the mob, Leon sped up to get away. It seemed that no one was driving the station wagon, it was all over the road, proceeding forward without direction, and it became hard to push. Leon fought it until they had the mob a safe distance behind them. He had a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. He stopped the truck and got out to see what was going on. All of the windows were smashed on the station wagon and there was nobody inside from what he could tell. He was stunned by the thought that he was now the last one left.

Just then, he saw Keith's head raising up from the floor of the back seat. Keith was distraught. "They got James and Rena" he said between sobs. Leon looked behind them at the mob that was coming towards them. There was no time for tears now. He opened the door and grabbed Keith's arm, pulling him out and directing him towards the truck. He didn't move on his own, but he didn't resist. Leon put him in the driver's seat and told him to scoot over quickly. He did. Leon got in and shut the door as the mob reached the truck. He didn't hesitate to get out of town.

"Keith." Keith didn't even look up. "Keith, I could never imagine what you're going through, but you have to be strong. Both of our lives depend on it." Keith nodded his head, but it was so minute that Leon barely saw it. "The next town we go to, I'm gonna get us something to eat." Said Leon. "I'm not hungry." "Keith, you haven't eaten in almost two days. I haven't either. How could you not be hungry?" "Just- I'm just not hungry." Leon didn't say anything else.

After another half hour of driving, Leon saw a sign that said "Welcome to Oregon". "Yeah, thanks for the warm welcome, you're the only one that's gonna give one." Leon muttered. "What?" "Nothing, just commenting at the sign." "Commenting at what sign?" "Sign back there said 'Welcome to Oregon', so I said thanks for the warm welcome, because it's the only one we're gonna get." Keith didn't say anything. They finally came to the first town across the border, it was a small town called Newport. Just like a lot of the other towns, it was a ghost town. The streets were deserted, occupied only by the maggot infested corpses on the ground. Leon came to a general store and stopped in the middle of the street. "Keith. You game?" "Game for what?" He said in a detached manner. "Goin' in to get some supplies." "Not really, but maybe I'll get lucky and get killed while I'm in there." He opened the door and hopped out, not taking a weapon with him. Leon checked the shotgun and replaced the spent shell from that morning, then checked for the .357, suddenly remembering that Rena had it. He went in with only the shotgun. The general store had a dank smell to it, and Leon saw that it was the "fresh" produce that was causing it. He grabbed a hand-basket from the rack next to the door and went to the canned goods section, picking out cans and putting them in the basket until it was full. Then he went out to the truck and Keith followed. He dumped the cans into the toolbox and threw the basket on the ground. He and Keith got in and left town after that.

They stopped several miles away from Newport, the smell of decay still faint in the air. Leon didn't bother pulling over, just stopped in the middle of the street and shut the engine off. "Sure you don't feel like eating something for lunch?" Keith looked up. "Yeah, maybe I'll have a little bit of something to eat, it might make me feel better." Leon got out and got a can out. It was pork n' beans. He opened it with a screwdriver and a heavy pipe-wrench from the tool box, using the screwdriver like a chisel and the wrench like a hammer. It was a fairly large can. He got back in and picked out a spoon from the glove compartment. "Sorry, I only have one spoon. You can eat first, and I'll just wipe it off on my shirt." Keith made a half-hearted attempt to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace than anything else. He accepted the can that was being handed to him, a spoon sticking out the top. He ate slowly, and didn't eat much. He finished then handed the can to Leon, who ate the remaining three quarters of the can. He took the spoon out and wiped it off, then threw the can out the window. "Keith. I need you to drive for awhile. My leg hurts again." Said Leon, though he really only wanted to teach Keith to drive a stick in case he died. "I don't know how to drive a stick." "Well, you're gonna have to learn or we're just gonna end up sitting here for the rest of the day." He got out, going around to the passenger side and opening the door. Keith sighed and slid behind the wheel. "Okay. First, you push in the clutch. You know where the clutch is, right? Okay good. Push it in." Keith did as he was asked. "Now, take the shifter and pull it all the way towards you and push it down. Good." Keith let off the clutch too quickly without giving it any gas, so the truck lurched forward and died. "Okay, start 'er up again. Push in the clutch. Turn the key." The truck fired up again. "This time, rev the engine 'til that little needle there hits just under the 2. About 1800 RPM's. Okay, let off the clutch slowly." Keith did it, and the truck took off smoothly. "All you have to do now, is when that needle gets to just above the 2, push in the clutch, shift up, and let off the clutch. Don't have to let off the clutch too careful once it's going, and the gear positions are on the knob." Keith drove fairly well in no time. "Rides nicely." Keith said. "Doesn't it?" Leon said. "You feel every bump in it, but other than that, it feels like you're the king of the road when your driving it." Keith said. "Now you know why I love my truck so much." Said Leon, grinning. Keith drove for the rest of the day, occasionally stopping and practicing his starts. He did fairly well on almost all of them. Keith's spirits were lifted by driving the truck, and he felt liberated for the first time since the outbreak in Newcastle.

That night, as they were parking on the side of the road, Leon asked how much gas was left. Keith looked at the gauge. "It's almost on the E." "Nothing to worry about. We got about 16 gallons in those gas cans in the bed." Keith was silent for a few minutes, then asked, "Leon?" "Yeah." "Do you think there are any more survivors out there?" Leon shrugged. "I would think so, I mean, we couldn't possible be the last two on Earth left alive." These words comforted Keith only minimally. "Well, we might as well try to get some rest. It's gonna be almost a week before we get to Alaska." Said Leon. Keith leaned against the door and shut his eyes without a word, and Leon did the same.

Leon woke in the morning with the sun shining in his eyes again. He sat up and looked around at the central Oregon landscape, frowning when he saw it covered in the first snowfall of winter. Then he just sat back and waited for Keith to wake up. Keith finally woke up. "You wanna drive some more today? Or ya want me to?" Asked Leon. "It's fine. If you're up to it you can make the call, I'm fine either way." "Well, then carry on trooper." Keith started the truck and began driving again. "Stop at the next town, if it's clear enough, and let's see if we can round up some more gas." Leon picked up the last carton of cigarettes off the floor and opened it, pulling out a pack and opening it. "Could you give me one too?" Asked Keith. Leon eyed him from the passenger seat for a moment. "Since when did you start smoking anyway?" "Well, that's a complicated answer. You could consider two things. The first one is I had my first cigarette back in the cabin when we were trapped inside, but I after we got out I decided I wouldn't ever have another one. Then, I had to watch the creeps drag my cousin and James out the window back there yesterday, and I decided I would have another one after all. I just can't take this shit without some help." Leon thought for a moment before putting one in Keith's mouth and lighting it, then lit his own. They reached the next town around mid-day, and just like every town they saw on the way, it was a mess. There were some scattered groups of zombies, but not too many. "Feel like a game of creep bowling, Keith?" "What's that?" "Well, it's a game I just now thought up where you line the truck up with the biggest group of creeps you can see, and floor it." "Sounds like fun." Leon pulled the shotgun from behind the seat after making sure the hammers on it weren't pulled back. He rolled the window down and put the barrel of the shotgun out the window and said, "Punch it." Keith floored it and let off the clutch, and the front of the truck jumped off the ground for a moment. It slammed into a group of zombies with a jarring bump, the sound of shattering bones almost louder than the truck's throaty roar. Leon fired both barrels into another group of zombies, dropping some of them but not all of them. Keith made three more passes before most of them were dead. Then they went to the gas station. It took Leon a minute to figure out how James did it the last two times. He finally figured it out and filled the truck and gas cans. Then he went inside the convenience store and got several more cartons of Camels, this time they had non-filters. They were back on the lonely road within another five minutes.

The drive was tedious and boring, the only scenery being the occasional abandoned car in the middle of the road or wrecked in the ditch. The only thing that helped the two to remain sane was the idle conversation between them. Then something happened that startled, then dismayed them both. There was a popping from underneath as something on the truck gave out. The transmission started making a nerve-wracking grinding. The truck slowed until it was only going five miles per hour. "Shit!" Said Leon. "I knew the transmission was getting old, and had a couple of issues, but I never expected it to do that!" "What happened?" "It seems the gears in the transmission... well... just popped apart or something." "Does that happen often?" "Well, I'll put it to ya like this... I've been doing mechanical work for the last eight years, and my dad's been doing it for almost fifty years before that. Neither him nor me ever heard of something like this happening quite like this." "What caused it?" "I don't know, just keep driving and pray real hard that we make it to the next town. Oh, and pray that there aren't too many creeps in it or we're fucked!" The next town was ten miles away. The truck didn't make it two miles before the transmission gave out completely and it just sat idling. "This is bad, real bad." Keith said, no longer entirely calm. "Don't worry about it, we'll just have to hoof it into town and see if we can get another transmission, that's all. I know how to put transmissions in, but we're gonna have to see if we can find a tow truck or something we can haul it into town with. I can't do it without a cherry picker." "What's a cherry picker?" "Well, it's a little crane type of thing that you use to pull the engine out and work on it while it's out of the vehicle." They both got out. Leon tied a piece of rope around his shotgun as a shoulder strap and put it around his shoulder, then gave Keith the only M-4 that was in the truck, and they began walking.

It took them an hour and a half of walking, and when they finally got into town they had to rest. The town was entirely deserted. Just as in all of the other towns bodies were everywhere, now only lumps under the snow so at least the two survivors didn't have to look at them.

After they got done resting it was time to get to work searching for the mechanic's garage. It didn't take them long to find it. It was a large tin building with no windows and one set of doors on each side. There wasn't a tow truck anywhere near it. "Now we know where the shop is at least." Said Leon. Keith looked around. "I don't see anything we could tow your truck in with, though." He said. Leon and Keith began walking around looking for a vehicle that would be strong enough to tow the several ton Ford. Finally, they came to a Hummer sitting in the middle of the road. "How about that, would that do it?" Asked Keith. "If we can get it going, it will do the job perfectly." Said Leon. He went over to it. The window was broken and there was blood all over the seat. The keys were in the ignition. He got in and tried it. It cranked for awhile, and he had to try it again, and the second time it caught and fired up. They both almost cheered. Keith ran around it and got in the passenger side. Leon put it into gear and drove back to the Ford with it. Hooking the Ford to it was a very simple process. All they had to do was find Leon's chains he kept in the toolbox and hook it up, with Keith in the Ford, keeping it from running into anything, and Leon driving the Hummer. They came back to the auto garage and pushed the Ford inside and shut the metal shutters that were installed on the large garage door.

They were both exhausted from the events of that day so they ended up sleeping the rest of the day. Both of them slept until late morning the next day.

They both got up around the same time. "Well, Keith, I'm gonna get busy tryin' to get this thing goin' again." "You gonna need any help with it?" "Ahhhh, not just yet. I'm gonna need you to help me lift some things at some point or another, because I shouldn't strain myself with these ribs and my shoulder like they are, not to mention my bad leg." Leon set to work looking around the garage for another transmission that would work for the heavy truck. No such luck. "We're gonna have to haul another truck in here and rob the transmission off of it, Keith. Feel up to that?" Keith nodded his head. They both went outside and got into the Hummer. The snow was falling heavily now. They went down the road for almost a mile before seeing a truck that could have been an identical twin to Leon's Ford. It was wrecked against the building, and it did more damage to the building than it did to the truck. It was about the same year, it was the same model, and it was a manual. They hooked it up and hauled it back to the garage. "Okay, Keith, I'm gonna need some help now." "What do you need?" "I'm gonna need you to get underneath and when I drop these chains down there, I need you to hand them back up to me on the other side. Got it?" Keith got under the truck without saying a word. Leon pushed the cherry picker over to the truck and proceeded to drop the chains. After they were snugly secured, he took all of the engine mounts loose and disconnected the drive-shaft. The engine was ready to be pulled. Leon cranked the cherry picker until the engine was clear of its compartment and pulled it back to the wall, lowering it onto the ground and taking the chains off of it. "That's a huge engine." Keith marveled. "Yep. Ford 390, that's about 6.4 liters, and on average it has about 350 horse power. Good engine, hardly ever breaks down. Anyway, we need to do the same thing to mine now. They did it. By the time they had the second engine clear, the day was over. Leon rolled the cherry picker against the wall and lowered the boom, but didn't disconnect the chains from it. They called it a day and relaxed for about an hour before going to bed.

The next day didn't go so smooth. Leon and Keith both shot upright like a bolt when they heard the first bangs on the metal door. "What the hell was that?!" Said Leon. "Be quiet. Creeps." Was Keith's whispered reply. "I don't think they can get in." Keith whispered. "I don't think we can get out." Said Leon. "Good thing we have a few days left of canned food in the tool box." Said Keith. Leon thought for a moment. "Well, this is a two day job working quickly, so I hope those doors hold the creeps at bay for that long. That's what I'm worried about" With that Leon wasted no time getting back to work. He disconnected the transmissions from both engines, setting the one from his Ford on the workbench and putting the other one next to his engine. He slid it into the right alignment and bolted it on. "Alright, now comes the tricky part. We need to get the engine and all that jazz put in there again." They raised the boom on the cherry picker and began lowering the engine into the compartment. It took Leon about ten minutes to get the engine in the compartment at the right angle, then another ten minutes to get all of the engine mounts bolted, then it took him more than an hour to get everything put together and ready to go. He was once again exhausted when he finished. "So, now how are we gonna get out? If we open the door they'll just come in and get us while we open the door." Asked Keith. "Well, let's get in the truck in case they get in, and think about it." They got in and sat silently for awhile. "Will this thing go through that door? Or the wall?" Asked Keith. "Maybe... But I don't want to risk everything on a maybe. That door is heavy metal, and the walls are sheet metal. We would have to be goin' like a bat outta hell to get it through okay." He answered. "Wait, if we pushed that other truck back and blocked the big metal door with it, and blocked the rest of it with the front of this truck, I could probably get the door up and get in with no problem at all." Said Leon. "Maybe... I don't want to risk my life, or yours, on a maybe." Keith replied. They thought for awhile longer to see if there was a safer way of doing it. "We could maybe hook your old tranny to the pull chain and lift it up there, then let go and haul ass for the truck. Think that would work?" Leon thought about it. "I think you got something there, Keith, I really do.

It didn't take them more than a minute to get the old transmission from the ford hooked up to a chain and pulley, and they hoisted it up slowly and with some difficulty. Leon found a ladder and Keith climbed up to connect it to the chain that pulls the door open. He got down while Leon held onto the chain to keep the transmission from pulling the door open. "You ready for this?" Keith asked as soon as he got down. Both doors to the truck stood open, ready for them to jump in. "Yeah. This shouldn't be a problem. I'll probably be in the truck before the door's even all the way open, even in my crippled state. Now, I want you to go to the truck and get in the driver's side, I'll wait to drop it until your in and your door's closed." Keith did this. Leon let go of the chain.

The weight of the transmission was more than enough to pull the chain down. The door began rattling up faster than Leon had anticipated it would, and a horde of ravenous zombies began pushing their way under the door. Leon got in the truck and shut the door before the first zombie was all the way through. "Go! Go now! The door's up enough!" Leon almost shouted. Keith let off the clutch and the truck lurched forward, the new transmission doing exactly as it was supposed to. The truck pushed its way through the mob of zombies and down the road they went. Once again they were on their way North.

Leon was so exhausted from the last couple of days that he fell asleep almost immediately after leaving the town. Keith was exhausted as well, but not as much as Leon, so he was able to stay awake. Before sun-set they passed a sign saying "Welcome to Washington". By this time, Leon was awake and commented on the sign. "Well, this is it. The last state before we end up in Canada." Keith didn't say anything, just nodded his head. "The map says there's several pretty long stretches with no towns or anything in Canada. We're gonna need to really stock up before we go through Canada. Let's stop in the next town up here and see about getting some supplies."

The next town was thirty miles down the road. The truck was running low on gas, but they had enough to make it. They arrived in the town after the sun went down, and it was dark outside. They drove into town and saw that getting gas wouldn't be easy. Mobs of zombies filled the streets, all of them seeing the headlights and going towards them immediately.

Leon looked to Keith and said, "We're gonna have to get these supplies here, we won't make it to the next town." Keith said "I know. We got the gas for some creep bowling?" "I don't know. How much do we have?" "It's on the E." "Let's just go for it. I can't think of anything else we can do." Keith drove into the mob, breaking bones and smashing skulls. Leon shot the M-4 out the window, dropping zombies fairly efficiently. Then the truck ran out of gas. "I knew that was gonna happen" said Leon, handing Keith the M-4 and pulling the shotgun from behind the seat for himself. Zombies were circling the truck, and they had to act fast before the truck was swarmed. "Get in the bed. They shouldn't be able to climb this high, and the ammo is in the toolbox, can't get any better." They got out and climbed up the side of the truck into the bed. The zombies piled around the sides, but couldn't seem to be able to climb up into the bed, they just stood there reaching for the survivors, who were too far from the edges to be grasped. Leon and Keith spent the entire night killing zombies before the town was empty. The bodies were piled so high around the bed of the truck that the last zombies would have hardly needed to climb at all if they got to the truck. Keith and Leon were both tired from the night of fighting hordes of zombies, but they both took two gas cans each and dutifully began walking to a gas station only a block away. It didn't take them long to get the four gas cans filled this time. They walked back to the truck and pushed some of the bodies out of the way. They put the gas in it, moved the bodies that were blocking the bottoms of the doors and drove to a general store they saw. They took about ten more gas cans and another twenty cans of assorted food, and headed back to the gas station. It took them almost half an hour or so to fill all the gas cans, and the gas tank of the truck, and load them all. After they were done, they headed out of town to find a place to camp.

-TO BE CONTINUED-