Zombie Exodus Novel, Chapter 13 - Uncle Lou (Patreon)

By the time he drove another ten miles, Uncle Lou had an overwhelming urge to pee. He stared at the half-full urn with resentment. Coffee always soothed him. He could drink two cups of dark roast and sleep like a baby before the liquid had cooled in his stomach. Being on the road, drinking coffee with no place to pee made little sense to him in hindsight, but even as he rocked in his seat and clenched his pelvis, he unconsciously refilled his Sponge Bob travelling mug. He took a sip and cursed himself, rolled down the window, and poured the contents of the mug outside. The dark liquid splattered against the car.

The rain had stopped a mile back, and the clouds slid away to reveal a deep blue sky. This reminded Uncle Lou of blueberries, the prime ingredient of his favorite type of pancakes. His gnawing hunger did not distract him from the pain in his bladder.

A roadside sign promised Bubba’s Chili Shack, and an opportunity for both urine and hunger relief, but a hungrier pack of zombies roaming the parking lot told Uncle Lou that the bathrooms were for paying customers and his flesh was the price. He moved on.

Though Route 73 was advertised on the media as being zombie-free due to military patrols, Uncle Lou found more peril in the car wreckages and debris scattered along the highway. He had to slow the car and maneuver around burning cars or toppled pick-up trucks, but at least he never had to leave his car to clear the road.

Another five miles, and he thought of peeing off the shoulder of the highway in the weeds behind a bush. He was never one for public urination or any other brand of unlawfulness. I’m not a vagrant, he said aloud. He had ten miles to go to meet Marie and the kids. He could use the lunch truck’s bathroom, which he had installed last year after he developed a kidney stone. Marie thought the bathroom was extravagant, teasing “who are we—the king and queen of London?” Maria Theresa and Lou Junior loved the addition and used it so often, Uncle Lou had to replace the water tank after the first week.

Past the next mile marker, signs for road construction popped up, closing one lane. Zombiefied workers in hard hats and neon orange vests swiped at his car as he drove by the area. After a half a mile, Uncle Lou noticed a clearing in the grass where sat a single, blue, glorious Port-a-Johnny. His bladder gave him a short jab like a baby’s kick, and before he even realized it, he slammed on the brakes. The tires squealed, and his chest hit the steering wheel. He heard a click from the airbag compartment but nothing deployed. A few rays of sunshine spotlighted the tall, tubular box with the embossed image of a smiling man on a toilet.

He climbed out of the car, detaching the fabric of his windbreaker from the gear shifter, and strode to the Port-a-Johnny. As he reached for the latch, he heard a soft gurgle, and he stepped back. It’s the apocalypse. I can’t go opening every door I find. His bladder jabbed again, more like an uppercut, and he danced side-to-side while contemplating this serious dilemma—face a zombie or return to the car with an overfilled bladder.

“You still there?” a voice said, low and gruff.

“Who? I just got here,” Uncle Lou said.

“I mean you. Any zombies out there?”

Uncle Lou looked left then right and saw no living or unliving soul up and down the highway. “No one’s out here but me.”

The latch turned and the door cracked open to darkness and a single bloodshot eye peering out from waist high. Uncle Lou caught himself smiling, though he realized this stranger could dangerous and have a weapon or be infected. The eye floated higher, and the door swung wide. The man was smaller and much thinner than Uncle Lou and had a full white beard. He looked like a younger version of Santa Clause, though one who smelled of alcohol and roadside portable toilets, and his lips parted to a broad yellow-teethed smile. He wore khaki pants with work boots and a tan shirt with a logo for McCafferty Construction and the nametag, “Don.”

“Hi Don. My name’s Lou.”

The man shook Uncle Lou’s hand. “Who’s Don? Name’s Hank.”

Uncle Lou shrugged. “I don’t know but that’s the name on your shirt. Anyway, mind if I use the toilet?”

“Be my guest,” Don-Hank said and took three steps to the side and waved a hand toward the entrance. “I was in there for quite a while, so forgive the stink. Zombies chased me a ways but after I lost them through the woods, I had a terrible bout of nervous stomach.”

Uncle Lou expected a foul stench but smelled only the chemical odor from the bowl. He barely fit through the door and struggled to close it and turn around. He peed in the center of the bowl, swirling the blue liquid, and sighed in relief.

“You from around here Hank?”

“Up a ways, but yeah. Lived here most of my life.” Don-Hank said through the Port-a-Johnny door.

“What do you do for a livin?” Uncle Lou leaned on the wall of the portable bathroom. Written on the wall in faded black marker were the words, “Don’t Force. Let It Happen Naturally.”

“This and that. Up until the outbreak, I was drivin a truck.”

“You must know your way around here then?”

“Sure do. Where ya headed?” 

“I’m meeting my wife where Route 73 meets Chester Mills. There’s a little bread-and-breakfast, Becky’s Bunk and Bunch, where we used to spend anniversaries before the kids came along. They’re ten and thirteen, so we’re talking close to fifteen years ago.”

“Two kids. How nice,” Don-Hank said. He coughed with a rattle in his throat and spat so loudly it made Uncle Lou cringe. “Why you headin out of town? Worried about the infection I take it?”

“Of course. This outbreak caught everyone off guard, but I know this professor—real smart guy—who told me to leave town and get far away from the city. How was I supposed to believe someone who just wants you to pack up, leave home, and ditch everything you’ve worked for? But after seeing the news and the videos of the infected and the military moving into the city, I knew this was for real. The professor is working for the government now, but I got to him, and he said this outbreak is out-of-control.”

“Right, right,” Don-Hank said. “So you called your wife?”

His voice sounded further away. Maybe he’s sitting on my car?

“Yeah, Marie was home with the kids, so I called and told her to start out and meet me at Becky’s. She wanted to wait for me, but it would take an extra hour to reach her, and I figured the sooner she leaves the better­…”

Uncle Lou heard a deep cough, and it snapped him out of his story. He finished peeing and felt around for the car keys. Fear struck him, and he spun around in the cramped space, teetering the contained from side-to-side. From outside came the sounds of a motor revving and a car accelerating. He turned the latch but it failed to move, so he leaned back and threw his body forward with a shoulder into the door. The lock snapped and door swung out, and the Port-a-Johnny tilted forward. Uncle Lou stepped out and braced the top of the container to keep it from falling. The liquid contents of the bowl splashed out and spilled into the dirt outside. With an angry grunt, he shoved the container upright and ran to the spot where his car used to be, which he now spotted far in the distance down the road.

He walked and walked. The heat from the sun dried the bottoms of his pant legs but also made him incredibly warm. His lips were cracked and mouth bone-dry, and his body felt rubbery. He had never felt this dehydrated but drinking coffee for most of the day would do it.

Behind him, the highway stretched as far as he could see, and several figures walked along, small in the perspective given by distance. He could tell by their hardhats, these were the construction workers, given persistence by the infection to follow him.

You need to think like a survivor now. The world’s changed. If you want to keep Marie and the kids safe, you need to be smart and expect the worst. That guy should have never stolen the car. You stopped on the side of the road and lost concentration. Don’t let your guard down anymore.

He slid along the tarmac as one of the dead may move: arms limp, legs dragging, head lolling. Ten miles sounded close but he lacked energy and endurance, so it may as well have been swimming across the ocean. He was never one for exercise. In high school, the football coach hounded him to join the team, offering him a Varsity spot based on size alone. The basketball team tried next, noting his tall stature and girth would win them games. Instead, he opted for cooking club and working after school at a neighborhood pizzeria. College was more of the same, and Uncle Lou worked in the student cafeteria as a line cook and ended his senior year as a sous chef in the faculty dining center.

What good would cooking do now? I can’t avoid a zombie by throwing a perfectly cooked omelet at them? I became too comfortable. I go out of breath from making a few sandwiches in a row without a break. How can I survive and keep my family alive when I can’t fight or run?

He looked back. The dead still followed, and they had gained ground. He could see their wrinkled skin and flailing arms. If he focused, he could hear soft moans in the wind.

Route 73 inclined for a stretch, blocking sight of the road further down. On the left of the highway, a gentle breeze brushed over the fields of uncut grass, while on the right, the trees stood silent like an audience watching Uncle Lou plod across the black asphalt. He leaned forward, struggling to take each step but never stopping. He had to make it to his family.

A rustle from the trees awoke him from his lull. Something just  past the first row of spruce and pine broke through the brush and travelled in the same direction as Uncle Lou as if he had a follower who kept to the forest. Uncle Lou did not quicken his pace; he had no energy for it. He crept along Route 73, his long, wide shadow always slightly ahead, and only expected relief when the sun set hours from now or he reached his family or some being with malicious intent ended his journey.

The highway flattened at the crest of the incline, and Uncle Lou caught sight of another blockade several hundred feet away. A pile-up of many cars blocked all four lanes and spilled into forest and field—a mangle of metal and ash all formed in an amorphous blow like an artist had rendered an abstract sculpture of unconventional materials and erected it on the road. In front of the pile-up sat his car, and beside it a pair of strangers crouched over a body in the highway. 

Uncle Lou found the strength to jog, and as he moved closer, he could hear the growls of the undead and the repetitive chime of his car alerting him that the driver’s side door was open. A partial path was cleared through the wreckage, and the car sat pointing at the opening. Uncle Lou spotted his hunting rifle lying on the ground, and one of the strangers had a freshly bleeding hole in its back. Still it joined with the other, kneeling over the body, and blood spread over the tarmac in an expanding circle.

Uncle Lou looked behind him, and the zombie construction workers appeared over the summit of the hill and trotted along the center yellow highway line. They had gained more ground, but Uncle Lou had reached the pile-up and stood outside his car. Nearby, the two strangers—National Guards turned zombies—fed on the carcass of Don-Hank. They kept their heads buried in his open chest cavity, even as Uncle Lou lifted the rifle and aimed at them, and even when he turned to the zombies a hundred feet back on the road, and finally when he sat in the truck, shut the door, and followed the narrow path through the massive pile-up to continue on Route 73.