Chris maneuvered his way onto 288 North. He made his way around a few vehicles on the on ramp and stopped. There were a virtual sea of cars, trucks and vans that were reminiscent of the clogged Houston freeways during the Hurricane Rita evacuation. There were sparse dead heads standing motionless by the occasional vehicle.
“It’s on foot from here. Damn, I’ll have to get another vehicle.” Chris enjoyed the air conditioning while he ate his last soggy BLT sandwich. Chris found an opened case of bottled water in the backseat of the truck he pinched the bottle between his thighs to twist the cap off and started guzzling the water down. He was always a fan of diet Dr. Pepper, but he wasn’t about to complain. He looked on the back floor boards and found a green duffle bag. He opened the bag and found two cans of Vienna sausages, a box of rifle bullets and a roll of toilet paper. He put six bottles of water in the duffle bag and exited the truck.
As he closed in on the smoky Houston skyline. The lines of the lines of the buildings became clear. Several buildings had windows shattered or busted out. It was the same scene like he saw in the Medical Center.
With the gate of his walk and his constant readjusting of the weighty duffle bag on his shoulder, the pistol fell out of his pants’ waistband and discharged a bullet when hit the pavement.
“Oh damn! Am I hit?! Am I hit?!” Chris’ right hand patted his body all over frantically hunting for a gunshot wound, but he was okay. Now his actual threat was shuffling toward him. Chris looked around him and saw several zombies coming at him from all directions. He picked up the pistol and took off like a rocket.
He chastised himself, “Oh, you’ve done it now, ya dumbass!” He started running along the sides and between the ends of the cars and the trucks to avoid the zombies. He started hearing not-so distant gun fire. He got scared, “Man, c’mon! Don’t tell me I have the dead wanting to eat me and the living wanting to shoot me!” He turned down an alleyway of five 18-wheelers. There was a zombie in a dirty, tattered business suit walking toward the front of the rigs. Evidently, the other gun fire attracted him. The echo of Chris’ slapping tennis shoes distracted the zombie and he turned toward him. He came to a halt, pulled the pistol from his waistband and shot at the zombie missing him. His shaking hand fired a second round that landed a bullet above the left eyebrow and the meat head went down.
Chris got around the 18-wheelers and looked over the retainer wall of 288 and saw a horde of zombies approaching the freeway. He also saw a group of people running toward 288 from the Eastex freeway interchange. Chris looked around to hide. He didn’t see any zombies very close to him and he got in an unoccupied Lexus.
He sat motionless in the car as the group of guys hunted for him. There were eight of them. All dressed like Rambo and the Dallas Cowboys had a baby. They were donning bandanas, football padding, and had war paint on their cheekbones. He heard the fat guy say, “We gotta help them. Did you see any movement?” another guy responded, “No, they might be dinner. We better get back to Command before the horde figures out how to get up here.”
Chris questioned, “Help them? They didn’t come up here to shoot me?” He jumped out of the Lexus, “Hey! Over here!” He yelled. So thankful he made contact with civilization again; he was quickly chastised, “Lock it up, stupid! You’re the reason we maybe compromised! I’m Commander Jenkins, HAZMAT, now follow me.” The fat guy announced. Chris gladly fell in line and he ran with the group back over to 59 South.
Chris thought to himself, “HAZMAT? These guys hardly fit the profile to be cleaning up spills with the way they’re dressed.”
They got to 59 and Almeda Road. And Chris saw two modified 18-wheeler trailers. One was a Tyson Chicken truck and the other said, “FISH” on the bottom left door. They were about five feet apart and had a square tunnel built almost at the top that joined the trailers. Both trailers had cameras mounted all around them. There was a guard at the doors of the trailer on the right. “Got ya a crip, Commander? Is he the attention hog?” the guard asked. The fat guy looked at the ground embarrassed and said, “We do not refer to crippled survivors as crips, understand?” The guard swallowed the lump in his throat and agreed, “Yes Sir.”
“I ain’t crippled you bastard!” Chris grunted and swung back his right fist to punch the guard. The duffle bag fell from his shoulder. The fat commander grabbed Chris by the shoulders and said, “Listen, we’ll help you, but you can’t fly off the handle like this. It’s been awhile since we’ve found a survivor, so, keep it together and we’ll assist in any way we can.” Chris took a deep shaky breath and asked, “Okay, you said you were HAZMAT? No offense, but you guys don’t really look like HAZMAT officials.”
The fat commander stuck out his chest and proudly announced, “We’re the REAL HAZMAT. We’re the Houston Area Zombie Military Annihilation Troopers. And if you’d like to join our unit, I just might consider it; seeing you’ve lasted this long with one arm. C’mon in and I’ll show you around.”
Chris looked at the ground scratching his head and thought, “Oh jeez, I just found the Geek Squad.”
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