Welcome To Strange: There and Back.

 

Sunday, March 19th, 2084, 22 miles east of Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

The thing that I truly enjoyed, for the most part, about Texas and New Mexico, was the fact that if you stuck to the smaller highways and avoided the larger more populated cities there were plenty of wide open spaces, and you could see trouble brewing from a long ways off in any direction. Highway 40 had been good to us, and we could follow it all the way to Flagstaff, Arizona before we had to turn toward Utah on 89. We still had a long ways to go, 3 miles down the road we came upon two overturned vehicles in the road, we pulled over at a safe distance, Ashley and I stepped out to survey the scene through our binoculars, beside the road there were two mangled bodies not moving, Grendel appeared on my left, he looked concerned at the bodies, and then back at me. 

"So what's the deal, man? are we going to do something or just leave them lay?" He said in an almost annoyed tone.

Something didn't feel right to me and Ashley was in total agreement, as we zoomed in with the bino's you could clearly see three single file tire tracks leading away from the road.  I handed Grendel the bino's and pointed toward the tracks, He looked at them with growing interest. He lowered the glasses and looked at me.

"Motorcycles?" He asked.

"Probably." I answered.  "They're waiting for someone to stop and investigate."

"And then?"

"And then they kill them and take whatever they have."

Something or someone was waiting for whoever, to stop and try to help those people, and then they were in for a rude awakening. We weren't going to risk it, we were going around, Ashley and I got back into the truck and I crossed over to the other side of the highway with the Land Rover right behind us, as soon as we cleared the pavement we hit the gas and barely gotten past the wreckage when the first two motorcycles roared up onto the road between us and the Land Rover. Ashley and Henry went through the pass-through from the cab to the bed of the truck. They pulled back the tarp away from the tail gate of the cage and began opening up on the two motorcycles, before the passenger could even raise their gun, Ashley shot the one on the left through the helmets' visor causing the bike to flip several times violently throwing both riders into the air crashing into the road violently. On the other bike, Henry aimed first for the legs of the driver, but when that didn't work he went for the headshot, with the same result, both bikes had crashed and burned.

Two more showed up on the about 250 yards behind the Land Rover, we'd thought that they might persist, but seeing the fate of the first two bikes caused them to break off the chase. apparently whatever they wanted from us wasn't as important as they thought. A mile and one half outside of Santa Rosa we turned off the main highway and found a small rest area with bathrooms, we all took turns using the restrooms and cleaning up as the water was still working. As I was checking my map, Grendel appeared on my left, a look of concern in his eyes.

"Ummm Crash, I need to talk to you about something." He said.

I gave him a sideways glance.

"So talk." I answered.

"Well, you know, we don't want to seem ungrateful for everything you've done for us, but some members of our group have expressed concerns over your children." He said nervously.

"You mean Ashley and Henry? first of all, they are not my children, they lost their parents to the virus, and now they are traveling with me to try and survive."

"Well, it's just that you and them are a bit too violent for our tastes.  a member of our group has a friend living in Santa Rosa, and well, we think it would be best if we went our separate ways from here on out."

I didn't even look at him. 

"So go. Good luck to you." I answered.

"So that's it? you're not even going to try to compromise? or at least admit you're wrong?"

I turned to face him more aggressively.

"Let's get something straight Grendel, neither Ashley, or Henry, or Me, owes you a fucking thing, let alone an apology. Compromise? I'm not compromising The safety of those two kids so you can look at yourself in the mirror. You want to go to Santa Rosa? Be my guest, but know this, you aren't getting out of there alive. So, anytime you're ready to leave? by all means, please leave." 

Grendel walked over to the Land Rover, and turned and gave me a scowl. They loaded up and headed back to highway 40, and turned toward Santa Rosa. Ashley appeared on my right. She rested her right hand on my fore arm as she watched them disappear down highway 40.

"So we're not going to Utah anymore, I'm guessing." She said.

"Nope." I gave her a sideways look, neither smiling nor frowning. "and neither are they."

She didn't answer.

"Ashley, there were over 10,000 people living in that town, and if our experiences tell us anything, well then, I'm guessing over half of those people aren't people anymore. and Grendel and his whole crew? Their dead too."

I patted her on the hand and folded the map and put it in its folder. there was a frontage road that would take us most of the way around Santa Rosa. I emptied what was left of the extra fuel we were carrying into the main tank, so we had a tad over three quarters of a full tank, two full reserves and all the extra cans were empty. Thirty-five minutes later, we were almost all the way around Santa Rosa, when a familiar sight made our stomachs turn, we turned back onto highway 40 from frontage road, there with one front tire in a ditch sat the now empty Land Rover, we grabbed our weapons and got out to survey the scene, it was deserted, but there was fresh blood on the fenders. I moved to the back of the vehicle and reached under to tap on the gas tank, almost full. So I retrieved the siphon pump and empty cans and drained it. "We have to stay off of the main highway for a while," I thought to myself. Ashley gave me a concerned look. I looked back at her.

"This wasn't zombies, and whoever did this wasn't after fuel." I said.

"What's more important than fuel?" She asked.

"Women."

As difficult as it was to think about, Merci and the two other girls of their group were all still reasonably young and quite good-looking, and what Henry found while checking the ditch only confirmed such suspicions. There lying face down in the ditch were Grendel and the other three men in the group. All shot in the back of the head. Executioner style, The wind began picking up, so we all loaded the gas cans and got back in the truck and headed back to the frontage road. We had put Santa Rosa 15 miles behind us, it was sometime around sunset, when something caught Ashley's eyes as she looked through her binoculars. We cautiously pulled over and got out to see what Ashley saw, there below us, on highway 40, lying beside the road were the bodies of Merci and the other two girls. Their pants were removed, clearly they were raped and shot and left to rot like roadkill, with no remorse or afterthought. Regular people, it seemed, were becoming as bad if not worse than the zombies themselves. 

~Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright © 2025~

Welcome To Strange: Ironwood.

 

I retrieved my set of bolt cutters from the truck and went back in to cut the locks. When I swung open the door there was a fully stocked tool box, I grabbed whatever we could use, in the corner sat four bright red plastic 5 gallon gas cans, two were full, one was over half, one was empty, I checked to see what kind of fuel was in them, paydirt, again. in regard to us collecting gasoline, we had been very lucky so far. Such would not always be the case, but for now, we were able to keep the wheels moving toward Cold Springs, Idaho. I nodded to the office door to Ashley, She and Henry went inside while I loaded the tools and gas into the back of the truck, and secured them to the bed with lock down ties. Moments later she appeared in the doorway with the biggest smile I'd ever seen, she walked up and handed me a pistol that she'd found in the office desk drawer with four boxes of Ammo, two extra magazines, and a holster.

"Crash? is this what I think it is?" She asked.

"It's a .45 Colt 1911, this will be a good side piece for you Ash, just remember it fires different and has more recoil than the Glock."  I cautioned her. "We'll have to find some time for you to learn how to shoot it. but it's a great gun."    

I watched her confidently replace her Glock holster with the 1911 on her belt, a sly smile slowly spread across her face as she loaded a full magazine and slid the 1911 into it's holster, on her belt. I wasn't sure whether I was concerned or proud of how quickly Ashley and Henry had grown into their roles as zombie, and sometimes people killers. They had both gotten quite comfortable with the firearms that they had been using up to that point, comfortable and efficient. I had no doubt in my mind that Ashley would not only adapt to the 1911, but she would become quite proficient in its use. We loaded up and were back on the road twenty minutes later. The rain began to subside, but the wind persisted and grew slightly stronger. Just before noon, we found a tightly grouped grove of trees on top of a hillside overlooking the tiny town of Grotto, New Mexico. The trees provided us with a bit of a wind break, so we got out to take a look at Grotto. About 150 yards away below us, there was a group of men surrounding another smaller group of people on their knees with their hands clasped behind their heads. In the middle of a circle of seven people or so, there was someone lying on the ground being savagely beaten and kicked.

 I looked at Ashley, and she gave me an annoyed look, as did Henry. We all recognized bullies when we'd seen them, The people on their knees were clearly unarmed and couldn't defend themselves. There were no zombies around to speak of, these were just regular people, doing evil shit. We secured the truck and collected some weapons, and all three of us began walking down the side of the hill, they didn't even notice us until we closed within 75 yards. then the leader sounded the alarm, and right away the group began firing on our position, we hid behind some junk cars and returned fire, I had the S&W slung over my shoulder but was returning fire with one of the AR-15s. Ashley had her Winchester and Henry his Mossberg. apparently they never experienced someone shooting back at them before, and they fell back to a couple of SUVs, we pressed the attack, Henry and Ashley moving around their right flank keeping up the pressure, while I moved to the left switching to the S&W auto, with which I began blowing massive holes in the sides of the SUV's. 

The one whom I was guessing was their leader tried to return fire on me, but I shot him through a part of the SUV and took off the side of his head, I returned to the AR-15 and fired on the remainder of the group and then, down to three left, they tried to run while firing, we took them down clean. I took a round that barely caught the side of my abdomen and Henry got nicked in his right thigh, but we pretty much got away with it. We walked over to the people who were being held up, and introduced ourselves. There were seven of them total. four men and three women. They said that they were just a family in a mini bus trying to get to the other side of Provo Utah where their family had a farm. I explained to them that before the radios went dead we'd heard that Provo and Salt Lake City had both fallen to the virus six months ago, and that both of those places were now crawling with stiffs, weapons still drawn we walked over to one of their dead, they were all dressed in military attire, but they weren't organized enough to actually be military. The father of the mini bus group appeared at my side. 

"Any idea who they were?" I asked him. 

He told me that they called themselves the Zeros, and they were a militant group, from an encampment called Hells Flat about 8 miles from there. they were going to take them there and force them to work farming vegetables and other tasks. I told him that he needed to get his group to gather up their weapons and as much ammo as they could find, clubs and knives would only get them so far, and where ever they were going, one thing was for certain there were going to be zombies. They rounded up the weapons and ammo, and then went through the SUV's and striped them of all the supplies they could carry. Ashley, Henry and I returned to the truck, Henry and I briefly treated our wounds and got in the truck and drove it down the hill to where the mini bus was. They were low on gas, so I gave them one full can and the half, they asked if they could follow behind us and we agreed tentatively. I referenced my map and the next town on the way was a little burg called Ironwood.

He said his name was Grendel and his wife's name was Merci they were living in the heart of Oklahoma when the world went to shit, they watched as their whole town descended straight into hell in a matter of hours, they helplessly watched as their friends and families were all swarmed under by an army of stiffs. Merci watched as her own mother and 12-year-old daughter turned on and attacked her, they barely made it out of Shawnee with their lives intact, three days later in Norman, they lost their youngest son when a group of road agents killed him and stole their motor coach along with everything they owned. they were on foot until they came upon the mini bus, the keys were in it, it started right up, and they had a half a tank of gas, and a hard shell cooler full of snacks, it was enough supplies to get them out of the immediate area, they scrounged for gas and had been moving ever since. We got the mini bus to almost a full tank of gas, and we were 125 miles from Santa Rosa, when we finally hit the road. As it turned out, that little burg called Ironwood just 7 miles down highway 40 would prove to be quite helpful to our new little family. we rolled into the Valero station at about 2:30 in the afternoon, the gas pumps, as usual, were not working, but there were a few cars around to check for fuel, and the best part? there were no signs of any stiffs. 

Henry and Ashley as usual armed to the teeth began to search the area, minutes later an excited Henry came around the side of the building and began to wave his arms at Grendel and me. He motioned toward the back of the building, we both quickly moved around the side to see an unexpected site, it was a newer model military style van, a little shorter than the mini bus, but it sat up higher for ground clearance, and it was 4-wheel drive, and had metal grating over the windows and a front bumper wench, below the hood, it looked like a Land Rover only longer. I opened the door and looked inside, and it was almost like new and had more than enough room for Grendel's whole crew, plus their supplies. I jumped up into the driver's seat and began to look for the keys, they were above the driver side visor, I put the key in the ignition and turned it, the gauges all lit up, and it showed that it had just over a quarter of a tank of gas I turned the engine over and after 3 tries it fired up, Grendel's eyes lit up as I pulled it out into the parking lot.

Finding a better vehicle was always a good thing, but now we had to transfer the gas from the mini bus into the Land Rover, and Grendel's crew wasted no time in transferring their supplies to the new vehicle. Meanwhile, Ashley and Henry watched and waited for anything to move. My little soldiers, Grendel and I finished draining the tanks of the mini bus and transferred it, I popped the hood and checked the oil, and it was full. Just as everyone got inside, Ashley came running over to inform me that there were a large group of stiffs headed right for us, right down the block I yelled at Grendel, don't slow down and don't stop. We all jumped in the truck and tore out of the Valero station, with the Land Rover fast behind us. The swarm of zombies behind us was much larger than we realized, but once again we narrowly escaped, as we turned onto highway 40 we quickly left Ironwood behind us.

~Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright © 2025~

Welcome To Strange: Scorched Earth.

 

Sunday, March 12th, 2084. 10:00 AM, Outskirts of Parkview. 

We hid up on a rise at the southeastern corner of Parkview, we stopped to take stock of our supplies, food and water, we were still in good shape, but we were down to a little over half a tank in the main fuel cell, so we needed to survey the area. We were all out in front of the truck scanning the scene below as it played out like some sick, bloody, twisted opera. It was crawling with stiffs, swarming mindlessly, like angry locusts, over anything that moved. The thing about zombies, the truly disturbing thing, is that when you look at them, when you truly look at them, at least in my case, I couldn't help but wonder who they once were. They were human once, not so long ago, they were someone who mattered, to other people, son's, wives, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. They had lives once, families, hopes and dreams, lives enriched by both love and fear. Now they were just an unfortunate side effect, of a disease that had only served to destroy a once vibrant world, and had left it a shattered dead and dying shell of its former self. Welcome one, welcome all, to the new normal, to the age of the undead. Scotched earth, where all that there is left to live for is one more day amongst the living.

The numbers we watched below were growing at an alarming rate, when we first got there, if I had to guess, I would have to say that there were probably 75 stiffs stumbling around down there, in the short amount of time that we'd spent watching them, their number's doubled, down the street there were even more, sure, we could have rolled up and shot the shit out of them, but we would have run out of ammo before they ran out of stiffs, and the numbers would have won, again. After checking the map, there was a little place just past Parkview where we might be able to score some gas a little more freely and quite possibly easier than to attempt a run at Parkview. There was a dirt road running along the treeline on the ridge above us, if it wasn't too rough we could bypass Parkview completely without losing much time. We got back in the truck and as quietly as possible turned around and made our way slowly to the dirt road, up one rut and down another We slowly made our way around Parkview, an hour or so later the dirt road took a turn downward toward highway 40, and we were back on pavement heading to the small town of Calico. 

We pulled into the deserted convenience store/gas station just outside of Calico around 3:00 PM, the skies were getting cloudy, and it began to feel like rain was coming. There were four abandoned vehicles and I grabbed the siphon pump and two 10 gallon gas cans and began checking the cars for gas, as it turned out one truck had almost a full tank after 3 trips I siphoned it dry, Ashley and Henry made their way inside the store to see if they could find anything useful, within seconds they found themselves engaged with five stiffs, Two tried to swarm Ashley, but she got off two rounds and shot them both in the head before her and Henry made a break for the door, but the last three stiffs were hot on their heels, Henry ended up with a baseball bat and just outside the front door by the gas pumps he swung at the lead stiffs head and the barrel of the bat landed with a wet thumping sound as he splattered its head all over the wall. I took the last two out with headshots with the Desert Eagle, we went back into the store, Ashley found ten, one gallon jugs of water, we got six boxes of ibuprofen, and a couple of plastic jars of teriyaki sticks, and eight rolls of paper towels. We counted our blessings and got back in the truck and headed for the New Mexico border, we would be there before nightfall.

By the time we hit Bixby, New Mexico just across the border, the clouds opened up, and we found ourselves in a downpour. Bixby, New Mexico, just a bump in the road, with a few old buildings and some overturned cars and dead bodies on each side of the road, I found myself holding my breath ever so slightly, almost relieved that nothing was moving. Welcome to New Mexico, The Land of Enchantment. It didn't look too enchanting to me, to me, it looked deserted. Empty fields, stretched out for miles in every direction, I looked over at Ashley, her eyes staring blankly out of the passenger window, at miles and miles of nothing, Henry slept peacefully in the back, the wind began picking up, and I could feel it pushing slightly at the front of The GMC. Four more miles down the road we found a gas station with an empty garage I pulled up in front of it and checking behind for stiffs, I slowly backed the truck into it, I got out and pulled down the overhead door and stuck a bolt through the lock hasp to keep out unwanted guests. I entered the office through the side door and secured the front door as well, Ashley appeared in the doorway behind me.

"No back door?" she asked. 

"No, it doesn't appear so." I answered. "This is a solid brick building, The storm is going to get bad, the wind is really picking up, but we should be okay in here." I told her.

We slept through the night without incident, but just at the break of dawn, Ashley nudged me awake, she had gone to use the office restroom, and when she came back out, over the top of the dunes across the highway she had seen a lot of movement, heading toward us. I started the truck and kicked the bolt out of the hasp lock and raised the door, they were still a good 55 or 60 yards across the highway up on the hill, the wind was giving them trouble, as I pulled out onto highway 40 two stiffs wandered out in front of us, their bodies made a wet, crunchy, thumping noise as they bounced off of the brush guard. I hit the gas and didn't look behind me, twenty more miles down the road we passed by yet another abandoned gas station, Ashley and Henry watched the door for stiff while I scavenged for whatever tools and such we could use to keep us on the road. There was an enclosed metal cage still locked, it had slates in between the chain link fencing so you couldn't see what was inside. there were four heavy locks securing the door. 

~Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright © 2025~