Every experience that we'd had told us that the closer we came to large cities, the more scarred the landscape had become, the unfortunate side effect to that was gasoline was getting harder to find in those areas, so we'd stuck to the less traveled road with smaller towns, and hopefully fewer people. where the likelihood of finding gas, tools, and food depended more on who had been there before us, and what they scavenged to help them on their way. I had to rethink our route on the way to Cold Springs, Idaho. After careful study I knew Las Vegas would definitely be a no-go, We were probably going to have to cut over to highway 89 from 40 once we reached Flagstaff, Arizona. There would be close to an 80,000 person population in Flagstaff alone, and unless they had completely burnt it to the ground the place would be crawling with zombies, Highway 89 would trail us off in the direction of Utah after all, mostly rural areas, but I liked our chances better on this route, but we still needed to stay smart.
Tuesday, March 21st, 2084. Sunset, 15 miles East of Flagstaff, Arizona.
The wind there was relentless, blowing a massive sandstorm across where highway 40 turned off onto the 180 and then a mile to 89. The wind was blowing so hard you couldn't see anything in any direction, at one point it even almost forced us off the road. we were certain there wasn't anything alive or dead walking in that shit, we pulled up behind a brick building to give us a little relief, all we knew was it was a building with no windows on the wall that we parked behind, we were caught in a full on sandstorm, and the wind was relentless. It had to be in the 65-70 mph range. I got us as close to the building as I could, with the dark closing in we all three armed ourselves with our hand guns, just in case. The wind howled and angrily lashed out at the landscape, like a hungry predator looking for its last meal, everything around drowning in a sea of sand and small bits of rock, slowly fading to black. We wrapped ourselves up in blankets, and hunkered down inside the cab, waiting for the wind to calm itself. The night grew darker, and colder, with the wind never relenting. We waited.
I woke the next morning, the wind was still going, though not nearly as strong, everything, everywhere you looked, was covered in sand, you couldn't even see the sun, it was just lighter than before, I could see the markers on either side of highway 40 but the road itself was completely covered. I started the truck and put it in gear slowly pulling out onto 40, we would go one mile until we turned off onto the 180 which sat higher up than 40 so it was clear, then one mile and a half, and we would turn northeast on 89 which would take us all the way to and mostly through Utah. Ashley was still asleep in the passenger seat, and Henry lay stretched out in the seat behind me. They looked so peaceful, a stark contrast to the sights that rolled by us, a world that used to be sane, but now seemed more and more alien. I pulled onto highway 89 and headed northeast, due to the persistent winds, nothing was moving, as I drove, looking out at the barren landscape, I became lost in thought, a little over a year ago I would have been sitting on my front porch drinking my morning coffee, but that was then, this was now, this? was our new reality.
Like all the world's problems before, this one too was caused by human arrogance, human's like to feel like they are in control of things, at all times, no matter what, we got this, but nothing could be further from the truth, because nature? Nature always seems to find a way to bring us crashing back to reality. Nature, you see, is God's back up plan, for every time we get a little too big for our britches, nature is always there to bring balance back to the ledger. The world was on fire, life as we knew it, more and more was being driven to the brink of our very extinction, there were no more governments to tell us where we went wrong, what we were supposed to do, no contingency plan, the only plan available to us was survival. Live or die, there was nothing in between, one day to the next, for as long as you were willing to fight for it. The wind had all but died down when we rolled into the little shithole called Dimwiddy Arizona. There was a group of cars to the left of the freeway off ramp, we slid in behind them, studying the area for any movement.
The sandstorm must have been keeping everyone at bay. I grabbed two gas cans and the hand siphon pump, Ashley stepped out to cover me. There wasn't much in the way of gas in the cars, but in all I did manage to siphon a five gallon can and three quarters of a 2nd. what happened next almost seemed surreal. I saw them coming as the wind began to once again pick up speed, Ashley saw them the same time I did, fifteen, maybe twenty zombies stumbling over the top of the hill about a block away, the sand blew out in front of them rising up in large billows almost covering their entire bodies, all at once they stopped moving, staring around them through the growing sandstorm, as if they were looking for something in particular. They looked in our direction several times, but it was almost like we weren't even registering to them, then they slowly turned away from us just as something very large attacked them, and pulled them back down the other side of the hill away from us.
We could faintly hear loud growling, and yelping. but the wind was picking up and it was difficult. I had just put the gas cans in the back of the truck when the first three appeared at the top of the hill where the zombies had just stood moments earlier, they were dogs, very large dogs. very large zombified dogs. Spooked, Ashley ran back to the truck prompting a quick response from the dogs, we'd just made it back to the cab, and closed both doors when the largest of the pack rounded the right front fender, I started the truck and hit the gas hitting and running it over. There were ten more coming over the hill as we made it back to highway 89, but we were on the outskirts of Flagstaff when we saw a line of cars across the highway, clearly put there as a blockade. I stopped seventy-five yards from the line. Down along the sides of the shoulder down and out of sight I counted six people, probably with weapons, and they had spotted us and were waiting. I looked at Ashley.
"How far back do you think those dogs were?" I asked.
"Maybe a mile or two. Why?" She answered in a puzzled tone.
"Six people, off to our right, tucked down along the sides of the shoulder, see them?"
She looked through the binoculars.
"Yep, I got em."
"Good girl, keep an eye on them, while I turn around."
It was a simple plan, one where there was zero risk for us, and we could take care of a potential threat without ever leaving the cab of the truck or firing a single shot. If it worked that is, it all depended on the dogs, I slowed down to where we last saw them, and there they were, roaming around the mini mall where we had first seen them, there were probably closer to fifteen or sixteen, just moving in circles, then all we needed to do was, One, get their attention, and two, get them to follow the truck. I pulled up and stopped just in front of the pack, Ashley caught on to the idea rather quickly, she rolled down her window a bit and let out a loud whistle, they all immediately turned and looked right at her and started a slow run in our direction. The idea was to get them to follow behind us, and they did. The road that ran parallel and below highway 89, called Grandview, all the way back to where the ambush site was, we drove just fast enough to stay ahead of the pack, but slow enough to keep them following behind.
By the time we were back to the point where we had originally turned around, there were sixteen snarling, nasty zombies dogs chasing us. We sped up slightly to get a little distance before we stopped, there were eight people standing there holding guns, but nobody was firing, it didn't take long for the pack following us to change their attention to the eight people trying to bluff us into surrendering, It turned out to be exactly how I suspected, they had guns but no ammunition, and as soon as they saw the dogs bearing down on them, they turned and ran in different directions. The much faster zombified dogs swarmed in, but not before the eight made it to shelter and hid, trapped inside the dog swarmed around the building looking for a way inside, one broke through a window and the rest followed suit, inside, faint screams echoed throughout the building, I drove the truck around the blockade and continued on our way down highway 89. The wind was picking up again.
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