# 32

Walking down Route 6 was an arduous task. A few feet and then check a car. No keys in it , or keys in it but dead. A mile or so down the road and I found something I thought could work. It was a South Eastern Regional Transit Authority van bus. It had keys in it and a clutch , while facing downhill. It was perfect for what we needed. I waved everyone over and started piling them all inside. Bob and Lee sat in the front row right next to the seat I would be driving from. Almost instantly Lee started with weird flirtatious talk that had me wondering what was going on there. Meanwhile Bob seemed like he wanted to make sure he knew what was going on at all times, I liked that in Bob I would be the same way in his position.

I released the brake and stabbed the clutch in and the beast of a truck started to roll. Slowly it rolled and began to pick up speed I put the truck in second gear and waited. The speedometer was hovering at about 15 mph and i did a quick in and out with the clutch and the bus roared to life then sputtered. Everyone had gotten excited and then sad so quickly it was almost a funny reaction. On the second try it came to life and i dropped the clutch back out and let it run, we were finally mobile and rolling on a set of wheels. I felt a tug on my shoulder and Lee whispered in my ear " any way we can stop in Providence for a quick stop just so I can see "? I knew she was from there from talks before and while i understood her curiosity I feared everyone wanting to do the checks. I also realized we were all heading to check my brother and it would be selfish and hypocritical of me to say no and then bring everyone to my family to check. I nodded and asked for quick directions.

Bob instantly spoke up "i don't want to go house to house with everyone here on a giant lunch wagon for those monsters". I looked at Bob in the mirror and said " everyone should know whether right or wrong if they have family and they are OK". Then I added " wheres your family Bob?" He was very quiet and moved to a rear seat. It made me a little uneasy but then again  no one had asked me about my family aside from my brothers house , and if I was asked about my mother I may actually have the same reaction. It was food for thought and a possible sit down at a later date with Bob about what maybe he had seen or been through.

We moved slowly down the road, it was a four lane state highway but was more like a local route once the highway came in next to it. When life was normal people would roll down here doing damn near sixty miles an hour even tho it was littered with small business' and such. Once in a while they would have in the news an accident on this small road and it would be catastrophic what happened. Imagine a car doing sixty and another pulling out in font of it and you get the idea. Now the road was covered with such accidents everywhere you looked. These were accidents that happened for different reasons. These were accidents made more by people trying to do the right thing and not knowing that the right thing to do was keep going. I wondered how many peoples moral ethics actually got them killed and then looked back at the faces behind me in the bus and also wonder, how many people in this bus were alive because they lacked the morals that would get you killed at the onset of all of this.

Now wanting to make any snap judgements I did have an issue with Fish and the "dad thing" already so I was wondering about this rag tag group of college kids behind me. We made our way further down the road and started coming to the intersection of Route 118 and that meant the mall. One of the girls I think it was Linda said "lets go see what the mall is like". And then Rusty said on top of that " Maybe they have some things inside we can use". I responded with "No and if you watched zombie movies you would know how the mall thing ends". Fish smirked , he knew what I meant and we rolled past 118. A few "things" were visible every so often. Climbing in a car or over one or wandering in a yard or parking lot. No huge hoards of the "things" were anywhere to speak of and that was fine by me.

We got closer to the entrance ramp for the highway and I just went for it. I know asking would have gotten mixed responses but the small area of highway we walked to cross the bridge was open enough for a bus and at least this time if it got bad we could run to the side and through the woods. On the bridge the only place to run was off the edge and Fish showed us with a "thing" how that would go down. Halfway up the exit ramp and we had a major bottle neck. A car was on its roof and a good five or six cars after it had tried going around to mixed results of crashing , rolling over , and just plain looking stuck. I did a massive U turn in the median and headed back to route 6, everyone behind me just held on as the bus did an unusual maneuver and made itself right again. We merged back onto the roadway and headed up in the same direction as before. As much as I wanted to help Lee see how her family had actually made out in all of this, a small piece of me wanted to just keep going up route 146 and towards my brothers place. But I understood what she must be feeling no matter how hard she seemed earlier in meeting her about her families plight.

We motored on , passing random scenes of horror and carnage and just missing hitting the "things" that walked right into the bus' path. Bob eventually cam back to the front and sat with Lee and didn't make any conversation or attempt for it with me. I began to see he had a weird thing for Lee and it was clear she had nothing at all for him. Weird how even in the middle of all of this Bob had no chance, some guys are destined for it I guess, and Bob was that guy. At least in the world of Lee , I had noticed Jenn shine towards him when we were walking and Bob payed no mind to her. I guess it was Karma biting him on the ass. Rusty was in the back of the bus playing around with the spare tire kit and emergency breakdown kit, I didn't ask what he was doing and I don't think Fish did either. Rusty was the type of guy that got things done like me and if he was working with something it wasn't for a merit badge.

We headed up the cluttered roadway doing a total of twenty miles an hour if we were lucky . We had a half a tank of gas and no food so stopping was in the cards at some point. For the moment we were happy to be somewhat safe and have a working heater , for the moment life was good.