Scenery Gorn from the Cutting Room Floor

Installment 1: The Traffic Report

You may see this again in another form somewhere. There is an idea buried in here I would like to explore further:

Traffic is on and off. That is, we run into a swarm here, a horde there, and what the horn didn’t scare out of the way, the truck smacked and flattened. We’d go along another half-mile thinking we’re past the worst of it, then we’d come around one of the many curves as I-25 snakes through the city and there’s some undead yuppies and tourists in their varying stages of arrested decomposition pouring down towards us from the entrance/exit ramps.

There were a lot more cars littering the lanes though downtown but nothing we had to push out of the way. No, just lots and lots of dead people. Dead people who haven’t had anyone living to eat in a long time. I’d be surprised to learn there are any rats or squirrels, let along stray dogs and cats in the city.

We’re maintaining speed, but so what? However slow or fast they move, they catch up eventually. They follow the vibrations of the tires on the asphalt, the clatter of diesel valves in the air, maybe even our smell. You have to stop sometime, if only to sleep. They don’t. God help you if you can’t keep ahead of them—and most times you can’t. You’d be amazed how much distance a shambling ex-human dragging one leg behind him can cover in an hour.

Dunno about you, but I hope I never find out. Good Lord deliver us from the relentless, sleepless, insatiable dead!

While waiting on me to finish Grace Among the Dead, catch up on the trilogy-in-progress with Book 1, Bleeding Kansas. There are worse ways to do a Saturday night. Trust me, I done ‘em.

Have a seat.