Plagued: The Midamerica Zombie Half-Breed Experiment (Plagued States of America) by Better Hero Army

quiet guy named Bill and the woman Tom dragged onto the heat of the engine earlier in the day. Her name was Carrie. Thankfully she didn’t act at all offended when he asked her for help. Tom expected a “because I’m a woman” response, but she just shrugged and rolled up her sleeves to help out. Tom had picked the two because they had each been avoiding conversations and distancing themselves from Tyler and his growing idiot followers. It didn’t take much to think of them like that – idiots. Tyler’s arguments to keep moving no matter what were so laden with fault it just made no sense to listen, and yet he had already hoodwinked five or six of the visitors into agreeing. Where would they get fuel? That was the first logical question. And were the hunters supposed to drive, keep watch, and sleep in non-stop shifts?
    “Can you really get us out of here?” Bill asked as he accepted more cans.
    “With a powerful enough radio,” Tom replied.
    “Who’s your father?”
    “I’ll keep that to myself for now.”
    “What? We’re supposed to trust you and you don’t trust us?”
    “Actually, I trust you all implicitly,” Tom said with a smile. “I trust that any one of you will stab me in the back the first chance you get. About the only one on this rig I doubt is the half-breed,” he added, pointing at Penelope. She turned her gaze his way but said nothing. “I doubt she’d kill me just to make sure she could get on one of the rescue helicopters if it came down to number of seats.”
    “That’s cold, man,” Bill said.
    “Well, keep listening to that jackass Tyler and you’ll start to wonder too,” Tom said while climbing out of the hole. He let the hatch close and stared at Carrie, then at Bill. “Either of you two been bit?” he asked point blank. They both had a look of shock, the kind he would expect from an innocent being accused of something horrendous like that. “Good,” Tom told them. “Let me know if you think any of the others are infected.”
    Bill went off but Carrie stayed.
    “You know, Tyler may be a jackass, but Hank’s right. You’re going to get us all killed.”
    “Driving through the Plague States is going to get us all killed one way or the other,” Tom argued. “Come on. Let’s go ration out dinner.”
    Tom took a can of corned beef hash and a spoon to Penelope along with his own half-can of chili. He handed her the food through the bars and she took it from him without snatching. Tom half-smiled toward her before sitting down with his back against the cage, looking over the rail of the duck at a wide expanse of overgrowth encroaching on a pothole riddled road. Streaks of grass grew through ages-old cracks in the highway. Aside from two lights on the deck, one fore and the other aft, the darkness of night was settling over them and the noises of the forest at the edge of their sight echoed with the normalcy he would expect from untouched nature. He didn’t expect it here.
    “You know,” Tom started telling Penelope over his shoulder. “This reminds me of back home in Denver. As a kid I camped out in the park. Even there in the Districts all the boys were afraid of zombies, like they could come out and get us. Most of the boys I knew hadn’t ever seen any. They were frightened just by stories and television. My sister got bit right in front of me when I was twelve. I’ll never forget it. Those nights in the park I just pretended to be afraid to fit in, but what I really wanted to do was tell them all that there were worse things in life than zombies.
    “I don’t suppose you’d agree.” Tom looked at her over his shoulder. She stared at him with a complete lack of interest in the story he’d told, spooning food into her mouth. She had no recognition of his words or feelings. Or maybe she just didn’t care. He finished eating his meal and laid down where he was to try to fall asleep. It felt like those nights in the park, and even though all around him people