The signs say I-84 and we travel south-east, towards Utah. It is slow moving. Soon after our stop, cars began to appear once again on both sides of the highway. Now, the following morning the cars have grown more thick as we enter Salt Lake City.Because of the amount of cars we soon turn off of the freeway, hoping for better luck going through the city, and getting back onto the belt loop,on towards Heber City.
The city, like most we've seen, is ravaged and empty. There is snow lingering in the cold along the surprisingly empty streets and sidewalks. I see smoke rising from somewhere to the south but cannot see past the tall buildings what its source is. From experience, however, it seems that the more people we avoid, the better. As we pass by buildings we see windows broken, the glass littering the street. We turn down Main St. and see a wall with bloody stains lining the thing where people, I assume, were executed. I would guess that they had been bit, and were lined to be killed rather than allow them to change. I feel sick inside. That this is what humanity had digressed to.
I am reminded of the book Lord of the Flies, and the undertones that suggest that humanity, at its root, at its very primal instinctive state is evil. That when we are pushed beyond things we cannot comprehend we change. We look for power, or we disregard any moral standings we may have had at another time. We do anything to survive. As I think that, I know I am proof of that. I've killed, attacked, and destroyed in order to survive, or to further the survival of my family. So perhaps my morals have shifted. Now they dwell solely on how I can best keep myself and family alive. Nothing else matters.
There are other walls. Blood smeared vertically on them, but no bodies. I wonder if their attempts to stop them from changing worked and they simply removed the bodies, or, if the bullet to the head needed to be after they'd woken . . . or come back to life.
As we move east, up the incline of the mountain side that Salt Lake is built on the damage worsens. There are more cars, more busted in windows and signs of execution. Cars have been obviously set on fire as well as buildings. There is rubble and trash through the street and Dawn, who is driving, has to drive slow to get through the mess.
Josh is holding Connor, who is sleeping on his lap, and I hold Seeley, next to Josh. Charlotte, holding her rifle and with a mask over her face is staring out of the passenger window, looking for any movement. There is none. If all goes well, we should be able to make it to Heber within an hour or two. We move up 39th, and past the road Josh once lived on. He glances at it but makes no request to stop there. And so we press on.
We turn onto the road that will take us through Parley Canyon and to Heber when several men step out in front of us. Each has a weapon of some sort, bats, sticks, one or two machete's and one with nothing but his hands. Each wears a hospital mask. Dawn stops the car as they get closer to us. Josh places Connor in the middle seat gently, and I, moving closer to the door, do the same with Seeley. I then grab a pistol our of my back and open the door.
"Stay in the car!" one with a bat yells. He is close to twenty feet away. I continue out and raise my gun to his head. Josh and Charlotte have done the same. They immediately back off, holding their hands up.
"Drop your weapons!" Charlotte yells. They do as she says. "Pull off your shirts." She says as she walks towards them. They look around at each other so she repeats her instructions. They do as she says. She then has them strip to their underwear and throw them away from them."Now spin!"
I can't help but snicker, as the men each spin idiotically in the cold. Charlotte turns and looks at me, grinning, "Had to make sure none had another weapon." We walk to where they dropped their weapons and pick them up. Charlotte still holding her gun against them.
"Walk!" She yells again. They start to walk away, wrapping their arms around their torso's. Not wanting the extra weapons with us, especially because they will do us know good, we stash them in a nearby building. Charlotte watches them until they are out of view.
"Don't you think that was a bit cruel?" Josh asks her.
"Not at all. They were going to steal our car in the best case scenario, I think they deserved it. They aren't going to die. They'll just be a bit cold until they find new clothes or come back for these ones."
I am reminded on my thoughts on the necessity of survival. We do what we need to survive.
* * *
The drive is slow through the canyon. There are still cars, but less so, and so we make it through slowly. There are no zombies in site, but that means little to me anymore. It seems as though they are getting smarter, adapting. And so, for all we know, they never appear because they know they can't get to us. I have no way of knowing. All I can know is what I observe. And all I observe is that there are a lot of empty cars, but no zombies and no people.
We arrive at Park City after sun set and decided to move in and sleep for some hours and also grab something to eat. There is a Hotel Inn just as we pull off and we make our way into the building. I carry Connor, who is awake, and curiously looking around. I hold him tight. And make my way into the building with everyone else.
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