HailDown

We're a lot closer to home than we thought we'd be. Yesterday afternoon we outran the swarm of zombies we had following us for protection. The idea was to let the people following us get slowed down by them and gain a little distance. It worked like a charm. We managed a good ten mile lead on our pursuers.

Let me preface this next part with a disclaimer: killing zombies wantonly is one thing. They're always a threat, and I've yet to see a reason why I should hesitate from killing one when it's posing a threat to me. Killing human beings is sometimes the only right thing to do, and sadly those times are all too common nowadays. But I try not to do it indiscriminately.

So when we set the explosives, it wasn't with the intent to kill anyone. Just stop them for a good while.

The idea was to find a section of highway that was cut into a hill. they're all over Kentucky and there are a few places like that where we are as well. Becky put together some homemade stuff a while back, sort of a rainy day bomb fund. When we found a good section of road with the familiar craggy cliffs on either side, we set up. Explosives in the deepest cracks we could find in order to blow out both sides of the rock face. I've seen what a bad ice storm can do to those cliffs many times. They're perfect for a makeshift obstruction.

So we set the timer and moved up a few hundred yards. We figured there was at least ten minutes from when we clicked the start button to when our pursuers showed up. We only gave the clocks on the explosives five minutes.

In all fairness, that part worked out well. The eruptions of stone and dirt from the hillsides were almost simultaneous. Rocks ranging in size from pebbles to watermelons rained down on the road, and two large slopes of debris formed very quickly as more and more newly loosened material tumbled from the heights. There were many high-fives exchanged. Rachel looked smug: it was her idea.

The dust was incredibly thick. That's probably why the people following us got so close. They must not have seen us down the road a ways, and we could just make out the forms of their vehicles as they approached the mass of broken earth before them. Pieces were still falling like dirty snowflakes, though they'd slowed down.

From our position hundreds of feet away through the glass of our windows, we heard the crack that came next. High up along the cliff face a huge boulder broke free, spinning as it smashed the pile of rubble below it. The sudden change in momentum slammed the thing sideways like a spinning top that bumped into a bowl on a table. It was vicious and sudden, causing the boulder to fragment into two smaller pieces and slam into the lead vehicle.

The SUV at the front of the pack didn't stand a chance. It was almost ripped in half.

Some of the pursuers had to have seen us at that point, because we heard gunshots and saw divots of asphalt spew into the air behind us. What could we do at that point? Explain ourselves? Who would believe that our intentions were (relatively) good? I don't think I would have if I were in their position.

So, we ran. We're still running. That section of road would have taken a lot of work to clear, time that we've used to put space between us and them. I was watching through binoculars as we pulled away, trying to gauge the number of people after us.

I couldn't get an accurate count. But the strange thing? Some of them looked familiar.