Things didn't go as planned on the road. Not at all.

What should have taken days took weeks, which turned into months. But it had all started smoothly enough.

Once they got outside of town Danny had reluctantly gotten in his cubby hole. It was boring in there. He listened to music, read books on Tyrone's iPad and watched the occasional movie. ScarLo would come to visit him from time to time. Sometimes they'd fuck in the tight space to the point Tyrone even rappedthe back of the cab once or twice.

"Y'all are going to flip the whole damn truck over" he said. But he didn't sound mad, just informative.

Sometimes ScarLo would just lay with him and hold him. She gave him her all and Danny didn't know why, but he took it. Sometimes she'd break out into tears, but when Danny asked her what was wrong she'd just say "it's just so hard".

Danny had assumed she meant how increasingly bad things were getting outside. Danny didn't know what they were seeing most of the time, but would hear Tyrone or ScarLo gasp or scream occasionally. Danny would radio to ask what was wrong and they'd assure him everything was okay.

The virus was spreading and it was the new strain. What they had seen in Colorado was happening everywhere. They were constantly having to take new roads, often dangerous or at least sketchy backroads. Danny thought it had more to do with the situation than the government turning on the trackers on the roads. Tyrone only said he was getting updated information from his contact along with his trusty police scanner, which Danny could hear and constantly spoke horrors.

But the worst of it was when there was no activity at all because there were no more police.

This was the case when they went through Iowa on a long detour. They were on a middle of nowhere back road, surrounded by abandoned corn fields, now overgrown and full of rot and insects feasting o the rot.

Once the virus had hit pandemic levels and everything closed farmers were forced to just let perfectly good crops rot in fields due to the decreased demand from closed restaurants. Meanwhile, hungry people lined up for ours at food banks to get food. It was a perverse reality.

Beside barns lay two story piles of corn still in their husks, rotting as one mass. Never sent to restaurants or food banks.

"The GPS isn't working" Tyrone reported. "I don't know where the fuck we are".

The police scanner was silent.

"We're near some town" he continued, speaking into the radio. "Leon, I think".

"I really have to piss man" Danny radioed back.

"I'll try to find a safe place" Tyrone said with a crackle.

Danny had to piss in a 2-liter Mountain Dew bottle a lot more than he'd wanted, but stopping had become a challenge. It just wasn't safe. When him and ScarLo would fuck the bottle would roll around and he was scared it would bust and get all over them. Maybe ScarLo was into that sort of thing, but he wasn't.

The bottle was now full and he couldn't put in another drop. He felt he was going to piss himself and radioed Tyrone about the urgency. A minute later the van stopped.

He heard quick opening of doors, rustling and then Tyrone tossed open the hatch.

"We're at some farm" he said. "I don't see anyone around, but make it quick..."

Danny nodded and slid out, taking his Mountain Piss bottle with him so he could empty it too.

As he passed by Tyrone he noticed how rank he smelled. They hadn't showered in two weeks. He imagined he smelled similar. ScarLo still smelled good to him, though.

His bones hurt as he walked for the first time in at least 18 hours. Getting gas was the scariest part, but they'd been lucky. Tyrone would fill out three jugs he kept in the back at each stop so they could pull over for fill ups just in case a safe gas station wasn't available.

The midday sun hurt his eyes as he stepped onto the grass.

They were surrounded by corn fields. In the distance was an old farm house. It looked like it was abandoned long before everything started.

"Hey sweetie" ScarLo said, stretching. "You feeling okay?"

Danny nodded and quickly headed into the field to relieve himself.

God it felt good to do so. Maybe the top three pisses off his life. As he emptied the Mountain Dew bottle he heard something in the distance.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Looking back, he should have known to run from that sound right away, but like a typical white guy he investigated.

He walked towards the sound and soon discovered there was a break in the corn field and in a small clearing was an old shed. It looked to Danny like where a farmer might store things like pesticides and other chemicals.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

It was definitely coming from the shed.

Maybe there's an animal trapped in there? Danny thought.

He walked over to the shed and the sound happened again...

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

This time the door shook a little.

Maybe a big animal is trapped in there?

The door was not locked but it was latched shut. Cautiously, Danny opened the latch and stepped back several feet. Nothing came out.

Danny took two steps toward to open the door when it burst open and a fat creature that had once been a human came forward. He jumped back and the creature stopped suddenly, so hard it face planted into the ground. He had been chained up. It snarled and cast arms out towards Danny. Drool escaped its mouth and he saw that old drool had caked and dried, making its face look like a powdered doughnut.

It was a man for sure, even though his size made him have bitch tits which were even visible through its denim overalls.

Danny stood and sighed.

"Just like Luis..." he muttered to himself.

Then there was a scream. It was ScarLo. He'd heard her scream many times by now but this was a distressed scream.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

He ran threw the corn field towards the van but stopped and crouched before breaking through.

A skinny man wearing no shirt and only tighty whitey underwear was holding ScarLo at gun point with a crude revolver, beside him was a bigger man. He had glasses, overalls, bright red hair and a big bushy unkempt beard to match. He also was leveling a shot gun at Tyrone, who had his hands up.

"Take it easy" Tyrone said.

Danny thought about the gun Tyrone had given him. Of course he'd left it in the truck.

"Well, well, well... look what we have here" the man holding the gun against a panic stricken ScarLo said. "A African American! ...and a niggeress...."

His voice was jittery as were his movements. A breeze blew the corn stalks around Danny and with them the smell of the men. There was plenty of BO, but also a chemical smell Danny knew was meth. These were tweakers.

The virus had disrupted illegal drug supplies globally but meth use had increased dramatically since he could be made locally in a bathtub. At some point, meth heads had gotten the idea to start using disinfecting chemicals such as bleach and Lysol in their cooks and the results were they were even crazier.

Danny looked at the fat redheaded's overalls. They were covered in bleach stains.

"Hmmmm....mmmmm..." the redhead made a noise. "I don't think this one here is a full blooded African American though. She looks like she got some white in her".

"Is that right?" the other one said, laughing manically. "That true baby? You got some white in you? How about 9 more inches?"

"More like two!" ScarLo shot back, defiantly. Rage came over the tweeker's face.

"Oh... we got us a fighter here!" he shouted and slammed her too her knees. She yelped as she hit the ground.

"Look, we'll just go..." a wide eyed Tyrone said, trying to reason with him.

"Just go?" the tweeker said snickering wildly. "Go? There ain't nowhere to go no more. Everything has gone to shit. All of Leon is overrun. Fucking police are dead... I took out three myself!"

"What you reckon they got in that van?" the redhead asked.

"Whatcha got in that van, African American?" the tweeker asked, right on cue.

Tyrone was about to say something when the tweeker cut him off.

"Wait, wait! Let me guess! Medical supplies, right? PPE, right?"

Tyrone looked shocked.

"HAHAHA! I fucking knew it. Know how I knew, African American?"

Tyrone shook his head.

"Because y'all think y'all is so clever driving in those unmarked vans but that's the dead give away... HAHAHA! Jarome, we've done hit the lottery!"

The redhead, Jarome, smiled through his beard and chuckled deeply.

"Just think, we can sell it for big, big money... and if it's, uh, some cleaning what nots... welp, you know what we can do with that!"

The tweeker laughed so hysterically Danny thought he might break.

"You can have it all" Tyrone said. "Just let us go..."

"Oh, we're going to take it all, African American. We don't need your permission" the tweeker responded, jerking ScarLo to the side by her hair. She screamed.

Danny felt his blood boil.

"Look at dem plates...Hmmmm..." the redhead spoke. "Colorado. Now how y'all travelling? Y'all must be some IMMUNITY NAZIS!"

"Immunity Nazis!?" the tweeker said in a rage and it looked like something bad was about to happen but before it did behind Danny he heard the infected man. The sound of the chains smacking against the shed. The men heard it too.

"Oh shit..." the tweeker said, looking right in Danny's direction but not seeing him. "Y'all didn't go and fuck with cousin Manny, did ya?"

As the tweeker and the redhead looked in the distance they lowered their weapons and their guard. Danny saw his chance. Without thinking, he rushed out of the cornfield and tackled the tweeker to the ground, freeing ScarLo. His gun tumbled to the ground. The tweeker was skinny and had went down easy, but once on the ground as they went to wrestling he was strong, fueled by the meth that had soaked into his skin and clothes. He smelled horrible.

A few feet away the redhead had trained his shot gun on Danny, looking for a clear shot.

The tweeker got the advantage and pinned Danny to the ground, using his hand to marsh Danny's face into the gravel and dirt until he could taste it.

"You like that boy!" the tweeker shouted. "I've wrestled with pigs tougher than you!"

The tweeker reached for a large rock with his free hand and Danny knew what was coming next: he was about to have his skull bashed in by a rock.

But they'd made a big mistake: they'd totally forgotten about Tyrone and ScarLo. A moment later there was a gun shot and the tweeker's head exploded over Danny, blood, skull and pieces of brain rained down on Danny as the arm pushing him down went slack.

Another shot tore open the redhead's face before he could turn with his shot gun and aim it at Tyrone. He hit the ground hard and immediate.

ScarLo and Tyrone raced over to Danny, throwing the tweeker's corpse off of him and pulled him to his feet.

Danny noticed the gun Tyrone was holding was his own, not the Tweeker's revolver which was still laying in the dirt.

Tyrone wasn't his normal cool and in charge himself. He was panicked. They all were.

Danny went to speak but discovered another man's blood and brain blocked his mouth. He spit it away and more of it flew as the only words he could manage escaped his lips: "Go... now!"

Danny scrambled into the back of the truck and Tyrone slammed the doors behind him. They jumped in, started the van and drove so fast out of there they drove right over both the bodies, causing the van to jump and lurch as it flew out of the drive way, kicking up rocks and a thick cloud of dust and pieces of dead people behind it.