Sweet Salvation's Escape
Crispy Zombie Road Trip
Bradley watched them leave.
He just stood there at the compound’s edge. Amber light pulsed steady through his forearms. Sweet Salvation idled as the corridor of converted figures enclosed around them. Bradley said they were free to go. Yet, he wore the expression of a man who won and is simply waiting for the paperwork to catch up.
Daniel put the truck in gear. “Eyes forward.”
“Bass?” Alyssa asked.
“Low. Don’t agitate them. We’re exiting. Not fighting our way out.”
Countless converted figures stood close enough to touch the truck’s panels. Ignacia breathed deep as their thermal signatures pressed against her heat-sense like a crowded room whispering in her ear.
Waiting.
Rita sat up straight between Melissa and Alyssa. Mr. Buttons in his usual position. Her eyes tracked the figures outside the window with careful attention.
“They’re sad,” she said.
“Daniel. Put us in gear. Inch forward,” Ignacia said through deep breaths.
The converted stepped back. Slowly. This was going to be a slow process.
Ten feet. Twenty.
Sweet Salvation moved at s glacial pace. Daniel’s knuckles the color of ash as he gripped the wheel. Alyssa kept one hand on the bass controls, ready. The subsonic hum ran low enough to feel in the chest but not loud enough to provoke.
The converted figures shifted as the truck passed. Displaced, like water around a slow-moving hull. They closed behind Sweet Salvation. Ignacia watched the side mirror and saw them seal the corridor back into formation the moment the truck cleared them.
No way back. Only forward.
Inch by inch.
A figure near Ignacia’s window turned its head. Young. The cracks in his skin ran up his neck and jaw. Amber light seeped through in patterns that almost looked deliberate. Living tattoos. His eyes found hers through the glass.
He recognized her.
She held his gaze until the truck’s movement carried her past him. He kept watching.
“Mina,” Nikki whispered.
“I see it,” Mina said. Equally quiet. “Two figures moving parallel on the left. Keeping pace.”
“Threat?”
“Unknown. They’re not closing in. Just keeping pace.”
No one spoke. The bass hummed. The truck inched forward.
Thirty feet. Fifty.
The crackling was all encompassing. An ambient sound of burning flesh like bacon sizzling in a pan layered into something that resembled weather. Like standing under trees in rain. Except this rain was fire, people on fire.
Rita stopped watching the windows. She pressed her face into Mr. Buttons. One hand gripped Alyssa’s sleeve.
A figure stepped too close on Daniel’s side. The figure’s forearm brushed the truck’s mirror. Skin against metal. Crackled. Spattered the window. Daniel’s foot went to the brake.
Sweet Salvation halted.
“Was that deliberate Daniel?”
The corridor went still.
“Maybe a miscalibration?”
Every figure within sight stopped moving simultaneously.
“Don’t stop,” Nikki said, barely audible. “Daniel. Do NOT stop.”
Daniel’s foot moved back to the accelerator. They were defusing a time bomb.
The truck crept forward again.
One inch. Two.
The corridor moved again.
Fifty feet. Eighty.
The mountain filled the rearview mirror completely. Its peak wreathed in clouds.
One hundred feet.
The density of the figures thinned.
Daniel let out a held breath.
“Don’t accelerate,” Nikki said. “Not yet. Not until we’re clear.”
“I know,” Daniel said with restrsint.
One hundred and fifty feet.
The last figures in the corridor were younger in their conversion. The early stages wearing the people who still had faces. Light added underneath. One of them, a woman with her hair neatly braided, raised her hand as Sweet Salvation passed her.
A wave good bye.
Melissa made a small sound and looked at her lap.
Two hundred feet.
The corridor ended without ceremony. The last figures stood at its edge and watched Sweet Salvation move onto open road.
Daniel accelerated.
They were three minutes out when Mina's equipment screamed. A cascade of alerts.
“Pull over,” Mina said.
“We're not pulling over,” Nikki said.
“Nikki.” The flatness in Mina's voice stopped the argument before it started. “Pull over.”
Daniel found a wide section of ash-covered road and stopped. The mountain was still visible behind them.
Mina turned her laptop to face the crew. “This signal.” She pointed to a frequency pattern running underneath their own bass output. Faint but consistent. Broadcasting on a band just outside their normal monitoring range. “It's been active for weeks. Possibly longer.”
“What kind of signal?” Nikki asked.
“Location. Movement patterns. Thermal output from converted crew members.” Mina's voice was steady. “Every settlement we've visited. Every rescue operation. Every time we stopped, camped, changed route.” She looked up. “Bradley knew where we were going before we got there. He's known for weeks.”
Silence.
“The emitter,” Ignacia said. “Connor's emitter? The one he took.”
“It's the right frequency band. The right signature type.” Mina closed her laptop. “But I don't know if Connor planted it deliberately or if someone else compromised it. I don't know if he gave the data to Bradley or if Bradley found another way in.”
“He gave it to him,” Daniel said. Flat. Certain. “He stood with those Burned Ones for two minutes and told us part of him wanted to stay. He took Nikki's log. He took your research. Of course he gave it to Bradley.”
“We don't know that,” Ignacia said.
“Don't we?”
“We know Connor left. We know Bradley has our data. Everything between those two facts is a story we're telling ourselves.”
“It's a pretty convincing story,” Nikki said.
“It's not confirmed.” Ignacia's voice was harder than she intended. “We don't move on Connor until we know.”
“If we're wrong?” Melissa asked. “If we give him the benefit of the doubt and he's been actively working against us this whole time?”
Daniel put the truck back in gear without being asked. The argument settled into the unresolved silence.
Bradley's voice reached them ten minutes later. It bellowrd through Mina's equipment. Calm and unhurried, like a man leaving a voicemail.
“You'll come back,” he said. “When you do, I'll be here ready to lead you into a new world.”
Rita looked at the speaker Mina's equipment was wired through. “He sounds very sure of himself.”
“He is,” Ignacia said.
Rita tucked Mr. Buttons firmly under her arm. “We have to get my daddy first,” she said. “You promised.”
“Exactly where we are headed now Rita.” Ignacia told her. “We are rescuing your daddy.”
🔥🌟🔥🌟🔥🌟🔥🌟🔥🌟🔥🌟🔥🌟
Thank you for reading 📚❣️
This is a continuing adventure of The Warmth Chronicles. If you would like to catch up or read Ignacia's origin story, the link is below.
Keep my bum glued to my writing chair
My Creativity is fueled by tea. Lots of tea.
God, the whole corridor scene was so unsettling, but it was the sadness threaded through it that really got me. Rita saying “They’re sad,” the recognition through the window, that little wave goodbye… 🥺 you keep reminding us that these are still people, or that some part of them is still in there, and I think that makes the horror so much more effective. And then the tracking reveal! Bradley’s certainty is becoming increasingly freaking terrifying. Also, I am firmly in Ignacia’s camp on Connor. I refuse to convict the man on vibes and circumstantial emitter evidence 😂
This was a good read. Which of your posts starts this story? Are they all subtitled "Crispy Zombie Road Trip"?