Week 38: Conspiracies Revisited

We ran into a strange man about half way down Highway 129 to Macon. He was riding an ATV northbound that had a sign strapped to the front “Stop and Trade”. As soon as he saw us he started hooting and hollering and trying to wave us down. I didn’t want to stop, but before I knew it Edith had pulled over and was pulling eggs out of the pickup.

So I stopped and got out to meet Harold. Harold of Oklahoma City. How he got to Georgia, he didn’t mention, which is surprising because the whole time we were trading Harold wouldn’t shut up.

He seemed so familiar to me. Maybe it was because Harold was like one of those conspiracy theorists sitting on the street corner with a sandwich board advertising “The End is Near”. I bet all those guys are pretty proud of themselves now.

The problem is Harold’s conspiracy theories aren’t sounding too far fetched anymore. Harold told us how this bug is changing and mutating and things are going to get worse. Harold said the carriers aren’t the only offshoots from this zombie plague. However, he quickly moved on in conversation without telling us more.

Harold made mention of the zombies getting smarter. He said that the parasite was adapting. The bugs were getting used to controlling their hosts and we all know practice makes perfect. Harold compared becoming a zombie to being reborn. They start out like a baby just learning to walk. Then they learn to run and jump. Who knows what they’ll be able to do next.

I had to cut Harold short. To be honest, Harold was starting to freak out Matthew and Brenda… and Edith… and me too. So as soon as the trading was over I interrupted Harold’s rant and told him we had to be on our way. I mentioned we were trying to connect to I-75 and head south to Florida.

Harold started laughing. “Good luck” he said.

“Why’s that” I asked?

“Because we blew I-75 up. The whole length from Macon to Valdosta. We did it as soon as the zombies migrated north; thought it would help slow them down once they try to come south again for the winter.”

“We, who are we” I asked?

Harold gave me a salute and said, “Why, the United States Army, of course.”

That’s when I realized why Harold was familiar to me. He was the drunken scientist I met at Fort Patrick, the one that told me about the concentrated zombie juice.