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Along the way I've found that some folks do give viable tips on hot-spots, areas where there are thick numbers of the bastards and also migrating herds which number from as few as 50 to as many as several hundred. Some with a sense of decency put up home-made road signs warning off potential travelers. Some are even nice enough to offer alternate routes. I still chuckle at the idea that the folks who had all those billboards along the highways, and the DOT's with their signs, advertising their wares never imaged that they'd be turned into warnings for survivors of the worse plague in the history of mankind.  It does my heart good to see some of them along my chosen route of the day. Tells me that the dead haven't eaten all the good folks. Unfortunately, they didn't eat all the bad folks either. As I found out the hard way.

One of these signs, along my route today, warned of a herd and gave several alternate routes. I stopped and scouted the area with my binoculars for a few moments before sitting on the hood of an abandoned car and got out my maps. The GPS became obsolete as soon as the folks managing the satellites had either been killed or abandoned their posts. So triple A road maps became popular again, at least with me. Every now and again I put my maps down, stand up, scout my immediate area in a 360 degree arc, then raise my binoculars and do another 360 at the area where my sight wouldn't reach. Giving myself the "all clear" I sit back down and study my maps again.

According to the instructions on the billboard I was referring to and the map in my lap, there was a small town which amounted to no more than a speck on that map. It stood to reason that might have a gas-station or even a small store that hasn't been totally cleaned out. Experience taught me that these were always worth checking out as long as they weren't more than a couple of miles off my chosen route along the interstate or highway. These aren't always empty, a few times I've found convenience stores still fully stocked, the employee had locked themselves in and still died behind the counter which in which they hid as the terror of the apocalypse unfolded outside. How they may have died I didn't always have a clue. I find myself amazed that the huge glass windows still intact and the stores un-looted/scavenged. But naturally, these are very few and even farther between. These places usually depress me because they remind me of just how quickly the plague had taken over and left few enough survivors that "accidental caches" like these are still untouched.

As I made my way up the off ramp after re-packing my maps and double checking my ammo supply in my various weapons, I kept a sharp look out for any movement, alive or dead. Once, I nearly got my head blown off by some kid who didn't bother to wait and see if I was going to eat him or not. Sadly, for him, he woke up a "sleeper" in the car he was standing next to and was cut down before I could get close enough to kill it. The thing was, the sleeper happened to be his mother. She had to have been, because they looked so much alike. I dispatched the mother with a hammer as she gnawed on her son and then still screaming kid with a sword thrust to the heart and finishing off with a hammer to the skull. I must've cried for hours, walking away from there as fast as I could before roaming or lurking zombies came around investigating the source of the screams from the kid. That little bastard was loud. Couldn't have been no more than 9 or 10. Still haven't figured out why I was crying. That must've been about month ago.

As I reflected on this past event, I slowed my steps as I neared the end of the off ramp. This was the kind that had a thick copse of young trees growing next to the stop-sign at the intersection. With no highway dept to cut them down they quickly grew wild and woolly and making it a perfect place for a zombie ambush if ever there was one. Not only zombies either, sometimes the aforementioned "bad people, liked to lay out an ambush as well. Only difference is that the zombies were just standing around or walking in a small circle. Their minds too empty to even consider moving in a single direction. I suspect that they were folks that had recently re-animated and found nothing around to eat and just hung around.

I listened carefully as I walked softer upon the pavement and towards the guardrail closest to the tree line. If I spotted zombies then I could at least (quietly) jump the guard-rail and get into the trees and hideout until it was safe to move on, or evacuate the area before being seen and/or heard.

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