Zombie Road Trip Part II: Green Bay Has Fallen
To read Part I: https://queenofquill.com/2021/07/03/zombie-road-trip-part-i/
We finally arrived at the dock in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The ferry glided as gracefully as a giant can of vomit-producing metal could glide into the port. I thought Zavier might crawl off the boat. Instead, he walked off full of color and spirit again, getting closer to seeing Metallica with each step. I neglected to mention we now needed to wait for our vehicle to be unloaded from the ship so we could drive across Wisconsin and into Minnesota to complete the trip. I’m sure my son would be fine though with a five-hour car trip with his mom. It was the hallmark of an epic road trip.
“I just spent four hours puking on a ship that smells like ass, and now we have to drive five hours through farmland and cheese fields to get to a concert?”
“Yeah, it’s cool, right, totally awesome. Also, watch your language. We can stop and get some cheese curds, see the local sights, explore the world.”
Zavier looked around at the vast nothingness of Lake Michigan and into a tiny town full of tiny houses with oversized American flags. He shook his head and shrugged.
“Well, wake me up when we get to Minneapolis, okay?”
In my book, this was a peaceful settlement with a teenager, not necessarily the excitement I wanted to see on our mother and son bonding trip, but it would do.
As we waited for our car, I watched other passengers. Many seemed to have the same sickly color as Zavier. I remembered faces like a camera and did not think any of these people had the same experience over the ship railing as my son did. I focused on one man in his mid-50s, who seemed to be slightly moaning and coughing. A tear shaped droplet slid down his cheek. It was so dark that it could not possibly be a tear. I was going to check on him, when I saw our car out of the corner of my eye. Zavier pulled at my sleeve with youthful impatience. I’m sure the man would figure out how to seek medical care. I tried a sympathetic smile before turning around, and he just stared beyond me, unaffected. I rushed Zavier to the car, jumped in, and hit the gas. Small towns creeped me out, and I was starting to join Zavier’s camp about driving through empty fields and many more creepy towns.
About thirty minutes into our ride, absent conversation, but streaming with wonderful music from my son’s eclectic playlist, the young man spoke.
“Mom, I want those cheese curds you mentioned earlier.”
“Then you will have some cheese curds,” I said, overly excited about finally having my presence acknowledged after miles of cows, farms, and summertime manure. I pulled off at the first cheese store I could find, which took less than two miles of driving in Wisconsin.
We went into the store, and despite the presence of three cars in the parking lot besides ours, it was empty. We both poked around, collecting curds and cheese heads, but there was no one to pay.
“Z, wait here. I’m going to check things out,” I said with authority, meanwhile feeling like a chainsaw wielding family was in the back ready to take us out. Eerie silence was never a good thing, worse than my teenager’s current irritated silence.
“Okay, can I eat some curds while you look though?”
I nodded and made my way to the back of the store. The storeroom and offices in the back were empty, too, but off in the distance I could see the back exit slightly open, and I heard moaning noises. I grabbed a massive kitchen knife randomly sitting on a desk, remarkably unsanitary for a food operation if you wanted my opinion, and I walked forward, determined to properly pay for our goods even if it was with our lives. Our Midwestern roots would not allow us to dine and ditch, even for curds.
A moaning sound grew louder, intermingled with crunching sounds, as I moved closer to the exit. I opened the door further, standing carefully in its shadow and peeked out. I did not understand at the time what I was really seeing. In hindsight, I probably did, making this my second mistake of the day. I wrote it off as some creepy orgy type deal where five people pile on top of one screaming person, blood everywhere. Zombie porn. Or maybe it was some form of backwoods cannibalism, and I would call local authorities later. I was not equipped as a suburban mom to deal with such matters. I shut the door, kept the knife, and I threw more money than necessary for cheese turds on the counter. Zavier sighed as I pulled him out of the store, leaving a trail of spilled curds behind us. We sped out of the lot, and we did not stop until Lambeau Field, our third mistake for the day.
“Mom, why do we need to stop at Lambeau? You know I don’t care about football.”
“Well, I don’t either, but it is a pretty big deal to some. Your dad would want us to take a picture.”
“Seriously? Okay, but then can we just drive straight through? I want to get some rest before the concert tonight.”
“Fair enough, cranky pants.”
Pulling off the freeway into a plain town with a majestic football stadium interjecting itself proudly in the middle was a sight to see even for football agnostics like Zavier and me. I turned his playlist down a little and whistled. The streets were empty as we drove down Lombardi Avenue. It was Saturday, early afternoon. There should be others around even though football was not being played. I made a note to put the radio on for a bit after this stop to check the news.
Suddenly, a tall, beefy, panicked man ran out in front of our car, forcing me to slam on the breaks, sending some cheese curds from Zavier’s hands into the front windshield. My front bumper tapped the man.
“WTF, mom. You hit that guy.”
I rolled my eyes, rolled down my window, and said to the man now leaning over the front of my car, “Are you okay? You just came out so fast. I’m so sorry.”
I had an instinct not to get out of the car like I normally would have after sort of hitting someone. After the cheese store, I was not trusting the citizens of Wisconsin, even in Green Bay, which I heard is passionately friendly.
The man rose in one motion, dark goop streaming from his eyes, and started flailing his arms, blood gurgling out of his mouth. Before I could react to this with a call to 911 for help saving this man upon whom I inflicted profuse internal bleeding, a woman with an axe came running up behind him. She hacked into his flesh, yelling at us to go.
“Get out of here while you can. Go now. My husband just ate our kids. Green Bay has fallen.” As the woman screamed nonsense at us, she let up on the axe, long enough for her husband to turn and lunge forward into her ample bosom, biting down, causing blood to squirt onto our windshield.
With Zavier screaming, I threw the car into reverse, backing all the way to the freeway at maximum speed until I had enough of my wits back to drive forward and onto the road ahead out of Green Bay. I screamed at my son, who was still screaming himself sending cheese curd remnants flying, to call 911. The call was met with a busy signal. My fourth mistake was not turning around to go home.
“I think we should go home or go back to Lambeau. I just hit a man, and then we fled the scene of the crime” I said when we both had calmed down about 10 miles up the road. I felt pain at the thought of abandoning our road trip because I hit a crackhead being chased by a murderous wife.
“Mom, Wisconsin is weird. I think they were on meth or something. Let’s just try to call 911 again. That wasn’t your fault.”
I paused. The boy did not want to go home. He finally wanted to be on this trip fully with me. All it took was a wax-yielding meth head and a plentiful curd supply from a Zombie porn store to make this trip worthwhile to him. I had a kitchen knife, and we were making good time. Onward we would go.
In my joy, I forgot to turn on the radio, and we both forgot to try 911 again. Zavier offered me some of his cheese curds forgetting I was vegan. My hands were still shaking, but I took the curds and popped them into my mouth like Xanax. Something was not right here in Wisconsin, but maybe Minnesota would be better.
Kelly Rogers 