Jill smiled once more, shook the spray can, and crouched down to unscrew the valve on the busted tire. As soon as she’d affixed the can to the valve, she began releasing the sealant.
Clare leaned over me, grappling at the air. “Mom,” she wailed, “you don’t have to do this!” She sniffled, her voice weakening. “It’s not over yet… maybe, maybe we’ll find a cure.”
But I knew my wife—and her vocal tones—well. Even she didn’t believe what she’d said. She was simply desperate to save her mother. At almost any cost.
Gently, I pushed her toward the passenger seat, but she resisted.
“No,” Clare shouted with renewed determination. “No, Joe! You have to get her back inside!”
“Baby,” I whispered, trying to keep her from diving over my lap, “we have to go.”
“But my mom,” she whimpered.
“She’s trying to save us. To give us a fighting chance.”
“Clare,” Jill abruptly said from the open doorway. “Listen to Joe. There’s no saving me. We both know that. But at least I can help you all get away.” She glanced toward the hill, her forehead pinching with fear.
A few more gunshots punctuated the night.
Jill flashed us a look of urgency. “Close those damn doors and get the hell outta here!”
With that, she slammed the driver’s-side door shut. As I locked it, I heard the rear ones bang closed, too.
“Mom,” Clare whimpered, pushing against me.
“I love you, baby,” Jill shouted over the encroaching din. “And I always will. Now, go!”
“Mom, no, wait,” Clare pleaded, reaching for the door handle. “I love you, too!”
Jill knelt beside the headstone and finished filling the tire with sealant.
Clare continued to protest, and I held her tight against me—both to offer her comfort and to prevent her from busting through the door.
I glanced at the side-view mirror, checking on the status of our pursuers. The speediest ones were mere yards away from the van. I longed to step on the gas, but I needed to wait until Jill gave me the signal.
While shifting my focus toward my mother-in-law, who still crouched beside the headstone, I inadvertently loosened my grip on Clare. Distraught yet determined, she took the opportunity to slip from my grasp and bolt toward the rear of the van—no doubt intending to reach her mother via the back doors. An impulsive move that would not only get her killed but the rest of us as well.
“Clare, no!” I leapt from my seat, tripped over Azazel’s carrier, and fell flat on my face.
Luckily, though, George caught her before she could unlock the doors and flee outside. Weeping and wailing, my wife flailed like a ferocious lioness, but George proved to be the stronger of the two.
As I scrambled to my feet, the first of the zombies reached the van. Groaning, hissing, and grunting, they banged against the sides and rocked the vehicle so vehemently, I worried we would capsize. In fact, the only thing keeping us from tipping over was the sheer density of zombies surrounding us.
“Christ,” George yelled as she stumbled against the kitchen sink, almost releasing her grip on Clare.
Carefully, she guided my wife toward the sofa and, keeping one arm around Clare’s trembling frame, sat on the rumpled blanket beside her.
Jill screamed in anguish, and Clare responded with another crying fit. Even Azazel mewled—certainly not because of her grandmother’s impending death but for the sake of her precious mama, who was clearly upset.
Quickly, I slipped into the driver’s seat and glanced through the window. My mother-in-law still knelt, keeping one hand on the can and using the other to push away the hungry scouts. A valiant if pointless attempt to delay the inevitable.
I thought of my ill-fated pal Gigi and how she’d tried to steer the barge while fending off the relentless, jaw-snapping zombies, hoping to spare the rest of us from the same terrible demise. Like her, Jill couldn’t prevent the creatures from ripping into her. I could see them biting bits of flesh from her frail arms, back, and legs. But even as they did so, even as she hollered from the pain, she kept a firm grip on the can of tire sealant.
Damn, that’s one tough broad. Guess she really does have a high pain threshold.
As a hundred, or more, zombified scouts surrounded the van, swaying us back and forth, Jill, Clare, and Azazel kept up their discordant wailing. There was nothing I could do. Except wait a little longer.
Not too long, though. The horde was thickest along the rear and sides of the vehicle, but soon, the infernal creatures would block the front as well. I didn’t want to test the fortitude of my van by trying to mow down a dense mob of juvenile zombies and their chaperones—particularly given my tire trouble.
Perhaps reading my mind, George hollered, “Jesus, Joe, what are you waiting for?! They’re about to flip us over!”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel, the knuckles stretching and whitening. “I know.” I gazed down at Jill, who was still trying to seal the tire while batting at the monsters around her. “Just want to make sure the tire’ll hold.”
“No offense, Joe,” Casey said from the dining nook, “but I think it’s time to go.”
He was right, of course. They both were. But the trouble with instant tire sealants was that they weren’t, well, an instant fix. After applying the spray, you needed to resume driving in order to distribute the sealant and normalize the air pressure. Just one hitch… despite all the rocking, we were still hung up on the headstone. Would one can of Fix-a-Flat provide enough air pressure for me to roll clear of our latest obstacle?
I gazed at the zombies surrounding the front end of the van. The grotesque faces, the ripped-out throats, the gaping wounds, the missing limbs and innards… almost too much to witness—and definitely too much to forget.
Impossible to believe that we—as in, all of humanity—would ever come back from the absolute horror of it all. No matter how many preppers had yet survived, no matter how many secret government bunkers still existed, housing the idiots who had done nothing to stop the apocalypse, I couldn’t fathom how those that remained of the human race could possibly fight off such an undead tsunami.
My companions and I were currently engaged in a losing battle against a bunch of underage zombies. So, how the hell could the rest of humanity defeat billions of infected monsters?
Short answer: They couldn’t. The best we could all hope for was to avoid obvious traps, keep our loved ones safe, and get as far from population centers as possible.
Exactly what I’m fucking trying to do!
Jill shrieked, shoved away one of the ferocious biters, and then gazed up at me, her face racked with pain. With a grim smile, she nodded once and then crumpled to the ground—fittingly right atop the grave of some long-dead person.
The poor woman had obviously had enough—enough of the anguish, the fight, everything—and as the will to live vacated her, there was nothing left to stop the zombified scouts. They piled atop her slender frame, feverishly grappling and clawing their way to what remained of her flesh. Even as she maintained a firm grip on the can.
Apparently, zombies weren’t picky. They’d even devour those who were infected but not fully turned.
I sensed a pang in my chest. I could no longer see her, the woman who, for nearly twenty years, had essentially been my nemesis. The same woman, however, who had given birth to my soulmate and hopefully just saved all of our lives.
As with Samir and Dibya, I owed Jill so much, and yet, I’d never have the chance to return the favor. I just hoped her suffering had ended—and that her sacrifice wasn’t pointless.
Only one way to find out.
I shifted into drive and stepped on the gas. For a brief, terrifying moment, the tires spun, the engine strained, and it seemed as if we’d remain stuck in the damn cemetery forever.
But then, an unexpected thing happened. The zombies not focused on my doomed mother-in-law decided they’d waited long enough for their tasty m
eals-on-wheels. On all sides, they shoved and rocked us more violently than before. My stomach clenched, my chest tightened, and my head throbbed with concern.
Instead of tilting to the left or right, though, the van lurched forward, and the patched-up tire rotated free of the tombstone. Soon, we were steamrolling over a pack of unfortunate zombie children, veering toward the bridge, and trying to ignore the awful crunching sounds around and below us. The busted tire, still too flattened and unwieldy for comfort, managed to keep us moving—hopefully long enough to get us to safety.
“So long, Jill,” I muttered to myself. “And thank you.”
Chapter
18
“That ain’t a bridge. That’s goddamned pre-Columbian art!” – Jack Colton, Romancing the Stone (1984)
Despite her prickly personality, my recently deceased mother-in-law had had enough brains to recognize her imminent demise and enough compassion and fortitude to do whatever it had taken to spare Clare’s life and the lives of everyone else in the van.
I’d always be grateful for what she’d done… but naturally, we weren’t in the clear yet. Not by a long shot.
While Clare cried over her mother’s death—every sob and sniffle breaking my heart—and George attempted to comfort her with soothing words, I struggled to maintain control over our compromised vehicle. Not an easy feat, to say the least.
The going was almost slower than my analog speedometer could register. Not only did I have to wind my way between and around the weathered headstones that had toppled onto the road over the past hundred years, but the sheer volume of zombies surrounding us also kept the rig at a steady three miles per hour.
More undead kids and adults had joined the fray, replacing those I’d managed to mow down with my front end. Mangled bodies pressed against every inch of the van’s exterior, forming several asymmetric rings around us. Most of the creatures apparently weren’t opposed to trudging sideways and backwards as we ineffectually rolled forward.
Some of the little creeps banged on the windows, some pounded against the walls and rear doors, others hurled themselves atop the hood, and still others managed to climb onto the roof. The cacophony of thuds and moans encircling our metal-and-glass cage made it seem as if we were trapped inside a gigantic amplifier.
“Make it stop,” Clare suddenly cried from the sofa, her shaky voice startling me.
I jerked my head around, my chest tightening with sympathy. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m trying to get us—”
“Joe,” Casey called. “There’s the bridge.”
As George attempted to calm my poor wife, I traced her son’s pointing forefinger to what looked like the most decrepit, piece-of-shit wooden bridge outside of an old Indiana Jones flick.
From the top of the moonlit hill behind us, I hadn’t been able to discern its rotting features—or its age.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I yelled. “Come on!”
The only solid aspect of the so-called bridge was its sign. Breaux Bridge, it read, an apparent tribute to the Cajun town in southern Louisiana. Cross at your own risk.
Yeah, no shit.
Well, at least we had one advantage: The damn thing was barely wide enough for the van, much less the zombies on either side of us.
Still, it was that exact attribute which had alarmed the young man in the passenger seat.
“Uh, Joe,” he said, turning toward me, “I kinda get the feeling this is a pedestrian bridge. Not meant for vehicles. Especially big ones like yours.”
“Don’t have much choice but to keep moving forward.”
Suicidal as that might seem.
Before he or his mom could raise any other objections, I began inching my way onto the ancient structure, the wooden slats creaking and groaning from the strain. As predicted, the narrow width of the bridge gave us a slight advantage. The parallel railings—if you could even call them that—helpfully shaved off the zombies on both sides of the rig, causing a few to roll down the embankment and forcing the rest to pile up behind us.
Of course, our ever-growing horde of groupies would only add to the heavy procession traversing the rickety span—and ultimately threaten to kill us all. I couldn’t do much about the zombies behind us, but I could certainly thin the herd in front of us. So, as soon as all four wheels had rolled onto the sagging bridge, I hit the brakes.
George leaned forward to catch my eye in the rear-view mirror. “What the heck are you doing? Why are you stopping?”
“Gotta get rid of the ones out front.” I gestured toward the dozen-odd zombified children—ranging from eight-year-old Brownies to seventeen-year-old Boy Scouts—that I’d inadvertently plowed onto the run-down bridge.
I picked up the Mossberg shotgun and rolled down my window a few inches. “I know you and your son just iced some of their pals, but this’ll be up close and personal. You might not want to watch this.”
George closed her eyes and, in her gentle, motherly way, angled Clare away from the windshield—not that my poor wife was focused on much beyond the din assailing her ears and, worse, the abrupt loss of her mother.
Casey, however, kept his eyes open and trained on the forward view—likely out of a sense of responsibility and camaraderie, recognizing that two pairs of alert eyes were better than one. He was a solid kid—polite and proactive—but he was still a teenage boy, so I suspected part of his “alertness” stemmed from a fondness for bloody video games, plus good, old-fashioned morbid curiosity.
In fact, he did more than simply watch. He grabbed his Desert Eagle, checked the magazine, and rolled down his own window.
I shook my head. “No, Casey. You’ve done enough.”
“But, Joe—”
“I appreciate the help, but only one of us needs to risk himself here. These fuckers are all over the van, and your mom would never forgive me if I let you get hurt.”
“He has a point,” George echoed from the sofa.
Casey sighed in resignation but dutifully rolled up his window.
Turning back toward the zombies crowding my front end, I hesitated to do the deed. Not because I sympathized with the young zombies impeding our escape—but because I still heard a couple of the little monsters stomping around on the roof and, via my side-view mirrors, spied a few clambering along the bridge railings. As I’d suggested to Casey, the last thing I needed was to stick my hands outside, only to be bitten or scratched by the unseen zombies above and beside me.
Quickly, I donned a pair of heavy-duty gloves that I’d stuffed beneath my seat (along with the tire iron, gas mask, and other handy essentials). Praying that they and my jacket would be enough to protect me from an unwelcome encounter, I rose to my feet and slipped the front end of the gun through the bars barricading the glass.
A tactical weapon with no stock, the Mossberg looked as if someone had melded a pistol grip on a pump-action shotgun. While I could shoot it one-handed, I typically didn’t attempt such madness. It had a helluva kick and would hurt like a son of a bitch.
But thanks to the zombies thumping around on the roof and rocking the van from behind, I couldn’t risk sticking the whole shotgun outside the window and holding it as I normally would. So, instead, I pivoted it into a rather awkward angle, aimed the muzzle at the first kid’s face, and pulled the trigger. The adolescent boy’s brain matter exploded from the back of his head, and his limp body slid off the hood, beneath the railing, and into the river below.
As pragmatic and one-track-minded as I might seem, I still didn’t find it easy to blow away the zombified children clawing their way onto the van. True, I didn’t really like children. Hell, I could barely tolerate most adults. But still, exploding their tiny, juvenile heads with each blast from the shotgun was gonna leave me scarred for the rest of my life. Then again, I reflected on how the pint-sized fuckers had ripped apart my mother-in-law—and it suddenly became a little bit easier to take care of business.
Unfortunately, though, I paid a price for my unwieldy position—and the
fact that the powerful Mossberg wasn’t exactly a precision weapon. By the time I’d finished dispatching the scouts blocking our way, my fucking wrists and forearms were on fire.
Once I was finished—and at least half of the most problematic undead (including the eager climbers who’d indeed tried to swipe at me) had slipped into the water—I plopped back down into my seat and rolled up the window.
After securing my seatbelt, I shifted the vehicle back into gear and continued our slow crawl across the bridge, rolling over the corpses that had slid off my hood but not into the water. By the time we hit the halfway point—about fifty feet from either shore—the wooden planks beneath our heavy-ass van groaned and cracked even louder.
“Um,” Casey hedged, “about that sound…”
“Please tell me it’s not what I think it is,” George added.
“OK, I won’t tell you,” I grumbled. “But it ain’t good.”
Everyone—with the exception of the almost two hundred or so zombified scouts behind the van—remained quiet as we continued to creep forward. Then, a new noise joined the creaking and groaning of wooden slats—the unnerving, unmistakable sound of splashes in the slow-moving river below us.
Any louder, and I might’ve hoped several zombified children had tumbled into the water.
No such luck.
No, these were the sounds of brittle, termite-infested boards hitting the surface of the river. The sounds, in other words, preceding our doom.
The weight of my fortified zombie-mobile and her five passengers had proven to be too much for the ancient bridge. Not that it surprised me. I just didn’t fancy drowning to death.
My head bowed in frustration, and I sighed with utter fatigue.
Zombie Chaos Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 60
