16
David’s dirt bike continuously quivers down the bumpy mound. Both feet shuffle and skip until the descent’s end. Above the steep hill, the remaining itinerant acquaintances appear to him as transient shadows of his past.
David roams around the area for a bit, acres and acres of flat land on his left and on his right, high cliffs, a dead-end. He pulls his motorcycle in closer into the county’s train-set collection, home base. Full rows of railroad tracks travel beyond human sight. Miles of train carts reside on the jumble of curved tracks that lead to every possible destination except to a better time.
David scans the horizon. Cirrus companions overlap a red swollen star. The sky is amalgamation of suffused hues, a cake of colors, with the steady candle burning low beneath the skyline. David cranes his neck, closes his eyes, letting the radiant light and blustery wind, warm and cool him at the same time.
All the blood drains from his face when he opens his eyes.
David swings his bag onto his chest, straps his grenade launcher onto his back, and stands up over his motorbike. He rescans the area this time with his binoculars. He talks into the walkie as he continues to look with the binoculars, pressing his mouth to the plastic. “Ava, don’t come down here.” Observing up, he lets go of the talk button. No response. Why did I even give her one?
“Stay, where you are.” David gazes up trying to find his friends with his binoculars, but only sees the shining sun. He told them to stay on the high ground and go around this area, he’ll cut straight across and meet them on the other side of the mountains.
David speaks into the walkie. “Guys, I might not make it. I was so close to revenge, maybe this is for the best.” He smiles looking around, releases the talk button. “Phillip I tried to save you and our group, that has to count for something.” He shuts off the walkie and shoves it into his back jean pocket.
17
Yards of scuffmarks in the grass and soil lead up to the copious dead families; littered with lacerations and flies. Mass slaughter could of happened yesterday.
In David’s wide binocular lens a bulky female zombie is hunching over while burrowing into a pregnant woman’s warm pubic area, a child zombie climbs down from its host’s spine like a newborn monkey exploring the world for the first time. The smaller zombie then bobbles with anticipation up to the human child still holding onto her mother’s hand. Its beige skeletal hands fondle the child’s flushed face. The skin around the tiny zombie’s mouth is like fishhooks pulling it away from the lips, the few teeth that remain are jutting outwards for the human child’s right cheek. This is naturally one more love bite from the undead family to the human family. Blood leaks from within the larger zombie’s throat and torso as it erects its head. Once the younger zombie stops gnawing, it climbs up the older zombie’s legs and buries it head in its bosom and bites down on the blood over the nipple.
Zombies recently attacked the community of train dwellers. Hundreds. Putrefaction is emitting off the tyranny of anthropomorphic autodidact consumers. Farther out in the field is a sprawl of corpses and the bloodlust evidence. The butchery of the community has transformed the knee-high green grass into a haunted cemetery.
David gets a copper taste in his mouth, his eyes well up with tears of anger and he presses his hand into his forehead and through his hair trying to beat sense into himself. Passels of zombies stand in his way for a peace of mind. No escaping their omnipresence in this world prison. Why fight the truth any longer? There’s no deterrence that can make them stop being their true-selfs and no amount of love could erase his bloodlust.
A fat woman zombie with dragging saggy breasts is giving David the evil eye across the field as if she’s debating to walk over and say hello. Her face is a translucent pigmentation, immortal like the jellyfish. The field of trains is spread out randomly like a bucket of fallen Legos, it camouflaged the deadly from up high, and now up close, the Venus flytrap is closing.
Several stationary stacks of zombies as high as buses are in a motionless slumber, positioned around the area like land mines. David refers to these type of zombies as the Dormant Beast like the ferocious bear in the cave. Ravens are perched atop of the zombie stacks, dozens of eyes act like a pendulum that can’t stop. Dead leaves in the trees look like worms waiting to be blown away.
You can postpone feelings for a time, never forever. He juggles the grenade launcher in his hand in a hateful rage more than fear, flicks the barrel open and in a rush jams in the bullet backwards, coaxes it back out, it falls to the ground, so he gets another and fires it. He puts the fallen one in his belt of ammo.
I’m tired of being afraid. Go down swinging on your terms. David pulls the trigger multiple times, the canister of grenades rotate with each shot, creating a thunking noise. David’s the grenadier and the zombies are the trenches.
Panoply of slapdash fuckers run downslope towards him. Right on schedule. How original. David banks into turns firing into train carts; they slide through bodies, roll and crushed even more bodies. If I don’t kill all of them, they will kill tomorrow, and the day after. The largest terrorist group ever. This is the best way to protect people. Kill the disease, not the symptoms. What’s the point of rescuing anyone if they still exist.
Seismic aftershocks follow, torsos cremate, and limbs rain down building middens throughout the lay of the land field. At the reverberations, zombies intersperse like roaches running towards the darkness of the countless train carts, bouncing around like burning Lincoln Logs. Play time is over for the local muscle.
There’s a thud noise followed by a grenade exiting in an angle. The grenade explodes a widespread pile of zombies; heads ascend thirty feet in the air and into the scarce trees. Shrapnel from the grenades sounds like aswirl ice against the metal sides of the trains. Another grenade arches downward next to a dissimilar stack of zombies. The middle of the zombie tower is blown to the wind, what’s left of the top layer cascades and crushes the bottom zombies. Shreds of shrapnel swims through the dead flesh turning the zombie stack into a pond of waste. Small fires catch David’s eye. You have to burn this world down before you can build a better one.
Like disturbed ants, zombies come out of the woodwork, forcefully from under the trains as others leap from inside the trains like deer in fear. Anxiously amassing around the blast zones, the zombies huddle in concentric circles, awaiting for the next ting of sound. David reloads his launcher.
18
Scree of stones tumble down the side of the cliff and the cadre of rescuers stray the edge. They’ve been traveling on the right side up high unaware of what’s going on down low until the ground started to shake like it has Parkinson’s disease.
Sweat pours into her eyes. Ava’s looking through the binoculars for David, but he’s lost in the concert of the dead.
Lou says. “What’s our next move...He’s going to be ripped apart by those human piranhas. No one deserves that.”
Ava exhales hard. “Remember Dead Town, he wouldn’t want us to follow him.”
Youngblood says. “We can’t just let him die for us.”
Ava says. “We don’t need him, I know where the Boss is?”
Lou’s relieved for a second, then says with pure anger. “What?”
Ava says. “I know where David thinks he’s going and I trust his judgment on this.”
Coop looks at the Chief. “We need to help him…we don’t leave our own, that’s the point of this whole trip.”
The Chief says. “Call him.” His secret about Maria eats at him.
Ava talks into the microphone. “Fuck, this knob was turned low.” She holds the button. “David, David, if you can hear me, you’re on your own, good luck.” She holds onto her bullet necklace like a talisman.
Lou says. “Is everyone losing their marbles?”
19
In the twilight of the creatures immortality, these particular zombies all look different yet oddly familiar like Down Syndrome persons, both easily identifiable in a crowded
place. Filigree etches take form in the claylike faces, the deadites are fermenting formaldehyde from their pores and figurine-esque stiff frames. Scattered about nevertheless highly organized in cells, like religious terrorists, with one misguided goal leading them. Kill.
All indigene monsters are drawing to David like moths to the flame. A thick fog of grenade aftermath envelops him; the dirt bike hops and vibrates with desperation, pulling away from the dead and the living.
The feening spree for flesh begins by an unholy dinner bell. Rumblings of the undead sounds like a muscle car engine breathing life into a thing. Tons of meth-faced zombies congested like traffic, suddenly wake up, then accelerate in all directions going on a bender and ripping up the ground. Long hair bellows behind the zombies, strands float on the winds like flying grass snakes.
David rights himself over the bike, speeds away; parallel rows of running dead cronies converge and bottleneck before the curve around the tree and hit the apex with no loss of speed like a Formula One vehicle. All are climbing over dead kin with no remorse and are closing the distance behind David. Their speed fans away the black smoke dissimulating the train carts.
Not through ingenuity, but by sheer luck a crowd forms and elongates into a chow line. It sways side-to-side into a human centipede with cheetah speed and eagle focus. David leads a group into a broad tree, splitting the first zombies into two.
He fires into the earth, making a crater, the rocks fly up and decapitate the zombies. The weight of the falling zombies into the crater creates a pool of blood. Fleshy automatons run nonstop like a platoon of soldiers obeying their carnal desire, increasingly zombies begin to funnel into the ramming pillar chasing David through the terrain. The more he kills, the more zombies come to life.
All moisture leeched from their faces, the zombies’ crinkled and crimped skin fly off like tissue paper wrappings as they run faster. Kneecaps snap inward and zombies become rolling balls of bones crushed together like owl pellets.
Universe interlopers with universal vehemence for destroying everyone unlike them. David’s the guest of honor in their Requiem Mass ceremony, a willing sacrifice on the altar.
20
The gap between man and inhuman is substantial.
A laying zombie punches his arm through the tire spokes; the dirt bike slows as the zombie head slingshots next to David’s thigh. He turns the handlebar with one hand, trying to break the arm loose. With the other hand, David lodges his thumb into the zombie’s eye, gooey like apple pie, scalping the zombie with the upward force. The dirt bike trembles then slides one way on the ground, leaving David tumbling in the dirt. Ripping his jeans over his thigh. “Son-of-a-bitch.”
David angles the grenade launcher on his stomach and points it upwards like a mortar; the shell arches and pierces into the ground, it singes his eyebrows. The first row of stir crazy zombies float upwards as if in zero gravity like astronauts. The next wave of flaming zombies continue to rush forward, breaking through the hovering bodies. No respect.
David stands up straight and steadies the grenade launcher with one hand. The weapon is an extension of his body. He holds his breath, closes one eye. He hears something on the wind behind him. Grabs the launcher with both hands and fires over his bike.
Bodies first expand then shower outwards with high velocity; blood sprays from the bodies like shaken up carbonated drinks, and then disappear all together. A fireball climaxes in the center of the group, blowing up dozens of duplicitous dead dwellers, stories into the air. Faux-humans somersault in synchronization, apathetic expressions cemented on their facades. Bone fragments clutter into David’s armored vest. His body sails back on the wind like a kite into a tree.
David runs for his bike, holding his chest, focusing on the zombies that remain onward, patting the belt with pouches, slantwise across his chest, feeling for any ammo, his hand skips over around. David swings the empty launcher back to his back and heads for the side of his bike. He scoops the dead bits in the front wheel out like a gutter; David has to keep looking around because he can’t hear. Lines of blood run down his neck.
On the bike, he walks it forward and tries to kickstart the bike, the throttle is not responding. Engine awakens and roars from its stagnation, but just as quick, it drifts back to sleep. “Start bitch.”
Behind him, he can see the hundreds of eyes with deadly intent. He seesaws over the seat repeatedly to no avail. David presses every button on the screen, the different color menus rapidly flash over each other. David squeezes his eyes closed as hard as he can. His fist punches through the screen, in his mind. The dirt bike has hit the runner’s wall. Alive and dead simultaneously.
A slow and soothing woman’s voice talks from the bike. “Diagnostic check…Engine passed…Solar cells fully charged…Unknown error.” David’s sweat drips onto the screen, blurring his face reflection, he presses the option in the corner. The woman says. “Resetting all systems…Please wait.”
David clinches his teeth and bangs the side of the bike with his handgun. He lifts the two belts over his head and loops them over the kick-standing bike, then unfashions the machete lying across the tail-end of his bike. Primitive weaponry for primitive brutality, each kill earned and appreciated. Looking a man in the eyes and killing him, is a lost art.
David desultorily jogs away from the dirt bike, firing two shots into the crowd.
He talks into the walkie-talkie. “If there is anyone out there, who feels they owe me one.” In vain, he waits for a response that he knows he doesn’t deserve.
“Ladies and gentlemen. It looks like I’m not going to make it to the promise land. Please give the Boss my regards. Good luck.” David looks at the mountain for a moment, holding his friends in his mind, divining his fate, swallows a handful of pills, and then runs for another mountain miles away.
21
David’s mentally chastising himself for letting his emotions get the better of him. A sobering phenomenon. But he won’t let these halfwits punk him.
After a few city blocks of distance, David’s shooting behind him as he runs forward. Hitting zombies in the thighs, causing other zombies to sandwich on top of each other, falling forward like flimsy dominos. David runs gaining speed and runs headlong like a rugby player through the zombie playing chicken with him. The zombie twirls and swivels off its feet stiff like a mannequin until it splits in half midair.
New zombies helix and engulf David, they move in harmony like a school of fish and just as greedy. A tidal wave of blood crashes atop of him. SPAT. A sonic boom with David as the nucleus.
Zombies run and smash into each other like medieval foot soldiers. David jumps up on collision and rolls down the pyramid of the dead. Entangled, zombies become a wall of boney thorns, hindering David’s retreat. He jumps covering his face and creates his own door. Hapless bodies have more bone than meat.
Zombies are no longer running, mirroring him, it’s as if they are enjoying their victory and want David to know he’s powerless in their world. They’re undead kindred spirits. From the grass floor, he sees a myriad of zombies stalking him yards up front and can feel hot breath on his neck. Is that possible? Zombie blood as thick as molasses blots out David’s vision, for a moment. The dead is multiplying like loaves and fishes around him.
This is only fair, I have killed many of their kind, it’s understandable they would feel a certain way about that and want revenge, it’s what drives me. This is not personal, it’s survival. We all say and do the same things over and over, why wouldn’t they?
No more running and hiding from the repo men. David stands up tall, foregoing extreme caution, tosses his empty gun; it distracts the zombies’ eyes for a brief second. He can no longer see anything else, but the approaching soul eaters. He’s a stranger in a strange land.
Cocksure, David holds the machete in high guard over his head and teases the zombies in a full circle manner with planted feet, making quick movements and inviting the semi-sentient beings to jump at him. They want a pi
ece of me like the Boss, the Engineer, the Indians, the Queen, my old group, the women in my life, and Phillip. Stand in fucking line. Zombies cordon David within their ninth circle of hell; many more zombies stand behind the zombies nearest to David like roman legionnaires, ready to attack if someone gets through the first row of guards. Safety in numbers has gotten them this far. Intimidation factor. Kill me and I’ll never ask you for another thing.
“Ah.” David whorls his machete like a helicopter blade cutting through human flesh as easily as slicing through warm butter. “Fuck you.” Heads fly and roll.
A spate of faces behind the beheaded zombies are cackling hyenas over David’s huffing. It’s a never-ending battle against a heaving hydra. The machete is an extension of his body, he slices with fluidity in overhead arcs, intersecting and bisecting chitinous skulls like the bugs they are. Crosshatching hellacious throats with the tip of his long blade like a springing fencer. David defeats dozens of Lazarus clones. He culls what could be the last remnants of the human species. Blood floods in runnels, created by the undead themselves.
In the heart of darkness and thicket of apex predators trying to pry open David’s face, the pungency of the musk is stronger than gasoline; it irritates his eyes and kills his back pain. David’s a spinning top, on his heels; his vision is a carousel of tattered faces morphing into one face, the conductor of his demise. He stops. Cleaves and hacks like a man bringing down a tree, but the imminent and aggregate face remains. His socks squirt out excess blood with each step.
The machete has started to curve into a Scimitar saber. He’s turning in full circles and staying low, chest level of the dead, denuding throats, hands, and legs. The dead are slowly siphoning his energy before they eat him in a docile state like a serpent that crushes all the bones first. David has entered a war of attrition. He’s saturated in plasma, spittle, and a collage of flesh. Something bites the back of his thigh, the crowd has tiny openings and closings every second like a beating heart, he’s forced into a roll through a shifting escape.
Genesis Virus Page 49
