by Joe Kelly
Well, there’s a few out here too, she told herself as she looked back and almost screamed as she saw the bowler hat looking around the front bumper of the van staring directly at her.
His face was almost skeletal, narrow and oddly triangular with his chin forming the point. The tip of the hooked nose was almost even with his thin upper lip. The eyes were flat, inhuman, almost cloudy and lay in deep dark eye sockets. Straggly wisps of white hair hung down the sides of the face. But it was the quivering grin that bared filed down shark like teeth that almost sent her over the edge. He was taunting her, she thought almost wildly.
She leaped to her feet, to hell with caution all she had wanted was to escape, so she had ran for the stairwell clutching the emergency pack like a life saver. She had heard them coming for her the sound of shuffling shoes and the thumps of those who limped seemed incredibly loud in the garage and spurred her to greater speed. She didn’t look back, she didn’t dare, she never wanted to see bowler hat again. She slammed the stairwell door open and in the process knocked over an infected man inside. She leaped over him somehow avoiding his grasping hands and ran for her life pounding down the stairs three at a time thankful that there were no other infected in the stairwell behind her the fallen thing moaned loudly.
She reached the street level and hit the crash bar throwing the door open. Smoke shrouded sunlight poured inside. Outside she bolted for her office building running as fast as she could. Ronny wasn’t here either damn it. She had thought not seeing his truck at the curb then her eyes had grown wide. One of the mimes from the street festival was between her and the front door.
A fucking mime, she thought. Okay, so it wasn’t enough that she had seen the bowler hat and his gimpy minions. But now, a Mime. A mime with blood on his stupid striped shirt and a gaping wound in his throat.
Any other time I would have cheered at a mime being eaten, but to let the damn thing come back from the grave, that’s just evil. The entire train of thought ran through her mind between two running steps. She had looked back over her shoulder and seen more of the infected pouring out of the parking garage now. And a mime was between her and the door to the office. Pistol, you have a pistol, it was Ronny’s voice in her mind. Thank you Ronny, even if you’re late.
She drew the pistol on the run and fired, then fired again. The mime twitched and staggered but didn’t fall. If he does one stupid rope pull or trapped in a box routine I am going to scream. She fired again and luck more than anything had sent the bullet into the mimes neck sending it staggering back, its head dangling oddly and then it collapsed and stopped moving. She paused only long enough to kick it for good measure before diving for the door of her office building fumbling with the keys.
The undead behind her were twenty feet and closing. Stop looking back, she had thought as she had stuck another key in the door lock and tried to turn it but it hadn’t moved.
Ten feet, they were getting out bibs now, she thought. She rammed another key in the lock took a deep breath and turned it. Almost screaming with relief she yanked out the key and dove inside slamming the door closed with five feet to spare. She managed to get the door locked then engaged the keyless dead bolts, before retreating upstairs and locking that door too.
She stood there at the window watching the street and waiting for almost another hour before Ronny pulled up to the building and saw the horde of zombies. He had started honking the horn and then drove slowly away. She started to cuss him for leaving her, then realized what he was doing as the infected outside the building turned and began to stumble after his truck.
It had taken almost ten minutes for the infected to clear the door and get far enough down the street before Ronny was satisfied. He turned his truck around and raced back down the street towards her building, weaving around clumps of the infected that slapped weakly at the passing truck. As he had pulled up onto the side walk he had rolled over and parked on the Mime. She had almost cheered at that moment.
Mary had grabbed her pack and ran down the stairs to the front door, throwing it open as Ronny drove up onto the sidewalk and stopped just a few feet from the door yelling out his window at her to hurry. She had ran out the door and glanced up at the parking garage and had almost stopped in shock as she saw the bowler hat standing there at the third floor railing looking down at her. Diving into the truck and slamming the door she had flipped it the bird as Ronny had sped away.
Mary shivered coming back to the present as Ronny drove slowly ahead looking grim as he spotted another tangled pile of burning wreckage that had once been cars. Figures moved around the wreckage backlit by the flames and now were turning towards the headlights and shambling forward.
He didn’t look boyish at all right now, she thought. Normally he was cute, almost boyish, with the worst sense of humor in the world. Like his friends he was fit, mostly because she made him work out harder than he would have otherwise. But his job had kept him in decent shape before she had come on the scene. She resisted the urge to tussle his dark brown hair, he wouldn’t take it as comforting or funny right now.
“We should have been there hours ago,” he muttered. Who would have guessed the area would have gone under so fast? It had taken an hour and half and two changes of underwear to get out of the downtown area. Then another hour using back roads to avoid the parking lot that the highway and interstates out of Nashville had become.
In good times they would be half an hour from Jared's house, but today the drive through the suburbs and satellite towns around Nashville was taking far too long. The fact they had stopped at three different stores in areas that looked clear, to buy more supplies hadn’t helped either. There hadn’t been a lot left but they had managed to get toilet paper, some canned goods and bottled water to add to the supplies they already had.
Ronny had stayed with the truck while she was inside and had almost had to shoot four people who had tried to steal the supplies that Ronny had packed in the truck this morning.
In places they had seen homes and other buildings surrounded by the infected who beat on the walls and windows which had made them both think that there must be a lot of people holed up waiting it out and hoping the army or someone arrived to save them.
But in every area as soon as the zombies heard his truck or saw the headlights, they would turn and lumber away from the trapped people and head towards his truck.
“This blows” he muttered as he backed up and turned down a side street to avoid another wreck and more zombies. He had stopped calling them infected within minutes of seeing several up close.
“Do you think we will make it?” Mary asked quietly, her hand resting on the pistol in her lap.
“I will get you there no matter what,” he vowed and he meant it. Even if he was bitten by one of those things he would get her to Jared’s before he died and became whatever they really were and if god thought any different he could just…. He chopped that thought off. With what was going on outside, ticking off god or what ever was up there wasn’t a smart thing to be doing.
“Brace yourself,” he said as he saw six zombies in the middle of the road. He slammed the pedal down and his truck roared forward. The zombies disappeared under the jacked up off road truck, which bounced and jerked a couple of times. “Let's see a hundred points for each zombie, one of them looked like he might be a politician so that’s an extra ten points. Senior citizens are worth…”
“Ronny that’s not even funny” Mary said with disapproval.
“Mary if I don’t make jokes I’m going to scream and shoot myself. So just ignore me” Ronny said tightly as he turned onto Morgan street. “ To hell with this,” he said, looking down the street where he could see orange flames across the road. .
“What are you going to do?” She asked then fell silent as he engaged the four wheel drive and turned off the road and drove across the small park to their right.
“If we cut thru here, head north and then cut back across the creek we can stick to the woods and come out
close to Jareds Road.”
“And if we get stuck, you’ll get your ass bitten while hooking up the winch.” Mary pointed out.
“Note to self make stainless steel undies soonest” Ronny said as Mary almost smiled at the poor joke. She would be surprised if she ever smiled again. She had never really believed in the supernatural, Bigfoot or anything else like that. Now her world was upside down, anything was possible and she didn’t care what anyone wanted to call them. Those things were undead. Evil was loose in the world and she didn’t think some knight on a white horse with a magic sword was going to ride to their rescue.
“Ronny, have you stopped and thought about if those things out there are real, what else is real?” She said softly, fearing gripping her as the thought came. He started to shake his head then stopped himself.
“I kind of doubt we will have to worry about werewolves and vampires right at the moment. And even if they are real, they would be on our side. Can't be letting the zombies cut down on the food supply you know”
“I am being serious asshole” She snapped, hating herself for letting the fear she felt get to her. Ronny was quiet for a moment, fighting his own desire to lash out, letting some of the fear he felt go. “Sorry,” she said a second later. She was normally a strong woman, but the events of today had shaken her to the core.
“It's okay, no biggie. I don’t think they exist, okay. Maybe they did once. Maybe every once in a while, the whole good vs. evil fight spills visibly over into our world. Ages ago it was vampires, then werewolves and now zombies” he said as he drove thru a creek, water splashing up and spraying the windows, then the truck was climbing up the other side bouncing over rocks and a downed tree the head lights cutting through the pitch dark woods.
“Buckle up Mary, this is going to be rough.” Ronny said as he turned off the headlights and slowed down, “Try again to get Jared on the phone okay, ” he added straining to see into the darkness beyond the windshield.
She nodded and lifted her phone taping the speed dial number and then frowned. “There's no signal”
“Shit!” Ronny muttered hoping that Jared and the others wouldn’t leave till he got there.
CHAPTER 6
Around 4 am the power to the area went off and didn’t come back on. All over town, street lights died plunging the nightmare filled streets into Stygian darkness. Thru the darkness, the zombies were unseen but not unheard. The shuffling and foot falls of the undead filled the night only occasionally being drowned out by isolated outbreaks of gunfire or the roar of a motor as another person tried to flee the dead’s advance.
The long lines of vehicles that were still attempting to flee on the interstates suddenly found themselves drowning in darkness as the glow of the city behind them and the towns ahead vanished and only the long lines of headlights lit the interstate, a ribbon of light announcing feeding time. In less than an hour the screaming started.
♦ ♦ ♦
Jared sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, thankful he had a natural gas fed stove, not letting the worry he felt show. Ori and Steve talked quietly about what might have happened to Ronny. None of them even hinted at the possibility that Ronny and Mary might be dead.
Right after the lights had gone out Warren and Rob had shown up loaded down with their gear. Four zombies had followed their truck up into Jared's yard. They had put the zombies down quickly and everyone had helped them get their gear inside. Shortly after that the land lines had stopped working. The only thing to be thankful for was that no other undead were in sight. Once ever one got settled in, Jared lay in his bed unable to sleep more than ten minutes at a time. It seemed to take forever for the sun to rise.
Giving on the idea of sleep he rose and headed down to the kitchen for some coffee and found Sharon, Steve and Ori already up. Some one had already made coffee he noted as he headed straight for the coffee pot.
“guess you couldn’t sleep either” he commented as he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.
“not really” Steve said.
“Give it another hour and then we can go look for him and Mary.” Jared said, rising from the table and checking his watch, it was just after sunrise.
“That might not be smart,” Ori replied, not happy about saying it, but the danger of going out and looking for Ronny was very real. Anything could happen and the fact they had no idea where to even begin looking pretty much meant it would be a wild goose chase.
“Smart or not, the least we can do is go to his house and make the attempt” Jared replied. Ori nodded slowly, he didn’t want to leave a friend behind either, but at the same time He had to point out the dangers. And the truth be told he really didn’t want to be out there either, he had already seen enough of the infected and the madness yesterday when he tried to get to Kelly’s house. Truthfully, he still hadn’t come totally to grips with the new reality.
Ori pushed his glasses up with one finger, and looked around at his friends. If he had to face the end of the world at least he wasn’t alone and these were good people. Could be worse, I could still be in the guard and been eaten at a check point. Worse yet still be active duty and stuck on a base overseas till it got over run and eaten. My luck it would be some asshole officer who took a bite out of my ass.
“Okay, so, we know that we won’t be called up. That’s pretty much a given. But if the post office delivers mail today, we join the post office. Because neither rain nor sleet or zombie horde will delay the mail is a catchy motto” Jared said as he wiped out his cup and set it on the counter. “Ori you’ll go with me to look for Ronny if he doesn’t show up. The rest of you get the last of the stuff loaded and wait one day. If we don’t come back head on out to the camp at sunrise tomorrow. If we can, we will meet you there.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Ronny’s truck nosed out of the trees and into a field. It looked almost normal in the light of the rising sun. He recognized the house to the right of the field and grinned as he woke Mary. He had stopped around two am for some much needed sleep when the going had gotten rougher than he liked. He normally didn’t mind driving through woods at night, but usually he could use his headlights and the lights on the rollbar.
The fear of waking up to windows breaking and rotting hands dragging him out had kept him waking up every ten or twenty minutes. But as soon the darkness had started to fade he had started the truck and drove slowly thru woods till at last the sun was finally peeking over the crest of the world heralded by a Red and gold clouds and he found himself five miles from Jared’s.
He didn’t let himself get too excited, and kept the speed down as the truck ripped up the fields. He didn’t stop for the fence, but drove straight thru the old wooden split rail fence and onto the road. “ How far now? “ Mary asked, starting to feel relief.
“Five miles or so” Ronny replied, smiling at her, hoping his smile would help keep her calm.
As they approached the turn to Jared’s house, he saw a wreck in front of Jeff Sloan’s place on the corner. “Look at that,” he said aloud as he watched in surprise. Six zombies were trying to get at a woman who was wearing a black leather outfit. One lunged for her and Ronnys eyes widened as she sent it flying backwards with a spinning snap kick.
The black Charger he assumed she had been driving was upside down in the middle of the street its front end crumpled from a collision with an old farm truck that lay on its sided in Jeff Sloans ditch.
“What the hell?” he said and laughed as the women used a foot sweep to take down another zombie. Ronny gunned the motor and sped forward, driving over two of the zombies while the woman back flipped out the reach of the rest.
A small group of zombies drawn by the sound of the Ronny’s motor had come around the corner of Jeff’s house and were now plodding slowly across the well tended lawn towards the wreck and Ronny’s truck.
Ronny threw open the door to his truck and stepped out pistol in hand. The woman scooped something off the road and rose smoot
hly into a stance he had seen a million times in movies. He shook his head in disbelief, if he didn’t do something fast that woman was going to die.
One zombie turned towards the truck its dead eyes fixed on Ronny and came at him with its arms outstretched. Ronny pumped two rounds into its face at close range sending it sprawling. He shifted his aim and double tapped the next zombie in the head. He pivoted towards a third zombie took aim and fired again.
The woman leaped forward drawing the sword she had picked up from the ground. It hissed from the sheath and struck at an angle shearing easily thru the neck of the Zombie closest to her. Blood sprayed. She spun around and with a single blow removed the head of the zombie she had taken down with the foot sweep as it attempted to get back to its feet.
She returned to position, sword held with two hands high and straight above her head. Then gliding on the balls of her feet, advanced on the last zombie, the one she had sent sprawling with the snap kick. The Blade of her sword, lit by the rising sun, looked like a bar of golden light as it sheared easily thru the zombie’s neck. She stopped as suddenly as she had struck. Then, with an intricate twist of her wrist, she spun the blade shaking off the blood and sheathed it without looking.
