by L. H. Tide
A short while later, Adams in his greyed costume, and Lee with his now-darkened shirt and half-burnt necktie, were standing in the corridor, both trying to regain their breath.
The automatic swing doors communicating with the corridor, from which they had been evacuated, opened with a metallic sound.
The fire chief joined them, his men transporting on a stretcher, behind him, three bodies covered with sheets. Looking at Adams, the fat fire fighter said, watching the two men severely, “Two men, and a woman dead, all three killed by the fire’s smoke!”
The firemen exited the corridor and left them once again alone.
The administrator glared at the engineer who, looking towards the tiled floor, was clearly feeling sheepish. The old man said to him, “I’m very, very disappointed, Mister Lee!”
The young Asian man continued to lower his eyes, as if he was searching for something on the floor, and went out of the corridor, scrutinized in detail by the old administrator, who had a very severe face. Once the double doors had closed, Adams stopped frowning and, sighing, seeming tired and even older, he followed Lee’s footsteps, one moment later.
One of the surviving technicians, who had watched them exit the corridor, looked visibly disgruntled at his surviving colleague and told him, “Almost no more ammunition left, and the project of laser guns is a total failure. Only a miracle from outside the Community could save it – and us all - from being doomed… we really need hope!”
***
Journey
Elmer Hoffnung was driving at breakneck speed, despite the weight of the vehicle he was driving. Driving wasn’t his thing, since basically, and before anything, he was a scientist. The big truck he was driving zig-zagged between the trees in the wood, pulling twin trailers behind it. Fear disfigured his plump, bearded face, giving it an almost comical appearance. He wasn’t in the mood to laugh, worrisome sounds coming from the diesel engine, signifying perhaps that he would soon be stranded in these woods. And he was so far from his destination! He knew that, sooner rather than later, his last moments would arrive… He had sometimes a glimpse of frightening figures between the trees, this night. All those reddish, glowing eyes in the dark that he was seeing, like a nightmarish tapestry; he knew that it meant that they were here. Not a few, but dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, waiting their turn…
Images of friends and colleagues who had been shredded to pieces in front of his eyes filled his mind, in a reddish kaleidoscope of butchery.
These thoughts made him almost miss a turn, and he steered maddeningly.
Under the centrifugal force provoked by the sharp turn, he felt that the second trailer pulled by the truck was losing grip at the rear. It was beginning to overturn, rolling on only the two wheels of one side.
“Noooooo!” he squeaked, and he saw in the side mirror the second trailer topple on the ground. Its metallic side raked the soil and slowed down his truck, while it raised clouds of dust.
He firmly stepped on the brake pedal. This threw him head first into the windscreen.
His nose was pressed painfully on the window and he was surprised that his head hadn’t burst through the glassy surface.
The vehicle stopped violently, and after the belt had restrained the fat man, it bumped him back toward the driver seat. Because of the shock, the back of his head and his nape hit the head restraint, and he was almost knocked unconscious.
“Ouch!” he yelled, and his torso swung back and forth, his neck swinging painfully with it.
Finally, his movements ceased and he remained immobile, eyes closed and head bent forward.
The only sound which could be heard was coming from the truck’s engine, which was left idling. Long moments passed.
At last, he breathed laboriously, his rib cage painful each time that he drew breath. Heand, opened his eyes and looked everywhere around him, inspecting the nearby trees, and looking in his left mirror. Then, wide eyed, he slowly opened the driver’s door. He looked at the ground below and, after a little hesitation, jumped on the ground.
He lost control of the trajectory of his fall and landed on his big belly, his face plunging with a splash in a small sloppy pond.
“Oh, my God!”
He raised his head and, hesitant, stood up. He sensed something on his face and, touching it, was disgusted: his face was covered with mud. Standing up clumsily, he put a hand on one of his big buttocks. Sensing the back pocket situated on that part of his bag-like jeans, he got out of it a pack of paper handkerchiefs. He extracted one of the small sheets and wiped his face, emitting a ‘Bah!’ because of revulsion. It had become brownish and, smelling it, he winced. Impatiently, he began to wipe his face.
Vaguely satisfied after having cleaned his face with a few more handkerchiefs, he turned around, and walked slowly toward the back of the truck.
As he had thought, the first trailer attached to the truck just behind the cabin was fine, set on its wheels. Concerning the second trailer which had been hitched to the first one, it was another story…
He was really pissed off!
“Oh no…” he said, his squeaky and funny, almost female voice, almost absorbed by the oppressing wood.
Not only had this second trailer rolled on its side, lying in the dirt of this bad road, but because of the overturn, the towing hook was completely twisted.
A roar came from behind him, startling him.
He turned around, seeing a bunch of living dead which were walking, heavily but surely, toward him. They were a few meters behind the open driver’s door of the truck, and were going to cut his access to the vehicle’s haven. Wailing, he began to run as fast as his weight permitted him, the zombies almost arriving at the door.
Fear made him make a fantastic stride, and he reached the door. He grabbed it with a hand, while he used the other to climb along the ladder on the side of the vehicle. Finally, he knelt in the driver’s seat.
He felt hands pull his legs.
Hanging on to the steering wheel just as hard as he could, he turned around and saw two zombies, wearing work clothes, clinging onto his old dirty sneakers. He yelled while he fought to remain inside, four other creatures trying, from behind the first two, to grab his feet too.
Elmer suddenly remembered the half rotten sausage he had been eating, and that he had sloppily left on the passenger seat. Fighting to resist the pull of the group, he grabbed it briskly. Holding on to the wheel with only one hand, he allowed their pull to dangerously diminish the distance between them and him.
With the other hand he threw the piece of sausage in the face of one of the two.
This source of meat made it react by seizing it in its gaping jaw. Its neighbor tried to seize the food out of its mouth and they both let loose of his legs. They began to fight with one another, scratching each other with their hands, which had long and sharp nails. They fell on the ground, continuing to fight, making the four others walk back.
This permitted Elmer to close the door and, turning the ignition key, he put his foot to the floor of the truck. The big vehicle had a weak start, sometimes even chugging, like a huge and sick metal beast. It laboriously moved along now rocky terrain, with a big metal scream. And it clearly wasn’t moving sufficiently fast, bunches of living dead approaching from everywhere, clumsy in their movements but apparently, very motivated, he told himself. Motivated to eat me alive!
This horrible thought made the bald man shiver, while he had the impression that the truck was slowing down and the curious metallic noise was increasing, and he thought he saw a flash of lightning.
“No, no, noooo,” he yelled, “what’s slowing me like that?”
That’s when he understood, opening wide surprised eyes, and he turned his attention to his left-hand mirror.
“Not that! Poor idiot,” he shouted, angry at himself, as he watched in the mirror the second trailer that he was continuing to drag. Its metallic side scraping the stony road, the friction generated sparks, which were very visible in the gloomy
night in the wood.
His attention turning again to the road, he was surprised to see a sea of glowing red spots in front of him, and guessed that these were in fact hundreds of zombies’ reddish eyes, which were reflecting the light of the headlights of the truck.
“I’m not afraid by you!” shouted the man, and he accelerated even more, the chimney-like exhaust pipe of the truck, on the side, spitting huge amounts of smoke.
The vehicle arrived like a combine harvester toward the living dead, which were hit and moved apart by the aft part of the truck. It moved through the flow like a boat producing waves in front of it and on its sides, the waves here being quantities of the hellish creatures.
A loud metallic sound, recalling him the complaint of a huge animal, startled him. He took a peek again in the left-hand mirror. The second trailer was beginning to rip apart on big rocks on the path. The truck was jumping on these rocks, making him cling to the steering wheel, and pray that he could avoid puncturing a tire.
A new bump on a higher rock made the trailer adopt an almost vertical position. This made him hope that it was going to recover, and roll again on all its wheels.
Instead, the structure of the second trailer fell over on its side, the structure of its brick-like shape twisting and creasing upon impact and, finally, ripping to pieces. It emitted at the same time a loud and plaintive metallic sound, reminding the sad-looking of an agonizing whale.
All this deafening sound and action excited even more the upcoming living dead which, no longer with clumsy movements, began to almost run after him and the wreck which was dragged behind, roaring louder. Elmer saw in the left-hand mirror the second trailer finish its transportation career in a mess of metal, dozens of different products that it contained scattered on the path, leaving a track of diverse objects.
That’s when he saw a big black bag fall in the dirt in the middle of the mess which had been poured out.
“Oh, no, not that!” the man shouted.
Biting his lips, wincing, he slowed down and, crushing the brakes, finally stopped the truck. Listening the diesel engine continue to operate, he saw a group of zombies which had been trying to run behind the vehicle bump hard in the back of the remaining trailer, falling on the ground like clumsy-looking puppets.
He put the engine in reverse and put his foot to the floor. He was shaken a lot when he sensed that the truck was rolling back on the prone living dead. Spooky cracking sounds could be heard.
Concentrating his attention in the left-hand mirror, he continued to reverse the vehicle, cautiously approaching the bag, careful not to crush it too. He saw many silhouettes of zombies behind, but these latecomers, in comparison with the ones he had mashed, were hundreds of meters behind, and not walking very fast. He hesitated many seconds, his heart beating fast, and finally yelled, “OK, let’s go, I must do it!” He briskly opened the driver’s door and jumped on the dirty ground, crouching to cushion the shock of his fall.
“Ouch!” he shrieked, his voice almost like a woman’s, and he put a knee down, holding his aching right ankle between his hands.
“My God, help me!” he squeaked, and he stood up slowly. He began to walk and yelled because of the pain, kneeling once again. A grimace on his face, wincing, he stood up again and hopped toward the big black bag, which was a few meters back, near a few metallic remains of the second trailer.
Stopping in front of the bag, which was almost as tall as him, and, surprisingly, even bulkier than him, he grabbed it with both hands and lifted it.
Growls erupted suddenly, startling him, the surprise almost making him release the bag.
He looked in the direction from where the noise was coming, and saw one of the sides of the trailer. It had fallen on a big, displaced tire, which was flat on the ground. It was shaken violently from behind, as if animals were having a fight. Sweat trickling down his temples, Elmer, white as a sheet, began to walk back, slowly, silently, toward the open left door of the truck. He was not at all curious to see who - or, more precisely, what - was rattling the side, which was a metallic plaque.
Suddenly, the badly balanced plaque fell over and spread on the ground in an apocalyptic crash. The huge metallic noise made Elmer cry out in surprise.
The fall of the plaque unveiled two fighting living dead who were fighting against each other. They were tearing each other apart for a frozen rat, vacuum packed wrapped in plastic. He remembered that it was intended for the nourishment of snakes, in a toxicology laboratory. They grabbed it alternatively from one another with their claw-like bony hands, opening huge gaping mouths, like lions trying to impress one another.
All at once the last one, which had taken the wrapped animal, became immobile. That’s when the other took the very cold flesh out of its hands, growling again… and then becoming silent.
Both turned around and looked at him with their rotting eyes in their orbits, as he was more stealthily than ever trying to walk back toward the open driver’s cabin. The two creatures, which were immobile and, seemingly, fascinated by him, surprised him. Are the minds of these living dead actually as empty as some of my biologist colleagues said?
Both creatures roared in unison, startling him.
The one with the wrapped rodent let if fall in the dirt.
It watched the cold meat at its feet.
And finally, slowly, it raised its head and stared at him, its rotten eyes making Elmer think of dried grapes. Sweat twickled more abundantly along one of the man’s temples, and, shivering, he swallowed with difficulty.
Suddenly the thing began to run clumsily toward him, stomping the frozen rat on the way, followed by the other living dead.
Elmer leapt toward the door, and suspending the big bag by its handles with both hands, he reached the small ladder giving access to the cabin. He lifted the bag over him to send it through the open door, ready to jump in just behind it.
He felt painful scratches on his back. His heart pounded in his chest as he saw that the two creatures were standing behind him, pulling him back while they loosened his hold.
“No!” the man shouted.
He turned around toward the nearest zombie and, alarmed, saw that, its mouth opened wide, the creature was going to bite his throat.
He hit instinctively the upper part of the thing’s head with the bag, using all his strength.
The creature became immobile, and falling back, pressed against the other one just behind it. Its eyes were now more soulless than ever. Sharp, translucent blades protruded out of the bottom of the bag. The shock had made them pierce the black tissue of the bag, and some of them had entered the skull of the first creature, like a hot knife slides through butter.
The fat man lifted the bag again, lifting at the same time the now immobile undead’s head with it, maintaining it in a standing position. It was as if it was a suspended puppet, hanging via the blades in its skull. The other zombie growled, and that’s when Elmer lifted the bag even more, freeing the blades from the first creature’s skull. The lights of the truck which were illuminating the trail in front of it reflected off the ground, and this was sufficient to illuminate, indirectly, the protruding blades. These reflected the light with many colors, as if they were made of diamonds. It made for a wonderful vision, so contrary to the ugliness of the zombies.
The first creature, with multiple slits in its skull, was no more a living dead, but just an immobile corpse. It fell heavily on its back, dragging the other off with it toward the ground. They made a big puff of dust when they plummeted. The one of them which continued to move tried to free itself from under the other, which remained, statue-like, over it.
Elmer didn’t wait for the second creature to free itself; he threw the bag of blades in the cabin, and climbed the ladder as quickly as his overweight body permitted him. While following the bag inside the driver’s cabin it had begun to roll with difficulties, because of its protruding blades.
He saw one of the blades of the rolling bag cut, while passing by, the upper
part of the gear stick. Despite it being made of steel, the blade literally beheaded the spherical pommel. It fell on the dirty floor of the vehicle and rolled further away. The man sighted the shortened lever which had been so easily severed, and murmured, “Shit!”
A roar behind him made him jump inside and he just had the time to close the driver’s door behind him, the second creature arriving at his level. Its bony hands suspended at the top of the window of the truck, which wasn’t completely shut. It growled, opening a gaping mouth with rotten teeth. Elmer sighed, leaning over, and seeing that the creature continued to stay hanging onto the window pane, he stepped on the gas pedal. The truck leapt ahead, the zombie continuing to cling. The driver steered briskly, causing the left side of the vehicle to be brushed by the branches of the nearby trees. The creature roared more than ever when branches whipped it in the face. But the thing remained clinging, despite all the hits and bumps, shouting even louder.
“I never take hitchhikers with me,” Elmer shouted at it, and whistling, he pressed a button on the door.
The windows closed and pressed the eight phalanges which extended beyond the edge, making them emit a crunching noise. Finally, they were completely cut, making the zombie fall outside. The cut phalanges fell too, rolling on the floor. Keeping their momentum, they finished near his left foot. Looking in the left mirror, he saw the creature somersault in the dirt, disappearing behind him in the dark. The man laughed out loud, and after a few seconds, fell silent, concentrating on the driving. Looking at his right, he took a peek at the bag, which had finished its own rolling on the passenger’s seat. It remained almost immobile, despite being a bit shaken by the bumps on the road. Curious, he understood that it was kept stable thanks to the protruding blades under it, which went through the bottom and back of the seat.
“Continue to drive two miles, and then turn right.” The female voice startled him. Raising his chin, he looked at the screen of the GPS, which he had forgotten, because of all the things which had happened. He looked at the remaining distance and at the vehicle’s gauge, and then relaxed. The old engine of the truck made him feel some weakness sometimes, but he knew it was a robust one, and he sensed he could trust it.
