Pandora 2: Death is not an Option

by McCrohan, Richard

  Regina, after a stunned moment of inaction, threw the transmission into drive and stepped on the accelerator. The large SUV sped forward. The female zombie had just gotten herself to a kneeling position on the hood when the SUV shot out of the garage. The top of the garage door struck her on the back of the head and rammed her face into the front windshield hard enough to break through the glass. The other male ghoul was caught between the side of the car and the side of the garage and was crushed, leaving his mangled body rolling down the driveway.

  Roaring down her street, the SUV veered right and left, trying to dislodge the zombie from the hole in the windshield, but she was stuck tight. Regina was trying to concentrate on the road and not hit anything, but all she could see was the angry, bloodied face gnashing its broken teeth in the air as it tried to take a bite out of its prey that was so near yet so far. Her wide, rolling, milky-white eyes had pieces of safety glass sticking out of them. They must have traveled on for a half of a mile while trying to jar her loose. Finally, Malik yelled, “Stop the car!”

  Regina slammed on the brakes, and the rolling SUV skidded to a halt. Malik opened his door and ran out. He grabbed the flailing zombie by her ankles and yanked her out of the glass and off the hood. Leaving bits of flesh hanging from the glass around the hole, she fell in front of the vehicle. Malik quickly ran back and jumped inside. They had just seen her hand rise to grasp the hood ornament and pull herself up when Regina hit the gas again. With a couple of bone-jarring bumps, they ran her over and sped down the road. Malik looked behind them and saw several undead coming at them from the front lawns of the houses. It was going to be a wild ride.

  Tommy and Sean were walking up the middle of the street, leading the group toward their destination. They were in a residential section now and about halfway down the block when three people suddenly appeared from around the tall hedge of one of the houses. Everyone froze. They all raised their guns at the three strangers before they saw it was a very frightened husband, wife, and ten-year-old daughter. The father had his arms around his wife, and their daughter was clinging to her mother for dear life. The mother looked horrible. She appeared to have been beaten. Her face was bruised and had long scratches running down her cheeks. Worse was the bloodied bandage that was wrapped around her arm.

  “Please,” the man pleaded, “please, let us go.”

  The mother looked dazed, and the little girl was near tears.

  “Please let us go,” he begged. “Don’t hurt us.”

  “It’s okay,” Tommy said. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  The man kept jerking his head around, trying to see everyone in the group at once. He was trembling.

  “Your wife,” Sean said, taking a step forward, “is she all right?”

  With a jerking motion, the distraught husband brought a pistol up and aimed it at Sean.

  “No,” he shouted. “Leave us alone. Please. Just let us leave. Don’t hurt us.”

  “Okay, okay,” stammered Sean. He glanced sideways at Tommy, who now had his rifle to his shoulder and was pointing it at the man’s chest. Sean looked back at the man and tried to smile. He lowered his weapon and raised his left hand up.

  “See. It’s all right. We are not going to hurt you. We just want to help.”

  “No,” said the man. “We just want to leave.” He continually looked at everyone. He was unsure of what to do and looked very desperate.

  “Your wife,” Sean continued, “is she hurt? She looks hurt,” he said, pointing at her arm.

  The man’s pistol, which he was starting to lower, swiftly came up again. “No, no,” the man shouted. “She is fine. She’s good. There’s nothing wrong. Just…just let us go.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Tommy, lowering his rifle. “You can go. Go ahead. We won’t stop you. Just relax.”

  The man pointed his pistol first at Tommy and then at Sean, all the while squeezing his wife closer and closer to him. The girl started to whimper.

  Tommy and Sean backed up a couple of steps slowly. At this point, the man, now near tears himself, started to back away from the group, holding his family very close. He took about five steps back, all the while sticking his pistol out, although his aim was wavering wildly. Finally, with a last fearful look at the group, he turned and led his scurrying family down the street. Right before they rounded the corner, his wife turned and stared directly at Tommy and Sean. The look on her face was one they both would never forget. If asked to describe it, they would be hard-pressed to find the right words for it. Somehow it was desperate, terrified, resigned, and wild—yet if pressed further, they both would have probably said “hungry.”

  Jamal, Carol, and Jack threw their shovels to the side. They had found them in the toolshed off to the side of the property. Mike was sitting by himself on the side of the empty pool. Jack glanced at him, but he just was staring off into space.

  “He’ll pull out of it,” said Carol softly.

  “I hope so,” Jack responded. “He blames himself.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Jamal said. “Carlos is responsible. That psycho killed Travis and Susan all by himself.”

  “I told him that,” Jack said, “but he thinks he provoked him.”

  “No,” said Carol. “If we had let him stay, he would have wound up killing one or more of us sooner or later.”

  “Word,” nodded Jamal. “That boy was a stone-cold serial killer, no doubt. He must have gotten Hector too.”

  “Probably,” said Jack. “I just hope we run into him again. I’d like to blow his head off.”

  “Well,” Carol said, looking down at their handiwork, “at least we got to give them a decent burial. That’s a lot more than most people get these days.”

  Mike abruptly stood up and walked over to them. They quieted down immediately. The devastated man stopped in front of them and looked down. For a second he didn’t say anything. He just had a pained expression on his face. “Thanks for this,” Mike said. “I really appreciate it.” Looking at Jamal, he said, “You know, Travis is a real hero. He tried to stop him. He must have known he was bad, and he was waiting for him to show up. I guess he didn’t know just how bad. None of us did.”

  Jack went up and rested his arm around his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, man,” he whispered.

  Mike nodded. “Thanks.”

  Looking around, he said, “I guess we better be going, if we’re going to meet up with Sean.”

  Mike looked at the two graves. They were underneath a large clump of multicolored hibiscus shrubs about six feet tall.

  “Sue always loved hibiscus. It was her favorite flower,” Mike stated with a sad smile. “Now, whenever I see a hibiscus flower, I’m going to think of her.”

  They gathered their gear from the front of the house and walked out to the street. Except for one zombie two blocks down the road, the way was clear of undead. They started walking. It was going to be a long walk.

  “We’d better find a car,” Jack murmured aloud.

  Sean saw the sign pointing straight ahead. Smiling, he said, “The highway is just a little bit ahead.”

  “Great,” said Tommy. “We pick that up, and it’s a straight run to the cutoff for Alligator Alley.”

  They also realized that there were numerous undead ahead. They seemed to become more numerous as they got closer to the highway ramp. So far the group hadn’t been detected, but as they got closer, that would change. And fast.

  “Shit,” Manny spat, “what are we going to do now, Sarge? We can’t be traipsing all over the city looking for a clear onramp.”

  They had just passed an intersection. The through street ran almost the length of the city. Looking off and tilting his head, Sean asked, “What is that?”

  Listening, Tommy said, “It’s a car! And it’s coming from the road we just crossed.”

  “Trouble?” Paul asked.

  “Don’t know,” responded Tommy. “Let’s get back there and see if we can see it coming.”

  Running bac
k down the street, they looked all the way down it. With all the cars on the road, it was hard to see.

  “Wait,” shouted Linda. “There!”

  She pointed to the right-hand sidewalk. An SUV was running up on the sidewalk, avoiding the clogged road. Reaching the corner a block away, it turned back onto the road again, just missing numerous tables and chairs in front of an outdoor café.

  Tommy said, “I’m going to flag them down. If they look like trouble, spray the vehicle with gunfire and take them out. I don’t want to be shot or wind up as roadkill, so look sharp.”

  Tommy walked to the middle of the road and waved his arm. The rest took up positions to target the oncoming SUV.

  Moving quickly up the street, the vehicle picked up speed. Tommy heard the engine roar and saw that the SUV was in bad condition. Seeing the blood-smeared, dented missile coming straight toward him, he thought, This doesn’t look good at all.

  Suddenly, the SUV braked hard, and the vehicle screeched to a halt in a cloud of burning rubber. It sat there idling. Tommy put his hand down, ready to start shooting if he had to. The passenger-side door opened, and a black man stepped out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but my mama always told me never to pick up hitchhikers.”

  Tommy grinned.

  “Holy shit,” Mike yelled, “it’s Malik.” He ran toward his friend, and they hugged in the middle of the road, both yelling in unison, “You’re alive. You made it.” Soon everyone was grinning and running over.

  Regina stepped out of her car. Walking over to Tommy, she said, “Hey, handsome, come here often?”

  Linda came over and gave Regina a big hug. “I was afraid we lost you.”

  “So did I,” said Sean. “What happened? After the ceiling came down, everything turned to shit.”

  “Regina and I were standing next to the bus when it happened,” Malik volunteered. “We were shielded by a beam and crawled back inside the bus when the zombies started coming in. We heard you shouting and waited for the dead to move on before crawling back out. Then we hightailed it out of there.”

  Sean said, “We ran to the back alley and then made it here.”

  “Where are the rest?” Regina asked.

  “When the front of the building came down,” said Tommy, “Jack and the rest were on the other side of the room. We heard them. I don’t know if everyone made it out. I’m just praying that they all did.”

  “Sarge?” Manny called.

  When Tommy turned, Manny pointed up the road. “I think we’ve finally been noticed.”

  The zombies down by the entry ramp were beginning to stagger their way toward the group. An eerie groaning sound issued from the mass of undead.

  “You think we can all fit in there?” Tommy asked Regina, pointing at her SUV.

  “It’ll be tight,” she said, “but we don’t have much choice.”

  They all piled in, sandwiching themselves in like clowns in a circus car.

  “Wait until they almost reach the next corner, and then drive there and quickly make a right. Let them come after you and then make a left.”

  “I get it,” Regina said. “Then all the way down, then left, and then right onto the ramp. The big box turn.”

  “Cool,” exclaimed Sean. “By the time they’re here, we’re there.”

  “Hopefully,” Tommy said with a smile.

  Slowly rolling down the street, Regina waited for the zombies to come up to the next intersection. As they did, she hit the gas, and the overloaded SUV surged forward.

  16

  Cpl. Kyle DeVries turned to his sergeant in the passenger seat. “This is the part I hate the most,” he said with a sour expression.

  Chuckling, Sgt. Kevin O’Rourke said, “Be thankful it’s not a windy day.”

  The truck swung back and forth slightly. The massive rotors above them made the soldiers have to shout.

  “I don’t know,” Pvt. Gary Niedermayer yelled from the back. “It’s sort of like being rocked to sleep.”

  Sgt. O’Rourke looked back. “Just stay awake,” he called back at the sleepy-eyed young man in the rear of the truck. I swear to God, he thought, that man always looks half asleep.

  The M1127 Stryker Reconnaissance Vehicle was an armored personnel carrier used by the United States military. It rode high off the ground on eight large tires. Right now, it was hanging suspended from the bottom of a Boeing CH-47 Heavy-Lift Helicopter. The Stryker was outfitted with three very large sound cone speakers. The makeshift “sound truck” was being used by the Army to perform like its Aussie cousins and draw zombies into designated zones. The speakers were hooked up to a CD unit in the interior and were set to play extremely loudly. It really didn’t matter to the top brass what they were playing so long as it was blasting. The zombies, not being particularly choosey as to what type of music they listened to, flocked to whatever was chosen, be it L’il Wayne, Metallica, the Dixie Chicks, or Sinatra. If it was loud and had vocals, they came running (or shambling).

  The crew usually took turns picking the music CDs. Today it was Pvt. Niedermayer’s turn. Sgt. O’Rourke shook his head disgustedly. Today was going to be one long headache of a day. O’Rourke was a classic country music buff. Patsy Cline, Conway Twitty, Ferlin Husky, these were the artists that the sergeant liked listening to. Gary Niedermayer, on the other hand, was a rabid metal head. Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, Death, Behemoth…These were the favorites of Gary’s death-metal love. To O’Rourke, listening to the music was like torture. However, he had no choice. It was Gary’s turn. Oh well, he thought, for God and country.

  The Chinook was on its way to Miami, coming from MacDill Air Force Base on the west coast near Tampa. This was the first attempt to de-zombie-fy the eastern coast of Florida. The idea was to start the first attempts around Miami and then work their way north. Today they were going to concentrate along the Florida Turnpike and Route 75. They would draw the zombies up from the city to the turnpike and onto Route 75. Route 75 was in the middle of the Everglades and not near any cities. Once the zombies were concentrated there, they would send in the fighters to incinerate everything on the road. It was working in other areas, and now it was southeast Florida’s turn. Route 75, the designated killing ground, was locally known as Alligator Alley.

  17

  Jamal looked into the driveway of one of the homes they were passing. “There’s a taxi by the front door,” he said.

  Moving cautiously up the drive, he saw bags piled by the trunk. The front door was wide open. Carol, Mike, and Jack came up from behind him.

  “Looks like trouble,” said Mike.

  “Check out the front door,” Jamal added.

  There were bloody handprints on the white door. One print was smeared all the way down to the entryway, where it ended in a pool of blood.

  “Somebody didn’t make it out in time,” Jack said. “Well, we might as well see if anybody’s home.” He walked to the lawn’s edge and picked up a garden gnome. Looking back at his three friends, he said with a smirk, “Right over home plate.”

  Jack hefted the plaster figure and threw it through the open front door. They heard it hit something breakable with a loud crash. For several moments, there was complete silence. Then with a clamor of running feet, two snarling zombies appeared at the front door. One was a fiftyish-looking man who looked to be the cabdriver. He was wearing a brightly colored, gaudy shirt that just about buttoned over his huge, protruding belly. It was made even more colorful by the copious amount of blood drenching the front of it. His neck was ripped wide open. Coming out right behind him was an older woman with badly dyed red hair—the kind of shade that would never occur in nature. She had a neatly bandaged forearm. The cabdriver’s blood ran down the corners of her mouth and onto her sequined running suit. On seeing the four humans in front of the house, they both stopped and hissed angrily at them. They got no more than three steps out the door before Jamal and Carol both put a bullet into their heads. Mike walked over to the taxi and looked in.

/>   “Keys are in the ignition,” he said. Looking closer, he saw, much to his relief, that it was in the off position.

  They got in with Jack driving. He was the only one from the area, and they left the navigation to him. Jack turned the ignition and was pleased to hear the engine roar to life. “Yay,” he said, “we have wheels.” Reaching over and flipping on the meter, he added, “Don’t forget the tip, you tightwads.”

  The car turned around and, exiting the driveway, sped off toward the highway.

  “Well, we made it,” exclaimed Steve. The six travelers were standing at the start of Route 75.

  “Should be a straight run from here,” Dill said. “We need to commandeer another vehicle. It’s a long walk otherwise.” The delivery van had broken down about a half a mile back.

  “Plus,” added Rube, “if there are zombies there, we’ll have nowhere to run. There’s nothing but the Everglades on both sides. We’d either be zombie food or gator food.”

  “Not a good choice,” said Steve. “It’s a—wait, what’s that noise?”

  “It’s a chopper,” said Rube. “A big one.”

  They were all looking up, trying to find it in the sky. The sound was getting louder. “There,” said Dill, pointing up to the northwest. “I see it.”