I knew I couldn’t keep going.
I slumped to my knees and began to crawl.
When I reached the Taurus I was trembling like a man in fever. My skin burned, my arm was stiff and limp. I fumbled for the trunk lever down by the driver’s seat and it was like trying to lift a mighty weight. I grimaced, felt my teeth bite through my bottom lip, and then I heard the soft echoing sound of the catch releasing. I rolled onto my back, panting with exhaustion, and let the waves of agony wash me away into the sweet oblivion of darkness.
* * *
“Get up! Jesus Christ, please get up!”
I tried to push the tugging hands away, unwilling to come back from the comfortable respite of unconsciousness, but the voice was strident and relentless, the hands that shook me desperate.
I opened my eyes. They were heavy, and felt crusted with grit. I blinked, and my head lolled to the side. I felt hands beneath my armpits, trying to lift me, and I groaned in pain until the piercing agony of being moved brought me to wakefulness.
Jessica Steinman’s face hovered over me, its edges blurred. I blinked my eyes until they focused, and saw the deep fearful lines of panic cut into her brow.
Her face was swollen, and there was a livid red bruise on her cheek, already beginning to darken purple.
“Stay with me,” she said, her voice trembling. “Don’t die on me.”
I was propped up against the side of the car, shaded from the sun by the wreckage of the truck. I flapped my hand feebly, and tried to tell her everything was all right. I wanted her to know that the pain wasn’t so bad any more. I wanted her to know that I had tried… but no sound came from my mouth.
“I’ve pressed the beacon,” Jessica said, holding up her arm and shaking the bracelet around her wrist. “I’ve been pressing it every few seconds for the past ten minutes,” her voice was fraught and pleading. “Just stay with me a little longer. There must be a helicopter on its way.”
I shook my head. It felt as heavy as a cannonball upon my shoulders. I took a shallow breath and licked my lips. My mouth was dry. “Still twelve miles,” I said in a raw husky whisper. “Still too far…”
I saw her turn her head and stare for long seconds, as though maybe she heard a sound, or maybe she saw something. When she turned back to me her face was suddenly pale and grey as ash.
“Zombies?” I croaked.
She nodded, not trusting her voice. Her eyes were enormous, like she was on the edge of sheer terror.
“Where?”
“They’re… they’re back down the road, coming from the west,” she said.
“Coming this way?”
She nodded and trapped her lip between her teeth with panic. “About a dozen of them.”
I groaned. I tried to heave myself upright but I didn’t have the strength. I coughed, and a splash of bright red blood trickled down my chin. “Go,” I wheezed. “Run for it.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No!”
I lay there panting in short shallow breaths through sickening waves of nausea and moments where the darkness came and then receded again. My mind was numb, my thoughts confused and chittering. I frowned and tried to find a way…
“The car,” I said.
Jessica shook her head. “I think it broke down. He couldn’t get it to start. I heard him trying. I thought he’d left me in the trunk to die.”
“Get in,” I said again. “Let the brake off. You’ll roll down the hill.”
She understood instantly. With the Taurus parked on the crest of the rise it would only take momentum to send it rolling down the gentle slope, carrying her at least to the Pentelle turnoff and to safety. She glanced quickly over her shoulder and gave a little gasp of dread, but her expression stayed grim with determination.
“You too,” she insisted. She got behind me and tried to lift me into the passenger seat of the car. I shook my head, groaning and weak, but she got her hands under my armpits and cried out with the effort. Blood spilled across the blacktop and across the car seat. I slumped heavily and heard the door slam.
Jessica flung herself behind the wheel and scraped her tangled hair back from her face. She was breathing hard, like she was on the verge of hyperventilating. I saw her glance up into the rear view mirror and shriek.
She slipped the handbrake and the Taurus began to inch forward, the tires crunching over broken glass. She clung to the steering wheel with white knuckles, her eyes darting from the mirrors to the road ahead and then back again. The car picked up speed, slowly gaining momentum until we rolled past the wrecked Yukon. I saw dark flashes loom up beside the car. I heard heavy thumps beat upon the panels. I heard Jessica scream – and then suddenly all was silent but for the sound of the car’s tires whispering across the blacktop.
We rolled to the bottom of the slope and Jessica got the car into the off-ramp lane, turning the wheel in short anxious jerks until she had the vehicle lined up with the bend. The speed of the Taurus bled away, carrying us into the turn and down the ramp before rolling to a halt on a narrow tree-lined stretch of road.
Jessica slumped back in the driver’s seat and gave a ragged shaky gasp of relief. She turned to me, and I felt the tender touch of her hand, trembling, but warm on my cheek. I forced my eyes to focus, blinking through a fog of pain – and saw her thrust her head suddenly forward, tense and alert, staring up through the windshield as she frantically hunted the sky.
I barely noticed. I could feel death’s hand reaching out for me; feel the whisper touch of its fingertips begin to squeeze the last ounces of life from within. I took a long deep breath, and felt something deep inside my chest tear. My ears were ringing and then the noise became a loud thumping drone – a sound I couldn’t clear. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and when I opened them again, the sound had become a beating roar.
I slumped back in the seat, and shook my head.
Jessica was smiling at me, her mouth forming words I couldn’t hear, and couldn’t understand. She pointed out through the windshield and her eyes filled with joyous tears that streamed down the swelling of her bruised cheek. She clapped her hands together and then covered her mouth as though muttering some silent prayer of relief and gratitude.
I turned my head. A helicopter hung just inches above the road, settling down on its wide skids amidst a haze of dust and debris that filled the air like a sandstorm. I saw the word ‘Navy’ near the tail rotor and a big blue roundel inset with the white star painted on the fuselage, before three dark bulky shapes spilled from the open doorway. Two of the men ran to the rear of the car, carrying weapons held high across their chests, their faces dour and tense. The third man ran directly towards the vehicle.
I drifted in and out of darkness. Howling wind whipped and shredded the trees, and the air filled with dust that was hurled across the windshield with the sound like horizontal rain.
I heard more noise, suddenly louder, and a rush of wind swirled in through the driver’s side door. I rolled my head slowly to the side and saw a man wearing a heavy helmet with a microphone obscuring his mouth. The man had calm steady eyes. He was hunched in through the doorway, his face pressed close to Jessica’s. He was clutching a piece of white plastic, the size of a paperback book.
“Name?” the man had to shout above the percussive thump of the helicopter’s rotors.
“Jessica Margaret Steinman,” she said. The man’s eyes flicked to the plastic card and then back to her face.
“Your ACIN number?”
“Two-four-eight-seven.”
The man double checked, and then seemed satisfied. He saluted. “You’re to come with me, Ms Steinman. Your father is aboard an aircraft carrier off Norfolk. He’s been expecting you.”
The helmeted man took a grip of Jessica’s arm and hustled her from the car. I stared numbly, watching her scurry away towards the helicopter. She was shouting frantically up into the man’s face, and then suddenly she tore free from his grip and scampered back towards me. She flung open the passenger doo
r and I felt myself slumping heavily.
“He comes too!” I heard her shout.
“Only authorized personnel,” the pilot shouted back. “I have strict orders.”
“He is authorized,” Jessica’s voice became insistent and authoritative – a tone I’d never heard from her until this moment. “He’s my White House bodyguard.”
I felt gentle hands lift me from the car – big strong hands – that carried me to the helicopter. Then more hands heaved me aboard and laid me out on the cold steel floor as the two armed troopers clambered back aboard the helicopter, their guns still aimed guardedly back along the road. There was flurry of activity, an urgent shout of voices, and then another man’s face hovered close mine, his brow furrowed, his expression sympathetic and kindly.
“You’ll make it,” the man said.
He had an oxygen mask in his hand and I saw it closing over my nose and mouth, but not before I heard Jessica Steinman’s voice once more, even louder than the drumming rotors.
“Please take care of him,” she said. “His name is Colin. Colin Walker. He saved my life.”
The End.
Also available by Nicholas Ryan
Ground Zero: A Zombie Apocalypse
"Nicholas Ryan has delivered complete madness. A bloody zombie-smash from start to finish. Any fan of the genre will have a blast reading this."
- D.J. MOLLES
Bestselling Author of
'The Remaining', 'The Remaining: Aftermath', 'The Remaining: Refugees', 'The Remaining: Fractured'
Aboard a freighter bound for Baltimore harbor, an Iranian terrorist prepares to unleash an unimaginable horror upon the United States. The 'Wrath' is an undead plague - an infection that consumes its victims with a maddening rage and turns them into mindless blood-thirsty killers.
Jack Cutter is just an ordinary guy dealing with a dreadful guilt when the virus tears through his home town. Before it's too late, Cutter will have to find a way to survive, and find a reason to fight: HIS REDEMPTION.
A review from Little Blog of Horror
"When I think zombie novels, I used to think Max Brooks, but there is a new name I will think of from now on, Nicholas Ryan.
Many zombie novels that I have read have been severely lacking the proper descriptiveness to draw the reader into the horror they are trying to give them. Nicholas Ryan's 'Ground Zero' is every bit as horrifying and descriptive as a Max Brooks novel. The scenes he describes are terrifying and so vivid I almost feel like I am watching a George A. Romero film. The way he depicts his characters and the scenarios that they are faced with, I could feel their fear and I felt as though I was watching all of these horrors unfold through the eyes of these terrified people. He gave every character a back story, so you really get to know them and learn what makes them tick. This is what makes any story worth reading.
The twists and turns that his main character, Jack Cutter, faces are fantastically thought out. The changes he goes through and the things he comes to terms with are both heartbreaking and unsettling.
'Ground Zero' is not a lengthy story, but packs all the punches of a Stephen King length novel. None of the story feels rushed. The natural flow of the novel from beginning to end is seamless and well thought out. Through the time that I was reading it, I never thought "well this could be better" or "he really should have added something here". 'Ground Zero' really is a work of art and has all of the makings of a real horror literary classic.
I could not recommend 'Ground Zero' enough to anyone that enjoys a truly captivating horror story. Even if you are not a fan of horror or zombie novels, I would still give it a read.
Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse Page 20
