by Jake Bible
“We weren’t going to take the side streets anyway,” Antoinette argues. “This is a good thing. It keeps danger ahead of us or behind us. We won’t get sideswiped.”
“I don’t think you are getting what I am saying,” Stella says, her voice rising. “Someone put up those barricades. Someone wants people to only go one direction. We are being directed towards something. And we don’t know what that something is.”
“No, you don’t understand whatI’m getting at,” Antoinette counters, her voice sharp and harsh. “We know it is a trap. We know we are being directed in one direction. We know all of this and it doesn’t matter. Why should it? Uh-oh, danger is ahead! Bad people trying to kill us! So fucking what, Stella? That’s life in the apocalypse. People are always trying to kill us and they always will. At least we know where we stand and we can be ready for it. Let the motherfuckers try. They have no idea who they are fucking with.”
Stella starts to argue some more, but I hold up my hand and stop her.
“She’s right,” I say. “They don’t know who they are fucking with. We have trained soldiers. Special Forces motherfuckers. People who have survived years of this fucking apocalypse. Cannies that know how to kill and flay a person in seconds. Not to mention a band of badass super sisters with skills that make us all look like we’re playing paintball or having some LARP fun.”
“LARP fun? What’s that?” Buzz asks.
“Live action role-playing,” I say. “It’s when people dress-up in costume and act out—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Buzz says. “You lost me at dress-up in costume.”
Stella is red in the face, but I can see in her eyes that she realizes Antoinette is right.
“Next time you have important information like this, you fucking tell us,” Stella says. “You do not get to be rogues. Not anymore.”
“You’re right. Sorry,” Antoinette says. “I apologize. We’re working together. You are Elsbeth’s family and we are her sisters. That means we’re all family now. We should respect that.”
“Damn,” I say. “The family tree just got a lot bigger.”
Stella clicks the radio. “So, it sounds like the sisters knew about this.”
“Yep, we were just told that,” Stuart says.
“Same here,” Lourdes replies. “I’m not very happy with this.”
Antoinette reaches for the radio, but waits politely until Stella hands it to her.
“We’re sorry about that,” she says. “Won’t happen again.”
“Anything else we need to know about?” Lourdes asks.
“No,” Antoinette says. “Well, there is one thing.”
“What’s that?” Lourdes replies.
“We counted about fifty people on the other sides of the barricades,” she says. “All up and down the street. They wait there.”
“Then there’s at least twice as many hanging back,” I say. “What’s your guess?”
“Probably,” Antoinette replies. “Could be more.”
“So we should be prepped for two hundred crazies,” Buzz says. “Pass that along.”
Stella does. There are quite a few grumbles. And by grumbles I mean shouts of, “Fuck.”
Chapter Seven
The second we reach the next wave of Zs, the crazies show their faces. I really wish they wouldn’t. These are not nice faces to see.
We’re talking scars and tattoos. Tattoos that probably weren’t done in a hygienic environment with sterile needles and industry-standard ink. They make prison tattoos look like high art.
There’re a couple of screams from above and I glance up, wince, then look over at Stella. She’s looking over her shoulder then jumps up out of her seat and pushes past me as people start dropping back inside the RV, abandoning the roof.
“Fucking slingshots!” John yells as he helps a couple of cannies down through the hatch. “The fucking kids have slingshots!”
“Kids?” I ask. I struggle with the wheelchair, trying to turn it with my one semi-good hand. “Fuck!”
“Calm down, Long Pork,” Buzz says. “They have things handled.”
“I can’t talk to people with my back facing them,” I snap.
“You could talk to people if they were behind ten feet of concrete and in another universe,” Buzz says.
“Bite me,” I say.
“I’ll leave that to them,” Buzz says, nodding at the scene outside the windshield. “Without our spear fighters up top, we’re gonna be overrun right quick.”
Shit. He’s right. The convoy has slowed to a crawl and not because we’re trying to push through a few thousand Zs. It’s because the Zs are starting to get up over the chain link, the ones that know how to use their monkey brains for more than just eating flesh.
Lourdes’s people are leaning out of their Humvees, taking pot shots at the zippy Zs, but they are limited by the fact that if they open fire, they’ll hit our own vehicles in front of them.
This is a pretty good trap, actually.
“Kids?” I ask again, not believing what John said. “How the hell can you tell? They’re all tatted up and scarred and shit.”
“They’re kids,” John says. “Teenagers. If any are older than twenty, I’ll eat a pile of shit.”
“Jesus,” I say. “You sure you want to make that promise?”
“They’re kids,” Mr. Flips says.
I’m kinda glad he’s part of our RV crew. I want his advice on the way crazies think. These kids, if they really are—
“They are!” John snaps. “So shut up about it!”
He’s pissy. Probably worried about Elsbeth.
Anyway, I want Mr. Flips’ advice on the crazies. He probably knows how they think and operate better than any of us.
I wait a couple seconds, but there’s no response.
“Well?” I ask.
“Well what?” Stella replies as she comes back and climbs into the passenger’s seat.
“I was talking to Flips,” I say.
“No, you weren’t,” Stella says. “Unless I didn’t hear you.”
“He didn’t ask me anything,” Mr. Flips replies.
“Really? Shit,” I say. “I thought that was out loud. Great. Now I’m staying quiet when I want to speak.”
“If only that were true,” Buzz chuckles. “Son of a bitch!”
A large crack appears in the windshield as a hunk of concrete bounces off the front of the RV.
“Looks like they have catapults too!” he yells.
“What do you need to know?” Mr. Flips asks from directly behind me.
“Will someone please turn me around?” I ask. “I don’t need to see the view outside. I can guess the composition of the scene without an actual visual, thank you.”
Flips pulls me back and spins me about. He’s slow and nice about it so I don’t get all woogity and puke. Woogity is my go-to feeling right about now. I am ten kinds of woogity.
“I’m only counting two at each side street,” John says, his eyes studying the street. “I don’t think there are many of the little fuckers out there. They just know how to use their environment.”
“You want to know something?” Mr. Flips asks.
“If you were these pubescent fucknuts, what would your end goal be?” I ask.
“Besides capturing you for food?” he grins. I do not. “Bad joke. Sorry.”
He furrows his brow for a second as he thinks. We all jump as a hail of rocks rain down on the RV from the left side. My jump makes me whimper a little as I jostle my shoulder and my head.
“You okay, Jace?” Stella asks.
“I’m good,” I reply. “Just a little excruciating pain. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“We’re already in the thick of it,” Stella says. “You should rest. Let all of us handle the fight from here on out. You can’t think our way out of this one.”
“She’s right,” John says. “This is battle tactics and brute force time.” A rock comes crashing through the window right next to hi
m. “Fuckers!”
He puts his sniper rifle to his shoulder, sights through the scope, and squeezes off two shots. I can hear a far off scream even over the sudden increase in Z moan volume due to the missing window.
I can also feel a very cold draft come whipping inside. Whose genius idea was it to try to find sanctuary in a place that is over a mile above sea level and cold as a Z’s tit?
“Yours,” half the RV says.
“Right,” I smile. “Sorry.”
“You know, I don’t think brute force and battle tactics are what is needed,” Mr. Flips says. “I believe we can talk our way out of this.”
“Really?” Stella, John, and Buzz say at the same time.
“Really,” Mr. Flips nods. “Let me try.”
Another rain of rocks makes us jump. A few fly in through the broken window and John picks them up and hurls them back out at the crazies. A couple of the rocks actually make it back to the barricades. Not that they do much, just bounce off the cobbled together metal and wood walls.
“Nice arm,” I say.
“Can someone assist me?” Mr. Flips asks, pointing at the hatch in the ceiling.
A couple of cannies give him a boost and he’s lost from sight.
“Shit,” John says and puts his rifle back to his shoulder. He squeezes off a few shots, taking out six Zs trying to climb up over the chain link cage on our right. “Break out the windows.”
“What?” Stella says. “Why?”
“We’ll have to stab the Zs from inside here,” John says. “Pass it on to the other RVs.”
“No need,” Antoinette says as she comes hopping down from above. I hadn’t realized she was still up there. “My sisters already figured it out.”
She’s nice enough to swivel my wheelchair so I can look out the windshield and see that the windows in the RV in front of us are gone and the sharpened poles are stabbing in and out over and over, clearing as many climby Zs as possible.
“Toss them down!” Antoinette says and sharpened poles start coming through the hatch.
Jesus, how many people are still up there? I totally should have done a head count.
As the metal starts swinging around, I realize I am completely in the way. Stella realizes that too as Antoinette breaks out the windshield and displaces her from her spot in the passenger’s seat.
“Come on,” she says and wheels me through the chaos of the RV and into the back bedroom.
Not that there is a bed back here. The RV has been stripped of all furnishings to make room for as much supplies as we could fit. The walls are lined with boxes and crates and Stella has to wedge me in between a dozen steel drums.
“Will you be fine back here?” she asks.
“Whoa! You’re gonna leave me alone?” I exclaim.
“I’m more use up there,” she says. “Unless you think you need me to stay? How are you feeling? Are you going to pass out?”
“I’m not going to pass out,” I say and flinch as rocks slam into the RV. “But it’s spooky as shit back here by myself. There’s like no light because of all of these boxes.”
“Jace Stanford, are you afraid of the dark?” she smirks.
“No,” I reply. “I just get lonely.”
“Deal,” she smiles and kisses me hard. It hurts my head, but it’s worth it. “You’ll be fine. Scream if you need me.”
Then she’s gone and I’m alone with what look like boxes of machine parts. They smell like it. The scent of grease and that ting of metal are almost too much for my fucked-up senses.
I can hear everyone shouting orders at each other, calling out the weak spots they see in the cage and where the most climby Zs are coming from. The two strongest voices are my wife’s and Antoinette’s. John is in there as well, but he’s mostly yelling out at the crazies.
All of the shouting is punctuated by the impacts of rocks, small and large, and the never-ending moans and groans from the Z herd.
It’s downright, fucking deafening.
And strangely a little soothing.
With the boxes and crates around me, and not being exposed to the wind like the main part of the RV, I actually get a little sleepy as I warm up somewhat. I have to struggle to keep myself from nodding off. No time to take a nap now, even if Stella wants me to rest.
***
I obviously fail at staying awake, because the next thing I know my eyes snap open. I heard something. I know it.
The battle is still going on up front, but that isn’t what I heard. Or is it? Maybe my sleepy subconscious confused the sounds of people yelling and stabbing Zs with something else. Something closer.
I wait and listen, sitting in the stuffy gloom of the RV’s back bedroom. Store room. Whatever. I try to tune out the noise of the chaos from up front and from above. Looks like folks have gone back up top. That’s good. Makes killing the climby Zs easier.
I remember that Mr. Flips was going to try to communicate with the crazies. Maybe he got through to them.
The sound of rocks slamming into the RV makes me think otherwise.
There! I hear something again. Not rocks, not Zs on the cage. Something else. A scraping? Yeah. I totally hear a scraping. I listen for a couple more seconds, but it goes away quickly. I’m left with uncertainty in my gut and a slight flutter of panic in my chest.
Do I yell for Stella? Get her to come back here and check it out? It would be the smart thing to do, just in case. But what if it is nothing? Just the shifting of these crates as we trundle along on what is a less-than-maintained street?
I should call Stella, and I convince myself to, even open my mouth to yell for her, but I hesitate and close my trap. She’s needed up there, not back here holding her infirm husband’s hand. I call her back and maybe someone up there dies because she wasn’t available to help. Maybe a Z gets through where she was supposed to be watching and then we have a bloodbath on our hands.
Sure, there’s Antoinette and John, plus some of the cannies, all people that can handle themselves when it comes to Zs. But these new ones? The fast, weird ones? I bet one of those fuckers can kill a couple of our people before it gets taken down, especially in close quarters like this where John can’t just start shooting.
There’s that shifting sound again and the flutter of panic turns into a full born flapping. I need to call for Stella. I’m an idiot if I don’t. I’m that teenage girl in every horror movie that runs down the middle of the street instead of going up to any one of the houses with their porch lights on.
My head hurts. All this thinking is killing me. And I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic. I honestly think the strain on my brain is shortening my life.
The scraping gets loud and there’s a thunk behind me. A heavy thunk. I feel my wheelchair shift, but the RV lurches at the same time, so maybe the thunk isn’t related.
Then I hear it. Not scraping. Hissing.
“Oh, fuck,” I say then scream, “Stella!”
No Brando joke, here, folks. My screaming of my wife’s name has zero humor or irony to it. I am not wishing I could tear my stained wife beater. Not that I have ever worn a wife beater. Not my style.
“Stella!” I shout again, but at the exact same time as when a burst of gunfire erupts from up front.
Things must be getting heavy for that to be happening. Our ammo isn’t exactly endless.
“Stella!”
I’m drowned out by the squeal of brakes and tires then the sudden acceleration of the RV. I have no fucking clue what is going on right now.
The acceleration makes my wheelchair roll back and bump into the stacks of crates. Stella didn’t put the brake on. Or I didn’t put the brake on. Whose responsibility is that? Is it the person that pushes the wheelchair or the person that is in the wheelchair?
Doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that I’m closer to the stack of crates behind me. Close enough that my back is touching them. Close enough that I can smell the thing that is hissing.
A Z. A nasty rotter of a fucker t
oo. Smells like it’s been baking in the sun while jammed up the ass of a dead cow. Either that or the thing needs to learn how to wipe better. I bet its boxers are all kinds of skid-mark stained. Sucks to do his laundry.
My hand instinctively goes to the tire of my wheelchair and I push as hard as I can. Which is about as hard as a marshmallow fart in a pillow of cotton candy. That’s not very hard.
The wheelchair moves maybe half an inch. Maybe. I’m being generous. Very generous. I actually think I somehow manage to go backwards. That would be classic. I’m the one guy that would fuck up and move my wheelchair backwards when I’m already wedged up against a stack of crates.
No, actually, I am going backwards. How?
I risk the agony and turn my head to the right and see the crates moving, being pushed out of the way. This creates enough space for my wheelchair to creep backwards as the crates shift out of the way.
Out of the way for quite the Z.
Man, I really wish I had a camera. Know when Amy said to take a picture it lasts longer? Yeah, I so want to take a picture right now.
Because, and I shit you not, folks, I am looking at a full-on, no way I am making this up, clown zombie. Yeah. A motherfucking clown zombie has crawled in through the shattered back window, shoving past the crates, and staring at me like I’m the bucket of human popcorn he has been waiting for his entire undead life.
The thing hisses at me again and opens its mouth, showing me two rows of cracked and shattered teeth. This guy has been eating way too many marshmallow farts in cotton candy pillows. What? I liked that metaphor. I’m gonna keep using it. He he he, marshmallow farts.
It’s nice my brain can go to a jokey place right now. Otherwise I’d be screaming my head off, and considering the state my head is in, I could literally scream hard enough for it to fucking fall off.
Speaking of falling, the Z clown loses its footing as the RV lurches and it crashes to the floor, its undead body knocking over a stack of crates. Right onto me. The weight of the crates push me sideways and I teeter precariously. How the fuck do I still have room enough back here to teeter?
Once again, I always find a way to fuck things up.
