by TW Brown
“A bunch of them damn rednecks…so that would be a hard no,” the man replied.
“Care to elaborate?” I asked as I wove around a three-car crash and a motorcycle that looked more like it had blown up than simply crashed as bits of it were strewn all the way across not only all four lanes, but I thought I even saw a chunk of it jutting from the mud of the ditch that ran alongside the road.
“Umm…great big slabs of meat with names like Zeke, Billy-Bob, and Bocephus. They prowl the area in a fucking monster truck, and they yell things like ‘Yee-haw’ when they spot people like me.” The man tapped his arm, indicating the color of his skin.
“Another bunch of racist pricks?” I almost moaned.
“You new to the area?” the man laughed. “There’s always been a strong fringe element of skinheads and white supremacists around these parts.”
“Maybe out in the sticks…but in Portland?” I replied, my voice not doing a good job of hiding the skepticism.
“You keep thinking that, white boy,” the man guffawed. It wasn’t malicious or even slightly sarcastic. In fact, his laugh was quite pleasant…until he began to cough in harsh, rasping fits.
“You okay?” I asked once he got his coughing under control.
“Not really.” The man sat back and shut his eyes.
I shot a worried look over at Miranda. Her lips were pressed together tight.
“How’d you hurt your arm?” she finally asked when it became clear that he wasn’t going to elaborate.
“I got tangled up in some damn barbed wire,” he replied. I was keeping an eye on him with the rearview mirror and saw his eyes pop open suddenly. “Did you think I was bit?”
“Is that such a reach?” Miranda shot back.
“Umm…you see anything wrong with my eyes?”
“No, but maybe the infection hasn’t set in yet.”
“Okay…that’s fair.” The man unwrapped his arm. It was quickly apparent that his wounds were not from a bite.
We drove for a few more blocks when I heard a roar. My eyes went to my side view mirror and I felt my heart do a flip in my chest.
A massive vehicle was closing in on us at a high rate of speed. I could see the hint of what had probably once been a pickup truck, but the body had been transformed into something that resembled a pirate ship. A pair of large black flags with a skull and crossbones insignia fluttered from each side. A man was standing up in the bed and I could see at least three faces peering through the windshield.
“What the…” Miranda gasped as her head tilted so that she could look out the side mirror.
“I guess it is time to see what this baby can really do,” I hissed through gritted teeth as I stomped on the accelerator.
The police car lurched forward like a horse that had just been released from the corral and slapped on the butt. I felt my mouth widen into a smile. I just couldn’t help it. I glanced down at the speedometer and watched as it crept past seventy…eighty…ninety…
“They won’t have to kill us,” Miranda scolded as her side of the car brushed very close to an overturned station wagon. “You are going to do it for them if you don’t watch what the hell you’re doing.”
“We missed that car by plenty,” I laughed. The sound died in my throat a second later when the monster truck sent that same station wagon careening away as the driver made no attempt to go around, choosing the much more direct ‘straight through’ approach.
We rocketed through a four-way intersection and it looked like we were starting to put some distance between our car and the behemoth that was probably making enough noise to draw every zombie in a ten-mile radius. An idea began to bloom in my mind and the smile I’d been sporting just a moment ago was replaced by a look of grim determination.
As the next intersection came into view, I warned my fellow occupants, “Hang on tight.”
Before they could ask any questions, I let up on the gas just a bit as I wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right. The road started its somewhat steep incline just as we reached a series of nasty S-curves. They would be idiots to try and chase us up this winding road. For one, that truck was not designed to handle sharp corners. It was built to mostly just roll over the top of stuff and drive in a straight line. Sure, they could make turns, but those trucks needed to slow considerably in order to do so.
I rounded the second of the successive curves and glanced in my side mirror. There was no sign of our pursuers. I let my foot off the gas to bring us back down to a more reasonable speed when I heard the echo of a roaring engine. A second later, the truck exploded through some shrubs and brush as it basically cut through instead of taking the curve.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I groused as I hit the gas again, rocketing away.
While the truck might be able to cut corners, it was now laboring with the steepness of the hill we were climbing. The police cruiser was easily opening the distance between us and them.
“Everybody grab a gun,” I said as I brought us to the top of the slope and to a point where the road straightened out.
I spotted a grassy clearing ahead and angled for it, hitting the brakes hard enough to go into a bit of a power slide. When the car came to a halt, we were perpendicular to the road. I threw open my car door, ignoring all the protests from Miranda.
As we’d started to make our escape, the thought hit me that I’d been making one of the classic mistakes from the stories. I was letting the bad guys get away to live another day where they would undoubtedly resurface at the worst possible time. Also, any terrible act that these wastes of flesh committed after encountering me would be partially my fault since I’d let them live.
It was strange, but I could feel something changing in my head. Up until now, I’d resisted the urge to take another human life. The thing was, I suddenly had this epiphany.
“Kill or be killed,” I whispered as I climbed out of my car.
We’d been smart when Miranda and I had loaded the car. It did not make sense to have weapons buried under all the other stuff. We’d made sure to place them, along with all the assorted ammunition, on the top just in case the need arose.
Using a two-handed grip on the Glock, I had my arms extended across the roof of the cruiser when the truck rounded the corner and reached level ground. By now, it was moving slow enough that it was not that difficult of a shot when I sighted on the driver. Taking a deep breath and holding it, I made a very slight adjustment to my weapon, and squeezed the trigger. As quickly as possible, I made one more adjustment and fired three more shots in quick succession.
From this distance, I saw the holes in the windshield appear in a neat pattern. My first shot was a bit high. I’d aimed for the bit of torso that I could see above the steering wheel. The bullet ended up ripping through the driver’s throat, but the next rounds found their mark and punched through the man’s chest. Not that it mattered after that first shot had done its damage, but I was leaving nothing to chance and had fired reflexively more than anything else.
The truck veered hard to my left and the one redneck that had been standing up in the rear went sailing through the air and landed with a nasty crunch on the pavement. I started for the truck, my eyes looking for any sign of movement.
The truck came to a stop when it collided with a brick wall that announced the name of the community beyond to be Megan Estates. I’d covered half the distance when I heard footsteps coming up from behind. Since I wasn’t going to take my eyes off the pirate ship-themed monster truck, I had to trust that it was either Miranda or the stranger we’d picked up.
I was almost to the truck when I heard a moan coming from up in the cab. It wasn’t that of a zombie. This was a living person moaning in pain.
I scanned the vehicle and saw a ladder just behind the cab. I saw this as almost a godsend. After all the climbing and hauling my ass up, down, and over things, it would only be slightly awkward to make the climb one-handed, especially since I was still sporting this busted arm. Not that
it mattered much anymore. I’d used the arm so much that it was now a regular source of background pain.
“Maybe somebody with two working wings, eh, chief?” the stranger said as he nudged past me and scurried up the ladder. He peered into the cab and whistled low. “That whole buckle up for safety slogan might’ve been helpful to these fools.” He leaned away from the window and looked down at me. “What are we gonna do with these guys?”
I heard the moans of zombies coming from the neighborhood that we sat at the entrance of as well as an apartment complex at our backs. If they were indeed banged up pretty bad, we could walk away and leave them to their fate, but that would defeat my entire reason for stopping. I needed certainty.
“Are you okay with shooting ‘em?” I asked, trying my best to make my voice sound confident, like this was no big deal.
The man looked back into the cab and I saw the hand holding his gun twitch slightly. I couldn’t see his face as he looked into the truck, but when his shoulders slumped, I had an idea what he was about to say.
“Shooting back is one thing…but this?” He swung back around to me with a pained expression. “These guys ain’t going no place.”
“And if they manage to get away from here, lick their wounds, and then go back to what they were doing? You don’t see the mercy in granting them this quick death versus leaving them to be bitten, turned, and adding more undead to roam the streets?” I prodded. “Were these the guys that hung those people from the power line back down on the highway near that weigh station?”
“Probably,” the man answered.
“Get down,” I said flatly.
The man regarded me for a moment and then climbed down. When his feet hit the ground, he moved between me and the ladder. “Be sure that this is what you want to do.”
“I was sure the moment I hit the brakes.” I edged past the man, shoved my pistol in the waist of my pants, and made my way up the ladder. Since it sounded like the guys in the cab were in pretty bad shape, I wasn’t as concerned about having my weapon free.
When I reached the point where I could see inside, I felt my stomach tighten. The driver had been thrown forward and wedged to the side of the steering wheel. The passengers had both been thrown to the floor. The problem with that was that it wasn’t really a floor as much as it was an extension of the roll cage. Obviously this vehicle hadn’t been designed to transport passengers. That side was mostly open and I had to guess that the two young men had been standing on one of the pipes that ran along the underside.
One of the boys, and that was really the most disturbing part of this since he couldn’t be any older than twelve, had gotten wedged in between two thick pieces of metal. What had to be one of his ribs was sticking out of his chest, and his arm looked to be broken in several places. Thankfully, he was unconscious. The other had been thrown onto a pipe that jutted up. I had no guess as to what its purpose had been, but whatever had once been mounted in that spot was gone and now that one inch diameter piece of metal was jutting up through this young man’s side. He was staring up at me, and when he opened his mouth, blood trickled from the corners of it and he made a weak squeaking sound that gave me chills. This kid was perhaps in his mid to late teens.
I stared in at them for an indeterminate amount of time before Miranda’s voice snapped me out of whatever trance I’d slipped into. “Hey, Evan, we need to get moving…we got company coming from damn near every direction.”
I looked around and saw zombies emerging from the streets that emptied onto our particular road. From the sounds of it, there were a helluva lot headed this way. No doubt, this truck had been a giant dinner bell.
I felt the lump in my throat grow when the boy with the pipe through his body opened his eyes and looked up at me with pain and pleading fighting for purchase in his gaze.
It’s not murder, it’s mercy, the voice in my head said as I brought my pistol up and fired a round into the chest of each boy. I made my way down and saw that our newest member of the group had already turned back and was jogging to the car. I headed after him, swerving wide so that I came up on the other member of the group that had been pursuing us. His body was sprawled in the street and it was clear that he’d suffered some horrible injuries due to being thrown from the vehicle. I didn’t even bother to check close; I simply put the gun to the back of his head and fired before continuing on to the squad car.
Without a word, we all climbed in. I’d left the engine running, and so all I needed to do was shift into drive and do a big circle to get back onto the road and continue on the direction we’d been heading.
Nothing was said for a few minutes. At last, the oppressive silence was broken.
“My name is Edmund Gibbons, by the way,” the stranger said. “I just realized that we never introduced ourselves.”
“Evan Berry,” I mumbled. I heard Miranda give her name, but my mind was still back at the pirate truck.
Despite the fact that I had come to grips with the idea that survival in this new world would almost certainly mean that I would have to kill the living as well as the dead, it didn’t make dealing with my conscience any easier after the deed was done. It made no difference that those boys were doomed and I’d actually granted them a mercy. Hell, I still was not convinced that I would not be seeking my own brand of mercy soon once the infection took hold.
Sure, I was starting to think that just maybe there was a difference in the real zombie apocalypse and what I’d seen in the movies. As the squad car rolled back onto the street, I was considering the near absurdity of that thought. Zombie movies had been fiction, a fringe element of pop culture and the horror genre. Yet, here I was, trying my best to make it in the middle of the real deal. Miranda had been the one to say out loud the very words that I’d stuffed away any time they tried to rise in my conscious mind. Could immunity really be possible?
That was both wonderful and horrifying. If Chewie and I were both immune, what was the reason? And why us? Why not Stephanie? Why would my dog and I both be spared, but she ended up succumbing to the illness and becoming one of the walking dead?
The car rolled along, zombies wandering out into the street in our wake. My mind was immersing itself in thoughts that I’d refused to allow myself to consider; the possibility that I would survive this ordeal. That Dr. Sing had been very clear that the infection could be passed on through a bite or a scratch. Yet, here I was, days away from the moment that I’d been scratched.
“Evan, watch out!” Miranda shouted, snapping me back to the moment.
Up ahead was a series of spiked strips that were laid all the way across the road. I had no choice but to slam on the brakes. No sooner had I stopped when I heard a voice that sounded like it was being projected from a bullhorn, “We need you all to step out of the car and keep your hands where we can see them.”
“You realize these situations never go well,” I mumbled to my fellow occupants. “We can do what they say, or I can throw this baby into reverse and see if we can get out of here alive.
Those words no sooner left my mouth when a trio of SUVs rolled out from the street we’d just driven past. They did a very effective job of cutting off our retreat.
I opened my door and slowly stepped out of the car with my hands in the air. “We don’t want any trouble,” I called out. “We are just trying to get through to where my friends are holed up. We won’t try anything if you just let us go.”
“If we hadn’t seen what you did, we might have been inclined to just shoot you outright,” a man said as he emerged from one of the SUVs that was positioned behind us.
I wasn’t certain what he meant exactly. Was he an ally or an enemy of the boys in the pirate truck? The other people coming out of the other vehicles with an assortment of weapons drawn did not offer any answers or comfort.
“We really don’t want any trouble,” I repeated. “If you prefer, we can go back the way we came. We don’t have to pass through this area if it is yours.”
“O
urs?” the man laughed. “I guess we have sort of staked a claim to this little area, but we are actually packing up and heading out of here. There is just too much going on between zombies and groups of raiders…which seem to actually be worse than the undead.”
The man made a gesture with his hand, and before I even had time to tense up, all the people holding weapons trained on us lowered their barrels. A few of them leaned up against their vehicles, but the gesture seemed too casual. I had no doubts that they would be ready to bring their weapons back up if we did anything they deemed suspicious.
“We have no issues with you folks passing through considering how you took down that little pack of delinquents,” the man said, craning his neck to look past me as if he could actually see the scene of our little incident. “The Weatherly boys have been wreaking havoc for the past several days. Rumor has it they met up with some lunatic who was actually paying them to patrol the area in search of…” He paused, his gaze flicking over to Edmund. “Well, it’s of no importance now…you took care of them.”
“Can I ask why you guys didn’t do anything?” I said, my own gaze pausing on a pair of African-Americans and a Hispanic woman who looked angrier than any of the others standing around.
“We tried, believe it or not. A handful of our people went out after them.” A woman made a hitching noise and I saw a single tear rolling down her cheek. “And as grateful as we are that you took down the Weatherly boys, they are just the tip of the iceberg. And that is another reason that we are leaving. Maybe we can get far enough away from the city that we can reduce our problems to just the undead.”
I didn’t want to tell him that the problems were just starting. It would not be long before food became an issue. Raiding homes would only be viable for so long. Anybody who planned on surviving long-term would need to have access to fresh water first and foremost. That didn’t necessarily mean camping beside the nearest stream or river. Those would remain polluted for quite a while. That meant the need to filter water or boil it before using it. There were just so many things that would be necessary if survival was going to be a possibility.
