“There’s nowhere to go. We ran out of gas,” JD speaks, coming forward and standing next to me with a grimace.
I could be wrong, but it almost feels like he’s shunning Crunch. I turn to look at her, but my eyes stray to behind her. She catches my eye and turns to look. Deaders are on their way now too, just to top off my fabulous day all the more. We’re trapped between a rock and a hard place.
“Fuck.” Mikey is behind me, and it’s the first thing he has said in quite a while. The sound of his voice gives me the urge to turn around and punch him square in the jaw like I did to Crunch, but I somehow resist the temptation, keeping my focus on the enemy coming at us from both directions.
Living army to the front, zombie army to the back. Fucking fantastic.
Thirty-Nine.
“What do we do?” I ask, my voice sounding way more confident than I feel.
“Same as we always do.” JD glances down at me. “Stand and fight.” He looks at all of us, making his intentions clear. “Together.”
“What about him?” Britta looks at Mikey.
“What about him? He’s one of us,” Crunch snaps back.
“Is he?” Britta replies.
“Yeah, you got a problem with that?” Crunch steps up to Britta, seemingly forgetting that we’re about to be either A: eaten to death, or B: shot to death.
I turn away from the approaching enemy to look at Crunch. “We’ve all got a problem with that.” I narrow my eyes at her. “But we’ll deal with that—and you—later. Now can we please focus, or there may not be a later for any of us.” I turn away from her, my anger bubbling to the surface.
Crunch groans, but drops back into formation with a few cursory words.
There’s not a chance in hell I’m letting her near Ben’s cabin if we make it out of here alive. I grind my teeth together. Fucking bitch burst my happy bubble! The vehicles are getting closer, and so are the dead, the smell of them drifting toward us like rotten meat cooking on a barbeque. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t just Crunch that burst my happy bubble. The deaders and the psychotic Forgotten had their share in it too.
The trucks stop about a hundred meters in front of us, and someone stands up on the back of one, raising a megaphone to his mouth before speaking.
“Yo, Mikey. How you doing, bro?”
All our eyes go to Mikey. To be fair to him, though, he looks ready to explode with rage.
The guy on the top of the truck speaks again. “What? No welcome party? We’ve been chasing your ass down for weeks, the least you could do is give us a wave.” He laughs heartily into the microphone and looks around at the other men with him. A lot of them have gotten out of their trucks to watch.
The groaning from behind draws my attention. The deaders are getting closer, spurred on by all the noise the dude with the megaphone is making.
“What are we going to do?” I ask quietly.
“Kill these fuckers,” JD growls.
“No. They want me. Let me see if I can sort this out. They might let you go.” He looks at JD and then me. He looks sad and angry all at the same time, but I’m just pissed off.
“Go on then,” I snap. My gut wrenches, the guilt flaming in me even as I say it.
“You’re not going over there on your own, Mikey. I’ve got your back. We can take them.” Crunch shoves me out of the way.
“It’s me they want.” He looks at us all sadly. “I need to do the right thing for once.” He places his hand on Crunch’s shoulder in the hopes of calming her down, but she seems even more annoyed by it all.
“No you fucking don’t, we need to kill these fuckers!”
“Crunch…” I start to talk, but she spins round on me and grabs me in a headlock, her knife quickly trained at my throat. I stop struggling against her, knowing that she’s a ticking time bomb and has been waiting for this moment to kill me.
Shit, she really wants to kill me. The realization makes me struggle again. This isn’t just some over-the-top jealousy, this is some fucking mental stalker shit going on. Somebody did not get all the dollies when she was growing up, and is having serious issues now.
Everyone steps away from her in a panic, Emily screams, and I’m sure I can hear the guy on the megaphone laughing, but the panic in Mikey’s eyes is all I can see right now, because if he’s worried, then I’m worried.
“I’ll fucking gut her right now, Mikey. You are not going over there, not without a fight. We can take them.” She looks to JD for help. “If we stand together, just us three.”
My feet are struggling for purchase on the ground, my hands clawing at her arm. She’s cutting off my air supply, and I’m not even sure she realizes it. In fact, I’m pretty certain she would prefer to gut me like a pig instead of just suffocate me, but there it is. The smell of the dead is getting closer. Or maybe that’s just my death? Shit, it seems like one way or another, I’m going to die today. If I had a choice, it would definitely be this way and not by being eaten alive. Maybe I should be grateful to her?
Black spots swim in front of my vision, and my face feels full and swollen. The whoosh of the blood in my ears sounds slow and sluggish, and my eyes close against the overriding sensations all around me. I hear a dull thump and I drop to the ground, my eyes opening upon the impact of my face slamming into the dust.
I stay down, gasping for air. Dirt is flying up all over me, and Emily is by my side—crying again, for fuck’s sake. I’d roll my eyes at her if I wasn’t trying to concentrate so hard on breathing. I shift onto my side, pain shooting through my lungs as they expand and fill with air. I know I need to get up, I know that the dead are going to be here any second and that I’m in line for their next meal if I don’t move my sorry ass. I squeeze my eyes shut, still feeling the dirt flying up around me and wondering what the hell is going on. And laughing—I can hear the goddamn guy with the megaphone, still laughing.
I groan and finally open my eyes, but can’t understand what I see when things come into focus. Britta is on the ground, her back against the side of the tow truck, a small slither of blood trailing down from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes are unfocused, her chest unmoving. My hand goes to my mouth to contain my scream.
“Britta?” I hardly recognize my own voice. It’s rough and cracks as I try to form words but end up in a coughing fit.
I look around me, clambering up to my knees quickly, half-leaning on Emily for support as I do. JD, Mikey, and Crunch are still fighting. Crunch is fighting—shit—what seems like both of them until Mikey grabs her and slams her to the ground. She lands on her back in front of Britta with a thud, and cries out at what sounds from my position like something just broke inside of her. And I’m talking about ribs, not her fucking broken heart. She grabs her side and curls up into a ball, shouting randomly, and with enough curse words to make even me blush.
“I was just trying to get you to see sense, Mikey. Fuck all of you,” she yells out, rolling onto her side and taking a deep breath.
JD shakes his head at her, still as calm as the day I met him.
“Britta?” I ask.
Mikey drops to his knees in front of her and checks her pulse, though I know it’s just a charade. We all know she’s dead.
He looks across at me, and then back to her with a shake of his head. “She saved your ass.”
“Shit.” I knew Crunch was going to be the death of her. I look at Crunch still curled on the ground, shouting and struggling for air. “Did she do it? Did she kill Britta?”
“I don’t think she meant to. It’s reflexes, you know. Britta snuck up on Crunch and caught her unexpectedly.” He shrugs.
“She knew exactly what she was doing, and if it wasn’t for Britta, I’d be dead,” I snap, my body flushing with hot anger.
“Well, that was all very interesting.” More laughing from the guy with the megaphone. “But can we just get on with this now? Or would you prefer to be eaten alive by zombies? I’m not really very picky which way you go, as you well know, Mikey, but I do have
my orders.”
Mikey looks up at the Forgotten, coming toward us on foot. They’re looking pretty damn happy with themselves, and I have no idea what’s about to happen, but I grab Emily to my side. I’ll die protecting her, of that I’m sure. A scream from behind me makes me look away from the Forgotten. Britta has reanimated and is now chewing on Crunch’s arm. They are both thrashing around wildly on the ground, Britta to get a better hold, and Crunch to try to get Britta off her. Crunch screams, and smacks out with her one good arm. Blood sprays the ground as Britta frees a chunk of flesh from Crunch’s arm. She swallows the lump of meat and moves in for more. Crunch scoots up to her knees, but is pulled straight back down to the ground as Britta wraps her arms around Crunch’s body and falls on her, mouth first. Crunch wails and screams in pain as the deader that was once my friend starts feasting on her shoulder. Her fingernails dig into Crunch’s face, and the skin breaks, releasing a fresh torrent of blood.
I feel sick to my stomach at what is happening, but I’m immobile, and unable to do anything to stop it. Emily is curled into my side, her body shaking with tears and cries.
“Shit!” JD steps in to help Crunch, stabbing his knife through the center of Britta’s forehead in one quick and merciful movement. She stops moving immediately, her jaw releasing Crunch, who scrambles up and away from her, crying loudly, her hand clutching at her face where blood is gushing out. JD pulls his knife out slowly, the knife sticking slightly on Britta’s hard skull.
The other deaders finally arrive, and they come forward reaching for us, but so do the Forgotten, who—for some crazy reason—are finding it all hilarious.
“Better choose, Mikey. What are you gonna do?”
I push Emily behind me and slice my machete through the air as a deader gets too close. I slash at its head, and black gunk squirts out of the large gash in its face. I slash again, taking its head clean off, and it drops to the ground. Old deaders are the easiest to kill, but they stink worse than anything I can think of. I back up as another deader gets too close, my machete slamming through the center of its brain. It jams inside the deader’s head, so I keep my grip on the handle of my weapon, put one boot on the deader’s stomach, and kick out while I pull my weapon free from its putrid body. It falls backwards with a spray of black and rotted blood and guts, and my foot sinks into its stomach.
This is the second time this shit has happened to me now. I grumble.
Mikey is fighting off a couple of deaders and so is JD, but I don’t see Crunch anywhere. Then I hear it: her gargled screams from somewhere behind our truck. A shiver runs down my spine for her. I don’t think I would want that to be anybody’s ending—even my enemies, which for some reason Crunch decided I was. No one deserves to go that way. Not even her.
More and more deaders are coming out from the long grass on either side of the road. The smell of them is overriding all my other feelings. Fight, stomach lurch, fight, don’t vomit. Even the Forgotten are killing them now, but there’s much more on their team than on ours.
“Mikey!” I cry out. It’s involuntary, but it’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth when three deaders approach me and I know that I can’t fight them all off at once.
I look at him for a split second. I can see how torn he is, the confusion resting heavily on his shoulders. More deaders are coming from the surrounding fields as if they have been lying in wait for us. There is no escaping them; we simply can’t kill them all.
“Take us all, Jon, or I’ll go down fighting and you’ll never get what you want.” Mikey cuts another deader from crotch to throat, tearing it in half. Its insides tumble out and onto the ground in a little pile.
JD comes over and shoulder-barges a deader to the ground. Another one trips over the first one’s body and JD puts his foot on its head and stamps down angrily while he puts one of Duncan’s guns in the other deader’s mouth and blows the back of its head away. Brown brain matter sprays the face of another deader directly behind the first, making the sight even more disgusting.
The sound echoes around us. All the deaders seem attracted by the noise, but JD has more than enough bullets for all of them. Shame he doesn’t have enough for the Forgotten too, I can’t help but think bitterly.
A deader drags its body along the ground, its intestines trailing behind it like a length of red rope. I step away from its hands, which are reaching up for me; its teeth are covered in blood, and it’s foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.
My hand clutches at my mouth when I realize that it’s Crunch.
“Oh shit,” I sob. I hated the bitch, but I never wanted this for her. The deader’s eyes search mine for something. Recognition? Mercy, maybe? I’m not sure, but my arm won’t move. It seems frozen to my side, my weapon hanging limply between my fingers. I need to take her out, but she’s still so human. So—Crunch!
“Jesus.” Mikey steps over and puts his machete in the back of her skull. She doesn’t flinch from the impact, or even when it exits through the front and tears her mouth open into a gruesome caricature. “Jon, come on man,” Mikey shouts louder.
More deaders are coming with every shot of JD’s gun. I chance a glance behind me and see that in fact, most of them are ignoring the Forgotten and heading our way. The guy with the megaphone isn’t laughing anymore, but he has a massive grin on his face, probably knowing that we have no choice anymore anyway. He could leave us all here to die if he wanted, but for some reason he wants Mikey. Thankfully Mikey wants me, and I want Emily. I’m not sure where that leaves JD, but I’m not leaving the big guy behind if I can help it.
“Fine, fine, get your asses over here before we’re overrun,” he speaks into the megaphone, even though there’s no need to use it. Maybe it makes him feel more important, or maybe he’s just an idiot. Either could be true, I guess.
“JD, get over here.” Mikey grabs my hand and we turn and run, dragging Emily with us. I don’t know what sort of shit I’m getting involved in by going with Mikey, but I don’t have a choice, and if we’re going to die I want us to go by the gun and not the dead.
We reach the Forgotten’s trucks and are pushed around the back of one, where a guy with a couple of teeth missing steps forward, holding out some rope to us all. I flinch away from him and he laughs in my face and grabs Emily instead, and when I reach for her, arms grab me and pull my hands behind my back. A thick rope wraps around my wrists before I can do anything to stop them.
I look around realizing that JD isn’t with us, but I can still hear his gun going off, the constant boom, boom, boom, thudding in time with my heart. He’s surrounded by deaders; there are too many of them, but still he refuses to let them win. His face is a mask of anger and pain as he shoots with what seems like great precision into the crowd of deaders. He shoots one in the chest and another in the face, and then his gun finally clicks on empty, and he brings out his scythe and begins slashing away at them. In the void left after the noise of the gun, I realize that I am screaming.
I’m screaming for someone to help him. I kick out, struggling against my bonds as JD drops to his knees. Still his arms slash out at anything and everything, and still the deaders come, their hungry mouths biting down on any part of him that they can get their rotten teeth into. Mikey is thrown to the ground in front of me, his face slamming into the dirt as Jon puts his boot against the side of his face, forcing him to watch as JD fights for his life, fights for everything and everyone that he has lost—his girlfriend, his baby, Duncan, Josie, and perhaps even Britta and Crunch, too. We all know there is no point, he can’t win, but still he fights.
For the first time since meeting him, Jon isn’t laughing or smiling, his lips are pulled up into a crude snarl, his mouth moving, speaking words that I can’t hear for my own crying. I pull on my ropes as JD finally falls and the deaders surround him, leaping on him like wolves on a lamb, growling and snapping. The blood seems to be everywhere, the puddle growing bigger as I watch.
I continue to scream until my throat burn
s and the river of JD’s blood gets so close that I can almost smell the iron in it.
Forty.
The floor of the van vibrates against my cheek, hot and cold at the same time. Hot blood flowing from somewhere on the back of my painful skull, and cold metal floor of the van. Silence fills the space between my ears—well, silence and a low rumble. Okay, so I guess it’s not exactly silent, but it’s really quiet, apart from the low rumble of the van’s engine. And the pounding from my head.
Shit. This is bad.
I open my eyes, but the world spins and I shut them again quickly, feeling sick and dizzy, a metallic taste in my mouth. God I hope I’m not a zombie, and that’s my blood and not the taste of brain. Wouldn’t that just fucking suck?
“Is she okay?”
A voice. Mikey’s, maybe? Nice to hear he sounds concerned.
Fucker.
“She’s fine. You should try worrying about yourself.”
Another voice—not Mikey. That Jon guy maybe? Okay, the sound of their voices isn’t making me hungry in the slightest. Human it is, I surmise with relief.
“I don’t give a shit about me.”
Definitely Mikey.
“I can tell. The Bossman is really pissed off at you. You know that, right?”
Jesus, there is worse than Jon? Another boss?
I groan and move my head, the thumping getting worse when I do. “Emily?” I haven’t heard her voice since I woke, and I don’t recognize mine either when I speak her name. Maybe I am a zombie after all.
“Can I go check on her?”
“You sit your ass down. Lex, you go check on her.”
I’m about to open my eyes again and try for another peek around the van, when a hand grabs my eyelid and pushes one and then the other open. The light is glaringly bright and I squeal and pull back from the hand.
“Keep still.” The hand grabs for my eyelids again but I roll away.
“Get off me!” I groan and curl up into a ball. “Urghh.”
Odium (The Dead Saga.) Page 29
