But Greg had always said that fear was only a negative drain on you. Any moment you let fear rule you was a moment you were lost. You could only move from step-to-next-step and work from there. I let these thoughts flow through me as I reached down to pull Thomas up and help him into the cab.
“This is a really big truck,” he said as he settled himself into the passenger side of the seat.
“Yes, it is,” I said as I got behind the wheel and shut the door.
“Do you know how to drive it?” he asked.
Well, that was a good question. Add that to the list of obstacles after finding out where the hell the keys were? I looked at the ignition and my heart sank as there were no keys there. My eyes searched the dashboard and then the seat.
“What are you looking for?” Thomas asked.
I was hesitant to say anything for fear it would spook him, but I finally broke and said, “The keys.”
“Why don’t you try the sun shade thing?” he asked. “My daddy used to put them up there.”
Sure enough, as soon as I pulled the sun visor down, a set of keys fell into my lap. I snatched them up in one hand and put my other hand in the air, palm facing towards Thomas. He took the cue immediately and slapped my hand with a high five. It only hurt a little, but it was well worth it.
“Score one for our team, Thomas,” I said smiling at him. He beamed back at me and I had to believe that this was probably the first time he had smiled in a long, long time.
Now, for the real moment of truth, as I stuck keys in the ignition, pausing before I turned them to send prayer up for the damn thing to start. I gave the keys a turn. There was series of clicking sounds followed by clattering under the hood, like the Orcs of Mordor were working away in there. The engine rumbled to life a few seconds later and the entire truck shook like we were in an earthquake, rattling the two of us around in the seat for about two seconds before the engine sputtered and shut off, but not before backfiring and sending a dark plume of smoke out of the back tailpipe.
Just what we needed. An announcement to all the undead in the area; “Here were are, come eat us!”
And they did take notice, as more than a few started in our direction. It seemed likely to me that there were a lot of rogue zombies in the area, which didn’t make me feel any better about being in this death trap.
Whoever had driven it last, left it in gear. I blew out a long breath, put down the clutch, and took the shifter out of gear. I grabbed the keys again and turned. Just like before, it came to life and the engine sounded rough for a few seconds, but then settled down into a gentle rumble.
My biggest fear then was how much damage the explosion had done to the back of the vehicle. Something in my gut said we’d be okay, but I knew that I had to put my instincts to the test.
I applied the clutch, put the beast into gear, and hit the gas. When I let up on the clutch, we lurched forward, slamming both of us against the seat, but the truck moved forward without hesitation.
It was time to head back to The Manor. There was only the minor matter of a few hundred zombies standing in our way.
Chapter 37
The Ending That Never Ends
They had taken the most direct path, running down an open corridor of sorts, through the mass of armored zombies in the field. The zombies stood quiet, as if in some sort of suspended animation. They were two hundred yards from the back door of the last building in the complex when the armored zombies stirred back to life. Russell slowed somewhat as he watched the zombies slowly returning to consciousness, wondering when they would take notice of the two sprinting live humans running in full-tilt boogie panic mode.
It didn’t take long as two armored zombies shambled in Russell and the woman’s direction. These two zombies were a safe distance away, but Russell looked ahead and saw that the corridor between the undead was starting to narrow. These other armored zombies lumbered their way in exaggerated movements, moving to intercept the running humans. The woman panicked and applied the brakes to her full-out run, slamming to a stop.
Distracted, Russell nearly ran her over, but did a last second combination jump and spin that allowed him to slip past her. He ended up teetering for balance just a few feet in front of her.
“Why are you stopping?” He asked.
“They’re coming back to life,” she said, her expression stricken.
“We’ve got to keep running,” he said.
She turned and looked in the direction they had just come from. Like water filling a void, zombies started flowing into their escape path, heading their way. He swiveled back toward the complex and saw that the corridor between the zombies had closed entirely. There was almost no way forward and no way back from the way they had come. Even if they went back and made it past the armored zombies, there was the army of rogue zombies to deal with in that direction.
“We’re fucked,” she spat out in disgust and resignation.
“Can’t you use that,” he said pointing to her control panel, “to make them stop?”
“Hey, dumbshit, the transmitter is down.”
“But can’t it do something?” Like her, he was desperate for anything that might save them.
She looked at him, then down at her control panel. When she looked back up, there was the slightest of sparkles in her eyes. He didn’t know if this was a good thing or not. “There might be one thing,” she said. “Anthony,” she stopped, then continued, “the big badass; he said the control panels have a limited ability to send out a signal.”
Russell pulled up his rifle as the zombies started closing in on them like an aperture shutting down. “Why don’t you give that a try?”
“I’ve never tried it,” she said as she went to pressing buttons. “It was just a fail-safe in case the transmitter went down. He said it would only last a short period of time.”
“Define ‘short period’ for me, will you.”
Like a flood, the zombies continued their slow progress, slowly closing in on them. Only instead of getting wet, they would get dead, in a very ugly and terrible way. Russell spun, aiming at one zombie and then moving to a closer one, but he knew there were too many of them and he had too few bullets. The only choice might come down to whether he kept two bullets back for the two of them instead of letting the zombies have their way with them.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but here goes.”
There was a slight electrical snapping sound and a moment later, the zombies closest to them stopped in place. It seemed to only affect the ones within a fifteen to twenty feet radius. The ones beyond that continued to come and slammed into the backs of the now motionless zombies.
“Can we move while you control them?” Russell asked.
“We had better. I have no idea how long the battery life is for the transmitter on this thing, but can only guess it won’t be long. Let me see if I can clear a new path.”
The zombies between them and the complex went into motion and turned on their brethren in death, plowing into them like All-Pro offensive lineman. Russell and the woman moved in behind their “blockers,” but Russell kept turning to look behind them. He didn’t like what he saw. The “controlled” zombies behind them were not active like their blockers. Instead, they just stood in place as the ones behind them clamored to get at these two walking meals. He noticed that the control would slip from the rows behind the inner circle of undead as they progressed further away from the back row of zombies. It was as if a switch was being turned off as the ones blocking for them would slip from control to pursuing the two of them, clawing at the blocking zombies trying to get at these tasty humans inside the undead circle. The zombie’s faces were constricted inside the metal that encased their heads, but it didn’t stop their mouths from opening and closing expectantly.
Russell felt that they were in a very dangerous house of cards, ready to topple in a very bloody and violent way, but, for now, it was working. When he turned his attention from the following group, he saw the woman c
oncentrating on her control panel as she moved toward the back of the complex. He also saw that they had cut the distance in half and were only a hundred yards from the back of the building. It seemed like a mile, though.
I slammed into the line of zombies, sending them rolling across the field like tumbleweeds.
I was really beginning to like this dump truck. It was like driving a battering ram. Plus it had great clearance. The front bumper was positioned, perfectly, at about chest height, allowing it to smash through the zombies with the ease of a boat moving through smooth waters. Albeit, water with arms, legs, and teeth.
The truck was such a behemoth that I didn’t even have to worry about damaging it while smashing through the zombies. I barely even felt the impacts each time I hit one of the undead bastards. There was something deeply satisfying about knocking the zombies down like bowling pins. So much so, that a devious little voice inside me told me to take the long way home, but when I looked down at the gas gauge, I saw that I couldn’t indulge that desire. The gauge read just a smidge above empty.
Just like those bastards not to fill it up before attacking us.
“Hey, buddy,” I said to Thomas, “we’re going to drive up to that building and see if we can pick up some of my friends.”
“Okay,” he said in a quiet voice, his eyes wide as I smashed through the undead in the field.
I reached to find my walkie-talkie, but came up empty. I re-checked all my pockets and restrained a curse only because Thomas was in the cab with me. In all the excitement and terror of our escape, I must have lost it. Not being able to directly communicate was going to complicate matters, but there was nothing to be done about it. Forge ahead, they say, so I did.
My forging ahead took me through a couple dozen more zombies with all of them either being tossed aside like rag dolls or pulped under the tires. There was just the dullest of thuds with each impact and almost no vibration. There was nothing like a drive in the country smashing through zombies.
As I approached the front of The Manor, I could see a thick blackish-gray smoke drifting from many of the windows. What I did not see was active flames. This puzzled me for a moment as I wondered what had stopped the fires, but with most of my attention taken up with rolling over and through zombies, there was no time for an intense inspection -- only to drive.
I squared up a big armored zombie, decked out in brightly painted metal and what looked like part of a trashcan on its head, when something tore into its encased head from behind, shredding the metal like paper.
I kept it in my crosshairs, but looked up to one of the second floor windows and saw someone standing there, an assault rifle blasting away at this zombie’s backside. The truck rolled into the zombie doing almost thirty and that was all she wrote. Metal or no metal, I opened that zombie up like a can opener and parts went this way and that. Its forearm detached and ended up on the hood, which was not a pretty sight, but what can you say?
After bashing through three more, I was close enough to make out who was in the window and my mouth fell open with surprise. It was Aaron. He was covered in black from head to waist, but that was all I could make out from how far away we were.
“Who’s that?” Thomas asked.
“It’s a friend. His name is Aaron.”
“Why is he all black?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
I cut back on my speed, put the truck into a gentle curve, and drove up to as close to the building as I could. I eased in next to the window and rolled my window down.
I’m not sure I even registered on Aaron’s radar as he kept firing at the zombies. He looked even worse than I thought. Most of his torso was covered in thick black soot. He had what looked like a sheet wrapped around his chest with red splotches seeping through in at least three different places. His eyes blazed through the black, though, bright and intense as he burned through a clip, spraying bullets over the truck into the field. He ran the clip dry, stopped firing, and looked into the field, surveying the carnage.
I took that as my clue to speak.
“Ahoy, Aaron,” I shouted up to him. He acted like he didn’t hear me for a moment. Maybe he didn’t believe that anyone else had survived and we were just phantoms? He kept looking into the field, but after a few seconds, he let his aim drop and looked at me.
“Hey, Joel,” he said, his voice seeming flat and emotionless.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Rumors of my death are premature,” he said, but wavered a bit and had to put up a hand to steady himself on the window sill. He looked dead on his feet.
“What happened to the fires?”
“I turned on the sprinklers. That took care of most of them. I put the rest out myself.”
“You want to jump on and ride out of here with us?”
“Sure,” he said.
“I’ll move closer,” I said, and put the truck into reverse. I backed it up, cut the wheel toward the building, and gingerly maneuvered the truck in as tight to the building as I could, not worrying about the paint job because most of the exterior was covered in rust. I was making the last fine adjustment when something slammed into the side of the cab. Thomas screamed and jumped across the seat, ramming into me. A hand with long metal claws raked across the passenger side window.
Two seconds later, something landed on the top of the cab with a dull thud. The claws came back at the window again, this time more forcefully. I thought the window could take the onslaught, but I wasn’t sure. Thomas was taking no chances as he nearly climbed in my lap.
Gunshots sounded from above and a spray of blood shot across the window and the clawed hand fell away.
Aaron’s upside-down face appeared in the windshield and he slapped the roof of the truck. “Let’s boogie.” Inverted, with his face blackened with soot, he came across like a clown, only in black face instead of white and there certainly wasn’t anything mirthful about it. The truth be told, I’d always found clowns to be creepy, even prior to the apocalypse. This black faced Aaron clown certainly didn’t fill me with child-like wonder and glee.
The zombies had closed in around the big truck and, where it had before cut through them like a hot knife through butter, I had to backup and then take a run at a mass of them collecting at the front bumper. I pushed the truck into first gear, jammed down the accelerator, and smashed into the zombies. I felt more than a dull impact this time and one of the front wheels lifted up and over the bodies of several of the undead, titling us in the cab. Aaron pulled back out of view to get a more secure hold on the roof of the truck.
I really had no idea where I was going. I had thought Aaron was dead, but had been surprised and delighted to find that, against all odds, he had survived. My hope then was to discover that Jo and Brother Ed had survived, too. If I couldn’t find them, then I would try to catch up with the escape convoy -- that is, if I had enough gas to do that.
I took a wide turn around the southwest corner of the main building and started for the back of the complex. The field was dotted with armored zombies with a few rogue ones mixed in. While I didn’t go out of my way to hit any, neither did I try to avoid any that got in our path. Plunk, plunk, plunk, I went smacking through the undead. The armored ones made a clashing noise sometimes, but ended up just as wrecked as any of the other ones I hit.
I made it to the back corner and turned the wheel, slowing some. When I made the turn, I let up on the gas and let out an involuntary gasp. There was a mass of zombies about fifty yards off the backside of the building. We were a good one hundred yards away from this scrum of the undead. Something on the inside of that scrum had them all captivated.
They all seemed concentrated on a single objective in the center of the mass, but like a scrum in rugby, they were moving along, gradually getting closer to the loading dock at the back of the building.
I didn’t know what to make of it. I bought the truck to a complete stop and watched. Even at the elevated height of the ca
b I couldn’t see what was at the center of the mass. Since most of the zombies were focused on whatever was in the scrum, it was safe enough to roll down the window. I stuck my head out and called up to Aaron.
“What the hell is going on over there?”
“Let me stand up and take a look,” he said.
I heard his feet move on the roof of the cab as I waited.
After about ten seconds, I got impatient. “Well, what do you see?”
He knelt down and got close to me. It was then I saw the blood seeping through the sheet wrapped around his torso.
“Oh man,” I said, “you’re hurt. You need to get in the cab with us.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m fine.” He paused a moment to look back at the crowd of zombies in front of us. “There’s somebody in the center of that mob. Maybe two or three people. I can’t tell for sure. The mob is moving with them as they move toward the back of the building, but the zombies are maintaining like some sort of orbit around whoever’s in the center. It’s some strange shit. It’s like they have some sort of zombie force field going on.”
My mind whirred and spun, considering the possibilities and questions. What or who could repel and attract zombies at the same time? The only thing that came to mind was that it had to be the Lord of the Dead, but he was clearly dead. For a second, I considered the possibility that Ryan had come back, but I had taken his control panel. Plus all the transmitters were down for the count. The only thing it could be was one of the Lord of the Dead’s other minions, but why were they heading toward our building and why were they able to still control the zombies? And if they could control them at all, why not control them all? Obviously, there was a lot about the Lord of the Dead that I would never know. Maybe he had a posthumous surprise for us?
Books of the Dead (Book 3): Dead Man's Land Page 26
