Highway to Hell

by Max Brallier

  “This isn’t right. None of it.”

  Iris eyes you. She takes a step back and looks around: at the games, the carnies, the eager townsfolk. And then she nods in agreement.

  Quickly, you and Iris move away from the train, through town, with your head up. It feels like every man is watching her and watching you: the man in the El Camino, the one who brought her.

  Inside the garage, the pimply kid is sitting on a stool, flipping through a tattered issue of Hustler. “Keys,” you say.

  “Not staying for the show? Circus only comes through once, maybe twice a year.”

  “Places to be,” you say, walking past him, so you’re deep into the garage and he’s closest to the street. You don’t want the street at your back. “Keys.”

  “Sure thing,” he says, shrugging and turning his back to you, reaching to the key box.

  As he reaches for the keys, you reach for the sawed-off. You bring it up, holding it steady. When the kid comes around, he’s gripping a pistol.

  He swallows as he sees the sawed-off pointed at his chest.

  “Drop the peashooter,” you say, “and give me the keys.”

  He grinds his teeth. He’s probably read stories of these new-style wasteland warriors. Maybe fancied himself one. Thought this was his moment to prove himself a gunman.

  He was wrong.

  He places the pistol on the cracked garage floor. Then, slowly, he retrieves your keys and tosses them to you.

  Iris nods to you, then gets inside the car.

  Two men step in from the street, then into the garage, blocking the exit. One, a heavy, carries a baseball bat. The second, a skinny man, carries an AK-47 that’s about as big as he is.

  Skinny says, “We heard tell on the radio about a bearded man in an armored El Camino, driving around a long-haired blond whore.”

  “Coincidence,” you say. “Dime a dozen, bearded men in armored El Caminos with long-haired blond whores.”

  Skinny smiles. “They said, dead or alive, worth a lot.”

  “Well, shit, I’m honored.”

  “Not you. Her. You’re not worth nothin’.”

  “Just like my ma used to say.”

  There’s a silence then. No one speaking. The heavy with the bat steps closer.

  You break the silence by breaking his jaw, slamming the butt of the sawed-off into his face, dropping him, then stamping your boot down on his throat. The sawed-off stays level, pointed at Skinny. “I suggest you move. The ‘blond whore’ and I are leaving town.”

  The kid steps forward, looking to impress these local thugs. He wants to be some sort of pulp fiction legend. Instead, you make him a footnote—turning, squeezing, the explosion of the gun loud as all hell inside the garage. The kid is lifted off his feet, chest opening as he slams into a row of tools that runs along the wall.

  Skinny opens fire with the AK.

  Then it’s Iris lunging, swinging open the driver’s-side door, you following, diving inside the El Camino. Skinny lights up the windshield. It cracks, splinters, but the bulletproof glass holds.

  You jam the keys into the ignition and, mashing the pedal, the front of the El Camino slamming into Skinny, pushes him into the thresher. He shrieks, convulses, firing into the air, into the crowd, as you speed out onto the street.

  Chaos now.

  The townsfolk running—most away from the scene, some toward it. More men with guns. One shouts, “It’s them two Boss Tanner radioed about!”

  Grandma Till dives behind her booth, shouting, “One year’s free booze to the one who stops them!”

  Goddamn it, Grandma Till . . . Can’t even trust a kindly old-lady moonshiner . . .

  You glance toward the main gate. A dozen men with guns blocking it. You need those gates opened. You stomp on the accelerator and spin the wheel, racing toward the far end of town.

  “Gun!” Iris barks over the roar of the engine and the screams of the townsfolk and the heavy fire of the enemy.

  “M16. In the back.”

  As she goes for the weapon, you steer the El Camino through town, doing your best to avoid those scrambling for cover, doing your best to run down the men firing on you. You plow through Grandma’s stand, bottles shattering and whiskey splashing over the windshield.

  Near the end of the town, you pop the e-brake and the car whirls, sliding up next to the circus train.

  “Blast open the doors!” you bark.

  Iris rolls down the window and rests the gun on the door. She squeezes and the gun shakes and kicks but she holds it damn steady and the M16 fire blows open the train door locks.

  You drive and she continues, opening three, four, five, six train cars, and then there’s a tremendous moaning and an undead, ungodly howling.

  In your rearview, you see zombies pouring out of the cars.

  But not just humans.

  A fucking menagerie. A circus. Zombie tigers, zombie horses.

  A zombie giraffe runs alongside the El Camino. Its muscles are too deteriorated to keep its head up, so it just lopes around, its neck flaccid and its head dragging along the pavement.

  A gunman, ready to fire on you, is knocked off his feet by a zombie horse, then crushed beneath its hooves.

  Old carnival workers, long since turned undead, stumble about. Two, done up in fresh clown makeup, tackle Grandma Till. Their teeth penetrate her skin and soon the blood mixes with their red makeup, creating a gory, indistinguishable mess.

  At last, you hear someone scream, “The gates! Open the gates! Get those fucking animals out of here!”

  Good. Now you just need to get to the front of the town without dying.

  You cut the wheel, swinging, racing down an alleyway. And there, blocking your path, is a zombified rhinoceros—plucked from a zoo, you figure. It is a massive, hulking beast. Its skull is exposed and bits of rotten gray brain are visible. Its eyes are red. Its flesh has broken down so that in certain parts nothing but bone is visible.

  Yet the zombie virus keeps it “alive.” It keeps the strange animal on its feet. It keeps the strange animal thirsting for human flesh. Your flesh.

  If you want to unload, giving the zombie rhinoceros everything you have, click here.

  This fight looks unwinnable. To throw it in reverse and try to escape, click here.

  GO TO CHURCH

  It takes nearly an hour to get the El Camino free—it’s a final whirring of the thresher and a kick of the nitrous that does it. The whole time, zombies are gathering, harassing you. You kill almost two dozen before you get the car loose of the headstone, and you’re happy as hell to ride out over the beasts’ broken bodies.

  The sky is the color of rust when you cross into Ohio. You drive down long, winding roads, past weather-beaten houses with caved-in roofs and sunken porches.

  “You need to sleep?” Iris asks.

  “Not yet.”

  “You’ve been driving sixteen hours.”

  “I can drive sixteen more.”

  “There’s a place near here. In the guidebook. I’d like to stop there. And sleep for the night. I’d prefer it.”

  “This isn’t a sightseeing tour.”

  “You need to sleep.”

  “When we sleep, we sleep in the car. We don’t get out of the car. We stick to the map.”

  She holds up the guidebook. “I need to see this place.”

  “What place?”

  “The Museum of Divine Statues. In Lakewood, Ohio.”

  “Why?”

  “Personal.”

  You don’t say anything. After a moment, she says, frustrated, “Well?”

  “What personal reasons?”

  “I can’t explain.”

  “Then we don’t stop.”

  “I’ll explain when we get there. That good enough?”

  You look over at her. Her face looks heavy, tired—more than before. Some backbreaking weight on her shoulders, nearly crushing her. “Find it on the map,” you say. “Get me there, I’ll see if it’s safe. If it is, we can
sleep there tonight. But if I get a feeling, we leave.”

  A barely perceptible smile on Iris’s face. “Good.”

  “What are you smiling for?”

  “I’m not. Asshole.”

  You grin at that, and you continue driving down the endless, depressed Ohio back roads.

  For the first time, you feel the poison in your system. A fogginess in your head. Brief moments of blurred vision. Nausea. You ignore it and press your foot down harder on the gas—the sooner you get to San Francisco, the sooner you can get right.

  The Museum of Divine Statues is in fact a church, located a few blocks from Lake Erie. It’s a beige brick building, vines up the sides, surrounded by houses gone to rack and ruin. Some burned down.

  In the parking lot, you stop between two long-abandoned cars. If Tanner’s men are onto you, you need to keep the El Camino out of view.

  You shut off the radio, grab the sawed-off and a flashlight, and step from the El Camino. “You stay, I’ll check it out.” Iris ignores and follows you. You don’t fight her. You circle the building once. No cars parked anywhere.

  The wooden church doors are half-open. You shine the flashlight and lead with the sawed-off.

  Faces stare at you.

  Pink faces.

  You take a step back, muscles tightening—it’s a long two seconds before you realize they’re not real.

  Iris reads from the book. “ ‘This gutted, renovated church now houses dozens of restored statues.’ ”

  You walk the museum, slowly, gun up. You hear nothing. Not even rats skittering or roaches scattering. The kitchen is empty. There’s a workspace in the back, where the people who ran the place did their restorations. Paint supplies, easels. You check the bathrooms, the closets. Empty.

  “Okay. We can sleep here,” you say, stepping back into the main hall, statues surrounding you. “I’ll secure the doors.”

  You move from room to room, building makeshift barriers in front of the few doors that can’t be locked. When you return, Iris is kneeling in front of a cross, praying. You begin to say something, then stop. Let her be.

  You find a pew. You kick away a small wooden divider, the wood splinters, and you fully lay your body out.

  Iris lies in the pew one over. You can’t see each other. You stare up at the roof of the church—it’s full of subpar paintings. Adam and Eve and angels and other nonsense.

  You say, “Let me sleep for four hours. You stay awake. You hear anything, see anything, wake me up. Then we leave. You sleep in the car. Understood?”

  “Okay.”

  You take a swig of whiskey, slide the flask between your legs, and shut your eyes.

  Five minutes later, sleep not coming, you say, “Why were you eager to stay here?”

  “It’s a holy place,” Iris says. “I need that now.”

  “Why?”

  She doesn’t respond, so you don’t press. You’re half-asleep when she next speaks. “Do you believe in this?”

  “What?”

  “All this. The statues. God. Whatever you want to call it.”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “How can you not believe?”

  “Just don’t. Don’t think none of it matters. Think it’s bullshit.”

  “Do you think what we’re doing, it’s the right thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope people pay attention to this,” she says. “I’d like it to matter.”

  You sit up, grab the flask, and rest your arm on the back of the pew. You light a cigarette and you drink with the gun across your lap.

  “It doesn’t have to matter, Iris. What matters is that we’re doing what we set out to do. If we get there, and it doesn’t work, well—at least we tried. Nothing lost.”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “I’m going to die, Jimmy. When we get there.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m going to die. Eigle told me. In San Francisco they’ll have to kill me. To learn how my body works. Why it’s—y’know.”

  You pull at your cigarette.

  “Real nice, huh?” Iris says after a minute.

  You just drink.

  “That’s why I wanted to come here. I need to be saved, before I die.”

  You drink more.

  “Damn it, you going to say anything?” she asks.

  “I think you’ll be giving your life for something. Which is more than most people get.”

  “But you just said it’s all bullshit!” she says, voice raising, angry.

  “No. I said this is bullshit. Statues to God. But helping people to live—that’s not bullshit.”

  “No, I think you meant it’s all bullshit. People. Humans. Us. We should just give up. Maybe I agree.”

  “No. I didn’t. I’ve seen horrible things, Iris. And—”

  “And what?”

  “Nothing. I’m going to sleep. Wake me up like I said.”

  Two hours later, a heavy thud yanks you from a nightmare. In the corner of the room, a statue blocking a confessional booth has tumbled over.

  Iris stands next to it. She looks at you, embarrassed. “Shit, shit,” she says. “Go back to sleep. I just—I saw the booth. I wanted, ah—I wanted to confess.”

  “Iris . . . ,” you sigh.

  And then the confessional door flies open.

  A priest in a torn black robe bursts out. Its face is maggot-infested and its eyeballs have been plucked from their sockets. It dives at Iris, biting into her throat, teeth sinking into flesh.

  Iris howls, grabbing at it, punching.

  In a second, you’re hopping over the pew, gripping the ax.

  The zombie priest is on top of her, clawing.

  You bring the ax down with such force that for a moment you’re worried it will go all the way through the monster’s back, split it, and hit Iris. But it doesn’t. You yank the ax back, pulling the body with it. With a tremendous heave, you throw the undead priest over three pews. It slides into a statue, knocking it over, pinning it.

  You rush to Iris. Blood oozes from her neck. She’s immune to the zombie infection, but not immune to having her throat near ripped out. You slip off your shirt and wrap it around her neck. “Hold it tight.”

  You find a first aid kit in the kitchen.

  Coming back out, you see her lying next to the pinned zombie. She’s holding the monster’s hand. Her lips move, praying.

  You kneel beside her and examine the wound. Her artery is fine, but the flesh is torn.

  “Stitches would help. But for now, you’ll be all right.”

  She nods. Her eyes are wet.

  “It’s time to go,” you say.

  “Yes. But kill the priest. Okay? Free him. It wasn’t his fault.”

  A metal cross sits on a table nearby. You pick it up, raise it, and swing it down, crushing the undead priest. You pound away at the unholy face with the edge of the cross until the thing is no longer recognizable as anything human—it looks like a creature made of bubble gum and bone.

  The thing’s hand squeezes Iris’s tight, then lets go, limp. The bloody cross drops from your hand and falls to the tiled floor. “Now we go.”

  Click here.

  GOT SOME BAD NEWS

  Holding the ax, you step into the El Camino. You turn on the radio, and immediately Eigle’s voice hollers: “Jimmy! Jimmy, goddamn it, you there? Iris?”

  You sigh, slide into your seat, light a cigarette, and pick up the microphone.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ. Thought you were dead. Been radioing for an hour. Where have you been?”

  “Went to church.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Iris, shirt to her throat, laughs softly.

  “Listen,” Eigle continues. “Things went bad here. Hank’s dead. Came back to the garage to find him shot up, maps gone. I’m holed up back at the compound. Don’t think t
hey’ll reach me here. Can’t be sure. But Tanner and his men know your route now. They know the northern route.”

  You lay the map out on your lap and look it over. “We could cut back, go south,” you say. “Probably lose ’em.”

  “Take a lot longer,” Eigle says.

  He’s right. If you cut back to the south now, you’ll add weeks to your trip. But you’ll most likely lose any drivers who might be following you. But God knows what other hell you’ll encounter . . .

  “What’s it going to be, Jimmy?”

  This is a big decision. No turning back, and you know it. Depending on which way you go, your and Iris’s journey will be very different . . .

  If you want to continue along the northern route, possibly dogged by Tanner’s men every step of the way, click here.

  Change direction and head south? Click here.

  DOWN BELOW

  The tiny Porsche races down the avenue. Zombies lunge for it. One is hit, rolling up and over the top, then bouncing along the concrete like a rag doll.

  You let loose with the fifty-cal. Bullets spray concrete as Lucy rockets ahead.

  You glance down. Doing 65 miles per hour. And the Porsche is putting distance between you. You can’t keep up . . .

  But six blocks ahead of you, the Porsche pulls a 180 e-brake turn, whipping around so it’s facing you, and you can see the beautiful driver, and her thick blond hair, her big blue eyes, and the two M2 cannons on the front of the Porsche, unloading—

  BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  Your windshield cracks. You duck as the Porsche races toward you, full steam, hammering your Jeep with gunfire and then roaring past you.

  You want this girl. Want her dead.

  You cut the wheel, pedal hitting the floor, giving chase. The Porsche weaves across the road, up on the sidewalk.

  What’s she doing . . . ?

  You follow. And then—

  Something drops from the rear of the Porsche. There’s a deafening explosion. And suddenly, in front of you, a gigantic hole. She blew the ground apart. Directly over the 1 subway line.

  You hit the brakes and wrench the wheel, but there’s nothing you can do—