by TW Brown
“This way,” Neil hissed like they might be able to hear us.
Returning to this parking lot brought back a wave of memories. This was where Carl and I had killed Brandon and his cohort. We’d also loaded what we could in the back of a military truck and brought back some decent firepower. All of it gone now, thanks to Don Evans.
There were a couple of local and county police cars in the lot. Neil beelined for one in particular and I had to bite my tongue when he fished a set of keys out of his pocket. He didn’t make eye contact with me or Marshawn, which was probably for the best since Marshawn and I shared a look that spoke volumes of what we were both thinking of Neil at the moment.
“Couple more weeks, and lots of cars won’t be turning over,” Marshawn said instead. “The batteries will lose their charge first. After that…the gas will go bad. Always loved those zombie flicks where people drive all over, swap into some random vehicle they find just in time. Not to mention the newer cars are harder to hotwire unless you really know your shit.”
Neil turned the key and the car gave a sputter and cough, but it started. He slapped the steering wheel in a little victory celebration.
“Shotgun!” I barked.
“Oh…so the brother has to ride in the back,” Marshawn quipped.
I felt my face flush. Honestly, it hadn’t even occurred to me. “Hey, if you’re not comfortable riding in back…”
Marshawn glared at me and opened the front seat after opening the back door on the passenger side so I could climb in. He shut the door and then hopped in front. As soon as he shut the door, he turned back to face me through the Plexiglas divider. “You white folks gotta stop being so damned sensitive…but thanks for swapping.” His serious demeanor broke into a huge grin.
He turned back, facing front. I thought I heard him chuckle something about ‘gullible white boys’ as Neil shifted into drive and headed out of the parking lot.
“Where should I go?” he asked, snapping me back to more serious matters.
“I’d take the interstate and head south,” I offered.
“Why?” Neil came to a stop on the middle of the street.
“Population thins out that way. Maybe fewer zombies,” I answered, explaining what I thought should be obvious.
“Huh…would’ve never made that connection.” Neil allowed the car to start rolling and then slammed on the brakes. “The southbound onramp is on the far side of the overpass. The zombies are already to it. We won’t make it.”
“You don’t have to take the southbound exit,” Marshawn said with a degree of patience that I wouldn’t have come close to pulling off convincingly.
“Oh…yeah,” Neil said sheepishly. He cut the steering wheel over hard to the left and hit all the toggles and switches that activated the lights and siren.
As we started down to the interstate, Neil stomped on the gas. The police car roared to life, pressing me into the seat just a bit.
“What are you doing?” Marshawn yelped as we skirted past an abandoned vehicle with inches to spare.
“I always heard these things have some killer engines.” Neil let out a hoot that belonged in a cowboy bar more than it did in this vehicle at the moment.
“Yeah, well, we need to make sure the zombies follow us.” Marshawn craned his neck to look back at the overpass where the undead were now halfway across.
“Oh…yeah.”
Neil took his foot off the gas and we slowed. I got up on my knees and looked out the back window. Not all the zombies had been able to fit into the bottleneck that was the overpass. A lot of them were stumbling and making their way down the embankment, but there were so many already on it that they were going to cross no matter what we did.
“Stop the car,” Marshawn barked.
Neil did as he was told, and Marshawn jumped out of the car. I was a bit curious and more than a little concerned. Then I realized what he was doing. I watched as he started jogging toward an ambulance abandoned in the southbound lane. He would have to cross a huge grass median to reach it; there were a few zombies that had already spotted him and were converging.
“He’s crazy,” Neil gasped as he watched Marshawn sidestep a pair of zombies that were lunging for him.
I felt a tight feeling in my chest and took a breath once I realized I’d been holding it. I could not just sit here and do nothing. If something went bad all of a sudden for Marshawn, I needed to be able to at least make an attempt to help him. I tried to open my door and…nothing. There were handles, but they did not engage anything that would open the door for me. I tried again, this time a bit more frantically as I watched Marshawn yank open the driver’s side door of the ambulance. A body tumbled out, but, at least so far, it wasn’t trying to get up off the pavement.
“Neil,” I hissed when the realization struck me, “I need you to open my door. The safety locks are engaged, and I can’t get out.”
He never even looked back as he replied, “Why do you need to get out?”
“Dude, just open the door!” I tried not to snap, but now I could see four more of the undead stumbling around the back of the derelict ambulance and heading toward Marshawn.
“Jesus, cool your jets,” Neil sighed. He looked back over his shoulder at me, and something in his expression told me that he really liked my being so helpless and at his mercy.
I felt the giant exhale of relief when he climbed out and came to my door. He opened it and I might’ve tossed a quick thanks to him as I sprinted towards where Marshawn still had his upper body jammed in under the steering column of the ambulance.
I pulled out a pistol and checked to ensure the safety was off as I crossed the median. Pulling up, I raised my arm and squinted at my target. The pull of the trigger on a .22 caliber weapon is not that impressive. This was no exception as the ‘pop’ sound accompanied the puff of smoke that wafted from the barrel.
I have no idea where the bullet hit. Maybe it struck a zombie, but more than likely it just whistled off into the grassy hilled embankment beyond. I adjusted my aim and fired again just as Marshawn’s head came out and he looked around before realizing it was me doing the shooting.
“What the…?” he started, but then had to shove away the zombie that had closed on him.
I could feel my pulse in my temples, and the steady whoosh of blood rushing that echoed in my ears almost drowned out my next shot. I thought I heard a metallic ‘ting’ as the round likely hit somewhere on the side of the ambulance.
Realizing that I wasn’t close enough for my aim to be worth a damn, I rushed forward to close the gap. As I approached, my stomach churned not only at the smell, but at the violence these poor souls had endured at the mouths of the undead.
The woman I’d been taking shots at looked to have been in her early thirties. If I’d passed her on the street, I probably would’ve at least taken a glance. Her body was well-toned despite undeath causing her muscles to go slack. Her dark brown hair was still partially pulled back in a ponytail, but it was almost a solid spike due to the dried blood and God knows what else. Her face was where it became difficult. Her attacker or attackers had chewed off most of the right side of her face. That eye was gone, and the socket was so crusted over that it looked like the grime had formed a shell over where the orb had once been.
I adjusted my arm a little and pulled the trigger. The soft pop of the .22 was almost a whisper against the moans of the undead that had now all discovered the new source of available food standing just a few feet away…me!
“Crap,” I snarled as I backed up a few steps and fired again.
This time it was a man who appeared to have wandered out of his job as a bank teller and had one arm torn away for his troubles. There was something horribly disturbing about how his left arm was gone. The dried flesh at the shoulder looked like it had been twirled by a giant pasta fork. That entire side of his body was a massive stain of dried blood that made everything stiff, and I swear I could hear it crunching.
I fired ano
ther shot and the crunchy, one-armed man toppled. There were still a couple more, and Marshawn was quick to stick the one closest to him.
That left one. I couldn’t see any other zombies near, but I couldn’t shake the certainty that I’d seen more movement. “Hurry up, Marshawn,” I urged.
“The damn key was busted off in the ignition,” he said as he stuck his head back into the ambulance driver’s side.
“Then what are you doing, let’s just go.” I looked around, feeling the hairs on my neck stand up. I was certain that something was stalking me.
Almost like he’d been cued, Neil flicked on all the sirens. I spun to where he was still parked in the police cruiser, the lights flashing, but not really standing out in the bright, sunlit day. He seemed to be waving his arms wildly. That was definitely not good.
I turned a full circle, doing my best to look everywhere at once. As I stepped back from the ambulance so that I could get a look on the other side, I discovered what I was pretty certain had Neil in such a panic.
“Damn,” was all I managed to be able to say, and I wasn’t sure I’d said it out loud until Marshawn popped his head out of the ambulance once again.
“What’s up?”
Marshawn walked over to where I stood staring at the embankment. Lining the ridge were at least fifty tiny figures. They were in the shadows of some large building, but I knew what I was seeing.
“Are all of those…” Marshawn’s voice faded as he realized what he was seeing.
“Children.”
That one word fell from my lips, but I was so entranced that I barely heard my own statement. I took a few steps forward and felt a hand on my arm that stopped me from going any closer.
“We need to go.”
I heard the words. I could also hear the siren blaring from the police car being joined by the car’s horn. All of that competed against the rush of my heart pumping blood through my body that echoed in my ears. The dryness that emptied my mouth of all moisture. The feel of my skin pebbling up.
I knew somewhere down deep that this was important. The child versions of the undead were different. I was certain of it now after so many odd encounters.
They came flooding to me. The church. The school. That ambush created by a single child banging metal on metal to bring the adults. The way they seemed to hesitate and regard me when we’d come face-to-face.
“Evan!” Marshawn’s voice cut through the haze and snapped me out of my trance.
“Did you find a way to start the ambulance?” I asked as I took a few unsteady steps backwards, my eyes not leaving the line of zombie children gathered at the top of the ridge.
“It’s beyond me. There is dried blood everywhere inside the cab. Somehow, the key got snapped off and I can’t even find the rest of it to try and force it together…not that I’m sure that would’ve even worked,” Marshawn explained.
“Are you guys trying to get yourselves killed?” Neil shouted from where he stood leaning over the hood of the police car.
I had to admit…he had a point. This whole endeavor had been for nothing. Glancing back towards the massive swarm of zombies we’d been sent to try and divert, I adjusted my assessment.
They were coming for us!
Normally that would not be something I would be glad about, but this looked like it was actually going to work. Even the ones that had crossed the overpass were now coming down the embankment and making their way to the interstate.
I hurried to the car and climbed into the back seat again as Marshawn hopped into the front with Neil. As we pulled away, I glanced back to get another glimpse of that group of zombie children.
“What the…” I was really making it a habit of not being able to finish my sentences.
The ridge was empty. It was as if they’d never been there. I searched all along that area as we pulled away slowly, but there was no sign of them. Craning around and looking directly behind us, that herd was a different story.
“Umm…we gotta figure something out,” Neil said, bringing mine and Marshawn’s attention back around to what was ahead.
“No way,” managed to slip from my mouth.
If the horde behind us was a lake…this was the ocean. We were just rounding a large bend that had some undulating hills, so it had made seeing them impossible, but now…
“This is so bad,” Marshawn muttered.
The cruiser came to a stop as Neil’s foot came off the gas. On either side of the interstate were very tall, very solid concrete walls. Still, there was no way we could just sit here. Whether or not those things could eventually exert enough force to break this vehicle open like an egg was not even a doubt in my mind. I’d seen the group behind us folding back the guard rails along the edge of the interstate and the overpass like they were nothing. It was a matter of physics. There would be enough pressure eventually from so many bodies pressed against the car that it would pop like a giant zit.
The way I saw it, we only had one chance.
“Neil?” Nothing. “Neil! Take us over to the wall,” I said, leaning forward and almost yelling in Neil’s ear to snap him out of the trance he’d fallen into.
He turned us hard to the left and drove us up the steep, grassy incline until the nose of the police car actually bounced off the concrete wall causing me to smack my face into the divider that separated me from the pair up front.
Marshawn obviously knew what I was thinking and hopped out of the car, quickly opening my door so I could get out. I climbed onto the hood and was about to reach up and grab the lip of the concrete barrier when I realized that Neil hadn’t moved. He was still sitting in the car with his hands on the wheel.
“C’mon, Neil, we gotta go,” I called down to him as Marshawn climbed up onto the lip of the concrete barrier and started to make his way up the chain link fence that unfortunately had to be topped with barbed wire.
The man didn’t budge. In fact, he didn’t even glance my direction. I shot a look over to the mob we’d been driving into. It was the stuff of nightmares. The undead were packed in shoulder to shoulder all the way across the north- and southbound lanes. Many were starting to cause a bubble towards the middle as we were now obviously spotted or sensed or whatever.
“Neil, buddy, we gotta go,” I urged. He continued to just sit there. His mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear anything between him being inside the vehicle and the growing roar coming from the zombies that were now perhaps a quarter of a mile away.
That used to seem like a long way, but when that is the span of distance that determines your fate, it is really not that far at all. I took a step towards him, but the voice in my head telling me to get my ass up and over that fence was making it very difficult.
I forced the voice away and rushed to the driver’s side front door and yanked it open. Neil was still staring straight ahead like he didn’t even see me.
“…no use…we can’t survive this…it’s just no use…we can’t survive this…”
He kept repeating that almost like a mantra. I looked at his hands and realized he was white-knuckling the steering wheel. I grabbed his shoulder and shook him, but he didn’t make any indication he knew I was even there.
“Neil!” I shouted.
Very slowly, he rotated his head to me. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, so I wasn’t sure he was even seeing me.
“Evan.” He scowled. “You hate me. I don’t much like you either. Guess that makes us even.”
“Umm…yeah, okay.” I glanced up at Marshawn who was looking over his shoulder at me with a curious expression.
“What the hell is he doing?” Marshawn barked. “Tell him to move his ass.”
“Yeah, I think Neil’s checked out.”
“Say what?”
“Yeah, he won’t let go of the steering wheel. He keeps saying something about it being no use or something.”
After another glance over at the closer of the two approaching herds, Marshawn jumped back down and stomped over to the car.
>
“Hey! Neil, we gotta get going, man.” Marshawn snapped his fingers in front of the man’s eyes, but the guy didn’t even seem to blink.
“Maybe pry his hands off the wheel?” I suggested.
Marshawn reached in and had to really strain to get the first hand free. Only, when he reached over to pull his finger up on the other hand, Neil simply grabbed hold again with the hand Marshawn had just freed.
“I hate to say it, but we don’t have time for this.” Marshawn stepped back.
“We can’t just leave him here.” I looked past the car to the approaching horde, then glanced over my shoulder at the other one. Things were dire at best. “He won’t stand a chance.”
“And we can’t stay here with him or we die.”
It really was that simple. I had one thought. It was sorta strange, and wasn’t likely to help, but it was a last-ditch effort. At least maybe I would be able to let this one slide off my conscience.
I took a deep breath, clenched my fist, and punched Neil right in the side of the face. His head snapped, and he fell over, slumping over the island in the middle where the guns had once been locked into place.
“Damn, Evan!” Marshawn gasped. “You really think now is the best time to score your get-back on the guy?”
“Owww,” Neil moaned. He sat up and looked over at me with a look of confusion on his face. “What the hell is your problem, Evan?”
“Dude, you were just sitting there…frozen to the steering wheel. I wasn’t going to just leave you here to be washed over by that wave of zombies headed this way.” I gave a nod of my head toward the closest for emphasis.
Neil glanced over at the oncoming horde and then looked back at me with a dubious expression. He rubbed his cheek where I’d socked him and frowned.
“Can we do this later?” Marshawn growled.
I agreed. And now that I’d done my part and could walk away with a clear conscience, it was time to move. I ran to the concrete wall and jumped to grab the lip at the top. This was another problem with fiction. This stuff looked easy in the movies. I strained a bit and finally threw my leg up so that I could pull myself onto the small ledge on this side of the fence.
