He had just missed the eyes, Halverson realized. However, he saw that he had contrived to ram one prong between the eyes and in this fashion had destroyed the brain. He jabbed the pitchfork back and forth inside the creature’s head to make sure the brain was pulverized.
As the creature collapsed, Halverson withdrew the pitchfork’s prongs from its head. He had to jigger the handle to free the prongs. They had gotten stuck in the skull, thanks to the angle of the tilting cadaver exerting pressure on them.
Only three more of those things in the immediate vicinity to worry about, decided Halverson. But had any of the swarming mob from the cemetery reached Victoria and the carts on the sidewalk yet? He knew he and the others had no time to dillydally.
Felix reached the back of the truck. He unlocked the door. He swung the door open, climbed into the truck, and rummaged through the gold-striped blue nylon moneybags piled on the floor.
Reba approached the tailgate.
Felix lifted a moneybag and handed it to her. She clutched it by its neck.
“Is it heavy?” she asked before picking it up.
“No,” he answered. “It’s just paper money.”
She hauled the moneybag out of the truck.
Becker joined them. “Where’s my share?”
“We haven’t divided it up yet,” said Felix. “We’re just carrying it to our carts now.” He found another moneybag and handed it to Becker.
Halverson wedged his way between two parked cars to reach the armored truck. He spotted one of the ghouls maundering two car lengths away. It bothered Halverson that he had lost track of the two remaining ghouls that he had previously sighted. Where had they gotten to? he wondered.
“How many bags do we take?” asked Reba.
“Only one,” answered Halverson. “You need to keep your weapon in one hand.”
“Not very efficient,” said Becker. “We’ll be unloading for a while at that rate.”
“There’s a dolly in here,” said Felix. He wheeled it toward the tailgate.
“There’s no room for it between all these crashed vehicles,” said Halverson, scanning the vicinity. “We can barely fit between them ourselves.”
“There must be a better way.”
“There is,” said Becker. “Three of us could take two bags at a time and one of us could guard the others.”
“That means leaving behind all our weapons, except for our guard’s.”
“Who’s gonna steal them?”
“The problem is, we may have to leave in a hurry and abandon them here.”
“Then we’ll get more somewhere else.”
“I’ve still got my gun,” said Felix.
“Who gets to guard us?” asked Reba.
“It’ll have to be me,” said Halverson. “I can see those things approaching before anyone else can.”
“Surprise, surprise,” said Becker dryly.
“Makes sense,” said Felix.
“But why does he get to wear the goggles?” asked Becker.
“Because they’re his.”
“Not the way I hear it. He ripped them off at LAX.”
“Let’s not argue about it,” said Reba. “We need to do this and get out of here as fast as possible. That mob from the bonfire is heading this way.”
“Let’s keep our voices down,” said Halverson sotto voce. “One of those things is about twenty feet away to my right.”
“Where are the other two? Weren’t there two more?”
“That’s what’s bugging me. I can’t locate them.”
Felix handed Reba and Becker another moneybag.
“I think I can carry two of these bags in each hand,” said Felix, lifting a moneybag and glancing at it.
He slid four moneybags to the tailgate, climbed out of the back of the truck, grabbed two bags by their necks with his left hand, and dragged them out over the tailgate. With his right hand he grabbed the other two bags and dragged them out.
Halverson located another creature. It was rooting through an ancient station wagon not far away from its grisly companion. That left one unaccounted for, decided Halverson.
“We’re all set,” said Felix.
“Who leads?” asked Reba. “It’s too dark to see a clear path anywhere.”
“That leaves me,” said Halverson.
“So what else is new?” said Becker.
Halverson ignored Becker’s dig and made his way to the front of the group. “Let’s go.”
“There’s one problem with that.”
“Which is?”
“What if we get attacked here in the back? With you up front, you won’t be able to see back here to warn us.”
“I’ll be looking everywhere, checking out all directions.”
“Just make sure you keep checking behind you. You lose us, you lose the money too.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Halverson wended his way through the labyrinth of abandoned cars toward the three motor carts on the sidewalk. He could make out through his green-tinted surroundings Victoria sitting in the lead cart. He could also make out a horde of zombies trudging steadily closer to her. He didn’t know if she could see them through the darkness. The bonfire burning behind them may have highlighted them for her.
He doubted they could see her as they marched drunkenly through the cemetery.
He checked his right flank and made out the two creatures he had already pinpointed earlier. The fact that he still hadn’t located their buddy continued to niggle at him.
He knew the creature had to be here somewhere close by. Those things just couldn’t move fast enough for it to have vacated the area.
He did a 360 and came up empty. Where the hell had it gone? he wondered.
He watched the throngs of creatures lumbering through the cemetery tripping over tombstones and trampling over each other in their eagerness to forage. It didn’t look like they had spotted Victoria. At this point they didn’t seem to have any goal other than to explore the entire cemetery.
“We’re almost at the carts,” he said over his shoulder in a low voice to the others.
The vanguard of the creatures would reach the open gate in the chain-link fence soon, Halverson realized, and then they would spill through it onto the sidewalk and street. He wanted the motor carts to be on the move before that happened.
Halverson stepped onto the sidewalk, followed by the others. “We need to pack up and get moving.”
Becker, Reba, and Felix loaded their moneybags into the backs of their carts.
“The things aren’t here yet,” said Felix, dumping the last of his four moneybags into his cart. “There’s still more money in the truck. I’m going back.”
“There isn’t time,” said Halverson.
“You don’t have to come with me. I know the way.”
“Those things will be here before you get back.”
“We only got a couple million bucks so far. There’s millions more in the truck.”
“And at least three more of those creatures prowling around the truck.”
“They can’t catch me. The way those things move, they couldn’t even catch my grandma. Is anyone else coming with me?”
“I think we should leave now,” said Reba. She glanced apprehensively toward the graveyard.
“It’ll only take me a couple minutes. I could use help carrying the other moneybags.”
“We need to go,” said Halverson. “There’s no telling what we’re gonna run into up ahead.”
“We left our weapons behind at the truck, too. Remember.”
“We don’t have time to get them. We still have some weapons left in the carts.”
There was no reasoning with him, Halverson realized.
Felix bolted off the sidewalk into the hugger-mugger of car wreckage on the street.
“We’ll wait for you,” Becker called after him.
Halverson gave Becker a look. “The minute one of those things comes through the gate, we’re out of here.”
&n
bsp; “Speak for yourself.”
“Let’s leave now,” said Victoria from the first cart. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“We can’t leave Felix,” said Becker.
“I told him not to go,” said Halverson.
“There’s more money in the truck.”
“The money’s not gonna do us any good if everybody in the world is dead.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Six million bucks ain’t hay,” said Reba.
Halverson suddenly realized that none of the moneybags were in his cart. Becker had two in his cart and Reba and Felix had six in theirs. Becker, too, took note of the inequity and decided to redistribute the wealth. He snared two moneybags from Felix’s cart and stuffed them into his.
“What are you doing?” demanded Reba, her arms akimbo.
“I have more room in my cart, since I don’t have a passenger.”
“Felix isn’t gonna like this.”
“Felix isn’t here.”
“It’s his money in the first place.”
“It’s not his money. He was just guarding it. It’s as much ours as it is his.”
“What’s taking him so long?” said Victoria, screwing up her face with worry.
“Anyone got a cigarette I can bum?” asked Reba.
Nobody answered.
In the silence a shot rang out. Halverson and the others started.
“Where’d that come from?” asked Becker.
“It sounded like it came from the truck,” said Reba.
“It must’ve been Felix,” said Halverson. “Christ, I told him not to fire his gun.”
Indeed, Halverson could see now that the mobs of creatures in the graveyard were holding up their decomposing heads and also trying to figure out where the noise had come from.
Four more gunshots popped in rapid succession.
Alarmed, Halverson peered in the direction of the reports. In the green landscape he thought he could distinguish two figures grappling with each other amongst the abandoned cars. Another gunshot cracked. Halverson saw one of the figures drop behind a car. The other figure remained standing. Hopefully, it was Felix, but it was difficult for Halverson to see through the gloom, even with the aid of the NVGs.
“What’s going on?” said Reba, reacting to the gunshots.
Halverson glanced at the open gate. His worst fears were realized. The creatures had zeroed in on the gunfire and the first knot of them were stumbling through the gate onto the sidewalk.
“We need to beat it,” he said.
“We need to wait for Felix,” said Becker. “He’s got the money.”
Halverson watched a particularly gruesome middle-aged male zombie wearing a USC maroon sweatshirt shamble out of the graveyard through the gateway and onto the sidewalk in quest of the explosions it had heard. One of the lenses in its wire-rim spectacles was cracked and the creature’s eye behind it was half-shut as if something was irritating it.
Tufts of white hair curled out of the sides of its head like pinewood shavings, while the bald crown of its head shined like it had been simonized.
A prominent bulbous nose bisected its grimacing face. The creature plucked its festering nose and half of it slid off in its hand to reveal maggots devouring its upper gums. The creature tossed the bolus of moldering nose to the ground.
Halverson wanted to throw up.
“Those things know where we are now,” he said. “They’re making a beeline toward us.”
“We can’t just leave Felix behind,” said Reba. “Why don’t we honk our horns so he knows we want to leave?”
“If you honk a horn, the things will find us even faster.”
“You’re forgetting he’s got more money with him,” said Becker. “Surely we can wait a few more minutes.”
The half-nosed zombie was impossible to ignore any longer, decided Halverson. The thing was closing in on Reba’s back.
Pitchfork in hand, Halverson charged the creature as it reached for Reba, who was gazing into the darkness toward the armored truck. Halverson jabbed the prongs into the creature’s head, transfixing its decrepit excuse for a nose.
The creature lost a step but kept coming.
Halverson realized he must have missed the brain.
He yanked the pitchfork’s prongs out of the creature’s head then thrust them back at its eyes, smashing through the lenses in its crazed spectacles. One of the prongs pierced the festering eye. Halverson jammed the prongs to the hilt into the brain.
Not knowing the creature was behind her, Reba let out a scream of shock and surprise as the ghoul crumpled to the sidewalk.
As she screamed, Felix came barging onto the sidewalk, a moneybag in his hand.
“Where’s the rest of it?” demanded Becker. “You said there was more than one bag.”
“I had to leave them.”
“Why?”
“One of those things ambushed me at the truck,” said Felix, hurling the moneybag into the back of his cart. “Where are the rest of the bags?” he snapped, noticing that two of the moneybags were missing from his cart.
“I put them in my cart. There’s more room in my cart.”
Felix glared at Becker. “That’s my money.”
“It belongs to all of us. We’re all in this together. We all helped you.”
Felix didn’t look convinced of Becker’s sincerity. “As long as you don’t have any plans of your own.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We don’t have time to argue about this,” Halverson chimed in. “What took you so long?” he asked Felix. “I told you not to use your gun.”
“I didn’t have any choice. One of those things ambushed me when I was leaving with the moneybags. I had to drop the bags and fight the thing off.”
“Why did you shoot it? You could have used your spade.”
“The fucking dirty thing bit me. It wouldn’t let go of me. I had to shoot it. I kept shooting it and shooting it and it wouldn’t let go till I blew its brains out.”
“Why would it bite you?” asked Reba, dumbfounded.
“Haven’t any of you been paying attention?” said Halverson, growing impatient. “Those things eat people. That’s all they do.” He faced Felix. “You said it bit you?”
“Yeah.” Felix rubbed his arm in its bloody sleeve. “Now I’ll need a tetanus shot. Its teeth were filthy.”
“Want your mommy to kiss it for you?” said Becker in a falsetto voice, checking out Felix’s wound.
“I want you to kiss my ass.”
Another creature staggered toward Halverson. He kicked it away and sprang toward his cart, pitchfork in hand.
“There’s no time to waste,” he said.
He knew what the others didn’t know—that Felix would morph into a zombie. Now that Felix had been bitten by one of them, it was only a matter of time before he turned. Halverson had no idea how long that would take.
From what Halverson had observed, most infected people didn’t turn until after they had died. However, he wasn’t a hundred percent certain you had to die before becoming a ghoul. Once the plague pathogen entered your bloodstream, it was fatal without exception.
There was no way Halverson was going to tell Felix he was doomed. Halverson couldn’t take that risk. There was no telling what Felix might do if he found out he was a walking dead man. Halverson would just have to keep his eyes peeled for any strange behavior on Felix’s part.
When the time came where Halverson saw Felix was turning, he would have to kill Felix. No other options existed. The only cure for the reanimation phase of the disease was death itself, which entailed atomizing the plague victim’s brain.
Halverson hopped into the driver’s seat of his cart and fired the ignition. He peeled off.
Becker was right behind him, and Felix and Reba behind Becker.
A horde of marauding zombies burst through the gateway, collapsing part of the adjacent fence with the impetus of their numbers and dragging
it along with them as they pursued Halverson and his band with the bumbling, uncertain steps of tykes taking their first steps. Except these disease-racked creatures with a taste for living human flesh weren’t cute little rug rats . . .
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Look at all those things,” said Felix as he steered his motor cart and took in the multitudes of creatures swarming through the cemetery on his right. He coughed.
“Lucky that fence is still standing,” said Reba beside him.
“But for how long?”
“We’ll be out of here by the time it falls.”
Felix saw one of the creatures lunge toward him from the motor vehicles abandoned on the road. His left hand on the steering wheel, he grabbed the remaining shovel in his motor cart and thrust its metal blade at the creature to stave it off.
The creature tripped and fell to the wayside.
“There are too many of these things,” said Felix. “We have no chance.”
“You didn’t help matters any,” said Becker, driving in front of Felix. “You took way too long to get back to us.”
“Yeah? If it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t have a plugged nickel. Now we got a couple million, at least.”
“We’d have even more if you hadn’t left moneybags behind when you fled.”
“Watch your mouth or you won’t get a cut of the take, you lazy moocher.”
“Why don’t we call a spade a spade, while we’re at it? You failed. You went to get the rest of the money and you blew it, you loser.”
Apoplectic, Felix arched upright in his seat, clenching his fists around the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “I’m cutting you out, fuckhead! You’re getting squat! You hear me!”
“Why do you think you’ve spent your entire life schlepping other people’s money around and not your own?” Becker answered his own question. “Because you’re a bottom feeder.”
“And you’re a world-class pervert!” blurted Felix.
“Are you challenging me?”
“Are you trying to be the alpha male here?”
“I must be doing something right. I’m at the top of the food chain.”
Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series Page 33
