Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series

by Bryan Cassiday

  They drove for a mile through desolate and ruined Santa Monica.

  “They don’t seem to be around here,” said Halverson.

  Even Wilshire was less congested with abandoned motor vehicles in this part of town than it had been farther east.

  “Maybe it’s safe for us to rest here,” said Victoria. “I’m dead on my feet.”

  Halverson thought about it. “We better keep moving. These buildings could be infested with creatures.”

  “How do they keep finding us?”

  “We’re not exactly hiding.”

  Halverson started as somebody screamed. It sounded to Halverson like it was coming from one of the cars parked on Wilshire.

  “What was that?” asked Victoria, goggle-eyed.

  Halverson scoped out the abandoned cars. At first blush, he missed it. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a Chrysler sedan rocking in the road. The car wasn’t only rocking. Its windows were being splashed with blood from its interior as a creature was tearing apart a thirtyish woman in the front seat.

  The woman frantically hammered the car’s horn with her dying breaths.

  “We can’t do anything for her now,” said Halverson.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Less than ten minutes later, Halverson and Victoria reached the coast.

  They drove onto Ocean Avenue, which skirted a bluff that overlooked the Pacific Coast Highway and the Pacific Ocean. A palm-studded pocket park of neatly trimmed grass carpeted the western border of the avenue that included the bluff that was verged by a concrete fence with three rails.

  Victoria crossed over Ocean Avenue and drove onto the dirt path that ran through the park parallel to the shoreline. They could see the Santa Monica Pier bisecting the ocean nearby.

  With a motionless Ferris wheel, unique for its solar power, and a yellow rollercoaster at its base, the weathered sepia wooden pier jutted into the shimmering mirrorlike sea.

  “Where now?” asked Victoria.

  “To the pier,” answered Halverson.

  “The creatures could trap us there.”

  “From there we’ll take a boat and get out of here.”

  “What boat?”

  Halverson pointed toward the end of the jetty. “Isn’t that a boat tied to the end of the pier?”

  Victoria squinted at the pier’s edge that protruded behind a two-story, mustard-roofed Mexican restaurant nestled on wooden planks supported by pilings anchored in the sand underwater. A small skiff bobbed on rollers undulating into the pilings at the end of the pier.

  “Looks like it,” she said.

  “That’s our ticket out of here.”

  “That little boat won’t take us far.”

  “We’re not putting out to sea. We’ll sail like a coaster till we find somewhere safe on land.”

  As they reached the road to the pier, they noticed a herd of creatures gathering near the intersection.

  “We need to get to the intersection before they do, or they’ll cut us off from the pier,” said Halverson.

  “I’m already flooring the gas pedal.”

  The motor cart raced along the dirt road, kicking up rooster tails of dust behind its rear wheels.

  On the beach down below the bluff Halverson could make out eight volleyball nets pitched in the sand with a square concrete one-story restroom nearby. Beyond the restroom stood a faded sky blue lifeguard tower with an American flag flying above it. The flag slatted in the prevailing high winds, while shrieking seagulls swooped and glided on shaky white wings in the offshore, blustering gusts.

  Near the ocean, just east of the high-water mark, fifty-five- gallon rusted, yellow oil drums were half buried in the sand fifteen or so feet away from each other in a row along the coastline out of reach of the incoming, boiling surf.

  Past the volleyball nets was a tractor parked next to a runoff ditch. Behind the tractor canted two attachable blades for grading sand on the beach’s volleyball pitches.

  Out in the ocean, a rocky, black breakwater cropped up surrounded by surf and swirling spume. About a hundred feet beyond the breakwater to its south, a buoy was bobbing and swaying in the ocean.

  Bordering the beach side of PCH stood an array of mostly three-story apartment houses, asphalt parking lots with tollbooths, greasy spoons, as well as upscale restaurants. Most of the apartment houses were painted subdued greys and duns, except for an exotic flare-up of color now and then like Day-Glo purple and screaming yellow.

  Victoria reached the road driving full tilt. She hung a right with such velocity the cart all but tipped over. She careered down the steep, narrow, asphalt road that passed over a service road for coastal shops, as she blazed toward the pier.

  They were in luck, decided Halverson. The pier looked deserted. He didn’t see any creatures milling on it.

  Victoria drove onto the jetty’s promenade of bumpy weathered wooden planks.

  Deserted souvenir shops lined either side of the pier. On the southern side, amusement rides, gaming arcades, and cafés stood interspersed with the souvenir shops. A parking lot stretched behind the Ferris wheel and bumper cars.

  Halverson craned his neck around. He could see that the creatures were lumbering after them down the steep grade he and Victoria had just traversed.

  “We’re gonna have to block the pier’s entrance,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to make sure we have enough time to get onto the boat and out of here before those things get anywhere near us.”

  “Just how are we gonna block the pier?”

  Halverson thought about it, scoping the jetty. “There are cars parked near the Ferris wheel. We can line those up and block the pier’s entrance.”

  They parked in the lot near the side of the pier. Muddy, dark green seawater impregnated with algae crashed and frothed against the pilings underneath them, casting foam up toward the floorboards. Countless barnacles engirdled and crusted the aging pilings all the way up to water level.

  “Oh, look,” said Victoria plaintively.

  Halverson followed her gaze.

  Banks of smoke scudded over the ocean and smutched the sky as the Santa Monica Mountains burned around the bay. Even Malibu was in flames, Halverson could see as he looked north at the smoking bight where the exclusive enclave lay ensconced in the hills that ran down to the coastline.

  “Nobody’s safe anymore,” said Halverson.

  He had no doubt the creatures were running amok in Malibu just like they were everywhere else in Southern California—everywhere else in the world, for that matter, according to what Greg Coogan had told him over the satphone.

  “It’s heartbreaking,” said Victoria.

  The sun-baked, scenic SoCal littoral was going down in flames, and there wasn’t a thing anybody could do about it, Halverson decided.

  Halverson glimpsed a vanguard of the creatures slogging down the steep road from Ocean Avenue to the pier.

  “We need to get moving to throw up a barricade,” he said.

  “I can’t believe we’re being wiped out by a bunch of brain-dead retards that can barely figure out how to walk.”

  “Their brains are the only things about them that aren’t dead.”

  “Their brains are as good as dead if all they can think about is eating and nothing else.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Halverson and Victoria sprinted into the parking lot to seek out cars to use in a makeshift barricade on the pier.

  “Some cars might have keys in them,” said Halverson. “The plague could have hit the drivers when they were still in their cars.”

  Victoria spotted a key dangling out of a white BMW sedan’s ignition. The BMW’s driver’s side door was hanging open.

  “Here’s one,” she said and ducked into the driver’s seat.

  She drove the BMW to the pier’s promenade.

  The bigger the car, the better, Halverson knew, for purposes of a barricade. He cast around for SUVs. He trotted up to one and exa
mined it. No key. He tried another. No dice.

  He hit pay dirt with the third SUV, a black Ford Explorer. The key was seated in the ignition. As long as there wasn’t a plague victim inside the vehicle, he was in business. He searched the Explorer’s interior. It looked empty.

  He got into the SUV, fired the ignition, and drove the Explorer onto the promenade. He found the choke point on the pier and parked the SUV across it to block it. He waved at Victoria, who had driven farther down the pier where she was waiting for him.

  She acknowledged his signal and drove to him.

  “Park your car bumper to bumper with the SUV,” said Halverson.

  “We still need one more,” said Victoria, finishing parking and noticing a gap between the BMW and the pier’s south side.

  Concern etched on his face, Halverson watched the first contingent of creatures as they skittered onto the beginning of the pier.

  He contemplated the space between the BMW and the pier’s edge. “A small car should fill the bill.”

  Halverson and Victoria belted back to the parking lot, mindful of the encroaching creatures traipsing toward them.

  Neither Halverson nor Victoria had any luck locating a vehicle with keys in it.

  “We’re gonna have to push a small car to the barricade,” said Halverson.

  He sprang toward an ancient VW Bug.

  He yanked off his shirt, wrapped it around his elbow, and jammed his elbow through the driver’s side window. The glass shattered. He jumped into the car, released the emergency hand brake, popped the clutch, and put the stick shift into neutral. He used to know how to bump start these old Beetles that had stick shifts, but, if memory served, the key needed to be in the ignition before you could bump start the car.

  In any case, it didn’t matter, he decided. He ought to be able to push the VW to the barricade.

  He scrambled out of the car, shut the door, put his arm through the broken window, grabbed the steering wheel, and started pushing the VW out of the parking lot.

  Victoria scurried over to help him.

  She ran behind the vehicle’s rear rusted chrome bumper, doubled over, seized it with both hands, and helped Halverson shove the Bug forward.

  Fortunately, the lot was flat so they had no difficulty pushing the vehicle onto the pier. They pushed the car onto the plank floor of the pier.

  Halverson guided the VW to the choke point.

  The creatures mobbing behind Halverson and Victoria groaned with hunger as they stumbled toward the duo.

  Sweating, Halverson pushed and steered the Bug behind the BMW. There was no more room on the pier for him to stand on as he walked beside the Bug guiding it forward.

  “Let go,” he said.

  Victoria stopped pushing the Bug.

  Halverson steered it one last time behind the BMW, let go of the VW’s door, withdrew from the vehicle, and backed away from it to its rear as it trundled slowly toward the BMW’s tailgate. Once the Bug was in position behind the BMW, he abruptly hauled on the Bug’s rear bumper to prevent the car from moving any farther.

  For the moment the Beetle stood still without rolling.

  “They’ll be able to push it out of the way without its brake on,” said Victoria.

  “I know. Hold onto the bumper while I’m gone.”

  She stepped behind the Bug and grabbed the rear bumper. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Halverson scrambled over the wall of vehicles to the motor cart parked ten-plus feet away from the barricade. He snagged a pitchfork from the cart, charged back to the VW, and jabbed the pitchfork’s prongs into the front tires. He stood and listened to the air hiss out of the tires as they flattened.

  “It’s not going anywhere now,” he said.

  He clambered over the blockade to Victoria’s side and flattened the VW’s rear tires.

  Studying the BMW and the Explorer he decided to flatten all of the tires to prevent the creatures from wriggling under the chassis.

  Again using the pitchfork he flattened the four tires facing him then climbed over the blockade and polished off the four remaining ones.

  “That should stop those things from crawling under the cars,” he said.

  He saw the creatures approaching inevitably closer. Victoria saw them too. She was still standing outside of the barricade. She hustled to the BMW, climbed onto the hood, slid across the hood on her bottom, and hopped down on Halverson’s side.

  “What’s to stop them from crawling over the cars?” she asked.

  “They’re too uncoordinated,” he answered. “But they might be able to crawl all over each other and get over the cars,” he added, rubbing his chin in thought. “Do you have any matches?”

  “No.”

  He scanned the pier behind them. He darted to a café.

  Barging into it he spotted cartons of cigarettes for sale on a shelf behind the counter. He knew there had to be matches nearby. He spotted an open cardboard box full of match folders on the shelf under the cigarette cartons. He plucked a match folder out of the box.

  Now all he needed was an accelerant.

  He cast around the café. He noticed liquor bottles lined on shelves behind the bar.

  Victoria screamed.

  Halverson wheeled around in her direction. He saw a creature inching over the BMW’s hood.

  Halverson bolted toward the motor cart, snared the Mossberg, and bustled toward the creature. Training the shotgun on the creature’s sneering head, Halverson blasted the head and vaporized its skull.

  He handed the shotgun to Victoria. “I’ll be right back.”

  He bolted back to the café. He searched the shelves of liquor behind the bar. He spotted a bottle of vodka. He figured the vodka had enough alcohol in it to be flammable.

  He leapt over the bar, grabbed the bottle of vodka, and climbed back over the counter.

  He heard the crack of a gunshot. Then another.

  Vodka bottle in hand, he raced back to the barricade, just in time to see Victoria blowing away a creature trying to squeeze between the passenger side of the Beetle and the BMW’s rear bumper.

  He realized he still had his shirt wrapped around his arm. He unwound the shirt from his arm and tore the shirt into three pieces.

  He struck the top of the vodka bottle against the SUV’s hood and broke open the bottle’s neck, spilling out liquor. He tilted the broken bottle over the three strips of his shirt and doused them with vodka.

  He found the SUV’s gas cap, twisted it open, and shoved one of the cloth strips into the opening of the fuel tank. He repeated the procedure with the gas caps on the other two cars.

  A twentysomething light-skinned black female creature with long black hair and greenish, rotting teeth was trying to squirm over the BMW’s hood.

  Victoria squeezed the shotgun’s trigger and blew the creature off the hood. Headless, the creature rolled off the pier and toppled into the sand. After the creature’s chest hit the damp sand with a squelch, a wave rolled over the corpse and carried it farther up the beach.

  “This should hold them for a while,” said Halverson.

  Victoria lowered the Persuader and watched him, wondering what he was talking about.

  He fished the match folder out of his trouser pocket, opened the folder, tore out a match, and struck the match’s red tip against the emery strip at the base of the folder. The match didn’t light. He struck the match again. Again no soap. He heard thumping at the barricade and looked up.

  He saw two creatures banging on the SUV’s side windows, trying to break through them so they could crawl through the vehicle to the other side of the blockade.

  Halverson struck the match again. This time the match burst into a corolla of flame. He darted over to the vodka-soaked rag hanging out of the BMW’s fuel tank and torched the rag’s sodden tip.

  While he strode toward the SUV’s gas tank, match in hand, the match went out. He tossed the spent, smoking match away, tore a fresh one out
of the matchbook, and struck the match’s tip against the matchbook’s brown emery strip.

  The match flamed. He lit the saturated rag in the SUV’s gas tank and scuttled toward the VW’s gas tank.

  He ignited the rag dangling out of the VW’s gas tank.

  “Run!” he called out.

  He and Victoria scrammed over the weathered, creaky wooden floorboards toward the end of the pier.

  They cringed as they heard the BMW burst into flames behind them.

  Breathing hard, they turned around and watched the conflagration. The SUV and the Bug exploded almost simultaneously, spewing flames skyward.

  “How long will those burn?” asked Victoria.

  “Depends on how much gas they have in their tanks. Hopefully, the SUV, at least, has a lot.”

  “It seems to be holding the ghouls for the moment.”

  She didn’t sound too certain of herself, decided Halverson.

  He watched the creatures thrashing their arms at the lurching, wavering flames.

  “It can’t hold them forever,” he said above the roar and crackle of the fire. “We’re just buying time till we can board that skiff and put out to sea.”

  He heard a commotion underneath the pier. He strode to the edge of it and looked down.

  Creatures were milling on the sand between the pilings underneath the pier.

  Victoria followed him and peered down. “Can they climb those pilings?”

  “I doubt it. They’re too spastic to shinny up those pilings.”

  Farther north on the beach he could make out creatures thronging onto the sand from PCH. They seemed to be chasing something scurrying through the sand.

  He squinted to discern the object. He could not believe his eyes when he made it out.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  “Isn’t that Newton the iguana on the beach over there?” he said.

  Victoria peered in the direction Halverson nodded at.

  “Yeah, I think it is,” she said, smiling. “Look at him run. Where’s he going?”

  “It looks like he’s headed here.”

  Halverson started jumping up and down and waving at the iguana. “Over here, Newton!” he hollered.