The Great Wreck

by Stewart, Jack

  “Not for Greer,” he said and rolled down the trail. I released the clutch and followed him watching the trail and watching the woods while trying to keep up with Tony and not dump us all off the bike. Thank god it was a four wheeler.

  It was only five miles to the truck, but it seemed like a million. I’ve never felt so exposed and helpless in my entire life. It felt like at any second the forest would erupt and spill out thousands of dead. They’d swarm over us, pulling us from the bikes and pinning us to the ground. Then the biting would begin. How long until one of them hit an artery or took so many bites out of us that we just bled out? Everything around us seemed to be alive with the wind blowing through the branches. I kept seeing figures deep in the woods out of the corner of my eyes. I’d see a shadow off to my right, jump, and gun the bike jerking us back every few minutes.

  “Just watch the trail, Casey. I’m watching the woods,” Nicky said in my ear.

  “Anything out there?”

  Nicky hesitated for just a second that told me she was about to lie, “No, there’s nothing out there.”

  I focused on the trial keeping a few yards back from Tony. Ignoring the things I caught glimpses of, things I kept telling myself were not there. Then, up ahead I saw Greer’s arm shoot out and point to the right of the trail. Tony immediately put on his breaks. I rolled up behind him so I could hear them whispering to each other.

  “There! Maybe twenty feet! Jesus on a pogo stick!” Greer hissed then grabbed Tony’s head and twisted in the direction she was looking, “Behind that big pine tree! How can you not see him?”

  Then I saw him. He was a big fella, three hundred pounds when he was alive but probably a lot less now that most of him had been eaten away. Most of his enormous gut had been eaten out leaving great wads of flesh dangling below his waist and his vast abdominal cavity open to the air. His arms and legs seemed to be mostly intact along with his head and face. His beard was slicked against his jaw with some black junk that spilled down his bare chest. Strangely, a tired and worn out red cap was still perched on his giant greasy head. And he was staring right at us with a look of mild surprise on his face. As I looked around the forest, I saw that he was not alone.

  There were maybe a hundred of them, maybe more drifting in and out of the trees bumping into them, into each other. They were all in bad shape; most of them had been badly eaten on, were in an advanced state or decay, or both. None of them seemed to have spotted us except the big guy and he wasn’t doing anything but staring at us. I didn’t think that’d last very long and hissed at Tony, “We have to keep moving man!”

  Sometimes it’s just no fun at all being right as the Big Guy raised up his white, meaty arm, pointed at us, and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Paaaahhhhh!” At least, that’s what it sounded like.

  “Tony, go!” I yelled, the need for whispering having been dispensed with.

  Tony went. He gunned his bike so hard I thought for a moment that he a Greer were about to be spilled off the back. My heart froze as his two front wheels reared off the ground, hung there for a fraction of a second while fate decided if Tony and Greer should live or continue to roll them backwards pinning them beneath the ATV. Fate decided they’d live as the ATV fell forward and shot down the trial.

  The Big Guy had raised the alarm and now all the dead within earshot were looking, then moving towards us. I gunned it. We shot down the trail after Tony and Greer with the trailers bouncing up and down as the dead broke out of the forest and began piling onto the trail and shuffling after out retreating bikes. I could see more dead up ahead of Tony beginning to look up and around before spotting us flying towards them. Some of them would groan, point, and begin their shuffle towards us while others would fall in behind them, dragging others along in some weird snowball effect. So far the trial ahead was clear but I didn’t think that would last long.

  We crashed along the trail hitting the ditches hard and flying over the bumps and ruts with the trailer fishtailing wildly behind us. If the trailer tipped….no sooner had I completed that thought than our trailer tipped over. The cords and ropes we’d used to tie down our gear split apart and all of our stuff went flying into the nearby woods or spread out across the trail, “Dreysi! Unhook the trailer!” I yelled looking over my shoulder. The dead were rambling down the trial towards us as well as closing in from the sides.

  “The hitch is bent!” Dreysi said frantically trying to pull out the cotter pin.

  I stopped, leapt off the bike, and ran towards my pack. The dead were so close and so thick I could smell them; a heavy, rotted smell that wrapped around my head like a warm, slick blanket. I covered my mouth and nose with one hand while pulling open the outer pocket of my pack. I grabbed the hammer that was there and ran back to the bike. Tony and Greer hadn’t seen us stop and were quickly out of sight up ahead. I smashed the connector pin to the trailer as the dead ambled closer. Any second I expected to feel the cold hand of one of those things grab me by the shoulder and take a great heaping bite out of my neck. I slammed the hammer down on the pin and the piece of metal broke in two and shot out. I turned to see how close the dead were and bumped directly into the Big Guy. He reached out a pale hand and grabbed my shoulder. His dead and opaque eyes looked at me as his jaw dropped open. I didn’t scream. I didn’t even think. I just raised that big old hammer and drove it right into his forehead. His skull collapsed like the shell of a rotten egg as the hammer sunk deep into the meat of his brain.

  The Big Guy didn’t even let out a groan of surprise. Didn’t even blink. Just fell over into a 300 pound pile of rotting flesh blocking the next two from getting their hands on me. I turned at jumped on the bike and hit the throttle. The wheels of the bike, much lighter now, spun a rooster tail of dirt and we blasted away from the dead.

  A few seconds later we sped past another trailer. Tony and Greer must have had the same idea as we did. I rode to the left of the trailer and back onto the trial and gunned the bike. I still couldn’t see Tony and Greer. Tony didn’t have the keys to the Beast so they’d have to wait for us before we could get to the truck and go. I hopped there weren’t many dead in the parking lot.

  There were many, many dead in the parking lot.

  There was like, a whole troop of dead in the parking lot. In fact, there must have been a whole Boy Scout Jamboree of dead in the parking lot.

  I wouldn’t find this out for the few short minutes it would take us to catch up with Tony and Greer so I was able to hold on to the false hope that the parking lot would be empty for a little bit longer and focus on not dumping the three of us onto the dirt trail.

  We came around a bend in the trial and I caught site of Greer and Tony up ahead. They must have slowed down and a second later I could see why; the dead were blocking the trial. Thankfully it was no more than a few but there was no way to drive the bikes around them, “Run them over, Tony!” I yelled as we came up behind them. Tony gunned his bike and ran into the first of the dead, a woman who must have been sexy when she was alive wearing a pair of short-shorts and a flannel top with the shirt tails tied between her breasts. Tony drove the left tire of his ATV into her sending her spinning off the trail, then plowed through three more. We had to be careful not to run directly into the things so that they didn’t fly over the handle bars and knock us off.

  One had stepped on to the trail behind Tony and I goosed the ATV catching it with my right wheel and sending it tumbling back into the woods. For the next ten minutes we knocked the dead off of the trial as they tried to grab us from the sides or stepped in front of us. Then we were through them and into a clear space. I tell you man, we raced down the final few miles of the trial like there was no tomorrow. As we pulled into sight of the parking lot I was amazed that we hadn’t spilled either or both bikes killing us all if we were lucky or just injuring us too badly for us to get away if we weren’t.

  And then I saw the Jamboree of dead clogging up the parking area.

  “Fuck,” Tony said summing up the situ
ation nicely but there was nothing left to do but get to the truck, get in, and get going so we rolled forward trying not to catch the attention these badly degraded dead knowing that the party behind us would be here any minute.

  We pulled up alongside the truck and hopped off the bikes. The parking lot was a scene of carnage and absolute chaos; dead wandering in and out of the woods, body parts scattered everywhere, black, coagulated pools of blood, chunks of gristle, and bits of bone, half eaten hanks of blubbery crud I couldn’t identify, parts of rib cages, and pieces of skulls were scattered everywhere. Cars and trucks that hadn’t been here when Tony and I had come back for our supplies were smashed into each other with one almost completely blocking the exit. Other people who had fled the city must have realized they were surrounded by the dead and tried to get off the mountain in a big hurry.

  I heard Tony puke. I wanted to, I really did. Between the smell and the carnage scattered everywhere I could feel my gore rising but the dead were behind us and would be here in a few minutes tops and the dead in front of us were bound to notice us soon, so I pushed it down, blocked out the sights and smells of the parking lot, and got the truck unlocked, “Everyone in,” I said as I slid into the driver’s seat, put the key in the ignition, and turned it as the others piled in.

  And nothing. The old girl turned over once or twice, then went silent. Fuck! I tried it again and silence. “Batteries dead! Tony grab the charger!”

  Tony looked at me, all the blood from his face gone, “I didn’t bring it! I forgot!” I couldn’t blame Tony for forgetting after Dreysi’s little psychotic break, I would have forgotten it too. And even if he had brought it, it would have most likely been back on the trial somewhere when we cut out gear loose.

  Fuck. We all sat in the truck, quiet and eerily calm with no one shouting, no one crying or panicking. Just a moment of pure, crazy fucked up serenity. Far down the trail I could see the dead flooding towards us.

  “The bikes!” Dreysi said from the back seat.

  “The bikes won’t get us all the way to Albuquerque!” Tony said, “They won’t even get us to the main road! Their batteries are almost dead!”

  “No! Use the jumper cables on the bikes!” she said.

  Tony got it and jumped out of the truck as I popped the hood and grabbed the cables out of the back. Tony quickly hooked them to the bike as I propped up the hood and grabbed the ends looking for the battery. Now what was it, I thought crazily, red to positive, black to negative? If I fucked this up I’d blow the batter and we’d be good and fucked. Black to positive! I thought and clamped the cables to the batter terminals. Tony hopped on the bike and I jumped into the driver’s seat. And just as I was about to turn over the ignition, I heard it. Well, we all heard it. Over the soft murmur and shuffle of the dead a scream so powerful, so full of rage and hatred that it bore right down to my core as it drifted up and out of the forest.

  “What the fuck was that?” Tony said standing up on the bike and looking around.

  “Who the fuck cares!?” Greer said, “Start the fucking truck!”

  I looked over my shoulder at Greer and remembered her story about the bum and the little girl and the way they screamed after they had come back. Most of the dead we’d seen were too far gone to move quickly, too badly eaten or decayed to pose much of a threat which was probably the only reason we had made it down the trail. But now, something fresher, something a little more lively was on the way.

  Tony put the bike in neutral and twisted the throttle while I turned the key. The Beast turned over one, then twice. I let off the key and gave it a few seconds while looking at the approaching mass of dead. I saw them moving down the trial, some shuffling, some managing to work up a slow jog, but none of them moving very quickly. But behind them, I could see something else though. A few heads would disappear as though being knocked over by something very strong moving very fast and coming from behind.

  Nicky spotted it too, “Try it again,” she whispered as I stared at the wave of approaching dead. I tried it again. The truck gave three weak chugs then died again. Somewhere behind us in the parking area, one of the dead had noticed us and let out a long, “Huunguaaaaaa!” and began leading the other dead towards us.

  “Almost there, Tony,” I said not believing a word of it. I heard that scream again followed by another, then another. It seemed to animate the dead and they began running for all they were worth towards us. I saw the first of the screaming dead break through the front of the crowded trail, spot us, and scream gain. This one was a teenage girl. Her black hair was filthy matted with dirt, leaves, and twigs imbedded there from her activities in the forest. She was wearing a bikini top, a pair of black shorts that I swear, even through all the fear of approaching death I thought must have been spray painted on, and a pair of hiking boots. She was completely intact with only a raw looking hole that must have been a bite mark on her pale white belly. She screamed even louder and tore down the trail towards us like an Olympic track star.

  More of these screaming dead broke through the crowds behind her and tore after us, “Try it again!” Greer screamed watching an incredibly painful death approach. Tony stood on the bike, the tendons in his neck and arms standing out as he gripped the throttle with all his might.

  I turned the key again. Chug. Chug. Chug. Pause, chug, chug, chug, having fun yet? Pause. Chug, chug, chug, and then the engine caught, rattled around for another second, then purred to life, “Get in Tony!”

  Tony leapt off the bike and jerked the cables loos from the truck, then slammed the hood closed before jumping in the passenger’s seat. He slammed the door shut just as the girl screamer slammed into the side. She looked inside the truck at us, reared her head back and slammed it into the window cracking it and spraying blood across the door as I threw the Beast into reverse and hit the gas. The Beast sprayed gravel and dirt everywhere as we fishtailed backwards towards a camper that had ran into a small Smart Car.

  A smart car? Who the fuck brings a Smart Car up on Mount Tylor? I thought as the back end of the Beast smashed into it pushing it out of the way and bowling over the dead behind us. Everyone was screaming and pointing out unique and interesting things that might kill us as I continued to race backwards hoping I didn’t hit one of the bigger trucks and putt an end to our escape such as the big trucks that out weighted the Beast by a few tones, the dead pouring into the parking lot from the north, and the split rail fence coming up on us fast. Well, that last one was important as I ran over the logs holding up the fence that marked the entrance of the parking area. These logs were big old round fuckers and as the truck rolled over them I thought we might actually get high centered and stuck.

  Tony must have been thinking the same thing because just as the back tired hit the ground again, he laughed out crazily, “Spam in a can!” and then we were over and out on the main forest road. In front of us, as the dead continued to race around the cars, trucks, and overturned campers, a few of the Sprinters came over the tops of the cars in a rage.

  Far to the back of the crowd of dead, I saw two lone figures standing near their tent; the old folks. It was clear the dead had gotten them as they swayed gently back and forth but they didn’t seem interested in joining the others in chasing us down.

  I threw the Beast into gear and speed down the road leaving the dead to chase after our dust. I watched in the rear view mirror as they continued to chase us even though there was no way they’d catch up. Crazy fuckers, I thought as I shifted my eyes from the rear view mirror to the front to watch the road just in time to hear everyone in the car scream, “Look out!”

  Another group of dead had ran out from the forest and made a bee line for the truck. I swerved and actually felt the left tires come up off of the road. In my mind’s eye I could see the Beast flip over on its side, flip again, and then again until all of our forward momentum was stopped maybe by a big tree crushing in the top of the truck or maybe just by running out of steam as we tumbled along the dirt road. I saw all of u
s, broken and pinned inside, the lucky ones dead, the unlucky, well, about to be dead. I actually could see the dead things reaching for us through the shattered windows or wiggling their way in until their mouths were in reach and then…

  The truck’s wheels returned to the road and we skidded wildly across the gravel and dirt road until after a few more terrifying seconds, I regained control. I pushed the accelerator down as far as it could go as the dead spilled out of the forest to the left and to the right of us. How the fuck did all these people get up here? I thought as we blurred by them. At this speed if I hit and one of them, they’d come up and through the windshield. I swerved to the left and right in a crazy sort of slalom trying to avoid the racing throngs clipping one every few seconds and waiting for the first one to come crashing into the cab. For what seemed like an hour we sped through the masses as they boiled up and out of the surrounding forest.

  And then they were gone. The masses quickly thinned as we made it past the bulk and the road was clear, “Slow down, Casey,” Nicky said laying a hand on my shoulder, “I think we’re past them.”

  I let me foot off the gas and slowed down to fifty just slow enough to keep the truck under control and fast enough to keep far, far ahead of the dead. We sped along Forrest Road 453 passing parking areas to the trail heads. Each scene was the same; wrecked cars, bodies scattered around, and dead drifting in and out of the trees. We didn’t hear another of those Sprinters, or attract enough attention for the dead to come at us in waves, but a few would spot us, take a few halfhearted steps in our direction, then go back to drifting as we speed out of reach until we finally got off the dirt road and back onto the pavement of Route 547.

  I slowed down and eased up onto the pavement then stopped. I looked around the road and back along the way we came. Nothing moved and all was quiet. I eased into the southbound lane headed towards Grants.