Dead Man's Land

by R. J. Spears

  Gunshots sounded from above and a spray of blood shot across the window and the clawed hand fell away.

  Aaron’s upside-down face appeared in the windshield, and he slapped the roof of the truck. “Let’s boogie.” Inverted, with his face blackened with soot, he came across like a clown, only in black face instead of white and there certainly wasn’t anything mirthful about it. The truth be told, I’d always found clowns to be creepy, even prior to the apocalypse. This black faced Aaron clown certainly didn’t fill me with childlike wonder and glee.

  The zombies had closed in around the big truck and, where it had before cut through them like a hot knife through butter, I had to backup and then take a run at a mass of them collecting at the front bumper. I pushed the truck into first gear, jammed down the accelerator, and smashed into the zombies. I felt more than a dull impact this time and one of the front wheels lifted up and over the bodies of several of the undead, tilting us in the cab. Aaron pulled back out of view to get a more secure hold on the roof of the truck.

  I really had no idea where I was going. I had thought Aaron was dead, but had been surprised and delighted to find that, against all odds, he had survived. My hope then was to discover that Jo and Brother Ed had survived, too. If I couldn’t find them, then I would try to catch up with the escape convoy -- that is, if I had enough gas to do that.

  I took a wide turn around the southwest corner of the main building and started for the back of the complex. The field was dotted with armored zombies with a few rogue ones mixed in. While I didn’t go out of my way to hit any, neither did I try to avoid any that got in our path. Plunk, plunk, plunk, I went smacking through the undead. The armored ones made a clashing noise sometimes, but ended up just as wrecked as any of the other ones I hit.

  I made it to the back corner and turned the wheel, slowing some. When I made the turn, I let up on the gas and let out an involuntary gasp. There was a mass of zombies about fifty yards off the backside of the building. We were a good one hundred yards away from this scrum of the undead. Something on the inside of that scrum had them all captivated.

  They all seemed concentrated on a single objective in the center of the mass, but like a scrum in rugby, they were moving along, gradually getting closer to the loading dock at the back of the building.

  I didn’t know what to make of it. I brought the truck to a complete stop and watched. Even at the elevated height of the cab, I couldn’t see what was at the center of the mass. Since most of the zombies were focused on whatever was in the scrum, it was safe enough to roll down the window. I stuck my head out and called up to Aaron.

  “What the hell is going on over there?”

  “Let me stand up and take a look,” he said.

  I heard his feet move on the roof of the cab as I waited.

  After about ten seconds, I got impatient. “Well, what do you see?”

  He knelt down and got close to me. It was then I saw the blood seeping through the sheet wrapped around his torso.

  “Oh man,” I said, “you’re hurt. You need to get in the cab with us.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m fine.” He paused a moment to look back at the crowd of zombies in front of us. “There’s somebody in the center of that mob. Maybe two or three people. I can’t tell for sure. The mob is moving with them as they move toward the back of the building, but the zombies are maintaining some sort of orbit around whoever’s in the center. It’s some strange shit. It’s like they have some sort of zombie force field going on.”

  My mind whirred and spun, considering the possibilities and questions. What or who could repel and attract zombies at the same time? The only thing that came to mind was that it had to be the Lord of the Dead, but he was clearly dead. For a second, I considered the possibility that Ryan had come back, but I had taken his control panel. Plus all the transmitters were down for the count. The only thing it could be was one of the Lord of the Dead’s other minions, but why were they heading toward our building and why were they able to still control the zombies? And if they could control them at all, why not control all of them? Obviously, there was a lot about the Lord of the Dead that I would never know. Maybe he had a posthumous surprise for us?

  Whoever it was, it certainly wasn’t the true master of the dead because most of the zombies were trying to get at them.

  The whole circle of undead moved about ten feet closer to the back of the building. “Aaron, hold on,” I said. “I’m going to edge up closer. Let me know if I need to back up fast.” I ducked back down into the cab and gently pressed the gas.

  The dump truck was anything but stealthy as it rumbled ahead, but the zombies in the field were so concentrated on the scrum in front of them that they didn’t give us a second glance. I took a quick peek at Tommy and saw that he was rigid in his seat. I felt badly for putting him through this wringer, but we needed to see if we had any of our friends here still alive. I started to comfort Thomas, when Aaron slapped the top the cab and I slammed on the brakes a little too hard. A dull bang of a fist on metal came from above us.

  I took the truck out of gear and stuck my head out the window. “Sorry about the panic braking.”

  “Yeah, I could have lived without that,” Aaron said, leaning over the roof and looking down at me.

  “Why’d you want to stop?”

  “I’m not completely sure, but I think that Russell is in the center of that mess. And there’s a chick with him. She has on some sort of vest.”

  Bingo. A minion of the Lord of the Dead. But why is Russell with her?

  “Anything else?”

  “I think it’s just the two of them,” he said, but stared at me intensely. “Do you know something you’re not sharing?”

  “Someone was controlling the armored zombies using transmitters. Moving them around like pawns. It was the guy Russell and Paige talked about.”

  “Is it him?” Aaron asked with some alarm in his voice.

  “Wait, wait. Let me finish. I killed him and took out his transmitters, but he had helpers. I discovered one in the woods and took his control vest. I’m guessing the woman you’re seeing is another one of these helpers.”

  “Then why is Russell with her?” he asked.

  I didn’t have any answers.

  Russell watched as the woman moved her fingers over the buttons on her control console in a frantic and feverish pace. It was as if she were playing some kind of concert on them, and that’s what it really was. It was a concert of control and that’s what was keeping them alive, but it seemed as if the concert only had so much volume and what volume it did have was lessening by the second. Sweat poured off her brow, dripping onto her arms as she worked the controls, cursing intermittently. Her hair was slicked down by all the sweat.

  From what he could see, she still had control of a ring of the armored zombies and she was using them to push the encroaching zombies back. But it looked like more and more zombies pressed in at the ring of blockers, giving up very little ground.

  Russell wasn’t sure, but he sensed the circle around them was tightening, but he didn’t want to say anything that might distract this woman.

  What did he really know about her? Doubt lingered in his head. Would she suddenly take whatever limited control she had and turn the zombies loose on him when they got to the building? He didn’t see this happening because he could shoot her dead at any moment, but still, the concern simmered inside him, and if she were dead, he would quickly follow.

  Painstakingly, they had cut the distance down to twenty five feet from the loading dock, but their momentum had slowed dramatically, making only what seemed like inches in the last minute or two. Neither one of them knew how much power was left in the battery in her chest console.

  “Don’t fucking crowd me,” the woman screamed at him when he accidentally bumped into her, the press of zombies getting closer by the minute.

  “Sorry,” he said as he looked around at the faces of the undead, mouths op
ening and closing expectantly as they moaned and grunted, straining to get by the blockers. “They seem a lot closer.”

  “Great observation, Einstein,” she said. “There’s a whole hell of a lot of them coming to this party. You’d better have your gun ready.”

  “Is it going to come to that?” he asked as he looked at the rows of zombies in their way and sucked in a sharp breath.

  “This battery could fizzle at any second,” she said.

  “There’s too many of them in the way. There’s no way I could shoot my way through them. At least, not with this many.”

  “Then save a bullet for me just in case,” she said. “Now, shut the hell up and let me concentrate.”

  “They’re getting boxed in,” Aaron said leaning down, his face creased with worry. “Should I start shooting?”

  “No use doing that, there are way too many for that,” I said. “We’re going to have to draw some of them away.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Hold on tight,” I said. “I’m going to try something.” I felt around on the center of the steering column and after about three seconds of searching, my fingers pressed down on a button and a loud horn sounded. I kept it down for a good ten seconds, then let up.

  Aaron’s face leaned down into the open window next to my head, “You could have warned me about that. I may never hear out of my right ear again.”

  “Sorry,” I said, shrugging. “Get ready for a couple more blasts.”

  I pressed the horn three more times for about five seconds a piece. This got the attention of some of the mob around Russell and the woman. A few broke away and came in our direction. The problem was that we had been there long enough that the ones on the south side of the complex were now getting very interested in us. A loud horn blaring was their version of a dinner bell. I watched in my side view mirrors as a sizable contingent of undead started our way. Staying in place any longer wasn’t an option.

  I gently gave the gas pedal some pressure and turned out, away from the complex. The truck rumbled along and, every couple seconds, I gave the horn a couple blasts, peeling a few more zombies off the circle around Russell. I was sort of like the Pied Piper of zombies as I drew a parade of them away. I watched in my mirrors as the crowd around Russell and the woman noticeably decreased in size. I only hoped it was enough.

  “Who’s making all that racket?” the woman asked.

  “It has to be my friend,” Russell said, but he couldn’t see much over the heads of the zombies.

  “Shit the bed, the battery’s about to go,” she screamed to Russell. “I can just tell it.”

  They had cut the distance to the back of the building down to around fifteen feet, but that still left four to five rows of zombies between them and safety. If Russell had to estimate, he would guess that was around forty zombies. He only had sixteen bullets. He didn’t like the odds, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  “They’re thinning out,” Russell said. “Whoever’s out there honking their horn is drawing some of them away.”

  “It’s not enough,” she said.

  “It’ll have to be,” he said, moving up closer to her. “If the battery goes, then I’ll shoot us a path through them. Just stay close to me.”

  “It’s not if, it’s when,” she said. “I can tell I’m having less effect over less of them.” Earlier, she had been able to control nearly twenty of the zombies, she now only held sway over ten. Maybe less.

  “Then be ready,” Russell said.

  “Like I have any other fucking choice.”

  I was about to the woods when I pulled a wide U-turn and started heading back toward the mass of zombies, trying to skirt around the ones I had pulled away. A few didn’t take the hint that I didn’t want anything to do with them and drifted in front of the truck. They became more road meat as the truck either battered them away or rolled over them. I had become completely hardened to the idea that they had once been living and breathing people. They were now just more monsters that wanted me dead.

  Aaron shouted in the window, “I think they’re losing whatever control they had. The zombies are closing in on them.”

  “You want to come down into the cab?” I asked.

  “Why? What are you thinking?”

  “I have no idea what to do, but you’re a lot safer in here than out there.”

  “Okay,” he said and dropped down to the running board on the passenger side of the truck and opened the door while I was still moving. For a big and wounded man, he made it look easy.

  “I’ll abbreviate the introductions,” I said, “Tommy, this is my friend, Aaron. Aaron this is Tommy. Tommy is one brave dude.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tommy,” Aaron said. “Any friend of Joel’s is a friend of mine.” He paused for a moment and slammed the door shut. “What’s the plan, Joel?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said, not entirely sure of what I was going to do next.

  I could see that there were way too many zombies still in their way. They’d need a bazooka to blast their way through the remaining zombies and I was pretty sure they didn’t have one. Unless I did something, and did it fast, they were going to get taken down.

  Out of any real creative ideas, I went back to my tried and true methods of brute force and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. I steered the truck ahead, making a wide arc around the mob and then aimed for the section of zombies between Russell and the loading dock.

  The zombies were coming up quickly. I laid on the horn and gave it a long blast, hoping Russell and his new friend would take it as a sign to keep out of my way, but I knew they had their own troubles.

  “Hold on, Tommy,” I said. His eyes were wide with panic, but, to his credit, he didn’t say anything.

  Aaron put a protective arm in front of Tommy and said, “I’ve got you, dude.”

  I did my best to aim for the section of zombies that were blocking Russell’s progress, but there was nothing precise about my maneuvers. This truck was old, mammoth, and was by no means a surgical instrument, but more like using a ten pound sledge hammer to put a thumbtack on a bulletin board. It wasn’t going to be pretty. I only hoped and prayed I didn’t kill Russell or the woman in my effort to peel away the undead surrounding them.

  I pressed down the gas pedal and said, “Damn the torpedoes.” The truck smashed into the crowd doing about twenty. The effect was devastating on the zombies and finally made a dent in the truck. After crashing through the first five or six and battering them out of the way, the remaining ones in our path started going down and under the truck. Because of their numbers, I actually felt the wheels on the left side of the truck rise off the ground as it started to climb over the pile of undead under them. I would imagine that if this had been a Monster Truck Rally, the spectators would have been on their feet about then, but I had to settle on Tommy, who was stoic, and Aaron, who looked beat to hell. Needless to say, neither of them clapped.

  The truck climbed its newly created mound of the undead, slowing substantially. I peered at my window into the mob and saw only a single line of zombies blocking their escape path. I’m sure Jeff Gordon would have gotten that last row, but it was my best effort. The wheels on the left side of the truck came back to level as the back tires rolled over the already crushed zombies. The truck slid away from the mob.

  I had done what I could, the rest was up to Russell.

  Chapter 38

  Zombies: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

  “Who the hell was that?” the woman asked, her voice full of wonderment and awe.

  “Those are my friends,” Russell said as he moved in next to her and bringing his rifle up. “The ones you were trying to kill.” He aimed at the first armored zombie in their path. “Get ready to make a run for it.” He pulled the trigger, putting a bullet in its eye and taking it down. The next one took three shots before the final bullet found a soft spot. They got a bit of luck as this zombie fell in such a way as to take two other zombies down int
o a pile of reaching arms.

  “There’s our opening,” Russell shouted as he saw daylight between them and the loading dock.

  She didn’t wait and vaulted over the fallen zombies. He followed, but one of the downed zombies shot out an arm, glancing his ankle and knocking him off balance. He hit the ground hard, knocking the air from his lungs, and rolled twice until he ended up in a motionless heap.

  Two unfettered zombies started towards him, ready to chow down. The woman, running as fast as she could, somehow sensed he wasn’t following, stopped in her tracks, turned and looked back to him and then at the safety of the dock.

  Caught in indecision, she waffled back and forth until she screamed, “Fuck-a-doodle do,” at the top of her lungs. She cursed again, lost in a battle of wills. This lasted about four seconds before she started towards Russell, wondering if she hadn’t finally lost her grip on sanity. She knew she didn’t have much of a chance of getting to him in time, but she also knew she had to try.

  The two zombies were just about on Russell when a shot rang out and the leading zombie staggered as bullets peppered its back. The bullets didn’t pierce the armor, but did knock the undead thing off balance, causing it to drift off course and into the path of the trailing zombies. They stumbled along for a few feet like drunk dancers, their legs eventually becoming tangled, and they went down in a clattering of metal and grunts.

  The woman peeked up and saw a big man with a big rifle sticking out the side of the truck that had just smashed away a whole line of zombies. She didn’t have time to do anything else, but to get to Russell, so she focused on the task at hand.

  She got to him wondering if he had been shot or if the fall had killed him or not, but she saw that he was starting to stir. “Get the hell up, asshole,” she said as she grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. “You only get one good deed a day from me. Now, let’s go.”