Anna Sails did a lot better than me. Where I was all battering arms and legs, she was an elegant dancer. She made the art of jumping out a moving car look like a modern ballet. She hit the ground on her side, tucked her arms, and spun over three or four times.
I came away with enough bruises to look like I’d been pounded by a boiler tech.
Our car found its way between the two others in its path, hit the overpass, and sailed into the air. It crashed below with a crump. There was no special-effects explosion, no rending of metal. It just fell with as much grace as can be expected from a thirty-year-old Chevy that was rode hard and put away wet.
I staggered to my hands and knees and shimmied behind the nearest vehicle. I was still seeing stars but at least I was mobile. Anna looked me over, then nodded.
We’d ended up next to an SUV that housed a couple of the dead. Two bodies hung out of a broken passenger window. A line of cars stretched all the way to our position at the very beginning of the off-ramp.. I spotted the first of the creepers a second and a half later. He was covered in gore and being followed by a kid a few years younger than Christy. They were about a hundred yards away and didn’t see us. I let out a sigh of relief as we continued to pick our way from hiding spot to hiding spot, but with each step my foot screamed in pain. My knees hurt and my elbow was numb.
I’d done a good job of holding onto the Mossberg. The stock was banged up pretty bad and the sides were scraped, but I didn’t find any sign of the barrel being blocked.
We kept the bikers on our six and hustled. Up in a crouch, we moved from the cover of one car to another. The jackwads would be here soon, and I had a feeling our little stunt wouldn’t fool them for long.
A fresh group of Z’s broke from the tree line. This time it wasn’t just a pair. There were six, and they were playing follow the leader just like the previous two.
“Not good,” Anna Sails said.
We had them at twelve o’clock. McQuinn’s guys were closing in.
“Any way we can go over the side, maybe hide?” I tried to peer over, but even if there was a small ledge we could hide on, anyone checking out the wreck would just have to glance sideways to see us. Then it would be a shooting gallery, and we would be the targets.
“Don’t think so. Shit, Jackson, this is not what I had in mind.”
“Really? Because I thought this whole jumping out of the car thing would end well for us.”
The traffic jam was so bad that, even if we managed to find a car with the keys in it – and we managed to get inside and the gas hadn’t gone stale and we cleared the bodies out and the car started – we’d still be stuck, because the cars ahead or behind were either separated by a few inches or had actually been stopped due to impact.
The next mob of Z’s was four times the size of the last one. They came out of the trees and staggered after the first two groups.
“Last stand?” Sails pulled a handful of shells out of her pocket.
“Wait. I have an idea. It’s a shitty one, but I can’t think of anything else.”
“Yeah? I’m all ears,” she said.
I didn’t have time to explain, so I called out to the army of the dead.
“Psst!” I hissed loud enough to catch one or two Z’s attention. A little noise went a long way in this undead world.
A man craned his neck around to get a look at me and then broke from the pack. A woman, bloated with rot, followed.
“What the fuck!” Anna hissed.
“Follow me,” I said and moved around her.
I hobbled to a pile of corpses next to a blood-splattered Suburban and tugged out the freshest looking corpse. He’d been dead for a few days, at least, and was already smelling pretty wretched. The guy was big and round. I dragged him off the pile. Another body lay next to the big truck, so I grabbed his pant leg and pulled until I could see beneath the vehicle.
“Under. I’m right behind you,” I said.
Anna Sails looked at the bodies, looked at the tiny space, and then turned pale.
“No fucking way am I getting under there.”
“Want to stay here and explain to the guys we just shot and blew up that you aren’t looking for any trouble and just want to be on your way?”
She stared at me for a full five seconds. Motorcycles closed in on our location with a loud rumble, and that really got the army of undead’s attention.
They came toward us in a slow stagger, milky eyes focused on our flesh.
Sails made a disgusted noise and crawled under the truck. I watched her slim form until it was completely out of sight.
I yanked out my knife and placed the point on the dead guys belly, pushed it in, and cut up until I hit his rib cage.
Putrid intestines erupted from the wound, carrying shit and black blood. I used his shirt sleeve to dig in and grab his stomach. I dragged that out and let it flop across his lap.
A form lurched inside of the car and slammed hands against the driver side window. Eyes, green and wild with hatred followed me as I dropped to the side of the big vehicle. Before I slid under, I smeared blood on the door handle and door. I slid in next to Sails and then pulled the body next to me. There was barely any visible light thanks to the pile of bodies on either side of the SUV.
I turned until I was facing Sails but didn’t say a word. I swear that I could still feel her eyes burning into me.
We waited. I did my best to keep the contents of my own stomach in place.
###
14:25 hours approximate
Location: Clairemont, CA - Undead Central
“So they went over the side. Great. Let’s call it a day. I told McQuinn this was a shitty idea. ‘Just let ‘em be,’ I said. ‘They got a big ass gun in there and those are some hard looking men.’ But noooo. He just had to stop by and say howdy, then start tossing threats around.”
“He’s just doing what’s best for us. We can’t keep this moving around stuff up forever. That HUMVEE was priceless, man. With enough ammo we’d have been able to hold off hundreds of the dead.”
The two men had stopped their bikes a few feet from our hiding spot, hopped off, and pushed their kickstands down. They walked up and down the line of vehicles, peering into cars, and pushing at the bodies on the ground.
I watched them from under the vehicle, my eyes finding a space between a corpse’s broken arm and a dead woman’s arched neck. Sails was moving next to me, her hands busy. I didn’t need to see her to know that she was removing her gun from its holster. We were in a terrible spot with the other side of the SUV butted up against the side of the off-ramp’s concrete wall. We had one way out, and that was the way we’d come.
“Look at this. Guy’s been ripped open.”
“Maybe their car hit it?”
“No, look at him. Blood everywhere and his guts ripped out.”
“Zombies, man. Here they come, too.”
“Something’s not right.”
The sound of lurching feet. Chattering of teeth. Groans and moans. The Z’s I’d called to were closing in on our position. This could go a couple of ways. The men would run or the Z’s would keep coming and overwhelm them. Something told me that the guys would take off. It’d been weeks since the zombie fucking apocalypse arrived and survivors didn’t last for long if they sat around waiting to be eaten.
“Let’s go, man. Fuck this. Tell McQuinn that they went over the side and that’s that.”
“Yeah. Maybe you’re right,” the guy said and poked his gun inside the SUV as he opened the door.
Wrong move, asshole.
He screamed and fell back as a corpse shot out of the truck.
The woman was small and fast. Wiry. I got a look at her arms as she flailed, and they were all ripped skin and exposed sinew. Muscles and tendons flexed as she moved.
The second guy let out a little scream and then fired. His shot went wide.
“Easy,” I whispered to Sails.
She had moved right next to me and put her arm ove
r me with her big .357 in hand. She rested it on my chest while she pushed her body against mine and craned her head over my neck to see the action. As well formed as Anna was, the last thing I could think about was how good she felt pressed into me.
The first guy went down while his buddy maneuvered around them, trying to get another shot. The shuffler thrashed its arms and legs, bit, snarled and spat. Its mouth dove in for a taste and got one in the form of the man’s nose – just the tip, but it was enough.
The shuffler was lifted off and tossed to the side by the man’s companion. They opened up with their guns, but the shuffler did something I never would have expected. Instead of going for an enraged attack, it hopped behind the cover of a car. The two men advanced, firing, and disappeared from my limited view.
“Jesus Christ, Jackson. We need to get the hell out of here,” Sails whispered next to my ear.
I grabbed her forearm and held on tight. I meant it to be reassuring and not restraining.
“Just hold on. They’ll move on soon, or die trying,” I whispered.
“What if that shuffler figures out that we’re hiding out under here?”
“Then we shoot it in the fucking face,” I replied under my breath.
The men drifted back into view as they looked for the shuffler. Noise behind Sails made me turn my head. I couldn’t see anything, though, because the other side was completely dark.
More shots rang out. The pair came back into view. The guy who was attacked spat blood.
“Hank. Damn, man. Did that thing get you?”
More shots, but the shuffler danced away.
The two men stood side by side, hands up as they pointed their guns. They backed up together, but the bitten one staggered. He fell to his knees. I could see him staring right at us as a bubble of blood touched his lips and then drooled down his chin. He tried to say something, but the words were choked off by another burst of blood.
The guy raised his gun and tried to aim at us, but his arm faltered and the barrel dropped. He reached for his neck, like he couldn’t breathe. His eyes clenched in pain and he bent over, coughing until it turned into a choking sound.
“I’m sorry, Hank. Real sorry, man, but you know the rules.”
A single gunshot rang out. The guy collapsed to the side as the bullet tore through his head.
There was a scream and the shuffler was on top of the shooter. They went down in a heap, the man fighting for his life. His gun went flying but he managed to jam his forearm into the shuffler’s neck. He pushed.
The monster was lifted briefly, but then it drove down with freakish force. The man’s arm collapsed and the shuffler’s head dove in, seeking flesh.
The man let out a scream of horror and tried to wrap his legs around the shuffler. His hands held the Z’s neck and squeezed, but the shuffler thrashed from side to side and slipped loose.
The shuffler ripped into flesh, tearing chunks out while McQuinn’s man continued to howl in pain. The first Z arrived and fell forward to gorge. A few moments of struggling ensued and the guy tried to scream, but it came out a gurgle from the hole in his throat.
The shuffler turned its head as it chewed a chunk of flesh and looked me right in the eye.
I swear the nasty fuck smiled at me through blood and drool.
I didn’t dare breathe, didn’t blink, and didn’t move. Every muscle in my body was tense. Anna moved her gun as she tried to bring the shuffler into sight.
Before she could start shooting, the rumble of cars and motorcycles reached us. The rest of McQuinn’s men had arrived.
Entry #15 - Seclusion
14:40 hours approximate
Location: Clairemont, CA - Undead Central
When McQuinn’s men arrived, it was in force, and they weren’t shy with their weapons. If the shuffler got away, I didn’t see it. After what seemed like forever, the bullets stopped flying.
Then it was just a waiting game.
I closed my eyes and dozed as the men we’d been evading moved around the area. Sure, you’re thinking that I’d be nuts to try and get a few winks, but let me tell you about life in the US Navy. I’d been on more than one fast cruise and I’d gone for days without real sleep while the ship was put through her paces. Constant drills, people always up in our shit, and never-ending cleaning. No one got rest, because it wasn’t exactly a nine to five job. I remember the longest I’d stayed awake was a consecutive thirty-six hours. After that I’d crawled on top of the oil storage containers, safely hidden from roving eyes, and taken a nap.
Of course I got caught, but that was to be expected. I did my job in the Navy but I was also kind of a fuck up. That little nap cost me a couple of days in Thailand.
I didn’t sleep; I just drifted while Anna Sails lay beside me. I’d have preferred a bed or sleeping bag, but as long as we were alive I’d settle for her arms around me and the hard cold asphalt.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Sails reminded me more than once.
“I have an idea. After this, let’s get pizza,” I whispered.
“Gonna kick your ass when we get out of here,” she whispered back.
“If we get out of this, I’ll let you try.”
“You’ll let me?” She poked me in the side.
“Yeah. You’re all of five-foot-four, right? If I take your gun, how will you get it back when I’m holding it seven feet off the ground?”
“How about I just stab you in the groin?”
“How about you don’t. I like my groin.”
And on it went as we whispered back and forth to keep from going insane.
McQuinn’s men swept the area a couple of times while they put down the Z’s I’d lured to the scene. There wasn’t a lot of talk. A couple of guys went over the wall, checked on the car, dragged our hard-earned supplies up, and tossed them into trucks.
The action had drawn a lot of attention. They came from around homes, beside cars, and from the road below. The dead got wind of the jackwads and wanted to eat. The moans rose around us as they closed in.
Finally, a beat-up truck puttered to a halt, and out jumped someone familiar.
Sails and I lay in silence as the men above spoke.
“Did you find them?” It was McQuinn.
“Nope. Not in the car. I don’t know how they survived that,” one of the guys said.
“Probably crawled out and got dragged away and eaten,” another chimed in.
“Hmm,” McQuinn muttered.
“You guys sweep the buildings down there? Could be they got out before the car went over the side.”
“Yeah. We looked, but gave up when the fucking rotters showed. We should go.”
Sails kept her arm steady on my chest, hand in a death grip on her gun. The weight of the long barrel wasn’t really reassuring. If she started firing, I’d probably lose some skin.
McQuinn didn’t move. From our vantage, I couldn’t tell what he was doing.
“I hope they survived,” he said.
“Why?”
“I want to personally execute each one of them while the rest watch.”
“That’s cold, man.”
“Fuck them. They cost us a lot,” he said.
After a minute of silence he finally got back in his truck and roared away. Other engines joined them. We waited in breathless anticipation for something to go wrong. I was tense because I was convinced this was some kind of trick. As soon as we came out they’d be waiting with guns and shit-eating grins. I shifted the shotgun out of the crook of my arm because the pressure had cut off the blood flow and made my hand numb.
I reached up, found Anna’s hand, and gave it a quick squeeze. She squeezed back.
###
15:40 hours approximate
Location: Not-sure-where, CA - Undead Central
“That guy’s an asshole. He reminds me of someone we ran into last week. Joel and I came across these two guys who were dragging female Z’s off the street and using them…you know. Fucking animals.”
> “What the hell? What did you guys do?”
“Me and Joel took care of them, and I don’t mean we left them breathing. But is that what the world’s come to? Monsters like that?”
“So, what, you took matters into your own hands?” she asked.
“Yeah. We did.”
“How is that different from what McQuinn and those clowns are doing?”
I’d planned to have some catchy one-liner for when she called me a hero. Something cool, like “mess with the best, die like the rest.” Instead, I choked on silence. Warmth rose into my cheeks.
“Were we supposed to just let them keep that shit up?”
“I don’t know. Probably not, but who made you the sheriff?”
“No one. They started shooting first.”
“So why not fuck off and leave them alone?”
I didn’t have an answer, so we lay in silence for a few minutes.
“It was wrong. Just wrong. I don’t care if those things are mindless animals. They deserved something better than being tied to a couch and screwed by those rapist assholes.”
“Jesus.”
A creeper lumbered past our hiding place. His left foot was cocked at an angle and he dragged it with each staggering step. My tiny window allowed me to track him for a few more seconds before he faded from sight.
“I’m not going to apologize. Besides, we left them alive. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“The leader took a shot to the gut. I hit the other one so hard he couldn’t talk right. So we dragged them to the pile of rotting Z’s they’d created in the kitchen and left them.”
“Always going to be good guys and bad guys. Which are we?” she asked.
“Me? I’m a bad guy trying to be good.” I tried for my best Clint Eastwood impression and came up lacking.
“That’s real deep, Jackson. Have you thought about writing a book?”
“I am. Kinda.” I told her about the log book I’d been writing in every day.
“What did you say about me?”
Z-Risen (Book 2): Outcasts Page 9
