Behind him, Stevenson hung on for dear life. He had one hand stretched against the seat and the other firmly wrapped around his “Oh, shit” handle. His face had blanched white, and Morris heard his teeth clack together with each jounce. The fear in the man’s eyes amused him.
“Sorry I can’t make it smoother for ya.”
“Just get us there,” Stevenson said.
“Grab the walkie talkie. Tell Eric when we hit the parking lot.”
Stevenson nodded and snatched the device from the seat. He started quaking in his seat the instant he moved his hand. His breath came in short gasps.
Morris returned his eyes to the road as a dead man the size of a wrecking ball lurched into his path. He swerved to the left, but the pickup’s fender still clipped him. A tearing sound filled his ears as the man’s abdomen ripped open, and even the roar of the truck’s engine couldn’t cover the splash of his rotten intestines spilling to the roadway. Morris winced at the sound.
He pulled the wheel further left, and the pickup’s nose aimed at the grocery. Goosing the accelerator, they popped over the curb and into the parking lot.
Right on cue, Stevenson thumbed the walkie-talkie and got a chirp out of it. “In the lot, Eric. Hear that? We’re in the fucking lot. Don’t you dare leave us hanging!”
“Got it,” Eric’s voice answered.
“That’s that,” Stevenson said.
“Wish it was,” Morris said through grit teeth. He eyed the parking lot and the new zombies that were swarming in like flies to spoiled meat on a hot day. They still needed a good portion of luck and skill to get them in the store ahead of the cannibals. “We still got a ways to go.”
“Right,” Stevenson said as he grabbed the handle with his free hand. “Got some white knuckles back here.”
Morris glanced at his own knuckles. He knew how the guy felt.
————————————
Eric crammed the walkie-talkie into his pocket and grabbed hold of the garage door’s handle. He’d already disengaged the opener and thumbed off the lock. He guessed Morris and Chris would reach the door in less than a minute. He needed to have it open by then.
But a lot could happen in a minute. He pressed his ear to the door but could only hear the truck’s engine growling somewhere in the distance. The sound grew closer, and he knew the time for worrying had come and gone.
He twisted the handle and ripped the door open. The metal panels rattled up, and a sudden flare of gray sunlight stabbed at his eyes. He threw his hands in front of his face and took two steps back, trying to see again.
He heard the zombie well before his eyes stopped hurting.
Its hungry screech hit his ears and he ripped his hands away from his eyes. He saw the black outline of a thin woman galloping toward him, arms outstretched and hands groping. A sickly white burned all around her. She looked like a shadow stepping out of a dream.
He jerked backward, waving his arms and screaming, forgetting the pistol tucked into his waistband. Everything disappeared from his mind but the dark thing in front of him and his desperate need to escape it. The woman’s stench crawled up his nose and prodded his terror, sending electric sparks of horror through his body.
The woman swiped at him, boney fingers raking at his face. He scrambled away from her, and his knees caught a cardboard box he hadn’t seen in the darkness. He reached out and almost grabbed the dead female’s arms for stability. She scratched at his flesh, and he let out a shriek of pain before plummeting back and tumbling to the floor.
No! he thought. No, no, no! He flailed among the cardboard, fighting to get back to his feet, but then the woman fell upon him, her weight pressing him to the concrete. He screamed and shoved at her, but she wriggled past his arms, her loose skin ripping off in his grip. Her nails scratched at his arms, his shoulders. It all felt so familiar.
He tried to slam an elbow into the woman’s side, but he had no leverage, no power. The blow landed but garnered no reaction.
Cold breath kissed his neck, and then her teeth tore into his throat. He tried to cry out, but his breath had evaporated into nothing. He felt the pull of her teeth against his flesh, and then his skin tore away and was replaced by hot agony.
The sounds of the woman’s hunger, the awful chewing and sucking noises as she worked at his flesh, smacked in his ears. He heard the approaching engine of the truck, and he thought he might have heard a voice from long ago, a redhead calling him a useless faggot, but he couldn’t be sure. Then everything eased into blackness, and he heard nothing.
————————————
Morris careened through the grocery’s parking lot, crashing through any decaying form hungry enough to get in his way. The zombies weren’t going to slow him down this time. He’d make it into the store before Eric could count to three.
He eased off the gas the slightest bit as he spun the beast around to the rear of the brick building. Tires squealed over pavement. A dead man tried to grab hold of Stevenson’s door, and his flesh made a squeaking sound as it slid down the side of the truck. Morris paid no attention. He concentrated on piloting the truck, nothing else.
He swung the wheel wide, knowing he couldn’t pull a hairpin turn into the door. As the pickup bounced into the dirty field at the back of the grocery, he looked left to find his entrance. Stevenson must have already seen it, because he’d started screaming and pointing. Morris followed the man’s gestures and felt the bottom drop out of his guts.
Eric had opened the door. The bay stood open, and Morris watched as a trio of zombies rushed through the doorway. They raced to join a female that had pinned something to the ground and was savagely attacking it. He didn’t need a better look to know she had Eric on the floor.
“We have any guns up here?” he asked Stevenson.
“Just my revolver. It’s full, though.”
“Give it to me once we get inside. You take care of the door.”
“Okay.”
He flicked on the headlights and aimed the pickup’s nose for the open door. He saw boxes and empty shelves. In front of it all he saw the zombies fall on their prey, arms tearing and heads darting forward, rocking back and forth. He knew what that meant, but maybe there was still a chance.
He took his foot off the gas, and the truck began to decelerate. He hoped his timing was good. A rescue attempt wouldn’t mean a damn thing if he ran over Eric in the process. He’d driven big trucks most of his life though, so maybe he wasn’t too far off his game.
The pickup jumped back onto the pavement again, and he pumped the brake as fast as he could. Its tires shrieked against the pavement, and the speedometer plummeted.
“C’mon!” He fought the wheel as the tires began to hook. His shoulder wrenched a scream from him. Letting off the brake for a split second, he righted the pickup’s trajectory. He didn’t bother to look at Stevenson. If the guy was clutching his “Oh, shit” handle with all the strength of a terrified child, then he was some kind of superhero.
The headlights’ flare filled the stockroom as the truck’s nose plunged through the doorway. All but one of the zombies ignored the vehicle. A single male that hadn’t reached Eric yet looked into the oncoming lights before the truck’s grill sent it flying into the metal shelves.
The pickup’s left rear quarter-panel slammed into the side of the doorway and bounced back. The wheels cried louder, and the truck skidded to a slanted stop within the stockroom.
Morris jerked to one side, and his seatbelt snapped him back into position. He let out a single pained grunt before bursting into motion, jabbing at the buckle of his seatbelt with his left hand while he grabbed the revolver with his right.
He swung open his own door and hopped to the concrete. A quick breath, and he leveled the pistol across the open space between door and cab and found the zombie he’d hit. The thing was clambering to its feet, looking pissed off and hungry. He pulled the trigger, and the back of the zombie’s head blew out in a burst of red and
black.
The door rattled shut behind him, but he paid no attention. He hurried and positioned himself by the front wheel-well. Peering across the hood, he saw four decomposing bodies wrestling like rats in a pipe, each trying to claw their way ahead of the others in order to reach the morsel at the end.
“Hey!”
Three of the corpses looked up at him, blood on their chins and an insane need in their burning eyes. They hissed and then charged, but he had bullets for each. The .38’s report hammered at his ears as it spanged throughout the enclosed space, doubling and tripling off metal shelves and concrete floors. It deafened him enough so that it took several long seconds before he heard Stevenson climb into the truck’s bed to retrieve the hunting rifle, several more before he could make out the horrible wet sounds of the remaining zombie tearing into Eric’s flesh with its teeth.
He stepped around the front of the truck so he could get a better look, keeping his movements slow. The smacking and ripping noises told him he was too late.
It was a female. Its gray, dirt-streaked hair stood up in a tattered mess, catching the headlights’ beams like a moving cobweb. Mottled skin hung limp from arms as thin as tinder sticks. The dead thing worked at Eric’s throat like a wolf might, digging in and then wrenching back, meat stretching and then tearing.
Morris wasn’t surprised to find he felt nothing. This didn’t shock him or tug at his heart. It was another casualty in a ruined world. Just one more bullet in the head of someone he knew.
He stepped closer, his fingers slick with sweat around the revolver’s wooden grip. He watched the zombie for any sudden moves, but she continued to feed, almost as if she didn’t realize he was there. Kicking the remains of a dead body out of his way and then planting his feet, Morris raised the pistol.
“Hey, bitch!”
The surprising rage in his voice grabbed the zombie’s attention. The dead woman turned to face him. Gore slicked her face. She continued to chew as her milky eyes narrowed and bore into him. He saw her throat work, and then she hissed like a cat warning off a competitor.
He pulled the trigger. The .38 kicked, and a hole appeared an inch above the woman’s right eye. What remained of the zombie’s body hung suspended over Eric’s corpse for a moment and then collapsed. Pulpy black blood dripped from the hole in the female’s face.
He felt Stevenson watching over his shoulder, even heard the man say something. The ringing in his ears drowned out the noise. White noise filled his head.
He stepped forward, reaching the tangled duo and kicking the woman aside. Her body flopped onto the concrete, exposing Eric.
Morris looked down at the man who had mounted this expedition, the man who had taken it upon himself to save a small town. Most of Eric’s throat was gone, torn away to leave a red ruin in its wake. The dead woman had dug so deep he could see the whiteness of Eric’s spine glimmering through all the crimson. An expression of pain and desperation filled the former cook’s face, leaving deep creases along his eyes and mouth. The man had not died easily, and his face showed every agonizing moment of it.
Morris stood there a long moment, the static filling his skull like a fog. He raised the .38 and sighted down the length of its barrel. For several moments he tried to squeeze the trigger, but his finger refused to cooperate. He knew what needed to be done, but for some reason his brain just wouldn’t toe the line.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
At the end of the barrel, Eric’s mouth began to move. Slowly, it opened and closed, almost testing its abilities. The man’s eyelids flipped open, the eyes beneath unable to focus. They stared without definition, with nothing but hunger.
Morris fired. The static in his skull disappeared.
He felt Stevenson’s hand on his shoulder.
“It’s cool, Morris.”
“Right.”
“Yeah. Looks like two to go, huh?”
Something red dropped over his eyes, and he whirled around, slamming the pistol’s grip into Stevenson’s jaw. The asshole cried out and dropped to his knees. He didn’t give him a chance to get to his feet again. Shifting his weight, he rocked a left into the man’s mouth, followed with a knee to the point of his jaw.
“You fucking bastard!” He didn’t recognize his own voice. Something had changed it.
Stevenson tried to scurry away, crawling across the concrete in a series of spastic lunges. Morris chased him, kicking at his legs, ass, and ribs. He’d had enough, and he planned to let Stevenson know it.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll do it just like I did the goddamn zombies! Don’t you think I won’t!”
“I’m sorry!”
He dropped a knee into the small of Stevenson’s back. His weight pinned the bastard, and he threw a fist into the back of his skull.
“I’m fucking sorry!” Stevenson screamed. He sounded like a terrified child. “We’re fucking working together!”
“Then act like it! I am so tired of your shit. You put a lid on it, or I will fucking kill you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Fucking yes!”
He stood, and Stevenson crawled away before climbing to his feet.
“Fucking asshole! I should kick your redneck ass!”
“Yeah. You did so well this time.”
“White trash. You’re all the fucking same. Surprised you haven’t told me how pretty my mouth is.”
“Right. Get away from me before I really fuck you up.”
“Hick.”
“Walk.”
Stevenson skulked toward the back of the stockroom, shrugging his shoulders over and over again like he was stuck in a loop.
Morris watched him, trying to get a handle on his rage. He took a deep breath and let it out. The truck’s engine continued to churn just behind him, and he realized he could smell fumes. He returned to the cab, leaned in and shut it all down. Then, he killed the headlights and everything went black. It felt right.
NINETEEN
Blake took a panicked step backward and pulled the shotgun’s trigger. Fire boomed from the weapon’s barrel, but the zombies had already reached him. The shot cut one of them in half, but its torso hit the ground and kept coming, scrabbling forward like an angry crab. He stared for an awestruck second, and the other two zombies hit him.
He screamed as a zombie that had once been an old man slammed into him. Together, they crashed into the wall and fell to the floor. The dead man’s weight pushed him down, and an instant later he felt the pressure against his shoulder as the zombie tried to bite through the denim of his jacket. Even with the thick material protecting him, he could tell the old man had lost his teeth well before death. He took a split second to think about how embarrassing it would be to die because he couldn’t get out from under a zombie trying to gum him to death. If it didn’t piss Holly off, it might get a laugh out of her.
He shoved the decayed cannibal to one side and kicked out with both legs, catching another zombie in the gut and folding it in half. The thing’s head dipped toward him, and he locked both eyes on its gray scalp, only a few tufts of straw-like hair remaining, before he raised the shotgun over his head and slammed the butt into the thing’s skull. The zombie spasmed once and then fell still, dropping to the carpet like a bag of loose bones.
He looked for the old man, saw him floundering on his back like a broken toy robot. Good. He didn’t need to worry about that one yet.
He hopped to his feet just as the zombie torso dragged itself over its fallen partner. Staring, he tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but his brain refused to comprehend the horrible thing. It moved with shocking speed, and he leaped over it as it swiped at his legs with both arms. The monster looked up at him and let out an enraged squawk. Jesus, how was it still making any noise?
His brain appeared to catch up with the fear he felt and then overtake it. He leveled the shotgun at the scrabbling thing’s angry face and fired his last shell. The zombie’s head deco
rated the carpet and walls.
He turned and staggered away from the carnage. The stink of splattered rot watered his eyes. The shotgun slipped from his sweat-slicked fingers and clattered to the floor.
He heard the mad hissing behind him and turned to face the old man. Through his bleary eyes he could see the emaciated corpse charge past the other dead bodies. Its toothless mouth gaped, white eyes burned. He caught a glimpse of the pump-handle where he’d dropped it only a second before, and then the zombie collided with him.
He caught the dead man with both arms, and then they were falling backward. He remembered the staircase and reached out for something to grab hold of, to keep himself from tumbling. His desperate fingers found nothing, and the world spun out of control.
His back hit the stairs first, and the air punched out of his chest in a violent rush. The zombie flipped off of him and continued down the stairs, but that small mercy didn’t slow him at all. His roll continued, and his right leg folded beneath him. He heard an audible snap as his shinbone cracked. A spike of pain pierced his leg. It might have torn a scream from him if he could draw breath. Instead, he ground his teeth together and squeezed his eyes shut, watched the colors of agony blaze behind his eyelids.
The horizon spinning off in terrible ways, his fall continued. His head struck one of the carpeted steps, and a new round of starbursts exploded in his vision. His jaw went slack and then clacked shut, taking off the tip of his tongue in a quick, brutal chop.
His descent stopped as he sprawled across the old man’s corpse. Dizziness and pain threatened to drag him under, but panic grabbed hold, and he flopped off the zombie, determined to escape death. The corpse didn’t reach for him, though. It didn’t attack or even move.
As the strobes of light dissipated from his vision, Blake saw the black fluid leaking from the back of the dead man’s skull. It must have struck its own head on the steps.
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