ZOMBIE'S DOOM? Chronicles of Jack Doom

by Will Lemen

  At the same time, I managed to do minimal damage to my new truck.

  As I drove past the city limits sign of Amarillo. By veering slightly off the road to clip the hips of another unsuspecting pair of zombies, I left them with some exposed broken bones and secreting some of their spoiled juices as they wallowed and twitched in the nearby roadside ditch, hopefully suffering greatly.

  I had developed a technique for accruing a large number of zombie hit and runs after losing a sweet little ride I had acquired some time ago in west Texas.

  After butchering several zombies execution style just outside of Pecos Texas, I ran across a classic car dealership that had a fully restored 1969 Mach 1 Mustang setting in its showroom.

  This little gem was maroon with dirty piss-yellow racing stripes and sported a 351 cubic inch Cleveland engine under its flat black pinned down hood. It also had a 4-speed manual transmission along with a posi-traction rear-end and original Goodyear poly-glass tires.

  Sweet!

  This little honey was faster than a coon dog chasing a bitch in heat. And that's where the problems for me began to surface. My new hotrod brought out the teenage boy in me and I just couldn't resist sticking my toe down the throat of the carburetor every once in a while.

  Well, as fate would have it, I was driving way too fast up interstate 20 after checking out one of the countless dead end leads that I had been chasing, this particular one had dried up just east of El Paso.

  After stopping for a well-deserved urination station break (I had to take a piss), I had reinserted my toe back into the carburetor, when I spotted an obese zombie staggering across the freeway and figured I could dust him off with the right front fender of my "Stang" and no one would be the wiser.

  I didn't take into consideration that this particular undead hunk of shit was rather new to the world of the walking dead, and its flesh had not decomposed enough to just slide off the bone like a well cooked rack of Louisiana ribs when scraped by my speeding sports car.

  When I hit the monster at around 55 M.P.H., I receive a clue rather quickly about the viscosity of the chunky cannibal. It happened when I saw the fender of my vehicle fold up like an accordion, and I heard the right front tire pop as the metal structure of the car carved its way through the vulcanized rubber and sent my speeding childhood wet dream careening into the safety guardrail that lined the side of the road.

  It was at that point when I realized that I had hit a newly initiated member of the zombie tribe. When the sickening crunch of the fender rendered no maggots onto the hood or windshield of my car, I knew that this citizen of the dead had not been undead long enough to even begin to host the fly larvae that most of its fellow zombies were sponsoring.

  Although I had literally knocked the shit right out of the "Mustang Killer" and broken nearly every bone in its flesh seeking body, watching it squirm on the ground in front of me in its shit-smudged trousers did nothing to change the fact that I was again on foot.

  After that incident, I decided to change the rules of my felony hit and run quest.

  While I would still endeavor to stain the nation's roadways with the entrails of the marauding zombie hordes, I would slow the accosting vehicle down to about 15 miles per hour. Just fast enough to still smack the crap out of the savages and break a few bones, thereby leaving them sloshing around in their own fecal matter and other rotting juices, yet do only token scarring to my ride, lest I end up walking again.

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  OKLAHOMA IS OK

  Six weeks earlier in Shawnee Oklahoma...

  It was a cool but not cold evening as the Sarge and Beth sat around their campfire amid the group they had been staying with for the past week.

  "Beth, go get me another beer, and then get your ass back over here you little bitch," the half-drunk former sergeant barked, as he crushed an empty beer can and tossed it to the ground. "I had a long hard day out killing those diseased sons-a-bitches, or as Jack's kid called them, eaters.

  At any rate, killing those bastards has made me mighty thirsty, so you'll make it quick if you know what's good for you."

  "Okay Ron, I'll hurry," Beth said, as she left the campfire and proceeded to fetch the Sarge a beer.

  When Beth returned with the beer, she found another woman sitting on the Sarge's lap with her arms around him.

  "Good, maybe he'll sleep with her tonight and quit pestering me, I can only hope," Beth thought, tired of fighting off the Sarge's unwanted drunken sexual advances.

  "Here's your beer Ron, Jimmy said it's the last one you get tonight, and he sounded kind of pissed."

  "What? Now there's a two six-pack limit around here? What the hell?" the Sarge questioned, as he snatched the beer from Beth's hand. "And what's he got to be pissed about? I'm the one that's going to need another beer."

  Beth took her seat beside the two groping drunks and pretended to ignore their obvious moans and groans as she watched the Sarge's right hand make its way into the woman's blouse.

  "I hate to break up your little wrestling match, but before I left to get you a beer, you mentioned Jack's kid, Jacob was the youngest one. Do you think that Jacob and the rest of Jack's family made it out alive?"

  Just as Beth spoke the last word of her question, the back of the Sarge's hand that was still warm from the breast he had been coddling, landed across her mouth, knocking her backwards off her chair.

  "I told you never to mention that," the Sarge shouted, as the girl on his lap looked at Beth lying on the ground and laughed, not bothering to even make an effort to cover her now completely exposed left tit.

  Getting to her feet, Beth wiped the trickle of blood from her bottom lip on her sleeve, picked up her chair, and sat back down.

  "I'm sorry. It'll never happen again Ron," she said, feeling her lower lip swelling as she licked the remaining blood from it.

  "It had better not ever happen again, especially while I'm having a well deserved beer and trying to get a little even more well deserved nooky from a lovely little lady like this one," the Sarge bellowed loudly, as he again groped at the woman who sat on his lap.

  Opening her blouse wider and totally exposing her naked chest, he slobbered as his warm alcohol laced breath questioned the woman.

  "What was your name again darling?" the Sarge slurred, while looking down at his drool that he had just slobbered onto the woman's tits while scolding Beth.

  "Anna." the half-exposed woman answered smiling, as she watched the Sarge gaze at his saliva as it creped down her breast and dripped off her left nipple.

  Beth turned away from the two fondling lushes and stared into the campfire, no longer listening to their alcohol-induced banter.

  "Don't worry Ron, I give you my word, it will never ever happen again, because as soon as I find the right people, I'm going to kill you just before I leave with them," Beth thought, as she rubbed her swollen lip before taking a sip of her own beer that she had been hiding from Ron.

  ******

  Before Beth, along with the Sarge, Jack and his family, and the men that were killed on the mission to procure more powerful weapons for their group, left the safety of the YMCA compound and drove their modified school bus to the National Guard Armory. She had been known as somewhat of the resident psychopath, a psychopath that you would definitely want on your side in a fight.

  Her petite stature combined with her uncanny prowess with the .22 rifle she wielded, along with other zombie killing techniques as well as her nerves of steel under fire, were becoming the stuff of legend around the Y.

  Almost rivaling the legend of Jack Doom in Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost being the key word here.

  After abandoning Jack and his family, Beth and the Sarge had returned to their YMCA stronghold only to find it burned out and deserted, with the dead bodies of zombies and many of their friends lying in the hallways torn to pieces and charred beyond recognition.

  As they surveyed the sickening carnage, they weren't quite sure what had taken place during thei
r absence.

  All they knew for sure was that the building had been burnt from the inside as if gasoline had been poured in the hallways and then ignited, all the supplies and equipment were ruined, and there were mass casualties consisting of both their fellow comrades and members of the zombie hordes scattered all around. In addition to the grisly scene of dead bodies everywhere, of course, the building was filled with the ever-present undaunted flies, smoke and fire damage was ubiquitous, and the smell of burnt plastic and gasoline fumes was over powering.

  All of which rendered the YMCA no longer fit for human habitation.

  Beth was now traveling with the Sarge because she didn't want to be left alone, and although they had run into a few small groups of people after leaving Jack and his family, she had not felt comfortable enough with any of them to part with Ron. Even though the beatings he was inflicting upon her were becoming more frequent and severe.

  However, being the alleged psychopath that she was. She wasn't about to forget the way the Sarge had been treating her, and no matter how long she traveled with the man, or how many times he may have saved her from as he so aptly put it, those sinister sons-a-bitches, she was still determined to get even with him, sooner or later, one way or another.

  ******

  Barreling (if you can call 29 mph barreling) east on interstate 40, in his gray pick-up truck, Jack see's that the vehicle's fuel gauge is starting to point a little south...

  ******

  "I need to stop for gas the next chance I get," I mumbled to myself. "And maybe pick up a map of Oklahoma too."

  About six miles inside the Oklahoma border from Texas, sat the once sleepy little town of Erick Oklahoma. I say once sleepy little town, because like most if not all towns in the country and probably the world, Erick Oklahoma had died in its sleep.

  After seeing the sign that signaled a prime spot for collecting a tank full of gasoline was just ahead, I took the next exit ramp off the interstate and pulled a hairy right turn into a truck stop that sat right off the freeway.

  "Eaters in the parking lot, I hope that means no feral dogs," I said aloud, as I aimed my truck at the nearest zombie.

  A metallic bumping sound vibrated through the truck as a tall slim female member of the rotting dead bounced off the right front fender, scattering maggots across my windshield and disseminating the covey of flies that surrounded feminine homicidal maniac.

  "Chalk another one up," I yelled, hoping to attract as many of the undead in the immediate area as I could.

  Two zombies in the parking lot were joined by three more that came from around the back of the building. I aimed my now slightly dented truck toward the four that had ambled into a pack, and stepped down hard on the gas pedal.

  The truck lurched forward and moved in the direction of the slow moving crowd when I stomped down on the accelerator pedal. I only had about forty yards to gain enough speed to accomplish the maneuver that I had in mind.

  By the time I reached the mob of zombies, the truck was traveling at close to thirty miles per hour.

  Just before running into the maggot-infested corpses, I turned the steering wheel hard to the left and slammed on the brakes. The lightweight rear end of my vehicle began to slide toward the four zombies as I braced for the imminent impact (hopefully a 15 miles per hour impact, the new rule you know).

  When the side of the bed of the truck struck the approaching horde of zombies, the result was not exactly what I had intended.

  I had hoped that by skidding the side of my vehicle into the group, they would have been mangled to the point that I wouldn't have to deal with them and could focus my attention on the single diseased savage that was apart from the group.

  However, that was not the case; two of the undead had been severely mutilated to the degree that I had planned, but the other two were hardly even scratched in the process, leaving them still on the attack and very close to me.

  With no other choice, I pulled the suppressed Beretta 92 I had appropriated from the gun shop in Amarillo, and pointed it at the face of the ugliest one of the monsters and pulled the trigger.

  Now you might think why would I bother to waste time trying to figure out which of the zombies was the uglier of the two before sending a bullet down range to enact its ultimate demise.

  Well the truth is, most of the undead, especially the ones that have been trotting around since the green flag dropped signaling the start of the zombie apocalypse, are so ripe, so decomposed, and so degraded, and so disgusting, that to call one of them uglier than another is just plain ludicrous.

  So there's really no time wasted or hesitation involved in picking out the ugliest one, the closest one to you is always the ugliest one, and usually the first to get shot, or hacked to death.

  Just humor me, bear with me, and try to keep up while I get on with the story.

  The silencer did its job, and the gentle pop of the pistol announced in advance the bullet that smashed through the teeth of the walking dead man and exited out the back of his head, scattering the hovering flies along with pieces of skull and hair that was mixed with white fly larvae and hunks of green-tinted diseased brain.

  With one more ravenous zombie by my truck and the other one closing on me fast, I jumped out of the vehicle and shot over the roof of the cab at the nearest flesh eating monstrosity, catching the top one eighth inch of its cranium with my first bullet and peeling back some of its scalp, as my bullet skidded along the crown of its skull.

  My second shot missed (which I could hardly believe, considering how close the attacker was, however, shit happens), but my third bullet drilled its way through the middle of the monster's forehead and literally exploded its brain, momentarily causing its head to expand by one third as if it had been quickly pumped full of air. Then just as fast as it had expanded, the head imploded back to its original size as the zombie dropped to the ground.

  The last transient corpse that was in the parking lot was nearly upon me as I turned away from the one I had just dispatched. I swung my pistol to the head of the remaining vagrant, and leveled the muzzle about five inches from the snarling cannibal's face.

  With absolutely no time to spare, and with just inches between me, and my sudden death, I squeezed the trigger on the Italian made gun and forced the zombie's brain out the back of its skull with the utmost efficiency.

  "Holy fuck in a cardigan sweater, that was a close one," I said aloud, as I stood alone in the gas station parking lot among a swarm of flies hovering over the five rotting corpses at my feet.

  I quickly surveyed the surrounding area looking for zombies, feral dogs, or anything else that might be approaching, and was relieved to see nothing but empty streets and vacant lots in every direction that were devoid of all movement.

  I pulled my dented gray pick-up truck close to an SUV that was parked near the front door of the truck stop. Then I checked to see if the SUV had the keys in it, but no such luck. I then unscrewed the vehicles gas cap and pushed hard several times on the side of the SUV causing it to rock back and forth while I listened for a splashing sound made by the gasoline sloshing around in the fuel tank.

  "Sounds like there's plenty of gas in this one," I mumbled to myself.

  I then went into the truck stop's merchandising area to look for something to siphon out the gasoline with.

  As I walked toward the building, I thought.

  "I wonder how many of these eat'in sons-a-bitches are walking around with car keys in their pockets?"

  But I wasn't about to start searching every dead man that I killed in the hopes that one of them just coincidently would have the keys to a vehicle that was close.

  After all, some of these bastards had been walking around the country for over a year, who knows where in the hell they left their cars.

  Inside the building, I encountered two more of the undead brutes stinking up the joint rather thoroughly, and summarily executed both of them with extreme prejudice using a swift downward swing of my hatchet onto t
he top of their putrescent craniums and into their brains.

  Unable to find what I required to siphon the much needed fuel from the vehicle inside, I made my way out the back door of the shop where a found a garden hose that was used for watering the plants decorating the perimeter of the building.

  I chopped a seven-foot section from the hose, and then headed around front to where I had parked my truck.

  Upon arriving back at my vehicle, I stuck one end of the pilfered garden hose into the gas tank of the SUV and began to suck on the other end of the hose, bringing the vehicles fuel through the tube.

  When the gas reached my end of the hose, I carefully inserted it into the tank of my truck, making sure not to lose the flow of gasoline during the procedure, and the refueling process had begun.

  After affording myself a generous supply of SUV gasoline, I pulled the siphon hose from the two vehicles and tossed it into the bed of my truck; I tightened the gas cap and jumped into the cab.

  I wasted little time getting back on the road. I was on the trail of my prey, and was following the first solid lead that I had had in months.

  I wasn't about to give the Sarge a chance to give me the slip. I was only a few hundred miles away from his last reported location, and if the Gods were on my side (that will be the day); I'd be having breakfast with the Sarge in the morning.

  So, leaving several dead zombies at the truck stop, I waved my trusty tomahawk out the driver's window and let out the loudest Indian War Whoop I could muster on such short notice.

  While doing so, I rammed into two derelict cadavers that were blocking the entrance ramp back onto interstate 40, as I once more added to my felony hit and run total (abiding by all of the current laws, rules, and regulations of course).