Dead Run_A Zombie Apocalypse Novel

by R. J. Spears

  We were just outside the back door of the house, with the zombie splayed out on the ground. It was just me and Brent, as all the others thought this was going to exceed all the grossness they could take in a day. He was on his knees, kneeling over the body, and I stood back, watching over his shoulder from a safe distance.

  Without anything better to do, I asked a dangerous question, “So, what are you doing?”

  While maintaining his focus on the task at hand, he told me, “This is usually done with medical immature larva, but beggars can't be choosers. I’m trying to pick them out of any of the dead skin of the zombie.”

  “Have you ever done this before?” I asked.

  “Hell, no,” he answered back quickly.

  “Well, that inspires me with a lot of confidence.”

  “Listen Joel, I don’t know what you think I am, but I was just a G.P. What I’m about to do is something I saw at an continuing education session a few years ago. I just took care of colds, bad backs, and things like hemorrhoids. This is pretty damn exotic for me. I read that it was a little more common between World War I and World War II, so it’s not dangerous but still.”

  “But you know what you’re doing, right?” If he didn’t hear the nervousness in my voice, I was doing a good job of hiding it.

  “Mostly. Like I said, these aren’t exactly ideal. The medical maggots are kept in clean environments, and this is far, far from that.”

  “But they’ll be okay?” I asked.

  “They’ll have to be,” he said. “Kara’s condition hasn’t advanced far, thanks to the antibiotics, but it could get bad fast. If it does, there’s nothing I can do. I’ve cut away what dead tissue I could, but these little buggers need to do the rest.”

  I had refrained from watching him doing the manual cutting on Kara. I had faced a lot of things in the zombie apocalypse, but watching my woman suffer was getting to be too much. Brent said she faced it down like a trooper, and it helped that he gave her a healthy dose of OxyContin to help ease the pain. Still, there was only so much that it could do.

  “Okay, if this works, what is her recovery time?” I asked.

  Brent focused on the details of moving the maggots for a moment then finally said, “It really depends on her. She’s young and strong, but she really took a beating. Back in the old days, I’d say three to five days. I know there’s some imperative about getting north.”

  “We’ll take as long as we have to for her to get well,” I said.

  “Okay,” Brent said, “but Jason seems to think we need to get moving sooner rather than later.”

  I felt an internal heat start to rise in me. “I don’t give a damn. We wait.”

  I started to say something else when the psychic earthquake hit. The vision came on much like all the rest as reality swished away from me like I was being sucked down a tunnel with Brent and the Big Guy getting smaller and smaller. The last thing I heard was Brent yelling for Brother Ed, and his voice sounded like it was coming from within a deep cave or well, echoing and distorted over and over again until everything went black.

  Most of my visions are usually indistinct and cryptic and sometimes downright incoherent, but this one was vivid and what I guessed to be one of the most literal ones I had experienced. They are usually frustratingly mysterious, with no clear messages or directives. In most cases, I was left to divine the importance and interpretation, which sort of sucked, because I was mostly clueless.

  My view was from far above as if I were in a helicopter. Below me was gently rolling countryside. What I saw was a truck gliding along a two lane road, moving along at a slower than normal pace, but making steady progress. On each side of the road were expansive fallow farm fields, mostly filled with tall weeds and the remnants of corn stalks never harvested. Crows and other birds flew over the fields, free in that way that birds are.

  My perspective changed as my point of view started drifting down, getting me closer to the truck, but it seemed as if my view was moving along with the truck, matching its speed. I was out in front of the truck, gently falling toward it.

  I sometimes wondered if the view was being provided to me from some sort of spirit camera or if I was there somehow, like a spectral entity. In the past, I had read about remote viewing, and this seemed a lot like that. I sometimes thought of these visions as if I were a camera floating in space.

  After a few seconds, my camera view became parallel with the road, running about fifty to seventy-five feet ahead of the truck. What I could see was a bit alarming. There seemed to be a man hanging off the side of the truck, riding on the running board while holding onto the passenger-side mirror. It wasn’t totally death defying, but neither was it safe. My view was too far away to make out any details of the man, but I could see him swaying up and down as the truck zoomed along. One moment, he would be upright, dangling loosely, then in the next, he would be almost kneeling on the running board, hanging just inches above the roadway.

  My view began to creep gently in, closer and closer, until the man became clearer to me, but it became evident that this wasn’t a man. At least not one in the conventional sense. While it was of little consolation, I could tell it wasn’t undead.

  The skin on its body, specifically on its head, seemed partially burned away, with large patches of red and welted skin. Hunks of its hair were missing entirely, with burned stalks of it being blown back in the wind. The showstopper was its eyes. They were off-white things devoid of a pupil, iris or anything. They looked like dirty ping pong balls with the dimmest of light inside them. It was more than a little off-setting. In fact, it was if we had just transitioned into a freakshow.

  After a few seconds, it jerked up excitedly and banged on the side of the truck. The truck was coming up on an intersection. The thing on the side of the truck banged on the truck some more and then pointed toward the intersection and up the next road.

  The driver took the cue and turned the truck onto the new road, and they continued driving. The creature on the side of the truck calmed some as if enjoying the breeze. It reacted more like an animal than a man.

  What was even more disturbing than all of this were the men in the cab. They all wore army uniforms. The passenger was a middle-aged man with short-cropped hair, graying at the temples. His expression was intense, his eyes narrowed and looking forward.

  Although I had never met him face-to-face, there was little doubt that this was Colonel Kilgore. The one hell-bent on tracking Jason down and killing him. It didn’t matter who stood in his way, because he would kill them, too, and probably enjoy it.

  My little God-given movie went on like this for nearly a full minute before Kilgore leaned forward in his seat and his eyes squinted even more tightly closed, the way that people do when they are inspecting something very carefully, as if to discern what it really was and what it was about. My vision moved into a tight close-up of Kilgore’s face. His brow was furrowed in concentration, and his eyes seemed to burn with interest.

  For a few seconds, I thought he might actually be seeing me, which was crazy because I wasn’t sure I was even there.

  The last thing I saw in this vision were Kilgore’s lip’s moving. They said, “Do you see that?”

  The tunnel effect started again, only in reverse, as I sped back and away from the truck and into the sky. The light began to dim quickly, the image drained of color until it was nearly black and white, then it blinked out entirely.

  The one thing I took from this movie was that it wasn’t a vision of future. It was a warning.

  When I made it back from my vision, I saw two faces above me gradually coming into focus. Jason and Brother Ed. Brother Ed’s lips were moving, but the sound of his voice was coming to me in slow motion, his words stretching out into long and indistinct noises. Obviously, I was laid out on the ground. Brent had let me fall where I was. He really couldn’t help it because he was engrossed in what he was doing.

  Jason motioned to Brother Ed then took out his little notepad and
scribbled something on it, then brought it down to within a few inches of my face.

  The synapses in my brain were not firing fully at that moment, and it took a few moments for me to make out what it said.

  The note read, “Are you alright?”

  More brain processes lurched along exaggeratedly slow, and it was like a very old lightbulb slowly coming back to life. I don’t know how long it took, but I finally comprehended the note.

  I nodded my head, and Brother Ed spoke again, “You were out longer than normal.”

  My mouth felt dry and tacky, but I mustered the strength to speak. “How long?” It was really more of a croak than a voice.

  “Nearly a half hour,” Brother Ed replied.

  Still operating at half-speed, I asked, “How’s Kara?”

  “Brent’s applied the little nasties, and they seem to be doing their work.”

  “Help me get to my feet,” I asked, feeling more in touch with reality every second.

  They leaned down, and each one took an arm and gently hauled me to my feet. It was a real challenge for Brother Ed because he could only use one hand. Brent had set and wrapped his two busted fingers in an ace bandage, immobilizing them. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.

  “Listen for a minute,” I said, looking toward Jason. “You’re right. We have to get on the road. I shouldn’t have kept us here so long. Kilgore is coming after us. I don’t know when or if he will find us, but he is coming.” I had trouble meeting his eyes for a minute, but I needed just a little more time. “Since we did stay and Brent thinks this procedure might work, I’m asking for one more day. Okay?”

  Jason looked at me, and I could see relief in his expression. We were going to rejoin our quest just like he wanted. Just like we needed to, but he gave me the time I asked for when he nodded his head. I was glad to have that over. He had been right all along, but my concern for Kara had been overwhelming. Someday, I’d really have to take the time to apologize to him, but first, I’d have to live that long, and second, I wanted to see how Kara was doing.

  “Help me inside,” I said. “I want to see Kara.”

  They had to nearly carry me into the house and back to a bedroom on the first floor. When we entered, Brent stood beside a bed, and Kara lay in it under a white sheet. Her face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and dark circles sat under her eyes, looking like someone had painted them there for a stage production, heavy and dark.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “As good as can be expected,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “No, not an ideal thing to have done to you, but...” I started, but she cut me off.

  “I don’t want to hear it’s for the best. Or it’s for my own good. I hate these...this idea of things in my body. It’s disgusting.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Kara always had that resilient “can-do” attitude. I saw none of that in her response.

  Of course, it didn’t help that I felt the last vestiges of the vision hangover weighing me down. I didn’t think a smart remark was appropriate, so I reached for Kara, but she did something she had never done. She brushed my hand aside and looked away from me.

  This was getting dark. I said a quick prayer, but then as it normally was, the apocalypse turned out to be a jealous mistress.

  The sound of fast-moving footsteps filtered our way, and I turned my head toward the doorway. A moment later, Naveen’s face appeared around the side of the door. Her face was contorted into an expression of fear.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  It took her a second, but she said, “A man with a rifle just passed by the back window. When I looked, I saw two more by the garage.”

  I was already too late.

  Chapter 18

  Aftershock

  A bullet can travel around 2,500 feet per second. A flat piece of metal broken away from an exploding propane tank can move about that fast if not faster. After that piece of metal bounces off the ground and then off the hood of a truck, it’s traveling at around half that rate. Still, it can move faster than anyone can react, and when that piece of metal impacts the human body, it can pack a powerful punch.

  When it comes down to practical terms, the small piece of metal, ruptured free from the tank, was traveling damn fast. Faster than the eye could see. It bounced off the grass and then ricocheted off the hood of the truck and flew on a collision course toward Russell’s head. Instinctively, he had started to duck down just after pulling the trigger, but he had stayed an extra second, just out of curiosity.

  They say curiosity killed the cat. Russell could not be considered a cat, but curiosity came back to bite him in the worst way.

  Jo saw Russell’s body jerk backward in her peripheral vision, but couldn’t react to it due to the overwhelming effects of the explosion. The sound of it was nearly deafening as a concussive shockwave rolled over them. The sheer intensity of its brightness overwhelmed her eyes after operating mostly in darkness in the past few hours, causing her to have to close them. The wave of heat came next, making the air around her feel brittle and oven-like. The heat was followed by flying debris as dirt, twigs, wood from the barn, and pieces of metal peppered the other side of the truck with a dust cloud whooshing over and past them like a wave.

  Flames leaped into the air like the tentacles of a giant octopus, whipping at the night sky as if trying to subdue the darkness. The barn was nearly obliterated, with what was left of it on fire. Large sections of grass in the area blazed with small fires. Birds and other day creatures, shocked from their slumber, bolted out of the area in terror, heading for anywhere but there.

  Jo broke free from her stupor and looked to where she had seen Russell fall back. He was on his back, not moving. Although the details of his body and his face were bleached yellow and orange by the brightness of the flames, she could make out blood coursing down his face.

  Seeing and reacting were two different things. The concussive force of the blast had nearly rendered her insensate, but she fought through it and stumbled toward him, nearly falling down. She remained upright but was shaky on her feet. He was only two steps away, which made it easier.

  She fell down beside him and yelled his name. Her voice barely made an impression on Del and Jones, who were still huddled in next to the truck, oblivious to what had happened to Russell due to the aftereffects of the blast and the roar of the ensuing fire.

  “Russell!” she yelled. “Are you alright?”

  Madison was the second of their group to notice Russell splayed out on the ground, and she crawled over beside Jo as she knelt over him. What she saw made her heart sink. The top of Russell’s head was a mask of blood, covering his forehead and eyes.

  Expecting the worst, Madison felt her eyes fill with tears. She had lost her dad then her mother and her brother, leaving her an orphan. Joel and Kara had taken her in, but they were in parts unknown, so far away, she might as well have been on her own again.

  “Is he…is he….” she started to say but was unable to complete the question.

  Jo finally braved touching Russell as she reached down to check the pulse on his neck. The fire burned furiously behind them, and the flames cast long shadows along the ground. The shadow from the truck covered most of Russell’s torso.

  Just as her fingers touched Russell’s neck, his eyes popped open and stood out in stark contrast to the dark color of the blood, startling Jo. She pushed back from him and rammed into Madison, knocking her over.

  A quick question filled Jo’s head, certainly, he couldn’t have transitioned into a zombie that quickly, could he?

  She reached down to her holster to retrieve her gun when Russell gasped out, “What happened?” His voice seemed somewhat unfocused, the words coming out mushy and indistinct.

  Relief flooded over Jo and Madison, but they still had what could have been a seriously injured friend on their hands. Jo went into motion.

  It was at that time that Jones and Del took notice. Until then, they had
been transfixed on the explosion and the aftermath, watching the flames and burning debris in a way that 4th of July crowds view fireworks, fascinated and a little afraid. Both of them stood by the back of the truck, and Jones was the first to turn around and see the situation with Russell. Jones grabbed Del’s arm, getting his attention. Two seconds later, both of them were over to Jo, Madison, and the prone Russell.

  “What happened to Russell?” Del asked, having to yell over the roar of the fire.

  Jo pivoted back to Jones and Del and said, “He must have been hit by debris.”

  “Russell, can you hear me?” she asked when she turned her attention back to him.

  It took Russell several seconds before he nodded his head slightly. His eyes were closed again as the blood oozed down over them.

  “How badly are you hurt?” Jo asked.

  Again, Russell was slow to respond. “I don’t know. I took the shot, then I was on the ground.”

  “Were you hit by something from the explosion?” she asked.

  “I think so. My head is killing me and there’s all that blood,” he said, but his voice was shaky. “How bad does it look?”

  She didn’t want to say how bad it looked, so instead, she lied. “Not too bad.” She paused as she did a visual inspection, not wanting to touch any tender or wounded areas. “The blood seems to be coming from the top of your head. Is that where it hurts the most?”

  “Yes, and the back of my head, too.”

  Jo turned to Jones and Del and said, “Get my backpack. I have some first aid supplies.”

  Del was the first to move and made it to the truck and back with Jo’s backpack in less than thirty seconds. She took it, unzipped it, and scrambled through the backpack until she pulled out a plastic case with a white shield with a red cross on it. She popped the case open and extracted some gauze and went to work cleaning the blood off Russell’s face. With the amount of blood, she quickly went through several gauze bandages, but she did get most of the blood out of his eyes and off his forehead.