by R. J. Spears
Del’s voice came on quickly, “Do not come here. Do not.” The heavy sound of gunfire could be heard under his words. “Please, kid, stay where you are. We may not make it out of here ourselves.” Two loud shots came over walkie-talkie, and it was easy to tell that Del had just fired on someone.
“Don’t come here and don’t call back,” Del said. “Take care of each other.” The walkie-talkie went silent. Madison tried four times to get through to Del again, but he didn’t respond.
The sounds of more shots filtered their way. It sounded like an all-out barrage of bullets.
“We can’t wait here forever,” Madison finally said. “Maybe I should go on without you.”
“Del said for us not to come,” he said.
“But they need us. If you wuss out, then I’m going on without you.”
“No, no, no,” Russell said, pushing himself off the ground while keeping his eyes shut. “You’re not going anywhere without me.” He barely held his sitting position, swaying back and forth noticeably.
“You can’t even walk,” Madison said, and there was a sharpness to her tone that Russell hadn’t heard before.
“Give me a minute,” Russell said back with equal amounts of heat.
“Our friends might not have a minute.”
He knew she was right, but how could they help if he couldn’t walk? And how could he let a barely teenage girl go fight without him? The answer to the second question was that he couldn’t. There had to be a way for him to get up there.
“Do you know how to drive?” he asked.
Madison took a moment to answer. “Mr. Schultz showed me a little bit about it.”
“What do you mean by a little?”
“He let me hold the wheel while he pressed the pedals.”
Russell let out a long stream of breath. “Do you even know how the pedals work?”
“A little.”
He wasn’t liking her answers, but another volley of shots sounded ahead of them. This time, it seemed like there was a heavy amount of fire, followed by a response of a few spaced-out shots. He wasn’t sure what that told them, but it probably meant that their friends were still alive. It didn’t sound good, though.
He opened his eyes, and Madison stood only a few feet away. There weren’t two of her this time, but it seemed like she was wrapped in a shimmering edge as if she was expanding.
“Go get the truck,” he said. “I think there’s a road over there.” He shot a thumb over his shoulder.
She didn’t hesitate and took off into the woods in the direction they had come from as he wondered if he had any business asking her to do anything. Maybe he could get up and head off toward the battle and leave her safely behind, but when he tried to stand, the world shook a little. He reached out a hand and found a tree trunk just a few inches away. It provided the support he needed to bolster himself back to his feet. The vertigo shifted inside his head and drifted away like the tide, but he still felt like the world was made of sand, slipping away under his feet.
Off in the distance, another set of shots were exchanged, and he started off in the direction of the logging road they had scouted out earlier. He used the trees for balance, putting out a hand to catch them as he staggered from one tree to another. He sort of felt like Tarzan, swinging above the jungle floor on vines, only he was earthbound.
Jo glanced at Jones as he moved along the ground, albeit very slowly. He pushed out his good leg and that moved him along like an earthworm, getting closer to the tree line, but at a glacial pace. Each inch seemed like an enormous amount of effort. Compounding his effort was the gunfire coming from the soldiers at the Manor.
She just had herself and Del, while they had a small army. While monitoring Jones’ progress and the soldiers firing at her, she also took peeks at the helicopters, knowing that if the soldiers got one of those in the air, they would be done for.
She wanted to move closer to Jones, perhaps to help him, but the soldiers had just concentrated their fire on the space she had been in, and she was now thirty yards to the left of that location. There had to be more than fifty yards between her and Jones. If she went out there, more than likely, she would end up like Jones or worse. Still, she hated the idea of leaving Jones in a no-man’s land, but there was nothing to do about it.
What she did know was that the narrow window of safety they were operating in was closing. They’d either be sending out more soldiers, armored vehicles, or get on their helicopters and head skyward. That would be the beginning of the end.
Russell moved from tree-to-tree, battling his dizziness and the darkness, while listening to the gunfire in the distance. As before, there was a brief set of shots followed by a much heavier response. He took a little encouragement that there were any shots being fired at all. An exchange meant that his friends were still alive, but he couldn’t imagine they would be for long if something didn’t change the playing field.
Movement and light coming out of the deep woods to the right caught his eyes. When he looked that way, he saw lights moving among the trees, sending flickering beams toward him. That didn’t help with his dizziness, so he looked at the ground and hoped it was Madison with the truck. Because, if it was the soldiers, he would be captured or dead soon. He put his faith in that it was Madison and plodded along for thirty more yards, using the trees for balance until he ran out of trees.
That left him on the side of the logging road that led back to the Manor.
More gunshots filtered in the moist air, but he decided to turn his focus toward the lights coming his way down the road. They certainly weren’t moving at a high rate of speed, bouncing up and down in the ruts in the dirt road, splashing light onto the trees.
The intensity of the beams forced Russell to shield his eyes with one of his hands, but he held out the other one in a gesture for Madison to stop. The lights brightened, and he could hear the truck’s engine rumbling as it got closer.
A terrible thought came to his mind. What if Old Man Schultz hadn’t shown her how to brake? That was followed by a quick concession to the fates, because if Old Man Schulz hadn’t, Russell was getting ready to be run over. He just didn’t have the equilibrium to make a mad dive out of the way in time.
A loud screeching sound came from the direction of the truck, followed by the sounds of tires skidding along on grass and dirt. This was when Russell closed his eyes entirely and prayed that God would stop the truck in time because the little girl driving didn’t look like she was going to make it happen.
Then the sliding sound stopped, and there was quick set of mechanical noises coming from the truck, then the engine settled into a rough idle.
Russell opened his eyes and peered at the truck, which had its front bumper sitting just inches from his knees. In the intensity of the lights, all Russell saw was a blocky outline. Then a figure stuck its head out of the outline.
“Hey, you getting in or not?” Madison said.
Russell braced himself on the side of the truck and moved around to the driver’s side door. “Sure, move over. I’m driving the rest of the way.”
Although it was dark inside the cab, Russell was sure he saw Madison’s shoulders fall, but he knew he wanted to be in the driver’s seat for what he was considering next.
Chapter 46
Visions on the Roadway
I took back streets to keep off the main road through town, just in case Kilgore had back-up transportation that I hadn’t counted on. Something inside me said no to this notion, but you never knew until you did and then, most likely, you were dead.
Of course, my little back door detour only worked for so long. The side streets that led northward would dump me on to a road that ran over to State Route 23, where I would be headed north. Route 23 was a wide open road, and the land around there was flat as a pancake. Once I was on it, I was out in the open and exposed. My choice was that or going off-road.
Off-roading meant going down paths overgrown with weeds and grass, which would be s
low going, and I had already been abandoned by Brother Ed once that day. But 23 would put me out in the open with no cover. If Kilgore and his goon squad found a new vehicle, there was very little I could do to prevent them from making roadkill out of me.
So, the question came down to speed or safety.
Being the reckless guy I was, I chose speed. That’s just the way I roll, I guess.
I pedaled furiously, not wanting to be left behind again, and while the breeze in my face was calming, I still despised biking. My backpack slapped against my back as did my rifle, along with my trusty baseball bat, tethered onto the side of the backpack. I sort of felt like a traveling salesman with all my products strapped on my back. To make matters worse, mosquitos and other nocturnal insects flew by my face, and a few slammed into it. One decided it really wanted to fly up my nose, but I rubbed it away.
This I found enormously annoying. Not only did I have to face off with the reality that a madman was intent on killing me and everyone I loved, plus a world of flesh eating zombies, but I had to deal with insects. Why I couldn’t put the bugs in perspective was beyond me, but we all have our burdens to bear.
Route 23 was coming up, and I was preparing for a wide turn to head north when God decided I needed to be paying attention to him and not my biking. (Although, I had always wondered what would happen if he sent me one of his little messages while I was driving a car.)
Anyway, one moment, I was gliding along, and the next, I was gone, whisked off to the world of visions. My vision-TV channel seemed to alternate between cryptic mono-messages, sort of like God’s version of text message, then ranging to cryptic full-color movie trailers of what horrible things were to come. Neither were truly reassuring.
This one was of the movie trailer-type, only of a single scene. My point of view is skewed as it looks upward at the sides of two tall buildings, each one spanning several stories. I can’t tell if it’s my point of view or that of a third person, but something tells me it is mine and I’m lying on the ground. How I know this I can’t explain, but you’ll have to go with me on this. I have experience with such things, and you don’t.
Anyway, I’m on the ground and, for some other unknown reason, I know I’m hurt and hurt badly. Maybe mortally, maybe not, but I’m not in good shape. Thrumming through my body is a dire sense of alarm, my head filled with fear and it is not for my own well-being but for Kara, Naveen, and Jason.
Sounds of gunfire fill the air. I try to lift my body off the ground, but it is as if a giant invisible hand is pushing down on me. Plus, my body screams back at me in pain.
Bones feel broken and muscles torn. I sense liquid coursing down parts of my body, and I know the liquid is blood. This is bad. Very bad.
A voice yells in the distance, and I know its Naveen’s. She is terrified, and I know something is after her. Something that wants to kill and eat her.
Hope is quickly leaving my body then, and I feel a sense of surrender overcoming me. It’s as if I know I will be free of my earthly pain and fear, and I will be transported away. A deep sense of relief washes over me. Letting go means peace and comfort. I feel my life essence ebbing out like the tide, only this tide will never come back in.
But then that very human part of me takes over. It still has some fight left in it, and with Naveen, Kara, and the others in trouble, I know I can’t give up. I have to fight or else they all will die.
So, I reach down deep and try to rise, but my body doesn’t really protest. It just gives up, and I fall back to the ground. Surrender gives way to resignation. I had done my best. It wasn’t good enough; it didn’t get the job done.
That fire down deep fought to break through the pain. Through the hopelessness. It wasn’t ready to sign off on this ending. It didn’t want to resign, but it wasn’t enough to get my broken and beaten body off the ground and never would be.
I felt tears coming from my eyes, mixing with the blood on my face, and I sensed that, no matter what, no matter what fight I might still have in me, the end was near, and I had failed.
My vision blurred, and then a figure moved into view, and this was quite a thing to behold. It was human or at least humanoid. It had arms, legs, and a head, but I sensed there was more to the being than met the eye.
It wore light armor that reminded me of a Roman centurion. There seemed to be a slight fiery glow emanating around its body, like an orange-red flame, but that wasn’t all. A luminescent glow came off its face and I could swear there was sort of a halo around its head. Its expression was concerned, yet confidant, a slight smile on its face. I got the sense that it was masculine, but its features were soft, with a feminine quality.
Did I mention that I think it had wings? Yeah. I think so, but I was pretty messed up.
I tried to talk to it, to ask it to help my friends and me, but my voice didn’t seem to work well. Instead, I emitted broken gasps and jagged croaks.
“Don’t try to talk, Joel,” it finally said, putting out a hand in a gesture for me to stay on the ground. Its voice wasn’t loud but seemed to echo in my head as if only I could hear it. To be honest, I’m not even sure it moved its lips.
I had to remember this was a vision and things were always sort of weird in them. So, I went with it, despite knowing that I was most likely dying in the vision, there was nothing to be done. I didn’t know if it foretold of tomorrow or a day years from now.
The being or man or whatever it was slowly leaned down over me, and an intense glow came off its hand. Just before its hand reached me, it said, “My name is Barry, and God sent me to help you.”
Well, you don’t hear that every day.
Just as it finished its sentence, its hand made contact with my chest, and I felt an intense warmth spread out from the area, spilling across my body. A white, yet soft, light started to fill the scene, blotting out the figure above me, and something told me that it didn’t come from the being. Instead, it conveyed that my little vision was coming to an end. The movie trailer was over, and it was time to return to normal programming.
Normal programming turned out to be a real bitch, though.
My eyes popped open, and I discovered that I was lying with my right cheek on a patch of gravel beside the road, and I was looking southward, back toward the town. Aches signaled back through my body, obviously as a result of me falling off my bike. A road rash stung my right elbow and knee.
I wondered why God hadn’t waited until I was stationary. But why ask why when it came to God? Maybe He thought it was the right timing. Who am I question why, anyway?
These questions were overruled in a hurry as I saw two shambling figures crossing the road toward me. Zombies. I sighed from within and took only a small bit of comfort that it wasn’t Kilgore and his men with their heavy weapons, ready to blow me into oblivion.
Still, if I were to go on, I’d have to deal with these undead bastards, but when I told my arms to push my face out of the gravel, they didn’t want to cooperate. It was as if they were made out of wet paper, having little or no strength at all. If that continued, I was going to be in serious trouble in about a minute. Maybe less.
My new friends were coming to the table and they were hungry, and I was the only thing on the menu.
Chapter 47
Safe for Now
The zombie clawed at the windowsill and pushed its warped head inside like a kid might do at a concession stand window, just to see what goodies lay inside. Something or someone had done a number on the side of its head. It was a wonder that it didn’t put the thing out of commission entirely, but zombies had proven to be resilient over time, taking on as much punishment as people could dish out and still kept coming for another bite of flesh.
The shape of the thing’s head looked like an inverted pear, only with a large groove down the side of its head. Everything on the other side of the head looked bulged out and misshapen, including its eyes. If it hadn’t been a zombie, it would have been disturbing, but it was, so it was just par for the course.
>
Whatever it looked like didn’t make a difference to Molly.
“Stay the hell out of here,” she shouted as she approached it. She swung her metal pipe right at its noggin, and that was it. When it connected with the thing’s skull, the dull light behind its bulged out eyes dimmed, and its arms went slack. It wobbled in the window for a moment then slid out of it, disappearing into the darkness at ground level.
“Are there any more of them out there?” Mrs. Hatcher asked, maintaining a safe distance from the window.
Molly took a tentative step toward the window and peered out into the parking out then turned to check out the cornfield behind the school. “No, that’s all for now.”
Doc Wilson had dragged Ellen far away from the window to the far side of the room. Ellen’s face was ashen as each breath sent ripples of pain through her body. Henry leaned against a school desk for balance but still held the mop handle, ready for whatever might come through the window, grateful that Molly had proven to be a real zombie killing machine.
“What do we do now?” Mrs. Hatcher asked.
“First order of business is getting out of this room,” Doc Wilson said. “We’re not safe here as long as those windows are gone. Henry, can you help me with your mom?”
Henry looked like he might fall over at any moment, but he used the mop handle to stabilize his shaky gait. With Doc Wilson’s help, they got in beside Ellen and bolstered her up.
“But what about after that?” Mrs. Hatcher asked.
“With those helicopters in the air, we can’t go anywhere,” he responded.
“So, we’re fucking stuck here?” Molly asked. “Great. The cafeteria has ten cans of beanie-weenies left and a lot of moldy, stale bread.”
“Can you watch the language?” Mrs. Hatcher asked, not looking Molly in the eye.
Molly gave Mrs. Hatcher the finger. The older woman just looked away.
