by Flacco, Jack
“Listen to me, Matty. This isn’t about you and me anymore. We have a job to do and I’m here to make sure we get it done. Get up and get in the pickup.”
Jon looked at Randy, never having seen him so serious with his sister before.
“Are you two going to sit and stare at me all night or are you going do what I say?” Randy pulled his gun and fired a shot at one of the eaters reaching for Jon who sat near the south gate.
They didn’t need the lecture. Matty and Jon rose from having escaped the claws of the chewers behind the fence and ran to the pickup. Ranger had parked the SUV near the west fence, but Ranger didn’t want Randy to grab that vehicle, as it would have been too dangerous to retrieve it with the zombies swarming from the north.
Studying the south gate, Randy spotted the two canisters on either side, placed there by Matty herself, and got the same idea she had. He sprinted to the pickup where Matty and Jon sat in the cab. From behind the driver’s side door, he shot the canisters. They erupted in a blaze, igniting the undead standing anywhere near the gate. Flames bathed the crowd as more and more chewers swallowed the rage of the fire cleansing them of their iniquity.
Without waiting around, Randy hopped inside, started the truck with the keys from the visor and tore through the compound until he reached the side of the cabin where Ranger waited.
“Get to Olivia and Abigail.” Ranger said, pulling Silver into the back of the truck.
Randy and Matty nodded and took off for the cabin door while Jon stayed behind helping Ranger.
“Jon, I need the duffle bag under the driver’s seat.” Ranger propped Silver the ragdoll on the pickup’s bed.
“Right.” Jon said then made a run for it to the passenger side of the truck.
In the meantime, the east fence where the heavy wooden table formed a blockade bulged with eaters. The table shook. The table trembled. And the table toppled over with the undead once again having breached the fence.
“Jon, hurry!” Ranger said, then placed a rag under Silver’s head so that he wouldn’t bump his head on the remaining four gas canisters sitting in the back.
Jon dove under the passenger seat of the truck but couldn’t find any duffle bag. He was thinking Ranger might have made a mistake. Then again, Ranger planned for everything and this could have been an exit strategy just in case he couldn’t get back to his SUV. It wouldn’t be the first time Ranger had a Plan B. He dug his hand under the seat but he kept pulling at nothing. There was nothing there.
“Jon? Do you have it?”
Jon didn’t answer. He slid his hand under further until he felt something leathery. His eyes grew wider and a smile appeared on his face as he dragged a small black bag from under the seat. It wasn’t a duffle bag at all, as Ranger had said but more of a satchel that someone would have taken on a trip to the beach. He shot to his feet and pitched it to Ranger.
“Duck.” Ranger said.
“What?’ Jon asked.
“I said, duck.” Ranger pulled a grenade from the satchel and tossed it at the east fence. He thought he’d use it for their exit, but plans had changed. The grenade landed behind the table where seconds later it unleashed hell. The explosion ripped apart dead sinew and muscle to rain parts on the ground beyond the table. The table caught fire and prevented half of the undead mess from moving forward while a few didn’t take a hint and dragged their evil paws along the compound to meet Ranger’s shotgun blast.
* * *
When Randy and Matty reached the door of the cabin, they stormed the entry not suspecting anything may have been wrong. Yet when they saw the broken side window and green blood spilled on the floor from the glass shards left in the pane, they scanned the trail of blood together to find where it led.
Three eaters were finishing off Olivia as she shook on the cold floor, convulsing.
Without a thought to hold them back, the teens let loose volley after volley of gunfire at the undead, spilling their life everywhere. The blood trickled a path into the cracks between the floorboards. They lay without movement. No breath. No color. Dead.
The teens raced to the end of the cabin where Olivia lay, having died along with the rest of them. Pieces of her were everywhere.
The next thing to pop into Matty’s head was the same question Randy had in his. Where was Abigail? They saw her mother lying on the floor but didn’t see Abigail. Where could she have gone?
“Abigail. Are you here? Abigail.” Randy said.
No response.
“Abigail. Where are you?”
Matty knew too well Olivia would have never wanted anything to happen to her daughter. She walked to the bed in the corner, pulled the sheets, but the girl wasn’t there.
“We have to go.” Randy said, reloading his gun.
“Give me a minute.” Her gaze scanned the bed and noticed the pillow missing. She was quick to add things together without much trouble. She dipped to her knees and looked under the bed, the most obvious place where she would have hidden. Still, Abigail wasn’t there.
“Matty.” Randy pulled her arm. “We have to go.”
Yet, she wouldn’t put up with his crap, breaking loose from his grip, popping to her feet to stare at him nose to nose. “I said, give me a minute.”
The last place anyone would have thought to look, she looked. Matty lifted the mattress and found the pillow at the head of the bunk and Abigail in the center, breathing heavily. Matty extended her hand. “C’mon, we have to go.”
“My mom?” Abigail’s frail voice broke.
“Don’t look. Take my hand.” Matty covered the little girl’s eyes and lifted her to her feet where her tiny shoes landed in a puddle of red and green.
As Randy led the way to the door, another set of chewers burst through the window with the same famished look he’d seen in so many of the others he had killed. This was no exception. He fired his shots and blew apart two skulls. His walk changed to a saunter after having seen how he’d beaten yet another set of screwballs. He couldn’t help himself when even he got into the act and screamed, “Argh!”
The noise from the guns and the screaming had attracted more zombies than the kids could handle. The door burst open with two more pressing forward at Randy with no sense of what was about to happen. Even Randy didn’t know what he was about to do.
“Randy. Stop!” Matty held Abigail in her arms.
“What did you want me to do? Stare at them hoping they would go away?” He said, then picked up one of the chairs and slammed it against the first of the undead that dared to intrude on the teens’ escape. Randy pummeled it, spraying emerald over the floor, furniture and himself. When he was done, heaving his breath, he charged the second and crashed the chair to topple it on the zombie. Once on the floor, Randy ground one of the chair’s legs into the undead face.
“Are you done? Can we now leave?” Matty asked.
Blood dripping from one of its legs, Randy tossed the chair on the floor. “Yeah. I’m done.”
* * *
As the fire from the grenade burned the east fence to the ground, the eaters that had stormed the compound from the north had attacked the residents guarding the west. The residents were facing the fence firing rounds into the crowd on the other side when the eaters ripped into their shoulders. Some of them had fallen at the feet of the zombies while others found themselves with undead arms wrapped around their necks. They fell one at a time, meals for the chewers.
The children and mothers hid in the cabins at the far side of the compound, but they too couldn’t escape the wrath of the approaching horde. The crowd stormed the cabins from every side, breaking windows, slipping in, tearing down doors and pummeling barricades. No one was safe as the brain mashers made their way inside to remove all signs of life from the cabins.
The west fence, the one thing the residents defended with their lives, came crashing down. Once the horde had taken over the firing line, nothing could hold back the destruction from their hands.
Kyle, the man tha
t had greeted Ranger and brought him and the kids into the compound, didn’t surrender. Belly rippers dragged toward him but his shots blasted holes through their heads. He had a chance at escaping. He didn’t take it. He wanted to kill as many of the draggers as he could before he went down on his own.
His gun swung left and fired. It swung right and fired. He twisted on his heel to blast a roamer that sneaked behind him and blasted another one soon after. A big smile grew on his face, as did a big pile of undead meat at his feet. He enjoyed putting a dent on the crowd, and his hands enjoyed the thrill of the vibration from every shot.
Yet, it didn’t last as long as he had hoped. His gun discharged its final shot and he had nothing left other than to use the butt as a baseball bat. From then on, whatever came near him received a pistol whipping to its face. He didn’t think they could have surround him, though. Yet that was what they did. The circle around him grew tighter and smaller until undead hands reached for his throat. They gripped it and dragged him to the ground. The circle was no more.
Kyle was no more.
* * *
Having hopped into the front seat of the pickup, Jon closed the door as he watched everything that went on around him. The fire from the grenade charred the table that had held the chewers in place. He stared out the back window to see Ranger propping Silver against the gas canisters lying on the pickup’s bed. He didn’t see Sunglow and was afraid to ask what had happened to her. Then he wondered if she died, just how different had her demise had been from any of the others that had joined their group and met a similar fate.
All Jon could do was sit in the passenger seat and stare at his knife. He then saw the green blood on its blade and screamed. He tossed the knife on the floor of the pickup and jumped on his seat. The fighting, the death and the darkness of the last several moments made him realize how fragile a life he possessed. He tore away from his thoughts and went back to watching Ranger.
Outside on the bed of the pickup, the intense heat from the flames nearby caused Ranger to soak his shirt with water that oozed from his back. He jostled Silver a few more times to make him comfortable, being careful of the teen’s sprained foot. Ranger hoped Silver could walk again, but somehow he knew the answer. He didn’t have to worry about him. The kid was resilient enough.
As the fire kept the undead out from the east fence, Matty and Randy appeared from the corner of Ranger’s eye. He saw them but didn’t immediately recognize them. He pulled his gun thinking they were the other things he didn’t want to have to deal with again.
“Stop! It’s us, Ranger.” Matty said, carrying Abigail from the cabin.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Randy said. “I killed a handful of those rot sacks and I’m sure there’re more of them heading our way.”
“Where’s Olivia?” Ranger asked.
“She’s dead.” Matty said. “Make room.”
Ranger jumped from the pickup and lifted Matty inside. He followed her in to grab Abigail from her grip and set her next to Silver.
“Where’s Sunglow?” Randy asked.
“She’s dead.” Ranger answered with the same coldness Matty had given him.
Randy stood frozen in place and dropped his head. He didn’t realize Matty was watching his reaction. He didn’t know what effect Sunglow’s death would have had on him. He just stood there staring at the floor of the pickup without a saying a word.
“Snap out of it and get your ass in the cab.” Ranger shook Randy. “Are you listening to me?”
Tossing the shock from his head of having lost Sunglow, Randy ran into the cab, pushing Jon aside and slamming the door shut without uttering a word.
“Matty, I have to count on you to hold Silver and Abigail in place. We’re gonna have a rough ride out of here, and I want the least of my worries to be pickin’ y’all out from the side of the road ‘cause you ain’t holdin’ tight. Got that?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
No sooner had Ranger said the words that eaters burst from the flames of the east fence and charged the pickup.
“Ranger!” Matty screamed.
Two of the undead crashed against the truck, denting the side. Another two were on their way.
Without thinking, Ranger pulled his knife and plunged it into the face of the first, cracking its skull. It bled all over inside the truck. When he ripped out the knife, it fell to a puddle on the ground. The second met a similar fate. Ranger stabbed it under the jaw and it collapsed without having committed any injuries whatsoever. Ranger took it to mean it was time for everyone in the truck to leave.
He quickly shuffled his feet from the bed of the pickup to the ground. As he was closing the hatch, the other two chewers raced toward him with a foul look on their drawn faces. They weren’t about to die like their brothers. They were going to grab a piece of the zombie slayer regardless of what he could do to them.
The first jumped Ranger’s back and sank its teeth into his shoulder. Ranger twisted and turned but couldn’t get rid of it. The second dove for his legs. All it could do was bite his boots, which didn’t provide the satisfaction the eater was searching.
Swinging around several times, Ranger slammed his back against the hatch as the first zombie screamed in agony from the impact. The second scaled Ranger’s leg sinking its teeth as it went along, wanting to chew on a bit of meat.
In all this, Matty shook her head then said. “We don’t have time for this.”
A shot from her gun blasted open the first zombie’s head all over Ranger. He dumped its body on the ground. The second zombie met with Ranger’s boot, and that was the end of that.
Cleaning himself up with a rag from the back of the pickup, Ranger tossed it and darted for the driver’s seat. He dove in, turned over the engine, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Not now!” Ranger pounded the dash.
He tried again and it started without a problem. Once he slipped the transmission into gear, Jon who sat next to him, and Randy who sat next to the window sighed in relief. Ranger swung the truck around and headed to the south gate as the flames from the canister explosions burned everything in its wake, and nothing stood dragging its feet in the way of Ranger’s pickup.
He crashed through the gate amid a blaze of fire, disappearing into the woods with Matty holding on to Silver and Abigail in the back.
Chapter 17
Ranger had parked the pickup overnight by a stream with the glorious view of a mountain at the foot of it. Inside the cab, Randy slept in the driver’s seat while Abigail leaned on Matty in the passenger’s seat. Ranger had decided it would have been safer for everyone if he sat watch in the back of the truck while Silver dozed. Jon didn’t need instructions. He was leaning on Ranger throughout the night with a single blanket between them to keep them warm.
The sun’s rays peaked over the mountain and blessed the pickup with a golden shower of warmth. The stream nearby sounded peaceful.
Randy’s eyes cracked slightly open allowing the morning to have its say. Without catching the sight of the mountain, he jerked around in a frenzy not knowing where he was. He thought he was back at the compound fighting the undead. After seeing Abigail next to him though, he sucked a breath of air and let it go slowly. He was safe.
In the back, Silver woke up sitting next to the gas canisters wondering what he was doing there. He undid the blanket covering him and massaged his neck from the strain of having leaned his head on the side of the truck. He grimaced after moving his leg. The morning provided enough light to examine his foot from where the pain originated. He pulled it closer, feeling it for breaks with his hands. His ears filled with Ranger’s snoring, which somehow comforted him knowing that if Ranger could sleep, then they must have been safe.
He couldn’t feel a break, but his face contorted a few times when he put pressure on the side. He wondered if he could walk on it.
Crawling from the back of the truck, hair tousled, dirt on his face, Silver quietly eased the hatch open and slid to the edge. This
was the big test. He gently placed his feet on the ground and stood on them. Other than two or three jolts of pain running up his leg, he smiled knowing he could stand on them. He tried walking from the truck to the stream. He limped, but it was nothing that he couldn’t tolerate. Resting in the back all night helped with the healing.
He soon crouched at the foot of the stream and dipped his left hand in the water. Tasting it, his face brightened with color. It was sweet to the palate. He dunked both hands this time, drawing a huge gulp. Without waiting, he sank his head into the stream and splashing waves all over his face and neck. He hadn’t had fresh water in ages. The sweetness must have melted from the mountain cap nearby. He enjoyed every moment, smiling then laughing.
Inside the cab, Randy was spying on Silver. A partial smile moved across his lips seeing how Silver was feeling better and enjoying the downtime.
He wasn’t the only one. Silver had made such a ruckus with his hooting and hollering that even Ranger and Jon were leaning over the side of the truck with smiles on their faces.
The boys all had the same thought. It was good to be in a place where they didn’t have to worry about anyone or anything interfering with their lives.
* * *
Later that morning, while Matty sat on a rock drying Abigail’s hair from a quick dip in the stream, the boys had built a fire behind them to cook Randy’s catch of the day. The fish smelled delicious. The smoke spilling from the burning wood was going to give breakfast an added jolt of flavor, but for now, they were content sitting around the fire watching Randy cook.
“Sunglow once said she never could understand why people treated each other so bad.” Silver said, drying his T-shirt by the fire. “She always loved hearing stories about what others had done to help.”
“I spoke with Sunglow a couple of times,” Randy said. “She believed people had a knack for killing one another. She used to say killing’s in their heart. She hated it and wanted to make a difference. Too bad she didn’t get the opportunity to do that.”
