American Revenant (Short Story 2): Dead South

by John L. Davis IV

  “Come on Matthew, get it together. Shit or get off the pot, dumbass.” Needing a dose of courage, he began to whisper, “Matt Hew strode next to his trusted steed, the Bone-Side horse named for the hard plates that grew along its sides. The two wended their way through the deserted streets of the ancient city. The reek of Cothak Tah and his minions wafted upon the breeze, cloying in its repulsiveness”

  He rolled the bike forward, each step hesitant. Block by block he moved forward, until he could see his house at the corner of 3rd and Richey. It was a small, simple house, white with red shutters, its lawn now tall and ragged.

  From the corner of an eye that was heavy with tears he caught movement, or the shadow of movement.

  He whipped his head around, a faint tinkling noise came from the next street over. A large cat darted beneath a bush, its collar jangling. A lone shuffler followed; focused intently on its diminutive prey.

  When the zombie came close to the bush, the cat hissed and darted off again, leading the dead thing on a chase that Matthew found mildly comical.

  Matthew watched as the zombie followed the cat, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, until he turned back to look at the house he once shared with his mother and sister, and sometimes his dad when he wasn’t deployed, which seemed like always.

  Following the path of the cat and chasing zombie, a herd of the dead came shuffling through. The sound of their feet was like a low windy rumble. Matthew stood still, his eyes growing wider as the massive herd moved through.

  Then zombies began to pour out between the houses, from around his house. He realized then that the herd of the dead was so large that it was pushing out from the street, forcing its way into the surrounding homes and overgrown lawns as it came through; a seemingly unending march of devouring death.

  He began to back away slowly. Matthew gripped the handle-bars of the bike so tightly that his knuckles throbbed.

  The herd appeared not to notice him, veering around the houses and back toward the main group following after the cat with the jangling collar.

  All because of a damn cat, he thought.

  Moving barely a step every few seconds, Matthew inched away, waiting for the perfect moment to jump onto the bicycle and flee.

  That moment came and went when the back tire found a small pot-hole in the cracked street. The tire bumped down into it, the racks with the milk-crate bounced and rattled and the tributary of the flowing herd turned toward him as if they were of one mind, decrepit necks cracking with the suddenness of the motion.

  The weighted moan of the crowd lifted, shaking the air. Matthew almost believed he could feel the groaning deep in his bones.

  “Well, damn it,” he muttered.

  The herd was still twenty-five yards away when Matthew spun and mounted his bike in one fluid motion, left leg flinging out, up and over. He kicked off hard with his right, sending the bicycle forward, and began pumping the pedals with everything he had.

  “Stupid, stupid to come back here,” he muttered into the wind, chastising himself for the overly-emotional decision. His heart raced as hard as his legs pushed, and he hurried back up Richey Street, rapidly outpacing the horde behind him.

  “Go up New Roads Street, turns into Ferry Road; get back out on the highway.” Thinking aloud, he planned his route, hoping to avoid the denser areas of the small town.

  Taking Ferry Road back out to Morganza highway would leave him several miles further from home, but on what he believed to be a safer route getting there.

  Matthew could feel a thick sob building in his chest and he fought it, unwilling to allow himself to succumb to the dark emotion of self-pity. Tears shimmered in his eyes, trickling over. Matthew convinced himself it was just the wind.

  He continued pushing hard, standing on the pedals as he rode up Ferry Road leaving the hungry horde behind. Just as he settled back onto the seat, he saw that several stalled and one flipped vehicle were blocking most of the street.

  A narrow path between a stone fence and the cars left just enough room to push the bike through. Matthew couldn’t bring himself to trust it. “Don’t even try to skirt that,” he muttered.

  Barely slowing, Matthew guided the bike to the right, turning down Singletary Street. He knew this would come to East 12th, a short street that connected to Bayou Run Drive. He would take that north, rejoin Ferry Road and from there it would only be a couple of miles to reach the highway.

  Barreling down Singletary Street, Matthew easily avoided the few straggling dead wandering the area.

  He slowed to take the narrow corner onto East 12th Street. He caught movement from the corner of his eye and jerked hard to the left. The front tire dropped into a pothole, snatching the handlebars from his hands and throwing him from the bicycle, which dropped with a clatter. He jumped up quickly, ignoring the scraped palms and sharp jabbing pain in his left elbow.

  Past a row of shrubs that had once been well-tended and were now wildly overgrown the form that had caught his eye charged directly at him. It took him a second to realize that the form was a girl, and she was yelling. The sight of another living human being was unsettling. It had been some time since Matthew had seen anyone other than his own reflection.

  “Run, run, they’re coming!”

  Matthew darted for the bike. He grabbed the handlebars, got the bike upright and mounted it fluidly. “Come on, get on the back!” He indicated the pegs sticking out from each side of the rear wheels.

  The girl ran up, placed her hands on his shoulders and hopped onto the pegs. Matthew pushed hard, struggling to get the bicycle moving with the added weight of another person behind him. He grunted, pushed, got his feet on the pedals and pumped, feeling the muscles in his legs burn.

  He heard voices shouting behind him but dared not look back. Though he could barely make out the words they were yelling, he knew those behind him were not undead. They were living, breathing men. And that made it worse.

  Even though the girl’s breath was hot and heavy on his neck it made his skin prickle with chills.

  4

  Matthew sucked air, his legs burning with effort. Sweat soaked his hair and dripped down into his eyes, stinging; still he pedaled. He was up Bayou Run Drive and turning right onto Ferry Road in minutes. It was just over a mile to the Louisiana highway 10 which became Morganza Highway. He made this short run in less than five minutes.

  Stopping the bike at the intersection, Matthew leaned to the side, careful not to let the girl’s weight drag them over, and vomited on the blacktop. He wiped his mouth, took several deep breaths, and leaned over the handle bars. Sweat dripped freely from the dark brown mop of his hair and over his face. He swiped at his mouth and face with the hem of his shirt.

  “Don’t stop, please, don’t stop. They’ll keep coming. If they find us they’ll kill us.”

  Matthew glanced over his shoulder at the girl, who still stood on the pegs, knees pressed against the milk crate. She looked uncomfortable hunched over the crate and his bag, trying to hold on to him.

  “Gimme a second, will you? I’m not a Terminator. I have to catch my breath.”

  “You won’t have any breath left to catch if they get ahold of us, dude!” Her blue eyes were wide and swimming with terror.

  “Ok, ok, I’ll go. Hang on, jeez.” Matthew, already exhausted, his mouth bitter from vomiting, pushed off, sending the bike forward.

  “Hurry up, damn it! You need to keep going. Those people have an old car they got running again. They’re gonna catch us!”

  Matthew, exasperated, yelled into the wind, “I can’t go any faster, and if they come after us I know some shortcuts, but for now I’m staying on the highway, it’s easier. I don’t need you yelling into my ear every two freaking seconds telling me to hurry up!”

  “But they…we…” The girl stammered.

  Turning his head to be sure she heard him, Matthew shouted, “I get it, they’re bad and we need to get away but it won’t do any good to push until I pass out, you k
now! Just hang on, and let me get us home.”

  “Fine, just go!”

  Matthew felt the bike jerk every few seconds, and he took a guess that the unnamed girl was surreptitiously checking over her shoulder.

  From the intersection where Matthew stopped to vomit to the long curve where LA 10 became Morganza Highway, was almost two and a half miles. Matthew pedaled easily, not pushing hard, still feeling the deep burn in his thigh muscles.

  The curve ahead indicated that he was ten miles from the junkyard. Ten long miles from home with another person clinging to him on the back of his bike, possibly being pursued by faceless bad guys in a car.

  Matthew leaned forward and pedaled, passing the intersection that he first took toward New Roads.

  Both he and the girl looked as they cruised by, heads turning, looking for both zombies and men in a car. Matthew took a deep breath and blew it out hard once they were past.

  Minutes later they passed a feed and supply store on the right. Up ahead was a Chevron gas station. Matthew mentally noted that he should come back and check it for batteries when there was time.

  Matthew jerked the handlebars slightly when the girl gasped directly into his ear. At nearly the same moment he heard the rough roar of an old motor. He risked a glance back as he passed the Chevron station.

  The car was a make and model that Matthew didn’t recognize, though it was easy to see, even at a distance, that it was rusty steel with added pieces bolted to the hood and sides, like something from a vaguely remembered movie that he wasn’t supposed to watch. He half-expected a furious woman wearing face-paint and waving a weapon cobbled together from car parts and junk to lean out of the window and begin shouting at him. The car roared and rumbled as it picked up speed after making the turn from New Roads onto Morganza Highway.

  “Oh God, they’re going to catch us!”

  Mathew’s right ear rang with the girl’s screaming. He shoved at the pedals, his tired legs already beginning to protest painfully with the sudden exertion.

  “Just hold tight!”

  Matthew stood on the pedals, and ignored the roar of the car. He angled to the left side of the highway, keeping his eyes forward. Over the rush of the wind and the rumble of the car he shouted, “Let me know when they’re about a car length away!”

  “What are you doing?”

  Matthew was certain that he would be half deaf before the day was over, with the girl screaming right into his ear every time she spoke.

  “Those creeps are gonna catch us in a hurry! I’ve got to buy us an extra minute or two!”

  The car closed in quickly, its engine winding up to the deep and throaty roar of a dragon ready to devour its prey.

  Though he didn’t know it, the girl came close to vomiting down Matthew’s back when she saw the gory spectacle of the car up close.

  Hanging from spikes that had been bolted to the hood of the car, thick streamers of flesh and bloody intestine flapped violently, creating strange, almost ethereal patterns on the hood and windshield as the slipstream pulled it back and over the car. The lower half of a torso and legs hung from the bumper. She could see the feet drumming the highway as the car drug it along, almost pulling it underneath.

  Behind blood-streaked glass the girl could just make out the grinning faces of four people, two in front and two in the back seat. The front passenger stuck his arm out the window and flipped her the finger.

  “It’s close! Maybe two car-lengths away!”

  Matthew sucked air, his lungs burning as if he had been holding his breath under water. “Listen, we’re about to make a hard turn really fast! Hang on tight and lean with me!

  “Hey, dude, what the hell are you doing!”

  Matthew shouted back, “Airport Road!” He curved to the right sharply without slowing. He could feel the bike begin to lean too far to the right and he leaned against it, the girl shouting in his ear as she shifted her weight.

  “Oh God!”

  The car blew past right behind the bike. The sound of squealing brakes and burning rubber filled the air for a moment.

  Matthew fought the bike, bringing it fully upright and pointing it down the narrow lane of Airport Road. He stood on the pedals again, driving them down like his legs were pistons. The bicycle rocketed forward, rushing past the Crop Production Services building and lot.

  “You’re going to kill us both before those psychos have a chance! Jesus, dude!”

  “Name’s Matthew, not Jesus, and you can thank me later!”

  Tires squealed and Matthew knew that the people in the car were following again.

  “Here they come!”

  “You can stop screaming in my damn ear!”

  The False River Regional airport came into view, and Matthew pushed harder, struggling to reach the tiny airport before the car caught up to them.

  His only thought was to get onto the airport grounds and force the people in the car into giving chase on foot. That or they could plow through the fortified chain-link fencing. Either way, Matthew had the advantage. He could maneuver easier than the car between the hangars and service buildings, and if they went on foot, he could outpace them easily.

  Though he wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on pedaling.

  “Gonna… try to… get us… into the… airport!” He sucked hard breaths between bursts of words.

  Matthew had spent some time over the past three years exploring the area around him, always marking out things on maps or making notes on locations of possible supplies for the future. In these meandering scavenging runs he had discovered that one of the single walk-through gates in the airport fencing had been left unlocked. In his mind he attributed that to forgetfulness on the part of someone who thought they could escape by plane, even though most all electrical systems had been killed by the EMP. Then most of the people had been killed by the resurrected dead.

  Matthew blew past the small main building of the tiny regional airport, skidding to a stop in front of the large sliding gate. The wide rolling gate itself was controlled by a long-dead electronic locking system.

  Next to the main gate was a man-sized chain link door, a lift catch held the gate closed, though Matthew knew the lock was gone.

  He skidded to a stop, throwing the girl forward into his back. “Off, off!” he yelled.

  The car was less than a hundred feet away, and it didn’t seem to Matthew as if the driver was going to slow down.

  The girl had jumped off the bike and held it upright while Matthew pawed at the latch, lifted it and swung the creaking door wide.

  “Go, go, hurry!”

  The girl took two steps, almost leaping through the doorway. Matthew shoved the bike through, letting her take the handlebars as he followed behind. He slammed the gate shut, and threw the latch.

  On the other side of the fence, the car screeched to a halt, its bumper butting a fencepost, bending it slightly. The spikes hung with bloody streamers of flesh poked through the fence. The passenger door flew open, and a man jumped out, the sawed-off shotgun he brandished pointing at them through the fence.

  “You little shits! I’m gonna turn both your asses!”

  The man approached the gate, rattling it, lifting the catch. Behind him the car revved, its engine roaring.

  Matthew and the girl wasted no time watching; they turned and ran, leaving the screaming man and the roaring car behind. He pushed the bike, running awkwardly, not wanting to waste precious seconds trying to re-mount both of them on the bicycle.

  Noise from behind them made Matthew and the girl turn. The man with the shotgun had come through the gate, he had been joined by a second person, while the car reversed, pulling away from the fence. After a 3 point turn, the car revved high and tires screamed in protest at their smoking abuse as the car shot back out to Airport Road.

  “They’re going down to the far end of the airport, I bet! Try to catch us on the way out, if there even is one!”

  Matthew looked at the girl and smiled. “Don’t
worry, Matt Hew does not plan on dying here today.”

  He almost laughed at the way she cocked her head, curious.

  “Nothing, just come on. Those two assholes aren’t going to the far end.”

  The two following on foot began to pick up their pace, now jogging. Both men carried a gun, the first with his sawed-off and the other with a wicked-looking rifle.

  Matthew was unable to do more than trot while pushing the heavy bike. “Hey!”

  The girl, who had been looking back over her shoulder as she ran whipped her head around, eyes wide.

  “Grab my backpack out of that crate.” Matthew nodded to indicate the crate in back of the bike.

  “What, why?”

  “Just grab it! I’m going to ditch the bike. There’s no way we can outrun these nut-jobs trying to keep it with us and it’s too slow with the two of us on it to get away fast from a dead stop.”

  “But how are we going to get…”

  “Don’t worry about it! Just grab the pack.”

  The girl snatched the backpack from the crate and moved to Matthew’s left side.

  Matthew shoved the bike hard, sending it out and to the right. He didn’t wait for it to fall. Grabbing the bag from the girl, he took off at a run. His legs still burned from the overexertion of the frantic bike ride.

  “You two little shits better just stop! Make it easy on yourselves!”

  Matthew grinned when the girl popped her hand up and flipped their pursuers her middle finger. She took several long steps and matched her stride to Matthew’s.

  The two passed a large building that looked to be a maintenance shed. Matthew dismissed it out of hand. There was no way of knowing what was inside, or if they could even gain entrance before the two gunmen caught up with them.

  Just past the shed there were two smaller Quonset style buildings. Both of these had large sliding bay doors. Hangars for a single small aircraft. Beyond these were several massive hangars, Matthew aimed for the nearest. The three huge hangars were separated into three bays, with their own sliding bay doors, and inset into the bay doors was a regular door. On each end of the hangar was a man-sized door and a small roll-up door, something a tow-motor might fit into.