by Tony Urban
The boy was at the head of the pack, 10 yards ahead of Sawyer who was shockingly fast for a man of his size. The kid bounced off the smoked glass doors when they didn’t open.
“What the fuck, man? They’re locked!” the kid yelled. He looked back to the others and to the zombies behind them. “You said we’d be safe here!”
Sawyer closed the gap. Peduto wasn’t far behind and Bolivar was on his heels. He could see chains and a padlock holding the doors shut. What none of them saw, until it was too late, was the kid draw the cannon from his waistband. He pressed the muzzle against the lock.
“Don’t!” Sawyer screamed. He was only a few feet away now, but that was still too far to intervene.
The kid was either pulling the trigger already or didn’t care to listen. The gun thundered and the padlock blew into pieces which clattered to the cement walkway. After pulling away the now loose chains, the kid yanked open the double doors.
“Mother of God.” The words came out of Sawyer’s mouth at an abnormally low volume. Maybe he didn’t even realize he’d said them aloud. All of his attention was focused on the area behind the now open doors.
The kid turned back to Sawyer and didn’t see what was coming. He picked the wrong time to listen.
“What?” he asked and with his attention diverted he was clueless to the sea of zombies ebbing toward him until they grabbed him and dragged him into the building.
The zombies packed the arena in standing room only fashion. It was impossible to see anything but the living dead inside.
Several of them clawed at the kid’s head while others pulled at his arms, legs, and torso. Some bit and ate and swallowed as others fought for their piece of the pie. The kid screamed and when he opened his mouth zombie fingers filled the cavity. They tugged and strained until the flesh and tendons gave way.
His right cheek went first, tearing like papier-mâché all the way to his ear. Next his entire lower jaw ripped free from his skull. The zombie that secured that prize was an Army nurse, her uniform ripped and bloody. She raised the jawbone to her mouth and chewed off the boy’s skin like she was eating a rack of ribs.
Somehow the kid kept screaming. With nothing to hold it in place, his tongue swung back and forth like a pendulum on a clock. At least, it did until a zombie soldier leaned in and bit it clean off.
Sawyer leveled his M4 carbine and put the kid out of his misery. “Back! Go back!” Sawyer ordered.
The zombies poured out of the arena as fast as they could funnel through the open doors. Dozens turned into scores which became hundreds and then thousands all in less than a minute.
22
Traffic crept along at 15 miles an hour as they approached the tunnel. Emory steered into the passing lane but it did little good. He glanced over at Christopher who slumped to the side, his sweaty forehead making a hazy oil slick against the passenger side window.
Within minutes at hitting the road, Emory realized that Christopher, the boy so concerned about his aunt, was in fact very sick himself. His breaths came slow and shallow and it sounded as if his lungs were full of mucous. He couldn’t last more than a few minutes in between coughing spells and his skin felt like hot embers. Emory guessed his temp to be well over 100 and climbing.
Overhead an LED traffic alert sign flashed “Backups expected at the tunnel. Drive Carefully” and as they passed underneath it, a bright yellow motorcycle zipped between both lanes and came within inches of clipping cars on each side. That only slowed traffic down even more.
It took another five minutes to go the last mile but once they reached the tunnel, traffic opened up and speeds quadrupled.
Emory had driven the Mercedes 100 yards into the tunnel when Christopher broke out in uncontrollable coughs. The boy gasped for air, choking. He searched for the seatbelt release, desperate.
“Can’t… breathe…” He unbuckled the belt and leaned into the dash, holding his chest as thick, tight coughs racked his body.
“Hold on, Christopher. We’re getting there.”
The boy’s coughing ceased but Emory’s relief was short lived as Christopher fell back into the seat in convulsions. Bloody foam oozed from his mouth and his head snapped back and forth so violently Emory thought the boy would give himself whiplash.
He looked away from Christopher just in time to see the yellow motorcycle discarded in the road in front of him. It was too late to hit the brakes and the Mercedes hit the bike at almost 70 miles an hour.
The car careened sideways and the front left wheel caught the narrow raised walkway at the edge of the tunnel. It climbed the concrete, the driver’s side now two feet off the road and then it rolled.
Emory had felt nothing so forceful in his entire life. He thought every joint in his body was tearing apart. The roar of the crash deafened his ears. The airbag burst in his face, knocking away his glasses and blinding him in a cloud of white powder.
The Mercedes crashed down onto its roof and slid twenty yards, sparks arcing as the metal scraped the pavement. The windows imploded and sent safety glass raining through the interior.
In a confused blur Emory saw Christopher fly out the open cavity where the windshield had been. The boy disappeared as the car skidded away.
The momentum slowed and Emory thought the crash might be over but squealing brakes screamed behind him. He couldn’t turn to look and that was just as well because all he’d have seen was the huge blue bus barreling down on him.
The bus slammed into the Mercedes’ back end and sent the car spinning like a top. Emory closed his eyes and waited to die.
But he didn’t. The car stopped moving and, this time, nothing else hit it. He looked around and saw smoke which had taken on the puke green color of the fluorescent lights that illuminated the abyss of the two-mile-long tunnel.
Between the crash and being suspended upside down from the seatbelt, Emory struggled to get his bearings. He heard people screaming in the near distance and remembered Christopher.
Emory fumbled with the belt release, found the button and braced himself with his other hand as he unlocked the belt. He half fell, half eased himself onto the roof of the car and then crawled on his belly out the void left behind in the windshield.
Emory felt like his head was underwater and found it hard to think. He extended his arms which seemed to work as expected, then climbed onto his knees, then to his feet. He ached. Every inch of his body felt battered and bruised, but nothing serious was broken. When he’d bought the Mercedes, at his dearly departed Grant’s insistence, the cost seemed downright obscene. Now he realized its tank-like build had saved his life.
Pieces of broken vehicles littered the roadway. The acrid smoke burned his nose and made his eyes water, clouding his vision as he tiptoed around the wreckage and searched for Christopher.
Emory spotted the biker’s bright yellow jacket first. He stumbled along the road toward Emory, but the closer he got, the odder he appeared. Emory saw the legs, the torso, and the arms, but nothing above the shoulders. It looked like a beheaded Frankenstein lurching at him.
As it got closer, Emory moved to the side and then saw the biker did have a head, one that still wore a helmet. The head bent backward so far that it hung down between his shoulder blades.
“Oh, God in Heaven,” Emory said as he took in that impossible sight.
He stepped toward the biker as it stumbled around blindly. He reached out and touched the helmet which was painted to look like Pac Man. At the touch, the biker lurched toward him.
“I’ll help you. Just stay still.” Dear, God, how is this man alive, he wondered.
Emory reached out and lifted the smoked glass face shield, careful to not twist or turn what must be a broken neck. What he discovered was the face of a dead man. The biker’s lifeless eyes rolled in their sockets to see Emory. A muffled growl escaped its mouth and Emory could hear the teeth clicking together.
The biker reached toward Emory in a wide, uncoordinated swing. Emory shoved it backwards and th
e zombie tripped over a piece of a bumper and fell onto the road.
When it hit, its head snapped up into a somewhat normal position. Then it climbed back to its feet and the zombie’s detached cranium wobbled on the neck in a way that reminded Emory of the way the old magicians would spin bowls and plates on sticks on the Ed Sullivan show.
Emory ran from the biker and into the putrid, green smoke that had filled the tunnel like a heavy fog.
“Christopher!” he called out, dashing around the fog in a fruitless search. “Christopher, where are you?”
He paused, listened for a vocal response. Instead, what he heard were the soles of shoes scraping against the pavement. That, and a cacophony of low groans.
Emory looked into the smoke, straining to see more than a few feet beyond his nose. He moved forward. Stopped. Then took a step backward.
Through the green haze he could see movement. Human shapes walking, no, lurching toward him. Their awkward locomotion not unlike that of the bobble-headed biker he’d just encountered. As they pushed through the smoke, Emory saw them in more detail.
Leading the way was a woman in a blue pantsuit with a jagged shard of metal sticking out of her left breast. A young boy who was missing an arm followed. Next came a beefy man in a trucker hat whose intestines sagged from a gash in his gut. Other zombies joined the parade.
Amongst then, he saw Christopher. The teen dragged himself along the road with his hands. His spine was twisted horribly askew and his legs turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
“Oh, Christopher. I’m so sorry.”
Emory wasn’t even aware he’d said the words aloud, but the zombies heard him and turned almost in unison toward him and shuffled forward in their slow, but unrelenting gait.
He took one more look into Christopher’s dead eyes. The boy opened his mouth in a raspy growl and swatted at the air between them. Then he continued his soldier-styled belly crawl as fast as his dead arms could drag him.
Emory turned and ran and didn’t stop. He hadn’t run in years but adrenaline carried him through the one plus mile of darkness until he could see the pinprick of light at the other end.
The brightness increased as he neared the exit and Emory risked a glance behind him. He’d gained ground on the zombies but they were still coming. He recalled the fable of the tortoise and the hare and realized they might never stop. That he’d have to keep running for the rest of his life.
As he closed in on the exit, the brilliant white light of day pained his eyes which had become accustomed to the dark but he didn’t slow down. Another 50 feet and he burst into the daylight and into the city.
A labyrinth of highways and bridges stretched out ahead of him and it took him a moment to understand why it seemed so foreign. Pittsburgh was almost empty. A handful of cars and trucks drove about and a few dozen people walked to and fro, but it was a far cry from the bustling city he’d expect on a normal weekday afternoon.
“What the hell happened to you, Mister?”
Emory turned to look at a young man, maybe 20, sucking on one of those electronic cigarettes that everyone seemed to use now. His curly, blond hair blew into his eyes and he pushed it away as he stared at Emory.
Emory looked down at himself and saw a bloody and bruised body. The young man tapped his own temple and Emory examined his. He discovered a four-inch gash and felt sticky, gritty blood on the side of his face.
“There was… a wreck.”
The young man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, then opened his bottle of water and wetted the cloth. He handed it to Emory and looked toward the tunnel.
“A wreck? Anyone else hurt?”
Emory nodded as he used the handkerchief to wipe his face clean, then his forearms and hands.
The man looked into the tunnel. As he did, Emory noticed a silver bicycle laying on the sidewalk.
“Is that your bike?” Emory asked.
The man kept his eyes on the tunnel and strolled toward it. “Nope. Was here when I got here.” He paused. “Hey, is anyone else hurt?”
Emory moved to the bike and stood it up. “They’re dead,” he said as he swung his leg over the bike and sat down.
His bony knees barely cleared the space between the pedals and handlebars, but it would have to do. He hadn’t ridden a bicycle since, well, he couldn’t even recall. He hoped it was true that you never forgot how to do it.
The young man turned back at Emory. “Who’s dead?”
Emory pointed the bicycle toward the city and glanced over his shoulder at the man.
“Everyone.”
He pushed on the pedals. The bike wobbled at first and he thought he might crash into the railing but soon enough it steadied out. He peddled faster and didn’t look back.
23
Mina stayed in the hallway while the nurses and doctor rushed into the room and conversed in their alien, medical jargon. The commotion lasted about five minutes and when they fell silent, Mina knew what was up. She’d had plenty of experience with bad news in her life and it got to be that you could see it coming.
The doctor, a Middle-Eastern man with shoe-leather brown skin stepped out of the room first. He rested his palm on Mina’s shoulder. “I’m very sorry. We did all we could,” he said.
Mina nodded. “It’s all right.”
He moved on with a brief, consoling smile. The nurses shuffled out in a row after him and reminded Mina of ants. The last nurse in line paused.
“You can go in with him now,” the nurse said.
“Do I have to?”
“Excuse me?”
Mina shook her head. “Nothing. Sorry.”
The nurse looked at her quizzically before following her co-workers down the hospital hallway.
Mina hesitated, then re-entered the room. Sprawled on the bed was the body of her dead father, a blue sheet pulled up to just under his chin.
She reclaimed her seat beside the bed and wondered what happened next. Were there papers that needed signed? Was she supposed to call a funeral home? She needed an instructional pamphlet or maybe a book. What to Do After Your Daddy Dies for Dummies.
Mina thought Google might provide some answers and took her cell phone from her pocket. Upon turning it on, she saw there was no signal, so she moved to the window to try there. She stared out onto the soulless, industrial city as she waited to see if the phone might decide to work.
With her back turned, she didn’t see Vernon sit up in the bed. The sheet slid off him to reveal the wiry white hair that dotted his bony torso in random patches. As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, the sheet fell to the floor.
Vernon stood up, his tighty whities, which had long ago stopped being tight or white, stood out in stark contrast against his dark, exposed skin. He meandered toward his daughter who still stared down at her phone.
Reflected movement in the glass caught her attention. She assumed - hoped - it was someone coming to tell her they needed to take the body to the morgue and she could go home. When she turned and saw her dead father looking straight at her, surprise was an understatement.
Vernon’s gray eyes had lost the rage that filled them in life. A vacant, yet desperate stare had replaced his hate. He took a step toward Mina, then reached for her. Mina stepped back and hit the window, her bony elbow made a tiny tinking noise against the glass.
“Daddy?”
Vernon’s mouth fell open but instead of words he exhaled a ragged gasp and drool spilled out of his mouth in thick, opaque strings.
He reached again for Mina and this time his clumsy hands caught the neckline of her blouse. His fingers clawed at the fabric and the top button popped off. Mina swatted at his hand and he growled at her and tried to drag her to him.
The other buttons gave way and her shirt fell open to reveal her practical, and largely unnecessary white bra. Mina’s initial surprised faded, and she pushed him away. Vernon stumbled back two steps but recovered and moved toward her again. He fell against her this time his flesh pre
ssed against hers and he tried to bite her face but Mina tilted her head back as far as possible and avoided his snapping jaws.
Mina kicked out and her knee connected with his groin. He didn’t go down like she’d hoped he would, but the momentary distraction allowed her to spin away and dash past him. Vernon turned, his movements slow and jerky, and came for her again.
Mina knew there was enough space that she could run past him and briefly considered it. But she was sick of running. Instead, she grabbed the metal bed pan from the small, particle board nightstand beside the bed and waited until he was close enough.
Vernon took three more lumbering steps in Mina’s direction and when he was within arm’s length, she swung the bedpan with every bit of force her tiny body could summon.
The metal slammed into the side of Vernon’s head with a hollow thud. She reared back and swung again. That blow sent him to his knees and split the top of his head open. Blood ran down his face in red rivulets. His mouth gaped open and shut, open and shut and he reminded Mina of a fish gasping for air.
Mina stood before him and raised the bedpan over her head. She swung it one last time, heard a crunch as it hit, and Vernon collapsed to the floor, motionless.
Mina dropped the bedpan and the sound as it banged against the tile made her jump. She realized she was shaking all over and sat on the edge of the bed to steady herself. She looked down at her twice dead father.
I should have done that a long time ago, she thought.
24
It was over 90 degrees in the bus and Bundy had worked up a bad case of swamp ass. He sat near the back, taking up one of the green vinyl seats all by himself. Allebach had the seat across the aisle from him.
Bundy had grown fond of Allebach during his short stay at the prison. He reminded him a lot of the fellows Bundy would meet at the shooting range or butcher shops. Allebach was, what Bundy’s father would have called, ‘a good egg’ and the two men were in the middle of a deep conversation about nothing at all.
Bundy noticed Errickson glaring at them from the front of the bus. He kept his eyes on Allebach but tilted his head toward the younger guard.
