Zombie Road Trip

by Miller, T. Alex

  Not Marta, though. Tim would protect her to the end. After what they’d been through, the notion of spending even a few hours together — as humans, maybe even lovers — was immensely appealing. If somehow they made it through to the new world, they could laugh over some of those memories. But the image of Marilyn chewing off some fat guy’s dick came to the fore, and Tim thought … “Or not.” Some skeletons may best be left in their collective closet.

  It was maddening to lie there hoping people would show up to tell him things. Even a face as unwelcome as Craig’s was at least a break in the boredom. He was eager to see Marta again, wondering if she was well enough to have a real conversation. Or would that be too much to hope for — especially with her speech impediment? It struck him that, for as much as he cared about Marta, he knew almost nothing about her. All of his feelings for her related to his time with her doppelganger Marilyn — the utterly moronic, cold-blooded cannibal zombie woman who smelled like a cesspool and never knew to wipe her face after a meal. The woman who’d just visited him, who was she? Sure, they say people who’ve been through traumatic experiences or adventures together form a bond, and perhaps that’s where he and Marta were at. Janet used to tell him that, since he’d stuck around after seeing her “at her worst” — whether it was as a raging, PMS’ing bitch or with all modesty dashed during childbirth — that there was some kind of prize in there as well. Certainly that was the case with Marta, although it may well be that wiping those memories from his mind would be necessary to see her as the loving, compassionate woman he hoped she’d turn out to be.

  As Tim lay sorting this all out in his mind, Mark finally appeared again, this time pushing a wheelchair and carrying a small steel tray containing a needle and a 9mm pistol.

  This can’t be good.

  “Hey doc, is the gun to make sure my HMO pays the bill or what?”

  Mark, as usual, was all business.

  “Look Tim, I’m just going to give you the vaccine now and hope for the best. The wheels are coming off this thing, the place is overrun and it’d be an exaggeration to say I have any control over Craig anymore.”

  He stuck the needle in Tim’s hip and depressed the plunger.

  “If you’re still alive, you should see results in 24 hours or so, which in your case would hopefully be a pretty quick diminishing of your remaining symptoms: the erections, the bloodlust and the inability to eat regular food.”

  “Thanks,” Tim said. “And the gun?”

  “That’s for me if I decide to release your restraints, which I haven’t decided yet.”

  “What? You’re going to release me then shoot me?”

  “No,” Mark said with a sigh. “I’m going to release you, then hold a gun on you until I get away — in case you try to eat me.”

  “That hurts, Mark. After all we’ve been through, I’d never do that. Plus, I’m full of goat blood … mmmm! And besides, so long as you don’t dangle something tasty in front of me like Dr. Linda did, I think I can control myself.”

  Mark reached over and undid one of the restraints.

  “Don’t worry, you’re not my type. And besides, I’m wearing a Kevlar jockstrap.”

  Tim laughed, genuinely. Mark was not prone to cracking jokes.

  “That’s good Mark, lighten up,” Tim said, hurriedly reaching for the other restraints before Mark changed his mind or the asshole Craig showed up. Tim swung his legs over the bed and immediately fell face-down on the floor. This time it was Mark’s turn to laugh.

  “In the real world, you’d probably need a month or two of physical therapy to recover from a prolonged period of bed rest like that.”

  “Yeah, point me to the spa, would you? Shit. Help me up, Mark.”

  With Mark’s help, Tim was soon sitting in the wheelchair next to his bed. He was about to ask about more of the vaccine when Mark answered his question by producing a small parcel from his lab coat.

  “Look Tim, I’m giving these to everyone. We have to abandon Meridian, and who knows who’ll make it out alive. In here are a few hundred doses of ZAV-237. There’s also instructions on how to reproduce it as well as some of the ham radio frequencies we’ve been corresponding on: the CDC, some military outposts and that lab in Texas. Any of those are good places to head to, but I’m trying for the CDC in Atlanta. It’s like 900 miles, but they’re the ones with the plan for mass distribution.”

  There was another commotion in the hallway, more gunshots, running and shouting. Tim heard the unmistakable voice of Craig, and he grabbed the 9mm off the tray and pointed it at Mark’s belly.

  “Don’t move.”

  “What the fuck Tim?”

  The sound of a shotgun being pumped resonated behind Mark’s back, and Craig called out:

  “Outta the way Dr. Besson! We’ve gotta go, but there’s one little piece of business to take care of.”

  “Not yet, Craig,” Mark said without turning his head. “I don’t know if we’ve got it for sure yet, and we may need him.”

  “Too late, doc. This shit’s falling apart and we’re pulling out. It doesn’t matter anymore, and no way I’m letting this asshole live — even if it’s just for five minutes before the real fucking Zees get him.”

  Tim looked up at Mark and mouthed “now.”

  Mark stepped to the side. It took a half second for Craig to notice the gun in Tim’s hand, but by then it was already too late. He was no expert with a pistol, but Craig was only 5 feet away, and Tim was able to hit him with three of the five shots he fired. Of those, two hit him in the body armor he was wearing, but the third had caught him in the neck.

  Mark slumped against the wall, his hands over his ears following the deafening sound of the shots. He looked at Craig dispassionately, the wound gushing blood. “You hit his jugular.”

  “I see that.”

  Tim shoved himself out of the wheelchair and scrambled over to Craig, putting his mouth over the pulsing wound and drinking deep. He wasn’t cured yet, and who knew when and where his next meal would come from.

  “Oh, gross!” Mark said, fetching Tim a kick in the ass. “Stop that!”

  Tim pulled away. “Hey, a man’s gotta eat!”

  “Man’s gotta die, too.”

  It was Janet, now standing outside the cell with her own gun — a small .20 gauge, which she pumped emphatically and pointed at Tim’s head as he tried to bring up his own gun.

  “You suck, Tim.”

  But the next gun to go off belonged to neither of the Liptons who, in happier times would have been celebrating their 10th anniversary this day. Marta hit Janet in the chest with her own shotgun, and Tim’s wife dropped, cut almost in half by the blast.

  “Ib yer gomma shoot, shoot. Dome tawk,” she said.

  Even among the chaos in the cell, Tim felt a warm wave of love as he recognized the Clint Eastwood allusion.

  Mark looked around frantically, from the corpses of Craig and Janet to the bloody face of Tim to the slight figure of Marta, the recovered zombie standing before them with the smoking shotgun.

  “Holy fucking shit! What is wrong with you people?!”

  “Nothing wrong, Mark,” said Tim, wiping his face off with a towel. “This is normal for 2014, don’tcha think?”

  Tim looked over at Marta, who was now crying.

  “Thanks baby, you did great. What’s wrong?”

  “Whub wawng? Nebba kibbed amybubby befaw. Ibs fubbed up.”

  Tim let that one go.

  “Look, we’ve gotta go. Before Craig’s buddies find him, before more goddamned Zees make it into this wing. Mark, you with us?”

  Mark looked stricken, and Tim was afraid he was going to start crying as well. But the man hadn’t made it this far in the time of the plague without some hard choices of his own, and it was clear his right-hand man and bodyguard wasn’t going to be in whatever the next chapter held.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go. To the tunnel.”

  In addition to providing security for Meridian, Craig an
d his men had been charged with one other major task over the past six months: Digging an escape tunnel from the prison’s basement all the way past the outer fence. Mark had told them they always needed to prepare for the worst, even as Craig had insisted Meridian was impregnable. Once in the basement, Mark led them to a locked door. Inside was a room that contained a row of lockers and the entrance to the tunnel. Most of the locker doors stood open. Mark found a locked one with his name on it.

  He spun some numbers on the combination lock and retrieved a duffel bag, a flashlight, a rifle and a pistol in a holster.

  Off Tim’s look, Mark explained:

  “Everyone has a bag with supplies, some food, first aid stuff, water, ammo. Plus a couple of guns. We kept them in lockers so that if anyone went crazy or anything, well, they couldn’t take anyone else’s stuff.”

  He gestured at all the open lockers.

  “Looks like just about everyone else is gone. Except Craig, of course.”

  “Where’s my locker?” Tim said, only half serious.

  “Come on,” Mark said, ducking into the tunnel. “We’ve got 200 yards to crawl, so save your breath.”

  Marta helped Tim up out of his wheelchair and he found that, while still weak, he was able to stand and walk. It must’ve just been that first step, he figured. It took them nearly an hour to crawl the length of the tunnel, Mark pushing his duffel bag ahead of him. When finally they reached the ladder with the shaft leading to the top, they stopped and caught their breath.

  Tim looked up at the slim bit of sunlight reaching them from above.

  “I wonder what kind of fucked-up shit is waiting for us up there.”

  “It could hardly be any more fucked up than the shit we just left behind,” Mark said, pointing his flashlight into Tim’s eyes. “Who are you now, Tim? Friend or foe? Are we in this together, or are you going to attack me — or Marta — first chance you get?”

  “No,” said Tim. “I’m good, really.”

  How to explain that he had more control than that? That the sight of his enemy’s death wound gushing essential nourishment was more than he could resist — the same way Dr. Linda dangling a warm breast in his face was simply too much temptation? That the cure was now in him, and soon he’d be done with human flesh and blood — just give him 24 hours. That Mark was like a brother, and Marta his … his what? Was “soul mate” too strong?

  “I won’t, Mark. And I’ll be cured soon. If you want to keep an eye on me for that 24 hours, fine.”

  “I don’t have that luxury, Tim. We’re going to need all our eyes for the Zees up here. Look, I know you can’t promise anything because you probably don’t know yourself. But just know that until I see you eat something normal and keep it down, Marta and I are going to stand watches, and we’ll shoot you at the first sign of, of naughtiness. Right, Marta?”

  He shone the light in her face. Tim saw a scared woman faced with a tough choice.

  “Ribe,” she said. “Ib dat’s O-gay wib you, Tim?”

  “I’m fine with it. I’ll be cured soon, 100 percent tomorrow. And I’m not hungry now anyway, so …”

  Mark cut him off.

  “Alright then. I’ll go up first. There should be a jeep for us, but I wouldn’t count on it. Most of the Zees should be out of the way since they’re all over Meridian now. Everyone ready?”

  They nodded and began the climb to the top. Metaphorically, Tim thought, it was appropriate to be going up a narrow, birth canal-like shaft, moving from dark to light. Their old lives — or at least the chapter immediately preceding — were now behind them, and who knew what was next? Death could be right on the other side of the trap door at the top of the shaft, but they couldn’t stay where they were and they certainly couldn’t go back. Whatever happened, Tim imagined the last vestiges of Zee still left inside him were leaving his body, wafting back down that tunnel into the Zee-filled halls of Meridian.

  Mark was now at the door, his palm on the handle ready to push it open.

  “OK, here we go. Get ready to move fast.”

  Chapter 24. Southbound again

  Atlanta was the destination, and Tim and Marta had told Mark they’d accompany him.

  “Nothing better to do than save the human race, I guess,” Tim said.

  They were in the jeep which, remarkably, was still parked on the other side of the tunnel. It helped that Mark had the key in his duffel bag. There were no Zees in the area immediately surrounding the tunnel’s opening, but they could look easily enough at Meridian to see and hear the bulk of the area’s zombies busy looking for a meal inside the prison. Tim imagined them polishing off the remains of Craig and Janet, and the thought filled him with nothing more than satisfaction that he wasn’t part of that particular tableau.

  Mark already had a map open, and he was plotting their route.

  “Just one thing before we leave,” Tim said.

  The other two looked at him.

  “Stacey. We need to find him, take him with us. We need the extra man if we’re going to make it all that way.”

  Tim took some time to explain who Stacey was, why he was a good man to have on a trip across a countryside filled with zombies, and how they wouldn’t last long without his guns and experience in the Wasteland. Reluctantly, Mark agreed it was a good idea, and Marta just shrugged.

  With daylight fading, they determined the best course of action would be to find a place to hole up for the night, find Stacey in the morning and, assuming he was willing to join them, head south for Atlanta.

  In an upscale neighborhood a few miles from the prison they found a large home that appeared not to have been broken into. Marta found the side door of the garage unlocked, and they were in. After exploring the house and making sure no Zees or squealers were lying in wait, they convened in the kitchen. In the remaining light, they supped together on canned fruit, crackers and anchovies — Tim gagging some down as a show to Mark. After one more tour of the house, they headed off to bed.

  Without a word, Marta followed Tim’s bouncing flashlight beam upstairs and into one of the two master bedrooms. As they had as Zees, they both lay on their backs on the big bed and looked up.

  “Dibbrent, huh?” she said.

  “Yeah. Very.”

  They lay there silently, listening to a clock on the nightstand tick.

  “Whub’s going ta habben, Tim?”

  Tim turned on his side and propped his head up with his hand as he looked at Marta. In the fading light, she was beautiful, her scarred face of no consequence as he remembered all she’d been through. He reached out and touched her cheek.

  “I don’t know. We’ll make it to Atlanta, I’m pretty sure. Maybe there’s like a big protected area where everyone at the CDC lives, and we can be there, safe. And then they’ll get this cure out, across the world. While we wait and do … whatever.”

  “Sounds bawing.”

  “I could use a little boring for a change.”

  Marta didn’t say anything to this, but after a few moments she said:

  “You woobn’t ebba …? Ah mean, ah know yaw hobefubby going to respond to the cure. Bub dey tobe me bout what you did to that doctaw. I awbost laughed when dey tobe me, cuz I know how much you lub da titties and I could so see how you coubn’t resist.”

  “I couldn’t, that’s for sure.”

  “So I’m safe? I didn’t go through awb dis shit to end up with some guy who’s going to … you know.”

  “You’re safe,” he said, finding her hand and lacing his fingers into hers. “Always with me, you’ll be safe. We have to trust each other completely, is all. And I’d starve before I touched your perfect breasts.”

  Marta laughed.

  “Well I hobe you touch dem, at some point. Just dome fubbin’ eat dem!”

  “Right. But the cure … I shouldn’t even be tempted, after tomorrow I guess.”

  “An I dome know about perbect. I’m no Marilyn Monroe, you know.”

  “True. You’re better. I never like
d blondes.”

  Marta sighed, then rolled over and folded herself into Tim, throwing an arm across his chest and saying but one thing before falling asleep:

  “I’m glad I’m wib you … glad we found each other again.”

  “Me too, Marta. Me too.”

  ###

  About the Author

  T. Alex Miller is a graduate of the University of Colorado-Boulder creative writing program. His writing career has been spent mostly in community newspapers, although he also worked for a year in Hollywood (in development at the Sci-Fi Channel) and edited a magazine in Los Angeles (LA Family). He is currently the editor of the Summit Daily News, a newspaper in Frisco, CO.

  In addition to his career in journalism, Miller has been active in theatre as an actor, director and playwright. His plays have been produced locally as well as in conjunction with the state theatre festival. They include 5 Gears in Reverse, The Adjudicators, Velociraptors and Outrageous Claims. His first novel, Ohiowa, is also available on Kindle.

  Miller lives in Frisco, Colorado with his wife, Jen, and their children.

  Contact him at talex10@gmail.com.

  Connect with me online:

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/talexmiller

  My newspaper website: www.summitdaily.com

  Cover design: Julie Watson