There was the grating sound of plates shattering on the floor, and one of the waitresses let out a scream. The little boy was tugging on his mother’s arm trying to get her attention.
His mother eerily turned her head slowly to the left, eyes wide with animalistic hunger. Peter was already off his stool as the waitress who took his order came out with the sandwiches in a brown paper bag.
He heard her gasp behind him, and he heard the paper bag hit the floor behind the counter…but he was focusing on the little boy.
All throughout the small roadside diner, there were screams as the dead attacked the living in a wild feeding frenzy. The little boy’s mother awkwardly grabbed his small head in her hands. He gazed into his mother’s eyes in horror as she leaned in to take a bite…
…but Peter was there first. He punched the husband in the forehead as he attempted to stand up, sending him falling backward into the booth and rolling off the seat and under the table.
Peter dove across the table, sending the cups of coffee and the boy’s juice crashing into the base of the old jukebox and toppling the sugar. He grabbed the woman by her long, brown hair and pulled her head away from her son just as her jaws began to close.
The little boy screamed as he made to dive under the table to get away from his mom.
“No!” shouted Peter. The boy’s father would be waiting for him under there. “Up here! Hurry!”
The boy’s mother flailed about wildly, struggling in Peter’s grip as the terrified boy climbed up on the tabletop next to Peter. Peter slammed the mother’s head into the table twice, the second time forcing her to bite down onto the worn edge. He brought his hand down in a karate chop on her neck, effectively severing her spine. She rolled off the table and fell underneath, joining her husband who was banging the bottom of the table in his attempts to stand up.
Peter grabbed the boy in his arms and rolled onto his back as a clerk from the empty gift shop named “Martha” (it was printed on her nametag with a cheap label maker) reached out for him, her jaws snapping loudly and slicing her own tongue.
Peter gave her a swift kick in the face with his boot, sending her crashing into the stool he sat on mere moments ago. She fell to the ground on all fours and was trying to get up as Peter got to his feet with the screaming boy in his arms.
Two new zombies entered through the front entrance, so Peter stepped on Martha’s back and rolled over the counter as the two entering zombies advanced on him.
He landed on the hard tiled floor behind the counter and hit his head. He cursed under his breath, clutching the boy tight, wondering where the hell his two terrorist friends were.
Kojic sat in the car fiddling with the radio as Ehsan pumped the gas. Ehsan squeezed the trigger of the pump and looked at the road, his back to the diner. Kojic had found a soft music station and lazily cranked the volume up louder, unwittingly concealing the screams and chaos in the diner behind them.
Ehsan let go of the trigger before the tank filled. His eyes were fixated on the road behind them. There was a large tractor-trailer barreling down the road in their direction, but it was veering off to the left, towards the gas station…
…and it didn’t look like it was slowing down.
Kojic looked up and saw Ehsan staring at the road. “What is it?”
Ehsan’s eyes widened. “Brother, out of the car.”
Kojic regarded him quizzically. “What’s wrong?”
“Now, Kojic!”
The little boy screamed when he saw two zombies on the other end behind the counter tearing off shreds of flesh from a poor waitress with their teeth. The scream got their attention, and one of the zombies—a middle-aged man in a now bloodstained tee shirt, tattered blue jeans, and trucker hat—started crawling towards them.
“Great. Just great,” muttered Peter, as he shoved the boy under him. He reached up on the counter to the left by the cakes and grabbed a large serrated knife. The trucker was closing in and reaching out for the little morsel under Peter.
Peter shoved the knife into the zombie’s left eye socket and twisted, but it kept reaching for the boy, pushing the knife deeper into its own skull as it pushed forward.
Peter looked up and saw Martha leaning over the counter with one of the two new zombies who entered the diner. Their fingertips scratched at the top of his head. The other zombie was rounding the payment kiosk and shuffling behind the counter. The whole scene was going from bad to worse.
Kojic stepped out of the car and pointed at a zombie woman chewing on her husband or boyfriend’s arm in a car parked in front of the diner. The man was crying out for help, reaching for the car door handle, but she pushed him forward with her weight, pressing his face against the window. The poor man clawed at the glass with a bloody hand as she sunk her teeth into his neck.
“Holy, shit,” gasped Kojic. There was an impending sound of rolling thunder approaching his back, but before he could turn around Ehsan was on the other side of the car and pulled him away.
At last, the trucker had driven the knife far enough into his own brain that he suddenly stopped moving. Peter slid the knife out of the trucker’s head and stood up. The boy’s father, on his feet and approaching the counter with several other zombies, and the one at the end by the payment kiosk were all closing in.
Shit. This was it. Peter had his knife, but it wouldn’t be enough. There were just too many of them. Even with his strength and speed. Already infected, he would likely survive the onslaught of bites—if they didn’t tear him apart—but the little boy wouldn’t.
There was a rumbling outside and a flash of metal that caught Peter’s eye. He looked out the glass window to see Kojic and Ehsan dash out of the way of an oncoming tractor-trailer.
Peter shoved the boy’s head down behind the counter as he, too, took cover. There was a crash outside as the truck barreled through the pumps and the old Mustang came crashing through the front of the diner.
The whole diner shook and broken glass flew everywhere, raining down on Peter’s head as he covered the boy’s head and face with his arms. The approaching zombie behind the counter was thrown into the cake display and was hung up on shards of glass. It reached out for Peter but was unable to pull itself off of the display.
The zombie munching on the waitress at the other end of the counter stood up to look at what happened. Peter stood, grabbed the boy, and threw him over the counter where they were at the middle. He then hopped up on the countertop and swiveled to the other side as the curious zombie muncher reached out for him.
The diner was a mess of broken booths, stools, and glass. Peter snatched up the boy, who was taking in the scene in amazement, and proceeded to climb out of the large hole in the front of the diner.
As he found his footing outside, he stalked over to Kojic and Ehsan. The roof of the diner caved in behind him, pushing several zombies attempting to follow Peter back inside.
“Where the hell were you guys?”
“We were pumping the gas,” snapped Ehsan.
“You didn’t see what was going on in there?”
“I had the radio on loud,” said Kojic sheepishly. “We did not hear.”
“I’m beginning to reconsider your usefulness on our mission,” said Peter menacingly.
Kojic was staring at the little boy in Peter’s arms. “What are we going to do?”
“We have to go,” said Ehsan. “Kafka did this. He knows we are coming. He’s trying to stop us.”
“No,” said Peter, “he’s trying to slow us down. He must be close by in order to do this.”
“We have to go now if we are going to catch up with him,” said Kojic.
Peter put the little boy down. “Ehsan, take him across the street.” Ehsan looked to Kojic, who nodded his approval. “Kojic, find us a car, one of the one’s parked in front.”
“But they have the dead inside.”
“You’re infected now,” barked Peter. “Deal with them and bring me a car.”
“What a
re you going to do?” It was more of an actual question than an accusation.
“We can’t just leave here. The authorities don’t know what they are dealing with. They’ll be overrun and we’ll have zombies roaming the countryside. I have to torch the place. Nothing remains.”
Kojic nodded and ran around the tractor-trailer to the cars parked out front to the right of the crash. The smell of gasoline was in the air as it spurted up like a geyser from the broken pump.
Peter rounded the truck and opened the front door. A dazed zombie driver reached out for him, but Peter let him fall to the ground. He then began to stomp on its head repeatedly until the driver’s skull crunched underneath his boot and it ceased to move.
Peter climbed up into the cab and looked around. He heard Kojic wrestling with a zombie on the other side of the truck. Then there was silence. An engine turned over and Peter heard a car pull around the truck and stop behind him. He saw a sawed off shotgun behind the driver seat, but nothing he could use.
He backed out of the cab and lowered himself to the ground. Kojic got out of a rather plain, mid-sized sedan.
“Kojic, where are the weapons?”
“In the Mustang.”
“Go get them. Be careful but hurry.”
Kojic nodded and climbed up onto the Mustang that was halfway into the diner. The passenger side door was pushed in from the impact, so Kojic reached in through the hole where the window used to be. He reached in and grabbed the assault rifles from the backseat as a zombie reached out and grabbed his right forearm.
It was a woman, half her face missing, her left eyeball entirely exposed in its socket. The effect was almost as unnerving as the moans coming from inside the diner. Kojic saw them milling around, looking for a way out so they could have a hot lunch.
He pulled himself out of the car, taking the woman with him. He dragged her out of the battered Mustang and down to the dirt. He dropped two of the rifles but held onto one, pointing the barrel at the woman’s head as he held her down with his boot.
Peter was searching the body of the truck driver he dispatched and found what he was looking for…a lighter. He was startled by the report of Kojic’s rifle. He stood up as Kojic ran over to him.
“Give me one of those,” said Peter, gesturing to one of the assault rifles. Kojic did as he was told and handed him one. “Take the car and pick up Ehsan and the kid.”
Kojic looked concerned. “We can’t take the child with us.”
“We sure as shit can’t leave him here. We’ll drop him off with someone down the road.”
Kojic looked uncertain, but he nodded and got in the car. As he pulled away, Peter stepped into the gift shop. A clerk lunged at him from behind the store’s payment kiosk, but Peter blew his brains out on the back wall.
The zombies in the diner caught sight of him and made their way to the doorway to the gift shop, but Peter closed the door. He pulled down a shelf filled with jams and syrups in front of it. It would hold them, but not for long.
As fists pounded on the other side of the door and sticky sweet jam and syrup pooled on the floor like blood, Peter searched the store. There were cookbooks, post cards, belt buckles, wide-rimmed hats, even scorpions behind glass. Peter found Tex-Mex style ceramic jars and grabbed one. He also took a dishtowel and ran back outside.
He walked over to the broken gas pump, but the gasoline was no longer spurting up. So much for making a Molotov cocktail. Peter tied the dishtowel around the ceramic jar and rolled it around in the gasoline. Then he stood up and crossed the street.
There were sirens in the distance. They didn’t have much time. Kojic was in the backseat with the little boy and Ehsan was behind the wheel. The engine was running.
“What are you going to do?” asked the little boy.
Peter smiled. “You know the Fourth of July?”
The boy sniffled and nodded earnestly.
“We’re going to start the festivities a little early.”
Peter took the lighter and lit the rag tied around the jar. He walked halfway back across the street. The first responders were closing in—two police cars and a fire truck. Ever the quarterback, he chucked the jar into the center of the spilled gasoline. It quickly caught fire as the flaming jar rolled around.
Peter walked back across the street to the car without looking back and hopped in. Zombies were starting to crawl out of the hole in the front of the diner and the entrance to the gift shop.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Ehsan put the new borrowed car in gear and tore off down the road, as there was a massive explosion behind them. The little boy turned to look out the rear window in time to see a bright orange fireball rise into the air and leave thick black smoke in its wake.
Several of the escaping zombies were ablaze and, after staggering around for a moment, dropped to their knees and succumbed to the flames. The police car and fire truck stopped in front of the site across the street, forming a perimeter and frantically calling for backup.
They all drove down the road in silence for a bit, digesting what had just happened. Peter wondered if Kafka had stayed behind to watch the fruits of his dirty work.
I told you you’d lose, Peter.
Was it the voice of Kafka or Peter’s own demon?
You cannot ignore me. I am inside you, but soon I’ll be outside. And when I am, I’ll be coming for you as my first order of business.
Peter turned around. “Hey, kid. What’s your name?”
“Bobby,” said the boy meekly.
And then I’m coming for young Bobby, here.
“How old are you, Bobby?”
“Four-and-a-half.”
“Bobby, do you know what just happened back there?”
“There were monsters.”
He doesn’t realize he’s still with monsters.
Ehsan watched the boy in the rearview mirror.
“Bobby, you are absolutely right. Those were monsters. I know it looked like your parents were trying to kill you…” Bobby started sniffling again, his mouth contorted as he attempted to hold back his tears. He let out a Baaah as young children do when they try to suppress a cry but fail. Tears streamed down his red cheeks. “…but those weren’t your parents anymore. Those were monsters.”
“Mommy tried to bite me,” cried Bobby.
“That was no longer your mommy, Bobby. I can’t really explain it to you, but that thing, that monster, was no longer your mommy.”
But Bobby continued to cry. Kojic shrank into the corner of the backseat, sitting there awkwardly.
Snap his neck like a toothpick. That will silence him.
“Bobby, you know how an ugly caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly?”
Bobby nodded as he sobbed.
“Well, your beautiful mommy transformed into something ugly, but it wasn’t her.”
“It wasn’t?” sniffled Bobby between wails.
“No, it wasn’t,” reassured Peter. “Just like a butterfly isn’t the same thing as a caterpillar. Right? They’re two different bugs.”
Bobby nodded, wiping his eyes with his forearms the way little kids do. It was a clumsy explanation, but it calmed the kid down for the moment.
“Bobby, do you have any aunts or uncles?”
Because we’re going to kill them, too.
He nodded. “Aunt Darma and Uncle Harry.”
“Great. Do you know where they live?”
The kid shook his head, and Peter cursed himself for his stupidity. The kid was four years old. Of course he didn’t know where they lived.
“I don’t suppose you know your Aunt Darma’s phone number?” The kid shook his head. “Great,” he said with sarcasm that was lost on young Bobby, who wondered why that would be great.
“We can’t just drop him off at a police station,” said Kojic. He didn’t want to say why in front of Bobby, but Peter caught his drift. There’d be questions, and they didn’t have the time. And they were wanted for terrorism and murder.
“We’ll drop him off at a hospital,” said Peter.
“This is costing us more time,” said Ehsan impatiently.
Time, time. Time for what? Your futile little suicide mission? Why be in such a rush to die?
Peter knew Ehsan was right, but what could he do? What would they have him do? He didn’t want to entertain their notions.
“So he rides with us until we get to Groom Lake. Then we hand him off to some kind of government employee.”
He interpreted their silence as agreement.
“Hey, Bobby, you’re going on a road trip.”
“We were going to California,” whimpered Bobby.
“Vacation?”
“Yes, sir.”
Peter didn’t know what to say. The boy’s parents were just turned into flesh-eating zombies. There wasn’t going to be a vacation. Peter plucked him from the jaws of death only to bring him to ground zero of the impending zombie apocalypse.
“Let’s listen to the radio for a while.” Peter turned it on and tuned in to the news. There were reports of riots all throughout Nevada, bouts of cannibalism on the Las Vegas strip, a shootout in front of the Bellagio fountains. The press was labeling it as “mass hysteria” or “riots.”
However, Peter knew what this was. Kafka was creating distractions. Nevada would pour all of its resources into putting out these fires, so to speak, and Kafka would waltz right into Area 51 with his new toy.
There’d be no defense, and chances were that he already had a head start on them. But how was Kafka able to be in California and Nevada at once? It didn’t make any sense.
Peter prayed that Elicia would come through. He had faith in her, she was sharp and an accomplished hacker, but a little prayer never hurt.
***
Yesterday
Elicia was getting dizzy from driving around in circles. “Hey, Colonel, don’t you know any other shapes?”
“Which shape would you like? I thought you’re supposed to be doing your hacking thing.”
I am Automaton 3: Shadow of the Automaton Page 31
