Gunny hit him hard, no finesse, not fancy pit moves. He rammed him and sent the Mustang skidding on the edge of control. He let off on the gas then nailed it again, slammed into the sliding car and sent it’s back end into a boulder. It bounced off with a shower of sparks, ripping metal and flying parts. The car got sideways in front of him and Gunny hit the gas again, driving his busted-up push bar into Casey’s door. The halogen lights on the roof lit up his wild, wide eyes and the voodoo woman who was asleep in the passenger seat. Gunny kept pushing. They were going fifty, the Mustangs tires sliding on the dirt road and the all terrains of the Chevelle digging in and slinging sand. Gunny kept the go pedal mashed and watched in fascination as he saw the black girl wake up and snarl. She launched herself at Casey and he screamed as the car flew over the edge of the ravine. Gunny slammed the brakes but it was too late. With a plume of dust trailing them over, both cars plunged. The Mustang dropped and the Chevelle sent the old Ford spinning when it shot over the top, the rear tires inches from Casey’s face and they seemed to float for a second before gravity started pulling them down. The creek cutting through the sandstone wasn’t very wide and Gunny held white knuckled the steering wheel, foot still mashing the brake pedal as he flew through the air. If I’d had a ramp, I probably could have made it across he thought as the nose started diving for the cliff wall on the other side.
126
Gunny
Gunny braced for impact as the nose of his Chevelle smashed into the limestone on the other side of the gully and felt the shoulder straps dig into him. Everything not bolted down went flying forward and a can of SPAM slammed him across the ear, exploding it in pain and blood. The soft rock broke away from the crumpled doghouse, his head bounced off the seatback and the car fell, hitting an outcropping and balancing precariously for a moment before the fragile rock collapsed and he fell thirty feet straight down, landing hard on the rear bumper. Dirt, debris and sand showered down as the car finally stopped moving, nose in the air resting against the canyon wall, back section sunk into the soft sand that would be under a few feet of water when the rains came. Gunny’s hand went to his ear and it took him a moment to quiet the pain. A tin can across the ear hurt hella worse than a punch to the nose. His eyes watered as he tried to stem to flow of blood pouring out of the gash. When the blinding white stabbing throb let up a little and he could finally breathe again he took a quick inventory of himself, making sure nothing was broken. He was fine, except for his ear. Jeez, it stung, fragging can had nearly cut it in half.
He slipped out of the harness and pulled himself out of the deep bucket seat. He had to move fast, there was at least one zombie in the chasm with him. The voodoo woman had turned and a little car wreck wouldn’t slow her down very much. He rolled out of it and slid down to balance with one foot on the package tray, the other against the headliner. The rear window was gone, just bits of glass in the corners. He heard the godawful keening of the undead, the sound of hunger they made when they were attacking, then he heard Casey scream. He jumped down to the sand, felt the car shift and start leaning. It was going to fall and he rolled away to get clear. The Mustang was laying on it’s roof, one of the tires still spinning and he heard the snarl of Lucinda as she spun to face him, her eyes a solid black, her teeth bared. She was on her belly fighting to get in the Mustang but turned towards the noise and smelled his blood. Her hands dug into the sand and she lunged for him. It was nearly pitch black in the shadows of the gully but the moon shone down in the middle. It was enough for Gunny to see her hideously mangled legs. She had been thrown free during the mad, tumbling ride to the bottom and the car had landed on her, breaking them in a dozen places. She tried to stand again but they folded, the muscles and skin ripping when the jagged edges of bone tore through. She screamed at him and started forward, mouth wide open, bloody and hungry. Her fingers clawed the sand and she scrambled towards him like a freakishly huge hunchbacked spider.
Gunny reached for his knife and came up empty. It was somewhere in the car. He backpedaled on all fours and could only stare in disbelief as she launched herself at him, her powerful arms jerking towards him with long, springing leaps. He looked for a rock, a chunk of metal from his car or anything he could use as a weapon but there was nothing. He jumped to his feet and ran, he had to get a little distance from the thing. He had to find a big rock and bash her head in. She kept coming and Gunny kept running. The creek floor was bare, just tumbleweed and sand and gravel. The crawling thing was fast, unbelievably fast for something with no legs. Gunny ran, a jog wouldn’t keep ahead of the thing. The crevice wasn’t very wide, maybe thirty feet in places but the farther he went, the steeper the walls were. He was starting to get tired, he needed to find a way up but he couldn’t slow down. That ugly, leaping thing wasn’t getting tired. It wasn’t breathing hard. It didn’t seem to mind that its fingers were already worn down and bleeding or that its clothes were being shredded and torn off.
He was going to have to turn around and fight her if he didn’t see a way up the limestone face of the ravine sometime real soon. He was getting winded. It would be better to turn now, try to kick her teeth out and stomp her head to a pulp. But that thing was strong, even without legs. Snake fast, too. If she managed to grab his leg and pull him down, she’d be taking chunks out of him before he could stop her. Biting off his fingers if he tried to push her away. He hated the fast ones. They were too dangerous to kill without a weapon. A gun, a knife, a big rock or something to even the odds. He remembered the first one he’d put down with a blade. It had been strapped face down on a gurney and it still almost bit him before he could sink a knife into its head.
Gunny stumbled over a piece of rusty steel sticking out of the ground and looked back down instead of looking up for an escape. He’d tripped over a jutting piece of metal half buried in the sand. It looked like an old leaf spring from a car. The creek bed was littered with garbage, someone had used this place to get rid of their trash. Old plastic bags were shredded from animals digging through them and sun faded paper and tin cans were scattered among the broken lawn chairs, smashed televisions and other debris. Gunny scanned the mess, looking for something he could use. Anything to even the odds because it was time to fight. He couldn’t keep running, the thing would chase him forever. In the dim light, he made out a bent ironing board, most of an old weed whacker, rusting steel car wheels, bald tires and other junk. No baseball bat. No garbage can lid to use as a shield. No big chunk of metal to use as a club. Just garbage waiting for the rains to wash it away.
The voodoo woman was coming fast, dragging her useless legs and nearly leapfrogging with every powerful pull of her arms. He could hear her ripping through the sand and gravel and sage brush. He saw what he needed under a scattering of broken jars, empty tins and fast food bags. He snatched up the bent bicycle wheel with the jutting, broken spokes and a battered, rusting shovel with a few inches of snapped off wooden handle. Blood was still trickling from the gash on the side of his head, running down his neck and soaking his shirt. His ear still throbbed with every pounding heartbeat but he was through running. He spun as she flung herself at him, mouth wide and eager to taste the blood. He brought the bike wheel up and caught her full in the face, some of the sprung spokes gouging furrows across cheeks and forehead. He twisted with the force of her jump, shoved her aside and swung the piece of shovel at her neck. She spun in the garbage and it glanced off her shoulder blade, flaying it open to the bone. Her bloody hands grabbed for legs to pull him in close but he jumped backward, brought his shield back up. She didn’t take a second to regroup, didn’t need a moment to plan her next attack. She grabbed at the trash, leaped at him instantly and he deflected her head again with the wheel. She landed face down in broken glass and ignored it, she clawed at his feet and snapped at his ankles. Gunny kicked out and a steel toed boot found her teeth and sent them skittering into the trash. He followed through with a grunt and a swing of the shovel when she turned to attack again, ignoring her smashed
lips and bleeding mouth. He caught her on the side of the head with the edge and it cut to the bone, the top half of an ear flying off to join the teeth scattered in the trash.
She ignored it, snapped at his hand and sprang for him again, her legs dragging behind and torn open from the rocks and debris. He pulled away, dropped the shovel and barely avoiding her jagged, broken teeth taking a chunk out of him. Gunny backed off, using the bicycle wheel to knock her aside again as she forced him away from the piles of garbage. Away from any other weapon he might find. The wheel was falling apart, most of the spokes were broken with only a few holding the hub in place. One more lunge and she’d break the last of it. That was okay. He told himself. They’d gotten turned around in the fight, he could run back to the cars. There he would find something big and heavy to bash her head in. It had only been a few minutes, hopefully Casey hadn’t turned yet. If he had then maybe he was still trapped in the Mustang. If not, he’d deal with it. For now, he had to get back to where the weapons were.
Gunny backed away and she came scrambling at him again, boney fingers pawing the sand, jaws gnashing the air, shredded legs dragging uselessly. He fell, tripping over that piece of steel jutting out of the sand that looked like an old leaf spring. He dropped the wheel and backed away on all fours as she leaped again, her strong arms sending bloody fingers clawing for his face. She stopped in mid jump and slammed to the ground, face planting between his legs. Hands that were ripped to bloody shreds, fingers barely more than bones clutched at him as he kicked away and sprang to his feet. He stared at the rusty piece of metal protruding through her back right above her hips. Blood and other liquids oozed out and splashed her as she clawed at the ground to get to him. She lunged and nearly freed herself, snarling and hungry. Gunny snapped himself out of his moment of amazement, surprised he wasn’t being chewed up and jumped on her back, driving the steel deeper and pinning her to the spot like a bug on a pin. He stomped down hard on her neck and her arms went limp. Her head still tried to bite, her jaws still snapped at him until two hard kicks later she finally was still. She was finally dead.
Gunny leaned against the wall and breathed deep. That had been close. Too close. He was getting too old for this shit. The after-battle adrenaline shakes started but only lasted a moment. He’d been through situations as bad as this in the past. He was alive. The other guy wasn’t. He listened for the sound of someone racing towards him. Someone coming to join the fight. Someone like Casey either alive or dead coming to finish him off but he heard nothing. No running footsteps or snarling keens. He went back to the illegal dump site and started poking around. He wasn’t in a mad rush, didn’t have a hundred pounds of undead fury only seconds away and found a couple of good weapons after digging around for a few moments. He had to go back, to find Casey, to make sure he was dead or dying. He wasn’t up for another day one zombie battle but he had a little something now to even the odds. He’d found a huge piston with the connecting rod still attached and it made for a hell of a club. Probably out of a tractor or big diesel truck. He had a bicycle sprocket he could use as a crude blade and it would rip through skin like a knife through butter. An old, rusted steel fence post made a good spear. If Casey was a zombie, he’d rush straight for him. They were stupid like that. Gunny would just set the post in the ground and impale him on it when he charged then bash his big bald head in with the piston. Easy as pie.
127
Gunny
Gunny went slow back up the gully and was starting to wonder if he’d taken a side gulch or something. He didn’t remember running so far but he finally caught sight of the cars. He approached carefully, his eyes trying to see into the deep shadows where the moon light didn’t touch. If Casey hadn’t run away, if he was alive, he would be laying in wait. Gunny was pretty sure he still lived. If he was dead, he would have come after him. If he were dead and trapped in the car, he’d be keening and snarling at the smell of fresh blood so close. It was quiet and the crunching of his boots was loud in the deep ravine.
“So, she didn’t get you?” Casey’s voice rang out and Gunny ducked, waiting for a gunshot.
“Don’t worry, Mr. President. If I had any ammo left, you’d already be dead.” Casey said and Gunny heard the defeat in his voice. “Can’t find none in your car, either.”
He inched out of the shadows and peeked around the Mustang. Casey was leaning against the rocks with his leg in a makeshift splint. He had a knife stuck in the sand beside him and the makings of a cigarette in his lap but Gunny didn’t see any guns. Casey held up his arm to the moon light to show a big bloody bite sized chunk of it missing.
“You don’t happen to know if I let it bleed out, it that’ll get rid of the infection, do you?” Casey asked almost conversationally.
“Toss the knife.” Gunny said and stepped out into the light with his make shift armor and weapons. He still had the red paint on his face, his hair still in dreadlocks and he was splashed in zombie blood and brains up to his knees.
Casey saw the weapons, the shield and the spear and knew he wouldn’t get close enough to sink his blade into him. He hid his disappointment behind a sardonic smile.
“Whatever you say, Mr. President.” he said and threw it a few feet away. “I’m done for, you’d be doing me a favor to finish me off.”
Gunny approached slowly, then shoved him over, running his hands over him, searching for hidden guns or knives. Casey stifled a scream of pain but allowed it, it was better than just having that wicked looking club bash his skull in. Gunny ran his hands through the sand where he was sitting, looking for anything buried. There was nothing, so he grabbed his poke then stepped back, considering what to do. Casey sat back up with a grimace and breathed hard at the effort.
“I’m glad you got her.” he finally said. “Because she sure got me.”
Gunny moved back a few more feet, slid the tossed blade into his scabbard and hunkered down.
“Doesn’t matter how much it bleeds.” he finally said. “Once they break skin, it’s in your blood stream. Contamination is instant and irreversible.”
“Thought so.” Casey said. “You mind rolling me a smoke? I couldn’t get my fingers to work, she must have torn up some tendons or nerves or something.”
Gunny considered it, looking for a trap or an ambush but couldn’t see any way of Casey doing anything. His leg was broken which was why he hadn’t run. He didn’t have a blade and there were no guns hidden in the sand. He had a zombie bite and would start turning soon. He was accepting the fact that he was going to die. Gunny rolled a couple, lit them and reached over to give one to the man who had caused so much trouble and pain over the past year. He’d be dead soon. Gunny could afford to be charitable. He could afford a small kindness to a dying man.
Casey inhaled deeply and leaned back against the rocks.
Gunny watched.
“You know, I didn’t mean for it to get out of hand like it did.” Casey said. “I’m not saying I was building up a Sunday school choir, but things just got kind of crazy. I didn’t start out planning on cooking people. That was all Lucinda’s idea. When Edmunds came along, that’s when things really went weird.”
“You didn’t stop it, though.” Gunny said.
Casey sighed.
“No, I didn’t.” he said. “But for what it’s worth, I didn’t eat people.”
“Hitler didn’t personally gas anyone.” Gunny said “But they got gassed.”
Casey knew it was useless to try to get any sympathy from the man in front of him. He wasn’t going to talk his way out of an execution.
“When I first went to prison, I was young and scared and was just trying not to get shanked or raped. I was trying to mind my own business, do my time and get out.” he said and stared up at the moon. “One day there was a fight in the exercise yard. When it was all over, one of the guys was mangled, beaten to a pulp by a big guy called Mongo. He walked over to another guy, got a cigarette then went off to smoke it. Mongo had ruptured that guy, put him in
the hospital for a cigarette. For two cigarettes, he would have killed him. That’s when I realized that dying was cheap, Gunny. That’s when I learned that the price of life was two cigarettes.”
They smoked in silence in the shadows of a canyon with the stars glittering far overhead. Two old warriors who had fought down to the last man and they both knew only one of them would be leaving the ravine.
Gunny took a drag off of his hand rolled and understood the man in front of him a little better now. He had no regard for life because people were disposable. Life wasn’t sacred. Gunny valued life but not all life. Not Casey’s. He’d feel worse putting down an old dog than he would watching him die.
It was time to end this, time to slit his throat and let him bleed out before he turned and got crazy strong. He stood and pulled the knife.
Casey’s eyes got big and he tried to push back into the rocks.
“Can’t you let me die in peace?” he asked. “I’m done for, you know it. You ain’t gotta end me now. Let me have the last ten minutes owed me.”
“No.” Gunny said, wiped at the blood still trickling down the side of his head and started forward. “The world owes you nothing.”
He heard the plinking of falling gravel just seconds before a body smashed down in front of him and started reaching out with twisted arms. He jumped back in time to avoid two more crashing down in rapid succession then heard the keening cry from above. The fastest runners had caught up, had smelled his blood when they got close and kept chasing after it. Broken bodies started clawing their way towards him as he backed farther away from them. The sudden movement started his head bleeding again and the smell drove them wild. Keens from above told him more and more were showing up. He swung the heavy piston, sent brains splattering all over the canyon wall then turned to run. More were raining down, busted from the fall and clawing their way toward him. He knew a mile or so back up the gulch became shallow enough to climb out where the road crossed it. That would be a good place to get up, at the bridge. The zeds that were chasing him were slow, hobbling or crawling along and he set an easy double time pace. He could run for hours at that speed and cadence calls half-forgotten came back as if he were doing morning PT on base again.
Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Page 87
