A few minutes passed and Kahn’s tears faded. He wiped his sore face and coughed steamy breath into the dawn air. Hesitating, he searched for the strength to move. He thought of Aisha and Daniel, hungry and alone, and knew the opportunity he now had to return to them. He carefully rose to his feet, shaky and hurt, and stretched his sore body. He looked on the bare dirt where he had fought and could not find the lost weapon. Not wanting to look back into the pit, he took a few tentative steps toward the body of the second guard and found that he was definitely dead. His face was thankfully hidden by the grass, but his blood soaked into the ground around him and his body was unnaturally still. Kahn staggered around the corpse, keeping a wide berth as he searched for the other pistol. He found it in the grass and checked it before tucking it awkwardly into the waistband of his pants.
As he walked back toward the front of the restaurant his footing became more sure. He paused at the corner, looking across the highway at the bread factory. He could see Ash’s abandoned body in front of the gate, but there were no Neighbors outside on the ground floor. He could see the two rooftop guards, two stories high, but the parking lot was left unwatched.
His plan solid in his mind, he began to walk steadily toward the front gate. One side had been left wide open since, he thought, they must have expected to come right back. It was a matter of seconds for him to cross the road and grab the chain link entry. He swung the open side wide open, and then returned to the center to do the same in the opposite direction. Soon, both gates were open wide and he had a clear path of escape.
“Hey!” a voice cried from above. One of the guards must have looked down and spotted the bearded Assyrian, unguarded, opening the barrier around their home. Kahn ran. He headed for the cover of the cars and slid painfully away from the sight of the snipers.
Gunshots rang out and peppered the car he was using as cover. He drew the stolen pistol and quickly let off a few hastily aimed shots upward. He ducked as the second shooter took position and helped pin him down. He waited for a moment until the shots slowed, then he ran around the backside of the cars toward the Escape. He felt the shockwave of bullets passing him as he turned onto the passenger’s side of his vehicle. He knelt next to the door and used the keychain remote to unlock the doors. As he dragged himself into the passenger side, more shots exploded around the car. The passenger door and mirror were hit in succession, and the exploding glass turned to shrapnel outside the SUV. Kahn scooted over to the driver’s seat and inserted the key into the ignition. The engine fired and he shifted and hit the accelerator, peeling the car forward in the lot.
He turned the wheel hard to the right as he spotted several of Llewelyn’s men rush out of the front of the building with rifles and handguns raised toward him. He sped past Ash’s corpse and through the open gate, fishtailing on the gravel of the entry and ending on the lonesome highway. He pressed the accelerator to the ground and the vehicle roared away from the sound of fading gunfire.
Once again, Kahn drove. The last time, however, he drove blindly into chaos and danger which ended in death. Now he drove to escape the chaos, hoping that his speed would allow him to avoid their inevitable chase. He drove because he knew if he was captured that he would not survive another encounter.
After a few minutes of speeding through dark street lights and abandoned cross streets, Kahn began to think of a route. He wanted to end up at home, but the factory had detoured him across town from that destination. The quickest route would be to take the highway across the middle of the city, but he imagined the population of San Antonio dead and on the prowl. Or worse, alive and desperately trying to stay that way. He thought of a roundabout route that would take him on the outer edge of the city safely, he hoped, and avoid the populous suburban sprawl heading to downtown.
He came to a junction between the county highway he was on and another, more major thoroughfare. He continued to check his mirrors for signs of a chase. Seeing nothing, he slowed and turned onto the frontage road. There were businesses here, fast food places and cell phone stores, all abandoned. He felt lucky to be alone. He drove carefully down the frontage road. There were more cars here than any place he had yet been during the crisis. They were parked along the shoulder and in the street, some with doors oddly open, but they were all silent. He weaved between the vehicles on the grass and back onto the road when it was clear. His cargo bounced around and he dug into a case of water and thirstily drank one of the bottles. He was suddenly starving and exhausted, having eaten only one meager meal in the last 24 hours.
He needed a quick rest, and the SUV needed gas, so he took the opportunity to turn into a small, old gas station on an unfamiliar cross street. He parked in front of one of the pumps, hoping he could extract some gas. He tried to activate it, but with no power the pump was useless and he slammed the nozzle back into the holster.
He opened the rear gate of the SUV and sat down on the bumper. He drank from a second bottle of water and dug into his stash of food, looking for something he could eat. He had grabbed cans of food and dry goods mostly, so he failed to find sustenance that would work. He stood and deposited the empty water bottle in the trash can next to the pump as he walked toward the small building that housed the cashier and an assortment of snack foods. He tried the door and it clicked in the frame. He put both hands on the glass and looked in, salivating over rows of chips and candy bars.
He stepped back, coming to a realization, and looked around for a heavy object to throw through the window. He would load anything else he could find in the back of the SUV and take it with him. Otherwise, he justified, someone else would come along and do the same.
As he searched, he walked to the far side of the abandoned station. There was an old, blue pickup truck parked along the pump on this side. Kahn approached with care, watching and listening for danger. A loud pounding sounded from the front of the truck. Kahn maneuvered so he could look into the tinted windows of the cab, and struggled to find the source of the sound. Then a fist hit the inside of the driver’s window and shook the car. Kahn jumped, startled, but quickly recovered and moved closer to the enclosed creature. He came toward the front of the truck carefully, watching for movement inside. Then the dead person struck the windshield and side window in furious attack. It was a woman. Blood stained the windows where she hit, and Kahn watched her teeth snap and bite at the clear glass in silence. She slammed her face against the hard surface, damaging her teeth and nose and flooding her face with red blood. Kahn walked to the far side of the vehicle, searching the edge of the lot for a tool.
He found a hollow cinder block in the dirt and grime of the parking lot. He picked it up and tried to ignore the heavy pounding from the truck. The corpse had followed him around and was now beating the passenger side with enough force to shake the old truck back and forth. As he came around the back side of the truck he avoided the open tailgate and found another treasure, a red gas can almost topped off with fuel.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said to himself. “It’s my lucky day.” He grabbed the handle of the gas can with his free hand and waddled with the two heavy objects weighing him down. The liquid sloshed and threw his balance off, making the cinder block bang against his sore left leg. He came to his vehicle and set the gas can inside the gate, hefting the heavy block with two hands and approaching the glass door.
He had never broken into a gas station before. He lifted the concrete block over his head and aimed it at the top pane of glass on the door. The sun had moved high in the sky and he sweated in the warm air, groaning with effort against his worn-out muscles.
“Ready. Ready. Now!” he grunted and heaved the cinder block through the air toward the glass. It caught the clear pane just above the dividing bar of the door and shattered the glass into the small room. The ear-piercing noise made a guilty smile rise to Kahn’s face as he carefully reached in to unlock the thumb latch holding the door locked. He pulled the door free and crunched through the glass. He grabbed the top row of chi
ps and pushed his way back out the damaged entry, momentarily throwing the load into the back of his vehicle and going back for another. He made six or seven trips back and forth between the store and his car, avoiding melted or spoiled items as he made off with his bounty. He opened a bag of cheesy chips and wolfed down the small bag hungrily. His stomach growled and he consumed several jerky sticks and candy bars standing in the store.
Kahn immediately felt revitalized after eating and hydrating with a Gatorade from the store. He stood on the small stoop, chewing on the last bit of a slightly gooey chocolate bar. He stopped mid-chew, eyes wide.
Far away engine noise brought Kahn back into reality. He threw the wrapper on the ground and ran to the open gate of his car. The engine noise got louder as he quickly pushed the crunchy bags and gas can far enough into the vehicle for the gate to latch. He grabbed it with both hands and overcompensated the force needed to close it. The shock jarred Kahn’s bones and the car shook with the effort. Kahn listened as the engine clearly approached up the abandoned frontage road toward him.
He climbed into the driver’s seat, digging the keys out of his pocket and inserting them into the ignition. He waited there, panting with fear as he tried to keep still. A vehicle appeared to his left, along the same road that he fled through. The pickup truck was bright red and revved loudly toward the gas station. Kahn thought it may just pass by, missing him entirely. He cursed the profile of the SUV with the noticeable Boomstick logo on the side.
The vehicle didn’t slow as it drove past his position. He followed it with his eyes. He saw the truck had a Texas flag decal covering the entire rear window.
“Kimble?” He started the vehicle and put it into gear. He didn’t see anybody in the cab, so there was no way to tell who it was. How likely was it that Kimble escaped? “Maybe,” he grunted to himself.
He pulled forward to the edge of the small lot, watching the rear of the red truck as it continued down the road. Suddenly, bright red brake lights flashed and the truck came to a quick and faraway stop. White reverse lights flashed and the driver sped back the way he came. He whipped the truck over the mound of the shoulder and into the grass, and then spun gravel and dirt as he came back onto the road. Kahn hit the gas and turned left, driving the wrong way and accelerating quickly. He thought of the cars blocking the road and knew he wouldn’t be able to maneuver around them and flee the truck.
He made a hasty decision and turned swiftly to the right onto the sloping grass in between the frontage road and main highway. The SUV bounced and shifted unnaturally on the soft ground. Kahn gritted his teeth against the jarring ride and wrenched the wheel in a wide curve across the grass. The short hill leveled out and the car skidded and fishtailed as he drove too quickly onto the highway. He pressed the accelerator and turned the wheel hand over hand, ending up traveling the correct way on the freeway. He looked down the small hill at the red truck as he passed it, and then caught glimpses of it in his mirrors as it copied his move and followed him onto the highway.
He drove without thinking, only trying to put distance between the two vehicles. He had a good head start because of his unusual move, but the truck was faster and was closing quickly. The highway curved toward downtown, and Kahn saw multiple groups of stopped vehicles facing the opposite way across the concrete median. He watched the rear view at his pursuers and almost missed a line of cars parked in the far-right lane. He swerved over to the left and watched the blur of cars pass. Looking ahead and paying attention, he now saw the skyline of downtown approaching in the distance. Several more stopped cars blocked the left lane. As he avoided them, another line of cars blocked him on the right.
Soon, the spaces between abandoned cars closed. Kahn braked hard and had to pull onto the shoulder to avoid a jumbled mess of vehicles blocking all three lanes. By the time he was back on the road, the red truck had covered most of the distance and followed his path around the edge of the highway. He accelerated quickly into the open road, but his followers jumped onto the road within a few hundred feet of his bumper.
He heard the rapid report of gunfire and hunched instinctively into the steering wheel. As his hands gripped and shook the wheel in fright, the SUV slowed and drifted between lanes. Glancing in the mirror he saw the silhouette of a shooter leaning out of the passenger window, pointing a rifle forward. Bright flashes erupted from the barrel and Kahn heard the shots shortly after. Random cars began to jump up again, and Kahn attempted to use them as cover from the gunfire even as he had to slow down.
Then, he came upon a piled-up accident of several vehicles. Two were overturned and several more were scattered in all directions across the highway. He had to almost stop to get in between two of the wrecked cars to make it through, and he saw bodies inside the upside down van to his right. He shivered, even as more rounds struck the back of his vehicle.
Two undead corpses stood on the far side of the accident scene. They turned and revealed their blood-covered faces and chests. Kahn sped past as they both reached and lunged for the noisy engine. The driver of the red truck struck one of the bodies, spinning it off the front fender into the air.
It was getting harder to keep his distance from the truck, so Kahn took a long stretch of clear road to put some more separation between himself and the shooter. He expected more blocked road, and he wanted some safety between the two of them so he could take one of the downtown exits and lose them on the confusing side streets. Now, more and more cars began to block the road. Kahn kept the gas pedal pressed down despite the increasing number of obstacles.
He swerved to the left around one stopped car and then to the right around the next, and ended in a group of swaying figures. Numb to fear, and slow to react, they stood still as he drove through them. He felt the bumps as several of them bounced off the body of his car, and he kept going through the loose crowd. The creatures began to turn and walk in circles, chasing the shadow of the moving vehicle and massing together. Kahn tried to get through the closing crowd of reaching arms and moving bodies with the car, but he kept knocking them over as he slowed and struggled to continue driving. Fallen bodies started to pile and knock over others, threatening to stop his vehicle altogether.
A gap in the crowd opened suddenly to the left. The creatures were so dense now that he had no idea where his attackers were or what was ahead. He turned the wheel and punched forward through the hole, banging into the dead but gaining speed around the horde. He was able to break into the thinning outside ring and swerve back and forth, avoiding bodies and escaping the quicksand of their presence.
A long open highway stretched ahead of him. He hit the gas, glancing back briefly at the dead mob. He saw the red truck now, moving violently through the creatures. They were in a bigger vehicle and seemed to be moving through much faster than Kahn was able to. He used the delay as an opportunity to regain his distance. His pursuers broke free of the horde quickly, and started to gain on him. He desperately pressed the gas pedal, speeding along a straightaway free of obstacles.
Several yellow signs with arrows indicated a steep curve in the road coming ahead. He began to turn his wheel and follow the road to the left, but his rate of speed was too much for the curve. He drifted across several lanes, trying to fight the momentum, and overcompensating, sliding into a stomach-churning skid. He instinctively hit the brakes, turning his car into an out-of-control missile heading toward the barrier lining the outside edge of the road.
His wheels jumped and the SUV fishtailed out of the immediate spin. His velocity had slowed, so now as he regained control around the far side of the corner he saw the red truck incredibly close. The passenger was once again leaning out of the window, rifle aimed, as their vehicle also skidded into the curve. The truck’s tires smoked as the driver brought it around, throwing his gunner and not allowing him to get a shooting stance against the force of gravity. Kahn watched them anxiously and sped, too late, into a crowd of vehicles. Kahn saw several more walking corpses scattered around the little roadb
lock here, but they seemed to move in slow motion compared to the speeding vehicles. He swerved too hard and struck a small commercial van, bouncing off and starting a tight spin.
The world became a blur. He saw the red truck for an instant as the van Kahn struck was pushed into its path. His followers plowed through the van, spewing debris from both vehicles into the air. Their vehicle hit two dead walkers as they staggered into the attractive noise of the crash. The corpses flew up and over Kimble’s commandeered truck, flipping and shattering the windshield.
Kahn’s arms flailed as he lost his grip on the wheel with the spin. The last thing he felt as he was torn from his seat was a jolt and a smack of blinding pain, before being enveloped in sudden darkness.
Chapter 23
Homeward
Kahn awoke sometime later. His eyelids were heavy and he groaned as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He stretched his legs out and tried to shake the pins-and-needles feeling out of his thighs. A cracking noise emitted as he flexed his hands to work the feeling back into them. He stretched and felt the dull ache advance up his spine. His vision was fuzzy and dim. He reached up to rub his eyes and feel for injury on his head. He felt sticky, half-dried blood in his hair, ear, and right shoulder. Turning his neck was difficult and he hissed and groaned through small movements.
After a moment, he blinked some of the haze out of his vision and his mind came out of the pain-induced fog enough to realize his perspective was wrong. He craned around and saw he was in the passenger seat of the SUV. He looked at the empty driver’s seat. The confused semi-conscious feeling he had was replaced with panic. The crash must have deposited him across the center console and into the passenger seat, as if he relinquished his control of the car and his consciousness at the same time.
He tried the door handle but the door was stuck. He looked outside and realized the car had come to a stop next to something. There was an object blocking the passenger side, but the door was also somehow warped in the frame. Both things had prevented his escape from the damaged car. He craned around and saw he was still on the highway, stopped up against the heavy concrete barrier in between the two sides of the road. Cars were parked on the opposite side of the barrier. It was getting dark and wet misting drizzle diluted his view outside. The car was musty and condensation was forming along the inside of the windshield. Both the interior and exterior conditions served to blur his view of the outside world. He shivered, realizing that it had gotten cold again with the drizzling skies. He must have been unconscious for hours. The food, cases of water, and boxes had been traumatically shifted in the back with most items randomly strewn to the passenger side of the backseat. The fuel container was overturned, but he didn’t see or smell gasoline so he thought the seal was unbroken.
Nation Undead (Book 1): Neighbors Page 19
