Bobby glanced over his shoulder, and saw the zombies catching up to Colton. “Aw shit.” Bobby grunted as he changed directions and ran back towards Colton. Bobby raised Michelle and started firing, “Run Fatboy! Run!” Bobby ran past Colton, he went back through the entrance. He ran straight for the woman that had lured them into the aquarium room earlier, and at the absolute last second Bobby veered off to the right. He ran around the outside edge of the lobby. “Come on you undead fuckers! Why eat a fat little Ginger when you can have a big ole bite of some grade A Coonass!”
“Get him!” The young woman screamed. The other zombies turned and ran after Bobby.
“Bobby!” Colton yelled.
“Run you fat fuck!” Bobby screeched as he disappeared down the hallway.
Colton hesitated for a moment, and then started running towards Sarah and B.J. “Go-go-go!” He barked.
“Where’s my Dad?” B.J. asked.
“He ran back inside. Now let’s get going because he didn’t buy us much time.” Colton ordered.
“Daddy!” B.J. wailed.
Sarah took her by the arm and pulled, “We have to go. There isn’t anything we can do now.”
All three ran as hard and fast as their legs would carry them through the parking lot. They could hear shotgun blasts behind them. They reached the road and started running back to the car. Colton’s side was killing him. He just couldn’t run the entire length, but he still kept pushing himself. He was halfway down the road, and could see the car on the other side of the bridge when his legs gave out from under him. He wanted to run, but his legs absolutely refused to move anymore.
Sarah and B.J. ran back and helped him to his feet. “Come on…we’re not going to lose you too.”
Colton nodded and let both women help him. They couldn’t run and help him, but they could at least keep going. There were more shotgun blasts. With each shot Colton and the two women jerked. Each shot meant Bobby was still alive, but it also meant he was that much closer to running out of shells. No one said anything, but they all were counting.
*Bang*
Eleven. Four left.
*Bang*
Twelve. Three left.
*Bang*
Thirteen. Two left.
*Bang*
Fourteen. Colton started crying. Bobby was empty unless he put one in the chamber at the start.
*Bang*
Fifteen. Bobby was completely out of shotgun ammo. Colton’s crying turned to sobbing, but he wasn’t the only one. Sarah and B.J. both stopped and began crying. Tears ran freely down their faces. None of them could keep going. It was like they’d all been collectively kicked in the gut.
“He really was my best friend.” Colton sniffled.
“Oh Daddy…why.” B.J. was crying so hard that she had to lean on Colton to keep from falling over. Sarah couldn’t even form words. She just held on to her husband and B.J. and tried to keep from drowning in grief. Tears ran down her face and dripped onto the top of her husband’s head. They were inconsolable. It was the sound of footsteps coming their way that snapped them out of their grief.
They looked towards the tree line, but it was so dense they couldn’t see what was coming. All three drew their weapons. Even B.J. found herself completely at ease with the thought of killing whatever came running out from the tree line. There were two sets of feet running directly for them. Sarah tracked the sound with her ears. Colton pointed his shotgun where he thought his wife was aiming, and then remembered his shotgun was empty. Colton cursed and switched to his pistol.
A bush shook, and Sarah tightened her finger on the trigger. The woman that had lured them all the way back into aquarium room came running out right at Sarah. A vicious smile slithered across Sarah’s face. All she could think of was making this woman suffer like she and her friends had probably made Bobby suffer. Instead of aiming for the woman’s forehead, Sarah aimed for the spot just below the woman’s chin. The trigger was squeezed, and Sarah exhaled as she watched for the bullet to enter through the throat and exit out the back of the neck…severing the spine so that the woman would just have to lay there and suffer.
To say Sarah was surprised when none of that happened would be an understatement. Sarah was a woman that believed strongly in processes. So instead of running screaming from the violently bloodthirsty female zombie that was running at her, Sarah started going through a mental checklist of what had gone wrong. Sarah remembered exhaling just before pulling the trigger. She remembered the gentle click as the trigger finally gave way under the pressure of her finger. She felt the hammer fall, and what should have followed was the sudden jerk of recoil as the gun fired. Instead there was nothing. Her mind clicked through the possibilities. Did she forget to load the gun? No. Could it be a defective firing pin? Maybe, but it wasn’t likely. She’d already fired the gun so many times today that the odds were strongly against it. That left one possibility. The bullet was a dud. There was an easy enough solution for that. Sarah worked the lever. The defective bullet flittered out into space, and was replaced by a live bullet.
Sarah readied herself to take aim, and her eyes grew huge. The zombie woman was almost on top of her. She’d never have time to actually take aim. Meanwhile Colton and B.J. fired wildly at the woman. Colton was hitting everything but the woman’s head, and B.J. hit the woman once in the elbow, but it was just dumb luck. All Sarah could think of at this exact moment was that she was going to die.
*Bang*
Lead pellets hit the undead woman, and drove her onto her side. Sarah looked back to the tree line. Bobby was stepping out. He was panting, and looked exhausted, but he kept firing shells into the undead woman. He started at the zombies legs, and worked his way up and down the body one shell at a time. Bobby was careful not to actually shoot the zombies head until he got to his fifteenth shell. By then the buckshot practically reduced the woman’s body to bloody pulp. On his last shot, the buckshot removed most of the woman’s face and left side of her head. Bobby then laughed maniacally as he stared at Michelle, “Baby, you’re the greatest!” He leaned in and kissed the barrel that was still hot from all the shooting. There was a slight sizzle, and Bobby jerked away with a slight burn to his lips.
“Bobby! You’re alive!” Colton wrapped his arms around his friend and started crying. B.J. and Sarah practically tackled the man in their enthusiasm at seeing him alive.
“What part of run Fatboy run didn’t you understand?” Bobby screamed.
“How are you even alive?” Colton’s voice was muffled as Sarah and B.J. pressed in to hug the man.
“There’s a back exit. I just ran through, and then ducked out the back.” Bobby grinned.
“You sneaky bastard! You had us all so worried.” Sarah hugged the man even closer.
Bobby hugged her back and basked in the feel of her body in his arms. “Yeah, I remembered the back door from when B.J. came here on her junior high field trip. I was still smoking back then. So when they were giving that really long and boring speech about Mother Nature, global warming, or some other environmental bullshit I ducked out to have a cigarette.”
B.J. started laughing, “To think…we got you to quit by telling you how cigarettes would kill you.”
“Yep…a pack of Marlboro’s saved my life.” Bobby laughed. He felt his daughter hug him tighter. “Seriously…I’m okay.”
“We heard you shoot all your shells.” Sarah said. She didn’t want to let the man go.
“I did, but stopped to reload when I realized we were about to get out on the road. It was a good thing I stopped because if I’d have kept chasing her you guys would have made me look like Swiss cheese.” Bobby explained. Sarah was pressed against him, and he could feel her breasts squeezed firmly between Sarah and himself. The more he thought about her luscious cleavage, the more he tried not to...which of course had the exact opposite effect. It wasn’t long before he felt himself stiffen.
“Hey! What the hell? I’m glad you’re alive, but not that glad.” Colton
jerked back once Bobby’s erection started poking him. “I nearly lost an eye.” Colton teased. “We need to find you a woman.”
Bobby lifted his shotgun and grinned, “Don’t listen to him Michelle. He’s just jealous.” Then he gave a tentative kiss to the barrel one more time. He still jerked back from the heat of the barrel, but this time it didn’t burn him.
They all started walking towards the car when B.J. asked, “So what now?”
“We get the hell out of here. The farther we get away from these undead sons of bitches the better.” Colton answered.
Chapter Forty-Three
Digger woke up upside down in a cypress tree branch eighty foot in the air. The tiny armadillo tried to turn over, but when he started to move he fell of the branch. The little armadillo bounced off every branch like a ping pong ball on the way down. It was low tide in the swamp, and Digger hammered into the mud with a deafening thud. The impact left a crater three foot deep that began closing up almost as quickly as it was made. The muck closed up around the small mammal. Two minutes later there wasn’t even the slightest hint that an armadillo had been buried in the swampy mud.
It was Digger’s pink nose that first poked out from his muddy tomb. Three of his legs were broken, but through sheer determination the tiny armadillo dug himself out using his one good leg. After he got the last bit of himself out of the earth, Digger collapsed in exhaustion. It was late that evening before Digger began his slow painful crawl back towards Jessup. One tiny leg kept dragging the rest of his body through the swamp. The tiny albino armadillo moved with single-minded determination.
The first time he reached water, Digger tried to swallow air so that he’d float, but the moment he slipped into the water he heard the bubbles coming out from his side. Digger kept trying to swim across, but he slowly sank as the air escaped from the wound in his side. Digger jerked and flailed underwater as liquid filled his lungs. Only when his lungs were full of the brackish swamp water did the armadillo begin to calm down. Digger started sloshing through the mud as fish and other creatures passed over him. What might have been a twenty minute scramble under normal conditions became a two hour ordeal to get back to Jessup.
Alligators slowly moved through the water in search for food. When they got close, Digger buried himself in the mud and tried his best to look like a rock. It was the snakes that really made things almost impossible. He could hide from the alligators, the fish ignored him, but the snakes were a constant danger. They struck him even when he was buried in the water. The small snakes were more irritating than anything. Their fangs couldn’t get through his shell, but they pestered until they got tired or needed air. The big snakes were something else altogether. Their fangs had trouble puncturing the shell, but it wasn’t impossible. The only advantage Digger had was that the snakes fully expected the venom to do the work for them. So they bit and then wrapped around Digger. The poison was useless on the undead armadillo. So when they wrapped around Digger to devour him, it was the armadillo that started eating. He’d bite and chew whatever part of the snake he could reach until either the snake released him, or died.
As if avoiding the swamp creatures wasn’t hard enough, Digger also had to dodge the growing number of undead zombies that were now walking through the swamp. Most of Livingston Parish was infected, and the first thing they did was start searching for victims amongst their friends and neighbors. Unfortunately for them, all their friends and neighbors were infected as well. The zombies searched from block to block. After most of the day spent wandering the streets for uninfected, the zombies went back home to their cars so that they could drive to other populated areas. By then most of their fine motor skills were gone. Some of the zombies got a few blocks, some barely made it down the street, but most of the undead couldn’t even back their cars out of their driveways. So they did what instinct and common sense told them to do. They walked.
As the temperature rose, the people’s decomposition increased, and so did their hunger. They scavenged throughout Livingston Parish on pets, farm animals, and any wild animals, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The zombies kept all their mental faculties even if their motor skills were fading away. In a cool environment they might have maintained a semblance of normalcy for quite a while. As the temperature became hotter and more humid their physical decline was astonishing. Even their speech skills were slowly slipping as they began to lose the ability to form and shape their mouths properly to make the words. In a day or two they’d be lucky if they could do anything more than grunt and groan.
Hunger dictated where the zombies moved. They needed food. Most of them were smart enough to understand that their best chance was to head for the most crowded city. More people equals more food, and they all knew where to find the most people…New Orleans. Most of the zombies started walking down the streets like they were taking an evening stroll, but as hunger took a greater hold on them they began to veer off the streets, and make a more direct path.
As they moved through the brackish swamp water, cypress trees, brush, and muck it became a war of attrition against Mother Nature. Alligators attacked them as they waded deeper into the murky swamp. One Zombie by could be pulled down into the dark water by a large gator, but if there were two or three zombies together…they easily turned the tables on the alligator. Soon the zombies huddled into groups out of a sense of self-preservation, and the lone zombies shambling through the swamp dwindled.
Digger heard voices as he slid himself past the outhouse. “Asshole? Is that you?” Digger tried to get Jessup’s attention, but there was no response. Digger got closer, and then saw him. Jessup was still naked and impaled on the tree, but now a woman in a wedding dress was trying to tear parts of the man off for food. Digger looked over and saw that most of the scraps of body parts from earlier today were being devoured by a large group of zombies.
“Hold him still so I can get his leg.” Jennifer Scott Williams yelled at a flower girl while she pulled. Bone popped, and there was the sound of meat ripping and giving away. Green blood oozed and dripped. Jessup didn’t even move. He was too tired, and too weakened by his impalement.
“Asshole! Wake up!” Digger snapped.
Jessup’s head rolled as, and he slowly blinked, “Digger? Is that you?”
“Who the hell else would it be? What is there another badass armadillo running around? Maybe some ninja squirrels? A vampire chipmunk? Oh wait no…a turtle pirate! Of course it’s me…Dumbass!” Digger grumbled.
“Digger…you gotta help me. They’re eating me.” Jessup’s voice was slurred, and he was weak.
“Who’s he talking to?” Josie the flower girl asked.
“He’s delirious honey. Don’t pay him any attention.” Jennifer answered.
Digger’s legs were broken, he had a hole punctured through his side, and after all the snake bites he was practically oozing venom. The tiny armadillo just didn’t have the ability to put up much of a fight. So when one of the zombies grabbed him by the tail, all Digger could do was curse at the man. “You inbred motherfucker! I’ll use your butthole for my summer home. I’ll kill you, shit in your mouth, and then wipe my ass with your forehead. Just get a little closer you son of a bitch so I can piss in your eyes.”
Unfortunately the only person that could hear him was Jessup. “Jesus Digger...do you kiss your mom with that mouth.”
“Don’t you ever fucking talk about my mother again…do you hear me Asshole? I still have plenty of whoop-ass to go around!” Digger yelled, but everyone other than Jessup only heard grunts and squeals.
The old man holding Digger grinned. His name was Jebediah Rider. He had three teeth in his mouth, and a scar that went in a large misshapen circle on the back of his bald head from when a hand grenade blew shrapnel into the back of his brain. He’d gotten it in Afghanistan saving his squad. An enemy combatant threw the grenade at some of his men. It landed behind them, and Jebediah tackled them to the ground. He shielded them with this body when it exploded. After thirty hours
of surgery, he woke up at Rammstein Air Force Base strapped into a gurney. Serving his country left the man with three teeth and a metal plate the size of a bedpan in his head. “Hehehehe! I didn’t even have to chase this one down.
Digger tried to bite Jebediah, and when that didn’t work he peed. Jebediah just held the armadillo away so that he couldn’t hit him with the urine stream. “Oh he’s a feisty one.” Jebediah laughed as he started walking towards the house. “Maybe we get in there and I can find some beans, and spices. Maybe some armadillo gumbo?”
“Fuck you and your gumbo you toothless asshole!” Digger snapped.
Jebediah shook the grunting armadillo and laughed, “No…better yet armadillo chili. Nothing beats armadillo chili.”
Digger started jerking and flailing around. He grunted and squealed as he frantically threw himself from one side to another. Jebediah shook the armadillo, “Settle down!”
Digger screamed, “Chili! Chili! No! Momma! Momma! Put her down! Don’t put her in the pot! Don’t put her in the pot! Noooooooooooooooooooo!” The change was sudden. Diggers fangs extended out like two daggers. He grew larger and heavier. The bones grew back together, and his injuries healed. Fur ruptured out through the skin, and even exploded out through his shell until Digger looked like a giant cotton ball the size of a large dog.
“What the hell?” Jebediah’s voice was filled with shock as the armadillo weighed his arm down. Digger jerked one more time, and slipped out of the man’s hand.
Digger hit the ground on all four legs and immediately leapt onto the man’s chest. Fangs imbedded into Jebediah’s throat to hold him in place while Digger started churning his legs. Claws slashed and cut through the man’s torso. The albino zombie were armadillo shredded Jebediah’s clothes. Flesh tore away like confetti, and before long blood, bones, and muscle was spraying out from the angry quadruped. “I’ll show you chili! First we need the meat!” Digger howled. His claws kept digging through the man until they ripped through the other side of the man.
Uncle Gary's Campfire Stories: Bayou Zombie Werewolves Page 42
