Mountain Sickness: A Zombie Novel

by Frank Martin

  With a small plastic bag in hand, Anna hopped back over the counter and began retracing her steps. But Beth soon saw that Anna was moving much more quickly than she had on her first trip around. The excitement at having found what she was looking for made the doctor a little more confident in her steps. She took less time deciding where to place her feet and body as she moved about the bloody human carousel.

  And as she drew within ten feet of Beth at the door, Dr. Morris placed her foot down on something that didn’t feel quite like the floor. Praying and hoping that she didn’t step where she thought she did, Anna looked down to see that her boot was on top of a rather large, bloodstained sneaker.

  The careless woman immediately cringed at the sight as a teeth-clattering shiver ran its way down her backside. She then slowly looked up, once again hoping that she wasn’t going to see what she expected. But as the doctor’s gaze came upright, she was met by a man’s menacing, stone-like face covered in blood.

  Anna didn’t move, not so much because she was paralyzed by fear, but because she was wishing by some miracle the terrifying man would ignore that she had stepped on his foot. For a second it seemed like he would. The man’s vacant, bloodshot eyes just blankly stared into Anna’s, his gaze locked in a stranglehold around her face.

  But just as she felt comfortable enough to lift her foot for another step, the man’s jaw dropped open and unleashed a horrible, deafening moan louder than anything Beth had heard in her life. The sound almost seemed demonic in nature and rang out through the pharmacy door before echoing all across the valley. Beth and Anna both instinctively covered their ears but not without noticing that every other zombie in the building had now stopped their mindless walking and turned to face them.

  The monstrous groan continued on much longer than any human voice should linger. And as soon as it was done, the rest of the crowd began closing in on Anna, reaching their arms out and grasping in her direction. Immediately recognizing the danger, the feisty doctor ducked her head and sprinted the remaining ten feet towards the door, barreling through a series of grabby hands and clunky bodies in her way.

  Still holding onto the plastic bag, Anna joined Beth just outside the pharmacy, and the two began running back the way they came. With high knees, the women moved as fast as they could by placing their steps back in their pre-made footprints. It was an awkward yet effective way to traverse the deep snow.

  At first, Beth and Anna continued running out of fear that the crowd from the pharmacy might be chasing after them. But as they pulled away from the block, a new threat forced them to keep up their pace. The doors to the buildings on either side of the street started opening one by one, unleashing wave after wave of the same blood-soaked zombies. As if the loud moan acted as a call to arms, crowds of the sluggish brutes emerged from the stores and poured out into the snowy streets.

  Although they moved hastily, the bumbling fiends couldn’t run. Their bodies just floundered around while moving forward in an uncoordinated speed-walk through the snow. They tripped and blundered about, even occasionally falling over one another.

  Beth didn’t consider any single one of them an immediate danger. Not like the ravenous mob that came barreling down the mountainside in the blizzard. But what they lacked in veracity, these new kind of monsters made up for in numbers.

  Once they passed the spot where she was found, Beth quickly fell in line behind Anna. For several more blocks the two women refused to stop while the moaning creatures continued to close in on them, never bothering to pay any attention to the snow slowing them down. In typical zombie fashion, Beth’s pursuers threw their arms around as they drew nearer, grasping at air with every close attempt.

  It wasn’t until the school came in sight that the two women finally departed from the town’s streets and broke free from the rolling wave of deranged infected. But even though they started to pull away from the people chasing them, Beth locked onto Anna’s back like a target as they continued on their path to the gymnasium’s side door. The young girl began pushing through the small burn in her thighs for the last leg of their mad dash and then finally burst through the gym’s entrance right behind Anna.

  Out of breath and overheated, the two women fell back against the closing door just as a young male nurse approached them. “Anna! Where’d you go? You shouldn’t be outside.”

  He then locked the door’s handle above their heads as Dr. Morris addressed him with the surgical mask still covering her mouth. “It’s OK. I got the meds. Start trying them out on the quarantined patients.”

  Anna held out the plastic bag still clutched in her hands, and the nurse accepted it with a confused look on his face before silently returning to the makeshift clinic. Dr. Morris watched him take several steps and then yelled out before the young man disappeared out of sight. “And double check the doors going outside!”

  For a moment, the two women remained silent while staring out across the gymnasium. Neither said a word or bothered to look at one another. Despite their recent escape, they both felt content and relaxed.

  The quiet remained for a solid minute before Beth eventually broke it without ever turning her head. “Tell me: you didn’t think that mask was actually going to do anything, did you?”

  Already having the answer ready, Anna still took a breath before deciding to respond. “Only for my bravery.”

  20

  When the gondola car began its descent into town the sun was already on its way back behind the mountain range on the far side of the valley. It’d been a full minute since they relieved their cab of its unwelcome passenger, and unlike the ride up to the mid-mountain station, the group’s nerves failed to fade away.

  Peter, Chris, and Stephanie all sat at the edge of their seats, anxiously awaiting their arrival into town. After departing Mountain Village, they each felt composed and at least somewhat in control of the situation. Without any communication with the authorities in Telluride, their plan to head into town seemed logical, practical and the best option at the time.

  But after their encounter with the strange horde of zombies infesting the mid-mountain station, the reality of the crisis started to sink in. They truly had no idea what they were up against. And if such a dangerous threat was hiding in such a small, inconvenient place, their imaginations ran wild as to what could be waiting for them in the town below.

  The silent minute allowed their wandering minds to dwell on the grim truth of the situation until Chris became the first to vocalize what everyone was feeling. “I’m beginning to think this was a stupid idea.”

  Having been the one who thought of the plan (mainly out of desperation for his son), Peter felt it was his responsibility to respond. “Probably. But we need to assess the situation in town. With nobody answering their phone this was our only option.”

  Peter looked to Chris for a follow-up, but it was Steph who stated the obvious. “And if they’re all dead?”

  “Then we’ll just hop back on the gondola.”

  Stephanie took the opportunity to stare at the Village Manager with an exaggerated girly smile before offering her response. “So we can venture into the zombie infested station again? Great.”

  Peter ignored the girl’s sarcastic comment by turning his focus to the gondola’s front facing window. In the few minutes since the second half of their ride began, the sun managed to creep downward a little below the Rocky Mountain ridgeline, showering the sky with the beginnings of a red sunset. There was still enough power behind the star’s shine to light up the snow globe-like picture perfect view of Telluride only the gondola could provide. For Peter and Chris, both of whom had taken this ride more times than they could count, it was an odd display to see the town so engulfed in white.

  But from their aerial view high off the mountainside, there was an odd addition that stood out from within the familiar sight. Between the buildings, they could see small specks littering the pristine sheets of white covering the unplowed streets. The two of them, along with Stephani
e by their side, homed in on the numerous dots that moved back and forth until their approaching descent brought the figures into full view. Telluride’s streets were littered with more of the walking bleeders the group had just narrowly escaped from. And one by one, the gondola’s passengers dropped their jaws at the overwhelming realization that their short trip was for nothing.

  By the time the cab pulled into the station, the transition from day to dusk was already in full swing. Situated more towards the base of the mountain than the town’s streets, the gondola station and the surrounding area were free from the mindless, wandering murderers. So even with their spirits diminished, the group felt safe enough to exit the gondola car and enter the building. But there was little for them to do.

  The discouraging sight of seeing the town so overrun by infected left the three survivors speechless. As if in a trance of disbelief, they all walked forward to the front of the station and looked out the window at the street before them.

  Peter knew the isolated block they were seeing was just one corner of Telluride and not an accurate barometer for the entire town. Even from the gondola, he couldn’t see every street corner. But he didn’t know whether to be discouraged or comforted by that knowledge. There was always the chance, that for whatever reason, this area had the highest concentration of those things, and what he was witnessing was the whole extent of the infestation. Then again, there was also the chance that this scene was repeated on every street corner, and that the town was truly overrun.

  As the gondola continued to run its course behind them, the group quietly watched for a short while longer. When the inevitable discussion began, Stephanie was once again the one to break the silence. “So, that’s it? Game over?”

  With his eyes still firmly locked ahead of him, Peter addressed the girl while shaking his head. “No. There might still be others out there trapped in their homes.”

  Chris turned to face him and struggled within himself to challenge Peter’s optimism. “Maybe. But what would you have us do?”

  Although it was tough to admit, Peter knew the ski patroller was right. He wanted to have a reasonable answer. Something that didn’t reek of desperation and insanity. But the odds were stacked against him, and Peter could only remain silent as Chris drove his point home. “We came to see what the situation was like. And the situation is fucked. We should head back to the group we know is still alive and plan on how to get out of here.”

  Once again, the image of Ryan crazed and deranged slipped its way into Peter’s mind. He knew coming into town was a long shot to saving his son. So long that he couldn’t even see where he was aiming. But that didn’t make his failure any easier to accept. He hoped that somewhere in this zombie infested town there was an answer that could save his son. And getting back on the gondola was as good as putting that twelve-year-old boy in his grave.

  His companions could see Peter’s logic and emotions wrestling one another in his mind. And with a face full of torment, he eventually turned to the girl standing next to him. “You agree with him?”

  Almost as if she read his thoughts, Stephanie answered the question by addressing Peter’s concern. “I don’t have any family to worry about. So, yeah. I guess I do.”

  The group silently fell into an agreed acknowledgment. It was time to head back the way they came, regardless of what was waiting for them in the mid-mountain station.

  The three of them lowered their heads in preparation to turn themselves around when the sound of a loud, revving engine caused them all to stop. One by one, they curiously turned back out the window to see the bumbling pack of zombies awkwardly cave in on itself in the middle of the street. The creatures in the center of the strange human funnel began clumsily running towards the back of the crowd as the engine noise grew louder.

  Eventually, the wall of pushing zombies erupted when the front end of a massive truck plowed through them, entering the open space of snow in front of the station.

  The group inside remained still and speechless as the truck came to a sliding stop in the snow. The four doors to the cab never opened, but a figure could be seen hopping out the bed of the truck and walking around to the front. “Hello? Is anybody here?”

  As if the man’s uniform didn’t give him away, Peter immediately recognized the stranger as Marshal Travis Walker. He then made a move towards the door without saying a word to his companions, assuming they would simply follow him out.

  Once outside, Peter waded through the snow on his way to the marshal, who squinted his eyes to get a better look at the man approaching him. “Peter, is that you?”

  The Village Manager extended his arm for a greeting, which Travis readily accepted with a smile on his face. “It’s good to see you, Marshal.”

  “We saw someone turned on the gondola and came to check it out. What are you doing here?”

  “Nobody was answering their phones. I had to see how the town was doing.”

  Peter didn’t phrase his comment as a question, but the marshal knew it had an answer. One which forced him to shamefully drop his head rather than discuss it. At that point, Stephanie and Chris joined them in front of the idling truck, and even though they hadn’t been part of the conversation, Travis still addressed them alongside Peter. “There was nothing any of us could do. I just hope Mountain Village isn’t as bad.”

  “It’s quiet now but the courtyard was basically a massacre.”

  The marshal opened his mouth as if to continue the discussion, but a voice from the truck cut him off before he could speak. “This cute reunion is nice and all but our little game of zombie bowling kind of attracted some attention.”

  The four of them turned to the truck and found a man in a tarnished business suit leaning over the roof of the cab from the bed. The voice was new, but the man’s face immediately struck Peter as a familiar sight. He scrunched his brow as if searching his mental database for a name to go along with it, and as the man went to speak again, the pieces clicked in Peter’s mind.

  He was looking at his Mountain Village neighbor: the infamous Scott Brooks. “So if you wouldn’t mind getting in the fucking truck we would all greatly appreciate it.”

  The marshal let out an annoyed sigh, but quickly changed his reaction when he looked around the side of the truck to see a wave of bloody zombies pouring into the snow from the street. “Come on!”

  Marshal Walker led the way around the truck and into the bed, where Mr. Brooks was accompanied by an older gentleman Peter didn’t recognize. Once the four of them hopped in and slammed the tailgate, the old man slapped the side of the cab, signaling that it was time for them to be on their way. The loud rev of the engine was followed by a heavy clunk of shifting gears. The Ford truck then began spinning around in the snow, easily positioning itself to face the incoming flood of hobbling zombies head on.

  After another rumble of a gearshift, the truck’s tires rapidly sped around, searching for traction within the fluffy snow beneath them. It didn’t take long for the rubber to catch, and the large pickup began clawing its way forward, barreling through the front of the galloping pack.

  The first few people to connect with the truck’s grill were immediately sucked underneath it. The vehicle bumped and shook as its large tires crushed those unfortunate enough to get caught in their wake, but the blood-soaked zombies’ monotone moans never faltered for an instant.

  Like a closing gate, those at the edges of the human wall collapsed all around the truck as it plowed on ahead. It wasn’t long before the pickup moved deep enough into the never-ending mob that it became completely surrounded.

  Although slow, the blundering buffoons swung their arms about trying to grab hold of the truck as it passed them by. Their bleeding bodies swayed back and forth, splashing sprays of blood against the windows.

  The wave of zombies was building and growing more crowded as those around the truck pressed harder and harder to get to it. The vehicle moved just fast enough to keep it from being completely overwhelmed, though
every once in a while a slow yet capable zombie managed to latch onto the side.

  At first it was just one, which the marshal easily sent tumbling back to the ground with a swift kick to the head. But as more and more of the fiends began scaling the short walls of the truck, it became apparent to Peter that their moving fortress was far from impenetrable.

  With six passengers in the bed, the cramped quarters made it all the more difficult to fight off the attack. Each one of them commanded a section of the pickup to defend from invaders, who were becoming more and more frequent. For the most part, they used their feet and fists to stop the agonizing faces of blood from climbing onto them, but the sound of sporadic gunfire would occasionally catch Peter by surprise. He turned back around to see the marshal and the old man standing in the middle of the bed intently aiming their side arms for more imminent threats.

  Another contributing factor to the strange battle was that the truck struggled to keep up its speed. Every so often the engine would randomly rev as if the driver stepped on the gas but wouldn’t go anywhere, their pace intermittently dropping against the push of the zombie horde.

  Peter noticed it right away, as he assumed everyone in the truck did, but Scott Brooks was the only one to point it out to his fellow passengers in the bed. “I seem to remember us moving a lot faster on our drive down here.”

  As if he felt the need to defend both the truck and its driver, the old man was ready with a response. “We’ve added four more passengers since then.”

  From the opposite side of the truck as Peter, Chris chimed in while struggling with a persistent climber. “And we’re going to add a lot more if we don’t do something.”

  In regular hero fashion, Marshal Walker leaned on top of the young ski patroller and shot two bullets down into the zombie he was fighting. The creature promptly dropped off the side of the truck, and Travis stood valiantly over Chris and the others while trying to rally their spirits. “It’s going to be all right. We’re almost back at the Town Hall. Once there we can…” A raging savage suddenly leapt from one side of the bed to the other, cutting off the marshal’s speech by tackling the man over the side of the truck.