by M. Lorrox
Step three: Final assessment. What can go wrong? Ha! Anything. At least Sadie is on her way, and surely other parents. Reinforcements—check!
He continues down the road and comes upon a break in the trees. He can see where the trucks left the road. Nobody is coming down the road in the other direction, and Charlie pulls into the oncoming traffic’s lane, hugging the shoulder so he can peer off the edge and into the field below. He takes a good look down while still curving with the road—riding the edge of the shoulder—the Harley’s tires just inches away from the lip of the pavement. He sees the lay of the field, the wreckage, the zombies, and Eddy in the middle of them all—completely surrounded, absurdly outnumbered, and it looks like he’s injured.
From Charlie’s perspective, Eddy looks like a drowning victim whose arms autonomously flap around in a struggle to survive as the person’s logic and reason fails. But instead of drowning in water that envelops you, he is drowning in a sea of mouths and teeth that will eat him alive.
SHIT! New plan, kamikaze!
Slightly before the smashed weeds that mark where the trucks left the road, there’s a street sign warning of horse traffic. There’s an old, rusted tractor down in the field that sits roughly in line with the wrecked SUVs—closest to the upside down one, but past the battleground and alongside the hill leading up to the road. Yes! If I can just make that tractor…
He buries his thumb into the button for the horn. It blasts loud over the deep rumble of the Harley’s motor. He pulls in the clutch’s lever and shifts down. As he releases the clutch, he twists the throttle all the way, red-lining the engine. Now that the clutch is released, the bike jolts forward, accelerating fast. He leans hard to the right and swerves into the street—away from the shoulder—then he switches his weight and leans back to the left, heading straight for the street sign. He squeezes the motorcycle’s frame with his thighs and the grips with his hands.
Eddy hears the horn and shoots his eyes up toward the road. Dad! The zombies don’t seem to notice the sound at all; they stay fixated on Eddy. A zombie from the side bites down on his shoulder. Eddy lets out a howl as he jumps hard and spins fast. The zombie had bitten down on some of the remaining shreds of his cargo vest, but the teeth cut into Eddy’s muscle as well. It tears out a small piece of the meat, and blood immediately starts to pool in the cavity.
While Eddy is lifting off the ground and spinning in the air, he sees the chunk of what used to be his flesh in the mouth of the zombie. The pain from the wound and the insult of seeing the zombie chewing on his flesh infuriates him. With his hope restored from his dad’s arrival, he moves faster than he ever has. Eddy is a few feet off the ground, and he smashes his knee into the zombie’s mouth and breaks its teeth. The zombie recoils from the impact. Eddy is still rising, and with his other leg he stomps hard down into its face.
Every single bone in the zombie’s skull shatters around Eddy’s bright red All Stars.
The force of the kick launches Eddy higher into the air. He looks down on the zombies below his feet. They are just starting to lift their chins and look up for him, eyes, mouths, and arms all searching for him. It’s a terrifying sight, but Eddy isn’t afraid.
He lets out a terrifying roar, showing them he’s more animal than they are, and when he lands among them, he lands as a hurricane of fists and kicks—clearing room around him as they fall.
In the trucks, Craig, Tomas, Roger, and Jess all turn toward the sound, wondering. What THE HELL is that?
Craig looks up through the open window in the backseat and sees the stars. He jumps and pulls himself up, lifts his head out, and props his arms on the outside of the window. He watches and cannot believe his eyes. “That was Eddy? He’s…he’s…umm…”
Charlie and his Harley rocket toward the street sign. He grits his teeth. Here we go! He takes a big breath in and steers to the left of the sign, pointed off the road and over the side of the hill—at sixty miles per hour. His front tire leaves the shoulder and hits the weeds. His handlebars miss the street sign with a hand’s width of clearance.
He raises off his seat and reaches his hands out to grab hold of the sign. His legs crush in on the sides of the Harley’s gas tank and foot controls, and as he grips the sign’s metal post, he lifts his legs up as fast and as hard as he can.
The motorcycle’s tires leave the ground, still spinning fast. His arms stretch out as the Harley lifts and arcs forward. He holds on tight and pulls the motorcycle at an angle to the right with the strength of his entire body. He pulls and lifts until his elbows are almost straight.
NOW!
Instead of pulling in any more, he pushes hard with his legs and springs them both forward like pistons. The mint, 1981 Shovelhead Electra Glide, lifted at fifteen degrees, picks up more speed from the push as it flies outward—at the lifted angle—straight toward the tractor. Charlie is horizontal in the air: his legs shot straight out with his arms stretched overhead, holding on to the street sign. For a moment he is still, until gravity catches up and pulls him down.
He loosens his grip on the sign’s post and curves his body to the left, landing on his feet, facing toward his beloved motorcycle. It’s vertical in the air, flying away from him. The tires spin and throw some loose dirt that had clung to the treads, creating a little spiral of dust and pebbles in the air. Charlie exhales and hopes the Harley can make it all the way. C’mon, baby, you can do it!
It first touches the ground on its side; its headlight pointed backward toward the road and the tires facing the tractor. The front tire twists, and the front forks catch on the ground, flipping it over sideways. The Harley flies straight toward the rusty tractor, gas tank first.
Charlie is relieved and closes his eyes.
The tank punctures against the rim of the tractor’s rear tire. The motorcycle’s frame smashing and grinding against the tractor provides plenty of spark, and the shaken-up gasoline ignites.
-BBROOOOOHHM!- The Harley explodes into a giant blast of flames and twisted metal.
Eddy looks at the fireball in disbelief and awe. The zombies appear to be surprised or startled, and they turn toward the explosion.
On top of the hill, Charlie stands motionless with his eyes still closed. He feels the heat from the blast against his face. Sorry to do that to you, old girl. I’ll miss you. He sniffs, and a tear rolls down his cheek.
Through his eyelids, he watches the light fade back down. He takes off his helmet and opens his eyes. Wow. He rips off the glasses and drops the helmet to the ground as he looks out and into the sparkling sea of zombie eyes reflecting the bright flames.
Craig watched it all unfold. He stares up at the man on the road, who is now bathed in an orange glow. The man’s eyes pierce with a blazing red. Is that Eddy’s dad?
Charlie grows furious while staring at the zombies. Monsters. Ravaging murderers. I’m going to destroy you!
He bends down, low to the ground, and wraps both his hands around the base of the street sign’s post. He takes a deep breath and lets out a war cry, one so loud and so fierce that everyone, even the nearly unconscious Joe, respond with a shiver. Charlie rips the street sign out of the ground; pieces of earth fly out from the hole. He raises it above his head and over his shoulder like a great steel baseball bat as the dirt rains on top of him. He sprints down the hill toward the zombies, still belting out his powerful roar.
Craig starts to shiver with his eyes frozen wide. WHAT THE FUCK!
Charlie charges down the hill. Roger and Jess peer out the Land Cruiser’s rear window and see him smash into the mass of zombies while swinging the sign wildly. The large triangular sign slices straight through a zombie and stabs into another one. He keeps swinging the sign, and the stabbed zombie is lifted off its feet and is thrown sideways into two others. Charlie is headed straight for Eddy. He pulls the sign back to clear a new swath in front of him, but the sign sticks in the zombie.
He twists his own body backward, still holding the sign, and in a swift and jerking
motion, he rolls the post with his powerful forearms. The sign frees from the zombie’s rotting flesh—splitting and flaying out chunks of meat like the zombie was tossed into a plane’s spinning propeller. The flat metal sign tears itself loose from one of the rivets that held it to the post, and as Charlie continues his twist—returning to run straight—he whips his weapon around him in a circle. He slams it into the side of one zombie, and the sign catches, tearing itself off from the post. It stays behind in the abdomen of the zombie as the post continues its path.
Eddy tears his way through zombies toward his dad, grabbing them, punching them, and kicking them to the side faster than they can grab hold of him. The zombies in his wake are not dead, just briefly stunned or knocked down. Eddy knows if he can get to his dad, then everything will be okay.
Charlie spins and swings the post like he would his monk’s spade; it whips through the air with devastating speed and accuracy. Within moments, there’s a path of wounded zombies behind him, but more zombies are closing in around him. He’s now surrounded—just like Eddy was—but this time, it’s different.
When Eddy breaks the knees of the last zombie that stands between himself and his dad, it drops to the ground, and Charlie swiftly removes its head with a powerful swing of the sign’s post. The zombie’s body falls to the ground. The head was launched through the air, and it hits against the undercarriage of Craig’s tipped-over truck.
-Donk-
Charlie drops the post. “What the hell were you thinking, Eddy?” He slides the bag off his shoulder.
Eddy was so relieved to see his dad, but now the anger grows inside him again. “Dad, you don’t even know.”
Charlie unzips the bag and tosses a bottle of blood to Eddy. “Drink this and duck.”
Eddy catches it and drops to his haunches on the ground, unscrews the cap, and lifts the bottle. The fresh blood pours out, filling his mouth and overflowing down his chin. He can feel his body start to rejuvenate, and the pain slowly dissipates as the blood washes down his throat.
When Eddy drops down, Charlie jumps over him and swats a zombie in the head. It knocks the zombie sideways, into another zombie that was coming toward them. Both fall. Charlie looks down at Eddy chugging the blood and sees him spilling it out of his mouth like a slob. “C’mon! Save some.” He rips the bottle out of Eddy’s hand and pours some down his own throat.
Eddy swallows hard and scowls. “Listen, I had to do something. I had to fight back.” He jumps up and kicks a zombie in the face. The skin splits and peels off the skull as the foot travels past it. The zombie spins from the strike and falls to the ground.
“You certainly seem to have done a great job. Nicely done—you damn fool. Gimme the cap.”
Eddy tosses it to him.
Charlie grabs the cap from the air, seals off the nearly empty bottle, and drops it to the ground. He reaches in the bag and pulls out the bars of re-rod.
“I’m strong enough to take care of myself. My friends needed my help, and I needed to help them.” He yanks one pair of re-rod from Charlie’s outstretched hand. “That’s more than you can say.”
Eddy turns his back to Charlie, but it’s not meant to be an insult, and Charlie doesn’t perceive it as one. They adopt a defensive position against the zombies. Facing outward, they each protect the other’s back.
Charlie’s lip curls as he takes his set of re-rod into his hands. “You have no idea.” A zombie approaches, and he squeezes into the knurls of the steel as he swings it. The rod crushes straight through the zombie’s open lower jaw and reaches past to its throat, ripping out its windpipe. “You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.”
Eddy swings with a backhanded strike, hitting a zombie in the temple and crushing its skull inward. “I’m not a damn kid!” He turns to the side to address a pair of large zombies lurching toward him fast. They approach like linebackers at fourth and goal. He takes a fast breath. “Don’t treat me like one!”
He swings the rod with all his might, extending his arm outward to reach the attackers. Drips of dark blood and pieces of brain that had stuck to the ridges of the rough metal re-rod are torn free as it whistles a great arc through the air. The rod strikes the head of the first zombie with so much speed that it cuts through the skull more than it crushes it. It loses only a little momentum as it slices straight through. It continues halfway into the next one’s face before the arc of the strike curves the weapon back toward Eddy. Both zombies fall at his feet, and Eddy jumps to avoid them.
The zombies fall on the back of Charlie’s left foot, but he’s not alarmed. His attention is on a zombie coming straight for him. He delivers a blow from overhead—straight down and dead center—tearing a two-inch-deep and a half-inch-thick ravine through the zombie’s forehead and face. It carves all the way down and out the chin, and finally the rod cracks into its sternum. The strike sends the two halves of its split-open lower jaw flailing to the sides before the zombie falls on its open, flapping face. “I won’t treat you like one if you don’t act like one!”
Eddy screams back, “I don’t!”
“Sure you do. You’re a selfish little prick.”
Eddy can’t help but feel pain well up inside him. “Go to hell.”
Charlie can’t help but reply with a sad smile as he rips the re-rod through the neck of a zombie, decapitating it. “Already got my ticket, but the train hasn’t left yet.”
Eddy relaxes a little, glad that his comment wasn’t met with greater hostility. Another zombie is within his reach. He decides to try jabbing the rod toward it. The steel enters through its right eye and bursts out the back of its skull. The zombie goes limp as it twitches, held up by the end of the rod; Eddy has little trouble with the weight. He pities the corpse for a second before he yanks the rod out, allowing the zombie to fall to the ground.
Roger stares in disbelief, his mouth open wide. He turns toward Jess. “How are they doing this?”
She’s crying quietly, looking down at Joe. He has closed his eyes and is breathing shallowly. “He’s not going to make it, is he?”
Roger takes a breath and sighs. What’s better, hope or truth? Hope: it’s more powerful. “They might be able to save him. He’s just got to hold on.” Roger turns away from Jess, pretending to look back out the window. He closes his eyes instead as tears flow out. Joe, I’m so sorry, little man. Did I do this? Is this all my fault?
Craig’s arms tire, and he drops back into the truck. He looks solemnly at Tomas. “They’re destroying them out there.”
Tomas jumps up. “What? Lift me up!”
Craig looks at him and tilts his head. “What?”
Tomas is impatient. “C’mon, we can help. Give me a weapon.” He looks around the truck for anything that may have just magically appeared that he can use to help Eddy.
Craig realizes his mistake. “Oh, no, Eddy, and I guess his dad are destroying the zombies.” Craig sits down and tries to chuckle. “They really don’t need our help.”
Tomas frowns. “Well, lift me up anyway! My wrist is hurt; I can’t lift myself up.”
Now that Craig is seated, his head feels thick and his body feels heavy. He feels like he has no strength left in him. “Uh…give me a second.”
“C’mon!”
Craig had spent a few moments studying the field and looking for Bill, but he hadn’t been able to spot him. He’s probably been eaten. He might have survived the crash just to turn… I’ll find him. And if I have to, I’ll be the one to pull the trigger. He wouldn’t want it any other way.
Tomas looks down at Craig—the man who stood so tall and towered over him is now a sad pile at his feet. Tomas kneels down and puts an arm on Craig’s shoulder. “Craig?”
Craig looks up at him, then looks away. “Sorry, I was, uh, thinking about Bill.”
Tomas nods. “I understand, but, Craig?”
“What?”
“Lift me up.”
Eddy and Charlie now face only fifteen zombies. A pile of corpses rings them, providing
a nice defensive barrier. Any zombies charging forward must slow as they climb the pile, and as they descend it, they’re swiftly dispatched and added to the pile to make it taller.
Charlie spins and assesses the situation. “Eddy, go check on your friends. I’ll clean these up.”
Eddy grits his teeth. “I’ll take half.”
“Eddy, your friends need you. I’ve got this.”
He turns to look at his dad. Charlie is sweaty and covered in filth, but he looks confident and calm. “Fine.”
As Eddy makes his way to Roger’s truck, Charlie calls out to him. “You fought well, son.”
Eddy smiles as he pulls corpses away from the truck while Charlie charges toward the remaining zombies to execute them.
He clears a window and yells inside. “Come on out!” He stands up and looks around to make sure no more zombies are coming. He watches Charlie run past a zombie as he attacks it; its head explodes into a gray mist. We did it. We killed them all. We made it.
He bends down to holler into the truck again, but before he can, he hears Jess.
“Joe? Joe! NO! JOE!”
Eddy drops down to his hands and knees and looks in. Jess kneels above Joe, sobbing while she shakes him. “Joe, wake up!”
Joe’s body flops lifelessly in her grasp.
If Eddy could fall farther to the ground, he would. Joe’s dead? Joe? No. “No. No, he’ll be okay.”
Jess looks up at Eddy, the dried blood on her face rewetted by her tears. Her red eyes scream out louder than her mouth. “He’s dead! My brother is dead!”
Eddy shakes his head and twists off from his hands and knees in order to sit down. He leans his back against the truck. This is…can’t be. This isn’t happening. He’s just unconscious. Eddy turns around again to face into the truck.
He takes a breath and opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Roger holds up his hand in front of Eddy and burns a look so deep into him that it feels like it cuts through him. “Stop it Eddy! He’s gone. Okay? Now help us get out.”
