The Zombie Chro [99] - About A Woman, A Zombie Chronicles Novel

by Mark Clodi

  “Not for one person, you know we can't.” came Ken's reply.

  “Oh, I’m feeling the love.” Dora muttered to herself still fumbling for the radio. She finally grasped it when all three shotguns fired simultaneously in the back of her vehicle. The noise shocked her and the radio slipped out of her hand into the passenger's side of the floor. “Fuck!”

  “You will slow down now! I am not saying stop but we are not leaving Dora!” came Steve's voice.

  “They’re gonna hit us!” yelled Willy, a moment before the suburban was smashed into from behind.

  Forgetting about the radio Dora fought to control the suburban, it twisted sideways and came close to rolling, but Dora was able to straighten it out and regain control.

  “They’re on us! Two of them, fire at the roof! They’re on the roof!” said Willy, he aimed his shotgun and started firing holes into the roof.

  Looking in the rear view mirror Dora saw the three vehicles had backed off a little, they were trailing behind her by a hundred feet, for the moment it didn't look like they were trying to ram. When the next shotgun blast went off Dora jerked the suburban sideways into a hard swerve, she was rewarded when she saw a slender male zombie fly off the side of the vehicle onto the ground. The zed had barely begun to roll when Willy's shotgun blasted it in the head.

  “Holy fuck!” screamed Dora, as a pair of slender white legs appeared from the top of her car and landed on the hood in front of her. The little girl was wearing a white dress with dirt along the edges, sewn into the hem were small red teddy bears. The girl's legs were on the hood in front of the shaft from the steering wheel and her body was arched over the windscreen. Dora heard a tearing sound and saw the girl's hands wrinkle the steel of the roof near the top of the windshield like it was tin foil.

  Slamming on the brakes did not dislodge the girl, and caused Beth to fire her shotgun through the back of the passenger's seat into the dash. The glove box was blasted open and batteries, bandages and napkins exploded into the front of the car as if hit by a tornado. Dora hit the gas but still the little girl on her hood still did not fly off. The girl's body leaned back, forcing her butt out towards the front of the vehicle as she looked inside. Dora locked eyes with the girl and they both smiled at the same time.

  “I am totally going to kill your little girl ass.” Dora promised.

  Above the roar of the suburban's engine Dora heard the girl giggled and said, “Jim Tiller says 'Andi that Dora is a potty mouth, you stay away from her!'”

  “Andi is it? How do you know I’m Dora?”

  “Everybody knows Dora!” then Andi took one hand off of the roof of the suburban and drove it through the window towards Dora. Her arm was not long enough to reach the woman behind the wheel and the girl tried to pull it back through the window, which had shattered but not broken out around her wrist. Dora reacted quickly reaching forward with one hand to snap the arm sideways and pin it in place to the metal support on the side of the windscreen. Andi was barely visible through the cracked windshield as she drove her other fist next to her first arm and reached for Dora. The girl was very strong, but for all of her efforts she could not get any leverage on the hood of the car to pull her pinned arm away from where it was being held.

  “Shotgun! I need a shotgun here, I can't hold her for long!”

  “Duck sideways!” Cliff yelled and Dora leaned towards the driver's side window. Cliff fired his gun through the windshield dead center between the little girl's fists. Dora felt the girl's arm go limp for half a second before both started moving frantically again. As she started to sit up in the driver's seat again another shotgun blast roared out, jerking Dora's head forward and striking the little white arm where it was held pinned against the glass. Dora had a solid hold on the girl's hand and she came away with it as it was severed mid wrist by the shotgun blast. The inside of the window was a bloody, cracked mess that Dora could hardly see out of. The wonder twin pulled her remaining arm back outside, screaming all the while.

  Dora was veering towards the inside shoulder of the highway and immediately over corrected. Looking out through the ragged holes in front of her Dora could not see Andi on her hood anymore, but she heard the ceiling crumple as the zombie moved onto the roof. Glancing up she saw the girl's fingers crumple the roof beside the driver’s side window, she had only a moment to ponder about the angle before the zombie's body slammed into her through the broken out side window. Dora was forcibly pushed over into the passenger's seat and lost control of the vehicle entirely.

  Andi was screaming in rage as she attacked Cliff, beating him about the head with both of her arms, the bloody stump ended in bone shards that were tearing up the young man's face and neck. Just before the suburban started to roll Dora saw the girl put her remaining fist through Cliff's right eye.

  Chapter 41

  Up. Down. The crunching was louder than Beth's screams as the vehicle rolled along the highway over and over. Abruptly the sounds from Beth faded away and only the crunching remained. Somewhere along the way Andi was thrown out of the car, the girl had grabbed onto the steering wheel to hold her position and seemed shocked when it broke off in her hands leaving her with nothing to hold onto. Dora's position was just as tentative, and she barely managed to hold onto the front seat and keep herself from being flung out as the vehicle rolled. The rolling suburban angled off of the road and into the median between the lanes of the highway.

  In the end it stopped upside down, with Dora sitting on the ceiling looking up at her arms, they were entwined into the seat cushion. For a moment Dora just looked at them, both of her arms were punched all the way through the seat, disappearing into the leather seats. Her hands were grasping some unseen metal support near what was originally the bottom of the seat, Dora knew she would never have had the strength to reach through the seat, yet she was looking right at what she had done. Slowly she disengaged herself and tested out her other limbs, everything seemed to be working. Her hand came away with a little blood from the back of her head, it felt like it had been slashed open, but was now gummy and half scabbed over. The vehicle was empty, she was the only one who had not been flung out in the crash.

  “I could get to like this 'Super Dora!' stuff.” Dora said to herself as she felt the half healed head wound. She went to her hands and knees and reached for the butt of a shotgun that was laying under some of the supplies they had packed in the vehicle before they left. The gun looked fine, automatically her hand reached for the shells she had in her shirt pocket and she started reloading. Dora slowly crawled out of the window on the slightly down-hill side of the roof. Standing upright didn't improve her view any, there was nothing good to see on her side of the suburban. Creeping around to the front she peeked and saw that the three vehicles that had been following her were now stopped by the side of the road, their zombie passengers were out and gathered in two clumps by the side of the road. Dora saw one of Beth's hands briefly before a zombie clamped its teeth around the wrist and pulled it away.

  “Dora.” came a small voice, startling the woman. Looking down Dora saw Willy, his body was under the roof of the suburban, with just his head, right shoulder and arm not buried beneath it. His face was coated in blood, but his eyes still looked bright. “Get me out of here.”

  “Fuck. Sure I will just move the whole god-damned truck off of you, no problem, Willy.”

  “You’re strong and you don't have to do much, just lift it a little.”

  Dora looked at the hood of the car, it was sagging, almost touching the ground, the frame of the suburban had bent extensively. She pressed her hand to the front of the bumper and lifted, the truck did not moved much, but it did move. Willy frantically tried to get out from under the vehicle.

  “I can't get out.” he said after a moment, “When you lift up it teeters on to my legs and I can’t pull free. You’ll have to roll it off of me.”

  Dora just looked at him incredulously, “Yeah, right short stuff, and after I do that I will gather you up a
nd fly you out of here.”

  He smiled, “Okay.”

  Looking about Dora saw the spare tire from the suburban lying next to the side of the vehicle, she moved this over to Willy's arm and said, “Okay, I will try and lift enough, then you slide this next to you and when I push down we might be able to get it off of you. Are you all busted up under there? I really don't feel like seeing any other gross things right now.”

  “I feel fine.” said Willy with a sort of empty smile on his face.

  “Fuck. It is going to be bad then, just move the tire when I get this high enough.” Dora had to circle around to the front of the suburban where she sat the shotgun on the bumper. Moving around to the front put her in view of the zombies and in seconds one of them spotted her and alerted the other eight or nine. “Don't look, lift!” she told herself, putting her legs into it. She heard Willy struggling with the spare, then glanced under, he had the tire about halfway into position, it might be enough.

  “Zombies are here, gotta let this down.” Dora said, lowering the hood, it did not go down as much as she thought it had before, so the tire must be supporting it somewhat, turning around Dora confronted the mob, one of whom still had Beth's arm in its mouth, nibbling on her pinkie finger.

  “Stop right there motherfuckers!” To her surprise the zombies stopped, Dora instantly had a headache, one of the zombies, a big fellow dressed in overalls, shook his head as if to clear it and took a step forward.

  “It almost worked lady...I felt, something, a pressure, but you don't have the touch, not like Andi and Mo, or even Sam does. I am afraid this is the end for you then, if you just kneel down I’ll make it quick for you.”

  In answer Dora sprang sideways and brought the shotgun up off the bumper, shooting the overall wearing zombie just under the chin, his head rolled forward and fell off of his neck as the other zombie's howled in rage and pressed forward to attack. Dora backed behind the vehicle and then crouched down and pushed herself with all of her might through the window to go under it. The zombies rushed around to the other side where she had been. By the time the zombies realized where she was Dora had shot another one from behind at close range where it was standing on the overturned wreck.

  'I am keeping up with them.' Dora thought to herself with more than a little confusion, normally any super zombies she ran into were so fast that she had to anticipate where they would be in order to shoot them and nine times out of ten even that didn't work. This combat was different, Dora didn't even feel tired, just energized. She leaped backwards, her off hand reaching for more shells to feed them into the gun from underneath as she did so.

  The zombies turned on her, the looks on their faces were no longer just of anger, but also tinged with caution, when Dora raised the gun they all scrambled for cover instead of leaping towards her. Most went behind the suburban out of Dora's immediate sight, but two just dropped and rolled in the tall grass of the median. Dora fired into the grass to keep them honest, then dropped prone herself and fired through the open windows of her car, blowing off one zombie's foot just above the ankle and causing it to drop to the ground, where it rolled backwards and away from Dora's next shot.

  Willy was struggling to pull himself from under the wreck, he had both hands free now, though his left arm was bleeding profusely. From somewhere he had gotten a long screw driver in his right hand and was digging quickly into the dirt with it, as if to tunnel his legs out from under the top of the vehicle. Dora rolled sideways on the theory that staying in one place for any length of time was probably a bad idea. Andi's leg came down out of nowhere when Dora woman was on her back, instinctively she brought the barrel of the gun up to block the attack, shoving the gun sideways as she did so. The zombie girl tumbled into the grass and Dora shoved herself to her feet with one arm and started to backpedal. Andi was already up and took two steps towards her before stopping and giggling.

  “What? Easier to hit a standing target...” Dora started as she brought the shot gun up, she stopped aiming when she noticed the barrel was bent sideways, “Goddamn it! Is nothing easy?” the other zombies came around from behind the car and got up when no more shots were fired. Two, including the one with no foot, ducked under the hood to go after Willy.

  Dora raised the gun up anyway and aimed for Andi, but tried to imagine where the shot would hit given the bend in the barrel, the zombies laughed as she fired, until a young zombie woman next to Andi went down missing everything above and to the right side of her nose. As the girl tumbled to the ground like so much meat the other zombies again jumped in, Dora fired once more, hitting an Hispanic woman who looked eerily similar to Mary in the stomach.

  After that it was a chaotic melee where she used the shotgun as a baseball bat to break bones while the zombies pummeled her from every side. Andi stayed back and yelled, “Don't kill her! Don't bite her! I get the Dora! Bring her to me.”

  Under the hood the zombie's reached for Willy and he kept his hand with the screw driver buried in the ground until the last second, then he whipped it out and put it through the first one's head with enough force to pin the thing to the hood of the suburban. The one footed zombie didn't back off, instead he reached forward with his hands and latched onto Willy's wrists. When he started pulling all Willy could do was scream.

  Dora fought to keep from letting the zombies get a hold on her; two of them had come forward with their gut shot companion lagging a few steps behind. Andi seemed content to wait the fight out, the three to one odds would have scared Dora even a week before but in the last two minutes Dora has already killed three super zombies and hurt two others badly. The zombies she was facing were all about her age physically, in their mid to late twenties when they died, the gut shot woman was African American with prominent belly, that woman had Beth's arm and was still carrying it as she came forward, the other two were both white, one was a woman about five ten with scraggly strawberry blond hair, a darker complexion with a face scarred by acne. The man was taller and more muscular; he was pushing six foot, three inches tall and weighed well over two hundred pounds.

  “My you are a big boy!” Dora said as he stepped up and swung at her. He missed and looked confused that he had not hit her, Dora responded by swinging the shotgun barrel over and around, landing it on his forearm as he blocked her attempted head shot. His wrist broke with a sickening sound and the barrel still smashed him in the head, sending him reeling to the ground.

  The zombie was not out, but he was twitching around and would need a few moments to mend, by that time the fighting might be over. Dora immediately moved backwards again, this last step took her back onto the solid footing of the pavement. As the two women approached Andi screamed at them again, “Get her! Now! I want her now!”

  The women looked dazed for a second, as if the girl's shouting had more power than that of an annoying six year old. Seizing the chance Dora thrust the bent shotgun barrel at Fatty, hoping to catch the still hurt zombie off guard. The blunt end of the barrel struck the zombie right through the left eye and Dora screamed primordially as she shoved it home into the woman's skull. The zombie fell backwards ripping the shotgun from Dora's hands.

  Still thinking on her feet Dora turned and ran towards the zombie's vehicles, the Ford Ranger was still running. She had just made it to the door when Willy's scream sounded from behind her, causing her to stop and turn around. The one footed zombie had the boy out from under the suburban and was dragging him to Andi. Willy didn't look very good at all, both of his arms looked longer than they should and his left leg ended in a bleeding stump at the shin. He was crying and letting out a low moan punctuated by screams as the zombie jerked him left or right on the way to Andi.

  It was Dora who was struck off guard this time, as the blond slammed into her in a waist high tackle, knocking them both into the ranger's side door and leaving a dent six inches deep. Dora couldn't breathe, her ribs were broke, she just knew it, either that or she had been torn in half. For the zombie's part it didn't fare much bett
er than she did, it had tackled her with its shoulder and a large part of the dent in the truck was from where the thing’s head had slammed into the door.

  Both women, dead and living, rolled around on the ground trying to recover before the other did. The blond rose to her feet first, as Dora rolled under the truck to get away. However, she was not fast enough; the zombie caught Dora by the ankle and pulled her back out into the open. Once the zombie had her out, it grabbed Dora's other ankle and started swinging her around by her feet, a motion that ended abruptly with Dora being smashed through the tailgate of the truck.

  Dora was partially able to cushion the blow with her arms, but the impact left her feeling like she had snapped her left wrist, she ended up in sitting cross legged with her back to the cab of the pickup, one hand clutching her head, the other cradled on her lap as she sat up. The blond zombie was gawking at Dora over the smashed in tailgate of the truck.

  “What the fuck are you? You look human.” said the blond.

  “Yeah, you do too.”

  “I’m not, but I can see you in a different way, you look alive. You can't be, otherwise you would be dead.” the zombie gestured at the crushed in tail gate, “That would have killed anyone.”

  “I was a stunt woman before z-day. I can take a fall real good.” Dora quipped trying to buy time to get her second wind.

  Willy screamed again causing both of them to look over at the boy where the other zombie had dropped him next to Andi. The girl picked Willy up by his upper arm, his elbow bent sideways and flopped his wrist and hand down towards the ground, eliciting another scream. This caused the girl to giggle and shake him a little harder.

  Andi pulled Willy up until his screaming face was next to hers and then she said in her little girl voice, “Don't play with your food Andi. Don't leave food behind Andi. Don't listen to Dora, she is a potty mouth Andi. Don't tell anyone Andi. Don't do this Andi, don't do that Andi. Andi, Andi, Andi!” Her voice grew louder and she started shaking the boy more with each mention of her own name. Dora could only watch, there were no weapons or anything else in the back of the truck for her to even try throwing at the little girl to distract her. Fortunately the blond seemed just as mesmerized by what was going on and didn't use the moment to attack Dora.