They keep one another in their sights, Lana helping Troy with a particularly hefty zombie in a police officer’s uniform while Francis clobbers another two over the head with a hammer he’s produced out of nowhere. Brown liquid sprays in an arc. Daisy ducks behind the last one, a woman in jeans and peasant blouse, and does something to the back of her skull that cuts off her growl and sends her lifeless to the ground.
Francis and Daisy watch the road while Troy and Lana make their way over. I sit up straight, fingers pressing on the temple lump that’s begun to throb. “Sorry,” I say.
“You okay?” Troy asks, lines on his face bunched with something. Concern? Annoyance? “Why’d you take off like that?”
“I was thinking about some people I need to get to.”
“Don’t get out in front if you can’t watch the road.”
I start to speak, realize I have nothing to say, then nod. Blood from my scraped lips makes it into my mouth, coating my tongue with a sickening metallic taste. We’ve gone fifteen miles and I’ve already fucked up.
Troy walks away. Lana sinks to her knees in front of me. She fishes a tissue from her pocket and hands it to me before motioning at her own lips. “Road got you good.”
I press it to my mouth. “Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m not known for my athletic prowess.”
Lana laughs, her short brown waves bouncing. I decide she’s in her late forties at most, not that much older than I am. When she looks at me again, laugh lines make her eyes kind. Forgiving of my idiocy. She brushes her hands on her knees and stands. “We should get moving. It’d be a good idea to get out of the city by nighttime.”
Nighttime. I don’t like darkness. I never have, but I adulted myself out of that fear, or I did until zombies became a thing. I get to one knee, then raise myself to standing. A little bruised, but not bad. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s take a knocking. A pummeling, even. Elementary schoolyard bullies drove that lesson home.
My bike is okay. My glasses, too. Thank God for small favors. I set my ass on the seat and pedal after the others. Once we’re past the van, Troy points to the exit midway down the sloped road. “I bet they got in that way. Might be a lot more where those came from.”
There’s no end to the good news, apparently.
The road dips below street level, though the roadsides rise to concrete wall or chain-link fence. Bodies watch us from the fenced overpasses, which is horrible, and it’s made worse by the rattle of metal and groans that follow us for a hundred feet beyond.
Cars appear in the distance, their windows winking sunlight, and Francis slows his bike after the next overpass. I move to the side to see past his large silhouette. The traffic jam stretches until the road curves out of sight.
“Streets back there are going to be busy now that we’ve passed.” Lana peers behind us. “Too late.”
I spin around. A group of figures moves on the empty road we just traveled. The others nod sagely. Calmly. How the fuck they can be calm, I don’t know, and I clench my handlebars while I wait for a decision.
“Sometimes the only way out is through,” Troy says, squinting into the distance.
“As long as you don’t pull the shit you pulled in Fresno,” Daisy says, though she laughs a tinkling little laugh that Troy joins in.
“I can’t make any promises, Daisy Duke. But I’ll let everyone else die before you.”
“Don’t bother.” Her fist hits his shoulder. “I don’t want to be stuck alone with you.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Troy winks. “What do you think, Francis? Lana?” He reaches into his pack and pulls out a pair of binoculars. “Can’t see much, but we can always backtrack to that exit if it’s bad.”
He hands the binoculars to Francis, who takes a turn and then passes them to Lana. “I say we try,” Francis says, and Lana nods.
They begin cycling slowly. I follow. They seem to have forgotten my existence, and I’m not sure if I’m disturbed or comforted by that thought. Maybe they figure I’m game for anything. They’re dead wrong, of course, and it’s an unlikely theory, but the notion that they might not see me as an impediment is too attractive to discount.
We pedal forward, my bowels churning with every rotation. The exit is long, sloping up alongside the freeway, and it’s only when we get close that I see the group of Lexers who wait under the dead traffic light at the top. Five bikes make enough movement that we’re spotted immediately, and the Lexers start down the ramp.
“Plan B!” Francis calls over his shoulder.
What’s Plan B? And, for that matter, what’s Plan A? I don’t remember, not sure I ever knew, but Francis increases his speed toward the stopped traffic and curve in the road. Zombies ahead and zombies to the side make it the only plan. What I fail to factor in—and it’s a big fail—is that the Lexers won’t stick to the road. With no walls at the exits, they stumble off the exit lane and down the grassy embankment to the main road.
Francis veers between the first of the cars, stopping to swing a door closed and holding us up for a second or two. Thirty feet behind, the zombies are closing in. My panic comes out as a shrill yelp that probably should embarrass me but doesn’t.
I back up and move between an SUV and sedan the next lane over, propelling the bike with my feet. A hand reaches from the SUV’s open window and grabs my pack. It’s a man—a zombie man—still buckled into his seat, his arm gouged by teeth and caked with clotted blood. He hisses and strains against his seatbelt while pulling me toward his open mouth.
I have to touch it, have to pull off its hand. I clamp my bike between my legs and grasp the bloodied fingers curled around my pack strap. They’re cold, solid. Like meat from the fridge coated with waxy leather. Like when I touched my dead father’s hand, except my dead father was in a coffin, dressed for a job interview that didn’t exist. He wasn’t clawing at twelve-year-old me with murder in his eyes.
Its eyes are terrible. The watery brown of crappy diner coffee with tiny purple-red veins in the grayish whites. Rimmed with black and filled with anger. Hunger. I pry the last finger off my strap, breath coming in great heaving gasps, and walk my bike another four feet.
The Lexers are close enough to reach me with a lunge. I dig my toes into the ground to push off, then lift my feet to the pedals. Troy and the others wait in the next lane until I catch up and then pedal on. They didn’t leave me, at least. I fly after them, still feeling that hand on my shoulder and consumed with terror another will grab me any second. The Xanax is long gone, pushed from my bloodstream by adrenaline.
On the opposite side of the road—westbound—the stopped cars face east, too. Everyone tried to leave the state, it seems, and they had the same luck over there. A woman with lank hair and a filthy peach sweater throws herself against the concrete median and pounds the roof of the nearest car. Dark liquid oozes from a hole in her cheek. Five more who wander the westbound lanes come closer at her clamor.
I smelled their stench from my balcony and in the hallway when we left, but that had nothing on the odor permeating the air. It’s rotting meat and sewage and a musty, fishy undertone that clings inside your nostrils. It’s the smell of spinach a month past its best-by date, reduced to a swampy liquid and mixed with shit. I gag as it grows stronger with every foot we travel.
Bodies flow onto the road from the westbound exit, merging into stopped cars on their way to the median. We speed up. After we round the next curve, we come to a stop at Lana’s shout, and I follow the line of her finger past the giant RV just ahead.
My heart skips then stutters to a stop. Lexers are everywhere. Two dozen on the road, moving toward us between cars. Thirty on the grass to the right, also coming our way. The zombies behind will arrive soon, and the waist-high median separating the roadways is little more than a slowdown for the ones who topple face-first onto our eastbound lanes and get to their feet again.
My handlebars shake in my hands. Leaving my house was a bad idea. The worst idea. I knew it and still I
left. What the fuck was I thinking? Three zombies in a hallway are better than this. Dying of starvation is better than this.
“Well, shit!” Troy yells over the buzzing groans. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire!” He grins beneath his beard as if certain death isn’t coming at us every which way.
Troy is out of his fucking mind. They’re all crazy, with the way they coolly take in our surroundings. Anyone can see that the grass is impassable, ahead and behind us are not going to work, and, even if we could make it across the zombie-filled westbound lanes, the twelve-foot barrier wall is not scalable.
Lana drops her bike and races for the RV, then scrambles up the rear ladder to the roof. Daisy is right behind her, followed by Francis. Troy inclines his head my way completely unnecessarily, since I’m already clambering up. I make it to the roof and stand there, legs wavering, until Francis bops my shoulder with a meaty hand. “Move back for Troy.”
I pick my way past a rectangular air conditioning unit, then collapse on the white fiberglass. Liquid stings my eyes, and I wipe a lake of sweat off my forehead. We’ve barely left my neighborhood and are already trapped. We’re off the asphalt, but there’s no way out of this.
A pounding starts up below—hands slapping against the sides of the RV with a frenzy of hisses as accompaniment. Troy’s head appears on the ladder. The rest of him follows, and then he stands atop the RV beside Francis while they study the scene. He shouts something I can’t hear over the din. I get to my feet and walk to Lana and Daisy by the A/C unit.
“What?” I shout to Troy.
“I said, we’re good and fucked now!”
I nod while I watch the bodies converge. They’re already two-deep around the RV, and more are spilling over the median. The Lexers on the road ahead make their way between cars to join the ones from the grass. All in all, we are good and fucked, but it would be nice if Troy didn’t take pleasure in it.
“We’re not yet, but we will be if you keep standing in plain sight.” Lana pulls Troy from view by his sleeve. “Let’s sit and eat something while we wait.”
Hours later, the zombies haven’t stopped. I’m not sure how many hours it’s been, since I cracked my watch somehow—maybe in the fall off my bike. I asked the time and then asked again after what felt like hours but was only thirty minutes. The next time I asked, it’d been a twenty-minute “hour,” and I stopped asking to reduce my annoyance factor. I’m trying hard not to be annoying, not to speak, not to show fear. But the pounding, the odor, and the moans fill my ears and chest with a slithery panic that prods me to climb down the ladder and run, if only to escape the ceaseless reminder I’ll soon be eaten and get it over with.
The sun has moved across the sky. Maybe it’s afternoon. A cowboy who can tell time by the sun I am not. They gave me some food from the diner to carry, and I cracked open a can of tuna and packets of mayonnaise, mixing it together and scooping it into my mouth with my fingers. The others have utensils, but I didn’t consider the need for a fork or spoon until the moment I needed one. My meal was followed by maraschino cherries from a jar Daisy passed around. The sweetness was quickly obliterated by the rot smell from below.
Francis straightens where he sits on the air conditioning unit, eyes on the westbound side of the freeway. “We have a problem.”
I get to my feet with the others. How our predicament could worsen, I’m not sure, but I’m sure Francis knows what he’s talking about. Off in the distance, a dark mass files steadily through the cars. Hundreds, maybe a thousand. I’m a bad judge of that kind of thing; I avoid large groups of people whenever possible.
Large groups of zombies are worse. The tuna gurgles uneasily in my intestines. My nervous stomach is a curse, always has been, but I am not, repeat not, going to shit my pants. Or have to crap in front of these people. I don’t care if my eyeballs turn brown from holding it in. It isn’t happening.
“We can’t stay,” Daisy says. “They’ll never leave.”
“Flare?” Troy asks.
“We’re out,” Lana replies. Her head moves slowly from side to side, though her eyes remain fixed on the encroaching mob. “It’s on the list of things to get.”
Daisy dashes to the back of the RV, then returns. “There aren’t as many at the ladder. We can fight our way through if we move them.” She kneels and leans over the edge of the RV, then pounds on the side. “Hey, fuckbags! Over here!”
Lana does the same. Francis heads to the other side of the RV, where he adds a deep shout. I watch, clueless, until Troy says, “We’re calling the ones in back up here. We’ll get down the ladder easier.”
He joins Francis, yelling and pounding along with him. I drop to my belly near Lana and hang my arms off the side, slamming on the fiberglass open-handed. “Hey!” I shout, my voice lost in the groans of the zombies and the shouts of the others.
What the hell do you say to zombies? The others are cursing up a storm, but I feel ridiculous doing the same, and I pound harder rather than yell. Bodies move from the back of the RV, pushing each other to get near. All eyes are trained upward, all mouths open. Gray skin, mottled with purple, caked with dried blood. Open wounds that haven’t festered so much as coagulated and turned black at the edges. Pale irises bleached by bright sunshine. It seems impossible. Yet it’s possible. They’re here.
Daisy gets to her feet, runs to the end of the RV once again, then yells, “Go! Let’s go!”
I stand. Across the roof, Troy lifts his chin at Francis, then juts it toward the ladder. Francis draws his blade, nodding, and Troy glances my way. “You stay with me ‘til they’re through. Tell me when they’ve made it off the road.”
I stare. Troy can’t mean I have to stay here while the others leave. A hand squeezes my shoulder, and Lana leans close. “You’re with Troy. You’ll be fine.”
Then she’s trotting to the end of the RV. Francis descends first, blade in hand. The three will come out on my side to reach the grass, and it’s up to me to keep them safe. I’ll do my best; Lana’s kindness deserves to be repaid.
I drop to the roof again. This time, I yell, “Hey! Up here, fuckheads! Over here!”
I fumble the screwdriver from my pocket and slam the handle against the RV’s side. It makes enough of a racket to hide the groans of the ones who notice Francis, Daisy, and Lana running through cars toward the grass. They race around a sedan, Lana stopping to brain a woman in her way, and then plow uphill toward a group of tall, spindly evergreens by the fence.
I pound harder, calling over my shoulder, “They’re at the top of the hill!”
Seconds later, Troy grabs the back of my coat. “Move!”
I push back from the edge and get to my feet, which I trip over on my way to the ladder. “I go first,” Troy says. “You come down fast, then we run.”
I nod. Fear shakes my shoulders, my legs, but it’s as though I watch Terrified Craig nod. It’s likely I’ll watch him die in a minute, too. On the bright side, if I have to die, better it’s with this curious detachment than shitting my pants.
Only a few Lexers stand at the rear of the RV. Troy starts down, axe in hand, then stops midway and swings the spike into one’s eyeball. It hangs on the spike until he kicks the inert body into the two behind so that they fall. Then he drops to the asphalt.
I turn and set my feet on the top rung. My boots slip on the next, and I slide down gripping the ladder rails until my feet hit asphalt with a thump that rattles my neckbones. Troy wields his axe on the next Lexers to arrive. He’s a big guy—broad but not the trimmest physique—and he has power. Brown liquid and bone shards fly before he points out a path through the cars and takes off. I bust my ass to follow, almost stepping on Troy’s heels as he pushes a zombie down, then steps on its face.
We reach the side of the freeway at full speed. The long grass wraps around my ankles, forces me to slow, but I still move faster than a zombie. As we make our way uphill, Troy whoops, holding his axe aloft. The three figures at the fence yell something I can’t hear
, though it sounds celebratory. The slope steepens, and by the time we reach the trees, I’m winded. Troy hits the chain-link and begins to climb while I chance a backward look. The Lexers on the freeway are coming, but they’re barely past the shoulder, and they’ll have trouble on that hill. I take a deep breath. It’s another minute lived, and I’ve never been more grateful to be alive.
“On your left!” Daisy shouts.
I see the figure just before it slams into my left side. I bounce off a tree trunk and stumble until I catch my footing. One side of the Lexer’s face hangs in a loose flap of skin, exposing cheekbone and working jaw. He lunges in, mouth wide, and it’s only when I shove at him two-handed that I realize I’ve held on to my screwdriver.
Troy is on the other side of the fence. He and Lana begin to climb, but they’ll be too late to save me. Fifteen miles, that’s all we’ve traveled, and now it’s over. Rose and Mitch will wonder about me, assuming I died quickly. It sucks; deep down I’d hoped to surprise them—to surprise myself.
The zombie man moves toward me in slow motion, every tooth distinguishable from the next and his purplish tongue on display. He’s stronger. He isn’t tired. I lift my hands and again see the gleam of my screwdriver—a length of shiny steel I’ve only ever used to assemble furniture.
Someone screams a desperate scream that begs me to live. I grip the handle and shove it into the man’s eye. Fluid bursts, spraying a putrid juice onto my hand, and the man falls to the ground. I think he’s dead, but I drop and drive the screwdriver into his other staring eye just in case. The jelly pops, brown liquid oozes around the metal, and someone screams in horror. Not someone. Me. I’m screaming, and when I force my mouth shut it’s quiet but for the sounds from the freeway.
Troy yanks me up by my arm. “C’mon, buddy. Over the fence.”
The zombies are past the base of the slope. I stick my screwdriver in my pocket and pull myself up the metal links, then throw a leg over and drop to the grass. It’s unkempt and dry now, but you can tell it was carefully cultivated a month ago.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 26
