“Get in Greatpa! Get in!” Ryan exhorted nervously.
The old man put the M1 Carbine onto the front passenger seat, grabbed the door, and climbed into the van. Thirty years ago climbing in the van would have been no problem. Today, Ryan placed a hand on his back to steady him.
“Here’s the keys Greatpa!” Andrew yelled from the back.
“They’re coming. They’re coming!” Ryan shouted from the back of the carport.
“Get in. Get in,” Andrew replied.
Ryan raced around to the passenger side, placed his .22 rifle onto the floor, climbed in, and shut the door behind him. A zombie moaned nearby as the van’s door slammed. Looking into the rear view mirror, Hastings saw three hideous zombies walking up the driveway. Emily and Taylor shrieked in unison as a dead man emerged from the side yard and slapped the side of the van. Ryan dove to make sure the door was locked. The old veteran half-depressed the gas pedal and turned the key. The van’s 360 cubic inch V-8 turned over a couple of times and stopped.
He took a deep breath and said a little prayer. Hastings had put the battery on the charger earlier this week, but it had been awhile since the van had run. Last time it ran was a few months back, if old man Hastings remembered right, Anita and his grandson Ethan had taken all the kids to the skateboard park out in the far western suburbs. The van started to rock as four zombies began pounding on the windows. The driver-side of the van had two large tinted picture windows. They were great for touring the Appalachians, but now they gave the kids a close up view of death. A zombie peered in nearly eyeball-to-eyeball to Emily. The little girl shrieked and hid beneath the back seats.
“Oh no! They can see us,” the young girl cried. “They can see us!”
“They can’t see us,” Andrew tried to reassure her. “The back windows are tinted!”
Hastings turned the key again and the van started to turn over. With a little finesse on the gas pedal, it roared to life. Ryan crouched down on the floor between his two brothers.
“Don’t come knocking when the vans a rocking,” the old man muttered under his breath as he shifted the automatic into reverse.
Ordinarily, he liked to give the van at least one full minute to warm up. But, considering the circumstances, he floored it and, after a couple of significant thumps, the big van roared out onto Appleyard Way. The old man glanced over at his driveway and was surprised to see two of the zombies still standing and two broken mangled corpses crawling towards them. He shook his head and slammed the van into drive. The roads of the residential neighborhood were filled with small groups of the dead. They wandered aimlessly in no particular direction. But, as they saw the van, they looked at him, made eye contact, and started towards to shuffle towards the vehicle.
The great-grandfather noticed and put the hammer down. With the pedal not nearly to the floor, the late 1980s-vintage Dodge Ram B250 made it to nearly 37 miles per hour. Ryan peered wide-eyed over his shoulder.
“Go like hell, Greatpa,” he said, “go faster!”
“You get back in a seat,” the old man roared, “you ain’t driving.”
The van bounced over the neighborhood’s traffic calming speed bumps at about forty. That prompted everyone in back to get buckled up. Since Ryan didn’t have a seat, he eyed the front passenger seat.
“I don’t have my seat, Greatpa!” Emily screamed.
“You have to ride in a big girl seat, today, sweetie!”
Just seconds later, they crossed the bridge leading out of the neighborhood and over I-285, Atlanta’s perimeter highway, and slowed to a crawl. Looking down in both directions traffic was completely stopped, most cars looked abandoned, some were wrecked, and legions of the dead roamed among the cars. It was frightening and devastating scene. Hastings felt he and the great grandkids were truly alone. He hoped his own adult kids hadn’t ventured down onto the highway.
As they came to the intersection of Appleyard and Mall Boulevard, the great-grandfather came to a complete stop and looked both ways. Young Ryan knew better than to say anything so he just scrambled up into the front passenger seat and looked around. Monsters were everywhere. To his right, he saw a pitiful monster with half of his face missing. Straight ahead a whole family of the dead shuffled down the sidewalk. The father lacked an arm, had bloody holes in his shirt, and oozed dark black blood. The mother had bite marks all over her arms and face. Yet, through some unconscious force of habit, she was still pushing a baby carriage. Fortunately, young Ryan could not see if an infant was in the stroller. With similar scenes all around, the boy turned his attention to his great-grandfather.
Despite all he had seen in his life, Bill Hastings was shocked at the carnage around them. He wanted to get them out of there and to safety. But, they needed food and water.
“Let’s get those groceries kids,” he said cranking the wheel vigorously to the left.
Great-grandfather Hastings gripped the wheel tightly as the van picked up more and more speed on the slight hill downhill slope. He tried to avoid the zombies that were milling about in the street. But his reflexes weren’t as sharp as they had once been. At the bottom of the hill, a zombie smacked off the passenger-side rear view mirror causing Ryan to nearly jump out of his seat and leaving a streak of blood across the side of the van.
In the backseats, there was screaming and pandemonium.
“You kids keep down back there and don’t look!”
The old man put the pedal to the floor and the van kept momentum going up the hill towards the grocery store. As the horde of dead thickened, the van plowed into some zombies with a sickening smack and weaved back and forth to avoid others. Unfortunately, Hastings reflexes were those of a great-grandfather and he ended up hitting more zombies than he avoided. As the big van pitched back and forth, the kids bounced around in the back. Ryan glanced back to see that his sisters were hiding under a blanket and his brother Ethan Junior tightening his seatbelt as much as he possibly could.
When Hastings reached the grocery store, he whipped the big van to the left, hit the curb on the ramp up into the parking lot and got the big van airborne. Upon a landing the front right hubcap went skittering into the crowded lot full of zombies. He slammed on the brakes, took another hard left, and sideswiped the upscale home paint store with the passenger side of the van. The grandfather kept his foot on the gas and the van scraped along the wall with a sickening screech that left a trail of sparks behind them.
“Uh-oh,” Hastings joked, “better get Maaco!”
Ryan just looked at him in clueless horror for a fleeting moment until a sharp right brought the van around behind the grocery story. Great grandpa Hastings kept his foot on the gas and continued on the road taking them further behind the huge grocery store, rounded another corner, and then brought the van to a more composed stop at a raised concrete platform which jutted out from the back of the store. It was surrounded by railings on two sides, and had a couple of parking spaces for trucks to back up to it. Ryan could see that there was a large steel door and a smaller garage door that served as backdoors for the grocery store. The regular sized backdoor appeared slightly ajar. As Hastings unbuckled his seatbelt, Ryan reached over and put his hand on his arm.
“I’ll go, Greatpa,” the boy said, “you are too old and too slow.”
“We’ll drive off to lure the zombies away and we’ll be back in five minutes,” the great-grandfather said in resignation, “you be back too.”
Then the old man returned to scanning the area and checking the rear view mirrors to watch the nearest zombies.
“C’mon Andrew,” Ryan barked as he hopped over the center console and into the back. “It’s just like Call of Duty.”
“No Ryan,” the younger brother replied grabbing his skateboard, “mom, doesn’t like guns and we’re faster with these.”
“Yeah,” the older brother agreed, “those monsters are slow.”
In what remained of his peripheral vision, the great-grandfather saw his great grandsons jump out of
his old van’s double door. It brought back memories of helicopter insertions from his younger days. Motion ahead got the old man’s attention. Zombies from the front parking lot were rounding the corner and moving closer. Hastings worried that the boys were too young for this and he was too old for it. When he looked back at Ryan and Andrew, he was horrified to see them roll up to the grocery store’s back door on their skateboards with no guns at all.
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it,” he yelled.
Then, he glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the scandalized faces of Emily, Taylor, and Ethan Junior crouched down in the very back seat. He had three more kids to protect.
“Ethan, close the door,” the old man asked.
“What Greatpa?””
“Close the door.”
The remaining great grandson reached out, found the inside handle, and labored mightily to pull it shut. When he looked up he made eye contact with an approaching mob of the dead. The youngster recoiled but gathered up all his strength and managed to close the door with a faint click. As old man Hastings looked on, he reminded himself that today’s kids were simply used to newer and smaller cars with power everything. However, a glance in the remaining rear view mirrors quickly gave the old man new worries. Another mob of shambling meat rounded the corner behind them and started making its way towards the van and the grocery store door. The old man had to lead them away and he did the only thing he could.
Inside the store, the view was much different for Ryan and Andrew. Ryan gently closed the door behind them while Andrew set his skateboard down on the concrete floor and peered down dark hallway that lay before them. Only skylights and the light of the emergency exit door sign illuminated the corridor.
“Just like Call of Duty,” Andrew said to reassure himself more than anything.
“Not quite,” Ryan replied. “No skateboards in that game.”
“True.”
“Skate or die,” Ryan whispered to his brother. “Let’s get some food.”
Ryan threw down his board and the boys skated down the hall, side by side, until they came to swinging double door on their right. At speed, Ryan pushed them open and rolled in and Andrew coasted in right behind him. They found themselves in the middle of a large stockroom. Neither boy had ever been behind the scenes of any store, they were amazed and astonished and a bit overwhelmed by the number of boxes. In the low light, they could see stacked boxes of paper goods towering twenty feet towards the high ceilings. Steel utility shelves ran along the back wall and towered nearly twenty feet tall. Lots of food boxes were strewn all over the floor. Many had been ripped open and the floor was covered with canned and bottled food. The low throb of a walk-in refrigerator could be heard from the far side of the room. A wheeled cart with trays and trays full of bread stood near the door. A shrink wrapped pallet just off to their left appeared to have box upon box of pasta and spaghetti sauce.
“Let’s get some food,” Ryan whispered.
The boys rolled up to the pallet and dismounted their boards. Ryan with a smooth board pickup and Andrew with a nose stall off the edge of the pallet. Andrew dutifully opened his backpack. Ryan dug in his pockets, found his Cub Scout pocket knife, and began to cut at the wrapped pallet. With the small and fairly dull little pocket knife, each cut through the plastic shrink wrap was loud and painfully slow. Andrew grabbed at the plastic wrap and tugged mightily. They pulled enough off to get at the boxes. Ripping the cardboard, they filled their packs with jar after jar of spaghetti sauce and boxes of pasta. Then, the boys zipped up their packs.
“O.K., let’s go,” Ryan said. “I’ll grab the bread cart.”
With that Ryan tugged on the tall metal cart containing trays of bread. He moved it a couple of feet before one of the wheels got snagged on the wood of a smashed pallet. It wouldn’t budge so Ryan ducked low and gave it a hard tug while pulling upward to clear the pallet. This tilted the cart slightly backwards and the top tray began sliding backwards.
Andrew saw it and yelled a warning, but the tray slid right out of the cart and fell to the concrete floor with a tremendous clatter.
“Oh crap,” Ryan exclaimed, “we gotta go!”
“I think they heard us!”
From the deepest part of the dark storeroom, behind the stacks of boxes nearest to the throbbing refrigerator, seven or eight zombies emerged, snarling, moaning, and shuffling towards the noise and the boys. Ryan grabbed two loaves of bread and the boys hopped back on their boards and raced back towards the double doors. As they built up speed, the doors opened and the pair found themselves on a collision course with a horde of zombies. They reversed direction and skated along the back wall of utility shelves. From the far end of the room, they could see zombies emerging from the dark recesses of the stock room. Other dead shuffled towards them from the center of the room. Escape was blocked. Surrounded by moving death, the boys dismounted to think of something.
“Climb!” Ryan suddenly shouted. “Climb up the shelves.”
He grabbed Andrew’s board and threw it up onto the shelf above them. Andrew grabbed the steel shelf and shimmied up using the reinforcing cross bars and first level containers for footholds. A stockroom clerk zombie closed in on Ryan as Andrew made his climb. The older brother wound up and smacked the dead grocer in the head with the trucks of his skateboard. It was enough to push the zombie off balance for a moment so Ryan tossed his board up and started climbing for his life. The small group of zombies reached the shelves and tried to grab Ryan. One managed to grab his foot. The boy hung on with all his might and the zombies bloody hands slowly slid down the boy’s skinny leg until it grasped only one of his shoes.
“Bombs away,” his younger brother yelled.
A whole box of pickles passed behind Ryan’s head and smashed into the hungry grocer zombie’s face. While zombies may not feel pain, a thirty-five pound box of pickles was enough to snap his neck. Freed from the dead man’s grasp, Ryan completed his scramble and joined his brother 10 feet above the zombies on the first level of shelves.
“Thanks,” Ryan said as he planted his feet on the shelves. “Now where do we go?”
“Check this out,” his brother replied. “They can’t see us!”
Andrew showed that there was a four foot gap between the rear cinderblock wall and the pallets of goods on the shelves. It wasn’t much of a space, but it offered a concealed route towards the door and back towards the far back corner of the stockroom. The only barrier was a cross bar running from the back of each shelf to the front about 6-inches above the surface of each shelf. Unfortunately, there were still a few too many zombies blocking the double door. But, most of the dead had shuffled towards the commotion along the middle of the back wall. It was enough to give Ryan an idea.
“You sneak up to front, stay up on this shelf, and wait for me,” he instructed.
As Andrew made his way quietly along the shelves, Ryan disappeared into the darkness and heading towards the far back corner of the room. Andrew crouched down behind the first pallet of merchandise on the shelf at the front of the room and waited with his skateboard in his hands. He waited and waited and waited. He wondered what his brother was doing and whether he needed help. Then he heard a scraping sound in the distance followed by the sound of boxes falling to the floor. Glass was shattering and cans were clattering. Then, there was a pause. Andrew heard the scraping sound and more crashing merchandise. He peaked around the plastic bins that provided his concealment and looked towards the stockroom door. The zombies that had been moping about there had moved away. He moved back into his hiding place and heard his brother skating fast along the back wall shelf. He was happy to see his brother emerge from the darkness. At each cross bar, the older brother executed a perfect hippy jump. He hopped up and over each crossbar and his board rolled right under the bar. It was a simple trick, but it looked smooth.
“Awesome,” Andrew cheered as quietly as he could.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Ryan whispered in a yell, “let�
�s get out of here.”
The boys scrambled down off the shelves, threw down their boards and skated as fast as they could through the double-doors and back up the hallway towards the exit door. With salvation ahead and death on their heels, they slammed into the door and tumbled out onto the loading platform. It wasn’t the most graceful of exits, but the boys were glad to be out of there. They retrieved their boards quickly and got ready to go.
There was only one problem: No van. Not only was there no van, there were about three dozen zombies wandering about in the parking lot behind the grocery store. Of course, all the pitiful zombies stopped and turned when they saw Ryan and Andrew tumbling out through the door.
“Oh no, they definitely see us!” Andrew screamed.
“Where’s Greatpa?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“If they get close, hit them with your board!”
Suddenly, the backdoor to the grocery store burst open and more zombies poured out from the store. Ryan grabbed his board and held it out like a club. Andrew looked around and saw Greatpa’s van coming around again to return to the backside of the grocery store. He wondered if Greatpa would arrive in time. The younger brother turned around to tap his brother on the shoulder.
“He’s coming back!” he shouted to his brother. “Greatpa is coming ...OH MY GOD!”
He was shocked at the two zombies that had just tumbled out of the grocery store’s back door.
“Mom, Dad,” the older brother shouted. “It’s us!”
“They’re monsters! They’re monsters,” the young brother chimed in.
He back backpedaled to the railing. The parents shuffled towards them, arms outstretched, in search of a hug that could only end in death. Ryan ran to the left and Andrew to the right. The dad followed Ryan and the mom followed after Andrew. Each boy ran out into the parking lot with a dead parent in pursuit.
Zombie Complex | Short Story | Neither Seen Nor Heard Page 2
