Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse

by Jack Flacco

  “Sorry. I was just curious what it felt like remembering the past.”

  “Don’t worry about it, kid.” Ranger removed his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his hair. After playing with the bill, he studied the red, white and blue emblem emblazoned on the cap. It took several seconds before he answered, “I had a brother, his name was Sam. We hated each other. Not really, we were competitors. If momma gave him a bigger piece of apple pie, I’d have to have the same size too. It worked the other way around with him wanting things I had. I remember when Sam made the cut for the RedHawks. Momma gushed all over him saying how wonderful it was to have a son in professional baseball. She just loved having people know how famous he was. ‘Oh, my son, Sam.’ She’d say to her friends, ‘He’s playing the big leagues, you know. You ought to catch him this Sunday. He might hit a home run for every last one of ya.’ I’d laugh knowing he was playing in the minors instead.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He played in Houston for a while but a bum knee killed his career. It was nice without him. Momma would give me all the attention. I had turned eighteen and wanted to be a trucker like my uncle, but never had a reason to leave momma ‘cause there was no one to tend to the farm. When he showed up one day telling her he was staying for good, I knew my time had come to leave.”

  “Did he save himself, like you?”

  “I was tending the cows in the field one morning when I heard screaming coming from the house. It was momma. I ran and ran, like I never ran in all my life. I can still remember the smell of the grass, freshly cut the day before. How the rose bushes at the side of the house needed watering, and the porch needed fixing. I crashed through the front door to find momma lying in the hallway. She must have answered the doorbell when it struck. Then I knew it wasn’t possible. They don’t ring the doorbell coming into the house. They just come in.”

  Randy remained still unable to utter a word.

  “It had torn momma’s neck apart like it was some sort of raccoon that had shredded a bag of garbage. Chewing at her fingers, it violently swung its head to me, startled by my barging into its private feast. I came in empty-handed and it leapt on me, hurling the both of us through the front door on to the porch. We wrestled some, rolling off the steps.” Ranger placed the RedHawks cap back on his head, fitting it snuggly.

  Randy hadn’t moved a muscle. He now knew the cap belonged to Ranger’s brother. Where did his brother go?

  “I killed the zombie. Blood for blood.” Ranger pressed his eyes closed with his fingers omitting a small detail from his story. He didn’t admit to Randy his brother had changed into one of them. He didn’t admit he had killed his own brother with a rock. Some things had to remain unsaid.

  Frozen in place, Randy stared down Porter Street, not because Ranger’s story swirled in his mind. Something else had him caught in a web of terror.

  Ranger’s eyes unsealed from the memory of his brother’s death to watch Randy’s lips form words without sound. He’d seen that look before. What do you see, Randy? Is it behind Ranger? Had the monster made its way to lurk a few feet away that Ranger hadn’t heard the drag from its rotten limbs? Without thinking, Ranger swung around and raced his eyes down the hill, across Lakeshore, through the park, and to the lake where Matty and Wildside sat on the bench. About fifteen feet behind them, one of the undead straggled, arms leading, face sneering.

  “Get the tire changed.” Ranger barked throwing the lug wrench next to Randy. His next move brought him to the first truck where he strapped on his shotgun and knife.

  As Ranger dashed down Porter Street to Lakeshore Boulevard waving his arms, Matty had finished placing a new dressing on Wildside’s wound. Bending to collect the First Aid kit lying on the grass, she closed the lid but notice from the corner of her right eye a shadow moving about. Any other time in her life, a shadow wouldn’t have bothered her. In this time of her life, though, the shadow could kill. Her head snapped right. She hated being right. Launching to her feet, her gun made an appearance quicker than a jackrabbit scurrying from a fox. Having heard Matty’s rustling, Wildside shot to his feet, then by her side. The zombie lumbered ahead, slower than ever. One heavy foot after another, it slid. Matty be damned if she’d take any intrusions on her privacy by a gut-ripper. She cocked her weapon and aimed it. Ten feet away, this should prove easy.

  “Do it.” Wildside said. “Do it.”

  Her quick glance to her left at Wildside caught Ranger in the background running toward them. She couldn’t help noticing his arms swinging wildly as if he wanted her attention.

  “Do it, Matty.”

  Her eyes met Wildside’s again, then at the beast heading toward her. She understood. Ranger didn’t want her to fire the gun. It would alert the other undead in the area.

  Ranger’s sprint carried him across Lakeshore Boulevard, racing in the grass, and finally lunging and tackling the zombie to the ground. Straddling it, he wailed on its face with his bare hands. One thing Ranger hadn’t counted on though, the strength of this creature surpassed even Ranger’s. It threw him off like a twig. And it went further. It shrieked a high-pitched shrill that ran across Lakeshore Boulevard, up Porter Street, and up Michigan Avenue, which ran parallel to Porter. Did it have within itself the ability to call others of its find? Ranger wasn’t about to find out. He unsheathed his knife from the side and jumped the beast, plunging the blade through its forehead. The zombie gave up its soul, falling limp with a trail of green liquid soaking the grass leading from the wound.

  No sooner had Ranger disposed of the evil in front of him, a crowd of undead emerged from buildings flooding Lakeshore. Fifty to a hundred strong, they were roaming to where its brother shrieked its last. To where Ranger, Matty and Wildside stood.

  “Guys, listen to me carefully.” Ranger raced through his words as if he had everything planned from the beginning. “Matty run and get Jon. Find a hiding spot and stay there. Wildside, help Randy. Leave the truck, run and hide. We can’t afford having that bomb go off by accident because of some zombie crowd too impatient to die by my hands. Now this is important. I’m going to park the truck on Michigan Avenue, one block over. Meet me there. If by sunset I’m not there, find a place to sleep. Whatever you do, don’t leave the area. It’ll be too hard to find you. Got that?”

  “Yeah.” Matty said. “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry about me. Just do what I say and we’ll all survive this.” He grabbed them both by the loose clothes on their shoulder. “Do you understand?”

  They both nodded.

  “Say the words.”

  “Yeah, I understand.” They said in unison.

  “Now, go. Run!”

  Matty scurried to Jon who had remained oblivious to everything happening around him. Wildside dashed across Lakeshore and up Porter to Randy’s side. Ranger shot a few rounds in the air, alerting the evil surrounding him that if they wanted lunch, he would gladly oblige.

  They had to catch him first.

  Chapter 18

  Running in the rain along Lakeshore Boulevard, Ranger led the zombie horde north through a maze of connecting streets and alleyways. If he could find a way to slow the wretched beasts down or altogether lose them, he could get back to the truck, meet the kids, and continue on their way to Worship Square that very same afternoon.

  One of the passages he noticed earlier had construction scaffolding hanging from four ropes tied to the top of a crane overlooking the space between two buildings. This gave the undead killer an idea. Doubling back, he veered the horde through the perilous dead-end passage. The plan would have been to use himself as bait, tempt the throng to pursue him further into the alleyway and shoot the ropes overhead causing the scaffolding with paint cans, bricks and other debris to come crashing on the flesh-eating crowd. The plan would have worked hadn’t a Styrofoam cup filled with rainwater fallen from the scaffolding from an apparent gust of wind. It dropped perfectly in the center of the alleyway, splashing water everywhere. Even w
ith their infinitesimal brains, the zombies didn’t need a science degree to figure out they’d end up flattened if they trudged under the hazardous trap. The undead swayed in place, not moving forward.

  How could these dead beasts think? Ranger wondered, remembering how another group had opened a route of escape for him when trapped at the top of a cliff some time ago. His rusty ol’ truck barely made it out in one piece escaping a fireball of glory.

  They stood in a stalemate, Ranger at one end of the alley, the zombies at the other blocking his exit. The undead’s white eyes dripped with hunger for the intrepid avenger. For the first time, Ranger ran out of ideas. Perhaps the plan seemed too simple: blow the hooks off the scaffolding, crush the zombies underneath. One from the horde couldn’t wait any longer. It left the front line, crossed the threshold, and charged after him. But Ranger shook his finger at the approaching monster before he aimed his shotgun and made dog meat out of its head, splattering green all over the crowd.

  As the body lay soaked from the rain, green ooze spilled from its neck trailing to a puddle under Ranger’s feet. The other zombies saw this and remained motionless. Ranger couldn’t understand if they were faking intelligence or showing a basic sense of self-preservation. Whatever it was, his ideas began to flow again causing a wild smirk to coat his face. He sucked air into his lungs in pride. Who said the horde needed to be under the scaffolding when he snapped the lines?

  With a leer in his eye, he took a step well back from the hazards above, aiming his shot at the line holding the planks furthest from him. The pellets cut through the rope like a hot knife. The first corner dropped, releasing a cinder block careening fifty feet toward an eye-gouger’s face. It happened so fast that after impact, nothing remained of its head except for a mesh of broken skull fragments and glop. The crowd dispersed from the body not knowing if anything else would scream their way. Not wanting to take chances, Ranger didn’t shoot the second line right away. He reloaded instead, keeping one shot in reserve.

  Another maggot bag didn’t take a hint. It lumbered forward from the bunch with the same intentions as the first, wanting Ranger’s throat in its mouth for feasting. Unwilling to put up with its advances, Ranger sneered. He shot the second line with his trusty sidearm. The contents of the scaffolding, which included cinder blocks, paint, bags of cement, and scrap metal, tumbled in the middle of the alley, crushing the advancing eater as the other zombies and Ranger looked on. The pile of debris grew so tall that once the last brick fell, it had formed a massive mound for Ranger’s escape. Like instinct, he slipped his weapon into its holster, scaled the heap, jumped to a fire escape, and climbed to the roof of the adjacent building.

  When he reached the top of the ledge, he scanned the horde below. He loved seeing the bewildered stares in their faces as if someone had tapped them on the shoulder and disappeared. But his satisfying snicker didn’t last long, not after Ranger calmly turned to flee in the opposite direction. Two eaters had climbed the building’s stairwell trapping Ranger on the rooftop. Now under normal circumstances, he would have killed both of them either with his knife or by his own hands. But he didn’t have time to play. He had to get to the kids as quickly as possible and leave the godforsaken rat hole behind. The importance of his mission took precedence over a couple of misguided walking bowel extracts.

  With gunfighter reflexes he presented the first zombie a mouthful of shotgun, but before he could pull the trigger, the second creature ripped his weapon from his hands, and threw it aside. The scowl worn on Ranger’s face couldn’t have come any sooner. They wanted blood, he’ll give them blood. Their own. He let loose a deafening right cross to the side of the creature’s head that had dared to disarm the undead slayer. The gut-gurgler stayed strong, seizing Ranger by the chest. Attempting to break free, he smacked it with both hands to the ears. The man-chewer resisted, throwing Ranger clear across the roof, slamming him into a pile of shipping pallets and pipes.

  All of a sudden Ranger ran out of options. He had lost his knife on his trip to visit an immovable object. His gun rested on the roof on the opposite side of the two puss bags. And he lay strewn with the air knocked out of his lungs as if he had dropped two-and-a-half miles into the depths of the deepest cave in the world. The fly-breeders edged closer to him without relent. Yet, with some resilience left in his bones, he grabbed one of the couple of foot-long cast-iron pipes lying next to him. As the first eater bent to Ranger’s level, exposing its teeth in a raw display of dominance, he cracked its head with the pipe causing it to stagger and drop a few feet away. The second eater came after him with both hands extended forward. He threw the pipe like a knife, penetrating the zombie’s eye, enough for it to remain embedded in its skull. It stood there swaying and waiting for a final blow to put it out of its misery. Without much effort, Ranger sprung to where the zombie wafted, pulled the pipe from its socket, and with all his might kicked its chest as hard as he could, propelling the zombie from the roof into a big splat on the street below.

  Now, Ranger thought, to get rid of the other one.

  Recovering from the blow, the other one charged Ranger from behind as he went for his shotgun. His sharp ears heard the racing footsteps a few seconds before and in a football move, ducked to have the brain-sucker fly over him. This gave Ranger enough time to retrieve his shotgun, but not enough time to utilize it. The zombie again rushed toward him with flailing arms. This time, Ranger had had enough. He flipped the weapon so the muzzle landed in his hands and gripped it like a baseball player winding up the bat for a pitch. Once in striking distance, Ranger let it have it right against the side of its face. The zombie screamed in a wild voice. The gun had knocked its disturbed brain out of place to stagger in a confused zigzag around the roof.

  The scowl on Ranger’s face reversed itself to amusement. He began to laugh at the creature’s lack of coordination. It smacked into the pallets, crashed against the door to the stairs and it even tripped over a crack in the roof’s tar covering, sending it flying to its knees. Somehow, that’s the position Ranger thought all zombies ought to take, on their knees begging for their lives. The eater rose, spinning and scurrying about again, still unbalanced. In a way, Ranger would’ve loved to stay, but he had things to do. He raised his gun and aimed it at the head of the ever-moving zombie. At the moment his finger was squeezing the trigger, the creature disappeared. It accidentally keeled over the side of the building’s ledge, falling to its death.

  Pumping his fist in the air, Ranger screamed, “Booyah!”

  * * *

  Tugging him by the hand, Matty led Jon through the entrance of Temple City Public Library, slamming the door behind to press their backs against the face of it. They stopped for a moment and closed their eyes. The run from the opposite end of Lakeshore Boulevard, past Michigan Avenue, up Dorchester Street left them panting. A great pounding on the door jostled them out of their shoes. The sound did not come from the wind or the rain, although a slight drizzle may have contributed to the swooshing. Matty knew the wind or the rain did not sound like that. She quickly unplugged an extension cord attached to a giant fan used to blow air on the collection of books, possibly to keep them dry from damp days like these. She wrapped the extension cord tightly around the doorknob and the hook screwed into the wall. Her move bought them some time. How much time? No one knows. The pounding continued.

  Flying down a flight of stairs, they scampered through the aisles between bookshelves. With the only light coming from the ground level windows, they scanned the room for a way out. They needed to get to the street and run to safety.

  In the meantime, the pounding on the door became ferocious, loosening the extension cord tied around the door handle.

  Matty crouched in a corner with Jon under her arm. She needed time to think. Separated from Ranger and the boys, she thought the best course of action would be to first, lead Jon to safety and second, to meet Ranger at the rendezvous point on Michigan Avenue. Avoiding the undead fit somewhere in there. She checked h
er gun and had enough ammo to fend off a few attacks, but if more came her way, she would need other ideas. Into the small of her back the gun went, removing her temptation to use it.

  Jon whispered, “What are we going to do?”

  “We’ll be okay.”

  “Do you think they’ll go and leave us alone?

  “We have to be quiet. They’ll leave us alone if we’re quiet.”

  “Maybe there’s a back way out.”

  “I just need to think. They’ve been after us for a while.”

  “They’re not going to give up until we’re dead.”

  “We’ll be fine, Jon. Positive thoughts. We’ll be fine.” She instilled a sense of hope to reassure her little brother. Giving him another squeeze the pounding became louder and stronger. They needed to get out of there and fast.

  When Matty popped back to her feet with Jon under her wing, the door she tied with the extension cord burst open with two zombies filling the library. They whiffed the air and determined where the teenage girl and little boy went. They dragged downstairs into the archives. Matty heard the pair. She knew they had found her and Jon. She placed her finger over her lips to motion Jon to keep quiet. They may have had an advantage being silent, but the zombies’ resilient senses carried them to the kids’ location.

  Jon tugged Matty’s arm and whispered in her ear. “Why not shoot them?”

  “Remember what happened the last time? We got rid of one and more showed up. As long as we’re quiet, we’ll be fine.” However bright of an idea it seemed, Matty had forgotten one thing. Once they defeat the two puss-blasters inside, others may lay in wait outside to stake a claim on their innards. Her focus remained on their escape.

  As soon as the two eaters hobbled into the basement, Matty covered Jon’s mouth. His eyes bulged as he began to shake. He could see their faces through the shelves, rotten to the bone, green and pasty. Their bodies reeked of decay and their clothes lay on their backs in tatters. The aisles had enough room for one person. The beasts could separate and corner them. She couldn’t allow that to happen. They had to devise a plan fast since they had thought the eaters wouldn’t have had the brains to track them to the archives.