The huge zombie slammed both hands against the car. The flesh on his right hand burst. The wound left a trail of black across the glass as he slid it down the window. I felt the car shift as the lump of a man leaned his weight against it. The other zombie head-butted the window. The impact made a soft, wet squelching sound, muffled but no less disturbing for it. The glass held and probably would for quite some time. I’d be safe inside the car for now. Maybe even until I died of dehydration.
Outside, the mangled zombie moaned, the sound pitiful. Flesh thunked against glass as he banged his head into the window. The car rocked, and a flash of silver caught my eye. The car keys were still in its ignition. Surely, it was too damaged to start? Not daring to believe my luck and ignoring the complaints of my injured ribs and leg, I clambered into the driver’s seat.
The big zombie tracked me as I moved, following me to the front of the car and pressing his immense bulk against the driver’s window. The seat was pulled forward so far, I barely fit, and I had to reach beneath the seat to shift it back. As soon as I was in position, I yanked my hand back, suddenly afraid there would be something deadly lurking beneath it.
I grabbed the key, took a deep breath, and turned the ignition. Nothing. I turned it again, and this time the engine whined for a few seconds then fell silent. I let the battery rest, watching the fat zombie press his corpulent face against the window. His nose was huge, and I was reminded of Ling. I thought he might actually be Ling, but then I remembered what I’d done. The memory of biting into Ling’s face brought a bitter taste along with it. I grimaced.
I tried the ignition again. And again. And again. The result was the same each time. The engine was dead.
I was surprised at just how angry that made me. I hit the heel of my hand against the steering wheel. There was a heavy clunk as the zombie with the missing face slapped the door as though he was mirroring my movements. I gripped the lug wrench tighter. I was going to have to fight my way out.
I briefly considered trying to avoid the zombies by kicking out the windshield and clambering across the car’s hood, but I didn’t think that would be possible even if my leg hadn’t been injured. I’d have to go out a door. I wasn’t stupid enough to try to get past the massive zombie on the driver’s side. I’d have to deal with the faceless one.
As the zombies bumped and slapped against the car, I made plans for my escape. The big zombie had tracked me as I moved around the car, but Faceless hadn’t. When I’d woken up and clambered into the backseat, he’d carried on trying to break in through the passenger window. That would give me a few extra seconds to get out of the rear door and cave his skull in.
I climbed into the rear. All the moving around had woken up my injuries again, and I was starting to feel claustrophobic in the car’s cramped interior. It would be a relief to get outside, even with the zombies to deal with.
With one last look outside to make sure Faceless hadn’t been joined by any of his friends, I grabbed the door handle and pulled. I threw my weight against the door and came to a complete halt. It didn’t open. Thinking it must be blocked from the outside, I pulled on the handle and pushed against it again. It didn’t give an inch.
Child locks. I checked the controls at the front of the car. No button to open the doors.
I let out a short, sharp laugh and leaned back in the seat. A thick pain dug into my side like gravel being ground against my lungs—my ribs again. Behind me, the big zombie threw himself against the car in frustration, setting it rocking. More laughter welled up inside me, and my grip on sanity loosened.
The zombies’ frustrated moans and the wet slapping of rotting limbs on glass accompanied my thoughts as I fought down the encroaching madness and worked on a plan B. I kept coming back to the windshield idea. If I couldn’t kick it out, maybe I could smash it with the lug wrench.
Back I went to the front of the car. I moved the passenger seat as far back as it would go to give me extra room and then swung the wrench at the windshield. It hit the glass with a heavy crack but bounced off. I swung again. And again. Each impact sent a jarring pain down my arm but did nothing to damage the glass. After the eighth attempt, I gave up. My ribs were complaining again, and I felt lightheaded. The air in the car was choking. I needed to open the windows.
The thought triggered an idea.
I tapped the lug wrench against the passenger-side window. Faceless lunged toward it, crushing his mangled face against the glass. Then I moved back into the driver’s seat and found the window controls again. I hesitated when I realized they were unmarked. I’d rolled down windows hundreds of times without thinking; now I couldn’t work out which button controlled which window. Surely, it had to be the nearest button. Didn’t it?
I checked my finger was on the right button four times then tapped it. There was brief whirring sound, but neither window moved. I pressed it again, holding it down this time, and the passenger window slid downward.
Faceless, agitated by my tormenting, pushed his head through the opening window. He snapped and moaned at me, scattering fresh waves of vile air and scraps of rotting flesh into the car. As soon as the zombie’s head was inside, I pulled the button up. The window whirred and reversed direction. It clamped onto the zombie’s neck and dug into his skin. He let out a choking gurgle as the window’s edge sliced through his rotting flesh. The sound of the window increased in pitch. There was a grinding noise, and the window stopped. The zombie twisted as he tried to get at me. The window slid back down an inch or so.
I swung the lug wrench. One end caught on the headrest, robbing the blow of most of its strength, but it still made a satisfying crack when it hit the zombie’s forehead. I attacked again, and this time the wrench broke through his skull as though it were paper. Fragments of bloody bone spattered across the windshield. I tugged at the wrench, ripping it free. I swung again, a diagonal blow this time. The top of the zombie’s skull caved in. He slumped forward, suddenly silent. I watched, alert for signs of movement, the wrench poised ready to finish him off if he proved to have movie-villain powers of regeneration.
A solid thump from just behind my head spurred me back into action. Without looking around, I climbed into the passenger seat, reached around the mangled remains of Faceless, and pulled the door handle. The door clicked open. I pushed. Faceless’s feet scraped across the road as I forced him backward. As soon as the door was open far enough, I half fell, half rolled out of the car. I landed on the road hard, and my leg screamed in pain. Adrenaline had me back on my feet before my brain could convince me I couldn’t stand.
The big zombie was already lumbering toward me. Next to the car he seemed huge, like some giant sumo wrestler. The lug wrench suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. There was a gash in his gut, the effluence from the wound turning the front of his pants black. I backed away as he staggered around the hood of the car.
The road stretched up the hill behind me. The previous day’s clouds had mostly cleared. Another bank of black clouds hung in the distance, but for the moment it was a bright, clear day. The trail that would lead me to Hope couldn’t be far. I could make it.
The zombie let out a long, baleful moan. I hefted the lug wrench again, trying to judge its effectiveness against the mass of rotting flesh inching unsteadily toward me. He was moving slowly enough that I had time to think. I could run away—or hobble away, at least. If I didn’t stop to rest, I’d probably be able to stay ahead of him. It was certainly better than just assuming I had to stand and fight. I turned away from the zombie and hobbled away, his pitiful moans chasing me up the hill.
Chapter 28
Remnants of Despair
Hope was a war zone.
I leaned against a tree just outside the perimeter and surveyed the carnage. I recognized what had happened immediately. I’d seen the same scenario repeated time and time again, only the location and the victims’ race, color, and creed changed.
A swarm had hit the camp.
Maybe the one we’d met on
the road had followed the bus, or maybe it was another group. Either way, they’d laid waste to the entire camp. The fences on the western side were down. The tents I’d walked among days ago lay in ruins. I spotted the one I’d slept in. The canvas was covered in dark stains, and there were people-size lumps beneath it. A wheelchair lay on its side in the mud. The mangled corpse of its former occupant was facedown nearby.
The ranger’s building was a blackened mess. The windows and most of one side had been blown out, and the walls were peppered with bullet holes. The doors on the other buildings were open or lay on the ground nearby. What windows hadn’t been smashed were smeared with dark blood. A woman’s body lay across the roof of one of the smaller buildings. The back of her head was missing. The gun that she’d used to take her own life was still gripped in her hand.
I counted eight bodies, or what remained of them. They’d been torn apart and rendered almost unrecognizable in the process. There were signs of other deaths as well, red smeared across the ground, a blood-spattered jacket, its sleeve torn to shreds. A discarded shoe.
There were the remains of at least a dozen zombies, their heads smashed in or shot to pieces. None of them were moving. There had to have been more, but as far as I could tell, they were gone now. They’d probably followed the survivors out of the camp. Assuming there were any, of course. A trail of blood led away from the ranger station, too red to have come from the living dead.
One of the cars I’d seen when I first arrived was parked beside one of the buildings. The other was in the middle of the camp as though someone had been trying to drive it away. The driver’s-side door was open. A pale arm dangled from behind it.
Deep tire tracks led out of the camp, and the barrier at the entrance had been knocked down from the inside. There was no sign of the bus, so assuming they’d made it back, at least some of Hope’s inhabitants had used it to escape. Captain Harwood had finally gotten his way: they’d left for Sanctuary.
I saw all of the destruction, catalogued it, and filed it away at the back of my mind. I felt… nothing. I’d met these people. I’d talked to them. They’d fed me. Maybe I’d become desensitized to the havoc wrought by the dead. Maybe it was the months of isolation. Or maybe it was simply not in my nature to feel for my fellow man. Whatever the reason, their deaths had no real effect on me. My only concern was what I could do next.
Just as its name implied, Hope had given me the strength to get this far. Now that I was here, my injuries were making their presence felt again, and they were steadily growing worse. My leg was burning up, and putting even the slightest weight on it sent pain knifing through my shin. My headache, which had eased after my night asleep in the car, was back—pulsing in time with the irregular beating of my heart. Breathing was becoming more difficult by the minute, and if I dared take a deep breath I was greeted by an intense stabbing pain in my lower right side.
I leaned back against the tree and closed my eyes. I could taste blood in my mouth again. The idea of walking to Sanctuary was ridiculous. I wasn’t even sure where it was. Even if I had a map or some other way of finding it, my injuries would get the better of me long before I got there.
There was a noise from somewhere off in the forest, the snap of a branch breaking. I scanned the trees but couldn’t see anything in the shadows.
My best option was the car. Someone had been trying to use it to escape, which meant it was drivable. I could get back out on the road and look for some sign of the bus. First, I had to find some food. There had to be supplies somewhere, probably in one of the smaller buildings. Once I’d eaten something, I could try to make the drive to Sanctuary. I coughed, and my ribs cried out.
Branches snapped again, and this time, the noise was accompanied by a low moan. I spotted a ragged shadow moving unsteadily through the trees toward me.
Wincing, I made my way slowly into Hope, heading toward the smallest of the four buildings. The ground beneath my feet was soft, and I had to pick my way around puddles and rocks. I kept glancing over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t have company, but the road behind me was empty.
I was halfway to the car when the first gunshot rang out. The round clanged off something metal to my right.
I made a mistake—I froze when I should have dived out of the way.
Thinking the shot had been a warning, I raised my hands. Another shot rang out. This one hit me in the shoulder. The impact twisted me sideways. I stumbled and fell into the mud. My head hit something hard. Another shot pierced the air.
Chapter 29
Bandages and Blood
I remember fragments of what happened next. Being jostled and bounced as someone picked me up. The rumbling of an engine and the grinding of manual gears. Voices and bright lights, a sharp pain in my arm, and the smell of disinfectant. Most of all, I remember feeling as though I were floating, adrift on an ice-cold sea with nothing but darkness around me.
When I finally came to, I was in a makeshift hospital. The room had once been a classroom. Whiteboards lined the walls, and there was still a handful of amateurish paintings stuck along one side of the room. The chairs and desks had been replaced with beds. There were six of them. I was in one, and another held a young woman. The rest were empty.
The woman had a bloodstained bandage wrapped around her forearm. A tube ran from her other arm to a bag of clear liquid hanging from a metal stand near the bed. Her forehead glistened with sweat. She was unconscious, but she whimpered and tossed and turned in her sleep. Her breath came in short, fevered gasps.
The room smelled clean. The sheets on my bed were crisp and white. It had been a long time since I’d seen truly clean linen. I pictured what a mess I must be making in my gore-soaked state. Then I realized someone had washed me. They’d dressed my wounds as well. I could feel a bandage wrapped tight around my right leg, my left shoulder, and my ribs. The swelling above my eye had gone down, and I could breathe more easily. I was still tired, and my muscles ached, but it was the stiffness of lying in one place for an extended period of time, not the pain of near death.
I tried to work out how long I’d been in the room. It was light outside, and I could see gray sky through the rectangular windows running along the top of the wall opposite. Assuming I’d reached Hope sometime in the early afternoon, it was probably the next day, but it was impossible to tell for sure.
The woman let out an anguished cry. A few moments later, a man carrying a small bucket came into the room. He was wearing a white jacket, like a doctor, but the baggy jeans, oversize sneakers, and patchy stubble on his chin made him look more like a skateboarder than a GP.
He ignored me and walked right past my bed. The shadow flickered inside me, and for a moment I felt the urge to reach out and grab him, to haul him back onto the bed and snap his neck. I swear he slowed a little as the thought struck me, as though some lizard part of his brain had sensed the threat.
He knelt by the woman’s bed and retrieved a piece of black cloth from the bucket. It was wet, and he wrung it out and dabbed it against the woman’s forehead. She muttered something and tried to knock his hand away. I caught sight of the bloodied bandage and thought back to the young boy in Hope and Parker’s desire to find a way to treat his infection. The man whispered to the woman and pressed her arm back onto the bed. She frowned but didn’t resist. He dabbed at her face for a few more minutes before dropping the cloth back into the bucket. Then he leaned forward, kissed her lightly on the forehead, and started walking back across the room.
“Ah!” he said when he saw me looking at him. “Our latest arrival is awake. How are you feeling?”
His voice was crisp and precise, not at all what I’d have expected given his fashion sense. I licked my lips and tried to speak, but my mouth was dry, and the words came out as a distorted croak.
The man raised his hand. “Sorry, just a minute.”
He hurried over to a table set against one wall and put down the bucket. There was a jug fitted with a water filter on the table, a
nd he filled a plastic cup from it and brought it over to me.
He helped me sit up and raised the cup to my lips. The water was warm but clean.
“Not too fast. You’re still dehydrated.”
I cleared my throat. “Thank you.” My voice was gravelly.
“You’re welcome. I’m Doctor Garcia by the way, but most people just call me Leo.”
“Marcus.”
“Pleased to meet you, Marcus. We thought we were going to lose you for a while there.”
“Where am I?”
The doctor smiled. “You’re safe. You’re in Sanctuary.”
It made sense, but I must have looked confused because he continued. “You were shot. By Julie. It was a simple case of mistaken identity. I’m sure she’ll be very glad to hear you’re okay. She was quite upset.”
It took me a few seconds to realize that this Julie had thought I was a zombie. Thankfully, she hadn’t managed to hit me in the head. Unable to help myself, I smiled.
“Glad you can see the funny side.”
“How did I get here?”
“When Julie realized what she’d done, she got help, and they carried you to the car. They drove you straight here.” Leo’s voice took on a stern tone, the sort a doctor uses when they’re admonishing someone for not exercising enough. “She saved your life. Even without the hole in your shoulder, you were in bad shape.”
“There was a gang. They beat me up.”
“A gang? Near here?”
I nodded and realized my head didn’t hurt anymore.
Serial Killer Z: Volume One Page 41
