Zombie Fallout | Book 14 | The Trembling Path Read online

  “Everyone good?” I asked, not able to see through the bodies.

  “We’re up here,” BT said. “Now what do you want us to do? I want to call you a dumbshit, but you saved our asses, and that doesn’t sound all that appreciative.”

  The zombies had stopped beating on the car and were now looking in like I was the newest exhibit at monkey world. No matter where I turned, they were staring.

  “It’s getting bizarre down here. Anyone got a plan?”

  One of the zombies began to lick and bite at the glass like it was coated in syrup. Him, I wanted to shoot out of principle. The zombie immediately to my left began to tap on the glass with his index finger, presumably to get my attention. That he had, oh yeah, he had plenty of that. He held up his free hand; in it was half a brick—and not a half a brick of hash, which I would have been thankful for under different circumstances—but rather a red construction brick. He lightly touched it to the glass, not because he wasn’t sure what to do with it, but rather, I would swear, to let me know he was wielding a key that would let him in.

  “BT, I’m going to be in real trouble, real soon.”

  “Yeah, what do you call it now?”

  “Prospective trouble.”

  “Stenzel says to check the glove box for keys.”

  “The cubby?”

  “You’re really going to pull out that fucked-up Northeastern slang shit on me right now? Just check the fucking thing.”

  “Shit, man, you’d think you were the one about to be eaten.” I moved slowly, hoping that by not moving quickly, I didn’t trigger something in the brick-wielding zombie. I kept my eyes on him as I reached over the seat and pulled the lever that opened the small compartment. All eyes were quite literally on me. Brickster was now dragging the piece across the surface of the car and glass. The resultant squeal was grating, nerve-wracking, in fact. Then there was a loud thudding as it used some force to smack the window. Not enough to break it, but enough to garner all my attention again.

  “Tell me Stenzel has a bead on the smart one.”

  “That’s a negative,” BT said. “You have keys?”

  I’d been so distracted from the glass strike I forgot to look, (not that I was going to tell him that) and there they were, all shiny and pretty. It was an unwritten law on base to leave keys in vehicles. First off, because who was going to steal them and even if they did, where the hell were the thieves gonna go? And secondly, this was a military-run facility first and foremost; it was imperative that vehicles were able to be used in an emergency situation. I was pretty convinced this was just such an event. Another smash on the glass, a spider-web not much bigger than a quarter appeared. I’d had enough rock strikes on windshields to realize that the structural integrity had been compromised. Wouldn’t take much more force from this point forward before the glass gave way into a thousand sparkly remnants. I was making my way over the center console when the inevitable explosion happened.

  A hand snaked through and grabbed my lower leg, which I summarily yanked away. Like a quarterback tossing a football through a tire from twenty-five yards, I shoved the keys straight into the ignition. Good thing, too, or the force I’d done it with could have snapped the piece of metal in half. Brickster, instead of haranguing me from behind, had moved to the driver’s side window and began his hammering anew. In these situations, my brain always goes to a familiar horror trope: clicking of a dying battery, slowly whirring starter, or even worse, just silence. Instead, the engine quickly caught as another spider-web formed not more than a half-foot from my head. One or two strikes and that brick was going to collide with my head. I put the car in reverse just as the zombie smacked again; the window now looked like a colorless kaleidoscope.

  I was hoping for the throaty roar of a big block 454, something to plow over and through the field of zombies I was dealing with. Instead, I got the steady, reliable hum of a four-cylinder engine. It was running, so that was a plus, I just wasn’t sure if I was going to have enough torque to make a hasty escape, or any escape. I lurched backward, the press of so many bodies on the bumper impeding any progress. Someday I hoped to look back on it and wonder why most of my stressful driving during the z-poc seemed to be in reverse.

  “Get going!” BT ordered.

  “Not sure what you think I’m doing!” I yelled in return. I was moving my body around, doing the best I could to avoid the grasp of the zombie reaching in. Those around that hadn’t the foresight to grab something substantial were now smashing their fists on the glass and car. An errant thought blazed across my thoughts; it in no way impeded what I was doing or trying to do, it just came out of left field to let me know it was there. Some piece of my mind that couldn’t grasp what was going on wished that I’d gotten the rental insurance, so I wouldn’t have to try and claim this on my personal plan.

  “Shoot the zombies!” BT told those with him.

  The back windshield blew out in a cascading rain of glass pellets.

  “The zombies, Kirby!” BT roared.

  I wondered for a moment if he was angry for all the times I’d put him on point.

  “Wasn’t me! I haven’t even fired yet,” Kirby begged off.

  “Why not?” BT wanted to know.

  “Cleaning my rifle,” Kirby told him.

  Zombies were being shot and killed behind me; that was great, and it wasn’t. They shouldn’t be able to hold me in place with sheer poundage, but it wasn’t like I was driving an off-road vehicle. There wasn’t enough clearance to run over the bodies, not any great number of them anyway. High centering on the dead sounded absolutely horrific. At that point, I’d be like a coveted prize within a claw game with multiple players. Then came the moment where I wasn’t moving at all. The engine was revving up over four thousand RPMs and rapidly heading to red-lining, and I was at a standstill. I’d been stuck enough in snow and mud to know what I had to do now. Plus, it was a rental, and I was going to have to pay my deductible anyway; in for a dime in for a dollar. Though, come to think of it, that mentality had never really worked all that well for me when I played cards. Most times, tossing money around just for the hell of it is a bad investment.

  The car protested as I slapped the gearbox into drive, lurching forward, forcing two zombies up and onto the hood. Instead of complaining about the rough treatment, they got on board with the whole adventure, crawling further up so they could smack at the front windshield. I was off to an auspicious start as I tried to rock the car free from where I was stuck. The car was jostling around violently as I kept going rapidly from forward to reverse, but it didn’t seem like I was getting much more than six inches or so with each floundering movement. The car was swaying and tilting, and the zombies were getting more aggressive, fearful I would take my balls and go home. Meant that literally, in case it didn’t come across that way. Fingertips brushed up against my ear, if he’d gotten hold, he would have ripped it free from my head. As it was, I was leaning so far over I nearly had my head on the passenger seat. The upper half of the zombie’s body was now inside the car, where I went, he would go as well.

  “What the shit?” I couldn’t reach up to steer as the zombie was too far inside. All I could manage was to keep my foot on the gas. Not sure what the opposite of “rocketed” is. Turtled? No, that sounds like something that happens when you’re in dire need of finding a bathroom. The car was slowly rolling like it was on a gentle slope. The passenger side window was taking some serious abuse as the zombies on that side tried to work their way in.

  “Come this way!” BT wanted me to move toward the building; how I was going to manage that was anyone’s guess. I’d been in some tight jams before, but this one was rising to the top.

  “Kill the fucker inside!” I had my knife and pistol uncomfortably pinned under my thigh and leg, respectively. My rifle was uselessly jammed behind me, in my back. The zombie was wriggling his way in, blood leaking from his midsection as he serrated himself on the sharp pieces left in the window.

  “No s
hot, sir,” Stenzel replied.

  “There isn’t going to be a captain if you don’t!” I was running out of options, not that I had any, mind you, but you always like to think that there might be one. “BT, light this car up! Danger close!” I realize that had to do with aerial bombardment or artillery, but it was fitting for the moment at hand. There was grumbling on the other end, but I was completely distracted by the shower of glass coming down on my head as another zombie made ingress. A finger dragged across the bottom of my jaw and up over my head, pulling my cap off. I just caught sight of the disgusting digit as it trailed past my eye. The car was jostling around like perhaps it was being used to film an orgy.

  I could hear the rifle fire, though it seemed to be something in the background, just abstract noise. I hated that I wasn’t actively fighting for my life but rather doing my utmost to hide as much as possible. I somehow kept my foot on the gas, my stomach over the center console, and most of my upper half in the passenger foot area. It was an undignified pose, and if I was found dead with my ass up in the air, I was going to have a pissed-off spirit roaming the afterlife. That’s how poltergeists are created. And that’s just what everyone needs in their life: a sarcastic, angry, humiliated ghost. I was going to haunt the hell out of BT. A hand grabbed the back of my thigh and squeezed like he needed that last remaining dollop of toothpaste.

  “Motherfucker!” I yelled, hurt like a bastard. This was payback for all the monkey bites I’d given my kids when they were young.

  “Mike!” BT was concerned for my well-being, as he should be, considering I’d made up my mind to bother him forever in the spirit realm.

  “Keep shooting!” There was a dim part of me that was taking note that it was getting lighter in the car; the reason behind it should have been terrifying, I just couldn’t spare any more of that resource at the moment. Bullet holes were tearing into the side of the car and the roof, and streaks of light were stabbing through, 5.56 millimeter spotlights displaying the full horror happening inside. The dashboard above me exploded into shards of plastic and metal as bullets destroyed the interior. I could feel the tiny impacts, the sheet metal was getting pocked. Any glass that had been remaining was blown through, it was so loud I couldn’t think, which, given my propensity for bad decisions, may have been a good thing. I couldn’t tell if the car was still moving or all the vibrations were caused by zombies and bullets—right up until the far from jarring, low-speed collision when the rear end came to an anti-climactic thud against a wall.

  “Not close enough,” BT told me, though I didn’t have a clue as to what he was referencing. The zombie that had been trying to rip the muscle from my leg had stopped, or was dead, but the zombie above my head was alive and well. He was leaning in, his head hovering over the passenger seat, his arms grabbing at my shoulders as I kept trying to shrug him away. It would only be a matter of time before he was grabbing at my face and trying to rip my lips free.

  “You’re twenty feet from the ladder!” Now it made sense.

  “Which way!”

  “Forward.” Good thing, because I wasn’t sure how I was going to go any further back with my ass up against the wall. Now the trick was going to be shifting and steering.

  “We’re right above you; get in the driver’s seat.”

  I can’t even comment on how not thrilled I was to have bullets from above being fired down all around me. Before I could move, there were more shots into the hood, trunk and roof.

  “Fuck!” I yelled as one grazed the side of my calf; would have drilled me straight through the head if I’d been sitting where BT had told me to go.

  “Mike, you’ve got to move. More are coming and we’re running low on ammo.” BT sounded as stressed as I’d ever heard him.

  That altruistic part of me wanted them to use the limited supplies they had left to extract their own escape, but the survivalist bastard in me wanted to punch that other fucker in the head. As much help as they were offering, this was still going to be up to me. If I didn’t get the car going, no one, anywhere, was going to be able to do anything. And then I stood to be corrected, which generally pisses me off to no end, though this time I took it with a grain of salt and a side of steak fries.

  “Talbot, where specifically are you?” It was Major Overland.

  How does one answer that? I had no idea what he was looking at, but when one has a lifeline thrown at them, it doesn’t make sense to bat it away. The standard response: “I’m here!” stuck in my throat as I thought about an existential crisis answer, telling him I was in danger of losing my mind, or that I was in Hell. It all took a fraction of a second to suppress every thought that didn’t directly aid my own rescue. I went with realism. “In a car!” It was the best thing I could come up with.

  “South side, mercantile building. The captain is in a grey Honda sedan.” BT gave him the exact location. I wanted to berate myself for not doing it myself, although I had about a dozen or so reasons why I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “Hold on Captain. The street sweeping unit is heading your way, ten minutes. Can you do it?” Overland asked.

  I was having my doubts about another ten seconds…but I’ll admit, the image of a giant street sweeper was distracting…what the hell it was going to be able to do? The lumbering vehicle was entirely too slow to run down zombies. Zombie arms were all around me, some even slapping me, there was pulling, grabbing, pinching. Soon they’d be inside, and it wouldn’t matter if an entire fleet of Zambonis came, by the time they got here they’d only be cleaning up what was left of me. My options were becoming extremely limited; it was fight or die. Well, more like fight and die, but there’s a difference. I reached up and turned the wheel as far as I could and depressed the accelerator, there was a grinding noise as the rear end scraped against the wall but I was moving, and that was something. I turned the wheel more, attempting to get the entire driver’s side against the wall and cut off at least one avenue of approach for the zombies; the ones that were about to get crushed were oblivious to their plight. There was a squeal of metal on brick, then the slow splintering of bone caught between brick and metal, not a pleasant sound. Clothes tore, bones broke, skin burst, muscles stretched and separated, tendons snapped, arteries, veins, capillaries—all ruptured. I’d reduced the lower halves of five zombies to nothing more than useless chafe. Two had been pulled into such awkward positions they could no longer reach me, one had its head stuck by the gas cap, the other had ridden up high so that he was beating futilely on the roof.

  That left three that needed immediate attention. I sat up as quickly as the arms trying to get at me would allow. My 1911 was the easiest weapon I could gain access to, which, given what was happening, was not an easy task. With one hand, I was pushing away those that tried to grab me as the other finally got a hold of something that could help me in this jam. Instinct took over. Instead of putting a shot in the first zombie's shoulder, which, given the type of bullet, would have killed him, I opted to put one in his head, which splattered the brains of it all over the interior of the car. The second had grabbed hold of my collar as I placed the barrel on its Adam’s apple, obliterating that fibrous ball of cartilage into a smoking hole. The third, having watched two of his attack-mates be killed, actually tried to get away, but considering he was trapped by a ton and a half car, wasn’t going anywhere. I shot him in the sternum; he slumped over into the backseat.

  I finally had a somewhat safe area from which to launch my defense. The entirety of that side was painted with the innards of zombies, but as of yet, I’d failed to notice. I blasted two more from the front windshield, giving me a few seconds to get my knife free and to pull my rifle around to the front. I had three more rounds in the .45 and a spare magazine. Great weapon in close combat, unfortunately, it was going to be useless pretty quickly. I shot three more times, not necessarily because I had to, but killing the closest zombies would afford me enough time to fish out the spare and get it loaded before they could once again close the distanc
e.

  “How much time?” I asked as I hurriedly popped out the old and inserted the new. You know how they say time flies when you’re having fun? Yeah, well, the corollary is that it just fucking stops dead when you’re fighting for your life.

  “Nine minutes.” I imagined BT saying that through pinched lips.

  I wanted to yell at him to keep better time, that it had easily been a month and a half since I’d heard from Overland. “Keep shooting and tell Kirby I’m in the driver’s seat!” I meant it more as a deterrent when I’d said it, but now I feared perhaps I’d given him a place to concentrate his fire. My squad up top was doing an admirable job keeping the relentless and incessant zombies at bay; the problem, as always, was going to be the limited amount of munitions. This was supposed to have been a quick extraction; we’d not prepared for a drawn-out conflict. I was hoarding my bullets like some of those poor bastards I’d seen on television horde their old Hot Pockets boxes. A bullet blasted through the roof and smashed the gear shift into a pointy shard. I was just about to rail at Kirby until blood started to pour through the new opening; it looked like a zombie had gone for an aerial attack.

  BT was giving me updates every minute, but this was a military operation, not a Japanese train schedule. When Overland said ten minutes, that, in reality, could mean anything from that ten minutes to an hour or possibly never. At three minutes, BT gave me a heads up that they were going to be out of ammo before the next minute elapsed. Two minutes on my own sounded like an eternity.

  “Fuck,” was the next thing BT said; didn’t need any further explanation. I don’t know if it was just a shift in my perspective, but I swear the zombies knew that the death from above had ceased, and they were now coming full throttle for the prize. They were on the hood, the roof, the trunk; hands, mouths, teeth—entire bodies were now trying to find their way in. At first, I was doing my utmost to keep them at bay, which was difficult, considering I had to cover 270 degrees and was using a rifle in a confined area. I changed tactics. I was going to use them to clog the drain, so to speak. I was going to let them in to a point, and then shoot them. The ferocity and determination they displayed on their features were truly terror-inducing, and my brain felt like it was getting scrambled with the way they were bouncing the car. Between the bodies and the gun smoke, the inside of the car looked like a dense fog bank from a gruesome horror film had rolled up on me.