He was going to have to turn around and fight her if he didn’t see a way up the limestone face of the ravine sometime real soon. He was getting winded. It would be better to turn now, try to kick her teeth out and stomp her head to a pulp. But that thing was strong, even without legs. Snake fast, too. If she managed to grab his leg and pull him down, she’d be taking chunks out of him before he could stop her. Biting off his fingers if he tried to push her away. He hated the fast ones. They were too dangerous to kill without a weapon. A gun, a knife, a big rock or something to even the odds. He remembered the first one he’d put down with a blade. It had been strapped face down on a gurney and it still almost bit him before he could sink a knife into its head.
Gunny stumbled over a piece of rusty steel sticking out of the ground and looked back down instead of looking up for an escape. He’d tripped over a jutting piece of metal half buried in the sand. It looked like an old leaf spring from a car. The creek bed was littered with garbage, someone had used this place to get rid of their trash. Old plastic bags were shredded from animals digging through them and sun faded paper and tin cans were scattered among the broken lawn chairs, smashed televisions and other debris. Gunny scanned the mess, looking for something he could use. Anything to even the odds because it was time to fight. He couldn’t keep running, the thing would chase him forever. In the dim light, he made out a bent ironing board, most of an old weed whacker, rusting steel car wheels, bald tires and other junk. No baseball bat. No garbage can lid to use as a shield. No big chunk of metal to use as a club. Just garbage waiting for the rains to wash it away.
The voodoo woman was coming fast, dragging her useless legs and nearly leapfrogging with every powerful pull of her arms. He could hear her ripping through the sand and gravel and sage brush. He saw what he needed under a scattering of broken jars, empty tins and fast food bags. He snatched up the bent bicycle wheel with the jutting, broken spokes and a battered, rusting shovel with a few inches of snapped off wooden handle. Blood was still trickling from the gash on the side of his head, running down his neck and soaking his shirt. His ear still throbbed with every pounding heartbeat but he was through running. He spun as she flung herself at him, mouth wide and eager to taste the blood. He brought the bike wheel up and caught her full in the face, some of the sprung spokes gouging furrows across cheeks and forehead. He twisted with the force of her jump, shoved her aside and swung the piece of shovel at her neck. She spun in the garbage and it glanced off her shoulder blade, flaying it open to the bone. Her bloody hands grabbed for legs to pull him in close but he jumped backward, brought his shield back up. She didn’t take a second to regroup, didn’t need a moment to plan her next attack. She grabbed at the trash, leaped at him instantly and he deflected her head again with the wheel. She landed face down in broken glass and ignored it, she clawed at his feet and snapped at his ankles. Gunny kicked out and a steel toed boot found her teeth and sent them skittering into the trash. He followed through with a grunt and a swing of the shovel when she turned to attack again, ignoring her smashed lips and bleeding mouth. He caught her on the side of the head with the edge and it cut to the bone, the top half of an ear flying off to join the teeth scattered in the trash.
She ignored it, snapped at his hand and sprang for him again, her legs dragging behind and torn open from the rocks and debris. He pulled away, dropped the shovel and barely avoiding her jagged, broken teeth taking a chunk out of him. Gunny backed off, using the bicycle wheel to knock her aside again as she forced him away from the piles of garbage. Away from any other weapon he might find. The wheel was falling apart, most of the spokes were broken with only a few holding the hub in place. One more lunge and she’d break the last of it. That was okay. He told himself. They’d gotten turned around in the fight, he could run back to the cars. There he would find something big and heavy to bash her head in. It had only been a few minutes, hopefully Casey hadn’t turned yet. If he had then maybe he was still trapped in the Mustang. If not, he’d deal with it. For now, he had to get back to where the weapons were.
Gunny backed away and she came scrambling at him again, boney fingers pawing the sand, jaws gnashing the air, shredded legs dragging uselessly. He fell, tripping over that piece of steel jutting out of the sand that looked like an old leaf spring. He dropped the wheel and backed away on all fours as she leaped again, her strong arms sending bloody fingers clawing for his face. She stopped in mid jump and slammed to the ground, face planting between his legs. Hands that were ripped to bloody shreds, fingers barely more than bones clutched at him as he kicked away and sprang to his feet. He stared at the rusty piece of metal protruding through her back right above her hips. Blood and other liquids oozed out and splashed her as she clawed at the ground to get to him. She lunged and nearly freed herself, snarling and hungry. Gunny snapped himself out of his moment of amazement, surprised he wasn’t being chewed up and jumped on her back, driving the steel deeper and pinning her to the spot like a bug on a pin. He stomped down hard on her neck and her arms went limp. Her head still tried to bite, her jaws still snapped at him until two hard kicks later she finally was still. She was finally dead.
Gunny leaned against the wall and breathed deep. That had been close. Too close. He was getting too old for this shit. The after-battle adrenaline shakes started but only lasted a moment. He’d been through situations as bad as this in the past. He was alive. The other guy wasn’t. He listened for the sound of someone racing towards him. Someone coming to join the fight. Someone like Casey either alive or dead coming to finish him off but he heard nothing. No running footsteps or snarling keens. He went back to the illegal dump site and started poking around. He wasn’t in a mad rush, didn’t have a hundred pounds of undead fury only seconds away and found a couple of good weapons after digging around for a few moments. He had to go back, to find Casey, to make sure he was dead or dying. He wasn’t up for another day one zombie battle but he had a little something now to even the odds. He’d found a huge piston with the connecting rod still attached and it made for a hell of a club. Probably out of a tractor or big diesel truck. He had a bicycle sprocket he could use as a crude blade and it would rip through skin like a knife through butter. An old, rusted steel fence post made a good spear. If Casey was a zombie, he’d rush straight for him. They were stupid like that. Gunny would just set the post in the ground and impale him on it when he charged then bash his big bald head in with the piston. Easy as pie.
29
Gunny
Gunny went slow back up the gully and was starting to wonder if he’d taken a side gulch or something. He didn’t remember running so far but he finally caught sight of the cars. He approached carefully, his eyes trying to see into the deep shadows where the moon light didn’t touch. If Casey hadn’t run away, if he was alive, he would be laying in wait. Gunny was pretty sure he still lived. If he was dead, he would have come after him. If he were dead and trapped in the car, he’d be keening and snarling at the smell of fresh blood so close. It was quiet and the crunching of his boots was loud in the deep ravine.
“So, she didn’t get you?” Casey’s voice rang out and Gunny ducked, waiting for a gunshot.
“Don’t worry, Mr. President. If I had any ammo left, you’d already be dead.” Casey said and Gunny heard the defeat in his voice. “Can’t find none in your car, either.”
He inched out of the shadows and peeked around the Mustang. Casey was leaning against the rocks with his leg in a makeshift splint. He had a knife stuck in the sand beside him and the makings of a cigarette in his lap but Gunny didn’t see any guns. Casey held up his arm to the moon light to show a big bloody bite sized chunk of it missing.
“You don’t happen to know if I let it bleed out, it that’ll get rid of the infection, do you?” Casey asked almost conversationally.
“Toss the knife.” Gunny said and stepped out into the light with his make shift armor and weapons. He still had the red paint on his face, his hair still in dreadlocks and he was splashed in
zombie blood and brains up to his knees.
Casey saw the weapons, the shield and the spear and knew he wouldn’t get close enough to sink his blade into him. He hid his disappointment behind a sardonic smile.
“Whatever you say, Mr. President.” he said and threw it a few feet away. “I’m done for, you’d be doing me a favor to finish me off.”
Gunny approached slowly, then shoved him over, running his hands over him, searching for hidden guns or knives. Casey stifled a scream of pain but allowed it, it was better than just having that wicked looking club bash his skull in. Gunny ran his hands through the sand where he was sitting, looking for anything buried. There was nothing, so he grabbed his poke then stepped back, considering what to do. Casey sat back up with a grimace and breathed hard at the effort.
“I’m glad you got her.” he finally said. “Because she sure got me.”
Gunny moved back a few more feet, slid the tossed blade into his scabbard and hunkered down.
“Doesn’t matter how much it bleeds.” he finally said. “Once they break skin, it’s in your blood stream. Contamination is instant and irreversible.”
“Thought so.” Casey said. “You mind rolling me a smoke? I couldn’t get my fingers to work, she must have torn up some tendons or nerves or something.”
Gunny considered it, looking for a trap or an ambush but couldn’t see any way of Casey doing anything. His leg was broken which was why he hadn’t run. He didn’t have a blade and there were no guns hidden in the sand. He had a zombie bite and would start turning soon. He was accepting the fact that he was going to die. Gunny rolled a couple, lit them and reached over to give one to the man who had caused so much trouble and pain over the past year. He’d be dead soon. Gunny could afford to be charitable. He could afford a small kindness to a dying man.
Casey inhaled deeply and leaned back against the rocks.
Gunny watched.
“You know, I didn’t mean for it to get out of hand like it did.” Casey said. “I’m not saying I was building up a Sunday school choir, but things just got kind of crazy. I didn’t start out planning on cooking people. That was all Lucinda’s idea. When Edmunds came along, that’s when things really went weird.”
“You didn’t stop it, though.” Gunny said.
Casey sighed.
“No, I didn’t.” he said. “But for what it’s worth, I didn’t eat people.”
“Hitler didn’t personally gas anyone.” Gunny said “But they got gassed.”
Casey knew it was useless to try to get any sympathy from the man in front of him. He wasn’t going to talk his way out of an execution.
“When I first went to prison, I was young and scared and was just trying not to get shanked or raped. I was trying to mind my own business, do my time and get out.” he said and stared up at the moon. “One day there was a fight in the exercise yard. When it was all over, one of the guys was mangled, beaten to a pulp by a big guy called Mongo. He walked over to another guy, got a cigarette then went off to smoke it. Mongo had ruptured that guy, put him in the hospital for a cigarette. For two cigarettes, he would have killed him. That’s when I realized that dying was cheap, Gunny. That’s when I learned that the price of life was two cigarettes.”
They smoked in silence in the shadows of a canyon with the stars glittering far overhead. Two old warriors who had fought down to the last man and they both knew only one of them would be leaving the ravine.
Gunny took a drag off of his hand rolled and understood the man in front of him a little better now. He had no regard for life because people were disposable. Life wasn’t sacred. Gunny valued life but not all life. Not Casey’s. He’d feel worse putting down an old dog than he would watching him die.
It was time to end this, time to slit his throat and let him bleed out before he turned and got crazy strong. He stood and pulled the knife.
Casey’s eyes got big and he tried to push back into the rocks.
“Can’t you let me die in peace?” he asked. “I’m done for, you know it. You ain’t gotta end me now. Let me have the last ten minutes owed me.”
“No.” Gunny said, wiped at the blood still trickling down the side of his head and started forward. “The world owes you nothing.”
He heard the plinking of falling gravel just seconds before a body smashed down in front of him and started reaching out with twisted arms. He jumped back in time to avoid two more crashing down in rapid succession then heard the keening cry from above. The fastest runners had caught up, had smelled his blood when they got close and kept chasing after it. Broken bodies started clawing their way towards him as he backed farther away from them. The sudden movement started his head bleeding again and the smell drove them wild. Keens from above told him more and more were showing up. He swung the heavy piston, sent brains splattering all over the canyon wall then turned to run. More were raining down, busted from the fall and clawing their way toward him. He knew a mile or so back up the gulch became shallow enough to climb out where the road crossed it. That would be a good place to get up, at the bridge. The zeds that were chasing him were slow, hobbling or crawling along and he set an easy double time pace. He could run for hours at that speed and cadence calls half-forgotten came back as if he were doing morning PT on base again.
Airborne ranger gonna take a little trip.
Mamma, Mamma can’t you see.
Jody’s got your girl and gone.
He put some distance between him and his followers and listened for Casey’s final screams. He never heard them, maybe they ripped his throat out first. That would be fitting.
When he got to the road, he climbed out of the creek bed and saw headlights in the distance coming up fast. He stayed near the bridge so he could hide in case it was Casey’s goons but the trucks pulling up were loaded with Griz and the Indians. The stumbling dead still coming up the road, the slowest of the zeds from the town, were trying to converge on them.
“Where’s the Chevelle?” Griz asked. “Tommy’s gonna be pissed if you tore up another car.”
Gunny laughed as he climbed in. He was tired, sweaty, bloody and stained with zombie gore but feeling pretty good.
“Casualty.” he said. “But this war is over. Casey’s dead or will be a zombie soon. He got bit.”
“Good.” Lone Elk said. “His army is destroyed. Most have been killed, the rest are scattered and on the run. We sent trucks after them but I doubt if they’ll be able to catch up. If they do, they know what to do. If they don’t, they’ll chase them far enough away they’ll never come back.”
“I think it’s finally over.” Gunny said, leaning back into the seat. “All of his top leaders are gone. I think most of the survivors were camp followers. They’ll probably keep running back to Mexico. Anybody radio Lakota yet? I’m sure Bastille already has victory music on standby and we need to get the evacuated people back home.”
“Not yet.” Lone Elk said. “We wanted to wait until we found you, it would be the first thing they asked about.”
“One problem taken care of.” Griz said, heading back to the cliff top and avoiding the ghastly figures reaching for the truck as he flew by. “Next problem is that cult. After that, our troubles are over. We can lounge about and eat bon-bons all day.”
“Or drink icy cold tall boys with a line in the water.” Gunny said. “Let’s run by the camp, I want my ’55 back if it’s still there.”
30
Jessie + Scarlet
Jessie idled the old Mercury into a parking garage a few miles from the Anubis headquarters. They had listened to the news on Radio Lakota about the attacks on Tombstone and the Island. The smaller towns and strongholds had evacuated so the conquering armies found nothing but empty houses and open gates. He’d tried to raise his dad on the ham but the last anyone heard, he and Griz had gone to help people at the Island. He knew that wasn’t right and he managed to get a hold of Cobb on one of custom channels.
“He’s down south.” Cobb rasped, finally telling him p
lain without all the secrecy and code words. “Him and Griz infiltrated the Raiders camp and they’re trying to take it down from the inside. Last we heard, there was a big battle going on but we haven’t been able to raise them since.”
Jessie sighed and said nothing, just held the mic in his hand. He saw the strange coincidence, the weird twist of chance that put them in the same situation at the same time. Almost like the hand of fate had intervened. He’d really wanted to talk to his old man, kind of tell him goodbye, maybe. He was walking in to something that would probably get him killed but he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t have any other options. He thought he was the only one dumb enough to walk into an enemy’s camp but apparently not. The old man had done the same thing.
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Cobb said in the uncomfortable silence. “He can take care of himself. You know that. They’re probably just busy.”
“Right.” Jessie said, bucking up, sounding more like Gunny than Cobb cared to admit. “I’m doing the same thing up at the Anubis headquarters. It’s time to end this. I just wanted to… to…” he broke off and let go of the key. He didn’t know what he wanted. He just wanted to hear the old man’s voice once more, just in case. The last time he fought one on one with an enhanced warrior, he’d had his ass handed to him. He’d only beaten the guy by luck. Now he was walking into their house. He wasn’t feeling real good about his chances but he had no other choice. The idiot doctor at the Tower had only made things worse, Scarlet was covered in black runners now. Doctor Stevens was their last hope. Their only hope.
Zombie Road VI: Highway to Heartache Page 24