The shotgun explodes again before Dave takes advantage of Joe’s cover fire, jumping into the front passenger seat and slamming his door closed. The adrenaline rocketing through his system causes his hands to shake as he loads the last of his shells and chambers yet another round. Bongo, having remained relatively quiet, starts barking and snarling as crusted hands are shoved through the gaping hole of the missing window, searching for something to latch onto and tear free. Pam starts the engine as Joe fires one last round before his slide locks open a second time. Gnarled fingers with broken and missing nails wrap into Joe’s hair and begin to jerk and yank, trying to pull him through the window. Pam drops the car into gear and stomps on the gas. The Rogue’s tires break free and spin, screaming on the pavement without moving the car an inch. Bongo pounces, biting and clawing at the invading hands. Joe pounds and scratches at the arms attempting to haul him into oblivion. Dave rams in the last of his three remaining shells as Pam eases off the gas enough for the tires to catch, propelling them forward.
Joe yells in pain as the zombie who’d been trying to pull him out is being carried away with them, using Joe’s hair as his connection. Bongo bites at one hand, with enough savagery to force it to release its hold as the fingers on its other hand tighten their grip in his hair. Dakota wraps his arms around Joe’s waist to keep him from being pulled out and Bongo uses his back to get at the zombie’s hand still wrapped in and jerking on Joe’s hair. It bites twice but fails to sink its teeth into the creature deep enough to keep hold. Dave points the barrel of the twelve-gauge between the front seats, trying to line up a shot on the monster that doesn’t involve blowing Joe’s head off his shoulders. Bongo takes another barking lunge at the creature as Pam swings their car into the street, racing in the direction of the school. As the car pitches from the turn, Bongo tries to bite at the thing again, but the zombie jerks away and grabs the snarling canine by the collar and fur. The dog yelps as the monster swings and yanks it into the air, clubbing Joe in the face with its body and slamming its head against the inside of the doorframe, just before it jerks Bongo through the window. Joe yells as the zombie swings the flailing dog toward the ground and releases his hold throwing the dog beneath the accelerating vehicle. The car rocks as the wheels crush Bongo’s ribs and skull spraying him over the pavement. Dave lunges between the seats, driving the end of his barrel through the open window and into the zombie’s cheek. It gouges a path into the monster’s ocular cavity, bursting the eyeball a second before Dave pulls the trigger. The zombie’s brains spray the passing lawns and trees as Pam slides around the right turn at the end of her parents’ street, heading for the elementary school.
“Are you okay?” Dave yells.
He’s not yelling from anger, but because with all the shooting going on, especially from inside the car, he can’t help wondering if his ears will ever stop ringing. He hears the muffled sound of Joe saying he’s alright, although he can tell more by his staccato nod than the words. The fear-based adrenaline is also taking its toll and his limbs suddenly feel heavy. Turning between the seats, he pulls himself back and collapses into his seat. Pam looks in her mirror and sees a few of the zombies trying to follow, but she’s rapidly putting a safe distance between them. The one that had clung to the car by her son’s hair is laying in the grass, its head an obscured and misshapen mess. A few yards behind him is a cocker-shaped, bloody smear in the road.
“Did I…?” she begins to ask, but her question trails off when she looks at Dave to see him nodding and into the mirror to see Joe’s distraught face.
Tears well up in his eyes and he turns from everyone to look out the rear window, through the smear of grime covering it and at what’s left of Bongo.
“He sacrificed himself for me,” Joe says without turning around.
“Not fucking hardly,” Dave mutters quietly. Pam must’ve heard him though, because she looks at him with a glare that could cut granite. “Yes, he did,” Dave says, loud enough to be heard by all, which softens Pam’s glower.
Pam accelerates through the banking left turn, blows through the four-way stop and down the short road leading to the elementary school. As soon as the school comes into view, they can see Zack’s and Mike’s cars parked in front and if they remembered the plan, their engines should already be idling. The adults are waiting outside the vehicles and the second Zack sees them, he begins frantically waving his arms. Everyone in the car looks behind them, trying to spot the as yet, undiscovered threat. At the same moment, Pam begins to apply the brakes and Dave’s nuts crackle to life, speaking to him with Ben’s voice.
“Hey… Dave,” his balls say. It takes him a second to realize it’s not Big Dave and the twins talking to him this time, but instead the voice is coming from the walkie-talkie that’s still clipped in the pocket of his sweatpants. Through all the excitement and gyrations in the car they become twisted, placing the pocket and transmitter over his groin. “You’ve got a passenger on top,” Ben tells him.
Without warning, Pam floors the accelerator, quickly hitting sixty as she enters the school parking lot. A second later, grimy fingers curl into view from the top edge of the windshield. The zombie lays its palms flat on the glass to pull itself forward, bringing its face into view. Like the fingernails, its teeth are broken and chipped as it snarls at Pam and Dave. Slimy, black goo drips from its maw in runnels and smears onto the glass. The eye that isn’t dangling against its cheek glares at the couple. It raises a fist in the air, preparing to slam it down onto the windshield when Pam uses both feet and all her weight to apply the brakes. The wheels squeal and the car drifts to the side as it floats on a layer of rubberized smoke. The zombie, who must’ve climbed onto the top from the back of their car, is thrown off in a sprawl of snapping limbs. It bounces off the hood and tumbles across the pavement, coming to a crumpled stop. Pam slams the gear selector into reverse and stomps on the accelerator another time. Once again, she uses both feet to bring the vehicle to a stop, putting fifty yards between them and the nightmare that’s already struggling to its feet to get to them. Slapping the shifter into drive, Pam barrels down on the zombie.
“This one’s yours,” she tells her husband, blowing Dave a puckered kiss as she swerves slightly to her left to line up Dave’s shot.
“This one’s for Bongo, motherfucker,” Dave hears Joe mutter at the same time he pulls the handle on his door and kicks it open with his right leg. The kneeling zombie’s head erupts in a wet smack from the collision with the car door. The outside of the door is instantly caved in and covered in splattered layers of dark blood, cooked brains and hair. It drips from the paint as Pam brings the Rogue to a stop, looks in the rearview mirror and shifts into reverse again.
“What are you doing?” Dakota asks.
“Making sure,” Pam replies.
The zombie lifts one of its broken arms a few inches an instant before it makes contact with the tires. The Rogue rocks to the side as they back over the creature and Joe can hear a wet, squishing sound as its insides are squirted onto the asphalt. Pam keeps rolling back until they have the monster’s remains in view.
“I think you got him that time,” Zack says over the radio.
Pulling the walkie-talkie from his pants, Dave replies, “Hold on.” They study the zombie for a moment, wanting to be certain it’s finally dead. Two of its fingers flutter and twitch. Either it’s a spasm of life, or the last signal sent from its brain has finally made the journey to its destination.
“Of course, I could be wrong,” Zack says into the mic.
“We’re on it,” Dave replies. “Honey. Do you wanna…?” he asks Pam, waving his fingers in the zombie’s general direction.
“Two minutes, Turkish,” she replies, flashing him two fingers raised in a V before slowly letting the car roll forward. She lines up the front, driver-side tire with the monster’s head, using the brakes to slow to a crawl. When she feels the resistance of the creature’s cranium acting like a wheel-chock against the tire, she applies
a little pressure to the accelerator. Because its facial bones had already been pulverized by the car door, the skull offers little resistance as Pam drives over it. She guns the motor at the last second, spinning the rear tire in the slop and spewing it up into the tire’s wheel-well. Then Pam casually drives over to the other vehicles and shifts the transmission to park before they all get out.
“You’re probably going to want to hose that off at some point,” Ben says, pointing to the dripping, rear tire.
“I thought you guys were going to be right behind us,” Mike says.
“We ran into a little snag after you left,” Pam replies.
“What happened, sweetie? Are you okay?” Lynn asks, taking a step closer to her daughter.
“We’re fine, Mom,” Pam tells her.
“All of us except Bongo,” Joe adds. “He saved me.”
“Where is he?” Brigette asks.
“He’s up the road a ways,” Dave answers, but doesn’t offer any further details and no one asks.
“So, what did take you guys so long getting here?” Mike asks again.
“Your daughter locked the keys in our car,” Dave replies.
“Why, baby?” Lynn asks her.
Ben walks around the car and sees the shattered glass. He picks a pebble of it from the molding, studies it and then flicks it from his fingertips. “What happened to the windows?” he asks.
“Your brother unlocked the car,” Pam answers.
Ben looks up at the cooling November sky and the dark clouds rolling in. Glancing at his watch, he does the math in his head and figures they only have about three hours left until dark.
“It’s going to get cold in there when nightfall comes,” he says, pointing into the car.
“It’s cold in there now,” Dakota replies.
“Ben’s right,” Dave says, coming around to that side of the car. “We can cover them with clothes or something for now, but we can’t keep driving around with no windows on one side.”
“Where are we going to find replacement windows at a time like this? Let alone someone to install them?” Dakota asks.
“Dave, Pam, and their three sons begin to laugh at the question as the other adults scratch their heads and try to decide what’s struck them as being so funny.
“Dakota,” Pam finally gasps. “We’re not going to replace the windows.”
“Then what are we going to do?” he asks.
“We’re going to steal another fucking car,” Dave explains, igniting another explosion of laughter.
The End…
The F*cked Series (Book 2): Proper Page 11