He nodded. “It’s okay. I sped up when we got close. They move slow. We’ll be fine.” He opened his door, then looked back at me. “I’m not gonna let ‘em get you, Suz.”
“I’m not gonna let ‘em get you, either, Chuck. Don’t you doubt it.”
He grinned. I pulled out my gun and worked the action. Then I opened my door and jumped down, took a look around. No zombies in sight, except the almost-one climbing down off the truck’s giant tank. Mr. Reynolds was starting to look a little blue in the lips.
“Mr. Reynolds?” I asked, gun aimed at the ground...for now.
He nodded. “I’m still here.” He closed his eyes, opened them again. “Let’s get this done.”
I looked down at the hose we’d been dragging behind us. It was in amazingly good shape. Banged and scuffed up but the metal ring on the end was still intact. I spotted a wheel on the truck that must be the valve as I walked around to join Chuck at the irrigation tank. Reynolds limped along to join us, but he was looking rough.
Keeping my eye on him, and watching carefully for other creeps, I said, “So how do we do this?”
“You’ll have to drain the irrigation tank first,” Reynolds said. “Then refill it with gas. There’s the valve.” He pointed.
Chuck moved fast, but quiet, and pulled the lever Reynolds had indicated. Water–no, not water. Sonatta’s nutrient solution, I reminded myself–started gushing from a spigot on the side. It made a river on the ground, and I hoped it wasn’t as artificial and toxic to the earth as everything else Sonatta made. “Can you turn the truck around so the hose can reach the tank?” Chuck asked.
“I think so.” I went to the truck, noticed Reynolds picking up its long hose and getting it out of the way so I wouldn’t ruin it by running it over. It was a miracle we hadn’t already done so. After stalling the rig twice, I managed to turn the thing around back it up close to the tank. Chuck quickly slung the end of the hose over his shoulder, then mounted a ladder on the side of the large tank and climbed up. He dropped the end of the hose in, let it fall as far as it would go, and climbed back down.
I looked back toward the road. The first couple of creeps were slogging along it now.
“Is that tank about empty?”
“Almost,” he said. He took the air rifle off, handed it to me. “Use this if they get close enough. It won’t attract the others as fast.”
“Attracting the others is what we want.”
“Yeah, but not for another five minutes.”
So we sat there, watching the creeps shuffling closer, watching Reynolds inch closer to death and the horror that awaited him on the other side of it, and waiting for the damn irrigation tank to drain. I wondered if they still had souls, those creepers, or if they were just animated flesh without anything left inside of the person they’d once been. I didn’t suppose there was any way I’d ever know the answer to that.
One of them got close enough to make me bring the rifle to my shoulder, aim and shoot. The framing nail hit him in the shoulder. He jerked sideways, but then kept on coming.
Jeeze. I took aim and fired again. Got him in the head that time. He went down, but there were more coming. A woman. A couple of kids. I couldn’t shoot kids. Zombies or not, I couldn’t.
“We’re out of time, Chuck.”
He glanced back at me, then at the road, then he nodded. “It’s close enough.” He closed off the valve. The water flow stopped. I ran back to the truck, and opened the tanker’s valve, turning the wheel until it wouldn’t turn any more. “Is it working?” I asked, because from where I stood, it seemed nothing was happening.
Chuck climbed back up the tank and looked over the side. “No. There should be a pump or something. Probably there are controls in the truck.”
I climbed back inside, started the truck’s engine again, and searched the control panel, which, to me, looked like the dashboard of a fighter jet, it had so many knobs and switches. But I finally found a red one labeled “Pump” and turned it on.
The truck grew noisier, and when I jumped down I saw the hose expanding. “It’s working!”
“Yeah, it is!” Chuck said. Unfortunately, it looked like he’d have to stand there and hold onto the hose until the truck emptied itself, or the tank was filled, whichever came first.
“This is taking too long. It’s taking too long.” Reynolds sank to the ground beside the truck, leaning back against a tire. “I don’t think I have much longer.”
I sensed movement, and spun toward the house just as a gunshot came out of nowhere. It blasted a hole in the top of the tank right where Chuck was standing. He flinched, but held on, and I leveled my rifle and damn near nailed old man Hastings before I recognized him.
“What the hell are you shooting at us for! We’re trying to save your ass here!” I shouted at the old coot.
Hastings swung his shotgun my way, saw the size of the rifle, and apparently didn’t realize it was an air gun. Thankfully, he didn’t shoot me. He didn’t put his gun down either. “What the hell are you doin’ out there?” he demanded.
“Saving the world, Mr. Hastings. Now put the gun down or I swear to God–”
He lowered the shotgun. I heard something behind me, glanced that way. The dead woman, shuffling closer, reaching for me, groaning.
Then I felt something breathing down my neck and damn near jumped outta my skin.
Reynolds, right behind me.
He yanked my handgun from the back of my pants and popped the zombie chick between the eyes. She dropped like a sack of feed.
“Chuck, they’ve caught up to us. Is that thing almost full?”
“Full enough.”
I ran to the truck and shut off the pump, then closed the valve and disconnected the hose. Farmer Hastings had come closer to us, and was gaping at the blue tinted creatures dragging their feet slowly toward us. Some had been run over. Some had been half devoured before they’d awakened as whatever they now were. “Pick your gun back up, Mr. Hastings. Those things will kill us if they can.”
“I know. We had run-ins already. Didn’t know there were so many of them.”
“Milton? You all right out there?” Mrs. Hastings was coming toward her husband from the house now.
“Fine, Em. Go on back inside.”
“No, don’t.” I said. “Who else is still alive here?”
“Still alive? You say that like–”
“Most of the people in town are dead, Mr. Hastings,” I told him. “I left the only survivors I know of on the roof of the bank in town, including my mother and Chief Mallory. Now how many?”
“Just Em and me.” He waved her out, and she came, graying red curls, floral print sleeveless dress, pink crocs on her feet, and a shotgun cradled in her arms.
“You have a vehicle nearby?”
“Pickup,” Mr. Hastings said, nodding.
“We’re gonna need it. I want you take your wife and your guns, and drive your truck out to the corner of Baker and Oak. Right near the edge of the Sonatta potato field. Can you do that, and wait for us there?”
“Could, I s’pose,” he said.
“Mr. Hastings, if you don’t, we’ll be dead. I’m not kidding.”
His wife put a hand on his arm. “We’ll be there. But don’t be long. Come on, Milt. Those things–”
“Be real quiet,” I told her. “They’re attracted to noise. We’re gonna make a lot of it, so they should be coming toward us, and away from you. Just sit tight and please don’t leave us unless you have to.”
The two nodded, and as three more creeps got within twenty feet of us, they ran for their pickup. I headed for the gas truck. Chuck climbed down from the irrigation tank, and hit a switch to turn on the pumps. Then he came running too. He boosted Reynolds up onto the tank again, then came to dive into the front seat. The goons were pawing at my door already when he started to get in on his side. Then one of them grabbed him from behind and pulled him right off the step. He hit the ground, and it was on him. I couldn’t shoot i
t without hitting him, so I scooted over his seat and jumped out myself. I landed on the damn thing’s back, knocking it off him and dropping the rifle.
I rolled with it, and when we stopped it was on top looking down at me, and I was on my back looking up at it and bathing in its stench. God they stank! It was over, I thought. I was dead. And then Chuck shot the thing in the head with the air gun I’d dropped. Blood spattered my face.
He grabbed my arm, yanked me up and we dove back into the truck and slammed the doors before others got close enough to touch.
“You okay?” he asked, searching my face while shifting into gear and getting the truck moving.
I nodded. “I’m fine. You?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
I swore and leaned back in the seat. Chuck reached into the console for a handful of fast-food napkins that were tucked there, and handed them to me. I wiped off my face.
“Look,” he said. “It’s working.”
I looked. The irrigation system was raining gasoline over the potato fields far in the distance. “All we have to do now is touch it off,” I said, “but first, let’s lure those bastards right out into the middle of it.”
He met my eyes, nodded, and drove the truck out deeper into the fields.
Chapter Eleven
We went as far to the center of the fields as we could, then with the truck running, looked at each other. “So how are we gonna do this?” I asked, searching his eyes, thinking again how different he was, and how, deep down where it mattered most, he was just the same.
Yeah. He was bigger, stronger, more confident, sexier, with a better haircut and a take-charge attitude and the capability to back it up.
But underneath all that, he was still the same ingenious, super intelligent, deep-thinking, slow-talking guy who was head over heels nuts about me.
Go figure.
Chuck said, “You head for the road. When you get clear, I’ll lay on the air horn to draw them all out here.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say. I’m not going to let you sit here and surround yourself with them, Chuck. You’d never make it out. And if you say the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, I’ll break your jaw. We’re walking out of here together.” I put my hand on his cheek. “Or not at all.”
He was going to argue, but he had to wrap his brain around what I’d just said. He looked pretty blown away by it.
Then there was a big thump on the window that had me jumping out of my skin. And when I turned to see Reynolds leaning against the glass, it didn’t help matters. The whites of his eyes were getting red, and his face was really sliding into blue.
I rolled the window a tiny bit, just so he could hear me. “Are you still you?” He nodded. “Not for...much longer. Let me in.” He leaned away from the door so I could open it. Then he started crowding in while I scooted out of the way, almost onto Chuck’s lap.
“I’ll stay with the truck,” Reynolds said. “You two get out. Get clear.” He pulled a lighter out of his pocket. It wasn’t a cheap disposable one, but a fancy silver one with a horse embossed on the side. “I’ll bring them in and then I’ll touch it off.”
Chuck looked at him for a long moment, but we both knew there was no point arguing. He didn’t have a chance anyway.
“All right,” Chuck said. “Give us a full minute.”
“I’ll try for thirty seconds. Not sure I’ll... make it that long.” He flicked the lighter in his hand, then held it, but not steadily. Nodded. “If it was the potatoes...I’m sorry.”
“I know.” Chuck said. He looked at me. I nodded, and we got out his side, and hit the ground running, right through the gasoline rain shower, toward the closest road.
As we ran, I counted in my head. One thousand one, one thousand two. My clothes were damp with gas. If Reynolds dropped the lighter too soon, we’d be goners.
Reynolds hit the air horn. He let out a long, loud blast, then several short bursts, followed by another long one. Chuck and I kept on running. I could see the top of the Hastings’ red pickup truck now. One thousand twenty-four, one thousand twenty-five.
Over and over, Reynolds blasted the horns. I turned to look behind me at one thousand twenty-eight. The horn had worked. They came and came and came. Hordes of them. Hundreds, I was sure of it, a swelling mob surrounding the truck in the center, smothering it like ants on sugar.
One thousand twenty-nine and my foot hit the pavement. “Fuck you, zombies.”
Chuck grabbed my arm and then the world exploded with a powerful whoosh that launched us both. The explosion rocked the world, and debris that included truck parts as well as zombie parts, rained down on our backs while we covered our heads and hugged the ground.
The fallout eased and I sat up, rubbing my eyes and looking around.
The field was ablaze, the creeps staggering around with their clothes on fire, not even seeming to notice, before falling down and not getting up again.
“You okay?” Chuck got up onto his feet, reaching down for me with one hand.
“I think so.” I took the hand he offered, let him pull me to my feet, and brushed myself off a little.
He looked me up and down, and gradually the worry in his eyes changed to relief. “So, does this count as our victory yet, Suz?”
I looked around. The potato field was destroyed. We’d bulldoze up any tubers that remained and see to it that they were annihilated as well. And the fire seemed to be doing the trick, killing the undead. Putting them to rest. As they fell one by one, I didn’t see any survivors.
“I think so,” I said, when I finished surveying the damage and met his eyes again. “So now I can say it. I love you Chuck. I have since second grade. And if you didn’t already know that, then you’re not as smart as I always thought you were.”
“So then why were you trying to break up with me?”
“Why? Jeeze, Chuck, look at me. I’m a small town vegan hippy chick and I don’t really aspire to be much else. You’re going places in life. Walking in circles with rich people and famous people. Hell, you’ll be one of them before long. You need a classy wife who knows which forks to use and what to wear and how to make her hair look like it’s made out of plastic and stuff.”
He took both my hands and held them in his. Beyond him, smoke and flames provided a dramatic backdrop. “Wife, huh?”
I shrugged. “I’d just hold you back.”
“As long as you hold me.”
“I never want to leave Bloody Gulch, Chuck.”
“That’s why I took the Sonatta job, Suz. So you wouldn’t have to.”
As soon as he said it, I knew it was true. He’d seen the same potential problems between us as I had, but his solution was to find an answer, to solve the problem. Not to abandon ship.
“We’ll have to figure out another way, now,” I said softly.
“And we will,” he told me. “But whatever we do, from now on, we do it together. All right?”
I felt my heart surrender. I was done protecting myself. I was completely in this. “Yeah. All right.”
He pulled me close and kissed me deeply, and I knew right then that whatever we faced in the future, we’d face it side by side.
He turned me into his arm and started walking us forward. The Hastings pickup was right where it was supposed to be. We climbed into the bed, and Chuck tapped the roof twice, and Mr. Hastings gave us a thumbs up and started driving.
We rode that way all the way back to the village, stopping in front of the bank to see those we’d left behind already down from their rooftop perch. I hugged my mom like I’d never hugged her before. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “We’re all going to be okay. Thanks to Chuck.”
“Because of both of you,” she whispered. “Damn, I’m proud of you, Suzy.” She kissed my head, then added, “And I always liked that boy.”
Epilogue
There had been a few stragglers, but they were easily picked off. And when we were sure the town was zombie
free, we all gathered outside the Sonatta processing plant and watched it burn.
There were more survivors than just Tam and Curtis Reynolds, Mrs. Applegate, and the two teenagers. More than Mom and Chief Mallory and Chuck and I. Gradually people had come crawling out of their basements, out of the desert where they’d run to hide. All told there were just over a hundred survivors of the Bloody Gulch Zombie Apocalypse.
And we still hadn’t had any help from the outside world. Though we had finally seen signs that they hadn’t abandoned us to our fate, in the form of military vehicles parked along the main road out of town. Maybe they were on every road out. I didn’t know. I was glad to see them, but resented that they’d only shown up after we’d saved our own asses.
We were about to get to the bottom of why that was. Chuck and I were walking along with Mom and the chief, and Old man Hastings, along Bloody Gulch’s main thoroughfare. The village was behind us, the Sonatta plant burning and lighting up the sky far to the west. The town limits was just up ahead.
“I still don’t fathom how a potato could cause all that,” Hastings said. “But if there’s any way they did, then I’m sure glad they’re gone.”
“And before they had a chance to blossom and spread their pollen,” Chuck added.
“No, no, son, that’s not quite so.”
I stopped in my tracks. Something was off about the tanks and trucks parked in the road up ahead.
“What do you mean, not quite so?” Chuck asked.
“Those plants were in full blossom two weeks ago. Pretty purple blossoms covered just about every inch of those fields.”
I looked at Chuck and he looked at me. “The pollen,” he began.
“It’s spread,” I said, looking off into the distance. “It’s already spread.”
Chuck closed his hand around mine. “Not necessarily. There’s no guarantee the infected crop will cross pollinate with other plant life. And even if it does, we can’t be sure what the result will be.”
Three Witches and a Zombie Page 29