by Bible, Jake
“Family isn’t blood. Family is love,” Elsbeth continues, this time with that Elsbeth accent we all know. “And I do not love you. Goodbye, whatever your name is.”
There’s a single gunshot and Stella screams, her hands going to her mouth as Charlie tumbles forward onto the pavement. Camille staggers backwards and I can see that half her face is missing and her hand is clutched to her chest. The one eye she has left focuses on Elsbeth then slowly closes as she falls to her knees then collapses face first (half-face first?) onto the ground.
“Fuck!” Charlie yells, his hand to his ear. He pulls it away and it’s covered in blood. “My fucking eardrum burst! Jesus Christ!”
“Oh, my baby!” Stella yells as she sprints over to him and takes him in her arms. “Oh, my God! Oh, Charlie! Oh, my baby!”
No one moves except for me and Elsbeth. We both walk up to her mother’s body. El looks at me and I look at her then we look down at Camille. I hook my foot up under her, but she’s dead weight and I don’t have the strength to flip her over. Elsbeth does, though. She gets a foot under and kicks.
Most of Camille’s face is gone. There’s only bone and blood and a gaping hole. If I was expecting some last second villain come to life startle, it sure as hell isn’t coming from this stiff. He he, I sound like I’m in a noir novel. Cool.
Finally, the others move. Stuart limps around us and picks up Camille’s pistol, holding it up so I can see how the muzzle is shredded and looks like one of those cartoon guns when someone puts a cork in it. It’s torn apart and most of it is ripped back. I’m guessing the rest of it is what ripped into Camille’s face. Stuart points at where a bullet hit the pistol, knocking it away from Charlie’s head.
Elsbeth stares at it and nods then turns around and nods again. I look over my shoulder and see Marcie walking up, a very large sniper rifle over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” Stella says as she finally lets Charlie go. She smiles at Marcie. “Thank you so much.”
“No way that bitch was taking out Chuck,” Marcie replies. “Not a chance in frozen hell.”
“Frozen hell?” I ask.
Everyone looks at me and frowns. I shake my head.
Stella hurries up to Elsbeth and takes the woman by the face, she leans in close and kisses her forehead.
“I love you,” Stella says. “Do not ever think I don’t. I love you like a daughter, I love you like a friend, and I love you like an equal. You complete this family.” Stella pulls back and looks around. “All of you do. I don’t care if your name isn’t Stanford. Fitzpatrick, Stuart, Torres, Baptiste, Billings, Stillwater...” She looks at Marcie then the other sisters and laughs. “Whatever your last names are. I don’t even know. And I don’t even care. You are all my family.”
She moves away from Elsbeth, who has tears running down her face, and looks at the Consortium’s scraggly soldiers.
“And you can join us too, if you want,” she says, pointing east. “There’s nothing back there for you. You can try to go back to Atlanta, or wherever you originally came from, but I doubt you will. You joined with Camille to be part of something. That was a mistake. A big one. But mistakes fucking happen. Promise to do your part, promise to never harm anyone in this big, crazy family, and we will welcome you in.”
The soldiers stare at her like they’ve never heard words before. They just watch her, their eyes red and swollen, filled with fear and despair. Then one by one they slowly stand up, their eyes darting from Stella to the guns trained on them.
“Good,” Stella says and nods. “Let’s get back to the campus and see where we’re at. We need to know what supplies we have left, how many are wounded, how many died, who is missing.”
But before we can even take a step, we’re quickly reminded of the world we live in. This isn’t a world of survivors trying to start over. This isn’t a world of megalomaniacs with their own personal armies. This isn’t a world of cannibals or crazies. This isn’t a world of humans.
It’s a world of the undead.
“Motherfucker,” I shout as the front of the herd comes into sight.
They may not understand the word I said, but I’m pretty sure they got the gist from the inflection.
Everyone turns and looks at the thousands of Zs heading our way. Mountain road or no mountain road, we made enough noise to wake the dead. Literally.
Every weapon left on the ground is snatched up instantly. Consortium or Whispering Pines, Lourdes’s PCs or the sisters, we all brace ourselves for the herd coming straight at us.
“Any ideas?” Stuart asks me then shakes his head. “Nevermind. Not like I can understand you.”
Good. Because I’m all the fuck out of ideas.
Chapter Ten
The Zs surge up to us. They come up the Turnpike, they come out of the neighborhoods on either side, and they come from behind. While we were busy fighting each other, human on human stupidity at its finest, the Zs made it up the mountain and managed to surround us.
We are boxed in by the undead and there is nowhere to go.
I look at the spike on the end of Stumpageddon and shake my head. “It was nice while it lasted.”
“I don’t know what you said, Long Pork,” Elsbeth says next to me. “But I bet it was some pussy bullshit. This ain’t over. No way it’s over. Not gonna let it.”
“There’re too many,” Stella says.
“No, there ain’t,” Elsbeth snaps. “You know family. You know how to keep a family together. Well, me and my sisters know how to keep a family alive. We can do this. Just get behind us and watch your backs.”
Elsbeth whistles and a sniper starts up. Marcie is by Charlie, so there’s only one sniper, but damn if she isn’t efficient. I do a head count and see Lacy, Antoinette, Audrey, and Belinda are with us. With Elsbeth by my side and Marcie hovering close to Charlie, that leaves Steph.
Hot damn, the woman can shoot.
Z heads turn to mist. Z legs turn to broken sticks. The Zs coming up from Denver begin to topple and die, giving us enough cushion to focus on the ones coming at us from the sides and those that got behind us.
We turn and get to work.
A group of six Zs lunge at us and a couple of the Consortium’s soldiers go down as they are torn apart. I have a distinct feeling Lourdes didn’t really put much effort into trying to save them, despite Stella’s grand speech. Their screams for help and mercy are cut short as their throats are feasted on by the undead.
I don’t bother with the dying and focus on the living. And the living dead.
Three Zs come at me and I stab one through the skull, snap another’s leg with a quick kick, and duck to the side, letting the third one slip past. I yank out my spike, spin around, kick the broken leg Z’s other leg, turning it all gimpy, and then stab the Z that lunged past me in the head.
Man, I feel good! Sure, I’m exhausted and I hurt like a mother, but it’s nice to be back in the fight, not some whiny bitch in a wheelchair. Not that I’m saying people in wheelchairs are whiny bitches. The complete opposite. I have mad respect for the disabled. I’m just saying that I was a whiny bitch in a wheelchair.
What’s that? Yeah, I’ll shut the fuck up. Good call.
My spike stabs, stabs, stabs some more and I kill another three Zs. Elsbeth has killed a lot more than that. There are bodies everywhere. Some of the bodies are Consortium soldiers that died in our fight, but most are Zs that El has taken out.
She is whipping about, swirling in and out of a wild formation that her and her sisters use to push the Zs back from us mere mortals. Yes, Elsbeth is mortal too, but not as mortal as us normals. No, I will not argue that Elsbeth is normal. We all know that ain’t true.
A Z comes at El and she drops her shoulder, sending it flying up into the air as she stands up. Antoinette slashes out with a long blade, the ubiquitous weapon of choice for the sisters, and two halves of a corpse land on the ground. One half is still wiggling and Antoinette puts a blade through its skull before it can bite her ankle.<
br />
Two of the other sisters step out of formation and punch a hole in the wall of Zs, ripping through the walking corpses like they are made of paper. Limbs go flying this way and that, guts fall into piles everywhere, black blood sprays up into the air like grotesque geysers.
The rest of the sisters flank us, herding us through the hole after the first two. I’m pretty sure it’s Lacy and Belinda up ahead. Zs that try to get in at us are cut down fast. There is no time for the undead fuckers to even give us the evil eye. They barely get a hand outstretched and a moan out of their throats before the hand is severed and the throat is sliced open.
Shots are being fired, but I have no idea if they are doing any good or not. All I see are the sisters and their handy work.
Not to say there aren’t plenty of Zs that get through the sister’s defenses. Stella hacks a few to death, a machete in her hand as she fights by my side. I do more spikey spikey stabbing. Stuart is close by and he empties a pistol into the heads of a surging group of Zs. Most of them drop. Some of them don’t.
He goes down in a pile of undead. I yell, choosing not to use words and just use my very loud voice, and a couple of the Zs glance up at me. I jam the spike through one then the other’s head, kicking the corpses off as soon as they are still. But that leaves three more on top of Stuart. He struggles to keep them from biting him, but he’s losing strength as their weight bears down on him.
I go to stab one of the Zs, but there’s no head left. Then the other two end up headless and the echoes of the far off shots reach my ears. Man, you can never say enough good things about snipers.
The ratatatatata of automatic fire erupts behind us and I look back as I help Stuart to his feet. Ha. That’s funny. I help him up. It’s always the other way around.
We look back and see some of the PCs emptying their carbines into the herd of Zs chasing us down. There is no way they can take them all. As soon as their magazines are empty, they are swarmed and end up being shredded right there, so close to sanctuary, so close to a life off the road.
That really pisses me off.
We made it all this way and people are still fucking dying. Fuck that!
I dive in with a renewed energy. Any exhaustion I was feeling, any lethargy from the years in this fucking Hell followed by months and months on the road, is gone. Bitches, Jace has got his second wind!
Which is immediately knocked out of me as a fast fucker tackles me about the waist. My back slams into the asphalt and all the air is sent flying out of my lungs. I gasp and struggle to breathe, but the Z is right on my chest, keeping my lungs from filling up. The thing snaps its jaws at my face and I turn one way then turn the other to keep from being a cheek sandwich.
I can see spots and my lungs burn without fresh air. My arm weakens and I can’t get an angle with the spike. I just keep stabbing the thing in the ribs over and over again even though I know it is doing nothing.
Then it’s yanked up off me by Stella and Charlie takes its head off with a swipe of a machete. I know I’ve expressed my love of snipers, now let me express my love of machetes.
God bless you, machetes! May your blades stay forever sharp and your handles always slip free!
My family helps me to my feet and we start to run. That seems like the smart thing to do.
“Where are we headed?” I yell.
They have no idea what I’m saying.
“We need to get to Baseline!” Stella yells. “Then work our way back to Kittredge Hall!”
I’m guessing Kittredge Hall is our base of operations. I’m hoping we have more guns there. And machetes. And chainsaws. And bazookas and some grenades on nuclear warheads and—
“Jace!” Stella yells, getting me focused again.
We keep running as the sisters widen our avenue of escape. I glance back and see most of the Consortium soldiers falling under the never-ending attack from the Z herd. But we still have some of Lourdes’s people as well as all of our survivors.
I don’t see all of the sisters, though. That’s not good. If any of us should fall, it sure as shit shouldn’t be one or any of them. The human race can do without a Jace, but it fucking needs the killing machines that are Elsbeth’s sisters if it’s going to live through the next decade.
We run until our lungs burn and our legs are noodles. We finally reach Baseline Road and then skid to a stop.
The herd behind us is only half of what we are up against. The real threat is the herd in front of us. Thousands more Zs shamble along Baseline. They see us instantly and we freeze, the living meat in an undead sandwich.
“What are you doing?” Elsbeth yells. “Move!”
“Where?” Stella shouts as Elsbeth starts running parallel to the herd. “We can’t get back to the Hall!”
“Don’t need to!” Elsbeth replies. “They’ll be here before that!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Charlie shouts. “Who will be?”
Elsbeth grins. It’s that knowing grin of hers when she has a secret she doesn’t want to share, but is also dying to share at the same time. That woman does love her suspense and dramatic reveal, I tell you what.
No one argues. If Elsbeth has a plan, which she seems to have, and she knows where she is going, which she seems to do, then we’d be idiots not to go along for the ride.
Yes, yes, I know I am an idiot, but I’m not that much of an idiot.
We’re heading northeast along Baseline, keeping the Zs to our left. There are a couple of screams, but we are moving too fast now for me to look back and see who we might have lost. Right now all I can think about is myself and the two Stanfords with me.
God, where is Greta? Is she safe? Is she locked down somewhere? Maybe at this Kittredge Hall place? I fucking hope so. Man, I really, really fucking hope so.
“There!” Elsbeth yells and turns us towards the herd.
Okay, she’s lost her fucking mind.
The sisters sprint ahead of us all and begin clearing a way through. They say fuck it to trying to kill the Zs and only aim for the legs. Rotted jeans, pants, capris, and long skirts get hacked to bits as the sisters’ blades cut through the material and lop off thighs and calves. Those Zs wearing miniskirts don’t have to worry about their clothes getting ruined, they just get the metal to skin treatment.
And why the hell would anyone wear a miniskirt in this weather? Jesus. Stupid fucking Zs.
We push through and Elsbeth leads us across a frozen, overgrown lawn to a long, brick building. Hold on. I know this building,
“The jail?” I ask, but no one listens because I’m marble mouth Jace.
I see the sign and realize it’s not the jail, but campus security. Huh. How did I miss that before?
Elsbeth shoves open the doors and locks them in place as we run inside. John, Reaper, the Fitzpatricks, including Melissa even though she’s technically a Billings, Lourdes, Stuart, some of the Consortium soldiers, followed by the last of the PCs and then the sisters.
We get the doors shut and bolted just as the herd hits us.
“Furniture!” Stuart yells and everyone scrambles to grab what they can and brace the doors.
Chairs, desks, couches, more desks, more chairs, a refrigerator. Hold on. A refrigerator? I see gouge marks on the tile floor coming from what I guess is a break room. Shit just keeps piling up until the doors are covered and the only evidence of the Z herd outside is the constant banging and clawing on the glass. Plus the never-fucking-ending moans and groans and hisses.
I swear, if we live through this and rebuild here in Boulder, I am passing a no-moaning ordinance.
“We need to find the back way,” Stella says. “Maybe we can slip out and get around the herd. Double back to Kittredge Hall.”
I tap her on the shoulder and shrug.
“That’s where we are based,” she says. “You know that.”
I shake my head.
“Yes, you do,” Stella insists. “It’s where you had us set up. Don’t you remember?”
&n
bsp; I shake my head.
“Do you remember any of the planning and getting ready for the Consortium?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Fucking Kramer,” she snarls.
I nod.
“We don’t need to go to Kittredge Hall,” Elsbeth says. “We’re fine here.”
“No, we’re not,” Stuart says. “Do you hear that out there, El? That will eventually get inside and kill us.”
“We should get on the roof,” she says. “Better view.”
“Better view?” Stuart frowns. “What the hell are you up to?”
“You’ll see,” she says. “They are late, but they’ll be here.”
Elsbeth hunts around for the door that will lead us to the roof and we follow like lost children. It’s a bit of a role reversal. Up the stairs we go and we come out onto the roof where we have a perfect view of the massive herd that has us surrounded. Everyone looks from the herd to Elsbeth, from Elsbeth to the herd. No one is happy about our situation.
Elsbeth isn’t happy either, especially since we are missing Lacy. She fell back in the herd, keeping Belinda from getting eaten by a couple of the fast ones. All of the sisters look like shit. They also look like they could jump down off the roof and rip the herd apart with their bare hands. But even that would be a stretch for their abilities.
We wait. And we wait. I hear a crash below and start to say something, but before I can I hear something else. A familiar sound. A deadly sound.
Several of us point at the same time as we see the tank come into view. The main gun is aimed right at us and I think it’s game over, but instead of firing its shells, it opens fire with the fifty calibers it has mounted. I can see someone standing up from the turret, spraying heavy caliber slugs this way and that, shredding the Zs where they stand.
“What the fuck?” I ask as I notice what’s behind the tank.
For miles I see vehicles. And standing in those vehicles are heavily armed people. They rip into the herd, unloading their weapons with abandon. There is a glee about how they cut through the herd that looks familiar. It’s almost a party atmosphere, a celebration of violence that makes me squirm a little.