Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles

by Melissa Leo-Pahl

  “If I’m lucky…six months.”

  She only had two choices of which she would die. Her lungs would stop working and she would indeed breathe her last breath. Or she will become one of them. A fate he wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy, but definitely not her.

  Maybe it was the simple fact that ALL the monsters he use to fight in his video games had come to life. Or that she was the first female they’d seen since all this began, one that he was really really attracted to. Whatever, it didn’t matter, he felt determined to make sure she would only die the way she was meant to. If that meant he would have to hold her as she took her last breathe while shielding her from the apocalypse happening just beyond the window, then so be it.

  At least he had a reason to live. Someone to live for besides his brother, Cross and Rhyce. Her reason went out with the lights.

  “Just finished my training and started my first job.” A bitter laugh played on her lips. “My very first day there and the world as we know it decides to come to an end. Fucking fantastic.”

  “What were you doing?” Callen asked as he pulled another spicy flavored Slim-Jim out of his back pocket. One of the snacks he hid from the others.

  “Nursing assistant, at the asylum.” A wheeze filled her lungs, a few coughs remedied it for the time being as she continued. “I’d figured, why not? I would rather work with people who were delusional, demented, schizo, or just down right fucking crazy, then work with people who were dying. I’ve known Death since my days inside my mother’s womb, and since then I haven’t been able to shake that mother fucker for a second. And I didn’t want to be reminded that my end was inevitable and was always lurking right around every corner. So I chose the looney bin instead. At least there, the most I would have to do is remember which one of some dudes personalities I was talking to at that time. There it would have at least kept me on my toes and give me a chance to clear my mind for a change.”

  The rain assaulted the rooftop with such a thundering rage, it felt like they were caught in a drive by. This storm was becoming relentless in its pursuit of destruction, if it kept this pace up, they were going to need a freaking canoe to get to Wichita.

  Phoenix twisted in his arms, bringing them face to face as she laid both of her hands on Callen’s chest. Making the moment more intimate.

  “What were you doing when God and Mother Nature decided to go head to head in the ultimate death-match?” she asked during a pause in the rain.

  Pained, forced laughter filled the air, at the same time remorse pirouetted in his eyes. Confusion covered her face and before she could ask why he was laughing, he replied “In a fucking coma.”

  “What!?”

  “No joke. Thirty. Six. Fucking. Hours.” He stressed each word with a squeeze to her body.

  Callen couldn’t look in her eyes anymore. It was painful enough just thinking about how he slept through his parents ripping each other apart on the main floor above them. How was she going to take it when she learned how he and Tren crashed after playing video games for almost two days straight with nothing but soda and junk food fueling their addiction? And not once did they hear the screams from the dead closing in on them.

  NOT. A. SINGLE. ONE.

  “We were beta testing a new map on a game. Our job was to find the glitches in it, then report it to the people who made the game.”

  “So you’re saying, you’re that good at video games?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Anyways, when we do stuff like that, we do it on a binge. Which means a shit ton of soda, energy drinks, junk food resulting in absolutely no sleep for a few days.”

  “Then you crash.”

  “Yeah. Then we crash. This time it was the longest and hardest we have ever slept after doing a binge. It felt almost as if we were drugged somehow and left locked in our room.”

  An idea popped in his head at the thought of it. What if they were drugged? It would explain who the two, who were light sleepers, slept like the dead?

  The more he thought on it the only thing he remembered was different were the shots they got the day before the game downloaded. All four boys actually. Their mom had insisted they start them on it three months ago. The hepatitis shots that the colleges require you have before you can even step foot on any campus. The three-shot series did seem to make them really freaking tired and it hurt like a bitch when the damn nurse took a harpoon to their arms. Leaving nothing but a purplish bruise on all their arms and for Rhyce a hurt ego as he was a chicken shit around needles.

  “Drugged. You think someone drugged you and your brother?”

  “How else were we able to sleep through all hell breaking loose, literally, right above us? Our reason for existence dying as our dad gave his life to stop our mom from breaking down our door and eating us alive. It’s redundant, I know. But I cannot stop thinking about it. The what if’s plague my mind. The sight of them locked in rigor mortis together is burned in my brain. Death is all I see, nothing else.”

  Phoenix placed a feather touch to his cheek, turning his attention to back to her. “What do you see when you look at me?”

  His hold on her tightened even more. Enveloping her body more into his protective hold. Bracing in case she chose to turn and leave him to the darkness of the motel hallway.

  “Life interrupted…You can’t out run death, so why not live it up while you can. You don’t have to face it alone, ya know. You and your sister could stay with us. We’ll protect you. I promise Phoenix, just food, shelter, and protection,” a tentative smile tugged at his lips, “and my company of course.”

  Phoenix sighed and shoved her face in his throat. “We’ll see Callen…we’ll see.”

  The odds of finding comfort in the opposite sex in the apocalypse was slim to none. For once, he hoped that his luck would change and he’d be able to save her for a little while longer.

  He was a long way from home from Junction City, Kansas and he would bet his last Slim-Jim that he was never going to see it again. A bad feeling was churning in his gut. Something he couldn’t ignore. There was something brewing out there and it had nothing to do with this storm.

  ***

  The rain had stopped almost an hour ago, the lightning an hour before that. From his perch on the window seat he could tell that the ground was becoming stained with the splashes of muddy water still shooting out of the drain pipes hanging from the gutters. Leaves of different colors were scattered as far as he could see. Small air bubbles popped in the mud just outside the window. Its pores so full of water that the ground looked like it was burping just so it could make room for one more molecule of water. Only forcing it to expel it a few inches away. Its process would be never-ending, not until the sun breaks free from its nightly prison and casts its rays on land would it see any reprieve. For now, it would remain sodden, and clinging to life just like the rest of the world.

  Phoenix stirred in his arms, burrowing herself further into his warmth. Her hands fisted in his shirt, refusing to let go. He watched her as she finally succumbed to sleep. She was beauty incarnate, more beautiful than her identical twin sister who was waking up just down the hall. Maybe it was her shortage of time left on this earth that made her appeal to him that much more. Or the feel of her soft petite curves against his lean frame. He didn’t care, she was here, she was real, and as she opened her eyes, he knew her answer. She was never going to leave her sister. Where ever Parker went, Phoenix would be dragged right along with her. He just hoped like hell Parker knew what the fuck she was doing once she got to Wichita.

  Phoenix sat up rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “By the sounds your sister is making down there, I would guess it would be the time she wanted to sneak out of here.”

  A motel room door opened, the light from a small flashlight shining into the hallway. Parkers’ sneaker covered foot inches through the doorframe and turns towards the couple embraced at the other end.

  “Phee, it’s time to go.”

/>   Callen let his arms fall, releasing his hold on her. Granting her an escape.

  “Phoenix…”

  She looked up at him, her eyes wet with unshed tears. Their ‘perfect’ night had come to an end. “Goodbye Callen.” She pushed up, bringing her lips level with his, she whispered, “Don’t forget me.” Pressing her lips, stealing the only kiss she has ever received.

  Callen watched, heartbroken, as the only girl he had ever connected with walk away.

  It didn’t take long to hear the sound of a motorcycle revving and disappearing down the road to realize that the next time he saw them, he might just have to do the unthinkable.

  (

  He felt them trailing behind him, even occasionally looking over at his shoulder. He knew what they were. He had begun to remember. People were sick everywhere. Spewing blood. Vomiting in execrably different and unnatural colors. Bulging eyes until they seem to burst and leak some yellow noxious substance. Pronounced veins, throbbing and purple. He remembered his own face. His visage in the mirror. He thought back and didn’t remember anyone else looking like that before him. Was he the first? He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of responsibility. He shook his head. No. It couldn’t be. Something on this grave of a scale couldn’t have started with just one person. Could it? He visualized a map of the states in his mind’s eye and imagined tiny little sparks popping up all over it. No. This had to happen everywhere. All at once. How else could it have spread so quickly?

  Whispers came through his memory, like garbled screams through a wet towel. He looked above his head, for that was where it seems the voices were coming from. There were five or six distinct whispers, but he did not recognize any of them. They sounded official, paced. The concern in them, the rising stress he sensed in them came through loudest of all. It felt surreal to him. He stumbled for a second, the onset of vertigo made him unsure if he was standing up or lying down. He felt restrained. A have dozen wide belts tightened down upon him. Dark clouds swirled around him, threatening to black out the sun of his consciousness.

  He shook away the darkness and blinked away whatever fermented memory that had tried to black out his conscious side. It felt all too familiar, that deep dark well of numbness that he had somehow dragged himself out of. He quickened his pace up the street, not knowing what direction he was going. The cityscape was all foreign to him. The names on the sign were all meaningless with nothing to connect them too.

  A slow burning primal anger raised to the front his mind. What did he care? He had hated people anyway. Or at least that is the way he remembered feeling about them. They were a means to an end. He even despised the dealer he got his weekly fixes from. The man in the jean jacket was an ugly bastard. As hateful and unforgiving as himself he mused. Short a dollar for your little joyride? No sale! Ugly bastard. Probably one of the first dudes he chomped on. Yes, it was all starting to become clear. He let his hate rise and he smiled as it seemed to drown out the whispers, burying them back into the past where they belonged. He was enjoying this dead quiet. No voices. No-one to jerk him by the collar and tell him what to do and how to do it. And still never satisfied! Noiseless were the streets, except the occasional wind whipping amongst the trees. The sporadic flap of his tattered clothes. He realized that he had called this down on himself. “You can all die and go to hell. And leave me be. Heh-heh.” He had said this to no one in particular.

  Well, you all did. Didn’t ya. You all went straight to hell. I’m the last one left and you assholes are finally dead and quiet. Heh-heh. Well. Good Riddance to ya’s.

  The crashing of a trash can spinning into a car and the subsequent alarm that ensued turned him around on his heel. A small group, maybe four or five of them. Three female, the rest male. Well, as far as he could tell. Gender seemed meaningless now to him. They were all the same. Rotting meat. And they smelled of bad Spam and rotting fish. And not even a truckload of sea salt could stop the putrefaction that was well into its progress.

  They were rotten and walking, and they had kept pace with him for several blocks. Not that it was hard. He had duct-taped his ankle back together again with so many layers. The pain was long gone. He had half-expected his foot to fall off from rot, but was surprised to see that it had started healing at an accelerated rate. The undead jury was still hung up on the issue of why.

  Regardless, they were a nuisance. He dropped down into a crouch and then rose up and screamed with all of his might, his jaw shaking with spit. The zombies didn’t even pause, only reached out to steady themselves in earnest on whatever car, lamp post, or U.S. Mail depository they found in their path. They kept their pace steady and even. It was like they were not so much as chasing him as . . .

  A test, he thought. He looked around and saw a steering wheel lying face down on the street among the various car “accidents” that surrounded him. Steady-handedly he picked it up and Frisbee-d it hard. It slapped one of the Zoms directly it is loosely attached jaw. Down it went. It pushed itself back up slowly behind the others and just resumed walking again at roughly the same pace as it had trekked before.

  “Stop following me, “Patient Zero whispered.

  The 'walking zombie club' continued trampling and tripping over wrecked vehicle pieces. Do they seem to be slowing as they get closer to me?

  “STOP FOLLOWING ME!” he bellowed out.

  They trudged ever so closer. He felt their eyes trained on him and him alone, but he didn’t feel like he was being hunted. Zero had been on the run many, many times from the local cops. He knew what it felt like to be the prey. He had tasted the fear of being caught, the rising bile twisted up against his palate. This was not it. This was something . . . completely alien to him. They felt more like . . . paparazzi.

  Still, everything in his brain screamed to his body to defend itself. Primal instinct geared up and kicked in. He looked around again and spied a stop sign post that had been knocked cleanly down, broken close to the bottom. He picked it up, riled to his sense of hatred once more. The sign was heavy in his hands, but adrenaline fueled his strength to wield it like a sledge hammer. A sledge hammer with a nice clean edge.

  They were in his circle now, slowing fast, like a cruise liner coming in to dock. He measured the reach of his post, by reaching out with it, mentally noting from his stance where he could swing and make contact. A practice swing barely tapped the front edge of material in the closest zombie’s shirt, giving her a small tear. He built momentum, keeping the sign moving by raising the sign in a high arc, swinging it over his head. He was careful not to hurl it too quickly as to lose his footing on his bad ankle. He sped up the hurling signs momentum just as the flat of the sign was coming back into striking range. He gave it a final heave of power flew through to silence.

  Silence? He slowed the sign to a stop and allowed it to fall to the street hard with a clang. He panted hard and swallowed with difficulty as he struggled to catch his breath. The Zombie he had swung at had indeed stopped just two arm’s lengths away from him. It just stood there, staring emptily straight ahead, seemingly right through him. The male walker behind her however had not halted. He continued to walk right behind his intended target until he barreled right into him. One nudge and the walker’s head slid cleanly forward off of its jaw onto the pavement below.

  “Ha-ha!” screamed Zero. “Ain’t such tough shit are you now!””

  The walkers edged closer forcing him to step backward. Too late he realized they had backed him up into the fender of an abandoned Nissan Sentra. He brandished his new weapon in front of him at arm’s length, trying to define a no-crossing line between him and the undead group. They halted, just butting up against the bloodied edge of the octagonal sign. And Zero stared.

  The moment stood frozen between them. The only motion he sensed was an uneasy swinging of their arms, relaxed and aimless, and a focused flaring of nostrils, testing the air.

  Zero marveled for a moment how pathetic they looked. They were disheveled and emaciated. Yet somehow these devils h
ad the finger strength to rip open rip cages. Their jaw strength rivaled that of large dogs or even lions, able to rend bone to bits for their marrow. Powerful enemies indeed they were. If only their actions correlated with their current state.

  “So. Is that all you are going to do is stare at me? Huh? Huh!”

  The walkers declined to answer.

  The air around him began to fill. Stagnant. Putrid. Left over soda in car cup holder. Ditch water. Rotten eggs. Sewage. In his mind smelled two different ways. Both repellant and alluring in the same infected breath. He could not understand what they were waiting for. No expressions could be hung on their faces as most of them had emaciated and sunk in. He looked to their eyes. They were blank and unyielding.

  Enraged he swung and screamed at them again. They just stood there and took every foot pound of trauma the velocity and sheer weight of the flying sign delivered into them. Fingers and limbs detached all too willingly and still they made no moves against him to return the assault. In moments it was over. They had given no resistance. The Zoms were almost willing participants in their own final demise. Zero dropped to his knees in exhaustion, panting and still screaming like a newborn child. The street was painted red in a broad circle around him.

  Okay. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

  He huffed. He felt his lungs collapse into tiny condiment sized Ziploc bags and could not get enough air forced in to right them. On his hands and knees, he found himself mired in the bits of undead flesh and rusted blood he had just baptized himself in. Like a soldier on the front lines avoiding a barbed wire entrapment, he threw his arms in front of himself, end over end. Dragging his oxygen starved body behind him. Pins and needles caught alight all through his extremities, only worsening with each savage pull forward. Darkness stood over and began to laugh at him and it swelled to fill his peripheral.

  I know this! I remember this!

  And in that moment he lost control of all of his bodily functions. He pissed and soiled himself violently, and then retched with horribly painful dry heaves.