by Bible, Jake
“Sure, make the one armed man do it,” I mutter as I get out.
The back right tire is dead flat. The Z must have had a blade or something seriously sharp on it to cause this damage. I hear a wet thunk and look down the road. A PC has ended the Z, stomping its head to mush.
“Guess I can’t ask it why it wanted to play in traffic,” I say.
“Yes, because that’s a good use of our time,” Stuart says as he comes up to me bouncing the spare. “So is changing a tire in an unsecured area.”
No sooner does he say that than a small horde of Zs come lurching down from a parking lot of what used to be a Texas Roadhouse restaurant. There’s close to twenty of them and the PCs get ready. Some sling their rifles and snap out their sharpened, collapsible batons.
Ah, the collapsible baton. It’s the go to weapon of choice nowadays. We’ve pretty much given up on the boards with nails and sharpened rebar. The PCs have brought a sense of professionalism to the zombie apocalypse. Which is nice.
Quickly and fairly quietly, the PCs close on the horde. They have a system that’s pretty ingenious. The first PC cracks his or her baton against the knees of the first Z, crippling it and sending it tumbling to the pavement. The second PC comes along and stabs the Z in the head, killing it instantly. Or killing it again, I guess. They do this in waves: first PC hits knees, second kills Z, third hits knees, fourth kills Z, and so on.
It’s an assembly line of Z death. Pretty simple, really.
Unless you add the chaos of reality to things.
Which, of course, happens.
The first PC cripples a Z and the second PC kills it. First PC cripples a Z, but it won’t go down. WTF? He whacks it again and the thing still won’t go down. It runs into the PC, rotten hands clawing at the man’s body armor. So the PC flips the thing over and slams it to the ground. That’s when the Z’s prosthetic leg snaps off at the thigh and rolls down the hill towards the truck.
This seemingly innocuous change in routine turns into a nightmare. The first PC has his back turned to the horde, which is a no-no, because he had to change tactics and flip the peg-legged Z. He doesn’t see how close the others are. Sure, the guy knows they’re coming, but because they are on a downhill slope, he misjudges the speed at which they are coming. He’s tackled about the waist and goes down hard.
The second PC starts in with the skull crushing as the first PC starts in with the screaming. Batons go away fast and back come the rifles. The gunfire makes me jump as I get the truck jacked up and start in on the lug nuts. Stuart just stands close to me, his 9mm Beretta raised and ready.
“Anytime now, Jace,” he says. I hear the judgmental coolness in his tone.
“You ever try taking off lug nuts with one fucking hand?” I snap. “No. No, you haven’t. You know that horse you rode in on? You’re welcome to saddle back up and fuck it.”
He just glares.
“Great, I’m on your shit list now?” I ask as I crank the lug wrench. “All I did was lose control for three seconds and give that bitch a piece of my mind.”
“Which is why Stella is in charge and you’re not,” he replies.
The lug nuts drop to the ground and start rolling away, but Stuart corrals them with his feet, making sure I see the look of disdain on his face. Why do haters gotta hate? Don’t answer that.
I yank the flat off the rim and toss it up into the truck bed. I get the spare on, with a little help, tighten the lug nuts and then let the jack down. All in all it took me eight minutes. And in those eight minutes one man was killed and the rest are busy fighting off an ever growing horde of Zs.
“Holy shit,” Julio says as he jumps down from the truck bed. “Where the hell did they all come from?”
The truck cab opens and Elsbeth steps out, her blades in hand. The woman loves her some blades.
“I have the engine going,” Melissa says. “Get clear and get back in here. We don’t have time for this fight.”
“Won’t take long,” Elsbeth says as she jogs then sprints towards the fray.
The PCs are spinning about, back to back, shoulder to shoulder, their rifles obliterating Z heads. But there are so many. Elsbeth slides into the horde and begins to sever heads from necks. I watch, fascinated, as Z heads, their teeth still gnashing, come rolling down the hill like giant, bloody acorns dropped from a devil oak.
“Hurry up, buttercup,” Stuart says as he starts shooting the heads. “Gotta do your part.”
There are Z heads all around me. I step over one then kind of bend and lean down, piercing its brain with Stumpageddon’s Mr. Spikey. I do this over and over and over until my side is about to cramp up and my shoulder feels like molten lead. The pain in my stump is excruciating and it gets harder and harder to finish off a new head.
Then it all stops and I’m left ankle deep in rotten, bloated, severed Z heads. Stuart pats me on the back and walks back to the truck. He jumps into the bed, gives Julio a hand up, and then slumps down. The PCs follow, with their fallen comrade in their arms. Everyone is secured and I realize they’re all staring at me.
“Right,” I whisper, “sorry.”
Elsbeth gives me a weak smile as she gets into the backseat of the cab and I hop back in front.
“Where’d they all come from?” Mindy asks as Melissa gets us moving again.
“The hotel back behind the steakhouse,” Melissa says. “Hard to see with the trees all grown up around it. They must have been trapped inside and finally broke free. We just happened to be here when they did.”
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“Well, you should be,” Brenda snaps. “If you had more self-control you’d know that insulting and attacking me was...”
The sentence ends abruptly with a cry of pain as Elsbeth punches her across the face. She grabs Brenda’s shirt and yanks her close, their noses almost touching.
“Shut. Up,” Elsbeth snarls, “or you walk.”
Brenda almost can’t help herself and I can see her mouth start to open in response, but the look in Elsbeth’s eyes is not a look you argue with. Brenda’s mouth closes quickly and she swats at Elsbeth’s iron grip.
“Let her go, El,” I say. “It’s over.”
Elsbeth lets the evil bitch go and leans back into the seat. I just turn and look out the windshield.
We head down Hendersonville Rd at a steady pace, all eyes on the sides looking for more stragglers that could impede our progress. While we were busy fighting the horde, Shumway was busy texting his intense displeasure at us not being there yet. It sounds like the situation has deteriorated quickly.
I’m sure each of us has some image of how bad the situation is at the power plant, since we’ve all been living this nightmare for years and we aren’t new to the horrors of the zombie apocalypse. But as we turn onto Long Shoals Rd and get about a quarter mile along we see just how wrong all of our expectations are.
“Oh, my God,” Brenda says, her voice small and childlike, not like her usual bitch bluster.
“I’ll second that,” I say. It’s probably the first (and last) time I’ll ever agree with Brenda Kelly again.
The road is swarmed. It’s shoulder to shoulder covered with Zs. They are packed so tight I don’t know where one ends and another begins.
Melissa slams on the brakes, which normally would have elicited protests from anyone riding in the truck bed. This time there’s only stunned silence as we all look at the wall of undead before us.
Then it turns, that wall of undead, almost as one. And looks right at us.
“Move,” I whisper.
Melissa keeps staring ahead, her hands gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles pop.
“Mel,” I say, my voice a little stronger, “get us out of here.”
“What about the plant?” she asks as she’s already shifting into reverse.
“The plant’s lost,” I say, “just go.”
“We’re going to leave them?” Mindy asks.
My guess is she’s thinking out loud. There’s no way,
not with the number of Zs we are staring at, that anyone can possibly think we have a chance of getting through to the power plant. And even if we did, then what? We get trapped along with Shumway and his crew?
It’s over.
“It’s over,” I say. “Back to Whispering Pines. Back home. Now.”
I look behind us and see Stuart, Julio, and the PCs all crouched down in the truck bed, ready for what comes next. Which is Melissa speeding backwards and then hitting the brakes and cranking on the wheel. The truck spins about and we are pointing towards Hendersonville Rd once more.
None of us say a thing as we speed away from the power plant. There’s nothing we can say or nothing we want to say. Better to internalize what just happened and lock it away deep down for a while.
Better to just get home and then figure it all out.
Chapter Three
“Holy fuck,” Melissa grunts as she stops the truck.
“I don’t think your daddy would approve of that language,” I say. She gives me a look and I shut up.
“That must be the horde from the steakhouse,” Mindy says. “Right?”
“No,” I say, pointing, “see the overpass? They’re dropping down from I-40. Look at them all.”
We do.
A banging on top of the cab pulls us all out of our shock. The back window slides open.
“As fascinating as this is,” Stuart snaps, “we need to haul ass out of here.”
“Where?” Melissa asks, looking over her shoulder at him. “We can’t go back.”
“We go left,” Julio says.
“That’s just medical offices and shit,” I say, “there’s no road there.
“Don’t need a road,” Julio says, “just need to get moving.”
“What’s on the other side?” Melissa asks.
“The Biltmore,” I say. I give Stuart and Julio a hard look. “You want us to go onto the Biltmore grounds? It’s covered with Zs!”
“True,” Stuart nods, “but we think there’s a trick to that.”
“There is,” Elsbeth says, “they’re right. We should go there. Maybe the girls will help us.”
“The girls?” I ask. “The ones you’ve been following? How do we know they’re not going to kill us and eat us?”
Elsbeth glares. “Why? Because I was a canny, you think they are? You’re a bigot.”
“I’m not a bigot,” I snap. “I’m just being cautious. We don’t know shit about...”
“We have no time for this!” Stuart shouts. “They’re getting closer! Mel, punch it and get us up that hill and towards the Biltmore!”
Melissa turns the wheel and aims for the drive that leads up to a huge parking lot for the medical office complex at the top of the hill. We drive parallel with I-40 and as we climb the hill, we can see more and more of what we are up against.
Hundreds of Zs.
No, no, let me back up because that’s just my fear trying to keep it together. We don’t see hundreds.
We see thousands.
A small squeak from behind me tells me Mindy Starling can count too. Good for her.
“That’s a lot of death,” Elsbeth says.
“No shit, girl,” Melissa says. “Oh, fuck!”
Melissa slams on the brakes and my forehead slams into the dashboard. A little painful example of cause and effect. Even in the apocalypse, one should wear their seatbelt. Ouch.
“Madre de Dios,” Julio says from the window. “Can you get us around? Over there. See!”
The parking lot is swarmed with Zs. They’re scaling the other side of the hill that butts up against I-40. We can’t go forward except for a drainage ditch that Julio is pointing at.
“Do it,” I say to Melissa. “Follow the ditch. Get us out of here.”
The truck lurches forward and Melissa turns it towards the ditch. The swarm of Zs is almost on us and the PCs start to open fire, hoping to give us a little breathing room and a head start. The front wheels ram up and over the curb that borders the ditch and Melissa cranks the wheel to the left, hoping to give us the angle we need to avoid-.
“Fuck!” Melissa shouts. “We’re stuck!”
The truck bottoms out on the curb as the front end goes over, the undercarriage catching on the cement. She pushes her foot to the floor, hoping to get some traction, but the truck is rear wheel drive and those rear wheels are about a quarter inch off the ground.
“Everyone up against the tailgate!” Melissa shouts.
“Good idea,” I say, “that’ll redistribute the weight so the tires can touch again.”
Then it hits me. The physics of what’s about to happen.
“No! Wait!” I yell just as the rear tires touch asphalt.
The truck shoots forward and everyone that wasn’t hanging on tight in the bed goes tumbling over the tailgate. I hear the thuds of bodies against pavement, but can’t focus on that. I have to focus on the line of trees that’s rocketing towards us. Or, I guess, we’re the ones rocketing towards the trees.
“SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” I scream and am joined by similar sentiments as the truck smashes into a couple of small pines.
The trees snap in half and we keep going, but not very far, as we wedge between two larger pines. The truck comes to a jarring halt and steam geysers out from under the hood.
“Everyone out!” I yell. “Go, go, go!”
Elsbeth is already out of the truck and sprinting back up the hill.
“El! Stop!” I shout as I race after her.
“Jace! Where the hell are you going?” Melissa yells as she helps Brenda and Mindy out of the truck. Blood is pouring down her face from a nasty gash across her forehead, but she ignores the wound, her eyes locked onto me. “Get your ass back here, Long Pork!”
PCs that didn’t fall out start moving the women the rest of the way down the hill towards a large iron fence at the bottom. The border of the Biltmore estate.
I keep climbing, scrambling back up the hill to the parking lot. A wail of agony blasts across the landscape and I fear I know why. I know that voice.
“No! NO NO NO!” Elsbeth screams as I crest the hill and see her kneeling next to Julio’s broken body.
His head is at an unnatural angle and blood pools everywhere. She reaches for him, about to touch his face, but pulls her hand back. Stuart, busy helping two PCs carry another PC with a snapped leg, looks at me, down at Julio, and then over his shoulder at the parking lot swarm that has skipped horde status and gone right to a full on herd.
“We have thirty seconds,” Stuart says, his face a rictus of pain and grief. “Don’t let her fall behind.”
“Jesus,” I say as I crouch next to Elsbeth. “I’m sorry, El. I’m so sorry.”
She pulls one of her blades and places the tip to Julio’s temple. I can see her strain with the effort to administer the final, killing blow. The stab that will make sure Julio doesn’t come back a Z.
“I...can’t...,” she says, turning to me. Her eyes. Oh, God, her eyes. I’ve never seen more pain in my life.
And that’s saying a lot.
“I got it,” I say, “go with the others.”
“No,” she says as she shoves the blade in my hand and stands up, her other blade drawn. “They pay.”
I don’t need the blade, since Stumpageddon is in Mr. Spikey drag and all, and I try to hand it back, but she’s gone.
“El! No!” I yell as she runs towards the herd of Zs. “God DAMMIT! COME BACK!”
But she doesn’t come back. She dives into the herd and all I see is black blood and chaos. Limbs start flying everywhere, heads shooting up into the air, the moans of the Zs turn into a herd-wide guttural roar.
There’s nothing I can do.
I take El’s blade and make good on her final request. I plunge the steel deep into Julio’s brain. Blood gushes out around the metal and onto my hand.
“Goodbye, man,” I say, “you will be missed.”
Wiping the blade on my jeans, I slide it into my belt, stand up, turn, and
look at the herd coming towards me. I can see the swath of destruction Elsbeth is wreaking on the Zs, but I can’t see Elsbeth. She’s lost in the death. I almost wonder if she hasn’t always been.
“El!” I shout, but regret it as the front wave of Zs turn their attention away from the mad canny and on me. “Oh...poop.”
This isn’t the point where I dive in after her. This isn’t the point where I say, “Fuck it” and sacrifice myself in one big, last blaze of glory. No, I’m not that guy.
I turn and sprint towards the drainage ditch, leaping over the curb and coming down hard on the side of the hill. My feet almost go out from under me, but I manage a controlled slide down to the truck.
Everyone’s gone. The truck is empty. No people and no gear.
“Shit,” I say as I push forward towards the estate.
I shove past small pines and thorny underbrush. Which brings me to one of my pet peeves about North Carolina: why the fuck does every fucking bush have to have giant, fucking thorns? What’s with this state? We have pitcher plants and Venus flytraps that are fucking carnivorous. And every last bush has thorns on it. It’s like we’re one nuclear radiation accident away from a plant uprising. It’s totally messed up.
Said despised thorns tear at my clothes and my skin, leaving me slashed and cut to shit by the time I break free of the grove of pines and find everyone else.
And, oh look, they have found some folks too.
“Where’s our sister?” A tall, lanky brunette with a nasty scar across her forehead asks me as she shoves past my people. “Did you leave her?”
“I...uh...she...well,” I stammer, “who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the young woman says, “where is she?”
I nod back over my shoulder. “She wouldn’t come with me,” I say. “She just went nuts and decided to take on the whole herd.”
“Fucking A,” Stuart says.
“You didn’t even try to stop her?” Brenda asks. Guess she has her bitchiness back.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snap. “I couldn’t stop her anymore than I can stop that fucking herd!”
“Stacy, Lacy, Tracy,” the brunette orders, “with me. Antoinette, Belinda, stay here and watch the people. If we don’t come back...kill them. They left our sister.”