Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 13): Gone

by Chesser, Shawn

  Gathering his rifle, Duncan rose and looked west. Wholly expecting to see the bridge still choked rail-to-rail with dead things, he instead saw only a dozen or so—all of them first turns. Some were stuck fast to sharpened limbs jutting horizontally from the wall of felled trees. A half-dozen badly burned walking corpses caromed blindly off one another, the waist-high guardrails, and anything else that got in their way. They wore forced smiles, the pickets of stark white teeth contrasting mightily with the cracked dermis and shadowy, eyeless sockets. Where patches of blackened, hairless scalp was peeling away, ivory-hued skulls made an unwelcome appearance. Duncan supposed they were victims of the conflagration that all but consumed Huntsville and a good portion of nearby Eden

  “You are some ugly mofos,” Duncan muttered as he adjusted his Stetson and shouldered the carbine. Eyeing the farthest reaches of 39 through the rifle’s optic, he was relieved to see nothing moving save for a single, slow-moving crawler. Missing both legs at the knees and one arm at the shoulder, the thing presented a grotesque sight as it flopped its single functioning arm forward and then dragged itself westward along the centerline, a few hard-earned inches at a time.

  He listened hard.

  Nothing.

  No mechanical sounds.

  No muffled exhaust.

  And, more importantly—no gunshots.

  The riders were gone. That much was clear. And they’d taken the bulk of the rotters along with them.

  “Better stay away, Mr. Murphy. ‘Cause this old boy don’t want to walk one step past that luxo-cruiser over there.”

  He slung the rifle and swung it around back. With the suppressor tapping against his backside, he scrambled onto the felled tree the rotters were trapped against. As he did so, his boots scuffed the bark and tiny, brittle branches sheared off underfoot.

  Alerted to the presence of meat by the new sounds, the nearest rotter—a beefy middle-aged man in life—swiveled its head right, opened its maw, and emitted a long drawn-out rasp.

  The big man had died the first time wearing a hunter’s get-up: heavy plaid jacket over a pair of tan Carhartt work pants. The suspenders attached to the pants had fallen off the rotter’s shoulders and were filthy and tattered from dragging on the ground.

  Sharpened branches had pierced through the front of the rotter’s blood-spattered thermal shirt and emerged out back to tent the jacket. Canted on the zombie’s head was a camouflage hat, the ear flaps in a down position and doing nothing to hide the damage gnashing teeth had done to the cheek and ear facing Duncan.

  Clucking his tongue, Duncan rose and heel-toed it along the tree, searching for a spot to lower himself onto the road on the other side. By the time he’d located a suitable area a few feet from the dead hunter, the two rotters on its left were bucking and thrashing and close to freeing themselves from the branches piercing their abdomens.

  Peering over an upthrust branch, Duncan watched one of the crispy critters bang into the Toyota and deposit a long black smudge along its already dented and gore-streaked passenger side. The rest of the burned creatures were walking in place against the roadblock twenty feet away and getting nowhere. They had no idea he was perched on the log to their immediate right, and he didn’t plan on broadcasting it.

  Keeping an eye on the crispy roamers, he went down on his haunches. After choosing a patch of asphalt as his landing spot, he worked the empty flask from his pocket. Under Hunter’s rheumy-eyed stare, Duncan spun the cap off and tapped the flask against an upturned palm.

  Nothing.

  Not one drop.

  He spun the cap back on and tossed the flask overhand in the direction of the Land Cruiser. It sailed a dozen yards before coming down nearly dead center on the span. There was a series of metallic clangs as it tumbled end over end. The chain on the cap rattled noisily against the neck as it skittered and bled off speed, finally coming to rest on the solid yellow center lines, just a few feet from the SUV.

  “Bruce Jenner, eat your heart out,” he crowed under his breath.

  Hunter wasn’t fooled by the diversion. He continued to march in place and leer at Duncan. The pair to Hunter’s left craned around, trying to see what might be attached to the foreign sound. The Charred Man Group was a different story. To a man—or woman, there was no real way to tell—the hairless and naked gang bought the ruse hook, line, and sinker. They nearly broke their necks twisting around to triangulate the sound. One lost its balance and went sprawling to the road. Another that had been close to the Toyota did an immediate about-face, running into the rig and bending its breakaway mirror all the way forward.

  “Might as well just stop the undead games and gimme the gold medal right now,” quipped Duncan.

  Hunter hissed at that.

  Duncan wanted to go to his stomach and lower himself to the ground, but there were too many upthrust branches in his way. So he bounced on the balls of his feet once, said “Eff it,” and pushed off the tree. Though the drop was five feet at best, his stomach rocketed toward his throat. He landed on the bridge with his boots a shoulder width apart and a combination of forward momentum and old age conspiring against him.

  The ground rushed at Duncan’s face. As his knees reeled in the shock from the sudden deceleration, he pitched forward and slapped both palms against the road. A beat later, eyes widening, he learned he still possessed the upper body strength to keep him from face planting and losing his front teeth. However, there was nothing to stop the rifle slung on his back from completing its downward trajectory.

  Take that, Mary Lou Retton was what Duncan was thinking when the M4 cracked him behind the ear and sent his Stetson flying.

  Palms abraded, wrists aching, and a new throbbing behind his right ear, he policed up his hat and rose up beside the undead hunter.

  At Duncan’s back, the metallic sounds returned. He didn’t need to look to know the dead had found the flask with their feet and an impromptu game of kick the can was starting up.

  “What’s your story?” he said to Hunter, his face parked dangerously close to the rotter’s face. “Got anything you want to share with me?” He drew his fixed blade from the scabbard on his hip. All the while the Z squirmed and craned and snapped at the air by his face. “Because if you do have something I want,” he added, “consider us Even Steven for what I’m about to do for you.”

  There was a wet squelch when Duncan speared the forgiving spot at the base of its skull with the tip of his double-edged blade. Crunching of bone followed as he forced the blade upward and commenced twisting his wrist back and forth. After a little death-shudder, the thing Duncan had taken to calling Hunter fell limp against the branches supporting him.

  Blade still in hand, Duncan stalked over to the other two pinned rotters and dispatched them in the same efficient manner. He searched the female rotter’s pockets first, finding only squares of gauze and a crushed pack of menthol-flavored cigarettes, the latter of which went into his pocket.

  Strike one.

  Rifling through the other rotter’s pockets produced a roll of cash secured with a thick rubber band as well as a single, shiny, gold Krugerrand coin. He dropped both items to the road. They were of no use to him and likely wouldn’t be valuable to anyone until long after he was feeding the worms.

  Strike two.

  Moving on to Hunter, Duncan looked sidelong at the crispy critters still chasing the flask from curb to curb on the bridge. Deeming them to be no immediate threat, he turned back to see what was behind door number three.

  “Whatcha’ holding, Hunter? You have got to be hiding something good in one of those deep pockets of yours.”

  Kicking the rotter’s legs apart like some kind of traffic stop gone wrong, Duncan drove his hand into the first of the Carhartt’s many pockets. In the left pocket, clipped to the hem, he found a knife. Just the handle, actually. It was roughly six inches long with a single ridged button near the hilt. No stranger to out-the-front blades, Duncan knew a press of the button would release a double-edged blad
e from a horizontal slit at the front end of the knurled handle.

  “Nice little Benchmade pig sticker you got here,” Duncan said as he thumbed the button, causing the blade to deploy out the front of the handle and lock into place with a satisfying snik. A second press of the button made the blade snap back into the handle with an audible click. “This, my boy, is a step in the right direction. But definitely not cigar worthy. I’m beginning to think I may have overpaid on the front end of this transaction. So … let’s see how she performs in a real-world application.” He thumbed the button to deploy the blade, stuck the lethal end against Hunter’s pasty white temple, and pushed hard. He felt a little resistance at first as the honed tip pierced the thin veneer of bone behind the jaw. The rest was smooth sailing as the blade plunged deeper and found brain tissue.

  Not bad, he thought, pulling the blade free. But I’ll stick with my full-tang fixed-blade. Less room for error, thank you very much.

  He tossed the blade into the woods and went to work on the man’s other pockets, finding only a half-eaten Twinkie, a balled-up rag soiled with a dried green substance, and a handful of rounds in 10 millimeter Luger.

  Delving into the coat pockets produced a ring full of keys, a Glock magazine loaded with fifteen 10mm rounds, and a photo of the man with a woman and a grade-school-aged boy. Obviously more prosperous times, as the man in the picture had been carrying some thirty pounds more than he was at the end.

  The absence of fast-food drive-thrus when coupled with all the running from the ravenous dead had that kind of an effect on those once used to a sedentary lifestyle. The Apocalypse Diet. He’d seen stranger shit hawked on late night infomercials and was certain that if a viewing audience still existed, some asshole would have already copyrighted the name and pitched their product on Shark Tank.

  Oh the possibilities, he thought, slipping his hand into the final unsearched jacket pocket. A combination treadmill and videogame app for your Apple tablet. Cardio is your friend, the actor on TV would be saying. Flee the dead in the safety of your own home he would implore in front of a post-apocalyptic backdrop complete with actors made up as disheveled first turns.

  Duncan’s whole crazy train-of-thought hit a brick wall as his fingers brushed something smooth and cylindrical tucked deep down in the jacket’s inside pocket.

  “What do we have here?” His fingers moved over a tapered neck. He felt raised ribs on some kind of cap. When he introduced the item to the light of day and spied the black label and two fingers of straw-colored Canadian whisky at the bottom of the pint bottle, he bellowed, “Who in the hell drinks this shit when the world’s dying?”

  The soccer match on the bridge stopped abruptly and the six zombies turned toward the roadblock in unison. A tick later the raspy hissing was back and six gaunt-faced stares were pointed in Duncan’s general direction.

  Having inadvertently gained the unwanted attention of the dead, he removed the cap and drew the bottle toward his face. Took a deep breath. As expected, the liquor had a medicinal nose to it.

  The rotters were now moving his way. They would take a few steps left and stop to listen. After a second or so they would alter course and take a few more stilted steps and stop to listen.

  The span’s cement roadway was painted with a colorful mix of blood and bodily fluids. Black smudges marred the far end where the forgotten flask sat. Once shiny and smooth, its surface was now dull and pitted and scuffed.

  With a what the hell shrug, Duncan leaned back and drained the bottle into his open mouth.

  Face screwed up, he leaned forward and planted his hands on his knees. “That is not Jack Daniels.” In fact, he equated the experience to swallowing a jar full of sewing needles. In his book, imbibing Canadian whisky had always been one notch north of drinking Sterno strained through a heel of bread.

  But as the old saying goes: Beggars can’t be choosers. So he upended the bottle one final time before throwing it overhand at the approaching rotters.

  The bottle bounced off a creature’s shoulder, sailed a few more feet, then hit the road, where it shattered into a dozen pieces.

  Further confused, the undead troop stopped in place, performed clumsy pirouettes, then traipsed back toward the unattended flask.

  With a familiar warmth brought by the belt of whisky reaching his extremities, Duncan made his way to the Land Cruiser, keeping a full lane between him and the blind procession filing away from him.

  Reaching into the rear wheel well, he found the fob atop the tire where it was supposed to be. Hinging up, he regarded the dead. They were now a dozen feet away and still unaware of his presence. Hoping to keep it that way, he tiptoed around back of the rig and tested the driver’s side door. Finding it locked, he used the key to gain entry, then slid behind the wheel.

  First things first. He punched open the glove box and found it empty. Though he remembered pouring out the full bottle of Jack last time he was in this very seat, the compulsion to check and see if it had somehow miraculously returned proved irresistible.

  He banged a palm on the steering wheel. “What were you thinking, Old Man? The Jack Daniels fairy stopped by to replenish your supply?”

  Wearing a sheepish expression, he crossed his fingers and punched the Start button.

  Success.

  A wave of elation washed over him as the V8 turned over and commenced a high idle as it warmed up. Filled with hope, he dropped the Toyota into gear and cut a high speed U-turn across the bridge, throwing a pair of the burned zombies against the guardrail in the process.

  Ignoring the fate of the dead things, he sped a dozen yards down 39 and ground the SUV to a halt. Reluctant to learn the answer to the question nagging him since finding Glenda had gone outside the wire, he studied the ground-hugging bushes beyond the shoulder. Seeing nothing secreted in the bushes here, he released the brake and let the engine pull the Toyota along the westbound lane. A couple of yards further down the road, a few feet from the shoulder on the right, he detected a glint of light off of chrome. Slowing and pulling over to the right, he spotted the outline of an upthrust rubber handgrip.

  The visual confirmation that Glenda’s bicycle was still where she had discarded it weeks ago did two things. First it started his heart beating so hard he feared it would burst through his ribcage. Then, as what the bike’s presence here represented fully took root in his mind, he craved a belt of Jack Daniels more than he ever thought possible.

  Chapter 8

  Cade was snugging the parts of the disassembled sniper rifle into their respective foam slots in the Pelican case when he heard Raven call out for him. He was sliding the closed hard case into the bed when she said Dad for the second time. He was lifting the tailgate and opening his mouth to answer when he heard her call for him for the third time in the span of roughly ten seconds. Only this time her tone got his undivided attention. Stress was evident and the pitch of her voice rose an octave or two as she begged him to get inside the truck.

  “On my way, sweetie.”

  He threw the tailgate closed and turned and looked east down 39.

  What Cade saw momentarily stole his breath. Where he’d expected to see the elk still alive and maybe dragging itself toward the underbrush in a last ditch effort to flee, he instead saw only its antlers rising up from the road. And they were moving. Long exaggerated sweeps back and forth. But not from any kind of resurrection thanks to an incredible will to survive or last-gasp burst of adrenaline. The antlers were moving thanks to the pair of Zs hard at work rending bloody, pot-roast-sized hunks of flesh from its neck. Glistening meat jiggled in one Z’s grasp as it shoved the morsel into its mouth whole.

  Brush flanking the road on the right parted and more Zs streamed from the lower mine access road. In seconds, the rest of the animal was under assault by probing fingers and gnashing teeth. By the time Cade clambered into the truck and was met by Raven’s wide-eyed stare, her kill was mostly hidden from view by the growing scrum of feeding dead.

  Cade saw R
aven had the M4 lying across her lap. The knuckles on the hand holding the foregrip had gone white. The other encircling the grip was in constant motion, her slim fingers slowly kneading the textured polymer. Stare locked on the gory scene unfolding a few hundred feet off her right shoulder, she whispered, “I haven’t seen that many in one place since the first day.”

  Though a sliver of doubt was worming its way deeper into Cade’s mind as he watched the dead continue to pour onto the road, he said, “It’s manageable.”

  “We better go back and tell the others.”

  “We deal with these first.”

  “We can’t shoot them all,” she said. “There must be a hundred or more. And they just keep coming.”

  The monsters just arriving to the buffet were literally swimming over each other to get a taste of the thousand-pound beast.

  Cade looked sidelong at Raven. “They’re not on to us yet,” he said. “What will happen when I start the engine?”

  “They’ll realize we’re here and start coming our way.”

  “Exactly. And follow us west and keep hunting us until they reach Daymon’s roadblock.” He paused for a beat and watched as a dozen or more Zs emerged from the quarry road, the ones on the wings of the surge bending back grabby branches. “These Zs were chasing the herd,” he went on. “And that’s the reason they were spooked. Also why the alpha didn’t seem to care about us before you killed him.”

  “Lesser of two evils.”

  “Correct,” Cade answered. “I have a bad feeling there’s a lot more Zs where these came from.”

  “I’ll call the others.” She reached for the radio.

  Cade put his hand on hers. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have a plan.”

  “There’s too many.”

  He said, “Take a couple of deep breaths.”

  She did.

  He reached over and punched the button on the glove box.

  “Can’t you call Lev and have him bring the Humvee with the big machine gun? That should even the odds. Am I right?”