I finally spot Caylee on the ground. She dropped her blood spattered sword. A few of them are hovering above her, ready to pounce. Her mouth is moving but I can’t hear her. Her face is contorted in a way that lets me know she’s crying, terrified she’s about to die.
I lunge into the middle of the pack without a plan or even a second thought. I don’t kick at them or swing my flail. I just make a leap of faith and stage dive into the cluster of disfigured bodies. A number of them go down. The domino effect ripples through all those standing nearby. Caylee just needs a chance to get to her feet and grab a weapon. But she can’t. One them is on top of her. She has nothing to fight him off with.
I spring to my feet but it’s too late.
His mouth slams down on her neck.
My attempt to run or jump, anything to get to her in time fails, my foot’s stuck. I don’t move. One of them has me by the ankle. He yanks me towards his gaping mouth, knocking me off balance. I can’t go down. Not only will they kill Caylee, I’ll land in a pile of them, but not before the untamed spikes of my flail break my fall. I’ll be dead before they can even take a bite.
My thrown off equilibrium causes me to stumble harder than I normally would. My foot slams down but doesn’t find solid ground. A neck crunches beneath my heel. There’s no way I can keep my balance, there’s nowhere to stand. I’m falling.
At the last second I pounce in Caylee’s direction, knowing I’m too late. None of it really matters anymore. We were dead the moment we stepped off that bus.
My pathetic attempt at a jump didn’t bring me close enough. I land on my stomach, arms stretched out like I’m flying or trying to catch a football that’s just out of reach. My breath catches in my lungs. Through hazy vision I can see his mouth latching onto her neck. I grab at his ankle and pull but he barely budges.
A hopeless hatred surges through me. I let go and stagger to my feet, barely able to stand. It feels like my brain is disconnected and bouncing around my skull. My head’s spinning in one direction, my body in the other. The world around me becomes audible once again. I can hear Caylee. She’s screaming, calling my name.
With one hand wrapped tightly around the wooden handle, I grab the spiked balls and come from behind. The chain drops under his chin and I pull as hard as I can. It grinds against his neck. His arms flail through the air wildly, trying to grasp at something, anything, either me or her, I don’t know at this point. I yank harder with every passing second. The chain is tearing through his jugular, blood squirts into the air before gushing down the front of his body. Suddenly, there’s no more resistance. His body goes limp. His head bounces off the ground in a pool of thick blood.
My knees fail and I drop beside her. Everything’s still blurry but the blood that stains her neck is visible, her crucifix necklace shining brightly beneath it.
I’m too late.
I just want to hold her. I don’t care that there’s more of them closing in on us. For our final moments I just want it all to stop. If only I could hold her in my arms and comfort her as she leaves this hell on earth.
Footsteps draw closer but I don’t see them, all I see is her. The sound of Tyrone’s exhausted grunts overpower those of the zombies closing in on us. But I don’t see him either. It all fades away.
My heavy breaths echo in the empty confines of my mind. They bounce back, making it sound like there’s two of me. If I was going to get out of this alive, I would need at least that.
Let’s face it, Caylee will be gone any second, if she’s not already. Tyrone won’t be far behind. Felecia’s gone. My friends haven’t arrived because they’re already dead, I can’t delude myself into believing otherwise. If Marty left that bus, he’s a goner as well. There’s no surviving in this world. It doesn’t belong to us anymore. Mankind is done. Everything else is already lost.
Caylee sits up abruptly. Her bloody neck arches to the side. Her eyes lock onto me. I know what she is. I know what I have to do.
CHAPTER 17
“Noah, there’s more coming. What do we do?”
What does she mean ‘what do we do’? Why is she speaking? She’s dead, isn’t she? Her voice is muffled but I’m positive, that was her.
I squint between a flutter of rapid blinks. The blurred images around me are starting to make sense again. That shiny glare on her neck wasn’t her necklace, it was the chainmail that covers her body, head to wrists. He did bite her on the neck, he just didn’t get skin. All he got was a mouthful of metal.
“Caylee, my god.”
I pull her towards me and her body falls into mine. I press my lips against hers. After a second or two of shock and confusion, she kisses back. I thought I lost her too. I thought she was gone.
It all disappears. I don’t notice the war going on around me, the fire that’s destroying Main Street, the horde of undead warriors that are quickly approaching. For those few seconds, all that matters is that Caylee Martinez’s lips are touching mine.
My eyes slowly open and I see hers doing the same, peering back at me. We pull away. Inch by inch, her angelic face comes into view. She’s still alive. We’re still in this.
“Noah, I stepped down on one of them. My ankle. It’s sprained or broken. I can’t stand on it. I can’t walk.”
“It’s okay, don’t worry. I’ll get you out of this.”
“Just help me up,” she whimpers. “I can still fight. We are not dying here. Not now, not like this.”
I wrap my arms around her and bring her to her feet. Who knew she’d be such a badass? In all the months that I wanted to talk to her but was too scared, I never in a million years dreamed this is who she’d be when faced with adversity.
I turn around to face the footsteps drawing closer and take my first swing. I aim for head level and watch the spiked balls slash through a couple throats. It sends them falling backwards into those coming in behind them. I jump up to kick another one in the chest and send her falling back as well.
They’re not taking me down without a fight. I swing again when the three of them come back for seconds. Blood cascades down their tailored suits in what seems to be an endless supply from their mangled throats. The spikes tear through them again, finishing the job. Three headless zombies fall to the ground before me. Their heads roll off somewhere in the shuffle, bodies twitching, jaws straining, still trying to feed for those final seconds before they go still.
Tyrone appears out of thin air with a flaming board from the dilapidated building behind us and torches the bodies. They go up in flames, forming a burning barrier in front of us.
It doesn’t work. The next batch step over them, catching on fire in the process. I hold my breath, wondering why I haven’t yet built up an immunity to the smell of burning flesh. Luckily their flaming legs don’t take long to give out under the heat. How long can we fight these things off? They just keep coming. Where the hell are they all coming from?
I grab Caylee and help her hobble away from the growing pile of blazing corpses. The building behind us is slowly coming down. Boards crash through floors and walls. The fire hisses away, spitting flames out of windows as they shatter from the heat. This place isn’t going to last much longer. If we don’t get out of here fast, we’ll be crushed underneath it. Which is most desirable; burned alive, eaten alive, or squashed by a falling building?
The barricade of burning bodies is the only thing keeping us alive. They get toasted before they can make it over. Caylee stands back to back with me, leaning against me for support, sending more of them into the inferno growing before us. The problem is that it leaves us with no way out. Burning pile on one side, burning building on the other. As long as we don’t get completely closed in, we’ll be alright. But this bubble of safety is shrinking rapidly. We need to do something. How much longer can we hold them off?
The spiked balls of my flail spill the contents of a few more skulls. Droplets of blood splatter my face like rain. Instinct tells me to wipe the repulsive substance away, only it’s not red, it
’s clear. More drops hit me, this time on my forehead. Another on my hand. My nose. I look up to the sky and watch the rain clouds open up. It starts coming down in sheets immediately. The fire that separates them from us won’t last another minute. It’s growing weak already.
Thunder rumbles in the distance. The dark clouds blacken. I’ve lived through enough storms to know the worst is yet to come. This must be the same one from yesterday, circling back from sea. Within a minute or two, we’ll be stuck in a torrential downpour.
Loud thunder that sounds almost like a fighter jet draws my attention to the sky with high hopes. But optimism only breaks hearts. Even if it were a low flying jet, they wouldn’t see us down here, not amidst the mob of zombies. If anything, they’d drop missiles without a second thought. There’s no help coming. We’re alone here.
The rumbling sounds too close anyway. On second thought, it’s not even coming from above. The bus. That’s the bus.
I hop onto the base of a lamppost to get a better look over the crowd. The back tires of the bus peel out, sending a plume of black smoke into the rain like a dragon’s nostrils before it breathes fire down upon its victims. With a gut-wrenching cry of the engine, he accelerates full speed ahead into the growing herd of undead soldiers. Their bodies smack off the front and get mowed down in droves. A whole row disappear as Marty brakes and spins out, sending severed limbs flying through the moist air. Torsos explode in a display of human fireworks, leaving stumps of legs standing, before they too fall into the bloody sea of decapitated corpses.
He hits the gas. Torn clothing and flesh spew everywhere like a car stuck in the mud, trying desperately to get out. It lurches forward and plows through another pack of the recently deceased. There’s almost too many for him to drive through. Every rotation of the tires jolts the bus like it’s on hydraulics, cruising over speedbumps made for monster trucks.
A high pitched squeal draws my attention. It’s a car. Shane! That’s Shane’s car! It revs up and tears through the path the bus made, picking up so much speed it sends bodies smashing off the hood and flying into the air as he barrels towards us. They’re alive. They made it. We’re not alone. Reinforcements have arrived.
With a newfound hope, I jump down from the decorative lamppost. Despite the fact that my arms are so sore they feel like they could fall off, I swing harder. Despite the fact that the flaming pile of zombies is slowly being extinguished by the rain. Despite the fact that Felecia’s not standing by my side. With Marty and my friends in our corner, for the first time since stepping off that bus, I actually believe we stand a chance. It may be a snowball’s chance in hell, but it is a chance. I no longer have an understanding of what living means but somehow we’ll find a way. At least I have Caylee. Caylee, who is more amazing than I could have possibly dreamed.
Marty backs over the pile of mangled corpses before speeding straight towards us, straight towards the army of walking dead soldiers who weren’t trained to retreat or surrender. It’s not in their DNA. With the added momentum, he cuts through the crowd, swallowing bodies into the blackness beneath the tires of our yellow savior. Moses parting the Red Sea.
Limbs get caught in the treads of the enormous tires and spin with the wheels until flinging off into the restless mob. He blazes a trail to our doorstep. The front fender comes within a few feet of the pile of zombies that once burned furiously. The rain isn’t enough to save the beloved buildings of our prosperous downtown though, it’s too late for Leyland.
We make our final stand against the remorseless killers that separate us from salvation, no matter how short lived it may be. My feet long to ascend those steps, even if just this one last time. I swear I’ll never leave again. It’s time to remove those who don’t belong. Or let them do the fighting for once. I’d rather watch from the confines of foggy windows than participate in this hopeless war where there are no victors.
I swing the unpredictable weapon and watch the cylindrical spokes puncture flesh and bone. Bodies collide with one another from the force and drop like flies. Caylee stands beside me, holding my shoulder for balance, swinging her sword like an unsharpened guillotine, severing heads from necks with steady strokes she shouldn’t have the strength for. It takes multiple hits, like chopping down a tree, but she’s doing it, letting out primal screams every time. Tyrone’s back touches mine as he fights off the zombies skilled enough to make it over their fallen comrades while not engulfing themselves in the blaze raging beside us.
We stand in the pouring rain, surrounded by bodies, most of them motionless. Limbs lay disconnected from their owners. Rain mixes with blood and forms rivers down the side of the street, washing away the insides of those around us. Body parts clog the storm drains where bloody waterfalls wish to flow. It’s too horrific a sight for my mind to register. When I look back at this moment, my memory will have blocked it out, only to resurface in nightmares so vivid I’ll awaken, screaming, convinced I’m still there. If I’m alive in twenty years, this will haunt me. I now understand post war syndrome.
The door opens. It sends a gust of cool air in our direction, feeding the flames but at the same time fueling us to overcome these sinister circumstances. We’re there. Nothing stands in our way. Unsteady hands grab at us from under the bus. Dismembered limbs reach for our ankles but they’re too damaged and disfigured to be a real threat. A number of them don’t have so much as a body attached to them.
Shane’s car mows down a few stragglers. The sickly noises coming from the engine means it probably won’t be running much longer. I can see them tangled in the wheels, being dragged under the car. The windshield is smashed to a point I don’t know how they can possibly see out of it.
The doors open. They’re all there. All four of them. They made it. We made it. I look at Caylee and Tyrone beside me and smile. We did it. I don’t know how, but we did. We prevailed. I know it’s just a battle and not the war, but it’s another battle that we won. Sort of. I’m not sure we can call this a victory. Not without Felecia.
I put Caylee’s arm around my neck and help her shuffle towards the bus. Tyrone rushes to her side and takes her other arm. Together, we walk through hell. Rain beats down on our drenched bodies, soaked in sweat. Slowly extinguishing the flames. Rinsing the blood and soot from our bodies. Cleansing us. If only it could have come sooner. Ten minutes too late. It could have doused the flames. It could have saved the buildings. It could have saved Felecia. Surrounded by friends, somehow, I still feel lonely. Without her here, I feel incomplete.
CHAPTER 18
“I got her,” Tyrone assures me at the foot of the steps. “Go get those swords.” But he stops and looks back at me before making his way up. “Are we really getting on this bus? She wouldn’t have let us do this.”
“I know,” I say with a shake of my head, “but what else can we do? Caylee can’t walk. Our weapons are fucking useless. Besides, Marty’s still on there. We’ll have to figure something else out.”
I use the side of the bus to keep my balance as I break into another fit of coughing. I can practically see the black smoke pouring from my lungs which only makes me cough more. Rain and sweat drip from my every pore, splashing into the puddles forming at my feet, only half of which is actually rain. The rest is blood.
How we survived I’ll never know.
I can’t tell if I’m crying but I’m pretty sure those are tears. A storm of emotions overpower me, knocking me from my feet. Or maybe it’s the coughing, I can’t even tell at this point. I fall to one knee, wheezing, doing everything I can not to pass out. My head rests against my outstretched forearm and all I want to do is close my eyes. It would feel so good but I know I can’t. Not now. Not yet.
A hand comes into my line of sight. Someone’s trying to help me up. I’d take it if I could let go of the bus but it’s the only thing keeping me somewhat vertical. My shirt of chainmail is vibrating with every thunderous beat of my racing heart. I spit out a strand of dirty saliva, trying to rid my mouth of the awful taste.
I’m so close to passing out I can feel sharp tingles over every inch of my body.
A few deep breaths help me regain my composure. The bloodstained pavement comes back into focus like adjusting a camera lens with unsteady fingers. The mangled limbs and torn scraps of flesh resting in pools of chunky blood are still there. The ringing in my ears subsides and fades into the background. There’s the engine. The rain. The roar of the fire destroying our home. Voices. Multiple voices. My heartbeat. My breathing. I’m alive.
I finally reach out and take the hand someone is still holding out for me.
It’s Paul.
“You crazy son of a bitch,” he whispers in disbelief. “We swore we were gonna have to have another funeral for you.”
“Another funeral?” I say with a cough. “No way, you guys must have said all the nice things the first time around.” I drop my flail beside me and give him the girliest hug in the history of men hugging. Within seconds all their arms wrap around me. They’re alive. We made it.
“Move it you bunch of sissies!” Mr. Buckley yells from the doorway, gripping his gun so tightly he might crush it. “Get those damn swords and let’s get the hell out of here!”
We ignore his request and remain in our embrace in the pouring rain. I don’t think I’m ready to walk on my wobbly legs yet anyway. Our weapons cache is only twenty feet away but that’s about nineteen and a half feet too far. I’m gonna need another minute or two. Make it an hour. Give me a week and a recliner and I’ll be back and ready to rumble.
It’s disturbing that when I was looked at as the leader, I never had to order anyone around at gunpoint. Buckley knows it too, I can tell by the disdain in his eyes. He doesn’t have the power he so desperately wants. Some of them are naïve enough to believe he really is in charge. The gun persuades those who don’t. I didn’t survive all this to die at the hands of a raving lunatic over nothing but the false promise of power. In the world we inhabit today, power is something none of us will ever hold again.
Blood Type Infected (Book 2): Fallen To The Flame Page 10