by W J Hegarty
“Jesus Christ, thank God you’re alive.” Aiko wiped rain from his eyes, ineffectively. He was trembling. “What happened down there, Jerry? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine now. Trust me. But it’s a disaster down there and it’s headed this way fast. It’s all gone. All of it.” Jeremiah momentarily looked back to the destruction. “Look, you’ll have to ride with the Burkes. I have to go with Bernie. We’ve got wounded and a pregnant woman with us.”
“Do what you have to do. I’ll be right behind you.” Aiko kissed his cheek. “Thirty seconds!”
“I’ll meet you outside of town.” Jeremiah slowly pulled his hands from hers. “Thirty seconds, no more,” he reiterated while re-boarding Bernie’s truck.
“How close are they, Bernie?” Tobias strained to make out any details from the darkened street beyond. The storm made it impossible to see more than a few houses down the block.
“Fourteen, sixteen houses down? They came out of nowhere. Everybody down there’s dead or scattered. We gotta go now, man.”
“All right, get out of here. We’ll be right behind you.” Tobias slapped the roof of Bernie’s truck and ran back to his SUV as Bernie sped away.
Aiko hopped into the back seat, squeezing in beside Lillian and Tommy. “Let’s go!” She slammed the door shut behind her. “Go, go, go, go, go! They’re here. Go!”
Swarms of infected closed in as they departed. While Tobias pulled away from the driveway, the closest carriers thumped maddeningly at the rear window of the truck. Rotten flesh and blood caked the windows on impact. Agonizing screams from those too slow to escape pierced the survivors’ ears. Tommy held onto Dusty, his eyes shut tight.
Racing through the narrow streets of Pepperbush, several cars led the way as Tobias tried desperately to escape the overrun town. The darkened streets were quickly filling with infected, turning the roadways and the dash for freedom into a deadly obstacle course. Twenty feet in front of Tobias, a blue minivan swerved, trying not to hit a group of infected. The driver lost control of his vehicle, sending it sliding sideways into a curb. The impact flipped the vehicle, sending it and its passengers tumbling into the ditch below. A young woman was ejected from the violent wreck, thrown forty feet into the air and then down again, smashing against a nearby tree. Her wrecked body fell to the ground, arms and legs twisted and bent. Compound fractures wracked her body. The young woman’s broken remains were near immediately surrounded by carriers, a half dozen of them chewing the soft moist flesh from her broken bones. The mangled sedan came to a rest at the bottom of the ditch. Rotten bodies caught in its path smashed beneath its twisted metal wreckage.
“Oh my God, Dad! That’s the Petersons. You have to stop!” Lillian pawed at the steering wheel in a desperate bid to force her father to pull over.
Aiko reached forward, pulling her away from Tobias. She slammed the scared young woman back into her seat. “Do not slow this vehicle. Do you hear me? If you stop, we all die!”
Lillian hid her head in her lap and began sobbing. “Dad, that was Cindy,” she whimpered.
“I know, baby. I know.” Tobias barely held it together, on the verge of tears himself. “Please don’t look at it, honey.”
4:57 am - Main Street
Undead invaders reached every corner of town. Carriers were packed in shoulder to shoulder in places as the mass of rotting attackers filled the streets and alleyways. A group of infected would enter a home or business as another was leaving; they had overtaken the town. Burning dead left fire in their wake. Pepperbush was lost.
Rachel stood her ground, careful to make each shot count, though there were far too many infected converging on them to make a difference. Behind her, Radzinski and another survivor of the overrun southern line were trying in vain to hot-wire a car.
“Let’s go!” Rachel shouted. “Either you can do it or you can’t, but we cannot stay here!”
“All right, all right. Sixty seconds, Red.” Radzinski was fumbling with wires he couldn’t make heads or tails of.
“We don’t have sixty seconds, goddammit!” Rachel snapped through the crack of her rifle.
“You have any idea what I’m doing wrong here?” Radzinski asked the other man.
“How the hell should I know? Six weeks ago I was a taxidermist for Christ’s sake.” The man checked his empty rifle again, the third time in as many minutes. Still no bullets.
“Jesus Christ!” Radzinski slammed the roof of the vehicle and kicked its door shut. He tapped Rachel on the shoulder and pointed out a nearby cluster of homes that looked relatively clear. “We can try to hold out there for a while.” He was cut short as an old beater of a pickup truck came plowing through the nearest portion of the horde. Heads were crushed under its wheels, bodies thrown dozens of feet into the air only to come crashing down again and skid off over the pavement. The truck came barreling in with a power slide, stopping only a few feet from Rachel. The driver leaned out of the window and yelled for the small group. It was Sam. “Let’s go, goddammit!” He banged his hand furiously on the side of his door.
A tall woman burst from the passenger side door, long black curls matted to her face in the rain. She frantically waved Rachel and the others over. “Get in. Hurry up!” Nisha yelled.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Rachel’s eyes went wide.
“Who cares? Just get us the fuck out of here!” Radzinski shouted as they boarded the old pickup.
“Thank God you came back, Sam! I don’t think that car was going anywhere.” Rachel laid her head back in the seat. Her chest heaved under a massive sigh of relief.
Sam sped away, seconds before the car Rachel and the others were working on was swarmed with infected.
“Thought I’d make one more pass down Main Street before I left,” said Sam. “I saw Nisha there stuck on a curb down the block with a flat, so I stopped. That’s when I heard your gunfire. We gotta hustle. They’re saying over the radio these dead bastards are piling up at the gate. If we want out, we have to go now.” Sam floored it. His beat-up old truck plowed into the storm.
5:10 am - Main Street
Tobias smashed another small group of infected under his wheels. “Everybody, hold on. We’re almost at the gate!”
Ahead of the truck, a lone soldier ran down Main Street in the direction of the exit. Carriers dotted the landscape ahead of him.
“Shit, is that Miller up there?” Tobias strained to identify the lone figure.
“He’s alive!” Aiko forced her way as far as she was able into the front seats. “Pull up next to him and slow down a little, but don’t stop. He’ll catch up.”
Tobias flicked his high beams a few times to get the man’s attention. Miller nodded in recognition. Tobias pulled up at a jogger’s pace beside him.
Miller ran alongside the truck, still firing his rifle into the oncoming infected and helping to clear a path. He grabbed the rear door frame of the SUV to steady himself and handed his rifle through the window to Lillian. “Take it!”
“Come on, Miller. Give me your hand!” Aiko shouted as she reached out, taking hold of his other hand. “Go, Tobias. Go!”
Tobias picked up speed as Miller leaped into the window and grabbed a loose seat belt. His feet dragged against the ground, inches from being sucked under a rear wheel. As Aiko and Lillian pulled him inside, an infected latched onto his leg and bit down hard.
Miller squirmed and kicked, trying to dislodge the monster. “Shoot it, Aiko! Shoot it!”
Aiko fumbled with Miller’s rifle for a second before shooting the thing twice in the head.
The creature ceased clawing at the soldier and was dragged under the crushing wheels of the truck. Tobias ran over the carrier’s chest. The obstacle shot the truck into the air, sending the passengers bouncing around its interior.
Miller came to rest mostly on the floor at the feet of Aiko and Lillian. “Thanks, Aiko.” Miller breathed heavily while rubbing his leg as he rose from the floor.
“Miller, your leg
?” Aiko kept her rifle at the ready. She maintained trigger discipline but was ready to act if the need arose, her gun trained inches from Miller’s head.
Expecting the worst, Miller pulled up his pant leg. Everyone was relieved to only see a bruise where the carrier’s mouth had been.
“Not sure if that thing had teeth or not, but it didn’t get through my BDUs.” Miller closed his eyes and nearly smiled. “Still hurt like hell, though.” He laid his head down on the seat and promptly exhaled a long, loud sigh. It was the first taste of rest he had in what felt like ages.
“Thank God.” Aiko breathed as she raised her rifle away from her commanding officer’s face.
“I’ve been out of contact for the better part of an hour. Lost my radio when we were overrun. What’s everyone else’s status? Does anyone even know?”
“Well, sir, we don’t know much” Aiko began. “Jeremiah’s in the truck ahead of us with a few survivors from the northern sector. We got hit hard up there. No one saw it coming. Garrett said infected were piling up outside the gate, but he should have it cleared by now. Takashi told him to open it, but that was more than ten minutes ago, so it’s anyone’s guess how it looks now. I haven’t heard from either one of them since. Everyone else is MIA as far as I know.” Aiko peered out of a gore-soaked window, the last few weeks replaying over in her mind. “You might want to prepare yourself for taking command, sir,” she suggested. “We may be all that’s left.”
“Shit. Step on it, Tobias. Priority is getting as many survivors as we can to safety,” Miller insisted. “One disaster at a time, Aiko.”
They raced through Main Street, past Mother Leeds. Salvation was in sight. Ahead of them, more than a dozen infected began to clog the gate, threatening to block their escape.
“Bernie can’t be more than a minute ahead of us. How is the gate filling back up so fast?” Tobias asked.
Miller pointed at the distance beyond the gate. “Not now, Tobias. Step on it! Don’t even slow down!”
Tobias barreled through the pile of infected. Dozens of the mindless creatures bounced off his truck. Others were crushed under its weight. The bloody vehicle successfully plowed its way through. Free from Pepperbush, Tobias drove toward the highway.
5:18 am - Main Street
Marisol’s SUV cut through Main Street, followed closely by Corey. The crowded gate was within sight. Infected were spilling out into the streets, emerging from every alleyway that separated Main Street’s many buildings. As the road grew narrower with infected, their increased numbers began bouncing off the vehicles, slowing progress.
“Hold on, everyone!” Marisol floored it.
The SUV plowed at full speed into the crowd, sending bodies flying through the air and bouncing off the truck. The windows darkened with gore and pus as some infected came apart on impact. Those that remained standing thumped on the windows and doors, desperate to reach anyone inside.
The force of the impact sent one of the creatures headfirst into a side passenger window, shattering the already damaged surface. The creature’s neck was caught up on the window frame, though it continued flailing its bony arms at the occupants. The trapped carrier was dragged along for the ride. All the while, the thing scraped at the truck, trying to gain entrance. The carrier desperately clawed at the passengers, its rotten hands leaving black and red smears all over the upholstery.
“Out of the way!” Soraya yelled. She leaned back against the men for leverage and sent a boot into the ghoul’s face, dislodging it from the vehicle. The creature tumbled from the truck and fell to the road, where it broke against a concrete flower planter.
A car length behind, Corey watched the carrier fly from the sheriff’s vehicle as they approached the now semi-cleared gate. He sped up for the opening as a sudden, violent collision flipped his truck onto its side. Corey and his passengers were flung around the inside of the vehicle, heads and limbs splitting and breaking against the car’s unforgiving surfaces. An out-of-control car careened into Corey’s SUV, pushing the transport up onto the sidewalk. Both vehicles continued to skid across the pavement, eventually crashing through a storefront.
Seth shouted, “Holy shit! That was Ron. He just T-boned Corey!”
Mayor Lancaster pushed forward on Marisol’s shoulders. “Forget about them. Get us out of here!”
“What the fuck are you doing, goddammit?” Marisol elbowed Lancaster in the throat, sending him back into Soraya’s arms.
Soraya followed suit, she elbowed Mayor Lancaster in the mouth, splitting his lip and cracking a tooth. “You shut up now!” The man went silent, searching for composure.
“We have to go back for them!” Isaac pleaded.
Marisol locked the brakes. The truck came to an abrupt halt just outside of town limits. A growing horde of infected stood between them and the gate, the distraction momentarily ceasing the monsters’ march on Pepperbush. Some infected peered around, confused and wandering aimlessly. The majority, though, picked a direction and continued onward with the rest, straight into town.
“We can’t go back for them. Look!” Marisol grabbed Isaac by the collar and forced him to look behind them through the gore-encrusted back window of the truck.
Dozens of undead already converged on the disabled vehicles. Some infected were already crawling their way inside through the wreckage, having their way with the unconscious passengers. Within seconds, hundreds more surrounded the remains until both vehicles finally disappeared in a sea of rotting flesh and flailing arms.
“Do you see that, Isaac? Do you see it?” She shook him hard, though he refused prolonged eye contact with the scene. “What about the rest of you? Do you see him? Can you see Corey?” Marisol yelled, forcing each occupant to look back on what they left behind.
Isaac quickly lowered his eyes. Even Mayor Lancaster did the same.
“If we go back for Corey and the others, we will die.” Marisol pushed Isaac aside as she put the truck back into drive. “Now keep your fucking mouths shut unless you’ve got something constructive to add.”
5:27 am - Mainstreet
Glen’s car burst from a narrow alleyway and onto the already crowded Main Street. The road was nearly filled with infected. Bodies bounced off the vehicle as they approached the congested gate. Ahead of them, the bottleneck was filled with infected. Hundreds of carriers were crammed in shoulder to shoulder, half of the mob trying to get into town, the other half clawing its way out. Glen was cautious with the accelerator. A wall of bodies stood between them and escape.
The gate was packed edge to edge with walking corpses. As far as Takashi could surmise, the mass was twenty yards thick, easy. He pointed forward and pushed on the man’s leg, driving the pedal into the floor. “Don’t stop, man! Go!” Takashi yelled at the overwhelmed driver.
Glen floored it into the mob. Bodies bounced over the top and to the sides of the car as he muscled his way through the horde of undead.
“Oh my God, they’re everywhere!” Bonnie began to panic. As a reflex, she pounded on the windows at the infected on the other side of the glass, as if she could somehow shoo them away. A block later, she gave up the endeavor and turned her attention to their son, grabbing him up and squeezing him far too tightly.
“Mom, please,” the boy begged, prying her hands from his abdomen.
Glen dared a peek into the rearview. “Keep it down. I can’t think straight!”
They hit the mass at full speed. The impact shot the front end of the car up into the air, dragging multiple carriers into its wheel wells and chewing them up like a garbage disposal. Pieces were spit out all over, covering the windshield as well as the crowd itself with blood and gore.
“Can’t see a damn thing!” Glen shouted. The gore-soaked road beneath his wheels had become as slick as ice. “Shit, we’re not going anywhere!” Glen yanked it in reverse, searching for the smallest trace of dry pavement. The wheels spun and smoked, screaming against what little purchase Glen could find. A pile of corpses under the front o
f the car threw off its balance. Spinning wheels could not catch the pavement. The distressed car spun sideways into the main mass of infected, smashing even more of them under the car’s weight. “Shit, shit, shit!” Glen spun the wheel, trying to right the car.
“Punch it!” Takashi shouted. “Go, man. Go!”
There was no dry pavement to be found—nothing more than ground-up body parts for a surface. The wheel wells were clogged with meat and bone to the point that the old gore was slowly pushed from the top of the cavity as more churned-up bodies squeezed their way in from below. The rear end of the car finally stopped sliding back and forth, though the tires continued churning up meat. Smoke from countless pounds of burning flesh billowed from beneath the undercarriage. Glen’s forward progress was halted for good. After a few more brief tests on the accelerator, he succumbed. They were going nowhere. Roughly thirty feet from the gate was as far as they made it. Within seconds of stopping, Glen’s car was surrounded by walls of rotting flesh and pounding arms.
From Takashi’s vantage point, there was a sea of black outside his window. Even the car’s headlights couldn’t pierce the mass of bodies surrounding them. “That’s it, then,” Takashi whispered.
“We almost made it.” Glen stared at the clogged gate. He released the wheel and leaned back in his seat. Glen focused on a small imperfection on the upholstery next to the light above his head. Had someone done that in a factory hundreds of miles away? Machine error, perhaps? Did it form over time slowly or was it a quality-control mistake? He imagined the inspector at the factory signing off on the car with a smirk, pleased with himself for having left an indelible mark upon this car for the vehicle’s life. Somewhere out there in the world, someone would see this invisible man’s work, never realizing that they were actually viewing a signature on a one-of-a-kind piece of art. Glen closed his eyes again, and the blemish faded from thought, a pointless entry in a lifetime of meaningless musings he passed the time with. Quiet moments alone in his head like that kept him sane through the years, clearing the clutter of the day and allowing him to start again with a blank slate, priorities in order. He reached behind his seat, searching for his wife’s leg. If he could hold her one last time in these final moments, it would make the struggle worth it. I tried, baby, he thought, gripping her calf tight. Bonnie leaned forward. She caressed his hand and caught his gaze in the rearview. They locked eyes as quiet tears began to fall.