Highway to Hell

by Max Brallier

  And then Mr. King turns, walks back to his car, and drives away—but you’re still there, cackling, howling like a fucking madman . . .

  AN END

  AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT

  Your fingers grip Eigle’s jacket.

  “Don’t do it,” he hisses. “I told you. Do this, this one thing, and then I give you a job. A mission. And your freedom.”

  “You kept me in a cell for nearly five years, for no reason.”

  Eigle mutters something but goes silent as you smash his face into the guardrail. There’s a crack as his nose explodes. Blood like paint.

  You lift him up by his collar, blood pouring from his mouth, over the guardrail, and then you raise him, his feet up, into the air, but—

  You’re slow.

  Reactions dulled.

  And it was stupid, banging around his face like that. If you’re gonna kill a man, just do it—don’t play with him first.

  Scorching pain shoots through your body. You convulse. Your hands clench tight, your head rocks back, your legs give.

  You’re still gripping Eigle, and he shakes with you as the voltage pumps through your body.

  It stops. You collapse.

  Major Eigle stumbles away, still shaking, then falls to the floor. Catches his breath, stands, roars at Thin One. “You zap him while he’s holding me, you halfwit? You shoot him, it goes into me—get it? Basic electricity? You go to fuckin’ elementary school?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t—”

  Eigle slaps the stun gun from the man’s hands.

  Suddenly, Boss Tanner appears. He snatches the big rifle that’s slung over Boxy’s shoulder.

  “No, no. It’s okay, Boss Tanner,” Eigle says, holding up his hand. “Jimmy here’s just a little hot.”

  Boss Tanner shakes his head. “Can’t let a driver act up like that. Once, maybe. But twice? No.”

  You try to stand, but Boss Tanner is over you, barrel aimed at your face, finger on the trigger.

  Eigle looks on.

  Then Boss Tanner stops. A smile slowly appears on his face. “Actually, I have a better idea,” he says. Then he flips the rifle around, winks at you, and smashes the butt of the gun into your face.

  When you wake, you’re on the street—Forty-Fifth and Madison, from the signs. You squint. The sun is a little higher in the sky. Maybe thirty minutes have passed.

  You’re on your ass. You try to stand.

  Something’s pulling at your wrist. You hear a moan.

  You look up.

  Shit.

  You’re handcuffed to a zombie, wrist to wrist. It looks like the same rotten, broken thing you saw on your way into the city, but who knows. You look down the avenue behind you. It’s lined—a zombie with its feet in cement in the middle of every intersection.

  This one lunges at you and snaps its teeth. You slide back on your ass. And then a sound—

  Speaker feedback. Echoing off forty-story buildings. You look up, spot a camera as well. The voice booms: “LET THE DEATH DERBY BEGIN!”

  All right, so you’re a part of this thing. Officially . . .

  People lean out of windows. A woman whistles. Flashes you. “Hey, tough guy, who’d you piss off?”

  “The wrong person, apparently,” you call back.

  “You get out of this, you come see me. And bring the cuffs!” she hollers.

  You give her a nod and a wink.

  The roar of a Harley engine echoes down the almost-empty avenue. Each of the undeads-in-concrete-shoes turns.

  It’s Sonja. She’s racing down the avenue, toward you, swinging the steel mace.

  WHACK!

  She bashes in the head of one of the concrete-shoed monsters.

  SMASH!

  Another. The zombie’s head cracks open like an egg. She’s coming up fast. Pushing 50 miles per hour on the Harley.

  KRAK!

  This next one’s head gets spun around completely. It falls down, staring at you, dead eyed.

  You’re next in line.

  You stretch the cuff chain as far as possible, pulling the zombie so it’s nearly falling over.

  The engine barks as Sonja twists the throttle, closing in, one arm out, gripping the mace. Eyes blazing, afire—this woman is a fucking banshee.

  And then she’s upon you . . .

  You leap, back toward the undead thing, looping around its back. You’re like a bullfighter, using yourself as the red cape.

  The Harley blasts past you and you hear her scream something that sounds like “Motherfuck!”

  You step away from the zombie. It looks puzzled, if that’s possible.

  “That was close,” you say to the thing. “You owe me, buddy.”

  The zombie doesn’t look particularly grateful.

  The Harley roars and Sonja is turning back. She’s not satisfied cruising down the avenue, smashing in undead brains. She wants living brain. Your living brain. She wants it splattered all over her mace and splashed across Forty-Fifth Street . . .

  If you want to let Sonja get close and then go for the clothesline, click here.

  Prefer to use brute force to escape? Then click here.

  TUSK

  Your feet pound grass as you race toward the fallen elephant. Billy chases, trying to keep up.

  The elephant trunk waves about slowly and its thin tail slaps at the ground. You slide up next to the creature’s belly and peek over the side of its thick, rotting hide.

  The zombies are at the twenty-yard line, then they’re crossing the fifty, and they’ll be on you soon. The lions have run through the horde, devouring some of the undead humans, buying you a little time.

  You need a weapon. Now.

  The elephant snaps at you and struggles to push your body away with its big feet. But with its shattered legs, it’s the most harmless thing here.

  Its tusk, jabbing at the ground, gives you an idea.

  “Sorry, fella,” you say, getting to your feet, placing one boot square on the elephant’s head, grabbing hold of the tusk, and pulling. The elephant has been undead for a long time, and its skin is soft and poor.

  You twist and pull, finally wrenching the ivory spear from the animal’s face. You have a weapon now: the tusk, roughly the size of a baseball bat, curved and sharp.

  Suddenly, an undead lion appears—roaring as it leaps over the body of the elephant. Billy screams.

  You swing the tusk, jamming it into the throat of the leaping beast. It doesn’t slow the monster. Undead creatures don’t need to breathe. The animal has you pinned, snapping with long, thick fangs, when—

  Something crashes into it. A bright red cooler, thrown from the stands. Two dozen beer bottles spill out onto the grass and someone in the crowd cheers.

  The lion is knocked aside momentarily, which is all you need. You jam the elephant tusk up through the lion’s throat and into its brain, then kick the lifeless animal off you.

  You grab one of the nearby beers, pop it open, and guzzle it down. You throw a thankful wave to the cheering crowd.

  Six undead humans charging toward you now, up and over the still-moaning elephant. You swing the tusk, knocking them aside. One—a man in a bloodstained Brett Favre jersey—continues forward. Its hands latch on to Billy and the boy cries out, “Help, Jimmy! Help!” and then you’re there, slamming the sharp ivory into the monster’s brain.

  Ahead, two lions are devouring a pack of humans, giving you a second to think. You eye the gate behind you. You see Ring, watching, enjoying the show. Big Stump, too, grinning. Gunmen at their side.

  No escaping that way.

  But the far gate, all the way down the field—the visiting team’s tunnel, where the rush of monsters originated from. It’s shut, but if you could break through somehow . . .

  You pull Billy along, racing through the thick crowd of monsters. A zombie in a football helmet lunges for you. You swing the tusk, dropping the beast.

  Another comes. This one a shirtless man wearing a foam cheesehead. Chunks o
f dried gore cover the headpiece. You ram the tusk through the thing’s gut and leave it lying on the field behind you.

  The crowd roars and lions rip bodies to shreds and elephants roam awkwardly and zombies reach for you—but you keep your head up, running hard, pulling Billy along, swinging the tusk when you need to.

  And then, as you approach the gate, a massive explosion blows it apart, sending hot metal flying. The ground shakes and the stands rock and fire burns and thick clouds of black smoke roll forward across the turf.

  Click here.

  INTO THE PIT!

  You charge forward and leap into a fifteen-foot drop. Your ankle rolls as you land on the hard-packed dirt floor.

  The rounded pit is filled with nearly forty zombies. In the darkness and the flickering candlelight, you catch glimpses of faces. Women who look like burn victims, their faces disfigured. Men with flesh that hangs in shreds, so you can see the bone beneath. The stench is thick and foul.

  A legless monster hangs on to Iris, digging into her side. You swing the sickle, slashing the beast right down the middle, then pushing forward, cutting through their numbers. The blade chops bone, cutting some clean in half, so their torsos simply topple off their legs.

  One grabs you from behind and you whirl, pulling your shoulder back and unleashing a vicious punch to its skull.

  But they tug at Iris from all sides, draped over her, hanging off her, dragging her down. She fights. Kicking. Ripping flesh. Doing what she can to stay alive.

  A fat one gets in your way. You roar and swing, cleaving the thing horizontally across the face, revealing its gray matter.

  But there are so many of the filthy, rotting, hungry bodies.

  You drop the sickle and begin grabbing the undead, dragging them off Iris with your bare hands. As you do, her flesh tears—their teeth clamped tight on her skin even as you pull them away.

  They’re upon you now. Climbing up and over you. You feel teeth in your hand. And then in your back. One clawing at your thigh muscle, rupturing tissue, dropping you to one knee.

  Iris lets out a bloodcurdling shriek and you look up, just in time to see one large monster—recently dead, still strong, muscles swollen, veins popping—tear out her throat and shove it into its mouth.

  It’s over.

  A female grabs hold of your stomach flesh and pulls it open, so your entrails splash down onto the dirt.

  Looking up, you see the cult members leaning over the pit. Smiling. Laughing. You killed a few of their friends, but not enough—the remaining ones are plenty happy to watch you and Iris die. One pulls out his penis and begins to urinate.

  Iris reaches out. Blood bubbling from her throat with every attempt at breath. She feels for your hand. Grabs it.

  And as the zombies reach further into both of you, pulling, tearing, eating, turning you into an undead monster and sending Iris into the endless darkness of death, the Man in Antlers watches and howls with laughter until he’s hunched over, sobbing, tears rushing down his cheeks.

  AN END

  HAIL TO THE RAT KING

  You stamp the accelerator, steering the car toward a tight gap between the towering zombie rat king and the tunnel wall.

  But the monster raises a thick paw, a foot made entirely of brother rats, and the thing roars—a screeching hiss. Inside the narrow tunnel, the sound is deafening.

  The paw slams down and blocks your path. The rat king’s tail—a disgusting appendage built of a thousand interconnected undead rodents—whips around, hitting the El Camino with the force of a wrecking ball. The car tumbles, end over end, then skids to a stop—upside down. You hang, held in only by the seat belt.

  Through the cracked glass, you watch as the giant rat-king beast dissipates—disassembling, collapsing, almost crumbling—transforming from one giant monster to a flooding movement of individual, undead rodent-monsters. They stampede toward you, skittering up and over the El Camino and through the shattered glass.

  They claw at your face. Iris begins to scream, but she’s cut off as one wriggles inside her open mouth. She claws at it, turning to you, her eyes wide in indescribable terror—her cheeks puffed out. The rodent-monster is halfway inside her mouth, and its pink tail protrudes and wags. She yanks it, but it’s too late—her throat grows thick, like a snake swallowing its meal, as the rodent-monster crawls down her gullet.

  And then you feel one clawing at your ear. You feel its cold, furry snout pressing against you. Then claws, ripping you open—pain as your ear is torn, and then the rodent-monster is chewing a path into your brain.

  AN END

  GIVE IT HELL!

  The undead rhino lowers its head, its massive horn looming like some great saber. Primal, undead eyes skim over you, over the car.

  And then it charges.

  “Give it hell!” you shout, and you unload with the M134D minigun as Iris leans out the window, squeezing the M16’s trigger, screaming like a banshee.

  Bullets pound the stampeding beast, slugs piercing its rough hide, chunks of gray flesh blown away, one eyeball bursting.

  Yet it continues its wild rush forward.

  “The legs!” you call out. “Shoot the legs!”

  Iris lowers her fire. Bullets pound bone until the left leg gives out and the giant, undead monster stumbles. You lean out the window and fire the sawed-off—two shots to the front right kneecap, and the monster collapses, crashing to the pavement.

  It moans and kicks and blood pools around it.

  You slip two fresh slugs into the smoking sawed-off, step out of the car, and fire twice into the rhino-monster’s head. The first shot breaks through the skull—the second destroys the brain.

  Stepping back into the car, you see Iris holding her throat—where she was bit by the priest. Blood trickles through her fingers.

  “The kickback,” she says.

  “We’ll get you fixed up. Once we’re out of here.”

  You blast out of the alley, plunging yourself back into the chaos.

  An elephant charges through the front gate, smashing it open, crushing gunmen beneath its feet. Surrounding the gate, undead humans feast on hired guns. A light red mist hangs over the whole town as throats are torn open and brains are devoured and flesh is ripped to pieces.

  Giraffes stampede through the gates with their heads hanging, bouncing behind them. Undead horses and zebras follow.

  You race forward, flicking the nitrous, burning rubber as you blast through the gate and leave the town and the screams and the horror in your rearview.

  Ten miles down the road, you stop to dress Iris’s neck wound. You wrap gauze around it and douse it with disinfectant. Iris grits her teeth.

  “The gauze should hold.”

  “Hope so,” Iris says. “I’m used to some hurt. But this isn’t fun.”

  After you check your map, it’s clear the best course now is north. You press on—driving for two days straight, no sleep, just booze and cigarettes and the need to be rid of Eigle’s fucking poison pushing you forward.

  Click here.

  ROLLING ON

  The SPAMmobile is one big mother—a full-size RV. You step inside. It smells stale. You find the keys beneath the driver’s seat.

  You stamp the ignition and steer it out onto the highway, thinking goddamn it feels good to be driving instead of draped across an undead elephant.

  It’s just after dusk when the SPAMmobile rumbles into its destination: Cawker City, Kansas. First thing you think is, Well . . . “city” is being pretty goddamn generous.

  You roll past a few zombies that stumble around the outskirts of the town. You don’t see many. Maybe the Midwest is too empty—too picked over—to allow the cannibal monsters to survive.

  It’s clear that before the world ended, an entire economy popped up around the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. Driving through town, you’re inundated: from one window the Mona Lisa stares out at you—hugging a ball of twine.

  The World’s Largest Ball of Twine is housed in a gazeb
o at the top of something called Prairie Dog Hill. The SPAMmobile rumbles as you drive up the hill.

  You pull to a stop, step out, and stretch. The gazebo is in front of you—inside it, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine.

  Will Iris be here?

  You haven’t allowed yourself to think about what you would do if she wasn’t. Looking around, you don’t see the El Camino anywhere.

  Your stomach feels hollow.

  “Iris?” you say.

  No answer. You pull open the gazebo’s screen door. The air is damp and sour. You circle around the large ball.

  You think she’s dead when you first see her. Iris is sitting on the ground, her back against the big ball, looking out at the prairie. She cranes her neck to look up at you. “What took you so long?”

  Relief floods through you, but you don’t show it. You simply smile and say, “That is one big damn ball of twine.”

  “It stinks like sweat and dog.”

  You light a cigarette and wave your hand at the damp air. “I noticed.”

  You lean against one of the gazebo’s pillars and rest there for a long time.

  “I thought you weren’t going to come,” Iris says after a while.

  “I told you I would.”

  “I’ve learned that doesn’t usually mean a lot.”

  Very lightly, your shoulders form a shrug.

  After another long silence, you say, “Where’s my car?”

  “Down there,” Iris says, getting to her feet and pointing. At the bottom of the hill, about a hundred yards from where you are, you can read the big, sun-faded orange sign: Prairie Dog City—Home of the World’s Largest Prairie Dog.

  Also, according to the sign, it’s home to a six-legged steer, a miniature donkey, and a five-legged cow.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not real,” she says.

  “Huh?”

  “The world’s largest prairie dog. It’s just a big wooden thing. I saw it when I put the car down there. I thought I should park it away from where I was, in case someone came.”