Highway to Hell

by Max Brallier

  You hear the elephant gun fire and you brace yourself for a hit, but it doesn’t come.

  The thresher tears through the undead Klansmen. You plow through the grand wizard in its ridiculous red-sheeted costume, and the thresher eats it, so all you see is its arms being flung about, its red robe being sucked into the blades, and then its hood being pulled in, the thresher snapping the undead thing’s neck, wrenching its head and grinding it to nothing but cinnamon-colored cerebral matter.

  Stomping the pedal, burning up the path, and then—

  You feel it just a split second before you hear it. The car jerking to the side. And then you hear the blast—the tremendous echo of the elephant gun, still loud as all hell a hundred yards away.

  Dewey.

  A perfect shot, through the trees. Into the tire. The El Camino flips, crashing into the woods, rolling end over end before slamming hard into an oak tree. Iris’s body is tossed from the vehicle.

  Punch-drunk, seeing stars, you crawl out of the car.

  And there, staring at you, is an undead alligator, with ferocious yellow fangs. You inch back, reaching for the sawed-off, but the giant reptilian zombie’s mouth opens impossibly wide, snapping your arm off. Blood pours. And before you can run, another is upon you, jaws clamping around your skull like a vise, tugging, pulling, ripping, until finally you hear your neck snap . . .

  AN END

  RING

  At the edge of town, not far from the train, Ring stands in the middle of a cattle ring. Lanterns surround it, lighting the scene. A crowd of a few hundred has gathered and they drink and eat and watch happily.

  Ring stands on top of an old beer keg. He’s wearing a gold sport coat now, looking less like a thug and more like a carnival barker.

  Standing behind him, at the edge of the cattle ring, is a man in full-body chain-mail armor.

  A zombie stumbles around the cattle ring. Its face is now dark and rotting, and it wears a muzzle.

  You stand outside the cattle ring, smoking a cigarette. Two of Ring’s thugs on either side of you, guns against your back.

  Ring grins and begins his show. “You all know what this is, don’t you?” he calls to the audience while pointing at the stumbling monster. His voice booms. “It’s a zombie! Got a dozen other names for ’em. Walkers. Stumblers. Brainers. All the same. And I bet most of you fine folks out there have killed a few, ain’t ya? That’s why you’re still alive today—still alive when the rest of the suckers, may they rest in peace, are either rotting beneath the earth or staggering mindless across its surface.”

  Ring points to a wide-eyed boy in the front row, not more than seven or eight. “How about you, boy? You ever kill one of these undead sons of bitches?”

  The boy shakes his head. He has long, mussed hair, and it falls over his eyes. He wipes it away. “N-no, sir, never have.”

  Ring hops down from the keg and crosses the cattle ring. “Well, young man, would you like to?”

  The boy is trembling. Nervous but excited.

  Ring pats him on the shoulder. “Oh, it’s not hard. Easy as—this!” Ring says, stepping back, pulling a pistol from his belt, placing it against the left side of the shuffling zombie’s head, and pulling the trigger. There’s a sharp bang and the bullet explodes the monster’s brain and skull out the right side of its head, splashing gore on the audience. They clap and cheer.

  Ring holsters the smoking pistol, then leans over the fence and takes the hand of a woman in the crowd. “Son, is this your mother?”

  The boy nods.

  “Ma’am, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name’s Ring and this is my carnival train.”

  The woman blushes. This guy’s Frank Sinatra as far as she’s concerned.

  “Maybe we should let your son step in the ring here? Get him his first kill, what do you say?”

  “Is it safe?” she asks.

  “Safe? Safe! Well, sure it is! I’ll start him off easy,” Ring says with a grin. “Safety’s the name of the game!”

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Louis!” Ring calls, turning to the man in chain mail. “Find the boy someone his age.”

  Louis exits the ring and walks the short distance to the train. The armor clatters loudly with every step. He slides open the door to the nearest car and climbs up. Moaning comes from the car. You catch glimpses of zombies, chained up.

  A moment later, Louis steps back out of the cattle car, carrying a zombie in his arms. This zombie was once a young girl, maybe six years old. Now its blond hair has fallen out, and only a few strands remain. Its nose is gone—just a hole in its face. It’s missing a large chunk of its left foot.

  Louis places the girl in the center of the cattle ring. It tries to charge him, bite him, but he holds it at arm’s length and easily places a muzzle over its mouth.

  Ring smiles at the boy and his mom like a goddamn mall Santa and says, “Well, son, you ready?”

  The boy seems unsure. He looks up to his mother, who nods. Ring then leans over the fence and helps the boy up and over.

  Inside the arena now, Ring hands the boy a butcher knife. The boy takes it tentatively. Ring says, softly, fatherly, “Go on, son, you can do it.”

  Ring opens the gate to the cattle ring and steps out. Louis follows, so it’s just the boy and the zombie girl.

  The crowd watches, quiet. A few hushed whispers.

  Then, with a throaty, wet growl, the zombie girl charges.

  You can see the boy wants to run. But he doesn’t.

  It comes at him. Gets its hands on his checkered shirt and tears it. It has its face to his neck, forcing his head back—he’d have been bitten by now if it weren’t for the muzzle.

  At last, the boy swings the blade. The tip of the undead girl’s ear comes off.

  “Harder!” his mom shouts. “Goddamn it, harder!”

  The boy listens. He swings the blade against the zombie’s skull.

  It bangs off.

  Someone boos.

  Finally, you see the boy clench his teeth, turn the blade, and jam it into the girl’s eye. He does it four times, quick, fast, and angry. With the fourth stab, the blade goes hilt-deep into its eye socket.

  The zombie stumbles back, almost confused, then collapses on the ground. The blade sticks out of its eye and blood pools around its head.

  Ring steps back into the cattle ring and grabs the boy’s hand, raising it. “Let’s hear it! Not bad for a first-timer, eh?!”

  The crowd roars. The boy is beaming as his mother helps him over the fence.

  “Some show,” you say as Ring walks toward you.

  He leans close. “You like?”

  You light another cigarette and say nothing.

  “You better like it,” he says. “Because now it’s your turn. But it won’t be no fucking girl in pigtails, and there won’t be no muzzle.”

  Click here.

  TREAD MARKS

  Your feet slap pavement as you race past the zombies. One lunges for you, tearing your shirt, but you keep moving. The Panzer’s MG 13 machine gun opens up and bullets pound the cement.

  You weave back and forth across the street, dodging the fire, nearing the tank, when—

  BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  White-hot pain in your leg. You crumple. Four, maybe five bullets in you.

  The machine gun stops firing. You glance up. The tank rolls toward you.

  “The Desert Fox has ceased fire! It seems he has other plans for Jimmy El Camino!”

  Your fingers scrape at the concrete as you try to crawl.

  Shadows fall over you. Shuffling monsters. One grabs at your hair, yanking, pulling it out in clumps.

  You roll over onto your back, squeezing the Remington as you turn, and—

  BOOM! The blast punches the zombie in the chest, lifting him off his feet, carrying him back through the air.

  The ground shakes. Tank treads rumble. The Desert Fox shifts slightly, aligning the treads with your body.

  Monsters claw at your face, p
aw at your flesh, begin to feast. But they won’t be what kills you.

  No.

  It’s the Panzer. It’s rolling up over your legs now. And you feel it. The fucking zombie bites—they keep your body from going into shock. You feel it all, every organ bursting, every muscle liquefying, every bone exploding.

  It’s a relief when the twenty-five tons of tank finally crush your skull.

  AN END

  ALL FOR NOTHING

  It turns out, what they can do isn’t much.

  You’re sitting in a pub on the water, drinking beer, watching a closed-circuit “broadcast” of a baseball game—two local teams—when the military man comes in. He sits down next to you, orders a coffee, and says, “Jimmy, her body was too far gone.”

  You knock back your whiskey, order another, and light a cigarette.

  After a time, you say, “I was promised a small place on the beach.”

  “All right.”

  “You’re not gonna fuck me over?”

  “No.”

  You nod. “Good.”

  You both drink in silence. You smoke two more cigarettes, watching the game. Something about baseball—that sound—feels right.

  “What are they going to do with her body?”

  The military man sighs. “Burn it, or put it out to sea. Cemeteries are full.”

  “Give her to me. I’ll bury her, near the beach.”

  He thinks about that for a moment, orders another coffee, and says, “All right.”

  It’s a one-room shack they give you, thirty yards from the Pacific.

  You bury Iris far behind the house, away from the sand and the ocean.

  When you’re finished, you say, “I’m sorry.” You say it again. And again. You sit on the dirt, her grave, and you drink and you drink and you say “I’m sorry” over and over, until the words lose all meaning.

  Then you begin digging again. Another grave. You leave that one empty.

  Finally, exhausted, you stumble back to your little shack on the beach. You sit on the porch and you drink some more.

  You plan to keep on drinking until you’re in that grave beside her.

  AN END

  LEAVING THE FIELD

  You’re close to the exit. The thick cloud of smoke looms ahead, completely filling the air, and pieces of the exploded gate are scattered across the field. Your leg is hurt, but you continue forward.

  And then you hear a scream.

  Billy.

  You turn.

  He’s on the ground, ten feet behind you, shot through the leg. He’s looking up at you and his mouth is open and he’s emitting a shrill, boyish shriek. He attempts to stand but falls back on his face. He lifts his head again, covered in mud now, and his wide eyes beg for your help.

  Seven zombies in Packers jerseys charge toward him—moaning, howling, eager to feast on the young boy’s flesh . . .

  Turn around and try to save Billy? Click here.

  If you believe nothing is more important than getting to Iris, click here.

  ENOUGH

  Fuck it all, you say, and you simply drive off, headed west, freedom overwhelming you. The poison is there, too—but the longer you drive, the more convinced you become that Eigle was bluffing.

  You smile.

  You listen to music and drum the steering wheel to the beat. You smoke cigarette after cigarette with the windows down as you push 80 miles per hour along back roads, whipping around turns, not caring where you go—just feeling right, knowing that you can travel wherever you want.

  The little girl darts out into the street outside Hattiesburg. She’s just there, suddenly, in the road—a young girl, no more than seven or eight. Thin, straight blond hair, and dirt smudging her face.

  She hasn’t been bitten.

  At least, it doesn’t look like it.

  You slam on the brakes, wrench the wheel, skidding and swooping around her. You wait a moment, seeing if she’s with anyone—if it’s an ambush—then you roll down the window.

  “Hi,” you say.

  The girl has stepped back, off the road, onto the dirt. She’s shaking. “You almost killed me!” she yells in a thick, almost Cajun accent.

  “You darted out like a goddamn jackrabbit!” you bark back, then, after a second, you say, “Sorry about my language.”

  She glares at you and says nothing.

  “What are you doing out here, all alone?” you ask.

  “Looking for food for my family.”

  “Why don’t they look for their own food?”

  “They got hurt by some men. Takers. Thieves. They came and they shot my dad and my brother and cut up my mom. They’re recovering at home. My dad lost both his legs and it’s real sad, how he gets around. Real sad. They’re starving now.”

  Again, you look around, expecting an ambush. Nothing catches your eye. You step out, walk around to the rear, and pull some supplies for the girl: jerky and trail mix and stale bread and a third of whiskey.

  “Take this back to them,” you say.

  She looks at it tentatively. Unsure. Then she scampers forward and grabs it all and steps back. “You don’t wanna kill me?”

  “No.”

  “Could you drive me back to my house? I can’t carry all this.”

  You think for a moment, then open the passenger-side door.

  “Smells like shit in here,” the girl says, climbing inside.

  “You’re too young to talk like that.”

  The girl just shrugs. She directs you back a few miles—she never gets lost, never gives you a wrong turn, and you figure this girl must be out here day after day, trying to find food for her family.

  Finally, you come to a stop in front of a small brick house on a quiet street. “Will you help me carry this in?”

  You eye the house. It’s dark and run-down. The grass is overgrown and boards cover the windows. No light comes from it.

  If you want to help the girl carry the food into the house, click here.

  No helping. You’d rather return to your mission, searching for generators in hopes of preserving Iris. Click here.

  FORCE CHOKE

  “Iris,” you say, “it’s simple. You can save the world, or you can be this man’s goddamn property. He’ll throw you aside, soon as he finds something he likes better.”

  “Now, that ain’t so,” Ring says.

  You turn to him. “Speak again, and I kill you.”

  “I don’t want to die,” she says. “That so hard to comprehend?”

  “Not hard. But this isn’t about that. This is about you—you being the one person who can change things. The one person who can make people like Boss Tanner disappear. Who can make people like this piece of garbage here go away.”

  “They’ll never go away entirely,” Iris says.

  You sigh. “Goddamn it.”

  With that, you holster the gun, drop the ax, and wrap your fingers around Ring’s throat. His eyes go wide as he struggles.

  Iris watches, face blank.

  You continue squeezing. Ring’s eyes are about to pop out of his head. He kicks. His hands lash out, slapping at you. You squeeze tighter. It’s been a long time since you strangled a man, and you forgot how damn long it takes. You keep your hands tight around his throat for four minutes. Then piss drips down as he wets himself, and then you smell shit, and you know he’s dead.

  You pull your hands from his sweaty neck, wipe them on your shirt, and Ring slumps over. His face is purple.

  “Iris, you’re the only one who matters. Every other person on this journey—collateral damage. Me included.”

  Iris swallows. “I just don’t want to die.”

  “Nothing that can be done about that.”

  Iris stares at Ring’s purple face. Finally, she stands. “Okay. Let’s get to San Francisco.”

  “Have to wait. Wait a long time, for the tracks to be cleared and for the train to begin moving. When it gets a good head of steam, we jump.”

  And you do just that. When the t
rain finally gets rumbling again, you get ready—and on your word, you both jump.

  Iris hits a rock when she lands, and her throat is cut open, bleeding. She holds her hand to it, shakes you off, and you walk. It’s a long walk back to the El Camino. An even longer drive waits for you—and that drive takes you north . . .

  Click here.

  AND THAT’S THE GAME!

  Steering the Panzer back toward Times Square, turning the corner, you see a scoreboard on the large monitor.

  Mr. King—440 . . . Jimmy El Camino—380 . . . Elwood—310 . . . The Desert Fox [PRESUMED DEAD]—190 . . . Lucy Lowblow—100 . . . Buzzy—80 . . . Sonja [PRESUMED DEAD]—70 . . . Stu Bean—60

  Rolling into Times Square proper, a sort of ceremony is under way.

  Mr. King stands atop a platform. You see his face for the first time: his skin is burned and scarred, pocked and tight.

  On either side of him are girls in just-barely-there bikinis, shivering in the afternoon breeze. Boss Tanner holds a microphone and announces, “The winner of the Death Derby, for the eighteenth time, is Mr. King, driving the 1965 Lincoln Continental!

  Mr. King shakes Boss Tanner’s hand. King holds up a trophy—a severed zombie head, brains scooped out, on top of a mount. Flies buzz.

  When you finally climb out of the Panzer and the crowd sees you clearly, there’s a roar. Thunderous applause.

  Jim-my! Jim-my! Jim-my!

  You don’t smile.

  But you can’t fight back that feeling in your chest. A warmth. And that’s just fine; you don’t want to fight it.

  It feels like the old days, after the wars, during the derbies and races. When you’d win. And they’d call your name. Never this big a crowd, you weren’t NASCAR, just backwoods tracks. But still, goddamn, it was sweet as Southern Comfort.

  From the stage, Mr. King watches you, his tight face blank.