by Max Brallier
Iris doesn’t toss and turn. No hard nightmares—surprising, for a person facing the gallows. She’s at peace in this little temple.
But you get nothing: no sense of security, no impression of some higher power. This is roadside America. Cultish kitsch.
The full moon and the opening clouds shine gray-blue light on the field, allowing you a clear view of the men coming toward you.
You stamp out the cigarette and sit up, holding the gun tight, finger curled around the hair trigger.
Squinting in the darkness, you count thirteen, possibly fourteen men. They wear dark robes that whip around in the breeze as they stride toward you.
“Iris, get up.”
She moans softly. Shifts in her sleep.
You don’t want to stand. Don’t want them to see you—though you suspect they already have. You nudge Iris in the side. She groans. “Up,” you say.
She stirs and her eyes flicker open.
The men march closer. Most of them carry hunting rifles. The man in the lead carries no weapon, but he wears a large headpiece.
You’re not going to fight fourteen men, even if you are gripping the cool steel that is Remington’s latest and greatest. You try to stand, reaching for Iris, but—
PAIN.
Excruciating, burning pain deep inside your stomach. You buckle over.
Fucking Eigle and his fucking poison: now it kicks in, full force. You must have drank too much, slept too little, and now the poison is putting a hurt on you. Temporary, most likely, but the timing is fucked.
It takes everything you have to slide the automatic shotgun out of sight, between your ass and the slab.
The men stand in front of you, in a row. In the moonlight, you make out a few details. The one in the center wears a cultish crown adorned with moose antlers. His face is clean-shaven, with hollow cheeks. The moose antlers shoot out like twisted devil horns.
“Is this girl the one?” the Man in Antlers asks, to no one in particular. “Or is this just another simple trespasser?”
Iris is fully awake now. She squints at the group, puzzled but not panicking. “What?”
The Man in Antlers steps forward. “The plague is a blessing. Slicing population. Making room for the new world order. We await the one who will lead us forward, as foretold in the prophecy. So tell me, girl: Why you have come to our place of worship? To join? Or to lead? Or to die?”
Iris stands. “I think—I think I’m—oh shit, yes, God above—I’m the one who will lead. It’s me.”
“Iris, shut the fuck up—” you start, but your words come out as strangled moans. Your stomach is twisted and your heart feels like it’s being squeezed by a fiery hand.
The Man in Antlers looks to you. “Who is this foul-mouthed shepherd who has brought you?”
“His name is Jimmy,” Iris says.
The Man in Antlers looks down at you. “Silence, Jimmy. Or I will end you.”
Iris steps forward, her movements eager and anxious. “This all sounds insane, I know. But I have a power,” she says. “I mean, I’m different. Special.”
“You are the one who will lead?”
“Iris, if you tell them . . . they’ll kill you,” you say, as you realize they believe in this bullshit—they think the world’s population must be cut down, then rebuilt. Iris is the opposite—she truly could be some sort of savior. So they’ll murder her.
“I said silence, shepherd!” the Man in Antlers barks.
“I am immune to the plague,” Iris says, pulling up her sleeves. “Look. These bite marks come from the monsters. But I’m immune. I can end it. I am the one.”
No . . .
Whispers among the group.
The Man in Antlers shakes his head. “The plague must not end. The plague must continue until only five hundred million remain. Nine in ten must die. Nine in ten. Nine in ten. If you do not come to further the plague, then you are not the leader. You are the enemy.”
Iris swallows. Tight fear in her eyes as she begins to understand. “You’re mad.”
The Man in Antlers crouches down, staring into Iris’s eyes. The antlers cast eerie, disjointed shadows on Iris’s taut face. “You are sin personified. You have come to end the greatness that God hath wrought. The woman, she is foul. Her organs and her blood are tools of the devil.”
Iris shakes her head. “No. You don’t understand.”
“The girl can be used!” one of the men barks.
The Man in Antlers turns, thinks for a moment, then turns back to Iris. “What Brother Gary says is true. You might be used to bring forth the one who will lead. You will be sacrificed. And then the one who will lead will appear, to continue God’s work and usher the plague forward. Only then may the new world order begin.”
Iris punches the Man in Antlers in the mouth. The attack surprises him, and he slips back on his ass, and Iris is running for the car. But the Man in Antlers is powerful, and in moments, he’s upon her, grabbing her by the shirt, ripping it.
Iris now stands topless in the moonlight. The men admire her body. They whisper. Anger builds inside you.
The poison has you near paralyzed. To best kill these men, you should wait for the pain to subside. But there may not be time to wait . . .
If you’ll attempt to fight through the blinding pain and kill the cult members now, click here.
Wait it out, hoping a better moment will present itself? Click here.
YOU CHOSE . . . POORLY
You swirl the liquid around in your glass, take a heavy slug, and say, “I think I’ll try my luck here, Eigle. Being alive is a good thing, and I’d like to stay that way as long as—”
Eigle immediately shoots you in the gut. A Smith & Wesson revolver, from out of nowhere.
You buckle over and the glass shatters against the floor.
“Christ,” you say, your voice a soft whisper. “You weren’t messing around . . .”
“I gave you a chance! I gave you a chance to save us!” Eigle barks, his voice turning to a roar. “You selfish bastard!”
Eigle stomps over to you, grabs you by your neck, and drags you across the room, toward the zombie. Your knees land in the pool of Iris’s blood.
Eigle yanks you up, slams your head into the chained zombie’s face. The monster bites your face, ripping out a long sliver of skin. Its saliva mixes with your blood.
And as you begin to change, begin to turn, you think . . .
You think how they’ll just get some other driver . . .
And they’ll give that driver the same routine . . .
And maybe that time, you’ll be the zombie on display, the zombie chained up, biting Iris to show how special she is. And well, shit—at least then you’ll have played some small part in fixing this world . . .
AN END
A VISIT TO MOUNT RUSHMORE
You drive and drink, and drive and drink, roads blurring, days mixing, nights a jumble of speed and darkness. It all becomes a blur. Before you realize it, you’ve driven near a thousand miles, past horrible sight after horrible sight, run down so many monsters you can no longer count, raced past so many cannibal hordes you’ve lost track.
You see the sign for Mount Rushmore, and then, an hour later, coming around a winding, tree-lined road and up onto the highway, you see the monument.
“Look,” you say.
Iris looks up. She gasps when she sees the carved figures of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. “Mount Rushmore?”
“Uh-huh,” you say, reaching down to get a cigarette.
And that’s when the glass shatters and your shoulder explodes and you’re thrown back, wrenched hand twisting the wheel and the El Camino flipping, rolling, metal crunching and Iris hollering, and you thanking God for the reinforced roofing as the car flips six times before sliding to a final stop on the highway running in front of Mount Rushmore—fifty yards from the parking lot, two hundred yards from the entrance to the memorial, and four hundred yards from the base of the mountain.
The car is upside down. Blood pours from your nose, down over your eyes.
Eerie silence. Your brain stops rattling and settles.
Then, gasoline dripping.
Iris’s hair hangs down over her face. You reach out, push it aside, expect to see her dead, face mashed. But she’s not. Eyes open, looking back. Softly, you say, “What happened?”
“Somebody shot me. We flipped.”
You release your seat belt, grab the shotgun, and crawl out through the door, onto the highway, inching your way out, peeking around the side, up at the monument, and—
KRAK!
The gunshot echoes off the mountainside, and the cement just inches from your hand kicks up. A bit of pavement nicks you.
“Where are the shots coming from?” Iris asks as she crawls out behind you. You both crouch behind the overturned El Camino. You know it’s only a matter of time before a shot finds its way into that gas tank . . .
“Somewhere up in those hills,” you say. “Near the monument.”
You hear moaning then. You grab your cracked sunglasses and hold them around the side of the car. Watching the reflection, you see zombies coming toward the car, shuffling up from the monument parking lot.
You pull Iris next to you, close.
You have your back to the car. You hold the shotgun tight to your chest. The moaning grows louder and louder.
One comes around the car—a twisted, disfigured tourist zombie. It wears a cheap cowboy hat. It’s a thin thing, and its intestines hang like sausage links. It trips over them.
You shoot it in the face. The cowboy hat hangs in the air for the briefest instant, and then the zombie tumbles onto its back.
More moaning. Louder.
More monsters coming. And you, there, with nothing to hide behind but a goddamn busted-up El Camino with an exposed gas tank . . .
To escape your position and search for better cover, click here.
If you’d rather hold tight and try to hold off the zombies, click here.
NO STONES
You take in your surroundings. Nothing but open field, all around you; zombies graze in the distance like animals.
“No,” you say finally. “This is an ambush waiting to happen. They hit us here and we’re dead.”
So you walk back to the El Camino. Iris doesn’t follow, but you don’t stop to grab her, don’t force her. You simply slide into the car and put it in gear.
“You’ll die without me!” Iris finally calls, walking toward the car. “Get to San Francisco without me, and you don’t get the antidote.”
You roll down the passenger window. “I leave you here, you’re good as dead. And that death—that death is for nothing.”
Iris runs her hand through her hair. Looks back at the stones. Her head drops for a moment, then she marches toward you, slides into the car. You give her a small grin, happy she wised up, and—
She punches you. A quick cross—strong hands and bony knuckles drawing blood, your nose opening like someone turned on the faucet.
“You’re a motherfucker,” she says. “Now drive.”
You wipe the blood on your sleeve, shake your head, and hit the gas.
The horrific sights grow repetitive: the undead, burned bodies, everything a crisp.
Lexington, Kentucky—an entire city on fire. The smoke clouds the horizon, forcing you so far north you’re practically back where you started. You don’t talk. And as you drive and drive and drive, you think not talking is just fine with you.
Click here.
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
You fire twice. One bullet through each of the Klansmen hanging off Suzie-Jean. Brain splatters her face.
You whirl, gun raised, but one Klansman has its teeth in Dewey’s neck and the other is clawing at Dewey’s chest, ripping at his flesh. Dewey thrashes at the things, trying to knock them away, but he’s dead, so you squeeze.
The bullets slam into the first Klansman’s back. Dewey and the monster tumble backward onto the coffee table, one leg breaking, both crashing to the floor. You squeeze again and the Colt cracks like thunder in the small room as you put two into each Klansman’s head.
And then Dewey is up, charging toward you. His eyes are red and burning like fire.
You step back, squeezing, but—
CLICK.
CLICK.
Dewey hits you head-on, tackling you, your head slamming against the floor. You drive a hard fist into zombie Dewey’s chin, shattering his jaw.
And then, suddenly, blood splashes down onto your face, into your eyes.
You blink. Get your fingers over your eyes, wipe the blood away.
Walter stands above you. He ran the fire poker through Dewey’s skull—into one ear, out the other. His hand shakes, as does Dewey’s head.
“Walter,” you say, removing blood from your cheek, “please get him the fuck off me.”
Walter tugs on the poker, and Dewey’s head jerks to the side, then drops as Walter releases the weapon.
You get to your feet, spitting, wiping Dewey’s blood from your face. Suzie-Jean is in the corner, sobbing.
“You okay?” you ask. “You hurt?”
She shakes her head no.
“Which one?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” she says after a moment. And then, “No, I’m not hurt.”
“You sure?”
She nods once, hard. “Yes.”
You collapse onto the couch. Grab a beer from the table, pop it open, and drink it down. The kids watch you with their big, wide eyes—scared and confused and overwhelmed.
You light a cigarette then, and say, “Okay, little superheroes, we need to get Iris into the car. We need to drive.”
It’s a miserable journey out of New Orleans, headed west. Iris sits in the passenger seat and the kids are squeezed in beside her.
Most of the bridges are out—either too full of old cars to cross or too full of zombies. The Huey P. Long Bridge is just a frame—girders and cracked cement and twisted metal.
You double back, up along the Mississippi. At Jackson, atop a great hill, you spot four tanks, flying black flags. Not the type of trouble you want right now. That forces you north, instead of west.
You pass a farm. In the tall grass field, undead cows stand, unmoving. The kids stick their heads out the window and yell, “Moo!” The undead cows don’t moo back.
You try I-55. You make it nine exits before the rusted, abandoned cars force you onto the back roads.
The kids play Twenty Questions. You pick “zombie.” No one’s sure if it’s animal or vegetable, so you stop playing.
After a time, Suzie-Jean goes quiet.
“I’m carsick,” she says.
You pull over. She vomits five times while you load up the gas tank.
The sun is long since down when you pull into Tennessee. Thirteen fucking hours of driving—to a place that should have taken you half that.
A sign points to Graceland.
You get a glimpse of Elvis’s house, in the distance. Figures stumble in the darkness. You turn off the street, into the Anything Is Paradise parking lot.
You find a spot, wedged between two long-since-forgotten minivans, and shut off the engine. “Time to get some shut-eye, kids.”
Suzie-Jean is already asleep. Walter smiles. “Good night, Mr. El Camino.”
It’s nearly dawn when you wake up, and the first light of morning is fighting its way through the clouds—struggling to add just the slightest bit of brightness to this gray, rotten world.
Walter’s sleeping soundly. Suzie-Jean is mumbling. Nightmares. You want to wake her, but you imagine the nightmares are about you killing her family—so it’d be a bit fucked to have her come to and see your smiling face.
So you decide: Graceland.
You fill your flask, step out, locking the door behind you. At the gate, you peek out onto the street.
You hug the fence and walk up a short hill along the side of the road. You take a seat there, back against a
tree, staring out at Elvis’s mansion.
Most of the zombies are inside the compound’s open gates.
All of them diehards, you figure. You can imagine it: them hearing the world was ending, making a pilgrimage. Some of them figure, Hey, hon, the one thing I always wanted to do—Graceland. Others, been here a dozen times, this is their place—where they’re happiest. So they go to die—or, rather, to become undead.
And they look happy, almost. It’s your mind playing tricks on you, you’re sure—but something makes you think these ones look just a bit more content than the others.
You drink and smoke a cigarette and think on the absolute fucking strangeness of that.
You never liked Elvis much. You’re more of a country guy. Some Southern rock. Zeppelin always got you going.
“Well,” you say aloud, to no one but the ghost of the King, “now I’ve seen it.”
Back at the El Camino, you flick your butt, toss the empty bottle, and slide inside the car.
“All right, time to hit the—”
Suzie-Jean has her mouth on her brother’s throat. Her dim, milky eyes stare at you. Her skin is pale and veiny.
For the first time since this mess started, you’re truly terrified—your skin crawls and your heart pounds.
Suzie-Jean crawls over her brother’s body and up into the driver’s seat, moving jerky and frenzied. Walter’s flesh hangs from her lips and blood pours down. Suzie-Jean reaches out a red hand and swipes at you.
You push back against the door, still open, part of you falling out of the car.
She lied. She fucking lied. She was bitten by that goddamn Klansman in the house.
You reach for the sawed-off as she grabs hold of your jeans and then your shirt, dragging herself along your body. Mouth open impossibly, terrifyingly wide, about to bite.
You pull quick and fire both barrels and—
Shit!
One shell hits Suzie-Jean in the face, blowing away a chunk of her head. The other load clips your side. Can’t fucking believe it. A load in your gut from your own goddamn gun. Blood everywhere now.