Highway to Hell

by Max Brallier

  “It’s about a girl,” you call back. “A real pretty girl. Pretty like the girls in your magazines.”

  After a moment, the gun slides back and the speakeasy grille shuts. The door swings open and a man appears, rifle up at his shoulder now, still aimed at your chest. He’s medium height, very thin—though the thinness doesn’t fit him, clothes hanging off his frame. Lost the weight after food became scarce, you figure. He has a thick, gray beard and he wears a grease-stained New Orleans Saints warm-up jacket, open, showing a hairy stomach.

  “Yes, I’m Dewey,” the man says. “Now, what girl you talkin’ about?”

  You nod to the El Camino. “In there.”

  Dewey takes his eyes off you and slowly looks over to the El Camino. “Hell kind of vehicle is that?”

  You glance over at the El Camino. Bullet damage everywhere. Blood and gore coat the thresher. A mangled zombie arm sticks out from between the blades. Turning back to Dewey, you say, “The fun kind.”

  He smiles at that. “Put the scattergun down and we can talk.”

  You holster it, put your hands up, palms out. “How about that?”

  He lowers the rifle just slightly, stepping off the porch, and crossing to the fence. “What’sa matter with the girl?”

  “She’s dead.”

  He throws his head back and does a full-body sigh, like he walked all the way across the lawn for nothing and that’s some great catastrophe. “Damn. Had me all excited,” he says.

  “Sorry for that.”

  “Nothing I can do for a dead girl. Or for you, then.”

  “You can preserve her. You do freeze-dry preservation. Saw the ad in the yellow pages.”

  “To a full-grown woman? Fella, you’re nuttier than squirrel shit. Ain’t possible.”

  “Come see.”

  “I seen a woman before.”

  “Come,” you say, and you begin walking. You hear the gate open and shut as he follows.

  Reaching through the passenger window, you pull down the fabric that covers Iris’s lower body.

  “Yep,” Dewey says. “She’s a woman, all right.”

  You grab hold of her arm. “What’s that look like?”

  Dewey leans in and squints. “Stumbler bite.”

  You shift her body, showing her shoulder. “And that?”

  “Two stumbler bites.”

  “But she’s dead,” you say. “Dead for real. Not undead. Why do you think that is?”

  Dewey’s pupils roll up to the corners of his eyes as he thinks. “Suppose that’s a good question.”

  “She’s immune.”

  He squints. “Horseshit.”

  “Not horseshit. No kinda shit. The girl can end all this. I was taking her to San Francisco. Some smart people there can use her to create a vaccine. But then she got dead. It may be all fucked now, but if you can do what you do—preserve her organs—there’s still a chance.”

  He thinks for a long moment. Too long.

  “Christ!” you bark. “Do you hear what I’m saying to you? This dead girl is important. I need your help.”

  Dewey looks up at you slowly. At last he says, “Bring her inside. We’ll talk.”

  The interior of Dewey’s Taxidermy and Freeze-Dry Preservation is full of mounted and preserved animals. A full-size stuffed alligator rests in the corner. Cougars and bobcats loom. It smells of smoke and meat and mold.

  You lay Iris down on a ratty green sofa.

  Dewey leans back in a rocking chair. “Now, I could stuff her for ya,” he says as he lights a pipe. “That’s not a problem.”

  “No. Can’t lose the blood. I need her frozen. Organs maintained.”

  Dewey shakes his head. “That’s for dogs, cats, birds. Folks who want their pet in their living room for the next fifty years.”

  “So do the same thing to a human being.”

  “Too big, fella! Take too much power. It ain’t possible.”

  You take a drink. “So what? You need a generator? I’ll get you a generator.”

  Dewey sighs. “Bud, I’d need three, four generators. Big ones. And even then it’ll take two months, even with ’em clocking overtime. And probably the freeze still won’t take and her insides’ll melt like Blue Bell in August.”

  You swallow. You’ll be dead in two months. But you don’t tell Dewey that. “Okay. I’ll get you four generators. What else?”

  “Where you gonna get four industrial-size generators?”

  “Leave that to me. What else?”

  “She’s too big. Full-sized woman, still not possible.”

  You take a swig from your flask, then say, “What if we cut off her legs?”

  Dewey’s eyes narrow and he rocks back in his chair, puffing his pipe. “You serious?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  Dewey leans forward. Rubs his hands together. “Four generators, no legs—I could maybe have her done in a month. Maybe.”

  “Then we do it.”

  Dewey sets his pipe down. Looks at you like you’re a hundred percent certifiable. Then says, “All right, let’s get started.”

  There’s a hatch in the floor. Dewey pulls it open, then steps down a staircase to the basement. He carries a lantern and you carry Iris.

  Along the wall are four tubes—like body storage in a morgue, but electronic. There’s a cat in one, in the process of being preserved.

  You lay Iris on a sort of wooden operating table. Dewey picks up a large hacksaw and stands over her body. “Sorry I don’t have anything more surgery-like. Just never dealt with a body so big.”

  You shrug. Doesn’t matter.

  Dewey lays the blade over Iris’s upper thigh, just below her privates. He begins cutting.

  After a moment, you turn away and walk up the stairs.

  “Where you off to?” Dewey calls. “Isn’t you goin’ watch? It’s fascinating.”

  You light a cigarette. “I’m going to find your generators.”

  As you drive toward New Orleans, a thought enters your mind. The poison.

  What if Eigle’s bluffing? You know the poison is real, sure—you’ve felt it, no question, but you don’t know if it’ll kill you. Could just make you sick for a while, then exit your system. Maybe you could even find a doctor who could remedy you.

  Could it be a bluff?

  If it is, you could forget about all this. Try to create some sort of real life for yourself in this screwed-up world. This plan—Iris, the freezing—it’s half-cocked anyway.

  You take a pull from your flask and think . . .

  If you want to abandon the mission and just drive, click here.

  No, you’ll continue on, searching for the generators. Click here.

  FLOAT ON

  You wait at the ramp until the float is within firing range, then spin out.

  It’s a massacre.

  You give both barrels of the sawed-off to the man with the bullhorn, and he responds with a shriek, suddenly cut off as he tumbles over the side.

  The wife shouts, “Lou!” and leaps down onto the street, there for a moment, alive, then tackled by a zombie and she’s crying and kicking and then silent.

  You duck back behind the wall and reload.

  The two teenagers—Rattail and Sunglasses—look around, confused, trying to figure out where the firing came from. You whistle, Rattail turns, and you fire, the shot punching him in the chest, launching him back into his brother, and then they’re both toppling over the side.

  The girl watches it all in shock.

  The float picks up speed now, weaving back and forth. Whoever’s behind the wheel is attempting a getaway—a getaway in a giant float down zombie-packed Bourbon Street. You need to stop it before the whole thing flips.

  Behind the float, the two teenage brothers are lying in the street. Rattail is very much dead. Sunglasses is being devoured. He tries to fight off the horde of costumed monsters, waving a pistol, firing shots into the air while the monsters tear him apart.

  You race out now—hoppi
ng up onto the float. Ignoring the girl, you kick away the chicken wire above the driver’s cabin and drop down, leaning over the float and sticking your gun into the driver’s face.

  It’s a boy, no more than seven.

  You pull the gun back a few inches, so it isn’t pressing into his cheek. He’s got books tied to the gas and brake pedals, so he can reach them.

  Suddenly, the young girl is on your back, tackling you, and your gun simply fires. The boy’s small skull is blown all over the inside of the truck. He falls forward; his foot stomps the brake.

  You’re thrown from the vehicle and you land hard on the cement, bones snapping. Your hear a wet growl and then a hungry moan—and then, above you, crouching down, an undead clown, purple and green and gold.

  And then another clown, shambling over.

  And then one more.

  And at once, a frenzy of hands and teeth, puncturing your flesh, clawing, pulling, tearing, and your blood is flowing and pooling, and you see your insides, tumbling out, and you see a long-nailed hand, for a moment, and then that long nail is digging into your eye socket, digging, pulling, popping . . .

  AN END

  BLOWN ALL TO HELL

  You charge out of the house, lifting the RPG to your shoulder as you come through the door, taking aim at a throng, triggering the rocket—but then, suddenly, a skull slamming into your gut, an undead Klansman tackling you as you fire. The rocket spirals toward the El Camino.

  You hear the explosion. You don’t want to believe it. Need to see it. You pull the sawed-off, blowing the Klansman off you, scrambling to your feet.

  The thresher has been blown open, split down the middle, and the hood has popped and flames are beginning to spread.

  “No!” you scream. “My baby!”

  You watch the El Camino burn from the inside out. Stunned, unable to move—and then the next hooded monster is there, draping itself over you, pressing its teeth into your flesh.

  And as you fall, as you die, you watch your beloved El Camino burn. Your machine up in flames, along with your mission, along with any hope for the future of this damned world.

  AN END

  ON THE RESERVATION

  You make it halfway to the smoke signals before the pain in your side causes your head to go spacey, your vision to go black, and your body to slump over.

  When you wake, the seat is fully reclined, and the El Camino is moving.

  You sit up—and pain once again shoots through you. The poison will soon end you.

  “Lie back,” a voice says.

  You crane your neck. The El Camino is being pushed by eight Native American men. They wear an incongruous mixture of traditional tribal wear and Kmart garb—jeans and sneakers.

  Stranger still is what lies beyond. You’re encircled by zombies—a full ring of the undead. But none of them is closer than one hundred yards.

  “The dead . . . ,” you start, before the poison grabs your throat and shuts you up.

  “Don’t worry. They won’t come close,” one man says. He appears to be the leader. “This place is safe.”

  Spiritual mumbo jumbo, but you’re too tired to do anything about it.

  Everything goes black again.

  You wake up in a wickiup, a nineteenth-century-style home. A heavy blanket hangs over the door, and you push through. Gripping your bloody side, you step out onto a reservation.

  You’ve spent time on reservations—had an old drinking buddy who lived on one. Used to swing by, get shitfaced, and load up on cheap cigarettes. They’re sad places, mostly, poverty like a cancer, infecting everything—forgotten, ignored for the sake of convenience.

  But this place is different. This reservation is in the process of returning to a more natural state now—truer to original customs. Concrete buildings are being disassembled, block by block. Trees here and there, dotted with yucca flowers.

  “You’re sick.”

  It’s the man you saw before, when you were being pushed in the car. He places a hand on your shoulder.

  “Yes,” you say. “I’m shot and there’s—there’s poison in me.” You have trouble speaking. Each word shaky, unsure. It’s a foreign feeling. You’ve always been strong, stable, even when drunk. But that has left you.

  “C’mon, have some food,” he says, directing you to a wooden picnic table. You step over and gingerly sit down.

  “Not hungry.”

  “You should eat,” he says, sitting down across from you.

  You shake your head. He shrugs and takes a bite of fry bread.

  “Some car you’ve got there,” he says. He pushes water toward you. You sip it. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Trying to save the world.”

  “Tall order, man.”

  “Learning that the hard way.”

  It’s morning and the reservation is coming to life. You see more people. Some of them eye you curiously. Most go about their business. They tend to animals—livestock grazes not far away, and crops grow beyond their longhouses.

  You look out to the land beyond, where zombies surround the reservation. Their bodies flicker amidst waves of heat rolling off the plains. You thought they were a dream earlier, but no. They form a full ring around the reservation, undead eyes staring in.

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” you say.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m trying to do something. I need to finish. I need to leave.”

  “Up to you,” he says with a shrug. “But if you want us to help you, we can try. You seem like a broken man, in many pieces. I believe we might be able to make you whole.”

  To let them help you, click here.

  To get back in the El Camino and continue the journey to San Francisco, click here.

  JIMMY & IRIS

  You reach out and wipe away a stray strand of hair that hangs over Iris’s eye. “It’s been something,” you say. “It’s sure been something.”

  You take a long swig of whiskey, toss the flask out the window, shift into first, stamp down on the accelerator, and floor it across the desert surface, charging toward the skywalk.

  And then the El Camino is blasting through the guardrail and sailing, out, over the canyon. The wheels spin in midair and the vehicle tips forward, plummeting downward.

  Through the cracked windshield, you have a clear view of the imminent impact and your impending death as the El Camino drops. The ground rushes up fast. Zombies fill the canyon bed. Broken things, scattered about, their brains smashed open. Rodents pick at them.

  And after a moment, the speed spinning your head, you seem to see undead monsters stumbling around the canyon bed—but that doesn’t make sense—they’d be dead from the fall—and then you realize you’ve already blacked out, the El Camino has blasted right through the canyon floor, and the stumbling figures you see are simply the inhabitants of hell . . .

  AN END

  THE PRICE

  Gripping Iris’s hand, you slowly pull the gun away. “I’m going to complete the mission,” you say. “I’m going to get you to San Francisco.”

  And then a piercing scream wakes you, slicing through the cool night. Your eyes snap open. The dream is over. You stumble from the tent.

  The circle has broken and thousands of zombies, previously held at bay by some unknown force, are now rushing forward, stampeding into the reservation. All around you, residents fall. The zombies feast.

  The healer grabs you by the shoulders. “The cure is not complete! Your blood is still foul!”

  Fuck it. This isn’t about you.

  You just need to live long enough to get Iris to San Francisco. That’s all that matters.

  You turn away from the healer and charge toward the El Camino. You dive inside and turn the key. Iris’s body is slumped against the passenger-side door.

  There are so many monsters. The town will be overrun. These people will die. And when you deliver Iris, any attempt the survivors make to return to a different way of life will be for nothing.

&nb
sp; That’s the price of saving the world, you think as you hit the gas. That’s the price.

  Click here.

  UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

  You stand up and finish your water. “I need to leave. I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” the leader asks.

  You’re sorry because if you complete your mission, this man and his attempt to return to an older way of life will be destroyed. Cut down. Hell will return, with its heavy boot, stomping them out once again. But you don’t say that . . .

  “I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time,” you say. Turning, you eye the ring of zombies one hundred yards out.

  “They won’t bother you until you leave our grounds,” the leader says.

  You nod.

  “Take this. It won’t fix you. But it will help the pain for a few days.”

  He hands you a clay cup full of thick, brown liquid, like mud. You drink it down. Nearly vomit. You quickly yank your flask from your rear pocket and wash the liquid down with a swallow of whiskey to settle your stomach.

  “Good luck,” he says.

  “You, too,” you reply. Silently, you walk to the El Camino, start it up, and drive. Very slowly, you approach the ring of zombies. You pull to a stop just in front of them.

  It’s strange, watching them watch you. These undead are like pieces of the landscape. Moaning, swaying animals that are no true threat. You honk twice, hard and loud, and the zombies shuffle to the side.

  But the moment you get beyond their circle, they change. They become what they were. Monsters howling and attacking the car.

  But you don’t trigger the thresher. You don’t raise the sawed-off. You just drive. You’ll do no violence today, if you can help it.

  The thick liquid has you feeling better and the pain has subsided somewhat when, ten hours later, you cross into California. San Francisco is just a little over four hundred miles away.