Steve’s smile disappeared. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Jody when he gets back.”
“Okay,” she muttered.
Then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
The ice on top of the snow cut through Matt’s skin as he slipped down the side of the mountain with three withered attached to his body. One clung to his pantleg and two others had him by the shirtsleeve. All three chomped at the air, hoping to latch onto his flesh.
He slid flat on his stomach, kicking and swinging his limbs to release the three unwanted passengers. The withered on his leg wore a blue North Face jacket but no pants. He imagined what it was like to die without pants on. Or maybe the thing lost them wandering around in the woods for so many years. Either way, Matt was able to kick the dead man away. He watched as it tumbled down the hillside, its hands groping hopelessly at snow not to stop its momentum, but because it wanted to feed.
The two that clung to his arm were starting to slip off. Matt yanked his arm free, keeping one of the rotted corpse’s hands in the process. They, too, disappeared down the hillside.
His momentum slowed enough to where he was able to use his elbows and knees to stop himself before he plummeted off the side of a high ledge. Had he continued down, the fall would have killed him.
Now, he had to find a way back up before any more withered could attack him. Or worse, another rager.
He sat up on all fours and crawled back to the ridge where the ground was flat. His elbows and knees were exposed now. The fabric of his clothes had worn off to showcase torn flesh and blood. However, his small cuts meant little. He and his friends would all be dead with gaping holes in their flesh if he didn’t move.
The withered crept in from all sides, surrounding him. He sprinted, ignoring his swollen, bulbous ankle and the radiating pain like a saw blade trying to cut off his leg as he took each step. In the distance, he spotted someone walking toward him. They came to a stop as he continued to sprint in their direction. As Matt closed in, he saw it was Jody.
“Withered,” Matt screamed.
Jody didn’t need Matt to tell him the withered were coming. He saw them pouring in from over the ridge. He turned and ran back to the barn.
24
Last Breath
Steve looked up with a sharp snap of his head as Jody barged through the doors at a full sprint. The door slammed open with such violence, Steve thought it would scare the baby awake and Tara to death. It angered him Jody would be so careless. But when he saw the panic on the man’s face, his anger turned to concern. Because despite everything, Jody was always the calm and collected one of the group. His panic meant something terrible was happening.
“What’s wrong, man?” Steve asked. “Are the shooters back?”
“Withered,” Jody gasped. “And it’s a whole damn horde.”
When Tara had gone into labor, Steve had forgotten about everything else. The firefight, the death of Cate, Bill threatening them to leave the ranch, and the missing horde. He had forgotten about it all and was wholly focused on Tara and the baby. But now, it all came back to him as he rocked his newborn side to side like a mechanical swing.
“Where’s Matt?” Steve asked.
“Right here,” he groaned as he slipped through the doorway. “We don’t have time. Get what you can, but we have to go. Now.”
Matt limped through the barn toward his bed and began to shove a few items into his backpack. He looked around frantically for his rifle but couldn’t find it, mumbling incoherently in the process.
The stampeding of the horde began to rattle the barn structure as it grew closer. Bits of debris fell from the rafters. Hay trembled across the floor. Their bodies vibrated to the masses. The room itself came alive with the heavy thrumming of the wood as it quaked to the beat of the approaching withered horde.
Steve looked down at Tara. Her skin had gone pale white, almost translucent, and her breaths had weakened into shallow, short gasps. She had been right—something was wrong.
“Jody,” Steve called out. “Tara…she’s not right, man. Something’s wrong.”
Jody ran over and quickly looked over Tara’s body. He leaned his head down so his ear hovered over her lips. Her breathing was practically nonexistent. He checked her pulse and could barely feel it. He mumbled to himself and worked through the problem. But it had been years since he’d last done a field examination. How had he managed to deliver the baby?
Jody lifted up the sheet that covered her from the waist down. It was dark blue and concealed the mass of blood that pooled between her legs.
“Dammit,” he spat.
Steve took two wide strides to get closer, only to have Jody push him back. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s still bleeding.”
The baby squawked and fidgeted before revving up to a full blown, high-pitched cry of hunger. The baby’s face went blue as he screamed for his mother’s milk.
“Shut him up,” Matt spat.
Steve glared at Matt, grinding his teeth to hold back an unnecessary barrage of verbal abuse. The direness of the situation was the only thing that kept him from losing his tongue. “Brother, I don’t know what I’m doing here, so don’t make this any harder than it already is.”
Tara’s eyes opened slowly. She reached out for her baby. “Give him to me,” she said feebly. Her voice was soft and cracked. “I’ll feed him.”
Steve knelt down and passed the bundled baby to Tara for the first time. She held him close as he wailed for his feeding. Tara’s voice was fragile and broken as she soothed her son. He calmed at the sound of her voice, to the touch of her fingers as she rubbed his cheek, before pressing his tiny lips to her breast to feed.
“We have to go before the horde gets here,” Tara whispered as she tried to stand.
Steve jumped toward her as if to catch her before she fell, but Tara didn’t fall. She stood weakly, but she stood on her own and limped over to get her gear.
“We have to get Bill and Cate,” she said.
Steve looked at Jody, confused by what Tara was saying. She knew Cate had died. She knew Bill had kicked them out, so why was she talking like she didn’t know?
“Cate is dead,” he said.
Tara didn’t seem to notice he was talking to her.
“So is Bill,” Matt said, having to yell over the rumble of the horde. “We have no time. Either we all die while we sit around here and wait, or we fucking leave…now.”
He hefted his pack onto his shoulders. It was almost empty. No clothes, no food. Only an old, weathered sleeping bag and pad remained. His vest was missing. His weapons were missing. All in all, he was down to scraps.
Steve grabbed what he could and shoved it all into his pack before resting a hand on Tara’s back to steady her as she walked. Blood spilled down her legs, leaving a trail as she moved about. As they neared the door, the first of the withered came crashing through.
It growled and snapped as it locked onto its prey. Matt went for his rifle out of habit. Their reliance on dated weaponry was going to be the death of them. He needed something primitive, something accessible. He needed anything other than a gun. He looked around through a fearful lens and caught only a glimpse of Jody plunging into the withered knocking it down.
“Go,” Jody screamed.
Steve and Tara made it out the door as Jody beat the withered’s head in with hammer fists.
Matt ran over and pulled Jody to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go!”
“No,” Jody said. “I’m staying behind.” Matt only looked at him for a brief second before Jody pushed him away. “Go, get that baby to safety. Maybe I can distract the horde long enough to give you all a good break.”
Matt looked around. The first light of dawn had begun with the top crescent of the sun barely exposing itself over the ridge. The faded orange light illuminated the mountains and hid the dead in the shadows. Their cries bellowed out like lost children in the woods.
Steve and Tara mounted the horses
, surrounded by hundreds of dead. The horses neighed in protest as the withered fed on cattle. The ranch was being slaughtered.
He turned back to Jody. “Come on, man, you’ll die. We need you with us, not here.”
“I love you all,” Jody said somberly. “Now go.”
Matt swallowed hard and pursed his lips together in attempt to smile. It was a failed attempt at hiding his sorrow. They both knew it.
“I love you,” Matt said, then disappeared.
He heard Jody slam the barn door shut to barricade himself inside. He only hoped Jody would prevail and survive the storm, but Matt would probably never know.
When Matt made it to the horses, Steve had mounted with the baby, holding the newborn in one arm like a football. Tara was slumped over on her horse, barely holding on.
“Can she ride?” Matt asked.
“Don’t know, brother. She insisted.”
“Dammit,” Matt snapped. “Let’s go.”
Matt’s horse trotted in a circle before taking off. Steve waited for Tara, who regained her composure long enough to get her horse to move. She rode hunched over, barely conscious. He followed behind her just in case.
They fled the ranch, zigzagging between isolated roamers who had separated from the bulk of the horde. Dead animals were scattered like discarded toys in a landfill, their bodies bloodied and dismembered, torn from the inside out to feed the ravaging cannibal dead. The mass of the horde flowed and consumed the barn like maggots on rotten meat.
Matt pushed hard, kicking up muddy slush as his horse galloped toward a break in the tree line. He honed in on the escape route, realizing in the last moments a barbed wire fence stretched around the perimeter of Bill’s property. He hit the fence full speed, tumbling headfirst over his horse like a missile. He hit the ground with a thump that knocked the wind out of him and reanimated every last break, bruise, and tear inside him. He rolled over in agony. Everything hurt. He grimaced and wanted to cry out, but couldn’t when he saw Steve clear the fence as Tara fell off backward and landed unconscious inside the perimeter of the ranch.
“No,” Steve cried. He jumped off his horse, still carrying his child. “No, Tara!” He ran over to Matt. “Brother, hold him. I have to get her.”
The horde was fast approaching. They traveled across the land much more quickly than Matt expected and were rushing toward Tara’s body. The withered cried out at the sight of fresh food. The screams of the crying baby navigated their primal urges. Matt reached out for the baby, taking him in one hand and bringing him to his chest. The baby wailed, blue in the face, crying out for his mother, bringing the withered ever closer.
“Hurry,” Matt croaked. He coughed and spat out blood and a tooth. “Fuck.”
Steve locked eyes with his son, causing him to stop crying and coo for the first time. Then, he took off in a sprint, leaving his child with a single smile to remember him by.
Matt watched as Steve ran as hard as he could to the fence before slipping through the top two lengths of barbed wire. His shirt got hung up on one of the knots, which caused his leg to snag on another, then his entire body slipped in the snow and snagged him like a fish on a treble hook. He cried out as the rusted wires buried their points deep inside his flesh. He tried to untangle himself, but only further embedded himself into the fence.
His friend, his brother, created a perfect storm that allowed the horde time to encroach. He looked around for a place to set the baby, to help Steve, but the ground provided no solutions. There was nothing but snow and mud within sight. Where was all the wasteland debris when he needed it? He had to make a decision: help his brother and risk the baby and his life, or flee on foot to fend for himself and the newborn.
Never in his life would he sit back and let Steve get mauled to save his own ass, but for the baby’s life… He decided he would take the risk.
Steve shouted profanities at him as he ran with the baby bundled in his arms. He ignored every last word.
“Goddammit, man, get out of here,” Steve begged.
“Shut up and let me help,” Matt said.
With one hand securely hugging the baby and the other hand working to free Steve one barb at a time, the baby began crying again. Hungry and tied, stressed from premature birth, the poor little child wanted nothing more than to be fed from his mother’s arms. Neither Matt or Steve knew what to do. The baby needed his mother. And she was still lying on the ground.
“There,” Matt spat as the last barb unhooked its teeth from Steve’s leg.
His body thumped to the ground at the release of the final hook. He stood, unconcerned with the many holes and infections that had already begun to fester in his skin and took a single step to retrieve Tara and bring her to safety. But the horde had made it to their feast and they were only a few feet away, hundreds of withered zombies moaning and crying out for flesh stretched across like an apocalyptic wave.
“Matt, run,” he yelled back then.
Matt looked up and saw the approaching mass. There were so many of them. So many dead. It didn’t seem possible. Their bodies were wet and mildewed. They sluggishly worked their way toward his friends.
The last of his family.
“Run!” Steve bellowed for the last time.
Matt stood paralyzed with fear as he watched his friend desperately try to pick up Tara’s dying body from the cold, hard dirt ground. He watched helplessly as Steve wrapped his arms under hers and lifted her up so they could face each other, eye to eye. It was then, in that moment, when only the thunder of a thousand dead came pouring down on them like a heavy rain, that Matt realized Steve wasn’t trying to save Tara, but take his last breath with her.
Tara opened her eyes and smiled.
Steve smiled back and dropped his forehead to hers.
They held each other lovingly, wordlessly, as the withered horde consumed them.
25
Before I Go
Matt ran, each step smashing down on the ground like a hammer on a nail. The world around him was a silent blur of twisted imagery as he sprinted past weathered trees standing upright in a world that had collapsed. No sounds except his own heart pounding away like war drums sounding retreat. His breaths were nothing more than erratic, gasping attempts for air. He was a body in frantic flight-mode moving on pure adrenaline.
The baby screamed and cried in his arms, baby-blue eyes were tightly closed, red in the face like a beacon calling the horde forward. His raw flesh turned from white to red to blue as he stopped breathing to scream in hungry protest, unaware the arms cradling him could provide nothing more than temporary safety.
With the horde at his back, Matt ran.
Lost and scared.
Hungry and tired.
Who was left in this world aside from himself and the baby? A baby with no name. A baby with no mother, just a broken man who could do little more than hold him, not the father he needed.
He ran farther, the muscles in his legs burning with napalm-like intensity. His lungs breathed in fire. His stomach pulsed, and vomit forced its way up, which he choked back down. Little bits of bile shot out his nostrils and burned like acid.
Then, without warning, his legs buckled, and he collapsed.
He pushed the baby away from his chest and slammed to the ground with a heavy thud, knocking the wind out of his lungs, sending vomit and blood out his mouth and nose. All the while, he held the baby in his hands.
Matt was certain he’d broken some ribs. His breathing became pained in a way only broken insides could produce. He gurgled with each breath. A punctured lung, maybe. It didn’t matter.
The world around him came alive for the first time since fleeing. The horde’s roar consumed the sounds of nature. No birds chirped. No wolves howled. Nothing but the sound of hungry zombies as they worked their way toward him. They had consumed Steve and Tara to the point of no return. It broke what little bit of heart remained in him.
He looked around. The horde’s mass covered the horizon before him. He w
as stuck running through the woods, unsure of where he was. Unsure in which direction he was traveling. All he knew was he had to keep running. He needed to create enough distance to save the baby.
Matt looked down and moved the cloth that covered the little guy’s face. He stopped crying and looked directly at Matt and yawned.
So innocent, Matt thought. So pure. Such little chance of survival.
He tucked the baby against his chest and kept running, forcing his way through downed trees and thick branches. A few rusted cars sat on broken axles, their frames riddled with bullet holes. Trees birthed inside them, their limbs growing through the seats like arms of the children eho once played in the back seats.
As he ran deeper into the forest, a familiar sound split through the moans of the dead. A sound of life, something unmistakably real and living. It sounded like people. But where?
New energy sprang to life in his body. A second wind. A second chance.
He locked in on the noises and moved toward them, pushing branches away with his body, shielding the baby from the whips as they lacerated his exposed flesh.
The sounds of laughter grew nearer. The sounds of men and women speaking climbed over his fear and mixed with that of children playing. Was he imagining this? Was it possible a group of humans was nearby? Was it his mother? How far had he run? His body had been in full flight mode, lost in panic, not focused on distance or time. He was lost both in his mind and the world.
Matt glanced over his shoulder and saw the horde. They had lost their momentum, giving him the distance he needed to calm down and think. Where was it all coming from? He closed his eyes and listened.
Everything echoed and mixed together. He spun slowly, listening to the different sounds. None of it seemed real. But he needed it to be. He needed something to hold onto and hope for. Not for himself, but for the baby. But he couldn’t figure out where exactly the voices were coming from, so he opened his eyes and continued in the direction he had been going.
A Thousand Miles To Nowhere: An Apocalypse Thriller Page 23