by K Helms
Chapter 44 - Traffic Jam
Cincinnati, Ohio
John Walker made his campsite for the evening in the trailer of a Roadway semi. He would have slept in the cab, but one of the doors hung open with a bent hinge and wouldn’t close. He needed to find some shelter soon or he would end up being an entrée or other treat for the zombies to crunch on. He tore open his pack and opened a can of pre-cooked mac and cheese and ate it cold. He ate and drank some water before wrapping himself in the seat covers from the cab of the rig. It would have been nice to sleep in one of those decked out big rigs with the built in sleeper, but no dice. Evidently Roadway didn’t believe in sleeping, just driving. His knee, the one that Marine had shot, was killing him; his earlier jaunt to get away from the woods full of dead had about done him in. As comfortable as he could get, he slipped into his dreams and his mind painted a picture for him, like it did every night; it was a portrait of that black, woman Marine that had given him the permanent limp. He thrashed and groaned in his sleep as he dreamed of her giving him water to drink and telling him that everything would be alright, then she delivered them straight into slavery. The ‘16’ tattooed on his troubled forehead creased as he frowned in his sleep.
The trailer rocked, and there was a loud bang along the inside of it and he immediately came awake. He peeked around the plastic wrapped pallet of boxes and saw that one of the doors at the back of the trailer had been opened. Walker listened and heard a shuffling of feet and tensed, he could have sworn that he heard the dead man sniffing but how was that possible? The dead didn’t breathe. He drew his sidearm and shined his flashlight down the long, narrow enclosure and almost dropped the light when he saw how close the thing was to him. The bloated monstrosity lunged forward and John saw that prior to his death, the zombie had obviously had an eating problem. The dead man had been morbidly obese in life, and it appeared that death’s weight loss program had done him no favors. Now, with his guts festering in the heat of day his belly bulged, the skin was stretched so tight that it shined like polished marble in hues of black, gray and green. It grabbed for John’s foot, but he snatched it back just in time. He kicked out and regretted it instantly. As the heel of his boot hit the dead man’s stomach; the skin ripped and its torso exploded from the opposing forces of impact without and the gasses pressing within.
The viscous yellow and green of infection detonated and erupted in every direction covering John in puss and writhing maggots. The stench was unbelievable, even to a man that had grown accustomed to the reeking bodies that lay moldering and those that still supernaturally walked the earth.
John’s stomach hitched and he fired back, covering his own boots and the dead man’s empty torso with his previous dinner of mac and cheese, which being partially digested, it was similar in appearance. He took note of that and his stomach convulsed again and finished emptying its contents.
The smell of bile and regurgitation didn’t seem to repulse the dead man; instead it appeared to make him hungry. John cursed his luck for having a glutton as the one that would have him trapped.
Walker raised the sidearm and pulled the trigger. It clicked but nothing else. “You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me?” he said incredulously. The dead man grabbed for his foot again and John threw the useless pistol at it. It cracked into the front of its head, splitting the scalp wide open and a liquid putrescence flowed into its eyes. The zombie roared in anger and ratcheted his jaws wide open.
John flung himself into the back corner and grabbed for his pack, searching frantically for his machete. The zombie lurched forward and clamped a decayed but strong hand around his ankle. John pumped his leg back and forth trying to free himself and heard the dead man’s shoulder dislocate with a loud pop, but it still held on. “Oh, Jesus…come on, come on, come on,” he panted, as he patted his hand around the floor and finally found the plastic handle of the machete. He grabbed it and spun onto his back just as the corpse bit down on the exposed flesh just above the top of his leather boot.
John screamed and brought the blade down on the back of its head. The blow severed its left ear and sunk into the rotten meat of the back of its neck, but the obese dead man ripped at the flesh, sawing his jaws back and forth, but not releasing it. John swung the blade down again and it sank deeper into the neck, but still the dead man chewed on his leg. He swung again and again and again until the head separated from its body. The body fell with a tremendous thump that shook the trailer where it rocked on squeaky springs. John saw that the zombie’s head was still clamped to his leg and he stuck the blade into the side of its mouth and pried the jaws apart. The head came loose and the jaws snapped shut with such force that several of its teeth shattered as they crashed into each other. He rolled up his pant leg and saw the deep teeth marks lining his shin and the bottom on his calf muscle. The pain was incredible. The dead man’s saliva burned like acid in the open wound and John quickly slipped his belt from its loops and wrapped it around his thigh. He hoped that a tourniquet would stop the infection from spreading, but he could feel the pain aching in his veins as it traveled upward. He put the machete in its sheath and stuck it between his thigh and the belt and twisted the belt tight, tighter and tighter until he felt his leg go cold from lack of circulation. “Please God; don’t let me turn into one of those things. I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t let that happen to me,” he pleaded and promised to change his ways, to let go of his plans for revenge, to help others that needed it. His mother had been a good woman and that should count for something, shouldn’t it?
He gathered his pack and limped from the trailer. It may be a little safer inside, but he couldn’t stand the smell anymore and there was no way he was going to be able to sleep; he had too much nervous energy for that. His nerves were shot and the cool night air might spur him on until he found the next town where he could better tend his wounds. Maybe he would find a Good Samaritan, or perhaps stumble across a doctor that had found a cure. It was possible, he told himself over and over. Anything was possible in a world of impossibilities.
Chapter 45 - Teddy Bear
Kendall Woods, West Virginia
“Oh, my head,” groaned Shere as she sat up in bed. She got up and cracked open her bedroom door and looked out across the room over at Hito and found him snoring fitfully from his bed. She glanced past him to the opposite side where Annie slept and found that Annie’s usual spot beside Hito was empty, the blankets tucked around Hito’s side.
“Hito?” she asked. He continued to snore. Shere walked to where Hito lay and with her fingertips she lightly brushed his shaggy black hair from over his left eye and smiled. She pulled the blankets over his exposed chest and grabbed one of the blankets from the foot of the bed, wrapped it around her shoulders, covering her nakedness from the morning chill. “She must’ve worn you out good last night,” she said biting her bottom lip with a trace of annoyance. After looking around the room she leaned over him and softly kissed his forehead.
Shere stood up and adjusted the blanket tighter around her and shivered. She walked back over to her room to where her clothes lay in a pile and began to put them back on. As she did this she had a gut feeling and looked at the side of Hito’s bed and saw that Annie’s clothes were already gone. She dressed and quietly toured the secluded farm house and found no trace of her blonde friend. Her jacket was missing from its hook by the front door. Morning light crept through the crack of the blanket covering the window at the top of the door as a feeling of dread crept into her heart.
She grabbed her deuce gear and strapped it around her thin waist and over her shoulders. She drew her Glock from its holster and inched the slide back, making sure it was chambered. She walked to the front door and reached for the door knob to look outside. She eased the door open and peeked outside and saw there was three of the dead milling in the pasture in front of the house and she knew that was enough for them to call for others. She saw footprints in the mud. The tread appeared to be combat boots and they looked like Annie�
��s size. Shere’s eyes widened with a gasp as she quickly shut the door and locked the dead bolt.
Shere ran back to where Hito still slept, she shook him firmly by the shoulders. “Hito, Hito, wake up!” she shook him harder as she grew more anxious. Hito was always such a light sleeper and normally he would have woken just by the slightest noise. She shook him even harder. “Hito, wake up!”
Hito’s eyes flickered open and shut a couple of times before they filled with comprehension
“Uhh…my head,” he said, clutching both sides of his head with his palms massaging his temples with his thumbs. He wiped the grit from his eyes and Shere relaxed her grip on his shoulders a little.
“Hito, Annie’s gone.”
“Wha…”
“She’s gone. The HMMWV and all her things are gone too.”
Instantly he sat bolt upright his nose almost touching Shere’s, as his eyes blazed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” answered Shere and felt her heart fill with fear for her friend.
Hito clumsily stood up, grabbing his clothes and hurriedly putting them on. He grimaced. “Ahh…my head,” he grumbled and grabbed his shoulder rig from the bed post and slipped it on.
He checked the front porch confirming what Shere had told him. “Damn,” he said clenching his jaw and remembered Victoria for some reason, but then shook his head as if to clear the memory from his mind. On the porch railing he saw a slip of paper held in place by a broken piece of concrete. Beside it reclined Annie’s teddy bear. He retrieved the paper and the bear and went back inside, unfolding the paper as he did so.
He walked back to the bed and tossed the stuffed bear onto the mattress beside the black woman. Her eyes were worried, her brow furrowed.
He shook the paper for emphasis and growled “She drugged us, got the drugs from the Doctor’s basement when she went down to get that stupid bear. She says that she went back to find her sisters from the Doctor’s. Annie said it was because I wouldn’t take them in, so she went to help them herself. She thinks I’ll kill her for running off after she promised us her loyalty, so she can’t come back.”
Shere’s fears confirmed she reached out her hand to Hito. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What about you, Shere? Are you leaving too?”
They stood there for several minutes, both experiencing the warmth of the other for the first time. Hito’s face a mask, but for the clenching and unclenching of his jaw.
“Hito, I swore my loyalty to you and I don’t lie. I expect you to believe me.” Her gaze didn’t waiver.
Hito’s jaw relaxed a little. “So now what?” he asked quietly, but the volume belied the tone.
“We need to find Annie,” she said, her eyes darting from one of his eyes to the other.
“And what should we do to her for betraying us?” he asked raising an eyebrow.
Shere closed her eyes. “She was only doing what she thought was right, and I can't blame her.”
Hito nodded. “I know her intentions were good in helping her sisters, but…”
“She should have asked us,” Shere agreed.
“I don’t know if I can let her get away with this,” Hito said and Shere could tell that he was torn.
“She was just scared,” she said looking back up at him hopefully.
“She should have trusted us…”
Shere lowered her head. “We need to find her before anything happens to her,” Shere would not let Hito hurt Annie. He had no right, but she would stay with him and give him the benefit of the doubt until that time when he had to choose. If he chose the wrong path then she would have no choice, but to veer from his.
Hito lifted her chin with a thumb and forefinger.
He leaned to her, pressed his lips against her soft full mouth and kissed her firmly and she kissed him back, enjoying the softness of his lips. Suddenly she pulled away; she was no man’s rebound. If he wanted her he would have to prove it. “We need to try and get that old car in the garage running before her trail gets cold.”
Chapter 46 – ‘Anita New Drug
Johnstown, Ohio
Annie had found Juanita at the Johnstown Elementary School. It was an old brick building built in the 1950’s and had been built sturdy, like all schools were during the cold war. This was a secret place and she had told no one about it other than her ‘sisters’, not even Hito or Shere. Annie hadn’t wanted to leave them, but she had no choice. If it had been possible she would have brought her sisters to Hito, but she knew he wouldn’t have the time to take care of the younger girls.
Annie entered the gymnasium and found Juanita huddled in the corner, alone.
“Juanita!” shouted Annie and ran to her ‘sister’. Even though Juanita looked like a younger sister she was actually older than Annie by ten years. She just happened to be a dwarf, albeit a very well-proportioned dwarf with hypochondroplasia. The doctor had kept Juanita drugged up due to her propensity for violent behavior; he preferred his women barely conscious. The Doctor had bestowed Juanita with an enormous set of breast implants and lipo-suctioned any excess fat from her hips, effectively turning her into his own personal sex doll.
She and Annie had been the closest of all the sisters, and Annie was well aware of how strong a person the little woman was. She had never allowed the doctor to break her spirit. Annie hugged her then asked
“Where are the others?” Annie asked anxiously.
Juanita shook her head. “They dropped me off. I tried to convince them to stay, but they said they were going to get as far away from the doctor as they could. I was still too doped up to present much of an obstacle for them.”
For a second Annie regretted leaving Hito and Shere for only one sister. Hito probably would have let just one more accompany them, especially a woman as tough as Juanita was, but not now. She knew Hito, and even though he had always been gentle with her, she had also witnessed how cold he could be. He had tried to hide it, but it was there. Hito would kill them both. She shrugged her duffle bag from her shoulder and handed it to Juanita. “I’ve been scrounging up gear for you for weeks. Whenever I found clothes your size I’d grab some. I even got you a pair of .380’s and an M-14 carbine. They will fit your hands and I can show you how to use them.”
“I grew up in Juarez, Annie, I know how to shoot. Did that Japanese guy show you?” asked the little woman.
Annie nodded, her eyes blurring with tears. “Him and Shere…they taught me all kinds of things.”
“Good things?”
“Yeah, they were good things…do you need some aspirin for your hip?” Annie asked changing the subject.
Juanita shook her head, “Are you alright, Annie?” asked the little Mexican woman, not taking the bait. Her face was lined with concern.
“Yeah, I’m OK. Just hurry, I want to get moving before day breaks.”
Chapter 47 – Wright-Pat Castle
Wright Patterson Air Force Base
Dayton, Ohio
Bodie drove the Winnebago back into the prison that he and Daniel had escaped from and things had changed drastically since they had last been there. He drove straight for the castle, as Regeliel had asked. Daniel rode shotgun as the rest of the group sat in the back looking out the windows.
“Jeez, it looks like someone nuked the place,” said Bodie. He couldn’t swerve enough to avoid running over the remains of the dead and fallen. The Winnie bounced along as its tires dug trenches through torsos and limbs, spinning occasionally on the gore that pooled everywhere.
Regeliel stood behind Bodie and pointed to the bastion’s huge double doors. “That’s where we need to go; I can feel it pulling at me.”
“Feel what pulling at you?” asked Daniel.
“The doorway,” the knight replied. “It wasn’t there when I came through to this side; it was in a large hanger before, but it is there now, I feel it.”
“We’ll take your word for it,” said Mick.
Bodie pulled to a stop in front of the broken down double doors
. They were solid steel, but they hung bent from their sturdy quarter inch steel plate hinges.
They piled out of the Winnie. “Anyone that wants to change their mind, now would be the time to say so,” said Mick as Mia slung her Katana across her narrow back.
Daniel cinched his deuce gear and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Nah, let’s just go before I lose my nerve.”
Bodie clapped a large paw on his friends back. “C’mon you pansy.”
They entered the castle in pairs, except for Sir Regeliel who led the way.
They marched through a long corridor trying to ignore the massive amounts of dried blood and the stench of rotting flesh. Mia took notice of how many footprints had made their way through, but said nothing. Their footfalls echoed like hammers against the silence that seemed thick and muffled, while Nan and Death wagon brought up the rear and watched their backs.
They made their way down the stairway, level after level until they came to another corridor. At the end of this they saw light emanating from another set of steel double doors; these were also ripped from their hinges.
As they entered the enormous chamber they stopped in their tracks at the sight of the UFO hovering, suspended silently in midair.
“Damn! The Pirate was right,” interjected Daniel.
“The Pirate?” asked Mick, and then just shook his head. “Never mind… it was a stupid question.”
Mia giggled nervously and elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop it, Sir Mick.”
“You guys are nuts, you know that?” said Daniel
“Well, we did volunteer to help the inmates bust out of the asylum,” Bodie stated, shrugging good naturedly.