by JJ Zep
I finally felt the bonds on my hands come loose and Tucci pulled me to my feet.
“Follow me,” I shouted and ran for the office door with Tucci close behind. We made it out of the bar room just as the front doors burst open and the Z’s came pouring in. I pushed the office door shut and pulled down a cabinet in front of it, using my injured hand but not even feeling the pain this time. As I did something crashed against the woodwork and I heard it splinter. On the other side, the guns felt silent and I heard screaming that was soon cut short.
I kicked the carpet aside, and when Tucci saw the trapdoor, he grabbed the ring and pulled it open. He clambered down the stairs as there was another crash against the door and one of the panels shattered. I could see into the barroom where it looked like a riot was in progress.
Two Z’s were trying to fight their way past the shattered door into the room. I caught the eye of one of them, a big man, bald headed, with a jagged scar across his face and madness in his frenzied eyes.
I flew down the stairs and found Tucci, so frantic he seemed not to even notice the scattered boxes of BH-17 around him. “Close the fucking trapdoor!” he screamed. “They’ll get us!”
“No, follow me,” I said, and opened the bureau door, stepped through and ran into the tunnel. I raced to the end and flew up the ladder with Tucci at my heels. As I reached the top, I pushed up against the trap, then drove my heel backward, catching Tucci square in the face. He fell backward, losing his grip and I hoisted myself into the room and pulled the ladder up after me.
Looking back into the tunnel I could see Tucci staggering to his feet. “You son of a bitch, Collins!” he shouted, “We had a deal. Drop that ladder down right now.”
“Sorry Stan,” I said. “Payback for Nate, and Ray and all the other people you’ve murdered.”
I heard a low growl in the darkness as the first of the Zs entered the tunnel. Then I let the trapdoor back fall into place. Presently, I heard Tucci screaming.
twenty three
The sun was already up as I made my way through the mine depot and down to track one. I followed the line through the mountain as Cal had explained and made the split at track two, following that until it exited on the north face.
Now that the adrenalin was wearing off, the pain was beginning to kick in. My wrist was now a steady throbbing wall of hurt and my ribs felt like I’d been kicked by a mule. My face was sore and puffy and one of my eyes had closed to a slit. A wave of nausea suddenly washed over me and I felt myself sway and almost fall. I realized I hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours.
In the distance I could see the yellow bus and I felt both relief that they hadn’t left without me and anger that they hadn’t left at sun up, like we’d agreed. I tried to call out and got only a dry rasp. I needed water more than anything else and I started working my way down the path towards the pools at the bottom.
I felt myself drifting, thinking of Ruby, thinking of Nate and Yonder, thinking of Kelly. At one point I thought I heard a dog barking and was sure I saw Giuseppe come bounding towards me. Then I must have passed out.
When I awoke, the midday sun was blazing down out of a cobalt sky and I felt like I was being slow broiled. For a moment I wasn’t quite sure of where I was but then my parched throat got me thinking about water and I remembered the pools at the bottom of the hill. I looked out across the field and the yellow bus was gone.
I made my way down to the riverbed and drank my fill of the sweetest water I’ve ever tasted, before or since. Someone had drawn an arrow in the sand and following it, I found some food stashed behind a rock with a note that read, “Chris, we headed to the place we agreed, like you said. I pray that you and Nate are okay, and that you’ll join us in a day or two. We’ll pray for your safe return, Yonder.”
The problem was that Whelan was forty miles away, and I was without a vehicle or a weapon. I might find both just over the hill at Pagan, but I wasn’t going to venture into a Zombie infested town unarmed and in my current condition.
My wrist, of course had to be splinted, and I found a couple of sticks and tore some strips from my shirt to fashion a basic support. It wasn’t great but it would at least immobilize the hand.
It was almost dark when I set out across the field, following the dry riverbed until I reached the drainage ditch where it passed under the road. I climbed the embankment up to the road surface. It was a moonless night and I was grateful for the cover that provided.
I headed west towards route 83 and after about half a mile I came across the first evidence of the havoc I’d reeked on the Dead Men with the bus. Had it really been just a week ago? It felt like it could have been a lifetime.
The road was strewn with destroyed and burnt-out motorcycles and the bikers had also not bothered to bury their dead. I could make out their shapes scattered across the road surface and smell the stench of them, the smell of rancid meat in musty old rooms. Despite what these men represented, I felt ashamed that I’d been responsible for this and it got me moving faster along the road.
Further along, I passed the gas station where we’d stopped before and I left it behind in the darkness as I pushed on. I heard the plaintive cry of a coyote and saw a comet streak westward. My eyes felt heavy and I wanted more than anything to curl up at the side of the road and let sleep take me away from this place. But I kept going, ignoring the throbbing in my hand and the ragged breath that seemed to slash at my parched throat. I may even have slept as I walked, but I kept westward until I reached the junction with route 83. There I found a burned out hulk and crawled into it and slept. For the first time in months my sleep was entirely dreamless.
twenty four
I woke with the sun already high in the sky. It was hot in the car and I was drenched in sweat and my tongue felt like it had been cemented to the roof of my mouth. I raised my head and felt my vision swim, and I had to lie down again. During the night I’d rolled over onto my hand and that was throbbing like crazy, keeping time with the pounding in my head.
Still I had to get up, I had to get moving. Using my left hand I hoisted myself into a half sitting position then got a handhold on the car’s corroded doorframe and pulled myself out. For a moment I thought I might overbalance, but I leaned against the car’s bodywork and steadied myself. Then I pushed away and started walking north.
In each of us, I believe there is a wellspring of energy, a force that we can call on when we really need it, a force that is likely behind some of the incredible tales of survival you sometimes hear about. Perhaps as a professional boxer I’d learnt to tap that wellspring better than most. Perhaps that’s what kept me alive, I don’t know.
All I know is I kept going, I fell and I got up, fell and rose again. When I no longer had the energy to walk, I crawled and when even that was beyond me I found shade beside a car and slept.
I woke to the sound of a dog barking and at first I thought I was imagining it, but then the barking got louder and more urgent, and I saw Giuseppe trotting towards me. I’d never heard Giuseppe bark before, but now he was giving it full voice. Then I heard the sound of someone running.
“It’s Chris!” I heard Hooley shout, “Jesus Christ, the tough son of a bitch made it.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cal said, and then I felt Giuseppe licking my face and I drifted into sleep again.
I woke in a bright place, a room with light pouring in through the window and white linen on the bed. As my surroundings began to come into focus I realized that I was in a hospital ward. There was someone sitting in a chair next to my bed, a very pretty girl with a short boyish haircut.
My ribs felt as though I’d been through a twelve rounder with the world’s most vicious body puncher and my throat felt like someone had taken a rasp to it.
“Water,” I managed to say, and the girl in the chair immediately jumped up.
“Oh Chris, you’re okay. Thank God you’re okay.”
She hugged me, and I managed a faint, “Ouch.”
&n
bsp; “Sorry,” she said, “So sorry, water, you wanted water.”
She poured some from the pitcher beside the bed and held the glass to my lips. It was only then that I recognized her.
“Kelly?” I said.
“The very same,” she said, then stepped back and did a little spin. “What do you think?”
“You look…”
“Different?”
“Beautiful,” I said.
twenty five
Over the next few days I made a quick recovery thanks in the main to the close attention of Yonder. She splinted my wrist and stitched up the gash across my cheekbone, and announced that I’d always carry the scar as a reminder of my run-in with Virgil. My ribs turned out to be badly bruised, but not broken, and in time the bruises on my face began to fade and the swelling lessened.
I was only in the hospital a day, but in that time I had visits from Hooley and Cal and Alice and of course, Giuseppe.
“Dang dog saved your life,” Hooley explained, “wasn’t for him, we’d never have found you.”
Within a week I was itching to get going, but Yonder persuaded me to stick around for a while and I was glad she did. It gave me the chance to check out the town and the fortifications Hooley and Cal had made.
They’d done a house-by-house clearance of a few blocks, and brought everyone into a tight grid. Learning from our experiences in Pagan, they’d devised some emergency evacuation procedures and Hooley was even talking about putting in some escape tunnels. He’d also begun distributing his arsenal among the townsfolk and setting up lookout posts with machine gun nests. Whoever planned on messing with the citizens of Whelan, whether Z or human, was going to have a fight on their hands.
One night over a few beers with Cal and Hooley I raised an issue that had been playing on my mind ever since I’d left the Kimberly Saloon with Tucci.
“I want to go back and get Nate,” I said.
“Hell yeah,” Cal said, “Me and Hooley’s been saying the same thing.”
We went in the next day, Alice driving, Hooley working the Browning on the back of the pickup, me and Cal going in to pick up Nate’s body. Many of the Zs were still milling around but that Browning of Hooley’s made short work of them.
We brought back Pastor Ray too and buried him and Nate side-by-side in Whelan’s Memorial Cemetery. I think Nate would have appreciated the irony.
On my last evening in Whelan, I stopped by for one of Yonder’s infamous vegetarian meals.
“I miss Nate,” she said over coffee.
“Me too.”
“He was a good man.”
“The best.”
“You’re a good man too, Chris Collins.” When I didn’t answer, she said, “You are, and don’t you forget it.”
“It means a lot that you think so, Yonder.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
“I don’t know. This crazy world…”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Take it as a maybe.”
“Well, if you’re ever in Whelan” she said, “be sure to look up your friendly vegetarian veterinarian.” She started crying and I held her and wished that there was more that I could give her. I’ve met many people before and since, but very few of them measure up to Yonder Cartwright.
twenty six
I left Whelan early the next day. Hooley had provided me with an Audi SUV that he assured me was the “sweetest ride in West Texas”, before adding, “sorry if that sounds unpatriotic.” He’d also insisted on weighing the vehicle down with enough supplies to last three cross-country trips. And he’d even managed to find me another AK, making me promise not to lose this one, before handing it over.
Kelly went with me, of course. Back in Tulsa Babs had slipped me a photograph, and that had been his way of asking me to complete the mission he couldn’t finish himself. I was determined not to let my old friend down.
Kelly had finally admitted to me that she had known Babs, that he’d been a friend of her mother and that her mother had even spoken of marrying him. She’d also told me that her mother was at an encampment in Flagstaff, Arizona, which is where we were now headed.
You’re probably wondering about Giuseppe. That dog had saved my life twice and it shames me to say that I asked Yonder to keep him. Yonder of course, refused. “That dog’s bonded to you,” she said. “I keep him here and he’ll just go wandering off across the prairie. God knows what will happen to him out there.”
So now Giuseppe sat proudly on the back seat, looking eager to be away. I was glad to have him along.
We said our final farewells and I slipped the Audi into drive and started rolling forward. In the rearview mirror I could see Yonder and Cal and Hooley and Alice and Jed Junior. Hooley tried to slip his arm around Alice and she shrugged him off, but with less enthusiasm than I’d seen from her in the past.
I put my foot down on the gas and the Audi started eating up the road. I was going to find my daughter, and nothing was going to stop me.
Dead On Arrival
(Book Four of the Zombie D.O.A. Series)
by
J.J. Zep
PUBLISHED BY:
JJ Zep
Copyright © 2012
www.jjzep.com
one
“Kiss me,” Kelly said.
“What!” I was standing with a face full of soap, trying to shave in the Audi’s side mirror.
“Kiss me,” she repeated, “It’s my birthday.”
“Can it wait?”
“No,” she said, and planted a firm kiss on my lips coming away with soap on her nose, while Giuseppe looked on with his head tilted to one side.
“I’m eighteen,” Kelly said. “Old enough to become an elected representative in some states.”
“Probably old enough to become president these days.” I said.
“President Kelly, I like that.”
“Well, President Kelly, as your first executive duty, how about rounding up this stuff and getting it in the car so that we can be on our way as soon as I’m done shaving.”
“Yes, sir,” Kelly said and saluted smartly.
We were just a day out of Whelan and had spent the night some twenty miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was hoping to push on today and maybe make Flagstaff by nightfall.
After Kelly had packed everything into the SUV, I filled the tank with a few of the five-gallon gas cans that Hooley had given us. With the gas cans now used up, I cleared a space in the back storage area to create a den where Giuseppe could curl up and go to sleep.
Then we got back on the road. It felt good to be moving again, watching the miles slip by and knowing every turn of the wheel was bringing me closer to Ruby. I’d even broken my old rule about staying off the main roads and was now driving directly down Interstate 40, with not too many obstructions and making good time.
“So what do you want for your birthday?” I asked Kelly.
“Oh, I’ve got everything I need right here, cruising along through the desert with my two best guys, in this fancy SUV.”
“How about spending it with your mother?”
“We’ll be there today?”
“All things considered.”
Kelly was silent for a while and sat looking out at the barren landscape. “I’d rather be with you,” she said.
“Now, you know that’s not possible.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“You know, I’ve got to go…”
“…to California, yes. So what, it’s not like another country or something.”
“It might as well be. Look Kelly…”
“Forget it. Just drop me in Falstaff. Maybe my mom can give you some baby sitting money.”
“I was about to say…”
“Forget it.”
I’d found out over the past few weeks that Kelly had a decidedly stubborn streak, so I changed the subject, “How’s the big guy doing back there?” I asked. Giuseppe was obviously enjoying his little den, and looking
back I couldn’t even see him curled up in the storage hub.
“Look out!” Kelly shouted, and as I turned my eyes back to the road I saw that a woman had stepped directly into our path and was standing with her hands held together as if at prayer.
I stood on the brakes and the Audi came to a pretty civilized stop, hardly even swaying as it decelerated.
The minute the car stopped, the woman came running in our direction frantically waving her arms. I did a quick three-sixty-degree sweep of the surrounds. We were on a flat plain of red desert earth and creosote bush and scrub grass. In the distance I could see arid flat-topped mesas, but close by there was nowhere to spring a trap from other than a dusty old diner about eighty yards down the road and to my right.
I flipped open the glove compartment, took out my .38 and slid it into my waistband covering it with my shirt. “Wait here,” I said to Kelly, and opened the door, just as the woman reached the Audi.
“Help me! Please!” the woman screamed, “My daughter, she’s not breathing! She’s not breathing!”
The woman looked mid-twenties with dirty blond hair and a faded floral dress. She was barefoot and her feet looked bloody and swollen. “Please!” she said, “Please help us!” She threw her arms around me and I could smell booze and sweat.
“Wait up,” I said easing her away from me. “I need you to calm down. Where is your daughter?”
She looked at me with crazed, tear-stained eyes, then half turned and pointed, “The diner,” she said.
Of course, it would be the diner. The only place in probably a hundred miles that someone could launch an ambush from. Still what could I do, this woman said she had a sick child and I could either call her a liar and drive away, or I could check it out.
“Get in,” I said to the woman.
“Oh thank you, thank you sir,” she said and ran around the car to the rear passenger side and clambered in.