by JJ Zep
I woke to the sound of knocking, and my first sight of the day was a Z peering straight at me through the side window. She was middle aged with bleached blond hair, the dark roots showing through. A bullet had ripped a deep furrow through the side of her head and one of her cheekbones was smashed giving her face a lop-sided look.
She was knocking again now and then peering in, hands held to the sides of her head. I knew that she probably couldn’t see me, but I needed to get out of there, so I was left with two choices. I could either shoot her through the glass, or I could try to sneak out of the car without been spotted.
Both of these approaches carried an element of risk, but I decided on the less risky strategy. I lined up the rifle on her and put a neat hole in her forehead. The report of the AK was deafening in the cab, but I knew it would be muffled outside. Still, I carefully checked both side mirrors before creeping out onto the road top. I had some miles to make today.
ten
I’d walked only a few miles when I realized that I was being followed. I’d just crossed an area where the freeway cut through open fields with some low-lying hills to one side, then passed through the outskirts of a small town. As the suburban housing gave way to small business establishments and then to a strip mall, I heard a sound behind me. I spun round with the AK at the ready and the street was empty.
The left side of the road was given to storefronts and on the right was a small park with a single clump of trees. Behind one of those, I could clearly make out the outline of a man, a man in a red shirt, standing in the shadows but not making any great attempt at concealment.
I pretended not to see him, walked a few yards then crouched down next to a car as if to tie my bootlace. I looked into the vehicle’s side mirror and saw three Zs, then another and another until eventually they seemed to be pouring from every nook and cranny into the street and I lost count.
Now that creepy Z hum, the sound they make when they’re grouped together, reached my ears and I was tempted to just turn round and open up with the AK. But there were too many of them, and their numbers were still growing.
I knew from experience that, pretty soon, one of them was going to break ranks and charge and that the others would follow. Even now I could see them growing restless, see a few squabbles breaking out among their ranks, and I wasn’t about to wait around for them to rush me.
From my crouching position I suddenly burst forward, sprinting down the middle of the road. Normally, I’d be confident of outrunning a Z, but I was carrying a heavy load and I hadn’t yet fully recovered from the incident in New Mexico, and even though I threw everything I had at it, I could hear them closing, their footfalls on the tarmac, their harsh grunts, the sound of their bodies slapping the abandoned cars as they ran.
I saw a road junction coming up and I veered left between two buildings, hoping to find some cover, some hiding place, perhaps an escape route. What I found instead was a twenty-foot wall, from sidewalk to sidewalk, blocking the road.
I looked frantically left and right and saw metal shutters covering the storefronts on both sides. In front of me the wall now loomed, behind I could hear the low-pitched hum of the zombies and I had no option but to turn and face them.
Now that they knew they had me trapped they’d stopped running, and there were dozens of them, clogging the road junction, cutting off any avenue of escape. I was reminded of being cornered in the alley back in New York. Only this time there was no weak chain link fence to exploit, no fire escape to clamber up.
The lead zombie showed his teeth and emitted a growl that sounded like an idling muscle car. His companions pressed forward, their numbers seemingly magnified by the reflection in the plate glass storefront of the department store at the road junction. I suddenly saw a way out. A long shot granted, but the only spot I had.
I eased the rucksack from my shoulders and allowed it to fall to the pavement. The magazines inside made a hollow clunk as they collided with the blacktop and for a split second it was utterly silent. Then the lead Z grunted and they rushed me. I had nowhere to go but forward, so I met their charge, firing as I did.
I directed the AK not at the dense center but at the right flank. As the distance closed I angled right and shifted my fire towards the window of the department store. I saw it shatter, felt flailing hands rip at my clothes and kept firing until the shattered window pane loomed large. Then I threw myself forward, hit the deck rolling and was up and running.
The department store was dark inside, but I was guided by the dim light creeping through the windows at the other end of the floor. A zombie suddenly appeared in front of me and I shot her and kept running. I fired off a burst at the display window that ended in an impotent click. Then I pushed my way through onto the street as I heard automatic gunfire open up behind me. A blue sedan rounded the corner and screeched to a halt. Three men spilled out with raised guns. I dropped the AK and put up my hands.
eleven
“Mister, are you fucking crazy!” I was standing in an office that had once been home to Sunshine Realty. The building was off an open parking lot, with shops on three sides and a road on the fourth. It was a beautiful, warm fall day and in another time the mall would have been buzzing with shoppers. Now though, it had been turned into a fortified encampment surrounded by high breezeblock walls topped with wire.
The man addressing me was Sam Suchet, and he was pissed. “I’m amazed you didn’t get yourself killed out there, not to mention my men. What the fuck are you doing running around like Rambo, you got a death wish or something?”
“I’m sorry if I put your men at risk, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I thought I kind of had things under control back there.”
“What!” Suchet said turning to his lieutenant, “Can you believe the balls on this guy?”
“Look,” I said, “I appreciate your help, but if it’s all the same to you, I need to be on my way.”
“Well. It’s not all the same to me, thanks for asking. You think I’m going to just let you walk out of here to become Z burger.”
“Figure that’s my choice.”
Suchet looked at me across the desk, studying me like a liquor store clerk trying to decide whether to ask for I.D. or not. “Okay, okay,” he said eventually. “We can’t keep you here if you don’t want to stay. Can you at least tell me where you’re headed?” When I didn’t answer he said, “Where you’re from then?”
“New York City. Originally.”
“Figured that from your accent. Where are you coming from today?”
“I came down from Flagstaff, Arizona yesterday. Had to abandon my car at Corona.”
Suchet let out a whistle, “And you got this far on foot? Jesus mister, how’d you manage that without getting eaten? You some kind of miracle man?”
“Just lucky I guess.”
“So you’re heading west. Where to? Anaheim? Long Beach? Because I gotta tell you, if you think that what you faced out there today is bad, that’s kindergarten compared to Anaheim, and Long Beach is even worse. You have zero chance of making it through. Zero.”
“I know this dude,” Suchet’s lieutenant said suddenly. He walked over to a table and picked out a magazine from the pile sitting there, flipped through it and brought it back to Suchet.
“Chris Cruisin’ Collins,” Suchet said showing me the page, from a dog-eared old copy of KO, “that you?”
“Yeah that’s me.”
“Fighter, huh”
“Uh huh.”
“Is that where the attitude comes from?”
“Didn’t realize I had one.”
“Tell you what, Chris, rather than being a hard on, how about you sit down with me, tell me where you need to get to and I’ll see if I can help.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Let’s just say it’s in my nature and leave it at that.”
I thought about that for a minute. He was right of course. I’d been lucky to get this far. Sooner or later I was going to ba
ck myself into a corner I couldn’t fight my way out of.
“I’m heading to Palos Verdes,” I said.
“Nice country,” Suchet said, “Not so many Zs down there. Corporation owned though, they don’t take kindly to visitors.”
“Does that mean you won’t help?”
“Hell no, we’re no friends of the Corporation. Self appointed, self-righteous motherfuckers. We’ll take you.” Then to his assistant he said, “Mike, we’re going to need the dump truck.”
The dump truck Suchet was referring to was a six-wheel, articulated hauler, yellow in color, made by Caterpillar. They’d made a couple of modifications to it though, including attaching a wedge shaped steel scoop to the front and mounting a fifty mil canon in the bed. There were benches fitted to the side of the bed too, and brackets for securing motorcycles.
“I’m sending you through with Beau Stewart,” Suchet said, “Crazy son of a bitch but the best driver you’re likely to meet. Says he used to drive Nascar before this shit storm went down, but between you and me, I think he’s bullshitting. Then again he might not be.
“There’ll be four men on the back, all you need really. Between that dump truck and the 50-mil, not much is going to stand in your way, unless maybe the Corporation, and my boys would love a crack at them.
“I’ve put an off-roader on the back for you, Yamaha 250, good bike. Do what you have to do in Palos and get the hell out of there. You don’t want to end up in that hellhole they got down at Pendleton. I got some good men lying rotting in that cage. Oh, and don’t come back this way, not on a bike. Hug the coast line as much as you can down to San Clemente, head inland from there. Good luck, Chris.”
I shook Suchet’s hand and thanked him and then climbed into the cab of the dump truck. The driver, Beau Stewart, was a man of few words, his vocabulary consisting mainly with phrases like, “take that you son of a bitch,” and “how’d you like them apples?” Still, he was as good a driver as Sam Suchet had said and, whether he had driven Nascar or not, he certainly subscribed to the ‘balls to the wall’ school of driving. Straight out of the parking lot he basically put his foot on the gas and kept it there, all the way to Palos Verdes. Anything that got in his way, vehicles, Zs, debris, barricades was simply annihilated.
And so, a journey that would have taken me three days was completed in just over an hour. I stood and watched the dump truck drive away and looked towards the place I’d visited so often in my dreams. In front of me was a low chain link fence with nothing more to deter the trespasser than a sign that said, ‘Pendragon Corporation. Keep Out.’
Beyond the fence was a strip of sand thirty yards wide and beyond that the blue waters of the Pacific.
I was about to climb the fence when an object to the right caught my eye and I walked in that direction. The rusted, flattened sign that I’d dreamed about, the one that Ted had totaled with his VW Camper said, ‘No Surfing’.
twelve
I left my rucksack with the bike and scaled the fence with the AK slung over my back. I half expected to be confronted by guards, but there were none, at least none that I could see. To my right there was a rocky outcrop that hid the coastline running north and the house on the cliff that I knew was there.
It was heading towards late afternoon but it was still hot, with only the hint of a breeze to take the edge off the day. As in my dream the sea was calm today, with nothing to interest even a novice surfer. Ted and Perry would have called it a bummer.
I stood looking out to where the blue of the sky met the blue of the ocean, and then I started walking across the beach towards the water. As I cleared the rocky outcrop I looked north and followed the familiar, gentle curve of the coastline. I knew the house would be there, and it was, nestled precariously on its cliff.
I’d always imagined a sense of elation on finding this place, imagined myself running towards it driven by hope and expectation. But now that it stood before me I felt strangely disappointed. Stripped of its dreamlike qualities, the house was just a house, an unusual house granted, but just a house.
I started walking along the waters edge and as the sandy beach gave way to rock and tidal pools, I found a steep path and followed it upward. It was hard going and by the time I reached the narrow rock shelf at the top I was drenched in sweat. I followed the path along the shelf and presently it opened into a plateau of shale and rock and scrub with a small grove of stunted pines to one side.
Dominating the plateau was the house at the end of the shale pathway. The walls were not as pristine white as in my dreams, but otherwise it was identical.
I followed the path towards the front door, which carried a ghostly imprint where the brass plaque I’d dreamed about had been removed. The door was ajar and I stepped through into a short passage that led onto an open plan space with white walls. There were large windows to the fore, now allowing the late afternoon sun to create geometric patterns on the wooden floor.
I headed upstairs and found a labyrinth of rooms, all but one painted the same monotonous white, all of them empty. The room that differed from the others had walls decorated in blues and greens depicting an enchanted kingdom under the sea with Neptune on his throne attended by mermaids.
This room carried the faint scent of strawberries and I lingered there, knowing that this had likely been where Ruby had been kept. I suppose I imagined that standing in that space where my daughter had so recently been might provide me with some insight, but if the room held any secrets, it wasn’t giving them up.
I was about to leave when I noticed an object on the floor. I scooped it up and it was a small plastic bracelet, the kind patients wear in a hospital. There was a name on the bracelet. It said, “Justin.”
The third floor was deserted too and through the windows I could now see the first signs of dusk turning the azure sky indigo. As I looked out, a black helicopter drifted by, its rotors reflecting golden in the fading sun.
I figured I should probably run, but I had neither the strength, nor the desire to do so. I felt hollow, used up, spent. Ever since my conversation with Joe Thursday in Flagstaff, I’d known that I wouldn’t find Ruby here. Still I’d clung to a tendril of hope. Now even that had been crushed and nothing the Corporation could do to me could possibly be worse than the pervasive feeling of emptiness.
I descended the steps slowly, with the AK in my hands but with no intention of firing it, no matter what happened.
“Disappointed?” Joe Thursday said when I met him at the foot of the stairs. Joe was wearing his corporate suit and I imagined there was a hint of smugness on his face. On another day I might have been tempted to lift the AK and wipe it off.
“I told you not to come,” Joe continued, and I was about to respond when he said. “But I figured you would. You always were a determined son of a bitch, Chris.”
“Where is she?” I said.
“She’s safe.”
“And happy, Joe. Is she happy? When she’s not being used as a lab rat, that is.”
“That’s not how it is”
“Isn’t it? Next you’ll be telling me you have her attending kindergarten.”
“Ruby was never going to attend kindergarten, or school, or college or get a job and a husband and a house in the suburbs. Ruby is different. Don’t you understand that?”
“What I understand is that you have my daughter, and I want her back.”
“Not going to happen, Chris.”
“Then you may us well shoot me, Joe, because I won’t stop looking till I find her.”
“You’re the one holding the gun.”
I passed the AK to him and he took it and looked it over with a practiced eye. “Still using this old relic, huh.” he said and cocked it. “Don’t get me wrong, this is a fine rifle. Not a patch on the R5, though.” He placed the rifle against the wall. “I’m not going to shoot you Chris. I’m going to make you a proposition.”
thirteen
“You want me to work for the Pendragon Corporation?”
“And what would I be doing exactly? I can’t see that I have any particular skills you could use.”
“Come on Chris. Three years on the road, you’re a survivor, and what is the new world order about, if not survival.”
“So what would I be doing exactly?”
“You’d be assisting me.”
“And in exchange I’d get to see Ruby.”
“Well it’s not like you’d have visitation rights or anything. But yes, you’d get to see her from time to time.”
“I’d need to know more Joe. Who would I be working for? I’ve spent the last three years running from you guys. I’ve seen the results of BH-17, and I’ve had first hand dealings with some of your Resurrection Men, Stan Tucci for example. That’s not something I want a part of.”
“Anything I can clear up for you, I’d be happy to.”
“Okay, who is Pendragon? What are you trying to achieve exactly?
“Are we talking corporate strategy here?”
“No, we’re talking a no bullshit answer. Are you the good guys, Joe?”
“I believe so.”
“And what exactly are you trying to achieve?”
“We’re trying to restore the world to normality.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
Joe whistled through its teeth. “Number of ways. Most importantly we need a zombie clear out. And we need a way of ensuring that there’s no chance of a re-infection. And if there is, we need the means to deal with it. An antidote.”