by Damon Novak
We didn’t have any breakfast in us yet, but Lilly had some protein breakfast bars, so we all grabbed one and chowed them down, just to make sure we weren’t runnin’ entirely on empty.
“Start packin’ whatever you think we need. Lilly, might be best if we head out the garage door, right? We can pull the disconnect so we don’t have to run the door opener motor.”
“As long as we know it’s clear before we open it,” she said.
“Okay, bottles.”
“Here,” said Lilly. She went to the fridge and pulled out a six-pack of Coors bottles. “Open these and dump ‘em,” she said, handing it to Georgina. She took it and went to the sink. In a minute, she had six empty bottles.
“Okay, Georgie, how about you come with me to help set up, and Lilly and Sonya, y’all get our bags and stuff into the garage, ready to haul to the cars. Hurry. More are coming up the driveway.”
Ω
CHAPTER NINE
Georgina and I each tore open the larger bottle rocket packages.
When I was five minutes into the setup, I knew what I’d need. I ran back to the stairs and yelled down, “Lilly! Duct tape!”
I hurried back, settin’ the bottles up on the windowsill. Below us, no fewer than thirty people shuffled around. It was an odd thing, because in every zombie movie or TV show I’d seen, their clothes are all dirty and torn up, more like long-time homeless people than anything else.
But as I looked down at my former neighbors here in Everglades City, I saw they were dressed in bright colors, nice blue jeans and clean shoes and boots.
This was the beginnin’ of a zombie apocalypse. Of course it would start with people that almost looked normal. Clothes bright and clean, shoes on their feet. A lot of them still wearin’ glasses. What I knew would become of ‘em made me sad, just thinkin’ about it. Before too long – unless somethin’ changed, anyway – they’d be covered in blood and guts, their clothin’ torn away, feet bare. Their hands would be skinned and their fingernails broken away, leaving dangerous, jagged things to scratch people like me with.
As I stared down at them, I knew my immediate plan was to kill them before their clothes either fell out of style, or rotted from their bodies.
Sonya bounded up the stairs and ran into the room. “Here,” she said. “Lilly’s stacking cases of water by the door. All the best canned goods and dry stuff from the pantry, too. Everything else is already in the garage.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the tape. I situated the bottles at what I hoped was the right angle, taped them all together, then strapped them to the windowsill, tryin’ to maintain the cluster in the direction I needed the rockets to fly.
“Okay,” I said, holding out my hand. Sonya gave me all the largest bottle rockets, which I then dropped into each.
“Okay, Georgie, help me pull the fuses out of these firecrackers.”
“What for?”
“I need to make a long fuse to connect all the bottle rockets together, spaced out a bit so they don’t all go boom at once. Still need to figure a way to delay the firin’ until we’re ready to run.”
“Use one of the sparklers,” Georgina said. “That’ll work as a time delay, right?”
I looked down at the packages of sparklers, then back at her. “Goddamned good idea,” I said. “I’ll just wrap the long fuse around the sparkler about three inches down, and we can light it and go.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Great idea,” I said.
“Here. Put this beneath it so the sparks don’t catch the carpet on fire.” She put a large, mirrored tray on the floor beneath my sparkler.
“I shoulda just stayed downstairs, Doc. Good call,” Sonya said.
“I’m feeling good about this. I think it’ll work.”
I glanced up at Georgina, and saw her intently watching me twist the fuses together. If they seemed at all capable of untwisting, I knotted ‘em. I didn’t need any screw-ups. Our lives kinda depended on it.
When I was done, I tied my extra-long fuse around the center of the sparkler.
I let go and stood back. Nothin’ came undone or otherwise fell apart. “Let’s go see what kind of progress they’re makin’ downstairs. I’m thinkin’ we’re about ready to blow this fire trap.”
Ω
“I poured all the gas into two cans,” said Lilly. “And there’s a pack of bungee cords on top of them. You can strap them onto the rack on the back of the Rover. Your bag and everything else is sitting just inside the garage.”
“Okay,” I said. “Georgie, Sonya, y’all have your guns out and ready, but let’s start the practice of not usin’ ‘em unless there’s no other choice. Noise is definitely a draw. Y’all ready?”
Everyone nodded.
“Okay, I’ll run up and light the sparkler. We should have about two to three minutes from that point. Can’t wait to see if this works!”
“The sparkler?” asked Lilly. “If it works?”
I turned with a smile. “It’ll work. It’s the combined ingenuity of Dr. Georgina Lake and Professor Cole Baxter.”
“In your alternate reality,” said Lilly, shaking her head.
I didn’t say anything, but if the reality we were livin’ wasn’t alternate, then I didn’t know what the hell was. I took the steps two at a time and hit the landing at speed.
Reaching the set up, I pressed the duct tape flat against the windowsill again to make sure nothin’ pulled away when the rockets fired. I was almost afraid to light it.
I struck the wheel on the lighter and set the flame to the sparkler. It lit after three seconds, and burned bright as a miniature sun.
I ran down the steps, still takin’ ‘em two at a time. I leapt down the two steps into the garage and stopped in front of the girls. I reached up and pulled the red release handle for the garage door opener, and the door popped.
“Shit,” I whispered. “Anytime now, fireworks. That was loud.”
“Why aren’t they firing yet?” asked Sonya.
“Timer. Any minute now. Everyone, get your bags on your shoulders or in your hands.”
We all did. I bent forward with my hand on the interior handle, ready to pull it.
A faint zipper sound could be heard, then about a second later, a loud explosion.
“Good!” I said, in the loudest whisper I could. “That was good … now, one more.”
Another zipper, then another booming report.
“Ready or not,” I said, and pulled the door up.
Once it was five feet high, I raised it the rest of the way and let it go, making sure it wouldn’t slam into the top, making competing noises.
Another firework went off, and we all hesitated before moving out into the driveway. The ghouls were all moving toward the distant firework explosions.
We were halfway to the cars when another went off. That was four, and I’d set around twelve of them.
I ran the gas cans to the rear of the Rover and put them down on the rack. The bungee cords went through the handles and hooked through the diamond mesh on the rack. Our generator was propane, but we’d need this for vehicles if the power grid took a shit.
I saw the women had all gotten their bags into the Charger and the back of the Rover.
I ran back to get my gun bag. I bent down, hoisted it up and threw it over my shoulder. As I turned to run back to the Rover, I heard, “CB, watch out!”
It was Lilly. Instinctively, I looked toward her, but she was safely in the front passenger seat of the Land Rover, her eyes wide as she stared past me. I saw Georgie behind her, in the back seat.
I turned in time to be run smack into by a big ol’ boy who must’ve weighed 320 if he was an ounce. I felt the breath blow outta my lungs, and next thing I knew, I was fallin’ backward, the weight of my gun bag pullin’ me down hard.
I struggled like a bitch to get some air back into my lungs, but they were clearly not ready, and rejected every attempt at a breath.
I scratched around in the dir
t with my right hand, tryin’ to manipulate it from under the gun bag and behind me where my .45 was tucked into my pants.
In the meantime, I did the only thing I could do; I pistoned my boots forward, kickin’ the big bastard’s feet out from under him and sendin’ him to the ground.
Right towards me.
I managed to roll fast to my left, slidin’ my arm from the weapon bag’s straps, and avoidin’ getting smashed by just inches.
That dead guy went down hard. I swear I felt the wind as he passed by and the vibration beneath my body when he hit. I scrambled back to my feet, got my hand on my .45, and slammed the grip hard into the back of his head.
I didn’t wanna fire it for the noise, and I didn’t crack his skull or anything like that. I am positive I gave him a concussion at the very least – or the zombie equivalent.
When I looked back at the girls, they were starin’ off in the distance. I heard another bottle rocket fly, and looked up at the window of the house. Everything appeared to have held in place, and another rocket launched as I watched.
I followed the path of its flight and saw every single one of our would-be attackers, following the noise like bugs to a flame. The sheer number of them sent chills down my spine.
They were moving from the distant treeline, as well as from our property. I knew just beyond the small wooded area, there was a mobile home community.
There was apparently a very short attention span on these bastards as well, because when that Chris Farley-sized motherfucker got up from the ground, his eyes turned to the sky and he followed the boom.
Good boy, I thought. Save yourself another headache.
I put my gun bag inside ol’ Red Rover with the bags from Georgie’s house, nodded at Sonya, alone in her formerly gore-splattered Charger, and we got the hell outta Dodge.
Ω
Drivin’ was almost impossible now. There were, after what was probably a very long night for a lot of people, crashed cars and wanderin’ freaks everywhere. They were crashed into one another, into telephone poles, storefronts, street signs, you name it.
The things that used to be people were either movin’ together toward somethin’, or they were engaged and chewin’ on somethin’ that I didn’t want to give a lot of thought to.
“There’s a dog in the street there,” said Georgina. “Dead.”
“I saw one lying in a yard a little way back,” said Lilly.
“Wonder if those things attacked ‘em,” I asked.
Lilly stared out the window. “Who knows?” she said, her voice sounding tired and monotone. I was worried about her. She hadn’t cried very much if at all, and she needed to. A little breakdown can do you good. Like a relief valve on a pressure tank.
“I didn’t see any blood on it,” said Georgina. “Nowhere near it. No sign of what might’ve hit it, either.”
“Hell, there’s another,” I said. “German Shepherd, right there.” I pointed as I dodged around a man staggering straight down my lane toward me. “Man, I hope Sonya’s bein’ careful back there. This is crazy.”
“No blood by the Shepherd, either,” said Lilly. “Maybe whatever infected everyone killed the dogs.”
For some reason that got me. I thought about all the good dogs I’ve owned in my life and tried to picture a world without ‘em. I didn’t like that world very much.
I focused on gettin’ us to Alligator Alley. I figured once I got there, I’d be able to make a solid plan for gettin’ to the Keys, so long as no big rigs had jackknifed anywhere.
As I swung right, I checked the inside lane to make sure I could wave Sonya on behind me and saw another dead animal of some kind. This one wasn’t a dog. I’m pretty sure it was a cat. Calico, somethin’ like that.
I merged onto the access road with ease, because while there were some movin’ cars in the distance, there were more crashed vehicles, and if I lined ‘em up and played the angles, I could just zigzag through ‘em at speed.
I turned to stare at a dead deer in the shoulder of the onramp. That was another mistake I made. From somewhere off to my right, one of those freaks staggered into the tail end of the onramp, and the passenger side mirror of the Land Rover just caught his head.
I mean caught his head. It didn’t thump him or knock him sideways. His fuckin’ chin got lodged between the mirror and the bracket, and now he was caught there, draggin’ along, his left arm clawin’ at the window, and strings of bloody liquid sprayin’ from his mouth.
Behind me in the Charger, Sonya started honkin’ her horn, like I was fuckin’ unaware I had a dead dude hangin’ from my side mirror.
I stared at him, realizin’ he looked just like Tanner and Clay had before they … well, before I shot ‘em. I realized my ears were clogged and my mind was really strugglin’ with what had happened to the world.
Then the stuck guy opened his mouth and let out some weird, nearly inaudible shriek. When his mouth snapped closed again, he bit off his tongue, which flew away, caught by the whipping wind.
I felt like I was gonna be sick.
“Can’t you do something to knock him off?” asked Lilly.
I cranked the steerin’ wheel hard left and right a few times, and while it did swing the dead bastard to and fro a few times, he was caught good. His dangling feet must’ve been worn to nubs by now, but there was enough of ‘em down there to kick my goddamned door as he swung.
“Fucker’s gonna dent me good,” I said. “Lil, keep the window up and slide toward me.” I eyed the tollbooth coming up ahead. “I got an idea, but it’s gonna fuck up the Rover.”
“Just don’t screw it up so it won’t drive!” yelled Lilly. “I want to shoot this thing!”
My first thought was that she’d shatter my mirror, but it hit me that my plan was worse. I was about fifty yards from the tollbooth when I eased the Rover right until my tires were just an inch or so from the lane divider. On the right side were about eight low, yellow posts. Steel, filled with concrete, and buried who knows how many feet below ground.
“Hang on!” I yelled.
There were no cars in front of mine, and only Sonya behind me, so I floored it as I entered the chute leading to the booth. “Here goes nothin!” I shouted, and cranked it right, just an inch or two from the row of yellow posts.
The post caught his body right about mid-thigh, and when he slammed into it, his legs flew into the air, his body pivoting on his stuck neck; next thing I saw, his legs were straight up at 12:00 noon, headin’ toward 11:00 at speed.
That’s when it happened. His body had pivoted with such momentum that it snapped his cervical spine and tore his thrashed head from his body. Oddly enough, after hittin’ the pole, his body was thrown forward of my Rover, and when he landed, part of his headless torso must’ve slid under my front wheel.
We flew into the air, and that motion sent the head flyin’ out from my mirror.
I never saw the head come down, but I sure as hell felt somethin’ tweak in my steerin’. I was holdin’ the wheel hard to keep it from pullin’ all the way to the left.
“Shit!” I shouted. “Must’ve bent a goddamned tie rod.”
“Could just be a stabilizer,” said Lilly. “No matter. You’ve got both at the shop.”
“He’s gone anyway. Fucker was freakin’ me out.”
“Just get to the shop, CB.”
Georgina was very quiet in the back seat as I gripped the wheel hard and increased my speed to 60. I’d be there in ten minutes.
If nothin’ else went haywire.
Ω
After all that, we still pulled up to Baxter’s Airboat Tours & Gator Park in about the time I thought we would. The Alley was thick with stalled and crashed cars and trucks, but no jackknifed semis blockin’ the road or anything like that, so after we lost the hanger-on, all was well – except for my goddamned steerin’.
I stopped the Rover about a foot from the double-gate and threw it in park, settin’ the brake. I cut the engine because I had to use the key to unl
ock the padlock on the gate. I could’ve done that part in my sleep. I got out and waved to Sonya, who had parked so close behind the Rover that it looked like I was towin’ her. She looked worried, hunched over her steering wheel.
I unlocked the padlock, lifted the latch, and dropped the open lock back in. I then swung the gate inward, letting it stop on its own against a copse of mangroves as I leaned down to inspect my undercarriage for the damage.
I couldn’t see shit. I waved to Sonya again as I jumped back inside. “I hope it’s one of the parts I got,” I said. “Red Rover may not get the best mileage, but she’s got reliability on her side, and she can go anywhere.”
“If we don’t have the right thing, we got the welder and cutting torch. Maybe we can straighten what’s bent,” said Lilly. “Is it bad?”
I dropped it back in drive and accelerated, releasing the wheel. It spun hard left and I grabbed it before we drove off the road and right into the swamp.
“It’s really fucked,” she said.
“Truer words,” I said. I reached up and adjusted the mirror. “Georgie, you doin’ okay?”
I saw her back there, her eyes dartin’ back and forth at the swamp on both sides of her. Our shop was still a little further in, and wasn’t visible yet.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We got a cop right behind us if we start to get funny.”
“I’m just taking it all in,” she said. “Thinking of my daughter, too. What a difference a day makes.”
“Technically, two days,” I said.
“Yes, right,” she chimed in.
I had really taken a likin’ to Dr. Georgina Lake. She was a beautiful girl if you stripped away all the terror, and I liked her attitude. She didn’t freak out or panic. I supposed that was the doctor in her. She was trained to remain calm and hide her concern from her patients, other than the minimum she needed for a good bedside manner.
I reached the bend and fought the steering to turn the Rover right, into the parking lot. It only had ten spaces, but that was plenty for a normal day. It only had two vehicles in it; dad’s old Cadillac and a VW Van painted like a hippy owned it.