by Bible, Jake
“We can’t move Charlie,” Reaper says.
“And I’m not leaving my son,” Stella growls.
“You know my vote,” I say.
“I stay with them,” Elsbeth says.
“Greta,” Stella replies, “she’s back there.”
“No, I’m not,” Greta says as she climbs down the ladder. “What the hell is going on? No one will tell me jack sh…” She sees Charlie. “Oh…no…”
“Elsbeth,” Stella says, “please take her back to the bed.”
“I’m going to fight,” Elsbeth says.
“I need you to take Greta back to the bed,” Stella says. There’s a tone in her voice I know well.
“Mom, I’m not leaving…” Greta starts.
“YOU WILL DO AS YOU’RE TOLD!” Stella roars. “ELSBETH GET HER BACK THERE!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Elsbeth says. Without another word, she grabs up Greta and leads her to the ladder. The two climb up quickly.
More shots and I see a spark a foot above my head.
“Thoughts on those things?” I ask.
“I’d try to outrun them,” Critter says, looking at the dashboard. “Which I could do. This thing is faster than a bulldozer any day.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I ask.
“Fuel,” John replies.
Critter nods. “We have enough to get us to where I park this baby and not a drop more. I take a detour and we’ll run out well before then.”
I can see the bulldozers getting closer, and the armed men riding on top, as they shove Zs by the dozens out of the way. It was the plan all along- flood the area with Zs, overrun the survivors, then bring in the slow rolling cavalry.
So why bother with the dirty bomb?
“We’ll take out the drivers,” John says as he grabs the ladder and climbs up. “I’ll bet there’s more than one good shot back there.”
“There’s plenty,” Melissa says and follows.
“Get up there, Stuart,” Stella says. “Get safe.”
“No way,” Stuart says and takes a knee next to us, his rifle at his shoulder. “My place is right here.”
He looks over at me and I nod. He nods back. Nuff said.
***
Men poor into the front door of the Biltmore House, their rifles out and ready. But the first few don’t get a chance to use them. Stacy squeezes the trigger of her AR-15 again and again. Her breath is relaxed and controlled as she sights down the barrel, putting a bullet into the forehead of every man that is foolish enough to come at her.
The rifle clicks empty and she has the magazine ejected and a new one in without skipping a beat. More men get cut down quickly. One of the men hits the ground and his hand opens up. A small pear shape falls from between his fingers and Stacy rolls backwards, ducking into the stairwell to the basement.
The world erupts around her and she slams her hands over her ears, losing her grip on her rifle. Helpless she watches it clatter down the steps and bounce around the landing, lost from sight. Her options are to go after it, and lead the men into the basement towards Platt and Antoinette, or get her ass up and fight them off.
Stacy steps from the stairwell, a pistol in one hand and a collapsible baton in the other. She flicks open the baton and starts to run towards the front door. The first few men see this battle crazed woman covered in dust and soot and hesitate.
Not the best reaction if one wants to stay alive.
***
Above me, I hear gunfire ring out, matching what is coming from below. Blood poofs out of the chests and heads of the bulldozer drivers, but their bodies are just shoved out into the throngs of Zs and someone else takes their place, keeping the machines rolling towards us.
Critter grunts and I look over at him.
“Just a nick,” he says. I narrow my eyes and he tilts his head to show me the scratch on his neck. “Got lucky.”
Bullets bounce around us and I realize the men on the bulldozers aren’t trying to shoot us, but are trying to shoot out the engine of the truck: their fire is concentrated on the front grill.
“How much can this thing take?” I ask.
“A lot,” Critter says. “The engine is reinforced. So don’t worry. This thing is built to take a beating and not stop. Otherwise it’d be useless down in them quarries and shit.”
“True,” I smile then duck as a bullet flies past my head. “Fuck.”
I look down at the road and realize we’re going full on Footloose with the bulldozers.
“I’m holding out for a hero,” I sing. “I’m holding out for a…”
“Jace, no,” Stella says. “Just no.”
“I’ve stopped the major bleeding,” Reaper says. “But his left lung is a fucking mess. He has maybe a couple hours before he drowns in his own blood.”
“Critter,” Stella says, “you get my boy to your place, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Critter says.
The engine revs and Critter actually speeds up.
“Uh, Crit?” I ask. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Makin’ some time, Long Pork,” Critter grins. “Just like the lady wants.”
We’re twenty yards from the first bulldozer then ten then five then… CRUNCH!
The whole truck shudders as Critter swerves and drives the truck up and over the first dozer, crushing the cage around the driver, and smashing the men riding on top. He yanks the wheel and aims for the other bulldozer, but that driver sees him coming and turns to avoid the massive haul truck. Unfortunately, in his panic, he doesn’t realize he’s turning his dozer right at the guardrail and over the edge of the on ramp.
The bulldozer is lost from sight over the edge, but we hear it hit the interstate below.
“Two done for,” Critter says as he swerves again and aims for dozer number three.
The gunfire has pretty much stopped as our people hang on for their lives, and the attackers below jump from their vehicles, frantic to get away from the madman driving towards them. Some of the men make it through the Zs and scramble up the embankment and onto the roads of Asheville. But most of the panicked men are taken down quickly, their guts ripped from them, their throats torn open, their lives lost in an orgy of undead hunger.
The third dozer is demolished and then the fourth. Critter gets to the fifth, which has just been abandoned by its driver, and then we run into a problem. Literally run into it.
“Shit,” Critter shouts as he works the steering wheel back and forth while gunning the engine. “The damn thing is wedged!”
I get up and look over the edge of the platform and can see the bulldozer below, jammed up under the front of the truck. It’s so tight in there that every time Critter hits the gas to move us forward it just digs the bulldozer down into the pavement, making it worse.
“Stop!” I yell. “We have to get it out of there!”
I look down at the road, and the last bulldozer, and point.
“Stuart,” I say.
He lifts his gun and fires, taking the head off the driver.
“Thanks,” I say. I look around on the platform and see what I need.
“No problem,” Stuart says as he nods at me. “But I don’t know what good. HEY! Get back here!”
I’m already at the ladder, with a length of heavy duty chain wrapped around my bad shoulder, and heading down to the road.
“I’m going to tow it out from under!” I shout up. “Get ready to hit reverse, Critter!”
“You crazy son of a bitch!” Critter yells at me, but gives me a thumbs up.
It’s a great plan in theory, I realize as my feet hit pavement, but the execution wasn’t exactly thought through.
There’s still a lot of Zs around.
“Shit,” I say as I shift the chain over to my good arm and raise Stumpageddon.
Ground glass, man. Ground glass. That’s all I feel.
But it doesn’t slow me down. You know how they say there’s nothing more dangerous than a mama Grizzly bear? Yeah, they’d say that abou
t a papa Grizzly too if the deadbeats didn’t take off after getting their rocks off. But, I’m not a Grizzly, I’m a man. A papa man. And we can get really, really motherfucking pissed off too.
I stab and kick and swing and smash my way into the herd. I can see the bulldozer just in front of me and only maybe a dozen yards away, but that might as well be the Pacific Ocean between us. There’s just too many Zs. My idea to attach the chain and then tow the bulldozer out from underneath was noble, but pointless. No matter how pissed off a papa bear I am, I’m no match for a fucking herd of Zs!
But I tried.
And since I’m already dead, it’s at least a valiant way to go out. You don’t always get to pick your ending in the apocalypse, so maybe I should feel lucky.
“Don’t stop moving,” Elsbeth’s voice growls at my side.
“Give me that,” Cassie says from my other side, taking the chain from me.
The sisters are there, and so is Stuart, and quickly make a protective barrier against the Zs so Cassie can attach the chain to the wedged dozer. Stuart pushes me forward, with Elsbeth and Brittany at his side, and we kill our way to the bulldozer.
My breath is coming in ragged gasps by the time I get to the machine and climb up into it. And come face to face with a hungry Z about to bite my nose off. Then its face is gone, along with most of its head, and I slam my mouth shut, muffling my cry of surprise, and avoid a mouthful of Z yuck. I look back at the truck and see John at the very top giving me a nod.
“Move,” Stuart says as he takes the wheel. “There’s no way you can shift and steer with one hand, dipshit.”
“You don’t think sometimes,” Elsbeth says and taps me on the forehead as she climbs up next to me. “But you don’t have to think to kill Zs.”
She slams a blade into the head of a Z trying to get up at us. I turn and stab another on the other side of the bulldozer. We keep doing that, over and over and over, until Stuart is able to get us moving in reverse.
“Now!” he yells at Critter.
For a couple seconds nothing happens then all of a sudden the wedged dozer comes loose and it feels like the bulldozer we’re on is rocketing backwards.
“Oh, shit!” Stuart yells and grabs me as he dives from the driver’s seat.
We fly off the bulldozer as it turns and rolls off the side of the raised highway, crashing into the asphalt below.
“Get moving,” Elsbeth says, “Now.”
The sisters are cutting a path to us, and Stuart and Elsbeth are fighting harder than ever to meet them. But I can barely move. My entire right side is in agony. With every step, I think I’m going to die. All I have to do is breathe and the sensation of a trillion huge needles stabs into my shoulder, my side, my chest.
I fall to my knees.
“Long Pork!” Elsbeth shouts. “Move!”
“I can’t,” I say. “Go. You know I can’t really stay with you.”
“Get up, asshole!” Stuart yells as he runs back to me. “Stop being a drama queen!”
“I’m not!” I shout back, which brings on another round of KILL ME NOW pain. “I’m dead already, man!”
He stops and looks at me.
“What the fuck?” he asks as Elsbeth decapitates two Zs that lunge at us.
“He’s been bit,” she says. “He’s dead.”
***
“I’m already dead,” Platt says, “get out of here.”
The struggle on Antoinette’s face is obvious and Platt smiles up at her as he grabs onto the ladder that led down into the massive pool in the Biltmore House basement.
“Go help your sister,” he says. “Save yourselves. I’m going to get this down in there and wait it out. If what John has said is true, Atlanta is going to blow this soon.”
“You don’t know that,” Antoinette says.
“I don’t,” Platt says, “but I have to plan for it.”
He gets to the bottom and takes a few deep breaths as he unslings the pack with the dirty bomb and sets it at his feet. He reaches up and Antoinette drops him a pistol that he catches with barely a bobble. Even wounded he’s the soldier he was trained to be.
“What if they get past us?” Antoinette asks. “They’ll just kill you and take the pack back up top.”
Platt aims the pistol at the pack and shakes his head. “They won’t get close enough. That’s why you have to go. Get as far away as you can, as fast as you can. You don’t want to be around here when this goes off.”
Antoinette nods, turns, turns back, nods again, then runs out of the pool room. Platt watches her go then pushes the pack along with his foot, too exhausted to bend down and pick it up.
***
The first bullet enters Stacy right above the right breast. Her body twists, but she keeps her feet and lashes out with her baton, crushing the man’s skull that holds the smoking pistol. The second bullet hits her left thigh and that takes her down. Her knee slams into the concrete of the Biltmore House’s main entrance and she grunts, but doesn’t cry out. She won’t give them the satisfaction.
The third bullet hits her in the throat just as Antoinette makes it upstairs and gets to the massive doorway. Stacy is hit again in the chest, dead center, and her body spins about. Her eyes meet Antoinette’s and then glaze over as her heart beats one last time. She falls forward and collapses onto the floor, another body added to the dozens that she already killed.
Antoinette screams, but doesn’t slow down. She grabs up a rifle and sprints past the entrance, pulling the trigger and emptying the gun into the men rushing at the house. They dance and shake as they are hit, but she doesn’t see them as she tosses the empty rifle to the ground and runs as fast as she can to the billiards room.
Dashing into the room, she leaps and slides across the antique snooker table, and hits the ground running. Her hand reaches out and she slaps the wall, triggering yet another hidden door. In she goes and takes the small set of steps that leads down to the servant’s quarters.
She’s down the steps and still moving, hurrying past educational displays of what life was like for the people that used to work the estate during its glory days. She doesn’t stop to look at the plastic fruit or empty milk cans; she doesn’t give two shits about history right now. Her future is all she cares about
She finds the back doors where suppliers used to make deliveries and lowers her shoulder, slamming into the old wood and snapping the chain that secures the doors. The clean air of summer hits her face as she runs from the house out towards the fields beyond.
She hears shouts and gunfire and knows she’s being pursued, so instead of running down towards the river, she turns and heads for the front of the estate.
And the field of undead still standing.
***
“You stupid fuck!” Stuart yells as he drags me to my feet. “You were trying to die, weren’t you?”
“Maybe,” I say as he pulls me along.
The sisters have cleared us a path and are busy keeping it clear as Stuart yanks me along, his fist lashing out at the random Z that get’s past the women.
“You selfish son of a bitch!” he shouts.
We reach the truck and Critter is hollering for us to get on since we’re wasting gas. Stuart shoves me into the ladder and I cry out, but I climb up, not wanting to take anymore shit from him. I get to the top and Stella is glaring.
“I got it moved,” I say. “For Charlie.”
“It was a suicide mission,” Stuart snarls from behind me. “He was bitten and has been hiding it.”
“What?” Reaper asks. “Jace? What happened? What haven’t you told us?”
“It was back at the Biltmore,” I say, tears filling my eyes. “A Z bit me.”
“God,” Reaper says. “What symptoms do you have?”
“My shoulder is black and fucked up,” I say. “There’s pus and shit. I can barely move it.”
“I knew something was wrong, but thought it was just the stress,” Reaper says. “What else?”
“What
do you mean?” I say. “I was bitten, man!”
Reaper’s eyes narrow. “Let me see.”
“COME ON!” Critter yells from the cab.
“Go,” Elsbeth says, “they’re on the ladder.”
Critter puts the truck into drive and gets us moving. I grab onto the rail as the machine lurches and give everyone an apologetic smile.
“Sorry,” I say.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Reaper says, “what else? What other symptoms?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s been two days,” I sigh, “I could turn at any second.”
“Let me see,” Reaper says and reaches for my shoulder. Elsbeth grabs his hand. “Seriously, El?” She lets go.
He flicks open a knife and cuts the shirt away from my shoulder. An intake of breath whistles through his teeth as he sees the mess that is my shoulder. I watch his eyes, noting how they study the wound. I’m ready for him to give me that knowing nod that everyone gets when they are told they will die.
But I don’t get that nod. Instead, his face scrunches up, pissed.
“You fucking moron,” Reaper says as he probes the wound with his fingers, “it didn’t even fucking break the skin!”
“What?” I cry from the pressure he’s putting on my shoulder. “But look at it! See the holes? See the pus? Fucking pus, man!”
I look down and can see how black and puffy the whole area is. The pain is beyond intense and I know he’s wrong. I’m a dead man standing.
“The Z fucking shattered your clavicle,” he says and smacks me across the face. “You have a fractured collar bone, dipshit! And the bone fragments have dug through your flesh and it’s infected! Jesus, you fuck! You aren’t dying from a fucking Z bite, you’re dying from fucking blood poisoning!”
“What?” I whisper. “Wait…I’m still dying?”
“Unless I can dig out the fragments and cut out the infection,” Reaper says. “And we can get you on some antibiotics.”
“Critter has plenty,” Elsbeth says and looks into the cab. “Don’t you?”
“Plenty, little lady,” Critter says. “And don’t hit me for callin’ ya that. It’s a term of endearment.”