by JJ Zep
Roy got up and jogged back into the cage with an insane grin on his face. I could see that his face and throat had been badly lacerated and that part of his earlobe was missing.
The bikers were booing. Then Babs suddenly dropped to his knees and hurled and the boos turned to cheers.
Virgil Pratt was shouting something from the stage and I saw the door of the cellblock suddenly flung back. It was dark in D block, but enough light was thrown in from the yard so that I could see the Zs in there. It looked like the entire population of the Zombie Zoo had been turned loose.
I saw something else too, so quick that I almost thought I’d imagined it. In the sky out there a red light flicked briefly on and off.
I could hear the humming from the Zs now, that electric thrum with the power to drive you insane. Even the bikers fell silent as the Zs emerged from the cellblock, first tentatively and then with growing purpose as they perceived the presence of food nearby.
The red light blinked again, and this time I was sure I hadn’t imagined it.
twenty five
Babs was back on his feet and as the first of the Zs started running towards the cage, he moved quickly and pulled the inter-leading gate shut, then applied his bodyweight to it. The first wave of Z’s crashed into the gate and it bulged briefly but held. Roy ran to help him and I did too, but Babs pushed me back one handed.
I stumbled over one of the corpses in the cage and landed flat on my back and as I did, I saw the red light blink again, followed immediately by what looked like a firework being lit. A trail of light tracked across the night sky and collided with one of the guard towers, which exploded.
Chaos broke out in the yard as bikers ran for cover. Another of the towers exploded and now I could hear helicopter rotors and the sounds of automatic gunfire. Virgil Pratt was shouting something over the microphone but it was lost in a wail of feedback.
Two black helicopters now seemed to materialize from the darkness. One hovered low and I could see black clad men abseiling down on ropes.
The run was now a mass of writhing Zombies, but somehow Babs and Roy were still standing firm, still holding them back.
One of the helicopters had been hit by a burst of tracer fire from the last remaining guard tower. It spun out of control, firing off a missile as it did. The missile soared over the prison building and in the next moment there was a series of massive explosions out towards the main gate and I realized the gas tankers had been struck.
A fireball erupted at the front of the prison and I saw the stricken helicopter float sideways as though in slow motion. It drifted into the guard tower and exploded.
The yard was filled with flame and dust and choking smoke that burned my eyes. When I managed to open them a crack I could see that Babs and Roy were no longer at the gate. The gate, along with most of that side of the fence was no longer there. The Zs were in the yard.
I could hear screams and gunfire and I started to pull myself up into a sitting position.
“Stay down,” I heard a weak voice say, and then I saw Babs. He was pinned under the chain link gate, with the bodies of at least ten Zs on top of him.
“Babs,” I said and tried to get up again.
“Stay down,” he said more urgently.
“Let me help you,” I said but stayed down as he instructed.
“I’m beyond that, “ Babs chuckled, then said in a clear voice, “Roy was right. It does feel like my heart’s about to explode.”
“Babs,” I called out, but he lay there still and silent.
I’m not sure how long I lay listening to screams and shots and finally to the remaining helicopter lifting off and the sound of its rotors fading. When I finally got up, I went over to where Babs lie. He’d gone with a smile on his face like he’d said he would.
I found Roy’s body not far off. He looked to have come off on the wrong side of a fight with a meat grinder.
The yard resembled a battlefield in the aftermath of a particularly bloody fight. There were bodies everywhere, and the smell of burning flesh was pervasive. The perimeter fence was down in a number of places and part of the east wing was damaged. A fire blazed at the front of the prison.
Among the bodies I saw a number of men in black combat fatigues. I rolled one over and saw a dragon emblem and the word PENCORP stenciled on his bullet-proof vest. Roy had been right. The Corporation had had enough of Pratt and Tucci.
I picked up a shotgun and took a bandolier off the body of one of the guards. There were still a few Zs wandering among the carnage, and I put them down.
At the front of the building there was a huge crater, where the gas tanker trucks had exploded. At the bottom of the hole, a fierce petroleum-fueled fire still raged.
I dragged Babs and Roy around to the front of the building and rolled them into the fiery pit. It was the best I could do in the circumstances. I knew that Babs wouldn’t have wanted to be buried in a place like this and I guessed he would probably have appreciated the improvised warriors funeral.
At the other side of the yard I saw the tail end of the yellow school bus. The wing of the prison building had protected it from the blast and but for a few blown out windows, it was still amazingly in tact. I walked over and got on board. The key was in the ignition and when I gave it a twist it started right away.
Just then I saw movement in the rear view mirror. I slid from the drivers seat, rolled into the aisle and brought the shotgun up. I could see under the seats towards the back row, where someone’s legs were visible.
“I can see you,” I shouted. “Show yourself, or I’ll take your legs off.”
The legs were withdrawn immediately, but a small voice stammered, “Don’t shoot, mister.”
“Show yourself,” I repeated and the kid I’d seen earlier, Kelly I seemed to remember his name was, popped his head over the row of seats.
“You trying to get yourself shot,” I said, getting up.
“Sorry mister,” he said, looking down at his shoes.
“We need to get out of here,” I said to him, “and as this hulk looks like the only serviceable vehicle in here…”
“There are others,” Kelly interrupted. “Other people.”
twenty six
Kelly led me through the building to a row of three small cells close to the prison mess hall. There were about twenty people jammed in here, all of them women or kids in their teens. The cell doors were locked.
“How did you get out?” I asked Kelly.
“They took me out,” he said, “me and two others. They took us through to the kitchen just before the explosions started. The others…”
His voice trailed off and I could see tears welling in his eyes, and I pulled him towards me and gave him a hug. I could only imagine what the poor kid had been put through.
Looking over Kelly’s head I saw a key rack mounted on the wall, but even at this distance I could see that they weren’t for the cell doors. They did however remind me of a key rack I’d seen in Pratt’s office.
“Folks,” I said, addressing those crammed into cells. “Hang in there. I think I know where the keys are.”
I sprinted up the stairs and crossed the foyer to the Warder’s office. This side of the building had taken the full force of the explosion, and while the structure itself remained standing, all of the front windows had been blown in, turning to shrapnel and shredding everything inside.
The bar, most of the couches and the pinball machines had been completely destroyed and the walls were blackened and smoldering. There was a misty sheen of smoke that got in my throat and started me coughing.
It was dark in the warder’s office with the only light coming from the open door. I crossed to the key rack, looked at the mess of keys and realized that I had absolutely no idea what I was looking for.
There was a strip of masking tape running above each row with words written in marking pen. I scanned the rows hoping something would somehow clue me as to which set of keys I needed.
I�
�d reached the forth row, when I spotted it - a bunch of keys with the word ‘Larder’ printed above. Earlier in the day, when Kelly had been taken from the Z Zoo, Pratt had said, ‘take the kid to the Larder.”
I’d just lifted the keys from the hook when a voice spoke behind me.
“Find what you’re looking for?” the man said, and when I turned I saw the silhouette of Virgil Pratt outlined by the rectangle of light in the doorway.
“Sure,” I said, and threw the heavy set of keys at him, bowling underhand. Pratt had the drop on me, he knew that and perhaps it made him overconfident, but still he drew with lightning speed.
He managed to get the gun clear of the holster as the keys stuck his wrist. Pratt got off a shot and then I heard him scream and he fell to the carpeted floor and grabbed hold of his foot.
He kept screaming like a kid throwing a tantrum and I walked over to him and picked up his six-shooter. The bullet had ripped through his boot and removed the two small toes of his right foot.
“You son of a bitch!” Pratt screamed. “Look what you made me do! Ahh, Christ, that hurts.”
I leveled the gun at his head and he forgot about his mutilated foot in a hurry. “Don’t do it, Collins,” he pleaded. “Don’t do it.” Tears welled in his eyes and he started sobbing, “I don’t want to die! Please, don’t kill me.”
“Stop being a pussy,” I said, “I’m not going to shoot you.”
“You’re not?” he said uncertainly.
“No,” I said, and tossed the gun away.
“Oh thank you Collins, thank you. You won’t regret this.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said and started walking away.
After a few steps I stopped and turned back towards him. “By the way,” I said, “you’ve got company.”
I turned away then, catching as I did a glimpse of Zelda, rising from one of the charred couches.
twenty seven
After I’d released the prisoners, Kelly and I hustled them onto the bus and we left the prison. I drove back to 412 and turned left towards Tulsa. Two miles down the road we passed Tom’s old pickup, still with the hood up.
It was hot and my eyes felt heavy, and the previous nights exertion was starting to take its toll. I felt myself drifting off. The bus veered dangerously right and swiped one of the wrecks at the side of the road. I turned hard on the wheel, righted the bus, then slammed on the brakes. The vehicle shuddered to a halt and stalled, and I sat there, taking in deep breaths and feeling the adrenalin course through my veins.
“Sir?” someone said behind me and I turned to see a thin, auburn-haired woman of about mid-thirties, standing in the aisle.
“I drove a rig for about five years before all this happened,” she said. “Maybe you ought to let me drive for a bit. You look like you could use some rest.”
I was grateful of the offer and happy to let her take over. I walked to the rear of the bus and spread out on the back seat and fell asleep even before we’d pulled away again.
Immediately, I was in a dream, with the three year-old Ruby running ahead of me in her blue and yellow bathing suit, towards the white house with the red roof and parapets at the end of the shingle path.
The door opened as Ruby reached it and she turned towards me and smiled, then stepped through.
I started running up the path towards the door, which still stood ajar. There was a brass plate on the door with a word etched on it. The sun was reflecting off the plate, so I could only make out the first three letters of the word, P-E-N.
Then the door swung shut and the whole word was visible to me, PENCORP.
I sat up, immediately awake. For a moment I was unsure as to where I was. The dream still clung to my consciousness and the words PENCORP, hung there like a neon sign in a ghost town, PENCORP, Pendragon Corporation. Either Agent Roy had lied to me, or the information had been above his pay grade.
Downtown Tulsa loomed large on the horizon and I moved to the front to tell the driver to turn left at the overpass. I wanted to give the town as wide a berth as possible.
We were just passing the area where me and Babs had taken down the bikers when I spotted something at the side of the road and shouted, “Stop the bus!”
The diver stood on the brakes and the bus came skidding to a halt burning rubber. It swayed right and then the driver corrected far better than I could have done. Still, she managed to coax a few stifled screams from the passengers.
“The door,” I instructed and when it hissed open I clambered down the steps. I walked a few paces towards the rear of the bus and crouched in the dirt and the dog came trotting up to me. He looked a bit worse off than at our last encounter, in Giuseppe’s, but he following the same ritual he had then, sniffing my face, licking my ear and urinating on my boots.
“Hey feller, you want to go for a ride,” I said, and he followed me back to the bus and climbed the stairs after me.
twenty eight
We got back on the road and I returned to the back seat where, after a while, I fell asleep again. When I woke, the dog was on the seat next to me with his head in my lap. Kelly was there too, sitting off to one side. It was dark.
“Where are we?” I asked him.
“I think we just passed into Texas.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’ve been asleep that long?”
“Um mm, snoring too.”
“Really?”
“Just kidding,” Kelly said and I could almost hear him blush.
“There’s a gas station coming up,” the driver called, “I’m going to have to stop, we’re running kinda low.”
We pulled into a dusty and ancient station with two pumps, a couple of huddled buildings and an auto graveyard that was bigger than the station itself.
I asked Kelly to climb the ladder up to the roof and keep a lookout, while I stood guard with the dog beside me, and the driver checked out the pumps.
“Dry,” she reported back, “and we’re not going to be able to go much further. She’s running on fumes right now.”
“We’re gonna have to pitch camp here then,” I said. “See how things stand in the morning.”
Just then I heard a growl rumble in the dog’s throat. I’d heard that sound before and I followed his gaze towards the darkened buildings of the gas station. I could make out a shape back there and now heard a low moan.
“How far will this crate take us?” I asked the driver under my breath.
“No more than a mile or so, why…”
“Get Kelly down from the roof, get back on the bus, start the engine and be ready to shut that door the minute I’m on board.”
“But…”
“Just do it.”
The dog had now taken a couple of steps forward and stood rigid as a pointer, staring into the darkness, his hackles raised.
I looked in that direction too and I could now clearly make out a silhouette, darker than the blackness surrounding it. I brought the shotgun to my shoulder and lined the shape up in my sights.
Behind me I could hear Kelly descend the ladder, jump to the ground and run up behind me.
“Chris” he whispered, his tone urgent, “There are lights coming up the road.”
“How many?”
“Lots of them.”
The Dead Men
(Book Three of the Zombie D.O.A. Series)
by
J.J. Zep
PUBLISHED BY:
JJ Zep
Copyright © 2012
www.jjzep.com
one
“Mister,” the shape in the darkness said, “You fire that thing at me you’re gonna bring every Z for miles down on our ass.”
He was right of course, but I wasn’t about to put my trust in someone hiding in the shadows of an abandoned gas station on a desolate stretch of north Texas road.
“Who’s back there?” I demanded.
“Name’s Nate, but that’s not important right now. If what the boy said is true, you got a road crew heading this way, more than li
kely Dead Men. They see that bus and the Z’s are going to be the least of your problems.”
“Show yourself,” I said. The man stepped forward and I could now make out a figure of about medium height, a rifle held loosely in his hand.
“You alone?” I asked.
“No, I got another feller back here, been snake bit. Look, there really isn’t time…“
“Wait there,” I said, “I see you move and I’m firing, Z’s or no Z’s.” I jogged towards the bus, told Kelly to get on board and told the driver to pull it around to behind the gas station. Then I walked back across the yard, with the dog trotting beside me.
“What are you doing out here?”
“We were scouting the road. Cal got bit by a rattler. He’s in pretty bad shape. We heard you approaching and figured you were the Dead Men. That’s their slave bus you’re driving.”
“We ain’t them.”
“I know that now, but I suggest we pick this up later. Right now you need to get your people off the bus and into that grove of trees back there. They stop here they’re sure to check out the buildings.”
As if to confirm the urgency of the situation, the sound of the approaching motorcycles reached our ears for the first time, a distant snarl in the darkness. Still, I wasn’t sure. There were twenty people on that bus and they were my responsibility. If this was a trap and I made the wrong call…
It was the dog made the decision for me. He trotted up to Nate, sniffed his boots and then urinated on them.
“Okay,” I said to Nate, “show me.”
He led me back behind the buildings, where the bus now stood, still idling.
“Over there,” Nate said and pointed out a clump of stunted cottonwood trees, the only cover on the moonlit prairie.