Anna couldn’t see or hear anything. Knowing that her son was within sight of at least one of the dead, she couldn’t take it. She climbed up the tree herself and clung to a branch on her side of the fence looking around wildly until she spotted Damon dashing from behind one tree to another.
Damon cautiously made his way toward what used to be Mrs. Wright while simultaneously watching the house and the front yard. Seeing nothing to cause alarm, he crept over to Mrs. Wright. She lay at the bottom of three stairs that led to the front door. He guessed she was old enough that falling down three steps was enough to cause her legs to twist and fracture. Her left femur had snapped, and six inches of the large bone had pierced her skin and jutted out from her thigh. Both feet were twisted at awkward angles. One foot was still covered with what he considered to be an old lady slipper, light blue with pastel pink flowers winding around it. The other foot was bare, exposing countless blue veins pushing against paper thin skin.
As she sensed his presence, her raspy moans grew slightly louder. His eyes drawn toward her face; he saw the bite wounds that must have killed her. Her tissue paper skin was torn from neck to shoulder and rings of bites continued down the top part of her arm. Her pale blue eyes no longer shined but looked empty, pale and gray. Her jaw started snapping and clicking and her hand, fingers curled and gnarled with arthritis, reached for him. She struggled to sit up, but her body didn’t cooperate.
Damon reached for the top of her head and pushed her face to its side. He took his knife from its sheath and plunged it through her ear. The raspy moan ceased immediately as her brain was destroyed. He withdrew his knife, wiped it on her floral night shirt then placed it back in its sheath.
Curiosity getting the best of him, Damon peered inside the front door. From her perch in the tree next to fence Anna gasped as she watched her only son make his way inside the front door and into the house. As she debated whether or not to jump down and run over to him, he abruptly came back out and with his hands on his knees, hunched over to vomit. Only when his stomach was fully empty was he able to stand upright again. He glanced over at his mom giving him the evil eye from the tree branch she was sitting on. He knew from the look on her face that she was bursting at the seams to yell at him but had no choice but to hold it in.
Once Damon felt sure that his mom was going to stay in the tree, he quickly crept back inside the Wright’s house. Mr. Wright lay prone on the living room floor moaning quietly and breathing shallowly. At his side, a twenty-something brunette was bent down on her knees slowly pulling his intestines from his abdomen. The ropey pieces shimmered with fresh, bright red blood as she lifted them to her mouth and took a large bite. With blood running down her chin, she was unaware of Damon’s presence as she focused on her meal. Mr. Wright’s teary eyes stared into Damon’s, silently and desperately pleading for help.
Damon recognized the brunette as their granddaughter. His thoughts ran wild as he quickly contemplated how this must have happened. The Wrights rarely left their home. They were well into their eighties and rarely drove. Their granddaughter lived nearby and visited often. She did their grocery shopping and ran the occasional errand for them. From his vantage point, he saw only a small bandage on her forearm. Damon could only guess that she had been bitten and not knowing any better, had headed to her grandparent’s house to treat her wound.
At first sight, seeing Mr. Wright suffering such a slow, painful death had caused Damon to run out of the house vomiting. But now he was prepared to do what needed to be done. Knife in hand, he carefully approached the feasting granddaughter from behind. Just as he reached to grab her by her ponytail so he could thrust his knife, she sensed his presence and turned her face toward him.
Looking at her dead eyes and blood rimmed lips with blood dripping down her chin onto her chest, Damon rushed forward. He plunged the knife at her head but only managed to cut half of her ear off. He widened his stance, bent both legs at the knees and held his arms up, ready to leap forward. Her hands reaching up toward him, he shoved them away, grabbed her by her hair and forced the knife through her eye. She immediately went limp. He turned and knelt close to Mr. Wright’s face. His tears had stopped, and his eyes had closed. His shallow breathing had stopped. He was dead. Damon knew that he would come back, so he took a deep breath then determinedly thrust his knife through Mr. Wright’s ear. He let out the breath he’d been holding, wiped his knife clean on the carpet and stood up.
He left the house quietly, made sure there were no dead in the yard and made his way back to the tree where his mother was anxiously waiting for him.
“What the fuck, Damon?” Anna hissed at him as he climbed back into their yard. His face was a mask concealing his emotions.
“Not now, Mom,” Damon whispered. Anna quietly dropped from the tree landing next to him. “Damon,” she pushed.
He let out a long sigh. “After I killed Mrs. Wright, I found their granddaughter eating Mr. Wright. He was still alive. I took care of both of them,” He answered with a tone of finality in his voice. Anna could tell that he was done talking.
Anna wanted nothing more than to both wring his neck for putting himself in such danger and to hug him tightly and reassure him that everything would be okay. There was a change in his step, his voice and how he was carrying himself. She felt like she was watching the remainder of his innocence slip away before her eyes. She felt herself start to tear up, but immediately calmed herself. There would be time to feel those emotions later.
They continued on their perimeter check and moved closer to the front nearing the brick wall that ran the width of their property toward the front of their yard. There was a small, wooded area between the brick wall and the street which camouflaged the wall well. Their house was hard to find if you didn’t know exactly where it sat. They had never once been able to have pizza delivered.
Anna braced against the wall listening intently for the sound of the dead on the other side. Hearing nothing, she motioned for Damon to pull himself up for a better look. He noted that all three neighbor homes visible from across the street appeared to have fallen to the dead. Open doors, dark splotchy stains that were hard to discern from a distance but which he presumed were blood adorned a silver SUV, a white car and two open front doors.
An unfamiliar noise close to the street and to his left grabbed his full attention. Three of the dead were shuffling quite slowly in the middle of the street. They were too far away for him to see any details, but the shuffling told him all he needed to know.
He quietly lowered himself and described the scene to his mom. Their street was nearly free of the dead and their presumed to be dead neighbors were nowhere within sight. By the time the three zombies that were walking down the street made it closer to the house, Anna and Damon would be safely back inside.
Anna and Damon stepped quietly behind the brick wall to the privacy fence lining the other side of their yard. They moved slowly and deliberately with Damon occasionally boosting himself up to peek into yard of the neighbor on that side. The neighbor’s wooded front yard was free of the dead, no cars were in the driveway, and the house appeared perfectly normal. The couple who lived there were both likely at work when everything had fallen apart, and it didn’t appear that either of them had made it back home.
They continued on through their back yard passing the empty pool area. Their yard hadn’t been breached nor had the rear yards of either of their neighbors. Anna held no illusions that they would be able to stay in their home forever, but everything they were seeing gave her hope that they would be safe there for a while.
As they neared the rear fence, Anna and Damon both froze. They heard footsteps on the other side. They kept still and silent, straining to hear whatever was on the other side of the fence, and resisting the urge to boost themselves up to look.
Upon hearing a feminine voice whisper “Zombies eat brains, you’re safe”, Anna breathed a sigh of relief and a huge smile lit up her face.
Chapter 21
Max drove slowly and cautiously down the interstate. Jesse rode shotgun and Vince sat in the backseat of the extended cab pickup truck. Far behind them falling out of sight were the hundreds of zombies that came from the hospital area.
Across the median sat wrecked and abandoned cars as well as occasional clusters of the dead. One car had passed them driving east on the other side of the highway. Otherwise they hadn’t seen another living person.
Max was able to weave around the static vehicles with relative ease until just after they passed the third exit. A huge crowd of the dead were entering the highway via the onramp. As they encroached upon the highway they naturally spread to the path of least resistance moving forward, which left them spread across all four lanes from the center concrete median to the shoulder on the right.
There was no way to continue forward without going through them. The only thing working in their favor was that most of the zombies were still on the onramp. Those that were already on the highway had formed a thin line spanning its width. As more of the dead entered the highway, it would become impassable.
Not wanting to repeat what had happened with the SUV, Max was hesitant to drive through the crowd. His only other option would have been to backtrack. With the large crowd they’d left behind them a couple miles back, that could leave them stuck in the middle between two crowds of the dead.
“They’re thinnest by the median,” Jesse pointed toward the concrete barrier separating the east and west lanes. “We’ve got no choice. This truck is bigger than the SUV was. It can probably take more damage.”
“There’s way too many of them to do anything else,” Vince added. “And if the truck dies, we just go pick out another one.” He pointed at the array of static vehicles that dotted the highway.
“Alright, brace yourselves,” Max said. He veered as far left as he could go, with the side of the truck nearly touching the concrete median. He cringed as he hit the first body and felt it slide underneath the truck. He had to move faster because all of the dead were homed in on them now. If he didn’t get past the thin line of zombies here, they were going to become surrounded on all sides by the huge crowd of the dead coming up from behind and to their right.
The zombies ahead of him had all turned around and were walking toward the approaching truck. One after another the dead hit the bumper, the grill or the hood. Some cartwheeled over the top of the truck while others were flung to either side. The passenger side mirror snapped off as it clipped one of the dead. Several more zombies slipped under the truck. Max winced when he heard the loud pop of a skull as it was pulverized by one of the tires. To his relief the tire held.
Less than a minute after he’d started driving through the crowd, he’d made it through to the other side with no apparent serious damage to the truck. He’d lost both side mirrors and the windshield was covered in gore, but the truck was still sound. The windshield wipers mostly smeared around the mess on the glass, but they cleaned it well enough for Max to see.
About a mile up ahead the road transitioned into a three way interchange splitting the highway among three different interstates. There was a multitude of on and off ramps clustered closely together. The dead were thicker here and moved about in every direction and on every exit and onramp.
“Get ready boys, it’s about to get bumpy again,” Max said, gritting his teeth as he drove through a few of the dead. Three lanes veered to the right which is where he wanted to be. There were more deserted cars here than what they’d been passing so far. Slowing down to weave through the vehicles was necessary or he wouldn’t be able to get past them. Slowing down also meant the larger groups of the dead had more time to approach their pickup.
Jesse started guiding him through the stopped traffic so he could try to dodge as many of the zombies as possible. Vince watched, gun in hand, ready to use it if needed.
“Right shoulder is clear for half a dozen car lengths,” Jesse pointed. Max veered to the right before two cars that were blocking his way. Once on the shoulder he only had to hit one of the dead. It bounced off the bumper, briefly landed on the hood, then slid off when Max veered left again.
They were greeted with near gridlock traffic as Max drove off the shoulder. “Shit!” He swore, frustrated and starting to worry that they were going to get stuck here with way too many zombies around them to manage.
“Hang on,” Vince said as he opened the rear cab window and lifted himself up into the rear of the truck. Holding tight to the window, he looked ahead to find an opening. Standing in the bed of the truck gave him a much better vantage point than Max and Jessie had in the cab.
“Force your way back onto the shoulder,” Vince shouted. Max complied, pushing a small compact car to his left with the front of the pickup. “It’s going to be tight and you’re probably going to ride the guardrail, but stay on the shoulder until I tell you otherwise,” Vince hollered.
“Damn,” Jess muttered as the screech of metal on metal assaulted their ears. The oversized pickup scraped the guardrail and the line of cars to the left all the way to the end of the curve.
“The road’s about to open up a little bit. After you pass that bus coming up on your left, get over two lanes. Traffic’s backed up on the right with cars that were headed for the exit up ahead. Make sure you cut over immediately or you’ll get stuck,” Vince said.
Trusting Vince and his view of the road ahead, Max veered left immediately after passing the bus. Once there, he could see the backup in the two right lanes and the shoulder from cars that had been trying to exit. The left two lanes and shoulder were clear enough for Max to weave and wind his way through the mess of cars.
Vince climbed back in through the rear cab window. “Thanks man,” Max said. “I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to make it through there.” Vince nodded in response, while watching the zombies scattered around them.
After passing the exit, they had a clear enough stretch for about a mile where Max had to dodge more zombies than vehicles. The concentration of dead wasn’t too heavy, but there were enough that they could get boxed in if they weren’t careful.
They were coming up on a large bridge that sat high above the freeway when Max slowed to a near stop. The bridge was packed with zombies. Hundreds upon hundreds of them spanned one side to the other over both directions of traffic on the highway below. The dead were falling over the side down to the road. One after another they fell, jumped, were inadvertently pushed or even seemed to cartwheel over the railing. The dead were unaware of danger to themselves. They fell loosely, flying through the air expressionless, landing in broken heaps on the unforgiving ground below.
“Holy shit,” Jesse said. “It’s raining bodies.”
Whether the zombies were going over the side of the bridge because of the noise of their truck or because of something else, they weren’t yet sure. Most of the dead lay broken where they fell, many of them finding their second death as their heads smashed open upon hitting the road. A lot of bodies seemed to pop open and splatter on impact.
“Dude you’ve got to move. One of those bodies lands on the cab, it could kill us,” Vince said.
“How the fuck am I supposed to time that out? I don’t know when one is going to fall,” Max swore to himself then gritted his teeth as he pulled forward quickly to avoid the falling bodies. They were in the clear.
There was a multi-car pileup under the bridge spanning three lanes. It had to have been a horrific accident. Most of the vehicles were burned down to their frames, rubber tires now melded with the road. Several of the cars held charred dead inside. The zombies were burned so badly that they were barely able to move, yet they continued to slowly open and close their mouths as if hungry. They seemed unable to leave the charred remains of their cars.
Two police cars covered parts of the left three lanes, presumably to block traffic. The sirens were quiet but the light bars atop both cars continued to flash. Telltale streaks of blood were visible along the length
of the first vehicle which sat empty. As they got closer, they saw that the second police car had crashed into the inner wall beneath the bridge. A dead police officer sat in the driver’s seat still strapped in by his seatbelt. The inside of his window was streaked with gore and his left hand clawed mindlessly at the glass.
Parked at an angle in the far left lane just beyond the police cars were two ambulances. Both had their rear doors swung wide open. In the back of one, a dead man lay on a gurney, strapped down with its head and neck in a brace. They could just barely make out his gnashing teeth as his jaw snapped open and closed. His feet and lower legs looked to be nearly chewed down to the bone. No one else was inside the ambulance. The other ambulance sat empty, but streaks of dried blood were smeared throughout the inside and on the rear doors.
Max slowly drove past the ambulances. It was hard for him to look at the dead man on the gurney. To be strapped down for transport only to then lay there helpless as he was eaten alive. He focused on the road in front of him as he tried to shake the image from his mind.
Just beyond the burned out pileup, an engine fire truck sat angled sideways across nearly three lanes. More first responders who must have arrived at the accident before everything completely went to shit.
“Someone’s alive inside that fire truck,” Vince said. He pointed at the crowd of zombies surrounding the doors of the truck. The crowd was at least ten deep around the driver’s side of the truck. They could only guess that it was the same on the other side.
“Damn it,” Max swore. “We have to try to help them. We can’t leave first responders to die. We can’t leave anyone,” Jesse and Vince nodded in agreement.
“The dead don’t see us yet. They’re too focused on the truck,” Jesse said. “Gives us a chance to try to come up with some kind of plan.”
Chronicles of the Undead | Book 1 | Urban Gridlock Page 15