Carl looked around nervously for any sign of zombies, but the coast appeared clear. He took off his backpack and withdrew the bolt cutters. They made short work of the lock and Carl returned to the task of pushing the golf cart towards the street. It was harder than he had thought it would be. The damned thing was heavy! But it could be his ticket past the zombies clustered a block down the hill. So he kept pushing, while looking for any sign of danger.
It took at least three minutes for Carl to push the cart up the slight grade from the parking lot to Lomita Street. Luckily the crest of the hill was right there and he didn’t need to push it any farther. He was sweating and out of breath when he felt the cart roll a little more easily and realized that he had accomplished the first stage of his escape from the tower. It was all downhill from here, but certainly not without danger. He jumped into the driver’s seat and re-engaged the brake while he looked around for any threats. Still clear.
Carl wiped the sweat from his eyes and quickly rearranged his gear in the cart. If he needed a weapon, the fireman’s pickaxe would be too cumbersome in such close quarters, so he strapped it to the backpack and withdrew the smaller rock hammer/ice axe. Then he placed the backpack on the passenger seat. If all went well, he would need the folding ladder; he propped it between the floor and passenger seat. He was feeling apprehensive, but almost prepared for departure when the first zombie grabbed his shoulder.
It seemed to have come from nowhere, this bloody apparition that grabbed his left shoulder and bent its head towards his neck. Carl reacted instinctively with a right handed swipe of the ice axe that connected cleanly with the monster’s temple. A wet crunch rewarded the effort and the zombie, a teenage boy, fell limply to the ground. Carl’s relief was short lived, however, when he turned and saw five more running towards him from behind the cart.
Now or never! Carl thought. He released the brake and jumped out of the cart to push with all his might. It started to move slowly, too slowly, as the zombies closed in with what looked like grins of delight. Carl didn’t pause or falter. He pushed harder and ran faster until he realized that the cart was about to leave him behind. With a desperate spurt of speed and energy he leapt onto the golf cart and pulled himself into the driver’s seat.
The cart was accelerating down the hill as the zombies closed in from behind. One of the fiends was fast enough to reach the back of the cart and grab onto it. But the cart was still accelerating and the zombie lost its footing and was being dragged behind the cart. In Carl’s mind this was almost more dangerous than if it had climbed aboard, because it was slowing the acceleration of his escape vehicle. He knew that he had to get rid of the unwelcome dead weight. In desperation Carl turned towards a car parked parallel on the side of the road and swerved away sharply at the last moment. The angular momentum whipped the body of the dragging zombie into the rear wheel of the parked car. Carl felt the zombie get torn away from the cart and when he glanced back he saw that the impact had literally torn off one of the creature’s hands, which retained a death grip on the cart’s rear cargo rack. The rest of the zombie squirmed under the parked car.
Carl had time for neither celebration nor revulsion. The golf cart accelerated faster, pulling away from the pursuing zombies, but their moans and the sound of the zombie impacting against the car were attracting the attention of many more that moved out into the street along the next block. The golf cart was traveling at over 20 miles per hour when it crossed the first intersection with Grand Avenue, and Carl had to swerve to avoid a group that attempted to converge on it. He made it, barely, but the next block would be the worst one.
The street was lined with apartment buildings, and there must have been some normal people hiding inside them because groups of zombies were clustered around numerous doors and windows, struggling to gain entry. The appearance of the golf cart changed their priorities in a hurry though. Almost all of them turned away from the buildings and converged on Carl. He was doing more than 30 miles per hour down the steep hill, faster than a golf cart should ever travel. But he couldn’t chance using the brakes for fear that the zombies would close in on him, and was afraid to take any drastic evasive action either. So he gritted his teeth and gripped the wheel tightly as the unpowered golf cart plowed into one after another of the zombies. Carl did his best to avoid hitting them head-on. For the most part he was successful. Since the cart was narrower than a car, he didn’t have to swerve as much to get some deflection. He hit most of the zombies at enough of an angle that they spun away like bowling pins. One zombie zigged when Carl zagged and did get hit head-on, but it was merely thrown forward and the golf cart crunched over its body and kept rolling down the hill at high speed. The experience was still horrifying.
Unlike the ambulance, the golf cart was an open vehicle and zombies were able to reach for him as he zoomed past them. Dozens of bloody fingers and fingernails raked along his fireman’s jacket, but Carl only focused on keeping his exposed face and hands protected. It might have been comical, if it weren’t a matter of life and death.
The golf cart plowed through the next intersection and onto the lesser slope of the last block of the street. It was lined with commercial and industrial buildings that seemed to be less attractive to zombies. There were only a few of them visible here and Carl was able to avoid them with relative ease. The cart was still accelerating, but it was approaching the bottom of the hill. Now only the empty El Segundo Boulevard separated the speeding golf cart from the fenced-in oil refinery. Carl actually smiled at the thought of an errant vehicle broadsiding the cart as he ran the stop sign. Then he was crossing the street and stepping on the brake, aiming the golf cart between two large trees. He turned the wheel to avoid crashing into the fence. Suddenly the cart nosed onto a drainage ditch that he hadn’t spotted through the trees. He felt it tilt and roll onto the passenger side with a grinding a screech that jolted him sharply.
Carl clung to the steering wheel and kept himself from falling out of the cart as it rolled. But he knew that he had to move fast once it settled to a stop. He also noticed that a branch or root had slashed the back of his hand and blood was beginning to flow down his fingers; he was almost certain that the wound had not been inflicted by a zombie.
No time to worry about that now!
He climbed out of the overturned cart and reached in to pull out his priceless backpack, ice axe, and the all important folding ladder. He was almost too afraid to look back, but he had to know how much time he had. There were over a hundred zombies running down the hill after him, but most of them were still more than a block away. A dozen or so were closer, but even they were more than a hundred yards away. He just might have time to use the ladder.
Carl had practiced opening the ladder at the water tower and he deftly unfolded it now as he moved towards the twelve foot high fence. The top two feet of this fence was composed of strands of barbed wire, angled inwards, to prevent any normal person from scaling it. Carl didn’t care. He must either get over this fence, or be devoured by zombies. He got the ladder assembled just as he reached the fence and propped it up immediately.
As soon as the ladder felt secure he climbed it without looking back. But as he reached the top he felt the ladder shudder beneath him. Glancing down only made him move faster, because a blood drenched zombie in a policeman’s uniform had just grabbed the bottom of the ladder and was reaching for Carl’s legs.
Flight overwhelmed his fight reaction and Carl scrambled over the barbed wire and dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence. He rolled on the ground, turned and watched in horror as the zombie cop followed his example in climbing the ladder Carl had left leaning against the other side of the fence. Carl scrambled to extract the fire-axe from the straps on his survival backpack, realizing absently that he had been lucky it hadn’t impaled him when he jumped down from the fence.
The zombie cop was struggling to get past the barbed wire as Carl turned to face the fence and saw dozens of other zombies rushing towards
the ladder. He knew they could only climb it one at a time, and returned his focus to the flailing policeman zombie that tumbled over the fence towards him.
Carl stepped aside and swung overhand before the fallen body was able to stand, planting the pick end of the axe squarely in its skull. When he pulled the weapon free of the blessedly lifeless corpse, Carl noticed that the cop’s service pistol was still in its holster. Two more zombies were climbing the ladder as Carl bent down to claim the hand gun.
Chapter 6: Land’s End
“I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no one spot of its surface could I put my finger and say, here is safety.” Mary Shelly, The Last Man
George and his waterlogged companions had just reached the Expiscator when the helicopter swooped down and the machine gun on the armored vehicle opened fire. It was shockingly loud. George watched the chopper bank sharply away and seem to stagger for a moment as the line of tracer fire converged with it. Thankfully there was no smoke or fire, but George feared for the men and machine. Then he realized that the next burst of fire might be aimed at him and his family.
“Get down!” he yelled. “Move out of sight of the shore. Stay down while I go aboard and get this baby started. Hector, Pablo, get ready to untie the ropes and cast off. We may not have much time. The guys in that armored car thing don’t seem very friendly!”
George jumped over onto the rear deck of the yacht and climbed the stairs to the upper deck. Using the keys to open the door, he went through the sky lounge to the bridge. He kept the pistol at the ready in case there were more surprises inside, but there was no sign of life or the undead. The main bridge was a high tech set-up with numerous radars, GPS and communications consoles. It was much more complicated than the charter fishing boat he had owned. It took him a minute just to find where to insert the ignition key next to the helm.
George had operated a sport fishing boat half the size of the Expiscator, but he was not a real yachtsman. On the other hand, he had driven his share of boats and lots of heavy machinery. If it had a steering wheel and throttle, he felt confident of being able to maneuver it. This big yacht would be a test of that confidence. With the ignition key turned on he soon found the starter buttons for the blowers and fired them up. He knew that the blowers should run for at least a few minutes to clear out any fuel vapors from below decks before starting the engines. Otherwise the engines could spark an explosion. But he also knew that he didn’t have any time to waste. He only paused a moment before engaging the engine starters. At first they didn’t catch. He advanced the throttles forward a notch and tried again, feeling a reassuring rumble as the big diesel engines fired up. Success!
He ran to the wing window above the dock, slid it open and yelled, “Everybody get aboard now! Cast off all lines! We’re getting the hell out of here. Stay on the aft deck until we’re sure the interior is clear.”
He watched Hector and Pablo release the ropes fore and aft as the rest scurried aboard. Knowing that the two men would quickly follow, he returned to the helm and slid both throttles slightly into the forward position. The big yacht began to move, and he turned to look back down the dock. He noticed two men untying their own, smaller, fishing yachts. And he saw at least one zombie, bloody and limping from its encounter with razor wire at the gate, stumbling down the dock. If those other boats wanted to leave with him, he saw no harm in it. They had just as much right to survive as he and his group did.
*****
Scott took control of the helicopter as Mick studied the fluctuating instruments. After a few moments, Scott had a new plan in mind. He turned north and flew towards the Pacific coast. As soon as the hills blocked their view of that damned Mexican APC and its machine gun, Scott banked back around the far side of Pedregal.
“Okay,” he said. “Plan B, as in beach, is a go. Next stop is Lovers’ Beach.” The rest of the men on the helicopter gave him funny looks.
The strip of sand that ran behind El Arco, connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Sea of Cortez at highest tide, was called “Lovers’ Beach.” It was usually crowded with tourists and honeymooners. But there should be no couples enjoying this picturesque beach today. A zombie or two might have made it out there somehow, either stumbling along the rocky cliffs or having arrived before turning into one of them, but otherwise Scott was confident that the sand would be empty and pristine. Lover’s Beach was a prime tourist attraction, but it was only accessible by water taxi, unless you were a rock climber, and he was fairly certain no water taxis would have brought sightseers out there today. Scott thought it would be the perfect place to land and inspect the damage to his helicopter.
“You’ll all love this,” said Scott as he guided the helicopter down between the towering cliffs on either side of the sand bar. “Welcome to Lovers’ Beach at Land’s End, the last strip of Paradise this side of Hawaii, and hopefully a zombie free zone.”
He aimed the chopper at the crest of the sand bar that ran between the jutting rocks of El Arco and the spine of precipitous mountains flanking the harbor on the landward side. In front of them the sand sloped down to the relatively calm Sea of Cortez, while behind them the waves of the open ocean pounded upon the rocks and sand of the rugged Pacific coast. Sure enough, nobody was in sight.
Sand blew out from the rotor wash as the Bell 214-ST set down softly on the crest of Lovers’ Beach. Mark was out the side door and sweeping for possible threats within seconds. Clint followed Mark’s lead, using his gun-sight scope to sweep the cliffs and corners of the coves on the other side. It was almost a hundred yards to the water in either direction and, at least for now, there was no sign of life, or living dead for that matter. That was the good news.
Scott changed channels on the radio and made a transmission he had hoped he wouldn’t need to make. “Spirit, Spirit, this is Eagle, over.”
The response was swift. “Eagle, this is Spirit. Fisher here, what’s your status?”
“Spirit, the Eagle has landed,” replied Scott. “Local reception committee was not friendly. We are feet dry at Land’s End on Lovers’ Beach. No hostiles here yet. Will attempt repairs. Proceed to rendezvous at best speed.”
“Roger that, Eagle,” Captain Fisher responded over the radio. “Spirit is at least two hours out. Do you want Seawind evac?
“Negative, Spirit. Expiscator should be standing by soon. But I have flash traffic that you should spread wherever you can. Copy this. The zombies don’t swim. This really is some sort of super rabies. They have hydrophobia. Fear of water. Quote that. They are afraid of water and appear to drown if they fall into it. Send that out on email, SAT-phone and radio to anyone you can reach, especially any news networks still on the air. I repeat; tell everyone you can get a hold of that zombies fear water and don’t swim. Oh, and add another observation. They prefer to go downhill. All of the zombies we saw were going downhill unless they were chasing something uphill. I think that both of those things can help to save lives. Spread the word. Eagle out.”
“Spirit will comply with your instructions and copies your message. Spirit will broadcast your flash traffic. But I am also launching the Cigarette Top Gun on my own initiative. It should be there in less than an hour in case you need extraction. Hang in there, Scott. Help is coming ASAP.”
“Okay, Jordie. Eagle is down, clear, and standing by,” said Scott. He silently agreed that it might be a good idea to have his fastest speedboat in play here. At least it would increase their options. If zombies somehow swarmed this beach, they could still swim out into the bay to wait for the Top Gun, which would arrive at least an hour sooner than the mother ship. Creating options was a vital component of crisis management.
“Clint, you cover the north beach on the Pacific side,” said Scott, turning away from the radio. “Mark, take the south and keep an eye out for the yacht. It should be passing us as soon as it leaves the harbor. Try to get them to hang around for a while.” Both men nodded and split up to cover opposite sides of the helicopter. Scott turned
to Mick, “Now let’s check out the damage.”
“Cross your fingers,” said Mick. He removed his headset and opened his door, and they moved to the rear of the helicopter on opposite sides from each other, looking closely for bullet holes. Scott spotted three on his side near the rear end of the fuselage. Those were entry holes with the edges of the holes bent inwards.
“I’ve got two big exit holes over here,” said Mick.
“Three entry holes here,” replied Scott. “Something must have stopped one of them.” He crouched down and noticed a steady drip, drip, drip of pink hydraulic fluid coming from a drain hole in the belly of the bird. “We’ve definitely got a leak here,” he added. “Let’s open up the access panel on this side and see what’s happening.” He pulled a little multi tool out of a pouch on his belt and unfolded a screwdriver to twist the latch pins into the open position. Mick came around to help him remove the panel and they leaned it down on the landing skid.
“Damn,” said Mick. “At least we know what stopped that bullet. The ELT is blown to hell and gone.” Scott nodded, but it didn’t worry him. They wouldn’t have much need for an emergency location transmitter here. Their friends knew where they were and he didn’t want help from anyone else right now.
“Yeah, but the real problem is the fluid leak. You see that line?” Scott shined the laser pointer in his multi-tool at a wire banded hose running back into the tail boom. “Look at the fluid running down it. We need to stop that leak.”
01 Voyage of the Dead Page 10