Surviving Amid the Zombies

by Jeffrey Littorno

  “Uh, I think we’re gonna need to go a little faster if you plan on getting off this bridge,” Taylor said with the kind of sarcasm that only a teenager can provide.

  Not that I was not grateful for the words that brought me back to the present and the realization that the van was moving at about six miles an hour, but the sight of him standing next to the passenger’s seat shaking his head disapprovingly irritated me beyond belief.

  “Why don’t you just have a seat,” I snapped, stomping on the gas and grinning a little as the force made him stumble back.

  Taylor grabbed the back of the seat and made his way into it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him looking at me as if he wanted to say something. I concentrated on what was in front of me and that was a few cars and shells wandering aimlessly between the bright orange traffic cones dividing the lanes.

  “Do you think we’re gonna find anything?” The boy paused for a long time. “I mean do you think we’re gonna find anything or anyone that’s normal?”

  I got the definite feeling that my answer was very important to him, so I considered my words carefully. “I wish I could answer that question. Shit, we've all seen lots of stuff that was… definitely not normal.” I watched and was glad to see a slight smile curl his lips. “I guess all we can do is keep going and hope that things get better.”

  Taylor nodded slowly and said, “It’s not like we got much choice, right?” He turned quickly and looked out the window. I could hear his sniffles and see his body trembling slightly.

  After a few moments, he continued, “I can almost hear Detective Lawrence yellin’ about how we hafta get tough.” Tears filled his eyes at the mention of Lawrence.

  “Who has to get tough?” Christina asked as she walked slowly up behind Taylor. She climbed onto his lap and looked at his red eyes.

  “We do!” I answered with as much energy as I could muster. “We have to get tough, ‘cuz when the going gets tough the tough get going!”

  Christina giggled, and then Taylor slowly and quietly added, “My uncle used to say that.”

  “Well, your uncle sounds like--” I stopped speaking as we crested the top of the bridge. Heading down the other side into Marin County, what lay ahead knocked the air out of me.

  The shells seemed to be everywhere. This was the first time I had seen so many bunched together. There were a few cars scattered around, but the shells filled every space between.

  I instinctively stopped the van a few hundred feet from the mob.

  Taylor was silent as he stared at the group filling the bridge in front of us. His face had lost all color.

  “Damn! Look at those fucking things,” he looked over at me and seemed to be near tears.

  “Taylor said a bad word!” Christina tattled.

  “What are we gonna do?” Taylor asked, ignoring the little girl.

  I looked out at the slowly approaching shells before answering.

  “Christina, you need to come and sit up here with Taylor.” I waited while she got on his lap and he buckled the two of them into the seat. “Now it looks like we have a choice. We can either turn around and head back the way we came. Of course, it might have gotten worse by now. The other thing we can do is get this thing moving and plow forward, hoping that we don’t get stuck.”

  There was only silence as we watched the shells continue to shuffle toward us.

  “Let’s go!” Christina broke the silence. “That’s what Lawrence would want.”

  Taylor let out a surprisingly strong laugh and

  said, “I have to agree with her. Let’s go!”

  I smiled at the optimism and stomped on the accelerator. The van had pretty good pickup for a big vehicle. There was a big crash from behind us as some of the bags fell on the floor and hit the back wall.

  We watched through the windshield as the van sped ahead. I started noticing the individual shells that made up the enormous mob. There was a tall muscular black shell of a woman with very short hair wearing a dark blue business suit. Its arms dangled limply by her sides, and a brown briefcase was clasped in one hand. Not far away was a short, chubby shell of a Mexican teenage boy with its face tilted downward so it that appeared to be concentrating on the ground. I briefly wondered at what exactly was so interesting there, but an instant later it raised its head to look at me.

  The emotion I felt at the sight of the shell’s bloody face wiped all logic from my brain. In the seconds it took the van to cover the distance to the shells, I pictured the teenage boy at school, laughing with his friends, talking about cute girls, and dreaming of a life filled to the brim with possibilities. The idea that this illness, zombie plague, uncommon cold, or whatever one chose to call it…the idea that it had stolen every hope and dream from this teenage boy enraged me. This being that I imagined to have been a typical teenager full of life had been drained of everything until all that was left was the empty shell with blood dripping from its mouth which I saw in front of me.

  I heard Taylor yelling my name a second before the van collided with the shell of the Mexican boy. The impact was enough to rock the van violently and rattle my teeth. Judging by the cries from Christina, it had shaken her badly. Fortunately, the van had not hit the shell head on but rather just glanced off as he crumbled under us. As a result, we had not come to a full stop.

  “We can’t run them all down!” Taylor shouted. “There’s too many!”

  I did not answer but concentrated instead on keeping the van moving through the mob of shells. They were all around us. In a few seconds the slaps on the outside of the van began.

  “They seem to be moving out of the way,” I said in a surprisingly calm voice. “If we just keep going, we should be okay.”

  I am not sure if my words were believed by anyone, but outside the van the shells did seem to be moving out of the front of the van in an effort to get to the sides and find a way in to us. The slaps grew louder and more numerous. With nearly every one, Christina let out a moan.

  Taylor was holding her so tightly that I wondered how any sound managed to escape her. “It’s gonna be okay. Those things can’t get in here as long as we keep moving.”

  The pounding on the outside of the van echoed around us. For the most part, the shells moved out from in front of us and slid to the side. Others chose to stand their ground as the van moved toward them. As a result, every few seconds the van would bounce wildly as it moved over the body of a stubborn shell.

  Taylor watched Christina as she stared straight ahead at the things on the bridge. Her body was nearly limp, and she seemed to make no attempt to stop herself from bouncing with the van’s movement.

  “Christina,” he said quietly and then more loudly. “Christina! Hey, snap out of it!” The teenager turned her toward him so that he could look at her face. The little girl’s eyes continued to stare straight ahead as if they could see something in the distance. “There’s something wrong with her,” Taylor cried to me.

  I glanced over at her before returning to the shells through which I was slowly navigating. “I don’t know, maybe she’s in shock or something. I…uh… well, we definitely can’t stop here to look. Just keep talking to her and we’ll figure it out.”

  His voice was shaky as he said, “Christina, you have to wake up. You need to be strong.” The boy began sniffling and trying to keep the tears from coming.

  “Christina!” I shouted suddenly, causing Taylor to jump. “Stop playing right now!” Where my irritation came from I am not sure. Maybe it was the idea of coming this far just to have the little girl crumble.

  As it happened, the source of my feeling did not matter. The only thing that mattered was the effect of my action.

  All of a sudden, Christina turned toward me. Her face was shockingly pale with cold, unblinking eyes that seemed focused on something behind me. We froze like that for what felt like a long time. In fact, the scene was only broken by the slap of a shell on the side of the van.

  Without reali
zing it, I had let the van stop in the middle lane of the bridge. As I pressed the gas slowly, I looked back over at Christina to find that tears had begun pouring down her cheeks. After a moment, her lower lip began to tremble.

  “I want my mommy back!” She bawled while still staring forward.

  Her cry drew my eyes away from the bridge ahead of us to her ghostly white face. At first, I saw her eyes were still unfocussed and unblinking, but soon they returned to their normal vibrant blue and looking solely at me.

  “I want my mommy back,” she said quietly.

  I know you do,” I answered and turned back to the windshield.

  The sight of three shells straight ahead startled me and caused me to stomp down on the gas pedal harder than I intended. The van lunged forward, throwing Christina back in the seat against Taylor. I caught just a glimpse of the shell of a young Asian shell with long black hair hanging from beneath a pink baseball cap disappearing under the van along with the two other shells. A second later, the van bumped roughly over the bodies.

  Christina was crying more loudly. “I…I hit my head!”

  I glanced over to see her rubbing the side of her head.

  “Oh, don’t be such a big baby,” Taylor said, tickling her until she giggled.

  “Taylor, you’re bleeding,” she said once she caught her breath.

  “What?” He asked, not fully trusting what Christina was saying but touching his face to check for blood nonetheless.

  The smile immediately left his face as he looked to see the blood covering his fingers. The teenager stared at his fingers in disbelief before his face contorted as if he was going to start crying.

  We were almost at the end of the bridge, and most of the shells seemed to be behind us.

  “Taylor, you’re not going to die too, are you?” She asked in a trembling voice.

  “No, he’s not going to die!” I quickly answered. “You must’ve hit him with your head when you fell backward. That’s all. No one is going to die.”

  “That’s right. No one is going to die,” Taylor echoed.

  I wondered how much of his response was genuine and how much of it was an attempt to convince himself that it was true.

  Christina remained unconvinced. “Taylor, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please don’t die.” She started sobbing once more.

  “I’m not going to--” Taylor’s words were cut off by a strong slap on the side of the van.

  And with that we were off of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Chapter 7

  With the sunshine gleaming off of Highway 101 North heading into Marin County, it was easy to pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary in the world. However, even as the idea formed in my brain, I felt the anger welling up inside. I flashed on an image of my wife Bonnie, or the thing that looked like my wife Bonnie, draped across the hood of my car. All at once, the overhead light sparkled off of something that caught my eye. It was the gold ring with small diamonds that was on a dead finger lying on the car’s hood a few feet from the head. The idea of leaving Bonnie’s wedding ring on the finger of this repulsive creature was unthinkable. At that moment, the only thing I knew for sure was I had to have the wedding ring.

  Without thinking any further, I grabbed the hand from the hood. It was shockingly cold and sort of wet feeling. Touching it made me queasy, but I forced myself to continue. The ring felt stuck at first. Then after forcing it around with my thumb and forefinger, it finally turned a little. I continued to spin the ring until it turned freely. I slid the ring up the finger until it stopped at the knuckle. It refused to go any further. With my right hand pressing the dead hand down on the hood, my left hand tugged on the ring. The force pushed the skin on the finger into a bunch around the knuckle but did not free the ring.

  I stopped tugging and considered what to do. In my head, I told myself, “It’s just a ring. Not worth spending all this time over.” But even as the words were still echoing inside, I knew this was more than simply a ring. That little gold band with the tiny diamonds was all I had left of my past, my normal past. I did not try to kid myself into thinking it was such a wonderful past, because I knew it had not been. Better than some and worse than others. Still, it was my past, and from what I had seen so far that day, the future might not be all that great.

  Of course, I was assuming there was even going to be a future. In any case, the wedding ring was the one tangible thing I had to show that the world had once been a more reliable place.

  This was the discussion occurring somewhere inside of me, but right then I heard none of it. I was acting without considering my actions. I held the hand down on the hood and tugged on the ring as hard as I could, but it would still not move over the knuckle. With the same consideration one would give to picking up a twig and breaking it, I grabbed the finger and pulled it back as far as it would go. Other than making a satisfying cracking sound and leaving the ring finger pointed up in an obscene manner, my effort yielded no useful results. I stared without moving for a moment. I started to reach toward the finger once more, but then stopped and trotted to the back of the Jeep.

  I lifted the door and looked at the old newspapers, fast-food wrappers, and coffee-stained paper cups. I cleared them, pulled up the plastic hook to lift the carpet, and revealed the spare tire and tire tool. The black metal tire tool had a lug nut socket on one end and a sharp edge for prying tires off the hub at the other end. It was this sharp edge that brought a twisted smile to my face.

  I brought the tool back to the front of the car and to the smashed body of the disgusting imposter. I set the tool down next to the car and looked again at the wedding ring. The finger was still bent back at a strange angle but stayed down after pushing it with all my might. I picked up the tire tool, put the sharp end at the base of the finger where it met the palm, and moved it until the tool was perpendicular to the hand. I took a deep breath and threw all of my weight on to the tool forcing it downward. There was a sort of fart sound and a scratching noise as the tool contacted the metal of the hood. I moved the tool to the side in order to look at the results of the effort.

  The skin looked pinched almost all the way through. In the next moment, I raised the tire tool directly over the same area of the finger and brought it down quickly and forcefully.

  At the instant that the tire tool made contact with the finger, the eyes on the Bonnie-thing flew open. I saw this and dropped the tool. It clattered loudly on the concrete floor of the garage, but I hardly noticed as I stumbled back from the Jeep. My mouth was open in an expression of absolute horror.

  The dead eyes stared fixedly forward. Just when I nearly had myself convinced that the eyes opening was simply some reflex, the eyes shifted toward me. The mouth opened and then closed. A few seconds later, the mouth opened again. The lips quivered, a sort of groan came out, and then a string of sounds that was gibberish. The mouth moved continuously and then with clear effort words were formed.

  “She nee... needed a r-r-r-ide to the dru-u-u-u-g-store.” The words came out slurred and flat. After the words stopped, the mouth continued to open and close, open and close, open and close.

  I watched as long as I could stand it. Finally, I grabbed the metal tire tool from the floor and moved close to the Jeep with the black metal bar raised above my head. With surprising ease and little sound, the sharp-edged end of the rod slipped through the skull and inside the head of the Bonnie-thing. The eyes opened wider and the mouth flew open but then nothing else on the face moved.

  My hands instantly came off the tool as if it had become unbearably hot.

  “There’s a truck coming!” Taylor’s words snapped me out of the scene playing in my head. It took me a second to realize that I had stopped the van in the middle of the freeway. Which, although traffic was non-existent, was not a safe place to be.

  “There’s a truck coming!” Taylor repeated more loudly.

  I looked up to see a big red three-quarter ton pickup truck about a quarter mile away and headi
ng straight for us. Something about the windshield pulled my eye to it. The early afternoon sun glistened off the glass and made me squint. I continued to stare trying to see through the glass into the cab. The strange thing was instead of giving me a view of who was driving the truck the windshield only reflected a picture of me behind the wheel of the van.

  I swerved to the right and the truck mirrored my movement.

  “It’s still aiming at us!” The boy screamed.

  The terror in Taylor’s voice was echoed in the sound of Christina’s crying.

  As the truck sped within a couple hundred feet of us, a head emerged from the passenger window. The young man’s long brown hair fluttered out behind him in the wind. He extended his arms to show a pistol in one and a beer bottle in the other. His face was stretched back in what was either a smile or a grimace.

  Even through the closed windows, we heard his whoops of excitement. “Fuck yeah!” He yelled. A moment later the beer bottle bounced off the hood of the van as the truck roared past us.

  The sound startled Christina causing her to scream. She was still sitting on Taylor’s lap, and he pulled her back closer to him.

  “It’s okay. There gone now,” he told her. After a few seconds, he turned toward me and asked, “So what do you think was up with those guys?”

  I shook my head before saying, “I’m not really sure. Maybe someone just needs to have more parental supervision.” My words forced a burst of laughter from me. Taylor joined me a second later. Christina joined in although she clearly did not understand the reason for the laughter.