by Tim Moon
She had frozen in place, but Oliver literally dragged her out of the stupor and she scrambled up.
“Shit, more are coming,” Anuhea said.
“Back into the field,” Ben said to everyone.
“Damn it. Just when we seem to be making progress, they push us back,” Anuhea complained as she retreated into the lava field.
Everyone rushed to get away from the big man.
“Get up! Go!” Ben shouted as he pulled Travis out of the man’s reach.
Thrashing as if his life depended on it the infected man crawled forward, ignoring the rough ground. He latched onto Kathy’s ankle. She screamed again. “Oh God, no!”
“Kathy!” Travis said, twisting out of Ben’s grasp.
Ben slipped on a loose rock and fell to his knee. The joint exploded in pain from landing on sharp gravel. He clenched his jaw against the pain and forced himself to stand.
Travis had already twisted around, moving with surprising speed considering his injury. Kathy kicked her leg and managed to free it. Her shoe slipped off, but the infected man’s other hand flew forward to retrieve his prey. His fingers dug in and Ben could see where his nails tore at her skin. Kathy slipped and the big man dragged her toward his snapping maw. She groaned as she realized what was about to happen to her. The man moaned in anticipation. Travis crawled like a wild animal, getting to his knees and throwing himself at the fat guy before anyone could intervene.
Ben could see other infected closing in. They moved with intention, sensing fresh prey.
Then Kathy shouted, “He bit me! He bit me!” Her voice curled into a pitiful whine.
“No! Not my wife,” Travis shouted. He pounded on the fat man’s head, punching him repeatedly.
Ben couldn’t move. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was the start of another heart-rending tragedy, like back at the Harley Davidson shop when Eric had watched the fat man bite his wife and shortly thereafter, she had bitten Eric.
Charlotte yelled Ben’s name. He slowly turned his head and squinted at her in the bright light. She yelled and pointed. He turned back to the road and saw the other infected closing in. Two slid down the hill and fell on top of each other, narrowly missing Anuhea, who had come back and was trying to pull Travis off the fat man so they could flee.
Ben cursed under his breath and ran forward. Time seemed to slow and thoughts raced through his mind like rocket ships. Kathy was done for. He knew that she would eventually turn. Travis was a lost cause too. With his injury, the man was a liability. Anuhea, on the other hand, was unbitten and uninjured. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to leave anyone.
“Anuhea, let’s go! Move your ass,” Ben shouted. He threw his arm around her waist, lifted her up and moved her. Time sped back up as soon as he picked up a bowling ball sized rock. “Travis move!”
The man looked back for a split second. Just enough to flinch back as Ben dropped the rock on the infected man’s head.
The rock tore a big chunk of scalp off, crushed his skull and pinned his body in place. Its body twitched and flailed. Kathy squirmed away and then she crawled toward Travis.
“I love you,” she said, sobbing.
Travis thrust his hand out, taking hers in his grasp. They held hands, staring at each other as the two zombies untangled themselves and fell upon the downed couple.
Ben jumped back to avoid the infected, tripping and landing hard on his ass.
“No!” Ben shouted. He rushed to stand up, but Anuhea grabbed him from behind in a surprisingly strong bear hug. “We have to help them,” he said. Even as he said it, he knew it was hopeless. He’d known it even as he fought to save them.
“They’re gone,” she said in his ear.
His head drooped and his shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Let’s go! More are coming.” Anuhea let go of him, but took his hand and pulled him back into the barren lava field.
Chapter Eleven
Oliver kept tripping over the loose gravel and rough lava rock. Ben ran over and grabbed Oliver’s hand, keeping an eye out roving infected.
“C’mon Oliver,” said Ben. He dusted off Oliver’s back and gave him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.
“I’m okay,” he said despite the obvious tears in his eyes.
“Just a little further,” Ben said. He wasn’t sure that was the truth or not. How could he be sure how far they had to go? These bastards were persistent like nothing else.
Luckily the infected were finding the terrain just as treacherous as Oliver was. One stumbled and fell, tearing up its wretched, bloodstained face. Another seemed to have broken its ankle but that could have happened before.
Regardless, Ben was annoyed that they had to run yet again. He wanted to go the other way and these monsters were in their way. One of his friends, an army veteran, always used to say, “Suck it up and drive on.”
Ben figured he could keep going, but Oliver wouldn’t be able to cope as well.
“Hold up.” Ben stopped. He gave Oliver’s hand to Charlotte. “You two keep going and hide behind those rocks.” Ben gestured lazily with his hand.
“Okay, be careful.” Charlotte picked up Oliver and walked carefully over the rocks.
“Ty, Anuhea, help me,” Ben said.
Ty was the furthest away. Ben frowned at him.
How the fuck did he get so far? Ben thought.
“Why are you stopping?” Anuhea asked.
“We can’t run away. I’m sick of constantly running away,” Ben said, panting even though they’d only run about fifty yards. He jabbed a finger toward the airport’s parking lot. “Nothing has changed, we need to go that way and find transportation.”
Ty had wandered back and stood near Charlotte and Oliver, all of them panting for breath in the muggy air.
“A little risky don’t you think?” Ty asked.
Travis and Kathy’s dying screams had already faded, yet the moans of pleasure from the infected gorging on their flesh still reached their ears. It was a gut wrenching sound that would forever be seared into Ben’s memory. He worried about the affect it would have on Oliver.
“There are more of them…” Oliver said. He began to cry. “I don’t like it here. I want to go home.”
Slow, stumbling bodies had followed them out into rocky hills.
“It’ll be okay.” Charlotte knelt down and hugged him.
“I just want to go home,” he wailed.
“Shhh! Keep it down,” Ty snapped.
Ben turned and scowled at the sight of infected pursuing them. He felt the pistol in his pocket. His fist closed around it and he nearly pulled it out. Ben cursed himself for not pulling it out to save Kathy. He’d been too slow to react.
No, shooting would just draw more down on us, Ben thought.
So, beginning to realize the conundrum, he concluded that all they could do was avoid the infected, find a way to distract them, attempt to trap them, or kill them. He wanted to kill them all. Ben was fuming. He’d had enough of running and hiding. Sometimes it was the prudent move, but not right now. Not after they had lost two people so quickly.
They needed a car because running away would only make their situation worse and lower their chances of survival.
Ben looked around. In the direction of the airport, they had a total of about twenty infected to face down, between them and the parking lot. To their right was a daunting field of rock, nothing out there except maybe a wild goat or a donkey. To their left were the rental car buildings. It’d be an ideal place to steal a car since the keys were on hand. However, there were too many infected milling around in the fenced parking lots. Behind them was a long stretch of open ground that sloped up and eventually led to the main highway.
“I’m not running anymore. Not now, not this time. We need a car,” he said again, still breathing hard from adrenalin and running in the heat.
The others looked at him with questions in their eyes. Only Anuhea spoke up though. “So, what are you thinking?”
“How? If you start shooting we’ll have a hundred of them on us,” Anuhea said, shaking her head.
Ben also shook his head and turned around to face the infected following them. “Nope, no shooting.”
The three closest ones were about thirty yards away. He took a few steps toward them.
“What are you doing?” Anuhea said.
“Solving a problem.” Ben bent over a picked a good size rock. He held it like a baseball, giving a few small tosses to test its weight and feel. “How’s your arm?”
He smirked at Anuhea and caught a glimpse of Ty walking closer with a curious look on his face.
“Um…good, I guess.” Anuhea looked at Ben for a moment and then bent to find her own rock.
“That’s good enough. Let’s nail these bastards,” said Ben. “We can’t go around them, so we’ll go through them.”
She gave him a curious look.
“Try to get them on the ground. Knock them over,” he said to clarify. “Then we can smash their heads. That’s the only way to stop them.”
“Sounds pretty damn grim,” Anuhea said, scrunching up her face. “But I know it needs to be done. It’s us or them, right?”
“Exactly.” Ben nodded. Ty and Charlotte looked less convinced. “Look at the ground. We have all the ammunition we need.” Ben grinned like the Cheshire cat.
“Seems risky. We should just walk to the quarantine center,” Ty said.
“We’ll never make it in this heat. Not without water. Oliver definitely can’t make it,” Ben said. “We have to fight.”
“I’m with you,” Anuhea said with a nod.
“We do need a car, so…I’m in,” Charlotte said reluctantly.
Oliver said, “I can help.”
Ben looked at him.
“What are we doing?” Oliver asked, wiping sweat from his tiny nose.
Ben wasn’t sure what to say. He glanced around for help. “Umm, well-”
“Oliver can’t do that.” Charlotte said, cutting off Ben.
“He’ll have to learn eventually,” Ben said. “This is the situation we’re in.”
“I can throw far,” Oliver said. “I promise.”
“No way,” she said, crossing her arms, giving them both a stern look.
After a moment, Ben relented. She was right. “Oliver, I have a special job for you. Can you please watch out behind us? Make sure the bad people don’t sneak up on us.”
“Okay,” Oliver said. His lower lip jutted out. “But I can throw far.”
“I know you can,” Ben said with a smile. He looked at the others. “Let’s do this.”
“You have the gun,” Ty said, wiping sweat from his brow.
“No. Were you even listening? We’d have all of them on us. Here’s how we do it,” Ben said. He bent to pick up another baseball-sized rock and held it in his off hand. Repeating himself was annoying, but if that’s what survival required then he’d repeat himself all day. “We knock them to the ground and smash their heads in with rocks.”
“That’s sick,” Ty said, frowning.
“Better than getting bitten,” Ben said, gripping the porous ebony rock in his hand. He hurled it at the nearest infected. It was a man, maybe mid-40s with a bald spot and a big belly. He looked like the kind of old guy that probably wore Speedos on the beach and leered at younger women like a creeper.
Ben’s throw was good. It struck him squarely in the chest bouncing off, destabilizing him, but unfortunately, it didn’t take him down.
Charlotte stared at him, her jaw dangling open.
“What?” Ben asked her.
She shook her head and looked at Anuhea, but her friend was already scrounging around for rocks of her own. Anuhea quickly found two reasonably sized chunks to throw.
Ben and Anuhea began to hurl the rocks at the infected closing in on them. Ben stopped to pick up another good sized rock and held it in his off hand.
“This is stupid, you know?” Ty said, slowly following them.
“If they get too close, just back up,” Ben said. He threw another rock and hit the fat guy in the knee. He toppled to the ground. “You’ll be fine.”
Soon everyone was throwing rocks. It didn’t take long for them to work out a system. Charlotte and Ty aimed for their legs. A head shot would work, but it was such a small target that it was easier to knock them over. Downed zombies were vulnerable zombies.
After the infected fell to the ground, Ben and Anuhea would close in to crush their skulls, beating their heads in. Ben preferred to finish them off by dropping heavy stones on them.
Another man fell with a gurgling sound. He landed on the edge of a sharp boulder. It opened up his swollen stomach like a bursting water balloon. Dark blood splashed over the equally dark rocks. Momentum twisted him and he slid off the rock onto his side, flailing, gurgling and kicking his fat legs. Ben ran up and pounded his head in.
Anuhea got the next infected in the head with a clean shot to his forehead. It could have been a Kodak moment for the apocalypse. The stunned look on the man’s face was hilarious, if morbid. Ben couldn’t help but laugh.
He hit a girl in the thigh and she stumbled into the skinny skater boy next to her. But she didn’t fall. Charlotte followed up Ben’s toss by launching a rock that bounced off the ground and crashed into the girl’s shin. It cracked and she went down. Ben flashed Charlotte a smile before he hefted a large stone and ended infected girl’s struggle.
Anuhea launched a rock at an infected man about twenty yards away. She missed, but luck was on her side. He tripped on the uneven ground. Unable to break his fall, he landed on his shoulder and thrashed about like a landed fish.
Ty nailed him from a few yards away. The guy’s skull cracked, but he kept moving. With one arm unable to move, the infected scrambled in the dirt to no avail. Anuhea walked over and finished him off by stomping on the back of his head.
“Nice teamwork,” Ben said. He threw a rock at another infected and missed. His second throw hit the infected in the knee. It toppled over.
Anuhea walked closer, picked up a big rock, raised it above her head and dropped it on another man she’d knocked down. With a dull splat, the struggling zombie stopped moving.
One by one, they toppled and killed the infected. Charlotte beamed one infected woman in the forehead. Her skin peeled back exposing the thin layer of fascia and other tissue that held skin to the scalp. Dark blood dripped down the side of her face. Before they finished, even Ty managed to kill a couple more.
The real star was Anuhea. She took to the attack with enthusiasm, as if it was her favorite sport.
As the infected left the corpses of Travis and Kathy, some fell on their own. In this case, the uneven ground became their ally. Ben crushed the head of one with a rock, but it kept moving despite in the massive dent in its skull. Ben picked up the rock again, pushed the infected man down with his foot, and bashed his head several times until he fell still. Blood splattered on his arm and face from the brutal kill.
“Keep going. Kill them all,” Ben said.
Rocks flew and zombies fell. Skin tore, bones cracked, skulls split open and blood ran. It was gruesome, but effective work.
Charlotte moved to the outside flank, with Oliver following behind.
Ben led the group toward the road at an angle away from where their former companions lay. Several zombies continued to feast on the bodies, completely ignoring the group.
“You guys go hide in the ditch. We’ve got this,” Ben said, gesturing at Anuhea and himself.
Anuhea raced over to the group of infected hunched over the bodies of Travis and Kathy. Ben followed close behind and together they killed the zombies. Smashing and stomping them into submission. After crushing the skull of the last one into a pulp that stained his shoes, Ben looked around, sensing the relative silence around him.
They had done
it.
A rush of emotion filled Ben. He wanted to cheer, but held it back. It felt odd taking so much pleasure in killing them, even if they were infected. Regardless, Ben was thrilled that the plan worked so well. Looking at Anuhea, he realized how much he appreciated her strength and determination.
“Great job,” Ben said to Anuhea. He put his hand up for a high-five.
She grinned at him and slapped his hand.
Bodies lay strewn about, sprawling on the rough ground. Black blood coated the rocks and created puddles on the dusty earth. Death and body fluids tainted the air.
Now they had a clear path to the parking lot.
Chapter Twelve
Once again, the group was at the edge of the road. Bodies littered the ground behind them and the leftovers of Travis and Kathy were a mere thirty yards away. They knelt in the dirt, keeping a low profile while they planned their next move. Everyone breathed hard from the slaughter.
Across the road, beyond a narrow strip of rocky ground was the north parking lot of the airport. Beyond the parking lot were the remnants of the main airport buildings and then the runway. Off to the right were several small buildings and a seemingly endless stretch of black lava rock.
Ben eyed the cluster of cars. With plenty to choose from, the problem became finding keys and then matching them with the right vehicle without setting off an alarm. He thought he saw an abandoned Humvee, but he wasn’t sure.
Somewhere out there were the bodies of the soldiers that protected them the night before. Ben hoped that they hadn’t become infected, because killing them would be tough.
“Our main focus is a vehicle,” Ben said. “But if you find any weapons, be sure to grab them. Check for extra ammo too. If we’re going to make it back to the Quarantine Center, we need all the help we can get.”
Ty scoffed. “Do you even know how to shoot?”
“Of course, don’t you?” Ben asked, genuinely curious.
Ty rolled his eyes.
“I can shoot. My brothers used to take me hunting all the time,” Anuhea said.
Ben turned to Charlotte with an apologetic look.
“I know. We’ll wait here for you guys,” she said, ruffling Oliver’s hair. She sighed and said, “I still think a rental car would be better.”