Mad World (Book 3): Desperation

by Samaire Provost

  He finished clipping the straps onto the metal rings mounted on the side of the hood and at the base of the windshield, as well as the top of the grill, and turned to give DeAndre a thumbs-up signal. Nodding, D turned to us and said, “Hold on.” Turning back to the front, he nodded to Dad and began pulling forward.

  Slowly at first, then picking up speed, D accelerated to about 25 miles per hour. Dad unscrewed the jug’s top and then rose from a crouch to a standing position, and we could see the harness strapped to his waist and chest. He pulled a central strap tight and was then bound to the hood. Lifting the jug high, he leaned forward, and we could see how the harness kept him strapped tight to the hood, while still allowing him some freedom of movement. The jug was lifted up and tilted, and liquid poured from it, spraying across the road in front of our vehicle. DeAndre pressed another button, and there was a huge FOOM! as the liquid ignited. Jonathan and I leaned out our side windows and began pouring out the contents of our jugs. Then the whole thing ignited. The flames spread out quickly, and the zombies were engulfed.

  In the past, when we’d fought zombies, they’d made no sound when we killed them. These were different. A low, loud sound emanated from the dozens of zombies that were now fully immolated. I watched as they turned and stumbled, then fell.

  DeAndre accelerated to about 40 mph, and Dad emptied the last of his jug. Swerving back and forth, D drove in a controlled swirl that had the gasoline-laced oil spreading across the entire highway. Zombies fell away like weeds as we drove on. The police cruisers pulled off to the side, but behind them the Hummer roared through the flames. Tim was determined not to lose us. We were their only hope now.

  As we emptied the last of our jugs, we dropped them out the windows and pulled inside and Zach caught me around the waist. I realized he’d been holding on to my belt loops the whole time.

  I turned to him. “Did you think I’d fall out?” I said, chuckling.

  “I wasn’t going to take any chances.”

  “Luke, give me specs on Tim, I can’t see him,” DeAndre said.

  I turned and looked. “He’s still with us. The cops have pulled off, though.”

  D drove out of the flames and left a couple hundred Cajun roasted zombies behind. Driving clear of them, he kept going several miles, with Dad crouched on the hood again.

  “Coast looks clear, I’m going to pull over up here. Have your guns ready, everyone.”

  We all held our shotguns poised. Glancing back, I saw Leia was brandishing a bowie knife, just in case. She saw me looking, and a small smile broke through her scowl. I smiled back.

  “We’re ready.”

  DeAndre quickly pulled over and Dad unhooked himself and was inside in under a minute. D roared back onto the freeway, the Hummer still following. The oil had flamed up a bit on them, but it soon went out as they drove.

  “Hello, Superman,” DeAndre patted Dad’s arm. “Good to have you back inside.” He smiled.

  “Thanks,” Dad grinned.

  “That was awesome!” Zach exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Epic,” piped Leia from the back. She and Jonathan soon changed places again.

  “Glad to have you back,” Risa said weakly from the back as Jonathan laid a hand on her arm.

  “I don’t know what’s coming next, so be ready, everyone.” Dad grimaced and looked out at the road. Zombies occasionally still flitted in and out of the headlights, crossing the road and running alongside us as we drove on. We’d left most of them behind. A few ran up and grabbed hold of the SUV’s mirrors and hung on, dragging, until they fell off.

  I looked out the window at more dark space and water below us. We were going over another bridge. Dad consulted his map then looked around. The zombies were still jumping at us, but since there weren’t nearly as many as there had been before, our heavy SUV had no problem plowing through them. “The turnoff to M.I.T. is just ahead,” Dad indicated. DeAndre pulled off and followed the ramp as it curved around to a stop sign. He turned left and pulled forward again, but then slowed a bit as he approached another stop sign.

  “Turn right here,” Dad said, glancing up then down again at the map. “Holocaust Park is right ahead; drive down by it and then we go left.”

  “Yeah …” DeAndre was distracted by something to our right. I stretched forward to see what he’d spotted.

  “Um… What’s that?” I said.

  Dad looked up and gasped.

  “What’s up?” Jonathan said in the back. Risa sat up beside him and craned her head to see out the front windshield.

  “Oh god!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t help it. The road was gone. Just … gone.

  TWENTY TWO

  In front of us was the park, it stretched away from us, the end of it shrouded in darkness. Congress Street was a big boulevard that ran along the length of Holocaust Park on the left, and then continued on down and curved to the left. Along the length of Congress Street, and continuing to the far left, the road was blocked, it disappeared under a mountain of debris. Piled high with everything from telephone poles that had been knocked down, to parked cars that had been lifted and strewn across the road, the way was impassable.

  DeAndre rolled to a stop about 25 feet from the edge of this massive obstruction. The Hummer pulled up behind us. There was no sight of the police cars. D turned off the ignition and folded his arms across the top of the steering wheel.

  “Huh.” DeAndre and Dad looked out over this new impediment to our journey.

  “Who do you suppose did that? The police?” Zach wondered beside me.

  “I don’t think so,” Dad said. He looked down at the map. “We could go around, except I’m betting there will be another roadblock.”

  “You mean …” I said.

  “Yes, I think so.” He looked back at me. “The reports did say they were getting smarter and smarter.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  DeAndre looked out and all around us. “It looks deserted, utterly deserted.” He turned to Dad. “I’m going to go check it out.”

  “Take Luke with you.”

  Being the strongest and immune to the plague, I was a pitch in to most fights. Bodyguard-ap-shoo-in for any altercation.

  “Wait.” Dad looked around. Opening the window, he stuck his head out and breathed in the night air. The stars were hidden, veiled behind the mist of the night. It was quiet. As quiet as the grave. Not even crickets sounded. “I’m going, too.”

  “Well, hell, why don’t we all go?” Jonathan piped up from the back.

  As DeAndre grabbed his shotgun and knife, opened the door and slung his Bowie behind him into the back holster, nearly everyone followed him. Risa, still too weak to be of any help in a skirmish, called after us, “Be careful. I’m with you in spirit.”

  Smiling, I turned to Dad. “She doesn’t sound too happy.”

  “She’s not,” said Jonathan, coming up behind us. “Being out of commission is probably the most frustrating thing in the world for her. You know how she is.”

  I did know. I’d fought alongside her too many times to count.

  “Hey, squirt. Where do you think you’re going?” DeAndre said to Leia as she jumped down and out of the SUV.

  “You may need me,” she scowled.

  Chuckling, D walked up to the pile of trees, telephone poles and cars. Coming up behind him, I saw all kinds of stuff had been piled up there. It looked like a hurricane had whipped through a swap meet and picked up household goods, tossing them in with the big stuff. And there were some body parts stuck in with the trash: legs and arms. A foot stuck out of under a junked car.

  “A couch?” Zach sounded incredulous.

  “Heck, there’s everything here but the kitchen sink,” I joked.

  “Well, here’s a washing machine,” Jonathan said from half a dozen feet away.

  The pileup stretched off into the distance on both sides. There were severed heads, not turned, human heads, stuck on branches all
along the length of the thing, as far as the eye could see.

  “My god,” Dad said with disgust and wonder.

  You had to admire their work. Thorough and effective. They’d dammed up the entire area, effectively stopping our vehicles cold.

  As we studied the gruesome, chaotic roadblock, Tim and the others walked up to us from the Hummer. We all just stood there gaping at this pile of crud. It reached up 12 feet high in some places.

  “Well, shit.” Dad began looking at the map he’d brought with him, trying to shine his flashlight on it. “Here, hold this, will you, Leia?” She took the flashlight from him and stood there shining it steadily onto the map as he studied it.

  “We could drive across the lot sideways, the SUV can get over some obstacles,” DeAndre said, still looking over the piled barricade.

  “Maybe,” Dad mumbled, sitting on the grassy curb. Leia followed him closely and shone the light onto the map. She’d quickly surmised the chain of command in our little team and seemed determined to make a good impression.

  Zach and I walked to the side a dozen feet, and I hopped up onto the pile, landing on a thick tree trunk. I bounced up and down a few times on it. It held steady, barely moving. This barricade was woven tight; we wouldn’t be able to move it at all. Climbing further up, I was able to get a good look at the other side

  “Oh, man. This thing is twenty feet thick.” I turned and jumped down to the ground and shook my head. Whoever or whatever had built it had done an excellent job.

  “I didn’t think zombies could think that far ahead,” Zach wondered.

  “Or build something this tight that would take an engineer a month to design.” I grimaced and looked up at the towering pile.

  “Leia, hold it up. Leia?” Dad looked up at her and went silent. Her face was white with fear in the flashlight’s glow.

  “What?”

  All of a sudden-

  “AAAAUUUUUUUAUAAAHHHHHHHHHH…”

  A low howl, almost a moaning, filled the early morning, carrying on the predawn misty air. It was haunting, and sent a chill up my spine.

  “Where is that coming from?”

  It seemed to be coming from everywhere. The fog was playing tricks on our ears, and the sound seemed to echo back at us.

  “AAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRAAAUUUUHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

  Leia opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Standing there, transfixed by something … I followed her gaze and looked back at the curb and our vehicles. I squinted, not sure what I was seeing. WHAT?

  TWENTY THREE

  “Dad!” I pointed.

  We all looked, and fell as silent as Leia was. Back at the vehicle, we could see Risa in the window. She was frantically waving her arms, gesturing, trying to get our attention. We stared at her for a second, then back at the makeshift wall lined with severed heads while the moaning call surrounded us.

  “AAAARRRRRRRRAAAAOOOOOOOH!!!!!”

  “Come on…”

  I slowly backed away from the barricade, my head moving back and forth, trying to find the source of the moaning cry that filled the air. Fog swirled up, thicker than ever. Looking back at the SUV, I saw Risa waving and gesturing wildly. As we walked slowly back to her, swinging our guns all around, we realized the sound was coming from the vehicles. Fear curled in me as I focused on the SUV. Its wheels were huge, all-terrain vehicle tires designed for off-roading should the need arise. The big vehicle was mounted on suspension that lifted it more than two feet off the ground, ready to get over rough terrain, and the space underneath was dark, with lots of hand holds where anything could tuck itself up in there, undetected.

  “OOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRRRAAAUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOO…”

  Fear crawled up my spine and I shuddered.

  I saw Tim and the others from the Hummer running back to their vehicle. It was just as well; they didn’t have any weapons.

  We were about 20 feet away from the SUV. Fog curled around a scene that emerged slowly in front of us, like something out of a surrealistic nightmare.

  Crawling out from under the SUV was the zombie king.

  “OOAAAARRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOO…….”

  As it crawled out and stood up, it let out another low groaning call that carried to every corner of that park. The sound started out as a moan and rose in volume and intensity to a long howl.

  It stood there, calling, and they came. Out of every corner, from behind every tree, rising up from every bush in the park, they came. Loping, shuffling, some even running, they came in answer to the call of their leader. Zombies of all sizes, all stages of decomposition, of every race, height, and age; they came.

  The moaning filled my ears. I watched as hundreds, maybe more, filled the park and street. They surrounded us, closing in from all sides, some even crawling from up over the barricade and dropping down beside us.

  They stunk. More than usual. This was something new, I thought.

  “What’s that smell?” Zach said beside me. He held my hand with an iron grip, fear making him nearly immobile.

  Leia clutched her flashlight and clung to Dad for protection, her body rigid. DeAndre, Jonathan and I held our shotguns at the ready and watched the zombie king shamble toward us. The thing had been hanging on to the undercarriage of our vehicle the whole way from Thunder Bay, watching, biding its time, just waiting for the right time to emerge. I remembered the odd scratching sound under my feet while we were driving. I remembered my senses tingling as if I were being watched as I stood beside our vehicle. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise, and goose bumps prickled all along the length of my arms. Fear clutched my heart like a vise and refused to let go, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  “That’s close enough, zombie,” called DeAndre as the creature drew within ten feet of us. He leveled his shotgun at the thing, finger itching to pull the trigger.

  “Why have you followed us?” Dad asked.

  The zombie king looked up at Dad, who was several inches taller, and spoke. “Wwwhee… we wantttt the zommm…”

  “The what?”

  The zombie king’s arm rose, and a boney finger covered with muck pointed to me.

  “Ohhhh no!”

  “No way, zombie monster.”

  Suddenly, Dad ran up to the thing and kicked at it, sending it flying backward six feet. “Why? Why do you want my son, dammit? WHY?”

  The zombie king picked itself up and slowly came forward again to speak.

  “Zommm…” It gestured to me.

  “I have a name,” I said, spitting on the ground, fear melting out of me, replaced with anger. The thing disgusted me. I don’t know how I could ever have felt like I was part zombie. I hated the things. I had nothing in common with them. Nothing at all. “My name is Luke.” I stared back at it defiantly.

  “Luuukkkke… Luke.” It was getting better at speaking.

  “Yeah? What the hell do you want?”

  It crept closer to me.

  “Stay away!” Dad let a round loose at the zombie’s feet. Shot bucked up and hit the thing in its legs. It stopped.

  “Luke. You come… with usss.”

  “Like hell.”

  “We will not… let you go thisss time.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do, monster.” I spat on the ground again. This thing was giving me a bad taste in my mouth. Beside me, Zach grasped my hand reassuringly.

  “Luke, you belong… with ussss.”

  I shuddered at this. I would never belong in their world. Never.

  “Why do you want Luke?” Dad asked.

  “Luke… cannot go… further…” it seemed to struggle to find the right words. “Luke… will be… the end…”

  “The end of what, zombie?” DeAndre stepped closer to me, shotgun held steady.

  “The end of usss…”

  I looked sharply at the zombie. How could he know?

  “What?”

  “WHAT?”

  “I have… forssseen ittt…” The zombie king stumbled forward, f
ast as lightning, and grabbed DeAndre.

  “NOOOOO!!!!!!”

  “AAAARRRRROOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUAAAOOOOOOO!!!!!”

  And all hell broke loose. Again.

  TWENTY FOUR

  I jumped at the zombie king as it lowered its mouth to D’s head, but I needn’t have worried. DeAndre gave a heave, and the thing flipped over D’s back with ease. But Sanctuary’s toughest fighter wasn’t done with the monster. He grabbed the zombie king’s head in a Nelson grip and held it there while he wrapped his legs around the thing’s torso. I landed next to them and immediately brought my huge bowie knife from its back holster and in one swift movement, I drew it through the midsection of the monster. I had had enough of this creepy thing. I was through.

  “Give me it sideways, D,” I said quietly, and DeAndre instantly unhooked his legs and moved his body sideways and out of the way of my knife. He kept a good hold on the thing’s head, so that, as I jabbed downward and across again, this time with both hands on the small sword, it provided the leverage I needed. With a final muscle-tensing wrench, the thing’s spine snapped and the legs and hips were liberated from the upper chest. The zombie king’s mouth opened in a silent motion, and its arms grasped where its body ended, feeling for its waist. Black gunk poured from its torso.

  “You’re half gone, monster,” I said grimly, black muck covering my hands. Its hands rose up to grab me and wrapped themselves around my legs.

  Without a sound, DeAndre wrapped his arms around the thing’s head, and his legs around the thing’s shoulders. Then, with a mighty twisting motion, he tore the zombie king’s head off.

  “Bah,” spat DeAndre, and threw the head as far as he could. “Good riddance.”

  “LUKE!” I turned around fast and saw three more zombies coming at us in a rush. Swinging my knife in a wide arc, I caught the nearest one in the neck and its head went spinning off to my right, the torso falling at my feet.