So, the fact that the fire was baking their eyes down to the size of shriveled grapes and rendering them absolutely useless was the least of their troubles. I doubted, too, that their aural and olfactory senses were topnotch at the moment. The overwhelming odor of charred, rotten zombie flesh assaulting my nostrils likely hampered their own ability to sniff out me and the kids in the nearby van.
I wasn’t sure yet if the limited brain functions of the undead included pain reception, but they were certainly moaning as if the fire hurt them.
Man, I hate that fucking sound. Don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
Of course, only half of the zombies wandering around the church were on fire, which meant the other half had their full sensory functions. As soon as they spotted my van on Church Street, they promptly rammed themselves into the front and sides of the vehicle, which rocked from the ongoing assault. No doubt, they were also smearing their gross zombie goo all over my beautiful baby.
Yep, I said beautiful. Beauty had always existed in the eye of the beholder, and to me, my zombie-proof step van was as gorgeous as a swimsuit model.
Well, almost. But in a zombie apocalypse, the van would take me and Clare farther.
Before the undead could completely surround us, I resumed moving forward, knocking over the zombies in my path, crushing their body parts beneath my sturdy wheels, and trying to avoid the flaming ones at all costs. As I approached the designated pick-up point, I saw glass spray out from one of the upper windows. At least someone was still alive up there. Hopefully, it was Ray.
Glancing over my shoulder, I was again amazed at how calm and well-behaved his children were. As stoic as his father, Travis quietly slid off the built-in bench and stepped toward the front of the van, likely for a better view through the windshield. Meanwhile, all color might’ve drained from Nicole’s face, but she didn’t make a peep.
In fact, the only one making any noise, besides the undead horde on all sides, was Frankie. He didn’t tremble. He didn’t bark. But as with the zombies near the Hamiltons’ back fence, he seemed to know those outside had nefarious intentions. With his bird-hunting nostrils, he could surely smell the death and decay, so it was no surprise that he’d braced himself in fighting stance beside the table. Every time a zombie jolted the van, his hyper-aware eyes widened, and he released a low growl, his teeth bared. I suspected that, if a zombie slipped aboard my ride, Frankie would know exactly what to do with those teeth.
A badass dog for a badass family.
Azazel, meanwhile, peered at me through the slits of her carrier, but refrained from her usual chirping or crying. She was either too scared or too tired to say much of anything.
Shifting my focus back to the windshield, I said, “Keep an eye out for…”
Before I could finish my thought, though, Travis interrupted me. “Mr. Joe, my dad just tossed a rope out of that window.”
I followed his gaze to one of the upper office windows. It didn’t appear to be a rope — more like a chain of knotted tapestries. Something assembled in a hurry. I just hoped it would hold as my soon-to-be passengers ventured down the church roof and onto my van. I hoped, too, that no one was too overweight — not because I fretted about the sturdiness of my roof, but because it would be difficult to squeeze a fat ass through such a narrow window. Crude as it sounded, we simply didn’t have time to grease someone out of a tight spot.
It had already taken longer than planned to push through the zombies in the parking lot, across the lawn, and alongside the church. Although I managed to plow through most of the overly eager creatures, many others slipped beneath the vehicle and became little more than zombified speed bumps.
When the van was only a few yards from where I planned to stop, a heavy chalice sailed across the roof of the building, bounced onto the hood of my van, and left a sizable dent behind.
“Goddammit,” I grumbled as I slammed on my brakes.
I wasn’t pleased about the latest dent, but when it came to zombie-mobiles, functionality mattered more than cosmetics. Besides, it amused me that desperate times had called for sacrilegious measures. I doubted anyone in that office cared that the chalice had once held the sacramental wine during Holy Communion. When survival mattered most, even Catholics were willing to sacrifice religious relics to break the thick glass covering their only possible exit route.
“Uh, Mr. Joe…”
Travis’s concerned tone dispelled my inconvenient musings, and I realized three things at once. One, a tall, lanky woman had already begun emerging from one of the narrow windows, onto the roof of the lower story. Two, several men and women awaited their turn behind her. And three, the zombies around us had begun working themselves into a fury, trying to reach the tasty humans on the second floor.
Without further delay, I rolled toward the building and halted beneath the eaves. Not ten seconds later, I heard a thunk on the roof of my van. I could only assume it was the first woman I’d glimpsed, as I could no longer see the windows above me.
Over the next few minutes, I heard at least five other thunks. Unfortunately, the undead frenzy outside the van had only worsened. In fact, so many of them had pushed their way toward the smorgasbord above me that they’d begun to form a couple of piles between my van and the building, with toppled zombies forming the base and others climbing over them to reach the roof. The more zombies that approached, the higher the piles grew.
As I waited nervously in the driver’s seat, I recognized the one major flaw in Operation Bat-Shit Crazy: I had no idea how many people I was rescuing, so I didn’t know how long I needed to wait, and the zombie piles were getting bigger by the second.
I was just about to signal Ray on the walkie-talkie when he beat me to the punch.
“Joe, everyone’s on board ’cept me an’ Clovis. I gotta carry him down da roof, so it’s gonna take a minute. Over.”
“Just hurry,” I replied. “The zombies are getting closer to you. And the folks above me. Over.”
I considered rolling down my passenger-side window and shooting some of the more ambitious creatures in the head, but before I could make a dumb-ass move like that, I heard whacks and gunshots from above. Clearly, those who’d landed on my roof had brought a few weapons with them, and Ray had obviously replenished their ammo from his treasure chest of a backpack.
Several zombies tumbled from the top of the surrounding piles, but the situation could still go south quickly. For those outside as well as for me and the kids. After all, zombies were pressing against the front, back, and sides of my van, which was in imminent danger of being irreversibly encircled. Worse, I could feel the heat from the encroaching flames. Just like in the burning French Quarter.
So, when I heard the loudest thunk of all above me, I assumed Ray had finally jumped down with his human burden. My right foot shifted from the brakes and hovered over the gas pedal, but I hesitated to hit it until I was certain Ray was aboard.
Someone suddenly beat the roof of my van.
“Go. Go. Go!” Ray yelled.
I stepped on the gas and rolled forward across the grass, pushing the zombified obstacles aside and beneath me. The farther I got from the building, the faster we moved. Faster, as in going from one mile per hour to perhaps two miles per hour, but hey, at least it was progress.
CHAPTER
15
“I believe the most rational mind can play tricks in the dark.” - Sam Daily, The Woman in Black (2012)
Slowly, I turned left through the zombie horde and prodded my way across the crowded parking lot. Glancing toward the burning church beside me, I noticed a creature emerge from the disintegrating foyer. Not sure what alarmed me more — that the thing wasn’t on fire or that it resembled the untamed beast I’d seen on the Earhart Expressway in New Orleans.
Whatever it was, it hadn’t decayed like the zombies. It was muscular and half-naked, with clawed hands and sparse patches of coarse hair covering its body. As with the one in New Orleans, it also possessed intellige
nt eyes that had locked onto my face as if assessing the threat level. As I rolled past the driveway, it remained in the burning doorway for a few more seconds, then unleashed an unholy screech and plowed through the zombies surrounding the van. It had sprinted so quickly toward me that I didn’t even have a chance to warn my rooftop passengers. With ten feet left between us, it leapt upward, just past my driver’s-side window, and over the front of my van.
Based on the human shrieking above me, I figured the creature had nabbed someone. The zombies around us had thinned out a bit, but I still couldn’t do much to shake the creature loose without shaking off all the rest of my passengers as well. Suddenly, I saw something roll down my windshield and bounce off my hood. It was the bloody head of the first woman who’d climbed down to my van. The tall, lanky one. Her body fell off the passenger side, followed by the screeching creature. Right then, I decided I’d prefer having the chalice dent my hood again.
Some gruesome sights you just can’t unsee.
Noting a temporary gap amid the teeming zombies, I prayed that everyone above me had braced themselves on the roof, and then hit the gas. All of us needed to get the fuck away from this hellish situation as soon as humanly possible.
As I headed back to East Main Street, I heard multiple gunshots from above and watched several zombies fall in the glow cast from the burning church. The unseen shooters (probably Ray and at least one other person) seemed to be aiming toward the hairy, screeching creature, but it kept zigzagging through the crowd, trying to keep the undead between itself and the bullets.
Seriously, what the fuck?!
When the path ahead of me cleared enough, I flipped on my headlights and hauled ass out of the parking lot. I could hear thunks, swearing, and more gunfire above me, but I didn’t stop for anything or anyone. Glancing into my newly repaired side-view mirror, I realized the creature hadn’t stopped either. It was chasing us faster than any zombie could and didn’t halt until I hit about thirty miles per hour. I suspected it could’ve caught us if it had wanted to, but instead, it just stood eerily in the empty roadway and stared at our rapidly diminishing van.
About a mile down the road, I came to a gentle stop. Then, Travis and I hopped out and helped everyone climb down from the roof and into the rear of the van. Besides Ray and Clovis, his injured friend, there were two men and three women remaining.
“We lose anyone?” I asked Ray.
“Shirley,” he said solemnly. She must’ve been the tall woman the mysterious creature had unceremoniously decapitated.
Once everyone had safely boarded the van, another ungodly screech echoed in the distance, as if the beast had moved on to someone else. Ray’s eyes locked onto mine. His mouth was tight; his expression, grim. Or at least less stoic than usual.
We rode back to his house in near-silence. Gazing back at my passengers, I spotted Ray, Travis, Nicole, and Frankie huddled together on the floor. Two sobbing white women sat across from the two white men at my dining table. I could only assume those were Uma, Eunice, and their husbands. An old black woman leaned against the sofa bed, cradling the injured man’s head in her lap and shaking her own head with apparent dismay. Clovis grimaced and let out a mournful cry, and she responded by caressing his sweaty brow and mumbling words of reassurance.
Oh, yeah. This won’t end well.
CHAPTER
16
“Hey, sweetheart. Let me tell you something. You, uh, you have my permission. I ever turn into one of those things? Do me a favor, blow my fucking head off.” - Steve, Dawn of the Dead (2004)
When we returned safely to Ray’s house, he opened his garage door, and I guided my van into the available space. Luckily, there was just enough room for me to squeeze beside the trusty pick-up that had transported him and his kids from the Lake Maurepas boat launch on the fateful day the undead incursion had arrived in southern Louisiana. Once Ray had secured both of his garage doors (in case determined zombies or marauders were still in the vicinity), he and one of the other guys carried poor Clovis from the rear of my van and laid him on a canvas tarp on the cement floor.
Uma and Eunice, who had met as fellow nurses in their youth, knelt on either side of their injured friend and, in the ghostly light of several electric lanterns, did their best to treat him. First, they removed the blood-soaked bandage they’d fashioned from a pink sweatshirt back in the church office. Next, they used a pair of Ray’s heavy-duty scissors to cut away Clovis’s jeans around the wound. Then, they tried to clean the pus filled wound with hydrogen peroxide, which only made their patient yell in pain — and probably attract a variety of undesirables toward the only occupied house on the block.
While Ray’s children took Frankie inside the kitchen to give him some overdue food and water, and the ladies’ husbands disappeared into the den to allow their wives some space to work, Ray, the old black woman, and I remained in the garage. The other two no doubt stayed to lend a hand, and though I was willing to help, too — even if it meant just grabbing any necessary supplies from the house — I also admit to a certain level of morbid curiosity. Like slowing down on the interstate to sneak a peek at a terrible accident on the other side, I felt compelled to hover and observe the inevitable outcome.
Blood, pus, and black zombie goo seeped from the wound, which clearly resembled a deep bite. Clovis had accompanied the ladies’ husbands on the first, less-successful rescue mission, and one of the rotting motherfuckers in the church had managed to take a chunk out of the poor guy’s thigh.
The patient’s breathing had become noticeably shallow and ragged, and his face had drained of all color, turning “a whiter shade of pale,” to quote one of Clare’s favorite old songs. Almost as pale as the fresh bandages Uma and Eunice used to wrap the wound. While Clovis was still conscious, moaning periodically, rivulets of sweat poured from his clammy forehead. No doubt the infection had spread throughout his body, and trying to fight it had resulted in what was no doubt, a seriously high fucking fever. As Uma finished bandaging the wound, Eunice placed a cool rag across his brow, but we all knew it wouldn’t do much good. In fact, every effort to save him was futile. If the sepsis didn’t kill him first, his boiling brain surely would — and then, we’d all be in deep shit.
Ray stepped beside me. “Have you seen dis before? Seen what happens?”
Though flattered that a badass, resourceful ex-Marine like him would consider me the resident zombie expert, I still didn’t know enough about the real-world, non-Hollywood undead to hazard an accurate guess. Of course, my often reliable gut told me he (and Clovis) wouldn’t like my answer.
“Well, I’ve certainly seen a lot of folks get bitten… hell, even torn apart… but I don’t usually stick around to see what happens next.” I hesitated before continuing, “Still, while I haven’t actually watched someone turn into a zombie, I have seen thousands upon thousands of walking corpses… people who had been bitten or dismembered, many of whom looked recently deceased.”
Although Clovis seemed too dazed to hear my words, the women had turned toward me, listening. I hated disappointing such kind-hearted people, but lies would only hurt them in this new fucked up world.
“I hate to say it,” I continued, “but zombie bites spread the infection. And I don’t think there’s any way to stop it.”
“He goin’ into da Infernal,” the old black woman whispered, “an’ one of dose dead tings comin’ back.”
I glanced at her. She was leaning against the workbench, nodding sagely. She looked familiar somehow, but I couldn’t figure out where, when, or how I’d seen her before, and I certainly didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Given my interest in religious history, I’d heard a lot of different terms for the afterlife, but never the Infernal.
“Sadie, stop dat,” Eunice said to the black woman, wearing the concerned yet condescending expression of a parent trying to dissuade a child with an overactive imagination. “You know dere ain’t no such place.”
“Sorry, child,” Sadi
e said with genuine sorrow. “No matter what you believe, Mr. Joe right… dere ain’t nuttin’ can be done.”
Eunice’s face fell, as if Sadie’s words had knocked the self-assured Catholic fervor right out of her. Tears dribbled down her cheeks, and she softly sobbed. That was all it took for Uma to start weeping, too.
“Oh, Clovis,” she said, sniffling.
Ray glanced at Clovis, then back at me — a silent question in his eyes.
My chest tightened as I slowly shook my head.
For the first time since I’d met him, I saw Ray’s shoulders slump in defeat.
I gazed down at Clovis and noticed he was looking up at me, his eyes wide and lucid. Shit. Apparently, he’d overheard our conversation.
His focus shifted to Ray. “I don’t wanna turn into one of those godforsaken demons.”
They’re not demons, they’re zombies. Well, except for that hairy thing. I don’t know what the fuck that was.
“Ray,” Clovis begged, drawing me back to the melancholy moment. “I already lost Lizabeth. It’s time for me to be with her again.”
A spluttering, coughing fit overtook him, and I instinctively retreated a couple of steps.
Sorry to be an asshole, buddy, but I don’t want your spit on me.
For all I knew, bites weren’t the only way to transfer the zombie infection.
When Clovis finally ceased coughing, he fixed his stare on Ray again. “Please, man. You need to take care of it.”
Ray sighed heavily, hesitated for a few seconds, and then nodded. “OK, brother. If dat’s what you want.”
Zombie Chaos Book 2: Highway to Hell Page 8