Tranny’s fucked up, or the driveshaft dropped!
“We have to get out of here!” Darien shrieked, over the edge in fear.
The hood and rear bed of the truck were so thick with the creatures that Wallace couldn’t see beyond them. Likewise they pressed up against Darien’s passenger window with greedy bloodlust, banging and scratching to get at them, as the truck heaved sickeningly from side to side. The truck’s left side was pinned against a storefront, however, so Wallace couldn’t have opened his door if he wanted to. The side-view mirror was missing, having been snapped off somewhere along the course of travel. A low brick wall at the bottom of the storefront pressed against the bottom of his door and the expansive picture window was right outside his own. A host of clothing mannequins looked down at them, as if mocking them while they remained trapped in their vehicular tomb. Like a breeze of freedom passing just out of reach, the tranquil picture of the clothing dummies stood there as a happy reminder of days that once were—simple, safe times before any of this insanity was even a possibility.
Darien figured it out first. “Out your window!” she yelled. “Through the glass!”
Wallace, too, saw it was the only way. He opened his window quickly. The alarming sound of the zombie chorus increased in volume as the window cracked open.
“Just blow it out!” she shouted. “Hold on!”
Darien pulled her rifle around and, pointing it right past his face, fired twice. The sound was deafening—so deafening, in fact, that Wallace wondered if she had just destroyed his right ear drum as he turned to shield himself from the muzzle flash at the last moment.
But the shots didn’t do more than open two pea-sized holes in the glass.
“Stop! Stop!” Wallace screamed, pushing her back as he reeled from the burning pain in his ear. Then, without hesitation, he laid himself right back across her lap and kicked his feet out through the open driver’s door window, slamming his boots against the storefront glass.
In two quick pumps it all broke apart and rained down upon his legs.
“Come on!” he called, hoisting himself through his window with the skill of one whose very life depended on it. “Hurry!”
Darien went right behind him, but wasn’t as quick. A second later the hands of two creatures that were swarming atop the roof of the truck were at her, each getting a clutch of her hair and clothes. She froze with a shout, raising her hands to try and ward them off.
“Don’t stop!” Wallace yelled as he grabbed her arms and practically pulled her out of the truck.
But the zombies had merciless grips on her. They jerked her head and shoulders back toward them even as Wallace tried to wrestle her away. She fell back against the truck as the damp, wretched, cold clutches of the zombies pawed at her.
“No!” Wallace yelled, swinging out at the head of the first. He made good contact—enough to make pain blossom in his hand—but it was to no avail. The beast held on even while its head rocked back and its jaw dislocated. He grabbed Darien around the waist and yanked her back as hard as he could. She screamed as one of the monsters pulled away with a fistful of her hair.
Wallace beat down on the gruesome hold of the other, which held her shirt at the shoulder. He smacked down on the creature, hitting five times in fast succession, seeing the wrist and arm break from his blows. It finally broke loose, but not before a third ghoul had climbed over the truck and attached itself to her leg. Darien kicked out, literally crushing its unflinching fingers with her foot. It only reacted by taking hold with its other hand, causing her to stumble as they tried to move away.
Wallace kept tugging and realized he was hauling in both Darien and an attached zombie. The creature remained focused on maintaining its grip on her, even as she fought to free herself. Tears of pain and panic glistened on her cheeks. Wallace turned and stomped on the creature’s arm mercilessly until bone audibly snapped and the ghoul couldn’t maintain its grip.
With the picture window shattered, other zombies started finding their way over and around the truck. Wallace pushed Darien farther into the store, then turned and pulled his pistol from its holster.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
“The packs!” he snapped. “We can’t leave them!” He brought the Springfield XDm up in both hands and fired. The big .45 boomed, and a zombie’s head disintegrated as a heavy slug clove it almost in two. Another target presented itself—too quickly, Wallace thought—and was dispatched in the same manner. Then another, and another, and another. The zombies were coming over the truck’s bed like some rotten tidal wave. He pressed forward, still firing. He dropped two more as he reached inside the truck, fishing around. His fingers brushed against one of the rifles, and he pulled it out.
More zombies lurched forward, reaching for him. Even with the rifle, Wallace knew he wasn’t going to win if he remained. He shot one last zombie in the face, the barrel of his pistol actually making contact with its upper lip before he pulled the trigger. He turned away from the truck then and ran deeper into the store. Darien waited for him in the dark shadows, unarmed and helpless. That she hadn’t even thought to bring her rifle with her left him feeling furious, but he stuffed the emotion into a compartment and slammed it shut.
“Come on!” he snapped, grabbing her arm after holstering his pistol. “We can try and circle back for the stuff later!”
They raced through the dark store, knocking into clothing dummies and display racks as they ran. Behind them, Wallace heard the zombies creeping across the broken glass as they gave pursuit.
“This way!” he said, dashing toward a hallway that seemed to lead to the back.
Don’t miss the door! Don’t miss the door! Wallace thought over and over as he wormed his way around the aisles of the small store looking for a way out the back.
There was a moment of terror when they reached the end of a long hall to find no exit door. The first of the zombies staggered after them, pushing itself into the mouth of the hallway. Wallace saw he and Darien had run right past a door, and he backtracked to it and pushed it open. It opened into a short vestibule that ended in a larger, glass-covered door that brought them into the back alley. Wallace dragged Darien out after him, then shouldered the door closed behind her.
The silence of the alley was strangely deafening. For a moment Wallace paused and considered working out a method of blocking the door behind them. Perhaps, he thought, if they could drag over a large, green metal dumpster from nearby it might buy them some time.
“No, no. Come on. There’s no time,” Darien urged, already dodging up the alley toward the north.
Wallace beat his feet to follow. He breathed heavily, and his clothes felt saturated with perspiration and grime. If Darien felt the same way, she didn’t allow it to show. She didn’t slow down until they had run six blocks away, and only then because she glanced back and saw Wallace couldn’t keep up.
“You all right?” she hissed.
He waved the question away. “Hold on,” he said, gasping from exertion, terror, and excitement. “We need to stay local.”
“What?” Darien looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “What the hell for, Wallace?”
“Our gear. It’s still back there.” Wallace put his hands on his knees and looked around. “They won’t be interested in it, so they’ll leave it alone. Right now, we only have what we’re carrying. We have to try and get it back.”
More shapes emerged from nearby doorways and crawled around abandoned cars. Wallace squeezed his eyes closed and let out a small sigh of frustration.
“I think we need to keep going,” Darien said. “Seriously. I get what you’re talking about, but I doubt we’re going to be able to get our stuff back.”
Wallace straightened up and nodded. He pointed down the street, and they started off at a slow jog.
“So many,” Darien gasped as they jogged on. “There were… so many there… why?”
Wallace shook his head. “I don’t know… the traffic… the
y were all… congregated there. Good hunting ground before.”
“Let’s slow down,” she suggested. “We may need to sprint again, so …”
“Yeah… please.”
They reduced their pace to a walk.
The late afternoon sun sprayed slivers of light off to the left as they continued their migration toward the airport. The day had become silent again. The inhuman sounds of the zombie horde, many blocks behind them, was out of reach for now.
They decided it might be better to avoid the bulk of El Segundo to the south and so, skirting around via Hawthorne, approached the airport from the east. It was a desolate journey—a disturbing landscape of barren streets, abandoned cars, and silence. Every so often Wallace would try the door of a car, or peek in to see if a set of keys were in the ignition, but anything they found was out of gas.
“We need to find another dealership,” he muttered.
“You said yourself we have to keep moving north.”
“But not to the airport,” he said. “I’m telling you, this is a mistake.”
As the sun began its slow dive toward the ocean, they arrived. What they found was a still wasteland. There were some commercial planes still about, still parked at the terminal gates for the most part, but none of these were about to go anywhere. In fact, across the wide expanse that made up Los Angeles International Airport, they could see that one plane had crashed right into a terminal. A great fire had raged, leaving a huge swath of blackened debris and destruction behind that still smoldered. Tendrils of smoke curled upward into the air, even though the fire’s main body seemed to have burned itself out days ago. A series of military vehicles were scattered about, including some armored vehicles Wallace didn’t recognize. Bradleys? It didn’t matter. They weren’t going to be of any use.
Zombies stumbled everywhere across the airfield.
Wallace thought of all the things he could say to Darien, beginning with “I told you so,” but the situation at large stole his enthusiasm to point fingers. Instead—tired and incredibly hungry as he was—Wallace knew they had better make some sort of plan before the night fell.
“Well.” Darien looked at the devastation with a blank expression. “At least there are a lot of hotels in the neighborhood.”
“You know, that’s a pretty good idea.”
“I know a place,” she said.
And so they journeyed to a high-rise hotel just northeast of the airport.
They gratefully found the place empty and quiet. In a small coffee shop in the lobby they secured a variety of aging sandwiches, snacks, and an assortment of drinks. They even managed to find two working flashlights and a packet of candles in a utility closet.
Though they had to use stairs, Darien led Wallace all the way up to the twelfth floor, where she showed him a luxury suite with two separate bedrooms. Wallace looked around the sumptuous expanse, then turned back to her.
“Stay here often?” he asked.
She looked at him directly. “A few times.”
“Were you a hooker? Because in my experience, only hookers know about places like this.”
“No, Wallace. I wasn’t a hooker. But if the place is too much for you, there are others. Go pick out one for yourself, if that’s what you want to do.”
Wallace considered the room’s large living area. Just the sofas alone looked like a million bucks. “No. This is cool—good choice. It’ll definitely do.”
CHAPTER 10
MATTHEW
When Matthew landed in the bush, it probably wouldn’t have cut him up as much as it did had he relaxed. Adding to the shock of falling off the roof, he was further startled to land in the scratching fingers of a bush. He kind of bounced for a moment right after the initial impact, then felt the pushing, probing points of various branches poking into him. This sent him into a short, panic-fueled tizzy (I’ve been caught by a zombie! he screamed to himself) and he frantically wrestled his way out its clutches as fast as possible. This happened only at the cost of dozens of cuts and scratches.
He got to his feet in a kind of dazed euphoria. The daylight was just starting to make the surroundings visible, but it was still a pastel mix of shadows and shapes. Among them: zombies.
There were creatures all around him, and yelled as he stumbled backward and fell into the bush again. He fought his way free once more, gaining additional cuts for his efforts. He got to his feet, swinging his arms wildly at the ghouls that were all around him. But really, they weren’t—another shrub, a small tree, a fence post—a wide range of things that were part of the fading shadows of morning twilight fooled his frightened eyes. Matthew caught his breath as he realized he was all alone.
The silence was deafening. In it he remembered his yell. As if to match his thought, new sounds of scuffling started out of the stillness—far off to the right, somewhere beyond his sight. The nightmare continued.
Matthew bolted across the field. Perhaps most of the zombies were now in the school building. Perhaps he’d have a chance to get away.
But he didn’t get far before he saw two of the zombies milling about near a house near the far edge of the field, on the other side of the chain-link fence that surrounded the school. Matthew cut around to a different corner of the field, then saw another ghoul shambling along. It hadn’t noticed him yet, but Matthew had no allusions about the set of circumstances he was in. The zombies were everywhere.
For the next couple of hours, it seemed he could make no progress. Every time he wanted to head back toward his house, he was funneled farther away by the sight of one or more of these creatures lurking in the distance. Late morning found Matthew close to two miles from his home and completely exhausted. Hopelessness and exhaustion weighed heavily upon him. Playing hide and seek with carnivorous corpses was both emotionally and physically exhausting, made even more so by the fact that if he was caught, he wouldn’t just be “it”—he would be eaten.
Eventually, he wound up crouching behind a small wooden shed at the back of a large piece of property that suddenly seemed like a safe place to hide. Another gaggle of zombies was staggering in his general direction, and despite his youth and vigor, Matthew was already worn out. He needed to lie low for a bit and recharge, so he pulled open the shed’s door and stepped inside. He shut the door, which didn’t even have a lock, and quickly fell down into a dirty clump of canvasses that had been left there in the dark shed. He was too tired to notice how filthy they were. In fact, he was too tired to notice much of anything.
Before a minute had passed, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and didn’t wake up until well after dark. It was a terrifying realization to awaken and find himself there, without even a lock to secure the door. He compensated for this somewhat by leaning against the door, figuring that if anyone or anything tried to gain access, he would be able to block it for at least a time. Traveling at night was out of the question, though he did consider it for a time. The truth of the matter was, he was too frightened to attempt it alone.
But I have to get back to Dad, he told himself. The endless anxiety brought tears back to his eyes, and he wiped them away angrily. The cuts on his hand and along his back stung, irritated by the trickles of sweat that oozed across them.
After a shaky hour of nervous contemplation, he fell back to sleep and slept soundlessly until morning.
When the sun arose, Matthew resumed his trek.
He began on a direct beeline back to his house and, in the early morning hours, was able to make great time. For reasons unknown to him, it seemed that most of the zombies had shuffled out of the area. He still saw them, of course, in singletons or pairs, creeping along as they hunted for prey. He had no issues staying clear of them through a combination of avoidance and concealment, though in the times that he had to hide, he always ensured he had an escape route. He was learning. Allowing himself to be trapped again was never something that would work in his favor, as he had discovered back in the school.
Finally, as he approached the blo
ck where his house sat, he began to slow down. This was the spot—just up ahead—where he’d watched his mother’s brutal dismemberment. It was overcast and still not very light, but up ahead he thought he could make out some object in the road. Something that looked both vaguely human in origin while at the same time completely alien. He realized after a moment that he was contemplating the remains of a person that had been savaged by the zombies.
Is that Mom? he wondered, and the thought brought tears back to his eyes.
Not wanting to find out, he instead took a circuitous route around the back of the house and ducked into the screened-in porch, where a key was hidden under a plant. He worked it into the door and, taking one last look around, made his way inside the quiet house.
The smell of the safe space overwhelmed him immediately. As he closed and locked the door behind him, he found himself experiencing a surge of pride. He’d survived out in the land of the dead, and now he was back home. Safe. But the house was very still, seemingly devoid of life. Matthew knew right away it was empty, but he had to check. He went to his parents’ bedroom and looked in to find the bed empty and filthy, the room reeking of sickness. Matthew felt a bolt of panic. His father was gone. He wanted to call out, but his senses got the better of him. Instead he slowly went through the house, room by room, searching for his father.
He found the note taped prominently to the refrigerator.
Matthew,
I’m looking for you. I’m traveling north, to Nana’s house in Malibu.
Dad
A flush of hope rejuvenated him. His father was alive! Then the room started to spin a little. His father was headed for Malibu… which meant Matthew would have to leave the house and find his way to his late grandmother’s home. He would have to venture back into the world of the dead. Alone.
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