by Dallin Smith
“Grenade?’ Jason said as he stopped moving. He realized that all of the other men had dozens of puncture wounds as well. He glanced down at his feet to see a tripwire primed. He looked up to see a grenade resting a few feet above him, well out of reach. “Oh that would have been bad. Tommy, watch your step, there could be tripwires here.”
“Urghhh,” one of the bodies groaned.
“Hey are you still alive?” Tommy asked.
“Urggghhhh” it groaned again as it started to writhe. Jason noticed that it had a large bite mark on the side of its leg. The corpse opened its eyes and Jason could see the distinctive red pupils. “Oh crap! Tommy look out!” Jason cried in vain as the zombie suddenly rose to its feet and charged Tommy. The boy wasn’t fast enough with his shotgun and ended up on his back wrestling with the fiendish creature.
Jason lurched forward to help but stopped short of tripping one of the wires. “Ahhhh!” Tommy cried as the zombie tore into him with all its might.
“Damn it!” Jason shouted as he pulled out his pistol and began shooting at the zombie. Its head was bent over the boy and the gunshots did nothing to phase it as it continued to attack Tommy.
“Ahhhhhh…..” Tommy screamed in pain as the creature continued to tear into his flesh.
“Tommy!” Jason cried but there was nothing he could do. He stepped backwards and looked for a clear route to get to the boy but there were too many tripwires everywhere.
“Frank! Need some help down here!” Jason shouted as he hopped over one wire and managed to get to a different angle. He fired off a round and struck the creature in the head, killing it instantly.
“Tommy! You okay?” Jason asked.
“Bit me, it bit me. Gonna die…gonna die soon,” Tommy said. His face was white as a ghost with a tear streaking his grimaced expression
“Shoot before I turn.”
“Come on man, you can-“
“If I turn I run at you, shoot me please, I can’t stand up,” Tommy pleaded.
“Damn it dude, come on, that’s…please don’t die.”
“L-language,” Tommy replied. “Just get out of this city, please. Just end me.”
Jason felt tears stream down his face as he aimed the gun at his friend and pulled the trigger. Tommy died right then and there. He hadn’t wanted to pull the trigger, but the tripwires would have ensured that grenades would have rained down had Tommy turned and lunged at Jason.
“Frank!” Jason called. “Frank!” there was no reply from the room. Jason looked at his fallen friend and sighed deeply. He felt his pain grow great with each moment and the room was starting to spin a little. He shook his head and tried to focus on Sarah, the woman that his friend had died for. Jason grabbed what guns and ammunition he could, loaded them into bags and made sure to disable the tripwires as well. Jason found a box in the corner by the canned goods. He loaded up and began to climb up the stairwell.
Upstairs was chaos. Furniture had been smashed, the survival magazines were all over the floor as the coffee table had been overturned and Frank was on the ground wrestling with the fat man, who was hissing and growling like an animal.
“Dear God kill it! Kill the darned thing!” Frank shouted as he tried to fight it off. Jason grabbed his machete and buried in the back of the zombie’s skull. The creature stopped moving and went limp falling on top of Frank. He and Jason rolled the thing off to one side.
“Oh, that was a close one,” Frank said. “That fat bastard passed out from his wounds and then next thing I know he’s trying to eat me. Where’s Tommy?”
“He uh, he didn’t make it.”
“What? How?”
“Zombie got him before he had a chance to fight back,”
“Damn it,” Frank swore. “I guess we can cuss again now. Come on, if you let it get you down now you won’t think straight. Mourning is a luxury, let’s get moving.”
“There’s plenty more guns down there, let’s load up the truck and get moving.”
“Yeah, good thinking. We don’t want to waste any more time here.” Frank said as he patted Jason on the shoulder. “Let’s roll.”
The two gathered what they could and quickly left the house, only to see absolute pandemonium going on outside. Zombies were everywhere and the truck was nowhere to be found.
“Oh crap!” Jason shouted as he realized what was happening. A massive horde had overtaken Jefferson Street and they were very agitated. They shrieked and bit at the open air, thrashing and moving atop one another as they absolutely covered the landscape.
“The roof! The roof!” Frank shouted as he rushed towards the Humvee. He quickly climbed atop it and pulled himself up onto the roof of the small house. Jason followed quickly and scrambled up as well.
“Isn’t this just peachy keen,” Frank mumbled as he loaded his rifle. “Hundreds of them down there and where the hell is our vehicle?”
“Maybe the girls were spooked,” Jason said.
“Spooked? Son, if a hundred of these monsters just suddenly surrounded my car I’d drive until I ran out of gas,” Frank replied. He grimaced as he looked out at the flood of the undead. The zombies were everywhere; it was as if a sea of flesh rotted humans had overtaken the area.
“I dropped my damn ammunition bag down there,” Jason said looking down. He was so panicked he let go of the bag and sprinted up the roof.
“Well it ain’t like it would help in this situation,” Frank said. “I mean maybe if we found the keys to the hummer we could get out of here but until then I think we should just stay put and see if this wave moves or something.”
“What about everyone else? Tudson, Sarah and that laughing woman?”
“Look man I don’t see a truck anywhere, do you?”
“No…” Jason said. He felt his stomach get tight at the realization that his Sarah could be anywhere. There was little time to figure out what to do next. As he pondered the situation, he heard a loud honking down the street. The honking grew louder and louder agitating the horde. The zombies began to howl as they rushed forward, following after the honking noise. The horn was louder and louder and soon there were many a zombie running down the streets towards the noise.
“They’re clearing out, come on let’s get in the Humvee and get rolling,” Frank said as he slid down the slope of the roof and onto the pavement. Jason followed and scooped up the bag in one hand and the box in the other. They made a mad dash for the hummer and relief swept over them when they found the keys in the ignition. Most of the undead had moved far away in a frenzied bid to find their next meal.
“That horn, was it Sarah?” Jason asked.
“Maybe, we can follow the horde and see who it was,” Frank replied. “Load up your AR-15, bud, you’re riding shotgun.”
The car revved up as they drove full speed through the street, plowing through a few slower corpses. Sure enough, ahead was Sarah’s truck and it was currently driving erratically.
“Go back!” Sarah cried as she stuck her head out the truck’s window for a brief moment. “North Temple is too clogged up!” A large cluster of zombies forced her to shove her head back in, narrowly avoiding getting grabbed by one of the monsters.
“Come on, come on!” Frank said as he pulled to halt. “Son, there’s too many of those bastards for this SUV to get through.”
“We gotta help ‘em, Frank,” Jason said, his voice was hoarse as he contemplated the risks involved.
‘I know that, I know that. I just don’t know how we can help,” Frank replied.
“Well I’m going to use this gun and shoot them until either they’re all dead or we’re all dead,” Jason said. “I’ve got to do something here.” He grabbed his rifle and opened the sunroof of the hummer. “Let’s do this!” he cried as he began to shoot at the horde. He felt a thrill as the gun began to pop off round after round, shooting each zombie with relative accuracy, of course it wasn’t hard to hit them in a tight, snarling mass composed of walking dead.
“More coming in from the w
est!” Frank cried. Jason looked to the right to see not hundreds, but thousands of corpses shambling in his direction. The sound was enough to agitate them enough to break into a run.
“Okay, enough, hang tight bud! We’re getting them out of there!” Frank shouted as he revved the engine up. “Charrrrrge!” he screamed as he drove the hummer at full speed towards the swarmed truck. The vehicle smashed through a few dozen of the undead but the numbers were too thick for even the car to make it through, it slowed down significantly. Many zombies had been thrown on top of the vehicle as well, crawling towards Jason.
“Okay that didn’t work,” Jason said as he continued to shoot. This was getting ridiculous. The truck was now rocking back and forth as zombies from both sides pressed their bodies hard into it. It was only a matter of time before the entire swarm would flip the truck with Sarah in it.
“That’s what you think, pal!” Frank said as he climbed out of his seat and towards the back of the vehicle. He took a screwdriver and began to puncture it through the side of the car.
“What are you doing?”
“Just a little trick I learned, when things get rough, you set things on fire! there we go!” he exclaimed as gasoline began to leak out of one of the holes. “Give me one of the water bottles up there on the floor, quick!”
In a few minutes they had several bottles full of gasoline and ripped cloth in them. Frank was grinning like a maniac, he had taken off his shirt and wrapped a blood soaked rag around his forehead like a bandanna. “Let’s burn this place down!” he muttered as he readied the bottles. One by one, the strips of cloth were lit and he stuck his head out the sunroof and began to throw them at the horde lighting hundreds of the corpses on fire. The zombies began to shriek and draw back writhing on the ground as the flames quickly overtook them. It seemed that fire was a very effective counter to killing those things.
“Haha, that’s the way to do it! Shoot boy, shoot!” Frank cried as Jason began to fire into the remaining crowd of the undead. With the flames significantly scattering the horde the truck was able to get free enough to pull up next to the Hummer.
“Get in! Get in!” Jason shouted as the ladies both clambered out of their car and into the hummer.
“Oh I cannot believe you pulled that off!” Sarah cried as she hugged Jason for a brief second. She regained her composure and pulled away.
“Where’s Tudson?” Jason asked, realizing that only the two women were in the vehicle with him.
“I thought he was with you,” Sarah replied. “Where’s Tommy?”
“Tommy’s dead,” Frank said. “Don’t think about it, we’ve got to keep moving.”
“That’s horrible,” Sarah said. “Absolutely horrible in every way.”
“We gotta find Tudson, I mean if he’s still alive. Frank, let’s go.” Jason ordered reaching for his seat belt.
Frank grinned as he slid back into his seat and revved the truck. “I think if we turned back around we’ll be safe. Most of them are moving in this direction.”
The hummer turned and bolted back towards Charlie’s home. Most of the zombies were clear from the streets, they had all been following the racket made a mile up. In the middle of the road was Tudson, limping along and waving his hands.
“Hey! Over here! I’m over you here, you jerks!” he cried as he limped forward.
“Tudson, get in!” Jason shouted as he opened the door and grabbed the biker’s arm.
“I thought I found an alternate exit into that guy’s house but it was just a shed,” Tudson explained. “I hid out when the wave hit, then I heard a ton of noise and gunshots, figured it was you folks.”
“Glad you’re okay,” Jason said as he filled Tudson in on what had happened. They had a moment of silence out of respect for Tommy. Each person feeling the sorrow of the loss of a person they just met but truly loved. Frank even said a prayer.
“ Lord, we thank you for giving us the chance to meet such a fine young person as Tommy. Knowing him has impacted our lives greatly, giving us strength and virtue and reason to live. Take him, dear Lord, into paradise, letting him know that he has friends here that will never forget him. Amen.”
“Amen.”
After that they had finished loading up their guns and readying their weapons, they began to discuss a plan.
“How do we get to the mountains from here?” Jason asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Frank said as he brought the vehicle to a stop. “You said the highway was clogged?”
“There were so many abandoned cars strewn everywhere and just hordes of the undead,” Sarah said, “we figured we could loop around back through the highway but forget about it. Any major road is just full of…” she trailed off and shivered a little.
“Full of what?” Tudson asked.
“Some kind of big barrier things. Like made of concrete. No way to get around them.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“We navigated through a few cars at first and thought it was clear but…the bridge had been collapsed and there were large barriers blocking us from moving.”
“Where the hell did barriers come from?” Jason shouted, “What bridge?”
“A collapsed over pass. It seems it just crumbled for no reason from what I can tell.” Sarah answered.
“Either someone is trying to keep everyone out of Salt Lake City….or keep everyone in,” Tudson said. “I knew someone’s up to something here. This ain’t random, this ain’t some random meteor passing through the sky pissing off the dead, I knew it, I knew it!”
Jane laughed at that and pointed to Tudson’s leg. It was bright red.
“Damn, must have reopened my wound in all the chaos, anyone got some bandages or something? Maybe some whiskey…for uh, antiseptic purposes?’
“No Whiskey pal, I'm sorry. Good idea to bring the first aid kit from Brewvies Sarah. You're in luck there brother.” Jason answered.
“So what do we do?” Sarah mused. “Barricades are at every turn; it’s not like we can just use our smartphones to figure out how to get out of this damn town.”
“Look, I hate to say it but maybe we should rough it,” Frank said. “We’ve got plenty of weapons and whatnot. We take a shortcut I know up past the University, we can cut through there and hike out to the mountains on foot. It’s a rough journey, I know, but it’ll be far sparser in the woods than on the roads. We can then figure out a way to get to Emigration Peak.”
“Emigration? That’s a terrible spot, it’s way up there.” Tudson said, pointing East towards the mountains.
“Exactly. We wait it out there for a while and then hopefully the military will get a handle on this thing.”
“If there is a military,” Sarah whispered quietly. This caused an unsettling feeling to wash over the group. They all sat in an uncomfortable silence for quite some time before Frank started talking again.
“Alright we’re not too far from THE U, this should work out great. Hey wait a second, what’s all that over there?” The hummer pulled through an intersection and on the other side of the road was a large military jeep with several men in military uniforms firing into a large crowd of the undead.
“Finally! The military’s here!” Jason cried as he pointed to the soldiers. The men had gathered into formation in front of another bus that was also flipped on it's side. On it read, “Salt Lake City Temple,” as it's destination. Jason could see a few men and women slowly climbing out of the overturned bus. The vehicle had crashed into something and had toppled over.
“Looks like an evacuation team!” Sarah cried.
“Well ain’t we lucky!” Tudson said as he clapped his hands together then grimaced and clutched his leg.
“Hey wait a second, do you hear that?” Sarah said. Jane’s laughter had grown much more hysterical as the ground began to rumble.
Emerging from the chaos of the zombies was a massive beast of some sort. It looked like it was an elephant of some sorts with red eyes and rotted f
lesh. It shrieked horribly as it charged at the soldiers who were completely caught off guard by the creature.
“Is that an elephant?”
“Zombified, dear God!” Sarah cried out. “It’s hideous!”
The soldiers fired at the monstrous being but the bullets did nothing to bother the creature as it crashed hard into the soldiers, goring them with its tusks and stamping on them. The soldiers scattered but the hordes of the undead were also atop them and within moments an entire sea of zombies swallowed the unit and the survivors who had been trying to evacuate.
Frank killed the engine to the vehicle and sat very stiffly. “That…if that thing hears or sees us, I think we’re pretty much done for.”
“No one move too much and keep your voices down,” Jason whispered. “Maybe that thing will go away.
“How is that possible? I didn't know any animals could turn like that,” Sarah whimpered.
“I knew it. The government did this! They experimented on animals and humans and let ‘em loose to see what would happen!” Tudson exclaimed.
“Cool it, stop riling everyone up, Tudson,” Jason chided.
“So now what?” Tudson wondered out loud.
“Man! I guess just sit tight and uh, hope it goes away,” Frank nervously replied.
“That really a good plan?” Tudson asked, “I mean look at the size of that thing. If it gets a whiff of us, we’re dead.”
“I’m guessing it can move through the streets pretty quickly on the account of how easily it’s flipping those cars over,” Frank replied. “So if it chases after us we’re screwed. I mean if we have to hit our brakes once, it’ll catch us. Jason you got any heavy weapons in your bag?”
“Nothing heavier than what the military was packing,” Jason replied. In the tenseness of the moment he had unconsciously grabbed Sarah’s hand and much to his surprise, she held it tightly. They exchanged a worried glance between each other but her gaze was far softer than it had been before.
After a few moments of silence, Jane began to chuckle a little.
“Cool it!” Frank hissed. The undead were still surrounding the vehicle but the monster had finished killing all of the survivors on the bus. It was busy sniffing around as if searching for something.