Zombies on the Rock (Book 2): The Viking Trail

by Carberry, Paul

  "No need to worry about them. They’re too slow to catch up to us. Just keep a good pace and we’ll be fine." Hank finally broke the silence.

  Eric couldn’t help it -- he had to look over his shoulder. He saw four zombies scuffling in the street behind them. As they approached the intersection, five more zombies shambled out from inside the gas station.

  "Hank." Eric was getting anxious now.

  "Come on this way. If we put enough distance between us, they’ll quickly lose interest in us." Hank started to jog into the old parking lot of the abandoned library.

  Bang-bang-BANG

  Hank suddenly stopped and looked towards the military base. The trees in the park completely surrounded it, hiding it from view, but Eric knew the source of the gunfire had erupted from that area. "Guess we better get moving."

  They ran as fast as they could towards the military base as the quiet was broken by the sound of rapid, automatic gunfire blaring in controlled bursts.

  As Jason stood next to the old chain-link fence, he strained to hear the sounds the men had been talking about. Before the plague, the city would be filled with sound of car engines’ humming, people yelling and talking, and the beep of lights and horns. But since then, the city had fallen completely silent. Even the sound of the electricity that flowed through the lines and powered the town was gone.

  But the moans remained.

  At first it was hard to hear, but it soon became deafening. It was a constant eerie hum that seemed to come from everywhere all at once. It almost seemed like the zombies were communicating with each other, and Jason wondered if that was how they hunted. Since the outbreak, Jason had noticed a couple of things: first, that the moans were louder in the centre of the city, indicating a higher concentration of the dead. Second, the further out of town they travelled, the less frequent the moans. It seemed that zombies preferred urban areas, but whether it was memories from their past lives or simply a hunting instinct Jason couldn’t say. All he knew right now was that Eric had just headed into the heart of the city.

  Suddenly the moaning was interrupted by the explosion of gunfire. Jason couldn't shake the feeling that Eric had gotten in over his head.

  As Eric and Hank raced their way up the hill, the gunfire increased in both sound and frequency. Cresting the top of the hill, they found the source of the gunfire: a Jeep with a fully automatic gun mounted on top was sending a barrage of bullets into the largest swarm of the undead Eric had ever seen. Shells discharged from the back of the gun and clattered against the pavement like metal rain. The men standing in front of the Jeep took more careful aim with their semi-automatic assault rifles to conserve ammunition. A flash from the muzzle accompanied each shot, illuminating the smoke ascending from the barrels.

  Blood sprayed everywhere as bodies convulsed and dropped to the ground -- but the horde just kept pushing forward. For every body that dropped, another took its place. The creatures showed no fear of either the guns or their demise; they just kept advancing on their target. Panicked voices shouted out as the horde closed in on the humans’ location. The driver of the Jeep put the vehicle in reverse and jolted backwards, causing the gunner on the top to spray bullets erratically. The machine gunner stopped firing until the driver stopped the Jeep about fifteen feet back. The soldiers outside the Jeep joined the retreat and fell back behind the Jeep this time in unison. They kept firing at the zombies, but the horde just kept replacing the fallen with more undead soldiers. Eric couldn't help but think that the zombies’ strategy was to outlast the soldiers until they ran out of bullets.

  "What do we do?" Hank looked behind him and noticed the zombies were still following them. The sound of all the commotion had kept them in pursuit.

  "We have to help them." Eric reached into his holster and drew his revolver. Eric didn't have plan in mind, but he knew he had to do something and fast. Time was running out. The zombies were now within ten meters of the soldiers. The zombies in the rear of the pack stumbled and tripped over the dead bodies that had fallen in front of them, slowing them down momentarily as they trampled over their fallen comrades. Eric raced out to join the soldiers and made sure to make every bullet count. They never questioned why he was there.

  The zombies were within five meters of the men now. Eric could see the cold, dead eyes staring back at him. The bullets from the machine gun attached to the top of the Jeep were hitting their mark now. Heads seemed to pop in an explosion of gore, sending drops of blood raining over the road in front of Eric's feet.

  The herd was thinning quickly now. The soldier manning the machine gun on top of the Jeep stopped firing.

  "Take care of the strays, boys!" The soldier jumped down from the Jeep. His green cameo uniform was cleanly pressed, with not a trace of blood or dirt on it. Eric recognized the sergeant emblem sewn into the pocket over his heart.

  The sergeant was a short, burley man, but it didn't stop him from getting up in Eric's face. "What in the holy hell do you think you're doing, cowboy? Do you really think we need your help, grunt?" The sergeant’s moustache twitched as he barked at Eric.

  "I thought you were in trouble." Eric was so thrown off by the harsh tone that he answered bluntly.

  "Well, you're one brave son of a bitch, aren't you?" The sergeant began to laugh uncontrollably. "You're alright, cowboy." He patted Eric on the shoulder and started to lead him towards the gate of the military base as the soldiers behind them continued to take down the remaining threats in the street.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  OUT OF THE WATER

  Tina Caines sat at the edge of the bed. She was trying to look out the window, but the dew that had formed on the inside of the glass blocked her view. She leaned down to retrieve her t-shirt from the floor. "We should head back soon." Tina pulled the filthy cotton fabric down over her head; the material was caked in sweat and dirt. She really missed being able to put her clothes through a wash cycle. Tina longed for the fresh smell of linen and that feeling you got from pulling a warm t-shirt on.

  "I'm not in any rush." Ted was already fully dressed in his worn blue jeans and a black dress shirt over his white undershirt. Tina could still see the droplets of blood from the bite wound on his wrist that splattered over the front of his jeans. The stains were slowly fading away, but washing clothes in the nearby ice-cold stream was not an effective way of scrubbing out the nastiness of that rotten, foul matter.

  "You know what Eric told you. We can stay here in the nights, but we need to contribute during the days." Tina stepped into her jeans that were in a crumpled mess on the floor and pulled them up. "We won't be able to survive without their help." Tina enjoyed the various tasks that she had been given; they mostly involved searching for food and supplies, but completing them made her feel important. Eric made sure that everyone was kept safe, and was one of the few people that treated her like an adult. Everyone else ignored Tina when it came time to make decisions, but Tina was glad for the respect shown to her by Eric.

  "Isn't he gone off somewhere?" Ted grumbled. He didn't feel the same way about being given tasks. Ted grouched about any assigned work, and spent most his nights whining about how he would run things if he was in charge of the group.

  "He's gone to get guns. To protect us." Tina knew what was really bothering Ted: the fact that when Eric had left earlier that morning, he had left Calvin in charge. Ted hated Calvin with an incensed rage that Calvin reciprocated. Both men had been at odds with each other since the first day they met.

  "Eric is only doing that to protect his family and friends, not us. We should leave." Ted shuffled over to the bedroom door and leaned against the frame. "Haven't you noticed yet? We're on our own over here."

  "We are not on our own. There aren't enough beds for everyone at the Jones’ cabin." Tina felt like she had to defend Eric's every decision, but even as the words left her mouth they betrayed her. It was a weak argument to make, but she hated the tension that lingered amongst the alpha males of the group.

  "Yo
u know he never even asked us what we wanted to do." Ted's bark was bitter, and it had been getting worse with every day that passed. Deep down inside she knew that she shouldn't be with him, but she ignored her better sense and kept sleeping with Ted. When they had first met he had been tender and caring, but lately he acted more like an animal towards her, treating her like dirt and blaming everything on her. She thought about running to Eric for help, but what could he do? He couldn't put Ted in Jail. The worst Eric could do was exile Ted, but if that happened, Tina was too afraid he would come back for her.

  "Well, you didn't want to be around Calvin. Do you have a better idea?" Tina snapped back. Even though she knew it was a stupid move, she was growing sick of Ted's bellyaching.

  "Well, Calvin could have been the one to come over here to fend for himself." Ted barked at her, waving his arm wildly towards the Jones’s cabin.

  Tina took a long, deep breath to calm down. She should avoid another argument; it wasn’t worth it. "I don't want to argue with you, Ted, I just want things to work out."

  As she approached him, Tina couldn't help but stare at the scar that the bite mark had left on Ted's arm. The way the wound had healed was gruesome. It had formed a scaly, hard callus on his wrist which felt like a rough piece of brick. Brittle flakes of the dried, blackened skin that formed over the swollen, painful lesion broke off as Tina touched his wrist.

  "Please don't do that." Ted yanked his arm away.

  At the abrupt motion, Tina cowered back into the room like a scolded child. “Sorry!”

  "I'm going to go check on the girls." Ted stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.

  Tina was starting to worry about Ted. Even though he was telling the truth about having received the vaccine, the bite was somehow slowly transforming him into a different kind of monster. Ted may not have turned into a zombie, but the virus was still turning him into a sinister creature with no remorse.

  The front door of the cabin abruptly burst open and Tina could hear Ted calling out to his twin daughters. Tina sprinted out of the bedroom and barged through the front door. The blast of cold air instantly tried to cripple her body, freezing her legs in place. She franticly searched for Ted, but he was nowhere to be seen. Large flakes of snow drifted lazily across the horizon, falling harmlessly into the lake and instantly melting into the slushy crust forming on the surface. The treetops were quickly changing from green to white, and the grass was becoming treacherously slippery with the freshly fallen precipitation.

  "Ted!" Tina screamed out, her shrill voice echoing loudly off the surrounding trees.

  Ted's muffled voice responded from the beach. Tina cautiously made her way towards the sound of his voice. She carefully stepped across the lawn, her feet slipping in the slick grass. She finally found Ted on the beach next to his two daughters; he was knelt down between them with his arms over their shoulders.

  "Is everything okay?" Tina asked as she approached. Ted stood up without saying a word while the waves slapped against the shore and the radio from the cabin next door drowned out all the other noise that normally surrounded them. Ted was lost, stuck in a trance on some far off distant planet. Tina looked down at the two girls and quickly realized something was wrong -- their innocent faces were frozen in terror.

  "What's going on, Ted?" There was still no response from Ted. Tina knelt down in front of Jessica and put her hand on her chin to tilt her face up. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. "Sweetie, what's wrong?" Tina could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

  A breeze blew across the water then, the putrid stench of rotting flesh and the foul reek of decay hitting Tina hard. The undeniable odour of the dead was alarmingly close by; Tina scoured the beach for the source of the rancid stink. That's when Tina saw it: throngs of zombies closing in on the Jones’s cabin from all directions. The shambling corpses were drawn to the sound of the radio like moths to a flame.

  Shadowy demons were emerging from the edge of the forest, pouring out from behind the trees like a flood. The zombies in a more advanced stage of decay muddled towards the music with a greater sense of determination and coordination than the recently turned. The newly dead creatures were clumsy, and scuffled behind the more mature dead.

  The pale dead eyes of the zombies were fixated on the cabin. One zombie was dragging itself up the beach on its belly. Tina could see a trail of dark, sticky blood left in the sand behind the morbid creature. It had hauled itself all the way from the forest about fifty meters to where the trail got lost in the deep bushes of the forest floor. The creature’s right leg was missing from the mid thigh, jagged bone protruding from the black, festering wound. Most of its skin looked like it had been shredded and torn apart.

  Movement caught Tina’s eye, drawing it away from the gruesome sight and towards something even more horrific. Fear gripped her heart in its clutches and stopped it from beating.

  Hundreds of zombies were emerging from the water -- they must have walked across the bottom of the lake. Their flesh was wrinkled from being water logged, hanging from their bones like a wet rag clung to a wall. Their clothes hung onto their frail frames as they shambled out of the water onto the beach. The water all around the front of the Jones's cabin was a big, blood red pool of the zombies’ vile fluids, draining from the open wounds and sores, as morsels of flesh floated on the surface. Each festering wound told the story of how that innocent person had turned into one of those diabolical monsters.

  "Ted, what do we do?" Tina choked, her heart caught in her throat.

  "We need to get out of here." Ted turned to walk away, pulling his daughters by the collar of their jackets.

  "What?" Tina called out after Ted. "We need to help them."

  Ted didn’t even turn to face Tina. "How do you expect me to help them?"

  "We have to do something!" Tina pleaded with Ted.

  Ted stopped walking. "It's fucking suicide. There must be hundreds of zombies out there." Ted turned to look at Tina, and when he did so, his facial expression shocked Tina. What should have been a face of terror and guilt was replaced with a unsettling smile and an odd glimmer of joy in his eyes.

  "Ted, please, maybe we can help them escape before they reach the cabin." Tina reached out with her arms, as if she could physically pull him back from whatever illness was turning him into this monster before her.

  "Daddy!" Jessica screamed as a zombie stumbled out from behind the cabin.

  Ted pulled his girls behind him and protected them from the corpse's outreached arms. The colour of the tattered rags over the zombie’s body was kept a secret beneath the blackened blood and gore. Ted sent his boot into the creature’s breadbasket, sending the dead body tumbling down to the ground in an awkward heap.

  "Get to the car," Ted called out to Tina. They all ran to the other side of the cabin, a horde of the undead crossing through the old dirt driveway towards the source of the sound like cattle crossing the road.

  "Shit." Ted held out his arms to stop anybody from getting any closer to the vile demons.

  "Daddy!" The two girls were crying uncontrollably now.

  Tina looked around and saw several more zombies making their way towards the music coming from further in the woods. "They’re not coming for us, we just need to wait for them to pass by." Tina started to form a plan in her head. "We can get to the cabin before they do."

  "No way, we will trap ourselves if we try to head over there" Ted looked around trying to spot a safe place to hide. "Head back inside the cabin." Ted ushered the two girls towards the back door.

  "I'm going over there, Ted." Tina had to try and save the people who were about to be trapped inside that cabin by the horde of the undead monsters that lurked towards them.

  "Are you fucking nuts, bitch, you'll get yourself killed for nothing." Ted snarled at her.

  "It's not for nothing, we can save them!" Tina desperately pleaded for Ted’s help.

  Ted stared at her for a long moment, and then knelt down besides his tw
o little girls. "Girls, do you remember what I told you to do if you find yourself alone?"

  "We have to hide in the attic." Katie sobbed, trying to be brave.

  "Good, now get up in that attic. Daddy will be right back." Ted patted Katie on the shoulder.

  "I'm scared, Daddy." Jessica looked down at her feet.

  "Just do what I told you, keep your sister safe!" Ted nudged the girls towards the door. "I’ll be right back to get you. I just have to get the car. Until Dad comes to get you, just stay in the attic and you will be safe." The two innocent girls prodded through the door of the cabin and Tina could hear their footsteps as they stomped up the old, rickety wooden stairs that lead to the attic hatch.

  "Thank you, Ted." Tina was a nervous wreck with so many zombies around, but the longer they waited, the harder the rescue mission was going to be.

  "Don't thank me yet, the first sign of danger and I'm gone. You get yourself into any trouble and you will be on your own. Understood?" Ted's eyes let Tina know that he was telling the cold, hard truth. "You owe me for this."

  "I understand." Tina stared right back into Ted's eyes.

  As they started to head towards the cabin, Tina noticed that the music had stopped. She could hear muffled screams from their friends inside the cabin next door. They must have finally noticed the vultures that were surrounding them. They were too late to get there before the zombies. Tina could hear them pounding against the wooden door next door trapping the others inside. The only chance they had of escaping now would be the giant glass door at the front of the cabin now.

  As Tina and Ted maneuvered their way up the beach, they could see that the zombies had already made their way up the front bridge. The humans were trapped inside that cabin like sitting ducks, waiting to be devoured. Countless numbers of zombies would soon make their way through that fragile glass door. Tina stood still as the ghouls moaned hungrily for the living flesh they had ambushed.