A Shrouded World 5

by Mark Tufo

  I hear sharp retorts coming from across the road as Otter sends his rounds into the mass. If we both had suppressed weapons, perhaps we could have taken out the entire group before being discovered. In hindsight, perhaps I should have led the shooting, Otter only joining in if the creatures started to charge. But, that is now a part of history and the cards have been dealt.

  I hit another one, this time glancing high off the cheekbone in a shower of black fluid, as the zombies begin to react. The rest of the leading group looks up at first and then charges forward, going from zero to full sprint in a heartbeat. I readjust my aim and see the zombie I had been shooting fall face-first onto the highway, skidding forward for a foot or so. Twenty speeders race ahead, leaving six bodies on the road behind them.

  Two rounds, another falls. I find it’s best to hit them center mass with one round to stagger them, then readjust to more easily hit them in the head. With a suddenness that is startling, the remaining speeders dart off toward the river and vanish down the embankment.

  I quickly check on our other comrades. They’ve picked up their pace, but that means they’ve gone from a half mile an hour to maybe one or two. They haven’t even arrived at the first body lying motionless on the highway. For the present, they’re a nonissue. The priority is the twelve or so remaining speeders that have taken to the trees on the other side.

  “I highly suggest you move,” I call to Otter.

  “Already on my way,” Otter returns, scrambling up to the road and running across, barely limping on his injured leg.

  Sliding next to me, he comments, “That went to shit in a hurry.”

  “Quicker than it normally does,” I respond.

  From the far side, hidden below the roadway, I hear the crashing of limbs breaking as the speeders race through the trees. It’s not overly difficult to follow their progress from sound alone.

  “You know, we’re not going to have a lot of time to take them all out if we engage them here. They’ll be on the road before we know it,” Otter breathes.

  “It’ll be even worse if they try to flank. We should probably move further up the road,” I reply.

  Relocating away from the ambling horde, we find another spot with a good view. As soon as we settle into our new digs, the speeders emerge directly across the road from us. The first ones are easy to pick off as they scramble over the embankment. One rises up, its head visible as it clambers up the rocky slope. Centered on its face, I fire. Dark fluid splashes against the rocks as it slides back down the embankment and vanishes.

  Another one tumbles down the slope after being hit from Otter’s rounds. A flash of movement in my periphery catches my attention. Several other speeders emerge near our original position and race across the highway. I turn toward them, sending a couple of shots their way; I hit two, but they aren’t killing rounds. They merely stagger slightly before pushing on, disappearing into the tree line on our side. It’s pretty clear they intend to flank us.

  “Well, that’s not good,” I state, replacing my mag.

  “It does appear that our carefully crafted plan is falling apart,” Otter stoically replies. I can’t help but chuckle.

  “I think we should get onto the road,” I suggest.

  “Yeah, good idea. When surrounded by enemies, standing in the middle of an open area is always my first choice,” Otter responds.

  “Unless we’re using the ‘get the fuck out of Dodge’ option, that’s our best bet. Unless you happen to have some magic hidden away or have godlike aim—which I don’t have, by the way—we don’t have much choice. The trees will only help them close the distance.”

  “Seeing we don’t have the time to debate the issue, why not? At the very least, I’ll be able to go out like Bambi,” Otter states.

  “Go out like Bambi? What the fuck does that even mean?”

  “You don’t know Bambi? He’s a badass dude who stands on a hill with two machine guns and holds off an entire army,” Otter replies.

  I shake my head. “You and I, my friend, come from very different worlds!”

  Half running and half sliding down the hill, we angle down to the road. Once we are on the level paved surface, I begin walking backward with my carbine shouldered. The speeders that attempted to flank begin chasing after us. Both Otter and I send a volume of semiauto fire into those few, concentrating on headshots. That isn’t easy, considering their heads are bouncing a little as they run.

  My rounds strike cheeks and ears and graze along the sides of the few heads remaining in this group. One of my bullets strikes home, the creature falling face forward as if tripped, its head hitting the hard surface with a meaty smack. They’re still closing, but with our combined fire, we manage to leave a long trail of bodies.

  “Reloading,” I call, followed by the metallic clink of an empty mag hitting the pavement.

  We continue backpedaling, the air filled with the sharp cracks of Otter’s carbine and the soft bursts of my own. Spent shells clink one after the other, mixing in with the moans coming from the zombies to our front. I keep glancing to the side at the forested slope. I haven’t forgotten the speeders that ran across the road earlier. While they weren’t as numerous as the ones we’re currently fighting, their appearance at the wrong moment could spell disaster.

  During one glance, I notice a steep rock face forming alongside the road that rises higher with each step we take backward. Even though we’re dropping the speeders in their tracks, they’re still closing distance.

  “Perhaps we should have taken the Dodge option,” Otter states.

  “I never said my decisions were good, only that I was good at making them,” I reply, glancing briefly at Otter.

  His expression changes, from determination to startle and concern. “Above you!”

  I know instantly that our friends in the woods have chosen to make their appearance. Dropping my carbine to hang on its lanyard, I pull my sidearm while turning. One speeder is in midair, its arms outstretched toward me. Its decaying face is pulled back in a grimace, revealing yellow-stained teeth with rotten strands of meat dangling from the gaps.

  Raising my arm, I try to absorb the brunt of the force from the creature’s downward fall. Before it hits, I manage to get my handgun up under its chin and pull the trigger. I imagine more than see the spray of dark fluids behind the speeder, and its eyes roll back into its head. That doesn’t do anything about the force of gravity as the creature impacts. The rancid smell of the creature is all over me as I’m hit, my knees buckling as I’m slammed to the pavement.

  I keep my chin tucked to prevent my head from breaking like a melon, but my breath is nearly knocked from me by the jarring impact.

  Keep your senses, keep your senses.

  Pushing the creature off me, I roll to the other side and scramble to my knees. I hear moaning, and the once crisp gunfire from Otter seems muted. I’m slammed again face-first into the ground by a sudden heavy weight on my back, the smell of death almost overwhelming. The weight keeps shifting on my back and I’m helpless to do anything pinned the way I am.

  I feel the solid form of my handgun in my grip. Thinking the creature may try to bite my neck, I bring the weapon alongside my head, pointing up and slightly angled. Pulling the trigger, I feel something splash on the shoulders of my fatigues and see large splats of dark liquid fall on the pavement by my face. The weight gets heavier.

  “Get the fuck off of me!” I yell, rolling to shift the creature.

  Time is of the essence. The speeders aren’t just going to stand around in a circle like a playground of kids watching a fight. Begrudgingly, the weight shifts, and I roll with it, ending up on my back with the zombie under me. A few feet away, I see Otter on his back with a speeder on top of him. He’s struggling to keep the gnashing stained teeth away from him.

  Still on my back, I aim sideways, my front and back sights aligned with the zombie’s head. Firing, I lose sight of the fight as a cloud of smoke erupts from my barrel. Continuing to roll and getti
ng to my knees, I’m a little comforted to see Otter push the speeder to the side and begin to rise.

  Getting to my feet, I see another speeder in the air, much like the first. I have a fraction of a second more this time. Extending my arm, I grab the falling zombie by the deeply stained shirt and turn, rolling its momentum around me. While still in the air and directing its energy toward the ground, I aim at its face and pull the trigger. The force of the gunshot and its current momentum propels it to the ground as if it were shot out of a cannon. The speeder hits the pavement hard; the back of its head, already opened from the bullet, hits with a wet mushy sound.

  Otter is back up and firing, but we’ve become a touch separated in the brawl. He’s firing toward the remaining speeders of the original group while moving backward. Looking up, I see yet another zombie diving toward me. This time, I step to the side, the creature missing and smacking the pavement face first.

  “Didn’t work out the way you thought, eh?” I mutter, putting a bullet into the back of its head.

  This fight isn’t over, but I’m on my feet. Which is a far cry better than where I was a moment ago. I feel the sludge of zombie blood all over, soaking into my shirt, my pants, in my hair, running down my back. It’s fucking nasty; I can only hope that none made it into my mouth or eyes. I suppose that it’s the saliva that is the transmitter, much like rabies, but that doesn’t make it feel any better.

  One speeder is running toward Otter, coming from his blind side as he continues firing. I raise my sidearm and follow the zombie with my barrel, keeping my sights pinned to its head as it runs. As I fire, I move the sights a fraction forward. The bullet takes the zombie just above the ear, the head snapping to the side. The zombie stumbles, running forward with arms flailing as if trying to catch its balance. It loses the contest and falls forward like a base runner diving into home plate, skidding across the pavement and coming to rest at Otter’s feet.

  Otter looks my way and nods, then suddenly raises his carbine up and points it my way. I immediately duck and hear the report of another gunshot. A bee-like zipping sounds as the bullet passes overhead and thick liquid sprays across the back of my head. With a heavy thump, the top half of a speeder comes into view as it falls at my side.

  The slap of running footsteps catches my attention. Rising, I rotate and step sideways, my sidearm coming up. There are two speeders closing in, their focus solely on me, although focus is a difficult word to describe the droopy, gray faces staring at me. I send two rounds toward the closer one.

  One bullet punches through the soft tissue of the cheek, a splash of black spraying outward. The second one hits just under the nostrils, the face vanishing behind another mist of dark fluid and shards of bone. The zombie’s head stops in place; the lower body continues moving forward at a dead run. It falls backward, the legs kicking up into the air in front of it as if clotheslined, slamming heavily onto its back.

  Aiming quickly toward the other who is reaching for me as if I were a long-lost lover, I send another couple of rounds its way. The spinning bullets exit the barrel, racing across the intervening space to collide a second apart. The speeder’s throat is torn apart in a misting clump of black spray as my second shot impacts its sinuses.

  I’m about to fire again as the speeder continues forward, its arms flailing in jerky motions. It then falls and smacks into the pavement chin-first with a loud crunch. I stand in the middle of the highway, feeling the trickle of viscous fluid run down the back of my neck and side of my face. My handgun moves from side to side as I seek out another target, my heart pounding and my breath coming quickly from the adrenaline in my system.

  The fact that I can’t find any new targets nearby is confusing. In the chaos of the close-quarters battle, it felt like the wave of speeders would never end, so my brain can’t fathom the lack of them. My trigger finger twitches as I search, but there are only bodies lying along the highway, covered with alternating lines of shadow and sunlight from the trees lining the road. The smell of gunpowder and rot is pervasive.

  I finally come to the realization that the group of speeders leading the massive horde is gone. I glance to the shelf of rock above the road, expecting more to leap from its height, but there’s only the soft swaying of branches.

  “I suppose this means we won,” Otter calls, leaning with his hands on his knees and breathing hard.

  “I guess so,” I respond, eyeing the zombie horde still headed in our direction.

  “What about them? They don’t seem very deterred to me,” Otter states.

  “We’ll have to lead the nearest ones away and hope the ones behind follow. Is your leg good for a climb?” I ask.

  “It’s good enough. Lead them up the hill, lose them, and make our way to the cabin?”

  “And all of that before the sun sets,” I answer, looking behind me toward the late afternoon sun low in the sky.

  “Never a dull moment. And here I thought I had left all of the fun behind.”

  “You and me both, but we apparently did something to piss off the universe,” I reply.

  “Well, that hill isn’t going to climb itself.”

  I stare up the slope, wondering how many fucking times I’m going to have to scale it. As the intense flow of adrenaline begins to fade, so does my energy. The fight took a lot out of me, and that’s aside from an already fucked-up day. Not only do I have to climb the steep hill, but at the end of it, I’m going back to the cabin where the overseers were. They found what they wanted and aren’t likely to return, but it still gives me the creeps.

  Without another word, I start down the highway toward the zombies. Once past the rock wall, I sigh heavily before leaving the road to enter the tree line. Looking over my shoulder, I see Otter flip the zombies the middle finger before he follows.

  At least we have that in common, I think, remembering his words of going out like Bambi.

  Starting up the hill, I look back to see the zombies flooding into the trees, their moans echoing throughout the forest. We’ve taken the place of the speeders as the engine pulling along the long line of them. Their pace doesn’t slow going up the slope like ours does—no oxygen-starved legs and aching muscles. There won’t be any rest for us, and if we falter, it won’t be long before we’re overwhelmed. I can already hear some of them in the trees off to the side. Instead of following in a line, they seem to have turned in place and started climbing, angling toward our path.

  “Whew, that’s strong!” Otter says from behind. “You’re leaving a trail of stink behind you. Do you mind if I get ahead of you?”

  “I’m sure you smell better,” I reply.

  “Like a bed of roses, at least compared to you. You smell like you were wrestling skunks atop a rotting carcass.”

  “I suppose that’s not far from the truth,” I say, slowing to allow Otter to pass.

  Once up a way, we begin to angle away from town, hoping to lead the zombies back onto themselves. As the trees thicken, we have to slow down in order for the lead zombies to keep us in sight. The shadows under the trees deepen as the day heads toward dusk. We won’t be able to keep this up for long before we have to break for the cabin. I have my doubts that the zombies will entirely be detoured from their course toward Valhalla, but we’ll hopefully buy a little time. Of course, while we rest in the cabin, the zombies will still be moving.

  Otter starts limping more noticeably as we climb, even with the very short breaks we’re able to take. When we halt to let the zombies catch up, he rubs his lower leg, wincing in pain. The nearby moans reverberate, sounding like a strong wind howling down narrow streets.

  “It’s getting dark. We should break off and start moving toward the cabin,” I say during a rest, worried that Otter’s leg might freeze up.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m fine with that,” Otter replies, his breath tight.

  Moving as quickly as we can, we outpace the zombies, losing sight of them. We then alter our direction, the moans within the forest growing fainter. The light under
the trees turns to gloom and I fear we might not make it to the cabin before nightfall. Otter is limping, but pushing ahead, sometimes having to stop to take a deep breath and move on. I’m on the lookout for a branch thick enough for him to use as a crutch, but it’s like someone came out and swept the forest clean. There’s only a layer of needles under the scattered bushes on the floor.

  “How far to the cabin?” I ask, my breath coming in gasps.

  The hill is a bitch, even with good legs. I feel a deep ache in my thighs with each step, the muscles threatening to snap. My pack weighs heavily on my shoulders, the ache traveling up my neck and down my back. Dirt has congealed in the dried blood from the speeders; my hair is matted and stiff, my shirt hardened to the point that it feels like I’m wearing cardboard. Not only that, but I stink like I dove into a summer festival porta potty.

  Otter pauses and looks around. “About thirty minutes at this pace.”

  I look upward through the thickening gloom toward the darkening sky, visible through a couple of breaks in the overhead cover. I figure we have about fifteen minutes before it turns dark enough for the night runners to emerge for their dinner party.

  “I’m slowing us up. You go on ahead and I’ll follow. Just make sure to have dinner and a fire ready when I arrive,” Otter states.

  “Bullshit. Besides, I’m a horrible cook,” I reply.

  I take Otter’s carbine and shoulder it. He wraps an arm around me and we start off again, our pace quickening just a little. Sweat beads down my face, the chill air of the dying day making it feel like melting ice. I know we aren’t going to make it before dark, but I won’t leave Otter here. Although I don’t know him very well, it’s just not in me to do something like that, even if I may think about it.