Middletown Apocalypse

by Brett Abell

  And it scared the shit out of him.

  He stood there, snow cone in hand, squinting at the crowd.

  There were people running his way, some of them covered in blood. Here and there, he saw a few people get tackled and knocked to the ground. One woman, old enough to be somebody’s mom, ran past him with half her throat torn out. She tried to scream, but only managed a gurgling, agitated slur as the blood jetted between her fingers.

  Russ watched her run into the crowd, not believing what he was seeing.

  He tossed his snow cone into the trash.

  It’s a fucking riot, he thought. He didn’t really pay much attention to the news, but he couldn’t remember hearing about any cops shooting black guys recently. Why were they rioting here?

  One thing was sure, though. If he got stuck here, and the rioters tore up his truck, UPS would have his ass.

  It was time to get the hell out of here.

  He walked to his truck. A short distance away, he saw an older woman tackle a pretty girl in a Middletown t-shirt and blue jeans. The woman was snarling. The girl screamed for help, but the older woman bit into her cheek and ripped out a big piece of meat. The screaming was cut short.

  Russ backed away, so frightened he couldn’t even blink. He’d watched riots on the TV and YouTube. None of them had ever looked like this. A roar came up behind him and he turned. There were twenty, maybe thirty blood-covered people running his way.

  That was all it took.

  Russ broke into a run and made for his truck as fast as his legs could carry him. He reached it just a few steps ahead of the crowd. He jumped behind the wheel and threw it into gear just as a shrieking man reached the door.

  Russ planted his boot on the man’s chest. “Dude, get off!” he shouted, and kicked the man to the ground.

  His truck lurched forward and he steered toward the parking lot exit, but the way was blocked. There were people running in every direction, and a whole crowd blocked the way between him and the exit. He had no choice but to stop.

  As soon as he did, another young man leapt through the open passenger door and threw his arms around Russ’s neck.

  “Dude, get the hell off me!”

  Russ pulled away from the man, but the man still tried to grab him. Russ twisted again until he managed to pull out of the man’s grip. The young man fell over onto the gearshift and his weight snapped it clean in half.

  “Dude!” Russ yelled. “That’s my fucking truck.”

  The young man tried to push himself up from foot well, but the metal floor was slick with his blood and he lost his grip. He collapsed onto the broken shaft of the gearshift, impaling himself through the chest. The young man’s weight sank him to the floor, driving the broken gearshift out his back and pinning him like a rare moth on a collector’s mat. He tried to get up again, but he was stuck, unable to move. He was still moving, and Russ had no idea how, until the man turned his head. At that moment, he saw the unfocused haze in the man’s eyes, and in that instant he knew the man was dead.

  A zombie.

  “Oh holy hell!” Russ said. “Oh no. No, no, no.”

  He didn’t have time for the shock to sink in.

  Another kid, this one a fat guy with a bib of blood down the front of his shirt and most of his nose missing, forced his way onto the truck from the passenger side. At the same time, a big group of zombies clustered around his driver’s side door, reaching for him, snapping their teeth like rabid dogs. Without thinking, Russ grabbed the fat guy’s bloody shirt and pulled him into the truck. The fat guy’s weight carried him the rest of the way. He went sailing over the driver’s seat and into the crowd of bloody faces clustered just outside the door.

  That bought him a moment and Russ took it. He jumped through the open passenger door, grabbed the nylon webbing strap that hung from the top of the doorway, and used it to swing out the door. He landed with his feet on the side of the truck and pulled and scrambled and kicked until he was able to climb onto the roof. Once up there, he rolled over onto his stomach and pressed himself flat against the roof.

  The zombies were pouring into the truck below him. He could hear them banging around down there, knocking over the packages. He couldn’t believe it. Like everybody else out there, he’d seen all the self-pubbed zombie books that were flooding the market; so many, in fact, that they’d kind of become the background radiation of his own publishing career. He had editors at half a dozen porno mags begging him to do some sort of sexy zombie story. At the time, he’d laughed. They hadn’t seemed scary at all to him. He’d tried to watch that show everybody was talking about, The Walking Dead, but the only part of the whole series he’d found scary came in the first episode, when the cop was trapped under the tank and the zombies were crawling under to get him. Everything after that had seemed kind of pointless.

  But when he leaned over the side and saw four or five of the things ducking under his truck, pulling a screaming woman from under it, and ripping her to pieces with the rest of the crowd, he knew that he had failed somehow.

  He had failed to fully grasp the horror of the zombie.

  What had seemed silly to him before was like a window opening now. He could feel the fear.

  Understand it.

  He knew it to his core.

  Russ didn’t think it could get any worse, until the crowd of zombies on the driver’s side of his truck started to press their weight against it. The whole truck rocked up onto two wheels. Russ grabbed for the edge of the roof. He’d thought he was as terrified as he could be, but feeling the truck threaten to turn over sent a rush of dread through him he was helpless to control.

  When the truck settled again, he inched his way over to the driver’s side and looked down. A crowd of zombies had cornered some people against the side of the truck and they were weighing down on them, ripping them apart. They came on in waves, with fresh numbers swelling up from behind every few seconds. Another surge of new zombies pressed the living against the side of the truck, and it rocked up onto two wheels again.

  Russ grabbed the side of the vehicle and held on.

  He glanced across the parking lot, toward the stadium.

  It was all zombies, as far as he could see.

  Apparently, the living people huddled against the side of his truck were some of the last ones left. Everyone else had turned, and most of them were making their way as fast as they could toward his truck.

  Another surge of bodies hit the truck, but he wasn’t ready for it. His attention was focused over by the stadium. As the truck rocked over, a lot more this time, he tried to grab the side of the roof. He was already sliding toward the opposite edge, though. Russ felt himself slide off the side as the truck kept rocking over. He rolled off the roof and landed hard on the pavement.

  With a groan, he looked up at the truck tilting over on top of him, threatening to crush him. He rolled over and scrambled away just as the truck came crashing down.

  He stood, his hands stinging from the asphalt, and stared at his truck.

  Even with zombies flooding the parking lot all around him, he couldn’t shake his mind loose from the idea that his truck was a wreck. UPS hung its drivers out to dry for even the slightest damage, and with so much insanity swirling around him, the only rational thought he could grasp onto was that they were going to fire him over this.

  An approaching zombie broke his train of thought. Its legs were gone, and it pulled its way around the front of his truck with its fingertips. A trail of gore, chunky, bloody snail slime, and sausagy ropes of intestines marked its progress across the pavement. Russ watched it in horrified disbelief, totally unable to connect the monstrosity pulling its way toward him to the countless zombies he’d seen on TV, or even to the more ubiquitous zombies he’d read in the self-pubbed world. He couldn’t even connect it to the man that the zombie must have once been. The world as he knew it was crumbling around him.

  And then the zombie’s fingernails snapped on the pavement.

  Russ
winced at the pain that must have come with it, but the zombie gave no sign that he was hurt. The ruined husk of a man just pulled his way ever closer, his dead eyes focused on Russ, oblivious to his own pain, intent only on feeding.

  That was the moment everything clicked.

  Realization set in.

  He had to get the hell out of there. He saw a large white-and-blue charter bus at the edge of the parking lot. More and more zombies were moving that direction from the stadium, threatening to cut off any chance he had of getting out of there. Looking around, the bus was the only shelter he saw.

  He ducked his head and ran, weaving through the crowd and shaking off the hands that clutched for him. The charter was parked in front of a long cement wall, the door next to the wall, so that Russ was looking at the driver’s side. Russ had to run around the front of the bus to get to the door, and as he ran by the windshield, he glanced up.

  No driver, but there were others moving around inside.

  Hopefully the keys were in it. If they were, he was going to point that big old beast to the road and plow his way through the zombie masses.

  The door was locked, though.

  He tried to shove it open. Kicked it.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  He looked left. The bus hugged against the wall so closely that the zombies would have to turn sideways to squeeze their way through. Looking to his right, though, he saw a crowd of zombies moving his way.

  He had to get on that bus before they saw him.

  Russ tucked his shoulder and rammed the door. It gave way just enough for him to get his fingers between the folding door and the frame. He pushed it, threw his shoulder into it, and finally managed to force his way inside.

  The driver’s seat was empty, just as he’d expected.

  He ran up the steps and turned to face the rest of the bus.

  Before him was the entire Middletown cheerleader squad. An entire bus full of gorgeous nineteen-year-old coeds, staring at him, every one of them completely terrified.

  He was scared too, but the sight of all those young girls, all of them so very pretty, sent him into Russ Surewood mode. It was like the elevator with those Japanese stewardesses all over again, and he thought: Dear Penthouse Letters, this is going to be the greatest zombie apocalypse ever …

  “Why, hello la—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish. Before he could even get the words out, the redhead he’d seen earlier popped up from behind the seat closest to him and emptied an entire canister of pepper spray in his face.

  He felt it splash against his cheeks, hit his eyes, land in his mouth, and nothing happened … for half a second.

  Then it hit him.

  The burning.

  The awful, awful burning.

  His eyes; his nostrils; the inside of his mouth: everything was on fire.

  “Oh holy hell!” he roared. “Bitch, what the hell?”

  “Push him out the door,” somebody yelled from the back of the bus.

  Russ dropped into the driver’s seat and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “What in the hell did you do that for?”

  “He’s one of those things,” another girl said. “Push him out the door.”

  There was a long pause, and then, through a haze of tears and pain, Russ saw a pair of beautiful bare legs in front of him. “Mister, I’m sorry. We thought you were a zombie.”

  “So you fucking pepper sprayed me? What the hell?”

  “I’m sorry,” the girl said again.

  “I don’t give a damn if you’re sorry. You fucking pepper sprayed me!” Russ said. He tried to look at her; couldn’t do it. He doubled over, cradling his face in his hands. “Ah, holy hell, this hurts! Jesus H. Christ!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying you’re fucking sorry,” he said. “Ah God, that hurts!”

  He shook his head and tried to clear the burning from his eyes. Tears rolled down his cheeks and snot gushed from his nose, but he rallied, despite the pain.

  “Do you have the keys?” he asked.

  “We can’t find our driver,” the girl said. “We’re stuck here.”

  “Charlotte, make him get off the bus. He’s got blood on him. He’s gonna turn into one of those things.”

  “She’s right,” the redhead said. “You’ve got blood on you.”

  “Yeah? I just ran through fucking hell, that’s why.”

  “Were you bit?”

  He took his hands away from his face. He was only making it worse, anyway, rubbing that crap into his eyes. Blinking at her, he said, “No, I didn’t get bit.”

  “You look sick.”

  “That’s because I just got fucking pepper sprayed!”

  The girl stood silent for a long moment. Finally, she turned to the girls behind her and shrugged. “I don’t think he’s—”

  She was cut off as one of the windows at the back of the bus shattered. Bloody hands jetted through the broken glass and grabbed one of the girls by the hair. She let out a terrified scream and thrashed against the hands pulling her toward the broken window.

  Girls scrambled over the seats, shrieking, clawing at each other to get to the front of the bus.

  Two of the girls stayed with their friend. They grabbed her legs and tried to pull her back inside, but a moment later, more windows shattered. All down the length of the bus, hands darted through the broken glass. Russ saw bloodstained faces, all of them encrusted with those weird blue crystals, clamoring to get inside. The zombies clutched at the girls, and those closest to the windows were pulled through and into the maddening crowd gathering around the bus.

  The bus began to rock as the zombies surged against it. Russ’s eyes and nose were still burning, but he managed to wipe the tears away and get a good look at just how bad things really were.

  They couldn’t stay on the bus. He saw that. Of the twenty cheerleaders, only four were left, and they were cowering on the floor, screaming. There was blood everywhere.

  On the seats.

  On the windows.

  Even on the ceiling.

  It was dripping onto the floor, turning the white tile to a shiny black.

  Russ reached over the seat and tried to grab the redhead by the hand, but she was already heading toward the back of the bus.

  “Where the hell are you going?” he called after her.

  “I’m helping them.”

  Another zombie squeezed its way through the window to the redhead’s right. She jumped out of the way before it could swipe at her, picked up a duffle bag, and swung it down on top of the zombie’s head. Whatever was in the bag must have been heavy, because it connected with a loud thud Russ could hear even over the screaming.

  The redhead grabbed one of the other cheerleaders and tried to pull her to her feet. The other girl wouldn’t budge, though. The redhead finally managed to pull her out from between the seats and pleaded with her to move, but it was like she was talking to a wall. Nothing she said was getting through to the other girl.

  A zombie popped up from the seat behind the comatose girl and pulled her back over the seat. The redhead grabbed the girl’s legs and tried to hold on, but more zombies fell onto the girl’s torso, pulling her down.

  She looked back at Russ. “Help me!”

  But before Russ could take a step, the zombies pulled the blood-soaked girl from the redhead’s arms. She writhed and twisted, and a moment later, Russ saw one of the zombies bite two of her fingers off.

  The redhead stood there, horrified, watching the zombies tear her friends to bits. Then one of them knocked her down. She landed on her back between the seats. The zombie knelt down between her legs, its face a jagged map of drying blood and blue crystals. It snarled and lunged for the redhead but never got close enough to touch her. While she had been watching her friends die, Russ grabbed another duffle bag and managed to loop its shoulder strap over the zombie’s neck. He was holding it over the girl, pulling it back so that it couldn’t swipe at her.

>   “Run for the door,” he said.

  The redhead nodded, turned, and ran.

  Russ jumped up on one of the seats, positioned his legs against the back of the one in front of him, and used the leverage to swing the zombie around so that it was facing the back of the bus. Some of the dead cheerleaders were rising to their feet. Zombies were busy devouring the others.

  Russ jumped down from the seat, put a foot on the back of the zombie he’d just turned around, and shoved it into the other zombies. He saw a few of them tumble over each other, but he didn’t wait to see what happened after that. He ran for the door and nearly collided with the redhead. He wasn’t about to stay there in the doorway, so he pushed her toward the front of the bus.

  Once there, he took a moment to gather himself together. This was all happening so fast. The carnage was everywhere. The field house and the concession stand area were on fire. Smoke drifted across the lawn. In the parking lot, a vehicle careened out of control into the side of a truck. Zombies pulled the dazed driver from behind the wheel and tore him apart. There were ruined bodies all over place, broken and bloody heaps on the ground, and many of them were still moving.

  The police station looked to be the only building that wasn’t burning.

  “That way,” Russ said.

  She swatted his hand away. “Get your hands off me! I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  He hadn’t realized that he was still holding on to her arm. He let go. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She was staring at him, and she looked terrified.

  Not of the zombies, but of him.

  That startled him. “What did I do wrong?” he asked her. He honestly had no idea.

  She pointed to the bus and gave him a look that indicated he should know damn well what he did wrong. He glanced over his shoulder and saw zombies clawing at the glass door, trying to get out. Cheerleaders and parents and children, all of them bloody and mangled, their hands beating against the glass, streaking it with gore.