Zombie Fallout | Book 14 | The Trembling Path

by Tufo, Mark

  Tommy hit the gas, and the truck lurched forward. They’d come to the intersection where the people had been running. There was a loud bang; the truck shook ever so slightly.

  “Someone run into the truck?” Justin was leaning over.

  “Some thing. Sit back down!” Tommy depressed the gas as two more zombies hit the side of the truck. They’d been in such a rush to get to their prey they’d not taken into account the enormous green behemoth that had cut off their path of pursuit. Tommy watched as one of the zombies smashed headlong into the truck, hard enough that it crushed its skull. Its legs danced about on the street until Tommy ran over them; there was a resounding crunch as he did so.

  “We should have run.” Justin was watching through the rearview mirror.

  Zombies had grabbed hold of the slow-moving vehicle and now clamored all over the back and inside. Justin moved away from the small window that separated the cab from the transport area as a zombie's face pressed tightly against the glass.

  “You going to shoot it?” Tommy pressed.

  “Was going to wait until I have to.”

  “When’s that going to be?” Tommy was doing his best to inch away from the window.

  Justin was reluctant; that puny square of glass was the only thing separating them from the wild beasts behind it. His choice, however, was made up for him as the zombie plunged its hand and arm straight through. For Justin, this seemed to happen in slow motion; he watched as a jagged piece of glass dug into the forearm of the zombie and tore through the skin, the edges peeling away like a tight leather jacket might as it’s unzipped from a rotund belly. Bright red muscle glistened through. Justin was horrified as he watched the fibrous material move as it sought to grab hold of an occupant in the cab. He raised his gun and hastily shot a round that lodged into the metal, halfway between Tommy’s head and the glass divider. Tommy looked at him crossly.

  “Him! Not me!” he shouted at Justin.

  Justin didn’t have time to apologize as the zombie’s hand grabbed his arm and was pulling him toward its mouth. The zombie bit down on the barrel just as Justin pulled the trigger; brain splashed onto the next contestant on the Eat or Die game show playing out in the back of the truck. The zombie with the back of his head messily removed was yanked back and discarded like an old paper towel. In the confined space, Justin was having no difficulty shooting targets—it would have been harder to miss.

  “Need to reload.” Justin brought his gun back into the cab.

  “Grab the wheel!” Tommy yelled. Justin did so; the truck swerved violently to the left. “Straight, keep it straight!” Tommy fumbled around with his holster until he pulled his pistol clear and handed it over to Justin while wresting control of the truck that was veering dangerously close to a telephone pole. “Not sure why I let you drive.”

  “Me neither.” Justin began firing again.

  The truck had finally garnered enough speed to keep other zombies from hopping on, but they were already a rolling caravan of snarling monsters.

  “I’m not going to have enough…” Justin was about to say “ammunition.” Tommy didn’t like the prospect of bringing the invaders deeper into their haven, but was at a loss as to what to do. If he slowed down so they could run, the other zombies would catch up and that wasn’t even considering the ones they had with them.

  “I have a grenade,” Tommy told him calmly enough.

  “And?” Justin kept shooting.

  “The back, toss it in the back.”

  “We’ll lose the toys.”

  “Seriously?”

  Tommy considered handing the wheel over again, but thought better of it; Justin was not the best driver, under optimum conditions. He found the grenade and handed it over.

  “Won’t we blow up?” Justin was staring at the device in his hand.

  “Toss it, and we’ll jump. Squeeze the lever tight, pull the pin, and keep one hand on the door handle.”

  “Tommy, this really sounds like something Dad would make up.”

  “No choice.”

  Justin reluctantly pulled the pin. As he was moving to throw it in the back, a hand reached out and knocked it from him, sending it to the floor. Like it had been choreographed with two experienced stuntmen, Justin and Tommy looked at each other before pulling their doors open and bailing. Tommy had slowed down the truck to a non-lethal fifteen miles an hour, which sounded exceedingly slow until you found yourself leaving the confines of said vehicle. Justin was able to keep his feet under himself; he felt like he’d jumped onto a fast-moving treadmill and was very much in danger of pitching over and shattering every bone in his face. His arms were swinging wildly as he tried his best to stay upright.

  “Oh, no,” was all he could manage to say as he saw a parked car in his way. His momentum too fast for him to be able to stop or step away effectively, he did the only thing he could think to do and jumped up. His knee caught the rear bumper, and a blinding pain shot through his entire body as he sailed up and over the roof and landed heavily on the windshield, creating spider webs throughout the entirety of the glass. The truck wasn’t more than fifteen feet ahead of him when the grenade exploded. He watched as the metal of the cab expanded and the rear portion of the truck became illuminated from within. A wreckage of dismembered zombie body parts were tossed flipping from the truck along with others that were still intact but on fire.

  The hood blew off and to the side as the truck kept lumbering along, and zombies that had survived the blast hung on until the truck almost gently collided into the wall of an old hardware store. Justin was afraid to move, convinced he’d broken something. Just breathing was its own adventure. He changed his mind when he saw that the zombies had spotted him. He placed one hand on the broken glass to push himself up and, with a start, he found himself deposited unceremoniously onto the front seats, the hand brake ending up in a most unfortunate place.

  “Don’t like that, don’t like that!” he cried out, moving with a speed he wouldn’t have thought possible a few seconds previously. He was heading for the driver’s side door when a hand reached in the passenger side and pulled him out.

  “Let’s go.” It was Tommy. He was ducking low to stay out of the sightline of the zombies.

  “They already know we’re here,” Justin told him, pointing to the closest building. “Fire escape.”

  Tommy poked his head up. He grabbed Justin, and they were running the hundred yards to a steel ladder hanging down. Tommy jumped up the three feet to hang from it. He was worried, at first, that it was too rusted in place to move, but it gave way quickly like a painted shut window will do when enough force is applied. Justin helped him off of the ground where he’d fallen.

  “Go.” Tommy urged Justin up and immediately followed; he wasn’t halfway up when the first zombie grabbed the bottom rung. The twenty-foot long section of the sliding ladder squealed and groaned in protest as more weight was added than it was designed for. It didn’t help that it had been twenty years since it had seen so much as a drop of oil. By the time Justin reached the small landing, another three zombies had grabbed hold. Justin helped Tommy up before they both looked down at the climbing enemies. They didn’t have a firearm between them. They did the only thing they could: continued to climb. The second floor had a window that led into an old office. Justin had completely forgotten about his knee that he’d been convinced had been broken. Apparently, if one did not think upon an injury it would not manifest.

  “Roof,” Tommy said, pushing Justin along. This section, instead of a stairwell, was a vertical ladder with safety loops attached, which were metal bands. “Keep going. I’ll hold them off.”

  “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Go out the exit on the other side—get back and get help,” Tommy grunted as he kicked out, striking a zombie flush in the mug, sending it down to the previous landing with only a face full of blood and broken teeth to show for its trouble. It quickly scrambled up so that it could beat its competition to the food sour
ce. Tommy was wrenched down as the zombie grabbed hold of his boot, and, like a rabid pit-bull, it would not let go.

  “Get…help,” Tommy said through clenched teeth, as he wrapped his right arm around the rung and pulled himself and the zombie up so that he could get a more forceful kick with his free leg. The zombie’s head snapped back far enough that its neck broke, tumbling him to the landing where another zombie picked it up and tossed it over his shoulder to the ground far below. “Hurry! They’re going to figure out they can get in another way!”

  Justin didn’t want to leave Tommy, but staying there wasn’t helping. “I’ll be right back.” He climbed the rest of the way and went up and over. He took a quick look around: the road below had dozens of zombies, he could only hope the route he was going to take hadn’t been overrun yet. There were plenty of rifles being fired, but none of them sounded close enough to call for help, and there was no guarantee that whoever was firing was in a position to offer support; more likely they were barely hanging on themselves. He raced to the roof access door. “Fuck!” he shouted when he realized it was locked. He kept trying to turn the handle before attempting to break it off by kicking; it didn’t so much as budge. He was about to race back and tell Tommy, when he spied another ladder cage on the far side of the building. It made sense that there would be more than one egress on a place this large.

  He got on the ladder and descended quickly, but when he got to the hanging steps, no amount of prodding or bouncing with his weight would drop the ladder to the ground. It wasn’t a long drop, if he hung down and released, but any injury to his ankles or knees right now would cause a delay that he did not think Tommy could afford. He jumped the three feet, doing his best not to brace for impact, letting his body absorb the shock, and was up and running. “Shit,” was all he could manage to say as he saw a zombie coming straight for him. He was running as fast as he could, but with every backward glance, he realized the monster was gaining ground. It would never be possible to outrun an opponent who never got tired, who never needed to catch their breath, who never wanted to puke their guts out after sprinting for as far and as fast as they could. And, oh yeah, what a brilliant fucking evolutionary response that is! Your body tries to make you less appetizing when you finally have to stop, like maybe the predator chasing you will no longer want to eat something that smells like vomit.

  The zombie was close enough that it had reached out and swiped the material on Justin’s shoulder. This spurred the boy on a little more, but he knew he was running on fumes and would have to rest soon. A stitch dug deep into his left, traveling up the entirety of that side and wrapping around his lungs like a vise, squeezing his ability to breathe. He was hitching when the hand finally grabbed enough of his shirt to stop his momentum and spin him. Justin brought a fist up and clocked the zombie in the side of the head. There was an audible pop, but it wasn’t from any damage done to the zombie; Justin had broken a finger. The zombie reached up and grabbed his hand. Justin howled in pain as the zombie bent the injured finger back even more. He reflexively began punching the thing in the face, careful to avoid the snarling mouth and gnashing teeth.

  The zombie kept leaning in for a bite, sometimes pulling on the hand, other times pushing it away, but through it all, it held a tight grip. Tears of pain ran from the corner of Justin’s eyes as he struggled to gain his freedom. He had one hand on the zombie’s shoulder, mimicking the push and pull movements but in reverse, doing all he could to keep it at bay. And through it all, his chest was heaving as he attempted to catch a breath that was wholly avoiding him.

  “Let go!” he spat, fearful the zombie was going to tear the finger free. He was at his wits’ end on how he was going to gain his freedom and not only save his own life, but get help for Tommy, when he received help in an unlikely form and from an unwitting participant. A woman Justin thought he recognized from the grocery store, burst out of a door to his right. She was looking back the way she had come and not to where she was going when she slammed into the side of the zombie, sending them all sprawling onto the roadway. The woman and zombie became entangled in a deadly embrace, and Justin had fallen to the side.

  He pushed up and stood taking the briefest of glances to note that his finger was still attached, for that he was happy, even if it was canted at a severe angle. He moved to help the woman, but it was too late; she was screaming shrilly as a piece of her cheek had been removed, and the zombie seemed to be in bliss as it chewed through it.

  Justin wanted to kick the zombie in the head, sheerly out of principle, but thought better of it as he saw another wave running his way, the woman’s cries, a beacon to the hungry invaders. More people were running wildly about, and though none seemed to have a set destination in mind, all seemed to find a way to impede his progress like a straggling herd of concert-goers meandering across a highway towards the venue. He was batted about to the point he felt much like a steel bearing in a pinball game, and, through it all, he could hear the wails as those behind him fell victim to the invasion. A piercing shriek broke through the chaos; Justin was helpless, as were those around him, as hands immediately went to heads seeking a way to block out the pain that penetrated into the deepest folds of their minds. A shrieker was perched atop a car some twenty yards away; its head was thrown back and its mouth opened wider than was natural, though no audible sound came from it. Justin stumbled away, doing his best to put as much distance as he could between himself and the shrieker and the speeders that were killing any who had stopped or slowed down due to the brain flaying.

  Justin was nearly blind from the attack on his central nervous system, but he knew if he didn’t run, he was as good as dead. The stop sign seemed to appear out of thin air as he plunged headlong into it. The pain wasn’t any greater than what he was already going through, just different, fresh. He fell over, blood pouring into his left eye from a large gash above it. Vertigo had set in, and he spun down, clipping his head once again, this time on the rear quarter panel of an abandoned Ford. He was as close to losing consciousness as he could ever remember while still being awake.

  “Hannah? What are you doing here?” he asked as his head hit the ground. He was out cold. He awoke a few minutes later, the smell of rust nearly overwhelming his sense of pain, before his broken finger reminded him how much everything hurt. He opened his eyes; a small hand clamped over his mouth; it smelled of sweat and cheese. It was not pleasant. He struggled to get his bearings. He could not focus his eyes correctly, and he was having difficulty moving.

  “Wh…at…?” he managed to ask, though it was severely muffled as the hand pressed down harder while simultaneously pinching his entire mouth. He didn’t understand how a hand so small could deliver so much control and then he realized it was probably driven by fear as he finally began to grasp where he was. He was looking at the rusted-out muffler of a car, his nose pressed right up on the pipe. He turned his head just enough to see Hannah, the teenaged girl his dad had come across in the middle of the woods, holed up in a treehouse with her younger brother, Johnny.

  She had a finger pressed up to her lips and she shook her head ever so slightly. She pulled her hand away from Justin’s mouth and then pointed beyond him to the other side. He moved his head as quietly as he could. There lay a body on the sidewalk, not more than five feet from where they were. That was bad enough; it got worse when he realized that a trio of zombies were devouring the still-warm carcass.

  He turned back toward the girl. On the other side of the car he saw dozens of legs standing there; it was safe to assume they did not belong to humans. For whatever reason, they were in the middle of a zombie gathering, and though it wasn’t likely, they were one untied shoe away from being discovered, dragged out, and eaten. Justin was at a complete loss as to what to do.

  Meanwhile, Tommy had waited until he was confident his adopted brother had escaped to safety before he climbed a few more rungs. He smashed in the face of the next zombie, giving him enough time to turn around on the ladder, grab
the metal band, and pull it inward toward the wall. He hoped it would be enough to keep the zombies below from following him up. He got onto the roof and ran around the entire perimeter, not at all happy with the chaos reigning supreme on the ground level. He saw Justin battling a zombie before it was knocked to the ground by another person. He’d just started running for the ladder to head down when he saw Justin try to decapitate himself; the sign was still resonating when, incredulously, he watched a set of arms pull him under a car.

  “Now what?” Tommy asked as zombies began to congregate. He thought they looked like they were waiting for orders; some were feasting, others were chasing prey, but for the most part, the zombies he was watching were just…waiting. His heart was up in his throat as he saw a small contingent of them standing around the car Justin was hidden under. He did the only thing he could think to do.

  11

  Mike Journal Entry 9

  “Motherfucker!” I bent over as an incoming message was drilled into my skull with all the subtlety of a Mack truck barreling over orange cones.

  “Mike?” BT placed a hand on my shoulder, concern in his voice.

  “Fuck.” My brain felt like it had been lanced with a red-hot poker. “Get the squad together.” I had my eyes closed and my fingertips pressed against my forehead as I waited for the worst of it to pass. “Get some tinfoil too.” I bent at the waist, fearful of collapsing from the vertigo waffling through my senses. I figured this way I wouldn’t have too far to fall.

  BT had everyone there in under five, which was pretty impressive for my crew. I finally felt like I could speak without a stroke slur.

  “Volunteer mission,” I started.

  “Come on Cap, you know as well as we all do we’re going to do pretty much whatever you ask us to,” Kirby said.

  “Fine. Line your covers with tin foil.”

  “Fucking kidding me? The rest of the squads already think we’re nuts; this isn’t going to help,” Kirby said as he accepted the piece BT handed him. Once he’d finished handing them out, BT whacked him on the back of the head.