by catt dahman
For some reason, the area looked freshly traveled, but not looted, around the huge pile of wreckage. There were so much rubble and destruction, so much was burned, twisted, melted, and ripped that even a decade later, it felt as if there were traps and dangers everywhere. All of this was left to the monsters.
Jet whirled his horse around as he saw movement in the long grass, along the highway; whether it was an animal, some zombies, or humans, he didn’t know, but the speed suggested fright and desperation, probably humans then.
Low moaning announced the Reds as they shambled forwards from behind the wreckage where they had been, moving about the trash and vehicles.
From one direction, a large group shuffled into view, some falling over broken and cracked concrete, and Lance looked in that way, trying to determine how many were headed their way. As far as he could see, zombies were walking raggedly on the broken highway. “They’re hiving, must be thousands.”
All at once, the smell was on them, ahead of the crowd: rot, vomit, urine, feces, and infection. There were faded tatters of clothing, pale, naked flesh, and crusted gore. A few females had distended bellies.
“For us? They’re after us?”
Lance shook his head at Ricky. “No, I think it’s just our bad luck; they hive at times, we know. It’s just as if they move around as they look for victims.”
“Someone is running from them.” Jet didn’t see any more movement from the grass except for the zombies who were shambling that way. For some reason, Jet’s skin crawled, not just because of the approaching zombies.
“Some have gone by; they’re going to notice us and come back,” Adam said. “That’s three sides. Look at all the ones that already have gone through here. We can’t get through.”
“Then we go back and circle this mess,” Jet said. He just had turned to scan the way they had come, when two women of Adam’s group fell from their horses; the whine of bullets was a split second behind.
One had her chest blasted, and the other took a bullet in her side and stomach; neither girl moved once she hit the ground. A squealing horse went down with a messy belly wound; the one riding the horse immediately started to shove and push to get loose, but his leg was trapped beneath hundreds of pounds of dead horse. His face was a mask of pure terror as he realized how bad this was for him. Cursing, he demanded the horse get off him.
The zombies that already had gone by on the road turned and began moaning while making their way back again as they saw the humans. More untangled themselves, moving from the core of the airplane wreckage and into the road, drooling with hungry anticipation.
Ricky made a yipping noise and then slumped; the blood poured from one thigh. He was shot, yet he stayed in his saddle.
Ricky slid off to the ground as his horse panicked. He yelled as he rolled into the clawing hands of a pair of zombies who dragged him down when he tried to stand.
Jet started walking toward Ricky as did Sadie. Sadie shot both the zombies although most of her bullets missed them.
Not far away,Hannah wiped at blood that splattered over her hair and face as Jamal’s face almost vaporized. Raul leaped to the ground to pull at his brother’s arms, he tried to get him up and back onto a horse, but the man was dead. Raul was so busy trying to help that he failed to notice the crawler that grabbed at his feet, tripping him. Hannah screamed for him to move and looked for her brother and Adam.
Jake had a hand down to grab Raul, but another ghoul made a quick move, causing the man to be pulled between the creatures and Jake, so they fought over him. Jake landed on his back, hitting his head on the pavement and passed out. The back of his head split on a block of sharp-edged concrete, soaking it in red.
The ghouls grabbed for Raul. He kicked and punched but was covered by the monsters quickly. His peels of screams over lapped. He couldn’t stop watching the monsters rip at Jake’s face even as several bit into his scalp and arms.
“Head into the wreckage?” Jet yelled. No one was doing anything or coming up with a plan. Faced with thousands of zombies on either side and the hidden shooters from behind, Jet believed moving into the rubble and abandoned cars seemed the best plan. For the hybrids, the best bet was to face the zombies, but being bitten and infected wasn’t the greatest fear; being torn to shreds and eaten alive was the greatest.
Some of the creatures still went towards the shooters.
“Get ‘em,” Jet whispered to himself. He saw Hannah was still safe but as confused as the rest of them, and Adam didn’t seem to have a clue as to what to do. He felt a wave of pride for his sister who slashed at them, bashed open heads, and lopped off parts as she fought back. Adam stayed in one place but kept firing his gun.
The horses could only get through parts of the wreckage. Robbin and Anthony bravely grabbed Ricky. On foot, they raced into the burned out cars, ducking to hide. At least they still tried and fought. Neal and Yuki fired at the ones who were searching for the man trapped by his dead horse, but for every one they shot and killed, another two or three took its place.
The zombies quickly covered the area so thickly that neither could put the man down before he was bitten and stripped of flesh, fat, and muscle. He hit at their mouths, pushed aside their clawing hands, yet they held on, biting into the flesh and taking off his fingers first, chewing hungrily through the joints.
It was bad luck on his part and a failure to get free of the falling horse.
He screamed a long time as they bit his arms, then his scalp, face, and finally his neck and upper body as others bit and gnawed at the horse; they didn’t prefer animal meat but wouldn’t ignore hot blood that was available. Blood pooled under their feet. The man was unrecognizable in mere minutes.
The people shooting at the group had hoped the group on horseback would provide enough of a diversion and feeding that they might escape from the hive activity of the zombies, scared beyond thought at the thousands that moved their way.
They ran quickly through the long grass. Although panicked, they did manage to hit Sarah and another man to stall another dozen of the creatures before the zombies were on top of them. Only one of the people had time to press a gun to his own head while the rest, screaming, were ripped to shreds in a massive attack.
Ten years of survival vanished.
It had only been bad luck that they were passing though this area when the zombies went into horde-mode. They didn’t think before acting; they merely acted in self-preservation. If they contacted the group on horses and worked with them, they would have all gotten away safely.
Neal saw that Jake was either unconscious or dead as a few began to rip bluish intestines from his stomach and simply nodded his thanks to Lance as he helped Yuki onto Neal’s horse before he yelled and motioned that one way was fairly clear.
Sadie tried to get off her horse to run into the plane wreckage where she could hide or make her way across. She took a few painful, mind-numbing bites from zombies and was thankful for her choice she made in becoming inoculated. The bites hurt horribly, but her pain tolerance was better now; she couldn’t imagine what the pain would feel like if she not had the edge such as it was; the pain was almost too much to stand. She left a trail of blood behind her as she darted from car to car.
To one side, Robbin, Ricky, and Anthony motioned her to come to them. Both men were covered in blood, and Robbin looked terrified. “My God, they’re everywhere,” Sadie whispered as she slid in beside them.
“We are screwed, but we made it out of the mall parking lot. We can do this,” Anthony said. He watched for Jet and Lance to come help.
“We gotta move,” Robbin said, “to the left then through and over; don’t stop.”
“It’s like an obstacle course,” Sadie said.
“I can’t,” Ricky said. He thought they were safe until the crawler crept from under the car and attacked his arm before Anthony could bash in its skull.
Sadie reached for Ricky, and with no fear of infection, she examined his arm. Below the elbow, the
flesh was torn off, and he was bleeding out, despite the tourniquet Robbin put on him. Sadie paused to re-tie it and add another. His leg was a mess of gore, too.
“Adam, Jet, and Hannah are through. Lance, Yuki, and Neal are through, I think. Maybe. Girl in the lime is down. Pink girl is through. Shit, it’s just us.”
“They shot us,” Anthony complained. “What the hell was wrong with them? Where are Jet, Hannah, and Lance?”
“They’ll come get us, Ant,” Sadie said.
“They can’t; it’s too thick.” Robbin shook her head and clenched her eyes closed a second. Everywhere between where their friends had ridden and where they hid now were zombies, moaning, looking for food, falling, shambling, and twitching: some were not dead.
“They have to,” Sadie insisted.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Then, we do it your way, and wait for them; let’s go through the wrecks.”
“Ricky can’t,” Anthony disagreed, “his leg is messed up. If we were on flat ground, yes, but if we are carrying him, we can’t climb.” He didn’t take the time to realize he was also bitten on the arm and bleeding, but the women saw it.
“We aren’t leaving him,” Sadie said.
“Didn’t say we would but….” Anthony pointed out the man’s arm. “He’s infected.”
“I know,” Sadie said, “but we can’t.” None of them had the strength to do what was needed. Anthony must not know he was bitten, she considered, and she wondered about telling him, but since Robbin held back, Sadie did as well.
“They’re coming,” Robbin whispered.
“Move.” Anthony dragged Ricky as they headed for another wreck and then dropped him as monsters converged on them too fast. They were surrounded.
Anthony ran the other way, motioning them to follow him, not acting as a coward, but in a blind panic as the things reached for him, trying to grab him.
At the edge of all the clutter was a car that still had windows intact, and he jumped inside, slammed the doors behind him, and slumped to the seat to catch his breath.
The zombies slapped the windows a few times.
“Ant,” Sadie complained as Ricky was dropped and Anthony ran away, “get up, Ricky. We gotta go.”
“Do it. Do me,” he muttered, his head dizzy and arm and leg shrieking with pain as infection set in and began to take over his system. He vomited. And then said, “It hurts so much.”
“Robbin?”
Robbin knew if she fired a gun, the ghouls would find them huddled behind the car. “We can’t. They’ll find us.”
She yanked her knife out and, gritting her teeth, tried to cut Ricky’s throat to give him peace quietly, but she wasn’t knowledgeable about using a knife for this and sawed at his neck, making Sadie cry out in revulsion. Ricky gurgled and moaned.
“Stop it,” Sadie whispered, “he can’t stand it.” But Ricky was already dead.
Robbin stabbed and sawed. “It’s done. He’s gone,” Robbin said, “oh God, Ricky….” She leaned over and vomited.
“We need to go, Robbin,” Sadie told her, “let’s make a run for it; either way, you decide, but let’s go, please.” She cried in her hands. “We have to go, now.”
As the zombies came around the side of the car, they drooled as they saw live food.
Sadie went to her feet as Ricky turned his head amid all the gore on his neck and hissed. Robbin threw her head back and screamed as Ricky’s teeth grated against her shinbone, mashing flesh and nerves; blood poured.
“You’re okay. You are immune. Get up and let’s go,” Sadie told her. She bounced in place.
Robbin used her knife and stabbed Ricky in his eye over and over, trying to make his brain stop functioning as he continued to gnaw at her skin, gulping flesh.
Sadie hit him with the butt of her rifle, bashing at his head angrily. Robbin stopped her attack to roll under the car and peek out at Sadie when Ricky stopped moving. “It hurts so much, Sadie.”
“What are you doing?”
“Go away. Just go,” Robbin said, “run. They’ll follow you.”
Confused, Sadie looked around. She couldn’t get through the way they were headed as more blocked that way. She used her gun and threw it when it clicked empty, but Robbin wouldn’t look at her from under the car.
Sadie ran the other way, following the route Anthony had taken. From the car, he looked out at her and seemed to be saying something. Robbin lost her mind, Sadie thought.
Sadie yanked open the car door and slid in. “I can’t run anymore.”
Anthony groaned.
“I know. We’re stuck until they move along,” Sadie said. She relaxed on the seat, staring out at the zombies who bashed at the windows, unsure if they would hold.
As it was, that wasn’t something she had to worry about. With everything happening so fast, she had forgotten about Anthony being covered in blood and not being inoculated. That wasn’t a groan of agreement; it was a moan.
Sadie began screaming as he lunged, pinned her, and began to feed.
From under the car, Robbin watched the monsters walking around. A female zombie shuddered and wailed; to Robbin’s horror, a fetus plopped out onto the ground right beside her, pale and malformed. It grunted.
With her last bit of sanity intact, Robbin shot herself in the head just as zombies on either side of the car began to pull on her.
Jet jumped as they heard Robbin’s shot, wondering who was shot. Of their group of twenty an hour before, seven remained.
Lance verbally drove them to keep riding, making a big circle that put them south of the plane wreck. There was no way any more of the group survived, and any rescue attempts would be suicide.
The sky was fully dark, and danger was outside when they stopped to make a quiet camp in a big house that sat far away from everything else. They ignored the ranch overseer’s home and went to the big place to rest for the night, all quiet and sickened.
Hannah sat still while Adam cleaned and bandaged her upper arm where she was grazed by a bullet.
Yuki wasn’t infected since she was immune, but her lower leg was gnawed to the bone, and she lost a lot of blood. All they knew was to keep the wound clean, and despite her screaming, she managed to cauterize the blood vessels with a flat knife and a hot fire. The main threats seemed, at first, to be shock and blood loss, which they dealt with by getting fluids into her.
“Her leg is now gnawed flesh, bone, and burned skin. She can’t use it,” Neal said stoically. “It’s got to come off.” Yuki screamed when she saw the damage; it looked like a zombie who was chewed and then eroded.
“I don’t think she can survive the shock and blood loss,” Adam said, “let’s get her stable first. And we need to watch for infection.”
“She’s immune though,” Jet pointed out.
“To Red. But those things have a ton of bacteria in their mouths; she’s not immune to regular infection. Think of what they eat and all the germs. Human bites are filthy, but this must be ten times as bad, and it’s to the bone.”
“My leg,” Yuki complained. They gave her pain medication, but it was more than just pain; she knew her disadvantage in having one leg and was disgusted to have been chewed on. Neal sat next to her, holding her hand. “I want my leg back. Please help me, Neal…my leg….”
“The rest? Do you think they’re waiting for our help?” Hannah asked.
“I saw most go down and then were attacked,” Adam told her, “Sarah was shot and killed. Jake, I think Anthony and Ricky were bitten.”
“Oh.” Hannah took that in. “Robbin? Sadie?”
“I don’t see any way they could have made it, Hannah. Between the shooters and the Zs, we didn’t have much chance,” Lance said. “They would have done something to let us know, right?”
“I’m afraid they need us.”
“They’re gone.”
“Why did they shoot at us?” Neal asked.
“From how things looked, I am guessing they thought if they shot us, we
would slow the Zs and give them a chance to get away or something. From the screams, I don’t think they made it either,” Lance said, “I think it was all timing, wrong place at the wrong time. And we panicked.”
“There was nothing we could do,” Adam said.
Jet didn’t mention that Len and Kim would have thought of something.
In the night, Yuki’s fever soared.
“Kee Kee needs different antibiotics,” Neal said.
“That’s all we have. Maybe the leg needs to come off,” Jet said. “Do you know how to do it?”
“Me?” Adam asked, “no, you?”
None of them knew how to do the surgery and thought their inept abilities and shock would kill her for sure. Neal decided just to keep cleaning the wounds, but it made her scream hysterically with the pain, and after a while, he stopped.
In their nightmares, they saw the slaughter again and again. Pinky withdrew and didn’t speak unless spoken to. Mostly she stared into space and shivered, or sometimes she awakened from bad dreams and cried out.
On the fourth day, with red streaks running up her leg and hip, Yuki died. They buried her.
Hannah and Adam left the group for a few days and then joined them again without details. She told Jet the barest of information, and he felt her slipping farther away from him.
Jet wanted a smaller group but not in this way. It crossed his mind that people weren’t meant to be out in this world fighting against an enemy that had a larger number.
They went back to the road but took routes that were less populated before the infection.
In Beaumont, an aircraft carrier was tossed onto the land by a passing hurricane and sat derelict. They knew what it was, but it seemed like a giant monster left by the sea, a haunted place of another time, and although it was a curious sight, they had no way to go onboard and didn’t want to risk it anyway.
The ocean, lapping onto the beaches, was interesting to Hannah and the others as they looked at what the water washed ashore and tasted the salty spray. For hours, Pinky splashed in the water and picked up shells that she lined up on the beach.