Ranger Martin and the Search for Paradise

by Jack Flacco

She unfolded it while her brother and Randy edged forward in their seats to become her audience.

  “What is it, Matty?” Randy asked.

  “Yeah, what is it?” Jon added.

  “It’s a map.” Matty answered.

  “Well, we can see that.” Jon said, and shook his head at the obvious.

  “It’s a marked route to San Francisco.” Matty said, then looked at Ranger. “Is this real?”

  Ranger nodded.

  “What do you mean?” Randy asked.

  “The route will take us through Las Vegas, Yosemite National Park and to the San Francisco Bay area.”

  “So.” Jon said, lifting his hands in the air as if saying, “What’s the big deal.”

  “And the place where we’re going is—?” Randy asked.

  “Paradise.” Ranger said. “Or at least that’s what the map says.”

  “Paradise?”

  “No military. No undead. Peace.”

  “C’mon, Ranger. How true is that? There’s no such place here on earth anyone would dare call paradise, let alone travel there on—” Randy reached over to inspect the gauge on the dashboard, “half-a-tank of gas. We’d be pretty stupid if we did something like that.”

  Matty kneeled on her seat, staring at Randy. “How many stupid things have we done so far? I can name them. We traveled to Utah to stamp out a zombie apocalypse. We then hauled our asses to Kansas to destroy an alien invasion. And now that we have a chance to put it all behind us, make amends for the friends we’ve lost during that time, to live a peaceable life, and you have the gall to call it a pretty stupid idea?”

  Ranger grabbed Matty by the shoulder and sat her on her seat. “We don’t need any of that, okay? We’re a team, and the folks behind us expect us to act like one.”

  The map fell on Matty’s lap and she went back to studying it without as much as a sound.

  Staring at the road ahead, Ranger gave his version of how he got the map. “Major Smith, the soldier I’d chased last night, had rolled the dump truck he was drivin’ into a ditch. When I found him, he was spittin’ his insides all over himself. He didn’t have much of a chance for survival. I threw his gun away and went into the cab to be with him, hopin’ the last moments of his life were with one of us lookin’ at him instead of those eaters. He appreciated it and gave me the map. He said survivors have heavily fortified San Francisco. Whoever makes it in would be safe.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, ‘whoever makes it in’?” Matty asked.

  “We’ll have zombies to fight through, the likes of which we’ve never seen. And we’ll have everything else to plow through. People. Armies. Who knows what else? It’ll be a regular party.”

  “You’ve lost it, Ranger. You’ve absolutely lost it.” Matty hid her face in her left hand.

  “Once we’re in Vegas, we’ll find some gas, food, and anything else we might need to carry us forward. We’ll need the help of the others behind us to carry the gas canisters in their pickup.”

  “Wait,” Randy said, “they have a car. Not a pickup.”

  “Maybe we can change that when we get to Vegas.”

  * * *

  Later that morning, the vehicles arrived in North Las Vegas where Ranger stopped at Cheyenne Gas off Civic Center Drive, hoping they’d have luck refueling there before entering further into the city to find a place to stay. Ranger remembered the Costavano Hotel in downtown Las Vegas where he and his wife Darla once stayed for a weekend. He wanted to go back there to recapture some of the happy memories he had had with her.

  Matty didn’t like the idea. She said her only memories of Vegas were that of her and her brother crawling under a bus that had arrived from Boston, trying to escape the chewers. She didn’t want to experience a repeat of what she went through during the beginning of the change. Jon agreed with her this time, given he typically chose Ranger’s side with everything.

  Once they had found the abandoned station with gas left in its tanks, they shuffled from the wretched confines of their vehicles to enjoy the outdoor and sun. Matty stretched, as did the others. After a few minutes, Silver approached Matty. He didn’t say anything other than to give her a portion of the cereal package he had stuffed in his backpack. Randy sat on a broken picnic table watching it all go down. Anger heated the back of his neck. He remembered how Matty once said she wasn’t ready for anything serious with him, and how he felt empty inside for not having her as more than a friend. Sharing a lunch with another guy forced him to turn his back on her. He tossed his bag of chips on the ground after losing his appetite.

  In the meantime, Ranger spotted a large pickup truck parked in the empty lot of Brittle Donut Shop, across the street from the gas station. Mark and the others saw it also but thought nothing of the undead killer wanting to have it. They accepted the fact that he pulled his shotgun and strolled to the vehicle as if it had already belonged to him.

  While Matty laughed at Silver’s jokes, Sunglow joined Randy on the bench facing the grass. They didn’t speak two words between them, but after a time, Sunglow said, “You’re the quiet one.”

  Randy turned to her, smiled, and continued to throw pebbles into the grass.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  He smiled again, but did not answer her. He kept his attention on where the pebbles landed. The smile soon vanished when he thought of Matty with another guy in her life. He found it unfair she could reject him but carry on with Silver.

  “Do you always ignore people who try to talk with you?” Sunglow finally asked.

  “You said you were from Rodward?”

  “Yeah, I think our schools played basketball against each other.”

  “Jessum had a basketball team?” Randy chuckled. “Sorry, I’m not much into sports.”

  “What do you like?”

  “I know I like cooking. I’m good at hunting. And I enjoy watching the clouds.”

  “Clouds? Watching clouds?”

  “Yeah. You know, seeing their shapes in the sky. Before the change, I remember sitting on the side of a hill watching the clouds turn to cars, houses, flowers, fish, horses. You name it, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it.”

  Sunglow took up his challenge. “A stop sign?”

  “A stop sign?” Randy laughed. “No. I’ve never seen a stop sign.”

  “A dishwasher?”

  “Now you’re being silly. No. No dishwasher.”

  Sunglow smiled with the thought that Randy wasn’t as bad as she thought he would be.

  “Oh, my God.” Matty said, and dropped the cereal packet Silver had given her. She yanked her gun from the small of her back and sprinted to Ranger across the street to the donut shop parking lot.

  Randy heard Matty’s voice and without turning around, he grabbed his gun from its holster. He didn’t have to think, it came as second nature to him. He hopped over the picnic table and joined Matty.

  A small crowd of chewers had surrounded Ranger while he was searching for the keys to the pickup. He used the knife he carried with him to stab the zombies in the face, head and under the jaw to clear the parking lot without wasting a bullet. Green blood splattered on the pickup, the asphalt and his clothes.

  By the time Matty and Randy arrived, Ranger had taken care of his little problem. A dozen bodies littered the parking lot when Ranger had wiped the last of the blood on the shirt of one of his victims. He hadn’t even taken a breath.

  When he explained the undead had broken from the donut shop, he didn’t want to alert the others to their location in the area. He slipped his knife into its holster and said no one had anything else to fear.

  “Matty!” Jon froze with his back against Ranger’s truck parked at the gas station.

  “Shit.” Matty said, and ran into the middle of the street that separated Cheyenne Gas from Brittle Donut Shop.

  The eater had three feet before it could grab Jon for its lunch. It dragged and moaned, and shuffled its way to the boy.

  Matty took a stance, pointed her
gun at the beast and took aim.

  The bullet pierced the monster’s face blowing its brains from the back of its head. It collapsed without anything keeping it up.

  Shock filled Matty’s face, not because the shot hit its target with such efficiency but because she stood there, gun in hand with the realization that she hadn’t fired her gun.

  Back at the gas station parking lot, Mark was coming from the back of the building holding his gun, Silver was standing where Matty had left him, unarmed, as he had forgotten his gun in the car. But Sunglow held her gun pointed in the air while it still smoldered. Sunglow had saved Jon’s life.

  Matty ran as fast as she could toward Jon. Jon took off running toward his sister. They slammed into an embrace.

  “Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?” Matty asked, holding him tight.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

  After a long while, Matty released Jon, then ruffled his hair with appreciation for him being alive. As Mark and Silver stood in their places, she walked past and ignored them. A few more yards and she came face to face with Sunglow, who had hidden her gun under her shirt.

  The two girls looked at each other and remembered their animosity for one another brought on by the arguments in the silo. But Matty wouldn’t have any of it. She drew closer to Sunglow and wrapped her arms around her. Nothing mattered to Matty other than the one who saved her brother’s life, even if that person was the least likely person she thought would save him. As she had her eyes closed and held her former enemy, she said, “Thank you.”

  A shot rang from across the street. A horde of monsters had surrounded Ranger and Randy making their escape impossible. They had already killed a number of them before Randy pulled the trigger. He couldn’t hold off any longer without sustaining an injury, something he wasn’t in the mood for to begin with.

  The zombies were coming from the alleys, the buildings, and from across the street. The shot Sunglow let loose had alerted the undead to the location where Ranger and the kids stood. The chewers had brought with them their appetites. They seethed, dragged and crept their way to the survivors.

  Silver dashed into the car and picked up his gun from the backseat while Mark dropped a bag full of supplies he had lifted from the rear entrance of the gas station. In the bag, he had gathered chocolate bars, tissue paper and pop cans. The rear vending machines couldn’t hold Mark’s desire to rip them apart to get to the goods. From the bottom of the bag, an orange soda can rolled into the parking lot and smacked into the tire of the car Silver had taken refuge.

  Matty left Sunglow to head into the fray with Ranger and Randy. Unlike Silver, who hadn’t left the car, Sunglow followed as did Mark, who had pulled his gun out at the last possible moment. He’d forgotten about the supplies and began shooting first, hitting everything in the head with accuracy. Matty and Sunglow did the same while Jon dove into the car with Silver. Silver, however, cowered in the backseat, trembling. He’d never seen such a horde to fend off.

  The crowd of undead got thicker as the shots sounded louder. The more green blood Ranger and Randy spilled, the more it became evident there were too many to fight on their own.

  While Matty and Sunglow stood around the perimeter of the mass, picking them off one by one, Mark decided to save his bullets and take a drastic approached. He found a crowbar next to open manhole, picked it up and ran into the crowd swinging at their heads, crushing them and splashing their innards all over the others. One swing after another, he ripped apart the heads of the undead. When he wasn’t swinging, he was stabbing them to their second death.

  Inside the car, Jon screamed at Silver to help his friends. Jon couldn’t believe how Silver acted and wanted to lean over and smack the teen, even though Silver could have beaten Jon to an unrecognizable blob.

  Hearing Jon calling him and lifting his head to see how the girls took a stand in the distance firing their guns, Silver had resolved to step out of the car in faith and fight with his friends against the zombie army.

  When he dashed across the street, Silver pushed through the girls and began firing. He wasn’t a very good shot though. He either missed or clipped the eaters in the body. Sunglow had to run after him, and aim for him at their heads. It took him a while before he got the hang of it.

  As the three of them fired into the crowd, and Randy and Ranger purged the undead from the center, Mark couldn’t keep up with the chewers approaching him from every side. The more he killed, the more they came. One thrust into the head of the undead had jammed the crowbar so far into his victim that he couldn’t pull it out in time.

  That’s when it happened.

  A chewer grabbed Mark by the shoulders, pulled him down and sank its teeth into the boy’s neck. The other chewers followed, ripping him apart. The gang of zombies frenzied after the boy’s blood and swarmed for a piece of him, leaving Ranger and Randy free to escape.

  Sunglow screamed in hysterics as Silver and Matty held her back. The teens held her arms preventing her from exacting revenge on the swarm. There were just too many of them and there wasn’t anything they could do except follow Ranger.

  While Ranger and Randy hopped into their SUV, Jon sat in the car behind them staring at Mark’s last moments through the passenger window. He thought it could have very well been him dying in the swarm.

  Matty and Silver shoved Sunglow in the back of the car locking the door behind. Matty stayed with the girl as she whimpered and sobbed at Mark’s death. In the meantime, Silver ran to the driver’s seat and followed Ranger out of the parking lot into the street.

  The swarm had all but covered Mark as Jon looked on into the distance.

  Chapter 7

  Their drive into Las Vegas’ downtown core was a quiet one. The sight of all the casinos didn’t light up the eyes of the teens nor did the buildings provide the distraction they needed from thinking of the loss to the group. While Ranger drove with Randy as his passenger in the SUV, Silver followed with Jon as the passenger in his car. The other two girls, Sunglow and Matty, sat in the backseat. Sunglow had stopped sobbing soon after leaving Mark behind. She knew there wasn’t much anyone could do to bring him back to life. She had resolved never to let the undead control her emotions ever again.

  Matty, as her new best friend, comforted Sunglow by gently rubbing away the anxiety with her hand on her shoulder. She did it also more for her benefit, since she had had her share of losses in her life. She saw how Sunglow reacted and thought it may have been the girl’s first loss.

  “I don’t understand.” Sunglow said.

  Matty didn’t say anything. She listened, as would any friend do in a similar situation.

  “Mark had led the three of us to safety countless of times. He always said he would have given his life for us. I wouldn’t have thought he would have. He had a kind heart, always willing to help and he never showed fear.” She thought for a moment. “Is this how we’re all supposed to die, eaten by those things that used to be like us? I don’t understand. I just don’t understand it.”

  Matty wiped the water from her eyes with the palm of her hand and said, “Maybe we’re not supposed to understand. Jon and I have lost a lot of friends and we couldn’t have guessed we would have survived this long. Maybe it’s something we need to live through as a way to teach others.”

  Sunglow looked out the window at the passing casinos nearby. “If I’m supposed to teach someone what death is like, I would have preferred to teach them about life instead.”

  “No denying that.”

  A few minutes went by and Jon asked Silver, “Why did you fry those soldiers on the fence back there at the silo?”

  Silver kept his gaze centered on the road, following Ranger. He answered, “They were my enemy.”

  “Ranger says our enemies are the chewers. They’re the ones we should be afraid of the most.”

  “It’s no different with the military.”

  “The military are humans.”

  “The military have guns.” />
  Jon slouched in his seat and wished he had gone in Ranger’s truck. At the time he had decided to join his sister in Silver’s car, they had eaters they were dealing with. He learned a valuable lesson. He had decided it was the last time he would ride with Silver again.

  As the vehicles passed various hotels and casinos, the streets were empty. Garbage littered the alleys, and cars stood abandoned. The lights hadn’t dimmed in the city where they travelled on Las Vegas Boulevard. The gauge on the gas tank read full and Ranger kept searching for the Costavano Hotel where he and his wife Darla once stayed.

  “Sad to see what had happened to Mark.” Randy said.

  “Just as well.”

  “What do you mean? Don’t you feel sorry for him or the others, Ranger?”

  “It could have happened to any one of us. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel anythin’.”

  “For a minute there you sounded indifferent.”

  “We’ve been through this before.”

  “Right, but what if it was me you left back there?”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “What if it was? You can’t say to me that you’re not going to feel anything. What about Matty? Jon?”

  “Look, I didn’t ask them to tag along—”

  “No, you pushed them into it.”

  “Is there something you want to say to me? Because if there is, I’ll haul you out of this cab and drop you at the nearest hotel.”

  Randy laughed through his words, “You won’t do that.”

  “I sure will. I’ll drop you and anyone else who doesn’t follow me to safety.”

  “No you won’t. You need me just as much as I need you.” Randy turned his attention to Ranger, wanting to make his point clear. “I’ve been with you long enough to know when you don’t mean it. C’mon, Ranger, admit Mark’s death didn’t affect you as it did. Admit it, that’s all I want. I won’t tell anyone.”

  Ranger didn’t say anything but allowed a smile to lift his face.

  “Didn’t think so.” Randy said, sinking back in his seat with a sense of satisfaction knowing he had won an argument against the undead killer. Randy knew how Ranger thought, he didn’t have a problem telling him either. They’d been together long enough for him to be frank.