Clickers vs Zombies

by J. F. Gonzalez

  “Do you think they’re all right?” Marion asked Augustus for the umpteenth time.

  “They’re fine,” Augustus said. “They have busy schedules. George was in that meeting today with Simon and Schuster’s media people and Kelly had a meeting with some sound engineers from the Record Plant for the next audio book recording. I’m sure they—”

  “Why haven’t they been in touch?” Marion looked worried sick.

  “I’m sure there’s a reason,” Augustus said. His voice and his persona exuded calm strength in the mount of rising terror. Deep down, he was starting to be afraid too, but he couldn’t let Marion see it. He had to be strong, for both of them. “I’ve left messages with their assistants and on their voice mail. They have explicit instructions on what’s happening. I’m sure they’re already following things to the letter and are on their way to the airport.”

  Marion had no response. She looked out the tinted window as the limo drove down Foothill Boulevard.

  “Shit,” the driver whispered from the front. Then he glanced in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, sir.”

  “That’s perfectly alright,” Augustus said, forcing himself to smile. “Is everything okay?”

  His eyes met Augustus’s in the rearview mirror. “Yes, sir. We just lost our GPS, is all. The unit itself is functioning properly, but we’ve lost communication with the satellite. The network must be on the fritz. But don’t worry. I can get us to the airport without it.”

  “Very good.”

  Augustus looked out the left passenger window. He was already getting an impression that there was a disturbance in the atmosphere. It was the same disturbance he’d felt earlier this morning when he’d seen that immense flock of birds heading inland, only this time it was a thousand times bigger. As the day went on, he’d gotten several ominous impressions but was unable to pinpoint details. What he was certain of was one thing: something horrible was about to happen. Something global, something that would change the face of the world and the way human beings lived forever.

  He hadn’t told Marion this. He’d given her very little in the way of information, preferring to leave her in the dark as much as possible. All he wanted her to know was that he had a bad feeling about remaining in California, that they would be safer in their cabin in Vail. Off season they would have very little in the way of neighbors, and the cabin was well-stocked with a month’s worth of dried and canned goods. They would have water. They would have contact with the outside world via satellite radio and internet. And there were weapons at the cabin. Augustus didn’t believe in guns, but his son George was an avid hunter and his daughter, Susan, was a member of the NRA. The guns belonged to them. But if Augustus had to learn to use them, he would.

  He hadn’t told Marion about what he’d heard on various news and internet reports either. Stories about mutant crab-lobster-scorpion hybrids the news journalists were calling Clickers swarming the beaches on the US west coast, Australia, Japan, India, and South Africa, attacking and eating people. Stories about the dead rising to attack and eat the living. He’d kept watch at the home office as he went about his routine, monitoring the day’s operations from afar while at the same time paying attention to what was going on in the local community. He’d only had to venture into Malibu proper once today, to pick up some flax seed and ginkgo biloba at Helen’s Health Food store in the mall. Helen Ocasek, the proprietor, had asked him to stop by to autograph copies of his first book, You Have Been Alive Forever, which she had on constant reorder. This was a common business arrangement between them, and when Augustus had taken the afternoon walk for this errand, everything had seemed normal in Malibu—people were on the beach enjoying themselves, kids were playing in the sand, people were window shopping along mall storefronts. There was a hell of a lot of birds flying inland—that phenomenon hadn’t let up. But if it wasn’t for Augustus’s second sense about what he was feeling, he wouldn’t have insisted they leave for Colorado immediately.

  The limo slowed down as traffic became more congested. Marion sat on the far side of the rear seat, a look of extreme worry in her features. “George knows to meet us at the cabin, right?”

  “Yes, he does. I left explicit instructions. He, Kelly, and the grandkids will meet us in Vail. I already arranged with a limo company in Boulder to have a car on standby at the airport.”

  The driver cut in. “Excuse me, Mr. Livingston, but we have a situation.”

  Augustus sat up, trying to see what was going on from his vantage point. “What’s happening? The GPS again?” All he could see was massive congestion.

  “No. I don’t know. Some kind of riot or something.”

  Marion gasped and gripped his hand. The limousine stopped. He could hear people shouting and screaming outside. There was what sounded like gunfire up ahead. “My God, what’s happening Augie!” Marion cried.

  “I don’t know, honey,” Augustus said. He pulled his hand away and darted toward the partition that separated them from the driver. He tapped on the partition and it slid open. A quick look through the front drive windshield told him everything. They were in a standstill and there was some kind of civil disturbance up ahead. “Oh shit,” Augustus said.

  “Oh shit is right,” the limousine driver said. “Hold on, Mr. Livingston. I’m gonna see if I can get us the hell away from this mess.”

  Augustus didn’t see how he was going to do this. They were boxed in from all sides.

  The limousine driver put the vehicle in reverse and backed up quickly. They banged into the car behind them. Augustus wasn’t prepared for the impact and almost tumbled off the seat. Marion was thrown back slightly. She held her right hand over her chest, her eyes wide. Augustus turned to her. “Get your seat belt on!”

  Marion snapped her seat belt on and Augustus planted himself on the side seat and did the same. The limousine moved forward and bumped into the car in front of them, then backed up and hit the car behind them again. The driver’s of both vehicles started laying on their horns, but he was paying them no mind. Do what you have to do to get us out of here, Augustus silently urged the limo driver. As if he’d heard this subliminal command, the driver continued bashing the limo back and forth, turning the limo around with each backward momentum. Within moments, he was bashing the vehicles on either side of him. Angry honks arose from those drivers, too.

  “Hey, what the fuck are you doing, asshole?”

  The limo driver paid the protests no mind. He plowed forward and hit the car on their left again with a resounding crash. Even though he was bracing himself for each impact, Augustus was jostled around pretty good. There was a slamming of a car door and an angry male voice. “Get the fuck out of the car, you old, fat, piece of shit!”

  Backwards—smash! The squeal of tires on asphalt and forward—smash!

  There were more car horns honking now and this time Augustus felt that their driver had broken through. The limo continued forward and there was thump of tires, as if the vehicle had just driven up the curb, and then they were moving forward, probably at about ten miles an hour. There was a sound of running feet behind them and the angry male voice shouted, “Get back here, you fucking asshole, I’m gonna kick your ass!”

  Go, keep going, Augustus thought.

  “What the fuck?” the driver said. The limo started to slow down.

  “Keep going, just keep going!” Augustus shouted. The dark impressions he was getting had just spiked in their intensity. They were overpowering.

  “Ah, fuck!” The limousine skidded to a stop. Marion and Augustus were thrown violently against their seat belts. Up ahead there was the unmistakable sound of two vehicles colliding in a sickening crunch of metal. There were screams of pain, of anguish.

  And above it all, the voice of something else. Something overpowering that rode over all.

  Augustus looked out the front windshield and what he saw punched a hole through his soul.

  Foothill Boulevard resembled the worst NASCAR wreck ever in the history of stock c
ar racing. Several vehicles were on fire. Cars and SUVs were scattered haphazardly along the road in various stages of demolishment. Those people who weren’t running from the scene screaming in terror were being attacked by other people. The ones doing the attacking were biting their victims with a savagery Augustus never in a million years would have expected, or using anything as a weapon—sticks, knives, still-operable vehicles, guns, and other items. For a brief moment he thought this was a dream—he was in a dream state, trapped in a nightmare that was so vivid, so real, that he could hear the screams of victims, smell the smoke from fires, and taste the fear in the air. But then the driver’s side door to the limo opened and their driver spilled out. His hands slapped the roof of the limo on Augustus’s side. “Get out, get out! We gotta get out of here, Mr. Livingston! Now!”

  Augustus fumbled for his seat belt, got it unlatched and dove for the door. He opened it and half-stepped out. The limo driver was already on that side of the limo to help. “What’s going on?”

  A man wearing green knee-length shorts and a gray tank top appeared. An axe blade was buried in his chest. The front of his shirt was stained with blood. By all rights, he shouldn’t have been alive, but he grinned at them with a sense of malevolence Augustus found utterly terrifying. He took an involuntary step backward as the man advanced on them quickly and grabbed the limo driver. “Another tasty vessel!” he said. His voice sounded like a thousand voices speaking together in unison, as if there were a chorus of demons inside him. The limo driver yelped and tried to squirm out of the thing’s grasp, but it was no use. The thing’s grip was too tight, and it bent its head down and took a deep bite out of the limo driver’s neck.

  “Yaaaahhh!” The limo driver screeched. Blood spurted, gurgled out like a fountain. Augustus felt his stomach drop. He was dimly aware of Marion in the limousine screaming, telling him to get back inside but he was frozen, shell-shocked by what he was seeing, and then a gaggle of them were suddenly there—a teenage girl with braces, a fat Asian kid with a Mohawk, a tall brown haired surfer-looking dude wearing shorts. All of them had suffered grave wounds to their necks, to other areas of their bodies, as if chunks had been torn out of them. But they walked. And something lived within them. Augustus could see it in their eyes. He couldn’t identify it, but somehow, through some psychic communication, he just knew. He dove back into the limousine and slammed the door shut, locking it. A moment later, their limo driver sat up again, occupied by an entity.

  Augustus frantically grabbed his cell phone and tried to place a call. As he did, the driver pulled out his keys, thumbed a button on the remote, and the doors unlocked. Before Augustus could react, the driver yanked open the door of the limousine and, with a grin, seized Marion.

  “Augustus,” she shrieked, wide-eyed, her lips pulled back to expose her gums. “Help me!”

  He reached for her, but the zombie yanked Marion out of the car and dragged her toward a grove of palm trees along the side of the highway. When she struggled, the corpse slapped her twice, hard. Marion went limp.

  “Going to have some fun with this one,” the zombie crowed.

  “You bastard!” Augustus scrambled over the seat. “Leave her alone…”

  Ignoring his cries, the zombie dropped Marion on the ground, seized her by the ankles, and continued to drag her toward the trees. Augustus started to give chase, but a dead woman darted toward him, her chin and mouth stained with someone else’s blood. She clutched a ball-peen hammer in one hand, the head of which was also bloody and matted with hair.

  She snarled at him. “Give us a kiss, meat.”

  Speechless, Augustus glanced around for a weapon. The only thing within reach was an acoustic guitar. He didn’t have time to wonder how it had gotten there—probably spilled from a car wreck or discarded by a fleeing pedestrian. He grabbed the instrument and swung frantically, smacking the zombie in the face. The creature uttered a squawk, and stumbled backward, dropping her hammer. Augustus swung again, breaking the guitar over her head. Then, without pause, he jammed the broken guitar neck into the zombie’s stomach. The corpse fell to the ground.

  Sickened by what he’d done, Augustus turned his attention back to Marion. To his dismay, he saw that the zombie had reached the side of the road, and was disappearing into the trees with her. Other shadowed forms moved and thrashed among the palm trunks. Augustus squinted, and then his eyes went wide when he realized what was happening. It was some type of orgy.

  No, not an orgy.

  The dead were raping the living, savagely abusing them while simultaneously feasting on them. As he watched, three zombies held a helpless man down. One arched its hips and thrust inside the man, while the other two took bites out of his chest and neck. The depravity was repeated throughout the grove of trees.

  “Marion!”

  Augustus started forward, pulse pounding, unable to catch his breath, when something thudded against his toe, sending pain rocketing through his body. Screaming, he glanced down and saw the zombie he’d just speared with the guitar neck. She’d regained her hammer. The creature cocked her arm back to deliver another blow to his foot, but Augustus was quicker. He kicked her in the chin, knocking her backward, and then proceeded to stomp on her head again and again. He heard her skull crack and felt her blood soak through his socks and shoes. He didn’t stop until she ceased to move. Then, panting, he turned back to Marion.

  “I’m coming, Marion! Just hold on.”

  He shuffled forward. Each step brought a fresh jolt of pain to his toe. He’d taken four steps when he heard a new sound, echoing above the screams of the living and the joyous cries of the dead.

  CLICK-CLICK. CLICK-CLICK. CLICK-CLICK.

  Augustus gaped as a new terror strode onto the highway from the other side. It looked like one of the crab-monsters he’d heard about, but the creature’s coloration was different. He’d been told the Clickers were red, but this one was completely black. The beast towered over the cars, taller than even the tractor trailers. Black, beady eyes the size of basketballs goggled at the scene, suspended on stalk-like appendages. The monster paused in front of the line of palm trees. Then, spying the figures inside the grove, it reared back and began to spray venom from its tail. The noxious liquid splattered across the trees—and the figures beneath them, both living and dead. The foliage began to smoke and hiss, and the tree trunks splintered and cracked. On the ground, both the zombies and their victims congealing together into a massive pool of rapidly liquefying flesh. The melting tree trunks fell, splashing the gore out onto the road. Hissing, the black Clicker rushed forward and began shoveling the sizzling, soupy mess into its beak-like mouth.

  “Marion…” Augustus was frantic. Marion was in there, being violated by one of those things and now…now they were screaming in agony.

  The monster ignored him, busying itself with devouring the remains. Augustus cast a look back at the grove where he last saw Marion and, unable to make out what was going on, he stumbled back to the limo and collapsed into the seat, barely shutting the door and locking it before he passed out.

  San Pedro, California

  Jim had started drinking to stop stalking Tammy.

  When she’d first begun dating Anthony, Tammy had been very careful not to expose Danny to the new boyfriend. She’d insisted that Anthony spend the night only once or twice a week, arriving after the boy had gone to sleep and leaving in the morning before Danny woke up. Jim had appreciated that thoughtfulness, and it had assuaged some of his concerns for Danny, but it had done nothing to calm his emotions over the fact that another man was sleeping with his wife. Granted, they were separated at the time, and soon to be divorced, but that didn’t make his jealousy and torment any less palpable.

  One night, he’d found himself parked outside the house, staring at Anthony’s car, which was parked in Jim’s old spot. He watched as the lights went out one by one inside the house until only the bedroom light was left. Then, it blinked out as well. Jim had gotten out of the car and s
lowly crept to the window. Part of him had wanted to flee, but another part felt pulled, as if the window was a magnet and he were steel. He’d gotten within a few feet. The window was slightly open to allow the breeze to blow through the screen. The curtains fluttered as he drew nearer. At first, Jim had thought it was his breath that made them move, but then he realized, feeling foolish, that it had been the wind.

  And then he heard them. Two slight sounds. A masculine whisper. And Tammy’s soft moan. That was all, but it was enough. His brain filled in the rest, overwhelming him with vividly imagined details. He’d fled back to his car, and when he arrived home, he’d cried himself to sleep.

  The next night, when the compulsion to go over to Tammy’s house had struck him again, Jim had polished off a quarter of a bottle of bourbon. His reasoning had been simple. If he was too drunk to drive, then he’d be too drunk to stand outside her house like a raving lunatic, torturing himself with the sounds of their lovemaking.

  It was a philosophy that had served him well those first few months. He didn’t drink at all on nights he had Danny, but otherwise, he self-medicated at sundown, drifting off around eleven each night in an alcohol-induced sleep. After a while, after he’d grown used to the idea of Tammy and Anthony and had gotten laid a few times himself, the urges to go to her home passed, and now Jim only had a single drink—two fingers of bourbon before bed, sipped while watching a DVD, followed by falling into a dreamless sleep on the couch, his face lit by the television’s glow.

  He followed the same routine the night of July 5th, falling asleep while ruminating over the events at the coffee shop, and the conversation he and Tammy had earlier that day, and his silent, half-humorous prayer for the end of the world. As a result, he slept through it when all of the cable stations interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to broadcast the news reports of two seemingly unconnected occurrences—reports of the dead coming back to life and mass riots all across the globe, and hordes of bizarre sea creatures emerging onto the world’s shorelines and attacking everything that moved.