We lay there in silence watching the dead kid watching us. Sass looked back up to me and said, “What do you think he’ll do when he figures out he can’t get to us?”
As if the kid had heard, and understood, he opened his mouth and began to let out a long, high pitched moan. As I said earlier, all zombies have this low rumbling moan that they produce. This was nothing like that. This was more like air being let out of a balloon that had been chain smoking for the past thirty years. The sound unnerved me.
“Looks like he’s sounding the alarm. We need to get off this bridge.” I said.
I slammed the hatch closed. This muted the kids yell, but you could still hear it faintly. The scary thought was wondering how many others beside Sass and I could hear it.
We walked to the edge of the RV and looked out across the second half of the bridge. From what we could see we weren’t going to be walking across the tops of the cars like we did the first half.
It looked like a giant kid had flung his Hot Wheels cars across the bridge after beating the living crap out of them with a hammer. There was no rhyme or reason as to how the cars were on the road. We were most likely going to have to climb down and walk between the wreckage. This packaged together with the kid behind us screaming like a tornado warning in a small Kansas town wasn’t making things seem any safer. Here and there in the wreckage we could see movement as the dead in and around the cars began to react to the sound of the screaming.
Sass could see one chance of keeping us off the bridge. We would have to climb down and cling to the side of the trailer as we worked our way to the far left-hand side of the bridge. There we could use the metal cage of the bridge itself to help us keep balance as we walked on top of the wreckage. Make no mistake; this was not a good plan. It was just better than the other options.
I lowered myself down onto the side of the trailer and grabbed hold of the edge. I had made it maybe five feet down the side of the trailer when my arms began to cramp. My body was just not used to physical exertion of any kind. It seems sad to say that, but it’s the truth. I looked down the trailer to where I needed to go and knew I was never going to make it. I still had around fifteen or twenty feet before I would start reaching the wreckage that we would be able to walk across. My arms were now shaking.
“Sass...”
“You can do this. One hand after the other.”
I was amused at the faith Sass had in me in the same way a sadistic teenage boy is amused at the bug right before he steps on it. I didn’t quit, I will give myself credit for that. However, I had only made it a few more feet before the fall happened. I reached out with my right hand to shift my weight a few more inches when suddenly I was no longer holding onto anything. I was airborne.
I was halfway to the ground before I knew I was falling. The up side was that this time the fall wasn’t that painful since we were only hanging about fifteen feet off the ground.
Landing within the wreckage does impress on you just how vulnerable you are. Every creak, every groan of every piece of metal made me look around in a panic expecting to see the dead coming for me. The paranoia eating away at me was almost too powerful to deal with.
“Shit! Hang on man. I’m going to drop down.” Sass said.
“Don’t you dare come down here. You stay where it’s safe. I’ll climb back up to you as soon as I can.”
Looking out across what lay before me I had to admit my prospects weren’t looking to good. Somehow the wreckage on this side of the bridge had created what looked to be hallways between the random balls of twisted metal. Climbing was out of the question unless I was cool with severing body parts in the process. As I looked around I saw the first zombie come into view. He had rounded the far end of the wreckage and was shambling his way down the hallway of automotive destruction which led directly to me. I gripped my hammer again and started telling myself that I could do this. It was then that I heard the impact of a falling Sasquatch landing directly behind me.
“You idiot. I told you to stay up there where it’s safe.”
Sass shrugged and gripped his tire iron. “Where you go, I go. Isn’t that what you told me? Stick together and we survive.”
“Quit listening to me. It’s going to get you killed.”
I heard Sass laugh behind me as I focused myself on the zombie slowly coming for us. I could feel my heart sink a bit as I saw two more turn the corner behind the first.
I opened my mouth to say something inspiring. Something to fuel our courage. I had wanted something epic. Something a general would say on the eve of battle, but the only thing that came out was a sigh and the words, “Well, this sucks. Come on.”
I guess Sass and I aren’t the kind of guys who would ever come up with “Give me liberty or give me death.” or even “My one regret is that I only have one life to give for my country.” And honestly, I doubt I even quoted those right.
We began making our way down the hallway of dented and fractured metal towards our newly dead admirers when something happened that was almost as scary as having three zombies bearing down on you. We heard a bang. We both ducked and looked around. I was about to ask Sass if he could see the shooter when I heard a “flump”.
Directly behind Sass lay the body of the zombie truck driver. I only say he was a truck driver because he was wearing cowboy boots, faded blue jeans, a red flannel button-up shirt and a wallet that had a chain hooking it to his pants. This may be profiling, but watching Smokey and the Bandit during my formative years had engrained into my mind that this is what a truck driver is supposed to look like. All he was missing was a basset hound.
Turning around I saw that the three zombies who had been bearing down on us were taken out while we had been looking at the truck driver zombie.
“Sass, I don’t think whoever is shooting is trying to kill us.”
“Looks to me like he’s protecting us.” Sass said.
“Then let’s get the hell off this bridge before he gets bored.”
We began to weave our way through the wreckage in a slow, cautious manner. Every now and then we would hear the crack of the rifle. I don’t think we found all of the dead that tasted Sergeant York’s bullets from above, but every now and then we would walk up on a fresh kill. Every corpse we found was downed with one shot. Whoever was watching our backs was very good at what he did.
“It’s like the Punisher is watching over us. Every time the trigger is pulled it’s a one shot kill.”
“Yeah, if the Punisher was real. I’ve never understood why you still read those comic books, Crackhead.”
“I read them because I enjoy them. Quit calling me Crackhead.”
We rounded a corner and could see that we were almost even with the edge of the cliff. We would soon find an opening that would lead us off this metal nightmare. I felt a bit of hope rise up in me as I looked at the green and brown grass growing where metal met earth. I looked to my right and I felt my hope, and most of my blood, drain from my body. What I saw put into sharp focus the world we now lived in.
The mini van looked like a bomb had exploded under the hood. The driver most likely died instantly. The little girl in the back was not so lucky. I looked in on her and saw where her injuries were. The child’s face was perfect but her shirt was ripped apart around the stomach, and there was dried blood all over the gaping wound where her belly button used to be. I knew what had happened. I could see it in my mind.
Her mother had strapped her into her car seat and then jumped into the van herself trying to get out of their home and find safety before it was too late. The sad fact was that it was already too late. I wondered if the mom knew what that bite mark on her arm meant. The wreck had happened too quickly for the mom to stop the van or even swerve to avoid the death that was coming for her. I could imagine that the wreck had probably knocked the little girl out. When she came to, she could see her mom lying slumped over the steering wheel. She starts to yell for her mom to wake up. I could feel the hope that I knew she had f
elt when she saw her mom jump awake and start to move around in her seat. She calls out to her mom again wanting her to make it all okay. The mom slowly turns in the seat and glares at the little girl.
Now I could feel the terror that the little girl had to feel knowing that her mom is dead. She is trapped in this locked car, strapped down to her car seat, with zombie mommy. I could imagine her wiggling and fighting against the straps trying to free herself before her mom would be able to slide out of her own seat belt and find what tender morsels awaited in the back. The kid somehow gets free, but it’s too late. The mom is free as well. Before the little girl can open the door, she is caught by the momentarily strong hands of her dead mother. She screams for her mom to stop, begs her to quit. It’s no use; this thing isn’t her mother. She is now nothing more than a predator, and she’s hungry. She pulls the little girl to her and begins to feed on her daughter. She is unfazed by the screams or the tears.
Now they are a family again. Dead mother and daughter forever trapped in the mini van that was meant to carry them to safety.
Sass had noticed the van as well. He had played the scene out in his head. He knew what had happened, and he was far from liking it. Grabbing his tire iron, he stood in front of the sliding door to the van.
“Open the door.” He said.
“Sass, no. We are not doing this.”
“Open the door Charlie. Justice needs to be served.” “What? Are you crazy?”
“No. I’m going to kill her.”
“And why are you doing this? For that little girl or for yourself?”
Sass looked at me, “What?”
“You’re about to risk our lives needlessly. I just want to know why. Is it justice for what happened to that little girl or is it to ease your conscience because you didn’t prevent it?”
“How could I have prevented it? We just now got here.”
“Exactly. This is not our fault. This is not our mess to clean up. They are locked up, contained in a metal prison they will never be able to escape. Why do you want to do this?”
Sass looked away from me and back to the van.
“Because somebody has to stand up for what’s right. Somebody has to punish the wicked and this is wicked any way you look at it.”
“No, it’s not. And that’s the point. You’re still looking at the zombies like they are people. They’re not, Sass. They’re so not. What happened here, to that little girl, is horrific. I can’t even imagine the terror that flowed through her body in the last moments of her life. But that was not her mother who did this to her. That is not a little girl in that van now. They are something new, something completely different from us. We can’t hold them accountable to our laws.”
“So, you’re saying this is okay then?”
“No. God no. What I’m saying is…”
I was at a loss as how to explain this to Sass. I was digging through my mind trying to discover a path that would help me convince him to leave this one alone. Sass in the meantime had walked up the van and was about to grab the door handle.
“Did you ever watch the Croc Hunter?”
Sass stopped and looked at me like I had lost my mind.
“What?”
“The Croc Hunter. Where that guy and his wife would go out in the jungles of Borneo or wherever and film these really dangerous animals.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the Croc Hunter. Why?”
“Every time he got hurt or bit, what did he say about it?”
“He said something about it being nature’s way.”
“Exactly. He would say that it wasn’t the animal’s fault, it was his. There was nothing personal about it; this was just how things go in nature. He was telling us that these animals don’t think like us, they don’t react like us. They don’t have the same morals or motivations as we do. Given that information, there is no way we can judge them by the same standards that we judge ourselves.”
“Wait. You’re saying that the zombies aren’t responsible for anything they have done?”
“I’m saying that it’s all they know. They are more like animals than humans. They feel a hunger and act to satisfy that need. We can’t go around risking our lives to kill every zombie we find that has done something condemnable by our moral standards. If that is the plan, it’s going to take us years to reach Johnson City because I guarantee you that there are things all around us that would be morally condemnable if you could only see them.”
“You don’t think she should pay for this.”
“Yes Sass, I do. Like I said, what happened here was horrific. But what happened here is over and done with. They are now both no more than animals, and we are nothing more than prey. If you open that door the only people that are likely to pay for all of this are you and me.”
Sass looked at me with an expression that was half understanding and half anger.
“I don’t understand how you can not get upset about this.”
“I am upset damn it! I am wanting to cave that woman’s head in just as much as you are, but I’m also able to look at this situation and understand the risks involved. I do not want to die today. God Sass, how long are you going to keep endangering us over this stupid crap?”
“What stupid crap are you referring to?”
I probably looked as though I was about to have some form of a conniption fit as I glared at him, “You. Can’t. Save. Them.”
Sass looked at me dead in the eyes and spoke softly and evenly.
“I know I can’t save them, but I can make them pay.”
Sass grabbed the handle and flung the side door open.
I felt my eyes go wide and I called him some names that are better left forgotten. The mother and daughter froze for a fraction of a second before moving towards the now open door. Sass swung his tire iron just as the mother was exiting the van. The unbending metal crushed in the skull of the mom and she immediately fell, face first, onto the road. Sass stepped back as the kid leapt from the van. Howling like the kid in the RV she began to run towards him as he backed away from the now dead mombie. I drew my hammer and began to run towards the little zombie girl, but there was no need. I heard the all too familiar sound of the gunman in the woods. The little girls head exploded and her body tumbled to the ground skidding to a halt at Sass’s feet.
Sass looked at the body of the little girl with complete shock on his face. I, on the other hand, opened up one last volley.
“What the hell are you so surprised about?! Did you honestly think that she wasn’t going to try to eat you because you were defending her dead honor?”
Sass looked confused.
“I don’t know. I just, I don’t know. I felt this
overwhelming urge to do something. I heard what you were saying, but I couldn’t stop myself.”
Like I said earlier, at work Sass is a leader. Now Those leadership skills count for nothing. He’s lost and being protected by somebody he can’t even see. The stress of this whole event had to be eating away at him just as I was feeling it eat away at me. He had needed to take control of something. He had desperately needed to prove to himself that he wasn’t losing his identity. So he took charge of a situation and did something that he himself knew was wrong. I understood what he had done, but why it had happened worried me. If Sass couldn’t adapt and accept the changes this new world was going to place on his life then he was nothing but a very tall liability. I was going to have to decide soon whether to stay with him or cut him loose. I didn’t want to think about that. I hated the idea of being alone, and leaving him to what would almost certainly be a nasty death.
I could see that he was upset. Getting him focused on something else was what I thought would be best for this situation.
“Come on you big hairy bastard. Let’s get off this bridge.”
Sass grudgingly began to follow me as we made a quick exodus from this gap crossing monstrosity. The road was in sight when I caught movement in the last car on the bridge. Out here, on the edge, the wrecks wer
en’t much more than fender benders. The car to my left had slid into an SUV. It looked like the driver had simply got out and abandoned the car. In the back seat of this car was where the movement had been. I stepped closer and saw two wide eyes and a sloppy tongue spring forward and stare at me as the only inhabitant of the abandoned car began to lick the window.
“Dude! A dog!”
Sass had already left the bridge and didn’t seem to want to come back, but after seeing the look in my eyes I guess he knew I wasn’t going to drop this one.
“I’m going to let him out. He can be our dog now.”
Sass regarded the dog as if he was looking into the lion’s cage at the zoo. “You think he’s safe? It would be really stupid to set free a zombie dog.”
Zombie dogs aren’t unheard of; the Resident Evil movies had zombie dogs. However, they were easy to spot because all of their fur and skin had peeled off leaving nothing but a snarling mass of muscle and blood which would hunt you down. The dog in the car was big and yellow. I think he was a golden retriever, but I don’t know dog breeds so I’m not really sure. He looked like the dog from the TV show “Lost”.
“I know you’re not giving me hell about wanting to open a car door after what you just pulled.”
Sass wasn’t convinced, “If you get us killed after we actually made it across the bridge, I will never forgive you.”
I opened the door and was immediately knocked to the ground by a large, furry torpedo. There was no biting or eating of my brains. There was a lot of licking and wagging of tails. Sass seemed to take this as a sign that the dog was safe.
“What are we going to call our new dog?”
I looked at the big blue eyes of this rather large furball and said, “We’ll call him Big Lou.”
“Big Lou?”
“You have a problem with Big Lou?” I asked.
“There’s a reason your parents never let you name anything isn’t there, Crackhead?”
“Hey! No need to get nasty here. You’ll hurt Big Lou’s feelings.”
A Good Distance From Dying Page 8