by J N Wood
‘I didn’t want to run anyone over.’ Jack must have seen in my expression that I wanted us to get closer, and needed to explain.
Mo made it to us first and dived over the side and into the back of the truck. He immediately turned around to help Hunter climb in. I could tell it was him once he was closer.
That hissing noise was much louder now.
Mo and Hunter were screaming for their friends to run faster, when one of the runners closest to the Staff Sergeant must have been tripped. He was sent flying into the back of Abel’s legs. With a yell the Staff Sergeant tumbled to the floor and the front runners descended upon him, causing the rest of the people behind to smash into the group smothering Abel. Bodies were sent flying into the air. Lassie stopped and turned around when he heard Abel fall. He was trying to fend off some of the attacking people with his rifle.
I couldn’t see Abel at all, he was under a pile of infected and more were piling on.
What the fuck do they want from him?
‘They’re ripping him to pieces!’ Lassie screamed. ‘They’re killing him!’
With a huge push Lassie managed to force the small group that were closest to him a few feet away. He now had time to raise his rifle. He started firing into the crowd. At that range they were literally chopped up into pieces.
I fought hard to keep down the bile rising in my throat.
Lassie then moved his aim slightly and started to fire upon the ones that were on top of Abel. Over the gunfire I could hear Mo shouting Lassie’s name.
Some more of the infected were heading towards Lassie from his right. I tried shouting a warning but it came too late. The group barrelled into him and threw him to the ground, within seconds he was covered and out of sight.
That’s when I noticed children amongst the crowd. They were leaping onto the backs of the adults to try and get to the fallen soldiers. The hissing was coming from the children’s mouths. In fact all the sick people were making that same noise.
Gunfire erupted from the back of the truck and filled my ears, replacing the hissing. The crowd of people were being torn apart by the bullets being fired by Mo and Hunter.
They didn’t seem to be concerned about getting shot and were clawing at each other to get to Abel and Lassie. They were behaving like starved animals. They looked repulsive, their clothes were covered in blood and their skin looked like it was hanging off their bones. Some didn’t seem to have any skin on their faces at all.
The hissing sound suddenly intensified. It was terrifying, like a thousand snakes screaming for food.
I noticed something even more terrifying, the ones that were being hit by bullets weren’t going down, some of them were but most weren’t. Even some of the first to get chopped up by Lassie’s bullets were still wriggling about on the floor. They just carried on tearing at each other in an effort to get to Abel and Lassie.
This can’t be happening. This seriously cannot be fucking happening. I must be having a nightmare because these things look like fucking zombies.
I looked at Jack to see if he was thinking the same thing as me. His bulging eyes were transfixed on the horrific sight going on just a few feet from us.
I looked back out of the window. The crowd seemed to be losing interest in the downed soldiers. More of them were turning their attention to us. Their eyes were fixed on Mo and Hunter, and some were looking directly at me. The fear rising inside me was almost overwhelming.
I couldn’t think clearly, fucking zombies, here and now. Actual mother fucking zombies.
We had to move, we needed to get away from the terror unfolding before our eyes. There was no way Mo and Hunter would be able to keep the hissing crowd at bay.
The sound was almost unbearable, like it was inside my brain. It had entered through my ears and was trying to force its way back out through my skull.
‘Jack, we have to go!’ I screamed.
‘What about the soldiers? We can’t leave them,’ he pleaded.
I leaned out of the window and tried to shout over the gunfire. ‘Moberg, we have to fucking go!’
Mo stopped firing his weapon and looked down at me, through his gas mask visor I could see his tear filled eyes as they met mine. He turned to the place Abel had gone down and then back to me. It was almost imperceptible but I saw a brisk nod, before he knelt down and carried on shooting. Hunter followed Mo’s lead and also dropped to one knee.
‘Go, go, go!’ I shouted.
Jack glanced at me, before facing forwards and putting his foot down. He swerved around the Humvee and we left the fallen soldiers behind us. The sound of gunfire had ceased, so I leaned out of the window to check on the two remaining soldiers. They were still in the back, staring at the crowd chasing after us.
My heart was pounding, I was taking slow deep breaths to try and calm myself down.
‘They’re chasing us, speed it up a bit Jack,’ I managed to say.
Jack snapped out of his daze and got the truck up to thirty miles per hour. I had another look behind us and the last of the crowd were giving up the chase. Most of them had already begun to reform into their creepy marching procession.
Two loud bangs on the truck’s roof startled me.
Mo then shouted in a shaky voice, ‘Take the next left, try and find somewhere to pull over!’
Jack turned the truck at the next junction but almost immediately slammed on the brakes. A naked man stood in the middle of the road, his head was lowered as if he was staring at something on the floor.
‘What are you doing Jack?’ I asked. ‘Drive around him.’
He just stared at the man, our truck not moving.
The naked man kept his face lowered, but ever so slowly turned his eyes up to stare straight at us, with manic blood filled eyes. It was the most sinister thing I’d ever seen. His mouth was open so much his lower jaw didn’t look like it was attached to the rest of his head. Blood dripped from his gaping mouth to land on his hairy chest.
All of a sudden he started running towards us. The sound of gunshots broke through the hissing, four blood splatters instantly appeared on his chest. It didn’t even slow him down. He continued charging at us.
‘In the head! Shoot him in the head!’ I shouted, hoping that the soldiers would hear me.
Three more gunshots rang out before the back of the naked man’s head exploded outwards, sending a spray of blood into the air. He fell forwards onto the floor and skidded until he was out of sight, obstructed by the front of our truck. A fine mist of blood slowly descended on to our windscreen.
Another bang on the roof made me jump again, dragging me out of my stunned reverie.
‘Take the next right. Let’s get out of town for a while,’ Mo barked.
‘Stop banging on the truck!’ I shouted. ‘You keep scaring the shit out of me!’
Jack turned on the windscreen wipers, smearing the blood, and tried to drive around the dead naked man. It felt like we caught him with the front driver’s side wheel, we definitely drove over something. I grimaced at the thought of what part of him we might have crushed. Jack’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull.
We took the next right turn and it didn’t take long before there were no houses in sight.
‘Jack, stop the truck here, this will do us.’ I looked at Jack’s face as we came to a halt, he wasn’t blinking. ‘Hey, are you okay?’
‘Yep,’ Jack replied flatly, still not blinking.
I didn’t think it was possible but he was making me freak out even more.
I felt the two soldiers jump out of the back of the truck, and heard their boots hit the tarmac. My legs were a bit wobbly as I climbed out to meet them. I had to hold onto the truck to steady myself.
‘Come on Jack,’ I said.
Hunter was mumbling something inaudible under his gas mask.
Mo approached me whilst removing his mask.
‘Holy shit, those fuckers ripped them apart,’ he hurriedly blurted out, pacing up and down. ‘Wh
at was that down there? I ain’t never seen nothing like that.’
He was pointing down the road, but then he paused and started to wag his finger at me.
‘And don’t fucking say it, do not fucking say it. I know it was you that shouted to shoot him in the head.’
I shrugged and held my hands out, hesitating before I tried the words out loud. ‘I think they were…’ I paused for a moment. ‘I think they were zombies.’
Mo stopped his pacing and gave me a disbelieving look.
Hunter stepped towards us and looked at Mo. ‘We need to get Staff and Lassie back.’
‘Hunts man, they’re dead, you saw it,’ Mo replied.
Hunter pulled off his gas mask. A determined look was on his face. ‘Yes I know that Moberg. We need to get their bodies back.’
Mo sighed and wiped at his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. ‘Yeah okay, I know. Suppose we need to get the Humvee back as well.’
‘Are we gonna talk about the zombies at all?’ I asked.
‘How about we get out of this shit show of a town first? Will you and the stone statue help us get our vehicle back?’ Mo asked, nodding towards Jack.
I glanced into the truck, Jack still hadn’t moved, his hands were still clamped onto the steering wheel. I turned back to Mo. ‘Yeah of course we will, just give me two minutes.’
I walked around the front of the truck. Tiny speckles of blood covered the Raptor, and it was smeared on the windscreen where Jack had used the wipers.
I opened Jack’s door and tried to sound as casual as possible. ‘Alright Jacqueline, how’s it going?’
Maybe that was a bit too casual.
Jack shook his head. ‘Zombies do not exist Chris, they just don’t. They can’t exist.’
‘Well, they might not be zombies. We haven’t seen them eat people yet.’
Jack finally removed his hands from the steering wheel and gave me an incredulous look. ‘They had to shoot him in the head to kill him. I think that is stereotypical zombie behaviour.’
A short high-pitched laugh escaped from me. ‘Yes alright, I think zombies might exist.’
Jack leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. ‘I need to get back to Beth.’
‘We will, as soon as we can. We need to help Mo and Hunts get their Humvee back first though. Okay?’
Jack nodded and climbed out of the truck.
Mo’s plan was pretty simple. Drive along the road that runs parallel to the one where we left the Humvee. If it was all clear we were to drive down and get it. If it wasn’t clear then Mo and Hunter were to go on foot, and Jack and I would try to draw the crowds away in our truck.
We found the parallel road and drove along slowly, only seeing a few people along the way. I was pretty sure they were of the dead variety, but they didn’t seem to be bothered by us in the slightest. One woman I noticed was stood on the front steps of a building. She looked almost normal, that is if one of your eyes hanging out of its socket and resting on your cheek is almost normal.
The truck suddenly stopped. I turned to see Jack looking to his left.
‘There’s the Humvee,’ he said.
‘This is it, looks clear,’ Hunter said from the back of the truck.
The area around the Humvee did seem to be clear of people, but it was impossible to see what was further to the left or right of it.
‘Start down the hill, then turn the engine off and coast the rest of the way. Stop halfway down and we’ll go the rest of the way on foot,’ Mo instructed Jack.
Jack looked nervous, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel.
‘Just be ready to turn it back on and get us the fuck out of here,’ I advised.
He took a deep breath and then slowly released it. ‘This holiday is still fucking shite.’ He gently accelerated and started to turn the truck down the hill.
We got to the point where I thought it was half way but we carried on rolling. I started to squirm a bit in my seat and looked at Jack. A couple of seconds later we stopped.
Jack must have noticed my uneasiness.
‘What? This is fucking halfway,’ he said.
‘Alright, I just thought it was a bit further back.’
Jack opened his mouth to respond but Hunter’s mask covered face appeared at his window.
‘Stay here, be ready to go,’ Hunter said.
The two soldiers jogged towards the Humvee, their rifles at the ready. They were about halfway there when I heard the hissing again. Jack heard it as well and we both swivelled around in our seats trying to find the source of the sound.
‘I can’t see them, can you?’ I whispered.
‘No I can’t, wait…yes they’re behind us to our left. Fuck, there’s a lot of them.’
I spun around. They were piling through a gap in a hedge that separated a side road from a little car park. We had just driven that way though, where the fuck had they come from?
It looked as though Mo and Hunter weren’t aware of them yet.
‘What do we do, beep the horn?’ Jack hurriedly asked.
Just then Mo looked back over his shoulder towards us. We both frantically waved them on. He must have seen the danger because their jog became a sprint. They were soon at the Humvee. With all their gear it looked awkward to clamber in, if they hadn’t been wearing gas masks and carrying rifles they might have had time to drive away. Before they could even turn the engine on, the Humvee was devoured by the crowd. First ten, then twenty, thirty and forty zombies were on top of the vehicle and more were coming.
I had visions of them smashing through the windows and dragging the soldiers out.
‘Now, press the horn now!’ I shouted.
There was only a brief moment of hesitation before Jack slammed his hand into the centre of the steering wheel. Nothing, absolutely nothing happened.
‘That’s not the fucking horn!’ I shouted.
‘Where is it then?’
‘I don’t fucking know!’ I screamed back at him.
It felt like an eternity but he eventually found it. Even though I knew it was coming the incredibly loud sound still made me jump. It was like a train’s horn.
It took a few seconds but the zombies started to look our way, one after the other they dropped off the Humvee and headed in our direction.
Now they were running towards us. I pulled my eyes away from the zombies to look at Jack, his eyes flicked to me.
My whole body had tensed up and I was forcing myself back into the seat. I was only capable of moving my head, so I nodded towards the terrifying things getting closer to us. ‘I think we should drive away from the zombies Jack. What do you think?’
Jack seemed to be in a trance like state, and I had no idea what to do. An instant later, he seemed to snap out of it and I breathed a sigh of relief.
He started the engine and put it in reverse. We raced back up the hill going backwards, the zombies close behind us, or in front of us. With relief I watched the Humvee pulling away, only a couple of the dead things were left on the roof.
‘You’re gonna have to turn us around pretty fucking quickly Jackie boy!’
Jack’s eyes were flitting between the two wing mirrors and the rear view mirror. I was impressed with his driving. We got to the next junction and he took the corner without slowing. We were still ahead of the pursuing zombies but it was freaking me out having to look at them while they chased us.
‘You’re not gonna turn us around are you?’ I asked.
‘Nope, I’m going to keep it in reverse until they’ve fucked off. I’d just end up messing it up and we’d die.’
The distance between us and the chasing zombies was steadily increasing.
‘Okay, fair enough,’ I said. ‘Just don’t crash us into anything please.’
It was only another couple of blocks before Jack felt like he was able to comfortably turn around.
If and when we got separated we’d all arranged to meet up with Mo and Hunter on the road heading out of town.
&nbs
p; ‘Did they get away alright?’ Jack asked. ‘I didn’t see. I was looking behind us.’
‘The last time I saw them they were driving away. They only had two or three zombies still on them.’
‘So we’re sticking with the word zombies are we?’
‘For the time being at least. Don’t worry, I’m finding this as hard to believe as you are,’ I replied.
We started to approach the edge of town and I still couldn’t see them. When we re-joined Main Street, we slowed down to make sure they hadn’t been forced off the road by their unwelcome guests, but there was no sign of them. I was beginning to think we should have taken our time to have a second look. Just as I was gonna suggest we turn around, I spotted the Humvee in the distance, parked on the side of the road. As we got closer I could see both the soldiers were out of their vehicle, standing over something shaped like a body on the floor.
Mo looked our way as we left the truck. ‘Hey fellas, thanks for the distraction back there. Where have you been? We were almost thinking about starting to worry about you.’
‘No problem,’ Jack replied. ‘Must be getting embarrassing having two English civilians save your lives all the time.’
‘Not at all,’ Hunter said. ‘We’ll take it wherever we can get it.’
I pointed to the body at their feet. ‘I see you caught a zombie, I’m assuming he’s dead? Or more dead? Deaded?’
‘Yeah, very much deaded,’ Hunter replied, and kicked the corpse in the ribs.
Mo screwed up his face and shook his head. ‘I’m not calling them zombies. Not just yet anyway.’
‘We’re sorry about Abel and Lassie by the way,’ Jack said, solemnly. ‘Did you, you know? Get their…’
The soldiers shook their heads. ‘There wasn’t…’ Mo paused briefly. ‘There wasn’t much left.’
‘Staff was a real good guy. Best boss I ever had,’ Hunter said sadly. ‘Lassie was a bit of an asshole, but he was our asshole.’
It felt like we’d spent a long time with these guys, but we’d only known them for a few hours. Lassie hadn’t come across as an arsehole to me, but I obviously didn’t really know him.