by J N Wood
I brought the truck to a complete stop.
‘Oops,’ I said. ‘Sorry, didn’t see it.’
Jack just shook his head.
We sat on the outskirts of town and stared out, waiting to see if any zombies had heard us.
After a minute had passed, Jack spoke. ‘Probably all burnt to ashes,’ he suggested. ‘How did it spread to the whole town?’ He looked as shocked by the sight as I was.
‘Dunno, burning embers floating around maybe?’ l guessed.
In the centre of town the buildings would be more packed together, so the fire could have moved from building to building, but here on the outskirts everything was quite spread out.
We relaxed slightly and looked at the map, trying to figure out a way around. The heat was incredible, even at this distance, and we must have been a mile or more from the bulk of the fire.
A loud metallic sounding thud turned my attention away from the map, and over to the car park on our left. A burning figure was on the floor, the noise must have been caused by it running into a car. It clambered back to its feet and started to run towards us. Its upper body was engulfed in flames, it was an astonishing image.
‘Fucking brilliant, they’re on fire now,’ Jack said.
I was dragged back to my senses when four more of the fiery zombies appeared from behind a charred building. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that we needed to move on, and right now. I accelerated past them before they could reach us. They weren’t giving up easily and continued to chase us as we drove away.
I took the left at the next junction in an attempt to drive around the fire, and away from the burning zombies.
Jack’s eyes were flitting between the terrible scenes around us and the map in his hands. ‘Just keep on this road and I’ll tell you when to turn off,’ he murmured.
The majority of the burning town was now behind us and to our right. I looked in the mirrors to see the flaming figures were falling back. I doubted they would last much longer.
Being on fire like that must stop them eventually, surely?
I was drenched in sweat from the heat, a huge difference to when we left our accommodation earlier that morning. We made sure all the air vents were closed and the air con was off, hoping it would stop the smoke from getting in. I could still feel it in my throat.
It felt like we had left the zombie and virus apocalypse, and entered some kind of end of life meteorite apocalypse. Burnt out vehicles were strewn across the streets. Many of the buildings were still ablaze but some of them were burnt down to just scorched stumps of wood and steel.
Most disturbing of all were the blackened and charred remains of people, curled up on the floor like they were trying to hide from the fire. I just hoped they had all been zombies, the thought of them being alive and healthy when they burned to death was too horrible to contemplate.
After managing to make it around the town we got back onto the US-40. I could still feel the heat from the fire but we were leaving it behind us. I stopped the truck to have a quick look at the map, and we figured out the fire must have also taken Naples’ neighbour, Vernal.
Jack’s shopping plans had literally gone up in flames.
I wondered how many other fires across America had been left to burn, without anybody there to put them out. What if it had happened to one of the huge cities? It really didn’t bear thinking about. I was going to say this to Jack until I noticed his expression, he looked panic-stricken.
Better not mention it.
I put my foot down and attempted to put as much distance between us and the scorched nightmare as I could.
We drove through more deserted little towns. Some of them probably hadn’t been changed by the apocalypse in the slightest.
We were nearing Duchesne, there we would have to leave the US-40 and get on to the US-191.
‘I think Duchesne looks like a decent sized town. We could try and get some more anti-zombie gear,’ Jack proposed.
I wasn’t keen on stopping again. Surely a decent sized town just meant more zombies? I’d accepted the fact that we had to kill them. But that didn’t make it easier to drive over them, listening to their bodies being crushed under the wheels.
We did need some more body protection though, and none of the places we’d passed through had a great selection of anti-zombie shops. Apart from maybe a police station or an army base, I didn’t actually know where we could find the kind of gear I was thinking of.
Just ten minutes on the internet would be fucking amazing.
I sighed. ‘Yeah okay, let’s do a quick recce before we actually head into the town centre though, if it looks clear we can do a bit of shopping.’
‘Okay, fair enough,’ Jack replied.
The outskirts of the town had been empty, it was all very still and quiet. We slowly approached the beginning of Main Street. I stopped the truck and looked around. The place seemed to have been emptied of all its inhabitants.
A booming noise suddenly erupted, reverberating around us and bouncing off the buildings. I really thought it was just a thunderstorm, it only lasted a couple of seconds.
We both looked up in unison. Jack must have had the same thought as me. It was another brilliant blue sky without a cloud in sight. We looked at each other in confusion.
The noise erupted again, this time though it didn’t want to stop. All at once the dead started to appear from all around us. From the side streets hundreds of zombies poured into Main Street, presumably seeking out the source of the noise. I soon realised the noise was gunfire. I’d never heard anything like it before, it was very different hearing it in real life. There must have been hundreds of guns.
‘Chris?’ Jack whispered.
I slowly turned to him. He had slouched so far down in his seat he was almost completely in the foot well.
‘They’re not bothering us. Let’s wait until they’ve passed by,’ I replied.
Jack slowly sat up and very stiffly twisted around to look behind us. ‘There’s still a lot coming, they’re everywhere.’
The doors on a supermarket to our right violently burst open, and a large group of zombies flowed out. Most of them darted around the vehicles forsaken in the car park, but some ran straight into them, tumbling to the floor before dragging themselves back to their feet.
Their coordination was terrible.
I put the Raptor in reverse and was just about to set off when more gunfire broke out, causing me to hesitate and flinch away from the noise. It was overlapping with the thunderous shooting already happening further away, creating a cacophony of noise. The volume was devastating.
Multiple zombies in the car park were being hit by the barrage of bullets and falling to the ground, hundreds, maybe thousands more carried on towards the junction in front of us. I was still trying to see who was doing the shooting when a body slammed into our truck, and slid lifelessly to the ground.
I could barely hear it above the noise but a voice shouted, ‘Move! Get out of here!’
I spotted a soldier standing about ten feet behind our truck, his rifle was lowered slightly and he was frantically pointing behind us. He must have shot the thing that just hit our truck. He started to shout something else, but instead he stopped and started shooting again. Six more identical looking soldiers exited a shop behind him, and started firing in every direction.
I pressed my foot down on the accelerator, trying to get as much power out of the Raptor as it would give me. Our tyres squealed as we reversed down the road, at what felt like a blistering pace.
I was attempting to look in all the mirrors at the same time, zombies were everywhere now. The sound of human flesh bouncing off the back of the truck was almost continuous. I was pretty sure there were no soldiers behind us, not live ones anyway. Blood and gore was splattering on to the rear windscreen.
A huge explosion brought my attention back to the scene in front of us. I lifted my foot off the accelerator slightly.
A petrol station near to where we had j
ust stopped was now engulfed in flames, above it a black and grey mushroom cloud was rising into the sky. Bits of shrapnel started to fall, landing on our truck and all around us on the road. Something was flying through the air towards us. A burnt army helmet bounced off the windscreen, causing the glass to crack slightly. A charred and still smoking human arm landed on the bonnet, severed just above the elbow. Bodies were strewn across the road, some motionless but others were trying to get back to their feet. The road curved to the left and as we turned, the arm slowly slid off to land on the road. I could have sworn it had been trying to grip onto something to stop its slide.
They really are fucking zombies!
I reversed all the way to the edge of town before stopping to try and calm myself down. The thunderous gunfire still continued, but now it was interspersed with explosions similar to the sound the exploding petrol station had made. Five more mushroom clouds were dotted around the town, rising into the air and very slowly dispersing into the atmosphere.
They must have a lot of ammo, and how many fucking zombies are there? Had all the inhabitants of the surrounding towns wandered over here for a big fight?
We considered waiting for the shooting to stop, but decided to figure out a route around the town. We really wanted to get the fuck away from there.
The issue with the land was that pretty much as soon as you left the roads, you had to contend with ravines and cliff edges. I was very impressed with the Raptor’s capabilities but I didn’t want to try driving over that kind of terrain.
We quickly planned a route and took the left onto Industrial Park Road, following it until we hit the suburbs, so far so good.
Hopefully the battle was happening away from this part of town.
We took another left and about fifty feet down the road three soldiers were stood with their backs to us. I slowed the truck down and looked past the soldiers. A large group of zombies was running towards them. If they made it past the soldiers they’d be coming for us.
The soldier in the middle was carrying some kind of large pipe on his shoulder. It looked like a rocket launcher. Two loud blasts echoed through the streets, only a second apart. With the second blast also came an explosion of flames, blood, and body parts, as zombies were sent tumbling into the air. Faint smoke trails drifted out of both ends of the rocket launcher.
Jack was shouting, but I didn’t know if he was just screaming, or if he was trying to tell me something. I was shouting as well but I didn’t even know what I was saying.
I pressed my foot down on the accelerator and spun the steering wheel to the left, smashing us through a white picket fence and driving in between two houses. When we were past the houses I swerved right and drove through the back gardens, obliterating more fences and driving straight over garden furniture. We tore through washing lines, still full of hanging clothes left out to dry before the world had ended.
At the end of the gardens I veered left to swerve around some gravestones at the back of a church. As we were passing the church I heard an almighty and ear-splitting mechanical roar, immediately followed by the sound of wood snapping. The wooden panels splintered and broke apart as something smashed through the back of the church.
A tank came down just a few feet away from us. If I’d driven just a bit closer to the church it would have flattened us.
We were showered with parts of the church, as if we were being hit by huge hail stones. As I spun my head back to face forward my eyes very briefly made contact with Jack’s. We had both been shouting some kind of expletives but when our eyes met the garbled words turned first into smiles, and then very briefly into hysterical laughter.
This holiday really was shit.
I put my foot down and aimed for a gap in between two houses that were just ahead of us. Because of all the tall hedges I couldn’t see what was behind the homes.
I decided to go for it. I think we were both screaming again. I definitely was. I lifted one arm to try and protect my face and hoped for the best.
We smashed through the hedges and then it felt and sounded like we went through another fence.
I moved my arm away from my eyes. My view was filled with an open green field and beautiful countryside beyond. The road was to my right, it looked clear so I turned the wheel and headed towards the corner of the field.
After getting back onto the road we had been forced to leave only twenty or thirty seconds ago, I had a quick glance in the rear view mirror. It showed another scene of death and destruction. The church was completely destroyed and the tank was slowly turning around to re-join the fight. The three soldiers with the rocket launcher hadn’t made much of an impact on the zombies. A lot of the dead were still running at them.
We accelerated down the road that ran along the edge of the town. The streets to my right were filled with swirling smoke, soldiers and zombies. Duchesne had been turned into a war zone.
I took the left turn onto the US-191 and we sped away as fast as we could.
I was exhausted. I must have been breathing but it felt like I hadn’t taken a breath since first hearing the gunfire. I tried to take slow and deep breaths, in through my nose and out through my mouth.
‘Are we alive?’ Jack asked.
‘Yeah think so.’
Jack looked like he was struggling to calm down as well.
‘Thank fuck for that, I thought we were dead a few times then. How about we just be happy with the equipment we’ve got?’ he asked.
’Yep, I’m fine with that.’
We drove through gorgeous valleys for about an hour. It felt like a world away from the town of destruction we had only just made it through. We spotted a petrol station at a place called Soldier Summit and pulled over. It really was a spectacular route to drive along. There were no deserted cars or zombies, just a slight smattering of snow and beautiful views. I was topping up the fuel in the truck whilst Jack stood guard, gun in his hand.
‘Did you notice the zombies only came out to say hello when I drove into a trolley, and when the guns started firing?’ I asked. ‘And not when we arrived in Blue?’
‘Well they did just then, but what about when we dropped Mo and Hunter off so they could get the Humvee?’ Jack replied
‘Yeah that’s true. Maybe they just saw us that time?’
Jack shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
The truck was full so I pulled the nozzle out and placed it back in its home. ‘Maybe their senses are a bit shit, you know, now that they’re dead. When you’re dead you’ll be completely blind, you’re almost blind now.’
‘Well I’ll be dead so I’ll obviously be blind, and I won’t care about it because I’ll be dead.’
‘I meant when you die and become a zombie.’
‘Yes I expect I will be blind when I’m a zombie,’ Jack replied. ‘But I’ll still not care, as long as I can kill and eat you.’
‘Gay,’ I said. ‘I think the next place we get to, as long as it’s a tiny place, we do an experiment. If it’s quiet and World War Three isn’t happening again, we could drive until we see a zombie or two and then we use Blue’s foghorn. We could even rev the engine to see what volume we have to get to before they come running.’
‘That sounds like a good way to commit suicide to be honest Chris. Have you forgotten what just happened in that town?’
‘We’re not gonna get out of Blue, and we’ll only do it in a really small town. A place with one road and no side streets maybe. We need as much information as we can get if we’re gonna survive this shit and get you back to your wife and unborn child.’
Jack winced at that last comment.
Note to self, don’t mention the unborn child.
He paused for a few moments. ‘Okay, let’s try and do the suicidal experiment.’
We climbed back into the truck.
‘The hissing as well,’ I said. ‘That must be because their vocal cords have shrivelled up, so they can’t make the groans you hear in the movies. Everything has probably shrivelled
up and died.’
‘Bet they’ve got tiny cocks as well then,’ Jack said.
I chuckled. ‘To be honest I haven’t been looking, I’ll have a proper look next time I see one. When you turn into a zombie you’ll be completely blind with an inverted penis.’
Jack laughed. ‘Yep, thanks.’
About ten minutes further down the road I saw an opportunity to safely try out the suicidal experiment. In the car park of a rest area I spotted three zombies very sedately shuffling around in small circles, all near to the entrance of the building at the back of the car park.
I brought the truck to a halt. A little stretch of grass separated the main road from the car park. Jack looked up from the map.
I pointed to the three shufflers. ‘Do you want to try out my See How Much Zombies Can Hear Experiment?’
Jack looked over to them and checked out the rest of our surroundings, he nodded. ‘Yeah, perfect.’
We actually tried a vision test first. Two of the zombies were facing us but they didn’t seem to be paying us any attention. Jack got onto his knees on his seat and stuck the whole of his upper body out of the window, he started waving. They carried on doing their little shuffle circles.
‘That’ll do for the eyesight test. I don’t think we should get out of Blue,’ I said.
I placed the gearstick into park and put my foot down on the accelerator slightly, the engine revved but there were no changes in the zombies’ behaviour. I pressed down on the pedal a little harder. There was still no change so I put my foot right down to the floor. All three of the zombies stopped shuffling and their heads started to almost twitch. They seemed to be looking around, maybe trying to see where this new noise was coming from. I took my foot off the accelerator completely and the engine settled down to its normal rumbling noise.
‘They’re deaf as a fucking post,’ I laughed.
‘Horn?’ Jack suggested, he pointed at the button he struggled to find the previous day.
I pressed the button and the loud foghorn that had been installed in our truck rang out, signalling to everything within earshot that we were here. It only took a heartbeat for the zombies to go from shuffling to sprinting, demonstrating an incredible turn of pace.