by Wood, J N
She slammed the butt of the rifle into the top of a zombie’s head, as it slowly crawled towards us. ‘Took it from a dead soldier in Sacramento.’
I glanced behind me and saw Gilberto on his hands and knees. Sandra was standing on his back, while Jack, who was already up on the side of the Dodge, was reaching towards Sandra to pull her up. Michael and Shannon stood with their backs to us, guarding a thin strip of darkness between the bus and the overturned van.
Why is their gap so much smaller than ours?
Gunfire suddenly erupted, right next my head. It was so loud I was sure it would deafen me. I swivelled my head around to see the dead coming for us. They were all I could see in the fucking huge gap we had been given to defend. Ali was firing her rifle into the masses of dead faces. I pulled out my Sig and very quickly emptied it, aiming for heads. I placed it back into its holster and positioned myself to start swinging my little axe.
Ali’s rifle was empty a few seconds later. She fumbled at her pocket, pulling out a new magazine. Whilst the space in front of us was much bigger than Shannon and Michael’s, you could still only fit six people, or zombies, side by side.
The lack of gunfire meant they were soon upon us. I aimed for the closest, bringing the axe down on the top of its head. I didn’t wait to see if the blow had been sufficient to stop it. Whilst pushing them away with my left hand, I swung, and swung, and swung with the axe in my right, crushing heads with the blunt end.
Ali shouted for me to back away, before starting to fire her rifle again. I just had to bash in the heads of the ones that Ali’s bullets missed. Only a few made it through.
The bodies were beginning to pile up. At first, the zombies struggled to clamber over the row of their fallen kind, but they soon started stumbling right over them, almost using them like a ramp. Ali was soon out of bullets again. We took two steps back as the creatures tripped over the collapsed bodies and fell to the ground. I stepped in and viciously swiped at the momentarily prone zombies. Ali grabbed my arm, pulling me backwards and out of the way when a new wave of them almost fell upon me.
Ali started to use the rifle like a bat, swinging it up and over her head, the butt of the gun connecting with the zombies.
‘In the bus!’ Shannon shouted. ‘Back in the bus!’
I turned to see Jack climbing the stairs, carrying the kid. Steve was close behind him. Gilberto was still by the overturned Dodge, struggling to get to his feet. His face was twisted with pain. I spun back around to Ali.
‘Ali, try and hold them back!’ I shouted, before kicking a crawling zombie squarely in the face.
I tried to lift Gilberto up but he was incredibly heavy, much heavier than I thought he should have been. I looked down to see a half destroyed face emerging from the decaying mess on the ground. Its mouth was clamped onto Gilberto’s wrist. Three arms were stretched out from the ground, clawing at his thigh. I couldn’t tell who those arms belonged to. Blood soaked the right leg of Gilberto’s trousers.
I slammed my heel down onto the head biting into his wrist, the skull disintegrating under my foot. I loosened my grip on the axe and spun it around. I swung the axe, aiming the sharp end at the clawing arms. My first swipe took out two of them, slicing half way down their forearms. My next strike chopped off the third at the wrist.
After ripping the still clawing hands away from Gilberto’s leg, and hauling him to his feet, I started dragging him to the bus. It was only four or five paces away but he was like a dead weight. Gee was now outside the bus, single-handedly fighting off the swarm with a baseball bat. It looked like my Brooklyn Smasher. Ali appeared at the other side of Gilberto, halving the amount of effort it was taking me to carry him back to the bus. She went up the stairs first, dragging her uncle, while I was behind, pushing him.
‘Gee!’ I shouted. ‘Time to go.’
I was only half way up the stairs when the bus suddenly lurched forward, knocking me off my feet. I glanced back towards Gee as the bus continued to move. The pile of dead bodies wedged between the front of the bus and the bottom of the Dodge started to topple.
I leaned out of the bus and grabbed a part of Gee’s jacket, dragging him backwards onto the steps. He was sprawled on top of me, scrambling to keep his feet from dragging across the ground. I desperately clung on to him as zombies reached out for him. The bus slowly started to gain more speed, pulling away from the chasing dead.
‘Somebody fucking pull us up!’ I pleaded.
Two blood splattered arms suddenly reached over me and grabbed a hold of Gee at his shoulders. He was dragged upwards and over me so his legs were within the bus. The doors closed so I relaxed my hold on him. We both sat on the steps trying to get our breath back.
The calm after the storm was soon disrupted.
‘Help me,’ Ali shouted. ‘I need some help. He’s bleeding a lot.’
Gee sat upright, allowing me to get to my feet. Ali was sat on the floor in the aisle, her back leaning against a seat. Gilberto was stretched out in front of her, the back of his head resting on her lap. His normally tanned skin looked a very pale grey colour. There was a lot of blood under his right leg.
‘Shannon!’ I shouted. Within seconds Shannon was crouched down by Gilberto’s prone body.
‘Where is he injured?’ Shannon asked, while scanning his blood soaked clothes.
‘I…I don’t know,’ Ali stuttered. ‘There is blood everywhere.’
‘Left wrist and right thigh,’ I quickly said. ‘Bitten on the wrist, and kind of clawed on the thigh.’
Shannon pulled out a small knife from somewhere on her body. It came out so quickly I couldn’t see where it had come from. She lifted Gilberto’s right trouser leg up so it was away from his skin, finding the holes that had already been made by the zombie hands. She used the knife to make the holes bigger, before tearing it with her hands.
Clawed had been the right word. His thigh was a mess, like a tiger had viciously swiped at his leg. Blood literally pumped and oozed out of the foot long wounds. Ali’s eyes were huge as she gripped tightly onto her uncle’s shoulders.
Shannon looked at a complete loss. Her stupor only lasted a couple of seconds. She whipped off her belt. ‘Chris, elevate his legs,’ she shouted, giving me the briefest of glances.
I crouched down, grabbed both of his ankles and lifted them up to my thigh height. Shannon wrapped her belt around his leg, just above the wounds, and pulled it tight.
‘Should I stop,’ Michael called out, now sat behind the wheel.
‘No, carry on until we’re further away,’ Shannon replied. ‘Somebody get me some–.’
Gee stepped around me in the cramped space, dropped to his knees and jammed a handful of clothes onto the leg wounds. He continued to hold them in place.
‘Thanks Gee,’ Shannon said. ‘How is his wrist?’ she asked, looking at Ali.
Ali picked up her uncle’s arm at his forearm. ‘It’s not bleeding that much actually,’ she replied, a bit of hope creeping into her voice.
‘He is dead,’ Gee muttered.
‘What?’ a bloody Pete asked from behind Ali.
‘Yeah, what?’ Ali echoed.
‘He stop bleeding much because his heart stop,’ Gee explained.
There was a stunned silence. I looked up from Gilberto’s face. Everyone stared in shock at the horrific scene playing out on the floor of the bus.
‘No, he can’t be,’ Steve muttered.
‘I’m really sorry,’ Shannon said, now holding Gilberto’s uninjured wrist, checking for a pulse. ‘Gee is right. They must have sliced through the femoral artery in his leg.’
‘Can’t you fix it?’ Theo called out. I could just see his bruised face poking through between Steve and Pete.
‘I’m sorry,’ Shannon said.
Gee stopped applying pressure to Gilberto’s leg, and rose to his feet.
‘I’m not a medical doctor,’ Shannon added. ‘I wouldn’t…I didn’t…I didn’t know.’ She slowly and gently removed her belt, and
then got to her feet. She slumped backwards onto an empty seat.
I carefully placed his legs back onto the floor. A river of blood flowed down the aisle, running under my boots and down the steps to the doors.
‘Why did you leave him?’ Theo sobbed, now staring at Steve.
‘I didn’t,’ Steve said defensively. ‘He told me to go. He said he was right behind me.’
‘You should have taken care of him,’ Theo cried.
‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ Steve managed to splutter out.
‘It’s not Steve’s fault,’ Pete said, taking charge as the eldest of the three brothers. ‘I was driving. I crashed. It’s my responsibility.’
‘The dead appeared from nowhere,’ Theo said, slowly backing away, tears streaming down his face. He stopped when Sandra took him by the shoulders. She turned him around and hugged him.
I turned slightly to face forwards, and said, ‘Stop when you get the chance please Michael.’
‘No problem,’ he quietly replied.
A few minutes later, Michael brought the bus to a complete stop. Nobody had moved. We were all in the same positions.
After what felt like a long time in silence, Michael spoke up. ‘Right everyone, we’ve stopped.’
Nobody responded. I looked down at Michael and shrugged. He looked at a loss for what to say.
Pete eventually broke the silence, saying, ‘I need a spade.’
I turned to see him step forward and lay a hand on Ali’s shoulder. She was still cradling Gilberto’s head on her lap.
Shannon’s questioning eyes met with Michael’s. He slowly shook his head. On seeing her husband’s response, she closed her eyes.
‘No spade Pete,’ I said. ‘But we’ll help you. Jack, get me your big axe.’
I leaned under the front row of seats, and came back out with two of the torches. I flicked one of them on and asked Michael to open the doors. I had a good look around to make sure there were no dead humans wandering about, or big live bears.
At first it was just me, with Jack’s big axe, and Jack with my little axe, doing all the digging, but soon enough, everyone was out and helping. People used whatever they could get a hold of, rifles, my baseball bat, and even using their bare hands.
I wasn’t too happy when I noticed Steve using the Brooklyn Smasher to scrape the earth out of the grave. I would have looked like a complete arsehole if I’d asked him not to use it though.
The hole was about three feet deep, and I was pretty sure everyone wanted to stop, but nobody wanted to be the person to say it.
Luckily for us, Pete rose to his feet and told us we’d done enough. ‘Steve, Theo, let’s get our father,’ he said stoically.
‘Do you need a hand?’ Michael asked, as the three brothers started up the steps.
‘No, thank you,’ Pete replied.
They soon emerged, carrying Gilberto’s ravaged body out of the bus, and gently placing him in the shallow grave.
Pete slowly looked at us all stood around his father’s body, before saying, ‘Could you please help us cover him? Then, if you don’t mind, our family would like some time alone. Don’t worry, we won’t be long.’
‘Take as long as you need,’ Shannon told him.
Everyone got down on their knees and scooped, or pushed the broken up soil onto Gilberto, eventually covering him entirely. There were a lot of loud sniffs and sobs.
‘Thanks guys,’ Sandra said, wiping her face and rising to stand up.
We took that as our cue to leave, and climbed back aboard the bus. Sandra followed us in, before heading back outside with all three of the kids in tow. Thankfully, the blond kid that had been in the crash looked relatively uninjured. The Rodriguez brothers on the other hand, all looked bruised and battered.
Jack sat down on the row behind me, wearily saying, ‘Fuck.’
‘Yep,’ I replied.
‘You didn’t like it when that Steve guy was using your bat did you?’
My head snapped around to face him. ‘Why, what do you mean?’
‘You were staring at him, and you looked really pissed off.’
‘Shite, nobody else noticed did they?’
‘Nah, don’t think so. Everyone else is normal, so they were worried about Gilberto being dead.’
‘Good.’
A few minutes later, Ali entered the bus, and started walking up the aisle. Sandra and the kids were next, followed by Theo, Steve and Pete bringing up the rear. They were all silent as they passed, and seemed to avoid making eye contact with us. Nobody tried speaking to them as they made their way to the back of the bus.
Michael closed the door and turned the engine back on.
‘Right, let’s get going then,’ he said quietly.
‘We’re not going to make it to Snohomish before it gets light,’ Shannon told her husband. ‘We’ll need to find somewhere soon. We still have a lot of built up areas to pass through before we get to the border.’
‘Once we get a bit further away from that last swarm, I’ll find somewhere suitable to pull over,’ Michael replied.
‘Okay,’ Shannon said, leaning forward and squeezing Michael’s shoulder. He placed his hand on top of hers.
It wasn’t long before the bus was parked up in a rest area on the side of the road. Bedtime was a bit more chaotic with eight more people on board. After we had taken shifts going for bathroom breaks, as Shannon likes to call them, and made sure people were protected during those breaks, everyone was more than ready for sleep.
I’d given up my sleeping bag for the kids, so I wasn’t been expecting to sleep much.
Also, my face hurt. I could feel the skin around the puncture wounds tightening.
DAY SIXTEEN
Chapter 6: Barbie
I was wrong. I’d slept like a dead man.
Maybe that’s a phrase I shouldn’t be using at the moment.
I’d been pretty exhausted after yesterday’s events, so my excellent sleep shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise.
Everyone had been deathly quiet when I woke up.
Fuck’s sake Chris. Stop thinking in death terms.
The Rodriguez’s were still occupying the back of the bus. Gee also seemed to be just waking up, only two rows away from me. I had no idea how I wasn’t kept awake all night by his snoring.
At least my face wasn’t aching as much.
‘Afternoon,’ Jack said.
I looked over to see him sat on the row opposite me. ‘Fucking hell,’ I blurted.
The bandage around his head had been removed, so his injured eye was visible. The bruising around the eye looked awful. Every different shade of purple must have been on his skin, and the white of his eye was a very vivid red.
‘It might look bad, but I can see,’ Jack said, a huge smile on his face.
I sat upright and leaned against the window. ‘That’s good, but can you not cover it back up? It looks fucking disgusting.’
‘No I can’t. Shannon said to leave it uncovered.’
‘I think you’re back in the lead in the most fucked up face awards.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jack said. ‘Your face will soon be back to normal, so you’ll leap back into first place.’
I forced a smile and stuck two fingers up at him. ‘Food?’ I asked.
‘Nothing cooked I’m afraid. Michael and Shannon don’t want to risk it when we’re so close to freedom. They’re worried about the dead smelling our beans.’
‘Can zombies smell?’ I asked.
Jack just shrugged.
‘They do smell. They fucking stink,’ Gee said, sitting down behind me, his face showing no emotion whatsoever.
‘Was that a joke Gee? I asked, with a smile.
‘Maybe,’ he muttered, still keeping a straight face.
But then, just for the briefest of moments, a smile touched his lips. It was just a little bit, but I definitely saw it.
‘I think it was a joke,’ Jack said. ‘Hey Shannon, Michael. Gee just told a joke.’
>
‘That’s brilliant,’ Shannon said, packing clothes into a bag. ‘But maybe today isn’t the day to turn into a comedian.’ She nodded towards the back of the bus, and the grieving Rodriguez family.
Breakfast turned out to be another energy bar and a can of Diet Pepsi. I couldn’t wait to get across the border and eat some proper food. I’d been having cravings for sausages, mash potato and gravy since Gee had served me his tinned sausages.
‘We have a long wait until it gets dark,’ Shannon said, after we had moved to the front rows of the bus, just to give Ali and her family a bit more space. ‘The sun set at around eight o’clock last night,’ she continued. ‘So that’s about five hours we have to wait.’
I raised both my thumbs, saying, ‘Great.’
‘Hey guys,’ Ali said, startling us after managing to sneak up on us all.
‘Hi Ali,’ Shannon replied, in a hushed and sympathetic tone. ‘How are you all doing back there?’
She shrugged. ‘Not great. Theo’s not doing well at all. He’s blaming Steve. And we’re all squashed into a bus together, so it’s all a bit shit to be honest.’
‘We’re all really sorry about what happened,’ Michael said.
‘Thanks. We’ll get through it, no choice is there?’ She looked towards me. ‘Hey Chris, just wanted to say thank you for getting my uncle onto the bus.’ She forced a small smile.
I shifted uncomfortably on my seat. ‘That’s okay. Just wish it’d turned out better, obviously.’
‘Thanks for trying.’ She sat down next to Jack, briefly glanced at him, and then did a double take. ‘Whoa Jack, your eye looks terrible.’
‘Thanks very much,’ Jack replied flatly.
Ali let out a little chuckle. ‘Sorry, but it does.’
Apart from Jack, everyone at the front of the bus joined in with her laugh, even Gee.
‘Chris, I think you could probably do with taking your gauze off,’ Shannon stated. ‘Let it breathe a while.’
‘Ha,’ Jack sneered. ‘You can look fucking terrible too.’
After Shannon had peeled the gauze off my face, she handed me a little make-up mirror. The scrape didn’t look that bad actually. It was healing really well. I just had a very red stretch of skin from just below my hairline, down to my cheek bone. It still looked disgusting, but it had shrunk a lot in size. I still had the stupid little circular plasters dotted all over the other side of my face though.