900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (32 page)

He'd sent his secretary out to the doctor's home in the wealthy Grosse Pointe suburb just outside of Detroit, but that was hours ago. Why didn't she call him back yet? Did she finally give up on him? She was more than generous enough to forgive him for not paying her last week, and she was all he had left.

This afternoon, there had been news reports of a gruesome murder in Grosse Pointe. Maybe Elaine was stuck there? Desmond cursed himself for not trying to learn more. He was anxious to go home, and upset with himself for taking on the lawsuit.

With his hand on his brow and his elbow on the armrest, he sighed when his cell phone vibrated.

It was Bella.

He picked up the phone and immediately told her, "I'm stuck in bridge traffic. Be home as soon as I can."

"Stay on the phone," Bella quickly demanded.

He sighed again. "Look, it was a long
ass day. This case I took is too wild, even for me. It's been wearing me down, and this traffic isn't helping. I'm just tired and I really want to be with you."

"You mean the porn director? You agreed to take it?"

"Sure. He's got a case. Can't believe the guy used to be a homicide detective. And the girl he was involved with…well, anyway, I hope to be home soon."

"I called because I'm worried about you."

"Well, I'm fine. Everything's fine."

Her voice became hysterical. "Are you even watching the news?"

"Um, well… I'm driving…"

"Turn on the damn radio! Something! There's a riot in
Detroit. I can't tell what's happening. The web is going crazy with live videos. I'm just glad you're okay. The bridge is actually safe because you're not downtown—"

"Slow down, babe. I'm here, and I'm okay. I don't know what's going on. Why are you watching the news?"

"I know, I know. They skipped all the murders and political stuff and went right to the riot. They still did sports and weather, but no cats stranded in trees."

Desmond laughed. "You know me too well. You can't trust the news. If there's a riot, the Guard will put it down. Anyway, look, I'll be home soon."

"Listen to you. If the world were ending, you would find something positive about it. I called because I'm worried about you."

She was starting to try to his patience. "Like I said, I'll be home soon
…"

"There's nothing? I mean, you don't know if anything's happening?"

"I don't know! I'm stuck in traffic!"

"Oh my God, the president is coming on
—"

The phone signal dropped. He tried to redial because he knew she thought he hung up on her.

He still didn't have a signal. He shut it off completely. It was just like Bella to overreact to a news broadcast; it was an endearing quality of hers to worry about him constantly.

Desmond needed to relax. Listen to Coltrane and drown out the day. Wait for traffic to finally start moving past whatever catastrophe stalled movement into
Windsor.

His entire Cadillac shook and the thundering helicopter which flew overhead drowned out his thoughts. A large spotlight skimmed the roofs of cars ahead of him.

Desmond's survival instincts kicked into gear. Unlike his younger brother, he managed to survive the madness of their crack-headed single mother. He had fought tooth and nail to pass the Bar exam and become one of Michigan's most promising young, African American lawyers, because he was a survivor. He relied on this instinct in the courtroom as a public defender, because the odds were always stacked against him. Nothing ever came easy for him.

Now, his instinct told him something was wrong. His arms suddenly felt stiff and the collar of his shirt stuck to his warm neck. He turned down Coltrane and pushed the button to lower the window, while icy air from the vent between his steering wheel and door cooled his neck.

In the back seat of the Sebring parked in front of him, two boys were distracted by something on their laps, likely handheld video games. A woman in the driver's seat frantically dialed put her cell phone up to her ear and checked its signal repeatedly. She wanted to protect her boys, and Desmond knew it would have been him, and not his mother, that would have had to help protect his family if he and his brother had been just like those two boys. It was something he could never forget, because this impulse to survive and struggle defined him.

The helicopter thundered away, and Desmond couldn
’t see it against the star-mapped sky.

A woman's sudden shriek distracted him from his search. His neck stiffened.

His right hand gripped the steering wheel tightly, and a single line of sweat trickled along the side of his jaw.

Another scream echoed along the corridor of stalled cars, and a chorus of horns drowned out the distant helicopter. 

Still no signal on the phone. What the hell was going on? Coltrane lacked the power to calm his nerves. He decided to turn on a news station, but before he could reach for the buttons, his attention was diverted.

A thin man walked tiredly between the cars, dragging his feet against the concrete while a Detroit Tigers snapback hat with its bill unbent obscured his face, as his head his head hung limply between his shoulders. Both hands hung at his sides, though the fingers were twisted and haphazardly positioned.

The man stopped beside the Sebring, and in the backseat, the pair of young heads were turned toward him. The woman in the driver's seat scrambled to the back to shield her kids from whatever horror she beheld.

A concert filled Desmond's head all at once: the helicopter, the car horns, and the screaming woman confused his aching head. While the strange man turned and slapped at the car window weakly, he could see a mess of blood on the man's left side.

Desmond opened his car door and stepped onto the bridge, and felt himself awash in the light and noise.

He squinted and reminded himself to breathe. Hundreds of people stepped out of their cars all at once
—women with children and teenagers looking for a fun time in Windsor, where the drinking age was nineteen. All of them steered clear of the odd man with the twisted hands, who beat upon the Sebring with more diligence.

In the rear seats, the boys stared at the attacker.

A woman and two boys. He had to do something. He was never good at standing by and watching shit hit the fan. Desmond had been the caretaker of his family, though he failed to protect his younger brother, Jerome, who'd succumbed to the same demons as their mother.

"Hey!" Desmond shouted. "Asshole!"

The man slowly turned to Desmond, and his grip on reality finally slipped away.

The wound on the man's left side was a gaping hole in his flesh, and the exposed bones of his rib cage protruded out of the shredded shirt. His entire body teetered off
balance while turning toward Desmond, and he leaned forward as if he were on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.

"What's wrong with you?" Desmond swallowed, unsure what he was doing. "You're scaring those boys. Get back in your car, buddy!"

With gnarled fingers and a mangled body, the wounded man fixated on Desmond and took slow, deliberate steps toward him.

"Are you okay? You want me to call an ambulance?"

His words seemed idiotic, but he knew they were the right things to say.

A voice shouted through a megaphone from the helicopter above. "A curfew has been implemented in the metropolitan area. Please seek shelter and remain calm. A state of emergency has been declared, and the National Guard is cooperating with other military and municipal departments to keep you safe. A curfew has been implemented
…"

The loud noise above him distracted the odd man, and he looked into the bright light above the bridge. Behind him, the rear door of the Sebring opened and a blond
haired boy stepped out. The man seemed to know it was happening. He turned around while the boy looked at him with wide, teary eyes.

The boy was too afraid to scream.

"…in the major metropolitan area. Please seek shelter and remain…"

The man grabbed the top of the boy's head and lifted him from the concrete. The woman leapt out of her car and punched the man in the chest several times, but the boy didn't drop.

"…calm. A state of emergency has been declared…"

The boy's legs kicked the air with the swiftness of a practiced, neighborhood bicyclist, while his screaming mother pounded on the man uselessly.

Without another thought, Desmond rushed forward and grabbed the man's shoulder, whipping him around quickly. The boy dropped to the cement, while his brother, who'd been hiding in the back seat, leapt out of the car and helped his brother to his feet.

"
…and the National Guard is cooperating with other military and municipal departments to keep you safe."

The man's mouth opened, and a hand reached for Desmond's hanging necktie.

"A curfew has been implemented…"

He was jerked forward, and Desmond immediately recognized his life was in danger. He batted the hand away, and found it oddly cold to the touch.

Strips of flesh clung to the curved bones of the exposed rib cage.

"Shit," Desmond said and took a step back "I didn't
… uh…shit…"

The megaphone droned on.

He sprinted back to his Cadillac, quickly slid back into the driver's seat, and locked himself in. The sick man, or whatever he was, followed him, oblivious to how much it should hurt to be missing so much flesh.

What the hell was going on? He could easily escape through the passenger door and make a run for it, but he couldn't leave the Cadillac, which was the reason why he retreated to it in the first place. He impulsively thought about his cell phone and he wondered if he should text or call anyone. What would he say?

The wounded man slammed his wrists against the driver’s side window.

Desmond's mouth hung open, his fingernails punching tiny crescents into his palms while his elbows quivered.

The helicopter's bright beam of light fell upon the man. He jerked forward, as his chest exploded outward with a loud boom! 

Desmond's heart leapt into his throat.

He watched as the man was supposed to fall forward onto the concrete. Erratic, twitchy movement from the mangled hands revealed that the man had survived the powerful blast.

Desmond could see the other side of the bridge through the hole in the man's chest. Nobody could've survived such a wound. What kind of drugs was this guy on?

The man's pale lips opened to reveal rows of yellow teeth, and the face came closer to the window.

Whoever shot the man was going to do it again. Desmond ducked and put his hands over the top of his
baldhead.

Boom!

Shards of glass rained down upon his fingers.

All of his thoughts seemed to stop at once. His racing heart confirmed his existence. Slowly, he lifted his head and found clumps of hair and dried blood on his dashboard, chunks of skull near the pedals. A mess of fluids dripped from the steering wheel.

The spotlight disappeared, and Desmond blinked his eyes several times.

He needed to call Bella. What was going on? He had to slow everything down and take control. He needed to pull his head out of his ass and figure it out, before it was too late.

His hands were shaking from the sudden realization that he survived a near-death experience, he grabbed the cell phone and hesitated. The man outside of his car meant to harm him, and the gunfire from the chopper could have killed him, too. His thoughts were scrambled, and breath eluded him.

He took the keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the car. The woman and two boys had fled from their car, leaving the Sebring doors flung open. He thought about an old Japanese Godzilla movie, where the monster's presence caused the citizens of the doomed city to scurry through the maze of streets.

Heavily armed commandos flooded the bridge, shouting at people to seek shelter elsewhere. They pointed their assault rifles at fleeing civilians.

Desmond looked down at the corpse at his feet. He looked at the Cadillac and cursed, knowing he would have to leave it behind.

He patted the door. "Don't go anywhere," he said as hundreds of soldiers raced between the stalled cars.

He might not be able to get to
Windsor, but he would be damned if he would let anything happen to his brother, Jerome. As helpless as Jerome was, he was still blood, and if the entire city was being locked down, the danger was real.

It would take an army to keep him apart from his flesh and blood. 

Just beyond the river, Windsor's blinking skyline seemed to belong to another world.

Available from
www.severedpress.com
and Amazon