Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (16 page)

With the coming of snow, however, the desolation of the season was buried beneath a clean carpet of white, as if the slate had been wiped clean leaving behind a pure white canvas on which nature was able to create a new reality. The white of snow also chased away the brooding darkness, even at night, as the tiny crystallized water droplets captured and reflected the remotest hints of light during all times of the day.

Looking to either side of the road and seeing the wetlands in full retreat, desperately awaiting the deliverance promised by snow, Neil felt a similar longing for winter’s offering. To Neil, it was hard to imagine this place as anything other than a desolate, lifeless morass. More than landscape, it looked like the barren remains of a large animal left to rot, the bare trees and clinging brown moss appearing to be bones and withering sinew. It looked and smelled like death all around them. The absence of any wildlife for as far as the eye could see only helped to reinforce the foreboding. No amount of imagining on Neil’s part could ever encourage him to see this as a thriving ecosystem. He felt like looking over his shoulder to make certain they hadn’t passed a sign with Dante’s ominous warning to all visitors of his inferno. Should they abandon all hope? Had they crossed the River Styx into the Underworld?

He couldn’t allow himself to become overly distracted with his mood or his grim observations. They were starting to pass more abandoned vehicles, some on the shoulders of the road and others simply stopped in the middle of the lane. So far, they hadn’t seen any more of the undead. For that, Neil was thankful but was also painfully aware that there was little to no possibility of sustaining that fact.

They were driving intentionally slowly, giving as much of a berth as possible to the abandoned cars and trucks stalled here and there. It felt as if they were moving along a maze path toward some golden bull that awaited them at the end. Their truck’s engine purred, sending a gentle, tickling vibration through all of their bodies. The buzz raised their collective awareness and anxiety. None of them had been in a serviceable vehicle in some time.

When they did finally see the undead, it was a single, lanky-armed and confused former middle-aged man. He was wearing battered and torn Dockers and a once bright red golf shirt. His hair was silver gray but matted and greasy, looking like dirty mop strands hanging in his face. The exposed skin of his arms, neck, and face had the pallor and texture of modeling clay spread too thin over a plaster bust. His cheekbones were impossibly pronounced and his cheeks overly shallow. Above and through it all, his dark eyes burned with rage and hunger.

He was already aroused with the sound of the approaching vehicle. His body was becoming agitated, quivering with spasms and violent tics. When his cesspool eyes caught sight of the large silver truck, however, he twisted his lips into a brown, toothy snarl. With gray, sore-pocked arms raised, he began to stumble and stagger toward them.

Meghan’s breath caught in her throat at first sight of the creature. “I guess I’ll never get used to seeing...” she trailed off.

Jules asked, still doing stars, cups and saucers, and cat’s cradles with her string, “Seeing what?”

Meghan looked up at the truck ceiling and said, “Nothin’ sweetie.”

“It’s another one of those bad people isn’t it?”

At first, Meghan wasn’t quite sure what to say. She didn’t know if she should try and protect her by hiding the truth. That seemed like the sensible thing to do. It’s probably what her mother and father would have done for her. And in that instant of considering her parents, her breath once again caught in her throat. She tried to answer...anything, but she couldn’t force any sound from within. She merely nodded a quiet, teary affirmative. “You kids keep your heads down.”

Neil didn’t hesitate. The engine’s purr became an aggressive growl as he pushed the accelerator and steered the truck right into the zombie’s path. The collision sent the rotting creature hurtling through the air and into the unforgiving side of an RV. The impact against the larger vehicle was loud and wet, the back side of his head erupting like an overripe melon. The lifeless corpse slid down slowly, leaving a streak of necrotic brownish fluid in its wake. They were all thankful for the muting effect the truck’s engine noise produced.

The threat neutralized, Neil slowed the vehicle again and continued them on their way. The traffic jam was rapidly becoming more and more dense, restricting Neil’s ability to thread the truck through the collapsing needle’s eye. It was nearly impossible to allow for any safe room between their vehicle and others. On more than one occasion, Neil was forced to use his truck’s bumper to nudge another vehicle over a bit to create enough room to pass. The sides of their truck, once pristine and polished, were soon dinged, dented, and scraped.

Jerry, Claire, DB, and Della were all up on their knees with axes, camping spades, and baseball bats in their hands as a precaution. The increasing number of motor homes, campers, tour buses, and other taller vehicles heightened the tension for all of them as their space became tighter and tighter. They looked like castle guards watching over the battlements for any evidence of their threatening foe.

It didn’t take long. Around the front of a Gray Lines tour bus, they happened upon a group of four of the ghouls loitering around a couple piles of clothes that appeared to be stuck in clumps to the pavement, likely the sticky remains of the devoured former occupants.

Neil said loud enough to be heard through the rear window, “No guns. We don’t want to—”

Jerry shouted back, “Way ahead of you, boss! Just keep moving. We’ll get whatever you don’t.”

Neil actually felt a smile try to find its way on to his face. They charged headlong into the crowd, a mighty war elephant plowing into the fray of battle. Neil ran over two of the beasts, their bodies crunching and breaking beneath the weight of their war steed.

The other two zombies, who both appeared to have once been adolescent girls, moved onto Jerry and Claire’s side. Jerry’s bat came down with a metallic thwack twice into the first monster’s head, the brittle skull imploding into the soft, gray ooze inside. With a gurgle and a grunt, the thing fell to the ground, tripping the other zombie as a result.

Unfortunately, more than just the walking shadow was caught off guard and tipped off balance. Claire was in mid-swing with the camping spade when her target suddenly disappeared from in front of her. Her swing carried through much further and harder than she was anticipating, sending her head over heels over the gunwale of the truck bed. She threw a surprisingly effective body block into the now recovering zombie, knocking it backward again, then spun away and came to rest a few feet from the off-balance undead creature. She was on her back and looking up at what should have been the roiling bruise of a sky. Instead, all she saw were stars and patterns of light exploding in her dazed vision. She reached blindly but couldn’t lay her hands on her shovel some yards away. She was helpless and had the wind not been cleanly knocked from her lungs as a result of her fall she would have screamed such to all within in earshot.

Temporarily blind, breathless, and helpless, Claire likely made an appealing target. She tried to roll onto her side so she could get to her feet, but the pain in her shoulder and back was too much for her. She was terrified to feel her foot being tugged violently and instinctively kicked blindly but was unable to discourage her attacker.

Jerry and Alec, meanwhile, rolled themselves out of the back of the truck and were sprinting the several yards separating them from the fallen woman. Jerry threw his bat, hitting Claire’s assailant squarely between the shoulder blades. It stalled the attack only briefly as the thing considered the threat and the interruption, but that was the only window that Jerry and, more to the point, Alec needed. The teenager, who likely wasn’t any older than what the abomination had been before turning, carried only his rifle. He knew better than to shoot for fear of drawing more of the things to them, instead he changed his grip so that he was holding the rifle’s barrel. His swing cut from east to west, slamming the monster in its side. It didn’t dispatch it, but it did send the demonic wraith sprawling away from the still stricken Claire.

Jerry grabbed Claire’s shovel and buried the stubby blade into the scabby creature’s cranium. All at once, everything seemed to stop. Jerry stood with his hands holding the shovel, which was holding the zombie in apparent suspended animation. It was quiet and still, but was still standing as if waiting. Jerry let go the handle and both the tool and the zombie fell away.

There was no time to wait. Jerry ran to Claire and Alec retrieved the shovel which stood upright like some sick version of the sword in the stone. Alec was forced to use his booted foot to pry the shovel blade from the tight fissure, resulting in a wet pop. He also found Jerry’s bat.

Claire was hurt, that much was certain. Jerry knew that moving someone after such an injury was unwise, but he also knew that those four wouldn’t be the last walking dead they would encounter and so getting back in the truck was of tantamount importance.

Jerry kissed Claire’s cheek. “Can you hear me honey?” he said calmly.

She nodded slowly.

“Can you speak?”

She clenched her jaw and answered through the pain, “Yeah, but if I don’t have to, well then...”

“We need to move you. Can you tell me what’s hurt? What did you hit?”

“At least my shoulder and my back. Landed pretty hard.”

“Okay, then. Alec and I are going to help you up to your feet, okay?”

Rather than using her voice, which sent pain arcing through her body like an electric current, Claire smiled and blinked her eyes, which were just starting to come into focus. With Jerry on one side and Alec on the other, they helped Claire to her feet and back in the truck.

Claire’s right arm hung uselessly at her side. The road rash on her shoulder throbbed and oozed, the gravel of the road and fabric of her ruined jacket mixing with her sticky blood and violated flesh. It felt as if her entire arm was on fire. Jerry was unable to detect any of the telltale signs of a fracture, but he handled her injured limb as delicately as possible.

The truck was back under way as Jerry got her into a reasonably comfortable position atop a soft pile of sleeping bags and backpacks. He leaned down and whispered to her again, “No more heroics from you. Okay? I don’t think I could handle any more scares like that.”

She smiled and answered coyly despite her pain, “You ain’t gettin’ no arguments from me. I’ll just stay home and make sure there’s dinner waiting for you when you get off from work, dear.”

Smiling back at her but also with a few worried tears misting on the surface of his eyes, Jerry said, “I think I could get used to that.”

“Oh yeah? You may change your mind after you eat my cookin’.”

The kiss that followed was filled with warm emotion and relief but the tears, both his and hers, shining on her cheeks belied the fearful undercurrent of everyone’s mood. Despite the fear, or maybe because of it, Jerry was suddenly more convinced than ever that he was in love with this beautiful, sassy coed.

He delicately wiped away the mixed pools of tears from her face. “You just rest here for a bit. I’ll keep an eye on things while you get some rest.” He kissed her again and then pulled himself away from her.

Neil was right to get them moving again. Their fracas had drawn the attention of several more of the walking nightmares who were stumbling down the road toward them. Like ghouls from crypts, they crawled and slithered from doors left ajar on vehicles. They also clambered up the shoulders of the road, having finally had some outside force recall them from a long ago feeding frenzy in the woods. Most, however, were simply standing, waiting, hungering in the middle of the road. Like the tickling sensations of a struggling moth to the spider in her web, the sounds of the tussle drew the attention of every zombie in the area. So far, they were out of sight, but when Jules complained to Neil that she could hear “that sound” again, Neil knew to be watching for them.

She hadn’t complained in quite some time which concerned Neil. It could mean that there was a larger group waiting for them further up the road. He had no idea the reality was that the group wasn’t waiting for them at all. They were converging on the unsuspecting survivors. Dozens of the scabrous, stinking wretches were closing in on them with every passing second.

“Oh shit!” Neil saw them walking stiltedly toward the group, seemingly ready and willing to eat the truck along with all of its passengers.

Emma, speaking for the first time since they had started driving, said, “Speed up.” She was calm, almost serene as she checked the load on her pistols. She caught Neil’s reproachful look. “Don’t worry. They’re only as last resorts,” and she showed him the blue aluminum baseball bat stuffed into some loops on the backpack at her feet.

He tried to smile through his clenched teeth, but instead turned back to the looming targets in front of him. Using the Dodge Ram hood ornament as a targeting sight, he lined up the truck so that he would be able to plow into most of them and still stay on the road. He counted at least ten of them and if he was able to work it his way, he would be able to get most if not all of them as new grill decorations. They were packed so conveniently tight that they were presenting him with a single target.