Rise and Walk (24 page)

“Over here,” she said again.

It moved fast, almost feeling its way around the corner. Veronica raised the paint gun, aiming for its eye. She fired. The dart was propelled by a large burst of compressed gas. It glided through the jelly of the eye, penetrated the orbital bone and lodged without harming the brain. The ghoul roared and sought after Veronica’s flesh with festering arms.

“Shit!” she cursed, dropping the paint gun and readying the other. She moved in close, extending the gun as far away from her body as possible and fired. Jack’s gun was the more powerful of the two. It coughed a four inch dart at over three hundred feet per second through the thing’s eye and into its brain. Amazed that her plan had worked, Veronica looked on the floor for another dart.

Nikki’s voice was growing horse. Tired of yelling, she had been able to keep her ghouls interested by prodding the wall here and there with the shovel. Seeing Veronica successfully dealing with the remaining creatures increased her optimism for their survival. She watched Veronica remove the barrel and load another dart in a paint gun.

“What time is it?” Nikki asked with a scratchy voice.

“Eight fifty,” Veronica said looking up from Jack’s watch disappointed.

Looking around the room at the various tools, Veronica was out of ideas. There were at least three more creatures out there. The machete appeared to be holding the one ghoul at the rear, but the others were free. She wasn’t sure about using the darts again. Veronica wanted other options.

Veronica looked at the bench. It was very low, about two feet from floor to the top of the hole. The things would have to bend down to gain entrance. They would make perfect targets at that level, crawling in head first. She was optimistic that they could pull it off with only one creature, but two of the bastards made her nervous. Still, the thought of the men not making it back, frightened her. She had to work under the assumption that there was no help coming. Looking at the axe, she thought it might be the perfect weapon for the job. If they managed to kill one monster, its body would block the hole, making it more difficult for the other to get in. As the second one struggled over the remains, she could use the axe again.
It could work
, Veronica thought. She took a deep breath.

“Okay, you pull the pick out and I’ll …” Veronica stopped and listened. She heard the distinct sound of a motorcycle wining high in the distance. Both women exhaled in exhaustion and looked at each other with relief.

THIRTY-NINE

Topping the rise onto the flat open area at high speed, Mason saw the shack in the distance. Something was different, something was wrong; something was trying to break in. He cranked his throttle down hard and flew across the dirt road. A few moments later, Tony appeared in the truck. Mason’s approach alerted the ghouls. Tony bounced the truck across the field honking the horn. They turned and started towards Mason. He stopped his bike twenty feet from the shack and laid it on the ground. Pulling his
Katana
from the scabbard, he squared off with the two creatures, sword ready. Mason swung his sword hard at a male ghoul, striking it in the neck. The blade severed the vertebrae, yet lodged deep in the tough muscles. The corpse dropped, its head leaning grotesquely to one side. Mason pulled away from the monster as it fell allowing the sharp blade to carve itself free. The second creature lunged at him. Mason ducked low, bringing his shoulder pad into the thing’s midsection. Mason exerted an explosive leap from his legs, propelling the ghoul up and over his shoulder, to land flat on its back. It floundered on the ground, arms flailing.

“Haven’t done that in a while,” he said thinking of his football days. Tony parked the truck next to Mason and emerged with the twelve-gauge.

“Take care of this one,” Mason said sprinting towards the shack. Tony took aim at the creature as it rolled over. He fired, tilling the ghoul’s brain into the soil.

“Veronica, are you guys all right?” he yelled knocking on the door. He heard the two by four being removed. He opened the door.

Veronica stood holding an axe, Nikki, held a shovel. They stood ready with looks of exhausted courage. Jack removed his helmet and let it drop to the ground. Veronica’s face softened as she smiled. She approached Jack while letting her axe drag and drop to the floor. Emerging outside, she threw her arms around him. He held her, wishing that he wasn’t wearing so much padding and gear. Looking over her shoulder, he now saw the extent of the damage on the back wall of the shack. Nikki dropped her shovel and sat down in the middle of the room. Tony ran to the door.

“There’s one more at the back, stuck to the wall,” Veronica said to Tony over Jack’s shoulder. She closed her eyes as Tony ran to deal with the creature. She breathed the fresh air in and out slowly, savoring the moment.

Tony found the last creature on the far side wall. It raged at his presence. The creature was a female who had lost much of her looks. Puss dripped from the machete as it pushed itself off the wall to gain access to Tony. As it slid its foul frame free of the rusty blade, Tony took aim, this time, with his eyes open.

“Clear!” he shouted and fired.

Within the shack, the blast from Tony’s shotgun made Nikki jump. She started to cry. Veronica let go of Jack to attend her friend.

“We’re gonna need a minute,” she whispered. Jack nodded and pushed the door closed.

Walking out in front of the shack, he saw Tony looking at something. Jack joined him. Lying on the ground was the badly eaten upper torso of Lance Richardson. There were no legs, just a trail of thick blood that diminished some three feet from his chest, where a pair of filthy shorts and bones lay. The only way they recognized the man was his bloody but still discernibly blonde hair. The face muscles were almost gone, just a greasy red skull underneath his frosted coif. Bits of tough tendon shined grayish reflections like fish scales covered with foul gruel.

“What happened? I mean, where did they come from?” Tony asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack said low, “But those girls went through some shit.”

Inside the shack, Veronica was kneeling, holding Nikki in her arms, rocking her back and forth gently.

“It’s okay Nik, let it out.” Veronica had tears of her own in her eyes. She reassured Nikki and herself at the same time.

“It’s over,” she said in a whisper. Holding Nikki for a while longer, the terror and stress of the day surrendered to peace. They had survived the hellish conflict.

“I’m never gonna be the same again” Nikki said low in her injured voice.

“No, but you’ll be stronger,” Veronica said missing her father.

When Nikki was ready, Veronica helped her to stand.

FORTY

Jack drove while the others slept. Veronica was next to him; next to her were Nikki, and finally Tony. Jack’s motorcycle was secured by tie downs in the back, swaying gently as the truck negotiated the dirt road. It was over now, yet Jack was disappointed in himself for leaving the women alone at the shack. It would have been much safer to have brought them along on the motorcycles.
Hindsight and all that crap
, he thought. He was relieved to have the gang all together.
We got away with it
, he thought.

Up ahead in the distance, he saw the unmistakable grey tones of a paved road; civilization wouldn’t be far. As the wheels of his Chevy transitioned to asphalt, he relaxed and cracked his window open a little for some fresh air. The loud squeaks and creaks of his old truck settled down with the smooth surface. He looked over his sleeping companions. He gazed at Veronica. She had let her hair down when Jack put his bike in the back of the truck. He thought it looked nice that way.
Even without a shower for two days, she looks pretty damn good
. Moving his eyes back to the road he saw that the sun was beginning to set.

They had stopped for a break at noon; spending three hours talking and cleaning up a little with melted water from the ice chest. Thinking back on how long he had been driving, he realized that it was very fortunate that they went back for the truck. It would have taken him two days to walk over this range. After seeing how the women handled themselves at the shack, he had no doubt that would have survived the hike. But it would have taken quite a while. He wondered what time it was. He looked back to Veronica. She was still wearing his watch. Carefully, he put his fingers around her wrist to see the watch face. She turned her head to him without opening her eyes.

“What are you doing?” she inquired softly. He didn’t anticipate such awareness from her. To hide his surprise his quick mind formed a joke.

“Just trying to get a little action,” he said deadpan with straight face.

“What?” she whispered while opening her eyes in disbelief.

“I wanted to see what time it is,” he said smiling.

He let go of her wrist to concentrate on the road. She yawned something like “Oh,” and looked at the watch.

“Eight thirty-three,” she said stretching her tired neck.

Looking out the window she saw the pleasant green surroundings.

“How much farther?” she asked.

“Not long now, we’re on pavement, we should start to see the town soon,” he said.

“Roll the window down some more, it’s stuffy in here,” she yawned.

“It doesn’t help that you had beans for dinner last night,” he said with a smile. With all the terror behind them, Jack was glad to express his humorous side. Surprised by his quip, Veronica laughed and punched him affectionately on the shoulder.

“Shut up” she said playfully. It felt good to laugh. She found herself relieved that after everything they had been through, she could still smile.

Jack cranked the handle allowing cool air to enter the cab. There was a faint smell of a smoke on the wind. As he drove it grew stronger. He thought about the burning car at the campground and wondered if it had started a fire on the other side of the mountain.

“Is that a fire?” Veronica asked smelling the smoke.

“Smells like it.”

The road inclined gently downwards. Soon, the left side of the hills receded away into a vast open plane. Emerging onto a long stretch of road that traversed the mountain, Jack guessed that they were around fifteen hundred feet up. Not long now indeed. Farmland dominated the view to their left but no town. The open sky was hazy. The setting sun stretched into a beautiful pattern of orange and burnt sienna.

“Why haven’t we run out of gas yet?” Veronica asked, feeling a desire to talk.

“Saddle tanks,” Jack said pointing to a switch on his console, “I have two twenty gallon tanks, one on each side.”

“That’s convenient,” she mumbled, leaning her weary head on his shoulder. Jack didn’t mind at all.

“Yeah, until you have to fill it.”

“So, what do you want for dinner?” she asked drowsily.

“Surprise me,” he said. She closed her eyes and just leaned on him.

They continued like that for some time, driving downwards. The smell of smoke increased.

“It’s getting worse,” Veronica said lifting her head. Tony roused and stretched his legs as best he could in his seat. He smelled the fire as well. Rounding a wide corner to the right, the sun in its final moments on its journey to the west, they saw the source of the smoke. Mason stopped the truck, waking Nikki with the shift in momentum. She jerked forward and righted herself in a tense stiffness, frightened from the abrupt awakening.

“What’s goin’ on?” she asked almost desperate.

The others couldn’t answer. Parts of the town below were on fire. They were too far up to discern individuals in the streets, but the lack of fire fighting equipment and the various unchecked blazes told them that the dead had come to the town.

“Oh my God,” Nikki said bending forward to look out the windshield. Mason let off the brake and started the truck rolling forward slowly. He reached down and turned on the radio. Rotating the dial, he found a station.

“… this weekend of terror across the globe. Scientists at the National Observatory of Athens in Greece have named the meteor shower Cerberus. The first reports of contamination came in late Saturday night. Many believe that the phenomenon started as early as Thursday, July tenth, yet went unreported because of their unbelievable nature. Many major metropolitan areas have been overrun by this epidemic. New York, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles have been hard hit. One area with very little contact is San Francisco. Officials with the neighboring city of Oakland have barricaded the entrances and exits of the Bay Bridge. Oakland citizens including some disreputable criminal elements are working side by side with the police to make a stand against these, for lack of a better word, Zombies …”

As they drove further down, the radio continued with reports of growing global violence.

Nikki gazed out over her hometown fearful for her parent’s safety. She spoke in a quiet but determined voice.

“We’re gonna need more bullets.”

THE END

BIOGRAPHY