Rocky Mountain Die (3 page)

“Aaayyy,” I say and give her a thumb-up. Hey, my thumb is working! Huzzah!

She frowns and cocks her head. She waves the shotgun at me.

“What’s up with all that stuff on your head?” she asks.

A bullet hole appears right next to the RV door and her face turns to pure rage.

“No, you don’t!” she screams. “I’ll blast your—”

***

There’s smoke everywhere. I can feel the heat and start to feel the pain as soon as my eyes open and I come to again.

Pain?

“AAAYYY!!!!” I yell.

Hey, I have volume back! The growls, snarls, moans and groans of Zs reply to my volume.

Shit.

“I know, Jace!” Stuart yells from right behind me. “Try to pat the flames out!”

Flames? Oh, shit, the pain is because my legs are on fire! Or the blanket draped across my lap is on fire. I grab the blanket and toss it aside.

And, apparently, I have pissed myself at some point. Either that or someone dumped a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew on my crotch. Joy.

But, hey, the pain is gone now that the burning blanket of ow is off of me.

“Aaayyy,” I say.

“Knock it off with the Fonzie shit, Jace,” Stuart says as he avoids a brutal-looking pothole in the middle of the street. “Use your fucking words.”

I would love to do that, Stuart. That would be my preferred way of communicating, but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. You see, my good chap, I have had my skull cracked open and two doctors playing Operation with my brain. That seems to wreak havoc with one’s faculties.

“Aaayyy,” I say to get my point across.

“Fuck you too,” Stuart says.

My right eardrum almost bursts as pistol fire explodes around me. When that stops, the distinct sound of a trigger clicking, clicking, clicking because it’s empty makes its way through the cottony fuzz that is my hearing.

“Shit,” Stuart says. “I’m out.”

“Here,” Stella says. “I’ll push. You shoot.”

Phew. My lady is with me. I feel the wheelchair jostle and then there’s a brief kiss on the back of my neck.

“I found you,” Stella says. “Thank God.”

“Where’s Greta?” Stuart asks.

“With the Fitzpatricks,” Stella says. “We got separated.”

“The doctors?” Stuart asks.

“I think they’re with them too,” Stella replies. “I don’t know.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Stuart says. He fires a couple times. “You see what I see?”

“Yes, Stuart, I see it,” Stella snaps. “I am very aware of the blood pouring down my husband’s scalp.”

“Wasn’t trying to start anything,” he responds. More firing. “It’s just that this may be out of Dr. McCormick’s and Reaper’s league.”

“Are they at the hospital?” Stella asks.

“Last I heard,” Stuart says. “Radios have gone silent, though.”

“Batteries dead?” Stella asks. We get to the corner of the street and she pauses. “Which way?”

“Right,” Stuart says. We turn right. There are a lot of Zs coming at us. “Left!”

Stella gets me turned around and I see Stuart take a firing stance as we hurry past in the opposite direction. He starts firing as Stella wheels me down the street and soon I hear more empty clicking.

“Magazine!” Stuart yells.

“Back pocket!” Stella responds.

We slow briefly as I imagine Stuart grabbing a fresh magazine out of Stella’s pocket. I want to say something like, “Keep your hand off my wife’s ass, buckaroo!” but all that comes out is “Aaayyy.”

“Relax,” Stella says. “He didn’t cop a feel.”

I love my wife.

We get to the next corner and Stella turns right. I’m guessing she’s going to circle around so we are headed the way we need to be headed. No Zs on this street, which is a relief. Stuart sprints past us to the corner and looks to his right. He gives us a thumbs-up, which I return since a thumb-up is kinda my thing right now, and Stella starts pushing me faster.

Gunshots echo to us from far off then several explosions shake the ground.

“Something big,” Stuart said. “I’m guessing it was that propane warehouse we passed a few blacks back.”

“Good guess,” Stella says. “I just hope it was our people blowing it up, not getting blown up by it.”

“Sounded deliberate,” Stuart says.

“Aaayyy,” I agree.

Stuart glances at me and shakes his head.

“You just can’t help yourself,” he says.

Next street, quick scan, we go. This happens over and over until we get to a street, do a quick scan, we can’t go.

“Both directions,” Stuart whispers.

The Zs must be close if he’s whispering. They must not have seen us either or we’d be running and yelling. You pick this stuff up when you live in the zombie apocalypse. I should write a Dummies book one day for those that haven’t quite figured it all out yet. Of course, if they haven’t figured it out yet then they are probably dead. Not much of a market there then.

“What now?” Stella whispers.

“We sprint across the intersection and hope they don’t see us,” Stuart shrugs. Things are never good when he shrugs. It basically means our options are a coin toss. Awesome. “Want me to take Jace?”

“I’ve got him,” Stella says. “You just keep that pistol up and ready.”

More gunshots, but no explosions following.

I watch Stuart cock his head.

“That was a .50 caliber,” Stuart says. “Only Lourdes’s people have a .50.”

“Are they coming to find us?” Stella asks, but I can tell she doesn’t believe her own question.

“Let’s hope,” Stuart says. “You ready to run?”

“Kind of always ready,” Stella says.

“Okay. Then let’s—”

***

There is nothing but pain. Pure, white hot, excruciating pain. It radiates out from my head and engulfs my body. I feel hot, I feel cold, I feel every nerve in my entire body alive and dancing on the point of a razor sharp knife.

I also feel rough asphalt under my cheek and the distinct wetness of blood. Lots of blood. Lots and lots of blood.

There’s some blood, in case I’m not being clear.

Someone grabs me under my armpits and lifts me up. It’s Stella. I can tell by the grunting. I know my wife’s grunting.

Shut up. Don’t be gross. She grunts when she works out. It’s that kind of grunting. Perverts.

“Baby?” she asks as she drops me back into the wheelchair. “Jace?”

“Aaayyy,” I mumble.

“Oh, thank God,” she cries. I can hear the tears in her voice. “I thought I’d lost you. You’re bleeding a lot.”

See? Told you there is blood.

“This way,” Stuart mutters from my side.

I catch a glimpse of him as he limps past us. He’s holding his left arm to his side and limping on his left leg. I don’t see a pistol or any weapon on him. And he’s missing a boot. Shit. How long was I out this time?

“We’re going to have to spend the night here,” Stuart says as he turns towards a boarded-up building to our right. Well, he doesn’t really turn as much as he does a slow, painful pivot.

The white hotness of my own pain subsides slightly. Just slightly. It’s not so much white hot anymore as maybe an eggshell hot. Fresh cream hot? Yes, I have looked at a lot of paint samples in my day.

We stop in front of the boarded-up, two-story building and Stuart tries the door. He gives the boards across it a hard yank, but with only one good arm he doesn’t make much progress.

“Around back,” Stella says. “We have to hurry.”

Stuart looks to our left, his gaze scanning the street.

“Okay,” he says. “They haven’t seen us yet. This way.”

He limps around the side of the building. That’s when I notice we aren’t on a street, but in a parking lot. The burned-out shells of cars are everywhere, but not in a haphazard way. Looks like someone created a maze at one point to slow down the Zs and/or any crazies. I’d say the crazies won since there are two scorched-looking abandoned semis that obviously plowed right through the middle of the maze.

I don’t have a good feeling about this.

“Here,” Stuart hisses. “This one is loose.”

Stella wheels me up to a side door that Stuart has pried open. The smell of decay wafts out at us, but it isn’t fresh or rotten. If there are corpses inside then they are long dead. Let’s hope so.

We make it inside and Stuart quietly closes the door behind us. Stella leaves me next to the wall and helps Stuart begin pushing anything and everything they can find up against the door.

“We’ll have to check all the exits,” Stuart says. “Then find a secure place and dig in for the night.”

“Fine,” Stella says.

Greta is out there; Charlie is out there; we’re cut off from our group and all my wife has to say is “fine”? Man, that does not make me feel good about the situation we’re in.

My eyes adjust to the darkness and I see the outlines of storage shelves and rows and rows of boxes. In piles everywhere are nothing but books.

“Aaayyy?” I ask.

“It’s an old Barnes and Noble,” Stella says. “Closest building that isn’t burned to the ground.”

“Except for the Payless Shoe Source next door,” Stuart says. “But that place was full of Zs. Someone lured them inside then locked them up. You can see them pressed up against the glass windows.”

Stuart looks about and picks up a broom from the floor. He unscrews the head and tosses it then grips the handle tight as he looks back at us.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yes,” Stella says.

“Aaayyy,” I say and nod.

White hot pain!

Nodding is bad. No more nodding.

“Don’t nod,” Stella says quietly in my ear. “You’re bleeding bad and you’re going to make it worse.”

“Aaayyy,” I reply.

“I know head wounds bleed a lot,” Stella says. “But you don’t have a head wound. You just had brain surgery.”

“Aaayyy,” I say.

“Don’t argue with me,” she snaps.

I speak only in Fonzese and still lose the argument. That’s life, folks.

Stella weaves us through the piles of books and broken shelves until we get to the swinging double doors that will take us out into the store. One of the doors is broken off its hinges and leans against the wall while the other just hangs there, looking sad and alone.

Stuart walks out into the store and stops. We wait a minute then he waves us forward. When we get next to him, Stella and I both gasp.

Every inch of the bookstore floor is covered in desiccated corpses; dried out husks of people long-since dead.

Stuart pushes bodies out of the way so Stella can wheel me down the aisle. I don’t dare move my head to get a good look at the bodies, but there are so many that I don’t really have to strain to see what happened.

Suicide. We’ve seen it before, but not on this scale. You come across people in their beds or in their cars, their heads blown open from self-inflicted gunshots. But this looks like poisoning. Sort of.

“Families,” Stella says, her voice choked up. “Look at them holding each other. Holding hands.”

“They probably drank something,” Stuart says. “See the small cups?”

I’d make a Jonestown joke, but that would be cruel. This wasn’t a cult. This was the last days of desperate, scared people.

Stuart crouches by a family of four. The bodies are so decayed that I have no idea what the genders of these people were, but they obviously cared for each other. Their last embrace is proof of that.

“Someone went around and pierced their skulls once they were gone,” Stuart says. “You can see the entry wounds by their temples.”

“Then someone didn’t take the poison,” Stella says. “And could still be walking around.”

“True,” Stuart says. “If they stuck around.”

We get to the center of the store, right where the old escalators are and then stop. We quickly have our answer.

Swaying slightly, its neck held tightly by a noose made from an orange extension cord, is a Z. Its eyes roll in its head, cloudy, grey orbs that no longer see anything. The tips of the thing’s fingers twitch as we move closer, its animal brain alerted by the soft noise of our feet and wheels.

“Get it down and put it out of its misery,” Stella says quietly. “Why didn’t it stab itself also? Would have been easy.”

“Would it?” Stuart asks as he climbs cautiously up the escalator to the second floor.

He works at the extension cord knot that holds it to the second floor railing until it comes free and the Z comes crashing down. Its limbs snap off instantly, the tendons and ligaments so dry. But the head is still intact and the cloudy eyes search for us, knowing prey is close, knowing food is only a step away.

Stuart tosses the broom handle down to Stella and my wife doesn’t even hesitate. She catches the handle, walks up to the Z, and stabs it through the skull. The eyes stop rolling, stop searching, go still. Normally, after stabbing a Z, you’d flick off the gunk, but this thing is so dried out there’s barely anything on the end of the handle. Stella wipes off what little mess there is on the old carpet and steps back from the silenced Z.