Swarm (Dead Ends) (27 page)

The winding route seemed to take us further away from the water for a while but I had no choice but to trust it. The days of pulling into a gas station and putting your pride in check as you asked for directions are over. The engine began to smoke more and more but I think a part of me was trying to ignore it and hope that it could make it just a few more miles until I would no longer have a use for it. Judging from the engine temperature gauge, the radiator had been destroyed in the collision. I tried to be gentle with the gas but it didn’t seem to matter. The truck finally lurched to a stop just outside of an abandoned strip mall. Mellie and I wasted no time. I threw the gear over my shoulder and readied the silenced revolver. Without hesitation, Mellie dutifully followed me as I cautiously approached the back employee entrance to a video store. Aside from it being a sad relic of entertainment’s past, the store seemed relatively untouched, including the large selection of movie sized candy that rested at the register. I shoved some Junior Mints and Whoppers in my bag just in case. It could be the last time I ever get to eat them.

I walked to the front of the store and peered out the large windows. Everything seemed to be still. The whole area untouched by chaos save for one large SUV hastily parked in front of what looked like a gym. The chances of finding the keys were slim but I didn’t really have any other choice at this point. We needed a vehicle to get to the marina. I didn’t want to take my chances running through the streets when it was clear that a large truck wasn’t even enough to be truly safe. I didn’t like the idea of being so out in the open in this parking lot but I needed that SUV. I began walking towards it at an angle, keeping my eyes open for any movement when I was distracted by the scene behind the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the gym. They were almost completely covered with blood and chunks of hair and what looked like bile. It looked like the aftermath of an enormous meat bomb. A lot of good staying in shape did these people. A small smile cracked the hardened features of my face. I like to think that the zombie virus hit the fitness freaks just a little faster than the rest of us. A bunch of pretty people starving themselves for the 10 minutes of attention that comes with having a perfect body. Their bodies were primed and ready for a free pass to a never-ending meat buffet. Through the streaks of blood, I could see treadmills facing out towards the parking lot. They were covered in deep shades of crimson. I imagined some dumb jock or perfect looking blonde running for their worthless lives on that treadmill, furiously increasing the speed as they peered over their shoulders, flummoxed as to why the meat wagon was still gaining ground behind them.

I had lost myself in this darkly humorous fantasy for a bit too long. First I saw a glint in the glass. Something moving in the distance. But before I could turn around, the glass shattered. Without hesitation, I sprinted towards the SUV, Mellie at my feet the entire time. About halfway there, I realized how stupid my plan was. I had no idea where the keys were or if the SUV actually still ran. I could’ve just gone back into the video store and shot out the back, hopefully losing them in the process. Instead, I was avoiding being shot and hoping for a miracle as I sprinted towards near-crippling uncertainty. Mellie beat me there as if she knew all along what I was planning on. When I rounded the car to shield myself from the gunfire, I was not expecting a body half buried underneath it in the shadows where I wouldn’t have been able to see it from 10 feet away let alone the 100 or so feet from the video store. Mellie sniffed the body but she didn’t growl. This seemed to be an actual dead human. There were no bite marks that I could see but when I turned the woman’s body over, it looked as if she had been run over. Maybe someone panicked when they saw something or heard the news and suddenly other human lives didn’t mean much to them. I’m assuming that’s the case with whoever it is that’s shooting at me. Bullets pelted the SUV and snapped me back into focus. I searched the woman’s body and luckily found the keys hidden inside her inner jacket pocket.

I attempted to look through the SUV’s windows to see how far away my attackers were but the tinting was too dark. I peered around the back as another bullet whizzed by. They weren’t far off now. There were at least two of them inside an old white blood-stained Mustang 5.0. One was driving, the other shooting wildly, wasting ammo and undoubtedly drawing in the undead with each round they fired. I unlocked the door, threw Mellie onto the floor on the passenger side, and fired up the engine. It was surprisingly quiet for such a large SUV but it had a full tank of gas and that was all I cared about. The tires screeched and bit into the pavement as I steadied the wheel and got us away from whatever the hell kind of crazy was coming after us. I wound through back roads for 10 minutes or so, stopping every few minutes to listen for the growl of an engine or the concussion of a gunshot. I heard nothing. Either I’d managed to lose them or they had given up. Either way, the circumstances being what they are, I didn’t have time to worry about them anymore. I thought about the laptop and about Project Clean Sweep. My only chance to survive, albeit a very slim chance I’m sure, is to hope for the best once we get on the water. I looked at the GPS and smiled. We were only a few short miles away from what I hoped would be freedom. Or at least as close to freedom as could be expected. I had rolled the window about halfway up when I heard it. The spine-tingling moan of the dead. A few seconds later, the ground began to rumble. I felt as if I were on train tracks waiting for a train barreling ahead straight towards me. They were coming. Another angry swarm of undead. I didn’t see them yet which meant that there were a shitload of them. Their moans and footfalls seemed to echo off of buildings and intensify. I needed to get to the marina. Now.

I turned out onto the road that according to the GPS would be a straight shot down to the marina. I was greeted with the violent screeching of rubber, narrowly missing the Mustang as it veered off the road. They were still looking for me and I had just made their job a lot easier. I floored the accelerator to create some distance between us as they tried to maneuver out of the spin I had put them into. For a while I didn’t see them but when I saw the first sign for the marina, they showed up in the rear view a second later. The road dipped down and finally I could see the water and the marina beckoning at the bottom of the hill. From my distance it looked as though the front gate was locked so I had no choice but to pick up speed and blast through it. The Mustang kept a comfortable distance behind me as the passenger lazily took shots at the SUV, missing every time. It made me wonder how these idiots were able to survive for this long. The gates flew open, buckling easily under the heft and speed of the SUV. I followed the signs, putting the SUV’s rigidity to the test with every hard corner I screeched around. I flew over the first speed bump going at least 60 miles per hour and I was hoping the Mustang would do the same. A second later I had my answer as their car came to a violent stop and they both jumped out, firing shots, and running towards the marina as they did so. There were only a few boats left and luckily one of them was the Gracie May. I gathered everything I could from the SUV. Mellie took a second to get with it after being hurled around the vehicle’s interior like a pinball but she jumped into my arms and we were ready to go.

I realized suddenly that the firing had stopped. It was quiet again for just a second then the rumbling pierced through the silence, engulfing any fleeting amount of serenity that still lingered. I looked to my two pursuers who had their guns at their sides. They were staring up towards the top of the hill that overlooked the water, their sloped shoulders and gaping mouths indicating awe. Or perhaps defeat. I followed their gaze up the crest and I couldn’t believe what I saw. In all directions, the dead were trampling the landscape like a bulldozer with a broken accelerator. The moaning rattled my insides. Mellie shook in my hands as she took turns growling and whining. She looked up at me as if to say
time to go
and that was enough to get me moving again. I untied the ropes that held the Gracie May to the dock and hopped in behind Mellie who was now wagging her tail at the recognition of the boat she had probably been on many times. The rumbling made it hard to concentrate once I was onboard. I’d never operated a boat this large before. It was a large sailboat with sleeping quarters and a whole bunch of levers, pulleys, and ropes that I would never understand. But it meant safety, for now at least. I turned the key and the motor surged to life.

I looked back towards the men, trying hard not to look at the swarm of undead stumbling down the hill from all directions. Judging from the noise alone, the ones I could see represented very little of the total number. The men had dropped their guns and were running towards the ship, waving their hands as if apologies still meant something in the middle of an apocalypse. The boat was about fifty yards out into the water when they reached the dock. I could see them looking back at the first wave of meat grinders who had finally made it to the bottom of the hill. They knew they had no choice. They jumped in and began swimming, choosing death by drowning over the alternative. I stopped the engine and let the boat coast for a while as I watched the first wave make it to the water. They didn’t even skip a beat. They just kept running, one after the other, splashing into the water and on top of the others that had splashed into the water before them. The coastline was soon littered with them, their mangled bodies blotting out the landscape beneath their feet. From the shoreline all the way up to the top of the hill, all you could see were bodies. And they just kept surging into the water to the point where the water level actually began to rise. Before long it was just wet decaying bodies falling on top of other wet decaying bodies. There were so many of them, the water no longer mattered. Another few minutes would turn the mass of bodies into a disturbing wall of death and decay. I had no plans on waiting around to witness it. I pulled out the slip of paper that Doc had given me before he had turned in the forest, the one with his daughter’s name and address on it. I looked it over hard and then turned to Mellie. “Ever been to the San Juan Islands, girl?” I was greeted with a confused turn of the head and hearty tail wag that seemed to say “I’m up for anything!” So with no other direction to head to, that’s exactly what we decided to do.

***

A week must have passed before we really knew what had happened. I had anchored the boat out in the middle of nowhere so we could both get some much needed rest and relaxation. It took us both a while to get our sea legs but the boat was well-stocked with everything we needed for the foreseeable future, which was admittedly only a few weeks. But even that felt like an eternity. And that was enough for me. We ate, we played, we ate some more, and most importantly, we rested our weary bodies. After a while I began to think that things on the mainland were so bad off, the military plans I had read on that laptop would never come to fruition. I began to make plans. I wanted to scavenge for food, maybe find a library where I could get some books about being a survivalist, even find an abandoned PetCo somewhere so I could spoil Mellie with every kind of toy and treat her little brain could comprehend.

Sleep became much easier to come by. Surprisingly I actually found myself relaxing. Enjoying the lapping sounds of water hitting the boat, throwing a pole in the water to see what I could catch (which was not much), even doing calisthenics on the boat as Mellie looked on in confusion. But mostly I slept with Mellie at my side, digging her nose into the recesses of my clothes in a constant search for warmth.

We were both sound to sleep when the first mushroom cloud turned night into day.

-The End-

***

I hope you enjoyed the first of what I hope to be many zombie books coming from my demented mind in the near future. I’m hard at work on the sequel now (I’m aiming for a Winter 2014 release) as well as a few short stories and other full projects (including a total Ghostbusters rip-off unsurprisingly called Zombiebusters as well as a zombie book in the world of G.I. Joe which has just been announced as a new Kindle Worlds franchise). But one thing you can be sure of: Every book released by G.D. Lang will be a zombie book. I didn’t jump on a bandwagon. I simply love zombies and I could write about them for the rest of my life. It’s a passion, plain and simple. I hope you’ll follow me as I continue to churn out new books for the foreseeable future. As always, a few moments of your time to review my book would be greatly appreciated.

I don’t have a website or mailing list just yet but if you would like to be notified of any of my upcoming releases, go to my Amazon author page and look to the right side of the screen where it says something like “Stay Up To Date” and click the link below that says “Email me when there are new releases by G.D. Lang”. If I ever get around to making a website, it will be announced on my Amazon author page. I’m not big on Facebook (nor will I ever be) and my wife has forbid me from having a Twitter account - something about a “lack of a social filter” or some nonsense - but I will do my best to connect with you in any way I can. This is all new to me and while the writing part comes easy, the marketing part still makes my head hurt. But I’ll get there, I promise.

Thank you for your support!

-G.D. Lang

Acknowledgements

To my mom:

You may not know it but from the moment I was born, I knew you were a force to be reckoned with. You imbued in me the kind of toughness that cannot be taught; only absorbed from watching you every day. You taught me to look adversity in the eye and promptly give it the middle finger. And maybe even spit in its face just to get the point across. I think it’s an Anderson thing. You’re the kind of woman who could take a knife to a gunfight and emerge victorious. Yet at the same time, you manage to have the biggest heart I have ever seen. I don’t know how you do it but I hope you never stop doing it.