The Great Wreck (22 page)

           
“We can
make it!” Greer said getting out of the truck. Nicky climbed out behind her.
Looking at her in the bright daylight, she looked sick, pale and drawn with
deep circles under her eyes. I knew we were all tired but she look sick. Really
sick.

           
“It’s
only a quarter of a mile. Maybe a little more, but we can make it,” Greer said
grabbing her guns.

           
Tony did
the same, “It’s not like we have a choice. Let’s go!” He and Greer started
jogging towards the tram station. I grabbed two pistols and threw the rifle
across my back.

           
“Nicky,
are you ready?” I asked. Nicky had just leaned against the truck. She looked up
at me with a small, sad smile.

           
“I’m not
going with you, Casey.”

           
“What do
you mean you’re not going with me? It’s just up ahead! We can make it!” I said
feeling a chasm of terror open up in my chest.

           
“I mean,
I’m not going to make it and you have to go on now,” she replied. Her hands
drifted up to the neck of her shirt as I stepped closer, planning on carrying
her to the tram if I had to. She undid the top few button of her shirt as I
stepped near her and showed me what she had.

           
I could
see a clear set of bite marks just under her collarbone, a small imprint as
though made by a child, “What…? What happened? How did this happen?” I said
feeling my world slip apart in front of me.”

           
“I’m so
sorry, Casey. I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Nicky said starting to cry, “I
couldn’t let them stay like that, I had to take care of them.” Them. Her
parents. Her little sister.

           
All I
could say was, “No….no….no,” in a weak whisper as I wrapped my arms around her
and held her close.

           
“I went
inside and Devi was there. She turned around and saw me. She didn’t run at me
or anything, just stood there almost like she recognized me. And then she said,
‘Nicky? What happened to me?’ I swear Casey, she said that. And then she was
gone. Her eye clouded over and she lunged at me. It happened so fast, I was
still reeling from what she had said and before I could shoot her, she had bit
me. I pushed her away and put her down but it was too late. I should have shot
myself then and there but I couldn’t leave you, not without saying goodbye. I’m
so sorry Casey, but now you have to go.”

           
“No! I
won’t leave you! I’ll…I’ll…I’ll,” I stammered.

           
“There
is nothing you can do for me except leave me a gun. I’ll buy you some more time
and then, well, I’ll take care of things.”

           
I reeled
in horror. Nicky wanted to use herself as bait and blow off her own head before
the things could get at her. All I could do was shake my head and at that moment
I seriously considered walking back towards the dead with her. We could end it
all together and escape this nightmare for good.

           
Nicky
knew me well enough to know what I was thinking, “No, I’m going to go by
myself. You have to go now, Casey. Please, go now.”

           
I knew
she was right and I gave her one last kiss, “I love you, Nicky.”

           
“I love
you Casey,” she said. I turned from her and began running for the tram station.
I could see up ahead that Casey and Greer had almost reached the gate. I should
have given them the key so that they could have gotten in and got the generator
started but I still had it in my pocket.

           
Behind
me Nicky had cocked her gun and had begun walking towards the waves of dead
pouring in behind us. I tried not to think about what was happening behind me
as I pushed as fast as I could towards the tram station. I tried not to think
of Nicky walking towards the wall of dead, the sprinters seeing her and
screaming, the wave of dead running towards her as she held the gun to her head…

           
Bang! I
stumbled to a top and turned around. I could see Nicky crumbled on the asphalt,
the dead rushing onto her prone body…I turned and ran on. Geer and Tony had
reached the gate and were looking back, horror etched on their faces as they
saw the dead swarm over Nicky’s body.

           
I
reached them a second later, “What happened?!” Greer cried as I fumbled to get
the gate keys out of my pocket.

           
“She was
bit. At her parent’s house. She said we had to keep going,” I said the tears
spilling down my face making it hard for me to see the lock. I finally gave up
and handed the keys to Tony. He took them and unlocked the gate

           
Behind
us, one of the sprinters had finished its eating, looked up and spotted us. It
screamed as it bolted to its feet and began running towards us. We slammed the
gate closed and Tony locked it. It wouldn’t hold. Not with that many dead
running at it. But it would give us enough time to get the tram started and get
up the mountain. We ran up the steep driveway. I didn’t think about Nicky, I just
focused on running as hard as I could. I would get inside, get the generator
started, and maybe, get on the tram with Tony and Greer.

           
We ran
to the door. Tony had the keys out and quickly let us inside then locked the
door behind us, “I’ll start the generator,” I said, “Greer, get to the gondola
and be ready to move. Tony, hold them off until I get the generator running.”

           
We ran
up the stairs and past the gift shop, then out onto the tram platform. Tony
stopped at the door, checked to ensure his rifle was fully loaded then pointed
back down the way we had just come while Greer ran to the tram, popped open the
door, and sat in front of the control panel. I raced past the two tram gondolas
and took the stairs down into the generator room.

           
I
plunged into the semi lit stairwell. The light from the top of the gondola
platform gave me just enough light to see by. At the door to the generator
room, an emergency flashlight was attached to the wall. I grabbed it and turned
it on.

           
Outside
I could hear the dead had reached the gate. The sprinters where screaming as
the masses of dead ran into the gate, rocking it back and forth. It wasn’t
going to hold long. I opened the door of the generator room and moved quickly
to the control panel. I wound up the solenoid battery, primed the diesel fuel
pump, and hit the ignition switch. The generator turned over once, then twice
and died. In the momentarily silence I heard the gate give way with a metallic
screech as the dead poured into the tram station parking lot.

           
I wound
the starter solenoid battery again, primed the diesel pump, at hit the ignition
button again. The diesel turned over once, then twice, then coughed to life.
The dead had reached the glass doors below. I heard them shatter as the
sprinters raced in and headed for the stairs. For just a second, I stood there.
I could wait for just a few minutes. Tony would be forced to get in the gondola
as the dead poured up the stairs. They would escape up the mountain and the
dead would find me here. The pain would be horrendous but it would be over in
just a few short minutes. With so many dead, there wouldn’t be anything left of
me to come back. Or I could follow Nicky’s footsteps and end it here myself.
Tony would hear the gunshot and know what had happened. He and Greer could then
leave this awful place behind and make some sort of life up on the mountain.

           
But
Nicky had asked me to go on. Gave her last moments of life so that I could
escape. I wouldn’t betray her like that. I turned towards the door and ran up
the steps just as the sound of automatic gunfire shatter the air. The dead had
reached the top of the stairs and Tony was mowing them down.

           
“Let’s
go!” I yelled and ran into the gondola. Tony began backing away from the
doorway still shooting down the dead as they reached the top of the stairs. In
the parking lot below us, the dead flooded around the sided of the building and
spotted us up on the gondola platform. I could see their dead faces contorted
in rage as they tried to scale the twenty foot walls to reach us but to no
avail.

           
Tony
fired off his last round just as he stepped into the gondola. He slammed the
door shut and yelled, “Go, Greer!”

           
Greer
pushed the gondola control lever forward and we surged out of the station.
Behind us, the dead flowed out of the doorway and jumped at us, plunging to the
parking lot below as the gondola quickly pulled away and up from the station.
Greer, Tony, and I looked out the back window as the dead continued to swarm
out and around the station filling the gondola platform and the parking lot
below. The gondola rose to a hundred feet, then five hundred, then a thousand
feet.

           
We watch as the tram station receded into the
distance as the dead howled and scream at us as we rose up above the ground
looking at the burning wreckage of Albuquerque. I wondered if anyone would
survive down there and if we might be able to help. We would see what we could
do up on the mountain first. Then we would be back to see if there was anyone
left to help.
  

Out
of the Great Wreck

Pix
and I were only teenagers when the epidemic started. We thought that the first
few weeks of the Event were the worst. Death and dead everywhere. Holing up in
basements, running through the streets with half eaten stiffs charging after
us. We were so wrong.

But
ignorance is bliss, right? And man, was I ignorant.

Let
me tell you about Los Angeles during the initial pandemic. When the infection
swept through the major urban centers, non-infected fled to the suburbs, then
the exurbs, then the outlands. This is what it means when millions of people
all at once clog transportation systems that were designed in the fifties to
carry a few tens of thousands; a vast, metal carnage that turned cars into
glass and steel charnel houses. The resulting mega jam trapped the vast
majority of those people in their cars, trucks, RVs, rattle traps, junk heaps,
and whatever else they could climb into and tried to flee. Some made it out,
the early adopters you might say. The others, Darwin’s children, the ones that
panicked or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time smashed into each
other at the endless pinch points of the California Interstate Highway System
creating the largest traffic jam of all time. Those trapped in the vast pileups
of mangled cars, wrecked and smashed human remains, and infected gave new
meaning to the phrase spam in a can. Most of these were eaten, infected, and
walking again within the first few days of the event.

Let
me tell you about the infected: At first everyone bit was a sprinter. They hauled
ass after the living like they were trying to make the zombie Olympics. They
never got tired, they never got distracted, and they never stopped. It was like
they had this crazy radar in their head and they could follow a living human
until they ran them to ground. Then the feeding would begin and a new sprinter
was born.

After
a few weeks though, their bodies began to decay and the sprinters became
walkers. The radar in their head wasn’t as good but they could still follow you
if you made too much noise, spot you if you were close enough, and smell you if
they were right on top of your hiding spot. A month or so later, most of the
dead had ground down into shufflers who weren’t much of a threat unless a bunch
of them cornered you.

Pix
and I were lucky and learned the rules of the New World quickly. Most of the
people we were with at the beginning weren’t as lucky.

I
don’t remember how we picked up James. Pix and I went to school together and
when the epidemic cut through Los Angeles we tried to hide with our parents
until they were caught, then our friends until all of our friends were dead,
then acquaintances, and finally, complete strangers. We survived by blind luck
managing to make it out of whatever house, hotel, gas station, or shack that
was our temporary refuge until the dead found a way in. Then it was running
with small groups of anyone who was still alive until they were dead too. And
after that, there was just Pix and I. Then one day, through the Brownian terror
of running and hiding, we picked up James.

James
was the worst kind of human being if he was human at all. At the end, I came to
think he was a demon loosely draped in a human body, something spawned by the
epidemic that took over whatever soul James had at the beginning. I knew it
from the first time I saw him hacking apart a few Walkers with an ax, laughing
and screaming like a mad man. I could see it in his eyes. The world was burning
and he had a front row seat. Hell, even better, he was part of the show. James
was in heaven. But the dead were too many even for an animal wrapped in human
skin, even for James and the flow of dead just kept coming. He saw Pix and I as
we bolted in the opposite direction. He chased after us and followed us into a
gas station where we were able to slam the security door down.

Pix
and I were terrified, not of the hoard of dead that we had managed to just
escape but of the monster that now crouched in the shadows of the gas station
with us.