Z-Burbia 4: Cannibal Road (18 page)

***

We lost the light way faster than I expected, but it wasn’t a totally unwelcome thing since we had been forced to stare into the setting sun for several hours before it finally gave up the ghost. Somehow, not one of us had a pair of sunglasses in our packs.

It was also nice to lose the light so we didn’t have to see the signs that things to come may not have been exactly rosy fun.

Tacked to cars, trees, useless lampposts, were dried skins. Human skins. And on those skins, besides faded tattoos and old scars, were sayings like “Dark meat is the best!”, “Eat more Pete!”, “Ain’t no thing but a human wing!”, “We make our own sauce!”, “For a good time, eat Jane!”, “Tastes like chicken, my ass!” and “If might is right then eat the left one, it’s more tender!”.

Fucking awesome.

We also no longer saw what was spray painted on the billboards, which was nice since those words had started before the skins showed up and I was really sick of them. “Tennessee Hunger Brigade”, “The Thigh Boners”, “Crossville Cookers”, and other names that had sinister connotations. Couple the gang names, which is what I figured they were, with the human-hide slogans, and I had a distinct feeling we had officially stepped into canny country.

Again with the fucking awesome.

With our pistols on our hips, and collapsible batons in our hands at all times, we walked the middle of the interstate, which is key to surviving a road trip that suddenly turns from wheels to feet. Always walk in the middle of the road. Shit be hanging out at the side of the road. Zs have a funny way of popping out at you from ditches and ruining your whole day.

Not that the middle of I-40 was a picnic.

The whole trip was supposed to be taken while driving behind a two-story haul truck with a massive cow catcher/snow plow/wedge thingy on the front. It could just shove the abandoned cars to the side and let the convoy pass.

When cars are shoved to the side, the occupants of those cars are shoved to the side as well. But we were without the haul truck, so for as far as we could see there were nothing but abandoned cars. Many of which held some grumpy drivers still strapped to their seats.

Zs are dumb. There’s no debating that. They can’t work seat belts. So if they died in their seat while belted in then they had to stay in their seat since that dying day, gnashing and thrashing until they ran out of energy and were left there to moan and groan.

We walked past a lot of moaners and groaners.

Decayed hands slapped at the glass, or reached out of broken or open windows, their owners so hungry and desperate to get to our tasty, tasty flesh. We were a total tease, an unobtainable goal that snaked its way through the old wrecks. Teeth so brittle from lack of nourishment snapped off in rotted jaws; fingers broke from hands as dried tendons finally let go.

It was kinda sad.

Kinda.

Ok, not really. Fuck the Zs. Sure, they used to be people, and I feel bad for those that died, but the Zs they turned into can kiss my living ass. Just kiss it. They can pucker up and have a smoochy smooch. They can take those shriveled lips and plant them right where my-.

“Jace,” Stella gasped. “Look.”

My mind had been so busy on the Zs in cars tangent that I hadn’t noticed that the tangle of cars stopped only a few yards away from us.

“What the fuck is that?” Charlie asked, his hand going to his 9mm. “Dad?”

“Not a fucking clue,” I said.

For as far as we could see, the eastbound lanes of I-40 were walled in. The westbound lanes were blocked from us by stacks and stacks of broken and abandoned cars. We couldn’t switch to the westbound route even if we wanted to.

“Is there something written on the walls?” Greta asked. “It’s hard to see. Where’s the flashlight?”

We cautiously moved forward and saw that our end of what I could only call a gauntlet was blocked by a maze of chain link fencing. As we got up to the fencing we could see that the road underneath had been dug out and the fences were only supported by narrow beams. And under those beams, in the space where road and dirt should have been, were dozens and dozens of Zs.

“They can’t climb so they just fall in,” Charlie said.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Greta said.

“Fuck off.”

“You fuck off.”

“You both fuck off,” I snapped. “This isn’t good.”

“We aren’t Zs,” Greta said. “We can just hang onto the chain link and climb across.”

“Says the teenager with two hands,” I replied. “Good for you.”

“Oh...right,” Greta frowned. “Sorry.”

“Shit,” Stella said. “Maybe we should go back and try to go around.”

“Not going back,” I said. “We know what kind of crazy is in Knoxville. And I don’t see how we can go around unless we want to head across open land, which is not a good idea in the middle of the night.”

“We could find an empty car and crash out, and then tackle it in the morning,” Charlie suggested. “That way we have some light.”

Greta, with flashlight in hand, studied the walls just past the Z pit. They were made of all kinds of material, but looked pretty solid from what I could see. There was enough of a breeze to make the trees at the sides of the interstate sway, but the walls didn’t budge.

“I think we need to get out of here,” Greta said as she backed up. “Going in there is not a good idea.”

“Why? What do you see?” Stella asked. “What’s written on the walls?”

“Gibberish,” Greta said. “But it’s not the writing that we need to worry about. Look!”

She shined the flashlight right onto a row of dark smudges, which turned out not to be smudges at all, but bloody handprints.

Above the handprints, and many other dark stains and crusted looking globs of God knows what, were words such as: “Better beat it or you get beat!”, “Don’t worry, we’ll wait twenty minutes before eating you!”, and my personal favorite, “Fear is nature’s tenderizer!”.

I don’t know why I liked that one. Maybe it was the former cook in me that got what that one was going for.

“So no go on the forward progress,” I announced. “Back to the crazy we know then?”

“Yep,” Stella said. “Back to Knoxville until we come up with a better plan.”

We all turned and that’s when the headlights turned on and we found ourselves staring at no less than ten motorcycles.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “Crazies with fucking motorcycles. Great. Who wants to bet they are wearing goggles too? Mother fucking crazies with motorcycles and goggles!”

I stepped forward and shielded my eyes against the glare.

“Hey, assholes! You know that the post-apocalypse didn’t actually come with a dress code, right? You mother fucking Road Warrior wannabes!”

“Good one, Dad,” Charlie said. “You told them. They’ll let us go now, for sure.”

“Time to run the road!” one of the riders shouted, but I couldn’t tell which because of the headlights. “It’s a night run for you, Cleaver beavers!”

“Cleaver beavers?” Greta asked. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s a reference to Leave It To Beaver,” Stella said.

“Leave it to what? That didn’t explain shit,” Greta snapped.

“It was a sitcom, but we don’t have time to go into television history, okay?” I growled. I cleared my throat and held up my hands. “Sorry about the fashion remark. I’m a little stressed. Listen, we’re kinda tired and not really up for running any road. Is there a detour we could take, possibly? We’ll let the next set of Cleaver beavers run the road.”

“Cleaver beavers be talkin’ back?” another voice asked. “Cleaver beavers need a lesson in manners.”

The riders revved their engines then shot towards us. Great.

“Go!” I shouted as I pushed at Stella. “Climb!”

Charlie and Greta hit the chain link first and scrambled to get across the Z pits. They went hand over hand, foot to foot, by gripping and jamming their toes between the links. Stella followed after them and I was right behind, but my disability slowed me down considerably. Back in the Explorer were all of my attachments for Stumpageddon. They were boxed up in the back since my shoulder couldn’t take the weight of them.

Kinda wished I had one of the hook attachments right about then.

Painful was an understatement. I jammed my feet into the links then leaned as far into the fence as it would give. This kept me from falling backwards as I inched my way across, my only hand having to jump form one position to another lightning fast or I would go tumbling down into the Z mosh pit below.

“Cleaver beavers be zoom zoom zipping!”

“Go, go, Cleaver beavers!”

“Now you get to run the road! Now you get to run the road!”

“I farted. Excuse me.”

“This is ten kinds of some fucked up fucking shit,” Greta said as we finally all stood on the other side of the pits and watched as spotlights, strings of Christmas lights, neon signs, and whatever could go blinky blinky, started to illuminate all the way down the road. “We are so fucking dead!”

A huge neon sign came to life and the words “Cannibal Road” loomed over us. Holy shit...Kramer didn’t mean the name as a metaphor, the place was actually called Cannibal Road.

Shit.

“Hello, contestants!” a voice boomed from speakers just above us. From the slight echo, I guessed there were speakers all along the walls too. “Welcome to Cannibal Road! We aren’t a proud bunch, but just some plain spoken folk that tell it like it is! We eat people and you are people!”

A massive cheer went up all down the walls on both sides. I could see shapes and shadows of spectators start to show up as people crawled on top of the wall and sat there with their legs hanging down.

“At least they aren’t being coy,” I said and got a death glare from Stella. “What? It’s kinda refreshing.”

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind introducing yourselves, we can get this party started,” the announcer said. A microphone was lowered by its wire down to us from the top of the right side wall. “We like to get to know our contestants before we send them a’runnin’!”

I looked at my family then shrugged. I took a deep breath and walked to the mic, grabbing it with my one hand and waving my stump at the spectators.

“Hi, I’m Jace Stanford,” I said. “My family and I are from Asheville, but decided that we’d try and vacation in Knoxville. Things didn’t turn out like we wanted when our car broke down and the hotel lost our reservation. The bastards even tried to hold onto our deposit. Can you believe that? So, as much as we’d love to play your people-eating game, I think we’re kind of all done with the vacation fun and we’ll just be on our way. Thank you for your time and God bless.”

There was nothing but silence for a few seconds then the walls erupted with laughter.

“Jace Stanford!” the announcer chuckled. “You amazing breath of fresh air! Way better than the screamers and the pleaders, right folks?”

A huge cheer went up and down the walls.

“Now, Jace Stanford, would you be so kind as to introduce your fine looking family?” the announcer asked. “We’d certainly appreciate it.”

“Well, thank you for asking,” I said, playing along while I hoped my family would come up with some sort of plan. “The tall young man there is my son Charlie. By his side is his sister, my lovely daughter, Greta. Charlie is into video games and quiet reading under oak trees while Greta is more of an artist and also a mean hatchet and cauterize girl if you happen to lose a limb.” I waved Stumpageddon. “Not that she did this handy work. Just want that to be clear.” I waved to Stella and she looked at me as if I was one of the cheering crazies.

“Come now, Mrs. Stanford,” the announcer said. “Don’t be shy.”

Stella put on a weak smile and shuffled over to me.

“Jace,” she mumbled out of the side of her mouth. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Keeping them talking,” I replied. “Hopefully you guys can figure a way out of this mess.”

“Yep, we’re fucked,” Greta said.

“The mouth on that one!” the announcer laughed. “I like it!”

“This is my wife Stella,” I said. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

The spectators whooped and hollered.

“Ahhh, you’re making her blush,” I said. “Stella doesn’t like speaking in front of large crowds, and you guys are a large crowd. How many of you are there anyway? I can’t tell because of all the lights.”

“Well, thank you for asking as well, Jace Stanford,” the announcer said. “We are a community of about two hundred, split into different groupings based on personality preferences and specific proclivities.”

“Two hundred? Wow, that’s a lot,” I replied. “You can’t expect a pitiful family of four like us to feed two hundred, can you? Look at us! We’re just skin and bones!”

“Oh, we have others,” the announcer said. “And you wouldn’t be feeding all two hundred of us. Like I said, we are split into different groups.” The announcer cleared his throat. “This would be a perfect time to explain the rules of Cannibal Road!”

“Rules! Rules! Rules! Rules!”

“Four Stanfords enter, none of us leave,” Charlie said.

“You got that right, bro,” Greta replied.

“Rules! Rules! Rules! Rules!”

“I think they want to hear the rules,” I said to Stella.

“How can you be joking at a time like this?” she snapped.

“I joke because I want to shit my pants and run screaming while waving my arms over my head,” I replied then looked at Stumpageddon. “Or while waving myarm.”

“THE RULES!” the announcer shouted and the spectators quieted down. “Here’s how it works, Stanfords: You get as long as you need to go from where you stand to the very end of Cannibal Road.”

“How long is this fine avenue of yours?” I asked.

“Patience now, Jace Stanford,” the announcer chuckled. “All answers will be revealed.”

“My bad.”

“No worries,” the announcer continued. “Cannibal Road is exactly one mile long. Trust me, we’ve measured it.”

“Measured it!” the spectators shouted.

“Everything marked, everything ‘membered,” Charlie laughed. Greta snorted snot out of her nose.

“Jesus!” Stella snapped. “Not you two also!”

“Now, listen closely, Stanfords, because this is important,” the announcer said. The spectators quieted down. Somewhat. “The first half of the road is a free for all. Well, free for us, but not so much for you fine folks.” Laughter. “When I say go, you’ll start running. Along the way there will be obstacles thrown into your path. Get by the obstacles, stay alive, and you will reach the second part of the road.”