Zombified (Episode 3): Garden Harbor (7 page)

Roger nodded and descended the ladder. 

"Everyone grab a pack," Joey said, hoisting a tablecloth over one shoulder.  "Single file behind me to the vehicles and then we'll break up and check each one at the same time."

Matty hopped off the ladder and picked up a crate of water bottles, carrying it on his left shoulder.  He followed Roger through the parking lot; zombies homed in on the group.

"All right," Joey called out, "let's check these vehicles, pronto!" 

Matty opened the door to a beige sedan and sat in the driver seat; the keys were missing and the interior reeked of vomit.  "No keys in the beige two-door," he announced.

"Nothing in the red coupe," Allison said, waving through the moon roof of a scratched and dented fire-red sports car. 

"The pick-up has keys, but it won't start," said Roger.  "I'll check the engine.  Carey, give me a hand over here."

An engine started up; it was the mini-van, with Dana at the wheel. 

"Looks we have a winner!" She laughed.  "At least there's room for everyone, right?"

Allison walked around the front of the van, heading to the sliding side door.  Everyone heard the gunshot and watched Allison slide down the hood of the van, smearing blood across the baby blue paint.  For a second, nobody moved; a black SUV weaved through the parking lot, heading for the mini-van.

"Allison!" Carey screamed and ran over, trying to lift Allison's body off the ground. 

Matty saw the muzzle flash erupt from the passenger side of the approaching vehicle; Carey uttered a short sob before the round tore off the right side of her face.  She fell in a heap on top of Allison, arms twitching and blood spreading in a dark pool.

"Get in the fuckin' van!" Dana screamed. 

Joey jumped in the front as Matty wrenched open the side door and tugged at Geoff's sleeve.

"You want a piece of me!" Geoff yelled at the attackers.  "I'm right here!  Come get some!"  Geoff grabbed his crotch and lifted the middle finger high overhead. 

Roger shoved him toward the van.  "Get inside before you get shot!"  They both climbed in and Matty slammed the door shut.  Another shot ripped through the door and exited the opposite side, missing Roger's arm by a hand-width.

"I think they're pissed," Matty said.

"Who?" Roger asked.

"I saw that SUV parked in the lot at Hatchet."  Matty glanced at Joey.

Dana looked in the rear-view mirror.  "Yeah, I remember that truck.  Well this really sucks."

CHAPTER 6

They threw two PVC bombs, one in front and one behind, blasting an exit from the parking lot and creating a barrier of burning cars and flaming bodies. 

Something struck the windshield with a metallic ping, creating a spiderweb crack.

"Wow, the silverware shrapnel get some distance!" Matty held onto the seat as the van swerved around a mound of scorched corpses.

"We need to put some distance between us and them." Joey traced one finger over a map.  "There's like fifty different ways to get to the base!"

"Fifty bottles of beer on the wall," Geoff sang, slurring every syllable and giggling as the van hit a bump and sent him sprawling to the floor.  "Knock one down!"

"How are you holding up, Roger?" Matty asked.

The older man shrugged; his face was an expressionless mask.  "Allison and Carey were nice girls.  It's a shame they died."

"That's on me, Roger.  I drew those maniacs here.  The girls had bright colors on and that's all those assholes saw—they didn't care who it was."  He didn't know what to say; Roger clearly had a soft spot for those girls, but Matty didn't understand why.  "How did you know them?"

Roger shook his head, as if emerging from a dream, and smiled weakly.  "Just met them at Double Brook yesterday, but we had a lot of fun playing games and watching shows.  They reminded me of…"

Matty didn't want to know; if it was a daughter, wife, or someone close, Roger might come unglued.  With a drunk rolling on the van floor, a depressed guy with explosives training could complicate matters.

"How about him?" Matty nodded toward Geoff.

Roger grinned.  "He buried whatever grief he had in a bottle, but at least he's not a mean drunk.  We played some cards and just talked a bit."

Joey leaned back from the front seat and passed the map to Roger.  "I marked a couple of routes on there.  Do you have any other suggestions?"

"I would say let's take the route that avoids heavy traffic areas, but I don't know if that matters anymore."  Roger adjusted his glasses and studied the map.  "The zombies are spreading out in search of food… pretty soon they'll be everywhere."

"Wooneyville, Yankee Heights, Garden Harbor… we're talking a million-plus munchers wandering in all directions." Matty ran a hand through his hair.  "We've already seen them getting weaker from hunger, but how long until they actually die off?"

"Don't forget about Crankshaft," Roger added.  "A million or so people within a week's walk of here."

"Thanks, Roger."  Matty scowled and rubbed his eyes.

"Let 'em come!" Geoff sat up and punched the side of the van.  "I'll take 'em all on!"

"I'd say take Old Quarry Road, Joey."  Roger handed the map over and glanced at the dashboard.  "We won't make it halfway without more gas or another vehicle."

"Yeah, I figured on that," Joey said.  "I wanna get away from those fuckin' lunatics first and then I'll start thinkin' about new wheels."

It took less than hour to get off the two-lane roads around Double Brook; Joey navigated the wreckage and bodies, finally connecting with a quiet rural lane bisecting the town of Abraham. 

"If they managed to follow us, I'll be stupefied," Matty said.  He had used these roads on many occasions, driving to and from the local community college—sometimes he had driven for hours, exploring the sleepy neighborhoods and secluded parks. 

There were zombies about, but only a few appeared on the roadside or on the porches of empty houses.  Wherever people had retreated to—whatever sanctuaries remained—it was likely the zombies weren't far off.  That was the only part of going to Timmons that worried Matty: a horde of munchers at the gate.

"There's a coffee house two miles down on the right." Matty's mouth watered and his ever-present caffeine headache cranked up a notch.  "We might find a car there or maybe some food and water.  Anyone care for a slightly stale muffin?"

"Barf!" Dana gagged.  "Can you imagine what's growing on that stuff right now?"

"I wonder if anyone has contracted the zombie infection from eating food."  Roger creased his brow.  "You guys hear of anything like that?"

Joey and Dana said no.

"When I was in the university, this med student was studying the infection.  He said it piggy-backs on other viruses, masking itself from antibodies and somehow infecting the nervous system."  Matty wished he written it down or had saved Mike's laptop.  "I don't think he understood how it worked exactly, but he seemed to think it might be symbiotic with other germs."

Roger scratched his chin; a puzzling, thoughtful expression wrinkled his forehead. 

"I saw dead bodies, corpses, coming back and moving," Joey said.  "How the fuck does that happen with germs?"

"I dunno, dude.  Maybe the zombie infection isn't really a germ." Matty shrugged.  "Mike seemed to think the connection to nerve cells was important, but he didn't have time to study it further."

"That's a great preliminary work-up," said Roger, "but without knowing if it can survive apart from another pathogen, we won't know the extent of infection.  As for animating corpses, I'm at a complete loss on that one."

"It infects animals," Joey added.  "I had a dog almost rip my face off."

"You should've roasted it!" Geoff climbed on the seat and lay down.  "Then you could have had hot dogs!  Did you have buns?"

"I forgot 'em at home," Joey said.

"Shit outta luck, then.  How about ketchup?"

"No dice on that one, either."

Geoff sighed.  "You can't have hot dogs without buns and ketchup… not right… ice cream and chips… barbecue peanuts…"  His voice trailed off in a string of nonsense and then a heavy, wood-sawing snore filled the van.

"Shit!" Joey drew the pistol from his belt.  "Get the bombs!"

"What is it?" Matty climbed forward and looked out the front window.

"A whole lot of dead people," said Dana.

The slender road came to an abrupt end at a wall of crashed cars and smashed corpses.  Two side streets fed into the area and undead shuffled and staggered toward the van.  It looked like a few cars tried to turn onto the lane at the same time and the resulting accident became a beacon for hungry zombies.

"What are the fuckin' odds!" Dana slapped the steering wheel.  "We pick a backwoods road and still manage to run into a fuckin' problem!"

"Given the number of people and vehicles, the odds aren't all that bad." Matty teased.

"Shut up," she replied, swatting him away.  "What are we doing, Joey?"

Joey held up a PVC bomb and grinned.  "We make boom-boom."

"Go on and do it—boom!" Matty chuckled.  It was a line from a movie; another in a long string of little things that reminded him there was no coming back. 

The zombies swarmed the van.  Joey swung the door open, sweeping three of them to the ground; he stepped out and kicked another one in the sternum, sending it flying back into the trees.  Matty hopped out behind him, brandishing a club fashioned from one of the stools at Double Brook.

"Here we go!" Joey lit the fuse and tossed the bomb into the middle of the debris.  "Move it!"  He shoved Matty into the van; Dana punched it and backed up, running over a zombie or two.  They were thirty or forty yards down the road when the bomb went off.

BOOM! The two cars closest to the blast flipped, stood on end, and then crashed on top of a group of undead.  Bodies flew end over end, smacking into trees and skidding along the pavement.  Flaming arms, legs, and miscellaneous appendages rained down in every direction; shrapnel ricocheted off the hood of the van.

"Woo!  That's what I'm talking about!" Joey pumped a fist in the air and pointed to the flaming gap.  "We make our own entrance!"

No one in the van heard or saw the zombies; the first one ran head-first into the driver-side window, smashing in the glass and causing Dana to jerk the wheel violently.  The van, still moving in reverse, spun suddenly and slid down a bush-covered embankment, narrowly missing a cluster of birch trees.

Hanging out of the window, the zombie snapped and clawed at Dana's shoulder.  Joey reached over, grabbed a handful of its hair, and shoved it away. 

"Holy shit!" Dana gripped the steering wheel and sucked in rapid, short breaths.

"Easy, girl." Joey rubbed her back.  "Get in the back and relax."  He pulled her hands off the wheel and guided her onto a seat in the back. 

Joey plopped in the driver's seat as a pack of sprinting, snarling zombies appeared in front of the van.  They charged down the sloping hill and crashed onto the hood and side, thrusting in pussy, blood-smeared hands and pounding on the doors.

"Punch it, Joe!" Matty climbed into the passenger seat with gun in hand. 

The van lurched forward, vaulted a rock, slid sideways, and then spun in a patch of wet, muddy ground.  Two of the zombies tumbled off when the van turned, rolling down the rest of the embankment and landing in a sluggish brook; the remaining pair clung to the hood, groaning and beating on the windshield.

"We're gonna have to push," Joey said.  "Roger, get up here and take the wheel." 

Joey got out, grabbed the leg of one of the zombies and pulled it off the hood; he raised a boot and stomped on its head until only pudding remained.  Matty opted for a rock, driving the jagged stone into the zombie's skull and leaving it embedded.

They moved to the back of the van.  "Roger, cut it right and gun it.  On three: one, two, three!"  Joey and Matty leaned a shoulder and shoved, digging heels into the leaf-strewn ground and straining as the engine whined.  After a few seconds of protest, the front wheels caught and the van zipped forward, climbing out of the gully.  Joey stumbled forward, shooting out a hand to stop momentum from throwing him to the ground. 

Matty had fallen and pushed himself up to one knee, brushing muddy leaves from his tattered pants.  The sudden moan caught them both off guard; the zombies that had tumbled to the brook burst into view, diving at them.

Joey exploded from his three-point stance, driving both forearms into the zombie's chest and hurling it through the air with terrific force.  It crashed against a gnarled tree-trunk and slid to the ground.  The blow would have killed any living human, but the muncher got right up and came at Joey again. 

Matty freed the gun from his belt and rolled onto his back, firing as he went down; the shot hit the zombie's neck, tearing a mass from the center of its throat.  The corpse floundered, jaws still snapping, and fell to Matty's right, twitching and clawing at the earth.  Adjusting his aim, Matty tracked the zombie charging Joey and fired; the shot clove through its ear and excavated a trench through the side of its head. 

"Nice shot." Joey helped him up and they climbed to the road.  More zombies appeared from the side roads and surrounding woods; it wasn't a horde, but it was more than enough to take down five stragglers in a mini-van.

"Let's get the hell out of here."  Matty opened the side door and jumped in; Joey climbed into the passenger seat, letting Roger handle the driving.

"Head for the coffee shop that Matty mentioned," said Joey.  "We're gonna need to see about replacing this thing—preferably with something that can go off-road."

A one-armed zombie bounced off the passenger door as they tore through the burning hole amid the cars; a score more fell in behind the van, giving chase and growling in frustration as the food escaped down the road.

"If the ones in Wooney were starving, I wonder if anyone is left alive there."  Matty only had a handful of friends and family in the state, but his thoughts wandered to all the children, elderly, and other folks without the means to defend themselves.