Once we
finished tying down the packs, bottled water, and cases of canned food, Tony
climbed on the ATV and Greer took a seat behind him. I got on my ATV and Nicky
followed suit. When the four of us had gotten on the bikes, it became clear
that we had overlooked something.
“And
where am I supposed to sit?” Dreysi said, close to tears. For a moment I could
sympathize with her standing there alone. I had Nicky, Tony had Greer, and as I
looked, there wasn’t enough room for her to sit on either bike.
“You
could walk,” Tony suggested.
“Fuck
off Tony,” Nicky said softly as she scrunched up to me as tight as she could
and I moved as far forward without breaking my balls on the plastic faring of
the bike while still being able to turn the handlebars. Dreysi climbed on the
back and fit, just barely, and then we were off with Tony and Greer taking the
lead.
Greer
dismounted and opened the gate and let the two bikes pass through, then closed
it up, careful to securely lock it just as Tony had with the cabin. Maybe
somebody would be able to use this place someday. Maybe some hikers who had
managed to survive the dead wandering around the forest would find this place
and be able to stay here.
Greer
climbed back on the bike behind Tony and wrapped her arms around his waist,
“Hands above the belt, right Tony?” I called out.
“Not for
Greer,” he said and rolled down the trail. I released the clutch and followed
him watching the trail and watching the woods while trying to keep up with Tony
and not dump us all off the bike. Thank god it was a four wheeler.
It was
only five miles to the truck, but it seemed like a million. I’ve never felt so
exposed and helpless in my entire life. It felt like at any second the forest
would erupt and spill out thousands of dead. They’d swarm over us, pulling us
from the bikes and pinning us to the ground. Then the biting would begin. How
long until one of them hit an artery or took so many bites out of us that we
just bled out?
Everything around us
seemed to be alive with the wind blowing through the branches. I kept seeing
figures deep in the woods out of the corner of my eyes. I’d see a shadow off to
my right, jump, and gun the bike jerking us back every few minutes.
“Just
watch the trail, Casey. I’m watching the woods,” Nicky said in my ear.
“Anything
out there?”
Nicky
hesitated for just a second that told me she was about to lie, “No, there’s
nothing out there.”
I
focused on the trial keeping a few yards back from Tony. Ignoring the things I
caught glimpses of, things I kept telling myself were not there. Then, up ahead
I saw Greer’s arm shoot out and point to the right of the trail. Tony
immediately put on his breaks. I rolled up behind him so I could hear them
whispering to each other.
“There!
Maybe twenty feet! Jesus on a pogo stick!” Greer hissed then grabbed Tony’s
head and twisted in the direction she was looking, “Behind that big pine tree!
How can you not see him?”
Then I
saw him. He was a big fella, three hundred pounds when he was alive but
probably a lot less now that most of him had been eaten away. Most of his
enormous gut had been eaten out leaving great wads of flesh dangling below his
waist and his vast abdominal cavity open to the air. His arms and legs seemed
to be mostly intact along with his head and face. His beard was slicked against
his jaw with some black junk that spilled down his bare chest. Strangely, a
tired and worn out red cap was still perched on his giant greasy head. And he
was staring right at us with a look of mild surprise on his face. As I looked
around the forest, I saw that he was not alone.
There
were maybe a hundred of them, maybe more drifting in and out of the trees
bumping into them, into each other. They were all in bad shape; most of them
had been badly eaten on, were in an advanced state or decay, or both. None of
them seemed to have spotted us except the big guy and he wasn’t doing anything
but staring at us. I didn’t think that’d last very long and hissed at Tony, “We
have to keep moving man!”
Sometimes
it’s just no fun at all being right as the Big Guy raised up his white, meaty
arm, pointed at us, and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Paaaahhhhh!” At least,
that’s what it sounded like.
“Tony,
go!” I yelled, the need for whispering having been dispensed with.
Tony
went. He gunned his bike so hard I thought for a moment that he a Greer were
about to be spilled off the back. My heart froze as his two front wheels reared
off the ground, hung there for a fraction of a second while fate decided if
Tony and Greer should live or continue to roll them backwards pinning them
beneath the ATV. Fate decided they’d live as the ATV fell forward and shot down
the trial.
The Big
Guy had raised the alarm and now all the dead within earshot were looking, then
moving towards us. I gunned it. We shot down the trail after Tony and Greer
with the trailers bouncing up and down as the dead broke out of the forest and
began piling onto the trail and shuffling after out retreating bikes.
I could see more dead up ahead of Tony
beginning to look up and around before spotting us flying towards them. Some of
them would groan, point, and begin their shuffle towards us while others would
fall in behind them, dragging others along in some weird snowball effect. So
far the trial ahead was clear but I didn’t think that would last long.
We
crashed along the trail hitting the ditches hard and flying over the bumps and
ruts with the trailer fishtailing wildly behind us. If the trailer tipped….no
sooner had I completed that thought than our trailer tipped over. The cords and
ropes we’d used to tie down our gear split apart and all of our stuff went
flying into the nearby woods or spread out across the trail, “Dreysi! Unhook
the trailer!” I yelled looking over my shoulder. The dead were rambling down
the trial towards us as well as closing in from the sides.
“The
hitch is bent!” Dreysi said frantically trying to pull out the cotter pin.
I
stopped, leapt off the bike, and ran towards my pack. The dead were so close
and so thick I could smell them; a heavy, rotted smell that wrapped around my
head like a warm, slick blanket. I covered my mouth and nose with one hand
while pulling open the outer pocket of my pack. I grabbed the hammer that was
there and ran back to the bike. Tony and Greer hadn’t seen us stop and were
quickly out of sight up ahead. I smashed the connector pin to the trailer as
the dead ambled closer. Any second I expected to feel the cold hand of one of
those things grab me by the shoulder and take a great heaping bite out of my
neck. I slammed the hammer down on the pin and the piece of metal broke in two
and shot out. I turned to see how close the dead were and bumped directly into
the Big Guy. He reached out a pale hand and grabbed my shoulder. His dead and
opaque eyes looked at me as his jaw dropped open. I didn’t scream. I didn’t
even think. I just raised that big old hammer and drove it right into his
forehead. His skull collapsed like the shell of a rotten egg as the hammer sunk
deep into the meat of his brain.
The Big
Guy didn’t even let out a groan of surprise. Didn’t even blink. Just fell over
into a 300 pound pile of rotting flesh blocking the next two from getting their
hands on me. I turned at jumped on the bike and hit the throttle. The wheels of
the bike, much lighter now, spun a rooster tail of dirt and we blasted away
from the dead.
A few
seconds later we sped past another trailer. Tony and Greer must have had the
same idea as we did. I rode to the left of the trailer and back onto the trial
and gunned the bike. I still couldn’t see Tony and Greer. Tony didn’t have the
keys to the Beast so they’d have to wait for us before we could get to the
truck and go. I hopped there weren’t many dead in the parking lot.
There
were many, many dead in the parking lot.
There
was like, a whole troop of dead in the parking lot. In fact, there must have
been a whole Boy Scout Jamboree of dead in the parking lot.
I
wouldn’t find this out for the few short minutes it would take us to catch up
with Tony and Greer so I was able to hold on to the false hope that the parking
lot would be empty for a little bit longer and focus on not dumping the three
of us onto the dirt trail.
We came
around a bend in the trial and I caught site of Greer and Tony up ahead. They
must have slowed down and a second later I could see why; the dead were
blocking the trial. Thankfully it was no more than a few but there was no way
to drive the bikes around them, “Run them over, Tony!” I yelled as we came up
behind them. Tony gunned his bike and ran into the first of the dead, a woman
who must have been sexy when she was alive wearing a pair of short-shorts and a
flannel top with the shirt tails tied between her breasts. Tony drove the left
tire of his ATV into her sending her spinning off the trail, then plowed
through three more. We had to be careful not to run directly into the things so
that they didn’t fly over the handle bars and knock us off.
One had
stepped on to the trail behind Tony and I goosed the ATV catching it with my
right wheel and sending it tumbling back into the woods. For the next ten
minutes we knocked the dead off of the trial as they tried to grab us from the
sides or stepped in front of us. Then we were through them and into a clear
space. I tell you man, we raced down the final few miles of the trial like
there was no tomorrow. As we pulled into sight of the parking lot I was amazed
that we hadn’t spilled either or both bikes killing us all if we were lucky or
just injuring us too badly for us to get away if we weren’t.
And then
I saw the Jamboree of dead clogging up the parking area.
“Fuck,”
Tony said summing up the situation nicely but there was nothing left to do but
get to the truck, get in, and get going so we rolled forward trying not to
catch the attention these badly degraded dead knowing that the party behind us
would be here any minute.
We
pulled up alongside the truck and hopped off the bikes. The parking lot was a
scene of carnage and absolute chaos; dead wandering in and out of the woods,
body parts scattered everywhere, black, coagulated pools of blood, chunks of
gristle, and bits of bone, half eaten hanks of blubbery crud I couldn’t
identify, parts of rib cages, and pieces of skulls were scattered everywhere.
Cars and trucks that hadn’t been here when Tony and I had come back for our
supplies were smashed into each other with one almost completely blocking the
exit. Other people who had fled the city must have realized they were
surrounded by the dead and tried to get off the mountain in a big hurry.
I heard Tony puke. I wanted to, I really did.
Between the smell and the carnage scattered everywhere I could feel my gore
rising but the dead were behind us and would be here in a few minutes tops and
the dead in front of us were bound to notice us soon, so I pushed it down,
blocked out the sights and smells of the parking lot, and got the truck unlocked,
“Everyone in,” I said as I slid into the driver’s seat, put the key in the
ignition, and turned it as the others piled in.
And
nothing. The old girl turned over once or twice, then went silent. Fuck! I
tried it again and silence. “Batteries dead! Tony grab the charger!”
Tony
looked at me, all the blood from his face gone, “I didn’t bring it! I forgot!”
I couldn’t blame Tony for forgetting after Dreysi’s little psychotic break, I
would have forgotten it too. And even if he had brought it, it would have most
likely been back on the trial somewhere when we cut out gear loose.
Fuck. We
all sat in the truck, quiet and eerily calm with no one shouting, no one crying
or panicking. Just a moment of pure, crazy fucked up serenity. Far down the
trail I could see the dead flooding towards us.
“The
bikes!” Dreysi said from the back seat.
“The
bikes won’t get us all the way to Albuquerque!” Tony said, “They won’t even get
us to the main road! Their batteries are almost dead!”
“No! Use
the jumper cables on the bikes!” she said.
Tony got
it and jumped out of the truck as I popped the hood and grabbed the cables out
of the back. Tony quickly hooked them to the bike as I propped up the hood and
grabbed the ends looking for the battery. Now what was it, I thought crazily,
red to positive, black to negative? If I fucked this up I’d blow the batter and
we’d be good and fucked. Black to positive! I thought and clamped the cables to
the batter terminals. Tony hopped on the bike and I jumped into the driver’s
seat. And just as I was about to turn over the ignition, I heard it. Well, we
all heard it. Over the soft murmur and shuffle of the dead a scream so
powerful, so full of rage and hatred that it bore right down to my core as it
drifted up and out of the forest.