Z-Burbia 2: Parkway To Hell (2 page)

“Fuck!” Critter yells as he decapitates a Z with his machete. The body falls one way, the head the other, its teeth still gnashing. Critter kicks the head aside; he’ll get to it later.

Leeds holds a collapsible steel baton with the end sharpened. He flicks it hard and it extends and locks into place. He dodges around one Z, then jams the business end of the baton through the eye of another. The thing stops moving and falls when Leeds pulls the baton free. He instantly spins about and dispatches the Z that he’d dodged. He drops to one knee and lets another Z tumble over him, coming up hard and flipping the thing ass over teakettle.

I’ve always liked that saying. I need to ask my wife, Stella, where the saying comes from. She’s a teacher and would probably know.

“Jace!” Critter yells as three Zs come at me. “Get your head out of your ass!”

I sometimes space off. Even when Zs are trying to eat me. It’s a side effect of my way of thinking. I tend to get lost in my head, thoughts swirling everywhere.

But, I get it together and slam The Bitch into the skull of one Z, while I plant my foot against the belly of another. And my foot slips into its abdomen. The smell makes me gag and I struggle not to vomit when I pull my foot free. Rotted intestines are wrapped around my ankle. I pull The Bitch from the first Z and swing it around into the skull of Gutsy the Stinky Zombie. Half of his head caves in and he falls in a heap.

The third Z grabs my Bitch arm and is about to take a nice little chomp at it when her left eye explodes, spraying goo all over my face. I wipe the black blood away and flick it off my hand.

“Thanks,” I say to Leeds as he pulls his baton out of the thing’s skull.

“No problem,” he nods, turning back to the rest of the Zs.

And there’s a fuck ton of them. The building must have been jam-packed. Someone really wanted to keep us out. Or keep everyone out. But my gut tells me this is about our group of folks.

My gut also tells me to duck, so I do, letting the reaching Z arms swipe above me. I come up and bury The Bitch’s spikes into the soft part under a Z’s chin. Well, that doesn’t narrow it down since most parts of a Z are soft; you know, because of the rotting flesh and all. But, the softer the better! I pull up and rip the thing’s jaw right off
, and then bring The Bitch down hard on top of its skull.

Fingers grab at my arm and I shake them off, putting The Bitch into the face of the offender. Another Z down, only about twenty to go. Fuck me. Critter’s guys are doing well, but as I look past the chain link
fence, I can see we have company.

“More Zs,” I announce,
“I count another fifteen at least, coming down the hill.”

“I see a dozen coming up from below,” Leeds says, pointing with his baton before he pierces two Z skulls at once. The Z heads knock together; the sound reminds me of coconuts.

“Eight over there,” one of Critter’s guys says.

“Fuck,” I mutter as I take down two more Zs. “In the building and get secure? Or fight our way out and come back later?”

“I’ll leave the strategy to soldier boy,” Critter says. “What you feelin’, Captain?”

“Jace and I will get inside and hunker down,” Leeds says. “Try to see if we can figure out what’s going on with the gas. You and your men split into two teams. One draws the Zs off, while the other hoofs it to Whispering Pines for reinforcements. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds like a fine plan,” Critter says. “Let’s take a few more out before we make our move. Less Zs to see y’all go in there.”

We do just that and kill half the Zs in the station before Leeds and I duck into the building and slam the door. There’s enough light for us to see, but Leeds pulls out a flashlight and cranks the handle, bringing the bulb to life. He shines it around and we both cover our nose from the stench. The place is coated with Z gunk. It’s all over the banks of instruments and the couple of roll
ing chairs that are pushed into the corners.

“God,” Leeds says
, “they must have been packed in here shoulder to shoulder.”

“I’m guessing they were lured in by that,” I say, pointing to the nearly picked clean bones strewn around the room.

The space is maybe twenty feet by twenty feet. An efficient concrete building designed to keep the transfer station controls secure and out of the elements. Not exactly built for comfort. I roll one of the chairs against the wall and stand up on it. I can just peek out of the window and see Critter splitting his group in two. One group heads off towards Whispering Pines, while the other starts jumping and shouting, drawing the Zs after them and away from us. I can see that Critter has stayed with the diversion group. Guy may be self-serving at times, but he’s got balls.

“Are they gone?” Leeds asks, watching me carefully. Which is the only way the man watches anything: carefully. He isn’t one to leave things to chance. If there is one thing I have learned in the past two months, it’s that Captain Walt Leeds likes to be informed. He doesn’t rush into decisions.

“They are now,” I say, “well, except for a few stragglers, but that was to be expected.”

“Then we better keep it down,” Leeds says, motioning for me to get off the chair
, “and stay out of sight. They see motion in here, then they’ll wander over to investigate. That’ll just bring more.”

“Yep,” I smile as I step onto the soiled concrete. “Not my first Z rodeo.”

“Of course not,” Leeds smiles, “I’m just used to giving orders.”

“I’m married, so I’m used to taking them,” I laugh then look at him seriously. “Don’t tell Stella I said that. Please.”

“Wouldn’t think of it, Jace,” he says then starts to look at the control panels. “We should probably make the best use of our time and figure this out. Cob would have been able to make sense of this stuff. He was the team engineer.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I frown.

“For what?” Leeds asks, looking at me. “You aren’t still blaming yourself for Cob and Stick, are you? If you are, then knock it off right now, Stanford. They were soldiers and they died fighting. No better honor.”

“Well, there are a few better honors I can think of than saving some spoiled suburbanite’s ass. Especially since I got y’all into that fight in the first place.”

Leeds waves me off. “We were going to have to get into the fight eventually.” He takes a deep breath and turns away from the controls to face me. “Listen, Jace. Vance was a psycho, pure and simple. He was a corrupt banker that likened himself the Appalachian Al Capone. And that was pre-Z. Post-Z? He thought he was a Roman emperor. And just as sick and twisted. My team was already coming across more and more of his followers every time we ventured close to Asheville. Your situation may have chosen the time for us, but it was our fight.”

“Yeah, but-”

“No buts. None. Don’t disgrace the memories of my men by looking for excuses. They helped stop a dangerous man that was going to kill many of your friends. In this day and age, we can’t afford to lose a single life.”

“Which is my point,” I counter
, “we couldn’t afford to lose Stick and Cob.”

“Fair enough,” Leeds nods
, “point taken. And rejected. They died doing what they love and what they were born to do. They were soldiers, just like me. At some point, we die horrible, bloody deaths. That’s our nature.”

“So I’m guessing you don’t have plans to retire in Boca and play golf until the next apocalypse then?”

He grins. “No, don’t think so.”

“Well, then we better crack the code to this shit,” I say, putting my hands on the control bank. Then pulling my
hands away and wiping them on my jeans. Z yuck. Ugh.

The control bank is made up of dials, knobs, levers
, and other doodads that look completely random. Labels and names are faded or covered in gunk. I gingerly wipe off as much Z yuck as I can, hoping a little clarity will occur. It doesn’t. Just looks like a bunch of dials, knobs, levers, and other doodads.

“What? Is this the 1950’s?” I ask. “Looks like
the set to a bad scifi movie.”

“USB ports are over here,” Leeds says. “Instead of yanking the whole unit out
, they just upgraded with a computer interface.”

“Good thing the place is solar powered,” I say
, “or we’d really be fucked. Now, I can just plug my computer in and…oh, wait, I don’t have one. Never mind. We are really fucked.”

“For a man of intelligence
, you can be very stupid sometimes,” Leeds says pointing to a shelf across the room. “You think they only had PhDs working this station? Not likely.”

“Manuals?” I ask.

“Manuals,” Leeds nods. “We better get to reading before we lose the light.”

“Lose the light?” I glance up at the windows. “You don’t think they’ll be back to get us before dark?”

“Not without a vehicle,” he answers, “which will make too much noise and put us back in the same position we were in before. We’ll spend our time and resources fighting Zs instead of fixing this station. No, they’ll be back in the morning.”

“Wish I had my blankie.”

He grabs a binder from the shelf and tosses it to me. “Cuddle up with this. It should warm the cockles of your heart.”

“Captain, I’m gonna need you to buy me dinner first
, if there’s gonna be any cockles warming.” Leeds doesn’t laugh. “Okay, fine, not my best joke.”

“Less joking and more reading.”

“Roger,” I say as I plop into one of the chairs and crack open the binder. “More reading. Got it.”

It doesn’t take me long to realize the manual isn’t going to tell me much without some context. I look up at the shelf and see a binder marked
, “Reference.” Handy. I take it down and open it. This is what I need. It’s filled with basic definitions and procedures. All I need to do is study this manual and I’ll have at least a key to understanding the rest.

I sigh and settle in to get the job done. After a few
minutes, I look up and see Leeds watching me.

“What?” I ask.

“You just remind me of my nephew,” Leeds says. “He had a brain like yours. What do you call it?”

“I call my brain Steve,” I say.

“No, smart ass, what do you call it that you do?”

“I’m a generalist,” I shrug. “I have a knack for understanding pretty much any subject with just a little research. I tend to master skills quickly and then move
on. Not everything sticks, but the majority does.”

“What doesn’t stick?”

“I can’t wrap a present worth a shit,” I say. “I have tried and tried. I take my time, I’m careful as hell, but they always look like a four year old did it. Can’t figure it out.”

“But this isn’t a problem?” he asks, indicating the control banks.

“I don’t know yet,” I say, tapping the reference manual in my hands, “I’ll let you know.”

“You do that.”

“Are you finding anything?” I ask.

“Nothing I can understand,” Leeds says. “I have found names for the individual controls, but nothing about what they do.”

“Can I see that?” I ask. He hands me his manual. I look it over and then roll my chair up to the control bank. I set both manuals down, side by side. “Can I keep this one?”

“You can keep them all if you think it will help.”

“Between these two, I should be able to get us up to speed.” I look up at the windows. “I wonder if we can cover those. I’m gonna need light soon, but I don’t want it to bring the Zs.”

“Yeah, I know,” Leeds sighs. “I have an idea.”

I have an idea too, but don’t want to say it. It’s not fun. As Leeds gets up and starts to gather up the Z yuck, I see he has the same idea. I go back to the manuals while he busies himself with coating the windows with gunk. Soon the room is cast in a hazy, reddish glow. Leeds finishes and walks to the door, flicking the light switch next to it.

“Will that work?” he asks.

“It’ll work perfectly,” I say, “but, will it attract Zs is the real question?”

“We’ll find out once the sun goes down,” Leeds says. He rolls a chair to the door and leans back against it, his head turned so his ear is right on the steel. “You do your brain thing and I’ll do my soldier thing. If I hear them coming
, I’ll turn out the lights until they wander off.”

“And if they don’t wander off?”

“Then study hall is over and we wait it out in the dark,” Leeds says. “I’d recommend sleeping, but I doubt either one of us will if we have Zs knocking to get in.”

“Then let’s hope they don’t knock,” I say, focusing harder on the manuals.

“One can only hope,” Leeds replies.

At least a couple hours go by before I make my first breakthrough. I spin around and look at the control banks against the wall behind me.

“Find something?” Leeds asks. His eyes are closed so I’d figured he’d gone to sleep.

“I don’t know yet,” I say, studying the control panels. “I think so.”

I trace the panels with my fingers, looking at the manuals, and then at the panels; back and forth, back and forth.

“I didn’t cause the shut down,” I say. “That’s a relief. Maybe Brenda will shut the fuck up about it.”