Death Row Apocalypse (31 page)

Looking back to Violet, I met her gaze. She had obviously heard the same horrific howl coming from deeper within the prison.

“I think we outstayed our welcome, sonny. Would you mind giving an old lady a little assistance?” Violet said with a warm smile.

Pulling the steel door to and relocking it, I hoped it might award us a few minutes as the new horde forced their way through this last barricade between us and freedom.

“Of course! Let’s get outta here,” I responded.

And with Violet, I pursued Lucy down the corridor toward the ever-darkening exit. From behind we could hear the approaching horde. It wouldn’t be long before they hit the temporary barricade. The question on both our minds was;
how long would it take to break it from its hinges
?. As we approached the massive hole in the wall, I could see both Lucy and Henry beside the closest SUV looking our way, while Joe seemed to be searching for something—probably the keys, I guessed. Violet must have been reading my mind as we approached the massive hole in the wall.

“Wow, sonny, did you do that?” she asked incredulously.

“No, it was like that when I came down here the first time,” I responded. “No idea how it happened!”

“Hey, look. Henry and Lucy are waving!” Violet said, and waved back at the young woman and her husband.

I saw them waving, but that was no friendly “Hi, there” wave; that was something else. Given where we were and our situation, and given the fact that a thousand zombies were currently fully employed in seeking us out and ensuring our destruction, I hazarded a guess that we had a new surprise heading our way. With difficulty, I picked up my pace and ran to the SUV where both Lucy and Henry stood waiting for us. Joe punched the air, when all of a sudden the vehicle spurted into life. He revved the engine a few more times before letting it idle. I reached the SUV and dropped Violet beside Henry. She immediately hugged her husband.

“God, I was worried sick! Are you okay, honey pie?” Henry asked with real concern.

“I’m fine, you old codger. Had to go back and help the young ’uns out of a tight spot!” she offered, and purposely omitted the gruesome details of her actions of only a few minutes ago.

“Move it!” Joe yelled with a voice full of terror and anxiety. “Get into the fucking car now!”

Probably not the best or wisest decision is to ignore lifesaving advice—in this case offered by Joe—and instead turn to take a look at why he offered this advice in the first place. Needless to say, my curiosity had been piqued and required that it be sated by turning to face whatever he was hollering about.

The hordes were twofold as they came. One charged—well, to be accurate, they charged off the roof, landing on the concrete slabs with sickening thuds. At first I thought this was really not a problem, as they would not retain their mobility after landing so badly. However, they began piling on top of each other, thereby providing a soft and comfortable platform for the rest to hit at speed. They did so of course without the adverse effects normally associated with bone coming into contact with concrete at a high velocity. The second horde now came pouring out of the collapsed prison wall. They teemed, and I realized very quickly that we had only minutes, or even seconds, to spare and make good our escape.

The howling intensified when the zombie hordes locked on to me and started their final approach on a vector heading directly toward me. A howling much closer to me than I would have expected literally caused me to jump right out of my skin as Lucy screamed at me from behind. Joe had meanwhile started the SUV, loaded up Henry, Violet, and Lucy, and positioned the car with its off-side passenger door right beside me. Turning back to the car, I found Lucy leaning on a partially rolled-down window and yelling that I ought to get in the car immediately or I’d find her shoe wedged in my butt so far that I’d be tasting shoe polish for a week. I yielded to her threat. It sounded far too painful even for me, and besides, I really disliked its taste.

She swung open the SUV’s door to let me in. Leaning out, she screamed, “C’mon, let’s go!”

Joe had the SUV in gear, with his foot hovering above the accelerator pedal. He had seen the two hordes swarm together at the base of the building. The sinking feeling in his chest hit home when he noticed the zombie horde lock on to the SUV’s position. Noting this to himself, Joe realized that if he did not make a break for it now, he would probably end up being the zombies’ next tasty morsel. It was for this reason that when Lucy screamed “C’mon, let’s go!,” he reacted by slamming his foot down on the pedal, causing the vehicle to lurch forward.

Lucy lost her balance and was flung out of the car door from her precarious perch. She hit the grass facedown, almost breaking her small but perfectly formed nose, she wondered briefly what the hell had just happened while her brain tried to figure out what she was doing face down. Dazed, she felt herself being lifted off the ground. Opening her eyes, she saw the ground rushing past at an unbelievable rate and a pair of legs and feet pounding away faster than they had a right to. Each pounding of the feet on grass caused the air to be pushed from her lungs, and she realized that she had been slung over someone’s shoulder.

She strained to look up and wished that she had not, for the sight that welcomed her was one that caused sheer terror. Hundreds of zombies were in hot pursuit of her and whoever was carrying her. The closest was now almost on top of them. As the zombie grasped for its fleeing meal, its outstretched hands grabbed at thin air only inches from Lucy’s upturned face. Lucy managed to focus on the seemingly Olympic-class runner that was the closing zombie. If the fact that a zombie was within nail-biting range was not enough, then the realization and recognition of who that zombie was would ensure that she’d relive these moments for the rest of her days, and especially her nights, in utter horror. It was none other than Necktie Eddie, the man she had put to death yesterday, the man that had taken her parents’ lives. Was this some kind of cosmic revenge or karmic eye-for-an-eye justice?

“What sort of fucked-up universe is this?” she mumbled to herself as she let her head drop.

I felt Lucy stir as I ran with all the energy I could spare, but I was flagging. My leg muscles burned with the effort, and my chest heaved as it battled to draw oxygen from the air to fuel our escape. I dared a look over my shoulder and saw just how close my pursuer was. It was just out of arm’s reach, but not by much. I’d collapse from exhaustion way before these zombies. They did not need air to breathe nor food to eat; they didn’t feel pain or exhaustion. They would continue until their bodies had nothing more to give, but until then they would just . . . keep . . . on . . . going!

The SUV had come to a stop several hundred yards distant. God only knew why Joe gave me that distance to run. Hell! God only knew why he had dashed off like that in the first place. If I made it, I’d be sure to ask him nice and gentle like.

The zombie horde still pursued. However, they were some way back now, which afforded me the time to deal with the single monster on my tail. We were closing the distance to the SUV when I decided to take a dive. While ensuring that Lucy was thrown to the side, avoiding any possible contact with the zombie, I rolled and spun to face it. I recognized the zombie in front of me: Necktie Eddie was his name. I was far too versed in my trade to allow a moment’s delay to hinder my actions. Eddie flung himself forward with unimaginable speed, almost catching me off guard as I dodged to his left and slammed both my fists into the base of his neck. As he went down to the ground, I followed behind him closely, landing on his back, and began pounding the back of his skull with punches. Eddie didn’t even seem to notice my weight as he flipped me off his back and onto the grass as if I were a two-year-old. He scrambled toward me, landing on top, and brought his primary weapon to bear: his teeth. I gripped both his wrists and was able to keep his gnashing teeth away from my face. Saliva and a viscous green fluid poured from his gaping mouth, missing me narrowly. I noticed the horde was rapidly closing the distance toward us. Over my other shoulder I saw the SUV in the distance begin its U-turn and head toward us.
Good
, I thought.
Lucy’s safe!

I figured that as long as she was safe, then I could die a happy man. Already she had awakened something deep inside me, something that had never seen the light of day, nor even night for that matter.

Digging deep into the reservoir that fueled my heart and my will to live, I collected my remaining reserves and released Eddie’s wrists. His hands immediately sought out my throat, while I pushed mine with as much speed as I could muster. They shot inward and managed to grip both Eddie’s upper and lower jaw, and with everything I had in my reserves, I pulled his teeth apart. I felt the bones start to give way to the awful pressure I applied, and as his hands found their target, I sensed the time remaining to me in this world would soon be at an end. But before his jaw broke, Eddie’s head was ripped from my grip as it flew away from me, along with the rest of his body. He lay sprawled on the grass, unmoving and apparently dead. With Eddie now disengaged from my neck, I looked up to see a bloody but beautiful face with burning eyes. She winked at me as she spun the steel bar that had been used to dispatch Eddie so effectively.

“So? You want a ride?” she asked as she ran her fingers through her hair.

Getting to my feet, I looked down to Eddie’s corpse, then back to Lucy.

“Finally got your man, eh?” I asked as I brushed off my trousers.

“In more ways than one, I think!” she replied, then added, “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do!” Then she blinked once in what I can only describe as a downright provocative way before opening the door to the SUV that had arrived as I fought with Eddie. “C’mon. Unless you wanna stay with your buddies?”

Looking back over my shoulder, I contemplated my options quickly, then followed Lucy and leaped into the SUV. Turning around to check on our pursuers, I saw that the horde had stopped running now and were instead slowly making their way toward us. For a moment I wondered why, and it occurred to me that perhaps Eddie’s demise was a contributing factor. Or perhaps not. Who knows? Maybe if I live long enough, I will get to answer a few of these questions.

Joe put the SUV into gear and drove under the curved prison sign—a sign that I figured I’d never see again—and headed away from the facility. As we drove into the oncoming sunset, Violet put a CD into the car’s player and turned the volume to maximum. Jon Bon Jovi erupted from the speakers with “Living on a Prayer” as the red night sky became more prominent. The evening’s crimson sunset was far from a red-sky-at-night occasion; it was, in fact, the fires of a thousand homes and lives coming to an end and marked the birth of the zombie apocalypse . . .

Little did I know at the time that Eddie was far from destroyed.

Suffering from the zombie equivalent of a concussion, he regained consciousness and got back to his feet as the SUV disappeared through the prison gates. For whatever reason or purpose that drove Eddie, he now began to pursue the SUV. There was no need to run; he could sense the half breed and would catch up to him in the fullness of time. Already many of the horde had made their way into the center of Tallahassee, where the numbers of the living were now falling at an alarming rate...