Heartland Junk (Part II): Sanctuary (7 page)

Chapter 11

              THE ZOMBIES were back. Wherever the fuckers had gone, they were back.

              God damnit, how had I been so stupid? It wasn't a ritual or a sign post. It was a trap. And I'd taken the bait. They'd laid a fucking trap. They were waiting for me.

              Footsteps shushed in the wheat directly behind me and I turned just as the zombie lurched out of the line of corpses and sank its teeth into my wrist. I shrieked and punched at the thing's head. Teeth ground deeper into my flesh, sending flurries of agony spiking up my arm. I whacked it again, hammering my knuckles into the soft spot of its temple.

              I was some kind of fucking idiot, coming out here alone and unarmed.

              It was now so dark that all I could see were the twin pink beacons of the thing's eyes. I jabbed at them with my free hand. My thumb plunged into one of the eye sockets and I felt a wet burst as something popped under my thumbnail. White fluids leaked down my wrist, streaming phosphorescence like some kind of bioluminescent algae. I wiggled my thumb deeper, along the concave bone of the eye socket, feeling a soft opening at the very back of the depression that was still spraying blood and eye juice in a skittering stream over my face.

              The thing shook its head like a rottweiler with a scrap of steak, digging its teeth deeper into my arm. I slipped my thumb out of the eye cavity and stuck my index finger into the opening at the back of the socket, scooping past stringy tissue, trying to finger-fuck its brain into comatose senility before it could rip my entire hand off.

              I couldn't look behind me, but I knew the other zombies were getting closer. I'd seen some runners. Christ, they could be on me at any minute. I was inside the thing's head up to the webbing between my fingers, and still it thrashed against my arm, spitting hot fire into my nerves. Something white and cold flashed across the sky. Lightning. Real or imagined?
God fucking damnit!
Not now, please, please God not now.

              My fingers slipped out of the zombie's eye hole, slick with something that felt like porridge, and I punched the fucker in the cheek as hard as I could, simultaneously pulling back on my other arm. We traded teeth for flesh and my arm jerked free. I drove a knee into its stomach and shoved it away from me. Glanced back. Shit. They were close, and still coming over the rise. Hundreds of them, running, staggering, limping, crawling, sliding, pink orbs blazing, lighting their path.

              I ran for the woods, just a dim suggestion at the edge of the field now, wheat whipping against my knees. The section of tall wheat sliced into my cheeks and I burst into darkness under the trees. I barely slowed, holding my hands out in front of me to protect against low limbs and trunks. A snarl of roots snagged my toe. I pitched forward, shoulder digging into soft earth and leaf detritus. Scrambled up, still moving forward, didn't want to look back, couldn't look back. They must be in the woods by now, chasing me, coming up on my back, reaching...

              After an eternity of darkness, I launched out of the woods and the ground disappeared beneath me. I rolled down the slope, cracking bones against stone, brambles tearing at my skin, until I reached the bottom of the gully. The road was just ahead, just up the hill. I could hear the low rumble of the Jeep's engine. Mud sucked at my shoes, pulling me down, slick fingers clutching, holding me back. They must be behind me now, coming down the hill. Hundreds, no way to fight them off.

              One step. A
schlurrp
as my shoe cleared the shin-deep mudhole. Another step. Stuck tight. I jerked and my foot slipped free, leaving the shoe in the mud. Too slow. I craned my neck to see behind me. Pink fireflies flickered along the tree line at the top of the gully.

             
Fuckingshitholyfuckjesussaveme.

              Walking was fucked; I lurched forward and pulled myself up the slope with my hands, using the scraggly underbrush for purchase. As the ground rose, the mud solidified. I scrambled higher. A thin rootball unearthed under my weight, spraying dirt and pebbles. I fell back at the sudden release, slipping farther down the hill. The fireflies had bodies now. They slid down the bank behind me. I heard them more than saw them. Heard the skitter of loose stone, the plop of pebbles hitting mud. Heard a sucking foot pull out of the mud.

              Thorns tore into my palms and socked foot, but I surged forward with new energy, ignoring the pricks and scrapes. Halfway up, a phlegmy rattle rose from beneath me. They were climbing. Catching up. Ruthless,
intelligent
. We'd been so wrong, so fucking dumb. We were no match for this new breed.

              A new thought struck through my fear: What if there were more at the house? I grit my teeth and surged up the hill, fuck the pain, fuck the loose, treacherous footing. I had to get Jennie out of there. I reached the flat surface and rolled onto the hard road, not even stopping to catch my breath. Pink pricks filled the darkness of the town on my left, materialized on the dark street to my right. There
were
more. God damnit.

              I ripped open the Jeep's door and leaped inside, slamming it into gear even as my ass settled into the seat. Squealing rubber rent the night and the Jeep lunged away. I held the wheel steady, straight down the center of the road. Let them come. Line them up. I'd run them into the fucking ground.

              But they didn't. Christ, they didn't. Like the biblical Red Sea parting before Moses, the things slid away from the path of the Jeep. The fuckers
stepped aside
to let me pass. Jesus, what were they? They turned to follow me as I went by, watching. I was floating through a sea of pink jellyfish, orbs bobbing all around, and I realized the headlights were off.

              I flicked the switch, then wished I hadn't. The Red Fucking Sea. Illuminated by the twin beams of yellow, I could see the zombies lining the sides of the road like spectators at a parade. Farther ahead down River, they crowded the asphalt, spanning the road, yet they were always out of the way before the Jeep's grill reached them. Behind me, the pink waters rushed in to claim the road again.

              "What the fuck are you things?" I yelled at them.

              I didn't expect an answer, but it came regardless. The word was in my head, inside me, roaring and whispering into every niche of my psyche.

             
VITALA.

              The Jeep lurched to the edge of the road before I regained control. Silent lightning streaked through the dark sky, but this time I knew it wasn't real. The darkness beyond the Jeep's windows seemed to seep through my skin to infest me with its infernal presence. My limbs felt like feathers, the steering wheel a thousand miles away.

              I could do this. I just had to stay in control. I slapped my left wrist, where the zombie in the field had bit me. Liquid pain flooded my body, clearing my head. I could do this. Just a little farther. The zombie crowd was thinning as I left Joshuah Hill behind me, and I rounded a bend and saw River House just ahead, lit up like a fucking lighthouse in the middle of the dark night.

              They must know by now. They must have seen the zombies outside. Please, let them have seen. I jerked the wheel to the left and bounced over the shallow drainage ditch. The Jeep's front tires left the ground for a moment and the engine whined, suddenly lacking resistance, then the tires touched home and the vehicle leaped forward, throwing a stream of dirt onto the road behind me.

              I slid around the side of the house and let the Jeep drift sideways right up to the stairs of the back porch. It bumped into the wooden railing and stopped with a shudder. The headlights came to rest on a patch of trees and I could see zombies shambling out of the woods behind the back lawn. More were coming around the corners on either side, following me from the road. I opened the driver's door and...it wouldn't budge. Fuck, it wouldn't move. It was pressed against the stair railing. I pressed against it with my shoulder, but I'd wedged the door directly into the wood.

              Well fucking done, Ray, you shithead.

              A zombie reached the Jeep and slapped the rear door, making me jump. Christ, I was terrified. I slid across the center console and spilled out the passenger door, thumping my shoulder into the dirt. I could see under the car, could see a pair of feet on the other side of the Jeep, just beside the stairway.

              Something surged up inside me and I gripped my forehead with both hands. Voices, whispering, inside my head. Calling me to them. The night dimmed. The Jeep's solid outline wavered before my eyes. Fighting, I crawled back up onto the passenger-side step rail and shimmied onto the roof of the Jeep. The metal felt hot, foreign in the cool night. Too slick, too smooth. My fingernails scrabbled on the roof. Something grabbed at my ankle and I kicked out, striking something solid. The grip loosened. I clutched the far edge of the roof and pulled my body forward. The pink eyes were all around the car now, winking in the darkness, brighter than they should have been, the black blacker than I'd ever seen it. The night took on a razor edge, a knife-point of sharply contrasted hues. My body felt too distended, separated from my mind. Fuck, where was Rivet? Where were Jennie and Theo and Abby? They should have seen me coming.

              I dropped off the roof onto the wooden stairs and cat-crawled up onto the porch. Candlelight streamed through the kitchen window, but nobody was looking out, nobody was coming to save me.

              Bursting through the door, I saw it wasn't candlelight at all. The kitchen table was on fire. The blaze had just started. There were molten wax stubs all over the table, some of the wicks still burning with their own miniature fires. The rest had reached the wooden surface and licked it to life.

              "Rivet!" I shouted. No answer. "Jennie! Dammit, where are you guys!"

              The living room was in disarray, as if a fight had broken out. Candles and camping lanterns were lit on all the shelves, and I saw blood on a toppled lampshade. And the pills...the pills were gone. All of them. Our stash on the coffee table, vanished, the table tipped over on its side.

              No...
nonono
. I dove to the floor and searched under the couch, looking for an orange glimmer, something, anything. The room dissolved in lightning and I came to with rough carpet fibers poking my cheek. I'd gone over, just for a second. Shit.

Chapter 12

              THE LIVING room had been cleaned out. Had they left? Been attacked? There weren't any zombies in the house, though, so...
shit!
I sprinted back to the kitchen and slammed the door I'd left open. Three zombies at the top of the porch stairs watched it close. I twisted the deadbolt, hoping it would hold, and ran toward the stairs...straight into a pair of sickeningly soft arms.

              I shoved the thing away. The zombie's teeth chattered and it reeled onto its back. The front door. The fucking front door was open. Two more stags pushed through the opening. I saw a sea of pink behind them.

              I wheeled back into the living room and snatched up a battery lantern and raced up both flights of stairs. Like the living room, my third-floor hideout was in shambles. Plastic jugs of homebrew lay scattered on their sides. The hardwood floor was soaked. I dropped to my knees and began sucking at the puddles, pressing my lips to the floor, spraying half-fermented sugar water with every pained breath. It wasn't enough. I grabbed a jug and upended it over my mouth. A brown, yeasty sludge rolled off the bottom of the jug and into my throat, gagging me. I forced it down and took another swallow, then vomited the whole mess onto the wall. Without pausing to wipe the dripping gruel off my chin, I gagged down another mouthful of sludge, tossed the bottle, and picked up a new one.

              I heard thumps on the stairs. They were coming, using the only means of escape, trapping me. I chucked the empty jug at the stairway and went for another one. All this work, all this preparation, and in the end it amounted to nothing. We were ants cast away from the nest, unable to survive on our own. I'd spent a week building up a supply of booze to keep us rolling, and in one fell swoop, some unknown calamity had sucked it dry. What had happened here? Would I ever find out, ever see them again? Jesus, would I ever see Jennie again?

              As disgusting as it was, there was alcohol in the watery sludge. The darkness receded, inch by excruciating inch, to be replaced by a reeling, stomach-flopping, crude alcohol buzz. I felt another wave rising up my throat and I fought to hold it in, trying to keep the alcohol in me as long as possible, but I projectile vomited a thick stream halfway across the room. It landed on the floorboards near the stairwell, and a moment later an unsteady bare foot pressed down into it, squishing vomit up between the toes. The foot belonged to a middle-aged woman in red pajamas, one saggy breast exposed under the lopsided button strip. He lips were pulled back, exposing teeth crusted with blood.

              I picked up a chair and rushed the stairs, screaming at the zombies to die, die, just fucking die. The chair legs impacted the pajama zombie directly in the chest. She fell backward, striking the stag behind her, and then disappeared into the shadows of the stairway. They must have fallen like dominoes; I could hear the thumps echoing back up at me.

              That bought me some time, but not much.

              I parked the chair on the floor a few long paces from the doorway, figuring I could do the same thing the next time they came up, then triple-jumped to the nearest window. It was the one facing down River to the west, and fuck it, I shouldn't have looked. I could see a mass of dark shapes and pink lights for at least a mile down the road.

              The north window, facing front, brought the same image. They crowded off of River and flowed toward the house. I lost track of them under the front porch's roof a story below me, but it didn't take a stretch of imagination to picture them streaming through the front door, scuffing that beautiful hardwood foyer, no doubt.

              Heathens.

              The south window over the back yard showed an even more depressing sight—stags so thick I couldn't spot a single blade of grass. They were milling, doing the zombie shuffle, bumping into the Jeep, crawling up the porch stairs, when I first peered out the window, but almost instantly they all stopped and stared up at the third floor. I thought my terror level had peaked in the gully, but now it climbed to a whole new stratosphere. I couldn't escape this shit.

              I could still kill myself. Better death at my own hands than via these pink-eyed fuckers, right? But the thought of being staked in a field for the crows to peck apart a bit at a time didn't particularly appeal. I'd die eventually, but nowhere these shitheads could get their spongey claws on my body.

              Something tinkled far below me, and I pressed my cheek to the cool glass to get a better look at the side of the house. Had they broken the window in the kitchen door? No...no, that wasn't it. I suddenly realized why I could see the stags so clearly. The bottom level of the house was catching fire, starting in the kitchen. I could even see the edge of a flickering flame crawling over the back porch, escaped from the kitchen. The heat must have blasted out the window. In the open air, on the old, dry porch boards, the tendril of flame caught a breeze and leaped to the porch siding, picking up strength by the second.

              I coughed, turned from the window. Fuck me. Thick, pungent smoke was billowing through the stairwell door. The whole house was catching. I saw a charred, African-American face in the smoke, just a mirage until it solidified and floated up over the landing at the top of the stairs. The stag didn't pause to look for me—it cut left straight from the top step and broke into a loping, limpy run in my direction, dragging its right leg behind it and moving fast despite the handicap.

              Now, I like black people as much as the next guy, but the fact is, there were only two black families in Joshuah Hill, making them something of a rare breed. Blame class economics, but all the white zombies tended to blur into a whitewash fence coat and yet I recognized this stag immediately as Jack Freeman, the phys-ed teacher at Joshuah Hill Elementary. He was one of those people who never seemed to age. He was forty when I was in third grade, and he was forty now, still square-jawed and buzz-cut with a whole-cheek grizzle that never grew nor shrank. That facial hair would probably eat a razor if one ever made the mistake of venturing too close.

              And black or not, I'd always liked ol' game-leg Jack Freeman. But that didn't stop me from skipping backward and using his momentum to propel him head-first into the window pane. Glass shattered like a church hymn and Jack Freemen went pinwheeling into empty air. Robotic, the stags made a hole and Jack made a squishy crunch on the lawn thirty feet below. He lay still except for a little recurring, impulsive twitch in his bum leg, and then he rolled to his knees before the stags moved back in and covered him up.

              More zombies poured through the doorway, riding the wings of the smoke and backlit by the little camping lantern on the floor. There was a visible haze in the room now, hovering up near the ceiling. Most of the zombies were singed at least a little, some so heavily burned the flesh was missing in wide, red patches.

              I skirted the influx of bodies, sticking close to the wall, stumbling over plastic jugs, dodging reaching fingers, the viper-strike of teeth. Sharp fingernails dug into my shoulder, but I tore free and reached the north window. As one, the stags below whipped their heads up to stare at me. I was hacking in the smoke. It stung my eyes, made the room blur. Burned in my lungs. I drove an elbow into the glass window and sucked at the fresh air that poured through. Shards of glass sliced shallow grooves in my arm, sending a thick tributary of blood down my wrist, making my palm slick. Transparent teeth jutted out from the window frame, daring me to try and pass.

              A hand grabbed me on the bicep. Flames were licking up the stairway, adding their orange life to the pitiful white of the little lantern. Another hand scrabbled at my hip. Disembodied arms were materializing out of the smoke, bloody and burned, some charred away to the bone, white on black on red, hazy and indistinct. Faces appeared behind them, guided by a swarm of blinking pink LEDs.

              Just before I jumped, I saw my sister. She was missing both arms below the elbows.