Jurassic Dead (20 page)

40.

Alex’s watch beeped and he looked up from kicking a zombie in the head to glance at it.

“Time’s up! Brace yourself, it’s gonna blow!”

Veronica tried lifting the roll-up door but it was jammed.

“Goddamned, Xander!” She hurled herself against the metal barrier in frustration, bouncing off of it and back into the zombie melee, where she jammed the tip of her Ka-Bar into a bloodshot eye. Then, seeing Alex ducking for cover, she crouched and covered the sides of her head with her elbows, bracing for the impact...

Which never came.

“I thought you said time’s up?” She looked up at Alex, who had dispatched another zombie by shattering its skull with the tire iron. He backpedaled away from two more as he continued to consult his watch.

“I guess that old stuff doesn’t actually work. We lucked out!”

Veronica glared at him from the bloody floor. “Lucked out? Oh yeah, locked in here with these monsters that want to have us for dinner. Oh, and a
T. rex
roaming around out there if we do manage to get out. We lucked out, all right.”

Alex sighed, looking around. “There’s got to be a way out of here. Plus, you never know, those old bombs could go off at any moment.”

“We’re not getting out through that tunnel. Too many of those things.”

Alex had piled a bunch of oxygen tanks, munitions, spare tires and other random objects in the doorway, slowing the progress of zombies into the room, but they still crawled and climbed in one at a time. Three moving ones occupied the room presently, one with half its face burned away, the other half a normal zombie pallor, as if it had fallen on one side onto the burning floor and been held there for some time.

“Need some help here,” Alex said, casting about for a weapon of opportunity, his tire iron having bounced out of his hand when it glanced off a zombie skull. Veronica got up, brandishing her knife.

“You look for a way out, I’ll hold them off.”

She walked up to the closest zombie and feinted left, then stabbed right, plowing the blade up through the neck of the undead monstrosity all the way into its brain cavity. She withdrew the slimy, black metal and eyed her next victim as the first dropped to the floor, dead for good.

Alex tried the roll-up again, almost dislocating his shoulder with the effort. He kicked the door repeatedly, checking to see how it would give. Maybe he could ram something heavy into it, but no. It was stout. More trademark DeKirk quality—or a holdover from Korean wartime engineering.

He glanced over at Veronica to make sure she was handling herself okay. A flood of zombies were bottlenecked at the barricaded entrance, fighting and biting each other while occasionally one made it through. Veronica was battling them one and sometimes two at a time, becoming brutally efficient with the Ka-Bar, learning how to distance herself from the threats, only going in close when a high-value target, such as an upturned chin, presented itself.

Alex spotted a tarp-covered object in the corner and ran to it. Something he could use? He ripped the cover off and stared at a green-painted forklift. It looked like it might be operational—and gas powered, most likely used recently by the looks of it. His eyes traced a path from it to the door, making a connection. He’d never operated one before but how hard could it be? He heard Veronica grunt with the effort of stabbing another zombie, looked over, saw her drop the thing, and back off. She looked back at him, made eye contact that said,
please do something,
and turned back into combat.

Alex pulled himself into the forklift with a handhold and studied the controls. Key in the ignition, thank God. Turned it, and the engine rumbled to life.
Yes!
He lurched forward, tentatively rolling ahead. Realizing he needed speed for this to work, he floored the gas pedal and was surprised at how much acceleration the vehicle had to give.

He pressed the button to raise the forks off the floor so that they would hit the door higher up, and then steeled himself for the impact. The lift rammed the door at an angle, causing the machine to turn violently to the left when one fork poked through the metal before the other one. Alex was jolted from his seat and almost thrown from the vehicle but grabbed the seatbelt strap (that he hadn’t bothered to put on). He dangled from the side of the forklift as it punched through the door, taking Alex through a jagged rip in the metal sheet that tore at his left arm and leg, flaying his skin.

He could see sky! Sky that was filled with volcanic smoke, and a fine black ash that now rained down upon them, but still. How good it looked after being underground and inside for so long. How sweet it was, to breath the open air, even filled with volcanic ejecta as it was. He dropped off the lift and was turning to run back inside for Veronica when he saw them.

Zombies.

A dense gathering, fanned out into a more or less horizontal line that advanced on the garage, faster than usual. Some of them, Alex noted, looked as if they were of South Pacific islander descent.
How many damn employees were on this island?
There was no time to speculate, for the pack approached, gaining speed when they saw new prey.

“Veronica! More outside, let’s go!”

He heard the ring of metal on metal followed by a guttural yell—he wasn’t sure if it was Veronica or a zombie—and then the agent came crashing through the gouged-out door, eyes widening in abject horror as the phrase
out of the frying pan into the fire
draped over her consciousness like a shroud of doom.

She was bloody.

Sheets of crimson washed down her right arm and leg.

“Veronica! Were you—?” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Were you bitten?

She read the anguish on his face. “Negative. It’s from the door on the way out. Could have left me a bigger opening. I have to say, your vehicular skills do not impress me thus far. I hope you can fly a plane better than you can use a forklift or a helicopter. “

“Get me to a plane, I’ll fly it,” Alex said confidently. Inwardly, he flashed on his arrival to Antarctica in the chartered plane from Chile—the sketchy landing and how Tony had questioned his abilities, too. He shrugged the thoughts off. “What about this?”

Alex looked back at the nearing throng. Behind them, two zombies pushed through the ripped door without any care whatsoever for sharp edges, one of them cutting itself so badly in the process that a sizable slice of flesh unfurled from its side, flapping obscenely as it bounced along toward the pair of humans.

Veronica whirled around, head on a swivel, knife at the ready.

Alex tried to see through the oncoming wall of zombies, to see past them to what lie ahead. He registered some trees on the right and no sign of Xander, that bastard...But there, on the left! Something leaning against a boulder. Something black and chrome...

A motorcycle!

He pointed it out to Veronica, but to get to it, they’d have to force their way through the horde.

She took one more glance back at the garage, where another burnt zombie was grating itself though the ruptured door, and then set off at a jog toward the bike. “I’ll fight ‘em as long as I can, you get through to the bike and get it started. Trusting you not to leave me behind like Xander.”

She reached the first of the zombies and exploded into a fury of slashes and jabs, parries and thrusts, nearly decapitating the lost soul. She quickly realized that she’d put too much energy into that single encounter, however, and then found herself having to deal with three of the creatures simultaneously. She inflicted quick but deep face and neck wounds to each of them before whirling around into an open pocket for some running room like an NFL player looking for a first down.

Alex was farther ahead, weaponless but nimble, avoiding fights, taking advantage of the fact that more of them were drawn to Veronica’s bloodletting than to his rapid dodging. The motorcycle was probably only fifty feet away, but it seemed like a mile.

He continued to hear Veronica’s effort-laden gasps as she fought off the horrid abominations. He knew that as good as she was, she could only keep this up for so long. All it would take was one slip-up, one little momentary lapse of reason, and she would dissolve into nothing in the undead mob. With this many, there would be so little of her left that she wouldn’t even return as a zombie.

In an odd sort of detachment, Alex wondered what the point of it was, the zombified existence. Was it life, was the reanimated corpse just a host for transporting the virus and replicating it, but to what end, if all it did was spread and eat… and eat? Everything in sight including, ultimately, others like itself. He didn’t know, but he sure as Hell didn’t want to find out, and the sight of the bike ahead galvanized him to action.

He made a beeline for the next open patch of ground, where he then had to jog right, then back left, in order to forge ahead again. He had just allowed himself the first faint touch of optimism when he looked into one of the zombie’s eyes...and stopped dead in his tracks. This particular zombie carried a gun, dangling carelessly from one finger, while the sleeve of its sweater hung loose from the wrist of the other arm. That was not what made it remarkable to Alex.

“Dad?”

His father’s face was unmistakable, even zombified, but in spite of the fact that his brain tried to tell him,
no, you’re wrong—that’s not him!—
there was no way it could with the tattered turtleneck, khaki pants, and especially the alligator boots it still wore. Marcus Ramirez’ last outfit. Chosen in some department store on a day when simply going to pick them out was a chore, something to get over and done with so that he could get on with his life. Now, he had no life, at least not one that was recognizable to Alex or any normal human. He had an existence, but certainly not a life. The maggots and flies residing in his rotten cheeks had more of a life than he did, Alex reflected.

And yet...

“..
lex
!

It had formed a word.

The seething, writhing mass of zombies, Veronica’s tortured cries born of a single furious blade, the smoking volcano, all of it receded to the back of his subconscious as he stood in place and focused on the figure before him who used to be his father.

“
Aaaaaaal
...”

It seemed like a terrible effort for the creature to formulate words.

“Dad!” He unconsciously reached out to his father—to what he thought of as his father but surely was no longer. He watched, unable to move as a mounting internal struggle waged itself inside the zombie’s virus-addled mind as it tried to call upon the last remaining vestiges of its former self. A blanket of ash fell upon its upturned face as it slowly raised the hand with the gun.

“Prowwwwd...”

The gun went off, shooting another zombie right in the forehead, dropping it like a sack of bricks.

“fffYouuuuuu.”

“Dad...!”

Then Alex’s zombie father pointed the gun at itself, at its right temple, but the aim was unsteady, and it succeeded only in blowing a hole in the shoulder of its shooting arm, making its aim even worse.

“Stop!”

“Alllllllex!” It shot again, this time putting a round into the base of its neck. It slumped to the ground, reaching out a hand toward its still-living son.

Another shot, to the scalp, this time.

“Runnnn...” and a final one, entering its mouth up into its brain. Its eyes opened wider with the realization that, even for whatever Hell of a dimension it found itself in now, this was it.

Show’s over, folks.

As he toppled to the dirt, Alex’s father reached up in a spastic motion and dropped the firearm. Alex took it, whispered something to his father that for years he would not be able to recall that would haunt his dreams in different ways, and then used the gun to put some lead into the head of another zombie that stood in his way.

The motorbike waited, just ahead.

Alex blasted one more zombie out of the way and then saw Veronica waving him on to the motorcycle as she broke into a run through an open pocket. He turned and sprinted to the bike. An old Honda. Key in the ignition, the whole cycle wet and covered with sludgy ash. He mounted the seat in a daze and prayed while he turned the key. The motor turned over once and died. He looked back and saw Veronica on the losing end of an altercation with two zombies, one of them very tall and thin with a long reach.

He steadied the pistol’s barrel on the handlebars and took aim. Held his breath, squeezed the trigger...

Dropped Mr. Thin Man.

Veronica looked over, smiled, side-stepped past the last remaining zombie in her way and broke into a full-out run.

Alex tried the key again. It turned over twice this time, and then died.

“Shit!”

“Go, Alex, I’ll hop on!”

“Trying!”

Then he looked to his right, wondering why she sounded even more panicked, and he saw four zombies, tearing through the brush toward them.

He turned the key one more time. Heard the motor rev...rev...and catch!