LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series (85 page)

One of the side mirrors vanishes as a zombie collides with it, and I witness as its head tears away from the blow. I look at the fractured windshield and see only the huge
zombie still trying to get his balance while blood runs down his head. He gets to his knees as we keep going deeper and deeper into the mob. I feel the terror inside of me welling up more and more, knowing that at any second he’ll smash the windshield and be able to reach us. But there is no getting away, we’re still trapped in a sea of the undead with nowhere to run.

On his knees, the hulking brute winds back his arm and makes a fist that’s the size of my head. The blood running down his face has turned it into a horrifying, snarling mask in the shadow of his hood. As the fist hangs there in the air, suspended by a moment of pure terror welling up inside of me, I know that everything has gone to hell. Everything has gone wrong and we are once again in a situation that isn’t going to end in our favor or anywhere near it for that matter.

As I scream, glass showers all over me, caving in and peeling free from the top part of the window frame as hands and arms begin reaching in, trying to grab us. Somehow I discern that Noah and Greg are giving me the useless advice of “Go, go, go!” I look at the hulking brute’s hand coming closer and closer, trying to get to my face. All I can do is keep my foot on the accelerator and pray that it’s all over soon.

Chapter Fourteen

There are more and more of the monsters piling onto the truck. I see them diving off the cars flanking us as I swerve to the left and to the right, grinding those hanging onto the sides of the truck against the metallic shells of the abandoned cars, ripping and shredding them into pulp in the process. I don’t feel anything but fear as I blindly try to keep the truck going as we fight to keep the windshield from shattering entirely, and shredding us to pieces of bloody flesh that will leave them all enjoying what’s left of Noah and me. I keep my eyes closed as much as I can for fear of having glass shot into my eyes. The hands coming through the glass are searching ravenously for me, but all I can hear is the screaming.

I keep my foot on the gas pedal and pray that we get through this. I don’t know how we’re going to make it when every passing second, more and more of the bloodthirsty killers launch onto the car, coming for us like a tidal wave of death. There are so many of the zombies now clinging to the truck that the windows are blacked out by the number of bodies that cover them. Peeking past my eyelids I swerve left, grinding the flesh-eaters on the driver’s side between the tuck and a cargo van.

Seeing I am in serious danger, I reach up to try and stop the plate of crumbling glass from sinking down on top of me. My hands reach up and I feel the weight of three emaciated bodies pressing down against the glass. The tiny shards are digging into my hand, slicing and tearing as they press down on me. Warm blood trickles down my arm, mingling with the pain, and I see it dripping between my fingers and onto my shirt as the screaming continues, loud and horrifying. It’s tearing at my nerves and I can’t help but feel complete, unending despair wrapping around me. My entire life has come to this single, violent moment. My hands sting and burn as I push with all my strength, trying to steer the truck with my knees, keeping it in the center of the lanes. The truck heaves to the side with a crash as we collide with something unknown. My mind is burning, I can’t process all that is happening. The brute remains on the hood, fighting for purchase and a way into the cab. How am I supposed to fight these things off and drive at the same time? I see Noah’s bloody hands holding the glass up on his end while it crumbles against the weight and force of the creatures trying to break through. For a second we share a terrified look into each other’s eyes and we both know our time is up.

The creature in front of Noah’s face lowers its jaw, and lets out a putrid, piercing scream that cuts against the one ringing in the middle of my brain as Noah turns his head away from the creature as its hands reach out and grab ahold of his head. Noah is screaming as the creature claws at his head and face, twisting its fingers into his hair and tugging at it. Noah releases his bloody grip on the glass and I feel the weight shifting as he lets go. Punching as hard as he can, Noah’s fist slams into the face of the attacker. The creature lets out a wailing howl as I see that the skin on its cheekbone splits and tears, ripping the flesh from its cheek. I look in horror as it tears as easily as tissue paper with the strength of Noah’s punch. Noah’s face is twisted in a mask of rage and violence as he pulls back his fist again and punches his attacker in the face a second time, ripping open the cheek and exposing the entirety of the creature’s rotting teeth and jaw. Flaps of skin and muscle falls from the monster’s mouth while blood pours out of his face. With another punch, Noah shatters the creature’s jaw as it falls away, breaking its grasp on Noah.

I watch the monster tumble free as another takes its place in an instant, clawing its way up. There’s too many of them. We’re surrounded and the whole front window is compromised. I can think of a thousand different possible scenarios that this could go for and I don’t like any of them. Behind three flesh-eating monsters on the hood, the brute has changed tactics and is bracing his feet against the brush guard.

Wriggling my knees up, I try to get some more support to get the glass from coming down and crumbling all over me. The cab of the truck is filled with screaming and it’s too much. I feel like my head is going to explode if I have to keep listening to the shrieking, as I try to jam my knees up to keep the glass from bending over the steering wheel. I can’t get my knees up, so I slam my foot down on the gas pedal. The truck groans against the mob of fleshy wall of monsters. I try to get the truck to move faster—anywhere, but all I can feel is the bleeding in my hands, and the screaming is all I hear. And then it is as if a veil falls away and in that instant everything becomes clear.

Burning in my throat tells me that it’s me who is screaming and I feel this overwhelming sense of surreal bewilderment at the fact that I’m the distraught screamer. I close my mouth, gritting my teeth and pushing on the glass as hard as I can, trying with everything I have to keep it from buckling and bringing in the tide of monsters. Noah is trying to punch the next monster coming in at him, but this one has more fight in it. It catches Noah’s fist and tries to pull it toward its snapping jaws. The creature pressing down on me is crawling closer and closer toward me. Yellow eyes are staring at me with a lustful hunger that makes me want to scream again, but there’s nothing I can do. I just try to keep the fractured glass between us as a barrier as the truck pulls hard to the right before surging upwards and coming back down with a loud bang.

That’s when the explosion drowns out everything. The flash of light is bright enough that I can no longer see the snowing ash, the pale, yellow eyes, and the gray skies. Everything vanishes in the engulfing white as the disorienting light makes me see spots everywhere. I blink, trying to get my vision back as I smell something burning, putrid like sulfur. Suddenly, I realize that it’s gunpowder that I’m smelling as I realize that my ears are ringing. Blinking again, I see a hand resting on the glass, severed from whoever it belongs to. It sits on the glass, leaking crimson blood that trickles onto the glass, tainting the countless fractures.

My ears are burning, ringing endlessly as the sound of the moaning, howling, shrieking and the screaming is completely gone, blown away in an atomic blast that has ruined my hearing. I’m terrified that whatever happened, it’s permanent. Turning and looking at Noah, I see that there’s a barrel between the two of us. I look at the smoke escaping from the barrel, lazy curls of gray smoke, blending with the rest of the world as I watch Greg’s hand slide back the pump, expelling a red shell into my headrest. Everything seems to be in slow motion, even the pain that is clawing through my hands. I can’t hear a thing. I can’t hear my screaming, I can’t hear my nephew screaming, and I can’t hear the second blast that flashes violently as fire erupts from the tip of the barrel. My eyes shift and I look right at the yellow-eyed fiend in front of me.

The long, black hair hanging in the woman’s face is blown back by the force of the pellets ripping through her face. I can see everything, the gore shooting back, the bone shattering and tearing free from the rest of the skull, and the blood. There’s blood everywhere, flying in all directions. I feel the warmth of it on my face as the woman’s head whips to the side, revealing the portion of her head that’s still intact as the pressure on the glass digging into my hands starts to subside. The creature slumps to the side and rolls off the truck before the other ravenous hands grab ahold of her and start pulling her deep, down into the sea of cannibalistic monsters. Still the truck surges forward.

The third flash blinds my right eye, but I can still see the world through my left as the creature coming up the hood through the center takes a shot straight down the middle before it starts convulsing violently, clawing at its obliterated face, shoulder, and chest. The creature begins to freak out, kicking and flailing as hands grab ahold of it and pull it into the sea of hands and teeth. What’s left behind is a bloody streak of ash and gore. The large brute remains crouched at the end of the hood, biding his time. My eyes watch as the feet of the dying monster vanish. I let go of the glass, grabbing the steering wheel with my tender, bloody hands, feeling the bolts of pain ripping through my hands and wrists as I punch the gas pedal, feeling the back of the truck twist and the wheels spin before the truck lurches forward.

The hulking brute clings to the hood, braced against the brush guard as I turn to see that Greg is reloading his shotgun. I watch him slipping the shotgun shells in with strange, terrifying slowness. It’s almost as if everything in the world has come to a halt, freezing so that I can take it all in. Greg’s mouth is open, shouting something in my direction, but I have no idea what it is he’s saying. All I can hear is the ringing, the incessant ringing. In the rearview mirror, Lexi is shouting while she grips her shrieking son, whose face is twisted and contorted into a horrid mask of rage and sadness. I feel a knot in my throat as I feel the truck losing traction on the road as the wheels start to spin, tearing apart whoever I’m on top of. I look at the hood, coated in the gore and blood of Greg’s victims as he finally loads in the last shell, feeding it to the hungry beast in his hands, eager to share.

Greg racks back the pump, as the truck begins to slide askew from where I am trying to steer. Turning back to the road I see the massive zombie and he sees me. He takes this moment to stretch forward, reaching across the hood, his face a war mask of violence and rage. His eyes are hidden by the shadow of the hood and as I look at him coming, clawing inch by inch, I pray that Greg aims true. Gaining purchase on the gore-slicked paint, the hulking brute starts to charge the windshield. Inside, I’m saying my farewell to this world. I’m saying goodbye to everything I’ve ever known.

Then the flash comes and my ears begin to ring yet louder. I can feel the flash rippling through me like I’m a pond and the pellets are piercing the surface. It rolls through me and I watch as the right side of the hulking brute’s chest sprouts blossoms of crimson and scarlet. His right arm explodes in the bicep, like someone stuck a tiny piece of dynamite under his skin, blasting the arm in half while muscle and blood shoots out in every direction. As the bone shatters and the flesh peels from the muscle, the arm drops lifelessly. Instinctively, the brute raises his left arm, groping for his savaged right arm while he loses his balance under the fishtailing truck. His left shoulder comes down hard on the hood, his head slamming into where the windshield should be.

Greg fires again. I smell the gunpowder filling my nostrils as the light blinds me, giving me only a glimpse at the white world all around me. By the time I’m done blinking, there’s no sign of the brute. He’s completely vanished from the hood, all that remains of him is the bloody, gory mess that marks his last attempt to kill us. Looking at the hood, I see that we have a moment of reprieve. All we need to do is get out of here. As I stomp my foot back down to the gas pedal, the truck begins fishtailing again but I can see that the mob of zombies is clearing ahead. Steering as best as I am able, we clip a small sedan, the passenger side of the truck rearing up into the air a moment as the engine roars beneath us. As the truck touches down with a bone-jarring bang on the concrete I see another flash, feeling it in my bones and knowing that Greg’s shot went wide and it is the fault of my driving.

Bouncing still from the collision, the truck launches into a group of zombies ahead. I feel the whole truck bucking and rolling as they vanish beneath us. Slamming into one after another, I begin swerving to shake loose any that are clinging to the side of the truck. Nothing I try seems to reduce the number of zombies that cling to the truck. For every one dislodged, another takes its place, and the clearing I had seen seems as if it were a mirage. I look down the interstate, hoping that I can see the end of the sea filled with death and horror.

Between the endless tide of monsters and the swirling cloud of ash and dust, there’s no end in sight. There must be thousands of the things.

Chapter Fifteen

The truck keeps pushing through the masses. The whirling cloud of dust and ash make it impossible for me to see anything with any certainty. Without a windshield the dust and ash are burning my eyes. The creatures I’m running into have coated the entire exterior of the truck with blood, turning the ash and dust that’s coating it into an abattoir, muddy coating. Everything is dented, beat in, and I’m crushing anything that I can get under the bumper and grill. I take down as many as I can, but I can’t see a thing behind me. All I know is that I’m leaving a wake of wounded, dead, and being fed upon monsters. I think that whoever survives this massacre of the creatures will probably be well fed for the next hundred years. It will take them ages to get through all the death and carnage that I have left in my wake.

Churning and whirling, the cloud of ash and dust that consumes everything gets thicker and thicker, and I begin to realize that there are fewer and fewer of the creatures slamming into the hood and brush guard of the truck. There are still enormous numbers of the things, but they’re not as tightly packed and I’m not getting caught in slicks as often. I squint against the burning of my eyes, trying to keep the sanity that I still have before everything shatters and I’m left alone surrounded by monsters in a great cloudy fog of ash. The whole world here has burned and I try not to think about how much of this ash that we breathe is actually people that were incinerated in the great burning.

The sea of monsters slowly begins to thin, and I can hear more pounding on the back of the truck than I do on the front. I can see their silhouettes vanishing before the grill. No more jams or hands slamming on the hood, trying to claw up into the cab of the truck. We’re almost out of here. We have to be. I pray that we don’t find another wave of these things. We’re not going to make it if we have to do this again. I’m coated in blood, dripping with it and I’m miserable. The droplets of blood that were on my face have caused dust and ash to stick all over me. I can hear something smacking on the tailgate and looking back I swerve, sending the undead out over the side as it vanishes and I suddenly realize that we’re through it. We’ve entered the realm of hell, only to escape once more.

I blink, trying to get the flashing dots that are whirling around my eyes to vanish. Looking ahead, the dust has settled and there’s nothing that I can see for miles but empty road and abandoned cars. With my ears still ringing from the explosion of the shotgun going off next to my head, I try to regain my senses. My hands are numb from the chipped glass and the shards that tore into me. The only thing that I can smell is the smoke and blood that covers everything and the unending stench of dust. All of my senses are completely overwhelmed and I would give anything to have one of them back to normal. All I know is that we’ve survived and I just want everything to be alright. But I feel like any measure of mercy is just too much to ask for these days. I blink my eyes, trying to see the world, but the swirling cloud negates any improvement. Even with my vision returning, I am unable to see through the stinging dust hitting my eyes and making them water. I hope I’m heading in the right direction.

Behind me, I can tell that Greg and Lexi are talking, maybe even shouting at each other, but I can’t make out their words. It sounds like the whole world has been submerged in water, and listening or trying to hear beyond the ringing and the muffled, distant talk is beyond futile.

I focus on the road.

Driving is the only link to sanity that I still have. As I keep my foot on the gas pedal, I try to see what the fuel is reading or how fast I’m going, but I can’t see through the sheet of fractured glass hanging over the dash. It doesn’t matter. We just have to put distance between us and the mob of undead we’ve left behind. I can feel the tears running down my cheeks, collecting dust and ash into black trails as they race. Why am I still crying? Am I hurt? Afraid? I don’t even know myself, anymore. I do know, that behind me, something is amiss.

They’re arguing. I’m certain of it and I don’t have a clue what it is they’re talking about. I wish I knew. I try to look at the rearview mirror and realize that it’s gone. There’s nothing there to look at anymore. It came off with the windshield. I give up. I’ll just keep watching the road. I’m done with worrying about them.

With only the truck to keep me occupied, I can feel all the changes it has undergone. Everything about the truck feels strange now. It’s unnerving how I feel that the vibrations in the engine are completely different. I don’t like it. I can’t stand it. I can tell that there’s something wrong with the front wheel on my side of the truck. It’s loping or hobbled or something like that. It feels lumpy when I drive and I can’t help but wonder if I’ve trapped some flesh-eating horror in the wheel-well. I picture it stuck to the wheel, rolling over and over again, getting pulverized into nothing but a thick, mushy pulp.

We’re going to have to get out and check the truck soon. I need to do all I can to prolong its life. I’m worried that the one truck that we finally found is now beaten to a dying wreck. I look at the blood smeared all over the hood and side panels, mixed in with the dents and scratches. Everything is devastated and even though we survived, I feel defeated. I should have thrown the truck in reverse and gone back and found another way around the horde. Why didn’t I just do that? Why didn’t I do something smarter than drive straight into the middle of them? Hindsight is twenty-twenty. I can hear the haunting voice of my father saying it. I shudder, but find it oddly comforting for an instant before the feeling fades.

Driving, temporarily numb from the pain, I begin to realize that I can’t keep driving with the shifting, fractured glass of the windshield inhabiting my space. I don’t know how Noah is handling this with the glass resting on his lap. I don’t care about him right now though, all I care about is getting rid of this windshield. I give it a strong push, rolling the glass out onto the hood. As I hit the accelerator, the glass slides off the hood and vanishes into the swirling dust and is gone. Looking at the fuel gauge, I see that we haven’t even used an eighth of a tank yet. As for the speedometer, I’m not even going over forty miles an hour yet it feels like we are flying. My senses are totally out of whack.

As fascinating as this is to me, I realize that the speedometer is not going to give me any kind of comfort. I want more of my senses back. I want to get things under control. But I’m not in charge of any of that, so I have to just go along with it. I look at the road ahead of me and I feel like I can hear Lexi and Greg shouting at each other. They’re loud enough that I can almost understand them. The ringing must be beginning to subside.

Before I can turn and look at Lexi or Greg, whatever is stuck in the wheel-well finally breaks free and pulls the truck to the left, dragging us into the side of a car. I feel the collision a fraction of a second before I am flung forward, smacking into the steering wheel painfully. As if in slow motion, I watch Noah launch forward, almost hitting his head on the dash, but stopping himself barely. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him slump forward until his forehead is resting. We’ve stopped, but that isn’t the problem. Putting the truck in park, I turn to make sure that Noah is alright.

That’s when I hear it. The hysterical screaming returns and although I know it is me, I can’t stop myself. The ringing in my ears subsides and the first sound that I actually hear is my own voice. My own shrieking is both terrifying and horrifying but what I’m looking at is so disturbing and shocking that it’s worthy of the sounds that escape me.

Noah is no longer Noah. There is something unimaginable that has ruined him and all I can do is stare at what’s left of the Noah I used to remember. I can feel the shakes taking over my body, shivering down my spine and rattling my bones as I stare at him, feeling my hands trembling. I can’t comprehend what it is that I’m looking at. I could never in my wildest nightmares see this happening. Outside, the world continues to spiral away into its maddening and strange new incarnation. I stare at Noah, slumped onto the dash, and he remains where he is, not moving.

“God, Noah,” I say to him, hearing my own voice in my head. It sounds poisonous and unnatural in my ears. It feels stuffy and broken. I reach out to touch him, trying to see if he’s still alive. Without having seen anything, I know exactly what happened. I can see it in the back of my mind as it conjures up the image of the event. It’s something twisted and disturbed.

The truck came down, smashing into the concrete and bouncing, finally getting traction when I pushed down on the accelerator. A blast sounded from beside my head and I was left dazed and blinded by the muzzle flash of the shotgun. Stunned and bewildered, I remember now the last flash and the warm splash of blood, but I was too dazed, too lost in my sudden blindness to know what exactly was hit. I remember the truck hitting the ground the moment the shotgun went off, making for a lucky strike on whatever it was that Greg was aiming at. But I understand now. It’s crystal clear to me in my mind’s eye. I can see it.

Greg never meant to fire the shotgun, and the truck slamming onto the road was enough to jar him forward, accidentally squeezing the trigger, and what’s left is the stuff of nightmares. I look at Noah, certain that I will never, ever be able to get that image out of my head. But right now, all I can think of is that Noah has to be dead. I touch his back, feeling the rise and fall of his ribs. He’s breathing, but what’s been done to him is going to be hard to deal with.

His face is missing, or at least the left side of it is all but gone. His cheek, part of his cheekbone, his ear, and part of his scalp is gone. Where the scalp is missing, I can see the bone and where his cheek is missing are the exposed teeth that weren’t taken out with the shotgun blast. I look at his face and suddenly feel so helpless. I’m the one who is supposed to fix this. I’m the one that they’re going to be looking to, to try and make this better. But there’s no making this better. The skin around his eye is blackened and scorched from the shotgun’s muzzle flash. I wonder if his eye is intact, but it’s too hard to tell.

“Noah,” I say again, hearing my nephew screaming over the now returned ringing. “Noah, I need to you to respond,” I tell him, but I know that he’s probably not going to. I see the flap of skin hanging from his exposed jaw and I think that there might be a way to reattach some of the skin, but right now, I’m hopeless. I turn around and see Lexi screaming at Greg. It’s strange that they sound like they’re underwater, but I can hear my nephew just fine, like he’s in another room and I’m stuck with the ringing right here and now. I feel light-headed. I feel like everything around me is whirling and spinning and I have no clue what I’m supposed to do. What’s expected of me? There’s nothing I can do for him. Not now. Not here.

Noah has been shot in the face and even if I had the tools with me, he needs major surgery right now. He needs someone who has been experienced with this sort of trauma surgery for a long time. I’m not the person for this job. Even so, I know that I’m his only hope. He has no one other than me right now and that terrifies me. I have never felt so alone, and as I look at him, I’m not sure that there’s anything I can actually do for him.