Riding The Apocalypse (6 page)
“We only have one gun, that’s not gonna cut it,” Max said.
I looked down at the .38 revolver on top of the box of rounds. The gun looked menacing just lying there.
I hate guns.
I looked at the monsters banging on the cyclone fence, then again down at our supplies.
“This is not going to do, we need a plan.”
The plan was a team effort. Max, Buell, and I all had input, and we were confident in the result. We took a little from each other’s playbooks and formulated a strategy we felt would get us to a nearby Kmart or, if need be, the strip mall, a little farther away. I stood up, analyzing the chalk diagram on the garage floor and hoped we had thought of everything, hoped it would be sufficient. It better damn well be sufficient, or better yet, perfect. The stakes would be raised the moment Buell and I left the garage.
“What if it’s already stripped?” asked Buell. “I mean, Kmart?”
“I doubt it. I think people are heading home and locking their doors, now that they’ve declared Martial Law. The store parking lots were not full when I passed them earlier but I think if we wait too long, then people will start running out of supplies, and it will become a free-for-all. This isn’t like a storm, where people get a warning. People were running home or away from their homes, no time for shopping, or at least it looked that way. We need to act now!” I replied with a little more edge than I wanted to convey.
“Rem is right. Let’s do this while there are still supplies to get,” Max added. “We made the plan, let’s do it. C’mon, fuckers, we have been through a lot, we got this.”
“I know, I was just trying to talk myself into it, that’s all,” said Buell, as he looked at the chalk sketches on the ground.
“So are we all clear, or do you want to run through it again?” I knew it was a rhetorical question before I even asked.
Nobody said a word. We stood there, looking at each other and the garage floor drawings. Then Max looked out the window. It genuinely seemed to be sinking in now, this shit was real, and we were gonna try this.
It is perplexing to me every time I feel this way. The sense of camaraderie, or even euphoria, whenever I am among friends or family during a tragedy or a crisis. Maybe it is because your emotions are raw? I had a sense of déjà vu. I suddenly recalled my mother being gravely ill, so my dad and I were at the hospital at all hours of the night. At a moment’s notice, we would both rush to the hospital and sit in the waiting room for hours on end. It went on for weeks. We sat together in the waiting room most of the time because she was sedated often. The strange part was that we cracked jokes, laughed, and actually had fun most of the time.
Then she passed, and it was not fun anymore.
Tragedies do draw people together, and in some ways are a positive experience up to a point. I truly believe that. And up until now, we had been inside a cement building, behind a cyclone fence, stocked with food and water. We even had TV. It wasn’t stressful, or even scary. Shit, it was actually kind of fun at times.
But now we had to go outside.
I broke out of my reverie when Buell started putting on his riding gear. I followed suit before setting up my helmet intercom. I watched Max do the same. We were damn skillful riders, and respected the risk involved in riding motorcycles even in situations that did not involve the undead. We all wore leather jackets, gloves, boots, etc. Shit, Buell had a full one-piece Dianese leather racing suit and leg guards. He looked
and
rode the part. Having been on many road trips together, we knew each other’s habits and strengths quite well. I hoped this would prove to be a benefit on our sojourn.
The first step of the plan was for Max to create a diversion to move the monsters away from the front gate. This would clear space to get Buell and me out of the garage parking lot, and onto the main road. The next step was where Buell’s expertise would come in. In all my years of riding, I have never seen anyone launch a motorcycle from a dead stop as fast as he does. He was the king of drag racing as a kid, and as I said before, nobody passes him. I sat down to put on my boots, and glanced at Buell sitting on his bike. He was ready to go before Max and I had our boots on. He looked like he was going ninety miles per hour, and he wasn’t even moving yet. I gave him a nod, he nodded back, and I suddenly felt a surge of adrenaline.
Love that guy.
Max opened the roll-up door on the side of the building to our right. There were side doors on both sides of the building, perpendicular to the sidewalk. As a result, when the door opened, the monsters could not see the door or Max from their vantage point in front of the garage.
Max changed all that.
“Hey, Dodger fans! Get your asses over here!” Max shouted as he exited the garage.
Max immediately headed to the front corner of the yard, moving to his right. He looked ridiculous wearing his riding gear and helmet while yelling and waving his hands wildly. Max didn’t need to wear his gear because he wasn’t going to town with Buell and me, however, the extra protection seemed like a good idea.
There were now twenty or so monsters in front of him. The lingering mob slowly made their way toward a possible meal. I watched them nervously from just inside the office, as they hobbled as fast as they could toward Max, stacking up on the other side of the fence. The monsters looked unassuming physically as they limped along. They looked awkward, clumsy, and most had suffered some visible form of trauma. Yet it was their black eyes and white pasty skin that chilled my blood. They moaned and snapped their teeth while shuffling toward Max’s dance performance. Awkward or not, they were not to be taken lightly.
As the monsters moved to my right, I became downwind from the swarm. My God, the stench. I didn’t purposely look to see the origin, but I couldn’t help it. I saw stained clothing with wet, black feces running down the legs of some of the monsters. This in combination with their overbearing body odor was almost too disgusting to bear. I dry heaved after seeing this, and tried breathing through my mouth as much as possible from that point forward.
Within minutes all the visible monsters were up against the far side of the cyclone fence. They were clawing at Max and moaning loudly as they snapped their jaws. Their bloody fingers left streaks that contrasted sharply with the silver cyclone fencing.
“What kind of motorcycles do you stinky fuckers ride? Monsters?” Max said out loud, dancing back and forth to keep them from all pressing at one point of the fence.
I could hear him through the helmet intercom, and I smiled for a couple of reasons. Partially because it was such a droll joke (Ducati makes a model called Monster), and also because this was Max’s way of putting us at ease. Even though we were stationed out of his sight, Max knew we were listening.
Max kept his distance from the fence, but emoted enough dialogue and noise to keep the monsters’ attention. I looked away from Max, back to the angry mob and saw a little boy who was getting trampled at the base of the fence. I felt sorry for him until I realized how absurd it was to feel sorry for a monster who feels no pain and is trying to eat my friend.
Hard to wrap your head around the concept behind these fuckers, it really is. I still felt terrible about it though. Child monsters make my heart hurt.
I quietly opened the glass door in front of the office and flinched when I heard the alarm chime.
Beep-Beep-Beep!
I froze in my tracks.
Not one monster seemed to notice. They were too engrossed in Max’s stand-up humor to acknowledge the faint noise to their right. I opened the door until it locked in the open position and waited for my cue from Max.
Behind me, Buell waited on his motorcycle in launch position. I could not see his face through his tinted visor, but he seemed as serious as I have ever seen him.
Or at least I think he did.
Paramount to this plan were Buell’s riding skills. My role was getting the damn gate unlocked so Buell could get out and draw their attention away from the gate, thus allowing me to follow. The twelve foot long cyclone fence gate in front of my garage can swing open to the street, or back to my garage. So I am the swing man, if you don’t mind me stealing another sports metaphor.
I watched through my fogged-up face shield for Max’s go-ahead. Once he gained the swarm’s undivided attention, he would give the signal. From what I gathered it was getting close to go-time. Only Max could see them all from his position, but it looked clear to me. I felt a tremor in my stomach when I realized it was going to be my turn to execute any moment. For the tenth time, I looked down at my set of keys to make sure I was holding the right one. Sweat dripped down my face from my matted hair under my helmet. I ignored the sting of salt in my eyes, and focused on Max. He was standing atop an oil drum getting an eagle’s eye view of the street.
“Good thinking, fucker, climbing up there! You are pretty short to begin with!”
Buell never misses a chance.
“Go-Go-Go!” yelled Max into my right ear bud.
I bolted toward the front gate, pushing the KLR as fast and quietly as possible, keys in hand. I ran rolling heel to toe, like I had many times in my youth. I had perfected the skill trying to avoid my parents’ notice after stealing rations for late night snacks.
Max was violently banging his weapon of choice, a tire iron, on the steel drum at his feet in front of the monsters, hoping to mask the noise I made. I had reached the gate but it was difficult to get the key in the lock because of the thickness of my leather gloves.
Did I have to put the gloves on beforehand?
Just then a low-flying military jet roared past me overhead, presumably coming from Moffett Field, a nearby Air Force base.
I was turning the key in the lock as I looked to my right and saw her. The aircraft had temporarily pulled her attention away from Max, and her eyes met mine after she dropped her head down from the sky.
“Are you fucking kidding me, of all times to buzz my tower?” I grumbled.
She emitted a bone-chilling rasp as I hurriedly unwrapped the chain. I had opened the lock just as the girl spotted me, and the race was on. She immediately started lurching in my direction. Her black eyes pierced my visor and looked into my soul.
My soul was panicked.
“C’mon, Rem,” I grumbled to myself.
“Make it fucking happen, Rem!” cursed Max through the intercom. He had seen the girl, and was unable to draw her from me.
“Got it!” I replied triumphantly swinging the gate out.
She was there.
She had blond curly hair and could not have been more than ten years old. Her face was grayish white, eyes black, and she looked particularly unscathed for such a battle-tested undead monster.
Where was the blood?
She lunged at me and the collision that ensued knocked the gate between us into my shoulder with surprising force. After falling down after the initial impact, she quickly got to her feet, and lunged again. I strafed to my right, holding the gate in front of me like a shield with my right hand. In the same motion I reached for the aluminum bat I had previously stuffed in my leather jacket.
Could I do this? She was just a little girl. My God, why did I have to do this?
She was not going away, and me clearing the area was my part of the plan. I felt my stomach churn as I drew the bat over my head. With my left hand I swung as hard as I could and brought the bat straight down toward her skull with all my might.
The impact was in-fucking-sane.
Buell’s perfectly timed kick landed squarely on the left edge of the swinging gate, sending Goldilocks careening through the air a split second before my bat would have made contact with the girl’s head. As my bat slammed into the gravel, I watched the girl travel ten feet from the impact. She was still tumbling as I turned back to the KLR. My left hand felt like I had shoved it into a bees’ nest. But I didn’t entirely mind, the pain from the bat striking the ground reminded me again, I had not hit the girl.
I hopped on and was on my way.
With the gate now opened at a perpendicular angle to my garage, a temporary barrier between the monsters and me had been created by Buell’s kick. I started off in Buell’s direction kicking the gate back toward closed as I passed. He had stopped about forty feet up the road to wait in case my bike didn’t start.
Yeah, right.
I made a long arcing left turn and circumnavigated the mob of monsters which was heading toward Buell. We then paired up, and headed down the road about two hundred feet or so. As planned, we slammed on the brakes and quickly turned to determine the distance we were from our aggressors.
Buell and I were now yelling at the undead, honking our horns, and revving the engines. My voice was hoarse with excitement and euphoria even as I was wrapped in terror. It was truly exhilarating, and I bellowed a high-pitched squeal in place of a manly roar.
I hope Max and Buell didn’t notice that.
The monsters all took the bait. We watched and waited as they approached, begging them to get closer. I looked back to the entrance and saw Max calmly locking the gate, then pumped my fist in the air.
Phase One accomplished.
Panning left toward the slowly moving swarm, I saw the little girl, gruesomely twisted, conscious, and writhing on the ground. She had apparently lost her ability to walk in the collision, but was still reaching out to me from the ground, arms outstretched, mouth open and wailing.
