Z-Burbia: A Zombie Novel (10 page)

We can hear Jon hooting and hollering. I look back at him and he’s waving his hands over his head, getting the Zs attention. He looks at me and winks, then goes back to taunting the Zs. Most of them shuffle towards him, but some stay after us. I guess that’s better than all of them.

“Come on, come on, go,” I say quietly. “Fucking run. Dumbass, run.”

“Timing is everything,” Stuart says.

Finally, FINALLY, Jon turns and books ass up a small side street. I can see him huffing and puffing as he fights the weed-choked road
as well as gravity. Maybe three quarters of the Zs go for the bait. That leaves a quarter for us. That’s still a lot of Zs.

We come around a bend and Stuart points.

“That downhill grade could give us enough speed to get ahead of the ones that didn’t follow Jon,” he says. “How many do you guess?”

“Seventy, probably,” I reply, staring straight out the windshield.

He looks over at me. “Really? That many?”

I shrug. “That’s my guess. How many can you take?”

“Jesus,” he sighs, “maybe twenty before my arms give out.”

“I can probably do that many,” I say and he chuckles. “What? You think you’re better at killing Zs?”

“I am better at killing Zs,” Stuart replies. “I’m better at killing in general.”

“Good point,” I say. “So I guess I can take ten.”

“If I knew the transmission wouldn’t give out, I’d just back over them again,” Stuart says. “But I don’t dare stop this thing and shift into reverse.”

“How far are we?” I ask.

“A mile, maybe,” he says.

“That’s not far. If we are going to stop them
, we have to do it now or we’ll be too close to Whispering Pines.”

Then it hits me.

“You could run up ahead,” I say. “I’ll keep driving and you run to the gate. Get your crew and head back this way. That’ll give us the numbers to take them and we can still keep the truck.”

“So we split up even more?” Stuart says. “Bad tactics.”

“Any other plan you can think of?”

He sighs and shakes his head. “No.”

“So we do it,” I say. “Let’s switch.”

He shifts into neutral and scoots towards me. I crawl over him and get into the driver’s seat. I depress the clutch and shift back into first. The truck lurches and comes close to stalling, but I give it enough gas and it keeps moving.

“Don’t even try to shift into second,” Stuart says. “I know you, Jace. You like to test things for yourself. Don’t.”

He opens the passenger door and climbs out onto the steps. He swings the door shut easily, avoiding getting hit. I have a feeling he’s done that
move before. He gives me a quick salute, and then jumps down. He may be older, but the man can book it. He pumps his arms and sprints well ahead of me, and then is gone around a curve. But, not before I notice the dark stain on the back of his shirt has grown.

I reach behind me and can feel the sticky wetness of his blood on the seat.

“You fucker,” I say. “You knew you were hurt, but went anyway.”

I keep glancing over at the passenger side mirror and all of the Zs behind me. Is it me or are they getting closer? Can’t be. Zs can’t move fast enough. It’s probably that thing with mirrors where objects are closer than they appear.

Wait…

That would be the opposite. God…are they getting closer?

I try to shove the thought from my mind and focus on the road ahead, but I can’t help and sneak glances. They are gaining. The fucking Zs are gaining on me.

“At least
I’m still moving,” I say aloud. “That’s something.”

You know what? For a smart guy, I’m pretty fucking stupid. I’m not a big believer in the afterlife or heaven or God or anything like that. But one thing I do believe in is karma. I’ve just experienced it too much
to ignore it. My whole life has been one long chain of spiritual cause and effect events. I should know better than to jinx myself by saying, “At least I’m still moving.”

The truck sputters, sputters
, lurches, and dies. I try to turn the ignition as the truck slowly comes to a stop, but it does nothing. I crank and crank and crank, hearing the battery get weaker and weaker.

“What the fuck?” I say. “What’s wrong now, you piece of shit? Huh? You need a binky? Baby need its fucking binky?”

I look at the dashboard and slap my forehead.

No, baby needs to be fed.

“Out. Of. Fucking. Gas,” I say, “or diesel. Whatever.”

I can see the mini-herd (mega-horde?) behind me, maybe ten yards back and getting closer. I take inventory of my weapons: The Bitch. I count again and come up with the same number.
One. Nothing I can do about that.

“Better roll ‘em up
, kids,” I snicker with nervous laughter as I roll the windows up tight. I lock the doors for good measure. Not that a Z could open the doors, they can’t work latches, but it makes me feel better.

Dead hands begin to slap against the sides of the truck
, and pretty soon I feel the weight of them pressing in. Their bodies, their constant shambling movement, slowly rock the dump truck from side to side. Not a lot. Not like kids jumping on the bumper of a car, but enough that I know there’s trouble in River City. That starts with T and rhymes with Z, and stands for, uh, well, Zs.

T
he slapping gets louder. Then the moans, the groans. And that wet sound that happens when their flesh gets stuck on something and rips right off the bone. I hate that sound. That sound is the worst.

I can see them in the mirror, getting closer to the cab, their mouths hanging open, congealed bloody drool dripping from their lips and chins. Those that have lips and chins, at least. Some don’t even have lower jaws and the viscous fluids just drop
from their palates. Flaps of flesh hang in random strips from faces, necks, shoulders, arms, breasts, and bellies.

Hey, a cheerleader! I can’t wait to tell Stella I saw an undead cheerleader. She’s always hated cheerleaders. Like I hate clowns. Well, maybe not exactly like I hate clowns.

The slapping! Ugh, I want it just to stop. I try to keep the Stella train of thought going, try to think of the kids, home, the neighborhood. I even try to envision what the next HOA meeting will be like. “Hey, guys! Guess what? We have more neighbors! And they aren’t really into the HOA covenants. In fact, they aren’t into letting us live! Whatcha think of that, huh? Huh? Guys?”

The face that appears at my window is scorched from the scalp down to the eye sockets. It looks like someone set its hair on fire, but the thing got lucky and dunked itself in a toilet or something. Really weird. Then I have to wonder, looking at the burn pattern, if that isn’t what happened. And the way the skin looks
, I then have to wonder if the poor soul was alive when the burning and the dunking happened.

“Go away please,” I mouth. I don’t say it out loud. Voices, living real voices, tend to get them wound up, stir that hunger and shit.

The face is pushed aside as more and more Zs get to the window. Scorch Scalp decides to move to the front of the truck and climb on. Hmmm, it’s actually climbing onto the hood. That shows some athleticism. Maybe he died when a hazing went wrong? “Welcome to the lacrosse team! Now we burn your hair off! Oh, shit, and you’re coming back from the dead? Eeeeeeek!”

Ah, man, Scorch Scalp isn’t wearing pants. Or underwear. Don’t puke, don’t puke.

It sees me and pushes right up against the windshield. Scorch Scalp hisses, showing his teeth…and the meat stuck in them. He’s fed recently. Like really recently. Jesus. Do you think that makes them stronger? More agile? Like a flesh battery recharge? Fuck, I hope not.

Slap! Slap! SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAP!

“Stop it!” I cry, then clamp my hand over my mouth. What the fuck was I thinking? Why? Why did I do that?

The Zs like
it, though. It seems to energize them, give them new hope that they can crack this cab like a walnut and pick the tasty nut meat (me) out and have a tasty treat. The slapping is now banging. The windows don’t look as strong as they did just seconds ago. And look! Scorch Scalp has a buddy! Oh, two buddies? Sure there’s room, why not. Three? Four? Five, six, seven? Fuck…

Slapping to banging to…cracking?

Shit, the passenger window is breaking. I stare at the spider cracks that are slowly spreading as hand after undead hand slams against the safety glass. Safety glass? Not feeling so safe, thank you! The cracks spread more, not so slow. Not slow at all. Pretty fast, actually. Huh. I think this shit is going to-

“FUCK!” I scream as the glass crumbles inward. I kick and kick and kick at the hands that reach for me. I jam The Bitch at the hands, stabbing, gouging,
and trying to shred them. “Stay back! Fuck off! Fuck you! FUCK YOU!”

The hands keep reaching, but there are so many of
them attached to so many bodies that they clog the window. They can’t get bodies in. And bodies are where the teeth are. Okay, okay, this could be fine.

CRACK!

I slowly turn my head and see the split in the windshield. The Putrescent Seven will not have a problem getting through that window when the glass goes. Not going to get clogged there.

A hand grabs my foot and I scream. I don’t yell like a man or below in a deep voice. I scream in a high-pitched way only d
ogs can hear. I’d say I scream like a little girl, but that would be an insult to the marvelous screaming ability that little girls have. My scream can only be described as a supersonic attempt at shattering every piece of glass in the world.

Speaking of shattering glass…
There goes the driver’s side window and here come the Z hands. Not to be confused with jazz hands. Those are kinda fun. Who doesn’t love a little song and dance in the apocalypse?

Aaaaaaaaaah!
The hands that grab my head are wet! Slimy wet! Like a dog bone left out in the rain after a day of gnawing. Not jazz hands! NOT JAZZ HANDS! Skin sloughs off in my hair as I jerk away. Oh, but I can’t jerk too far since there are those supersonic scream inducing hands on the other side of the cab. So I settle in the middle, turning from side to side, smashing what I can with The Bitch. Soon the cab is covered with the oozing drippings of a thousand spike wounds. I keep bashing and smashing with The Bitch, but I’m not really helping my cause. I’m just creating more of a mess. The Zs don’t give a shit if I prick their fingers with my mighty spikes.

Back and forth, back and forth; smash and bash; spike and drip.

CRACK!

The win
dshield. The fucking windshield! Aren’t dump trucks supposed to have windshields made of like super glass? Indestructible glass that can stop a boulder at sixty miles an hour? I mean, dump trucks are around nothing but construction work. Can’t they stop falling girders and shit?

CRACK!

Apparently not.

CRACK!

Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck…oh shit.

The windshield is buc
kling under the weight of the Zs on the hood and I can see more climbing up and joining them. Great.

All I can do is close my eyes and pray I hear gunshots. Come on, Stuart. You were running pretty fast. You have to have gotten to the gate by now. But then
, there was that dark stain on his back. Oh, shit, did he fucking keel over and die before getting to the gate? Did a Z catch him in his weakened state? Oh, shit. Please let there be gunshots. Please, I have never wanted to hear the sound of gunpowder igniting so much in my life.

But as I hear the windshield start to give, the sucking sound of the seal giving way around the frame, the crackcrackcrack of the glass crumpling under the weight of the Zs, all I can think about
, besides the fact I’ll never see my family again (which I really try not to think about), is that I’m going to fucking die wearing bright pink yoga pants and a purple shirt with a mother fucking glittery butterfly.

Fuck!

Chapter Four

Okay, so I have to open my eyes. I can’t just die like a fucking pussy, all curled into a ball and whimpering on the bench seat of a dump truck. I have to open my eyes and face death like a man. Yep, just need to open my eyes. Come on now, Jace, open those eyes.

But I really don’t want to. God, how I don’t want to see what I hear. So I do the next best thing and roll off the bench seat and continue my cowardly curling on the floor, jammed up underneath the dashboard. At least a dump truck has a lot of
legroom. I get fully wedged into the passenger’s side and cover my head with my arms, as chunks of windshield fall over me. The hungry groans and moans of the Zs get louder and louder as they crawl through the windshield and the windows.

Half-rotted, and even fully rotted, fingers grab for me, their blackened nails digging into my forearms. Can I get
turned from a scratch? Is that true? I know bites are death, and everyone has been told that being scratched can mean infection from germs and shit, but I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone to turn from a scratch. And I’ve known a lot that have turned since Z-Day.

What the fuck am I talking about? I’m not going to live long enough to get
give a shit! I am only a couple minutes from being buried under a mound of undead bodies all trying to get a piece of my sweet, sweet meat. They are going to fill this cab and eat me bit by bit, as I lie on the floor and scream like a prom queen in a slasher movie. Oh, am I screaming again? Yeah, I may be. Don’t think it’s the Zs hitting those decibels, not with their putrid vocal chords.

So, here I am, my forearms bleeding from the Z fingers that can reach me, trying not to think of the family that is at home worried about me and may never know my fate, dressed in the most ridiculous outfit a man can die in, screaming like a madman, and what do I hear?

A war cry.

That’s the only way I can describe it. This undulating wail of violence and anger. There is no fear in this
scream; unlike mine which is pretty much 90% fear and maybe 10% stress relief. This scream/wail/yell/call to kill echoes over the dump truck and I decide now is a good time to open my eyes. The Zs have started to retreat. Well, they try to, but they have jammed themselves in the windows pretty damn good. Too stupid to back out one at a time, the Zs thrash and flail, conflicted between their need to eat me and their need to eat whatever is outside the truck. For being undead, they have a lot of needs and conflicts. Fucking Zs…

I feel the truck rocking as Zs start moving towards the war cry. There are too many for me to have any hope that the cab will clear out. I can see rotted bodies climbing over the crushed windshield, trying to get to the floor and my flesh. I try, god how I try, to shove myself up inside the dashboard, but it doesn’t make any difference as cold, cloudy eyes turn on me and rotted mouths open in a single hiss of hunger.

“Fuck off!” I shout at them. “You want a piece of my pink ass? Come and get it, fuckers!”

And boy do they. Or try. Enginee
ring not being their forte, the Zs have actually blocked access to me by pushing what’s left of the windshield down against the seat. It won’t hold long, I can see, that but it gives me a few more seconds of screaming time.

Then I notice that I’m the only one screaming. The war cry is silent. Poor bastard, whoever he was.

Then a Z is gone. Like gone. Yanked out of the truck. Then a second. And a third. A fourth. The windshield brigade of death is out of sight, pulled away, they are no more. All that’s left are the Zs wedged into the side window frames. And in seconds they start to shudder. First the driver’s side window: gone, gone, gone. No more Zs. Then the passenger window, right above me. Once again, no more Zs.

“You gots to stop screaming,” a voice says from outside the truck. “I didn’t kill these Zs so you can bring more.”

I see a couple of hands grab the window frame then a face is there. Hey…I know that face.

“I know you,” I say. “You’re Elsbeth.”

“Hey, Long Pork.” She grins and I don’t quite feel safer. But I’m not screaming anymore. “You’re truck is broke. Why’d your friends leave you? They hates you or something?”

“They didn’t leave me,” I say. “One ran off as a diversion and the other went to get help.”

She looks over her shoulder. “Help? But there’s only like fifty of the Zs out here. Grown men can’t kill fifty Zs?” Then her eyes light up and the hugest grin comes across her face. “My stick! You got my stick!” She reaches in and snags The Bitch from the seat. “Thanks, Long Pork!”

She jumps away and I listen closely, not sure I can uncurl from
my heroic fetal position. I hear a few whacks and…laughter? Yeah, she’s out there laughing and I’m in here whimpering in pink yoga pants. Not wet with pee. Not at all.

I finally shove the broken windshield out of the
way; it just folds in on itself, and I climb out of the truck. I stand there on the asphalt, in my not wet with pee yoga pants and purple butterfly shirt, and gape at the carnage. There are dozens and dozens of Zs strewn everywhere, their heads crushed or ripped off. Many are missing limbs and I can see said missing limbs buried in the skulls of other Zs.

One girl did all of this?

“What are you doing?” I ask Elsbeth, as I watch her going through the still Zs’ pockets. Those that have pockets. “Are you robbing the undead?”

Elsbeth looks up at me, squinting against the sunlight, and cocks her head. “Robbing? What you mean by that?”

“You’re going through their pockets. Why?”

Elsbeth shrugs then holds up her hand. A few coins, a paper clip, and a Swiss Army knife.

“Never know what you might find,” she says as she stands up and lets the coins fall from her hand. She puts the paper clips in her pockets and opens the large blade on the knife. “Still sharp.”

She hands it to me and hoists The Bitch over her shoulder. I look at the knife and the size of the blade compared to
the bat. “I’d rather have The Bitch.”

She looks at me and I can see her trying to figure out what I mean. I nod at the bat on her shoulder. “The Bitch. That’s what I call your bat. It’s like mine.”

“This is better,” she says and takes it from her shoulder, looking at it. “The Bitch. Good name. I never named it. Thanks.”

“Uh, sure,” I nod then look around. I can hear moaning coming from around the bend and know more Zs are on the way. “Uh, Whispering Pines is just up the road.” I point ahead. “Not far. We should get going.”

Elsbeth looks at me then at the road. She does this a few times and nods. Then starts walking away. I follow her, but can’t even come close to keeping pace as my leg feels like it’s on fire. And, well, Elsbeth is a really fast walker. She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles.

“You’re a gimp, Long Pork,” she says as she comes back and takes one of my arms and drapes it over her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have saved your gimp ass if I’d known you’d be so slow
, but Pa’s gone and I just got you. Still, slow don’t deserve to live.”

“Well, I’m an exception because I’m so awesome,” I say.

“That right?” she laughs. “Don’t you mean because you’re so pretty? What with those pants on and all. Damn, Long Pork, I lived in that house for a long time and I wouldn’t be caught dead in those things. They were left upstairs for a reason. Even if Pa wanted me to wear them.”

“
Not really my choice,” I say. She’s pretty talkative, a different person. I have to wonder how much of the stupid was just an act for her pa. “And don’t call me Long Pork. My name is Jace. You can just call me Jace.”

“Nope,” Elsbeth says as she helps me hobble along. “I save your pinky ass and I get to name you. Long Pork is your name now.”

“I don’t think my wife will like that,” I say. “The kids will think it’s funny, but my wife won’t be too pleased that you named me after your cannibal cuisine.”

“Cooz-een?” she asks. “What’s that mean?”

“Cuisine? Like the way you prepare food. A style of food. You know, like Mexican cuisine, Italian cuisine, stuff like that.”

“Only one way you prepare foods,” she replies. “Over a fire.
That’s my cooz-een.”

“Yeah, I was made quite aware of that,” I say.

We walk for a few minutes before I notice the landmarks that tell us we’re close to Whispering Pines. “Just around the corner,” I say.

She stops and lets my arm fall away. “Good luck, Long Pork,” she says and starts to take off up the hill and into the brush.

“Hey!” I shout. “Wait!”

“Holy cripes, Long Pork,” she hisses. “You’s got to shut the hell up.”

“Where are you going?” I ask. “Whispering Pines is this way.”

She shakes her head. “They won’t let me in.
We tried once. Killed Uncle Jeb with one shot and then said they’d kill us if we didn’t move on.”

“Ah, shit,” I whisper.
Jesus…
I shake my head back and forth. “They won’t shoot you now. You’re with me. They’ll let you in. They have to.”

She laughs loud and then closes her mouth, her eyes wide and senses alert. When she’s satisfied she hasn’t brought Zs down on us she gives me a hard look. “Nobody has to do nothing no more, Long Pork. Ain’t you got no sense in your head? Nobody has to do nothing.”

She has a point.

“Jace? Jace!” Stuart says as he and part of his defensive crew come jogging up to me. “Damn, man! How’d you get away?”

“And what the hell are you wearing?” one of the crew asks, a guy named Harlan Tobias, as the others just stare at me.

“It was hot yoga night,” I say. “I didn’t have time to change before being surrounded by Zs.” I hold up the knife. “But they were handing out knives to the first lucky dozen. So that’s a plus.”

“I think Jace has gone over the edge, man,” Harlan whispers to the man next to him.

“You,” Elsbeth snarls and the men all see her
a few feet away for the first time. She had just stopped being there for a minute, almost invisible, until she wanted to be noticed. “You killed Pa.”

Stuart turns and gives her the full weight of his stare. For the record, Stuart’s stare, when it is on full blast and without any mercy or compassion, is terrifying. Other than a mob of Zs
, it’s the only other thing that would make me piss my pants. Not that I pissed my pants. I’m not admitting that at all. But Elsbeth doesn’t wither under his eyes. Instead, she seems to puff up, her body filling with confidence as she slowly walks over and gets face to face with Stuart.

“Uh, boss?”
Harlan asks. “Should we shoot her?”

Before anyone can do anything
, Elsbeth sweeps Stuart’s legs out from under him. The others move on her and in a blink, they’re down on the ground, clutching body parts, mainly their crotches, and all writhing in pain. Elsbeth raises The Bitch over Stuart.

“Say you’re sorry,” she orders.

“For what then?” Stuart asks.

“For killing Pa,” Elsbeth says.

“No,” Stuart says.

“Uh, dude,” I say
, “just say you’re sorry.”

“I’m not, though,” Stuart says as he l
ies on the asphalt. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat to save your pink ass, Jace.”

“Okay, I need to get home and change,” I say. “I’m really sick of everyone commenting on my pink ass.”

“You ain’t gonna say you’re sorry?” Elsbeth asks.

“No, young lady, I’m not,” Stuart says. “Are you gonna kill me with that thing?”

“Maybe,” she says.

“But maybe not
then?”

“Maybe not.”

“I think you’re leaning towards the maybe not part,” Stuart says. “Because since I did kill your Pa, you don’t have anyone else. You kill me and Jace can’t take you back to Whispering Pines.”

“I’d be fine on my own,” she replies. “I can handle the Zs.”

“I can attest to that,” I say.

“For a time, I’m sure you would be,” Stuart nods. “But not against the people. There’s a lot of them and they aren’t looking to make friends.”

“I don’t make friends with food no how anyway,” Elsbeth shrugs.

Stuart suddenly kicks out at her, but she jumps his legs and comes down with one knee on his chest, the spikes of The Bitch pressed against his throat. They stare at each other and I’m pretty sure I witness the first ever successful example of nuclear fusion outside the Sun itself. What I mean to say
, is that staring shit is intense.

Stuart gives her a slight nod. Elsbeth watches him for a split second and then nods back. She gets off his chest and he pushes up onto his elbows. He looks over at me and frowns. “Gonna need some help, Jace.”

I see the bloodstain on the asphalt and remember that he’s wounded. The motherfucker runs to get help and then hikes it back while bleeding from god knows where. Adding that to the long list of why I don’t piss off James “Don’t Call Me Jimmy” Stuart.

I get him up and Elsbeth steps
past us and starts to help the others. They warily take her hand, one at a time, but don’t argue with the olive branch. I highly doubt any of them will ever argue with Elsbeth.