Z-Burbia: A Zombie Novel (9 page)

“Stop!” Jon shouts.

“No,” Stuart says
, “we can’t. I don’t think this thing will get going again.”

“Then fuck the truck! We’re gonna lose Jace!”

“No, we aren’t,” Stuart says, “pull.”

“I like the pulling!” I shout as my feet scrape the pavement. I look over and the horde is at the truck’s rear. “Please
, for the pulling now!”

Black, congealed blood drips from several undead mouths as they raise their arms towards me. I can see the hunger in their dead eyes. It’s always surprising how much “life” they have when they’re all riled and close to feeding. You can see them just perk right up, all set to get their chomping on.

Then Jon yanks me into the cab and I slam the door closed.

“Thanks,” I say, catching my breath.

“Any time,” he smiles, then points. “Behind that shed. The access road leads across the soccer field and down to Riverside.”

Stuart takes his eyes off the road long enough to give Jon a look of disdain.

“What? I didn’t know if you knew which way to go.”

“I know which way to go,”
Stuart says. “This was my idea.”

“Well, maybe you had a different route in mind,” Jon says. “How am I supposed to know?”

“What route would that be, Padre?” Stuart asks. “How many routes are there then? You have a list on you?”

“Okay, okay, don’t get all touchy,” Jon says, lifting his hands in surrender. “Same team, Stuart.”

Stuart just frowns and grumbles a bit.

“
I think he needs a nap,” I whisper.

“Screw you, Jace,” Stuart says. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“Not necessarily,” Jon says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m sure that’s what half those dorm rats thought pre-Z and now look at them. Never gonna rest again.”

“Speaking of,” I say as we hit the soccer field and rip through the long grass. “How many do you think are back there?”

“I know, I know,” Stuart says.

Jon rubs at his face. “Can’t lead them all back to Whispering Pines.”

“So…?” I ask. “We make a stand?”

“Yes, but not here,” Stuart says. “Wait until we get down to
251. Then we pick one of the spots that’s closest to the river with a cliff on the other side.”

“Box them in?”

“Narrow their charge and take them out,” Stuart says.

“With what?” Jon asks. “Jace’s bat?”

“The Bitch,” I say. “She is called The Bitch.”

“I don’t care what she’s called,” Jon says. “
We don’t have enough weapons.”

“Then we look for some,” Stuart says. “This isn’t our first rodeo.”

“True, but I’d rather be the bull in this than the clown,” Jon says.

“Me too,” Stuart nods
, “but clowns serve a purpose too.”

“I hate clowns,” I say. “Why’d you have to bring up clowns? Zs aren’t enough? Gotta talk about the smiley creepy guys too?”

“I like clowns,” Stuart says. “My wife used to collect them.”

Jon and I look at each other. It’s the first time we’ve ever heard Stuart talk about pre-Z other than his
Marines days. As far as we’ve known he was immaculately conceived and just showed up fully grown in the middle of Camp Lejeune one day, rip roaring ready to kill, kill, kill!

“What?” Stuart asks. “You know those little ceramic clowns? Not the big ones with the sad faces, but the small ones that are busy doing tumbles and cartwheels? She liked those. I always brought her as many as I could carry when I was deployed.”

“I thought you trained Marines?” I ask.

“That too,” he says. “She loved those clowns. Hold on!”

We are so busy listening to him that we don’t see that he is heading straight for the edge of the field and a drop off.

“Fuck!” I shout as I hold my hand to the ceiling of the cab, bracing myself for the drop.

“Dammit!” Jon yells next to me.

The front of the truck seems to hover in mid air then fall forward, slamming and bouncing against the side of the hill. It’s almost a straight drop and I am seriously worried that the truck is just going to start tumbling end over end. That stops being my worry when I realize that the bottom of the hill isn’t a nice, gradual grade, but a straight shot at the asphalt.

“Shit,” Stuart growls as he turns the wheel slightly.

We feel the truck start to turn, but we also feel the wheels start to leave the hill.

“Ah, shit,” Jon says.

I agree with him 100%.

Stuart is able to angle the truck just right so that the front wheel, and not the grill, hits the pavement first. The back bounces up in the air and we wait for it to flip us over as it lifts, but all of our cursing/praying works, because then it slams back down in a teeth jarring crunch.

The engine stalls and Stuart turns the key over and over.

“Shit,” he says.

“Dead? Or flooded?” Jon asks.

“Not a clue,” Stuart says and jumps from the truck. He unlatches the hood and flips it up, bracing it with its bars. “Come give me a hand!”

We follow and climb up the wheel wells until all three of us are looking into the engine.

“Do you guys know what we’re looking for?” Jon asks.

Moans and the sound of breaking underbrush tell us that the Zs are coming. They’ll be down the hill pretty quick
, since most of them will probably just trip and fall their way down. We have a very limited time to trouble shoot a dump truck engine none of us knows how to work on.

“I don’t smell gas,” I say, trying to work it out
, “and I don’t see smoke.”

“It could just be dead,” Stuart says. “It sounded like it was going to throw a rod soon anyway.”

“We would have heard that happen, right?” I ask.

Stuart just shrugs.

“Okay, so what happened?” I stare into the engine, my brain working on overdrive. I’m the problem solver. That’s why they keep me around. I figure shit out with the barest of information. I can do this. “We took a hard bounce, right?”

“You need me to confirm tha
t?” Jon says. “You were in the same truck we were.”

The Zs are even closer.

“Dammit,” Stuart says as he hops down, machete in hand. “I’ll buy us time. Figure it out, Jace.”

“Right,” I nod
, “figuring it out.”

“You were asking about the bounce,” Jon says.

“Thanks. Yes, the bounce,” I say. “It could have loosened something. What looks loose?”

“It’s a piece of shit engine,” Jon replies. “It all looks loose.”

We hear a thwack and then a body drop. I don’t have time to look behind me. I just have to trust Stuart to do his job.

“Something specific,” I say. “Look for loose wires. Loose cables. Loose belts. Anything that is hanging down or disconnected that shouldn’t be.”

“Again, I don’t know what should or shouldn’t be hanging down,” Jon snaps.

Thwack, drop. Thwack, drop. Thwack…thwack, drop.

“You aren’t helping,” I say to Jon.

“I don’t know how!” Jon says. “I
know nothing about engines!”

“Fine, fine, fine,” I mutter as I scan and rescan the engine, going over everything with my eyes.

Thwack, thwack, thwack. Drop, drop, thwack, drop.

“Gonna need to get moving,” Stuart says, slightly out of breath. “No pressure. Just letting you know we have about fifty seconds.”

Nope, no pressure there.

“Get in the cab,” I order Jon. “Turn the key when I say so.”

“Okay,” he says.

I study the engine one more time
, and then reach as far down as I can and grab a handful of thick wires. One is connected, a second is connected, a third and a fourth. The fifth isn’t connected, neither is the sixth. I follow the wires back and realize what I’m looking at. Distributor cables.

“Well, shit,” I say as I plug cables five and six in.
The rest are good to go. “Crank it!”

Jon turns the key and the engine sputters, sputters, sputters, kicks over, sputters, dies.

“FUCK!” I yell. “Do it again!”

Thwack, thwack.

“Son of a bitch!” Stuart shouts. “Fucking die!”

Thwack, drop.

Jon turns and the engine sputters, sputters, catches, revs, revs, stays running!

“Let’s go!” I yell at Stuart, but he’s already on the other side of the hood and helping me slam it down and latch it.

“Move,” he says to Jon as he hops into the cab.

I look back as I climb up and see several Zs with their heads split open
sprawled on the ground, goo pooling about them. I also see quite a horde coming at us and coming down the hill. The first horde has grown; they must have texted that there was a meat party, because it looks like half the campus is on our asses.

“Can we get this thing up to speed?” I ask, slamming the door. “Because the game just got out and the frat boys are coming our way.”

Stuart looks over at me and frowns as he prepares to shift into second gear. “Make sense, Jace.”

“Big horde O’ Zs crawling up our tailpipe,” I say.

“Yeah, I saw them,” Stuart says.

“Then why’d you tell me to make sense?”

“Because I wasn’t sure if that’s what you meant.”

“Really, guys?” Jon says. “Is this the time?”

Stuart shoves the gear shift into second and a huge grinding sound echoes from under the truck. The stick pops back on him and he snatches his hand away.

“Ow! Dammit!” he shouts.

He tries again, but the truck won’t shift into second.

“That’s not good, right?” Jon asks.

“No,” Stuart says. “It means we can’t get above about five miles an hour without burning out the transmission or the engine.”

“Still faster than the Zs, though,” I say and lean out the window for a look. “Or not.”

“What?” Jon asks as he leans past me and has a look. “Crap.”

“Zs can’t go faster than five miles an hour,” Stuart says
. “We’ll stay ahead of them.”

“But we won’t have a lead,” I say. “We need to get rid of this horde befor
e we get to Whispering Pines.”

We all three sit there while the truck rumbles along at its snail’s pace.

“There is one way,” Jon says.

“No,” Stuart and I say at the same time.

“I’m pretty fast,” Jon says. “I just draw them away in the other direction. We’re close enough to home that I can double back without them getting me. Not the first time I’ve been solo out here.”

“No,” Stuart says.

“No way,” I agree. “We aren’t splitting up.”

Jon starts to rummage around in the cab and comes up with a nasty looking tire iron. Long, thick, strong. Way bigger than the one that comes with the free jack
in your average sedan. This guy is easily three feet long with an already wicked point on the straight end. The wrench end is as big as a fist, ready to work the huge lug nuts off the truck tires.

“Look at this,” Jon says. “Come on, guys. I can do this. It’s our only option.”

“No, the other option is we get to the gate and let the sentries pick off the Zs,” Stuart says.

We can tell he doesn’t believe his own bullshit. The amount of ammo that would be wasted? It would be devastating. This
horde has become a fucking herd. While I’m pretty sure the gate would hold, it would be put to the test.

And we still have Wall Street and his Day Raiders to deal with.

“Ha,” I chuckle.

“
What?” Jon asks.

“Wall Street and the Day Raiders,” I say.

“Is that some rock band?”

“Nah, it’s the name I came up with for Wall Street and those bikers.”

“Good one,” Stuart says. “Clever.”

“Thanks,” I smile.

“So…about the bait thing?” Jon asks.

“No,” Stuart and I repeat.

“Not even with this?” he says, holding up the tire iron, waving his hand over it like a sales model.

“No, Vanna, not even with that,” I say.

“You guys are no fun,” Jon says, “which means, sometimes you have to make your own fun!”

He grabs the handle and shoves me back against the seat, pinning me so I can’t stop him. Out he jumps, tucking and rolling into the small ditch by the side of the road. Even over the truck
engine, I can hear the moans of the herd grow louder as they catch sight of him.

“You fucker!” I shout and start to go after him, but Stuart’s
hand clamps down on my shoulder and pulls me back.

“No, you don’t,”
he says. “He may have a chance, but you won’t limp fast enough. You’ll be eaten before you get twenty yards.”

“FUCK!” I yell as I slam my fists against the dash. “Ow…”