as they got stuck between the steel of the truck bed and the heavy tailgate.
“Finger food!” Trip laughed.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Gary said.
“Not in here!” BT and I said nearly simultaneously.
Fists and hands began to beat against the truck. The body was secure enough, even
if it didn’t quench the stench. The cab was a different story. In his haste to leave
the truck and get to the apartment building, Gary had left his door open. I couldn’t
fault him for that; he, like the rest of us, figured we were never coming back to
our armored vehicle. Now it was going to become the focal point of our defense.
“Move!” I began to push people out of my way.
I was heading up to the front and the Plexiglas window where even now a zombie was
making his way inside. He was halfway through when I placed the muzzle of my weapon
on the back of his head. He turned and hissed at me, pure unadulterated hatred burned
in his eyes as I blew a hole in his head.
Even with my ears ringing I could hear Gary retching in the corner. Right now I’d
take the stink of vomit over what leaked out of the zombie’s head. I was going to
push him back out and into the cab, but that was not going to happen as zombies were
beginning to pile in up front. Two pressed their way into the rapidly diminishing
space. I waited until they were good and stuck before I ended their existences, such
as they were.
Trip came up and put his arm around my shoulder. “Kind of reminds me of the cave,”
he said, smiling.
And instantly I was transported back to that rock constricting vice-like grip that
ensnared my entire body. “Thanks for that,” I told him, doing my best to shake the
imagery from my mind.
“Oh…you’re welcome,” he said, looking at the zombies. “Good times.” He walked away.
The dead zombies next to me were twitching violently, but not from nerve endings still
firing. The zombies behind them were attempting to get through the roadblock and the
prizes beyond.
Travis was peering through one of the murder holes. “There’s got to be hundreds,”
he said with just about no inflection in his voice. I’ll admit, that was in itself
unnerving. It sounded like he was packing it in.
“We’ve been in tighter spots.” I hoped my false words would lend assurance to his
deaf ear.
Then I thought, Have we? We were effectively trapped in a sardine can; it was just a matter of the zombies
figuring out how to use that little key to peel the cover back. I wondered if they
still used that little key. I’ve got to be honest, I can’t even remember the last
time I saw a can of sardines being opened.
“You hear that?” Trip asked.
I heard Gary’s constant stomach gurgling, the jostling of zombies, the pounding of
multiple hands on metal, a bunch of snarls and hissing—most from outside—and some
apprehensive murmuring from within the truck, all normal things for this particular
predicament. I did not know which one Trip was fixating on.
“I hear it too,” Tommy said. “Sounds like a plane.”
“So?” was my bitter response. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do us! Might as well
be an ice cream truck.” I’d just had a momentary tailspin and apparently felt like
raining on the improvised parade.
“That’s not a plane,” Trip said as I was even now beginning to hear the prop wash.
Whatever it was flew directly over our location.
“Drone,” he clarified.
“Drone? How can you know?” BT asked.
“He has three,” Stephanie said.
“Who’s operating drones?” I asked, definitely needing the answer.
“I don’t know, but it’s safe to assume they know we’re here,” Gary said, picking up
his head long enough to speak.
“And what are they going to do about it?” I asked sourly.
“Talbot!” Tracy said sternly.
***
“Sir, I’ve got a visual from Sparrow Four on that truck you wanted me to follow,”
Staff Sergeant Emerson said.
“Put it up on the main screen,” Captain Najarian ordered. “Holy shit, they got themselves
into a jam didn’t they?” He surveyed the scene. Zombies surrounded the plow with more
coming in from all angles. “I wonder why they’re not moving. Are they injured? Switch
to thermal,” he said as the drone made a wide arc and came around, the gyroscopic
camera mounted underneath the craft never straying from the turmoil below.
“Switching to thermal,” the staff sergeant said. The screen turned a murky gray with
the minimal heat index of the zombies around the truck, bright points of light inside.
“Ten heat signatures.” Captain Najarian did a quick count. “At least two of them may
be sick, one is burning with fever, and he’s a big one. And then two of them have
a cooler core temperature. Dying maybe. What of the other six? Their temps looks fine,
so either they’re out of gas, or that rolling zombie slayer has broken down.”
“Orders, sir? Sparrow Four is twenty-four minutes from splash down.” The staff sergeant
was referring to how much fuel the bird had left.
“Well, let’s lighten her load. Send a sidewinder spinning,” Captain Najarian said.
“Sir?”
“Close enough to the truck that they know help is coming, but not close enough to
cause them any harm. See how many of the zeds you can take out. And then unleash the
fifty cal into the horde. That should buy you some more fly time with the reduced
weight and them some more life time. Then get the bird home. I’m sending some boots
on the ground to retrieve them.”
“Yes, sir.”
***
“You hear that?” Trip asked again.
It would have been impossible to miss. I’d heard enough missiles being launched during
my military days.
“Everyone down!” I yelled.
If the drone and the people operating it were targeting us, then the gesture was useless.
I was angry. Frying in a damn metal box was not on my list of things to do for the
day. The truck rocked heavily as the missile slammed into the ground. The left side
of the body got hot as a wave of fire and debris smashed into us.
“Wow, someone needs a little practice at the range,” Trip said.
“Um…Trip, maybe we should be hoping that they didn’t want to hit us,” I said to him.
“Oh! That makes WAY more sense!” he answered.
“Mike, what’s going on?” Tracy asked.
She might as well have been asking me to translate a calculus problem into German
and then explain how it related to the ancient Mayans. I had no fucking clue. I was
saved the trouble of bullshitting an answer as the air just about ripped open. The
drone started firing what I had to believe was a fifty-caliber machine gun. Even with
my hands placed against my head, the sound was ear splitting. If none of our eardrums
were ruptured, I would consider that a victory. The truck bed only amplified the sound,
like a mini-echo chamber.
The whole affair was over in less than a minute. When I felt it was safe to remove
my hands from my ears, I could just make out the sound of the retreating drone.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
I looked out
my shooting hole only to be greeted with the ugly mug of a zombie. I
stuck my barrel out and into his mouth, adding the back of his head to the devastation
on the ground around the truck. The mini-plane had killed a lot of zombies. An accurate
count was out of the question as there were parts of all sizes and shapes strewn amid
the wreckage.
“I have got to get me one of those drones,” I said as I tried to get an angle to see
which way it had gone.
“You do remember when I got you and the kids all those remote-control helicopters
that one year, right?” Tracy asked, coming up to me.
“Yeah,” I said, dejected.
I had just got mine fully charged and no sooner got it into flight when it slammed
off the kitchen light and onto the floor where a helicopter-hating Henry pounced on
it, ripping the machine in half. I’d never seen the dog move that fast in my life.
One second he was drooling on the couch a room away, and the next, he’s got a paw
on the chopper’s blades and his mouth wrapped around the cockpit. I could only look
on in abject horror as his massive jaw clamped down and snuffed out my fun. Travis
had said I could play with his helicopter, but Tracy wouldn’t let me because we all
knew how that would end up.
I looked over to Henry, his stub tail wagging. “You’d tear my drone in half too, wouldn’t
you?” I said to him.
His mouth was open wide. It was hard not to imagine he was smiling.
“Got to be military right?” Gary asked.
Odds were yes, but none of us knew for sure, and even though the machine and its operator
had helped out greatly, we were still surrounded by zombies. I had to imagine that
the noise was only going to bring more of them.
“Dad, we’ve got a problem,” Justin said.
I wanted to tell him that we had way more than one. He was pointing towards the front
of the truck; the zombies had figured out a solution to their problem. They were pulling
the jammed, dead zombies out from the window. It was disconcerting as fuck to witness
a thinking zombie; mindless brain eaters were bad enough. And almost as if it was
coordinated, the moment the hole was free, we heard zombies on the roof. The same
roof designed really to only be a protector against the elements—plywood and tarp
were not very effective enemy shields.
“Funner and funner,” I said, raising my rifle, waiting for the first zombie to attempt
the breech.
“It’s actually more fun and more fun,” Trip said, attempting to hand me a lit joint.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked him. I didn’t know which was stranger, that he was
correcting my horrible use of English, or trying to get me stoned.
“How did this guy save your life, man?” BT asked, shaking his head. He was sitting
in the bench seat closest to us, his rifle pointed upwards for the inevitable assault.
“What are they waiting for?” Tracy asked.
“I don’t know,” I told her.
The zombies in the cab were looking at us like it was Christmas 1996 and we had just
taken the last Tickle Me Elmo dolls off the shelf. They hated us; the look they gave
us said it all. I love cheeseburgers, may just be one of my favorite foods of all
time, and I can honestly say I’ve never hated a cow. In fact, I love them for how
tasty they are. But to these new zombies, it was something more. Not only were we
their food supply…we were the enemy. We were hated merely for being who we were. A
new term had been coined: Humanism; definition - hatred or intolerance of another bi-pedal, merely because of one’s status of being
alive as opposed to undead.
“Well, fellas, I’m really not a fan of this détente shit,” I said as I got closer
to the window and blew a burst of rounds into the cab, killing two zombies as the
third jumped out.
I was looking at the gap, wondering if I could get through it quick enough to shut
the door before a zombie caught me in an awkward position and ripped my throat out.
I wouldn’t even have the luxury of someone being able to cover me while I did the
foolhardy maneuver.
The reward was worth the risk, it gave the zombies one less avenue of entry. I stuck
my rifle through first, then my head. When I was a little past my shoulders I turned
and fired shots into the chest of a zombie who was standing right next to the driver’s
door. As he fell over, I scrambled into the cab. My boot somehow got hung up in between
the two partitions, twisting me into an awkward position as I attempted to free myself.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, an opportunistic little zombie took that precise moment
to come in after me.
She was hideous, her brown hair plastered to her head in a beehive of gristle. Long
swaths of strands framed her face. Her eyes burned with intensity as she cautiously
entered. She was looking all around her for any signs of a trap. My rifle was effectively
pinned under my side, my boot was lodged, and my rifle sling was hung up as well.
I was in trouble.
The zombie’s hands grabbed onto the lip of the seat so she could pull herself up.
Her head was now level with mine, her blood-coated tongue licked over her stained
teeth. She was pulling herself closer. I don’t know how fast in real time the scene
was playing out, but in my head it was in super slow motion. I watched in frame-by-frame
detail as her tongue outlined her cracked and pustule-filled lips. Even as her dirty,
disease-laden hands moved closer to my face. Like a snake, her tongue was rapidly
flicking in and out of her mouth. She was three-quarters in when she finally darted
at me.
A few things happened at once, I felt powerful hands grab my boot, twist it slightly,
and push with enough force to send me crashing into the dashboard. As my body twisted,
I brought my rifle up. The zombie woman snapped down on my trigger guard. I felt her
tooth scrape against my finger. Then there was a loud explosion as BT drilled her
in the head.
“Saving your ass is a full time job, I just wish it paid more and maybe came with
medical and dental,” he said, keeping an eye out for any more intruders.
“Shit, BT, thanks.”
“Shut the damn door,” he said. “Crazy cracker.” A deep cough racked his body. If I
hadn’t known the man for the last six months I would have assumed he was a three-pack-a-day
smoker the way his body shivered from the violent expulsion. Although, now that I
think of it, Mrs. Deneaux probably smoked that much and I’d not so much as heard her
clear her throat.
I pushed Headless Henrietta out the door, followed immediately by the other three
dead zombies; tossing them like a teenager tosses McDonald’s wrappers out from their
car. My hands were covered in all manner of matter I do not wish to discuss, and the
front of the truck looked like a softball team’s worth of virgins had been deflowered.
Think about it for a moment. Yup, you’ve got the picture now, and yes, I did just
write that down. I reached over and grabbed the door handle to pull the door shut
just as a zombie smacked into my arm. I’d taken too much time cleaning house.
The teeth were pressing down on my arm, I pulled away quickly, leaving the zombie
with a mouthful of cotton for its t
rouble. I grabbed the steering wheel and spun quickly,
sending my boot smashing into the zombie’s nose, crushing it almost flush with the
rest of its facial features. It might not have been an improvement, but it wasn’t
detrimental either. Quasimodo would have made fun of the thing that was trying to