Cryonic

  There were dead zombies on both sides of the Humvee, all American soldiers, all of them shot in the head. Blood was splattered across the back door. We readied our weapons and walked up to the vehicle. Dr. Trowbridge, covered in blood, lay in his seat. He clutched the base of his neck with both hands. Blood surged between his fingers with every beat of his heart.

  “Doc, doc, what do we do? What do we do?” I begged.

  “Nothing,” he gasped. “Too late for me. Severed my carotid . . . I’m bleeding out.”

  “What happened?” Celeste asked.

  “Fell aslee—”

  He stopped speaking and stared blankly off into the distance. The blood stopped flowing through his wound.

  “He’s gone,” I said calmly. Then a flood of emotion rushed over me. “Fucking hell, doc! What are we going to do without you?” I felt like crying. I was naked, tired, and emotionally drained. Another friend had died a horrible death, and the genius behind the cure was no longer there to guide us.

  “We have to get out of here,” Celeste said. “We have to keep moving.”

  “You’re right. We’re better off in the city at night than we are staying here. Who knows how many more of them are out there? We’ll just get overrun. Let me go get the clothes.”

  “OK,” Celeste said. “Hurry back.”

  I started toward the creek but then thought better of it. “You know what? Let’s just take the Humvee. Safer that way. I can drive right into the water.”

  55.

  We left the creek and drove back toward the highway. The flame-orange sun was sinking beneath the horizon. The sopping-wet army uniforms we wore were abrasive and cold against the skin, but they preserved our modesty and protected us from lingering thoughts of indiscretion at the center of the creek.

  “We have to get Buck,” Celeste said. “He won’t be safe here anymore.”

  As difficult, and potentially dangerous, as I knew it would be to bring the deranged old man along with us, doing so was a simple act of humanity. After having unceremoniously left Dr. Trowbridge’s body lying in the dirt, as we had with Alex before him, we needed to know we were still human.

  I parked the Humvee in front of the Charge and Chow. “Keep watch out here. Just holler if you need me. I’ll do the same.”

  I grabbed my rifle and approached the building. The front door was ajar, held open by a cowboy boot pointing at the sky. A red-faced turkey vulture emerged from the doorway and hopped down the front step as I approached. I waved my gun, and the massive black bird flew over and landed on a rusted out car sitting at the edge of Buck’s lot.

  I opened the door and saw what had to be Buck, judging by the scraps of bloodied overalls spread around the corpse. The majority of the flesh had been plucked clean from his frame, and the crimson skeleton that remained looked much smaller than the man. I stepped inside the building and slipped on the blood pooled on the floor. I peeked at each side of the aisles. The place looked empty. I grabbed the box of Twinkies and some rose-scented air freshener.

  “See any freaks out here?” I asked, climbing back into the Humvee.

  “A couple through the binoculars over toward the highway, but other than that, the coast was clear. Where’s Buck?”

  “See that boot in the doorway?”

  “Where?”

  “Over there. The one sticking out the door.”

  “Oh, nooo. Poor old man.”

  “Ya, it’s a real shame. Wish we could’ve helped him.”

  We drove down the dirt road and climbed the embankment back on to the highway. Zombies in military uniforms dotted the lanes. Most wandered west toward Kansas City.

  “Looks like they’re catching up to us,” Celeste commented.

  “I know. I wonder what it is about the road that draws them. Maybe they like walking on pavement.”

  “Or maybe their brains know that roads are for traveling.”

  “Too bad for them their brains don’t know that doorknobs are for turning.” Celeste smiled at the joke.

  “Say, how’s your uniform smell?” I asked.

  “Better, but still not good.” She held her jacket to her nose and sniffed it. “Actually, it’s still pretty bad.”

  “Here, stick this in your pocket.” I handed her the rose-scented car air freshener. It was shaped like a pine tree. “A lady like you should smell like a rose.”

  Celeste tore into the package like it was a Christmas gift. She unbuttoned her front pocket and slid the air freshener inside.

  “There,” she said. “Good as new. Now pass me a Twinkie.”

  56.

  We motored down the highway toward Kansas City. The closer we got to KC, the more we saw American civilians among the infected. The crowds grew with each passing mile. With the Humvee we could drive over and even through the walking dead.

  “Man, look at all of them. I bet they’re from the city,” I said. “I really hope this doesn’t mean it’s overrun.”

  “Me, too. If it is, we better find another route before the bombing starts.”

  57.

  We reached the city limits around midnight. Lights illuminated the windowed skyscrapers dotting the distant skyline.

  “Look at that! That’s a good sign, huh?” I asked.

  “Amazing. There have to be people in there. Real live people.”

  “I wonder where the army is?”

  “Once we find somebody, they can show us the way.”

  Three cars sped past us from the other direction. I flashed my headlights at them, but they didn’t even slow down.

  “They’re really moving. Too bad they’re headed in the wrong direction,” I said. “Maybe they can tell us what’s going on. Should I go after them?”

  “I don’t think we should. I doubt they’ll stop for us.”

  I drove further down the highway, weaving through an increasing logjam of wandering ghouls and abandoned vehicles. We pulled up to an ugly scene. A minivan was turned sideways, having crashed into the center divider. The doors were open, and the occupants who had fled were sprawled across the other lanes. A massive zombie mob surrounded them. A thousand or more ghouls—we couldn’t see the end of them—clogged the highway, driven to a frenzy by the fresh kill. They were packed in tightly, pressing against and climbing over each other in a quest to tear at the people’s flesh.

  “Too many cooks in the kitchen,” I said.

  “That isn’t funny. Those poor people. Why do you have to try and make a joke out of everything?”

  “I dunno, look at it! It’s just . . . it’s surreal. Humor is the ultimate chaser. It makes the nastiness a lot easier to swallow.”

  Celeste still wasn’t thrilled with my comment, but at least she knew where I was coming from.

  “You think we can drive through there?” she asked.

  “Ya, I’m pretty sure this bad boy can drive over anything. I’m going to give it some extra gas to make sure.”

  “Maybe we should go back and take the side streets?”

  “That last exit was four miles ago.” I looked at the fuel gauge, which was pegged on empty. Concrete barriers lined the edge of the highway. Even the Humvee couldn’t drive over them. We’d have to go all the way back to avoid the mob in front of us. “I don’t think we have enough gas to risk it. We gotta go for it.”

  I backed the Humvee up a ways, shifted into drive, and slammed my foot on the gas pedal. The engine roared to life, and we were moving at a good clip by the time we hit the edge of the zombie horde. The sound of their bodies bouncing off the vehicle started as a machine-gun like progression of thuds, but as we traveled further forward, there were so many of them that the sound—and the sensation—was like we’d landed in a puddle of molasses. Blood and body parts coated the windshield so densely that we couldn’t see a thing, but we could feel what was happening and it wasn’t good. We started slowing down. I pushed the gas pedal harder, but it was already all the way to the floor. Soon, we weren’t moving at all, and our wheels were spinning in
place.

  “What the hell is going on?” Celeste yelled.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know! I think there are too many of them.”

  Our tires spun with a dim hiss as they tore through mounds of flesh before sinking down on the pavement in a loud squeal. We still weren’t moving forward. Countless hands danced across the bloody windshield. Without any more debris accumulating against the glass, we began to see what we were up against. The highway looked like a Japanese subway car in rush hour. Not a square inch of pavement lay bare. A sea of zombies surrounded the Humvee, beating against the windows. The bulletproof glass was our saving grace.

  “Holy shit, Celeste. There’s so many of them that we can’t move forward.”

  She grabbed her weapon and cocked it. The Humvee started inching slowly backward.

  “You want us to go back? All right, fuckers, let’s go back!”

  I shifted hard into reverse and the Humvee lurched backward, but the force of the zombies pushing against the vehicle sent it careening back into the center divider. The mob flooded in to fill the gap as I shifted into drive. The vehicle couldn’t turn against the rising tide of ghouls. We slammed head-on into the concrete barrier at the edge of the highway.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Celeste replied. She looked a little shaken up.

  The Humvee slid and rocked from side to side as crowds on both sides pushed against it. The armored doors bulged slightly from the pressure. I shifted into reverse and hit the gas, but it wouldn’t move. The sound of untold numbers of ghouls beating on the outside of the vehicle was deafening. It felt like we were trapped inside a tin can.

  “What are we going to do, Royce?”

  “We’re gonna get out of here before they find a way in.”

  I reached into the back seat and grabbed the remaining clips of ammunition. I reloaded my gun, tossed one to Celeste, and shoved the rest into my pockets.

  “Put that fresh clip into your gun. You’re gonna need as many rounds as you can squeeze off at once.”

  “Where are we going to go?”

  “We’re gonna run for it.”

  Celeste looked mortified. “We’ll never make it, Royce. There’s too many of them out there.”

  “No, we can. Look . . . the grill is up against that barrier, right?” She nodded. “There’s no one in front of us. We just need to climb out the ringmount, unload on the freaks around the hood, and run for it down that embankment. They aren’t fast. If we can break free of them here, I’m sure we can find a safer place to hide.”

  “Or better yet, another car.”

  “That’s my girl. Let’s do this. You ready? Okay, I’ll go up first, and I’ll clear some room for ya. Then you follow.”

  58.

  I popped the hatch on the ringmount and stood from the waist up outside the roof of the vehicle. My presence there up high for all the undead to see caused true hysteria among them. Their groans and screams reached a fevered pitch I hadn’t heard since New York. Coarse, veiny hands started grabbing at me from all sides. I fired off single rounds into the heads of those close enough to get ahold of me. I pulled myself up out of the vehicle, balancing precariously on the middle of the roof.

  “Celeste, come on up!”

  I used the bayonet and bullets to keep our attackers at bay. The roof of the Humvee was wide enough that only the tallest zombies and those standing on top of a fallen ghoul were able to get within grabbing range. The hood was a different story. Since it was much lower to the ground, a sea of arms waited for us to come near.

  “Okay, I’m going to work the left side, and you take the right. Just spray the ones standing along the edge. As soon as they go down—run for it. Don’t give the ones behind a chance to make their way up to the hood. Leave yourself a few extra rounds if you can.”

  As usual, Celeste was armed and ready. “Count of three?” she asked. I nodded. “One, two . . . three!”

  I started working on my side, careful to get head shots without spraying too many bullets. Celeste meanwhile charged down the windshield and across the hood of the vehicle like a ruthless mercenary, leading with a stream of gunfire that dropped each zombie in her path a split second before she was within reach. She was heading safely down the embankment, and I was still standing on the roof of the Humvee.

  My boot slipped in a puddle of blood as I lurched forward to follow Celeste, and my leg slid back right into the grasp of a female ghoul’s outstretched arm. I spun around and stabbed my bayonet into the side of her head, then scrambled to my feet as others nearby struggled to get ahold of me. Multiple hands grabbed my pant leg. I pulled forward with all my might. When I broke free, the momentum sent me somersaulting down the windshield and across the hood. I landed with one leg over the concrete barrier and the other wedged between it and the vehicle. My crotch was in the middle of this mess, and when I landed the top of the divider went right into my testicles. What normally would send me rolling on the ground was an afterthought; my body was so flooded with adrenaline. I managed to hold on to my weapon during the fall, and I unloaded my remaining rounds into the gruesome faces of the ghouls that reached in to make a meal of me. I pulled my leg free and spun backwards over the wall onto the grass.

  Celeste was at the bottom of the embankment, making her way back to me. I waved her off and lumbered down the embankment, feeling as if someone was squeezing my testicles and my abdomen from the inside. Since I wasn’t moving very quickly, I stopped at the bottom of the embankment and looked up the hill to make sure there was enough room between the zombies and me. The mindless ghouls were walking straight into the barrier. It was short enough and they were clumsy enough that they were falling over the barrier by the dozens. They knew what they were after, and as soon as they got on their feet, they stumbled down the hill toward me.

  59.

  Celeste was waiting for me at the bottom of the hill. We ran toward a strip mall between the highway and a sprawling suburb. The parking lot was lit up like the place was open for business, but only a few cars occupied spaces. The buildings looked empty.

  “We better get in one of these cars, quick,” I said. “They’ll be here soon.”

  The first car we approached was a four-door family sedan that looked sleek and aerodynamic. It reminded me of the odd concept cars I used to see in auto magazines that would never get produced.

  “No keys,” Celeste said, peering in the driver’s-side window.

  “Let’s try that one over there.”

  The next car was a sporty little two seater with clunky, over-sized rims.

  “I’d love to meet the douchebag that drives this one,” I quipped.

  “No keys!” Celeste yelled from the other side of the car.

  “Let’s make sure this time.”

  I rammed the butt of my gun into the passenger window. The glass shattered. An ear-piercing alarm started screeching. I opened the door and searched frantically through the glove box, center console, behind the visors, and under the seats. No keys.

  “Hurry, Royce, they’re getting close.”

  The zombies were in the parking lot, lumbering toward us. We ran over to a minivan. No keys in the ignition. I reared my weapon back.

  “Don’t, Royce!”

  “Why not?”

  “Look behind you.”

  A fresh crowd of zombies walked out of the neighborhood and into the parking lot. Large groups of the filthy monsters burst forth between the boxy houses like pus squeezing out of a pimple.

  “Fuck, fuck fuck! They must be drawn by the alarm. We need to get somewhere safe.”

  I spun around and scanned my surroundings. The buildings in the strip mall looked like our only options, as droves of undead were encroaching on the perimeter of the parking lot. We ran up to a large sporting goods store and yanked on the door handles.

  “It’s all barred up in there,” Celeste said. “We’ll never get through that.”

  We ran next door to
a nail salon. The doors were locked and the windows free of bars.

  “Not this one, not this one. We can’t barricade ourselves in there once we break the glass,” I said.

  I turned and looked to my right, toward the highway. A McDonald’s sat at the edge of the parking lot. The lights were on inside, and I could see someone watching us through the window.

  “Celeste, you see that? See that guy in there? Let’s go.”

  We sprinted to the McDonald’s weaving between the zombies in the parking lot. When the gaps were too tight to run through, I put my shoulder down like a football player and knocked them to the pavement. It was risky business, but we were out of options. There weren’t enough of the oafish ghouls to get hold of us.

  When we reached the McDonald’s, we pounded on the front door. There was someone inside—a pimple-faced teenager with curly, platinum blond hair. He was dressed in a wrinkled McDonald’s uniform with navy slacks, a powder blue shirt, and a red tie. His cap had a big yellow M stitched into the front. We stood there anxiously as he made his way over to the doorway. He looked skeptical, but he moved to unlock the door. Then he stopped and pointed behind us.

  We turned and looked. Zombies coming from the highway had redirected to the building. The fastest ones were closing in on us. They had fewer wounds and looked fresher than the others, at least in death, and they walked at a pretty good clip.

  “I need to reload,” I said, digging a clip out of one of my deep uniform pockets. “I’m grabbing a freshie for you, too.”

  Celeste was methodic in firing her weapon. She was a great shot, even from a distance, and she dropped our attackers one at a time with rhythmic strikes to the head. Celeste’s weapon clicked. I handed her a clip, then I went to work with my rifle. I was a terrible shot from long range. I was only able to pop off a bunch of shoulder shots, whiffs over the head, and a partial removal of one ghoul’s ear. This wasn’t slowing their progress, so I squeezed the trigger and held it down, unleashing a spray of bullets that felled three zombies before my weapon clicked.