All That I See - 02 (38 page)

When I made it to the monument, I stopped. I stood at the base of the obelisk and looked up at the angel then to the two mausoleums on either side. Then I looked back to
the
advancing mob. While this would have been a good place to make a stand against those few healthy men, it would be a bad place to get surrounded by thousands of undead. I decided to keep moving.

About two hundred yards ahead was the short fence that separated the cemetery grounds from the railroad tracks. Between
the
fence and me were three zombies, but they would be easy to avoid. Off to my right, still driving around amidst the stones and trees was the personnel carrier. It had at least one person inside, but I thought there were probably more. I made for the fence.

Once I was clear of the cluster of large monuments and trees, I entered an area of the newer headstones that rose only about thigh high. There were no trees out there either. I was exposed. The truck moved to intercept me. Behind the windshield, I saw the driver on a radio.

Chapter 45

Behind me, over the moans of the undead, I heard the tank rolling in. Then,
boom!
I ventured a glance over my shoulder. Smoke curled out of the end of the cannon, and tiny bits of stone sprayed out around the angel monument. The obelisk and angel were coming down toward me like a felled tree. The creatures were already around it by that time, and the thing slammed down on them breaking up in sections.

The troop carrier veered away from me to stay out of the tank’s line of fire. Then the .50 caliber started up. The tops of headstones shattered to the left of me. I cut to the right and rolled down behind a stone. Dirt skipped into the air as the steady stream of bullets walked toward me. Then chunks of the headstone were chiseled away. I curled up into a ball and did my best to cover my head. I wished I had grabbed that Kevlar helmet, but I didn’t know how effective it would be against a gun like that anyway. The bullets moved on, taking out most of the next stone, and then came back for another pass.

I might have imagined it, but
I
thought I actually felt the wind from the bullets as they came over me. Then
the
machine gun stopped. The moaning was getting closer. I didn’t want to get up and make a target of myself, but if I stayed any longer…

Before I could finish my thought, the first one stumbled into view. I pulled myself up and looked over the jagged stone. The sea of walking corpses was upon me. Many of them had their backs to me. Only the closest ones had noticed me. It was as if the mass was being pushed into the cemetery against their will. Their focus was on the tank, but because of the number of them flooding into Clayfield, those on the outside edges were being pushed out to make room. I imagined that if the scene were witnessed from the air, it would look like
spilled
ink spreading.

The few that had noticed me—ten or so—came for me. They were mere feet away. I ran for the
fence and the railroad tracks.
One of them was faster than the others. She hadn’t been infected very long. She was wearing heavy, brown Carhartt pants and a long-sleeve denim shirt. Her hands were protected with leather work gloves, and she had a pistol under her left arm in a shoulder holster and the holster on her hip was empty. A big knife was in a sheath just above her boot. She’d survived for a few weeks, but her luck had run out recently. There was a plug of flesh bitten out of her cheek just below her left eye. She was young and fit. I didn’t know if I could outrun her, but I didn’t want to pause long enough to shoot her.

Off to my right, the troop carrier was about to exit the grounds onto a narrow side street. The woman was right on me. I could hear her heavy breathing. I dropped both of the rifles to lighten my load and to hopefully trip her up. They clattered to the ground behind me. The big pistol I had taken from the tank driver earlier was biting into my stomach so I pulled it out of my pants as I ran.

Her gloved fingers brushed my shirt. I arched my back and screamed. Even if I killed her, there were at least ten more behind her. It was like so many nightmares; I was running but not fast enough. These things didn’t get tired. These things always had plenty of energy. If I couldn’t outlast her, and if I wasn’t faster, then there was no hope.

There was a
boom!
, then a sizzling sound, and then the ground heaved up about thirty feet in front of me. The men in the tank were playing with me. I didn’t stop or change direction. I ran through the raining mud and dirt and through the small blast crater. She growled like a cat and brushed my shirt again.

“Oh, God, please please please….”

Boom!
Sizzle. Then there was a curtain of debris in front of me. I stepped in a hole and went down. I rolled, doing my best to see where she was, but my eyes were full of grit. Then I was on my back, and she was on me. Her foul breath caressed my face. Warm lips pressed against my cheek. Hot, wet tongue slithered along my face.

“Please no…”

There were points of pressure then pain as her teeth sank into my jaw. She moaned, and it sounded so much like pleasure. I pulled the trigger on the big pistol. I didn’t even know if it was pointed at her; I just kept shooting over and over. Then her hot, moist breath moved down to my throat.

Boom! SSSZzzzz….
I opened my eyes. I caught the blurry sight of zombies and pieces of zombies vaulting over me in a cloud of mud and blood and turf. The blast shifted her too, and I was able to push free.

They were near. I didn’t know how many. I tried to rub my eyes clean. I got to my feet and stumbled sideways. There was a moan to my right, so I turned to avoid it. Something growled in front of me. I spun around. Hands groped me from all sides. I cried and fired the pistol wild until it was empty. I threw the now useless gun toward the moans and pulled the 9mm from its holster. I rubbed my eyes with my free hand and spun around trying to get my beari
ngs.
All I could see were slack-
jawed faces with vacant eyes. My bleary vision made them appear dreamlike. Then I caught sight of the fence; it was close. I lifted the weapon
,
firing only at the ones between me and my destination. Others grabbed my arms and shoulders from behind, so I was constantly twisting and jerking to stay free from them.
Boom! SSsszzz…

To my left, a group of the undead was translated into a spray of meat chunks and gore. I screamed and fired and ran. Then the .50 caliber opened up again. I looked over my shoulder. My view of the tank was blocked by the throng, but just above the thousands of bobbing, swaying heads was a dark red cloud, and it was moving in my direction. It was the bloody mist from hundreds of exploding heads.

Chng-chng-chng-chng!….

The cloud got closer….

Chng-chng-chng-chng!…

Closer…

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. The mind does this. I could perceive every minute detail. I could hear my own breath, my own heartbeat.

Chng!………..chng!…………chng!…

The cloud was so close…

I looked over my shoulder again. The skulls of zombies five back burst open…then four back…I felt the blood rain on my face…then….

It was like somebody hit me with a sledgehammer just above the shoulder blade. I had no balance. I stumbled forward. Then darkness.

I woke up to moonlight. I was on my side in the mud. There was a
body
on top of me, but it was completely lifeless. I rolled out from under it and sat up. All around me on the ground were hundreds of
corpses
. It looked like a battlefield. There were also approximately fifty undead ones too scattered around the cemetery grounds.

I was wet and sticky with putrid zombie fluids. The meaty part above my left shoulder hurt really badly. I touched it, and it was bloody, but I didn’t know if the blood was mine. I looked around. The zombies that were still “alive” were just walking around and bumping into each other. None of them approached me.

It was an eerie scene, like something from one of those old scary movies. Beyond them, near the entrance to the grounds, was the tank, its hatch open. It looked dead, like the monuments around me. Except for the occasional lowing from the creatures or barking of a dog, the night was quiet. It was too cool for crickets and frogs.

I sat still for a long time watching the undead creatures walk around. I was so covered up in gore that I must have smelled like one of them. They had no interest in me. I stood. My 9mm was on the ground next to me. It was empty. Cautiously, I stumbled back to retrieve my rifles. They were farther back than I thought they would be. I looked around for the woman that had attacked me. I thought I might be able to get the pistol in her shoulder holster, but I couldn’t find her, and if she was still walking around, I didn’t
want
to find her.

I picked up the rifles. The AR-15 had mud stuck in its barrel. I had no way to clean it, and I didn’t want it slowing me down, so I left it. The hunting rifle I had taken from the men earlier that day was fine and fully loaded.

I needed to drink something. That bottle of wine was still in the pickup I had abandoned earlier in the day, so I headed in that direction. It was strange to be out on foot after dark. It was even more strange not to get harassed at all. I easily walked out of the cemetery and up the street to the truck.

When I got there, I climbed in, shut the door, and just sat there and drank the rest of the bottle. I was in a daze. I found it difficult to hold a single thought for very long. When the bottle was dry, I lay over in the seat and slept.

When I opened my eyes the next morning, the sun was warming my face. I sat up and examined myself in the mirror. The bite on my cheek was swollen and red. My left shoulder was stiff, and I found it difficult to move my left arm. The Kevlar vest had a hole in it near the edge at the top, so I must have been shot, or at least grazed by that .50 caliber. There would be no way to know until I undressed and bathed. I would be doing neither until I got back to the stables. If all of the stink on me was masking my own scent enough to keep the zombies disinterested, then it would stay on me until I got somewhere safe.

I looked around and checked the mirrors. There were four creatures in the street two blocks behind me, but that was all I saw at the m
oment.
I left the truck again and started walking east. This took me through a couple of lawns, across a street, and into a wheat field. It was winter wheat that had been planted before Canton B had ruined everything. In a few weeks, it would be harvest time. There were fields like it all over the county, and I intended to get as much as I could when the time came.

Eventually, the field let me out onto the bypass. I got on it and walked south until I got to the intersection where Jen had been shot weeks before. I looked up East Broadway toward downtown Clayfield. There were a lot of bodies littering the street. I wasn’t close enough to actually see into the streets of downtown, but I could see the tops of buildings, and one of them was burning. The dead, undead, and living all seemed intent on destroying the world. There would be no satisfaction for them until I lost everything.

Chapter 46

It took me a little over two hours to walk to the stables. I stayed with the roads mostly, but a few times, I cut across pastures or empty fields. I arrived around noon. It was a warm, spring day, and the flies were all over me. I stripped naked in the driveway and left all my clothes there.

The water tank in the RV was empty, so I heated some water on the range and took a bath in the house. I had to drain and add water to the
tub three times before I got
all
the gunk off me; even then, I couldn’t get the stench out of my nostrils.

My shoulder just above my left collarbone had been nicked by the .50 caliber. It had cut right through my Kevlar vest. I’m amazed I survived at all considering the amount of force of the thing that hit me. There wasn’t really a wound there as much as an ugly bruise. The bite on my cheek didn’t look good, so I started some of the antibiotics I had taken from the hospital. Once I had bathed and dressed in clean clothes, I made myself something to eat. Then I grabbed a bottle from my stores, sat in front of the fireplace, and got good and shitfaced.

The first big storm of the season rolled through that night. I thought the wind would take the house apart. It made me feel small and lonely. I h
ad never been much of a drinker
before, and when I did drink I’d always been a happy drunk, but that night I was a crier. It wasn’t fear that made me cry; it was loss. I was mourn
ing. I still mourn sometimes

I slept most of the next day. The day after that, I drove the RV into Clayfield to have a look. I wasn’t able to get into the city limits because of
the
incredible number of infected. I skirted around to the north on the bypass. I couldn’t enter on the north side because the streets were crammed there too. I circled the town to the southwest. There is a water tower on that side of town. I didn’t know where it was exactly, but I could see it sticking up above everything else, so I just kept an eye on it, and eventually found my way.