Nano Z (2 page)

There’s no way in hell that you’re taking a bite out of me!
Mack kicked at the meat puppet that had ahold of him. When he got a good shot into the creature’s jaw it let go. Adrenaline helped get his errant leg over the top of the fence.

More time was spent on top of the divider than Mack realized. The meat puppets had already reached his location on the other side of the road. Soon as he jumped down it would be into the fire. Either side of the divider was overrun, so he figured he might as well choose the side that got him closer to home.

Mack Ericsson wasn’t a violent man, not anymore. But he had no choice. And the
things
he was going to commit violence against, weren’t strictly human.

Seconds after his work boots hit the asphalt, the meat puppets were right on top of Mack. They attacked fast and with a wild reckless abandon that made fighting them hard. His strength and size was the deciding factor. The big Viking punched, kicked and slammed any puppet that got within arm’s length.

One of the meat puppets swiped at Mack. It was trying to claw at him, not punch him. He managed to dodge the attack. Once he grabbed the puppet’s arm, he leaned back and pulled. Mack used his own body like a fulcrum and swung the creature into the side of a nearby station wagon. The windows broke.

The meat puppet that Mack slammed into the car started to slowly get up. It was about to come after him when a muzzle flash from inside the vehicle stopped it. In a splash of thick black blood, the creature fell to the street.

Mack ran over to the car window that the gunshots came from. Before peeking in, he had to fight off another puppet. A couple of hard punches to its melon was enough to down it temporarily.

“Whoa!” Mack quickly backed away from the station wagon window after looking in. He backed up because when he looked inside he saw a small teen girl, maybe 14. She was aiming a pistol straight at him.

“Kid, you need to get out…” Mack began to try and get the teen to get out the car. But a couple of meat puppets assaulted him. Again the substantial man managed to fight them off. The more he fought, the harder it became to take them down. He needed to get off I-23 immediately.

“I don’t know you! I’m not going anywhere with you!” yelled the girl.

I don’t have time for this.
“Look kid…where are your parents?”

The teen stared emotionless at the black blood stained Mack. “They’re on the street next to you.”

Jesus.
Mack looked down and saw a man and woman.. It was hard to tell, but they were both clearly in bad shape, or dead. Under street lights the blood had a peculiar shine to it. The woman’s eyes opened. Her pupils and irises were clouded over gray.

Mack had no choice but to start stomping on the woman before she got up and tried to kill him. There were no thoughts to how the teen in the car might’ve reacted to seeing him take the soles of his boots to her mom.

“Get away from her!” yelled the girl before unloading another shot at Mack. It ricocheted off another car and disappeared.

That’s two times she’s shot at me. There won’t be a third.

“Stop shooting at me!” yelled Mack. He approached the car with both hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you darling. You need to come with me, out of here.”

“No you creep. You gonna touch me or something? I swear if you get any closer I’ll shoot you.”

What is it with this girl? You should just run Mack. Save yourself.
“If you were actually going to shoot me you would’ve done it already.”

Mack ignored all the girl’s cursing and yelling as he opened the station wagon door and reached in. There was some hitting and scratching but he finally managed to get her out. Once on the street, she looked anything but imposing, gun or not. She looked like an innocent teen with tied back hair and a messy ponytail. On her torso she wore a loose black hoodie. Nothing about her was extraordinary. Except maybe the handgun she wielded.

“What the hell?” the girl asked as she shook off Mack’s hand.

“What’s your name?”

“Amber. You?” The girl shot two more times in Mack’s direction.

Am I going to have to take her down?
Mack gave Amber a look of utter disbelief. He was seconds away from completely losing it before Amber pointed behind him. When he turned around he saw her parents-turned-meat-puppets falling towards the ground with holes in their heads.

There was no time for Mack to process what he just saw. More meat puppets were coming. There were way too many for even him to handle.

“I'm Mack, wish I could say it’s nice to meet you. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Wait.” Amber went back into the car then came out with a tire iron. She handed it to Mack.

Meat puppets didn’t give breaks. They lost the concept of a 'time out' when they lost their humanity. So Mack and Amber had to move. Another explosion not far away distracted them for a moment. Only for a moment.

Mack led the way, crossing the interstate. He swung away with his newly acquired weapon. It was much more efficient than his fists and feet. Meat puppets were getting brained left and right. Amber followed close behind shooting the ones that he missed or didn’t see.

After jumping the short concrete barrier that separated I-23 from the Motorside Inn parking lot, Mack and Amber started checking orphaned vehicles. The interstate may have been impassable but they hoped the side streets weren’t.

“Got one!” yelled Amber as she easily opened the door of a red pickup truck.

Good girl.
Mack ran over to Amber who was getting into the driver’s seat. He had no intention of letting her drive. “Move over.”

“No, I wanna drive,” said Amber, defiant.

Mack gave the fourteen year old a stern look usually reserved for drunks looking to pick a fight. She promptly moved over to the passenger seat, pouting the whole way.

When Mack slammed the door, meat puppets from the interstate noticed them. Four of them staggered towards the Motorside Inn parking lot. He saw them coming and heard their screeches. Unfortunately the truck’s engine didn’t seem to want to start.

Great. My luck just keeps getting better.
Mack tried to turn the truck’s engine. It sputtered. He tried again. Still it didn’t start.

One of the meat puppets slammed its body against the driver’s side door. Black blood oozed from its mouth as it pounded on the window, cracking it.
C’mon, c’mon.
Finally the truck’s engine ticked over. Just before Mack managed to shift gears to “R”, the meat puppet’s fist hammered through the window.

As glass peppered Mack, he stepped on the gas. The truck zoomed backwards into another parked car. Both he and Amber whipped back then forward. For a few seconds they sat there, dazed and vulnerable. The meat puppets converged on the red pickup. Other puppets joined the four that initially came after Mack and Amber. They climbed up onto the bed and the front hood. Like apes they pounded on the vehicle.

“No! Save your bullets,” ordered Mack as he saw Amber raise her gun. “Get your seatbelt on.” Both of them buckled in.

Mack shifted gears again. The truck sped forward at an angle as he turned the wheel, sharply. One of the front corners of the truck hit another parked car, breaking the headlight. Meat puppets flew off the top of the truck. Two of them hit the windshields of the nearby vehicles.

Once he had enough space, Mack drove the truck towards the back of the Motorside Inn. There was no exit that led out of the property without getting on the interstate. So he navigated the large vehicle towards a small curb that led out to some side streets.

“Shit!” yelled Amber as a pair of hands broke through the small window that separated the truck’s cabin from its bed. They grabbed at her hair. Another hand grabbed Mack’s shoulder.

“Hold on!” warned Mack. The freakish strength of the hand that had a hold of his shoulder completely took away any control he had of the wheel.

The truck swerved off the narrow side street behind the Motorside Inn. It crashed into and through the front of a convenience store. Even though the meat puppets that were in the truck bed became messy black Pollock paintings, more were coming.

Mack slowly regained consciousness. Through blurry vision he could see a lot of movement. He heard gunshots and screeches. They weren’t from a handgun. A small hand started shaking him.

“Wake up!” Amber shook Mack back into the waking world. Blood streamed down from the top of Mack’s forehead. He wiped it away and observed the scene before him.

The truck was totaled. Its front hood was crumpled like an empty beer can. Smoke slowly floated up out of the wrecked engine.

Inside the convenience store, the clerk was shooting his shotgun at the meat puppets trying to get inside the big hole Mack and Amber made. Clearly the poor clerk wouldn’t be able to hold them back for long. It was only a matter of time before he had to reload and the creatures overwhelmed him. Amber had no intention of being there when that went down.

Mack stumbled out of the wrecked truck with the help of Amber. The clerk kept blasting away, hardly even noticing them. Amber pointed towards a door at the back of the store.

“I think that’s the way out.” Amber led Mack towards the door.

When they reached the back of the convenience store, they heard a scream. It was the clerk. Predictably he was overrun as soon as he ran out of ammo. The meat puppets tore him to pieces with their bare hands. Describing it as gruesome would have been an understatement.

“It’s locked,” said Amber as she tried the door knob.

“Move,” said Mack as he gently pushed her aside. Things were still a bit hazy but he was able to clear enough cobwebs to know what he had to do. With his shoulder and body weight he managed to break the frame and open the door.

Here they come.
Mack let Amber through first, then he looked back before following. For the first time, under fluorescent light, he saw the meat puppets clearly. Their skin was pale and he could see black veins underneath. A gray film covered their eyes. Thick black blood oozed out of every open orifice.

Mack slammed the door shut. With a broken frame, it couldn’t lock. He looked around. They were in a stock room. A hallway led to a backdoor out of the building.

“Go, go, go!” yelled Mack. Amber did exactly that.

On his way towards the back door, Mack spotted a fire ax inside a glass case on the wall. Having lost his tire iron in the crash, he took the new melee weapon.

There was less than a mile to Mack’s apartment. If he and Amber reached it, they would be safe. All they had to do was get there.

***

“Where are we going?” asked Amber. Along with Mack she was plastered against the brick outside wall of a chicken joint. Her Viking escort was looking around the corner.

So close. All we have to do is cross the street.
Crossing the street was more daunting then one might have imagined. That was due to the fact that it was covered by roaming meat puppets. Behind them was the Hunters Grove apartment building.

Like most of the buildings in Dallas that night, Hunters Grove was besieged by undead creatures. Some climbed up the sides. The unsuccessful ones fell several stories down to the hard parking lot. Fires bellowed out of randomly distributed windows. Screams of panic and terror, gunshots and puppet screeches provided a soundtrack for the surrounding anarchy and horror.

“My place,” answered Mack knowing that it was a near impossibility.

Amber joined Mack at the corner and looked around it. “You’re kidding right?”

Mack pushed Amber back next to him with one powerful arm. “I have to.”

“Why’s that?”

Mack sighed. “I need my heart meds.”

“What street is this?” asked Amber as she visually examined her surroundings.

“Fowler, why?”

“My dad’s pharmacy is only a couple of blocks away. Let’s go there instead of trying to get to your apartment.”

She’s right. Dammit. There’s no way we make it through that.
Mack took one more long look at his home.

“Okay, lead the way.”

Mack followed as Amber jogged towards her family’s pharmacy. They stuck to back alleys in order to avoid the meat puppets. Still they had to deal with some. In order to conserve the small amount of bullets left in Amber’s handgun, he took them out with a fire ax that never ran out of ammo.

That took longer than I thought it would.
Halfway to the pharmacy the power to the city went out.
Way to go Dallas Power and Gas.
Mack saw that as a good thing. Even though it would be a little harder to spot the meat puppets, that disadvantage worked both ways. Or at least he thought it did. For all he knew, puppets could’ve used scent or sound to track down their victims.

“We’re only a couple of minutes away,” encouraged Amber as she led Mack from shadow to shadow in the back alleys. He was lagging behind. Since crashing the pickup truck into the convenience store half an hour earlier, he had trouble. She didn’t know it, but he suffered a concussion when his head hit the top of the steering wheel.

The whole city appeared to be floating on top a turbulent sea through Mack’s eyes. His head injury made walking straight a chore. It took an inhuman amount of willpower for him not to throw up. Only the prospect of being ripped apart alive like the convenience store clerk kept him moving.