The Ugly Beginning - 01 (19 page)

Darrin’s car picked up speed suddenly, zooming backwards toward the sea of arms that reached out with primal need. Using the wall of bodies as a sort of bumper, the Geo slammed into them and then sped away down what the sign dangling from a stoplight wire declared to be Wheeling Boulevard

Mike looked ahead at the U-Haul that was gouging a path through the multitudes. A good number were indeed coming after him and the El Camino. From behind came an equal if not greater number.

He didn’t see any possibility that he would be able to force his way out if things got much thicker. Kevin was busy coaxing the U-Haul forward inch by violent inch as bodies oblivious to pain or injury continued to surge forward at the big truck. Yet, from the way he talked on the radio, it was as if nothing in the world was wrong. The girls signed off, saying that they were on their way down.

Meanwhile, Mike had backed up into the oncoming group from Main Street. Bodies were deep on all sides now; greasy and decaying faces of all races and ages pressed on his side windows. Many of the ones that had been near Kevin had broken off as he had driven into the more confining, less open area under the overhang of the building the women were in.

Bodies were being pressed onto the hood and into the back of the El Camino, and as the weight increased, a grinding sound began. At first it was slight, but as more bodies covered the big green vehicle, it increased until it was constant.

“I am clear, guys,” Darrin’s voice was fuzzy with static “there are a bu—”

Silence.

Mike saw his antenna sticking out of the throat of a zombie trying to claw through his windshield. The entire thing had been snapped off from the base mounted just above his head on the roof. The upside down face in the windshield stared blankly at Mike, its mouth squished tight against the glass, both hands opening and closing like claws. It paid no attention whatsoever to the two-plus-feet of metal thrust all the way through the side of its neck.

The dead swarmed all over the disabled vehicle. Hands beat and clawed on every available inch of its surface. The sound echoed in the small cab, reminding Mike of a bowling alley.

A crack began to grow across the windshield.

“Fuck me runnin’!”

***

Static.

“Well, I know a bunch of those bastards were peeling off from me to go after him, but I thought he was on your heels and I lost sight when I pulled into the drive-up thingy that leads to the front door.”

“Well—”

“Gotta go, Darrin,” Kevin cut Darrin off. “I see the girls in the lobby, and I need to clear out a few of the more persistent types who are trying to squeeze in between me and the doors.”

“But what about Mike?” Darrin’s voice sounded like he was about to cry.

“Busy right now, but we’ll get him. Don’t worry.”

Darrin’s protest continued, but Kevin ignored it as he dropped the handset and drew his nine millimeter. Sliding across the benchseat, he rolled down the window. A pair of hands reached in from behind the cab instantly, and a face appeared. Most of the right side had been torn away. Kevin pressed the barrel of his gun against the thing’s forehead and fired. The back of its head exploded, splattering the coarse rock of the wall behind it.

Judging that he had a moment before the one squeezing itself between the front bumper and the glass of the first of the double-doors that he was parked in front of could get through, he chanced to look back. Two of the things were practically flattened between the truck and the wall. Dark smears where they had been dragged and grated stained the reddish, quartz-type rock that coated the building’s exterior.

The girls were dragging huge sofas that they had used to brace and block the doors. He swung his arm around and blew away the one zombie at his front bumper. More were massing up in front of his truck as well as along the driver’s side. Getting out was gonna be more difficult than getting in. If the bodies got too dense, he might not be able to force his way through.

Damn
, Kevin cursed himself. He hadn’t considered that the door opened out, but that couldn’t be helped now.

“Step away,” he called and brought up one of his pistol-grip 12-gauge shotguns. The ladies scrambled away obediently. His thumb pressed the safety button and he fired. The sound was deafening in the cab, and all he could hear was ringing in his ears, but the glass door was now a big gaping hole.

The dead would have the building, but it wouldn’t matter. Kevin looked over the four women, he guessed the mother to be in her fifties but well maintained. The three daughters were from late teens to probably thirty (the one who looked to be about sixteen was the pregnant one).

The women all rushed to the truck, helping the pregnant one in first. Then, one by one, they squirmed through the window, spewing words of gratitude that he could barely hear above the ringing in his ears. The last one was in—the mother—and Kevin, unaware that he was yelling, told them to roll up the window. That done, he shifted into drive and floored it. The truck lunged, and bodies vanished from in front. The big vehicle rocked as it drove over downed corpses.

“Hang on!” Kevin warned as he cranked the wheel left and plowed into a sea of undead pouring through the pillars that marked the exit. He glanced left and his blood seemed to freeze. He knew where Mike was.

About three blocks away, a mass of bodies rose in a lump. Obviously Mike’s El Camino was underneath that squirming mass.

***

Darrin took another left. If his guess was correct, he should now be coming up on the street where Mike and Kevin were at…hopefully.

Why wasn’t anybody answering their damn radio?

He saw the intersection just ahead where that reddish building that those women they were rescuing were supposed to be in. While there had to be at least a hundred zombies coming at him from all sides, Darrin barely noticed. He was craning his neck trying to get a look. Another body bounced off the front fender, causing the poor Geo to shudder. The car was taking a real beating, and there would be no doubt that he would have to trade up to something more durable. At least he wouldn’t have to sweat the price of gas.

Finally he was able to see; what he saw made his bowels turn to water. The U-Haul was surrounded on all sides and barely moving through the swarm of undead that was doing everything possible to get at the five people jammed in the cab. Further up the road was a mound of rising horror that had to be the location of Mike and the El Camino.

A hand slapped his side window causing Darrin to scream and wet his pants…just a bit. The twisted caricature of what had probably been a beautiful woman pressed up against the glass in an audible squish of rotting flesh. Only an ugly, gaping hole remained where her nose had been. Black slime smeared the already gore-crusted window. One torn breast was nothing more than a thick, ham-like piece of flesh. The other had a small tear, and what had to be a silicon or saline pouch poked obscenely through the ripped skin.

Darrin gagged.

He saw several more stumbling aberrations closing in and knew he had to do something to help his friend. A block further up the street, something caught his eye.

A fire engine!

Darrin wasn’t totally sure he could drive it, but it looked like the best choice. Gunning his trusty but battered little car, he sped away leaving Breast Implant-zombie whirling and eventually sprawled on the road.

He skidded up alongside the red behemoth and was out his door—pistol in one hand, machete in the other—in a flash. Climbing up on the sideboard, he let out a little whoop when he spied the keys dangling from the ignition. Pulling open the door, he hopped in, whispering a prayer as he attempted to start the engine.

It sputtered briefly, then roared to life!

He knew there was no way he could turn the vehicle around in this tiny space, so he took off and circled the block. He came up on the rear of the mob that had Mike pinned down. He hoped and prayed that he wasn’t too late

***

Mike braced his feet against the windshield. It was desperation, but he really only had one other option. He cast a glance at the sawed-off shotgun beside him. It was ready…just in case. He didn’t relish the idea of deep-throating the barrel and spraying his head on the inside of his beloved El Camino. He liked the idea of being eaten alive even less.

The sound of their moans and other odd noises echoed in the tiny, oblong cab. Occasionally, he thought he heard something eerily similar to a baby’s cry. Meanwhile, the crack in the windshield spread across as well as up and down. The glass groaned and popped, threatening to come crashing in at any moment.

Suddenly, the entire vehicle rocked!

He looked over his shoulder, dreading to see what the hell was now on his ass. There were too many zombies, in addition to all the supplies. Of course the tarp was now all but gone having been torn off by the swarming multitude of clawing, grasping, clutching hands of the dead.

Undead
?

Twice dead
?

Zombie?

What the fuck does it matter
, Mike thought as he stared into the several sets of milky, black-bloodshot eyes that looked blankly back at him.

Something behind him, but out of sight, roared mightily. The El Camino rocked again and, as the roar grew louder, began to move forward. The grinding metal was felt as well as heard as he plowed through the corpses that had him pinned down. The bodies, lacking any real sort of coordination, began tumbling off the shuddering hulk of a car that resisted every inch that it moved along this zombie-infested street.

Mike watched the windshield carefully. The vibration sent more spidery cracks racing through the safety glass. Any second, he expected the remaining zombies pressed against it to come crashing in.

***

He felt like a child frightened of those drive-through car washes. He could see the end, but it seemed an eternity before he would reach that point. Taking a second to glance at his now cockeyed side mirror, he saw something that made him momentarily ease up on the gas pedal.

A great big fire engine had pulled into their little stretch of Hell. From the looks, it was easing in behind the bulge that hid Mike and the El Camino.

“Good luck, guys,” Kevin whispered.

The U-Haul cleared the solid wall of zombies, and now thumped and bounced through the scattered remnants of horror that were all that remained between them and the relatively open street. He would make it!

***

Darrin watched the mound of zombies seem to give birth to Mike’s El Camino. Several of the things clung to the vehicle, but at least they had pushed through the first wave. A half a block away, the rear of the second group remained. Of course they were currently focused on the U-Haul, but that was about to change.

He swung left to move up beside the driver’s side door, frantically motioning for Mike to join him. There was enough space for him to open the door and get out. Zombies were every-where, but it was the only choice. It was clear from the smoke rolling out from under the El Camino that the vehicle was done for.

Darrin leaned over and pushed a button that rolled the passenger’s side window down. He sighted in on a black man that looked as if his days of drug abuse had been as damaging as his undeath. His shot exploded the thing’s skull, and its body toppled back from its perch on the roof of the El Camino. It tumbled into a few of the zombies that had gained purchase in the supply-laden bed of the now defunct car that had been the pride of Mike’s adolescent years. Darrin nodded to Mike and opened the passenger door.

Mike swung his door open and emerged with pistol in one hand, shotgun in the other. Climbing up on the running boards, he paused just long enough to literally jam the barrel of the shotgun into the open mouth of a pantsuit clad lady missing her entire left arm as well as an eye and most of the flesh around it. He pulled the trigger and the head erupted in a chunky spray of blackened brain matter mixed with bone shards. He climbed into the firetruck’s cab and dropped the shotgun, shaking his right arm to work out the shock and tingle as he pulled the door shut with his left.

“We’re losing a lot of supplies” Mike said as the firetruck began to roll backwards.