This Is Not The End: But I Can See It From Here (The Big Red Z Book 1) (15 page)

Chapter 42

The next day, after a feast of trout and venison, they headed south with twenty-seven of the Mexican’s finest hunters and scouts.  Scouts ahead, hunters to either side, they followed the course of a soggy slough where the tire marks were visible.  Some two miles from camp, the out-runners returned with word that the vehicle was “sleeping” a short distance ahead, and that the marsh bed widened to a banked ravine. 

The longmonger scouts could not have been found in a better place.  There was a fine slope from the upper land to their game.  Doc and the boys ascended the embankment and coursed cautiously along the cliff’s summit. 

Suddenly, they rounded an abrupt headland and gained full view a machine quite unlike anything he had expected. 

This one had tires, but something about it was somehow more than just a machine.   It had no windows, either, but something in the build of it was a terrifying.  Though nothing like the drone that flew over Foxwash, it bore similar traits, or, rather, it had a similar air about it, as if it were designed by the same devilish mind.  Doc raised his hand, stopping the march, and his fellows raised themselves in their stirrups to survey the machine.

They just stared. 

“That, boys, is no ordinary tank,’ Dale said.  “See that gun?”

“Yeah… It’s fucking…
breathing
.”

A light mist screened them and a deep growth of the leathery grass, common to Tennessee’s marshlands, half hid a multitude of smaller guns, moving with its head.  Coal-black smoke rose through the green stalks as it moved a bit.

In the next instant, the “head” turned toward them, as if sniffing the air suspiciously, and the curved dome seemed to toss broken stems off it in savage contempt.

“What the frozen fuck are we looking at?...”

Doc was dizzy just from the sight of it.  From the headland beneath them, to the rolling prairie at the mouth of the valley, the earth seemed to vibrate as the machine rumbled.  It looked like the machine was restless, or dreaming.  Protruding amber lights glared savagely sideways.  The great, thick body hulked forward in impatient jerks. 

Some of the fellows grew excitedly profane, mumbling curse under their breath. 

Others, like him, were just fearful, breathing quickly. 

The wild hunters nocked arrows onto their bows and filled their mouths with the dirks they had given them.  Wheeling his horse in front, Doc looked once more at the beast.  Then he gave one quick wave of his samurai sword. 

With a storm-burst of galloping hoofs, they charged down the slope.  At the sound of their whirlwind advance, the beasts tossed up its heads and began pawing the ground angrily.  From the hunters, there was no shouting, no warcries, but his fellows filled the air with screams unearthly that the wild folk almost broke from their company. 

The machine started up, turned as if panic-stricken, bellowing roars down the valley while it tore for the open prairie. 

The ravine rocked with the plunging monster,
echoing the crash of its thunderous treads.   They were closing in faster than Doc could have expected. 

In the next moment, swift as lions, the swiftest riders darted towards the large tank and rode within a few yards before taking aim.  Instantly, the ravine was ablaze with fire.  The two fastest hunters were unhorsed as the gun whipped toward them, their ponies thrown from their feet—their blood splattered everywhere with the shattering of hunters’ bones while showers of arrows from more of the wild hunters sung through the air overhead. 

The third hunter was nearly gored by a long spear that shot from the machine’s side.  It missed him, ripping his horse from shoulder to flank.  Then, maddened by the creature’s blood, another horse reared.  Before a shot from a second hunter ended his horse’s misery, a small latch opened.  A shotgun appeared, and caught the man on the side of the face and tossed him some tree feet. 

By keeping just to its rear, where the driver could not see, Doc managed to chop at the wheels with the sword.  If it were the beast it seemed, he would have gravely wounded the enormous foot.  But all he managed to get for his trouble was nick in his fine sword.  The tank bellowed fire again and began swerving alternately from side to side as the enraged wild men struck forward, their trained horses avoided side thrusts with the spears.  The saddle-girths of one hunter, though, gave way as he was leaning over to send an arrow into the spear-opening.  Down he went, shoulders foremost under the front wheels while the horse, with a nimble leap, cleared another vicious drive of the spear.  The beast galloped onward.  Two more were mowed down like felled trees; but still their horses plunged on and on, pursuing the racing machine while the ground shook.

Doc had forgotten time, place, and even the danger of it—everything in the mad chase was noise and fire and the sheer fucking strangeness of a living machine as a foe.  As he thought to fire his shotgun into the tires, it did nothing.  His horse was blowing, almost spent, but still Doc dug the spurs into him, and was only a few lengths behind the machine again when the “head” turned. 

Eyes narrowing, he pulled back on the reigns.

The gun leaking fire, it bore down, straight at him. 

His horse reared, then sprang and aside.  Leaning over to take sure aim, Doc fired into the barrel, but a side jerk unbalanced him.  Instead he fired into a smaller gun, which blew the top of the tank’s head off.

Doc lost his stirrup and sprawled in the dust.  When he got to his feet, the tank was spinning , spewing fire in every direction with his shotgun resting on the front of it.  His horse was trotting away on three legs.  Hunters were still tearing after the languishing machine as it spun.  Riderless horses, mad with the smell of blood and snorting at every flash of fire, kept circling the dying tank.  Jickie, Rocco, Kenzo, Dale and Tyler had evidently been left in the rear.  They roared and into the open top as they caught up with it. 

Doc looked everywhere for Gig and could not see him. 

Near him, two Mexicans were righting their saddles.  Doc was tightening the girths on a loose horse, which was not an easy matter.  

Suddenly, there was the whistle of something through the air overhead.  It was a roar.  The same instant, a zombie gave an upward toss of both arms with a piercing shriek. 

Even as the tank rolled over, dead and flaming, zombies poured out of the crater created by the blast.

Doc heard his terrified companion shout, “Shado!  Shado!”

Then he fled in a panic, not knowing where he was going and staggering as he ran.

Then Doc saw a Mexican pitch forward face downwards.  The back of his head was gone, hollowed out in a single bite.  Doc had barely realized what had happened, or what it all meant, before an enormous roar broke from the high grass above the embankment.  At that, he saw Rocco’s horse give a plunge and, wrenching the rein from his grasp, galloped off, leaving on the ground him to face the machine.  Half a score of zombies scrambled down the cliff, and as Doc looked up, he saw Rocco firing, his M4 blasts taking the head of the first one.  It bought him a split second to run as the rest of the beasts began circling back, their open mouths devouring their leader.

But there was something else, a sight almost as dreadful.  It was the living body of his dead father.  He was among the creatures, feasting; only this time, he was no ghost.  His flesh was rotten, and he was soaked in blood. 

Doc was looking hopelessly about for his shotgun.  He wanted to end this perversion of his father, quickly.  But more of the zombies appeared not a hundred yards away.  Brandishing his own M4 with both hands, he stood ready.  They came towards him at furious speed without pausing to kill the horses beside them. 

Doc crouched as they approached.

White shards of teeth glistened, and it shrieked with the hideous scream of a devil.  Doc knew that sound.  He had grown to love it.

The demon came.  With a jerk of his finger, he ended the first wave.  Shado after shado fell headless back on its haunches.  When another rose to eat him, just behind him, Doc sent his blade to its mouth.  It lurched sideways, reared straight back, and with another swing, it too fell backwards without a head.  The evil eyes that came next glared with a fixed look of pure hatred, and Doc’s hands tightened and sent a spray of bullet in to the head.  The head did not come off well though, and the gun was nearly torn from his grasp as the zombie lunged at him again, nearly headless.  Doc stepped back and ended it.  As it rolled over in a final spasm, they were instantly set up by the group that Rocco had halted. 

The demon that was his father lead them.  When the cries of the macabre pack rang out, close at hand, their coming seemed to renew Doc’s strength.  With his full weight, he swung at his father willowy, yet enormous form.  But the rest of them dashed up, and he was so focused, one nearly bit off his face before Doc fell to the side and removed its head with the last bullets in his clip.

His hands bloody and slick, Doc lost his second clip.

His father’s form pounced at him, but Uncle Jickie, with blood lust on his face, axed off its head with a single blow from his samurai sword.  Grabbing at its own neck, his father’s former body squirmed first on its knees, then went to its belly.

Doc nodded, panting. 

The Mexicans had disappeared.  Smoke was rising from the grass still. 

Some of the Zombies were still alive, but had taken to chasing the horses now.

“Where the devil is Gig?” Doc asked.

Chapter 43

Mounting the horses, they rode up to the level prairie.  Against the eastern horizon shone a blaze of orange.  They whipped their horses to a gallop, knowing that Gig must have fallen from his steed.  

The gathering smoke was obscuring their view, but they dashed back along the flattened trail of the dead tank, spurring their hard-ridden horses without mercy.  Each of the old boys gave his horse the bit.  Beating them over the head, they craned flat over the horses’ necks to lessen resistance to the air. 

A boisterous wind was fanning the burning grass now.  Great tides of fire rolled upward with forked tongues.  Before long, cinders rained on them like liquid fire, scorching and maddening their horses; but they never paused. 

The billowy clouds of smoke that rolled to meet them were blinding, and the very atmosphere, quivering with heat, seemed to become a fiery fluid that enveloped and tortured them.   Doc’s hand was across his mouth to shut out the hot burning air.  Their beasts whinnied pitiful screams and became wild with fear.  Still they did not slow.  They tied strips torn from their clothing across their mouths and beat the frantic creatures forward. 

The fire wave was crackling and licking up everything within a few paces of them.  The flames were not crawling in one insidious line, but the very heat of the air generated red waves and pillars, which came forward in leaps and bounds, reaching out with cloven fangs that hissed at them like an army of serpents.  Doc remembered wondering in a half delirium whether he was already dead, and with the instinctive cry to heaven for help, he looked above.  There was only a great pitchy dome with glowing clouds rolling, heaving and tossing.  It made a body want to get on the ground and bury themselves, but Doc knew at that point they must choose one of two things, dash through the flames—or die. 

They all paused, facing death, the Mexicans around them now, some of them huddling so close Doc felt the burn of hot stirrups against both ankles.  Their clothing was smoking in a dozen places. 

Suddenly, there was a lull of the wind. 

Uncle Jickie cried out through his muffle, “The calm before the end, boys!  The next burst and those red demon claws will have us”

But in the momentary lull, a place appeared through the trough of smoke.  The grass was green and the fire-barrier breached. 

“Not this day, uncle!  Follow me, you sorry fucks!” 

With a shout, they dashed heads down towards the green grass, their horses vaulting across the flaming wall, snorting and screaming with pain as they landed on the smoking turf of the other side.  Doc gulped a great breath of the fresh air into his suffocating lungs.

As he tore the covering from his mouth, they raced on until they had cleared the flames.

Looking back, Doc saw a horse sinking on the blackened patch, a Mexican atop it.  Both were screaming, aflame.  There was a whiff of singed hair, and Doc understood that if Gig had somehow survived the blitz on the tank, the flames had him now.

Chapter 44

It was unusually cold when they brought their horses back away from the flames.  Their old friend was gone, and the fire that had taken him was just a black scar on the grassland.  They all stood and bundled themselves against a patina of spring rain, which began to fall sideways out of the white sky.   They looked at one another, each red-faced from the flames and each one’s hair in singed gnarls. 

Then Mighty Kenzo snorted, crying.

Twisting away with their thirsty horses, hunkering, they paused before the lip of a small stream that bore thought the grass as if burrowing.  They shared a moment, hands on shoulders, and trudged down into the spongy creek they stood crested its rocky ledge.  Bent and low in a surprising cold breeze, they stood staring down into the water as the horses drank.

“Where the old fart is now, they’re celebrating his return,” Doc whispered.

His uncle smiled. 

Knowing they needed time, Doc decided to go gather the packhorses and supplies.