Z-Burbia: A Zombie Novel (15 page)

“Sorry,”
she says as he walks back to us, interpreting our stunned faces as disappointment. “I’ll be faster next time. I’m tired.”

“Yeah, not a problem,” Melissa says
. “You can have point if you want.”

Elsbeth just stares at her.

“It means you can go first,” Stella explains.

“Oh, no,” Elsbeth says, shaking her head. “I have to stay close to them.”

Everyone looks at us: The Stanfords.

“Lucky you guys,” Carl says and Brian nods.

“Let’s keep moving,” Melissa says. “More will be on the way.”

We do keep moving, making a steady pace (lucky for my leg Tran’s little ones can only walk so fast), everyone’s eyes peeled. You can smell the fear off the folks that haven’t been outside the gate. Carl and Brian are sweating profusely, as is Landon. Tran and his wife seem to be right at ease, but Stubben is looking back and forth like a beaten dog waiting for
the next kick to deliver the familiar pain. The scavengers are keeping a good perimeter around us, rifles in the crooks of their elbows, ready.

Elsbeth is kinda smiling to herself, like she’s have some internal dialogue, and she giggles quietly every few minutes. At first Stella looks at me like there’s a crazy person next to her, but soon her and the kids are smiling and trying not laugh when the giggles come. I gotta say that despite our rather rough introduction, the cannibal savant is growing on me.

It’s nearly noon by the time we reach the bridge.

“We’ll lunch in the middle,” Melissa says. “Easier to defend.
Anyone that wants to catch a few minutes of shuteye, now is the time. Forty-five minutes, people, then we’re back on the road.”

“Where are we going?” Elsbeth asks as she sits down next to Charlie and Greta, looking at her sandwich like it’s the one that’s going to do the biting. She sniffs it and looks around. “The food farted.”

“It’s egg salad,” Greta says. “Eggs have sulfur in them which is why it smells like a fart.”

Elsbeth just shakes her head and takes a bite. Her eyes go wide and then she crams the whole sandwich into her mouth. She chomps, chomps, chomps
, and then swallows.

“Farts taste good,” she says. She looks around. “Is there more?”

“That’s all the egg salad ones,” Stella says. “But I have a blackberry jam sandwich, if you want it.”

Elsbeth nods her head and takes the sandwich Stella holds out. She crams that one in her mouth and her whole face lights up. I’m guessing sweets like jam and stuff w
eren’t on the menu in her basement.

“That beats long pork any day,” she says when her mouth is clear and she can finally speak.

“Lots of things beat long pork,” I say.

“
Pretty much every other food on the planet,” Charlie says.

“Except for
zucchini,” Greta says. “Fuck that shit.”

“Yeah,” Elsbeth nods. “Fuck that shit. Fuck it. Just fuck it in the shit. Shitty fuck it.”

“Great,” Stella says. “She’s learning from our kids. She’s doomed.”

“Ah, come on,” I smile. “We’ve taught them well. By the time we get to the Farm
, she’ll know way more words than just shit and fuck. Right, kids?”

“Vocab
ulary is important,” Greta says.

“Fucking A right it is,” Charlie nods.

“The Farm?” Elsbeth asks. “Are we gonna fuck that shit?”

“I sure hope not,” Melissa says as she sits down next to us. “Daddy isn’t fond of cursing. He’s a righteous man and follows the Lord’s path.”

“We’re screwed then,” Charlie says.

“We are not,” Stella says. “I’ve taught you to respect God and all beliefs. You will be respectful when we get there and mind your mouths and your manners.”

“Manners,” Elsbeth says, her brow furrowed. “Wait your turn to chew on the bone. Don’t pee in the corner, go outside. Those are manners.”

“Jesus,” Stella says as the kids giggle.

“The Farm is wonderful,” Melissa says. “My kin has every acre locked down. Daddy keeps an organized house. Waste is not allowed.”

“Are there chickens like back home?” Greta asks.

“Oh, there’s chickens, and pigs, and cows. Probably ducks and rabbits too,” Melissa says. “Not to mention dogs and cats.”

“Dogs?” Greta beams. “I miss our dogs.”

“We all do,” Stella says. Charlie nods.

We try not to think of the early days of the apocalypse. The hard days. The scary days. The days before the gate and the fences. We lost two great dogs in those days; they fought to death keeping us safe. I’m not a praying man, but every once in a while I say a couple words of thanks to them, hoping they found peace.

A low whistle gets all of our attention. Zs.

“Riverside,” Tony White says. He carries a six foot pike with a nasty barbed blade on the end. He swings it off to the Hwy 251 side of the bridge. “About twenty coming from UNCA.”

“Those would be part of the herd that Elsbeth saved me from,” I say. “I’m sure there are more than just those on their way.”

The scavengers are already up and watching as the Zs approach the end of the bridge.
Melissa quietly goes from group to group, getting everyone moving. It doesn’t take much since the first of the Zs have already turned onto the bridge, their shuffling feet scraping against the weathered concrete. Stella and I have the kids between us with Elsbeth in front, as we make our way to the far side of the bridge.

“We keep moving we can lose them up the hill,” Melissa says, pointing to the winding twists and turns that make up Pearson Bridge Road. “They’ll slow down quick.”

“But the little ones,” Stella says, looking at Tran and his family.

“We’ll have to carry them,” Melissa replie
s. “Switching off so no one gets bogged down.”

The scavengers t
ake the rear, their eyes watching the Zs as we get across the bridge and start up the road. In seconds, Elsbeth stops and holds out her hands.

“No,” she
whispers, “not up the road.”

“What did she say?” Melissa asks, her voice quiet also. She knows nothing about Elsbeth really, but she can sense the survivor in her. Plus
, the little show earlier certainly added some respect. “What’s up?”

“The Zs,” Elsbeth says, turning to look at the hillside and the thick underbrush. She points over her shoulder at the bridge. “That is the small problem.” She points ahead of us. “Big problem coming fast.”

Then we hear them. A lot of them. Even with their shuffling gait they make quite a noise as their feet hit asphalt. Gravity is on their side as they come around the corner downhill. Some look like they are ready just to topple forward as they struggle to keep up with their feet and the decline.

“Shit,” Melissa says. “How many is that?”

“Gotta be a hundred,” Stubben says. “We are fucked.”

“This way,” Elsbeth says and dives into the bushes that cover the hillside in front of us. “No more road.”

Stella and I help the kids find handholds and Elsbeth shows them where to grab vines and roots to scramble up and away from the road. She points them to the right and they obey instantly, following a natural path made by water erosion and small animals. Stella goes with them then looks back at me. I wave her on, giving her a big smile. Tran and his family are next followed by the rest. The scavengers are pulling up the rear and Melissa grabs onto my arm as her people close in behind us.

“You think your leg can make it up this?” she asks me.

“Do I have a choice?”

“No,” Tara Johnson says, her eyes watching the two groups of Zs. I know she is timing when they’ll come together. The others are busy sizing up the weaker and the stronger of them.

Melissa goes first and reaches down. I grab her hand and she helps pull me up the hillside. I grab onto anything that will hold me and struggle against the weakness in my leg, but I don’t crumple. I don’t let it take me down. I’m sweating and could really go for a shot of whiskey and some aspirin, but I make it to the small path. The carbon pole helps too as I jam it into the soft earth here and there for purchase.

“They see us,”
Andrew says. “Gotta hustle.”

I dig deep and pull out some hustle so we can get some distance between the Zs and us. By the ti
me the two groups come together, we are a good forty yards above them, moving parallel with the road above us. The path seems to be a natural switchback, keeping us from the Zs and the Zs from us. They’d have to be great climbers, which they aren’t, to get up the hillside.

Unless they just fall from above.

“MOM!” Greta screams up ahead.

My instinct is to run towards her, but Melissa keeps me back. One of the first rules of surviving the zombie apocalypse
, is that you don’t rush in to anything until you know your situation. Otherwise, you’re dead too. I can hear Charlie yelling and someone telling him to shut up. I try to push past Melissa, but she holds me firm. A couple nods and half the scavengers scoot past us and sprint up ahead.

“Melissa,” I growl.

“No,” is all she says.

Branches are breaking and there is crying and screaming and yelling. For those Zs that don’t know where we are
, they have just been told. Today’s lunch is a panicked party of twenty-plus suburbanites. Enjoy.

I can hear the grunts of the scavengers as they engage the Zs. The undead groans get louder and louder as I move forward. Only about ten yards up
, the path twists and I see what happened. The road turns at a sharp angle about twenty feet above us. The Zs are just tumbling over the edge. Like undead lemmings, they keep coming, falling, and then getting up immediately, many of them snapping their legs in the process. It cuts down on their mobility, but there are just so many of them that they create piles of gnashing teeth and reaching hands blocking our way.

I can see Elsbeth killing and shoving, trying to clear a way, but even her skills can’t keep up. Charlie is fighting alongside Stella with Greta between them. Carl and Brian are hacking away at anything that moves, while Stubben is busy swinging like a madman, doing absolutely nothing productive.

Then that Kirby guy goes down, his throat ripped out by a reaching Z. I’ve seen a lot, but never a man’s windpipe yanked right from his body mid-scream. One second it’s being pumped full of air and wailing, then it’s cut off like hitting the power on a stereo.

“Fuck,” I say.

I shake it off and move forward. I see Tran and his wife. But I don’t see their kids. His wife (God, I’m such a shitty neighbor that I can’t even remember her name) is screaming at the top of her lungs, her hands on her head, pulling at her hair. Tran is yelling and lunging forward, but he is stopped by a pile of undead mouths and hands, teeth and nails.

Then she dives in.

One second Tran’s wife is there, hysterical, and the next she is in the pile, her arms thrashing and fighting, trying to get at something. I’m not close enough to see the something, but there are very few things in the zombie apocalypse that would make a screaming woman willingly dive into a pile of death.

Her screams become wails of pain
, the shrieks of agony and anger. Z parts start flying everywhere and Elsbeth shoves Stella and Charlie back out of the way. Black blood splats against tree trunks and rhododendron leaves as Tran’s wife goes full on Tasmanian Devil. I can see her arms and hands grabbing and tearing, ripping and rending. There goes a hand, a head, arms, ears, more heads, hand, arms, and ears. A torso is thrown down the hill. She is possessed.

“Come on!” Melissa shouts. “We can’t stand and watch. Push through!”

She urges everyone to keep moving and Elsbeth follows suit, pushing ahead, trying not to get hit by the rain of Z stuffs. We all try not to get hit by it, but I feel the splatter of something as it slips past my cheek. I glance at Tran’s wife, knowing there is nothing I can do, but still feeling like a coward as we hurry by, using her as the distraction to occupy the Zs.

Tran is screaming at her in Vietnamese. I have no idea what he is actually saying, but I know what he’s communicating. “They are dead! We have to go!”

She’s screaming back at him and at the pile of Zs. Her refusal to leave without her children is obvious. It’s even expected. I have thought a million times if I would have had the strength to go on in this world if I didn’t have Stella and the kids. Probably not. I’m sure I would have eaten a bullet by now.

The group is ahead, following a split of the path away from the road, going up and deeper into the brush choked woods that cover the hillside. I look over my shoulder and I see Tran staring at us, watching us all go. I can see the fight in his eyes. I can see the resignation that it is all over. I can see the indecision of whether to stay or to go.

Then I watch him grab his wife by the waist and lift her up into his arms. His adrenaline has taken over as he seems to carry her like a pillow, barely an effort needed. She wails and cries, her fingernails biting into his forearms as she struggles to get free and get to her babies. But it is too late. Those Zs that she hasn’t ripped to shreds are busy feasting.