A Glimpse of Decay (Book 3): Lost in Twilight (22 page)

“We’ll, we were staying in an office…an architect’s office,” Vincent said.  “After the power went out last night, we figured that we couldn’t stay there too much longer, so we decided that we would leave there and try to maybe go south…down Thirty-Five and see what we could find down there.”

“Why south?  Why not up north…towards Austin?”

“We had to fight our way out of the architect’s office,” Shondra said to Magda.  “There were too many of those things showing up.  Seems like if you stay in the city, the chances are high that they’ll show up and surround you…eventually.  We figured if we went north towards Austin, we would just be heading into another place where there’s a high population of those things.  But if we headed south…well, there aren’t lots of people down there.  We could find another place and wait and see if any kind of help comes.”

“I guess that makes sense…kinda,” Magda said with an uncertain tone.  “But killing the mayor…now that doesn’t make sense at all.”  She was still having a difficult time trying to believe Vincent’s story about the mayor.  

“When has anything made any sense since all of this started?” Vincent posed.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”  As Magda was about to say something else, she saw several zombies standing at the top of the ramp.  She raised up on the tips of her toes to get a better look at them.  Her eyes widened with fear and she said, “Shit, looks like they followed us down.”

“See what I mean,” Shondra said.  “We never even have time to catch our breath before those bastards are on us.”

“Okay, I suggest this…we’ll pile all of our gear into your van,” Vincent said.  “I’ll back up the car and clear a path, and the two of you will follow.  When we get back up on the freeway, I’ll bail from the car and jump into the van.  Sound good?”

Although Magda was concerned about throwing in with two complete strangers, it beat having to survive this on her own.  She nodded in agreement.  She then turned and ran back to her van, jumping into the driver’s seat.  Shondra and Vincent darted over to their car and began to transfer their gear over to Magda’s van.

“Let me stay in the car with you,” Shondra pleaded with Vincent as she loaded the last fuel canister into the news van.

“No, you gotta stay with her.  I’ll be just fine.  Anyway, what’s to keep her from hauling ass with our stuff if we’re both in the car?”

Noticing that he had placed his rifle in the van, she grabbed it and shoved it towards him.  “Then please take your rifle.”

“I’ve got my pistol.  Anyway, if anything does happen to me, I don’t want you to be down one rifle down, okay?”

Shondra began to feel frightened—dread filling her with uncertainty.  “Come on, let me ride with you,” she begged in a trembling voice.  “If she runs off, we can just chase her down.”

Vincent could sense Shondra’s fear.  He glanced over his shoulder to look at the approaching reanimated bodies.  About a dozen were dangerously close to them and a much larger group was starting to make their way down the ramp. 
Where the fuck do these things keep coming from?
  He reached out to her, taking her hands and pulling them into his chest.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Vincent,” she sobbed.  Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“I promise, nothing is going to happen.  I just want you to be safe.  Trust me.  Now we gotta hurry, they’re getting closer.”

“I don’t think I could make it if something were to happen to you.”

Drawing her closer to him, he said, “Nothing’s going to happen to me.  Now hurry and go get into the van.  Hurry.”  He released her hands and made his way back to the car, racing against the ghouls.  He was barely able to shut the door before the first zombie began to slap at his window.

Shondra raised her rifle and drew a bead on the dead woman’s head.  Her blood-matted hair stuck to the side of her face and Shondra could see large, green and yellow gas blisters pocking the woman’s cheeks.  She had been dead for some time.

“Come on!” Magda screamed out to Shondra.

“Fucking bitch!” Shondra screamed as she squeezed the trigger.  The reanimated woman fell down to the pavement with a large portion of her head missing.  Shondra turned and ran to the van.

Seeing that Shondra was safe inside with Magda, Vincent threw the patrol car in reverse and began to back up, smashing into several zombies.  He found himself feeling grateful that no fast movers were present, but the number of undead he was confronting worried him.  He hoped that the car could handle the damage it was going to have to endure in order for him to back up onto the main lanes of the interstate.

As the rear tires rolled over one body, he could feel the back end rise a bit.  He gave the car more gas and the tires came back down onto the pavement, gaining more traction.  He struck two more corpses and they too went under the rear end.  As the back tires spun and tried to get traction off of the bodies of the reanimated, the tread tore at the rotting flesh, sending shreds and chunks of fat, muscle and tissue flinging into the air.

Fearing that the car was going to get stuck, Vincent floored the accelerator and the tires again dropped back down onto the pavement.  With three bodies now under the car, the front tires rolled up and on top them.  A rotten paste of gore and carnage was shoved under the tread of the tires and the front end began to swerve.  The body parts and blood had formed a putrid slick on the asphalt, denying the tires any firm traction.

“Fuck!” Vincent screamed with anger.  With no traction under his front wheels, the rear-wheel drive car started to swerve over to one side.  More and more zombies were now slapping at his door window and several wear leaning over the hood, banging on the front windshield.

Vincent tried to free the front end by turning the steering wheel, but all he accomplished was jamming body parts up into the wheel wells.  With the rear end of the car still sliding back and forth, he struck another pack of walking cadavers, and this time his rear wheels were unable to grip the road as they spun in vain on the flesh and clothing of the corpses.  He was stuck.

“Shit, he hasn’t backed up more than twenty feet and he’s already stuck!” Magda yelled as she viewed the mayhem in her mirror.

“I’m gonna go out there and help him!” Shondra screamed.  She was losing control of her emotions as she feared for Vincent’s life.  She turned to make her way to the back of the van and Magda reached over, grabbing her by the shoulder.

“You can’t go out there!” Magda yelled.  “You’ll get yourself killed!’

“He’s gonna get killed if I don’t go out there!  I have to help him!”  Shondra slapped Magda’s hand away and she dove into the back of the van.  She grabbed one of the bats they had found on their scavenging run and she slung her rifle over her shoulder.  Without saying anything else to Magda, she slid the side door open and stepped out onto the ramp.

Vincent saw Shondra coming out of the van and he immediately began to yell at her.  “Get back in the fucking van!”

Focused on Vincent, the zombies didn’t notice Shondra.  She went for the closest one—a teen with a bloodied stump for a left arm—and she delivered a blow to the back of his head.  Without stopping, she moved on to her next target—a skinny woman who was naked from the waist down.  Shondra gagged at the stench around the woman—black fluid was oozing from her vagina and feces was caked up on her backside.

Two brutal swings separated the decomposing woman’s head from the rest of her body.  Some of the zombies now turned their attention to the wild woman with the bat and they began to move towards her.

Vincent grabbed the door handle and shoved the door open, knocking a zombie off of his feet.  Exiting the car, he drew his pistol and fired a shot into the head of the sprawled corpse.  “Get back to the van!” he screamed at Shondra.  He spun and shot another zombie that had latched onto his arm.  “Go on!”

Shoving a reanimated aside who was dressed in a soldier’s uniform, he made his way around the front end of the car.  Grabbing Shondra, he took the bat from her hands and stood in front of her.  As he was about to take a swing at a nearby corpse, a shot rang out from behind them.  Startled, both turned to see where the fire had come from.  Magda was standing at the rear of the van with Vincent’s rifle.  She targeted another zombie and pulled the trigger.

“Get you asses over here!” she yelled at them.  “Hurry!”

Swinging his bat in an effort to keep their attackers at bay, Vincent shoved Shondra towards the van.  Backing up slowly, he yelled, “Go, get in the van…I’m right behind you.”  He then heard the sound of a helicopter off in the distance.

***

“Damn, those people look like they’re in big trouble,” Brasher said to Novak.

“Where?” the pilot asked as he began to look out of his door.

“Down at my eleven o’clock.  On the freeway below.”

Novak looked in the direction that Brasher was pointing in and saw what his co-pilot was talking about.  Below them on an exit ramp was a police car, and in front of it was a van.  From what he could see, it looked like there were three people—two of them by the cruiser and a third one by the van—and they were trying to fight off a horde of living dead.

“Jonesy, get ready,” Novak called through his radio.  “We got three survivors down there that we’re gonna try and pick up.”

Jones shuffled over to the open door on the left side of the helicopter and leaned out.  “Yeah, they definitely need help,” he said.

With the headset still on, Jim heard what the men were talking about and he moved over to the door and saw the scene below.  He then went over to Carrie and Karnes.  He yelled over the engine and told the two that they were going to try to help out some survivors by trying to pick them up.

***

“Look, a helicopter!” Magda screamed as she pointed to the sky.  “It looks like they see us!”

“We gotta get on top of the van!” Vincent yelled.  He ran over to Magda with Shondra in tow.  He then dropped to all fours and said, “Step up on my back and use the window to get up onto the roof.  Hurry!”

Magda climbed up onto Vincent’ back and then stepped up into the open window frame from of the driver’s door.  She pulled herself up onto the roof and she flattened herself.  She hooked her left leg through the satellite dish array of the van as she tried to give herself some leverage.  She then reached down to Shondra and yelled, “Take my hand!”

Shondra stepped up onto Vincent’s back and took ahold of Magda’s hand.  With her left foot she stepped up into the door window and with her legs, she pushed herself the rest of the way onto the roof.

“Get up here!” Shondra screamed to Vincent.

Getting back to his feet, he opened the driver’s door and stepped up inside of the cab.  He put his left foot into the window frame and with his right foot he stood on the driver’s seat.  Balancing himself, he reached up for Shondra and Magda, but before he could push himself any higher with his legs, a reanimated man grabbed onto his left calf.

The zombie pulled Vincent’s leg from out of the frame, causing him to fall down between the door and the cab, crashing down onto the hard asphalt.  Trying to break his fall, Vincent threw his hands down before striking the pavement and the skin from his palms peeled away.  A sharp pain in his left wrist immediately let him know that he had snapped a bone.

“Vincent!” Shondra screamed.  She was horrified to see two of the slow moving corpses collapse on top of the injured man.  As she tried to bring her rifle up to shoot the attackers, the wind around her turned into a vortex.  She rolled over and looked up.  Novak was bringing the helicopter to a hover just over the vehicle.  She then saw a uniformed man jump down from the copter and onto the roof of the van.  It was Jim.

“Get into the bird,” Jones said as he leaned out of the helicopter, grabbing Magda by her shoulders.  “You too!” he yelled at Shondra.  He took her rifle from her and he quickly dispatched two other corpses who were attempting to join the attack on Vincent.

Seeing that Vincent was in serious trouble, Jim slid down the front wind shield, landing on his feet.  He ran around to the open driver door and grabbed the first zombie.  He pulled its head up by its hair and he shot it in the temple, ensuring that the round traveled away from Vincent.  Tossing the dead corpse aside, he was able to shoot the second ghoul, causing it to fall in a heap on the battered cop.

“Hey, are you alright?” Jim asked Vincent.  Vincent rolled over and sat up, shoving the body away from him.  His right eye was swollen shut from where he had landed on the pavement and blood was streaming from his nostrils.

“I think I broke my wrist and my nose, but I’m alright,” Vincent said.

“Come on,” Jim said as he reached down to him.  He took Vincent by the right arm and helped him to his feet.  He glanced around to make sure that they were clear of any immediate threats and he hoisted Vincent over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.  He then began to trot down the ramp, away from the van and police car.

With Shondra and Magda safely in the aircraft, Novak looked for Jim.  He saw the captain carrying another man across his shoulders.  He realized that Jim was trying to clear the van so the aircraft could have a little more room to hover closer to the surface of the ramp.  Karnes and Carrie began to fire at the advancing mob as they attempted to give Jim more time, their ejected shell casings twinkling in the bright sun as they flickered down from the chopper.