APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (46 page)

             
Shere reached into a cargo pocket of her utilities and withdrew two heavy duty black zip ties. She quickly secured his wrists behind his back and then secured his ankles together as well. She ran to Hito and saw Annie.

             
“Oh my god…”

             
“She saved me, Shere. After how I acted, she still saved my life,” Hito said in sorrowful astonishment.

             
From their other side approached the girl that had screamed in rage from the bushes and Hito recognized her as the dwarf from the Doctor’s house, but couldn’t remember her name. She was clutching her shoulder, blood sticking her fingers together. She dropped heavily to her knees beside her friend, crying.

             
“Annie? C’mon sweetie, please answer me…” her voice trailed off to a whisper and she couldn’t catch her breath.

             
“We can’t let her become one…” Hito began, his chin trembled and he couldn’t say any more.

             
Juanita jerked her head upward to look at him. Her eyes were filled with a purity of hatred that he hadn’t felt since Victoria. “You think I don’t know that?” she said accusingly, each word was uttered crisply and cut with razor precision through her clenched teeth. She drew her .380; thumbed back the hammer and Hito closed his eyes as she squeezed the trigger, effectively ending her friend, her sister.

             
Shere heard Riley groan from behind them and she stood up slowly and walked back to him. She knelt beside his head, lifted it gently with the palm of her right hand, leaned close to his ear and whispered, “That was my friend that you killed." She paused, sucked in a quavering breath and continued,” Yours will be slow, Riley…oh so slow. It may take days before I’m completely done with you.” She let his head drop to the muddy ground.

             
Shere could hear the dead trampling toward them through the pines. She cut Riley’s ankles loose then yanked him to his feet. “I ought to let them have you, but I worked too hard to for that.” She grabbed him by the chin and forced him to see her face. “Take a good long look, Riley.” She locked her eyes on his. “Do you know who I am?”

             
He jerked his head to the side, but she wrestled it back to face her. His eyes flitted back and forth taking in her face. He nodded. His face was ghastly white; he knew that she was going to kill him. She jerked her hand from his chin and wiped it against the side of her utilities suddenly feeling filthy. “Yeah, you know me.”

             
Riley cried out as she forced him to walk to where Hito, Annie and her sister were. “The dead are coming,” she warned them.

             
“I am not leaving her here for them to eat!” shouted Juanita

             
“I’ll take her,” Hito said. He took off his black trench coat and draped it over Annie’s face. He scooped her still form from the mossy red floor and carried her, leading the others in the direction that he had come.

              As they walked they steadily lost ground to the dead. Hito strained against the weight in his arms and the rough terrain and with every step he could feel the muscles in his lower back knotting up. His biceps burned as the muscles there became saturated with lactic acid. Shere was working just as hard to keep the limping Dwight Riley on his feet. Step by step the cannibalistic throng closed the distance between them. The sounds of the dead chilled them and they could hear a light clicking sound; their jaws slamming shut from a distance.

             
The dead were driven by that overwhelming hunger that could never be filled and by an innate hatred of the living.

             
Gluttony, Strife and Envy reminded them every second that they had desires unfulfilled. The living had what they wanted most and they would never tire, never relent, they would never waver from their goal.

             
“Keep walking!” screamed Shere in Riley’s ear. He was whimpering now.

             
“I c…c…can’t…”

             
“Yes, you
fucking
will!” she seethed and used her free hand to squeeze the bullet wound in his upper thigh.

             
“Ahhhh, you bitch…..” he screamed.

             
“The next time you start to fall I’ll stick my K-bar in that bullet hole. Got it?” she said, gritting her teeth in exertion.

             
Juanita was injured as well, but luckily for her, it was just a flesh wound. Despite that, and the fact that her short legs had to take twice as many steps to cover the same distance, she was still able to remain ahead of the others. She looked behind her to gauge how far behind the dead were. Juanita saw the dead getting closer and closer as they showed no signs of ever slowing.

They’re like ‘the undead little engine that could’
she thought morosely. As they grew closer their vocalizations grew more desperate and more urgent.

             
“C’mon! They’re gaining on us,” shouted Juanita. Personally she couldn’t have cared less about Hito or Shere, but she knew without one of them, either of them in fact, then Annie’s body would be meat for those soulless suits of skin behind them.

             
Hito nodded, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure he could have even if he had tried. His face was red, and sweat matted his shaggy black hair to his skull and face. He would not drop her; he couldn’t, not after what she had done for him. He saw her once pretty face in his mind, but he couldn’t shake the image of her slack mouth, her wide open eyes that had rolled back exposing only the blood shot whites as her tongue lolled when he covered her with his coat. He felt a sob hitch in his chest, caught it, forced it back and steeled himself as tears rolled down his cheeks.

             
“There’s….the…fence…” he panted. He jerked Annie’s body up and regained his slipping hold on her.

The groans from behind had now changed to only the snapping of jaws like bear traps.
Crack! Crack! Crack!

Riley wailed, “I can’t…you’ll have to carry me if you want me…” he cried.

Shere smashed her thumb in the bullet hole, twisting her nail back and forth, pressing

deeper and deeper.

“OK…Jesus! OK!”

Juanita arrived at the fence and scurried between the rusted
lines of barbed wire. From its relative safety she screamed at them to hurry. Unable to properly shoot her Mini-14 because of her wounded shoulder she drew her .380 and fired past their heads. The first shot grazed one of the dead, ripping its ear and a chunk of scalp from the side of its nearly bald head.

Shere felt fingers claw at her back and tried to step faster, but was unable.

“Hito…” she called through an exhalation as she strained for extra oxygen.

Hearing Shere’s desperate call he found a reserve of energy and ran in short steps to the fence as fast as he could. “Help me!” he said to Juanita. Juanita dropped her automatic pistol to the ground and held her arms out as Hito thrust Annie’s body over the fence.

A pocket of Annie’s jacket snagged on the barbed wire fence for a moment but that moment seemed an eternity to Hito. He grimaced and pushed her over, tearing her clothes. They tried as quickly as they could to ease her body to the ground, Hito bent over the wire. It pierced holes in the flesh above his ribs. He felt the warmth of blood as it streamed from the tiny punctures. Juanita couldn’t hold all the dead weight with one hand and Annie’s body thudded heavily on the soft earth.

“Hito!” screamed Shere again.

He spun from the fence and ran to her, his legs cramping now. A twisted and broken hand tangled in the suspenders of Shere’s deuce gear. Hito grabbed the handle of one of the Twins and shot the dead man point blank in the face. Bits of brain and bone exploded into the snapping jaws of the two closest behind it. Its body toppled, tripping one, but the other lurched forward gaining ground. The one he had shot had fallen, but its hand remained entangled in Shere’s gear and she struggled to keep her footing as the weight of the dead pulled her backward toward the ground. Hito dropped the ‘twin’ to the ground knowing that no matter how much he liked it, it was replaceable. He grasped the plastic handle of his machete and savagely loped the zombie’s hand off midway up its forearm.

He dropped the machete alongside the fallen ‘Twin’ and drew the remaining ‘Twin’ from its holster; firing as he pressed his back to Shere’s, walking backward.

“I’m losing him!” screamed Shere frantically.

Hito shot the second and dropped it. He shoved the ‘Twin’ in his belt and as he did this he saw that three others had moved to take the places of the ones he’d just killed when Riley dropped to the ground face first.

“Hito!” Shere screamed at him again; she was now nearly hysterical. Tears poured from her eyes, her chest and stomach hitching as she sobbed. She struggled to breathe and still exert massive amounts of energy but her reserve of strength was spent. Shere tried in vain to pull the nearly unconscious man back to his feet, jerking at his arm. Hito heard Riley’s shoulder dislocate; that fresh bolt of pain temporarily revived Riley and he screamed in agony. Shere wrenched upward on his arm again and again and Riley screamed wordlessly with each yank.

Hito grabbed Riley by the strap of his
ALICE pack and by the other arm, violently pulled him to his feet and Shere threw Riley’s arm over her shoulder. The two of them dragged his slumping body between them, but Riley, who had been clutching at Shere’s jacket lost his grip and his arms flew upward as if surrendering, and collapsed back to the ground at full length. Shere and Hito tried to lift him again and the Asian saw that she was crying uncontrollably. He continued to try to pull Riley to his feet and he managed to pull Riley’s ALICE pack from over his head. Hito didn’t think about, he looped the pack over his shoulder and tried to lift the wounded man from the ground again.

“No, no, no! You son of a bitch! Get up!” Shere screamed into Riley’s face, her fists clenching the front of his shirt.

Hito turned his head and saw that the horde was within two steps of reaching them and knew that once the dead had you they didn’t let go. He leaned toward Shere, bending at the waist and physically threw her over his shoulder, but she thrashed against him and pummeled hammer fists against his back.

“No!!!” Shere wailed, this time with such angst that Hito felt a chill run up his spine, making him shudder so violently that his knees almost buckled beneath him.

He felt fingernails slash at the material of his digital utilities at the back of his calf and knew instantly that they did not belong to his woman. He found one last burst of strength and loped in long quick strides to the fence. Without hesitating he dumped Shere over the fence backward. She landed on her back knocking the wind from her lungs.

With no time for tenderness
he flipped Shere over the fence and felt the little hands of the Latina grab the back of his shirt and help haul him over.

Riley was history, never to be repeated. The horde swarmed over the man, tearing into his flesh like wild animals. Hito watched as one of the dead reached into Riley’s open torso and pulled out a handful of intestines, while others yanked at the entrails, and he wondered how much guts this guy had. He thought of a clown pulling that endless ribbon from its mouth and decided that there wasn’t anything funny about either one.

“Oh God…God, no…God…” Shere murmured over and over again, and then screamed at the top of her lungs “He was supposed to be
mine
!”

“You need to shut her,
the hell
up,” muttered Juanita, but Hito ignored the angry dwarf. Carefully he eased his hands under Shere’s arms, lifting her to her feet, and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her shaking form.

Shere watched from over his shoulder as the dead robbed her of the vengeance that she had envisioned in countless dreams. Hito looked and saw that more of the pack had begun to walk past the feeding frenzy, heading for the fence and ultimately for them.

“Shhh…Shhh…we have to go, Shere,” he said, rubbing her back with the palm of his hand.

“I’ll help her;
you
take Annie,” ordered Juanita.

The obstacle of the fence gave them enough time to get halfway through the field before the zombies snapped the wires from the fence posts and spilled through like a slow motion dam break. The scent of trailing blood called to dead; a sirens song that was unshakeable.

“We need a place to rest,” Hito said as they reached the back side of the Wal-Mart. Already the dead had closed the distance by more than half.

Juanita grunted and they followed her to a mechanic’s shop. It was a steel pole building and Juanita yanked up the garage door. Inside they saw the Doctor’s Bentley parked.

“You drive,” Juanita said as she climbed into the back seat.

Hito noticed that he still had Riley’s pack and threw it angrily, on the floor between Juanita’s feet.

They sped out of Dixton without a destination in mind. For miles they drove before finding a dirt road and traveled upon it for another three miles. There they found a dilapidated trailer, more precisely two dilapidated trailers welded together forming a do-it-yourself double wide. The women stayed in the car as Hito went through the house. They were not startled when they heard gunfire and minutes later Hito emerged from the open front door and returned to the car. He opened the passenger side door.