Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America (12 page)

“I bet you think you’ve gotten the best of us,” Jeb said, his voice dripping with contempt. “But you haven’t. Our story is still being told in glory.”

“Glory, as in the glory of God?” I asked. “You know, I think you got on the wrong side of that equation.”

“DON’T GET SMART WITH ME!” Jeb roared me so forcefully that I took step back. His face filled with a dark red rage as he brandished his gun at me. I could see his finger tense on the trigger over and over again, but something held him back. It took a few seconds, but the red cloud of anger passed over him.

“The Dark Lord has selected you through the child to be transfigured by his undead army and that’s what will happen.” He paused and exhaled loudly through his nostrils, still venting some of his rage. “Step away from the woman.”

I took a step backwards.

“Not that way!” he yelled. “Towards us.”

I knew what he meant, but was just being obstinate.

“Do you want me to shoot her?” He screamed at me, the rage coming back.

I hopped forward quickly and cut the distance down to less than five feet away from Jeb and Clint. Clint maintained a total focus on me with his rifle. I could only imagine that since Chuck had emptied the pit, that Clint planned to march me into the heart of the zombies and kneecap me and leave me there to be devoured.

Being devoured was something I wanted to avoid, but what I wanted didn’t seem to be an option right then. What I needed was a lucky break or some sort of distraction. I sent up a silent prayer, a Hail Mary sort of thing. To be honest, I wasn’t the most religious man in my life before the apocalypse and much of my operating procedure after the shit hit the fan didn’t leave much time for me to contemplate heady theological matters, but deep down I knew that the Big Man was still at work in the world and it was at that moment that I got some evidence.

The evidence came when the wind shifted back towards us, rather than away, as it had been blowing for the past few minutes. With the wind, came the gas cloud. It wrapped around Jeb and Clint in an instant like gray flood waters. I was swept up a second later.

The only problem was that it was a strong wind and it broke up the already weakening gas cloud quickly. The caustic effect seemed diminished greatly, but it was still strong enough to bring tears to my eyes and irritate my nose and throat. Still I had my break. I leapt back in the direction of where I had tossed my gun.

It turned out that the gas cloud was a like a double-edged sword for me. While it provided me with a momentary distraction, the cloud also obscured my vision, making it impossible for me to see the gun. So, I just guessed where it would be and went for it.

My eyes burned like someone had poured gasoline in them and set them on fire, but I was on all fours scrabbling around in the cloud reaching blindly for the gun. I could hear Jeb and Clint gasping and coughing.

“Don’t try it,” Clint yelled, but the shout broke into a racking set of coughs.

I felt my hand strike against something metal and hard, but in my state of panic, instead of grabbing it, I knocked it further way.

A strong gust of wind came and the gas cloud all but drifted past us, and on toward the compound leaving me naked and exposed. When I looked up, I saw my gun a few feet away, but it might have been miles as Clint now had me locked back in his aim. I guessed that he wasn’t going to wait for any ceremony to cast me among the zombies and my life was now measured in seconds.

That’s when the second little miracle happened. Out of the dark just behind Clint came my salvation. A dark shambling form came out of blackness on a beeline right for Clint.

Up until that moment, the zombies had been my mortal enemy, but in that moment, that one zombie became something new. They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I didn’t like to take it that far, but I was about to gain a strong affinity for that zombie. We weren’t going to be BFFs, but I sure liked him a lot right then.

Clint was totally focused on me, so to keep that going, I bought my hands into the air in a grand gesture of surrender. I hoped he bought it and staid his plan to shoot me.

I watched him closely, and if I were a betting man, I would have betted against me as I watched him lower his aim from my head to my legs. I sensed from his expression that he was about to pull the trigger. Call it hunch. I’ve not see men pull the trigger all that much in my career as a U.S. Marshall, but I caught that expression in Clint’s face.

To further get his attention on me, I said, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. I’ll do whatever you want.”

He relaxed, but only slightly and that was all the time I needed. In his total fixation on me, he didn’t hear the zombies now nearly on top of him. Just as it reached its arms out for Clint, it let out a horrible animal snarl.

Clint whipped around with the rifle, but the zombie was too close and the barrel of the rifled was too long. The barrel bounced off the zombies side and the creature enveloped Clint in a bear hug, knocking him off balance as they both fell to the ground. The rifle bounced away as Clint did his best to fend off the zombie’s snapping teeth.

Jeb shrieked in surprised and hopped back a couple feet unable to fire his gun because the zombie was so intertwined with Clint that there was no shooting the zombie without shooting Clint. Clint grunted and tried to buck the zombie, but the zombie held fast. Clint pressed both of his hands to the zombies chin, desperately trying to keep the undead thing at bay, but the thing was bathed in blood from some recent kills. The blood was slick and Clint’s hands slipped and the zombie fell onto his shoulder and bit deeply, rending and tearing its teeth.

Clint howled in pain and loss. He knew what a bite meant and so did Jeb. Jeb showed no restraint and fired onto the zombie, taking out the top of its head, and also killing Clint, too. It was quite a show of ruthless efficiency.

I took that moment to start for my gun again, but Jeb wheeled around and fired a bullet that I would swear passed through my hair.

“Stop where you are, mother fucker!” Jeb screamed.

I stopped, still on all fours.

“It’s time for you to die,” he said flatly and without any emotion.

I believed him. If I saw something in Clint’s eyes, then it was totally evident in Jeb’s eyes. My luck had run out and God had sent a gas cloud and a zombie, but there were no more tricks up His sleeve. My number was up. I took in a big gulp of air, closed my eyes, and waited for the impact of the bullet on whatever place it would strike. If Jeb were merciful, he’d shoot me in head, but he didn’t seem in a charitable mood, so I guess I’d get on in the gut or the leg.

Time seemed to slow down and I heard the hammer go back on his gun, then I heard the explosion of the bullet leaving the gun.

At that moment, I’m sure it was the terrible anticipation and anxiety that staved of the shock of the impact because I felt nothing. No impact. No blast of pain. I kept my eyes closed and waited for the red alarm screeching of pain from my legs or torso, then panicked because there was no pain and I figured he must have shot me in the neck and severed my spine, cutting off all my pain reception. This terrified me because what if I remained awake enough to see the zombies come to the Grant buffat and start to chow down? There are fewer or more revolting and horrible things to contemplate.

A second ticked away, followed by another, and I risked opening my eyes. I found my vision open to the grass below my body and I saw a set of hands set flat against the ground. They were my hands and along with my arm and they were holding me in an all fours position like a dog just standing there, quietly waiting for someone to throw the ball or the frisbee or whatever stupid thing I was supposed to chase.

I heard a scuffling noise and slowly raised my head to look. I saw Jeb shuffling along, stumbling with every other step. His back was to me and he took two steps away, then the strength went out of his left leg. His legs nearly collapsed under him, causing him to swiftly pivot back to me, in jerking motion. When he made it back to facing me, I saw that he held his hands to his throat. His right index finger was still in the trigger hold of the gun, but it dangled loosely in his hand, as blood showered out his neck like a small geyser, shooting on the grass. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. His expression was one big question mark. A bubble of blood burst past his lips and he fell onto his knees just a few feet in front of me.

He wavered back and forth as if buffeted by the wind, swaying there. His eyes opened and closed slowly and he looked my way as if he were trying to focus on me. I’m almost positive that he didn’t see me, but was looking past me and past the physical world at some metaphysical place beyond existence and beyond understanding.

He opened his mouth as wide as it would go as if to explain something unexplainable and let out a sharp, but brief gasp. His eyes snapped shut and he plopped down in the grass right in front of me as dead as a doornail, as they say.

A figure in a robe stood about fifteen feet away, holding a rifle. My eyes still watered from the gas cloud, so my visions was ill-formed and not entirely clear. The figure moved toward me and pulled back its hood.

It was Carla and her expression was flat and empty as a plate left in the desert for a hundred years. She loosely held a rifle in her hands.

“I nearly shot you, too,” she said. She was quiet for a few a seconds, but looked into the darkness. “I don’t hate you, Grant. I know you weren’t the reason my parents died. You did what you could to save my brother, but he was dead as soon as the zombie bit him. The soldier just ended it quicker. But still…” She went quiet again.

I started to get up, but she snapped the rifle into an aiming position at me. I didn’t think she’d shoot me, but I’m not sure she didn’t think she would or not.

“I didn’t really join Jeb’s group,” she said. “I just did it to look for a way to help save the group.” Again, she paused and looked past me. With no cue, she snapped the rifle up and off to my right and fired off three quick shots. I jerked my head around in time to see a female zombie in a badly torn dress topple over backwards.

“But I’m not right to be around you,” she said again in that expressionless tone. “I’m not good to be around anyone right now. It’s just been too much.”

“But you need to be around us,” a voice behind me said and I turned around to see Rosalita sitting up. She looked like hell warmed over, but behind the exhaustion and pain, I could hear her compassion. “We can help you.”

“No, Rosalita,” Carla said. “I don’t think you can. The deeper we go, the more people I care about we lose, the more lost I am and the angrier I get. It’s only a matter of time before I do something we all regret. I can’t stay around you guys any longer.”

“I”m begging you stay,” I said.

A flash of anger fired behind her eyes, but as quickly as it came is as fast as it left.

“I can’t listen to you, Grant,” she said. “Please don’t talk. I’m not strong enough now to stop myself.” She paused again and I caught the glint of a reflection on the tears now flowing down her cheeks. “Tell Martin and Jessie that I love them.” She turned and walked into the darkness. We never saw her again

While there was nothing positive about that night other than we had survived, I felt that moment was one of the lowest points during my whole post apocalyptic experience. I had seen friends die and had even shot one of our own after they had been bitten, but I felt bottomed out as I watched Carla walk away into the darkness. The loss of someone so broken made me feel empty and useless, like life wasn’t worth living.

But life did go on as it always did, like the zombies, relentless and cruel.

As Carla disappeared into the darkness, I saw two forms fill the space that she had exited. They weren’t friendly forms either. They shambled towards us looking for the all-night human flesh diner.

I scrambled around, and being less frantic this time, I found my gun. I took careful aim, waiting for the two zombies to get close, and then snapped off two shots. Both shots were blue ribbon award winners as the zombies went down.

“We’ve got to get you up and moving, “ I said to Rosalita.

“I can’t go on,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “My heart is too broken for that child.”

“You have to get up,” I said. “We need you. Jessica and Martin need you. I need you.”

She finally looked up to me. As tired as she was, I saw that survivor instinct in her that had gotten her through a bad marriage, through a rough life, and all that we been through. She raised her hands in the air for me and I stuffed my gun in the waistband of my pants, and took her hands in mine. As gently as I could, I delicately pulled her to her feet and drew her into me. She grunted in pain, but clung to me.

“Did you mean it when you said you needed me?” she asked, her voice still full of emotion.

“Damn tootin,” I said. I broke our hug and said, “Listen, we need to head back to the compound. I don’t know where the hell they are with that truck, but we need to save ourselves right now.”

“Si, Grant,” she said. “I’ll go with you, if you need me.”

“I do,” I said.

I positioned her to take the most weight I could off her bad ankle and turned us to head back toward the compound when a voice behind us said, “Are you leaving without me?”

I had just about had enough surprise voices and appearances for the night.

“Who the hell is that?” I asked swiveling the two of us around as I pulled my pistol. When we got fully turned around, I saw Chuck struggling to sit up.

“You’re alive?!” I said.

“I sure as shit am,” he said, finally making it to a sitting position, but looking quite wobbly. He looked directly at me and asked, “Do you think a bad ass ninja who brings an arsenal of weapons to the party comes without a kevlar vest?” He pointed at his chest. “That bullet hit me in the back. It knocked me for a loop.”

“How are you now?” I asked.

“Right as rain,” he said.

“You don’t look it,” I said.

“If I weren’t, could I do this?” he asked and swiveled around in one fluid motion while pulling the dangling rifle hanging of his chest free, and ripped of a hail of bullets at the two approaching zombies shredding them like ground beef. The recoil of the shots knocked him onto his back. He wasn’t right as rain. Far from it.