Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America (22 page)

“You wanted some shrapnel in your face, maybe?” I asked.

Smoke swirled around in the disjointed mound of bloodied and broken zombie bodies. The rain drove the smoke down to the pavement where it hung like a morning mist, clinging to the bodies like new layer of clothing. A smattering of bodies parts stuck up and out of the mist, broken bones with flesh hanging off the bones, gruesome reminders of the explosion. Beyond the bodies down the road was a new and seemingly unending line of zombies plodding towards us, unfazed by the fate of their undead brethren in the road. Nothing seemed to bother them. Ever. We could have killed a million of them right then and there and they wouldn’t blink an eye. I could have dressed up in a clown suit, complete with white make-up, a big red clown nose, and a rainbow colored wig and danced a jig in the road and they still would have seen me as nothing more than meat. The next item on their takeout menu.

“We’ve got to get this show on the road,” I said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“But know, this is my show, not yours,” he said. “It’s your cue to exit stage right.”

We stood beside each other, watching the flow of zombies streaming our way.

“Remember what I said,” he reminded me. “Tell them.”

“Sure,” I responded. A more eloquent or thoughtful man might have been able to say something more profound or reassuring, but I was all out of words.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

“What is there to know? I set off the charges and boom, the bridge goes down. I know enough to do that.”

He sounded both confident and resigned. The problem was that he didn’t really know what he was doing. None of us did. How could we? We were just people living our lives with the world turned upside down. Some of us were better equipped than others, but not one of us was ready for a world filled with zombies.

I turned and started at a fast walk down the bridge. I should have run.

I took a quick glance over my shoulder and saw Dave walking toward the detonator, his head down, moving along like a man on death row. The rain drove across the bridge in sheets, pelting my face and body. I looked away, not wanting to see what was about to go down.

I picked up my speed, moving into a slow jog, but it wasn’t fast enough. Dave got to the detonator quicker than I thought he could, and he had been right. Setting off the explosives was easy. Too easy. He must have pressed the button as soon as got there.

I felt the effects of that innocuous little act quite quickly. First, came the sound wave which immediately got my attention. The explosions went off in quick succession, each blast barely distinguishable from the other one, but I heard each one, the concussion nearly bursting my eardrums. The bombastic symphony was followed by an incredible supernova as I was enveloped in a blinding white light, forcing me to close my eyes tightly to keep from being blinded.

The temperature shot up around me just as the light hit me and it felt like a giant hand had lifted me off the ground and propelled me down the bridge. I wondered if my feet were even still on the ground as I flew through the air. My wondering ended as I fell forward and slid for about fifteen feet, rolling onto my side and spinning down the bridge barely knowing where I was as the power of the explosion took on a new reality for me. One that was bright, loud, and violent.

Somehow I maintained consciousness, but just barely. Debris from the blast peppered my back. Some of the pieces were hot and singed my neck and shoulders, but I barely felt it in my half-stupor. The world changed dramatically in seconds, shifting from chaos and catastrophe to calmness and near silence with only the soft sound of the waves and the pitter-patter of rain.

Reality ebbed and flowed as my world dimmed and brightened, but I barely noticed it as I was face down experiencing the road surface in an intimate fashion. As the world got brighter, I realized where and when I was and found myself splayed on the road, arms stretched out in front of me facing down the highway. Some pesky idea of danger flitted around in the back of my mind, but I ignored it as I studied patterns in the asphalt. Water sluiced in little channels on the road and I found it utterly fascinating despite this nagging sense of alarm sounding deep in the recesses of my consciousness.

I’d never studied road surfaces before. At least, never so up-close and personal. Maybe I’d make a career of it? It was only when that surface started to tilt that the alarm broke through my stupor, but the world was still somewhat hazy. I did muster the strength to turn my head to look back down the bridge and what I saw rose the alarm from a gently ringing to a full-out fire house clanging.

The bridge behind me was, for all intents and purposes, gone, replaced by smoke, fire, and broken pieces of concrete. Zombies stood on the distant broken section looking forlorn and disappointed that they no longer had easy access to a our human smorgasbord. A few of their undead colleagues bobbed in the ocean below and were quickly taken under the waves.

The explosives had worked, but all too well. It turned out that the section of the bridge I was on was compromised and the tilting that I thought was in my imagination was all too real.

Any escape to La-La Land was no longer practical or beneficial. I needed to embrace reality again -- and fast. This reality wasn’t all that enticing, but undeniable. Foundational support structures in the road broke with a resounding crash below me and the tilt became more pronounced. I began to slip from my precarious position into a gentle slide downwards toward the open ocean.

Above me was a clean break in the road, brought about when the support pilings gave way beneath the bridge as a result of the explosion. My section of bridge was breaking away and tilting downward like on a giant hinge. Beneath my feet was broken roadway that extended about ten feet with jagged pieces of concrete and snapped rebar jutting from the battered bottom end. Beneath that was nothing but angry and churning waves about fifty feet below. In my current half-addled state, there was little doubt that the waves would take me down and I would become one with the sea if I slipped off the bridge. Add the fact that I was a weak swimmer and I was sure goner if I ended up in the water.

I desperately tried to break through my mental haze and shot out both my arms, reaching for any traction on the road. My right hand found a slight purchase on a broken piece of concrete, but my left flailed uselessly unable to grab onto anything but air. Between the slickness of the roadway from the rain and the damage from the explosion, my grip was precarious, at best. The road continued to tilt downward and I could hear massive cracking sounds above me as the island of road I was on started to break away from the mainland of road still left intact.

I dug my feet into the roadway, but the rain slicked pavement gave me little traction. My feet moved against the titling roadway like I was on a treadmill, not taking me anywhere.

My right hand throbbed from the tension of holding my entire body weight. My left hand searched for anything to latch onto, but found nothing, so I dug my fingers into the pavement with only bad results.

A loud cracking noise sounded below me and when I looked down, a massive piece of concrete splash splashed into ocean sending a wave up and onto my feet. The roadway fell downward, increasing the tilt to almost a ninety degree angle, and the jerking motion nearly shook my hand free, but I held on. Barely.

I felt a fingernail tear off the index finger of my left hand as I desperately dug at the roadway. Blood oozed out of my fingertips from the skin being ripped away as I tore at the pavement looking for anyway to hold on. The muscles in my right forearm screamed in protest and began to vibrate from the stress. My fingers felt like they were about to snap off, the knuckles popping loudly every other second.

My short and long term future was seriously in doubt. Hanging on wasn’t working as I saw little chance I was going to be able to pull myself up. I looked below me, trying find anything that I could grab onto if I slipped down the road. The only thing I saw was a couple pieces of bent rebar sticking off the end of the road. They were off to my right about eight to ten feet. If I could swing my body in that direction and slide down the road at just the right angle I might just have a chance to grab the rebar before I slipped off into the abyss. That was a big if.

I calculated my chances at about five percent. When I really evaluated this gamble, I felt I had a better chance of impaling myself on the rebar. At least, it would prevent me from falling into the ocean. Of course, it also increased my chances of bleeding to death.

In my last few seconds of life, I reflected on my decision to ever come to this island. Why had I become so fixated on this death trap of an island? Was I caught up in some nostalgic vision of days gone by from my childhood? Why not Idaho? I heard the state was full of preppers ready to take on any world ending event. Why not Alaska? But I hated cold weather.

A flash of lightning broke me out of my reverie and illuminated the scene one more time just as I start to push off with my feet to send me to my right and an almost suicidal attempt to grab the rebar below. Thunder quickly following the lightning booming away as the rain just kept falling.

I shifted my body, keeping my eyes down below, and released my hand, saying a lightning fast prayer just as I let go.

I felt gravity tug at my body with its irresistible pull, but just as my descent started, something grabbed my wrist and halted my downward momentum. I jerked my head up and saw a hand wrapped around my wrist, nearly pulling my arm loose from my shoulder socket as I swung along the roadway like a human pendulum.

The hand holding my wrist was attached to arm that extended over the edge of the bridge. My face scraped along the surface of the road, peeling away skin from my cheek.

A face popped over the edge and looked down at me.

“Grant, dude, you’re heavy.” It was Jay.

“What are you doing here?” I grunted out.

“Saving your life, it looks like,” he said between labored breaths.

A second head appeared over the edge.

“Give me your other hand,” Randell said.

“You’re supposed to be down on the island by now,” I said.

“All for one and one for all,” he said, “now, give me your damn hand.”

It sounded easier that it was. My body was reaching limits of what it could stand and it took everything I had to raise my left arm up. When I finally did, Randell grabbed on to it, and with Robbie holding to Randell’s belt, and tugging backwards, they gradually pulled me up and onto the safe section of the bridge.

As soon as my feet passed over the edge, the roadway island I had been hanging onto broke away from the bridge with a resounding crash. It reminded me of those videos of giant pieces ice breaking away from glaciers. A gargantuan wave splashed over us a second later.

“Whoa, dude!” Jay exclaimed as he looked over the edge watching the section of road disappear into the waves below. “That was gnarly.”

I lay on my back, panting, as the rain pelted my face.

Martin leaned in over me and said, “Grant, are you okay?”

“Sure, kiddo,” I said, “I just need a minute.”

Jessica’s face appeared next to Martin’s shoulder. “Where’s my daddy?”

That wasn’t a question I wanted to answer.

Joni moved in behind the kids, wrapping her arms around them. Her expression stricken, the rain wiping away any tears that might have been there.

“Daddy’s fighting the zombies,” she said.

“Yeah,” was the best I could do.

Randell and Robbie reached down to help me up. I resisted the urge to scream as they pulled on my arms to get me to my feet. It only hurt a little, and that is if little is wanting your arms amputated instead of have someone pull on them.

“Where’s Rosalita?” I asked, feeling panic sweep over me.

“Down the road,” Jay said. “Jane’s watching over her.”

“How many zombies are there down there?” I asked.

“A few,” Randell replied. “We’ve taken out a lot of them. There’s more than a few left, but they seem manageable. The rain is making them hard to see, but that’s working in our favor, too, because they can’t see us.”

“Can we make it past them?” I asked.

“I think so.”

“Then what are we waiting on?”

Randell’s take on the situation was right. Falling in buckets and barrels, the rain obscured our walk down the bridge for the most part. We only had to take out a few zombies, mostly by hand (or gun butt) to avoid drawing more in with gunshots. It was grisly work that Jay and Jane did the most of.

By the time we made it off the bridge and onto the island proper I could tell that everyone was exhausted. I was way beyond exhausted and felt on the edge of collapse. Fortunately, I remembered there was a lifeboat station up at this end of the island, so I set a course for it stumbling along barely aware I was walking.

We trudged there with Robbie and Randell carrying Rosalita who looked near death. I wasn’t too far behind her, but used what little strength I had left to direct us across a parking lot and through some low cut scrub and finally onto a beach where we saw the large dark outline of the only man-made structure around for miles. The dark form became clearer as we approached. It was a two story building with a lookout tower on its east side.

The place was completely dark with no signs of life. We crossed the beach and saw bits of siding and other debris torn from the building by the storm. With little or no caution, we climbed the stairway to the deck that surrounded the first floor, looking for any people, living or dead. When none appeared, we broke inside, using a rifle butt to crash through some glass and opened a door.

It only took a few minutes to check out the inside and we quickly discovered that the place was empty. From the looks of it, the place has been abandoned for quite awhile, but building supplies lay about the rooms. I could only guess that a renovation had been in progress, but the zombie invasion had put an end to that.

Randell established a guard schedule and refused to let me take a turn. In protest, I took a spot on the floor next to the door, but was out, sound asleep in seconds. The last thing I remembered was the howling of the wind and the driving rain against the side of the house.