Loose Ends: A Zombie Novel (13 page)

Chef saw what he was looking for finally as we rolled by a row of townhouses. He was looking at a collapsed balcony from a second floor sliding door and windows with the curtains drawn. The front doors to most of the units were broken in as were the ground floor windows.

“I need to go in,” Chef said.

“They’re right behind us,” Doc said.

As we rolled slowly by, there was a trail of at least a dozen zombies within feet of the truck on the road with us. Several more were following us at a distance.

“Doc’s right, Chef, you’ll not make it in and out. We need a better plan,” Short Order said.

He pressed the gas and we sped on along the row of dwellings. I felt relief that we were moving on until he stopped at the end of the row.

“Mutt, pass me a rifle quickly, please,” Chef said as he unstrapped his harness.

Doc put his hand on my arm to stop me as I swiveled my jump seat, but I pushed his hand away and reached in the storage section behind me. Doc didn’t seem fazed by my action as he spoke to Chef.

Doc said, “David, whoever you are looking for isn’t there. Let’s go somewhere safer and talk this through.”

“We can make a better plan and come back,” Short added.

I handed the rifle and a pouch of ammo that went with it up to Chef. He put the strap of the weapon over his shoulder as he spoke.

He said, “Shaw, take the wheel. I’m going around through the back. Circle around and I’ll come back out the same way.”

Short said, “They’ll follow us around; you won’t make it, Chef.”

Doc said, “How long will this take, David? If you’re doing this, give us an exact number now.”

Chef paused then said, “Two minutes?”

The zombies were getting close again.

Doc said, “You got 90 seconds. We’ll circle around the other way. At exactly 90, we pull up and you come out. No excuses and no extra time, David.”

“Okay,” Chef agreed, “90 and out.”

“You’re down to 88 seconds,” Doc said.

Chef jumped out and Short climbed into his seat.

Doc shouted, “Close the door and drive, Shaw. What the hell?”

I agreed with Doc whole-heartedly in that moment. We pulled around to the right as Chef walked along the side of the brick wall through the weeds and around the water meters and air conditioning units. We squealed tires as we took a long curve by a swimming pool covered in lily pads. I looked back again and Chef was gone.

“We’re driving right into them,” Short Order complained as we swerved from side to side.

They bounced off the sides. The doors popped and the grilling thrummed as they hit and clawed. Their arms thumped as they grabbed at the hood before being thudded away by the sturdy crash bars.

“Are you trying to hit them all, Short?” Doc asked as he fished out another rifle from the back and checked the chamber.

The truck bounded as we ran over a couple that were pulled down under the wheels.  Doc stumbled and nearly fell on me. He made my seat swivel as he tried to gain his balance. He leaned back on his seat again without putting on his harness as he checked the chamber of the rifle again. The truck became sluggish and pulled to the passenger side as we forced our way through the thick of them.

Short asked, “Anyone counting seconds by chance?”

Doc said, “We’re at 54 seconds.”

“54 gone or left?” Short asked.

Doc answered, “50 seconds left.”

Short groaned turning back toward the townhouses and sped toward the road that led behind them. The truck hummed as we ran along an open section between zombies.

“It’s too soon,” Doc said.

Short drove behind the buildings anyway. “There’s something wrong with the truck. I’m having trouble steering.”

“It’s too soon,” Doc hissed looking back behind us at the zombies following us around the corner of the buildings.

Short slowed as the tires sounded like they were winding down against the pavement.

He asked, “You guys know which one he was headed for?”

Chef came running out of a broken window about four doors up. Short opened the driver’s door and moved over to the passenger’s seat.

Doc yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”

Chef aimed his gun at us as he ran. A bloated creature with greasy hair hanging over the torn shoulders of its jacket reached in the open door for Short. He kicked at it connecting with its face, but it kept coming. Chef didn’t have a shot, but kept running anyway.

Doc got up and circled around the inside of the cab. He pressed rifle barrel against the monster’s head, but the skin broke loose and its scalp tore off the skull. The creature fell over the driver’s seat. It rose back up growling and clawing at the air with a new bald patch that went down to the skull bone. A strand of its remaining hair had swung into its mouth. The zombie was licking and biting at it.

Chef reached in the driver’s door and grabbed the jacket. He pulled but the nylon ripped away in a sheet sending moldy stuffing flying into the cab. I spit and waved it away from my eyes.

Doc shoved the gun barrel through the zombie’s hair into its mouth. The creature gurgled and hacked on the metal. Its teeth clinked as it bit down over and over, but it continued to reach out for Doc’s arms.

“Watch its hands,” Chef called.

“Stand clear, David,” Doc yelled.

Chef backed out of the doorway and raised his own rifle behind the door.

Doc yelled, “I got it.”

Chef fired anyway. He sent two shots into two more zombies that had walked up along the side of the truck. They pitched back in the air next to my window and I saw them collapse out of sight.

Doc pushed the zombie back outside the truck with the end of his gun against the back of its throat.

“Duck behind the door, David,” Doc called, “Splatter!”

Chef ducked behind the grill and window as the creature shuttered when a shot exploded out the back of its neck. Diseased tissue sprayed on the plastic in front of Chef. More were coming up along the sides of the truck and the zombie was still clawing around the sides of Doc’s rifle. Smoke was rising up behind its head and out of its nostrils.

Chef grabbed its shoulders and pulled it off of Doc’s barrel. The creature moaned as it was thrown back on the pavement. Chef pushed Doc’s rifle away from his face and jumped into the truck. He slammed the door and locked it just ahead of more clawing hands.

We jumped as the truck lurched forward.

Chef set a small black bag on the floor between the seats next to a torn piece of scalp with dirty hair spread out like a filthy carpet. Blackened gore dripped down the driver’s side window next to him.

I looked back and saw our balding visitor stand back up among the other dead pursuing us. Its mouth hung open and I could see the scorch marks on its tongue by the light shining through the hole in the back of its neck.

“What took you guys so long?” Chef asked.

The truck jerked from side to side as we sped up. Chef slowed down and drove more carefully as the wheels hummed throughout the inside of the cab.

“What’s wrong with the truck, Chef?” Short Order asked.

Chef answered as we turned by the lily pads in the pool and headed slowly out of the neighborhood.

He said, “We have a flat on the front passenger side tire.”

“I’m sorry, Chef,” Short said. “I had to drive over a couple of them.”

“It’s not your fault,” Chef and Doc said in unison.

Doc added, “You weren’t the one that had us risk our lives so you could go get a camera bag.”

I looked down at the little, black bag and the scalp on the floor and then back up at Doc.

Short Order said, “Hey, how about we figure out how we are going to fix it instead of arguing over stuff that’s-”

Doc interrupted. “We need a place off the road and close by where we can work for a while without getting seen. I assume you are from here, David. Do you know a place close enough that we won’t shred the tire before we get there?”

Chef took us slowly up the road.

***

We pulled along a side road that led back between tall, thin pines. A few had fallen across the road in one of the previous storms or winters. Chef swung us off the road into the tall grass to get around them.

Doc said, “Be careful, Chef. We don’t have the same traction with the flat.”

“Understood,” Chef answered.

We did the same thing around the posts and swing bars of a padlocked gate that only covered the paved road. We drove slowly by the sagging roof of a dugout and a ball field that was thick with thorn bushes inside the fences. We drove past a sign that said Bus Lane: Car riders stay right. We stayed right and drove around the back of the building.  The area was thick with debris. Trees and plants grew out and through open windows and under holes in the flat roof. All the classroom doors opened to the outside along the sidewalks. Cars were parked on the sidewalks and speared down into the ditches off the parking lot. We drove around a sign marked Reserved for teacher of the year.

We pulled up into the field behind the building and into a clear spot in the grasses that still had gravel scattered around before we came to a stop.

Short started to get out. Chef grabbed his wrist.

He said, “Wait, Short, this place was overrun last time I was here.”

We all waited and stared at the building. Nothing moved. Doc set the rifle down and pulled his aluminum pole from the back.

Doc said, “I think we’re okay. Take silent weapons. We need to stand guard. Once the wheel is off, we are stuck for a while. David can clean the filth out of here from that stiff we had to shoot rescuing this little camera.”

“I’ll clean the truck,” Short said. “I opened the door too early.”

We stepped outside.

Doc said, “It looks like they all moved on from the last time you were here, Chef.”

“They were about done eating when I arrived,” Chef said quietly.

“Why were you here?” Short asked.

“There’s only one reason to come to a school, isn’t there?” Chef said.

Doc said, “If you’re cleaning, Short, get the gun barrel too. We don’t want a miss fire once we’re in a spot. I’ll get the tire. David, if you’re up to it, you can go up front with Mutt and make sure we don’t get surprised. That will keep us in pairs too.”

The spare bolted under the truck was flat too. Doc had to use a kit to patch both tires after he hand pumped them up and used powder to find the holes. It took a while and left us exposed with our truck on a jack.

I walked with Chef along the sidewalk toward the front. He stopped at one of the doors and pushed it open. The desks were small and overturned. The carpet was rotted away to the concrete floor underneath. The white board had fallen to the floor and cracked. It was covered in a thick layer of grime.

“I don’t even know if this was their classroom or not,” Chef said. “I never came to pick them up from school. Things were dicey while the divorce was being finalized. They would have been in different rooms … unless they moved the kids once things got bad that day.”

I didn’t understand schools or divorces. In the Complex, kids learned by working during the day and reading with parents or neighbors in the evenings. Driving them to a building by themselves to sit in desks all day seemed like a waste of time and resources. It seemed inefficient, but maybe I was missing something.

Maybe divorces made more sense in an open world without zombies too. In the Complex, there was no point in separating. People had sometimes, but we were stuck together unless someone died. Maybe it was easier to get away and be happy in separate buildings across a town, but Chef didn’t seem happy.

Chef opened another classroom. Something moved. He raised the machete he was carrying. I stepped back and waited. A couple birds flew up from the larger desk near the crumbling, white board and flapped out the broken window to escape us. He lowered his weapon to his side.

We walked on down the sidewalk past the office. He pulled the door. The handle broke off, but the door stayed locked.  He looked through the long window with wire in the glass. Chef taped the glass with the butt of the machete. We waited, but nothing happened.

We walked around the front of the school. The front window was broken out and the blinds were torn down. Chef looked into the office. Papers were scattered around and turned into pulp in the floor. The door to the bathroom was torn off the hinges. There was a little toilet and sink inside.

There were no bodies. There were no bodies anywhere around the rooms where we had looked. There might be some in other places or they might have been dragged away. Neither option was very pleasant at the moment.

Chef scanned the parking lot and street in the distance. He nodded and signaled me to go back. We stepped back into the corridor between the main office and the classrooms.

Chef said, “They called.”

He paused and looked down at the ground instead of out at the street. I didn’t want him to keep talking. I had heard these stories before, but not from the cooks and not while we were sitting in the middle of where they had happened. It felt dangerous and cursed.

I had no idea what was coming before the day was done.

He started again, “My girlfriend called and said the girls were at school.  Her girls … they lived with us back at the townhouse. I was with my ex-wife and her stepdaughter … her new fiancé’s daughter. She was remarrying. The guy was missing still. Things were … well, you know. I had gone to their house when the roads got bad. I couldn’t make it all the way home again that day. I didn’t even try.”

He stopped so long that I thought he was done. He wasn’t.

Chef said, “I left them. I left them and came for … I came here. The school was … I couldn’t get close. I didn’t go back for my girlfriend. I didn’t go back for Carol or her stepdaughter. I just drove away. I ended up … somewhere else.”

Chef stepped out in the open and looked at the road. I would find out later that he wasn’t done with his story, but he stopped talking for now.

We went back after the truck was ready.

“I hate to put this on you, Chef,” Short Order said. “We need somewhere to stop for the night and this may not be the worst place, if you’re up for it.”