Swarm (Dead Ends) (18 page)

My somewhat tranquil state of mind quickly melted away once I got back to the Jeep and found several zombies rustling about, gathering at the downed tree that had stopped us from going any further up the trail. The audible hum of their brethren still echoed through the valley and I suspect they were trying to join the swarm but they seemed to be perplexed as to how to accomplish that. Luckily they all seemed to be of the shambling variety but my senses remained hyper alert for any of the fast ones, knowing how quickly they can come at you with little to no warning. I used the cover of the bushes and low hanging tree branches as I searched for a rock at my feet. Once I found the largest one that I could still manage to throw, I sent it flying for the edge of the forest road. It hit the lip of the road and went cascading down the steep canyon below, bringing with it a bunch of rocks, dust, and most importantly, noise. One by one, they all shambled over to it, hoping for a meal. And one by one they all clumsily stumbled over the loose-gravel edge of the road, except for the last one. It took three others in front of him making the same mistake for this one to realize that walking closer to the edge probably wasn’t the best course of action. But he still stood there at the edge, his brain seemingly caught up in some remedial math problem as he weighed his limited options. From my angle it almost looked as if a look of pain crossed over his face as he tried and failed to fit that square peg into the round hole.

He may have looked like another dead moron but to me he was an undead Einstein, questioning the order of things, trying and failing to change the status quo. I wasn’t really in the mood to allow him the time for that light-bulb moment where all the sudden everything made sense for him. I found another rock and aimed it at the space between his shoulder blades hoping to give him the final little push he needed to go join his buddies. My foot slipped slightly as I winged it at him which got his attention. As he turned around the rock bashed into the side of his face, breaking the skin away and leaving his jaw hanging several inches lower than it had been a second ago. He danced slightly as he attempted to keep his balance but once one of his feet caught hold of the gravelly edge, gravity slowly but surely took over. I stood up to watch him fall, hoping to get a better view of his hilarious little prance and tumble, but at the last second he saw me, a look of surprise overtaking his face as he fell. I walked down the grassy edge towards the Jeep as he disappeared from sight but as he fell he made the same call I had heard from the speedy hunter a few seconds before one of his buddies almost ate my shoulder for breakfast. I turned around quickly this time, ready and waiting, scanning my surroundings for any movement. Luckily I saw or heard nothing other than the slowly dissipating sound of dead meat tumbling down the forest road canyon, hopefully hitting every sharp branch and blunt boulder along the way.

I rushed to the Jeep and closed the door behind me as quickly as possible, wanting to escape this particular nightmare while I still had plenty of daylight to work with. I reached down and pinched the wires together like Ricky had showed me but the engine didn’t turn over. I tried several more times until I realized the clicking sound that it kept making meant the battery was completely dead. I looked at the steering column and noticed that the small screwdriver that Ricky had used to crack the steering column was sticking out of the ignition. I rolled my eyes as I realized Jane, being left alone in the Jeep with Zoe for too long, probably got bored and scared and wanted to see if she could scan the radio for any signal. She had used the screwdriver to turn on the auxiliary power but had then forgotten to turn it off, effectively turning the Jeep into a big red metal tent. I looked in the rear view mirror at all of the supplies, the supplies that I know I have no way of taking with me unless I somehow find another car or a new battery and lug it back to this location. Either option involved a shit-ton of hiking, of being prone once again to the hunger of the undead.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs or maybe rip the steering wheel from the column but instead I just took a deep breath and reclined the seat back as far as it would go. I shut my eyes and tried to think of the ocean, imagining the waves soothing me into a peaceful sleep as I burrowed my hands and feet into the warm sand, my head propped up on a piece of weathered driftwood. But even in my daydreams, the dead seemed to litter the landscape. I couldn’t help but imagine a pack of them slowly rising out of the ocean, all of them making that disturbing humming sound as they honed in on my location. Suddenly I’m buried up to my neck, my head literally on a platter made of compressed sand as I can do nothing but wait for them to kneel down and crack my skull open like a coconut as they fight and paw at one another to get first crack at the delicacies within. I could do nothing but open my eyes and laugh. The dead consumed every part of my psyche whether I wanted them to or not. That’s the real power of these things. Even when they don’t have you, they have you. They may not be aware of it but I certainly am.

I laid there for several minutes staring at the tattered ceiling of the Jeep, wondering what my next move should be. Suddenly, Doc’s bunker seemed to be much more appealing than it was a few short minutes ago, regardless of the fact that it was currently being used as a makeshift burial ground. I could manage a way to get the bodies out I thought, then maybe stay safe until I got some answers from either the TV or the radio in the Ranger’s tower if it managed to survive my bout of anger earlier. I could just stay tucked away down there in relative safety until the thundering horde I had seen through the telescope trampled overhead and just kept on going, unaware of the meal right beneath their decaying feet. But how long before cabin fever set in? Before I started talking to the walls. Before I began conversing with inanimate objects and tasking them with entertaining me, imposing strict penalties if they failed to do so. I suspect I wouldn’t last more than a week. But then again, a week probably seems more like a year these days, time being the precious commodity it is.

I looked into the rearview mirror and then turned over my right shoulder as I surveyed the gravel road. The safest thing I could think of that would get me down this small mountainside in one piece would be to put the Jeep into neutral and attempt to steer it in reverse all the way down the winding road. At least that way it would make it a little easier to find another vehicle and come back and hotwire the Jeep. But then again, with all of the hard braking it would take to avoid tumbling over the cliff, the brakes on this old 4x4 would probably be toast. In my mind, I chalked up the Jeep as a loss but at least it still had some utility left in it. It would get me down off the side of this mountain and hopefully give me a chance to get to the coast before it was too late. Though I did have the distinct feeling that I was about to take a nosedive straight from the frying pan and into the fire. Not much I can do about that. I imagine pretty soon it’ll all be fire for as far as the eye can see.

I thought about getting out and looking over the road some more to make sure I took the right path but it seemed rather pointless. It reminded me of buying my first skateboard as a kid. No matter how many times I examined the shoddily made ramp that my friends and I built, the whole thing was destined to fail once that first nail made contact with the disturbingly thin piece of plywood tasked with “propelling” me into awesomeness. Inevitably the rest of the day was filled with skinned knees, bruised elbows, and battered pride as I attempted to come up with a clever story that would somehow convince my parents not to take my skateboard away mere hours after its purchase. Simply put, I had a feeling this wasn’t going to work out. But I would at least cover as much ground as I could before the going got too tough. Considering that this little ruse amounted to my hastily concocted Plan B, I didn’t have much choice in the matter.

I gripped the wheel with my left hand and took a deep breath as I prepared to shift into neutral and set this beast on what would probably be its last voyage. Before I could exhale, another hunter slammed into the driver’s side window, its jaws snapping and body writhing in a herky-jerky motion as it battled the virus that seemed to be swiftly consuming its DNA. I clumsily managed to lock the door and without thinking, jammed the shift knob into neutral. Nothing happened. After bloodying what was left of its decaying fingers trying to tear through the window, the hunter jumped onto the hood and began trying its luck with the windshield. He may not have been a quick learner but the speed with which it hopped up onto the hood sent pains through my stomach and caused me to bite the inside of my cheek. The taste of blood that immediately followed seemed to reboot my brain. I looked down and realized the emergency brake was still up. I thumbed the release and pushed it down, my clammy hand almost sliding off the handle before it had been fully depressed.

Slowly, the Jeep began to lurch down the hill. The hunter stopped scratching at the window and for a brief second we made eye contact. The look on his face seemed to be a mixture of confusion and adoration as if he were saying “well played, human.” My foot hovered over the brake pedal as I stared into the rear view mirror, trying and occasionally succeeding to avoid looking at the zombie on the windshield. If this thing still had any juice left in the battery, I’d probably turn on the windshield wipers to distract him long enough to pick up speed and then slam on the brakes while he was still mesmerized by the rhythmic back-and-forth of the wipers. Unfortunately I didn’t have that option. A rearview mirror had never felt so small, its limited field of vision clouding my mind as I constantly reminded myself to flip my sense of right and left, the optics of the glass inverting my world and playing tricks with my already mediocre sense of direction. Rewiring my brain, especially now, wasn’t coming easily. The Jeep had really picked up speed now and the hunter began furiously pounding at the windshield with bloodied fists, unfazed by the series of bones piercing the flesh of his hands. In an attempt to quell the panic boiling up inside me, I decided to scrap the mirror in favor of looking over my shoulder as the Jeep approached the first bend in the road. I tapped the brake and overcorrected to the wrong side as my mind tried to shake off the confusion of seeing things normally once again. I tried to right it but it was too late. I could feel the right front and rear tires giving into the unforgiving edge of the road. Just as the Jeep’s center of gravity shifted to the right, I grabbed my backpack, threw open the door and jumped out, attempting to roll into the ground and failing miserably as my bum shoulder once again took one for the team.

Once I came to a stop and the pain subdued slightly, I looked around to see if the hunter was still around. I could hear the Jeep tumbling down the cliff side, the bending of metal and shattering of glass echoing through the forest. I had a feeling this little voyage was doomed but I didn’t exactly expect a Titanic-like failure like the one I had just witnessed. Clearly I didn’t set the bar low enough. I gingerly forced myself upright and shuffled to the far side of the road away from the edge, as quickly and quietly as possible. I found a small row of bushes and kneeled behind them while I searched around for any sign of the hunter. Just when I’d given myself the mental all-clear and began to stand up, I heard loose gravel tumbling down the road, followed by the unmistakably heavy footfalls of the hunter still searching for his prey. I kneeled back down and watched as he searched for me, sniffing the air and looking for movement. He stalked to the edge, almost slipping in the process. He was almost directly across from me now. He looked down to see if his meal was lost and then began to call out like I had heard the others do. I don’t know if he was seeing if his buddies were alright or calling for backup but either way the sound triggered me into action. I needed to shut him up as soon as possible.

I stealthily got out from behind the bush and tiptoed across the loose gravel as the hunter continued to confusedly sniff the air in the direction of his lost meal. The Jeep’s descent continued to echo, offering just enough sound to cover my movement. I got about three quarters of the way there before the Jeep finally came to a rest. With silence renewed, my next step might as well have been accompanied by an orchestra. It stopped sniffing and turned around quickly as I covered the last bit of ground as efficiently as I could manage. My machete was out and ready but the hunter attempted to dodge the kill shot and the blade ended up buried into the top of his chest after easily cutting through his left collarbone. I didn’t have time to pull it out and try again so I braced my right leg and kicked with my left as hard as I could, sending him falling backwards. But he reacted so quickly that I almost didn’t realize he had grabbed hold of my leg with his right hand. My balance slowly teetered towards the cliff as I managed to pull the blade out. With my long leg fully extended and unable to move due to the death grip being applied to my ankle, I had no choice but to switch the machete to my left hand if I wanted to keep my balance. My shoulder burned as I raised the blade but the pain-relieving cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and anger quickly kicked in, allowing me to slice easily through his wrist.

I fell backwards as the pain in my shoulder returned with a vengeance, making me involuntarily let go of the machete. I lurched forward onto my stomach and attempted to grab the handle before it tumbled downward. I was too late. My middle finger just barely grazed the handle, giving me an ounce of hope for a split second before its momentum carried it just out of my reach. With the machete lost, I couldn’t help but lean over and watch as the hunter continued to tumble angrily, comically into the valley below, my machete a few seconds behind, hopefully on a collision course with its face. The humor of the moment quickly subsided when I saw the bushes and trees lining the canyon walls littered with the remnants of the supplies that I was convinced would keep me alive. It was official. I had now lost everything. Save for my life of course, which seemed to be swiftly decreasing in value with each succeeding hour. I was down to my last heart and there were no extra lives in this game. No med-packs to bring me back from the brink. Hope was all I had left and even that seemed to be slowly floating away from my grasp, no matter how high I reached for it.