The Turning: A Tale of the Living Dead (30 page)

11

They came around the corner of a
building that was nothing but a grumpy clutter of rubble with the occasional pipe
and dead arm jutting from it.  Appearing in front of them, like a grand reveal
in a Hollywood blockbuster movie, was the wall.  A crowd was gathered at the
foot of one of the box cars, cheering and jeering at those unfortunates hauled
up and having their legs put to the fire.  It was like a nightmare that would
never end. 

The rumble of the approaching
forklift turned some heads, and as those turned so did others.  Jeff glanced
over at Tommy who grinned and nodded.  He slowed down to allow Tommy the chance
to jump off and run over to the collection of guards at the base of the first
train car, drawing their attention away.

Jeff looked down at Jenny, laying
in the baby sling on the floor, gazing up at him, a bubble of snot popping in
her left nostril and a long strand of spit oozing from the right corner of her
mouth.  He smiled and she smiled in return.

“It’s going to get noisy now,” he
said to her.  “You should be safe there, okay?”  Jenny giggled and Jeff looked
up as Tommy pulled his pistol and shoot a guard in his face.  The others
screamed as he turned and blasted them, one, two, three, sending blood and
flesh and bone and chunks of internal organs splattering onto the rail card.

“Here we go,” Jeff said.  He put
the forklift in gear and jammed it forward.  Four people in the crowd got
caught under the tread and were chewed down and under and then spit out the
back, a ruined, smashed and flattened chunk of humanity.  Blood gushed from
their torsos and washed across the pavement in great splashes.  

Tommy kept shooting until all the
guards in the immediate area were either wounded or dead.  More were coming,
though, drawn by the gunfire.  Jeff could hear their shouts over the growl of
the machine. 

He pushed the gears and raised the
forks until they were about waist-high and swung the machine around, slamming
them into four guards running to the rescue, firing their guns wildly at
Tommy.  Two guards were split open, blood spurting from the slashes as they fell
to the ground, clutching at their spilling intestines.  The other two, ribs
smashed, flew to the side and tumbled out of the way. 

Tommy jumped up on the forklift
and fired at another squad of guards, coming at him from his right, guns
drawn.  He laughed and shot twice before the front of his face exploded,
showering the side of the lift with blood, teeth, skull fragments, and brains. 
Tommy’s body stood up for five more seconds, still firing his gun into the
approaching guards, before it twitched and collapsed.  Jeff snatched him by his
belt and held him up, quickly pulling his dead body in so it sat on the steel
wall to his left, clogging it.

Jeff looked up.  On the wall, one
of the guards rotated around, his rifle tracking from his kill-shot on Tommy to
one on Jeff.

He ground the gears and rammed the
box car in front of him, shaking it.  A bullet pinged against the roof of the
forklift as Jeff drove it forward, digging the forks into the box car, raising
them, and whirling the lift to his left.  The box car picked up into the air,
swung violently, and tumbled from the end of the tines, crashing and rolling
into the approaching guards and part of the crowd.  Bodies were smashed, limbs
were broken, and people were crushed as the box car rolled twice before coming
to a rest.

Jeff turned the lift back around,
ground the gears forward, and slammed into the bottom box car that supported
the entire scaffolding of that section.  The men up top, the ones with the
burning cauldrons and ropes and machetes—all those responsible for dropping
victim’s over the wall and then hauling them back up again—along with armed
guards, all shook with the impact.  One man, gripping his machete, lost his
balance and fell over the side, plunging into the surging zombie horde.  Others
fell to their knees or tumbled from the scaffolding down to the street below,
breaking limbs and cracking skulls.  Some didn’t move, bracing themselves for
the jolt.  Those left opened fire on the forklift.

The roof and Tommy’s dead body
protected Jeff from the initial flurry of bullets.  A couple slipped by and
ricocheted around.  His left ear buzzed and something hot sizzled past his
eyes.  He glanced down at Jenny, made sure she was okay, and went back to
work.   

Jeff pushed the forklift forward
as the forks tore through the side of the box car.  Bullets pinged and dinged,
bouncing off the roof and next to his hands and arms.  One bit his thigh,
burning along the outside of it, skimming the flesh and thumping into the
seat.  He cried out and wrenched the controls, raising the forks as two more
bullets struck the floor, sparking and slamming into the bottom of his seat.  He
looked down.  Jenny was smiling, a divot in the floor next to her head.  That
was too close, too damned close, and Jeff screamed as he fought the controls
and lifted the box car four inches off the ground. 

The forklift groaned and strained
and raised, the remaining guards and people on the scaffolding falling now,
some over the side of the wall and others bouncing to the pavement.  Jeff
switched gears into reverse, dragging the box cars and scaffolding with him.  A
loud shriek of ripping metal and rusted steel drowned out the screams and even
the dead, as the box cars, bolted to the side of the wall, tore free. 

People on every side of the
forklift jumped onto it, scrambling up to get him, to stop him from a final
breech of the wall.  Fingers and hands grabbed and pulled at Jeff, ripping at
his arms and neck and back.  He twisted violently in his seat, tearing free
from their grasp even as he jammed on the gas to go faster.    

More steel and metal screeched
like a depraved banshee, as the box cars fell free and tumbled to the ground. 

Someone clawed at Jeff’s left eye,
tearing his cheek open.  He snarled and bit the hand, taking a finger off at
the knuckle before the person howled and let go.  That hand was replaced by
another and another, grabbing his hair and yanking his head back as others
ripped at his chest and arms, trying to pull his hands off the controls. 

Jeff screamed as his fingers
slipped from the controls.  There was no way to fight them all off; they were
too many and too desperate.  Tommy’s dead body was yanked from his left, torn
out by the rioting masses as Jeff grabbed the controls one more time.  He put
it in drive, jammed on the gas, and the forklift lurched and surged forward, shaking
a dozen of his attackers off. 

The forklift rumbled forward and
slammed into the wall, the tines tearing through.  The impact shook the entire
structure and tossed another group of people off the forklift.  Jenny slid in
Jeff’s blood between his feet, giggling and clapping her hands.  He moved his
foot and scooped her back up close to him as he lifted the forks, tearing and
wrenching the wall. 

Jeff yanked the controls and tilted
the forks towards him, his fingers slipping on the bloody controls.  A bullet
pinged off the steel next to his head.  Jeff ducked as another bullet slammed
into his forearm, slashing a great divot as it skimmed his flesh and flew out
the other side.

More bullets hit, bouncing and showering
the forklift like a hailstorm.  He glanced down at Jenny, tears in his eyes. 
He knew this was it; in that moment, he knew his plan was going to fail and,
even as time slowed and the bullets fluttered by like butterflies mired in
molasses, he muttered his final goodbye.

“I love you,” he said.

“Da, da,” Jenny said.

A bullet slammed into his back and
another into his side.  Jeff cried out and slumped forward, everything turning
black.

A horrific screech jolted him
awake and he lifted his head in time to see the wall tear open.  Screams filled
the air as gunfire blazed towards the wall. 

Thousands of zombies poured
through the crack, teeth clacking and arms clawing the air in front of them.

The forklift jerked hard and the
machine rolled backwards fast, running over retreating humans and scraping
against the side of a building.  Jeff had enough presence of mind to step on
the brakes as he slumped forward, blood everywhere.    

Jeff passed out for the third time
in as many minutes.

It was Jenny who woke him, her
cries reaching through the darkness and forcing him awake again.

Blood, his blood, was everywhere,
it seemed:  dripping from his hand, pouring from his side, dribbling from
dozens of abrasions.  He lifted his head and the whole world spun, tilting up
and sideways and back over again.  Jeff turned to his left and vomited, his
empty stomach ejecting a wad of bile.

All around, screams, moans, and
gunfire filled the air.  He blinked to clear his eyes and witnessed the carnage
ensuing around him.  Zombies by the hundreds were swarming the city streets,
still punching through the hole Jeff created, teeth clacking and hands reaching
for warm flesh.  It was like watching the womb of hell crack open and the
demonic hordes unleashed onto an unsuspecting world.  Jeff watched person after
person fall under the weight of the living dead; faces torn, limbs ripped free,
skin and entrails dug out and eaten.  The air stank of blood and shit and
gunfire.  Guards fought back, but it was a useless gesture as the dead kept
coming, like they always did, a relentless ocean beating against the shore. 

He checked his body.  The shot in
the back had pierced his seat and slammed him below the shoulder blade, but it
stuck in the cushion and didn’t penetrate his skin.  The one on his side had
skimmed his ribs and he was bleeding profusely from it.  Jeff tore his shirt
down the middle and took it off, tying it around the wound and squeezing it
tight to staunch the blood flow.

Jenny cried again and Jeff looked
down in time to see zombie arms and fingers clawing at her.  Jeff pulled his
gun from his pants, stuck it into the face of the zombie grabbing his child,
and blew its brains out.  The zombie tumbled to the ground. 

They swarmed around the forklift,
humans and living dead alike.  Some people jumped up on the sides, trying to avoid
the clutching dead, but were soon hauled down and eaten.  Jeff watched as a
guard was grabbed by four zombies and yanked to the ground.  He disappeared
under a mass of the living dead, his fingers clawing the air as they pressed
down on him.  A second later, blood popped up in a geyser, like a thick pimple
being burst, as the zombies stood and stepped back, pieces of the guard in
their hands.  They left behind only his spinal column attached to his head,
untouched.  The guard’s mouth was open in a silent scream, his eyes staring at
a cloudy night sky.  They never touched the brain, Jeff realized.  In all his
time dealing with the dead, he’d never seen one eat a brain.  It was like they
knew, somehow, to leave it alone.  Their attacks were by plan, to kill and
eat.  But they always made sure that what they left behind would come back and
join their thronging army. 

It was then Jeff realized that
something supernatural was truly behind the Zombie Apocalypse.  What happened
was not some virus unleashed, or some type of radiation or chemical warfare
agent.  It was the precise planning of some intelligent design.

Another zombie climbed the side of
the forklift.  Jeff turned and shot it in the head, sending brittle bone and
thick, syrupy brains splattering behind it.  He reached down, worked the gears,
and pulled the lift free from the building he’d backed into. 

“We’re getting out of here, baby,”
he said.

Four zombies lurched into his path,
arms extended and teeth clacking.  Jeff lifted the forks, swung the lift to the
left and suddenly to the right.  The forks swept the air, slashing the throats
of two of the zombies, nearly decapitating them as the metal bit into their
necks and carved out a thick chunk of flesh back to their neck bones.  These
two zombies stumbled off to the side, their heads flopping and lolling on their
spines like bobbleheads with broken springs.  The other two zombies were caught
by the forks and slammed to the ground as the lift rumbled forward, crushing
them beneath it.

Jeff jerked the gears and pushed
the forklift forward into the surging mass of people, both dead and alive. 
Legs and torsos crunched under his tread as he worked straight ahead, down the
street, heading for the theater and the tunnel to freedom.  Dozens of bodies
ground beneath the forklift, the tread spitting out gouts of blood and pieces
of bodies, rotting and fresh. 

This did not keep them off the
machine and, even as he worked the levers and pressed the gas and steered, he
still had to fire his gun.  But it was enough to keep him and Jenny safe for
the moment. 

He headed down 14
^th
Avenue,
keeping the wall on his right side.  All around him was tumult, as people and
zombies clashed.  Screams filled the night air, mixing with the moans of the
dead, creating an unholy chorus of foul corruption. 

Shots rang out.   Up ahead, a
squadron of guards marched, five deep, guns raised and firing.  A bullet
whizzed by Jeff’s head as he yanked the wheel to the left, steering the
forklift away from the encroaching guards.  They were on him fast, jumping onto
the machine and pointing guns at him. 

“Get out!” one screamed.

“Stop this machine!” another
shrieked. 

Jeff did as he was told, bringing
the lurching forklift to a halt.

Hands grabbed him and hauled him from
the driver’s seat.  He fought back, desperate to get to Jenny, but they were
too many.  Before he knew it, he was thrown clear of the forklift.  As he
tumbled to the ground, he saw a guard with an enormous, thick mustache that
made him look like a walrus, toss Jenny from the lift.  She spun through the
air, over a group of guards, and fell out of sight.