The Turning: A Tale of the Living Dead (31 page)

Jeff screamed and jumped up as a
zombie, appearing from nowhere, scraped the side of his head.  He heard a loud
pop and a sudden rush of gurgling blood as his left ear was ripped off.  Jeff
threw an elbow, knocking the zombie from him as it stuffed his ear into its
mouth.  Gunfire erupted and the zombie exploded in a hail of bullets as the guards
surrounding him took it down.

One of them turned the forklift
around and aimed it back the way Jeff had come.  The guards followed along
behind it.  Just ahead of them, the living dead came, lurching and stumbling, a
solid sea of death.  Dozens of people were fleeing from the zombies, running
straight towards Jeff and encroaching guards. 

Jeff scrambled on the ground,
scraping his knees and clawing the concrete as he crawled towards where he saw
Jenny fall.  Guards jumped over him, ran around him, rushing in a panic towards
the zombies.  Jeff could hear them, over the bubbling in his ear, moaning and
chattering their teeth, even as the cries of the advancing guard washed to meet
them.  He reached the sidewalk when he saw Jenny, getting uneasily to her feet,
a mob of panicked people trampling towards her.  The right side of her face was
scraped and bleeding and she was crying wildly, her eyes big.  Jeff snarled and
pushed himself up on his knees and then his feet, calling for her.  Jenny saw
him and screamed for him as she ran, tottering on weak legs, the crowd rumbling
closer.

The fleeing people were ten yards
away from her and closing fast, kicking up dust and dirt as they bore down on
Jenny.   She staggered towards him, arms outstretched, hollering.  He was never
going to make it in time.   

A small group of zombies, emerging
from around a building by the wall, fell into the mob of people, ripping flesh
and gnawing limbs.  The mob burst apart, like a grenade had been thrown into
their midst, and scattered wildly. 

Jeff ran to his daughter, pushing through
the panicked throng, until he found her, snatching Jenny up and into his arms. 

“Da, da,” she said, smiling up at
him.  Tears poured down his face, mixing with the blood, as he kissed her over
and over again.

Behind them, the onrushing guards
crashed into the mass of zombies, two giant tidal waves smashing against each
other.  There was a loud thunderclap of bodies slapping and followed by a
cacophony of gunfire and screams. 

Jeff spun and watched for a moment
as the two forces collided, grit and determination meeting unstoppable killing
machines.  The initial struggle was even, neither side advancing, before the
rear of the guard buckled and many turned and ran, the zombies breaking through
their ranks, tearing apart men and women and leaving behind a bloody wash of
entrails and ripped flesh. 

He had never seen anything of its
like before and hoped he never did again.  Jeff covered Jenny’s face as he
watched, seeing the rewards his work.  His heart sank as he saw the carnage and
mayhem, the murder and butchery.  He did this.  It was his fault.  He could
have left them alone and fled with Jenny and none of this would have happened. 
Tears rolled down his cheeks as he watched his handiwork unfold before him and
he wasn’t sure if he was crying for the people or for his own soul.

A zombie snarled next to him,
jolting him from his reverie.  Jeff spun, pulled his gun, and shot the female
creature in the head, the back of her skull exploding in a puff of dust, dried
brains, and rotten bones.

Amazingly, headed right for him,
screaming for his life, was the man who’d thrown Jenny from the forklift,
Walrus Mustache.

Jeff looked around, knowing he had
no time for this, knowing he needed to run, as fast and as far as his legs
could carry them, but he could not help himself.  This bastard had bruised his
daughter, had thrown her like she was a piece of garbage. 

He stepped directly into the path
of the screaming Walrus, lifted his gun, and fired until the clip was empty,
blasting four bullets into the man’s face.  Skin and chips of bones and blood
carved canyons through the man’s head, sending brains and chunks of hair and
flaps of skin in all directions.  The last piece to go was that ridiculous
mustache, intact, fluttering off to the left and landing on the cheek of
another guard, screaming and running for his life.

Jenny smacked his chin and cried
out.

On their left, fifteen zombies
lurched towards them, a nightmare mix of shambling death and mutilated bodies. 
Jeff ran to his right, carrying Jenny, blood pouring from his torn ear.  He ran
as hard and fast as he could as the living dead pressed in all around, away
from the direction of the theater and the tunnel to freedom.  The dead had cut
off that route and were pushing him towards the water. 

The living dead swept in on the
helpless, fleeing humans.  Dead fingers clawed eye sockets and dead teeth
gnawed exposed flesh as dozens and dozens of human went down in the first wave,
splashing blood and body parts in every direction, washing the streets with
their fluids.  The mass of humans trampled each other in their panic, doing for
the zombies what they could not do for themselves.  People fell under the
thrashing bodies of their fellow humans, pushed to the ground and stomped on
until they were crippled or killed.  Either way they were easy fodder for the
living dead as the zombies moved in, pressing against the living.  The zombies
were like programmed robots, intent on slaughtering as many humans as possible,
their instinctual hunger for warm flesh driving them ever onward in ferocity. 

Jeff left the carnage behind, the
moans of the zombies, the cries of the humans, and the echoes of ripping flesh
and teeth scraping bones filling his one good ear.

It wasn’t much better up ahead. 
The zombies who’d gotten through the wall were not only pouring into the
sections by the wall, but were branching out, covering block after block and
descending on hapless humans everywhere.  People fought back in some places,
sealing themselves inside partially standing buildings and houses, doing their
best to keep the dead out.  Others succumbed quickly and died, evidenced by the
fresh wave of rising dead.  They joined their dead brothers in furthering the
takedown of this once-secure area. 

Jeff moved through them, using his
remaining gun to shoot the occasional zombie that got too close.  His other
guns were either lost when he was on the forklift or were out of bullets.  He
moved as quickly as he could, keeping ahead of the zombie hordes as they closed
in around the area.  His ribs throbbed, his back ached, and the side of his
head burned.  Several times, his legs went weak and he wobbled for a moment,
the world spinning and dark spots filling his vision.  Each time, Jenny said
something, or tugged on his shirt, or cried out, jarring him back awake.

He moved down a couple of side
streets, avoiding as many people and zombies as possible.  They were all
thinner here, but coming on fast.  The zombies had secured the side of Portland
over by the wall and were steadily pushing towards the river, and so that’s
where Jeff went, keeping ahead of the dead as best he could and dealing with
the others that closed in around him.  His body ached and moaned, just like the
hungry zombies that were trying to keep pace with him.  He didn’t know how much
farther he could go.  He hadn’t slept in what felt like an eternity, hadn’t
eaten in forever, had been punched and kicked and gouged and shot and to top it
all off, had walked what seemed a thousand miles.  It was hard to believe it
had been just one night he’d been in Portland, a total of six hours, maybe.  It
felt like an eternity.

The zombies kept up their pursuit,
with fresh ones joining their ranks by the moment.  Jeff, slowed by his wounds,
couldn’t get a lot of separation, but it was enough to stay out of their
clutches.  Other humans were around him, too, running towards the water or
going north or south to avoid the dead.  Jeff knew, though, that the only exit
for them was the river, so he headed for it, keeping a steady pace, as steady
as his weak legs would allow.  The only thing that kept him going was the child
in his arms and the promise he’d made to protect her.

He loved her more than anything
he’d ever loved in his life. 

A woman zombie in a tattered
ballerina outfit stumbled into his path and bared her teeth.  Jeff raised his
gun and blew her head into smithereens as the last of his bullets punched out
her brains. 

Just up ahead was the water.  Jeff
turned and took one last look at the sacking of Portland, smiled, and turned
towards the river.

12

Jeff found a log lying by the
river’s edge and pushed it in.  He splashed along next to it, sitting Jenny on
top and wrapping his arms around it.  The cold water hit his body and shocked
him wide awake as the currents of the Willamette swept them up and pulled them
away. 

On the other shore, Jeff could see
the thousands of zombies massed there, the dead bodies shifting and
shimmering.  They stood, an apocalyptic mass, a reminder of the end of all
things, their cries filling the air, a chorus of Armageddon. 

These zombies had never tried to
cross the water, the river a natural border formerly protecting the city, but
every now and then one would fall and get swept along, bobbing and sinking.  He
wondered how many were at the bottom of the river, walking around or pushed by
the currents.  Jeff shuddered and raised his legs, wrapping them around the
log. 

Jenny sat on top, held firm in the
crook of his left arm, smiling and laughing as they rode on, leaving Portland
slowly behind.

It seemed hours later when they
finally washed up on shore a good distance from the city.  There weren’t any
zombies around or any humans.  The few he’d seen make it to the water had
either drowned or been swept somewhere else.  Jeff hauled his wet body from the
water and stumbled up onto dry land, holding Jenny close to him. 

He needed to find a car.  

In the graying light of pre-dawn,
he came upon a compact car parked next to a tree.  They keys were in the
ignition.  Jeff got in, strapping Jenny down with the seat belt next to him,
and started the vehicle. 

His ear had quit bleeding, as had
most of his wounds, and he didn’t want to think of the nasty infections he was
going to get from the river water.  As soon as they got home, he would put
Jenny to bed and get cleaned up.

Home.

The word never sounded so
beautiful to him before. 

He drove around for a while until
he got his bearings.  He found the highway he’d come out on and took it,
heading back to their house.

Jenny sat next to him, her head
lolled to one side, snoring softly.  He looked down at her and promised the
universe he’d do right by her, as long as he lived.

And as dawn broke the horizon,
spreading its orange rays in a kaleidoscope across the brightening blue skies,
Jeff put the car into gear and drove them home.