Z-Burbia 5: The Bleeding Heartland (7 page)

I can tell Lourdes is getting frustrated with how the conversation is going, but what did she expect? We’d all just salute, and tell her she’s the best thing since sliced bread? Not that we’ve seen sliced bread in a long time. You never realize what conveniences will be out the window when the zombie apocalypse hits. Turns out it’s sliced bread. I miss sliced bread.

All eyes are on me.

“Out loud?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Stella says. “And there are a lot better things to have back than sliced bread.”

“Are there, Stella? Are there?” I smile.

“Yes,” she replies.

“Well ... okay, then,” I nod then look at everyone else. “Mt. Vernon, Illinois it is.”

No one seems one hundred percent thrilled with the plan, but at least it’s a plan. I will admit that maybe staying in one spot and setting up a little bit of infrastructure might not be a bad thing. I sure as hell wouldn’t mind figuring out how to have a hot shower each day. Or even every other day. Shit, I’ll settle for one a week or even twice a month.

Yeah, we all pretty much stink.

***

Napping in the daytime sure is an interesting thing. It has this surreal quality that totally fucks with your head that nighttime sleeping doesn’t. At night, you know you are supposed to be asleep; you know that things should be still; things should be calm.

But daytime? Not so much.

So when I wake up and the RV is skidding all over the road, I actually think I am still asleep and dreaming. I used to always have weird car crash dreams when we would go on long road trips. That was pre-Z, of course. It isn’t until the screams start, and Stella’s nails pretty much dig their way down to the bone of my left arm (which is my only arm), that I realize I am wide awake, and shit is about to get fucked up.

“Grab on to something!” Buzz shouts from the driver’s seat. “I don’t think I can pull us out of this!”

With the RV stripped down to the screws, there really isn’t a whole lot we can grab on to. Which is why Stella has ahold of me, and the kids have ahold of her. The adrenaline that rushes through my body cuts the pain of Stella’s grip and smooths out my nerves enough for me to assess our situation. I look out the window, and see a lot less daylight than I should. In fact, all I see is a blanket of white whipping past the windows.

And I fucking mean it: a blanket of white. Not a flurry of flakes. Not a swirling mass of snow. Those things would be great to see. They would actually have definition and tell me that we haven’t been swallowed by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But, alas, the signs of an outside world are not meant to be seen. Instead, we see only that motherfucking blanket of white.

That includes out the windshield as well. Which is why Buzz is still yelling for us to hang on to anything we can.

“So this is a whiteout,” Charlie says. “I always wondered.”

“Go fuck yourself and your wondering,” Greta snaps.

“Kids, shut the fuck up,” Stella says.

The RV swerves to the left, then back to the right, and Buzz starts swearing like I have never heard a Fitzpatrick swear in my life, including Melissa, even though she’s a Billings since she married my late best friend Jon. I miss Jon. He was a great guy.

Screams bring me out of my head.

Left, right, left, right, right, right.

Okay, we’re now sliding across the road sideways. Or I assume we are since I can’t see a damn thing other than that fucking blanket of white.

The RV feels like it’s up on two wheels then it feels like it’s up on no wheels. No wheels is bad.

Bam!

Okay, wheels are back on the ground, but we are still sliding. And fast.

I look about and see everyone hanging onto everyone else. It’s an orgy of fear.

Huh, I kinda like how that sounds. Orgy of fear. I’ll need to use that again sometime. Orgy of fear.

“Jace! Shut up!” Stella screams at me.

“No one cares about your orgy of fear, Dad!” Greta shrieks.

Man, I really have to work on the talking out loud thing. This is becoming a serious problem. If we ever get someplace that has the right equipment, I may have Dr. McCormick do a full brain scan, or whatever is possible in this shitty world. She’ll probably just shine a flashlight in my ear, and tell me I’m fucked. That sounds about right.

We all shout, and scream, and yell, and freak out as the RV hits something and then begins to spin out of control. I have no idea what we have hit, or really if we did hit anything at all. Maybe the tires caught on a not so slippery part of the road. Fuck if I know.

The RV keeps spinning, and I can see Stella about to lose her lunch. She is not a happy camper when things get all spinny-spinny. Not that anyone would be a happy camper in this situation, but spinny-spinny is not her thing in the best of times.

There are definitely impacts against the sides of the RV, and realization hits me regarding what the fuck the impacts are. I focus and listen to the sounds just to make sure, but after a few thumps and splats, I am almost one hundred percent certain of what is happening.

Zs.

Not only are we in a whiteout, but we are in a fucking herd of Zs. Or maybe it’s just a manageable horde, and not a full-blown herd. One can hope, right?

A spray of brown, black, and red covers the window across from me, and my fears are confirmed. Yep, it’s motherfucking Zs.

More impacts, more spinning, Stella’s face is green, more spinning, more impacts, Stella turns and throws up, people shout and scoot away, more spinning, more impacts, more Stella puke.

Then nothing.

The world is floating. Or, more accurately, we are floating in the world. Time slows and I can feel my ass lifting off the floor of the RV. I’m going weightless, bitches! Ground control to Major Tom, motherfuckers!

The weightlessness lasts for a couple seconds before the weight of my pure terror hits me. Not only are we up in the air, but the RV is now rolling, as well as still spinning. This is some real 360 bullshit. Tumbling now, my family rolls on top of me, then I’m on top of them, then that dickhead Rafe is in my face, then I see Critter, then white and red and white, and Stella and Stuart, and white and…

It’s all white. And so fucking cold.

But, I have that weightless feeling once more. I’m flying!

Flying through the cold, cold air. Flying through the blanket of white. Flying who the fuck knows where?

And smack, bam, the trip is over.

I hit the ground hard. Dirt and snow are shoved up my coat, down my pants, in my boots, in my eyes, my ears, my nose. There is some more tumbling, but it’s all solo now. I am rolling across Illinois and not liking it so much.

My body slows, slows, and stops. I lie here for a second, trying to figure out what the fuck to do.

Do I stand up? I’m afraid to, in case I find out that I’m now missing a leg as well as an arm. But, hey, then Stumpageddon would have a buddy, right? If I am missing a leg, I can call him something cool like Choppy or Da Gimp. More like everyone would call me Da Gimp, not my leg. That’s probably not the best name to choose.

I’m really fucking cold!

Okay, no more daydreaming about my unconfirmed new amputation’s name.

I reach down and pat myself, and find I’m fully intact (with the exception of Stumpageddon, of course). Intact is good. Still hurts, but better than missing a leg in a snowstorm with Zs all around.

Oh, fuck! Zs!

I have to get up. I have to move some ass. Crashing is bad, but just waiting to become some undead fucker’s human snow cone is even worse.

Getting up now. Hurting a lot now. Standing now.

The world is still completely white.

“HEY!” I scream. “HELLO! ANYBODY!”

The wind whips my words away, taking them off to the land of Wind-Whipped Words. Which is not a real place, in case you were wondering. I’d hate for folks to try to book a vacation in the Land of Wind-Whipped Words based on my recommendation.

“Jace!”

Great, now the fucking snowstorm is talking to me.

“JACE!”

Hold on, I know that voice.

“Stuart!” I yell back.

“Jace!” he shouts as I see a shape stumble out of the white towards me.

“Stuart!” I cry as I limp over to him. “Am I glad to see you!”

We get to each other and from the look on his face, I must be in about as bad of shape as he is. He has a nasty gash across his forehead and there is frozen, matted blood covering most of the left side of his head above his ear. He’s clutching his left arm up against his chest, and I can see that his left shoulder is drooping way lower than it should.

Oh, and he’s missing a boot. His right boot. That’s gotta be fucking cold, but it explains the stumbling.

“How bad is it?” he asks as we hunch over and huddle up against the wind. “My head hurts like a bitch.”

“You got a little banged up,” I say.

“You too, buddy,” Stuart says. “That leg has to hurt like hell.”

I look down at my left leg. “Huh?”

“The other one,” he says. “Better hope that hasn’t hit an artery.”

I look down at my right leg and see the problem. Right smack dab in the middle of my thigh, a blood coated sliver of shiny RV, about four inches of it, is staring back at me. The blood is frozen and clotted around it, and I know from its position that it didn’t hit an artery or vein or whatever would cause me to bleed out. Oh, lucky me!

“I should leave that there,” I say.

“Good call,” Stuart replies.

“Where is everyone else?” I ask, my teeth chattering so hard I’m afraid I’m going to bite my tongue off.

“I don’t know,” Stuart replies. “I only found you because you were talking to yourself so loud I could hear you over the wind. Apparently wind-whipped words all lead to Jace.”

“You heard that?” I ask. “Shit.”

“We can’t stay here,” he says.

“No shit, Sergeant Obvious.”

“That’s Gunnery Sergeant Obvious,” Stuart grins. His lips look blue, so it’s a blue grin.

“Which way?” I ask. “I can’t see shit.”

“I came from that way,” he says, and points, then looks about. “I think. Shit, this snow is so thick I can’t even see my tracks anymore. We are going to fucking freeze to death if we don’t find shelter.”

“The RV,” I say. “We have to get back to the RV.”

“But which fucking way, Jace?” Stuart snaps. “If we wander off we could end up going the wrong way and be even more fucked.”

“We’re fucked if we stand right here,” I say.

“So we wander.”

“We wander.”

We wander.

I try to put my arm around Stuart’s shoulders for some support since my leg is not in the greatest shape, but he nixes that idea in point zero seconds.

“I dislocated my shoulder,” he says. “You’re on your own, Long Pork.”

Wow, never thought being called Long Pork would be a relief. That’s how much I hate the name Short Pork.

We stumble our way through the storm. The freezing cold keeps my leg numb—not that I’d recommend hypothermia as a pain management system. Vicodin is really the way to go. Or whiskey. Mmmm, whiskey.

“I’d love some whiskey, too, Jace, but we don’t have any,” Stuart says. “So shut the fuck up.”

“Gotcha,” I nod. “Shutting up.”

More stumbling, with a healthy dash of limping, and we both know we are totally lost. I can see the panic in Stuart’s eyes as he glances over at me. He has little icicles hanging from his eyelashes, which I would totally make fun of if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m having to look through my own eyelash icicles. Plus, my lips are frozen shut. Hey, at least I can’t accidentally talk out loud now. Neither can Stuart, since I can see his lips are just as blue and frozen as mine.

Which makes me wonder what I’m hearing.

The wind has slackened some, but the snow is coming down so hard that visibility is still shit. Yet, with the lessened wind, I can almost make out other voices. Maybe it’s Stella and the kids!

I try to yank Stuart along, desperate to get to my family, but he grabs my arm and holds me back. I look at him, and he shakes his head then nods forward. I squint into the white and make out some shapes coming for us. They are people shaped, but the way they move tells me they are not people. Not anymore.

Fuck.

There are close to a dozen shapes that we can see. There could totally be more, but well, you know, the snow.

Stuart eases his pistol out of the holster on his hip then looks at me and holds it out.

“What?” I ask, or try to with my frozen mouth.

“Slide,” he shouts. A few moans respond.

I’m completely confused when I realize he is one arm short because of his shoulder and can’t rack the slide on his pistol. I give him a thumbs up, grab onto the top of his pistol, and pull back as he holds the grip as hard as he can. I can tell his fingers are losing feeling because he almost drops the pistol when I pull, and that is not like Stuart. The slide does go back, and I see the hammer cock into place.