The house behind us began to crumble, we had been able to push forward fifteen feet or so away, close enough to the flame that zombies couldn’t circle behind but not far enough to be safe from an imminent collapse and probable cooking.
“I sure wish they’d hurry.” BT said with no more expression than if he was waiting for a pizza.
“I’m out!” Jen yelled, on adrenaline fueled lungs.
I was two clips down and now I would have to pick up the pace with Jen’s sector of containment now flooding through. Zombies were close enough that I could see individual gore stained teeth, black cracked fingernails clawed through the air attempting to seek purchase. Foul breathe escaped through decayed airways. Zombies lit by flame began to spill out of the house behind us, somehow still able to hone in on us. Three magazines down, the Marines and Brendon were still fifty yards away.
“So fucking close.” We might have all said it, I can’t credit it to any one of us.
The trucks slowed minimally as the .50 cal shots had to be aimed more precisely, lest they take us out too. The troop transport was in danger of high centering over the sheer number of zombies becoming so much road kill. The snail paced crawl may be saving the truck from getting stuck but at the cost of our lives. I saw exactly when the driver of the transport weighed those two factors on the scale and said ‘Fuck it.’ The bluster of the truck’s engine hitting full throttle cut through the dull roar of the burning cinder block behind us. Zombies flung in the air like a giant spoiled baby was done playing with his GI Joes and Barbie dolls and was throwing them around in the fits of a tantrum.
The armor was beginning to fold in on itself under the pressure of so many collisions. As the lead vehicle pushed past, Brendon pulled up broadside just as I had expended the last bullet in my clip.
“All aboard!” Brendon yelled in his best train conductor voice.
Jen almost cleared the other side of the truck bed as BT hurled her up and in. BT’s leg might not be working well but his arms were fine as he followed her immediately up and in. BT’s ass had no sooner made contact with the bed and I was in his lap.
“Didn’t know you cared.” BT said as he put me in a more respectable position.
“Please have your tickets ready to be punched!” Brendon yelled through the rear facing windows as he crushed down on the accelerator.
Zombies pressed in from all sides. I grabbed a shovel and did my best to keep them at bay as the truck swayed violently from side to side. BT had found a tire iron and was making anything within striking distance rue the day it had gone over to the dark side. Jen had found an axe handle that looked like it had already been used for nefarious purposes as the end of it was deeply stained a suspicious brownish red color.
Jen was swinging violently, when she made contact, the vibrations would shoot up her arms.
“Be careful!” I yelled to her.
Whether she would have heeded me or not, the warning was a beat too late. The zombie she had been lining up to strike, had fallen when Brendon ran over its leg. Jen pitched forward precariously balanced between relative safety and death. Death won out. I watched the resignation in her face as she fell out of the truck bed.
“JEN!” I screamed. I jumped to the other side of the truck bed. My hand brushed hers as she slid away from my touch. Her other hand shot out even as the first of the zombies sunk his teeth into her back. I was able to make a tenuous grasp on her hand, dragging her along behind the truck.
“Don’t let me go Mike!” She screamed. “PLEASE!” She begged as another zombie took hold of her thigh, teeth first. He tore a ragged piece of flesh away from her as I continually pulled her behind the truck.
She was dead. We both knew it. But I was not going to let go. The blood vessels in her eyes burst as a zombie ripped through her calf muscle, long strips of meat hung between its greedy lips. I turned to gain as much momentum as I could before I began to pull her back into the truck.”
Her hand went slack. The weight I dragged increased as zombies jumped on her, feasting as we went. I let go of her hand and sat back up. The sharp pain in my shoulder a reminder of what had just happened. BT was looking at me in what I could only describe as shock. He moved faster than any man his size had a right too. He grabbed me and slammed me to the floor of the truck bed. I was beginning to feel light headed. He must have really knocked my head against the floor.
“It wasn’t my fault BT.” I said through fogged vision.
“I know that you damned fool, you’ve been shot.”
“Shot? Zombies don’t shoot guns. You’re crazy man. It sure is getting dark quick.”
“Not a gun, a crossbow.”
A crossbow! A fucking crossbow? Who shoots somebody with a crossbow? What am I an elk? What’s next? Someone gonna whip out a mace? Maybe a scimitar?
My shoulder, for lack of a better term, unraveled. Muscle, tendon, sinew, whatever, just literally began to curl like wet parchment. My biceps bulged, rivaling the Hulk, as my ripped tendons rolled up into them. I noticed with a note of envy how large my muscles looked even as my vision began to blur. (Guys can be vain! Just because I was dying of blood loss and shock didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate how large my damaged muscles looked.) Searing pain immediately made me wish I would just pass out and die and be over with this. As bone separated from tissue, I’m pretty sure I involuntarily blackened my eye as my arm flung up. That was the least of my problems and I wouldn’t have even registered the fact had not my right eye dimmed and then blacked out before my left one.
“Talbot!” Someone screamed. Sounded like someone I knew. Well I must know them if they knew my name, right? Who gives a shit. “Talbot!” Again with the screaming but it sounded further away, even as I felt arms around me. From somewhere very distant I heard my wife. “Talbot don’t you di….”
I accelerated along a black tube as light emanated from every direction. Its source I could not discern. My speed seemed to be accelerating, although I think it was all relative. It wasn’t me that seemed to be moving so much as the tunnel was streaming past. I wanted to reach out and touch the wall to see if that was the case but I was afraid of doing more damage to my injured wing. Aw what the hell, my arm was barely attached anyway what more could I do. I moved my right arm around, unbelievably happy with how pain free the movement was. ‘Holy crap.’ I muttered. ‘He must have missed. Maybe it’s the wrong arm.’ Having been ambidextrous my entire life I often confused my left from my right. When I moved my left arm and again felt no pain the light of recognition dawned. ‘Holy Shit! I’m dead!’ That thought wasn’t nearly as dreadful as I would have imagined. Oh I was scared to a point, maybe more concerned. Alright I was a little freaked out. My thoughts obviously centering around what is at the end of this tunnel? Do I pull a Wile E. Coyote and smash face first into a faux hole in the wall? Do I come out to a huge drop and fall eternally? (Oh that would suck.) IS there a Heaven? Or worse a hell? My actions thus far in my life could probably gain my entry into either. Was my eternity going to come down to a rock, paper, scissor game between God and Satan? Wow, sacrilege on my final journey cannot be good in the ledger books. Maybe it would be possible to hang out in this tunnel a little longer and weigh my options. Wind buffeted me back as I tried in vain to approach the walls. The speed was picking up I knew I was nearing my final destination, no stops, no layovers. I had a momentary pang for my wife and kids. I did feel remorse that I was dying but only because I wouldn’t be there for them. I had ultimately accepted my fate, for what other choice was there? When I felt another presence nearby, it wasn’t nearly as comforting as I would have expected from the almighty. There was a great sense of anger, of sadness, of a life truly unfulfilled. It took me long moments to pull these vaporous thoughts away from own, the intermingling almost made me believe these errant thoughts were mine. Out of the corner of my awareness I caught movement as it at first trailed behind me by some lengths and then hastened to catch up and pass me by.