Dead Stop (38 page)

The monster was
now blind.

And that meant
it couldn’t see her coming. 

But it still had
Harley against the wall with one of his arms clasped in its huge hand. He had
slumped down till he almost hung from its grip, although she couldn’t tell if
it was because he was hurt or just trying to avoid the monster’s other fist as
it flailed wildly for a target to smash. Or maybe both. One of those blows
impacted against the cinder bricks hard enough to leave cracks, and Marisa
realized she needed to do something fast.

“Hey,
pendejo
!”
she shouted, desperately searching for a weapon that would have some hope of
hurting the thing. “I’m over here!”

She really
didn’t expect it to accomplish anything. Hell, she was just yelling while
trying to figure out something else to do that might make a difference. So it
caught her completely unprepared when the giant corpse turned and lunged in her
direction.

Marisa jumped
back with a scream as the monster stumbled blindly after her.

She backpedaled
towards the car again, her gaze locked on the monster’s mutilated face. It
looked even more horrific than before. Its eyes were now torn sockets weeping
tears of black ichor.

But its ears
must have worked fine because it zeroed right in on her. It couldn’t move near
as fast like this, but the area wasn’t very big. She wasn’t anywhere near out
of trouble yet. Even worse, the thing still held Harley by the arm and dragged
him along behind like a forgotten toy.

But realizing it
tracked her by sound gave Marisa an idea.

“Buddha Boy!”

She shuffled
sideways as she yelled, and noted with rising hope that it altered course to
follow. The monster continued to drag Harley along behind it like a rag doll.
She couldn’t tell if he was dazed, unconscious, or dead. What she did know was
she needed to keep the creature distracted or it might turn its attention back
to the “bird in the hand.”  If Harley died there would be nobody to drive
the truck. And that meant it was now all up to her.

She was going to
have to kill this giant…

….all by
herself.

But she had just
figured out a way to do it.

It was going to
be a gamble. And it would involve her doing something utterly awful. Even
worse, it would mean getting back within reach of those huge hands. But Marisa
had long since passed the point of caring about “awful” and gambles were all
she had left. The monster did have one weak point, and she had just spotted the
tool to apply to it.

Now she just
needed to bring the horror within reach.

“Hey,
boboso
!”
Marisa yelled as she backpedaled away. “Over here!”

The monster, who
had just reached the car, now turned and lurched back towards Marisa’s new
position. That was exactly what she had counted on.

At her feet,
right beside the red toolbox, lay the mechanic’s dolly. The low, wheeled
platform had allowed Arnold and Leon to lie on their backs and roll under cars
to work on them. Now she intended to use if for something else. It took all of
her courage to allow the thing to get closer, but she waited until it was where
she needed it to be. Then putting her foot against the dolly, she pushed it out
into the oncoming horror’s path.

The results were
spectacular, if not exactly what she intended.

Instead of
stumbling forward with its head landing at her feet…like she hoped…the giant
stepped directly on the dolly and had its foot fly out from beneath it. Its
free arm flailed in the air while its foot went amazingly high for a creature
with such a corpulent build.  For one brief, suspended moment in time it
reminded her of an old movie with a cartoon hippo playing at a ballerina.

Unfortunately,
it appeared it wasn’t going to go down. The foot started to lower as the
gargantuan corpse somehow managed to regain its balance.

But that’s when
Harley struck.

The man must
have been dazed and just instinctually taking advantage of the situation she
created. He couldn’t have really thought his actions through. Not unless he was
trying to get himself killed.

In one lightning
fast move he gripped the monsters hand where it held him by the upper arm. Then
in the same motion he used it as a brace to swing both of his feet around and
drive them into the back of its knee. His boots struck with the full weight and
force of his entire body, and the nightmare came down like a ton of bricks…

…right on top of
him.

Harley almost
disappeared under the ghastly mass, and Marisa realized he only had seconds to
live. He had recaptured the monster’s attention. Now it had him pinned and
could bring both hands to bear on him. Even as she grasped the situation she heard
a muffled cry come from the man underneath the downed colossus.

But at the same
time, she saw that Harley had accomplished getting the creature into the
position she needed, even if it had been by accident.

Grabbing the air
impact wrench off the top of the nearby toolbox, Marisa charged into the fray.
It was now or never. Given the thing’s attention on Harley, she would have a
clearer shot than her original plan provided. Now came the “doing something
awful” part. She just hoped she pulled it off, and did it in time.

Dropping to her
knees beside the blind giant’s head, she drove the socket end of the air wrench
into the section of exposed brain and pulled the trigger.

The wrench was a
heavy duty tool, designed to tighten up lug nuts on eighteen wheelers, and with
a torque of over twelve hundred pounds it revved up to seven thousand rpms in a
second.

It was like
turning the monster’s skull into a blender.

Brain matter
flew and Marisa gagged as the spinning socket sank into the grey mass. The
worst part of the back spray caught her full force and added a coat of fungus
and dead neural tissue on top of her previous layer of gore.

A split second
later the giant spasmed and splayed out like a starfish.  Unfortunately,
that meant the arm it had underneath it in search of Harley now came flying out
in the form of a monstrous backhand that caught her full in the chest.

It felt like
being hit by a truck.

For the second
time in as many minutes the air exploded from her lungs, and Marisa tumbled
backwards like a puppet with its strings cut. Stars blasted across her vision
as her head smacked against the hard floor. Her arm tangled in the air line as
she rolled and the wrench came free of the monster’s skull. It spun itself to a
stop on blood crusted concrete. The girl herself came to rest, face down on the
cement, about five feet further away.

Then silence
fell, with nothing but the crows to disturb it.

However it may
have ended, the fight was over.

Marisa lay there
hurting, barely caring whether she was dead or alive. Her body felt like a five
thousand pound bruise. It would have probably been easier for her to pinpoint a
place that
didn’t
hurt, if she could find one. At the moment, she felt
content to just lie on the bloody concrete and not think about anything. Not
the dead, not the victims, not what might be going on in the rest of the
country…nothing. She didn’t even want to open her eyes, having seen enough of
the bloody madness her world had descended into.

But she couldn’t
stop yet.

This wasn’t
over, and there were still people who needed her. Starting with the only man
who could drive the truck out of here.

“Harley?”

Nothing.

“Harley?”

For another
moment there was silence, then a faint grunt came from nearby. Since she never
remembered any of the monsters making a vocal sound, she hoped for the best. To
her surprise, even the effort of hoping seemed to hurt.

“Harley?” she
groaned again. “Are you still alive?”

“I think so…”
came the muffled reply.

“Oh, good,” she
murmured. “Just checking.”

With that
settled, Marisa considered the idea of simply laying there for a while. She
knew she should get moving again, but the effort felt enormous. Besides, the
others were safe on the truck stop roof, and there were a lot worse things than
getting wet. Surely a little while longer wouldn’t hurt them.

“Hey, partner?”

Now what…

“Yeah, Harley?”

“You remember
that list of turnoffs you wanted me to work on back in the diner?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I’m kinda
stuck laying here under this fat naked dead guy, and it just occurred to me
this would be a pretty good place to start.”

“Really? You’re
stuck?”

“Oh yeah. And
this definitely falls under the category of ‘bad thing.’”

“Okay,” she
moaned, and stirred to rise. “Just give me a minute.”

“Did I mention
he’s naked?” He sounded markedly unhappy about that.

“Okay, okay!”
Marisa laughed and immediately regretted it. That hurt too. “I’ll be there in a
second. Keep your britches on.”

“Oh, believe
me…I will.”

###

“Here you go.”

Marisa took the
offered keys as Harley slid in through the passenger door into the front seat
beside her. They fairly gleamed from having been washed off by the man after he
had fished them from the squirming mess of body parts in the corner. He really
didn’t need to do that since she was long past the point of being bothered by
gore, but she decided it still counted as a decent gesture on his part.

The car was a
refurbished Plymouth 4-door from the eighties, and she knew this thing was
going to handle like a boat. Also, the last surviving shred of her vanity cringed
at the vomit green color of the metal beast. Before tonight she wouldn’t have
been caught dead driving it.

But that was
before tonight.

Tonight, she
noted with relief there would be plenty of room for people once they got off
the top of the truck at the rest area. Besides, the wild-haired, blood smeared,
fright-fest she caught a glimpse of in the mirror didn’t have any business
being picky about anything.

“Okay,” Harley
started as she inserted the keys and buckled in. “Now comes the easy part. But
I want you to recite the plan back to me, just one more time.”

“Right,” She
rolled down the window just enough to get her arm out as she talked. “I turn on
the headlights then open the door. That should draw the zombies by the truck
back here toward us.  I wait a few seconds to let them get away from the
truck, then I back out fast, turn around, and drive straight through them. Then
I pull up beside the truck, you hop out of the car and into the semi. After
that, I drive on towards the rest area down the road.
Bien
?”

“Right,” he
nodded, obviously satisfied. Then he looked her way with a haggard grin. “We’re
almost out of here, you know. You ready to do this, partner?”

“I guess,”
Marisa sighed and turned on the headlights. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

 She
started the car and her taillights flooded the door behind them in red. Between
those and all the light spilling out of the bay doors once they opened, it
should be like waving a red flag in front of a bunch of bulls. Unwelcome
recollections of the night’s earlier charge on the gas pumps came to mind. She
really had no desire to relive that.

At least a
glance at the gas gauge showed a full tank.

Marisa reached a
gory arm out through the window and snagged the hanging controls for the
automatic bay doors.  She stared in almost amused despair at the green
button. Here she went again…once more opening the doors between her and the
death faced horrors outside. This was threatening to become a habit with her.
At least this time she had a car’s body between her and the monsters. Hopefully
it would be enough.

With a rueful
shake of her head she stabbed the green button and withdrew her arm.

The electric
gate motor hummed to life as she rolled up the window. Marisa gunned the
engine, then twisted in her seat to see out the back window. Harley did the
same beside her, something even easier for him since he wasn’t wearing a seat
belt. She started to protest, then remembered he needed to be unencumbered so
he could make the jump to the truck as fast as possible.

Then all that
was forgotten when the bay door rolled open to reveal the storm wracked night
beyond…and the lone skeletal figure framed against the darkness.

“Oh no…” Marisa
groaned in horror. “
Dios, por favor! No esto!”

It was Vicki.

Probably blinded
by the sudden lights of the mechanics shop flooding out over it, the wasted
corpse stood unmoving in the entranceway. The taillights limned the pale figure
in red. The image blurred in the slightly fogged rear window, and Marisa could
almost imagine the gentle face those bones once formed…and in doing so, made
what she had to do next almost impossible.

This thing had
once been Vicki. The soft spoken girl who calmed her after Marisa got in those
awful fights with her mother. The sister who comforted her while Papa spent his
final weeks in the hospital fighting cancer. The best friend who helped her
make a dress they were to share.

“That isn’t
her,” Harley said softly beside her.

“I know,” Marisa
whispered and, despite what she had said earlier in the diner, fought to
believe it.

Fungus or no
fungus, that was Vicki’s body out there. It was her brain. Could they be
absolutely sure there was nothing left? Doc was sure, but Doc dealt only in
science. Marisa believed in a lot more than that, even if she wasn’t sure what
all of it was.

“Marisa…”

“I know,” she
repeated, but her hand still hovered above the transmission.

And she did.

But whether or
not Vicki still lived in there, that had once been an integral part of her…from
the hands that once played the clarinet with such dexterity, to the full mane
of hair, just like hers, that Marisa helped her brush every morning. Even the
soggy remains of the dress they had so laughingly worked on together. Whatever
that was out there, it had once been Vicki.