Death and Biker Gangs (25 page)

Must’ve reanimated before rigor mortis set in. 
That was as far as I got with my scientific theorizing, because the kid abruptly launched himself at me, hurtling through the air with teeth bared and claw-like little fingers outstretched.

I didn’t move aside fast enough, and he successfully tipped me over into the water. My left hand kept the rifle above the surface, but the kid latched on to my right, trying to bite through my jacket. His jaws pressed down on my arm, but he couldn’t seem to gnaw through the leather.

I tried to pull my arm away. He stubbornly hung on, his rabbit ears drooping over his face.

Great. All the ways I could possibly die, and I’d wind up getting eaten alive by Ralphie from 
A Christmas Story
.

This is why I never had kids. They devour your life and finances while they’re alive, then they try to devour you for real when they die and come back.

I got up, dragging the kid with me. Half of his costumed right arm had been eaten away, which pretty much explained what had happened to him. Aside from his sunken eyes, his face seemed largely intact, if a little veiny. He’d probably been a cute little dude when he was still alive. Now he was just a pint-sized monster.

I’ve learned how to handle monsters.

I jerked my arm away hard enough to knock Ralphie off-balance. He flailed around, his bunny ears flopping, and I thrust the butt of the gun into his chest.

He landed on his back in the water. By the time I swung the gun around to dispose of him properly, he’d disappeared.

 “Sorry, Ralphie,” I muttered, retreating to shallower waters. No way was I sticking around to see if he came back up.

By now, other curious revenants were coming to have a look at what little Ralphie had done. I splashed back to relatively dry land, trying to put some more distance between myself and the rest. The horde that had followed me spilled into the park.

The undead really are portraits in determination, if nothing else. I’d salute them if they weren’t constantly trying to eat me.

Maybe if I ran fast enough, I could draw them into an endless loop around the circle, then quickly sneak away while they chased each other for all eternity. I fired a couple shots into the crowd and started running again, breathing a sigh of relief when I got back to relative terra firma. 
How many shots do I have left? 
I had plenty of rounds in my pockets, but I wasn’t sure I’d have the time or stable hands to reload the magazine.

I came up to one of the feeder streets and slowed down just enough to keep from running into anything waiting for me.

I nearly strolled into a coterie of dead people who were apparently admiring the faded mural of a sunset on the nearest building. I wanted to crack some joke about the sunset of civilization, but my brain was more concerned with the alarming way they turned to look at me, and the sound as they pulled fouled air down through ruined throats and launched into that horrible undead lament.

They came right for me.

I really couldn’t win. “Oh, come 
on
.”

I thumbed the selector switch to automatic out of spite, then let the rifle rip.

The old gun jerked to the right, spraying bullets as it went. I miraculously mowed through a few skulls, then tore through some poor sap’s arm and ended up chipping the mural. I pulled the gun back to the left just as the chamber clicked to empty.

Holy shit, I’d forgotten how hard the thing was to control on automatic.

My left hand burned where it had been resting just above the magazine. 
Shit. 
Tony had tried to warn me about the metal there getting too hot.

The ghouls surged toward me.

Well, that was stupid of me. I’m going to get munched and I will deserve it.

I took off for the circle, fumbling with the catch that would release the spent magazine. It dropped into my hand. I shoved it down under my thermal shirt and tank top, then shifted all eleven pounds of the rifle to my right hand, trying to unzip my pocket with my left.

Another revenant came at me from the side. I freed my left hand from the pocket to grab the rifle’s barrel, then swung the gun around as hard as I could.

The ghoul’s neck crunched when the stock slammed into it. The head snapped to the side, then dangled in that position, eyes still fixed on me.

The son of a bitch 
kept coming.

And here I was with an empty rifle and no time to reload it. “Come on, man, cut me a break here.”

The dead man in the suit didn’t care that I’d broken his neck. He just wanted his mid-afternoon snack.

I swung again, striking his head hard enough to send him sprawling backward onto the curb.

The little melee had cost me dearly. Two swarms of dead people had combined into one massive mob, and they were almost on top of me.

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. I looked around wildly, hoping for a tank, a phone booth, even a skateboard.

The dead tree loomed over the edge of the park. 
When did I last climb a tree?

My feet overruled my brain’s protests, and I rushed for the tree, swinging the rifle over my shoulder as I went. Bark flaked off in my hands, but I was able to grasp one of the overhanging branches. I dangled there for perilous seconds—
now what do I do?—
before instinct kicked in and I hauled myself up. My feet found purchase next, taking some of the pressure off my overworked hands and biceps. The lower limbs creaked and groaned when I latched on to them, but they held, and I slowly pulled myself hand over hand up into the dead branches.

I found a decent roosting spot about twelve feet up. I swung my right leg around a solid-looking branch, made sure I was somewhat secure, and dared to look down.

They gathered around with the sort of fervor usually reserved for Justin Bieber and the 
Twilight 
series. Some of them even reached for the branches.

But none of them climbed.

Hallelujah. 
I hugged the tree, then got down to the serious business of reloading the magazine, which, by the way, is a huge pain in the ass even when you’re 
not 
stuck up a tree with a swarm of the undead after you.

It was a forlorn hope and I knew it. At best, I had thirty rounds in the rifle and whatever I had left in my pockets, plus a dozen each in my pistols, assuming my little bath in the lake hadn’t wrecked them. Meanwhile, I’d pretty much rung the dinner bell for the hungry locals, all of whom would be pleased to stand there until kingdom come, or until I passed out from the cold and fell right into their waiting arms.

I guess it’s nice to feel wanted.

Someone heard the gunshots, right? They’ll find me.
 The angry biker gang, at least, if not Tony and Dax. They might shoot me instead of rescue me, but at least that would be some kind of ending that didn’t involve serving me a la mode.

The tree moved.

I latched back onto the trunk and looked down. “Are you kidding me?”

If there’s one thing ghouls are good at besides looking terrible and stripping the flesh from your bones, it’s banging into things repetitively. They will just hurl their bodies against a door, window, or in this case, a tree, until said object finally gives way. A group of them could probably knock this tree down pretty quickly.

I was toast.

Well, fuck this noise. 
In the last week alone, I’d been pistol-whipped, gotten involved in some post-apocalyptic gang war, beaten up and held captive in some redneck biker stronghold, and 
this 
was how it all ended? Hiding up a tree, attracting every dead person in the vicinity?

Hot, irrational anger bubbled up inside me, and I lifted the gun in an effort to look as menacing as possible. “You know what?” I leaned as far out as I dared, pointing at the nearest rotting fiend. “Fuck you! And you, too. Fuck you shuffling rotten sacks of shit. I’m taking at least thirty of you undead assholes down with me!”

POW!

I almost fell out of the tree when the noise blasted across the traffic circle. I clutched the nearest branch, looking around wildly for the source of the sound. 
Is that a shotgun?

Another shot went off, and I twisted around as much as I could. Some of the ghouls looked around, but I was still too close for them to disregard.

Glass shattered, followed by another blast from the shotgun. 

The throng started drifting toward the sounds, their attention sufficiently attracted. The faster ones moved with more purpose, and the slower ones got caught up in their wake, stumbling after them because—well, because zombies cave in to peer pressure each time.

I held my breath. The closest ones still clustered around the bottom of the tree. 
No fooling you guys, is there? 
Was I dealing with brains or instinct?

The sound of the engine started out as a low hum, then quickly rose up to compete with the baying. I twisted around in the tree just in time to see a big gray van with some odd blue markings across its side come barreling into the circle. It chose the path of least resistance, mowing down the ghouls that were still in its way. I was so busy ogling the scene that I didn’t realize it had pulled up to the tree. A black-haired man shoved his head out the passenger window. “Hey, Treehouse, get down here before they come back!”

I stared down at the van, not entirely comprehending what had just happened.

The man waved a hand at me. “Hurry up!”

I’m being rescued? Praise Ezekiel.

“Now, Treehouse!”

If you ever find yourself in the midst of the apocalypse and someone in a giant van abruptly shows up to save your ass, be polite and let them do so.

I dropped down two branches, decided it wasn’t too far to jump, and let go.

I landed on the van’s roof, miraculously ending up in a crouch. My knees and ankles burned as they absorbed my weight, and the driver abruptly threw the thing into reverse, sending us screeching back across the circle. I flattened myself against the roof, holding onto the edge that sloped down to the windshield. We sped down the next feeder street, me clinging to the top, squinting against the wind and soot
.

Holy shit, 
I thought, 
that really just happened
.

The van belched loudly and stopped. I lost my grip, slid down the windshield, and wound up on the hood, which pretty much cancelled out my badass leap from the tree.

The windshield wipers swiped away ash from the glass. The passenger door opened, and the man who had shouted at me leaned out. “Quit trying to wax the hood and get in here!”

I rolled off the hood and managed to climb into the open door, not entirely sure I wasn’t hallucinating the entire thing. A wave of heat slammed into me the instant the passenger door closed, and I found myself perched awkwardly between the driver and passenger in a 
very 
hot compartment.

Still, it never hurt to be polite. “Thanks,” I gasped. Sweat broke out immediately along my forehead, and I stuck a hand out, feeling hot air spilling out of the vents. My jacket suddenly felt too damn heavy again, trapping heat against me. My vision hazed up, and I sagged against the driver’s seat. “Holy…I haven’t felt one of these since…”

“Since it happened? You look like you’ve been on the road for awhile.” The driver, a woman in fatigues, glanced at me. She had probably been pretty back before we lost the sun; even now, with an ashen tint to her skin and her brown hair stuffed under a hat, she looked more like a friendly neighbor than a fellow survivor of the apocalypse. I had to chase down the absurd urge to hug her. 

“You’re lucky we heard you shooting,” she went on.

My brain finally started working again. It took me a second to recognize her without makeup, but I knew her voice. She’d talked to me morning and night for the last few weeks. “
Gloria Fey?
” I squeaked.

She looked ready to deny it, then shrugged and offered me a weak smile. “At your service.”

I looked around wildly. “Is this the news van?”

“Was,” her passenger corrected. “We had to blot out the marks after the military started taking potshots at us.”

The military’s taking potshots at Gloria Fey? 
Hammond had never issued that sort of order, as far as I knew.

Gloria patted my hand. “Take a breather,” she said. “You’ve just been through a lot.”

Gloria steered confidently, and though the van rattled and groaned, I didn’t hear any of the choking and stuttering that most internal combustion engines seemed to suffer when they got out into the ash. “Would’ve gotten you sooner, but I had to pick up Vijay.” She jerked her head toward the man that had called me Treehouse. “We’re gonna have to floor it outta here. Hope you don’t have somewhere to be.”