Claire rubbed her shoulder. “He twisted my arm a little bit, so now it hurts. Nothing two weeks in the Bahamas wouldn’t cure.” We both laughed a little.
I heard more groaning coming from outside the bar. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Yeah. I guess the party is over.” She got her bat ready for battle. “Let’s go.”
We made our way to the door. Another Yellow-Eye poked his head into the bar to take a look around. Claire caved his skull in with her bat, and he dropped to the ground. I stopped in the doorway and opened the busted door slightly to take a look. About a half-dozen zombies were cruising the lot looking for some living flesh. Several more were coming from across the street towards the bar. Although our scooter was accessible, the path was full of dangerous walking corpses. This was not going to be easy.
I turned to Claire, and gave her some instructions. “Okay. There’s a few bad guys out there. We’ll make a break for the scooter and get the hell out of here. Just smash anything that gets in your way. I left the keys in the scooter’s ignition. If anything happens to me, start it and go. Understand?”
Claire nodded. “Got it. The same for me. If I get caught, just go.”
I didn’t want to think about that possibility. “Okay. Ready?” I said, drawing my gun.
We both counted to three, then burst out of the bar. Claire took the lead with bat flying. The first zombie we encountered was a slim female in a hospital gown coming up the stairs. Claire took an upward swing and sent the monster flying to the ground below. I took out a very decomposed male at the bottom of the stairs that was trying to cut us off. Before he even hit the ground, we broke into a fast run to cover the distance to the scooter. We were lucky in one sense. The pouring rain messed with the zombies ability to find us and slowed them down. The weather gave us a bit of an advantage.
Still, there were quite a few baddies walking around. The general ruckus at the bar and the sound of our feet crunching on the wet gravel had attracted a crowd. Several undead were now staggering into the parking lot from the auto service place across the road.
Several of the zombies were a little too close. I watched as Claire eliminated a middle-aged woman with a missing arm. I took out a young male in a fancy suit with a bullet to his head. I turned to see Claire running straight at a zombie-policeman. Her bat was out of position.
“Claire! Duck!” I yelled, as I brought my gun to bear. Without missing a step, she bent slightly at the waist. I pulled the trigger, and hit the zombie in the shoulder. He recoiled a bit, but recovered. I aimed again, and got him right in the head. He dropped almost at Claire’s feet.
As we approached the bike, I saw two final zombies blocking our path. One was a male wearing combat boots, and an “Ask Me About My Grandchildren” t-shirt and not much else. The other was a teenage girl with a broken-off metal pole through her abdomen.
“I got the girl!” Claire yelled, as she took off towards the teenage zombie. When she got close enough, she swung the bat to land a killing blow. The dead teenager deftly avoided Claire’s swing and turned to do battle. Claire initially lost her balance, but recovered to face her adversary. For a moment, I thought I was going to have to intervene, but Claire finished strong. She struck the teenage walking corpse in the knees, then finished the job with a killing blow to the back of the head.
No-Pants Zombie was a little easier. He was in worse condition than Teenage Girl Zombie, so the only thing he could do was walk around in circles with his arms outstretched. As I got closer, he turned towards me, and began to moan loudly. Thankfully, he was covered in blood and gore from the waist down, so some of his anatomy was at least a little concealed. I stopped, aimed, and fired a quick shot. It hit him in the neck, and he fell to the ground. He started to get up, but I put a bullet through the top of his skull to finish him off.
Claire and I got to the scooter and climbed aboard. Several zombies were closing in on us from all sides. I turned the key to “Run”, and prayed to whatever God was above us that the damn thing would start. I pressed the starter button. The scooter coughed once, then roared to life.
“Go, John, go!” Claire yelled in my ear. She didn’t have to tell me twice. I put the kickstand up, and pinned the throttle. We left the parking lot fishtailing and spewing gravel behind us. We hit the road with the rear tire spinning. I pointed the bike up the road towards the crashed tractor-trailer that was lying on its side. Several zombies, perhaps attracted by the sound at the bar, ambled down the road towards us. There were quite a few on the road, but it looked like we could make it through. I would just have to weave around to find a clear path.
Easy as Chinese Algebra.
Claire and I both put our heads down as I pinned the throttle to get through the phalanx of undead. I tore through them at breakneck speed, going from gap to gap. We were too fast for the slow zombies to grab us. Several reached out as we sped past, but I skillfully weaved away so that they would grab nothing but air. I felt like a world-class Grand Prix motorcycle racer as I steered through the rows of undead.
We were going to make it. All we had to do was get past the wrecked truck and the bulk of the zombies on the road. It looked like Claire and I had lucked out again. I zoomed past the wrecked truck, and the zombies began to thin out. I held the bike at full throttle for about another mile, and put the madness of the bar behind us. Soon the zombies disappeared, and the road was clear. ”We made it, Tiger!” I heard Claire yell in my ear.
At that exact moment, a loud noise came from the scooter beneath me. The engine blew.
I was swerving around some debris when it let go. I heard a loud pop, and then suddenly the bike lost power. The broken parts inside the scooter’s engine rattled around for a few seconds, then jammed the rear wheel. With the rear wheel frozen, the scooter began to wobble violently beneath me. I was losing control.
I tried to slow down gradually, but the stuck rear wheel wouldn’t allow the brakes to work effectively. Claire and I were being thrown back and forth as the scooter went through its death throes. I could only try to steer around obstacles, and hope we had a soft landing. We were simply passengers at this point.
The scooter lost its battle with gravity, and began to slide. I watched in horror as the bike tipped and began to slide along the ground. I thought I heard Claire scream as we hit. First my shoulder, then my back hit the ground. I stayed with the bike as long as possible, but eventually we were separated. I slid and rolled down the asphalt in what seemed like slow motion. I could see my limbs flailing about as the accident progressed. I rolled for a while on the road, then the grass, and then eventually the ditch. I lost track of Claire as I landed in the ditch, face up, with the cool rain falling on my face.
I was still conscious, but hurting. I took a quick inventory of bones and organs. Nothing seemed to be broken, but I had pains in several parts of my body. Most concerning was the dull pain in my chest. I had bruised or broken ribs. I also had abrasions, and was losing some blood.
Gotta get up.
I willed my body to stand up, but nothing happened. My arms and legs wouldn’t move no matter how hard I tried. I started to panic. What if I was paralyzed? I would lie in this ditch until something found and probably ate me. The effort spent trying to move was causing me to have tunnel vision. I began to perceive a growing blackness enveloping me.
I was blacking out.
I fought to stay awake, but it was too late. The inky darkness of my tunnel vision grew and grew until I could no longer keep awake. My last thought was of Claire. I hope she was all right, and running away to safety.
I awoke in what seemed like a few minutes. A quick look at the sky told me that wasn’t exactly true. Instead of a light gray sky like before, it had darkened to an almost purple color. It had been a few hours, and it was getting dark.
With considerable effort, I rose to my feet. I wiped blood from my face and arms. My chest hurt as I breathed. Both of my knees and my left shoulder were aching. The scooter accident had done a number on me. The good news was my guns were still in place and ready to go. I slammed a new, full magazine into my handgun. The effort of reloading my weapon caused a wave of dizziness. I took a knee for a moment to gather myself.
Suddenly, I remembered Claire. With a quick surge of adrenaline, I climbed out of the ditch. I got to the road and took a look around. What I saw sent a shiver through my body.
Claire was lying face-down in the middle of the road. The broken scooter lay nearby.
“Oh, no. Oh, God, please,” I mumbled to myself as I ran as fast as I could to Claire. I couldn’t seem to make my hurt body move fast enough. As I got closer, I could see she was breathing. She was alive. “Claire, you okay?” I yelled.
Suddenly, I heard a sound that made my blood run cold. It made me stop in my tracks, and instinctively raise my gun. It was a demonic, inhuman growling coming from behind the wrecked scooter.
It was the sound of a dog.
Please, God. Anything but a dog.
No such luck. A medium-sized undead dog stepped out from behind the tipped-over scooter. His red eyes glowed like twin headlights in the growing darkness, and his teeth were showing in a menacing snarl as he got between me and Claire. Some of the fur and skin were missing from its head, so its skull showed. It was making a horrible sound. It was the sound a regular dog makes, but mixed with a little demon dog. I imagine it’s what a dog from Hell would sound like.
And it wasn’t alone.
Another dog came into my field of view. This one was a little larger, but just as dead. Its black fur was covered in blood and debris. Although it was a little more intact than its partner, there were still signs of decomposition. A frayed collar hung around its neck. This zombie-dog had been a family pet in the old days.
The dogs stepped backward towards Claire, and blocked my path. They intended to make a meal out of her. The dog with the exposed skull grabbed Claire by the wrist and started to drag her away. The other larger dog stood guard, and fixed his hellish red eyes on my approach.
I screwed up my courage. I stepped closer to the retreating dogs with my gun outstretched. “Get away from her! You can’t have her!” I bellowed. I prepared to shoot.
The dogs froze in place. Claire’s wrist was still in the first dog’s mouth. “You heard me you bastards. Let her go!” I fired a shot over their heads.
They got the message. The smaller dog let go of Claire’s wrist, and backed off with his companion. I advanced slowly, keeping my gun trained on the two dogs. They backed off a little more. I began to relax a little, because I had control of the situation. The dogs were too scared to attack. I started to think I was going to come out on top of this and get Claire back. Then I heard a sound coming from behind me that made my hair stand on end.
It was the leader of the pack.
I turned around to face the largest zombie dog I had ever seen in this whole mess. For a second, I thought it was a werewolf; it was so big. It had to be at least seventy to eighty pounds. It looked like a mix of Doberman and other types of large dogs screwed together in some sort of nightmare animal from a horror movie. It stood there making a low growling noise. Its glowing red eyes seemed to see right through me. I almost expected laser beams to shoot out, and cut me in half. Actually with all the crazy crap Claire and I had seen in the past few weeks, laser beams out of a zombie dog’s eye wouldn’t have seemed that weird at all.
The large dog began to advance towards Claire. It looked hungry and extremely pissed. Of all the dogs I have encountered during the outbreak, this one really seemed to not like humans. He wanted to eat Claire for dinner, and no middle-aged, two-legged idiot was going to stop him.
I shifted my gun to my right hand and drew my tomahawk. If Giant Zombie Dog wanted a fight, he was going to get one. The dog took a few steps further, and then began to circle. Bluish foam dripped from his gaping jaws. He kept staring at me with his huge red eyes. He let out a sound that resembled a bark. It sounded like something from another world, and made me shiver in terror.
We stood there staring at other, for a few moments. “Well, come on!” I yelled at the canine behemoth. “You want her? Come on!”
The huge dog lowered his head and stepped a little closer. He was sizing me up, preparing to strike.
This is it,
I thought.
This is where it ends.
Claire and I will die and become dog food on some godforsaken road in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I can get a lucky shot through his skull.
The dog reared his head up and pulled his lips back from his teeth in a terrible grimace. I raised my gun to try and get a shot. The battle had begun.
And then it stopped.
The helldog stopped his advance and froze in his tracks. He raised his huge head into the air, and took a sniff. The look in his eyes changed from menace to fear. After sniffing the air for a few minutes, he turned and ran away into the woods beside the road. The two smaller dogs ran past me, following him.
I stood there for a few minutes, not believing what had happened. Had I actually scared him off? I didn’t think I presented much of a threat. It’s hard to believe he would just give up and go away, as zombie dogs don’t usually give up. There had to be another reason for the retreat. I started walking towards Claire, and then it hit me. Something else in the area had scared the dogs, and chased them away. I stowed my weapons, and started running towards Claire.
We had to get the hell out of here …now.
I got to Claire’s side as she was starting to come around. I carefully rolled her over, and supported her head to prevent further injuries. Her eyes fluttered, and a low groan came from her lips. She had some cuts and abrasions on her face that were bleeding. Her lip was split, and blood was dripping out of her nose.
Claire was a mess.
I checked her arms and legs, but saw no breaks. There were some ripped patches with abrasions and blood here and there on her clothes. I shook her slightly. “Claire ….you okay? Please be okay.”