Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (24 page)

“
Come and get it!” Davis
yelled.

Clem had already lost his voice, but
continued to yell anyway.

Keith looked at the dead. They had
left a wide berth near the gate, but he couldn’t tell how far back
they were. He could only hope they had given him enough space to
get around them.

It’s now or never.

Keith ran for the door, reaching out
and unlocking it in one swift movement. He flung the gate open and
ran as fast and as hard as he could. The others continued to yell
at the dead, in the hopes of keeping their attention, but some of
them followed Keith’s movements and were almost on him as he left
the cell.

Davis ran for the door as a deader
shambled inside. He tried to push it out, but another came up right
behind it and prevented it. Then he decided to pull the first
deader inside, throwing it to the floor and closing the gate before
the other was in too deep. By the time he closed the door several
deaders on the other side had swarmed over to it.

By the time Keith reached the wall on
the far side of the room a handful of deaders had gotten in his
way. Convinced he could just push past them, he ran and charged
them with his head down as if he were carrying a football. He
pushed past one, then another, even a third, but by the time he hit
the fourth several more had fallen back from the larger group and
closed off his exit.

He took out his handgun and fired
once, blowing out the brains of deader number four. This made all
the deaders in the room turn towards him, instantly surrounding
him. He fired again, and then again, but he was out of rounds. He
turned to run back to the cell but there was nowhere to
go.

He tried to charge through them but
couldn’t. They swarmed him, pulling at his skin as he shrieked in
pain. He fell to the ground, trying to crawl again when one bit his
side, then his leg. Another grabbed his face, his neck. They
pulled, scratching, scraping, tearing. The howls of pain filled the
room, echoing in the holding cell.

They spun him around on his back
despite how valiantly he fought. Their fingers tore open his shirt.
They ripped out his eyes, bit out his throat and their rough,
weathered fingers tore open the skin of his abdomen, exposing his
fatty tissue and muscle fiber. They ripped through that just the
same and began to eviscerate him, pulling out handfuls of
intestines. Their teeth ripped through his intestines as if it were
sausage. He screamed no more.

Davis was on his knees screaming
through the bars but to no avail. The dead were all preoccupied
with eating his friend.

Topher and Clem were struggling with
the deader inside the cell. Its innards were spilling out all over
them. They had no weapon in which to dispatch of the deader and
Davis was not responding to their calls for help. Topher tried to
push it to the ground, but he only managed to push it against the
wall. His hands were growing slimy in gore.

It was too confined of an area to
really knock it down, at least for Topher. Who was shorter than
Clem and apparently no stronger. They could hear Keith screaming,
and as horrible as it was they had to keep their attention on the
deader in their midst. Clem tried to kick it in the knees but the
deader only fell forward slightly. He did it again and Topher
pushed it off balance but that only ended up with the deader
falling over and taking Clem with it, spilling the rest of its
innards all over him.

Danni screamed and ran over. Clem was
on his back trying to push the deader away as it snapped its jaw at
him. Clem was pushing its head up and Topher was pulling it off as
Danni tried to pull Clem away but then it bit down on Clem’s palm
as his grip slipped off the deaders slimy chin.

He barely felt it, but could see the
blood trickle down.

Davis finally turned around and
emptied the last of his rounds into the deaders head, decorating
the cell wall with brains and blood.

Danni cradled Clem as he held his
bleeding hand. She cried for him as he stared at his hand, looking
at the bite mark that just barely broke the skin on his
palm.

“
Shit,” Davis said as he
slumped to the ground.

“
Why didn’t you help
them?!” Danni screamed.

Davis had no answer. He just looked at
her as she lashed out at him. He could hear the sounds of the
deaders slurping on Keith’s remains. He was out of rounds for his
firearm. He was out of ideas, and didn’t know what the hell he was
going to do when Clem turned into one of them.

42 SUICIDE RUN

(back to
top)

“
Do they see
us?”

“
Don’t know, maybe they
seen the fires.”

“
What the fuck are we going
to do?”

“
I have an
idea.”

“
Which is…?”

“
We’re going to have to run
on top of the cars till we can get passed them.”

“
That’s your fucking
idea.”

“
I’ll go first. That should
get their attention on me. When they start following me, get
everyone off this bridge and get around them as fast as you
can.”

“
Wait, that’s fucking
crazy.”

“
Ed, just do it. We can’t
go back. Just turn around and look. It’s this or
nothing.”

Eddie turned around to see the smaller
pack of smoldering dead shambling closer. By the time Eddie turned
back around Frankie had started running toward the larger horde of
deaders.

“
Frankie!”

“
Keep it down, Eddie,”
Joseph said. “He’s right man, someone needs to draw them away so we
can get out of here.”

“
It didn’t have to be
him.”

“
Man, can’t you see it.
He’s loving this shit.”

Frankie broke into a sprint. He
started smacking his pry-bar on the vehicles he passed. The dead
started to take notice. Once they did Frankie climbed up on top of
a car and began making his way among them.

“
Come and get me you dead
fucks! Dinner time!”

He jumped from a car hood to the trunk
of another, then into the bed of a pickup. The dead were reaching
for him, gathering around him. Grunting excitedly.

“
You want some of this?
Come and fucking get it!”

The dead had no idea that the others
were slowly moving forward as Frankie led them astray like bait on
a hook.

“
He’s going to get himself
killed,” Judy said.

“
That idiot will get us all
killed!” Carrie screamed.

“
Let’s get everyone out of
harm’s way first. Then we’ll see if there’s anything we can do for
him.”

“
It’s working. They’re
following him.”

Frankie smacked a deader’s hand out of
the way with his pry bar as it reached for his leg. Then he jumped
to another car and ran atop a few more, getting some distance from
the bulk of the horde and calling out to the others that were still
a distance from him.

“
Come on! COME ON! Come and
get it!”

He thrust the pry bar down onto one of
the deader’s heads as it tried to climb onto the car. He almost
lost his balance as the dead thing slumped to the
ground.

Eddie and the others were staying low
and moving forward, being careful not to take away any of the
attention Frankie had been working hard to earn.

Frankie neared the end of the bridge.
He could see the railway that ran along the coast, cutting
underneath the Tappan Zee. It was too high to jump down, but he was
close enough to end of the bridge where he could escape it if he
were alone by simply outrunning the dead. He looked back at the
group. He could just barely make out Eddie and Joseph squatted
behind a car. They were moving closer, but he knew he still had to
draw the deaders further away.

He jumped over to another car and then
another. A deader grabbed hold of his ankle in mid stride and
brought Frankie down onto the hood of a car. He lost his breath and
smacked his head down hard enough to disorient but he was able to
kick away the deaders face as it went in to bite his ankle. Frankie
broke free and scrambled up the car. He checked himself for a bite
or scratch that maybe he wasn’t aware of. He found nothing. He
moved to another car, and the horde of dead followed
desperately.

A scream pierced the night.

Frankie turned to see what had
happened but saw nothing.

Janice pulled Yussef by the arm as a
deader from underneath a car grabbed at his leg, nearly pulling his
sneaker off. The boy screamed again and Janice kicked the deader’s
arm off and pulled the boy to safety. The dead thing grabbed at her
too and she fell to the ground. Jon watched in terror as he ran
over and dispatched the deader just right before it could bite down
on her.

The horde that Frankie tried so
desperately to lead away now splintered off. He was able to keep
most of them entertained enough to stick around, but several
deaders shambled in the direction of the others.

“
Come and get it!” Frankie
yelled, hoping to draw them back, but to no avail.

Eddie and Joseph stormed forward and
went on the offensive.

“
Let’s make this shit
quick.”

Scott turned to the rest of the group;
“I think the only way we’re getting out of here alive is if we
follow Frank’s lead. We can’t fight them all. We need to move while
they’re divided and while we still have the
opportunity.”

“
Fuck it, let’s do it,”
Jon-Jon said, trying to psyche himself up and encourage the
others.

He then ran toward Eddie and Joseph
and hopped onto a small sedan, “Fuck them things guys, we’re gonna
run for it.”

Eddie turned in disbelief as Jon-Jon
jumped onto the hood of a Toyota Corolla. Following behind him was
Scott, Judy, and the rest of the group.

“
Holy fuck,” Joseph said,
“this is nuts.”

Eddie then bashed one of the deaders
in the face, knocking it back into the others, “Let’s do it. Get up
there.”

Joseph cut into the line and hopped up
on the sedan. Eddie swung again at the next deader, watching as
Joseph helped his mother and Yussef onto the car.

“
Today people,
today!”

Chuck and Chung-Hee came over to Eddie
and helped him take care of the first few deaders that were of
immediate concern. The space was tight, but they were able to bash
their heads into pulp as Joseph helped the rest of the group up the
sedan.

After seeing the rest of the group hop
onto the vehicles Frankie started moving away. The deaders were no
longer so concerned with him and had spread out to go after the new
meat that had presented itself. Scott and Judy both took off,
leaping a few vehicles ahead of the rest of the group. Jon-Jon hung
around to make sure the others were getting across okay, but by
doing so he ended up slowing everyone down—effectively creating a
bottleneck.

As the group was held up and moving
slowly across the cars the deaders reached up. One grabbed Eddie by
the pant leg and was able to pull him and cause him to lose his
balance. The dead thing continued to pull and Eddie fell back and
was pulled down and off the car. He hit his head on the hood and
was pulled to the ground.

“
Eddie!”

Chuck jumped down, kicking the deaders
back. Chung-Hee jumped down and smashed the deader that had pulled
Eddie down and was about to rend his flesh. Chung-Hee smashed its
head into the ground, knocking out teeth, and pulled Eddie up to
his feet.

No one else had noticed and continued
moving forward. The three of them got back on the sedan and
cautiously followed behind.

43 teeth and
glass

(back to
top)

The group had become very spread apart
across the tops of vehicles. Frankie had made a break for it,
jumping down off a truck and fighting off a few zombies till he was
off the bridge. He was still a ways off from being off the road,
but at least now he had greater mobility. He could see the others
making it across the cars and wasn’t sure what to do next. He knew
he couldn’t hang around. It would only make it harder for the
others to get away unscathed.

The numbers of deaders was closer to
two-dozen now and the majority of them were spread out trying to
get the others. Frankie still had his admirers as well and he was
eager to show them a good time, but bashing their brains out would
only serve as a distraction. He was shaking with adrenaline as it
was, so he knew he would get nothing from it either.

He started jogging down 287, trying to
look ahead, hoping to find a light in the darkness. All he could
see were a row of clogged tollbooths. Looming behind that and
overhead was Broadway, looking as congested as the rest of the
roadway. Then he saw it—the point where he knew they could get off
the bridge and toward the marina—the roof of the toll
offices.