Z-Burbia 2: Parkway To Hell (21 page)

Stella actually grabs the door handle and starts to open the door, but Elsbeth is at the side of the SUV in a flash, a wide smile beaming at my wife.

“I’m family?” she asks.

“Damn right,” Stella says, shoving over to let the young woman in. “And you better start acting like
it and listen to me when I tell you to stop killing zombies and get your ass in the car.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Elsbeth nods and smiles.

“Haven’t we been through this before?” Charlie whispers. But his version of a whisper is like a quiet yell.

“Hush,” I say
, “she has trust issues.”

“Shhhh,” everyone says.

“What?” Elsbeth asks. “The Zs know we’re here.”

“Yeah, they do,” I say as we watch the things begin to surround the SUV.
They swarm us and soon we see nothing but open, rotted mouths and decayed flesh. “It’s like that time we went to the wildlife park and the llamas surrounded the car wanting alfalfa pellets.”

“No, Dad, it’s not like that at all,” Greta says.

“Should I turn out the light?” Stella asks.

“No,
leave it on so you can see this,” Mondello says as he hooks his arms over Charlie’s head and pulls back, the wire tying his wrists together digging into my son’s throat. “Now, let’s talk about getting me out of here.”

Mother fucker!

Chapter Ten

“I count two pistols aimed at your noggin,” I say, so close to reaching out and grabbing Mondello by the throat. But
if I do he could pull back and snap Charlie’s neck. “Said pistols are in the hands of men who know how to use them.”

“Your point is made, Mr. Stanford,” Mondello says. “But no matter how good they are, the way my weight is balanced even if they miss your son and only hit me, well, young Charlie will die. I’ll fall back and it will be all over.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I say. “I’m thinking maybe not.”

“Don’t
kill him,” Elsbeth says. “He knows more about me.”

I look at Mondello and he has a cat that ate the shitty canary grin on his face.

“What do you know?” I ask. “Tell us.”

“And lose leverage point number two? I don’t think so, Mr. Stanford.”

The Zs get more aggressive, their hands –and heads- slamming harder and harder against the SUV. The vehicle starts to shudder under their mass. We don’t have forever to negotiate with Mondello. Soon we’ll be trapped forever in this fucking polyester upholstered piece of crap. Not that it’s actually upholstered in polyester; fuck if I know what it’s upholstered in. Probably some super secret military fiber that lets you get blood stains out while keeping that new car smell.

“So what do we do?” I ask. “Where do we go from here?”

“That’s for you to figure out,” Mondello says, taking a quick glance out the window. “Someone will need to clear a path for us.”

“For us?” Stella asks. “No. No, you will not take my son with you.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Stanford, but that is the only way this works,” Mondello says. “I have to take your son or you will kill me the second I’m outside the SUV.”

“Are you paying attention?” John asks. “There’s like a hundred Zs out there.”

“Where’d they all come from?” Greta asks quietly then looks at us. “Sorry. I was talking to myself.”

“They probably came from the pens,” Mondello says. “We had holding pens stationed along the Parkway. Easier
just to contain the zeds than slaughter and dispose of them. Throw some meat inside a fence and they walk right in.”

“But then you have pens filled with Zs,” I say. “What then?”

“Security,” Mondello says. “They can be released strategically if a convoy is being chased or under attack. We use them against highwaymen.”

“Did you just say highwaymen?” Stuart asks. “I just want to be clear that I heard that part.”

“Of course I said highwaymen,” Mondello says. “Your friend Critter Fitzpatrick here has one of the most notorious crews in the area.”

“One of?” John asks. “Who are the others?”

Mondello shrugs. “Hard to say. They come and go quickly due to the nature of the job. Most don’t last long. They are eaten by zeds or killed by other crews. Some even have tried to venture into territory they shouldn’t. If anyone is caught stealing or robbing in Charlottesville they are hanged on the spot, quartered, and their body parts are put on public display.”

“Uh-oh,” I say. “The Dark Ages is calling and wants its judicial system back.”

“Laugh all you want, Mr. Stanford,” Mondello says. “But it is effective. Chaos became order within the week after the first few executions.”

“Is that your re-election slogan?” I ask. “Teaching voters
a lesson, one hanging at a time?”

“You have had it easy, Mr. Stanford,” Mondello says, looking around the SUV. “None of you have a clue what it has been like out there. You’ve had glimpses, but you can’t even fathom the hell I’ve seen. Not unless you’ve watched a city of millions turn on itself; watched governmental organizations go rogue; watched as other countries resorted to the nuclear option on their own people. I envy your mountain life.”

“Is that really why you set up shop here?” I ask. “Not just to oversee the repair and securing of the Parkway, but to have yourself a long term presidential vacation?”

“Asheville has been a favorite vacation spot for many presidents,” Mondello says. “But I don’t think the word vacation applies to anything these days.”

Charlie gasps and I look him in the eyes. Fear and anxiety look back at me, but something else…resolve? No, what is it? His eyes dart from mine to the front. I rub my forehead and turn, making it less obvious I’m looking at what he’s looking at. I see Greta staring at me then her eyes dart to the back of the SUV and then up front and down.

What the fuck are my kids trying to tell me?

They obviously have some plan worked out between them, but fuck if I know what it is. And I’m not even sure I approve of them coming up with plans. I have two highly trained military men in the SUV with us, and I’m no slouch at the thinking gig, so what could two teenagers figure out that we can’t?

“He’s turning purple,” I say to Mondello
, “ease up.”

“Get me out of here,” Mondello replies.

“We can’t,” Stuart states. “We’re all stuck in here until the Zs go away.”

“Which won’t happen until we can turn out the light and stay very quiet and still,” John adds.

“And you won’t let us turn out the light,” I say. “So I guess we’re fucked.”

“Let me tell you how I interpret all of that information,” Mondello says. “Basically, I let you turn out the light, we are plunged into complete darkness, and you come after me, hoping you can overpower me before I kill Charlie. Or we stay like we are until we die of thirst and starvation. Either way, I die.”

“Please, President Mond-,” Stella starts.

“Don’t,” Mondello says. “Just don’t. I die in all of your scenarios. I die in pretty much every single scenario except for mine. The one where you clear me a path, create some type of diversion, and I escape out of this SUV and out of this tunnel. I take Charlie for as far as I need to
, and then let him go. I live, Charlie lives, a couple of you may die clearing the way, but the important part is that I live.”

“
You’re really a for the people kind of guy, huh?” I say. “I have another slogan for you-”

“Shut the fuck up, Stanford,” Mondello snarls. “Your mouth has stopped being cute.”

“Dude, I’m like forty, my mouth stopped being cute in my early thirties.”

Mondello p
ulls back on the wire and Charlie begins to choke, his eyes bugging out, spittle foaming at his lips.

“Jace! Shut up!” Stella screams. “Charlie!”

Mondello eases up slightly, but only slightly, so Charlie can take in short, raspy breaths.

“I’m not going to wait anymore,” Mondello says. “Get me out of here or Charlie dies.”

“How?” Stuart asks. “They way you present it sounds so simple, but it’s far from that. How do we even open these doors?”

“Like this!” Greta shouts and slams her hand against the dashboard at the same time Charlie throws his head back into Mondello’s face.

The man cries out as blood squirts from his nose, his eyes glassy and confused from the impact. Charlie throws his head back again and again until Mondello is reeling, his body swaying back and forth, close to unconsciousness.

Great plan except now Mondello is sliding down into the back, and pulling Charlie with him.

“Jace! Get him!” Stella shouts as I reach for Charlie.

I hook him under the arm pits and pull forward, but my leverage is shi
t. I don’t know if I’m doing any good or making things worse. Charlie is gasping and spitting, the life being choked out of him right before my eyes. I’m frantic and I tug at him, trying to pull him up, but he’s just getting pulled farther and farther into the back.

I let go of Charlie for a second, just
long enough to slap Mondello across the cheek a couple of times. It rouses him enough that he steadies himself, taking the weight off Charlie’s throat.

“Good,”
I say. “Now listen you stupid fuck. I’m going- Fuck!”

Greta had hit the automatic tailgate release. In my desperation to save Charlie, I didn’t notice, or hear, the back doors opening wide. None of us did. But we fucking do now as Zs start to reach inside, their hands snagging Mondello’s pants, pulling him towards their hungry mouths.

More and more of them wedge themselves inside, all trying to get at Mondello, and then us. Charlie starts to choke again, even more now, as Mondello is pulled from the SUV.

“No!” he screams. “NONONONONONONO!”

But there’s nothing any of us can do even if we want to. He is taken quickly; his screaming body pulled into the mass of undead that is fighting over each other to get the first bite. I think it’s the lady in the old jogging suit that wins that honor as she tears a hunk from his ass cheek and begins to chomp away. Mondello’s screams are piercing until they are cut short, his throat shredded by several mouths.

There’s just one problem: Charlie.

My son is dragged up and over the back seat and into the cargo area as he pushes himself along, trying to keep from getting his head ripped off. I jump back there with him, alternating between kicking Zs in the face and trying to free his neck from the wire and Mondello’s wrists. The Zs aren’t pulling at Mondello anymore, they’ve got his body right where they want it. Which is draped across the back bumper, innards exposed and being strewn about.

“Give me something to hack with!” I yell as Charlie stops choking. That’s not a good thing. He’s stopped because the wire can’t go any further and because he has run out of air. I have seconds to free him or he’s dead.

“Here!” John says, slapping the handle of a very large knife against my shoulder.

I take
it and plunge the blade into Mondello’s wrist then turn and twist, slicing through tendon and muscle. It takes me less than two seconds to severe the wrist, but it feels like an eternity as I watch Charlie’s eyes bug from his skull and turn glassy. The hand comes free from the arm and I get the wire away from Charlie’s bruised and bleeding throat.

As I shove Charlie over into the back seat, and Johns
starts CPR, I feel the grip of fingers around my ankle.

Ah, fuck me.

Instinctively, I kick out, landing a hard blow to some fucking Z that can’t take my yelp of surprise as the no it was intended to be. Kicking again and again, I try to scramble up over the seat, but I’m caught as dozens of hands pull me in the opposite direction.

“A little fucking help!” I scream.

“Daddy!”

“Jace!”

“Long Pork!”

“Hold on!” Stuart shouts, reaching for me over John and Charlie. “Just take my hand!”

“Oh, just do that!” I yell. “Fucking brilliant, Stuart! The most brilliant idea you’ve ever had!”

“Here!” s
creams Elsbeth as she tosses the tire iron to me.

It hits me in the forehead. Fucking awesome.

Shaken, I slip further back and now hands are gripping my calves, my knees, pulling me to them, adding me to the Mondello buffet. It is gonna be quite the spread tonight, folks! All you can eat asshole and dumbshit! Well, not all you can eat. That’s just marketing, really. Eventually I’ll run out of meat on me.

“FUCK!” I scream as I turn and just start flailing, slamming my fists against every Z face I see. My good hand cries out as I feel bone
s bend. My bad hand hasn’t really stopped crying (fucking baby hand) so it starts wailing. The pain drives me on, though. With every sharp shock up my arms, I just double my efforts. Teeth are bared, wanting to bite down and get through my jeans at the chicken legs underneath. But I won’t let them. Those are my chicken legs, mother fuckers!

“Dad!” Greta screams. “Break the sensors and I can shut the doors!”

Break the sensors? What the fuck is she talking about?

“I’m a little busy, sweetie,” I screech. “Maybe speak fucking English please!”

“The sensors that keep the doors from closing on people!” she shouts. “Should be one on each side, down towards the bottom! Probably red plastic!”

Oh, well that makes fucking sense. Why didn’t she just say that?

I grab a Z’s head and twist, popping it off like a mother fucking grape, then use it to batter the other Zs, moving them from one side of the SUV. There. I see it. I toss the head, which is still trying to bite at me, at the Zs and pick up the tire iron. Slam! Slam! Slam! Crack!

“One down!” I shout.
“Try it!”

Maybe it’s like a garage door opener where all you have to do is disable one sensor. The doors start to close, the top folding down, while the bottom starts to lift. Then they stop and a loud buzzing fills the SUV. The loud buzzing also pisses off the Zs and they hiss and growl at me. Sensitive fuckers.

“The other one!” Greta yells.

“
Yeah, yeah, thank you, I figured that out!”

I smack at the other sensor, but
a stubborn Z just won’t move. Every time I slam the tire iron down, the fucking Z gets in the way and I just end up slamming it. And the fucking thing won’t die! It must have a steel plate in its…oh, yeah, it does. The gleam of metal winks in the weak light as its scalp is torn away. Jesus.