Beyond the Barriers (Novella): Ghouls (24 page)

His truck came to a halt as more and more of them piled on. He shrugged, saluted again, and roared into the crowd. Gunny rolled down his window a few more inches, stuck out his arm, and pounded the side of the cab. "Come on you fuckers!" he yelled.

We didn’t wait around to see how far he got.

Reynolds and another Marine joined us as we crawled on top of trucks and then slid down the other sides. The Marine – whose name may have been Jonas – slipped and fell off the side of a truck. He cried out, but before we could get him he was covered in Z’s.

They were on all sides now as we stood in the flatbed of a truck that had been used as some kind of transport. Joel tossed his gun and picked up another. I found a handgun but didn’t pay attention to the make. I just yanked it out of an unused holster, ignoring the corpse it was attached to, and shot the first dead fuck that fell under my sights.

Reynolds kicked one in the face but she latched onto his leg and her mouth darted in to bite him. I thought the fabric of his camo gear may have protected him, but he kicked her again and backed up in horror.

“We are so screwed!” Joel said.

The rest had reached the truck. A hundred clawing hands on every side.

I don’t know if it was the stress of the dying Marines, the loss of Gunny, or just the culmination of the entire day. More than likely, it was the bite. Reynolds got this wild look in his eye and told us to get ready.

I thought he meant that we should get ready to die. Reynolds grabbed a bandolier covered in green balls and slung it around his waist. He took a couple off and handed them to Joel.

Joel Kelly took them and flipped Reynolds a questioning look, then shot a Z in the face.

Reynolds ran to the end of the flat bed and leapt like he was going to crowd-surf. His fingers worked at his belt as he went, and when he came off the truck he left behind a tinkling pile of clips.

“DOWN!” Joel yelled and pushed me to the floor.

It was the most incredible act of heroism I have ever seen. Reynolds threw himself into the maelstrom and saved us.

The blast was immense. What was left wasn’t fit to bury. It would need to be scooped up and burned.

We used the explosion as cover and ran through the fresh passageway. When a pair of the dead came around a corner, Joel blasted one in half and then threw the empty assault rifle at the other. I didn’t look, but I knew Joel was close to losing it.

Joel and I ran until I was gasping for air and shaking like a leaf. We’d left the mass behind but we were in a new part of the city, somewhere I’d never seen before.

An hour later we found the partially boarded up two-story house and founded Fortress.

* * *

T
hat’s enough for today
. It’s early morning and I’d love to get some more shuteye, but the sun is rising. One of the shufflers keeps throwing himself at the side of the garage. I wish Joel would get up and shoot the fucker between the eyes.

Craig and Christy look miserable. They’ve already eaten the few snacks they managed to get out of the house. I didn’t say anything, but I had nothing stashed in my bag except this log, a few magazines, and my wrench.

Noise to the north. I think it’s a chopper. If it comes anywhere near us, I'm giving up the hiding technique and jumping up and down like a maniac.

S
upplies
:

• Food: zip
  
• Weapons: almost zip
  
• Attitude: messy
  

I tried to sleep. Tried. 

It was a losing battle. The moment I closed my eyes all I heard were the dead. They milled, staggered, walked into the garage wall, and every five to ten minutes a shuffler launched itself at the roof.

The truth was that I was too damn scared to sleep. If I were really tired enough I’d have dozed off hours ago. Instead, adrenalin kicked my nerves up a notch. A side effect was that I felt like shit. My muscles ached from being clenched and my mind was filled with all the horrible things I’d seen over the course of two weeks. From a narrow escape aboard the USS McClusky to fighting for our lives in the very garage we were stranded on, and all of the terrible shit in between.

Roz huddled up next to Joel Kelly. I didn’t take it as a slight, even though I’d saved her life. Joel had saved my life quite a few times and I’d saved his. I think. Yeah, I probably pulled his ass out of a few bad situations. Kinda hard to survive in this ridiculous world if you aren’t helping keep your best buddy from becoming zombie chow.

She didn’t exactly invite him she just happened to lay down next to him. Joel was snoring away and rolled onto his side. She was close and they ended up with their arms over each other. How she could sleep through his snoring was beyond me. How any of us could sleep.

I didn’t get jealous. Why should I? It’s not like she and I were together. We had that little hug and ass grab yesterday in the garage, but we both thought we were about to die. Even if we had made it back inside, I doubted I had the balls to go after her. They were too busy being shrunk up inside my gut in fear.

I rolled over again and tried to fix the lumps that made up my backpack. Then I tried to doze on my arm but it fell asleep. I rolled onto my stomach and got a face full of leaves and dirt. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was even a layer of moss up here that I was now inhaling.

“Can you eat moss?” I asked, voice low.

“Gross, dude,” Craig said.

“I’m starving, man and pretty soon a bowl of moss stew might look good to you too,” I said. “Maybe a bowl of moss stew with pork belly to add some salt.”

“Pork belly? Sounds just as gross,” he whispered back.

“It’s just another name for bacon.”

“I’d kill a guy for some bacon.”

My stomach rumbled in response.

Hours passed and I may have dozed. My ankle ached like a bitch and the rest of my body wasn’t much better. The next time I run into a fucking zombie apocalypse, I plan to bring some serious painkillers to the party. Not to mention a duffle bag filled with Twinkies and MREs. Yeah, I’d eat the hell out of some MREs right now.

We had quite a few of them. The problem? They were in a house filled with the dead, so that idea was just as fucking dead. Going back into the house wasn’t happening unless we figured out a way to go in Ironman-style, complete with metal suit and weaponry. The way these undead assholes acted, they’d probably drag us down, iron suit or not.

I don’t remember when, but I finally fell asleep and got an hour or two of REM. Good for fucking me.

* * *

I
woke
up with a pounding headache. My ankle was swollen from last night’s activities. My back hurt from sleeping on the roof. My shoulder barely worked thanks to falling asleep on my own arm.

I rubbed my eyes but it didn’t help. They still felt like sand paper.

“You might have gotten uglier,” Joel observed.

I didn’t have the energy to flip him off.

“I feel like shit.”

“Dehydrated. You need water. We all do,” he said.

Joel crept to the edge of the roof and looked over the side of the building. He came back up and shook his head. Roz stayed low and stared after him. The kids were a few feet away, conferring in whispered voices.

It was overcast, and from the chill in the air I’d guess it was no later than about 0600 hours.

“Not good. We can’t get down. We can’t go back in the garage, and we can’t get in the house.”

“Still full of dead fucks?”

“Yep,” he said. “Craig reconnoitered earlier.”

“Brave kid.”

“And he’s light. Don’t want a fresh hole in the roof.”

Another helicopter thundered against the morning sky. I’d put it at a mile or two out. We could see it, but it couldn’t see us, because we were a speck in a big old pile of fuck you. Too bad we couldn’t set a home on fire to signal the chopper.

“Anyone got a flare gun?” I asked.

Joel Kelly rolled his eyes.

The chopper cut to the east and then zipped into the distance until we couldn’t hear it anymore.

The morning brought some fog and a creepy view of the world below. Where we’d seen the undead on the ground, now they seemed to be creeping out of the mist with heads and arms floating. A shuffler appeared out of the fog with a leap and then was gone, five or six feet away like some kind of fucked up zombie frog.

The nearest house was twenty or thirty feet away and no matter how fast we could run, there was no way in hell we’d make that sprint. The dead were too thick. I’d have a better chance of pogo-sticking off heads than outrunning the tightly packed horde.

“What if one of us put on a lot of clothes? Then the bites wouldn’t get through,” Christy said.

“You’d be dragged down and torn apart,” I said.

Not a good way to go. Sure they might not be able to bite, yet, but enough of those things on top of the kid and they’d have his arms and legs separated from his torso in no time.

“Uh. Yeah. Bad idea,” Christy said.

“Can we make a rope out of our clothes and hook it to the house over there?” Craig pointed at the nearest rooftop.

Poor kid. He looked worse than me. His hair was a mess but his eyes were the really sad part. He must have been rubbing at them because one was dark red and he looked as tired as anyone I’d ever seen. Craig lifted one hand to point at the house but it hung limp, almost like a Z’s hand. Even his words were slurred.

“One, I don’t want to be dangling buck ass naked over those bastards. A shuffler would surely get us. Two, none of us can possibly James Bond the rope over there.”

“It was just a suggestion,” he said and frowned. Craig lay back down and stared in the direction of the slow rising sun.

“Yeah. It was a good one,” I said, but he didn’t acknowledge my words.

Joel looked at me but I could only shrug.

The sound of a helicopter again. I sat up and tried to get a glimpse but couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from.

“There!” Joel said. He was up on his knees pointing west of San Diego, out toward the water.

The chopper cut across my vision like a fucking messiah. If Jesus himself had risen from the ground and taken to the air, I don’t think I’d have been this excited.

The thundering grew louder.  The big green military transport did a zig-zag over buildings and roads. As it moved I found myself getting up. First, one foot under a knee. Then I was up in a crouch and trying to ignore the pain in my ankle. I licked my dry lips, but it didn’t help, even though I was, for some reason, salivating.

“Is it coming this way?” Roz moved beside me and put her hand on my waist.

I looked her way and tried not to grin like a crazy man.

“Yeah. It’s coming our way.”

It was. I thought for sure it would go anywhere else but it kept doing a serpentine strut across the sky. Its general direction was still toward us.

I jumped to my feet and waved my hands in the air and started to shout.

“Hey! Hey! We’re right fucking here!”

Roz did the same and so did the kids. Craig didn’t get to his feet but he waved. His hand was nearly as listless as his body.  I hoped the poor kid wasn’t sick.

Thank the fuck Christ someone was coming. I was worried about the kid. I’d just met him a day or two ago but he and his sister didn’t deserve this crazy new world. I couldn’t help but wonder if this part of the country was infected but the rest of the world was fine and dandy. Maybe families were rising even now to have breakfast together. To watch the morning news or sit through children’s cartoons. Mom and Dad rushing off to work while the kids try to stay awake in school.

I shook my head and made my brain focus on the task at hand—getting that chopper’s attention.

The helicopter must have seen us because they made a beeline straight toward Roz’s house.

There was one side effect of our antics and shouts of joy. The horde below had gone into a frenzy. They pressed in on the sides of the garage and howled for our blood. A pair of shufflers flung themselves at the building like we were a side of bacon left out for their morning meal.

The chopper slowed as it neared us. It was green and had large side doors. One was open and had a machine gun pointed out just like they were in a war zone – and that wasn’t far from the truth.

The pilot and co-pilot were hard to make out, but I was sure one of them nodded in our direction. A face appeared behind them and studied us intently.

The wash of the blades as the helicopter came to hover in front of us blew Joel Kelly’s FDNY cap off his head. He waved but the pilots didn’t wave back.

The chopper swung to the side and my gut twisted.

“No!” I screamed. “Don’t leave us!”

Roz jumped up and down but I couldn’t hear her over the rush of wind.

The side door came into view and with it, the big machine gun. I thought for a crazy moment that they were about to open up on us.

The man that I’d seen a few seconds ago leaned out and waved. He was tall and had dark hair laced with grey. He looked like Gunny, but this man was older. He waved again and we waved back. I felt dumb for it, but it was the best I had in place of a hug and a wet kiss. I’d save that for after we were rescued.

The helicopter hovered just out of reach, then the guy hanging onto the doorway motioned for us to get down. I didn’t need a second invitation and dropped to a crouch on my sore ankle. It screamed in pain but I pushed it to the back of my mind.

The man produced a bullhorn and fiddled with the buttons. A woman dressed in combat gear moved beside him and said something. He nodded at her and then lifted a bullhorn.

“Stay down just like that. When we get close make your way onto the craft. When you are onboard sit down and don’t move. Got it?”

I gave the thumbs up. He nodded at us and then yelled something at the pilots.

Roz knelt while she talked to the kids. Christy looked at Craig and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

The dead around us went into a frenzy. The shuffler that had haunted us all night tried to leap onto the helicopter but it was a good twelve feet off the ground. The down draft from the blades flattened a couple that were on shaky limbs, or worse, were missing them entirely.

The horde moved in on us again and pressed against the side of the garage. They beat at it and moaned. Even with the immense noise it was truly a fucking chorus of the damned.

Joel prodded Craig and pointed at the edge of the roof. Craig took Christy’s hand and together they crept toward the side of the building. He kept his hand in front of his face while she stayed low and let Craig take most of the wash. When they were close enough to step on to the strut, a guy inside reached out, grabbed her arm, and hauled Christy inside.

Craig collapsed when Christy was gone. He didn’t move, just sat there with his legs folded under his butt.

The dead went into a fresh frenzy when they saw their prize getting away. The shuffler howled and gibbered. He leapt at the building over and over until he was bloody. The other’s pressed from all sides.

Roz was next with Joel helping her toward the end. They tried to prod Craig but he pushed hands away.

The building shook and a corner of the roof swayed, then collapsed as the wall beneath it gave way. Roz made it to the helicopter strut and was helped on board.

The roof tilted but didn’t go down. I grabbed Craig and hauled him to his feet.

“Come on. We’re almost there!” I yelled.

He nodded once and said something but I couldn’t make out the words.

Hands helped him onboard as the roof tilted again. I leaned forward and barely kept my feet. One quick glance over my shoulder told me that this was going to be a very short day if I didn’t get my sorry ass on the chopper.

I grabbed my backpack and swung it over my back. The huge wrench got me right in the kidney. I almost doubled over in pain. Then I moved to the edge of the roof and prepared to avoid being zombie chow.

There was a moment where Joel and I met eyes. He prodded me onboard, but I did the same. We stared back at each other like a pair of idiot heroes in a buddy action movie. I didn’t feel particularly heroic. All I really wanted to do was get on the helicopter, get to somewhere safe, and take a long shit because my sphincter was not up to the business of me being scared to death all the goddamn time.