Bowie V. Ibarra (12 page)

“Listen, don’t be such a killjoy, George,” said Brandon. “What other choice to we have?”

George thought for a moment. Brandon’s plan was full of holes, but George knew that any plan that would get him to San Uvalde was going to be a big risk. And, as he had already decided, he would rather do something desperate than do nothing at all.

“Well, where’s Brandon Junior?” asked George.

Uncle Brandon turned toward the entrance and called out, “Brandon Junior!”

A small boy barely four feet tall entered the room. He was wearing blue jeans and a black pro-wrestling shirt, and when he spoke it was obvious that his voice was nowhere near reaching puberty. He said, “Yeah, Pa? Oh, hey, cousin Misty!”

“Hi, B.J.,” Misty replied.

George was surprised at the age and size of Brandon Jr. He had expected someone a lot older.

“You ready for this, son?” Brandon asked.

“Yeah, Pa. I’m ready,” replied the short kid, though his red mullet and freckles hardly hid his fear.

“Alright, Junior, this is what we’re going to do-”

Yet before they could even begin phase one of their plan, several screams broke the conspirators’ concentration. Every head turned to the tent opening. George looked at Misty, confused. Everyone rushed outside the tent.

When they emerged into the open air, they witnessed a mass of people running away from the east end of the stadium near the land of the Ones and Twos.

Uncle Brandon grabbed one of the people who were running. “Hey, you! What the hell’s going on?!”

The person, a blond man with thinning hair, shivering and scared, cried, “It’s the Garrisons! The ones that were dying from bites infected the rest of their family and a bunch of others! Now they’re all coming after us! Let go of me!” The man broke loose of Brandon with a yank of his arm and ran off toward the ticket booth.

George looked toward the end zone where all the action was happening. Sure enough, several creatures were attacking some of the incarcerated civilians and the civilians were fighting back with little to no success. Several people were already being feasted upon, while others were being quickly snatched by undead hands. Teeth sunk into flesh as the zombies feasted and the victims began their transformation.

Gunfire erupted near the ticket booth area as some of the soldiers tried to stop the advance of the people. But everyone knew that with creatures inside the perimeter, the safest place was in the area with the soldiers.

George looked to see two interior soldiers slowly walking toward the slaughter, guns trained on the creatures. Already, several of the devoured dead were rising. Close to twenty zombies, including the Garrisons, were marching toward the fleeing crowd. Several ghouls remained, devouring the inhabitants who tried to fend the creatures off.

It seemed that the brevity of the attempts to impede the zombies from infecting the captives and the non-responsiveness of the guards led to the mayhem. It didn’t take long for the chaos to erupt.

The end of the FEMA camp was close at hand. If George and his newfound friends were going to make a break for it, now was the perfect chance.

“Brandon, this is it,” George said. “We have to make our move.”

They all knew he was right. They tensed up as adrenaline coursed through their veins.

George knelt down and yanked a tent spike from the ground, brushed the dirt from the end, and made certain he had a firm grip.

Misty found a board. It appeared long enough to do damage, yet short enough not to be cumbersome.

Brandon found a lead pipe. It was bent in some places, but was good enough on short notice.

Brandon Junior found a brick.

The four of them, shuffling through the panicked and clearing crowd, crept toward the soldiers, who had now begun opening controlled fire on the zombies.

George and Misty overwhelmed one of the guards while the two Brandons did the same to the other. B.J. smashed a soldier’s skull to mush as George planted the spike deep in the sternum of the second. George and Uncle Brandon then went about securing the soldiers’ weapons and digging through their pockets for extra ammo.

The creatures began to shuffle toward the retreating crowd, getting closer and closer to George’s group.

A gunshot from the visitors’ bleachers tore open a hole in Brandon Junior’s chest, exiting out the back. Another tore open his right leg. Another to the arm.

Quickly, Uncle Brandon aimed the rifle toward the visitors’ bleachers and cut down the only two soldiers that were paying attention to the interior soldiers and the zombies on the field. George quickly followed his example, taking out three soldiers on the home bleachers, one of which was firing back. The three soldiers then fell, seriously wounded and unable to fire their weapons.

Uncle Brandon heaved Brandon Junior over his shoulder with one arm and yelled, “The ticket booth! It’s our only chance!”

As Misty and Uncle Brandon began to run to the crowded ticket booth exit, George got to a knee and took out the guards in the nearest towers with a shot to the head. The soldiers who had been manning the other towers around the facility had already abandoned their posts. Safe from the gun towers, George ran to rejoin his group.

The zombies, growing in number, began to advance on the crowd. Though they were nearly eighty yards away on the other side of the field, their presence was a new threat. It meant there was now a battle on two fronts.

After firing and cutting down several civilians, the remaining soldiers gave up and retreated in the direction of the remaining Hummers. The gates began to pop and sizzle as several civilians threw blankets on the electrified fence in an attempt to create a crude insulator. After several group efforts they were able to collapse the gate, causing it to crumble to the ground. Those wearing shoes stepped across it. The barefooted took their chances. Several people fell on exposed areas of the gate and roasted on the metal.

The zombies on the field were getting closer as one of the Hummers started to drive off. Three or four people jumped on the vehicle. One soldier tried to man the gun, but was overpowered by two men and thrown overboard. Several camp members took the boots to the man, beating him into unconsciousness.

The Hummer sped to the vehicle entrance, smashing through the first locked gate with ease. A mass of people followed the machine through the crushed entrance. Two people were still on the hood; two were at the guns. One opened fire on the zombies around the fence as the other tried to work his way to the driver seat. The vehicle barreled to the second gate which led directly to the parking lot. The humvee busted through the gate, knocking the zombies in front out of the way like bowling pins and crushing them under the chain-linked gate and the wheels of the war machine. The people of the facility ran right behind it, taking a shot at freedom, prepared to risk the army of zombies outside.

With the two men on the hood, the driver could not see the vehicle that was still in the parking lot of the stadium. It rear-ended the ‘98 Honda Accord, sending the two guys on the hood flying. One smashed into the back window of the Accord, jarring his neck, glass tearing into his back. The other flew over the vehicle and smashed his head on the pavement near the handicapped parking sign.

Both were promptly devoured.

The driver’s head smashed against the window, creating a web-like circle in the glass. The man trying to get in was also sent flying into a group of creatures. They tore into his flesh, his screams buried by the cries of the liberated, yet endangered, facility members.

The man in the gunner position started opening fire on everything that moved, both facility people and zombies, before being engulfed by the undead when his ammo ran out. The creatures made a buffet on all the flesh brought down by friendly fire.

It was a veritable free-for-all as the last mass of people forced their way through the gate, pushing aside as many creatures as they could. The exit was severely congested with people and zombies as the second Hummer, (facility people hanging all over it,) tried to force its way over the mass of humanity bottlenecked at the gate. The entrance was filled with the dead, the dying, and those still fighting for survival. The Hummer crushed a large mass of people, with cries of the alive and the dying overshadowing the howls of the already dead and reanimated.

The vehicle got stuck as it tried to work its way over the bodies. The tires dug in and ground several bodies of the dying and undead into the asphalt. Blood and bone shot from the tires, spraying the people still trying to escape with a red mist that peppered their faces. Several alive and dying began to roast on the fence near the vehicular and human collision, their flesh turning a dark red, their clothes igniting. Fire danced across the burning bodies.

Misty could not believe her eyes as the remaining soldiers -the last bastion of American defense -ruthlessly pulverized both the alive and the undead with their vehicles in the driveway.

As the third Hummer began its advance to the entrance, a clean shot from George took out the gunner, who had been firing upon the last of the inmates who were trying to overtake the vehicle. Uncle Brandon immediately followed with a clean shot to the driver’s head, bringing the vehicle to a sudden stop against a concrete post holding up the bleachers. Uncle Brandon then shot the soldier in the passenger seat as George dragged out the driver’s body.

Uncle Brandon opened the passenger door and threw the dead soldier to the ground with one hand. As he threw Misty into the vehicle and George manned the driver seat, a creature grabbed Brandon Junior from Uncle Brandon’s shoulder and dragged the corpse to the ground. Uncle Brandon turned around and decked the creature, breaking its spine, sending the monster to the ground, but not before four more quickly took its place. Uncle Brandon slammed the passenger door shut as a zombie grabbed the same arm and bit into it.

Misty screamed, “Uncle Brandon!”

Wrestling the creature to the ground and stomping on its head, Uncle Brandon yelled, “Forget me! Just go! I love you sweetie-pie!” before another creature grabbed him by the shoulders and bit into his neck. Blood splashed the side of the vehicle and ran down his neck as flesh was torn away from his body. He screamed. Misty screamed.

George backed out of the pole and shifted gears, scared and upset. Shifting to first, the Hummer moved out.

Several creatures had already begun to devour Brandon Junior’s body as Uncle Brandon went down swinging. He was able to kick two creatures off his son before he was overwhelmed. He collapsed on top of his son’s body, a futile yet noble attempt to protect his son’s corpse from the living dead who were waiting and ready to devour them both.

Knowing the original exit would now be impossible to drive through, George blazed his own trail. Finding a weak portion of the gate, he crashed through the chain-linked fence and concertina wire and then sped away through the parking lot and to the loop road.

The road by the stadium headed to 35 was relatively clear, with a majority of the creatures congregating around the stadium. Misty was sobbing uncontrollably. George drove, concentrating on the road, but shell-shocked at the horror they both barely survived. George said a quick prayer for Misty’s uncle. Had it not been for Uncle Brandon closing the passenger door, Misty and George both might have been killed.

George reached for Misty’s hand.

She accepted it, gripping his hand tightly, trembling.

At the stadium, zombies stalked the former military and civilian portions of the FEMA camp, searching for bodies of the recently dead. A feast of flesh was continuing in the parking lot and in the vehicle exit. Several creatures made it to the bleachers and were devouring the dead soldiers. One soldier, wounded from the rounds George fired, tried unsuccessfully to crawl away from an advancing gang. Moments later he was torn to shreds and eaten.

A small group of zombies was trying to collapse the tower by the ticket booth in order to find the source of the blood dripping from above. They were successful. The ticket booth toppled over, crushing several of their own. With spines broken and bones cracked, the creatures crushed by the tower tried to pull themselves out to no avail. Within inches of their crushed bodies, several monsters began their meal of the tower inhabitant.

Uncle Brandon and his son were torn and mutilated, their skulls cracked, their chests torn open, their innards devoured. Several zombies still sat around Uncle Brandon, tearing pieces of flesh from his large carcass. Blood dripped from their mouths. The other creatures had left Brandon Junior as a mere skeleton, hardly a speck of flesh or muscle stuck to a bone.

A majority of the inhabitants made it out of the facility alive, but half of them didn’t make it across the parking lot.

One man had been trying to fight off the creatures with a pipe in the parking lot. He was overwhelmed. Two creatures bit into his face and neck. He was dragged to the ground, screaming. A creature bit into his arm. One monster grabbed his leg, which was still trying to yank itself free. Biting through the blue jeans, the monster tore at the pant leg.

A woman was being eviscerated near the bleachers. Three creatures were tearing out her innards. Blood dripped from the torn flesh, caking around the mouths of the ghouls.

Two monsters were fighting over an arm, trying to push each other to the ground.

Screams of the dying were melding with the moans of the living dead, filling the night air with woe.

The remaining half of the stadium inhabitants became infected through bites or scratches gained during the escape. Creatures had clawed at their dashing movements away from the infested stadium. Their days were numbered.

Only a lucky few made it out alive.

- Alive and, for some, alone, but with another chance at a sunrise.