Last Fight of the Valkyries (22 page)

“That's new,” he said to no one in particular.

A moment later, the truck bed leapt up, bouncing him about a foot
above metal. Something had slammed hard onto the roof of the small
cab.

He looked up. There were two faces on the edge of the cliff up on
the next level of the road. Those zombies could continue to walk down
the road and reach them in twenty minutes, or they could just jump
and close the distance in moments.

The jumper zombie was a mess in the bent metal, but it wasn't
dead. It tried to pull itself from the dented cab.

“I got it.” Victoria went with her wrench in that
direction. Liam had no time to watch as the teen zombie stuck her
head over the back tailgate, reminding him he had his own problems.

His feet felt like they were made of worms. He couldn't get a
solid footing, but he thrust the spear toward the head of the girl.
He could tell it was a bad push as it was happening. Instead of
piercing the eye and brain, it went through the left cheek and
glanced off her jaw. It sent a splash of blood onto his spear and his
hands. The wound was horrific to look at, but not even a bother for
the zombie.

She snapped at the spear and grabbed for it. Her hands were a
slippery mess, so she couldn't wrest control of it, but with blood
all over his end of the spear it became less effective for him, too.
It was hard to grip the wood and get another shot.

OK, so these things have a design flaw.

He recoiled at the disgusting scene. He tried to kick her face,
though that only bought him a few seconds. He slid in the bed of the
truck, more from fright than the drips of blood down there.

Victoria let out a series of grunts as she pummeled the zombie on
the roof.

Pink and Blue huddled together in the middle of the cargo bed,
seemingly paralyzed with fear. Above, another zombie started his
jump. He judged the distance, angle of approach, and position of his
friends—and knew it was going to be close.

He made it to his knees, and used his spear to shove the girls
toward the cab. They tumbled into Victoria, who had her wrench high
above her head in the midst of another killing blow. All three fell
against the cab and the grievously wounded zombie there.

In a flash, the zombie from above dropped exactly where the two
girls had been standing. The thing had no grace whatsoever; it fell
head-first onto the metal. He couldn't look directly at the remains
of its head, but he knew it was absolutely out of action.

The teen zombie was over the edge and upon him. Not knowing what
else to do, he held up the spear and she landed on top of it. Unlike
the movies, she didn't fall on the spear as it passed through her.
Instead, the spear entered her chest and got stuck on something. She
stood there flailing in anger, trying to reach him.

Victoria, recovering from the interruption from the other girls,
turned to Liam's zombie.

“Get out of the way,” she shouted to them.

Still, they stood with little movement.

She got around them and swung the wrench with great force. The
heavy metal tool fell squarely on the top of the teen's skull, making
a sick crunch as it impacted. Liam had to look away as Victoria
proceeded to dismantle it from the inside out until the head was more
or less a pile of mush.

“Come on Liam, I need you.”

He heard it as an echo in his head.

“Come on Liam, I need you.”

That time he heard it clearly.

“I'm here.” He balanced the dead zombie on his spear
as he got up. The thing had slumped down, so he pushed her backward
as he drew the spear from her. He had an inspiration to wipe the
spear on her clothes to clean it off, but she had no clean patch of
clothing on her. Instead, he used his jeans.

A third zombie fell from above. This one landed on the
tailgate—another horrible attempt to shortcut the roadway. It
fell to the outside, leaving a large dent and a clump of hair on the
back of the truck.

They looked at each other, then above. More heads had reached the
shortcut.

Together, they came to the same conclusion.

“Run!”

4

Liam tapped the twins before he got out.

He assumed they'd follow him. He was several cars down the road
before it registered they did not.

“Victoria, stop!” She was a few cars ahead of him.

He turned around, wishing at that moment he'd just run off with
Victoria when they had the chance. He gripped his spear as he'd
gotten it reasonably clear of fluids.

“Blue! Pink! Run!”

They were huddled together in the truck bed, near the cab. Just
where he'd left them.

“Hey! We have to go.” He stood off the side, hoping
they'd get the hint and jump the side to him. When they made no
effort to comply with his reasonable request, he did the only thing
he could think would help.

He turned his spear around and poked them with it.

“Ouch.”

Not knowing how to play this—he'd seen people freeze in
battle several times the past few weeks, including himself on more
than one occasion—he decided to use humor.

He turned on his British voice—he was a fan of goofy British
humor. “Pardon me, ma' ladies. Things seem to have gone
pear-shaped here. Fancy a walk fer a rescue?”

It had the intended effect. The both turned to him with the look
of confused humor.

He held out his hand. Pink was first and took his hand as he
helped her over the edge, Blue jumped the side on her own.

He pushed them down the road, willing them to find some haste. He
heard the thud of another zombie as it slammed into the pickup truck.

Whatever smart planning he intended to do on the way down had to
be sacrificed for speed. They kept running straight ahead on the
road, not stopping to look into the cars and trucks, or finding
places to fight the growing numbers behind them.

I knew this looked too easy.

When they reached the bottom, Liam looked up. It was a confusing
mass of activity on each of the levels of the spiral. Walking
zombies. Running zombies. Some jumped the edges, though most did not.
Somehow they knew to keep trudging down the road and they'd
eventually reach their prey. If it was any kind of intelligence, it
reminded him of a bloodhound.

They were far ahead of most of the zombies, though the bottom of
the pit mine was filled with more cars. An area about the size of a
football field was crammed with abandoned vehicles. Now that they
were close, he figured any remaining dead inside those cars would
catch wind of them. Then it would all be over.

They stayed away from the parking lot, and headed for the
thirty-foot wide black hole of the pit mine entrance.

A huge sign was inset in the rocks above and outside the entrance.
It once acted as a friendly reminder for truck drivers and mine
workers, but someone had defaced it permanently. It said,
“Congratulations! You have had,” followed by a blank
space with numerous shotgun blasts in the sign, “days since the
last injury at your quarry.”

Beyond the sign, still near the front of the illuminated entrance
section, it looked like someone had lined up a bunch of cars, then
blew them all up, then blew up the debris. Large rocks had fallen
from one wall, and there was a good-sized hole on the floor of the
rocky tunnel. The walls were blackened and scorched. His first
thought was that a tank had blasted its way into the tunnel, though
that was impossible given all the intact cars on the one road in
they'd just descended. He'd seen a tank tear into the zombies inside
a similar, if smaller, tunnel back at the Arch. If this place was
crawling with zombies, a tank would be a great start to cleaning them
up. Or…

He thought of the jet that screamed overhead while they sat up on
the cliff. Another piece of random data plopped out of his head, too.
Back at the Arch, he'd learned the military attacked large groups of
zombies wherever they could find them.

At one time there
were
a lot of zombie here.

They all stood at the threshold of the darkness, unsure.

He turned around and tried to guess how many zombies he could see
moving above him on the mine road. Dozens for sure. Maybe a hundred.
Enough to require an air strike if someone discovered them? The pilot
from earlier had nearly flown over the mine on his sneaky pass above
them. It wasn't unreasonable to think he'd be back.

He looked into the blackness, suddenly aware of an important piece
of missing survival gear.

“Does anyone have a light?”

The groans gave him his answer.

“How could you have overlooked something so obvious,”
Blue asked. He heard Pink crying softly.

The zombies from the road were very close now, and other zombies
lurked in the parking lot of cars. Whatever he was going to do, it
had to be now. He had a notion to go toward the parked cars and try
to find a flashlight, but he could easily be cut off by those from
the roadway. His team consisted of fifty percent deadweight, further
making any decision a potentially deadly one.

He admitted to himself he didn't know what to do. It was a full
minute of pacing before Victoria finally asked him.

“You don't have any ideas, do you?”

He pulled her aside. “We can't leave these two behind while
you and I go look for a light. They can't fight. I don't know what to
do.”

“Liam!” Blue called. “We have more trouble.”

“Well, that just figures. And here I was worried this was
going to be too easy.”

Up the road, minutes behind, they could also see the running group
of zombies. They were dressed just like the teenage girl from the
van. The rest must have busted open more windows, or maybe they hit
the button to unlatch a door. Bottom line: they were all out, and
heading their way.

He turned around. “I guess it's just like in that
Fellowship
movie. We have but one way to go.”

Blue surprised him, as she knew the movie he referenced. “Yeah,
but they had Gandalf's staff to guide them. What do we have?”

Liam had no retort.

“We trust in God,” Victoria offered as she grabbed his
hand.

Behind him, the girls replied with a sound he interpreted as
“wishful thinking.”

5

They walked about a hundred yards into the darkness. The faint
light was adequate to that point because the floor was smooth and
they could hold onto the parked cars. Once they'd cleared the
entrance, with the destroyed cars, the line of traffic resumed. They
walked in silence far into the tomb. Liam thought he heard banging on
several of the cars here, but it was too dark to see for sure.

Just keep walking.

Behind them, far back at the lighted entrance, figures moved.

“They're with us now. What do we do?” The question
came out of his mouth, but it was directed at himself.

“I guess we could find a car and climb inside. We might be
able to hold them off for a while. Or maybe we could hide under the
cars and hope they lose interest. Or we could just go into the
darkness for as long as we can.”

“I vote that one.” Victoria's voice drifted out of the
deep shadows around him. He thought she was behind him, but she could
be next to him, or on the other side of the line of cars.

“Yeah, we aren't hiding and dying in here.” Blue
seemed to have the most resolve of the twins, but Liam was curious
why she even bothered to come if she was so frightened.

“Blue, thanks for helping us get this far. Even if we don't
make it, I appreciate that you got the captain to bring us up here.”

“My pleasure, I guess.”

“But if you don't mind me asking, why did you offer to help
us at all? You could have stayed safe down in Cairo and we'd be none
the wiser. We might even have found another boat up here.”

“I don't know. Maybe it just felt like the right thing to
do, after you saved me back on top of that truck.”

And then you left me for dead.

It was tempting to remind her of that, but now wasn't the time.

“Well, I'm sorry if this is how our story ends. Dead inside
a damp stone quarry tunnel, eaten by—”

“Hey. We ain't dead yet. Just keep going. I'm not stopping,
I can tell you that.”

From behind him, a hand found his shoulder. Victoria's touch
bolstered him in the darkness, which was now nearly complete. The
tunnel had begun to turn to the right, cutting any remaining light to
nothing.

Sensing they had turned both a literal and figurative corner, Liam
offered some advice. “Everyone move as fast as you can. There
has to be some survivors, or at least some gear left by survivors. We
might get lucky and find a flashlight. Or help. Or anything. Just
don't stop.”

They used the cars to guide them. He assumed as long as they
followed the cars they were heading the right way, though he thought
they passed through a few intersections because the cars were parked
in different directions. They always went forward.

A couple times, the tunnel was illuminated by the equivalent of
starlight by the tiny LED blinking lights of car alarm systems. The
soft blues or reds blinked on and off, giving them faint snapshots of
the tunnel around them.

One such car had movement inside. The repeating blinks outlined
the zombie strapped into the passenger seat. They passed close enough
they could see the thing's eyes were fixated on the only light in its
world. Liam almost felt sad for it, but he drifted by slowly so as
not to call attention to himself.

Far behind, they heard the distinctive howl of another of the teen
girl zombies.

“Why do they do that?” Victoria asked. “Just to
creep us out?”

Liam searched his zombie lore and couldn't come up with an
explanation. He'd have to rely on guesswork.

“I think it's some kind of call to arms. When the other one
did it, the zombies above started to jump on us. She alerted them to
our presence.”