The Great Wreck (23 page)

In
the darkness we could hear ourselves breathing and James would giggle now and
then. Finally he caught his breath and said in a sing-song voice, “So tell me a
little about yourselves.”

We
stayed in the gas station until the next morning, then hit the streets. We had
no idea where we were going and hopped from building to building hoping to find
some sort of refuge. For the next few days we just ran and James ran with us.
Dodging the dead, hiding out on rooftops, scavenging any shop we could come by
for food until we ended up in a wrecked mobile home partially buried under a
collapsed building with a small pack of dead trying to get in. They knew we
were there but couldn’t get in. James kept yelling at them, “Fuck you! Fuck
you!
Fuuuuck youuuu!
”

I
kept telling him to shut up, that maybe they would go away. James just looked
at me with those cold dead eyes and said, “Shut you’re fucking gob you twat
while I fuck your girlfriend,” and then he did.

They
didn’t even bother closing the door. He just grabbed Pix by the upper arm
pulled her to the back of the RV. There he tossed her on the bed, pulled her
pants down, and fucked her. And by fucked her, I mean, fucked
her for hours
. She came so many time I
lost count. I tried to close my eyes, look away and cover my ears
 
but I couldn’t. In that small space there was
just no escaping what was happening at the other end. The sight of Pix being
fucked over and over again crushed anything still human inside of me, anything
good that was untouched by the dead world outside. I should have just stepped
outside right then and there and let the dead have me, but we were all animals
by then and animals want to survive.

Finally
Pix begged him to stop. He pulled out of her and pulled her up roughly. Looking
over his shoulder at me he said, “Watch this, pecker head,” and bent Pix over
the table and forced his cock up her ass. Pix cried out but spread her legs
further to let him in. He rammed her for a few minutes then blew his load up
her ass. Pix came again. I nearly puked and decided I had had enough. I stepped
outside hoping there were hundreds of dead to put me out of my misery but
sometime during James and Pix’s fuck fest, someone else, someone living must
have
 
gotten the dead’s attention and the
streets were empty. I could hear James laughing and Pix crying inside the RV.

So
they were a couple. James was an asshole, and animal, but he was alive and that
made him slightly better than the dead. James, Pix, and I finally found a good
spot to hide out at the Magic Kingdom.

The
park had been closed for weeks as public gathering places were shut down to
halt or slow the spread of the disease. The place was empty, walled off, and
secure from the chaos of the LA basin. We thought we had it made. For a few
weeks we saw no one dead or alive wandering around the park. The power was
still on but was starting to fade sporadically, there was food (of a sort) and
water and separation from the chaos and burning outside our haven.

Then we saw the
first Walker on Main Street.

She
was so fucking hot, for a dead chick. And weird, too. Walked around like she
had a purpose. Changed clothes from time to time. We thought it was Ok to have
one wandering around. We thought we could dodge her. It became a kind of game
of hide and seek. James tracked her across the park. In and out of the shops,
watching her from the roofs. James would obsess over her telling me how much he
wanted to fuck her. Fuck the dead chick. He’d laugh and say he’d fuck that
pussy so hard she come back to life. Get it?
Cum
back to life. James was a real character.

I
began to plot my escape from him with Pix. Better to take our chances out in
the Wreck than stay another day with this beast. That is, if Pix would come
with me. Maybe she’d choose to stay with James. I didn’t care anymore. I wanted
out and I was leaving. Just as soon as I could muster up the courage to leave.

Then
James told me Pix got caught. James said he watched the whole thing,
masturbated while Pix was devoured. He said it was the best snuff flick he’d
ever seen. He said it was like watching Pix get raped as the Walker tore off
her clothes and bit into her over and over again. He said her screams sounded
just like an orgasm. Pix always had a bite fetish and maybe she did cum before
that strange dead chick bit into something really painful, then Pix knew the
game was over and the real pain was about to begin.

James
said it lasted for about ten minutes before the walker hit something vital and
Pix bled out. James watched the Walker eat every little bit of Pix and knew
that she wouldn’t be coming back. I was thankful for that at least.

I
didn’t even both asking him why he didn’t try to help Pix. After the first
bite, it was over for her and James would never put himself at risk if he could
help it. I didn’t cry for Pix either. We were all dead when the epidemic broke
out. It was only a matter of time before the fact caught up with us. Like I
said, by the time we had met up with James, we were already animals. So I
didn’t mourn her passing. At least she was gone for good. Thinking about her
and the other walker wandering around the park for all time might have just
pushed me over the edge.

So
I stayed with James.

After
Pix bought it, James was quiet for a long time after that. I don’t know if he
felt guilty for not trying to help Pix or maybe for spanking off while she died
in agony. He never said. But a few days after Pix bought it, we boogied from
D-land and out into the Wreck.

“Grab
your cock, Junior, we’re leaving,” and just like that we were back among the
screaming, the burning, and the dead.

During
those weeks, the city was still burning, people still running everywhere, the
military flying this way and that. Burbank was just getting closed off from the
rest of the Wreck but we didn’t hear about it until we were halfway to Phoenix
otherwise we might have gone there.

We
should have died so many different times then. It was like the worst game of
Robotron you could imagine. And we didn’t even have guns. Fuck, I’d never even
touched a gun let alone fire it with a platoon of dead running me down. But
somehow we made it. James said, statistically speaking, with all the uninfected
walking out of the city on foot, some were bound to make it. I guess we won the
lottery then. Whoopee. Think I’ll buy me a football team.

Remember
all of those dumb fuckers in their SUV’s heading toward the city exists all at
once? Well James and I found a big old cluster fuck of them blocking I-10 East.
We stood at the outskirts of the LA basin where one of these incredible vehicle
and human dams was. We must have stood there for nearly an hour with our dicks
in our hands wondering how we were going to get over the unstable pileup
stinking of rotting bodies, gasoline, and burning rubber with nearly every
vehicle containing a hidden trove of walkers trapped in there just waiting to
grab your foot or a hand and give you a smooch.

Behind
us was eight million walking dead. Ahead of us was…well less than that so we
climbed. It took us hours to climb over the wreck and tangle of cars, people,
animals, trailers, trucks, and everything else that tried to move down a ten
mile stretch of road all at once. The smell was ungodly and every few minutes a
half rotted arm would shoot out and try to grab us.

James
laughed and hooted all the way up whacking off any limb that stuck out of the
smashed cars laughing like he was playing some grotesque game of whack-a-mole.

Like
I said James was an animal in his element. Let the good times roll

Eventually
we made it over and headed out in the Californian Outback. Turns out that was a
blind stroke of luck. The majority of infected were held inside the basin by
the clogged highways and those that made it out and deep into the desert found
that the sun didn’t agree with whatever it was that animated their dead flesh.
The ultraviolet radiation would burn off their rotting skin layer by layer unit
the deep nerves, the home of the virus, were exposed. Eventually the virus
would lose control over the body.

But
the brain was still intact. It would take years for the skull to rot to a point
where it would split open exposing the virus and a few more years after that
before the virus was finally exposed completely and the UV rays killed it. The
necro-virologist at Sandia Station would estimate that under normal
circumstances, it could take up to ten years for the virus to naturally decay
away and die.

James
and I didn’t know anything about that at the time. All we knew was that after
the first few weeks in the Great California Outback we didn’t see many more
sprinters and the number of walkers dropped significantly. They were still
there of course. Tens of thousands of them walking around waiting for the
living to wander by, but if we were careful, we could out run, out climb, and
generally out maneuver them.

And
we were careful.

Maybe
I should say I was careful. James was a maniac. I swear to you I’ve never seen
someone so happy that the end of the world had arrived and took no greater
pleasure in hacking apart dead people or in turn, running for our lives when
there were too many of the dead closing in around us.

We
walked during the day and stuck to the main highway. The small towns we passed
through had hundreds of dead shuffling around but many of them were in such a
bad state of decay that, if we were quiet and stayed out of site, we could move
in and out of the shops, get what we needed and make it back to the freeway
undetected.

Most
of the time though, James neither wanted to stay quiet nor out of site and
would run screaming into a small group of dead and whack away at them until he
was covered in gore and viscera. Yeah, James was a real party animal.

I,
however, chose the stealth method. As James launched on his one man crusade, I
snuck around the stores, grabbed what we needed and slipped back into the
shadows until James was done. After doing this a few times, we got proficient.
We were able to get new cloths, hiking boots, food, weapons, and ammunition.

In
some small, isolated town on the edge of California, we even found a truck that
had smashed into the a local National Guard Armory. Inside was everything we could
hope for. Guns, ammunition, fully automated rifles, grenades, claymores, night
vision gear, helmets, you name it. It was a toy store for the Apocalypse.

There
was also tons of body armor. I stuck to the arm and leg gauntlets but James
went all out and dressed himself from head to toe in the stuff. He looked
ridiculous. I wanted to ask him if the dead were likely to shoot at him but he
had the dead look in his eyes again so I kept my mouth shut. We left the large
explosives and rocket launchers. There were useless against the dead. I did
however grab a package of small square shaped claymores; a small, powerful
antipersonnel mine. Later that night I’d read the instructions about placing
the claymore face out, the sticky side to the wall. After you stuck it to the
wall and little laser trip sensor came on and the next thing that broke the
laser line was turned into paste. I thought they might come in handy as booby
traps so I kept them. James laughed at me, called my Sargent Slaughter and
James Bond. Said I’d just blow my dick off.
 
I just shrugged and tucked them in the outer pocket of my pack. Then I
snuck a few grenades into my pack as James crawled out of the armory. I don’t
know why I did that. Maye just to have them. Maybe I already knew I’d be using
them against living humans.

On
the way out, I found silencers for my handguns and our rifles. These were
industrial grade and meant to last. Of all the gear we pulled out of the
armory, I think these saved our lives the most times. That night I cut down a piece
of chest armor and fitted it around my neck. Now as long as I didn’t let a
bunch of them corner or overwhelm me,
 
I
should be safe from their bites.

On our way back
to the highway, we stopped at a sporting goods store and swapped out our old,
battered packs for new ones, James picked out some knives, while I hunted down
a pair of goggles. Sun glasses were great but had a tendency to fall off when
you were running. The goggles I found were polarized and comfortable. They also
didn’t fog up or slip down my nose when I sweated. James laughed as I put them
on but after a few minutes, grabbed a pair of his own. Next to the sporting
goods shop was a liquor store. I could see James’s eyes light up, “Wait here,”
he said.

I
waited, watching the street around me, repacking my stuff but ready to make a
break for it. Down the street I could see three of the dead milling about. A
fourth one rounded the corner. A female, maybe sixteen when the epidemic struck
and she was bitten. And not nearly rotted enough to slow her down. This one was
trouble. I could tell by the quick way it moved, by the way it rotated its head
around. It wasn’t a fresh kill, not full a sprinter anymore, but one that still
had that weird radar in its head. And it knew we were close.

I
could hear James smashing about the liquor store inside. Every few seconds he’s
smash something and yell, “Hidee ho!” The dead girl was getting closer. She
hadn’t locked in on me and James but she would in just a few minutes.

I
finished packing up my gear, then edged back into the alley between the stores.
I checked to make sure the alley was empty. It wouldn’t be any fun to back into
the pack of shufflers.

I
crept deeper back into the alley and looked for a drainage pipe. I’d learned
that these things could be scaled up with practice. And we’d practiced a lot so
before she got any closer, I climbed up the drain spout, flopped myself over
the edge, and lay flat on the roof top. I checked my surrounding and to ensure
it was clear of shufflers and seeing none peeked over the low wall to see what
the dead girl was doing.