The Loss (Zombie Ocean Book 4) (20 page)

But we can't crash through seven.

We're going to collide head on; not a squeak or a scrape but an explosion. My mouth goes dry. It doesn't take a genius to see the way this will play out. Their massive, indestructible bodies will smash the first few RVs off the road, and the others will crash and pile up behind them like a Hollywood chase scene. Our tight formation will work against us. Metal will squeal and buckle, sparks will scrape off the raspy road, glass will shatter and the demons will stalk amongst the wreckage plucking out bodies to ravage.

It'll be a massacre.

One or two demons, maybe we could bull through. Not seven though. We're all going to die.

The decision takes seconds to make and I make it without telling a soul, because there isn't time.

"Ravi and Tomas, drive on!" I call into the radio. "Lara you're with me on the left."

Then I lean over Chantelle and pull the wheel hard to the left. The RV swerves so hard it almost tips, then jumps off the edge of the road onto the rubbly, uneven desert scrub with a thump, coughing up thick bursts of dust to either side. The speedometer drops rapidly to eighty then seventy as the chassis thumps and judders, taking hits to the suspension and wheels it was never designed for. Under the onslaught Chantelle yanks control of the wheel back.

"What the hell?" she shouts, echoed by cries from both Ravi and Tomas in the rank behind, now in the convoy lead. She tries to pull the wheel to the right and get us back on track but I put a hand on her shoulder and she stops.

"Dead ahead, Chantelle," I tell her, "you understand?"

She looks at me and she understands. "We're going to charge them."

"We are." I allow myself a glance back in the side mirror to see our beige and white convoy tearing along the road. A second later Lara's RV peels off from the back and I send up a prayer of thanks.

"Ravi and Tomas take the convoy ahead," I call over the deafening thump and rattle of the RV racing on the scrub. "You know what to do if I don't come back. Lara you're on me, you see what I'm thinking."

"I see," she shouts back, "I wish you'd given us more warning."

I see her in the rearview mirror now, her dark face at the wheel in the midst of a wide contrail of dust spat up all around her, features set and determined.

"Needs must," I answer, and turn my attention to the open scrub ahead, as Chantelle swerves around craggy reefs of red rock rising like sharks' fins through the sand. The demons are damn close already, as big as tight ends and charging right at me. I'm charging at them.

Screw them. These are the ones that killed my best friend. They're not going to kill my people.

I start back down the RV's aisle while calling out instructions to Chantelle.

"In twenty seconds you're going to stop," I shout, as I fumble in one of the shaking cupboards. More zip-ties tumble out, followed by purple and orange shell cases, rations, an oilcan, until I set my hand on the rack of smooth fat detonator nails. Thank God I took the time to program them already.

I grab one and snatch up a box cutter with the other hand, slide the blade out and lurch to the first plastic crate. I flip the lid off, and just then the cold in my chest suddenly stabs more sharply, and Lucy by my side starts to wail like a siren.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I feel the demons' need reaching out across the distance, like a snake mesmerizing its prey. It sucks at my thoughts and almost freezes me solid, but I've started and momentum carries me through. 

I slash the explosives' outer plastic wrap and peel it away, revealing the tender purple plastic explosive beneath it. Good at two thousand feet deep, guaranteed for twenty years, good to use now.

"Stop now!" I shout at Chantelle and she slams on the brakes right in the path of the demons, tossing me off-balance and sliding the crates a few inches forward, toppling one noisily at the back. I grab the crate and recover. The demons must be half a minute away. "Get Lucy and we go."

I plunge the smooth fat detonator nail, comprised of a primary explosive, accelerant and receiver into the purple explosive and flick the switch on top so it blinks red.

The RV grinds to a skidding halt that turfs up a thick wall of dust ahead, blocking any vision of the incoming demons. Chantelle muscles by me, grabs the box cutter and slices Lucy free of her zip-ties while I dash forward for the radio. She kicks the door open and we pile out together, staggering and coughing in the dust.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, Lucy wails.

"This way," I shout, catching a glimpse of white that must be Lara's RV through the billowing storm of dust. We run, and the freezing need in my mind grows irresistible, a siren call demanding I turn and run the other way. My legs become heavy and I look down at the radio in my hands and forget why I have it. I look over and find Chantelle has stopped moving, even Lucy is no longer wailing, they're both just frozen as the dust billows over them. Momentum abandons me and I too forget to run.

In that vapid, overwhelmed state I watch the demons sprint out of the dust, almost on my RV. They are huge and muscular, long-limbed as aliens with great red heads and sunken features. Their black hole mouths reach in to unstoppable cores. In a way they are beautiful, and I marvel at their strength and fury. No wonder they deserve to inherit the Earth, no wonder we are all bound to bend the knee and open the mouth before them. Seeing them so close makes me I feel like I'm ready now, to join their evolution and remake the world. I open my arms to welcome them in, with popcorn and soda for all.

"Amo, what the hell are you doing?" crackles the thing in my hand. I'm not sure whose voice it is or why it's coming out of my hand. Chantelle is walking back towards the RV now, holding a woman over her shoulder whose eyes catch mine and look thankful. She's thankful at the last and I understand why, because the fear is finally over and she has accepted her fate.

My head spins and my heart thumps. I think of my brother Aaron, so long since I've remembered his name, and how he died in a collision with a car just outside our house. He'd been so brave, always teaching me how to be a better man, and then he was just gone. Whatever lesson I took from that was wrong, because it led me here, and resisting against this is futile.

We can only bend and give way. It's all right. In a way all of these are my children anyway.

"I'm coming, Aaron," I whisper, as tears roll down my cold cheeks. "I'm coming."

"Amo!" screams the thing in my hand, while the first of them races past the RV, closing on Chantelle and Lucy. The cold has me in its grip like a fist, wrapped up as tight as Lucy's feet in their zip-tie padding, but something about that voice breaks through. It's a beautiful woman in a New York coffee shop, leaning over my shoulder and asking about zombies. It's a strong companion who finds me bleeding in the road and saves me, when I knew I was gone. It's a stunning, resourceful wife who gives me reason to live, who bore my children and loves them just as she loves me, who always deserves more.

Her name pops like a bubble in my head, breaking the spell. Lara. Vie and Talia follow, driving the cold back far enough for me to breathe.

I lift the radio before me, struggling to remember. I flip the dial on the radio, catch the correct frequency on the second go round and punch the big red button.

BOOOM 

The first explosion is the initial crate blowing as the detonator bursts, and-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

-the second is the chain reaction as all the crates in the RV, enough to level a whole city block or dig up an underground bunker, explodes. The blast starts close up and ends far away, blown into the depths of my eyes while I'm tumbling through the air then rolling over the abrasive sandpaper floor.

It was so loud I didn't really hear it at all.

I blink and there's fire, smoke and sand all around. The desert is on fire and my ears are hot and the sand in my mouth matches the hammering pain in my chest. I get to my wavering, wobbling feet, and still all I can see is dust and fire rising in a rolling ball into the sky, like a mushroom cloud. I look around. There's a radio in my hand fizzling but I can't hear a word it says. Did bodies fly through the air? Where are Chantelle and Lucy?

Then I see him.

He flows through the dust like oil, striding out of the explosion untouched. Dust furls either side of him like curtains on a stage, unblemished and vast and red. He is beautiful in his way, and his cold reaches out to gather me in, this thing that killed my best friend.

I've used all my explosives, and now there is nothing I can do. He'll be on me in seconds. In the past I laid down and let the zombies take me, but this is nothing like that. Now I have children, a wife, a family of fifty-three and I can't let any harm befall them, nor do any harm to them myself.

I snatch up the gun at my waist and bring it to my throat, flick the safety and-

BOOOOOM

There's a flicker of movement from the right as a rocket splits the distance between us and strikes the demon square in the chest. The burst throws him back, spinning into the ground and cartwheeling end over end into the burning crater where my RV was, while I am knocked again on my ass. The clouds bloom out and up like faces mouthing empty apologies, and afterimages of the blast only yards away replay across the dark in my eyes.

I see Anna in there and Cerulean in the smoke, and I want to bury their apologies with my own.

Then there are hands on my arms. I look up and see Lara, my beautiful Lara, and start to cry.

"Come on," she shouts, though I don't hear a thing, only see her mouth moving up and down. She drags me up and I stumble dizzily after.

"Chantelle," I say, "Lucy."

"Too close," Lara shouts back, "come on."

We run and stumble over the scrub, while the cold from behind begins again, like an air conditioner suddenly turning on.

Lara yanks at my arm, and I realize I've stopped and am staring into the dust, waiting, but there's nothing to wait for. No Chantelle, no Lucy, and the others? I know there were others, but they're not coming.

Lara takes my face in her hands and looks in my eyes. "No more," she says enunciating so clearly I can't misunderstand. "They're gone."

Then we're running again, and I see Lara's RV lights, shining white through the dust. Nearby there's Olly with the RPG on his shoulder, staring watchfully behind us. "Hurry up, come on," he hisses.

I let Lara bundle me into the vehicle. The engine revs and jerks us away as soon as I'm on board, smacking me against the entrance well wall. My head is spinning and I'm dizzy, there's a high whine in my ears and sparks flash in my eyes.

Lara presses something cold into my hand; a bottle of water. "Drink it," she says, or at least she mouths it, because I can't hear anything. I try to unscrew the cap but my fingers are too weak, smeared with some kind of oily dust. She does it for me and I take a swig as the RV bounces and flails over the desert floor and out of the dust.

Cold water gets my throat working again, and I cough sand for a few hacking seconds. Lara presses a disinfectant wipe to my head and it comes away bright vermilion.

"Shit," she hisses and I feel like laughing.

"I just have to," I mumble and stumble past her, into the aisle of the RV.

Through the windshield ahead there's the spread of desert and the black ribbon of road, blurry through my teary eyes. On the road in the distance there's the convoy, I can't count them they're so far, but it's a solid arrow of white and beige racing away.

Good. That's good.

Then I see the one on the ground, on its side by the edge of the black road, wheels spinning, scored with black burn marks where it rolled on the asphalt, dented and crumpled where the demon struck.

The chill comes back.

I see the demon, standing in the middle of the vehicle's torn side wall, a huge red thing rummaging in the RV's guts like a coyote digging for the antelope's heart. We're racing by him and he looks up as we draw near. In his hand he's got someone, jerking faintly, I think it must be…

Ozark.

My lungs feel like they're collapsing. No more, I want to shout, but the demon won't listen.

"Olly get to the gun slot," I slur, as loud and as clear as I can. Blood drips down my face and slaps off the front seat on Jasmine's shoulder.

I turn and see Olly standing there, transfixed. I sure as hell can't do it.

"Now!" I shout, "get to the slot."

He moves. Lara loads the next rocket for him. His arms are trembling but that's OK, it's a big target this time.

"Pull us broadside," I tell Jasmine, like a pirate captain in the age of sail, and she does. We have a window of seconds only. Perhaps I see Ozark's eyes widen as the demon hunches over and forces his jaws open. Poor, poor bastard. I have to believe he sees us, and knows we wouldn't leave him like this. We can't save him now, but we can-

"Fire!" I shout.

The rocket whizzes out on a string of smoke, hits the RV right in the wreckage hole, and the resultant explosion catches the gas stores and becomes huge.

BOOM BOOOOOOOM

Fire balls upward, the demon is set alight, and Ozark and any of his patients left behind are blown to bits.

Dead. We shake and rattle by.

I sag against Jasmine. I track the blazing wreck through the side window and round until it appears in the back window as we turn, then look beyond it to the great bonfire further out in the desert, a Burning Man-like inferno dug into a crater in the sand.

All our explosives are gone, leaving a hollow pit in my head. I don't have any plans left. Worst of all, I can feel them out there still, great bodies full of freezing need, picking themselves up, unhurt and ready to follow us to the end of the Earth. Maybe I can see the first of them peel out of the flames, its body blackened and undamaged, then my knees give out and Lara catches me, guides me back to one of the booths, where I lie down, vomit, and start to shake uncontrollably.

Lara is there throughout. She tears strips of bitter-smelling bandaging apart and slaps them on my shoulder and chest, she injects a needle into my arm, she binds my head with tight white fabric.