Zombie Ever After (14 page)

Except for the zombies clustered around the vehicle like paparazzi.

“Well, this is inconvenient,” Donovan said, slowing to a walk. “How do we get— ”
 

He shut up then and watched. For some reason, the zombies started moving backward, down the street, away from the car. They retreated like an outflanked army of the undead.

Donovan turned around and scanned ATELIC Industries, or what was left of its burned-up buildings. He saw nothing. No cops. No Humvees. No rushing mob of enraged zombie killers. He looked back at the pack of the undead. They were still shuffling backward, moon-walking off toward the horizon. Some had turned, heading away at high speed, at least for zombies. All of a sudden, Donovan understood: the undead were fleeing from Cathren.

“They sense you,” he said.

“What?”
 

“I think they somehow sense you’re different. Your reputation precedes you.”
 

“I don’t have a reputation, thanks.”
 

“No, no. That’s not what I meant. They’re picking up a bad vibe—bad for them anyway. You must be giving it off. They sense it like prey senses a predator.”
 

“That’s funny, though. If they attacked, I wouldn’t be able to do a thing. I’m an ordinary, defenseless human. Just like you.”

“Thanks for that.”

“I meant I’m not a zombie slayer. If the undead only knew that. I can’t switch it on or off; the morphing just happens. They could turn around right now and attack us, eat us alive, and I couldn’t do anything to stop them. I haven’t morphed yet, right?”
 

“Yeah, but I may have an idea why,” Donovan said. “I believe it’s something to do with your emotions. You don’t feel threatened. They ran away before you had a chance to register fear. You know?”

“Hmmm. I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“Okay, I’m guessing here, but I think you morph because of hormones. Like the Hulk, you know? In your case, triggered by primal fear, not rage. I’m trying to remember, does the brain release adrenaline when fearful?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“That might do the trick, then,” he said.

“Yeah, perhaps my hypothalamus changed somehow when the thawed head bit me,” Cathren said, scratching her head.

“What’s this, now?”
 

“Hypothalamus,” Cathren said. “It’s the part of your brain where your fight or flight response things are located. Primal fear.” She stopped scratching and pointed at the middle of her head, above her ear. “It works with the pituitary gland to release hormones, like adrenaline, like you said.” She slid her finger slightly lower. “Let’s not forget the amygdala, though. Jeez, didn’t you pay attention in bio?”
 

Donovan laughed. “You’re full of surprises. Let’s just say yes, I attended all my classes. Paid attention in every one of them? Nope. You’re obviously one of the rare breed of people who actually learned something in school. Incredible.” He gave her a quick, one-armed hug.

Cathren chuckled. “Well, what I’m saying is maybe my body is circulating something other than adrenaline. Other chemicals in the body.” She rubbed her neck. “
Unknown
chemicals.”
 

They walked toward the car slowly, still wary the zombies might suddenly attack.

“Yours is as good an explanation as any,” Donovan continued. He stopped with his hand on the door handle. “There’s something else, though. My guess is whatever mutant chemical squirted into your blood stream might also have changed your scent. Your pheromones, I think they’re called. You know. That ‘come hither’ scent that keeps the species going.”

“Yeah, I know what it is. But in my case I think it’s more ‘go thither,’” Cathren said, laughing. She gave Donovan a small shove to get him moving. They climbed into the car and Donovan started it up.

“Where to, Buffy?” he said. “Although it’s not looking as if any place nearby is safe anymore. There’s been—what’s the word?—an exponential increase in the undead. As predicted.”
 

“I have no idea where we should go,” Cathren said. She surveyed the zombies twisting around and slinking their way back. “But I suggest we get there fast.” She snapped her buckle shut. “And don’t call me Buffy again. Ever.”

“What about Ripley? Or Alice?”

Cathren made a face. “Just drive, wiseass.”

Donovan’s big plan was for them to escape, to drive out of town, and never look back. When they got to the interstate, he zoomed onto the on-ramp. Halfway down, he realized the highway wasn’t the same highway of even a couple of days ago. Lots of cars and trucks, just like before. But now, these vehicles were empty, abandoned, and along both sides of the throughway, the undead crawled and crept like scavengers in a dump. They had killed everything in sight. They created more dead, thereby creating more undead. The “regulars”—the walking, talking, living humans—were becoming seriously outnumbered.
 

It was clear to Donovan: the highway to hell was ahead of them. He stopped and jerked the car into reverse. He began to back his way up the on-ramp of horrors. Some jerk behind them honked his horn about ten times in a row. Donovan stomped on his brakes. Really, asshole? He slapped the vehicle back into drive and guided it down the ramp. He pulled over onto grass and waved the guy on.

As the beeping driver roared by, he gave Donovan the finger. Donovan didn’t bother to respond. On any other occasion, flipping the bird in return would have been a reflexive act for Donovan. This time was different, however. He knew that, unless the guy turned around right now, there was no need to tell him to go fuck himself. He was already screwed.

Donovan shoved the car into reverse and started back up the on-ramp again. He roared up the incline at 50 mph, spinning the car 180 degrees when he reached the top. He wasn’t letting any more jerks get behind him and block their escape route. He shifted into drive, but kept his foot on the brake. Both he and Cathren gazed back down at the interstate. The car that passed them was stopped now, motor still running, covered by swarming legions of zombies. They yanked the man out of the car. Instinctively, Cathren and Donovan looked away.
 

“My God,” Cathren gasped.

Donovan stepped on the accelerator, wheels spinning, and released the brake. The pair headed down the lane in a cloud of burning rubber. From then on, they stuck to driving the back roads. They wouldn’t be able to travel as fast as they might on the interstate, but at least they were moving. And staying far away from zombies. The towns they traveled through were almost completely empty. Of living humans, that is. They were, on the other hand, filled with corpses. Corpses too fresh or too torn apart to become zombies. The usual abandoned cars and trucks—even a few motorcycles—littered the roadways. But no zombies, at least as far as they could tell.
 

As they drove between the small towns, they detected movement occasionally. Through the windows of some of the houses, they’d spy them: A shadowy figure here, an indistinct entity there. Not dead, not alive. Simply moving out of view, ghostlike, as the two drove by. The weary sun began to set in the drizzly sky. Donovan and Cathren were both tired and hungry. The problem was, Donovan hadn’t seen anywhere yet that felt like a good place to stop. That’s when he heard a
ding!
 

“What was that?” Donovan said. He checked around the car, trying to find the source of the sound. He looked at Cathren. She shrugged.
 

Donovan studied the dashboard. He sighed. Of course: they were almost out of gas.

In a zombie apocalypse, you
never
want to run out of gas.

With each town they drove through after his Idiot Light went on, Donovan kept his eyes peeled for a gas station. It didn’t take long to find one—an abandoned BP about fifteen miles or so after they’d started looking.
 

Donovan pulled up anxiously, checking the scene for traces of the undead. As was true everywhere, there were plenty chewed-up, bloody dead bodies. None appeared to be reanimated. Not yet, at any rate. Donovan reckoned it was safe to get out and pump some gas. As safe as it was ever going to be.

He pulled up as close as he could to one of the pumps. To get there, however, he had to bounce over a few cadavers that blocked his way. Squishy speed bumps.
 

“
Ewww,
yuck,” Cathren said.

For better or worse, Donovan didn’t consider the bodies as former human beings as he drove over them. Just future undeadniks. It was easier not to care if he didn’t see them as human beings. Zombies were flesh-eating scum, and definitely not his kind of people.

He stepped out of the car, spun the gas cap off, and tossed it on top of the pump. He snatched the hose, inserted it in the tank, and selected high performance gasoline. What the hell, why not? The pump still required money, however, which struck Donovan as odd.
 

He took out his wallet and fed his debit card into the slot. The machine welcomed him with a text message asking if he knew they had snacks inside. Donovan did, but appreciated being reminded. The gas started pumping, and he stepped over to the open car door.
 

Leaning in, he said, “Hey, I’m going in to grab a snack. Want anything?”

“Let me come with you.”

“No, you’re too weak. I don’t want you in jeopardy if any of them, you know, the dead—find us. We can’t assume that you are at full strength. Or, for that matter, that you’ll even change.”

“Well, the last time we came in contact with them, at ATELIC’s underground headquarters, they seemed afraid of me.”

“Yeah, but how do we know that wasn’t just a freak occurrence?”

“I guess you’re right. Plus, we’ll only be here for five minutes. What could possibly happen?”

“Exactly. So, do you want anything?”

“I’ll just have some of whatever you’re getting. But please hurry back. Coast looks clear, but you never know.”

“Okay, be back in a sec. Lock yourself in, just in case. And keep an eye out, Okay?”
 

“Sure,” Cathren said.
 

Donovan slammed the door shut and heard the lock thump into place. He glanced over at the spinning digits. Around ten dollars’ worth of gas had pumped already. They had a ways to go to a full tank. He went inside.
 

Corpses were strewn about. The place reeked of death and rot and all things unnatural. Which reminded him: they had hot dogs. Donovan grabbed some buns out of the warmer and hot dogs of the little rollers. He snatched a couple of sodas and a six pack (for when they rested, if such a moment ever came). He walked back out through the automatic doors.

Funny that no matter how bad things were, the day had started out so promising. Donovan had warm food, cold drinks, and a full tank.
 

Unfortunately, the car with that full tank was currently covered by flesh-craving zombies.
 

In seconds, the windows would start breaking. Donovan dropped everything and yelped. It caught their attention, all right. Which was just what he’d intended.
 

The undead turned and fixed on him like a pack of scaly hyenas. Some began their relentless shuffle toward him. Others kept on with the business at hand of breaking into the car like seagulls at a clamshell.
 

Donovan reached for his wallet and rushed inside. At the cash register, he grabbed a couple of lighters. Back outside again, he ran to the nearest pump. He swiped his card, selected Regular, and started spraying gasoline at the writhing mass of zombies. The gas, which would have stopped most normal people, had no effect on these guys.
 

Once Donovan felt the zombies were both sufficiently soaked and in dangerous proximity, he hung the hose back up. Flicking a lighter on and thumb-rolling the flame up high, he tossed it onto a small pool of gas. A loud
whoosh
ripped an inferno from the puddle, across the lot, and onto the zombies. Clouds of black smoke filled the air. The undead shrieked, and the stench of their burning flesh seared Donovan’s nostrils and throat. He coughed and stepped backward, his hand at his mouth. He watched as they became zombie torches, engulfed in intense flames. But he couldn’t believe his eyes. Astoundingly, they still kept coming at him, fiery arms outstretched.

“Shit,” he said. He thought the problem would have been handled by setting the undead ablaze. Not so. He dashed around them, hand still on his mouth, giving the zombies and the roaring flames wide berth. He headed back to the car, where he hoped Cathren remained safely locked within.

The zombie mob on the car pummeled the windows, growling, moaning. Their drool slid down the glass, thick as snot. A couple held squeegees, which they smacked against the windshield like hammers. They looked like nightmare versions of those guys who jump out at red lights in cities for “tips.”
 

The undead were too busy to notice Donovan. He turned to see what the other zombies, the ones in flames, were doing. Most had fallen to the ground now, charred and smoking. Others teetered off course, staggering about the gas station in random directions. But others still came for him.

Nonetheless, Donovan made the determination that the gasoline trick was their best defense right now. He wondered, briefly, if the flames and climbing plumes of smoke signaled other zombies to head their way. He didn’t care. He refocused on the current zombie problem, not some speculative future one.

Donovan swiped his card yet again. He pulled out the hose and was ready to start praying and spraying when one of the undead hit him hard. Donovan fell next to the small lagoon of gasoline he had managed to create before being struck. He rolled away, knowing he needed to get up—and fast. But he reacted too slowly, stunned by the blow. All around him, the moaning, creeping undead descended, their stink and noises filling the air. They hovered, seconds from feasting on him.

The circle of zombies tightened like a decaying, grotesque noose. And Donovan had nowhere to run.

The crushing, scratching blows landed on him like falling stones. He rolled away from the hits, only to receive more from a new direction. The zombies surrounded him—ten, twenty, thirty. He couldn’t count them all. They moved upon him suddenly, dropping on him like a fishing net of undead. Now the biting would start. The gnawing of flesh, the ripping of skin, the shark-attack frenzy as they tore him apart alive. He closed his eyes to wait for the end. But not before he saw red spurt in the air. Heard the screaming. Felt the death. Only none of this affected him because it was going on around him.