Zombie Fighter Jango #1 The Road to Hell Is Paved With Zombies (10 page)

Chapter
16:

Fire Kills Everything

When the fragments of his mind
reintegrated with him, Jango felt a sense of oneness that he had never known before. He had always felt like a part of him was missing. He had that hole inside of him that every person with Borderline Personality Disorder had. The children of abuse all ended up with that hole inside, though to differing degrees. Child abuse was a splinter that festered deeply in the mind of an abused child, and that splinter would become a worm if the child didn’t get help and support. The worm that abuse left behind would eat a hole into the psyche of a child; a hole that would stay with them forever. Some would try to fill the hole with drugs, sex, self-abuse and self-mutilation, or even suicide. Jango had tried all of those different paths, and never once felt whole; now he did.

Jango felt around in his mind, and couldn’t pinpoint anything different. That was because EVERYTHING was different.
He was complete for the first time in his life.

He
took stock of his surroundings again, and with his mind finally fully intact, he made a plan in only a few seconds.

He walked
quickly back to Sonja where she lay, unmoving, on the ground. He knelt beside her and felt her neck for a pulse. He found her pulse; it was feathery and soft, but steady. Jango sighed in relief, and stood up.

He
knew the only way to get out of there was in the vehicle. He also knew that even the powerful looking motor home couldn’t drive through the press of the thousands of zombies that now encircled the fenced lot.

Jango only saw one way out; fire. Without a moment’s hesitation,
he sprang into action. He scooped Sonja off the ground, backpack and all, and climbed into the open door of the camper with her in his arms. He quickly laid her on the bed he found at the rear of the space, and then jumped back out of the vehicle.

Jango went to the driver’s side door, and opened it, relieved to find the key in the ignition. He
hadn’t been looking forward to having to search the zombie’s pockets for the key.

He
started the engine, which turned over immediately with a loud, powerful growl, then settled into a strong sounding purr. Jango put it in reverse, and backed it away from the large gas tank. He made sure to put plenty of space between the vehicle and the tank.

He put
the gearshift into park, and left the vehicle running as he ran around to the rear of the camper. Jango grabbed one of the five-gallon gas cans from behind the vehicle, unscrewed the cap, and picked it up as if it weighed nothing. He took a running start at the fence closest to the large gas tank. When he was about ten feet away from the fence, he turned his left shoulder forward, and let the can trail behind him in his right hand. Then, with a powerful surge, he flung the can over the ten-foot high razor-wire topped fence. The can arched over the fence with several feet to spare. For a split second, Jango marveled at his strength as he paused to see the results of his throw.

The zombies
had become so pressed together, and their numbers so great, that the gas can landed on the screaming, moaning mass of writhing bodies and crowd-surfed slowly on their heads as it “glug-glugged” it’s flammable contents onto the zombies below.

Satisfied that
his plan would work, he quickly repeated his actions with three more cans, spreading them out among the crowd of zombies for maximum coverage. When he finished tossing the cans, Jango turned to the large storage tank of gasoline. He knew that time was running out. The pressing weight of the zombie’s had bowed the strong fence far inward, and he knew that they were going to break through at any moment.

Moving faster, ever faster, Jango grabbed the pump handle from the tank, and ran toward the fence. He took the gas hose to its full extent, and depressed the handle. A long arc of clear liquid shot out almost twenty feet,
and covered the keening creatures in gasoline. He focused the stream of fuel on the zombies nearest the building.

He
hosed them down for a few more moments, then let go of the handle and dropped it. He knelt near the fence, and pulled the ferro-rod from his pocket. He swiftly scraped the back of it to get some magnesium shavings in a small pile on the edge of the slowly spreading pool of gasoline, and then hit the rod several times with the steel striker in a sharp, downward motion.

Sparks flew from the
ferro-rod, and ignited the magnesium, which in turn, ignited the massive amount of gasoline among the moaning, un-dead horde. The gasoline ignited with a whooomph that sucked all the air away from him. The fire spread quickly, flaring up in small explosions when it reached the gas cans that Jango had thrown.

He
cheered inwardly as he saw the burning figures of the zombies stumbling around as the rest of the horde drew back from the fire. He could hardly believe it! The zombies were afraid of fire. He filed the information away for later use, ran back to the idling motor home, and jumped into the driver’s seat.

He watched intently through the front windshield as a huge area
directly in front of him became mostly cleared of goobers. The flames still danced along the ground, less than a foot tall, but apparently, enough to keep the un-dead at bay. He felt a dark, vicious joy rise within him as he watched the burning zombies stumble into each other, and then fall as the heat of the fire destroyed them as effectively as a bullet to the brain would have.

He
knew he would never have a better chance to get out of there; he put the vehicle in gear, and stepped on the accelerator. The huge motor roared as the camper shot forward, crushing the fence to the ground. Jango slewed across the dying flames and the corpses that littered the still burning ground, slowed, then turned left around the corner of the building and accelerated once he saw the way was clear.

Jango drove through the now deserted front parking lot
, and stopped when he reached the main road. He knew that if he went left, he could make his way north. Highway 89 led to woods, water, and some semblance of safety for Sonja and him. He knew that there would be fewer zombies if he went to a place that had fewer people to begin with. Without any more thought, he turned left and drove toward whatever the future might have in store for him.

Chapter
17:

On The Road

As Jango drove, he kept his eyes sharp
, watching for anything out of the ordinary or threatening. He dismissed the signs along the way, not even caring what information they might hold. The names of campgrounds, hiking trails, and convenience stores meant very little to him. All he wanted was to keep moving until he was somewhere safe. He knew that the 89 went all the way north to I-40 which would take him west. He would slowly make his way north from there.

He
noticed a lake on his right. It was called Watson Lake, and it had a large mobile home park beside the lake. What really caught his attention were the zombies who were running out of the park, probably attracted by the sound of the motor as he drove by. Jango accelerated, and he continued glancing in the passenger side mirror long after the zombies were out of sight.

The pristine barrenness of the road was
intermittently marred by the unmoving forms of abandoned and wrecked vehicles on the sides of the two-lane road. Jango was glad that the cars, trucks, and SUVs had been wrecked and/or abandoned on the SIDES of the road rather than the middle of the road.

The scenery was mostly short, desert scrub made up of Creosote, Mesquite, and the hard, twisted Juniper trees that seemed to thrive in the
thin topsoil of the rock covered wasteland.

As he drove, Jango saw
fewer and fewer zombies. He felt his shoulders loosen a little bit, and he took a long breath. He thought to himself, “Maybe we can make it!”

That thought brought back the reality of Sonja’s situation, and
he felt tears begin coursing down his face. At that moment, he would have gladly given his own life so that Sonja could live. He had never had a friend before; he had never felt safe in the presence of any human being before Sonja. And even though they had only just met, he could not envision a world without her in it.

Jango slowed the vehicle, his eyes roving, looking for any threats. Finding no signs of movement outside the camper,
he brought it to a stop in the center of the road. He took a long look in the side view mirror, and still saw nothing.

Getting up from his seat, Jango made his way back to where Sonja lay on the bed, partially propped up by the pack that was still on her back.
He put his arm around her shoulders gently, and leaned her forward. He slid her pack off of her, and slowly lowered her back to the bed.

He checked her shoulder,
and saw that the edges of her wound looked gray and inflamed. He decided that her wound needed more antibiotics. He rooted around in Sonja’s pack until he found what he wanted. He pulled out the erythromycin she had stashed in there. He opened the bottle and dumped a few into his hand. He chewed them into a paste and, again smeared the bite liberally with it.

She
stirred at his touch, and her eyes fluttered open. Jango was almost unable to look at her eyes, scared that they would be the milky shade of a zombie’s eyes.

When he finally looked, he saw that
Sonja’s eyes were the same beautiful lavender color as before, though dimmed by pain and sickness. He sobbed out loud in relief, and reached for her hand.

“Jango,”
she said in a weak, dry sounding voice, “are we alive?”

He smiled at her then, a huge and genuine smile as he
said, “Hell YES we are, baby!”

He
noticed that her voice sounded scratchy, and that her lips looked dry. He quickly took the smaller bottle of water from her pack, and sat her up enough to help her drink. She took several small sips of water, her throat working hard as she swallowed.  “Mmmmm,” she moaned, “That water tastes SO good!”

Jango debated
about giving her another dose of the PEP cocktail, but thought that he should get her to eat some food first. He got one arm under her legs, his other under her shoulders, and lifted her to the head of the bed so she would be in a sitting position.

“Does
that bite hurt?” He asked as he took some beef jerky and chocolate out of Sonja’s pack.

Her
hand went to her injured shoulder, and she winced. “Yeah, a little bit. It sort of aches inside; a really deep ache that I can feel all the way to the bone.”

Jango nodded, that was normal for a bite. He knew that from experience.
A dog had bitten him when he was a kid, and it didn’t hurt like a cut. It had left a bone deep ache that took more than a week to go away.

“Do you think you can eat a little food?”
He asked her. “That way, you can take some more pills, including morphine, if you want it.”

Sonja’s stomach suddenly growled, “Grrrr-gloop!” She grinned weakly
. “Yeah, I think I can eat a little something.”

Jango sat beside her, and gave her a small square of chocolate.
She took it, popped it in her mouth, and chewed slowly. “Uhnnnngg,” she moaned, with her eyes closed as she chewed, then swallowed the small, sweet morsel. “That was even better than sex,” she said with a small laugh, already sounding a little stronger.

Encouraged,
he offered her a small piece of jerky. She took it, but when she tried to chew it, she groaned, this time in pain.

“What, what?” Jango asked her, now worried again.

Sonja took the piece of dried meat out of her mouth and said, “My damn jaw hurts BAD!”

He flashed back on the zombie bearing her to the ground, and remembered how the zombie’s head had slammed into her chin when they hit the ground. When he remembered that, he was surprised she had not been hurt worse in the fall. Her martial arts training had served her as she instinctively went loose to absorb the impact.

He thought about the need for her to eat, especially calories and protein. The calories were no problem
. It looked like she could eat chocolate all day, but the protein was another matter. He looked at the piece of meat in her hand, then took it in his own hand, and put it in his mouth.

He
chewed the dry meat until it was rendered into a soft paste. He took it out of his mouth and said, “You really need protein. You might get sick if you don’t get eating right away. We got lucky, REAL lucky, but we better not push it.”

Sonja looked at
him, and his offering of chewed meat. Her eyes were wet with tears as she said in a soft voice, “You were supposed to kill me, Jango.”

He
looked down, then away as he felt his own eyes become hot as they filled with tears. He said, “Yeah, I was going to, but you know, you had all the extra socks.” As soon as the words left his mouth, the tears broke loose from his eyes, and began rolling down his face as he cried silently.

His eyes blurred by the tears,
he saw Sonja reach out and take the ball of moist, well-chewed jerky from his hand. He heard her chew it a few times, and then swallow it.

Neither of them spoke as Jango continued feeding her the same way, alternating between chocolate, sips of water, and the pre-chewed meat.

“I am getting pretty full,” she said a little later. Jango closed the bag of jerky, re-wrapped the chocolate, and then safely stowed then in her bag.

He
gave her another dose of the three-pill PEP cocktail, giving her a single dose this time. “Do you want any morphine?”  He asked. “Because, if it hurts, it might keep you from sleeping, and you need to sleep to heal.”

Sonja shook her head and yawned, “I don’t think that will be a problem
. I can hardly keep my eyes open as it is.” She smiled as Jango leaned down and kissed her tenderly on her forehead. He held her hand until she fell asleep.