The heat became unbearable and forced us to move to some intermittent shade closer to the line of buildings as we progressed block by block, heading south on the northbound side of a divided highway. I tried not to suck down all my water, but I was constantly thirsty. The glaring sun blinded me and I kept scanning businesses along the street for a place I might find sunglasses. Distant pillars of thick smoke rose against the bright blue sky in a beacon to the city, much of which appeared to be smoldering. And the blue sky was turning black as we edged closer.
We reached another abandoned traffic jam near a small corner restaurant called “The Chicken Pit.” A fire truck and a couple of other emergency vehicles—lights and sirens silent—parked at the corner, forcing us to detour around. The fire truck’s hoses extended from their beds on the truck like off-white tentacles. The Chicken Pit’s front windows were blown out and black fingers of soot smeared along the top edge of the window frame like gripping hands. Furnishings and fixtures inside the Chicken Pit had melted from the heat, standing in the haze like spent candles. There was the hint of an odor of greasy fried chicken over the scent of smoke wafting around and my empty stomach tinged even at the suggestion of fresh meat. It hadn’t been that long ago when I could just walk into a supermarket and walk out five minutes later with an entire chicken, fully cooked.
The jam lined up on the far side of the emergency vehicles, forever frozen in traffic, waiting for the fire that burned itself out to be extinguished. We stopped at the rear corner of a fire truck and looked ahead, then moved diagonally towards the southbound side of the road, before hearing something behind us as soon as we reached the median. I turned and looked past the line of cars, to a small parking lot behind the Chicken Pit, where several revenants huddled under the shade of a lone oak tree, like goths avoiding melting eyeliner. We dropped to our hands and knees and crawled to the end of the line, worried the horde of undead could hear our labored breathing and pounding hearts.
We reached the next intersection and found the path blocked by a couple of collided semis and trailers that forced us from the highway. The last car in line, a four-door sedan, had toppled a section of the wrought-iron fence surrounding a park with a large green lawn after it had swerved to avoid the semis.
“Cutting through the park would be faster than doubling back,” said Tarah. “Make sense?”
“The path of least resistance,” I answered, drinking from a bottle of water. “There’s a gate down there if we want to catch back up with the road.”
The greenery was a pleasant change from the scorching highway concrete, with trees lining the distance in a tastefully landscaped display. The sprinkler system was running a cycle, and the sun threw rainbows through the mist across the grass. But then, as we continued along the fence line and saw large stones in the grass, we realized we weren’t in a park at all, but in a graveyard. My eyes then caught revenants loitering under the trees to the right, a few venturing from the shade to investigate our passing.
“They saw us,” said Tarah, pulling out her rifle. “Let’s head for the gate!”
We veered back towards the tall fence, heading for the entry gate. Dozens of revenants appeared out of nowhere to pursue us, some of them barely intact…basically skeletons wrapped in loose gray flesh clattering across the grass, still dressed in funeral attire, like prom night at the morgue.
Tarah jumped over a stone bench but her back foot caught the edge and she tumbled onto the wet grass. Right behind her, I nearly tripped myself in the process. She rolled a couple of times and then I used the momentum to hoist her up by her shoulder as I caught up to her, pulling on her skinny arm like a knotted rope in gym class. Then we were both upright once again, as though we’d planned the entire choreography while scrambling for the exit.
At the gate, we found a rusty chain wrapped around the iron bars, locked with a padlock. I pulled on it with frustration, but didn’t bother to stop for long.
Tarah turned and fired her rifle at the closest revenant. Not looking back, I heard it thump to the ground, too close for comfort.
We fled along the fence line, the empty street on the other side mocking us in its relative safety. Then we came upon a small wooden billboard showing a map of the open plots, next to a couple of gray electrical boxes of different heights connected by a flexible metal tube that housed wiring for the sign’s lights.
Tarah stopped at the sign until I caught up. “See how those boxes are like steps? Use them to jump over the fence.”
I gauged the distance and figured I’d fuck it up in my impaired condition, but I had no alternative. I took off in a sprint and stepped right on top of both boxes, but then forgot to jump and ended up climbing over the top of the fence anyway, as though I’d just been standing there flat-footed. Reaching the other side, I threw my bag off my shoulder and reached for my shotgun. The spear wouldn’t be enough against this many revs so close.
Tarah reared up and made it up the steps, the wet soles of her shoes squeaking on the metal tops. But then she slipped on the taller box and hit the side of the wrought-iron fence with a clang, where she hung from the fence like a wet towel on a shower bar. The revs were almost upon her.
I ran back to the fence, reaching for her arms on the other side as she tried to hoist herself over, avoiding the black metal spear tops. Then she finally got her body positioned for momentum and vaulted up and over like a gymnast on a pommel horse, but not before a couple of revenants took swipes at her legs.
She landed on top of me and we both went to the grass, rolling away from the fence towards the street. Revs threw themselves against the wrought iron, trying to squeeze through the bars, with a couple of the slimmer ones nearly succeeding.
We again reached our feet, but Tarah took a step and dropped to a knee with a shout. I spotted blood on the lower cuff of her jeans, a thick trail of it dripping into her boot. Had one of their claws reached her?
I helped her back up, wrapping her arm across my shoulders. Then, sure enough, one of the more loosely assembled revenants wriggled between the iron bars and charged us. It was only skin and bones, but it was quick, darting across the grassy easement toward us. It was too disgusting to not want to shoot back into the dirt.
Hip-to-hip and with her arm still around me, Tarah left her feet and swung us around, holding her rifle aloft and resting the butt at the top of her leg, near her waist. She fired off a round and the revenant blew apart in dust and decay, painting the curb at its feet with spatters of black blood.
Tarah landed on her good leg and raised the other bent at the knee, lowering the rifle to her side. “That was fun. Let’s do it again.” I knew she was trying to shake it off, but there was a waver of pain in her voice.
I struggled. “We won’t get very far like this. Let’s head to that restaurant across the street and assess the damage.”
Meanwhile, the situation elsewhere in the neighborhood was getting hairy. In our rush to flee the cemetery, I hadn’t noticed we were wedged in the road between the cemetery and an apartment complex brimming with life, with people fighting door-to-door battles against both the undead and each other. Anything could happen without consequence and nothing about that seemed liberating to me so I wanted to remove ourselves from the scene as quickly as we could before it unfolded further and sucked us into another vortex of violence.
Gunfire rang out from an apartment window. I looked up and saw a rifle pointing out like a sniper, aiming at the cemetery across the street. Pop Pop Pop…one by one, bullets blasted through dead flesh on the far side of the fence, the shooter yelling a frustrated war cry across the neighborhood.
We quickly found cover in case the sniper added us to his list of targets, collapsing against the rear wall of a spooky-themed restaurant called Noshferatu’s. A tall hedge separated us from the apartment buildings, giving us some cover while we assessed Tarah’s damage.
I slipped a bit on the gravel as I sat Tarah against the wall, wanting to gouge out my nearly useless eyes that seemed to only get worse with stress. And everything about life was stressful. Tarah rolled up a pant leg and revealed a chunk of loose, flapping flesh that looked like a slice of bleeding ham. “I think I’m ok. I think it’s from the fence spikes, not them.”
“Good. I’m not sure I’d have the stomach to shoot you if you turned.”
“I don’t think you do, either, but if it makes you feel better, it wouldn’t be me you’d be shooting. I’d be dead…or close enough to it.”
“Hard to believe you’re dead with you coming for my throat.”
“I don’t need to be dead to do that.”
I thought I caught sight of a quick grin through the pain. I grabbed my pack. “Let’s see what we have here. We have a bunch of first aid supplies…well, half of what we had, at least.” I dug out a fat roll of gauze, a roll of white tape, a pair of scissors, some thread, and a tube of ointment…spilling them on the ground before her in blind offerings.
“I’m not hopeful,” she replied, sorting through the supplies. “I think I’m gonna need stitches for this.”
Stitches! In the middle of this nightmare. I sat back against the wall, rubbing my eyes while she got to work. “I’m sorry I can’t help you. I feel so useless right now.”
Tarah got to work on her leg, ripping the packaging off the supplies with only a free hand and her teeth. “Shhh. Try not to talk. IT makes my leg hurt more.”
I knew that wasn’t true but I kept quiet as she worked. I couldn’t see much, but I could hear her frantically trying to fix herself like a medic on a battlefield, complete with the sounds of gunfire echoing around her. I waited, fearing the worst.
“I think I can wrap this up, but it’s temporary. What I need to do can’t be done here. Especially with all this fighting going on.”
Eventually, the apartment gunman either became bored with the easy targets or ran out of ammo and the shooting stopped, while fighting also burned out elsewhere in the complex. I moved to the corner of Noshferatu’s wall and looked up and down the street to the best of my ability, catching little movement other than the growing group of undead in the cemetery attracted by the sniper’s gunfire. They paced the fence line like shoppers on an escalator before charging into the fence bars with clangs of bone against metal.
“The sun is setting,” I said. “You need a doctor. We are fucked.”
“Shut up and hand me those scissors.”
I did so. “What do you think? Can you move enough until we find a safer spot for the night?”
“I’m not going to hobble alongside you like a date on a walk of shame.”
“We can’t stay here. I’ll get a car. There’s fifty of ‘em back by the Chicken Pit. Then I’ll drive you to a hospital.”
“You’re driving…” she said, as sarcastic as ever.
“I’m not completely blind, but I wouldn’t try flying a fighter jet.”
“There’s less to hit up in the air, genius.” She waved me off and sighed. “Just my luck. Get us a car, Jeeves.”
“All right…don’t go anywhere.” I grabbed my shotgun and kept it in the open as a deterrent to the living, if not the dead.
I returned to the traffic jam at the last intersection, safely down the street from the writhing mob at the cemetery but closer to the free-range revenants behind the Chicken Pit, who were now venturing further out as the sun set like pointers on a sundial. Some were also drawn to the mayhem at the apartments across from the cemetery, and if that group met up with the large number there, there would be a new pressing issue for the locals.
I reached the closest vehicle at the end of the jam—an older sedan—hoping I could just peel it away from the others without a fuss and drive back to Noshferatu’s, but as I crept to the driver’s side I noticed its flat tire and my hopes slightly deflated with it. Nothing was going to be easy anymore, if it ever was. Obstacle before obstacle.
I moved to the car’s neighbor, a tan Nissan, only to see a corpse slumped over the wheel. Imagining the odor of decay wafting in my face after I opened the door and retched like a drunken prom date, I continued, watching the revs at the Chicken Pit through the car windows as I passed just to keep tabs on them.
The next car, a black SUV, looked promising, though I couldn’t see through its tinted windows. I moved to the front end and raised my head over the hood enough to look through the windshield. Moving to the front passenger side, I peered inside for keys and found some hanging from the ignition like an extremity. A rare gift from the universe to remind me that things could be easy, too.
In the silence of the approaching twilight, I pulled on the handle and the door chime sounded with an alarming series of electronic DINGS. Several undead heads at the Chicken Pit turned toward the noise as though I was rudely interrupting their dinner with a sales call. Left with no choice but to continue, I slid into the driver’s seat and twisted the key as the crowd honed in. The engine hesitated after a week’s nap but finally started clean and I threw the SUV into gear.
Then revenants were upon the vehicle like horse flies on a bare ankle. Thud after thud on metal and glass, fingers probing for the entrance…and then for grip as we started moving. I rammed the neighboring cars to shake off some of the bodies blocking my view and swung the vehicle sharply to the right, toward a side street next to the Chicken Pit. Then I made another sharp right into the rear entrance of the neighboring diner’s parking lot. I spotted a gas main against the brick wall of the restaurant and floored the gas, steering right for it. I unlocked the doors and opened mine, tossing a revenant hanging from it. The door chime dinged a warning once again as I tried to steer and lean out of the SUV at the same time. No way to determine the physics behind distance and speed, I rolled off of the driver’s seat and landed on the concrete with a dull thud, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, and that impact robbing my lungs of air.
Without a foot on the throttle, the vehicle slowed considerably, its momentum weakening as it hit the gray pipes dead-on and bumped the brick wall, sending the SUV back a bit before resting against it, enough to break the pipe but only indent a few bricks in the wall. I braced myself for an explosion, but none came. Was the gas line even turned on? It always seemed so easy to blow shit up in the movies. If my plan didn’t work, I’d have the job of my life trying to keep myself alive while running, nearly blind.
The revs climbed down from the SUV and spotted me in the open parking lot, exposed and recovering from my lame stunt. Not willing to wait any longer, I scrambled to my feet as they headed my way.
I’d made it across the street to the Chicken Pit when the gas main and SUV finally blew, sending me sprawling back to the ground on my stomach. I covered my head with my hands, girded by nothing but the self-preservation missing during better times. My shotgun dislodged and slid across the cement with a hollow clatter. Debris and body parts blew past me and I rolled to my back to assess the chaos I’d created just trying to steal a working vehicle.
As I’d hoped, none of the passengers made it out of the explosion, and neither did much of the restaurant’s kitchen, which was on fire, along with anything else flammable within thirty feet. Good thing there were fire trucks so close, though there was a shortage of firemen.
The commotion attracted a few straggling revs who were tossed from the SUV before the collision. I took to my hands and knees, crawling to the opposite curb, where my shotgun rested. I shifted to a sitting position while I fired and reloaded the gun over and over until it was just me and the burning diner, only a few dozen feet from an abandoned fire truck.
Back at the Chicken Pit, I found the store’s catering van: an orange, windowless cargo van with a huge chicken on a metal spring affixed to the roof. I opened the driver’s side door and flipped down the sun visor. A key ring and a pair of aviator sunglasses fell out, bumping the front of the seat and landing on the dirty rubber floor mat. “Eureka!” I exclaimed.
I drove the Chicken Pit van past the apartments and back to Noshferatu’s, where I backed up between the hedge and rear wall for easier access. I found Tarah standing on her good leg, using her rifle as a cane. The sight of the giant chicken van bent her over with laughter.
“That was you making all that ruckus down the street?” she asked.
“Lady, you wanted a car, I got you one.”
After she straightened out inside the floor of the van, I closed the rear doors and returned to the driver’s seat. I didn’t know what was ahead, but figured if we kept going, we’d eventually find a clinic or hospital where Tarah could tend to her wounds. Maybe even a veterinarian clinic would have what she needed.
Pulling off the grass and turning left on the road, we continued south, this time down the left lane, once considered the “wrong way.” Was it still? Similar to the Zen koan, if a law was broken with no one to enforce it, was the law even broken?
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