Day 363 - Untitled Zombie Story Chapter 10.4 - (1,971 words)

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UNTITLED ZOMBIE STORY

By Wayne Webb

Chapter 10.4

It was child’s play to get the passenger door open and get into the car quickly. She closed the door behind herself, not leaving herself exposed while working on the hot wiring. Something she had learned in a misspent youth, when these cars were already old and a standard target for joyriding youths and car thieves. When she met Ben’s father and got to know some of the more esoteric aspects of some of the businesses he owned there was occasionally the chance to surprise everyone with what she was capable of.

It was an advantage she had, even with people who knew her and her history, they could still be surprised by the stark reality when Margaret would do things that a woman would not do, and not a woman of her age these days. Breaking in, wiring the ignition to start position and driving off were things she already knew. What her late husband had taught her were more life skills than specific techniques or abilities.

Never leave yourself exposed, take your chances while you can, surprise people. Words he lived by and words that Ben tried to live up to, but in a more direct way than his upbringing had ever directed.

The circuit wires twisted together, the spark was set and the car spluttered a few times, the choke was pulled out and she went again, being careful not to flood the classic engine. Thankfully it roared to life and with it the petrol gauge flicked up and bounced a few times to show a needle just shy of three quarters full. This was the perfect find for the first car.

Leaving the engine idling was a risk but she did a quick circuit of the roof to check other cars for anything of use, but all she got was a map book of the city, which may have been more useful had the rain not warped the pages, and a tin of breath mints. She was sure she would probably need them, it felt like far too long since she had brushed her teeth.

Getting out of the building was painless, the ramps she made from car doors made a rattling echo that caused a few undead to waltz into the driveway as she eventually sped out, dodging the ones she could and nudging the ones she could not. As gratifying as it may have been to drive full speed into a walking dead, a former human being, they could cause far too much damage to any vehicle if hit head on.

A crowd of undead was on the streets, beginning to be attracted by the noise from the car park and the echo of the empty concrete chambers they contained. Margaret paused the car and had a good look around not seeing anyone from the squad of kidnappers that had held her captive. She drove carefully through them and put the device on the dashboard of the VW Beetle. It had an effective radius that would clear a few feet in front of the bumper, so she could make slow and painful progress through the crowd.

The sound of the engine, which was far from smooth and silent, was drawing in more and more of the street level zombies to her location, but then leaving a small semicircle in front of the car to drive through. Margaret was trying to nose her way through the thinner section of the crowd to see which way was the clearest, to try and pick up some speed and just get out of town before she was noticed.

The break in the traffic finally happened and she saw her chance to get out, onto the overpass where there were hardly any undead walking around, she just needed to thread the needle on the ground, get to the on ramp and get up to the higher ground as quickly as possible and then follow it all the way south to the airport bypass and get out of the city limits and on to the open roads.

It was painful and slow but she made her progress to the road that ran along side the overpass that travelled a few dozen feet overhead. The car was shuddering at travelling so slowly with so many stops and starts as she would have to wait for the shuffling undead to move out of the way. It was a bizarre circus of fear and ridiculousness as the flailing arms and slathering jaws would snap and grasp at the noise that the car made, the vibrations from the old engine making the air thick and tasty for them, but the push of the device that kept them at bay to a certain radius was stronger still.

Were the undead crowding her getting thicker? Margaret stopped her car, left the engine running and opened the door, holding the device in her hands, the zombie flesh melted away from in front of her as she took steps to the median strip where a pylon afforded her a chance to rise above the crowd and see into the distance.

Once she was up and looking around she knew instantly that she was going to be in trouble. Two blocks away there was a truck, one with a radio dish on the top and there were people on top of it with binoculars looking her way. They saw her and she knew she had to get back in the car and make a break for the on ramp. They would have the advantage in engine force, speed and brute force in driving through the undead that crowded the space between them.

That was why the zombies were out on force, the silence of the graveyard city was now being broken by the rumbling and shuddering VW Beetle and whatever monstrosity that the radio truck was. It looked like it could ram it’s way through the crowd and be on her in seconds, the only real threat would be the inability to drive over the bloodied mess of flesh and bone that would crack and spread under any high speed attack.

Margaret was about halfway to the car when the zombies who had been avoiding her all stood stock still in whatever pose they were in. Limbs and expressions suspended as if a freeze-frame had been set on the world. It was unsettling and creepy and it made her stop in her tracks and looked at them, walking up to one of them and not seeing it move outside the normal zone of exclusion this new device afforded her.

It scared her, the one thing she had started to rely on she had only been using for a few hours at most, was now useless. Her plan needed to be affected right now. She ran/hobbled back to the driver’s side of the car just as the undead came back to life, in their sense anyway, they started to move in slow motion, like they had been rebooted and were slowly coming online again.

The exclusion zone was gone and the undead changed from slathering and aimless waving to a very aggressive and powerful surge of bodies shunting forwards and rocking he car she was in. Reflex took over and she slammed the car into reverse and backed over the few dozen zombies behind the car and then accelerated rapidly in the direction of the off ramp.

Bodies and limbs flew, the car juddering dangerously and thumping up and down as she drove over the fallen yet still animated corpses in her way. The on ramp was clear, but there were maybe fifty bodies between her and the freedom it represented as she powered on the car slowed to a crawl as it tried to spin it’s wheels through the blood and gore it was creating, tires spinning and flicking torn flesh and limbs in the air as it drove through the undead that were throwing themselves violently into her path.

She was still making ground and now the big van with the radio dish was in sight, but still not getting any closer to her or the ramp before she would get to her freedom. Margaret gunned the accelerator and churned through more and more of the undead.

Twenty feet to go.

Fifteen feet more and the car was slowing, but the end was in sight.

Ten feet and she could see through the standing bodies, the ones queuing to be chewed up and spat back onto the tarmac as she made her final dash.

Then she was free and clear, the car started to accelerate and she could feel bare road gripping on the tires, not the slipping of torn rotted flesh, blood and pus that made driving like a slip and slide on the summer lawn.

On the bonnet were three zombies, and despite the fact she had never seen any undead do this before, they were holding on and being hyper aggressive, punching at the car windows, but with limited force, punching out of a lifelong habit perhaps? It was ineffectual but the three bodies were blocking her view of where the nose of her car was, and she grazed concrete as the road took and upward turn into a curve that lead to the flyover.

Margaret hit the accelerator and threw the steering wheel left and right, trying to dislodge the dogged undead holding on like they still had something to live or die for. The one at the left of the carl, the one blocking the passenger view was thrown off very soon on the second flick of the wheel, and the one at the bottom edge of the bonnet followed soon after, falling under her wheels and thudding beneath them as it hit the road.

The last one was staring at nothing but it’s eyes were level with Margaret’s own as she tried to shake it off to avail. She was on the flyover and had open road to her advantage now. All she had to do was avoid the abandoned cars and drive as fast as she could.

She could see the Van from her rear view mirror as it made it on to the road, but it was a long way back and instead of pursuing her it came to a stop. Why was it doing that? They had the speed and power to catch her easily, why would they let her go?

Margaret slowed down and looked into the rear view mirror more intently, the man from the van, the one she had seen with binoculars had one of those dish microphones and was pointing it in her direction.

What they hell were they doing? What were they trying to hear exactly? Margaret didn’t care, she had her chance to get away and now she was taking it. She looked ahead to the road and it was then she noted that the final zombie had zoned out, locked in place like just before they turned on her before.

It started to move just as Margaret threw the steering wheel into a turn and yanked on the handbrake as fast and as hard as she could.

At the instant that the zombie was thrown off of it’s grip it convulsed, swelled up and popped in the space of about a half second. The world was moving so slowly for Margaret that she saw it all happen in slow motion in front of her.

The face of the undead assailant expanded like a balloon and the whole hing exploded sending flesh and blood everywhere in a wide ranging spray that covered her windscreen and made it impossible to see as she hit the skid at full speed and the car turned 90 degrees and the passenger side wheels lifted off of the ground.