900 Miles (Book 2): 900 Minutes Read online

  Best laid plans…often fail.

  My feet hit the ground with a thump as I dropped off the fire tower ladder. Relieved that I wouldn’t have to head back up there, I explained to Kyle and Jarvis what I’d seen…and heard.

  Mulling over our circumstances for a moment, we knew we couldn’t count on anybody from Avalon to pick us up. Hell, we didn’t even know if they’d overheard the broadcast between Gordon and Rodgers. Even if they did, there certainly wouldn’t be any way for them to pinpoint our position. Kentucky was enormous, and all they knew was that we were roughly fifty miles south of Lexington. It wasn’t much to go on.

  We had to assume we were on our own.

  That really only left us with two options. The first was to escape by trying to make it through the woods in the hope that we’d find a road and a car with a battery that wasn’t completely dead—unlike the cars in the parking lot. However, this option was a stretch after seven months. Modern vehicles have all kinds of little electronics that drain away at the battery even when the car isn’t running. We’d learned quickly that most cars were useless without a jump start after the first two months. On occasion, it was possible to find a car that was from the seventies that would still be running…but you wouldn’t want to have to rely on it. Besides, even if you did, it was a good bet the gas had long since gone bad.

  Even if we could manage to find a working vehicle, we’d still have the mega-horde to contend with. Going around them could add days onto our trip back, and we knew we didn’t have long before Gordon would mount his attack.

  Our other option - our only real option - was to hit the enemy head on. With a working chopper, they had the only key to open the door to our quick return.

  They must have been following close behind us. It was the only way that Gordon could have known we crash-landed in the water. Gordon was a meticulous competitor, and a working chopper sitting within our grasps reeked of a trap. With no other option, however, we decided it was our turn to put the outcome of the game in our own hands, and the chopper was the only hope. It was time to step boldly into the lion’s den.

  Huddling up for a few minutes, we went over our plan. We knew what we had to do. Now it was time to see if it would work. After all, it had to. We needed to get home.

  No. Matter. What.

  Setting the plan in motion, I helped Jarvis head back toward the end of the parking lot. Kyle stayed behind, putting together the final touches while letting us get enough distance between him and the hell storm he was about to create.

  Hitting the trailhead that the map said would lead to a parking lot around the other side of the lake, I looked over at Jarvis.“You think this is gonna work?”

  Wincing in pain as he glanced back up the hill toward Kyle, he said,“No telling what Gordon’s men are up to. I do know he’s probably already figured out ten different ways for his men to trick us into making a mistake, and he’ll be ready to capitalize on every one of them.”

  I let out a deep breath, searching the sky.“You seem to know more about Gordon than you’ve ever let on, Jarvis.”

  He lowered himself to the ground, using the wrought iron pole as a brace.

  “You’re right, John. If we make it through this, I’ll tell you all about it. What I can tell you now is that the only way to beat him is to be unpredictable. It’s how we beat him in the Arena, and it’s how we’ll beat him tonight.”

  If unpredictable was what we needed…we were about to hand it out tenfold, and none of us could possibly predict just how bad it was about to get.

  Seeing the look in my eyes, Jarvis softened his tone.“Cheer up, old boy. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think we have much of a choice.”

  He was right.

  They had us outgunned, likely out manned, and time was against us with the horde quickly approaching. When a man has his back against the wall, he has two choices. Sit down and die, or stand up and put up the fight of his life.

  We weren't ready to die.

  In the distance, I saw Kyle stepping toward the bunch of sticks and brush that we’d piled up at the side of the office. As he flicked the lighter he held, it illuminated what seemed like the whole area before he leaned in to set what should have been a tiny, makeshift campfire.

  At first, the blaze was small - until he threw all three lighters into the growing flame. Darting toward us, he was only about halfway through the parking lot when the first lighter melted and burst open. A small but effective fireball shot out, setting the entire pile ablaze.

  The other two followed, and before we knew it, the whole side of the office building/museum was aflame, reflecting an orange glow off the clouds above. The three of us ducked just inside the tree line and waited for the hell that was coming.

  The muffled voices of men came from the direction of the lake. I could see the flashlights bouncing in between the trees, and then their rays bounced over the structure

  I saw Kyle’s eyes were fixed on the woods. Jarvis made eye contact with me; we both realized that this fire was going to take off way beyond what we’d originally planned. What we’d wanted to use as a distraction was looking more like it was going to turn into a pillar of fire that could be seen for miles.

  Smokey the Bear flashed into my mind. With his giant brown forest ranger hat, he was repeating: Only you can prevent forest fires…

  I saw the blaze take hold of the tall, dry grass next to the home and travel wildly toward the fire tower. It spread and broke out toward the nearby tree line. Dry timber and blowing leaves resting at the forest’s edge strengthened the fire’s rage.

  The voices continued to get louder as three distinct lights came bouncing into view. Gordon’s men were sprinting down the path that came to a head just across from where we were hidden. If this worked, they would be popping out just twenty or thirty feet from us. If this really worked, they would run right by and up toward the office. Holding my breath, I found myself almost looking up at the sky, begging for a break.

  I didn’t get one.

  A stick cracked sharply, pulling my attention to the first creature as it stepped out of the forest on the far side of the parking lot from us. It was followed by the sounds of two other creatures crawling from the tree line. Moaning loudly enough to call attention to themselves, they stopped Gordon’s men dead in their tracks. I watched as our enemy doused their lights and dropped to the ground just before exiting the trail.

  Shit.

  Drawn in by the glowing flames, the creatures stumbled toward the office. At first, it was just a trickle. A few across from us could be seen stumbling past one of the nearby cars. Then they seemed to be crawling in from all over.

  Before we knew it, there were a dozen of them filling the parking lot. One of the rotting bastards still wore his forest ranger hat and sported the familiar, but bloodied, light brown t-shirt and dark brown shorts. He was dragging his leg behind him as if it has been crippled at some point.

  Another few were still wearing their backpacks, which had pots and pans dangling from the bottom by what looked like carabiners that glistened in the reflection of the fire. One of the campers was missing an arm, and the other had a hole blown through its chest. I found myself wondering if they’d turned on each other while alive. Poor bastards probably came here trying to find refuge as the world turned to shit…that, or they were enjoying a nice trip when all hell broke loose.

  As the stench of the horde hit us, I recalled the office building I’d worked in prior to Z-Day. The memory of that putrid smell. It floated through the halls each time some poor soul would build up enough courage to clean out the building’s communal fridge. A smell ripe with rotting sandwiches and mold-covered yogurt, left over from a wasteful set of fat asses who traded lunch for the quick burst of sugar calling to them from the vending machines.

  Even as I write this passage, I’m not quite sure which made me sicker. The horde or that damn fridge.

  The fire continued to spread up an enormous tree leaning across the trail. A
lmost as wide as I am tall, the tree had crooked branches that dwarfed the surrounding forest. I remember thinking that it looked old enough to have heard the world’s first scream. I watched in horrified amazement as the fire leapt from limb to limb, seemingly lighting the clouds on fire.

  Glancing over at Kyle, I saw the metal on the shotgun he carried was gleaming, reflecting the madness of the fire’s fury as it took over the hill. He stayed steady, with the shotgun pointed in the direction of where we’d seen the flashlights go out. He was waiting for them to split up, and I knew he only had two rounds to use before having to refill. That meant one man would have the drop on him if we couldn’t time things correctly.

  “Shit,”I cursed under my breath once again. Gordon’s bastards just sat there…waiting for what came next. They seemed to sense a trap. Any hope that they’d charge in like Rambo to find us quickly fell to the wayside. I could hear it in my head. HOLD…HOLD. Wait for them to fuck up.

  Thinking back to Rodgers, the phrase, patience wins wars, ran through my mind.

  There was no movement as both the living and the dead stared at the giant campfire. That is, until I heard a scream.

  The sneaky bastards had been distracting us as much as we’d been trying to distract them. Aside from the three men with flashlights, there were another three creeping up behind us. It wasn’t until one of the sons of bitches behind us took a bite to the face that we had any clue they were there.

  Unfortunately, for them… thesame went for the creatures in the parking lot.

  I looked back in time to see one of the men pull his trigger twice. Once for the creature, and once for the man with the bite across his face. Wincing at the shots, I glanced back over my shoulder toward the parking lot. To my horror, every mangled creature out there was looking right in their direction. Kyle was still down in the dirt along with Jarvis while I was busy becoming one with the tree I was hugging. Meanwhile, Gordon’s men repeatedly rang the dinner bell as they fired off shots at anything that moved.

  At first, they were more than capable of holding back the slower creatures from the parking lot. The fire was creating enough light for them to aim, braining each of the Zs as they approached. However, before they had time to react, the creatures coming out of the woods behind them made it impossible to control the situation. Totally surrounded, horrified shrieks of pain were all that followed the clicks from the empty weapons once they ran out of ammunition.

  Expecting the group with the flashlights to jump in, I was surprised to see that they sat still, hiding from the chaos that was taking place less than fifty yards away. With the flashlights now turned off, they knew we were still out there, and their patience was almost as terrifying as the monsters lurking around looking for their next kill.

  The blazing fire tower, now completely engulfed, crashed down, smashing across the roof of the office building. Nothing like breaking a one hundred-year streak.

  Smoke was filling my lungs and I was fighting back the urge to cough by holding my forearm across my face. The forest was at full blaze, and we needed to make a move.

  Making eye contact with Kyle, I threw my hands up ever so slightly as to say“What now?”He pointed toward the fire, and ran his arm around the tree line that led to Gordon’s men. Then he lifted his gun a bit, and pretended to shoot it.

  The fire was spreading around the tree line. With their spot in the woods closer to the blaze, it was only a matter of time before it reached them. I only prayed that the creatures wouldn’t find the three of us before the fire found them.

  Looking out across the parking lot and field, I saw that there were more Zs stumbling around now. Their shadows from the fire were elongated across the far side of the forest wall, giving the illusion that they were at least thirty feet tall. Each step they took, amplified through their shadows, showed just how mangled their lifeless bodies were. I could hear the pots clanging together from the back of dead backpackers’gear. Each step created a small ding that rang through the night sky.

  Beyond the clanging cookware, the crackling of the fire was getting louder. Trees and branches were incinerating quicker than I would have ever imagined. I found myself completely amazed at how easy it was to start a forest fire.

  Yep, no doubt about it, Smokey the Bear would have been super pissed.

  Snapping back from watching the blaze, I realized that the cracks were louder than they should have been. With the fire still across from us, the noise was coming from the woods behind me. Not moving a muscle, with my face still pressed against the tree, I listened as each step broke another set of limbs and dry leaves. Clutching the hammer in my right hand, I fought hard to control my breathing.

  It was right behind me, but I had no idea if I’d been seen. It came closer, and I could almost feel its fingernails running down my spine. Another twig snapped under its feet, seemingly inches from where I sat. Thoughts of not moving, playing dead, pretending I wasn’t there, all ran through my mind. In the end, I wasn’t waiting for chance to make the decision as to whether I was going to see my son again.

  Patience, John, I thought to myself. The creature needed to be close enough for me to make one swing. I wouldn’t get another chance at this. No noise. No screaming. No alerting the others. Everything depended upon me cracking the skull in one quick move. Everything depended upon me doing this right.

  A small bit of cold saliva ran down my neck. That felt close enough.

  Gripping the hammer with every bit of strength I had in my fist, I swung around toward the darkness. Connecting squarely with the creature’s chest, I completely missed its head. Clenching my teeth together as it let out a grunt that I’ll never forget, I brought the hammer back down across its skull. Bone fragments shot across the dry leaves, making it sound like someone had thrown a handful of stones into the forest. The creature dropped with a thud across a fallen tree to my right.

  Realizing the thing had grunted pretty damn loud, I crossed my fingers as I slowly turned around, only to find three more creatures honing in on my position. This was about to get nasty…and fast.

  Chapter 18

  It was killing time, and I didn’t see a clear way to make sure we weren’t going to be on the wrong end of that equation.

  Jumping to my feet, I stepped away from the tree ready for battle. Taking on three of the creatures was the least of my worries. Trying not to get shot by Gordon’s men…now, that was a different story. Kyle threw his hand toward me in a downward motion—Tomahawk Chop-style for the Atlanta Braves fans out there. All the while, he kept the shotgun scoped on where he thought Gordon’s men were hunkered down. He had my back, but I needed to cover my front.

  Knowing there wasn’t another choice, I stepped toward the first creature to reach me. Bringing my hammer around in a vicious swing through its jaw, I watched as the Z’s mangled teeth broke out across the second monster, who relentlessly darted past its fallen comrade. Not having time to bring the hammer back up, I arched my back, wrapped both hands around the oversized handle and threw it upwards with every ounce of force I could muster. The curved sharp end of the hammer drove through the throat of the monster—causing its eyes to push out from the force of the blow.

  As the creature dropped, I realized the hammer was stuck in its neck under the jawbone. Pushing my boot across its chest, I gave a good heave and yanked the jaw loose, flipping it into the sky over my shoulder.

  Breathing heavily, I glanced toward Kyle. He was watching me with one eye while keeping a close lookout for the bastards across from us. As the final monster approached, I brought the hammer across it’s knee and quickly slammed my boot down through its face just as it hit the ground.

  Kicking chunks of brain off my foot, I shot my gaze over toward where I thought Gordon’s men to be. For the briefest of moments, I thought maybe they had taken off, slipping away without us realizing it. We were the perfect distraction. How else could they just sit through all of this?

  Across from us, a giant branch fell from its perch.
Crashing down into the flames, it blasted tiny bits of dry burning leaves into the air. I watched in horror as they floated back down like tiny parachutes, setting another section of the forest ablaze.

  The fire would have been beautiful if it weren't intent on destroying everything in its path.

  Just then, snapping me from the thought, I saw Jarvis lift his head up to look around the parking lot. Something had him spooked. Tuning my own senses to listen beyond the crackling of the flames, I dropped down as I suddenly heard it. Something, or rather some things, were moving at record pace just beyond the forest walls outside the parking lot.

  It hit me in that moment…this fire would turn out to be the death of all of us. Turning into an unstoppable beacon for the dead, it screamed into the night, calling to the fastest creatures from the mega-horde, pulling them right in on our position.

  We very quickly realized that the horde was not as compact at the edges as it had appeared from the sky. There were front-runners for sure, moving faster and more nimbly than the middle of the pack.

  The first of the dead to reach the parking lot darted out of the darkness, hunched over, maniacally spinning around and searching for any signs of life. Digging my face into the ground, I peered through the tall grass, watching in stupefied horror as they moved between the cars and other fallen Zs. Somehow these creatures understood the flames, adding an amplified madness to their movement that I hadn’t yet seen. Any hope of it being a distraction like a good old spotlight might be was soon squashed as I watched them charge in toward the flames. They’d move in close enough to feel the heat, and then turn back and dart toward the black tar parking lot. They knew we were out here, and the bile coursing through their veins was boiling for the fight.

  By the time I had crawled over to Jarvis and Kyle, there were six of the creatures running back and forth toward the fire. The crunching, snapping noises through the leaves behind us told me that there were more on the way.