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  “Carol, I think this is plenty far enough.” I told her, I had my arm up and under her armpit to keep her steady.”

  “Nonsense, we’re hardly off the road.”

  I turned back, I couldn’t even see the road. “This is far as we go.” I attempted to extract my arm, she had it gripped.

  “Have you no common decency? I’m far too modest to go with that many people around.”

  “Carol, there is no one around. Can’t hear them, can’t see them. I barely know the way back. Go here or don’t.” Yeah, slightly dickish on my part, but I’d heard my last Bee Gees song.

  “You’re leaving me here?” She had a lost and panicked expression on her face.

  “What? No. I’m going to guard our perimeter while you do what you need to.” My stomach was unsettled as I began to think that there might be more going on here.

  “Thank you, Jacob,” she said, looking straight at me then the clouds parted from her eyes. “What are you looking at, Michael?”

  “Ah, nothing. Sorry. I’ll be right over there.”

  I was leaning on a tree thinking about what I was going to say to Tracy when I heard movement through the woods. I pushed off and brought my rifle off my back and up, not yet to my shoulder, as I didn’t have a clue what was out there. I was taught from a very early age to always identify what you were about to shoot at before you pull the trigger, and there were far too many of us in the general area to just start aiming willy-nilly. It sounded like it was twenty feet away and straight to our back. There shouldn’t be anyone else this far out, but it wasn’t a certainty. More noise came from our left. I began to move closer to where Carol was.

  “What the fuck?” I asked when she wasn’t where I had just left her. “Carol,” I hissed, unwilling to speak any louder. I did not have a good feeling in my gut about this. More noise–the snap of a branch, the rustle of leaves being stepped on. More noise than one person with limited mobility could be expected to make. There was a line of somethings coming slowly, maybe even stealthily. A dog barked behind me, had to be Riley, it was deep, not the seal-bark of Henry nor the yip of Ben-Ben.

  “Talbot!” BT shouted.

  “Dammit,” I whispered. I shouted back and my location was blown–then it wouldn’t be a matter of if something was in here with me, but more a matter of how many. “Where the fuck are you, Carol?” I backed up a few feet into something that was more or less a clearing, although with fields of fire of roughly ten feet around, it wasn’t much to hang a hat on, fifty feet would have been better.

  “Talbot! Answer me! MJ says we’ve got company!” BT again shouted.

  Something flashed past me on the right. I caught a glint of light off a watch or a bracelet. Safe to say it wasn’t a herd of rabid deer finally turning the tables on Man. The first zombie that came into my circle of influence looked just as shocked as I did. I caught him just above his left eyeball, but the storm was just beginning. That shot was an effective dinner bell, and the zombies were going to answer it. I was again, cautiously backing up and continually scanning the area looking for another victim. I could hear people coming in from behind. The jig was up now.

  “Straight ahead!” I turned my head slightly, shouting over my shoulder: “Zombies!” I was barely able to turn to my left quick enough to get the speeder that was making a bee line to me right through the vegetation. One in the chest spun him slightly off course, the next in the forehead stopped all advancement. The woods were crawling with them; whatever slow, furtive movements they had been using to get close to us were out the window. They were crashing through the woods at us now. Guns erupted behind me as targets ran past.

  “Carol!” I yelled, desperate for some answer. I heard a significant-sized tree snap; the ground vibrated under my feet when it landed. Bulker was the only thing that could do something like that. They were inclined to say “fuck it” and go through rather than around impediments. Two full magazines had seemed a little like overkill for a bathroom break, but I’d had a weird instinct. Next time, assuming there was one, I would bring another couple. I kept backing up, staying aware of anything behind me that could trip me up. Here he came, Paul Bunyan himself, with a trio of speeders hiding behind his bulk like soldiers following a tank. I’d learned my lesson on the bridge standoff; their heads were entirely too fortified. Sure, I could drill through eventually with the 5.56s but I didn’t have eventually. I hacked at his knees like a wiry little defensive back would against a mammoth running back. Lord knows I’d been in that spot more than once. What I had lacked in size on the football field I had made up for with tenacity, determination, and a blind willingness to sacrifice myself.

  Shooting his knees out from under him was like taking a chainsaw to an oak. It took several seconds but he stumbled then fell to the side.

  “Tim-ber, motherfucker,” I said as I worked on killing the column of zombies behind him before they could fan out now that their walking wall had been felled. The gunfire was no more than twenty feet behind me and I was not all that keen being ahead of the firing line. Zombies were zipping by on both sides. I was doing my best to keep an eye on the ones to my front and I would have to trust that the people behind me would take care of their fields of fire. The odds Carol had been passed up were slim, her only hope would have been to hide. But if she had another episode, which I was thinking might be early onset Alzheimer’s, she was just as likely to ask one of the zombies directions to the bank.

  She’d had other lapses before, but I’d just chalked it off to stress or maybe that it was me, that I just had too much going on to pay attention to what she’d said. Thinking back, there had been many small indicators, like when she asked when her sister, who’d been in Wisconsin at the time of the z-poc, was going to be home for dinner. Or the time I found her in Ron’s bathroom looking under the sink for her shoes. Or when she’d stood at a light switch for over five minutes flipping it up and down. It had been Tracy that had finally ushered her away. I guess in hindsight, you’d have to group those individual incidents, then they didn’t seem so small, but still, they were harmless–nothing compared to wandering off in a war zone. I felt guilt for not noticing how bad she’d gotten. I could say that overlook on my part had most likely gotten her killed, not to mention it had indirectly put us all in danger, myself included.

  I had a speeder lined up just as that brain splitting shriek blistered through my skull–I fired wide right. Unlike earlier screeches, this continued on like a professional opera singer belting out a glass breaking aria. It warbled after thirty seconds before mercifully stopping. I’d fought through the mind-shredding sound spear to kill the speeder. A few more steps and I found myself abreast of BT.

  He looked in pain as he nodded to me. Had a feeling there were going to be plenty of headaches to go around tonight. Justin and Gary materialized on my other side. We all had grim looks of determination on our faces.

  “Where’s grandma?” Justin shouted when we had a small break in the action.

  I shook my head slightly from side to side. He looked like he was either going to start swearing or crying or a healthy dose of both. Mourning would happen; we didn’t have that luxury, if it could be called that, to do it right now. The earth was shaking and that could only mean one thing.

  “Bulkers,” BT said. “We need to go back.” I was in agreement, but there was a chance, albeit an ever-decreasing one, that Carol was still out there. How could I just abandon her? An argument could be made she’d abandoned me, but even I had trouble taking that side of it.

  “Where’s Carol?” BT asked as if he was just remembering why I was out here.

  “I don’t know,” I told him as I fired.

  “You lost her?”

  We were backing up. I got the incredulity in his voice, would be like losing the pants that you were currently wearing. We were getting close to the road, I could hear Riley barking like mad, there was more gunfire as our position had been surrounded. Going out to look for Carol was out of the question with
the rest of the troop in trouble. An entire line of bulkers formed to our front and they were running. Flight reflex was in full effect; yet we stood our ground.

  “Overrun! Get in the cars!” I was screaming as I fired. I don’t even know if it was possible I could be heard over the reports. “Let’s go!” I told those around me, there was no way we had the firepower to keep them at bay. I had to wrench Justin’s shoulder to get him moving. He pulled away hard; it was Gary that finally urged him to give up his spot.

  “I go when you go,” BT said as we backed up carefully. Heard a roaring growl so unfamiliar I couldn’t begin to identify it, but it got me wondering what new nightmare the zombies had prepared for us.

  I saw a tuft of brown on an animal so incredibly large, that I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. My first inclination was to think back to that zombie ape at the Demense Building. BT and I had both moved with a purpose to get to the roadway. It was as I had feared, we were a small group of dog-paddlers surrounded by hungry sharks. Tracy, Deneaux, Gary, Justin, and Travis were firing to keep the zombies off the cars and to give BT and myself a way to get back.

  “Come on, BT, Mike, everyone is waiting on you two!” This from Tracy. She was half in the car half out and still firing. I absolutely realize beyond a shadow of a doubt this was not the time, but damn she looked fine. Her long red hair flowing out behind her, she was like a warrior goddess. It was not going to be good when that war face turned its gaze on me and caught me off task. A bulker had broken through the brush to our side, crashed into a car, destroyed the rear quarter panel and spun the car almost ninety degrees, there were screams from inside the vehicle. One of those doing the screaming was Carol. I thought it was a trick of my tortured mind. I got a quick look from Justin questioning what the fuck was going on. I had nothing for him. Another bulker came out close to the other. These were easily six-hundred pound, virally altered beasts, heads as round and big as blue ribbon 4H pumpkins, and I knew from experience they were mostly bone protecting the peanut-brain inside.

  Another hit to that car and there was a good chance it would bend the axle or at the very least shove metal into the tire, and a flat right now was as bad as the transmission falling out. I turned my attention to the new threat, never realizing I was up next. I’d fired off two rounds, but before the third could exit the barrel I was blindsided. I’ve been hit a few times in my life where I figured my brains were going to leak out my nose. Twice in football, I had been so fixated on the person with the ball I hadn’t given a thought to the angry lineman downfield doing his blocking. Once, in Afghanistan, we had been sweeping an old building with an army unit we had met up with. I had been watching a fellow Marine’s six when he had gone into a room. He’d no sooner stepped in when an IED exploded. The force that propelled him into me drove me head-first into the far wall. If not for the helmet I’d been wearing, I would have left whatever gray matter I had left smeared all over that building. None of it, even all of it combined, didn’t add up to the bone-rattling, jaw shifting, teeth-rattling hit I’d just absorbed from that bulker. My ass crushed the door panel and my elbow broke through the passenger-side window; my head whipped down and bounced off the roof of the car with enough force that I was sure I had a concussion, judging by the dent my skull-bone left in the metal. He was crushing me between his weight and the car.

  He twitched occasionally–I think that was from the bullets his bulk was absorbing. I was rapidly heading into unconsciousness as the air had been forced from my lungs and I hadn’t yet been able to restock the supply. I could feel hands on my back as those inside the car were trying desperately, but hopelessly, to free me. The car was rocking as the bulker was digging his heels in. I don’t know if he was trying to make a puree out of me or was trying to move the car; he was effectively doing both. I would have poured to the ground if I’d had any space around me. I had no power to hold my legs up. Black encroached my vision, I was going down for the count, then there was air. Sweet, blessed air was pulled into my lungs as a clawed paw, twice the size of my head, swept past. There was screaming, barking, yelling, a cacophony I could not process as my brain greedily absorbed the necessary oxygen to keep it functioning.

  Arms were reaching down to pull me up and through the window, my lack of help was hindering them. I was basically dead weight. Someone inside the car was channeling their inner hulk as I was being yanked up and in; at one point I thought my spine was going to snap as I was halfway in, the small of my back pivoted on the door frame. The beast knocked my legs, and I was ripped away from the grip of those in the car. Can’t say I stopped to wonder what it was going to feel like to be ripped apart by a zombie ape. The only thing I could hope was it would be quick. I crumpled to the ground face first, tore up my lips and nose as I bounced off the pavement. I got up on all fours, blood leaking from my face; it was all I could do to lift my head. I was staring at the back haunches of…what the fuck was it? Not an ape, so? It was a bear, an extremely large Brad Pitt Legends of the Fall grizzly. My head spun. Grizzly, ape, what did it matter? I wobbled as I tried to get up. My body felt as if I’d had an extended ride in a paint shaker. I was almost mad the bear wasn’t hurrying the fuck up, like, don’t make me go through all this effort trying to defend myself if, in the end, I was going to be filleted anyway.

  I got up on two unsteady stems. A part of me thought that maybe this would bring the size of the bear down, but if anything, it accentuated just how gargantuan it was. My rifle was a few feet away on the ground, laying there about as useful as a Viagra-induced erection in church. The bear had its back to me. Now the question was: could I get my rifle and put enough rounds through to stop this monster before it eviscerated me. I was so fixated on the animal itself I had barely taken notice of what it was doing. Two bulkers had been decimated, puddles of yellowish-red blubber flowed down the slight incline we were on. Ribbons of meat-filled intestines slithered out of their bodies; one had his head nearly completely removed and had been effectively disqualified from playing the crush game anymore. The other still had some semblance of survival mode in it, but even at its best it was nothing compared to the bear. The bulker’s arms were out as it tried to pull the bear in for a, yeah, bearhug, but the animal was having none of it. It roared and swung those powerful arms tipped with six-inch claws like a crazed kid surrounded by bullies and nothing left to lose. A block of cheese in a food processor stood a better chance than that over-sized zombie.

  Speeders were honing in on our spot. Lord knows that bear could have fed a village and they knew it as well…they’d seen the cave paintings of the tiny humans spearing a mammoth. I bent to grab my weapon and almost pitched over for the effort. I used the car for support, leaned against it and was going to help the enemy of my enemy. I hoped he would consider us even and wasn’t fighting off the zombies merely to have me all to himself. I fired off a round just as the second bulker crashed to the ground with a thud somehow louder than the report of the bullet. The bear looked back at me; if it wanted to do me in it wouldn’t have taken much more than the flicking of its stumpy tail. It seemed to realize I wasn’t aiming for it, but when an eight hundred-pound, all-muscle animal with blood dripping from its claws and mouth looks at you, well, fuck…I couldn’t help but swivel my muzzle its way. Riley came from somewhere, she was barking ferociously at me, drool streaming from her snout in runnels. For a hopeful second, I thought man’s best friend was going to intercede on my behalf. I’m not the most intelligent being walking the planet, I realize this, but in survival mode, I have instincts that have been honed out of necessity by the events constantly swirling around me. Riley wasn’t protecting me; she was protecting the bear. Why? What the fuck for? Didn’t matter. Her barking took me out of the picture and the bear went back to doing what it did exceptionally well, and that was killing zombies. The speeders might as well have been mosquitoes crushed between the clapping hands of a human for how easily they were dispatched.

  The sound of snapping bones dominated, a
brittle forest in the midst of a category-five hurricane would make the same breaking crashing creaking sounds. For the first time in this battle, we were switching from the defensive to the offensive. There was breathing room between us and the enemy. The bear hitched a few times; its massive chest puffed out as it caught its breath. I stepped up and edged past it to keep firing at the dwindling enemy. Riley stayed glued to my hip, in between myself and what was truly the apex predator in this equation. When what was left of the zombies realized they’d been routed, they made an uncharacteristic move: they left. Said it before and will say it again–I fucking hate smart zombies. Now I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having a grizzly bear to my back and at least a half-dozen rifles pointed in our direction.

  “Mike?” BT asked nervously.

  I was slowly moving to the side, away from the bear. It, she, I think, swiveled that massive head to me.

  “Who’s a good girl?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  “Are you trying to sweet talk that bear?” Tracy asked, she had her rifle to her shoulder and was coming closer, the bear looked over my shoulder and roared, the left side of my face got slathered in a heavy portion of blown spit.

  “Got a better idea?” I asked.

  There was a delay in responding. “No…no I don’t.”

  “Um, hon, maybe put the gun down.” I had bent over and placed mine on the ground and was standing with my hands up by my chest, palms exposed in a “I don’t want any trouble here,” pose, although holding anything less than a bazooka wasn’t going to matter much anyway. Riley rubbed her side up against the bear; she had either lost her mind or knew the bear somehow. Not even remotely sure how that could be possible; it was more likely she just knew a winning side when she saw one.

  If I’d been looking down on my body, I’d be wondering if this could get any weirder, but from my position I was just hoping I would end the day with my head still firmly resting on my shoulders. An older man burst through the woods, out of breath and carrying a rifle that looked like a Civil War throwback, a muzzleloader.