A Zombie Story by Cannonball
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- cannonball1978
Colma Surge of '84 - Part one
by Cannonball“Can you shut that dog up? I can’t focus on the road!”
They picked up the fifth passenger. For a station wagon, there wasn’t much room for bodies. I mean, the back seat was only occupied by a sweatshirt, but the trunk was littered with Charlie’s clubs, a duffel bag, suitcase, tennis rackets. They would have to stop and clear out the back if they were going to save another. There wouldn’t be enough time, no matter how hard those running beside the car screamed, oily fists pounding against the windows.
Number five was a skinny, panting bike messenger. She had to ditch her satchel to cram into the car, and she looked out the back window at her bicycle splayed across the road as if she had left her sister behind on the bridge. Someone would snatched it up.
Charlie peered at her in the rear-view window. “Hey, You okay? Dinkus, make sure she’s okay.”
Joel Dinkus was pressed up against the right rear passenger window, terrified. A dog’s head was heavy in his lap, panting, whining. After what he had seen, knowing what he knew, it might as well have been a time bomb with a wet nose.
“I think we should leave the dog.” he ventured.
It was a brave motion, considering the dog’s owner, Janet Stetson, sat shoulder—to—shoulder with him in the middle.
“Unh unh! No way. Foofie and me were in the car first!”
Then they were all screaming at each other again, bracing against the indoor paneling as the LeSabre swerved around another car wreck. The Japanese businessman in the front passenger seat with puke all over his suit coat was chattering forcibly and no one could understand what he was saying.
“Everyone, I need to concentrate! Just shut up until we’re over the bridge,” Charlie screamed.
Golden Gate Bridge looked like a war zone. There were car wrecks every so often right in the middle, where head-on collisions had caused drivers to spin out and take out other nearby vehicles. They pointed at such senseless angles that they looked like they had been dropped there by a drunk crane operator.
Back in the city, some still drove carefully, trying not to scratch the paint. Others seemed fine with inching up to abandoned cars to push them out of the way with their bumpers. The closer they got to the Presidio, though, the more reckless the accidents were.
Eventually, the LeSabre screeched to a halt before a barricade of wrecked cars. Two were overturned, and one the other side was smoking pretty bad from the hood. The spicy chemical fume of burning rubber permeated the air, before being blown apart by the bay winds.
“Fuck. Okay now what?” Charlie slammed the heels of his hands against the steering wheel, exasperated. “I can’t push past all that.”
“Can’t you just try? It’s just a Buick! You can just tell your insurance you were hit.” Janet yelled from the back. There was something about the way she gave orders, propped up on the high part of the middle of the bench, that made Charlie mad.
“It’s my car. You shut the fuck up, or we’re chucking you and your dog outside,” Charlie yelled.
“It doesn’t matter,” Joel muttered. “The dog is dead.”
It was true. In the middle of the commotion, the whining and panting had silenced. The dog lay limp across Joel’s lap, slack-jawed with its tongue out. They were all quiet for a second, waiting to see what would happen.
It was the bike messenger who broke the silence, “The fuck are you retards waiting for then? Get it out of the car! Get it out of the car now!” she hollered.
Impulsively, she kicked the rear left passenger door open, and then leaned in to drag the furry carcass out onto the road.
“Don’t touch my dog!” Janet cried. “Who the fuck do you think you are? That’s my Foofie!” Her tears were welling up fast. Holding its slack and bony head against her neck, she hugged Foofie tight, leaning away from the bike messenger’s reach. Joel Dinkus was glad to have the beast’s drooling head off his lap, but he still pressed himself against the window away from it.
The businessman in the front passenger seat said something sharply in Japanese, making a flinging motion with his hands. Obviously he wanted the corpse out of the car as well.
Charlie nodded patiently, putting a hand on the businessman’s shoulder in gentle agreement, and the said, “I’m sorry lady, but you have to leave your dog. I’m counting to three, and then we’re leaving you. One...”
Janet let out a weeping moan, squinting her eyes and clutching the fur around the dog’s neck.
“Two...”
Heaving heavy sobs, she inched herself to the edge of the car seat, carrying the dog like an oversized baby. Everyone looked tensely impatient, begrudgingly waiting for her. She held the dog beside the car for a moment, sobbing into it’s fur.
“Fuck this. Let’s leave her,” The messenger spat, and turned to Charlie. “You know what’s behind us. There’s too many of them. Let’s just leave her, and—”
“Okay!” Janet broke. “Okay, I’ll leave him. I’ll carry him to the edge of the bridge. I just can’t leave him on the road.”
“Beautiful. Sailor’s grave. Just hurry the fuck up.”
Sniffing wetly, Janet Stetson carried the dog towards the metal barrier at the edge of the bridge. She stepped over a bent metal bumper, a yellow plastic lane divider, and around an empty car.
When her foot touched the metal curb to the walkway just before the barrier, the dog leaned over and ripped Janet’s ear off of her head. Her sobbing crescendoed into a howling scream. Janet dropped her dog, and raised her hand to her ear, where blood was quickly obscuring the fleshy hole.
There had been no growl. No baring of fangs. No sign that dogs give in their progression towards violence. All they heard was Janet’s scream and the hollow bony knock of the dog’s jaws working together.
Having all piled immediately in the car, the rest of them watched though closed windows as the dog shakily rose to its feet and quietly sunk its teeth into Janet’s exposed calf. Charlie threw the stick in reverse.
“Go further, there’s not enough room to accelerate,” Joel noted with a trembling voice. He wiped the drying drool from his pants with the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
“Tell me when.”
The LeSabre rolled back, oversteering around smaller obstacles they had just overcome. When they were about fifty yards from the barrier of cars, Joel said, “Here.”
Charlie slammed the brakes and looked through the rear-view mirror. In the bay mist, several quiet shapes were growing on the horizon of the bridge behind them.
“If this doesn’t work, it’s everyone for themselves. Try to run across and meet at the tunnel.” He said through clenched teeth. They all fastened their seat belts. Charlie revved the engine.
#
The LeSabre hit the barrier of cars dead-center at about fifty miles per hour. The crash was deafening, like colliding comet made from shreds of balled up steel. There was a moment of disorientation to the tune of ear-splitting squeaks, where it was hard to tell what anyone was seeing, and the road on the other side danced before them in a kaleidoscope of asphalt, metal and sky, slowly pinwheeling back together into one certain path to steer along.
Charlie had taken his foot off the gas, but did not hit the brakes, afraid the loss of momentum would get them stuck. Both headlights crunched inwards, and the muffler ripped out of the bottom of the car in a violent rattle against the undercarriage. A large crack snaked up the right side of the front windshield, and there were bits of the other cars jumbling across the LeSabre’s hood. The engine had stalled, leaving the car coasting on whatever impulse it had left.
Everyone had tried locking their heads against their headrests, thinking to negotiate the impact, but it had just caused everyone to snap their heads forward. The Japanese businessman broke his nose against the back of his hand when he lurched forward against the dashboard.
[NOTE: Where are the airbags on a LeSabre from the 80’s?]
Only the bike messenger had been smart enough to hug the back of Charlie’s driver seat.
“Is everyone alright?” Charlie yelled, as if the crash still rang in his ears. “Mister Takamura, are you okay?”
The Japanese business man tried to pinch the bridge of his nose to stop the blood, but touching it only made things worse. He winced, and spat a guttural curse.
The messenger rubbed her jaw absently where she had pressed her face against the back of the driver’s seat, and tongued her cheek.
Joel’s retainer had been knocked out of his mouth. He looked around on the floor for it desperately, pushing aside stapled papers, a plastic straw, a stained coffee cup. When he found it, he held it up to see if the pink, translucent plastic had been cracked.
The dog’s head smashed against his window.
Joel’s voice cracked as he screamed. He held his retainer like a talisman, and pushed the flats of his feet against the window to keep it from smashing.
“Start the car!” He squeaked.
The engine coughed, struggling to turn over. The dog scraped against the passenger door, trying to dig its way in with it’s paws. It bit against the window, leaving streaks of gore against the pane.
Charlie forced the key, nearly snapping it off in the ignition with each try. He pumped his foot against the pedal, trying to give it gas, but the ignition sputtered.
The mass of the dog was heavy against the door. The panels buckled against its collisions, and reset themselves. There was no barking though, as if some invisible force was hurling the dead dog against the car.
Finally the engine revved to life, but with a deeper, groaning sound, as if the collision had irrevocably changed its voice to a rumble. The dashboard blinked to life, and Charlie gave it gas gently, worried about the zombie dog, but doubly worried that their lifeboat would die on them.
“They’re coming,” the messenger warned. “Go! Peel out!”
Behind them, a crowd of figures grew in the mist, running, tripping over trash. They were unhealthy silhouettes, torsos doubled back over broken spines, jiggling as they ran. Some were whole. Some were missing arms, one with a misshapen flap of bobbing flesh where the head should be. Behind the horde, there could have been countless more that couldn’t walk.
As the LeSabre accelerated away, the four of them were grateful for being spared a more detailed eyeful of the surge.
#
The 101 was not empty. When they reached the end of the tunnel, a Toyota pulled onto the highway in front of them with all its windows smashed. Packed into it was a hispanic family of five. The father’s ears were bleeding, and the mother held held her daughters in the back seat. An older son sat in the front, trying to keep a roadmap from fluttering in the wind.
Charlie tried honking the horn to them, but it died with a whimper. So they pulled up beside them, and the four of them waved their arms.
The Toyota nearly swerved off the road when the Buick came out of its blind spot. Still holding his nose, Mr. Takamura rolled his window down so they could communicate.
The father in the other car hollered something indecipherable, so the two cars slowed until the wind wasn’t so loud.
“No Sausalito!” The father hollered, steering into the wind. “Todos son muertes!”
The four of them looked to each other, but none of them understood Spanish.
“What?” Charlie yelled.
“Somos los ultimos quien hay viviendo!” The father yelled.
“English?” Charlie yelled back to them.
The father scowled, and he was about to say something back, when the whole family in the other car stared ahead in shock. The toyota swerved, and Charlie set his eyes back on the road ahead of them.
Running out from the right side of the road — an onslaught of undead men, women and children. They ran at both cars fearlessly, with murderous stares in their ghoulish eyes. Charlie swerved around a handful of them, and clipped a few in the legs, scattering them and rolling them across the sides of the Buick.
The Toyota was not so lucky. Waves of them ran out from the right side of the road. The father plowed the car directly into them, trying to accelerate, but the top half of one managed to latch itself onto the hood if the car. Then one planted itself right into the lap of the son. The car swerved, lost inertia, collided into the highway barrier, and was swarmed.
Charlie kept his eyes in the road, steering around them as they ran out from the side, and floored it in the fast lane. The Buick’s engine growled painfully, but it was still running strong.
“Where are we going?” the messenger asked.
“I’ve got a house up in Sonoma. I think it’s far enough away. We should have enough time to wait it out. Or figure out what to do.” Charlie called back.
As the swarms of dead had ceased to pour out from the trees on the right side of the highway, Charlie started jamming his fingers into the buttons of the radio. Some radio stations were still playing their set list. Some were off the air. One AM station was broadcasting a general alert.
“Colma... seems to have... receiving the numbers... reports on...”
He fiddled with the tuner knob, but it wouldn’t help.
“Maybe you should—” Joel stammered.
“Shut up, Dinkus. I’m trying to hear this.”
“...suggest that anyone still within the area should lock their doors... noise because they... and... defend...”
The radio squelched into waves of hissing.
“Okay,” Charlie tried to compose himself, and squared himself in his seat. “Okay, I don’t think this... thing... has spread all over the place yet. The cops—the National Guard should be here any hour, right? The good guys have guns and—”
“I don’t think you get it,” Joel said. “Don’t you guys know anything about zombies? You can’t just shoot them. You have to sever their brain stem.”
“Oh yeah? Some of them didn’t have heads. How do you explain that?”
“Well in all likelihood this is some sort of government fiasco. Do you even know how many people live in this area? Didn’t you just see that mob of them? If this spread to Sausalito already, why would it be any safer at your house?” Joel reasoned.
“It’s my parents house,” Charlie muttered.
“So, we could barricade it up, right? How many floors is it?”
“Three floors? It’s an old victorian sea cottage.”
“You see that how that dog turned?” the bike messenger absently said, peering through the rear window at the road behind. She shrank back against the bench seating. “We need to do more than barricade the place. We need food... and maybe something to defend ourselves with.”
- cannonball19780
Sorry about the formatting. Copy-paste does that.
- ukit0
- bulletfactory0
tl;dr