S. Davis - 900 Miles

Shifting his shoulders toward us, staring directly into our eyes, he took a deep breath and continued with a determination I hadn’t heard in his voice since the Arena.

“Jarvis, you have the stones to make it back to your people? John, you got the stones to get back to your son? I’m going to push through this nightmare. I can tell you one thing, tomorrow I’m waking up next to Mia!”

Standing a little taller, I met Kyle’s glare with a nod that told him I was ready for the fight. My son Tyler needed his father, and this war was far from over. Kyle nodded back, and then looked down at Jarvis, extending his arm. Jarvis shot out a hand, and he was pulled up to his feet.

“Let’s get back to Avalon, boys!” He punctuated this by slamming the wrought iron fence post into the dry, rocky dirt at his feet.

It was time to push ourselves to the next level of endurance. It was time to go further, dig deeper, push harder than we’d ever gone before. Only time would tell if we’d make it.

We all thought we had the stones, even Gordon’s boys. Now it was time to prove it.

NOTHING.

The heat from the fire radiated against my skin, and it felt like the body armor I was wearing was starting to melt. I wasn’t sure if it was burning, but I could almost taste the smell of melting plastic in the back of my throat.

For a moment, it felt as if the fire was alive, and moving in to cut off certain escape routes, blocking others with fallen debris. The bastard was daring us to try to make it, and putting up every defense it could throw at us.

At one point, an entire tree dropped down directly in our path. With the blaze to the right and left of the trail, we couldn’t simply go around the tree, and the flames shooting off the bark in front of us were too high to jump over. On the verge of turning back, we watched as the smaller of Gordon’s boys lifted his oversized weapon and started to fire. Screaming with delight, as the bullets tore through the burning tree, he blew a hole just large enough for us to squeeze through. It was us versus this most ancient of man’s foes, and none of us wanted to let the fire win.

A savagery pumped through my veins. The primal instinct to do whatever it would take to beat the flames. Another branch fell from above. Reaching up to shield my face, I knocked it away with my forearm. Feeling a burn across my chin, I realized my beard had caught fire. No stopping. No time to tend to the wound. It wasn’t the last one I’d get that day. We all kept pushing.

We just had to make it to the pass beyond the lake. When we were nearly at the tree line that would take us around where the fire had not yet reached the brittle forest, I took one last look over my shoulder. With the exception of some creatures dropping directly into the lake, most likely destined to live a waterlogged existence along with what was left of Rodgers, the mega-horde appeared to be splitting in two around the edges. I couldn’t be sure, but we appeared to be on the far left side of the horde’s path.

I could only hope that we’d be able to evade the bulk of the onslaught.

As we hurried around the tree line, a gust of wind pushed our mismatched group back. As the black, now melted body armor across my shoulders flapped from the force, I realized that the flames we’d made it past were literally trying to suck us back, soaking up all of the oxygen from the forest ahead.

Throwing caution to the wind, literally, we plowed through into the depths of the dark forest. With limited time to pass back between the fire and the horde that was quickly approaching, I went into a mental state that long distance runners often refer to as a runner’s high. I wasn’t even feeling my legs or my muscles, which I was sure would kick into full throbbing pain the next day; I found myself able to make each leap forward a little longer, pushing myself to move a little faster. Every step counted, and I knew it.

Fear is an amazing thing. Scientists say that our ancestors evolved based on fight or flight, that most basic of human instincts, and it was kicking into full gear for all of us.

I didn’t hear moaning at that point. Rather, as we came up close and personal with the creatures getting ready to overrun us, screams of terror were all that radiated through my mind. Looking back now, I’m not sure if it was me screaming or someone else in my group. For all I knew, we were all shitting bricks as the zombie horde hit our path.

Kyle was leading the way, with Jarvis still across the top of his shoulders. For the briefest of moments, I witnessed Kyle trip up. Try as he might, he wasn’t going to keep this pace for much longer.

The first of the horde began blocking our path, rolling onto the trail like an avalanche of sloppy shit running down a jagged hill. There were so many of the creatures sifting through the trees that there was nothing we could do but start to fire, swing, punch… hell, even spit at the bastards.

The stockier of Gordon’s boys didn’t let up on his trigger. Amongst the violent sparks of muzzle flash, nothing stood out more than the bullet cartridges flying off to his right. I don’t have a clue what kind of gun it was, but the cartridges were big enough to be nearly as loud hitting the ground as the gunfire itself was.

Black spatter was blasting up all around us, and there was a point where I wasn’t sure who was friend and who was Z, all while we darted through the darkness attacking anything in our way.

Through the moonlight, a steep, tree-covered hill emerged at the far side of the trail. Passing the bulk of the Zs in the front of the pack, I heard Kyle yell out something about just needing to make it to higher ground.

You got the stones to get to your son, radiated through my mind. It was a challenge, not a question. Kyle always knew the right buttons to push.

Sweat was rolling down my face, mixing with the soot melted across my forehead, making it near impossible to see.

“Thirty yards, we can make it!” I heard someone yell out.

Leaving the thickest of the horde’s numbers behind, I knocked through each monster in my path while attempting to avoid the now-thinning group ahead of us.

With each step, I kept repeating the word “ NOTHING !” Swing of the hammer, then another step. “ NOTHING !”

“Twenty yards!” I heard another person scream out.

I looked up toward the direction of the voice, which gave the creature to my right just enough of an edge to snag my leg. Face hitting the dirt with a thud that rang through my ears, I found myself sliding through a thick broken branch which snapped across my shoulder. Momentarily dazed, I flipped over, having just enough time to look straight up at the only visible light in the sky, a series of magnificently floating embers which seemed to be gracefully swimming through the passing clouds. Then I felt my entire body jerk back.

Grabbing for anything to hang on to, I started to panic at the realization that I was being dragged by my boot with two creatures fighting over which was going to get to sink its filthy teeth into my flesh.

My mind flashed to my wife Jenn, those deep red eyes that had blankly stared at me as she turned into one of these creatures. I’d spent countless weeks thinking back to what I could have done differently to save her. There were times when I didn’t believe I deserved to be any more alive than her. In the end, I realized that there was only one thing I could ever to do: honor our love.

Love. Sometimes it’s all you need to give you the strength to do what it takes. That day, it was the only thing that saved my life.

Arching my stomach, I pulled both of my legs in, actually bringing the creatures within inches of my face, then dug in with every ounce of strength left in my body and kicked outward, knocking both of the dead off balance. Breaking free of their grasp, I rolled up to regain my stance and screamed in the most primal of screams.