Timothy Long - Beyond the Barriers

I felt more than saw the bead of the gun as it drew on the truck. I jerked the wheel to the right, and sure enough, the windshield exploded where a passenger would have taken a bullet. It punched into the empty seat, and I wondered if it struck the ghoul that was cowering in the back.

Fuck it!

“Strap in!” I yelled as loud as I could, gunning the engine as I reached for the seatbelt. I dragged it up and over my lap, reaching awkwardly for the clasp, but it slipped in my hand. Dragging it back up, I tried to snap it in place. Scott dropped into his seat, yelling something at me, but I didn’t hear what he said. I tried to concentrate on getting the belt on.

The engine roared. Fifty feet from the giant vehicle. Please don’t draw a bead on me.

Forty feet. The metal buckle went behind the clasp.

Thirty feet. I jerked the wheel hard to the left.

Twenty feet. Breathe. Concentrate on the lock .

Ten feet. A quick glance. There it is.

It clicked into place.

Impact!

A haze of thought came before the rending crash. The screech of metal and broken glass filled my ears as we crashed into the military-style vehicle that had a pair of men on the roof. The back of this transport was cracked open and hung like a lip. We hit it at about thirty-five miles an hour, which was more than enough to rattle my bones. I was already sore, but this made me black out for a few seconds. It might have been a few minutes, or hours for all I knew. Except I was still strapped in, and we weren’t being consumed by the dead.

Steam shot out from the front of the truck. Probably punctured the radiator. I doubted the truck was ever going to be drivable again, and I wondered if I was going to be able to walk again. My body ached like I was thrown across a room, and my head rang from hitting the other vehicle. A large airbag was deployed in the seat, so I guessed I could thank my lucky stars for that.

I looked in the back to find Scott in bad shape. He leaned forward, a trail of blood streaming from his nose to the floor. The ghoul was in a heap, curled up on the mat like a dog. If he was dead, it was just as well. I didn’t feel any pity for him, none whatsoever.

A cough from the front of the other vehicle caught my attention. A haze of motion, as something interrupted the steam pouring out of the punctured hood. A shape came into view, and I thought it was a deader at first. I reached for the Desert Eagle, but it was nowhere to be found. The floor seemed like the likeliest place, but when I looked down, all I saw was darkness. I reached under the passenger seat, but the door was hauled open and a blood-splattered face met mine. One hand came in and pulled at me, but the seatbelt kept me in place.

Weakly, I slapped the hand away and reached under the seat once more, but I couldn’t get my hand back far enough. I hit the release on the belt, and it popped without retracting into its shell. When I got my hand farther under the seat, my fingers brushed the gun. I leaned over more, my face pressed to the seat, which smelled like sweat and body odor. I grabbed the gun by the barrel just as I was pulled out of the truck by my shirt.

The zombie was strong, and even though I got a hand on the roof of the truck to stop my momentum, I was dragged out and tossed on the ground, losing the gun in the process.

Getting my hand up stopped an incoming blow. I didn’t need this; I couldn’t fight back. At least it was a zombie, so it was slow and dumb. I could probably get it off balance and figure out a strategy, like how to crawl under the truck for the gun.

A hand grabbed me and pulled me farther from the vehicle. The person was breathing hard and muttering under their breath. Not the typical undead actions, or so my addled brain told me. I almost giggled when I thought about talking zombies. Then a vision of the ghoul in the back of the truck blossomed in my mind.

A fist blocked out the sun and aimed at my temple. I jerked aside, but it still caught me on the side of the head and made my ears ring. Feebly, I kicked and made contact with something. Then the hand holding me down withdrew, so I grabbed hold and helped myself up. This was no zombie I was fighting.

The sun was bright and high in the sky. When I came to my shaking feet, I couldn’t make out the figure. It was like they had a big yellow halo around their head. A fast jab shot toward my head, but my body worked on instinct. My right hand came up close to my side then flattened, palm up to take the blow along my arm and redirect the force along the side of my body.

My other hand snaked over and did a check, felt a shoulder, then I used my close quarters training to raise my right elbow up high and clock the attacker in the head. But it wasn’t where I expected it to be, and all I ended up hitting was the side of its neck.

I pivoted on one foot and came around with my hands in the air to block. When the sun was at my back, I got a clean look at his bloody face.

It was Lee, and he was pissed. “I’m gonna shit you into tomorrow.”

He grimaced and threw a big haymaker that would have laid me out for the rest of the day, but I crossed my body with my right hand and barely deflected the blow from my head into my arm. My left shoulder went numb, and I staggered to the side. A left hook came next, and it wasn’t as strong or accurate as the first. That told me he wasn’t used to fighting off-hand. I turned my weary body just a tad to the side, and his punch missed. Then with what little strength I had, I whipped my hand up like a viper striking, first knuckle closed so that my hand formed a half-fist, and drove my hand into his face. Thank you, Katherine.

I struck him below the nose, feeling his lips mash and split around his teeth. He fell back with a groan of pain, and had I been in any kind of fighting condition, I would have followed and finished him off. But I could barely stand, let alone step into his guard and finish him.

“You’re an idiot, Lee. You know that?”

“No one fucks me. No one! I’m gonna wear your carcass like a jacket, and then when it’s dried out, I’m going to set it on fire.”

So much for pleasantries. Here we were, in the middle of a camp full of the zombies we had both sworn to kill, and all we wanted to do was murder each other.

He came in swinging, so I got my hands up, dropped down low, and put a quick right foot into one of his legs. It wasn’t much of a strike, but the heel of the foot to a thigh could be devastating. Score one for me. He grunted but got a blow over my guard, smashing it into my cheek. Getting hit in the face hurt a lot worse than one might have thought. Guys didn’t just roll with it, like the movies. This one made my eye start to water right away. It blurred my vision, and my head rang.

I dropped to my side, dragged one foot up, and kicked low, hoping for a knee. I must have struck his shin, because he moved away and gasped in reply. He ran at me and kicked, then his foot stomped down. I rolled toward the truck again, but my attempt to get the gun was pretty pathetic. I could curl up in a ball and hope he got tired of beating on me soon, but I wasn’t sure how long it would be before Scott came too. If he had his gun ready, he could drop this jerk for me.

Moans nearby informed me that the dead were closing in. If Lee didn’t finish me off soon, they would.

A foot caught the inner side of my calf. If it had been angled, I’m sure it would have broken. I lashed up with my other foot and caught his leg, then hooked and pulled. He went down in a big puff of leaves and debris, and I wanted to turn my head and cough out a mouthful of the stuff. It felt like I was eating it instead of trying to breathe through it.

Dizzy and in pain everywhere, I sat up and tried to get ahold of a pant leg. He kicked out at me, but I got my hands up in time to keep the blow away from my face. Instead I took the shot on my already sore arms and hands. I balled my fist and hit him hard in the thigh with just two knuckles. A Charlie horse wasn’t exactly fair fighting, but I was more interested in living than offering him a chance to take my own life.