Zombie Ever After Page 20

  With the motor secured, Donovan pulled the choke out, put the lever in neutral, and yanked the cord.

  Putt.

  He tugged the cord again.

  Putt. Putt.

  Their enemies were only seconds from descending upon them. Donovan could see the whites of their eyes and the yellow of their gritting teeth. With a sense of finality, he pulled the cord one last, desperate time

  Putt.

  Putt putt.

  Puttputtputtputtputtputt.

  They had ignition.

  Donovan pushed the choke carefully back in and turned the lever to Forward and the throttle to Full.

  PuttputtputtputtROARRRRR!

  Not exactly a bat out of hell, more a purring kitten out of Limbo, but at least they were off, moving faster than they’d been under unskilled paddle power. Closer to six knots now than their previous hardly-any-knots.

  Chief Pallaton and his tribe of goons pulled up so close they could have reached out across the two canoes and touched them. A couple even tried to, falling into the bay inches from Cathren and Donovan’s canoe. Turns out, it was harder than he would’ve thought to leap from a moving, rocking canoe in the middle of a choppy sea, thank God.

  Scuffling and pushing ensued as their pursuers wrestled for position and to steady their rocking craft. This resulted in their canoe upending dramatically, the canoe now standing vertical in the water. It was sucked into the deep, dark San Francisco Bay in an instant, leaving the men to swim against the icy cold currents back to Alcatraz.

  Inch by painful inch, Donovan and Cathren pulled away from their would-be captors. As the swimmers receded into the near distance, Donovan turned and allowed himself to look toward the future.

  Which, to no one’s surprise, was not promising at all.

  San Francisco was engulfed in flames.

  Chapter 65

  All hell had broken out by Fisherman’s Wharf, at the Embarcadero, in Chinatown, and throughout most of the surrounding areas. Landing anywhere nearby was out of the question. Bad enough to land in the city while it was loaded cheek-to-jowl with undead. Add a burning San Francisco into the mix, and they could forget about it. They needed a fresh plan.

  “Treasure Island,” Donovan said, under his breath.

  “What?” Cathren said.

  “Treasure Island. We’ll set a course there instead, by dead reckoning.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve had my fill of islands, to tell you the truth.”

  “This will be different,” Donovan said. “It’s a man-made island. Not deserted or abandoned, like Alcatraz. It has no political significance, so we won’t be overtaken again by zealots, justified in their cause or not.”

  “Maybe...”

  “Plus, we sort of have no choice. Treasure Island is nearby, or at least nearby—ish, and most important,” Donovan said, taking a breath, “it’s not going up in flames at the moment.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Cathren said, sighing. “Besides, our little engine ain’t gonna last forever.”

  “Set a course for Treasure Island, then!” Donovan shouted, drunk with victory, or at least a partial victory. They had escaped from Alcatraz. The first people (the first couple, in any case) to do so in the history of the island.

  They continued talking as they putt-putted through the bay, steering as needed to stay on course for Treasure Island. They made land in about twenty minutes and cut the motor. They pulled the boat up onto the rocky shore, which was covered with a scattering of wet newspapers, broken beer bottles, orange peels, and other assorted dreck.

  The couple scanned the area. All around them, the collapsing remains of what appeared to have been a military community stood like ancient ghosts. Cathren and Donovan walked up the beach to street level and began snooping around.

  “Kinda quiet,” Donovan said. “No people, as far as I can tell.”

  “Nope,” Cathren said. “Seems pretty empty.”

  “Let’s see what’s going on in some of these buildings—barracks for all we know. Oh, crap.”

  Cathren turned to watch with Donovan as the canoe sank—motor, oars, and all.

  “Awww, it gave up its little wooden life to save us,” Cathren said, her lower lip pushed out in a pout.

  “Well, I guess we’re left with only two ways off this island now: we’re either walking out of here or flying,” Donovan said. “Dead or alive.”

  They strolled along for a while and turned down what appeared to be the main boulevard. Interestingly, unlike in the city, no abandoned cars lay strewn about willy-nilly on the streets. The few cars in sight sat parked nice and neat in the conventional way.

  The couple continued walking around the small island, looking for signs of life. All the island showed them, however, was a kind of movie set. It looked unreal. Every street they walked on empty.

  “Well, no people, that’s not good,” Donovan said. “No zombies, though. That’s very good.”

  “Yes, I agree. Only I’m a little freaked out by all of this ‘nothing’ everywhere,” Cathren said.

  Then, as they turned the next corner: people!

  The roads were now no longer desolate. Rather, they teemed with busy, well-dressed men and women wandering every which way. Some lugged books. Others carried stacks of what appeared to cards and pamphlets. One teenage girl pushed a library cart half full of books across the street. The cart bounced along the uneven asphalt, ejecting a tome or two every few yards.

  Elated, Cathren waved and called out. “Hello, hello!”

  The girl turned her head and gaped at Cathren with unseeing eyes.

  As Donovan and Cathren got closer, the problem became clear: the girl was a zombie.

  * * *

  At the sight or the smell of Donovan and Cathren, the people in the streets—zombies all—dropped what they were doing, bouncing books on the street. They turned, moaning, and shuffled toward the couple.

  Who took off in the opposite direction, yet again.

  Around the next turn, they caught sight of it, sitting in the middle of the street, parked—or abandoned—by to the curb: a large bus. A bookmobile, to be exact. The door stood open; library books were strewn all around the street and sidewalks. Magazines, newspapers lay scattered everywhere, their pages flipping in the warm breeze.

  Without a word or a signal to each other, and not quite sure what they would find, Donovan and Cathren stepped up into the bookmobile. Instead of trouble, they found keys still in the ignition. Had the bookmobile run out of gas, or had its occupants simply become overrun and forced to pull over? Perhaps they had panicked and run, abandoning the vehicle. At the moment, Donovan didn’t care what the reason was. He just wanted to find out if the damn thing would start.

  He plopped onto the driver’s seat and pressed in the clutch. Cathren sank into the seat directly behind him. He gave the gas pedal a couple of pumps and then twisted the key in the ignition. The engine turned over but wouldn’t catch. He gave the pedal a couple more taps and tried again. One more attempt and he would abandon the whole thing. This time, however, to Donovan and Cathren’s great relief, the engine started and idled.

  “We have wheels!” he said to Cathren.

  Granted, it was a monster of a vehicle, with “Bookmobile” written across its rainbow-colored sides, surrounded by billboard-sized pictures of books and happy readers. Still, it was working, drivable transportation. Now, if only he had any idea how to operate the thing.

  He’d driven stick before, sure. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was, he didn’t know if that knowledge would transfer. That is, if using a stick shift was universal across all types of vehicles. There was only one way to find out: put it in gear and start rolling.

  Using the same “H” pattern his Dad had taught him, Donovan shifted to the top of the left leg of the “H” and slowly let out the clutch. The bus stuttered a bit, resisting his unpracticed touch, but she started moving.

  Clutch in again, he shifted into second. Still good, still movin
g, even if jerky. Donovan had confidence now that he could get this thing on the road. The blind spots seemed enormous around the bookmobile. But he soon got used to using the various and large mirrors positioned around the cab of the bus. Donovan maneuvered the vehicle slowly back into the center of the street.

  Unfortunately, the librarians, aides, customers, and neighbors—all now quite undead—had arrived, moaning, growling, drooling. They crushed together just a few yards from the bookmobile, angry and bent on destruction, as if Donovan and Cathren owed hundreds of dollars in overdue book fines. Donovan didn’t have to think twice. He gunned it, shifting into fifth, when he meant to go into third.

  This, of course, stalled the engine and the bus came to a dead stop.

  Panicking, Donovan turned the key while pumping the gas. Nothing. Now, he’d flooded the damn thing. The zombie librarians stumbled only a few feet away. He spied the milky grayness of their eyes and tried to start the bus. Still no luck.

  The first fell upon them in an instant. One reached up, trying to claw its way in the window where Donovan sat. Cathren shrieked. Donovan punched the button to close the window. Another zombie pushed at the door, forcing it open, excited to a frenzy by the sight and scent of the warm and living Cathren.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” she screamed.

  Chapter 66

  Donovan and Cathren had nowhere to run. He got out of the driver’s seat and glanced into the interior of the bookmobile. Stacks of books, a couple of tables attached to the wall of the bus, a small computer. Nothing he could convert into a weapon and no place to hide. He used to find comfort in the library before all this. Now this local library-on-wheels would be his last stand.

  The bookmobile rocked as the patrons’ and zombarians’ frenzied pounding intensified on all sides of the bus. The undead moaned and groaned. They made strange hissing noises. Hissing noises? After a second, Donovan realized the true meaning of the sound: they were shushing him and Cathren. Old habits die hard.

  Donovan shook his head in disbelief and returned to the driver’s seat. Adjusting the mirrors, he counted at least twenty of these well-educated zombies around the vehicle. Another thirty or more locals hovered up the road headed their way.

  “This is not how I want to go out,” Donovan said to Cathren. “Any chance of you morphing into super-zombie-killer-girl?”

  “I would if I could. Can’t control it though. It’s as if it has a mind of its own.”

  “Fine, fine,” Donovan said, grinding the ignition key and his teeth one last, desperate, no-doubt-futile time.

  Vrrrrroooom!

  The engine started. At first, Donovan and Cathren stared at each other as if in shock, thinking they had imagined the bus starting. Before long, though, they detected the distinctive—and welcome—smell of diesel fuel. Black smoke filled the view in the side mirror. They knew they were back in action. Easing the bus into first gear and gently releasing the clutch, Donovan nudged the vehicle forward.

  “Yes!” he said, pumping his fist in the air.

  “Thank God,” Cathren said, closing her eyes.

  Donovan knew what he had to do. He jammed the transmission into second, then straightaway into third. The crowd of ghouls up ahead was large enough to stop this thing by their sheer mass and numbers. That was true only if the bus proceeded at a slow pace, however—say, five or ten miles an hour. Therefore, Donovan had to get it up to speed as soon as he could.

  They hit the first zombie at twenty-two miles per hour. The thing skidded straight under the bumper. At twenty-six mph, they slammed into another freak. At thirty, a third bit the dust. These stragglers had been easy targets, though, and Donovan was worried once he connected with a large knot of the fiends that the bus wouldn’t have the power to plow through them. He wasn’t driving a tank, for crying out loud.

  At thirty-five miles per hour, he took out two aides and a patron, sending books and library cards into the air as the bus crashed over the cart. At forty, zombies careened across the street and ricocheted into the air. Others crumpled beneath the crushing wheels of the vehicle. Donovan and Cathren sped on their way to freedom.

  Except for the zombies still hanging onto the bookmobile.

  * * *

  One dangled from the rear view mirror to Donovan’s left. Another gripped the door to his right, making significant inbound progress. It had forced an arm between the rubber gaskets that sealed the two halves of the mechanical door. Its fingers stretched out monstrously toward Donovan. The zombie at the window wasn’t making as good progress, but it was getting there.

  A truck—a moving van, in fact—sat abandoned ahead, boxes and packing material dispersed about the road. Donovan slowed down a bit to ensure his aim was true. He didn’t want to hit the truck (a disabled bus would be the end of the two of them); he only wanted to side-swipe it. When they finally reached the van going forty-five mph, the zombie—along with the side mirror—scraped off the bus like a big bug.

  Continuing on, and getting farther from the masses of zombies, Donovan kept an eye out for government troops and any living people he might be able to help by taking them onboard. He almost forgot about the creep at the door, which now, unfortunately for Donovan and Cathren, had made its way onto the first step of the bus.

  Donovan reflected again for a split second how handy a gun—and ammunition, of course—would be at this moment. He had nothing to fight with and hoped he didn’t have to stop to run into the back of the bookmobile on the off chance there might be a knife or a shotgun there, perhaps as part of some library weapons exhibition.

  Problem was, he had to kill a zombie completely and thoroughly to stop it. He couldn’t wound the mothers. He needed a gun, a chainsaw. A freakin’ hand grenade. He had jack squat. He and Cathren were, for lack of a better expression, screwed. Donovan feared, this time, the end, indeed, was nigh.

  The undead librarian on the bus managed to get its entire body into the cab of the bookmobile. She, or it, made horrible gurgling noises as it came on board, crawling up the short set of steps.

  “Arrghrgurrgle!” The devil got up off its knees, righted itself, and snarled at Donovan. Its vacant eyes bore through him as if he wasn’t there, a situation which, in fact, Donovan would have preferred. The freak’s bloody face and limbs reeked of mutant death and decay, a kind of mashup between rotten cauliflower and roadkill. The zombie twisted and shuddered its way toward Donovan, while Donovan attempted to twist away from it, shuddering.

  Kicking the thing would do no good, nor would punching it, as the beast would only take Donovan’s swinging appendage as an invitation to snack. Donovan needed something with which to defend himself, something not attached to his body.

  Donovan slipped the bus into neutral. He let go of the steering wheel and let off the gas pedal. While the bus rolled slowly to a complete stop, Donovan dove past the creature’s outstretched arms into the main part of the bookmobile and grabbed Cathren’s hand. Together they fought their way to the back of the now-parked (but idling) bookmobile.

  “Think!” he said. “There must be something here that can be used as a weapon.”

  As the zombie lurched toward Donovan and Cathren, the couple found themselves backed further and further into the bowels of the bus. They were almost pressed against the rear door, with this undead nightmare just steps away, when it came to Donovan: He had no weapon on the bookmobile, the weapon was the bookmobile.

  “Get in that space,” he said to Cathren, pointing at a large storage cabinet that ran the length of the bus beneath the rows of bookshelves. Cathren climbed in without questioning the command. Donovan slid the door shut and locked it. He pulled the key out and stuffed it in his pocket.

  Then he turned, slammed down the exit bar, and kicked the back door open. He grabbed a chair and lowered it to the ground, a good three feet or more below the door. With a devil-may-care attitude, he stepped down into the chair and from there onto the pavement.

  The zombarian followed. As the monst
er pitched out of the bus, Donovan kicked the chair away. The undead menace, in a move worthy of Chevy Chase, made a pratfall straight to the asphalt, and onto its face, bones cracking and blood vessels popping like plastic packing bubbles. It was still “alive,” but temporarily incapacitated.

  Donovan lifted the chair and drove one of the metal legs through the ghoul’s fragile skull, crushing it like a rotted melon. The chair leg made a sickening sucking noise as he pulled it free of the zombie’s head.

  Donovan returned the chair to beneath the back door. He stepped up on it and then leaped back into the bookmobile. He slammed the door shut and secured it. Next, he unlocked Cathren and helped her to her feet. Together they ran back to the cab. Donovan sat and gunned the still-idling bus, shifted out of neutral, and pulled away.

  In the remaining side mirror, Donovan spied a thicket of zombies making their way toward them. The mob struggled along far enough away not to be an immediate problem. Somehow, and perhaps only for now, Donovan and Cathren had survived.

  Rolling freely down Avenue D, Donovan drove to 4th and the Avenue of the Palms. Any random zombies that got in his way simply became victims of a hit-and-run.

  Donovan would not be slowed. He would not be stopped. Unfortunately, this turned out to be more of a slogan than an applicable practice. The zombies swarming over the Avenue of the Palms made it look like the greatest zombie convention of all was taking place. Too many to blast through with the big bus. And now that he’d stopped, too many behind him to back out. He cut the engine. As it chugged to silence, he and Cathren sat and watched the approaching menace.

  “Not good,” Donovan said.

  In a death march, the zombies shuffled toward the bookmobile, closing in like obsessed and homicidal bibliophiles.

  Déjà vu all over again.

  Chapter 67

  Looking at the hideous creatures in disgust, Donovan realized something. The undead were getting faster. In the reanimation game, speed was not good. In fact, the surviving humans required a certain sloth in their undead, a slowness of movement and of evolution. With this kind of acceleration, what was next? Fit jogging zombies in Juicy Couture running outfits, their decomposing hands clutching Starbucks cappuccinos? No, humans had to rely on their shuffling, stumbling ways. Their sluggishness. Their utter lack of evolutionary change.