Flesh-Eaters Anonymous - pt 9
I couldn't make out what he was saying, but occasionally Ollins would push a button to respond. He stared at me throughout their 'conversation'. He dropped the phone back into the cradle, took two big strides over to me and put a big paw around my neck. He cocked my head to the side and as I struggled for breath he dug something out of his pocket.
It was difficult to see out of the corner of my eye, but it was something shiny, stringy and long. Ollins slipped it into the opening of my ear and I could feel it, cold and sharp, crawling into my head. I dropped to the floor, writhing in pain as the voices of the undead began speaking into my head. Some voices were almost discernible but the sheer number of them was overwhelming. Tied together in one moaning chorus, it took a while before I was able to adjust.
When the noise finally died down I got on unsteady feet. I must have blacked out at some point because there was vomit down my shirt. Ollins put his heavy hands on my shoulders to steady me. It had started to get dark, so Ollins hustled me out the door.
I wanted to ask what the bug was he'd put in my ear but I knew there wouldn't be an answer. The voices had died down or I'd adjusted to them. I didn't know what they were saying, but I felt like I was being urged West. We followed our shadows in the setting sun, walking for hours, avoiding everyone, human and prol until we reached Van Dyke.
The military had erected a makeshift wall out of those concrete dividers that separates northbound traffic from southbound. They were stacked six and seven high and with who knew what on the other side.
"We have to find a way through," I said to Ollins. Without being conscious of it I was betraying him. Would betray him, at the first opportunity I got. On the other side of that wall was a welcome-wagon of humans who would shoot him into bits. Rescuers who would take me into their bosom and protect me. If I'd bothered to examine such a thought the realization of how ridiculous it was would have quickly followed.
With reasonable certainty I thought going over the wall was a bad idea. They probably had a trench on the other side. The fall would probably break my leg. They hadn't bothered stringing up chicken wire across the top because it wouldn't stop any prols that managed to get up there. There had to be a space I could dig through, maybe an unpaved spot in the street I could tunnel under.
Ollins tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a burned out vehicle. When I shrugged he knelt and pointed again, beneath the car. I knelt too and saw the hole. Closer up it looked pretty deep, maybe someone had already done the work for me.
The sun was still a ways from peaking over the horizon. I don't know about the undead, maybe they get tired, but that was the reason I didn't notice them. But Ollins whirled around a second too late and his upper body was burning all of a sudden. He batted me aside and ran straight for the soldier holding the flamethrower who was keeping a steady stream of fire trained on him.
Ollins swatted at the nozzle of the thrower and the figure crouched next to the soldier popped up, the back of him on fire as he began throwing himself up against another burned out car and onto the ground. Ollins put his thumbs into the eyes of the soldier holding the flamethrower and turned as two soldiers with M-16s began firing at him. He stopped himself as he was about to turn in my direction and they blasted charred bits off him until he was nothing but a stump atop two legs, their bullets ricocheting off the ground and abandoned vehicles.
