All this flashed through Ken’s mind in a moment. In the instant when the sound came to his ears, the instant when he saw the contrail that signaled the passage of the RPG’s explosive warhead.
The white line passed right by him. If he had been fast enough, he could have reached out and swiped through the superheated air with his hand. He felt the heat of it, felt a few more of his hairs singe and disappear.
The RPG hit the semi-circle of zombies that had crowded into the road ahead of them.
Exploded in a firestorm of heat and light.
29
“geddub”
“can’t geddub”
“godda geddub”
Everything sounded funny.
“baby?”
“babyzokay”
Ken put a shaking hand to his head. Touched his ear. Felt something wet. Probably blood, and he tried to bring his hand forward to verify that, but couldn’t seem to make his hand work.
“hope?”
“hopezokay”
“geddub”
“can’t geddub”
He realized that at least one of the mumbling, stumbling voices was his. That he was sitting in the middle of something wet –
(did I crap my pants? again?)
– and something was pulling on him. Yanking his arm and hand. He thought about ignoring it, but whatever it was –
“goway goway ‘n’leaveme”
– was pulling on his bad hand. The left. The hand he had slashed two fingers off of in order to escape a horde.
“theystillhere”
“still here geddub we gottago”
The hand hurt. Whoever was pulling it wasn’t stopping, and Ken finally realized that the only way to stop his hand hurting would be to geddub. To get up.
“geddub. Geddub. Get up.”
A final yank, and Ken managed to stand. His feet slipped on the wetness beneath him and he almost went down again. His vision finally cleared enough of the white fog that had surrounded it to see that he had been sitting not in his own waste but in what looked like a pile of entrails.
He looked at his own gut.
His shirt was torn. He had a new collection of scrapes.
But the viscera were not his.
He looked at the hand still holding his. It was big, almost too big for the sinewy arm to which it attached. Aaron.
“Come on.”
The cowboy gave him another yank. Ken lurched forward. He stumbled over a hand that was laying in the road, bereft of a body. He wondered for a moment if the hand belonged to any of his friends. Then the fingers snapped shut as he passed, trying to grab him, and he noticed the yellow gunk already seeping out of the stump and oozing from the pores. Answer enough. Not a friend.
He raised his eyes.
He had seen Hell. But that had been Hell from a human perspective. The end of the world. Earth brought to its knees in mere minutes.
This was a different sort of perdition: damnation for the already-damned; a deeper circle of Hell. The small horde that had been in front of the survivors had been hit squarely by the RPG, the payload shattering and splattering them like a puddle under a boot. Bits of the zombies were everywhere, pieces laying on the ground, parts on cars, shreds hanging from walls and streetlights.
The Redhead was struggling to stand. A disembodied hand clutched her upper arm, and blood welled around the fingers. She seemed to notice it for the first time and screamed in terror and revulsion. She swung her entire body in a tight arc. Slammed the stump against a nearby parking meter, once, twice, three and four times and Ken heard the crackle and then the crunch and then nothing as the bones inside the impossibly-gripping hand were pummeled to mush.
The hand fell away. She ground it under her heel.
She turned to the survivors. Zombies that had been blown to pieces were pulling themselves toward them on shattered arms and fingers. Yellow froth was hardening, sealing what remained of their organs inside.
“Come on,” she said. She looked behind them. Ken remembered that there had been more than one horde.
We can’t outrun them. No way.
As if to answer his thought, he heard the sound of another RPG. Felt the vibration of another payload delivered, another explosive ignition.
The Redhead did not react as he might have expected. Rather than triumph or relief, he thought he saw desperate grief shine in her eyes.
She turned away before he could be sure.
“Come on,” she said again. Her voice still grated around the devastating throat wound. But no amount of grit and gristle could hide the sob that choked her words. “We’re almost there."
Ken didn’t know if she was talking to the survivors alone, or to herself as well. Perhaps only to herself.
He looked for Maggie. His wife was standing. Covered in gore, looking as surprised as he felt to be alive.
He tried to smile but couldn’t. He was too tired, too confused.
Too curious.
We’re almost where?
30