With a Beretta and a Prayer

[Skye]

I hate getting shots, I’ve resisted getting a flu shot for years and this year was no exception. Even with all the talk of the swine flu and how we should all get this extra vaccine. No Way! I was healthy enough without getting jabbed in the arm, thank you very much! Now it turned out something had gone horribly wrong with the vaccine, it had mutated, turned people into the “living dead”… zombies by any other name. So my fear of hypodermics might have saved my life, for at least a little while longer.
I’d been on the run west for a few days now, taking back roads, and keeping to myself as much as possible. Thank goodness for self-service gas-stations, credit cards and a fast motorcycle. I had a backpack of trail rations a couple T shirts, bras and undies, my dad’s old Beretta 93R, and 15 full clips of ammunition, well, 11 left now. I’d only stopped for gas, water and to pee.
I managed to get to Barstow before I found any major trouble, man that town stunk to high heaven! Bodies everywhere! Of course, bodies meant that there were fewer zombies walkin’ around. I hated having to slow down, but I had to get off the freeway to gas up, and once I was off… I not only had trouble finding an open pump, but finding a path back to an on-ramp. There were abandoned vehicles, vehicles crashed into buildings and lampposts, and bodies strewn everywhere, it was chaos. I figured it looked like this in most big cities across the country now. Maybe even the whole civilized world. Anywhere that damned vaccine had been distributed and upright citizens had volunteered to be jabbed with it.
I just had to get to Bakersfield and the Suicide Zone, the Asylum’s private gym. Lockdown was in less than 8 hours. I knew I was taking a HUGE risk, I wasn’t part of the company, I was “just” a fan, and how I’d come by my information about the lockdown was sketchy. They might not let me in once I got there.
As I finished filling my tank and laughingly grabbed my receipt from the gas pump, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. Jerky movements, continuous, jerky movements. Not hesitating, like someone who was worried about being seen. Not someone who was alive and worried about being seen. Quickly, I put my helmet and gloves back on, hopped on my bike, turned the key, and started looking for a path through the wreckage. I really didn’t wanna get caught by any of those things, and I didn’t wanna have to fight them if I could help it either. Fighting would slow me down, I could risk losing my ride, hell, could risk losing my life!
Damn! There was more than one! And they were spreading out, trying to cut off my escape. How did they have enough intelligence to do that, but not enough to realize that I would hardly make a meal for 3 of them, let alone the 10 I could see? This whole situation had me baffled. I loosed the strap on my thigh holster. I hated automatic weapons almost as much as I hated needles, but I hated these zombies the absolute most, and if it meant I had to use a gun, so be it! I knew from Gallup that the bullets I had with me worked just fine in taking out these… things, as long as I hit them dead between the eyes. Good thing I was a crack shot, one of the few things I could to thank dad for.
I chuckled as I noticed they were all ranged in front of me, about 20 yards away… this was too easy. They were just walking steadily towards me, not looking at anything I was doing, just coming onward, like a storm. I steadied myself, planting my feet firmly on either side of my bike, pulled the gun smoothly from its holster, calmly checked the clip was in solid, raised it, took aim from the far left and opened fire across the line… taking them out one by one like a carnival duck shoot. Brains, skull bones and gore spattered the pavement and vehicles behind them. Bodies from the neck down crumpled under themselves as the heads that had led them onward were blown apart by the force of my bullets. As the last one fell, others appeared from behind nearby vans and cars, but instead of heading to me, they shambled to the fallen bodies, crouched down and began to gnaw away moaning in what almost sounded like ecstasy. Grrroooossssss!
I flipped the safety back on, re-holstered the gun and fastened the strap, needing to focus on something other than the gruesome scene in front of me. Then, quietly easing my bike backwards a bit, I turned away from it and got out there as unobtrusively as I could. As soon as I was cleared, I gunned the engine, and wound my way between the abandoned cars until I got to Highway 58, where the going was a bit clearer and I could continue on to my ultimate goal. Bakersfield and the Suicide Zone.
God, I hoped they’d let me in when I got there… if I got there…

[Skye]

Mapquest says it takes about two hours to drive from Barstow to Bakersfield, it took me nearly six. California being what it is, the freeways were cluttered with abandoned vehicles almost as badly as the streets of the cities. I had to wend my way between them and sometimes even backtrack. I’d been sticking to the breakdown lane. Thankfully, the zombies had mostly vacated the roads in search of, what would you call it? Prey? I passed some bodies, but none of them moved.
I reached the outskirts of Bakersfield, found an empty parking lot where I could get my bearings without being ambushed and figure out where I was heading. I pulled a crumpled wad of maps out of my jacket pocket, shuffled the Bakersfield city map to the top and oriented it and myself.
The good news was that I wasn’t too far from my destination. The bad news was that it looked like it was going to take me through an area that was likely to be crawling with zombies. On the other hand, the area might have been cleaned up. God, this whole thing was such a crap shoot! But Hell!, better to be doing something than sitting holed up at home waiting to be found. I shivered in revulsion at that thought.
Pulling the city map from the stack, I folded and stuffed the pages back into my jacket. I wedged the city map into my windscreen as best I could, and got back on the main street.
I should’ve known things were not going to be as easy as looked on the map. I made mistakes. I’d been on a long street, empty, which was a nice change. I’d taken advantage and hit the gas, to relieve some of the past day’s stress. First mistake. I almost missed my turn, so I ended up taking the left a bit sharper than was wise at that speed. Second mistake. I trusted MapQuest to be up to date. Third mistake. The street was no longer a through road. It was also not clear, there was debris everywhere, and my bike hit it at just the right, I mean wrong angle.
Down we went, my bike on top of me, at the last second, I thought to let go of her. I landed on my left hip, my bike landed hard on top of me and then slid away from me. I heard crunching, and then felt as if my bike was trying to separate my leg from my body. My boot has caught on some part as the bike was sliding away. I screamed in agony as my thigh bone was pulled from its socket, then the motorcycle angled and my boot was released. My leg was still dislocated and the bones crushed, but the pain was momentarily lessened.
I looked around as I pulled myself to a semi sitting position, it looked like a construction site, loose bits of concrete and wood and metal all over the place. My baby had come to a crunching halt up against a wall. I mourned the scratches and dents in her gorgeous paint job, dammit! I’d saved so long for that custom work! Such are the thoughts of the shell shocked mind. My leathers were ripped, I could see that my left leg was useless. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was bleeding too, it felt like badly, and my first aid kit was in my bag… on my bike… several yards away.
In the near distance, I heard sounds, I assumed that my crash and screams had not gone unnoticed, perhaps even my blood had been scented, I had no idea. I figured I didn’t have long before I was going to pass out, either from pain finally pressing its way through the shock, or from loss of blood. I had no desire to be eaten alive by zombies. How could I turn this situation to some small advantage?
I eyed my motorcycle. There was a small leak in her gas tank, and a thin rivulet of gas was running in my direction. I checked my right jacket pocket, I recalled slipping a couple packs of matches in there before I left the house, Aha!, they were still there, was fate on my side after all? Maybe. This was going to be tricky at best, painful no matter what, and at worst... well, I wasn’t going to think about the worst.
I fished out a pack of matches with some difficulty, and hoped I could still do the one handed trick my brother had taught me. He’d always hated that I’d learned it left handed, mirroring him. I checked my gun, glad I had put in a full clip at my last stop, since everything else was in my pack…. out of reach on the bike. My leg was starting to throb bad now, I had to clamp my teeth hard to keep from screaming, but I’m no heroine, a few sobs got out.
I could hear feet shuffling as well as the usual moaning now, so the damned creatures were much closer. Good, I was ready to get this over with. Once they turned the corner, I knew I would have to act fast. I let myself rest for a moment, thinking over my plan, putting my actions in sequence, gathering my courage. I turned my head carefully in the direction of the street entrance, trying to get a first look.
“OK, girl, its showtime, put up or shut up time as mom would say.” My leg was screaming at me, my hands were shaking. I took a deep breath, flicked my left hand. Nothing. Shit! I tried again… and again. Third try and the match flared to life, I breathed a sigh of relief. I positioned the gun just the way I’d heard dad describe, and prayed it would work, though I doubted I’d notice if it didn’t.
I dropped my left hand, the lit matchbook catching the makeshift fuse that had dribbled to me. The flame raced up the pavement to its goal. Closing my eyes, I said a quick prayer for forgiveness, and pulled the trigger. The gunshots and a small explosion happened nearly simultaneously. A combination of blue sparkly plastic shards, foam padding, motorcycle and body parts, and construction detritus hailed upon the cluster of zombies entering the dead end street.

I guess I made it to the Suicide Zone after all.