Chapter 55- It's time for your bloodbath

This was it. The zombies had a firm grip on my skull, I could feel their bones piercing my cheeks and cutting into my ears. Any minute now I expected to feel the bite of some monster's teeth sink into my skull.

It's interesting the things you think about in those last moments of life. I remember seeing a zombie movie. An 80's era remake of George Romero's classic night of the living dead, at least I think it was. I don't remember the plot, if there even was one, but a particular scene stood out to me. They were in a jail or prison or something, someplace with bars separating the living from the undead. Somehow the person in the scene turned their back on the zombies and they grabbed him, pulling him toward the bars and biting into his skull. It crumbled like it was made of paper mâché. I assumed then that Zombies has supernatural strength, that their jaws and teeth were somehow imbued with a power normal people did not possess. How else would something as hard as a skull be crushed so easily? Skulls were hard, something I learned many times over as a young child, yet these demonic creatures seemed to squish it with ease, feasting on the delicious brains inside with voracious enthusiasm. Could they do the same to me? Was my skull suddenly soft like the skin of a grapefruit?

Tracy would be all alone. If she was there at our storage unit, how long would she wait? Was Whitney right? Would the storage unit not be enough to protect her? Tracy had mentioned a cabin up in the mountains. Some place owned by her parents. Would she make her way there? I pulled uselessly against the strong grip of the creatures holding me through the window. This was it. I was going to die.

I felt my stomach lurch as a heavy weight pounded my abdomen. Oliver had leapt on my stomach and was swinging his hammer ferociously. I heard the crack of bones and the tearing of flesh mixed with his short heaving breath and the little grunts of exertion. I looked up and saw his hammer smack the forearm attached the hand grasping my hair, and felt the grip loosen. I tried to pull away from the window but another hand on my shoulder and a third gripping my left ear held me firmly in place. I knew my ear was bleeding, and could feel one of the bony fingers inside it. I couldn't hear anything out of it, had the beast broken my ear drum, or was its finger simply plugging the hole? I strained against it but the vice-like grip was relentless.

How did these creatures have such power, such strength? I wasn't a scientist or a doctor, but I could only assume the nerve centers that tell us we're tired or in pain were somehow cut off from the brain. While I might run a mile and be winded, perhaps they could run indefinitely, until their muscles or organs failed. I remembered someone telling me when I was younger about the difference between a donkey and a horse. I always assumed donkeys were less intelligent, perhaps because of the ridiculous "he haw" sound they made, or those silly ears and large snout, but the truth was actually the opposite. Donkeys were known to be stubborn because they refused to work when they were tired, a sign of distinct intelligence. Horses, on the other hand, would run at their master's request until they dropped dead from exhaustion and muscle fatigue. I was the donkey and these zombies were like horses, they wouldn't give up, the wouldn't release their grips, they wouldn't relinquish their pursuit unless their bodies failed. It would be our job to make that happen, or become their next meal.

Oliver smacked his hammer on the hand gripping my ear, and I felt a sharp pain as the bony finger plunged deeper into my ear. The grip immediately loosened, and I pulled away a little. I felt the finger still lodged in my ear cavity and felt a tearing like I was ripping apart a chicken wing at KFC. Oliver must have broken its hand, allowing me to tear free.

Oliver knelt on the seat, his hands holding firmly to the hammer held firmly in his little hand...

I pulled hard against my attackers. "Come on, drive!" I heard him yell, the sound only entering my right ear. I pulled the broken finger from my ear hole and discarded it to the floor. Shifting the truck into gear, I slammed on the gas. As it heaved forward the creatures grasping at the hood disappeared and I felt the slippery crunch of their bones under the wheels. I leaned away from the reaching hands trying to grab me through the window and kept pressure on the pedal. The truck pulled free of the bodies trapped beneath us and we began moving down the freeway once more, making distance between us and the limping, lurching horde behind us. Oliver knelt on the seat, his hands holding firmly to the hammer held firmly in his little hand, his eyes glued to the pack of monsters behind us. A small look of triumph spread across his blood spattered face.