Z-Burbia Box Set | Books 1-3 [The Asheville Trilogy] Read online

  “You mean Bullhorn?” I ask.

  “I prefer Wall Street,” Jon says. “Anyone can have a bullhorn. Then it gets confusing.”

  “Why do you get to name him?” I ask.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Stuart says. “Padre is right. Wall Street is best.”

  We demolish a stone fountain and bits of rock and sludge water splash up against the windshield. Stuart casually turns on the wipers, smiling slightly when washer fluid comes squirting out.

  “It’s the little things,” he says quietly. We nod in agreement.

  We get to Farrwood Dr. and Stuart hooks a right. The street is pretty clear, so he keeps to the asphalt. We can still hear motorcycles, but they are a ways back.

  “Where are we heading?” Jon asks.

  “Campus,” Stuart says.

  “The fuck we are,” I protest, “that’s Z central, man!”

  “We’d have had to go there if this mission really was about batteries,” Stuart says.

  “Which would have been a quiet mission,” I say. “Three guys creeping along, taking care not to wake the undead co-eds.”

  “You know of a better route?” Stuart asks as we cross Merrimon Ave and up Edgewood. Stuart downshifts to get us up the hill. We crest it and he hits the gas as we speed downhill. “If you do, then I’m all ears, Jace.”

  “Jesus,” I say, knowing he’s right. “We can hit the field behind the athletic training center. Then cut down to 251.”

  “Why not head to the meadow?” Jon asks. “Ditch the truck up there and use the path to get through the razor wire and ditches.”

  “Because we want this thing,” I say. “Right, Stuart?”

  “Right,” Stuart says.

  “Something I need to know?” Jon asks. More ricochets and part of the side mirror by Jon is torn off. “Fuck these guys! Give me your pistol!”

  Stuart hands it over without taking his eyes off the road. Jon leans out the passenger window and starts firing. Stuart glances in his side mirror and frowns.

  “You’re missing,” he says. “Stop that.”

  “Shut up,” Jon replies as he takes aim and squeezes the trigger. I hear a crash then a whump as the motorcycle goes up in flames. “How’s that?”

  “Still two more,” Stuart says, taking a hard curve to the left before having to take an immediate right. Jon and I slam into each other, our heads knocking together. “Quit fucking around and fire.”

  “You suck,” I say as I rub my head.

  Jon leans back out and hits another biker as the guy comes around the corner. We wait, but the third motorcycle is nowhere.

  “Lost the last one,” Jon says, “must not have been good enough to take those turns.”

  “You were saying?” Stuart says as we watch a motorcycle fly off the hill to our right, directly in front of us.

  It is a spectacular stunt, and everything kind of goes in slow motion as the guy, still in the air, aims his pistol right at us. Jon and I open our mouths to scream, but bring our arms up to cover our face instead, as the world goes back to regular speed and the truck nails the motorcycle in midair.

  The rider tumbles across the hood, his clothes on fire from the burning gas of the motorcycle. He looks at us, shocked and confused. Then looks around at his situation.

  “Hey.” Jon waves as he leans out the window and puts two bullets in the guy’s face.

  Stuart is happy he gets to use the windshield wipers again.

  We take another hard right and the truck struggles up the next hill as the engine starts to make a loud banging noise. Ahead is the University of North Carolina-Asheville sports arena (Go Bulldogs!). To our right is the road to the athletic training center. To our left is a horde of Zs, probably a hundred strong.

  “Oh, crap,” I say, looking past Stuart. “Homecoming committee is here.”

  “Go team?” Jon says. “Can we go faster now?”

  “The truck didn’t like eating that motorcycle,” Stuart answers.

  “I don’t like getting eaten,” Jon replies. “We could get out and run faster than this thing!”

  “Speak for yourself,” I say, my wounds reminding me that running isn’t at the top of my options.

  “We’ll make it,” Stuart says, “I want this truck.”

  “Why?” Jon says. “Not like we can go joyriding in it! And it makes a shit ton of noise! Every time we start it up it’ll bring the Zs, so why keep it? We might as well park it in front of the gate and leave it there!”

  Stuart glances over at Jon.

  “What?”

  “We won’t park it in front of the gate,” I say. “We’ll park it on one side, blocking Hwy 251. Then when they come for us, we’ll only have to worry about the other side of the road.”

  “Oh, good idea,” Jon nods. “Wait...when they come for us?”

  “Wall Street,” Stuart says. “This shit ain’t done yet. Trust me.”

  The horde of Zs is almost too us. I can actually make out the logos on some of the kids’ clothes. Popular brands pre-Z. But this ain’t no Benetton ad. This is real life and the kids are really just one color of dead grey.

  “Move, move, move,” Stuart says as his hand rhythmically slams against the steering wheel. The Zs get closer and we can hear their moans over the engine. “Come on!”

  “MOVE!” we all shout.

  The truck crests the hill and Stuart aims for the sports center. He tries to steer around the building, but we’re blocked by a long steel bar across the access road. The brakes squeal and we stop.

  “Rock, paper, scissors?” I ask.

  “I’m on it,” Jon says as he opens the door and jumps from the truck. He sprints to the bar and pulls on it, trying to swing it out of the way, but it won’t budge. “Rusted!”

  “Can’t we ram it?” I ask.

  “9-11,” Stuart says.

  “Not following.”

  “It looks harmless, but after 9-11, shit like that was reinforced.” He looks at his side mirror. “We hit that and the already groaning engine will be toast.”

  “Shit,” I say as I hop down from the truck too.

  I limp over to Jon and we both start shoving against the bar. We can feel it start to give, but it’s not fast enough. Behind the truck, the horde gets closer and closer. We shove more, putting our whole bodies into it. No dice. Just a creak and a cloud of red dust from the hinge.

  “We’ll have to figure something else out,” Jon says. “We’re out of time!”

  Stuart shakes his head and we hear the truck’s gears grind. Then the thing starts moving in reverse with Stuart looking at his side mirror. The dump truck plows into the Z horde and squashes about twenty of them before Stuart pulls forward again.

  It gives us a minute longer and we use that to our full advantage. Jon and I get our hands against the bar and dig with our legs. It creaks, it groans, metal on metal shrieks, and then finally, it starts to move out towards the truck. Just as we get it clear, Stuart hits the gas and starts rolling quickly. Jon jumps into the cab and reaches for me.

  I catch his hand and am almost up when I slip, my legs dragging on the ground.

  “Stop!” Jon shouts.

  “No,” Stuart says, “we can’t. I don’t think this thing will get going again.”

  “Then fuck the truck! We’re gonna lose Jace!”

  “No, we aren’t,” Stuart says, “pull.”

  “I like the pulling!” I shout as my feet scrape the pavement. I look over and the horde is at the truck’s rear. “Please, for the pulling now!”

  Black, congealed blood drips from several undead mouths as they raise their arms towards me. I can see the hunger in their dead eyes. It’s always surprising how much “life” they have when they’re all riled and close to feeding. You can see them just perk right up, all set to get their chomping on.

  Then Jon yanks me into the cab and I slam the door closed.

  “Thanks,” I say, catching my breath.

  “Any time,” he smiles, then points. “
Behind that shed. The access road leads across the soccer field and down to Riverside.”

  Stuart takes his eyes off the road long enough to give Jon a look of disdain.

  “What? I didn’t know if you knew which way to go.”

  “I know which way to go,” Stuart says. “This was my idea.”

  “Well, maybe you had a different route in mind,” Jon says. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “What route would that be, Padre?” Stuart asks. “How many routes are there then? You have a list on you?”

  “Okay, okay, don’t get all touchy,” Jon says, lifting his hands in surrender. “Same team, Stuart.”

  Stuart just frowns and grumbles a bit.

  “I think he needs a nap,” I whisper.

  “Screw you, Jace,” Stuart says. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  “Not necessarily,” Jon says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m sure that’s what half those dorm rats thought pre-Z and now look at them. Never gonna rest again.”

  “Speaking of,” I say as we hit the soccer field and rip through the long grass. “How many do you think are back there?”

  “I know, I know,” Stuart says.

  Jon rubs at his face. “Can’t lead them all back to Whispering Pines.”

  “So...?” I ask. “We make a stand?”

  “Yes, but not here,” Stuart says. “Wait until we get down to 251. Then we pick one of the spots that’s closest to the river with a cliff on the other side.”

  “Box them in?”

  “Narrow their charge and take them out,” Stuart says.

  “With what?” Jon asks. “Jace’s bat?”

  “The Bitch,” I say. “She is called The Bitch.”

  “I don’t care what she’s called,” Jon says. “We don’t have enough weapons.”

  “Then we look for some,” Stuart says. “This isn’t our first rodeo.”

  “True, but I’d rather be the bull in this than the clown,” Jon says.

  “Me too,” Stuart nods, “but clowns serve a purpose too.”

  “I hate clowns,” I say. “Why’d you have to bring up clowns? Zs aren’t enough? Gotta talk about the smiley creepy guys too?”

  “I like clowns,” Stuart says. “My wife used to collect them.”

  Jon and I look at each other. It’s the first time we’ve ever heard Stuart talk about pre-Z other than his Marines days. As far as we’ve known he was immaculately conceived and just showed up fully grown in the middle of Camp Lejeune one day, rip roaring ready to kill, kill, kill!

  “What?” Stuart asks. “You know those little ceramic clowns? Not the big ones with the sad faces, but the small ones that are busy doing tumbles and cartwheels? She liked those. I always brought her as many as I could carry when I was deployed.”

  “I thought you trained Marines?” I ask.

  “That too,” he says. “She loved those clowns. Hold on!”

  We are so busy listening to him that we don’t see that he is heading straight for the edge of the field and a drop off.

  “Fuck!” I shout as I hold my hand to the ceiling of the cab, bracing myself for the drop.

  “Dammit!” Jon yells next to me.

  The front of the truck seems to hover in mid air then fall forward, slamming and bouncing against the side of the hill. It’s almost a straight drop and I am seriously worried that the truck is just going to start tumbling end over end. That stops being my worry when I realize that the bottom of the hill isn’t a nice, gradual grade, but a straight shot at the asphalt.

  “Shit,” Stuart growls as he turns the wheel slightly.

  We feel the truck start to turn, but we also feel the wheels start to leave the hill.

  “Ah, shit,” Jon says.

  I agree with him 100%.

  Stuart is able to angle the truck just right so that the front wheel, and not the grill, hits the pavement first. The back bounces up in the air and we wait for it to flip us over as it lifts, but all of our cursing/praying works, because then it slams back down in a teeth jarring crunch.

  The engine stalls and Stuart turns the key over and over.

  “Shit,” he says.

  “Dead? Or flooded?” Jon asks.

  “Not a clue,” Stuart says and jumps from the truck. He unlatches the hood and flips it up, bracing it with its bars. “Come give me a hand!”

  We follow and climb up the wheel wells until all three of us are looking into the engine.

  “Do you guys know what we’re looking for?” Jon asks.

  Moans and the sound of breaking underbrush tell us that the Zs are coming. They’ll be down the hill pretty quick, since most of them will probably just trip and fall their way down. We have a very limited time to trouble shoot a dump truck engine none of us knows how to work on.

  “I don’t smell gas,” I say, trying to work it out, “and I don’t see smoke.”

  “It could just be dead,” Stuart says. “It sounded like it was going to throw a rod soon anyway.”

  “We would have heard that happen, right?” I ask.

  Stuart just shrugs.

  “Okay, so what happened?” I stare into the engine, my brain working on overdrive. I’m the problem solver. That’s why they keep me around. I figure shit out with the barest of information. I can do this. “We took a hard bounce, right?”

  “You need me to confirm that?” Jon says. “You were in the same truck we were.”

  The Zs are even closer.

  “Dammit,” Stuart says as he hops down, machete in hand. “I’ll buy us time. Figure it out, Jace.”

  “Right,” I nod, “figuring it out.”

  “You were asking about the bounce,” Jon says.

  “Thanks. Yes, the bounce,” I say. “It could have loosened something. What looks loose?”

  “It’s a piece of shit engine,” Jon replies. “It all looks loose.”

  We hear a thwack and then a body drop. I don’t have time to look behind me. I just have to trust Stuart to do his job.

  “Something specific,” I say. “Look for loose wires. Loose cables. Loose belts. Anything that is hanging down or disconnected that shouldn’t be.”

  “Again, I don’t know what should or shouldn’t be hanging down,” Jon snaps.

  Thwack, drop. Thwack, drop. Thwack...thwack, drop.

  “You aren’t helping,” I say to Jon.

  “I don’t know how!” Jon says. “I know nothing about engines!”

  “Fine, fine, fine,” I mutter as I scan and rescan the engine, going over everything with my eyes.

  Thwack, thwack, thwack. Drop, drop, thwack, drop.

  “Gonna need to get moving,” Stuart says, slightly out of breath. “No pressure. Just letting you know we have about fifty seconds.”

  Nope, no pressure there.

  “Get in the cab,” I order Jon. “Turn the key when I say so.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  I study the engine one more time, and then reach as far down as I can and grab a handful of thick wires. One is connected, a second is connected, a third and a fourth. The fifth isn’t connected, neither is the sixth. I follow the wires back and realize what I’m looking at. Distributor cables.

  “Well, shit,” I say as I plug cables five and six in. The rest are good to go. “Crank it!”

  Jon turns the key and the engine sputters, sputters, sputters, kicks over, sputters, dies.

  “FUCK!” I yell. “Do it again!”

  Thwack, thwack.

  “Son of a bitch!” Stuart shouts. “Fucking die!”

  Thwack, drop.

  Jon turns and the engine sputters, sputters, catches, revs, revs, stays running!

  “Let’s go!” I yell at Stuart, but he’s already on the other side of the hood and helping me slam it down and latch it.

  “Move,” he says to Jon as he hops into the cab.

  I look back as I climb up and see several Zs with their heads split open sprawled on the ground, goo pooling about them. I also see quite a horde c
oming at us and coming down the hill. The first horde has grown; they must have texted that there was a meat party, because it looks like half the campus is on our asses.

  “Can we get this thing up to speed?” I ask, slamming the door. “Because the game just got out and the frat boys are coming our way.”

  Stuart looks over at me and frowns as he prepares to shift into second gear. “Make sense, Jace.”

  “Big horde O’ Zs crawling up our tailpipe,” I say.

  “Yeah, I saw them,” Stuart says.

  “Then why’d you tell me to make sense?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure if that’s what you meant.”

  “Really, guys?” Jon says. “Is this the time?”

  Stuart shoves the gear shift into second and a huge grinding sound echoes from under the truck. The stick pops back on him and he snatches his hand away.

  “Ow! Dammit!” he shouts.

  He tries again, but the truck won’t shift into second.

  “That’s not good, right?” Jon asks.

  “No,” Stuart says. “It means we can’t get above about five miles an hour without burning out the transmission or the engine.”

  “Still faster than the Zs, though,” I say and lean out the window for a look. “Or not.”

  “What?” Jon asks as he leans past me and has a look. “Crap.”

  “Zs can’t go faster than five miles an hour,” Stuart says. “We’ll stay ahead of them.”

  “But we won’t have a lead,” I say. “We need to get rid of this horde before we get to Whispering Pines.”

  We all three sit there while the truck rumbles along at its snail’s pace.

  “There is one way,” Jon says.

  “No,” Stuart and I say at the same time.

  “I’m pretty fast,” Jon says. “I just draw them away in the other direction. We’re close enough to home that I can double back without them getting me. Not the first time I’ve been solo out here.”

  “No,” Stuart says.

  “No way,” I agree. “We aren’t splitting up.”

  Jon starts to rummage around in the cab and comes up with a nasty looking tire iron. Long, thick, strong. Way bigger than the one that comes with the free jack in your average sedan. This guy is easily three feet long with an already wicked point on the straight end. The wrench end is as big as a fist, ready to work the huge lug nuts off the truck tires.