This is the End 2(691)

With sincere gravity and dark emotion flashing across his face, Vaughan looked at Nelson and said, “Do not miss. We cannot waste those bullets.”

I wanted to roll my eyes at the idiocy of men, but Vaughan was right. We barely had anything left after last night and it wasn’t like this would be our last Zombie encounter. We could easily escape this predicament only to find ourselves surrounded by Feeders again in less than an hour.

Although right now I felt like this should be our last. Like, I just wanted to sit down with whatever higher power had allowed this to happen and explain to him that we had done our due diligence with Zombies. In fact, I dared to say we passed this level. We were ready for something else- anything else! At this point I would have taken probing alien abductions or those huge worm things from the movie Tremor.

I could climb an electrical tower quickly. Bring it on.

Nelson cocked his gun, and then held it up while he readied his hand on the lever. Vaughan mimicked his motions on the other side and then counted them off in Spanish- obviously to mix it up.

Hendrix scrambled to a helpful position and held up his gun in way of backup.

“Uno…. dos…. tres!”

The windows went down and the muzzles of their guns slid out through the just-big-enough opening. And then they fired quickly and accurately.

Someone else screamed this time, but I couldn’t have told you who. I had my head buried in my knees and my hands slapped over my ears. The sound of gun fire exploded in the vehicle and the smell of burnt bullets mixed with the acrid scent of decaying flesh. The car grew dark as with each kill shot Feeder blood splattered everywhere and the thick, sticky substance coated the windows. Still the van rocked back and forth with the pressure to break through the metal and glass and inhumanly strong hands banged against the windows.

If anything, the piles of dead Zombies around the car only seemed to ignite more fuel for their hunger. They became crazed around us, desperate and starving for our flesh. They clawed and keened and pounded to get to us. Nelson and Vaughan kept shooting, but Vaughan had already reached for his second gun because his first was empty now.

Vaughan revved the engine again and it made a little progress. The Feeders in the front of the van were working their way to the sides to either finish off the now legitimate dead bodies of their Zombie friends or get better access to the all-you-can eat Parker Family and Friends Buffet.

Nelson let out a string of curse words when one of the disgusting creatures managed to get his hand through the half an inch wide space and his nasty fingers clawed at Nelson’s face. There was blood caked under his elongated nails and his fingers were boney but still unfairly strong. His pinky was missing completely and the skin on his thumb and forefinger had been stripped away leaving only dull, dried out tendon and some white bone peeking through.

Oh, shit. I was going to be sick.

And the smell! It was so unbearably noxious!

With one more concentrated fist to the back window it shattered over us while we were distracted with the front of the van action. All of the girls screamed in unison but quickly went to work. Haley immediately picked up her gun and started popping off as many Zombies as she could in a row.

I followed suit, leaning into Tyler so I could still use my right hand to do my shooting. They were easy to pick off now that the window was gone. It was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel- if that phrase meant disgusting, evil undead instead of actual fish.

Hands and faces reached through the open space and we couldn’t shoot fast enough. Harrison had joined in our defensive assault, being the only boy capable of getting his arm in the right position so he wouldn’t shoot anyone in the van on accident and Hendrix had turned around to assist as well.

Still, they seemed never ending all of a sudden, but I was sure it had to do with the direct attack and my blind panic- surely there was an end to all of these Feeders!

Vaughan stomped down on the gas pedal one more time and the van finally lurched forward enough to keep the momentum. He pressed his foot all the way to the floor and the engine made a sick grinding noise but cooperated. Slowly the Feeders seemed to slip away. We were cruising now, the car going about as fast as it could go- 40mph. And we all slunk back into relaxed positions as the last Zombie in the back of the van got tripped up trying to run with the new breakneck speeds and slid down the back and finally to the ground. Nelson’s Feeder- the one that was trying to give him a life-altering handshake- watched as his own arm popped right off and his fingers stayed lodged in the window- waving at us in the undead sort of way.

Nobody made a sound as we waited to see if this could possibly be real- if we really defeated all those Feeders and were driving off into the sunset. Ok, not exactly sunset. More like mid-morning with no happily ever after in sight.