Johnny America

 

Af­ter The Zom­bies Came: Day 22

by

Stephen gunned the ac­cel­er­a­tor and felt the Ape 50’s front wheel slip­ping. “Ital­ian piece of shit,” he mut­tered, his breath crys­tal­liz­ing in the un­heat­ed cabin.

The fig­ure haunt­ing the nar­row road was hitch­ing to­ward him. He slapped the stick to Re­verse, pac­ing wider the gap be­tween him­self and his ad­ver­sary. The mid-day light il­lu­mi­nat­ed the sky of snowflakes as the he­lixed to the earth, paint­ing white all but the hood of the Ape and the shoul­ders of the thing in his way. First, sec­ond, third — Stephen slow­ly brought the scoot­er-truck to speed, tak­ing aim. He eyed the axe on floor­board. The fig­ure in the road shrieked as he sped to­ward it. “Fuck­ing shit, fuck­ing shit,” yelped Stephen as he as­sessed his tar­get’s fran­tic waves, “moth­er fuck­ing human.”

His tug on the steer­ing han­dles came too late. The wind­shield cracked as his vic­tim rolled over, rest­ing briefly in the tiny truck bed be­fore be­ing thrown as it ca­reened off the grav­el shoul­der. Stephen felt his jaw crack as his head smashed in­to the cab­in ceil­ing. His knees fell in­to his chest as he was tossed. His thoughts turned to the axe loose in the cab­in; he could hear it clank­ing near his up­turned feet. An­oth­er tum­ble: his lip split. A grove of cedars braked the Ape.

Stephen tongued the roof of his mouth, wig­gled his loos­ened mo­lars, and spat a mouth full of blood at the dri­ver’s side win­dow, which faced the snowy ground. He closed his eyes to rest a while, not mind­ing his rag doll con­tor­tion. He wished he could reach his flask with­out mov­ing the arm he reck­oned was broken.

Filed under Fiction & Zombies, of or Relating to on August 5th, 2005

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