cont'd from episode 2 prompt here
Tim had dropped his pack and was running toward the gas station attendant before he realized his own intent. “Hey, stop! Don’t go near them!” He raced to intercept him before it was too late, but the man paid no mind to his shouts, and Tim knew even as he ran that he would be too late. ”Stop!”
The zombie that was struck by the car drug itself toward them across the pavement, leaving a smeared, bloody trail behind it.
Still deaf to Tim’s cries, Clive reached the prone zombie and stopped, bending low to see to what he thought was an injured man. The other three zombies had angled toward the approaching prey, and were almost on top of him as well. Clive finally looked around at Tim’s shouts just as the zombie on the ground reached for him, wrapping its arms about the man in a grisly embrace.
Tim saw the gas attendant pulled down screaming, the dead man’s face buried in his neck, and the three other zombies almost upon him, and knew he was lost. Weaponless and outmanned, he skidded to a halt, some small voice warning him that if he threw his life away to save this doomed man, then he wouldn’t be there to help Jacob and Alison.
The police officer, close on his heels, screamed in denial, racing past Tim with his weapon drawn.
“Nooo…!” Rory yelled as his brother fell, disappearing behind the press of people. He could hear Clive’s screams, impossibly high and unending. As he neared, he realized with shock that the newcomers weren’t helping Clive, they were tearing him apart! Rory screamed in fury as he emptied round after round into the bent backs and heads of the creatures killing his brother. One fell limp, two of the others turned toward him. Clive’s screams stopped. He put the muzzle of his Sig Sauer P226 against one’s chest and pulled the trigger. The impact knocked the thing back, and he stared as it immediately began climbing to its feet.
Tim threw his shoulder into the other zombie before it could grab onto the officer, sending it sprawling. He cursed the loss of his weapon with his dropped backpack. “Shoot them in the head!” he shouted to the man. A speeding car tore around the corner with a screech of tires and sped past them without pause. The officer didn’t seem to even notice.
Rory was staring at Clive’s gruesome remains in dumb shock, at the one zombie still gnawing single-mindedly on his lifeless body. Slowly, he raised his firearm at the creature’s bowed head and pulled the trigger. It fell and didn’t move.
The two remaining zombies were back on their feet. One stumbled toward Tim, and he danced back out of the reach of its clawed fingers. He aimed a kick at the dead man’s knee and felt it connect with a solid crunch. Its leg collapsed, but the creature continued toward him in a scuttling crawl. Out of the corner of his sight, he saw the other zombie reach for the officer and loosed a shout of warning. He didn’t have time for anything more as he tried to evade the undead thing before him. Again and again, he kicked at its head, but it kept coming. He heard a scuffle, a scream and a gunshot behind him. At last, he managed to knock the zombie down, and was able to stomp on its skull with enough leverage to feel bones crack. Once more, and the thing stopped moving.
The police officer was on the ground, the last zombie hunched kneeling over his body, eating.
Tim wiped a shaking hand over his face, swallowing his sense of failure at the loss of the two men’s lives. Guilt was a weakness he couldn’t afford right now. The world, or at least Denver, was FUBAR and he had to hold himself together. The policeman’s arm lay sprawled, his firearm inches from his fingers. Tim eased forward and quietly picked up the weapon. The gun’s magazine held fifteen rounds, and by his estimation there should still be around five left. He pointed the muzzle at the back of the zombie’s head and pulled the trigger.
He needed more ammo for the weapon. Tim gritted his teeth and pulled the body of the zombie from off the police officer. His body shivered uncontrollably as he fumbled at the man’s utility belt for his spare magazines. The sound of his breathing came in ragged gasps, loud in his own ears, and his heart pounded in his chest as though it would burst. He sought to calm his body’s physical response in the aftermath of the violence. He focused his racing thoughts on his one real objective; finding Alison and Jacob, and getting them to safety. Nothing else mattered.
Hurriedly, he stuffed the spare magazines into his pockets and ran back toward where he’d dropped his rucksack. It was still there, and even more important, so was the motorcycle. Though the altercation had seemed to go on forever, it had all happened in a scant few moments.
The wail of police sirens were just approaching from down the street. He needed to evacuate the area before the police arrived and would want to detain him. Tim shouldered his pack and ran around the corner of the convenience store to where the motorcycle was parked, several faces peering at him through the glass doors as he passed. He settled onto the seat and keyed the ignition in one motion, his right hand squeezing the throttle to give it gas, gunning the engine. As he kicked the bike into gear and headed for the driveway, a man came running from the 7-eleven, shouting and chasing after Tim.
Tim clenched his jaw and roared away from the man, south onto Havana, passing two police cars headed toward the gas station. That must have been all they could manage to spare for a fellow officer in the growing madness.
He sped down Havana, passing the County Jail and a women’s correctional facility on his left. The parking lots were empty, the guards and officers having already abandoned their imprisoned charges.
Tim took Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. west. Winding his way between the occasional vehicle, he drove largely without incident for the next five miles. A massive accident involving a tanker truck forced him to turn south onto Colorado Boulevard.
He found himself forced to driving on the sidewalk and threading his way through a nightmare of cars that choked the house lined boulevard, and trying to avoid the wandering dead. They were everywhere, and they were drawn to the sound of the motorcycle’s engine. He couldn’t afford to be slowed down. Another zombie lurched into the sidewalk ahead of him, moving his way, and he hurried to cross the street between a gap in the cars, gaining distance to pass around it.
Ahead and to his right, Tim could see where the view opened upon a tree-lined, green expanse. He saw a sign for the City Park Golf Course, and the Denver Zoo. He gained the opposite sidewalk and made for that grassy expanse and freedom.
