Loose Ends: A Zombie Novel by Jay Wilburn Read Free Book Online Page B

zombies heard the truck engine start from inside the garage. There were a dozen or so crossing the front of the Complex within earshot. A few were going one way along the front while the rest were headed the other way. One was already tilted to the left as he turned his body toward the flat, metal plates of the door. He tilted his head a little further and staggered forward in the direction of the engine vibration. Another behind him was wearing a sagging, Christmas tree sweater and soiled boxer shorts with Grinches and reindeer dogs on them. I’m not just guessing about this part. One day we looked under the garage door and I saw what this one was wearing.
    They both reached the face of the door side by side. They looked around and then placed their cut and deeply pitted palms flat against the door. The others slowly approached the sound too.
    The garage door bucked out slightly. Christmas tree sweater backed up two steps. Leaning zombie tilted his head a little further as his hands were pushed into his own chest.
    The door exploded out at the bottom and collapsed in folded sections from the top. One rail twisted as it tore loose from the ceiling and came halfway out the doorway before the garage door broke loose from the rolling wheels in the rail grooves.
    Leaning zombie was pitched backward and slammed the back of his skull against the dusty asphalt. The skin on the back of the skull spilt open and the skull was fractured to expose the dead, black brain, but he was still moving.
    Christmas tree sweater looked up just in time to see a heavy pile of folded metal slam into his face. His head was torn off backward after the brain inside was obliterated. The body and bones were broken down on to themselves under the weight.
    Walkers farther up the street were all reeling around to the clamorous noises of crashing metal. A couple of them were abrupt enough to see the curved door crumple into a small pile on top of the first dozen bodies.
    Arms waved and clawed out from under the edges of the door as the grey and black truck shot forward through the opening. Part of the garage door covered the front of the truck for a moment, but was soon pulled forward and down under the front wheels. The truck shot up in the air briefly as the back wheels ramped over the door. The truck angled back down as it drove off the door onto the street outside. As the back wheels passed over the fallen door, the arms underneath clinched and then fell limp.
    The truck bucked a couple times as it accelerated. It turned sharply one way and then the other as it lost its grip on the thick dirt in the road. It straightened out and sped away more steadily.
    The zombies began plodding after us as we moved away from the doorway. One in a tan trench coat, jeans, and black boots, lifted his feet with great effort following the others. He paused and turned toward the opening. He looked at us retreating away and then back into the open darkness.
    I saw all this as I looked between the fuel canisters. I was afraid they would be broken open and spill, but they didn’t. I tried to see if trench coat or the others went inside, but they vanished in the rising dust and the distance.
    Chef was driving with one hand and struggling with the cheap, plastic windshield with the other. It had popped out of place and had fallen in on him and Short Order. They both made three tries to force it back into place before it finally blocked out the cold wind sweeping through the cab and rustling some of the bags in the back. The grill across the front was dented and twisted into severe contours. It had been that way to some degree before we plowed through the cargo door. The driver’s side top corner of the plastic shield was popped out and whistling louder than normal. Short was clearly bothered by the wind as he pulled his collar up over his ear on that side, but he left the plastic alone until we stopped for the night.
    “That’s why I didn’t want to be up front,” Doc called