Mechanical Failure, Chap. 5b (zombie apocalypse novel in progress)

~continued~

 

I took a side street before reaching my house, not ready to face it yet. I was still angry that I’d been driven from by home, but I also had no idea what to expect, and I didn’t want to get trapped inside if I decided to do some exploring. The street I turned onto wasn’t exactly devoid of un-life, and one of the faster creatures lunged at me as I passed. I was able to dodge him, but there were two more ahead of me that were going to be a bigger problem. I could have avoided them easily if I’d been walking, but I was still acquainting myself with the bike, and wasn’t quite confident in my ability to nimbly slip around the two corpses. Since they weren’t too close to each other, I lay the bike down and went after the first one, jabbing the knife into its eye and twisting. It dropped instantly, its body jolting with a few spasms before laying still. The next one was bigger and therefore more of a threat. I needed to take it down before I could kill it, but that was never difficult since they’re not very smart. I moved the bike so it was lying lengthwise across the zombie’s path then I stood in front it, glancing behind me to make sure there was nothing else to worry about. As I had hoped, the dead thing tripped over the bike and I was able to jam my knife into the base of its neck before it could get up again. Getting the heavy body off the bike was the hard part, and one glance behind me told me that others were getting close. There wouldn’t be time to drag the bodies off the road, but I’d come back and get them when I could do it.

I took just a moment to clean my weapon on the dead thing’s filthy clothing. Sheathing the knife, I continued on to the next street, ignoring the vehicles I passed, since this street was flat and I needed a street on a hill. I turned the next corner and rode the bike up the incline, but I didn’t see any vehicles that looked like they might have manual transmissions. I had no more luck on Oleander Avenue, and by the time I reached Ocotillo Way, I had company. Two of the undead were following me and moaning loudly. Great. The dinner bell. I turned down Ocotillo, knowing I’d have to find a vehicle soon, or I’d need a place to hide. I was almost halfway down the street when I saw a nice, new truck that looked like it should have been safely tucked away inside a garage. I held my breath and peered inside, but was disappointed to find that it was an automatic. I continued all the way down the street without finding a single vehicle that would work, which meant I had to ride back up the next street, not seeing another choice. My legs were growing tired, but I pushed on and finally found something toward the top of the street. It was a small car, parked in a driveway, but it had a large shifting knob with a diagram on it that told me it was a manual transmission. It looked like it would be light enough for me to easily push out of the driveway. I hoped so, because now there were zombies at the top and bottom of the street. I was going to have to jump over a wall if the car wouldn’t start. 

~to be continued~