Untitled Zombie Novel Excerpt: ROADKILL

(WARNING:  I don't tend to add warnings to stories.  Maybe I should. I certainly swear and there is often violnce (usually just implied).  I kind of assume a blanket warning.  The apocalypse is rarely pretty.  In today's case I am adding a warning.  Swearing, disturning violence, a generally offensive (and, to be honest, chiché) focus character).  You have been warned.

This part would occurr near the start of the novel, during the classic 'outbreak montage.')

Derrick was drunk and flying on coke and shouldn't have been driving. But he'd be damned if he was going to leave his BMW in the city all night. The city was full of scum and surely his baby would be vandalized. Once he got of the highway and onto the dark windy back roads he just drove fast so he won't be on the road any long than possible. Besides, it was late. There were barely any other cars on the road. It would be fine.

The day had been crap. One of the partners had called Derrick into her office and raked him over the coals for fucking up the Smitsimons account. The bitch. She wasn't even a senior parter. Beside, Smitsimons as a winky dinky account, a nothing barely worth his time. Maybe Derrick would put some effort into it if they gave him a meaty account, something with some damn prestige.

He had needed to get a bit wasted tonight, blow off some steam. He had set out to find some loose hottie and maybe get a blowjob or at least a handie. But he had hit four bars and two clubs and of course every women he had approached had been stuck up and at 4 am the bouncer, some total meat head had thrown him out.

Just a fucking stupid night.

He sped around a corner and in his high beams he saw a flash of a shape in the road. Derrick slammed on the breaks in the same instant felt the impact as the thing hit the front of the BMW.  It flew over the hood, landed once on the roof and then landed in the road behind him.

“God damn fuck!” he screamed as the tires finished screeching.   He threw open the door and got out out.  His front end looked fine but there were long scratches and a large dent in the roof. “Fucking dick fuck!”  In anger, he kicked the driver's side door shut and then curse some more.

He looked back down the road.   If that deer or dog or what ever isn't dead, I'm going to fucking kill it with my damn own hands.  He stormed back to where the thing lay in a crumpled lump lit dimly by his tail lights. He slowed has he got near, realizing it wasn't a deer or dog. It was human, a child. Wearing flower patterned pajamas.  He rolled her over.  A girl.  Maybe eight or nine. Her face was rubbed raw by asphalt and her limbs her bent in ways limbs shouldn't be bent.  He leaned down and dried to see if she was breathing. She wasn't.

“Oh jesus fuck.” In his booze/coke haze, Derrick ran a dozen future scenarios through his head and kept coming back to the same answer: get rid of the body.   No one saw the accident but his fingerprints were all over her now.  But he could take the body and find somewhere safe to bury it.  Somewhere deep.

Derrick glanced up and down the dark road.   He had to act quick.  Roughly picking her up, he was mildly shocked by our light she was, how frail feeling.  I'll have to get rid of my clothes not that she's gotten blood on me.  It was one of my better suits, damn it.  He dropped on the road by the trunk and moved to the driver side, looking again at the damage to his baby's roof. He opened the door and popped the trunk.  Seeing his gym bag on the floor of the footwell of the front passenger seat, he grabbed it and unzipped it. He grabbed the three towels to lay in the trunk so she didn't bleed back there. He was proud how clearly he was thinking.

When he go back to the trunk, the body gone. “FUCK!” he screamed. The little bitch was alive and had crawled off somewhere. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” He looked back down the road and saw nothing. I was only gone thirty damn seconds. She can't be far. To the side of the road was think growth. If she was in there, it might take forever to find her. He could be totally screwed. God was screwing him yet again, he decided. 

He heard a noise from under the BMW. A weak moan. He bent down and looked. It was dark but he could she her, crawling on her belly with difficult. Oh thank god! “Hide and seek, huh?” he whispered to her. “Don't worry. I want to get you to a hospital. We'll get you some help.” Get her out from under there and shove her in the trunk. He'd get her in his garage and them figure out what to do next. Maybe a garbage bag over the head. “Come on. Let's get you help.”

She had turned her head back to him but he couldn't quite see her eyes.   She stopped crawling and just faced him. He tried to reach under and grab her leg but couldn't quite get it. Derrick got and his stomach and started to crawl under the car. “Come on you, bitch. I want t help you.” His chest was all the way under and her got a hand on her ankle. “Ah! Got you!”

He was close enough he could see her eyes now, jaundiced and veined with black lines. The girl open her mouth wide and let out a noise like a wet growl that came some where from deep in her stomach. She twisted at the waist in was that was completely unnatural, both in form and speed. Like a snake doubling back on itself to strike. Her little hands grabbed both sides of his face and she sank her teeth into Derrick's face.

It never even occurred to Derrick to scream.