When he was done, he felt terrible. But the bear lay dead on the hood of the truck. He gasped in pain, not believing what had just happened to him. So much for the luck of the hobo. Although, I am still here, I guess.
He heard a noise behind him, and he sat up in the cab of the truck, his empty rifle clutched in his hands. Oh, Lord.
One of the dead had tumbled into the washout behind him. It was extricating itself from the snowdrift with its one good arm. The other hung, broken and twisted from the fall.
Mort didn't want to wait for it. He had already fired plenty of rounds, and he knew that more of the dead would follow. You could get away with one shot, maybe two, but anything more than that, and you could count on a visit from the dead. He hung the top half of his body out of the truck and let gravity do its work.
He landed on his good shoulder and popped back up on his feet, too concerned about the dead to care about the pain. He headed downslope, hoping to intersect the river and travel along its icy bank.
The crash of more of the dead could be heard as he went, his legs sinking knee-deep in the snow between the trees. He fumbled in the jacket pocket where he used to keep his beauties, hand-rolled cigarettes that tasted of chemicals and cheapness. Now he kept his new beauties in there–– brass-bound beauties, cylindrical, and capable of traveling a couple thousand-feet-per-second.
He plucked one from his pocket and thumbed the round into his rifle. He wanted to stop and re-load completely, but he would have to hope that the one bullet would be enough to carry him to safety. He slid down the rest of the slope, and then he heard the trickle of water. The river's edge was close. He emerged through a bank of trees, and the river appeared before him, black like ink, snaking through the valley, its edges bound by thick ice, jagged like teeth.
He stepped onto the ice, sliding and pressing his way forward. Fifty yards ahead, the riverbank on his side sloped gently upward. He could climb to the road that way. He could escape. His legs felt fine, and that was one thing that he was thankful for.
Behind him, he heard the crashing of the dead as they tumbled down the slope. They weren't concerned about injuring themselves or falling into the river. The dead had only one concern, eating Mort. He tossed a glance over his shoulder, as a trio of the dead stepped out onto the icy surface of the river.
They slipped and fell on the ice, their arms pinwheeling in the air as they were thrown off balance. It was almost comical. Mort allowed himself a brief smile as one of the dead's feet went out from under it, and it landed flat on its back, breaking the ice underneath it. It disappeared into the dark river.
Mort continued to shuffle across the slippery surface, ignoring the groans of the dead behind him. He was more concerned about the dead in front of him. A small campsite sat off to the side of the river, a blue tent flapping in the wind. A child and its parents slipped towards him, walking along the icy riverbank. He knew they were dead by the way they walked, toddling along the uneven surface, their arms outstretched in his direction. Mort reached into his pocket and thumbed a couple more of his beauties into the rifle. When he looked up, the family was slipping along the ice at the edge of the river. He took aim, wincing at the loud crack of the rifle. He shot the father first, clad in a red flannel shirt. The dead man fell backward, the impact of his body shattering the ice underneath him. In a flash, the family was gone, plunged into the dark, winter water of the river. Cracks formed around the break in the ice, jagged like summer lightning.
I can't go that way, Mort thought. Beneath his feet, the face of the dead child scraped along the underside of the ice. Mort pushed the image from his mind and stepped onto the snowy slopes of the river bank. It was slower going on the slope, but he didn't want to disappear into the river the way the dead had. He imagined the water swallowing him up and dragging him along underneath the ice, freezing him as his breath bubbled out of his lungs to be replaced by water.
Uh-uh. Not this man. The shot from his rifle would change the angle of the dead. They would be locking in on his current position now. They were coming. He had to get back up to the road. He let his rifle drop to his side, and using his good arm, he held onto the trunks of bushes and low-hanging tree branches as he maneuvered towards the small camp in the woods.
He could hear the dead coming, the shush of their feet as they tromped through the snow, their eerie calls as they sought out the source of the gunshot. With a last heave, he made it to the level ground of the campsite. The tent was situated in the middle of a small clearing that was surrounded by the rounded earth of a small ridge. He suspected there was a path that led out of the clearing, but underneath the snow, he couldn't find it. Then he spied a large straight branch sticking up from behind the ridge. No, it wasn't a branch; it was an antenna.
Mort spotted a couple loose cans of food on the ground, and without a second thought, he dropped his backpack to the ground, threw the cans in the bag, and had
