Luna wasn't surprised. "I had a feeling he might have been bitten," she said, looking down at Sundance's body.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Stu asked.
"Well, it was only a feeling. It usually takes a couple hours for a person to turn, and we were with him for at least that long, so I thought maybe he'd be okay." She shook her head sadly. "Shame. He seemed like a nice guy."
They left the department store early the next morning, having gathered enough canned food and water to last them for the next two days, at least. The group climbed into the glider and took off, headed southwest, following the directions Sundance had given them. Georgetown was approximately fifteen miles away, and under normal circumstances it probably would have been a very short trip, but the streets were clogged with debris and the city was still unfamiliar to them; they got lost a few times and had to backtrack.
There were zombies everywhere; Stu's Zombie Radar was going off and on constantly. This was even worse than Meku City. Even Lucky and Luna, who were accustomed to seeing large numbers of zombies roaming the streets, were unsettled. "I've never seen hordes this size," Lucky muttered uneasily. "There's hundreds of 'em. Thousands."
Stu recalled Marshal Tempo telling him that the Pale Riders had cleaned out most of the zombies in Meku City, but that other cities in Astria were still crawling with them and were likely to be considerably more dangerous. It had seemed like an outrageous boast at the time -- Meku City had certainly seemed to have its share of zombies -- but apparently the man had been telling the truth. Lon Halos was absolutely rotten.
They soon entered the neighborhood that Sundance had called "Hell's Hills." The name was not promising, and indeed, the entire area was a rolling, blasted wasteland, with only a handful of tall, decrepit buildings still standing. Nature had begun to reclaim some portions of it -- willow, oak, and sycamore trees had sprouted up here and there, and there were weeds and shrubs all over, but the area had been thoroughly paved over before the outbreak, and was now covered with burned wreckage, which made it difficult for new growth to emerge.
"Nice," Luna murmured, as the destroyed landscape came into view.
"Sundance was right," Lucky said. "There's not much cover. Any zombies down here will see us coming a mile away."
"We could go around," Stu suggested. It was a doubtful suggestion, though; from where they stood, they would have to circle around the entire southern portion of the city, and risk entering the mountains -- which Sundance had warned them against -- to reach Georgetown. Going through Hell's Hills was the fastest, and possibly even the safest, route, although of course "safe" was a relative term.
"We can make it through with the glider," Luna said confidently. "No problem."
And so they began to make their way into Hell's Hills, the glider bouncing a bit as the grav boosters passed over the uneven terrain. Luna drove as fast as she dared, which was only about forty miles per hour; the streets were usually too cluttered for her to push the glider any faster. Occasionally they had to stop and try to figure out where they were, using Sundance's map and the banged-up, falling-over traffic signs; Stu was amused to discover, from these signs, that the neighborhood had originally been called Hellene Hills. It must have acquired its new (and more appropriate) nickname after the outbreak.
Although the zombies were everywhere, and tried to scramble after them whenever they saw them, they couldn't match the glider's speed. It was beginning to look like they might make it to Georgetown without incident.
They were almost out of the Hell Hill's area -- they had just turned onto a long, straight, and relatively clear highway -- when Stu's Zombie Radar started buzzing continuously, which meant that there was at least one zombie somewhere within his fifty-foot range. He expected the buzzing to stop after they outdistanced the zombie, wherever it was, but it didn't stop -- it just kept going. Frowning, he sat up in his seat and looked around for the source.
He spotted it almost immediately. It was a Level 7 Speedy, and it was running after them, its legs pumping furiously. And it was catching up.
Lucky and Millie, who were sitting in the backseat, looked over their shoulders and saw the speedy as well. "Holy shit," Lucky grunted, and he scrambled for his revolver -- the Hughes & Samson Elephant. Pulling it out of his bag, he turned around in his seat, cocked the hammer back, and took aim at the thing...but the zombie was moving, and the glider was moving, and it was a difficult shot. Not only did his first shot miss, the recoil from the heavy gun was so severe that he almost lost his grip on it.
And that one shot was the only one that Lucky managed to get off before the speedy reached them. Running alongside the glider -- which was going at least fifty -- it tried to grab for Millie and pull her out of the vehicle. "We should have put the top up!" Lucky yelped, somewhat unnecessarily.
Stu grabbed Excalibur -- it had been sitting next to him -- and stood up in the glider, causing it to sway; it took Luna a second to make an adjustment. "What the hell are you shooting at?" she shouted, but then she, too, spotted the speedy, in her side mirror.
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Stu helped Lucky pull Millie out of the speedy's grip. Then, with one foot in the front seat and one in the back, he struck the speedy in the head with his baseball bat. He wasn't able to get very much leverage on the blow, however, and the speedy was only momentarily stunned -- it stumbled and fell, but was somehow able to roll and right itself, and just like that it was up and chasing after them again.
Stu shifted his stance, trying to find a better angle of attack. He was just about to take another swing when he suddenly spotted another speedy, a Level 12, coming up on their right side, and this one was even faster than the first. Stu had seen these things move before, but watching them sprint after the glider at fifty miles per hour was amazing. He couldn't believe the human body -- even a modified, zombified human body -- was capable of reaching these speeds.
He tried to move to the other side of the glider, to confront this new threat, but Luna was now swerving all over the road, trying to avoid abandoned vehicles and scattered debris, and he had a hard time finding his footing. Millie, having retrieved the cowboy rifle she had acquired the other day, was now trying to take shots at the speedies as well, but their weird, ultra-fluid movements made that almost impossible.
The first speedy, the Level 7, suddenly made a great leap and landed on the back of the glider. It started climbing up to the backseat, trying to get to Millie and Lucky. Stu, unable to reach its head, slammed the bat down on one of its hands, causing its grip to loosen. As it flailed about, Millie was able to shoot it in the face, at almost point-blank range, causing it to tumble off the glider. The ICON system informed Stu that it was dead, but because Millie had killed it he received an assistance penalty and got no credit for it.
That just left the Level 12 Speedy. This one was running alongside the glider, keeping up with it even as Luna increased its speed; they must have been getting close to sixty or seventy miles per hour now. Standing up in the convertible while it was traveling at these speeds was exceedingly dangerous, but Luna was preoccupied, Millie was reloading, and Lucky wasn't in a good position to get a shot at it, which meant Stu was the only one available to confront it. Clambering over Millie, he tried to hit it in the head with Excalibur, but it slipped to one side, easily avoiding the blow. Then, with terrifying speed and agility, it placed one rotten hand on the glider and vaulted up into the cab.
Stu hadn't been expecting this, and it caught him off guard. Before he knew it he was struggling with the zombie, fighting for control of the baseball bat; the speedy was trying to get it away from him, and get it out of the way, so that he could bite him. This zombie had the look of a teenager; he had dirty blond hair and a horrid, ulcerous face, but his limbs were lean and strong; in fact he was almost as strong as a rager. Not surprising, Stu supposed, considering he was a Level 12.
Both of them were standing up in the glider, wrestling each other, with Millie and Lucky both getting trampled on. Everyone was yelling: Lucky shouted "Get him out of here!" while Millie shouted "Get out of the way!" She was trying to line up another shot.
They were almost out of Hell's Hills now; the highway was leading them into a downtown area with many tall buildings. The road was becoming more cluttered, too; though she continued at the same breakneck speed, Luna was having difficulty avoiding the many obstacles in her path.
Stu finally managed to rip Excalibur out of the speedy's hands and slam one end of it into its gut. It doubled over from the impact, but recovered almost instantly and grabbed one of Stu's arms, intending to bite into him. Just as the zombie's teeth were about to sink into his flesh, Stu pulled his arm back and delivered a huge blow to the speedy's skull, causing it to spin almost completely around. It stumbled and fell out of the cab...but managed, with one hand, to seize the edge of the glider and hang on.
Stu was never quite sure what happened next. He was about to hit the zombie one final time with the baseball bat, to force it to let go, when Lucky suddenly shouted "Look out!" They crashed into something, Luna swore, the glider started to spin, and the speedy was thrown clear, crashing into the concrete wall which separated the highway's four lanes of traffic. It splattered against it, exploding into a gory mess, like a bug hitting a windshield.
But the glider was still spinning crazily. Stu was almost thrown out of the vehicle as well, but somehow managed to hold on; he even managed to grab hold of Millie, to prevent her from being thrown out. The glider spun at least five or six times, making them all dizzy, before crashing, violently, into the corner of a brick building. And just like that, they were stopped.
"Everyone all right?" Stu asked.
They were battered and bruised, but fortunately none of them seemed to be badly hurt. The glider, on the other hand...
Luna, still in the driver's seat, tried to restart the dynamo engine, but it made a clacking sound, and the turbines in the back failed to engage. "Shit," she muttered. She climbed out to inspect the damage, which was substantial -- the front of the glider had been totally smashed in and it was leaking dynamo fluid out the back. "Shit," she said again.
"Can we get her going again?" Lucky asked.
"I don't think so," she said. Her expression was pained. "I think we're dead in the water. One of the grav boosters was hit, and..." She circled around to the back of the vehicle. "Turbines are busted. Damn it! I'd have to take the whole thing apart to repair it."
"I don't think that's an option," Stu said, looking around. There were a handful of zombies wandering the streets here, and more were undoubtedly on their way; the collision had been very loud, and loud noises tended to attract zombies.
"But if we leave the glider--" Luna began.
"We don't have a choice," Stu said. "Lucky! Millie! Grab your stuff!"
They collected everything they could carry, which included their weapons, ammunition, and two backpacks which contained some of the food and water they had acquired earlier. Stu hated to leave the rest of it behind, but the zombies were beginning to notice them and they simply didn't have the ability to transport it all. Maybe they could come back for the glider at some point, but for now they were going to have to leave it behind, and make their way to Georgetown on foot.
His Zombie Radar started ringing. Gritting his teeth, he waved his companions on, and together the four of them started making their way down the garbage-strewn highway.