The PRL Event: CZS 9
AEZg82
Special Agent Adam Altman is not a great driver. He isn’t the worst, but he let his partner Manuel drive when they went out on assignments together. They had never been in a high speed chase, but Adam never wanted to risk being the one chasing down a lunatic weaving through traffic. He had enough trouble changing lanes on the highway. Manuel said that he was overly cautious, which is contrary to the brazen disregard for his own well being that Adam had displayed at the apartment complex where he’d killed a monster with his two guns. It was the thought of harming an innocent person with his car that made him so cautious. The last thing he ever wanted to do was cause harm to someone who did not deserve it. He’d joined law enforcement to make sure that happened as little as possible.
Needless to say, Adam does not volunteer to drive after the group decides to stop the semi trucks of monsters currently racing to Duke University in Durham, NC. They all pile into one vehicle, an SUV that Young hot wires in the parking lot of a department store.
“We’re already fugitives,” he joked, referring to the fact that their makeshift police force had been circumventing federal law enforcement by pursuing the apparent conspiracy behind the creation of the woman Crude and other monsters just like her.
Manuel drives and it is a comfortable position for him. He loved to wield the power of a car, feeling it come to life around him, and then becoming an extension of his desire to go fast. The car lent him something for the time that he was inside and it made him more powerful than he could ever be alone. His love of cars can be traced back to his father’s ‘72 Buick Skylark that was the first car he ever sat behind the steering wheel and pushed down the gas. When the engine growled, he felt it rumble his body and it was like something deep in his mind had been awakened. He felt a commune with that Skylark, and other high performing cars over the years that he enjoyed the privilege of sitting with. Adam was generally annoyed by his partner’s obsession with cars; Manuel would always find an excuse to stop at a local car dealership and he would make Adam sit in the passenger seat while he test drove expensive cars and explained the luxury of the experience they were having. And Manuel and Adam’s ex-wife had bonded over their mutual love of cars and car shows that Adam never took her to.
“I can work with this.” Manuel says, gripping the steering wheel of the van as the men pile into the back. Adam sits shotgun, coincidentally, next to Manuel’s shotgun that is his preferred weapon for the current endeavor. Clay and Kevin sit in the way-back, and Young sort of kneels between the driver’s and passenger’s seats with his arm slung around the back of Manuel’s seat.
“Which way are we even going?” Adam asks. He is angry and ready to finish what he has started, regardless of the outcome. He would gladly go to jail if the local police department that had dispatched the SWAT team to the apartment complex had meant to arrest them all. He is even prepared to die fighting the horror his team had uncovered. Their battle with the monsters had emptied the apartment complex and destroyed whole buildings, and none of the law enforcement officers in the van have been dispatched to work the case that they are currently pursuing. They are all just very honorable, and honestly scared, men, who are aware of a threat that someone somewhere was working very hard to keep quiet. Adam would gladly die to avoid the spread of whatever had made Crude and the other monsters.
“Clay?” Adam looks back at Clay whose eyes are glowing green.
“He’s been like that for a minute or so.” Kevin says and he waves a hand in front of the glow of Clay’s eyes.
Clay blinks the glow away. “Sorry. Ivan says we can’t miss them. They’re on that backroad just an exit up off the main highway to Raleigh.” Clay rubs his eyes and shakes his head.
“Let’s do this,” Manuel says, starting the engine. He slams down the gas, and the van takes off toward the highway.
“Don’t draw attention,” Adam cautions.
“I know what I’m doing,” Manuel says. He swerves onto the highway, narrowly missing a car trying to exit.
“Do you?” Adam raises his voice.
Manuel weaves through cars and takes the next exit hard.
“Come on, man,” Adam says. “I said don’t draw attention.”
Manuel speeds up to a stoplight and cuts a turn sharply onto a road that is quiet and dark.
“I’m gonna throw up.” Young says. He had been tossed between the two front seats and when Manuel is racing down the quiet road, he slides into the seat behind him.
“Slow down!” Adam yells.
“He’s good,” Clay says. “He’s catching up to them. Look.”
Through the windshield, the group can see one of the semi trucks in the distance. Manuel speeds up and everyone braces themselves as they close the gap. When they are closer, they see the line of three unmarked trucks.
“What are you gonna do?” Adam asks, nervously eyeing Manuel who is not slowing the van as they approach.
“Please don’t kill me.” Young says, crossing himself and closing his eyes to pray.
They are speeding along the two way street and as the van nears the last of the trucks, Manuel floors it and swerves into the lane for oncoming traffic. Luckily there is no traffic and the van speeds past the last truck, then the second, and then the first. He creates distance between the line of trucks, then slams on the breaks, easing the wheel so that the car grinds to a halt blocking both lanes of traffic.
“Get out.” Manuel says and the group piles out in a hurry as the trucks come barreling closer.
As they stand on the side of the road watching, Adam says, “They’re gonna plow through it.”
“Let ‘em try,” Manuel says. “The van is too big for that. Either they’ll be smart enough to stop or we’re standing way too close.”
The trucks do stop and the men of the makeshift police force stand shoulder to shoulder in front of their stolen van.
The door of the first truck opens and a man jumps down to the road. He is wearing a white hazmat suit and the hood streams along behind him at his neck. He surveys the road behind the trucks, then past the men and their van.
“What’s going on here? Is there an accident or something?”
Young steps forward and says, “Yeah, a big ole accident. You should call it in.”
The man laughs. He is mostly in the shadows of nearby trees and even though Young is standing close, he can’t see the man’s face.
“I don’t see any accident. You fellas mind letting us pass? We’re moving some precious cargo.”
“You fellas wanna let ‘em pass?” Young asks his team, never taking his eyes away from the man in the hazmat suit.
“No sir,” Adam answers.
“You hear that? They ain’t letting you go. That’s gotta be a crime. Illegal detention,” Young says, “something like that special agent?”
“Something like that.” Adam responds.
“You should report these young people, blocking this road,” Young looks around at the road that is still quiet and absent of any other cars. “Go ahead. Call the police.”
“That’s really not necessary,” the hazmat man responds. “I think I can be more persuasive.” He reaches inside of his suit at the neck and Young draws his pistol in a flash.
“Don’t be so jumpy old man.” The hazmat man says, practically giggling. “I’m showing you my credentials. I’m a doctor and we’re transporting some really dangerous materials.” He produces a laminated badge that Young ignores.
“What’s in the truck? And why the hell they got a doctor driving it?”
“That is top secret,” the hazmat man says. “If you look closely at the badge, you’ll see I work for the CDC. Now kindly move the van and clear the road before I’m forced to move you.”
Young takes a step forward toward the man who steps back, intimidated. “I know what’s in that truck you sick son of a bitch. This is what we’re gonna do. You tell your buddies to drive off in the field over there and any human being that wants to survive the night better get out before we set those trucks on fire.”
“Why would we do that?” The man asks, laughing nervously. “If you knew what we were doing, you wouldn’t ask that. We won’t let you destroy our work.”
Young punches the man in the face and he crumbles to the ground. “Glass chin.” He turns to the group. “Clay, new guy, toss the trucks.”
“Wait,” Kevin says. “We can’t just go around flipping trucks. We should see what’s inside…”
Before Kevin can finish his sentence, they all hear a rumble from the first truck. Two more people in hazmat suits run up to the first truck from the two behind. One recognizes the men blocking the way, she was the doctor at the apartment complex who activated the blue monster. She pulls a walkie-talkie from her suit, and when she replaces it, she grabs her other suited companion and they disappear behind the truck. It is rocking now. There is a steady beating against the side of the white trailer of the first semi and the men watch as the metal bulges with each loud blow. Soon, the bulge explodes out and a big blue fist the size of a pumpkin pushes through. The blue monster from the complex breaks out of the trailer and growls loudly when he sees the men assembled before the truck. The female doctor reemerges.
“Who the hell are you guys?” she yells. “Are you so eager to die? Who sent you?”
Kevin encloses the blue monster in a ball that he rolls off the road and into a nearby field. “Go,” he says to Clay who jumps off in the direction of the ball as Kevin fits him with a suit of armor.
“Who the hell are you lady?” Young yells back at the doctor. “How many more monsters you got in that thing?”
“Enough.” she says.
Just as she says it, a different monster emerges from the first truck, and then another, and then more from the other trucks. A car innocently approaches the scene from the highway, but quickly turns away as the grotesque forms emerge from the semi trailers, leaving splinters of metal like banana peel all over the road.
“We’re in over our heads,” Manuel says, readying his shotgun at the legion of monsters in front of them.
Adam pulls his two guns. “I’m just hoping they’re not all bulletproof.” He looks prepared to run into the crowd.
“Wait.” Kevin says. “We have to get them out of the road. Go help Clay, I’ll funnel them over and clear the road.”
“I can help you here,” Adam starts, but Young stops him.
“He knows what he’s doing. Let’s go.” Young drags Adam away.
Kevin focuses his attention on the crowd of moaning bodies that are mutilated in every way possible. Most are bigger than normal, but some are smaller, all are very hard to look at. Kevin remedies that by covering their faces with a durable plastic that they claw at with their grotesque hands. Some pass out, others manage to free themselves. Others charge Kevin who suits us in armor and then flies up over the scene. He imagines a huge stone slab that he uses to sweep the monsters and the trucks from the road out toward the fight that the other men are engaged in.
Clay is wailing on the blue man. His muscles are flexed and he grunts loudly with each blow that connects. Adam is eager to be helpful but Young and Manuel hold him back. Then they hear the commotion from the street and as they turn, they see the scene of monsters and metal tumbling toward them.
Clay winds up and punches the blue monster in the face, sending it reeling back. And then he grabs the monster and throws it toward a thick of trees. He let’s out a yell.
“You ready for that?” Young asks Clay, pointing at the chaos as the monsters gather themselves.
Clay yells again, drawing the attention of all the grisly beasts.
“C’mon man,” Young says begrudgingly, aiming his gun at the advancing mob. Some of the monsters are injured and claw at the ground, dragging themselves in the direction of the men. Most amble along, making slow and steady progress.
“They’re fucking zombies.” Manuel says, staring wide eyed at the scene. “These fuckers are trying to start an apocalypse.”
Kevin lands with the group. “What’s the plan?”
They all look to Adam who has not said a word since he saw the advancing force. They had survived Kevin’s assault and they were still coming. Adam is stunned still for a moment. If Ivan had been right about Crude, and all the monsters were the same thing, then they were just unlucky people subjected to something they had no control over. Like the old man at the apartment complex with the sores on his face. He could be in this grotesque crowd. Or maybe he had been crushed when his apartment building fell. So much damage, so much death, and still, no back up. No support. Adam’s head is reeling.
“Don’t blank on us now man, this was all you.” Young says. “We have to kill them, right?” Young looks around at the brave men he is proud to stand with. “Either we stop it here or no one else will. Kevin, give us all flamethrowers. Pick someone to fly with you, not me, and start at the back, whoever’s left can fight with me head on.”
Kevin does his trick, and the men are all in matching outfits fitted with flame throwers on each arm.
“I wish I had time to appreciate how cool this is.” Manuel sighs and readies his shot gun.
Adam takes flight with Kevin and they go to work. Clay, Young and Manuel spread out, cutting through the thick of the crowd with wide swathes of fire.
Police, firefighters, emergency medical services are dispatched to a fire on a country road just off the exit of a highway. It is early in the morning before the sun comes up and when they arrive at the scene, they are all shocked by the sight; the pile of grotesque bodies that sends flames high into the night sky.
Adam and Manuel sit together nearby on the ground, both with their arms wrapping their knees. They laugh and joke, appreciating the time between the end of their recent conflict and the time when the sirens are close enough to stop, then give way to the sound of doors slamming and people barking into walkie talkies or shouting orders.
“I’m gonna get that Audi.” Manuel says, and he looks off into the sky, imagining the blue, 2004 Audi S4 that was the last car he had forced Adam to passenger on a test drive. Even Adam, the man with no particular appreciation for cars, admitted that it was an impressive vehicle as he sank back into the comfortable seat.
“Well, I guess that depends on our new friends,” Manuel says as law enforcement approaches them, and firefighters set their hoses on the fire.
“Hello officer.” Adam says from his sitting position.
“You all know anything about this?” An officer asks.
The two look at one another, and then break out into laughter. They stand to be cuffed and Manuel says, “We did it. And we got a story to tell. Take us in and give us our phone call.”
Both men had called local news outlets to the scene and news trucks showed up with their cameras soon after the police arrived. Adam and Manuel aren’t allowed to answer questions, but reporters stand around filming footage. The two are in the back of police cars and headed to the station when the fire is finally out, and they miss the gruesome scene of charred monster bones being sorted and counted.
At the local police station, Manuel calls his wife and he begs her not to bail him out. “I will be in touch soon,” he said. “Please go visit family.” She eventually relents. Adam calls his ex-wife. He doesn’t know if she will answer, and the sound of each ring is torture as he waits, hoping to hear her voice.
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