Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

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He pushes the bike’s throttle to its maximum as he tears down the street, his heart thumping vigorously in his chest. He rides more on instinct than awareness, the numbers displayed on the inside of his helmet counting down relentlessly. He tries to push the bike harder, faster. But he knows he’s too far behind the clock now, and he only has one option: he has to go through the Unclassed Zone.

He slams the bike around the next corner, keeping the throttle down as he powers through the gates with a crash. The front wheel wobbles violently as he struggles to regain control. That’s when he spots the group lumbering towards him. He closes his eyes tightly and slams into them; they are thrown left and right as the bike crashes to the ground. Rolling with the impact, he quickly scrambles to his feet as more of them emerge from the darkness. He pulls out a metal rod and charges towards his still-purring bike, just as one of the three he hit lunges for him. He smashes it across the face with the rod, knocking it to the ground, and pulls his bike back up onto its two wheels.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a panicked voice yells out from above. He looks up and sees a soldier staring back at him. The soldier looks no older than he is, fear hidden behind his eyes and panic in his voice.

“Making a fucking mistake, that’s what I’m doing,” he replies, mounting his bike and taking off, deeper into the zone. More of them filter out from the shadows, their dead eyes following him, drool running down their chins as they smell the irresistible, intoxicating aroma of fresh meat. The deeper he goes, the more stagger towards him from the ruins of a neighborhood he once played in so freely as a child. He knows with only a handful of minutes remaining that this is the only option he has left, and everything depends on him making this delivery without fail. But once again, he pays for his ignorance. Too deep inside his own head, he doesn’t see the herd coming around the corner until it’s too late and crashes into them. Bodies fly in several directions, with the biker ending up trapped beneath his bike as they viciously scramble towards him, ripping and tearing. Shots rip through the air, and several of them crash to the ground, missing parts of their heads. He hears a voice call; the young soldier must’ve followed after him. Desperately, he scrambles to his feet, grabs a container from his bike, and forces his way out of the attacking shadows. He hears the soldier call to him again, but he heads deeper into the zone. His helmet tells him he has two minutes until the deadline, but if he can make it, he should only be a minute away from the end of the Unclassed Zone, and then it’s less than thirty seconds to his destination.

His chest screams at him, pain ripping through his lungs, as he sprints towards the gates. He can see them in the distance, and he allows himself to smile. But his smile is soon wiped away as he feels something rip into the back of his leg, and then something hits him in the back of his head. He feels a sharp pain, a wetness, and then nothing as he crashes to the ground, a bullet hole in the back of his helmet. By the time the young soldier reaches the body, an alarm in his helmet is going off.

“Sorenson, what’s the ten-four on your rider?” a voice screams over the soldier’s headset.

“Rider is down, command. He suffered multiple bites, and I had no choice but to put him down.”

“Understood. Do you know what he was doing in the Unclassed Zone?”

“Not sure, command. He had a package with him. Whatever was in it must’ve been valuable.”

“Can you locate the package, Sorenson?”

“It is in my line of sight, command.”

“Open it. Let’s see what this fool risked his life for.”

“Affirmative,” he replies, bending down to open the lid of the box. His eyes widen in disbelief. “Command, you’re not going to believe this, but the rider was a delivery driver. It’s a fucking pizza. I repeat, the guy was delivering a fucking pizza!”

“Sorenson, did you say he was delivering a pizza?”

“That is an affirmative, command. The rider was delivering a pizza.”

“Who the fuck orders a pizza to be delivered in the Unclassed Zone? The only things in there are fucking zombies.”

“Beats the hell out of me, command.”

“Okay, Sorenson, clean up and get back to base for a debrief. Does the pizza have mushrooms on it?”

“I’m sorry, command, did you just ask if it has mushrooms?”

“That’s affirmative, Sorenson. I’m allergic to mushrooms, and I’d hate for it to go to waste.”