Braaainssss...

A zombie prompt

The cards for this prompt screamed zombies. I couldn’t help myself. As always, unedited.

November 15^th, 2025, PROMPT

BLOOD, FLAT TIRE, TRUCKER

I saw it a split second before I hit the brakes. The huge semi skidded to the side; the weight of the trailer hard to stop, never meant to stop so quickly. I hit the object anyway. The loud bang and pop of a tire exploding, then going flat reverberated under the squealing of the brakes. The crunching sound of bone under deflated rubber tire made my stomach flip. My wife, Lisa, screamed in terror, clutching at her seatbelt and the grab handle above the passenger door. I braced for the impact, but the semi came to a skidding stop of hot meatal and burnt rubber sixty feet from where I braked and only a few feet from the edge of the cliff. I sat for a second, regaining my bearings until I remembered that there might be something or someone on the road, hurt or dead. I engaged the parking brake and turned to my wife.

“Stay here.” I told her as I fumbled for the flashlight I kept affixed to the dash. She looked at me with wide, frightened eyes.

“What did we hit?” She asked in a small voice full of worry.

“I don’t know.” I told her as I jumped from the cab and slowly panned my light over the front left tire of the truck. It was shredded all to hell, but I already knew that. I was looking to make sure the thing we hit wasn’t caught under the truck and pinned in the axle. Blood, black as pitch covered the bumper and grill of the semi. It stuck like molasses to the front and fanned over the hood. I took an uneasy breath and gulped in air to keep from vomiting.

Turning the way came, I jogged down the side of the trailer, swinging the flashlight under the carriage to make sure something wasn’t caught underneath or pinned under another tire. There was nothing. I continued to the back of the trailer and followed the smear of dark blood to the point where we made impact.

The light illuminated what was left of a broken and badly damaged body. My heart leapt to my throat, and I stood in shock. A faint whine escaped my throat. I heard a loud sob and looked to my wife, who sttod a few feet behind me. I swallowed hard and looked at her white bloodless face.

“I told you to stay in the cab, darlin’”

“It’s a woman.” Lisa whispered on a thin breath. “She has painted toenails.”

I looked back at the badly broken figure lying in the middle of the road and shook my head. I couldn’t tell. “Grab the phone and call the cops.”

“I already did. The lines are all busy and I couldn’t get through.”

“Then get back in the cab and stay warm while you try again.”

Lisa nodded and backed slowly away from the scene of the carnage. I kept the flashlight trained on the figure and wondered what a person was doing in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain in the winter with no shoes or coat that I could discern.

That’s when the body began to twitch.