“There’s some more AR’s in the car.” he said to a young man armed with an old shotgun beside him. “Check the trunk, there’s a lot of ammo in it.”
The boy handed his gun to an old woman with a rock clenched in her fist and ran for the ladder.
They could hear the war cries of the Raiders coming up the road, only a single hairpin turn away from coming onto view.
“We got your messages.” a middle-aged man with long black hair said as he slid in beside them, a cheap .308 rifle in his hands. “I’m George Lone Elk, Chairman of the tribal council. Glad you could make it.”
Gunny nodded a greeting and started laying out magazines on the ledge.
“I have volunteers sending tumbles of rocks down to block the roads.” Lone Elk said “but it doesn’t look like it’s slowed them down very much.”
Gunny glanced down the line and could easily count the rifles aimed at the curve. Most of the people only had piles of rocks and grim looks of determination.
“I didn’t realize you were so short of weapons.” Gunny said “We thought you raided a national guard outpost. How did you manage to hold the line for so long?”
“Spent a lot of brass.” the man said pragmatically. “We couldn’t let them know we were short on supply. We hoped they’d just give up and go away. And yeah, we raided the guard post. Lost some good men. Got a lot of training rounds and guns without ammo. We got a better haul from the Wal-Mart. It’s been pretty quiet out here and we never sent another group out, been busy getting our gardens growing and the water working.”
Gunny nodded.
“Your tactic probably would have worked on an ordinary raiding party.” he said “Not on these guys, though. Casey wants your home.”
“We realize that now.” their chief said. “We have escape routes down the back of the cliff. The rest of my people are standing by, waiting to leave if we get overrun. We chose to defend the wall to give them a chance to get away.”
“We’ll die so they can live.” the old woman with the shotgun said, steel in her voice.
It was a last stand. A suicide mission.
“I’d rather have them die.” Griz said and started grabbing the guns being handed up the ladder and passing them down the line. “Much healthier that way.”
The raiders battle cries got louder as they rounded the bend, saw their goal and picked up speed. Casey had stopped the Mustang at the bottom of the of the mesa and spoke to his people through the CB. Every vehicle had the volume cranked and his words echoed up the mountain. His urgings boomed through the loudspeakers of a Jeep as it followed the raging mob.
“Destroy them.” he intoned in his most awe-inspiring voice, lifted from a movie he’d seen long ago. “Bury them where they stand. What’s theirs is ours. I offered them a chance to surrender and they refused. I offered them a chance to join us and they spit in our face. Now we will crush them. We will feast on their young, kill their warriors and take the women. The world is ours…”
His mad rantings continued, blasting through the night and his raiders screamed their mind-altered, drug-addled screams and ran at the wall.
“Doesn’t he ever shut up?” Griz asked and flipped off the safety.
He and Gunny started snapping triggers and dropping bodies. The rest of the line joined in and it was easier than cutting down a horde of the undead. It didn’t take a headshot to stop them. They didn’t ignore a bullet through their chest or rip out their own spilled guts and keep running. They fell by the dozens, then by the scores, then by the hundreds. Black powder smoke hung heavily over the wall and explosions cast glaring, strobe light flashes. It was a slaughter and if they hadn’t been so amped up on the chemist’s special marinade and the bath salt baste, if Casey hadn’t been at the foot of the mountain urging them on, they would have had enough sense to stop their headlong rush into the bullets. The night was apocalyptic mayhem: the screams and explosions, the dancing red light from the parachute flares and the glow from the moon drove them mad. Casey’s demands of ever onward drove them forward. Bullets, arrows and shrapnel from grenades drove them to the ground.
It was the end of the world and it was time to die. They rushed headlong into certain death, amped up, spaced out, kill crazy savages and didn’t care. Most of them didn’t even fire their guns, they brandished them as they ran screaming into the bullets. They jumped over fallen comrades, waved their fists and fell when the chunks of lead finally stopped them. It was madness. Some screamed in shrill battle fever, emptying magazines into the backs of those running in front of them. Fragmentation grenades shook the ground and sent body parts spiraling over the edge as gouts of warm blood sprayed patterns across the sand
Willy Pete grenades sent white hot chunks of chemicals that burned all the way to the bone and covered the road with heavy smoke.
It was the charge of the light brigade into the valley of death.
It was the Bataan death march at sprinting speeds.
It was Napoleon’s last attack at Waterloo.
It was wholesale carnage.
They fell by the hundreds, the bullets cutting them to pieces and leaving them to bleed out on the ground, chemically addled brains sometimes not even realizing why they were here or why they were breathing their last.
If Casey could have seen the bloodbath and the unyielding wall of death his people were running towards, he may have tried to stop them. Called them back. Regrouped and reorganized and went after an easier target. But he wasn’t at the front, he was leading from the rear. He was down where it was safe giving his victory speech over the loudspeaker.
When he’d fired his last round from his last magazine, Gunny grabbed a buffalo rifle and sent the ball of lead into a shrieking woman’s chest. The boy beside him vomited over the edge at the mass of spilled guts and gallons of blood covering the road but he didn’t falter. He poured the powder and rammed the ball. He kept the wild haired man beside him supplied with primed and ready guns.
Some turned and fled. Some not as blinded with battle fever or designer drugs saw how the running, screaming army wasn’t charging to victory and celebration. They weren’t taking trophies and spoils of war. They weren’t even close to the gate, they had no trucks to shield them, they had all been abandoned. They were stumbling over bodies, trampling the fallen and being cut down in the long, open stretch of road before the wall. There weren’t enough men making it to the gate to force it open before they were slammed to the pavement with brand new holes leaking blood.
The smoke on the wall was thick from all the muzzleloaders and black powder charges and it smelled like victory. The mad rush by the raiders was broken. The ones in the front were dead or dying. The ones in the back were running for their lives. Casey finally stopped urging them to win at all costs and the guns on the wall fell silent.
The moans and wails from the dying raiders could be heard in the stillness as ears stopped ringing from the barrage. As hearts slowed and breathing returned to normal.
“Casey’s gonna get away.” Griz yelled over from where he was standing at the end of the wall. “It’ll take us an hour to hike down and find a truck that still runs.”
Gunny squeezed past the others on the narrow ledge and saw for himself. Far below them at the base of the cliff headlights were cutting the night and racing away. The faint growl of Sammy’s Mustang could be heard carrying across the sands through the thin desert air.
26
Gunny
Gunny turned to the tribal chairman who had told him about the escape route.
“You have a way down the mountain? A fast way?” he asked
“Yes.” he said. “By the garbage chutes at the back of the cliff. It’s not quite vertical, we can descend easily enough with ropes.”
“Can I drive my car down it?” he asked, letting his carbine dangle and checked his vest to see if he had another loaded magazine he may have overlooked.
“Too steep.” The man said. “The road is the only way.”
“
You can make it down.” The boy said. “Probably.”
They turned to stare at him and he continued.
“We race our go carts down sometimes. The ones we build.”
“And more often than not you tumble most of the way and keep the doctor in good business.” The gray-haired woman said.
“Yeah.” the boy said and wouldn’t be shut down so easily. “But a lot of us do make it all the way to the bottom with home-built junk. I saw his car. It can do it. Maybe.”
George Lone Elk gave a half shrug.
“For a thousand years boys have tested their bravery on that part of the mountain.” he said “but no one has ever tried to drive a car over it.”
“Show me.” Gunny said. “Casey is getting away.”
They hurried for the Chevelle and the boy guided them to the backside of the village where they had thrown their trash for centuries. Hidden from view of the tourists, unable to be seen from the roads, it had been an eyesore and a playground for generations of young Indians. Gunny shot up another flare and illuminated the steep slope littered with old washing machines, refrigerators and bags of broken open trash.
“If you stay to the right, it’s pretty clear.” the boy said. “A path has been smoothed out. As long as you can stay on it and don’t hit dead man’s launch, you’ll be fine.”
The slope wasn’t quite vertical, not quite straight up and down but would be impossible to drive up, no matter how much of a running start you got. It was simply too steep at the top. Going down was a different matter entirely. A hundred yards from the edge it started having a little bit of a slope that carried on to the base. If he could ease over the side and keep the car from flying out into space, keep it from tumbling end over end, he’d be at the bottom in seconds. One big bump, one discarded car tire or broken concrete block, could send the car away from its tenuous hold. It could send him flying away from the cliff in a freefall for a thousand yards. Dead man’s launch was half way down the mountain, a narrow outcropping of rock that disappeared into the night in both directions. A path had been chiseled through it, a way down for the brave or the dumb to ride their carts through. If he missed it, the bump out would act as a ramp and would launch him away from the wall. Griz looked over the edge, shook his head.
“We’ll find him later.” he said. “His army is destroyed, there aren’t enough assholes out there to join up with him again. It’s over.”
He whipped around when he heard the car door slam and the Chevelle rev to life. Gunny goosed it to get a little speed then slammed the brakes a few feet from the edge. The car slid in the dirt, the front wheels dropped over and the old Chevy ground to a halt on the frame. Griz grabbed the rear push bar and hung his weight on it out of instinct. The car balanced precariously, the heavy engine wanting to tip the scales and let gravity pull it down.
Gunny leaned out of the window a little, found Griz’s eyes and grinned. There was nothing to say that could be said in the few seconds before he had to either let go or be dragged over the edge behind the car. Griz scowled a grim smile, released his grip then gave a little extra shove on the bumper, trying to send the car straight down so maybe all four tires could find a little bit purchase. Maybe he could steer just enough to stay on the roughly smoothed path.
Gunny didn’t try to brake or steer the car, it was a barely controlled free fall the first fifty yards, the tires skimming near vertical stone. He hit the loose shale and rock chunks a hundred yards down at a hundred miles an hour. The gap chiseled out of dead man’s launch wasn’t wide but he managed to get his wheels lined up enough to fly through it, both sides of the cage sending up shards of sparks as they scraped. His tires found the loose shale and when the front end hit a little bump and launched the car airborne, it came back down a few seconds later in a soft landing. He was on the slope now, no more chance of tumbling out into space. Gravity held him in place, he was able to steer and aimed straight down to the desert floor with the big engine roaring and the tranny in fourth.
He circled around the butte, found the asphalt and started chasing headlights. Casey was running west on the only road leading out of the reservation. There were plenty of dirt paths cutting off of it but none of them went anywhere. The only way out, the only way around the canyons cut by creeks or the mountains worn down by time was on the state road. He had fifty miles to catch him before he reached Tuba City. Fifty miles to narrow the ten-minute head start of a man running scared. Fifty miles to find him before he could disappear in any number of directions. Gunny cut his lights and concentrated on the road, running the Chevelle on the edge. Fifty miles to finally end this.
27
Gunny
He knew he was closing in, that he was getting close. He’d pushed the Chevelle hard and cool night air was the only thing keeping her from overheating at the speeds he was running. At the RPM’s he was revving. Casey was in Sammy’s Mustang stolen from Lakota nearly a year ago. All this bloodshed and destruction could have been avoided if he would have put a bullet in him when he’d had a chance. Before he turned into a full-on psychotic baby-killing cannibal. Before he was a power mad war lord and just a three-time loser bossing around the local drunks. It was a wrong Gunny was planning on righting if his car would hold together for a few more miles. If he could catch Casey before he disappeared into the city then escaped on any number of roads leading out. He couldn’t let him get away. Casey would never be satisfied hiding out for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t flee south of the border or into the California lands and disappear. He’d come back with another army of fanatics somehow. He’d convince people to follow him, that he had the answers. The end of the world hadn’t changed the way people behaved.
Far ahead in the darkness he thought he caught a glimpse of tail light. Gunny smiled grimly, rolled his fingers on the steering wheel and checked his gauges again. Temp was low, oil pressure was high, fuel was fine. He leaned back in the Sparco seat and reached over for his old leather poke. He rolled a cigarette at ninety-five while steering with his knees, eyes squinting into the moon lit night and following the black ribbon of sand covered road.
A flare of brake lights caught his eye far ahead and he pushed a little harder, the bowtie growling its thunder over the singing tires. He had him. He was braking to make a turn and Gunny was close enough to see which direction he went. It was a rookie mistake, leaving the bulbs in his tail lights. Casey had never had to run for his life across the wastelands, he didn’t know how to survive on his own. He’d had an army surrounding him and didn’t have to consider little things like operational security or stealth.
“That little bit of arrogance just cost you your life.” Gunny said around the hand-rolled.
He watched with satisfaction as the lights went left. Towards the Grand Canyon. It had been years since he hauled freight in this neck of the woods but the roads hadn’t changed. He remembered them well enough. Like a lot of truckers, he could recall a thousand different docks, a thousand different coffee shops and a thousand different roads that led you to them. He couldn’t remember Lacy’s birthday without being reminded half the time but he knew you had to back into the alley just past the shipper’s entrance at that little place in Allentown. He knew the best slice of homemade pie east of the Mississippi was from the yum yum girl in London, Kentucky. He almost didn’t see the crunched-up cars taking up both lanes until it was too late. He slammed on his brakes and started sliding, he’d been over driving the road, going faster than he could see and react. The nose slid to the left and he slammed into one of them at a glancing angle, sending a Honda spinning off the road and him barreling towards the light pole. The exoskeleton took the brunt of the impact but the passenger window shattered, sent shards of glass flying. Gunny bounced up over the curb, hit the sand and kept sliding. He snapped the pole off cleanly, the brush guard bending against the hood when it did. The pole flew over the top of the car as he ran down the short chain-link fence and tried to steer away from the Moencopi Day school sign. It looked a l
ot stouter than the light pole and or even the little Honda that had been left crashed and abandoned in the road. He dropped into second and goosed it, got the back end broke loose in the sand and cut the wheel. He was still sliding but at least he was in control. The rear guard just missed the steel poles as he gave a little more gas and aimed back towards the road. He realized now why Casey had taken the left. He had to circle around and he’d probably stayed on the blacktop rather than chance getting stuck or hitting something hidden in the sand. Gunny had barely slowed and aside from bashing up his car a little more, he was fine. He had just shaved a few minutes of Casey’s lead away. Gunny popped it into third as he flew back on the asphalt and nailed it. The front end lifted on its springs and he hit fourth, back up to speed and seeing the Mustang’s tail lights clearly now as they flared bright again. They were screaming into the outskirts of Tuba City at nearly triple the posted speed limit. More cars were stopped at odd angles and abandoned, doors still ajar. Some held slow thrashing zombies locked in place by seat belts. The end had happened fast here, just like every where else.
Early morning sausage and eggs.
Breakfast burritos and crispy bacon.
The Denny’s, or the restaurant in the travel center, had probably started it. With the first deliveries of fresh meat in days, hungry customers lined up to get their morning started.
Sickness then change.
The raging undead ran people down with inhuman speed and strength. They smashed through windows in houses, they attacked anything that moved, cars crashed to avoid the bloody, screaming madmen in the streets. Within hours the sleepy little town was dead and starting the slow process of dying, baking under the summer sun.
Zombie Road VI: Highway to Heartache Page 22
