Kent hesitated a moment before stepping out, and no one would have blamed him. Inside the cab, he was protected. The glass was strong enough to keep the zombies out. But he knew that view was short-sided. Staying inside would keep him alive, but ultimately, it would be a slow death trap. A place where he would die of starvation.
Kent stuck his leg out, but a zombie clawed at him, reaching for his foot.
That’s where Henry came in as he took aim, centering the dead thing’s head in his sights and pulling the trigger. The zombie’s head exploded in a corona of blood, and it fell lifeless to the ground. In an added benefit, it tangled with two other zombies, pulling them down, too.
Kent used the opportunity to grab the door to swing out over the edge of the bulldozer. Then the momentum acted like a slingshot of sorts, sending him onto the treads. He stepped along them but was forced to stop when a zombie pulled its full upper torso onto the bulldozer, blocking his way.
“I’ve got this one,” Molly said as she pulled the trigger.
She wasn’t as good a shot as Henry, but the full impact of her bullets knocked the zombie away, clearing a path for Kent. He didn’t need any coaxing and took one more step, then vaulted himself onto the engine of the bulldozer, putting him dead center on the front of the Humvee.
Zombies were pushing in on all sides of the Humvee.
“They’re moving in too fast,” Jo yelled.
“Give me a sec,” Clayton shouted back and swiveled his gun to take on the ones on the right of the vehicle. He didn’t wait to really aim but just let loose with a volley of bullets that pretty much cleared the right side of the undead. The left side, though, was a whole different story.
“You gotta jump now,” Clayton yelled to Kent, who stood on the engine compartment of the bulldozer, sizing up what it would take to make his leap. It wasn’t really that far, but it seemed as wide as the Grand Canyon.
Any mistake could be fatal. If Kent misstepped or slipped, he could end up down in the cluster of zombies collecting on the left side of the Humvee.
“Come on, Kent!” Clayton shouted.
Kent took two steps back and rushed forward, leaping over the bulldozer's big blade of and onto the hood of the Humvee. There wasn’t anything graceful about it as he fell forward and smacked face-first into the windshield.
“Get up here with me,” Clayton said from his place at the gun turret on top of the Humvee.
Partially dazed, Kent shook his head to rid himself of cobwebs filling his head and pushed himself up and onto the top of the Humvee. It wasn’t the safest place in the world, but it was better than being within arm’s reach of the zombies.
“Clayton,” Jo yelled from the driver’s seat of the Humvee. “We’ve got trouble. There’s too many behind us.”
When Clayton turned, he saw what Jo said was true. He had cleared out the right side, but the zombies on the left had filled in the path back to the gate.
“Can’t you just push through?” Clayton asked.
“We get hung up on a mound of zombies, and we’re dead,” Jo said.
Clayton looked back, and when he saw the mob of the undead behind them and he knew she was right. He had seen it happen when jeeps or even Humvees floundered on an ocean of zombies. Then the men were pulled free from the vehicles screaming. What happened after that wasn’t pretty.
Jo looked to the right and saw the narrowest of escape paths, but if they went that way, their plan was most likely screwed. Plus, it left Henry and Molly up on the wall with no way to escape as the zombies streamed inside.
She slammed her hand down on the steering wheel and cursed loudly.
Chapter 97
North and South
“Keep it down, people,” Bonds said in a hushed voice to the people gathered inside the dormitory on the north side of the Sanctum. The anxiety pulsing through the crowd was almost palpable.
“Why are we leaving?” A woman with a wild bush of hair said. “Aren’t we safer staying inside?”
“We’ve been over this, folks,” Bonds said. “The walls are compromised. The zombies are going to get inside.”
A man wearing camouflage clothing and carrying an assault rifle said, “I sure as hell don’t like leaving my dad down in that basement. If we can’t take out the zombies, then that basement will become a death trap.”
Another man yelled, “Yeah,” and Bonds felt like he was losing control of the crowd.
This wasn’t something he wanted to do and not a place he wanted to be in. Throughout his life and during this shit storm of the zombie apocalypse, he had done everything to fly under the radar. To stay out of any controversy. And for God’s sake, he didn’t want the responsibility for the lives of a hundred people.
“Listen, we need to do this,” he said. “Please.” But there was no power in his voice.
“I think this plan is total bullshit,” the man in camouflage said. It was easy to see that he was trying to rally the crowd to rebel against Bonds and this cockamamy plan.
All eyes went to Bonds, and he was wilting under this pressure, both physically and emotionally, as he dropped his eyes to the floor. That was until a woman with raven black hair and commanding eyes stepped up next to Bonds. Her name was Casey, and she had seen some dark times when she was held captive in the basement of a building in Southern Ohio. But she hadn’t given up hope and was ultimately rescued by some courageous people, one of them being Donovan. In her book, whatever he said was good to go.
“Listen up, people,” she said, keeping her voice down but making sure it carried into the crowd. “This is the plan, and we need to stick with it.”
Camo man asked, “Who the hell are you?”
Casey said, “I’m just telling you the way it is. The way it has to be.”
“You’re one of those outsiders,” Camo man said. “This place went to hell in a handbasket once you people showed up.” He looked around the crowd to pick up support, and more than a few people nodded.
Casey crossed her arms and said, “So, are you saying we were bringing a giant horde of zombies with us? Like we planned it? Who in their right mind would do that? Like we had some kind of death wish. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Well, no,” Camo man said as some of the wind went out of his sails. “It’s just that things went bad after you came to the Sanctum.”
“That was coming whether we showed up or not,” Casey said. “And if you hadn’t noticed, we brought some pretty decent firepower and fighters with us.”
“We were doing fine without you,” Camo man said.
“That isn’t the question,” Casey said as she crossed her arms. “The question is whether you would survive now without us.” She stopped there and fixed her eyes on the people in the crowd, challenging them.
Bonds raised his head, and while he didn’t look anyone in the face, he said, “She’s right. The back gate is gone. They’re getting in, but that doesn’t mean the Sanctum is lost. We’ll take it back as soon as we can.”
Casey stepped back and put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a big squeeze.
Something swept over the people in the room. Some might call it resignation, but that would only be looking at the surface. Digging deeper into the psyches of the people’s minds, you would find resolve. They would surrender their homeland now, but they would take it back.
Many of the same thoughts went through the minds of the people on the south end of the Sanctum, but there was no dissension. These people just gritted their teeth and waited for what was ahead. They all stood poised inside the medical building and were on hold for some kind of cryptic signal to make a run to the south. The convention center was their rendezvous point.
Lassiter had put a woman named Willow in charge of staging them at every door and opening they could use to escape. All the windows had been boarded or bricked up when they decided the university was the best place to set up their new community.
She felt utterly unprepared to lead this escape, but she knew fro
m watching the woman named Jo, she had to show confidence. To do this, she went from person to person, speaking words of encouragement, giving guidance where she could.
When people asked her if this plan was going to work, she said she was ‘sure it would.’
The only thing that stopped her in her tracks was when a young boy asked, “What if the zombies are outside the doors?”
She faltered for a moment but decided to stick with the plan. “They’re not going to be. We have people at the gates drawing all the zombies there. That’s what’s giving us the chance to make a break for it.”
“My grandma is in the basement of the science building,” the boy said. “What about her?”
“Well, we’re going to kill all the zombies and get your grandma out of there.”
“Why can’t we kill them all now?” The boy asked.
From the mouths of babes is what she thought. It was the obvious question, but she had an answer.
“There are zombies out there who are smart,” she said. “They’ve been shooting holes in our walls. We aren’t safe inside, but the plan is to draw all the zombies inside, and then we’ll kill them from outside the walls.”
“What about those smart zombies?” the boy asked. “Don’t we have to kill them, too?”
That was the $64,000 question.
Willow knelt down next to the boy and said, “We have some smart people of our own working on that.”
Fortunately for Willow, the boy bought her story. She wasn’t sure she did.
Chapter 98
Unexpected Arrival
Jo watched the zombies off to the right of the Humvee filling in their escape path. Their lumbering forms looked like a wall about to lock together, trapping them there.
“Jo,” Clayton yelled as he slapped the top of the Humvee, “get going!”
She knew he was right. They had to go but leaving meant that Henry and Molly were on their own. Their chances of making it would be next to nothing if they didn’t get back inside with the Humvee, but there were too many zombies behind them. The only chance for any of them to make it was to press the gas pedal down and to cut to the right....as soon as humanly possible.
The problem was that she couldn’t get her body to obey the commands her brain was sending. It was as if someone had cut her internal wiring.
Clayton fell out of the gun turret and climbed down, leaving Kent on the roof of the Humvee. Once he hit bottom, he said, “Jo, get us the fuck out of here!”
She felt the sting of tears in her eyes when she turned around, “I can’t leave Henry and Molly. I’ve already lost Del and Ellen.”
“Well, we’re going to die with them if we don’t get going,” Clayton said.
Jo reached up and wiped the tears away and then said, “You’re right. I know it.”
She turned back around and put both of her hands on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly. Out of the windshield, she saw that if she gunned it right then and there, they had a chance. There was a narrow path through the zombies ahead.
She was about to take her foot off the brake, and move it to the gas pedal when Kent’s voice echoed down into the cabin of the Humvee. “Someone is coming!”
Jo’s foot slipped off the brake and the Humvee jumped forward about five feet before she slammed on the brakes again. The quick stop tossed Clayton forward, ass over elbows, leaving him in an upside-down heap.
“Son of a bitch, woman,” he said. “Next time, let me know when you’re going to do that.”
“What do you see?” She shouted back, unable to see what he was talking about because of how the Humvee was positioned.
Needless to say, the escape path closed ahead, zombies filling in all the gaps. They came together into a giant mass of the undead, dark and merciless, and they immediately began their march for the Humvee.
“It looks like a military vehicle,” Kent shouted.
Clayton untangled himself and pushed his way to an upright position. He quickly made his way to a window on the right side of the Humvee to look out the side window. “Holy shit,” Clayton said, “It’s the MAV.”
The MAV was moving a decent clip, cutting along a diagonal path for the Sanctum. The few zombies in the way got rolled over like they weren’t there.
Jo still couldn’t see but asked, “Where is it going?”
“I think it’s heading for the back gate,” Clayton said.
“How fast?” Jo asked.
“Fast enough,” Clayton said. “They’re mowing down zombies like blades of grass.”
What Clayton said was true. The big beast of a vehicle ran down the zombies like they were, indeed, grass. Grass made of flesh and bone. Bodies flew into the air, arms and legs flailing about at unnatural angles. The ones not airborne went under the wheels, crushed to a bloody pulp.
Jo quickly shifted the Humvee into reverse and hit the gas. Again, Clayton fell backward, letting out a loud curse.
“Give me a damn warning when you do that,” Clayton said.
Kent shouted down through the gun turret, “Where are we going?”
“We’re following them inside,” Jo said, as she hit the brakes again once the Humvee was turned around to face the gate. This time Clayton was ready, but as soon as they settled, he turned to look out the window again.
The MAV kept on rolling, but it weaved back and forth as it went. Clayton wasn’t sure that the way it was driving that it would end up in the wall or smashing through the gate.
“What’s wrong with that guy?” He asked.
“It looks like a drunk is driving,” Kent said.
Jo jumped in and said, “Wherever they’re going, I’m following.”
The MAV drove in an erratic fashion, swerving all over the place. At one point, Jo was almost certain the big vehicle was on a collision course for the Humvee, but the driver must have seen them because he jerked the MAV to the right. Five seconds later, the MAV passed in front of the Humvee.
Behind the Humvee, the zombies were closing on it but Jo hit the gas and started following the MAV as it blasted through the mob of zombies like a hot knife through warm butter on a summer day.
Jo got in behind the MAV, almost kissing its back end with the Humvee’s crash grill. She was so close that if the driver hit the brakes, there would be a big problem. Like the Humvee would be wrecked, and they would be stranded in an ocean of zombies.
Fortunately, the MAV driver kept on trucking, and he even steadied up his path, heading for the open gate. The zombies in the way were smashed, crashed, and trashed, folded, spindled, and mutilated by the unforgiving front end of the MAV. A few tumbled in front of the Humvee, but they had already been beaten and broken by the MAV. Their smashed bodies rolled under the wheels.
Ten seconds later, the MAV rolled through the broken back gates of the Sanctum with the Humvee racing right behind it.
Chapter 99
A View from the Distance
She watched from the shadows of a three-story building about six-hundred-feet from the walls. The two vehicles slipped inside the walls. Her eyes then followed the horde surging toward the opening, shambling along, bouncing off each other's shoulders in their eagerness to get inside. Some even went down in the mass of the undead and were trampled.
She thought she would have felt something. Satisfaction, happiness, maybe a sense of triumph. They had won. The zombies would get inside and kill every last one of the humans would be dead. Perhaps, at last, she would be free of the voice that haunted her at night.
But she felt none of these things. Instead, she felt intense sadness tinged with something else.
Lance was dead. She knew it. So was Grayson. They had thought he was dead when he left them, but that connection that linked the four of them came back. Grayson’s essence was there, but it was different. Weaker, lighter, and less substantial. Then it was gone. Just like Lance’s. Just like Maxwell.
The night voice had led them into a death trap. That’s how she felt.
She also f
elt used. The night voice had driven them here for its own purposes, and they seemed disposable.
Questions assaulted her mind. What was so important about these people? Why did he want them dead more than any of the others? Together, the four of them had wiped out the military base and everyone in it. They had rolled over small towns and cities almost effortlessly.
But somehow, these people had managed to kill her three companions.
Certainly, the lives of all these people didn’t equal the lives of Lance, Grayson, and Maxwell. Not even close when it came to Maxwell.
And for what?
They had all died for nothing other than to please some unknown entity. An entity that none of them had ever seen, but one they followed almost without question.
An underlying feeling hit her again, and it enveloped her. She had never felt lonelier in her entire life or half-life. She was alone in the world. A one of a kind creature. No one would ever understand her. No one could relate.
The zombies in the distance, eager to get inside, clogged the back entrance, pushing and shoving to get inside. They would get inside, and they would cleanse the place of the living. They would do the night visitor’s bidding, and she would have to go on without a single sole to share her half-life with.
It also seemed like there was no presence in her head. In the past, even when the voice wasn’t speaking directly to her, she felt something. It was like a low-level radio signal pulsing inside her, suffusing her body and entire being. To her, it was like a dissonant musical note going on and on.
Ever since she had been turned into a half-dead creature, she had felt the tone. This was followed by the voice speaking to her. Convincing her. Twisting her from the inside out. In so many ways, she sometimes felt like she didn’t have any choice.
The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead: Page 41
