by Ben Reeder
Now that we were in a relatively safe place, I could take a moment to rework my plans. With a vehicle, I had to figure a different route than I would have taken on foot. A truck was faster, but not as versatile. I went over the routes in my head, and chose one from memory.
“You ready to go?” I asked her.
“God, more than ready,” she said in a rush. She started the truck up and pulled out of the parking space, then headed for the back gate at a slow crawl. The bars were down at the gate, which wasn’t a huge surprise. When the gate worked, it stayed down to prevent the kids from the high school just north of us from using our parking lot as a shortcut. Porsche rolled her window down as we came up to the gate and put her badge up to the little black square of the card reader. It beeped, but the bar stayed put. She swiped it again, and another beep sounded, but the bar stayed down.
“Gate’s closed,” a voice came over the intercom. I recognized it as Deputy Dickhead. “The city is under martial law. Anyone outside will be shot on site. Surrender now and –” The rest was lost as Porsche put the truck in reverse and backed up with a screeching of tires.
“Go right! Go right!” I said franticly. She spun the wheel, shifted into first and sent the truck into a sharp right turn that took us down the blocked off drive to the north. “On the grass, head across the field!” I pointed. She took us off the asphalt and we left the smooth road. The little truck bounced diagonally across the hundred and fifty yard wide green swath between the north end of the parking lot and the road, then caught a microsecond of air when we jumped the curb and found ourselves back on asphalt. I risked a look behind us while she fought to straighten us out, and saw only a couple of infected racing across the field. Just as I was about to turn back around, I saw a dark figure on the roof of the south building, the same place we’d been not long before. I pointed to our left, and she took the turn on to Jefferson fast enough to throw me against the door, then slammed on the brakes as we started around the slight curve. I hoped that would throw them off.
A battle field lay ahead of us. Two Humvees were parked in the middle of Jefferson Street, in front of Kickapoo High School. They were surrounded by bodies, but it looked like the vehicles themselves were abandoned. More chilling was the size of the crowd in front of the high school itself, pressed up against three Humvees parked nose to tail in a rough semi-circle at the main entrance.
“Pull in there and kill the engine,” I said, pointing to the parking lot of a little insurance office on our left. She got us into the parking lot and slipped in behind a pair of thick decorative bushes that hid us from easy view to the right and in front before she turned the engine off.
“There must be hundreds of kids in there,” she said, reflecting my thoughts.
“And a hundred infected trying to get at them,” I grumbled. Off to my right, the pair of infected that had followed us from the parking lot trotted by. They crossed Primrose and headed for the throng at the school. “Make that a hundred and two.”
“I don’t get it. Where are they all coming from?” Porsche asked.
“My bet is a hospital. Probably Cox South, it’s just down the road from here. And it’s right by the highway. They get out, they infect other people and those people infect other people and so on.”
“There’s got to be something we can do,” she said.
“Well, we can guess that shooting them only goes so far before you end up as dinner for the rest. They do tend to be easily distracted, though. If we get their attention on us, maybe we can get them to chase us and leave the all-you-can-eat-teen-buffet.”
“Once we get them to start chasing us, how do we get them to stop?” Porsche asked.
“We get far enough ahead that we’re out of sight. Then, we make a couple of turns. Before we do that, though, I want to check the Humvees for weapons. So, here’s the plan. I’m going to go check out the Humvees, grab what I can and come back, then we’ll ride in, make ourselves a target and save the day.”
“What’s Plan B?” she asked with a grin.
“Plan B goes something like ‘I scream like a little girl and you come get me.’” She laughed at that and nodded. I took a calming breath and opened the door, then slowly pushed it closed. I was across Primrose before the sheer amount of stupid in my whole plan hit me. There was nothing between me and a hundred infected but a thirty yards of air and ignorance. If they saw me, I only had a few seconds before they were on me and I was just another victim. If they didn’t see me, I stood to gain a little extra gear and maybe…just maybe, we could buy the kids at Kickapoo a little more time.
I found myself crouching low as I got closer, even though it probably didn’t really help anything. It made me feel better, and I really needed that. I could hear the movement of the crowd of infected with every step. They uttered a low, constant groan that was unnerving even from a distance. I couldn’t imagine how nerve-wracking it must have been up close. When I finally made it to the first circle of bodies, though, I had other things on my mind. Most of the bodies were either in patient smocks or scrubs with the Cox logo on them, bearing out my guess. Patients and hospital staff. My brain went straight to the worst case scenario with Maya, and I fought to keep the rising sense of despair from overwhelming me. Until I knew otherwise, I had to keep Maya alive in my head, making it the girlfriend version of Schrödinger’s cat.
The dead slowed me down as I tried not to step on them or in the pools of blood they were laying in. Once I made it behind the closest Humvee, I leaned up against it and let myself relax just a little. The smell of cordite and blood filled my nostrils and I decided to spend as little time as I could there.
Despite the ghoulish sound of my original plan, I had an ulterior motive for wanting to check out the Humvees. If the soldiers who had been in them had been overrun, odds were good that no one would ever know what happened to them. Every soldier was issued a pair of dog tags, and I intended to collect the second tag so that someday, I could make sure someone knew what happened to these men. When I’d been in the Air Force, I was required to wear both of mine around my neck, but when I was writing for Nate, I learned that some units wore their second tag laced into their boot instead. I crept up to the first body in BDUs and steeled myself to check the right boot. The shiny metal reflected the fading sunlight. Right the first time. Rather than try to unlace it, I moved up a little and grabbed the combat knife from his belt. The tag came free after a quick slice against the boot lace, and I went to the body lying near the front of the other Humvee. This guy had his in the same place, and I cut it free. Both men had gaping wounds at their necks that made me a little queasy to look at. From where I was, I couldn’t see another body, so I went around the front of the lead Humvee to check the other side. Sure enough, I found another body, lying in plain sight of the school.
I moved as quickly as I dared, using the vehicle’s shadow to conceal myself as I cut the boot laces to get his tag. As much as I wanted to get behind the Humvee, I forced myself to grab the pistol from his tactical holster and pull the extra magazines from the pouch beside it before I snuck back to the far side. Once I had my back to the driver’s side door, I took a quick look at the pistol I’d taken. Survival rule number sixteen was to never trust a gun picked up during a fight, and this was close enough to qualify. You never knew if it was on the ground for a damn good reason. The ubiquitous M9 pistol was one I’d been trained to use back when I was in the Air Force, but I’d never drawn one outside of the target range. I pulled the slide back and chambered a round, then clicked the safety off, keeping my finger outside the trigger guard. That was rule seventeen: never put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to pull it. Now I had fifteen rounds of nine millimeter ammunition to hand. I tucked the two spare magazines into my right hand cargo pocket and went to the nearest body. His pistol was on the ground near him, with the spent magazine still in it. I undid the leg straps and unbuckled his belt. His ammo was in the pouch on his holster, and he had his combat knife on his
belt. I fastened the belt again and slung it over my shoulder, then went to his rifle. Even in the twilight, I could tell it was trashed. The collapsible stock had been bent and the magazine well had been crimped. Empty magazines were lying near the front tire, and I only found one in his vest. I tucked it into my cargo pocket as well, and crouch-walked to the first body I’d checked. He still had his pistol holstered, so I repeated the process with his belt and slung it, replacing his combat knife in its sheath, too. His rifle still looked intact, so I grabbed it and checked his ammo pouches. That netted me two more magazines, plus what was left in the one still in the well. I slung his rifle over my shoulder and tucked the two magazines into my bulging cargo pocket. As I crept back to the end of the Humvee, I heard movement inside it.
I jumped when a bandaged hand slapped against the window. Only three fingers showed through the bloody bandages, and it left a red smear on the glass as the man in the Humvee pulled himself into view. His eyes were milky and distant as he stared at me from the other side of the glass. Every part of my brain was trying to tell me to run, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of him or even move from the sheer terror. Movement to my left caught my attention a microsecond before a cold hand grabbed my ankle.
I screamed like a little girl. Okay, it was more of a yelp, but it was high pitched and very unmanly. And I so didn’t give a fuck who heard me. I yanked my foot free and looked down to see the first soldier reaching for my foot again. I backed up and watched in horror as he slowly climbed to his feet. My body injected adrenaline into my blood in prodigious quantities, and I made the coin flip in my head: fight or run. Oddly enough, fight won, and my left hand came up. The Beretta barked twice in my hand and the guy went down. Behind him, I could see his buddy getting to his feet as well. Some part of me wanted to stare in slack jawed disbelief, but my forebrain was telling me to look for the strings or the man behind the curtain or whatever was making it happen later.
The first guy started getting back to his feet. Ballistic vest, I thought, and pointed the gun at his face. The gun bucked on my hand and he fell back again. Then I raised my aim to his buddy. My hand was shaking too badly to be sure of the shot, and he kept moving around as he came toward me. I put a round center mass to knock him down, then ran up to him and put a round through his head to be sure. Five rounds.
Pale light hit the area, and I could see the rest of the prone figures around me start moving.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered as I realized how deeply screwed I was. Never mind the horde at the school, I had a double dozen infected right here! The guy from the other side of the Humvee lumbered into view, and I brought the pistol up. Luck was with me and the round disintegrated the left side of his face. Six.
The headlights from Porsche’s truck got closer as the dead infected started getting back to their feet. These people had already been shot several times each, but the head shot guardsmen seemed to be staying down. I missed the first shot at the forehead of the guy in scrubs closest to me, but the second round took the top of his head off. Seven, eight. An older man in a blood drenched smock lurched to his feet off to my left, and a woman in scrubs made it to her knees on my right. Shooting to my weak side first, I managed to hit the woman in the forehead but I missed the guy in the smock the first and second time. The third round hit his left eye and he went down. Nine, ten, eleven. Another man got to his feet right in front of me, silhouetted against Porshe’s headlights for a split second before she introduced his ass to her truck’s front grill. He went flying past me as she skidded to a stop beside me. I took a second to thin the odds by two more before I jumped in the bed of the truck. Twelve, thirteen. More of the infected were streaming across the parking lot.
The little window in the back glass slid open as she pulled away. “Are you okay?” she yelled over the wind and engine noise. Behind us, I could see the crowd of infected turning to follow us.
“I’m fine!” I called back as I dropped the magazine out of the Beretta and fished in my cargo pocket for a fresh one. “My boxers are ruined, though. Stay on Jefferson as far as you can, but don’t go too fast. The important part of Plan A is working.” The new mag slid home and I reset the count in my head. I grabbed the nearly empty magazine from my lap and stuck it in the left side cargo pocket.
“Plan B seemed to go the way you called it!” she said with a nervous laugh.
“Heard that, did you?”
“Oh, yeah. You sounded just like my niece. Except for the shooting.” She kept the truck going slow enough that the infected could keep us in sight and follow us. They were surprisingly fast for brain damaged cannibals. They kept up with us as we entered the residential area behind the school and rounded the first curve. It bent to the left, then back to the right, and they followed us through them without losing pace. When we reached the intersection for Walnut Lawn, it looked clear. The stop light was blinking red, but the road was empty. Behind us, the infected weren’t showing any signs of slowing down, so I turned back to the window.
“Alright, pick it up once we make it through the intersection,” I told her. She ran the blinking red light and hit the gas as we crossed the deserted street. Streetlights lit patches of road, but long stretches were dark as we drove toward Battlefield. Gunshots peppered the silence, and in the distance, I could hear the rhythmic thump of a helicopter’s rotors. Off to my left, I heard a single scream pierce the night before it was cut off.
Safe for the moment, I unslung the assault rifle and the two pistol belts, then pulled my backpack off and dug my sweatshirt out for a little protection from the chill in the October air. With it on, I stood up and leaned against the back of the cab. The cool air blew through my hair and I took a moment to process what I’d learned. Shooting the infected wasn’t enough to stop them. Only headshots put them down for good, and even that was a maybe. Even more frightening, I had watched dead men get back up and move. Diseases weren’t supposed to affect dead people. I considered and rejected the idea that they weren’t dead. One of the National Guardsmen that I’d seen had been missing too much of his throat to have survived, and none of the people that they’d shot should have been able to get back up. Ergo, this was no disease. It worked like one at first, yes, but after a certain point, it stopped working like any disease or virus and started working like something else entirely. My brain rejected the word that came to mind next, but as Porsche drove down the darkened road ahead of us, I forced myself to accept it.
Zombies. The Asura virus or whatever it was turned people into cannibalistic zombies. I was right in the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse.
Chapter 5
Oaths and Anticipation
It is easy to make promises - it is hard work to keep them.
~ Boris Johnson ~
We rounded another curve in the road and Porsche slowed down. Ahead of us was the burning wreck of a sports car that had hit a minivan in the middle of the intersection of Battlefield and Jefferson. Battlefield was a four lane road that ran past the only mall in Springfield, so I’d expected some traffic there, but the wreck complicated everything by closing off the lanes heading east. A few cars were backed up on Jefferson, and I could only guess at how far back Battlefield was jammed up. I crouched back down.
“Take a right into the Kum’N’Go parking lot,” I said. “There’s a service road that goes further back. Stay on it until you pass the thrift store.” She nodded and took the right. The convenience store was dark and empty as we passed it, and I glanced at the fuel gauge on her dash as we passed the gas pumps. She had just over a quarter of a tank, hopefully enough to get us to where we needed to go, and maybe a bit more. Now all we had to do was find a way to get there.
As she made her way through the parking lot, I dropped down to sit in the bed of the truck and pulled my flashlight out of my backpack to take a look at the rifle I’d picked up. It looked like it had seen some wear, but nothing rattled or looked like it was going to fall off. When I’d been in the Air Force, we’d learned how to
shoot the M-16A2. I’d even managed to qualify for the Marksmanship ribbon when I shipped to Iraq. It had been a few years since I’d handled one, but I remembered the basics well enough to drop the magazine and reload a new one. I pulled the charging handle to make sure it wasn’t jammed, then flipped it over to look at the fire selector. Like the M16A2, this one had three positions: “Safe”, “Semi” and “Burst”. I set it for semi to conserve ammunition, then ran the light over the rest of the gun. With the telescoping stock and flat receiver top, it looked like I’d grabbed an M4 carbine. It had a short scope mounted on it, and when I looked through it, I could see the illuminated reticle. With that, I’d be able to make most of the thirty rounds in the fresh magazine count, assuming I could hold the rifle steady enough.
Screams came from the apartment complex to my right, accompanied by heavy pounding and the occasional breaking of glass. Movement in the distance behind us caught my eye, but whoever it was never emerged into the light. As Porsche made the turn into the parking lot of the Goodwill Thrift store, I caught a brief glimpse of someone running through the apartment complex as they passed between two buildings. Seconds later, a group of figures sprinted across the same narrow opening. My gut clenched when I heard the screams start a few seconds after that.
I forced myself to turn my attention back to the road as we emerged from between the thrift store and an upscale restaurant. On the far side of the road from us, a line of cars was backed up all the way to the next stop light and beyond. Porsche uttered some choice curse words as I knelt down to look in the rear window.
