by Ben Reeder
“No, it isn’t,” he said. “It’s your plan, but it’s my vehicle and my daughter. And I’m in charge in my vehicle. You’re going to have to deal with that.” He stepped forward again and tried the looming trick again. It still didn’t work.
“If your daughter’s survival takes a back seat to your pride, then you have no business coming with us anyway. You need to decide, right now, which one is more important to you, because we can survive without you.” I watched him to see which side of his brain he listened to. His lips pursed together, then he seemed to draw in on himself.
“Amy is the most important thing in the world to me,” he said after a few seconds. “I’ll listen to Maya.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let her down. Let’s get loaded up and hit the road.” I led everyone out the back door, and found Sherman trotting at my side. It only took us a minute to load the tubs up into the back of Karl’s truck. Personal bags were tossed on top of them, then I went to the bikes and started pulling them down. Porsche and Maya were at my side, pulling the other two down before I could ask for help, and we wheeled them out to Karl’s Range Rover. Maya knew what I was up to, but I wasn’t sure why Porsche had decided to pitch in. Still, it was a gift horse whose dentistry I wasn’t examining. Maya trotted back to the garage while I secured the bikes to the rack on the rear bumper, and came back with a pull behind child-carrier.
“You are brilliant,” I said softly as I jumped down to help her heft it into the back of his truck. We worked as quietly as we could, with no idea of when the infected would make their way here. Once everything was secure, we made our way to the side door of the garage.
“We’re ready,” Karl said with an edge of uncertainty to his voice. “We just need to move Maya’s car out of the driveway, and we can go.”
“Do you have everything from your car that you want, baby?” I asked her.
“It’ll just take me a few seconds to grab what I need to,” she said. I gave her a nod, and she walked to the door.
“We’ll go when you start your car. Amy, Karl, mount up. I’ll open the garage door.” My pulse started hammering in my ears as I sent Porsche to her truck. Sherman hopped in the back seat with Amy while Karl got behind the wheel. It was time to get moving. So help me, I was looking forward to getting back out there.
Chapter 8
Side Trips
Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.
~ Victor Hugo ~
By the time we made it to Sunshine Street, I was starting to feel the tension of the last half hour in my shoulders. We’d wound through the back streets and managed to avoid contact with any infected by going slowly and avoiding main roads. I still shuddered at the memory of the screams we heard from the Unity Church that we had passed, and shoved it to the back of my mind. I had worries enough in front of me. Sunshine wasn’t as badly congested as I’d feared, but it was crawling, in some places literally, with infected. Most of them were heading east in groups, probably heading toward the sounds of gunshots, screams and car horns that came from that direction. We were lurking in the shadows of a side street, out of easy sight from Sunshine.
“Well, there aren’t any cars, but I don’t know how we’re going to get past the cannibalistic undead traffic jam,” I whispered to Porsche.
“Maybe we can outrun them,” she said. I hunkered down in the truck bed and flashed my penlight at the map, but nothing had changed since the last time I’d looked at it. The two streets that were the closest to us on the other side of the road were dead ends, and the only street that went through was several blocks to the east. There was no way we would make it that far without being overwhelmed by hungry dead people. I tried starting from the other end, thinking I’d need to get to Barnes Street and trying to find a connecting point from there and something caught my eye. I traced my finger along the map until I was sure and looked up with a smile.
“Porsche, I am fucking brilliant,” I said.
“Humble, too. What did you find?”
“The quickest way north. No traffic, no people.”
“No zombies?”
“No zombies. I’ll be right back.” I slid over the side of the bed and froze when I saw a zombie stop along the road. It looked in my direction for a few moments, and I fought to keep from moving as my lizard brain tried to tell me to shoot it or run. The smarter part of me, though, urged me to keep still. It was dark where I was, and the zombie probably couldn’t see me. If I made a sudden move, though, it might see the movement or hear me, and if that happened, the chain of events that followed would bring more of them down this dark little road, and that meant more running and shooting and maybe a lot of screaming. After a few seconds, it turned its head back and started shambling forward, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Karl rolled his window down as I approached the Range Rover. I put my finger to my lips as I got closer to forestall any questions. It worked like Plan A usually did.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked in his usual courtroom baritone. I froze and looked back over my shoulder, but the street was clear for the moment.
“I’m waiting for you to make enough noise to call every zombie in the area right down on us,” I said angrily. “Sunshine is hopeless here, but I found a way across east of here. Follow us. And get ready to go. Once we kick this off, there won’t be much time for turning around or asking questions.”
“What way?” he asked as I turned and headed back to the truck. I didn’t bother with walking slowly or even covering the noise I made.
“When you see the next zombie herd pass, turn on your lights and honk your horn,” I said when I reached the side of Porsche’s truck.
“That’ll bring every one of the damn things for a square mile!” Porsche cried out.
“Yeah, that’s the plan,” I told her as I clambered into the truck bed. Behind us, the Range Rover’s transmission whined as Karl backed it up. Then it changed pitch as he turned, shifted and pulled around, presumably facing the other way. In front of us, a group of undead in business suits and skirts shambled into sight, and Porsche hit the lights. Her horn warbled for a few seconds before it died, and I heard her cursing.
“Go! GO!” I yelled as they turned to face us in slow, chilling unison. Tires squealed as she hit the gas, and we were flying away from the street in reverse. I braced myself against the open window and held on for dear life, literally. We flew past the Range Rover, and I felt the truck lurch to the right, then rubber was screeching as the truck spun through a one-eighty plus a few degrees before it came to a stop. She dropped it into drive and sped back down the street.
“I hope you know what the hell you’re doing!” she yelled back at me.
“Me, too!” I said. “That was terrific! Where did you learn to drive like that?”
“I didn’t mean to do that. I was just trying to pull into a driveway and turn around!” I laughed and looked back over my shoulder. The Range Rover was behind us, and behind it was a crowd of very hungry infected.
“Well, it worked! Just don’t ever do that again! At least, not with me in the back of the truck. I almost ended up in someone’s front yard. Now, slow down and take the left!”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” she lied as she coasted through the turn.
“No you aren’t. Second left and…take the first right after that. That should put us on Langston Street.” She took the turns, and I directed her to take the next left after that, onto a little street called Luster. The neighborhood looked like a hold out from the Sixties or Seventies, with little ranch style brick and siding houses. I looked back over my shoulder as we passed under the first street light to see the Rover turning onto the street behind us, minus the undead horde. I breathed a sigh of relief at that.
“Right on the last street, that should be…Washita. Take it down to the end, then dog leg left across Lone Pine.”
“All of those streets are dead ends or cul-de-sacs!” she said.
“Trust me, I know wha
t I’m doing,” I said. She shook her head and made the right turn. Street lights passed overhead as we sped down the street, then we were making the thirty yard run to the left turn. A trio of street lights shone on a row of upscale houses that sported open garage doors and dark windows.
“This place feels creepy,” Porsche said.
“We take Amy down this street every year when we go looking at Christmas lights,” I said. “It’s her favorite place, because every house is lit up.”
“It’s also a dead end,” Porsche shot back.
“Not exactly. Go down that driveway there, the one that runs by the house at the end.” She pulled into the driveway slowly. Her headlights lit up the concrete path, and showed the curve where it led behind the house. Cement ended just beyond the trees that shielded the residents from the view of the squat metal shed with the Union Pacific logo on it, and a dirt road led further into the darkness.
“I never knew this was here!” Porsche said.
“We needed a path across Sunshine. I give you the Union Pacific railroad. No cars, no people and zero zombies.”
“You are fucking brilliant, Dave!” she crowed as the road led onto the rocky easement that ran along either side of the railroad track. The Range Rover scraped the trees on one side, then lumbered out behind us.
“And humble,” I said. She turned toward Sunshine and hit the gas. The ride was bumpy as hell, but it was a hell of a lot faster, and it beat trying to dodge the infected. A bank came into view on our left as the trees on that side ended after a few yards. The truck slowed, but I couldn’t see any dead walking around. “Go, while the coast is clear. And get on the other side of the tracks at the crossing.” She nodded and hit the gas again. For a few brief seconds, my teeth weren’t trying to rattle out of my head as we hit asphalt. On my right, I saw the Domino’s Pizza sign, and wished for a slice of pepperoni pizza so bad I could almost taste it. Porsche cut across the road at an angle, and we hit dirt again all too soon. The Range Rover followed a second later, and Karl negotiated the crossing just as smoothly. Trees loomed on either side of us as we bounced along.
“I think you should turn your headlights on now,” I told Porsche. The ground in front of us lit up, and the truck picked up speed. Gravel crunched beneath our wheels, drowning out most of the sounds of horror around us. For several minutes, the only thing we had to worry about was the tracks splitting for a few hundred yards and making the easement narrower. That, and whether or not I was going to lose any fillings. Finally, I saw the familiar white light from one of the electrical boxes at some crossings. I asked Porsche to stop a little ways before we got to the crossing, and the truck slowed to a gradual halt. When Karl stopped behind us, I hopped out of the bed and went to the passenger window. Maya leaned her head out as I walked up. In the back seat, Amy looked at me with worried eyes. Karl was rolling his window back up and doing his level best not to look peeved at not being consulted directly.
“Everything okay?” Maya asked.
“Yeah, we’re good,” I said as I leaned against her door. “I need to go take care of my end of something. We’re not far from home, and you should be able to make it there okay from here. Head to the house and get everything ready for the run to Sherwood. I figure we’ll have power for a little longer, so try to get our Kindles charged. Plan on sheltering in place for another day or two, just in case.” She leaned out and kissed me.
“I know the drill baby,” she said softly. “We’ll be ready to go by the time you get back.”
“I know. I’m just…worried. Nothing’s gone the way it was supposed to, and I get the feeling that it’s going to get a lot worse before we get out of town.”
“It’s the zombie apocalypse honey. I’m pretty sure nothing’s going the way it should,” she said with that pragmatic, dry tone that I’d never gotten tired of hearing. I felt a smile cross my face, probably the first genuine one I’d had all day.
“And that is why I love you,” I told her. I kissed her and stepped back. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Be careful, Dave!” Amy called out from the back seat. I turned back and gave her a thumb’s up before I went to the passenger side of Porsche’s Nissan.
“What’s going on?” she asked when I slid into the seat.
“We’re splitting up here. You and I are going to pick up someone else. Maya’s going home to get things ready to bug out. Stay on the railroad tracks until we get to the next crossing, then follow the road to the right. It should be Barnes Street.” She put the truck in gear and pulled forward. We rolled across the grass and back onto asphalt, and I checked the road on my side. It looked pretty clear. Karl pulled forward and turned down the road, and Porsche drove over the low curb and back onto the grass.
“So, who are we going to get, and why are they so important?” Porsche asked when we were bumping along on the rough ground beside the tracks again.
“Remember the guys I was telling you about at work?”
“The ones from Iraq?” she said.
“Yeah. One of them, Nate Reid, is a former Delta Force operator. He’s the one who made me believe that something like this was going to happen. He also helped me get ready for it if…when it did. He helped me finance Sherwood, our property out west of town, and made sure I got everything I needed to ride things out. In return, he asked me to make sure I got his ex-wife and his son to safety when shit hit the fan.”
“Why you?”
“His son likes the War of the Magi series.”
“You’re kidding,” she laughed.
“He’s got signed copies of all three books. And they’re pretty damn good. Hell, they’re better than Operation Terror and The Frankenstein Code.”
“No, I meant that he chose you just because his son liked your books.”
“There’s more to it than that, but that’s what started everything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call Cassie and let her know we’re on our way.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and prayed for a signal. I got a couple of bars. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Her phone rang several times, and just when I thought it was going to go to voicemail, she picked up.
“Hello?” she said softly.
“Cassie, it’s Dave Stewart. Are you at home?” I heard the phone rub against fabric, then her voice came clearer.
“If this is really you, what did you tell my son when he bought Operation Terror?” she asked.
“You didn’t let him read that one, or The Frankenstein Code.”
“Damn straight,” she said. “I read them, but only you would know that I didn’t let Bryce see them. Nate called me a few hours ago, he told me to expect you. Come on by. We’ll be waiting for you.” The phone clicked off and I tucked it back in my front pocket.
“That was quick. And weird. What was that about your books?” Porsche asked.
“She was making sure it was really me,” I said absently. “Nate had already called her. There, take that road. Follow it down to Grand. No, wait!”
“What?”
“Stay on the tracks. This street comes out between two churches. Stay on the tracks until they cross Grand.”
“Yeah, we don’t want to run up on another prayer meeting from Hell,” she agreed. We endured another ten minutes of rough terrain before we came out on Grand. The little hill that rose up to meet the tracks shielded us from view to the west, and I saw a group of infected milling around under the street light a few hundred yards to the east, right where the two churches sat caddy-corner to each other. It made an irrational sense that we’d find more zombies there. People gravitated to churches when things went bad, and right now, it was as bad as it got. There was a sort of comfort to be found in seeking the presence of God, and even if I had very little good to say about religion, I understood the human need for the spiritual. Even in death, people could find comfort in that, perhaps especially in death. Maybe they were already in a better place. Even if they were, I was in no hurry to join them.
Porsche t
urned her lights off again and let the truck idle. None of them seemed to be heading our way, so I gave her a nod and pointed to the little street a few yards to our right. Three turns later, we were pulling up in front of Cassie’s place. Her street was comfortably cute, with well-kept lawns and minivans in every other driveway. Cassie’s was one of the ones without the minivan or the prerequisite garden sculptures. We pulled into the driveway of her place and got out. We walked up to the door and I knocked softly, half expecting to be met with a gun barrel in my face.
“It’s open Dave,” I heard her call out. I turned the knob and pushed the door open but stayed in place. Carefully, I slung the M4 barrel down across my shoulder.
“Cassie, it’s me. I have someone with me, her name’s Porsche. She’s a friend of mine. She’s okay.” I stepped inside and kept my hands out to my sides, knowing I was silhouetted against the open door. The broad side of most barns would be harder to hit than I was just then. Porsche followed me in with her hands held up in front of her, and I heard the door swing shut behind us.
“Sorry for being paranoid, Dave,” Cassie said from behind me.
“It’s been that kind of day,” I told her as I turned around.
“Nate was pretty insistent about being careful.” Cassie was holding a Berretta M9 of her own pointed down at the floor. In the soft light from the street light, the only other thing I could see were her jeans and hiking boots.
“It was a good idea. I’ve already had to shoot at a couple of survivors. You ready?”
“We were just getting packed to go.” She stepped forward, and I could see that she had on a gray sweater and had her blond hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She led us into the dining room table. A half-full backpack and gear covered the table. “I sort of… unpacked the bug out bags. I kept all of the stuff, but it felt weird having all of it packed up.” I shrugged. Movement behind me caught my attention, and I saw Bryce emerge from the hallway with a backpack in his hand. His face lit up when he saw us.
“Hi, Dave!” he said brightly as he came over to us and dropped the pack at Cassie’s feet. “Dad said you’d be coming by.” He’d grown a couple of inches since I’d last seen him, and his dark hair had grown out from the buzz he’d had six months ago. Now it was in danger of getting in his eyes. He wore a pair of jeans and an Iron Man t-shirt with a pair of black sneakers. His face was just starting to lose the soft edges of baby fat, and his chin and jaw were looking more like Nate’s square features. His nose, though, was pure Cassie, slightly upturned and freckled.
