by Dana Fredsti
“Oooh, sorry,” Lil said, yanking the pickaxe out again.
“I ain’t got time to barf,” I muttered, trying not to puke. If I’d had time, I would have spewed all over the damn place, but the moans were coming from all directions as the undead residents of Redwood Grove honed in on us.
They shambled from both directions on Beech Street, dozens filtering down from Maple Street and enough coming from the opposite direction to make our escape route far more dangerous than I’d anticipated.
The alley to the back of us was impassable, seething with bodies. The alley entrance across Beech was blocked by one of those huge trucks with big-ass wheels, what I call “penis compensation trucks.” Lil and I might be able to climb over or around it, sure, but we’d have to leave the cart behind.
Shit.
“There are so many of them.” Lil looked as scared as I felt, so I tried to hide my own fear from her. This whole thing had been my idea, and I was going to get her and her cats back to Big Red. Or die trying. Although I preferred to do it without the dying part.
“We can still move faster then they can,” I said. “We just need to clear a few out of our way. You take the ones coming from Maple Street and the alley. I’ll clear us a path down Beech. Don’t worry about head shots, just slow ’em down!”
Lil hesitated, eyes wide with panic as the reeking corpses closed in on us, the stench nearly unbearable.
I smacked her on the arm, hard.
“Ouch!”
“Remember!” I shouted. “Ripley doesn’t die!”
This snapped her out of her deer-in-the-headlights look. While she dropped the pickaxe into the cart and unholstered her M-4, I sprayed my last few shots at the zombies coming at us from the south side of Beech Street. I ejected the magazine and slammed another one home as quickly as possible. I had one more full magazine in my belt pouch, and plenty of ammo, but no time to reload the empties. So I had to make the shots count.
We shot their legs out from under them, but more took their place. It was like trying to dig a hole in the sand before the tide filled it in. And those we’d mowed down were crawling toward us, trailing bits and pieces of themselves as they did so.
“This is so not good.” Lil changed out magazines, keeping herself between the oncoming zombies and the shopping cart. The cats were thankfully quiet, probably catatonic, so to speak, from the moans and the gunfire.
“We need to make a break for it.” I shot her a glance. “It’s not going to get any better, and if we don’t go now, we’re gonna get ripped to pieces. And then Gabriel’s gonna really be pissed at us.”
Lil gave a shout of surprised laughter that turned into a yell as one of the kneecapped zombies grabbed her foot, pulling her off balance. She fell on top of it, her M-4 skittering a few feet away as the thing rolled so that it was on top, gore-drenched teeth inches from her face.
Several others reached the cart, hands grabbing for the carrier as if they thought something tasty was inside.
“Shit!” I slammed the stock of my M-4 into the head of Lil’s attacker, giving her a chance to throw it off. Then I dealt with the ones trying to get at the cats, again using the M-4 stock as a bludgeon to back them off before flipping the weapon forward and firing point blank into their faces.
Lil scrambled to her feet and did a mean stomp on her attacker’s skull before retrieving her firearm.
More came at us, the moans nearly deafening and the smell overwhelming. The gap I’d made had closed again, zombies crawling and staggering from all directions.
We were so screwed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
* * *
We both backed up against the cart.
“I’m sorry, babies,” Lil whispered. She grabbed her pickaxe and swung at the nearest zombie as it reached for her.
Before she made contact, however, a shot rang out, making a loud bang as the top of the zombie’s head vanished in a spray of blood and brain matter.
What the fuck?
Another shot, and the head sheared off of what was once maybe a five year old. The little ankle biter had been about to grab me and I hadn’t even noticed.
“Over here!” It was a man’s voice.
More shots, each one resulting in a dead zombie. Lil and I looked around for the source.
“Here!”
It came from the monster truck. A man dressed in what Matt would have called “weekend warrior” style—army fatigues tucked into combat boots, black T-shirt under a matching jacket—stood on the cab of the truck, aiming a really big rifle with cool precision, another firearm slung over his shoulder. He had a bandana pulled up over his nose, covering the lower half of his face.
He looked tall and imposing standing up there—in fact, downright heroic—but honestly, I think I would have viewed a midget the same way had he appeared out of nowhere to pull our asses out of the fire.
“Get in the truck!”
We didn’t hesitate. Lil swung her pickaxe like a melee weapon, whirling like an armed Tasmanian devil while I grabbed the cart by the handle and sprinted across the street, using it as a battering ram to knock a thankfully skinny male zombie out of the way.
The man on the truck kept taking out the zombies that posed the greatest threats. Between his precision shooting and Lil’s pickaxe of death, I made it to the truck with the cats in one piece, zombies trailing closely behind.
“Get in!”
“We’re getting!” I wrenched open the passenger door, flipped the seat forward, tossed my M-4 inside, and wrestled with the cat carrier.
“Leave it,” the man shouted, capping two more zombies.
“Are you crazy? This is what we came for!” I yanked hard and the carrier jerked upward. Binkey—or was it Doodle?—chose that moment to resume howling.
The man’s eyebrows shot up.
“I’m not the one who’s crazy here.” But he didn’t argue any further.
I muscled the carrier into the back of the cab and climbed in as Lil tossed the litter and food in after me. She then shoved the cart into a knot of ghouls, knocking them off balance long enough to allow her to jump into the front seat and slam the door shut, locking it.
Zombies immediately swarmed the windows, bloody hands slapping and clawing against them, green faces pressing to stare in at us hungrily.
The roof of the cab creaked as our rescuer jumped onto the ground on the driver’s side. The door opened and he climbed in, slamming the door shut as several enterprising zoms pulled themselves into the truck bed behind us and began hammering on the back window.
Our rescuer’s bulk seemed to fill the cab as he turned the keys that were hanging from the ignition.
“Hold on or fasten your seatbelts!”
I did both, holding onto the “oh shit” handle with one hand and stabilizing the carrier with the other. He floored the accelerator and the truck surged forward with an almost animalistic growl. The momentum jolted us all backward, including the zombies.
They flew out of the truck bed to land on the asphalt. Those clutching the sides of the truck either lost their grip or their hands as the vehicle sped north on Beech Street and across Maple.
Our rescuer didn’t slow down, and zombies thumped off the bumper like bugs hitting the windshield. They continued to trail after us even as the truck picked up speed. Once they were out of sight, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding while Binkey and Doodle kept up their own harmony of the damned. After a few minutes they shut up. Maybe they felt more secure.
More likely they were exhausted.
My stomach rolled with motion sickness, but I didn’t complain. The driver slowed down and looked at me in the rear-view mirror.
“You risked your lives for a couple of cats?” The bandana wafted out as he spoke. His eyes looked black in the almost non-existent light, his brown hair was cropped close to his skull, military style.
“Um... yeah,” I said. “Pretty much.”
“They’re my cats,” Lil e
xplained.
“But it was my idea,” I added, not wanting her to take the heat.
The man nodded slowly. There were a few beats of silence before he spoke again.
“I like cats.” His gaze went back to the road ahead.
Lil glanced at me over the back seat.
“Is he crazy?” she mouthed.
I shrugged, hoping he hadn’t seen her. At least he liked cats.
“I’m Ashley,” I said. “And this is Lil. Thanks for saving our butts.”
“No problem.”
“You gonna tell us your name?”
“Nope.”
I sat back and shut up. We drove along for a few minutes in oddly comfortable silence, reaching the outskirts of town before he spoke again.
“You two with the military, up at the college?”
“Not exactly,” I answered. “I mean, we’re with them, but we’re not military.”
His eyebrows shot up again.
“You want to be more specific?”
I shrugged again.
“We’re both college students who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“We’re wild cards,” Lil chimed in.
“Well, you’re something wild if you’re willing to risk your lives for a couple of cats,” he observed dryly. He may or may not have been smiling under the bandana.
“It means we’re immune to the zombie virus,” I explained. “We were bitten and survived.”
“Is that so?” Oddly enough, he didn’t sound particularly surprised, and I had to wonder why. Before I could pursue it, he continued. “How many of you wild cards are there?”
I did a quick mental count.
“Seven that I know of.” Then I remembered Simone. “No, eight.”
“So you’re not military, but you’re working with the military.” His tone was neutral, but something told me he wasn’t a big supporter of the armed forces.
“You don’t like them?” I asked.
“Not much of a fan of any branch of the government, military or civilian. Especially when they’ve got me under quarantine and threaten to ‘terminate with extreme prejudice’ when I go too near the border they’ve set up.”
“Wow.” Not much to say to that.
Lil stared at him, shocked.
“They told us the army had the infected zone quarantined,” she said, “but there’s no way they’d kill someone trying to get out, right? I mean, not if the person were alive.”
He gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Guess you haven’t spent a lot of time around the feds.” He went silent for a moment, then continued. “So tell me why you two are all tricked out like baby mercs in a Syfy original movie.”
Okay, I had to like the guy for that crack.
“Like Lil said, we’re wild cards,” I answered. “That’s the name they give to people who are immune. And not that you could tell from what happened back in town, but they’ve been training us so we can clear the college and then the rest of the quarantine area, because a lot of the soldiers on the inside are getting the virus and they’re not sure why.”
“Were you drafted into this?” he asked tersely.
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “At least I wasn’t. It was my choice.” I didn’t see any point in bringing up General Heald’s attempts to bully me. “Anyway, since we can’t get the virus, we take risks other people can’t.”
“Like rescuing cats in the middle of a dead town.”
“Actually we’ll be in deep shit if they find out we did this,” I confessed.
“So you need to get back into campus quietly.”
“That would be nice,” I said hopefully. “Any ideas?”
He thought about it for a minute.
“Old logging trail on the other side of Big Red,” he said. “Leads up pretty close to the Administration building. Should give you some cover to sneak back in. They put the barrier smack up against either side of the building, so you could break in through a window or door, although you’ll have to deal with the razor wire.”
“How do you know all this?”
He shrugged.
“I make it my business to find things out.”
“What’s with the bandana?” Lil asked.
“Filters the smell out a little,” he replied. “Not a lot, but enough to stop me from puking up my dinner when I have to deal with the deadheads. You girls might try it next time.”
“We normally use nose plugs,” Lil muttered.
“So why are you still wearing it?” I challenged, staring at him. “I know we’re not exactly fresh out of the shower, but we don’t smell that bad.”
He raised one eyebrow this time.
“Either you smell worse than you think, or those cats are farting to beat the band.”
He was right. My nose was still recovering from the zoms, so I hadn’t noticed.
“They do that when they’re stressed.” Lil looked embarrassed.
“Besides that,” he added, “you don’t need to see my face.” With that he shut up.
“Don’t you want to stay at Big Red?” I asked. “It’s safe there. Well, safer than it is out here.”
“I prefer staying where I am,” he said. Then, before I could reply, he added, “I have my reasons.”
“Good reasons?”
“Good enough,” he replied. “As good as yours for sneaking out on your own.”
Can’t argue with that.
He turned onto a narrow road overgrown with hanging branches. Even the truck’s suspension and shocks couldn’t ease the jolting as the wheels hit numerous ruts. We hit a particularly deep pothole, and I winced as I felt the jolt up through my tailbone.
“Jeez Louise,” I said. “Guess our tax dollars haven’t made it this far.”
“This road hasn’t been used since they built the university,” our rescuer said. “No need to keep it up.”
“Glad you knew about it.”
“It pays to know how to get in and out of places.”
“Paranoid much?” Okay, it just slipped out.
Surprisingly he laughed.
“Yeah, you might say that.” He dodged another crater. “Now let’s see if my paranoia can get you back into the college without getting caught.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
* * *
Mystery man turned off his headlights, and almost immediately my eyes adjusted to what little light was filtering through the trees. Waiting for him to slam into something, I gripped the door handle until my hand hurt, but we made it without incident.
He stopped the truck at the edge of the tree line, far enough away from the campus for the sound of the engine to be muffled by the forest. Lil and I hauled cats, litter, and food out of the truck. They hadn’t gotten any lighter during the trip, but they had, thankfully, fallen silent—probably shell-shocked from the rough ride up the logging road.
Our savior got out of the truck and stood nearby.
“It’s about a hundred yards to the back of the Admin building,” he said, his voice low. “I’m not seeing any dead heads between here and there, so you should be okay.”
Yeah, if we don’t collapse under the weight of Binkey, Doodle, and all of their shit.
I hefted the bag of litter, wondering why the hell we thought it was a good idea to bring it. Lil lifted the cat carrier, but even in the gloom I could tell she was near her limits.
Mystery dude looked at us for a beat, then reached into the bed of the truck and pulled out a folding dolly, complete with straps.
“This should help.”
“You were a Boy Scout, weren’t you?” I said.
“Close enough.” He pulled the dolly open. “Litter first, carrier next, then the bag of food.” We followed his directions, watching gratefully as he strapped everything securely into place.
“Wait a sec.” He reached into the back of the cab and pulled out a pair of sturdy leather-and-canvas gardening gloves. “Ought to help you hold the razor wire out
of the way, at least long enough to get inside the perimeter.”
I took the gloves.
“Thanks.” The word felt inadequate. I stuck out a hand, and he shook it solemnly.
Lil started to put out her hand, then when he reached for it she threw her arms around him. I saw his eyes widen with the same surprise I felt as he stiffened, then softened enough to gave her a quick squeeze. He gently set her away from him, hands on her shoulders.
“You take care of those cats of yours.”
Lil nodded solemnly.
“I will.”
He looked at me.
“And you take care of this one.” He thrust his thumb in Lil’s direction.
I nodded.
“I will,” I replied. “Better than I did tonight. Thanks again.”
“I’ll wait until you’re inside before I leave.”
“Gee, kind of like a date.” So much for solemnity.
He snorted and got back in the truck.
“Who was that masked man?” I said, mostly to myself. “Come on, Lil.” She nodded wearily. I wondered if she had enough juice left to get back to Patterson Hall. “Just a little further and we’ll be in our beds,” I said. “I’ll take the dolly. You just keep an eye out for zombies and soldiers.”
“How about zombie soldiers?” Just a little ghost of a smile with her words.
“Those, too.”
We made it between the trees and the Admin building. I slipped on the gloves, several sizes too big but thick enough to allow me to pull a section of wire up far enough for Lil to crawl under, dragging the dolly on its back behind her.
The cats stayed miraculously quiet.
It was a little trickier to hold the wire up and crawl under without having it snap back down on me, but I managed by going through feet first.
I stood in the narrow space between the wire and the building, and gave a thumbs-up in the direction of the woods. The man had to have better night vision than a wild card, ’cause the lights blinked on and then off again and I heard the engine turn over. The sound of the truck receded back down the old logging road.
“We’ve cleared this building, right?” Lil stood by a closed window.
