by Lori Whitwam
One way or the other.
The muscles of Ty’s forearms between the tops of his gloves and the end of his t-shirt sleeves bulged and quivered with exertion as he struggled to keep the zombie’s ragged fingers and gnashing jaws from his flesh. It didn’t have to tear him apart; a scratch or a bite would be just as fatal for Ty.
I curved a bit to the side for a better angle and swung my blade at the incoming zombie, my fear and rage somehow giving me the strength to sever its head with one wild stroke. Before the head had even hit the ground, I spun to the other monster intent on devouring Ty. How he had managed to hold back its relentless attack, I had no idea.
With a desperate lunge and thrust, I sank my dagger into the back of the creature’s skull, and it dropped—finally truly lifeless—onto Ty’s chest, leaking a fetid, semi-coagulated ooze onto his shirt. He heaved it aside and jumped to his feet, rushing to retrieve his hammer and run a frantic visual search of the surroundings. No threats in sight, he met my eyes and somehow conveyed we had a lot to talk about, but not now. We both turned to the truck.
“Daisy,” he called out. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” came her reply. “You?”
“Close call, but some wicked-fast fighting librarian came along and saved me.” He glanced at me with a wink. I might have thought he was unaffected by the ordeal, had I not noticed the tremble in his hand as he wiped at the sludge on his shirt.
Rebecca skidded to a halt at our side. “Ellen, that was fucking incredible! I saw it play out in my head about ten different ways, and none of ’em came out like that.” She slung her braid over her shoulder and raised her sword at me in salute before returning it to its scabbard.
Cody ran up and stopped beside Rebecca, gasping for breath. “Everybody all right? No bites? No scratches?”
We all took a moment to check ourselves. In the heat of battle and surging with adrenaline, it was possible to miss wounds. Once we were sure we were uninjured, we turned our attention to the clanking sounds coming from under the truck.
Ty knelt and peered beneath the undercarriage. “How’s it going? How long?”
“If you can come under here and help hold this steady, maybe ten minutes.” Daisy’s reply was punctuated with more banging and a couple of grunts.
I sheathed my dagger but kept my machete in my hand. “Get under there and help her. We’ll stand guard.”
Just as he was about to slide under the disabled truck, I heard a sound that made my blood run cold. Gunshots echoed from the direction of the back of the convoy, and the animals began screaming in distress.
This was bad. This was a thousand times worse than bad. We only used firearms in the face of massive numbers, when relatively quiet dispatch of the dead was no longer a factor.
I felt a stunning disconnect from reality. Something potentially disastrous was happening perhaps fifty yards away, and I couldn’t go help. If this truck couldn’t move, a lot of us would certainly die.
Rebecca drew her sword again. “You and Cody stay here and make sure this truck gets fixed, and I’ll go lend a hand.” She ran off, her boots sounding loudly on the roadway.
I turned to Ty and motioned for him to get busy helping Daisy. There was only one word of advice I could give before he disappeared under the truck.
“Hurry.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Every nerve and muscle in my body was twitching to run to the rear of the caravan and help in the battle I could hear raging. I didn’t love fighting the way Rebecca did. Still, I’d worked hard and knew I could be useful. But I was part of a team, and I had a role to play, and that role for the moment was to remain here and protect the two people responsible for ensuring we could all escape this mess with our lives and our mission intact.
I heard shouting behind me and saw Marcus and Monte on top of the SUV, both perched in the steel turret. They appeared to be arguing. Monte leaned close to Marcus and spoke forcefully for a minute, after which Marcus seemed to calm. He lifted the walkie to his mouth and began shouting orders and waving his free arm in emphasis, though the person he was talking to was in no position to see him.
“Boatman!” he yelled at Cody, startling the quiet, intense young man at my side. “Open the back of that truck, grab two five-gallon cans of gas and some flares. Then run back there and report to Theo. Go!”
Cody’s expression blanked for an instant, then he took off for the rear of the truck. I heard the door rumble up, and a few moments later back down. I stepped away from the front of the truck far enough to catch a glimpse of Cody disappearing around the second passenger van behind the disabled vehicle.
The sounds of gunfire intensified. Were we mounting a dedicated attack to eradicate the front ranks of the zombies, or were we firing frantically in an effort to stave off inevitable doom? I hoped it was the former, and trusted that Marcus had a plan.
I didn’t see any more lurkers in the nearby woods. No doubt any who were wandering the area were now being drawn by the sound of gunfire rather than the earlier ringing of Ty’s hammer on his makeshift anvil.
As that thought cleared my head, Ty and Daisy wriggled out from under the truck, liberally coated in road dirt, smudges of grease or oil, and—in Ty’s case—a good portion of malodorous zombie goo. Both of them were grinning.
I wasn’t about to relax, even a little, until I heard the words. “Please, please tell me it’s fixed.”
Ty gave Daisy a high five. “Yep, it’s fixed.”
“Well?” Marcus yelled from his lookout post.
Daisy flashed a thumbs-up.
“Fire it up!” Marcus ordered.
After a brief debate as to which of them should drive, Daisy climbed into the driver’s seat. She’d worked in our community motor pool and had more experience with big trucks. Ty had driven oversized pickups hauling horse trailers, but it wasn’t quite the same thing. So he rode shotgun.
Marcus clambered down from his perch and hurried to the van, while Monte got in the SUV and keyed the engine to life. Back inside the van, I was greeted by a teary-eyed Melissa and a snuggle-seeking Skip.
“Oh, god, Ells, I was scared to death.” She hugged me then pulled back and slugged me on the shoulder. “Are you out of your mind? You almost got killed!”
I rubbed my shoulder—the girl packed a pretty powerful punch—then drew Melissa back in for another hug. “No, sweetie, I didn’t almost die, but Ty did. He saved Rebecca last night, and every other team member would have done the same for me. I wasn’t going to stand back and watch him be torn apart while he was trying to help us all.”
Melissa wiped at her eyes and sighed. “I know, Ells. I really do. And I like Ty. I don’t want anything to happen to him, or anyone, but if you…” Her voice caught and she let the sentence die. After a moment, she said, “Just be careful, okay? Promise me.”
Telling someone to be careful, then agreeing to the promise, was essentially an empty gesture in this day and age, but for some reason we still seemed to find it comforting.
“I promise.”
She accepted my oath with a grateful smile, and I dropped into the seat behind Marcus, suddenly exhausted. Skip hopped up and commenced snuggling. Jocelyn handed me a bottle of water, and I’d never tasted anything sweeter.
Behind us, the horn of the supply truck sounded in one brief, encouraging beep as the engine awoke with a rumble. Before the incursion from the woods began, some of the team had packed dirt and rocks into the undercut area of the road in an attempt to shore up the surface for the vehicles yet to pass over it. I hoped it would be enough.
Marcus keyed his walkie and loudly ordered, “Report!”
There was a burst of static followed by, “Stand by, eyes rear.”
The mood tense, we all faced toward the back window. Within seconds, clouds of black smoke began billowing skyward from somewhere behind our convoy.
“What’s your window?” Marcus demanded.
Crackle. “Better move it. Not long.”
; He stuck an arm out the window to signal Monte, and the SUV rolled forward, our van close behind. I turned back again, watching the progress of Daisy and Ty. When we were far enough ahead that they could move quickly if necessary, Ty leaned out the window, watching the pavement edge beneath their tires. Daisy gunned the engine, nudging the big vehicle from the ditch and back onto the unstable road. Ty appeared to call instructions to her from time to time. They picked up a little speed, and Daisy adjusted the truck’s trajectory slightly, angling toward the edge of the wreck extending farthest into their path. Thankfully, the massive vehicle managed what our smaller ones had not, and edged the burned and twisted metal the critical few inches necessary. After several heart-stopping minutes, they’d successfully brought the truck across the damaged section of pavement.
With one look back at the cause of this entire mess, I had a flash of insight. Lives had been lost in that accident, probably needlessly. In the apocalypse, it seemed ridiculous to die in something as mundane as a car crash. I just hoped no more lives had been lost here today. I wouldn’t breathe easily until I saw every member of our team present and accounted for.
The clouds of smoke increased, and the scent of burning fuel choked the air. We traveled a couple hundred yards down the road and waited as the second passenger van, the livestock truck, and the rear SUV safely crossed the danger zone and pulled up behind us.
Marcus and Monte had a brief consultation, since as the team leader and one of our escorts, they both knew our ultimate destination. Their conversation was in a kind of shorthand I couldn’t decipher, but we were soon moving down the road at a slightly higher speed than we’d traveled earlier. About fifteen minutes and five or six miles later, we made a sharp left onto a side road.
The interior of the van was quiet, everyone too emotionally and physically drained to carry on a conversation. We traveled in silence for quite some time, and I fretted about things beyond my control. I knew we’d escaped whatever was left of the herd we’d fought, and I hoped we didn’t encounter more any time soon. Our energy reserves were too depleted. I worried Ty’s repair job wouldn’t hold up, once again halting our progress and leaving us vulnerable. I could no longer see the smoke, but had it been dwindling right before we lost sight of it? It would attract all the zombies in the area like undead moths to a flame, but it would also alert any hostiles in the region that someone else was nearby, or had been recently. Plus, I really didn’t want to burn a large portion of Kentucky forest.
I slumped in my seat and dozed, brought back to awareness when I felt the van slow. I rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes and sat up to find we’d entered the parking lot of a public boat launch. A weathered building where fishermen had once purchased live bait, fuel, sunscreen, and snacks stood at the edge of the paved lot, while three docks extended from the concrete ramp into a small river.
Marcus turned in his seat to address us. “Just a pit stop, folks. We need to regroup, take stock, and maybe clean up a little.” This last was directed at me, and I glanced down at the relatively minor splatters on my t-shirt. Ha. He should be glad he didn’t have to ride with Ty.
As the rest of our team arrived and disembarked, I swept the tired faces, doing a quick head count. A huge knot of tension released when I realized everyone was accounted for. We hadn’t lost anybody. I swallowed a hiccup that might have been a tiny sob, shook it off, and went to join the others.
Marcus stood on the front step of the bait shop with Theo. “Listen up. Those of you who were in the fight against the herd can go clean up, grab something to eat, clean your gear…whatever. Ellen, Ty, Daisy, the folks who were in the van, c’mon over here with me while I get the full report from Theo.”
The combatants hurried off, pulling clean shirts—and probably more than one pair of underwear—from packs and headed toward the river. I couldn’t wait to join them, but first, I really needed to know what had taken place.
Theo got right to it. “I don’t know where they all came from, but the swarm we passed before we broke down must have at least doubled by the time we saw it again. And there were more coming out of the woods and joining them.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes, as if wishing he could erase the sight. “They caught up a little sooner than I figured. We had skirmishes all along both sides of the road, loners and small bunches coming at us from the trees. The main herd was closing in, and we didn’t have the time or the ammo to take ’em all down. That’s when Davey had an idea, and we radioed Marcus.”
The team leader gave Theo a few hearty slaps on the shoulder. “Wasn’t nothing we haven’t done before, but never so few of us against such a huge number of deadlies. I gotta admit, I had serious doubts. But with the disabled truck in front of ’em, and the herd behind, there wasn’t really a choice.”
Theo resumed the tale. “We grabbed the spare fuel containers from our end of the convoy, along with some flares. We started making a few Molotov cocktails, but figured out pretty quick we didn’t have that kind of time. I got up top in the turret to gauge the herd density and distance, then sent some runners down about fifty yards to start pulling whatever they could—brush, logs, garbage if they could find it—and dump it across the road.”
Oh, I got it. It wouldn’t stop them, of course, but if they could slow down the ones in front, the others would press up from behind, creating more of an obstacle for the ones farther back and packing them in close together.
Theo dragged his fingers through his hair, dislodged something, looked at it, grimaced, and wiped his hands on his jeans. “We got our hands on every gun we could find and set up a firing line. We kept shooting until we had a good pile of bodies from one side of the road to the other.”
“What about the ones already inside the perimeter, and the ones coming from the woods?” Marcus asked.
“We were spread pretty thin,” Theo admitted. “Helped when Rebecca showed up, then Cody. We fought like hell clearing the ones between us and the pileup, and trying to keep them thinned out a bit beyond. Then it got insane.”
Then it got insane? Like it wasn’t before?
Theo continued. “Somebody grabbed each of the gas containers and ran right at ’em, like some charge from an old war movie. They started dumping gas all over the corpses and across the ditches, clear to the edge of the woods.” He paused, and I thought he almost grinned. “Then they threw some flares.”
I glanced at Ty and shook my head slowly in amazement. “Wow,” he mouthed at me.
The fire-starters raced away from the flaming barrier, still fighting the occasional zombie that emerged from the woods, though those quickly dwindled as they were drawn to the fire. The march from beyond the barrier halted, the creatures both unable to walk undamaged through the blazing pyre and distracted by the fire itself.
“We knew it probably wouldn’t burn too long,” he concluded, “so we loaded into the vehicles and hoped you’d get the truck rolling pretty fucking soon.” He gave Ty a solid two-fingered salute, and Ty returned it with a cocky smile.
“I’ll shit you not,” Marcus said, “I was about two minutes away from pulling the plug and ordering them to abandon everything and run for the two mobile vehicles we had left.”
“Glad I didn’t know that,” Daisy muttered. “My hands were shaking bad enough as it was. I wouldn’t’ve even been able to hold a wrench if I knew we were that close.”
Ty draped an arm lightly over her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “You did great, Daisy.”
“You all did,” Marcus added. “I knew when I picked my team that I had a damned fine bunch, and every last one of you proved it today.”
I agreed. The team had meshed perfectly, coming together to pull off the impossible.
“I got a few more questions for Theo,” Marcus said, “but the rest of you go clean up, get some food. I want to be back on the road in about twenty minutes. I’m gonna talk to Monte and figure out where we’ll stop tonight. I plan to cut it short today. I think we all need rest more than we need to get to
…” He paused and redirected his speech. “Well, even with today’s delays, we’ll get there probably early afternoon day after tomorrow.”
Dismissed, we all turned and started across the lot toward our vehicles. I noticed Ty wasn’t wearing his gore-soaked shirt anymore. He must have had a spare shirt in his pack.
“Wardrobe change?”
He laughed. “Yeah, Daisy didn’t give me a choice. Made me throw that filthy thing out the window after about two minutes.”
No doubt. “You couldn’t have saved it, anyway.”
“Not a chance.”
Back at the caravan, we found our packs and took out what we needed. Melissa, who hadn’t been in the battle itself, decided she’d find Neil and check on the animals. The rest of us carried our things down to the river and fanned out along the ramp and the bank. I noticed a few people gathered around Dr. Mills and his assistant Lisa Merriweather so they could tend what appeared to be minor cuts, scrapes, and a few burns.
I found Rebecca just as she finished re-braiding her hair and reached for a black elastic band on a large rock beside her. I grabbed it first and handed it to her. “Smokey Bear wouldn’t approve, but I say excellent job.”
She grinned and pulled a fresh tank top on over her sports bra. “Thanks. That was some excellent shit back there.”
“Excellent?” No, I was a fighter, but I definitely wasn’t a warrior like my fearless friend.
“Well, not the close call part. But the way it all came together. That was definitely excellent.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that.”
No room for modesty, I stripped off my t-shirt and stuffed it in the large zippered plastic bag I’d brought along. It was gross, but I thought it would be fine after a good soak. My jeans and bra appeared to be gunk-free. Rebecca started cleaning her sword, while I stepped down to the water’s edge and splashed my face and arms before picking up the rag and sliver of soap Rebecca had left sitting on a fallen log.
