by David Smith
"Get out Spider." Choppa ordered.
Spider looked at him in disbelief. "But, boss?"
"I said get out! This truck's for the adults."
He looked at him a moment longer before climbing over him and out of the truck. As soon as his feet hit the ground he looked to his left and took off running. Choppa slammed the heavy door and the truck lurched up and to the right then settled back down as we started moving.
Dave went through the first five gears quickly then spun the wheel hard to the right and the truck leaned left. I could hear the bikes outside circling around to get behind us as we lined up with the gate and the incoming horde of dead.
"DeMarkus..." Dave called. "I can't hit 'em fast enough to clear a path for the bikes and still make the turn onto the road."
"I got 'em." He answered and jumped down from the bunk and climbed the ladder.
"Dane, you know how to shoot a 240?" Dave asked.
"I can figure it out." I said and climbed the other ladder. The hatch was so heavy that I could barely lift it but I got it latched back and DeMarkus pointed to the charging handle and racked his back one time to show me how. I had been wanting to shoot one of these since Mac had told me his story and it was everything I had imagined and more.
The first few of the quicker moving dead in the herd were already surrounding the front of the truck and reaching up toward us so I tried to aim down at them but the gun wouldn't articulate that far around and down.
"Shoot the ones in front." DeMarkus shouted as he opened fire into the crowd. "The guys in the trailer will take care of the rest."
I opened up and bodies started dropping as blood and brains filled the air like magma bubbles bursting in a lava flow. The truck lurched forward and he kept it at a walking pace so none would slip by into the crowd of motorcycles behind us. The recoil reminded me of my broken ribs but the pain was dulled by the adrenaline and distraction of all the killing. The blade at the front pushed the dead bodies out and caused a lot of the others to trip and fall over them and rolled them all together and out of the way making a clear path down the middle covered in blood and guts and the smaller chunks of meat and bone, anything small enough to pass under the bottom edge.
We passed through the gate and made the left turn onto the road and looking back, I could see the path we had made, dead bodies mounded up on either side of it, many of the dead still clawing and fighting their way out of the piles as the bikers rode through. The herd thinned out just past the bend in the road, stragglers spread out for the next quarter mile.
"Save your ammo!" DeMarkus shouted over my last burst. "These won't be much of a threat." And he climbed back down into the cabin.
Once we made the right turn toward the interstate, Dave pushed it up through the gears, made the left onto the ramp and climbed quickly up to cruising speed. I sat next to Kara on the bed with DeMarkus above us, watching Dave and Choppa talking but unable to hear what they were saying over the roar of the road and the engine. I assumed that meant they couldn't hear us either.
"Choppa." I said and he didn't respond. "Choppa!" I called out a little louder. Nothing.
"Dad!" Kara called to him loudly and I looked at her and grabbed her wrist.
"Not so loud. I'm trying to see if he can hear us." I informed her.
"I know." She replied.
"What? Can't you see I'm talking, girl?" He mumbled something after that I couldn't understand.
"Nothing." She said more quietly. "Hey, Pork Chop." He didn't respond. "Oh, yeah. He definitely can't hear us."
"Pork chop?" I asked.
"Mom said that's what they use to call him when they were young. He hated it so much he made everyone call him Choppa when they got older."
I kind of had to laugh.
"What's so funny?" She laughed too.
"He picked his own nickname. That's like, the ultimate douche move."
She smiled even bigger, with her eyes this time and her lips tucked themselves in at the corners, it made me feel like the king of all I surveyed. "It is. I've never even thought of that. Most of the members in the club did that."
"Spider." I chuckled and shook my head.
"No, he earned that one."
"How? Did he kill eight guys or something?"
"Eight guys?" She thought for a moment then laughed. "Oh, I get it. Eight arms." She laughed even harder even though I knew it was a poorly conceived joke and no one else would find the humor in it but she and I. "No, he's deathly afraid of spiders."
We both laughed for a moment then there was a long silence. I looked at her face as she looked forward, still smiling slightly. A slit of sunlight coming through the steel plate on the windshield, shined across her face and it was like that of an angel of mercy, a patron saint of innocence in a world full of guilt, her lips so soft and perfect that one kiss could cure any disease.
"Have you thought anymore about escaping when this is over? With all that's going to be happening, it might be a good time to slip away."
"No, he'd find us." She said, still looking forward.
"It's a big world out there. We could go any direction but South and he wouldn't even know where to look."
She thought for a moment. "You know, not everyone in the club is bad." She looked at me. "There are some good people. Maybe not even half but...I've been here my whole life and it's easy here. We don't have to worry about food or finding shelter every night."
"But you said yourself, it's not going to change..."
"I said he's not going to change. But with any luck, he won't make it through the day." She said and stared at him coldly, the smile gone from her face.
Suddenly, the exhaust roared like a bear and the truck began to slow.
"Well, he came this way for sure." Dave yelled over the roaring exhaust and shifted down a gear.
Peering through the slots in the armor I could see a herd up ahead, gathered on the right side of the highway around one of the armored up trucks that had chased Mac out of the compound. When they heard us coming, a few of them turned and dropped body parts they had been eating to step out toward us, arms raised in front of them as if they would grab the truck in an attempt to stop it.
"Watch this." Dave said as he shifted down another gear and held the accelerator steady. I looked down and he was doing forty just as he had said. The first few bodies bounced off the blade, heads popping and blood erupting. Then there was a jolt and a crash as he caught the corner of the truck with the blade. The truck spun out into the ditch and flipped hard as bodies and parts of bodies flew in every direction.
"Hahaaaah!" He laughed and put his hand up for a high-five, looking at Choppa. Choppa just stared back at him, unamused. "Okay then." He said and high-fived himself before proceeding back up through the gears.
I didn't even remember exactly how to get there but I knew what the place used to be called and hoped there would still be a few legible signs. I had been asleep the first time but coming back I remember the first sign I saw was Exit 51, Purvis. So, I knew once we passed that we would be close.
"How are your ribs?" Kara asked.
"Getting better. How's my face?"
"It's growing on me." She said and smiled. "How's mine?"
I tried to find words that did her justice but wouldn't put me at her mercy and there were none. Pretty? No. Little girls are pretty. Beautiful? No. Too cliche. Sexy? No way. That word lacked the reverence her face deserved. I'd give my right eye if you promised to never leave the other one's field of vision? Too honest.
"Time's up." She said and laughed.
"Got another one!" Dave yelled.
I looked out through the slot again and it was the truck they were in when they killed Dad. It had slammed into another vehicle and was engulfed in flames. One body lay slumped over the hood, halfway out the front window, burning like a fat lighter stump. There were only a few dead here and there eating what was left of the other occupants that apparently had been thrown clear of the inferno. They paid us
no mind.
Another mile up the highway we found the rest of the herd, walking north and we slowed back to forty just before crashing into them. At this speed it was clear for just what the blade was intended. There was steady steel hum like the repeated ringing of a bell accompanied by a spastic drum solo of fleshy thuds and cracking bones. Bodies flew up and out to the left and right, clearing the cab of the truck by five to ten feet and a dark mixture of blood and guts sprayed steadily into the air like a ocean wave curling and crashing over the undercurrent as many of them exploded on impact. After a few glorious seconds, we were clear of the herd and trails of thick, brownish black ooze ran off the sides of the mirrors, trailing backward in the headwind.
Dave put his hand up again and I reached up from the back to answer with a high-five. When I did, I noticed a big green sign passing the right window.
"Did you see what that sign said?" I asked him.
"Exit 51, I think." He answered.
"Okay. Our turn is just a few more miles. I don't know the road but I think it's the very next one." I remained standing, peering through the slot in the passenger side windshield armor for the next few minutes.
"Yep," Dave said. "I see it."
I bent down, closer to the windshield, to get a better look. The third and final truck was upside down in the neutral ground between the outside of the two-lane, right-curving exit ramp and halfway up the grassy hill at the lead up to the overpass. As we took the wide, sweeping right turn at highway speed, one man was crawling toward us, dragging his legs behind him. One of the dead closed in on him just as he reached the edge of the road and reached out to us, then I lost sight of him. I didn't think anyone noticed he was still alive but me until I looked at Choppa to see a satisfied smile, his eyes squinting wickedly, his fat face closing in around them.
"Where's this farm, Dane?" Dave asked.
"I think I heard them call it Camp Shelby."
"Oh. Well, why didn't you say so? I did a stint in the National Guard. Used to go up there two or three times a year for training. Camp Shelby is hundreds of square miles. Can you narrow it down? What did it look like?"
I thought back to that day and wished I hadn't slept most of the way. "I remember a gravel road, a rough one, but only in spots."
"That's gotta be out at one of the ranges then." He said. "Makes sense. No people or houses for miles around. There's a lot of ranges though, do you remember anything else?"
"We went through a locked gate. The field was huge, a clearing more than a mile."
"You just described almost every range out there."
"There were concrete bunkers buried halfway in the ground..."
"Bunkers?" He interrupted sharply.
"Yeah."
"Alright. I know a shortcut. We'll be there in about ten minutes." He said pushed the accelerator to the floor, the turbos whining as they pushed fresh air into the engine and the truck pulled hard and fast down the center of the highway.
I sat, almost thrown, back down on the bed next to Kara. I knew that Mac had made it this far but would he even still be here? He had the truck, a tanker full of fuel and a plan to head north. He may have been long gone by the time we got there. Even if he was still here, he wouldn't give up the truck without a fight and might even be fed up enough for this to be his last stand. For this reason, part of me hoped this would be a wasted trip. I knew Choppa still wanted Magnolia Ridge and the truckers would still need fuel so all I had to do was get in, get Beth, Stephanie, Nicholas and his family and slip out in the chaos if there was any. Jennings had no one to protect him now, the last if his soldiers, dead on the highway. I just prayed Beth wasn't with them. I still didn't know how to convince Kara to leave with us either but I prayed God would provide a way.
"We have arrived." Dave said and Choppa leaned forward in his seat as the truck rolled to a stop.
I climbed the ladder, opened the hatch, painfully, and stood out of the roof to take a look. The gate was knocked down and there was Mac, sitting on top of the tanker, two hundred yards from us and about fifty feet from the row of bunkers. There were dead and rotting bodies all around the truck and trailer, three rows deep, reaching up and pawing at the tanker and several laying smashed into the gravel behind it. There were a few trapped on the catwalk between the truck and trailer, unable to climb up and with no way to climb around. There were a few more gathered in front of the center bunker and down into the steps to the door.
Mac sat on top of the tanker, his forearms resting on his knees, looking at us. He had wrapped a strip of torn off t-shirt around his head, covering his eye and his beard was matted with dried blood from underneath it. There was another strip wrapped around his fingers where he had popped them back into place and secured them to one another. The rust covered AK-47 stood on its buttstock in front of him, his broken fingers wrapped around it. Anyone could have mistaken him for one of the dead except for the dead themselves.
The other hatch opened and Kara climbed up and pointed the machine gun at them.
"Get down from there, girl." I heard DeMarkus say from inside the truck.
"Let me shoot them." She said, looking back down into the hatch.
"Hold on." He replied. "You gonna hit the tank."
She rolled her eyes and climbed back down. I could hear her arguing with all three of them inside. Finally, she climbed back up. "They said we're going to drive up behind the truck and get him to jump on." She told me.
"He doesn't know this truck and I don't think he trusts me." I said and watched as more dead emerged from the woods and noticed our truck. "He doesn't want to be rescued either."
"They don't want to rescue him. They just want to get the crowd away from the tanker so they can take it." She replied and the bikers, who I had almost forgotten were behind us, and the people in the trailer began shooting at the dead as the closed in around the back and sides.
"I think the truck's broke down. If it wasn't, he would've been gone before we got here." I looked at him, then at the bunker. "He said he didn't need my help. We've got to convince him otherwise. Spider's number two, right?"
"Yeah, a real piece of shit." She said and I couldn't help but smile.
"Climb back there and tell him to get the bikers to ride around and get the crowd away from the truck." She climbed out of the hatch and jumped from the truck to the trailer. "And tell them, no guns!" I shouted to her before I climbed back down inside.
"Hey man. We don't have a lot left for those 240's." Dave said.
"We won't need them." I replied. "The bikers are going to run interference while we get the people out of that bunker."
"People?!" Choppa said angrily. "What people?! We here to get that truck!"
"Mac's not gonna just let you have it. We've got to get him on our side." I argued.
"Our side, Hell. I want him toes up in the rocks and I want my truck back!"
"Now hold on." Dave said. "If there are people in that bunker, we've gotta help 'em. Then, we worry about the truck."
There was a deep repeating grunt outside of motorcycles passing by on either side of the truck.
"What the Hell?" Choppa said and looked out slot in the front window to see them converging then forming a circle around the fuel truck. "There you see. They gonna get that sum-bitch then you gonna see who's in charge."
Just then, Kara climbed back down the ladder. "They're drawing them away. What do we do now?"
"What you mean, girl?" He said and looked out the window again for a moment then looked at her in disgust.
"Now." Dave said and suddenly became frighteningly serious. "You can help us get those people out of that bunker, you can go out there and give the orders while we sit here and watch the shit show or we can all sit here till your people are dead. Then we'll throw you to them when they get back up and take that truck ourselves."
Choppa sat back in the seat and cut his eyes at Dave. He felt for the door handle, not breaking eye contact then suddenly reached behind him for his gun. Befor
e he could even find it though, there was a knife at his throat and he got still.
"Don't make me bleed you all over my seat." DeMarkus said slowly then reached down behind him and pulled the big revolver from the back of his pants. "Whew!" He exclaimed. "This thing smells like pig's ass, Dave."
"Give him something from the cabinet."
DeMarkus opened the cabinet to reveal a more provocative collection of girly pages and, leaning up against the wall, a collection of baseball bats. He reached in and pulled out a wooden one, old blood soaked into the grain.
"Here you go, Babe Ruth." He said as he handed him the bat and pulled two more, aluminum, out of the cabinet and closed it. Kara reached for one as he handed me the other.
"What you think you doing?" He asked her.
"I'm not sitting in here all by myself. This truck is scary." She replied.
"You can't go out there." I told her.
"Stay in here with me then. You're hurt already anyway." She argued. I would loved to have been locked inside a dark truck with her while the world fell apart outside but I had to do the man things.
"Actually, Kara, is it?" Dave said. "I need you stay here. If things go all the way bad, make a big circle and drive my people to safety."
