by David Rogers
He went down, but she wasn’t sure it was because of her. He was probably ducking for cover. Jessica looked back at the other man, saw he was still up but acting hurt, and fired at him. Several of the pellets caught him, snapping his arm back violently She saw blood erupt in several places, seeming to almost hang in midair around him for a moment before he crumpled out of view beneath the parapet.
Movement drew her eye, and she saw the second man darting a look to see where she was. That was enough to make Jessica move, rolling to her left this time. As she went she released the shotgun — she was pretty sure it was empty — and reached for her pistol. A bullet went past, not quite as close as the last one, but still too close for her comfort. Anyone shooting at her was too much for comfort.
Jessica got the pistol lined up and swept her eyes across the parapet edge where he was supposed to be. He was down out of view again. She frowned, then twisted herself around at an angle before rolling right. A bullet went past above and behind her, in the direction of the roof she was aiming at. Her change of orientation moved her right and forward, rather than straight right, and she stopped flat on her belly again and settled the pistol to shoot. Her back crawled with tension, but she kept her eyes forward rather than looking back to see who was still up over there.
All that mattered was the target ahead.
This time she was ready when he looked, and she got off two shots before he ducked again. Another bullet went past, coming from behind her. It wasn’t even as close as the last one. She told herself that meant they weren’t shooting at her, but she knew they didn’t have to be to get lucky.
Jessica rolled to her left twice while he was out of sight, hoping her constant movement was confusing him. Or at least slowing him down when he tried to aim. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the roof that still held someone trying to kill her. She was pretty sure Wes wasn’t shooting anymore. She heard guns, pistols and close ones, going off behind her, but nothing else.
Bits of roofing material, stones and pebbles and tar, clung to her seemingly all over. She could see them on her arms, feel them in her hair. Her face was still warm and wet, but the pain wasn’t bad enough to worry her. She’d felt real pain, and her jaw felt fine when she clenched it. Just a scratch or something. Focusing on the other roof, she ignored everything else and waited with her heart pounding away in her chest as she held the Beretta ready.
The man rose back into view, several feet from where he’d been. “Taught you something I see.” Jessica told herself as she moved the pistol. “But pistols come to bear faster than that rifle.” She allowed herself a moment to put the sight dots on him, lining all three up just like she was practicing on a target or zombie, and squeezed the trigger.
He staggered back from the parapet as her shot took him right in the chest. She kept firing, but steadily, using the roof to steady her arms, keeping her eyes on the sights; squeezing the trigger over and over until he collapsed. Jessica waited. He had to be down for good, she was positive she’d hit him at least once more, and almost certain about another round. But for all she knew maybe he was wearing armor. If he was, the bullets would hurt, even hurt a lot, but they wouldn’t put him down for good. Not pistol rounds.
“Everyone clear?” Austin yelled. She abruptly realized she didn’t hear any more guns.
“Clear here.” U said.
“Clear.” Arcelia said. “Jorge, son todos muertos?”
“Nadie está alli.”
“They’re clear too.”
“Clear I think.” Jessica said when Arcelia fell silent.
“How many did you shoot?” Austin said loudly. The others called numbers out, and when they finished Jessica spoke up again.
“Three. Still clear.”
“Everyone’s sure whoever they shot is down for good?” he asked next.
“Sure.” Ed said.
“Yeah for me.” Arcelia said before switching languages. “Murió?”
“Sí.” Jorge answered.
“No.” Jessica said when the others finished.
“No?” Austin asked.
“They went down.” Jessica clarified. “Didn’t see blood on the last one though.”
“Wes!” U said, and she heard a scraping of feet and hands on the sticky pebbles on the roof as someone started moving.
“Mierda.” Jorge said. “Diego, usted estás sangrando.”
“No es nada, estoy bien.” Diego said. He sounded out of breath.
Jessica kept her eyes, and gun, on the opposing roof. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
“Oh shit, Wes!” U said, much closer this time.
“Jeez man he looks bad.” Ed said.
“Here.” Austin said, and Jessica heard Velcro ripping, followed by the tearing of paper. She continued watching the opposing roof. “Pressure, get that on it and hold it.”
“His shoulder, fuck, his whole damn neck feels broken.” U moaned, his words partially obscured by a gurgling shout of pain that sounded like Wes.
“Just stop the bleeding.”
“When I press on it, it’s moving man. His bone’s not supposed to move like that.”
“Wes. Wes.” Austin said. “Can you hear me?”
“That looks pretty bad.” Arcelia said.
“Arcelia, you and the other two, keep an eye on the other roofs could you?” Austin said. “Try and keep anyone else from getting shot. Wait, are you okay?”
“Fine, just a graze.” she said, before saying something in Spanish.
“Wes, how you feeling man.” Ed said.
Austin muttered something Jessica didn’t quite catch, except for the word bleeding. Then she heard a loud noise from below, down on the street, as the truck came back. Its engine was big and powerful, and now that there weren’t any gunshots easy to hear even up here. She heard it roar past the building again, listening to the sound change directions from one side of the building to the other, and kept watching the other building over the pistol’s sights.
* * * * *
“Definitely the right place.” Happy said as he directed the truck back through the gauntlet of gunfire. And zombies. Except, Candice realized as she cowered in her seat, there wasn’t any more gunfire. She’d hunched down in anticipation of more bullets, but when she finally looked up she saw nothing on the roofs. No people, not with or without guns; just empty roofs.
And zombies on the street.
But fewer of those too. A lot fewer. Well, ones still on their feet. This was Happy’s third pass across this stretch of pavement, and the truck had rundown … she wasn’t sure how many zombies, but a lot. A whole lot. There were bodies everywhere. The truck was still swaying back and forth as it ground over the fallen monsters and knocked down some that hadn’t yet managed to meet the vehicle’s front, but the tense danger of the situation seemed to be subsiding.
A little.
Candice straightened all the way up and took another long look around at the buildings. First the roofs again, which were still empty. Then she studied the buildings themselves. Most of them looked pretty much like she’d been seeing all day when Happy drove past some. Lots of broken glass, some obvious damage where zombies or whoever had been beating on the doors or walls — though all the buildings she saw looked like concrete or bricks or something — but one building had metal behind its windows.
She blinked at that, then remembered that sometimes stores and stuff would have shutters or something they could roll down for when they closed. She’d seen it at the mall sometimes, when they were there early when some of the shops hadn’t opened for business yet. This building was the only one that looked different from the others. And, she realized as she looked back at it, was the one that all the people on the roofs had been surrounding.
And the door was open. Not broken, but open. And she glimpsed some people inside. It looked like they were watching the truck. They had guns, but they weren’t shooting. Well, they weren’t shooting at the truck. They were shooting at zombies near the building; especi
ally at the ones who’d noticed them in the doorway.
Candice wasn’t sure what all of it meant, but she figured anyone who wasn’t trying to shoot them might be worth talking to. Maybe they knew something.
“There.” she said, pointing back at it.
“Where?” Happy asked.
“Back there.”
“Shit, hang on.”
Candice grabbed for the seat quickly as Happy turned at the end of the block. The truck juddered around the corner, ran over another street sign, then straightened out without further incident. Except for another handful of zombies that were flattened by the vehicle. “Back there, that one place.”
“Candy, you’re not making fucking sense.”
“Just … just circle the block again.”
“Glad to. There’s still some zombies we can take out.”
“When we get back around, stop the truck.” Candice insisted. “There were people.”
“Yeah, lot of crazy fuckers out here today.”
“People who weren’t shooting at us.”
“They might start.” Happy said, reaching for his drink. It was getting low. Candice had put his bottle of Kahlua in her bag when he was playing with the dog. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to let him have anymore though. His driving, though still wild and crazy, really had improved over the last couple of hours as he’d worked on the mostly-Coke she’d mixed for him.
“Just go around the block again. And stop when I say.”
“Sure, sure. Got my gator gun here anyway. Just in case they are crazy fuckers.”
Candice glanced at the rifle Happy had brought, and transferred into the truck when they switched vehicles. It was the biggest gun she’d ever seen, bigger even than Austin’s favorite rifle, or any of the others he’d stocked into the house. She remembered Happy was supposed to have been a hunter. Maybe that meant he was good with the gun.
“Or if there are zombies.” she said.
“Candy, look at where we fucking are.” Happy said with a laugh. “Of course there’s gonna be zombies.” Then he hauled the steering wheel over hard, and Candice went back to simply holding on so she wasn’t thrown around too much.
Chapter Seventeen — Breakage
“He’s dead.”
“Not yet.” U insisted.
Arcelia sounded certain. “I’ve seen wounds like this before.”
“Why aren’t you watching the roofs?” Austin said.
“They’re clear.” Arcelia said. “Or gone. Whatever. Anyway, Jorge and Diego’ve got it.”
“Diego’s wounded.”
“So am I, but he’s got his pistol and it’s just a flesh wound. He’s fine.”
“Where?” U demanded.
“What?” Arcelia said.
“Where Arcelia?” the ex-college student pressed.
“Before the outbreaks. Guy on a site I was working had a load of stuff fall on him. Took a rod through his chest about like this, down through the shoulder and into him. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
“We just have to get the bleeding stopped.” Ed said. “Like Austin said.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Austin said, “but there’s too much damage. The round came in through the collarbone and ripped into his chest. Hear the gurgling when he takes a breath? That’s a lung hit. And if that happened, it’s likely there’s some other damage in there too. We can’t bandage all of that without killing him.”
“How are you so sure—”
“Because I’ve seen it before.” Austin said, his tone firm and sharp. “And it wasn’t a construction accident either. It was a bullet that hit the same as this one. Buddy of mine, died with two medics working on him before they even got him into the helicopter. All the docs at the aid station did was pronounce him.”
“Motherfuckers.” U swore.
“We have to try.” Ed said.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Arcelia said. “Whoever’s in that truck did us a big damn favor, and Wes just got unlucky.”
“We can’t just leave him.” Ed said.
“Look, it sucks.” Austin said. “I know. Believe me I know, okay? But he’s still bleeding, even through all that gauze we packed in. That’s not something we can fix. Even if we could get the bleeding stopped, we can’t get the bullet out. All we’d really be doing is letting him take a few more weeks to die of infection.”
“Jesus.” U said, sounding miserable.
“He took a bullet trying to get out of here. We came up here and he just rolled craps. But do you want to stay up here with him until he dies, or take the chance he gave you and get out of here before we lose that chance?”
“Shit.”
“I know it sucks. Nothing about it doesn’t suck. But this is just how it is; you keep going. You keep going and stay alive. That’s what you guys have been doing, right?”
“Yeah.” Ed said.
“He’s unconscious, so he’s not in pain anymore.” Arcelia said. “That’s the best we can hope for. Look at how much he’s bleeding. It’s all over the roof. He’ll be gone in a few minutes, but we need to be gone too or we’ll end up just like him.”
“Shit.” U said, but more quietly this time.
Jessica heard footsteps approaching her, and finally turned her head away from the roof she’d been watching while Wes was worked on. Then she looked up, and up, and up some more, as she recognized Austin towering over her.
“It’s clear.” he said, holding his hand out. There was blood on it, but she knew it wasn’t his. Jessica took it and let him pull her to her feet. He smiled faintly and reached out to her face, but didn’t touch her.
“How bad is it?” she asked, turning her head so he could see the blood.
“Just a nick. Looks worse than it is.”
“Guess you’ll have to love me even with a scar.”
“Take a lot worse than that to put me off.” he said, hugging her tightly. “Hell of a lot worse. More than I can imagine.”
“I’m good.” she murmured, feeling how anxious he was as he squeezed her in his arms. Like he was trying to reassure himself she was still there. Bits of sticky rock fell off their clothing and equipment as they embraced, and she felt a slight wet warmth on her back as his hands transferred blood to her shirt.
“I know.”
He smelled like tar, which was mixed into all the crushed rock that had been used to pave the roof. Why roofs were covered in it she had no idea, and really didn’t care. She hugged him and told herself that tarred clothes and a lot of scrubbing when they finally got back to the house was a small price to pay for getting out of here. Especially considering Wes.
When Austin released her, she finally looked. Wes was on his back, and Arcelia was right; there was a lot of blood around him. Far too much. She knew enough from Doctor Morris’ office that anyone who bled that much was dead. Unless they were already in the emergency room or on the operating table. With a full team of doctors sweating over them feverishly as they worked.
Ed and U were kneeling next to him, their hands and knees bloody. Red soaked gauze was visible in an ugly hole in the top of his left shoulder, and she knew even just from that it was over. The gauze was still welling up with wet blood, dripping steadily. There were four packages scattered nearby that told her how much gauze had been packed in.
If that hadn’t dealt with it, if they’d put that much in, Austin was right. Without a doctor, with only the scratched together first-aid stuff that the survivors had with them — which wasn’t a lot anyway — Wes had been dead as soon as the bullet hit him. It was just going to take a few more minutes. Some things couldn’t be fixed unless you knew how. Only a doctor might know, and there wasn’t one.
Diego had a bloody spot on his left arm, on his bicep. A length of what looked like an ACE bandage was wound around it, and that seemed to have been enough to get the bleeding under control. There wasn’t any dripping down his arm, and the spot of red didn’t seem to be spreading on the bandage. His p
istol was in his right hand, and he kept turning his head to look at two of the roofs. Jorge stood next to him, turning his gaze across the roof behind where Jessica had been shooting at, and the one Diego wasn’t watching.
Arcelia’s right pant leg was torn from mid-thigh to just past her knee, and Jessica saw some blood on the exposed skin. But the other woman didn’t seem bothered by the injury as she stood near where the two remaining college jocks were kneeling by their dying friend. The Houseboater was just looking down at the trio silently.
Jessica heard the truck approaching again, and tugged on Austin’s arm. He followed her to the edge of the roof, and looked down with her as a long and large moving truck thundered along the street from the east. The front was covered in gore, and dented and heavily damaged atop that. There were bullet holes too, a lot of them in the big cargo box that covered the rear, but some in the cab too. The windshield was half shot out, and the hood showed a number of holes in it.
There were pieces of bodies sticking in the big grill that shielded the radiator, more caught in the bumper or in jagged pieces of the bodywork around the grill; hands, an arm, more than she cared to notice. Not any blood. Zombies never bled unless they were fresh — minutes fresh — but that only helped so much when it came to dealing with being face to face with one that had been shot. Or run over by an enormous truck.
The worst was a zombie that had died wearing some sort of coat, a big one like the ones Brett used to wear when he suited up to go out on a fire call. Its hand or arm or something had gotten stuck in the bumper somehow. The coat hadn’t torn like mere flesh and bone surely would’ve by now. It was being dragged along beneath the bumper, beneath the truck, as the vehicle came across a sea of mashed and mangled bodies.
“Jesus.” she said, shocked at the carnage below. Now that she was looking, the street was like a warzone. Bodies were just … everywhere. Piled up on the sidewalks, thrown against the buildings, strewn around the street. Many had been mashed beneath the big truck, their bodies reduced to so much horrific debris. Bones were sticking out everywhere, jagged and jutting as they protruded through desiccated skin or poked out from the end of arms and legs that had been torn off. Skulls crushed, faces mangled.
