Joe tried again in vain to drag Ronnie away from the horde of undead that was still shambling their way towards the group. They had managed to thin out the herd considerably with the immense firepower that now lay empty and useless. Ronnie forced himself to his feet and reached into his pockets again, procuring two of the hand grenades that Balboa had brought from the stash at the Army Reserve unit. Joe’s mouth dropped.
“Ronnie, I hate to tell ya but those two will only take out about half those things right now, let’s get out of here while we still can!”
Ronnie turned to Joe and hugged him, grenades in both hands. Joe stood, mouth agape, trying to figure out what Ronnie had in mind. Ronnie released his embrace and looked Joe in the eyes.
“I saw all those propane tanks and gas cans down in that cellar,” Ronnie said as he pulled the pin on the first grenade and held the spoon, preventing it from going off. “I’m gonna blow the shit out of this hellhole while the rest of ya’ll escape.” Ronnie reached over and pulled the pin on the second grenade. “No time to be arguing about it. I’m gonna die and I be damned if I turn into one of those fucking zombies. Get the hell out of here.”
Joe’s throat tightened as he held back emotion. He was not prepared to lose a lifelong friend. Someone as close to him was not an option to lose, but Ronnie had made up his mind. He was going to save the rest of them by sacrificing himself. Joe grabbed Ronnie’s head and held it momentarily against his own as a single tear left his face, dropping on the floor below. Joe released his friend and stepson, getting to his feet quickly.
“Hey,” Ronnie spoke one final time. Joe turned as he backpedaled towards the exit. “Tell mommy that I love her. I see ya’ll in another life, brother.”
Jamie and Balboa had now pulled the bars open for the entire group to get out of the room. Jamie hefted his large frame into the window and fell out the other side, helped up by Chris on the outside. Ronnie pushed Joe away and darted towards the opening in the floor that had been their prison cell. Ronnie leapt down and disappeared into the blackness below the floorboards. Joe shoved Balboa towards the bent-bar window frame.
“We need to go! NOW!”
Balboa saw Ronnie duck into the hole and quickly scrambled through the window, grabbed by Jamie and Chris. All the men turned and grabbed Joe as he too fell through the window. Joe eyed Lucy, as she stood outside of the window as well, motionless and silent. Lucy, sensing Joe was trying to burn a hole through her with his mind, looked away. Joe snapped back to the rest of his group.
“We need to go…now!” Joe repeated and shoved Lucy forward to hunt down their Humvee and gear stolen from them. Jamie and Balboa paused shortly as they peered in through the window, waiting for Ronnie. When he did not show, they got the picture and bolted towards Joe and Lucy, now in a dead sprint. They rounded the front of the church where their desert-tan colored chariot was awaiting. Joe dashed for the driver’s side of the Humvee and jumped in, fired up the engine, and threw the parking brake all in one swift motion. Jamie climbed in the passenger side and slammed the door shut. Balboa made for the gunner’s seat, and Lucy bolted into the driver’s side rear door as Joe threw the vehicle into gear. Chris rounded out the group by diving into the passenger’s side rear seat, clumsily banging his shoulder as he fell forward through the door.
“GO! GO! GO!” shouted all four people in the armored vehicle as Joe sped away from the chaos. Balboa swung the .50 cal around and opened fire on some of the stray zombies that had milled about out front due to all the commotion. The mammoth machine gun tore apart all that stood in its way as undead heads popped like a watermelon at a Gallagher show. The steady boom boom boom, of the gun attracted more zombies and one by one, they were annihilated by the massive firepower being thrown at them.
“GET SOME! GET SOME!” Balboa screamed over the heavy chugging of the firearm.
Every person in the Humvee held on tight as Joe screamed down the road, taking cue from Lucy as to how best to get back to the railroad tracks. Joe glanced back in the rearview mirror repeatedly as they tore down the road.
“What are you looking for? I don’t think those things are gonna keep up with us!” Jamie screamed over the din of the engine and the firing of the .50 cal.
Joe snapped his attention to Jamie, “Ronnie’s gonna blow that place all to shit! I want to see what that’s gonna look like!”
Jamie’s eyes widened and he too turned in his seat desperately looking back to the church for the earth-shattering kaboom. “C’mon, Ronnie. Let those sons of bitches have it!”
* * *
Ronnie sat in the damp, dark, musty-smelling cellar of the room that had held his friends prisoner and contemplated his decision. The undead that he was taking out to save his friends milled about above him, none being curious enough yet to see what he was up to. He looked down to the twin pair of grenades in his hands. He closed his eyes as tears began to well up in them. Outside, the heavy boom of the ma Deuce rang out, letting him know that his friends were in the Humvee and getting further away and a safe distance from what he was about to do. Ronnie said a short prayer to himself and took a deep breath. He released the spoons on the grenades as the first zombie fell into the cellar with him, followed by another and another. He opened his eyes and dropped the grenades, rolling into the propane tanks stacked in the corner.
“Yippie ki ya motherfu…”
CHAPTER 12
Buffey, Ashleigh, and Rickey all stood at the ready on the edge of the walkway, straining their collective hearing for the telltale sounds of the approaching horde. The easy to hear sound of moaning and stench of death was not as prevalent over the last half hour or so, and the three of them had begun to wonder what was happening to their unwanted visitors. Not that they gave a shit either way, they were ready to defend themselves at any cost, but the unsettling nature of the whole thing gave them reason for pause. Buffey milled about on the walkway and again strained her ears to try to hear exactly what was going on. The faint chatter of machine gun fire in the far distance answered her back. Her eyes perked up at the sound of the automatic fire that continued to go on for several more seconds. Intermittent sounds of single handgun rounds going off were sprinkled in with the sound of the machine gun fire. Ashleigh and Rickey heard the sound of the gunfire and wandered over to the front of the train to get a better listen at it as well.
“Well I guess that explains where they all went. I wonder if the guys are okay?” Ashleigh finally said after listening for a few seconds. “They must have run into some trouble on the way back or something.”
“I didn’t think they went that far away, that’s coming from a long way off,” Buffey replied, setting down her rifle in the process. “I wonder if that is even them making all that racket. Either way, the zombies seem to have taken a liking to it. Let’s just hope if it is them that they are all doing…”
The thundering sound of the .50 cal interrupted her as she spoke, firing off bursts intermittently. Buffey smiled as she heard the massive gun. “Okay, now I know that is them. That is the Ma Deuce firing off some rounds.” Buffey’s smile quickly faded as she realized what that meant. The crew in trouble and having to shoot their way out with the .50 cal did not bode well for the rest of them, either. The gun kept firing as Buffey moved along the walkway, following the sound of the fire as it went. Buffey trailed the sound as it moved along the railroad track, getting closer at each shot fired.
The earth-shattering BOOM and several subsequent explosions rocked even the large train and the group that stood on it. Ashleigh buckled at the knees as the ground shook beneath her. Rickey shook and fell to his knees as well, covering his ears from the gigantic noise. A large mushroom-shaped fireball and cloud of smoke appeared seconds later, cresting the horizon above the tree line that ran alongside the train. The light that had faded some in the late evening hours was now lit up with the fireball as it rose a hundred feet above the tree line. The sound of the .50 cal stopped as the large firestorm rose above them.
“What in the hell was that?” Rickey cursed at the sight and sound of the explosion and uncovered his head. Buffey was so stunned at the sight and sound of the explosion that she did not bother correcting Rickey’s bad English. She was also concerned as to what caused it, and why the men were apparently running away from it, with good reason apparently. After the deafening roar of the explosion had worn off, the intermittent thunder of gunfire continued where it had left off, now closer approaching. The thundering roar of the explosion and the gunfire had waked Dakota from his slumber, he now cried out meekly from within the cabin of the train.
Rickey and Ashleigh stormed to the back of the engine and followed Buffey as she followed the sound of the Humvee’s cannon. The thunder of gunfire abruptly ceased as the roar of the engine took over as the Humvee appeared. The armored vehicle kicked up a cloud of dust as it tore across the railroad tracks and made the turn towards the train. Rickey was the first to notice.
“Look! Here they come!”
The Humvee rumbled down the tracks and bounced along as the vehicle was going too fast for the given terrain. The heavy armored frame groaned as Joe drove it closer to the train. He was fearlessly trucking the vehicle down the tracks, skidding it to a halt just before the second car. Balboa removed himself from the gunner’s seat as the rest of the crew disembarked from the Humvee. Joe reached in and grabbed his gear, now back in his sole possession. Rickey bounded down from the end of the engine and sprinted towards his father.
“Daddy!” Joe knelt down and embraced his son as he ran up. Joe hugged him tightly, once again reunited with his family. Buffey was in tow not far behind him, M4 in hand. Ashleigh stood on the edge of the train cab, coddling Dakota in her arms, slowly nursing the infant back to sleep. Buffey strode up and hugged her husband.
“I am so glad you guys made it back! What the hell was that big ass explosion a minute ago?” Buffey continued to look around as she spoke to Joe. She drew her gaze back to him and the stress and wear on his face. Something was not right. Buffey slowly looked around as Chris was getting his equipment out of the Humvee. As he stepped aside and slammed the door shut, Lucy came into view. She stood there, silent, and did not make eye contact with anyone in the group. Joe looked up and tried to read the expression on the face of his wife. Buffey’s brow crinkled up as she saw Lucy.
“Who the hell is that? And where the hell is Ronnie?”
Buffey’s horror became realized when Joe did not answer her. A combination of anger and pure contempt rose up in her as she looked back at Joe. “He didn’t make it. He sacrificed himself so that we could get back here. He got bit and didn’t want to turn into one of those goddamned zombies, so he blew their fuel dump once we got clear.”
Buffey stared a hole into Lucy as she heard of Ronnie’s fate. Deep down she knew that the brunette woman standing over near the Humvee had something to do with it. “So what the hell is she doing here then?”
“She helped us escape, and in exchange for that we took her with us. I don’t like it any better than the rest of us, but we wouldn’t have made it back without her.”
Chris became angered at Joe’s lack of information that he was putting forth to her. He stormed over beside of Buffey and Joe, unable to hold his tongue on the matter. “Why don’t you tell her the real reason you had to make a deal with her?”
Buffey glared at Joe, confused. “What the hell is he talking about?”
“Look, I didn’t want to have to bring this bitch with us either. It was her and her dumbass brother who took us and kept us locked up all damn day. She is not my problem, but she did help Chris and Ronnie get to me, Jamie, and Balboa in just the nick of time. If they hadn’t got there when they did all three of us would be dead.”
“Wait a damn minute. You’re telling me that this bitch is the reason you got captured in the first place and now we have to help her?”
Joe paced around nervously; the rest of his crew had stopped what they are doing and now occupied themselves by watching what Joe was going to do next. Joe brought his head up and looked around to his tired, beaten, hungry, and defeated partners. Buffey continued to glare at him as he paced, gauging his reaction to the situation. Balboa stepped up and took some of the pressure off Joe.
“Look we don’t need to be bickering over what happened. What’s done is done and we can’t bring Ronnie back but he did save our lives.”
Buffey became more enraged. “If it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t have to have sent out Ronnie and Chris to go after your ass! Now I’ve lost another child and all because our goddamned ‘leader’ had to go out and find shit that we should have had to begin with!”
“If Chris and Ashleigh hadn’t been screwing around last night then I wouldn’t have had to rush everybody out of the house at a moment’s fucking notice and we would have had everything we need! It’s not my goddamned fault, every one of us has shit that we regret and standing around bitching about it is not going to bring anyone back or make our situation any better!”
Chris confronted Joe and met face-to-face with him. His breath steamed in front of Joe as he stood standoff-style. “What I do is none of your fuckin’ concern.”
Joe furled his brow and changed his tone, lowering his voice. “When your shit starts affecting what is happening to the rest of us then it very quickly becomes my business. I am the leader of this group by a lack of options. I didn’t choose to lead us, you guys did by looking to me when you needed shit done, and so I stepped up. Now since is going all to shit, you’re going to point the finger of blame at me? Fuck you.”
Chris took a quick swing at Joe, connecting with the lower part of the left side of his jaw. Joe staggered backwards and began to see red. He charged at his best friend, spearing him in the midsection and pinning him to the ground. Joe punched Chris in the abdomen repeatedly before Balboa pulled him off Chris.
“This is all that goddamned bitches fault!” Buffey screamed towards Lucy, raising her rifle and aiming towards her. Lucy scrambled and got behind of Joe to protect herself, peeking out from behind him. Buffey aimed her rifle towards both Joe and Lucy, now firmly hid behind of him. Joe held up both of his hands in front of him in surrender and slowly backpedaled.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Let’s talk this out!”
Buffey slowly stepped towards Joe with her rifle still raised. “Either you kill that bitch or I will.”
Joe was stunned. His wife had switched a gear that he had not seen before. All the stress that she had endured over the past few days had finally built up inside her and it was now being unleashed. The fire in her eyes was from all of the stress that she had endured over the past four days. The world had gone to hell, and so had she. Joe realized that he was not going to talk his way out of the current predicament. “We do not kill the living.”
“Well maybe you don’t, but the rest of us are going to. An eye for an eye, Joe. She killed Ronnie so we are gonna kill her.”
Balboa and Jamie both stepped in front of Joe to shield him from the inevitable gunfire. Buffey slowly lowered her rifle and a puzzled look crossed her face.
“He’s right. We are not gonna kill the living; we have got a lot worse problems than her right now. I think that it’s best if we just keep her with us for the time being. She can stay in the cab of the first engine. If the rest of you don’t want to stay there then get in the second engine,” Balboa said. Jamie stood beside him, effectively splitting the group in two. Buffey, Ashleigh, Chris, and Rickey all stood together, about ten feet away from where Joe, Jamie, Balboa, and Lucy stood. Buffey looked with disgust at the men standing together, and lowered her rifle completely.
“If she’s staying then that’s the deal. I don’t want to see or hear nothin’ out of that bitch,” Buffey said, and walked away from the confrontation. Joe relaxed his hand, which he was still holding out in front of him. He quickly fumbled in his pocket and grabbed one of the last cigarettes that he had and lit one up. He drew a drag from the cigarette and let the fire out of his lun
gs, turned and addressed his side of the group.
“And then there were three,” Jamie said, trying to bring some light to the abysmal situation.
“Four, actually,” Balboa said facing Lucy. She had not said a single word throughout the confrontation. Joe turned and faced her as well, taking another drag off the cigarette.
“You come with us; you stay just like you are now. Quiet and subservient serves you well.”
“I want to thank you for taking me on and…”
Joe interrupted her by holding his hand up and turning his head away. “Don’t thank me, lady. You just caused me to have to choose between saving you or being with my family. So I don’t want to hear it. You stay with us and you stay quiet. Understood?”
Lucy did not reply, only meekly shaking her head in acknowledgement. Jamie accompanied her towards the front of the first train, drawing glares from Buffey as she stood on the walkway of the second engine. Balboa and Joe pulled out the ramps and loaded up the Humvee back into the second rail car. Once they had it loaded, they grabbed their gear, including rifles, and went back to take their position in the first engine. Joe glanced up at Buffey as he walked by. The look of betrayal and disappointment on her face was enough to haunt him for the rest of his life. She looked at Joe for only a brief second, sadly closing her eyes and walking back inside of the train. Joe gritted his teeth and continued on to the first engine.
Joe somberly brought himself up into the cab of the train and set his gear down. Balboa, Jamie, and Lucy all followed suit. Lucy did as she promised and headed to the back of the cab and sat down, putting her head between her knees. Joe took his place behind the controls of the train as he directed Balboa and Jamie to turn the switches and got the train running. The mammoth engine roared to life. Once Joe was satisfied that the engine was running smoothly he grabbed the throttle and eased it into the first, then second position. The train lurched forward and they continued on their mission towards the Gulf of Mexico. Joe looked back towards the small Tennessee town that he never did find the name of and bid it a not-so-fond farewell as the train gained speed and moved on. The smoke from the explosion earlier still burned out of control behind them, smoldering remains of a day gone horribly wrong.
Six Feet From Hell: Books 1 - 3 Page 25
