by Joe McKinney
I whispered, “The other side rooms were empty. This is the feeding room, apparently.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Gem.
The man I’d seen earlier had died now. I could tell because half his brain, accessed through the gaping hole in the back of his neck, was in the creature’s mouth that lay atop him.
Behind us the zombies had entered the house and were now crowding into the hallway.
“Let’s clear a path,” I said.
We put the gas cans, now 2/3 empty, on the ground, swung our machine guns around, and began to blow the brains out of the feeders. That took all of eight seconds.
Twelve feet behind us the thrum of zombie moans was loud, vibrating our eardrums. We grabbed our gas cans and continued the dousing of the house, as we stepped over zombie and human bodies on our way to the rear windows.
I reached the back wall, and with the last of my gas, splashed it as far as I could in all directions, then threw the can. Gem followed suit. She tossed her can then smashed out the lower half of the window with the butt of her gun and jumped out into the back yard.
I shattered the window behind me and waited. I wanted to see them come into the room. I wanted to know they were in here, because I wanted all hundred or so of these fuckers to fit inside this house for the big show.
When they were three feet from me, I turned and leapt out the window.
“I like it when a plan comes together,” Gem said. Her face was tired, and her eyes never left the windows. She’d moved about eight feet away from the house, her gun leveled at the window she’d jumped out of.
“Let’s light that sucker,” I said. We fired our guns simultaneously through both windows.
Nothing.
We looked at each other. We fired again.
Still no fire.
“Fuck!” I shouted. “This always works in the movies!”
“I’ll run to the suburban and get matches or a lighter or something,” Gem shouted over the incessant hum-moaning. Some of them had reached the windows and were starting to come through. I used a quick burst on them, blowing their heads apart in a spray of gore. “Go!” I shouted.
I crouched down and kept moving my gun between both windows. Gem was running hard when she disappeared around the corner.
I picked off three more. My radio squealed. I pulled it off my belt and said, “Gem?”
Her voice came back on, low, but calm. “Flex, they’re almost all inside now. Can you hold them in back there?”
I pushed the button. “Yeah, for a bit. I’ve got two magazines with me. How long?”
“Any second. There are about a dozen . . . there they go . . . okay. Okay. Get ready to get back, babe.”
I shot five more as they fell from the window and attempted to get to their feet. I was getting very good at the cranial shots.
As I fired at another, a woman this time, that had tried to step out and fell on its face, I heard Gem’s voice on the radio. “Okay, Flexy, jump back NOW!”
I fired once more, then turned and charged away from the building. An eruption went off behind me as the fume-filled house went up in an instant fireball with a phfwooomph! The sudden heat blasted my body and I smelled singed hair even as I put more distance between the house and myself.
I landed in the grass, and still gripping my gun, rolled onto my stomach. The last one I’d fired on had not been hit, but she did catch fire with the ignition of the house. She came toward me, her hair on fire, and I raised my weapon again. I shot her square in the nose and the back of her head blew apart, like a biological firework packed with flesh, bone and hair.
Two more fell out of the window, scrambled – as much as they could scramble – to their feet, and staggered toward me. I cut them off at the legs, then walked easily up to them and fired a single round into each of their brains. I was fucking sick of the theatrics.
I just wanted the assholes to stay down and die already.
I heard gunfire from the front of the house as two more zombies dropped from the window.
“Give me a goddamned break, would you?” I shouted, getting irritated now. Gem might be in trouble, and I did not have the time for this shit, two-by-two.
I turned at looked at them. They weren’t making much progress toward me – they were already in flames – but I provided final head shots to both of them just the same.
I turned, then stopped. Glanced at the windows again. Waited.
I reached for my radio to tell Gem I’d be coming and not to shoot me. But it wasn’t there.
I scanned the ground. It must have fallen off my belt. I ran back toward the house and the four zombies I’d just taken out, and didn’t see it.
More gunfire from the front. As long as I heard that I knew Gem was still okay.
I walked up to the prone zombie closest to the window. It was the most likely spot. I leaned back and kicked the squishy body over with my boot.
And there it was. A tad bloody, but still intact. I ripped a piece of the nearest zombie’s shirt and used it as a insulator. Fucking wished I had latex gloves. That would be on my next shopping list at Walgreens.
I brought the radio close to my mouth, but not too close. I hit the button. “Gem, what’s happening?”
I waited only a split-second before she answered. My heart immediately slowed when I heard her calm voice.
“Baby, I’m fine. Just some stragglers.”
“Same here. I think I’ve got ‘em all now,” I said.
“Bastards stink,” she said.
“Smell better when they’re on fire,” I answered, walking back around the house. “I’m coming around now. Don’t shoot me.”
I clipped the radio back on my belt. When I reached her she swung around with her rifle pointed at me.
“Whoa, Nelly.”
“Need to announce yourself,” she said. “I almost blew your head off.”
“I thought I just did, on the radio.”
“Sorry. Must have missed that part.”
We stood together and looked out at the street leading to the 7-Eleven. There were no bodies in the road. Apparently the group of escapees had helped the fallen and continued to their destination.
“Let’s go see what we can do to get them set up and get back to the CDC,” I said. “Hemp’s got to be worried by now.”
“Do we know if one of that group is Cynthia’s mother?”
I shook my head. “We’ll let Taylor tell us when we get there. I sure hope so.”
When we got back to the vehicles, Taylor was still under the blanket. She was fine. Gem drove her to the store, following behind me in my armed Hummer.
They had made it.
The cheers were subdued, but cheers nonetheless when we opened the door to the walk-in cooler and saw the tired, frightened eyes of our new friends.
It was a good feeling to see so many of us all at once.
“If you don’t mind, we’d like to spend a few minutes with Marion and Bobby,” I said, addressing the crowd of approximately twenty-five. “Only because they’re military trained. Not to say there aren’t others of you, but for now we’ll go over some things with them and they can pass it along to you.”
Everyone nodded tiredly, and Bobby and Marion stepped outside the cooler with us. “Look, we don’t want to stay out here too long. Smells, you know. But there are some things you need to know to make it.”
“First off,” Gem said, “get more guns. You’ll need as many as you can all carry and handle. Next, head shots. In the brain. It’s the only thing that will kill them.”
I nodded as Gem shared information. “Headaches. It seems to either come on with a massive headache, like a migraine, or how I just saw it happen. Upon the death of the uninfected.”
Bobby and Marion stared at us. Bobby spoke. “When they . . . die?”
Gem nodded. “Within ten or fifteen minutes they’re back. But not the same. Not at all the same.”
“And the heads can live without the bodies, so we can’t stress enough to inflict ma
ssive trauma on the brain. Cutting off he head just makes a dangerous bowling ball with teeth. You get bit, you become one. Scratched, we’re pretty sure you become one. There’s a lot we don’t know, but just act like what we’re telling you is gospel, and you should live to tell your grandkids about this.”
“Where are you going?” Marion asked. “Can we come with you?”
I shook my head. “Guys, I’m just like you are. I’m not suited to be part of a big group. I don’t have big plans at this point, and for Christ’s sake, I don’t want to be a leader. I think we’d like to remain a foursome. Well, plus our dog.”
Gem stared at me. “They need help, Flex.”
I stood at looked at Gem’s eyes, the concern there. I looked back at the sunken eyes of Bobby, a short but solid, stocky man with a round face and dark hair parted at the side with his share of cowlicks. Marion stared back, her wire-rimmed glasses askew, hair pulled back in a pony. She was about 6’3” and towered over all of us by at least three inches. She scratched her freckled nose.
“Okay, look. What we’ve just shared with you will help you a lot. Get food, water, medicine whatever you can and stock up on non-perishables. I’m going to leave you with the Hummer we brought. It’s set up with dual machine guns and should give you a hell of a fighting chance to get wherever you’re going. But you – as a group – need to decide where that is. You must understand that we haven’t got a clue where we’re headed, much less where our next stop will be.”
“And get some of these,” Gem said, unclipping the radio from her belt. “Cell phones, as you already likely know, don’t work anymore. Use channel 19. It’s what we normally broadcast and listen on. Alternate is 16. These claim to have a range of thirty to thirty-five miles, but that’s only if I’m standing on a mountain looking at you down in the valley. Otherwise, 1-3 miles on a good day. But on that good day, if you pick up any other groups in the area you can play it by ear.”
“Find out the talents of the people in your group,” I said. “Engineers, scientists, teachers, police, military. It’ll tell you how to organize them. They’re understandably traumatized, and right now they just have an overwhelming need to be back with their families, to rejoin their old lives. But those lives are history. They’re gone forever. They have to realize it, or they’ll die, and you might, too.”
“Any questions?” Gem asked.
Bobby shook his head, then nodded. “Too many, I guess,” he said. “You guys saved us back there. I don’t even remember how I got in that house, but I remember everything from the moment you woke us up.”
“We’ll add that to the mystery of this whole, horrible thing,” Gem said. “We’re working with a pretty smart scientist, and the more information we gather about what and how these infecteds work, the more likely he’ll develop a way to cure them or a way to destroy them. But know this: we’re working on it.”
We finished our explanations and shook hands with them. Before they went back inside, I pulled Marion aside.
“Marion, would you be able to go in there and see if you have a Lillian Middleton with you? Taylor’s her granddaughter, and we found her mother back at the CDC.”
Her face became hopeful. “Are there others there? Do they have a plan for this . . . this situation?”
I shook my head. “There’s only one man that we found alive there. The others are turned or dead. Listen, I have to ask you something, because the basis for my question is probably the most important first step you could take. And I apologize for being a bit scattered here, but our friend is at the CDC and hasn’t heard from us in around two hours. He’s going to be worried.”
“I understand,” she said, bumping her glasses back up her nose with one finger. “What is it?”
“Has anyone complained about headaches since you all got here?”
“No, but what you said about the migraines – I knew it already. It’s how – well, it’s how my husband’s began.” Her eyes began to tear up. “I didn’t make a connection.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “There’s nobody it’s not going to touch.”
“It’s beginning to sink in,” she said, fidgeting with the AK-47’s strap.
Gem came out of the cooler and stood there listening to me, leaning against the wall as Taylor leaned against her legs. Her hands rested on the girl’s shoulders. Her Uzi hung off the side of her body, the barrel angled toward the floor. There was a thoughtful expression on her face. I smiled at her briefly but continued with my conversation.
“Marion, you need to quietly determine with absolute certainty whether any of your people here have headaches. Or head pain of any kind. I’m not saying you have to take any action, but you’ll want to keep an eye on them. A close eye. Someone should stand watch – probably more than one – through the night anyway, but monitor them, too. And you’re going to want to get more weapons soon. We hit the evidence locker at the Tallahassee PD, but any large department should do it.”
“How can we find you?”
“I don’t know where we’re going to be, but like I said, get either a ham radio, CB, or the handhelds. The range varies, but put them on scan and just listen. Ultimately, I think all three will be in use”
Gem chimed in. “He’s right, Marion. The best way to survive is with numbers and firepower. Build your group as quickly as you can, and you and Bobby and whomever else you deem qualified should start working on a plan.”
At that moment, a loud noise came from outside, like a freight train in the stillness of the new world day. Gem gave Taylor’s hand quickly over to Marion, and we ran to the front door of the convenience store and unlocked it. Nobody was visible, but a lumbering, gleaming bus came charging up the street, then attempted to slow suddenly as it turned into the store parking lot. A heavy layer of gravel lay over the asphalt, and the multi-ton motor home could not decelerate fast enough for its sudden right turn. The driver whipped the wheel back to the left when the traction broke. But it was all too fast.
The Class A behemoth was at least forty feet long. It started sliding sideways through the gravel, its huge rear end careening toward the front of the store. The rear half of the monster slid at four times the speed of the rest of the bus, as though it were cracked like a whip.
Gem and I tucked and covered our faces as the gravel shot into the air in dusty clouds, peppering every glass and metal surface with tiny rocks and sand as it finally came to rest about a foot from the expansive glass panels of the 7-Eleven.
We fanned our hands in front of us to clear the dust. Hemp sat in the driver’s seat, smiling broadly.
“Bloody fuck what a ride!” he yelled, sticking his head out of the window. “I didn’t have any damned way to get hold of you, and you’d been gone over two hours! When I saw your cars I cranked the wheel!”
“And almost flipped this sucker over,” said Gem.
“Isn’t it fabulous?” Hemp beamed.
I looked at the gun turrets he’d engineered in the sides. Four of them, just awaiting firearms from our collection. I didn’t have much doubt that Hemp had used his recollection of what guns remained in our arsenal to determine spacing, size and placement of the turrets.
I laughed, and the sound seemed oddly out of place. “Well, Hemp. I’m sure glad you came. But we were just leaving.”
“We’ve found a bunch of uninfecteds, Hemp. Do you think you might have any questions for them?”
He shrugged from the motor home’s cockpit. “I can think of something, I’m sure,” he said. “Let me at them.”
As Gem and I gathered up some food and medical items from the store shelves, we let Hemp go in the cooler and probe around a bit. He had a nice, gentle demeanor, and we knew he’d be the perfect debriefer. He spent about fifteen minutes asking various questions. From inside the cooler we’d hear his muffled British accent, then a muffled response. Of course if he learned anything he’d fill us in later.
Taylor’s grandmother wasn’t present in the room, which meant that she was one
of the dead, the turned, or the burned. We did not mention her again.
When Hemp finished, he told them there were several buses at the CDC, and any one of them would carry them all. They had bars on the windows, so were somewhat fortified. They’d have that and the Hummer.
For us, the Suburban would be fitted with machine guns before long, too, so we’d still have a pretty well-protected rolling convoy of vehicles. Overall, everyone was in good shape.
I wanted to get to my house. I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like a good place to hole up and make a plan. Figure out what we would be doing for the foreseeable future. Train. Whatever. I just knew I wanted to get my ragtag group – my new family – to my house as soon as possible.
As Hemp came out, I touched his arm. “Hemp, how’s that gas line coming?”
“I finished that. Straight shot, just six 20-foot lengths, some couplings, a couple of 90-degree elbows, a union, and some pipe dope. Done deal.”
“And now you want me to ask what you did with the next hour and fifty minutes, right?
“Spent that on the gun turrets.”
“On that motor home there,” I confirmed.
“Not a motor home, chap. Mobile Lab.” He grinned. “And I started playing with another vehicle after that. So there’s some stuff to go over before we head out. We need some versatility in transportation, I think.”
I returned the smile on Hemp’s face that was so wide it threatened to split his head in two.
“First things first,” I said. “Let’s get this girl to her mother.”
“I get to drive something with guns,” Gem said.
I smiled. “Baby, that goes without saying. When mama’s happy, everybody’s happy.”
Chapter 10
We got back to the CDC garage without incident and pulled the Suburban and the mobile lab into the garage, rolling the door closed. It was now going on 4:00 in the afternoon. I wanted to get the hell out of here before nightfall. With the speed at which Hemp was capable of designing, fabricating and working, it wouldn’t be a problem. The summer days were long, with daylight sticking around until near 8:30 PM. I figured we could be out of here by 6:00 or so, and Lula was only about 60 miles from the CDC.
