The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades

by Meredith, Peter

  “Don’t be an idiot, Norm. I’m trying to buy us some time you…” Grey’s sentence was cut off as Sadie began shooting in the south hall. There was a smattering of return fire which began to escalate with every passing second. To make matters worse, the firing on the north end began to pick up as well. Grey knew the sound, the cadence of the shooting: they were making a move. It wasn’t subtle and, judging by the bullets skipping off the tile or plunking holes in the ceiling tiles, the shooters weren’t interested in aiming. It was pure distraction and a big mistake.

  When it started again, Grey didn’t cower as they had hoped, he stepped partially out into the corridor and began firing. Embarrassingly, it took four shots to drop the three men who were charging. He blamed his broken hand; the barrel shifted to the right almost a quarter of an inch with every squeeze of the trigger.

  “You’re bleeding,” Norm said, pointing toward Grey’s neck.

  Norman received a shrug in reply. As there weren’t any competent medical personnel among them and he wasn’t impaired in any way, Grey ignored the wound. “We got to move. Neil! Let’s get going!” He was there seconds later, still looking strange to Grey. “Do you have an actual plan? Or are we winging it?” Grey asked.

  “Winging it,” Neil replied, cringing at the sound of the guns going off in the south hall. “Is that Sadie?”

  “Yes. She’s fine. Here’s the new plan. Neil, lead the men outside. I’ll get Sadie and cover our retreat. Try not to shoot anyone and if at all possible don’t act like you’re escaping. Act like you belong.”

  Neil waited for Grey to fire down the hall and then he ran for the stairs, unfortunately the others rushed right behind him in a group. Two were hit, sending blood spraying over the rest. One man fell with a bullet in his brain and the other with his guts shot out. The latter stooped and looked to be picking up great strands of ugly spaghetti that kept slipping between his fingers.

  He only stood for a few seconds before he was transfixed by a cascade of lead flying down the hall. It seemed malicious that they would keep gunning for him and yet the man had been doomed regardless. His death made a grotesque mess of the floor in front of the stairs that Grey would have to get by if he wanted to escape. First, he had to make sure Sadie got to safety. There was no way in hell he was going to leave and have her cover their retreat.

  He yelled her name, but there was no answer except more shooting. “Sadie get your ass back here!” When that didn’t work he slipped to the south hall doors while hugging the wall and thanking the gods of architecture that the halls were offset. At the door he snuck a peek and saw her firing from inside a broom closet, keeping maybe five or six men pinned down.

  She was doing such an admirable job that Grey figured he only had about a one-in-three chance of dying as he burst open the door, grabbed her by the back of her black shirt and hauled her bodily into the air. Unexpectedly, she began kicking and fighting. “Lemme down! I got this.”

  All around them bullets sped by and the air hissed angrily. Grey pulled her through the doors which were splintering and making loud “Crack!” sounds as they were struck over and over. In a second they were through to the lobby where their danger was only slightly less; they still had to pass through five feet of open space that was swarming with hot lead.

  Sadie went limp when she saw the body splayed out in front of the stairs. It was an unreal sight, all pink, wet flesh and ribbons of intestines in a pool of blood and chunks of gore. “That’s not…”

  “No. Neil is alright. He’s downstairs. Now, hold on for just a moment.” Grey darted his head around the corner. At the sight of him every man jumped back into their rooms afraid of his laser-like precision. “Now!” he hissed to Sadie, pulling her across the open area. There was no time to be coy about the body and the pair ran tracks through the blood and mess. Too late the shooters tried to track them, but again they missed their marks.

  “I counted my shots like you taught me,” Sadie said as they flew down the steps. “I have three left with this gun.”

  Grey hadn’t counted his. He had no idea how many rounds had been in the gun to begin with, so counting would have been a waste. He answered with a simple, “Good.” There really wasn’t any more time for a longer comment. They were at the second floor in seconds where they found the cage-fighter Grey had sent down, still at his post. The man had his head stuck out into the second floor hall while, hidden by the door, his body went through contortions as if he was five-year-old with a full bladder.

  “Let’s go,” Grey said, grabbing him and pulling him back from the breach.

  The man was all eyes in a sweat-glistened face. “Oh, yes, thanks!” he said in a high voice, going down the stairs two at a time. “They were starting to look at me weird.”

  “That’s because you look weird,” Sadie said. There was a heavy dollop of contempt in her voice. It made no sense to Grey, but again there was no time to say more. Two flights of stairs blurred by under their feet. The three of them had come on so fast that they came on the caboose of the line of cage fighters that had gone down ahead of them.

  The Captain pushed through them to find Neil pointing upwards and yelling down the hall. “I said, it was a fight. There were two opposing…”

  Grey slapped a hand over his mouth and bellowed for the entire building to hear: “Get your asses back in your rooms while we figure this out! We’ll have men coming by to question everyone. Until then, sit down and shut up….and whatever you do, no more shooting. No one even knows what they’re fucking shooting about.” The absolute authority in his voice had them scurrying back into their rooms.

  “That’s how you…” Grey began but stopped as above them came more small arms fire. Everyone flinched but Grey and Sadie. She glared upwards while he smiled like a wolf. If he had to guess, he was hearing men from the two different hallways come together in fear.

  “What the hell?” Neil asked. “Did we leave someone behind?”

  Grey clapped him on the shoulder and herded him for the door. “That my friend is the fortune of war. Sometimes it goes your way.” Practically on the heels of those words there came another burst of shooting, this time from the direction of the main gate.

  “That’s Deanna,” Neil said, running in an odd hobble toward the parking lot on the west side of the building. They all ran for a single black truck.

  “Keys!” Grey barked. Neil couldn’t drive. There was something wrong with him. He held his arm tucked up like a fried chicken wing and he minced instead of taking real steps. He didn’t argue about the keys; he tossed them to Grey and then climbed laboriously into the passenger side of the truck. Sadie climbed in behind him and then for some reason, clambered over him to sit practically on the cup holders.

  All told, six people crammed into the cab and another six squirmed into the open bed. Grey jumped the curb and roared the truck across a two-lane road and then over a stretch of overgrown lawn. It was a fifteen-second drive to the main gate where the firing was like a Morse code message: dot, dot, dot…dash, dash, dot.

  “Gimme your gun,” Grey demanded of Sadie, one hand held out to her, and the other expertly steering the car through a stand of shrubs. Before giving up the weapon, she looked around at the base. It was mayhem. There was screaming, yelling, and orders being shouted; people were running in every direction, while others were throwing themselves to the dirt to escape the, mostly random, gunshots that pierced the air.

  “I don’t want it anyways,” she said. She looked so pale that he had to wonder if she’d been shot and was losing blood. Once again he had no time to check. Ever since Neil had stepped into the prison, time had gone funky. Seconds felt like they were zipping by as fast as the bullets. The gate and the little shack seemed to fly up at them.

  A man with an M4 was crouched next to the shack. He was shooting at a Toyota 4-Runner that was sitting in a space between the two gates. It was a fine target, very large and unmoving; already all its windows were blown out and its tires sagged. So
meone behind the Toyota, Deanna presumably, was shooting back, peppering the ground all around the front of the shack with lead like she was planting seeds from a distance.

  It was the finest display of bad shooting Grey had ever seen.

  He pulled up fast, kicking up a cloud of dirt. The driver’s window faced the guard shack and as the man with the M4 turned, bringing up his weapon. Grey aimed his pistol through the open window, corrected for the unfortunate error in his trigger pull, and shot the man between the eyes.

  The truck was moving again before the man hit the dirt. Seconds later, he skidded to a halt next to Deanna. She began to go around the front of the vehicle when there was a gunshot behind them. The men in the back fell all over themselves to find a scant amount of cover and began pounding on the sides of the truck, demanding that he floor it.

  There was no way Grey would leave Deanna behind. “Get in!” he barked, flinging open his door. He then turned to Sadie and ordered, “Shift over towards Neil. Get cozy.”

  Deanna started to step demurely up into the truck; she seemed at a crossroads as to how to proceed: did she stick her breasts in his face or her ass? A second gunshot, and the skip of a bullet across the hood, decided her; she went with breasts.

  With more lead flying at them from out of the dark, Grey couldn’t wait for her to get seated so, with her straddling him, he stomped the gas. The sudden acceleration pressed her warmth and softness into him. It was an awkward and rather intimate position, but one that he found he could live with. What he couldn’t deal with was that he couldn’t see; to correct that, she would have to get even more intimate, at least for the time being. He pulled her down so that she was seated firmly on his groin and then he hugged her to his chest so he could look over her shoulder and drive.

  “You’ll tell me if someone’s after us, right?” he asked, playfully. He wasn’t exactly upset with his present position.

  She pulled back slightly to see if he was serious. When he smiled, she tried to smile back but it was a line only. She had begun to shake.

  “Hey, it’ll be alright,” he whispered. “You did great.”

  “It didn’t feel great. I was scared out of my…” Her words were jounced out of her mouth as the truck hit a pothole that was more like a shallow grave in size and width.

  “Here,” Grey said, slowing the truck. “Climb on over and sit proper.” When she was off his lap, he felt unpleasantly cold as if he were missing the part of himself that controlled temperature. He shrugged off the feeling and set the truck in motion again, going as fast as the night would allow.

  In the back seat, Norman said, “They’ll be coming for us soon.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Grey. He glanced across Deanna and Sadie to look at Neil.

  “What?” Neil asked.

  “What do you mean, what?” Grey growled. “Where are we going? This is your rescue after all.”

  Neil shrugged and looked at Deanna who shrugged as well. “We don’t know,” Neil said, speaking for them both. “Our main concern was freeing you.”

  Grey couldn’t blame them; it wasn’t like there was a class on rescues. Not even the best had everything planned out. “And Jillybean?” Grey asked. “Where is she?”

  After sneaking a look at Sadie’s face, Neil bowed his head and said, “We don’t know. We figure she blew up the boat but...” He paused, swallowing, loudly. “But after that we haven’t had any contact or sign or anything.”

  Grey swore under his breath. “I’m sure she’s still alive,” Deanna said, patting his leg.

  From the back seat, Norman cleared his throat as a prelude to speaking, “Well, everyone is rooting for your friend and all but we still need to figure out where we’re going and, perhaps more importantly, what we’re going to do. Ole King Shit will have men after us pretty soon and they’ll catch us at the rate you’re piddling along, Grey. You need to pick it up.”

  Deanna gave him a swift, ugly look in the rear view mirror. “Your breath is like a sewer,” she said to him. “So why don’t you not talk for a little while.”

  Norm began to fume, but was roundly ignored. The other cage fighters knew what sort of man he’d been up to the night the bridge had exploded. He was one of them. One of the men who had not only been entertained by the fights, but who had also profited from the deaths.

  “There is one place we could go that’s not too far,” Neil said. “It has some supplies but not much. Not enough to last this many people.”

  “Well you can’t let us fucking starve,” Norman said, coming closer as he did. Grey’s nose crinkled; his breath did smell an awful lot like ass. Though he was sure he didn’t smell any better.

  “No one’s going to starve,” Grey said. “We’ll just ration our stores until we can find more.”

  “I might know where we can find all that we’re likely to need,” Sadie said. She seemed troubled. Normally she would’ve had something to say about the way Deanna had climbed in the truck, but she had been silent and the pale look hadn’t left her. She glanced back at Norman and the troubled look deepened.

  “What?” Norman asked. “You got a problem with me, also?”

  “A little, I guess,” Sadie admitted. “You’re Norman Halder, aren’t you? My father doesn’t trust you. Usually that’s for a good reason.”

  “It is,” Norm admitted. “Your dad killed two of the guys I came up with. One day they were there, the next gone, as if the earth sucked them down.”

  The truck bucked and shimmied through a series of potholes and everyone was quiet as they contemplated Norm’s words. “What do you mean, you came up with these men?” Sadie eventually asked.

  Norm shrugged. “You know, made it big.”

  Grey understood. With his thick jaw and heavy hands, Norman had the look of a mid-level mobster who would go further only because of his appreciation for violence. “If they were anything like you,” Grey said, “I don’t think you’ll be getting any sympathy from us.”

  “Listen, dipshit,” Norm said, in a low, dangerous tone. “You might want to think your words over a bit more carefully. The River King’s days are numbered and who do you think is one of the front runners to take his place? Me. It’s especially true now that I’m out of that fucking cell.”

  Plunging his foot down hard, Grey skidded the truck to a halt. “Get out, Mister Big Shot. I don’t owe you a thing.”

  Norman sat back, putting his large hands on his knees as if he were already on the throne. “You’re not thinking straight, Captain. This is an opportunity for both of us. The earth seems very large these days, but it’s gonna shrink up once everything shakes out. You’ll see. And when it does your people in Colorado are going to have needs and wants and, in case you don’t know, Cape Girardeau is going to be at the center of it all.”

  “How?” Neil asked. “The bridge is gone.”

  Grey saw the twinkle in Norman’s eyes. “You know about the other bridge, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but…but, how do you know about it?” Norman replied, the twinkle dimming slightly. “Did she tell you?” He meant Sadie.

  “No. The River King did. I just don’t know where he’s hidden it.”

  Neil slammed his hand down on the dash. “What bridge are you talking about and how on God’s green earth do you hide a bridge?”

  “It’s a pontoon bridge,” Grey explained. “It can be broken down.”

  “Into how many sections?” Sadie asked, her dark eyes were very large. “Because I might know where they are.”

  Chapter 26

  Deanna Russell

  At Sadie’s declaration, Norman reached across the seat and grabbed her shirt. “Where is it?” he demanded. His eyes were feverish with need; his hand like a claw; he looked like a junkie desperate for a fix.

  Deanna jumped back but Sadie snatched the pistol out of Neil’s limp hand and jabbed it up under Norman’s chin. “Care to be number five tonight?” She cocked the hammer back; it was a loud, menacing sound in the cramped truck.

>   “That gun is out of bullets,” Neil told her, gently easing the gun out of her hand and giving it to Deanna. Out of curiosity, Deanna popped the magazine out and saw a fat .9mm sitting right there staring up at her.

  “Would you like to use mine?” Grey asked, holding out a pistol to Sadie.

  Neil made a cranky sound in his throat as he reached across Deanna to push away the offered gun. “No. No more killing, especially you, Sadie. We aren’t like this guy or the River King. We can settle our differences without bloodshed.”

  “What differences?” Norman said, leaning back and touching his throat where the gun had left a mark. “Everyone wants the bridge. It’s just a matter of who controls it. I just happen to think it would be better for all of us if I did. And I’m not just being selfish. The River King wants you dead, while I would look favorably on any who assist me. You, Captain Grey could be Colorado’s first ambassador to Cape Girardeau. You could cement a relationship between two peoples, one that will help to guarantee peace.”

  “I’m a soldier, not a diplomat,” Grey replied evenly.

  “Then Neil could do it,” Norman said. “From everything I’ve seen, he would be perfect. He’s very accommodating.”

  “Accommodating?” Neil asked. “That’s pretty much the worst compliment I’ve ever heard. Makes me sound like a pushover. Though I suppose diplomacy calls for a cooler head.”

  Deanna had been listening in confusion. She knew what pontoons were and she knew that what made them valuable was that they were portable. “We’re being silly,” she said. “There is no reason a bridge has to be set up at Cape Girardeau and even less of a reason for it to be under the control of anyone but us.”

  “There is, actually,” Neil said. “It’s the only way we’ll get the rest of our people back. We’re going to have to trade it.”

  Norman was outraged. “Trade it to who? Not the River King! For one you can’t trust him, and for two he won’t last. After tonight, he’s a dead man. He hasn’t been able to do anything right.” He stuck out a large hand and began checking off on his fingers: “The bridge, the prisoners, the fire last night, the barge this morning and now us escaping. Someone’s going to put a knife in him and no one’s going to care.”