“Are you girls joking?” Harrington asked over the radio after Harlie reported what was going on.
“It’s no joke, Bill. You’d better get ready to go. Call the police, and keep that shotgun with you. We’re on our way out, but maybe you shouldn’t wait for us. Over.”
“Ah, I think we’re all—holy shit!” Harrington’s voice cut off abruptly, and Harlie exchanged a nervous look with Jessica.
“Call 9-1-1, Harlie,” Jessica said. She slalomed the F-150 through another gaggle of wet, shambling dead and then accelerated forward. The beach ahead was clear… for the moment.
“But what about Bill?” she asked.
“Sounds like he’s got problems of his own.” Clear of the zombies, Jessica sounded more in control, and she was breathing more normally. “Make the call, Harlie.”
Harlie dropped the handset and pulled out her cell phone. The display only showed two bars of service, but that was all she needed. She got through to a harried-sounding operator, and she reported what had just happened. She added that there might be a problem at the park entrance, and briefly recounted the truncated discussion she’d had with Harrington. The operator didn’t ask many questions, and told Harlie that police support would be at the park entrance as soon as possible.
“How long will it take?” Harlie asked.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” was the answer.
Harlie hung up, and just as she did, the radio crackled back to life.
“Sorry, guys. I had a bit of a problem here,” Harrington said.
Harlie snatched up the microphone. “Bill! What happened? Over.”
“Somebody came by who was bit,” Harrington replied. “And then he died. And then he got up, but he was still dead. I had to put him down. I’m taking a handie-talkie with me and leaving the shack. There are still people coming out, but I’m going to go for my car. Over.”
“Good idea,” Jessica said.
Harlie nodded and depressed the Talk button. “Bill, roger that you’re leaving the shack. Be careful, and if something goes down, just leave right away. We already called the police. Over.”
“Roger, Harlie. I’m going off the air now. I’ll contact you when I’m in my car. Over and out.”
Jessica continued driving down the beach at a good clip, but not so fast that they were in danger of destroying the truck if they hit a soft spot in the sand. Harlie scanned the shoreline for any sign of more zombies making landfall, but all she saw was water. After a few minutes, Harrington reported in over the radio that he had made it to his car and had moved it to the middle of the parking lot.
“Keep your eyes open, Bill,” Harlie said.
“Oh, you can count on that,” Harrington replied. There was a quaking quality to his voice that Harlie found unnerving.
Funny how hearing that old Bill’s scared is frightening me more than what we just went through.
“We’re going to be okay,” Jessica said, as the truck hurtled down the beach. Her voice was low and soft, and Harlie realized she was talking more to herself.
Not far from the turn off to the access road, a group of figures meandered up the beach, heading toward the vacant pier. As the pickup zoomed past, Harlie saw they were all zombies, at least six of them.
“They’ve made it down this far already,” she said.
“No kidding,” Jessica replied, totally deadpan.
Harlie looked in the side view mirror and watched as the zombies slowly reacted to the Ford’s passage. It was almost comical. They reached for the truck as if it were candy, even though it was too far away to touch. “What do we do once we hook up with Bill? Wait for the cops, or—”
“Sweetie, I’m not waiting for anything.” Jessica turned the truck onto the access road that led out of the park. The parking lot was almost empty except for a very few vehicles, one of them being Bill Harrington’s and a single white Tahoe from the South Padre Island PD. Jessica stopped the F-150 on the other side of Harrington’s car, and Harlie climbed out as the police officer in the Tahoe dismounted as well.
“They took out a couple of families on the beach,” Harlie reported.
“Who took out what?” the cop asked. He was a young guy with a deep tan and a thick mustache. His hair was full of gel and formed into a dewlap at the front. His eyes were hidden behind his dark sunglasses.
“The zombies,” Harlie said.
“Really.” The cop didn’t sound convinced. He pushed his sunglasses up on his nose and looked pointedly at her M16 before turning toward the beach entrance. He stood up a bit straighter when he saw the corpse of a zombie lying on the asphalt near the ranger shack.
“I shot that one,” Harrington said as he rolled down the window of his idling Chevy Malibu.
“You shot someone? Why did you shoot that guy?” the cop asked. As he spoke, he pulled his pistol and leveled it at Harrington.
“He was a fucking zombie,” the older park ranger said, indignant.
“Get out of the car,” the cop said. He reached for the microphone clipped to his shoulder and called for additional units to join him at the park entrance. He also reported a shooting. When he finished, he looked down at Harrington and waved him out. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t think so,” Harrington said. He pointed toward the beach entrance.
The cop turned, and Harlie did as well. A lone figure shambled toward them, stumbling past the ranger shack. Shirtless, its gray-white skin gleamed dully in the sun, marred by abrasions and lacerations that oozed a gray-black ichor. When it saw the group standing around the vehicles, it picked up the pace, heading right for them. Its eyes were a clouded white in color.
And behind the zombie, more came. They turned up the access road from the beach, and the wind carried their moans across the parking lot.
“Huh,” was all the young cop had to say.
“Harlie? What are you and Jessica going to do?” Harrington asked.
“I think we’re going to get out of here, Bill.”
“Great idea,” Harrington said, and he put his car in gear.
“Hey! Stay right where you are!” The cop grabbed the Malibu’s door handle. “Put it in park! Right now!”
“Officer, are you an idiot?” Harlie asked. “Do you not see what’s headed our way?”
“This guy shot someone. I don’t care if he’s a ranger or not, it looks to me like he murdered—”
“You can’t murder those things, boy,” Harrington said. “Have you not been paying attention to the news? Haven’t you heard there’s a state of emergency all throughout Texas? The entire country?”
“You can’t just go around shooting people,” the cop insisted.
Harlie raised her M16 and fired three shots at the approaching lead zombie. All three rounds hit it in the chest, but the zombie didn’t even stumble.
The cop yelped, pulled his sidearm, and pointed it at Harlie. “Put the gun down!”
“Look at the zombie,” Harlie said. “I hit it in the chest three times, and it’s still coming!”
The cop glanced that direction. The bullet holes stood out on the zombie’s pale chest as if they’d been drawn there with a Magic Marker. The wounds did not bleed, and the corpse seemed no worse for wear. It continued to advance, moaning, its open maw a black, featureless hole.
“Huh,” the cop said again. “Yeah, you did hit him. Din’cha?” He sounded more than a little bit confused.
“Harlie,” Jessica said, her voice very soft, “get back in the truck. We’ll come back for your Jeep later.”
Before Harlie could comply, another police SUV appeared. It sped toward them, lights flashing, and braked to a quick halt next to the young policeman’s vehicle. An older policeman practically leaped out of his vehicle, holding his own M16. He glared across the hood at the younger cop, who kept his pistol trained on Harlie in a two-handed grip.
“Sanchez? What the fuck are you doing pointing your weapon at that ranger when fucking zombies are walking up on you?”
�
��One of these rangers killed someone!”
The older cop sighed, shouldered his rifle, and drilled a single round through the lead zombie. It collapsed to the parking lot. The senior policeman then fired off eight more shots, dropping six zombies. Harlie gauged that one of his shots had missed entirely, and the second had struck a ghoul too low to kill it, so it needed another round.
“Sanchez, have you not been listening to the radio?” the older cop said. “I know you’ve only been on the force for three weeks, but these things are appearing all along the coastline. They’re real, and we have to take care of them! Now get your rifle and start shooting, boy!”
“But… but what if they’re people?” the younger cop asked, even as he ducked back inside his Tahoe for his rifle.
“Dude, take a look at them. Do they look like people?”
More dead appeared, this time stumbling over the tops of the dunes, kicking up sand. Several got tangled up in the vines and weeds, and they fell face-first. Those tumbled down the soft slopes to the firmer ground at the base of the dunes, got to their feet, and continued forward. Harlie shouldered her rifle and started firing. If the dead made it to the parking lot, they’d be more mobile, more likely to close the gap between them. She didn’t want that to happen.
“Harlie, get in the truck,” Jessica said again.
The older cop yelled into his radio, advising his department of what was going on as the younger officer reluctantly brought his AR-15 to his shoulder and opened fire. He hit the oncoming zombies in the center of their mass. His shots proved to be ineffective, whereas Harlie was able to drop five deadheads in rapid succession.
“Hit them in the head, guy,” she shouted. Then her M16 went dry, and she reached for her fanny pack, where she had another four magazines, along with two for her sidearm. As she reloaded, her fingers moving with precision, she kept her eyes on the approaching zombies. She tried to count them, but stopped after getting to fifteen. She knew if she waited, more would come, drawn to the area by the gunfire, and she didn’t have enough ammunition to make a protracted stand. She inserted another magazine into the M16 and cycled it, loading a round into the breech. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder and resumed firing, taking her time, focusing her efforts on the zombies coming over the dunes. From the corner of her eye, she saw Harrington climb out of his car, his shotgun ready.
“I’ll take care of the ones that get too close!” he shouted. “You guys with the rifles, take ’em out while they’re still at a distance!”
The older cop’s weapon ran dry, and he ducked back inside his Tahoe for another magazine.
The first runner appeared, cresting a dune farther down. Harlie dropped another of the slower-moving zombies, then turned and fired at the runner from over the bed of the pickup. She missed with her first shot. She’d gotten used to plinking away at the slow-movers, and the fast one was a harder target. She fired again, but the round only grazed the top of the zombie’s head, and by then, it had made it to the parking lot. It sprinted toward the idling F-150, only fifty feet away, snarling, its cold dead eyes fixated on Harlie. Jessica lowered the window and fired at the approaching zombie with her pistol. She wasted four shots, none of which hit the target. Harlie steadied herself and fired again, and the zombie fell sprawling to the parking lot, its skull ravaged.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder above the gunfire. The bodies were starting to pile up. The younger cop had finally gotten his game on and was hitting the approaching zombies right in their heads. The older cop fired efficiently, scoring a hit almost every time. And then, as two motorcycle cops rode up, the last of the zombies fell to the pavement. Harlie did a quick count. They had killed twenty-nine of the walking dead.
“Okay, what are we going to do now?” Harrington asked. He looked at the cops, who looked back at him.
“Hey, man, it’s your park,” the older cop said.
“Four of us, four of you… I think we need some more guns.” Harrington looked over the roof of his car at Harlie. “Fantastic shooting, young miss!”
“Thanks,” Harlie said.
“Harlie!” Jessica shouted. “Get in the truck—now! More of ’em!”
Harlie turned. At the far end of the parking lot, more zombies massed, at least thirty, with more coming over the dunes. A moan from the beach entrance caught her attention, and she saw even more of the shambling dead moving up the access road. Several runners bolted toward them, their feet slapping the concrete, their jaws spread wide. The cops opened fire, dropping them, but one got so close that Harrington killed it when it was only twenty feet from the old cop’s Tahoe.
“Guys!” Harlie opened up on the group advancing from the south. There were runners in that mix too, and she concentrated on them, the M16 kicking lightly against her shoulder as she squeezed off shot after shot. The zombies fell to the pavement with almost uncanny regularity, but each body hit the parking lot closer than the last one.
“We gotta get out of here!” Jessica yelled from the F-150’s driver seat.
“Damn right, we can’t hold ’em back with what we got!” the older cop said. “Let’s go and regroup at the Sonic down the road!”
Harlie shot two more zombies, then threw herself into the F-150. Jessica wasted no time, and the truck’s tires screeched as she stomped on the accelerator, heading for the park exit.
So many of them, Harlie thought, turning in the seat to look out the rear window. The zombies kept coming, over the dunes, up the access road. So many of them, and so damn quick… like a swarm of bees.
12
Gartrell walked into the tent that housed the Personal Communications Center, or PCC, where task force personnel were allowed to contact their loved ones as schedules allowed. Privacy partitions sat atop two rows of tables, resulting in narrow cubicles that provided at least a modicum of seated privacy. In each cubicle, an IP phone was connected to a laptop equipped with a camera. The goal was for the task force soldier to be able to view his or her family through the laptop, presuming there was a camera on the other side of the link. Gartrell knew there was no camera on his intended party’s side, so he walked over to a bank of commercial satellite phones and pulled one from its charger. The PCC was empty save for one soldier making a call and the duty NCO who oversaw the center operations. Gartrell headed for the tent’s exit.
“Hey, Sarmajor! You’re not supposed to take those out of the tent,” the duty NCO said. He was an E-5 with a pimply face and a large, hooked nose. Even though he was skinny and geeky, he apparently wasn’t afraid to lay down the law with one of the task force’s senior noncommissioned officers.
“Then I recommend you keep quiet about it, Sergeant,” Gartrell said. He walked out of the tent and continued around the side, stepping over the tie downs that kept the structure rooted to the ground. He entered the narrow alleyway between the PCC and the next tent and punched a number into the satellite phone handset. It took a moment for the phone to link up with a communications satellite, but the delay was minimal, and he was rewarded with a ring on the other side of the link.
“Hello?” Laurie Gartrell’s voice was subdued and cautious, even though only family members had the number for the satellite phone Gartrell had purchased for use at their cabin in the Smokey Mountains.
“It’s me, hon.”
“Dave? Jesus, Dave! Where are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, sweetie. I’m in Texas right now. South of Odessa.”
“Texas? What the hell are you doing there?”
“The government’s bidding, as always. You doing all right? The girls are fine?”
“Yeah, we’re all doing okay. We’re secure. So far, we haven’t had any problems, but when we left Bragg, they were going into lockdown. And from what I hear on the radio, things aren’t so great in the world.”
“Nope. Things are definitely going to hell in a handbasket,” Gartrell said.
“When will you be able to come to us?”
“I don’t kn
ow, Laurie. The mission I’m on… it’s probably going to be kind of a long-term assignment. I’m with a JTF, and we’ve got a pretty big job to do. Listen, are you sure you and the girls are secure? You hid the ATVs? You’ve got all the weapons and food?”
“Yes, we’re good here. No one’s going to be able to find the ATVs unless they know where to look, and we’ve got all the guns and ammunition with us. Food’s good; we’ve got a month’s worth of supplies before we have to break out the freeze-dried goods. And the cistern is full, plenty of water for us.”
“Any gunfire your way?”
Laurie paused for a long moment. “Yes. Every now and then, I hear some.”
Gartrell didn’t like that. “All right. In the cellar, you’ll find a bunch of empty sand bags. Start filling them. I want you to block the doors and windows. Try and make the cabin as secure as you can. And if the zeds show up, don’t engage them unless you have to. But if they see you, they’ll come for you, and if they do, you have to shoot them in the head. You understand that, right?”
“I know, Dave. It’s what they’re saying on the radio. The only way to stop them is to shoot them in the head, or cause some sort of extreme brain injury.”
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure you know.”
“What do I do with the bodies?”
“What?”
“If they come, and we have to defend ourselves, what do I do with the bodies? Do I just leave them?”
Gartrell thought about that one for a moment. “Uh, I think it’s all right to leave them. I haven’t seen any indication that they even pay much attention to each other when they’re walking around, much less after they’ve been shot. So if they come for you guys and you kill them, leave the bodies where they fall outside the cabin. Don’t expose yourselves any more than you have to. And if they get into the cabin, barricade yourselves upstairs.”
The Rising Horde, Volume One Page 15
