by Dirk Patton
“Did you get the other Chevy keys?” I asked, shooting a male that was completely nude. Not a dignified state of dress to be in when you turn, but I suppose you won’t care in the end.
“Yep. Where do you want to start?” Rachel asked.
“That one,” I gestured at a rusting four-wheel drive truck sitting on mostly bald tires. It was closest, and at the moment I just wanted to get us out of there.
The volume of infected was increasing. More females were arriving at a sprint, drawn by the noise of the others. Martinez and I were keeping up with them, but we were burning through a lot of ammo in a hurry. Ammo that would most likely be desperately needed as we made our way through the city.
Rachel ran to the truck, Dog at her heels, and started trying keys in the door lock. Dog took up position behind her, protecting her while she was distracted. At the last moment he noticed the male that was crawling under the truck, spinning and attacking just as the infected’s fingers brushed Rachel’s ankle. She didn’t pause in her efforts, trusting Dog to neutralize the threat at her feet.
“Got it!” She shouted a moment later, yanking the door open and letting all the unneeded keys drop to the ground.
Jumping behind the wheel, Rachel started the engine and shouted for Dog to get in. I told Martinez to head for the truck, moving behind her as she lowered her rifle and ran. The infected began collapsing in on me from all directions as I ran backwards, slamming to a stop against the side of the idling Chevy.
Four more shots to take down charging females and I risked a glance to make sure everyone was inside and ready to go. Seeing they were safe, I slid down the side of the vehicle and squeezed behind the wheel, yanking the door shut behind me moments ahead of the arrival of several males.
The truck was a single cab with one bench seat and we were stuffed in like sardines. Rachel had scooted all the way to the passenger door, Dog sitting on the floor with his upper body in her lap. Martinez was crammed into the middle, leaning hard into Rachel to make room for my shoulders. I still had my pack on and it forced my upper body forward until my chest was only inches from the steering wheel.
Hoping the damn rust bucket didn’t have an air bag that could deploy and crush me, I shifted into drive and hit the gas. The engine clattered in protest but we started moving forward, a thick cloud of blue exhaust marking our wake. I steered through the lot, avoiding the other aging vehicles that were offered for sale. Males were constantly stepping in front of us and I had no option other than to run them down, but the females had backed off as soon as the truck started moving.
Reaching the exit to the street I let off the gas in surprise when three females stepped into our path. Two of them looked to be older than me, but the one in the middle was young and very pregnant. My reaction was instinctual, no conscious thought going into it. I heard Martinez mutter something in Spanish that I didn’t understand and I was just starting to step on the brake when the pregnant girl twitched the way the infected do.
That twitch overrode any thoughts I had of trying to spare her life and I pressed on the accelerator. The truck didn’t exactly surge forward but it did begin to pick up speed. At the last moment the females nimbly moved out of the way, the mother to be moving much faster and with more agility than I’ve ever seen a pregnant woman move.
Clattering into the street I turned right and kept accelerating, avoiding males when I could, smashing them down with the bumper when I couldn’t. The truck’s steering was about as vague as a politician’s answer to a question, the vehicle taking nearly half a second to respond to any directional change I made.
“GPS is in my right cargo pocket. Can you reach it?” I said to Martinez.
She squirmed around to make room for her hand, a moment later digging the unit out of my pants and holding it up to her face.
“We need to be going north. To our right.” She said a moment later.
I nodded and started looking for a road that went in that direction as I continued to do my best to avoid the infected males. They were spaced out, but it required an almost constant adjustment to our direction to avoid them. Reaching a relatively clear stretch of pavement I glanced down at the dash and grimaced when I saw the fuel gauge.
We had an eighth of a tank of gas, at the most. Not surprising when I thought about it. Car dealers don’t like to spend the money to fill up vehicles that are sitting on the lot. They also don’t want one of them stolen with enough fuel in it to make it out of the area without having to stop to fill up.
“We aren’t going to get far in this thing,” I said. “Not much gas.”
“We go as far as it’ll take us, then find something else.” Rachel said, her voice muffled by Dog’s furry body.
I nodded in agreement and kept driving. A short distance ahead I saw a large intersection where we crossed a four-lane road that headed north. Slowing, I steered us around a couple of abandoned vehicles and onto the new street. Within a mile we had moved into an area where the power had gone out. It was pitch black outside and I fumbled on the dash until I found the switch that turned the headlights on.
Just like the rest of the truck, the lights weren’t up to modern standards. Hell, they were barely brighter than a couple of candles shining off curved reflectors and I could only see maybe fifty feet of pavement directly to our front. I guess it was fortunate that the clattering engine didn’t seem to be able to push our speed any higher than about 45 miles per hour.
“No infected,” Martinez said quietly.
She was right. Since we’d passed into the dark area I hadn’t had to make any maneuvers to avoid a shambling male. It should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. Perhaps it was the darkness outside the windows of the truck, but something was bothering me. I couldn’t figure it out or come up with a reason why, so I just kept my attention focused on the poorly lit road to our front.
“101 miles remaining,” Martinez said, her face bathed in the pale, blue light of the GPS unit’s display.
I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Kept driving, attention to our front, but also keeping an eye on the fuel gauge. We hadn’t driven ten miles yet but the small, red needle had dropped noticeably towards the large red E. I didn’t think we’d go more than maybe another twenty miles, if we were lucky, before the asthmatic motor under the hood sucked the fuel tank dry.
“Either of you have anything we can use to siphon gas? A length of hose, or something like that?” I asked.
Rachel and Martinez both shook their heads, Martinez leaning to her left to look at the instrument panel. She sighed and leaned back as much as her pack would allow.
“We’d better be watching for any likely vehicles,” she said. “Can either of you hot wire a car?”
Rachel and I looked at each other and both of us grinned.
“What?” Martinez asked.
Rachel spent a few minutes telling her about us being trapped in a truck in Atlanta when we first met. How we almost died in that truck until I figured out how to bypass the ignition and get it started.
“OK, we’ve got nothing else to do while we drive.” Martinez said. “I want to hear the story from the start.”
After a minute Rachel started talking in a far off voice, remembering where we were when this all started.
25
It was quiet in the truck. Rachel had finished our story, editing out certain parts she didn’t want to talk about but still being quite frank about others. The fuel gauge was taking more and more of my attention, the needle solidly pegged against the stop at the E. I was expecting to feel the engine start hiccupping at any moment as the last of our fuel was burned. Fortunately, we hadn’t seen any infected for at least twenty minutes.
“So I’m going to be a bitch and ask,” Martinez said to Rachel after a few quiet minutes. “You two seem like a couple. I thought you were until I heard about the Major’s wife. What’s going to happen when we find her?”
Rachel didn’t respond. Neither did I, and I didn’t have time to ge
t distracted by whatever I felt for Rachel. Right now the only thing that mattered was saving Katie. OK, I could acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the only thing. Rachel mattered. But I’d been in love with Katie since the moment we’d met, and that hadn’t changed. Hadn’t diminished, regardless of how much I cared for Rachel.
The truck saved me from any more awkwardness. It lurched hard, ran for a few more seconds, then the engine died. We weren’t going fast and quickly rolled to a stop in the middle of the road. I had killed the lights while we were still rolling, wanting to have as much time as possible for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
We didn’t have night vision. That was the one thing Martinez and Scott hadn’t been able to get their hands on. Each of us had a night vision scope on our rifle, but that was a far cry from a head mounted set of goggles.
“We walk from here, ladies. And Martinez… mind your own fucking business.” I said, opening the door and stepping out into the night.
I raised my rifle and used the scope to scan a 360 degree circle. Abandoned vehicles and dark buildings was all I saw. No infected. No survivors. This was starting to not make much sense. We were still relatively close to Tinker, and the last numbers I’d heard was that there were close to a quarter of a million people in the immediate area. Where the hell were they?
Martinez climbed out after me, chuckling at my expense and immediately raising her rifle and joining me in a scan of the area. Dog jumped down and came to stand with his flank pressed against my right leg, nose in the air. I was glad when he stayed silent, not alerting on the scent of any infected in the area.
Rachel stepped out of the truck, came up on the opposite side of me from Dog and slipped her arm around my waist. I lowered my rifle as she leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips.
“We get her back,” she whispered. “Don’t worry about me.”
Now, I’m a hardhearted son of a bitch. I don’t get emotional at movies that would send Katie into crying jags. Hell, I didn’t even cry when Bambi’s mother died the first time I saw that movie when I was a kid. In fact, the last time I remember shedding a tear was when I had to have a very old and sick dog put down several years ago. But Rachel’s kiss and comment put a lump in my throat and moisture in my eyes. I started to turn away, but she reached up and held my face with her hand.
“I’m OK. Really.” She said.
“Contact,” Martinez said softly at the same moment Dog let out a low growl. Thank God, infected!
I swallowed the lump and moved to stand next to Martinez, raising my rifle and looking in the direction she was watching. Half a dozen males were stumbling out of the mouth of an alley a hundred yards behind us, slowly turning and heading south towards the Air Force Base. We watched them for a few seconds then I made another full scan of the area, not wanting to be surprised because we were watching some males that weren’t a threat at the moment.
Traversing across a roofline I thought I saw movement and quickly reversed direction, but couldn’t see anything when I focused back on the spot where I might have seen something. I stayed focused on the spot, telling Martinez and Rachel to keep scanning. Dog stopped growling as the males continued to move away from our position and after a minute I passed off what I thought I’d seen as a ghost in the optics.
“Clear,” I said softly.
Rachel and Martinez both confirmed they weren’t seeing any threats and I relaxed half a notch and began looking around for an alternate means of transportation. There were several cars parked along the curb closest to us and I walked over to them and began trying doors. All but one were locked up tightly. The door on a small Honda sedan opened, but there were no keys in the ignition.
I’d gotten lucky starting the Ford truck in Atlanta, but it was at least twenty years old and hadn’t had any fancy anti-theft features built in. The Honda was fairly new and I was reasonably certain it took the kind of key that had a microchip built in. Without that key the on-board computer wouldn’t allow the engine to start and run no matter what wires were connected.
Sure, there’s probably a way to steal one of the damn things. In fact it seemed like I’d seen an article a few months ago that said the Honda was one of the most commonly stolen cars in America. But that didn’t mean I had a clue how to go about doing it. Maybe I needed to start brining a teenager along.
Covering all my bases I checked the back seat, then popped the trunk in case there was something we could use to siphon fuel for the truck. Nothing. Other than an empty chewing gum wrapper the car was as clean as the day it rolled off the assembly line.
Making sure the girls were keeping an eye out for any unwelcome guests, I went back to the vehicles that had been locked and used a small flashlight to check their interiors. Lots of trash in some of them, others neat and clean like the Honda. The cargo area of a Hyundai SUV was stacked with boxes of cooking pots and pans, but I was striking out in finding anything that resembled a hose.
Walking to where Rachel and Martinez were standing watch with their backs to each other, I came to a stop and turned back to look at the SUV. Would it work? No reason it wouldn’t. Reversing course I came up to the rear of the vehicle and fired a couple of rounds from my suppressed rifle through the rear glass.
Vehicle safety glass doesn’t shatter when you shoot it. The bullet punches a hole through and weakens the laminated layers of glass and plastic in the immediate area. Reversing my rifle I used the stock to batter a hole through the glass large enough to reach in and release the catch. The door rose with a hiss of hydraulics and I grabbed three large stockpots and set them down on the pavement.
I shrugged out of my pack, dropped it on the ground and clicked the flashlight back on. Lying down on my back I slithered under the SUV, dragging one of the pots with me. I didn’t have to look hard to find the bottom of the gas tank. Moving one of the pots into position I drew my Ka-Bar and placed its tip against the thin metal wall of the tank. Holding the knife in my left hand I used the heel of my right to hammer on the pommel.
When you’ve been injured and your injuries are finally healing and no longer causing constant pain, you tend to forget about them. The first blow on the pommel of my knife reminded me that it wasn’t that long ago I had been nailed to a cross and not nearly enough time had gone by for my hands to completely heal. Fuck, that hurt!
Shaking my head I settled for crawling back out from under the Hyundai, aiming my rifle carefully and putting a round into the tank. A small, neat hole appeared in the bottom and gasoline began to slowly trickle into the pot. Yes, you can fire a weapon into a container of gasoline without causing it to ignite, regardless of what Hollywood has conditioned everyone to believe over the years.
Gasoline requires a spark, open flame or extreme heat to cause it to combust. A bullet will generally not provide any of those. Notable exceptions are tracer rounds that have a small chemical charge in the base that is ignited when the bullet is fired. There are also steel jacketed rounds that can spark upon striking steel, iron or stone. I was using US Military issue Full Metal Jacket bullets, but just because they’re metal doesn’t mean they will cause a spark. Anyway, I pulled it off without blowing myself up.
Watching the slow trickle of fuel I stood and moved to the side of the SUV where I pried the locked fueling door open with my knife. Twisting the fuel cap I removed it and went back to the rear and squatted down to see underneath. Removing the cap and creating a large vent hole worked. The fuel was now pouring out in a steady stream, quickly filling the pot.
I stood to check on Rachel and Martinez then had to squat back down and slide a new pot in place as the first one was mostly full. Careful not to spill any of the gasoline I carried it to the side of the truck and set it on the ground to open the fuel door. Snorting when I saw a locking gas cap, I started to raise the knife to break it off before thinking to check the keys in the ignition. Finding a key for the cap, I unlocked it and stood back looking at the filler neck.
There was no way I was going to be
able to pour fuel out of a cooking pot into the tank without spilling nearly all of it. While I tried to come up with a better idea, I had to go change pots again before the second one overflowed. As the new pot filled, I dug through the kitchen supplies in the vehicle and smiled when I found a stack of kitchen funnels. Grabbing the largest, I went back to the truck and after shoving the narrow end into the fuel neck lifted the pot and poured its contents into the tank without spilling a drop.
I was walking back to the SUV to change pots when I heard the sound of an approaching engine. Not trusting in the kindness or benevolence of strangers, I shouted for Rachel and Martinez and they came running, Dog trotting between them. The vehicle sounded loud in the silent city streets and it was hard to estimate how far away it was, but I didn’t want to waste time standing there guessing. Grabbing my pack off the ground I led the way into a narrow alley, looking through my rifle’s night vision scope long enough to make sure we weren’t walking into a nest of infected.
26
The alley was full of trash. Empty boxes were piled up near the entrance, crumpled sheets of newspaper spilling out of them. Even abandoned, I could smell the rank stench of body odor. Not the ripe stink from soldiers in the field for days on end, rather the cloying smell of a body, or bodies, that hadn’t seen soap and water for months. Glancing around I realized this had been where homeless had taken refuge, but they were gone now.
Rifle up as I crouched behind a box that had once held a washing machine, I watched the street. Dog was stretched out on his belly next to me, Rachel and Martinez farther back in the alley keeping an eye on our rear. The engine grew louder, noise reflecting off the hard faces of the buildings that lined the road. Then the vehicle turned a corner at an intersection a quarter of a mile away and headed our direction.
It was a Chevy Suburban, lifted up with big off-road tires. A heavy grill guard protected the front and a large bank of high-intensity LED lights was mounted to it. They were on, illuminating the whole area in a stark, white light. The vehicle approached slowly, engine burbling in the dark behind the brilliant lights, coming to a stop nose to nose with our truck.
