I wasn’t sure where this was going, but Trudy turned the tide for Dave as she tossed a shirt out the door of the RV. It smacked into the side of Dave’s head and wrapped around it.
“You didn’t say you were married,” Trudy said.
“Trudy, honey,” Dave said, pulling the shirt away from his face. “Things are happening fast for all of us…”
This line seemed like a cue because the sound of gunshots came from the south of us. I jerked my head in that direction and saw small flashes off in the distance.
“Times up,” I said. “We have to start moving.”
A pair of high-top sneakers came out the door of the RV and skittered across the pavement toward Dave. He stood with his arms out, looking pathetic.
More gunshots came our way and I saw car headlights breaking away from the endless line of cars south of us. Some bounced along in the backcountry and disappeared into the night. Some stopped abruptly in what I could only imagine were crashes with trees, boulders, or ditches. Another car sped along the shoulder, more off the road than on it, and canted at dangerous angle. I saw silhouettes jumping out of the way and barely making it. The sound of metal on metal broke through the oncoming chaos as one of the cars heading up the road clipped the back end of an over-sized pickup truck. The car jumped in the air and flipped over, spilling people and the contents of the car onto the road and the backcountry scrub. Screaming joined the gunshots now.
There was only one thing that could cause that sort of panic and that was zombies.
“What’s going on?” Rosalita said.
“The zombies have caught up with the back of the traffic jam,” I said. “We have to get moving.”
“Should we take one of the vehicles?” Randell said.
Another car broke from the pack behind us and started speeding up the shoulder. It made it about a hundred yards before its back tires lost their purchase on the loose packed soil and spun out of control, smashing into the back of another car. A car horn blared into the chaos.
“I think it’s too dangerous to try to drive out of this,” I said. “We only have a few miles before we get to the border.”
“How are we getting across the bridge if the soldier’s won’t let us cross?” Sammy asked.
“We’ll cross that figurative and literal bridge when we get to it,” I said. “Now, let’s move!”
Huck, Jane, and Jay didn’t need any more convincing and started up the road. Sammy and Rosalita joined them as did Randell and Carla. That left Joni, the kids, and Dave. They stood locked in indecision. Dave looked like he wanted to head back to RV and take his chances there but the door slammed on the side of it cutting off the light.
“It looks like we’re headed north,” he said and started trudging that way.
Joni and the kids fell in behind him and I took up the rear. We passed by the other vehicles on the road as passengers craned their heads out the windows and look southward. Some looked afraid while others had excited looks in their eyes after the boredom of sitting for two days on the road. They had no idea what was coming their way. I could only guess they hadn’t seen the zombies up-close and personal like we had.
Some called to us, asking questions, as we passed by on the shoulder, but I ignored them. The gunshots intensified. We had to start making better time or else the tidal wave that was coming our way would sweep over us.
We passed by a cornfield when I heard a buzzing from behind us. The buzzing quickly transitioned into a motorized roar and we were forced to duck in between cars as two dirt bikes shot by us heading north at a reckless speed.
“What the hell?” Dave said.
“They’re just trying to get ahead of the shit storm coming our way,” I said.
“How do you know that zombies are coming?” he asked.
“Trust him,” Joni said, “they’re coming.”
“Mom, I’m scared,” Martin said.
“Don’t be a wus,” Dave said.
“Don’t talk to him that way,” Joni said.
“He’s my son and I’ll talk to him anyway I want,” Dave said.
“Hey!” I said. “We don’t have time for family drama.”
I walked ahead of them and assumed they would follow. I heard their footsteps a couple seconds later. I took periodic glances behind us and saw more cars trying to break from the pack. Some made it while others floundered, either getting caught up in the traffic jam or getting hung up once they got off the road. Few actually made it and I would imagine those were vehicles with four-wheel drive. I also saw more and more silhouettes of people taking our two-legged escape route heading up the road behind us.
Headlights cut through the darkness coming from the north, bouncing around like a pair of crazy eyes, coming our way. After a few seconds, I could make out the outline of a Humvee bounding our way just off the right of the highway. I saw the silhouette of a gunner manning a .30 caliber machine gun sticking out the top of the vehicle. They closed on us and I wondered if they would stop, but they just kept heading south as fast as they could. Less than a minute later two more came by on our side of the road and I saw three heading south on the other side. Things were getting serious. At that point, I didn’t know just how serious they really were.
Since I had hung back with Joni, Dave and the kids, a slight separation had formed between our two groups with Jay, Huck and the others being about thirty feet ahead of us. I tried to keep them in my sights as I checked behind me for any fun that may be on its way. The shooting seemed to be picking up behind us, but I was shocked when a shot sounded in front of me. I was even more shocked when I saw it coming from our other group.
Huck stood on the shoulder of the road firing at a pickup truck stuck among the other vehicles. At that point, that’s all I knew. The story began to unfold as someone in the pickup truck returned fire. I saw people from our leading group split in two with some diving for cover over the guardrail and some running forward. The people running forward jumped behind the first car they could find. Huck stood unafraid, firing at the pickup not realizing that while he had a big gun, the people in the truck had the cover the truck while he was out in the open.
“Keep the kids back,” I said to Joni as I ducked down and started moving forward using the cover of the vehicles to mask my advance.
Screams came from a car beside me and when I looked in, I saw a mother jumping over into the back seat to cover up her two kids. More shots were exchanged and when I jerked my head forward, Huck spun around violently and fell onto the side of the road, his gun clattering along the pavement.
A dark form jumped from the back of the pickup and moved forward with a gun trained on Huck’s body. A shot rang out from just off the road and the figure ducked down. It had to be Jane or Jay. Shots came from the truck directed into the darkness. No more shots came from the side of the road. The figure moved over Huck and I watched as it aimed a rifle at him.
Just as I had been trained, I whipped up my gun and squeezed off three quick shots, at least one of them hit home as the figure grunted and fell over. I decided it was best not to stay where I was and slid behind cars and made my way up the road between the two lanes heading north. I ducked walked up the side of the two cars and got directly behind the pickup when I saw a head poking up from the bed, looking back where I had been.
“Willy?” One of them called in a half-whisper. “Willy! How bad you hit?”
Willy didn’t respond. Someone in the bed of the pickup said, “Shit, I think they killed Willy.”
Another voice, deep and resonant, spoke and sounded like it was coming from the cab of the pickup, “We’re going to have to get those two that went off the side of the road.”
The first voice asked, “But what about the one that shot Willy?”
“Get him, too,” the second voice said.
“Why don’t you?” the first voice asked.
“You want me to shoot you first and then do your damned job?” the second voice asked, but it was less of a ques
tion and more of a threat. The inside man clearly was in command.
I caught two shadows coming up from the car in front of the pickup. In the dim moonlight I could see it was Sammy and someone else that I couldn’t identify. Both had assault rifles, though. I waved my hand trying to get his attention and hoped he didn’t shoot first and ask questions later. He stopped dead in his tracks, but didn’t fire on me.
“Shee-it,” the first voice said and I saw a figure slowly rise in the bed of the pickup and look over the side. The figure aimed into the darkness beside the road and popped off three quick shots. I had no idea where Jay and Jane were, but they were most likely pinned down. At least, that’s what I hoped.
I motioned for Sammy to wait, then made some hand gestures that I hope he could, first see, and then second, figure out. My hand commands were meant to state that we should advance on the pickup at the same time. He must have gotten the message because he stayed in place and nodded his head. I started forward a couple seconds later and so did he and his shadowy companion.
Slowly, we converged on the pickup together. As soon as I made it past the front of the car I was using for cover, I sprung forward with my gun aimed at the guy in the back of the pickup.
“Don’t move!” I shouted. “Or else I blow your guts all over the highway.”
The man in the back froze in place.
Sammy stood just in front of the pickup, aiming his rifle into the cab. Carla stood beside him doing likewise. It surprised me to see that she had joined in the fighting.
Something moved in the cab and a flash filled the interior accompanied by the sound of a gunshot. Sammy ducked down, but Carla stood firm and let rip with her rifle. Bullets exploded into the cab, shattering glass, smacking into metal and flesh. The man in the back dropped his rifle over the side and fell into the bed of the pickup while Carla emptied her clip, the muzzle flashes from the barrel of her rifle lighting up the dark like a violent, but contained fireworks show.
Even at the distance I was standing away, I could hear her finger depressing the trigger despite the fact that her clip was empty. A shadow moved up behind her and I saw that it was Randell. I jumped onto the back bumper of the pickup and aimed down at the man now cowering in the bed of the pickup.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” the man cried out.
“Do you have any more weapons?” I asked.
“No, no, no,” the man said. “My rifles out on the road.”
“Why were you shooting at these people?” I asked.
“We saw all them coming by with some assault rifles. Duke said we should get their guns to get across the bridge.”
“So, you were going to shoot my friends and take their weapons?”
“No, we asked for them, but that one fella didn’t want to give them up and he shot at me when I aimed at him.”
“Who’s Duke?” I asked.
“The guy who’s probably dead inside the pickup.”
“Sammy, is he dead?”
Sammy moved cautiously toward the cab, took a quick peek in, and then relaxed. “Yes. Very dead.”
Randell stood with his arms around Carla. Tears ran down her face and I could tell she was trembling.
“Jay, Jane, it’s safe to come out,” I shouted as I jumped down. “Watch him,” I said to Sammy, ”then made my way to Huck who still lay in the road. When I got to him, I saw Jay coming up the small incline next to the road. His face was white and he seemed nearly in shock. Jane moved unsteadily beside him. She looked shaken, too.
Huck lay very still, but I could hear him breathing. It was labored as if each breath were a struggle. I stood over him, frozen in place, just as uncertain of what to do next as they were. This pause in the action lasted for several seconds as if there was a mandatory timeout called by the big guy upstairs.
A crowd of people from other cars started to form around us, but Jane peeled off a profane laced tirade at them that would have made a sailor blush and they dispersed. She also said she’d shoot them and I wasn’t sure that she didn’t mean it from the crazed look on her face.
Footsteps came from behind me and before I could even turn to look, Rosalita steamed by me as fast as her geriatric legs could carry her. I noticed that she was carrying the first aid kit from the truck. She quickly knelt beside Huck and started assessing the situation.
“Grant, down here,” she said. “I need your help.”
I still stood like a statue, locked in place.
“Come now!” she yelled and that knocked me out of my trance and I knelt beside her. She handed me a thick wad of gauze and said, “Press that hard on the wound, there.” Blood pulsed out of small hole midway down Huck’s torso.
I hesitated and she chided me again. “He’ll die if we don’t get the bleeding to stop.”
I pressed the bandage down hard on the wound. Huck looked limp and lifeless, but moaned and his eyes fluttered open as applied pressure. “I got those sons of bitches, didn’t I?”
“You sure did,” I said. “You sure did, buddy.” That was the best of my bedside manner.
“You were a regular Bruce Willis,” Jay said moving in behind me.
“A real badass,” Jane said, but tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Am I going to die?” Huck asked.
“No way,” I said, putting on a confident smile, but not feeling much behind it. “You’re going to be fine. Rosalita’s working on you.”
Rosalita pulled up his shirt and taped the bandage down as tightly as she could.
“It hurts like hell,” he said and coughed. Blood stained his lips and teeth.
“We need to see if the bullet’s still in him,” Rosalita whispered to me.
“How the hell do we do that?” I asked.
“Roll him up,” she said. “I’ll check for an exit wound.”
“How do you know about something like that?”
“My husband,” she said and genuflected, “God rest his soul, was a real hijo de puto. You know what I’m saying, right? He had a bad temper. Not with me, Si. But it got him a lot of fights.” She stopped talking for a moment and focused on what she was doing. “Grab him there, and push him up.” She pointed at a place on his shoulder and his side. I gently grabbed those two spots and pulled Huck up. He groaned but offered no resistance.
Rosalita probed the area on his back, projecting the trajectory of the bullet and guessed where the exit wound was. Her hand came back thick with blood.
“That’s a good sign,” she said. “I think the bullet passed through him.” She wiped some of the blood off her hand onto his shirt. “Roll him over,” she said. “I need to put a bandage on the exit wound.”
I did as she said and she went to work. It only took about a couple minutes and she had him patched up best as she could.
“He’s in no state to travel,” she said.
I looked to the south where I could hear the unrelenting pounding of the .30 caliber machine guns on the Humvees. There was a little war going on down there and I was guessing it was a war the soldiers weren’t winning if my experience with the undead counted for anything. Unlike a conventional enemy, the zombies didn’t care about casualties. Their morale didn’t suffer when a hundred of their colleagues were torn apart by a stream of hot lead. They just kept coming and would down to their last undead man.
“We can’t stay here,” I said.
“We move him too far and he could die,” she said.
“We stay on this road and we all are going to die,” I said.
“I see a light off to the east of the road,” Jay said over my shoulder. “It looks like a house. Maybe we could go there?”
Looking that way, I could see a dim light off in the distance. The problem was how to move Huck.
“Anything in that truck we could use to move Huck?” I asked Sammy who was keeping an eye on our “captive.”
“There’s one of those outdoor lounge chairs,” he said.
“That’ll work,” I said. “Jay, go ove
r and get it.”
After he walked away, Rosalita moved in beside me and said in a low whisper, “If the bullet nicked an artery, that boy is going to bleed out and there’s nothing we can do for him.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. It seemed that while the zombies wanted us dead, the living were doing a hell of a job in that department, too.
Jay got the lounge chair and it took some doing, but we worked as gently as possible, moving Huck on to the chair using it like a half-baked stretcher. He still cried out a couple of times. The best we had in the first aid kit for pain was extra-strength Tylenol and that wouldn’t cut Huck’s pain much. Jay offered up some pills from his stash and we gave Huck a couple of those.
“Let’s move,” I said, taking a glance southward. The sound of the battle was still going on and I could see the flashes of multiple guns.
“What do I do about him?” Sammy asked, pointing his rifle at the man in the bed of the pickup.
Something in me wanted to say, “Shoot him,” but I couldn’t do that.
“Take any weapons left in the truck and leave him,” I said.
“But I’ll need a gun to protect myself against the zombies,” the man cried out.
“You should have thought of that before you started shooting at our friends,” I said. “You’re lucky we don’t shoot you.” We moved forward with Huck in between us, but I stopped our convoy after a couple feet and turned back to the man. “If you get any ideas about following us, just know I’ll shoot you. Got it?”
“Sure,” the man said.
“Count to a million before you even poke your head up,” I said as we started moving again. “Anything less and you’ll get a bullet between the eyes.”
I doubted he could count past fifty, but I had to set some standards.
Many of the bystanders watched as we carted Huck off the road and started across the field, but none of them offered to help or asked any questions. Taking care of their own was taking up all their energy, I guess.
We were halfway across the field when a roaring sound came from the north and we all paused for a moment and looked in that direction, watching the night sky. The roar got louder and became more rhythmic, almost pounding. Lights appeared in the sky, seeming to float in the darkness. Five seconds later, three Huey Cobras whooshed over us and headed south. We kept moving, but slower, monitoring the progress of the choppers.
Forget The Zombies (Book 2): Forget Texas Page 9
