Road to Grissom: Part three of the Aftermath series

by Duncan McArdle

  But somehow, despite John having seemingly approached in utter silence, a nearby elderly man began to slowly turn his decrepit head, eventually settings its gaze on the two men to its rear.

  “God damn it”, John whispered under his breath, now knowing that he’d have the difficult task of taking down the biter in silence so as not to draw further attention, and worse still that he’d need to do so without the aid of a melee weapon.

  “I got it”, Devon said from behind, bringing up the rear before overtaking John towards the Focus, and stopping at its rear end, where he promptly popped open the boot.

  Raising his pistol in the direction of the approaching elderly man, John readied his trigger finger in case the need to act arose, and waited for Devon to re-emerge, something he did several seconds later, with the crowbar from the car now in his hand.

  Moving away from the vehicle, Devon gripped the crowbar firmly, angling its more pointed end forwards, and began tracking the old man’s movements. But before he could strike, he couldn’t help but notice that despite his much closer proximity to the target, John remained the only thing the biter had any interest in. It was, for some reason, going for the more difficult meal, and it wasn’t until Devon looked over at John once more that he discovered why.

  Moving forwards, Devon decided to act prior to giving an explanation. Reclining his right arm so as to build up as much momentum as possible, he tensed his muscles and all but launched the crowbar forwards, embedding the pointed end straight into the side of the old man’s head. The squelching sound that came of the manoeuvre more evidence than had been needed in order to point out that this particular biter was a particularly rotten specimen.

  Withdrawing the crowbar once he was sure the last remaining traces of life had been extinguished, Devon turned to John and looked the man up and down. “They can smell the blood”, he pointed out.

  John couldn’t believe he’d forgotten. The blood he’d tearfully taken from his fallen friend in order to assist with their escape was still pasted all over his body, giving off a stench that both John and Devon were now so used to that they’d begun to block out, but one that remained the single most tantalising smell imaginable for the dead.

  Barely seconds after making the realisation however, the sound of groaning filtered in from a little further down the street. More of the undead were beginning to catch John’s scent, and were now each quickly approaching the two living men, knowing something delicious was just a few short metres away.

  “Here”, Devon said, walking briefly over to the Ford and withdrawing a bottle of water stashed down the back of the trunk, “Wash as much off as you can, I’ll take care of this”, he said, cocking back the handle of his HK416 and then walking around to the side of the car.

  Quickly emptying the bottle over himself – knowing they had more than enough back at base – John began hurriedly removing as much of the blood as he could, hoping enough of the scent would go with it so as to solve their current predicament. But even John, someone with an expert skill when it came to concentration and dedication to a task, couldn’t help but look up to watch the show.

  Devon was of course a trained marksman, and a damn good one at that. Specialising in closer quartered combat than what John was used to, it was common knowledge that Devon was a force to be reckoned with when assault rifles were the ideal weapon. But John had never seen the man take down a series of biters alone before, and it certainly made for an impressive sight.

  Taking enough steps forward so as to bring his targets within the perfect range, Devon eventually stopped still just alongside the Ford. Raising his assault rifle into position, he tucked in his right shoulder and pressed his cheek against the stock, allowing his right eye to look down the scope of the gun. Lining up his first shot, Devon flicked the weapon to semi-automatic, and then let off the first of several shots.

  The man’s performance was almost majestic. His aim appeared to switch from target to target with the efficiency of a robot, not once over or underestimating the amount of swivel needed to lock on to the next headshot. It looked to an observer like he was replaying something he’d practised thousands of times before, yet the reality was that in this moment, taking on these targets in this formation, he was coming up against this exact situation for the very first time.

  The first shot soared through the head of the nearest target – a particularly small and petite woman – and flew clean out of the back, eventually dropping to the ground some distance up the street, once it had lost the last of its momentum. The second followed soon after, finding the side of another woman’s head and burying itself deep within it, unable to force its way back out of the other side, but doing more than enough damage to bring the biter down nonetheless.

  Moving on, Devon lined up and subsequently fired off four more shots at a lightning like pace. He did so with such speed in fact that even John’s incredibly well trained reflexes were stumped by the third shot, his gaze struggling to keep up with which of the biters were being targeted in this latest round of gunfire. The display was truly mesmerising, and only continued to improve.

  Over the next fifteen seconds, Devon singled out, took aim at, and subsequently one-shotted the remaining seven biters without taking a single secondary attempt, any tidying up seemingly unnecessary despite having achieved in less than thirty seconds what would take most several minutes and a whole lot more bullets to do. Devon then simply lowered his rifle, took a deep breath, and then turned back to John to check on the progress of the other ongoing task.

  “Now that was impressive”, John said, before quickly returning to dab down one of the worst patches of dried blood.

  “Thanks”, Devon said, his somewhat cocky nature unable to hide the pride he felt at that moment.

  “You missed one though”, John laughed.

  Devon’s face straightened out immediately, before he snapped back around to face the battlefield, where one of the final biters remained upright, despite the seemingly perfect rally of gunfire.

  Screwing up his face slightly, Devon looked down the scope at the staggering man only to find that he had indeed landed a seemingly perfect headshot on the beast, yet here it was continuing to make its way slowly towards them. Taking aim once more, Devon placed the crosshairs dead centre to the man’s nose, and took another shot, this time pummelling straight through the middle of his face and coming clean out the rear of his head, and sending him clattering down to the ground below.

  “I hate it when they do that”, Devon remarked, incredibly nonchalant about the situation.

  “You and me both”, John said before finishing his task and running quickly over to the driver-side of the Ford, where he promptly clambered into the seat, his clothes wet with an odd mixture of bottled water and re-hydrated blood.

  Almost immediately, the Ford’s engine roared once more into life.

  Chapter 41: Looking both ways

  Turning right onto the main road that they’d sighted the convoy on earlier, John felt oddly liberated by the knowledge that they were now on the one street that would take them the entire rest of the way along their journey. The camp was still a fair distance away from their current position, but at least now they were on their way back, and in a vehicle more than capable of handling the journey.

  Their immediate pace was quick, but not as quick as it could have been. Whilst the Ford’s meaty RS engine was able to deliver some serious power, it was the serious noise that came with it that was causing John to refrain from putting his foot down. He knew the vehicle could get them to their destination quick, but if it did so whilst also drawing attention from every darkened alley on the way, their arrival might bring more bad luck than good back to the camp.

  Accordingly, John had adopted an earlier approach for traversing the common grid-layout of the city. Accelerating to a decent but not ridiculous pace, both sets of eyes in the car would seek out any signs of danger whilst travelling along a block, and then John would slow them to a stop as they
reached the crossroads in front, before looking both ways, and eventually deciding whether or not to continue forwards.

  The system was not only far from fast, but also heavy on fuel. Regularly accelerating from a standstill, only to then come to a halt a little further down the street was obviously a long way from being economical, and only produced short bursts of progress to show for it. Had they been heading out rather than in, then burning this much fuel would have meant emptying the tank long before they had a chance to come back.

  Of course, if John wanted, he could do things more economically. Crawling along the block would mean no need to slow down or speed up, and would eventually get them to the camp all the same. But John couldn’t help but shake the feeling that even though he could see no convoy up ahead, there was every chance that what remained of the stadium’s small army could be headed right for the Chicago base.

  Covering roughly a block every minute, the duo had soon made their way around a quarter of the way back to camp, and had thus far done so uneventfully. Despite occasional sightings of the dead – who were predominantly seen wandering around in the alleys and behind fences they’d gotten themselves stuck on the wrong side of – the area seemed quiet, which considering the once overrun state of Chicago, was fairly encouraging.

  But just before the eighth block, things abruptly changed. Around twenty metres prior to arriving at the next set of crossroads, John suddenly veered off to the right, slamming on the brakes and skidding the car into an almost perfect parking position right up against the curb, sending Devon’s head lurching forwards.

  “What are you-“.

  “They’re coming, get down”, John instructed, to which Devon immediately obeyed without question.

  Almost instantly, the front of a non-descript pickup truck just narrowly came into view up ahead, approaching from the right and then stopping dead as if waiting for the lights to change. Seconds later, a black Jeep 4x4 much like the one John and Devon had encountered earlier that day came hurtling up the side of the pickup and pulled right into the centre of the crossroads, where a familiar face then stood up from the rear of the vehicle.

  Easily within shooting distance – much less sighting distance – the man known as Rust stood tall and began spinning on the spot, looking in each direction along the long roads stretching further than the eye could see in every direction. It was all John could do not to fire off a shot with his M4, but given the possibility this might be only a small part of the convoy, he knew better than to give away their position, or enter into a firefight they might be vastly outnumbered in.

  Beads of sweat began forming on both John and Devon’s foreheads as they lay low in their seats, watching and waiting for a decision to be made. If Rust spotted the Ford – which was significantly less dirty than the other cars parked along the street – and came over, there was going to be a real issue. But worse still, if they were to decide to turn right, and in doing so begin heading directly towards the camp, John and Devon were going to have to either fight them, or race them.

  Watching intently, John’s eyes flicked between the three available routes the man could take, waiting for Rust to make a decision. He listened to his heart beating heavier and heavier, felt his body getting hotter and hotter, and before long realised he was gripping the bottom of the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were going white from a lack of blood. Relaxing his grip, John looked up one final time, just in time to see Rust point forwards, and drive straight across the crossroads away from John and Devon, and away from the camp.

  “Thank god”, John said alongside a long exhale, watching as he did the initial pickup following close behind the Jeep.

  “How did you know they were coming?”, Devon asked, both men still remaining low in the car.

  “Caught a reflection in one of the storefronts”, John explained, pointing through the dashboard in the direction of one of the corner stores, “Saw a bunch of cars coming right towards us”.

  “Good job they didn’t see us”, Devon pointed out, as he now watched at least ten different vehicles go sailing across the intersection.

  John made every effort to pay attention to the kind of force moving past, but it was difficult from his current position. Just barely able to see over the steering wheel, he could get a rough count on people, and better still make out some of the key pieces of weaponry – including at least two large machine guns that were mounted to the top of their respective vehicles – but couldn’t make any guarantees that what he thought he saw was accurate. Despite now having seen this force moving on two separate occasions, he still felt like he knew little to nothing about it.

  Around thirty seconds after the final vehicle had passed, John eventually gave the signal for the two men to resume their normal seating positions. After belting themselves back in, the Ford eventually began moving once more, now quite literally crawling towards the intersection in front, both men looking left and right as quickly as they could manage, and neither of them convinced they’d seen the last of the convoy.

  Unfortunately, both were right.

  But they didn’t see the group continuing to appear from the right, nor did they see it doing a U-turn and heading back their way. Instead, what they saw was the back few vehicles of the convoy on what was now their left-hand side, turning right into an adjacent street, placing themselves once more on course for the seaside camp John and Devon were hoping they knew nothing about, and then heading towards it.

  Suddenly the adrenaline in John’s body began to surge. Whilst driving slowly and carefully might be the key to getting them back in one piece with as small a tail of the dead as possible, it now seemed significantly less valuable than if they were able to get back in time to warn everybody of an impending attack. It was time to take things up a notch, and thankfully for John, he had the perfect car to do it.

  Slamming his foot down, John gave the instruction for the RS to come to life, an order it happily obeyed. With the exhaust suddenly blanketing the area in a deep, meaty roar, the engine revving hard, and the wheels screeching into life, the whole thing simply leapt off of what now felt like a racetrack’s starting line, and began surging forwards along the street in front, covering the intersection in barely a second, and before long was hurtling along the next block.

  Devon didn’t say a word. He’d seen the convoy’s last second turn, and more importantly, he’d seen the size of it. He’d seen the weapons and the mounted guns, and he knew they were most likely loaded up with explosives. He knew that now was no longer the time for caution and optimism but rather, now was the time to put the pedal to the metal, and get back to camp in time to make a stand against the same group of assholes that had killed his friend.

  With buildings flashing by to the side so quickly that their huge storefront signs turned to a blurry, unreadable mess, the Ford was hitting seventy miles per hour long before they reached the next intersection. Devon struggled to make out any details on their left as they passed through, and failed to spot more than the blurry outline of a vehicle further down the street. But what he knew for sure, was that the convoy it belonged to was now driving in parallel with the Ford.

  “They’re right alongside us”, Devon yelled over the noise of the raging engine.

  “Not for long”, John pointed out, his foot remaining anchored to the floor as the car continued to pick up speed.

  Seventy turned to ninety, and ninety turned to one-hundred-ten, and before long they were consuming blocks with such a pace that it no longer seemed worthwhile looking to the side; they were clearly well out in front. John wasn’t even bothering to try and look, he was focused solely on the task ahead, and knew that travelling at this speed meant focus was the least he could do, especially given he was responsible not only for himself, but for his passenger as well.

  Before long they were approaching the final stretch in the lead up to the camp, a part of the city so overrun that John knew he needed to slow down. In addition, the roads were beginning to get bumpy, whi
ch was no laughing matter when you were travelling at over a hundred miles-per-hour. Every tiny bump felt like you had hit a ramp, and a single body wandering out in front of you could pierce right through the windscreen at a moment’s notice.

  Slowing the vehicle, John began to see familiar sights that allowed him to gauge their distance to camp. He saw the hairdressers that had “No bald people” written across their window, the gay bar with some questionable images pinned up outside, the car-parks that had once charged extortionate and unrealistic inner-city prices, and before long he’d begun to see the familiar signs of the military’s last stand in Chicago.

  Bullet holes littered the walls, occasionally embedding a shade of red into the brickwork where someone or something had caught the tiny piece of metal before it had finished its journey. Large holes left behind by the explosive shells of tanks and airstrikes littered the road. Glass from the broken windows of buildings and vehicles was spread so consistently around that it began to look like just another type of flooring. The place looked like a warzone, but that was exactly how John knew he was home.

  Turning right off of the main street, John continued for another block along the decrepit remains of Chicago’s underbelly, before turning left for the final approach to the base’s front entrance, an important point in their re-entry procedure. Slowing the car down to a much more respectable speed, he lowered all of the vehicle’s windows, set the car on a direct path for the front gates, and then placed both of his arms far out of the window, his hands waving in the air.

  This marked what was arguably the most dangerous part of their return home. Though it was difficult to tell, there were as many as twenty or thirty rifles pointed at them at that exact moment, ready to rinse any approaching group if they weren’t seen as familiar to those on duty. Having their hands outside of the car removed suspicion that they might be preparing to open fire from inside of the vehicle, but it far from guaranteed they wouldn’t be shot on sight all the same.