The bestial shriek of a Runner tore through the air, Billy and Tim turning to face it. Billy glanced over his shoulder to see Danny and Joy destroy the two shuffling monstrosities who barred entrance to the alley. Anders had to evade the outstretched, reaching claws of the half a dozen vanguard of the undead force streaming down the street behind them. Many of the things followed the living into the backstreet, but many more headed toward Tim and Billy.
Tim sighed. “Danny will take good care of the kids.” He sighted the Runner and dropped it with a chest shot. He aimed at several other undead and put down six more with headshots. “It was nice to meet you,” Tim told Billy and fired twice more.
“Meet me? It’s almost like you think you’re going somewhere. We’re going to be besties after this.” Billy strode to a black vehicle with the driver’s side door open. He smiled and openly laughed out loud. “Epic.” Looking back at Tim, he said the word again, “Epic, right?” Billy rushed to the back of the vehicle, opening the rear door. He checked the inside and it was empty except for a silver casket.
“In you go!”
Tim blinked, holding the bandage on his hip. “Really?”
Billy pointed behind Tim. “It’s this or them.”
Tim didn’t even look and hobbled to the vehicle, climbing in the back. Billy closed the tinted window of the dusty hearse and spun to face the oncoming horde.
“Even the hurricane is afraid of the ninja,” he blurted. He narrowed his eyes and strode forward, his new sword raised high.
A dead thing lurched into Danny’s path from behind a blue dumpster and he cracked it in the face with his AR15. It dropped to the ground and he stomped its fragile skull, the contents erupting onto the newspaper-strewn asphalt. Danny brought the group to the door of the Chevron service station. The two tall, steel garage doors were down and locked closed, but the lock he had previously applied to the entry door himself was missing.
“Shit!” He glanced in front of him, and half a hundred of the things were now bearing down on them slowly from the short alley. He got the same view when he looked behind.
Anders showed up huffing and he pointed to the door with the lock removed. “Don’t like that!”
“No choice,” Danny said and pushed the door open. The rest of the group followed him through.
Several beams of sunlight streamed through the high garage-door windows slicing through the gloom of the garage bay. Dust was illuminated as it floated through the air. The sunlight glinted off some pre-apocalypse equipment. Silver toolbox handles, the rear window of a sedan up on a lift, the chrome of a forgotten wrench on the floor.
Danny flipped on a small tactical flashlight, panning it around the bays. “Joy, Anders, help me clear the garage. Tina, keep the kids with you and secure the door.” He moved off with his friends to search the place for threats.
Tina was sweating profusely when she strode to a tall red toolbox. “Help me?” she asked Kyle and both kids moved to assist her with pushing the heavy box against the door. It was on wheels, but extremely heavy. They were able to get it against the door with some effort. The unit was taller than the dirty entrance window, not allowing an outside view into the garage. Tina pulled out two of the drawers on the box, yanked out some screwdrivers, and fell to her hands and knees. She drove the screwdrivers into the casters, effectively blocking them, making the heavy barrier more immobile. She stood and locked all four casters with her foot as well.
The cacophony of the undead hordes outside reached a crescendo as the two groups of infected met in front of the door. No thuds came and Tina thought that was weird. The dead must have seen the living run into this building. The creatures never gave up pursuit and should be attacking the door, but other than the sounds the things make, there was no indication they were trying to get in.
Tina tapped Kyle on the shoulder, indicating the kids should follow her. A small step ladder leaned against a wall and Tina unfolded it next to the four-door Crown Victoria police car up on the lift.
She nodded to Kyle. “Look inside the car. If there’s nothing inside, we get in and wait it out up there.” Kyle climbed the ladder, peered inside, and then opened the passenger door. Although dusty, the car was relatively new, but its door creaked like the vehicle had been sitting in a junk lot rusting for twenty years. The noises of the dead outside increased in volume and thumping began on the walls, garage doors, and the entry door. The toolbox barrier shuddered.
Danny, Anders, and Joy rushed back into the room, weapons raised and looking for danger.
Danny pointed at Kyle on the ladder. “Good idea!”
Kyle scrambled into the police car, hitting the button to open all the doors. A mesh grate separated the front and back seats. He climbed around the outside of the vehicle to get into the back just as Vanessa jumped into the front seat. Tina flew up the ladder, terror on her face, when the entry door gave way. The toolbox was nothing more than an afterthought and pushed sideways into the room.
The dead flooded into the room and Tina pushed herself into the car with a mighty shove for her small frame. Anders and Danny began to fire into the crowd from the garage floor as Joy scaled the ladder, mounted the hood of the car, and began shooting her lever-action rifle from her elevated position.
“Get up! Get up here!” Tina screamed.
Danny did some quick math and realized that there was no way both he and Anders would make the safety of the car before they were overwhelmed. Anders clicked empty and rushed forward, using his rifle as a club, trying to stem the tide of the dead entering the building.
“Go Danny!” he bellowed and crushed the skull of a dead little girl. One of the things grabbed Anders by the shirt and closed its teeth on his shoulder. He yelled and swung his rifle-club into the thing, the creature’s lower jaw breaking loose and hanging to one side. Danny began to move forward as he fired, but he also clicked empty. Letting his rifle dangle and drawing his revolver, he fired six more times until that went empty too. A dead man in scrubs that were at one time blue grabbed Anders’ rifle and the living man drew his knife, driving it into the eye socket of the dead nurse. He was being steadily pushed back
The garage continued to fill with dead. Danny wanted to save his friend, but also knew that the man was doomed with the shoulder bite. Sgt. Martin holstered his revolver and gripped his rifle tightly as he rushed up the ladder. He hadn’t been fast enough. Two of the things had gotten behind Anders and had gone for Danny. He had his hands on the doorframe of the car, gripping the seatbelt with his left and the interior armrest with his right. He was heaving himself into the car when he felt an undead hand on his pant-leg. It slowed him enough that another thing was able to get two hands on his other leg. He felt the ladder go out from under him and he dangled in space, with the two dead things attached for a moment before Tina and Vanessa grabbed his arms and pulled.
Anders started screaming and so did Danny, who kicked and fought to pull away from his attackers. Two crazy-loud reports and he was free. He scuttled into the car, looking through the window at Joy, who shifted her aim to someplace behind him.
Danny looked back at Anders to see him on his back, punching and kicking the kneeling and reaching forms. Several of the things were ripping into him and Danny was able to see arterial spray before Joy put a bullet in Anders’ forehead. She lay on her back on the hood of the police car, her rifle across her chest, breathing heavily.
“Don’t look, honey,” Danny told Vanessa and had her turn around in the front seat.
She squeezed his hand and looked up at him. “You shouldn’t look either.”
Danny smiled and squeezed back. “You remind me of my little girl.”
Vanessa looked scared. “Is she…?”
“I don’t know. She lives in Arkansas with her husband. I hope and pray every day that she’s okay.”
Vanessa clasped her hands together and began to silently mouth words.
“What are you doing?” Kyle asked from the back seat.
&nbs
p; “Praying,” Vanessa answered.
The first thing Tim noticed when he climbed into the back of the hearse was the heat. It was damn hot in there. It was pretty gloomy too. He looked out the dark tinted windows at the hordes of undead who streamed in his direction. A thump from the casket almost made him shit himself and he whipped his head around so fast he tweaked a nerve in his neck.
He sighed, rubbing this new injury. A couple more thumps emanated from the coffin and he sighed again.
“Perfect.”
Tim drew his knife and felt around for the catch on the silver box. He found it and released it, the top part of the unit coming free. He smiled as it slowly rose and a hand sluggishly snaked out and rested on the side.
It looks exactly like every vampire movie ever made, he thought. Except this undead wants more than just my blood.
The occupant of the casket hadn’t figured out that it could just push the lid with its hand and kept trying to sit up instead. It finally pushed the short lid up enough that it could turn its head. It looked the wrong way, at the lid itself, and Tim had to smile.
“Hey, dickwad,” he said and it turned toward him.
It had been a younger man but was now a dried-out husk. Emaciated, it looked like a stiff breeze would completely destroy it. It opened its mouth and when it did, the left side of its top lip tore off and dangled as it reached for its food.
Tim thrust his blade into the thing’s right eye and it ceased all movement. Outside, several of the creatures had reached his sanctuary and had begun to slap and smack at the exterior.
“Shit.”
Tim began to pull the re-killed dead man out of the casket. The thing came out in pieces as each time Tim gave a yank, he pulled off another portion of the man. The window opposite him spider-webbed then caved in slightly and a decaying arm poked through the opening. The skin of the creature tore off on the exposed glass and black-purple muscle was all that was left.
Tim shimmied feet first into the coffin, doing his best to ignore the pain in his hip. He stared up at the shredded white linen of the coffin’s interior and nodded. “Comfy. Pity nobody will ever use another one of these.” The thing which had inhabited this place before him had scratched and torn the linen on the top lid almost completely away in its efforts to escape its erstwhile confinement.
He could hear Billy outside, pretending to be a samurai with his new sword. The window on the other side caved in and half a dozen hands reached through. Tim closed the top lid. The snick! of the locking mechanism was terrifying and all he could think was that he was being buried alive. Outside sound was immediately muted.
He reached across himself with his right hand, securing his radio.
“Danny? Danny, come in.”
He heard nothing but static from the radio. He heard the sounds of the undead breaking into the hearse quite well, however.
He sighed a third time since entering the vehicle. “I hope they made it.”
It had been hot when he climbed into the back of the hearse, but now he was shivering. He couldn’t decide whether the shivers were from the dead surrounding him, or blood loss.
Burke’s Beach, Marshfield
“Getting a bit difficult to breathe, Doc,” Seyfert told Anna.
“Gonna be harder if they catch us,” she answered, pointing to the growing crowd of dead coming from a quarter-mile back down the road. She began rummaging through the medical box she had found in the dump truck’s cab. She came out with a gauze bandage and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Dallas and Rick climbed down from the truck and moved toward the closest jetty, Dallas favoring his newly injured ankle. A work raft, perhaps fifteen feet long and eight feet wide, sat tied by one line to a small dock. The boat had half a dozen or so milk crates on board full of rusty tools. Several yellow and orange buoys were tied to a post on the stern and two tires rested there as well. The boat had been hidden such that the survivors couldn’t see it from the truck. It looked like it had been built in the nineteen fifties.
They heard Seyfert yelp, quickly followed by a short yell from Anna. “It’s alright! I had to poke him to release some pressure in his chest!”
Rick looked both ways down the channel and across the marsh. No other boats were in the area. “Shit, Hillbilly.”
Dallas thrust his large finger toward the outboard engine on the raft. Two orange fuel tanks sat in front of the motor. “Thas’ a newer motor. If alls we need is to get on that and find a better boat, we get on that, right?”
“The only other option is to get back in the truck.” Rick looked over his shoulder at the oncoming dead. “I think I like the truck better.”
“Not enough fuel.”
“No, and we’re going to have to go over a huge bridge to get to the Cape. The bridge will be jam-packed full of abandoned vehicles. Shit! I’ll get them out, you get that started.”
Rick ran back to the truck as Dallas made his way on unsure feet down the jetty to the work raft.
Anna and Seyfert were climbing down the ladder, Seyfert grimacing when Rick showed up. “This train is leaving.”
Anna helped Seyfert down the last few rungs and down the folding step-ladder. “There’s a boat?”
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Rick chin-wagged back behind them. The vanguard of the undead horde was a hundred feet away and closing. “Yeah, come on.”
The three of them rushed as fast as they could to the jetty. They heard the engine on the raft turn over a few times.
“You’re shitting me, right?” Seyfert breathed when he saw their new ride. He looked over his shoulder at the truck and did the math on whether they could make it back to it before the dead reached it. They would just make it. He actually started to go, but Anna held him fast.
“This is our only shot!”
The SEAL was not happy. “Fuck!”
They made their way down the jetty to the raft. Seyfert sat on the deck, slapping his last magazine into his rifle while Rick cast off. Rick used an ancient oar to push away from the rocks. The engine simply would not start. Rick began to paddle, making anguished faces because of the lacerations on his chest and stomach.
“Anytime, Dallas!”
The Texan didn’t reply as he took the cover off the outboard. He began to hand manipulate one of the engine parts and then began searching through the milk crates on board. He came up with a can of something and hurried back to the engine, but not before Seyfert fired a shot. Only he had seen the alabaster hand come over the starboard side of the boat. The hand was attached to a disgusting thing which tried to pull itself on board the vessel.
Dozens of dead crested the jetty and started down. Every one of them fell, some scraping rotten skin off on the rocks, others splashing into the salt water. A few got stuck in between the rocks as their brethren climbed over them and a few more snapped fragile bones when they stepped between the massive stones. There seemed to be no end to the dead as they continued to rain down. The things were walking the top of the jetty faster than Rick could paddle. Anna picked up another oar and began to help, but the wind was blowing the raft back toward the arms of the dead.
Two of the infected had fallen down the side of the jetty and were climbing aboard. Rick switched the oar from paddle to pole-arm and pushed one away. The other began to crawl toward him and he brought the heavy wooden instrument down on its head then pushed it over the side.
Seyfert began to select targets and dropped several of the closest attackers. Anna continued to paddle, but it wouldn’t be enough. Two more undead climbed up on the starboard side and Rick used the oar to keep them at bay, but another was waist deep in the water and grabbed Rick by the leg. Seyfert shot it, but the damage was done and Rick fell to his side on the boat.
Dallas ran past Rick and stiff-armed both the things, pushing them back into the water on his way to the console. He tried the engine again and it caught on the second attempt. “Hold on!” he yelled and threw the throttle forward. T
he flat bow of the raft shot up and the vessel moved across the waves quickly, throwing Anna to the deck.
“Jesus Christ,” Rick said blankly from his back, “Jesus Christ almighty.”
Seyfert searched his pack and his tactical vest. “I’m out. We’ve gotten maybe five miles and I’m out of ammo.” He stared at the open ocean in front of them. “Only about three thousand miles to go.” He put the rifle on the deck next to him and stretched out.
Behind them, shrinking in the distance, were hundreds of undead on the jetty. Dozens were being pushed into the water by the ones behind them. The channel was filling up with weakly flailing bodies.
Rick stared at the wispy clouds overhead. “Head south, Dallas.”
As they moved down the scenic coast, evidence of the plague became scarce. Other than the overgrown back lawns and one coastal house that was nothing but a charred skeleton, the view reminded Rick of when he had lived in Boston and had gone sailing with one of his police buddies.
Rick had been to Cape Cod on several occasions, but never by boat. He knew approximately where Otis Air Force Base was located and he could see it on the map, but he had never been there before. He spread a huge paper map, which he had appropriated from one of the cars at the Vantel facility, out on the deck of the raft.
“Wassat?” Dallas asked, pointing to a large structure up ahead.
Rick glanced at the structure then returned to his map. “That’s the nuke plant. We would see steam, I think, if it were operational.”
“Radiation gonna kill us all?”
Rick looked back at the plant. “Doesn’t look damaged, but I’m not a nuclear engineer, so I don’t know. All the same, I’m glad we’re out on the water.”
Seyfert and Anna moved to look at the map. Rick placed his index finger in the center of the widest part of the cape. “That’s where the base is. We can land here and move south, but that’s a lot of residential area. I think we should cut through the canal, head south, then west overland until we get to the base.” He traced his finger to illustrate the journey.
Run_Book 3_Long Road Home Page 20
