by David Rogers
“Keep going!” Peter said as he felt the bus slow a little.
“We’re going to hit her.”
“Hit her then!” Whitley said in an annoyed voice.
Peter managed to get the fingers of his right hand to close around the railing on the outer edge of the driver’s divider just as they hit the back bumper of the CRX. Peter felt a shudder, dimly heard a faint crunch of metal on metal, but they were still moving. “Put your foot down!” Peter said.
“How fast?”
“Put the fucking pedal on the fucking floor.” Peter yelled. He saw the CRX weaving, just a touch, as the bus pushed it from behind; saw Crawford visibly struggling with the steering wheel as she tried to keep the racer lined up ahead of the bus. Jenkins finally complied, and the bus’ engine roared very loudly. There wasn’t a dramatic burst of acceleration, but there was enough to be felt.
“Yeah man, yeah!” he heard Teves yell as their speed crept up slowly, a bow wave of zombies tumbling over and around the CRX as it plowed forward with the bus’ power behind it. There was a crack as one zombie went all the way over the top of the Honda and managed to smack head first into the passenger side of the windshield. It slid down against the glass, but with the bus jammed up against the CRX’s back bumper that was where it stopped. Peter saw it moving, under its own power, and starting to try and stand up.
Peter saw Whitley’s lips moving, and thought his hearing was going out again. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it looked like she was voicing some sort of prayer. Shrugging it off, he focused on the path ahead. They were maybe halfway through the mass of zombies and still going strong. He could see the far side of the pack approaching, where it thinned out rapidly and became road with some zombies rather than a whole lot of zombies covering the road.
The zombie caught between the CRX and the bus turned its head and saw the humans on the other side of the large panes of safety glass. It paused on one knee and slammed a fist into the windshield. Peter wasn’t sure if he would be able to shoot effectively, his hands were still trembling and throbbing. He also wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea to take out the windshield. The longer they could keep that glass intact, the better it probably would be for them.
He was saved from having to decide when the zombie slipped suddenly and fell off to the side. Refocusing, he looked at the CRX critically. He saw Crawford still struggling behind the wheel, but now with more than just steering. Some shots sounded, and he realized her windshield had probably collapsed. The CRX’s shape, the same shape that made it so good as a make-shift cowcatcher, also tended to roll a lot of what it hit forward over the hood where it then impacted the windshield. There were only so many impacts it could take before breaking.
“She’s going to die.” he heard Jenkins moan.
“Keep going.” Peter repeated.
“I’m going!”
“Good.”
The bus roared through the zombies, rocking as some zombies managed to get under the wheels one way or another. But the weight and mass and power of the big vehicle were telling, keeping it in motion. Bodies were being ground beneath the bus, causing it to judder as zombies fell beneath. And an enormous percentage were being shunted aside by the CRX.
It was working. They were breaking through. Peter heard cheers start again as they broke out the far side of the pack and back into open road. He felt the bus slow almost immediately.
“Christ, what are you stopping for?” he heard Candles ask.
“I think Crawford might be hurt or something.” Jenkins said. “She’s weaving a lot.”
“Don’t stop here!” Candles said. “The damn zombies are right behind us. Go some more.”
“I don’t want to drive anymore.” Jenkins muttered, loud enough for Peter to hear, but he kept going. Peter was ignoring everything else as he focused on the CRX. He could see Crawford in the driver’s seat, her left hand still on the steering wheel making corrections. But she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her ‘driving’. Jenkins might be right, the CRX was weaving a lot more as the bus pushed it along.
“Slow down.” Peter said abruptly.
“Sarge, we’re too damn close to the pack.” Candles said immediately.
“I said slow down, not stop.” Peter shot back. “Something’s wrong with her, and I’m concerned she might lose control of the car. We can drop down to ten miles an hour and still keep opening the distance to the zombies.”
Candles muttered something Peter didn’t hear, but the Guardsman didn’t object further as Jenkins eased up on the accelerator. The bus shed speed, falling to about jogging pace. Peter shifted his position, finding places where he could look in the mirror on the passenger side. The zombie pack was being left behind, and the channel the bus had rammed through was slowly filling in as the zombies turned to pursue their prey.
They traveled about half a mile like that, the CRX being shoved along by the MARTA bus, until Peter finally tapped Jenkins on the shoulder. “Stop for a minute. Open the door.”
“Here?”
“Yeah.” Peter nodded, flexing his fingers. The pain wasn’t gone, his joints ached whether he was using them or holding still, but the throbbing was slowly receding and feeling was starting to return. He put his hand on the grip of the M45 in his holster as an experiment, and decided if necessary he’d be able to draw and fire with at least some facility. “Whitley, cover right when we stop, okay?”
“Got it.” Whitley said. Her expression was strained, with wide eyes and pale skin, but she shifted her M-16 into firing position and gave a single jerky nod. Jenkins braked to a halt, and the doors hissed open. Whitley clumped down and turned to the right, facing back the way they’d come. Before Peter could follow her, Swanson shoved past him abruptly.
“Sarge, you’re dead on your feet.” the soldier said. “Stay here, I’ll get her.”
Peter had time to blink, then Swanson was down the steps and sprinting for the CRX. The little Honda had rolled forward about twenty or twenty-five feet when the bus stopped, coming to a halt off to the right a little. Peter saw Swanson pull on the handle of the driver’s door, then pull again with both hands.
“Is it locked?” Barker asked from behind Peter.
Before anyone could answer, Peter saw Swanson abruptly duck away from the door. He got clear, moving toward the rear of the Honda, just as a trio of shots sounded and the safety glass on the driver’s window exploded outward. The barrel of Crawford’s M-16 poked out of the opening, followed a moment later by her hand groping at the roof.
“How long to get her?” Whitley yelled.
“Coming out now.” Peter heard Swanson holler back. He was back at the window, pulling on Crawford’s arm and shoulder to help her through the shattered window.
“Hurry.” Whitley replied. Peter looked out the right side bus windows and saw a pair of zombies only fifteen feet distant, staggering closer. He descended to the bottom step and reached into his ammunition pouch to check what was left in it.
“Whitley, kill those two.”
“I’ve got maybe half a magazine left.” she replied.
“I’ve got more. Kill them, then take this mag.” Peter said, pulling a fully loaded thirty-round magazine out of the pouch. He had two left, the one in his AR and one more, then he was down to the loose rounds in the boxes that were buried in the bottom of his pack.
Whitley’s weapon barked almost immediately. Her first shot dropped one of the zombies immediately, but it took her another four to track in for a killing blow on the other. She ejected the magazine and turned to Peter with it. He traded her for the full one, stuffing her nearly empty one in with his other empties. As he got it tucked away he glanced forward again.
Crawford was out of the CRX now, walking to the bus cradling her right arm by the wrist. Swanson was right behind her, acting as if he expected her to collapse or stagger at any moment. But Crawford’s stride stayed sure, and she made it to the bus without incident. Peter moved back from the do
or as she mounted the steps, still closely followed by Swanson.
“You okay?” Peter asked. There was gore all across her front, from her face down to her legs, and her right sleeve had a long tear on the forearm. No, a burn, he realized after a moment’s inspection. The edges were scorched black, and the opening lacked any of the loose threads that would be present with a normal rip.
“Did you get bit or something?” Hernandez spoke up.
“Yes, and no.” Crawford said.
“You don’t look like it’s no.” Hernandez observed.
“Yes I’m okay, no I didn’t get bit. This is zombie blood.” Crawford said. “The windshield caved in, and I had to shoot a bunch of them that were hanging on and trying to pull me out.”
“What’s wrong with your arm then?”
She snarled wordlessly as she suddenly held her arm out and spread the edges of the hole in the sleeve with her left hand. Peter saw a line of reddened skin, already blistering, that he recognized immediately as a burn caused by the barrel of a hot weapon. “There, happy?”
“No.” Swanson said. “You need to change shirts or bandage that burn, or both. If those blisters break, you could get zombie smeared across the wound. There’s no way that’ll be good for anyone.”
“Pervert.” Crawford said, shooting him a dirty glance.
“Yeah, yeah.” Swanson grinned. “Any excuse to get you out of your clothes.”
Whitley came up the steps. “Is there some reason we’re just sitting here?”
Peter shook his head, embarrassed. He’d been completely distracted by Crawford’s condition. “Jenkins, move us out.”
“Uh, no.” Jenkins said, heaving himself up out of the seat. “It makes me nervous when people yell while I’m driving.”
“Christ.” Whitley said angrily, reaching past him and hitting the lever for the doors. They closed behind her, then she gave Jenkins a shove toward Peter. The injured Guardsman stumbled on his bad leg, his face twisted with pain, as Peter reached and managed to catch him.
“Sit down.” Peter muttered, directing Jenkins down into the handicap seats as Whitley took over the driver’s seat and got the bus moving. Swanson was following Crawford further into bus, past the seats close to the front that were occupied by the soldiers.
“Oh my God, who yakked back here?” Crawford asked loudly as they got halfway down the aisle.
“Roper.” Whitley called back.
“Jeez dude.” Crawford said, her face wrinkled in disgust. “Your cooking smells a hell of a lot better the first time around, did you know that?”
“Hey, you haul out a four year old zombie leaking brains on your boots and see if your stomach cooperates.” Roper shot back.
“Sarge.”
Peter turned away from the developing back and forth, leaning in next to Whitley. “What’s up?”
“Where we headed?” the woman asked. She was building speed, steering casually around the scattering of zombies that were on the road ahead.
Peter hesitated for a few moments. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” he finally admitted. “Sorry.”
“S’okay.” She shrugged. “You got us this far.”
“It was a team effort.” Peter pointed out.
“The hell it was.”
* * * * *
Jessica
“Mommmmmmm . . .” Candice said, drawing the syllable out warningly as she sat twisted around in her seat looking out the rear window.
Jessica looked up from the phone’s screen in frustration and fixed on the rear view mirror again. That same zombie, the one wearing a dirty State Police uniform, was approaching again. It had noticed them shortly after Jessica stopped for the first time. She’d pulled up past the next exit, but it apparently had followed them.
“Thanks Candy Bear.” Jessica said, moving the gear shifter into ‘D’ and focusing on the road again. 85, at least this section of it, seemed in reasonably good shape. She’d been half afraid, from what the news had said and been showing, she’d find piles of burning cars and hordes of zombified drivers blocking the road. There had been a rather large collection of wrecked and abandoned vehicles just south of Exit 108, but they were all off on the shoulder. The lanes, so far, were clear.
She drove for a mile, then stopped in the emergency lane again and returned her attention to the phone. Messages had been left for everyone who had voice mail, basically ‘Hi, this is Jessica Talbot, please call me as soon as you get this, I need some help.’ Now she was using the data feature on her phone, something she hardly ever did, to try to figure out some safe place to go.
The CDC’s page looked, at first glance, like it was being updated, and her heart had leapt. Then she’d noticed the timestamps, which showed the most recent update was hours ago. And, when reviewing what was posted, she realized it wasn’t of any real use to her anyway.
It was all things like ‘do not approach anyone you suspect of being sick’ and ‘take all appropriate measure to safeguard yourself and loved ones from contact with sick individuals’. Nothing about ‘go here for safety’ or ‘contact such and such agency for further instructions’. She needed something concrete. They couldn’t stay out here like this forever.
Now she was using Google to locate and check local sites for entities that might, that should, be organizing the effort to deal with what was happening. Frustratingly, she had found they were of even less use. She’d checked sites for Gwinnett, DeKalb, Forsyth, Hall, and Cobb counties; both their ‘main’ county home pages as well as those for the respective police departments.
Nothing. In fact, DeKalb’s even showed what was clearly a pre-programmed message listing some activities citizens might like to attend in Decatur and Stone Mountain during the Labor Day holiday. Worse, none of the phone numbers to various county offices and departments were being answered, when they rang through at all. A lot of those calls just gave fast busy signals, or clicked back to dial tones after she tried to call them.
A handful of vehicles had passed her since she’d reached 85 and started working her phone in earnest. One was a convoy of five trucks, all big passenger trucks like Lonnie’s. No one stopped. In fact, none of the passing vehicles even seemed to slow. She was prepared to chase after any emergency vehicles she spotted, but they were all regular people.
Those people had plans. Why in the hell couldn’t she come up with one? Jessica looked at the phone’s rectangular screen in frustration, feeling tears threatening her vision. She could not cry. She couldn’t afford it. She had to make a decision. She realized her breath was starting to shade towards sobbing, and made a concerted effort to even her breathing out, trying to stay calm.
“Think. Think damnit.” she whispered inaudibly, trying to do just that. She stared at the Google page as she tried to think of something to look for that might help. Something Joey had exasperatedly explained to her last year bubbled up to the top of her mind.
“Mom, this is not that hard.” he’d explained, when she was having trouble finding something. “Use Google.”
“I am.” she’d told him. “But I need to know what to search for.”
“You’re making this harder than it needs to be.” he’d said, leaning over her shoulder to type on the laptop’s keyboard. She’d looked at what he typed with a large dose of skepticism, but when he hit enter, and the list of search results came up, her jaw had dropped.
“There, look at that.” Joey had said smugly, stepping back and leaving her gaping at the screen. “Don’t try to guess what you’re looking for, just ask Google. Type it like you’d ask a human and see what comes up. That’ll almost always get you somewhere useful.”
Now, as Jessica clutched her phone and sat huddled in the driver’s seat of her car, she remembered what he’d told her and managed, for the first time since Friday, to think of him without a huge swell of sorrow threatening to hammer through her emotional dams. Slowly, she typed her query out on the keyboard displayed on the screen, then tapped search and waited. Seconds pas
sed, while the phone waited for the data connection to reply, then the screen changed and loaded as information filtered through.
‘Evacuation sites near Atlanta, Georgia’ showed in the search box at the top of the screen, and below that links were cascading down the screen. The brief blurbs accompanying each link seemed promising. She tapped the third link in the list and bit her lip as she waited for it to load.
Finally it did, and she found herself on a site that was clearly not designed for use on anything less than a computer with a full screen, but she didn’t care. As she zoomed back as much as she could and still legibly read, and used her finger to scroll back and forth as she did, her heart leapt.
“Yes, finally.” she breathed, studying the information. According to this, there were over a dozen locations in the region that were setup and able to receive refugees. They were all outside Atlanta, but she had her pick of four that were within an hour of where she was right now. The closest looked like it was near Buford, and she reached to tap the link next to that one that purported to be the address and a map showing where it was.
The phone’s ringer went off before her finger could touch the screen. She started violently and almost dropped the phone. Jessica blinked as a bar across the top of the screen appeared, showing ‘Dr. Morris (home) calling’. Below that were accept and decline icons. Jessica’s finger was trembling as she tapped on the green icon and put the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Jessica! Dear God, are you okay?” Dennis Morris said, sounding equally relieved and concerned.
“Yes.” Jessica replied, closing her eyes and forcing her hand to relax before she crushed the phone and broke it. Her palm was hurting, so tight had her grip been. “I’m so glad to hear from you. You have no idea how glad. Is everyone okay there?”
“Trudy and I are fine.” Dennis said. “But we can play twenty questions about ‘how are you’ later. Your message said you needed help. What’s wrong?”
“We . . . had to leave the house.” Jessica said. “I’m in the car with Candice and trying to find somewhere safe. I just found some information about refugee camps outside the city–”
