by David Rogers
“You know what they call a dead hero?” Dorne asked.
Whitney’s voice was sharp, not quite yelling or snapping, but dancing along the edge of both. “Hey, that’s out of fucking line.”
“It’s true, ain’t it?”
“Then why’d you vote to stay with Gunny?” she demanded. “Maybe you should walk back to Atlanta, see if you can find Candles. He’d love the help in the mall or wherever the fuck he picked to sit on his ass.”
“Hey, I’m just talking, same as you.”
Whitney gave him a steady look, again not quite glaring but close. Nailor spoke after a few moments of silence passed, when no one else ventured any opinion. “The man said there are a lot of zombies out there.” He offered, sounding doubtful. “There’s helping, then there’s being stupid.”
“We’re the best option around here for them civvies, and we got a lot of ammo.” Roper said.
“For how long, if we go around shooting up any pack of zombies we run into?”
“We know where we can get more.”
Smith was still frowning. “And what if they drop a bomb on Clay, or the zombies there get too much for us to get through? Or what if someone else cleans out the rest of the armory?”
Now Peter did sigh as several of the Guardsmen started arguing, their voices stepping across one another as they sought to put forth their viewpoints. He caught Whitley’s eye, and they both shrugged almost in unison. Peter grinned a little, he was beginning to really like her. If this had been normal circumstances he could easily see himself putting in a recommendation for her promotion toward sergeant. She had the right attitude and smarts to be a good one.
“Okay, listen up.” Peter said loudly after enduring the argument for a minute or two. The voices trailed off, some reluctantly. “Who can drive stick?” Most of them could, which surprised Peter a little. It wasn’t exactly a common skill these days, not among Americans. Everyone wanted their car to be an automatic.
“Here’s how I want to do this then. I want two volunteers to drive the decoy trucks, and a third to drive the rescue truck.”
There was a long pause, then Mendez, Roper, and finally Crawford raised their hands. “Okay, and you guys are sure you’re okay with on a manual?” Peter asked. “I’m going to have to hot wire them bastards, so if you stall out you’re probably going to be completely fucked.”
Their heads nodded, and Peter smiled grimly. “Good. Mendez, you and Roper are the decoys then. Crawford, I want you following us in the rescue truck.”
“Remember, it ain’t no street racer.” Swanson said. “And you’re gonna have people in the trailer if this works.”
“It’ll work.” Peter said. “Let’s transfer all the gas cans and stuff into the one hummer, and I’ll drive the unloaded one.”
“What for?”
“To ferry people out from the camp.” Dorne guessed.
“Right.” Peter nodded. “I don’t want to risk the big vehicles off-road unless we have no other choice. It hasn’t rained recently, so I’m sure the hummer can handle running back and forth without a problem. Mendez and Roper go first, raise a lot of hell, then head south to pull most of the zombies away. The rest of us roll up, and everyone in the bus fires up whatever zombies are left. I ferry the survivors over to Crawford, and we head back to 75.”
“Assuming all that goes to plan, where next?”
“One thing at a time.” Peter grinned. “Right now let’s just worry about saving those civilians, then we’ll figure out where to put them. Any questions? No, good, let’s move.”
It took longer than he would’ve liked, but fortunately all the zombies in the area seemed to be closer in towards Cartersville. Very few wandered out of the trees surrounding the truck stop. And even if there had been enough to be a problem, the parking lot was enormous. There was plenty of time to notice any unwieldy number of zombies that might approach.
When he got all three trucks started and assured himself they had enough fuel for what he intended, he sent Mendez and Roper off to go get started. After they left, everyone else got squared away, then there was nothing to do but wait. Minutes ticked by. Then finally the radio crackled with a transmission.
“Okay, decoys are headed south.” Mendez said over the radio.
“Copy. Rescue is rolling.” Peter answered. He released the button of the radio, leaving it hanging from his shoulder epaulette, and flashed his lights several times. A few moments later he saw the brake lights on the bus and tractor-trailer release as Whitley and Crawford began moving.
Peter followed slowly, far enough back that he could avoid any road hazards. He was confident in the humvee’s ability to run over the occasional zombie, pot holes, or other items without major issue, but there was no need to stress the vehicle unduly. He might need every bit it could give him later, when there was no other choice. Against that possibility, he was perfectly to content to drive like an old lady, slow and cautious.
Whitley seemed to understand this concept, but Peter was less sure about Crawford. That was part of why he’d made sure Crawford was going to follow the bus. Well, that and all their shooters were in the bus. The doors on the trailer flopped open as the truck accelerated, but if the load inside was shifting it was too far from the open doors to fall out.
They’d emptied about a third of the boxes into the truck stop parking lot to make room. Peter had harbored a brief hope there might be something useful in whatever the truck was carrying, but the boxes turned out to contain toys destined for some store that would never get to stock them on the shelves. Die cast cars and plastic action figures were of no use to the soldiers, so the boxes were just left in the parking lot to rot.
Whitley reached the Riverpoint intersection, the signal with its single yellow lamp unlit. But the moon was more than enough to see decently by. She took the turn carefully, barely making fifteen miles per hour. Crawford swung the tractor-trailer around after her and dropped back some, and Peter maintained his separation from the big rig as he brought up the rear.
Almost immediately he saw the FEMA camp. The emergency relief agency had its ups and downs, and was always at the mercy of whatever local officials were in charge of the individual sites, but this one seemed to have been put together well. Especially considering how fast it had to have been assembled.
The tents were standard pavilion types; basically aluminum poles that fit together into rectangular shapes to support tarps and weatherproofed canvas coverings. To anyone who’d been on a major military deployment they were familiar, as was the pattern they were laid out in. These were positioned in long rows, placed in pairs one after the other, on and on, with wide, drivable lanes left open for vehicles to fit through.
There were a lot of cars parked along the edge of the tent city, and the area on the left side of Riverpoint seemed to have been designated as refugee parking. All sorts of vehicles were lined up there, surprisingly orderly considering how panicked or unsettled most of those drivers must have been.
Peter ignored the cars. He stopped as soon as he saw Whitley starting to brake, lifting his binoculars to scan across the tent city. In the middle of the field, smack in the center of the rows of tents to minimize the walking necessary for anyone living in a tent to reach, was a cluster of four tractor-trailers. He saw cases of water bottles piled up in the back of one, and knew there was probably food either in that one or in the others.
Atop the trucks, up on the trailers where they were out of reach, were a number of people. They were on their feet, waving their hands, jumping up and down, and shouting toward the road. Peter didn’t couldn’t hear them. He doubted he would be able to even if the bus and truck engines weren’t rumbling, but he didn’t need to hear them. He knew what they were shouting. It was obvious for even the most inept student of lip reading and body language.
Surrounding the truck was a large pack of zombies. It was smaller than what Peter was now used to seeing after Downtown Atlanta, but still numbered well past a hundred. Way m
ore than even the thirty-seven trapped survivors could handle unless they were armed. And Peter didn’t see any weapons. He didn’t blame them for having sought shelter.
Gunfire made him lower the binoculars, startling him a little even though he knew it was coming. The side of the bus was lit up with muzzle flashes as the soldiers inside shot through the open windows. It wasn’t as impressive as it probably would have been in a movie, since the soldiers now knew better than to shoot faster than they could aim, but it was still cool to see.
Peter lifted the binoculars again. Zombies were falling. Even though the range was long enough to require someone who knew how to shoot, especially since they didn’t have scopes, the zombies compensated for that by not moving very much. They didn’t seem to notice the bullets slamming into their brethren from behind, and remained content to press against the trucks and reach uselessly up toward the humans above them.
It took several minutes, but there was no hurry. Three of the Guardsmen shot to the left of the bus, covering the few zombie stragglers that emerged from the parking lot of civilian vehicles, while the rest of the soldiers cleared out the zombies around the survivors. When the gunfire tailed off and Peter couldn’t see any more standing zombies near the trucks, he took his foot off the brake and came forward at a slow pace.
The humvee rocked a little as it went off road but the field was pretty level. In fact there was some construction equipment, bulldozers and graders, well off to the southwest. It seemed clear the field had been about to be the site of some sort of construction, something that would never happen now. But they’d done a reasonably good job of leveling out the Georgia clay, and the humvee had no problem driving between the rows of tents.
He parked near the cabs of the tractor-trailers and took his time checking his mirrors, looking around, before he opened his door and stood on the floorboard with his head and chest above the vehicle’s roofline. “Six or seven at a time!” he shouted. “That’s all I can fit in here. Keep calm. We’re going to get everyone out.”
“What if the zombies come back?” asked a man who was trying to help a pregnant woman as she stepped from the trailer to the roof of the tractor.
“We’ve got lots of ammo. There’s no need to panic. Six or seven with me and I’ll ferry you over to the truck there.” Peter repeated, pointing at the tractor-trailer idling behind the bus.
“Why can’t we ride in the bus?”
“Because my people are already in it, and they need room to load weapons and shoot.” Peter shouted, glancing around to make sure something hungry wasn’t sneaking up on him. “There’s plenty of room in the truck.”
There was some grumbling, and one guy managed to twist his ankle in his haste to hop down and be in the first humvee load, but to Peter’s relief there was no fighting or arguing over who went. He ended up with eight; with a teenage girl riding in the lap of another teenager who looked like he was her brother as he sat in the front passenger seat.
Peter drove back over to the truck. He was prepared to have to assist people up into the back of the trailer, but the more able bodied ones managed it unaided. And they then helped the others. As Peter drove back, he passed four survivors that were running down the clay lane toward the road, apparently not content to wait for a spot in the humvee.
He shrugged. Personally he would’ve waited for the ride, especially considering how many places there were for zombies to hide in and amongst the tents, but it wasn’t his ass on the line. If they wanted to risk getting eaten just to avoid having to wait on top of the trucks a little longer, that was their lookout.
As it was, it didn’t take long to get everyone out of the tent city and over to the truck. He dropped off the last load, and hit the button on his radio as they scrambled up into the back of Crawford’s trailer.
“Mendez, Gunny.”
“Go Gunny.”
“We’re ready to roll here, no problems. You guys okay?”
“Oh sure, no problem. Unless you count about a thousand zombies.”
Peter paused, considering. “So, is that a yes or a no?”
“We’re fine. Meet you on 75.”
“Roger.” Peter released the radio and drove up past Crawford and Whitley, making eye contact with each as he gave them a thumbs up. Whitley led off once more, heading south on Riverpoint and following it around the curve to Allatoona Dam Road. A left there, then a right on Highway 41, and in minutes they were back at the truck stop. She stopped without pulling into the parking lot, long enough for Dorne to get out and run back to Peter, then got going again.
“Good job.” Peter said as the other man slid into the passenger seat.
“What?”
“I said good job.” Peter repeated.
“I can’t hear so good, it was really loud in the bus.” Dorne said, not quite shouting, but close. Peter shrugged and grinned, driving over to the second humvee. Dorne hopped out and got it going, then accelerated after Peter as both sped down 41 to catch up with the others.
Five minutes later, all the vehicles were back together on 75. Peter hesitated, then keyed the radio. “Whitley.”
“Right here.”
“Head north and look for a good place to stop.” Peter said.
“Anyplace, or somewhere we can drop our civvies off at?”
“Either.” Peter shrugged. “I don’t care. Restaurant, gas station, strip mall, whatever. Just somewhere we can have a pow-wow at.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.”
Whitley led the convoy north several miles before hitting her turn signal and getting off at Exit 296. Peter had already seen the information signs they’d passed that indicated what franchises were in operation there, and thus wasn’t surprised when he spotted the big Pilot ‘Travel Center’ that Whitley turned towards.
He supposed a ‘travel center’ sounded better than ‘truck stop’, but he was old school. It was just a big ass gas station that had things you didn’t find in normal gas stations. As far as he was concerned, that made it a truck stop.
Driving cautiously, Whitley took them in a big circle around the entire perimeter of the Travel Center’s pavement before pulling up to the curb next to the restaurant that was attached to the convenience store portion of the building. The parking lot was clear of any dangers Peter could see, but he still took the AR with him when he got out, and he didn’t linger as he went around the front of the bus.
“Hold up, not that one.” he heard Swanson say loudly.
“What does it matter?” Nailor asked.
Peter saw the Guardsman had reversed his M-16 and was holding it upraised, ready to break the glass on the door to the Wendy’s. Swanson was pointing at a pane of glass that had a booth on the other side of it. “That one, it’s more secure.”
“We’ll have to climb over shit to get in that way.” Nailor complained.
“And so will any zombies.” Smith pointed out.
“Fine, whatever.” Nailor shifted over and smashed in the indicated panel, then used his sleeve to sweep the glass off the table top before clambering over and into the restaurant. Several others followed him, but Whitley caught on to Peter’s intention as he stood waiting, and went over to the door after she was inside. She turned something, producing a loud click, and then the door swung open freely.
“Ta-da.” she grinned. “Wendy’s is open for business.”
“Is it?” Dorne asked as he pushed past her and headed for the kitchen. Peter started to say something, but the man wasn’t as cavalier as he sounded. His rifle was in his hands and pointed ahead of him as he went around the counter. “I’m fucking starving. Hey Roper, come take a look with me.”
“Look dude, it don’t take a cook to make a damn hamburger at a hamburger joint.”
“No, but it takes a grill. And you seem to know whether or not we can trust what to eat.”
“Assholes.” Roper muttered. “I should’ve never said anything.” But he headed around the counter after Dorne.
The civilians w
ere filing into the restaurant uncertainly. Some of them looked reasonably alert and calm, but most were a little wide eyed with shock or fatigue or both. A heavy set man with graying and balding hair came in at the rear of the pack of rescuees, eyed Peter once, and stopped next to him. “I’m BB. Thanks seems inadequate to express how damned grateful I am you folks wandered on by.”
“Peter Gibson.” Peter said, shaking the proffered hand. “And don’t mention it. Glad we were able to help out.”
“Where you boys based out of?” BB asked. “And girls. Don’t mind me, I’m just old fashioned.” he added when Whitley glanced at him.
“We were dispatched out of Clay.” Peter said. BB gave him a perplexed look. “Uh, the air base in Marietta? Used to be Naval Air Station Atlanta?”
“Ah, right.” BB nodded. “You know what’s happening in Atlanta?”
Peter shrugged. “Not really. I mean, we were stuck in downtown as recently as a few hours ago, but I doubt we know much more than you do. But what I do know is everything’s gone to shit.”
“Yeah, lot of that going around.” BB sighed. “So what are your orders then?”
“We don’t have any.”
“How’s that?”
Peter sighed. “Our unit linked up with another one, and both were trapped and killed nearly to a man by converging hordes in Atlanta on Friday night. It took us about two days to fight clear with not many more people than what you see here now. We haven’t been able to locate any other units on the radio. Clay was deserted except for zombies when we finally got back there earlier tonight.”
“Shit.” BB said, puckering his lips like he was going to spit. “So you’re it then?”
“Near as I can tell, yeah, we’re it.”
“How is that possible?” one of the civilians asked.
