by Will Lemen
"Okay, is everyone ready for this?" I said, just before opening the door to the garage.
"We're ready," Jacob said, while the others nodded their heads in agreement.
Trying to set a tone of excitement to take away from the real danger of the upcoming mission, I swung the door open and shouted. "Ta-da!"
"Are you kidding me?" Jacob exclaimed. "That's cool dad."
"Yeah, that's really cool dad," Billy added, grinning from ear to ear.
"All right you're here, right on time, let's get this monster machine loaded and hit the road shall we?" the Sarge said, acting as if we were about to embark on an excursion to the local park for a picnic.
"Can we stop somewhere and pickup a couple of twelve packs of beer for the journey Sarge," I quipped, trying to add a little humor to the moment.
"I don't think a couple of twelve packs will be enough, we better get a couple of cases," Sarge answered laughing.
Everyone's mood was upbeat as we pulled out of the garage and made our way along the driveway, through the parking lot and onto the main road.
"No shooting at anything unless we need to, we don't want to bring unnecessary attention to ourselves," Sarge ordered, as our driver Dave plowed into the first of many zombies we would run into on our journey, literally.
"This snowplow blade works great, did you see that monster get shoved to the side, I mean the part of it that didn't get sheared off at the ankles," Dave said giggling, with a maniacal look on his face.
"Jack and his family call them Eaters," Sarge said giggling too, only without the maniacal look on his face.
"That works for me, "Eaters" it is," Dave replied, still giggling as he plowed into another zombie (get it, plowed into).
By the sergeant's order, Jeff and Fred had left nine seats intact in the bus including the driver's seat. Everyone going on this mission was chosen for it because of a unique talent they possessed, and the room was going to be needed to haul back the weapons we hoped to acquire at the armory.
Four of the seats were filled by my family and me, we were chosen because of my past with the Sarge, and because of our prowess with firearms, accept for Gin, I had asked for her so that there would be no chance that my family would become separated, and she wasn't exactly a bad shot.
The other five seats accommodated the driver Dave, who drove a school bus for a living before the apocalypse and told everyone. "If you ever have to drive a school bus for a living, kill yourself first!" The Sarge, well someone needed to lead the mission. A stocky guy named Bruce, who in his former life was a locksmith. A man named Rich who didn't say much, but always carried a 12 gage tactical shotgun, and who had been an armored vehicle mechanic in the army and claimed he knew how to drive a tank. Plus, a cute small framed blonde girl in her late twenties named Beth, who was sporting a .22 caliber version of an AR-15, who everyone seemed to think was some kind of psycho. I guess you never know when one of your psycho friends will come in handy.
After we had ridden for a while, I thought it might be a good idea to get to know the people on the bus besides my family that I was going to have to trust with my life, and vice versa. I had seen all of them at the Y on occasion, but never really got to know them. So I smiled, trying not to offend her, and asked Beth.
"Does that .22 do the job on eaters?" She smiled at me and answered.
"Usually I take one shot, and I get one kill, but sometimes I add an extra couple of shots just for fun. The .22 is quieter than most guns, so I feel I can take more shots without making too much noise."
"With that kind of attitude, you'll get along well with my son Jacob," I divulged, still smiling at her.
"Jacob and I get along just fine, we met a few weeks ago at the swimming pool, it'll be nice to do some eater killing with him, I'm a supplier too. We've just never had the pleasure of going on a run together until now," she said confidently."
"Jack everyone here is an experienced supplier, they've all killed more eaters than I can count, so don't worry, you're in good hands," Sarge added, as he scanned the horizon with a pair of 20x50 binoculars.
"I'm just trying to get to know everyone, that's all Sarge," I maintained.
As I was beginning to start up a conversation with Bruce, Dave yelled.
"Here we go people!"
Immediately we heard dull thuds coming from the front of the bus. Zombies were careening off the snowplow blade, and causing it to make a low vibrating twang. First, one or two, then three or four more, then so many that it was impossible to discern any gaps between the thuds, and the twangs.
"We're plowing through a pretty big horde of um," Dave yelled, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened on the steering wheel.
Blood now splattered over the windshield as severed body parts, crushed skulls, and broken bones, bounced off and over the plow blade, leaving a trail of the crimson liquid in their wake. So much in fact, that the red ooze drifted along the sides of our bus, making our already tinted windows opaque, and soon totally obscuring our view of what was happening outside the bus.
"Lucky for us, Jeff and Fred topped off the windshield washer fluid, at least I can see what were about to hit with this beast," Dave stated, not sounding very confident.
The wipers slapped back and forth, for what seemed like an eternity, smearing the bodily fluids and other assorted hunks of mutilated zombies across the windshield as more and more of the undead slammed against the plow blade. As body parts were tossed all around us, the only pieces that were conspicuously missing were the feet of the undead, which were being chopped off at the ankles and bouncing against the floorboards of our bus, adding an uneven drum roll to the melody of carnage already being played.
"Even with the washer fluid, I can barely see out, it's too bad those guys didn't think to put new wiper blades on this machine," Dave hollered out, turning the wheel to avoid an abandon truck. "I missed that one, but we're going to hit these two at full bore."
A sickening crunch echoed through the interior of the bus, as the two vehicles Dave had referred to were pummeled by the large plow blade, followed by the powerful inertia of the forty-foot school bus.
"We're still rolling, and the plow blade is still attached, I guess that chrome steel reinforcement held," Sarge boasted, with a smirk on his face.
"I guess so," I said, agreeing with him.
The others had remained relatively quiet until now, no screaming or yelling, nothing to distract Dave while he drove through the onslaught of obstacles.
That wasn't a big surprise, we were all seasoned veterans, we'd all seen our share of mayhem and gore, and we'd all been in many tight situations where we thought we were going to die at any moment. So ramming our way through a large group of reanimated dead homicidal maniacs in a five-ton vehicle with a converted snowplow blade attached to the front of it, was just another day at the office for us.
All of the sudden, Beth leaned over and pointed her .22 rifle at one of the side holes.
"Look, fingers, they're grabbing a hold of the bus," she said, firing three rounds into the fingers sticking out of the hole.
The zombies hand retreated quickly, but left two of its fingers twitching on the floor of the bus with several flies hovering around them.
"Check the other holes," Jacob shouted, itching for some action.
He found fingers reaching through two of the other small gun ports, and hacked at them with his machete, leaving even more fingers twitching on the floor.
"Look," Billy yelled. "As soon as we whack the fingers off, they're replaced by another eater trying to stick their hand inside."
"So don't worry about them, they can't get to us through those holes, we'll take care of them after we're clear of this mob scene we're dealing with now," I said. "And besides, their fingers squeeze in those holes are keeping some of the flies out of the bus."
By now, we had mangled countless zombies and spewed gallons of blood from their bodies, which now covered the road, making our bus begin to lose tracti
on.
"There's too many of them out in front of us, the tires aren't gripping the road, I can feel the bus fishtailing and we're slowing down," Dave yelled. "If we stop we're through!"
As fast as I could, I climbed onto the forward platform with my AK, and opened the front top port hatch.
"Somebody take the back port, and shoot the eaters on the right," I shouted, pointing toward the front of the bus.
In a flash, Jacob jumped onto the rear platform, opened the hatch, and began firing his carbine into the crowd of zombies on the right side of our bus. I could hear the whizzing sound of Jacob's bullets fly past my head as I too began to drop the attacking zombies along the right side of the road in front of the bus.
I emptied my drum magazine and ejected it from my rifle, and narrowly avoided being hit by a zombie's severed left arm that flew by me as I ducked back into the bus. Beth had already handed Jacob a loaded magazine, and now stood at the base of my platform with two of my drums in her hands. I sat my empty magazine on the platform and snatched a loaded one from her right hand. Back through the top hatch I went, and began to engage the rabble of zombies again.
Between the snowplow blade shoving the hungry monsters to the left side of the road (except for some of their detached limbs, intestines, and cut off feet), and the attrition rate that Jacob and I were inflicting on them on the right side of the road, the bus was gradually gaining speed again.
Through the gunshots and sound of bones being bashed against the plow blade, and the low bass tone made by the feet being battered against the bottom of the bus, I somehow heard Dave screaming at us.
"It's working; I think we're going to make it!"
We continued to shoot and plow our way through the horde of the dead for the next two hundred yards or so, and as the quantity of zombies began to subside, Jacob and I retreated into the school bus, and secured the hatches, allowing only a few flies to follow.
Looking around the bus, I caught a serious gaze from Gin, as if she was saying to me.
"Who was it that thought this was a good idea?"
Dave was giggling again, most likely nervous laughter. Rich sat there seemingly unfazed by the event. Bruce smiled at me undaunted by the harrowing experience.
Surprisingly, Beth was the first to say something, usually it's the Sarge or myself that come up with the first quip after some hair raising incident.
"Well, that's one way to thin the herd," she said, as a smile broke through her serious demeanor, and she made her way from one gun port to the next, blowing off the fingers of the zombies that were still clinging to the side of the bus.
The Sarge wasn't in as much of a jovial mood as the rest of us.
"What the hell happened back there Dave, didn't you see that giant crowd of homicidal maniacs blocking the road, or did you just decide to the test our bus on the biggest group you could find to see if it was up to the task at hand?" he said angrily, glaring at Dave.
"They were gathered together on the other side of that hill, we crossed the crest of the hill, and there they were, there was nothing I could do, they weren't there and then they were there. They just appeared," Dave replied, no longer giggling.
"From now on, when you come to a hill, slow down so we don't end up in the middle of that kind of mess again. By the way, I want to thank you for the smell we have to endure for the rest of this trip, now that our vehicle is covered with rotting body fluids and entrails. Not to mention these damn flies all over the inside of our bus," Sarge replied, as he began to calm down and swat some of the buzzing insects near him.
Feeling the tension in the bus, Billy thought he would try to lighten the mood.
"Are we there yet?" he asked, smiling.
His imitation of a road wary child seemed to do the trick; the salty old Marine Corps veteran could not hold back his laughter even as a fly landed on his face.
"Like father like son," he teased. "Jack, that's your son all right."
"I have taught him well," I said jokingly, and then added. "I think Dave might just have broken my record of felony hit and runs!"
That comment brought a smile to everyone's face, even Rich's.
We drove on for miles, taking that time to reload our magazines, and kill the remaining marauding flies that had invaded our bus. We encountered small groups of zombies along the way, and tried to avoid, although not always successfully, a plethora of abandoned vehicles parked on the road.
At each occurrence, our blood stained modified school bus passed muster with flying-colors, dispatching zombies and vehicles alike from the road.
"We're almost there," Sarge announced, picking up his rifle and the biggest crowbar I had ever seen.
"Wow, that's a huge crowbar," Jacob said. "Where did you get it?"
"Picked this little baby up at the railroad yard, they used it to pry up railroad ties, it does wonders on doors and windows, but it's too heavy to carry around most of the time. I thought it might come in handy for breaking into a military facility like a National Guard armory," Sarge responded, holding up his humongous steel tool.
We all followed suit, picking up our weapons, and assorted specialized equipment, such as lock picks, and mechanic's tools and prepared to go into the armory.
Dave turned our bus onto a short asphalt street, and announced.
"There it is, just up ahead."
"Everyone knows what to do, so do your job and we should be in and out in no time, let's go," the Sarge ordered, as he opened the school bus door.
We filed out of the bus, and Rich, Dave, and Bruce separated from us immediately and disappeared around the side of the building in search of the area where the vehicles might be parked.
Sarge and the rest of our group went directly to the front of the building where we found the front door securely locked. The Sarge jammed his crowbar into the narrow crack between the door and the doorjamb close to the top hinge.
"Watch this; this should be a piece of cake," he said, tugging hard on the opposite end of the steel bar.
A loud crack broke the precious silence we coveted, as the top of the door separated from the frame.
"One more and we're in," Sarge bragged, while sticking the crowbar in beside the lower hinge.
Another loud cracking sound was heard, which was quickly eclipsed by the horrendous noise made by the heavy wooden door falling onto the concrete walkway.
"Eaters!" Gin said calmly, alerting us that the noise we had made was drawing zombies toward us.
"We'll take care of this," Billy said walking in the direction of the small cluster of zombies. "Come on Jake, let's get'um."
I had come to trust my boy's competence in the art of killing zombies, so I wasn't overly concerned when they set out to drop a small band of these deadly maniacs, apprehensive yes, overly concerned no. As long as I didn't see them becoming too cocky, which seems to always turn to carelessness, and being careless will get you killed in our new world.
Billy and Jacob silently did away with the approaching zombies, which reinforced my confidence in them, then they rejoined the rest of us waiting by the front door.
We all entered the building, and once inside we quickly located the arsenal that was one of the objectives of our mission.
"All of the guns are locked in these racks," Gin announced, seeming rather frustrated. "I thought all we would have to do is pick them up and leave."
"Soldiers steal too," I said, expecting to find them secured.
"Yeah, but soldiers don't carry five foot long crowbars," Sarge added, tearing the lock off a rack with one swift tug.
"Jack, see if you and your boy's can find some ammo for these M-4's, and anything else for that matter," the Sarge ordered, while ripping the lock off another rack.
"Gin, come with us, we're going to need all the help we can get," I explained.
We found the ammunition locked in a cage in the next room.
"Jacob, run back and get the sergeant's crowbar, quickly," I said.
Jacob ran back and
returned with the crowbar, and with Beth.
"I don't think leaving the Sarge by himself is a good idea," I mentioned, while breaking the lock off the ammo cage door.
Beth shrugged her shoulders and replied. "Neither do I, but he insisted I help you guys, and we don't have time to sit down and debate it."
"These ammo boxes are heavy," Gin complained, as she lifted one of the boxes.
"Yeah, we're going to need a cart or a dolly or something, otherwise this will take us forever," I admitted, looking around for something to use to transport the ammunition.
"What about this?" Billy asked, pointing to a steel-wheeled heavy wooden flatbed cart.
"I think that's the reason it's here," Beth mocked sarcastically, showing that she could be just as big of a wiseass as the boys.
We loaded the flatbed with as much ammo as possible, keeping in mind that we still had to be able to move it once it was loaded.
"That's it, we've got 5.56, 7.62, 9mm, and some 50 cal. for that big sniper rifle I saw in the next room," I grunted, trying to push the cart by myself. "A little help would be nice boys."
With the help of Billy and Jacob, we pushed the ammo cart past the rifle depository room, to the front door, where we left it to return and help the Sarge.
The Sarge had found a flatbed of his own, and had it piled high with M-4 rifles and M-9 pistols.
"If I put anymore on it they just slide off," he said smiling.
"I can carry two or three," Jacob volunteered, sliding two pistols into his pockets, and picking up three more rifles. "Or both?"
"Me too," said Gin, as she grabbed two more M-4's.
"Give me some," Billy added, not wanting to look like a slacker.
"I'll make sure we don't get our asses killed," Beth muttered, heading for the door.
With both carts full, we maneuvered them out the front door and down the walkway to our parked bus.
"Let's get this stuff into the bus," Sarge ordered, pointing to a half dozen slobbering zombies stumbling toward our school bus.
As we loaded the weapons and ammo into the bus as fast as we could, Beth calmly stepped between us, and the approaching flesh-eating maniacs, pulled a plastic water bottle out of her pocket and unscrewed the cap. She took a small sip, and then emptied the rest of the water onto the street in front of her.
