by mike Evans
“Yeah, I’d be happy to, any ideas?”
“Yes, you knock the window out of the back and then you spend every magazine you need to shoot out their legs from beneath them. Aim at the concrete maybe you’ll get some lucky ricochet into their brains. God bless you if you can actually take some of them out. But unless you got some short ones you aim low. I think it is the safest bet. If we can trip them up, then we can put the distance that we need between us and them. If you got any grenades left then be my guest. Take the two I have.”
Shaun took them stuffing them in his pockets as he ran to the rear of the bus knowing if they did get close they’d have an open invitation to fight their way inside. Shaun used the stock of the rifle smashing it into the glass. It did not shatter as he had wanted; it only webbed out looking like a spider had strewn a web across it. “Hey, Aslin, it won’t break! What the hell do you want me to do?”
“Shoot the fucking thing if it won't break, Shaun. Figure it out because they’re getting closer and there’s a shit ton of cars up ahead. At this point we aren’t going to be able go back to the base if we can’t get rid of these things. There are too many weak spots and we won’t be able to fight them off.”
Shaun shouldered his rifle sending off a ten burst and peppering the window, scattering bullets everywhere. The glass shattered and Shaun broke it out the rest of the way with the butt of his rifle, and this time it worked. The glass shattered behind him and only a few shards were sticking out along the line of the molding that had been keeping it in place.
Shaun started firing off a succession of shots not letting up until the first two magazines had emptied. The dead were falling quicker and the dead behind the falling Turned couldn’t keep their balance as they tried to avoid them. When Shaun thought they had a good handle on putting distance between them he lobbed the first and then the second of the grenades towards the leader of the packs feet and ducked back down on the seat.
“Cover up your ears if you can, Aslin, it is about to get loud in here. I just tossed two grenades out the window.”
The bus shook as both bombs went off. The sound of body parts hitting the back of the bus made him jump. He’d thought one of the dead had still made their way close enough to jump on. Shaun slammed in a fresh magazine and brought back the charging handle. He saw the best thing he had that day when there was nothing but dead for the eye to see. Except these dead were not moving; they were down and staying that way. The dead behind were trying to fight their way past them but they had gotten the distance which they needed and drove like the devil once they hit the first open path that they could take home.
Shaun yelled, “Hey, Aslin, you’ve been driving this for like ten minutes and you haven’t crashed it yet.”
He looked back and yelled, “Look, you little shit, I’m not that bad of a -.”
The bus rocked as Aslin took it head first into a Prius sending the car spinning wildly into a local building. “Not one word, Fox, not one fucking word. God, I hate kids some days.”
Shaun suppressed the smile knowing later that there would be shit given and it would be plentiful. The bus stayed straight as an arrow the rest of the way and there were no other issues as they passed through the end of Urbandale, and back to the highway which would lead them to the base. Once they were close to the base Aslin punched his radio and said, “Hey, we’ll be there soon, get the barriers down so that we can enter quickly.”
Clary said, “You got anything or anyone following you three back?”
“No, we don’t have any threats behind us and it’s two not three.”
Clary hated himself a little bit hoping it was one kid over the other but Shaun was the most impressive young man that he’d ever met. He said, “It wasn’t Shaun, was it?”
“No, no he made it. He’s in the back of the bus, he’s still being a pain in the ass too.”
“Do I even want to ask what happened?”
“Is it going to change anything, Clary? Talk about the past brings up the past, regardless if it's ten minutes or ten months. I don’t want to get into it right now. If you want to talk about it after we get home and take care of those others, then we can. It is about as pleasant of a story though as any other kids that we’ve lost.”
“Okay, that makes sense, and no I don’t need to know the details; I already have a hard enough time sleeping the way it is. Filling my head with more demons isn’t going to help.”
“Retelling the story isn’t going to do anything for me either. Just make sure you get those gates open and ready for us…this thing is a bitch to handle.”
Clary already knew his answer before he asked it but couldn’t help but bait him with the question. “Sorry, how long have you been driving a Humvee? You still don’t have the hang of it.”
Aslin said, “It’s wasn’t my fault this time. Well, it wasn’t completely my fault; there’s a big ass driveway to that place and needless to say there was the mother of all hordes in there.”
“Did you crash another vehicle? Christ, you wonder why we don’t have nice things. Why the hell did you get a bus?”
“Because it was the only thing big enough to get all of this blood back. Did you get the sprayer ready on the truck?”
“Nope, I decided that was a risky idea.”
“So, what the hell are we going to do, we lost a good kid running for this shit, and now you don't want to-”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Aslin. I was going to say that we’re taking a tank out. These things are just sitting here ready to rock. I think Greg might be in love with the idea of them and the firing power. I’m glad that he didn’t know that I could drive one of these prior to today.”
“You know that is actually fucking genius! Damn good work, Clary.”
“Hey, prick, don’t act like it is that shocking that I came up with a good idea. I’m a damn genius, man.” Clary said.
“Uh huh, we’re about five minutes out,” Aslin said. “Are we going to be able to make it past those guys out front that you bombed the shit out of earlier?”
“Yeah, you should be okay, there won’t be extra room, but I want to leave it there. It is a good deterrent for anyone that thinks that coming after us would be a good idea.”
“We need some signs letting people know what we got going on here. Basically, if you want to stay here, you want to come in and chat that we’re down with it, but that if they’re here for any other reason we will rain hell down on them,” Aslin said.
Clary said, “That’s an idea but it isn’t a necessity at the moment. It is going to be awhile before I welcome anyone with open arms. We can figure this shit out later. I’ll be there in a few so you make sure that everyone is ready to go when I get there. We fill it up and we get out of there.”
“What are we doing with the kids that don’t know how to shoot?” Aslin asked.
“They can still aim and pull a trigger towards their little base. At the very least if they don’t hit anything they’ll still seriously make some fucking racket. You pair each of them with Ellie, Kya, Scott, and well I guess that is it, isn’t it? Fuck, we’ll use that tank for everything it is worth.” Clary said. “We will see you two in a few. I’ll make the call to assemble everyone. They aren’t too far off.”
“Ten-four.”
Chapter 23
Clary hit his radio calling everyone in. When they made it up to the tank, a smile crept across their faces. They didn’t have a clue what it really could do and could only imagine what they knew from movies and television shows. Ellie saw the tank and said, “You know how to drive this, Clary?”
“Well, if I don’t, Ellie, we aren’t going to make it very damn far, are we?”
“You going to drop some hell on those assholes today with the long gun?”
“Yes, we’re loaded up with as many as we could fit in it. We can drop forty bombs on them, that’s probably overkill but I’m a pretty big fan of being thorough and it’ll save bullets. Does everyone here that doesn’t
have any experience with these rifles have ammunition for them?”
A fifteen-year-old girl, Aliyah, stepped forward holding her hand up. Clary knew most the kids but figured this one must have been one of the last groups that had come in. He smiled looking at her hair, the final remains of purple danced at the tips of her hair almost completely grown out after a year of the dead. He thought of luxuries kids used to have and that they’d not waste time on such things going forward. There was no reason to set themselves aside from the others because they were all one now. But he secretly loved the rebellious kids unafraid to be judged by their peers. She said, “I don’t know how to use this thing, like at all. I mean I’m not stupid, you pull the trigger and it goes off. But other than that I’m more likely to shoot one of you then to hit anything with it. I don’t think that is a very good idea.”
“Well, young lady there aren’t a lot of options. With the exception of Aslin and Fox, there’s no one else to fill your shoes. If you want to survive, hell if you all want to survive we need to put these men down before they come back and wipe us out. I guarantee you that they will come back. If they had all their cards in today they probably would have won, especially with the number of people that they were able to take out with pure luck at the bunkhouse. If I wouldn’t have been watching the surveillance and Patrick wouldn’t have let us know with his dying moments on earth, then we’d all be lying dead where we stood.”
“That doesn’t make me feel very safe,” she said.
“It wasn’t meant to make you feel safe. There isn’t anything to save us but ourselves. We no longer have a government, police, or citizens that we can trust as back up. It’s us, the welfare of life is gone and if we want to make it we need to make a stand; we need to take them out and we need to do it today while they’re still licking their wounds and mourning the loss of their group. That is if they’re mourning anything.”
She held up her rifle, “So, what do you want us to do with these things then? If you think I’m kidding about not knowing what to do with it then I hate to be standing behind you with one of these when the times comes.”
Clary walked over taking the gun from her. He said, “For those of you, what do we have eight that don’t know what they’re doing with these it looks like?” He took the rifle holding it out in front of him. “Everyone hold your rifle out like so, don’t put your finger on the trigger, I repeat do not put your finger on the trigger. Push this button it’s called a magazine. The thing falling from it is called, can anyone guess? That’s right…a magazine. It will fall out given you aren’t resting it on the ground. You only hit this button when your gun stops firing and you are out of bullets. You release it push it aside and put in a new one…here. The best way to know if it is in there correctly is if the bullets are pointing to the bad guys when you put it in. The idea of them facing you means you’d like the gun to shoot you but they won’t fire that way nor will the magazine fit. They call this survival of idiots in combat. Once you have it in there securely you pull this handle back; it is called the charging handle and it will let you fire the gun again. There is a safety on here. You put it on until we get there. You will notice there is a scope on here. If you put it on single fire, you can try and see any bad people through it. If you can find one and put the crosshairs in the middle of their chests then God bless you and please, please, please pull the trigger and take those assholes out. I know that is a lot to remember but really just remember magazine release. Charging handle when empty, and safety on until we get there. Do you think you got that?”
He handed the rifle back to Aliyah who looked at it for a second hit the button letting the magazine fall to the ground, pulled a fresh magazine out of her pocket, and placed it in pushing it home. She pulled the charging handle back letting it release and aimed at a nearby tree missing the first three shots and on the fourth hit home. The rest of the teens followed her lead and within one magazine they each had hit the bark of the tree consistently for rookies on a rifle.
Clary said, “Alright, now save what you got and make sure that you have a fresh one in and what on?”
The group all yelled, “The safety!”
“And why do we want that on?”
“So we don’t shoot you in the back.”
“Yes, so we don’t shoot anyone in the back of the head. We don’t want to worry about me, because I’m going to be in that tank.”
Greg coughed, and Clary said, “With Greg sitting next to me, which I’m bound to regret.”
The teens nodded and Ellie said, “Come on, when you think you have enough bullets is going to be when you run out. Let’s run inside and grab everyone a few more to stuff in your bags. There’s no reason to go light today when there is so much in there. Just make sure your shots count, please, so we don’t waste them.”
The group followed her and Aslin pulled in slowly with the bus. The front of it was covered with gore with a smiley give blood character on the front on a giant red sticker. Greg said, “Christ, he crashes the shit out of things doesn't he?”
Clary looked to him but didn’t need to say anything.
“Hey, I’m getting better at driving so lay off, man.”
McQuaig coughed and said, “That’s why I drive anytime we go somewhere, right?”
“You drive because I’m a beautiful, evil genius behind a machine gun, McQuaig.”
McQuaig looked to Clary who actually wouldn’t deny that it was not somewhat accurate. “He is pretty good but it sure seems like it's getting deep in here.”
Greg questioned, “Deep?”
McQuaig was already pulling back the reel to set the hook. “Yeah, Greg, deep, like you’re full of shit.”
Greg started to smile trying to hold it back. He said, “You watch yourself, McQuaig, or you might just make me fall in love with you.”
She winked walking back and Clary said, “Watch yourself, Greg, she might be trouble.”
Greg pointed to himself and said, “I’m sorry, does that look like something I’m ever concerned with?”
Clary turned around getting the rest of the gear up on the tank to drop in. “No, it must be nice being young and dumb…I was young and dumb once. Was one of the best times of my life.”
Chapter 24
Kya sat next to Joey who looked like peace was not in his dreams. His face was scrunched up and he was shaking his head more than she liked to see. He had been sedated so Lou could work on him and didn’t want the boy waking up violently in the middle of it. He was scared enough doing such technical work on a boy who he had no medical history with, as well as it being the first bullet wound he had worked on. Kya held Joey’s hand and felt his forehead because the sweat that was building on top of it was making her nervous and she did not want to see anything else happen to him. If she had any more loss in her life today she felt that her heart would literally break.
When she wiped the sweat away from his forehead she kissed him on the top of the head making sure that he didn’t have a fever. It was the way that her mother had checked her temperature for years when she was sick and always made her feel loved and better. Joey stirred and groggily started to try to talk. The spit from his throat was nonexistent and he had jumped a little when he woke up.
Kya sat back in the seat looking at him and realized she had only seen the boy look that scared twice. She thought back to the first few days that they had been hiding in the business district in Adel before Shaun and his crew had driven by. His father had been eating his mother for his birth into the zombie apocalypse. It was a dream that had haunted him since the beginning of the apocalypse and probably still did today.
His brother and sister had done everything in their power trying to make the boy calm and feel safe in that store front but they had very little valid reassurances that they could promise the boy to make him feel better. He had not understood that his mother was gone until they had seen her randomly walking across the street and at that point there was no question that she was most definitely
gone and no longer of the living.
The second time she recalled was only a day later on the first day that they had slept in a bed since it started, and being at the old man Andy’s farmhouse on the edge of town had given them the much needed respite they were so desperate for. They’d all woken up feeling like this was going to be their home for a long time. That, of course, had only lasted a few precious hours before absolutely everything went to hell in a handbag.
She remembered how Patrick and Joey had been bonding on day three of hell. She could see how Patrick was standoffish and didn’t really know how to talk to anyone. He had been happy to help but was unsure what to do with Joey. If he should treat him differently or just like anyone else. Joey who had not given him any chance to like him had clung to him instantly. They had bonded quickly, and by the afternoon looked like they had known each other for years. They had split wood that Andy had said would be imperative to heat the hundred plus year old house in the winter…if they made it that long.
That was something she could remember wasn’t high on her list of things she thought would happen. Just as she thought she was getting to know Jen and Ellie the bus had come from nowhere, filled with other kids from an orphanage led by two men that had no clue what they were doing. She thought how most of those kids were no longer alive and that at best there were probably five still there. Joey’s sister had been taken in the farm pasture by the dead that followed the bus that would end up saving their lives. She knew that the dead would have made their way there eventually but she would have been grateful, and felt blessed, if it had been more than half a day.
Joey tried saying something again but it was useless and he could only move his mouth. The more he tried to speak the more nervous he got. He looked around wild eyed trying to figure out what was going on. Kya sounded like she was yelling to him in a tunnel; the drugs were impairing him and making it impossible to understand anything.
Kya gripped his hand with both of hers making sure not to cover them up. When she saw him trying to speak she let go and poured him a glass of water. He drank it quickly and she had to tell him, “Take small sips, Joey, I don’t know if you are going to make yourself sick or not by chugging that water, so take your time.”
