by R. J. Spears
The truck burned furiously with flames, and smoke leapt thirty feet into the air. Periodically, a series of explosions would emanate from the burning truck with fireworks like streams of flames shooting forth from it. Each time this happened, the two soldiers would duck down, but Kilgore remained stalwart and unafraid. To me, that meant he was either crazy or he felt he had divine or devilish providence on his side. Neither were good.
My next step was to dash across the street and hopefully not get spotted. Timing was critical as the window between Brother Ed arriving back at the house and when they got on the road was closing fast. If I wasn’t careful, the train was going to leave without me, and it was one I didn’t want to miss.
I monitored the explosions from the truck, waiting for one that would provide the biggest distraction and it came. A convulsive explosion ripped through what was left of the truck, literally tearing it apart. The snap, crackle, and pop of the ammunition left in the truck sounded like a popcorn popper set on high. A spray of bullets shot out of the truck, peppering the houses. While Kilgore stood, unperturbed, his soldiers went face down in the grass as bullets flew over their heads.
That was my open window, and I took it. Two cars parked on each side of the street gave me some cover, but once I was out in the street and then into the front yard of the house on the north side of the street, I was exposed.
Like a sprinter coming off the blocks, I shot out from behind the cover of the house, and I locked my vision on the far side of the house on the north side of the street. I passed by the back of the car on my side of the street, and I felt almost invisible because I was moving so fast. I whooshed past the car on the north side of the street and only had to make it across the front yard and onto safety.
That’s when Kilgore spotted me. (So much for being invisible.) Unlike the soldiers taking cover on the ground with their heads covered, he was upright and totally aware of any movement and that included me.
“There he is!” Kilgore shouted. How I heard him above the explosions was a modern miracle, but maybe being a leader in the military gave you a big set of lungs. He followed the shout up by unloading his pistol at me.
A bullet whizzed by my head, sounding like an angry insect as it passed, buzzing furiously. My instincts had me throw my arms up to protect myself, despite knowing his bullets would pass through my hands and arms like hot butter. Sometimes, you can’t help yourself.
He didn’t let up, but I was more than halfway across the yard and moving like the wind. Or so I hoped. The far side of the house came up quickly, and two bullets plunked into the front, shredding the vinyl siding, but none hit me, and that’s what counted most.
There was no slowing down, though, as I knew he’d have his men up and after me, fire or no fire. He was just that type of guy.
I passed by the back of the house, ducked under a child’s swing set, and headed north for the back of the next set of houses. It just so happened that this was in the same direction of the conflagration of burning houses. Yes, there would be a hot time in town tonight, and I was getting ready to run right through the heart of the fires.
Thick black smoke swirled between the houses, and seeing what was ahead was becoming quite a challenge with the smoke swirling like a tornado. I didn’t want to run into any men that Kilgore might have left behind, so I was forced to slow down from my panicked pace. It turned out to be a prudent move as I came out from beside a house and was about to enter the street when I spotted a man in the center of the street pushing a wheelbarrow southward. The wheelbarrow contained that awfully big machine gun I had seen earlier. You know, the one I wanted to avoid at all costs.
As chance would have it, he saw me about the same time I saw him. At first, he seemed startled, then sorted me out from the friend or foe categories, and I clearly fell in the foe box. He fumbled with the big gun but then gave up and pulled out a pistol. For the second time in a two-minute span, I was being fired on again.
My gut told me to head west, but the two houses in that direction were burning so fiercely that I would have been broiled alive. Retreating wasn’t in the cards as I had little doubt Kilgore and the men with him weren’t sprinting after me with great haste.
So, I pressed my internal gas pedal and set a course for the house directly in front of me. The big downside of this house was that it was enveloped in a humongous and swirling black smoke cloud. This worked both in my favor and against it.
It was full steam ahead. I entered the smoke cloud two seconds later and, as the pilots always say, visibility dropped to zero.
While I was in the cloud, I was almost invisible to my attackers, but the funny thing about smoke is that you can’t breathe in it. At least, not and stay conscious and upright. Believe me, I tried. The first thing that happened was my eyes started to burn like I was on the surface of the sun. Then my lungs went into full protest mode, bringing on a round of violent coughs, nearly knocking me off my feet. I decided to comply with my lungs and hit the deck, falling to all fours.
I discovered that what firefighters said was true; if you’re in a fire, get down to the floor level. Now, I was on the ground, not on a floor, but being there was a world of difference between standing in a smoke cloud and getting down at ground level. At least that’s what my lungs thought because they weren’t too happy sucking in smoke.
Both visibility and breathability improved greatly, and I no longer felt like I was going to pass out. But I knew I had to continue my forward progress, so I crawled along on all-fours as fast as my arms and legs could carry me. I could barely see the side of the house to my right as I crabbed along. The house to my right seemed to glow like an ember, and I could only guess it was about to go up in flames at any second.
I had heard stories of houses exploding once they were on fire, and that vivid imagination of mine just couldn’t let it go. I knew people have a fear of fire and being burned, but my fear was primal. I could feel my arms shaking as I knew I needed to keep moving, but that overwhelming fear was telling me to go back where I had come from, not caring that there was a man back there with a gun ready to blow my brains out. It was just afraid of the fire, and it didn’t care about anything else.
Just over a week ago, I was sure I was going to be burned alive when a bomb was detonated just a feet away from me, but I survived. I felt like my luck was being spread, and this was it. The house would explode, and like the dragon’s breath, the fire would roll over me, burning me to a crisp.
But there was no choice but to keep on a crawling because of the man with the gun behind me.
So, crawl I did. As fast as any spider I had ever seen.
My escape was interrupted when I stumbled over a body lying in the space between the houses. My arms crumpled under me, and I rolled forward on my right shoulder. When I pushed off the ground, I glanced down at the body and discovered it was a woman. A woman who was familiar.
Two bullet wounds dotted the woman’s back, and her face looked away from me, but I knew who it was. Still, I leaned over the body and looked down at the face to confirm that it was Jenelle.
She said she wasn’t a “bad person,” and I truly believed her, but she had paid the price of going along with a bad plan.
There was no time to mourn her, so I started forward again, crawling along until I came upon a second body. Just like the last one, this one was familiar and, despite the inferno-like heat oppressively wrapped around me, I felt an icy cold seep into my gut, and I slowed down once again.
My progress slowly slid me up beside the legs, and then the torso and my stomach nearly lurched over and out when I made it to the upper torso. Someone had done a number on this body. It was barely recognizable.
Notice, I said ‘barely.” I knew who it was.
Brent.
I could only guess that this was Kilgore’s work and that somehow Brent had enraged the man because the punishment dealt on his body was worse than anything I had ever seen. And I had seen a lot of bad shit since the undead rose f
rom their graves.
I said a silent but fervent prayer that Brent had been dead when most of the damage had been inflicted. When I opened my eyes, I felt my soul ache and my stomach lurch.
Mercifully, a breeze wafted a smoke cloud across Brent’s body. It didn’t do much for my breathing, but it obscured the carnage.
There it was -- confirmation. It was a cold, arctic consolation and not something I wanted to tell Linda about, but it would give her and all of us closure. For whatever that was worth. Sometimes, I think open-ended mysteries worked better. At least that gave hope that somehow the person we were worried about might have escaped. They might still be alive.
But not in this case.
The sounds of shots behind me broke me from my dark meditations, and I started crawling forward again, moving alongside the house toward something I couldn’t see but hoped was safety.
Twenty seconds later, I broke out of the worst of the smoke and found myself in a child’s sandbox. Plastic toys laid scattered around along with the obligatory plastic bucket and tiny shovel.
My eyes and lungs burned from the exposure to the smoke, but the air was cleaner. I pushed myself to my feet feeling both physically and mentally drained.
I had what I wanted, confirmation on what had happened to Brent. It was a cold, cold comfort.
More shots came from out on the street, and I thought I heard voices shouting. It was time to get moving. Despite my body’s protest, I pushed it onward and forward, heading northward. I only hoped Brother Ed gave me a little grace time before shoving off without me.
Chapter 40
Crossing the Threshold
There was a world of difference between saying you’ll go out a door and actually going out it, and that was Mrs. Hatcher’s reality. It was the difference between leaving safety and security and entering a world filled with danger. She felt as if she were stepping from a safe and comfortable room and stepping into a volcano where she would be burned alive.
Doc Wilson had just pushed the door open and headed toward the truck where Ellen and Henry were. God knew what condition they were in. They could be dead for all she knew. And if they were dead, why take the risk of going outside among the dead?
These thoughts swirled in her head, paralyzing her as she watched Doc Wilson head toward the truck.
“Time to move,” a voice behind her and a pair of not so gentle hands pressed against her back and shoved her out the door.
“Wait, what, oh no,” Mrs. Hatcher said as she went from the relative safety of the inside to the perilous outside. There was a noticeable coolness to the air that, along with the fear roiling inside her, that caused rows of goosebumps to roll up her arms.
Molly continued to push, and Mrs. Hatcher half-stumbled, half-walked along, putting up only token resistance. “Come on, bitch. They need us,” Molly said.
Mrs. Hatcher surrendered to the motion but took a long glance back at the three zombies shambling their way from the cornfields. They were a safe distance away, but anything within eyeshot was too close for her. Still, she kept going.
They all had makeshift handheld weapons with the exception of Doc Wilson, who only had his medical bag. Molly held a three-foot-long piece of heavy metal pipe that she felt made her look like a badass. Mrs. Hatcher only had an extra-thick mop handle. It wasn’t much of a weapon but would have to do.
The light of the day was starting to dim in the west, leaving a diffuse glow over the school and the surrounding area. In other circumstances, it might have been pretty, but with zombies heading your way, few people stood and admired the beauty of the sunset.
Doc Wilson made it to the truck and immediately grabbed Henry’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. Just as he had done for years as an ER doctor before going into private practice, he calmly waited for the pulse and started counting the beats. The beats were steady and strong, which was a good sign, but Henry didn’t stir at all.
“Is he alive?” Molly asked, rushing past the slower moving Mrs. Hatcher and sliding next to Doc Wilson.
“Yes, but he’s unconscious.”
“What about Ellen?” Molly asked.
“I can’t see her,” Doc Wilson replied. “We need to get this door open, so I can get Henry out.” The other side of the truck was up against the side of the building.
Doc Wilson tugged at the door, but it resisted. The impact with the building had jammed the door.
“Give me a hand,” Doc Wilson said just as Mrs. Hatcher arrived on the scene.
“You watch our backs,” Molly ordered.
“What?” Mrs. Hatcher said, her mouth open wide.
“The fucking zombies,” Molly said. “Make sure they don’t eat our assess.”
“Uh okay,” Mrs. Hatcher said. She held a long, heavy piece of wood in her hands, slimmer than a ball bat but sturdier than a mop handle. To her, it seemed less than adequate for the job, but it was all she could find before being thrust out the door.
The zombies were nearly a football field away but were making the slow and steady progress that they always did. One moment, they were a good distance away and the next, they were in your face.
Molly and Doc Wilson reached up and grabbed the door in unison, and Doc Wilson said, “On three. One, two, three.”
They put their backs into the effort and, at first, the door resisted, but then it jerked open with a loud screeching noise. It flew fully open, and the hinge partially broke, letting it swing so far open that it clanged against the side of the truck.
To Mrs. Hatcher’s ears, it sounded like a symbol crash, and she jumped off the ground several inches, while cringing inside.
“Can you keep it down?” she asked, taking in their total surroundings and seeing two more zombies come out of the corn. “Oh God, there’s two more coming now.”
Both Doc Wilson and Molly looked over their shoulders at the oncoming zombies but went back to the task at hand.
“Give me a hand,” Doc Wilson said. “We’ll get him out of the truck, and I’ll check him out.”
“Okay,” Molly said, and shoulder-to-shoulder, they both eased Henry out of the truck as gingerly as they could. It was a challenging thing to do as Henry was dead weight, his body slack. Halfway to the ground, he let out a moan, which Doc Wilson took be a partially good sign. At least the boy was conscious enough to acknowledge pain. Of course, Doc Wilson conceded that it could also mean that there were internal injuries. If that was the case, then he knew there was very little he could do for the boy. There was no way to operate in this location. He had literally nothing to perform surgery. No scalpels, no anesthesia, and no antiseptics to prevent infections. And without Kara around, he had no one there who knew anything about surgery.
For a brief moment, that very practical part of him took over, and he glanced to Molly and wondered if she could be trained. While she was rough-edged, she had a lot of courage. You couldn’t be faint of heart when it came to medicine.
He pushed these thoughts to the side and focused on Henry. Once they got him the final few inches to the soft grass, he went to work, assessing Henry’s vitals the best he could. What he discovered was encouraging. Henry’s blood pressure was good, and his pulse rate was up.
Ordinarily, he would have allowed Henry to come to on his own, but there was no telling how long that would take, and the clock was ticking. Instead, Doc Wilson rummaged around in his bag and found what he was looking for.
Mrs. Hatcher said, “Is he dead?”
“No,” Doc Wilson said as he cracked open an ampule of smelling salts.
“What the hell is that?” Molly said, jerking her head away.
Doc Wilson didn’t say anything but just pushed the smelling salts under Henry’s nose. While the results weren’t immediate, Henry’s eyes flew open a few seconds later, and he started coughing convulsively.
“Wha-? What? ” Henry said, still looking half out of it.
“What hurts, son? Do you think you have any broken bones?” Doc Wilson asked, ignoring the ef
fects the smelling salts had on the boy.
“I--I---” Henry stammered out, barely sounding coherent.
Doc Wilson decided to take matters into his own hands and began to palpate Henry’s body, starting with his head and shoulders. When he pressed down onto Henry’s left shoulder, Henry’s eyes went wide, and he let out a small yelp.
“How much does that hurt?” Doc Wilson said and pressed the spot again.
Henry didn’t yelp this time, but he did grit his teeth. “It’s not that bad. Where’s my mom?”
Doc Wilson took that as a good sign. “Molly, climb in and check on Ellen. Mrs. Hatcher, watch those zombies and give a status.”
“They’re getting closer,” Mrs. Hatcher said, her voice rising in pitch through the short sentence.
“I already knew that,” Doc Wilson said, while helping Henry to sit up. “I need to know how close.”
“Fifty yards,” Mrs. Hatcher said, transfixed on the zombies as she seemed to vibrate from the tension of the situation.
“Please keep an eye out and let us know when they get too close,” he said,
For Mrs. Hatcher, that was an easy job because she couldn’t take her eyes off them. They were already too close in her opinion. Way too close.
Molly threw down her piece of metal pipe then hoisted herself up into the cab of the truck and saw Ellen slumped against the driver’s door, half hanging onto the steering wheel, and trying to pull herself upright but not being able to do it. Her face was red from the strain, and her expression was pinched as she was in obvious pain. Molly practically jumped across the cab and latched onto Ellen’s arm and started to pull, but Ellen let out a tight scream. Her eyes closed, and color filled her face as Molly let go.
It took nearly ten seconds for Ellen to reopen her eyes. “It’s alright, honey,” she said, trying to comfort Molly, who was looking stricken. “I can use your help. Just not too hard.”
Molly looked caught up in indecision, but she slid back across the seat and grabbed Ellen’s arm and gently pulled her away from the steering wheel. Still, it was more than obvious that Ellen was in a great deal of pain.
