Zompoc Survivor: Exodus

by Ben S Reeder

  “So, who are we going to get, and why are they so important?” Porsche asked when we were bumping along on the rough ground beside the tracks again.

  “Remember the guys I was telling you about at work?”

  “The ones from Iraq?” she said.

  “Yeah. One of them, Nate Reid, is a former Delta Force operator. He’s the one who made me believe that something like this was going to happen. He also helped me get ready for it if…when it did. He helped me finance Sherwood, our property out west of town, and made sure I got everything I needed to ride things out. In return, he asked me to make sure I got his ex-wife and his son to safety when shit hit the fan.”

  “Why you?”

  “His son likes the War of the Magi series.”

  “You’re kidding,” she laughed.

  “He’s got signed copies of all three books. And they’re pretty damn good. Hell, they’re better than Operation Terror and The Frankenstein Code.”

  “No, I meant that he chose you just because his son liked your books.”

  “There’s more to it than that, but that’s what started everything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call Cassie and let her know we’re on our way.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and prayed for a signal. I got a couple of bars. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Her phone rang several times, and just when I thought it was going to go to voicemail, she picked up.

  “Hello?” she said softly.

  “Cassie, it’s Dave Stewart. Are you at home?” I heard the phone rub against fabric, then her voice came clearer.

  “If this is really you, what did you tell my son when he bought Operation Terror?” she asked.

  “You didn’t let him read that one, or The Frankenstein Code.”

  “Damn straight,” she said. “I read them, but only you would know that I didn’t let Bryce see them. Nate called me a few hours ago, he told me to expect you. Come on by. We’ll be waiting for you.” The phone clicked off and I tucked it back in my front pocket.

  “That was quick. And weird. What was that about your books?” Porsche asked.

  “She was making sure it was really me,” I said absently. “Nate had already called her. There, take that road. Follow it down to Grand. No, wait!”

  “What?”

  “Stay on the tracks. This street comes out between two churches. Stay on the tracks until they cross Grand.”

  “Yeah, we don’t want to run up on another prayer meeting from Hell,” she agreed. We endured another ten minutes of rough terrain before we came out on Grand. The little hill that rose up to meet the tracks shielded us from view to the west, and I saw a group of infected milling around under the street light a few hundred yards to the east, right where the two churches sat caddy-corner to each other. It made an irrational sense that we’d find more zombies there. People gravitated to churches when things went bad, and right now, it was as bad as it got. There was a sort of comfort to be found in seeking the presence of God, and even if I had very little good to say about religion, I understood the human need for the spiritual. Even in death, people could find comfort in that, perhaps especially in death. Maybe they were already in a better place. Even if they were, I was in no hurry to join them.

  Porsche turned her lights off again and let the truck idle. None of them seemed to be heading our way, so I gave her a nod and pointed to the little street a few yards to our right. Three turns later, we were pulling up in front of Cassie’s place. Her street was comfortably cute, with well-kept lawns and minivans in every other driveway. Cassie’s was one of the ones without the minivan or the prerequisite garden sculptures. We pulled into the driveway of her place and got out. We walked up to the door and I knocked softly, half expecting to be met with a gun barrel in my face.

  “It’s open Dave,” I heard her call out. I turned the knob and pushed the door open but stayed in place. Carefully, I slung the M4 barrel down across my shoulder.

  “Cassie, it’s me. I have someone with me, her name’s Porsche. She’s a friend of mine. She’s okay.” I stepped inside and kept my hands out to my sides, knowing I was silhouetted against the open door. The broad side of most barns would be harder to hit than I was just then. Porsche followed me in with her hands held up in front of her, and I heard the door swing shut behind us.

  “Sorry for being paranoid, Dave,” Cassie said from behind me.

  “It’s been that kind of day,” I told her as I turned around.

  “Nate was pretty insistent about being careful.” Cassie was holding a Berretta M9 of her own pointed down at the floor. In the soft light from the street light, the only other thing I could see were her jeans and hiking boots.

  “It was a good idea. I’ve already had to shoot at a couple of survivors. You ready?”

  “We were just getting packed to go.” She stepped forward, and I could see that she had on a gray sweater and had her blond hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She led us into the dining room table. A half-full backpack and gear covered the table. “I sort of… unpacked the bug out bags. I kept all of the stuff, but it felt weird having all of it packed up.” I shrugged. Movement behind me caught my attention, and I saw Bryce emerge from the hallway with a backpack in his hand. His face lit up when he saw us.

  “Hi, Dave!” he said brightly as he came over to us and dropped the pack at Cassie’s feet. “Dad said you’d be coming by.” He’d grown a couple of inches since I’d last seen him, and his dark hair had grown out from the buzz he’d had six months ago. Now it was in danger of getting in his eyes. He wore a pair of jeans and an Iron Man t-shirt with a pair of black sneakers. His face was just starting to lose the soft edges of baby fat, and his chin and jaw were looking more like Nate’s square features. His nose, though, was pure Cassie, slightly upturned and freckled.

  “You ready to go, then?” I asked as he shook my hand.

  “Just about. I didn’t unpack my stuff,” he said with a smile. For a kid, I figured having a pack full of gear was pretty novel. “All I had to do was pack my clothes.” He turned a smug look on his mother and got a glare that I could feel the heat off of from across the room in return.

  “Enough of that, young man,” she said sternly as she put the last of her gear into the pack. He nodded and gave me a knowing smile while she shouldered her pack and grabbed her purse. “Go get in the car.”

  “Mom, what about my gun?” he asked plaintively. He was bordering on whining, and I would have been too at his age. I gave her a nod, and she let out a tired sigh and headed back toward the hallway. She emerged moments later with a black rectangular gun case in her hand and a stern expression on her face.

  “You are not opening this until we get to Dave’s house, do you understand me young man?” she said. His face lit up as she handed him the case, and he headed for the garage door. “We’ll meet you outside,” she told me as she followed him. Porsche hit the door a heartbeat before I did, then stopped in her tracks on the welcome mat. My ears perked up as I tried to keep from running into her, and I heard the sound of metal hitting metal nearby. Before either of us could say anything, the distinctive hammering of a machine gun ripped across the night. Without thinking, I went to push Porsche forward but she was already moving toward her truck. Two steps behind her, I unslung the M4 and vaulted into the bed even as the garage door started to open. She had her truck started and in reverse before the door was halfway up, and by the time it had cleared the roof of Cassie’s grey Wrangler, we were in the street. I looked to my left to see a black Humvee barrel through the next intersection over, followed seconds later by another. The second one was the source of the gunfire, the man in the turret hosing the road behind them with a steady stream of fire.

  The machine gun stopped a heartbeat or three later, and I heard the sound of men calling out to each other. For a moment, I might as well have been back in Iraq, listening to an infantry squad. There is always an urgency to combat, but the men I had heard over in the sand box had a distinctive focus to their voices in a fig
ht, a cadence unique to American fighting men. Hearing it now, in the States, I couldn’t change how I reacted.

  “Left! Left!” I called out.

  “Are you nuts? There’s zombies that way!” Porsche cried.

  “Don’t argue with me! Go left!” I yelled back. She cursed a blue streak, but she turned the wheel to the left and left rubber smoking in our wake as we barreled down the street.

  “Which way do I turn?” she yelled back through the window as we sped toward the intersection.

  “Right!” I called back as I braced myself for the turn.

  “I should’ve known,” she said as she turned the wheel. The street slid into view in front of us, and I saw a Humvee turned on its side with several men crawling out of it. Two were on either end of the vehicle, and a third was crawling out of the turret. Porsche pulled up next to the Humvee and stopped. Through her windshield, I could see a group of infected coming down the street, moving too fast to be zombies. Even as I got to my feet, the soldier on the far end of the Humvee dropped one of them with a short burst to the chest. The other one pointed his gun at me. I forced myself to ignore the thick stubby barrel that was pointed at me and propped my elbows on the roof to steady my aim, then popped off a three round burst into the chest of one of the infected. The sweats-and-hoodie clad ghoul dropped, and I moved my aim to the right. Three more rounds peppered the torso of a naked ghoul, and I thanked whichever god happened to be listening for bad lighting and the fog of war as he fell.

  “Get in!” I yelled between bursts.

  “You heard the man, get in! Mason, talk to me!” the man who had pointed his gun at me called out. His gun hiccupped and another ghoul went down. I fired a stuttering burst from the M4, but mine spun and staggered but stayed on his feet. I squeezed off another three rounds, and he fell. Twelve rounds, I reminded myself.

  “Kowalski and Hicks are dead, Renfro took a round in the right arm!” someone called from inside the Humvee. In my peripheral vision, I could see men crawling out of the Humvee.

  “Jackson, get Renfro out,” the leader barked out. He put three rounds downrange, then another three. “Mason, Vasquez, pull the gear. Carter, grab the SINGCARS and get ready to pop thermite. You, in the truck…keep shooting those fuckers!”

  “I’ve only got a couple more magazines!” I called back over the ringing in my ears. I switched the selector to single fire.

  “Use ‘em!” he yelled back as soldiers crawled out of the vehicle. Porsche’s door opened and I saw her prop her arm against the frame. The pop of her pistol was a slow counter beat to the ping of my M4. I spared a glance at the leader, and saw him struggling with the turret as I felt the bed of the truck vibrate under my feet. Then a soldier was beside me, and my gun went silent. As I fished a magazine from my pocket, he opened up with his submachine gun, three round bursts coughing from the end of the barrel. Ghouls dropped as I rammed the magazine home and pulled the charging handle. Porsche’s gun went silent and I heard her curse.

  “Get in!” I yelled to her, taking aim at a ghoul in a business skirt that was sprinting along the sidewalk on my left. I let the sight go past her slightly before I pulled the trigger, but she kept going. Another aimed shot missed her, so I brought the scope back onto her and started pulling the trigger as I slowly walked it ahead of her. The fifth round dropped her, and I turned back to the advancing horde. Seven more rounds dropped four infected ghouls, and then the leader stepped out in front of the truck with a boxy gun in hand. The guy beside me slapped my shoulder with the back of his left hand.

  “Hold your fire!” he yelled. I raised the barrel of my gun and nodded as he called out again. “Put ‘em down, Captain!” In front of the truck, the captain raised the bulkier gun to his shoulder and unleashed a brand of hell on Earth on the ghouls that I was glad I was on the back side of. The sound of it alone hammered my ears, a deeper pounding than the M4’s sharp reports, and I saw the top half of one of the ghouls jerk uncontrollably before its head disintegrated. The captain lowered the barrel and slowly walked a line of destruction across the advancing line, sending body parts flying, including at least one arm and a head. A few seconds later, the gun clicked as the last round cycled through it, and very few of the ghouls were left standing. The man beside me let out a whoop as the captain turned and walked back to the truck.

  “Fuck yeah!” one of the other soldiers called out.

  “Stow that shit, Jackson,” the captain said as he climbed into the bed of the truck and laid the big gun down. He nodded to one of the other soldiers, a young black man who still stood by the truck. The soldier ran to the Humvee and pulled the pin on a grenade, laid it on the upper side of the vehicle then bolted for the truck again. Porsche didn’t need to be told to gun the engine, and we sped past the damaged vehicle as the thermite ignited. Cassie sped along behind us, and I heard the diesel catch as we turned the corner. I leaned down by the open driver’s side window.

  “Head back to where we split up,” I told Porsche. She nodded, her face slowly losing a slight green cast in the fitful light.

  “Thanks for the ride!” the captain said to me as Porsche made her way back toward the railroad tracks. He stuck out one gloved hand. “Name’s Adams.”

  “Stewart,” I said. “Dave Stewart. What the hell happened back there?” Adams gave a glance to one of his men before he turned back to me.

  “Fuckin’ Homeland pukes rammed us when we hit that big bunch of infected,” he said. Even over the ringing in my ears and the wind, I could hear the scorn in his voice. “Opened fire with my team down range, too. Killed two of my men. Did you say your name was Dave Stewart?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You the guy who wrote The Frankenstein Code?” the guy beside me asked.

  “Yeah, and Operation Terror.” He gave a nod to Adams.

  “I read your stuff, man. Not bad. Kinda out there, but hey, it’s just a horror story, right?”

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  Chapter 9

  A Little Knowledge

  Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

  ~Napoleon Hill ~

  “Garland, this is Karma,” Adams said into his radio as we bounced along the right of way beside the tracks. One earphone was held to his ear, the other swinging from the curved headset to bounce against his shoulder. “Tertiary objective sighted. Preparing to secure. We are down two KIA, one wounded.” He listened to the response on his headphones, then looked over his shoulder at Cassie’s Jeep. “Negative on secondary objective. Homeland rabbited on us before we could verify that intel. Roger that.” He kept the headphone to his ear and looked back toward the front of the truck with the impatient expression of a man on hold.

  “Hey, Stewart,” the man beside me asked. His name tape read Vasquez. He pointed to the carbine in my hand before he went on. “Where’d you pick up the M4?”

  “Ran across a couple of National Guard trucks outside Kickapoo,” I said as I reached into my right front pocket. “Grabbed what I needed to stay alive, and pulled their tags. I figured someone should know what happened to them.” I handed him the three sets of tags.

  “What did happen to them?” he said, and I heard a little hostility creep into his voice.

  “Near as I can figure, they tried to clear a bunch of infected from the high school and got overrun.” I watched his face, and saw the look change from hostile to skeptical as he looked down at the tags in his hand.

  “They turned?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I took care of them, and we led as many infected away as we could,” I told him. He gave me a nod, then turned to Adams. In their gear and helmets, they had that lean uniformity that I’d seen in so many front-line soldiers. They wore smaller helmets but their other gear was not much different from most I’d seen: tactical vests and holsters, elbow and knee pads and heavy gloves over digital camo fatigues. Their shoulder patches bore the Special Forces tab, most of them having a Ranger tab abov
e the obligatory Airborne tab. All of them bore the subdued version of the Special Forces shoulder patches, an upright sword crossed by three lightning bolts in black against the olive drab arrowhead. I reassessed my situation as I realized that I was sitting among a team of Green Berets, men who had earned the term ‘bad-ass’ several times over before they’d even made the grade for the Special Forces. If there was a place that could be called safe in the newly fucked up world, I was as close to it as humanly possible.