“No, but he’s reliable,” Robbie said.
“Is this the same guy who said this infection came from the Bat Boy from the National Enquirer fame?”
“Yeah, but…” he started, but trailed off.
“Can you keep the frightening, yet unsubstantiated claims from borderline wackos to a minimum?” Joni asked. “I’ve got freaked out kids on this bus.”
Robbie started to speak again, but Dave shot him a withering look and he shut his mouth.
We traveled on with Joni giving me periodic updates on our fuel status as we went. The reports weren’t encouraging as I watched the little needle get closer and closer to the E on the fuel gauge.
To keep spirits up, Jay, Jane, and Mo handed out some of the food and drinks we had taken from the school. People chatted quietly and it was like we were on a school trip almost, only the zombies roamed the earth and any detour could be our last.
We crossed from Arkansas to Mississippi when the wheels came off our little excursion. Not literally, though. It was living and not the dead that caused our problems this time.
“Grant, we have a roadblock coming up,” Joni said and the rest of the bus went quiet. “What should I do?”
“Slow down,” I said.
Joni brought bus down to less than five miles per hour as we creeped down the road. Down the way, two pickup trucks were parked across the road at oblique angles, effectively blocking the road. There was room on the shoulder to get around them, but something wasn’t right. No people were visible.
“Bring us to a stop,” I said.
She eased us to a dead stop and I continued looking down the road at the two cars, watching for any movement, but saw nothing.
“What do you think is going on?” Dave asked.
“It seems like if someone wanted us to stop, they’d be around the cars to give us some direction,” I said.
“Where do you think they are?” Dave asked leaning forward in his seat.
“I think there are two choices,” I said. “They are either long gone or they’re somewhere off to our right or left ready to pick us off or take us.”
A voice sounded from the back of the bus, “Get ready for anything, people.” It was Chuck, and he was standing poised in a relaxed, but ‘ready for anything’ pose.
“Whaaaat?” Dave said.
That’s when the first shot was fired. One of the side windows on the south side of the bus exploded inward, sending glass fragments spraying across the seats. Someone screamed and couple others joined in and everyone started scrambling around inside like chickens with their heads cut off. I ducked down, turned to the back of the bus, and shouted for people to get down. Rosalita sat in rigidly in her seat crossing herself like there was no tomorrow and, frankly, if they kept shooting up, there might not be.
I also saw a silhouette standing in the now open back emergency door. The figure looked like it had a rifle in one hand and a small bag in the other. Before I could say anything, the silhouette jumped out the door and was gone.
Another bullet struck the side of the bus and another window shattered.
“What should I do?” Joni shouted, ducked down at the steering wheel.
“Get us the hell out of here!” I yelled back.
Just as she slammed the transmission in reverse, another set of shots were fired. I heard the bullet slam into the side of the bus and then I heard a loud hissing noise. The bus began to shimmy and sway as we sped backwards and our progress reduced greatly.
“I think they shot out the tires,” I yelled over the chaos. I half stood and yelled to the back of the bus, “Everybody get your guns.” Almost before I finished, Carla rose up from her seat with a rifle and shot out the window next to her seat, then stuck the gun out the window, and started firing. She poured through an entire clip, firing wildly into the woods on the south side of the bus. She ejected the clip and loaded up the next one and started firing again with the skill and courage of any soldier I had ever seen.
“Carla,” I shouted, “take it easy on the ammo. We don’t have that much.”
“But they’re shooting at us,” she yelled back.
“Do you see anything out there?” I asked, yelling down the aisle.
“No.”
“Well then wait until you have some sort of a target.”
Her firing had done something as no new shots came in.
“There’s a couple trucks coming down the road at us,” Joni shouted, getting my attention. “They look like they have a lot of guns.”
“Oh shit,” I said. When I poked my head up, I saw a Humvee and what looked like a Jeep barreling down the road at us. The Humvee had a nasty looking .30 caliber gun mounted and manned. I also several guys standing up in the Jeep and they all had big rifles. They approached the two blocked cars and stopped on a dime. With military precision, several of their number jumped off the Jeep and out of the Humvee and took up positions by the cars, their weapons at the ready. Strangely, none of them aimed in our direction, but seemed to be focusing on the treeline to the south.
“What do we do?” Dave said with a slight quaver to his voice.
“Sit tight,” I said. “If these new guys fire at us or try to take us, shoot them.” I paused and took a quick inventory of our situation. The bus had been shot up with several windows now gone. I’m assuming that at least a couple of our tires were now flat which left us dead in the water. If those new arrivals fanned out around us, we’d be sitting ducks.
“Dave, grab your kids and go to the back of the bus,” I said. “Joni, you go with them. Robbie, you and Mo get ready to see if you can get Rosalita off the bus. Randell and I will hold them off if they approach.”
Robbie and Mo both looked doubtful, but moved up beside Rosalita, but I think some of Robbie’s hesitancy revolved around leaving some of his gadgets behind.
“What about me?” Carla said in an almost pouty voice.
“You get off with Dave, Joni, and the kids.”
“I’m not a kid,” she said.
She wasn’t a kid. At least not any more. Chronologically, she was thirteen, but after losing her entire family on our escape out of Texas, she had aged a great deal, mostly the hard way. Most days she barely spoke and majority of those words were sullen mumbles, unless it was an angry outburst. She was cracked and broken down the middle and there were times that she actually scared me with her intensity.
“I know,” I said. “You’ll provide covering fire if they need it. Jay and Jane, you’ll do the same for Robbie, Mo, and Rosalita.”
“Where’s Chuck?” I asked.
“He jumped out the back,” Robbie said.
There was nothing to be done about that.
Before we could start ourselves in motion, a shot rang out and a bullet cashed in the engine compartment. The men behind the cars fired a hail of bullets into the trees. They stopped firing after a couple seconds, but continued to target the woods.
“Everybody know what they’re doing?” I asked, but I wasn’t sure I even knew what I was doing so how could they? To their credit, though, they all nodded their heads or said. “Yes.”
“Okay,” I said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
It was then that a loud amplified voice filled the air, causing me to nearly jumped out of my skin.”
“You, on the bus,” the voice boomed. “Are you alright?”
Everybody on the bus froze in position. I looked back down the road and saw a man standing beside one of the cars holding a bullhorn. The Humvee was positioned on the road with its gun still facing into the woods and not towards us. Curious.
“What’s going on?” Joni asked.
“I have no idea, but none of these new guys are shooting at us, so that’s a positive sign.” I duck walked up the aisle toward the front of the bus to get a better view.
“You people on the bus,” the man shouted again, “are you alright?”
“What do we do?” Joni asked.
“I think I have to answe
r the guy,” I said.
“But what if he’s with the other people shooting at us?” she asked.
“Then he’ll shoot me,” I said as I stood and walked up the aisle toward the front of the bus. I felt very exposed, but, at least, I looked brave despite the fact that I was sweating like a man in a sauna. Once I got to the front doors, I pulled the handle to open them, tentatively stuck my head out the door, and peered down the road at the man with the bullhorn. He were around a hundred feet away from the group behind the cars, but I could see the man with the bullhorn watching us intently. Most of his men were watching us, too.
“We are all okay,” I shouted down the road and then pulled back into the bus and waited.
“Stay where you are and we’ll come to you,” the man shouted.
“How do we know you won’t shoot us?” I yelled down the road.
“Oh, yeah,” the man said, his voice booming down the road. “We aren’t going to shoot you. We have an encampment just a ways back and we’ve been monitoring the road for a group of marauders that have been roaming in these parts. It seems that that is who attacked you, not us.”
“How do we know that for sure?” I asked.
“Have any of us taken a shot at you?” He spread his arms wide and made an expansive gesture, taking in all his men. “We’re here to run off the marauders.”
“Well, they seem to be gone,” I shouted down to him. “So, I think we’re safe to go our way.”
“It doesn’t look like you can go anywhere,” the man said. “I think you have a couple flats and I’m not sure, but your radiator seems to leaking onto the road.”
For some reason, I felt safe enough to step off the bus and take a look. I did keep my gun in hand, though. I’m stupid, but not that stupid.
I did a quick inspection and discovered three of our tires had been flattened and, indeed, antifreeze was leaking onto the road from our now punctured and ruined radiator. There’d be no calling AAA to get a tow truck, so we were stuck in the middle of nowhere without a lot of options. I was beginning to think it was not such a good idea to put all our eggs in one basket by taking only one vehicle.
“You’re right,” I shouted down the road. “We’re dead in the water.”
“Let me and my men come up and set a perimeter around you.”
“Hold on a second,” I yelled and stepped back onto the bus. “Listen up, folks. The bus is dead. We can either trust these guys are we can go it alone. We have a crap ton of miles to get to the coast, so walking isn’t an option. Maybe these guys can get us some vehicles?”
“I don’t like this,” Dave said. “We don’t know these guys at all.”
“Anyone else have any input?” I asked.
“It seems we don’t have a lot of choices,” Randell said. “Rosalita can’t walk and we can’t have the kids make an 800 mile walk.”
Anyone else?” I asked.
“Whatever you decide, Grant,” Jay said.
Jane nodded in the affirmative to Jay’s comment.
Dave looked like he really wanted to say something, but buttoned his lip again.
“Okay, we’ll let these guys approach, but everybody be ready in case this goes south,” I said. “I’ll go out onto the road and meet them. Keep the back door open and if they try to block any exit that way, threaten to shoot them.” I felt my mouth go dry as I took in all the people on the bus. All their eyes were on me, their lives in my hands, and with the exception of Dave, they all seemed to trust me explicitly.
No pressure here, I thought. No pressure at all.
I turned and stepped back off the bus. “Okay, come to us,” I shouted, watching all the movements of the men down the road, paying particular attention to the thirty cal on the Humvee. If they opened up with that, they’d be able to turn me to bloody mush and open the bus like an ugly dull, but very deadly can opener.
The man jumped onto the side of the Jeep and rode our way slowly while the Humvee held back. They apparently had to check us out, too.
Those few seconds I stood out beside the bus were some of the longest moments of my life. I watched as the men behind the cars targeted me with their rifles. The gunner on the 30 cal had me in his sights. Every person in Jeep was locked on to me, too. All-in-all, I felt very vulnerable and very conspicuous standing out there, but there was little else to do.
The driver of the jeep slowed as he came closer, turning the wheels in such a way that the maximum number of their gunners were able to target me and the bus. The man who had done the talking beside the Jeep carried his rifle at his side while watching me from the passenger seat. The jeep slowed to a stop and he stepped out onto the road with a measure of weariness.
He was both cautious, yet open as he walked to me. He was tall man with square shoulders and a buzz cut that looked military and that fit his bearing. He carried an assault rifle along with a pistol and several clips along his belt. I tried not to look nervous, but I felt as if I might piss my pants at any second.
“How many people do you have on that bus?” he asked standing next to the side of the Jeep.
I did a quick count in my head and said, “Thirteen counting me, but I have to be honest with you, one of people jumped off the bus and ran.”
A ripple of unease swept across the men on the Jeep as they looked off into the woods on either side of the woods.
“Where did he go?” the man asked.
“I have no idea,” I said trying to maintain my ‘honesty is the best policy’ stance.
“Why did he run?”
“Well, someone just shot up our bus and then you guys showed up. I figure, he thought he was better off on his own.”
I could tell that this didn’t sit too well with the man. Chuck had bailed, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
“How many weapons do you have?” he asked.
“We have some rifles and handguns.”
“We’re going to need you guys to hand those over.”
“I don’t think we’re going to do that,” I said.
“I don’t see you having much of a choice.”
“Well, we do have choices, not a lot of them good, but we have them. While you have us outnumbered and outgunned, we can still take out as many of you as we can.”
Where the mood had been one of de-escalation, the tenor ramped up a few degrees. I could see in the set of the man’s face that this wasn’t going over well. He looked to his men and back to me, weighing his options and then his expression changed. For the better or the worse, I couldn’t tell at the time, but I was about to find out.
“Okay,” the man said, “you can keep your weapons, but please make sure that no one takes a shot at us. My men our jumpy with these road pirates running around.”
It was the best offer we were going to get and I knew that.
“That sounds like an offer we can accept,” I said.
“Let my men set up a perimeter around your bus before you get off. I don’t know where those attackers are.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
He nodded at the men in the Jeep and they jumped out and fanned out around the bus in defensive posture. While they seemed ready for anything, there was something relaxed and well practiced about the maneuver. The man motioned down the road for the Humvee to advance. A couple seconds later, it started its way up road toward the bus. It moved very slowly and the machine gunner maintained his sights on us.
“We’re ready for your people to come off the bus,” he said.
“So, what do we do once we’re off the bus?” I asked.
“We’ll take you back to our compound, where you will be safe.”
“There’s twelve of us, not counting the guy who bailed on us,” I said. “One of our people has a bad ankle and can’t walk. How are you going to get us there?”
“I’ll call back and get a truck here in no time,” he said.
“So, your compound is close by?”
“Not too far,” he said. “Sorry to rush,
but can we get this moving along? We are out in the open.”
This was the real moment of truth. Not that we had a lot of options, One was to comply and go where these guys were going to take us. The other was to try a desperate Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid shoot out escape technique. That didn’t go too well for Butch and Sundance and I suspected that we’d end up with similar results. Plus, option number one still seemed the best course of action.
I stepped toward the bus and yelled inside, “These men are offering to take us back to their compound. With the bus out of commission, I think it’s the best thing to do at this point.”
Dave popped his head into the space at the top of the stairs. “I don’t like this,” he hissed at me in a half whisper.
I leaned into the space and said, trying to keep my voice down, “We don’t have any other choice. They’re offering us safe passage and the bus is dead. We don’t know where the people are that were shooting at us are. Do you have a better option?”
He stared at me for a few seconds and then said, “No, but these guys better not be from the movie Deliverance because I sure as hell don’t want to be squealing like a pig any time soon.”
I let that comment go and leaned back out of the bus and asked, “What’s your name by the way?”
He looked at me a little puzzled for a moment, but then said, “Clint.”
“Clint, my new friend, we’re in,” I said. “My name is Grant.”
He smiled at me as if we were best buddies, and for some reason, I found that more unsettling than being shot at and being chased by zombies. I had no reason to feel that way, so I pushed it away. I shouted back into the bus, “Okay, folks, let’s get ready to go. A truck’s coming to pick us up.”
I listened as Clint called back to their compound ask for a transport truck while I helped people gather what they could for the trip. Robbie wanted to bring every gadget and gizmo he had brought along, but I told him them there were limits. He wasn’t happy, but complied. Our group marshalled at the front doors while I checked out Chuck’s stash.
When I unzipped one of his large duffle bags, I nearly fell over. He had enough guns and ammunition in there to fight a small scale war. Along with the guns were knives, swords, and all sorts of martial arts weapons ranging from throwing stars to studded nunchucks. I even found three grenades and some suspicious looking small rectangles with the designation ‘C-4’ stamped on their sides.
Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America Page 3
