Slipping through another group of trees, I found another clearing, and then the trail reached the lake edge again. Across the way I could see a building of some sort, and it looked like there was another building sitting out on the water. My luck may be holding.
Moving silently on the trail, I reached the boathouse. It was locked, so I walked quietly around the side. I could see the pier leading out to the second building, so I carefully edged my way along the side of the building until I reached the pier. The waves from the lake gently lapped the sides of the steel drums supporting the pier, and I could see a couple of canoes resting on their sides. I couldn’t believe my luck.
I was about to congratulate myself when I saw a figure crouched at the corner of the boathouse. He was just sitting there, watching a building across the small inlet of the lake. I didn’t think he was a zombie, and in the darkness I couldn’t be sure who he was. Maybe he was a local who thought he could find something useful at the school and got caught when the sun when down. If so, I applauded his sense of survival.
I crept up behind him, and as I got closer, he started to look familiar. He still hadn’t heard me, so I stayed somewhat hidden and actually put a support post between him and me.
“Hey,” I said, barely raising my voice above a whisper.
I ducked behind the post as the man sprang up, swung wildly in three directions, whipped out a pistol, and pointed it in all directions.
“Hang on! I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, holding out my hands. “Just looking for shelter like you.”
“John?” the man said.
I knew that voice. “Duncan?”
“Jesus Christ! You scared the shit out of me!” Duncan hurriedly holstered his weapon. He ran a hand across his head. “Mother of God! Has Charlie been teaching you how to be a sneaky bastard?” Duncan exhaled slowly and managed to calm his breathing.
I looked around. “What happened to Charlie and Tommy?”
“No idea. We got separated when we went looking for the labs, and suddenly I was being chased by three small zombies. I gave them the slip behind that building over there, but they are still out there somewhere,” Duncan said, pointing to the building across the water.
I felt a chill go down my back. I realized I had played around in the woods, and there were three of those fast little monsters in the vicinity? I exhaled myself.
“Where were you?” Duncan asked. “You went to go check a building, and suddenly you were gone.”
“I know. I went to check that long building, the one that was nearly perfect for zombie defense?” I said. “I thought I saw a light in there, but I couldn’t find it. Place was a convoluted mess of hallways and stairs. If you knew where you were going, you could evade an army in there. By the time they figured out how to go from one hallway to the next, you could be long gone.”
“Any sign of any occupancy at all?” Duncan asked, looking back out over the water.”
“Not that I could see.” My voice trailed off as I looked where Duncan was looking. We both ducked down, using the rail fence that ran around the boathouse as concealment.
Across the water, next to the building, we could see three small shapes slip out of the darkness and move swiftly across the grass. They spread out and covered more ground as they hunted, quietly searching for their prey. They must have heard our voices or they would never have broken cover, preferring to ambush when they could.
“Those the ones?” I asked quietly.
“Unless they got reinforcements,” Duncan replied.
“There is that,” I agreed.
“Why are we here again?” Duncan asked.
“Because this looks like it would be a good place for establishing another community. Well-defended buildings, easy access to farmland and grazing land, able to house thousands without tripping over each other,” I said.
“Right. I was talking about this boat house,” Duncan said.
“I chose it to escape the horde chasing me through the woods. You chose it to escape the three little monsters making their way over here right now,” I replied.
“That’s it. Hang on, I want to try something,” Duncan said.
Immediately I checked myself for any loose items or things I would rather not lose. I made sure I was low to the ground and able to leap out of the way of whatever Duncan was trying to do.
Duncan rummaged in his pack trying to keep quiet. The three zombies were standing at the water’s edge, pacing back and forth. If it wasn’t for the fact that the water was deep, they’d be on their way over here right now. They knew we were somewhere close, they just couldn’t pinpoint us. And the water kept them at bay for the time being.
Duncan brought out a spotlight, and aimed it at the trio. We were in darkness under the roof of the boathouse, so we could move without being seen. Trouble was we couldn’t do anything about our smell, and it was very hard to keep quiet enough.
Duncan tapped me on the arm, and I closed my eyes. Even though I would be on the other side of the beam, my night vision would suffer from the blast of light. I heard the click as he turned it on, and then the click as he turned it off about two seconds later.
I looked out at the little zombies, and they didn’t look like they had suffered any ill effects. They still stood there, still moved a little from side to side, and still turned their heads towards the breeze. Duncan stood up and waved his hands, and there was no reaction from the kids.
“Huh. I think it worked. We can move if we want to, and they won’t see us, not until their retinas recover,” Duncan said.
“Will their retinas recover?” I asked. “I know what live eyeballs will do, I don’t know what dead ones will do.”
“Good point,” Duncan conceded. “Maybe we should make some noise, or try to get them to move.”
“Shh!” I said. I turned my head and saw several shapes moving in the darkness along the path by the building in front of us. It would seem that Duncan’s light had been seen by more than the three zombies, and the rest were coming to investigate.
“Well, that wasn’t what I was planning to accomplish,” Duncan said with a sigh.
“Can’t shine it that way, since the trees block most of it,” I said. “Well, let’s take care of securing ourselves,” I said. I went over to the dock and started working on the fasteners that attached the pieces to each other. At worst, we were going to have to be on a raft for a while. Duncan grabbed paddles and started to give me a hand.
I looked back at the three zombie kids who were still standing there, and suddenly one of them literally flew off the shore, sailed about fifteen feet, and landed with a splash in the water. The little Z sank like a stone while the other two dropped suddenly from a huge shape that rose up behind them.
“Looks like Charlie found us,” I said.
“And attracted every zombie nearby with that splash,” Duncan said.
Charlie ran over to the canoes that were stacked by the boathouse and threw one in the water towards us. He cut down a zombie that got too close, and in the interim, I managed to grab the canoe, get Duncan in, and paddle quickly to shore. Charlie pulled us up and gave us a nod.
“Thanks for the light. Didn’t know where you were holed up. Glad to see you’re together,” Charlie said.
“Same here,” I replied. “Where’s Tommy?”
“Over in the foyer of this building. He was looking in the wrong direction when you turned the light on. Caught it full for a second,” Charlie said.
“Whoops,” Duncan said.
“He’ll be fine. Just can’t see very well for a minute. Should be okay by now.”
We ran over to the building, and sure enough, Tommy was there. He was blinking a lot, but otherwise seemed fine.
“Lot more on the way, do we stand or retreat?” Duncan asked.
“Not sure of the numbers, and not sure of the terrain. Thoughts?” I asked.
“Fight them now or fight them later. I’d say wait for morning, Tommy said.
�
�If we could find a wide open space, we could face them now,” Charlie said.
“Too bad we can’t funnel them,” Tommy said.
“Don’t know this place that well. If we could ask a former student, that would be helpful, but I don’t see much of the student body left, do you?” I asked.
“They’re coming,” Tommy said.
“All right. Let’s keep moving. Can’t get a break around here.” I said.
We moved around the communications building, at least that’s what I thought it was. There was a small, enclosed area with a bunch of satellite dishes to support that notion. It was either that, or this place once had awesome sports bar parties back in the day.
On the other side of the building through a small grassy area was a large parking lot. There were exactly three cars left in the lot, and all of them were not going anywhere. Two of them had at least two flat tires apiece, and the third was just rusting away. I think that the last one had been abandoned before the Upheaval hit.
“Well, here’s your open space. Now what?” Tommy asked.
“Do we know how many there are coming after us?” I asked.
“Nope,” Said Charlie
“Do we know if there are any more little zombies?” I asked.
“Nope,” Said Duncan.
“Do we know if there are any survivors here?” I asked.
“Nope,” Said Tommy.
“Right. Standard rule of engagement applies when number of enemy is unknown, make up of enemy is unknown, and condition of survivors is unknown.”
As one, we all said the same thing.
“Run for it.”
We ran east, since that was the general direction where we left our vehicles. We had parked somewhere near the student center, and we were somewhere south of that. If we had any brains at all, we would have found a place to spend the night and get our bearings in the morning.
“I have a thought,” I said.
“Did it hurt?” Duncan asked. “Ow! Dammit!”
I shook my hand out a little. My knuckles hurt a bit after thumping Duncan’s head.
“Let’s find a place to hole up. We’ll just get ourselves killed stumbling around in the dark, and for all we know we’re being trailed by a dozen kid zombies right now.” I said.
“Makes sense. Where would the best place to spend the night?” Charlie asked.
“The boat house, actually,” I said.
There was silence as that sunk in.
“Next best?” Charlie said, somewhat irritated.
“Let’s try this place right here,” I said. The building was small compared to the other ones, and didn’t have any windows except for rows of small ones up near the roof. There were two garage doors leading out to what might have been a football field, and a service entry door on the other side.
“Not much in the way of options,” Tommy said. “What happened? We were surrounded by buildings north of here, and then suddenly we can’t find one to save our lives. Literally.”
“Take what we can get,” Charlie said.
Duncan went to the door and after a little work managed to get it open. We ducked inside, and Duncan made sure to lock the door behind us. Lately the zombies had been figuring out how to do things like open doors. It was a little disconcerting when you thought about it.
Inside we spread out, checking corners and looking behind dark spaces. We limited the use of our flashlights, mostly because we didn’t want to give away our position to the zombies that were certainly following us.
“How do you think the army is doing?” Tommy asked, checking behind a mower.
“Probably pretty well. I figure a lot more of the south survived than the north,” Charlie said.
I moved around to a storage closet and peeked inside. There was nothing alive or dead in there, and it smelled strongly of fertilizer. I thought about telling Duncan about it, but then I didn’t need him blowing us to the moon, so I just left it alone.
“All clear,” Duncan whispered.
“All clear,” Tommy said.
“Clear,” said Charlie.
“Clear,” I said. “All right. Let’s see if we can’t get some sleep. Find a spot to get comfortable.” I took my backpack off and stretched out next to the big Ford tractor. Even in the dark I could see the blue of its paint.
Charlie took off his tomahawk harness and used his own pack as a pillow, lying in the middle of the empty bay in the garage.
Tommy stretched out on the other side of the Ford, and Duncan curled up in the bucket of a front loader in the far bay. We were too used to Duncan to question his habits anymore.
Morning broke through the windows much earlier than I would have liked, and I tried to get everyone to go back to sleep by executive order. Didn’t work at all.
Charlie came over and gave me a nudge. Actually, it was more like a kick in the ribs.
“I’m up, geez. Knock it off. Not everyone gets up and wants to run five miles like you do,” I said, rubbing my side.
“We have a situation,” Charlie said.
I grabbed my canteen and splashed some water in my face. “Talk to me,” I said as I shook the sleep from my eyes.
“Tommy took a ladder and had a peek out the windows. He says there’s about fifty zombies in the area just kind of milling about,” Charlie said.
I looked over at Tommy, and he nodded.
“They aren’t really moving, they’re just standing there,” Tommy said.
“Waiting for us to break cover,” I finished. “So they don’t know we’re here, and that’s good, but they won’t leave without a reason to.”
“Right,” Charlie said. “We could make a break for it out the back door, but we’d be walking into a fight, and Tommy couldn’t see if there were any outside the doors.”
I thought about it for a minute. “Can we get the tractor to work? The backhoe one?” I asked.
“What’s the plan?” Charlie asked.
“If we can get that tractor running, we basically batter our way free of the area, then outrun the ghouls until we get to our trucks. Swap vehicles and bolt north,” I said. Truth was, it wasn’t a great plan, but my other plans had Duncan getting loose with the fertilizer, and that somehow seemed worse than facing hordes of zombies.
Charlie, Duncan, and Tommy cogitated on that for a while, and finally they shrugged and moved over to the vehicle in question. No doubt the plan was flawed, but in my defense, I was the only one that put anything out there.
We swapped out the old gas for some newer stuff we found, and Tommy spent a good amount of time making sure things might actually work. We’d only get one shot through the door, and then we’d be relying on that vehicle to make a run through a lot of zombies.
After an hour and a half, the sunlight went from coming through the windows to angling downward. We spent the time making sure we had room to ride on the thing and were able to hold on. I’d hate to have to run after the tractor after I had done something stupid like fall off.
“Trial start?” Tommy asked.
“Only get one,” Charlie said. “Z’s are going to be swarming the minute they hear something in here.”
“They won’t see anything, so they can swarm to their hearts content,” Duncan said.
“This tractor is made for driving on turf, not over zombies. We might be in for a rough ride if we run over a few,” Tommy said.
“Keep the bucket low, just enough to clear the zombies if they go down. Sorry, Duncan, but we need your bedroom for the zombies,” I said.
“Aw, Dad, I was just away at college for a semester. Didja have to rent my room already?” Duncan said.
“Best swap I ever made. Let’s get it going,” I laughed.
Tommy waited until we were on board, and Duncan was ready by the door to fling it open. Charlie and I were on the sides holding on to the arm of the front bucket. Tommy scolded us for trying to hold onto the hydraulic lines. I held my Glock with my right hand, Charlie with his left. We were going to keep the z
ombies from getting too close to the tractor. With luck, we wouldn’t need to shoot too many.
Tommy nodded at Duncan, and Duncan unlocked the door. Tommy turned the key, and the tractor coughed to life, spewing black smoke as the old gas still in the carburetor burned in protest at being disturbed. Tommy slipped the rig into gear, and Duncan pushed the garage door up. Duncan dashed back toward the rear of the tractor as two zombies chased him. Charlie shot them both, and we were off.
Tommy kept the bucket low, and we charged out of the garage. The bucket in front worked like a perfect battering ram, knocking zombies out of the way and plowing through the hordes. I shot one that came stumbling towards my side, and I could hear Charlie’s gun going off as well.
The tractor lurched to one side, and I nearly lost my footing. Duncan, who was holding on at the back, bounced up high enough that I saw his boots. He landed safely, and we kept moving. I looked back and saw we had driven over a rather large zombie which explained the sideways shift. The big man’s arms and legs worked hard to pull the rest of him out of the ground. If I had the time, I’d watch to see how he did it before I sent him over the divide permanently.
Tommy drove around the building and headed towards the nearest road. I felt the tractor shudder a few more times as bodies were battered out of the way. A small zombie came racing around the building and nearly got a hand on the tractor before the rear wheel took her down. Over the roar of the engine, I still could hear the crunch of her skull as the wheel finished her off.
We rode the tractor around Saluki Drive, and Tommy headed it east. When we reached the main road, we turned north, following a main artery into town. The college passed us on the left, the empty stadium never filling again with living souls to spend a Saturday cheering the football team. The physical plant that once powered the campus, shut down forever. The walkway that once connected dorm life with classroom life now only a sidewalk of torn dreams. We drove past them all, outrunning our pursuers, at least for the time being.
At the second walkway Tommy slowed down, and I returned the wave of several men and women stationed along the bridge. They leveled their guns and waited for our ghoulish friends to catch up.
The Zombie Wars: Call To Arms (White Flag Of The Dead Book 7) Page 15
