*
“Fuck!” Yen barked as he jumped up, grabbing the handle of the M-60 and the ammo canister.
He burned his leg as the muzzle of the weapon swung in, hitting him just above his knee. He carried the bulky things down the ladder from the loft, balancing precariously without his hands to help. As he started out of the barn doors, he collided with the shadowy form of someone. The force of the impact spun him slightly and stopped him in place. The other person, in full flight was sent, limbs akimbo, to the blacktop. The way the light from the blazing fire caught its face gave Yen reason to pause. His mouth went dry as he recognized the undead for what it was. He stepped back into the shadows of the barn as the fast undead regained its feet and turned looking for him. He watched from the shadows just inside the door of the barn as the fast thing ran off after a moment. He was left frozen where he stood, as countless other shadows moved past the doors, both living and dead.
Full of fear and trepidation at the situation, Yen took a moment to absorb what was happening outside. In front of him, barely twenty feet distant, a handful of undead ripped and maimed at a still-struggling form on the ground. The shadows mingled with the black smoke preventing him from getting a clear image, but what he saw was enough to send a shudder of revulsion through him. Looking up, his eyes picked out the form of Harold, who was firing his weapon as he moved around to the front of his truck.
A surge of fear-laden adrenaline surged through Yen as he watched a mob of undead break away from the surge of raging, roaring forms and veer off towards Harold. He dropped the ammo can and rested the stock of the M-60 against his hip. Still holding it by the top handle, he reached his left hand onto the trigger and depressed it. The gun tried desperately to lunge from his grasp as it fired, spitting flames and lead out. Only the surge of adrenaline that had kicked in, kept it within his grip. The M-60 mowed through the undead like a scythe through grass.
Unfortunately, head shots were a rarity with the heavy weapon which was meant for use on more intelligent enemies. Enemies who would lay down and stop fighting when taking a gruesome, but non-lethal wound. Most of the undead that were struck by the 7.62 mm bullets continued forwards, crawling or dragging themselves onward. The sounds from the heavy machine gun started to draw a lot of attention and in a matter of five seconds Yen spotted nearly a dozen undead swooping across the roadway towards his position.
*
Harold did his best to take out the undead that nipped at Benny's heels as he ran back to the truck. His aim was flawless in the conditions, every bullet found its mark, but there were just too many of them. He looked away as the host of undead brought his friend to the pavement and began ripping and tearing at him. He winced at the sounds of Benny's frantic, pained screams. His heart broke, knowing it was too late to help him.
Harold took a steadying breath and slid a fresh clip into his 9mm pistol before stepping fully out of the cover of his truck and into the unfolding chaos of the roadway. He worked his body around the door, not wanting to close it in case he needed to beat a fast retreat. His nerves were wound up and he fired his gun at any of the undead that even looked his way. As the road filled with fleeing refugees and a greater number of the undead, Harold recognized that time was of the essence. He gritted his teeth and emptied his clip into the forms atop Benny, as he skirted around the front bumper moving to the winch mechanism. He flipped it into gear and yanked the lever as a group of nearly a dozen undead descended on him. He frantically and futilely tried to reload his gun, but they were already upon him. Their hands tore at him and the fury of their pursuit brought him down quickly under their combined weight.
As the searing pain of teeth tearing through his flesh racked his mind, he vaguely heard the sound of the winch motor running, the line coiling and drawing. Even as he died, Harold's heart lightened with hope.
*
Yen lowered the barrel of the M-60 and let loose another thundering volley of bullets at the undead that converged on his position. His teeth gritted with the effort of keeping the weapon under control and succeeded in knocking every one of them to the ground. They still slithered and crawled toward him, but their lessened speed gave him a slight reprieve. He could no longer see Harold, though the truck hadn't moved. Suspecting the worst, he dropped the bulky M-60 and ran for the back corner of the barn. When he reached the far wall, he slid on his side and drove his feet into a series of rapid-fire kicks against the weathered planks. Within a matter of seconds, he created a hole large enough to slip through.
He forced himself through, feet first, casting a single brief glance behind. The image of a handful of undead crawling over the top of one another at the barn doors came to him. They were backlit by the firelight and hazy smoke. The eerie sight burned into his mind as he dropped down a few feet into the pasture behind the barn. The fast undead streamed out to the left of him, atop the road. He briefly considered taking to the mountains, barely a half-mile to his right, beyond the pasture. He immediately rejected the idea, he needed to get his people out of Donner.
*
Laura was scared and frustrated and knew that she was going to cry. She turned her head so Tim wouldn't see her tears. After all they had been through over the last few months; all of the terror and pain, his departures for supplies and whenever anyone needed him, what bothered her the most was the sting of humiliation she felt when he saw her cry. It made her feel weak. She nodded her head and turned back to set about breaking down the camp.
Tim grabbed her by the wrist and turned her back to him, kissing her fully on the lips. He held his forehead against hers for a moment and breathed in her presence for a moment before squatting down to scoop up Luna. The little girl fussed and squirmed at being disturbed from her play with Sophie. Before she could get her fingers intertwined in his beard for a tug, he planted a kiss on her round velvet cheek and set her back down to play. He cast one more look to Laura, who was busy avoiding his gaze as she rolled up the tent. Tim nodded to himself as if reassuring himself he was doing the right thing and turned to join Will at the edge of camp.
The wall that surrounded the junkyard on the east side of the road was made of corrugated steel sheets that were bolted to steel framework inside. It was something that Tim might be able to scale and force himself over if it were absolutely necessary, but there would be no way for him to help Will and the man certainly wouldn't be able to do it by himself. Faced with no other options, they hobbled their way eastward, following along the fence line. They had to fight through tangled underbrush and knee deep mud at points as they moved, hoping to find a way inside the town. It took nearly twenty minutes to pick their way to the far side of the junkyard where the corrugated wall tied into the more recently added fencing. The newer sections of fence were constructed seemingly slapdash. At first glance, Tim had no idea how the town hadn't been overrun already.
The fence was a hodgepodge mix of twelve foot high deer fencing, telephone pole timbers and seeming random construction materials. Once they began looking for an easy way through they could see that the fencing was all reinforced on the inside by a heavy earthen berm. Tim used the excess material that tied the junkyard wall to the fence to help scale to the top of the wall. From atop the wall, his perspective changed entirely. What the town lacked in fencing, it seemed, was made up for by earth-movers. He couldn't imagine the amount of work that went into creating that berm, most of it done in the dead of winter when the ground was frozen and covered in a heavy blanket of snow.
The fence wasn't extremely difficult for him to scale, even with the pain in his back. He began to wonder why the refugees just didn't come in of their own accord. As he bent down to help Will, he realized that the living would be more deterred by the guns held by those inside rather than the barrier itself. The wall was meant entirely for the purpose of keeping out the undead. Tim helped Will scale the wall as best as he was able. His back was screaming at him and pain like white lightning shot through the front of his brain as he twisted to help ho
ist the man up.
Once the two sat atop the wall, a light rain came misting down from the low-lying clouds in the early morning gloom. They took a moment, gathering their breath and getting a lay of the land about them. It was all new and they sat there trying to figure out where the clinic might be. Gunshots split the air, punctuating the continued wail of the air-raid siren, ruining their concentration. The shots echoed loudly off of the numerous peaks that ringed the valley. Although only a handful of undead were visible at the moment, the many terrified screams and barked commands that drifted to them from the west informed them of just how dire the situation might become. Looking to the other side of the junkyard they could see numerous muzzle flashes as the defenders continued firing.
Down the embankment on their left sat a large building with a parking lot ringing it. It was the nearest structure and by the number of cars in the lot it looked like it might be important to the community. Both hoped that it would be the hospital. Will wanted to have Jen at his side once again, and Tim longed to be back on the road, with Donner in the rear-view.
“Ready?” Tim asked, trying his best to hide the anxiety he was feeling.
Will nodded in response and rose to his one good foot, at first sliding down the slope of the berm, then using the crutches to glide through the woods towards the building. The rubber tips of the crutches and cane sunk into the soft, loamy soil beneath the boughs of the conifers, slowing the two considerably. They were about halfway to the building when an all too familiar roar split the air, uncomfortably close. They scrambled about trying to locate the source of the roar as well as doing their best to meld into the shadows, dodging behind trees. From their hidden vantage, they watched as the fast undead moved across the roadway a hundred yards off. It took all of their resolve to pull themselves together and move out again, knowing that the fast undead were about. As they neared, it became apparent that the building ahead was the source of the loud warbling air-raid siren.
Arriving at the rear of the building the two slid alongside it, cringing at being so close to the source of the continued klaxon. As they came to the corner of the building and moved along the broad windowless side of the structure, Tim edged out into the open front of the building first. Ahead of them, a woman was climbing into the passenger seat of an old, woody Jeep Cherokee. As soon as the door shut, the man in the driver's seat threw it in reverse and started backing out.
“Hey!” Tim shouted as loud as he could, hoping to be heard over the blaring siren.
He did his best to run in pursuit of the vehicle. The man's head snapped back around in the Jeep until his panicked eyes locked on Tim. His eyes darted around quickly before cracking his window an inch. The man and woman in the Jeep stared at the two expectantly. When Tim and Will didn't immediately make their intentions known and continued to advance on the vehicle, the man reached and locked the doors. Tim and Will pulled up short, realizing they might look threatening.
“What do you want? Make it quick, gotta get out of dodge,” the man drawled in a thick accent.
“The hospital, where is it?”
“Heartland Clinic is that big glass and steel monstrosity up yonder.” The man pointed to a large building jutting out of the pine trees. “Best of luck to you and yours.”
With the tip of an imaginary hat, the man cranked up the window and steered the Jeep out of the parking lot. As the vehicle neared the main road, a pair of undead moved in pursuit.
*
The sounds of steel shrieking tore through the air as the winch hook tore the door free of the shipping container. It clattered noisily to the macadam and screeched its way along the pavement as the winch brought it to Harold's truck. A great many of the undead turned towards the sound and movement. Yen used that moment to move across the roadway, moving to make a beeline through the hills and pastures toward Harold's house. It was a few miles to the farm and he had to do it on foot. Even using the noise of the winch as a distraction, he had a handful of undead roaring in behind him by the time he made it to the far shoulder of the road. He ran as fast as his legs and his lungs would carry him. The undead matched him stride for stride. He had no weapon but his pocket knife. He fished it out of his right front pocket as his legs pumped mightily. He flipped the blade out and held it at the ready, waiting for the inevitable confrontation.
He took a step up and leapt over the top of a stockade fence. He barely leapt clear of it before the sounds of bodies crashing heavily into the barrier echoed through the air just behind. He continued running across the pastures, hoping that he would stumble on a horse that someone had left out to graze. At the very least, he figured, the intermittent fencing would act as a stumbling block for the undead. It was sheer luck, both good and bad that saved Yen in that moment. A call from the side nearly caused him to stumble as the footfalls behind him grew ever closer.
“Yen? Is that you?” A voice called from a chicken coop set near a farmhouse.
The sky had lightened a bit and the smoke from the fires lay behind him; he had no problems seeing Maisie Hendrickson. She wore her horn-rimmed eyeglasses and stood just outside the coop in her slippers and housecoat with a parka over the top, tending to her chickens. Maisie was in her late sixties and unfortunately for her, the undead saw her as clearly as Yen. All but two of them peeled off, and with fresh roars, started tearing off towards her. Yen was torn what to do. He wanted to stop and fight, to help the poor woman. Deep down, though, he knew that to do so, he'd be sealing his own fate. Instead, he ran on, feeling heartbroken and laden with terrible guilt for the fate he'd brought down upon the woman. The screaming behind him resounded in his head for a long time after it had died out in a wet garbled scream. All he could do was run. He pushed past the stitch in his side and concentrated on his breathing. Breathe, run, breathe, run.
*
Tar's first inclination at the sound of trouble was to run out of the clinic and handle it. He took a breath to steady himself and nearly collapsed. His head felt woozy and not for the first time, he took Linda's advice. His shoulders sagged resignedly and he slowly made his way back to the coffee pot and fixed a cup. He wondered when the last time he had eaten any real food was. Sweat ran freely down his back, making him cold and uncomfortable. He found a half-empty carton of foodservice saltines under the counter the coffee pot sat on. He made his way back to the side of the nurse’s station and collapsed in the chair. Eating mechanically, he made his way through a half-dozen packets of crackers while he drank his coffee, doing his best to ignore both the sounds of the child birth happening ten feet in front of him and the increasing chaos happening outside.
He had finished his first cup and was moving slowly and weakly to fetch a second when the reception doors crashed open, slamming with force into the walls. One of the fast undead extricated himself from the tumult of waiting room chairs on the wall opposite the entrance. It stood and turned, roaring before lowering its head and charging headlong at Tar. He dropped back into the chair heavily, drawing his pistol and taking aim. With practiced marksmanship, he put a bullet just below the thing's left eye, dropping to rest on the floor at his feet. Before he could think to react, two more of the things skidded into reception. From where he was seated he put them down before they could move clear of the tangle of waiting room chairs.
“Linda, you better get that baby out and the mother sewn up fast. Looks like we are about out of time here.”
No sooner than the words left his mouth than the deafening roar of a newborn child split the air, hitching and screaming. Tar hazarded a glance away from the front doors of the clinic for a moment to see Linda handing the child to Nala. Linda removed the placenta and stitched the girl up. The entire time, she was whispering soft reassurances into Christine's ear.
“Everything is okay. It's a boy, Christine!” she said softly to the girl.
The lobby exploded as more than a dozen of the fast undead came barreling in through the front doors.
“Time to move, Lin, now! Go! Go! Go!”
Tar screamed as he started firing into the dense mob.
Nala handed the infant back to Linda and pushed her and Jen back towards the interior of the hospital, leaving herself out in the open next to Tar. She drew her own weapon. Betty, in her haste to flee, bumped her hip into the side of the gurney, knocking it over and spilling Chris' exhausted body onto the floor. Tar was up and on one crutch, pushing Linda down through the other end of triage as Christine weakly struggled to her hands and knees. Nala stood over her, firing into the churning mass of undead, as it hurtled across the gap towards them. Before Nala could begin to understand what was happening, she was spinning, off balance. Tar had yanked her and propelled her forcefully through the rear doors of triage. Looking back, she could see Tar, leaning heavily on his crutch, trying to tug Christine to her feet by her arm. One of the undead dove in head first into Christine's midsection, tearing at her recently stapled stomach, knocking Tar backwards onto his butt in the process.
Tar raised his gun and hesitated for a second.
“Fuck!” he whispered.
He could immediately see that it was too late for the girl and put a round in her head instead of one of the undead feasting on her. Three more of the undead slid in and dove on Christine's limp form, while another skirted around the mass of rending and tearing undead, choosing to dive at him. He squeezed the trigger and dropped it to the ground beside him before turning and scrambling out of the triage after Linda and Nala.
Nala covered Tar's retreat as the sound of the air-raid siren cut through the air. She hesitated for a moment, trying to remember the significance of the sound before dropping two more of the undead that moved to pursue. The rest of the undead seemed content for the moment to feast on the young girl. The trio moved quickly down the hall and around the corner, into the psychiatric lockdown wing. Linda pulled the doors closed tightly behind them and collapsed to the floor with the screaming newborn in her arms.
A Spring of Sorrow Page 28
