by Joseph Coley
Joe fired several more shots at oncoming zombies, each one suffering the same fate as the first. As a few zombies fell, more and more stepped up to take their place. Joe retreated a few steps, slowly walking backwards towards the end of the tunnel, firing off more shots as he did. The roar of the undead became deafening, the tunnel provided macabre acoustics for the approaching horde. The sound of moans and guttural growling shot out of the tunnel like a cannon. No amount of ammunition, at least what he had available, was going to make a dent in the zombie populace. Joe dropped his first clip and procured a second, loading up the M4, slammed the bolt forward, and continued firing. The stragglers weren’t stragglers anymore, though, they had plenty of company behind them, and they were all headed his direction.
Rick waited for his father to clear the line of fire and step back into the more lit end of the tunnel before he fired his first shot. The 7.62mm rounds bellowed out from the AR-10 as the undead were in hot pursuit of his father. He adjusted his aim, placing the crosshairs on a particularly quick zombie as it approached the back of the LMTV. Rick squeezed the trigger, the recoil bumping his sight off the target for a moment. When he eyed the creature again, it was missing the entire left half of its face. The destroyed remnant of its brain slid out and plopped onto the ground before it fell down as well, leaving a slimy trail as it did.
Joe felt a tug at his side. He instinctively spun and grabbed where his holster was. As he whipped around, he saw what was pulling at it. Captain White stood behind him with. In his right hand, aimed towards him, was Joe’s .45. White paused momentarily, and then fired. Joe ducked down and away, fearing White was trying to shoot him. He knew deep down that the bastard couldn’t be trusted. There were too many variables to make him useful; he was damaged goods in more ways than one. The cordite smell took over the stench of undead for a moment, the burnt gunpowder lingering in the air.
Joe’s ears rang, but he blinked once, then twice. He was dazed, but otherwise unharmed. He dropped to one knee in attempt to right his scrambled senses. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Captain White slowly moving forward, the .45 firing off shots as he did. White hadn’t shot him, but he’d taken out a rotting corpse that had rounded the corner of the LMTV. The creature was still wavering back and forth, the synapses still momentarily firing, and then it fell in a heap in the road, a large .45 caliber-sized hole in its forehead. Although he couldn’t hear, he could see White taking out more zombies.
Captain White grabbed Joe by the collar, hastily forcing him to his feet. “I got you, soldier! Get the fuck out of here!”
Joe scrambled a bit once he got his feet under him, righting himself and bringing up his M4. White fired the last of the 1911’s nine rounds and stuffed the pistol in his waistband. Even though he couldn’t hear it well, he could still make out what White was motioning. Joe stepped backwards and towards the LMTV as Curtis desperately tried to start the truck. He banged on the door as he backpedaled.
“Forget it, Curtis! Get the hell out now!”
As if to answer his seemingly futile pleas, the truck roared to life, filling the area with thick, black smoke. Joe slung his rifle and pulled his undershirt up to cover his mouth not only from the smoke, but also from the rancid stench of the undead slowly shoving its way through the tunnel. He waved feverishly at Boyd in the Dodge as he ran in front of the LMTV. Getting to the passenger’s side of the LMTV, he flung the door open and climbed in.
Captain White backpedaled as he watched the LMTV rumble to life. Seeing that it was running, he spun around and sprinted to the Dodge. He grabbed the door and flung it open, jumped inside, grinning the entire time. He lamented the choices by the supposed “man in charge,” but they obviously weren’t trained well enough, a problem that he would try to fix. White needed to show him proper military tactics, survival, evasion, and most of all, escape. Their half-assed approach was going to get them all killed; he had to show them what it meant to be a well-oiled unit. They had obviously fought together and been able to take care of themselves, but they were capable of so much more. They had luck on their side, but it would only last so long. For now, they had to get away. It was a narrow getaway, but any escape was better than no escape.
Rick pounded on the Dodge’s cab as he watched his father climb aboard the LMTV, out of harm’s way. “I think it’s time to leave!”
“Yeah, I think it is!” Boyd said. He threw the Ram into reverse and swung the back end around so the truck faced back towards the onramp. He shifted into Drive and took off towards the ramp, the LMTV following closely behind it. The zombies began spilling out of the tunnel as the two trucks sped off. Bony fingers clawed at the air in a futile attempt to grab whatever they could. The undead noticed the whistling sound of the twin diesel engines as they made the turn onto the ramp. The shambling group turned collectively.
Then they followed the sound.
CHAPTER 11
April 18, 2022 – 1335 Hours – Tazewell, Virginia
Even though Beverly and Roy volunteered for their duty, it still was no more pleasurable than their usual duties. They were lucky enough to have survived the apocalypse together, but didn’t relish their normal jobs of working the wall or the gardens. Even though Beverly possessed some medical skills, they were pale in comparison to Larry and his friends’ abilities. Since they arrived, Beverly had taken over the duties of tending to the gardens outside town. It was a dirty job, but it meant keeping food readily available, and as long as she was being useful, that was fine by her. Her husband had been a Virginia Department of Corrections officer, a job common to their area of Virginia. He drew guard duty most days, and other days he would tend the garden with her.
There were benefits to working the gardens, however. The limited amount of tobacco they planted in the last few years had finally come to fruition, and Beverly enjoyed having one of the few packs of cigarettes left in the civilized world. It took some serious bartering to get decent rolling papers, but she had traded her way into several packs of them recently. It was nice to have a little bit of the old world back, especially for a former smoker. She stood in a doorway that led outside the prison, puffing away at a homemade cigarette. She didn’t want to irritate her husband’s asthma by smoking indoors. There weren’t any emergency inhalers left, and the few that they did have were long since expired.
Her husband, Roy, sat a few feet away, slowly thumbing through an old paperback. As he lackadaisically kicked back in his chair, the title of the book came into view. The name of the book was The Rising by Brian Keene. Beverly rolled her eyes and sighed in contempt.
“Why in the hell are you reading about zombies? Don’t you think that we know enough about them by now?” She said, blowing a lungful of smoke out the door.
Roy peered over the top of the book, and then resumed reading. “This was one of my favorite books, and I want to read something. Besides, there might be something of use in here, you never know.”
“Roy, the only thing that book is good for now is kindling for a fire.”
Roy waved off his pessimistic wife and continued to read. A few seconds later, his watch beeped, signaling for another checkup of the “patient.”
“I believe it’s your turn, honey,” he said, not bothering to look up from the paperback.
Beverly groaned in contempt. She was beginning to feel less like a nurse and more like a babysitter with each passing checkup. For the last two hours, the woman had done nothing but sleep and occasionally whimper. The IV that Larry had started was beginning to run out, and they did not have another to give her. She had already gone through two bags of the saline solution, and it didn’t look as if she would get a third. Whether she survived would be up to her body’s ability to bring itself back from whatever had caused her near-catatonic state.
Beverly eased over to the cell door and peeked in. The woman was on her back on an old prison mattress. The covers they had used to warm her still covered her. Beverly unlocked the door and swung it open. As soon as she did, she
wished she hadn’t. The smell of urine and excrement was still permeating throughout the room, in spite of the woman being covered. Beverly noticed a damp spot in the crotch area of the blanket. Great, she’s pissed herself. She pulled up the handkerchief around her neck to cover her mouth as she entered the room. Vagrant or not, the woman still deserved some dignity. She grabbed another blanket from the corner of the room and braced herself for the smell of stale piss as she grabbed the soaked blanket. She pulled away the cover and gasped. The wet substance was not urine.
It was blood.
Beverly instinctively covered her mouth in surprise. There was no telling how long the poor woman had been bleeding, but judging from the size of the stain, it could have been quite a while. Beverly was shortly taken aback. The nursing instincts inside her soon went to work, however. She knelt down and grabbed the woman’s wrist to check her pulse, which had been weak and thready at best. As she pawed at the woman’s wrist, she came to a horrific conclusion.
There was no pulse.
Beverly’s heart literally skipped a beat as she realized what was imminent.
“Roy…” She squeaked out, barely above a whisper.
The dead woman on the prison mattress did not let her finish her sentence. Before Beverly could adequately react, the woman grabbed hold of her wrist with an inhumane strength, yanked her down, and clamped down on her neck. Blood immediately began to spurt from the gaping hole in Beverly’s neck as she desperately tried to scream for help. No sound came from the mouth-sized hole in her throat as the dead woman continued to gnaw at her larynx. The physiology that it took for her to scream was now being eaten by the undead woman.
Roy sat and read. Completely enamored with his book, he did not hear the woman in the cell eating away at his wife’s face and neck. He didn’t realize there was anything wrong. The two women that he shared the small space with were standing in front of him a few moments later, blood dripping from their faces and other wounds.
Roy thumbed the next page. “Everything all right in there, Bev?”
The two women pounced on their oblivious prey. Flesh was torn from bone and blood bespattered the pristine white walls inside the jail as they feasted on the unaware man. Undead Beverly chomped down on Roy’s shoulder as the other woman clawed away at his midsection. As the woman tore into his abdomen, his entrails made an exit and splattered on the floor. The area looked like a slaughterhouse within a few short seconds; blood, intestines, and other gore painted the room.
Roy didn’t put up much of a fight; he was too busy desperately trying to kick at the door to the outside. He knew that it would be the end of all the citizens of Tazewell if he didn’t get to the door. The door that led into the confines of the walled-in town.
The door that was still propped open.
CHAPTER 12
April 18, 2022 – 1400 Hours
The makeshift convoy rumbled down Route 460 towards Tazewell. It had been over fifteen minutes since their run from the tunnel, but Joe’s heart was still pounding away. It was times like these that he was reminded that he was mortal. He may have been vaccinated years before, but the notion of him being torn to shreds by the walking dead still wasn’t the way he wanted to go out. He’d been bitten several times over the course of the last ten years, and each time it still unsettled him. It showed the people that he served and the lives he protected were unimaginably fragile. They had managed to make it this far just on their wits and survival instincts alone. Granted, he was the one who was called when shit hit the fan, but it was no less a miracle there were any people alive. He sat in the passenger’s side of the LMTV contemplating everything that had just happened, as he was accustomed to doing. It was his own internal AAR (After Action Report).
“Pull us over for a second.” Joe looked to Curtis, simultaneously keying up his radio as he did to notify the Dodge.
Curtis nodded silently and eased the LMTV to the side of the road. They were a little under a mile away from the wall and Joe wanted to check the back of the LMTV for unwanted stowaways, just in case. The Dodge in front of them did as well, slowing to a stop.
Joe and Curtis hopped down from the LMTV, shutting their doors as they did. Rick exited the bed of the truck with Kane. The German shepherd happily bounded off and promptly relieved himself on the side of the road.
“Yeah, I got the same feeling, buddy,” Joe said, watching the dog trot off. He waved his cohorts from the Dodge over to him.
Boyd came over to the front of the LMTV. “What’s the hold up?”
Joe started back to the end of the LMTV. “Just wanted to make sure we didn’t have any unwanted guests in the back of this thing. God forbid that we bring a zombie into the middle of town; that’d be a fuckin’ disaster. Plus, I wanna grab some more ammo.”
The troupe of men circled the LMTV, looking over every square inch of the large military vehicle. After they were satisfied that they didn’t have any undesirables clinging on, they moved on to the rear of the truck. Joe drew his .45 and aimed it at the bed of the truck as Boyd and Captain White undid the latches and flung the tarp open. The only thing that greeted them was the cases of ammo, two racks of M4’s, and several boxes of unused uniforms. It wasn’t a great haul, and was not worth the high amount of risk that they had just endured to get it, but all’s well that ended well.
Joe holstered his .45. “Well, I don’t guess it’s the mother lode, but it’ll do. We can always use more rifles and ammo.”
Joe handed Rick his rifle. Grabbing onto the rear of the truck, he pulled himself up. Several cases of ammo were off to his left of various calibers. Since they had managed to salvage a Ma Deuce from the abandoned LMTV, and Jamie’s newfound Barrett, the case of .50 caliber BMG ammo would serve them well. There was a case of it, and a half-dozen cases of 5.56mm NATO rounds to supply their M4’s and two cases of 7.62mm rounds for Rick’s AR-10.
Apart from the other boxes of uniforms and the ammo, the haul was less than impressive, but any supplies would be put to use. Joe meandered around for a few more seconds, and then sat down on the back of the truck.
“Well, since we don’t have any stowaways, I’d say that all in all, we’re good to go. I’ll get ya’ll to give me a hand once we get to town so we can load up magazines. Let’s head out so we can…”
A single gunshot rang out, coming from the direction of town. It was a mile away, but the sound made the men jump. A single shot wasn’t uncommon, but every time gunfire was involved, that meant that undead were involved in some capacity. Several seconds passed, and no other shots were heard.
“Anyway, like I was saying,” Joe said, directing his attention back to his men.
A scream interrupted him again, followed by another shot.
Joe jumped down from the truck, walked around to face the direction of town, and stood. His heart rate picked up. Several more random shots and another scream cut through the air. His adrenal glands went into overdrive, letting him know there was something else going on, something that he couldn’t put his finger on. Without saying a word, he jumped back into the truck as his men gathered around, each one wanting to get to town and find out exactly what was going on.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Boyd said worriedly.
“No. No it doesn’t. It’s got to be a breach!” Curtis said, walking up beside of Boyd. More shots could be heard, with yelling. The group collectively felt a sudden need to get into town.
“Whatever it is, we need to do something about it fucking pronto.” Captain White said, backpedaling to the rear of the LMTV. The buttstock of an M4 greeted him, hanging in the air in front of his face. Joe was holding the rifle out, a magazine already loaded. White looked up and made eye contact with Joe. He nodded silently. White grabbed the M4, checked the chamber and released the charging handle.
“White! Here!” Joe hollered, and threw two more magazines towards him. White caught them and stuffed them into his pockets. He didn’t have an LBV, and Joe didn’t have time to go searching for one, h
e needed to get into town.
Rick came running up to the back of the LMTV. “Dad! We need to get into town, now!”
Joe scrambled down from the LMTV and stumbled a bit as hit feet hit the ground. “C’mon! Get in the trucks and get us to the main gate!”
Joe rushed over to the passenger’s side of the LMTV, while Curtis jumped back in the driver’s seat. Rick jumped into the bed of the Dodge, and Kane followed. Captain White also opted to get into the bed of the truck, setting up to take shots from the top of the Ram if necessary, and from the increasing sounds of panic, it would be necessary.
Boyd hastily got into the driver’s side of the Dodge and threw it into gear, spinning gravels and taking off. Curtis followed in the LMTV.
Within sixty seconds, they were at the main gate for town. There were no guards standing at the gate, no sentries on the wall, no one could be seen. Both trucks came to an abrupt halt at the gate. Joe flung the door open on the LMTV and got out. The sporadic gunshots on the other side of the wall, with the growling guttural sounds, indicated the undead had somehow gotten into town.
“Goddamned zombies never give you a break,” Joe said as he sprinted towards the wall. He didn’t bother banging out his usual Morse code on the door, opting to hammer away at the sheet metal that made up the section of wall where he stood. “Hey! Open up! What the hell is going on in there?”
“Fuck it! Plow the damn gate down!” White hollered from the back of the truck.
Joe spun around and held his hands up. “No! If we do that, we might as well ring the goddamn dinner bell ourselves!”
White angrily pointed a finger as another set of desperate cries emanated from the other side of the wall. “The bell’s already been rung, Joe!”
Joe fumbled with his radio, desperately trying to key the push-to-talk button. After temporarily calming himself, he finally pressed the button. “Cornbread! Jamie! Anybody copy?”
