by Evans, Mike
Tina said, “Yeah, that sounds totally great and all, but I’m doing everything I can to not crash this truck and roll it across the field, killing everyone who’s in it.”
Clare shook his head, wrenching his hands. “Jesus Christ, what the hell am I doing here? You want to look in your rearview… maybe you’ll change your mind, sweetheart.”
Tina screamed, “Oh, are you dense? I said my name is…” She looked into her rearview mirror, squinting, and saw that the Turned were less than twenty yards behind them. She put the pedal to the floor, hitting the gas, making everyone hold on for their life. She hit a bump, almost losing everyone in the back.
Patrick yelled, “Why the hell am I sitting in the back when there are two perfectly good seats in the truck that I could be in, both with one of those beautiful damn seatbelts in it.”
Greg shrugged screaming, “I don’t know, man. I kind of thought you were one of the smart ones.”
He shrugged unsure himself how smart he could be if he wasn’t sitting in the front with the girls, although looking at them, they definitely did not look relaxed. Shaun looked at the men, who were just barely visible. They were taking cover for some reason behind trees. Shaun watched Clare, who was putting plugs in his ears and covering them. Shaun looked to Greg, motioning that he should do the same. They got past the men, still speeding, and when the Turned were between the two points that Clary had set up, he flipped the switch.
Shaun was just beginning to speak, saying, “What are those guys going to…”
Clare didn’t respond; he was nodding, listening to something the rest of them couldn’t hear. Shaun looked behind the truck; the ground beneath the Turned became a giant, fiery hole instantaneously. The fire from the explosion soared into the sky, sending bits and pieces of the Turned everywhere, showering the truck bed with limbs that were still flipping and jumping. The boys picked them up and tossed them out as quickly as possible, unsure what they should do. The blast was loud enough to shatter the windows in the pickup, and glass flew onto the girls in the cab. Tina slammed on the brakes, piling the boys and Clare into the front of the truck bed. A unanimous slew of curse words spilled out from the back. Tina yelled, “Sorry about that, but everything in the truck just shattered and scared the shit out of me. I’m sorry… is everyone all right?”
Greg looked at the smoking field of bodies torn apart by the blast and said, “When you say ‘all right’ do you mean mentally or physically? Because I think my body is okay—just not the rest of me. It’s been a long couple of days, to tell you the truth.”
Shaun nodded and helped Patrick up. “You okay, Patrick? You look like shit, man.”
Shaun returned his shotgun to him, and they sat back for a second, taking in long, deep breaths. Clare looked at the kids, noting their ages and the hardware they were holding. “Who the hell are you kids? Where did you get a brand new truck like this? And who gave you those assault rifles, for Christ’s sake?”
Shaun shook his head. “It’s a long story, and I don't feel like telling a perfect stranger. We are on our own. We just saved your ass. What are you guys doing here in Zombie-ridden Iowa of all places?”
“We’re here to save everyone.”
Shaun perked up a little at this. “You’re going to give us a ride out of here? Is the rest of the country safe… is there somewhere safe to land?”
Clare raised his hands in question. “I don’t know, kid. We were kept in the dark until they had us in the air and on our way here already. They might have set up barriers or perimeters to keep an eye on those things moving through the country.”
“Then what do you mean you’re going to save us? What can you do? You couldn’t even take care of yourself with twenty of them.”
“Well, with an entire team, we are going to be just fine.”
Greg said, “So… you, uh, finally figured out how to kill one of them, did you?”
Clare nodded. “Our Humvee got kind of destroyed; we’re going to need to borrow your guys’ ride, if you don’t mind.”
Greg, unfiltered at his best, said, “Yeah, fuck you very much. You’re not taking our truck. We just got this. Go steal one of your own if you need it. Hell, we’ll even give you a ride to the dealer.”
Clare was using cards he didn’t have yet to play and looked down at his rifle and back up at the kids. Shaun, Greg, and Patrick saw this and took it as the threat that it was. They raised their rifles before Clare did and pointed them directly at his face. Clare smiled uneasily, looking like he was going to raise his weapon one minute too late. Shaun snapped, “Lay the rifle down. It isn’t nice to take things from others… you realize that, right? We don’t have to give you and your team a ride anywhere. We can leave you out here in the middle of nowhere and let you all sort things out for yourselves. You aren’t much more than a stranger right now in my eyes.”
Clare nodded setting the rifle down. He was nodding his head, but not to Shaun. He said, “My friends in the trees are asking if they’d like me to let them kill the three of you. They don’t yet seem to understand our close relationship.”
Shaun looked back behind him, seeing thick smoke and nothing else. “Your friends can’t see us yet. They aren’t going to be able to shoot us yet.”
Clare pointed with a finger to the top of the trees, where a gleam off of a riflescope glimmered. Clare, feeling like he now was ahead of the game, said, “That’s Aslin. We call him Cube, and if I hit my radio mic one more time, he’s going to take three of you out one after another.”
Greg laughed, “Well, that means that after he shoots one of us, we shoot you and then the rest of us die. Chances are the girls are going to drive away like a bat out of hell, leaving your buddies sitting in the trees. What have you say about that solider?”
Clare said, “Who the hell are you kids?”
Greg said, “We are who survived, and we plan on keeping it that way no matter what happens. I’m sure you can appreciate that train of thought, being a military man.”
Tina looked in the rearview and screamed. Ellie whipped her head around and was out of the truck in less than a second. “What the hell are you doing? Stop aiming your gun at that guy; he helped us, we helped him. We are even.”
Shaun said, “He wants to take the truck so he and his friends can go and rescue us.”
Ellie got a little excitement in her voice. “Wait, are you here to round up the survivors and take us somewhere safe?”
“No, he’s here to save us. He just hasn’t quite fessed up to how he’s going to go about doing that.”
Ellie looked at the man, waiting impatiently. “Well?”
Clare opened his mouth and then shut it, thinking for a second and then nodded his head. He screamed, “Get back in the truck now! Do it! Get in!”
Ellie said, “Uh, no. I want some answers or just like the boys were saying, you can go ahead and walk.”
Clare pointed through the smoke, which was thinning and rising up into the peaceful blue sky, turning it black. From it came the Turned who had not been taken out with the blasts. They were still coming, some without arms, some hobbling without both legs, holes that you could put a basketball through. Shaun yelled for Ellie to get into the truck, and before he could get out a sound, she was already slamming the door to the large vehicle. Shaun shouldered his rifle, no longer aiming it at Clare but at what was left of the freaks who were on their way toward them. They seemed to be even more angry than before, if that was a possibility. Shaun got one of them in his rifle sights, but as he began to apply pressure to the trigger, the head of the man whose arm was hanging on only by his shirtsleeve exploded, leaving very little of the upper half of his torso. Shaun watched the next four shots, seeing the same thing happening over and over again. In awe, he looked at Clare and said, “Is that your sniper at work?”
Clare nodded, thanking God that Aslin was in a great place, apparently, where he was able to have an angle on them. “Yeah, that’s Aslin. He can hit anything and has proven himsel
f in the field time and time again; he doesn’t ever let you down. He would die before he would let anything like that happen.”
He hit his mic and said, “Aslin, you are wonderful. Please tell me that the rest of the field is free of those things.”
Clare nodded, and Greg yelled, still trying to pop his ears, “What did he say? Are there more of those damn Turned coming?”
Clare shook his head no and said, “What do you mean ‘Turned’?”
Patrick, the quiet one, actually spoke up and said, “Well, you see, they get bitten and then it seems like, depending on where the wound is or how severe it is that they… I don’t know… they turn and become something else—something horrible. There isn’t anything you can do once they get their eyes on you. If they sniff your blood, they come for you like there is nothing else they can think of. The only thing that you can do is run. Yesterday, when it happened at the school, no one was armed. We had no forewarning; the buses came into town and the girls on the bus came out and massacred everyone. They took without prejudice… they killed like it was personal. Their hunger was that of an animal that would never be content.”
“Wait—so these things came from a school bus? I thought the outbreak happened at the hospital.”
Shaun didn’t like all the questions, but if these guys could solve the problems of tomorrow, then he would happily go back to the woods and wait for the time to come when these things were either all cured or all dead. Either way, he could live with the outcome. Shaun asked, “So, where are you guys going to head to? Where is it that you think you will find the answers?”
Clare pulled a plastic file out of the front of his chest and looked at it. “I take it you guys know where to go to get to a drug company in town. It’s called E&T. You know where it’s at?”
They all nodded. Greg said, “Yeah, I’d think we know where it’s at; half the parents in town all worked there before… before yesterday happened.”
“Why do you think that’s the place?” Shaun asked.
His words hit Shaun like a sledgehammer. “There is a man. A doctor… Dr. Frank Fox. He’s a chemist and works there; they are sure of it. They think that most likely he is behind all of this. They aren't sure what he was doing, but we need to get his research. None of you know where he might be in town after all of this, do you? Or if he made it?”
Patrick was standing near Greg. Shaun shook his head no and when Patrick went to spill his guts, Greg gripped his neck and squeezed a little. “No, we don’t know. We went up to this kid’s cabin and hid out. We were planning on staying up there for a while but they had an announcement saying that any news or information we could give them would be helpful.”
“What do you kids know?”
Greg continued, “Well us kids were at the school when the outbreak happened. We figured we could let them know it happened around here, because when those girls got off of the bus, they were already ready for blood.”
Clare thought about how the reports had been from the hospital and kept the rest of his thoughts to himself. A voice from behind them startled them. The team had made it across the field while the four of them were talking. Shaun looked over his shoulder, seeing the camouflage-clad men walking towards them and seeing the hardware they were carrying, as well. He didn’t want to let them take the truck but felt there might be little that he or Greg could do about it if they decided that they were going to take it from them.
Phelps walked up, holding a hand out to Shaun. “Thanks for saving my man, boys.”
Shaun shook his hand firmly, as his dad had instilled in him. “You aren’t worried about us being infected with the disease?”
Phelps shook his head. “No, I think if you all were one of them, shooting and driving trucks would be a little out of your skill set.”
Shaun nodded. “No, we are okay, I think.” He pointed to the field of dead behind him. “But once those things bite you, it does take time to turn. It just depends on where they bite ya, for how long it takes we think. People who get mobbed by them turn immediately.”
Clare cleared his throat and said just barely audible, “He’s right, sir. They got Gowland as he was coming down. They jumped up, biting and ripping into him and…”
“That’s enough, son. We couldn’t have known that was going to happen, especially with doing the heat sensor on the ground. It wasn’t your fault; there’s something wrong with those things.”
Greg instantly regretted the words coming out of his mouth, “Yeah, no shit.”
Phelps gave him a stare he would not soon forget. “Sometimes it’s good to have a filter, son.”
Greg smiled nervously. “Yes, sir, I’ve been told that before.”
Phelps squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe it’s time to start taking that advice. You might not have too many people to have conversations with after yesterday. People are going to be a lot more touchy going forward.”
Greg nodded and said, “Are you the one who blew those bast... I mean those things up, sir? I think you’re my new idol, if you were. That seemed way easier than shooting them all in the head.”
Clary stepped forward, a cigar half in his mouth and half sticking out. “That would be me who is your new role model, son. That only looked easy because I’m so damn good.”
McClellan came up. “Oh, my, sir. I knew we were in a field but didn’t realize how deep the bullshit was getting around our feet until the great and powerful Clary started speaking.”
Greg laughed, seeing that if he was going to get along with one of these soldiers, it would most likely be him. Phelps looked at Greg saying, “Please don’t laugh at him, kid; it only encourages him.”
Greg laughed and hit the side of the truck. The girls got out and came around, seeing the soldiers. Shaun asked, “Who was the one taking those things out so quickly?”
McClellan said, “That’s Cube and he’s still up at the top of the hill. He’s the first in and the last out when we are in the shit.”
Greg looked around, not liking the fact that the man was referring to where he lived, and that he was trying to survive in a place that made Navy SEALs nervous. Tina said, “So are you guys going to take the healthy back, or what? All I know so far,” she pointed to Clare, “is this guy gives crap directions and is totally rude.”
Clare’s face went red, and he looked like he was going to lose his mind. He didn’t even give her a second look; he went straight to his officer in charge, feeling like a moron for needing to defend himself against a teenager. The rest of the men were biting their lips, trying not to laugh directly at him. “Sir, I don’t know what to say, but that is not accurate at all. Since we jumped out of that plane, my partner has been eaten, I’ve had freaks—men, women, and kids running at me trying to kill, eat, or whatever it is they had in mind. I then got to ride in the truck with a bunch of kids who don’t even know how to drive, and these three shits pointing their guns at me and threatening me!”
Phelps lowered his sunglasses, looking at Clare and then at the boys. “You guys pointing those shiny new weapons at my soldier? Do you think you are responsible enough to keep those things?”
Shaun looked again at the massive hardware count and knew that he was screwed more than he’d like to admit. “Sir, he threatened that you guys were going to come down here and take our truck because your truck got destroyed!”
Clare said, “I just mentioned it to him.”
Patrick once again found his voice. “He’s full of shit! He… he said he was going to take the truck and then pointed to his gun. We were already aiming ours at him by that point. Sir, if you take our guns and our truck, you might as well go ahead and shoot us in the head now, because it’s just a matter of time before those things make their way out here. From what I’ve learned, they probably already are on their way here. They are attracted to noise.” Patrick was breathing heavily, looking like he was going to hyperventilate.
Shaun patted him on the shoulder. “He’s right. We can give you guys a ride or we ca
n take you somewhere to get a new truck of your own. But just because we are kids, doesn’t mean we deserve to be left high and dry out here. I appreciate you are here to help, but you won’t be doing anything for us if you do what Clare, there, thinks is right.”
Phelps said, “Relax son. We aren’t taking anything, but we do need a ride, and if we can get one of our own, you guys can go about whatever it was you were going to do.”
Shaun nodded, looking over his shoulder and around. Phelps didn’t like the nervousness of the kid and asked, “What’s up, kid? You look like there’s a ghost out in the field somewhere. Is there something we need to be on the lookout for?”
Ellie, who had done her best to keep her mouth shut the entire time, couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Hi. I wanted to let you know that it’s really great and all that you are here, but we learned something really valuable about those things earlier today.”
Phelps went to ask what when Ellie smiled holding up finger. “Sorry. I wasn’t done. When we went down to get Patrick’s medicine, we—or maybe I should say, this young man—accidently blew up our van and the noise from just that brought just about every one of the Turned directly to us in a very short amount of time.”
Phelps said, “So they are big on noise. Is what you are saying?”
Phelps knew the answer, but Kristy, who hadn’t picked up on his understanding, said with a sense of urgency in her voice. “We need to leave. Those things will be on their way here, if they aren’t already. We need to take the highway to get back to town and there isn’t any other way for us to get there, we don’t even have a gravel road between here and there.”
Phelps said, “But those things are still a couple miles away. If they are in town, we should have some time, right?”
Shaun said, “Did you see those things running when they had something that they were after?”
Phelps nodded and Shaun continued, “Well, imagine that pace and they never stop, they never slow down, and as far as we know, they never grow tired. We do probably need to get moving, and the less we blow up or shoot our guns, the better. If you guys have silencers for those guns, it might be a good idea to put them on.” Shaun pointed to the back of the truck and pulled out his backpack. “I picked up an axe and brought my hunting bow for when we only have one or two of those things to take out.”
