The Farm - 05

by Stephen Knight

  “Hooah. But how’re you going to get in?”

  “I’ll need a boost before you go.”

  Biggs dumped her backpack and climbed up onto the porch railing. Powers steadied her as she reached for the lip of the roof. He put his hands beneath her boots, and for a moment, the big NCO was practically doing a standing bench press, pushing upward against Biggs’s weight as her gloved hands scrabbled across the composite tiles that lined the porch overhang’s surface. She pulled herself up, her kneepads causing a clatter as they caught on the rain gutter, the racket seeming as loud as thunder to her ears. But then she was up, and she gathered her feet beneath her and rose into a crouch, her carbine at ready. She glanced down and saw Klein had scooped up her MOLLE bag and, covered by Powers, was retreating to the pen that contained the Suburban. Biggs looked outward. From her elevated vantage point, she could see a good deal of the immediate territory, and she was amazed at just how many stenches were converging upon the house. They had minutes to evacuate, otherwise they would die here.

  Not happening.

  She turned and regarded the dark window a few feet away. It was still open, but the room beyond was awash with darkness. Holding her M4 by its pistol grip, Biggs eased toward it and peered inside. She was all too aware that if a stench lunged out at her, she’d likely fall on her ass, roll off the overhang, and plummet to the ground below.

  The room beyond was mostly empty. There was a chair, and in front of that, a tripod-mounted, bolt-action sniper rifle with a large scope. Two more similar weapons leaned against the wall, along with an AR-type weapon. There was no shortage of ammunition—boxes of Federal and Hornady cartridges were stacked neatly on either side of the room. The floor was littered with spent cartridges, and two buckets sat next to the chair. Biggs wondered if the sniper used them for personal relief. She slowly clambered through the window, struggling to keep her rifle aimed at the half-open door on the other side of the room. From deeper inside the house, there was a rhythmic banging sound, like someone slamming into a door or a wall, again and again. Biggs was thankful for the racket; it helped cover the noise of her less than graceful entry. Once inside the room, she shouldered her M4 and took another quick look around. She found the buckets were used for expended cartridges—apparently, the sniper intended to reload them. Biggs moved on, the stock of her rifle pressed against her right shoulder. She was careful to avoid stepping on the used cartridges lying on the wooden floor, and every time a slat creaked beneath her weight, she paused. The metronomic slamming noise continued, unabated. So far, her entrance had gone unnoticed. She reached the partially-open door and peered through the opening.

  On the other side, a hall stretched away from her. A big man in old woodland-pattern battle dress utilities stood at the other end, slamming his shoulder against a closed door. The door was sturdy, not one of those hollow types found in newer homes, and he fairly bounced off it each time he threw himself against it. His skin was mottled and pale, with blackened veins standing out in stark relief against the ashen flesh. A bloodstained bandage was wrapped around his left forearm, and the man wore a 1911 model .45 caliber pistol on his hip. Biggs knew this was the sniper she’d talked to yesterday. The former Marine.

  And now, he was a stench.

  As the corpse slammed against the door once again, it seemed to give slightly. Someone on the other side shrieked. A woman? A child? The zombie, heartened by this sudden change in fortune, hurled itself against the door again. Something cracked, probably the latch or even the entire jamb giving away beneath the punishment. The stench made a huffing sound, sensing it was close to getting through. Biggs firmed her sight on the zombie.

  “Hey, Marine.”

  The stench whirled at the sound of her voice, its eyes dull and lifeless but still full of an odd type of mindless malevolence. Its full beard seemed as dark as graphite against its almost alabaster skin, and two horrible wounds had been inflicted on it, ragged holes in its chest through which splintered bone was visible past puckered and burned flesh. It opened its mouth and released a dry rasp, then lunged forward, arms outstretched. One of the limbs didn’t work very well, damaged by what must have been shotgun blasts. Biggs fired once, drilling the zombie right through the forehead. The stench shuddered, then collapsed to the floor without a sound. Biggs approached it cautiously, kicking it several times to make sure it was down for the count. When it didn’t react to the contact, she turned her attention to the door the corpse had been so intent on battering down. She rapped the knuckles of her left hand against it.

  “Anybody in there?” she called out. When there was no response, she added, “Listen, I’ve killed the stench out here. It’s safe to open up.”

  There was a rattling click as a lock was flipped. Biggs stepped back as the door slowly opened, holding her rifle at low ready, just in case. The door opened only a crack, and a pale face peered out at her. A young girl, maybe fourteen years old or so, regarded her with blue eyes that glistened with tears.

  “Where is he?” she asked, softly.

  “On the floor,” Biggs said. “Dead. He can’t hurt you, now.”

  The door opened wider, and Biggs saw the girl wasn’t alone. A small boy stood behind her, clasping her leg, his eyes wide with fear. The girl held a double-barrel shotgun, but she wisely didn’t point it in Biggs’s direction. She stuck her head into the hallway, and when she saw the body behind Biggs, she put a hand to her mouth and stepped back with a soft sob.

  “Daddy—”

  Biggs stepped forward, blocking her view of the corpse. The girl was forced to look up at her. “Hey, listen. We need to get out of here.”

  “Where…where do you want to go?”

  “Pennsylvania. Where do you keep your supplies?”

  “Downstairs, mostly,” the girl said.

  Biggs pointed to the shotgun. “Is that loaded?”

  The girl looked down at the weapon. She seemed to consider what to say, then shook her head. “No. I used the shells on Daddy…”

  “Is there anyone else in the house?”

  The girl shook her head again. “No.”

  Biggs stepped to one side, the M4’s stock tight against her right armpit. “Okay. Is this your brother? Take him downstairs, and wait for me. I’ll be right down.”

  The girl nodded, and she dragged her brother along behind her. The boy glanced back at Biggs, who stood between the pair and the body of their father. As soon as they had descended down the steps, she knelt over the body and went through its pockets. She found a key ring in the left hip pocket, and sure enough, one of them had GM stamped on it.

  Biggs rose and bolted down the stairs, her boots thumping on the somewhat threadbare carpeted runner. The girl and her terrified brother waited for her at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her with wide eyes as she descended toward them like some vengeful demon. Biggs looked past them, at the front door. It was barricaded behind furniture, and thick plywood had been nailed over it. Not getting out that way.

  “Did your father have an escape plan?” she asked the girl. “I saw the window over the truck wasn’t boarded up. Is that the only way out?”

  The girl nodded, and pointed toward a doorway. Biggs was on it right away, rifle shouldered, sweeping it from side to side as she stepped into the next room, which was the kitchen. The room was clear and secure, which she had expected. The kitchen was a mess—empty cans lined the counters, and the sink was full of dishes. More, which had been washed, stood in the dish rack next to the sink. The rack’s white polyurethane frame had been scrubbed away in places, revealing rusty metal beneath. Next to the battered, dormant refrigerator was another AR-type rifle, and beside that were three cans of Federal green tip ammunition. On a nearby wall-mounted coat rack, a SOE tactical vest had been hung, its pockets loaded with what appeared to be fully-stocked Magpul polymer magazines. Biggs picked it up immediately and slung it over one shoulder, then pointed to the rifle.

  “Take that,” she told the girl. She hurried over
to the small window over the sink and peered outside. The sun-faded Suburban was right outside, and so were Powers and Klein. The light infantrymen had taken positions inside the pen, and hid behind the thin slats as well as they were able. Further out, a wave of stenches, hundreds of them, shambled toward the house. There was no way to get out of the house without being noticed by at least a dozen pus bags.

  Oh, nuts.

  With no other choice presenting itself, she pushed open the window and climbed onto the counter. One of her boots crushed plates in the sink, and two more slid off the counter, falling to the floor where they shattered into dozens of porcelain shards. Biggs ignored the racket and swung her feet out the window.

  “Pass your brother to me, then grab some of those ammo cans and follow us out!” she said to the girl, who had already picked up the rifle and slung it over one shoulder. And then, Biggs launched herself out of the window and to the ground below. She landed awkwardly, and she fell against the truck, but the ballistic inserts in her improved outer tactical vest prevented her from feeling much of the impact. A collective moan seemed to rise around the house, and Biggs knew her exit had hardly gone unnoticed by the advancing dead.

  “Hey, thanks for giving away our position, Captain,” Powers said, his tone somehow still surly even though he must have been frightened beyond belief by the wall of necrotic flesh advancing toward them.

  “Don’t sweat it, powers. We’re getting out of here. Just hold the stenches back long enough for us to get going—I’ve got two civilians coming with us,” Biggs said, turning back to the window.

  “I heard that!” Powers rose to his feet, standing up in plain view of the advancing zombies. He shouldered his M4 and began firing measured, precise kill shots. From the corner of her eye, Biggs saw several stenches drop immediately. “Klein, you heard the captain, shit sack! Get on your weapon and secure your lane of fire!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Klein rose and started firing as well from his position at the SUV’s rear, drilling a zombie right through the head at fifty yards away. He shifted to another target, fired, missed, fire again. From the corner of her eye, Biggs saw it go down, but she cringed at the miss. Then the boy was in the window, looking out at her with wide eyes, flinching at the sound of the gunfire. Biggs reached for him, grabbed him under the armpits, and hauled him out. She pushed him against the SUV, then turned back to the window as the girl pushed one of the ammo cans out. Biggs took it and tossed it to the ground. A backpack came out next; she tossed it to the ground as well, and it bounced to a halt next to the frightened boy. Then the girl came through, moving clumsily, the long AR catching on the window frame. She looked around wildly when she heard the moans of the converging dead over the raucous gunfire.

  “What’s in the bag?” Biggs asked as she helped the girl down.

  “It’s one of daddy’s BOBs,” she said, even though that really wasn’t much of an answer. Just the same, Biggs knew BOB was the prepper acronym for bug-out bag, and she had no doubt the now-dead Marine had stuffed it full of goodies.

  “Good thinking,” Biggs said. She turned back to the Suburban and yanked open the rear door on the driver’s side. She tossed the pack in, then shepherded the boy and girl into the vehicle. She then pulled open the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel just as Powers ran out of ammo. As she fumbled with the ignition key, Biggs looked at him through the windshield; his fighting position was right across the hood from where she sat. It took him only seconds to swap magazines, but in that time, the dead lurched even closer, until they were only twenty feet away. They were almost at the fence by the time he was back in action, and he wasted no time blasting away at the corpses that eagerly shambled forward, even if it meant their doom.

  Biggs shoved the key into the ignition and twisted. The big SUV’s engine roared to life, rumbling smoothly beneath its somewhat rusty hood.

  “Mount up!” she shouted, then pulled her door closed.

  Powers shifted position, preparing to draw back, still fighting. In the sideview mirror, Biggs caught a glimpse of Klein turning toward the idling SUV, the dead stumbling over the corpses of their slain brethren. As he started for the vehicle, one of the more active zombies lunged forward. It grabbed a hold of his MOLLE pack, slowing him just enough for another to reach across the short fence and grab his arm. Klein twisted and writhed, firing at the zombies as best as he could, but it was no good. The angle was all wrong, and Klein just couldn’t get enough coverage with his rifle at such close range.

  “Powers!” Biggs shouted.

  It was too late. With a muted crack, the rear of the wooden pen imploded beneath the surging weight of the zombies. Powers turned, probably sensing the incursion more than anything else—certainly, Biggs knew he wouldn’t have been able to hear the pen’s fence breaking over the noise of his own gunfire. Biggs looked in the mirror again, and saw Klein was already down on the ground, covered by a mound of flailing bodies. Powers fired into the mass, but it was a lost cause.

  Klein was suffering a horrible death, still screaming beneath the undulating pile of the dead.

  More hands reached for Powers, and he ripped open the front passenger door as Biggs dropped the transmission into gear.

  “Go!” Powers shouted as he leaped into the vehicle’s cabin. “Jesus, Captain, fucking go!”

  Biggs stomped on the accelerator, and the Suburban lurched forward. The door slammed shut on its own accord as Powers thrashed about, stretched across the seat and the center console, his helmeted head butting against her side. The dead slapped at the vehicle as it charged forward, blasting through the crowd that had assembled before it. Biggs fought to keep the vehicle under control as it bounced and shuddered through the dense pack of dead meat, sending some bodies flying, others to the ground where they were crushed beneath the truck’s big tires. Powers sat upright in the passenger seat and grabbed a hold of the handle mounted on the A pillar, struggling to keep himself from being thrashed around as the truck bulled its way through the dead. Biggs kept her eyes forward, watching as the stenches went down, still reaching for her even while several tons of Detroit steel rolled right over them. She spared a glance in the rearview mirror, and saw the frightened kids clinging to each other in the back seat.

  “It’s going to be all right, kids,” she told them. “Hang in there.”

  “Captain, get this thing on the road!” Powers snapped.

  Biggs saw an opening ahead and cranked the wheel to the left, stomping on the accelerator. The Suburban tore across the field, weaving around the dead wherever possible, slamming into them with enough force to send them flying into the next county where it wasn’t. She brought the truck into a wide, skidding turn around the barn they had spent the night in, then saw a slash of concrete in a break between shambling bodies. She steered for it, and the Suburban bounced mightily as it crashed through the gathering stenches.

  And then, the Suburban was on the road. With surer purchase now that the tires were on a paved surface as opposed to grass and dirt, the Suburban handled a bit better, and she was able to weave around the stenches on the road. The SUV was pulling strongly to the left, and she hoped it was just because she’d blown the alignment, and not a tire. She risked another glance in the rearview mirror, and she saw the farm receding in the distance. The girl raised her head just then, and she turned to watch her home fade away.

  “Man, this is some dedication on display here,” Powers said, almost conversationally.

  Biggs glanced over, and she saw a corpse was hanging onto the passenger sideview mirror, the same one with which she had watched Klein die. The zombie out there was being dragged down the road, but it wouldn’t release its grip on the mirror’s frame. It tried to pull itself up, its cloudy eyes rolling wildly in its pockmarked face, dried tongue lolling; and then, the mirror snapped off at its base. The Suburban jounced as the stench went under the rear end. Biggs fought with the vehicle as it danced all over the road, tires screeching for a moment before she broug
ht it back under her control.

  “Well.” Powers leaned back in his seat and let out a heavy sigh. “Well, that wasn’t so bad, I guess. Except for losing Klein, I mean.”

  “And their dad,” Biggs added quietly.

  Powers seemed to consider that for a moment, then he turned back and looked at the two youngsters in the back seat. The boy was still weeping, so terrified that was all he could do. A quick glance in the mirror again told Biggs the girl wasn’t all that far from melting down herself.

  “Yeah, my condolences, kids,” Powers said. “Really. Sorry we couldn’t have helped.”

  “Just shut up,” the girl said.

  Powers nodded and faced forward again. He shifted his rifle between his legs, then pulled off his left glove and rubbed his eyes with a grimy hand.

  “How’re you holding up, Sergeant?” Biggs asked.

  “I probably should’ve slept a bit last night,” he said.

  Biggs only grunted as the Suburban accelerated up a hill. The grunt turned into a near full-on scream when the SUV crested the rise, and she and Powers saw what was on the other side.

  Stenches. Thousands of them—no, tens of thousands, all marching across the landscape, heading up the road right at the speeding SUV as it bore down on them at over eighty miles an hour. Biggs stomped on the brakes, but it was too late. The stenches were too close, and they were driving too fast.

  “Fuck!” Powers shouted, belatedly reaching for his seat belt, though by the time his fingertips touched it, the Suburban’s battered nose plowed through the first ranks of the dead like an ice breaker smashing its way through a frozen sea. Biggs fought to control the vehicle as it rapidly decelerated, and then the air bags deployed, shoving her back into the seat and knocking her senseless. She felt her ears pop as the air pressure in the SUV suddenly increased, and felt the hot blast of escaping, superheated air venting out of the bag almost instantly as her hands were torn from the steering wheel. Beside her, Powers swore up a storm as the SUV lurched from side to side like a staggering drunk, the sounds of multiple impacts filling the cabin. The girl screamed as she was flung into the back of Biggs’s seat, and an instant later, the boy was up front, rocketing between her and Powers, sprawling across the worn center console with a cry.