Apocalypse Atlanta

by Rogers, David

  “We’re making cookies!” Candice declared with something a lot closer to her normal cheerful demeanor as she dumped the measuring cup of flour into the mixing bowl.

  Jessica smiled. “Sounds good.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Six – Night falls

  Peter

  “Johnson, see if that fucker will start.” Peter yelled. He waited a moment, then yelled again, louder. “Johnson!”

  The Guard private’s head jerked around, fixing on Peter when he waved his arm over his head. Peter pointed at the semi truck that was jack knifed, but still on its wheels, less than twenty yards from the three other semis that had overturned and blocked the west bound lanes of I-285. The accident site was just east of the Chattahoochee River, thankfully just west of the Northside Drive exit. A little further east, and it would have likely been impossible for traffic to reroute without even worse problems than the police were already reporting.

  “Sarge, I can’t drive stick.” the Guardsman shouted back. The east bound lanes, on the other side of the center divider, were clear up until almost to Spaghetti Junction, where I-85 and I-285 merged and formed a complex cloverleaf of elevated ramps and turns to allow traffic coming from either direction, from either interstate, to change over or pass through as the drivers desired. Here, with east bound traffic moving at speed on the other side of the interstate, and all the military vehicles idling, the noise level was high.

  Peter scowled, partly at the bastardization of his actual rank, and partly at the stupidity of the man. “Johnson, I didn’t tell you to fucking drive it, I told you to see if it’ll fucking start!” Peter shouted back. “Get in it, hold the clutch in, and turn the damn key. Don’t make me come over there. You won’t like it son.”

  Johnson blanched at the look on Peter’s face, and quickly turned, breaking into a jog as he headed for the semi. Peter watched him go for a moment, then slipped through the three feet of space between two of the overturned trucks. There he found Captain Foreman huddled with the one lieutenant who’d made it in before the company deployed, the senior county police officer who was on site, and the driver of the Guard company’s HEMTT M984 recovery vehicle.

  “It’ll move it.” the driver was saying, gesturing at one of the overturned trucks. “But dragging it like that is gonna finish destroying the truck. And where am I supposed to put it?”

  Foreman’s eyes flicked to Peter as he joined the huddle, but the captain directed his words to the driver. “Stevens, I don’t give a damn if it shreds it into seventeen thousand little pieces, I need it moved, and the other two as well. This road’s gotta be open.”

  “Put it on the shoulder.” Peter offered, pointing.

  “All of them?” Stevens asked in an unhappy tone, turning to look in the direction Peter was pointing.

  “Yup.” Peter said with a nod. “Just drag the first one far enough down, and the others will slide in right behind it. They can stay there until the civvies get their shit together and decide to come clear ‘em up.”

  “And until then, the road will be open.” Foreman finished. “The debris might put holes in a few tires, but it’s that or leaving the blockage here until, hell, tomorrow or Sunday.”

  The driver turned back, opening his mouth again, but Foreman held up a finger. “Discussion over. You have your orders corporal.”

  “Yes sir.” Stevens said, still visibly unhappy, but he turned and started toward the odd looking vehicle that was idling a couple dozen yards away.

  “Christ almighty, save me.” Foreman muttered, shaking his head. “Pete, how’s it looking on the other side of this mess?”

  Peter shrugged. “There’s about a dozen cars that look to be movable, I got guys checking and doing that now if so. Any that aren’t we can either push off, use the 984 to drag, or maybe use some of the mobile cars to move the others.”

  “What about that fourth semi?” Foreman asked, glancing at the cab and roof of the trailer that were visible past the top edge of the overturned trucks.

  Peter grinned. “Now that’ll be the rub, maybe. If it’ll start, and the fifth wheel ain’t totally jammed solid, we should be able to just drive it off to the side. And if not . . .” he trailed off, and Foreman grinned abruptly.

  “984 it?”

  Peter nodded with a chuckle. “Yup.”

  Foreman glanced back at the 984, which was only just now starting to roll forward. Built to recover disabled tanks and other military vehicles on active battle fields, the armored recovery vehicle didn’t look like much to the untrained eye. But the articulated crane mounted on its forward aspect could lift thousands of pounds under the right conditions, or pull quite a bit more. It wasn’t as good as a M88 Armored Recovery Vehicle, but Peter was confident it would be able to shift just about anything they might encounter in Atlanta.

  Though the merged mess several tractor-trailers could make when they all slammed into one another was making him wonder if his expectation might be proven false.

  “Sure am glad you boys showed up.” officer Samuels said, shaking his head as the M984 continued forward with Guardsmen walking beside it. “They were telling me it was going to probably be sometime tomorrow morning before they might be able to find the right kind of tow trucks and be able to get them out here.”

  “Downtown Connector?” lieutenant Watson asked.

  “Yeah.” the Cobb county policeman said with a shudder. Peter kept his eyes on the 984 as it came forward at a walking pace, but he shared Samuels’ estimation. When he’d finally arrived at the Guard base in Marietta, and reported to Foreman, he’d immediately been plugged into the same information loop the captain was receiving.

  The situation downtown was bad, and not just on the interstate, though what had happened to the Connector was about three clusterfucks that had been jammed together, put in a blender, mixed with concrete and nightmares, and then spread untidily out across the highways with an epileptic giant’s ice cream scoop.

  Two different north-south interstates came together at Atlanta, I-75 and I-85. Both merged together for about eight miles as they cut through the center of the city, before diverging again. One of the busiest stretches of interstate highway in America under normal circumstances, the day’s events had encouraged a far higher number of drivers than was normal to hit the asphalt at the same time.

  Peter still didn’t know, and from what he heard neither did the civilian authorities, what exactly had happened on the roads; but a few hours ago there had been a series of incredibly impressive accidents that had completely closed the major north-south artery out of downtown. The exact occurrences didn’t really matter regardless; what they’d done did.

  For all intents and purposes, only Atlanta’s surface streets were now available to the metropolitan populace. Those were normally only barely adequate for surface traffic in the various localities that comprised the larger entity known as the Atlanta area. They were almost worse than if there’d been nothing when it came to what was happening on them now. Which largely amounted to most everyone who lived in or within a now uncomfortable distance of downtown trying to get out through them.

  “Excuse me sir.” Peter said to Foreman as he watched the ground crew supporting the 984 start struggling to hook up the cable to the first of the overturned semis. They were about to try to tie onto the truck’s axle, which was liable to pull off under load.

  “Carry on, Master Gunnery Sergeant.” Foreman said with a wave as he turned to Watson.

  Peter strode over, shouting to get their attention. “No, Goddamnit! The frame, the fucking frame!” When the Guardsmen looked up in confusion as he approached, Peter shook his head. “Christ, you’re risking tearing the axle off, probably get someone killed when it catapults forward. Here.” he got down on one knee next to the truck, tapping a thick piece of the underlying frame of the truck. “This, solid metal. No joints, no bolts. There’s no telling what might have happened to the axle fittings when the truck wrecked.”

  Halti
ngly, but with gathering speed as Peter showed them, the cable was secured properly, and then everyone backed off. When all the people on foot had cleared away, the 984 driver used the winch to draw the cable taunt, then revved up the engine and started backing slowly. With a tremendous scraping noise, the semi was dragged along the asphalt on its side. It was going too slow to produce sparks, but Peter had already designated half a dozen privates to stand by with fire extinguishers just in case.

  The 984 made it over to the left hand lane with its burden before the trailer’s king pin began bending. Peter started to wave his arms, then stopped himself. The 984 was only moving about three miles an hour, and the weight of the cab was sufficient to prevent what he had been warning might happen if the axle had come off.

  Sure enough, a couple dozen feet of progress later, the pin detached from the cab’s fifth wheel, and the trailer stopped moving as it came free. The 984 driver, his head up out of his hatch, stopped the military wrecker, but Peter walked forward waving for him to keep going. Stevens looked at him, hesitated, then started the big recovery vehicle backing up again; now dragging the cab alone.

  As he was watching the truck ease over to the shoulder, he heard some shouting from the other side of the wreck. It sounded a little panicked, and his head came around. Peter scowled, then turned to look for one of the Guardsmen who he’d been yelling at when they hooked up the first truck.

  “You saw where to attach the cable?” he asked quickly, running over and grabbing the man by the arm.

  “Yes Sergeant.”

  Peter scowled, but nodded. Fucking Army, fucking National Guard reservists; no manners, no memory. “Good. If I’m not back by the time the trailer’s clear, do it like that on the others. Don’t use the damn axles. Understand? Hook up to frames only.”

  “Yes Sergeant.”

  Peter left him to it and jogged around the blocking vehicles. He saw a small knot of Guardsmen standing just to the side of the jack knifed semi. One of them was holding his arm close to his chest, cradling it like it was hurt. Peter saw Captain Foreman walking towards them, and sped up to beat the officer there. Never let the officers be the first on the scene, not even decent ones like Dan.

  “What’s wrong?” Peter asked as he arrived.

  “Fucker bit me!” the injured Guardsman said angrily, holding up his arm to show the torn and bloody sleeve of his fatigues.

  “Who?” Peter asked, glancing around. He didn’t see any zombies in sight, though he’d heard a lot of the Guardsmen still using terms like ‘victim’ or ‘sick people’.

  “In that car.” another of the Guardsmen said, pointing at a ridiculously large SUV with a crumpled front end and bloody, cracked windshield. The damage to the windshield looked obvious, to Peter, like it’d come from within. Like a person or other objects inside had hit it under deceleration. The blood stains, overlapping on the cracks, seemed to confirm it as far as he was concerned.

  Peter winced, thinking the driver of that had probably been taken to the hospital. He wondered idly if it would have been better if maybe they’d just died in the accident, then shook his head to clear his thoughts.

  “Problem?” Foreman asked as he joined the group.

  “Possible victim.” Peter said.

  “I thought the damned police said all the sites we’re clearing have been swept for casualties.”

  Peter shrugged. “Dunno sir.” He reached out and tapped the Guardsman who’d pointed on the chest. “Come on.”

  Without waiting to see if the man was going to argue, Peter started for the wrecked SUV. The driver’s door was standing open, and he approached cautiously. The car looked empty, so he stepped up on the running board of the oversized truck with a car’s styling and peered in the backseat.

  Lying there, on the floorboards in front of the rear bench seat, was a young man in his early twenties. Well, not a man anymore. Zombie. The pale, vacant expression and fixed intent gaze were unmistakable. So too were the wounds that didn’t appear to be actively bleeding but also didn’t have nearly enough clotted blood on them to explain why.

  There was a trail of dried blood across the zombie’s face and cheek that seemed to have come from an ugly cut on his forehead, but despite the rather serious nature of the injury it didn’t seem to be bothering the zombie in the slightest. Peter was still trying to get past that; how zombies seemed utterly oblivious to any injury, no matter how serious. Only actual damage that removed physical function, like a broken or missing limb, seemed to bother then.

  The zombie was trying to clamber out of the back of the vehicle, and making a poor effort at it too. He seemed to be having trouble sitting up from the floorboard. As Peter watched, he was trying again. The zombie seemed unable to notice, or to reason out, that his shoulder was caught under the edge of the back seat. A human would just twist and shift to move clear; but the zombie was just trying to simply force his way past the obstacle.

  Throughout the effort, the zombie’s eyes remained fixed on Peter. They were open wide, tracking his every movement hungrily, and showed no other sign of life. Just that steady and unblinking gaze devoid of any warmth or inattention. Single-minded. Peter shuddered, still not used to it.

  His face grim, Peter reached into one of the leg pockets of his utilities and pulled out his work gloves. As he put them on, he caught the eye of the Guardsman who’d joined him. “Alright, you’re going to open the door, and then stay out of the way. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Peter finished tightening his fingers into the gloves, then nodded to the other man. The Guardsman wrenched the rear door open, and Peter leaned in. Grabbing the zombie by the ankles, he pulled him out of the back of the SUV. When he had the lower half of the man out, he dropped the feet and stepped back.

  The zombie lingered for a moment, half in and half out of the vehicle, then leaned forward and started to stand. Peter waited, a few feet away, as he produced a long zip tie from another pocket and stuck it in his mouth, holding on to it with his teeth. He wanted to see what the zombie tried to do next before he proceeded. Better safe than sorry.

  When the zombie finally regained his feet, it took a staggering step forward, toward Peter, then another. Peter stepped in and got a hold on one of the wrists, which were outstretched toward him as the fingers flexed eagerly. Forcing the man through a twist and a spin with a lot more effort than he’d expected to need, Peter got the zombie turned around and pushed it face first up against the SUV. Grunting with strain, Peter captured the other wrist, and bent them both down to the base of the man’s spine.

  “Cuff him.” Peter got out through teeth still clenched around the zip tie. Orders were still to detain and transport the ‘sick’ and ‘diseased’ to the nearest hospital or CDC designated holding area. Peter thought it was dangerously stupid, but orders were orders. Apparently people, including the leadership and command structure of the city and National Guard, were not ready to begin shooting without there being an imminent threat to life.

  Peter wondered, just a little as he struggled with the zombie, if it was wrong to want to just start shooting them. Then he thought about what had happened at the hospital and shrugged mentally. Time enough to sort out morality later. Death didn’t allow for much time to weigh pros and cons. Only the living had the luxury of philosophy and scruples.

  After a moment, as he had to press harder on the zombie to hold him in place, Peter glanced quickly to the side. The Guardsman was standing there with a sick expression on his face, not moving.

  “Goddamnit!” Peter roared, first almost losing, then almost swallowing, the long strip of plastic in his mouth. “Cuff him!”

  Blinking, the Guardsman came forward and took the zip tie, then reached hesitantly to fit it around the zombie’s wrists. Peter grunted again as the zombie flexed its arms against his hold, not twisting or fighting as a normal person would, but merely pushing with raw strength alone.

  He heard the distinctive sound that gave the zip ties their name as the G
uardsman finally got the end seated in the zipper and pulled. Peter grabbed the end from him and gave it a second tug when the Guardsman stepped back. Then, satisfied, he took hold of the zombie’s upper arms and kicked its legs out from under him.

  As the man fell, Peter caught and lowered him so he didn’t crack his jaw or nose on the asphalt. He stepped back hastily when he saw the man’s head turn, starting to chew on the toe of his boot. Pulling out another zip tie, Peter secured the victim’s ankles, then straightened and stepped away and rotated his wrist as if feeling for an injury.

  “Fucker is strong.” he muttered, then turned, eyes searching across the scene. He spotted one of the Cobb County police officers who were ‘supervising’ the accident scene. Mentally marking the man’s location, Peter then turned back to the Guardsman and grabbed him by the arm. Heaving with his shoulder to start him off, Peter walked him away from the victim, then shoved him back against the hood of the SUV and jabbed his finger in the man’s chest.

  “When you’re given an order, you fucking follow it. Immediately!” He said, face furious as he leaned in to put his nose inches away from the Guardsman’s.

  “But sarge–” the man began, only to have Peter poke him in the chest again.

  “That’s Master Gunnery Sergeant.” he growled. “I don’t care what you do when you’re not out playing soldier in the woods one weekend a month, you’re active now, and you will follow the chain of command and obey and execute the orders you’re given by your superiors! Is that clear?”

  The Guardsman hesitated, and Peter saw his eyes flick worriedly in the direction of Foreman, still standing a short distance away. “I asked, is that clear?” Peter repeated. The ad-hoc and sudden appearance of Peter in the unit’s midst hadn’t been taken with the automatic acceptance that might have been hoped for. It wasn’t anything like open revolt or disdain, but there was an undertone of uncertainty in how some of the Guardsmen reacted to him.