Apocalypse Atlanta

by Rogers, David

  But he knew one thing; until he saw rather substantial proof that things were getting back to normal, he was going to do whatever it took to stay in a good position to live through it. That meant they had to deal with the cops. It meant the usual rules were off.

  “You guys know the position.” he heard the first voice say. “Come on, hands on your heads, spread your legs.”

  “Unit 477, change that Code 54 to a 42, we’re 10-95 with four at the moment, need some more transport here when available.” Darryl heard. A moment later, a tinny voice squawked back on the cops’ radios. Darryl bent down, not quite kneeling, then carefully peered around the edge of the broken door. He saw the four bikers standing against the far side of the truck, but the cops weren’t visible. He thought he saw a way to sort this out, and pulled back for a moment as he thought.

  Turning his head, Darryl caught Low’s gaze, pointed to himself, then mimed walking with his fingers, finishing up by putting a finger to his lips to signal for quiet. Low nodded after a moment. Darryl then pointed at Low, then pointed at the ground with a finger he jabbed downward twice urgently as he held up his pistol and pointed it out the window. He waited, while Low tried to interpret his meaning. After a few seconds, the biker lifted the Taurus, pointed to himself, then at the ground as he mimed shooting out the door. Darryl nodded, and Low did as well.

  Hoping Low truly did understand what he wanted, Darryl shifted his weight carefully as he peered back outside again. He still didn’t see either cop, so he dropped down as low as he could and duck walked carefully through the lower half of the broken door, being careful to place his boots only on asphalt and not atop any of the remaining glass shards.

  Moving cautiously, he went right, breathing a silent sigh of relief when he had the van between himself and the cop car he could hear idling on the far side. He paused and looked beneath the van, and saw two pairs of uniformed feet wearing shined shoes, one of them between the van and the cop car, the other set up closer to the front of the van.

  Quietly, he crept down the side of the van, then looked under the corner of the rear bumper again. Both cops looked like they were facing the four Dogz they had lined up next to the truck. Darryl raised himself to a bent over crouch, drew a deep breath, then straightened up and stepped around the van’s back corner. The Glock came up in both hands as he took in the two cops, both with their backs to him, one in front of the cruiser, the other standing just past the open driver’s door.

  Darryl had a moment to consider, but he’d already decided he wanted to take out the furthest cop first. If he took the closer one, the second might have the chance to duck down behind the car, and then it would get messy. He put his sights on the far cop, telling himself it was just like being at the range, and took another moment to make sure his aim was steady. The familiar trio of glowing sight dots slid into view, aligning together to scribe a straight line from pistol to target. Darryl waited a moment, just a moment, to ensure his hands were steady, then squeezed the trigger back.

  The Glock kicked in his hand, and the cop’s head exploded. Darryl blinked at the gout of gore as the cop started falling forward, then mentally kicked himself and tracked left. The second cop had raised his gun, but was looking at his partner rather than turning to face the threat behind him. Darryl put the sights on the man’s back and squeezed off a pair of shots. He had time to register both had hit, and the cop stumbled forward, falling to his knees.

  Darryl heard footsteps running, but kept his attention on the second cop. The man was still moving, and Darryl remembered bullet proof vests covered backs as well as fronts. He squeezed off two more shots, missing with the second, but knocking the cop down on his face. Darryl heard the man gasping for breath, and shot him in the ass just because that was the most convenient target. Blood spurted, and the man emitted a wheezing yell of pain.

  Another gun opened up, and Darryl flinched before he realized it was one of his brothers. He saw rounds striking on and around the down cop, and shifted back to be almost entirely behind the van. He didn’t think the asphalt would give really great ricochets, but didn’t want to find out the hard way he was wrong about that either. As he got himself back behind the van’s bulk, peering cautiously around the corner, he saw one round hit the cop in the head, and there was another sickening display of what a bullet did when it went through a skull.

  It was way worse than the movies.

  “They dead. It me.” Darryl said loudly, not quite shouting, but trying to make sure his voice carried.

  “You cool.” he heard EZ say, sounding almost casual. Darryl stepped out from behind the van and walked up the side, edging around the pooling blood coming from the second cop’s shattered head. He saw EZ standing there with a smoking pistol in his hand, looking grimly satisfied. The other three were looking a little shocked, and when Darryl glanced that way, he saw Low standing behind the broken door with his gun sort of pointed vaguely up.

  “Damn DJ, you stone cold.” EZ said as he flicked something on the pistol and shoved it back into the holster on the back of his belt.

  “Y’all okay?” Darryl asked, lowering his gun quickly. His hands were shaking, badly, and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest. He looked at the first cop he’d shot, thinking to double check the man was dead and not able to bother them anymore. That was a mistake, he realized almost immediately. Just before he felt a wave of nausea roil within him.

  Clamping his jaws together, Darryl looked away. The blood was everywhere. It was still leaking out of the shattered ruin of the man’s head. The nine millimeter bullet had done a real number on him. It was not something Darryl wanted to see again, and he took a deep breath as he felt his insides lurch again. It would completely trash his cred if he threw up, but that’s exactly what he felt like doing.

  “Yeah. Sure. Fuck.” he heard from the brothers, but it was EZ who spoke up in a tone that wasn’t startled or touched at all with fear.

  “They done called for backup. We gotta hustle.”

  Darryl jammed the Glock back into his holster, then remembered the radio call they’d made before he’d taken them out. “Yeah, we out of here.” He was breathing through his nose, making himself do it slowly. He still wasn’t sure if he was going to vomit or not. Breathe in. Hold it, count to three. Breathe out.

  “But grab all that shit we already got first.” He added when he was sure he could speak without spraying his stomach contents everywhere. His finger hit the magazine release on his pistol, dropping the nearly empty one into his left hand. He tucked it into his pocket and slipped the other flush magazine in to reload. His Glock was nice and small, but the flush magazines were low capacity as a result.

  “Fuck man, more coming.” Low whined.

  Darryl shook his head sharply. “Stop bitching and start throwing shit in the damn cars.” He went over to the door, motioned Low out of the way, then pulled the closest cart out through the broken door. As he started heaving stuff into the van as fast as he could, not caring if some of it broke or not, the others moved to help him. All except EZ, who instead hopped into the driver’s seat of the van and reached back into the open cargo area to rummage around in the stuff already there.

  “What you doing?” Darryl asked as he continued to throw things out of the cart.

  “Cleaning up them cops. Don’t worry, I got it.” EZ said as he grabbed what looked like a towel.

  Darryl finished emptying the cart, then shrugged and kicked it out of the way and turned to the door. “Low, stop fucking standing there, get them carts! And make damn sure you safe that gun.” he snapped. The biker blinked at him for a moment, then fumbled his pistol in the equally new holster before starting to wrestle another of the full carts through the door.

  Darryl heard cloth tearing as he started emptying another cart, but couldn’t see what EZ was doing. They were down to one cart to empty out when EZ reappeared, at the side of the Chevy as he scanned through the stuff in the bed.

  “Where that lighter flu
id I saw.” he asked when Darryl straightened to glance at him.

  “What?” Burnout said, but Needles jumped up on the back bumper of the truck and dug beneath the pile of stuff, looking a lot more nervous than he normally did.

  “Here.” the jittery biker said, holding up a can.

  EZ grabbed it out of his hand, and Darryl looked at what was left. Low and Joker were shoving the last cart of stuff into the back of the van, so he walked past the open back doors of the boxy vehicle to see what EZ was doing.

  The man had opened the driver’s side rear door of the cop car up, and was squirting lighter fluid liberally across the interior and side of the car. There was also a long strip of towel dangling from the cruiser’s gas tank, long enough to curl its loose end on the pavement next to the car.

  “Y’all drag them bodies over here closer to the car.” EZ said without pausing what he was doing with the can of lighter fluid.

  Darryl blinked, then decided he didn’t care, and didn’t want to take the time for argument or explanation. He used his foot to roll the second cop’s body over, which put it right at the bottom edge of the car. Needles went around the front of the car, and Darryl was moving to help when he saw Needles was moving the first body okay. He instead checked the back of the van, which was getting full.

  “Close up, load up. We going.” Darryl said, then raised his voice. “EZ, you done?”

  “Yeah, roll out.” EZ said. Darryl glanced behind himself as he opened the passenger door of the Chevy, and saw EZ squeezing the last of the lighter fluid onto the remains of the towel. The towel had a fat knot, bigger than fist sized, in the end, which was where EZ was directing the stream of liquid. Darryl slid into the truck next to Low, and engines started up as Burnout and Needles kicked their bikes to life. The truck was still idling, since EZ was the one who knew how to hot wire it.

  EZ, holding the dripping towel out from himself, opened the driver side door of the van and got in while making sure to keep the towel over the pavement. Darryl heard him shout again. “Y’all go, I got this.”

  Darryl exchanged a look with Low, then leaned over and hit the horn briefly. When Burnout and Needles glanced back at him, he made shooing motions through the windshield. They both dropped their bikes into gear and accelerated down the side of the building. “Go.” Darryl told Low.

  As the truck started moving, Darryl watched in the side mirror. He saw the van’s exhaust start puffing smoke as the engine turned over, then the reverse lights flashed briefly as it was shifted into drive. EZ’s other hand emerged from the still open door, beneath the towel, and suddenly there was fire licking up from the towel. EZ swung the towel back against the side of the van, then forward as he tossed it into the rear of the cop car.

  “Fuck.” Darryl breathed as he heard the whoomp-woosh of all that lighter fluid igniting at once even from a couple dozen yards away. The van peeled away from the cop car as it started burning. Darryl couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight. Flames were roaring out of the open doors a good ways past the roof, and the side of the car was on fire as well.

  As Low neared the corner of the Wal-Mart and made to turn down the back of the building so he could circle around and get out of the parking lot on the far side, Darryl saw and heard the cop car explode as the gas tank went up.

  Darryl exchanged another glance with Low, but said nothing as the van raced down the open area behind the building that was normally used by the fleet of trucks that supplied the store with the thousands of items it sold. Low took the other corner pretty fast, but under control, and a minute later they were back on 78 and headed east. Darryl remained tense until they were several miles away without having seen any cops, but didn’t fully relax until they were turning onto the lake road.

  When they pulled up, Darryl saw a pair of Home Depot rental trucks were being unloaded into the barn. And the van, along with Burnout and Needles, had beaten them back as well. When Low finished angling the van back to the open barn doors, Darryl got out and paused to tap out a smoke and light it. He reminded himself he needed to make sure some cigarettes, a lot of cigarettes, got grabbed from somewhere.

  He’d tried quitting once, about seven years earlier at the urging of a girl who’d been trying to move herself into the role of his girlfriend. It hadn’t taken, the quitting or the girlfriend, but he remembered how irritable and angry he’d been for that week. The slightest thing seemed to enrage him beyond reason, and nothing made him happy. He didn’t want to go through that, not now, and was pretty sure it wouldn’t be good for the club either if they did. Most of the Dogz smoked.

  “Stone Cold Dee Jay!” Joker said with a huge grin as Darryl put his lighter away, dragging out Darryl’s nickname into far more than two syllables. “Ice Man Dee Jay!”

  “What?” Bobo asked from the back of one of the Home Depot trucks, pausing as he shoved bags of powdered concrete toward the edge. The trucks were basically heavy duty passenger trucks that had big engines, massive suspensions, and flatbeds instead of box beds. Both were heavily loaded down, their contents being slowly emptied into the barn where bikes were normally parked. The bikes not in use were all up against the back of the clubhouse to make room in the barn.

  Darryl looked briefly at the bikes, then involuntarily toward the back of the property. He didn’t see any flashlights back there, and wondered if that meant the burials were done. Ratboy had died before they could get organized and rolling on the supply runs, as had one of the kids who’d been attacked.

  Bobo had detailed four Dogz off as guards to watch over the clubhouse, and four more to drag the bodies, the kids who’d been shot as well as the two other dead people, out to be buried. Darryl was kind of glad he’d drawn supply runs. He wasn’t sure he wanted to handle the bodies, and he damn sure didn’t want to be standing around in the moonlit darkness burying any. It was too damn creepy.

  “County PD showed up at that last Wal-Mart.” Darryl said, a lot more calmly than he felt. He dragged on the cigarette to cover his nervousness.

  “And?” Bobo asked after a moment.

  “And DJ took ’em out.” Joker piped up with a laugh, making a gun with his finger and thumb.

  “You get away clean?” Bobo asked sharply.

  Darryl hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I think so. They both dead, and EZ torched the car. Weren’t no one following us on the way back.”

  “Good.” Bobo grunted. “Come on, help get this shit into the barn.”

  Darryl waited a minute, finishing his cigarette quickly, then pitched in to help with the unloading. When all four vehicles were empty, he lit another cigarette as he studied the interior of the barn. He noticed a row of gas cans sitting near the front, flinched, then got close enough to nudge at one with his boot. It rocked easily; empty. He walked over to Bobo.

  “Them cans full yet?” he asked.

  Bobo looked up from his own survey of the supplies, then grunted. “Not yet. An I got three barrels that’ll hold gas too.” He pointed, and Darryl saw a trio of brand new metal fifty-five gallon drums sitting in one of the barn’s corners.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Darryl said.

  “You sure?”

  Darryl glanced at Bobo, but in the dim light of the barn’s single inadequate bulb, the older biker’s features were too shadowed for him to make much out. “Yeah.” Darryl replied. “You going out again? There anything else we need?”

  Bobo shrugged. “The barn ain’t full, but Big Chief doing good.” He waved a hand at the clubhouse. “Perv say he done been back once already, with a full load. I more concerned about whether we got enough shit here to fence us in tomorrow. It ain’t light; took us a long time to get it all loaded up.”

  Darryl didn’t even bother trying to evaluate exactly what Bobo might mean by ‘fence us in’. He just nodded. “I’ll grab them cans and drums and get ’em filled up. We can strip the gas station we hit at the same time. That ought not take too long. We’ll run them back here, unload everything, then head
back out and join up with you. Help you get another batch of shit on the trucks and back here, then we see where we at.”

  Bobo nodded. “It’ll go quicker with more on it. Thanks bro.”

  “It all good.” Darryl said, then raised his voice. “Yo, my guys. Get them empty gas cans and them barrels. Cans in the van, barrels on the truck. We gonna go fill ‘em.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eight – Goodnight

  Jessica

  Jessica closed the lid on her laptop with a shudder, then lifted the remote and killed power to the entertainment center. The television and speakers shut down, and she sat there for a moment. She didn’t know how she was going to sleep, when all she could think of was shaky cam footage of crowds of people running from other, slower, crowds of victims. Of zombies.

  Online she’d found her favorite news sites were doing the same thing the radio and television stations were doing; covering nothing but the disease outbreak. And they were linking to sites that were more interested in posting anything relevant, rather than perhaps using editorial discretion to try and censor the more horrific imagery and stories that were happening today.

  The internet wasn’t bothering with euphemisms and extra words to describe what was happening. They threw the term zombie right out there, and any discussion about it was only over the kind of zombie that had appeared, not whether or not they were zombies. Most of these debates were meaningless to Jessica, at best a waste of time, and in the worst cases full of people who threatened to drag focus away from how to deal with and resolve the problems the zombies were creating.

  So far, the most often suggested plans seemed to involve everyone figuring out how to barricade themselves up somewhere, alone. That way, if they turned, they couldn’t hurt or infect anyone else. Jessica wasn’t sure how feasible that idea was, even discounting how everyone would manage to keep feeding and clothing themselves if the machinery of life stopped being operated.