by Geo Dell
Pearl sighed, flicked her safety off and aimed it at the kid that had spoken. “I think you're right, mate. It can't matter if I shoot you... Just another big fucking deal done with,” Pearl said.
“Hey,“ the lead kid said, “You came into our town.”
“Must have missed the sign then,” Pearl said.
“Pretty funny,” the kid responded. “Look... It's our city. We ain't the only ones here. You shoot there will be more here in seconds. Then everybody dies.”
“If you have to make it that way, then it has to be that way,” Pearl said. “I can see a way out for all of us,” she shrugged. “You have to want it though.”
The one in the back, the one with the red eyes, swiped at his cheek and his eyes reflexively slipped shut for a split second from the pain. Pearl shot the lead kid in that split second. He flipped backwards like a rag doll. Billy shot the second guy a split second later. The third kid opened his eyes and blinked hard.
“Still ready to die?” Pearl asked. “Just give me a reason, any reason.” The kid released the rifle he held and it dropped from his hands, clattering loudly as it hit the pavement.
“Can't shoot me I'm unarmed...” He spun and looked off toward the opposite end of River road. He turned back to Billy and Pearl. “Can't shoot me... I ain't armed... Can't...” Billy shot him.
“Christ,” Pearl said. “What method of warfare is that?”
“The shoot first and ask questions later method,” Billy said sadly, as he herded her toward the truck where it sat at the edge of the roadway. “Been down this road before. It is what it is.”
A second later the truck roared to life and Billy spun the wheel hard heading west down River road and the outskirts of the city.
Pearl bounced around the cab and smacked her head hard enough on the windshield to star the glass when the truck left the pavement at better than fifty miles an hour and hit an area of hard packed dirt from a wash out. She finally got her balance, swept one hand across her forehead, looked at the blood and cursed lightly. She fixed her eyes on the road behind them. Three trucks had rounded the curve in River road that lead to the cave and were running hard to catch them.
“Company, love.” Pearl told him as she settled against the seat back and tried to open the old sliding window. “Jammed,” she muttered.
“Fuck me,” Billy said. He pushed the pedal to the floor, there was nothing else for it. The glass in the back window starred a second later as Pearl rammed the rifle stock into it. Another hit and the glass fell out into the pickup bed area. She raised the rifle and began to fire back at the trucks. A second later a hole punched through the windshield to Billy's left. He mashed the pedal harder into the floorboard feeling the truck skate across the washed out sections of the road as the truck flew beside the river. Far ahead two trucks were pulled nose to nose across the road. There was no way past them without going into the river. A bridge that would take them to the north side was coming up fast. Cars appeared to clog it, spaced purposely to close it off.
“Billy,” Pearl called. “We have to get north, the other side of this river. If they squeeze us south we'll be in the damn downtown and they'll have us,” Pearl yelled above the scream of the engine. “I know that area!”
“There's cars up there,” Billy yelled back. “On the bridge! Blocking it!”
“There are bullets down here and they are gaining on us,” Pearl yelled back.
“Better sit down,” Billy yelled.
“Just do it, Billy!” She continued to fire out the back window.
Billy turned the wheel hard right and the truck lurched hard to the left, threatening to roll over as the center of gravity changed. It nearly rolled before it hit the edge of the pavement, broke over, and then became airborne. It came within ten feet of a bridge abutment and skirted the front of a wrecked mini van as it came down on the bridge surface. It hit the front fender of a small car and sent it spinning.
The truck landed in the middle of the span, Billy punched the gas and they flew toward the other end of the span and a small hill that climbed away from it on the other side. A police cruiser, placed purposely to block the road, went spinning as they clipped one corner of the rear end, and then they plunged off the other side of the bridge so smoothly that Billy couldn't believe they had actually landed.
“Nearly broke my neck slamming it into the ceiling,” Pearl yelled. She fell silent. “I...” She started, but an explosion from the bridge stopped her words.
Billy locked up the brakes and the trucked slewed around, finally stopping in a cloud of blue rubber smoke and a low squall as the tires hopped across the pavement. They stared back at the bridge from the first rise of the small hill.
The opposite end of the bridge was a mass of flames climbing into the darkening sky. “They hit that abutment,” Billy screamed. “Has to be.” He watched as something exploded on that end of the bridge and a fireball lifted into the sky. Black smoke was billowing into the air.
“Get it going and keep it floored, Billy. Keep it floored.” She stayed where she was, staring out the back window, knees driven into the seat top. Billy floored the gas, the truck lurched to the left and then snapped back to the road, turning in a half circle and once more pointing away from the bridge. They watched the jumbled pavement fly by as they climbed the short hill.
“This is taking us north,” Billy said. He had no sooner said it than the truck hit the slight rise and flew across it.
'Back roads!” Pearl yelled.
“I don't know the back roads,” Billy said. “But we have to get off this main road... Hide somewhere.”
She was trying her best to hang on as the truck bounced and tilted. One hand clutching the seat back held her in a somewhat stable position as she watched the fallen down houses slip by. “Billy, it looks like all streets, but there are back roads farther out, Billy. I remember... Farms, back roads... Bad shape even then, so you may have to look hard, but you must find them.” She managed to get turned completely around and sat down holding the dash to stay steady. “They must have hit the van too, or each other. Whatever it was, I don't think they will feel like coming after us for a bit.”
Billy said nothing. Pearl went back to watching the road.
“Billy... Take the next road that crosses, and let us start looking for a place to hide for the night.”
Billy slowed the truck and took the next right, east. Pearl watched the road as the overgrown fields slipped by. “Pull into that big place on the right. If we can't get in by the building, we can park alongside and that should hide us from the road...”
Billy drove them to the leaning building, a farm machinery business the fallen sign proclaimed, and continued down the length of the building into the tall weeds. Billy saw no dead as he pulled deeply into the overgrown brush at the side of the building so he shut it down. The silence held for a few moments as Billy checked Pearl's head over. There was a shallow cut just above the hairline. He taped it closed after cleaning it with some alcohol swabs from their first aid kit.
“What now,” Billy asked. He tried to look outside into the gloom; he saw nothing but the clouded moon far above them.
“Come here,” Pearl said. She pulled him down to the seat and a second later she was lying beside him. He pulled her closer.
“We need sleep, Billy,” Pearl said quietly. “Regardless of what has happened, we need sleep to be sharp.”
“I can't sleep, Pearl. I'm too keyed up.” He pulled her closer, inhaled her scent, tried to fold her into him. She stroked the back of his head, her fingers found his neck and massaged lightly.
“I don't want to sleep, Pearl,” Billy protested.
“Let it happen, Billy. Let it happen.” She stretched out her legs, angled them across to the drivers side floorboard, and leaned back into the door, he shifted forward, his head on her breast. The last thing she remembered was smoothing the hair out of his eyes and then she slipped away.
Watertown New York
Bea
r and Beth
Bear crept quietly along the tree line following Beth.
They had nearly stopped and gone back an hour before when a huge explosion had rocked the quiet afternoon. Flames high in the sky ahead of them. They had watched as a fireball had climbed into the late afternoon sky. The flames fell off, below tree level, but they had watched greasy, black smoke continue to rise into the sky until the sun set and they could no longer see it. Even so they could smell hot metal, and the roast pork smell they had smelled far too often that meant someone had been burned alive in the explosion and fire they had seen. The odors were heavy on the air and they had wondered to each other in whispers if the explosion had come from the south side of the river, even the cave they had been heading to when things had turned bad. They were close enough now that they could see the flames once more, still burning, a quarter mile or more away from where they were, and clearly not on this side of the river.
As the darkness settled in more fully they stopped and waited for the moon to come up. As they huddled in the darkness, backs pressed against the side of a building they could both hear noises in the night that probably meant the dead were out and looking for them. Bear thought it ironic that the things to be afraid of in the night were the dead, not the living. It was like all the horror stories that he had read as a kid had been true after all. He had just eased away from the wall to check the path they had used to find their way to this building when he caught a blur in the blackness of the trees in front of them. They were both ready, and when two dead burst from the tree line directly toward them they opened up.
The short burst took them both out, but Bear was sure it also alerted any other dead or living close by that they were there. A few minutes later they were moving. The moon was barley up, but it was too risky to stay put. A light snow was beginning to fall, covering the ground in white.
They reached the River road and crossed it to the steep bank of the river. Bear met Beth's eyes and held them.
“We both go,” Beth whispered.
Bear nodded, took a quick look around the deserted roadway and then slipped over the cliff edge following a path that lead down to the river.
Pearl had told them that when the earthquakes had hit the base had shut down and sealed up the small underground city immediately. The air ducts, wide rock tunnels that lead into the heart of the project, the two lane wide tunnel that had been bored into the solid rock and had served as the only public entrance to the underground city, and dozens of lesser known entrances had been sealed.
The way in was the same way she had made her way out, the series of air ducts. The ducts led away from the city towards a small mountain-peak about a mile from the city, but they also lead to the river and various other places. They only needed to find their way to it.
Pearl had told her story: It had been in the first hours of the apocalypse that had destroyed most of the world's infrastructure, governments and military might, and there had been a serious lack of moral among the soldiers, including the ones that had rescued her from the street instead of leaving her there to die after she had been injured and then attacked. They had only been making their way back to the base to lock down, but they had jumped into the fight, rescued her and bought her back with them. They had abandoned the vehicle and made their way into the tunnels the same way she had eventually made her way out.
She had missed all of that. She had come around, her head wound dressed, several hours later. Stretched out on a cot in what looked to be an army barracks. There were a few soldiers that filled her in on what had happened to her.
Speaking to the council about it had bought it back and she had remembered even more of it as she had told them. They told her what was going on out in the world. She had likewise learned about V2765. Everyone in the barracks had been exposed to it. Every soldier had been equipped with small silver canisters of the stuff and encouraged to use them, both for personal inoculation and for others. It had been issued to all them, and they had used it on her. They were also familiar with what they called Rex. Another agent that counteracted the first. Few had seen it, but all believed it existed. She had asked no questions, but she had been unaware that there were questions to ask.
She had learned there was a commander somewhere in the facility, but as the hours slipped by it became more and more uncertain whether the base was even viable any longer. No one had heard from the base commander. Several of the soldiers had deserted, leaving the base the same way they had come into it. Finding their way back to the surface and the freedom that lay beyond. They felt they had nothing to fear. After all, they were protected by the virus. No matter how tough things got they should be able to survive. She was left to wander freely around the barracks and the rest of the facility.
In the following early days the ones that had stayed had all been convinced that the government would be back on top of the eight ball in no time, but that had not happened. Instead, they had sat silent in one of the housing units and watched as one by one the worlds top military command positions went off line.
Washington had been taken by the military. The president was long gone. Maybe wandering the streets as one of the living dead himself, but the soldiers had taken the white house, a symbol of American freedom and held it. It had fallen in just a few days: Overrun by crazed mobs who believed the government had been responsible for the catastrophe that had occurred.
A large base in Texas, Another in L.A. Military contacts in the Middle East: London, Berlin, Base Pearce in Australia. All dug in for the long run. All gone in the first week.
Pearl had assumed she was free to wander around, but not free to go. No one had said much of anything to her about it. When someone had come around it was to ask if she would like to make a break for the surface. They were concerned. The commander had taken control of the base once again, and there were rumors that the base would be buttoning up. There were already orders to close off the air vents. If they were going they had to make it soon, the soldiers had said.
She had watched a group of four leave, unsure whether she could trust them. A few hours later she had met a civilian that had been stuck below levels when the earthquakes had hit, and he had convinced her to try for the surface. She had made it to the surface on her own, before a team had been sent to close the air vents off. While she had still been marveling at her luck, she had stumbled over two of the four that had left hours earlier. They had been shot dead and left in the last tunnel that exited to the surface.
She had found the remaining two hiding near the tunnel exit and they had begun to make their way through the city. But later into the afternoon the remaining two had been ambushed and killed by two others. The men that had done the killing had dragged her into a building and raped her. Later, as the flames leapt and danced from the fire they had built on the floor of a partially collapsed building, she had made a move to get one of their rifles.
She had weighed her choices and decided that death was better than the life they had planned for her. She had manged to get one of the rifles before the two men had been on her. She had held on even as they had punched and kicked her. They would have been better off shooting her with the guns they still wore, because once she had been able to wrestle free and aim the rifle she had killed them both. She had sunk down to the concrete next to the fire and passed out. She had come to in the morning, bruised and battered, but alive and struck out on her own.
Pearl had told her story to the council members and they had realized that there was a counter to the V2765 compound that had raised the dead. Rex, whatever it truly was, was stored somewhere in the underground facility. It became paramount to get that compound and reverse the process.
The path they followed would lead them to the same tunnel entrance Pearl had come through with the others. Even if it had been closed back up again it could be reopened once more, and they could use that to break into the underground facility by following the ducts back into the project. From there they would look for the comp
ound.
The underbrush sheltered them as they made their way down to the river bank and then carefully scouted for a metal grid that would announce the presence of an air ducting tunnel. The rock trail was slick with new snow, and the snow was falling harder even as the temperatures began to plummet.
“There,” Beth said tightly. Bear stopped and looked where she pointed. He climbed the few feet upward as she did, paused and looked over the heavy metal grating. “We'll have to be careful to stay inside the duct,” he said at last. “Pearl said they have cameras inside the tunnel itself... You sure you want to go in?” He asked Beth.
He worked his fingers through the holes and rocked the grating slowly, it was much too heavy for one man to handle, but Bear was no ordinary man. He pulled a long metal bar from a sheath on his back and inserted one end into the recessed lip. He leaned his weight fully into it and it came up slowly. He rocked the bar in the slot of the recess and the cover slipped sideways and then ground to a halt.
He handed Beth the bar and then worked his fingers under the lip of the cover and pulled it upward.
At first it refused to come more than a few inches from the opening, but he redoubled his efforts and the lid came free with a metallic screech, slipped off the cement and flipped into the darkness and the river below. The tunnel way yawned black in the falling curtain of snow: A steel ladder disappearing below the lip into absolute blackness.
They both stood for a few seconds wondering at their luck. Bear wasn't even breathing hard. He took a few calming breaths, and then climbed down into the dark opening, lowered himself inside; he helped Beth down to the wet, rock floor. A few moments later they began their walk through the stone cut tunnel, following quietly as it angled down into the rock.
Watertown: River road
They came from the shadows, the smell of blood pulling them. The young man in the lead approached the bodies where they lay on the broken pavement. They had watched the bodies far into the darkness, but unlike some, they had not come back. He looked over at them now, their eyes dull marbles, mouths wide and yawning.
