“What?” Crawford and Smith asked.
Peter shook his head, lowering the binoculars. The road ahead was well and truly obstructed; in both directions. This time it was simple cars and trucks; but they stretched as far as he could see. Hundreds, all of them packing the lanes on both sides of the bridge and rendering wheeled passage impossible. They weren’t wrecked this time; but it would be quite an undertaking to move them all, even if each one still moved under its own power. “We’re not getting through that unless we get out and walk.”
“We could.” Smith suggested. “I mean, it’s not like we wouldn’t be able to find another vehicle on the other side, is it?”
“We could, I guess.” Peter started — even though he really didn’t think it was necessary to do something like that so early in the journey — but Crawford broke out laughing. He turned and gave her a tolerant look. She looked at him with an obscenely cheerful expression. “Okay, what now?”
“Gunny, look over there.” she said, pointing past him.
Peter turned and looked to the right of the I-55 bridge. A rust-brown bridge was just north of them, a curved trestle affair that looked old but sturdy. There were railroad tracks on it, the rails shiny enough to show that even allowing for the time since the apocalypse had hit; the tracks had seen regular use.
“Yeah, it’s a railway brid—” he began, then trailed off abruptly. He brought the binoculars back up and scanned the length of the bridge as best he could. “Mother fucker.” A bridge was a bridge; what did he care if it had tracks instead of road? The truck wouldn’t mind. And he’d ridden rougher rides than tires over railroad ties would give.
“Looks clear to me.” Crawford said.
“Turning around.” Whitley said.
“Come on, say it.” Crawford laughed.
“Say what?” Smith asked.
“Shut up.” Crawford said immediately. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“You’re fucking weird, anyone told you that lately?”
“Don’t turn around, just back off the bridge.” Peter said, reaching across and tapping Whitley’s hand on the steering wheel. The two lanes of traffic, lacking shoulders and bordered with the concrete barriers on either side, would make turning around very tricky. The truck could easily get stuck. And he didn’t like how close some of the zombies were. Already, in the distance from where they’d emerged out onto I-55, the leading edges of the zombie horde were visible.
The truck and the four juicy humans within, and their activities, had awoken zombies eager to get some fresh meat. A lot of zombies.
“Come on Gunny.” Crawford said.
“Got it.” Whitley nodded, abandoning her attempt to start a back and fill turn and leaving the transmission in reverse. Using all three mirrors, she started driving backwards the way they’d come.
“Gunny . . . ” Crawford began again, but Peter turned and pointed a finger at her.
“Good catch. Now pay attention.” he told her.
“Fine, just so long as we all know who saw it.”
“Like we could forget at this point?” Smith asked dryly.
Crawford raised a hand and shook her fist at him. Smith snorted. “I’m not Swanson, so don’t think I’ll put up with your little love taps.”
Peter knew that wasn’t the best of things to have said; Crawford’s expression clouded over immediately. A painful fire lit in the back of her eyes, and he spoke again before anything else could light up. “Enough. Seriously, the fucking off and who-said-what shit can wait until we’re back on open road with lots of open space all around. Got it?”
“Yeah.” Crawford said shortly, sitting back in her seat and looking out her window.
“You want some more action, lean out the window and clear some of them fuckers behind us.” Whitley said.
“Sure.” Smith said, rolling his down and drawing his pistol.
“Mine.” Crawford said, hefting her rifle again.
“Both of you.” Peter ordered.
“Fucking hell, can’t catch a break.” Crawford muttered as she swiveled in the seat and stuck her head and shoulders out the window. She was smaller than Smith, and through more easily; she’d fired her first couple of shots before he joined in. Peter wasn’t convinced their aim would be the best in the world from a moving vehicle, but every little bit might help. And anyway, there was plenty of ammunition in the vehicle; spending some at this point didn’t matter much.
Even with the shooters helping clear a path, Whitley still had to plow a couple dozen zombies out of the way using the rear bumper. But the truck got off the bridge without serious incident, and Whitley turned around properly so she could head back the way they’d come.
As for finding the railroad bridge; the rail tracks weren’t marked on Peter’s road atlas, but Whitley simply followed the road that paralleled them as she sought a way up. Finally, back on Riverside, she found it. The road dipped to permit a railway overpass to take the tracks above the road, but the shoulder on either side of the overpass ramped right up to them.
The truck didn’t mind the grass as Whitley drove up, and eased them onto the tracks.
“Careful.” Peter said as she bumped the truck over the first rail. “Let’s not get stuck.”
“I got it, I got it.” Whitley muttered back. She drove the front wheels over the second rail, then turned west. The truck swayed heavily as the rear wheels lifted over the rails, then the truck was driving west. It was a rough ride, the vehicle juddering severely as the tires bounced along the wooden ties that connected the tracks. Even though Whitley held the truck’s speed down to just above walking, it was anything but smooth or comfortable.
“Yeah, this is much better.” Smith said, his voice rising and dipping as he bounced about in the backseat.
“If it gets us across.” Peter answered loudly, gripping the grab handle above the door.
“You see how many zombies are trying to follow?” Crawford asked.
Peter took his attention away from the atlas and windshield and turned to look. She wasn’t kidding; even though the truck was clipping along at three times walking speed, there were still quite a few zombies persistently staggering up onto the tracks and pursuing. “Well, they can’t catch us.”
“Crazy dead bastards.” Crawford said with a shake of her head, watching them through the rear window.
“They’re like you.” Whitley remarked. Peter glanced at her to see she was studying the scene using the rearview mirror.
“How’s that sarge?” Crawford demanded.
“They don’t know when to let it go.”
“Hah fucking hah.”
“There’s more city on the other side of this, right?” Smith asked, so quickly Peter was all but certain the soldier was trying to head off any further traction Crawford might get behind her latest outrage with.
Peter looked back down at the atlas, trying to focus despite the bouncing around. “Uh . . . more or less. It’s marked as West Memphis, but the state border between Tennessee and Arkansas is in the middle of the river. Actually . . .” he said, trailing off thoughtfully.
“What?” Smith asked after a moment.
“What? Oh.” Peter said, shaking himself slightly. “Actually, the city on the other side is off maybe a mile or so. It looks like a lot of . . . well I don’t know what it is on the other side. Could be fields or farms or something.”
“I seriously doubt there’s any unused space this close to both the river and Memphis.” Smith pointed out.
“Yeah, I agree.” Peter nodded. “But I can’t tell from this what’s up on the other side.”
“Lots of open space at the other side of the river you say?” Whitley asked.
“Yeah.” Peter said, still studying the map page.
“Enough for a refugee camp?”
Peter looked up immediately. She was slowing down, easing the constant jarring of the railroad ride. “What?”
“Binoculars.” she answered.
He lifted the
m to his eyes and adjusted the focus. The far edge of the bridge leapt into view; and he suppressed a strong urge to curse. There were — no, they were zombies alright — everywhere. All over at least the last quarter of the bridge itself, and a lot more on the ground beyond the bridge. A lot more.
“We get to do some shooting?” Crawford asked brightly.
Peter turned around. Crawford looked at him and scowled. “Oh come on Gun—” she started, but she trailed off when he ignored her and looked out the rear window. The way they’d come was equally swarming with zombies.
Smith read his face and frowned. “Uh, fill the binocularly-challenged in?”
Peter glanced forward, then backward again. “Fuck.” he said.
“Oh.” was all Smith said.
“We get to do some shooting don’t we.” Crawford said, opening one of her ammunition pouches.
“How bad is it?” Smith asked, leaning forward and squinting through the windshield.
“We’re sort of surrounded.” Whitley said.
“Why don’t we just floor it?”
Peter put the binoculars to his eyes again. “Because there’s too many.”
“This is a fucking full size truck with a big ass engine.” Smith said tightly. “How the fuck can there be too many?”
“Because there’s beyond hundreds of them coming.”
“So go back.”
“Same thing.” Whitley answered as Peter studied the zombies packing into the bridge ahead. They were stumbling over one another, bumping and swaying into their hungry neighbors as they surged forward. He couldn’t think of what had drawn them in, but it didn’t matter. What did was he had no confidence the truck, ‘big ass engine’ or not, would be able to push through the crowd.
Nightmare images of Atlanta in those first hours of the outbreak flashed past his eyes, despite his attempt to stay focused. He had been afraid of it then, and was afraid of it now; getting surrounded, being hemmed in. The vehicle didn’t do more than draw the terror out.
Maybe if it were armored, but absent that . . . the zombies would get in. The moment the truck stalled out or got stuck, they’d be through the windows, clawing and grabbing and biting their way inside. And no wheeled vehicle short of a monster truck had a chance of powering through hordes the size of the ones closing in from front and behind. Zombies didn’t frantically try to get out of the way when a vehicle bore down on them; they just soaked up the momentum and kept trying to grab. To eat.
“Stop the truck. Everyone grab a shitload of ammo and unass now.” Peter abruptly ordered, opening his door. First rule of command; act like you know what you’re doing, like your orders will work. Confidence is everything. “Whitley, cover the rear and focus on slowing them down. Smith, Crawford, kill everything in front of us.”
The truck slowed from its already lethargic pace, and he heard the clicks as Whitley set the brake and put the transmission in park. Peter bailed out with his AR in hand and squeezed past Smith as he opened his door, reaching into the truck bed for one of the cases of five-five-six rounds they’d brought along. They were the good ones; not just loose rounds, but filled magazines ready to lock and load. Opening his pouches, he jammed them into every gap and spot he could find.
“Should I—” Smith started to ask as Peter stepped around him again.
“Yes, all of it.” Peter answered as he brought the AR to his shoulder and looked through the scope. “Now is the time.” They hadn’t exactly brought a lot of grenades along — explosives really weren’t great at actually killing zombies — but if there was a better time to use those they had, Peter couldn’t figure what it would be.
Or, rather, he didn’t want to imagine it.
The scope on his AR had minor magnification, but he rarely used it. Now he dialed it up to four times; causing the approaching horde of death to jump forward into clear view. Few of the zombies wore any sort of winter gear; no jackets, sweaters, coats . . . hardly any even had the remains of long sleeves. That, combined with the obvious amount of decay and battered limbs and skin, made him pretty sure these zombies had been around for a while; at least a month or so.
Their mix was the usual; but he saw what seemed like a higher than normal number of bodies wearing what was left of medical garb. Not too many police or military, but a more than a few with white — now gray or nearly black — coats, scrubs of varying colors beneath the dirt, and a number of EMS and EMT patches and badges.
Forcibly, and only through his decades of experience, Peter managed to blank his thoughts of everything except the red dot in his scope and the weapon in his hands. Good shooting was when mind and body came together, to control the weapon, hold it steady, aiming it true. The least distraction could ruin a shot; and zombies only went down for good one way.
As usual, the first shot was almost a surprise; even though it was his finger on the trigger. The assault rifle thumped familiarly in his hands and against his shoulder, and a zombie with sunglasses dangling determinedly from one ear went down as bone and desiccated tissue erupted from the back of its skull. The five-five-six rounds weren’t high caliber, but they carried a lot of energy due to their velocity. More than enough to rip through a skull with ease.
Peter deflected his aim slightly, found his dot lined up on another face — right where the nose would have been if it weren’t missing for some reason — and squeezed the trigger back again. Another round went downrange, another head exploded, and another zombie dropped for good. He adjusted again, readjusted almost immediately as the one he was aiming at tripped over one of the twice-dead bodies he’d just created, and took the top off woman’s head whose hair was still managing to hold its perm despite all the dirt and stuff clinging to it.
Two M-16s opened up, but Peter ignored that. He was in the zone, aiming, firing, repeating; as fast as he could. Marksmanship was a foundation of his training, and Peter had been shooting for nearly forty years. The AR was his personal weapon, and he was very familiar with it. Everything about it was adjusted to his liking, from the add on scope to how the action cycled to the way the trigger felt and broke under his finger.
The good news was all of that, plus he had a field of targets in front of him that was open season. The bad news was the field of targets was coming this way, and looked to be unending. He ignored that as well, there were only four humans and he’d given up one of them to buy time against the zombies encroaching from the east. That only left three weapons to clear a path through.
Despite his focus, he flinched when the first grenade went off. The hollow chonk-thump barely penetrated his fugue, but the rumbling explosion and whistle of fragments scything through the zombies got his attention. He missed, but he begrudged that more for the time it took to reaim and fire than the ammunition. They had plenty of ammo; having the time to use it . . .
“How’s it looking back there Whitley?” Peter yelled when he finished his first magazine off. He let it drop right out and clatter to the railroad ties beneath his feet as he reached for a fresh one; there was no time to hang onto the empty. It was expendable.
“Not good.”
“Warn when they’re half a minute out.”
Smith launched another grenade as Peter got his replacement magazine seated and slapped the charging bolt. It snapped forward with a metallic clack.
“How long?” Whitley yelled back over the explosion.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Not long then.” she said.
Peter said nothing, merely returned to his shooting. Crawford was unloading from the back of the truck; standing and shooting forward over the cab. Smith had positioned himself at the front of the vehicle, so Crawford’s shots were zipping over his head; but Peter ignored that too. Smith was infantry, and crazy or not, Crawford was a solid soldier. At least, in the post-apocalypse; whatever had put or kept her in the reserves before the zombies no longer mattered. Her shots would stay high, and Smith knew how to position himself in a fight.
The Guardsman thumped ou
t grenade after grenade. Nearly every one hit a zombie dead on, or near enough, but few were actually killed. The zombies were packed in together tightly enough to ensure near one hundred percent effectiveness of each grenade’s explosive force and shrapnel; but zombies weren’t humans. Direct hits might tear apart, or at least gruesomely mangle, a body enough to kill or effectively kill it; but the ‘soft’ kills the other zombies took wasn’t enough.
Humans would be combat ineffective, if not bleeding out and praying for a medevac, after finding themselves within five or ten feet of a grenade’s ground zero. Humans wounded, and reacted to those wounds. Humans felt pain when limbs were shredded or ripped away, when razor sharp hot metal fragments splattered into and through their bodies. Burns, cuts, concussive impacts; such things affected humans.
Not zombies though. So long as the creature’s head stayed intact, it kept coming. Or, at least, trying to come. If all the limbs were disabled, it would just lay there; but even then it would keep looking at a target if it was able. It would keep trying to bite if something warm and tasty got near. And it, nor its other brethren, didn’t mind if anyone or anything walked right over it to pursue those human happy meals.
Smith’s grenades were creating one hell of a block against the zombies coming from the west, but killing very few. He would pile them up, slowing them down; but it was the five five six rounds of Crawford and Peter that were actually taking zombies down for good. The grenade shrapnel was more likely to hit somewhere other than the head; but the other two military shooters knew where to put their rounds, and were servicing targets one after the other.
And quicker than expected — as always — the heavy ordinance ran out; leaving Smith shooting bullets just like the rest of them.
Peter was in the fastest shooting pattern he knew how to maintain — centering his sights on a face or head, squeezing the trigger, and shifting to a fresh target — but even as he fired off bullets nearly as rapidly as the AR-15’s burst mode could have spit them out, he knew it wasn’t enough. The skulls that his scope’s targeting dot fell upon kept disintegrating, the bodies kept falling, and still the horde continued to close.
Apocalypse Atlanta (Book 4): Apocalypse Asylum Page 9
