Keith was waiting, but at least he’d holstered the cannon. Carefully, and with Keith’s help kicking on the upholstered panel from the inside, Bill and I levered the battered front passenger side door open. We ushered the youngsters out, mainly by picking them up over the back seat and setting them on the ground. I am strong, but really these were small children, from toddlers up to eight or nine years old, totaling seven youngsters, and a young lady who might have been fourteen. She carried a baby, and required no assistance in climbing out despite the diaper bag slung over one shoulder.
Keith came last, and in addition to the hogleg strapped to one hip, he drew out a short-barreled, lever-action carbine and a backpack bulging with cargo.
“That everything?” I asked, and Keith shook his head. I noticed the kid needed a haircut but didn’t seem like the kind of young man who wore it as a fashion statement.
“Got some gear in the trunk, if that’s okay? Don’t know if we have room for it. More food, and some toys for the kids. Mr. Adkins, Alena’s dad,” Keith nodded to the older girl holding the baby and continued, “he set it up weeks ago in case we had to bolt.”
“Smart man,” I acknowledged. “Any chance …” I faltered, not able to find the words.
“Should we go looking for survivors?” Bill said for me, and I was grateful.
Keith looked down, then away. “No. I doubt it. Once I got the kids in the car, I tried to go back. Looked like they’d managed to push down one of the metal walls of the warehouse, using their weight. There were hundreds of them inside by then, and no way for the others to get to the stairs.”
I could see the images reflected in the kid’s eyes. After a second, he continued. “We had the car prepped, stashed in a walled area attached to the warehouse. Only one way in, down the ladder from the second floor, and then a reinforced rolling metal garage door for an exit. The door was hooked up to a battery, just in case.”
Seeing the boy, young man, was fading, I just nodded and looked over at Bill.
“We want to send you folks on to Onalaska, if that’s okay?” the old man said, and I could tell he was as affected as I was by the story. This was a real question, one man to another.
“Is it safe? I mean, is the road clear? Nowhere is safe anymore.”
“We’ll be sending you all back with two of our people, and the road was clear when we rolled through before. We’ve already radioed ahead, so you will be expected. What do you say?”
“Let’s get going before that horde catches up then,” Keith replied with a weary sigh. “We’ve been stuck in that car since early this morning, and none of us got any sleep except for maybe little Crissy. That baby can sleep through anything.”
“She yours?” I asked, and the kid got red in the face.
“No! Jeez. That’s Alena’s little sister. It was their dad, Mr. Adkins, that got everybody organized. Took me in too, when they didn’t have any good reason to take the chance.” This time, the boy’s eyes got a little misty as he spoke, and I wondered just how much horror this kid had seen. Again, then I realized I didn’t really want to know.
“Well, ya’ll better get going,” Bill said by way of a farewell. “We’ll see you and them kids when we get back. Got some more folks need saving today.”
Keith stuck out his hand, and Bill and I solemnly shook it in turn. Then the exhausted boy turned and headed for the still open rear hatch of the transport. Seeing our meeting was about done, Casey drifted over and inquired as to our next move. Bill already had a plan, it seemed, and somehow I was not surprised.
“We follow them back up the road to that last intersection, then head west on to catch Highway 150 where it doglegs down a bit. Winding road, but we can bypass Magnolia. Then we turn back south on one of those little bitty dirt tracks until it butts into 105 and follow it until we reach Cut and Shoot. From there, straight shot to Conroe. We can still make it over to our first destination in a bit over an hour if the road’s clear.”
“What if it’s not clear?” Casey persisted, asking her question and we proceeded to the Ford. I took the driver’s seat and Casey let the old man stretch his legs up front next to me in the passenger seat. Bill waited until he was settled and had a chance to pick up Casey’s map before he gave his answer. Hell, I’d nearly forgotten the question.
“Well, then I guess we will see if we can run over more of those dead fuckers than a clapped out old Buick, won’t we? Plus, how can we have trouble in a town with a name like Cut and Shoot?”
Couldn’t argue with that logic, so I didn’t try. Bill got on the CB and started issuing orders and I just drove the truck. Casey, I noticed with some pride, was busy reloading her emptied magazines and looking out the window as the trees rolled by. The other trucks were waiting for us at the turnoff, and I spun the wheel after barely tapping the brake and headed off in a more westerly direction along a narrow, graveled road.
This looked more like a fire lane than an actual county-maintained road, and I realized it was leading deeper into the National Forest. On a map, the whole area looked like a solid mass of trees but in reality, small communities dotted the twisting and convoluted boundaries of the Davey Crockett National Forest.
I didn’t know exactly where we were going, but I didn’t need to as long as Bill navigated. Truthfully, I was equal parts horrified that the Magnolia group was gone and pleased with myself that we managed to save the kids, even if by accident.
The gravel roadbed showed the signs of deprivation from many months without care, and I kept the speed down to a steady thirty-five miles per hour to avoid bouncing anybody out of their seats. Mother Nature was clearly trying to reclaim the world, healing the signs of mankind’s passage. I ground over several tree limbs blown down into the roadway, but nothing too big to stop our progress. I half expected to run up on a roadblock or barricade of some sort, but nothing materialized on our route.
We didn’t run into any more trouble as we turned off the little roads and eventually merged onto Highway 105. I’d been expecting something and my neck was beginning to ache from the constant scanning. As I eased up onto the divided lanes of the highway, our navigator decided it was time to pull over and circle the wagons for a last minute discussion, or “mission brief,” as Bill called it when he made the radio broadcast. His words were terse and only made sense to his intended audience. As we waited for the column to form up, Bill made what I knew was anything but idle chitchat.
“You know this area, Mac?” Bill asked, and I noticed he was eyeballing his surroundings pretty hard, too.
“Not that much. Used to come to a little gun show they had every so often at the Conroe Convention Center, but that was about it. Plus, there were a few shops over in the Woodlands Mall that we didn’t have in Kingwood.”
I said that last part with gritted teeth, since the thought brought back memories. Ones I still tried to wall away in my head. I didn’t add, “shops my wife wanted to visit” to my answer.
“So that’s where you are from?” Bill asked casually.
“No, but that’s where … I lived when it all went down. I was born and raised not too far from you, actually. Little place outside Jasper.”
Casey gave a little gasp at my words, and I nodded in acknowledgement. “Yes, I recognized some of the people I had to put down there. Checked my family place up there too, but it was deserted. Blood sign told me all I needed to know, though.” Yes, like the fact nobody could lose that much blood and live. They were all gone, just like the rest of my family.
“Well, this area right here may still be mostly rural, but it will get more urban as we get past Cut and Shoot. Lots of businesses, and several subdivisions, so we need to be extra vigilant. You up for making a scouting run well ahead of the group?”
I nodded. “Not my first rodeo.”
“No, it ain’t,” Bill agreed, “but you might have a bigger audience than you have ever seen. The dead, and the living. You better keep that in mind.”
“Hard to forget, but I g
et your meaning. You going with, or staying here?”
I could tell Bill was torn. On one hand, he wanted to get a look at what to expect, but on the other, he needed to be here to keep a handle on the rest of the crew.
As we sat there for just a few moments and waited for the other trucks, I could already see jerky, shambling forms come stumbling out of the trees, lurching in our direction. We were still many miles from our first objective and already the monsters wanted to come out and play. By the time we reached Loop 336, I imagined we would have quite a crowd. That audience Bill mentioned would rapidly build from here.
“I’m trusting you two. Be careful and stay in radio contact. I’ll ride with Mike from here and coordinate things.”
“We staying with the same route? And same order on the pickups?”
“Yeah. For now. Listen to the calls, though. If this gets too hairy, we will abort.”
“Roger that,” I agreed. “Casey, can you cover Mr. Harrington as he shifts his flag.”
“Ah, okay? Does that mean while he runs back to Mike’s truck?”
“See, Bill? And I heard you complaining just the other day about America’s public schools being in the toilet before the ZA. Trained for nothing but burger flippers.”
I was being a smartass, but then Bill knew me well enough to expect it. That really was my go-to move in sticky social situations. Since Bill had already expressed his concerns about our imminent safety, this was my canned response.
Bill, for his part, gave me a tight, knowing grin and gathered up his gear.
“Yeah, well, I went to private school,” Casey piped up from the back, and Bill left the truck laughing.
As for me, despite my earlier bravado, looking ahead on the highway made my stomach hurt. Something, maybe my survival sense, was telegraphing bad things awaited us ahead. Soon, I would have a chance to see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Looking down from my perch, I had a sense of déjà vu as I panned the scene with my binoculars. Approaching the city limits, I’d ghosted the truck up to an overpass and killed the engine. With Casey at the wheel, I clamored up on top of the reinforced cage roof and went to do my scouting duties.
The dead town of Cut and Shoot seemed to vibrate with the masses of zombies moving around the abandoned community. Much of the town appeared burned, and listless pods of zeds plodded in aimless patterns in the long-cooled ashes. Whatever terror that consumed this place went down a while ago. Maybe right after the ZA started, or shortly thereafter. Hell, I could see where pine saplings punched through the buckled asphalt of a few parking lots. Those things could be as tenacious as kudzu in the old South. Or zombies. Yeah, zombies have a tenacious streak as well.
Taking a few minutes, I sketched out some notes and a crude map on the small notepad I carried with me and eased back into the truck, careful to muffle the sound of my door being closed. Casey quickly scooted over and took up her Ruger, scanning for threats. Even though we might be five hundred yards from the nearest concentration of zombies, the stragglers and solos were much closer. Already, I could see half a dozen ambling over, drawn by the dinner bell sound of the engine.
“So, what did you see?”
“A fuckload of dead people, gradually wandering this way,” I responded, keeping my tone neutral. No sense in scaring the trainee. “Let me call this in and we can roll.”
“Roll through them?”
I shook my head and picked up the microphone. We might get the big trucks through that mass had the roads been clear, but the smaller vehicles, like ours, would have gotten mired up in the mess like the kid Keith’s Buick. And the road was anything but cleared, anyway. At least two multi-car accidents blocked the highway, making this route a no-go. The pileup behind the burned out trucks stretched for at least a mile.
I told Bill as much, in the shorthand code we developed in the salvage crews. Not hard to decipher, but you never knew who might be listening. I estimated the numbers in the vicinity of twenty thousand, all in, with a lot of First Wave leading the pack. By now, everybody got that these First Wave bastards were smarter than your average bear, so Bill concurred.
We would be going around the town but would try to link back up with Highway 105. I checked the map and suggested an alternate route that would let us loop around on residential streets and cut back about four miles the other side of the horde.
“Why stick with the highway?” Casey asked, and I could tell she was really wanting to know. In other words, she wasn’t asking to be a pain. She took her learning seriously.
“Because we want to get to our destination in a timely fashion, and the risk of attack from humans was lower right here. Look around,” I gestured, taking in the scorched and ruined landscape. “Not a lot of places for survivors to have held out or set up an ambush.”
I eased the truck into gear, reversed down the slight hill, and pulled a quick turn in the uncluttered lane. No dead cars here; apparently, they all been bottle-necked at the wrecks on the other side of the hill. I tried not to think about the slaughter those wrecked vehicles represented, and the last desperate moments of those poor trapped bastards as the dead tore them apart as they tried to flee.
In every post-apocalyptic book I ever read or movie I ever saw, the bad guys always set up as highwaymen to waylay travelers. There was some truth to this idea, and I’d seen the aftermath more than once. The shot up cars and the pathetic row of executed survivors, hands still bound behind their backs. There’s ample reason to fear the living more than the dead. The zombies just want to eat you.
So, that kind of mayhem might work on the major transportation arteries, like Interstate 10, Interstate 45, or even Highway 59, but anyone trying to rely on bushwhacking pilgrims on the likes of Highway 105 would have starved months ago. Again, only pine trees and zombies possessed the proper tenacity, and pine trees can’t ambush for shit. As for zeds, well, we would have to see.
That is no guarantee we wouldn’t get hit, but nothing was certain these days except death and taxes. And yes, we paid the Guard for protection. Ten percent sales tax on transactions, tallied monthly and typically paid up in ammunition. I paid my taxes and never complained about it. Much. Finally seeing my tax “dollars” at work, after all, was a refreshing experience. Most folks shared my sentiment, and the shared sense of danger and cooperation fostered by Colonel Northcutt made the community work better than I’d heard in other places. We really were all in the shit together.
As I whipped the big Ford around yet another wrecked and disabled car, this one a candy apple red Corvette now faded to the color of burnt orange by the dust and sun, I pointed at Casey and simply said, “Get a suppressor on that rifle.”
All the Rugers I picked for this trip had threaded barrels. Suppressed doesn’t mean silent, but the cans did cut the bark of the weapons as well as added a tiny bit to their range. Or so I’ve been told. Never actually tested that out, but I’d read the spec sheets for the suppressors when I scored a whole mess of them from a Class-Three dealer outside Woodville.
“You think they won’t hear the engines, Brad?” Casey asked with a tight grin, but I simply handed her the rifle lying across my lap and gestured for her to do the same for it. I didn’t respond until she was finished.
“No, but if we have to bail out or clear the road, it doesn’t pay to advertise.”
The route I picked was circuitous but mainly clear. At least, when I did hit a blockage, the shoulders or ditches offered a way around. At one four-way intersection, I noted where one community off to the left tried to erect a barricade into their subdivision. A carpet of dead zombies covered the road, stacking up as the distance grew closer to the makeshift gate made of two massive delivery trucks. Smart, but not smart enough.
The road made a good kill zone, and I could tell the homeowners mowed down zombies by the hundreds, maybe even as many as a thousand. Unfortunately, the trail of old, rotten bodies leading up and over the six-foot wrought iron fence told the grisly tale. These de
fenders focused on the front door and failed to hold their perimeter. As the military men might say, these folks got outflanked by an enemy that didn’t mind soaking up the casualties.
A half mile past the doomed subdivision, our free ride came to an end. The two-lane road narrowed down to cross a small bridge spanning what appeared to be a simple gully, and two trucks tangled up in a sideways collision that blocked the entire way. Time to make a path.
“I’m going to see if I can winch that little Toyota out of the way,” I told Casey, and she gave me a look that told me her opinion of my sanity. I ignored her unspoken protest and brought the truck to a halt about twenty feet from the canted grill of the black Tundra.
The two trucks somehow managed to sideswipe each other on the narrow bridge and then spin forty-five degrees from the force of the impact, partially blocking the way. The other truck, a big Ford work truck with rear dual wheels, was probably too big, but I thought the Toyota had promise. Provided I didn’t get eaten.
I spotted four zombies before the truck even came to a halt, and by the time I got off a radio message to Bill and the rest of the convoy, I saw three more come wandering around to check out the engine noise.
“Stay with the truck and give me some cover fire, please,” I said to Casey as I eased the door open and shouldered the rifle at the same moment my feet hit the asphalt. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. The five on my side of the truck went down in rapid succession, and I checked rear before quickly moving to the front of my truck. This time, four shots to take down the last three dead.
As I approached the front bumper of the Toyota, I saw movement behind the spider-webbed front windshield. Dropping the hook so I had both hands free, I surged forward and checked the front seat before doing a full three-sixty sweep.
Three in the cab, all long dead but still hungry, and a half dozen more stumbling down the road. Old, and all torn up from their last fight, the one where they died the first time, and not First Wave. The closest of them was sixty feet away, so I shot the trapped trio in the truck’s cab, then smashed out the rest of the passenger side window. Pulling down my helmet a bit and wishing I’d worn another mask underneath, I leaned across the disgusting pile of bodies and black ooze to slam the shifter column from drive into neutral.
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