“Why do people set these fires? Does fire even stop them?” Jose asked no one in particular as the passengers were offloaded. This was the end of the line, there were no plans to move the train farther South, or in any other direction for that matter. The crew left their equipment and uniforms in a pile by the engine, took their guns and were gone before anyone realized it. Some people panicked, but the general consensus was to just eave too.
“I have no idea. I didn’t set any while I was in Virginia, but I’ll bet a lot of them were accidental. Hell, shit catches on fire from inattention, let alone acts of arson. I don’t know that fire would stop the dead anyhow, but I do know bullets don’t have a lot of effect unless you pop ‘em in the head.”
“And how exactly would you know that?” A voice they didn’t recognize asked from behind. Jose and Daniel turned to see who it was. To their horror it was a uniformed officer, Department of Homeland Security emblazoned in gold lettering on his black polo. Neither of the boys were law enforcement, but it was clear from the numbers of gadgets on his utility belt above a snappy pair of EMS shorts, he was a total tool.
“I’ve heard.” Daniel narrowed his eyes at the man. He’d seen what government agencies were apt to do in a crisis like this. He may as well be talking to one of Hitler’s Brown Shirts about the many wonders of the Jewish faith.
“Sure you have. Would you mind coming with me? I need to talk to you.” The man said, his hand inching toward his sidearm.
“I’m in the Army. I’m trying to get back to my unit, I didn’t do anything illegal.” Daniel was apprehensive, Jose too. The only difference was Jose didn’t have a gun, and Daniel’s M9 and M4 were either leaning against a fence post or tucked in his belt behind his back, since he hadn’t managed to scrounge up a holster yet. There would be no getting to either gun before this man drew his. Onlookers scattered, fearing for their own freedom and lives.
“I don’t want to go with you. I have other business to attend to. I didn’t hurt anyone, and I didn’t do anything illegal. Now let us go.” Daniel said again.
“So you’re saying you just ‘heard’ that it was okay to shoot Americans?”
“Your people would know.” Daniel’s eyes were widening, but not with surprise, rather the face of a man who intends to do harm if threatened. Hyper awareness and vigilance would make any move he made faster now. Would it be fast enough?
“C’mon. My patrol car is right there. I just want to get a-” Jose must have seen the bulge in Daniel’s shirt, because he grabbed the M9 without asking and leveled it at the DHS agent’s head. The agent reached for his gun, but Jose fired a round over his head. “What the fuck are you doing, Soldier!? Put the gun down, NOW!”
“Uh, no.” Jose really enjoyed saying that.
“Do it now! Do it now!” The agent shouted, hoping his comrades would hear what was happening, though he didn’t yet dare to look back for them.
“Don’t touch your radio.” Daniel warned, picking up the M4 and taking aim. “You’d be best to forget you ever saw us.”
“Boys, you’d bettered drop ‘em!” This agent was obviously an idiot. No one could hear him shouting over the background noise of a collapsing civilization. Gunshots were in the air everywhere, no one would notice if they just put him down now.
“Look, I can tell you’re a special kind of stupid esé, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t know if you’ve not seen one of these freaks, but you will soon enough and then you’ll wish you hadn’t been locking people up for defending themselves.” Jose was livid. Daniel knew he’d grown up with gang violence all around him in the Hispanic ghettos of Southern California. There was just never any evidence to suggest mild mannered Jose would be willing to pull a gun on a government agent for getting in his way.
“Drop the weapons and put your hands on your head!” Another voice shouted. Backup for the DHS agent had arrived. Jose put the M9 down, and Daniel lowered his rifle. The agents moved in and took their weapons, slapping handcuffs on Daniel and Jose as Kaylee screamed. The agents ignored her, only turning to see what she was doing when she kicked one of them.
“Kaylee, don’t fight them, they’re heartless monsters and they’ll lock you up too.”
“That was exceptionally rude.” One of the agents said. “We’re just doing our jobs.”
“Fuck you. You’re the ones who attacked us.”
“That’s not how the courts will see it.” The one they’d first met said smugly, grabbing Kaylee by the pants and hauling her into the air so she couldn’t run away. “And as for you little lady, you’re going with DFS. Your friends here are going to be spending a long, long time in Fort Leavenworth, assuming they really are military.” Kaylee slapped the agent, but he wasn’t hurt. Daniel wondered briefly where those sharp little nails had gone. Maybe Wendy trimmed them.
Daniel and Jose didn’t say anything as they were shoved harshly into the back of a GM Green Truck, an underpowered golf cart on steroids that ran on hippy wishes and unicorn farts, or something. In any case the Administration had purchased a lot of them as part of some fiscal scheme involving the bailouts of GM and Chrysler. Daniel and Jose were left sweltering in the back seats while the agents went off to harass more people. They watched them pluck at least another six out of the crowds leaving the train station, all of whom had been armed and likely put down zombies along the way. What the fuck were they thinking, targeting people with guns just because? How much worse could their fearless Comrade President’s policies make this situation? How many more people were going to die when the prisons were overrun?
“Well, this is a fucking mess.” Jose sighed.
“I have to get to Kaylee.” Daniel said quietly, not knowing if there was a camera in the SUV. He didn’t see one, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. “She’s lost out here. They’ll get her killed… She’s so close to home now.” Daniel looked down at his trousers, “Did they search you? Because I still feel my wallet and keys.”
“Nope. These guys aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.” Jose joked, seeing where Daniel was going with this.
“There’s a handcuff key on the D-ring, my pop said I should keep one just in case; I guess for this. Can you reach it? I can’t get my hands out from behind me.” Daniel nodded to the car keys dangling from his belt loops.
“Was it by any chance the key to a pair of pink fuzzy handcuffs?” Jose teased as he turned to reach the keys. If anyone else saw them they’d probably get the wrong impression with one man’s hand wiggling around in the other man’s pants. Thankfully they were still alone.
Jose grabbed the keys and found the smallest one. Daniel turned around and Jose uncuffed him. Handcuffs are not complicated devices, all one needs is a simple key with one notch on it and they will open. More expensive models were harder to pick, but these were barely serviceable and probably old as sin. Once Daniel was free he unlocked Jose. There was no spit shield between them and the front seats, the Green Truck not meant to be a police vehicle. These agents were not regular police either, their training meant more for taking down “terrorists” such as anyone affiliated with the Tea Party, gun owners, combat veterans, etc.
Jose climbed into the driver’s seat and started looking for wires to splice to jump start the vehicle. Daniel poked him in the shoulder and pointed to a blue button that read Push To Start. “Oh.” Jose was a little embarrassed, but the Green Truck started with a pathetic purring sound. “Are there any guns in here?”
“No, just a fucking Taser and a bottle of OC spray. Did you see what car they put Kaylee in?” Daniel looked around to make sure they were still alone.
“Yeah, that one.” Jose pointed to a similar black Green Truck nearby. “There’s like three kids in it too. Are we taking them with us?”
“No, there’s nothing we can do for them. They might actually be better off with these guys. I made a promise to Kaylee and I’m not letting these goose-stepping, communist cock-sucking, piss-ant motherfuckers stop me.”
/> “Wow, was there even a comma in that?” Jose put the SUV in drive. The agent who’d first arrested them was already walking back and Jose aimed directly for him. The man was so stunned by his own incompetence he didn’t jump out of the way before Jose hit him with the SUV, throwing his body like a ragdoll into a mud puddle nearby. Jose touched Daniel’s leg, “Honey, I think I hit a deer.” Daniel glared, but didn’t have time to punch him for it.
They skidded through the wet grass and almost hit the car Kaylee was trapped in. Daniel jumped out and smashed the window open with a riot baton he found under his seat. Kaylee practically jumped into his arms, the two children with her jumped out too, but ran to the cars where their parents were being illegally detained and let them out. Daniel threw the baton to the older child, “Good luck kid.” He said, and climbed back into the SUV they’d stolen.
The other agents rushed to help their fallen comrade, but the impact had either killed him or he’d drowned in the puddle after being knocked unconscious. They looked really pissed off in the rearview mirrors. Neither Jose nor Daniel felt particularly bad about what they’d just done as they took off toward Southern Florida. Several rounds from small arms fire blew out the rear windshield and pinged off the thin fiberglass panels, but they weren’t hurt.
“Are you hit!?” Daniel asked Jose.
“No, we’re good!”
“Can this fucking thing go any faster?”
“The gage only goes to fifty five, man. Remember the Administration passed that law about new vehicles not going over sixty?”
Daniel rolled his eyes, “Right, because that helped anyone.”
They drove for what seemed like hours, Jose trying the radio and catching only static. Often times their stolen Green Truck was the only vehicle on the road, then farther down the roads would be traffic snarls of the worst kind, and then they’d be alone again. People were fleeing cities for FEMA “Safe” Zones to the North, nobody wanted to go South of Orlando. Rumors from refugees they met unanimously agreed the tip of Florida was heavily infested already. Daniel checked a map in the glove compartment, trying to find Kaylee’s grandparent’s home town. He didn’t have their phone number anymore but he knew the address by heart.
“We need to dump this vehicle. Assuming those DHS pricks got their act together they might have put out a bolo on us.” Jose said, pulling off the road into a Wal*Mart parking lot. There were abandoned vehicles everywhere, the store’s doors wide open and the inside gutted like so many businesses after a race riot.
Dismounting the black SUV they parked it behind the store and wiped down anything they thought they might have touched. The agents had taken their ID cards but were dumb enough to put them in an envelope in the center consol. It was locked, but Daniel kicked it open like any determined thief would. Inside was a standard issue Glock 19. He handed the gun to Jose, taking a second Asp baton for himself. Daniel gave Kaylee a small bottle of OC spray that was in the car with specific instructions never to use it on a zombie, but only people like the bad police who would try to hurt them. She seemed to understand and put the bottle in her pants pocket. For a child barely over 8, she had quite a level head.
“Let’s take that one.” Jose pointed to a car on the other side of a burned out semi.
Daniel looked and laughed. “You want to take a blingy 90’s model Monte Carlo with 24 inch rims? Jesus H. Christ you really are a Beaner.”
“Shut up, Gringo.” Jose knew Daniel was joking. Their racist comments to one another had always been in good nature. “I can hotwire that one for sure. Newer cars got microchipped keys or OnStar. Best keep it before 1995 if we have a choice.”
The three of them were about to climb in when something in the back seat moved. They looked inside and immediately Daniel covered Kaylee’s eyes. She didn’t need to see the horror show in the back seat. Whoever had been in this car last had been bitten and trapped inside. They’d turned while the car was still sitting there, but rather than running off to die they’d turned around and gnawed the arms and one leg, almost to the bone, off their own baby. The now infected infant was squealing and squirming in his tiny car seat, unable to move through the restraints despite all the blood.
“Let’s take another vehicle.” Jose suggested, backing away from the car slowly. They searched more of the cars in the parking lot, finally finding a beat up looking Grand Am with different colored doors on it. The car smelled like pot and whiskey, but the keys were on the body of the dead driver, sprawled out and nearly picked clean by zombies on the blacktop text to his grocery-getter. Daniel put Kaylee in the car and used his baton to pick the keys out of the pile of fly covered goop that had once been a man. He found a half empty bottle of soda and washed the keys off with that, as blood and hair were still clinging to them. Daniel wished he’d had gloves for that. He’d put them on his Shopping/Looting list.
So that Daniel could take care of Kaylee and navigate, Jose drove again. Daniel took the Glock and chambered a round, ready to do violence to anyone who stopped them. It was almost nightfall again and they were all hungry, thirsty and tired. Every store, every gas station or large home was boarded up, the people inhabiting the area not venturing out, even to stare at the only car going the wrong way.
“So where are we going?” Jose asked as they caught their first glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico. Ships as far as the eye could see were either adrift, infested and adrift, or infested while being adrift and ablaze. Those seeking refuge on the water were not doing well at all. Daniel took note of that, quickly scratching out the idea of taking a boat at any point.
“Crystal River. It’s a small town on King’s Bay.”
“I know where that is.” Jose said excitedly. “My uncle Henrique lives a couple towns over. We went on the manatee tour there once.”
“Sweet, so you know the way from here?”
“Yeah, we’re less than an hour out.” Jose confirmed. “You think her grandparents will let us use the shower? No offense, bro, but you stink.”
“So do you, Mister.” Kaylee giggled from the back seat, probably imitating someone she hadn’t yet registered was never coming back.
Jose and Daniel burst out laughing though. Laughter felt good after the nightmare this trip had been. There was a roadblock before Crystal River, but it had been abandoned by the troops and FEMA. Now locals manned it with whatever guns the Administration hadn’t been able to confiscate in the last two years. Slowly they pulled the car up to the Sally Port where an older man with graying hair came to meet them. He was armed with a vintage M1 Garand, possibly something he’d brought back from a war.
Jose rolled down the window. “Hi. We’re trying to find John Sitton. He lives here in Crystal River. We’ve come to give his granddaughter back to him.”
“Follow the flashlights into the search area.” The old man said, following the car with his rifle. There were people traveling the other way, but no one was stopping them unless they slowed down or looked like they wanted to stop in town.
“Is anyone in the vehicle infected?” A younger man asked. His belly hung over a massive rodeo buckle as he leaned in to look through the windows. He smelled like a wet dog. It was raining slightly, droplets making soft pattering sounds against the car and the canvas over the search area. At least that explained the smell, hopefully.
Daniel handed their IDs to the man. “We’re trying to get this girl back to her grandparents. We’re looking for John and Joanne Sitton, they’re from here in Crystal River.”
The man looked at their IDs, and then back at them. “Follow the main road to the Town Hall. There should be a registry of everyone who’s stayed in town. If you’re going to be here for more than a day, you need to sign in on the Guest Registry. There will be a shelter FEMA just high tailed it out of, so we’re running it now.” Thunder clapped overhead. They could hear the heavy rain coming closer.
“Thanks.” Jose said as the car was allowed to leave the sally port. At a recommended speed of only thirty five, their car
made its way to the large brick building with a bastion of armed men and women surrounding it and a dozen large tents with red crosses painted on top. Knowing the car was stolen, they parked it in a lot filled with lots of other broken down looking cars, some place where it wouldn’t look conspicuous. Jose left the keys on the front seat, not giving any thought to ever returning to this particular vehicle.
“Officer.” Daniel said, waving to a uniformed patrolman as he walked by them on his regular route. “Is there somewhere we can find relatives who might still be in the area? Our cell phone has been down a long time now.”
“Yeah, you’re about two blocks from the Police Station. We have a registry of everyone who’s staying to help defend the town. If you guys are military, we’d welcome the extra support.”
“Is there no military presence here?” Jose raised an eyebrow.
“The National Guard and FEMA lit outta here yesterday. There’s a whole army of infected walking their way up the peninsula, following the refugees.” The cop didn’t stay to talk, he was trying to be somewhere. Following his directions they sloshed through the tropical summer rain toward the lights at the center of town. Kaylee had to stop and jump in the puddles. Florida might have had a lot of alternative energy sources, but the power grid in Crystal River was still down. Getting a flashlight and another gun would be next on the to-do list if they couldn’t find the Sittons soon.
A block from the largest gathering of people in town, Kaylee tugged on Daniel’s sleeve and started pulling him toward a small park with a swing, he’d have never guessed she was actually pointing at an old man on the adjacent sidewalk. “Not now, Kaylee.” Daniel tried to say.
World of Ashes II Page 9
