The Colonel heard voices...voices of strangers. With one of his polished silver Colts in his hand, he headed toward the intruders. He was like a man moving to confront a trespasser in his house. His was a short trip. On the far side of the cafeteria, near a hallway which cut off to the left, some movement caught his eye. His breath stalled in his throat and his finger squeezed the trigger twice quickly. The bullets careened off the walls creating an echoing series of off-key notes which chased the shadows deeper into the darkness.
In response to the shots fired in their direction, first Emma and then everyone else dropped to their bellies. It was sheer luck both bullets missed all of them, but they did.
Losing no time, Neil forced himself back onto his bruised and sore legs. He peeked around the corner but was unable to pick out any figures in the black. There was an echo of some light from other corners in the school, but not enough to pierce the darkness.
Neil didn’t look for long. He said, “Jerry. Emma. We gotta go now.”
Emma looked seriously but apologetically at Jules. “Honey, we have to go. We can try and come back for Alec later. Okay?”
The seriousness in Emma’s eyes and in her voice stole the fight away from Jules, who merely nodded her understanding and wiped away her tears. She’d just gotten Alec back and now he was being taken away from her again. She was unable to understand, let alone express the devastating loss her emotions were experiencing.
A deep voice from around the corner surprised all of them almost as much as the bullets had, “Sullivan? You over there?”
Jess whispered, “That’s the Colonel.”
Again the voice boomed, “Who the hell is over there? Royce, is that you? Where’s Sullivan?”
After hearing her friend’s name said with such disdain, Jess felt her anger rise. She spit back at the Colonel, “Sullivan’s dead and you’re next!”
“Who the hell is that?” demanded the Colonel.
Without any fear, Jess hollered back, “This is Jess.”
“Jess?”
After having spent several weeks of very close living, Jess was aggravated that he didn’t even know her name or her voice. “Yeah, Jess, you piece of shit.”
With her new assault rifle taken from Mel, Jess leaned around the edge of the wall and shot back at the Colonel. Her bullets were no more effective than the Colonel’s, but it felt good to be shooting back for a change.
Everything seemed to be on hold, as if waiting, until Emma broke the stalemate. “Neil, we don’t really have the time to spare. We need to go and you know it. If we stay any longer, we might not be able to get away at all.”
There was no more time for discussion. The front doors of the school suddenly burst forth and several militia people entered the school. Shouting and scared, they ran in, without acknowledging the standoff between the Colonel and the hidden group of strangers in the cafeteria. They were simply too scared and too loud. Some of them fell to their knees once inside the school. There were six of them in total, five men and a woman. None of them were carrying their firearms, which had been discarded hastily in their retreat.
Ignoring the menace in the cafeteria as a lesser threat, the Colonel turned to face his troops and met their scared gazes with his own reproachful eyes. He barked, “Get up off yer knees! Fucking cowards! Where the hell is Carter?”
A young man not much older than Alec answered, “He’s still out there, sir.”
“Then why the hell are all of you in here? And where the hell are your guns?”
There were no immediate answers forthcoming to these largely rhetorical questions. Not waiting, the Colonel bellowed, “Find yer backbones! We’re goin’ back out there!”
His command was met with surprised expressions and no action, which only served to raise the Colonel’s ire all the more. He started to storm forward toward them, his feet stomping thunder with each step.
One of the men, more afraid of the Colonel’s wrath than the threat of the undead outside, threw himself into the reinforced doors. The heavy door swung slowly on its hinges and there in the entrance waited a trio of walking corpses, one of which was a recently deceased militiaman.
The freshest ghoul was the first to pounce, grabbing hold of the man at the door. He easily overpowered the unsuspecting man, biting his cheek first and then his neck just below his jaw line. The militiaman zombie’s attack was relentless and merciless, silencing its victim’s woeful cries into gurgling, blood-filled gags.
The Colonel hesitated only a second or two while he assessed his surroundings. He fired his revolver two more times, one of the bullets striking the distracted zombie in the back of the head. The bullet continued its trajectory through the fiend’s forehead and lodged itself into the now expired man’s chest.
By this time, three militiamen, actually militia women, came downstairs to assist at the front doors. All three were armed with pistols and immediately set upon the two remaining zombies who fell in a flurry of nine millimeter and thirty-eight caliber bullets.
The Colonel, in a rare change of heart, ordered the still unarmed and largely motionless militia in front of him to close and barricade the doors. One of the newly arrived militia women told the Colonel that Carter and three or four of his men had retreated into one of the school buses. They were surrounded and under siege, but holding out so far. She also told him that there were still eight people, mostly women, upstairs providing cover fire for Carter and anyone else still out front.
The Colonel’s little fortress was being pressed to its limits. He wasn’t sure how much longer they would be able to hold but was also certain that they would. There was no other viable option. He ordered those without guns to either find some or get some other weapons in order to continue the defense.
One of the men seeking a weapon headed toward the office and looked further down the hall. The lingering smoke and smell of spent explosives cast a concealing veil over some new piles of soft debris on which he was walking. As he got closer and the air got clearer, he realized the piles of debris were actually dismembered and disfigured bodies, the grisly remains of the Colonel’s Claymore mine detonation.
The man heard a scant few hushed sobs coming from deep inside the library. In walking toward the room’s entrance, the man nearly stumbled over a discarded assault rifle. He picked up the oily firearm only to discover what he thought was oil was actually blood and gore. Seeing the blood on his hands, he nearly dropped the rifle. His resolve, however, was gone. He walked tentatively into the library to offer whatever assistance he could. He couldn’t be a part of this any longer, regardless of the consequences. He would figure a way to make a run for it and get on his way at first light. That is, of course, if he was still alive come the morning.
During all of that, Neil decided that it was high time for him and his group to also make their escape. The latest distraction was what they needed. While the Colonel dealt with the developing situation at the school’s threatened main entrance, Neil got them on the move.
Neil scooped Jules up in his arms and started to run. Emma was pulling Jerry by the arm while Jess herded the other children in the same direction. Neil led them back through a series of hallways to the loading bay exit. It was still dark on this side of the school, though he could discern the kennels and the silhouette of the wall and fence against the night sky.
Jules still struggled in his arms, though much of her fight was giving way to tears and grief. Neil was afraid that if he set her down, she would try and run back into the school. And so, with his back and his leg still screaming at him in pain, he forced himself to continue to run forward.
Emma asked, “Where the hell’s the truck? Where are Della and Steve?
Neil shook his head, though he was fairly certain Emma couldn’t see his gesture. “I’m the only one who made it.”
“What about the truck?”
“It’s gone too.” His words were heavy with apology.
Emma stopped in her tracks and demanded, “Well, how t
he fuck are we going to get away then?”
“We’ll have to improvise, like we always have. We just have to keep on going. Besides, I have a plan.”
Emma asked doubtfully, “Another plan? Do you think this one is going to work out any better?”
“Emma, Christ, I’m doin’ the best I can. You got any better ideas? I’m all up for hearing them. I found us a ride. It’s out back.”
Jess had Danny, Nikki, and Paul in tow. They were still approaching the others who had stalled near the exit, when an errant, disfigured hand reached from the darkness and clutched Paul’s little arm. The gnarled and knobby fingers curled around the boy’s flesh and started to pull him away.
When the creature emerged from the deep shadows and into the dim light coming through the doorway, Danny felt his bladder empty in his pants. It had on a tattered business coat, but whatever shirt he had worn in his previous life had been worn away, exposing its bone thin chest. The throat had been ripped asunder, the ravaged internal flesh exposed and suffering from exposure to the elements. He was barely recognizable as having once been human but Danny recognized him as one of his tormentors from out in the kennels.
Danny recoiled but tried to keep hold of little Paul, who seemed to be going limp with fear like a baby gazelle caught in the jaws of an attacking lioness. He didn’t struggle; he didn’t fight. With terror filled eyes, all Paul could do was simply look back at Danny.
Jess’ and Danny’s screams were enough to get the others’ attention, but it was not enough to save little Paul. The ghoul snatched away the little boy who struggled to hold Danny’s moist hand. Victoriously, the staggering ghoul turned about, already starting to bite and chew into Paul’s bony shoulder and upper arm. Jess was too afraid to shoot for fear of hitting little Paul in the process and then it didn’t matter. And just like that, Paul disappeared into the veil of night as if being pulled into a sea of dark, enveloping tar.
Danny looked at his now empty hand in disbelief and then looked back at Neil who was as stunned as everyone else. They didn’t hear any painful cries or pleas for help from the little boy. He was simply gone.
Neil shouted, “C’mon! We have to get outta here!”
Seeing Paul carried away into the dark, Jules let the fight fade from her limbs. She got her feet back to the pavement and, still holding Neil’s hand, started to run toward the wall. Without a word, everyone was running again.
Their haste was quickly justified as more of the undead began to appear, their preternatural groans overwhelming the roar and blasts from the battle on the other side of the school. Neil’s mouth dried while Emma’s palms moistened. The creatures must have found the opening in the concrete barricade wall and followed the path toward the now open gate. They surged down the lane with growing excitement as they spotted the humans exiting the building.
Neil ordered all of them, “Gooooooo! Godamnit! Goooooo! The big Suburban with all the doors open! Keys are on the dash.”
Despite his limp and his pain, Neil led them to the big vehicle. They piled in quickly and breathed a collective sigh of relief when the engine fired to life with the turn of the key. Emma was at the helm and wasted no time in building speed. The big engine in the Chevy Suburban revved higher and higher as Emma pushed the accelerator to the floor.
She shouted, “Keep your heads down!” just as she Suburban’s heavy duty bumper plowed into the first thin ranks of living dead. As their desiccated bodies, light and brittle with decay, crumpled beneath the vehicle’s weight and force, they made a sound that resembled sleet and hail striking the lower half of their transport.
Emma kept their ride going forward at full tilt. She couldn’t afford to let them slow lest they get bogged down and trapped in the thickening but still manageable crowd of demons around them. There was no maneuvering, so they just had to wade through it.
With each new thud, another surprised gasp escaped from a different person. In the headlights, Emma could see an end to the rushing horde. She took a deep breath and held it, willing the big truck to continue forward at all costs.
She almost lost control when they broke free. They were thankfully beyond the barricade, though none of them knew it. The truck fishtailed violently as it emerged into the open space. Emma let out her breath finally and righted the steering wheel with a deft motion.
The battle in front of the school was largely over. Random shots still rang out in the darkness and a few handfuls of zekes still waited their turn to feast, but the majority of the action had passed. Each of them wondered about the results of the engagement, but not enough to investigate. Who had won? And was there such a thing as winning anymore?
None wondered more than Jess. She knew most of the people back at the school, and there were still some she cared about. A couple of small fires burned here and there, providing a ghostly, flickering light by which to behold the ghastly tableau. It looked like the fires of Hell lighting the procession of the dead. Jess swallowed hard as the lost oasis faded behind them.
Jerry, on the other hand, was quiet and largely absent, not much more animated than the undead. He couldn’t force the images of Claire’s tortured and disfigured body from his mind. The guilt of his failure defied purging.
Emma turned to Neil and asked, “So what happened to Della and that guy? I mean, besides the obvious.”
Neil shook his head and looked back at the kids, saying only, “Later.”
They sped out of the parking lot and almost immediately, their truck began to sputter and struggle. Emma looked at the gas gauge. “Uh, Neil. I think we’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
Jess spoke up from the back seat. “Shit. I’m sorry. You couldn’t have known. The Colonel never left fuel in the vehicles out back in case someone tried to steal one to get away. When you said you had a ride waiting, I just assumed it was one you brought with you.”
Neil allowed a defeated laugh to escape. “No fucking gas. Great. How far can we make it?”
The Suburban answered for itself when its engine choked again, gasping for fuel to fire its engine. The vehicle shuddered twice and then the engine went quiet. They coasted for a few more yards and then they were still again.
There wasn’t time to lament their worries however. They had to keep moving. The bridge was just up ahead and beyond it was Soldotna.
63.
Straggling well behind the main body of shuffling ghouls, a dozen or so undead were still making their way across the expanse to join the battle already engaged at the former high school. These wraiths moved slower due to their advanced decay or the severity of the fatal injuries which had originally claimed their lives. These were the first zombies they saw after abandoning their stalled Suburban on the highway just out of sight of both the school and the bridge.
Emma and Jerry, at the front of the emerging line of survivors, had a hard time in seeing clearly all the threats that lurked, but there appeared to be enough room to be able to continue their exodus. Unfortunately, the zekes immediately sensed the emergence of new prey and began to wander closer and closer, their collective moans steadily rising in volume.
Jerry, whose grief become anger, hefted his hunting rifle to his shoulder and squeezed off a round which took all of them by surprise. The high caliber bullet struck its target in the dark but it wasn’t an effective kill shot and the beast was back on its feet in seconds. Neil wanted to stop him but whatever potential damage could have been wrought by the decision was already done. The undead knew that they were there. There was no need to chide his friend, not that it would have done any good anyway.
Neil looked at Jess and ordered her to stick close to them and keep the children between them. He looked at Danny and was both surprised and pleased to see the boy take a small revolver from his own pocket. The boy was quickly becoming a much needed asset to their survival. Danny caught Neil’s stare and nodded to the man that he was ready.
They walked out together, with Emma, Jerry, and Neil forming an arc like an um
brella in front and the others with Jess at the rear falling under the protective screen. The seven of them walked briskly but didn’t run.
An abandoned Ford Explorer approximately halfway across the bridge served as a way point around which they gathered their nerves and their breath for the rest of the bridge crossing. They waited for just a handful of heartbeats but it was enough.
From around the front of the sport utility vehicle appeared a frail ghoul still wearing a dressing gown. Jules and Nikki both let slip a small, surprised squeal as the old woman’s emaciated, skull-like face became visible. Neil fired a deafening blast from his shotgun which splintered the woman’s sternum and opened a hole clean through her chest. She was thrown backward several yards and ended up on her back. Lying there still for a few seconds, she started to struggle to her feet again.
Dispatching the zombie was less important than getting away, so they continued their retreat with a little more speed in their steps. Another of the demons, this one a teenager still wearing a bright colored drawstring backpack, approached them with a little more dexterity than the old woman. Emma shot this time, sending a single bullet through his head just below his right eye. First its head and then its whole body was flung backward and landed with a chilling thump on the pavement out of sight.
Emma hadn’t intended to fire only one shot, but apparently the magazine on her assault rifle was empty. She knew how to reload her weapon, but in the dark she was afraid she might do something wrong. Instead, she slung the rifle over her shoulder and put a pistol in her hand.
They continued forward with a growing band of undead drawing closer and closer. Neil said to all of them, “We have to keep moving. No stopping. Just keep moving.”
For some strange reason, Emma, upon hearing Neil’s command, remembered a line from Pixar’s Finding Nemo. She began to repeat over and over in her head, Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Ellen DeGeneres’ voice immediately brought a very surprising smile to her face.
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) Page 32
