Although Goodhue was a small town, no one had apparently gone through and thinned out the thrillers yet. They were all drawn to the edge of town where the gas station was, so Bill decided to set up a distraction. Plus, he wanted to play with the new toys they’d picked up the night before. He grabbed a propane bottle from the store and a grenade. Then he jogged five blocks to the northwest and found a baseball diamond. He set up the propane bottle in the middle of outfield. Then he ran back to home plate, pulled the pin on the grenade, and tossed it to the propane bottle. No sooner had it left his hand than he took off at a dead sprint towards the store. When he heard the explosion, he looked back over his shoulder and saw the propane tank pin-wheeling in the sky, shooting fire as it went.
Bill crouched down behind a bank two blocks from the gas station and noticed that all the thrillers had conducted an about-face and were heading towards the sound of the explosion. When the last one finally passed him by, he jogged back to the 4Runner, and everyone was ready to go by this point.
In Faribault, someone had set up some type of sound machine in Oak Grove Cemetery that was running off of a gas generator. It had attracted thrillers from the whole town. The irony was not lost on Bill.
“And if you look to the left, you will see some people are just dying to get in there.”
“Daddy, that was terrible,” said Sam.
“Yes, Father, why would you say that?” asked Sally.
“We’re having a good day so far. Just trying to keep the mood light and spirits up. God only knows what we’re going to find this afternoon.”
They traveled mostly two-lane highways and were truly having a good day. The terrain was fairly level here, and the countryside was beautiful. Even as they passed through Mankato, the highway had wide shoulders, and there were no road blocks. Occasionally, the vehicles behind Dennis would see the body, or parts, of a thriller go flying through the air.
As they headed due north on Highway 4, the terrain was completely flat. Dennis ran down the center of the road, and they were making good time. He was pulling them along at seventy miles an hour. Everyone was within a few feet of each other. They were drafting like it was NASCAR, using Dennis’s truck as the windbreak.
For three hours, there had been complete radio silence, so Bill spoke up.
“Holy fucking shit on a stick. I don’t think this place could get any flatter. I thought Texas was horrible, but fuck me. It’s flatter than Phillip with his no-pectoral-muscles-having self.”
“Thanks, dick,” Phillip said with a slight humor to his voice.
“Glad to see you’re starting to come around. Oh, and sorry for cussing, Dennis. I said I would try, but old habits die hard.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
From Highway 4, the convoy got on Interstate 94. There were no towns, trees, or anything else to hide behind. Everyone felt pretty safe. Twenty minutes later, Dennis pulled into a large truck stop in Alexandria Minnesota. And it was huge. There were two teams of three that went in and cleared out the building. The power was out. Papaw pulled out the manual pumps and began filling the first two vehicles that were in line. Once the building was clear, everyone except D, Jane, and Sasha were helping clear the store of all non-perishables.
Bill also went around and ensured everyone had several full magazines as well as some extra goodies. The next stop was going to be Grand Forks. He didn’t know what to expect and wanted to be as prepared as possible. He had been working on a plan for the last few days but hadn’t shared it with anyone yet. He was still mulling it over from every angle—probably overanalyzing like he usually did.
With Dennis in the lead, they figured going through Fargo wouldn’t be a big deal. It would be faster if there were no road blocks. Looking at the maps, the city of Fargo had made sure to keep buildings and structures far away from the interstate systems. Everyone agreed it was a gamble worth taking. They kept their speed up above seventy even when they took the off-ramp to Interstate 29. Papaw commented on the pucker factor he experienced bringing Behemoth around at that speed. They had only been going north on I-29 for a minute when Bill noticed movement to his left. It looked like people were waving at them.
“Hey, y’all, look left. Do you see people on top of that mall?” Bill asked.
“Yea, I do. They definitely don’t look like they are in distress,” Q said.
“I’m looking at them through binoculars now. It’s hard to get a clear picture with all the movement, but I can tell they are happy. Almost like they are happy to see other living people,” Sam added.
“Cool. Well, we don’t have time to help them today anyway. We have places to go and people to see,” Bill said.
Fargo quickly became a faint memory.
As they drove down Washington Street in Grand Forks, it was complete void of all thrillers. The stores had been ransacked, and a few fast food restaurants were burned to the ground.
Bill halted the convoy on Thirteenth Street in front of the elementary school.
“I don’t want everyone going down there yet. When I talked to Cootch three days ago, he said that the thrillers had them completely surrounded. I suggest a few of us hop in with Dennis and head up there. Yea, it is the biggest truck, but it’s the best equipped to handle that many. Plus, it’s the noisiest, and we can draw them away if we need to.”
“Sounds good. I’m definitely going, you know that already, Bill,” Q said.
“Yea, man, I wouldn’t deny you this. Besides, I know you’re always trying to steal my glory.”
“HAHAHAHA! Yea, that’s it.”
“I knew it! Ok, here’s what I have so far. Charity is going to stay in the 4Runner and monitor the CB. In case we get out of range for the headsets, Dennis will relay what’s going on and if we need back up. We do a drive by and see how bad it is. Then, based on the situation, I will let everyone know what course of action we take next.”
Bill spent the next five minutes explaining what the rest of the plan was, along with possible plans B and C. Once everyone was in agreement, Bill, Q, and Sally climbed into the big rig, and Dennis took off. He swung wide to make the turn onto Cherry Street and headed north. Immediately, they could see the most horrific post-apocalyptic scene they had seen yet. A lot of the houses here had their front doors open. Suitcases were tossed in front yards, and bodies were scattered across lawns. Further up the cozy neighborhood street, thrillers stood shoulder to shoulder.
“Holy heck. I hope this ol’ girl can make it through that mess.”
“Just keep it in a low gear and keep your RPMs up. We should be fine,” Bill encouraged him. “But who am I to tell you how to drive. You’ve already proven yourself more than capable so far.”
Dennis agreed and stated he’d already planned on doing as much. The cow catcher parted the thrillers like the Red Sea, and the semi waded through the sea of dead as well as they had hoped. Bill watched the house numbers in order to tell which was Cootch and Tess’s house, but he did not need to. It was on Dennis’s side of the truck as they passed.
They lived in a cute craftsman-style house about sixteen hundred square feet, built in the sixties. It had a detached garage in back that a person had to drive down the alley to access. The house had no front porch, as they were not common to this area.
Their front door was blocked by a pickup truck. It had been speeding south and gone up the hood of a car parked in front of the house next door. It had flipped into the air, landed in Cootch’s front yard, and slid to a stop at the front door. It was resting on the passenger side roof at a forty-five-degree angle. The truck was almost upside down. The only thing keeping it from rolling all the way over was the fact that the driver’s side of the roof was resting against the house, blocking the front door.
A few houses down the block, Bill pulled the pin on a hand grenade and tossed it at an open front door. In the side view mirror, he watched it explode. Bodies went flying through the air, and the front of the house was ripped wide open.
W
hen they got to Tenth Street, they went left, and then left again on Oak Street. This scene was very similar to Cherry. It even had a house halfway down where the concentration of thrillers was considerably higher than the rest of the street. This time, the big rig bogged down.
“Dennis, is everything ok?”
“Yessir. She’s just under heavy load. It’s like going up a mountain with a full load. I think we will be ok.”
“Awesome. I don’t think I have to tell you how fu—screwed we are if she stops now.”
“You are right about that. We would be fucked.”
“I thought you didn’t cuss, or like to hear it.”
“Look, man, I’m a trucker at heart. I just don’t like to hear the Lord’s name used in vain. That’s all. The cussing doesn’t bother me. Heck, I was in the Navy for four years way back in the day. So, I can cuss like a sailor. Literally. I just try not to, ’cause it’s the good, Christian thing to do.”
“Gotcha. I was heavy into church for a lot of years too. But we can talk about that another day if you’d like.”
“Sure, sounds fine to me.”
They made it out the other side of the throng of thrillers and were about to turn left on Thirteenth again.
“Dennis, this time, do you think we could fit up the alleyway?”
“Yes, we can. The only hitch might be is if there is a stalled-out car in the way.”
“Cool. I want to try anyway so we can see how bad it is at the back of the house. Besides, after what you did to that roadblock earlier, I don’t think it will be an issue.”
“You got it, man.”
The thrillers were packed in tighter than either street put together. As the semi pushed and squashed them out of the way, many were pulverized between the truck and garages. Several fences were pushed over and broken by the sheer weight of all the bodies. As they passed Cootch’s house again, Bill looked up and saw four very confused faces staring at them. Bill rolled down the window and stuck his head out so they could get a good look at who was in the truck. The four faces lit up, and Alice started jumping up and down, frantically waving her arms in excitement. The window flew open, and he heard her tiny voice scream out, “UNCLE BILL!”
“Dennis, radio back to the convoy that we have visual on four friendlies.”
“Ten-four.”
At the end of the alleyway, they went around to drive south on Oak Street again. There were less thrillers this time, but they still numbered in the thousands. This time, Bill handed Dennis a couple of grenades to throw out in the densest areas. He lobbed them both right at the house that had the most. They exploded one right after the other. A part of an arm, from the elbow down, flew in through his open window. It smacked the inside of the windshield, splattered blackened blood and puss across it, and landed on the dash. Bill reached up, grabbed it by the wrist, and threw it out his window. It felt cold and clammy, and the skin started to slouch off in his hand.
“Shit, now I can’t see very well,” Dennis yelled.
“Stop at the next intersection so you can clean it off. It’s also time for the next phase of the plan.” Then Bill spoke into his coms. “All right, convoy, were going to start Plan B,”
Dennis stopped the truck and set the parking brake. While he pulled out some window cleaner and paper towels from a cabinet in the sleeper cab, Bill, Q, and Sally climbed up onto the roof of the trailer. Once Bill was in the prone position, he looked over his left shoulder, back the way they’d just come. He confirmed the herd was following them.
Bill was lying a few feet from back of the trailer, facing out from its left side, while Q was facing the right. Sally was lying up at the front, facing slightly right. D, Sasha, and Jane had jogged up to the truck and joined them. D was next to Q, Sasha was next to Bill, and Jane was also up front, facing slightly left.
“Dennis, we’re ready when you are.”
“All right, I will make this as smooth as possible, but you guys hang onto your gear. Please keep all arms inside the vehicle while it’s moving. Dennis, delivery lines are not responsible for any lost items.”
“Good. I’m glad you made that disclaimer. I don’t want you getting sued after this.”
Dennis started moving, slow and steady. On a normal day, a person casually walking down the sidewalk would have been faster. As they approached Cootch’s house again, Bill made sure that everyone knew not to shoot the house directly. Bill repeated the warning as they went down the alleyway. Dennis made five circles around Cherry and the alleyway before everyone up top had run out of ammo. The team had spent eighteen hundred rounds, and Dennis had run over a few thousand thrillers with the semi, but there were still more than they could count.
“Dennis, we need a reload.”
“Ten-four.”
When Dennis got to Tenth Street that time, he went all the way down to Washington and came around to where the convoy was parked. Mike and Shannon were already on top of their camper with a duffle bag full of magazines. Bill quickly dumped them out, and the others distributed them. Bill stuffed all the empties in the bag and tossed it back over to Mike. Once everyone was back in position, Dennis took off again at the same snail’s pace. They made five more circles around the block. This time, they included Oak instead of the alleyway.
Back at the convoy again, everyone on top of the semi-trailer climbed down off the top. Everyone who’d stayed at the convoy except Memaw and Doris were armed up and ready to go for part three. D and Sasha were going to stay behind this time to guard the vehicles while everyone else went to finish what they’d started. Even Phillip and Tanya were read to go. Tanya looked absolutely terrified but determined. The majority of thrillers were re-dead, and it was time to pick off the leftovers.
They split into three teams and then played rock, paper, scissors for who was going where. Bill, Charity, Dennis, Sally, Sam, and Tanya got up Oak Street. Q, Mike, Shannon, Anne, and Andre took the ally, while Papaw, Kathrin, Jane, Shane, and Phillip were stuck with Cherry Street.
Oak Street wasn’t too bad, since most of the thrillers had followed the sound of the semi out to the main road. There were quite a few that hadn’t figured out how to follow the big rig and were stuck between houses, trying to take the shortest route to all the commotion they heard. Tanya adapted well to using the M4. Later that night, she would share with the others how sore her shoulder was but that she’d enjoyed learning how to fire a weapon. By the time Alpha Team had made it to the end of the street, the sun had slipped below the horizon, and they witnessed an awe-inspiring sunset.
There was a steady flow of black fluid and other liquefied human waste flowing down the street. The stench was nearly unbearable as the other two teams watched stream—of what, they could only imagine—run towards the storm drains. The smell was a combination of stagnant raw sewage mixed with vomited sauerkraut on an old unwashed shag carpet. They were still on Thirteenth Street, a hundred yards from the alley, when Anne, Andre, Shane, and Phillip simultaneously added their own lunch to the mix. Shannon and Q dry-heaved a few times but managed to keep it together.
“Oh my God, this is the single worst thing I have ever experienced in my life,” Phillip stated.
Bravo Team waded through a sea of bodies in the close confines of the alleyway. Q, Shannon, and Mike were using swords to re-dead any thrillers that had their legs broken or blown off while the other two fired upon the more-mobile ones.
Halfway to Cootch’s house, they heard unsuppressed gun fire from the direction of where they were heading. When they got there, Cootch was in his back yard slaying the few dozen thrillers that hadn’t found their way out to follow the semi. When they were all dead, Cootch practically sprinted up to Q and wrapped him up in a manly embrace.
“Holy hell. I thought we would never see you guys. This has got to be the third happiest day of my life.”
“Daddy? Can we come out?” asked Georges.
“No, buddy, stay inside. It’s not safe yet.”
“Where’s Uncle Bill?”
“He’s on the next street over, making sure it’s safe for you to come out,” Q replied.
“Ok. Hi, Q. I’m glad to see you. We can leave soon, right?”
“Yea, buddy. Let us make sure none of the bad guys are left, and we will go somewhere safe.”
“Ok!” Georges said, and he closed the back door.
“Let’s go clear the side of the house. Your brother and another portion of our team should be up that way soon.”
Bravo Team, with Cootch, cleared the area around the house and could see Charley Team making their way towards them. They left Cootch there to greet them and headed back to the alleyway and finished clearing it. By the time they got to the end, they met up with Alpha Team. Both teams walked to Cootch’s house while they cleared the other half of Cherry Street along the way.
Charlie Team had the highest concentration of re-dead of the three teams. Their street too had a river of dead blood and human waste running along the gutters, but most of the thrillers had been shot. Shane and Phillip were using machetes to re-dead those that were not yet. Their progress was slower than that of the other two teams. They were the least experienced in dealing with this situation. Papaw had combat training from back in the day but had spent most of ZomPoc in the big comfy RV. Everyone had been good with that, but at this moment, he wished he’d had more outside time.
Once all three clear teams were at the house, most headed back to the convoy to check on the other four. Bill and Q estimated they’d killed ten thousand thrillers that afternoon, one-fifth the population of Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Bill, Sam, Q, and Andre stayed behind to help Cootch’s family carry the stuff they wanted to keep to their camper. Mike, Shane, Phillip, and Tanya helped clear all the re-dead away from the roll-up door to the garage before the four of them headed back to the convoy.
“Billy, holy shit, it’s good to see you again,” Cootch said as he rolled him up in a bear hug. He lifted Bill off the ground and popped all the vertebrae in his back.
Beginning of the New Beginning, Vol. 2 Page 13
