by Ricky Sides
“Oh, God,” said one of the younger women who was about to turn twenty in a few weeks. “Do you think they intend to hurt us?”
“No, sweetheart,” June said. “These are good people. They just have to be careful about diseases and such these days. You’ll see. You’ll be as safe as a bug in a rug here.” June looked at Dana and frowned in displeasure. She was annoyed that the woman seemed intent upon causing trouble.
Dana gave the old woman an innocent smile, and then she sat down on her bunk to ensure that none of the other women tried to claim her bed. “Things are looking up around here,” she thought.
Chapter 10
Retrieval.
“We’ve got to go back and get that case!” Ed said emphatically. “Without the cure, we could lose some or even all of the people we’re on the way to rescue. Not to mention the fact that the case represents saving 100 people from the parasites.”
“Believe me, Ed, I know just how important the bag is to us,” Herb replied as he drove the bus at a slow rate of speed while they discussed their next course of action.
“I don’t think there were a lot of the zombies left in Hunter, Herb,” Randy stated.
“Then what happened? It sure seemed to me that they had us boxed in back there.” Herb stated.
“There was a surge of them when we encountered the main group, and there were a lot more of them than we were expecting. I was holding my own and keeping them at bay until I ran out of magazines. Jason couldn’t hand me one because he was keeping Ed from being pulled out of the bus, but I didn’t know that, so I wasted time waiting for him to hand me a replacement mag. Not that I’m blaming him or anyone for that matter,” Randy was quick to point out when he saw the expressions on the faces of Jason and Ed. “We just need a different ammo resupply system for when I’m in the chair. I doubt this will be the last time that both the guys will be tied up in here.”
“Then we need more personnel,” Herb said. “Any sort of rack system we try to use will cause visibility issues for me. It’s bad enough having to try to see behind us with your chair pole, legs, and feet obscuring part of my view to the rear. Adding any sort of rack would pretty much blind me.”
“I agree,” Randy said. “I think we need two more men. One can hand me ammo, when necessary. That would leave the other three guys to shoot from firing slits in the sides and back of the bus.”
“There aren’t any firing slits in the rear,” Herb responded.
“Yeah, and that’s not good,” Randy pointed out.
“Okay. We’ll fix that when we get back to the refuge, and I’ll see if we can add two men, but for now, let’s get back to this mission. Do we go back for the injections or proceed with the mission?”
“You’re the boss. We’ll do what you want us to do,” Jason said.
“This doesn’t just impact our mission. This could cost a lot of people their lives because we lost those inoculations, so every man gets a vote,” Herb explained.
“In that case, I say we go back. I volunteer to get out and retrieve the case,” Ed said.
“I’m in,” Jason volunteered, “but you won’t get out alone. I won’t have that. I’ll go along as guard.”
Herb took a moment to glance in the rearview mirror at Randy. “What’s your say in the matter?” he asked.
“We go get them,” Randy said with determination. He was stuffing loaded M4 magazines in every pocket of his combat vest as he replied.
Herb brought the vehicle to a stop on the open stretch of highway and executed a set of maneuvers until he had turned the bus around and was headed back for Hunter. “There are going to be a lot of zombie bodies along the road near the case,” he pointed out. “You’d better strap yourself into your chair. This could be a bumpy ride if I have to run over several bodies.”
“I’ll stay in my chair. Just don’t get us stuck on the things or blow a tire,” Randy cautioned. Then he said, “I’d better get topside. Slow down a bit once we begin to encounter them so I can target the damned things.”
“You’ve got it,” Herb promised.
As Randy operated the hand pump that worked the chair hydraulic system, Herb addressed Ed and Jason, saying, “This isn’t a suicide mission, guys. Recover the case, if possible, but don’t take unreasonable risks doing it. If it can’t be done without insane risk, then get your asses back aboard the transport. Am I clear on that?”
“Man, this whole trip is an insane risk,” Jason quipped, “but yeah. I get what you’re saying. If it’s crazy stupid to continue the mission, we come back to the vehicle.”
“Agreed,” Ed said. He added, “And I want a lock cabinet installed to house future doses of the nanobots, so they aren’t sitting around in a case. We already see how easy it is to lose them that way.”
“Pick a handy spot that won’t obstruct my view or compromise our safety in any way and have it done,” Herb replied. “And keep it small, but make it large enough to carry a more complete medical kit. Our last emergency taught us we are woefully unprepared to deal with a real medical emergency.”
“Can I remove one of the seats?” Ed asked.
“No. The whole idea of using this as our transport is to haul people out of danger zones. I don’t want to lose the capability of transporting a person to gain storage space, even for the nanobots, but you don’t need that much space all in one location. Go with something like the overhead racks in airplanes,” Herb said.
“Yeah, we could do that. We’d need to make it longer that way, but it would work,” Ed replied.
Herb nodded his agreement and said, “And it wouldn’t obscure my view to the rear.” He was about to add another comment when he saw someone in the road up ahead.
Herb had been driving at around forty miles per hour. When he saw the figure on the road, he slowed to about twenty. “Heads up, Randy!” he yelled.
“I see him!” Randy replied. Seconds elapsed as they drew closer, and then Randy shouted, “That’s no zombie! It’s a kid! He stopped and is waving!”
Herb stared ahead at the figure on the road and noted that his friend was right. The person on the road was waving. They were still too far away for him to tell whether or not the person was a child, but he could see that whoever it was had stopped and was indeed waving to them. “Get ready to exit for a rescue,” Herb ordered Jason and Ed. Then he muttered to himself.
“What did you say? Sorry, I didn’t get that,” Jason said in response.
“I was just talking to myself,” Herb replied. “I said Hunter is just full of surprises.”
“It just never seems to end with this town,” Ed remarked.
Herb slowed the vehicle to a stop about fifty feet from the boy standing on the asphalt. When the bus stopped, he opened the door. Jason exited first, followed by Ed. The boy had seemed eager to attract their attention, but now that the bus had stopped and the men had gotten out, he seemed nervous. “Where’s my dad?” he shouted the question as he backed away from the approaching men.
Jason stopped and said to Ed, “He must be talking about the man we tried to rescue.”
“We’re going to get him,” Ed shouted back to the boy. Then he said in quieter tones to Jason, “If we tell the kid his dad is dead, he may panic and run.”
“Let’s go, son. There are too many zombies in the area to be out in the open like this!” Randy shouted to the boy. “Our men got out to help you. Don’t endanger them by giving them a hard time!” he added.
“Yes, sir. I won’t,” the boy said in response Randy. “Dad saw your bus go by the house where we were hiding,” the boy said as he started toward Jason and Ed. “He told me to circle around behind the houses and come out to the road, and then he ran out of the house and led the zombies away.”
“Your dad is a brave man,” Jason said. “I wouldn’t want to have to race a bunch of zombies.”
Ed nodded his head toward the boy and added, “You’re brave too. Not many boys your age would have had the courage to make the run you must
have made, circling around the zombies like that.”
“I’ll be thirteen on my next birthday,” the young man responded. He stopped beside the men and asked, “Will we go get Dad in your bus?”
“Let’s go, guys! I see a zombie coming toward us!” warned Randy, which spared the two men with the boy from being forced to lie to him about his father.
Jason took the lead, followed by the boy. Ed walked just behind the young man. “There are two big dogs in the bus, but they’re friendly,” he said so their guest wouldn’t be alarmed by the presence of the animals. “They’re friendly enough, once they get to know you, but right now, they are agitated because the zombies were attacking the bus earlier. Try to stay clear of them for a while. Once they settle down, we’ll introduce you to them so they know you’re a friend and will help take care of you.”
When they boarded the bus, the boy’s eyes went to the large canines that were both watching him with evident interest. “Wow, they sure are big,” he said as he eyed them nervously.
“What’s your name, son?” Herb asked in a friendly tone of voice.
“Robert Waller,” the boy responded without hesitation.
“Well, Robert, we’re about to go deeper into the town to try to get to your dad,” Herb explained, which was true, but only because the case containing the nanobots was within yards of where the man had fallen victim to the zombies. “This could be a bumpy ride. I need you to be brave and take a seat.” He looked at Ed and added, “See to it he wears a seatbelt.”
“You’ve got it,” Ed replied.
Herb put the bus in gear and the heavy vehicle rolled forward as he depressed the accelerator lightly. “Hold your fire up there, Randy! I only see the one zombie at the moment, and he’s on the road!” he shouted so his friend in the gunner’s seat could hear him.
“He said okay,” Jason said. Then he added, “He says you might be able to run it over and kill it, but the odds are the cowcatcher will sweep it out of the way instead.”
Randy was keeping his voice down for the same reason that he wasn’t firing at the zombie. They were trying to remain relatively quiet for as long as possible in order to avoid attracting additional zombies.
Jason chuckled and said, “He says he wishes he had a crossbow.”
“That would help,” Herb said, and then he concentrated on the lone male zombie they were approaching.
Based on the condition of the creature, Herb thought it must have been a zombie for months. Its clothing was falling apart at the seams, and what material remained was torn and filthy. Its hair was long and shabby. Herb tried not to think about the fact that the zombie had once been a normal man with his own set of hopes and dreams for the future. He had learned over the months that it was best to dehumanize them. They were no longer humans, and since they were deteriorating to some degree with the passage of time, it was getting easier to forget that they were once people with friends and family.
Herb hit the zombie with the bus moving at forty miles per hour. The cowcatcher slammed into the zombie, knocking it out of the way.
“Randy says that one will probably become a crawler. The impact shattered both legs, and left them bent at impossible angles,” Jason informed Herb.
“That’s not good. Tell him I said to be watching for it as we come back this way later. I don’t like leaving a crawler behind. In some ways, they’re more dangerous than a zombie that has full mobility,” Herb responded. In the past, both Herb and Randy had experienced close calls when crawlers almost got to them because they were concentrating on the faster upright zombies.
They had traveled about three quarters of a mile when Herb saw several zombies on the roadway. They were spread out and heading toward the bus. Herb applied the brakes and brought the bus to a smooth stop. “Randy, take them out!” he shouted.
“Roger that!” Randy responded, punctuating his sentence with a shot from the M4 that was followed by another, and then yet another. With each shot, Herb saw one of the zombies go down.
Herb noted that there were too many of the zombies for Randy to take on alone and that they were moving fast enough that it would be necessary to put the vehicle in reverse to escape the remnants of the group, unless he sent someone to help their shooter. “Ed, are you up to taking down a few of these things?” he asked.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Ed said. He walked up to the door with his rifle in hand. Herb opened the door and Ed slipped out quickly.
Jason shifted his body so that he could cover the open door and still be available if Randy needed more ammunition.
Herb glanced in the rearview mirror as Ed opened fire. He was checking on their young guest and he was pleased to see that the boy was sitting in his seat, petting Ox. The big canine had stationed himself beside the young man protectively, and was watching the open door with an intensity that Herb had seen in the past when zombies were near.
The rifle fire continued unabated as Herb focused his attention on the approaching zombies once more. He saw a male zombie with a scraggly beard at the forefront of the approaching undead. Herb realized that the creature must have turned months ago, because its clothing was in tatters. This was important to Herb who had speculated that the coming winter might see a diminishment of the activity of the undead due to the extreme cold they would be forced to endure. At the very least, he expected the cold would inhibit their mobility, thus slowing them down considerably. While he was watching the approach of the creature, one of the shooters took it out with a shot to the head.
Behind Herb, Oz voiced a warning growl and lunged against his chain. Ed stumbled as he reentered the bus. In his haste to get inside, he tripped and went down to his knees. The medic scurried further inside and Herb shut the door. A zombie threw itself at the barrier, clawing at the fencing material that separated it from the object of its desire.
Ed got to his feet visibly shaken. “The damned thing came from behind me,” he said. “I was reloading my rifle when I heard it moan. There wasn’t time to finish before it reached me.” Then he added, “I lost the empty magazine out there.”
“Better that than your life,” Herb quipped as he put the bus in reverse and backed up the highway twenty feet.
Jason had informed Randy about what had occurred, so he was ready when the zombie that had made it to the bus became visible. His shot entered the right temple of the undead creature, dropping it in its tracks. Then Randy’s weapon began to fire in a rhythmic manner, firing a shot every three seconds as he polished off the remaining zombies that were blocking the way.
“Ask him if he needs time to resupply his magazines,” Herb instructed Jason.
“He does,” Jason responded, “but he said for you to go ahead and we’ll transfer the ammo while you drive.”
Herb nodded in understanding and put the bus in gear. He understood that Randy was concerned about their weapons fire drawing additional zombies to their location. He shared that concern. They moved out along the road, which was now littered with dead zombies. It was impossible to drive around all of them because of the position of their bodies. Herb sought to minimize the number of bodies he had to drive over because it was possible, albeit unlikely, that they might have something on them that could flatten a tire. When they did drive over one, the heavy bus rocked and swayed.
“Ed, release the dogs,” Herb instructed once they were clear of the bodies. He knew there was a risk that the animals would bolt from the vehicle when the door was open when the two men went to retrieve the all important medical case, but he was concerned about the lack of support inside while they were gone. All too often, zombies had shown up when and where they were least expected during his conflicts with them. Their current situation just reinforced his determination to add another two men to the team.
“Are we about to stop for my dad?” asked their young passenger.
“If we see anyone alive, then yes we’ll stop,” Herb answered. He felt bad about misleading the young man, but his team was about to exe
cute a dangerous attempt to recover the case containing the nanobots, and now, was not the time to complicate matters.
“The dogs are free,” Ed reported.
“Good,” Herb said, “Because I see the spot up ahead.” A shot from Randy’s rifle punctuated his sentence. Herb saw a zombie that was crouching over a body on the road topple over. Two more zombies were also in close proximity to the one that Randy had killed. They turned to face the approaching bus and began to moan. Randy fired two more shots, dispatching the threats with ease.
“You two will need to work quickly,” Herb warned. “All the shooting in this area will draw more of them, if there are any left in the vicinity.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Ed said with feeling.
“I don’t see it,” Herb said. “One of the bodies could be covering the case.”
“If it’s still here, I’ll find it,” Ed vowed. He slipped on a pair of gloves that he would discard after handling the undead. He’d have to move the bodies to make certain one of them wasn’t concealing the all-important case.
“Take no chances. The case is important, but you two are more important,” Herb said.
“Gotcha,” Ed said much too quickly to suit Herb.
“I’m serious,” Herb said, turning to stare at the medic after he stopped the bus.
This time, Ed looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he responded, “All right. Yeah, I guess you’re right. We have sufficient supplies at the refuge to cover the loss. It’s just that we don’t have any with us and I’m afraid we may need it before we can get back there.”
“Just be careful out there and don’t take unnecessary risks. Beware of the bodies. There may still be some life in some of them,” Herb replied.
“Randy says it’s all clear for the moment,” Jason reported.
“Keep your head on a swivel out there,” Herb cautioned Jason as he motioned the two men to the door.
Ed led the way. He stopped near the door and handed Jason his rifle. “Looks as if I’m going to need to keep my hands free,” he explained. “I’ve still got my pistol.” He drew it, chambered a round and waited for Herb to open the door.
