Wendell took it as the final indication that they were on their own – and worse yet, for Wendell at least, that they were on their own with Chris.
Chapter 5
“Grrrrr…” Michael gritted his teeth as he hunched over the steering wheel to peer ahead of him out the windshield. “I hate Riverside’s goddamn street layout! Like a goddamn corn maze! I never could navigate this place worth a damn!” he smacked the steering wheel with an open palm.
“Just calm down, dear,” Caroline did her best to soothe her husband. “We’ll find our way out of here. At least Riverside still has power…unlike Brookfield.”
The winding streets of Riverside were indeed a swerving, curving, snaking maze of intertwining side streets. A wrong turn as they had entered the suburb had landed the Blender convoy among the center of this jumbled mess.
Like a fly ensnared in a spider’s web, Michael decided it best to stop their struggling that seemed only to be entwining them further among the tangle of streets. He put on his hazard blinkers and pulled over to one side of the street beneath the illumination of a street lamp. The convoy stretching behind him followed suit, the vehicle directly behind Michael’s slowly pulling up alongside his SUV. It was the Mendoza family mini-van, the passenger-side window down.
Michael rolled down his own window.
“Problem?” Juan Mendoza leaned across his wife Suzana sitting in the passenger seat to call.
“These damn streets!” Michael threw up his hands.
Juan nodded knowingly. “They’re a mess. Took me forever to learn them, but I used to have one of my work accounts here. I got to know them pretty well. I think I can get us out of here if you want me to take the lead for a while.”
“Just get us to the Des Plaines River bridge that takes us into Lyons. Once we’re there, I’m good to go,” Michael called back.
“Will do,” Juan nodded, putting the passenger-side window back up.
Michael followed suit and waited as Juan pulled ahead of him to take up the lead.
Several winding, curving, snaking minutes later, they were out of the maze and turning from Barrypoint Road onto Millbridge Road. This led them to the roughly 300-foot concrete bridge that spanned the Des Plaines River into Lyons.
“Finally!” Michael breathed an exasperated sigh of relief as they rolled up a slight incline in the bridge and then began the gradual decent at its center as it took them from Riverside into the Village of Lyons. “Another minute and we’ll be on Harlem Avenue. And five minutes after that, we should be at the highway and on our way to…” he hit the brakes hard just as they were about to exit the bridge. The Mendoza family mini-van ahead of them swerved violently to the right as it exited the bridge and plowed right into a mid-size tree beside the road.
Michael heard breaks squeal behind him, and from the corner of his eye, saw a large vehicle shoot past them in the other lane. It was the Hines’ family vehicle. Monte, obviously unprepared for Michael’s sudden stop in front of him, had been unable to halt their large mini-van in time. To avoid a rear-end collision with the Trove’s SUV, he had taken evasive action. The maneuver however, had left them skidding to a stop facing the wrong way of a dead-end, gravel, river access to the left side of where the bridge exited to the street.
But Michael didn’t have time to watch the Hines family. He was too busy observing what had caused the Mendoza’s to veer off course initially – a large group of people in the middle of the street. They were congregated at the center of where the bridge exited into a three-way split between 39th Street and Joliet Avenue directly ahead of them, and a parking lot entrance for a nearby condominium complex and small riverfront park to their right. A series of concrete barricades blocked the roads leading into downtown Lyons.
“Damn it!” Michael cursed, stepping on the gas and angling his way into the condo parking lot where he stopped and threw the SUV into park. “What are all those idiots doing out at this time of night? They’re just standing in the middle of the road. They got a death wish or something? Stay here!” he instructed his wife as he jumped out of the vehicle and locked the doors behind him. The rest of the Blender convoy was working its way around and through the people in the street to pull up beside where Michael had parked. Michael unzipped his coat and pulled his .45 caliber handgun from a concealed shoulder holster.
By the time Michael had made it over close to where the Mendoza mini-van now sat smoking, its front end crumpled where it had smashed into the tree, it was too late. And Michael quickly realized that it wasn’t people blocking the road, but biters – lots of them.
The scene was chaotic. Biters had immediately swarmed the Mendoza vehicle. There were at least a dozen already clustered around the van. Several dozen more were approaching in the street, drawn by the sound of the accident and the squealing tires of the Hines vehicle as it avoided the Troves. A few biters were on top of the mini-van. Several had even managed to get inside when the Mendoza children had made the mistake of opening their doors, seeking to escape the smoking vehicle.
As he approached, Michael aimed his .45 at the biters closest to him, two that were clambering up onto the van’s hood, and fired. He hit one in the back, and another in the shoulder. The one he’d hit in the back fell to the ground where it lay motionless. The one he’d shot in the shoulder immediately slid from the hood and ran screeching down the street.
Seeing the situation unfolding around him, and the number of biters on the scene, Michael quickly realized that it was a lost cause to try to kill them all. There were far too many. But he couldn’t just leave the Mendoza family to die. He could hear screams inside the van, screams that urged Michael to further action.
By this point, Josh and Manny had joined him, and together, they managed to clear several more of the biters from around the Mendoza mini-van as well as about six of those who were approaching. But for as quickly as they managed to shoot or wound one biter, it seemed like two more replaced it. The only bright side of the situation was that the smoldering mini-van seemed to have captivated the attention of the biters, distracting them enough that the men could get off clean shots. Otherwise, the groups of biters now converging on the van could easily have overwhelmed the three men armed only with handguns, one of which was a revolver that had to be reloaded without the aid of pre-loaded magazines.
“This is no good, guys!” Michael cried. “We’ve got to get the rest of the group safe!” he called to Josh and Manny as he ejected the magazine from his .45 and replaced it with a fully loaded one.
Patrick, having been delayed in getting to the fight while grabbing his father’s shotgun from the back of the Suburban, joined the group. He leveled it at an approaching biter and laid waste to the fang-bearing creature that was only feet from where the other men stood firing.
The screams from inside the Mendoza vehicle continued. The cries of the children, Jeremy and Natasha, were the most heart wrenching.
Suddenly a smaller figure broke from inside the vehicle, darting out into the street. The men recognized it as little Jeremy.
“Give us covering fire!” Michael yelled as he and Josh moved to help the boy.
But their efforts were in vain. At least four biters got a hold of the child and dragged him to the ground. They were on top of him almost instantly, tearing into the boy’s tender flesh with their jagged fangs. And with 30 yards and almost as many biters between the men and Jeremy, they knew their assistance would be too little, too late.
“We have to fall back!” Manny cried. “There are too many of them!”
The herd of biters was beginning to turn its attention toward the men. Michael knew it wouldn’t be long before they began attacking the rest of the convoy.
“Where is the Hines family?” Josh yelled as he reloaded his own weapon.
“Don’t know!” Michael called back, firing at a new group of approaching biters, taking down three of them and wounding another. “Lost them on the other side of the road! We’ve got to get the rest of the grou
p to cover!”
“Where?” Patrick yelled over the sound of their gunfire. “Do we lock ourselves in our vehicles?” he blasted another set of biters who had gotten too close with his dad’s shotgun.
“Vehicles are no good!” his father called back. “We need somewhere better…somewhere where they won’t be able to smash through the glass!” he paused in his firing to look around them.
Biters were everywhere. They were on 39th Street. They were on Joliet Avenue. They were filtering through the parking lot in which the Blenders stood. They were beginning to move onto the bridge.
Michael realized they didn’t have long. The longer he waited to make a decision, the greater the chances their group would be completely overwhelmed by the growing mass of biters. There was a sports complex across the street, but the street was mobbed with biters. The condo buildings behind them looked promising. But biters were sprinkled throughout the parking lot between where the Blenders had stopped and the first condo building. And more of the rabid beasts seemed to be filtering out from between the parked cars like water seeping through cracks in a dam.
Michael had to think and think fast. Another minute or so, especially if the biters began to lose interest in the smoldering Mendoza mini-van, and the rest of the Blender convoy would be done for. There’d be no place to hide and no escape.
* * *
Monte was a salesman, a salesman who tended to see the greater good in people. And he believed that American society was not so dark and divided as the media portrayed it. Given half a chance, many of the people committing crimes in America could be something productive, do something productive. Therefore, when the other Blender men went off to buy guns and ammo, and shoot their guns at the range, he typically stayed behind. It wasn’t that he had anything against firearms, but shooting just wasn’t a hobby for which he had an inclination. Plus, he was too busy traveling and wasn’t around for most such outings anyway.
But now, as he found their family van mired in some wintry slush where it’d come to rest in the gravel river access beside 39th Street, biters fast approaching, he wished he was more heavily armed.
“Grab the handgun out of the glove compartment!” he told Victoria sternly as he threw the van’s transmission back and forth from “Drive” to “Reverse” in an attempt to rock the vehicle free. “This isn’t working!”
“Where’s the rest of the group?!” Victoria cried, rummaging inside the glove compartment and coming out with a .38 revolver and a small box of ammunition.
“I don’t know,” Monte shook his head as he gave up rocking the van and put it in park. He looked into the rearview mirror, but all he saw was what appeared to be several biters headed toward their van.
“Daddeee…I’m scared!” Rebecca whined from the backseat.
“Me too!” her sister, Patricia chimed in through her tearful sobs.
“Just hang tight,” their father instructed. “Everyone get their seatbelts off. I think we’re going to have to make a run for it!”
“A run for what?” Victoria cried.
Monte shook his head, taking the .38 from his wife and quickly ensuring that it was loaded.
“For somewhere other than here. We’re sitting ducks, and it looks like we have biters headed our way.”
At Monte’s mention of the biters, the Hines children, who had previously been occupied with unbuckling their seatbelts, swiveled in their seats to look out the rear window.
At the sight of the approaching biters, they all began an ear-splitting cacophony of high-pitched squeals and screams.
“EVERYONE STAY CALM!” Monte shouted over the din of the kids’ cries. “Be ready to go when I come back!” he told Victoria.
“Come back?” she cried. “Where in God’s name are you going?”
“Just stay put and get the kids ready to move. I’m going to see if we can link up with the others,” he opened his door, climbed out, and locked the van doors behind him.
Victoria scrambled around in her seat to assist their youngest, Rebecca, unbuckle the seatbelt holding her in her booster seat. “Anthony,” she instructed their eleven-year-old son and oldest of their four children, “grab that backpack on the floor at your feet and put it on.”
“Okay, Mom,” he nodded bravely as he scooted forward and bent to retrieve the pack.
“Kids, be ready to move when your father returns!” Victoria did her best to instruct the fearful children. But her efforts were negated by a heavy thump against the side of the van.
The children in the backseat all screamed and lurched away from a set of gnarly biter fangs pressed up against the van’s rear passenger-door window.
Suddenly, gunfire erupted outside the vehicle, although Victoria couldn’t tell where exactly it was coming from. Victoria found herself praying for Monte’s quick return. She was concerned about his having ventured out amidst what appeared to be a sizeable number of biters. Not only this, but he’d taken their only firearm, and should he not make it back to the van, she and the kids would be left largely defenseless inside the vehicle. She hoped that the gunfire she heard was the other Blenders clearing out the biters so that they could come and help them.
Meanwhile, in the backseat, the kids were all still screaming and had pressed themselves up against one side of the van, as far from the leering biter as they could get. Victoria squeezed her way into the backseat in an attempt to comfort them. But her effort seemed to do little other than agitate the biter outside who began pounding on the van’s window glass with its fists.
Victoria’s children clung to her, nuzzling their heads in against her to hide from the horrors outside. As the biter continued to pound against the window, the glass reverberated with dull thuds. Only brave little Anthony moved up in front of his mother and sister, fighting through the fear and taking over as the man of the family.
“Go away!” he yelled, clapping his hands fiercely at the biter. “Go! Go away!” he slapped back on the glass at the biter outside the window. It was all he could think to do.
Suddenly, the biter reared back, its fists high in the air as if ready the strike at the vehicle window again. Anthony moved away, fearing that this time the biter’s blows might be successful in breaking through. But the sound of a nearby gunshot jolted the biter violently. It slumped forward, bloody teeth clattering against the window before it slid to the ground. Replacing the biter’s hideous image was Monte, gun in hand. He rushed up to the van and pulled on the sliding side-door’s handle. Victoria pushed her kids aside and quickly moved to unlock the door, unsure of whether her husband was being pursued by more biters.
Monte yanked the door open. “Come on, we have to go! Biters are all over the place, and the others are across the street!”
“But Daddy, we’re scared!” cried Rebecca. “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” he put his gun in his coat pocket and reached for her.
She flung herself into her father’s arms and he lifted her out of the car.
“Come on, we have to move, otherwise we’ll be cut off from the others,” he coaxed them as he hefted Rebecca up closer to him. She wrapped her arms and legs around him tightly. “Let’s go, big guy,” Monte smiled at Anthony. “You have to be brave for your dad now.”
Anthony stepped from the van followed by his mother. Victoria held Sarah and Patricia each by a hand.
“Okay, now we have to…”
“Dad!” Anthony cried, pointing behind where his father stood.
Monte whirled to see a biter moving toward them. Its pace was quickening as it approached.
“Shit!” Monte hissed, fumbling for his gun. But his .38 was shoved in his coat pocket, its handle caught awkwardly within the pocket fabric. Holding Rebecca was making it even harder for him to extract his weapon. He tried to let his daughter slip from his arms so he could move easier, but she was clinging to him a like a baby monkey, refusing the release her father from her grasp.
“Monte? Monte!” Victoria urged as the biter approached. She could hear it snarli
ng and the click-clacking sound of its teeth as they chattered in anticipation of finding their way into the temptingly fleshy treats before it.
“I know! I know!” Monte said, finally freeing his .38. But just as he began to raise it to fire, the biter hit him hard in the side. The blow knocked him off balance and caused him to fall awkwardly. Holding Rebecca with one hand and his gun with the other, he had no way to brace himself. Monte landed on his back so that Rebecca landed against his chest rather than the ground. His head knocked back hard against the gravel-laden access road, and he heard Victoria scream as the biter toppled over them.
A million things shot through Monte’s mind. Had he been bitten? Had Rebecca been bitten? Was Victoria okay with the other kids? Were more biters on the way? Could he shoot the biter that was now pinning him to the ground? Was this how he would die? Was this how his family would die?
Chapter 6
Wendell watched with interest the melee unfolding in their condo complex’s parking lot. He snorted and shook his head disapprovingly as he commented to himself on the action. “Idiots,” he muttered as he watched several men get out of their parked vehicles and begin shooting at the growing group of biters massing in the streets below. “Gunfire’s only going to draw more of them. Good,” he nodded to himself. Maybe it would draw the biters in their building out onto the streets. “Go have a midnight snack,” he smirked, hoping their hallway would be biter-free by morning. Maybe it would be if the biters became fixated on this group of people who had foolishly fumbled their way into the fray below.
Wendell watched as the group shot several biters in the street. It appeared as though the people were trying to make it to a mini-van that sat smashed and smoking against a tree where biters were infiltrating it, pulling the occupants from inside and chowing down on them.
The Last Bastion [Book 2] Page 4
