“Fuck!” she roared as she moved away from the vehicle on the roadway.
She ran around to the rear of the SUV and flipped up the tailgate to make room for the injured men. Once she had done so, she hesitated there on the tarmac, watching the slow motion chase. She looked from the sea of undead to the four men just ahead of the crowd, and wondered if they would make it to the Yukon before the wave of undead swept over them. Her heart sank seeing Will's limping gait as he tried to help bear some of the injured man's weight. Before she could consider the numerous reasons not to, she took off running towards them.
As she neared the group at the base of the gentle rise, the stench of the wave of encroaching undead hit her as if it were palpable. She threw her arm around the man Will was helping, seeing the sweat pour freely down from his face and knowing that he was having a harder time with his injured knee. Together, they were able to drag the wounded men the last two hundred yards and load them in the back of the Yukon. Tim circled around to the driver's door and hopped in, trying to twist the ignition with no key in it. He started rifling through his pockets for the keys as Jen and Will slid in the rear passenger side door. The wave of undead crushed into the side of the SUV, slamming the door shut behind them. In the span of a few seconds, the wave of undead surged around them, completely encircling the vehicle.
As hundreds of hands started slamming into the glass around them, all seven of them slid to the floor of the vehicle and crowded together away from the windows. The sea of undead flowed around the SUV like a rock in a river. The heavy Yukon rocked and heaved as the crowd pressed in, the weight of their bodies easily crumpling the makeshift bumper that Tim had welded into place. The bumper was intended to keep a few bodies at bay; it stood no chance against the press of the combined weight of hundreds. Windows shattered one by one, sending chunky pieces of glass across the contents of the vehicle. Hands reached in through the bars, clawing and grabbing at them. Tim, laying on top of Laura and Luna gathered Sophie towards him. It was only when he met eyes with Laura and tried to speak that he realized that he was screaming. His friend's daughter slid closer and he covered his entire family with his body. He had to force himself to stop screaming. Once he quieted his own screams, he realized that all about him on the cramped floor of the Yukon, that they were all screaming. The Yukon heaved to and fro in the ocean of bodies.
“Can we drive out?” Will screamed to be heard above the din.
Tim reached for the ignition and remembered that the key was missing. He grabbed at his pockets in desperation, turning them inside out on the floor below the steering wheel.
“On the seat!” Laura yelled, seeing his desperate search end fruitlessly.
He flailed his hand about on the seat behind him, earning a deep slice from a chunk of safety glass as he scooped the keys and yanked his hand away from many hungry hands of the undead. He thrust the key into the ignition and cranked it in one movement. The engine roared to life. From where he lay on the floor, he yanked the shifter downwards. He grabbed the bottom of the steering wheel with his left hand and slammed on the gas pedal with his right. The Yukon lurched forwards a couple feet before having its progress halted by the combined weight of the mass of bodies.
“Fuck!” he roared as he let off the accelerator and swung himself up into the seat, earning an assortment of nicks and cuts by planting his palm on the glass-strewn floor.
Multiple hands reached in from the side, grasping at his face as he threw the SUV into reverse and slammed the accelerator. He started rocking the vehicle back and forth, the same way he did whenever the car got stuck in the snow or mud. The effort had some unintended consequences, as some of the bodies the SUV tossed about were being crushed beneath the tires. Their liquefying remains coated the roadway. Within the span of a minute, the tires were spinning, unable to find much traction on the blood and gore coated road.
As the efforts of rocking the vehicle proved less and less effective, the mass of bodies pressed in anew. One of the undead hooked a finger in Tim's mouth and painfully yanked at his cheek. He quickly slapped the hand away, but not before the finger had deposited a horrid flavor in his mouth. He tried for a few moments more, but the vehicle couldn't gain traction to push through the horde and he began to worry that his efforts might cause the engine to seize. Finally, he rammed the transmission into park and turned the motor off before sliding from the seat, back onto the floor. The wretched taste in his mouth made him think horrible thoughts of fly infested rotting meat and post-mortem rectal digging. The thoughts and the flavor had him spitting and retching for nearly ten minutes.
They spent the night huddled on the floor, crying and shaking free the clutching hands of the undead. Every time one of them tried to talk in order to plan an escape from their predicament, the sounds of their voices riled the undead outside, increasing the volume of the moaning and clawing of the multitude. After a second attempt at talking, they remained quiet, choosing instead to shield the children from the grasping hands and did their best to remain silent. All of them spent a good part of the night cursing their decision to leave the farmhouse.
*
The first undead attack at Jack's cabin came just three days after Mark walked in on the argument in the kitchen. A family of five had come in from Canyon City. They arrived well after dark, the sounds of voices and the dim glow of campfires guided them through the forest the last few hundred feet to the plateau. Their gas-guzzling Suburban had run out of fuel just outside of Mitchell and they'd come the remaining twenty miles on foot. Unbeknownst to them, trailing behind them was three dozen of the infected. Shortly after the family made their initial introductions and started setting up camp, the group of undead came into the clearing. The undead funneled out from the woods, surprising everyone. By the time people knew what was happening and got their weapons at the ready to respond, twelve of the survivors were killed or infected. Three others were killed and half a dozen wounded when a handful of panicked survivors opened fire. The ensuing hail of gunfire mowed through the dead and living alike.
The previously upbeat, almost festive mood of the gathered survivors was gone in a heartbeat. They had a lengthy meeting the next day, both to figure out what to do with those who had been infected as well as to create a security force that would run organized patrols. Not everyone understood that a bite was fatal and the victim would reanimate, but the few who did were vocal enough and scared enough to frighten the others. In the end, they decided to move the infected to a pump house a couple of miles down the firebreak. They assigned a handful of people to keep guard at the pump house. They figured that the guard would be a comfort and protect the wounded. The guard also was tasked with another duty, ensuring that if the zombie talk proved true there would be someone present and prepared to put down any who turned. Even though the idea seemed preposterous to some, none wanted to risk the lives of anyone else. After the night of that first attack and henceforth, campfires burned long into the night to combat the suddenly very real fears of attack.
Amber refused to leave the bedroom for any reason but to use the toilet for a few days after that attack, even though she was safely in the confines of the cabin and didn't see anything. The screams of terror and agony along with the gunfire were enough to send her into panic induced isolation. Mark even had to bring her meals up to the bedroom. Not that he had any inclination to leave the bedroom himself, but Jack had assigned chores to him so he could 'earn his keep'. There was nothing more he would like to do than stay in the bedroom with Amber and watch the world move by from the safety of the second story windows, but Jack had him taking shifts, guarding the solar array and the Bronco, both of which could only be seen from the living room windows. He was given a two-way radio, its pair stayed in Jack's possession and Mark was required to keep it charged and on his person at all times.
By the time another week had passed, the number of refugees occupying the land swelled to seventy-seven. Even after Jack had stopped extending invitations to survivor
s over the radio, families continued coming in, much to the dismay of Esme. With that many people gathered about the small meadow, she was extremely concerned about noise. The infected began attacking more frequently, wandering in from the woods every couple of days. Sometimes it was only a solitary infected, on other occasions a handful of them would stagger out of the forest and surprise someone. The militia was mostly made up of the young and able bodied and were fast to respond. They managed to keep things relatively safe and casualties to a minimum. By the time the blustery fall winds fell away into the heavy winter snows, the steady trickle of survivors petered out and stopped altogether. Jack still monitored the shortwave on a daily basis, but stopped engaging in contact for any reason. Rumors of traps, ambushes, robbery, and even cannibalism started coming over the wire.
Gradually, the mood started to grow lighter and lighter. The guard was performing their duty well and with the added vigilance of those living on the outskirts of camp, weeks went by without a fatal incident. Whether it was due to the perpetual movement of the dead, or some other factor, people's hopes that they would freeze in the snow and ice were dashed. Ever onward, the undead came. Some of the men had started construction on a fence, using fallen trees, but the plummeting temperatures, the lack of willing help and people engaging in other activities meant that construction was exceedingly slow. One of the men had pieced together a still and was brewing moonshine to keep the chill of winter at bay. Between the cold, the sour mash moonshine, and the ever-present marijuana, which had been legalized some years previous, productivity was excruciatingly low.
Word from the outside grew sparser and sparser as the winter dragged on. Jack assumed that most had lost electricity, and with it the ability to power their shortwaves, but Mark worried that the simpler explanation was more likely, that there was no one left to man the radios.
“When the snows thaw we'll send out a team to Mitchell and find out what's what,” Jack constantly reassured anyone who expressed concern.
After the initial stress and terror of the situation wore off, Mark and Amber began to grow increasingly close over the winter. They bonded on the basis that they were the only city-dwellers alive as far as they knew and talked endlessly about museums, art, music and the theater. They kept up the guise of being married, Mark insisted on that. There were many single men of all ages and very few unattached women of legal age. He was afraid that some of the men wouldn't respect the bounds of their relationship otherwise, potentially putting Amber in some uncomfortable, if not dangerous situations.
Jack, Esme and the two of them had ironed out their escape pact. They agreed that if things went south or looked like they were headed that way, the four of them and the two kids would head out in the Tesla. That was part of the reason for the two-way radios. With the way things were progressing in the camp above, Mark worried that their pact would need to be honored before the snow melted. As someone who actively avoided conflict for most of his life, Mark was growing increasingly worried about the potential for violence at the camp. These fears were compounded once moonshine started being bartered off. What had begun as a grim band of survivors huddled together to stay alive was beginning to take on a carnival-like atmosphere. Gambling, drinking, and drugs were becoming the official pastimes of the camp and the sounds of revelry could often be heard well past the agreed-upon curfew.
As supplies began to thin towards the end of winter, Jack began bartering electricity from the solar panels and windmill for all manner of provisions. They had made solid preparations to escape if they needed to. They stocked the Tesla with food, camping supplies, ammunition and finally, they recharged the Tesla batteries from the solar grid. They also added a pair of solar panels and five fully charged solar batteries with which Mark was able to fashion a trickle charge system. If it worked, the system would charge the Tesla batteries over the course of 12-24 hours, depending on the amount of sun available. Mark hoped it would work, if it did, it would effectively double the range of the vehicle. If they could get the solar array set up to refuel the solar cells, they had the potential to run the car forever.
*
When dawn's light finally came and illuminated their faces, they all wore the same soul-drained looks of grim resignation. Luna's tears and tantrums through the night assured that the undead wouldn't move on. Tim and Laura looked helplessly at one another as the toddler wailed, with panic in their hearts. She was inconsolable. There were only a few times in her short years that she had cried like this, and none since she turned two. Laura did her best to try and comfort her, but nothing seemed to work. More often than not, her efforts seemed to further distress the little girl.
“I think she has a fever,” Laura barked up to Tim, having to lift her voice over the din the undead outside were making.
“Fuck!” was all he could muster up in response.
The hours crept by slowly and true desperation started to set in late in the afternoon. They had no medication for the girl. Luna had only had one minor cold in her first year, other than that, she had never been sick. What was perhaps more stressful than the crying toddler, were the murderous looks coming from the others in the ruined SUV. They wouldn't be able to address the fever without looting a store, and they couldn't move the vehicle while it was pinned in by the undead.
Sometime late in the evening, well after dark, and many hours after the last of their patience was spent, Luna finally drifted to a fitful sleep. Laura pressed the little girl's face against her chest, providing some warmth on the chilly night as well as the comfort of skin to skin contact. They all slept fitfully, constantly waking to the sound and feel of hands heavily banging on the Yukon or tugging at their clothing when they could find purchase. All of the racket was accompanied by the combined moans of hundreds of undead as well as the heavy rocking of the vehicle as the undead heaved and tossed around it.
The sound of the motor revving cut through the din and woke Tim, alerting him that something else was occurring. In the near black of the overcast night it took him a moment of rubbing his eyes and blinking away the sleep to see what was happening. Will was seated in the driver's seat, leaning forward with a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. Tim sat up, giving himself numerous nicks from the safety glass that was everywhere. He threw himself forward into the vacant passenger seat and was nearly launched into the shattered windshield as the SUV lurched and heaved over something. He grasped the seat belt, ripping it out and around him before thrusting it home. It was only then that his bleary mind was able to recognize that the SUV was moving.
“What the fuck?” he blurted out to Will.
The front windshield was shattered and heavily spider-webbed, Will's face was set and determined as he squinted, almost willing himself to see through it. Hands and faces whipped past the window next to him, a disturbing blur of the hungry dead as Tim tried to process what was happening.
“What the fuck!” Jen called from behind, her voice filled with surprise and anger.
Laura and the rest joined in the complaints and grumbling a moment later as the heavy vehicle careened on the edge of control, plowing its way through the mob of undead.
“We are moving, that's what's happening,” Will barked through gritted teeth.
Within a few moments the bodies stopped banging off the sides of the truck and only intermittently off the reinforced front bumper. Will eased the truck into a less frenetic pace and hazarded a glance out, poking his head out the driver's side window for a clearer view of the land ahead. The chill pre-dawn air felt wonderfully refreshing on his face after thirty straight hours of breathing in the horrid stench of rot and filth that the undead always carried with them. With the wind in his face, Will's tired mind drifted back to his teenage years and the freedom that earning his driver's license had given him. The feel of that breeze on his face was forever tied to that feeling for him. Only the sound of Luna's fevered wailing snapped his mind back to the present. The single remaining headlamp cast a hazy amber glow on the r
oadway ahead, barely providing enough light to navigate in the dark.
They were in the clear. All of them huddled under blankets and stared blankly out through the shattered and broken out windows. The excitement of being clear assured their wakefulness but aside from Will, they were all lost in their own exhausted thoughts as they watched the shapes form out of the darkness. The forms were briefly illuminated by the headlight before melding back into the gloom. Tim and Jen, the most experienced of the group with being out in the undead filled world, exchanged numerous glances, as if daring the other to speak what was on both of their minds. Neither gave voice to it, but both wondered if they should just pack it in and return to the house in Benoit.
Laura only worried for Luna as the vehicle careened down the dark roadway, she held her close, quietly shushing the little girl whose eyelids fluttered in the midst of a fever-dream. Christine and Sophie clung to one another like sisters, in fact, the two had begun to seem as such over the winter. A week earlier Sophie had even asked Laura to give her the same haircut as the teenager. The sound and feel of the wind blowing in through all the broken windows was the only sensation any of them could absorb in their bleary exhaustion.
An earsplitting scream from the rear of the SUV startled them all back into the moment. After a moment of panic at who it could be, Jen remembered the soldiers. In the chaos and exhaustion, no one had the ability or desire to communicate with them. Their focus was single-minded in keeping each other and the children safe. Now, one of the soldiers was screaming in agony in the luggage compartment, accompanied by the sounds of a scuffle. Jen thrust her hand into her backpack and produced her flashlight. She whipped around in her seat to see the two soldiers struggling on the floor of the rear compartment. As her eyes adjusted to the glare of the high lumen torch, she could see that the one soldier was biting his comrade on his chest, near his armpit.
Harvest of Ruin (Book 3): A Spring of Sorrow Page 7
