Zombies! (Book 6): Hold The Line

by Merritt, R. S.

  “Don’t confirm to command or anyone else that we arrived here. We don’t want to make this base a target. I’ll take you up on the office offer. You’re right. I need somewhere to read and absorb this. If you can see to it my men out in the hallway are given accommodations and fed that’d be much appreciated.”

  Forrest acknowledged the orders and led Krantz across the hall to get him setup in his office. Forrest left Krantz alone with the paperwork after promising to have snacks and coffee sent up immediately. Krantz reclined in the big leather chair and stared at the ceiling. What the hell were they doing starting a war in the middle of all this other crap?

  Chapter 22: The Silent Ones

  Feeling a bit gun shy about staying in a house after what’d happened the previous night, they’d driven into the middle of a corn field before the sun came up. They’d spent most of the night before trying to find a new vehicle since the one they’d been driving was missing important parts like the bumper and the windshield. It was also making funny noises whenever they tried to go faster than twenty miles per hour. They’d finally found a crossover minivan looking car with the Chevy logo pasted on the chrome grill. The car was parked in the driveway of a nice-looking house off the main street of downtown BFE.

  The owner of the vehicle had been kind enough to die several feet from the front door. That was fortunate as it made finding the car keys pretty easy. They were stuck in the skeletal grip of the half-eaten mummified fake blond lying in the middle of what had probably been a nicely manicured lawn at one time. Randy had pried them out of the cadaver’s grasp with a nonchalance that would’ve horrified anyone a few years prior. Now it was fairly commonplace to pick the pockets of the dead to find the things you needed to survive.

  The vehicle was a push start with an electronic key. Damned if the thing hadn’t started right up when Randy pressed the start button. They’d driven out in leather covered seats with the air conditioning blasting cool air at them. The kids had been thrilled to see the little displays mounted in the back of the drivers seats were meant for playing DVDs. A quick hunt through the pockets on the back of the car seat turned up some Disney classics. After being crushed in the little sedan death trap they’d been driving they were loving the luxury of the not quite a minivan they’d found.

  They spent the day in the cornfield with the kids taking turns wearing headsets to watch the movies on DVD. The stalks were easily high enough to hide them from anyone looking out from the road. They had plenty of gas in the cannisters shoved in the small storage area in the back. They had the snacks they’d taken from the last house they’d been in. All in all, it was a pretty good day. They took shifts napping in the comfort of the roomy seven-seater car. Things didn’t start to get weird until the sun started going down.

  Randy was wondering if he could hook up an iPod or something to the front console to play music when Kelly punched him in the arm to get his attention. Considering it was the arm that’d taken a blast of buckshot not too long ago the strike got his full attention immediately. He looked over at Kelly to see what was so important. He was also queuing up a snide comment or two about her bedside manner. One look at her face and he immediately forgot about the pain in his shoulder. She was completely freaked out.

  He followed her gaze out the front window and didn’t see anything at first. When he did, he pulled his pistol as fast as he could and got ready to jump out of the car. He was wondering where he’d put his machete. They may want to take it down quietly if they weren’t planning on leaving right away. Kelly grabbed his wounded arm again and shook her head.

  “It’s not moving.” She said.

  “Easier to kill.” Randy whispered back. His plan had gone from getting out of the van to just backing up and driving away quickly. No muss no fuss. They could be on the road again in a matter of minutes.

  “Why isn’t it screaming and trying to attack us?” Kelly asked. She was freaked out but also curious as hell. Randy bit back a response about what curiosity did to cats.

  “Should we ask it? Or maybe just drive away and be happy it isn’t one of the screaming kill people kind of Zombies?” Randy whispered back sarcastically. He didn’t think they really needed to try and figure out why this Zombie was acting weird. It was a Zombie. They all acted weird. Probably because of the insanity and the cannibalism and all that. Maybe it’d just eaten somebody and just wasn’t hungry at the moment. He moved his finger towards the start button to get them moving.

  “Hold on a sec.” Kyler whispered touching his shoulder. “I’ve seen them doing something like this before.”

  “So what? We’re not on a Zombie safari. We need to get out of here before this one figures out it’s missing its cue.” Randy said wondering why his wife and Kyler had both suddenly decided they wanted to study Zombie behavior.

  “What happened with the ones you saw before?” Kelly asked quietly. She was still staring straight ahead at the tall Zombie standing in the weeds that’d locked eyes with her. The Zombie was a freakishly tall white woman. She could’ve been a WNBA star with the kind of height she had. How a human tower like that had snuck up on them was beyond Randy.

  “There were about seven of them acting like this. We shot them all with arrows until they were dead. They never really moved or did anything. They just stood there staring up at where they knew we were while a guy we had on the roof kept plugging them with arrows.” Kyler said remembering the creepy stares of the Zombies who’d stood outside the outpost back in Georgia.

  “Excellent. I love stories with happy endings. Do we want to kill the jolly Zombie giant over there or just drive away before she makes her move?” Randy asked. Those were the only two options he was good with and if someone didn’t say something soon, he’d already decided to go with driving away. Running away should always be considered the first option in his opinion.

  “Mommy!” The shout from the seat behind them came from Zoey who was ripping off her headsets and trying to get as far away for her window as possible. She probably hadn’t even realized she’d yelled so loud with the headsets on.

  Directly outside Zoey’s window a boy was standing still in the corn stalks staring at the van. The boy was wearing a pair of jeans that were barely clinging to his emaciated waist. His long dark hair hung over most of his sore covered face. Blood ran down one side of his face where some of the sores had opened up. He wasn’t wearing shoes and the shirt he was wearing had been ripped and stained to the point it was impossible to tell what it’d looked like originally.

  Zoey’s shriek had made the tall Zombie in front of them come out from behind the stalks and move closer to the front door. Myriah’s whisper that there was another one behind them pretty much decided it for Randy. Not waiting to see what was going to happen next. Not bothering to ask Kelly or Kyler if they were ok with leaving in the middle of their Zombie research. Randy went ahead and started the engine while looking around wildly to see what the eerily quiet Zombies were up to. He drove out of the field slowly with the three Zombies maintaining eye contact but not doing any of the normal things Zombies would do. The Zombies just stood there staring at them until they disappeared from sight.

  “What the hell was that?” Randy asked after they’d gotten the van to climb up the steep hill to get back on the road.

  “Don’t know because you left too soon.” Kelly said in a huff.

  “Are you really pissed that I drove us out of there? Away from the creepy ass children of the corn night of the living dead crossover episode?” Randy asked in exasperation. Neither Kelly nor Kyler had anything to say to that, so they drove in silence for a bit.

  They were headed north on highway 29. The road was covered in debris in some places but out here in the middle of nowhere it was still drivable. They’d confirmed looking at the map earlier that day they just had one town and a river to get past before they’d be in North Carolina. With the jets they’d seen overhead and the overly active Zombies everywhere they weren’t really sure what to expe
ct once they hit the border anymore. For now, the goal of putting South Carolina in their rear view was enough for them.

  Kyler was telling them that as soon as they found one of the roving patrols, he could get them connected with the senior leadership of the North Carolina forces. Those were supposedly the guys who could get Randy and his family onboard an aircraft carrier bound for somewhere safe. Randy and Kelly weren’t really buying it. It’d sounded like a nice story back when Kyler had first told them about it but now, they just kind of looked at him like he was delusional every time he mentioned it.

  For his part Kyler was excited to be getting back. He wanted to rejoin the team that was trying to do good work. The side trying to help everyone come out of this nightmare and restore everything back to a semblance of normality. There’d been no normality in the south. People were being purposefully hooked on drugs so the leadership could control them. Families were ripped apart so that the Senator could have absolute control over the troops. That’d been working for the south up until now, but Kyler really hoped the Senator was about to find out he’d stirred up a hornets nest by trying to make a move on North Carolina.

  The city of Gaffney flew by in the early evening hours with no issue. A few Zombies were still out and about. They chased the van for a few blocks before fading away into the darkness. The chief fear of the passengers in the van being that they’d come across a roadblock of some sort and have to deal with the Zombies chasing them before they could backtrack. The roads remained open through the city though allowing them to keep moving quickly towards North Carolina. Everything was great until they got to the river.

  The bridge was missing a big section in the middle of it. If they’d been travelling a little later at night or had the headlights turned off to be sneaky, they’d have more than likely driven right into the river. As it was, they put the van in reverse and went backwards very slowly since they didn’t know how much damage the part of the bridge that they were on may have sustained. They honestly hadn’t even realized they were on a bridge until the road in front of the headlights had looked funny. Luckily that strange looking patch of road had made Randy slow way down to take a closer look.

  “There’s another bridge north of here.” Kelly said with the dome light on and the map spread out in front of here. She was busy tracing her finger back in the direction they’d come from.

  “How far back? Is there anything the other way?” Randy asked as he continued backing off the bridge. This was a setback they desperately didn’t need. Depending on how far they had to backtrack they could start running into the more persistent Zombies who may still be jogging down the road in the hopes of catching up to them. That was always the fear when driving down these roads in the middle of nowhere with no turnoffs anywhere. If you ran into something like a washed-out bridge or a tree across the road and had to turn back, you ran the risk of running into that string of infected following along in your wake.

  “Nothing the other way. It was that last road we just passed so not too far back.” Kelly answered. She looked in the seat behind them where Zoey was asleep with the headsets on. She’d been watching Bambi for the fifth time. In the other seat with a DVD player Doreen had passed out while watching Hercules. Ali was the only one who looked like she was still awake. She was politely waiting for someone to tell her it was her turn to watch a movie. Kelly signaled Myriah to get the headsets off Doreen and pass them along to Ali.

  Looking back again she saw that Kyler was checking out the back window for Zombies as they backed up and got ready to backtrack. Caitlyn was asleep with her head resting on Kyler’s shoulder. Kelly smiled seeing that he was being careful not too lean too far forward or do anything that’d disturb her. That young man was so worldly and smart in most ways, but he was completely oblivious to the puppy dog eyes Caitlyn kept throwing at him. Someone probably needed to explain to him that the scars added to his charm. He seemed to think they made him Phantom of the Opera hideous.

  “Why are you smiling?” Randy asked.

  “Because we’re alive and well and have this sporty new van to drive around in. We’re also like ten minutes from being in the state that’s going to kick the Brotherhoods ass if they’re stupid enough to keep trying to invade it.” Kelly leaned a little closer so only Randy could hear her. “Plus, we’ve got a cute little PG rated romance going on in the back seat.”

  “I’m good never hearing you talk about our children, romance and the backseat of a car ever again.” Randy jokingly whispered back. They turned around and headed for the other road once they’d gotten off the bridge. Hopefully they could get there without any major issues.

  A single Zombie loped down the road towards them. Revealed by the headlights the pale creature doubled its speed and started screeching as soon as it saw them. Randy slowed down and let it run up beside them. It smacked his window a couple of times before they managed to drive away from it. Another Zombie was headed their way as well, but the turnoff saved Randy from having to deal with that one.

  A quick drive up that road brought them to an intersection with a smaller road. Kelly stared at the map then the street sign before signaling for Randy to turn right. A quick trip brought them to another unusable bridge.

  “To the interstate it is.” Kelly said directing Randy to head backwards to the next crossroads. Once there they turned right and drove until they hit the onramp for I-85 while dodging the occasional Zombie. Randy drove up the onramp then tapped the accelerator to speed up and drive right down the other side.

  “Interstates going to be a no babe.” Randy announced. It was fairly rhetorical statement since they’d all seen the mass quantity of Zombies on the interstate. It was a solid bet that if they drove to the river that bridge had been bombed out too. Screeches rose up all around them as the infected who’d already descended to hide under the interstate and nest popped up at the sound of the van passing by.

  “We have to get across that river.” Kyler said from the backseat.

  “Our last chance for a while is coming up on this next road.” Kelly said staring at the map. “If this bridge isn’t there, we need to start looking for a boat.”

  They drove until they hit a row of cars that’d been pushed across the road. Someone had nailed stop signs to them. They sat in the car with the lights turned on looking at the row of cars wondering what to do next. Kyler volunteered to go check it out, but Randy superseded him saying he’d go do it since it was going to require climbing up on the top of their van. Kyler acquiesced realizing that even though his leg was way better than it’d been a week ago the more he let it heal the closer it’d end up to being back to a hundred percent. He needed his leg to be as close to normal as possible. Half of surviving the apocalypse was being able to run away from danger. You didn’t want to be the gazelle with the broken leg when the lions came around.

  Randy got out of the driver’s seat and Kelly swung around to take his spot. He climbed to the top of the van to take a look around. He’d brought his flashlight with him, but the moon turned out to be bright enough that he didn’t need it. Someone had arranged the cars leading up to the bridge into a maze. That same group of people had also installed fencing in an effort to keep people away from the bridge. Whether it was just to keep out the infected or regular humans as well was something they’d need to figure out.

  The sound of an engine approaching from behind them caught Randy’s attention and he turned around to see what was going on. A pair of headlights were coming up the road behind them. Randy slid down the windshield onto the hood then jumped to the ground below. There was nowhere for them to go but across the bridge.

  “Everybody out!” He ordered.

  Kelly looked like she was going to argue but seeing the headlights behind them she hopped out of the van without a single word. She threw open the back door to get her stuff and gather the kids together. By the time they had the kids out with all of their stuff together the headlights were pretty much on top of them. Considering their
ammunition limitations Randy wasn’t sure on what they should do.

  “Go!” Kyler yelled at them. He had an ancient shotgun in his hands. It was the one Kelly remembered snagging out of a house recently. He’d only have a few shots. No one moved. Everyone stared at Kyler standing there holding the relic. Then it was too late. The headlights turned out to belong to an oversized pickup truck. The truck stopped about twenty feet away from them. Kyler, Randy, Caitlyn and Kelly all got into firing position with weapons aimed at the truck. Myriah got all the littles behind one of the cars being used as a roadblock.

  The two front doors of the pickup truck swung open at the same time. Kelly heard Randy chamber a round. She shifted herself around to make sure she had a clean shot.

  Chapter 23: Friends in Low Places

  “You guys guarding this bridge?” A large man with bulging biceps wearing a tight t-shirt asked. He’d gotten out of the truck and was standing with his hands held lazily in the air. He had a belt around his waist with a holstered revolver shoved into it. An athletic looking white-haired fiftyish year-old woman hopped down from the driver’s side of the big truck. She was armed as well but like her companion she wasn’t pointing any weapons at them.