No Room In Hell (Book 2): 400 Miles To Graceland

by William Schlichter

  Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, incenses them to send destruction.”

  “You speak the speech,” Becky says. “Shakespeare?”

  Ethan continues, “I met a lion, who glared upon me, and went surly by, Without annoying me: and there were drawn upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.”

  “Were you an actor?” She calculates only a stage actor would quote Shakespeare.

  “Because I know lines from Julius Caesar. You should’ve paid more attention to the words.” Ethan marches to the king of beasts.

  Becky keeps her finger near the trigger of her weapon. “How did you know an earthquake was about to happen?”

  “I sure didn’t when this lion charged us.” He guts the creature. “She wasn’t attacking she was fleeing. And we were in her way.”

  “But you knew. You got us away from all these trees. If they had fallen—”

  “I grew up here. Not far south enough to detect the New Madrid fault all the time. But when we did it was like a big truck speeding too close to the house. Shook the dust off some light fixtures. What I’ve seen is horses dart across the field nearly leaping the fences to get away from the rumble that followed.” He slices the hind quarters of the lioness. Not sure the proper technique to skin a lion, he treats it much like he would a deer.

  “You’re still going to eat that lion?”

  “Yes. It would bother me to waste the carcass completely. It will stretch our food out for a meal and I’ve a feeling it’s going to be harder to scrounge for supplies. I don’t know the magnitude, but as strong as it felt, it leveled building and damaged gas lines setting the countryside aflame.

  “How do you stay so calm?”

  “Panic gets us nowhere.” He drops chunks of red meat strips into a gallon Ziploc baggie. “Since we don’t have a cooler we should find someplace to cook this soon. How much do you think you can eat?”

  “I don’t know that I can.”

  Ethan cracks a handful of twigs, sprinkling the pieces in the barbeque grill of the roadside park.

  Chad carries a bundle of wood wrapped in plastic. “The roadside bait-shop has some campfire wood for sale. This was the least rotten.” He drops it next to the grill. He removes a plastic bag dangling from his belt. “I thought this might serve.”

  “Hickory chips?”

  “For the smoke flavor.” Chad smiles.

  “Anything useful in the building?” Ethan arranges the twigs.

  “It had twisted off its foundation like a mashed cardboard box.”

  “Without any aftershocks, yet, I don’t know how were going to sleep. I’ve a constant buzz every time I stand still. Thought I was going to fall over when I pissed,” Ethan adds.

  “I didn’t go too far into the building,” Chad admits.

  “Science says there will be days of aftershocks. There has to be with a quake so large.” He sprinkles some silver metal flakes from a baggie onto the pyramid of twigs. Ethan lights a match and the magnesium shaving flash and fire consumes the twigs. “We’re going to have to be careful of every house and building we go into from now on.”

  “Do you think Acheron felt it?”

  Ethan peels the bark from some larger twigs so the wood fibers catch fire easier. After he places a piece of the campfire wood on the flames, he takes out his map from inside his vest. “I’ve been trying not to, but yeah. They should inspect the fence and watch the power plant. All they can do.”

  “I’m ready to go on.” Becky emerges from the trees. Calmer. She seals a toilet paper roll into a plastic baggie shoving into her pack. She spritzes hand sanitizer onto her fingers and rubs it in. “I vote we go back.”

  “I vote it’s time for a boat ride,” Chad says. He picks up the baggie containing the lion meat. Had he not known what it was, he doubts he would know the difference from beef.

  Ethan skewers some meat cubes onto a sharpened stick. “It’d take a week or longer to go back—a lot longer if certain bridges are damaged. If they haven’t got the camp secure by then we’ll be of no help.”

  “But they are our family,” Becky says.

  “You want to explain to Major Ellsberg how we were miles from his brother and turned around?” Ethan examines the blacking meat before biting into a cube and pulling it his mouth.

  Chad waits for Ethan to completely masticate. “How does it taste?”

  “Like chewy pork.” Ethan slips another cube onto the stick. “Now this is total guess work, but if you follow the main interstate you cut right above New Madrid. The town’s located on the fault line we felt. Damage will be the worst there.”

  “We already avoid populated areas,” Becky says. “Why go there?

  “Noise attacks them. I wonder if the epicenter of the quake will?” Ethan ponders.

  “You want us to march into a town where the undead will gather into an army. No fuck’n way.” Chad slams the meat bag down.

  “Easily distracted or not they have a herd mentality. If a large enough group moves toward the epicenter, a few stragglers who watch a building fall over won’t matter.” Ethan slides another piece of wood on the fire.

  “The earthquake could draw the largest herd ever seen together,” Chad says.

  “And we’re heading right for it.”

  NICK PARKS SIMON’S Jeep before the barn fully converted into a functioning stable. Someone in their wisdom made a fancy sign above the door: The Bridle Suite. He wonders how many will get the pun.

  Spotting Hannah brushing her mount after the day’s ride, he creeps into the barn, inching close to her without announcing his entrance.

  He gets right behind her and tickles her right above her hips. She startles slapping him across the cheek with the brush.

  “You’re lucky I don’t have a gun.”

  “Sorry.” Nick massages the red spot.

  Hannah rubs her horse’s neck to calm her after the shriek startled the normally calm creature. “I don’t know if sneaking up on people anymore is such a good idea. Had I a knife you’d have an extra orifice.”

  “I missed you.” He leans in, placing his lips on hers, reaching around and claiming a hand on her butt cheek—squeezing.

  She pushes him away. “First, find a mint. Second, my ass is sore from riding all day,”

  “Then maybe you need someone to massage it.” He flashes her a conjugal smile.

  “After you find a mint.” She hugs him. “I’ve missed you.”

  He caresses the top of her left shoulder. It melts her against him.

  “Did you have a good day?” he asks, focusing his attention away from the tingle growing in his pants.

  “I think I rode half of Acheron today. Did you know they are constructing a cave—shelter. I guess.”

  “No.” He reaches down, careful with his touch, sliding his hands along her thighs picking her into the air by them. He carries her into a stall, his lips on her neck. She manipulates her fingers through his dark hair.

  He kisses down her neck to the cleft of her knit jersey top. He kneels, placing her on the ground as gently as possible while keeping his balance. He doesn’t stop stimulating her. Giving her a second to protest and she might have him stop. The last thing he wants to do. Once she is safely on the ground his hands move up her body. One on top of her cupping a breast while the other fishes under the shirt then a bra cup. No matter how soft her skin the tender breast is even softer. He finds himself at full salute as he pushes up the top to find two budding breasts with pink nipples. He got this far once before.

  She relented.

  He respected her.

  His mouth clamps on the tiny nipple.

  Hooves smash and kick at the stall. Other horses clomp and stamp around whinnying to escape confinement. Some even throw themselves against the north walls.

  “What did you do?” Hannah pushes him off her, jumping to her feet. She pulls her shirt down, forgoing adjusting the bra. Before sh
e reaches the stall door, the building rattles, spiraling her into Nick. They collapse to the straw-covered floor with her on top of him.

  “Fuck me,” he says as they cease quivering. “That’s going to wake the neighbors.”

  “If the dam cracks we’ll lose our electricity.” She rolls off him.

  “I’d be more worried about a split in the fence. Biters get in we’re fucked.”

  “Check the horses. Make sure none are hurt. Oh, and stay calm,” she says more of a command to herself than to him.

  Nick jogs from the barn.

  “Hey, I said—”

  He snags something from the Jeep. “I’m the official camp gofer. Shit job, but they give me a radio.” He clicks the mic on. “Wanikiya, Nick reporting in from the stables.”

  “Put the horses in the outer pen and get to the sally port. Once everyone accounted for we’ll secure the fence line.”

  “The horses are nervous as fuck.”

  “We all are, kid.” Wanikiya cuts out.

  Hannah leads her mount from the barn. “Move, soldier. I doubt we’ll be able to hold onto these nervous nellies when an aftershock hits.”

  Nick grabs a lead rope from a wall rack not wanting the girl he loves to be more of a man than him.

  GRAYSON GETS OFF the floor of the lookout tower faster than he’s moved before. It doesn’t take having been in an earthquake before to know what put him on his ass. The closest experience was the prison bus flipping over a half dozen times. He cut a deal with the white boy to be let out of the cage and just before a half second ago when the ground moved his job of wrangling undead into cargo containers earning him three squares a day and cot was the best months of his life. Somehow protecting peoplemakes him human.

  He did doubt Ethan would ever let them move inside the fence but with Tony gone earning his place he knew it would happen. He and his three friends continue to gather functioning undead. Ethan has some grand plan for such a large number of secure biters.

  Now in the dozen secured trailers all biters inside in unison thump on the south wall—the same direction as the New Madrid fault. The beating much like a drum line percussion will attract more undead as it progressively gets louder. He’s never seen a biter behave with a brain but as deafening as the thumps are, they are in unison.

  Grayson gets to his feet. Being high in the ranger station fire lookout tower before he inspects the containers, he spots a line of undead moving toward the noise. If they reach his post he’s going to regret Ethan saving him from the overturned prison bus.

  The banging increases.

  The straggling herd shifts toward the hammering.

  Luckily, the cargo trails are too heavy for even the sardine packed undead inside to tip over. Or a few hundred more would add to the growing thousand he spots.

  Grayson yells out the window, “Gather anything important to you and make for the sally port.”

  “You know they ain’t going to let a brother in!” Terry screams back.

  Grayson yells over the pounding, “Then stay here, but there are going to be a more biters than even you can wrangle!”

  BARLOCK SCRATCHES DOWN names on a piece of paper. He has to know who he sends where. “I need each group to patrol the fence line. Any and I mean any chink and you report it.”

  No grumbles. Plenty of nods. Everyone knows what one biter inside means.

  Austin calls from the top of the cargo trailer, “Barlock. Four men on foot are approaching.”

  “Do they appear threatening?”

  Austin avoids the comment about their dark skin. “If I had to guess, they want to qualify of the Olympic track team.”

  “Let them in!” Barlock yells. Fully aware of the arrangement the five ex-prison inmates had with Ethan, their abandonment of their post means only one of two things: The biters they pen escaped or more biters than they could handle are heading to Acheron.

  Barlock clicks his radio. “Wanikiya, I’ve got fence patrols moving out.” He must keep panic from ensuing. Everyone who has access to a radio in the camp will have it on. He chooses his words to mask his own panic. “I need you to inspect the sally port.”

  “On my way to check on Dartagnan, over.” Wanikiya’s voice crackles.

  “Affirmative.” He forgets the radio etiquettes. Barlock holsters the radio to climb the ladder up the cargo trailer.

  The truck doesn’t seem to slow much as it rolls past allowing Wanikiya to leap out as it speeds toward Ethan’s house. The Sioux wastes no time climbing the ladder to join Barlock. “Somehow being up here with impeding aftershocks seems to negate the usefulness of my education.”

  Confused, Austin says, “What?”

  “He said we’re dumb asses for being up here, kid,” Barlock explains.

  “No argument there.”

  Wanikiya immediately recognizes the four men reaching the gate. “Let them in. Keep all search procedures in place.”

  “More problems, Barlock”

  He forgets the skinny girl’s name. She carries a compound bow and is not normally on gate duty. He knows she hunts. “What is it, Katniss?”

  “Like I haven’t heard that joke by everyone still alive.” She scoffs, “I prefer Merida, it matches the strawberry in my hair better.”

  Wanikiya forgoes the banter he participates in when in his kitchen. “Report.”

  “Sanchez’s Humvee.” She points down the road.

  Austin hands his binoculars to Barlock. “None of the tractors or trucks to haul them are behind them. Just the Humvee.”

  Wanikiya rubs the back of his top left central incisor with his tongue. “I don’t think I’d risk loading a tractor in an earthquake. Ain’t like it will get stolen.”

  The outer sally port gate opens. The four men race inside.

  “Where’s Simon?” Grayson hollers.

  “I know who you are,” Barlock instructs. “Remove all gear. Place it in the cubby and strip!”

  “Strip?” Terry questions.

  “They inspect everyone who enters for bites.” Grayson pulls his shirt over his head.

  “Make it quick we’ve got another team coming in hot,” Barlock says.

  “Not all you got coming in. We just outran a throng.” He drops his pants.

  “Throng?” Barlock muses.

  “Bigger than a herd or a hoard,” Wanikiya explains.

  “Fuck me, like every biter in the world is going to ride right down on top of us. The ones in the capture trailers were pounding in unison to escape. When we get inside and redress I need some clean fucking underwear,” Terry panics.

  “Couldn’t we lead them away from the gate? Make more racket than what is drawing them toward us?”

  “Noise,” Wanikiya contemplates. Noise attracts them. “Earthquakes travel in three types of waves.”

  “Fuck, is this where I should have paid more attention in science class?” Austin grumbles.

  Wanikiya continues, “The above ground wave is sound.”

  “Shouldn’t they be heading south toward the fault line in the Boot Heel?” Barlock asks.

  The Humvee reaches the gate. The driver bleats the horn in two quick successions.

  “They are. We’re just in their way.” Wanikiya orders Grayson and his team into the next section of airlocks securing the Humvee behind the fence.

  Sanchez hops out. The other hay cutting crew also exit the cramped vehicle space immediately stripping.

  “Report.”

  “We’re fucked.” Sanchez tears off her top.

  Combeth jumps from the fifty cal. “Fucked without lube.”

  “Don’t worry, these fuckers will kiss you on the neck first.” Sanchez places her weapon on the hood. “I’ve never seen so many biters.”

  “Maybe they’ll go on by,” Merida hopes.

  “Are you good with a rifle, girl?”

  “No so much,” Merida says.

  Wanikiya keeps his cool. “Barlock, I want every sniper at the gate now.”

  “Wish Kelsey wa
s here,” Austin says.

  “Now’s your chance to rack up more kills than her,” Barlock says.

  “We’ll all fill a quota by the time today is done.” Wanikiya continues, “The fence patrols need to keep inspecting and a team to make repairs behind them. The rest of the camp needs to be here and now.”

  “How close do we let them get?” Austin lines his scope crosshairs onto an undead.

  “Close enough no one misses,” Wanikiya says. “Every bullet must count.”

  Behind the fence, Simon unloads rifles from a pickup placing them for easy access on folding tables. Ambulances behind those are now waiting triage stations.

  “So far, no holes discovered in the fence,” Barlock reports, “and the north gate team has had a rise in biter activity, but the dam remains clear.”

  “If we lose the dam, we blow the bridge over the lake and it ends any invasion. But it means no more dam access or electricity.”

  Bam.

  A biter falls.

  “Austin!”

  “I didn’t miss.” He lines up for another shot.

  Keeping the illusion he has control, Wanikiya calls out, “No one else fires unless ordered.”

  A low dull moan much like the clearing of a tuba reed hangs in the air.

  Merida counts to herself. “Fuck me in the ass!” Her lips moving under the binoculars, “Hey, guys. I don’t think we’ve enough bullets.” She points to a second line of biters trailing the first.

  Wanikiya draws in his breath. “These aren’t thinking men, they’re just brainless dolts. Even outnumbered we’ve the advantage.”

  “Yeah, but if we fall now, no one will write great stories about us the way they do the Spartans at Thermopylae or the Texans at Alamo,” Austin says.

  “Couldn’t you pick an example where the outnumbered won?” Merida asks.

  “The grand battle wouldn’t be grand if the underdog won,” Austin attempts to tease her, needing levity to keep from shitting his own pants.