Crawlerz: Book 5: Off the Rails

by R. S. Merritt

  They were both prepared to continue riding until they caught the helicopter or ran out of juice for their electric steeds. It caught them both off guard when the helicopter suddenly dipped down and disappeared from view. Without missing a beat Drew leaned into the curve while decelerating to exit at the next off ramp. At the bottom of the ramp he worked his way through the cross streets in the direction he thought the helicopter had gone in. Harley cruised along behind him anxiously scanning the horizon to make sure they didn’t miss it if the helicopter took off in a different direction.

  The sound of gunfire broke out from up ahead. Some kind of machine gun was tearing stuff up. Drew and Harley ripped back on their throttles to sling themselves down the dangerous streets even faster. Up ahead was a plaza that was mostly taken up by a gigantic Walmart. On the other side of the parking lot from them a chinook was sitting in the parking lot with its rotors still going. Men had deployed from the helicopter into the parking lot. Machine gun fire was coming from the front of the Walmart. Squinting his eyes against the sun Drew could see that the front of the store had been covered with massive steel plates.

  “Well hell. All they have to do is sit in there until it gets dark. They’ve got hostages so we can’t just blow them all to hell.” Harley said to Drew. Drew had slowed to a stop on the access road leading into the Walmart parking lot. Harley had pulled up next to him and braked to a stop. They sat there evaluating the screwed up position they were in.

  “Back door?” Drew asked after a minute of contemplation.

  “Yeah, I don’t think they’re sneaking out past that massive flying beast in the parking lot anytime soon. Let’s go.” Harley answered.

  They swung into the parking lot and immediately shifted their body weight to turn towards the access road to go around to the back of the plaza. Drew had judged they probably wouldn’t be visible from the front of the Walmart so should be safe from the bad guys. He hoped someone had told the guys in the helicopter that him and Harley had taken off with the electric bikes. If the helicopter crew decided to point those big ass guns at them then they’d be hamburger before they had a chance to yell out the secret pass phrase. Not that anyone had thought to come up with a secret pass phrase. Normally just screaming you weren’t infected was good enough.

  They turned the corner and Drew saw something flashing. It took him a second to realize they were being shot at. He turned his bike as fast as he could. They went back around the side of the store to get out of sight of whoever had started shooting at them. Once they were around the corner, they pulled up next to each other again.

  “You get hit?” Harley asked.

  “Nope.” Drew said making a production of patting himself down to make sure.

  They sat on their bikes wondering what to do next. If they drove through the parking lot, the enemy gunner in the front of the store would get them. They’d just experienced what happened when you tried going around the back. They were startled out of their contemplation of the impossible situation by a loud voice yelling for them to stick their hands in the air. Both Drew and Harley instantly hit the throttles on their bikes instead.

  The four men who’d snuck up on them had them dead to rights. Their instincts and training kicked in as soon as the two men on the bikes took off. What they hadn’t counted on was how fast the ridiculously expensive electric bikes could accelerate. All four of the highly trained men missed their targets from less than twenty yards away. They immediately recognized their common screw up. Shifting their weapons to hit the backs of the men rocketing across the parking lot they got ready to end the two men. Before they could pull the trigger a second time both of the men on the bikes went tumbling through the air.

  The two of them and their bikes crashed to a rest in plain sight of the people guarding the back of the Walmart. They would have to be sharpshooters to hit them from this distance. The loading dock area looked like it was well over a football field away from them. That was how Drew tended to measure distance. They may or may not be trained snipers, but bullets started raining down all around them. Not bothering to try and pick up the bikes Harley and Drew put their heads down and ran back towards the cover of the side of the building. A bullet fired by an amateur could kill you just as dead as one fired by a professional.

  They ran right back in the direction of the small group of men standing there still aiming rifles at them. Considering the men hadn’t shot them yet Drew didn’t go for any of his own weapons. He slowed down the all-out sprint once he was out of the view of the shooters in the back of the plaza. He walked forward with his hands partially in the air staring at the group on the side of the plaza. What he saw instantly cheered him up. One of the men had a joker grin tattooed on his face and another one of them had his hair dyed a weird metallic shade of blue. Harley must’ve noticed as well since he put his hands in the air and a smile on his face.

  “Harley what’s up? Drew, right?” The man with the joker grin asked. He waved to the others who were already lowering their weapons as well. They’d recognized Harley from partying and fighting back at Weathertop. They didn’t know Drew quite as well since they’d only ever seen him when he was drenched in blood. An all too common look for the young man.

  Harley greeted the men by name and reminded them who Drew was. Battlefield introductions complete the men radioed back to the chinook that they’d added Harley and Drew into their group. They’d been assigned to sweep around this side of the building and keep the enemy from sneaking out. Now that they’d identified Drew and Harley, they needed to get back into position in case the real enemy came flying around the corner trying to escape. Harley slid right into the leadership position within the small group and directed everyone back behind a big blue dumpster that was sitting by the edge of the parking lot. They were on the side of the store where they couldn’t be seen from the front are or the loading dock.

  Drew didn’t like the position they were in. Knowing that Lisa and Yue were inside the dilapidated shrine to global consumerism being tortured or whatever was driving him crazy. He needed to hop back on the bike and ride through a hailstorm of bullets to attack the guys on the loading dock. He needed something to distract him from the fear filled pit in his stomach. Doing nothing wasn’t a valid option. He needed to hit somebody repetitively as soon as possible.

  Harley sensed the way Drew was feeling. He was feeling the same way himself. He told Drew not to do anything stupid and asked the guy with the blue hair if he could bum his radio. The blue haired warrior nonchalantly tossed Harley the radio like this was a normal everyday situation that they were in. Drew wanted to slap the guy to wake him up to reality. Then it dawned on him that this probably was a normal day on the job for the well-armed hair dye enthusiast. Harley shoved the earpiece from the radio in his ear and walked a few steps away to chit chat with whoever was in charge.

  Watching Harley stick the earpiece in his ear without wiping it off or anything Drew shuddered. Drew had spent half the apocalypse covered in gunk from the inside of random killers, but he knew he’d never be able to force himself to stick an earpiece covered in someone else’s ear gunk into his own ear. That was a whole different level of gross. Turning his attention away from Harley and his complete disregard for headset hygiene Drew let his gaze bounce back and forth between the two corners of the building. He was wondering which one he should be going around to try and get into the store.

  A hard nudge in the center of his back and he turned around to see Harley shaking his head and staring at him. Drew wondered if maybe Harley had picked up some of Yue’s psychic capabilities. More likely it was just so obvious what he was thinking of with his head going back and forth that Harley had immediately guessed what Drew was thinking. Harley had immediately come over to remind him not to do anything stupid. Determined not to get busted again by being so obvious Drew let his gaze wander upwards. That move earned him another hard poke in the back. Drew was about to turn around and ask what the hell when something suddenly occurred
to him. No one had shot at them from the roof yet.

  Smiling broadly Drew spun around and signaled for Harley to stop playing with the radio and come over for a quick discussion. With a distrusting look Harley got close enough to hold a whispered conversation. Drew quickly summed up his brilliant idea. Based on the look on Harley’s face the idea fell well within the ’not do anything stupid’ order. Knowing Harley they’d go for it anyway.

  Chapter 7: That Voodoo That You Do

  The black cloaked Kernel Schmidt questioned them while the muted sound of small arms fire sounded from all around. The shots were muffled by the walls of the huge store but still audible. Schmidt wanted to know everything they could tell him about their unit. He had men go get pain pills and first aid supplies to patch up Lindsey. He thought she’d be able to supply him with a lot of the information that Yue and Lisa had no clue about. Logistics and armament type questions weren’t their forte. The questions he had for Yue and Lisa were more around what the government was looking to do to eradicate the crawler menace. He actually called it the crawler menace. That almost ended in Lisa getting kicked in the face again since she couldn’t stop giggling hysterically every time the self-righteous geek started talking like that.

  Yue was pretty sure that Lisa had been raiding her Valium stash. It would explain how she was able to maintain the laughing right though the extreme pain she had to be in. It took a strong person to sit there laughing with a shattered nose and at least one newly missing tooth. So far between Lisa and Yue they’d been able to avoid telling Schmidt much of anything. Yue had made it sound like she was studying the crawlerz versus being able to control them or jump into their shared consciousness. Lisa had pretty much just refused to give a straight answer on anything.

  The questioning was brought to an abrupt end when a rocket slammed into the front doors of the Walmart. It wasn’t the only one sent either. Spinning around on their butts to try and see what was going on at that end of the store Yue and Lisa watched the debris from the giant dust cloud slowly settling to the ground. Any of the defenders who’d been in that area had either been killed by the initial blast or by the subsequent rounds of machine gun fire. The helicopter gunners had kicked in after the rockets to rip apart the remaining pieces of the metal that protected the front doors of the Walmart.

  Hearing Schmidt barking out orders behind them Yue spun back around to see what was going on. She was just in time to see Schmidt calmly shoot the three remaining male squad members in their faces. From the expression on his face he could’ve been taking out the garbage. Other men unlocked the three women before once more securing their arms behind their backs. Yue was thinking she really preferred handcuffs to zip ties. It struck her as pretty surreal that she even had an opinion on the topic of zip tie versus handcuff comfort. A reevaluation of her life choices was needed soon if she survived.

  They were ushered quickly down the aisles to the metal covered doors leading out to the garden department. A group of men immediately started drilling out screws when they saw Schmidt coming down the aisle. They must‘ve been ordered to wait for them to appear. Schmidt waited with the dozen or so men standing around as they unscrewed the metal coverings to let them exit out into the garden center. Lisa was wobbling a little bit on her feet. She’d taken a lot of blows to the head in the last few hours. Yue knew exactly what that was like. Lisa still looked a million times better than Lindsey.

  The captain had been tossed into a grocery cart again. They’d put a splint on her arm and forced the bone back into the skin. They’d also made her swallow a fistful of pills. It was a mixture of antibiotics and pain pills. It was nice to see the antibiotics since it meant Schmidt must be planning on keeping them alive for a little while. Otherwise, he could’ve just gone with the pain pills and called it a day. Yue was pulled out of her speculation on how long Schmidt was planning on keeping them alive when the sunlight hit her in the face.

  The men finished placing the large metal sheets to the side leaving a man sized hole where the glass doors had been. Yue and Lisa were once more shoved forward as the men headed for their vehicles. Yue wondered what exactly the geniuses were planning on doing once they got in the vehicles. A massive attack helicopter with a squad of elite killers on it was still going to be sitting between them and the highway. The people who’d just blown the front doors out of the Walmart wouldn’t have a whole lot of difficulty blowing up a pickup truck.

  Schmidt took control of the handcuffs behind Yue’s back. With his hand firmly planted on her wrists he marched her towards the front of the building. The side that’d be facing the chinook that was sitting in the parking lot. When they got to the door Schmidt stopped for a second to tell her what was about to happen. Yue was only half listening to him since she’d felt a tingle in the back of her head as they walked through the garden center. She was busy casting around trying to pick it back up.

  “I’m going to open the door. When I do, I’ll be holding you in front of me like a shield. If you try to duck or run or scream a warning out or basically anything I don’t like, I’ll shoot you in the back. Understood?” Schmidt asked her. He was poking the barrel of his pistol into her lower back to punctuate his words.

  Yue said she understood. Schmidt opened the door then had her walk through it to open it all the way. They were standing in a regular sized door frame. They were going to have to take apart another section of the wall to drive the vehicles out. The wall was built for that so it wouldn’t be a big deal to do. The fact that people were pointing automatic weapons at them the whole time might make their Bob the Builder moment a little more intense than usual though.

  Yue blinked in the direct sunlight. Looking across the parking lot she saw the helicopter sitting on the ground with the massive dual rotors slowly revolving. A small group of men were pointing weapons directly at her and yelling to get down. They were a good fifty yards away. More men ran over to back them up.

  “Tell them who you are.” Schmidt demanded. He was pressed up tightly behind her. He was so close that his lips were basically kissing her neck when he talked to her like that. Trying not to flinch from the unwanted lovers embrace Yue shouted to the group of men across the parking lot.

  “I’m Yue. I was one of the ones captured from the train. I’m with the suicide squad!” Yue shouted across the lot. The man holding her murdered people on a whim. She was horrified of that metal barrel poking into her lower back.

  “Yue!” Yue snapped her neck around to look in the direction of that beloved voice. Her tall gangly man was working his way around the parking lot to get close enough to communicate with her. He walked over to within twenty feet. His face not registering the tiniest bit of fear of the man holding her. She could see the relief in his eyes at finding her alive. Seeing him standing there she went from being pretty sure she was going to die to being almost positive she’d come through this alive.

  “Who’s he?” Schmidt asked Yue quietly.

  “The guy who’s going to stomp your guts out if you don’t let me go right now.” Yue answered back. It was really more of a Lisa kind of answer, but seeing Jeff had Yue pretty fired up. She was slightly less fired up a second later when he jammed the gun painfully into her kidney and told her they’d see about that.

  “You ok babe?” Jeff asked. Fire flashed in his eyes when he saw that the man holding her had just hit her.

  “She’s fine. We intend to keep her alive and find out what kind of tricks she can do. We are going to load up in a covered truck and drive out of here. If you follow us or try to stop us, we’ll kill the hostages we took from you including her.” Schmidt said. His statement left no room for negotiation.

  “He killed the other hostages already except for Lisa and Lindsey!” Yue blurted out wanting Jeff to have all the information. If Jeff let these guys drive her out of here, then she was dead. She’d be tortured and left in a ditch somewhere with Lindsey and Lisa once every bit of useful information had been extracted from them. Unless they kept he
r alive and made her into some kind of tortured crawler watchdog. Lisa and Lindsey were dead no matter what. It wasn’t like either of those headstrong women would betray their loyalty.

  “We’ll be leaving in about ten minutes. If you try to stop us, they die.” Schmidt said. He walked backwards into the garden center. When Yue refused to move, he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her off her feet. Jeff charged forward but stopped when he found himself staring down the barrel of Schmidt’s large pistol. He stood there glowering while Schmidt dragged Yue inside and locked the door.

  As soon as the door was shut Schmidt flung Yue to the ground and kicked her in the stomach. He had one of his men pick her up and take her back to the truck. Two men got to work on taking down the section of wall they needed removed to drive the vehicles through. The rest of them worked on getting everyone arranged in the truck. Schmidt had wanted one of the hostages to drive. The idea being that the men outside might shoot one of his men to stop the truck, but they wouldn’t shoot a hostage driving the truck. Lindsey was conscious but definitely not capable of driving anything, Lisa was pretty much crazy, and Yue wasn’t exactly dependable.