“Right,” Gunny said. “Once they are all away from the store, floor it, get turned around, and then come back and run over ‘em. That big-ass push bumper should do some serious zombie bowling damage.”
Griz smiled. “I like the way you think,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
“Whaddayamean, I’m riding shotgun?” Gunny asked, when Cobb tried to hand him the AR-15. “I plan on heading out, too.”
“We didn’t finish the service on your truck,” Tommy said. “All we did was get the oil drained. It’ll be a while. I’ll get the boys on it right now, by the time you and Tiny get back, it should be done.”
Gunny grimaced and took the AR. It was a perfect replica of the M-16 used during the ‘Nam conflict. Aside from the full auto selector, of course. “Fine,” he grumbled.
The shiny, black Peterbilt heavy wrecker rumbled quietly at the back of the shop. It was an old 359 model from the 80s, but well maintained, and gleamed in the early afternoon sun. Tommy kept it waxed and all the chrome polished to mirror finishes.
Griz and Hot Rod were standing by the back gate, ready to pull it open as soon as they got the signal from Scratch. He was on the roof with the M-1, with a clear line of sight along the road and fence.
“You’re good,” he said into the handheld CB. “The nearest one is at least a quarter-mile away.”
Tiny heard him over the radio in the Pete and released the air brakes, grabbed 5th gear, and nailed the throttle. The big Cat under the hood roared and like the torque monster it was, never even hiccuped at taking off in the higher gear. By the time they were around the little bend in the junkyard and headed for the gate, the two men had it open and were standing by to hurriedly shut it behind them as soon as they cleared it. Cobb was there with the M-4, waving them on. Tiny turned toward the front of the truck stop and, as they had planned, flipped on the flashers and the emergency lights, then got on the air horn.
He circled into the parking lot, and just as they expected, they had the full attention of every single walking cadaver. Gunny had seen their speed and ferocity, but even he was taken aback at the brutal single-mindedness as they came screaming across the lot, straight at them.
This was the first time Tiny got to see them up close and he started cursing a blue streak when the first of them slammed into the push bumper and bounded up and over the heavy iron grill guard. He spun the wheel and hit the throttle hard and the flailing man went flying off the hood as the main body of them plowed into the truck, screeching and leaping at the faces they saw in the windows.
They didn’t seem to be coordinated enough, or have enough foresight, to actually hold on to a grab bar or chicken light cluster. They just kept reaching and running at them. Tiny hadn’t seen combat on the warship he was on during his stint in the Navy, but he’d trained just as hard as anyone else and that training kicked in, overriding the natural instinct to panic.
But he’d never seen anything like this. Those things had absolutely no sense of self- preservation. They were running headlong into twenty tons of accelerating steel, and it was pulverizing them under its wheels as they bounced over, and through, the crowd of zombies. As they crushed their way through and got out in front of them, leading them away from the store front, they heard Scratch over the radio giving the people that wanted to leave the all clear signal.
Tiny slowed down a little, glancing down at the speedometer. “I’m going twenty miles an hour and they’re gaining,” he said, and gave a little more gas.
“Well, the ones you didn’t bust up are,” Gunny said. “See how long they can keep it up.”
Tiny held the truck at a little over twenty, staying just ahead of the lead runner. They were both watching the mirrors, enthralled, as the zombies didn’t slow or seem to tire out. The path behind them was strewn with the running dead in various states of damage.
Chapter Fourteen
Long Dawg was standing by with the rest of the people that wanted to leave, to get back to family and loved ones. He wanted his coke. He’d been in a daze these last few hours. He lost both his cousins, and best friends, here and he wanted to get away. He’d heard what those truckers said about how bad it was out there, but he didn’t really believe it.
Those cowboys in their big bus said they were going to wait. The fat guy with no Ferrari was going to have to wait. A bunch of the truckers said they were just going to stay here and see what happens. All of the mechanics that worked here were going to get their families and bring them back. But most of the people that were lined up and ready to run out the doors were headed back down toward Reno, back to their homes.
This shit wasn’t that bad. Couldn’t be. People were overreacting. He needed to get the van and get it away before some government officials started poking around. They would be here soon, when they came to do their investigations of The North Reno Truck Stop Mayhem. Or whatever the news reporters were going to call it.
They all waited, tense and ready to go and once they heard the all clear over the radio, they pushed open the doors and everyone scrambled to be the first out. He was through like a shot, and crawling on his hands and knees under the trailer as fast as he could. The trick with the lights and horn had worked, they had led all of those screaming dead things away. He ran past his 300, still sitting at the pumps, straight for the van and jumped in, went to turn the keys…No keys.
No! No! No! Had Mario put them in his pocket? Fool. This wasn’t the hood. Nobody was going to jack your car here in the middle of nowhere. If he had, they’d been buried with him. Maybe Jimmy had them. He jumped out of the van and nearly got run down as all the cars were screeching out of the parking lot, fishtailing and squealing tires.
He dodged the remaining ones and joined the sprint to the big truck parking area, falling in behind the few truckers who opted to leave. He saw Jimmy’s body and ran up to it, nearly tripping over him as he slid in the gravel, dropping to his knees and frantically patting the pants pockets.
“Don’t look at him, don’t look at him,” he kept telling himself, trying to feel the keys.
“Bingo! Was his name-o!” he thought insanely, digging his hand in deep and pulling them out. He looked up as one of the semis dodged around him, spitting gravel and dust plumes from its tires. There was an old school bus sitting there that had been tucked in between the trucks. It was painted black and had writing on the side, probably some crappy band on tour, he thought.
What tripped him out was that some ratty-haired guy was sitting in the driver’s seat, eating a bowl of cereal and watching him rifle through a dead man’s pockets. He didn’t have time for this. He started to run back toward the fuel pumps, his head on a swivel, looking for more of the zoms. And the big rigs who weren’t obeying the “5 mph in Parking Lot” sign. He saw the couple that owned the Prius pulling on the plastic front bumper and tossing it aside, then climbing in.
The fat guy’s Ferrari was a total loss, he could see that from here. The whole front end was caved in and one of the wheels was sitting askew. He jumped back into the van and started trying keys until he found the right one.
The big wrecker had turned around and came flying by with a few of the zombies chasing after it before he could get the van out of the parking lot. He let them go, better to be behind that crowd than in front of it, he reasoned.
Tiny and Gunny were looking out of the mirrors and saw a line of cars screeching out of the parking lot, all of them heading back toward Reno, a couple nearly colliding as no one yielded and everyone floored it toward the exits.
“Idiots,” Gunny said. “Somebody’s going to have a wreck, driving like that.”
“Yep,” Tiny agreed.
“I guess we ought to follow them a little ways, make sure they at least get down to Reno. I’d like to see the road conditions, anyway. That’s the way I’m going as soon as they get some oil back in my truck.”
“Roger that,” Tiny said. “I’ll wait till you’re ready to go and roll with you. I need to get back to
Birmingham.” Then he sped up toward a crossover so he could get turned around.
“Sounds good,” Gunny said. “Safety in numbers. Have to see if anyone else is rolling that way. Get us a little convoy going.”
Tiny spun it around and headed back toward town, pointing the nose of the truck at all the runners and stragglers still in pursuit. It wasn’t hard, they all aimed themselves right at them. They passed a few of the big rigs headed to California by the back roads and tooted their horns.
“Probably a smart move,” Gunny thought. Less traffic, less people, less trouble. By the time they went past the truck stop again, they had killed or seriously maimed most of the horde that had been chasing them. Gunny got on the radio, told them they were going to do a quick recon run down toward Reno, see how bad the freeway was.
The road was wide open, zero traffic. Up ahead, they could see some cars crashed on the highway and a smattering of gimps struggling along the road, all heading in the same direction they were. Tiny grabbed another gear and started bouncing them off the front bumper, sending them flying off into the desert in mangled heaps. The big truck barely felt the shudder of impact while he dodged around the scattered cars that had been abandoned.
“It’s amazing how it happened so fast,” Tiny said, still trying to take it all in. “I guess it only took one to run out into traffic and everybody stops, or wrecks, trying to avoid him.”
“Yeah,” Gunny agreed. “Probably the same thing out in the subdivisions, too. It spreads like wildfire.”
They continued on for another few miles before the crowds on the road began to get thick. They weren’t exactly starting to bog down, but the undead were attacking them now, turning and charging toward the sound of the big diesel.
“I don’t see how those cars made it through here,” Tiny said. “They must’ve got off somewhere.”
“Or all these things started chasing after them when they drove by,” Gunny replied, bouncing in the seat as Tiny plowed over a pile that had fallen under the wheels.
“There’s no way this many were on the road before.” Tiny’s door shuddered as a particularly fast one crashed into it at full speed, vaulting over the already fallen bodies. He flinched away instinctively, and dropped a gear as he slowed the truck, still hurtling through the masses of undead.
Gunny fired up the CB and gave them a quick report. “Crowds are getting heavy down here, Wire Bender. They’re climbing all over the truck and no sign of any of the cars that left.”
“Man, this ain’t good,” Tiny said, fighting the wheel as he started trying to avoid the bigger clusters. “We run into a thick enough pile of them, and we could get stuck.”
“Yeah,” Gunny said. “Can you get turned around? Those poor bastards are on their own. They must have drawn this crowd as they drove by, or maybe they turned off, they sure as hell didn’t drive through this.”
“I’m looking, man, I’m looking,” Tiny said. “I don’t want to slow down too much, they’ll dog pile us. This thing will push down a building, but only if it has traction. I get in a pile of blood and guts and we’ll be spinning in place.”
“Did you make it down to the interstate?” Wire Bender came back.
As Tiny man-handled the steering wheel, aiming for openings in the teeming masses and around the more frequent abandoned cars, he was scanning for a wide area to get turned around.
Gunny reached over and flipped in the interaxle lock, giving power to both rear axles. There was an emergency vehicle turnaround spot coming up. It was a place where the local smokies would usually sit, shooting radar at unsuspecting motorists. It was full of the infected streaming over from the other side of the divided highway, running toward the noise of the screaming undead. Gunny keyed the mike and replied, “No way to get down that far, Wire Bender, it’s too…”
“There’s too many of them!” Tiny yelled. “Take this one or try the next off ramp?”
“Take it! Take it!” Gunny yelled right back, forgetting to let go of the talk button in the urgency of the situation. He could see an upcoming exit and it was jammed with abandoned and wrecked cars. The mobs were getting thicker, more and more joining the hunt as they heard the sound of the motor revving. Tiny tried to keep the speed up as he downshifted, black diesel smoke rolling from the twin stacks.
The turnaround wasn’t very wide, a little over two car widths. He swung into it hard and fast, knocking screeching men and women out of the way like bowling pins, the steering wheel fighting him as he bounced over cadavers and fought the big truck into a 180-degree turn. He was sliding in the dirt, slowing down fast, and the horde of undead just kept piling on them, no concern for their own bodies being battered and bounced off of the rig. They were screaming and leaping, launching themselves relentlessly and repeatedly careening away, knocking others down in their wake to be ground under the tires.
Tiny hadn’t even gotten the truck straightened back out again and he was grabbing another gear, trying to get a little speed back up. The nose of the truck was buried under the tidal wave of bodies who were now scrambling over the tumbling, rolling mass of flesh in front of the bumper.
Their vigor was renewed when they could actually see the frightened faces of fresh meat only a few feet away. A woman with bloody matted hair and a pastel jogging outfit made it over the top of the push bar and radiator grill first, but others were soon following. She dove straight for Gunny, hands reaching, not understanding the concept of glass. Or maybe she did, somewhere deep in her reptilian brain, and just didn’t care.
Her face slammed into the windshield and it spider webbed. It didn’t shatter, but she wasn’t the only one. The pile of bodies built up against the front of the truck was making a rolling, seething, ramp and they were scrabbling up and over the fallen in their blood lust for flesh. Tiny was doing his best, he had the rig floored, motor screaming, and was jagging the wheel from side to side in an effort to sling them off. There were thousands of them, they were burying the truck.
He couldn’t see out of the windshield anymore from all the bodies piling up against it, and was only able to keep on the road by judging where he was out of the side windows. He flipped the air splitter on the shifter to high range and double clutched into 6th gear.
He kept slinging the steering wheel from side to side and the bodies were starting to fly off now that he was building up speed and the whipping movements were getting more effective. The truck shuddered and bounced as the last of the piled up bodies in front of the push bumper were finally either drug under the rig, or slung to the side, and the screaming masses were starting to fall behind.
“I think we got this!” Tiny grinned when the last man trying to bite the glass in front of his face slid off the hood as he whipped the wheel one last time.
“Watch out!” was all Gunny had time to shout before there was a bone-jarring crash. The big truck slammed into the concrete barrier that had been placed in the hammer lane, along with the ‘left lane ends merge right’ sign.
Tiny’s big body went flying through the windshield that had withstood so much these last few minutes, but couldn’t withstand 300 pounds at 40 miles an hour. Gunny bounced back against the seatbelt, the CB mic flying out of his hand. The big truck came to a complete stop when it hit the barrier, wrapping itself around the angled concrete. It drove the solid mass into the rest of the barricades that protected the workers who would ordinarily be going about their business patching up the road.
Normally, they probably would have just bounced off of it, but Tiny had the truck at a bad angle, trying to sling the zombies off of the hood. Normally he would have seen the solid wall of concrete, with their bright orange stripes, and all of the signs warning him of the upcoming lane closure. But today was anything but normal.
Clouds of steam hissed and billowed up from the punctured radiator as the engine ground to a shuddering silence. A dazed Tiny tried to push himself backward, over the steering wheel and back into the cab. His big bald dome was split open and blood was
running down his face in sheets. Gunny had his seatbelt off and grabbed the big man’s belt and started pulling him back in as fast as he could, but the screaming, clawing mass had caught up.
The ones in front could do nothing more than stretch for them, not tall enough to reach the top of the hood. The shuddering impacts of more and more bodies slamming into the dinner table started the pileup. Within a few seconds, the fastest of them were up and over the press of bodies and reaching for the freshly laid out main course.
Gunny had him almost in, Tiny was pushing frantically with his hands when a teenage face clamped jaws down on his wrist. He bellowed in pain and rage and fear and slammed the meaty fist of his other arm against the side of the young man’s head, but more reaching hands and biting mouths were there.
Inertia was against them.
Physics was against them.
Gravity was against them.
But they had raw strength and numbers, and they were pulling him back out of the window opening. Gunny couldn’t hold him in and Tiny couldn’t fight them off. He was crushing faces with his mighty free hand, twisting in anger, trying to pull his other arm loose.
Gunny let go and grabbed the AR, shooting directly into the crowd, hoping he didn’t hit Tiny’s flailing arm by mistake, but pulling the trigger anyway. He was splattering heads, blowing holes in chests, sending bullets tumbling through bones and dead flesh. Tiny still raged, still fought, but dozens of hands had him now and were pulling him over the edge of the hood, down into the feeding frenzy.
He went over the side, bounced off the fender and landed on his feet, still screaming in pain and fury. Gunny leaned out of the empty windshield frame and ran the magazine dry then grabbed for his nine. As he cleared the holster, he noticed the painter’s van up the road, beyond the masses. He must have taken the previous exit.
The Zombie Road Omnibus Page 13
