The Zombie Road Omnibus

by David A. Simpson

  Once they got off the exit, Gunny dropped the transmission into low range and started testing the strength of Tommy’s blade. It slid the cars away effortlessly, the old Pete not straining at all, neatly shunting them to the side of the road.

  “Awww, not that one,” Scratch said as Gunny crunched into a beautiful ZR1 Corvette, cracking the fiberglass and large pieces broke off as he pushed it out of the way. “Dude, I would have totally drove that back to the truck stop.”

  “I just thought about it, but he’s right,” Griz said. “We can have any car we want. Hell, any THING we want. It’s all there for the taking.”

  “Hells, yeah!” Scratch said, “Where’s the nearest Ferrari dealer?”

  “Monster Truck for me,” Stabby threw in as Gunny negotiated around the last of the pile-up at the intersection and hit a stretch of clear road.

  “1971 Eldorado, just like in Super Fly,” Lars said.

  They all looked at him.

  “What? Brutha can’t have a Cadillac?” he asked. “Man, I grew up watching old movies. Moms wouldn’t let me out of the house in our neighborhood. I loved that pimpmobile.”

  “Can you dig it?” Gunny asked in the best Youngblood Priest voice he could manage.

  “Give it up, Homie,” Lars laughed.

  “What about you, Griz?” Scratch asked. “What’s on your bucket list of cars?”

  Griz smiled as he answered, his shining teeth showing through his beard. “I’m getting a 1969 Hemi Charger with a 4 speed. Man, I’ve always loved those cars.”

  Amid the chorus of “Ooooh, nice one” and “Good choice”, Stabby directed his question to Gunny, “What about you, mate? What’s your driving pleasure?”

  “I’m going to get the Batmobile,” he replied. There was an eruption of laughter and questions of which one, which started an argument of which one was the best. The Tumbler won, hands down, as most practical, but there was a good debate on which was the coolest. The original from the TV show, the Michael Keaton or the Val Kilmer?

  The George Clooney Batmobile was cool, but was there even a working version of it? Griz and Gunny let the kids battle that one out and went back to concentrating on their primary mission. The substation was only another half mile and they started looking for it, and the pawn shop that was supposed to have a large selection of guns and ammunition.

  They had only seen a few zombies moving around, but every one of them had started following the noise of the truck, letting out those eerie, breathless screams to alert others of the promise of fresh meat. Gunny slowed as they approached the police station. It was on their left and there wasn’t a big crowd around it, but there were a few milling about until they heard or felt the big truck coming. They turned to attack it, running at full speed directly toward them, keening and clawing the air.

  “I’m going to make a pass, maybe two, there’s a bunch following us now. I’ll try to get far enough ahead of them, then flip around and whittle their numbers down.” It was go time now and everyone got serious and quiet as Gunny started working his way up through the gears, cutting a few down, leaving the rest of the screaming horde behind. He got about a quarter mile up the road, swung into a gas station to get turned around, then headed straight for the mob of at least a hundred, running up Main Street.

  “Where did they all come from?” Lars asked to no one in particular. “They’re like a swarm. Like ants….”

  They didn’t hear the rest of his thought because the first of them had started being cut down with the plow. The sheer numbers of them caused the big Cat under the hood to strain and he split a gear and hammered down, slicing through the middle of the pack. He was snapping bones like toothpicks, severing feet and hands and arms, and anything else that came in contact with the sharpened lower blade.

  The rest of their bodies were breaking and being tossed aside at 45 miles an hour. The truck shuddered and jounced when the big front tires rolled over one of the infected who had missed the blade, but was crushed by the rolling rubber.

  “Gonna have to build a deflector so they don’t roll under the tires!” Griz yelled over the noise of the screams and impact of flesh. A few more bodies were crushed under the tires and the truck bounced the three men sitting on the bunk back and forth, as they tried not to stab each other with the assorted weapons strapped to their arms.

  They finally cleared the small horde and Gunny went another half mile, taking out stragglers who had been too slow to participate in the mass slaughter. When he turned the truck around, gore and blood splatter covering the front half of his hood and fenders, they could see the full impact of what just one pass through a horde of them had done.

  There were body parts everywhere. There were no standing zombies left, just a wreck of crawling bodies, all with missing feet or shattered lower legs. Most with more broken and mangled bones sticking out at unnatural angles. Gunny drove slowly over them, the big front tires turning them into bloody paste as they were ground under the blade. He stopped in front of the doors of the substation, and before they climbed out, he and Griz turned to check on the younger members of their group.

  It wasn’t meant as disrespect in any way, just a habit ingrained by years of service. Check your troop's gear, then check your own.

  Scratch and Stabby looked similar in their appearance, both clad in leather shirts and pants they liberated from the costumes on the Brutal Retort bus. All of them wore gloves. The new blades they had made were intimidating.

  Gunny realized now why he hadn’t seen either one of them all day, they had been creating the stabbing arsenal they now wore. Scratch noticed him staring at his leather pants. “Got ‘em from him.” He cocked his head toward his new British pal, “And he helped me design my blade.”

  “Oi,” Stabby said. “I learned last night that thick blades just get stuck in the bones and snap off when you poke those wankers. You need slender, sharp, and strong. Like this rebar. It won’t break like my blades did.”

  Gunny nodded. They looked wicked. Deadly. No beauty in them, just total function.

  Scratch had a single long piece of sharpened rebar attached to his metal arm and they had welded a small hook, right about where his forearm should be.

  It took Gunny a second, but then realized it was a crude barrel lock for the AR. It would hold the gun steady and alleviate muzzle rise. His other arm had an aluminum and steel fingerless gauntlet of sorts, with short spikes sticking a few inches beyond his knuckles. It left his shooting hand free to operate his rifle, and the spikes were short enough not to interfere with reloading.

  Stabby had both forearms wrapped in thick leather, with three sharpened rods sticking out like Wolverine claws on each. He also had a clunky looking pair of knuckle dusters that had short bits of sharpened rebar welded to them. Backup weapon. Scratch showed him his pair. “This is still a work in progress, but we should see how well they work today, make some improvements if we need to.”

  Gunny was impressed. Griz, too. “I might need a pair of those. So don’t go getting yourselves killed,” he said.

  “Tryin’ not to, mate.”

  The crawlers were getting close to them, still intent on sinking their teeth into human flesh.

  As he and Griz opened the doors to hop out, the other three were right behind them. Ammo was in short supply, so they didn’t waste any as they ran for the doors that were propped open by a bullet-riddled body.

  He and Griz entered first, breaking left and right, scanning the room, looking for any of the undead. It was an open floor plan, typical of a quiet sheriff’s substation. Some desks, a few glassed in offices in the back. A hallway leading toward the restrooms and the back entrance. A stairway and elevator leading to the basement and the other two stories above them.

  “Clear,” said Gunny.

  “Clear,” Griz said a second later. Lars kicked the body down the stone stairs outside the building and pulled the doors shut behind them.

  “Lars, hold here. Scratch and Stabby, find us another exit.
Clear as you go. Griz, with me,” Gunny said and headed toward the entrance to the lower level. The cells below were well marked with a sign over the stout metal door that led down the stairs.

  He stood to one side and nodded to Griz, who quickly opened it and stepped back, pulling the M4 tight to his shoulder. He covered the high area and Gunny swung around the door in a crouch, covering the low. They could see the stairs leading down into the darkness, but not much else. “Electricity is already out?” he wondered out loud. “I thought it took a few days.”

  “Judging from all the bullet holes, I’d say somebody hit the breaker box,” Griz said.

  Gunny yelled out, “Hey, anybody home down there?”

  Instantly they heard a snarl of the undead and the sounds of running feet, but also the cries of a few people yelling back up at them.

  “Yes! We’re here! Watch out, they’re coming for you!”

  “Get ready on the door, I’ll take them out,” Gunny said, and stood up and stepped far enough away so Griz could slam it shut if there were too many of them for him to shoot. Griz let the M4 dangle on its sling and grabbed the heavy door with both hands, his shoulder against it, ready to slam it as soon as he started to hear Gunny utter the words.

  They could hear them coming out of the dark, snarling and keening, scrabbling on the steps, tripping over each other in their haste.

  “How many?” Gunny yelled down into the blackness of the basement.

  “There’s four of them!” came the reply and he readied himself.

  He needed four headshots.

  On moving targets.

  Coming up at an angle.

  Out of the dark.

  Fifteen rounds.

  No problem.

  As soon as he saw the first one coming up the stairs using its hands and feet, bounding as fast as it could, he started double tapping.

  Boom boom.

  It hesitated, bounced off the handrail, rocked by at least one of the bullets.

  Boom boom.

  The second set exploded its skull. It dropped instantly and started bouncing back down the stairs, tripping up the others as they clawed and scrambled over the now lifeless form.

  Boom boom.

  Another fell.

  Gunny waited for the others to pick themselves up from being tumbled. They didn’t sound like they were moving so fast. Maybe they busted a leg or something in the fall. He could only hope.

  His eyes were getting used to staring into the inky blackness of the basement and he saw one coming, hopping in a broken way from step to step.

  Boom boom.

  Both in the head. Gore and bone splattered against the face of the fourth, who didn’t slow down at all as she leaped over the falling body.

  Boom boom.

  Blood exploded out of the side of her neck and shoulder.

  Boom boom.

  Her head snapped back at a vicious angle and she crumpled to the stairs, finally dead.

  “Twelve shots for four stiffs?” he heard Scratch call out. “Weak sauce.”

  Gunny swapped magazines for a fully loaded one and re-holstered his Glock. “Get out of the women’s bathroom and find us an exit!” Gunny yelled back.

  “Lars?” he asked, “How’s it looking?”

  “Half dozen crawlers at the door, a few more runners making their way up the stairs.”

  “Anybody have a flashlight?” Gunny asked.

  But when he turned to look back down the stairs, he noticed a single light beam dancing across the stairwell wall, heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and a chorus of, “Don’t shoot! It’s us!”

  “Are we glad to see you!” the female deputy said as she came through the door, but stopped short when she saw they weren’t police officers, just a couple of hard-looking men with beards and guns. “Who are you?” she asked, her hand automatically dropping to the butt of the gun she still wore in its holster. Gunny and Griz just looked at her.

  It was empty. They knew it was empty, and she knew they knew it was empty, so she let her hand fall away.

  “Billy sent us,” Gunny said. “We need guns and ammo. You have access to the arms room?”

  “There’s no arms room here, just a cabinet.”

  The other two from the cells stood behind her, one a young man in a sheriff’s deputy uniform, the other a tattooed woman in dirty jeans and tangled hair.

  “Billy didn’t send you,” she said and started edging toward the desks. Probably where she kept a spare gun, or at least a loaded magazine.

  “The back’s clear!” yelled Scratch. “But it’s the only other way out, so let’s not dick around till it gets jammed up!”

  The runners had reached the top of the steps and were throwing themselves at the doors, shuddering them in their frames. The quiet screaming of all of the infected ratcheted up a notch as they came closer to their prey.

  Gunny saw the look of fear and determination flit across the deputy’s face when she heard Scratch’s voice. He realized she had been out of contact with everyone since they had fled into the cell, that none of them had a walkie-talkie, and she had no idea how bad things really were. In her eyes, they looked like some wild desperados waving guns around in her police station. He made a snap decision to level with her. They didn’t have time to mess around.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Billy didn’t send us. He’s dead. But we heard your last transmissions on his radio and we came to try to get you out. We need guns and we need ammunition. I don’t have time to explain everything right now, so we’re leaving. Come with us or stay here, doesn’t matter. But we’ve got to go. If you want to join us later, we’re at the Three Flags.” With that, he said, “Let’s roll,” and him, Griz, and Lars took off for the back doors.

  “Wait for me!” the woman with the dirty clothes said and ran after them.

  The two cops didn’t have to consider the situation for long and yelled for them to wait, come help carry the guns and ammo.

  There wasn’t a lot, it wasn’t like this sleepy little outpost had a swat team with a bunch of exotic hardware, but there were a dozen pump shotguns and another half dozen handguns that hadn’t been assigned. All of them Glock 17s. As the two deputies quickly reloaded their service weapons, Griz and Gunny stuffed everything into the duffels that were at the bottom of the locker.

  They split the boxes of ammunition between the bags so they wouldn’t be so heavy, then ran for the back exit. The sturdy front entrance doors were still holding, but the onslaught was relentless and they wouldn’t last much longer.

  “Runners coming in,” Scratch said as he flung open the doors and they hurried down the steps. Griz stopped halfway down, aimed and dropped both of them before hustling to catch up, keeping the group tight, the two cops carrying the duffels and the other woman in the center.

  “What are you driving?” the deputy yelled, a little breathlessly, as they rounded the corner, but could have saved his breath. The blood and gore splattered semi-truck, with the vicious looking plow welded to the front ,was in the middle of the street. It stood as a bloody testament to its efficiency. There were hundreds of crawling zombies slowly trying to make their way toward the police station on broken and shattered limbs.

  It was pretty obvious what they were driving.

  “Stabby, Scratch. Clear us a path to the truck,” Gunny said.

  The two took off at a sprint toward the semi, not really clearing, but certainly killing a path to it. The feetless and broken zombies were moaning and reaching for them with outstretched arms, teeth gnashing. They found themselves with puss oozing holes in their heads as the boys ran through them hacking and stabbing.

  Brutal, sharp points were poking little holes of death nearly as fast as they ran, both arms swinging and slashing. They made short work of the crawlers until soon every dead thing between them and the truck was truly dead.

  Griz stood guard, M4 occasionally barking out a death warrant, as they all clambered inside and found room for the bags of guns under the bu
nk.

  “Go,” Gunny said, and he and Griz jumped in and slammed the doors, elbows reaching back to hit the locks without thinking.

  “Which way was the pawn shop?” Gunny asked, firing up the big Kitty and aiming for as many deaders as he could manage as he took off, bumping and crushing over them.

  “Back the other way, on the left. Right across from the KFC,” the woman said, that Gunny figured was probably a prisoner in one of the cells before all this started happening.

  “Got it!” he yelled back over the noise of the winding engine. “I’m Gunny, that’s Griz.” He pointed to the big, bearded man between shifting gears. “Back there with you is Lars, Scratch, and Stabby.”

  Stabby stuck out his hand to shake and nearly impaled the deputy.

  “Whoops. Sorry,” he said, as Scratch and Lars laughed.

  “It’s fine,” the lady deputy said as she checked her arm, making sure there were no cuts on it. “I’m Deputy Collins, this is Deputy McBride, and this young lady is Ms. Cruz.”

  “Everybody just calls me Bunny,” the little Hispanic woman chimed in, happy to be out of her cage and away from the infected that had kept them trapped.

  Gunny gave them a very condensed version of what they knew about the world, and what was happening, as he swung the truck around again and headed back toward the pawn shop. Scratch and Stabby jumped in occasionally to add a tidbit of depressing information. Again, he plowed into as many of the infected as he could, the blade flinging them off into mangled heaps.

  He spotted the Colonel’s House of Deep Fried Chicken and then saw the pawn shop across the street. Wide sidewalk, no telephone or lamp posts in front of it. No cars parked there. Canvas awning about 8 feet high over the entrance. Burglar bars on the windows and door.

  He swung wide and bounced up on the sidewalk, the oversized tires taking it all in stride, to a chorus of, “What are you doing?” and “Oh shit!” and Stabby yelling out, “WOOOOOHOOOOO!” like a cowboy at a rodeo. He drove the blade into the gated doors and they crumbled and tore loose like balsa wood.