The Zombie Road Omnibus

by David A. Simpson

  Deputy Collins was yelling something about “Illegal” and “Can’t do that” and “Destroying property”, but Gunny just threw it in reverse and backed out onto the road, a snarling, clawing undead thing coming out of the destroyed door after him. Maybe the quick version of world events these past two days that he had given her hadn’t sunk in yet.

  “Scratch, you got this?” he asked, and Scratch leaned over to the sleeper door and opened it. “Here, zombie, zombie, zombie,” he said, and when the thing saw him and came running up, it got a six-inch long spike to its forehead.

  “Ewww. That’s nasty,” Bunny said. But she didn’t look like she was going to be sick like Deputy McBride did.

  Gunny and Griz were already out of their doors by the time the thing collapsed on the ground, and were hustling for the now wide open front of the store. Griz stood guard near the entrance, scanning both ways, M4 ready at his shoulder. They were lucky, the zombie Scratch had just killed was the proprietor and he had already opened the safe and was setting out his merchandise. He had a lot of guns, most of them hunting rifles and junky off brands, but there were a few nice ones. They made a fireman’s chain and started handing them off, filling up the area beneath the bunk with all manner of firearms, pistols, and any ammunition they could find, Griz urging them to hurry.

  As they grabbed the last of the hardware and Griz was giving them warning that the crawlers were getting close, Lars smashed a glass case with the butt of his Beretta and grabbed a pair of fancy sunglasses.

  “Need another gun out here,” Griz yelled and popped off a few shots, taking out the closest of the crawlers. “We ain’t got time for fashion accessories!”

  “These are genuine Persols, man!” Lars yelled back, putting them on as he slipped outside and took up a defensive position across the door from Griz.

  “Steve McQueen wore these.”

  He dropped to a knee and took out a runner, but there were more coming and they were starting their keening screams. He started popping off shots, his pistol barking an answer.

  The rest all ran for the entrance with the last of the guns and started jumping back up into the truck. The runners were getting close as the last of them finally climbed aboard and slammed the doors. In his rush to get back inside the cab, Gunny slipped on the battery box and barked his shin on the serrated metal step on top of it, letting out a roar of pain and a blue streak of obscenities that would have made a merchant marine with Tourette’s blush.

  When he finally finished cussing Tommy for torching off his lower step and got it in gear and rolling again, he heard Lars and Scratch quibbling over money.

  “Eighty-seven dollars,” Scratch insisted.

  “No, definitely eighty-four,” Lars came right back.

  Gunny was rocking in his seat, grimacing and white knuckling the steering wheel, his shin still screaming in pain at him. He could feel the blood soaking his sock from the shredded skin. He had really flayed it up good.

  “What the fuck are they bitching about?” he grunted to Griz, his face contorted, tears still rolling down his cheeks, finally getting his breath back.

  Griz didn’t answer, he was breathing hard, sounded like he was choking and Gunny looked over, thinking maybe he was hurt, too, but it was obvious from the look on his reddening face. He was trying his best not to burst out laughing, trying to hold it in, one hand covering his mouth.

  “How much money you owe Kim,” Scratch brayed, barely getting the words out before he fell into a heap of helpless laughter.

  “Fuck all y'all,” Gunny muttered back, to still more sniggers and giggles, the pent up tensions and fear fell away in the boys’ contagious laughter as everyone joined in.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The sun was just setting when Griz radioed they were coming in and the gate was opened as they approached. Gunny pulled the rig in, aiming for the bay doors.

  He wanted Tommy to make a few improvements. Like putting his steps back on. If a zombie had enough coordination to climb up on it, he’d just have to shoot it in the face. It was too much hassle to try to climb up into the cab without something to stand on. Sara and Stacy were there with orders for everyone to start stripping down to their skivvies, modesty be damned.

  Bunny didn’t seem to mind, but Deputy Collins insisted on a modicum of privacy and they relented, taking her and Bunny inside to the ladies room when they had finished checking out the guys for bites.

  Cobb was pleased with the haul they made and got a crew carrying everything in to be inventoried, cleaned, tested, and divvied up to anyone needing a weapon. Gunny laid claim to a nice short barrel M-4 that was equipped with a couple of tasteful add-ons, and a few boxes of ammo for it and his Glock, before it all got carted away.

  He got dressed again and checked with Tommy to let him know how the battlements held up, and what things needed to be improved upon. There were a half dozen trucks in the rear yard already being up-armored and looking ready for anything.

  “They’re going quick once we knew what to do. Got an assembly line started,” Tommy said, by way of explanation when Gunny expressed a bit of amazement on how fast he churned them out.

  He still wanted to leave at first light. Hopefully, the General would have some information about Atlanta from his satellites. They were all supposed to be on the channel at twenty-two hundred hours. He had time to get a deflector for his left fender welded up, a step put back on, and grab a shower. Maybe see if Martha or Cookie had any leftovers that were still warm.

  He also needed to find out who all was planning on running with him. He hoped it wouldn’t be a bunch, too many guys just slowed things down. But three or four trucks headed east would be nice. He still needed to stop by an RV dealer, or find an RV on the side of the road to snag the water pump from.

  They all had little 12-volt pumps to operate the water for the sink and toilet. He figured he could use it to refuel along the way. Maybe use three or four at the same time. It might take a while, but it was better than a mouthful of diesel every time, with a siphon hose.

  By the time he and Tommy had welded up a deflector for his front tires and he’d gotten a shower, it was going on nine o’clock. Another hour till the General came on, so he headed to the diner to find some food. Nearly everyone was there and Stabby was regaling them with tales of horror and glory of their afternoon’s experience.

  He was exaggerating quite a bit, with Scratch and Lars jumping in from time to time when Stabby wasn't eloquent enough in describing the wastelands beyond the gates of the truck stop.

  Gunny stepped up beside Griz, Hot Rod and a few of the others, listening for a moment. It was quite entertaining to watch them. Stabby was a natural showman, with Scratch and Lars acting it all out with exaggerated motions, sound effects, and facial expressions.

  “Got us some real Shakespeare's here,” Griz said with a grin.

  “Apparently I took out a whole horde with just my K-bar.”

  “More like the three stooges,” Deputy Collins opined sourly. Her role in this impromptu three-man show had been only that of a damsel in distress. She had been rescued by the dashing heroes who risked life and limb, cutting through countless zombies to save the ladies.

  As the story finished with the gallant Gunny driving over a mostly destroyed bridge with exploding cars sending up great walls of flame, all the while shooting zombies off of the hood one handed, the small crowd applauded and Ms. Bunny Cruz ran up and kissed them all, proclaiming, “My heroes!”

  Griz and Gunny were laughing out loud and applauding with the rest.

  “Nobody is going to believe all that tripe,” Deputy Collins grumbled, but she, too, had a smile on her face and clapped along with everyone else.

  “I didn’t say it before, but thank you for pulling us out of there,” she said, looking each of them in the eye.

  “No worries, ma’am. Just doing our job,” Griz grinned at her.

  She almost smiled back.

  Gunny headed over to the buffet are
a to see what was left, but hollered before it got too loud, “I’m rolling east at first light. You guys that wanna convoy, come see me and let’s figure out a route.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Wire Bender had run some coms wire along the toy train tracks and through the walls so he could put a speaker in the dining room. Everyone couldn’t fit in his CB shop and he was really uncomfortable having so many people hanging out there all the time now, hoping to hear a snippet of news. As everyone in the diner quieted down in anticipation of when the first of the Ham’s around the world started checking in, Gunny headed over to the CB shop.

  He needed to ask the General about Atlanta, and he figured they owed him something, he had given them the answer to what had caused this whole pandemic of death. He heard the Germans confirm they were on the air as he walked in and nodded to Wire Bender, Griz, and Cobb.

  “They had us go up to a different frequency,” Wire Bender was telling Cobb. “They say this one is secure, unauthorized radios can’t listen in.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that with open air coms,” Gunny said.

  “I can’t,” Wire Bender replied. “They’re the ‘Gummint. They can do a lot of things with military grade transceivers. There’s a bunch of Hams from all over the world listening in and I guess they are using narrow band and repeaters, maybe even satellite bounce.”

  Gunny didn’t ask what any of that meant. He was just happy to hear there were more groups of people being found.

  It was an unusual symbiotic relationship between the remaining powers. The Russians had little more than nukes and secure video feeds into most locations within their borders and satellite countries. The Chinese had the best medical and scientific laboratories still operational, the Germans had a pretty good overview of Europe and still had control of their drones.

  The Americans had full satellite imaging capabilities and access to the massive NSA databases. With mutual cooperation, they had a pretty good picture of the world, and had been in communication with each other on secure channels continuously these past 24 hours. They had all tried every broadcast option available, that was still operable, to reach the civilian populations about the cause of the disease and how to take precautions, but it was too little, too late.

  They each, in turn, gave a quick synopsis of what they had learned and in the end, it was far worse than anybody had even imagined.

  The German captain was the highest ranking officer on land, although the ships at sea had officers well above his grade. He reiterated what everyone already knew. They had sent drones over most of the major cities and most of them were on fire. There were survivors on rooftops and enclaves of people that had barricaded themselves in at various locations, surrounded by thousands of undead trying to get to them.

  All they could do was watch and report. They had no way of rescuing them, although every ship they had at sea was heading back toward land. There was a chance of using helicopters to aid some. But that was just a drop in the bucket.

  General Feng broke down what his scientists had been able to determine, and what it boiled down to was the infected were indeed dead, no cure possible. The super soldier serum, which removed all inhibitions and fear and had clotting agents powerful enough to stop arterial bleeding, had been radically altered with experimental nanotech and crossed with animal DNA, for a more predatory and aggressive disease.

  They believed the nanotech, with its molecular self- assembly, is what kept the dead from lying down and being dead. Chemical components of PCP had been added for inhuman strength, and apparently so had a virus-like molecular level command to reproduce. To make more of them. To replicate, duplicate, populate. To bite and infect as many humans as they could.

  They didn’t seem to need food, and they didn’t particularly try to kill, just bite and move on to the next victim. But given enough of them attacking someone, all of them wired to reproduce the only way possible, through saliva, people caught up in mobs of them usually were damaged too badly to reanimate.

  The blood was dead, contact with it didn’t spread contagion, it passed from the host only from bites, or saliva contamination. The head and brain were essentially the only things still alive, the rest the body dead and decaying, although at a much slower rate than normal. This was due to the introduction of the nanotech assemblies. They would continually repair the flesh and bones, but at an ever increasing degraded rate as there was less and less “clean” material to work with.

  From all of this, the conclusion was that the zombies were not indestructible or immortal. They wouldn’t last forever. In their best estimates, an undamaged infected would deteriorate to the point of being nonviable in about five years, maybe longer if it wasn’t exposed to extreme temperatures and harsh conditions. But these were just guesses, the tests they had thus far been able to run had widely varying results.

  The Russians reiterated what the Germans had said about Europe. They didn’t have drones available, but through the extensive fiber optic networks and redundant solar powered battery backups, they had eyes through most of the governmental cameras throughout the Eastern European countries. Their traffic and surveillance cameras told the same story in every city. Some that had minimal infestation yesterday had been overrun 24 hours later.

  They finished up with pronouncing that they, in target coordination with the Chinese, were ready to destroy every major and minor city in every territory that the satellite imagery had shown to be prepared before the outbreak started. Scorched earth. Nuclear and conventional weapons would be deployed, pounding any survivors back into the stone-age in a radiated wasteland.

  The world was a bleeding, broken, zombie infested mess, with an estimated four billion dead in just 48 hours.

  Then came General Carson’s turn to share all the bad news they had managed to uncover over the past 24 hours. They determined Hawaii was overrun like the rest of the States, hard to know about the smaller islands, although logic would suggest they shouldn’t have been infected.

  The few Navy ships that had managed to contain the outbreak had orders to check out some of the smaller sustainable islands and were in route. But all it took was one person to annihilate a city in a matter of hours, with the rate the disease spread. The Designated Survivor from the President’s cabinet hadn’t been found. There was always supposed to be one person who was eligible to take over in a worst case scenario, but whoever it had been on the day of the outbreak hadn’t made contact.

  Gunny rolled his eyes. Who cares who’s in charge? There’s nobody left to rule.

  They only had sporadic contact with a few Ham radio operators in South America, most of them were in remote areas at weather stations, or logging operations, in the jungles. From the satellite photos, though, they could see clouds of smoke billowing from the cities during the days and blackness where there used to be lights at night.

  They hadn’t had a lot of time to dig through the NSA’s files pertaining to meat packaging business acquisitions, but once they knew what to look for, the evidence piled up fast. The Salaam Company had either purchased outright, or made hostile takeovers of, nearly every meat packing plant in the world. The expense was staggering, but most of it hadn’t even been paid, the funds promised but never delivered. The lawyers had already been fighting it in the courts as an unjust monopoly, but the Muslims didn’t care about that. They knew it would never get past the posturing and filing of papers before all of the infidels were dead.

  The shortage of meat of all kinds last week had been intentional, so there would be a run on the supermarkets when they started deliveries again with the tainted products. There had been a lot of FDA inspectors killed this past week, but everything happened so quickly, the FBI hadn’t picked up on the significance of it from all of the scattered reports from the different police departments.

  No one had connected the dots. The General didn’t have direct knowledge of the same thing happening in other countries, but surmised it was much the same way everywhere. He
told everyone listening that most of the following information he had was only a known factor in the United States, but it stood to reason the same plan had been followed worldwide.

  It had been a huge operation, involving thousands of people, and nothing could have enticed so many to keep such a terrible secret. Nothing except religion. A belief that they were doing the right thing, they were heroes, ushering in a World Islamic Caliphate.

  There was a pause, a rattling of papers, a brief exchange between the General and someone else there with him, and then he started again.

  “There’s no sugar coating this,” he said. “Most of our techs here have been working a theory from a pattern we noticed, and we think we have conclusive evidence now with the latest thermal pass from our birds. We’ve convinced our counterparts not to lay waste to the Middle East just yet, waiting on the confirmation I just received.”

  He paused for another moment, probably speed reading whatever had been given to him. “We have known about the nuclear power plants being in danger of melting down as soon as the electricity goes off completely,” he continued. “A scenario like this was never envisioned or planned for, and there is nothing we can do except tell the survivors where the safest places are to go.

  “We’ve taken into consideration the expected runtime left, with the reserve fuel supplies and automatic generators kicking in as soon as grid power goes down. There are some hydro-electric powered stations, but most run on coal. We’ve been working on computer models of prevailing winds, shifting jet streams, amount of rainfall…In short, we’ve been working diligently to determine the safest place for everyone to go, and how long you have to get there, in a worst case scenario.”

  Gunny could hear groans and angry words from the dining room.

  Cobb just grimaced. “Hadn’t even thought about that,” he said.

  “Wonder how long the dams will last?” Gunny asked. “I’d hate to be below the Hoover when it goes.”