“The windshield of the RV is gone and the engine is smoking really bad…I don’t think there’s anything that we can do to repair it.” Richard answered as he popped the hood of the RV and quickly moved aside as a large stream of hot steam and smoke shot up out of the engine.
“Repairing it would take a dangerously long amount of time though…but we’re not going to be able to continue unless the repairs are made.” I answered with a troubled look.
“We better get started then because as you said—we cannot continue unless these repairs are made.” Billy stated as he ducked into the hotrod and grabbed a toolbox.
Over the next several minutes Billy, Richard, Beau and Hugo all worked to repair the damages to the engine which turned out to be a ruptured radiator—after it was finally patched up Billy scrounged around nearby and found a spare windshield that would work with the RV and he installed it; after the repairs were done over two hours had passed and it was starting to get dark.
“Let’s get out of here—I don’t like the sounds that are coming from that park over there.” I stated as I stared in the direction of southwest.
Everyone got back into their vehicles and I started the engine of our Mustang and led the way around the ruined barricade and we passed through the remaining section of the city until we left Thunder Bay heading northeast along the lakeside; it seemed like hours passed and soon the morning sun was peeking through the eastern clouds—I stopped along the desolate highway for a moment to let Jennifer drive and I got into the passenger seat beside of her. I grabbed a can of Vienna Sausages from the nearby lunch box and popped it open eating the contents before looking over the road atlas for a few minutes while Jennifer started driving again, the CB came to life with Richard’s voice all of a sudden.
“Chaz—I don’t know how much further this RV is going to go, the engine is starting to act up really bad.” He stated in an aggravated tone.
“We’re getting close to a place called Marathon—we’ll see how bad the area is and if we can either find the parts needed to better fix the RV or find an alternative vehicle.” I answered as I folded out the large map of Ontario and looked it over closely.
“I hope that it’s not like Thunder Bay was…I still can’t believe what happened to Lori Jo…” Richard answered in a melancholy tone.
“Yeah…I know…they really hit us hard back there and my gut tells me that these attacks are going to continue as long as we still breathe—Bowman is desperate to get us out of the picture once and for all and he’ll go to any extreme; a man like that is like a wild, rabid animal pushed into a corner—they’re very dangerous and unpredictable.” I answered as I sat the map aside and looked ahead as I opened the plated slats on the windshield letting the cool morning air blow through my hair.
There wasn’t much more discussion from that point on until we arrived in the somewhat small city of Marathon, from the look of things that I saw upon entering the city it looked like the marauders hadn’t been there as the streets were still littered with wreckage and long decayed bodies—zombies stood around here and there in the road and when they saw us they screamed horribly and charged at the sides of our vehicles but it seemed like they were pretty much uncoordinated as they would stumble back and some even fall down after hitting the sides of the vehicles.
“These things seem like the original strain…I don’t think that the mutation has gotten to this part of the continent yet.” Beau stated over the CB.
“Maybe not…there’s a lot of them though—let’s see what we can find in the way of other vehicles in case the RV cannot be repaired.” I answered as I glanced around at the ruins of vehicles that were everywhere.
Jennifer drove through the streets dodging the obstructions as we went and after several more minutes had passed, we came to a tall concrete walled area where a large building stood in the center—the side gates to the place were smashed open and the gates themselves were covered with old, dry blood.
“What sort of a place was this I wonder?” Sheila asked as we all stopped to look over inside of the lot.
“It looks like a police station or something…they might have engine parts or other working vehicles that we can use.” I answered as Jennifer pulled our Mustang inside of the walled area and parked.
Richard made a wide turn and managed to follow us inside to where he parked the RV off to the side of the parking lot as we could all see the white smoke billowing out from underneath the hood; Billy and Kayla brought their hotrod in as well as did Hugo and the others with the Eco-Roamer—Beau parked the semi with the battle chassis out in the street and he and Evangeline came inside of the walled in area.
“We need to close those gates so none of those dead-heads get in here while we’re trying to make the repairs.” I stated as I motioned toward the battered, blood-covered gates behind us.
Billy and Kayla grabbed pairs of latex gloves from inside of the RV and quickly shut the gates up nice and tight which helped give us a sense of security as we worked on the repairs to the RV; after around half an hour had passed the engine of the RV caught afire and we all had to run for cover as the entire thing exploded sending pieces of debris everywhere and creating a towering inferno that quickly spread to a nearby tree that quickly went up—the fire seemed to be spreading from that point on and we knew that there was nothing else that we could do to repair the RV.
“Fuck…our food supplies and ammo caches were in that thing!” I shouted as I grabbed a fire extinguisher off the side of the outside wall of the nearby police station and dashed toward the burning shell of the RV.
I managed to douse the flames enough to create a path through the ruins of the RV into the back where the food and ammo caches were and Richard and Billy covered their faces with wet rags and grabbed extinguishers as well and they helped me carry out what little I could salvage from the wreckage—which didn’t end up being a whole hell of a lot.
“I was able to save a few crates of ammo and weapons as well as six boxes of what we picked up at that grocery store awhile back…we’re going to have to be restocking our ammo, weapons and food here soon.” I stated as everyone gathered into a circle around me.
“Not to mention that fact that we’re now out of a vehicle—one that was used for shelter and storage…” Hugo answered with a dark look.
“Let’s check inside of this police station—there might be supplies that we can use as well as a replacement vehicle.” Billy stated as he motioned toward the police station behind us.
I nodded and led the way toward the doors of the building with all of the others close behind me, I pulled the doors open with some trouble and we all stepped into the front hall of the building—there were corpses of both long dead victims as well as ones that looked relatively fresh; empty shell casings littered the floor and there was old, stagnant blood here and there smeared on the walls.
“Yeah…no kidding.” Billy suddenly stated as he stopped and looked at something.
I glanced back and seen that he was looking at part of the wall where a message was spray painted in black—it read ‘It is the end—death walks the streets and the beast of old has been set free’. The other nearby walls were covered with various graffiti and some of it looked like it had been possibly scribbled on the walls by survivors who had no doubt taken up refuge inside of this building at some point in the past; I went over to a nearby door that was labeled ‘Armory’ and I kicked the door in causing it to fly open striking the inside wall with a loud bang and I entered the room letting my eyes adjust to the darkness as I took out my flashlight and shined it around at the weapon racks and various metal boxes that were here and there about the room. Jennifer, Sheila and Chloe came in behind me with their lights shining and I turned to them smiling as my lips met each of theirs—inside of this room there was an abundance of ammo and weapons and I knew that we had eliminated one of the issues that we were now faced with. There were seve
ral racks of assault rifles such as AR-15’s, M16’s and M4’s as well as larger hunting rifles with scopes—another nearby crate held various handguns that ranged anywhere from .45 revolvers to .357 magnums; I grabbed a .50 caliber Dragunov Sniper Rifle and handed it to Chloe who after several seconds of looking it over seemed like she really liked the weapon. I handed her ammo for it as well as two .44 Raging Bull magnum revolvers with an adequate supply of ammo for them as well as everyone else collected what they wanted and then we loaded the rest into one large crate and carried it out of the empty police station and back outside; we had also found a large cache of heavy Kevlar body armor that we also took—knowing that we would be protected from wearing it gave us an extra sense of security.
“I’m going to check the garage and see if there’s anything we can use in there.” Beau stated as he gripped his assault rifle and headed toward the nearby garage entrance.
We waited several minutes before we heard the roar of an engine as a large heavily armored vehicle emerged from the entrance of the garage and Beau got out and motioned for us to come over, once everyone was gathered around the new vehicle we looked it over closely.
“This thing is called a Gurkha Armored Assault Vehicle—there’s another vehicle inside that’s also large; it’s a black 4x4 Ford Van that we can take as well—it’ll just need some steel plating over the windows and windshield.” Beau stated as he motioned back inside of the garage.
“I’ll drive this one I guess—Morgana of course can ride with me as well as Simone, Kira, Emily and Lloyd.” Richard stated as he started loading the smaller ammo and weapon crates as well as the crates of body armor into the back of the Gurkha.
Shortly afterward the Van was brought out and Beau and Hugo made the modifications to it and after a few minutes it was ready to go as the last of the food supplies that I had salvaged from the RV as well as the weapon and ammo crate was loaded into the back of the Van; My dad volunteered to drive the Van and his passengers were my mom, sister and niece Ella.
I got back into our Mustang and started the engine as Jennifer, Sheila and Chloe followed with our children and I led the way out of the deserted police station and out down the road as Beau and Evangeline got back into the semi and followed last as the rest of the group followed after us—the rest of the town of Marathon was pretty much the same as the rest had been and we were just about to leave the city limits when several vehicles suddenly appeared behind us and rammed into the side of our convoy; one of the vehicles struck the rear left side of the Gurkha that Richard was driving doing no damage to the vehicles’ armor but the force of the impact knocked the rear door wide open and I glanced in my side mirror and noticed that Lloyd reached out the back trying to grab the door latch—that was when I saw one of the passengers of the vehicles that attacked our convoy lean out the side of their vehicle with a .12 gauge shotgun pointed at Lloyd. Before anyone could really react, the gun fired and I watched as Lloyd was hit in the chest and knocked out of the vehicle and then struck by the front of Eco-Roamer as Hugo slammed on his brakes; his lifeless body slumped to the ground and Hugo was forced to drive around to avoid smashing his body as Beau and Evangeline followed last—I put my foot all the way down on the gas and sped up in an attempt to lose the group of vehicles that had attacked us, there was no doubt in my mind now that this had been another ambush attempt by the marauders.
“Hang on!” I shouted as I swerved around the enemy vehicle that seemed to be leading the others.
I managed to get behind them and then Jennifer opened fire with the .50 caliber machine gun and the bullets tore into the rear of the enemy vehicle in front of us and it shortly after exploded flying up through the air coming straight for us as the driver lost control—I charged through the inferno grinding the front armor of our Mustang against that of the destroyed vehicle; for a few split seconds it was hard to breathe as black smoke surrounded us and then we came out in the lead of the others in the clear as Billy and Kayla behind us swerved and missed the burning enemy vehicle and followed us—Richard swerved missing it as well as my dad in the Van and Hugo and the others followed by Beau and Evangeline in the semi missed it as well and sped up to catch up with us as the rest of the enemy vehicles smashed into the ruins of the burning vehicle that we had destroyed and I watched in the side mirror as a massive fire cloud rode up over the crest of the hill and I knew that we had successfully escaped from them—we had lost yet another person though and we were all quiet for a few minutes as I continued in the lead. The rest of the day seemed to pass by slowly and the miles along the desolate Canadian highway were long and boring and I continued driving on into the late night and early morning hours finally passing a medium sized town called Parry Sound.
“Which lake is that baby?” Sheila asked as she yawned and stretched glancing over to the right at the dark waters of the lake we were passing.
“Lake Huron…we’re getting close to the Toronto area—luckily our planned route doesn’t pass through the actual city.” I answered as I sipped at my coffee which was barely lukewarm.
“It’s so hot—even at this time of the morning.” Chloe stated as she pulled off her top to where she was only in her black bra.
“Yeah, it’s almost June now—that means that it’s almost Summer time.” Jennifer answered smiling back at Chloe as she completely pulled off her shirt and bra to where she was topless for a few seconds before she put on a bikini top covering her breasts.
Sheila helped her by tying the ties in the back and then Jennifer leaned over and kissed the side of my face smiling.
“I saw that look on your face—you naughty man.” She stated with a laugh.
I laughed and continued driving as the morning sun could be seen as it slowly peeked up over the eastern horizon, soon the heat of the day had settled in as we continued toward the outskirts of Ottawa; I stopped along the side of the highway briefly so I could switch and let one of the girls drive and I noticed that several of the others in the vehicles behind us were doing the same—Chloe drove this time and Jennifer and Sheila settled into the backseat with Remy, Mace and Ember while taking care of Xavier and Darc Aiden as I relaxed in the front passenger seat next to Chloe. That was when the CB beeped and came to life with Hugo’s voice.
“We’re heading up toward Quebec aren’t we?” He asked on his end.
“Yeah—we’ve got to get clear of Ottawa first and then we’ll be passing through Montreal and then finally Quebec before heading southeast into Maine.” I answered as I grabbed the nearby road atlas looking it over as I had marked our route on the map with a red marker.
“I’ll be glad when we get to Portland and hopefully figure something out with what has been going on with Bowman and his marauders.” Billy stated on his end.
“No kidding—we’ll travel with better purpose when and if we can find out more clues as to where that son of a bitch is hiding.” Richard answered with a chuckle.
“We’ll be in Maine soon—let’s just keep going and hopefully there aren’t any more ambush attacks by those asshole marauders.” I stated as I spoke into the CB before putting it back on the dashboard.
I watched out the open section of the windshield plating near the mounted machine gun for a little bit and then fell asleep, I slept rather fitfully and I woke later that afternoon when Jennifer and Sheila woke me by lightly shaking my shoulder—I woke with a start and looked around at them and then out the windows and it looked like we were sitting still; when I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I seen that our convoy was sitting in the middle of what appeared to be a minor pileup of other wrecked vehicles and those vehicles were surrounded by tall police barricades that stretched all along the left side of us. Hundreds—maybe thousands of zombies could be seen on the other side of the barricades and they were screaming horribly as they tried to gain enough leverage to break through the barricade—which looked like it was only holding due to the wrecked vehicles that were bet
ween them and us; I glanced to the right and seen that we were near a large steel bridge that went across a nearby river and the bridge itself was blocked off by the wrecked traffic.
“Where the hell are we?” I asked as I glanced at Chloe and the other girls.
“We’re just a little bit past Montreal but we can’t proceed across the bridge—which is what we need to do—due to all of these wrecked cars and shit.” Jennifer answered as she held up the atlas and pointed in the direction of the bridge.
I opened my door and stepped out with my assault rifle and I noticed that Billy, Kayla and several of the others were nearby to their vehicles and were watching the dead-heads with worried looks.
“We’re going to have to get away from here soon—it won’t take those dead fucks long to figure out how to break through.” Hugo reported as he and the other Covenant One members approached me.
“I’ll try to clear us a way with the chassis—I was waiting for you to wake so you would know what the situation was.” Beau stated as he turned and headed toward the semi-trailer with the battle chassis.
We watched as he powered the chassis up and stepped from the trailer over to the top of a wrecked car and he stepped across the barricade landing on top of several of zombies smashing them with the massive steel foot and he clanked through the horde steadily getting their attention as they chased after the battle chassis—once he was well away from us Beau turned toward the masses and a huge trail of flames shot out of the right arm weapon and incinerated the horde of zombies that were in front of him; we watched as hundreds of them ran around screaming even more horribly than they normally did when they smelled our flesh—Beau continued the barbeque process and within another several minutes the entire area on the other side of the police barricade was littered with burning bodies and several sections of the nearby building and trees had also caught fire. He turned and headed toward the bridge, clanking down the roadway across the bridge he used the steel foot of the chassis to kick at wreckage of vehicles that were in his way and we watched in awe as those same vehicles that he was kicking at fell off the bridge into the river far below making huge splashes. After a good seven or eight minutes had passed he returned and reported that all of the obstructions on the bridge had been cleared—that was when several bullets struck the side of the cockpit of the chassis causing sparks to fly, Beau looked up as did the rest of us and we could make out incoming vehicles that looked just like ours as well as the ones who had tried to ambush us back outside of Marathon.
[HGB] Humanity Gone Bad: The Dead Chronicles Page 44
