“Open fire, damn it!” Rocky yelled.
From his aerial vantage point, the pilot could easily see the zombies and how vulnerable the group was.
But instead of the pilot swooping down to assist them, the Black Hawk’s rotors accelerated. The chopper gained altitude before turning and heading back toward downtown Raleigh and Promiseland.
“You shitbird!” Rocky was stunned at the betrayal, but before he could fully process it, the gate gave way and the zombies flooded up the driveway toward the house. Seconds later, the shed exploded in a massive fireball that swept over the invaders.
They staggered on, flames boiling up out of sizzling flesh and scorched cloth. Some of them were blown apart on the spot, but others crept or crawled forward, little more than chunks of smoking charcoal on charred bone.
The first wave was down, but the next had a free ticket to a warm meal.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Bill hadn’t really expected to see any deaders on the logging road.
He assumed C.J. and Sonia had sent him up here because he was too old to be worth a damn and they wanted him out of the way. But then the zombies had swarmed out from the trees while he was parked with the engine idling. The first one was almost to his door before he noticed it. He rammed the Ford F-150 into reverse and backed up, the rear wheels thumping over another one he hadn’t seen.
By the time he’d turned around, deaders hung from both sides of the truck, slapping against the glass. One even managed to hook a few fingers into a windshield wiper and drag itself onto the hood. Its bloated face pressed against the glass, snarling between mashed lips. Its pearl-colored irises leered at him with an uncanny hunger. Bill slammed on the brakes and the creature rolled off the hood onto the ground, and then he stomped the gas pedal and released the clutch.
The zombies couldn’t break through the glass, but he was unnerved by their sheer numbers. His rifle was useless, since he couldn’t risk rolling down his window or opening his door to shoot. So he hit them with two tons of American steel, crushing them beneath the tires when he could. Once he almost bottomed out on a stump, and the rear wheels spun for a few seconds as he panicked, but then he broke free.
He realized that a Ford truck couldn’t conquer the zombie apocalypse by itself, so he abandoned his bloody demolition derby. He headed back down the bumpy road to warn the others. When he reached the pasture again, he saw there was no need, because deaders were spread out across the grass, tottering and swaying in their stilted gaits. They were headed for the farmhouse.
Bill raced ahead of them, startled at how much ground they’d covered. He saw a dead body lying in the grass and recognized the jacket. The zombies had torn large red chunks of meat from the woman. A rifle lay several feet away, coated in blood.
Zombie corpses were draped across the fence like soiled laundry. One had been almost cut in half, but still its arms dragged the head and torso forward, a string of pink guts trailing out behind it. Rocky drove the truck over to it and opened his door. When it reached up into the cab, intent on hauling itself up for a snack, Rocky shot it between the eyes.
He heard the helicopter and blew his horn to get the pilot’s attention. When it lifted up and flew away, Bill whispered, “I’m never paying taxes again, you assholes.”
Moments later, a column of fire bloomed up from the shed near the main gate, loose planks and scraps of tin tumbling through the air. As a horde of zombies shambled up the driveway, Bill gunned the engine and headed for the farmhouse. Kit was inside, and he’d be damned if he’d let those things reach her.
He was halfway there when a figure popped up from behind a wild rose bush. At first he thought it was a zombie and he turned the wheel toward it, but then he saw that it was Knocker, the stoic hunter. He slowed and Knocker jumped into the passenger’s seat, his rifle barrel banging against the gear shift.
“We got overrun,” Knocker said, stating the obvious.
“Logging road’s full, too. No exit.”
“C.J. called everybody in.”
“That’s where we’re headed.”
Now that he was lower in the valley, Bill could see zombies approaching from all directions. They were in various states of decomposition, some so fresh they couldn’t be more than a day dead and others carrying the corruption of years if not decades. An army division might be able to hold them all off—or maybe an armed-to-the-teeth helicopter could—but the motley gang of survivors at C.J.’s farm had no chance.
“What happens once we all fall back to the house?” Bill asked.
Knocker grunted. “We die together instead of alone.”
“You’re just a real ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
“Been called worse.”
When Bill reached the interior fence line, Knocker hopped out and opened the gate, the final barrier between the house and the zombies. Knocker squeezed off a couple of shots before he climbed back into the cab. They rode the rest of the way in silence.
They pulled up to the house to find Rocky, Meg, and Sonia on the porch. A staccato patter of gunfire echoed across the property. Bill climbed out of the truck with his Winchester and asked, “Is Kit safe?”
“Probably,” Sonia said.
“What does that mean? She’s inside, isn’t she?”
“She went to tell the others to join us here.”
Bill started to launch into a rage, but Knocker laid a hand on his shoulder. The hunter’s cool, brown-eyed gaze was enough to calm him down. We’re all dead anyway, the look seemed to say. Why not go out with some dignity?
“Once we’re all together, we’re going to fight our way out,” Rocky said. “It’s the only way.”
That wasn’t true. Bill thought they each might have a better chance if they all split up and ran. Not everyone would make it, but the old and decrepit bait like him and C.J. would create a diversion that might allow others to escape.
Meg and two others approached from the barn. Bill remembered that the old guy had cancer—he’d make great bait, too. Their hides were so tough and chewy that it would take the zombies half a day to finish them off. And probably get indigestion to boot.
“Let’s take the upstairs windows until the others show up,” Rocky said.
Bill followed him inside and up the stairs. They passed a bedroom where Sherry sat with the children, and Meg went inside to give Jacob a hug. C.J. and Moreau were already stationed at two windows, aiming and firing carefully. Bill and Rocky joined them, leaving Sonia downstairs with the walkie-talkie to organize the retreat. Knocker stayed on the porch to protect the driveway with Marty and Louise.
“We’re going to burn through our ammo before we have a chance to enact the plan,” C.J. said. Roscoe perched at his feet, one floppy ear draped over the old man’s leather shoe.
“We’ll give it fifteen more minutes,” Rocky said. “If the others aren’t back yet, we’ll go on without them.”
“You’re just going to leave them out there?” Bill said. “I thought you were a soldier.”
“We have little children here,” Moreau said, making it sound like “leetle cheeldren.” “That’s our number one top priority.”
“Kit’s a child, too. She deserves a chance to live.”
“Simmer down, Bill,” C.J. said. “We don’t have to decide anything right now. Save your hate for the deaders.”
Bill did just that, aiming down the Winchester’s iron sights. He squeezed off head shots like he was back in the church steeple running up a body count. The zombies who’d breached the main gate made toward the house, clambering over the prone corpses of their fellow dead. The pile was so large, and their limbs were so entangled in the gate, that Bill didn’t think a vehicle could plow through the mass of corpses.
And with the forest blocking off three sides and the creek bordering another, they could only leave on foot.
“Here comes three more,” C.J. said, waving out the window. “And there’s Arjun and Sydney. Kit’s with them.”
B
ill hurried downstairs to meet her. She jogged up the porch steps, breathing hard, and gave a crumpled piece of paper to Sonia. “Here’s your map. I couldn’t find anybody else. Except a few that were already munched up.”
“Thank you, Kit,” Sonia said. “Go up and tell the others we’ll be leaving soon.”
The zombies were now within a hundred yards of the house on all sides. Knocker sat on a stool and rested his rifle on the porch railing, shooting as steadily as if he were taking down wild turkeys instead of former humans. Sonia aimed her Glock and fired a few shots even though the targets were beyond the weapon’s effective range. Bill joined in even though he fully accepted how hopeless their situation was.
The shooting from the second story seemed to diminish. The farmhouse door opened and Rocky and Moreau came out. Others crowded inside near the doorway to listen.
“All right, folks, this is it,” Sonia said.
“We’re busting through over by the creek, a few hundred feet from the road,” Rocky said to the people on the porch. “We fan out in a tight V formation, with the kids behind the center. If anybody drops, we close ranks and keep moving. No stopping for anyone.”
“Cold,” Knocker said, pausing in his steady firing. “I like it.”
“C.J. and a couple of others are staying behind to provide cover fire.”
“We can’t leave them!” Jacob said from behind Meg.
“This is how they want to go, Champ,” Rocky said. “None of us like it, but we’re out of options. And every second we waste hurts our chances.”
“Then quit yapping and get moving,” Knocker said.
“Everybody fall in!” Sonia shouted.
As the remaining survivors poured out of the house, Bill waited for Kit, who gave him a sheepish grin. They all gathered in the yard in front of the house, where Rocky arranged them into a defensive wedge. Marty and Louise retreated from the driveway, both of them out of ammunition, and the zombies weren’t far behind.
Above them, C.J., Sherry, and the old guy with cancer picked off the attackers as best they could. “I should stay here with them,” Bill said to Kit. “I’ll just slow you down.”
“No way,” Kit said. “Who’s going to give me geezer advice like ‘Sit up straight’ and ‘Just say no’ and bullshit like that?”
“If it helps all you folks get away, I’d die a hundred times.”
“What’s your hurry? You’ll get there soon enough anyway.”
She took his hand and he yielded. Maybe there was something to live for after all.
“Gather up,” Rocky called as he and Sonia hastily arranged the group. Most of them were wearing backpacks or shoulder bags, carrying what food and supplies they were able. “I’ll take point. Concentrate fire right in front of us. Knocker, you bring up the rear.”
The nearest wave of zombies was sparse but only thirty yards away now. Their combined firepower couldn’t fend off the zombies much longer.
“Let’s roll,” Sonia said.
As the formation moved out, Bill waved up at C.J. and the others. “Remember the Alamo.”
The old man grinned and shouted back at him. “My memory’s as shot as everything else. Now get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Meg made sure she kept between Jacob and the deaders as they approached the fence.
The wedge was surprisingly effective. Even without taking precise aim, the sheer force of the group’s volley managed to clear a path across the farmyard. When they reached the fence, Arjun and Sydney held the strands of wire apart so the others could wriggle through. Rocky went first, holding his ground as he delivered quick bursts along each flank. Knocker trailed behind the group and cleared out any stragglers that approached from the rear.
“Don’t cut yourself,” Meg said as she helped Jacob through the wire. “Infections are deadly.”
She then slipped through herself and descended a brushy slope down toward the creek.
Even though every bush might be concealing a zombie, Meg felt safer here than out in the open. Or maybe that was a function of not seeing them all at once.
Out of sight, out of mind.
“This way,” Sonia said, helping the other two children down the bank.
The formation broke apart because of the slope, with people negotiating muddy or rocky terrain. Somebody let out a cry of panic somewhere to the left of Meg, but she couldn’t see who had been attacked. A frantic burst of gunfire followed the scream, which died away to whimpers of pain.
“Don’t stop!” Rocky said. “No time to help anybody!”
Meg wasn’t thrilled with Rocky’s heartless decree, but she yielded to his military experience. In a combat situation, soldiers would never abandon their fallen comrades in the field, but these were untrained civilians with the odds heavily against them. Rocky was just doing whatever offered the best chance for at least a few of them to survive.
When she and Jacob reached the creek, she discovered several others were ahead of her. Arjun and Sydney had already crossed the rushing, knee-deep waterway and now fired at shapes shambling toward them through the trees. Arjun called encouragement to them.
“Hang on, hon,” she whispered, clutching Jacob’s forearm and nearly dragging him into the creek.
“I’m not a baby,” Jacob said, shaking free and wading into the water. “I can do it.”
She followed after him, studying the glistening stones for the best footing. The water was icy cold, almost immediately soaking her jeans. Her feet were like numb wooden blocks inside her shoes.
Jacob navigated the hazard easily, dancing from rock to rock and barely getting wet. She slipped once and fell to one knee, but was able to ford the rest of the way without harm. They stepped over a fallen zombie on the opposite bank, its head a bowl of wet red mush.
They pushed their way into a stand of rhododendron, struggling against the tangle of wiry branches. Jacob dropped to his hands and knees and scurried ahead across the leaf-carpeted loam. The branches grabbed at Meg’s rifle. She tried to shove her way free but was forced to ditch the weapon. She plucked the Glock from its trusty nest inside her rear waistband. She reasoned that any fighting in the woods would be at close range anyway, rendering the pistol more effective.
She heard twigs snapping, barely audible above the churning wash of the creek. She’d lost sight of Jacob among the profuse, waxy leaves. She called his name and got no response. Her hair snagged and she yanked free, ripping a few strands out by the roots.
“Jacob, where are you?” She was tempted to ditch her pack, but it contained Mister Grizz, the last memento of Ramona, as well as ammo and some dried food. The branches tore at her hands and face, slashing painful shallow runnels in her flesh. She wished she carried a hatchet like Knocker, or even a seven-inch blade like Sonia and Rocky.
We should’ve stayed with the others.
Had she chosen this difficult route because she reasoned the deaders couldn’t penetrate it? Or was she deliberately isolating Jacob to improve their chances by letting others serve as easier prey?
Meg forced such thoughts away. No time for rationality. Just reaction and instinct.
Just like a zombie.
“Jacob, talk to me!”
He wouldn’t have run that far ahead even if he was out of the rhododendron. He might have a reason for staying quiet. She stopped moving and listened, but all she heard was the creek and her own breath.
As silently as she could, she slithered against the dense foliage. Towering trees rose just ahead of her, so she knew she was nearly clear. She was parting the last snarl of branches when she saw him.
Jacob had pressed himself into the lightning-blasted trunk of a massive old oak. Fire had carved out a black hollow that nearly concealed him. His eyes bulged with fright. A deader in a long yellow raincoat sniffed at the air not fifteen yards from him. Beneath the raincoat it wore a cop’s uniform, gun and nightstick still attached to the belt although the cap was long gone.
The c
op’s face was mottled and streaked with gray and green veins. Its eyes were red-rimmed and clotted with mustard-colored mucus. An open wound ran across its upper lip, making it look like it had two hungry mouths. It served a new set of laws now, and her son was about to get busted.
Meg tried to raise the Glock but her sleeve was caught. The zombie cop moved closer to Jacob. Now she heard its growl of hunger. Its mouth opened to reveal mossy teeth, and the wound above it appeared to grin.
She had to get its attention. “Over here, you filthy pig!”
She would never call a police officer such a name in her old life, appreciating the dangerous and thankless nature of the job. But this thing was an animal. Worse than an animal—one that didn’t know it was dead.
The zombie turned toward her, its growl emanating from deep within its putrid guts. It lurched toward her, the ragged raincoat fanning out around the body.
“Run!” she yelled at Jacob, but the boy was paralyzed.
Now she regretted not letting him have a firearm. She was so overprotective she’d probably killed him.
Finally Jacob broke out of his shock. “Look out, Mom!”
She freed her arm and pointed the Glock toward the cop, but something grabbed her hand. At first she thought she’d snagged on another branch, but gnarled fingers encircled her wrist and tugged her out of the thicket.
She hadn’t seen the second one. The cop’s partner in crime was a female, sporting a butch cut with a faded patch of pink dye at the temples. Half of its face was gone, flaps of suppurating flesh peeled away from one cheekbone. The gash made its teeth seem even larger as they descended toward her exposed arm. The Glock spun to the ground as she wriggled and tugged against the assault.
Jacob exploded from his hiding place, screaming like an Apache warrior.
“No, get back!” Meg shouted, but the boy ignored her.
He leaped onto the butch-deader’s back, wrapping his slender arms around its neck. He drove his knees into the deader’s spine and leaned back, forcing its mouth away from Meg’s arm.
Revelation: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller (Arize Book 2) Page 23
