by Smith, S. L.
He turned to face the Goliath zombie. “Why do y’all have to look so much like your former selves? But still so completely changed?” He aimed the katana’s swing into the thickness of the man’s mossy beard.
“Again?” Isherwood seethed with anger. The katana had lodged itself again. The man’s spinal column was apparently unnaturally thick. Isherwood stepped back quickly to dodge the man’s heavy paw as it bore down on him. He ran back to the green truck and grabbed the second sword from the passenger seat. “That’s twice now that I’d’ve been sunk without a backup.” Isherwood said, disregarding the pistol.
Isherwood returned with the second katana and pivoted around the massive zombie. He brought the blade down against the back of the man’s neck as he did. From this angle, the zombie looked almost as he had in life. He brushed away the sudden rush of memories to finish the job.
He retrieved his sword and did a quick scan of the area. He was alone for the moment. There was a ring of logs around a long-spent bonfire. He dragged Jesse’s body into the fire ring and tipped the ash pile onto the body. He finished covering Jesse as best he could with handfuls of ash. He crossed the dead man’s forehead and turned back to the truck.
Moments later, he was rolling over the hill back to the LaGrange camp. His thoughts had turned to the bed of the truck. He was worried it would be too small to hold everybody. Even if it did, except for inside the cab, there was no room to retreat from the reaching, grabbing hands of the dead. The women would have to ride inside the cab with him, while Glenn and his sons rode in the bed. It could work, he thought, but they would need a hefty measure of luck. So much depended on how quickly the boat could retrieve them from the beach. And what depth of zombies they would be wading into.
*****
When Isherwood returned through the trapdoor, the family was beginning to show signs of life. The children, at least, most of which were teenagers, were already recovering from the advanced stages of starvation. Isherwood guessed that Glenn and Missy had been sacrificing their own rations for the children, likely without the kids realizing it. He saw that they would need to carry Missy out of the camp. Glenn, Isherwood knew, would never permit anyone to carry him out of his own home. It was just as well, Isherwood’s own head was starting to grow fuzzy from prolonged exposure and fighting.
Sarah’s two brothers, Micha and Eli, helped Isherwood lower their mother through the opening in the floor and down the steps. Isherwood broke away from them to start sweeping the perimeter as the other started spilling through the trap door. Though their food supplies had been long depleted, Glenn and the boys were still well armed with sidearms, rifles, shotguns, and hunting bows. They had a duffel bag of their own packed and ready. They had also filled Isherwood’s backpack, now emptied of provisions, with all the spare ammo it could hold. He grabbed the radio out of the bag before it was loaded.
Isherwood had parked the green truck near the foot of the stairs which led to the trap door. The foot of the steps was still clogged with the pile of minced zombies from Isherwood’s arrival. Missy was able to help lift herself into the passenger seat of the truck and the girls, Mary and Annie, somehow piled in beside her.
Somehow, they had all fit into the cab and bed along with the bags of weapons and ammo by the time Isherwood returned. It took him a full five minutes to clear the area, though his back had been unburdened of his pack. He was growing tired and the zombies were growing more numerous.
“Okay,” Isherwood said, returning out of breath. “This is a pretty good set up. Glenn in the center with the shotgun. Micah and Eli at the front and sides. Once we get away from this fixed location, the sound of gunfire won’t be such a bad thing. It might even start drawing the zombies away from the edge of the Pilot Channel and give the guys in the boat a heads-up we’re coming.”
“They’re lining the beaches?” Eli asked incredulously.
“Oh yeah,” Isherwood answered with wide eyes. “For miles. They’re just throwing themselves into the channel and getting swept away. It’s clearing the whole area, but it must be all of Baton Rouge and Lafayette spilling off the Interstate.”
“But why?” Micah asked, smirking. “Why’re they doing that?”
“Why are the dead committing suicide?” Isherwood smirked back. Micah nodded. He seemed to shrink in confidence. “Because Padre and the others are sitting ducks in a boat in the middle of the channel, or at least they seem to be.”
“Fishing with live bait?” Eli, the older brother, was nodding in approval. “Alright.”
“Yeah,” Isherwood said, feeling a sudden rush of anxiety. “For as long as we can.” His eyes suddenly had a faraway look in them. He slammed the tailgate into place, and turned toward the cab.
“Get ready, guys. The mobs can get really thick, really fast.” Isherwood saw their hands tighten subconsciously around the stocks and barrels of their shotguns. “Light it up. They’ll know we’re coming, either way.”
“You killed a bunch of them,” Annie remarked as Isherwood clanged the driver’s door shut and got the engine going again. Annie and Mary were basically sitting on top of him. He had placed the radio in his lap for the drive. Annie leaned over and wiped a smudge of blood from his forehead. “You’re covered in this stuff, Ish.”
“We’re still a long way from a hot shower, but it’s – it’s in sight. Almost. Let’s get out of here, okay?” He said as he shifted into reverse and pulled out from under the camp.
CHAPTER EIGHT: OMAHA BEACH
Isherwood decided to take a different way back than he had come. That way, along the pipeline, was likely filled with zombies by now. The mob he had left behind had hopefully drawn others to it as they moaned in frustration. He slid the back window of the truck open, so he could talk to Glenn and the boys. They knew the island like the back of their hands, and he was going to need their advice.
As he drove over the hill and back along the road, he asked Glenn for an alternative route that would, hopefully, put them a ways south of the pipeline but still in sight of the boat. He would rather not take this approach, obviously, but if the radio failed him he could also honk the truck’s horn at the boat. Hopefully, the boat would arrive faster than the swarm. Hopefully. Ideally, though, they would not even need to wait for the boat.
“Hey Glenn, are there any boats still docked on the island?”
“What?” Glenn asked, still not able to yell. Mary relayed the message for Isherwood. He could hear Glenn’s reply, though it was too soft for him to make it out.
“He said,” Mary relayed. “That there wouldn’t be anything except at the main dock.”
“Okay, that’s what I figured.” Isherwood answered. “Tell him we’ll take the road that goes past there. If it’s heavily infested, we’ll keep driving on past down that road that parallels the west bank of the channel. We’ll drive it until we find a quiet place to wait for the boat.”
Isherwood next picked up the radio from his lap. With one hand still on the steering wheel, he turned the knob on the radio. “This is Isherwood. I’ve got the family in tow. There are six of us total. All alive, over!” He ended the last part with a sudden rush of emotion, and he almost choked up. His two sisters-in-law noticed, though. Annie leaned in closer and wrapped her arm around his neck. Mary, too, reached her hand over and gave Isherwood’s head a scratch.
He hadn’t yet had time to process that they were all still alive. Sara still had one unaccounted-for sister, Maggie. She was living in Baton Rouge when the power grid collapsed and all electronic-based communication stopped. To have them all here with him and alive, Isherwood smiled, was an incredible feeling. If I can only keep it this way a little longer, he thought. But he knew that their greatest challenge may yet lay ahead of them.
The radio crackled in response. “We’re all just wasting away here in Margaritaville. Over.” It was Justin.
“Brother,” Isherwood answered. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Naturally,” Justin interrupted.
“Over. Wait, was that a Lost reference?”
“What?”
“You know, with ‘the Island’ and all. Nevermind. Over.”
“Anyway, can y’all see the boat dock? I forgot to point it out before, which was really stupid. There should be a stop sign sticking up out of the water, a break in the trees, and some timber mats going up a hill. Is there a boat tied up there? Over.”
“Let me get the binoculars. Hold on. Over.” Justin answered, and the radio fell quiet.
Isherwood had turned now back onto the last cut-through. He turned southward on it, but took a second to look back the way he had come. There was movement down the cut. Shadowy figures were standing still at about two hundred yards. He could feel, rather than see, their necks snap in their direction.
“Mary, tell the boys to hold their fire until we get a few hundred yards down the cut. There’s a mob down that way. A mean one.”
As Mary relayed the message, the radio chirped. “We found it.” It was Padre’s voice this time. “It’s good to hear your voice, Isherwood. That was some real 007 action on that pipeline. No boats at the dock, but plenty of zombies. Over.”
“Good to hear y’all haven’t had any more complications, too, Padre. Is it possible to clear out the area? Over.” Isherwood asked.
After a long pause, Padre’s voice returned. “It’s hard to say. It may just draw more, while creating a barrier of bodies. Plus, we may need the ammo. Over.”
“I gotcha.” Isherwood answered. “Looks like we’re gonna need the ramp, though. We’ve got some here with mobility issues. Over.”
“Okay, we’ll see what we can do. We’re gonna detach from the pipeline and head closer to the west bank. We may be able to draw them away from the dock a bit before you get there. Over.”
“I like it. Thank you. Over and out.”
Isherwood put the radio down quickly. Not only was the truck getting together around potholes, they were beginning to encounter zombies. These were the ones, Isherwood thought, that hadn’t been drawn northward by his gunfire.
He drove around a tall zombie wearing a tank top undershirt, denim shorts, and work boots. The zombie’s reactions were slow, almost drunken. It didn’t seem to notice the little green truck until they were almost right on him. It jerked suddenly, as the truck drew within fifteen feet or so. It almost hurled itself at the truck. Isherwood was surprised at its speed and ferocity. It seemed to erupt from a state of dormancy. It wasn’t awake very long, however.
Micha didn’t let the tank top zombie get anywhere close to his family or the truck. The thing’s head exploded in mid-lunge, as Eli’s shotgun exploded. Isherwood could just see, through the rear-view mirror and between Annie and Mary’s heads, the satisfaction beaming across Eli’s face. He must have watched helplessly through the camp’s windows as the zombies staggered one by one to the camp, as they slowly surrounded it and trapped them. It had been almost an entire month now of helplessly watching and the slow agony of starvation. He could only imagine what Glenn must have felt watching his family slowly die from starvation and waiting for them to die, turn, and wake with vacant, hungry eyes.
Isherwood broke free from his musings at the sound of a second shotgun blast. It was Micah this time. He scolded himself for losing his focus. All this could be for nothing, including Marshall’s horrific death, if he lost focus now. Not only that, there was the girl they had found in the Brooks Plantation . They had locked her in the troop transport truck with food and water. She could survive that way, but not forever. If she started pounding at the door in her madness, she could draw them in. They might return to find their getaway vehicles surrounded. He just hoped their captive wouldn’t draw in a crowd from the interstate. This was unlikely, though, as the boat was still serving as a giant lure and diversion in the opposite direction.
Two more shotgun blasts erupted from the bed of the truck. The zombies were beginning to get thicker. Isherwood turned off the main north-south cut. The green truck turned into a gap in the trees and along a narrower trail that snaked in a southeasterly direction toward the Pilot Channel.
Dodging zombies on a trail this wide would be next to impossible. If they ran into a pack of any size, Isherwood would have to stop and clear the road, losing precious minutes. If there was a mob of any great size, they might need to reverse all the way out back to the cut. If the normal speed of the truck was any indication, the zombies might be able to outrun them driving in reverse. They had to take the chance, though.
Without a word from Isherwood, Eli and Micha seemed to understand the predicament. Isherwood caught a flash of a half-naked zombie through the trees on the far side of a curve in the trail. Before he was even conscious of its presence, Micha had picked it off. It must be easy for them, Isherwood thought. Their eyes are trained to see deer through the thick underbrush. With just a glimpse, they knew rack size, age, and distance to target. And, Isherwood thought, they could do all of this at an hundred yards or more. How much easier would it be for them to spot and shoot a brightly-dressed zombie at twenty yards or less? It couldn’t be that difficult to overcome the muscle memory of aiming for the head instead of the lungs. Right?
*****
The woods suddenly fell away before the truck and a long tin-roofed shed appeared on their left. There were half a dozen ATVs stored there. “Those would’ve been nice to have a mile back.” Isherwood grumbled to himself.
“Watch out,” Missy said softly. Isherwood could see she was struggling to lift her right arm, as she pointed. He was relieved to see it, nonetheless. It was an improvement. She was pointing at a few zombies that lurched into the roadway from a stand of tall grass. Micah and Eli had dispatched both of them by the time she finished raising her hand.
Their blood chilled as a large, many-throated moan erupted ahead of them. The double shotgun blast seemed to have awakened a thickening crowd of zombies. They had finally arrived at the Pilot Channel. Clump by clump, the dark silhouettes of the zombies began standing out from the shadows under the trees and in the brambles. There must have been hundreds loosely scattered about. In just the few seconds since they had burst through the clearing beside the shed, the vice had already begun to tighten around them.
“Clear me a path!” Isherwood shouted through the back window. “I’m taking the road south along the Channel.” Any vagaries he had had of stopping at the shed to trade out vehicles quickly vanished.
“Save your ammo,” Isherwood shouted again. “Just clean up the road ahead.” The thin metal roof of the cab groaned and buckled as Micah and Eli re-positioned to aim straight ahead. They were like two forward pointing horns on a charging bull. Isherwood just wished his bull had a little more horsepower.
The zombies began to fall away in sheets in front of the small truck, as it began its wide turn to the south. The road soon branched off and fell away into the Channel. This was the one and only, though somewhat crude, actual boat dock on the whole island.
After the dock, the road continued southward, Isherwood knew, for at least half a mile, maybe more. He hoped they would be able to find some sort of makeshift boat ramp, if they could only make it through the brambles and swamp between the road and the channel.
Though the boys were effectively laying down the zombies ahead of the vehicle, the dirt road was quickly filling with zombie speed bumps. The small truck lost a lit bit of speed each time it lurched over one of the piles of fetid flesh. They had to maintain some kind of momentum to pass through the swarm. They didn’t have much speed to begin with and what they had was quickly wasting away. And Isherwood knew this crew wouldn’t make it long at all on foot.
Isherwood caught a glimpse down the boat ramp as it passed along the left side of the truck. It was like a long pirate plank reaching down into the water. Dozens of zombies at a time were spilling into the Channel and lurching away into the swift current. Hundreds more were pushing at their backs eager to follow them into the water. The waves of zombies, he saw, were gradually slowing as a c
all to new prey was percolating down the ramp. They were, all of them, slowly stopping and turning. The desperate sound of the small truck’s struggling motor was like a siren going off.
The back passenger tire suddenly caught on something – probably a rib cage or a femur jamming itself between the tire and the wheel housing – and the truck jerked backward. Isherwood gunned it, hoping to spin out of it. It did no good. The truck soon died. It lasted just long enough to drive them right into the thick of the swarm.
Isherwood took a second to cuss under his breath and grind his teeth together. He reached under where Annie was sitting for his swords. He had laid them along the floor boards. Before reaching for the door handle, he yelled some quick instructions into the radio. “Mayday! We’re stuck at the boat dock! Mayday! Stuck at the dock. Come quick or not at all.”
He swung the door open. He knocked over a pair of corpses as he did, giving him some space to get ready for the oncoming waves of zombies. He unsheathed the first sword and got to work. He left the other sword with the girls. He gave them quick instructions on how to push it through a small slit in the window, if any got close. Behind him, either Annie or Mary pulled the truck door closed again. They would be safe for now in the cab.
Micah and Eli had never stopped shooting. Their ammo was holding out for now. Though he had no time to turn and look, he was pretty sure Glenn was getting in on the action, too. His will was just too strong to be overcome by starvation.
There were fifteen or so zombies within ten feet of the truck. These needed to be cleared out first and hopefully before the first wave scrambled back up the somewhat steep and slippery dock.
Half a skull with the ear still attached flew down the ramp and skittered away as Isherwood brought the blade down through the first zombie. The katana blade sank deep into the zombie’s shoulder, as well. The body slid off the blade on its own and the thing’s arm fell as a separate, mouldering heap.
