We’d been on the road now for about three weeks. Normally a trip like this would take two days at most. But that was when the world was normal and the highways weren’t choked with abandoned cars and rotting corpses all over the place. Some of those corpses were still walking around, many of them weren’t.
When we had reached the outskirts of Fort Wayne, Indiana, it was clear we weren’t going to be able to follow our designated path. Route 30 had become a tangled mess and I was amazed we had been able to follow it as long as we did. But in parts it was obvious that it was the major road and people had tried to escape using it. Spots of it were clear, but enough was jammed with cars so we didn’t even bother to try. We were forced to go further south, which was fine by me. We would have had to eventually turn south anyway, so this route was as good as any other.
The map indicated that Route 40 was a straight shot to Washington, so we decided to try our luck with old number 40. Things had been going pretty well, all in all. We had discovered that away from the major population centers, people had managed to survive. The smaller towns joined with the larger ones and with increased numbers they managed to keep the zombies at bay for the time being. We still passed many, many dead towns, but the ratio seemed to be two or three dead towns for every live one. I had a lot more hope than I originally had at the beginning of this trip and I began to think we might pull this one off.
At every live town we came to, we explained who we were and what we were doing. It was gratifying to see the overwhelming majority of people supported us and wished us luck. We had a lot of volunteers to come help, but I always politely refused. I told them this was a job for a small team or an army and we had nothing that resembled the latter. At each town, we discussed communications and many of them had some form of speaking to each other. Many were nothing more than car batteries hooked up to CB radios, but they worked and that was the key. I had to think of a way to try and communicate with all of them, but nothing I knew of had that kind of power anymore.
We spent three luxurious days in a small town in Indiana and I say luxurious because they happened to still have power. The electrical plant was nuclear and since they managed to figure out how to keep the thing running and closed all non-essential lines, my crew and I actually managed to take a hot shower for the first time in forever. Tommy said he was grateful for the water as well, not for him, but for me, since he claimed I didn’t smell so good.
We crossed into Ohio after having an interesting run through Richmond, Indiana. The people there were living ten feet off the ground. Every man, woman and child had up and moved literally ten feet in the air. They had suspended bridges between buildings, created walkways that allowed them to move freely about the town, all without touching the ground. Baskets of earth had been hauled up to the tops of flat roofed buildings and they planted their food up in the air as well. All this was well and good, but there was a snag that we could see from our perch on a distant hill. The ground was crawling with zombies. All kinds, large and small, milling about, groaning at whoever happened to be seen at that particular moment. The noise was impressive, but even more so was the fact that the people didn’t seem to notice the grim sea beneath them. They had adapted their world and were content with the living arrangements. We just went our way. It was none of our business and the odds were long against us. Besides, if we did somehow manage to get rid of the Z’s, they’d probably be mad at us for making them waste all that effort. People were weird.
According to the map, the town we were approaching was Lewisburg and for some reason I can’t explain, I started to get a twitchy feeling in the back of my neck, like something was going seriously wrong somewhere. I couldn’t shake the feeling and it stayed with me all day. I spoke to Nate about it, but he just told me to stop being an old woman and concentrate on the job. Good old Nate.
The road we wanted to take led us right down the middle of the town and at first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything about. The road turned down a small valley and we passed what appeared to be a subdivision entrance that went back up a hill parallel to the one we were on. Some fairly large homes were tucked away back there, but even at this distance, we could see signs of the Upheaval.
We moved slowly up the next hill, learning from our past not to rush too quickly into areas we couldn’t see. The road was lined with old oak trees, flexing their branch tips to the spring sun. On the left side of the road was an old farm, on the right was an old cemetery, full of weeds and tired gravestones.
I still didn’t see much movement, so I just shrugged at Nate and gestured to him to keep moving. We glided into town and I looked carefully around. I didn’t see any serious signs of violence, so it may have been that this town just up and left for more secured living. We passed an old courthouse, with its front door framed in WWI artillery pieces and an auto-body shop with wide open bay doors.
We bumped over a couple of sets of railroad tracks and Nate pulled over to the gas station sitting on the corner.
“We’re not empty, but a couple of our gas cans are, so I’m going to see what I can come up with,” he explained, easing the big rig under the station’s awning.
“Sounds good. I’m going to have a look around, see if I can’t come up with any supplies,” I said, moving to the gear locker.
Tommy and Duncan came up from the back. “What’s up?” Duncan asked, looking out the window at the quiet town.
“Nate’s going to see about some gas for the rig and I’m going to see about some possible supplies. Wanna come along?” I asked, shrugging into my backpack. My SIG was always on me, as was my knife. I picked up my AR and pickaxe.
“Sure,” Tommy said. “I could stand to stretch my legs.” He grabbed his gear and Duncan did the same. We each snared an empty duffle bag to put supplies in and with a quick look out the window, stepped out of the RV.
We quickly fanned out into a triangular pattern, moving eastward on a cross road that ran parallel to the railroad tracks. There were a number of businesses along that front I wanted to take a quick look into, especially the pharmacy midway through the block, since medicines were in constant short supply. We moved past a small ticket station next to the tracks and I looked around to see if there was any more evidence the town had been hit by the virus.
We moved deeper into the town, weapons at the ready, but not seeing anything to cause alarm. I guess that was why I was nervous. I didn’t see anything wrong, yet the whole setup felt wrong for some reason. I had the distinct feeling I was being watched, but I couldn’t be sure. If it was the undead, they would have attacked the moment they had the chance. If it was a hostile local, they had plenty of opportunity to plant a bullet between my eyes. That thought didn’t make me feel any better, but the fact that nothing had happened yet was probably the thing that was bothering me the most.
I broke the silence to the other two: “You guys got a feeling about this place?” We moved further up the street towards the businesses. I could see a subdivision in the distance, rows upon rows of cookie-cutter homes. The entrance was across the tracks again about a quarter mile up the road.
“You mean like something is seriously wrong here and we’re just too stupid to figure out what it is?” Duncan asked.
“Or the proverbial shoe is about to drop and we’re right underneath it?” Tommy added.
“That would be the feeling, yes,” I said, grinning to myself. I looked around as the wind picked up, rustling through the budding trees. Bits of debris flitted here and there and something hit my foot. I looked down and saw that a small white towel had snagged itself on my boot. I kicked it off and it fluttered in the wind, just like a little white flag. Little white flag…
I turned to say something and my mouth dropped. Between us and the RV were probably fifty ghouls, shuffling steadily at us in the increasing winds. The RV itself was surrounded and I had a fleeting hope that Nate had made it safely inside. If he had, he could stay there until his supplies ran out, since they had no way of getting in. If not, rest in peace, old friend.
From the subdivision to the east, zombies were coming out from between every house. Down the street, dozens of zombies were moving out from alleyways. All of them were focused on one thing and one thing only. Us for lunch.
“Ho-lee…” Duncan started.
“Shit,” Tommy finished.
“We need cover,” I said, looking quickly around. I thought briefly about getting on top of the little train station, but the main body of advancing Z’s had already reached it. I looked at the row of houses across the tracks, but zombies were over there as well. Where the hell did these guys come from? It reminded me of something, but I didn’t have time to think about it.
“This way!” I said, bolting for the pharmacy. It was the nearest building and would at the very least afford some cover and reduce being attacked from all sides. Tommy and Duncan didn’t hesitate, they were right on my heels. That was one thing living on the frontier taught you. If a trusted member told you to do something, you did it immediately. Your survival depended on it.
As we ran, I heard the horn of the RV and stealing a glance through the pack of undead, I could see several unmoving zombies stretched out near the RV. Nate was probably okay, safely ensconced in the RV. Hopefully he would be able to pull our butts out of the fire one more time. I was glad to see he wasn’t dead.
Right now, though, I had to save my ass and those of my friends We sprinted to the store and dove through the door. I moved ahead into the darker back area, checking for threats, while Duncan and Tommy threw shelves and counters and everything not nailed down in front of the door to block the way. I made it all the way to the pharmacy counter when the first zombie hit me. I was coming around the condom display and angling back by the stock room when a dark shape reared up out of the vitamins and took a swing at me. I ducked under the outstretched hand and brought the butt of my carbine up to smash the zombie in the face. The blow knocked it back into the zinc supplements, its nose flattened against its face, giving me time to move my carbine to my left hand and draw my SIG with my right. Little brown pills flew everywhere as I exploded the Z’s head into pieces.
“You all right back there?” Tommy yelled from the front of the store.
“Fine,” I yelled back. “Just seems to be only one of them.”
“They’re here!” Duncan yelled and suddenly there was a loud crash, like an ocean wave hitting a coastal barrier.
“Damn! The whole barricade moved! We need cover!” Tommy shouted as he and Duncan frantically threw more debris on the pile. I could see dozens of hands and faces reaching, grabbing, biting, trying to get past the barricade.
“Give me ten seconds to find the route upstairs!” I shouted back as I kicked in the door to the stockroom. Upstairs was our only hope. We needed to control their access, or we were dead meat.
“We can give you five!” Duncan yelled, firing his rifle into the mass of ghouls. He had no chance of stopping them all, he was just making more of a barricade.
I slid past boxes of school supplies and shelves of adult diapers. A lot of stuff was on the floor, but I had no time to see if any of it was useful. I found a door and yanked it open, but it led down into a basement. The stairs just led down into blackness and there was a decaying odor wafting up, telling me exactly what waited for me down there. No thanks.
I heard a loud slamming and a ‘Dammit!’ from Tommy coming from up front. I had to hurry. Cruising down a row of shelves behind the pharmacy counter area, I stopped as my flashlight caught something sticking out of the shelves. Grey flesh reached out and I nearly fired a shot, but a realized that the zombie had to be standing on the other side of the wall to reach like that. Tapping the arm with the barrel of my rifle, I knocked the severed forearm and hand off the shelf and it thudded to the floor.
Strange place to store a snack, I thought as I stepped over the tidbit and reached the end of the row and found another door. It was tucked away in the corner and was positioned in such a way as to make it impossible to open without being directly in front of it. Crap. I had room to open the door, but had no retreat on either side.
I opened the door cautiously and shined my light on the stairs heading up. Good so far. I stepped up and shined the light up to the top, but all I could see was a banister and what looked like a table. I turned back to tell the guys when I heard a small wheezing noise at the top of the stairs. I brought my flashlight back up quickly and lit up a small zombie, probably an eight-year-old. He was staring down at me and his ashen face was twisted in a vicious snarl, his teeth exposed through a torn cheek. He wheezed at me in that particular way young zombies had, curious and creepy at the same time.
I brought up my rifle just as the little bastard launched himself down the stairs at me. I had no chance at a killing shot, so I backed up quickly and let him slam himself onto the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Hate-filled eyes locked onto mine as he slowly lifted his body off the floor. I targeted those eyes and fired a killing shot right before he charged.
I grabbed a handful of his dirty shirt and hauled the lifeless body out of the way. I had no time for regrets, I needed to clear the damn upstairs. I could hear more shots being fired and I knew I had used up whatever time the guys downstairs could give me.
I sprinted upstairs and quickly looked around, seeing a small apartment dwelling. The kitchen was a mess and there was dried blood here and there, indicating more zombies, lucky me. I cleared the kitchen and small living room, then worked my way down the hall. Two small bedrooms were clear, but the door at the end of the hall was closed. I moved quietly to it and tapped softly on the door.
When I listened at the door, I heard nothing, so I was about to open it when the door shook hard, rattling in its frame. Something on the other side was pounding up a storm and by the way the door was shaking, it was big.
I watched for a second, seeing if the door would hold and when I was sure it would, I went back to the stairs to get my friends.
I was on the ground floor and halfway through the row of shelves when Duncan and Tommy came barreling around the corner.
“Go! Go! They’re right behind us!” Tommy shouted, waving his hand at me to turn around.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I spun around we ran up the stairs and back into the apartment. I let Duncan clear the landing, then I threw the table and chairs down the stairs to stall the horde, which was just reaching the door at the bottom of the stairs. Tommy ran down the hallway and Duncan and I were right behind him. He moved into the room on the left and we followed, slamming the door closed and looking for something to brace against it.
A quick look around revealed this room was not going to be a safe haven. It was a boy’s room, probably belonged to the little Z I just wasted. There was a plastic race car bed, a little pressboard desk and dresser, a plywood toy chest and a fishbowl that had some brackish water, but no fish. Absolutely nothing that would hold back the advancing hordes.
As we caught our breath, we could hear crashing sounds as the zombies fought their way past the table and chairs. In hindsight, I probably should have tossed down the fridge as well.
“Find an exit,” I told Tommy, realizing for the first time this room had no windows. “Bust up that desk,” I told Duncan. “We need splinters, anything with an edge.” Duncan pulled his close quarters weapon, a modified war hammer and set to work with gusto.
I went to the door and listened, hoping against hope that the zombies might lose us and leave or at least leave few enough behind to be dealt with easily. I could hear shuffling in the hallway and the attention was focused on the twit banging away on the end of the hall. I then heard something that chilled me cold. A small scraping sound, then a click. I realized instantly what had happened.
The damn zombie had turned the doorknob and opened the door!
I relayed the information to the other two and they just looked at me for a long moment. This changed a lot and I hoped like hell it was an isolated incident, otherwise it meant a whole new dimension to zombie fighting. If they could turn a doorknob, they could problem solve, which meant one very frightening thing.
They were starting to learn.
“God help us,” I whispered.
“No shit,” Duncan replied as he brought me some splintered desk legs. We stuck the pointed ends into the space between the door and the door jamb, putting four of them to good use. The hinged side we left alone, because it wouldn’t have helped.
I looked over at Tommy, who was busily ripping a wall apart. He cursed as he struck brick, then cast his eyes on the floor. He looked at me and I shook my head.
“We’re right over the store area, which would drop us right into the middle of it,” I said, pushing hard on a makeshift wedge.
“Dammit.” Tommy looked around, got his bearings, then stood on the small chair to punch a hole in the ceiling. “If it’s bricked up here, I have no plan.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “Just find us room to get through, a vent, crawlspace, attic, whatever.”
“Yeah, I just hate getting drywall in my eyes.”
“Poor baby,” I retorted.
“Listen you two-” Duncan started, but his eyes drifted to the door and his voice died away. I looked down and saw what he did.
The doorknob was starting to turn. Slowly, slowly, but it was turning. I grabbed the knob to stop it and the door shook as the dead on the other side groaned loudly and threw themselves against it. The wedges held, but Duncan had to pound them in with the war hammer because they had been loosened.
Tommy tore at the ceiling with both hands as the pounding increased. I leaned against the door to hold back the horde and felt the staccato drumbeat as a dozen dead hands flailed in the opening. Duncan waited with his hammer to pound back any pegs that worked loose.
Suddenly, the door heaved inward and all of the pegs clattered to the floor. I pushed as hard as I could against the door, avoiding the hands and arms that struggled to get around and grab hold of anything they could reach.
“Shit!” I yelled. “Tommy! We need an exit, NOW!”
“Just a minute,” Tommy sing-songed back.
“Haven’t got a minute!” I shouted, heaving against the door. Duncan was pushing hard as well.
“Your dilemma is important to us. Please hold and our next available representative will be with you shortly.”
“The one good thing that came out of the Upheaval and you ruin it.” At least the end of civilization had taken telemarketers with it.
I heard crashing sounds behind me as a zombie pushed its nasty head into the opening and tried to squeeze into the room. The door pressed against the sides of its skull, causing the graying skin to crack down the center and peel back away from its eyes and cheeks. Those milky eyes rotated a bit before they settled on me. Another hand came through the doorway and grabbed at my arm.
“Not a chance, pal.” I cursed, leaned against the door with my shoulder, and drew my SIG. I put the barrel in the Z’s eye and blew it to hell. The body slumped to the floor, but just as I pulled the trigger I realized I had managed to block the door from closing. This was turning out to not be a good day.
“We’re good!” Tommy yelled above the din.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a pair of hands sticking out from the hole in the ceiling he had made.
I glanced down at Duncan. “You first.”
“You can’t hold this door by yourself,” he said and proving his point, a sudden heave by the zombies nearly opened the door by a foot, but we managed to thrust it back.
“Grab that wedge and shove it under the door,” I said, pointing to the stick by his foot. Duncan complied and saw what I wanted him to do. He grabbed the other three and pounded them under the door as well. It wasn’t much, but it would have to buy us a few precious seconds.
“ Come on!” shouted Tommy from above, the hands shaking furiously.
“Go!” I said to Duncan.
Duncan impressed the hell out of me by stepping away from the door, bringing up his rifle and firing five times through the opening. Thumps against the door proved his accuracy.
“Thank me later,” he said as he stood on the small chair, grasping Tommy’s hands. In an instant he was up through the opening, then two more hands appeared. I let go of the door just as the zombies fell against it again, cracking it open and surging into the room, falling down over their dead companions. I leaped for the hands, knowing if I missed I was dead.
Thankfully, strong hands grasped me and I was pulled up through the ceiling with both men lifting me, zombie hands literally sliding off my boots as I passed from their clutches.
I stepped down onto support beams, realizing that this was an unfinished part of the attic and we could still fall through the ceiling if we weren’t careful.
I looked over at the two men. “Thanks,” I said.
“Anytime.” Tommy said. “But we aren’t safe yet.”
“Right. Let’s look around and see if we can’t find a way out of here.” I moved carefully into the attic, stepping around a brick chimney and heading over to what looked like a window.
Below us, the dead groaned at the hole that ate their dinner, unable to comprehend what had happened. They could likely still smell us and hear us, but they had no way to pursue. Thank God.
The window was nailed shut and painted black, but a tap with my knife handle cracked it quickly enough and I looked out the hole at the side of the building next to this one. I peered down, seeing there was no way we were going to make it down three floors without injury, so jumping was out. The building next to us was four stories, so we couldn’t escape that way, either.
The cracked window let in a decent amount of light, enough to see the other window on the far end of the attic. Tommy worked his way over there and popped a hole in the glass of that window. Looking around, he smiled back at us.
“Good news,” he said.
“What’s that?” I replied.
“Got a fire escape here.”
“Any bad news?”
Tommy looked out again. “Quite a few Z’s out there, but they look to be moving towards the other side of the building.”
“All right. Well, let’s hope they stay true to form for a bit and don’t look up. Let’s get the glass out as quietly as possible, then we’ll make our way up to the roof. These buildings are close together, so we should be able to make it back near the RV, or someplace where Nate can get us,” I said, pulling out my pickaxe to pry out the glass in the window.
“Think Nate’s okay?” Duncan asked, wincing as a piece of glass cracked under my work.
“He’d better be.” I said, trying to mask my concern for my friend.
We worked quickly, making an opening big enough to escape and in short order we were on the roof. I jogged over to the front and looked down.
Holy Mother of God. There had to be two hundred zombies down there, trying to get into the front of the pharmacy. We had to move fast, because if one of them happened to see us, we were in a serious race.
From the distance to the next building, it was clear we had to go away from our objective. The building next door was too tall to try and get onto the roof. And the building after that was a two story, so it was useless to try and gain any ground that way. The building on the other side was the same level, so it was a quick jog and a jump to get to the next building. The one after that was a full floor lower and further away to boot.
But desperation leads to determination and I jumped first, after throwing my backpack and pickaxe over ahead of me. I aimed for a roof access to break the fall, missed completely and wound up rolling ass over teakettle across the roof. I stood up to see Duncan and Tommy laughing at me, then I got to laugh as the two of them did the same thing.
We had one more building to go and fortunately, it was the same height. Unfortunately, it was also about twelve feet between the buildings. Gritting my teeth, I took a long running start and sailed over the opening, skidding to a stop about halfway across the roof. Tommy went next and I stood near the edge to grab him if he went short. He didn’t and we both waited for Duncan to screw up the courage to move. It took a while, but he finally did it, pumping his arms like a piston and breathing like a steam engine. He launched himself like he was flying and did a graceless belly flop onto the gravel roof of the building.
Tommy and I covered our mouths, convulsing with silent laughter at the sight, made worse by the dire consequences of getting caught. Kind of like getting the giggles at a funeral. Duncan salvaged as much pride as he had left and flipped us both off.
Wiping my eyes, I looked over the back of the building and saw the way was clear. We scrambled down as quickly as we could, unbelieving in our luck.
Or we would have, had Tommy’s melee weapon not hit the side of the ladder opening as he went down. The entire fire escape resonated with the impact and it vibrated for a second, sending waves of sound out into the air.
Duncan and I froze on the ground as Tommy slid the rest of the way down. He looked at the two of us, shrugged and said, “Dinner bell.”
“Jesus,” was all I could say as I ran down the alley, the two of them in tow. We had to be careful to attract as little attention as possible. There were hundreds of Z’s out there, possibly thousands and we were on our own with just what we were carrying. I had a vague feeling of deja vu as I sprinted past the rear of the pharmacy.
At the end of the buildings, I looked carefully out and around, hoping to see no one and that was exactly what I didn’t see. Dozens of zombies were on the move and they were coming out from all over, galvanized by their brethren to hunt food they thought was nearby. I looked over at the gas station and I was both relieved and furious at the same time, if such a thing was possible. I knew Nate was okay, but only because the RV was missing.
“What the hell?” Tommy asked, sticking his head around the corner.
“Are you kidding me?” Duncan chimed in. I glanced back at him since he hadn’t even bothered to look. He just shrugged. “Hey, I’m a team player.”
“Hang on,” I said. “Nate wouldn’t leave unless he had to, or he figured it was absolutely necessary.” I went on. “He saw us run into the building, but knew there was no way we were getting out the front. If he moved, he can draw attention to himself and away from us.” I pulled my radio. “And we get hold of him, thusly. Nate, you alive? Over.”
The radio came to life. “Holy fucking shit, you idiots made it. I figured you probably would, but you had me scared there, boy. Where the hell are you? Over.”
“We’re in the alley behind the buildings. The Z’s haven’t found us yet, but it’s just a matter of time. Whoops, over.” I ducked back behind the corner of the building as two zombies stumbled into view. I hoped like hell they hadn’t seen me.
“Can you head north on that 40 road for a bit?” Nate said. “I’m down by a small garbage truck company. Over.”
“How far is ‘a bit’? Over.”
“Half mile. Tops. Over.”
“On our way. Talon out.” I put the radio away and turned to the other two, who were swinging weapons at my head. I dove forward into a roll and came up with my rifle at the ready, just in time to see Duncan flatten a small teen zombie and Tommy level a larger male. Both crumpled without a sound.
The two wiped off their weapons and turned to me. “We gotta go, I’m thinking,” said Tommy.
“Roger that. Weapons out. We keep moving. Shoot it if it’s in the way, otherwise, just run past. Follow me.” I pressed my carbine into my shoulder in a low-ready position.
We moved out at a quick jog, running along the main road. After about forty feet, we could hear the moans of the dead as they spotted us and gave chase. I looked back once to see if there were any little fast ones to worry about, but there didn’t seem to be any at the moment. We would know in a few minutes after they had outstripped their contemporaries.
We moved down the road and headed east, passing a few older, Victorian-style homes that seemed to be in nearly every small town in America. Each one we passed we gave a once-over and in every case, the homes seemed fine. The only evidence that there was any problem was a few homes looked like they had been left open after their inhabitants had left.
After a couple minutes of jogging, Duncan got my attention.
“Zombies on the left,” he said.
“Got it, just keep moving,” I said, angling away a bit to get past them.
Tommy spoke up. “Fast ones, coming up from the rear.”
I looked back. Sure enough, four little quick ones were running ahead of the others. They weren’t at a full run, but were way quicker than older ones would have been
“Let’s get some distance from these others, then take them out,” I said, moving a little faster. Tommy and Duncan kept up, although we were starting to get a little winded.
After about another fifty yards, I slowed to a stop and turned around, taking aim at the little Z’s who were barreling down on us.
“I got the one on the left. Call it,” I said to Tommy and Duncan.
“Got the middle,” Tommy said.
“Got the right,” Duncan said.
“Whenever you have the shot. First one down takes the leftover,” I said, lining up the little kid’s head. In another life this casualness would have horrified me, but a lot had changed since the end of the world.
I was aiming my shot when Duncan fired first, knocking down his target and swinging his aim to another. I fired once, sending a little girl tumbling forward. Tommy fired, shifted his aim, then fired again. His second shot was true and finished off a small boy. Duncan waited a second, then kneeled quickly and fired, blasting back a Z, nearly flipping it completely over.
“Took you two,” Duncan said over his shoulder.
“My front sight is a liar, thank you very much.” Tommy said defensively.
“Later, gents. We got more company.” I pointed to another horde coming down a side street, with more spilling out of various homes and businesses.
“Man, this is like a bad dream,” Duncan said as we started running again.
“I don’t have dreams anymore.” Tommy said darkly as he brought up the rear.
We ran down the street, passing a small corner strip mall. There was a cleaner’s, a White Hen and a thing called the Black Cow. I guessed the last was an ice cream place. On the far side of the strip mall was a restaurant and veterinary office. Several cars were parked in normal places, making me wonder yet again what the real story behind this town was.
I looked up the road and finally saw the RV. Nate was flashing the lights and doing everything he could to get our attention. We ran towards the truck and I glanced back the way we came.
Nearly a thousand zombies were headed our way, some much faster than others, but all of them were making good progress. I’d need a wall, twenty men with two hundred rounds of ammo each and whole boatload of luck before I would even attempt to try to take this town back. That or a deep freeze and sledgehammer.
We ran up past a second abandoned ice cream parlor called the Creamery and we were fifty feet from our sanctuary when a group of fast-moving zombies ambushed us in the parking lot of the business.
There wasn’t time to fire a weapon, they were on us that fast. There were five of them and had any of us fired, we might have hit each other. It was pure hand to hand.
I punched one of them to the ground, holding it down with a foot on its neck while I elbowed another in the head, spinning it away from me. A third got hold of my vest and lunged in for a bite at my stomach, thwarted only by the AR magazines in my front pockets. I tangled my hand in its greasy hair and viciously wrenched its head around, snapping its neck. The second one was on its feet and after me again, coming in low and fast. I stepped off the one on the ground and drew my blade, a simple Buck Nighthawk Tanto. I liked this blade because it could punch through sheet metal and skulls with equal enthusiasm. As the zombie neared, I pivoted away from the snapping teeth and plunged the knife hilt-deep into the back of its neck. The powerful blade sheared through its spinal cord and paralyzed it instantly. I turned my attention to the one on the ground, who had crawled up and was rearing its head back for a bite on Duncan’s calf, Duncan being occupied with a squirmy Z who refused to hold still and die.
“No!” I yelled, reaching down and grabbing the zombie’s ankle and hauling it away from Duncan. The ghoul twisted around and blackened teeth streaked at me like a striking rattler. I swung my blade up hard and slammed it under the chin of the zombie, burying it in the brain pan of the monster. The zombie looked surprised for an instant, then slumped dead.
I pulled out my blade and quickly searched for new threats, not seeing any but watching Duncan and Tommy finish off their enemies. I quickly wiped my blade off and picked up the rifle I had dropped in the fight.
“Thanks, man. I owe you one,” Duncan said, cleaning off his knife.
“No score, brother, you know that,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.
Tommy spoke up. “More coming.” He pointed down the street. “We gotta get out of here.” His sleeve was torn, but I didn’t see any bites.
“You’re right. Let’s get the hell out of this town,” I said, running over to the RV. We would clean up later, right now, we needed to get away to relative safety.
We jumped inside and stowed our gear, stripping away any clothing that might have zombie virus on it. Tommy took off his shirt and I was relieved to see he didn’t have any bites. Duncan had a welt on his leg, but that was the worst of it. I was very careful removing my vest, since the little Z had gotten its mouth on it.
Nate moved the RV out of the town, heading out again on Route 40. I slumped in the passenger seat and looked over at him.
“Well, that was a bust. Did you manage to get any gas?” I asked, hoping for some good news.
Nate grimaced. “No and they jumped me so fast I left an empty can behind. So we’re going to need another one from somewhere.”
I sighed. I guess this confirmed my suspicions about the place, but something was nagging the back of my mind and wouldn’t let go. I mulled it over for a bit and when the answer hit me, it was like a ton of bricks.
I called Duncan and Tommy up to the front. They had changed clothing and were in regular duds.
“What’s up?” Tommy asked, dropping into a kitchen seat. Duncan plopped down beside him.
I looked at both of them. “Remember when we were walking, we had a bad feeling about the place?”
“Yeah, what about it?” Duncan asked.
“What was your feeling on the situation?”
Duncan looked up. “Let’s see. We were moving through what looked like an abandoned town, but when we got away from our safety, suddenly there were Z’s everywhere.”
“Right,” I said. “What did you think right when we saw all the zombies?” I knew what I thought, but I wanted to see if they shared my sentiments.
Tommy spoke up. “I remember thinking we had just walked into a trap.” His face suddenly fell. “Oh, man.” He said.
Duncan looked stricken as well. “If they laid a trap, then here’s a whole new ballgame.”
I nodded. “It goes in line with the doorknobs,” I said.
Nate piped in from the driver’s seat. “What about the doorknobs?” I explained and Nate responded in typical fashion with eloquent cursing. “Well, that just about finishes off a shitty day,” he said, angling the big rig around a car in the road.
Something in the tone of his voice tweaked my attention and I turned back to him. Tommy and Duncan were lost in their own thoughts regarding what we had just lived through and what we had learned.
“Something on your mind, hoss?” I said to Nate.
“Well, since you asked…” Nate stretched his arms one at a time before he went on. “While I was waiting for you numbskulls to figure out how to get out of the mess you got yourselves into…”
I narrowed my eyes but let it go.
“I was remembering all those communities we saw who were communicating through CB radios. So I decided to turn ours on and see what I could hear.”
I was surprised. “We have a CB?”
Nate pointed to a small compartment above his head. I noticed in a similar opening the cat we had rescued was lounging. Tommy had named it Zeus, since it liked to look down on all us mortals.
“Anyway,” Nate continued, “I turned the thing on and worked my way through the dials, listening in on a couple of conversations, but unable to respond, since their signal strength was low and they wouldn’t have heard me anyhow.”
I kept silent, wondering where Nate was going with this.
“But things got real interesting when I hit what used to be known as the Public Announcement channel,” Nate said.
“Do tell.” I prompted.
“Turns out there was a fella doing a broadcast, sending it out over the airwaves, talking about how everyone should accept the new order of things and he is gonna be in charge and we all had better toe the line if we didn’t want to suffer, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“Really? Where could he have been broadcasting from?” I asked.
Nate looked over at me. “I thought the same thing, but then I remembered an old retired Army guy talking about how he spent a year of his life being bored to death in a listening post inside the US. Turns out the Army was taking a lot of paranoia seriously and set up listening and broadcasting posts all over the US, usually in out of the way places. They were set up to be nearly self-sufficient to minimize contact with locals. I wonder if this guy found one of those places, figured out how to turn it on and was sending a message out to all us low-life types.”
I remained silent, thinking how useful a tool like that could be for organizing communities to strike out against the zombies.
“Anyway, I was about to shut him off when something really weird happened,” Nate said.
“What could have been weirder than that?” I asked, stretching my legs up onto the expansive dashboard.
Nate looked over at me. “He mentioned your name.”