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Morning, Saturday, April 30
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Near Tarpley, TX
“Ready?!” Vance yelled over the crashing of wood and the hundred roaring voices.
“Yeah!” Tim said.
“Go!” Harry agreed. Vance nodded, slid the bolt back, and pulled the hatchway open. Harry and Tim leveled their rifles in anticipation as he revealed the tunnel interior. They all exhaled when the string of LED lights running into the distance revealed it to be empty.
“Thank God,” Ann gasped.
“Harry,” Vance called, “take point!”
“You got it,” the big former Marine said and dropped down to crawl into the tunnel.
“Tim right behind him,” Vance continued, and Tim nodded. “Girls, grab a cart and go behind Tim; I’m taking rear. Go, go, go!” As they began to move, Vance grabbed a belt and slung it crossbody over his shoulder. What it held had been illegal before everything fell apart. The rifle that went opposite the belt had been as well.
When Vance had designed his retreat, he had always known there might be scenarios where he’d be forced to bugout. While designing the bunker under the house, he’d had to take that into account. The cost involved in making the tunnel was too exorbitant to make it more than four feet wide by four feet tall, especially since it was almost a hundred yards long. The cost of digging a 170-cubic yard tunnel had been shocking, to say the least. He’d second-guessed that cost at least a dozen times over the years. But as he watched his pregnant wife take a rope in hand and crawl into the tunnel pulling a cart laden with goods, he was glad for the first time.
The carts were landscaping carts. Each of them had four large, oversized wheels and could hold over 400 pounds. After they’d all discussed the situation, it was decided to go with a worst-case bugout plan. Even then, deciding on the cart loads had been tough. There was so much they were leaving behind. The cameras in the garage were out, and the external damage looked bad. They didn’t know what they’d find when they got there.
Inside the tunnel, it was even more cramped than he’d remembered it being when he’d finished the installation work. The contractor had only cut the rough work, shored it up, and covered the walls with waterproof concrete. He’d put the rubber flooring down himself, hung low-power LED lights, and installed the doors at both ends. There was even a solar-powered air vent at the 50-yard point, in case they had to use it as a hideout.
The last of the women pulled the carts into the tunnel just as Vance heard a resounding crash of wood breaking, and a snarling, barking voice back at the bunker stairs.
“Shit,” Vance said and crawled into the tunnel. He caught the barrel of the M4 carbine he’d slung over his back on the tunnel top and had to back out a few inches to bend over and clear it. In that time, he heard multiple feet racing down the stairs, along with feral snarls. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he moaned as he backed into the tunnel and stretched for the rope attached to the door.
When he’d built the retreat, they’d planned for almost every collapse contingency they could think of. From economic to a meteor impact. From nuclear war to an eruption of the Yellowstone Super Volcano. Hell, they’d even joked about a zombie apocalypse! Then he’d built the bunker under the house with that in the back of his mind, while only voicing the realistic scenarios to Ann when he wrote the checks.
The cost had been so great that his initial plan of a one-inch thick steel vault-style door had been scrapped to save a couple thousand dollars. Two inches of solid oak with metal bands top and bottom had seemed good enough. It would stop anything below a .50 caliber, and the corner to the entrance upstairs made it hard to bring a long arm to bear. Or a battering ram, for that matter. He’d never considered dozens of crazed zombie-plague victims hammering their hands to bloody stumps.
“I still don’t see it,” he said, stretching for the strap and cursing himself for not having a better mechanism, “how could bare hands have pounded through two inches of oak?” He finally nabbed it and pulled just as the first of them reached the bottom of the stairs and searched around. It was a man, powerfully built with wild black hair. He was naked from the waist down. The freak had a damned erection! Blood was dripping from his hands. The door creaked as it swung, and the infected’s head snapped around, and its eyes locked on him.
Vance felt the blood pounding in his ears as he scooted his butt backward and pulled the door as fast as he could. The infected screamed and raced at Vance with astonishing speed. Behind him, Vance could see dozens coming down the stairs to join him. It would take a second to latch the door. But as he pulled it closed, bloody fingers wrapped around the edge, and he knew he was screwed.
Vance braced a foot against the edge of the doorframe and leaned back with the rope. Leverage was on his side, and he saw blood spurt from the fingers.
“Pull out or you’re losing those fingers,” he laughed. Then the unexpected happened. Another set of fingers appeared, heralded by cracking wood, right next to the first set. These fingers weren’t normal, either. They didn’t appear to have flesh on their tips! In fact, the bones were almost like sharpened punches. “Jesus Fucking Christ!” The fingers wedged, and wood splintered as they dug in, and the door began to be pried open. It felt like a hydraulic ram was working on the other side as slowly, inexplicably, the door began to move.
In a panic, Vance craned his head around to look up the tunnel. The LED lights didn’t provide much in the way of illumination, though he could see Ann taking up the rear of the women, and at least half way down the tunnel. Fifty yards, he thought, if I can just pull the door closed...
He pulled with every bit of his torso, arm, and leg strength, and bought back maybe an inch. He could hear rushing on the other side and knew more hands were about to join the battle. He’d lose. It was the feeling of inevitability you got just before a car crash or while watching one of those Russian dashcam videos as a car pulled out into traffic, right in front of a hurtling truck. He was going to die. They’re going to rip the door open and eat me alive, just like the baby in Mexico, he thought. His pulse pounded like a base drum, his lungs worked, and time seemed to slow to a standstill. The rope was slipping.
“Not this way,” he said, shaking his head. Straining for all he was worth, he wrapped the rope around his left forearm several times before letting it go with his right. Another set of bony fingers appeared around the edge at that second and he was almost bent double and jerked through the doorway. Somewhere, deep in his being, Vance found some reserve left and he pulled back as he reached back with his right hand and swung his carbine forward.
Without looking, he swept the safety off, something he’d done in practice a thousand times during trips to his property’s range. Then one more click. He’d picked this M4 for more than its compact size and common ammo. He’d picked it because it was the only fully-automatic weapon he owned. He released the rope and the door flew open. The two who’d been pulling on the door were sent sprawling backward, but there were at least a dozen of them waiting, bending over and snarling at him in the hole.
“Eat shit,” he snarled, and stroked the trigger. Short, controlled bursts, he heard in his head, repeated like a mantra from the former Marine who’d instructed him on the use of the fully-automatic weapon. It’s not a firehose, you only get a couple seconds if you hold the trigger down. Only really useful in close quarters with lots of targets, this situation was where fully-automatic fire excelled.
Vance worked the barrel from side to side as he fired bursts. The gun’s reports in the enclosed space were like hammer blows to his head. He yelled as he fired. The shots weren’t terribly accurate because his left hand was already snatching a magazine from his web gear. Gun smoke billowed, dirt was blown up from the ground and fell from the tunnel walls, hurting his eyes. Brass ricocheted off the tunnel wall and back at him. He shot with his eyes wide in panic, completely unaware of the burning brass landing on his collar and arms, searing flesh.
At least six of them went down, and several more were hurt before the bolt locked open. Vance did one of the fastest mag-swaps he’d ever done in his life, then switched to a two-handed grip. Now he picked individual targets. Each face and torso got a quick burst as they dove at the doorway. At that range, the .223 rounds were devastating. Heads exploded, and torsos were ruptured in fountains of gore.
Then the second magazine was empty, and there were no more monsters immediately visible. Vance shook himself to regain his senses. He could hear Ann screaming in panic behind him.
“Keep going!” he yelled. “Don’t stop for anything!” He reached forward to pull the door closed. He’d punched several holes through it while firing full auto. It looked intact though. He pulled, and the first infected he’d shot stopped it from closing. Blood and brains were everywhere as Vance cursed and kicked at the corpse, his boot heel squishing in the blown-out skull. “Blech!” he said as kept kicking until he pushed the body clear and pulled the door closed. More running outside as he latched it.
“Vance, you okay?” Tim’s voice echoed from down the tunnel.
“Yeah, keep going!” he yelled back, and he started crawling as fast as he could.
“That was a lot of shooting, man,” Tim persisted.
You think? he wanted to yell back, but instead Vance concentrated on making as much distance as he could. He let the carbine hang on its sling, despite that it made crawling much more difficult as it dragged along the ground under him. After about fifty yards, he stopped to rest. Dropping back on his butt, he reloaded the carbine again and looked ahead to verify they’d reached the other end. They had. He could also hear what sounded like animals fighting over scraps. He realized that wasn’t far off. They were tearing apart the infected he’d shot. It sounded like dozens, maybe hundreds of them. God, where were they all coming from?!
“What did you stop for?” Harry yelled. Vance could see him now framed in the doorway, kneeling and holding his rifle cross body.
“Just close the door if I don’t make it!” Vance yelled back, and he continued crawling again. Back the way he came, the door cracked as someone, or something, pounded it with incredible force. “Didn’t I leave you enough to eat?” Vance moaned as he crawled. Another series of blows almost split the door. He glanced back and almost panicked when he saw how badly the door was smashed. He’d only made it another five yards.
Cursing constantly, Vance got to his feet. He had to bend way over and he began to shuffle-step as fast as he could. His back began to hurt right away and every other step he hit his back or shoulders on the roof, but he made much better time.
“Better hurry,” came the far-too calm voice of the former Marine. Vance looked and saw Harry on one knee, his weapon now against his shoulder. As he looked on, Harry raised the barrel and sighted. He heard the door behind him shatter and Harry fired a second later. Vance felt the supersonic crack of the bullet passing within inches of his head the same instant as a meaty ‘smack’ sounded behind him as the round found its target. “Keep moving!” Harry yelled.
“Like I’m going to stop,” Vance said.
Harry fired several more times. Always single shots. Vance stopped looking back, even though he couldn’t help but try and analyze what each shot had done. Some sounded like they’d bounced off metal in the tunnel or hit the door, others more like they’d torn into flesh and bone. Once he heard a strangled scream that sounded like a woman. He tried to ignore it.
Then he was just a few yards from the end of the tunnel and Harry was moving aside to make room for him. Vance’s back was screaming in protest as he slouched through and finally stood upright again. The fifty yards felt more like five hundred! In the second it took him to turn around, Harry and Tim were already starting to swing the door closed. He knelt and looked down the tunnel, and almost screamed. Dozens of them were racing down the tunnel, half crouched, moving almost like chimps would as they loped down the tunnel.
“Wait!” Vance yelled before they could get the door closed.
“What?” Tim asked. “We only have a few seconds!”
“We’ll never hold them,” Vance said. Harry looked and nodded.
“He’s right. Can we barricade it?”
“Nothing down here,” Vance admitted. They were in a ten-by-ten basement about twenty feet below the garage. There were a few storage boxes, but nothing that would slow down the infected’s relentless attacks. “Drop a few of them,” he said as he took his rifle off to get at the other sling.
The two men let the door swing back open and levelled their own M4 carbines. They weren’t fully-automatic, like Vance’s, but they could still put out devastating fire. At the back the women jumped and jerked as the rifles boomed while they loaded the freight elevator with the contents of the three trailers. Tim and Harry both emptied their thirty-round magazines and began to reload. Vance retrieved what he wanted and moved forward.
“When I throw these, you two slam that door and then get to the sides! Ladies, to the sides as far as you can go!” Harry, the only veteran among them, looked at what Vance had in his hand and his eyes got huge.
“Fuck!” he said, then yelled out of instinct. “Fire in the hole!” Vance pulled the pins and lobbed first one, then another M67 grenade.
“Close it!” Vance yelled, and the other two men swung the heavy wooden door closed. As the door swung closed, Vance saw one of the infected snatch a grenade from the floor and look at it. The door slammed closed, Tim threw the heavy steel bolt, and both men spun to the side. Vance almost forgot to move himself but did so at the last second.
The two grenades totaled nearly a pound of Composition B explosive, and they went off within a fraction of second of each other. The small four-foot by four-foot tunnel focused the blast forces, and the only place for it to go was along the tunnel’s length. The explosion blew the heavy wooden door clean off its hinges and sent it flying across the space like a Frisbee to shatter against the far wall, just feet from Nicole Price’s head.
“DAMN!” Tim yelled, because he was nearly deafened by the thunderous explosions. The room filled instantly with dust and smoke and there was the sound of falling rocks for several long seconds.
“Where’d you get those grenades?” Harry asked once they could hear each other reasonably again.
“It was a deal a few years ago,” Vance explained. “Let’s just say that neither side of it would have been approved by the government.”
“Well, we’re in no place to complain,” Tim said, his wife staring at the wood stuck into the rock wall that had almost taken her head off.
“Here,” Vance said, carefully removing four of his remaining six grenades and giving two each to his friends. “They’re heavy as shit, anyway, and scared the hell out of me.”
“We were always very respectful of them in the Corps,” Harry said as he placed them in his web gear. Tim watched how the former Marine did it and copied him. He had to move a pair of magazines to make it work. Vance examined the tunnel; it was completely collapsed less than thirty yards away. A tiny bit of morning sunlight was filtering through the tons of debris.
“It almost killed me,” Nicole said, still staring at the tunnel door, her knees visibly weak. Tim went over to console her while Vance squared-away his gear. He replaced his empty magazines from an ammo can full of them on one of the trailers, then went to the elevator controls.
“Where does this come out in the garage?” Harry asked.
“Back corner,” Vance said and bent to draw a map in the now thick dust on the floor. He indicated where tools and other gear was stored. “I can’t see how much damage there is to the trucks because the cameras are out. But if they’re screwed...”
“So are we,” the big former Marine said with a nod. “So if we can’t use those grenades, that means we’re going to have to throw a lot of lead. A lot of lead,” he said. Vance looked at the second of the three carts, the heaviest one, because it was stacked full of ammo cans. “You ever fired an M4 until the barrel failed?” Vance shook his head no. “Let’s see what we can do to maximize our chances.”
* * *
Six infected huddled against the rising April heat in the partially collapsed garage. The building was in bad shape, and the entire structure was hot. Still, their simple instincts had drawn them there. Two were worrying at an MRE package, the same instincts telling them that there was something inside worth the effort. A creaking sound made one of the two MRE eaters look up just as a .22 long rifle bullet punched through his left eye and out the back of his head.
The infected who’d been sitting next to him stopped ripping at the plastic with his teeth and turned to look at the suddenly slumped figure. He cocked his head in confusion. The part of his brain that was once capable of making complex associations struggled. It was still struggling when another .22 went through his brain.
Harry pushed himself the rest of the way through the hatch and carefully crawled toward the two bodies he’d just shot. Two more infected came into view, both huddled against the partially collapsed garage door. Pop, pop went the Ruger Mk III .22, and they both went down. He moved to his next target.
Vance stood on the elevator with all the equipment and the rest of his people. Everyone had full battle-rattle, their M4 carbines clipped to single point harnesses and held at the ready. It had been almost five minutes since Harry had climbed the ladder up into the garage. He’d volunteered for the duty as the only one of them that had done ‘sentry elimination’ as he called it. The process was brutal to watch.
Harry shot two more infected who’d been tearing apart a groundhog by the door, then crouched by one of the corpses. He expertly replaced the nearly spent magazine, stashing it in a belt pouch, and slowly looked around, the gun held high and close to his body. After a moment, he turned and waved to Vance.
“Stay down,” he stage-whispered to the women still in the basement. The dogs, Lexus, Rock, and Dewey, were all sitting with muzzles on. He could just hear them growling, hackles raised. None of them liked the infected. They were all worried about the dogs, what with the story of how the infection was passed by ingesting flesh, the animals were at high risk. The women held their M4s and watched him with big eyes. Ann, his wife of only a week, tried to smile, but fear was etched on her face in stark lines.
Vance nodded to his friend Tim and they both quickly moved to the pair of trucks sitting in the middle of the garage. There were broken boards and other debris lying on the vehicles. The two men carefully moved it aside. They split up and began examining the trucks.
“Shit,” Tim hissed in a minute.
“What?” Vance asked, moving over next to him. The trucks were both 1976 Ford F-350s. Over two years Vance and Tim had spent thousands having the vehicles carefully gone over. The electrical systems were upgraded but left pre-electronic. The engines were rebuilt. The suspensions were replaced and upgraded. Armored glass and bullet resistant panels were installed. The two friends jokingly called them their Mad Max badlands specials. The hood of the second truck was open, bent upward. It looked like it had been hit by a wild animal. The radiator was breached, antifreeze on the ground. “People did this?”
“Looks like it,” Tim said.
“What’s the story?” Harry whispered by the shattered door.
“One of the trucks is fucked,” Vance said.
“Can you fix it, quick?” Harry asked.
Fix, sure, Vance thought, but quick?
“Let me see,” he said.
The hood could be secured without too much difficulty, at least temporarily. The radiator was another matter. Normally switching a radiator could take hours, was a noisy operation, and required power tools. Thanks to all the money they’d spent, he had another option. Vance started under the hood to switch some valves he’d had installed.
“It won’t run for long,” Tim reminded him.
“We should get five to ten miles,” Vance replied. They both spoke in whispers, conscious of just how close more of the infected were. Harry slipped closer and spoke.
“We can’t take just one truck?” Harry asked.
“This one’s the crew cab,” Tim said, and used his head to indicate the other truck. “We’d all fit, if we left everything behind. Including the gas cans.” Harry’s mouth became a thin line and he nodded, understanding that he and his wife were part of the problem.
“I can fix this,” Vance said, “go get the spare radiator and stow it.” He turned to Harry. “Make sure there’s room, get all the doors open, and then signal the women.”
“We’ll get the dogs in first,” Harry suggested.
“Good idea,” Vance agreed. They all knew the animals could go wild at any moment. The trucks were both preloaded with some supplies, but not much. They needed what they’d brought from below.
Everything started to happen fast from that point on. Tim got one of the spare radiators from under the tool bench, loading it into the front of the other truck’s cargo bed along with a half dozen one-gallon jugs of multi-use anti-freeze. While he did that, the girls boosted the dogs up to the garage level, one at a time, and Harry took the freaked-out, growling animals and put them in the back seat of the crew cab, clipping their leads to the front seat headrests. Finished with the anti-freeze, Tim switched to jugs of water. They were going to go west, into the desert high country of Texas. Water was essential. Vance had just finished switching all the valves under the hood when it happened; he dropped a wrench.
Vance made a mad grasp as it slipped out of his fingers, just missing it. The drop-forged steel hit the floor and rang like a bell.
“Fuck,” he snarled. Someone, or something, grunted outside, then several more. “Move,” he snapped at the other two men, then sprang into action. He reached under the front of the truck and snatched up the offending tool, turned the valve its last turn, then locked the wrench back into its holder before pulling the hood closed and securing it with an all-rubber bungee. That done, he dropped to one knee and spun, his modified M4 coming up to his shoulder. Three of the infected had just rounded the corner of the garage door and were looking in hungrily. The hydraulic mechanism of the lift started. It wasn’t extremely loud, but it was loud enough. The 3 infected ran toward him, and Vance shot all three. The gunshots brought a chorus of screams from the infected as they fell, and more yells from the others outside by the house.
“I’ll take the door,” Harry said, and ran toward the garage exit, “you guys load!”
“Got it,” Vance said, got to his feet, and ran to where the lift was just reaching the top. All three women jumped up the last foot ahead of the lift, each heavily burdened with packs and running toward the trucks.
“What happened?” Ann demanded.
“We were made,” Vance said simply. “Load, as fast as you can.” He let his rifle fall on its one-point harness and grabbed two packs. Tim was right behind him. They’d taken some of the time while trapped in the bunker to fill every pack they had with the essentials of survival. Medical gear, food, and ammo. Now they worked feverishly to load it into the trucks. Harry’s carbine began to speak in fast semi-auto fire.
“Don’t take long!” he yelled between shots. “There are a fuckton of them.” Vance stopped just long enough from a trip to run up behind the Marine.
“Here!” he barked and leaned his full-auto rifle against the sagging garage door. He dropped half a dozen magazines as well, including his only pair of 40-round mags. “Make them count!”
“I will,” Harry said, firing out his semi-auto. He unclipped it and handed the weapon to Vance, who burned himself on the smoking barrel as he secured it to his own sling before running back to help Tim. He was feeling all his years and pizzas as he huffed across the rubble-strewn concrete floor. He snatched another pair of packs, the comforting sound of clean, crisp three-round bursts started up. Marines were, first and foremost, riflemen, and Harry was using the weapon to deadly effect.
“Start the good truck!” Vance yelled to his wife as the last of the packs were grabbed up. “Put all those packs in the back. Leave room in the back of the crew cab. Some of us are going to ride in the back.” She nodded, her eyes big with fear and adrenaline. “Tim, you drive the crew cab. Nicole, with Tim. Belinda, with Ann.”
“But,” Belinda started to complain.
“Do it!” Harry barked, firing out a 40-round magazine and swapping for the other. He was taking time to stuff empties in his waistband. Vance didn’t know if he approved or not. He’d think about it later. Smoke from the automatic rifle curled up through the sand-colored foregrip. He didn’t worry about lasting damage; he was more concerned with survival.
The smaller truck roared to life, the last of the bags were tossed in, and the doors closed. Vance waved at Ann and used his hand to gesture toward the door. She gave her head a little shake, and he repeated the gesture, only more vigorously. Her jaw set, teeth showing, she put the truck in gear and with crunching boards, deftly maneuvered around the big crew cab and toward the door. A partially-collapsed tool bench was in the way, and she plowed over it. The big brush guards on the truck’s front protected it from any damage besides some scuffed paint. Tim cranked the other truck, but it didn’t start. Oh fuck, he thought. Ann stopped just outside the garage door, the bodies in her way.
“Go!’ Harry barked, making a sweeping motion with his arm. The pause in his firing allowed a group of at least 20 infected to get dangerously close. He reloaded and fired half a 30-round magazine, dropping six of them. “Go!”
“But the bodies!” Ann complained.
“Fucking go!” Vance screamed. Ann closed her eyes and punched the accelerator. The truck leapt forward, mounting the bodies with a meaty crunching sound and the squeal of tires spinning on meat. For a horrifying second the truck slid sideways on the bodies, and Vance though it was going to crush Harry against the wall. He was busy firing now and paying zero attention to the truck. Then the big oversized mud tires spit a body out and the truck lurched forward. The body slid backward like a bloody egg skidding across a plate. The other truck continued to crank.
“The carburetor must have been damaged!” Tim yelled. Both trucks were carbureted, not fuel injected. They were EMP proof and could burn almost 50% alcohol with just the turn of a switch. Vance ran over, unhooked the hood and raised it with a screech of tortured metal. The air cleaner was bent akimbo, the intake hose crushed. He grabbed it and ripped it clear.
“Try again!” Vance yelled.
“We need to evac, now!” Harry yelled and backed toward the truck. The barrel of the rifle was cherry red, and he was firing 6 round bursts, holding the rifle by the pistol grip only, an extra magazine in his left hand. It would have looked cool if they weren’t about to be overrun. Tim turned the key. The engine cranked for several seconds. Vance felt every thump of his hammering pulse. He pulled up his own carbine. Through the half-broken walls, he saw infected coming around the right side, opposite Harry. He fired through the wall and heard screams just as the truck’s engine roared to life.
Vance slammed the hood as best he could, not bothering with the bungee, and he whipped around the front and onto the side board.
“Come on!” he yelled to Harry.
“Don’t wait for me!” the Marine snapped. Tim put it in gear, gunned the motor, and dropped the clutch. The big 350-cubic inch engine roared, and the tires squealed as the truck shot forward. A mass of infected was framed in the door. Tim hesitated.
“The wall,” Vance said, and pointed. Tim spun the wheel, Vance holding on for all he was worth. He had a brief glimpse of Harry, firing the last shot in his magazine as the truck swerved and began to race by. Vance let his rifle fall on its sling, hooked his arm through the big handle mounted to the back of the cab you used to help mount the truck, and put out an arm for Harry. The man swung, and their arms slapped together. Vance roared in exertion and pain as the other man’s grip closed around his forearm like a vice. Vance pulled and pivoted. Harry swung around and back, catapulting into the bed of the truck.
Harry screamed as he landed, rolling frantically. Vance could see charred flesh across his chest. But he didn’t have time to see how bad it was, the wall was right there. Vance flipped himself back into the truck bed, too, just as the Ford plowed into the wall. It gave in an explosion of already weakened siding and splintered 2x4s. The truck bumped and almost threw both men out of the back as it rode up and over a trio of infected who’d been about to come around the corner. Somehow they stayed in the back, and Tim steered the truck back on to the driveway and after the other truck.
Vance rolled over and looked back to his retreat. The place he’d spent a decade of his life building, he now left in the hands of the hordes. Dozens raced after them, but the trucks soon left them, and his home, far behind.
* * *
Near Kendalia, TX
“Go, go, go!” Cobb roared as he spun the big .50 caliber around to the back and let loose with a long burst. Even through the foam hearing protectors, the gunshots hammered at his brain. The rain poured down on him with huge drops, splashing off his helmet and body armor, and on the turret shield to fly back in his face. A couple dozen infected sprinted with unreal speed, faster than the Stryker could accelerate. They’d stopped, planning to get a bathroom break and some sleep next to an abandoned gas station. But as soon as they stopped, at least a hundred infected poured out in a screaming mass.
“All you do is yell,” Colbert bitched from the driver’s compartment as he pushed the accelerator to the floor.
“You don’t move our asses,” Bennet said, heading to the rear with his rifle, “you won’t have anything to bitch about anymore.” He ducked around a rain of .50 caliber casings and slid the rear firing port open. He stuffed his carbine through and unloaded an entire magazine, sweeping the barrel back and forth. “Fuck!” he yelled as one of them reached past the blazing barrel, stuck its hand through the firing slit, and grabbed Bennet around the throat. He tried to yell for help, but only a gurgling, strangled gasp came out as the fingers squeezed with vice-like force, penetrating his neck and ripping out his esophagus. He released his gun and fell to his knees, trying to scream though his missing throat as he put his hands to the fountaining wound. He was dead in less than a minute.
“Okay, we’re ahead of them,” Cobb said into his throat mic. “Bennet, report?” The Stryker lurched slightly as Colbert rode down another infected who’d ran right at the hurtling APC. The wheels made a dull thudding/crunching sound. “Bennet?”
“He’s on the deck!” Colbert yelled, having craned his neck to see behind him.
Cobb safed the .50 caliber and slid down out of the turret hatch, taking a second to slide the access closed before moving back. Immediately he saw the spreading pool of blood.
“Oh God,” he said as he knelt next to the fallen soldier and reached around to check his carotid pulse. His finger found an open wound, torn artery, and blood. He used his other hand to activate his throat mic. “Private Bennet is dead.” The Stryker raced on.
They found a quiet point on the road half an hour later. Colbert pulled the Stryker off to the side, being careful not to slide into a drainage ditch because the rain was still pouring. Cobb dropped the back ramp and unshipped a pair of shovels. For a change, Colbert didn’t complain as the two men carried their comrade outside, wrapped in a poncho. The two took turns digging in the wet mud, one watching for infected while the other worked. It took almost an hour to get a hole deep enough for them to carefully lower the body inside. It was half full of water already.
“Shouldn’t we say something?” Colbert asked when Cobb picked up the shovel.
“Are you an ordained minister, or something?”
“Well, no...” Cobb nodded and started shoveling mud. Colbert went back to work. Filling in the hole was easier than making it. Cobb finished in a few minutes, then ordered Colbert to get a few of the big flat rocks lying around to cover the grave. It probably wouldn’t stop the coyotes, but it might. He watched the private while that was finished, then they both relieved themselves before climbing back aboard and closing the door.
“First time we’ve gotten out without being attacked,” Colbert said, shucking his rain poncho and hanging it from a hook. “Maybe we can stay a while?”
“No,” Cobb said and gestured at the front. “Get us moving.”
“I don’t think we should move.”
“I don’t care what you think, private,” he said, turning to look him in the eye. “Drive. Now.”
“Sir,” he said, looking down and moving to the driver’s compartment. A second later the engine roared back to life and the Stryker lurched forward.
Cobb dropped into one of the metal seats. The pad was only an inch thick, and he leaned back against the mid-back support. His hands were shaking. He put his face in his hands and his whole body began to shake. Before he knew it, tears were rolling down. He’d lost men before; you didn’t command an infantry battalion without losing men. But he hadn’t been in the Army for years and hadn’t been responsible for individual lives for longer than that. He’d left Ft. Hood with three good men, and now one was dead, and another might be as well. He’d set out on a trip of more than one thousand miles. He hadn’t yet made it a hundred, yet, and he’d lost half his team.
He got control of himself after a minute, wiped his eyes, and got up. He moved forward and leaned in over Colbert.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“We’re driving through pouring rain in a zombie-filled wasteland. What could possibly be wrong?”
“Just give me an update, private.”
“Engine’s running a little hot, and we’re down to a quarter tank.”
“How far?”
“Maybe 70 miles? Eighty if we’re lucky. We haven’t been very lucky so far.”
“Tell me about it,” Cobb agreed. They drove on down the farm road for some miles and eventually slowed as they passed a sign, “Kendalia – Population 459.” As they’d gotten in the habit of doing, Colbert slowed as they went through town. There was a lot more chance of road obstructions in any town. Abandoned cars, concentrations of infected. Cobb guessed in a town this small, there wasn’t much chance. The infected seemed to migrate toward larger towns or concentrations of their own kind. Sure enough, the town seemed abandoned.
As they passed Crabapple Road, the engine started to miss.
“Umm,” Colbert said, examining his gauges, “it’s possible the fuel level isn’t reporting correctly.” Cobb leaned further forward; there was no sign of a gas station. The engine sputtered. They didn’t have long. Then he saw it.
“Turn right there?”
“What?” Colbert said, “A fire station?”
“Do it,” Cobb ordered. The private mumbled under his breath but spun the wheel. It was a rural fire department, made of tan corrugated steel. The American flag was flying in the rain, and “Kendalia VFD” was painted on the wall. The driveway and parking lot was gravel, a big cistern sat to one side, and a number of older broadleaf trees provided a nice shady place for a pair of picnic tables. No one was in sight. The Stryker slowed. “Pull right up to the bay door,” Cobb ordered. The vehicle came to a stop, and Cobb clambered out of the hatch next to the driver. Colbert handed him his rifle.
Cobb stood on the nose of the Stryker and scanned the area. The rain had slowed to a light mist, though he was still soaked so it made little difference. He used the rifle’s EOTech scope to scan the area. Nothing moved. He ground his teeth. Was it too quiet, or was he just being paranoid? He decided the latter and swung down to the ground.
The personnel door wasn’t locked, and he slid inside, turning on the flashlight mounted to his carbine. The space was clean, dry, and empty. Good. He cut through the office to the big bay where the fire engine would be stored. He was hoping for some fuel and was surprised to find the bay empty. It was also longer than he’d expected, probably used to store both a fire engine and ambulance. Cobb moved over, flipped the release on the bay door, and slid it up.
“Bring it in,” Cobb yelled. Colbert’s head popped up from the driver’s hatch, a surprised look on his face. “Come on, before someone or something sees us.” He dropped back down, and the Stryker growled to sputtering life. Cobb moved aside as Colbert put it in gear and it shuddered into the bay. The engine coughed and died, the vehicle coasting to a stop just a few feet inside.
Cobb pulled the door back closed, then sighed. The Stryker’s back door hummed down, with Colbert on it. “Now, we can get some rest.”
* * * * *
