by Shane Woods
“This is the heaviest shit we have?” I asked, dismayed. “I mean, they’re all great manstoppers, but this isn’t a man.”
“Maybe we should start scouting south, too.” Tony suggested.
“He’s right,” Jennifer interjected, “we could see if the military left anything we can use behind.”
“Yeah maybe,” I said thoughtfully. “But, I’ve got a plan for tomorrow. We need that equipment, and I want this big bastard erased. He doesn’t need to keep living and presenting a threat to us.”
“Let’s hear it,” Dave challenged, and everybody else seemed to move in closer.
“Scott, Tony, Dave, Rich, James, and myself will go,” Clara offered.
“Sounds good,” I agreed. “We’ll take a single light pickup, that leaves enough of us to drive what’s there. Rich and James can jerk each other off over who takes which equipment, Clara and I will take a dump truck each if we can, they may be useful later.”
“Those dumps are automatic, we were already going to take one, but we were a little preoccupied,” Clara explained.
“Are we just- excuse me,” Katie broke in from the back of the group, “are we just going to ignore the fact that you guys murdered kids this morning?”
I was about to speak when Jennifer stepped up.
“I’ll take this one,” she said, and grabbed Katie by the wrist and led the large, whining woman off to the stairwell.
Rich mouthed ‘Oh shit’ and several of us tried to cover laughter at the thought of the bitching out Katie was about to receive by my wife.
“Anyway, there’s a business here,” I pointed to a spot on the map, and the team leaned in, “I want to set up on the rooftop. I know it, it’s a brick building with limited entry points and roof access. It should be about a hundred yards from the site.”
“Sounds like a solid plan,” Tony concurred. “When did you want to do this?”
“Seeing as how the building is east of the site, I say we leave at 0400,” I offered. “Come in quiet, get set up, and wait until the sun breaks the horizon to use it like old WWI fighter pilots. We start shooting then. Hopefully the light on our backs, and in their eyes, will cover our position. I don’t know if it will buy us any time, but any advantage we can gather I’m willing to try.”
“That’s fuckin’ genius,” Rich chimed in, “then we clean out any other infected, and walk away with the machines?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed. “So, no drinking, no bullshit, you all get to bed once you’ve set up your kit. Two days supplies, med pack for each person, I’ve got a couple of trauma kits I’ll take. I will be up at 0330, so no dicking around. Meet at the motor pool at a quarter till.”
Everybody agreed and began packing up weapons and talking strategy. I began loading my shotgun for the next day. It was then Tony looked over, probably noticing the glint in the end of the shells as I loaded the magazine tube and began adding more to the shell holder on the side of the collapsing stock. He, naturally, picked one up and inspected it.
“No shit?” he asked, a touch of wonder to his voice. “I didn’t know you had these!”
“Yup,” I replied. “Remington copper SABOT slugs. Should give a bit of extra punch if he gets close enough to need them.”
“That’s what’s up, man, nice!” he said as he replaced the round on the table.
I bade everybody goodnight as I gathered my stuff up from the table and departed to make my way to bed. Tomorrow was likely to be an interesting day.
TWENTY-FOUR
As promised, my alarm brought its dream killing tone right on time, and I was up and on my feet. I’m one of those rare people who have no issues being able to be up with the bell. My wife, on the other hand...
Well, I kissed her on the forehead as she remained asleep, then turned to begin getting dressed and putting my things in order. Within a few minutes, I was on my way out the door, a Styrofoam cup of cold coffee from yesterday in my hand. I arrived at the motor pool a few short minutes later, and lit a smoke as I waited for my team to arrive. My scavenged Timex told me they had three minutes.
Surely enough, they arrived together, and four minutes late. Whatever, close enough, I guess.
We made basic pleasantries, and light, hushed conversation as we loaded things into the small Ford Ranger, and then we piled in, me driving, Tony sitting alongside, and the others piled into the bed, all sitting low.
Henry met us at the gate, and as he rolled it aside, he stopped us to lean inside and give me a friendly hug along with a word of thanks and well-wishing. I returned it in kind, and we were off, the gate rolling shut behind us.
We took an immediate right and headed the half block south from the complex before cutting another right to take the main road westbound to the site.
Keeping the small four-cylinder engine of the truck running low, and the lights off, to keep our profile low, we rolled past what used to be a familiar landscape. Now painted with the markings of death, and the stench of all the rotting infected we’d been dumping off the overpass onto the freeway. It was an alien place to venture into.
We rolled the main strip anyway, and no conversation was made. Every person not responsible for driving was watching in all directions to make sure we remained alone as we picked up speed in the moonlit darkness.
Within minutes we were close enough to our destination that I killed the engine and took the truck out of gear to let it roll a little closer. It stopped nearly a full block from where we wanted, so we got out and pushed it over to our destination. The light truck was nothing to us, and we made quick work of it, then proceeded to unload and clear the target building. Once we were satisfied that the building was empty, we made our way through the door to access the rooftop.
From there, I quietly instructed the others. James and Clara were to provide a rear guard, in case any runners made it past and into the building. I absolutely did not want to be boxed onto a rooftop. Myself, Rich, Tony, and Dave would wait until the sun was up and bright behind us to start taking shots. Rich and Dave would target the smaller guys, Tony and I would have a go at the big guy. This should work. I hope.
We settled in, with a bit over an hour and a half until true sunrise, and we each opened a bottle of water and an MRE to begin some breakfast. In little time, the light smell of heating food pervaded our area. That was fine, the freaks didn’t seem too keen on ‘people food’, just people.
Occasional peeks over the parapet showed our target zone. A number of smaller infected milled around the chosen equipment. Not much more to look at than a herd of alien cattle bumping around here and there. The machines were relatively close together, parked and waiting for a day that would never come. That’s fine, you and I both know these crews weren’t the most expeditious in the best of times.
As I poked my head up and watched a third time, the breaking sun slowly bringing the landscape into sharper contrast, I saw him. The big fucker was everything he appeared to be and more. He took a few steps into view, appearing from alongside a Mack dump truck, looked around slowly, and settled into a kneeling position. It was almost as if he were conserving what energy it took to get his large frame in motion. In a way, it kind of reminded me of our very own Chris Simmons in the morning.
With no small amount of effort, I pulled my attention away from the scene, mentally counting and marking positions as I did, and returned to my meal.
One-hundred and twenty-five yards. About. Well, I think, at least.
Two-dozen or so little guys, one big fucker.
Okay, yeah, sure, we’ve got this. Stick to the plan. The plan, man.
Nobody uttered more than a couple of soft words. The only thing to break up our open-air dining was the occasional noise from one of the distant infected, and what I could only assume was the odor of the big thing. Clara confirmed this, and it turned my stomach. The damn thing stunk of rotten fish. It was disgusting, and it made eating the years-old food in the MRE’s that much more of a challenge.
In w
hat seemed like way too short of an amount of time, the sun fully crested the horizon. It couldn’t have worked better if it were placed there. We broke the line perfectly between it and the grouping of sick fucks gathered around our nice shining construction equipment.
We began setting up, everybody picking a target and waiting with all the patience of a dog with a snack on its nose. You could feel the air. The breeze had stopped completely, leaving us wrapped in a blanket of early morning humidity. The sun grew slowly in intensity, and I was ready to give the signal.
“All good?” I asked in a rough whisper and waited until I heard five replies to the positive.
“Okay, on three. Pick a target. Tony, you and I both go for the big fucker’s head,” I instructed, then began the countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One.”
The contrast between that last syllable and the eruption of gunfire that followed was concussive, to put it lightly. Rifles in the .30 caliber range all started barking hard orders to die as smaller infected started to drop one by one.
The shots fired by Tony and myself found their marks nearly simultaneously, striking the large monstrosity square in the side of the head. It dropped. Perfect.
“WE GOT HIM!!!” I shouted, and followed with a new order, “Strike the little fuckers, everybody slow and steady!”
Shouts of acquiescence followed and the gunfire spread out to the smaller creatures, already running our way as they took shots that dropped and stumbled them.
The big guy, laying on the ground, brought an arm to his face. I watched on in shock and fascination as it began to try to force its way to a standing position.
There’s…no…fucking…way. We killed this thing! A pair of rifle rounds hit their marks, and it was dazed. Dazed, really?
“BIG BITCH LIVES!” I called out again, “Refocus on him!”
As I said this, and as the hail of rifle bullets moved to this next target, he released a bellow that sounded startlingly similar to the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, then, the thing went immediately into a full sprint in our direction as bullets peppered him and…did nothing. Was it armored? What am I missing here?
In the time it took me to switch from rifle to shotgun, our rear guard began to fire into the stairwell at smaller infected, er, normal sized ones, that had already found their way in and up to where we held tight.
As I checked the load in my shotgun, this living, breathing freight train covered the ground in a way that was graceful, yet drunken at the same time. At one point stumbling on a large piece of chewed up asphalt and going sidelong into the driver’s door of a nearby Camry, crumpling the impact zone like tin foil.
Rounds peppered the beast and the ground around it, doing no more apparent damage than a spring powered pellet rifle would to the average man. The plus-sized freak finished his enraged journey and plummeted headlong into our little slice of safety.
It hit the flat side of the brick building hard enough to shake the rooftop under our feet, and began pounding its closed fists into the wall, breaking loose chunks of brick as it went. If it wasn’t going to fit inside, it was clearly aiming to bring us down to his level. Each strike of its enormous fists rumbling the brick and mortar structure like a 3 AM drunk upstairs neighbor.
Three of us began dropping shots down onto its head and torso and while chunks of skin flew, not much more happened. Even Tony’s .308 lacked the pure kinetic energy needed to do much more than penetrate the depth of a pencil eraser. We were in trouble, this I was sure of.
The beast reared its head back to bellow another roar as a second wave of runners came from the surrounding buildings to join the party.
As its fists, torso, and even head impacted the building yet again, I pitched the shotgun over the edge and fired. The gun bucked and damn near jumped out of my hands as it fired. The shot hit the beast in the crown of its head, stumbling it back.
As I fired round number two, and missed, the hulking freak put its shoulder into the next blow, caving in a huge section of wall and making the building feel as if it jumped entirely by several feet.
I loaded yet another round amid yells and shouts from my team interspersed with bursts of fire. The acrid smoke of cordite burning filled our area, and my nose and eyes as well.
Third time is the charm, right? The third slug caught the creature in the eye, nearly dead center, and sent a small fountain of blood, tissue, and ocular fluids skyward as it penetrated into its head. The resulting pressure caused the remaining eye to bulge grotesquely as the creature fell forward, faceplanting the wall, and then slid down to the ground.
We had no time to celebrate as I watched cracks spread across the roof right under our feet.
The building began a new kind of rumble. An aftershock of the assault it had just endured, it would seem.
“It’s falling in!” I alerted the others. “Guys, get back! GET THE FUCK BACK!”
We scrambled back just in time for the roof to fall into the office below us, giving a clean line of sight to the final half of the second group of infected, about ten of them. They began pouring into the building, so we began firing into the remaining stairwell behind us as they funneled in.
Bodies piled up in the open doorway and down the flight of steps as we all bled our magazines dry. The stench of Big Mac mixed with that of the other monsters and began overwhelming us as dark rust brown infected fluids pooled on the rooftop and ran down the stairs into the office below like a water runoff alongside a street in anytown, India.
Within seconds we were alone again. I couldn’t hear a damn thing from the ringing created by so much heavy gunfire, but I couldn’t see anything else approaching us. We climbed down, helping each other onto the rubble since the stairwell was blocked by corpses. A final shot from Rich as he took out an infected that was only trapped by its friends, barring its entry to the rooftop.
“Okay, over to the equipment,” I said breathlessly. “We’ll rest there. It stinks here.”
The others murmured agreement. I think. I honestly couldn’t tell to this day if they were quieted from fatigue, or my own battle with post-fight tinnitus.
TWENTY-FIVE
We rested for perhaps a half hour and confirmed the keys present in all the vehicles save for one dump truck. After a little searching, we found that, too, in the pocket of a pair of torn and bloody jeans laying nearby with a scattering of bleached white bones.
Returning to the equipment with a set of keys for each, we took a moment and busted out the lights on each vehicle. No sense in adding more markers to the presence of such lumbering mechanical beasts, we were certainly visible enough as is.
The only illumination that was left was done so at the behest of James. The work lights, site illumination, just in case our personal duties carried on beyond available sunlight.
As luck would have it, there were enough radios to give one per vehicle. We checked them, made sure the batteries had some juice, and that they were each on the same channel.
It was decided that the excavator was going to be the slowest vehicle, but it also left the driver very exposed, so we put one dump truck in front, then the heavy tracked vehicle, followed by the backhoe, and myself in the dump truck in the rear, with Tony riding shotgun.
Pulling out onto the main road from the work zone, we began our arduous parade back home, making a fraction of the pace we had when inserting to what would prove to be a quick, but very tense fight.
Passing so slowly through the town, and in the daylight, I was able to see how much further the decay had spread since the previous journey here on day one of our vacation away from home.
So many shops had been broken into and left in complete disarray. They weren’t even completely ransacked, several shops still showed things we were more in need of than those with a short-term mindset, including clothing, personal care products, feminine products, and I’ll be damned, toilet paper!
I called a stop to our short convoy.
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nbsp; Once the vehicles had ceased their forward momentum, I got out of my truck, leaving Tony to keep an eye on it, and I took Dave along with me.
I approached the front of the small convenience store, and, reaching through the broken front door, I unlocked it, and swung it open as Dave led the way, pistol forward and ready as we swept the darkened interior.
There wasn’t much left, the food and drinks had essentially been cleared out, save for a few small items here and there. We moved toward the toilet paper and care products, and grabbing a couple of nearby shopping baskets, we started to load up.
The sound of a single footstep drew our attention toward the back of the shop. Then another.
Quietly placing our new-found luxuries on the tile floor, we each moved to the shelves lining the nearest aisle, and, keeping a low profile, moved forward with as much stealth as could be mustered. We each stuck to our own side of the aisle, freezing in unison at every whisper of another presence. We were close now.
A short, chuffed breath near the closing end of the aisle told us as much. It froze the blood in my veins, and my heart felt that pressure as it began working double time. In the open was one thing with these freaks, but in this small shop, every narrow aisle and blind corner felt like death would be waiting.
I could tell Dave felt the tension just as I had, his knuckles turning stark white on the Beretta he carried, I could sense as much as feel every breath of his coming in short puffs of stale shop air.
Just as I was about to motion him a few paces forward, the first shriek came. Its tone blasting through my body, my entire being, as we both opened fire at the speeding shape hurtling towards us.
The Smith & Wesson recoiling in my hands, its leaden breath slamming into the speeding shape, twisting it, nearly spinning it into a nightmare form of blood spatter and bone fragment as it lurched and fell.