by Jones, K. J.
“You want me to help you rescue the Jew and the Beheader … who killed my people?”
“Ya know, I like you better when you don’t talk a lot.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Me? Look here, son. I divide the world by who is a pain in the ass to me and who ain’t. That there is all that matters. You gotta get all complicated and fussing with shit. You wrong. And, by the way, the Nazis were the enemy of ‘Merica. Later, after all this, remind me to kick your ass for that.”
“My little brother is priority.”
“Then get walking, cos this Humvee going to rescue my people.”
Kevin sighed. “Shit. Fine. I’ll help you. But you owe me.”
“I owe you an ass-kicking for aligning with an old enemy of ‘Mericans, boy. But don’t you run your mouth in front of these girls.”
“I’m not worried about a girl.”
The front end of the ambulance hit people. Zom or not, Chris kept going. Blood splattered on the windshield, but he didn’t want to risk the windshield wipers – too much movement.
“If you mean The Girl, you should be.”
“She’s a female.”
“Maybe so … but she meaner than a cornered rattler. She don’t dick around none neither. Goes right for the kill. Hell-the-fuck lethal, that girl.” Chris smiled with pride.
“If I had known those guys told the truth, a girl really killed my men …” Kevin shook his head.
“Hush up, would ya? We coming up on the building now.”
“Oh, looks like you’re not the hero, Higgins.”
“Get up on that fifty-cal,” Chris said. “Shoot them soldiers.”
“Oh, and I’m the asshole.”
Matt, Phebe, Brandon, and Emily were pinned down to the base of a wall. Bullets hit above them.
“We’re healthy,” Matt yelled. “Stop firing!”
No response from the soldiers shooting at them.
Chris caught sight above of a Little Bird shooting its way up streets, shredding every person below. It headed this way.
Ping-on-metal sounds from the back of the ambulance told the ground shooters were hitting the vehicle. Holes through which daylight shined appeared in the large back. Empty racks frames for stretchers were the only things in the patient area.
Kevin climbed up a ladder to the jimmy-rigged machine gun nest. A second as he figured out the harness-seat combo and the machine gun’s firing began.
Chris reversed the ambulance to get the back doors closest to the others. Gear into park, he opened the door. “Y’all, this way!”
He stepped out and opened fire with the SAW to cover them.
In a crouched position, Matt led the way for the group across the clearing to the back of the ambulance. Turning the handle, the doors opened.
“Quick,” Matt yelled.
Emily first, the others dove in fast.
“They in,” Chris hollered to Kevin before he got in behind the wheel. “All aboard. We leaving.”
“What about Sully?” Matt asked. Blood had splattered on his flushed, sweaty face. He breathed fast.
“We gonna get nuked soon, son. Which you want me to do first?”
“Shit.”
“We can’t leave them,” Phebe bellowed.
“What’s our time?” Matt asked.
Chris chucked a handheld radio back at him.
“T-minus twenty-five minutes,” the overly calm female voice said.
“Aw fuck,” Matt yelled. “That’s barely enough time to get clear.”
Chris reversed. “Depending on what we find, maybe just make it.”
More bullets-hitting-metal sounds on the exterior. The passengers laid flat on the floor to not be hit as more punctures showing daylight appeared in the walls.
“That’s plenty of time,” Phebe said from the floor.
Matt raised his brows. “We have to be out of the blast radius. Even then, as far as we can or we’re still getting radiation sickness.”
“How long would that take?”
“Most likely more than twenty-five minutes, depending on how fast this sucker goes.”
“Oh, God.”
“Seems to ride like a Humvee with too big a back,” said Chris. He rotated into gear.
The rear end of the Humvee hit things. They felt the bumps and heard crunches under the wheel.
“Alden, we good?” Chris called up.
“Yeah,” Kevin yelled down.
“Just make it how?” asked Brandon.
Chris turned the wheel for a 180 change of direction, then pushed the pedal down. From the back, laying prone, all they could see was blood increasingly splatter on the windshield. They felt the tires crunching and rocking of the whole vehicle.
Emily muttered, “Not only a baby, but radiation mutated baby. Oh, my God.”
“It’ll be okay, hon,” Brandon soothed. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We are running from a nuclear missile, Brandon.”
“At least you’re out of jail. We’re together.”
“Ignore them,” Matt said to Phebe.
“I’m too busy freaking out about the others to listen,” Phebe responded. “I cannot believe this shit. Never-ending.”
“I know. I know.” Matt put his arm over her back. “I know.”
“If you say pray, I’ll hurt you, Matt.”
“Don’t … don’t hurt me.” He withdrew his arm. “You can’t joke about that anymore, Beheader.”
11.
A Black Hawk banked around. Multiple mounted machine guns stuck out from its sides. There was normally only a max of two, positioned behind the pilot and copilot. Additional ones had been mounted to the frame of the cargo doors. The gunners sat in open doors as they fired downward.
“Shit.”
Peter slammed the boys against the wall with his arms.
A Little Bird with nose downward further away, and an Apache beyond that.
“We’re taking fire from everywhere,” said Jayce.
“T-minus twenty-five minutes.”
“We gotta get the fuck outta here,” Peter said. “Now.”
He had no idea where Phebe and Emily were. The jail cells sat open and emptied.
As they made their way towards the Humvee lot, a bigger threat than zoms was friendly fire.
At the chain-link fence, Peter spotted a few vehicles left. A weird-looking ambulance Humvee stood with a door open. The boys followed him through the mangled gate. It looked like healthy people had done it. When zoms did these things, they tended to leave a lot of blood behind. No blood on the fence or ground.
“Go to the open door of the ambulance at my eleven. Fast, boys.”
Jayce led the way. They ran in a crouched position, now both armed with M4s. Dead soldiers in the way. Shot, not ripped apart. The boys jumped over them, heading towards the Humvee ambulance with an open driver’s door.
“Are there keys?” Tyler yelled.
“Get in and to the back,” Peter yelled.
Despite his adrenaline had maxed and he felt little pain, Peter’s bad leg still didn’t operate to its fastest. He arrived at the driver’s side door.
Tyler scurried to a wide-open back of the ambulance section. Jayce to the shotgun up front.
The interior front looked just like a normal Humvee – two bucket seats, a hump in the middle, and analog dials on the dashboard. Military Humvees didn’t require keys, which made them easy to steal. Peter sat on the seat, turned a lever, pushed a button, and the engine started up.
“Yay!” the boys cheered.
“We are wicked cool,” Tyler said.
Closing the door, Peter said, “Anyone know where we’re going?”
“I got the map,” said Jayce. “Since there’s more zoms to the north, I’m guessing we should go the south. I’ll direct you.”
“Let’s hope the map’s somewhat accurate.”
Peter reversed the massive vehicle.
“We’re not gonna look for the others?” T
yler asked.
“Keep a look out the windows,” said Peter. “If you see any of them, yell and we’ll stop. But we are running out of time before we glow. Either of you know how to shoot a fifty-cal? Oh, wait, Tyler can drive.”
“Tyler’s gonna drive?” asked Jayce.
“He drives like a Mad Maxed champ. But I don’t think the seat goes up far enough, shit. Can you drive, Jayce?”
“Not to Mad Max champ level, no. And this is nothing like my mom’s RAV4 I practiced on.”
“Crap.”
Chapter Five
1.
“Marines,” Pez yelled. “We are leaving! The whole place gone FUBAR.”
A water cannon truck raced towards the closed south gate. A weird Humvee ambulance behind it with a man shooting the .50 cal at rapid-fire. A normal Humvee, then another weird ambulance behind that, its mounted machine gun on top unmanned. Normal Humvees fell in behind in an escape convoy.
Pez jumped the distance onto the second Humvee ambulance. His boots hit the roof and he rolled towards the back from the vehicle's rapid forward momentum. He almost rolled off. Hauling himself to good footing, he looked up.
“Darsi!”
The wall moved in waves. Darsi struggled to retain a foothold. The ambulance was passing beneath the walkway.
“Jump!”
Darsi did. Pez grabbed his boot before he could slide backward and pulled him to safety.
The water cannon truck smashed through the front gate. The snipers flattened themselves to the roof. Chain-link sections, wood, and metal panels flew in somersaults.
The .50 cal at the center of the roof sat empty. Pez crawled on his belly to the nest, finding it an ugly cut in the roof. His head ducked down to see the people inside, expecting fatigued soldiers.
Instead, two kids. One white. One black. Both staring up at him in surprise.
“Hi. How you doin’? Gonna just fire this. Excuse me.”
“Who the hell was that?” a man’s voice yelled from further front, presumably the driver.
“Some guy,” a kid responded.
Handing Darsi his rifle, Pez had to figure out the harness seat to hold him to the roof behind the machine gun. Getting it and strapping in, he opened up the .50 cal at zoms trying to close in on their front and side flanks. The Humvees and the other ambulance were doing the same. Together, they kept the zoms from closing in on their escape. The infected were still coming from everywhere.
Breaching the base, the convoy kept going at top speed along the road.
“Why ain’t we slowing down? We’re clear,” said Pez.
“You fucked up your N-ear, man,” said Darsi. He lay in a prone position, now ceasing to fire his rifle.
“Huh? Oh. Shit.” Pez located the earpiece and replaced it.
A calm, rather sultry female voice said, “T-minus twenty minutes.”
“What’s she talking about, Darse?”
“That’s the nuke count down.”
“Aw shit.” Pez yelled down. “Go faster!” He banged his hand on the roof. “Must go fucking faster.”
2.
Chris kept the pedal flat to the floor, following after the water cannon truck, which had busted the gate.
“We found the fire blankets,” Matt reported from the back.
“Enough for everyone to get under?”
“Some will have to huddle together. The women are priority.”
“I get to huddle with Pheebs,” Chris said.
“You gotta jump back here fuck fast, man. Remember, it will blind you.”
“From behind me?”
“Chris, listen to me on this.”
A line of attack helicopters zoomed overhead.
“Fuck, what now,” exclaimed Chris.
“They’re fleeing. They’ll need to ground before the blast or they’ll drop out of the air from the EMP.”
“I cannot fucking believe I am in a nuclear situation. Fucking asshole government.”
“Just keep going as fast as possible.” Matt leaned forward over the hump between the bucket seats and looked at the round analog speedometer. “Seventy miles per hour. We need to get beyond twenty miles.”
“What?”
“I think that’s the blast radius.”
“You think?”
“Beyond twenty miles, we’ll just get cancer.”
“Fuuuuuck.”
Matt did the math in his head.
As he did so, the engine light came on. Something was wrong.
“With a straight road, that would take like seventeen minutes.”
“Aw, hell,” said Chris. “Hold onto your butts.”
The tall Humvee ambulance swerved.
3.
“Crap,” Peter turned the wheel to follow the normal Humvee and ambulance in front.
They went across to the other side of the deserted road. The water cannon trunk slowed, steam coming from its hood.
“Faster,” he heard a voice yell from his rooftop.
“Tell them seventy is max for a Humvee.”
Jayce yelled it up to the machine gunner’s nest.
“Still, needs to be faster,” the guy in the nest yelled down.
“He said –”
“Heard him, Jay, thanks.”
Voices carried easily in the hollow back of the ambulance.
Peter watched where the helicopters went, all the while hearing the countdown from the handheld. Sweat trickled down his sides and face. He tried to think only about the road ahead and what he needed to do.
“Look for anything to cover us with,” Peter yelled back. “And for those guys on the roof.”
“Like what?” Jayce asked.
“Like fireproof blankets. Those are often kept in Humvees. This is an ambulance. It should have more shit.”
“We’re looking.”
“Tear the place apart. We are running outta time fast.”
“T-minus five minutes.”
“Come on,” Peter grumbled, glancing down at the speedometer and trying to will the engine to produce more speed.
The road, fortunately, laid out fairly straight. Nothing on it to slow the convoy. Houses blurred past. One next to another in typical suburbia fashion. Green breaking through the brown as spring approached the trees and plants of the South Carolina Lowlands. It would all be dead soon.
So would they if they did not get out of the blast radius.
“Get those guys down here,” Peter yelled. “It’s nearly time.”
“Y’all need to come down now, he says,” Jayce said upward. “Get under a blanket.”
One man slithered out of the seat and climbed the rope ladder into the back of the ambulance.
“Hiya, kids. I’m Pezzimenti. Pez, they call me.”
“Get under a blanket,” the younger kid said.
Darsi came down with their rifles and shut the machine gun portal door. Fortunately, it sealed right for being field jimmy-rigged.
“So, this is it?” Darsi asked. “Are we clear of the blast radius yet?”
None had the answer.
“They said get under a fire blanket,” Pez told him.
“Sounds about right, since we got nothing else.”
“He’s Darsi. I would like to know who I’m dying with here?”
“We ain’t dying. I’m Tyler. He’s Jayce. Up ahead driving is Sully.”
“Wait,” said Darsi. “As in Sullivan? Pell’s friend?”
“Yeah, Brandon Pell,” Tyler said.
“Whoa.” Pez chuckled. “Small world.”
“We tend to live through shit.”
“Where is he?” asked Jayce. “Brandon.”
“Don’t know.”
“Get ready,” Peter yelled back and rose in his seat.
4.
“Five, four, three …”
Chris dove from the driver’s seat to the back. He covered himself with a silver blanket. The vehicle continued to roll forward without a driver.
“Close your eyes!” Matt yelled.
Through the windows and every bullet hole and open seam, the world grew bright.
* * *
Peter reached down and pulled the wires to quick kill the engine and everything electronic on the dashboard. He dove back. Jayce had the side of the blanket raised for him and shot it down as soon as he was inside. They all huddled together. Pez prayed the Lord’s Prayer aloud.
* * *
Mackey saw the fires erupt like the rolling clouds of a terrible thunderstorm, except coming up from the ground. A fiery mushroom cloud rose. It looked like it did in the pictures.
Turbulence began. The helicopter descended to land.
* * *
They could hear it. Eyes closed and under the blanket, they could not see it. But they could hear it. A moment and they felt it. A rush of wind from the blast wave came out and hit the Humvee convoy. Each massive vehicle hit the next like toy trucks thrown around by a wind tunnel.
Beneath the fire blankets, they held onto each other. Matt held Phebe tightly to his chest to protect the baby. A huge slam of something extremely heavy into the backdoors, buckling and breaking them. The floor picked up. Everyone slid into each other and piled onto the sidewall. Some bodies hit the stretcher racks, breaking and collapsing the frames instantly by sheer weight and force. A myriad of pains hit each person as they tumbled. Their bodies hit everywhere in the fall. Heads banged.
Blackness.
* * *
Holding tight to the boys, Peter felt the Humvee ambulance lift. Its wheels banged down hard. The tires screamed while going sideways.
Jayce and Darsi yelled with Pez, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive …”
Chapter Six
1.
“We gotta go.”
Mackey shook his head, trying to clear his brain. “We made it?”
“Everybody alive back there?” the pilot yelled.
“Yeah,” the flight crew soldier responded. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
“Work, baby,” the pilot said as he worked the controls. “Please work.”
The helicopter engine whined before it turned over.
“Yes!”
Several of them cheered. Apparently, there was a possibility of it not working.
“Where are we going?” Mackey asked.
“To deliver you people,” the flight crew soldier said.
“Still? We just been nuked.”