“A thousand. Probably more.”
“Is that all?” Eli asked.
Lassiter knew there was no varnishing or hiding the truth. It was coming, and it would be undeniable once they hit the walls of the Sanctum.
He whipped the binoculars over the first group, scanning the tree line on the other side of the river. After covering at least three miles of the river’s edge, he didn’t see anything.
“I don’t see anything,” Lassiter said. He knew that was hedging, but there was no way to say that there wasn’t a line leading back toward the west that ended up in Indiana. That possibility was too much to contemplate. He could face the truth of what he could see, but that was it. “We have at least two thousand zombies headed our way. It really doesn’t matter. They’re all going to come together when they come up the hill.”
Lassiter noticed a slight tremble in Eli’s hand as he held the walkie-talkie.
Eli pressed the talk button again, but when he opened his mouth, no words came out. He emitted a cough, clearing his throat, then said, “Everybody come in. Everybody, listen up.” He took a moment, and Lassiter could see him reaching down for some resolve. He doubted that Eli had a deep reservoir, but he could see him finding more firm ground. “There’s two groups of the undead heading into the river. We don’t know an exact number, but there are at least two thousand of them. Probably a little more. Stand by for an update.”
Eli dropped the walkie-talkie to his side and let it dangle there as they waited.
Later, they would learn that what they didn’t see didn’t mean it wasn’t out there.
Chapter 43
Crossing the River II
Lance led his horde down the two-lane road toward the river. Trees lined each side of the road and pressed in on them. The zombies filled in the space, practically falling over each other in the congestion. Several fell and were trampled to mush in a slow-motion stampede.
Once they broke free of the trees, the zombies flooded outwards, filling the intersecting road that ran parallel to the river. Lance walked to the shoreline, watching the river flowing by, examining it to see if he could determine the depth. The water flowed by at a furious pace, telling him nothing. All he saw was brown, frothy water sloshing up onto the shore.
He knew nothing about rivers or streams. The thing could be four feet deep or twenty. He knew this lack of knowledge was a big problem. With the way the river was running, he’d lose all his zombies before they made it across.
But how the hell could he tell where it was safe to cross, or if it was safe to cross at all?
Whoever had taken out the bridges was a canny son of a bitch, he thought.
A dark red rage began to build within him. It didn’t help that the zombies collided with his back repeatedly, nearly knocking into the water. Like the zombies, these half-dead creatures had an innate fear of water. Feeling even the seeds of fear in the back of his mind caused Lance to seethe.
His anger continued to build until a zombie slammed into his side, causing him to stumble into the water. When he turned, he saw a corpulent zombie, sans shirt, with an expansive hairy belly hanging over his belt. Part of his forehead had been torn away and most of his lips. Needless to say, he wasn’t a sight for sore eyes, and this enraged Lance.
He pulled back his arm and readied to punch the zombie into the next life, but some sense of reason blossomed in the back of his mind. Better to put his anger to use.
He reached out with both of his hands and grasped the zombie by the neck. In a move that would have put an Olympic shot-putter to shame, he whirled around and lifted the zombie into the air as if he were made out of paper mache.
The motion caused the zombie’s legs to stick out almost parallel to the ground as Lance twirled it around. To gather more force, he whirled around in a complete revolution as the zombie’s feet slammed into the faces of the zombies gathered along the shoreline, knocking them onto their backs.
Once Lance hit another half spin, he released the zombie, and it flew into the river, crashing down fifteen feet away with an enormous splash and going under.
Lance felt an anxious knife twist in his gut as he stood on the shore, waiting for the zombie to surface. Five seconds later, the zombie bobbed up, his arms flailing in the air, grasping for anything. It spun around twice and went under again.
Ten seconds ticked off in Lance’s head, and the zombie popped out of the water again, only it was twenty feet downstream from where it had entered the water. Lance followed it for a few seconds, but it disappeared, and he never saw it again.
“Too fucking deep,” he said aloud to no one in particular. The zombies certainly didn’t listen.
Maybe they shouldn’t have split up? Then he’d have someone to talk to, but he didn’t really like Maxwell and Audrey. They were weak.
He missed Grayson. Grayson was strong, and they made such a good team. They were peas in a pod. They knew no mercy.
But Grayson had left him. The son of a whore had gone out on his own and taken some of their hordes. Now, he was nowhere to be found.
Better not to focus on that. He had priorities right in front of him to deal with.
But he knew the current here was also too strong. It took that big fat zombie and swept it away like it was a piece of dead, old driftwood.
A tiny voice of reason told him it might be best to wait. Or maybe even skip this little city. There were more cities to be taken out east of here. Many more.
But the echo of the voice that spoke to him at night reverberated loudly inside his head. This was the voice that prodded him along. This was the voice that promised that once he and the others reached the Atlantic, there would be a rich reward. Maybe even the return of his humanity. And the voice said he wanted this city and the people in it destroyed. There was something special about these people.
The voice wanted these people dead.
So, Lance glanced down the shoreline, trying to find a place they could cross. He noticed a sandbar jutting out into the water about seventy-five feet away. It would take him further away from Maxwell, but he had to check it out.
Not overly hopeful, Lance trudged along the shoreline with his zombie throng in tow. He was the Pied Piper of the dead. He didn’t even have to play any tunes.
A minute later, he stood on the sandbar, watching the water rush by. Again, there was no telling how deep it was and how strong the current ran. The only way to know was to test it.
He whirled around, grabbed the closest zombie by the neck, and repeated his shot put routine, tossing a medium sized female zombie with one arm out into the river. Like the last time, the zombie disappeared into the rushing water. Again, Lance ticked off the seconds in his head. He was sure it was gone when that zombie’s arm shot through the water and stuck up like a beacon. Five seconds later, the zombie forced itself onto its feet as the water battered against it. The water wrapped around the zombie’s chin, but it remained standing.
Then it did the strangest thing, and it started toward him, walking through the water in a straight line. Whatever dark magic or innate physical attraction Lance held over it was still at work. The zombie made it fifteen feet when the water took it, and it went under again.
This time it bobbed along the surface, spinning over and over until it disappeared completely.
Lance knew he had a possible crossing point, but he knew he couldn’t use any zombies this time to test it. They’d end up in the water and would only attempt to return to him.
He made a mental note of the location in the water where the one-armed zombie had surfaced and made his way along the shore to get to that spot. Once he got there, he knelt down and tried to discern anything from the water, but the river told him no tales.
“Fuck it,” he said. “I’ll have to do this myself, I guess.”
Any of the volcanic heat he felt earlier evaporated like steam on a coldl day. He knew, as a half-dead being, he probably couldn’t drown, but had never tested this theory. And that’s what it
was -- a theory. Maybe enough time under the water would kill him? Perhaps the current would rip him under the water so ferociously, his head would be bashed open on a rock?
“There’s only one way to know,” he said, his voice finding some resolve.
But then something struck him. There was no way his zombies would be able to pull the wagon with all his weapons on it across the river. No, that just wasn’t in the cards.
He looked back into the throng of zombies behind him, and spotted a cluster of zombies he had virtually turned into a team of undead oxen, pulling his wagon full of weapons. It was a crude system of cables, but they worked quite well in tethering the zombies to the wagon.
Those weapons were precious. They could be game-changers against what they were up against, but they all could be lost if his zombie team attempted to get across the water and got washed away. The zombies and even the wagon were expendable. Not the weapons, though. They were his ace in the hole.
He waded into the scrum of zombies standing in his way, throwing his elbows left and right to bull his way through the crowd. Zombies flew in each direction, looking like rag dolls. They rammed into the ones nearby, causing a domino effect, taking down their undead brethren.
Not one of them complained or even looked irritated. They did what they always did and stumbled back to their feet.
Lance pushed two of his wagon-pulling team out of the way and examined his wares. It was an interesting and deadly set of tools he had, but he could only take what he could carry. He considered using the zombies as mules to carry the weapons across the river but knew it was just as likely that they could be lost in their trek across the raging water. That meant he would also lose all his toys, and that would not do.
He couldn’t risk the weapons. There were too many towns to conquer ahead of them.
After deliberating for a few seconds, he selected an RPG launcher and a backpack with two warheads. It pained him not to take more, but it just wasn’t logistically possible. Not without bridges. Whoever was inside that city had done their damndest to get rid of those. It had to be the people with the helicopters. Helicopters meant advanced weaponry. That meant trouble.
As he gathered what he could, that voice crept back into his head. The one that said that maybe, just maybe, they should by-pass this city. But the echo of the voice at night came back and practically shouted down that soft, rational voice trying to get through.
No, there would be no detouring. No backing down. This city had to fall. Then maybe he and his half-dead friends might just get what the voice kept promising.
He untethered the zombies from the wagon and grabbed his weapon, then headed back to the water’s edge ,where the water washed forcefully against the shore. Although the waves in the river looked fierce, the water lapped almost gently against the shoreline. But he knew better.
Once, as a kid, he had waded into the small creek behind his house after a thunderstorm. The usually calm and trickling six-foot wide stream had turned into something very different. Water rushed along violently, splashing in the air, but he figured it couldn’t be more than two to three feet deep. It actually looked kind of exciting. So, not knowing any better, he stepped into the rushing water.
Before he knew it, the water had ripped his legs out from under him and sucked him into the water. The next thing he knew, he was tumbling along in the water, not knowing which way was up. Water filled his nostrils, and he nearly panicked as the water carried him along. He desperately tried grabbing anything on the banks of the small but now raging stream. Each time he gripped onto something, the current yanked him free from it.
After about a minute in the water, he had almost given up as he banged against the bottom of the creek, nearly knocking him senseless. A flicker of a thought hit him. Their neighbor downstream had a small wooden footbridge across the stream.
He had no idea if he had passed it or not, but he fished an arm out of the water and sent up a prayer. Ten seconds later, as he was on the edge of unconsciousness, his arm hit something hard, and he grabbed onto it for all he was worth. The current fought valiantly to break him free, but he pulled himself up and out of the water. He flopped like a fish onto the tiny footbridge, as he coughed up what felt like gallons of brown, brackish water.
This memory haunted him as he stood on the banks of this much larger body of water, but he knew he was no longer a child. Hell, he was no longer human. He was stronger than a child. He was stronger than any normal human. He could conquer this river. He knew he could.
Saying it and doing it were two different things. It took him almost thirty seconds to work up the courage. It took nearly that long for him to get waist-deep in the water. He felt its coolness lapping against his body. He also felt its power as it tugged against his legs.
Even in a slight state of panic, he knew he had to keep the RPG launcher out of the water. Carefully, he reached back and lifted it free from the shoulder sling carrier, along with the backpack with the warheads inside, and hefted them over his head.
The current pulled at him, feeling like gravity turned in its side and elevated by an exponential level. But he remained upright, using the soles of his shoes to divine the nature of the silty surface beneath his feet. Carefully moving forward, he made it in so deep that the water was at his armpits. The current upped its pull another two notches, but he leaned against it and continued on.
The water splashed against his chin, but he narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth, pushing onward. Making one cautious step after the other, he forged ahead as the current battered him.
His foot fell upon an algae-covered rock, and he lost his balance, his face slipping under the water. Panic enveloped him, but he slammed the foot down, and it found traction. A moment later, his face was above the waterline again, and he surged forward in a final push.
Almost before he knew it, the water was at his waist again, and he pushed ashore on the other side of the river. A juxtaposition of triumph and relief washed over him, but there was something else drifting around as an undercurrent. He wasn’t absolutely sure what it was until he was entirely on dry land, and he turned around to see his undead followers making their way into the water. All of them.
That’s when that undercurrent feeling surfaced again. That nagging thought at the back of his head. He knew what it was. A part of him wished the water had taken him. That he had finally gotten a release from this tormenting half a life.
A zombie slipped under the waves, and it was washed away down the river, and watching it disappear broke him from his somber thoughts.
He would lose some of his zombies, but as he monitored their progress, more made it than were washed away. Still, from watching them for another five minutes, he estimated that he might lose as much as forty percent of his undead army.
That would be enough, he was sure of it. Once Maxwell and Audrey made it to the city, they would have more than enough of these undead bastards to take out the place and everybody that lived there. He even conceded that they would probably lose a lot of their army in the battle about to happen. The voice had said as much.
But the overarching truth was that there was plenty of the undead in the world to replenish their horde. More than enough. An endless supply, really.
Chapter 44
Departure Time
“It’s gotta be me,” Del said.
“What the hell do you know about operating this thing?” Emmett said. “I made it.”
“You’re not up to it,” Del shot back. “You’re on the other side of seventy, for sure.”
They had been at this for the last five minutes, standing face-to-face outside the helicopter door as Sergeant Jones and Garver looked on. It was like watching a tennis match. Emmett would make his case, and Del would make his.
“Let me tell you, sonny, I flew fighter planes over Vietnam before you were even born,” Emmett said.
“And that’s my point,” Del said as he turned to petition Jones and Garver. “You’re too damn old.�
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“I could take you,” Emmett growled out.
“Okay,” Del said. “Take off your glasses.”
“What?” Emmett asked.
“Just take off your glasses for a minute,” Del said. Again he looked to Jones and Garver.
Jones said, “Do it.”
“Geez O’Petes,” Emmett said, then reached up and took his glasses off.
Del put up his hand but pushed it over his shoulder, getting it as far as he could from Emmett. He held up two fingers. “How many fingers do I have up?”
Emmett narrowed his eyes and focused as hard as he could. “Three. No, two. No, three.”
“And there you have it,” Del said. “If you’re up there in the sky and the chopper gets to wobbling around, then your glasses fall off, what the hell are you going to do?”
“They won’t come off,” Emmett said.
Garver said, “That’s a good point.”
“Hey!” A voice said from inside the helicopter. A moment later, Clayton appeared in the doorway, standing behind Jones and Garver. “We ain’t got time for this shit. They’re coming across the river.”
He didn’t need to spell out who ‘they’ were.
“That settles it,” Jones said as he pointed at Del. “You’re coming.”
“This isn’t fair,” Emmett said. “It’s...it’s ageism.”
“Sue me,” Jones said. “We need to get in the sky before they come up that hill.”
Emmett continued to grumble but helped Del load the super sprayer onto the helicopter as Clayton stayed a safe distance away, eyeing the thing with great suspicion. Once it was onboard, Emmett gave Del a quick orientation of how the super sprayer worked. In essence, it was a simple device, but the stark reality was that if something went wrong, the gas would kill everyone in the chopper in less than thirty seconds.
The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead: Page 20