A breeze from the west blew the dust cloud away, revealing a mob of undead making their way inside the gate.
“Nothing I like better than being bait for a few hundred zombies,” Mason said.
Lassiter didn’t aim but fired his pistol at the approaching zombies, hoping to reinforce the need for the zombies to pay attention to them.
“I’ll save bullets,” Mason said, then put his hands up to either side of his mouth and shouted, “Hey, you ugly assholes, come and get us.”
The zombies didn’t really need an invitation. They shuffled and shambled their way forward in hopes of getting one more bite of flesh.
Chapter 102
Escape Time
Jo had maneuvered the Humvee to sit beside the MAV, waiting for Clayton to get the thing moving. All the while, she watched the zombies flood in the back gate, twenty and thirty at a time. A few slid through the crack in the wall, sixty feet away. Ahead of them, the MAV sat, not moving and not showing any signs of life.
Inside the MAV, Clayton did a cursory examination of Dominic Navarro. He didn’t have time for a full medical evaluation, but it was clear that his left eye was ruined and his right eye had swelled almost completely shut. None of it looked good, but Clayton kept that to himself.
“How do you feel?” Clayton asked.
“Like shit,” Navarro answered. “My head aches like a son of a bitch, and I can barely see out of my right eye.”
“And that’s why I’m here,” Clayton said, trying to sound positive and light.
“Can you drive this thing?” Navarro asked.
“Slide out of the way,” Clayton said. “We have to get going. Besides, I have a little experience.”
Navarro knew he didn’t have any choice, so he stood up and felt his way to the shotgun seat. Clayton sidestepped out of the way and then fell into the driver’s seat and surveyed the controls. They looked almost foreign to them, but the keyword was ‘almost.’
“It’s like riding a bike,” he said quietly, letting his hands touch the steering wheel and the other controls. His expression seemed to say, ‘now, this one does this, and this one does that.’
Gardner watched from the back seat with a sense of skepticism. “You sure you know how to drive this thing?”
Clayton swiveled around and asked, “Do you?”
Gardner didn’t want anything to do with navigating the MAV and shot his hands in the air, “No, no, no.”
“Then shut the hell up,” Clayton said as he rotated around in his seat and grabbed the steering wheel. “Everyone, hold on to your hats.”
Clayton hit what he thought was the gas pedal, and the MAV shot backward, rolling into an abandoned car and knocking it fifteen feet. The impact threw Navarro forward and tossed Gardner onto the floor.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Navarro said. “You need to flip that handle to D for Drive.” He pointed in the direction of the steering wheel.
“Hold on,” Clayton said. “I got this.”
Just then, the sound of the Humvee’s .50 caliber pounding away exploded into the air.
Gardner jumped into his seat and said, “They’re almost on our ass. Get us out of here.”
Clayton hit the gas again, and this time they rolled forward at a controlled speed. Granted, he crashed into a concrete bench, but this time the MAV shattered it, sending pieces of concrete spraying across the ground.
Clayton put the MAV into an arcing, slow turn and faced it toward the approaching zombies. It was challenging to see through the broken window visor, but there was no disguising the hundreds of zombies headed their way. He revved the engine of the MAV twice.
“What are you doing?” Gardner asked. “The zombies are that way, and we should be going in the opposite direction.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Clayton said as he pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
The MAV shot forward, jetting toward the approaching horde. The zombies showed no fear of the mechanical beast racing at them. Gardner said an audible prayer.
Twenty seconds later, the unforgiving metal front of the MAV slammed into the leading edge of the horde, sending broken bodies flying. Gardner tensed up on the impact, but Clayton leaned into it, savoring each hit. His path took him on an angle, and he turned out of the horde when he realized that even the MAV could get hung up on the bodies of the dead zombies.
Still, it felt good, and he let out a long war-whoop.
“Get us out of here,” Gardner said. “Please.”
“We’re going, we’re going,” Clayton said. “Check to see if they’re following us.”
“I don’t need to look,” Gardner said. “I know they’re back there.”
Clayton knew they were there, too. Just like they had planned.
Chapter 103
Exit Strategy
“What is the center of this place?” Mason asked as they jogged along.
“It’s coming up in a few,” Lassiter said as he took a glance back over his shoulder. After a few more steps, he asked, “Do you trust this kid’s plan?”
“Henry’s a good kid,” Mason said. “I never met his dad, but they said he was former military and knew his way around a shit storm. He must have taught the kid well.”
“But he’s just a kid,” Lassiter said.
Donovan broke in on the conversation, “But can you dispute his logic?” He let the question hang in the air, then followed it up with, “That back gate failing forced our hand. The dead were getting in. We just don’t have enough ammo to take them down individually. To make it worse, those damn smart ones are still out there. If they have more warheads, they could turn the wall into Swiss cheese. Then we’d be totally screwed.”
“Yeah, I guess we had to take our destiny into our own hands,” Lassiter replied.
They continued forward,and after another half block, he pointed toward a four-story, L-shaped red brick building with a barn-style roof. Prior to the fall of the world, it was a dormitory that housed a few hundred students. As a part of the Sanctum, it was the place many of the inhabitants called home.
“We’re here,” Lassiter said.
Mason brought up an arm and pointed off to the right and said, “And so are they.”
Somehow, a line of the undead streamed toward the building that was their destination. It could have been because the undead had a head start on them from the back gate. The only other explanation was that there was another hole in the wall somewhere they didn’t know about. If that was the fact, then their whole plan was on rocky ground. Since they knew the undead were going to make it inside, the crux of that plan was controlling that flow of zombies. That meant lockinhg down where they came in.
“How the hell did they beat us here?” Lassiter asked.
“I don’t think that matters,” Donovan said as he brought up his rifle. “They are here.”
“There’s three of us and over thirty of them,” Lassiter said.
“Is there somewhere else we can pull off our big distraction?” Mason asked.
Lassiter brought up a hand and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Not really. That’s where we have the P.A. system with the batteries.”
Hereferred to the Sanctum’s public address system with thousand-watt speakers and enough charged car batteries to send a wall of sound across the Sanctum. The system had been set up to provide emergency notices to the people of the Sanctum. The plan had a very different purpose for the system.
“We sure as hell can’t turn around,” Mason said as he turned to look in the direction that they had just come from. “Those zombies coming from the front are going to be on our ass pretty soon.”
“Then we have to shoot our way in,” Donovan said. He surveyed the area and said, “We can split up and take them from different angles” He turned his attention to Lassiter. “Me and Mason will take the edges. You take the middle, but don’t fire unless you have to. We’ll draw them away.”
“No way,” Lassiter said. “No way I’m letting you take that kind o
f risk for me.”
“We can’t do the next part of the plan. You know the system. We don’t. Unless you have a better idea?” Donovan asked.
“That makes the two of us out on our own,” Mason said.
“But it also splits them up, which gives Lassiter a better chance of making it inside,” Donovan replied sharply.
Mason put up a hand in a gesture of surrender and said, “Okay, you’re right.” The last thing he wanted was an argument with his best friend.
By then, the zombies had closed the gap between themselves and the men. To add to their troubles, a few more zombies appeared in the distance and were shambling with purpose toward the three men.
Mason didn’t like splitting up, but he also knew the mission’s objective, which was getting Lassiter inside that dormitory. If they could get that done, then maybe he and Donovan could make a run for it.
Had this been a football huddle, someone would have yelled, ‘Break.” Instead, the men silently split up and went off to their respective places, with Donovan positioned at the corner of a building and Mason behind a low concrete wall. Lassiter backed up and stepped into the shadows of a building overhang and hated himself for even trying to conceal his presence. The words of an old commander echoed in his mind, ‘The mission before the man.’ He just always thought he was ‘the man’ and someone else would be the mission.
Donovan took the first shot, taking off the top of a zombie’s head and ending it for good. That got the pack’s attention behind the fallen deader -- which was both a good and bad thing. They came after Donovan, ready and hungry.
Mason let them make it fifteen paces before he fired into the middle of the mob, taking out a couple of zombies. That split the pack, whicht was the plan, but that also meant that twelve zombies were headed his way.
Every fiber in Lassiter’s being told him to engage, but he resisted the impulse and held in place.
Donovan continued to fire, but he also moved, sliding along the face of a long building. He tried to make every shot count, but moving and shooting with any real sense of accuracy was nearly impossible. For every three shots, he hit two zombies but only took down one.
He knew that meant the numbers were against him, but Lassiter had to get into that building, and Donovan knew he was expendable.
Mason held his position longer. That made his takedowns more time consuming and also allowed the zombies to get closer. Closer than he liked, but it also cleared a path down the middle for Lassiter to make his way to the dormitory.
As much as he hated himself for doing it, Lassiter slipped out of the shadows and ducked down to start his approach. He made it ten feet when a zombie caught the motion and broke out of the pack, heading for him. He slowed, brought his rifle, and started to aim when the creature’s face exploded into a geyser of blood, and it went down. When Lassiter looked to his right, he saw Mason flick a wave in his direction and then return to shooting. Lassiter didn’t like the proximity between Mason and the pack headed his way, but he had to ignore it and stick to the plan.
He didn’t want to look back at the two men risking their lives for him, so he decided to make a run for it. Zombies be damned.
With Lassiter running and Donovan and Mason banging away at the zombies, Lassiter made it to the front of the dormitory, where he ripped the door open and jumped inside. After being out in the sun, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. He found himself in a dark foyer, wide and deep.
His eyes darted across the room until he found a doorway to a staircase, and he immediately raced to it. He jerked the door open and pounded his way up the stairs as fast as his leg could carry him. His footfalls echoed like hollow drum beats off the walls.
Lassiter heard the shots from Donovan and Mason’s guns and knew that the zombies had to be closing on their position. Accordingly, he felt the clock ticking down in the back of his head. He passed the second floor, then the third, and burst through the door on the fourth floor. Inside the large room that seemed to encompass the whole floor, he saw eight car batteries lined up on the floor with wires leading away toward the window. He knew those wires ended up on the roof, connected to an array of solar panels that kept the batteries charged. A second set of wires led to a sturdy looking table. On the table sat a transmitter with even more wires leading back out to several sets of windows. He knew these were connected to eight very powerful speakers.
A microphone sat in front of the transmitter. Its purpose was for making community-wide warning transmissions. During his time at the Sanctum, it had only been used twice. Once was a test, and the second was to warn people of an attack by the marauders outside the walls.
The one thing he knew was that there was no way he could stay up here and shout through the system to draw the zombies toward the center of the Sanctum. At least if he wanted to live.
Sure, the long-term plan was to return to the Sanctum to dispatch all the zombies inside, but the goal now was to draw them away from the walls. His problem was how to do that and survive.
His saving grace was that Bonds had gotten creative when the PA system was set up. Bonds thought that down the line, they might want a little entertainment, so he hooked up an old fashioned CD player to the system.
Lassiter powered on the transmitter and CD player. He didn’t have the time to check what CD Bonds had put in the player.
It took a few seconds for the CD to spin up. It seemed to take an eternity, but then a wall of sound erupted from the speakers. Lassiter winced and thought the music Bonds had programmed might possibly be worse than the zombie apocalypse.
Chapter 104
On the Ground
The music was so loud it even stopped the zombies in their tracks. The beat pounded into Donovan and Mason’s heads, and they took a brief respite from firing on the zombies.
Mason looked to Donovan and mouthed the words, ‘What the fuck?’
One of the last things Mason had ever expected to hear was disco music. He had been born after the fad had raced across the country, but his mom played it all the time when he was a kid. He hated it, but he loved his mother, so he put up with it.
Sadly, the track playing was one of the songs he hated the most, ‘Get Down Tonight,’ by K.C. and the Sunshine Band. He could actually put up with some disco, but this song wasn’t close to the territory of what he could tolerate.
The zombies stood, looking almost dazed by the pounding and pulsing music, standing stock still and seeming to listen. Donovan and Mason were fine with that, but they both knew it wouldn’t last. Zombies had limited attention spans, and sooner or later, the enchantment of the music would wear off. As it turned out, it was sooner rather than later. Juicy and delicious humans were just feet away, and not bullets or pulse-pounding disco could distract them forever.
The group closest to Mason put aside their love for music and started toward him. Regret slapped Mason in the face. Those few seconds were the time he could have used to get a running jump on the zombies. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that leaving would mean that Lassiter would either be trapped or dead. Of course, that meant the zombies could get to him. It was a chance he was going to have to take.
Donovan took the first shots at the zombies headed his way. Two zombies fell and took down three more zombies when they fell. But it wasn’t nearly enough.
“There’s more coming!” Donovan shouted to Mason.
Mason looked to the east and saw more zombies shambling their way. The music was working, but a lot faster than either of them expected or wanted.
Mason yelled, “We might have to make a run for it.”
“That leaves Lassiter stuck inside,” Donovan yelled back.
“What can we do?” Mason shouted as he started firing on the zombies headed his way. Three shots and the tops of three zombie heads exploded, and they were out of the fight. But for every one that went down, it seemed like three took its place as more poured in from the east.
Donovan shouted, “M
ason, there’s more coming from the west!”
When Mason whirled around, he saw a mob of zombies headed at them. When he spun around, he saw a cluster of zombies about to overrun his position. Unwittingly, because they had no wits, the zombies were catching Mason and Donovan in a classic pincer move, closing in on them from two different sides. Mason lowered himself to one knee and burned through a magazine, knocking down the leading edge of the approaching zombies. He knew that this would give him another minute, at best.
“How’s your ammo?” Mason yelled.
Donovan fired off two controlled shots, patted the ammunition in his pants pockets, then shouted. “Four mags.”
“I’m down to three,” Mason responded.
After they finished off what they had, Mason wasn’t sure how he and Donovan would get away.
“Where is he?!” Donovan asked, not disguising his anger.
Mason said, “Maybe he’s looking for better music?” He knew he was trying to diffuse the tension of the moment, but his little joke didn’t change their dire situation. He desperately wanted the final grenade that Lassiter carried off with him.
The music continued to pound away from the speakers above, only it had changed to a Donna Summer song about the last dance. While the style of the music didn’t please the men, it was doing its job of drawing in the zombies, but maybe doing too good of a job. Zombies continued to stream into the area as if they were eager to hear the music.
Donovan shifted his position, moving closer to Mason, but finding it a challenge as the zombies seemed to want to keep them apart. Once he was set, Donovan knelt and blew the knee off a zombie shambling his way. When it fell, out of pure instinct, it reached out and pulled down two more zombies. The one was down, its knee a bloody mess, but the other two would be back up and coming at him in no time.
“There he is,” Mason shouted over the gunshots and music.
When Donovan looked to the front of the building, he saw Lassiter standing in the doorway, looking a little bewildered at the change of scenery. When he had run in, there had only been a handful of zombies in the area. Now there were at least three dozen.
The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead: Page 43