“I can’t leave you here,” she said. “I do that, and you’re dead. No doubt about it.”
“I can’t let you take that risk,” Jones said. He looked up and stared intently into her face. “You have to go.”
She felt the heat of his stare and stepped away from him. Instead of leaving, she crossed her arms and said, “You’re going to have to live with me staying here because, in all honesty, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. You don’t have the strength to make me do shit.”
He started to say something but stopped as soon as his mouth opened. Jo quickly caught that he was looking past her and out the windows.
When she turned, she saw three zombies shuffling in from the right side of the windows, moving slowly. They hadn’t looked inside yet, but she knew that could happen at any moment.
Moving in slow motion, she got in next to Jones and knelt there with her rifle raised and aimed at the windows. The zombies continued shambling along. Maybe it was the glare on the windows, but they didn’t even look in at the two humans inside.
Letting out low moans, the zombies lumbered along past the expansive bank of windows. Jo sucked in a breath and held it, letting her aim follow the zombies, but knowing she could not shoot them. If she did, the windows would shatter, and they would have their entryway into the building. Still, she couldn’t help herself.
It took a very long sixty seconds that felt more like an hour for the zombies to walk out of view and out of sight.
“See,” Jones said. “This isn’t any place for you. If you die protecting me, I’d never forgive myself.”
She dropped her aim but kept her eyes on the windows. “You see, if I die because they get inside, you don’t have long to suffer in remorse because you allowed me to protect you. As weak as you are, they’d munch down on you and fast. So, just hush up.”
Jones shook his head and said, “Woman.” Then he let out a long sigh.
Chapter 121
Undead Approaching
Gunshots echoed in the distance, coming from deep inside the Sanctum, and the sound brought Henry and Clayton to a dead stop. They had been carrying lumber to block the door in place, but that operation was on temporary hold.
Clayton let out a long groan. “It’s too damn early.”
“But it’s far away,” Henry said.
“That means that things are going to shit at the front gate,” Clayton said.
“We can’t control what’s going on out there,” Henry said. “We have problems of our own. Look over at Kent.”
Clayton looked to where Kent had the bulldozer jammed up against the place where the gate had fallen. His trouble was that when he tried to put the gate back in place, the gate fell sideways, and that left a gaping hole at the top of the opening.
“Looks like Kent has fucked up getting that gate back in place six ways to Sunday,” Clayton said.
Henry closed his eyes and seemed to take a long moment to collect himself. When he opened his eyes, he said, “We have to trust that Kent gets that sorted out because we need to focus on getting this hole closed up.” He pointed at the hole in the wall that he and Clayton were tasked with getting sealed.
Over the past few minutes, the two of them had been frantically tossing lumber and the tools outside the wall. It would have been an easier task, but in the chaos, the materials had been spread out. To make matters worse, a few of the boards they would use to brace the door had been broken.
After they had everything they needed outside the wall, the two men made their way outside. Being thin, Henry made it through the opening easily, but Clayton had to turn sideways.
Henry took a quick look through the opening in the wall and saw that the zombies headed their way had made significant progress. They were less than fifty yards away and trudging along. To add to the danger, another small cluster appeared around the corner of a building in the distance. It looked to be a dozen in strength, proving Clayton’s prediction to be true. Zombies rarely roamed alone.
“There’s more on their way,” Henry said.
Clayton leaned into the open and said, “Shit. With the music off, all they can hear is that damned bulldozer.” He pulled his head back out of the hole and said. “We better speed this up.”
They went to work, lifting the door into place and placing the boards against it to act as braces. Neither one of them spoke about the fact that they had fewer boards, and the lumber’s condition was worse now. When the boards had been put in place initially, the wood had been put in with great haste. They didn’t consider being gentle about it. More than one of the boards had large cracks in them, and most were splintered.
Still, Clayton and Henry did what they could to shore up the door, but neither of them was confident it would stand up to an onslaught of the undead. In fact, both of them knew if enough undead got on the other side of the door, it was going to come down.
At the gate, Kent raised his head and saw the same thing Henry and Clayton saw -- more damn zombies. That spurred Kent into action. His problem was how to get the door off its side and back into an upright position without it either falling over and crashing inward and landing flat in the dirt. If that happened, it was all over. The zombies would have a virtual highway to stream out of the Sanctum.
To top it off, Kent knew the rumble of his engine was pulling the dead his way, making matters worse. But there was nothing to be done about it. He was damned if he didn’t do anything and damned if he did.
If he left the gate door on its side instead of upright, the zombies would eventually climb over and end up outside the walls. It wouldn’t happen fast, but it would happen. Their speed or lack thereof wouldn’t matter. They would be outside, and their plan would be screwed all the way to Sunday and back.
He carefully lowered the bulldozer’s blade, sliding it along the door until it thudded onto the hard-packed dirt. Since the bulldozer blocked most of his view, he knew he would maneuver the blade by touch. That meant he would have to use the bluntest of sensory feedback from the blade back through the bulldozer and into his hands. It was a nearly impossible task, but if someone could do it, it was Kent. He had over a thousand hours at the controls of bulldozers of all shapes and sizes. Certainly, he could do this.
He thought of the scene from Star Wars where Obi Wan invited Luke to use the force, and to close his eyes instead of using the guidance controls of his space fighter. He loved that movie, but he wasn’t sure there was a mystical force coming to save his ass.
Instead, he closed his eyes and moved his hands in a way that he had done a thousand times before. Only this time, he totally focused on the little bits of feedback felt through minute vibrations in the controls. In his mind’s eye, he saw the lower edge of the big blade lifting slightly and then catching the bottom edge of the gate.
It took everything in him to maintain pinpoint control and a bead of sweat made its way down his forehead and into his bushy eyebrow. A hard click reverberated through the entire bulldozer and back into his fingertips and palm.
Pay dirt, he thought. He had it. The edge of the blade had slipped under the bottom edge of the gate. Now was the time to lift it, but like every other move, it required delicate and skillful maneuvers. Kent moved his hand to another control stick and held it in his hand as if it were an egg and not just any egg. A brown egg with the thinnest of shells.
He pulled back on the control stick, levering it back in millimeter moves. That’s when he cheated and looked through the slit of his right eye. What he saw pleased and frightened him.
The big gate was rising just as he intended, but the zombies were twenty-five feet away and closing fast. At least fast for zombies.
Kent knew at the rate he was moving, he’d have to be a complete magician with the big blade to keep it from either falling into the gap and crashing onto the ground inside. It was that, or it would slide sideways along the wall like a pendulum blade and then fall face down onto the dirt inside the wall. Both outcomes would be disastrous.
He shifted his focus from the oncoming zombies to the top edge of the gate as it continued slowly rising. Kent knew the most challenging maneuver was coming up. Just lifting the gate wasn’t enough. He was going to have to pivot it, then let it fall into place. And he was doing this with a twenty-ton beast with all the precision of a sledgehammer.
He wondered who had turned up the heat inside the cab. Sweat was rolling down his forehead now, along with his arms and onto his hands. He even thought his palms were sweating. But the gate kept coming up and up.
He thought, Holy shit, I’m doing this. I’m really doing this.
The next two moves had to happen at once and required both his hands and his feet. He had to continue lifting the gate while moving the entire bulldozer in a sideways pivot. Knots of tension formed in his shoulders, arms, and hands. His eyes stung from the sweat slowly dripping into them.
Just as he started the maneuver, his right hand, slick with sweat, slipped. Only a little, but that was enough.
The gate slipped off the edge of the bulldozer’s blade and slid along it before slamming into the ground, back into the exact place it had been. Only it was a little worse for the wear as the edge of the blade cut into it in several areas.
When Kent opened his eyes, a thin plume of dust drifted up in front of the bulldozer from the gate’s impact with the ground. Despite the dust, he could see the zombies just ten feet away, almost licking their lips, ready to get at the juicy human inside that little room made of glass.
Kent felt like someone had run him through the wringer on an old fashioned washing machine. All the fine muscles in his hands and arms pulse with tension as he had tried to move the gate, but now they felt almost flaccid, deprived of any energy.
He only had one more move, and it wasn’t one he liked because it meant leaving the bulldozer right where it was, and he had been hoping he could use it to escape. He hated the idea of running because it left him out in the open and exposed. Plus, he had no idea if this would work.
Mustering all of his remaining energy, he raised the blade again, keeping it against the gate. This time he didn’t care if he scratched the damn thing. Once the blade got to the top edge of the gate, he froze it there, creating a makeshift barrier against the dead.
Combined with the gate, he hoped and prayed it was tall enough to prevent the zombies from climbing over. If it wasn’t, he wasn’t sure what would come next, but he was sure it would not be good.
Chapter 122
Reaching Down Deep
“Push!” Lassiter yelled as he stood dead center in the opening at the front gate.
Donovan was on the right gate, and Casey had the left one. Both of them were pushing the massive gate doors, digging in with their feet and grunting loudly. There was a lever mechanism inside the gate that would have made their job much easier, but neither of them wanted to be inside. Not with zombies coming. If something went wrong, being trapped inside the gates would be a very bad thing.
Lassiter dropped to one knee and targeted the half dozen zombies shambling at them. He had already taken down another half dozen, but, as always, the others were undeterred. They didn’t give their fallen comrades a second look. Instead, they focused on the two-legged meal standing outside the gate, making a racket with that damn noise-making stick.
Donovan shifted his strategy from pushing with his arm and flipped around, placing his back against the gate and shoving hard with his legs. That gained him a little more traction, but it was like moving a stone wall.
Casey struggled to make significant progress, pushing with her arms, looking like someone trying to push a skyscraper over. Her face was beet red from the effort as she chuffed air in and out.
A zombie broke free from a small cluster of deaders, stumbling ahead faster than the others. It was a tall, lanky one with long, lean arms stretched out in front of its body. It seemed over-eager, clutching the air with its claw-like hands, wanting to grab onto the meaty flesh of the human outside the gate.
Lassiter slowly shifted to him and lined up the zombie’s forehead in his sights. He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. When all the air was out of his body, he pulled the trigger.
Fifty feet away, brains and blood exploded out of the back of the zombie’s head. It went face-first into the dirt, kicking up a small dust cloud. Another zombie behind it planted its foot onto the downed zombie’s back and lost its balance. It stumbled for two steps and then went down hard, rolling like a meat barrel.
“Casey, how are you doing?” Lassiter said, not taking his eyes off the oncoming zombies.
It took Casey a couple of seconds to find her breath. “Slow and steady.”
“Go faster,” Lassiter said as he targeted another zombie. This one was broad and wide with a badly broken leg. This caused it to jerk along like a broken tin soldier.
Lassiter pulled the trigger again, and the tin soldier went down, kicking up a mushroom cloud of dust.
Donovan gained momentum with his gate. It wasn’t shutting quickly, but he was picking up speed. The muscles in his legs burned as if someone had poured flaming gasoline on them, but he kept on chugging away. It reminded him of his football day, pushing the tackling sled.
He took a moment to look in Casey’s way and saw she was behind his progress. Way behind. Instead of getting worried, he pushed even harder, knowing that if he could get his gate closed, he could go help her.
Lassiter took down two more deaders but caught something out of the corner out of his eye. When he looked in that direction, he felt a chill slip down his spine as if ice water was draining into him.
Twenty zombies shambled around a one-story building, heading their way.
“We’ve got twenty more,” Lassiter said. “Get the gates closed!”
Lassiter stopped to reload, slamming in a new magazine. One of the zombies got out in front of the others, and Lassiter put a bullet in its brainpan. When it fell, it took down two others, creating a small pile for the other deaders to navigate around. That gave Lassiter and the others a much needed few seconds, but Casey was still struggling to gain momentum.
Donovan’s eyes were closed tightly as he focused only on pushing. His existence had been reduced to his legs. The muscles, the bones, the tendons. Blood pumped into his legs, leaving him lightheaded, border lining on passing out, but he kept ongoing. The gunfire from Lassiter’s rifle sounded distant and muted.
Just as he was about to go under, his world slammed into what felt like a mountain. The impact jarred throughout his body, nearly causing him to fall forward. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the gate had slammed into place.
Lassiter was forced to shift his position to get a firing angle on the upcoming zombies as he plugged away at them, taking a zombie down with each shot. Too bad, for every one he took out, there seemed to be two to take its place.
Donovan tried to shove away from the gate, but his legs were too weak. They felt as if they were made of melted butter. But he had to get moving. He had to get to the other gate to help Casey. If only his legs would cooperate.
Casey had her gate only halfway closed, but it was clear to see that she was out of steam, slumped against the gate.
Lassiter fired until his magazine ran dry. When he reached down to find the next magazine, he discovered it was his last. “I’m down to one,” he shouted as he ejected the magazine and slammed the next one in place. Because the zombies continued their approach, Lassiter was forced to fire almost immediately.
Donovan pushed himself off the gate and staggered forward. After two steps, he realized that he only had enough strength to take a straight line toward Casey. Unfortunately, that path took him directly in front of Lassiter’s line of fire.
“Hold up,” Donovan yelled as he stuck up an arm to get Lassiter’s attention.
And he was lucky he did because Lassiter was locked in. He took his finger off the trigger for a momentary pause as Donovan stumbled toward Casey.
When Donovan was in front
of Lassiter, he reached up and unhooked the sling holding his rifle in place. The rifle almost slid right off his shoulder onto the ground. Donovan shot up his arm, and the rifle spun off toward Lassiter. It hit ten feet in front of Lassiter and skidded to within five feet of him.
Donovan continued stumbling along. More than once, he was sure his legs would give out, but he made it to beside Casey and said, “Make room.”
By then, Lassiter’s last magazine was empty. He dropped his rifle, leaped forward, and picked up Donovan’s. He had it up and commenced firing in less than five seconds.
Donovan was caught in a paradox. He knew he was completely out of gas, feeling like he had just run two marathons back-to-back. He also knew that if he didn’t find some auxiliary source of power, they could be sunk. The whole plan to keep the undead contained would be ruined. The after-effects would most likely leave a lot of people dead and the survivors on the run.
So, he sucked it up and fell against the door, slamming against it with his back, rather than gently lowering his body onto it.
Casey didn’t look much better. She was no delicate flower of a woman, but the gate outweighed her by a factor of four. Donovan quickly realized that she was also facing resistance in this gate that he hadn’t faced. It felt like the gate was dragging against the ground, but when Donovan looked down, he saw a gap between the bottom edge of the gate and the dirt below it.
What could it be? He thought, but then he admitted that it didn’t matter. They just had to close the damn thing.
So, once again, he dug in, putting his back and legs into it. He pushed so hard, he was positive that he was giving himself a hernia. But hernia be damned. He was going to get this gate shut, even if his abdomen split open and spilled his guts onto the ground.
Next to him, Casey sputtered for breath as she rammed her shoulder into the gate, churning her legs, trying to gain traction. All the while, Lassiter banged away at the oncoming zombies. Neither Casey nor Donovan could see what the body count was or whether any of the deaders were close to making it to the gate. All of their energy was focused on pushing.
The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead: Page 50