The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead:

by Spears, R. J.

  Lassiter yelled, “I’m out.”

  Donovan didn’t even look Lassiter’s way, but he heard something metal clunk against the hard-packed dirt. Five seconds later, Lassiter slid in beside Casey and joined the effort to close the gate.

  As soon as Lassiter started pushing, he said, “What the hell?” A second later, he said, “Shit. The gate has a mechanism inside. It must have been set to stay open. That’s what we’re pushing against.”

  “What do we do?” Donovan grunted out.

  “Just push!” Lassiter shouted. “They’re close.

  Together, the trio gave it their best, somehow doubling their effort. The gate seemed to pick up speed with Lassiter’s additional effort. Donovan dared a glance at the front edge of the gate and saw they were just a couple feet from getting the gate closed. That space was cut in half in only ten seconds.

  It was about to close when an arm shot through the opening, clutching the air and clawing at the exterior of the gate. The gate slammed into the arm, and Donovan could have sworn he heard the crunching of bone. Still, withered and claw-like fingers reached for anything it could grab.

  “It’s not going to shut with that fucking thing in the way,” Lassiter said and jumped away from the gate and snatched up the rifle again. He shot forward with it pulled back. Using his momentum, he rammed the butt of the rifle against the arm.

  There was no doubt this time. There was nothing subtle about the impact. He snapped the bone in the deader’s arm right above the elbow.

  “Keep pushing,” Lassiter yelled as he drew back the rifle again. He jerked it forward in a raking motion, pushed the butt in a downward arc. The impact landed with intended consequences. The badly broken arm fell down the opening, but the hand remained mostly intact and clutched at the edge. Lassiter kicked out and smacked the hand, cracking fingers into pieces. He kicked out again in a swiping motion and shoved the shattered hand back out the crack.

  Donovan and Casey gave one final combined shove, and the gate fell into place with an anticlimactic clunk. Exhausted, Donovan and Casey slid down the door with their backs to the gate.

  After regaining his breath, Donovan looked up to Lassiter and asked, “Will this thing stay shut?”

  Lassiter shrugged and said, I sure hope so.”

  That did nothing to inspire either Donovan or Casey.

  Chapter 123

  They Came

  Henry jammed a long piece of lumber against the door, but it seemed ill-fitted. While it had been inside, it had fit like a glove, but in their haste to get the pieces of wood and metal spikes outside the opening, things weren’t in good shape any longer.

  “Get the hammer,” Henry said. He held the board in place while Clayton grabbed one of the spikes and held it in place at the bottom of the board as he picked up the hammer.

  “I’m probably going to smash the shit out of my thumb,” Clayton said as he hefted the hammer and eyed the head of the spike.

  “Just get it in the ground,” Henry said. “Those things are coming.”

  Clayton pounded the spike in at the base of the board, each hit clanging like a dull bell. After the first one was in, he snatched up another one and went to work with the hammer. In short order, he had the second spike in the ground.

  “Kid, get the next board,” Clayton said.

  Henry tested the first board, and it wobbled more than he liked, but the clock was ticking, and the zombies were on the move. He grabbed the next board as directed and placed it between the door and the ground. Clayton went to work with the hammer and had the next set of spikes in place.

  They repeated the process, starting on a fourth board, but Clayton got cocky and missed the spike and struck the wood, splitting the bottom of it.

  “Shit,” Clayton cursed out.

  “It’ll be okay,” Henry said, trying to reassure Clayton, but he could tell it fell on deaf ears.

  “This is some shaky shit,” Clayton said. “I sure as hell hope it holds up.”

  Since Kent had killed the bulldozer’s engine, the loudest noises were Clayton’s pounding, and that’s what got the zombie’s attention as they diverted away from the gate. It wasn’t a horde because many of them had headed toward the front entrance where Lassiter had been banging away with his rifle.

  The door got its test after less than a minute. Henry had his hand on one of the boards and felt the first zombie collide with the door. The impact reverberated through the door and the board, causing Henry to jump.

  Clayton couldn’t help but notice that one of the spikes he just pounded into the soil had slipped out of the ground by an inch.

  “Holy shit,” Clayton said. “This thing may not hold.”

  “It has to,” Henry said, obviously shaken.

  “There ain’t promises in this fucked up world, kid,” Clayton said as he leaned onto one of the support boards. He put his weight behind it even though he suspected his efforts were futile.

  Something slammed into the other side of the door once again, sending heavy vibrations through the door and the support boards.

  “What should we do?” Henry asked.

  “We need to do what we can to hold that door in place,” Clayton said.

  Henry stepped over and placed both of his hands on one of the boards and imitated Clayton’s posture, leaning on it. More impacts could be heard and felt, along with scratching and clawing.

  Henry looked down the wall and saw that Kent was still in the small glassed-in cabin of the bulldozer. He looked frozen in place as rigid as a statue.

  Kent saw fingers slide into a narrow crack of space between the bulldozer’s blade and the gate that sat on its side. There were several sets of fingers scrabbling along the opening, clawing and tugging at the gate. Kent had some confidence that they couldn’t dislodge the gate, but he wasn’t one hundred percent certain.

  His hands trembled a little as he considered shifting the blade to cover the gap, but he was concerned that this effort was just a house of cards. It all looked ready to fall at the slightest of movement. Besides, it was just a narrow crack. No zombies could get through there.

  Still, those boney fingers creeped the hell out of him. They clutched and clawed at the gate and the blade, looking almost like a spider's legs.

  He nervously gripped the controls to move the blade, uncertainty pulsing through his hands, afraid to move. But those damned fingers kept moving.

  After steeling himself, Kent tugged on the controls, and the big metal blade fell, slicing across a dozen sets of fingers, crushing some, and slicing off others. While it was a risky move, he felt a visceral sense of delight.

  As quickly as he started, he brought the blade to a stop, but the gate began to wobble a little, and Kent felt a shiver shake its way up his spine. He was sure that the gate was about to slip off the blade, but as fast as the wobble had started, the gate shored up. Kent let out an audible sigh.

  While he felt a sense of relief again wash over him, but he knew it was short-lived. He strongly suspected that he would have to stay in the bulldozer for a long time to ensure that the zombies didn’t find a way to dislodge the gate. He was also completely certain that if the zombies got out, the bulldozer’s cabin could become his grave.

  The first support board gave way five minutes later as the zombies continued to pound and claw at the door blocking the opening. It was the weakest board with multiple cracks in it, and it simply broke, then slipped free from the spikes that held it in place.

  Henry could only guess that the zombies were collecting behind the door in a forceful scrum, putting their collective weight against it. The only saving grace was the fact that the narrow opening could allow a few zombies access directly to the door. But he took little solace in that, because while normal living breathing humans knew they would be crushed by the press of bodies behind them. Humans didn’t like the idea of being crushed to death, but zombies had no such reservations. They would continue to press forward, doing whatever they could to get at the source
of the noises behind the door.

  “That other board is starting to look shaky,” Henry said, glancing at the board just inches away. He and Clayton held the other two, placing their weight against them to keep them in place.

  “Just hold on to yours,” Clayton said as he gripped the board he was holding a little tighter. “We got this.” Although, it sounded like he was speaking as much to himself as he was to Henry.

  They held it for another eight minutes when the other free board bounced in place as something hit the door. Like the other one, it toppled sideways and clattered onto the ground.

  “Well, shit,” Clayton cursed as he looked at the downed piece of lumber. A moment later, he said, “We gotta lock this shit down and keep these last two boards in place.”

  But both of them could feel the reverberations from the impacts on the other side of the door. There was a combination of big hits, feeling like someone had thrown a bag of concrete at the door. Then there was just the overall pressure of zombie bodies pressing against the door. Henry and Clayton had been forced to change their strategy, placing their feet at the base of the boards they held in place. More than once, Henry noticed the spikes mooring his board in place had come out of the ground. That was when he would put all his weight on the head of the spike to drive it back into the soil.

  It felt like a losing battle, but it was one they were forced to fight. Until they couldn’t.

  Henry had spent most of his time focused on keeping the board in place, but when he looked up toward the door, he saw something alarming.

  “The door is bowing out at the top,” Henry practically shouted.

  When Clayton looked up, he said, “Well, this is turning into an ass tightening episode of who the fuck wants to stay here.”

  “Can one of us go find something to help hold the door up?” Henry asked.

  “One of us let’s go, and we’re fucked,” Clayton answered.

  Something on the other side of the door rammed itself into it, and it bent forward another inch. To add insult to injury, one of the spikes that held Henry’s board in place completely popped out of the dirt and rolled away.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Henry said.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Clayton said, looking over his shoulder for something to help them.

  “Can we get Kent over here to help?” Henry asked.

  Clayton looked toward the bulldozer and saw Kent sitting rigidly in the cabin of the bulldozer. “He looks locked in, so we’re on our own.”

  Something crashed against the door, knocking it in almost a foot. The impact nearly dislodged the board Henry was holding in place. Clayton maintained his position, but he had to dig in to stay put.

  “We’re not going to be able to hold this,” Henry said.

  “Our only choice is to run,” Clayton said, “and that means everything is fucked.”

  “We can’t run,” Henry said, his head down. “We just can’t.”

  But the zombies on the other side of the door were doing their best to change Henry’s mind. Henry felt the pressure on the other side of the door increase, and the board he was holding down, let loose and slipped free. He tried to hold it but realized it was no use, and he let it go. It slid away and skidded across the ground as he leapt forward and rammed his back against the door. He dug in with his legs and pressed as hard as he could, but for each ounce of pressure he applied, an equal or greater amount of force was applied on the other side of the door.

  Two minutes later, Clayton felt his board start to buckle the way Henry’s had, so he abandoned his spot and jumped in beside Henry. Just like Henry, he placed his back flat against the door and dug in his heels. Also, like Henry, he felt the door bowing in toward them.

  “You know this shit ain’t going to work,” Clayton said, the strain of pushing with his legs showing in his voice. “We can’t keep this forever.”

  “What is our other choice?” Henry asked.

  “Run,” Clayton said. “It’s going to come down to that, anyway.”

  Henry’s expression was that of a man on a raft lost at sea and surrounded by sharks.

  “We need to let the others know, so they can get out,” Henry said. “Then we need to hold out as long as we can to give them some time.”

  “What about the old people who can’t run or the ones trapped inside the walls?” Clayton asked.

  Henry didn’t give the obvious reply because Clayton already knew. Those people were goners.

  “How long do you think they need to get a head start out of here?” Clayton asked.

  “Well, as much as we can give them,” Henry replied.

  “We stay here pushing back against this door for too long, and we’re not going to have enough gas to get out of here ourselves,” Clayton said. This caused him to question why he joined up with this group in the first place. Clayton had been safe and happy back on the farm with the Benton sisters. But then he reflected on the imagery of the farm being swarmed by zombies when the horde swept through. There was no way to move but forward.

  Despite the pounding, clawing, and moaning of the zombies behind the door, Henry heard a noise off to their left. It sounded like the noise of many feet headed their way.

  “Someone’s coming,” Henry said.

  Clayton leaned forward and looked past Henry, but the source of the noises was out of view. He asked, “Someone or something?”

  Henry didn’t have to answer. This approaching group could be the smart one coming back for the kill. And they were sitting ducks. If they fell, Kent would probably fall too. He looked to Clayton with panic and regret in his eyes, knowing that as the architect of this plan, it was his fault that a lot of people were about to die.

  “We have to run,” Clayton said.

  “Wait...just for a few seconds,” Henry said.

  In truth, Henry had no idea what he was waiting for. He just didn’t want to give up. He didn’t want to fail.

  Clayton, on the other hand, just wanted to live. He wondered if the last words he uttered would be, “Oh, shit.”

  Chapter 124

  Together Again

  Despite the incessant pounding behind them, Clayton and Henry kept their heads turned and their eyes locked to the left. To Clayton, it was as if the executioner was on his way. He felt a palpable sense of dread, nearly overwhelming his senses. His mind whirred like a computer, calculating his escape path, but his heart knew if he ran, the boy could be killed, so he stayed rooted in place.

  “If I see one zombie come ‘round that corner, I’m out of here,” Clayton said. “Color me gone.”

  The zombies behind the door continued to apply pressure to the door insistently, pressing outward. Henry felt his feet starting to slip in the loose dirt. Like Clayton, he wondered how long they could keep up their resistance.

  Fifty feet away to their left, Henry and Clayton saw a long shadow stretch across the ground, coming toward them. It wasn’t one shadow, though. It was a dozen, and they were marching right at them.

  “Kid, we gotta make a run for it,” Clayton said in a dry, breathy voice. “We’ll do it together, so neither of us gets crushed by this door. Okay?”

  Henry just said, “Uh, huh.”

  “I’ll count it out,” Clayton said. “On three.”

  The shadows continued coming toward them from around the curved corner of the wall. Henry sensed a deep menace in those shadows, knowing that Clayton was right. Once whatever was coming made it around that corner, they would have to make a run for it. He was just worried that his legs would give out, and he would go face first in the dirt and not be able to get up.

  “One,” Clayton said, drawing the word out. He gave a long pause before he said, “Two.”

  Both of them shifted their weight, preparing to make a mad dash away from the door.

  Clayton let an even longer pause fill in between the next and obvious number. His tongue pressed to his upper teeth as he prepared to say the word three, but he held out.

  The
first form crested around the corner, and they both saw Molly, face red and breathing hard, carrying her rifle in hand. Just behind her was a whole mass of people, all of them armed and ready for war. There were at least thirty people in the group. At the back of the mob, Clayton was sure he saw two men carrying a ladder. Once they got closer, he saw the two mad scientists pushing some sort of long cart with what looked like solar panels on it.

  Clayton never made it to three but instead relaxed and let out a long breath of air. Something thudded against the door on the inside, and he was nearly pitched forward by the impact, but he dug in again with his heels, resisting the force with renewed energy.

  “What the hell?” Henry said, not believing what his eyes were seeing.

  Clayton said, “Oh, thank God.”

  The group, led by Molly, picked up their speed when they saw Clayton and Henry’s predicament. As soon as they made it to the door, the group swarmed into action, getting in beside the two men. Several of the men used their arms to push the door back against the force threatening to smash it in. Others took up the same approach as Clayton and Henry, putting their backs against the door.

  Henry said, “I told you to stay back at the dorm.” There was some heat in his tone, but it was muted by exhaustion.

  Molly replied, “Well, just how the hell would that have worked out for you? If we hadn’t shown up, you’d probably be dead. Besides, you know I’m not good with taking orders.”

  “We had this,” Henry said.

  “That’s not how I see it,” Molly said.

  Clayton broke into the spat and said, “We need to get someone down to check in with Kent. I think he’s scared shitless inside that bulldozer.”

  Ten members of the group peeled off and ran toward the bulldozer and Kent.

  “What’s the next move?” Molly asked.

  “We need to get something better than what we have to hold that door,” Henry said.

  A tall, broad-shouldered man with dark curly hair began to shout orders. Several men broke away and began to scour the area for anything they could find to brace the door.