Riker said, “You need a new barf bag?”
“Not yet,” responded Steve-O.
“The one he has can’t get any fuller,” said Shorty.
Pressing her fingers to her lips, Tara said, “Great, now I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Want my bag?”
“No, Steve-O. That’ll surely make me hurl.”
“Holy crap,” blurted Riker. He pointed at the water park he’d spotted through the trees from the ferry. On the end of the facility not visible from the water, a large handwritten sign declaring the place Closed Until Further Notice was affixed head-high on the chain-link enclosure.
“Hate to break it to them,” declared Shorty. “Further notice ain’t coming.” His eyes were glued to the north side of the wave pool where nearly a hundred former human beings stood staring at them through the outwardly bowing fence.
As the Shelby rolled by, the zombies in back shuffled forward, crushing the ones at the front hard against the stressed fence.
Skin and flesh and features on some of the leering faces were being peeled away by constant contact with the chain-link. Fingers intertwined through the holes in the fence were sheared off.
“So many Sickos,” noted Steve-O.
“Outside of Manhattan, this is the most I’ve seen in one place,” said Tara. “Mount Sinai, included.”
A chorus of raspy hissing arose from the stirring corpses at the first sight of the Shelby. Now, with the fence barely a dozen feet from Steve-O’s window, the eerie sound was replaced by a growing crescendo of guttural moans.
Gaze locked on one young girl being slowly cut to pieces against the fence, Shorty said, “Get us the hell out of here before that thing fails.”
Nodding, Riker ignored the strategically placed speed bumps and sped off to the north.
They passed through the car camping area, nearly a quarter-mile stretch of flat ground where the zombies outnumbered the tents and the tents far outnumbered the cars left behind.
Nearing the park entrance where the drive took a sharp bend was a large wooden sign with Buccaneer State Park and Campground carved into it. The camping fees and a litany of campground rules were listed on the top half of the sign. The bottom two-thirds of the sign was thick with scraps of paper, napkins, and paper plates. The messages scribbled on the makeshift signs were mostly left by people fleeing the park and contained information pertaining to where they were going.
A barefoot corpse was sprawled out on the ground in the sign’s shadow. It had on only blood-soiled cargo shorts. On the grass next to it was a tattered and torn tee shirt. Its bolt open, a long rifle lay on the drive.
Riker noted a distinct, unnatural curvature to the barrel. Clumps of hair and blood clung to the buttstock and rubber recoil pad.
Clearly, someone had brained this one with the rifle.
Fingers were missing from both of the corpse’s hands. Nearly all of the flesh had been stripped from its arms. Skin and muscle on one side of its bearded face was peeled back. The row of molars exposed by the violent act were cracked and yellowed. It looked as if the only thing keeping the man’s jaw from coming unhinged from his skull were a few thin strands of glistening muscle.
The gory sight reminded Riker of the anatomical model of the head in his high school biology class. That damn thing always creeped him out.
And this was no different.
“Looks like he’s smiling,” said Steve-O.
Shorty said, “After having his guts ripped out like that, he’s probably happy to be dead.”
The torso had been reduced to a hollowed-out chest cavity ringed by raised bite marks. Riker didn’t see a single organ he could identify. He did, however, see the two fingers remaining on its nub of a left hand begin to twitch. He was back to looking at the mess of a face when the eyes snapped open.
Frozen with morbid curiosity, Riker straightened in his seat, staring and kneading the steering wheel as the corpse worked itself into a sitting position.
Seeing the corpse suddenly hinge up and a mess of bloody detritus sluice onto its lap hastened in Tara what the stench wafting from Steve-O’s puke bag had started. Thrusting a hand over the seatback, she blurted, “Bag,” and waggled her fingers for emphasis.
Taking the plastic bag bulging with warm sloshing liquid, Tara added chunks of granola bar and several ounces of yellow bile to the mix.
Seeing the corpse lose its balance and flop back onto its side, Riker turned his attention to the messages on the sign. Squinting, he read a few of the notes with the largest font. Most began with: It’s not safe here. Some detailed attacks by dead things or walking corpses. A few actually referred to their attackers as zombies.
The disemboweled zombie had found its way onto its stomach—or the remains thereof—and was dragging itself toward the Shelby, using its toes and bloody meat-hooks-for-hands as propulsion.
Riker looked to Tara. “When you’re all done puking, Sis … can you read some of the signs so we can get a feel for where everyone was going?”
“I got it,” said Shorty. “Just had my eyes lased.” He powered down his window and stuck his head outside.
In the wing mirror, Riker watched the crawler. It had reached the Shelby and was grabbing hold of the running board.
“Well?” he asked.
“All of them are going somewhere north or west of here. We got Jackson, Casper, Oklahoma City, Topeka, Omaha, Sioux Falls. Quite a few are setting their sights on places nearby. New Orleans, Albuquerque, Dallas, Houston, Santa Fe. Then there are a handful ranging out farther west. Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Salt Lake City.”
“We’re going farther west,” said Riker. It was the first time he had voiced it out loud. In his experience, the longer he held his cards close to his vest, the better the ultimate result. “I’m guessing with Miss Abigail out of action, your mind just got made for you.”
“Not entirely,” answered Shorty. Changing the subject, he displayed his Glock and said, “I’ll put the camp host out of his misery. But I’m out of ammo for this. Only had the two magazines.”
Tara checked the Shockwave’s safety, then handed it back to the man. With a smirk forming and a twinkle in her eye, she said, “Here, use this.”
With a tilt of his head, Riker said, “That’s cold-blooded, Sis.”
Shorty looked a question at Riker.
Riker said, “That little thing has a recoil like you wouldn’t believe. It’s like a Blunderbuss on steroids.”
Fixing his blue eyes on Shorty, Steve-O said, “He’s a grown ass man, Lee.”
“I can handle it,” Shorty declared. He looked to Riker. “Question is … do you know what a Blunderbuss is?”
“A short, shotgun-like rifle used mainly to repel boarding pirates,” said Riker. “I confess. I used to watch that Vegas pawn store show run by the three generations of smart asses.”
Shorty looked dumbly at Riker. Then he went to work, quickly cycling the shells from the weapon. After giving them a look, he reinserted only the slugs. “Got more?” he asked.
“If you need more than three,” said Riker, “you deserve to be eaten by that sad sight.”
“You have a point.” Shorty dumped the extra shells in a pocket, exited the truck, and looped around back. Setting the Shockwave down on the ground, he grabbed the zombie by the ankles and dragged it away from the pickup.
Looking at the sky through the smoked moonroof, Riker said, “Divert your eyes, folks. We’re all out of barf bags.”
There was a single tremendous boom, then Shorty was climbing aboard and saying, “Go, go, go. My good deed came with unintended consequences.”
Dropping his gaze to his wing mirror, Riker saw the dozen or so Slogs the report had stirred up. Most were a good distance away and posed no immediate threat.
“Sickos,” said Steve-O. “I don’t see any Bolts.”
Thank God for small miracles, thought Riker as he got them moving toward the nearby feeder road.
They had only trav
eled a quarter of a mile or so and were coming out of the trees where the road widened when Riker began to curse under his breath.
“If it wasn’t for bad luck,” said Steve-O.
“We wouldn’t have any luck at all,” finished Tara.
“Someone didn’t want to be followed,” observed Shorty.
“Damn it,” said Riker, pounding a fist on the wheel. “Looks like we have our work cut out for us.”
Chapter 42
In the spot where the only road in and out of Buccaneer State Park widened to two full-sized lanes flanked by steel guardrails, a massive fifth-wheel trailer sat angled across two-thirds of the road. It was a newer model Jayco with pop-outs and a raised ceiling. No pickup was attached, and all of its tires were flat.
The fifth-wheel hitch was embedded into the dirt shoulder on the left side of the road where the front end of the trailer abutted the rust-streaked guardrail.
To the right, the opening between the rear of the trailer and guardrail was barely wide enough for a small pickup or passenger car to pass through.
Riker said, “No way Dolly is getting past that.”
After craning to get a better view, Tara agreed with him. “Not enough Vaseline in the world to make that happen.”
Sparing everyone the sexual innuendo hanging on the tip of his tongue, Shorty said, “We have to make it happen. This is our only way out.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Riker as he let the truck roll closer to the trailer.
Gaining a better viewing angle, he saw that the trailer’s rear bumper and opposing guardrail were streaked with all the colors of the rainbow. Which led him to believe the trailer had been nudged to its current resting place by smaller vehicles pushing through.
And if smaller vehicles could get the behemoth moving, he figured the Shelby could finish the job.
Issuing marching orders, Riker set the transmission to Park and exited the truck.
Working together, Riker and Shorty got the Shelby’s bumper-mounted winch spooled out and attached to the trailer’s grease-slathered fifth-wheel hitch.
Standing near the bend in the road and watching their backs, Tara heard the roar of the Shelby’s big V8. A tick later a groaning of metal joined the mix of mechanical sounds coming from the ongoing operation. Tearing her eyes from dozens of Slogs approaching from the direction of the park’s entrance, she regarded the vehicular struggle taking place on the road behind her. It seemed as if the scene from the boat ramp was being replayed. The Shelby’s rear tires were spinning and its back end had started to waggle back and forth across the solid yellow centerline.
And the blue tire smoke was back, too. It billowed from the wheel wells and then drifted slowly across the two-lane as the tires put black marks down on the gray cement.
With another groan and a bang, the Jayco slid off the guardrail. Initially the fifth-wheel hitch carved a deep channel in the dirt shoulder. As it came into contact with the raised asphalt where the road started and the shoulder ended, the Jayco jumped up onto the smooth surface where friction was nearly nonexistent.
Inside the Shelby, with Steve-O calling the play-by-play for him, Riker sensed that the trailer was about to break free of the guardrail’s hold before it actually did. And when it did, he was ready, simultaneously lifting his foot off the accelerator and loosening the cable tension with the push of a dash-mounted button.
Standing clear of the taut cable and supervising the affair, Shorty caught Tara peeking and promptly directed her attention back to the steadily advancing herd.
Once the trailer had started moving, its slow counterclockwise pivot didn’t cease until it was parallel to the centerline.
“That’ll do,” hollered Shorty.
Riker selected Park, set the parking brake, then watched as Shorty loped over to the Jayco and went to work unhooking the cable from the fifth-wheel hitch.
Turning in his seat, Steve-O said, “Pretty lady is in trouble.”
Peering into his wing mirror, Riker saw Tara with her Glock trained on the leaders of the herd and slowly backpedaling down the middle of the straightaway. At the rate she was giving up ground, he had a bad feeling the dead things would be within arm’s reach of the pickup before Shorty could get the cable spooled up and secured in its housing.
Though the winch was still reeling in the cable, Riker ordered Shorty to coil it up as best he could and throw it onto the hood.
The cable and hook landed atop the hood with a bang.
“That’s going to leave a mark,” said Steve-O.
The door behind Riker’s had opened and Shorty was scrambling in before Riker could answer.
Steve-O regarded Shorty. Nudging the brim of his Stetson up with a knuckle, he said, “You scratched Dolly.”
The passenger door opened, Tara jumped in, and the truck started rolling forward at once.
Ignoring Tara’s harried entry into the cab, Shorty said, “What’s with you guys calling this pickup Dolly?”
A little short of breath, Tara said, “That’s the name Steve-O gave this beast of a truck. Personally, I think it’s a little too girly of a name.”
“Lee likes it.”
Riker flicked the switch to stop the winch motor. Getting the cable spooled all the way in could wait until later. Steering Dolly around the trailer, he said, “The name just kind of stuck. Besides, it does roll nicely off the tongue.”
Tara checked the herd in the wing mirror. The dead things hadn’t quite reached the pickup’s tailgate when she made it to her seat. Now, however, they were occupying the patch of rubber-streaked road the pickup had just vacated.
Shorty said, “You named this rig Dolly? As in Dolly Parton?” As he uttered the surname, he pantomimed cupping a pair of Triple Ds.
Steve-O cracked a half-smile and winked at Shorty.
“No shit,” said Shorty, smiling. “I’m a big fan of her, too.”
“I wonder why,” Tara retorted. “You should see Steve-O’s tattoo. Let’s just say, the artist didn’t leave much for the imagination.”
“Given the Texas-sized belt buckle, Stetson, and boots,” Shorty said, “I already had you pegged as a country and western fan. Just not a diehard country and western fan.”
Beaming, Steve-O said, “I have been to Dolly World.”
Tara laughed and pretended to tweak her nipples. “Shorty sure wishes he was in Dolly’s World. Don’t you, Shorty?” Making a second risqué joke, she attempted to correct them on the theme park’s name by asking, “Or is it just Dolly Wood that you desire?”
Shortly chuckled loudly and steered the subject back to the tattoo. “Let me see it.”
Steve-O was rolling his sleeve up when Riker stabbed the brakes. A keening of metal raking metal came next as the cable shot off the hood.
Riker restarted the winch motor to reel in the rest of the cable.
In the backseat, Shorty was oohing and aahing over Steve-O’s fresh ink.
“Best of the best reimagined as Mount Rushmore. Great idea,” gushed Shorty.
A clunk and brief whine sounded when the hook snugged into the port on the front bumper. Shutting the winch motor down, Riker looked over his shoulder at Shorty. “Did you know who the black guy is?”
“Who doesn’t? Best damn new-school singer to come on the scene since Garth Brooks.”
Slowing down to cross some railroad tracks, Riker said, “He’s still Hootie to me.”
“Hootie who?” joked Shorty.
“Hootie and the blow me,” answered Riker. Turning west on Railroad Avenue, he asked Tara to pull up the navigation screen and plot a course to the nearest car lot.
“New car lot,” Shorty said. “A lot of miles between here and Chicago.”
Tara shot Riker a questioning look.
He whispered, “Tell you all about it later.”
Chapter 43
The navigation system indicated the closest new car dealership nearest to Buccaneer State Park was in Waveland, Mississippi. To get there required Riker
to pull a U-turn on Railroad Avenue and drive a couple of miles east.
Getting the Shelby turned around on the road wasn’t an issue. Just a quick three-point turn and they were on their way.
Traffic moving eastbound on Railroad Avenue seemed heavy for such an early hour.
Driving toward the sun becoming an issue, Riker donned his sunglasses and, for good measure, flipped his visor down.
“Sure it’s a new car dealership?”
Looking back at Shorty, Tara said, “I heard you the first time.”
“Just checking,” Shorty said, raising his hands in mock surrender.
Tara crossed her arms over her chest and directed her attention to the narrow, crescent-shaped lake passing by on the left. The water shimmered silver at the edges from the morning light then darkened as it took a dogleg left into the trees.
Shortly after passing the lake, Railroad Avenue became South Street. Following Tara’s direction, Riker turned left on Brown Street, which cut through a sleepy little neighborhood consisting of large houses separated by expansive tracts of treed land.
“Right at South Central,” instructed Tara. “Then shortly after South Central becomes North Central, you’ll hang a left on Nicholson. Keep straight for a couple of blocks and hang another left on Henderson. It’ll spit us out on the dealer’s doorstep.”
Shorty said, “Please tell me it’s a Chevy dealer.”
“You said closest dealership,” remarked Tara.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” added Steve-O.
Sinking back into his seat, Shorty said, “Dogpile on the old guy, why dontcha.”
“Closest is Charlie Henderson Ford. And that’s where we’re going,” said Tara
Shorty said, “Ford. Fix … or … repair … daily.”
“You’re sitting in a Ford,” Riker shot. “Take it back or get out.”
Though Riker had been joking, he still slowed down, moved to the shoulder, and popped the locks for effect.
The Plan Page 25