Fallback

by Lori Whitwam

  “Holy fucking hell,” I gasped, as similar exclamations filled the interior of the van. I turned to Melissa, who stared, mouth agape while Faith clutched her arm.

  Marcus raced by our van, John and Monte hot on his heels. We began to pile out of the van to gather around the disabled truck. The occupants of the vehicles trapped behind the disaster scene soon joined us, threading their ways through the brush and the uneven ditch. The crowd was oddly silent as our mechanic, Daisy Simmons, crawled beneath the truck to assess the damage. Ty approached and crouched beside her protruding feet. After a few minutes of muttered conversation, Daisy inched from under the cab and stood, Ty grabbing her elbow to help her find her balance.

  Daisy directed her attention to Marcus, her expression grim and incongruous beneath her bouncy blonde ponytail. “Tie rod.”

  Marcus cursed under his breath. “Busted?”

  “Clean through.”

  “Son of a goddamned bitch!” It was uncommon for Marcus to lose his cool, and this worried me more than anything else.

  Cooper stepped forward, his face pale, running his fingers repeatedly through his shaggy nut-brown hair. “Oh, god, Marcus, I’m so sorry. I tried…I tried to keep it steady, but…”

  Marcus silenced him with one raised hand. “No, son, you didn’t do anything wrong. We knew this was risky, but it was our best option in a whole sea of shitty options. I can see now that pavement wasn’t gonna hold. Looks like there was some undercutting from the ditch.” He sighed and wiped sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand. “So we gotta assess and evaluate, figure out what to do now.”

  Daisy raised her hand to shield her eyes from the late morning sun coming through the surrounding trees and looked back to the truck, her jaw working as she thought. “I could fix it, if we had time and, oh, I don’t know, an extra freakin’ tie rod laying around.”

  Marcus shot an inquisitive look at Cody, who froze for a second then broke into a grin and nodded. Marcus turned back to Daisy. “Well, seems we do have a tie rod…” He paused, looked thoughtful, then frowned, and my momentary breath of hope was released in a deflated sigh. “Well, we do, but it’s crated up somewhere in the cargo truck. We scavenged it from a breakdown on the other side of the bridge a couple weeks ago. But I think we’d have to unload about half the truck to find it.” He muttered something that might have been ‘fucking dumbass move,’ but I wasn’t sure.

  Rebecca was grinding her teeth and glowering while Dr. Mills tried to inspect a small cut on her temple, likely from cracking her head on the passenger window when the truck dropped. I glanced around and saw worried expressions as everyone tried to think of a way out of the situation. Then I looked at Ty, and he was smiling.

  He noticed me watching him, and I raised an eyebrow. He took a deep breath and turned to Marcus, no longer quite smiling, but looking hopeful. “I think I can help.”

  “Got a new tie rod in your back pocket?” Marcus asked sardonically. He must be seriously concerned if he was being testy with his team, even provisional members.

  “Nope, but I can maybe fix this one. At least enough to get us back on the road and someplace safe.” He sounded confident, and I crossed my fingers.

  “Do it,” Marcus said, and Ty quickly disappeared under the truck.

  While he was under there, the team drifted about, conversing in hushed tones. Skip and Nilla, along with Neil’s two border collies, Fly and Jewel, sniffed around, clearly happy with the unexpected rest stop. They were quiet; somehow dogs seemed to have learned that barking drew danger. If only the other animals had come to the same conclusion. I heard the goats bleating, led by the cantankerous and dictatorial Wilhelm, and their ruckus had the horses stirred up, causing them to voice some neighs of their own. This wasn’t good. Noise of any kind was dangerous when we were surrounded by woods and pursued by zombies.

  Ty emerged and spoke to Marcus. “Clean break. It’ll take a little bit, and it won’t be perfect, but I can patch it up. You’ll want to replace it when you get wherever you’re going, but unless you have to go off-road, it should hold.” As soon as Marcus nodded assent, he took off for our van.

  Marcus clapped his hands. “All right, then. Let’s get two lookouts on top of the back vehicle, four more with eyes on the woods.” There was some shuffling as people sorted out who would do which task. When this was accomplished, Marcus addressed the remaining team members. “Clock’s ticking. We know those dead we passed are headed this way, unless by some miracle whatever’s been drawing their attention came along and diverted them.”

  “Can’t count on that, for sure,” John Kim said.

  “And we ain’t going to,” Marcus said. “We’ll see what sort of tricks Ty has up his sleeve, but we need to stay alert. We can handle a few incoming deadlies, but if the main herd catches up with us, we only have one option.”

  “Run.” Rebecca said the word as if it tasted foul on her tongue.

  Marcus cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t be happy, but if it comes to it, we pack into the SUV and the first van and run for it.”

  Melissa inhaled sharply. “But Wilhelm is back there, and the horses, and the cats…”

  His shoulders slumped, but Marcus caught himself and squared them up again, then he approached Melissa. With a hand on her shoulder, he said, “I know, and I hope it won’t come to that. Those animals and those supplies are critical for our mission, and I do not want us to fail, and I don’t want anybody—people or animals—hurt. But if we get hit with more than we can handle, we get out.”

  Melissa looked like she might cry, but swallowed and nodded. “I get it. But Ty will fix the truck, I know he will. Those things won’t eat Wilhelm.”

  Ty returned from the van, his oversized external frame backpack slung over one shoulder. He swung it down to the ground, where it landed with a very hefty thud and a metallic clank. From the sound of the impact, that thing must have weighed a hundred pounds. How the hell had he been hauling it around through the forest, running for his life?

  He opened the top of the pack and began rummaging, pulling out some items and setting them out of the way, while placing others purposefully at his side. When he was done, he loaded the unnecessary things back inside and stood. “Marcus, this will be quick and dirty, but it’ll work. I know it will. The only thing I don’t know is how long I have before we get some unwelcome company.”

  Rebecca jumped in. “The herd should still be some way off, probably at least a half hour, I’d guess. But that doesn’t figure in any that are closer, maybe in the woods or up ahead.”

  Ty grimaced. “Hadn’t thought that far yet. I’ll be as fast as I can, but there’s gonna be some noise.” He pulled his hammer from the loop at his belt and held it up in illustration.

  Marcus interrupted our morbid musing. “Let’s quit yappin’ about it and get busy. Noncombatants, stick close to the van. Daisy, you help Tyler with whatever he’s got planned. Everybody else, spread out and watch for incoming. And by watch, I mean if a mouse farts within a mile of here, I want to know about it.” He fingered the leather pouch at his waist nervously before turning and heading toward the SUV. He climbed up to join Monte on lookout and left us to watch the forest on either side.

  Melissa and Neil went off to check on the animals and try to quiet them. Faith was chatting softly to Cooper, no doubt reassuring him there was nothing he could have done to prevent this unwelcome and potentially dangerous delay.

  Ty set about assembling his equipment, then looked up at me. “Ellen, would you find me a bucket of water, please? Once I heat the broken ends of the tie rod and re-shape them, I’ll need to cool them.”

  I hurried to the livestock truck and found Melissa murmuring in Wilhelm’s ear, while Neil offered him a pan of something he seemed to enjoy. With Wilhelm calmed down, his lady-friends were also settled. I told Neil what I needed, and rushed back to Ty as soon as he filled a two-gallon aluminum pail for me.

  I delivered the water and took up a spot by Ty, my eyes alternat
ing between scanning the woods and watching what he was doing. Daisy was under the truck removing the broken piece, while Anton stood nearby, monitoring the truck’s position for any sign of it shifting and threatening to trap Daisy beneath. He did manage to keep a wary eye on Ty, as well.

  When Daisy scooted out with the first half of the broken rod and passed it to Ty, he started narrating what he was doing. He ignited a portable torch and began heating the end of the piece of metal. “This is my smith go-bag,” he explained. “A lot of jobs on farms don’t take place in the garage or barn. There’s more to the work than putting shoes on horses, and equipment breaks where it breaks.”

  “That bag looks pretty damned heavy,” I observed.

  Ty chuckled and adjusted the torch in his gloved hands. “Yeah, but I’m used to it. Between swinging a hammer and lugging this stuff around, blacksmiths don’t need to join a gym.”

  I smiled in response and admired the way those strong, go-bag-toting shoulders flexed as he reached for an object near his knee. “What’s that?”

  “Do-it-yourself portable anvil.” I raised a brow, showing my lack of comprehension. “Otherwise known as a piece of railroad rail.”

  “Oh. Clever.”

  “Now, see, this piece is just about ready to work.” He indicated the glowing metal bathed in the torch’s intense flame. He positioned it on the rail and reached for his hammer just as Daisy showed up with the other half of the broken rod. She stayed to watch, and I had to remind myself to keep one eye on the dense underbrush and the heavy forest just beyond. Contrary to all the horror films made pre-apocalypse, the dead didn’t announce their arrival with convenient moans. They did make some noise, but it didn’t seem intentional. I wasn’t sure they even needed to breathe, and they definitely didn’t communicate with each other through vocalization. This meant one of them could possibly get very close to our position before we noticed it if we weren’t alert.

  I flinched at the first ring of Ty’s hammer on the truck part. Damn, that was loud. My shoulders tensed as I stepped up my surveillance of the tree line. This was exactly the kind of noise they’d key on, and I was sure it carried for a considerable distance. I hoped the trees and hills distorted the echoes enough to keep them from zeroing in on the source of the zombie dinner bell.

  Melissa returned and sat in the shade beside the van, writing in a spiral notebook, though she kept casting nervous glances toward the forest and kept her hatchet by her side. Journaling was one way she worked through the trauma we’d shared, and the more general trauma of living in a dead world. I’d never asked to read what she wrote, and I never would. If she ever wanted to share, fine. But privacy was a precious commodity in our group-survival lifestyle, and I wasn’t about to intrude.

  Tyler lifted some kind of spike and began hammering it into the flattened piece of rod, creating a hole, then doused the finished piece in the bucket and began work on the other.

  Javier appeared from behind the truck. He’d been watching back the way we’d come, scanning for the herd we knew wasn’t far off. “I could see them back a way when they came over a rise in the road on the other side of that sod farm,” he said. “You’ve got a little time, man, but not much.”

  Ty grunted in acknowledgment and kept the torch focused, turning the metal to heat it evenly.

  A commotion on the opposite side of the road drew our attention. Rebecca stood on the far side of the ditch, sword drawn, all her focus on the two zombies crashing their way through some blackberry bushes. Their clothes—and flesh—were already tattered, and seemed to suffer no additional damage from the thorny shrubs. Their mottled gray-green flesh was an oddly effective camouflage, if you thought about it. I chose not to think about it.

  Rebecca dispatched the pair of targets with her usual ruthless efficiency and scanned for other threats. Ty was hammering again, and before long, pairs of fighters were dealing with encroachment at the edge of the woods on both sides of the road. I drew my machete and stood a few feet behind Ty’s left shoulder, prepared to defend him if need be. I’d come a long way from hiding behind a cherry tree, and at the moment that felt damned good.

  Ty plunged the glowing end of the metal he held into the bucket, creating a loud hiss and a burst of steam. While it cooled, he rummaged in his pack and produced a thick, sturdy-looking bolt.

  I heard a shout and turned to see Marcus atop the SUV raising his bow and pointing it in our general vicinity. I whipped my head in the direction of his aim and saw a thick stand of vines choking some head-high bushes, which were rustling wildly. I took up position between Ty and Daisy and the disturbance as they struggled to line up the two halves of the tie rod and insert the bolt through the overlapping holes on the two flattened pieces, being sure to keep myself out of Marcus’ line of fire.

  The vines parted forcefully, and the dead poured through. How many? Four? Six? More? I knew there were some behind the first few who emerged, but couldn’t begin to guess how many. There was a soft whistle and a wet impact sound as an arrow pierced the skull of the foremost zombie. The gap in the vines widened, and I was able to count at least ten dead before I leaped into action. I wished Theo were beside me, but I guessed he was one of the lookouts at the back of the convoy. I was relieved when Rebecca materialized at my side, having apparently dealt with the threat on the other side of the road.

  Cody was fighting near us and doing a good job holding his own, while the rest were scattered along the ditches at various points, battling other zombies, which appeared in pairs and small groups. Rebecca and I kept swinging, arrows kept zinging through the air from Marcus’ perch…and the dead just kept coming.

  A shirtless man lurched across the ditch and made a grab for me. I danced back a few steps and almost gagged—which was saying something. I thought I’d lost my gag reflex a long, long time ago. The zombie swayed as it realigned itself with my new position. He had a huge, crescent-shaped chunk missing from his side, extending nearly to his spine. If whatever had caused the injury had gone an inch or two deeper, it would have cut through his spine, leaving the creature to pull itself along on its hands until one day it could no longer move. Then…who knew? Maybe they eventually died, or perhaps they just lay there, aware in whatever way zombies were, longing for a meal they’d never find.

  The edges of the gaping hole in its torso were ragged and stringy, like the strands of ribs you’d pull from your teeth after a barbecue, but what had my gut gurgling were the blackened, fleshy, necrotic intestines bulging up from the bottom of the void, threatening to spill sludge and gore onto the ground.

  I swallowed the bile building at the back of my throat and swung my machete, hacking deeply enough into the side of its head to put the pathetic thing down once and for all. I risked a glance over my shoulder to assess the progress Ty and Daisy were making and saw them tightening the bolt to fasten the two halves of the tie rod together.

  The tide of zombies coming from the gap in the undergrowth had finally slowed. An arrow dropped one more, and Rebecca and Cody each took down two in quick order. I picked off a straggler coming in from the left, then swept my gaze along the road looking for others.

  Seeing no immediate new targets, I started to loosen my grip on my machete. Suddenly, I heard a shout from inside the van and spun around. Three zombies, moving very quickly, rounded the back of the van and made straight for Ty and Daisy. Rebecca and Cody were scouting the brush on the far side of the ditch, and the van was blocking Marcus’ line of fire, leaving me the only fighter close enough to help.

  “Ty, heads up!” I shouted, rushing to cut off the zombies’ approach.

  Ty and Daisy sprang to their feet. When Ty focused on the zombies, he turned to Daisy and gave her a shove. “Go!”

  Daisy lunged toward the cargo truck then hit the ground, rolling beneath the front of the cab. Ty bent and grabbed the freshly-mended rod and slid it toward Daisy. It skittered across the cracked asphalt, then began rolling, stopping just outside Daisy’s reach. She inched forwar
d and stretched until she was able to grasp the end of the metal piece and drag it underneath with her.

  As Ty straightened and tried to square his feet under him, preparing for the attack, one of the zombies strayed a little too far to one side and was rewarded with one of Marcus’ freakishly accurate arrows through the back of its skull.

  The two remaining zombies were almost upon Ty, and I was still a good six or eight steps away. He raised his hammer and struck out at the mobile corpse, but he hadn’t had time to quite center his stance. His off-balance swing glanced off the attacker’s shoulder, and the momentum sent Ty to the ground, his hammer falling loose and spinning out of reach, and the zombie dropped atop him. It scrabbled for a grip, but Ty used his still-gloved hands to hold it off. Its jaws snapped inches from his face, and the zombie’s companion was only feet away from joining the frenzy.

  I didn’t have time to think, yet a million thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant.

  Quinn, killing the reanimated nightmare of the human monster who had been my captor. Being unable to help him because I was too afraid, causing him to have to protect me as well as himself…and failing. Quinn’s ghastly wounds and the light in his eyes slowly being replaced by the cloudy, soulless gaze of the dead. His last words, encouraging me to live, to find my place in this brutal world.

  The crack of the pistol as I shot him…killed him…saved him?

  Fuck it, I didn’t know. The only thing I did know was it was not happening again. My fellow patrol members had been in some tough spots, but I’d never come this close to losing someone. Maybe we were that good, or maybe we were just lucky, but I’d be goddamned if that run of luck would end with Ty.

  My grip tight on the handle of my machete, I also drew the dagger on my left hip. If there was any hope, I had to go in with everything I had. Some distant portion of my brain registered Rebecca’s shout and the sound of pounding feet, but it would all be over before anyone else could arrive.