by Mark Clodi
"So any line on the buses yet?"
"They were waiting for you. Get this, there is a bus dealer not too far from here, Midwest Bus Sales. They sell school buses, we were going to hit up a school, but this is about as far so why not go to the source. Steve is ready to go when you are, he would have left already, but Mary told him to let you sleep, you needed it."
"I can sleep all I want when we get out of here." After pouring a cup of coffee Dora doctored it up with sugar and powdered creamer, neither of which were in short supply. Grabbing her toast she had just made it to the table when Steve came in.
"Good, you are up. Paige tell you the news?"
"No attacks last night, suspicious huh?" said Dora grinning.
"We needed the break. I think three quarters of the people here finally got more than six hours sleep at one time. We are going to a bus sales place, did Paige tell you that too?"
Dora nodded and crunched through her dry toast.
"There is peanut butter." Paige said.
Dora shook her head from side to side. "This is fine. You feed Tim yet?"
"Yeah, took care of it first thing."
"Too bad, I wanted to spit in his coffee. He wouldn't have noticed."
Paige shrugged, "That is why I fed him first thing. You would have over salted his eggs or put hot peppers in his coffee. I thought it would be better to remove that temptation. Don't forget your vitamins."
"Yes mother."
"Vitamins? Maybe we all should start taking some? It has been awhile since we had any veggies or fruit that wasn't from a can or dried."
"Doctor's orders for her." said Paige hooking her thumb in Dora's direction, "She is too stressed right now and needs to take better care of herself."
Dora didn't say anything else, but was surprised that Paige and Mary had kept the fact that she was pregnant from everyone else. She finished up her meal and went with Steve out to the others who were waiting for them. There were three vehicles, two full sized pickup trucks and Dora's suburban. There were a couple of juniors coming along with them, plus a couple of the older teens and eight adult men and women.
Steven tossed Dora her keys for the suburban, "You're driving, but Bob is leading in the white pickup, I am driving the black one, we all have walkie-talkies on channel seventeen to keep in touch. The only planned trips are to the bus sales, to a gas station to fill everything up and finally, if we can, to get some motorcycles. The bus sales place is farthest away, we should pass the motorcycle place on our way to it and then we have to go another four miles or so to find the buses. If we get the buses, we come back the same way, only we stop by and load up any motorcycles worth taking."
Dora hopped into the suburban and realized this was only about the third time she had driven it. After z-day they had never done more than pull it out of the garage, for the daily running around they used Paige's car or one of the nicer sedans of the neighborhood. If they went out foraging they had used vans and pickup trucks, but never the suburban. Both pickups had barrels and gas cans in the beds, even Dora's vehicle had a bunch of smaller gas cans in the back. There was also some hosing that she recognized as the portable pump Alex had put together to siphon gas out of the in ground storage tanks at the gas stations. No doubt there were crowbars and other equipment to get the gas station tanks opened tucked away somewhere too. Everyone was well armed with shotguns tending to be the weapon of choice and baseball bats as back up weapons.
Pulling over to the first set of gates on the east side of the houses the group slowly drove out. Steve led the group at a cautious pace, the streets were fairly clear the way they were going and they made it to highway thirty two with no problems. The highway did not have exits or on ramps, it was more like a four lane street in this section of town and it was not clear. Bob was a decent driver and there was a reason he was in the lead; the truck he was driving had the front end reinforced with some welded on metal piping. He could not ram vehicles out of the way, but he could gently shove them and one of the boys with him knew how to disengage parking brakes and put the cars they might need to move into neutral so they would roll easier. It was the wrecks that would cause them the most problem and it looked like there would be plenty of them to deal with.
Dora turned to Ken, a swarthy middle aged man with black hair and a full Islamic beard, "So Ken, you know how to drive a bus?"
"Yeah, I did it for a few years before landing a better job in sales." despite his middle eastern appearance his voice had a Midwestern twang to it that just didn't fit his image. "I know I can drive anything we find, it won't be too hard, most of them are automatics anyway, so I will just show the other drivers how to disengage the air brakes and put the things in gear and we will be back before you know it."
"Sounds good to me. I think I will stick with this though. Anyone see any zeds?"
A chorus of 'no' answered her, "How suspicious, don't you all think?"
"I was going to ask you about that." Ken said, "We heard rumors there were no attacks last night, is it true?"
"Yes. It seems to confirm what we thought. How does it feel to find out you were just part of the herd, Ken?"
The man snorted derisively, "How long did they think we would fall for it?"
"Forever, I guess, eventually they might have come clean, told us they would keep the others away in return for one sacrifice a week or something. Who knows what they were thinking?"
"And all those people they brought back with them? To safety?"
"Dead, we figure. I wouldn't have kept them alive and making them into zombies would be too risky, we might start seeing those who fled show up in the ranks of those attacking us. So they probably just put them down after they ate them."
Ken said a short prayer in another language, prompting Dora to say, "Yo there Ishmal speaka the English please!"
"Just a prayer in the holy language. A fatwa on the ones who did this."
"Nice, Jihad against the zombies huh? Kind of overkill really as we all want to take them out anyway."
Ken nodded, "It can't hurt."
"Are you really Muslim?"
"Are you really an atheist?"
"Touché Mohammad. Let's leave religion alone, okay? I won't kick you in the ass when you are on the prayer mat three times a day and you won't issue any Fatwas against my ass? Agreed?"
Ken laughed and said, "Agreed. I am not a very good Muslim."
"That's okay; I'm not a very good atheist." This prompted a general round of laughter from the car.
They traveled about ten miles west before coming across "Mark's Motorcycles", it was on the right in a good location with a decent sized cross street, the windows of the show room had been smashed in, but there were still motorcycles inside and the building was long and low, promising more out of site. It looked like the place sold on and off road motorcycles and that they could get what they needed from them on the way back. There were more zombies shuffling around this part of town, no doubt the group from Doraville was out of the area controlled by the other group of zombies.
Everything still went smoothly until they got up to highway seven, both lanes of traffic were jammed with wrecks. Highway thirty two was squeezed under another highway and between the rail road on one side and the embankment on the other there was no room to pass the jammed together vehicles. The wrecks had burned too, the tires and even paint were burned off all of the vehicles leaving only skeletal sheet metal frames. Moving the vehicles would take time. The truck drivers had pulled to one side of the road to discuss what to do.
"Go up the on ramp to highway seven there and then cross the median and take the off ramp down on the other side of this mess." said Bob.
"Sure we can get by that way, but what about bringing the buses back?" countered Steve. "Maybe spending a few hours clearing this would save us six hours with the buses coming back. I don't think they would make it across a grassy median."
"What if there are guardrails?" asked Dora.
Both men laughed at that, "No
problem, we brought the torches with us." said Bob.
"No, that is what I mean, why bother going through the median if there isn't an emergency crossing somewhere close, just go up, find a spot where the roads are close and cut through the guardrails." said Dora patiently.
The men shut up and then Steve nodded, "Yeah, that would work. And would only take us a half an hour."
"See? You keep me around for a reason, let's go up onto seven Bob and see what is there, with luck we won't have to do anything but drive."
They drove their vehicles back to the on ramp and their luck held, there was an emergency turn around about a quarter of a mile down highway 7. Bob guided them through the median and headed back to highway thirty two, where there were a couple of parked cars in his way across the road. These were arranged end to end across the road, put there on purpose and were just a little too narrow to navigate through. Cautiously the boy named Seth hopped out of the truck and approached them, he got down on his stomach and looked for feet behind the vehicles, then tip toed to the first car and peered inside. He sprang back as a zombie hit the inside window hard enough to crack it. A greasy black stain was left on the inside window as the thing backed off and then slammed the glass again. Seth looked back at the truck and then pointed behind them.
Dora looked in the side mirror and saw a line of undead shambling up over the embankment on the western side of the highway. "Shit, horde alert people!"
Ken turned his head and looked at the oncoming mob. "See any fast ones?"
A gunshot rang out and they all craned their heads around to see Seth put a second shot into the zombie in the car blocking the way. He checked the car out, then reached in and released the emergency brake after a couple of seconds.
The black pickup gently moved against the front side of the car and started pushing forward. Seth ran around the back of the truck climbed into the bed on top of the gas cans, aiming his pistol at the oncoming mob. Ken lowered his window, as did Jane in the back seat, both aimed their weapons at the mob, but did not fire. At the front of the line the black truck had pushed the car around until it was at an angle facing the way they wanted to go, then it reversed into a slow zombie and re-aligned to bump the back of the car, as it started forward a faster zombie ran up and jumped into the bed of the pickup. Seth was ready for it and fired point blank towards the zombie's head. His shot hit it in the lower jaw and passed through the thing's neck, not slowing it in the least. It landed on the boy and continued to roll sideways carrying him out of the pickup and to the pavement below. Seth fell hard and his pistol skidded away, stopping under the slowly rolling car in front of them. As he watched the car's tire rolled up against his gun and stopped, wedging it under the tire.
The zombie lowered its head to Seth's throat, but was not able to bite him, the damage to its lower jaw was not healed yet. Seth screamed and put his hand against the thing's neck and pushed it backwards, even with this leverage he was only able to move the zombie back an inch or so. The zombie started pushing forward against the boy's arm moving closer and closer, Seth watched as the jaw mended itself together and started opening and closing. Screaming incoherently Seth struggled with the zombie as its teeth clamped down on one side of his neck. It had barely torn a hole in his flesh when a gunshot rang out and it jerked sideways from a clean head shot, the noise was deafening. Steven kicked the body off of Seth and gave the boy a hand up. The truck Seth had been in was still moving forward slowly, apparently unaware that it had lost the passenger in the bed.
"You okay?" Steve asked.
Seth put his hand to his neck and pulled it away, bright red blood glistened on his palm. "Oh fuck, he got me!"
Steve pushed the boy's head over to one side and looked at the bite mark. Behind him the people from his truck were shooting zombies with their shotguns, up ahead the lead truck's brake lights came on and it started backing up. Taking a rag out of his pocket Steve dabbed at Seth's wound and said, "I think you are okay, it looks like he just tore it, and didn't get it infected."
"But you don't know for sure!"
"No, I don't know for sure. Give it two days. Dora's suburban pulled up beside them, she rolled down the driver's side window and asked, "He get bit?"
"It tore the skin, we don't know what will happen yet."
Dora looked into the car, frantically trying to find something, she came up with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and tossed it to Steve, who liberally dosed Seth with the liquid. By the time he was done, Dora had bandages to hand to him. When Steve finished binding the wound the other truck had backed up far enough for Bob to ask if Seth was alright.
"No thanks to you, yeah." Dora replied, "What the hell was that, driving off and leaving him there?"
"I didn't see him get hit, I was trying to get the road clear and saw him in the rear view after Steve hopped out to help."
"Well he got tagged by the zed. We are not sure if it is infected or not yet. You need to keep a better eye on him."
"Yeah, yeah. Sure Dora, you think I wanted him bit? Why are you so upset about this?"
"Because we have a human shortage and this kid is important, he is going to be riding one of the motorcycles, right?"
"Well, yeah, that is why we brought him."
"But if we can't even get a motorcycle without him getting killed, how likely do you think the rest of the board is going to be to let him and others his age ride as scouts? They will point at this and say, 'See? The juniors shouldn't be used for this sort of thing', then I will have to fight to use him, and we need him Bob. We really need him."
Shaking his head in agreement, "You're right, you're always right. I'm sorry, I should've paid better attention to where Seth was."
Dora stared at him a moment, as if trying to see if he was just placating her or sincere. Finally she gave him a curt nod and Bob let out a sigh of relief, "Can we get out of here now?" behind the suburban more zombies were falling to shotguns, but the crowd of them was growing faster than they could be killed.
"Yeah, let's get the buses and get back." Dora answered. Seth hopped back into the lead vehicle and the caravan got moving again. The rest of the drive to Midwestern Bus Sales was uneventful. The bus lot had models to view out along the highway as well as many others on a lot behind a chain link fence. They had left the slow zombies behind them by a few miles and there did not seem to be any in the vicinity of the bus store. The front window of the sales office was plate glass to allow a couple of buses to be displayed from inside the building, one of the sections of glass had been broken out, with glass both inside and outside the building. The group used the three parking spaces directly in front of this broken out glass and then cautiously dismounted.
Dora got up to the glass first and then turned to Steve and Bob behind her and said, "You feel like someone is watching us?"
"It isn't just me then?" Asked Steve looking at Bob.
Shaking his head Bob said, "No, it isn't. I feel like I am on a stage for an audience of invisible people. I just wish they couldn't see me too."
"Huh, a good motto, like Jeff kept saying in the video; 'Don't see me, don't see me.' Hey Steve, probably not the time, but I didn't ask earlier, did anyone see Willy last night?"
He shook his head, "No, I think he might have turned, got smart and just misses us."
A cold, calculating look passed over Dora's face, "We could use a spy among them, that could be useful."
"Not if they can read each other's thoughts. It wouldn't work. Plus how could we motivate Willy? Give him a person or two every month as 'pay'?"
"Maybe just common decency? Or maybe he would just take blood instead of killing a person?" Dora stepped across the threshold of the broken window.
"Who is there?" called out a sultry male voice from inside the dealership.
Dora jumped back outside, hitting her head on the top frame of the window and cutting a gash into her scalp.
"Shit. Shit! Damn it! Mary is going to be so pissed at me!"
"I won't h
urt you." came the voice again.
Clamping a hand to the top of her head, Dora said nothing. Steve stepped forward and said, "Who are you?"
"My name is Jake. I won't hurt you. I am not like the others."
"So you are one of them, one of the dead?"
"I am infected, yes. I never wanted this. I can control my passion. You are safe from me. I can hold some of the others away too. I can smell her blood. Please clean her up."
Blood was dripping through Dora's fingers and running down her arm, pooling in the jacket at her elbow. "Fucking cut on my head, it had to be the head. I am bleeding like a stuck pig. Ischmel, I mean Ken! Get me some hydrogen peroxide and bandages!"
Turning towards Dora, Steve said, "You better back out of here, go back to the suburban and get cleaned up, let me deal with this."
Dora shook her head slowly, "Me leader. You grunt. Me handle big, bad Jake."
"Good leaders, respected leaders, share responsibility with their underlings and know when it is appropriate to do so."
"Fine." Dora said with ill grace, she stepped back about five paces towards the front of the suburban.
Ken hurried forward with a bottle, a clean looking rag and some bandages, he moved Dora's hand and soaked her head with the liquid, then pressed the rag to her cut, lifting it slightly he blanched and said, "You're gonna need stitches. No doubt about that. Mary is going to kill us."
Inside Steve called out, "Okay Jake, what do you want? I got the bleeding woman out of here." He kept his shotgun aimed in the general direction of where the voice was coming from.
There was a doorway leading to some offices just off the showroom floor, from there a tall, lanky man peeked around the corner. His upper body was barely visible, and it was covered in an army fatigue jacket that looked to be a size too small. The zombie's face was white and withdrawn, giving an impression of loose skin over dry bones. Jake's eye's appeared to be coal black and were seated deep within the sockets, an army helmet made of thick kelvar, covered his head, but a trace of gray hair was visible from the front. The most critical thing about Jake was the massive revolver he held in one hand that was pointed at Steve.