Gravel covered the alley and crunched underfoot no matter how softly they stepped. Danny hunched down and crept behind Terrence, looking left and right every time he took a step. They made it to the end of the block in less than a minute. The herd filled the block that ran in front of the bar. Terrence held up his hand for them to stop. Danny shrank back against the brick wall of a pharmacy. Terrence inched forward toward the corner of the building and peeked around to check Main Street. He ducked back behind, looked at Danny, and shook his head.
“They’re still walking by,” he whispered. “There’s got to be a hundred of the fuckers.”
“Danny nodded and leaned back against the wall. Every couple of minutes he took inventory of his weapons. He had his knife on his hip and twin Beretta nine-millimeters in holsters above his waist. The pouches of his MOLLE pack held seven magazines for the handguns. His fingertips also brushed against four of the bigger M-4 mags. That just reminded him of his rifle, which he desperately wished he had. But it was in the truck, and the truck sat in the front row of The Creeper Rose Parade. There was no chance of getting to it, at least for a time. He remembered seeing Joe grabbing the shotgun off the tavern floor, along with a pouch of shells that Billy had on him. The scattergun and Terrence and Riley’s assault rifles were the only long guns they had with them.
Riley hissed from the other side of the line. They whispered the message from one person to the next, like a child’s game of telephone. “Biters on our six.”
Danny turned and scanned the opposite end of the block. Sure enough, five creepers milled about. Danny didn’t know if they had broken away from the group gimping down Main Street or if they already been in town and the noise and commotion of the herd attracted them. They stood in a clump where the alley crossed the side street as if waiting for a stimulus to guide them where to go. They shuffled their feet like they would go in one direction or another and they moaned regularly, but they didn’t leave and they didn’t walk down the alley. It would be easy to take them out- him, Tara, and Joe could handle them without breaking a sweat. The threat was that the sound and activity from doing so would attract the herd around front.
Terrence stuck his head around the corner again, nice and slow, then pulled back. He squeezed Danny’s hand, and Danny leaned over closer to him.
“They are winding down out there,” he whispered. “There are just the stragglers now.”
Danny slid the other way to tell Tara the same thing. “Hang tight a little longer and we can slide around this way”- he pointed the opposite direction from the creepers in the alley with his thumb- “away from those fuckers and get back to the truck.”
Terrence’s nudged him with his elbow and pointed at the street, mimed a person walking, and held up three fingers. Three creepers were about to walk by them on the side road. Danny took a breath and considered. Six creepers at the end of the block, three approaching on the nearby side street, and the tail end of a herd on the street where the truck was.
“Time to quit cowering against this wall,” he mumbled to himself.
Fight
* * *
Terrence touched Danny's arm again and pulled a wood-handled hatchet from its holder on his belt line. He plucked the plastic cover off the blade and placed it in his pocket. He looked at Danny and pointed at the trio of creepers shuffling down the side street. Danny nodded and unsheathed his knife.
Together they crossed a short patch of brown grass and stepped into the street about fifteen feet away from the dead. They saw the men and lurched toward them in their direction, moaning and growling. Danny and Terrence approached them in a half-run.
The dead fanned out and attacked in a row. The one on the far right reached for Danny with eager hunger. He pushed its arms aside, turning it sideways. He threw a jab with his knife hand, driving the blade into its ear. Blood dribbled down its cheek and neck; it sagged and fell. Terrence's hatchet flashed three times in the moonlight and the other two toppled to the ground. They hurried back to the group.
The attack took less than thirty seconds and made very little noise. But it was enough to attract the attention of the creepers at the other end of the alley. They weren't certain they were on the trail of a meal; they approaching slowly, without their characteristic moaning and snarling. But there were stimuli not far from them and they were slaves to stimuli, so they shambled in that direction.
Terrence elbowed Danny. "No rest for the wicked. Let's meet them halfway."
Danny walked to Justin and gave him a level gaze. "Watch our backs. If anything enters this alley you have to let us know. I'm depending on you."
Justin nodded. "I got you guys.”
The dead shuffled faster. They snarled and mewled. Some of them reached out, their hands opening and closing as grasping a meal. Danny winced at the noise they made. "Come on," he said to no one in particular, "we've got to shut these fuckers up."
The opposing sides met, and it went poorly for the creepers. Terrence and Danny had the hatchet and knife back out, and Tara swung a machete she kept in a long sheath on her right thigh. Joe pulled a short-handled baseball bat from inside his jacket. Riley carried a short sword in a scabbard that hung over his shoulder.
The only trouble came when Joe overextended a bat swing and exposed his unprotected shoulder to a creeper on his right. It lunged at him, but before it clamped down, Tara planted her machete in its neck from the other side. It stumbled into Joe as it fell, its head attached to its neck by a stretch of decaying skin, and sprayed blood all over his arms and down the front of his overalls. The fireman cried out in disgust. He realized his mistake clapped his hand over his mouth, his eyes opened wide. Several people winced. Others looked around, scanning for any dead drawn to Joe’s scream.
Danny wiped blood off Joe’s face with a handkerchief. "Don't worry about it, Bubba. We'll get out of here and get you cleaned up."
Terrence eyed the downed creepers, then gave Danny an appreciative smile. "That was fast and quiet," he said.
"Just the way your sister likes it." Danny clapped him on the back to make sure there was no sting in the comment. "Okay, everybody, back where we were against the building. Terrence is back on point. We'll work our way along the side of it and see if we can make it to our truck."
Danny and Terrence
* * *
Terrence looked around the corner for a long time before turning back to the rest of the crew. “It looks like they’ve passed on by. Let’s hunker down for a bit and make sure we’re all clear.” He assigned positions so that eyes were on every approach to the block where they parked the Ford and gave his instructions. “Keep an eye out until you hear me whistle. Whistle means the coast is clear to bug out.”
Tara eyed him with suspicion. “How long before you whistle?”
“When its all clear for thirty minutes, I’ll bring you back.”
She blew out a breath and turned to Danny. “Nice to see you hired us all out to work for this guy.” After one last glare, she stormed off to her assigned spot.
Riley wore a bemused expression as he watched her walk away. “She’s sexy, but kind of a kick in the balls, attitude-wise.”
Danny smiled and resisted an urge to punch him in the mouth. “Aw, that’s just a cover. She’s a nice person. And capable as hell. She’s saved my ass more times than I can count.” The guys who’d spent time on the road fighting side-by-side with Tara had earned the right to talk about her attitude. This Johnny-come-lately didn’t know the first thing about her and was apt to get knocked on his ass if he criticized her again. Plus, hearing Riley say she was sexy made him feel like someone dropped a brick on his balls. That was troubling and something he didn’t understand, so he set it aside to examine later.
Terrence assigned him and Danny a spot on the top steps of a decrepit old library across the street from the tavern. The building had a recessed entryway; two men could stand in the recess and have a clear view down Main Street in each direction without having to worry about
being seen themselves.
They sat in the entryway, hunched down against the chill. Terrence lit a cigarette, blew out a plume of smoke, and pointed at Danny. "So, what's your story?"
Danny laughed. "No way. You first."
Terrence took a long drawn his cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs while he smiled, and blew it out through his nose. "Not much to tell. We were bounty hunters before the fall. Chicago was our base, but we’d hunt bail jumpers anywhere. We were soldiers before that, and we never lost that rush that comes from a good firefight."
A Humvee sat on the next block to the west. Danny motioned toward it. “That must be you guys.”
The bounty hunter nodded. “My old Grandpappy used to say ‘if you have to drive around in the zombie apocalypse, you might as well drive an up-fitted, steel-reinforced Humvee with a roof-mounted 50-caliber machine gun and run-flat tires.”
“Your old Grandpappy was a wise man.”
“Indeed.”
Danny gestured toward Terrence’s mid-section. “A hatchet, huh?”
“You bet. If you keep a good edge on it and swing hard enough, you can split a biter’s head like a melon. The only bad part is that it gets stuck. I tapped this biter up near Hannibal, a big, greasy male. Hit him on top of his dome and drove the hatchet all the way down between its ears. Another one came up behind me and I was going do a 180 and put it down next. I went to pull the hatchet out of Old Boy’s head and nothing happened. I yanked again, same thing.”
Danny smiled at Terrence’s pantomime of pulling on his hatchet.
“By this time biter number two is right up on me and my weapon is still stuck in its buddy’s head. Riles is occupied with biters of his own, he’s no help.” A ghost of a smile played on Terrence’s lips as he relayed the story.
“What’d you do?”
“I kept spinning around and dragging Old Boy with me, keeping its body in between me and the one that wanted to eat me. I’d make a half-circle, it’d lean in and try to take a chunk out of me, I’d hold Old Boy up between us. Finally, Riley got done with his and came from behind with that wicked sword of his. Took the thing’s head right off.” He laughed. “It’s a good story now, but it was hairy for a minute.
“What about you, with that knife? Hasn’t it ever just bounced off a biter’s head?”
Danny patted his knife sheath. “Sure. You’ve got to keep your wrist stiff and always come straight in. If you have even a little bit of an angle it’s 50-50 whether you get through the skull. It didn’t take long to learn to go in through the ears or eyes. That’s why most times I make it a two-step process. First, you grapple with the creeper, get it off its feet or at least off balance. Then you line up an eye, an ear, a head wound. Stick it there.”
Terrence pursed his lips and nodded. “Smart.”
After that, they watched the street and got to know one another. As they talked, Danny reflected that in a different time they’d be trading stories of sexual conquests, business deals, and defeated enemies. Instead, their tales revolved around near-misses with creepers, creepers put down in grisly ways, and encounters with the kind of men that thrived on the lawlessness that existed since the outbreak.
It didn’t seem like any time had passed at before Terrence took to his feet. “I think we’re good to call everybody in and get out of here.”
“Where are you guys headed now?”
“My man, we just go where the road takes us. When we hear about somebody needs killing for preying on folks, we go hunt ‘em down. And drop ‘em.”
Danny was silent for a moment, then made a decision. “We’ve got a safe place not far from here. Safe as you can get these days, anyway. You’d be welcome to come and stay a night or a spell, however long you’d like.”
“What do you mean, ‘safe place’? There ain't no safe places no more.” He chuckled. “Except behind the wheel of that Humvee.”
Danny shrugged his shoulders. “It’s hard to explain. It’s easier if you just see for yourself. And to be honest, if you’re not going to come by, I’d rather not have you know where it’s at.”
Terrence regarded him for a few seconds, then nodded his head. “All right. I’ll hit up Riles and if he’s in, we’ll swing by.”
Leaving
* * *
The bounty hunters huddled. Terrence whispered until Riley shrugged his shoulders and nodded. Terrence turned back to Danny. “All right. We’ll follow you. I’ll hit you on the hand-held if we need to communicate.”
“We don’t have a hand-held.”
The corner of Terrence’s mouth curled in derision. “I’ll give you one of ours, genius.” He snorted and shot himself in the forehead with his thumb and index finger, but flashed Danny a wink to let him know it was all in fun.
He grew somber. “This is important. If we turn off without telling you about first, it’s because we felt something hinky. Do not try to follow us. If you do, we will interpret it as an act of aggression and the response from us will be appropriate to that situation.”
Tara rolled her eyes and shake her head. Danny shot Terrence a caustic look. “You could have just said ‘if we turn, let us go.’ That would have been a lot nicer.”
Terrence tapped Riley on his shoulder and started toward the Humvee. He called to Danny over his shoulder. “Yeah, ‘cause being nice during the zombie apocalypse is what I’m all about.”
Danny chortled, then grew serious. He tossed the keys to Tara. She caught them and looked at him with a surprised expression. “You drive,” he told her. “Go slow and be careful.”
She opened her mouth to speak. She was chomping at the bit to argue about the wisdom of taking the bounty hunters back to the quarry and he wasn’t in the mood for it. “Not right now, Tara. You can tell me all the ways I’m wrong on the way home. But we’ve been standing out in the open for too long and I want to go.”
Her eyes widen and she swallowed hard, like he’d hurt her feelings. But before he could spend any time pondering that possibility, a cluster of creepers lurched and shuffled into the intersection two blocks away. The dead turned toward the truck, snarling and moaning at the sight of food. Danny pressed his lips together and glared at the creepers, then sighed and reached for the door handle.
He stepped one foot in and rapped the roof twice with an open hand. He made two circles with his index finger in the air above his head. “Load up. Let’s get the hell out of Carl Junction.”
They climbed in and Tara pulled away from the curve in a sweeping U-turn, leaving the dead behind. The Humvee tucked in behind them as Justin called out the turns got them back to the highway.
Danny peeked at Tara out of the corner of his eye. She was silent, staring out the window at the inky blackness. He was about to ask her if she was okay when she spoke up.
“Danny? Can we stop somewhere on the way back and get a drink?”
Laughter echoed through the cab as the truck made its way through the darkness.
A Busy Week- Danny
* * *
The week after the tavern shoot-out was pleasant and uneventful. Danny spent the first two days that week concerned Will might flay him alive. The boss’s DEFCON 1 was a silent, seething anger that was scarier than if he yelled and cursed. Danny and Tara had been seated at a table in the conference room inside The Other’s tunnel. Will, Jody, Jiri, and Dr. Joseph sat across from them as they gave a detailed accounting of the events in Carl Junction. Three of them asked questions and made comments; Jody had even congratulated the pair for dispatching the rednecks without taking casualties. But Will hunched over the table in silence, glaring at Danny with cold, hard eyes. Each time he peeked, his boss’s eyes were smaller and harder, until they were embers that bored into him even when he gazed elsewhere. When it was over, Will shoved himself away from the table and left without a word.
He didn’t speak to Danny for two days. For his part, Danny avoided his mentor and stayed busy with scavenging runs. When not on a run, he explored. He walked the empty tunnels a
nd a quarter-mile perimeter around the quarry up top. One morning he walked across the street and wandered around in the mine shafts on that side, the ones they hadn’t used yet. He found an unexpected peace in the solitude, unusual for him- he normally craved companionship.
He also familiarized himself with the stunning array of weapons in Terrence and Riley’s Humvee. The raw-boned bounty hunter took him out to his military vehicle after breakfast his first morning in the quarry. Danny had led the pair to the group’s armory and showed off their collection of M4s and Berettas, complemented by an eclectic mix of rifles, shotguns, and pistols that were the spoils of scavenging runs.
Riley appraised the weapons with a smirk. Terrence nodded as if impressed. “That’s an impressive display of firepower,” he deadpanned. “Come out to the Humvee and look at some of our peashooters.”
Outside, he lifted the rear hatch. They’d removed the rear seats, and a tarp ran the length of the interior from the front seats to the hatch. Terrence pulled the tarp up and out of the way and Danny gasped. “Jesus jumped-up Christ in a sidecar.”
Several compartments and racks were built into the floor space, and Terrence gave him a tour of their contents. “Grenades,” he said, starting at the bottom left compartment, “Flash-bangs. You know what those are?” Danny grunted in affirmation and Terrence returned to his pointing. “Heckler and Koch MP3 semi-autos. Smith and Wesson 9mm and next to those are magazines for the nines.” He pointed to a rack that held a trio of ugly little rifles that Danny recognized from the movies. “Uzi submachine guns.” He gestured at the next rack over. “You’ll love these. M-15 Armalite flat-carbines. They have a collapsible buttstock and forged lower receiver like your M4s. But it’s attached to a sixteen-inch heavy-duty barrel and a flash hider. The M4 feed ramps are elongated so it will fire heavier bullets with a more reliable feed. Over here are your basic TAR-21 bullpup assault rifles. Here you have a pair of M249 light machine gun. Sad to say we’re getting low on linked rounds for those.” Terrence gestured at a row of rectangular metal bins that resembled large tool boxes. “Ammo for the .50 cal up top. A pair of Mossberg 500 shotguns. Over here is Riles’ favorite toy- an M24 Sniper Weapons System. Riley is effective at 800 yards with that bad boy. And up there we’ve got frag grenades, ammo, night vision goggles, two radio systems. Everything a man needs to be effective in the modern urban zombie warfare environment.” Three complete sets of body armor were draped on the sides of the Humvee’s interior.
The Haven Series (Book 2): Haven Page 22