by Glynn James
Where the Ford Expedition still sat parked.
As she expected, its windshield was gone, blown out into a million diamonds of safety glass that glittered on the front seats. The radio antenna had been shorn off, the grill dented by shrapnel, the whole front of the vehicle blackened with soot and blast residue – and the truck itself knocked back five feet.
But it fucking started.
When Sarah got the drivers-side door open, swept the seat clear of glass, swung herself inside, and turned the key that was always in the ignition… it fired right up.
Now, if it would just roll.
She had gone straight for the truck because she knew they only had seconds to work with – the vehicle was their only way out, and the window for it was fast collapsing. The dirt road uphill, to the west and away from town, was still more or less clear.
But it wouldn’t be for long.
The others did as Sarah expected: they followed her straight out. But they almost immediately began skirmishing in close combat, taking shots on those dead that were still walking, and now lurching up to the house. These ones were no more shaken by the blast and the carnage than they would have been by a breeze. They plodded right through the burning patches of ground. Nothing troubled them. If they still locomoted, they tried to feed.
It was that horribly simple.
And they weren’t even the group’s main cause for concern. The second wave was, and the wave after that – the ranks of which were slouching and lurching up the road and into the clearing. They had been untouched by the blast. And when they flooded in, Sarah and the commandos would be just as jammed up as they had been by the first group, before the resetting explosion.
The area around the house and truck, the whole clearing, was becoming a hellish, perilous, and seriously confusing melee.
Operators padded around cat-like in half-crouches, rifles to shoulders, backlit by the terrible flames, some with NVGs protruding from their faces like Mardi Gras masks, weapons chugging smoothly and mercilessly. They spun and pivoted, clearing through the space, and creating breathing room for the living.
One of the gunmen, Sarah couldn’t tell who in the darkness and chaos, pushed ahead of him the only one not armed – and Sarah knew it must be the scientist.
“Here!” she shouted. “Into the truck!”
The pair turned toward her, while others pushed out to cover them. As the two piled into the back, Sarah could finally make out Homer.
Sarah twisted around to face him.
“We’ve got to go,” she said. “If this truck doesn’t get onto the road now, it’s not going.”
It caught her by surprise when she realized that Homer looked exactly as serene as when he’d been sitting on the porch earlier watching magpies. He nodded and slapped the back of her headrest. “Good to go,” he said. “Hit it.” Then he turned and stuck his rifle barrel out the rear left window and started shooting.
He also shouted out into the yard: “Ma-rines! We are LEA-ving! ”
Answering shouts came from out of the darkness, a call and response. Sarah thought it sounded like Predator and Juice, both in mocked-up southern accents, and just audible over the moaning and gunfire and chaos, and the roar of the flames.
“Well, folks, it’s time to call it a night!”
“But do what you feel, and keep both feet on the wheel!”
“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”
Sarah shook her head in amazement and hit the headlights – thus illuminating a scene from well beyond the gates of hell. Dead center in the glare of the lights was Ali, her NVGs on, bringing her sword down in a double-handed overhand slash. Before her, a middle-aged dead man in a mottled terry-cloth bathrobe cleaved in half from the top of his head all the way to his sternum. Ali jerked slightly as the headlights came on; but finished her stroke, shuffled smoothly backward like a boxer slipping a punch, took one hand from her sword pommel, and flipped her NVGs up onto her head. Her eyes were slitted underneath.
Around and behind the whirling woman commando, a hundred other things were going on, many of them desperate mini-fights and engagements, but Sarah didn’t have time to clock them.
Sarah considered killing the lights for the night-vision users. But she wasn’t one of them, and she had to drive this truck – or they were all dead. She had to get them out of there.
She saw something fly at Ali’s head now. It was practically airborne, and moving much more quickly than the others. Ali fell underneath it, sitting down in place and rolling up on her back, as her blade flashed upward and across. The flying zombie hit the ground in two pieces, both of them thrashing. The torso kept tumbling, and slid and rolled under the front bumper of the truck.
She threw the vehicle into gear and rocked it forward over the torso – her only goals being, first and foremost, to get the hell out of there and onto open road; and, secondly, and of secondary importance, to avoid hitting any currently living humans – the battling operators.
She accomplished both tasks as the truck shuddered and rumbled over dead bodies in various states of disintegration and animation. The mud, rocks, and other debris also fought her, and she said a little prayer of thanks for four-wheel drive. The headlights continued to pan and illuminate little cones of absolute horror – lurching dead, wheeling operators, crawling half-bodies, things on fire, wood dust kicking up from tree bark as rounds penetrated rotting bodies and continued through to the forest around them…
But in a few seconds, albeit a few seconds that felt like many lifetimes, Sarah made it out onto the dirt road heading east, uphill, toward the bigger trunk road that led north up the lakeshore. She’d had to run down God knows how many people to make it happen; but so far as she could tell, all of them had already been dead.
Within seconds of seeing open dirt track ahead, she checked the rearview, pressing the brake pedal lightly to get some illumination back there. In the back, she could see the scientist still huddling down in the footwell, clutching his laptop bag; and Homer leaning over the seatback, his rifle now pointing out the empty rear window.
And out beyond that…
Figures moved after them in efficient, and thus recognizably human, movements – bounding and covering, some of them running, while others turned back and stemmed the tide with heavy but efficient fire. The sound of gunfire was still so pervasive that Sarah didn’t realize she was still hearing it for a moment. She concentrated on holding her speed to a steady 10mph, as she juddered up the dirt road.
And then… in ones and, well, ones… the other Alpha team members began to open doors, including the back one, and sling themselves inside the truck. As each did, he or she also established a shooting position and posture, facing backward to cover the others.
And then, finally, Homer was slapping her headrest again.
“All aboard,” he said. “Punch it.”
But before she looked forward again, she saw the color drain from his face, even as he said the words.
Because they both knew that all were not aboard.
Only everyone who would be coming was.
She punched it anyway.
The Road
“This is some bullshit,” Predator said. “Every time we collect so much as two sticks to rub together, we immediately have to abandon it all again.” He was sitting in the very back compartment of the truck, wedged in amongst boxes and duffel bags, his gimpy leg stuck out the destroyed back window.
Handon, sitting in the front passenger seat, couldn’t really disagree. That was in fact most of their shit gone again. First the sailboat, with the resupply pallet, then the cabin.
“At least we were dressed this time,” said Ali, riding outside the truck on the right running-board. She sounded blasé as usual. Maybe she’d seen too much of war, and too much of the dead.
Sarah no longer had to wrestle with the wheel since they hit blacktop – the narrow county route that meandered north to Lakeview. She looked over her right shoulder in the
dark. She could see Homer and the scientist still in the back seat, with Henno slumped beside them, curled around his rifle. Predator was in the cargo compartment. And finally Ali and Juice, holding their rifles and riding out on the running-boards like stagecoach guards.
“Well, it is less gear to hump,” Juice said from outside on the left, looking on the bright side as usual.
Predator: “Hump you.”
Henno seemed to sum it up: “Shit happens in the Zulu Alpha.”
Sarah tried to elevate the mood. “I’ve got a bug-out bag, and a couple of days of supplies, in the back.” Weirdly, only now did she really work out that Handon had ended up with her in the front passenger compartment. She looked across at him, even as he looked at her – with a deeply compassionate, or even tortured, look in his eyes. He didn’t hold her gaze long. He wanted her looking at the road.
He also wanted very much to tell her: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” But now wasn’t the time.
Maybe there’d be time later.
* * *
They drove in silence for a few minutes. Wind flowed freely through the cabin, making its own restless murmuring. The road was well-paved and had a bit of shoulder. On the other hand, the night and the surrounding forest pressed in upon them. They also had to navigate around the variety of years-long abandoned vehicles that littered every road now.
Many of the infected had turned while they and their families tried to escape by car. This generally brought the vehicle to a screeching halt – and left a lot of skid marks. Also, frequently, it left scenes locked inside that you just did not want to see.
Finally, Predator broke the silence, slapping one of the body panels beside him. “Good old Ford trucks. Never stop running.” With his big voice, he could be heard from the back over the wind noise. “Goddamn, I miss my F350.”
Sarah smiled at this, happy to think of something else, even if only for a second. She raised her voice to ask him, “Where’s your truck now?”
“My ex-wife has it.”
“I’m sorry. I know a lot of military people end up divorced.”
“I didn’t. But she’s not really my wife anymore.” He snorted again, in mordant amusement, then paused in thought. “At least she won’t be driving the truck.”
Sarah stifled a laugh, then looked up into the rear-view mirror – not a hundred percent sure Predator wasn’t screwing with her. A couple of the others laughed, but nobody else commented.
Handon made a mental note to brief her later. He’d been in the room while Predator was on the phone with his wife of fifteen years – after she was bitten, but before she turned.
He said to Sarah, “You said eleven miles?”
“On foot. By road, more like fifteen.”
“So we’re ETA about ten minutes.”
Sarah nodded. “Yes. But we’re not going all the way in. I recommend we do the last two miles on foot. Save the noise.”
“Roger that,” Handon said. He turned back toward the others. “I don’t suppose anyone got a wind and tides report before we left?”
Homer got his drift. They’d be back to trying to get a very gunked-up boat engine running, which might be a day-long job. “I’ll make it happen,” he said. “And I’d be surprised if we don’t have enough wind to get us out onto the lake. Then I’ll have time to make the repairs.”
“We were surprised by the utter lack of wind last time,” Handon said.
“Good point.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Sarah said. “I said there were boats at this pier. And there are. But there’s one I know in particular. A little thirty-foot cabin cruiser. More of a runabout. The engine will start.”
Handon looked at her in the light of the instrument panel. “How do you know?”
“Because I used to take it out myself. Sometimes did a bit of fishing, or a bit of scavenging. But mainly I used to range up and down the coast, looking for survivors.”
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
Sarah swallowed once. “Because the others didn’t know about it. I considered it too dangerous for them, so I’d go out alone, early or late. The last time was three or four months ago. It might not start right up. But it should turn over with a little coaxing.”
Handon nodded and let it lie. He guessed Sarah had probably kept more than a couple of secrets from her family. And he knew how she felt.
Leadership was lonely.
* * *
She rolled the truck to a stop just beyond a “Lakeview – 2 miles” sign. In a well-practiced choreography, four of the team pulled security, two up and two back; while the others apportioned out the supplies in back amongst their rucks – mainly long-life food, bottled water, a few boxes of 5.56 rounds, and survival sundries.
“I’ll take these,” Predator said, palming two boxes of twelve-gauge shotgun shells. “Good ole double-aught buckshot.”
Handon and Sarah both looked at him. He hefted the Mossberg tactical shotgun into view. “I found it in the yard. It looks okay.” Handon, remembering how Pred had lost his rifle when Captain Ainsley took it off to make his last stand, now looked at Sarah with concern.
“It’s okay,” she said. “May it save a life, in capable hands.”
Handon nodded. He remembered once again his cop friends from back in the world. The job of a police officer, they’d told him, was always “to preserve life.” End of story.
When they were loaded up, Sarah took Handon by the arm. “You need to walk in from here. But I’ve got to drive the truck back to a spot a mile or two back.”
“What?” Handon said, his brow lowering.
She dredged up a smile. “There’s a chance we may need to come back, so I’ve got to cache the truck where I can get it. It’s too valuable.”
Handon wasn’t sure that made sense. “So we drive back there, and all walk in.”
“No,” Sarah said. “Not with Predator’s leg. Dr. Park’s exhausted, too. You need to do it the easy way. I can catch you up.” She started to pull away, and reached for the truck door.
Something tugged at Handon’s BS detector. He said, “Okay. But I’m sending someone with you, for security.” She looked back at him. “No discussion on that one,” he said.
She could see that there wouldn’t be. She looked over to Homer, who had perked up at this, and now stepped forward.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“Fine,” Sarah said. She asked Handon, “Are you still on the same radio channel?”
“Yes. But come straight back.”
“I will. Now go. You can’t miss the pier from the main street. The boat’s called the Three Brothers. It’s in the southernmost berth. It’s probably going to take a little doing to get it started. So go get started.”
Handon nodded, and watched her for one last second. Then he hitched up his ruck, stood to the side, and waited for the members of his team to set off first. He suddenly had cause to wonder if he hadn’t been failing to focus on his job sufficiently.
He’d fix that starting now.
Henno, Juice, and Predator set out in column formation, at a fast walking pace. Ali squeezed Dr. Park by the shoulder and got him moving. Then she looked over to Homer, and the two of them locked gazes in the dark.
There was nothing she could say, nothing at all.
Homer mouthed two words to her:
Stay alive.
* * *
Sarah drove the truck in silence, Homer also wordless in the passenger seat beside her – and still strangely at ease. Like he no longer had a care in the world. Or as if he had made a decision.
When they were two miles from where they’d dropped the others, she rolled the truck to a stop again, took it out of gear, and put the brake on. She turned in her seat and said, “I’m not going with them.”
“It’s okay,” Homer said. “Neither am I.”
This pulled Sarah up short. “What?”
He just looked warmly at her. He thought now about what he ought to tell her. But before
he could formulate it, she pulled the hand mic from the radio under the dash. She powered it up, flipped through channels, and hailed Handon, all while looking at Homer. The antenna was gone, but it was only a couple of miles, and line of sight. In a few seconds, a response came back.
“Handon. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Sarah said. “But listen to me. I’m not coming with you. Not right now.”
“What?”
“I have to go back to the cabin. I might not love my husband anymore, but I can’t leave him like… that. And my son… I’m the one who has to do it.”
“Do what? They’re gone, Sarah. The explosion…”
She swallowed heavily, before pressing the transmit button again. “I don’t think they died in the blast. And if they did, I can’t know that they’ll stay dead. Also, I saw… something… in the headlights as we were escaping. I’ve got to go back and make sure.”
“Fine. We’ll wait for you.”
“The hell you will.” Her voice went deadly serious now. “Don’t make me remind you what you’ve got there, or what your mission is. We left when we did to ensure the success of your mission. And you’re going to keep going now for the same reason. We’re not risking that. Not for me, not for my peace of mind.”
Handon didn’t immediately respond. She clicked back on. “Get to your extraction point. I know where it is – the airport on Beaver Island. And I’ll join you there – with a little luck, before your plane leaves. Maybe before you get there yourselves. Now go. I’ll meet you there.”
“It’s too dangerous on your own. You’ll never make it.”
Sarah looked tired in the dark. “Look, if anyone can make it up the coast of Lake Michigan, it’s me. Believe me, I’m prepared for this. I know the terrain. I know their behavior. I’m ready. Now – you have to go. This discussion is over.” She let her hand and the mic drop toward her lap – but then brought it back up again. “Oh – I don’t think your SEAL is going with you either.” She let off the button and held the mic toward Homer.
He nodded his head no. “Tell him Ali can explain.”
She nodded, keyed the mic, and said it.