by Scott W Cook
“My God…” Tara breathed.
Sitting behind the wheel, Sam looked over and waved at us. Andy sat next to him and even though it was too dark to see, I could tell he was grinning.
The lift backed up the way that it had come and waited.
Tara and I had probably killed a hundred or more, and that bull rush had probably taken out three or four times that many. Yet like the stupid fucks they were, more zombies moved in to fill the gap where what was left of their buddies had ben.
There were some splashing around in the creek – not really a creek, just an extension of the bay but Sam said this area was called Salt Creek – it was pretty deep at the shoreline and the dead shitbags flailed about trying to climb up again.
Sam waited.
After about four or five minutes, the space he’d plowed was once again full. I heard the engine rev from a hundred yards down the street and once again, the giant forklift began rolling. It accelerated pretty fast for something that big and the devastation was awesome.
There weren’t many left, maybe a hundred or so. Sam let the lift idle near us, “You ladies okay?”
“Peachy,” I said, “You two are a couple of crazy sick fucks.”
Andy laughed, “Zombie pate, mom!”
“Fuckin’ gross!” Tara called out with a laugh.
“We’re going around to the front,” Sam said, “I don’t think these guys are a problem now. Why don’t you take the dink back over and help Tony. We’ll come around from Third Street.”
“Okay,” I said, “You guys need any ammo?”
“We’re good,” Sam replied, “Never had to fire a shot over there. Andy and I both have three full mags.”
“Not to mention the Magic Juicer here,” Andy quipped.
Tara and I both laughed hysterically. Partly from the joke and partly from the release of adrenaline.
“Fucking squids,” I mumbled as we began to climb down from the roof.
Chapter 15
From the personal journal of Samuel R. Decker
It was eerily quiet when Andy and I pulled up to the fuel dock behind the high and dry building. Just a few blocks from the fray at the marina, the night was all encompassing. Nearly silent, with only the sound of the occasional cricket or night bird disturbing the stillness.
“You could almost believe everything was fine,” Andy commented as he tied the bow line to a cleat, “Except for the stink.”
“Yeah,” I agreed as I secured the stern line, “Couple of hundred rotting zombies over at Fish tails to keep us focused.”
The darkness inside the high and dry warehouse was nearly complete. Fortunately, enough moonlight filtered in through the open sections in the walls to let us see the dim shapes of boats on the racks and the blessed lack of G’s.
“So what do we do?” Andy asked, “Just walk up 2nd street or 1st Street and start shooting?”
I grumbled, “Doesn’t seem like much of a plan, does it? We need something that’ll really draw their attention…”
We fell silent for a long moment until Andy said, “Too bad we didn’t have a bulldozer or a back hoe. Could just scoop them up or push them out of the way.”
I grinned, “Yeah, or a big city snow plow like they have up north. Something that weighs fifteen tons to just roll over them.”
“What about that?” Andy said and pointed. He was just a black silhouette, but I could see his extended arm.
He was pointing toward the huge Wiggins Marina Bull forklift parked off to one side of the spacious storage building.
“Yeah, she’s heavy enough,” I said, “About thirty tons. Problem is that while we could certainly run over a bunch of zombies, I’d be worried that sooner or later we’d get so many under us we’d high center.”
“In a thirty ton forklift?” Andy questioned in disbelief.
“Maybe,” I said, “They’re meant to drive over level ground. There isn’t much clearance underneath… too bad, though. That thing is powerful and heavy.”
Again we fell silent. I think both of us knew that precious moments were going by.
“It’s loud, I’ll bet,” Andy finally said.
“Yeah…” I agreed, “Okay, let’s see what we can do.”
I climbed up and sat in the driver’s seat. There was enough room for Andy to stand behind me or sit on the engine compartment. I turned the key, which somebody had fortuitously left in the machine and was mildly surprised when the glow plug indicators lit up red.
I’d driven a forklift a few times as a fresh faced ensign and had driven a dizzying variety of diesel powered military vehicles since then. I knew that you had to wait for the glow plugs to heat up before you could try cranking over one of these huge engines.
“What are you waiting for?” Andy said softly. It was so quiet in the building we both found ourselves talking in low voices.
“Plugs to heat up,” I said, “This thing hasn’t been run in at least six months, and we’re lucky the battery still has power. I don’t know how much, but we may only get one shot at this, so I don’t want to waste it.”
The plug indicators on the dashboard turned from red to yellow and I pressed the starter. There was a sickening whir, whir as the solenoid tried to turn the huge diesel over. For a moment, I thought we were sunk, but surprisingly the giant engine roared – and I do mean roared – to life. Andy whooped in triumph.
“God damn!” I shouted, “And half a tank of fuel, too.”
I took a moment to familiarize myself with the fork controls. The engine was incredibly loud in the concrete building, so much so that it was easy to forget the thick silence of only a few moments before.
“Let’s go!” Andy called.
I turned the lift toward the south to the large opening in the building meant to accommodate it. We exited and I turned right and we were facing the big chain link gate between the high and dry and Fish tails where we’d had our fight with the zombies that morning.
Christ… it was only that morning…
I floored it and was surprised how quickly the forklift accelerated. By the time we struck the gate, we were moving at over fifteen knots… miles per hour… sailor’s habit. The long forks struck the gate and it leapt away from us, impelled forward by more than thirty tons of steel.
I tried to ignore the hideous squishing noises as the forklift’s wheels rolled over the gate which was lying atop several dozen zombie bodies.
I headed north on 2nd street toward the Harborage back entrance. I had no plan, just figured we’d see what happened when we got there.
“Stop!” Andy shouted.
I slammed on the brakes and almost sent him over the dashboard.
“What?” I asked.
He pointed, “Can we use that as a battering ram?”
Sitting on the side of the road was a rusting steel dumpster. I laughed, “Damn, L T – glad I brought you along.”
Like all large garbage receptacles, the dumpster had sleeves on either side that allowed a truck’s retrieval arms to pick it up and swing it upside down over the collection compartment to empty it. The sleeves were probably eight or ten inches square, much smaller than the lift’s forks.
“I don’t know,” Andy said as I lined up the forks, “the tines are too big.”
“I’ll give you a little advice, my boy,” I said with a wicked grin as I backed up about fifty feet, “If it’s too big, just shoehorn that some bitch! Don’t tell your mom I said that, though.”
Andy laughed as I stomped on the gas and the big forklift leapt forward. I don’t know why it was geared to react so fast, but right now I sure was glad of it. We struck the dumpster at about ten miles per hour and the forks rammed into the sleeves, ripping through the steel on the outside and embedding themselves in three or four feet. We even slid the dumpster backward a few feet, and it had to weigh several tons itself.
“Think it’ll hold?” Andy asked.
I shrugged, “jammed in pretty tight, let’s find out.”
We headed up 2nd and turned right. The mass of zombies was even more impressive from this angle. They covered the corner of 1st Street and 13th Avenue by the marina’s south gate entirely.
“Jesus,” Andy breathed.
I lifted the dumpster so that it was about a foot off the ground and accelerated. By the time we struck the horde, we were moving at over twenty miles an hour and the destruction was astonishing.
The combined mass of the Marina Bull and the dumpster simply burst zombies like water balloons. Bits of flesh, blood and bone exploded outward like some horrific and gigantic fountain of gore. I was thankful the forks were over thirty feet long.
We plowed a fifteen foot swath through the bodies, crushing, bursting and shoving even more toward the trees at the end of the street. As we got close, I stomped on the brakes. At least a dozen or more zombies were shoved through the trees and into Salt Creek where they’d be unable to get out or do anyone any harm.
“Holy crap!” Andy exclaimed and hooted in exultation, “Do it again!”
I backed up a hundred yards or so and waited.
We must have destroyed four or five hundred of the stinky bastards. As expected, more moved in to fill in the space. I shook my head and went forward again, repeating the results of our previous attempt.
There were still a few dozen ghouls left, but the vast majority had been burst, crushed or flung away. We made sure the women were all right and said that we were going around to the main entrance to help Tony’s group.
As we turned onto 3rd Street from 14th Avenue, I could see things would be different. There were a few zombies in the street but as we got closer, it was clear that many of them were in the parking lot. It was a closed space and I wasn’t sure we could just ram them all into oblivion.
As we passed the NOAA building, a group of ghouls did notice us and shamble into the street. I plowed them down and stopped.
“I hope Tony and his group know not to shoot at us,” Andy said.
“Yeah,” I replied intelligently, “The trouble is that we don’t have a clear run. Maybe we can back down 11th Avenue and draw them out—“
Several sharp metallic pings interrupted me. Several bullets had struck the dumpster and several more had struck the forks between it and us.
“Shit!” I groused, “What the hell?”
“Back up!” Andy shouted, “Fast!”
I put the lift in reverse and jammed the pedal down. Another group of shots struck the dumpster, forks and even the lifting gear right in front of us.
Andy pointed toward 11th Avenue. A group of at least two dozen motorcycles was roaring toward the marina from 4th Street, headlights ablaze.
“Fuck!” I said and stopped the lift and put it in park next to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration building… just in case NOAA didn’t make any sense to you before. We military folk love acronyms. It’s S O P for us!
Andy and I got out and took cover behind the forklift’s engine compartment as more shots struck. I could also hear the steady clatter of automatic fire from a large number of weapons. Probably taking out zombies that had noticed the group of bikers.
The engine compartment was head high, so Andy and I could both stand upright and stay covered. We watched as a bunch of the ghouls that had been in the parking lot began to pour into the street, straight into the withering fire from the biker’s weapons.
The fire discipline was poor. There were a lot of rounds flying, but few head shots. They were scoring them, but wasting a lot of ammo in the process.
“Come on out, Navy!” Came a familiar voice over the din, “We got a score to settle.”
“No fucking way…” Andy said.
The voice belonged to Mark. I don’t know how, but somehow, in the past few hours, he’d managed to pull himself out of the jaws of death – literally – and had come for some payback. Although how the hell he knew where we were I don’t know.
“You hear that,” Came another man’s voice. It was deep and gravelly. Probably the gang leader, “My man here says you and him got a score to settle. Says you tried to kill him.”
“Bullshit!” Andy shot back angrily, “He tried to kill some of us earlier after we tried to help him and his friends. He even took out one of his neighbors in the process. I’d watch my back if I were you, mister.”
I grinned and peeked around the back left corner of the forklift’s engine compartment. There were well over a dozen motorcycles idling halfway down the block with at least eight people in a firing line shooting at the zombies pouring out of the marina.
“I always do, son,” the man said calmly, “Point is, Mr. Decker, I think we should talk.”
“I think you and your people should turn around and get the hell out of here before I open fire on you,” I barked.
“Now let’s not be hasty,” the man said with what I felt was clearly a condescending chuckle, “our backup team wouldn’t take kindly to that.”
I looked around and finally back down Third Street and saw a large vehicle’s headlights appear around the corner at 22nd avenue. I don’t know what it was, but it seemed to be pretty big even from the distance of eleven oversized blocks.
It had to be fairly large, because between 15th and 16th avenue was a small bridge that humped over part of the narrow end of Salt Creek. We called it “Thrill Hill” because the incline was pretty steep and if you went over it at anything over thirty, it felt like your car was going to catch air.
We were exposed. While we had cover from the motorcycle gang, zombies that were coming out of the marina parking lot were starting to amble our way. There was a short chain link fence bordering the lot, but it had probably already been knocked down by the press of living dead bodies. Andy was peeking around the other side of the lift with his rifle to his shoulder for just this eventuality.
“Drop your weapons Sam,” Mark called, “Come out and let’s settle this like men.”
Andy looked at me questioningly. I shook my head and looked south again.
The backup vehicle was moving slowly, maybe waiting for a signal to move in. It was closer and I saw that the vehicle was in fact two vehicles. The one in the rear was clearly a bus and the one in front looked military. Maybe a Humvee. I thought I saw a figure on top behind a weapon.
This was confirmed when the deep throated staccato rumble of a fifty caliber machine gun tore the night open. The gunner wasn’t aiming for us, thankfully. He’d just sent a few rounds overhead as a demonstration. Man, I wish we had a fifty cal…
While it had been proven true that to kill a zombie, you needed to destroy the brain, a fifty cal round or two did such tremendous damage to a human body that direct head shots weren’t absolutely necessary. These half inch diameter rounds would blast off limbs, cut torsos in half and render the mechanics of the zombie useless even if its brain was still intact.
Of course, that machine gun would have the same effect on Andy and I should the operator decide to open up on us for real.
“Now what?” Andy asked, “We’ve got G’s heading our way down the sidewalk.”
Over the months, various storms had knocked a good many branches off of the trees along the Harborage’s parking lot. I grabbed two stout ones and turned to Andy, “When I give the word, you jump that fence and head for the J dock gate as fast as you can.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“I’ll be with you,” I said, “Just want a little insurance policy.”
I eased back up into the cab of the forklift. One of the branches had a fork at the end and I wedged this into the steering wheel and butted the other end tight up against the base of the seat. The second branch I used to shove the gas pedal down and then wedged that one against the seat as well.
The big diesel engine roared louder as its rpm’s cranked upward. I put the forklift in reverse and then jumped to the right as it began to buck.
For a second, I thought it might stall. Amazingly, even though it had to be nearly floored, the robust trans
mission kicked in and the lift started rolling backward. As before, the acceleration was remarkable for something so heavy. Within a few seconds, it was barreling ass first toward the oncoming vehicles on 3rd Street.
“Run!” I hollered, grabbing Andy’s arm and propelling him around toward what remained of the four foot high fence. I almost laughed out loud at the expression of astonishment on his face.
“You got the key!” He exclaimed as we ran.
“Yeah! Cover us!”
Andy half turned and threw several shots into the disturbingly large crowd of zombies that had suddenly noticed us. Most of them had migrated to the north end of the lot, so the south end near the sliver of water that bordered it was relatively empty, but not entirely.
Half a dozen flesh eating monsters reached out for us as we ran by, their arms outstretched, their mouths open in moans and we were close enough even to see streamers of drool hanging from their upper jaws.
We arrived at the gate and I smoothly slid the key into the lock and we slipped through without incident.
Yeah, bullshit…
It took me several seconds to get the big key in the gate handle lock. They were always a bit tricky…
“Fucking hurry!” Andy growled, firing on auto.
I got the gate open, stepped in and yanked him in behind me by the back of his shirt. The steel gate slammed home with a thunderous rattle as three zombies crashed into it.
“Jesus!” Andy huffed, “I was holding one off with the gun… am I glad that gate opens out.”
“You okay?” I asked.
Before he could answer, I heard the rather satisfying sound of tires screeching and a tremendous crash somewhere down Third Street. I don’t know which vehicle had been struck by the rampaging Marina Bull… rather proud of that one… but certainly one had. I could only hope it was the Humvee.
In any event, Andy and I sprinted down J dock, jumped aboard one of the pontoon boats we’d collected and as Andy steered us for D dock, I got on the radio.
“Come in Alpha team.”