by Rich Baker
“Zoom in on the window well.”
Andy lowers the drone so they can clearly see inside the opening. She crawled her way up into the window well and used the egress ladder to climb out, pushing the cover open and leaving it open, allowing the rain to pour in.
“The window’s intact,” Kyle says. I just wanted to ensure she wasn’t right next door. Raise it back up and scan to the south and see what we can see.”
Andy raises the drone back to a height of one hundred feet and pans, so the camera’s lens works its way south along the street in front of the house.
“Muddy footprints,” D-Day says from over Andy’s other shoulder. He points to muddy smudges, being diffused by the rain, but based on the size and spacing fit his theory. “I’d say she definitely went south. How far can you take this drone?”
“Not much farther, unless we go upstairs in the house next door. That will get us some range,” Andy says.
“Let’s go!” Kyle says, turning, and jogging to the opposite corner of the basement, Andy, and D-Day in tow. “Ben, try to get that airlock door closed, so we don’t get too much water in there,” he calls over his shoulder before disappearing next door.
They race through the tunnel to the neighbor’s house, then up the two flights of stairs to the front bedroom on the second floor. Andy moves the drone another hundred feet to the south and raises it another twenty feet in the air.
“That’s about the limit,” he says. “Any further and we’ll lose the connection, and it will hover until the battery dies. Then it will land, and we won’t get it back unless we go out after it. We have maybe five minutes left as it is.”
D-Day points to a spot in the upper right of the screen. “Can you zoom in here?”
Andy zooms as far as the camera will go.
“There she is. On the railroad tracks,” D-Day says.
They see her blurry image moving along, carefully stepping on the railroad ties, moving at a slow jogging pace.
“Clever girl,” Kyle says. “The zeds trip on the rails and the ties.” He points out several zombies that are on the ground, getting up from the ground, or in the process of falling to the ground. He gestures at a dark trapezoid-shaped opening into which the tracks disappear. “Up ahead there, the tracks go under the highway and cross an irrigation ditch on the other side. If you step wrong on that bridge, your feet will drop through the ties and your momentum would carry you forward. You’d be lucky not to break a leg. I bet one zed in a hundred would make it across there.”
“Think we can catch her?” D-Day asks.
“Mmm…probably not. She’s got about a half mile jump on us, in the rain, and I don’t know if we could go much faster than her once we hit the tracks.”
“We’ve got that APV. It could handle those tracks no problem,” D-Day says.
“Um, I don’t think you can get it out of the garage. I don’t think that door will go up,” Andy says. “The zeds beat the heck out of it.”
“Shit,” D-Day says. “That means even if we can get it open, it probably won’t go back down. We don’t want that.”
“She has no weapons, no gear for this weather, and a city of the dead surrounding her. How far do you think she can get?” Kyle asks.
“Her back’s against it now. She’s staring death in the face, so much so that taking her chances with the dead was preferable to facing you guys. She obviously feels like she has nothing to lose, and often that’s when people are their most dangerous. I’d say her odds aren’t good, but she’s left you and come back once. I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Kyle is thinking about what D-Day said when Andy interrupts them.
“Dudes, my battery warning came on. I need to bring this thing in.”
“Yeah, do it. Thanks for driving, Andy. That was helpful,” Kyle says. Andy manipulates the drone toward it’s hiding place and scurries away to retrieve it so he can recharge the battery.
“Listen, Kyle,” D-Day says. “I think I can get my bike out through the side door of the garage. Carmen and I can go check out the Pawn King and see what kind of intel we can get. Look at the – zeds? – out there. The rain is messing with them. You saw it – the ones chasing Danielle lost interest pretty quickly.” He gestures out the window at a pair of zombies near the end of the street. “And look at them. They’re going in circles. There’s sound and stimulus all around them. This would be a great time to go.”
“Are you sure you want to do that? You don’t even know us. I can’t ask you to risk yourselves like this.”
“I know that you took in a woman who was injured, even though you didn’t have to, at risk to you and your people. You helped her get closure, however brief it was, with the death of her family. You did that at a great actual cost to your crew. You aren’t bloodthirsty, or you would have already killed Danielle and DJ. You’re good people, Kyle. I think you’re overmatched for what’s coming, though. One of those Montero minions got away from that fight. We don’t know how much he knows, or if he made it back to them, but you could have a small army heading this way. You need information, and to get it, you need my help.”
Kyle sighs. It was too much to hope that they could just hide away and wait out the dead until rescue arrived.
“Okay. What do you need from us?”
“Just open the door for us when we get back.”
Four
Sammy Hagar’s ‘Mas Tequila’ blares from the speakers of the big black Ford pickup. The three men in the cab sing the chorus while the men in the bed shoot the occasional zombie that wanders close to them. Mani Ortega is driving, going slow in the rain, so he doesn’t lose control and crash into one of the many abandoned cars on the highway.
Paco Romero follows in a white eighteen foot moving truck. He also has two men in the cab with him and a half dozen in the back.
“Bro, it’s really raining out here,” he says into a walkie-talkie. “We could drive right up to the front of the store, and they wouldn’t see us until it was too late.”
“Shut up,” Mani says to the guys in the cab of his pickup. He turns the music off and presses the button on his walkie. “Say again?”
“I said, it’s really raining out here. We could drive right up to the front of the store, and they wouldn’t see us until it was too late.”
“No chance am I deviating from the plan. Last time we winged it and two dudes got killed. I’d like to see the sunrise tomorrow.”
Paco presses the button, then releases it. He looks at the two men sharing the cab with him, then clicks the button again.
“With the way this rain is coming down, you may not see the sun for days,” he says. “Weeks, even.”
“Just keep your eyes open and wait for Jessie’s signal.” Mani puts the walkie in the console. He squints past the windshield wipers at the road ahead. “What the hell is this?”
The youngest Montero, Wilmer, sits in the middle of the truck, and Moses Ramirez sits by the window. Both men snap to attention and stare ahead.
“Look at the creek!” Mani exclaims. “I’ve never seen it like that!”
The south end of Longview has two streams that flow through it. The first one, simply named South Creek, is usually just a trickle – a foot deep, ten feet across. It runs behind the home improvement store across from Murphy’s Sporting Goods. North Creek, half a mile to the north, is about twice the size of South Creek, and it runs behind Murphy’s. The two meet just east of the strip mall and continue east until they merge with Boulder Creek, and the path of the river turns northeast. Somewhere, dozens of miles to the northeast, it merges with the South Platte River and winds up going through Nebraska, picking up the North Platte River, gaining size with each tributary that feeds into it. Outside Omaha, it meets the Missouri River and ultimately feeds into the Mississippi. Mani’s father, who loved fishing the creeks around Longview, always told him that little creeks have big aspirations. Right now, South Creek is frothing, its channel filled with fast running water just starting to spill over
onto the roadway. The surge of water has several zombies pinned to the railing that guards the sidewalk, sending water in fountains over their thrashing bodies and onto the road.
He grabs the walkie and clicks the button.
“We may need Noah’s Arc to get out of here.”
He hears a crackle, and then Paco’s voice. “Just leave the zombies off, okay?”
“That’s for sure!” Mani says. He holds the walkie as they cross the creek and near the strip mall. He pulls to a stop on the lee side of a drug store, out of view of Murphy’s. He thumbs the button again. “Okay, sit tight until we get the signal from Jesse.”
“Got it,” Paco replies.
“Look at the zombies,” Mani says, pointing to a trio of undead who had started toward the truck. Once the truck stopped, they acted confused, turning around, only to turn back to the truck again. “The rain has them all fucked up.”
“Road team, roll in hot!”
“Shit, that’s Jesse!” Mani shouts.
“Dude, we’re right here,” Moses says. “No need to shout, you know?”
“Just look sharp, shithead,” Mani says. He thumbs the button on the walkie. “Let’s roll, boys!”
He drops the walkie into the console and hits the gas, driving around the drug store and using the zombie catcher on the front of the truck to knock the undead to the sides. He enters the parking lot in front of Murphy’s, and the guys in the back start shooting at the metal shutters rolled down over the entrance to the store. The white moving van follows him, with Paco shooting at the store. They drive in a tight loop in the outer third of the lot, shooting and trying to draw attention to their presence. So far, no one has returned fire. Mani gets ready to start the next loop when the scene is disrupted by an explosion, followed by gunfire.
Mani turns the truck toward the store, driving onto the sidewalk and parallel to the stores, avoiding the cement-filled steel bollards along the way until they get to the front of Murphy’s while the moving van heads around the back of the strip mall to the docks. Four of the men hop out of the bed of the truck, one each pulling security on each side of the truck, shooting any zombies that get too close. Another one hooks a chain over the trailer hitch, while the fourth puts several hooks into holes in the steel shutters on the front entrance of the store, each one linked to the chain on the truck. They hit the tailgate once, and Mani pulls forward until the chain is taut, and they hit the tailgate twice and run to the sides.
Mani presses the gas pedal, and the shutters buckle but don’t give way. He presses the gas harder, the tires breaking loose on the wet pavement and spinning. He lets off of the gas, letting the chain go slack for a second, then pressing the gas again. The chain pulls tight, and one of the hooks rips loose, then another. Finally, the remaining hooks rip loose, each one with a loud pop.
The shutters remain in place, except one side has pulled loose enough for the men to squeeze through. One by one, they enter the building while Mani and the remaining two men pull the truck away from the building and circle the lot, taking out zombies with the plow and watching for shooters on the roof.
They hear more gunfire from inside the store, followed by another explosion. A minute later they hear Jesse on the walkie.
“All clear guys. Come around the back to the docks.”
Mani drives back to the end of the strip mall, taking out more zombies with the plow, and turns right, then right again, and heads to where the moving van sits with its open rear door pressed against the rubber bumpers on the receiving dock. The guys are already passing boxes from the stockroom into the truck. Mani pulls up, cranks the wheel to the left to angle the nose of the big Ford away from the building, then spins it back to the right to back the truck up to the empty spot next to the moving van.
He gets out and hears Johnny Vigil directing traffic.
“No, idiot, those are golf shoes. Put them down. There are cases of sports drink over there, get them loaded. You two guys – look for the keys to the store. We need to get into this locked room here for the ammunition. Come on, guys, hustle! Ammo is the priority, then food and liquids, then clothing and footwear – and NOT golf shoes!”
Jesse sees Mani and motions for him to come over.
“Hey Jesse, nice work, man. The plan worked like a charm.”
“Thanks. You know, it was just four assholes in here? Three men and a woman. The three guys are dead; the woman is hurt but alive. I sent a couple of the minions to get my van. I’ll take her back in it. She’s a fighter, I’ll give her that.”
“You think it’s a good idea to bring her back with us? You killed her people.”
“I don’t know. But what else are we going to do with her - leave her to die?”
“Yes, dude. They killed two of ours. Fucking leave her to die.”
“Well they killed ours, we killed theirs, we oughta be even, then, yeah? Oh shit, look at that!”
Mani turns to look where Mani is pointing. Across the pavement, there’s a landscaped section of greenway and an eight-foot path that follows the course of North Creek, another twenty feet of what the city calls ‘native land’ – meaning the trees and bushes grow wild with no maintenance. This patch of land ends at the water’s edge. This is all part of the city’s greenway program to allow people to enjoy the creek as it winds its way from west to east.
Only now, the water’s edge has passed the native land, crossed the path, climbed the landscaped green belt, and in some places, is starting to spill onto the asphalt.
“Johnny!” Mani calls out and motions to him when he looks their way. The skinny man stops barking at the others and walks over.
“What’s up?” he asks.
Mani nods toward the water.
“Oh, shit! It’s flooding up in this bitch!”
He turns around and starts yelling some more. “Okay, people, we need to MOVE! The water’s rising, and we don’t want to be stuck here in this blown up, busted-ass store while God’s wrath smites the unholy dead! Load that shit and let’s get a move on!”
Mani and Jesse are laughing at Johnny’s Baptist minister impression when the two men who went to get Jesse’s van return. He drove one of the smaller, modern vans that Montero Auto Repair uses to deliver and pick up car parts. It was small enough to drive along the bike path, using the underpass to cross Marion Street to the east of the mall. The gray and red colors made it hard to detect on such a cloudy, rainy day. He left it hidden at the east end of the mall, and he and Johnny assaulted the rear of the store on foot, staying close to the building to avoid being seen, then used some homemade ammonium nitrate explosives for a little shock-and-awe to blow open the employee entrance.
One of the men, whose name Jesse doesn’t know, drops the key in Jesse’s hand.
“Your ride, sir!”
“Thanks. I need you two guys to grab that blonde chick and toss her in the van. Be careful, seriously. She’s hurt.”
One of the men calls out that he found the keys to the store. They’re in luck; the keys are all labeled, and one of them says “Ammo Master.” Seconds later, the ammunition room door is open, and the crew is loading boxes of ammo to the moving truck.
They take another ten minutes to fill the moving van and the bed of the black pickup. They’ll fit as many men as they can in the cabs of the two trucks, and the remainder will ride back with Jesse in the van.
The water is ankle deep by the time they pile into the vehicles and head back to the highway going south out of town. As they approach the bridge over South Creek, they’re greeted with a torrent of water rushing across the road. It’s strong enough that it’s pushed the derelict cars to the east side of the road and one of them teeters on the edge of the bridge, just shy of plunging into the swollen creek.
Jesse presses the button on his walkie.
“I’m open to ideas here. This little van will not make it through that much water.”
“The trucks have enough clearance to get through there, most likely,” Mani replies from
the black Ford. “I say we get some speed going, send the moving truck through, my truck will pull even with the back wheel of the big one, and you go through right next to me. We’ll run blocker for you.”
“Okay, I’m game if you are. This is only going to get worse if we wait,” Jesse says into the walkie. He turns to the others in the back of the van. “Hang on to something. This may get rough.”
He watches as the moving van gets moving, approaching thirty miles per hour. Mani keeps the red truck tucked in at the rear tire of the big truck. Jesse hits the gas, catching up to them.
The big truck hits the water first, sending a gush of spray twenty feet high on either side of it. The black truck hits the water a second later, the plow sending a wall of water skyward. Jesse times his approach, so he gets to the bridge just as the rear wheel of the black truck touches the deep water.
The van hits the water with a violent crash, like hitting concrete rather than water. The front wheels lose contact with the road, and the van hydroplanes, sliding sideways with the current. Momentum carries it forward, but it still drifts toward the derelict cars. The back end of the van hits the car teetering on the edge of the road, sending it over the edge and into the raging water on the lee side of the bridge. The front end of the car sinks below the surface of the water, and it bobs like a cork floating away, easing deeper in the water as the interior fills with water.
Jesse feels the rear wheels contact the sidewalk, and he hits the gas. The tires find purchase, and the van lurches ahead, inching toward the far side of the flood water. With one last gasp, the tires settle back onto the road, and the van makes it to the other side.
Once clear of the water, he slows down and looks to the right to see how the others are faring. The red truck is clear, but the moving van is stuck, listing to the right. Jesse realizes with horror that part of the bridge has collapsed. Mani is out of the red truck, running with a tow rope. He tosses one end to the minion who retrieved Jesse’s van, who loops it over the trailer hitch while Mani wades into the knee-deep water and loops the rope around the bumper. He signals the man in the driver’s seat of the truck to pull forward.