by A. L. White
Boo walked over to the one wall that didn’t have windows or shelving units on it and pulled down an old map of Rivers Crossing that had been hanging in the library since just after it had been built. Carefully placing it on the conference room table, Boo pulled a red felt tipped marker from his pocket and began drawing a red circle around the town. The circle started on the bridge they had crossed to enter town, followed the river to the raised train tracks, down past the school, around to what looked like a creek, and then back to the river.
“This is the area we had hoped to keep free of the creatures and in our control. It still is the primary goal at the moment,” Boo said as he was pointing to the Main Street Bridge and the creek bridge. “We have a watch set up of three people each, on both bridges, taking eight hour shifts. They are armed and have a flare gun to alert us here if their bridge has been crossed by the creatures. In addition, we have another group taking eight hour shifts over along the train tracks on the other side of town.” Boo paused and looked everyone over, “What we will do is try as best we can to plug any incursions.”
“The six of us?” Albert asked.
“Well, I have a few other guys that are out showing the watchers what to do, so about ten of us,” Boo replied. “The hope is that nothing gets past the circle, and we are all doing a whole lot of worrying for nothing.”
CHAPTER 21
After the meeting ended, Lori took the others back to the RV while Virginia decided to take the lads out into the school yard. While they were in the library the snow had begun to fall, once again blanketing all the ground in a fresh coat of fluffy snow. It would be easy to see zombie tracks in this, she thought to herself. Not that she needed the tracks with Zeus and Perseus and their keen sense of smell. The crowd was alive and very noisy; she thought that maybe deciding to fight back was bringing many of them back to life, if only for a little while.
“There you are, child!” A voice said from behind Virginia, she instantly recognized it as Zoe’s.
“I have been looking all over for you!” Zoe stated exasperated.
“I was in the library with the others,” Virginia replied.
“Making the war plans, I assume?”
“Something like that, I guess,” Virginia replied with a forced smile.
“I am sure they have the best plan that they could come up with under our present circumstances,” Zoe said looking off down Main Street. “Child, do you remember me telling you that we would need to keep an eye on Roy?”
Virginia remembered; it was the only reason that Roy was alive today. She had completely forgotten about Roy after they arrived at the school. He probably was doing his best to blend in with the survivors that were already here, rather than face the ones he had let down costing Joey his life.
“Old Roy took the last watch on the bridge we came in on about an hour ago.”
Virginia could barely hide her surprise at the news. Roy was a coward in the worse way possible. Everyone in their group, including his wife, knew that Roy would sacrifice all others to save himself if it came down to that.
“Maybe the lads and I should go keep an eye on him,” Virginia suggested, smiling at Zoe.
“I was thinking the exact same thing, child. Mind you, don’t let him see you. Just make sure he is doing what he is supposed to be doing.”
“If he does something else?” Virginia asked.
“Child, if he runs and hides again, you do what you feel needs done,” Zoe replied looking down into the snow. She knew she had just told Virginia to end another human being’s life because he was afraid. Most of the time, no, all of the time, Zoe would have protected someone like Roy as best she could. In this case, old Roy had already cost her great nephew his life and there could be no more.
Virginia understood what Zoe was saying, and knew the reasons behind it. Whistling to Zeus and Perseus, she led the dogs out the parking lot gate and up to the corner of Main Street. It felt good to be away from everyone again. It reminded her of being back at the bunker going on searches for zombies with the dogs. It was just her and the dogs back there, and in a small way it was what she wished for now. Things were much simpler then; she took care of Zeus and Perseus, they took care of her.
About a block away from the bridge Virginia picked out a house that would have an ideal view of the bridge and would get them out of the snow for a little while. It wouldn’t be much warmer, but there would be no wind inside, and that would warm them up a bit.
Making her way off the street into a backyard, so as to not been seen by Roy, they cut through the yards until they made it to the front door of the house. Turning the handle and finding it to be unlocked, Virginia stepped aside and said to Zeus, “Ok boys, you know the drill. Go check it out for me.” The lads stormed into the house, going in and out of every room until they were satisfied that no zombies were present. Once they returned to the living room and sat down, Virginia entered the house and locked the door behind her. She made her way through all of the lower rooms, just as the dogs had. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, Virginia was checking for any ways into the house that might be open. The last thing she wanted was to be concentrating on Roy and have something surprise them from behind. Not that Zeus would ever let that happen, she knew that, but being careful had kept her alive so far. Now was no time to quit.
Upstairs she found the master bedroom with a perfect view of the bridge. Stepping away from that momentarily she went in every bedroom and grabbed the blankets off the beds, bringing them back with her. Keeping an old quilt for herself, she made a large bed for the lads to lie on, and pulled out some bacon saved from breakfast. Splitting it up into three groups she gave the lads their share, “That has to hold you until we get back, so don’t swallow it whole, Perseus,” She chuckled looking at the lads enjoying their share before settling in to keep an eye on Roy.
On the far side of the bridge she could see that the herd was now gigantic in size, and inching close to the make-shift fence. Roy, on the other hand, was sitting in the tow truck running the motor. From the look of it, Roy was doing more drinking from a bottle than watching the bridge.
*****
The sound of the crowd could only be likened to that of a festival outside of the school. It carried over the raised train tracks like a hypnotic call to the zombies crossing the bridge. Earlier they had begun to mosey back off to wherever they had come from in search of food, but now the noise was calling them back and working them into a frenzy. What had been a few hundred less than two hours ago, was now nearly four thousand creatures, pushing against each other and toward the stone wall of the raised tracks. As the pressure began to smash the creatures caught against the wall, they turned to the left and right to escape, causing a mass of decaying flesh to push against the van. At first the van held solid where Charlie had parked it, then it began to slide; a little at first, then a foot or so, until it created an opening that the creatures could see through. The visual way in caused the creatures to work up to a frenzy, and the van slid further, opening the gap wider through to the other side.
The first few zombies went unnoticed by the jubilant survivors, until the first person was taken down. The woman never saw death coming for her until she felt the teeth bite down into the back of her neck. At that point it was too late for her. Those standing near her had time to see her die before they too were brought down. The screaming and panic that followed worked the herd up even more and caused the survivors to panic. Where only a few minutes earlier they were giving their oaths to protect what they had and those who could not defend themselves, they were now running for the doors of the school. The elderly and young were being trampled by the very people they had been led to believe would protect them.
The first shots that were fired to help came from the roof of the school. In the lone gunman’s state of fear, he wasn’t picking out targets. Instead, he was firing a constant volley into the crowd hitting both humans and zombies indiscriminately. The major difference was that the humans went down to b
e eaten by the zombies that kept coming forward. Not until he ran out of ammo did his gun fall silent. Even then, he kept squeezing the trigger as if he had a full magazine loaded.
CHAPTER 22
The sounds of the rifle shots penetrated the library conference room where Doc, Charlie, and Boo were still going over safety plans. Boo ran to the window first and saw the melee of zombies and people trampling over the bright red snow. At first, a wave of fear washed through his body, but that was quickly replaced with disgust and anger. Grabbing his rifle off the side table, Boo smashed the window out and started picking his targets. First one zombie’s head exploded, then another.
“What the hell!” Charlie screamed out when he reached the window.
“Charlie, take Doc and go through the tunnel! See if you can’t help some of those people in, and then button her up tight.”
Charlie forced himself back into reality and grabbed a petrified Doc by the shoulder, dragging him toward the door.
On the first floor they could see the carnage outside of the windows. Doc started to stop and bring his hands to his mouth, but Charlie forced him on to the stairs leading to the basement. Once they reached the tunnel, Charlie took the lead, not knowing what they would find on the other end. It was dark and damp in there, but neither man stopped until they reached the door leading into the kitchen of the school. Charlie turned the handle slowly then kicked the door wide open to be greeted by Tressa aiming an old World War II forty-five at his face. Seeing Charlie, she dropped the pistol down to her side and said, “Thank God it’s you two!”
“Are the creatures inside of the building?” asked Charlie.
“I don’t think so,” Tressa said. “There are a lot of us who got in, but I think even more are trapped outside.”
Charlie nodded his head, “Doc, see if you can help Tressa out with the ones that made it back in.” Making his way up the front stairway to the third floor, Charlie went into their room where he knew Boo had hidden some crates of dynamite under his bed. At the time, Charlie had thought it was an odd place to keep them, but that in a way, Boo was an odd old man to begin with and Charlie had never thought much of it after that. At the moment Charlie was incredibly grateful for that odd old man and his explosive packrat tendencies. Grabbing a crate, he headed up to the roof, finding Tim still squeezing off rounds from his empty gun.
“Tim! Give me a hand here!” Charlie ordered, forcing Tim to come back to reality.
Tim dropped his gun and grabbed the crate from Charlie, placing it on the ledge near where he had been standing a few minutes ago. Charlie handed Tim his rifle and said, “Make every shot count.” Tim started firing indiscriminately again when he felt Charlie’s hand on his shoulder, “Watch what old Boo is doing, Tim.” He pointed over to the library window where Boo was shooting from; they could both see Boo picking his target out carefully, then firing, exploding the head of a zombie, taking the creature to the ground in a heap. “Pick your target, and hit only that target, and in the head.”
Tim took a deep breath and picked a zombie out from the mass of bodies below them. Closing his eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath, Tim opened his eyes and selected his first target. With a thunderous boom, the gun fired as he squeezed the trigger, and the side of a zombie’s head exploded. Looking over at Charlie Tim asked, “Like that, Charlie?” Charlie smiled back and lit the first stick of dynamite, then threw it has hard as he could toward the road.
*****
Lori heard the screams first and reacted by grabbing her crossbow and heading for the door. As hard as she tried, the mass of bodies pushing against the side of the RV was blocking the door, preventing her from opening it. Jermaine jumped up to join her in trying to force the door open, but it was useless. Outside all that they could see was a jumbled up mess of zombies and humans; too intertwined to get an accurate shot off. Just as Lori would line a zombie up, a human face would replace it. The last thing she wanted to do was help in the slaughter of fellow survivors.
As if by magic, the faces appearing zombies more and more. Only it wasn’t any magic, the human numbers were growing fewer. Once targets became clearer, Lori started firing off arrows as fast as she could, and Jermaine forced the door of the RV open. Charging out, Jermaine began clubbing the nearest zombies until he was certain their heads had caved in. Albert, following behind, started toward the door to help the remaining survivors. With his right hand he was firing off shots at the zombies as he called out to Jermaine to help him reach the door. Once they had crossed in front of the RV, Lori started the motor and slid the gearshift into gear, cutting off the zombies that were now behind the guys. That was when an idea came to her. If she could use the RV to block the viaduct, they could possibly stem the flow into the area and retake the grounds.
Looking to her left to check on Jermaine and Al’s progress, Lori pushed down on the gas pedal as she turned the wheel to the right. She would try to take as many out as possible on the way to the street. Up ahead she could see the steady stream entering through the narrow roadway. The crunch of the dead underneath the RV was nearly deafening as she again swung the vehicle to the right, out of the parking lot, and onto the street. The viaduct was narrow, but still left plenty of room on either side of the RV depending on how she drove into it. At the last moment, veering off to the left a little, and swinging hard back to the right, Lori caused the front of the RV to slam into the right side wall of the viaduct, throwing her out of her seat into the dashboard. A trickle of blood ran down into her left eye. She quickly wiped the blood away as she took a good look around. For now there would be no more zombies coming in by this route.
Outside the sound of gunfire had tripled in the last few moments. It was almost deafening when there was a knock on the door. Lori walked over and saw a smiling Boo standing there waving at her. Initially the door was jammed from the collision, but with Boo helping from the outside, it popped open.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay in there?”
Lori nodded her head that she was okay and grabbed her crossbow, handing Boo the extra quiver of arrows. “Do you think it will hold them?” she asked as she climbed down out of the RV.
“I think it will for now. Might give us enough time to concentrate on cleaning up the rest of the creatures before we have to worry about it.”
Once outside, Lori saw an amazing sight. It was one she would have never even hazarded to guess could happen after the events only moments ago. Most of the survivors that had run for cover had returned armed and angry. They were weighing into the zombies with a vengeance now. Soon the ground was littered with the motionless dead corpses of the creatures and fallen survivors.
*****
When the shooting had started Virginia and the lads instinctively took defensive positions. Searching the street outside of the window, Virginia could see that there was no immediate danger to them where they were. Scanning the bridge brought a bigger and more pressing danger that would need to be acted on soon. Try as she might, there was no sign of Roy anywhere in Virginia’s field of view.
“Come on lads, let’s go look and see if we can find old Roy.”
They left the house as cautiously as they had entered it. There was still no sign of the creatures other than the ones just across the bridge. There was still no sign of Roy either, for that matter.
“Zeus, Perseus, go find Roy.” Virginia ordered the lads as they both took off to the other side of the street. Virginia decided to look in the cab of the tow truck just in case Roy had fallen asleep. It would be a small wonder that he hadn’t with the amount of whiskey it looked like he was drinking. She could hear that the motor was still running as she made her way to the center of Main Street.
“What are you doing out here?” Roy demanded to know from the side of a mailbox on the corner.
“Roy, you’re alright?” Virginia asked, wondering why he was so far from the truck and bridge.
“Of course I am. Why would you ask that? Perhaps you were hoping that I
died in all that shooting going on up the street?”
“No Roy, I was doing a patrol and just happened to come by here,” Virginia said, lying to Roy. “Whatever happened in the past, happened in the past. For now, we have to get that truck up against the bug, or we will have a big problem on our hands.”
“I don’t think that the truck will stop them. We have to get away from here as fast as we can,” Roy stated with a tinge of fear cracking in his voice.
Not wanting to be confrontational, Virginia pleaded with Roy, “Then at the very least, fire the flare off Roy, so that they will know something’s coming.”
Roy raised the old Ruger revolver up and pointed it at Virginia, “Not so tough, now are you? No dogs. No crossbow. You’re just a mouthy little bitch!” Roy said as he motioned to where Virginia had laid her crossbow down in an attempt to make Roy feel safe. “What was it you said to me on the way here? That’s right, I remember what it was now. You crawled up on top of me, like you were some kind of seductress, and whispered in my ear that when the time came you would kill me.”
“Roy, I said that in a moment of anger and fear over losing a friend to the zombies,” Virginia tried to explain.
Roy cocked the hammer on the Ruger and let out a deep breath, “It really doesn’t matter now. They are probably all being eaten back there, and we are about to be overrun here. I just want to make this right in my own head before I die today.” Taking aim at Virginia’s head, Roy took another deep breath and started to squeeze the trigger when something plowed into him from the side with so much force that his breath was knocked out and he was brought to the ground. Zeus had come at a full run and leapt into the air and onto Roy. As they hit the ground Roy could feel Zeus’s fangs clasping around his throat and he heard the Ruger discharge.
Zeus bit down with all the force he could muster and then shook his head from side to side. Once he had ripped a large section free from Roy’s now lifeless body, Zeus turned toward Virginia who lay on the ground surrounded by bloodied snow.