Jo looked to Donovan and said, “Since we’re bugging out, I don’t think we need to be quiet about taking them out.”
“I guess not,” Donovan said.
“Who wants the honor?” Del asked.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” Donovan said.
Del shrugged and started to raise his rifle when the noise of an engine roaring filtered in from the east. That put shooting the zombies on hold for a moment as everyone turned toward the sound.
The cornfield blocked any clear view of the roadway, but the roar was getting closer by the second. The people in the parking lot leaned into the sound, almost forgetting about the zombies for a moment. The roar settled down to a rumble, and a moment after that, the truck ripped around the corner of the cornfield, then it whipped into the parking lot. The turn was so violent that it seemed like the truck might tip over, but whoever was driving course corrected, righting the truck.
Del asked, “Who’s driving?”
No one answered.
The truck sped across the lot, driving right at the congregation of Donovan’s people. To the people’s dismay, the truck didn’t seem to be slowing down.
Del stepped out in front of his small group and concentrated all of his attention onto the cab of the truck. “I think that’s Madison behind the wheel.”
“What?!” Jo said, stepping up beside him.
The truck just kept coming. Del stepped forward again and put his hands up and yelled, “Whoa! Slow down!”
It wasn’t clear that Madison was heeding any of Del’s directions because the truck didn’t slow down. People in the lot took in a long breath and seemed to be holding it as the truck bore down on Del and the small group of leaders standing at the forefront of all the people in the lot.
Jo stood her ground, but Mason and Donovan took involuntary steps back, knowing that if that truck didn’t change its direction in the next twenty seconds, there was no getting out of the way.
Del took another step forward and shouted, “Madison, turn the wheel!”
It was never clear that Madison heard or listened, but she cut the wheels of the truck, and it whizzed past Del and the people around him. When he whipped his head around, Del watched as the truck raced across the parking lot on a collision course for the approaching zombies.
“Oh no,” Jo said.
The zombies didn’t stand a chance. Madison didn’t let up on the gas pedal but plowed right into the three zombies, smashing bones, bodies, and flesh. Two zombies went airborne, but the third went under the truck and was dragged along the pavement for nearly twenty-yards, ripping off clothing and shredding off flesh. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Madison was forced to power brake or else the truck was going to end up in the cornfield. The tires shrieked, and smoke rolled off of them, but the truck came to a stop about three feet from jumping the curb into the field.
“What the hell is up with that?” Mason asked.
Del looked back to him and said, “I’m not sure she knows how to drive all that well.”
The passenger door popped open on the truck, and Clayton jumped out. He stood outside the truck for a moment then asked in a voice loud enough that Del, Jo, and the others could hear, “What the hell were you thinking?”
No one could hear Madison’s response, but an exchange took place, a back and forth between Madison and Clayton that no one could hear except Ryan, who was inside the truck.
“Get on out of there,” Clayton said.
There was a pause, but three seconds later, the driver’s door opened, and Madison got out. Her head hung low. She didn’t look Clayton in the eyes. She just opened the back door and got inside.
Clayton’s body language still said he was astonished and more than a little pissed. It took him a few seconds, but he finally surrendered to the hard fact that there was nothing to be done, and he walked around and got in the driver’s seat. He put the truck in drive and slowly drove back across the parking lot toward Del, Jo, and the others.
“Where’s the Jeep?” Mason asked, but his tone was not neutral. There was a combination of annoyance and concern in it.
“Call them on the walkie,” Donovan said.
Mason raised the walkie-talkie to his face, but as soon as he got it there, the sound of an engine came their way from the west. While Jo and Del moved toward the truck as it slowed to a stop just a few feet away, Mason and Donovan switched their attention to the west. There was less corn in that direction, so they could actually see a half-mile down the road. It was easy to spot the oncoming Jeep.
Both Mason and Donovan relaxed some but still moved away from the activity buzzing behind them as people got ready to get back on the road.
Jo and Del headed toward the driver’s side of the truck as Clayton opened the door and got out.
“What happened out there?” Jo said. She didn’t wait for an answer before she popped out another question. “And why the hell was Madison driving?”
Clayton shrugged his shoulders but just said, “On the second question, maybe I should have re-thought that. As for the first question, we discovered some of the road bandits out on the road. Just one car, though. When I went to check it out, things got a little fucked up. Madison laid on the horn when she heard the horde was getting close to tell me to get back to the truck. That got the attention of the road bandits, and we had a little shootout. They backed off, but Madison was at the wheel of the truck. I decided to stay in the back with Ryan to guard our ass-side as we drove away. If I had it to do again, I would have probably taken over at the wheel once we got some distance from the road bandits.”
Jo let a long stream of air upward, blowing a tangle of her auburn hair off her forehead and said, “Okay. What’s done is done. No harm, no foul for now. Besides, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Del was beside the back window of the cab, looking in at Madison. “That was some driving, kid. One tip though, next time, let us take the zombies out with our guns. You bust up the radiator or something else, and we’re walking.”
Madison didn’t look his way but just crossed her arms and stared out the front window. The best way to describe her disposition was a cross between pouting and pissed off.
Jo moved in beside Del and asked, “You okay, Maddie?” She rarely called her Maddie, but she had learned the girl’s moods in the time she had been with her. This was one you had to manage, or you’d deal with it later.
“I know how to drive,” Madison said. “So, I got going a little fast. Why not use that speed to take out some zombies? It saved bullets.”
“It’s done,” Jo said. “Just listen to Del and take it as a lesson learned.”
The Jeep eased to a stop a few feet behind the tractor and trailer. Jo eyed the two occupants. Casey didn’t look cheerful, but she was composed. Troy, on the other hand, looked almost petrified. Jo knew facing down a few hundred zombies could do that.
She leaned in close to the window and said in a low voice, “You did good. Put it in the past. Now, can you go roundup Nick, Nora, and the other kid whose name starts with N?”
“Noah,” Madison said.
“Yeah, him. Can you get them?”
“Sure,” Madison said, uncrossing her arms.
“Del and I are going to pow-wow with Donovan. We should be ready to go in less than five minutes, okay?”
Jo didn’t wait for a response as she and Del headed over to the Jeep, where Mason and Donovan had huddled up with Casey and Troy.
“There were hundreds of them,” Troy said, coming across a little rattled. “Maybe thousands.”
“Sounds a lot like what we saw at the farmhouse,” Del said as he and Jo stopped at the side of the meet-up. “Except we definitely saw thousands. You know, it sort of sucked to learn that what Braden said was true.”
“Who the hell is that?” Troy asked
“That was the Lieutenant at the Manor,” Del said. “He said there was a massive horde headed our way coming from the Northwest. I sort of hoped he ha
d lied.”
“Well, he didn’t,” Donovan said. Then he asked Casey, “How much time do you think we have?”
She scrunched her face for a moment then said, “Thirty-minutes at the soonest, but probably more like forty-five.”
Donovan looked back at the people starting to load up in vehicles and nodded his head in a gesture of approval. “We need to do a gas check on all the vehicles, especially the tractor. We’d be up the creek without a paddle if that ran out of gas.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jo said.
“We leave in ten,” Donovan said. “No matter what.”
Chapter 22
Planning Plans
The thought of thousands of zombies headed their way was a powerful motivating force for the people to get their asses in gear, and the caravan hit the road again in eight minutes. They knew they had to get some distance between themselves and the horde. None of them liked their rate of progress as the tractor limited their top speed to twenty-five miles per hour, but they took what they could get.
Besides the horde behind them, their real challenge was the fact that there were marauders out there ahead of them somewhere, but no one knew where they were and if they had plans to attack again.
They altered the order of the vehicles, placing two ATVs out in front of the caravan. Clayton was on one and Del was on the other. Both men had their rifles at the ready in case they ran into the road bandits again.
That put Jo back behind the wheel of the truck and Madison and Ryan inside, although it was a tight fit with Sergeant Jones and the Benton Sisters in the back seat. It basically came down to Madison sitting on Ryan’s lap. Jo couldn’t help but notice that Madison seemed to be enjoying this, while Ryan didn’t look all that comfortable.
The two men who had been on the ATVs originally, Ron and Denny, moved into the bed of the truck. There had been a little tension about the transition, but Donovan put a little of his leadership muscle behind the order, and both men capitulated. In the end, they were still in a position to go on the offensive if needed.
They hadn’t made it far down the road before Clayton slowed his ATV to a crawl as they approached the place where he, Madison, and Ryan had encountered the SUV. This maneuver had been pre-planned. There was no way they were blundering past the house Clayton had spotted the group of road bandits in without checking it out.
In a pre-planned move, Jo moved up the truck to just behind the two ATVs and matched their speed, moving along at just around five miles per hour.
Throughout the caravan, wary eyes scanned down the road and into the woods for possible attackers. The people on the trailer were especially alert. They were out in the open and exposed to any attack.
Clayton brought the caravan to a stop when he raised a fist in the air. For a few seconds, the vehicles’ drivers let their engines idle before shutting them off to save what precious gasoline supplies they had.
Donovan and Mason jumped out of their Jeep and ran up the length of the convoy as Jo exited the truck. People watched in alarm, but Donovan told them everything was alright as he passed by. Not all of them believed him, but they also knew they had little choice. They were along for the ride.
Donovan, Mason, and Jo huddled up around Clayton and Del.
“What’s the lay of the land?” Donovan asked.
“Past where the woods end is where I saw the farmhouse where the SUV parked,” Clayton said. “There were at least six guys. Well, I aced one, so make that five now.”
“Could there be more?”
“No idea,” Clayton said. “I found it weird that there was only one truck there.”
“The safe bet would be to plan for more,” Donovan said.
“What is the plan?” Del asked.
“To be determined,” Donovan said as he rubbed his chin.
The plan came together quickly, and it was very basic, but in truth, there was nothing simple about it. The only good plan would involve turning around and heading back where they came from, but with thousands of zombies coming from that direction, that option was off the table. Moving forward with the people in the trailer being out in the open and not knowing if the road bandits were lying in wait was too big of a risk.
Their fighters would be split between the caravan and their reconnaissance team. That left them spread thin and vulnerable in so many ways.
Clayton, Mason, and Del would approach the farmhouse. Donovan, Jo, and Casey would stay with the convoy. Although Sergeant Jones wasn’t very mobile, he was another asset for advice and counsel. Donovan coordinated with the other men to guard the back end of the convoy.
Clayton, Mason, and Del would drive two of the ATVs as close as they could then push them to the edge of the farm field and leave them there. They would use the cornfield and overgrown weeds to cover their final approach. Ron and Denny would cover them from the edge of the field. If things went south, they would haul ass back to the ATVs, and all of them would head back to the convoy.
“Don’t push it,” Donovan said. “You see anything, you head back.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Del said, giving Donovan an exaggerated salute.
“Ron, Denny, you watch their backs,” Donovan said.
Ron was tall and skinny with bright red hair and piercing green eyes. Denny was stocky with broad shoulders and dark curly hair. Both men were the quiet types, but they nodded.
“Okay, we have a plan; time to execute it,” Donovan said.
Something inside Del wanted to say, ‘Break,’ when the huddle broke up, but he resisted the urge to say it out loud. Jo gave his arm a hard squeeze and said, “Watch your ass.”
“You know it,” Del replied, and the groups went their separate ways.
Twenty minutes later, the approach team had the ATVs off the road and tucked away in the tree line at the edge of the fallow farm field. They grouped up one last time, eyeing the farmhouse before making the final move forward.
“I see the dark SUV,” Clayton said.
“Is it the same one you saw earlier?” Del asked.
“I’m not totally sure, but I’d say it is,” Clayton said.
“The clock is ticking, gentleman,” Mason said. “We can abort if you want to.”
“No, we need to check this out,” Clayton said.
“Let’s do this,” Del said.
Mason turned to Ron and Denny and said, “We give the signal, you bring up the ATVs. If we come running with anyone chasing us, you shoot at whoever that is, got it?”
Ron said, “We’re on it.”
“Time to go,” Mason said,
With that, the three men headed into the field, crouched low and moving slow and steady.
Chapter 23
The House
Mason led their trio as they used the dried corn stalks and tall, ungainly weeds as cover. The dried corn stalks didn’t make the job easy. Each time they brushed against one of them, it sounded like someone was rustling a whole newspaper in the air.
To Del, the distance between the trees and the farmhouse looked enormous. While they were being as stealthy as they could, there was not one thing in the entire field to hide behind if someone in the farmhouse opened up on them. They’d have to lay low and hope Ron and Denny could drive the attackers back.
Del hated relying that much on someone else, but he had no other choice. If they wanted to move the convoy safely down the road, they had to clear that farmhouse.
He also knew that could mean killing everyone inside. He didn’t relish the thought, but he’d do what had to be done. He had been trained to do it in the Army, but killing was never easy. As a supply truck driver in Iraq, he had only been in live fire twice during sneak attacks on his convoy.
The skirmishes had been fast and furious. Half the time, he didn’t know who was shooting at him and who he was shooting at. It was just guys with guns and rocket launchers, firing on the convoy. He and his fellow drivers got out of the trucks with the soldiers assigned to protect them and returned fire. The first
time had been a brief exchange. It was a quick back and forth volley of bullets, and the attackers disappeared into the night.
The second one, not so much. A rocket launcher blew up a tanker, and the explosion knocked several of the other trucks off the road. The attackers were serious about taking out the entire convoy, and Del and his fellow drivers were in the fight of their life.
The attack came at dusk, and the fight lasted into the night, with the insurgents taking potshots and changing positions for new attacks throughout the night. Del lost one of his friends in the attack. A guy named Ernie. He was from Idaho or Montana. Somewhere out west. Del had made plans to travel to the exotic northwest, but those plans ended when Ernie took a shot to the head from an AK-47. He died in Del’s arms, and the memory still haunted Del, even after seeing the world go to hell in a handbasket.
The insurgents started to close in on the convoy at around midnight. It had looked pretty bleak, but two attack helicopters swooped in and turned the tide of the battle quickly and decisively. Del had never been so happy to see the birds of prey in his life.
Too bad, military helicopters had been making his life a living hell lately. But now that the soldiers had bugged out of the Manor, they were no longer hunting Del and his friends.
“Del?” A hushed voice came from his left off among the corn plants. They had agreed to spread out in case they came under fire from the road bandits in the house.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Slow down,” Mason said. “You need to keep your head in the game.”
“I’m here,” Del replied.
They were about halfway to the farmhouse. The corn plants were thinning out, so the only cover for the next the fifty yards was straggly weeds. They had agreed to hold up for a new assessment at that point.
The Deadland Chronicles (Book 2): The Undead Horde Page 13