by Mark Tufo
“I figure the garage door will hold for a while, it’s the small side door that worries me.” Carl started sliding a box containing a large commercial air conditioning unit towards the small door. Brook and Raven added some muscle and together they positioned it in front of the door, and then for good measure they piled still more boxes on top of the larger one.
Carl ran his hands over the door. “This is a steel core door; it’s the frame and hinges we have to worry about. It’ll only take a few of those things to forget about the roll up door and start in on this one. If they do we are hosed.”
Carl checked the door to the internal office. Finding it locked, he kicked the door. The wood around the lock splintered and the door flew inward. He flicked on the light and looked around the twenty by twenty foot room.
BANG.
A cheap particle board desk sat in the center of the room. They rifled through the drawers and found a number of full key rings.
BANG. BANG.
The zombies wanted in bad.
BANG. BANG.
“While I try these keys in the truck can you two unload the vending machines?” Carl tossed the keys labeled as “Soda/Candy.” They fell near Brook’s feet and she scooped them up.
Carl tried the keys in the truck’s ignition while Brook and Raven looted both vending machines.
BANG.
The garage door moved inward, partially buckling under the pressing weight of the dead. Apparently Carl’s theory about the strength of the garage door was being severely tested.
Having tried half of the keys, Carl finally found the right one. He turned the ignition slightly, and the noisy seatbelt warning bell chimed intermittently. He quickly turned the key to off. Talking over the persistent pounding, Carl explained how they were going to extricate themselves from the fix they were currently in.
Brook would drive the five ton truck with Carl in the bucket. This was necessary because someone tall and possessing good upper body strength would have to pull the chain to work the garage door up. The process would take him about thirty seconds, he estimated, based on the time it took to close the door when they arrived. Pulling the chain while standing on the ground would be suicide; the undead would flood the garage as soon as the crack under the door was big enough. Brook and Raven would occupy the cab of the truck and lay flat on the bench seat to avoid notice until the door was open far enough to allow their egress. If all went well they would pull out of the garage with Carl riding in the bucket and then drive to a safe place and let him in the cab.
Chapter 149
Day 2 - Wahkeena Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
Cade, Rawley, Leo and Ike were about to get back on the road when the obese undead woman made her appearance. The soaked clothing she wore left a wet trail behind her as she slowly plodded towards them. Cade shouldered his M4 rifle and aimed at the ghoul’s forehead. He still couldn’t distance himself enough from the fact that these things had once been someone’s mom, dad, sister, kids... especially the kids.
Shooting the zombie kids was ten times harder than killing his undead neighbors Ted and Lisa. What amazed Cade was that he actually felt empathy for who the undead used to be. He found the longer he was removed from active duty and running ops, the more emotions began to manifest in him when he was forced to defend himself.
When Cade arrived in country during his first tour in Iraq, he had an internal giddy anticipation of what combat was going to be like. He would have been lying if he said he wasn’t just a little curious about what it would feel like to kill another man. His questions were answered within a week of being on the ground.
The patrol Cade was on was supposed to be a routine daylight show of force. Six up-armored Humvees and the squad of Rangers were ordered to patrol a series of canals in the El-Anbar province. Mortars had been lobbed from the area the night before. They were going to bang on some doors and search some hovels looking for weapons or caches of explosives. They were on an elevated canal road when the Humvee in front of them disappeared in a cloud of fine dust and black smoke. The convoy halted. Their escape from the kill zone was limited because of the water-filled irrigation ditches on each side of the road. RPGs sailed over the Humvee with their telltale whooshing sound. The distinctive rattle of AK-47’s and PKR belt fed machine guns entered the fray. All hell was breaking loose. The radio operator was calmly calling for Apache gunships and any available aviation assets to provide close air support.
A cacophony of fire from the turret mounted Ma-Deuce, M2 .50 caliber machine guns added to the decibel level. Cade was scanning his sector from his rear passenger window. A group of three insurgents in their traditional man dresses were crouched down and fumbling with what appeared to be a twelve volt car battery. The wires snaked atop the ground near the men and then dove under the sand, emerging near the dirt berm two meters from his Humvee. Without hesitation Cade sighted on the insurgents through the ACOG scope attached to his M4 carbine. In the split second it took him to acquire them with the scope he ascertained that the men were trying to attach wires to the battery; Cade guessed they had failed to detonate one of the roadside IEDs on their first attempt.
For Cade, everything slowed down and his senses were heightened. He felt a super awareness wash over him. He could see the three very clearly through the magnified scope and they were fully aware they were going to meet their maker. A surprised look registered on the nearest insurgent’s face as the bullets tore into him and caused him to crumple over the battery, wires still in hand. The other two terrorists ignored their comrade’s act of martyrdom, rolled his body away and continued on with the task. Cade admired their tenacity, realizing that they were trying to finish the job they had started. He sighted on the man holding the wires and shot him three times in center mass. The fatal 5.56 hardball broke apart upon impact and tumbled through his body shredding muscle, lung and intestine before lodging in his liver. The remaining man tried to detonate the bomb. He was furiously clicking something with both hands when the Ranger to Cade’s right killed him with a sustained burst from his M-249 SAW. The tango’s body folded over backwards at an unusual angle.
The whump, whump, whump sound of the Apache gunship’s rotor blades filled the air. Another insurgent materialized from the canal. He was looking up, searching for the source of the hated sound when a three round burst from Cade’s rifle struck him in the throat and chin, effectively ending his ability to wage jihad. The Apache gunship orbited overhead, the continuous fire from its nose-mounted cannon decimating the rest of the attackers.
In the end, two of their Humvee gun trucks were destroyed and they suffered four KIA, all from the lead vehicle. Six more soldiers were wounded gravely enough to warrant being medivacked.
In the aftermath of the ambush the Explosive Ordinance Disposal experts confirmed that the wires were indeed affixed to two 120mm mortar shells intended to destroy the other vehicles stranded on the berm by the first destroyed Humvee. Cade’s quick thinking and precise fire saved the rest of his squad from certain destruction and earned him a Bronze Star in the process. He also learned that day, to his relief, that he derived no pleasure from killing another human being. He did, however, feel no remorse over taking an enemy combatant’s life.
Wahkeena Falls
Cade put the scope to his eye; the female walker’s pasty white form filled the reticle. A single shot to the forehead dropped her body to the gravel path.
Eat, feed, want..., eat, feed, want..., eat, feed, want.... It was the mantra of the living dead, the cadence drumming autonomously from the instinct-driven part of his brain. He possessed no memories, feelings, or true desires. That part of his brain died when he did. The only urge left in him was to eat, feed, want... and it propelled the legless husk that used to be Stu up the shallow incline from the scene of his first death. Clawing...eat, pulling...feed, inching...wanting to get to the sounds that meant food.
Cade had the unenviable task of searching the dead creature’s clothes for the keys to th
e van. They were in the front pocket of her wet sweat pants, much too close to her crotch for his liking. After extracting the keys he tossed them to Ike and told him to check the locked van for anything they could use. Surely there would be food and drink they could liberate.
Ike obliged, and while the kid searched the bus Cade reloaded the shotgun and the magazines for the other weapons. Rawley followed suit.
Ike tossed the sack lunches onto the ground and went back for the cooler which contained little milk cartons that were still cool. The Coleman cooler was awkward to lug out of the bus, but he struggled with it in the stifling heat until it was on the pavement of the parking lot. Catching his breath on the bottom step in the stairwell of the bus, Ike let his legs dangle as he ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a carton of cool milk. He called out to the others, held up his drink and asked if they wanted some. Mid-sentence he let out a yelp that escalated into a piercing scream.
Stu’s teeth tore into Ike’s Achilles tendon; blood soaked his sock and coursed into his sneaker. Ike fell from the stair onto the hot pavement face first and the legless creature crawled on top of him.
Leo, Cade and Rawley sprinted across the grassy median to his aid. Leo arrived first and proceeded to kick at the legless corpse, screaming hoarsely in fear and rage. Rawley yelled for the others to stand back, and then put two rounds from his SKS into the side of the ghoul’s head.
Grimacing from the pain, Ike freed his legs from under the motionless thing that had just bitten him. He shed his Converse first and then removed the blood drenched tube sock. Ike started to cry when the extent of the damage was revealed. The grim recognition crossed Rawley’s mind that Ike was as good as dead.
Chapter 150
Day 2 - Carolina Shores, South Carolina
Brook turned the ignition and the motor throbbed to life. It was by far the biggest vehicle she had ever driven. Outside the banging intensified as the ghouls responded to the engine noise. They had been hammering nonstop since the three took refuge an hour ago. There were so many hungry walkers outside that their combined weight had begun to compress the door inward.
Carl was inside the bucket and held the chain. Hand over hand he began pulling it towards him. With the added weight of the walkers on the door it was much harder to get moving. As soon as the door parted from the floor the undead began spilling into the enclosed area. The more he struggled to open the garage door, the harder the bucket bobbed up and down. The movement alerted the swarming corpses of his presence. The door rose slowly while the undead moaned and swiped at Carl bouncing just inches from their gnarled fingers. Before long there were two dozen walkers jammed into the small space; their stench coupled with the truck’s exhaust was quickly becoming toxic. Some of the undead clambered up onto the sides of the bucket truck, leaving greasy slug tracks with their decaying bodies. As the last couple of feet of door gave way to sunlight, Carl banged on the roof of the rig with the shotgun’s barrel. He hoped there was enough clearance to make their getaway; if not, he was going to be several inches shorter.
Brook popped up and mashed the throttle under her foot. With only an inch to spare, the commercial vehicle leapt out of the tall garage and into the roadway of the business park. It was an automatic and far easier to drive than Brook had anticipated. It was no sports car but she could still muscle the thing where she wanted it to go.
Two of the undead were still holding onto the truck when Carl popped up from the bucket, shotgun in hand. The ghouls focused their attention on Brook and Raven in the truck’s cab and together started banging on the side windows, their pulpy decaying hands leaving a gray sheen that clouded the glass. Carl’s first shot peppered one ghoul with buckshot, but still the undead teenage girl held fast. On the passenger side the older male, missing a few fingers on each hand, was slowly losing purchase on the speeding truck.
Brook tried to shake them off by swerving back and forth in the narrow street. The undead male lost his battle to hang on, bounced off of a small compact car and then impacted the cement. It tried to stand on two broken legs only to collapse back to the roadway. It crawled in the direction of the truck, the unyielding desire for flesh its only master.
The young undead girl by the driver’s side window looked up at Carl. This made for a perfect target. The last shell in the shotgun was a slug; it tore through the ghoul’s skull and destroyed the thing’s brain. Dead again she hung limply, arm caught in the truck’s side mirror.
Brook didn’t so much as flinch after the last shot and was relieved to see the gaping hole in the thing’s head. Each bump Brook hit in the road caused it to bob up and down, scattering chunks of brain along the way.
Raven cautiously peered over the top of the dash before sitting up. Her knuckles were white from clutching the door handle. “Where are we going now?” she asked timorously.
“We are heading towards the state line. The route south of here should be the safest, but first things first, we need to pull over and let your uncle in the cab.”
The roads were still lightly traveled and it appeared people were staying put in their houses. When the president declared martial law and FEMA issued their directive it was still well before the major rush hour. However, the drivers that were on the road had to be avoided because they were failing to obey basic rules of the road. Brook was still very sore from the violent collision with the BMW and she couldn’t shake the vision of the burning couple pinned in the car as they died.
All of the stores they passed had been closed. A couple of gas stations were open, but the lined up cars were a bad sign. They traveled two miles with Carl bouncing up and down in the bucket before a safe place to pull over presented itself.
Gravel crunched under the bucket truck’s tires as it slowed down on the shoulder of International Drive.
Carl gingerly climbed out of the bucket cradling the shotgun. He was green and on the verge of throwing up for the second time today. He jumped in the passenger seat. Not wanting to be chauvinistic, he insisted Brook keep on driving. He fished the ammunition from Brook’s bag and reloaded the Ithaca.
“That was the scariest ride of my life,” Raven said.
“Try it from my perspective; those things thought I was a meat piñata.”
“I thought we were done for back there,” Brook said, her eyes looking up to check the rear view mirror before adding, “We need more firepower.”
The discussion morphed into how they should get to Fort Bragg. It was decided if they could get to the 90 with no problems then they would have to brave the interstate for a scant few miles before getting back on the less traveled roads.
Brook looked down at the gas gauge and was overwhelmed by a feeling of dread when she saw the needle pegged on empty. “Everybody keep a look out for a gas station or a store that might have some garden supplies.”
Raven looked at her quizzically but didn’t ask.
“I remember that there was a Bi-Mart around here somewhere,” Carl said.
They neared the 90 and the traffic increased. Sure enough at the four-way intersection stood the Bi-Mart as well as a Target and a truck stop that doubled as a gas station/mini-mart combination. A man with some kind of an assault rifle was protecting the pumps. A pile of unmoving corpses were stacked up on the grass in the shadow of a large white propane tank.
On the other side of the street stood an unguarded Target store. People were streaming in and out with stolen goods, filling up all manner of vehicles. It was the most orderly looting they had ever seen.
Brook pulled the truck in behind the Bi-Mart. They were lucky that looters usually preferred to take the path of least resistance. Like almost any Bi-Mart in the United States this one had short hours. When they closed they buttoned their stores up, save for the potted plants, bark dust and bagged fertilizer left outside overnight. The entrances were protected with roll down metal security doors that even obscured the few windows on the storefront.
“I have an idea.”
“Do
tell,” Carl said as he looked across Raven, in the middle of the bench seat, directly at Brook.
“Do you think you can figure out how to operate the bucket on this beast?”
“I’m sure it’s pretty basic,” Carl answered.
“Then we’re going to break in from the roof, quickly take what we need and be on our way,” Brook said, making her plan sound way too easy.
“What can I do?”
“Raven, you have the most important task. While your Mom and I are in the store you will be our eyes and ears. Walk the perimeter of the roof and be on the lookout for walking corpses or real live people. If there are any changes in their number or if they start acting funny, call down to us. Remember to keep a low profile while you are up there.”
She looked worried. Carl knew the stresses of running and surviving were weighing heavily on all of them. He figured that by simply giving her a task it might keep her mind occupied, leaving less time to dwell on the day’s events.
There were no undead in sight as Brook backed the cherry picker close to the exterior wall of the building.
Carl exited the vehicle, shotgun in hand. Back in the bucket again, he looked the controls over. One lever controlled up and down movement. Another was labeled telescope, extend and retract. The third was a lever to control the boom’s rotation.
He yelled, “Get up here both of you!”
Brook locked the truck and pocketed the keys.
They were all crowded in the bucket. Carl manipulated the levers, bouncing them around like they were in a carnival ride. He suspected it was easier to fly a helicopter than get this arm to do what he wanted. After three attempts and a scrape or two on the wall the bucket was close enough for them to climb onto the roof. Once on top Raven started to patrol the four sides of the roof while Brook and Carl tried their hand at breaking and entering. Carl surveyed the expansive roof. A bulky air conditioning unit jutted up in the middle of two rows of skylights. The heavily frosted glass panes were embedded with chicken wire for protection against intruders much like them.