The Undead Chronicles (Book 1): Home and Back Again

by O'Brian, Patrick J.

  Metzger immediately jumped out of the truck to see what impeded their progress this time, figuring a cluster of vehicles required driving, or some gentle nudging, off the road. While he found a typical number of regular vehicles parked in varying positions and distances just ahead, a different sight troubled him far more.

  “What the hell?” he asked, spying four tractor trailers with their loads sprawled in a straight line across the highway, which was four lanes in this area due to its proximity with Interstate 95 just ahead.

  “This is a trap,” Gracine said, stepping from the passenger side of the box truck, leading Samantha by the hand behind it for cover.

  While the large trucks weren’t parked bumper to bumper, there didn’t appear to be any way getting around them without moving them. The center median was already smashed and buckled, allowing the two middle trucks to rest at slightly sloped angles in the grass. Somehow Metzger doubted the keys were waiting in their ignitions for ease of use, so he began looking around for danger.

  Strangely, he didn’t spy any undead wandering in their immediate vicinity.

  “I might be able to move them,” Gracine suggested, drawing stares from all of the men who had gotten out of the vehicles for a look. “I drove rigs across the country for a living.”

  “You’re full of surprises,” Luke commented.

  “And we’re sitting ducks,” Metzger said, taking notice that Sutton and Buster weren’t with them. “Where did Colby go?” he asked Gracine.

  “I don’t know. He got out of the truck just before we did.”

  “Can you see if one of those will start?” Metzger asked her, nodding at the trucks.

  “Sure. Can you cover me?”

  “We can try. Everyone grab a weapon.”

  Metzger didn’t particularly love his choices when it came to long range shooting. He ended up grabbing the AK-47, hoping the iron sights worked accurately if they were attacked. Gracine left Samantha with Luke, carefully ducking between cars as she made her way to the big rigs blocking their path. Metzger couldn’t imagine an entire group setting a trap and monitoring the trucks for hours on end each and every day. A scout, perhaps, but not a gang set on robbing travelers blind, staking their lives on surviving an attack and collecting booty afterwards.

  Holding the rifle, Metzger continued to scan the area with his eyes, seeing no movement. He wondered if Sutton had sneaked ahead to attempt moving one of the big trucks, or to find a better vantage point. The man certainly wasn’t going to abandon the group, and more importantly, his box truck full of supplies. Looking behind him, he found Luke holding a sidearm with Vazquez clutching the MP5 Metzger had used occasionally in the past. Color had returned to the pilot’s cheeks, but he didn’t look particularly fond of their current situation.

  Jillian held an old hunting rifle found at the farmhouse with a limited number of rounds. Five or six, Metzger thought, hoping they didn’t get into a shootout. Their limited resources, combined with the fact that their position made them easy targets, almost certainly ensured they wouldn’t win.

  Perhaps I’m just overreacting, Metzger thought, spying Gracine open the door to the rear truck. She disappeared momentarily, likely searching for keys, and as she emerged from the rig she shook her head negatively. That’s when the entire group heard a bodiless voice.

  “You should all throw down your weapons if you want to live,” a man’s voice with a bit of a twang stated.

  Everyone in the group exchanged wide eyes, wondering what manner of trap they had just sprung.

  Nineteen

  Metzger stiffened, trying to decipher the direction from which the voice originated. He thought it was near the big rigs, but all of the vehicles and no other outdoor noises created a reverberation of sorts. He motioned for everyone to duck and take cover amongst the vehicles around them, wondering what kind of threat they faced.

  “We have the high ground, so we can see you,” the voice continued. “These trucks were put here for our benefit, not for yours.”

  “Great,” Metzger muttered. “A smartass.”

  A wooded area occupied the right side of the highway if one were facing the way the group had been traveling. To the left was an open field, which wouldn’t provide a groundhog much cover, so he knew any potential attackers were either hiding behind the rigs or amongst the trees. He didn’t really consider that high ground, but he supposed it beat ducking for cover within a sea of cars and trucks.

  “There’s nowhere to go,” the charismatic voice continued. “We’d pick you off if you run into the fields, and the same is true if you tried backing your vehicles away.”

  Metzger now felt certain the voice originated from behind one of the rigs on their side of the highway. He wondered where the hell Sutton had gone, hoping the man didn’t do something crazy to get them all shot.

  “We aren’t the dickhead murderer types,” the voice continued. “We just want your shit, especially that nice-looking box truck. Come toward the rigs, drop your weapons, and you get to live. There are vehicles on the other side for the taking, provided you can get them started.”

  Gracine made it within a few car lengths of the group, knocking on one car’s exterior to draw Metzger’s attention.

  “What are we doing?” she mouthed just above a whisper.

  Before Metzger could answer a shot rang out, striking the car adjacent to Gracine, sending her sprawling closer to the ground for cover.

  “My friends aren’t as patient as I am,” the voice stated. “See, they were hunters, but it’s a lot easier getting goods this way, rather than lying in wait for animals in the woods. I guess you could say we’re lying in wait for people who think they have somewhere to be.”

  “I want to beat this guy’s smug ass,” Vazquez commented, keeping his voice down. “We aren’t seriously going to surrender, are we?”

  “No,” Metzger said firmly, though he’d been weighing every option frantically in his mind.

  He didn’t want them to become worker bees or murdered corpses lying in a ditch. Better to go out fighting than bend to someone else’s will, Metzger figured.

  Before the group could discuss strategy, or carefully search for better cover, another shot crackled through the air, but this time a groan, followed by a thud, was heard by Metzger and those around him.

  It came from the wooded area. Panicked, hushed voices also now reached his ears from the same area, leading him to think someone had intervened on their behalf, or Sutton somehow gained an advantage.

  Another shot rang out, then another a few seconds later, leaving everyone sandwiched between the cars looking to one another for answers. None of the bullets came their way, and after the third shot was fired, they heard a pained cry from the trees. Tense seconds turned into worrisome minutes as everyone wondered exactly what occurred. Metzger finally decided to scurry, using the cars for cover as he moved toward the rigs. No self-assured voice filled the air now, but as he drew closer he heard the same voice echoing some concern.

  “Tony, talk to me,” he heard the man say, possibly over a portable radio, giving away his location without meaning to. “Eric, Mike, say something.”

  Metzger now knew the man stood behind the truck furthest to the right, obviously trying desperately to reach his partners in crime. Getting down on all fours, he stared under the truck’s trailer, seeing the man on his knees clutching some kind of radio. He didn’t appear very threatening, wearing a baseball cap and tattered blue jeans with work boots. A few days of stubble remained on his face, and he wasn’t especially tall or stout. Perhaps his voice was the only thing he had going for him.

  Standing up, Metzger cautiously made his way around the back of the trailer, stepping around as he surprised the man, who was about thirty feet away. The man scrambled to snatch a gun on the ground, but Metzger found Sutton was already sneaking up from behind in the other direction. Sutton held a sniper rifle in his left hand, but the revolver in his right made a distinct click when he pulled back the
hammer. He immediately placed it close to the man’s ear, snuffing the mystery man’s thoughts of grabbing the gun on the ground.

  “We can renegotiate,” the man said evenly as he raised his hands.

  “You’re lucky I don’t blow your fucking head off,” Sutton growled.

  “We have stuff,” the man said quickly, sounding more nervous now. “Take whatever you want.”

  “Two of your buddies are going to require medical attention,” Sutton said. “The third didn’t get off so lucky because I couldn’t see his fat ass too well in the tree where he hid. You’re going to give us the keys to at least one of these trucks, we’re going to get on our merry way, and if you’re lucky, we won’t tie you up and leave you and your prick friends for the walking corpses.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  While Sutton secured the newly-identified voice, Metzger returned to the group to inform them of the developments. Gracine went to Sutton to see about keys, and once they retrieved the keys from the last truck in line from one of the injured men, she walked over to the semi to get it started.

  Most of the group was curious, so while Luke shielded Samantha from much of the aftermath, the others walked over to the woods. All of the gunfire had taken a toll on the girl, so Luke stayed behind while Metzger walked with Jillian and Vazquez to the edge of the woods. There he saw several crude tree stands where the would-be snipers attempted to pin down any stragglers who stopped for the roadblock. One of them was indeed dead with a round through the chest, close to the heart, and one appeared to be on his way out, gasping for breath and bleeding profusely from a similar wound just slightly closer to the shoulder area. The third sniper was injured with a shoulder wound that caused him to wince whenever he moved. It bled minimally, practically guaranteeing his survival if he received no additional wounds.

  Sutton picked up several pairs of handcuffs from the ground, displaying them to the others by holding them along one end. Each pair had what appeared to be dried blood on them, indicating the four men who tried to ambush them weren’t benevolent captors as their voice had promised. Sutton took to handcuffing the speaker to the lesser injured man before handcuffing each of them to the dead and the dying man.

  “You can’t do this,” the thin man with the twangy voice said as Sutton secured the last of the restraints.

  “Because you were going to show us so much mercy?” Sutton countered. “There’s plenty out there. You fucks were just being selfish and lazy. I’m giving you better than you deserve.”

  Metzger wasn’t about to argue with anything Sutton deemed worthy for punishment, short of simply executing the two probable survivors. Leaving them to die with a minimal fighting chance didn’t feel unreasonable, but he didn’t like having murder on his conscience.

  “I’m going to put these keys in one of those cars over yonder,” Sutton said, holding up the handcuff keys, nodding toward the sea of vehicles parked beside the box truck. “By the time you find them we’ll be long gone, and maybe the cannibalistic stiffs won’t be here yet.”

  Knowing better than to push his luck, the man simply bit his lip and bided his time, waiting for the group to leave the area. Metzger gave one last look, seeing defeat in the lesser injured man’s eyes, and perhaps some remorse for his wrongful deeds, as though he’d been talked into acting as a sniper. The more severely injured man didn’t appear to be breathing at this point, making him dead weight for the two survivors. He questioned whether either or both might change their tactics or life choices if they managed to free themselves before being devoured by the undead.

  Slowly, he turned and left, catching up to Sutton a moment later as the rest of the group followed their lead.

  “How did you find those three guys in the woods?” Metzger inquired as they returned to their vehicles.

  “With this,” Sutton said, holding up the sniper rifle. “I managed to secure it from our military friends during our encounter. It has a thermal imaging scope on it, so their body heat lit them up like Christmas trees.”

  “Where’s your dog?” Metzger asked.

  “Left him in the truck. Gunfire makes him skittish sometimes, and I didn’t want him running off in this mess.”

  Gracine required only a few minutes to move the semi, using it to ram a few cars out of the way and clear a more suitable path for them before finally parking it out of the way. Everyone kept vigilant watch for the undead or more potential attackers. The group finally climbed into their vehicles, prepared to head south to Sutton’s camp, and eventually Norfolk. At this point Metzger spied several undead shuffling into the area, filtering around the numerous stranded vehicles. Sutton indeed kept his promise, hiding the handcuff keys inside a random car, not within eyesight of the bound men. As Metzger pulled away with Jillian beside him, he spied the two handcuffed survivors struggling to make their way onto the road.

  He considered their chances of escaping the predicament better than fifty percent if they possessed any sort of survival instincts. Both of the living men were dragging their dead counterparts up to the road, struggling greatly with the added weight. Wondering why more people couldn’t simply be cooperative in the apocalypse, Metzger appreciated the folks currently surrounding him.

  Back to the grind of weaving in and out of stranded vehicles, the group didn’t encounter any danger during the first several miles of driving. Metzger suspected they might have to spend the night somewhere, because driving was slow going, much like a traffic backup when the world was normal. He would’ve taken accidents and construction slowing traffic just to know people around him were alive, and not likely to attack him or see him as a source of nourishment.

  Metzger felt certain they had only traveled about five miles within an hour’s time when Sutton stepped on the brakes ahead of him and came to a complete stop once again.

  “Not again,” Jillian groaned.

  “Let’s hope not,” Metzger said, stepping out of the truck immediately, finding Sutton already out of the box truck, staring skyward.

  Before he laid eyes on it, Metzger heard a hum from the sky, remembering the sound of propeller aircraft during his childhood. No matter what he was doing outside, the sound of a plane or jet overhead always made him stop and look upward. What appeared to be a speck in the blue sky soon grew larger, and louder, until its details became clearer and Metzger could tell it was a sizable military aircraft. Strangely, when it drew close enough to examine, even a few thousand feet in the air, he could tell it was a transport rather than an attack aircraft.

  Painted a drab gray, the aircraft certainly appeared large enough to haul troops, weapons, vehicles, or whatever the military wanted. Metzger assumed the aircraft remained under military control since he knew at least some portion of the armed forces remained active. He questioned why they would take a plane inland when the situation certainly had to be the same anywhere they went.

  “What the hell?” he wondered aloud, questioning what or whom the military might be transporting.

  And where.

  “What the hell indeed?” Sutton echoed his words as the entire group exited their vehicles in stunned silence. “That was definitely military.”

  “What kind of operation would require transportation like that?” Jillian questioned.

  “The kind that takes them halfway across the country or better,” Sutton answered. “They’re probably looking to bomb a bunch of the heavier populations to cover up their mistakes.”

  Metzger shot him an incredulous stare.

  “Is everything about the military completely evil to you?”

  “No. Just most of it.”

  “My brother is out there fighting for this country, and you would have him pegged as some mercenary about to murder men, women, and children without a conscience,” Metzger said, growing angry at Sutton’s intense distrust of the armed forces.

  “Maybe that call was severed because they didn’t want him talking to you,” Sutton suggested. “For all you know they could’ve put a bullet in hi
s head to silence him and set an example to the others.”

  “You’re fucking insane,” Metzger said as calmly as his nerves allowed, noticing that the rest of the group felt Sutton’s words came off a bit too harsh based on their expressions.

  “It’s a little late for bombs and damage control,” Gracine said, trying to break the growing tension. “I’m sure they have a good reason for taking their big ass plane in a westerly direction at this particular moment.”

  “My brother is going to call back and he will give me an update,” Metzger said, pointing directly at Sutton.

  “And maybe by then I’ll be safe and sound at my camp where the military goon squad can’t come round me up for their concentration camps.”

  By now the transport plane appeared the size of a fly in the distance, paying the small group no mind as it continued westward. Metzger personally harbored mixed feelings about a continued military presence. For one, he knew soldiers would protect the country’s infrastructure, even if that meant rescuing and housing corrupt politicians. He also knew that his brother, like most soldiers, would continue to follow orders, which might contradict saving his wife and son, or meeting up with his brother.

  Metzger prayed he would find Bryce alive and well, willing to settle for a fleeting moment, if and when they finally reached the naval base.

  “If the military is still around, there is hope,” Luke said, holding Samantha close to him.

  “There is no hope so far as they’re concerned,” Sutton rebutted. “You can all call me hateful or whatever, but they aren’t going to be rescuing people like us.”

  Shaking his head, Metzger turned away from Sutton, ready to continue their drive southeast, because he now knew navigating the roads along Virginia wasn’t any easier than those between Cincinnati and Buffalo. Much to his surprise, he saw a member of the undead community silently approaching Luke and Samantha. Only a few feet behind Luke, it finally made a throaty groan, alerting everyone to its presence as Metzger drew his .357, aimed, and shot it squarely between the eyes as Luke instinctively ducked with Samantha.