by Mark Clodi
The tractor had been heading parallel to the tracks on the left hand side, Bill had not been able to steer it towards the less damaged right side, when it hit the sink hole Glen screamed and jumped from the tractor as it fell, he managed to catch a hold of the twisted rail that was left hanging over the opening. Joe's knife finally got purchase on a wooden rail tie right before he was pulled through the hole, the pack strap, weakened by his earlier slash, ripped free. Joe, legs and feet hanging over the opening, lay on his belly panting in exhaustion. The tractor was heavy and the momentum it had caused it to hit the opposite side of the crater before it fell and disappeared through the bottom of the bridge. As it struck the concrete going down the entire bridge vibrated so badly that everyone on it stopped in their tracks. Worse yet the tractor bounced right, careening into and through the shattered cement that made up the remaining base of the bridge, dust and gravel flew everywhere momentarily obscuring Bill's view of Ruben, then the bridge shuddered again and creaked ominously.
Dragging Barry along with him Bill approached the hole, where Glen was still holding onto the swaying rail with his feet dangling sixty feed above the river below. With Barry on his one arm Bill reached down with his other hand to pull Joe up and onto firmer ground. In the river under the hole Bill could see the tractor sitting in water that looked to be about two feet deep. The backpack that Joe had slashed was sitting on his side of the hole, caught up on some reinforcing pipe the stuck out at an angle from the concrete. The section of the bridge they were on was still shifting dangerously. Bill eyed the remaining bit of bridge that was still present, then looked back at the zombies that were behind them.
“We gotta get across here.”
“I'm done.” Joe said flatly, and he looked very bad, the lack of rest had taken a toll on him and Bill didn't know how the man was still standing.
“No. You are not. You go first. You weigh less than Barry and I, so you have a better chance of making it. Watch for the loose gravel.”
“Sarge. I can't make it, I can't hardly stand.”
“Then crawl, but you go.” Calling out to Ruben Bill yelled, “Get up here and help him!”
“I'm getting there. You two fire at the close ones.” Ruben said to the soldiers he had brought with him. Both started firing methodically at the zombies moving towards Bill and the other two.
“What about me! Help me!” cried Glen, “I can't hold on much longer!”
“Glen, we can't do anything for you, you have to climb over yourself, just use your hands and slide over slowly.” Bill said.
Glen put one hand forward and grabbed at the rail, his hand missed and he swung violently down and off balance, his other fingers slipped from the rail and he fell, screaming into the river below. It happened so fast Bill didn't even have time to react, the soldier hit with a shallow splash and his screaming redoubled. Peeking into the hole Bill saw the Glen in water about two feet deep thrashing around. The man had just missed the tractor and wagon, but that didn't make his fall any less devastating. Glen could not seem to keep himself above the water and his voice came out as a constant incoherent scream when his head rose above the surface.
“Here!” shouted Ruben, focusing Bill back to the task on hand, “Worry about private dumbfuck later, we need to get you across.”
Perhaps seeing Glen fall motivated Joe or perhaps he just found the very last bit of energy inside of him, either way he crawled forward onto the gravel strewn concrete to make his way across to Ruben. A few pieces of concrete flaked off and a lot more gravel tilted and fell through the hole, peppering Glen below. The man's screaming could not get any louder, but it changed pitch as each chunk of gravel hit him. Bill slid Barry down the gravel incline towards the cement base, standing on his good leg Barry braced himself against the crumbling side of the bridge and then tilted over towards Ruben's out stretched hand. He started to fall and Ruben hopped halfway down the slope to catch the wounded man's arm, he pulled the man up the slope and with a few muffled moans of his own Barry was safe.
Bill looked at the hole in the bridge, at the remaining slender ledge with twisted support wire sticking out of it and then back at the zombies behind him. There was no need to rush things, he had a minute to catch is breath. Down below in the river Glen's screaming had attracted unwanted attention, three zombies were stumbling through the water to his position.
“Shit.” Bill said, looking down.
“Shit.” echoed Ruben when he saw what Bill was looking at. “I wouldn't want to be eaten to death.”
“No rope?” Bill asked hopefully.
Ruben just looked at him and frowned, then shook his head. The bridge shuddered again.
“With all due respect Sergeant. I think you better get over here.”
“Did Javier and Matt make it back?”
“Yeah. About five minutes before you did.”
“What happened to their tractor?”
“What tractor? They came back on foot.”
“Oh. Ready?”
“Yeah, think light thoughts.”
Taking Ruben's advice Bill smiled and started across the ledge saying, “I am a cloud, a balloon, a…” and the concrete he was standing on fell out from underneath him.
Chapter 18
Stewart, Amelia, Tom and Max were gathered around the table in the dining room, bowls from breakfast and other used dishes were scattered around them, Jessica and Erin were gathering them up to bring into the kitchen where Kenny was washing while Cory dried. The four adults were looking at an atlas that Tom had gotten from a closet in the house. It was several years old, but the main roads were still present.
“I say we stick with highway thirty.” Stewart said.
Tom shook his head, “It is too close to the main highway until we get to Grand Island, you've seen how the roads are. If your 'Red' is right things are just going to get worse from here on out.”
Earlier Red had advised the group to head north before turning east again. He said he could sense more zombies along what he thought was the main highway, plus a large group of them by the capital, Lincoln. Stewart was advocating that they go up highway thirty, which veered north of the capital, it would save them the trouble of traveling two hours north on highway eighty three out of North Platte. Max didn't like Stewart's idea, but was having trouble disagreeing with the woman. Finally, when all three of them were looking at him he said, “I think we need to put as much distance between us and the main highway as possible. I would rather go up highway eighty three to highway twenty and take it across. From what Red said it should be relatively free of wrecks and zombies.”
Stewart sighed and leaned back, “What the fuck, there goes all reason. If you believe Red about this, then you know we have to get to Iowa as soon as possible and tell the army to drop another nuke on Chicago, probably on Willis Tower. He gave us less than two weeks to get there, at the rate we are going, this detour will add another three to four days to the trip.”
“It won't, the roads should be clear, we should be able to make it in a day, if we don't have to stop after forty miles.”
“It is four hundred miles to Sioux City going this way! We'd be lucky to make it in a week let alone a day!”
“Then we would get there with five days to spare!” Max said. Stewart and him were staring at each other, then she smiled and laughed, easing the tension in the room.
“Okay, fine. We do it your way. But I reserve the right say 'I told you so' when when everything goes wrong.”
“When can we leave?” Max asked everyone.
“The kids have a few things to pack up and we should make lunch for when we need it later. We could be out of here in half an hour.” said Amelia.
“Okay, then let's go. Tom, is there anything you want to bring?” asked Max
“No, my mom and dad took the guns. Do we have time to board up the back window?” They had just taped up plastic sheeting with duct tape the night before.
“I suppose, if you think we have to.”
<
br /> “Well we might be back someday.”
“Fine, I will go with you while Stewart and Amelia herd the kids.”
“I love you too.” Stewart said with some sarcasm.
Max let Stewart's comment go without reply and followed Tom out to the barn to find some boards to cover the broken window in the back door.
“You think this is stupid, huh?” asked Tom.
“Pretty much, yeah. I kind of have this feeling we won't be back through here.”
Tom shrugged and powered up his father's table saw, he cut down a long piece of lumber into three even lengths then shut off the saw. “Well Max I think we will come back, at least someone will. And who knows maybe someone will need the place for shelter? With the back door fixed up it will at least be one less way for the zombies to get in.”
“Sure Tom.”
Pulling a cordless drill off of the tool bench Tom handed it and a box of wood screws to Max, then picked up the wood. Together they got the window covered in just a few minutes, the boards were not wide enough to fill in the entire window so Tom just put them on over top of the plastic.
“Not the best job, but it should hold up.” Tom said when they were done. He turned and inspected the kitchen, looking at the gunshot scarred floor and cupboard doors. “I hope we don't make it back here in a way, if my mom saw what we did to her kitchen she would be pissed.”
Max laughed and went to help the women get the kids through the bathroom while Tom put the tools back into the barn. Less than five minutes later the two vehicles were reloaded and ready to go. Tom finished topping off the gas tanks of both cars and then set the empty gas can by the side of the door to the barn. They had gotten rid of some of the items they were carrying, now that they had a plan to reach Iowa in a day or less they offloaded most of the camping gear and the extra room to move around in the van made the kids more comfortable.
Kenny and Seth piled into the back of the police cruiser with Riley while Erin, Nick, Jessica and Cory got into the van. Max looked over at Stewart, who was set to drive her cruiser and raised his eyebrows.
“The kids chose where they wanted to go. Our only comment was that they couldn't fight about it. And Kenny has to take his shoes off right away so his feet don't start to stink.” Stewart shrugged, “And they all took showers, so the 'kid funk' smell shouldn't be too bad today.”
“Okay, got it, everyone ready to go?”
The other three adults nodded and hopped into the two vehicles. Stewart took the lead and they headed west back to highway eighty three where they turned north. Max scanned the area ahead and beside them for undead, he found Red fairly easily, just north of town, but not within eyesight. Max waved his hand and was not surprised to see Red's arm wave back. So he is keeping an eye on us, Max thought. Beyond Red coming inexorably towards the east were uncountable numbers of zombies. Casting his thoughts eastwards Max could not sense any large group of undead. He knew he didn't have the range that Red did and hoped he was doing the right thing by following the man's advice.
The morning passed by swiftly, the highway passed well outside of the few small towns that dotted the prairie and they were able to maintain speeds close to the limit almost the entire journey to highway twenty. It was at highway twenty that they saw the first zombie of the day. The man was standing to the west of the intersection, about a quarter mile away, he was wearing overalls and had a red bandana wrapped around his head. It was too far away to make out anything else, but Max knew it for what it was without needed to get any closer.
“Amelia, let Stewart know that is a zombie and to keep going.” Amelia got on the short range radio and told Stewart what Max had said. Behind the zombie there were three dark plumes of smoke rising into the sky.
“It is Valentine that way, isn't it?” He asked her.
“Lemme check real quick.” Amelia pulled out their old road map to check for the town's name, “Yeah.”
“So they made it this far. I hope the rest of the trip is as easy as this, we came farther today than we did in the last two days.”
“Yeah, but we want to go east, we are only going to start getting closer to our goal now.”
They followed Stewart as she made the turn and headed east. For the next hundred miles they were still able to maintain a good speed, but there were wrecks on the road and they did see several zombies, however none were close enough to cause the group any problems. Up ahead was the city of O'Neill, they had been seeing signs for it the past hour and Amelia had been talking with Stewart about trying to stop there to eat lunch and stretch out a bit, either in the town if it appeared deserted or just to the east of it along the road if there were zombie around.
As they pulled up to the town they saw a road block ahead of them, flashing lights from a police car were the first thing they noticed, then they saw the military trucks. Stewart slowed to a crawl and got on the radio to Max.
“You got any feelings about this?”
Max was a little surprised, upon seeing the flashing lights he had felt a sense of relief, that finally they had outdistanced the zombies and made it back to safety. He hadn't thought to check the people ahead to be sure they were who they appeared to be. “All alive, so far as I can tell.”
“Okay, then lets head in.” Stewart did not pick up the pace, but glided in slowly towards the men who were pointing guns at them. About a hundred yards in front of the barricade were two vehicles that were bullet ridden with no windows, as they passed them by Max saw obvious signs of blood and gore that had barely been cleaned up, but no bodies to go with it.
A bullhorn called out when the got within thirty feet.
“Alright that is close enough. All of you get out of the vehicles where we can see you, come out with your hands up and no weapons or we will use lethal force.”
Stewart stopped, but left the cruiser running, her and Tom slowly got out of the car and then let Kenny and Seth out, they kept Riley in the vehicle, but the dog was barking furiously.
Lets hope the damned dog isn't right this time. Thought Max as he got out of the car. “C'mon kids get out real slow, no Nick, leave your stuff inside. Cory put down the game, raise your hands up, they want to be sure we are not zombies.”
“Okay slowly step away from the vehicles, raise your shirts up so we can see your waist band and turn around all the way around once.”
They all did this, “Now move together on the driver's side of the vehicles, you two in the front step back to the others. Good, okay I am coming out there for a visual inspection, but my men are going to cover me, so don't try anything.”
A dark haired African American with the bullhorn came around one side of the barricade, along with two other men, both had rifles aimed at the group. The man sat his bullhorn down on the hood of the police cruiser and stepped forward, “Is one of you a cop?”
“I am.” said Stewart.
“Where from?”
Stewart gestured at the car, which caused the men with rifles to tense up. “From Denver, that is my squad car.”
“Who are the rest of you?”
Slowly Stewart pointed at each of her companions in turn and said their names.
“How bad is it to the west of here?”
“Denver is not good, not many people left there and they dropped a nuclear bomb on the airport or somewhere close to it. We came through North Platte this morning, no one was there, just zombies. Highway eighty was full of wrecks so we checked a map and headed north to twenty and drove here this morning.”
“Where are you headed?”
“East, towards Iowa, we have some friends there.”
“Okay, okay good. Now I have to check each of you out before I can let you through. We don't have a lot of privacy here, so we will bring you to the local high school where we have set up a staging station to handle refugee processing. My name is Theodore Valence, Sergeant Theodore Valence. The army posted me here to watch traffic through town and they made the rules about who could pass through or not, so ke
ep that in mind during the inspection.”
“We are not zombies.”
“I know that, but we have to check for bites and cuts.”
“We've all been through a lot these past few days Sergeant, I think everyone of us is cut up or hurt somehow.”
“Then we will take your temperatures and check you out in other ways, the infections don't take long to manifest themselves, you might have to stay the night, but we won't hold you up longer than that.”
“How are things further east?” Tom asked.
“There is a lot of fighting, but not as bad as you make Denver sound. Iowa seems to be stable. Most of the national guard troops from all the states around it have consolidated into one command and we are organizing to fight off the zombies as they come at us. We are holding them.”
Max let out a breath he hadn't know he was holding.
“Don't look so relieved, part of our organizing is recruiting new troops where ever we find them. From fourteen on up. Only men right now. I will have to talk to my commander and see what he wants to do with you. But only if you check out okay. Let's go.”
The group was brought to the local high school which was being used as a holding center. They were forced to shower in the school facilities and given clean bathrobes to wear while they waited their turn for inspection by local physicians who had been pressed into service and told what to look for by the army. The gym was divided by canvas walls just over six feet high that spanned the entire width of the room, obscuring the far exits. The examiners would yell 'Next' and the soldiers around them gestured to those still waiting to move forward one at a time. Even Riley was to be examined, Seth had her on a leash and the dog was strangely subdued. Through the canvas barrier they could hear other men and women laughing and talking in low voices on the far side of the gym.