Gus wasn’t hanging out waiting for LeBron to mourn the fallen. He started accelerating forward too quickly for LeBron and the other man to climb up. Instead, they both grabbed some bars on the cage and held on for dear life. LeBron saw the look Gus had on his face and knew they were in for a wild ride. He looped his arms and legs through the rungs on the cage and held on as bullets pinged all around them.
Gus hit the gas and they bounced through the incline coming dangerously close to tipping over. The man hanging on to the cage next to LeBron slipped off the bars and went face first into a big rock. Unable to jump down and check on him LeBron clung to the cage with all his strength. Gus slowed down to let the trailer follow them down and up the incline. Everyone was praying they didn’t tip over. Completely disregarding every law Newton had ever written the trailer made the turn. It was getting riddled with bullet holes, but it made the turn. Gus hit the gas once more and they started picking up some serious steam. The remaining members of the group retreated as fast as they could back towards the mountains.
Up in the trees on the side of the steep hill Harley packed away the big gun and started working his way back down to the road. He was hoping someone was still alive who could help him roll the Humvee back over. He wanted nothing more than to chase down that truck and finish off the bastards who’d murdered the love of his life.
Chapter 19: It’s a Horrible Day to Die
Gus slowed down long enough for LeBron to painstakingly maneuver himself hand over hand around the cage and up into the cab. Gus handed him a pint bottle of Southern Comfort that was about half full. LeBron shut his door and took a big sip out of the small bottle before they got underway again. LeBron wondered if Gus had been waiting the entire time to laugh when he took the shot. He wasn’t a big drinker, so he tended to clinch his whole face when the fiery liquid made its way down his throat.
“You ok?” Gus asked after they’d been driving for a little bit. They were following the tire tracks they’d made earlier. They’d lost a lot of good people and one of their trucks. They’d gambled and lost big time.
“I’m good, I think. My fingers are all frozen.” LeBron cringed when he heard himself say that. Like his fingers getting a little chilled was anything compared to Mikey dying or the injuries the people in the back were covered in. There was a guy back there with a bone sticking out of his leg. You could see his bone. That guy had a balding pharmacist and Yue trying to patch him up. LeBron was whining because he’d forgotten to wear his mittens when he went outside to play. He’d only brought it up because his fingers were tingling like crazy as they were thawed out by the hot air blowing out of the vents.
It was more small talk for a bit then Gus finally asked the real question. What were they supposed to do now? The whole idea of a rebellion was officially dead. The soldiers who’d taken Jeff had shown just how powerless they really were against the might of the military. Did it really matter if the President was a greedy self-serving prick? Could they really expect a lot more from a career politician? Jeff’s fears to the contrary they hadn’t seen any evidence of the President using the military to actively attack survivors. At least not until those survivors had driven away with an iPad full of valuable intel that they wanted back.
“Yeah. I think it’s time we get back to reality. We need to find a place to hide and lick our wounds. Maybe we can find a ski town up here somewhere with a restaurant full of canned food. Survive the winter off those gigantic restaurant sized cans of green beans and crap.” Gus said.
“You think Harley was with those guys?” LeBron asked. He’d taken another big sip of the Southern Comfort.
The whiskey was making him reflective. It was also making him feel a little nauseous. It didn’t help that the inside of the cab smelled like a hobo’s butt crack. Jim was still camped out in the back. They’d made him put his shoes back on, but the damage had been done. Between his foot stench and the lingering smell from Yue hacking up her stomach stew it was pretty bad. They needed to stop somewhere and stock up on Febreze.
“If that guy you wasted really was one of the SEALs from the dam then Harley could be with them. I don’t know that a SEAL team would take an amateur out with them on a mission. Then again, those guys were noobs when it came to running ops outside the dam in a crawler world. They may have taken him along in a consulting type capacity.” Gus said.
“He’d have jumped at the chance to come along considering how much he must hate us.” LeBron said. Gus had been avoiding bringing that up. Shooting that woman was one of the low points of his life. It kept him awake some nights thinking about it. He couldn’t drink away that image of the two kids covered in their mother’s blood. They were both silent. LeBron once more pissed at himself for saying something stupid. Gus had obviously been avoiding the topic for a reason. A reason that now had Gus glancing over longingly at the capped-up bottle of amber elixir sloshing around in LeBron’s hand.
“Who’s Harley?” Jim timidly asked from the sleeper section. He’d been keeping so quiet in the back that LeBron and Gus had gotten used to ignoring him. He’d been laying back there recovering from the beating Gus had given him a few days prior.
“Why are you still up here anyway? Next time we stop how about you take your dumb ass back to the trailer. See how long they let you stay back there when you take your shoes off.” Gus replied angrily.
They drove until it was starting to get dark again. Gus saw the spot they’d left from that morning and pulled them back into the same place. They’d expended all those resources only to end up in the exact same spot. They’d wasted diesel, ammunition, food and most importantly lives to get them nowhere. Gus dragged Jim out of the sleeper section to take him back to the trailer. Yue and Tom had the door open and were waiting for them.
Yue held down a hand to help LeBron climb in. Gus climbed up by himself while Jim looked like he expected someone to stick a hand down to help him up. When no one was so inclined he painfully climbed in himself. He was horrified of the tall Marine who’d beat the crap out of him. He’d absolutely learned his lesson about pointing a gun at someone if you weren’t ready to pull the trigger. If he needed a reminder, he could just run his tongue along the jagged edge of his teeth. Gus had slammed Jim in the mouth multiple times with the handle of a pistol before leaving him in the back to spit out blood, a small chunk of tongue and pieces of his teeth.
Yue took LeBron to a little section she’d staked out in between stacks of boxes. With everyone left consolidated into the single trailer it was getting uncomfortably crowded. The wounded were laid out on the ground sucking up a ton of the limited floor space. Not that anyone begrudged them the room. Tom went around with pain pills and antibiotics offering whatever comfort he could, but the moans of pain were still heart wrenching. There was blood and trash everywhere.
To make everything even more discombobulated the bullets that’d raked the side of the trailer had penetrated in multiple places. Despite the long range and thick walls of the trailer the high caliber bullets had torn through boxes and flesh alike. A woman was sitting in one corner cradling a toddler with a bandage wrapped stump for a hand. LeBron wondered idly if Tom had any Flintstones morphine gummies to pass out. He decided not to share his thoughts. The only one who’d appreciate the humor was Drew and he was out cold. Judging by the slack look on his face Drew had taken his share of the pain pills and then snaked a few more.
“Yeah, he’s not waking up any time soon.” Yue said running her fingers through Drew’s hair fondly. She’d dragged him over to her little section to watch over him.
“How bad are the walls?” LeBron asked.
“No clue. I’ve been pretty busy trying to keep the blood on the inside of people’s bodies. We have so much crap stuffed in here now there could be a whole wall missing and we might not notice.” Yue said waving her arms to indicate the tightly stacked boxes rising to the roof in multiple places. People were sleeping in caves they’d created underneath the cardboard containers of suppli
es. Dry noodles littered the floor where stray bullets had ripped through the piles of boxes.
“You think they’ll be able to get in?” LeBron was worried the bullets may have done enough damage to allow the crawlerz force their way in. If they got in it was game over. No way they were defending this place with everyone as wiped out as they were.
“Why don’t you grab Gus and Tom and go check?” Yue wasn’t planning on leaving Drew’s side until his eyes opened back up. She knew he’d do the same for her.
LeBron rose painfully to his feet. Being bounced around on that cage hadn’t been fun. There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t hurt. He’d ask Tom for a little something to help out, but he didn’t want to take the medicine more seriously injured people may need. He walked out of the little cubby and looked around for Gus.
Gus was standing in the very front of the trailer with Tom and a couple of other people. They were shifting boxes around checking out the walls. Evidently it wasn’t just Yue who was worried about the structural integrity of the trailer. LeBron was surprised more people weren’t concerned after bouncing around in it through a hail of machine gun fire. He suspected the level of concern would escalate once nighttime fell and the first crawlerz showed up. It didn’t seem to matter where they were. Once the sun went down the crawlerz came out to play.
“How are we looking?” LeBron asked walking up behind the small group. They were trying to inspect the wall while keeping a massive stack of metal ammo boxes from falling over.
“Not great.” Gus said pointing out the hunk of trailer wall missing from this section. LeBron squatted down to look at it. He was highly alarmed to find out he could clearly see a decent chunk of the snowy ground outside through the jagged hole. How were they supposed to keep the crawlerz from getting in if this was the state of the walls?
“Are they like this anywhere else?” LeBron asked.
Gus shrugged and pointed at the boxes and people stacked up along all the walls. It’d take a major effort to check out the entire trailer in the minutes left before the sun set. Bullets had raked the whole right side of the trailer as they’d been trying to escape. That eliminated one side they needed to check. Then there was the matter of there not being much they could do about the damage anyway.
“We’re so screwed.” Tom was on the verge of panic. Nobody likes sitting in a giant metal coffin waiting for the monsters to come along.
“How about we have everybody shift to the left side of the trailer and we shove all our supplies up on the right side.” LeBron thought that’d help make it take a little longer for the crawlerz to get in and kill them. On the other hand, they didn’t have to stop the crawlerz completely. They just needed to keep them out until the sun came back up.
“Let’s do it. We get everyone armed and ready to shoot whatever comes at us. Hopefully we don’t all die from the ricochets.” Gus was flashing back to shooting house flies in his garage when he was little. He’d been shooting the big bugs with a BB gun. One of the little round pellets had bounced off the wall and come back to hit him right in the eye. He remembered watching it coming at him like it was moving in slow motion. His parents had never made it a whole year without maxing out their health insurance deductible thanks to him.
If there was a better way to handle the situation none of them could think of it. They dispersed along the length of the trailer enlisting the aid of everyone able to hold a gun. The wounded were shifted over while the supplies were all stacked along the weakened wall. A few more places were found with splintered boards and bulging walls. The dried noodles were crunching under everyone’s feet as they got into position. By the time they had a thin line of armed protectors down the middle of the trailer it was beginning to get pretty dusky outside.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere. As long as just a few of those things show up we’ll be fine.” Gus said seeking to reassure Tom.
“If a pack of them show up we’re screwed though right?” Tom lashed back at Gus. The pharmacist was pacing back and forth as much as he could in the overcrowded trailer. A tactical shotgun dangled loosely out of one of his hands. The oversized magazine on it bumping up against his leg as he paced.
Gus started to respond but shut up at a look from Yue. She’d gotten Drew comfortable then grabbed her rifle to join the skirmish line. She smiled over at LeBron who was standing tall despite the pain and exhaustion she could see in his eyes. She held her finger up to her lips in a hushing gesture that quieted everyone down. By the light of the battery powered lanterns that they’d rigged up she settled into a firing stance and waited.
There were crawlerz outside. Yue flashed back to the scene from the Hobbit where they’re hiding beside the road and sense the dark riders shuffling around. They couldn’t hear anything more than the occasional moans of the wounded or sniffling of the constantly sick kids. Everyone was able to feel the crawlerz approaching though. It was like little tendrils of smoke drifted into your head and froze parts of your brain. The tentacles massaged it in a cold dark way that left you feeling disgusted. It was like little psychic maggots were being rubbed into your brain until they burrowed into it.
Yue wasn’t smiling anymore. She was one of the ones highly susceptible to that wave of fear that preceded the arrival of a crawler pack. LeBron had been the first to identify why they all got so scared at night. Once it’d been identified it’d gotten worse. Maybe because they focused more on it or maybe just because the crawlerz were getting more powerful as the days wore on.
That psychic terror seemed to be stronger the larger the group of crawlerz. Yue was struggling to understand how such a large pack could come to exist out in the middle of nowhere. They’d gotten here almost as soon as the sun set. It made no sense. Trying to get her mind off the coldness digging into it she set herself to working on that problem. By the time the first crawler whacked it’s frost bite covered hand against the side of the trailer she’d come up with why she thought they’d gathered in this remote spot.
Once she had it figured out, she wanted to slap herself for being so stupid. Why hadn’t they thought of this before? They’d parked in the same spot they’d stayed in the previous night. These crawlerz attacking them now weren’t super-fast. They were slow. They’d gotten here a day late.
Chapter 20: Against All Odds
“Rip the bastards apart!” Yue yelled savagely. Her voice could barely be heard over the smacking of flesh against the walls. No one inside the trailer was bothering with being quiet anymore. They screamed and sobbed along with the pounding on the walls. Mothers kissed their children then stood up with pistols in each hand to defend them. The looks on their faces proclaiming they’d die before anything got past them.
The pounding grew louder. Boxes started tipping over. It was too late now to switch it up, but they should’ve just gotten rid of the lighter boxes. They were going to provide cover for the crawlerz when they started slithering in. Wicked looking shadows danced across the walls. The defenders braced themselves to receive the enemy. Weapons gripped in shaking, sweaty hands they stood tall against the demonic forces about to break in.
“I love you sis!” LeBron yelled over at Yue.
“Love you bro!” Yue yelled back gazing fondly at her little brother for a second. She looked back at Drew lying on the ground behind them. True to form he was poised to sleep through yet another battle. She didn’t bother trying to wake him up. He was a natural warrior who’d be a huge asset normally. Between the injuries he’d sustained earlier and the pain pills he’d taken because of them, he wouldn’t be anywhere near his best. She kind of hoped he’d surprise them and jump into the fray once the bullets started flying though.
A row of boxes towards the front of the truck toppled over. An arm was sticking through one of the holes in the wall where the boxes had been. It looked stuck. A crawler had shoved its arm in and couldn’t get it out. Gus ran over to where the fingers were grasping at thin air and put a round in the arm as high up as he could get. Then he st
epped back and let the thing bleed. Yue understood what he was doing immediately. If the crawler bled out with his arm stuck in the hole, he was effectively sealing the hole up for them.
That wasn’t going to work everywhere. There was a lot of suspicious movement around the front of the trailer as shadows swirled and people screamed. A stack of boxes tipped over and two of the refugee crew lit up that section of the trailer. Their bullets completely missing the spot the crawler was ripping at. Yue yelled for them to stop firing. The bullets were buzzing evilly around the inside of the trailer like angry metallic hornets. The ones that hadn’t struck the sheet metal and ricocheted had caused even more damage to the walls. The ones that’d bounced around had come to rest in boxes, the soft wooden floor of the trailer, or in the flesh of those unlucky enough to win the random ricochet lottery.
More boxes started falling in other parts of the trailer. The defenders rushed to each section and shoved the boxes out of the way so they could see what was going on. The wild shooting had stopped. Gus was loudly threatening to shoot the next moron who popped off a random shot in the small space. Arms and shoulders were breaking through multiple sections of the wall. The crawlerz were ripping at the wood and metal holding the walls together. The defenders squatted down by the holes and started shooting through them. They were defending against the rush of crawlerz by creating a flesh rending wall of bullets. As long as the bullets didn’t run out, they’d survive. She didn’t know if they had enough bullets to patch all of the holes that were opening up.
Crawlerz: Book 3: The Mountains Are Calling Page 17