Daytona’s voice coming from the radio broke the silence. “Ready when you are, boss.”
“Same here,” answered Mad Dog from the Ryder.
Robson grabbed the radio and keyed the microphone button. “All right, let’s roll. And may the wind be at our backs.”
Dravko shifted into first gear and eased his foot off the clutch. The armored car lurched forward and slowly picked up speed. Robson glanced into the side mirror. Daytona followed one hundred feet behind them as per his earlier instructions, with Mad Dog bringing up the rear.
This is it, thought Robson, trying not to think about what they faced.
* * *
A few miles ahead, Route 87 doglegged to the south and skimmed the outskirts of Montoursville. The town lay off to their left, black and silent. The buildings appeared as dark shadows against the moonlit sky. No more than half a dozen rotters wandered along the road, attracted by the sound of the convoy. Each of them turned and lumbered towards the approaching vehicles, mindless creatures only aware that food roared towards them. One of the rotters stumbled out into the center of the lane and held up its hands as if to flag down the convoy. In the light from the armored car’s floodlights, Robson could see it had once been a young girl no more than ten years old. It wore blue jeans and a torn red sweater that dangled off its left shoulder, both soiled with dried blood and gore. The skin had been stripped off its right arm, shoulder, and chest, revealing the skeleton underneath the gristle. Dravko easily swerved around it and continued on down the road.
A few miles later, Route 87 again doglegged, this time to the west, and merged with Route 147. Up ahead, the skyline of Kenmar and Faxon cast a dark shadow against the horizon, creating an abyss that the convoy was about to enter. Robson wiped his sweaty palms against his pants leg.
“Get ready,” he said to Dravko. “We’re about to enter hell.”
They spotted the first rotter a few miles outside the city limits, a naked man with only its right arm and torso dressed in a tattered National Guard uniform. It walked aimlessly down the center of the road. Dravko veered around it. Three more rotters could be seen a hundred yards up ahead, and beyond that nearly a dozen more moved about in the shadows.
“Their numbers are increasing,” said Dravko, a barely detectable strain in his voice, “and we’re not even in the city yet.”
“Probably stragglers that set out looking for food.”
“That doesn’t bode well.”
Robson quickly realized how prophetic Dravko had been. The armored car soon entered the city limits, the dark hulks of gutted and abandoned buildings towering above them like canyon walls. The floodlights illuminated their exteriors, the beams reflecting off the shattered remains of storefront windows and detailing the dried blood and burn marks that marred the facades. Abandoned vehicles sat at awkward angles every few yards, having been pulled off to the side to make way for first responders and the military. Some were completely burned and gutted. Most of the others sat with their doors open, more often than not the insides smeared with human carnage. Every manner of debris littered the streets and sidewalks: newspapers, suitcases and travel bags, water bottles, empty food containers, weapons.
Amongst the dross of human society, dozens of living dead spread out across the road, with even more figures lurking in the shadows out of range of the floodlights. From every direction, lifeless eyes fell on the convoy, shimmering in the light’s glare. In their stare were none of the remnants of their former humanity. No life, no emotion, no thought. Just a recognition of food. Slowly and unsteadily, they lumbered into the street toward the vehicles, reaching out. One rotter in a Pennsylvania State Police uniform slammed its lifeless hand against Robson’s window as they passed, smearing the surface with chunks of decayed flesh.
Dravko swerved around the rotters for the first few hundred feet before the encroaching horde made avoiding them impossible. Two of the living dead stepped right in front of the armored car, one dressed in a business suit and tie, its chest stained with dried blood, the other a nurse with its lower jaw missing. Dravko slammed the armored car into them. The nurse careened to the right, tumbling through the air and knocking three other rotters to the ground. The zombie in the suit took the brunt of the left fender in the chest, being knocked back onto the street where the armored car’s left tires rode over it. Inside the armored car, Robson and the others were shaken around as the vehicle bumped over the corpse.
“Christ,” said Thompson from the back. “How much more of this to do we have to go through?”
“It’s about two miles before the turn to the bridge,” responded Robson.
“Shit.”
“Tell me about it,” said Dravko.
He slammed into another rotter in a National Guard uniform. This time the thud of the armored car smacking into flesh was accompanied by a loud pop. The lights ahead of them dimmed as two of the floodlights shattered.
“Damn it!” cursed Dravko.
“Maybe we should let Daytona take the lead,” suggested Robson.
“There’s not enough room to risk it. Besides, if we slow down to let him pass and these things swarm us, we might not be able to get going again.”
The collective moan of rotters in a feeding frenzy filtered into the armored car despite the thickness of the walls. Robson didn’t know what unnerved him more, the moans or the sound of dead hands slapping at the armored car, trying to claw their way to the meat inside. The horde of rotters steadily grew thicker as they converged in the center of the street. Each one Dravko hit sent a spray of gore across the windshield. He switched on the wipers, but the blades only succeeded in smearing the blood and guts across the glass. The red smears on the windshield and the massive swarm of flies hovering around the floodlights decreased their visibility.
Robson tried to read the names on the cross streets to judge how far they were from their turn. Off to his right he noticed an electronics store, its front windows smashed in. Boxes of flat screen TVs, computers, and radios littered the ground out front, mixed in with a pile of mummified corpses belonging to looters who had been set on by the living dead and devoured before they could escape with their bounty.
Finally he saw a sign for Franklin Street. He glanced down at his map and searched until he found it. Shit, they were only a quarter of the way to their turn.
The armored car swerved left, causing Robson to look up. With all the rotters converging in the middle of the road, space opened up off to the left. Dravko moved into the open lane and floored it, trying to gain as much distance as possible before the living dead surged back around them.
They had traveled about two hundred yards when the hulk of an overturned ambulance loomed in front of them. Dravko veered to the right, whipping around the wreck. The floodlights fell onto the form of a nearly three-hundred-pound rotter that stood naked in the center of the street, its bulging gut drooping across its genitals. It turned to the approaching lights, arms flailing. With the ambulance on the left and the mass of rotters on the right, Dravko had nowhere to go but straight. He slammed his foot down on the accelerator, shifted into a lower gear, and aimed the armored car’s right fender at the bloated rotter. Robson braced for the impact.
They smashed into it at over sixty miles per hour. Its stomach exploded, showering the front of the vehicle with chewed, undigested, rotting meat. Several chunks came to rest on the hood and windshield, or got tangled up in the floodlight supports. As horrible as the sight was, it could not compare to the stench filtering in through the air conditioning system. Decayed flesh. Shit. Bodily gases. Robson leaned forward and vomited.
“You all right?” asked Dravko.
“Yeah,” choked Robson. He gagged, spitting up a chunk of vomitus which he spit onto the floor. His own puke smelled better than the living dead.
“Good. I need you to tell me when we reach the turn.”
“I’m on it.” Wiping his mouth clean, Robson grabbed the map and began comparing it to cross streets.
“Market Street. On the l—”
The armored car shook, accompanied by another thud of a body striking metal. Both men looked up as a rotter flew up over the hood, careening off the windshield before falling away to the left. The remaining floodlights were shattered by the concussion, dimming the road ahead of them.
“It’ll be on the left,” resumed Robson.
“Roger that.”
Both men kept their eyes glued to the sides of the road, searching for street signs. They found it difficult to see them, racing along a rotter-filled road in limited light, with gore from crushed zombies splattering the glass every few seconds. Finally, Thompson patted Robson on the shoulder and pointed.
“There. On the corner. It says Sterling Avenue.”
Robson ran his fingers along the map until he found the name, and then scanned farther, looking for Market Street. Shit. It was the next turn. He looked up just as the armored car entered the intersection.
“Turn here!”
Dravko spun the steering wheel left. The armored car whipped through the intersection and swung onto Market Street, the tires screeching in protest at the sudden change in direction. Robson placed one hand on the door and pushed, trying to keep himself from being thrown against it. Even as the armored car entered the turn, he knew something was horribly wrong. The vehicle continued tilting to the right, the angle slowly getting steeper until it toppled onto its side. It slid along its right flank, chewing up chunks of concrete before eventually coming to a stop in the middle of the intersection.
Chapter Thirty-two
“No!” screamed Natalie when she saw the armored car fail to make the turn onto Market Street. She held her breath as its left wheels left the road, teetered for a second, and then flipped onto its right side. The weight and speed of the vehicle propelled it along, gouging out the tarred surface and plowing through the mass of rotters. It ground to a halt after ten yards, the only signs of movement being the tires that still spun on their axles.
One hundred feet behind the armored car, Daytona slowed as he approached the crash site, quickly calculating his options. Natalie jumped out of her seat and ran forward.
“What are we gonna do?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Daytona sounded frustrated.
“We can’t just leave them there.”
“We sure as hell can’t go outside. Not with all these rotters around.”
Tibor stepped up behind Natalie and pointed to the emergency escape hatch in the bus’ roof. “We could go over them.”
“We have ourselves a plan.” Daytona’s frustration gave way to relief. “Tibor, be ready to move when I tell you. Natalie, get the Angels ready. They’re going to have plenty of targets soon.”
Tibor stepped back to the emergency escape hatch, unfastened the locks, and pushed it open. Natalie rushed past him, ordering her girls to action. The Angels lowered the windows on the left side of the bus to give them clear shots, and then stepped back into the aisle, ready for action.
Daytona grabbed the radio and keyed the microphone button. “Mad Dog, we’re gonna try and rescue Robson and the others. Hang tight for a few minutes.”
“Good luck, man.”
Daytona placed the radio back on the dashboard. “Things are about to get hairy.”
* * *
Mad Dog stopped the Ryder and shifted into reverse. The loud, steady beeping cut through the night as the truck slowly backed down the road.
“You’re not leaving them?” asked Tatyana.
“Fuck that. But if we just sit here and wait, these things will swarm us.”
* * *
Daytona swung the school bus in a wide arc, driving through the section of street cleared of the living dead by the crash, and pulled the bus parallel to the armored car’s overturned undercarriage. He inched closer until the armored car’s wheels scraped along the side of the bus. Shifting into Park, he looked over his shoulder.
“Go!”
Tibor jumped up and grabbed either side of the escape hatch, pulling himself onto the roof. He quickly looked around. Hundreds of rotters were closing in from all sides. Their collective moaning mixed with the buzzing of thousands of flies was deafening. He had a few minutes at most to free Dravko and the others.
Jumping the two-foot gap between the vehicles, he landed on the left side of the armored car and moved to the passenger door. It was locked. He banged on the metal, but got no response from inside. This time he pounded harder. Still no response. Morphing into his vampiric form, he grabbed the door handle and pulled, the muscles in his neck and shoulders straining.
* * *
It took only a few seconds for the first rotters to completely surround the bus.
“What are you waiting for?” ordered Natalie. “Fire!”
Fourteen rifles went off simultaneously. At this distance, no one could have missed. A dozen heads exploded, showering the windows and seats in brains and skull fragments. Swarms of flies, dislodged from their feast, flew inside and buzzed around the windows. As the first line of rotters collapsed beside the bus, they were replaced by more of the living dead, each one desperate to claw their way inside. Lifeless hands scraped against the exterior or grabbed hold of the window frames, trying to rip them off. Another volley eliminated these rotters, but more took their place. They were already packed two deep around the bus, with more closing in. The smell of mass decay and spent gunpowder became overpowering, forcing Natalie to place her hand over her mouth.
At the front of the crash site, a single rotter in a tattered jogging suit wedged itself between the two vehicles and pushed its way into the confined space. It stumbled over the front tire of the armored car, falling face first to the asphalt, leaving scraped skin and broken teeth on the ground. Struggling to its feet, the rotter continued to push its way between the two vehicles.
Behind it, a second rotter with two broken legs noticed the gap and began to pull itself onto the armored car’s tires.
* * *
Tibor felt the door’s hinges start to give way on his third try. He paused, summoned all his strength, and yanked again. This time the grinding and snapping of metal accompanied his groan. A moment later, the door broke free. He stumbled backward, momentarily thrown off balance. Whipping the door to his right, he watched it sail over the edge and crush three rotters under its weight.
Tibor leaned through the opening, afraid of what he might find. He yelled into the void. “Hello?”
“It took you long enough,” grunted Dravko.
Tibor breathed a sigh of relief. “Is everyone okay?”
“I’ve got a broken arm.”
“What about the others?”
“I’m fine,” Robson called out from the rear of the car. “But Thompson’s out cold.”
“Pass him to me,” ordered Tibor. “And hurry.”
Robson lifted the colonel and carried him up front, where he and Dravko hoisted the unconscious body up to the open door. Tibor reached down, wrapped his hands underneath the colonel’s arms, and pulled him out. He lowered the colonel onto the metal, and then reached back down into the cab. Dravko went first, clasping his good arm around Tibor’s and allowing himself to be pulled out. Robson followed close behind, using the driver’s seat to climb up. When he reached the open door, Dravko and Tibor each grabbed an arm and lifted him to safety.
Robson looked around and muttered the single phrase, “Holy fuck.”
By now almost two hundred rotters had closed in on the vehicles, most converging on the school bus where they were packed four deep along its left side. Constant gun fire came from inside the bus, dropping the dead in scores. For every one that went down, another surged into its place.
“Come on,” said Tibor. “We don’t have much time.”
Dravko jumped the gap between the two vehicles and headed for the escape hatch, dropping down inside. R
obson bent over to pick up Thompson, but Tibor stopped him.
“Go ahead. I’ve got him.”
Robson jumped the gap between the two vehicles and turned, waiting for Tibor. The vampire lifted up Thompson, draped the colonel’s right arm over his shoulder, and vaulted off the armored car. He landed safely, but gravity pulled the colonel’s unconscious body down. He started to slide off the rounded roof of the bus and into the gap between the two vehicles. Kneeling down, Tibor clutched the colonel’s arm, preventing him from falling all the way. However, the dangling legs caught the attention of the jogger zombie. Tibor tried pulling the colonel to safety, but the jogger zombie grabbed his leg and latched on, refusing to let go.
“Shit, one of them has Thompson.”
Robson reached for his sidearm, but could not find it. It must have fallen out in the crash. He knelt and yelled down the escape hatch. “I need a weapon. Now!”
* * *
Daytona heard Robson’s call for help and checked the side mirror, noticing the jogger zombie grasping at the colonel’s legs.
“We’ve got trouble.”
Rashid also saw what was happening and ran to the exit. “I’ve got this.”
Daytona opened the side door. Rashid jumped out into the gap and took two steps toward the rotter, removing his .357 Magnum and aiming. But Thompson’s legs were in the path of his bullet.
“Hey!”
The jogger zombie turned around, standing back just enough that the colonel wouldn’t be hit by the bullet. Rashid squeezed off a single round that blasted away its head. It fell back against the undercarriage of the armored car and slid to the ground. Tibor lifted the colonel up onto the roof and quickly lowered him through the escape hatch.
Rotter World Page 18