*****
Moses roared unopposed through the seeded streets. The bus moved smoothly enough, but all its armor made acceleration slow and louder than Bob would’ve liked. He believed the bus could handle mowing a horde if it had to, but he didn’t want to test its already taxed engine.
Didi’s distraction and the empty road ahead made him optimistic enough to announce they were clear. The frightened yet hopeful people cheered.
Bob glanced up at the interior mirror and saw Clarissa shaking her baby's hand, Sean and Paula hugging each other, Pepe and Dawn cuddling head to head, and Jerri cheering with Hashim and her triplets. Blake pumped a glad fist into the air behind his giant machine gun. Ron and Max stood tall on their turret platforms, though the former reached down and bumped fists with Brad. Gilda smiled at Cody, whose weary attention remained on the next empty seat.
Bob turned onto Fifth Street, saw more clear roads out of town, and hoped for the best. Well, he tried.
“Nice work,” Jerri said as she stepped up to his seat.
“I hope so.”
She frowned down at him. “You think that was too easy?”
“Well, he had people. Why just send the dead?”
Jerri looked ahead. “So, they could be waiting for us.”
He shrugged.
She patted his shoulder with a hopeful smile. “Let’s hope they don’t have anything we can’t shoot down.”
Something pulled into the road ahead of them; a blockade of about eight or nine cars and trucks. A lot of its people got out and aimed rifles at the bus. Bob cursed along with a few of the passengers.
“Want me to shoot them down?” Ron shouted, cocking his weapon into readiness.
The upcoming left turn seemed a better alternative. “Save your bullets. They’re far enough away. Hang on.”
He tugged the wheel to the left and hung on for dear life, hitting the brakes as little as he needed to. Several passengers gasped or whined, but no one fell. He eased the wheel into place on the southbound road, wishing his nerves were as easy to command.
“They’re following us,” Max reported.
Bob saw that coming, but his pulse doubled anyway. He drove faster.
“You know we can’t outrun them in this,” Jerri reminded him. “The strain on the engine—”
“It’s still better to have them behind us than ahead.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said as she patted his shoulder and went back to her babies.
He glanced in his rearview mirror at his pursuers, which looked like more than he first saw. “Tell me about it.”
CHAPTER 30
CUT OFF
“We’re done here,” Didi said as she crawled to the ladder. She glanced over her shoulder to confirm Rachelle, Craig, and Isaac followed when a sharp crack grabbed her attention. Something crunched in the Courtyard. She and her friends rushed to the north edge of the roof.
With the aid of binoculars, she watched dead arms reach through cracks in the east wall, which started to bend inward as a bonehead crawled through a hole. The wall fell, spilling marred corpses onto the Courtyard that staggered or crawled toward the theater. The west wall started to rock, then the north wall. All at once, her home of two years crumbled around her.
Rachelle cursed.
“How we gonna get outta here now?” Isaac grumbled. “There's way too many to—”
“That's Rusty,” Craig said as he pointed down the theater wall.
Didi, Rachelle, and Isaac saw the fat carcass among the mob. Rachelle gasped and covered her mouth. Isaac cursed.
Didi said a brief prayer for the idiot's soul, then focused on the ones who stayed. When the west wall crumbled, she took no more chances. “Get to the trucks. I’ll distract them.”
Rachelle grabbed Didi’s arm. “No.”
Didi removed Rachelle’s hand and held it. “Once you’re gone, I’ll let them get a whiff of me, and they’ll leave. I’ll meet up with you later. Go.”
Rachelle gawked at Didi as if it would be the last time.
Didi smiled at her frightened pupil. “Trust me.”
“You heard her,” Craig said as he moved away. “She’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
Rachelle dug into her pocket, pulled out her cameo, and gave it to Didi. “Take this first.”
Didi noticed the cream colored baby doll’s face had been altered, its left side etched into a skull, literally becoming the face of a death doll. If she still had a beating heart, it would’ve warmed. She smiled and hugged her friend tightly. She wished she could’ve felt Rachelle hugging back, but the gesture touched her—well, mind.
The north wall fell. Craig pulled Rachelle across the bridge behind Isaac and left Didi to her half-baked plan. While waiting, Didi removed her choker and attached her new cameo to it, making sure it wouldn’t fall off. She would protect it as fiercely as she would the one who gave it to her.
She approached the north edge and watched the masses claw up the walls to get her, reaching for that quick fix; that short, sweet release. It reminded her of how she felt about men at the peak of her porn career, which made her laugh. If she didn’t laugh, she would go insane. Plus, the noise riled up the boneheads enough to keep them from noticing her friends atop the gym. “Come and get me. You know you want me.”
*****
Rachelle peered over the side of the gym roof as a stream of rotters flowed into the Courtyard. She saw Didi egg on the growing horde, hoping they weren’t enough to tear down that brick structure. She tried not to worry about her mentor, but the thought of what the many could do to the one terrified her.
She noticed there weren’t as many rotters by the Lounge, so she told the others. “Maybe we can go around the block and get to the Garage.”
Isaac took a peek. “Let’s go find out.”
The three snuck over to the Lounge roof and peered over the corner, which had very few rotters left that looked as intent as the rest to jockey for a spot in the Courtyard.
“I told you,” Rachelle said.
Craig nodded. “Alright, nice and easy, then.”
Rachelle started to scoot over the edge, but Isaac yanked her back. “Me first. Ain’t none of you catchin’ me.”
Rachelle quietly laughed as Isaac slid down until he was hanging on the ledge by his fingers. He let go and landed squarely on his feet, then quickly recoiled from a rotter missing an arm. He kicked it to the ground with a swift boot to its chest, stomped its head in, glanced around the corner, and waved the others down.
Craig eased Rachelle down, Isaac caught her, and they helped Craig when he landed. The west mob still headed into the Courtyard, but a couple on the south side noticed them.
Isaac smacked Craig’s arm. “Let’s go already.”
The three ran west down the street, but Craig stopped them at the next intersection. “Wait, let’s split up. We’ll each get a truck.”
“We ain’t got time to be changin’ plans,” Isaac said.
“The warehouse is on the right, just past First,” Craig said as he pointed west. “You go, and I’ll get the truck from the Garage.”
“We’ll be safer if we stick together,” Rachelle argued.
“If the mob’s too thick, I’d rather not all of us get eaten. We need both trucks to make this work, now go.”
Before Rachelle and Isaac could argue, Craig ran north. Half the mob at the theater now headed toward them. The two turned to run but stopped when they saw the bus fly by in the distance, followed by a bunch of trucks and vans. “That was the bus. They’re being chased.”
“And we’re supposed to be followin’ them,” he said as he pulled her along.
She shook loose of his grip and pointed north. “They should be heading west down Fifth, which is that way. I’m calling Didi.”
Isaac argued, but she pulled out her new cell phone and piped into the main channel. Bob and Didi’s voices immediately blasted through the speaker about how screwed they were.
Rachelle un-muted her
phone. “What’s going on? We just saw the bus with a bunch of—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Didi cut her off. “Get to the rendezvous.”
Isaac grabbed her arm again. “You heard her, now let’s go.”
Rachelle ran with Isaac until they reached the long building with a dingy white roof just off the road. Isaac dug out a small key ring from his pocket and fumbled with the padlock on the chain holding the two large bay doors closed. The rotters were still a block away, but they were picking up speed. She pressed him to hurry. He shouted her down and worked until he finally found the right key and unlocked the damned thing. He yanked off the chain, and they both shoved the doors apart, which screeched something awful.
Yet, despite the massive horde bearing down on them, they had to stop and behold the flat black semi and its matching fuel tank.
Rachelle faced Isaac. “You sure you can drive this thing?”
Isaac scoffed. “Please. I’m more worried about gettin’ blown up.”
When he ran in, she silently agreed and followed, praying for this crazy plan to work.
*****
Jerri fell out of her seat as the bus turned again. The shrill whine of the brakes tore into her ears as painfully as the floor pounded her side. She pushed herself up and grabbed a bar just above Bob’s head to stay with him, giving her babies a glance. They were safe, for now. She pulled a sawed-off shotgun from a welded mount to make sure they stayed that way. And for payback.
The walls weathered a hail of gunfire while most of the other passengers ducked behind the seatbacks. All that armor may have protected them, but it also weighed them down and didn’t stop the children from crying or whimpering, either.
Blake and Max shot back, with Oscar and young Dandy feeding them bullets. The night shift manager fired no more than seven rounds from the massive M2 gun every five seconds, which left openings for their pursuers to shoot whomever they could.
Jerri filled those openings, drawing upon Didi and Cody’s training to aim carefully without taking too long. Her efforts took the lives of three of those truck-driving bastards. She knew Xing would be proud.
“Where are we going?” Sean asked, cringing from all the noise.
“West,” Jerri replied, “if we can get past these guys.”
“They’ve already turned us twice. How do we know they don’t have more?”
She had no answer, which suddenly terrified her. These supposed madmen had a plan.
“Do we go for the guns now?” Pepe asked.
“Stay where you are,” Hashim ordered as he used the overhead bars to guide himself to the front. Jerri nearly contradicted him, but he said, “There’s not enough room in the back to—”
Revving engines and excited whooping approached from the sides. Eleven trucks and vans pursued them, as well as a few gun-toting motorcyclists passing the bigger vehicles. Riders on the backs of the bikes lit Molotov cocktails.
“Arm yourselves,” Jerri shouted with a hint of malicious glee.
*****
Craig peeked around the corner of the old law firm and saw nothing entering or leaving the half-exposed alleyway; only the stragglers of the dead masses heading down Ninth. He snuck toward the Garage and found a handful of zombies wandering around the Ford. Glad the setting sun didn't darken the bay too much, he drew his knife and gave them a mild whistle. They stupidly approached, and he stabbed each of their rotten heads in turn. He ran toward the truck and placed the keys in the ignition. After a glance at the open Courtyard door, he turned the key one click, cranked the gear shift into Neutral, and pushed the truck toward the street. When he was close enough, he got in, started up the truck, and cheered his luck as he drove out.
He rounded the compound along Eighth Street and stopped at Fourth Avenue. He watched Didi pace around the theater roof, still looking for an opening. The masses bunched up tightly under Didi, still reaching up or clawing at the walls. She looked panicked. He drove up a bit, revving his engine just loud enough to draw some of the crowd off of her. When they staggered toward him, he let out a heavy sigh, backed up, and prayed.
*****
“Where are you going, Craig?” the Death Doll shouted, still pacing the theater roof.
“I can’t get to you,” some guy said. Probably Craig. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay.”
“Bob, Craig’s ditching me. Can you swing back around?”
“I’d be bringing fire and bullets with me if I did,” someone with a deep voice reported over the loud snaps of gunfire. Bob clearly wasn’t very brave or loyal. “We’re trying to fight them off, but they’re multiplying like roaches. We can’t shake them.”
Kenny reveled in the chatter as much as watching his troops fight to taste Death Doll’s blood. Her escape truck abandoned her. His people surrounded hers at all possible intersections. That bus’ armor may have stopped a few bullets but didn’t have a prayer in outrunning his massive convoy, let alone cutting across any fields. It was everything Kenny had hoped for: her loot and her life.
Then, to his surprise, she climbed over the spade fencing and ordered, “Leave me.”
“No,” young Rachelle yelled, sounding like she might’ve been crying. It was priceless. “We’re coming back for you.”
“Take care of yourselves, and Cody,” Didi said, then jumped into the horde below.
Kenny laughed to himself. The Death Doll is gone.
“What have we here?” Pat mused from inside the R.V.
“What is it?” Kenny asked as he lowered his binoculars.
He was directed west, where some of the troops had strayed from the compound. Beyond them, a black semi ran over a few corpses as it turned west onto Ninth Street, toting a long tank of what he could only figure was fuel. He again had to praise his adversary’s guile for all she tried to sneak past him, but it still wasn’t enough to outsmart the Pride of Life. All she did was present him with another prize.
“Follow them,” he ordered.
CHAPTER 31
BOXED IN
Didi had heard people say they should count their blessings when things looked bleak. One of hers was that Craig had reinforced some of her key bones to make them harder to break after a jump like that.
The first boneheads grabbed her right away, but soon found her unappealing and let her go. Same with their buddies behind them. It was a good thing she kept her teasing mild and generally unthreatening. The others slowly figured it out and dispersed, but that took a while. She was tempted to hack her way through, but the crowd was too thick. She could wait as long as she needed to. It wasn’t that dark yet.
Still, she worried. Even after seeing Kenny’s impressive R.V., she hadn’t anticipated the bastard having more where that came from. She knew the bus could take a pounding, but too much could go wrong and kill her friends—kill Cody.
Don’t think like that, she told herself as she waited. Worrying won’t add to his life, either.
She stared at all zombies wandering away from her, trying not to feel as alone as she looked. It was a fitting allegory, really: surrounded by bodies yet being alone. She understood it as a kid when her dad died. It stuck with her as a teenager when all those guys kept trying to get into her pants, during her career when a bunch succeeded, every second as Murphy's sex slave, the moment she killed herself, and—despite Cody’s attempts—as a zombie every day since.
When the dead crowd thinned out enough for her to weave her way to the end of the next block, she saw Craig nervously waiting behind the wheel of the Ford, further proving she wasn’t alone anymore. She thanked God and ran toward the truck.
“Did you pack them?” she asked when she reached the truck.
He opened her tech backpack and showed her the items she needed most. “Special delivery.”
She smiled, slid into the passenger seat, and pulled her makeup compact from her jacket pocket. “Time to finish up.”
*****
Paula grew more terrified with each madman driving up on the bus. It
wasn’t enough to lose her home and everyone she cared about to a zombie plague, then her freedom to find protection; now she had soulless devils trying to kill her and her husband for … what? She wasn’t sure anymore. Though ruined by their efforts, the camp still had plenty of useful things left behind. Did these fiends want everything else on the bus, too, or did they just lust for death and destruction? How could such animals call themselves the Pride of Life? She had no answers to guide her; only a bunch of relative strangers shooting down each approaching car, truck, van, or motorcycle for her.
The guns up top never stopped blasting for longer than a few seconds at a time while Brad and Oscar handed Ron and Max the ammunition they needed. Most of the other teens—including Pepe and Dawn—jumped into the fight as well, eagerly praising each other for each hit as if they had been playing video games this whole time. Blake cursed his machine gun for frequently jamming on him and abandoned it all together for a pair of nearby pistols, claiming the “Ma-Deuce” would blow up if he didn’t give it time to cool.
All their efforts seemed fruitless. No matter how many of their pursuers the others took out, more came from whatever hell spawned them. A few stray bullets managed to slip through the gun slits, one hitting Max in the leg. The lunatics firebombed the walls, which so far only singed a few hairs. There seemed to be no end in sight.
“Hold on,” Bob shouted from up front.
The bus sharply turned again. Half of the camp fell onto the children in the center seats; the rest onto the floor as the bus completed the last leg of its turn. Ron and Max bravely stayed in the fight, each sitting on a strap bolted to the ceiling.
Blake fell out of his chair and cradled his bleeding arm. Gilda rushed to his side, examined his wound, and ripped off the sleeve. “It’s okay. I’ve got you,” she said while Chuck and one of his colleagues shot out of the back with their automatic rifles.
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