Dead Country

by Bonnie Dee

  More zombies were swarming around us. If we didn’t let Daylon go soon, he’d either drag us over with him or we’d be killed by the undead. Rage poured through me at the thought of losing like this, after everything we’d already suffered, and with the anger came a crazy burst of adrenaline. I howled and yanked on Daylon’s arm with more strength than I’d ever possessed. I grabbed hold of the back of his jacket with my other hand and together Ashleigh and I heaved him onto solid ground.

  We didn’t have a second to recover or draw breath as the undead snatched at us. I’d lost my axe and was left only with my knife, stabbing blindly at grasping hands and slack faces. A couple of people came to our rescue, slashing their way to us. Carl pulled one of the creatures off me and I scrambled to my feet.

  Maybe it was the fever burning through me, but everything felt surrealistic as if I was playing a character in a video game. I directed my body’s movements at a remove, thrusting my knife into tough flesh and shoving foul-smelling corpses out of my path with the confidence that if things went wrong, I’d hit reset and play this level again. I charged through the mob with a caution-to-the-winds gusto.

  Recalling those moments later, they were made up of flashes of vision and movement as if a strobe light illuminated the scene. I remember only one thing with great clarity and that was the sight of Ashleigh wrapped in a zombie’s arms, its mouth descending toward her neck. I leaped toward her and shoved her attacker away, grabbed her wrist hard enough to break it and dragged her with me out of the crowd. I glimpsed Daylon fighting his way free too and running off in another direction.

  More of the undead were flooding into the area from all directions. It was time for retreat or none of us would make it out alive. I saw Elliott Parker, the hardware owner get pulled down by a pack of zombies as I blew several blasts on the whistle Tanesha had given me, the signal for everyone to fall back.

  Winded and arms numb, I headed for the semi since it was the nearest vehicle. I brandished my knife one-handed since my other hand was welded to Ashleigh’s wrist. It would take an act of God to separate us.

  A zombie grabbed a hank of Ashleigh’s hair and she screamed as she jerked her head free, leaving strands entwined in its fingers. The roar of flame from one of the throwers was followed by a sunburst of heat on the left side of my body. Burning zombies darted across our path and the odor of scorched flesh and hair hung in the air in a miasma of stink.

  Daylon had parked the tanker a short distance from the reservoir so it wouldn’t catch fire and explode. Its position also placed it away from the action and we suddenly found ourselves in the clear. As we raced across open ground, I tripped over a hummock of earth. Ashleigh stopped me from falling and took the lead, pulling me with her the rest of the way.

  We scrambled into the cab where Daylon had left keys in the ignition. Since Ashleigh was the one with experience driving the rig, I climbed across to the passenger side. My chest felt like it was being compressed in a vise and my heart pounded so hard it felt like my breastbone would shatter. I drew a deep breath into aching lungs.

  The engine roared as Ashleigh revved it, shifted and the truck began to move. From the window, I could see into the reservoir where dozens of figures splashed around in the water, many of them on fire. A good number floated, still at last, truly dead. Maybe this plan didn’t suck completely but we’d lost several people.

  “This was a bad idea,” I muttered. “Too dangerous. Too many killed.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Brian. Everyone who volunteered knew the risk. Stop wasting energy on guilt and think about what else we can do.”

  Ashleigh was right, and I obeyed, falling silent and watching the fighting as we drove past. Flamethrowers controlled the zombies, driving them where the operators wanted them to go. Fire was a useful tool and I suddenly realized we could create a firebreak to keep them away from town. Setting controlled fires to fight big grass fires was common practice to protect property. What were the undead if not a raging wildfire to be contained?

  “I know what we need to do,” I said to Ashleigh. “Drive back toward town. We’re going to make a line of fire that will push the zombies away from Durbinville.”

  “And you’ll stop this fire from burning down the town, how?”

  “I’ve got another plan.” I smiled grimly. “And you can see how well this one turned out so I wouldn’t worry.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty

  “I love it when a plan comes together.” I stood beside Brian, keeping a lookout for zombies while he attached the hose to the release valve of the fuel tank. “You’re sure this is safe?”

  “Let’s put it this way, if it isn’t, we’ll be at the center of the explosion so we shouldn’t suffer much.”

  “Better than being eaten alive,” I agreed. Morbid humor was the only way to cope with the world we lived in. I heard a rustling in the weeds to my left and shone my flashlight on a raccoon which stared at me with shiny golden eyes before waddling away.

  Brian grunted as he tightened the connector. “I’ve talked to every team I could reach and they know what to expect. The fire department tanker will douse any flames that get out of control and wet down the perimeter of the town.”

  “Do you think that’ll be enough?”

  “Should work. We’ve dealt with wildfires before, digging trenches and controlled burns.” He sounded more self-assured and hopeful than he had earlier so I wasn’t about to undermine his confidence.

  “All right then. Let’s lay down fire and burn up these bastards.”

  Brian took hold of my arms and looked at me with worried puppy-dog eyes that turned me to butter. “This could be more lethal than fighting zombies. The tanker’s a potential bomb on wheels. You don’t have to drive. I don’t want you in this much danger.”

  “And I don’t want you in this much danger, but like I said, we’re in this together. Besides, you don’t know how to drive the thing.” I touched the side of his face. “No imagining the worst, okay? Let’s do this thing.”

  He frowned but nodded. “I just want to say…” He didn’t finish the thought but leaned in and kissed me.

  Headlights glared on the road behind us and a few moments later a van pulled up. Daylon and Carl jumped out and joined us by the tanker.

  “Pretty much everybody retreated from the reservoir. It’s hard to count heads right now with everything in flux but I’d say we lost about six,” Carl reported. ”And I estimate thirty undead went into the water. I didn’t see any of them crawling back out so I’d call it a successful operation.”

  “Good,” Brian said. “I’m hoping a wildfire will kill more or at least drive them away from town.”

  Daylon looked at the big shiny cylinder and rubbed his jaw. When he took his hand away, a smear of blood marked his face. “You’re going to need extra hands. I’ll help you.” He flicked his gaze to me. “Drive carefully, Ashleigh. We won’t have much of a handhold back here.”

  The two men would be perched beside the tank on a platform about a foot wide that wasn’t meant to hold passengers. Once the truck started moving, Brian planned to open the release valve. Pressure might cause the hose to start whipping around so Brian and Daylon would guide the hose to regulate the stream making an even trail alongside the road.

  Brian described the route we’d take and Carl left with the van to meet us at the end of our journey since we’d be parking the tanker there—far away from the fire and from town. Teams had been placed at intervals to guide the fire once it was lit. If flames needed to be fanned or beaten out, it was their job to shape the fire to their will, making it a weapon instead of a threat.

  After Carl left, Daylon turned to me and Brian. “I never got a chance to thank you both for saving my life. So…thanks.” His voice was as gruff as always but in the dim light I could see his eyes were shining. I threw my arms around him and gave him a big hug. For once I didn’t have a smart-ass comment to make to lighten the mood. I was too damned tired to be
clever and too afraid of what might go wrong even though I’d told Brian we shouldn’t imagine the worst.

  When I was done squeezing Daylon and receiving his awkward back-patting in return, I grabbed Brian. I memorized the feeling of his warm body pressed against mine, the soft press of his lips and the quiet murmur when he whispered, “Bad timing, but I just wanted to tell you I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  It was my turn to feel tears prickling my eyes. I cleared my throat before I answered. “That’s something I want to hear more about so let’s get through this and I’ll see you at the end of the road.”

  “All right.”

  After I bid Brian and Daylon goodbye with one last “be careful”, I climbed into the cab. I was starting to feel pretty comfortable behind the wheel. Since I had to drive on pavement so the heavy truck wouldn’t bog down, we were limited to running our line of oil along the grid of roads. Brian had sketched a map that traveled along the east side of the town, protecting it from the influx of zombies coming mostly from that direction. With any luck, they’d be diverted from town or burn up in the fire.

  As I put the truck in gear and rolled slowly down the road, I looked in my side mirror but couldn’t see Brian or Daylon, who were on the opposite side of the tanker. I wouldn’t know if they fell off. The night was dark and the cornfields creepy and secretive. The weather had turned colder and a few snowflakes danced in the truck’s headlights. Even with the heat on, it was chilly in the cab so I could imagine how cold the two men were as they clung to their narrow perch and guided the heavy hose.

  I rolled my window down an inch, listening for a whistle blast that would signal me to stop if there was trouble. Although I carried a phone, Brian couldn’t contact me without his hands free and the whistle he wore was the only connection between us. I longed to stop and check on the guys and instinctively eased my foot off the gas. The truck slowed. But it was important I keep a steady pace so I resumed my pressure on the gas pedal.

  A couple of miles down the road we arrived at our first turn. In my head I heard Aaron’s voice guiding me through the motions of making the turn. I swung out in a generous arc around the corner then held my breath until I saw the tank fall in behind me.

  I shifted my attention from the mirror to the road before me. This one was local and the pavement was considerably more potholed than the county route had been. Soon after I made the turn, zombies loomed in the headlights, eerie figures in the spitting snow. The drive had been zombie-free for so long, I’d started to believe we’d somehow not encounter any. Now there were three of them walking straight down the center line toward the truck as if playing chicken. Who would flinch first? Not me.

  I couldn’t swerve to miss them, but rolling over the bodies would make a bumpy ride for my passengers in back. I had about two seconds to decide whether to brake and opted for going straight ahead, hoping they’d move out of the way at the last minute. The headlights illuminated their blank eyes and rotting faces, mouths blood-stained from their raw meat diet. It wasn’t as if they used a napkin after a meal. I took in this lovely vision for a split second before the truck’s grille plowed into two of the three and knocked them down like bowling pins.

  The cab lurched over them with a bump-bump, but the bodies must have landed between the tanker tires because it continued to glide along. I rolled my window farther down. “Hey, are you guys still back there?” I yelled then strained to hear over the loud engine noise. A distant call sounded like “Okay” so I kept going.

  Another mile passed and we reached another crossroads. We were making a three-sided arc, leaving the last side of the square open so the townspeople could evacuate if things went wrong.

  The smattering of snow had become a light flurry and flakes were starting to collect on the ground rather than melt. Through the swirling white haze, I glimpsed more figures at the edge of the fields. But I figured not all of them were zombies. We did have our own people stationed along the route. So far the drive had been fairly uneventful and I was starting to think we’d defeated the bulk of the zombie horde back at the reservoir.

  A blast from Brian’s whistle grabbed my attention and I put on the brakes—slow and easy like Aaron had taught me. Heart thumping, I climbed down from the cab and trotted to the back of the tanker. The acrid smell of diesel oil filled the air. Brian and Daylon were standing by the truck, shining their flashlights on a panel.

  “Everything all right?” I asked.

  “The tank’s compartmentalized so it can carry different grades of fuel. We need to switch to the next chamber but we’re not sure how.” Brian bent close to study the gauges that displayed pump pressure and chamber capacity.

  “Maybe we’ve done enough.”Anxiety percolated in my stomach and a nagging voice in my head warned that it was time to move on. I’d learned the hard way to listen to that voice of intuition when it was clamoring like that. “We should go park the truck and light the oil before it sinks into the ground.”

  “It can’t be that complicated to close one valve and open another.” Daylon leaned in beside Brian, the two men ignoring me as men often do when women speak. They were intent on solving the problem and, in their need to figure it out, losing sight of the bigger picture.

  “I think we should do it now,” I said a little louder, looking for moving shadows in the dark field. After this trip through Kansas, I’d decided there was nothing scarier in the world than a cornfield. Not even clowns.

  My intuition continued to holler insistently and I was pretty sure this wasn’t just nerves but a real message I should listen to. “We need to light the fire. Like now.”

  Brian glanced up at me. “What? Did you say something?”

  “I said we should move the truck out of the way and light the damn oil!”

  He straightened and really looked at me this time before nodding. “Okay. I suppose we’ve covered enough ground.” He began to put the hose back in its compartment on the side of the tank while Daylon continued to argue about valves and switches.

  A flash of light in the distance caught my attention and I squinted to see through the darkness and whirling flakes. “Do you see that?”

  “See what?” Daylon looked where I pointed, far across the field in the direction we’d come from.

  “Is that what I think it is?” The flickering yellow light was spreading.

  “Shit. We’ve got to move.” Daylon grabbed Brian’s arm and hauled him away from his task of putting the hose away.

  I raced around the back of the truck toward the driver’s side and nearly ran into a figure in the darkness by the cab’s open door. Fuck! There wasn’t time for this. I pulled my knife and held it in front of me. “You don’t want to mess with me right now. Just get the hell out of my way and live to feed another day.”

  The zombie hurried toward me with arms open as though greeting a long lost friend. I ran straight at her and welcomed her with a knife in the throat—or would’ve if my aim hadn’t been off. Instead, the point hit her chin and deflected off bone, the impact jarring all the way up my arm.

  The creature grabbed at me, but before she could latch on with that killer grip they all seemed to have, I spun past her with the grace of a dancer, vaulted into the cab and slammed the door behind me.

  Brian and Daylon had come around the other side and were already in the cab. No question about who would stay behind to light the oil trail. All we had to worry about was outrunning the fire. I didn’t know what it took to cause a tank truck to explode with the gas line sealed off, but I wasn’t about to stick around and find out.

  I bore down on the gas pedal and the gears ground as I shifted too soon. I glanced in the mirror and saw the trail of fire spreading along the route we’d just turned from. As I pulled the truck forward, the flames burned over the crossroads and followed behind us like a glowing tail, growing closer by the second. Once the fire caught up with us, the tail would wag the dog.

  I drove too fast for a narrow country road at night an
d when I steered around a bend in the road, the trailer began to fishtail. The liquid in the tank sloshed, putting it more off balance. I took my foot off the gas and held my breath until the tank steadied and moved back into place behind the cab.

  “Take it easy,” Daylon said and I felt like smacking him for the warning, but I needed both hands on the wheel.

  I risked another look backward and breathed easier. I’d driven well past the end of our trail and the fire seemed to have guttered and faded there. Flames still spread weakly over the grass and weeds but not with the feverish intensity of the fire devouring fuel.

  Up ahead, I saw our van, red taillights shining like beacons in the snow. My arms were sore from gripping the wheel so hard and I was glad to pull the truck to a stop. We got out of the semi and headed for the van, but Carl wasn’t waiting there to greet us and when we called his name, he didn’t answer. A large bloody patch on the pavement near the van and a smear leading off the road into broken stalks of corn told the story of what had happened to him.