Then comes Eve Betts at the reins of a railroad flatcar pulled by yet another brace of horses. Boone stands on the flatbed behind her, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder, a pair of ski goggles making him resemble a member of the Rat Patrol. Lilly had discovered the train car a few blocks away from Ikea, capsized in a ditch along the defunct tracks of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. The car is now stacked ten feet high with plastic storage bins, each brimming with treasures, lashed together with rope and strapping material, making the horse-drawn monstrosity look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.
A massive tow truck with no front wheels or engine—also pulled by workhorses—emerges after that, Norma Sutters at the reins, a do-rag wrapped around her head, a long machete thrust down the side of a belt made from an Ikea curtain sash, all of which gives her the look of a female pirate. Behind the tow truck booms Musolino’s heavily armed Escalade, bringing up the rear of the ragtag convoy, the SUV roaring up the ramp in a cloud of exhaust.
* * *
They make their way down a flooded Northside Drive, which swims in the ashen predawn light, the wreckage and human remains floating like bloated doll parts on the random currents of the floodwaters. This part of the city was hit hard by the deluge, most of the streets now underwater, the gutters and open manholes still gushing silently under the surface of the muck. The sewers have vomited their contents, both animate and inanimate, creating a stew-like quagmire of waterlogged carnage the likes of which Lilly and her people have never seen. The air reeks of putrid, moldy decay. The sense of desecration is so palpable that Lilly can feel it on her skin like a thin layer of slime.
“Musolino, you copy?” Lilly lifts her thumb off the Talk button.
Through the crackling static, a faint male voice says, “I can barely hear you but go ahead.”
Lilly thumbs the button, keeping a tight grip on the reins with the other hand. From the backs of the animals’ regal, tapered heads, the horses look nervous, skittish, spooked by the floating abattoir around them. The bridles and leads are all homemade, jury-rigged by Norma with Ikea sewing machines. Lilly says into the toy device, “Water’s already up to the horses’ hocks.”
Through the crackle: “I know, looks like it’s almost two feet deep.”
Lilly presses the switch. “If it gets any deeper, we can try the freeway.”
The voice replies: “The Abernathy’s fairly clear, and much of it’s raised on viaducts. We’d have to go a little out of our way to the west.”
Lilly thinks about it, and then thumbs the switch. “Okay, we’ll take I-20 to Bowdon Junction, then head south on 27 through Newman. Keep your eyes open for swimmers.”
Crackling, fizzing static: “Copy that.”
Lilly drops the toy onto the seat between her and Tommy and keeps the horses moving through the brackish, hellish soup. They pass the ruins of the Georgia Dome, one side of the great cupola caved in by weather and winds, the sides of the structure black with overgrowth, dead kudzu, and opportunistic vines. The vast reaches of the parking lot lie under three or four feet of water—it’s hard to tell the exact depth at this distance. Some of the rusted-out carcasses of cars now drift upside down like capsized turtles. The wan, early-morning light has dawned enough for the human eye to see countless objects the size of small buoys skimming the surface of the floodwater. Lilly does a double take when she realizes that these are the heads of walkers aimlessly trudging through the mire.
She notices Tommy staring at the surreal sight, shivering in the clammy predawn air. He murmurs something that she can’t quite decipher.
“What was that, Tommy?”
“Are those … the rooftops of houses?” Tommy points out beyond the heads at the floodplain half a mile away, the roof pitches sticking out of the water like icebergs, the road they’re on vanishing into its depths. The morning sun has just begun to peek over the horizon, sending cold motes of sunlight through the low-lying mists enrobing the drowning neighborhoods. The wind whips the surface of the floodwater as it whistles around street signs, telephone poles, train trestles, and viaducts.
Lilly grabs her walkie-talkie. “Musolino, we got a situation.”
Through the static: “Copy that, I see it, and so do the others. What do you want to do?”
Lilly glances out at the cracked side mirror and sees Burt Stankowski behind her, tugging on his reins, slowing his team to a stop in the stagnant water of the wreckage-strewn highway. The others yank their horses to a standstill behind him. Lilly pulls her team to a stop. Within seconds, the entire caravan has abruptly halted.
“What now, d’ya think?” Tommy keeps his eyes on the periphery, nervously making sure none of those drifting heads comes too close to the side of their conveyance. He puts a hand on the hilt of his machete. He can hear the lapping burble of water against the pickup’s undercarriage, and wonders, What if the horses get bit?
Lilly mulls it over for a moment. She glances over her shoulder, remembering coming down here for barbeque years ago when she lived with Megan. She thumbs the Talk button on the toy two-way. “Mus, there’s a road we just passed, Fairburn Road I think is the name of it.”
She lifts her thumb off the button and hears the faint voice cut through the crackle: “Yep … copy that, I remember it. Doesn’t it eventually cross the Chattahoochee?”
Lilly thumbs the switch. “If I remember correctly, it crosses 154 about two miles from here. Should take us around this mess.”
“Copy that.”
Lilly leans out her open window and signals to the others that they’re turning around.
Then she gives the horses a yank to the right, and the entire makeshift carriage creaks and moans as the team executes 180-degree turn, pulling the contraption back in the direction from which it had come.
* * *
Ash is the first one to see the throngs pressing in through the trees, and at first she thinks she’s hallucinating. Whether it’s the stress, the lack of sleep, the exhaustion from trudging through the woods the better part of the night, or the injuries sustained in her violent confrontation with Spencer-Lee, she very well might be seeing things. She comes to a sudden stop and raises her hand. “Sssshhhhh … ssshhhhhh!” She glances over her shoulder and whispers, “Everybody stop, and be very still. Don’t move a muscle.”
For a moment, both the children and adults abruptly freeze, standing motionless side by side in the clear morning light, as though playing a game of musical chairs, and the music has just ended and there are no more chairs. For most of that previous night, they have been feeling their way across wooded hills and defunct tobacco farms in full darkness, pausing only when one of the children has had to pee, and now they stand in a narrow clearing shot through with luminous beams of sunlight. The morning sky, partially visible through the chimney of pines, is a crystal-clear cerulean blue for the first time in weeks, the dust motes and insects drifting through brilliant rays of light, giving the clearing an almost primeval cast.
Over the next few seconds, each person in the clearing almost unconsciously huddles closer together, the adults gently pressing in around the children, forming a human barrier. And over the course of those tense, surreal moments—during which time Ash still thinks they can play possum and silently wait out the passing of this unprecedented number of dead—the true nature of the horde reveals itself. Ash stares at it, mesmerized.
About fifty yards away, behind layers of thick woods, the leading edge of the herd comes toward them like an inebriated marching band, each walker intermittently rubbing against its neighbor, clawing at the air, groaning and drooling with feral hunger. They move with relentless slowness, dragging through the carpet of leaves and humus—scores of them, maybe hundreds—awkwardly yet steadily moving in a southerly direction. It’s impossible to see the length and breadth of the full herd due to the trees, but the sense Ash has is that it’s immense, vast, perhaps even a thousand strong.
“Ash!” The sound of Ronnie Nesbit’s whisper tears her atten
tion back to the group.
Most of them have crouched down now, their eyes as wide as silver dollars, their hot gazes shimmering with terror. Ronnie Nesbit has his arms around his two children as well as his wife, Dina, who trembles convulsively. The others huddle together mere inches away, the Quinn kids, the Stack family. Ash moves to them, puts her hand on Bobby Quinn’s shoulder, softly shushing the group. The boy feels hot to the touch, feverish, sick with fear. Terror has etched itself on every face.
Ronnie whispers, “We have to turn back, there’s too many of them.”
“We can’t turn back,” Ash informs him, trying to keep her voice down, the hairs on her neck bristling at the terrible noise rising in her ears. It’s that otherworldly chorus of rusty growling and moaning and shuffling feet drawing closer and closer. The air has begun to waft with greasy, black death-stench. Ash tries to ignore the chills rushing down her back. “We’ll run into Dryden for sure.”
“I’d rather run into a million Drydens than this parade of shit.”
“We’ll go around them.”
“Around them?” Ronnie Nesbit chews the inside of his cheek as he considers this, gazing through the trees at the oncoming mob of reanimated dead. Ash quickly surveys the surrounding woods for a suitable route around the multitude of walkers. She eyeballs the distance between the clearing and the crest of a neighboring hill, and while she’s doing this, she’s too preoccupied to notice the profound exchange occurring behind her.
At first, the signals between John Stack and his wife Jennifer are all nonverbal. He looks at her, and he looks at his children, and then he gazes through the trees at the throng. Jennifer Stack glances over her shoulder and sees the herd expanding around them. Like an immense amoeba splitting and multiplying, absorbing every cell in its path, the sides of the herd have separated off in opposite directions, surrounding the clearing.
Now there are countless walking cadavers pressing in on either flank, close enough for Stacks to see their ruined faces, their frosted glass eyes, their wormy mouths working constantly, chewing ceaselessly, driven by insatiable electric hunger. The noise and smell rise to unbearable levels. John Stack takes one last look at his children, and then his face does something remarkable. It falls for a moment, a look of resignation crossing his features. Then his expression softens, and he touches his wife’s cheek. He smiles warmly, a look of pure devotion. He softly says to her, “I love you. Always remember that, baby. You’re my one and only.”
Jennifer Stack stiffens, her eyes welling up with terror and tears. Behind her, the kids remain frozen with bug-eyed awe on their faces. Jennifer starts to shake. “John, don’t. Whatever it is you’re thinking. I’m begging you. Don’t do it!”
By this point, Ash has noticed the exchange, and she slowly rises to her feet. She sees the look in John Stack’s eyes, and she immediately recognizes the import of it. She knows that look. She knows it well. She’s seen it on the faces of people who have come to terms with oblivion, people at the end of their tether. “John, what are you doing? We’re going around—”
“You’re going around them,” John Stack corrects her, straightening up to his full height. He begins to back toward the edge of the clearing, smiling that beatific smile. He picks up a stick. He bangs it on a tree. “Go ahead. Go on. GO! GO NOW!”
Jennifer cries out, “John, don’t do this … goddamn it … DON’T DO THIS!”
Kayla and Kourtney Stack have both begun to softly cry, almost in unison, each knowing exactly what’s happening but not knowing why.
John Stack bangs on the tree and howls: “COME AND GET IT!! SOUP’S ON!! FRESH MEAT!!”
Now things start happening very quickly, so fast that it’s hard for Ash to keep track of it all. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the closest walkers reacting to the sound of the raised voices, the banging noises; a row of older males with mutilated faces and skin like rancid bread dough start staggering toward the noise. At the same time, the children have begun to whimper and struggle to run away, Dina Nesbit holding them tightly. Jennifer Stack is screaming, Ronnie Nesbit holding her now, keeping her from running into the fray. Some of the kids are sobbing into Dina Nesbit’s blouse. Ash realizes they have mere seconds to make their move or they will all become fodder for the throngs.
“This way!” Ash calls out, and grabs the clammy little hand of Bobby Quinn, who is stunned silent, clutching his sister’s hand.
Ash yanks the children across the southeast corner of the clearing, through a gap in the trees, and up a gentle incline of rocky earth.
The others follow—terrified and sheepish—trying not to look back at the man on the far side of the clearing who is, at this moment, distracting the horde, yelling profanities, lashing out at the dead with his knife, swinging the woefully insufficient weapon at all the gruesome faces and milky shark eyes descending upon him. Most of the humans fleeing the scene look away when the first set of rotten teeth embed themselves into the fleshy part of John Stack’s neck.
In a fountain of blood, John collapses. He hits the ground hard, rolls, and tries to climb back to his feet. But the bite wound has opened his jugular. He falls to his belly and coughs and gasps for breath in a warm pool of his own blood spreading across the leaves. He tries to crawl away but the cold spreads through him and steals his strength. More of the creatures pounce on him and sink their teeth into his thighs, his torso, and the nape of his neck. He lets out a caterwaul that sounds more animal than human. The pain is so enormous that he wavers in and out of consciousness but somehow manages to keep his eyes open.
In his last moments of life, he sees the faint shadows of his family climbing the adjacent hill, hurrying after Ash, following her to safety. He smiles that serene, reverential smile one last time, and he thinks of saying one last thing to the walkers: “Fuck you … we won this one.”
* * *
The caravan is halfway across a bridge above the swollen Chattahoochee River when the horses that are pulling Norma’s modified tow truck get mired in ten inches of soupy mud. For a moment, Norma just stares in morbid awe from her perch on the truck’s bench seat as the animals slip and slide in the muck. They toss their heads and snort in frustration for several moments, their shoes sliding backward on the slime.
Norma finally waves at the others, each of which has pulled to a stop midway across the bridge, Lilly sticking her head out of her pickup’s open window and gazing back at the mess, assessing the problem. She says something on her two-way to Musolino.
“I got this!” Norma calls out, and motivates her weary bones to climb out of the cab. Her joints complain and creak as she steps off the truck’s corrugated foot rail, hopping into the brackish standing water with a splash.
Norma Sutters comes from a family of rheumatics, and she has inherited a smorgasbord of late-life ailments. Her father, a Baptist minister from Jacksonville, had terrible gout and arthritis, and her mother’s side featured osteoporosis and diabetes. Since she turned forty a few years back, Norma has enjoyed back pain, tendinitis, flat feet, bursitis, and major rheumatoid arthritis. For a while, regular ibuprofen and swigs of whiskey from her trusty flask kept her relatively pain free, but since the outbreak, meds are harder to come by, and any alcohol worth drinking has already been drunk.
Now she wades through the ankle-deep water, trying to ignore the twinges of pain as she approaches the threshold of the overpass. The biblical rains of recent days have flooded the Chattahoochee to the point of washing out most adjacent roads and bridges. This one is nearly impassable, the water coming right up to the span, seeping up through the seams in the timbers. The entry points on either side have been reduced to mushy sinkholes in which the tow truck’s team of beefy, seal-brown draft horses now wallow noisily, slipping and fidgeting, unable to get any traction.
“Easy does it, big boy,” Norma murmurs, her rubber boots sinking into six inches of muck as she waddles up to the larger animal. The horse whinnies nervously. Norma gently strokes and pats the animal’s flank,
clucking her tongue and trying to figure out how she’s going to pull a thousand-pound beast free of the mire. “Don’t you fret, Tiger. Gonna get you right out of this nasty shit hole.”
A muscular specimen with a spotted coat and huge withers rising up at least five feet tall, the horse nickers nervously, tossing its head and bugging its eyes out as prominently as two enormous marbles. The other horse seems spooked as well, and Norma just figures it’s the loss of traction in the mud patch that’s got them so jittery. She doesn’t yet realize the horses are spooked by the movement in the woods on the periphery of Valley Hill Road. She also doesn’t hear Musolino’s frantic voice calling her name.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” she informs the animals as though they comprise a work crew and she’s the foreperson. She sees a flat outcropping of stone to her immediate left running along the crest of the riverbank. It looks like a former sidewalk that has cracked into fragments and sunken slightly due to weather and age. If she can steer the animals onto that flagstone walkway, then they should be able to extract themselves as well as the truck from the quagmire.
“NORMA!”
Musolino’s booming voice pierces the wind, and Norma glances over her shoulder at the Escalade, idling about twenty-five yards away. She can see the big man bursting out of his driver’s-side door with his AR-15 bouncing on his shoulder, and she just figures he’s coming to help her. The big Portuguese muscle man is a gentle giant on whom Norma has developed a secret crush. Late at night, alone in her bedroom suite, she sometimes fantasizes about him visiting her, wrapping those big, muscular arms around her. She has never told anybody this, and doesn’t plan to. In fact, right now, she’s a little embarrassed that he thinks she can’t get these horses back on track herself.
The Walking Dead: Return to Woodbury Page 8