by Chris Lowry
His plan was a good one. I wish I'd thought of it.
I sent him and the Boy to escort Bem back to the rail truck with the two children so they would be safe.
"Lock it up," I instructed her. "Keep your rifle ready."
She almost rolled her eyes then stopped herself and I smiled.
"Sorry kid, it's tough to switch out of Dad mode. I know you've made it this far."
"Not just my looks," she said.
Reminding me she was a thinker. Strategic.
I'd seen her in an arena full of zombies, put there by a man who hated me. She gutted one, smeared its insides on her clothes and sat still while the others ignored her.
Sharp.
I wished I was more like her.
The five of them walked back through the woods, and I listened.
Trying to hear other threats, head cocked to one side to gauge the bird song, the insect hum, any change in volume or tempo that would indicate a threat.
Then I pulled a knife from it's sheath and got to work.
I punched holes in the gas tanks, and let the gasoline leak out of the cars onto the blacktop.
I was through twenty cars on one side when my son and Tyler came back.
"They're safe," the Boy said.
They pulled knives and we made short work of the rest of the vehicles.
After twenty minutes, we had a long line of cars that made a metal tunnel all the way to the gate, except for the last thirty feet, which the guards had kept clear.
Our movement in the roadway attracted some Z, who pressed against the gate, bending it out and bowing it forward.
More Z were drawn by the others, and the weight began to stress the metal with creaks and clangs that could be heard over the moans and grunts of the zombies.
"Not much time," Tyler commented.
I studied our work.
"Good enough for government," I said and ushered the two boys back to the end of the line of cars.
"Hey," I called after Tyler. "Lighter."
He felt in his pockets and shrugged.
"Left mine at the last campsite."
The Boy shook his head.
"I don't have one either."
Damn it.
A great plan we were about to toss because we couldn't light a fire.
"Check the cars!"
I hauled open a door and sniffed, to see if I could smell the stale stench of a smoking habit, but couldn't make out the scent of anything over the gas that puddled at our feet.
It was a hand to hand search, ripping through consoles, and dashboards, quick glances at the floorboards.
I was in car number five when the gate broke.
"Back," I screamed and waved my arms so the Z would still funnel into the tunnel.
I could hear the boys running behind me, then the sound of car doors opening and slamming as they continued the search.
I had to hop and walk backwards, keeping the Z focused on me so they wouldn't spread out into the woods.
"Found one!" the Boy shouted.
I turned and ran to him, taking the lighter from his hands, then Tyler joined us and we jogged to the end of the rows.
We waited.
The Z were coming, a tide of shambling corpses grunting, and lurching toward us.
We wouldn't get them all, but several hundred piled into the tunnel, a herd size drawn by the movement through the gate, drawn by each other.
"Now," said Tyler.
"Not yet."
They drew closer. Twenty yards. Ten.
"Now!" said the Boy.
"Everyone is a critic," I flicked the wheel on the lighter as I kneeled down to the gas puddle on the blacktop.
It sparked, but no fire.
"Dad!"
Tyler raised his rifle and shot the first Z as it lunged for my head.
I fell backwards, crab walking as more zombies came at us. I could only use my feet and one hand, the other thumb scratching the lighter, trying to get a flame.
The Boy added his shots to Tyler's and kept the front row of grasping hands off me.
We worked our way backwards, and the gas puddle ended.
I spun the wheel one more time and it sparked.
Flames licked up across the back of my hand and raced in a blue orange conflagration under the Z, the fire making a roaring sound as it ignited the black top.
I jumped up and danced back, shaking my hand.
The Boy sent a bullet into the head of two Z that lumbered out of the fire. Tyler picked off the ones on the front line. I pulled my pistol, ignoring the searing burn on the back of my hand as I added my shots to theirs.
We knocked down the front line, then the second, which created a tiny burning barrier of zombies that held the others back.
The flames burned through the legs, knocking more down, and dry clothes caught fire until the air was full of bar b que zombie, a cloying stench that rolled out of the tunnel of cars in a toxic fog.
Then one of the vehicles popped and exploded.
I thought we would be okay since we released the gas vapors from the tank, which is why most cars explode. It's not like it was in the movies, a violent flipping of the automobile with lots of pyrotechnics.
Just a loud whoosh and pop, followed by more black smoke that filled the space between the tress, and blocked our view of the rest of the Z at the gate.
The flames would draw even more.
Exploding cars compounded our danger, especially since we couldn't predict when they would go.
"Back to the truck," I ordered and we took off through the trees.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The truck was empty.
I pulled up short at the tree line and glared up and down the track.
"Is she ducking down?" the Boy whispered next to me.
Tyler ducked into the trees and moved further away from us. He studied the tracks, studied the truck.
I motioned the Boy down and behind a pine.
"Bem!" I called out hoping she would lift her head.
But she didn't.
"Watch."
I moved out of the pines and ran up to the side of the truck, ducked down against it. I reached over and knocked on the door with three quick slaps.
No answer.
I peeked into the windows, into the truck bed.
Empty.
Tyler stepped out of the trees and gave a low whistle.
The Boy joined me as we jogged a couple hundred feet up the tracks.
"Struggle," he said and pointed to scuff marks on the ground.
We followed it along the railroad tracks, spread out. I kept the Boy close to the forest, and angled away from Tyler in an attempt to minimize our target signatures.
The trail led us to a path in the woods.
“Scuffle,” said Tyler.
He bent down on one knee and studied the ground. The leaves were messed up in front of the truck door, the supplies missing.
“They went that way,” the Boy added.
Not to be outdone.
I checked the safety on my rifle.
“Stay close,” I growled.
There were patches of pine needles and leaves overturned leading into the woods. Bem was dragging a foot, brushing against tree bark to scrape off one side.
Smart girl.
Making it easy to follow.
The trail converged with others.
“How many?”
Tyler shrugged.
“A lot,” said the Boy.
A dozen different sets of boot prints.
They took my girl. They could have been watching us now.
“Stop,” I whispered.
We stood there like statues and I wanted to blend into the ground, the trees, anything we could hide behind.
I couldn’t tell you what set it off. It wasn’t the crack of a branch, or some other noise that stood out on the path in the forest.
It may have been the smell, the reek of unwashed bodies and hand rolled cigarettes carried on the
wind. I could smell it now, faintly on the breeze. Someone had been smoking in an enclosed environment and the stench of it clung to them like body odor.
“Dad?” the Boy whispered.
I turned my head and he flicked his eyeballs in a direction off to the right.
The trees were moving.
No, it wasn’t the trees, it was men and women dressed in camo detaching themselves from the tress. It was a good pattern, good blend because standing under the shadows of the oaks and evergreens, they mixed in with the bark.
That’s what it was then.
Movement that didn’t match mother nature.
My eyes recognized it before my brain could figure it out.
Score one for natural instincts.
Not that it did us any good.
We were still surrounded as the group of nine stepped out of the forest on the path in front of and behind us. They were on both sides too.
Nine of them, muffled in thick all weather gear, heads wrapped in hoods and scarves and thick thermals that made them appear to be puffy large human shaped monsters.
There was a piece of good news though.
Only one carried a gun.
Bem’s gun.
The figure stepped out of the circle and closer to me.
“Are you the leader of this here outfit?”
It was a woman by her voice, but I could tell nothing else.Even her height was disguised by thick hiking boots that must have added another couple of inches and the hood over a beanie on her head.
“Where is she?”
The woman pointed my daughter’s gun in my direction.
“I asked you a question,” she growled back. “It’s rude not to answer.”
Leave it to the South to insist on the social niceties even after a zombie apocalypse has devastated the world.
“Sorry,” I grumbled. “Where is she, please?”
That earned a chuckle from a couple of the men, which seemed to piss her off. I wasn’t worried about getting shot.
I’ve been shot and it hurts like Hell, not an experience I want to go through again.
The only reason I wasn’t worried is because the woman wore thick gloves and her fingers couldn’t fit through the trigger guard, at least not while they were on.
“Get the boys,” she said.
The men on both sides of us jumped on the Boy and Tyler, yanking them away from the circle of the rest of them who closed in tighter around me.
I wished we were in a kung fu movie.
It was always funny to me how Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee could take on twenty men at a time, but they all fought one by one.
A giant circle of warriors would surround the hero but then totally give up their advantage by only taking him on in tiny little individual attacks. The filmmakers tried to make it look more dangerous by letting the hero block one guy, or avoid another even as a second attacked, but it just wasn’t realistic.
I’m not what you could expect from the movies about being realistic though.
In real life, a group of six guys surround you, they don’t fight one by one.
They rush in and tackle you to the ground, kick, stomp, punch, grunt.
I’m lucky they didn’t bite.
Two of them held my arms, two held my legs and the other two practiced their tap dance lessons on my rib cage, stomach and thighs.
When one decided to play field goal kicker with my head, I didn’t want to play anymore and passed out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I woke up alone in the middle of a field.
That wasn't quite right, I thought. I had to shake my head a couple of times to clear the cobwebs.
One of my eyes was crusted shut with something.
Blood.
I reached up to try and wipe it away, but my hands were tied behind my back.
The field was an amphitheater of some sort. I glanced left and right, but the kids weren't with me.
I tried to turn around and rough hands grabbed me, jerked me back forward to face the stage.
A large woman sat on a throne in the middle. She stared down at me with eyes that drilled into me.
I felt like a bug under a microscope the way she studied, her lips pressed together in a half snarl.
She had long red hair, bright eyes and wore hunters overalls like the rest of her men. It was a little warm for the extra layers, but smart. The bibs were thick padding and good armor against a zombie.
I made a note to scrounge up a pair for us and looked down at myself.
I could see why she thought I was a bug.
My clothes were ripped and tattered from the fight in the woods. Smoke and soot covered what I could see of my skin peeking through the tears. I’m sure it covered my face and what was left of my hair too.
Scorched, beaten and bloody.
That had to be what she saw.
"You got a name?" she asked.
"The one my mother gave me," I shot back.
She grinned and snickered.
"I'm Mags," she said. "You think you're a tough guy, don't you? I've known a lot of tough guys in my day."
She lifted a leg and draped it over the side of the chair.
There was too much room between us for me to make a lunge for her, too many unknowns at my back.
And the guys lining the stage behind her were a big reason to hold still too. A dozen or so of them, all armed with rifles, all glaring at me.
I bet they could take me down before I made it ten steps. Maybe five.
"You like my Colonels?" she asked. "They're a Kentucky tradition."
"That's a lot of chiefs," I croaked.
She smiled and nodded.
Someone grabbed my arms and lifted me up, straining my shoulder against the tight bindings strapping the wrists together.
They spun me around.
Mags was at my back. She moved to the edge of the stage and said in a soft voice.
"Lots of Indians."
The amphitheater behind me was full of people. Stands on either side packed ground to top with armed men. Some soldiers, some hunters, but all of them watching me with intense interested stares.
"Did I just hear you gulp?" Mags giggled.
"Just wondering how many I have to kill to get out of here."
The hands spun me around again, rougher this time and knocked me to the mud. They lifted me just as rough and held straight.
"There's a difference between tough and just plain dumb," Mags crinkled her nose.
I huffed out a breath and sniffed.
"You've got to want something," I said. "Otherwise I'd be dead. Unless you're one of those evil Bond villains who likes to spill their guts about world domination while I
hatch an escape plot?"
Mags clapped her hands together.
"I do think you are a delight," she drawled. "My boys said you put up a good fight out in our woods. And you're right, if I wanted you dead, you would be a doornail."
She winked at one of the men behind me and he sliced through the plastic at my wrist. Two zip ties dropped onto the ground at my feet.
"Now I'm not saying you won't be dead once we're done," she cackled. "But at least you can say I gave you a fighting chance as a thank you for clearing those zombies out of the Refugee Center at the Fort. That gave us a lot of supplies. I'm grateful."
"Thankful enough to just let me go?"
The cackle again and this time another motion.
“I’m the head of the Council in here. That makes me the boss. And as the boss, everyone in here does exactly what I say. Sometimes without me even asking.”
I heard someone moving in on me and ducked as a fist slid over my head. I kicked out with my foot and cracked the inside of the man's knee. It folded out with a loud snap and he screamed as he fell. Mags darted back as more men rushed in. "There's only two ways this can end sister."
She glared at me. I wasn't trying to be misogynistic by calling her sister, I was trying to goad her into acting from anger.
Like trek half way across the country to rescue kids who were probably dead, and then reversing direction to do it again.
The odds were almost always against doing dumb things.
Except God or whatever passed for it in this new zombie plagued world had a soft spot for dumb guys and their children. I wished it were for all children but I'd seen some kid Z and it broke my heart.
"You will comply," she said in a crisp voice.
"We are Borg, huh? Resistance is futile."
She made a small motion with her left hand and the gate on stage left popped open. A bunch of rough looking guys started marching through. Six of them, so maybe it wasn't that many, but six on one never looked pretty.
She was too far away to see me gulp.
I tried to think of that line from Princess Bride where the dread pirate fights the giant, and he can't think of how to beat him because he's used to fighting groups of men, but it escaped me.
Leave it to the zombie apocalypse to cut into quality movie memorization time.
I settled for an old comic book stand by.
"Bring it on."
Or maybe it was a cheerleading movie, but in the middle of the beginning of a fight, no one bothers to check on your references.
They rushed all at once, proving they didn't watch kung fu movies.
Those guys would wait patiently while you smacked their buddy around, then come in when it was there turn.
These guys didn't get the memo.
Just for perspective, there are at least six ways to reach a body when you bum rush it. Front, back, side one, side two, top and bottom.
These fellas were going to grab my arms, one to each, torso and neck, and I wasn't really sure what the other two planned.
When the first two made their move and clamped on my wrists, I dropped.
I wish I could say it was skill and planning on my part, but remember that whole God loves dumb asses theme I'm building? I really just slipped trying to back up, and the two holding me by the wrist were slammed forehead to forehead when they refused to let go of my arms.
Bonk.
The torso guy launched himself at the same time I fell, so he overshot me and gave me a good goose egg with his boot as he sailed over me.
Number four was dry humping my leg as I went down.
At least that's what it felt like.