Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos

by Simpson, David A.

  The trucks were lined up at the docks, their camper shells open and partially filled. He could hear them inside, fast and deadly zombies in a frenzy. They had tasted fresh blood and the scent was driving them mad. He hopped up on the dock, kicked the wedge from the door, closed it behind him then slipped down the darkened corridor. He didn’t want any unwanted visitors from outside deciding to see what all the fuss was about. He checked each of the hallway doors to see how the plywood was holding up. They were fine, he could hear slapping and snarling behind some of them but there were only a few trying to get through. The nails would hold. He saw the busted one hanging loosely on the entrance to the intensive care wing. There had been a lot of people crowded into the ward and they had shoved hard enough to pop the nails out. He followed the sound of frenzy to the pharmacy and wished he had his Mark 7’s. They would have made short work of the thirty or forty undead packed like sardines trying to claw through the big steel door of the safe. He recognized a couple of them from the island, volunteers whose wounds were fresh and their blood was still red. There had been a gun battle, bullet holes peppered the walls and ceiling, the glass above the counters had been blown out and trails of intestines dangled from a few of the shards. Dark liquids dripped from the countertops and the pharmacy was in shambles. Shelves were tumbled, thousands of bottles of pills were strewn among the dozen dead bodies.

  He zipped his jacket all the way and turned up the collar. He wished Bob were here to help him. He wasn’t much worried about dying, there weren’t enough of them to overwhelm him. Even if he got bit, he was immune but they could still do a number on his face if one sank teeth into it.

  It would have been easier with his dog.

  He debated strategies. Pull them out of the big open room into the hallway or just jump in with both knives. He nixed using the Glocks unless things got out of control. Too much noise. The gunfire might get more of the zeds frenzied enough to break through doors. He hoped he wasn’t doing this for nothing. He hoped one of them hadn’t been bit and had turned in the darkness then killed the rest of them.

  He grimaced.

  He hated getting messy.

  It had been a while, technically a few thousand years, since he’d waded into a knock down drag out that would leave him soaked with other people’s blood. You couldn’t try to be clinical in a fight like this. You couldn’t be dainty and try to keep your hands clean. He’d be up to his elbows in reeking innards as soon as he started. With so many coming at him from every direction there wasn’t time to be precise and surgical. He smiled his half smile and stepped forward. In for a penny. In for a pound.

  He picked his way across the bodies and medical debris and almost made it to the back of the crowd before he was noticed. Some of them were patients, some doctors and staff but all turned dead black eyes on him and snarled. Jessie swung his trench knife and sank it to the cross guard a half inch above the closest one’s nose with a crunching sound of breaking bone. The others turned and he swung on the next withered face. Yellowing teeth snapped then went still when six inches of steel sunk into its brain. More came at him and more bones broke, more teeth skittered across the floor and yellow-black bile covered his arms. These zeds were still fast, they weren’t shriveled husks like the ones outside. They didn’t weigh sixty pounds soaking wet, they still had muscle mass and most of their rotting liquids was still inside them.

  Screams and keens filled the air and the people behind the door were forgotten as the mob turned and rushed for the fresh new blood. Jessie met them head on. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a real challenge. A chance where he might not make it out alive. Maybe that bar fight with the Consortium on a Traders Moon. That had gotten ugly but that was blasters and explosions. This was flashing blades and biting mouths.

  He was strong, he was immune from the virus but nobody survived when massive chunks of your face or neck got bitten off. He felt alive again and when teeth clamped down on his leather clad legs he grinned. When filthy, blood encrusted hands clawed for his eyes he started laughing. His teeth flashed white when he drove his fists into snarling faces and his smile was drenched in reeking blood. He spat and head butted a toothless woman in the remains of a hospital gown. He fell when a nurse in a stained uniform tackled him and tried to bury her face into his stomach. She only had time to snap at him once before he drove a blade through her skull. He landed on bodies and his knives swung wildly carving flesh, opening bellies and splashing brains. They screamed their croaky screams and gnashed their diseased teeth but he was an unkillable weapon. Heavy boots shattered bones, metal riveted license plates with sharpened edges slashed through muscle and skin, gore-soaked fists of steel ripped and tore and killed. The blood drenched fury was wading through them, killing everything that reached for him. Flying bodies sent shelves tumbling over, more bottles of pills were strewn across the floor mixing with the broken glass and flying papers. They dragged him to the slippery ground and he slashed and cut and destroyed. They jumped at him from countertops and he slammed them headfirst onto the tiles and head stomped them until oatmeal oozed out of their ears and they moved no more.

  Wallace heard the change in the sound of their screams, heard the laughter of the scarred-up kid and felt the safe door vibrate as bodies were slammed against it with bone splintering force. She put her shoulder to it to shove it open. They had to help. If all the dead were attacking him, maybe they could kill some from behind.

  “Help me!” she yelled and more of them started pushing. They had to do something; the boy was sacrificing himself so they could get out.

  But he wasn’t.

  When they shoved the mountain of bodies far enough out of the way and started to join the fight it was already over. He stood there breathing heavily, gore soaked and dripping bloodied black but he was smiling and there may have been madness in his eyes. Bodies were piled haphazardly around his feet, arms had been snapped like twigs, and heads were flattened gray mush with brain-soaked hair. Jessie watched them come out, saw all of them turn pale and heard a few retching at the sight and smell of the carnage. Wallace lowered her pistol and saw movement from something that wasn’t quite dead yet.

  “Use…” she said but it only came out in a whisper.

  “Use your knives. Finish them off.” She said. Her voice unsteady but a little stronger.

  Jessie watched them as they cast furtive glances at him. Nobody said thanks. Nobody asked about Natalie. They all looked afraid as they took in the killing field, the forty or so dead and the condition of their bodies. The arms and legs bent at unnatural angles. The pancaked heads. The coils of half rotted intestines spilling from flayed open bellies. The dripping boy looked more like a road demon than a road angel. The few who had doubted the stories doubted no more. Even the impossible ones where someone claimed he’d killed a whole town.

  They believed.

  The fight had called more of the undead from other parts of the hospital and they were pounding on the doors in the hallway, trying to force their way through.

  “Hurry up, let’s move.” Wallace said. “You have your lists, get busy.”

  The team jumped to it, glad to stop looking at the destruction that lay all around them. Glad to stop looking at the boy who had just done something they barely believed even though they were looking right at it.

  “Are you okay?” Wallace asked as she approached him, a little warily. “Did you get bit?”

  “Yeah, I’m good.” Jessie said. “I’ll double check the plywood, make sure it’s going to hold.”

  She wanted to follow him. Insist he let her check him for bite marks but she was afraid. What would she do if he told her no? Nothing. That’s what. So why push the issue.

  “Let’s hustle it up people.” She said instead and hurried back to her crew. They were safe to be around. They were predictable. They didn’t go into a berserker rage, laugh maniacally and kill with a savage, brutal abandon.

  By the time they were running down the halls with the
ir arms full of equipment and bags of meds, Jessie had the battery powered gun and was sending more nails into the plywood.

  “One more trip.” Wallace said as she ran by. “Will it hold? Do we have time?”

  “It’ll hold.” Jessie said. “Get everything you need so we don’t have to come back.”

  He checked the other panels blocking the doors, added a few nails to each then checked the docks. The trucks were filling up fast, some of the machines the nurse wanted were bulky. Pill bottles and boxes were strewn across the beds when hastily tossed bags flew open. This was a mess. It wasn’t going to be a quick and easy unload at the boat. It would take hours to get all the machines down and gather everything up. They might get lucky and not pick up a horde of followers but he doubted it. The city was filled with them and the Merc had only gathered up a few thousand to lead out of town. Others were still rushing around trying to figure out where the noises were coming from. He skirted along the edge of the building to check the street at the end of the alley and saw a wall of the zeds hurrying past a few streets over. They were stumble running parallel with them, probably had no clue what they were chasing. The horde had gotten moving and thought it was after something. It would probably run around the city for days before it slowed, stopped and started milling around aimlessly again. The problem was they were heading towards the river. Towards the rail crossing bridge. If they got there before the trucks, Plan A was out the window. The group was already on the verge of panic. They’d lost some of their own and Wallace was the only thing keeping them from hopping in the trucks and making a run for it.

  “You think they’re already down to the tracks?” She asked as she slipped up beside him and watched the unending mob shamble past.

  “Hard to say.” Jessie said. “It’s a mile from here but I’ve been watching them for the last few minutes. It’s been nonstop.”

  “There’s a traffic circle halfway there.” Wallace said. “It’s going to get confusing for them. They might come back this way.”

  “If they do, they’ll stop and start standing around again. I’ve seen when two hordes merge like that, they don’t know which way to run they don’t do anything.”

  “Do you think we can make it?” Wallace asked “We have to get on the tracks. The way north is blocked by the horde Natalie led out. The only other way is south and we have to go through three towns before there’s another bridge.”

  “You get the trucks ready.” Jessie said. “I’ll lead them off.”

  “You can’t. There’s too many and they’re everywhere. You’ll run right into another horde any direction you go. Can you call Natalie back? Maybe she can get them to go after her.”

  “No.” Jessie said, still watching the never-ending parade of undead hurry by. “She can barely reach the pedals. She’s okay to drive to the pull off but nothing else.”

  “Maybe we can hole up for a while. Give it a day, maybe they’ll wander off.”

  “They won’t.” Jessie said and scanned the rooftops. “Get your trucks ready.”

  “Jessie.” She said. “Look, I don’t know how you did that back there without getting torn apart. I saw it and still can’t believe it. I know you have good armor and you’re good with the knives but you can’t fight thousands of them. You just can’t.”

  He turned to look at her, saw the concern in her face and softened his.

  “It’ll be okay. I have a plan. Something my dad did, it’ll work here, too, but I need you to get out of here while you still can. It’s just as likely that horde circles back up two streets over and you’ll be trapped between them. You’ve got to go now.”

  He gave her a gentle push and once she got moving, she ran the rest of the way back to the idling trucks. When she climbed in Jessie pulled his guns and ran for the horde. A block away they heard him start firing.

  “That was his plan?” Ramirez asked.

  “Go.” She said. “Hurry while they’re distracted.”

  42

  Sailing Up River

  The horde turned at the sound of his guns and a collective roar went up. Their awkward run towards the river stopped and the stumble step running towards him started. Jessie fired with both hands, dropped a handful and smashed through the front door of a lock and key shop. He fired a few more rounds so they knew where he was and didn’t run past the shadowed entrance. They poured through the opening and he dropped a couple more before he ran up the stairs. They surged forward; hundreds already crowded into the shop. Shelves tumbled over and displays on the counter were knocked to the floor. They screamed their brittle hungry screams and staggered after him, after the warm blood flowing though his veins.

  Jessie let them come, fired a round or two to keep them in a frenzy and led them to the fourth floor. He raced through the rooms, found the bedroom and grabbed a couple of leather belts hanging in the closet. He circled back to the sliding door in the living room and flung it wide open. The building was old, at least a hundred and fifty years, and even though the apartments had been updated the metal fire escape hadn’t seen a coat of paint in decades. He tossed the table and chairs over the edge then braced himself against the brick of the building. He started kicking the railing, tried to break it free. The snarling and screaming horde filled the key shop, crammed into it and flowed up the steps. Many fell and were trampled and many more fell stumbling over the pulpy bodies but they kept surging upward to the sound of clanging metal. He didn’t think the rail was going to break free before the horde caught up to him but once the rusted bolts on one side snapped the other twisted off easily. Below him the street was full of them as they pushed and shoved their way into the store. Jessie fired one more round at the first zombie through the door then sprinted up the final flight to the roof.

  The mob shoved into the room, out onto the fire escape and scores of them tumbled right over the edge, pushed by the crowd behind. Bodies fell into the mob below and most of them didn’t move again. The surge kept pushing and more spun out into space before plummeting forty feet to the street.

  Jessie jumped up and down on the metal stairs and yelled at the mob, urged them onward to their deaths. Some slipped past the waterfall of bodies and lurched for him. He ran the rest of way up to the roof, hustled to the big electrical wires at the back of the building that stretched over to the poles. He was taking a trick from his Dad. He’d heard the story enough times down at the bar. In the early days of the zombie uprising Gunny, Stabby, Scratch and a couple of others had been trapped in a house. The old man had hung on to the wires and inched his way back to his truck parked on the street. Some said he walked it like a tight rope using a pink umbrella for balance but nobody really believed that version.

  Jessie tested the strength of the cables, the only part of his plan he wasn’t sure of, but they were solid and the building was taller than the electric poles. He looped the belts over the wires and pushed off, sliding smoothly down and slowing a little by tightening the belt. He was at the rear of the building in a little alley filled with garbage cans, chained up bicycles and a work van with flat tires. Jessie shimmied down the pole and left the horde behind, most of them still trying to force their way inside the building. He cut over a few blocks then jogged towards the river. He made it to the train tracks, avoided the crawlers and followed the rails to the bridge. There wasn’t a zombie in sight and the crew were hustling the equipment down to the sailboat. He could barely hear the roar of the horde and wondered how long they would keep the circle up. Eventually the pile of unmoving dead would be high enough that the ones tumbling out wouldn’t get splattered but with a little luck, they might be at it for hours. They would keep rushing into the building then up the stairs and out onto the balcony. A lot of them made it up the final flight to the roof but that was okay, too. If he came back in a year, most of them would probably still be up there.

  The soldiers in the fireman’s chain passing the supplies down to the boat looked up in surprise when Jessie came jogging up, barely winded. He still look
ed like hell, was still covered in gore and crusty blood, but he was grinning. Wallace turned to greet him, maybe even pull the crazy bastard into a bear hug but the smell stopped her when she got close.

  “How?” she started but shook her head.

  “Never mind. Tell us when we get back.” She said. “We’re almost finished here.”

  “You stink.” She added and wrinkled her nose but with a smile. She had thought he’d suicided himself to let them get away and was pretty damn glad he hadn’t.

  They’d all almost died to get the meds, the risk was high, but it would have been much higher if he hadn’t been there. More than likely, none of them would have made it back. They hadn’t died, though. They had survived, lived through a terrifying couple of hours and now they were feeling jubilant. Feeling alive. They would mourn the two friends that were lost but they would do it later. The living had work to do.

  They knew they wouldn’t be going back until winter and a hard freeze, nobody would be crazy enough to try. The towns were too dangerous, the cost had been too high, even with the help of the Road Angel.

  Jessie waded a few feet out into the inlet under the bridge and splashed the cold water over his leathers to get some of the zombie slop off of him. As he was cleaning his blades, Natalie paddled up in the kayak.

  “Everything go okay?” he asked.

  “Just like you said.” She beamed, proud of herself. “I sped up just before I got to the pull off. Had plenty of time to lock it up and get down to the water before the first one came running in.”