The look of surprise on the girls face when she saw a woman towing a huge piece of plant machinery had been one of surprise. The huge Peter Billy cab was not the kind of truck that anyone would expect to see a woman driving. The next look the girl had given had been also familiar to the driver. Ever since she was a child she had gotten the same looks from the pretty girls, even her name “Dozer” was a derogatory name to begin with. “Dozer the Bull” was the taunt of choice in high school. It was a name that had gotten her into trouble many times and one that always led to the misconception that her homeliness and masculine build meant she was gay. The fact was that the driver was not gay at all.
Her father, who had been a road construction worker and owned his own plant machinery company, had told her to embrace the taunts at school. Taunts meant you were special; kids that followed the pack usually never had an original idea in their lives. If looks were going to be the thing that she wanted to set her sights on being the fabric of her character, he would pay for a new face for her. He could afford it.
Yet he had also taken the time to explain that if she were to let others determine what she needed to do to be accepted, then she would never be herself. She had listened to him. Although he had never been a book educated man, he was probably the smartest man she had ever known. She never used her real name any longer; she just referred to herself as Dozer to everyone.
She could live with the looks and the stares from people. She could listen to the jokes. She was happy in her truck, and if she ever had a particularly bad day, she simply had the knowledge that the eight figure balance in her bank account meant she could go and spend the weekend wherever she wanted.
She smiled as she remembered her father. He was a strong man who had been a good single parent. All he had known was machinery and the roads. And what he lacked in feminine knowledge for his daughter to use, he had made up for in love and kindness. When she was with her dad, she felt like the most important girl in the world, and to him, she was.
“I am Sorry” he had told her before he had passed. “I never knew much about girls, let alone raising one.” Through her tears she had touched his hand and tried her best to smile.
“You were the best daddy a girl could have.” Words she had meant and believed from the bottom of her heart.
“You raised me well and I am safe, I have everything I need the way I always have” she had added. Then her daddy used the last of his strength to sit and kiss her head one last time. Then she had smiled into those loving eyes of his. The arms that where no longer powerful and the shallow breathing and cancer ridden body told her he was going. He had tried to hold on just to be with his beautiful little girl forever. She granted her father the dying wish of all good fathers. And she whispered. “I love you daddy, you can go now.”
He had closed his eyes and drifted away. She was sad she would never talk with him again. The long hours around the fire or driving across country were no more but she was happy his suffering was over. She was also blessed that he had been the one she had the honor of calling dad.
What she had not expected was what came later at the reading of the will. Her father had worked every day of his adult life, and she knew that the company was doing well, but when he left her the sum of fifteen million dollars plus the company, she was floored with surprise.
She was wealthier than she had ever imagined. They had lived a humble life. After college she had worked her own rig and operated the Sakai Pad Foot Roller and Cat 930H Wheel Loader that sat on the back of her own Peterbilt 379 rig with her specially designed cab. Her rig was her own home away from home.
She stared out of the window and smiled again. She had a good life, and the girl who wanted to be “Anywhere but here” had been her travelling companion for the past two days.
The girl turned in her sleep and an arm lazily draped on Dozer’s chest. She made no immediate attempt to move, the feeling of a person close to her was not uncomfortable to her, yet it was only comfort she felt.
“Hey girl, I don’t butter my bread that side up” she said in her slow Virginian drawl as she woke the younger woman from her sleep. The girl was obviously embarrassed as she stirred, but said nothing; instead she ruffled at her red hair and yawned.
“What time is it?” she asked Dozer as she rummaged through her small bag looking for a clean t-shirt, or at least one that was cleaner than the previous day’s. “It’s a little after four in the afternoon” she replied, before adding “This traffic has not moved in seven hours.”
Dozer was actually puzzled by the excessive delay. She had wanted to be back at her depot near Quakertown by nine in the morning. Whilst delays at the Lehigh tunnel were usual for big rigs, travelling through in convoy as they did, this one was indeed excessive. She just hoped that the guy travelling from Illinois was not going to charge her wait time for picking up the old piece of plant she had sold.
They had been diverted north from Allentown in the first place. But her trip was supposed to take her from I-78 and then south. The original plan was to simply cut back to Easton and head south on 611 to her depot.
“They told me to pull over at around four this morning and await instructions from PENNDOT, but I cannot see a single car as moved since then.” She said this in an almost absent minded tone, still puzzled by the delay.
“Perhaps there is an accident, where are we I will check my phone” said the girl as she stepped out of the bed and began to step into her jeans. “Lehigh tunnel,” replied Dozer.
Then, remembering her manners, she said “Hey, there is a coffee machine back there and there’s juice and cereal in the cupboards. It isn’t much of a kitchen in these things, but it’s the closest thing to an RV stuck to a truck you will find.” She pulled back the curtain that lead to her driving cab.
The girl mumbled a thank you and finished dressing behind her. Although the cars where filling the road, most of the people were sitting on the roadside drinking water or chatting among themselves. This was not the norm for the Pennsylvania North East Extension.
Dozer stepped out of her cab and slipped on her thick woolen shirt. She was always conscious of her muscles and how people jumped to the usual assumptions about her sexuality. Thinking of the girl that she had just left in the cab, and how pretty and how she was at least fifteen years younger, she did not want to raise more questions, even if it was from strangers.
“Hi,” she said to a family sitting by the car closest to her. “What’s going on?”
The man of the family began to speak as his teen daughter pulled up the zipper on her hoody with a look that said “Keep your eyes to yourself dyke.”
There’s that look again, thought Dozer, and shook her head.
“I don’t know” said the man who would appear to have been the husband and father. “Someone came by around 10 and said that the police where dealing with a major incident on the North end.
“Strange” she muttered. I didn’t get an alert or anything this morning. I just got told to pull over and wait.” she added this with an awkward smile.
“The radio is out also. We heard the riots in Philly were bad and nothing since” said the woman, who appeared to be the mother. “Nothing on the phones or radio, nothing.” she added before being suddenly distracted by one of the younger children who had committed an unseen offense bad enough to get the use of his middle name.
The teen daughter suddenly spoke up “Pop-pop, I really gotta pee!” she complained, but he did not reply in any other way than to say, “find a tree or use the bucket like everyone else.” The girl who was of high school age simply did an awkward jig before sighing deeply and looking at her phone.
“Keep it to yourself hon, but I have a room in the cab, Roberta will show you where”. Dozers home away from home would soon be overrun and stinking if she let it be known that her cab had a bathroom. Peter Billy cabs are essentially an RV on the back of a truck cab, and carry many comforts for long distance drivers. Dozer had spared no expense on hers. With
a double bed sofa, kitchen area, bathroom and a 48 inch TV there was little it did not cater too.
The look and awkwardness of her assumptions was gone from the teen in an instance as she bolted to the truck. Dozer remembered her own awkward years as a teen and would not wish those days on anyone.
Suddenly a megaphone sparked into life somewhere and an announcement began.
“We apologize for the inconvenience, but there has been a multiple fatality accident on the North side of the tunnel that has blocked all lanes, a National Guard unit in Allentown will be bringing water soon.” The announcement ended as abruptly as it began. There where protests from the hundreds of stranded drivers but still no word on any further explanation on when they would be moving. Dozer excused herself and returned to her cab to try the CB, but nothing north of the tunnel was coming through.
She closed her eyes for a moment to calculate the penalty fees she was going to incur for being late when she finally did reach the depot, but was interrupted by several popping noise.
“Ma’am, thank….” The teen girl began, but Dozer held up a finger to silence the girl.
“Wait there!” interrupted Dozer as she focused on the tunnel entrance and lowered her window. “Did you hear that?” she asked the two other females in the cab. Several more pops came from the tunnel accompanied by a faint rolling noise that sounded like a distant waterfall.
“What is that noise?” asked Roberta but Dozer was focused on the tunnel’s entrance. First there was a flickering of the tunnel lights and then the tunnel grew dark. She guessed that the power had gone out but she realized a second later, as images she had seen as a child came back to her, what was happening.
At first the smoke was white as it billowed out of the tunnel’s mouth before specks of black began to flick onto the windshield. “Oh shit!” she said under her breath and began to wind up the window. “Move the kid back now!” she yelled as the white smoke turned to grey, then a dull brown before intensifying to black.
The cab was plunged into darkness in seconds. The sound of screams and people running was drowned by a rumbling sound coming from the tunnel’s mouth. She wanted to move, to hide her face but the smoke was mesmerizing her.
There was a pounding on the window but the smoke was so thick that she saw only the hand of the person beating at the glass before it also disappeared into the darkness. The door rattled a few times and as she reached to open it, the noise stopped and there was no sign of anyone there.
“Those fires are getting closer” said Roberta pointing at flickering flames through the blackness. “Oh my god” she whispered, “they are walking!” As the flaming figures moved along the road at a slow ambling pace they advanced unimpeded by their infernal burden. They simply walked on aimlessly. It was too dark in the smoke to see a full figure, but the flaming procession obviously consisted of humans, or of individuals whom had once been human. Her CB cracked into life and a voice said exactly what she was thinking.
“They aren’t even in pain and yet they’re burning!” yelled the male voice. She also heard screams on the radio and as the screams increased, both in number and volume. She would later swear that the flaming figures walked faster.
“I need to find my mom!” screamed the girl as she looked into the cab. “Oh my God, mom and pop-pop are out there with them!” She tried to move for the door but Dozer was faster and stronger and held the girl tightly in her grip.
“No!” she said in a calm voice. “No kid. You need to stay here.”
“No!” the girl screamed “They need me!”
“If you go out there you’ll die” said Roberta as she looked down from the cab. A gathering of flaming bodies where crouched over a shape on the ground and clawing at it. Although the smoke and blackness shielded the horror, Roberta had spent enough time around gangs and witnessed enough beatings to know that the shape on the floor was a person in agony. The flames did not move. They simply clung to the crouched over forms until one by one the latter fell to the side of the now still shape. The flaming creatures were no longer moving, but the flames still burned on.
The girl was still screaming and thrashing and kicking at Dozer when Roberta turned and grabbed her hard on both biceps.
“Do you want to die!” she screamed “Do you want those demons to rip you apart, do you? You think your mother and grandfather want that? It’s not your time you silly little bitch!” Roberta was shaking her violently.
“It’s not in the plan!” She let go of the girl and moved into the back of the trailer while the teen girl slumped into the passenger seat sobbing.
Yet Dozer said nothing, she simply turned and looked out of the window. The dead had risen and smoke and ash had blocked the sun. Again and again, the same question sounded in her head.
“What the hell do we do now?” Her thoughts where suddenly interrupted by the sounds of her CB radio.
“One-miner for anyone, this is Jake Break out of Illinois, square wheeled just north of 611 and 113. I am out of gas and looking for assistance, come back.”
Dozer was less than 35 miles from home and this guy happened to be just 2 miles from her yard.
“Jake Break, this is Dozer Seventy-eight, you are about two miles shy of my yard. I am on my way. Stay in touch, you hear me?”
“Ten-four Sister, I hear ya, good to hear a voice on the other end of this. There’s some crazy shit happening here.”
“A lot of that around” she muttered to herself as she waited for the smoke to clear.
9
Officer Scholastica
Stealing the quickest of glances along the corridor he could see his prize: the double fire doors. When closed, these would isolate this one small part, of the Rhode Island Hospital, from the rest of the crazy bullshit that was going on today. Seven police officers had moved up to the eleventh floor earlier today. And now they were down to just two, the rookie who was named Murphy, and himself
The doors were only fifty feet away, but two of the creatures were between the doors and them. They were more than mindful of the fact that they were on a floor that had not been cleared yet.
The idea was to isolate and then close the floor down before clearing each room one by one. They were both cops and they understood cordon and control. He remembered it well, it was a lesson he had learned the hard way when he was still on the beat in Boston.
Like today it had been routine as usual, it had been Massachusetts day and he had been assigned to crowd control on Dartmouth Street. The area had been close to the finish line of the Marathon that day. And when the first bomb blew he had only been a block away. The order to move was still being passed when the second device blew.
The sight when he arrived was a mess. Ambulances formed into a semi-circle, blood strewn faces. The race was still in progress, but police officers were in the process of closing it down. Glass crunched under feet and although he knew the sound of crowds well, the noise was now different. It was thicker somehow, more threatening and more foreign.
The first woman came to him, her arm covered in blood, blank stare on her face and he could see the gash in her shoulder. The blood seemed to well out of her and was soaking her coat.
“Stay there ma’am” he said, taking her by the arm and guiding her to sit against the wall. The first aid pack he carried was small, and mainly for use with people who had overdosed or needed CPR. His training was good though, and he had applied pressure with whatever he had available.
“Can you help me?” she had asked, as if recognizing him for the first time. He simply nodded and in the calmest voice he could manage had said he could. With one hand he had fished for his radio, but the traffic over the net was so busy. A huge guy that had the stereotypical look of an Irish Bostonian looked down.
“I’ll get some help for ya” he said, and was gone. The Irishman returned within minutes, and Officer Scholastica moved on to his next task. There was a lot that needed to be done here.
The manhunt that followed was relentless,
and though he had not been there when one of the bombers were killed and the other captured, he had worked on the search for the two terrorists, They were successful on that cold wet night in April of 2013.
Yet, Officer Scholastica was not destined to remain in Boston. The events of April 15th 2013 and the subsequent manhunt that followed had been a message to Scholastica that he could not ignore. He had volunteered for SWAT training and had requested a transfer to Providence in early two thousand and fifteen. It was sheer bad luck that he had been asked to fill in this day for a friend who wished to attend his sister’s wedding. It had been a favor owed and one he had granted gladly.
Yet now here he was, with a rookie less than two months on the force and a hospital full of zombies. Officer Peter Scholastica was not in a good mood.
“Ok Rookie,” he whispered to his younger partner. “I am gonna drop these two, you run down there wicked hard and drop that broom handle through the door pulls. Got it?”
Murphy nodded in the affirmative and braced himself to run. It was not the distance he needed to cover to get there that concerned both of the police officers; it was the noise that the gunshots would make. They knew any noise would bring whatever was on this floor running.
“On the first shot”, Scholastica reminded Murphy unnecessarily, but the fact he had reminded him at all was as much to reassure him as it was to reassure the rookie.
Scholastica came to his feet and into the aiming position in one fluid movement and his bead dropped almost instinctively on the first of the zombies. The two rapid shots struck the undead creature center-of-mass and a cloud of red splatter exploded from the chest. The body hit the ground with a reassuring thud as it crumpled.
Zombie Outbreak Z1O5 (Book 2): Zed Dawn Page 10