You were never safe in this world. Randy kept that in mind as they double timed it up the narrow road to the secondary warehouse. The secondary warehouse turned out to be an adult toy storage center. Row upon row of aluminum door covered storage areas surrounded by a large fence with barbed wire on top of it. The fenced in area included a parking section filled with grime coated boats, jet skis, RVs and other adult toys. Weeds and bushes had grown up and into the filth covered vehicles in the back. Frank led them thorough the wide-open front gate into the labyrinth of storage sheds.
Two right turns later Randy saw that several of the storage room doors on the row they were approaching had been opened up. There was way more stuff in them than they’d be able to carry back to the boats. The storage space stockpile had been intended to supply a roving patrol plus a hundred civilians and the warehouse crew. They were down to the warehouse crew and a roving patrol if you counted Randy and his family as part of the rovers. Randy absolutely counted himself as part of the patrol. Otherwise why would he be marching his way down a pebble strewn sidewalk to help carry gear back down a road with who knew how many nesting Zombies lurking in the surrounding brush.
Bryan and his team had kept busy by pulling the gear out of the sheds that was on the list. They’d also pulled out the dollies that‘d been shoved into the sheds to make it easier to get the supplies out. The first things to go were the jugs of gas and stacks of car batteries. Without those items the vehicles waiting for them were pretty much useless. Randy grabbed the closest loaded dolly and spun it around to pull along the sidewalk back towards the open gate. He slowed down to let Frank take back the lead.
Frank was the only person on team two not responsible for lugging along a dolly for the first run. He’d get his chance on the second run. At least one of them needed their hands free to respond quickly and quietly if a Zombie showed up. Trying to set a dolly down quietly then fumble around to grab a machete wasn’t going to be the best approach to getting the team back to the boat alive. In deference to that Frank was carrying a machete in one hand and a hatchet in the other. If it hadn’t been so dark the team would’ve seen how pale his face was. He was a logistics officer after all. Smashing open skulls wasn’t at the top of his resume.
Randy still had issues putting a lot of stress on the right side of his body courtesy of an aging sheriff who’d hit him with a shotgun blast at close range. He was trying to put most of the weight from the dolly on his left arm. The damned thing was heavy thanks to the stack of car batteries he’d grabbed. If it hadn’t been so dark, he’d have tried to find the dolly loaded down with marshmallows or pillows instead. That weakness was why he’d been worried when he first perused the plan and realized he’d be dragging a dolly full of batteries around. He’d made light of it so Kelly wouldn’t be concerned.
He was tugging the dolly along over a patch of loose rocks when he heard Frank suck in his breath and charge towards the open gate. Randy gently set the dolly down and spun to see what the issue was. He half expected to see a herd of Zombies charging silently towards them. The only reason he hadn’t just dropped the dolly on the floor and spun around ready to shoot was that he hadn’t actually heard anything except for Frank taking off at a dead run.
Thanks to some clouds shifting around in the night sky visibility had improved slightly. Randy could see well enough to make out Frank sprinting towards a small figure standing in the middle of the road staring at them. The burnt out infected didn’t make any indication he even noticed Frank charging at him. A second or two before Frank brought the machete down on the diminutive Zombie it twisted its head up to look at him. Frank’s blade hit the boy’s face at an angle lopping off part of an ear and a thin filet of the cheek. Still the boy didn’t scream.
It took Frank a few more chops to lay the boy out on the ground. By then the rest of the team had gathered around Randy to watch their leader chop the poor kid into hamburger. It was eerie and sad. The survivor in him was just glad their fearless leader hadn’t attempted to take out a regular Zombie. Considering the trouble that a small quiet one had caused him. Frank stared down at the pathetic corpse for a moment then turned and continued to lead them back to the dock.
Grunting slightly with the effort of pulling the dolly Randy followed Frank through the gate and down the road. He glanced briefly at what was left of the dead boy as they walked past the pathetically small bloody mess. In theory the kid hadn’t had to die. No one had ever seen one of the quiet ones attack anybody. They didn’t make any noise so weren’t going to attract other Zombies. No one walking down this trail in the middle of the night was willing to bet their lives on that theory though. Having a Zombie kid staring at them the whole time wasn’t an option.
Randy was concerned. They needed someone like himself or Bryan leading them down the road. They needed a soulless mass murderer who’d hacked their way through the apocalypse leaving a mountain of virus riddled cadavers in their wake. Randy wouldn’t be surprised if he found out Frank had never actually killed a Zombie before tonight. His attack had been that clumsy. That awkward clumsiness stemmed from an aversion to crossing the line that was what separated your everyday person from a killer. Visiting raw violence on another person was hard. The majority of the people living prior to the apocalypse had never even punched another person in the face hard enough to knock them to the ground.
The apocalypse had flipped that equation around. Most of the people living today were the ones able to flip that switch when it mattered. The father who beat his infected son to death with a frying pan when the kid turned. The teenage boy who’d been handed a gun by his mom to kill her if the bite she’d gotten made her turn. The man fighting his way out of a hospital filled with the infected. They’d all been able to channel the inner animal that’s driven mankind’s survival through the ages. There must be another apocalypse coming later because the meek weren’t inheriting the earth any time soon.
A large portion of the people who’d survived were the ones who slept with guns beside their beds. The ones who’d call 911 after they killed the burglar so that the cops could come collect the body. The team Randy was running with right now were made up of those kinds of men. Randy was deeply appreciative of that when a Zombie stumbled out of the brush beside the road without any warning. The Zombie had been lying on the edge of a group of about twenty Zombies who’d gathered together to nest in the bushes for the night when the noises from the exploding warehouse had stopped.
The expression on the Zombies face was so normal that Randy’s first thought was that it might just be a scabbed over survivor who’d forgotten how to bathe and liked wearing his hair long. The fully nude Zombie had stumbled out of the bushes due to some sixth sense that’d pulled him out of a fitful slumber to check the road for prey. Zombies heard noises all the time that they thought were sounds coming from uninfected humans. Half the time it turned out to be a car alarm going off because another Zombie had banged into it or a woodpecker beating on the side of a house. Zombies spent most of their days chasing down false alarms. Like a dog that tears off across the field to look for the ball you only pretended to throw. They just can’t help themselves.
This Zombie must’ve had just enough intelligence left in its fever wracked brain to understand that leaving the warmth and comfort of the nesting group to painfully crawl through a bunch of briars to a road that’d turn out to have nothing on it was yet another exercise in futility. Thus, it stood in the moonlight with its eyes wide open in surprise when it realized there was actual prey stomping past it. Standing tall it started to let out a screech of challenge before lunging at the closest human. It never got the chance since the man standing between Randy and Frank dropped his dolly and bore the Zombie down to the ground in a headlock. Lying on the ground the man sawed the Zombies throat open killing any chance of the Zombie making a peep.
The Zombies sleeping less than twenty feet away didn’t need the signal of their brethren to know something was going on though. The sound o
f the dolly striking the road was enough to pitch them into a violent group awakening. The screeching started immediately. Without hesitation the entire group began beating their way towards the road hell bent on sinking their teeth into uninfected flesh.
The man who’d dropped the dolly knew immediately he’d made a huge mistake. He pushed the bloody corpse off himself and was halfway to his feet when the fastest of the Zombies hit him from behind. He knew he was dead before he even hit the ground. He felt the sharp prick of pressure in his neck where the Zombie was already taking a bite. No longer concerned with anything but vengeance the man hit the ground and rolled to the side. The Zombie rolled with him wrapping its arms around him in a final embrace as it chewed into the bloody raw flesh of the man’s upper back. The Zombie’s saliva was flowing into the man’s bloodstream. The virus working its way through the man’s body. Once the virus reached the brain it really went to work.
The hellish embrace of the Zombie and their former teammate was stopped when the pair were riddled with bullets from the smoking barrel of Franks M-16. For someone who didn’t appear to have done a whole lot of killing Frank was catching up quickly.
“Weapons! Go live!” Frank yelled. It was the right call. Judging by the volume of the screaming and the shaking of the bushes they were about to be facing way more Zombies than they wanted to try to hatchet chop their way through.
The tall weeds on the side of the road began rapidly birthing Zombie after screaming Zombie. Randy aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger. When nothing happened, he stepped back from the firing line and screwed around with the safety until it clicked. He raised his rifle again and shot a Zombie that was covered head to foot in white hair. The blossoms of blood from the close-range rifle shots contrasted sharply with the white hair. The fact that he could see the crimson stains on the pale body meant the clouds must’ve parted for the moon again. Randy dragged his eyes off the surreal sight to point the barrel of his M-16 at the next Zombie popping out of the bushes.
The man at the end of the line screamed and collapsed to the ground when a Zombie jumped into him from the side. They’d all been focused on the Zombies pouring out of the brush. No one was watching their flanks. That thought crossed Randy’s mind as another man in the line went down from a Zombie who attacked from behind them. With just Randy, Frank and two other men still on their feet they were on the verge of being overrun. Randy ejected a spent magazine and shoved another one in. He racked a bullet into the chamber and kept shooting. The four men slowly collapsing to stand back to back in a tight circle taking on the shadows darting at them with open mouths and fiery eyes.
Gunfire from the direction of the boats began to ring out. Muzzle flashes also started lighting up the darkness in the other direction. They had lost another man when Bryan and his guys slid into the picture after a couple of shouted warnings to not shoot them. The Zombies stopped coming long enough for them to grab their dollies and continue to scramble in the direction of the boats. Bryan was flashing a mag lite off and on above his head to let the men guarding the boat know that they were coming. Randy was tugging the heavy batteries along as sweat dripped down his body.
Another knot of Zombies was in the process of being shot to pieces at the foot of the dock. A few stray bullets went whizzing by them as they ran into what was left of groups three and four. Randy handed the dolly off to the men who’d been designated as loaders. At that point Randy was supposed to stand by to return to the storage area. It didn’t look like that was going to happen. He stood at the end of the dock waiting to see if Frank had orders. One of the other loaders ran by him headed for the boats. Randy noticed the guy stopped to slip a dead soldiers pistol into his jacket pocket.
“Back to the boats!” Frank yelled.
“By the numbers!” Bryan added. More Zombies were running at them from every direction. If they all turned and ran, then they’d be overrun from behind. Instead they fell back by the numbers with Bryan’s team shooting first then Randy and Frank stepping forward to empty their magazines into the approaching horde. Randy turned at that point and ran back to the boat. Kelly had loosened the rope and was standing by to cast off. She smiled with relief when she him pounding down the dock towards her.
“You think I wouldn’t make it?” Randy asked before giving her a quick kiss as he climbed aboard.
“I was banking on the insurance payout.” Kelly joked.
“Hopefully they pay out in canned goods. Cash is sadly no longer king.” Randy replied sitting down on the deck next to Caitlyn. Caitlyn was covering her mom as she took care of her rope duty. Myriah was sitting at the stern of the boat with the little kids. They were all huddled together with their eyes wide open in fear. Zoey had clapped a few times when Randy had made it back onboard.
Randy searched the other boat until he saw the man who’d pulled a gun on them back on the beach at the island. The man who’d been told he could live but wasn’t allowed to have a weapon. The man he’d just seen shove a dead soldiers pistol in his pocket. At the moment there were other things more important to worry about, but he wasn’t going to let that slip. He reloaded his rifle and helped pick off the Zombies streaming towards them. Frank jumped in the boat and fired up the motor.
They filled the air with bullets to keep the Zombies from surging up the dock. So many Zombies were running for the dock now that Randy was getting worried about being able to hold them off. Even with all of them firing on full auto and reloading as fast as they could the Zombies were still making headway. A massive mound of dead and dying Zombies formed a barricade the Zombies struggled to climb over in time to reach the boats before they pulled out deeper into the river.
They were able to get ahead of the Zombies this time. Both boats pulling out from the docks and going full throttle to reach a safe distance from any adrenalized jumpers who may decide to show up. Randy looked at the pile of batteries that’d been flung into the boat. He knew there were some boxes of ammunition and other supplies that’d been thrown into the other boat. Frank and Bryan both had keys for the escape vehicles on them. None of that seemed worth the price they’d paid. It came out to about two men’s lives per dolly.
Lives that’d been traded to get enough ammunition to basically replace what they’d just used fighting the Zombies to get the supplies. They’d needed the keys and the car batteries to get the vehicles up ahead started but they could always have walked or looked for some different vehicles. They weren’t that hard to find. In the end it just didn’t seem to have been worth it. Randy hugged his family close and let the nighttime breeze blow his hair around. A few feet away Frank turned the bow of the big boat to point up the river once more and they continued on.
Chapter 12: The Kill Zone
“Send out orders for all squads to advance through North Carolina as fast as possible maintaining the small unit formations. Have them reform in their battalions in Virginia ASAP.” Krantz ordered Tom.
“Yes sir.” Tom said. He seemed to hesitate when he said it though. Like he had an opinion on the matter.
“In medieval times the knight was the most powerful weapon on the battlefield. Until some anarchist came up with the long bow. It changed warfare as everyone back then knew it. Knights were still the armored division and extremely effective at close range, but they had to survive a few volleys of arrows to get into that close-range combat. They deployed a technique way back then that we still make use of today. Once you get in range of the archers, ride as hard as you can until you’re close enough to kill them. The longer you spend in that kill zone the more casualties you’re going to suck up. Make sense?” Krantz asked.
“Yes sir. We need to get our men through the kill zone as fast as we can. That kill zone being an entire state in this case since the archers are stealth bombers and harpoon missiles.” Tom answered. Krantz nodded and patted Tom on the shoulder absently. He’d make a soldier of the IT guy yet. He turned his attention back to the monitors showing Forrest and his team headed for the helicop
ter.
There were pockets of Zombies hanging out all around the base. Thanks to the CCTV system Forrest and his team were able to dodge most of them to get to the helicopter. There were a handful who’d decided to camp out by the ladder they needed to climb to get to the top of the garage though. That’d been the only tricky part to consider when Forrest had decided it was important for him and his team to be wheels up before lunchtime. He wanted to get to Virginia and get setup before all the troops started to arrive.
Krantz watched on the monitors while Forrest and his team moved stealthily to the edge of the open area surrounding the garage. One of the men on the team aimed a launcher in the air and let a flash bang fly. The explosive device flew through the air and landed in the woods on the other side of the garage. Nothing happened for a long second then the device went off. Designed to stun the enemy before a team entered the room the device was intended to be super loud. When it went off the Zombies were all jerked to their feet like puppets yanked up on a string. Without hesitation every single one of them charged towards the area the flash bang had went off in.
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