The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  The last two cars in the southbound lanes swerved to avoid the blast. One rocketed through the barrier and into the empty walkway on the other side, and the other plowed into the northbound traffic at a standstill. The bridge bucked and heaved. She checked over her shoulder to see Zaley rocking into Corbin, who crashed into the hood of a car but stopped her from falling. Austin hit a trunk and Micah . . . Micah had been blown back onto her ass by the impact and not even known. She hadn’t felt herself fall. The palms of her hands were scratched from the pavement.

  The orange was gone. It was just black smoke now, thick and impenetrable. Her ears were ringing, but slowly the sounds that the blast had swallowed were returning. Something was crackling from fire. Car doors opened almost in tandem all along the northbound lanes. The traffic on the walkway was madness, everyone at cross-purposes and some of them scaling the barriers to run on the lanes.

  They were trapped between battling on both ends of the bridge and so the only choice to Micah was north. Hands came under her armpits and heaved her up, Austin having returned for her. “Get up! Get up, Micah!” Then they were running, the dragon seared into her retinas and blazing there when she blinked.

  A metallic crash came from the walkway. It was the stretcher overturning. That old woman wasn’t on it. One of the guys who had been pushing it had the woman in his arms and was trying to stay upright in the chaos.

  Micah was seeing in split seconds, her mind taking snapshots and the ringing of the divine drum still echoing in her ears. Snapshot of the walkways in pandemonium, people scaling the barriers to not be trampled and others less fortunate underneath the running feet. Snapshot of the lanes, where everyone was dashing madly around the vehicles to get the hell away from the explosion.

  Snapshot. Someone jumped off the side to the water, his scream dropping down with him. The wind blew smoke overhead and turned the blue of the sky to a dirty gray. Snapshot. A guy was opening his car door and about to slam it into Austin’s leg. Micah jerked him aside and into the southbound lanes. Snapshot. People were piling out of an extended blue van ahead, adults with their arms full of babies, older children taking the hands of younger ones, all of them screaming and starting to run. Micah and Austin sprinted in the southbound lane since no more cars were coming. Zaley and Corbin were weaving around in the northbound lanes, her left hand in his and her right arm pressed against her chest protectively.

  “Maisie! Come on!” It was one of the adults from the blue van, who almost tripped as she was running. She was shouting at the only one left at the van, a tow-headed preteen fighting with something in one of the rows of back seats. The girl was dressed oddly, in a blue, frontier-style dress that went down almost to her feet. Her hair was also long, swinging in a braid to her lower back. All of the women and girls were dressed in a similar fashion, the boys and men in trousers and buttoned shirts. They looked like part of some back-to-the-land church group.

  BOOM.

  Metal shrieked and the bridge shook. Debris flew past them on a hot gust of air. Pieces struck the lanes and ricocheted. The girl at the van ditched whatever she’d been fighting to get and ran after the rest of the group, calling in distress, “Wait! Wait! Come back! Help me!” Sparing a glance as they passed the van, Micah saw a baby wailing and kicking in a car seat. That was what the girl had been trying to get out! A ton of car seats were in the van, but all of the rest were empty. A Shepherd vest was crushed on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Austin shouted when Micah ran to the open door. She jerked at the buckle of the car seat. It was jammed. Depressing the sticky button as far as it would go, she yanked, lost her grip on it, and knocked the kid in the forehead with the back of her hand. The buckle still didn’t give. She did it again, both of her thumbs turning white, and the latch gave reluctantly. Austin cried, “Micah, we have to go!”

  “We can’t leave a baby here!” Moving the straps away, she took the kid into her arms and snagged the diaper bag between two of the car seats. There was someone’s lunch in it. Thrusting the bag out at Austin, she yelled, “Take this!” He pulled the strap over his chest. Teddy bears and dinosaurs played on the fabric of the bag.

  Some crazy people are trying to take down the bridge. Micah would have admired the fuck you of the gesture, but she was on it. The kid shrieked as she ran. A bunch of Shepherd stickers were stuck haphazardly to the vehicle by the front wheel well, the work of a child. A bumper sticker was upside down above them, reading WHO WILL SAVE US flanked by crossed pairs of muskets and crossed pairs of shepherd crooks.

  This was a Shepherd’s kid. Goddammit, she should turn around and return the wailing brat to the car seat. Boy or girl, she had no idea. The clothing was trousers and sneakers, but the shirt had a flower on the pocket and a ruffle at the hem.

  The kid was jouncing all over her hip with only her right arm to brace it. She adjusted to seal the baby to her chest, left arm across its diapered butt and right arm over the back. Six or seven months old, the baby was all cheek chub and a thin scruff of yellow hair over the scalp, dried drool on the chin and a scream to rival the bombs.

  You did this. The kid hadn’t done shit, this was just a baby, but it was the baby’s people that had landed her on the bridge in a firefight. She was saving the shithead brat of losers who had penned her in a confinement point.

  The group was still ahead, the older kids yanking on the younger. The littlest ones were tripping over their shoes, one small boy going down and pulling the tiny girl whose hand he was holding down with him. None of the adults or oldest kids in the group could pick them up, and most didn’t see them fall. A redheaded man with a dog in his arms stopped to shove the dog under his left arm and scoop up the boy with his right. Then he screamed for help, someone needing to carry the girl. The only ones to hear him, Corbin pushed through the cars with Zaley. She took his bow and he snatched up the child. Her face appeared over his shoulder, mouth open in a wail. The redheaded fellow sprinted ahead with the dog and boy, bellowing to the back-to-the-land adults that he had their kid. One pointed him to the far end of the bridge, her words lost in the screaming.

  They had passed the midpoint of the bridge when the bombs started. How long was the bridge? A mile? A mile and a half? So only three-quarters of a mile at most separated them from the end and they had already run a small portion of that. But if it came down now, they were dead. Micah could see it happen, chunks of the bridge plunging down to the water, people sprinkled among them. She ran faster.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-

  The gunfire was coming from everywhere, either in truth or distorted by the acoustics of the bridge. The baby traded the screams for sobs and hiccups, and how could Micah even tell in all the noise? It was the vibration from the baby’s body to hers, the hitching of the little form. They passed a car with its trunk open, three people hurriedly unloading suitcases and a fourth cutting his hand through the air, trying to indicate to them to leave everything behind. When they persisted in taking things out, you carry this no, you carry that, he gave up and ran away to save himself.

  Micah was coming up on another extended blue van. Its doors were wide open and revealed empty car seats and abandoned bags. Shepherd stickers were all over everything. Fuck these people and fuck their baby in her arms! They had to love this one, but where had their fucking compassion been for Clarissa Delafonte and special needs Colin and the other children of the confinement point? She was going to fucking bite this kid and hand it over to them with a smile, praying every night to a God and Goddess in whom she didn’t believe that the kid went feral and bit everybody in their community. That was the only thing that was going to stop Shepherds and their supporters, when every fucking one of them was infected with Sombra C. Micah was more than willing to help that process along.

  At the end of the bridge was the overturned semi that blocked the northbound lanes and part of the southbound. It was on fire. They ran hard for it, leaping debris and dropped bags, a cat carrier that had split and was lying in halv
es on the lane. Other people were running with them, one man stumping along fast in a straight-leg brace, pain twisting his face. Adults scooped up children, whether they belonged to them or not. Micah almost tripped over a small dog that zipped between her legs. More dogs were dashing along in the lanes, leashes trailing from some of the collars. They didn’t even bark. They just ran in fright, their doggy thoughts playing the same soundtrack as the thoughts revolving around and around in the minds of the people. Get the fuck off the bridge!

  Micah and Austin skirted around an old man and woman who were helping each other to hobble. Their family was surrounding them and refusing to go ahead, even though the elderly couple was shouting, “Go! Go! We’ll be fine!” The middle-aged man and woman were shouting in turn at the teenagers to go ahead, but they wouldn’t leave the family clutch either. An ambulance was stuck in the lanes, EMTs unloading an incubator as Micah dashed by. A preemie was inside, its arms and legs as thin as sticks. A blue tag was around its ankle. Welcome to the fucking world, Baby Smith. You’re in for quite a ride.

  A man whizzed past on a bicycle and struck a woman. She fell and the asshole rode away without a second glance. It was animal, the panic and desperation, the way the screams increased in volume when the bridge trembled and shook, shrieked and lurched. Micah’s mind took a snapshot of it, one that went askew as they staggered in the heaving of the lanes.

  They regained their footing and closed in on the end of the bridge, everyone swinging around the burning semi. Bodies were sprawled here, one on top of the semi itself. Most of them were wearing Shepherd vests. There had been a brace at this end of the bridge too, and the semi had wiped it out. A tent was smashed beneath one of the wheels and a spit test was next to it. That was why traffic had been going so slowly. If the four of them had continued to the end in the car, they would have risked undergoing saliva checks.

  They weren’t over the water any longer. Now the bridge was above brown rock and greenery. Hills rolled into the distance. A third blue van was a short distance past the semi, pulled over and parked in the slow lane. It was bigger than the other two stuck on the bridge, practically a bus. Its contents of musical instruments and bags had been dumped on the ground to let the last of the people from the abandoned vans pile in. The driver was on the horn. Corbin and Micah aimed for it. The windows were down and strangers who had snatched up the youngest children were pushing them through to waiting arms. The redheaded man offered the little boy, who was pulled inside. Moving his dog into both arms again, the guy continued to run up the freeway.

  If Micah planned to bite the kid or spit in its mouth and hope for the best, this was her last chance. A lock of her blue hair was in its fist. She chose not to do it, reminded of the Shepherds’ threats to infect one of Elania’s triplet brothers in retaliation for not getting to collect their big sister for a death camp. If Micah were going to pass on her Sombra C, she’d be more selective in her targets. The baby hadn’t done anything but have the misfortune to be born to dickheads. Adults who got in Micah’s way were fair game, not their weeping offspring.

  You have no idea how lucky you are, kid. Corbin got to the van first and offered the still wailing girl, who was pulled through into a man’s arms. “Oh my God! Thank you! Thank you so much!” he cried to Corbin. It was bedlam behind him. Far more people were crammed inside than there were seats to hold them. In one window seat, a man had a woman on his lap, and she in turn had three children on hers. Babies and toddlers were being passed around to whoever could hold them. The screaming of the kids was shattering and unrelenting.

  Micah stepped up to a window at the back to give over the baby. The driver was shouting, “Let’s go! Close up!” Windows snapped shut all around the van. A big, dark shape was being passed to the open door on the other side, someone shouting no and someone else demanding that there wasn’t room for the Celtic harp. The harp in its black cover was chucked out. It crashed when it landed and the door was closed.

  A woman in a dowdy dress held out her hands for the baby. Micah tried to lift the kid, but her hair was locked in its fist. “Okay, let go.” She pried it out and pushed the baby up to the woman. Off to grow up to be a Shepherd, to chase zombies around the world and make its mommy and daddy proud. The kid would never know how close he or she had come to being one of the zombies being chased. In the arms of the enemy, the enemy had saved its life. So suck on that lemon, Shepherd Junior. You owe your existence to a zombie.

  Just as the woman began to close her fingers around the kid’s waist, she looked at Micah and let go in horror. Then she withdrew her hands sharply and screamed. The sound was lost to the occupants of the van, since so many of them were also screaming. Her fingers scrabbled at the window and it slammed shut in the baby’s tearstained face.

  “Take the baby!” Micah shouted. She had no idea what the fuck was wrong. “It’s yours! It came out of a blue van back there on the bridge!”

  The huge van lurched ahead in the lane. Standing at another window, Austin shouted, “Wait!” He had been removing the diaper bag from his neck, or trying to when the strap was caught under his backpack. Corbin was staring at the bridge, Zaley turning at his side to see the baby still in Micah’s hands and the blue van picking up speed. Austin took a few running steps after it. “Wait, I still have your bag!” He must not have known there was food in it, that Micah hadn’t taken it with the intentions of returning it.

  Zaley turned white at Micah, literally white as a sheet. It wasn’t an expression. People really did that. The woman in the ugly dress had been looking at Micah’s neck. Her stamp was showing.

  Her stamp was showing, in a place where people surrounded her.

  A man who was bending over double to breathe saw it at the same moment she had that thought. His mouth fell open wordlessly. In a second, Micah had the kid back on her hip and the gun in her hand. She pointed it at the man’s forehead, her finger on the trigger. Austin said, “Micah!” in surprise. Then he noticed her neck. His reaction was to dive into her pocket for the foundation before sense overcame him. Putting on cosmetics didn’t make people un-see her stamp.

  “Zombie,” the man whispered, sweat falling from the tip of his nose to the pavement.

  “I will kill you,” Micah hissed. The baby watched solemnly on her hip. Then the kid (boy or girl, she still didn’t know but guessed boy) tucked his head onto her shoulder and shuddered, unhappy but no longer crying. A woman looked from the gun to the man to Micah, and her eyes lingered on whatever was showing of the stamp.

  Corbin and Zaley rushed to stand at Micah’s sides. He drew an arrow from the quiver and Zaley passed over the bow. Austin lifted the rifle to the woman, whose mouth flapped silently. Other people noticed and Corbin cried, “Come on!”

  They ran over the northbound lanes, thrusting their way through those fleeing the bridge. Passing over the divider and running into the southbound lanes, Micah had no idea where Corbin was going until she looked farther out to an exit. He was getting them off the freeway. Cars were at a dead halt on the southbound lanes. They weaved around them, Micah jerking her head to make some of her hair fall over her neck. The breeze tossed it back. The baby had taken a handful of blue hair again, tugging but unintentionally. His fist was wrapped around the lock at a higher spot than before. He opened his mouth and said somewhat questioningly, “Aaaaaaah?”

  I’m sorry, kiddo, your mom is a dick. Or whoever that woman had been. Maybe she hadn’t realized that he was part of their group, and assumed a zombie was passing her own baby through the window in an attempt to get him to safety.

  BOOM. Chatta-chatta-chatta-chatta-chatta-

  The sounds were distant, and the sounds that were nearer were all she had to worry about. Someone was shouting about a zombie, although other than the word zombie, none of the rest of what was being said penetrated the hubbub.

  They made the exit and charged up the grade. The road doubled back to run north along the lanes, leaving them exposed to the people there. Micah spared
a look behind her. No one was giving chase. The lanes were swarming with fugitives from the bridge, most of them trying to catch their breath or screaming names. Someone had caught a small dog and was holding it high, shouting, “Is this yours? Your dog?” A woman was doing the same with a crying preschooler. “Is she yours? Her name is Kendall!” The kid blubbered, “Mommy! Mommy!” as another woman pushed over to them.

  The road trailed along the freeway and then swept away from it. Gasping, Zaley stopped there and sank to the ground to breathe. Corbin braced his hands on his knees. He was shaking, the air going into his lungs with a rattle and coming out with another one.

  “What . . . the . . . fuck?” Austin panted. Micah’s chest hurt. She got down next to Zaley, unable to breathe fast enough to sate her lungs. Her arms ached from the kid, who was inspecting her hair and saying aaaaaaaah. Too young for words. He weighed about fifteen pounds. Added to the loaded backpack on her shoulders, her body was aching all over.

  “They didn’t take the kid from you? They took the girl I was holding!” Corbin exclaimed.

  “The woman saw my stamp and freaked out,” Micah said. She got out her foundation but was too tired to put it on. Fingers trembling, Zaley lifted the container and opened it. Micah tried to shift the baby to her lap, but her head bent down after him. He was clutching her hair.

  “Let go,” Micah said. Of course he didn’t let go. He wasn’t old enough to understand anything she said. And he smelled like he had pissed himself and worse. She worked her hair free and he squawked in anger until she offered another lock from lower down on the left side of her head. His big blue eyes widened and he grasped it, crowing in delight. Rolling his hand over, he inspected it intently.

  “He? She? The baby scratched you,” Zaley said, working her fingers into Micah’s sweaty neck. “There are three long streaks through the foundation here.”

  Micah hadn’t felt it, any more than she had felt herself get thrown from the dragon of fire. In a temper, Austin said, “How are we supposed to get the baby back to them? Did you see names on those vans? I just saw five zillion Shepherd and VOTE ZELLER stickers. And a SHOO WU. We don’t even know who they are.”