There were a few fast food places at the exit but only one of them served breakfast so Population Undead was manageable. As they had planned, she zoomed into the parking lot of the oversized strip mall, revving her motor and honking her horn. Any of the undead walking around aimlessly that heard her immediately gave chase as she zipped through the parking lot, gathering up as many as she could, always wary of her escape routes and keeping far enough away from any obstacles so she wouldn’t get surprised again. After she had circled the main store and the restaurants a few times, she led them back onto the freeway, a crowd of about twenty chasing after her, arms outstretched, grasping and reaching for fresh blood that was just a few tantalizing feet in front of them. Once she had them all on the road, she got on the radio. “They’re all yours, Gunny! Remember to stay right!”
Collins keyed the mic on 19 and told everyone again to stay in the Granny Lane as they all sped up now that the trap had been set. Sara goosed it and within minutes, she was flying past the trucks in the Hammer Lane. They all gathered speed to smash into the fast running infected, splattering and splintering bodies that used to be human, disgorging organs and painting the road in shades of red.
They swung into the strip mall at full speed, knowing time was their enemy. The trucks lined up and Gunny’s entry team hit the ground running. Everyone else set up a perimeter, the only ones left inside the vehicles were the kids and their mom’s. All others, including those who barely knew how to shoot, were in a semi- circle, guns facing out, scanning for targets. A few of the vets paced behind the lines, letting the unsure and already frightened men and women know they were there.
They were unafraid.
They would be right behind them and firing away if any of the infected came sniffing around.
Deputy Collins had argued against this but she had been overridden. Griz said it would be a low-risk encounter for them and they were only a few feet away from the safety of the trucks if a big horde did show up. They needed to learn how to fight or they would die. They needed some trigger time.
Gunny sprinted to the front of the Walmart and scanned inside before prying the automatic doors open. Nothing moving around from this vantage point. He yelled into the darkened interior and Stabby whistled loudly, calling “Here zombie, zombie, zombie!” as they pushed the big sliding doors open a good six feet.
They came. He heard them and this time the crew wasn’t messing around with trying to hold doors shut and engage them one at a time. Lars ran the row of shopping carts across the opening and joined the line up at the front, aiming into the dimness, trying to find targets. They all opened up about the same time. The handful of early morning shoppers and the skeleton crew of employees didn’t even get near the improvised blockade before being felled in a hail of steady fire. They waited for more to show up, reloading with fresh magazines, examining the twice dead to make sure they really were. They could hear muffled howls coming from the back of the store. Probably in the break room or bathroom. They gave it another minute but no more came screeching out.
“Go.” Gunny said and they started rolling over the shopping carts, spreading out left to right, each man covering two to three aisles, making sure there were none lurking and quiet, damaged but still dangerous. Even though the roof skylights shed some natural light into the store, they all had their lights on. A few real tactical flashlights mounted on rails on their AR’s and shotguns but most had actual flashlights duct taped to the barrel or forestocks of their various weapons. Once they had determined the front part was clear, on Griz’s signal, they all headed down the aisles to clear the back of the store. The howlers were in the Ladies Room and Gunny didn’t even bother opening the door, just sent a half dozen rounds in about head level through the door and it was quiet again.
“Alright, grab what we came for.” Gunny said and he and Griz went towards the front to set up an overwatch. They made a detour to the Sporting Goods section to grab hunting vests for the oversized pockets, shemaghs if they had them or bandannas if they didn’t. The dead were starting to stink and it would only get worse with each passing day. They both grabbed a handful of Burt’s Bees lip balm as they passed the display stand. It was a favorite in the ‘Stans for its double duty capabilities. Prevent chapped lips or rubbed under the nose, mask the smell of rotting flesh. Scratch and Stabby stayed in the rear, making sure no surprises came out of the warehouse part of the store. The rest of the crew found carts, dumped the contents on the floor and ran for the areas they had been tasked to raid. This was a small store and they only had a few dozen cheap guns but a few of them were Mossberg’s and they had nearly a whole cart full of ammo that took two men to push out of the front doors. As the crew grabbed their goods and went out to load them into the trucks, the rest of the people on watch rotated in, four at a time, and with a warning not to take too long. Gunny made sure Shakey was the first one in and he was tasked with grabbing the medical supplies out of the Pharmacy. There were a few shots from outside, but not many. Sara had done a pretty good job of leading nearly all of them away. There were houses nearby, though and who knew how many were on the way now, running towards the sounds of gunfire.
The store was secure so Gunny and Griz went back outside to relieve a few more people on the perimeter, trying to get everyone rotated in as quickly as possible. He wouldn’t feel safe again until they were all inside the armored vehicles and rolling. He stopped beside Bastille who was crouched on one knee, holding the shotgun completely wrong. He would hurt himself if he actually had to fire it. “Go on inside, Bastille.” He said. “Grab what you need. I’ll cover your position.”
Bastille nodded and grunted as he got to his feet, flagging Hot Rod who was beside him with his gun. “I’ll take the shotgun for you.” He said, pushing the barrel back out towards the parking lot and away from Hot Rod. “It’s all clear in there.”
Bastille ran in and immediately started looking for the electronics section. The people on the bus had told him these stores sold a little bit of everything and he was anxious to get his hands on a video camera. Before he had moved into producing movies, he had been a filmmaker. He wanted to document this brave new world and maybe do something useful because Lord knows, he wasn’t much good at anything else. He needed to get over to the pharmacy, too. His Xanax supply was running a little low.
Time passed quickly. There were a few more random shots, the vets letting the unskilled try their best at taking them down but if they started getting too close, a quick head shot would end the forward rush. Most of the people were finished with their hurried shopping, grabbing changes of clothes and a few other things and running back out to toss their new belongings into the rigs and then take up their shooting position. The children were the last in and they had a cohort of three men with them as they ran down the aisles with glee, having been told to grab any toy they wanted. But only one pass and they had to carry whatever they grabbed. Their moms were hesitant to let them out of their sight but they needed clothes for them and it was a mad scramble to try to get everything in just a few short minutes.
“Contact front!” Cobb bellowed and Gunny knew it was a big crowd coming their way. “Like we practiced!” He yelled. “Every other man to the front, the rest of you stay put and watch your sectors!”
There was a flurry of movement as Cobb and Preacher opened up at the front of the line ahead of Gunny’s truck, the sharp bark of gunfire from them in rapid succession motivating everyone to hurry. That’s where they figured the mob would come if one did. It was the street that led back to the housing developments that were spreading out and taking over the high plains. The rest of survivors fell into place, pretty much like they’d drilled. There was a little confusion but there was also a lot of lead flying towards the onrushing mass of undead. It was manageable. There were only about 20 of them and already many had been cut down, still half a parking lot away. The roar of the guns was deafening and Gunny was thinking he should have gotten some ear plugs while he had been over in the s
porting section. The poor undead mob never stood a chance. When silence echoed back down in the parking lot, the last one had fallen a good thirty yards away.
For the tourists, the mechanics and the band members, this was their first time in combat. First time firing a shot in anger. There were cheers and smiles and fist bumps all around. They had done well, no one had lost their cool, no one had panicked and they were quickly comparing notes, starting to brag on a particularly good shot they had made. Cobb gave it a minute, winked at Gunny, and then started bellowing at them in his best Marine Drill instructors’ voice.
“This ain’t a Sunday Social, ladies! Is that weapon on safe?”
He randomly pointed at one of them and they all started scrambling to look, not wanting to be singled out.
“Is there a round in the chamber?” he yelled at them and most did a quick check because they didn’t know.
“Get your goat smelling asses back in position, this ain’t no holiday in Cambodia!” he continued as they hustled back to where they needed to be.
Ol’ Cobb was enjoying himself.
“You think Zed is going to wait on you to reload?” He shouted at them. “Who’s your battle buddy and why hasn’t one of you started replenishing your magazines?”
The vets tried to look stern and keep straight faces as Cobb marched behind the line, occasionally smacking someone upside the head if he thought they weren’t moving with the proper zeal. They were remembering boot camp and the fond memories they had of it, now that it was long in their past. It wasn’t so fun when they were going through it, when they had a drill screaming at them.
The driver of the tour bus caught up with Cobb as everyone was heading back to their trucks.
“We need to find an RV dump station.” He said “With all these extra people, the holding tanks on the bus are full. The fresh water tank is getting really low, too.”
Collins pointed over to the garden center, at the hoses coiled and waiting to be used to water the plants. He nodded
“I’ll pull over there to refill but I still need to empty the sewer tank.”
“Just dump it in the parking lot.” Scratch said laughing a little. “That’d be a hoot! Just make sure I’m not behind you.”
“He can’t do that.” Collins was quick to jump in.
“Why not? Ain’t like the EPA is gonna give him a ticket.” Besides, it would be kind of fitting.” Griz said, looking at the big box store and grumbling about its foreign made junk that had put countless little Mom and Pop stores out of business. He was kind of forgetting they had just raided it and were damn glad it was there for one-stop shopping.
Cobb settled it by telling him to pull the caps and dump it before they left. Nobody was going to risk their lives to find an RV station just to flush the toilet.
When they got back into their trucks and took off again, Collins brought out a green Christmas tree air freshener and hung it from the chicken coop pre-pass mounted on the windshield. It dangled down in front of his Hawaiian hula girl affixed to the dash. Gunny looked at her.
“What are you trying to say?” he asked, raising his arm and smelling his pits. He grimaced a little, wrinkling his nose. Okay. Maybe she had a point.
The rest of the day flew by, only an occasional slow down near an on-ramp but Interstate 80 was still pretty desolate in most parts of Wyoming and Nebraska. The rolling hills and prairies and the vast pale blue sky that touched the horizon all around them made them almost forget the disaster they were running from. Collins was playing DJ again and when she played Sunglasses at Night, Gunny suddenly remembered.
“Hey, I got you these.” He said, pulling a pair of mirrored aviator shades out of his breast pocket. The good ones from the eye exam store from the front of the Wal-Mart, not the cheap ones from the carousel. “No cop uniform is complete without them.”
That brought a rare smile to her lips as she put them on then flipped down the sun visor to check herself in the mirror.
Gunny pulled out his tobacco pouch, dropped the steering wheel down low and held it with his knees. He grabbed a paper and started filling it with the tobac, sprinkling it in and breaking up any clumps.
“What are you doing?” Collins exclaimed when she noticed what he was doing, driving down the road at sixty miles an hour, both hands off the wheel.
Gunny glanced over at her. “Rolling a smoke.” He said as he tucked the tobacco in and started to twist it shut.
She was nearly speechless as she pointed out the windshield at the road and at him steering with his knees.
“You can’t… That’s… It’s illegal.” She finally finished.
Gunny licked the paper, stuck the smoke in his mouth and rolled his poke back up.
“We’re only going sixty.” He said in his defense. “I usually do it at eighty.”
“There’s laws against that and for a good reason. It’s dangerous.” She said, firm in her conviction.
“Can you site the code that prohibits the rolling of cigarettes while operating a commercial vehicle on the interstate?” Gunny asked innocently, flipping his zippo and lighting up.
“Distracted driving, for one.” She said
“Yes, but that’s a catch-all when there isn’t a law against something. Scratching my ear could be considered distracted driving.”
They went back and forth good-naturedly, Collins a stickler for the rules and Gunny an ignorer of most rules. He caught a bit of the tobacco on his lip and spit it out the window.
“Nevada Revised Statute 199.280.” She said triumphantly. “Spitting in public is a misdemeanor punishable by a fifty-dollar fine.”
Damn. Did this girl read the manuals just for fun? Gunny conceded defeat. She had him there.
“You got me, officer. Take a check?” he asked
“I’ll let you slide this time.” She replied “if you keep at least one hand on the wheel.”
As they were nearing the South Platte River Bridge, Sara came over the radio. “We’re going to need one of your Plan B’s, Gunny. The bridges are completely jammed. One side there has been a fire, looks like a few semi-trucks and a bunch of cars. The other side is no better.”
“No way to move them aside with the blades?”
“Nowhere to push them to.” came her reply. “These are long bridges and they’re packed in like sardines. I’ve got the attention of some of the dead so I’m heading back. Let me know which way you want to go.”
Cobb came back on almost immediately. “Go south on 138.” He barked. “We’ll cut through the woods. The bridges to the north are in big towns, they won’t be any better.”
Gunny glanced at the GPS on the dashboard. The turn off Cobb wanted to take was coming up quick so he got on nineteen to let everyone know what was going on as he started downshifting. Deputy Collins grabbed the GPS unit off the dash mount and started zooming out, finding the path Cobb was talking about. “It looks good.” She said. “We’re finished with the interstates for a while, though. This route takes us through a couple hundred miles of farmland on two-lane roads.”
“Okay.” Gunny said. “Talk her through the new route, make sure she knows which roads to take.”
While Collins updated Sara on one radio, letting her know the path they wanted to run, Gunny hailed Cobb on the other. “You finding us a new layover spot?” He asked “I don’t know if we can make it down to 70 before nightfall. I’d hate to try to pull in somewhere in the dark only to find a bus load of nuns gone zom.”
“Keep your britches on,” came Cobb’s growl. “I’m looking.”
The sun was dipping towards the western horizon already and it would sink fast in another couple of hours. Gunny didn’t want to try to set up a secure area at night. There could be a hundred zombies a half mile away and they wouldn’t know about it until the camp was overrun. That and he could barely see with most of the headlight beams blocked by the blade. They needed to hit up a real gun store, one that carried night vision goggles. And good guns.
As the
y ran through the high plains and deserts of Colorado and Nebraska, they would rarely see any of the undead. They saw signs of life in this desolate land, occasional smoke curling up from chimneys or evidence of people reinforcing their fences and houses. Julio, riding the BMW, was stopping and talking to anyone he saw out, the ones who came out of hiding to watch the convoy roll by. He had to talk fast so he and Scratch wouldn’t get too far behind but he let them know about Lakota. Gunny knew this was just a drop in the bucket. He needed a way to inform everybody hiding out, to give them news and let them know that a new and safe place was being established.
They zig-zagged through the wild backcountry, Deputy Collins calling out the roads for Sara to turn on, the day’s shadows growing longer. Cobb finally called a halt when Sara radioed back with the report of a large empty oilfield parking lot. There was plenty of room for all the trucks, it was on a slight rise and afforded a good view for a long distance in all directions. This was lonely country and the sky above was unbelievably immense and beautiful as the moon rose and the stars all shone down. A few hungry stray dogs came looking for scraps as they finished up their dinners around the campfire and the kids all wanted to keep them.
“These are still friendly.” Griz said. “But give it a few more weeks, they’re going to be a problem. The ones that survive will revert to their wild nature.”
“Oh, man. What about all the animals in the zoos?” Scratch asked. “I wonder if anyone let them out?”
Just thinking about all the pets and caged animals starving to death was bringing everybody down. There was a light wind blowing and the children, their armloads of toys forgotten for the moment, started asking Stabby for a ‘campfire story’. The adults, cleaning their weapons again under Griz’s unforgiving eye, readily agreed. They needed a distraction from his cotton swab cleanliness inspections.
The story was about the brave men and women of The Three Flags Caravan and the heroic Battle of Walmart. Bastille filmed the whole thing, delighted with a new found purpose and the handful of video cameras he’d liberated. Sara was listening beside Gunny again, laughing along with the rest of the crowd at the antics the boys got up to, reenacting the pivotal scenes. She was just glad they hadn’t heard about her near miss in the traffic jam. They probably would have been merciless in that story.
Zombie Road (Book 2): Bloodbath on the Blacktop Page 5