Roger fired again from somewhere behind us and another rager dropped. Elizabeth, with her black box being dragged in one hand and Latimer in the other, moved toward us as quickly as possible.
“It’s time to go!” Elizabeth yelled as she closed in on us.
Mitch and Mindy fell back with me in between them. I stumbled once, thanks to an unlaced shoe, and almost fell down again. I could almost welcome that since I had reached peak exhaustion, gone over the threshold, and then fell down the other side before landing on my face.
Latimer broke away from Elizabeth and moved toward her car at a slow pace. He looked back at the vehicle, but his expression was unreadable. Maybe he wanted to go back to his lab and take another nap.
Elizabeth closed on me, reached for my hand, and I grabbed it. Why? I don’t know, because it was offered. She pulled me to a halt and then handed me the black case.
“Why are you giving me this?” I asked.
She didn’t answer, choosing to let her actions speak as she turned the gun on a pair of ragers who had drawn a little bit too close for comfort. Both of them went down, and she pointed at her Range Rover and took the box back. Latimer reached the big gold vehicle, and then stumbled against the side. Elizabeth triggered her locks, and then she rushed to the back and opened the rear door so Latimer could crawl in. She shoved the big box in the back and raced back around to the driver’s side.
Mitch, Mindy, and Roger had already piled into the Hummer. Roger backed out of his space, almost ran over a rager, and slammed the big vehicle to a halt. Mindy leaned out, lifted her rubber mallet, and cracked it over the woman’s head as she spun to engage with Mindy. Mitch leaned out of the other window, extended the little handgun, and shot one of the ragers, but the bullet struck their arm. The man spun around with a howl of fury, but Mitch’s second shot dropped him.
At least ten or twelve more ragers screamed from across the parking lot, then as a group they launched themselves at us. I wanted to hop into Roger’s ride, but he was dozens of feet away. He had all of the weapons, while Elizabeth had Latimer, and a box. At least the Range Rover was big, and had a lot of torque. I imagined we could drive over most threats.
Elizabeth beckoned with her free hand, and I ran toward her vehicle. She leaned over and opened the passenger side door as I arrived, and I practically dove in.
As Roger tried to back out again, he rolled down the window and pantomimed for me to do the same thing.
“Hey,” Roger shouted, “get on the phone and follow us.”
“Take me with you!” I yelled back.
Latimer had laid his body out across the back seat and curled up into the fetal position while he pulled his tarp over his head. Elizabeth locked the doors and started the engine.
“Don’t worry.” She turned and met my eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“That’s…” I sputtered.
“Take this, and be very careful with your shots,” Elizabeth said and handed me the submachine gun.
Then the big car surged and my body slammed back into the seat. She gunned the engine again as Roger took off like an oversized bat out of hell. I fumbled my phone out of my pocket, found I had about five percent of a charge, and once again cursed my lack of common sense when it came to things like keeping my one important device charged.
“There’s a plug on the floor.” Elizabeth pointed.
Sure enough, a black USB cord sat lay next to the console. I plugged it in, verified the battery symbol went active, dialed Roger, and put him on speaker.
“That was intense,” he said without preamble. “So I’m worried that the roads will be jammed. It’s almost night and the ragers, if this is any indication, and the lady doc isn’t any more full of shit than she’s let on, are taking over. Damn I’m rambling.” Roger stopped to take a breath.
"I’ve told you all that I know!” Elizabeth yelled at the phone.
“She has.” Latimer backed her up from the rear.
“I don’t care. I want to get out of here alive,” I said.
“Hey. Hey. Get something to write with,” Roger said over the crackling speaker. “And stay close until I give you this address. If you fall behind, I can’t wait around for you.”
Roger cut across a second parking lot, slowed to a crawl, and then went over a curb and onto a strip of grass. I wasn’t at all surprised when Elizabeth kept up.
“In the glove box.” She pointed.
I took out the pen and found a blank pad of paper. Under that was a small bottle of gin. I thought I was going to gag when it rolled into view.
Roger belted out an address and I wrote it down, but I didn’t recognize it, so I yelled back, “Where is this?”
“Where we’re going,” he said. “Put that in your GPS on your cell phone. Change the display so it doesn’t take you on highways. Only use back roads. If you get stuck, back up a few streets, try a different route, and wait for the GPS to catch up and select a new OH SHIT!”
Roger’s Hummer swerved, went up on the curb, and then slammed back onto the road. Then he stuck his hand out of the window and gave us a little wave, I guess to reassure us that he was in control of the big vehicle.
We had poked around a few side streets as Roger had led us out of the business district, but suddenly we ran into our next problem.
A group of people on the run had dashed into the street and almost been plowed down by Roger’s hulking truck. One of them, a little kid around eight or nine years old, turned and then screamed in fear. Behind them raced a dozen ragers and they were living up to their nickname.
Elizabeth gunned the engine and the Range Rover surged forward until it had almost closed with the group, then she slammed on the brakes, throwing me hard against my seatbelt, as she cranked the wheel to the right. The group of ragers literally ran into her car, and then clawed at the vehicle as she gave it just a little gas. This gave the group of people a little extra time to run, but I didn’t think they were going to make it.
I reached for the console to lower the power window as I lifted the gun, but I didn’t have to follow through.
A couple of guys strapped for business appeared, pulled out a host of weapons, and opened fire on the mass. Their truck, a huge blue GMC, had come to a screeching halt a few dozen yards, before they jumped out. I practically cheered until one of the bullets accidentally found Elizabeth’s side mirror and punched a hole. She spun the wheel to the left and took off after Roger.
“Holy shit, did you see that?” Roger asked over the phone’s speaker.
“I hope there are a lot more armed people going out and hunting ragers,” I said. “This zombie apocalypse won’t last much longer.”
“I have all of my fingers crossed, bro,” Roger said.
“Still not going to tell us where we’re going?” I asked Roger.
“I just gave you the address. We have to make a pickup there, and then it’s on to a safe place for the night,” Roger said.
“I’m glad you boys seem to have an idea, but there is a facility that I need to reach,” Elizabeth said. “And I can’t stop to drop you off somewhere else.”
“Fine. Pull over at the next intersection and I’ll get in with Roger,” I said.
“Works for me, but if it’s crawling with ragers we’re going to have to delay a reunion,” Roger replied.
Roger led us about a quarter mile away, found a convenience store parking lot, and slowed down. Roger, Mitch, and Mindy lowered their windows and looked around at the surrounding area.
Elizabeth pulled to the side of the road and a big pickup truck with a rebel flag, and three men carrying guns, roared past us, but not before sounding their horn. One of the men waved and I waved back.
I opened the door and turned to say goodbye to Elizabeth, but her eyes were drawn to something behind me. Her lips formed words, but I didn’t hear them.
An entire pack of the rage things broke from around a corner, set their eyes on us, and howled for our blood. They were less
than twenty feet away and somehow covered the space in seconds, less than seconds. They were inhumanly fast, and with their eyes covered in mucus, and mouths coated in blood, they looked like a demon army.
I grabbed hold of the door as Elizabeth pulled me back into the seat, but my leg had already been in the process of setting foot outside, and my pant leg caught on the door frame. She slammed the truck into drive and punched it. I barely held onto the handrail above before the ragers were on us. I kicked my pants free and pulled my body back inside as the car moved, but one of the ragers, a woman in her mid twenties who looked like she had been at an audition for a zombie show, got her hand in the door frame. I smacked at her hand, but she wouldn’t let go.
I pulled the door with both hands and crushed her fingers, but she still refused to let go. Her head darted inside the window, so I put the gun’s barrel right up to her head and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked and part of her head snapped back. She fell away but her leg caught and she was partially pulled underneath the Range Rover. It bumped up and down as we drove over her.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her corpse as we sped away.
We soon ran into another problem: a second bunch of ragers descended on Roger’s Hummer. He didn’t speed up and, knowing Roger, that was par for the course. He would rather face down a horde of zombies in hand-to-hand combat than let anything damage his precious vehicle.
Three of them crawled up onto his hood. Roger must have decided it wasn’t worth his ass, and suddenly the Hummer took off at speed. He reached the end of the road and then his brake lights flared and tires screeched.
The hanger-ons flew off in a heap and Roger sped around them. Elizabeth did the smart thing and maneuvered around the mass of tangled limbs, and then put her Range Rover right on Roger’s ass as he found another side street and made a turn.
“Is it this bad everywhere?” I asked in disbelief.
All of this shit with rage zombies was going to get us killed. Well, everyone in the city at the rate they seemed to be spreading. The only thing we could do was head for the hills, or maybe Montana. Didn’t they have a lot of open space and a lot of guns? What about an island off the coast of Myrtle Beach?
“It is truly astonishing the rate at which this is spreading,” Elizabeth said.
“Hopefully Roger has a better plan than driving all over Atlanta,” I said wistfully.
“Just keep him on the phone so we can get away from this place,” Elizabeth said.
“If he loses us, we should go back to your house,” I suggested. “It’s isolated, has a fence around the development, and more importantly, my car is there so I can drive as far away from here as possible.”
“I must admit, your logic is sound.”
A white MARTA bus appeared on the road ahead and to our right. I pointed it out, but Elizabeth had already slowed. Roger had time, and accelerated through the intersection, just beating the bus by a few seconds. I wondered why the thing hadn’t stopped, but Elizabeth’s gasp clued me in.
The driver had lost control. He fought a man who ripped at his face. The passengers had gathered toward the back of the bus, and one of them seemed to be attacking someone else. A large woman armed with a hockey stick, of all things, advanced on the guy who was attacking the bus driver, and then the bus roared through the intersection.
The bus careened around a corner and then flipped onto its side in a grind of metal on asphalt that sounded like a bunch of demons had just been unleashed from hell. The lumbering vehicle came to a halt and for a few seconds it was blissfully quiet.
Then a window flew open and someone crawled out and onto the top, make that side, of the bus. The back window expelled outward and more people, shaken, bloodied, and battered, crawled out of the bus. A few stopped to help others, but it soon turned into a melee as ragers clashed with the passengers, at least until a familiar horn sounded, and the truck with the two good old boys arrived on the scene.
“Let’s get out of here. If we stay and stop at every scene we’re never going to get out of here,” Roger said.
Elizabeth continued to stare, her face a mask, as the violence escalated. Gunshots sounded, and a few ragers dropped. Roger had already accelerated away. Elizabeth let out a slow sigh, put the Range Rover back in gear, and followed his lead.
24
We spent the next twenty minutes basically crawling a few miles along the streets of Atlanta. For every block we found that was in the throes of an all out rage zombie assault, there were entire blocks of peace and quiet. There wasn’t a single sign of the military, yet.
“Didn’t you say that the National Guard were on the way?” I turned to Elizabeth.
“It’s a large suburban area, Jake. They could be a few blocks over and you wouldn’t even know it yet,” she replied, which didn’t exactly answer my question.
We had the advantage of moving at night so that allowed us to duck off of the street if need be, but it also meant that we had trouble detecting any mobs of ragers, or worse, people being chased by them. I tried to keep my cool. Latimer, in the back, certainly did. I looked back there once, and found his one good eye glued to my face like I was some kind of lantern in the dark.
“You okay back there?” I asked Latimer.
“I live,” he said, and then turned his face away and buried it in the tarp once again.
I looked at Elizabeth but she ignored me, and kept her eyes on the road ahead as she followed Roger.
Just when I thought we couldn’t possibly go much further without seeing another rage attack, the area began to look familiar. I looked to the left and realized we were near the airport. Roger flashed his hazards once, just to get our attention, and then did a u-turn, and zipped into a strip-mall.
“Where is he leading us?” Elizabeth asked as she slowed the Range Rover, and then looked both ways before following Roger’s lead and pulled a U-ie as well.
“This looks familiar,” I said as I squinted my eyes.
Roger slowed, and then he actually stopped the Hummer and got out. He carried his black rifle but he kept it low, and in both hands, instead of locked under his shoulder. Mitch hopped down from the other side, and they both spread out a half dozen feet as they looked around the parking lot. Mindy appeared next, and together they conferred as Roger gestured toward one of the strips of stores. The only place that still had its lights on was a Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt store.
There were a number of cars here, and a few trucks, but it was Sunday night, and the place was practically dead. A convenience store sat the edge of the cross streets, but it appeared to have some of its lights off. I considered dashing over there to see if they were open so I could get myself an ice cold Red Bull. I felt like utter shit, my body ached, my head throbbed, and my face flushed as if I was getting a fever. I hadn’t been bitten, to the best of my knowledge, but that didn’t mean that one of those fuckers on the lower level of the building hadn’t gotten one of their snaggle-teeth into my flesh.
I had pains in places where they shouldn’t exist, and only doing a full visual inspection of my pasty white ass would reveal any rager bites. But that would have to wait until we were in a safe location, and this didn’t look like it. However, this place did look familiar.
“Hey,” I said as I lifted the phone. “Where are we and what the fuck are we doing here?”
“We’re on the second part of our mission. You guys can hang back if you want, but I’m going in,” Roger replied. “If anything goes wrong, Mitch will drive the Hummer to my location for extraction.”
“Seems like a lot of effort just to get some frozen yogurt,” I said as I scanned the mall, then noticed another store that had its lights on in the back. “Or are you guys are making a coffee run?”
“Like, you’re dumb.” The phone crackled as Mindy took the device and said, “You don’t recognize this place? God. She’s so right about you.”
“Who? What? Wait,” I said.
Jessica.
Elizabeth had already com
e to a halt so I grabbed my pistol and hand axe, jumped out of the car, looked around the parking spaces for ragers, and then ran toward the coffee shop. I came to a minivan, and put my back against it. Mitch waved, and then hopped in the driver’s seat of the Hummer. Mindy went in the other door, then they backed up, turned around, and pointed the Hummer at the road, I guess so they could make a quick get away once Roger was back out there.
Elizabeth backed the Range Rover toward the stores, but kept the windows up. Her head bobbed around as she kept her eyes on us, the road, and I assume, any potential rage induced zombie mobs.
“Hey, man.” Roger joined me.
He had his rifle out and kept looking around as he caught up with me.
“I’m a little confused,” I said, although I’m not an idiot because the pieces had started to fall into place as soon as we had arrived here.
“About that, man,” Roger said.
Could my day get any worse?
Of course it could.
Before I could get into it with Roger, the first rager rounded the side of the building and slowed as it sniffed the air. That was new behavior, and weird as fuck, then the tall skinny black dude’s mucus-covered eyes settled on us. He snarled once, then took a tentative step toward us. Roger and I both raised our guns at the same time. I don’t know who fired first, but the man’s head snapped back, and then he folded in half and dropped to the ground.
That brought out the whole gang. Like a parade of fucked up marathon runners, they came in droves. They were hungry, and they looked mad.
“Go!” Roger yelled and pointed at Jessica’s shop. Behind us, the vehicles backed up until they were almost out of sight.
He laid down covering fire as I bolted. The coffee store lay no more than twenty or thirty feet away, I think, honestly I just guess at measuring shit.
I ran for all I was worth, which wasn’t much considering the day I’d had. Behind me, Roger’s gun barked out repeatedly. I risked a glance behind to make sure he was still alive, and he was. Roger sidestepped as he fired, but he still followed me.
Dawn of the Rage Apocalypse Page 17