“Good luck to you too boy. Would you like my shotgun? Boston is a world away.” Joe said.
“What about you, Joe?”
“I have three more in the back, and my Tech 9. I’ll get by.”
“Thank you.” Jessie said shaking the man’s hand before taking the weapon.
“And some ammo as well.” Joe said and went into the back room.
He came back with three boxes of shells for Jessie to take.
Jessie was out the broken door and sprinting for the truck before Joe could confess any more future sins.
Jessie took inventory and replaced the old shells in his bag with the new ones Joe had given him, they looked the same, but Jessie didn’t know if they were interchangeable. He took out his charger and plugged it into an outlet on the truck’s console. He turned the key. The rig started smooth and had a full tank of gas. Once upon a time Jessie drove tandems for Shipper’s Pride and was comfortable with the rig. He eased the tractor into gear and was headed for home. He took out the fence and half a dozen “Georges” as Joe the ex-wife shooter had called them. He realized as he pulled onto the blacktop that he had left an opening in the gate, and in the building’s door. He shrugged and decided to let Karma decide Joe’s fate.
He came to a stop on the Route 80 overpass to witness the aftermath of the carnage below. There were bodies everywhere, along with dozens of creatures roaming aimlessly.
“They must be out of living people.” Jessie said to the empty cab.
He got rolling again headed north. He was five miles from his first destination. It was an easy once he got past the glut of cars that were once trying to get onto Route 80. The rig had a thick metal bumper cage like something you would see in Mad Max. Jessie supposed the deer and moose could get pretty big as you went a little further north.
He approached the rail yard and was pleasantly surprised to see it was mostly deserted. He counted fifteen zombies at most. He was glad he picked a freight yard and not a commuter station. He parked the rig near the only structure in the yard and climbed up onto the rig’s roof. He surveyed the surroundings and found what he was looking for immediately. He smiled. If the keys were above the visor he would be batting a thousand.
The keys were above the visor, and when he turned them in the ignition he found another full tank of gas.
“Praise Jesus.” Jessie said in an exaggerated television preacher’s drawl.
It was a late model Ford Super Duty with all the bells and whistles including a retro fitted rig called a Hi-rail. It was attached to the undercarriage of the monster truck and worked on hydraulics. It allowed the truck to be driven on normal roads, and on the railroads tracks with the flip of a switch. He had many hours on one of these working the Shipper’s Pride rail yard for years. Granted, none were as nice as this, but the functionality was the same. He slid into drive and got himself lined up with the rail heading east. Once satisfied with his position he pressed the button converting the truck to a rail vehicle. Having already scoped this line out Jessie knew it ran in a meandering northeast direction, with the closest point to his home in Golden being Springfield, sixty miles to the west, along the Mass Pike.
It was almost two hundred miles from the Stanhope freight yard to the Springfield station, but it was a mostly uneventful ride. There were bodies and zombies and car wrecks at more than half the crossings. Jessie was able to reengage the road tires and make his way around all of them. Only once did he have to take the hard top for more than half a mile. As he drove, he listened to the Ford’s satellite radio.
Chapter 8 – The Mississippi
Anderson Cooper was still on the roof in Edison. Jessie tuned in mid-sentence.
“…heavy gunfire and several explosions have been reported in St. Louis and we are trying to get our hands on a video that allegedly shows several heavy machine guns mowing down the living and the undead on the Jefferson Barracks bridge that is part of Interstate 255, also in St. Louis. Eyewitnesses claim the army opened up on a crowd that was trying to cross the bridge once it was evident there were bitten and infected among them.” Cooper said.
There was a very long pause and then muffled voices and Cooper came back.
“We now have the video. I have not seen it, so I cannot prepare you for what you may see.” Cooper said.
The sounds Jessie heard made him want to throw up the Snickers bar he had just finished.
The video came from one of the army men, probably taken with a cell phone. There was a group of thirty heavily armed soldiers positioned behind a line of black Hummers. Two of the Hummers had Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns mounted on the back. There were five rows of Jersey barriers blocking the bridge on the west end. They were far enough back so the first line of stopped cars were still over the Mississippi River. A constant announcement came from a bull horn.
“Do not cross the barriers. You will be fired upon. Go back across the bridge and wait for further instructions.” The voice said over and over.
For a while the barriers held. Suddenly a man jumped the first two rows of barriers and the announcement changed.
“Sir, go back across the bridge. Do not proceed.” The soldier with the bullhorn said.
The man continued. He made it over the last three rows of barriers and landed feet together on the ground on the west side of the last row. He lifted his right foot to take a step and his head exploded backwards in a chunky spray. A second later everyone heard the shot. Everyone on the bridge started screaming and surging back across the bridge. The sounds of the crowd got quieter as they got further away.
“We should have done that hours ago.” A soldier said close enough for the microphone to pick it up.
The soldiers seemed to relax a bit. There was general conversation and some laughter amongst them. Then for one crystal minute, there was silence. Everyone seemed to be listening for something.
“What is that?” A soldier asked.
Then the camera began to pick up the sound. Thousands of screams filled the night air, then a sound that resembled thunder in the far distance. Then the two sounds mixed and it was awful.
“What the fuck is that?” A soldier asked with a panic filled voice.
The camera zoomed in on the bridge and the cameraman made a sound in his throat that conveyed dread he was feeling more than any words ever would.
The camera saw thousands of people in a dead run coming toward them across the bridge. If one fell down, they were trampled. As the front line was about to hit the Jersey barriers, the crowd at the far end of the camera’s view had clearly become a mix of humans and the infected. As people tried to run they were grabbed and dragged down to the ground…then they were popping up and attacking others trying to get by. It was a bottleneck and a bloodbath. Some people started jumping off the bridge landing in the shallow water a hundred feet below.
“Oh shit! Shit! We are fucked!” A soldier screamed.
“Secure that shit, Hudson.” Another soldier said.
As the first people made it across the barriers the soldier on the bullhorn screamed: “Open Fire!”
For seven horrific minutes the crowd surged across the Jefferson Barracks Bridge and for seven horrific minutes the soldiers poured bullets into them. The Browning M2s did most of the damage, staggering their assault so one was firing while the other was reloading. As the rounds hit the crowd arms and legs flew off, trailing bloody streamers. Chests and heads exploded. Men and women alike were chopped in half. As one line of the hysterical mob was cut down, another took its place, covered in the gore of what had been the man, woman or child in front of them just a second ago. People just kept coming and the soldiers kept firing. As individual soldiers ran out of ammo they lobbed grenades, fired side arms and ultimately retreated. Soon all the gunfire stopped, but the crowd did not. The soldiers tried to retreat, but the swarm was too much. Without guns they had no chance of defending themselves against the infected and those infected only with the rage of seeing fellow American citizens sla
ughtered as if this was a game. As the video continued, it became apparent the cell phone was mounted on the soldier’s helmet. The feed bounced as the cameraman tried to fall back. The screaming and shouting was deafening around him. Then he seemed to trip and fall to the ground. A hand came into view and flipped the cameraman onto his back.
“You sick fucks. You sick fucks.” the man who tripped the soldier said. Repeating it over and over as he punched the cameraman endlessly. He was a thin man in his late thirties wearing a shirt and tie.
If one were to count, they would have counted fifty two crushing punches that had landed on, and then in the cameraman’s face. By the tenth punch there was blood and gore dripping from the man’s fists as he raised them up and dropped them over and over. At first they made a flat smacking sound. As he continued it changed to a wet splat, and the camera was covered with a crimson filter.
“You sick fuck. You sick fuck.” he muttered, sounding exhausted.
The man raised his right hand for another punch and stopped. He looked at his fist and saw there was a tooth embedded in his middle knuckle. He picked it out and dropped his hands to his side. He took several deep breaths and noticed the cell phone strapped into the soldier’s helmet. He reached for it brought the camera tight to his face.
“My name is”
And that was when the teeth came into frame from the left. They sunk into the man’s neck with a thick crunch. Fresh blood splattered the phone as the man gurgled his last breath. The phone dropped to the ground and was abruptly picked up by another soldier who seemed to scoop it up in a dead run. The soldier wiped the camera’s lens and pointed it at his face as he ran.
“My name is Hudson, Private First Class. We were ordered to do this. Told we would be executed if we didn’t follow orders. I’m sending this to you Dad, as soon as I find a computer. Make sure someone knows what happened here. Please forgive me.” Hudson said, and the feed ended.
Jessie was glad he did not see the images that went along with what he had heard. He was sure he would see it in the coming days if broadcasting stayed up. Anderson Cooper’s voice came back. He was crying.
“We are going to take a break. Shut it off Bill.”
Jessie unlocked his cell phone and was about to hit the Mauri button, just to check, when he saw the top left service icon was gone. In the place of the usual 3G were the words “No Service.” He always had service in this area. He hoped the interruption in service was local and temporary, but he didn’t think so.
Jessie drove for the next three hours in silence waiting for Anderson to come back. As he drove, he thought about how Mauri got separated from her phone, and where she might try to go if the mall was no longer safe. He didn’t think she would try for home, it was too far, and there were better options. Jessie focused, thinking about the geography, the time of day and what the roads must be like. He nodded to himself when Anderson Cooper broke the silence.
“We are back folks, we could have used a longer break to recharge and prepare for the night ahead, but there have been two large developments that we are trying to confirm. First, there are unconfirmed reports up and down the Mississippi River of a general retreat of all local law enforcement and military personnel. Numerous explosions and carpet bombings by United States aircraft have since followed at all major bridges. Eyewitness reports are horrific. Thousands upon thousands of uninfected civilians and soldiers that did not retreat fast enough have been killed. These bombings have taken place with no warning, and with no attempt to preserve life. To the best of our knowledge, there still has been no official communication from our government.” Cooper said trying to keep the disgust out of his voice.
“The second development has come in the form of leaked classified material. BBC headquarters emailed us the transcript of a classified communication from a party identified as ‘Boulder Zone Alpha’ going to ‘River Team Echo.’ Here is how the transmission reads:
Boulder Zone Alpha: River Team Echo, come in.
River Team Echo: Echo here, over.
Boulder Zone Alpha: Echo, this is a code one directive, do you understand?
River Team Echo: Copy Boulder, what have you got?
Boulder Zone Alpha: Fall back from your current and rendezvous at checkpoint BZA.
River Team Echo: Copy Boulder, timeframe?
Boulder Zone Alpha: Immediate Echo. All River Team locations will be hot in thirty.
River Team Echo: All, sir?
Boulder Zone Alpha: Yes Major. Do not waste time. Do you copy?
River Team Echo: Copy sir. Jesus Christ Sir.
Boulder Zone Alpha: Indeed Major. Out.”
Once done reading the transcript, Anderson Cooper was silent for several minutes. When he came back, he was more angry than sad, but you could hear both in his voice.
“Boulder, Colorado is assumed to be the rally point they are talking about, which makes sense in light of the last piece of information we received. According to a man claiming to be a US Army Corporal calling himself ‘Reacher,’ The Rocky Mountains have replaced the Mississippi River as the ‘containment line.’ We will be back when additional information comes to light.” Cooper said, and the feed went dead.
There was no anchor at the CNN Studio in Atlanta, no additional reports from other correspondents at other locations. The air was still dead when Jessie arrived at the Springfield, Massachusetts train station.
Chapter 9 – The Pike
As he approached he could see a crowd of zombies filling the lot. This was a commuter station as well as a freight yard. He stopped the Hi-Rail, disengaged the rail connection and continued across a swampy field with the truck’s regular tires engaged.
He maneuvered his way through car crashes by driving the big truck through back yards, parking lots and anywhere else he could find a clear path. He had to crash into and push some of the cars out of his way, but it was a beast of a truck, and sustained only cosmetic damage. He reached the eastbound exit to I-90 quicker than he expected. He had to drive over the median and through a chain link fence to get past the pile up blocking the entrance ramp. The truck had a quarter tank of gas left, but Jessie thought that just might be enough to get him home.
Once he was on the Mass Pike he found pretty much what he expected. The westbound lanes were a parking lot. There were accidents, zombies and dead bodies everywhere. The eastbound lanes were empty. They were littered with bodies and zombies, but no cars. Two thick guardrails and several natural barriers separated the two directions, eliminating the ability to get in the wrong lane once you were on The Pike. The only breaks in the rails came at the spots where the cops sit. Either those were blocked by the traffic or anyone attempting to use one was long gone. Jessie shook his head as he thought about how even in a life and death situation not many thought to disobey the “Do Not Enter” sign and get on the highway going the wrong way. Whatever the reason for the open road, he was grateful. He had the truck up to fifty miles per hour and was avoiding most of the zombies, when a vehicle came towards him two lanes over. There was no danger of crashing, but it startled Jessie nonetheless. It had appeared on the horizon only seconds ago and was already about to pass him. As it went by Jessie could see it was a late model cherry red Corvette going a MINIMUM of one hundred and twenty five miles per hour. The driver honked the horn and waved out the window as he went by in a blur. Over the next fifty miles he would see a dozen more cars traveling at mind numbing speeds go by him. After the first one, Jessie was traveling in the right breakdown lane just to be safe.
As he approached the exit closest to the mall, Jessie had his plan in place and hoped for a bit of luck getting off the highway. And he got it. The onramp was clear because of an accident on Route 20 that blocked it off completely. Route 20 itself was a tangle of cars, but that was alright, because Jessie’s destination was only across the street. He checked the time on the truck’s display… it said half past one.
He accelerated the big truck as he came down the incline and aimed for wh
at he perceived to be the weakest point in the blockade of cars. He struck the back of a small Toyota pickup truck and the nose of an ancient Civic doing forty five miles per hour. On the other side was a Kia and a late model Mustang. He knew the Mustang was the more substantial of the vehicles, so he turned the wheel towards the Kia after impact. He punched through and crossed the double yellow line before coming to a dead stop against the rear wheels of a Shipper’s Pride trailer truck. Jessie had tried to turn the wheel and come around back of the big rig, but he got hung up on the Kia and didn’t make the swing. He immediately grabbed his backpack and the shotgun and scrambled out of the truck’s cab, into the cargo bed and finally up to the roof. He surveyed his options counting the number of zombies between him and his destination and started to make his way over the trunks, hoods and roofs of the jammed cars. He put his boots on the ground fifty feet from the front door of the Harley Davidson Dealership. There were three zombies Jessie felt could make it to him before he could make it to and through the door. The closest to him was facing the wrong way and had not noticed Jessie as he made his way over the cars. The other two already saw him and were shambling in his direction. He ran at the one in front holding the shotgun across his chest with one hand on the stock and the other on the barrel. When he was within a stride he crouched and lunged his arms forward and up and smashed the advancing thing between its upper lip and nose. There was a dull crunching sound and the thing dropped. It was not dead, but clumsy on the ground and very slow to react. Jessie took three more big strides and did the same to the next one. Same result. Jessie sprinted to the front door of the dealership. Three steps away he stopped and turned in a complete circle to see how many were advancing on him. He counted four in his quick spin. None very close, but they would be in thirty seconds. He stood next to the door left hand closest holding the stock of the gun. He brought the barrel up in an arc and smashed the bottom window with the butt of the gun. It spider webbed but did not shatter. He glanced over his shoulder. Fifteen seconds. He reversed his grip on the weapon, chambered the shell with the familiar chick-chick from a million movies and aimed at the window and fired the weapon for the first time. The recoil almost knocked him on his ass, but he recovered and dove through the obliterated window. Once in the building he jumped to his feet and sprinted for the coffee table in the middle of the waiting lounge. It was heavy oak six feet by eight feet. It weighed a ton but adrenaline was pumping and Jessie was able to move it to block the hole in time. He sat with his back to the table applying pressure for the better part of half an hour before the zombies lost interest and went on their way. Once the last creature strolled away Jessie got up and rolled a CVO Ultra Classic in front of the door and tipped it to brace the table. Satisfied he was safe in the showroom Jessie took off his bag and dropped it along with the shotgun on the floor. He took a seat on one of the big oversized couches in the waiting lounge and exhaled loudly.
Sawkill : Omnibus Page 7