Chapter 19
“You want the front or the back?” Charlie asked, hefting a ‘hawk in each hand and looking very grim.
“I’ll take the back. Just get out of the way this time, all right?” I said as I went into the building, dodging piles of feed sacks.
“You act like I’m the only one who’s done dumb things.” Charlie called, perturbed.
“I wasn’t the one who managed to trap myself behind a door for two hours.” I yelled back, but Charlie didn’t hear me. He was waving his arms and making noise, trying to make sure as many zombies came towards the door as possible. I stayed about three-quarters of the way into the building, ready to start calling the zombies in further to trap them in the building. I positioned myself between the piles of fertilizer and pesticide, guaranteed to make my tomatoes the best ever.
As I looked to the front door, I saw Charlie duck inside and hide behind the big swinging door. Five seconds later, a zombie made its way into the store, and I immediately banged my pick and my knife together to get its attention. I didn’t want it to sniff out Charlie’s hiding spot and cause some serious problems. The zombie’s head snapped up. I could almost see its eyes narrow and its lips peel back from its teeth as it marched towards me. Behind it, several more zombies streamed in through the door, and I was going to cut this close in order to get as many zombies in here as possible before Charlie could get back outside and secure the door. If there were stragglers, Duncan and Tommy were likely hiding nearby to lend a hand. Sarah and Rebecca were probably getting some kind of firebomb ready to light this building up.
A few more bangs and a small stand on top of a pile of feed to get as many focused on me as possible allowed Charlie to dart outside and close the door behind him. I took that as my cue and ran towards the back door ready to get out and set this place on fire.
Great plans typically are designed around the guiding principle that everything will go right. Good plans have backups for the inevitable screw up that twists things sideways. Lousy plans are doomed to failure, usually because of some sort of oversight or cruddy planning.
I evaluated my plan for evacuating the building when I pushed on the emergency bar on the back door and walked right into the door. I shook my head and tried the door again, which stubbornly resisted my efforts to open it. Looking at the door, I saw it was opening, but it was secured in place by a latch and very effective padlock.
“Oh, shit.” I didn’t have much else to say, and it would have been a wasted effort anyway.
I turned around and saw the zombies had covered the distance fairly well and the first two were going to reach me in just a few seconds. I whipped out my pistol and quickly fired two shots, knocking over the nearest zombies. The shots seemed to galvanize the rest into charging the rear of the building, which had the effect of making me very nervous.
To make things worse, there was a pounding on the back door and Sarah’s voice, which seemed very far away. “John? John? John! Duncan, help!”
I didn’t have time to talk. I needed to move. I ducked away to the left, skipping around pallets of feed and pesticide, pausing for an instant to ventilate a nearby Z. I bolted for the front of the building, figuring to buy some sort of time and maybe get out the way Charlie did.
The front of the building was better lit thanks to the abundance of windows, but that didn’t make the zombies look any better. Jumping the checkout counter I slammed into the door, only to realize the damn thing had been secured on the outside by Charlie and he never made a mistake when it came to locking up Z’s.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I said to myself as the groans from the formerly living inhabitants worked their way through the displays towards the front.
All right. Plan B. I stepped to the right and when the zombies worked over that way, I shifted my aim and killed four on the left side. Running through the small opening that gave me I ran to the middle of the store, shot another small zombie that was missing an ear. His companion, an old woman that bared gums at me, went down with a shot in the eye.
I reloaded and ran back to the rear, staying to the far right again. I crouched and took aim at the padlock on the door, and shot the hell out of it, but of course, the stupid thing stayed on. I fired again and this time the thing broke, but the zombies had reached me so I shot four more on the left side. Darting through the opening, I ran back to the front, and waited for the zombies to pick up the chase again.
They didn’t disappoint, and I used the same technique again, thinning the herd a little more. Running as fast as I could to the back, I ripped the padlock out of the latch and threw it aside.
“Coming out!” I yelled and shoved the door open, ducking as three rifles covered me. I slammed the door closed and hollered at Tommy. “I need a wedge!” The door thumped loudly and I could feel many dead hands pounding on the other side. It was only a matter of time before the press of bodies activated the push bar and opened the door.
“Got it!” Tommy ran up with a hammer and small metal shim. He pounded the shim into the space between the door and the frame, sealing the exit.
I fell on the ground, and breathed heavily. Sarah knelt down next to me and put her hand on my back. I winked at her and stood up, pulling her close for a grateful kiss.
“Thanks very much,” I said over the noise of the pounding corpses.
“What happened?” Charlie asked. “You were supposed to be out right after me.”
“Padlock on the rear door,” I said. “Didn’t see it when I first checked the exit. My bad.”
“Your bad nearly took you out, pal,” Duncan said, crossing his arms.
“Ease up,” I said. “I had enough room to make runs back and forth. Thanks for securing the front door so well,” I said to Charlie.
Charlie scowled but Rebecca spoke up. “It’s done, you’re all right, let’s get it lit.”
“Go for it,” I said. I walked back to the truck and pulled out a box of ammo. I replaced the rounds I had used and checked the rest of my mags. Sarah came over and out a hand on my arm.
“You okay? You seem like you have something to prove, and are willing to risk your friendship with Charlie to do it.” Sarah’s green eyes looked into mine and I slumped slightly.
I shook my head. “Just tired of screwing up this trip, you know? I never saw the padlock because I never checked the door. I just assumed it would open.”
Sarah nodded. “Well, it had to happen sometime.”
“What’s that?”
“The great John Talon made a mistake.” Sarah’s eyes twinkled.
“That’s not funny,” I said.
“No, it’s human. Welcome to the club. Try not to get yourself killed or you will piss me off.” Sarah pulled me down to kiss my cheek and walked over to the building where Duncan was prepping a can of gas to use on the building.
I watched her walk off and finally laughed. I put the box of ammo back and saw Sarah lean over and whisper something to Rebecca. I could only imagine what it was.
Duncan disappeared for a minute, and then came running back, jumping in the van.
“Let’s go! I’ve never rigged one like that before so I don’t know for sure what it’s going to do!” he yelled.
That was enough for the rest of us. Usually when Duncan rigged something, it was a good idea to check to make sure you had nothing loose on you that might blow off, and preferably had a strong handhold on something solid. The next best thing was to get away as quickly as possible.
We dove into the vehicles and sped away, trying to get as much distance as we could. After racing out of town, we stopped and looked back. Nothing had happened, so I was wondering if the trap had been a bust.
“Where’s the boom? Usually when you touch something, it goes boom.” Tommy asked as Duncan scanned the sky for smoke.
“I’m not sure. I rigged it like I normally do, but maybe it landed on something that put it out, or….”
Whatever Duncan was going to say was drowned out in a loud whoompf, f
ollowed by a huge fatooom! The center of the town suddenly erupted in flame and a pillar of flame, debris, and body parts lanced skyward in an effort to defy gravity. We could actually see the shock wave, and staggered as it hit us.
I couldn’t resist. I tried, but I failed.
“Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?” I said.
Chapter 19
Duncan was wide eyed at his handiwork, and Charlie was the second to speak.
“The fertilizer probably did it. Pretty cool, though,” he said.
“Well, that ought to attract any strays and let everyone know we’re here,” I said. Charlie looked over at me and Duncan looked hurt, but I clarified when I said, “If someone comes investigating, that will give us the edge because we can see them coming. If no one shows up, for sure it’s not a rogue group.”
Several nods greeted me and Charlie walked over, shifting his head for a private talk. I obliged, figuring I owed him an apology for acting like an ass earlier.
“What’s up?” I asked, starting the ball, looking at the smoke rising to the sky. Several other buildings had been set on fire, so this one was going to be big.
“Not too much. Did you notice anything about our zombie friends?”
I thought about it. “They seemed pretty fresh, now that you mention it.” I thought a little more.” Their clothes were in pretty good shape, too.”
“Didn’t notice the clothes.” Charlie reflected. “Did you notice there weren’t any kids with them?”
“Now that you mention it, no, I didn’t see any. That’s odd.” It was, too. This far after the Upheaval, kids were making a serious leap in the population. I attributed it to people taking the responsibility to get the world jump started, but Duncan would always say it was because there wasn’t anything on television to keep people’s hands off each other.
“What do you think it means?” Charlie asked.
“Don’t know yet, but I have a feeling it’s to the south of us.”
“Yeah me too.”
“Charlie?”
“Don’t mention it. You got out. We’re good. If you’d bought it, I’d be feeling bad.”
“Thanks man.”
We went back to the group and boarded our truck and van. We had one more stop to make before we could try and figure out what was going on. The only thing we pulled away from this town was it had been recently alive and there were no children here. If it was a rogue group, then they were using zombies as weapons and stealing children for who knows what purpose.
If that was true, then they’d better find a place to hide before Charlie was unleashed on them.
Five miles south of what was left of Mineola, we stopped at the intersection of County Highway 45 and Gaston Avenue. There were five homes around this little intersection, and it would have been easy to believe the troubles of the world never touched this place. However, the homes were abandoned, locked up and left, without vehicles in the garages or barns. I didn’t disturb the homes, hoping that someday the owners might return to their little piece of heaven. The grass was long, as it was everywhere, and the fields were returning to the days before the plow, but the scene was still nice. Sarah pointed out that on the three mailboxes on the east side of the road all had the same name on the mailboxes. I guess around here people really don’t get too far from the homestead.
We took a moment to eat some lunch, and then we all gathered around the truck bed to look at the map. The towns we were concerned with were circled in black, and I knew everyone was concerned that it looked to be spreading east, whatever it was. The only thing that was a comfort was the thought that if it were zombies, they would be stopped at the Mississippi River.
The maps we had were pretty large, being little more than state road maps, but they had nearly all of the roads save for the county back roads that only locals and former county police officers knew about. We didn’t have any of those handy so we had to do what we always did and just wing it.
“All right. We’re about a mile or so from where the whole mystery started, so we need to figure out how we’re going to approach this. We know there’s zombie activity around here thanks to the little episode back north. Since we haven’t seen anyone on the road to investigate Duncan’s handiwork, I’m going to assume this town is dead. Based on the map info, there may be anywhere from three to five thousand zombies in here,” I said.
“Any good news?” Tommy asked.
“None that I can think of, except this isn’t an extermination mission. We go to take a look, try to figure out what’s going on, see what the threat might be, then get back to Leport. If there’s something on the way to our families, I want to be in front of it, not chasing it.” I explained.
Charlie nodded. “Okay, but what if we can’t figure out what happened here, or what happened to the teams sent out filled this way?”
I pointed to the map. “We move to the next town and search for clues. Nothing else we can do.”
Sarah spoke up. “If we do that, then we’re not standing in the way of what might be moving around, but coming up behind it.”
Rebecca nodded. “Best way to ambush whatever it is.”
Charlie looked at his wife, then at me. I shrugged.
“You trained her, pal.”
Charlie blocked the playful punch Rebecca tossed at him. “That’s what scares me,” he said.
“All right, we’re going in slow. Radios on and keep them low. I want everyone’s eyes looking for anything that might give us a clue as to why these towns are falling off the grid.” I rolled up the map and we all separated to get our gear ready. I filled up my magazines to capacity and added three more to my belt. I loosened the zipper on the top of my backpack, so I could get at the tomahawk in there. I had to admit Charlie had a good thing with his, and it had impressed me enough over the years to get one of my own. While his were more traditional, mine had a polymer handle and grip, and the blade of a spike on the other end balanced the weapon. It was light, sharp, and awesomely deadly. I couldn’t throw it nearly as well as Charlie could, but I was getting better. In a major fight, though, I would revert to my long handled pickaxe, which rode in its accustomed place.
Sarah was focused on her gear, which looked better on her anyway. She kept things light, preferring movement to brute force. Her weapon of choice was a spike on a long handle. Sarah liked to poke her zombies on top of their heads, and if they needed finishing off, she had her long knife. She had gone back to her Ruger .22 for a sidearm for this trip, and carried my old GSG-5 for a long gun. We had proven time and again the .22 was effective on zombies, and Sarah was nothing short of lethal.
She teased me again how she could carry ten times as much ammo as I could and still have it weigh the same, and in private, I wondered sometimes why the hell I used a .45. But the upside was anything I shot with it stayed very dead.
We regrouped and moved into position. From what I could remember, Glenwood was a town that spread out mostly north of a small river. The river was no obstacle to zombies, being only a foot or two deep, but it was fast enough in places to slow them down. Most of the town was subdivision, with the newer parts on the far north.
As we drove slowly into the outskirts, it was as if we were driving into the past. Empty houses with open doors and bits of dirty rag hanging on mailboxes spoke volumes. Here and there, a skeleton lay in the ditch or near a doorway. Some had head trauma we could see, others were just sprawled about. Sarah pointed to a house on the right that had nearly twenty skeletons scattered about the front lawn.
We didn’t see any moving dead, so we pressed further into town. On Linn Street, we passed an elementary school that looked intact, except for a single open door on the north side. A quick glance showed it could have been used as a decent shelter, since the windows were high and the front doors were solid with only a small window on them. The only thing that looked weird was the flattened grass leading away from the building from the open door.
Chapter 20
We continued south until we reached Fourth Street. There was a zombie barrier here, letting us know the area further south should have living people in it. I looked over at Sarah and she just shook her head. I nodded, because I had the same feeling. The barrier was a three-foot trench dug into the ground, with the dirt piled on the opposite side. It gave the defenders an effective five-foot barrier to the zombies, but it also put the zombies at nearly perfect killing level.
I got out of the truck and walked over to the ditch. There were quite a few dead things in the ditch, and not all of them were permanently dead. When they saw me, three of them started in my direction, stumbling over corpses and other obstacles.
I was about to pull out the pick when Duncan stepped up beside me. “Allow me,” he said, pulling his sword out of its sheath. It was a big two-handed affair, with a long double-sided blade.
“Oh, by all means,” I said, bowing out of the way. I winked at Sarah and nodded at Tommy, who was shouldering his rifle to give Duncan backup.
Duncan stepped up to the first ghoul, who was reaching for him with skeletal hands, both of which were missing fingers. Duncan swung quickly, neatly severing the Z’s head from its neck and cutting off the hands for good measure.
The second zombie took a quick stab through the eye that still left a foot of steel coming out of the back of its skull, and the last took a cut right at eye level, completely removing the top of the corpse’s head.
All three kills took less than ten seconds, and I looked back at Charlie and Tommy with raised eyebrows. Tommy just nodded and put away his rifle, while Charlie was taking a serious look at Duncan’s sword. I had to admit, that was a pretty effective and silent method of killing zombies.
Dead Surge Page 7