Crusade (Eden Book 2)

by Tony Monchinski

  There were five or six of the Greeks and they all stuck together and he couldn’t tell them apart except for the woman, Stacey, who had long legs and was smokin’ hot, and that one Greek who couldn’t speak any English.

  “Morning,” he said to Sam on the next roof over.

  Sam didn’t always acknowledge him, because Steve and his sense of humor often rubbed people the wrong way, but this morning the other man did.

  “Morning. Maybe camping out here wasn’t a good idea.”

  Steve looked and saw what the man was talking about. The vast parking lot in which their convoy had spent the night had been relatively empty except for themselves when he’d turned in the night before. The vehicles were pressed bumper to bumper forming an impenetrable barrier. This morning hundreds of zombies had massed against the northern half of the cars and dozens more were staggering into the lot.

  “Shit. Where they coming from?”

  “City bit north of here,” Sam said. “I knew we shouldn’t have spent the night here.”

  He unzipped his fly and pissed off the side of the RV down onto the upturned faces of the undead standing below. A few of them moaned and motioned impotently towards the men on the roof. Sam lifted his upper lip and shook his head.

  Steve finished his business and tucked himself away in his jeans.

  “Damn, look at the ass on that zombie.” Steve indicated a female zombie in jeans whose hips were wider than her shoulders. “Lotta junk in that trunk, huh?”

  His neighbor didn’t answer.

  “She’s a whooty if I ever saw one. Whooty? You know, Sam, a white girl with a booty.”

  “Well, better get below,” Sam said. “Long day ahead of us.”

  “Yeah, see you.”

  The RV beneath him shuddered as Chris cranked it up, causing Steve to stagger back a couple of steps. “Whoa, you bastard.” He righted himself and flipped the bird to the zombies below.

  He stood on his tip toes and stretched. He turned his back to the hordes and the direction of the city and looked out on the space between the vehicles. It was nearly empty now as everyone got into their vans, cars and trucks. The convoy started to pull out up ahead.

  Chris must have opened a couple of windows because he heard WASP blasting from their stereo system, singing how they fucked like a beast. It was Chris’ favorite song and everyday it was his turn to drive he blasted it or Europe’s The Final Countdown as his first song.

  The vehicles at the front of the convoy were pulling into a line. A group of zombies that saw them rolling away started to get all excited and lurched in their direction.

  The explosion caught them all off guard.

  He felt a wall of heat at his back and before he could react he was swept off the RV roof to the pavement of the parking lot below. Instinct brought his hands out in front of him, trying to break his fall. Landing awkwardly on one foot, his ankle snapped under him, pain bolting up his leg. Rolling forward, he scraped his palms on the asphalt. His M-16 clattered off out of reach.

  Other men and women who had been standing on the roofs of vehicles, looking out over the zombies in the general direction of the city beyond, were blinded by a searing light that flashed and burned their retinas. Some of them were knocked backwards off their perches to land on the road below, sustaining injuries ranging from bruises and scrapes to broken bones to fractured skulls. Others tumbled in the opposite direction, perishing almost immediately in the outstretched hands of the undead massed along that side of the vehicles.

  A wave of hot air buffered the vehicles and tipped several of them up onto two wheels. Many of these toppled with rending crashes onto their sides and a few unlucky humans close enough were crushed. Other vehicles were shifted askance and suddenly gaps between the vehicles that had not existed before were opened. Into these gaps the first and the fastest of the undead poured.

  “Fuck me-fuck me-fuck me.” He grasped his ankle and pain welled up his body. “Shit-shit-shit.”

  Gunfire began around him, first sporadic single shots then heavier fusillades. There were screams too.

  He blinked back the tears of pain behind his shades and drew his Beretta. He jacked back the hammer and chambered a fresh round while everything around him descended into immediate and general chaos.

  The door to the van behind their RV slid open and Sam jumped out, a pump shotgun in his hands. Steve watched as a trio of zombies came running around the back of the van.

  Sam fired and blew the arm off one of the bookers. Before he could pump a fresh shell into the chamber another of the speeding zombies was on him, bearing him to the ground. The third pounced through the still open sliding door of Sam’s van, and his family shrieked in frenzied terror.

  He watched as the zombie on top of Sam ripped a huge chunk of flesh out of his neighbor then came running right at him. He extended the 92-R and fired three-four-five shots until it dropped.

  The armless zombie leaned down and took a bite out of Sam then ran off in the other direction, lost amidst the dozens of people who abandoned their cars and trucks and scampered about frantically.

  “Fuck, fuck.” Steve winced as he placed too much weight on his injured ankle.

  The door to their Dutchmen opened. Chris stood there bristling with weapons and—Steve thought he’d never forget this if he lived long enough—multi-colored tassels around his arms and calves, just like the Warrior. He’d even hastily painted a red, green and yellow mask on his face.

  “Steve!”

  “Chris!”

  “Let’s kick some ass!”

  “Shit.” He grimaced again.

  “Shit,” Edward said. He had been listening to ZZ Top, the bearded trio, singing about a house of ill repute in La Grange, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha, when the explosion had knocked their Winnebago a few feet sideways and the CD stopped. Something wasn’t right and it took him a few seconds to realize what it was. The Winnebago was in drive and he had taken his foot off the brake when the blast had surprised him, but they weren’t moving. The whole Winnebago was dead.

  Lauren blinked and got her bearings.

  “What the hell was that?” Sonya called from the back of their RV.

  “Look.” Edward pointed out his window. Lauren looked and saw a mushroom cloud boiling up into the sky off on the horizon.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  “I’m fucking blind,” Sonya said. “Would someone tell me what the hell just happened?”

  “Looks like a nuclear explosion,” Edward said.

  “Oh…”

  “Mommy!”

  The door to the RV was yanked open from the outside and Eva leaned in, her hands filled with the M-4/M-26 combo, a pack slung over her back.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Now. Lore, get the kids together. Sonya, come here to me.”

  She stepped up into the RV and closed the door behind her.

  “Go where?”

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Massive amounts of gunfire filled the air.

  Edward was trying to turn over the engine. Ellis and Ennis were hopping up and down in place as much as their elongated hairy bodies allowed, all keyed up.

  “Forget it,” Eva said. “It won’t work. Electro-magnetic pulse.”

  “Electro-magnetic pulse?” Edward said. “Oh, that’s some bullshit there.”

  “Move, now!”

  “Kids, grab your backpacks like Mommy and Aunt Eva taught you.” Sonya tried to remain calm but the truth was her children’s lives were at risk and she was terrified.

  “Do like Mommy says and get your stuff,” she instructed the kids. “Lore, water. Bring plenty of water.”

  “I got the water,” said Edward.

  It took them a minute or two to gather up their packs, supplies and weapons. Outside the gunfire rippled up and down the convoy. There were screams and the bizarre, other-worldly caterwauling of the dead.

  “Okay, listen to me,” Eva instructed the group. “We need to stick togeth
er outside. Stay close.” She looked at Nicole and Nelson. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” She addressed the adults, “We’re going to make for the fields directly south of us. We just want to get the hell away from all these cars. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Edward said.

  “Let’s do this.” Eva went to open the door but it was yanked open from outside. Without hesitating she unloaded with the pump shotgun mounted under the barrel of the M4. The blast lifted the thing on the other side off its feet and slammed it facedown on the road, unmoving.

  “Fuck!” Eva said.

  “Oh my god—” Lauren clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled Nicole closer to her.

  “Go. Let’s go,” Edward said.

  They stepped out of the relative safety of the RV and into the shouts and screams and gunshots of the morning, with Eva in the lead. Lauren was overwhelmed. Around her all was in disarray as the finely ordered, well-established routines of their lives descended into pandemonium and death.

  “Oh my god,” she muttered, vaguely aware that with one hand she gripped Nicole’s, temporarily forgetting about the Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol in her left.

  Around her a flood of commotion and noise, complete bedlam. Their group instinctively crouched as gunshots zipped by overhead. Vehicles had been knocked out of their tight formation, some completely overturned. A pair of legs jutted from underneath an upset panel van, and as Lauren watched one of the sneakered feet twitched. A man raced past their group screaming, batting at a zombie that had latched onto his back and crunched into his shoulders and neck. A woman stumbled by, her eyes seared shut in their sockets, hands held aloft in front of her as she staggered about confused and blinded, overwhelmed by the agony. Zombies streamed through the breaks between the vehicles and were shot in the head by lone individuals and groups in their twos and threes, yet still more undead exploited the breeches and pushed their way into the midst of the confused, scattered human beings. None of the vehicles were moving; all were stalled where they stood.

  “Lore, move!”

  Eva had come back and grabbed her by the arm, propelling her ahead through the middle ground between the cars, trucks and buses. Lauren didn’t let go of Nicole and though she was aware on some level that the child was sobbing and covering her eyes, she concentrated on placing one foot in front of another and coaxing her body forward in the direction Eva demanded. Sonya clasped eleven-month old Victor to her body, the baby screaming, her other children milling about her person. Lauren assumed Edward was still somewhere behind her. She flinched as a bullet passed close enough for her to hear the zip it made as it cleaved the air above her head.

  Married-man Bob hurried past their group, shepherding his family.

  “Lauren!” Maurice was beside her, snatching up Nicole, the little girl wrapping her arms around the man’s neck and burying her face in his collar. “Go-go-go!”

  A black zombie with a shiny chrome motorcycle helmet still strapped to its head ran at them. Someone shot it in the middle of the head, the bullet ricocheting off the helmet, stunning the creature. The thing collapsed to the ground.

  “Ennis! Ellis!” Edward yelled. His dachshunds were on the felled thing, attacking it, biting at its neck and face. The old man ran over to his dogs.

  Maurice hustled Lauren and Nicole after Eva, who had reached Sonya, Victor and Nelson and directed them towards the wall of stalled vehicles fronting the southern edge of what had been a circle. Maurice looked and saw the circle had been broken down at the front of the line where half a dozen or more vehicles had pulled out. The vehicles cut off following the detonation. Zombies came around those cars and were gunned down but more followed, stumbling over and past their fallen.

  A group of men and women had popped the hood on a mini-van. While three fended off zombies with rifle and shotgun fire, two were frantically at work under the hood. A man wrestled with two zombies on the ground.

  “Look out!” Eva cried.

  Lauren looked up. A booker came loping across the parking lot, ignoring everyone else around except her. It screamed as it ran and had murder in its eyes.

  Maurice straight armed his 9mm and unloaded on the beast, holding fast to Nicole. The creature caught a slug in its chest and shuddered but kept coming; a second and third round from Maurice’s pistol rocked it.

  “Fuck you!”

  Eva fired the shotgun mounted under her M4. Everything above the beast’s shoulders disappeared in a red spray. The legs went out from under it and the creature pitched to the ground, skidding a few feet forward on sheer momentum.

  “Where’s my mommy? Where’s my mommy?”

  Maurice looked down. It was one of the kids from around camp—he thought the kids’ nickname was Buckwheat—tugging on his arm.

  “Come with me,” he shouted, trying to grab the kid but his arms were full.

  “My mommy!” the boy screamed and would have taken off into the chaos except for Eva, who snatched him by the arm and dragged him along with them, yelling:

  “Come on now, kid!”

  The boy allowed himself to be pulled along, his cheeks streaked with tears as he continued to cry for his mother.

  Gasoline cascaded across the parking lot and splashed over their feet. The smell was overpowering. All Lauren could think was one of the tankers spilled itself out.

  “Through the truck! Through the truck!” Eva pulled back the bolt on the M-26 and pushed Maurice towards the cab of the nearest truck. Its passenger side door was ajar.

  Maurice hopped into the cab and slid himself across the seats to the driver’s side door, banging his thigh on the gear shift. He looked through the window. All he saw was more barren parking lot and beyond that a field where reeds grew chest high. He opened the door and stepped down onto the parking lot. Eva ushered Sonya and her children through the passenger door.

  As Lauren waited her turn she held tight to Buckwheat, and watched Eva snap the M4 to her shoulder then fire once, dropping a slow-moving zombie that had been intent on them. She thought she saw Steve scuttling away like a crab on his hands, one foot under him, the other dragging behind. One of the mechanics at the mini-van clubbed a zombie over the head with a wrench. Before she knew what was happening, Eva bodily pushed Lauren up then through the passenger door and into then through the cab.

  “Vre! Ella etho!”

  Maurice looked up. The Greek—the one who didn’t speak any English—was running over to him, looking confused, holding on to a pump action Remington 870 like he didn’t know what to do with it.

  “Yo, Greek dude. Whatever your name is.” Maurice was relieved to see him. They both reached up and helped Sonya out of the truck then helped her kids.

  “Maurice, can you tell me what’s going on?” Sonya tried to keep the panic she felt out of her voice.

  There were small groups of people escaping under and through the vehicles around them, tearing off into the field. Maurice wrinkled his nose and looked down. Gasoline pooled from underneath the truck. He imagined the space between the cars and trucks must be a virtual river of the stuff by now.

  “We’re on the other side of the trucks,” Maurice said.

  “My babies—are my babies all here?”

  “Your kids are fine. I got Nicole, and here comes Nelson.”

  “What about Eva? Where’s my sister?”

  “I’m here, Sone, I’m here.” Eva was the last one through the cab, having pulled the passenger side door closed behind her then slamming the driver’s side door shut.

  Lauren looked around and realized Edward was not with them any longer. She wondered where they had lost him.

  “Let’s go!” Eva yelled at the group. “Into the field! Stick together!” She grabbed the Greek by the shoulders and pointed. “Through the field. We’re going through the field!”

  They reached the reed bed without incident, the gunfire behind them building to a crescendo.

  “What now?” Maurice asked Eva.