The Undead World (Book 6): The Apocalypse Exile (War of The Undead)

by Meredith, Peter

  Michael tried to move the truck again, but it was still just as stuck. Eventually, Grey stopped yelling and with a scowl, he climbed back into his truck before the zombies could swamp them as well. Then he left, heading back to the large warehouse in their rear.

  “Hey, where are they going?” Joslyn demanded, angrily.

  “Oh, just relax,” Sadie snapped. “I told you we could trust Neil.”

  Joslyn eyed her while wearing a sneer and said: “I trust Neil. It’s you I don’t trust.”

  Guilt gripped Sadie from within making it feel like someone was squeezing her heart with icy fingers. She rallied, saying: “The baby is fine. There’s not a scratch on her.”

  “What about Lindsey?” Joslyn shot back. “She’s got more than a scratch on her.”

  Sadie couldn’t say anything to that. The guilt was back, stronger than before, and had her by the throat, closing off her airway. In all the chaos, she had forgotten about Lindsey. She wouldn’t forget now. The picture of Lindsey the moment before Sadie shot her, appeared in her mind. It spread itself out filling her consciousness and Sadie knew it would never go away.

  Chapter 5

  Captain Grey

  “Move over, Neil,” Grey said, climbing practically on top of the smaller man. He dropped the hot M4 into Neil’s lap and said: “Reload this will you? My God, where did Michael learn to drive?” He had meant it as something of a joke, however no one responded with even a glimmer of a grin.

  Neil was staring at the fearful scene around the other truck in a state of shock. Grey didn’t blame him as it was simply awful, he had never seen such a grisly, bloody sight. The mound of ground-up and shredded human meat was amazing in size and utterly disgusting. Neil started to turn green.

  To get him refocused, Grey reached over and tapped the M4. “Come on, Neil. I’m going to need it here pretty quickly.” The soldier then stuck the old M809 five-ton into gear, fed it gas and slowly released the clutch, gaining traction over the bodies in front of them and picking up speed.

  As Grey plowed through the horde, Neil reloaded the gun. Jillybean knelt on the bench and stared all around. Her lips were so puckered that they had disappeared from her face. Deanna was grim and beautiful. There wasn’t any fear about her whatsoever and that was beautiful as well. Grey caught himself staring at her. When she glanced toward him, he quickly looked away, turning his eyes to the ugly task at hand.

  It was three minutes of gruesome driving to reach the open area in front of the largest warehouse. No one knew what to expect when they got there. Grey feared that the people in the other truck had tried to get to the warehouse in order to make a stand. He knew that if they had it would be their final stand. Almost as a rule, warehouses were wide open places with nowhere to hide except perched on whatever merchandise was being stored there. Sometimes there were offices, but usually they were thrown in as an afterthought and had cheap doors, thin walls, and little in the way of protection.

  He didn’t think Ricky and the others would go for that. He figured they would make a dash for whatever area of fencing was most clear of the stiffs and attempt to climb their way to freedom—another bad move. Grey didn’t think much of their chances. Trying to escape this cauldron of undead on foot would take a mental toughness that few of them possessed.

  The group hadn’t chosen either of these two dubious options. For whatever reason, Ricky was driving the truck in slow circles, crushing the undead beneath the worn and aging tires of the M809. If he thought that attrition would allow them a chance at freedom, he was very much mistaken. For every one of the zombies that went down, two more took its place.

  The truck resembled a mastodon, surrounded by countless wolves. Zombies clung all over it. They were on the doors and gas tanks, on the fenders, the hood, and even on the canvas covering the bed. They were slowing it down and when it finally came to a standstill, it would be mobbed and overwhelmed.

  Grey charged up, flattening everything in his path. He took a curving course so that he chugged along thirty yards to the side of Ricky’s truck and running parallel. “Let me have the weapon, and prepare to take the wheel,” he ordered. Neil handed over the gun and slid over in a seamless transition as Grey stepped out onto the fender. As the truck rattled over the bodies, he clung to the side mirror with his left hand, the muscles of his arm bulged and the veins showed like snakes riding beneath his skin. One handed, he shouldered the M4 and fired, killing those zombies who were dragging open Veronica’s door in the other truck.

  When it was clear, he shouted: “Roll down your window!”

  Veronica rolled it part way down and screamed across the gulf that separated them: “What are we going to do? There’s too many of them!”

  Grey pointed back the way he had come. “Go back! It’s not that bad. Just stay to the left. Tell Ricky not to stop or slow down, no matter what. We’ll meet past the trestle bridge where it’s clear.” She gave a thumbs up and Grey climbed back in, again taking the wheel.

  “How are going to free Michael’s truck?” Neil asked. He had begun topping off the magazines as soon as he had slid over. It wasn’t an easy thing to do as the truck bounced over body after body and as many bullets went bouncing away as went into the magazine.

  “We’ll push them out. It’ll be no problem.” He had all the confidence in the world, not only in his ability as a driver, but also in the Army trucks—they just had to be handled with a steady hand and a judicious use of the gas pedal.

  For a few seconds Grey kept his truck back, allowing Ricky some room to make his run down the zombie-clogged street. With so much of the attention on Michael’s truck, the left side of the street wasn’t as densely packed and Ricky managed to blast a path through. A few times he started to bog down or slide in the remains of dead or crippled zombies, however he kept the engine pounding. Once he got past the tremendous mound, he was able to pick up speed and he quickly turned onto the main road and was gone from sight.

  “Now it’s our turn,” Grey said, moving the stick through the gears. He knew he would need all the momentum he could get. Not only did he have to climb the mound, he had to have enough oomph to get Michael moving as well.

  The mound proved to be a speed-sapping obstacle. The truck went slower and slower as it crawled upward over the undead. Still, it reached Michael’s truck with enough of a surge that it should have sent it onward, but there was only a tremendous crash and then both trucks settled deeper into the mound of flesh.

  “Son of a bitch!” Grey cursed. “He never turned his wheel! Wait here.”

  Almost hidden by the swelling and the bruising was Neil’s look of confusion. “Wait here? Where would I go? Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Out for a stroll,” Grey said. It sounded sarcastic but Neil’s jaw dropped when Grey took the M4 from his hand and opened the door. Neil started to say something, only Grey had shut the door and was climbing onto the hood of the great truck. He took three steps and leapt across to the bed of Michael’s truck—the back gate was slick with blood, thankfully all of it was black.

  The renegades reached out for him, some to steady him, others to pull him into the bed. There were eighteen people in the cramped bed and they all began babbling and pointing at once. “Let go!” he demanded, slapping at the hands on him. “I have to get up front.”

  “You can’t,” one of them said. Compared to the bright sky, it was dim in the back of the truck and Grey couldn’t make out who was talking. The person went on: “There’s no access door to the front.”

  He wanted to say: No shit, but he held back. “I know. I’m going up top.” He slung his rifle on his back, got a good grip of the bed frame and heaved himself up. Because Michael was still battling in vain to free his truck, Grey had to crawl to keep from pitching over the side. Seconds later he was at the front where the hood was covered in the undead pounding on the windshield or tearing at the metal of the truck

  The M4 was off his back in a flash and he swept them aside with bla
zing hot lead. He then leaned over the passenger side door and shot four of the beasts who were slowly dragging it open. He did the same with the driver’s side. He then knocked on the glass.

  “Hey,” Michael gushed as he rolled down his window. He was red in the face and there might have been tears in his eyes. Grey pretended not to notice as Michael started jabbering: “I’m so glad to see you. We’re just about as stuck as can get and there were these...”

  Angrily, Grey interrupted him. “Turn your damned wheels! They’re pointed right at the curb.”

  “Oh! I didn’t know. You can’t tell from up here, not with all the zombies. All I can see are...”

  There was no time for wasted words or wasted seconds and so Grey interrupted him once more: “I’m going to tap you again with my truck. Give it all the gas you got and then meet us up passed the trestle bridge.” Michael was saying something but Grey was already crawling back the way he had come. For him, it was just a hop, skip and a jump back to his truck, and after shooting a couple stiffs that had struggled up to the level of the door he climbed in and handed Neil the M4.

  “Hold on, it’s going to get bumpy,” he said, and then gave Deanna a wink. He couldn’t say why he had winked. He had meant for it to come across as light-hearted, but he was instantly sure it looked cocky instead. Embarrassed, he regretted it immediately. She only gave him a small and unreadable smile in return.

  Stifling another curse at his stupidity, he worked the truck into first gear and slid and skidded his way forward until the grill of his truck clubbed into the back bumper of Michael’s truck, crushing a number of zombies who were attempting to get at the renegades.

  Both machines roared and belched smoke into the sky as they ground slowly forward. Zombies surged at them with even more hungry desperation. Suddenly, Deanna’s door was pulled open and she reached out with both hands to shut it. She was red in the face and breathless from the struggle by the time she was able to close it again. “You better hurry,” she said. “I won’t be able to hold on for long.”

  “I can hold it for you,” Jillybean said. For the moment, at least, her eyes were the clear blue that marked her as free of the evil creature inside her.

  “No, honey,” Deanna said, grunting with the effort of holding the door closed. “It’s a lot harder than it looks.”

  Jillybean shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Watch.” The little girl leaned across Deanna’s struggling body, took hold of her seat belt, wrapped it once around the door handle and then looped it behind the passenger side head rest. “You can let go now.”

  Tentatively, Deanna released her grip. The door creaked open about three inches and wouldn’t go any further. The seat belt was tight as a bowstring. Deanna made a noise that suggested: Why didn’t I think of that? Jillybean then pointed at the gap and the claws reaching up through it and said: “If that opening makes you nervous, you can roll the window down part way and shoot the monster, that way you don’t have to open the door if you don’t wanna.”

  The hands could only reach so far, only half a foot or so. She was safely out of their reach. “I think it’s good the way it is, thanks,” Deanna said. “No need to waste bullets.”

  During this, Grey was bull-dogging his truck, mashing it against Michael’s without regard to the damage he was doing to the rear of the vehicle. The tail gate was crumpled and probably useless. Still, Grey pounded the truck, until it started moving on its own.

  When they had both slogged clear of the main throng of zombies and had turned back toward the trestle bridge and the zombies had lost their grip and fallen from the trucks, one by one, Grey broke out a rare smile and exclaimed: “And that is how it’s done!” Deanna gave him a grin while Jillybean leaned back onto the bench—she didn’t smile. She was jittery, her eyes flicking everywhere and her hands touching the dash as if the feeling was new. This was sadly normal for Jillybean, now; joy was infrequent and anger a constant backdrop. She was drifting between mental states now that the danger was over.

  Neil wasn’t smiling either. “If we got through that unscathed, I’d be very surprised, and, of course, we have another decision in front of us: do we go on the way we had planned? That might have been just a taste of what could be waiting for us and it was a fiasco. How much ammo did we just burn through? Five hundred rounds? A thousand?”

  Deanna shook her head. “No way it was that much. I’d say two-hundred, tops.”

  “No, Neil is right on this,” Grey said. “Ammo goes faster than you can imagine in battle, and I heard at least two guns going full auto there for a while. But...but we should get an actual count before making any decision about changing course.” He had added this last point, quickly. Deanna’s face had begun to set in something that was close to a frown and he hated the idea of being the person who had caused that.

  It turned out Neil was right, and not just about the numbers of bullets used—all together they had fired over eight-hundred rounds—he was also right about the human cost. Joslyn stunned everyone with an accusation of murder. Sadie hung her head as Joslyn started bleating about what had happened in the cab of the second truck. “Instead of helping Lindsey, Sadie shot her like a dog.” Everyone stared at the Goth girl. In the silence she had caused, Joslyn added: “And then she wanted to kill Eve!”

  Michael immediately shouted Joslyn down: “It wasn’t anything like that! Lindsey had been bitten and was being dragged out into the horde. There was no saving her and Sadie did what she had to do, which is more than you did. It was a mercy killing, for Pete’s sake!” Michael was in a rage at the stupidity of the accusation, however Grey noted he hadn’t mentioned anything about Eve. That point was glossed right over.

  With one drama seemingly ended, Fred Trigg suddenly pointed a finger to begin another. “She got bit.” He had singled out a woman named Arlene, one of the ex-whores. At one time she had been pretty, however the apocalypse had worn away that layer and underneath was a pinched, nervous woman.

  Deanna stepped between Arlene and Fred so that the finger was pointing at her. She glared until Fred put his hand down. When she continued to glare, he stuck the offending hand in his pocket. Arlene hid behind Deanna. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said. She was alabaster in color and expression, and, at the confession, the other renegades began to move slowly away from her, most with either nervous looks or disgusted ones.

  “Of course it’s not your fault,” Neil said to her in a kind voice. He then turned to Grey. “Get your med kit, quick. There may still be time to wash out the wound.”

  “It’s too late,” Arlene mumbled. Her arms were crossed and each hand had a grip on her bare flesh, making indented half-moon nail marks. There was blood on her left calf where the BDUs she had picked up at Fort Campbell were torn. The blood was already a dark maroon and sticky to the touch.

  Neil shook his head. “It’s never too late, Arlene. You never know.”

  Grey knew that this time Neil was wrong. He had heard of only two instances that a person was blooded by a stiff and lived. One being Neil’s friend Ram and the other had been a private under his command the year before during their long retreat north from Santa Fe. That had been a hellacious three weeks of no sleep and running battles, desperately trying to keep their dwindling brigade between the stiffs and the fleeing civilians. The private, a mere boy in Grey’s eyes, had been trapped along with his entire squad in the basement of a suburban tract house in some dusty, desert town. With supplies being rationed down to a few hundred calories a day, they were as famished as wolves and had gone scavenging, only to be separated from the main force and trapped.

  The boy was the only one to return. When he did, his eyes were empty, his cheeks hollow. There was no more fight left in him. He hobbled everywhere because he had cut all the toes off his left foot with his Ka-bar. As his story went, the squad had fought to the last bullet in the dim and cramped basement. When the zombies had broken through the door, the other men had started swinging their M16s like they were clubs i
n order to allow the private, Yeager was his name, an opportunity to escape. He had wriggled part-way through a squat little box of a window when a stiff had caught him by the foot as he had struggled out into the daylight. The beast had ripped off his boot and had bitten his toes down to the bone.

  Grey didn’t buy the story. He was sure they’d been trapped and he was sure that Yeager’s toes had been bitten, but there was a lie somewhere in the tale. For one, properly laced combat boots couldn’t be simply ‘ripped’ off, no matter how strong the zombie was. For two, Yeager hadn’t been so well-liked that the other men in his squad would lay down their lives for him. What was for sure was that his toes had been chopped clean off and he had come back without a single bullet on his person.

  Arlene wasn’t going to be as lucky; she was going to lose a lot more than a few toes. As the others milled and talked about the battle, Grey took Arlene to the driver’s side of his five-ton; he kept his med-bag stuffed in the small space behind the seat. Quickly, he pulled out scissors, rubbing alcohol and a roll of gauze bandages. Had this been any other injury he would’ve dug out more: bacitracin, a scalpel, a suture kit, sterile gloves, and antibiotics—all that would have been a waste with Arlene.

  The second he cut away the lower leg of her BDUs he saw the bite was raggedly deep and the edges looked like hamburger. Equally dire was that at least fifteen minutes had passed since she’d been bitten. The virus had to be in her system.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”