They were spreading out in front of them. Talaski stepped it up and ran ahead of his companions. At a distance of ten feet, he stopped, braced himself, and opened fire on the leaders. The assault shotgun belched flame and boomed, shredding and rendering the undead things back into oblivion with the precision only long practice imparted. The bodies jerked and fell each time he squeezed the trigger. A pile of the dead grew.
Talaski’s weapon clicked empty. With every nerve screaming, he forced himself to push the magazine release and begin the reloading process. More were coming from straight ahead and at the sides.
Through the ringing in his ears, he heard Amy gasp.
“Nick, they’re coming from everywhere,” Keller said.
Talaski shoved the empty magazine into his belt and pulled out a new one— the last loaded one, chastising himself. He should have reloaded earlier. A wry grin came and went this time as he thought about the definition of futility: Should have and if.
And too late. Couldn’t forget that one.
He remembered the phone number that was still written on a scrap of paper in his wallet. Her name was Stacy. He wondered if he should have called her. He never even tried when all of this went down. It was too late now. Too late for anything.
They were supposed to have a date tonight.
“Nick, you have to hurry man,” Keller said somewhere nearby.
Talaski blinked his eyes, finished shoving the magazine home, and pulled the charging handle back. He was reloaded.
Keller and Amy stood beside him. Amy raised her carbine and fired a single shot. Talaski took a quick look around them. The dead were closing in from all sides. Ten here, thirty there, and nowhere to go with the cart. If he and Keller carried it over the people he’d shot, they could hold up in the house.
It was no good. He knew they would end up trapped, and they didn’t have enough ammo to break free again.
“Leave the cart, Matt,” he told Keller. “Follow me, both of you.”
Talaski didn’t wait or look back to see if they followed. He stepped over the bodies, one of which was still twitching, and entered the yard beyond the fence. He had to hope that there was a way out on the other side of the house.
Every one of the things within miles would be converging on this area soon.
The fence along the side of the house was about three feet tall. There was a hedge at the side with a vine-covered arch halfway to the backyard. A withered orange tree, ringed with two pieces of half circle edging stones, was visible a few feet behind, just inside the backyard. He could see an old shed further away.
They all ran.
When they came even with the hedge, Talaski happened to look in a window on the side of the house. A child’s startled face gaped back at him through some curtains. A glimpse. It would be so easy to pretend he hadn’t seen it. Keller and Amy obviously didn’t, as they nearly collided with him when he drew up short and looked again.
The child was gone.
“What’s going on?” Amy asked.
“Saw a kid in the window.”
Talaski felt relief at the immediate concern on both her face and Keller’s. Until now, he wasn’t sure how good a person Amy was, but this dispelled any lingering doubts.
Keller said, “Got any ideas, Nick?”
“Let’s try the back door. I can’t leave that kid there. Worst thing is we have to break in. We don’t have much of a start on those things.”
“Let’s do it,” Amy said.
Talaski led the way. He saw that the fence was the same height all the way around. There was no obstacle to escaping that way. An alleyway was right there with none of the things barring the way.
Then he saw a group of them clustered at the house’s back patio doors, massed and pressing against the glass.
With a shout, he ran toward them, firing from the hip…
55. Trish
She couldn’t believe it— road rage at the end of everything. Well, it wasn’t really. The guy was a freak to begin with, but why did she have to run into these people?
There was a clear stretch that lasted for a block or so, and she floored the accelerator. She wished that it could have stayed that way, but all too soon, her focus narrowed to the road and what obstructed it. Wrecks, trash, debris of all kinds, mobile and immobile dead people. She could feel her awareness fraying as her body shut down due to near complete exhaustion. If only she’d had time to rest.
At one intersection, Twenty-Second Avenue South, she thought, there was an immense field of broken glass, scorched plastic, and twisted metal—the apparent aftermath of a terrible pileup. A wrecker truck was still present, pulled off to the right side of the road, and police and emergency vehicles blocked the southbound lanes. The remains of three cars and a big pickup were lined up at the curb behind the wrecker. Two police officers stood roughly in the center of the intersection, as if still ready to guide her around and through the mess. She slowed, they noticed her car, and enough detail was revealed to make it plain that they were permanently off duty.
The cop on the left was missing his right arm from the elbow down, and the legs of the one on the right were a bloody, shredded mess. How she was standing was a mystery.
Trish gritted her teeth, slowed but didn’t stop, and felt the whole car shudder with the impact when the female officer went down beneath the wheels. The car rolled onto her. Trish winced. She remembered running over the pervert and crashing. She was horrified that this impact would lead to something similar, and she braced herself for the worst as the tires bounced off the creature she had hit, then Trish felt almost ecstatic with relief when the car righted itself, apparently unharmed.
She heard a fire engine siren somewhere behind. She wondered about it for a moment before pushing it to the back of her mind. She had to stay focused and find a way out of this mess. One little misstep and it could be her last. There weren’t going to be any heroes to rescue her.
Something about that siren… it nagged at her.
She glanced in her rearview mirror, saw the freak’s car a block or so back, headlights on, and behind it saw the flicker of emergency lights.
The vehicle was bigger than a cop car. She flicked her gaze back to the road ahead, and narrowly missed an open manhole in the street. Only a last second swerve saved her. She corrected her steering and ran over a corpse that thumped beneath the wheels, scraped another car, and lost the right rear view mirror with a loud crash. She fought the wheel but managed to straighten out, then risked another backward glance and saw it was a fire truck barreling along, crashing through what it couldn’t dodge.
Could it be Mills back there?
If it was, he probably wasn’t going to be able to keep up. That truck was too big to overcome all the pileups.
She forced herself to look away and pushed down the surge of hope that even the thought of the handsome firefighter could awaken in her. She didn’t need anyone to fix her problems or help her out of messes. If you didn’t need anyone, you wouldn’t be disappointed. It was bullshit she fed to herself every day, because the alternative would be admitting how empty and lonely her life was. She had to force that thought away too, and focus on now.
Little more than a block ahead, people were all over the road. She could see them walking toward her. They were everywhere, piling up against one another, forming a wall of maimed, rotting flesh, the details of which painted a hellishly perverted scene. There was no choice but to hit the brakes. Trish could smell the tires burning as the wheels skidded, and the car spun around, somehow still staying centered and not flipping.
She could almost feel them closing in around the back of her car when she completed her hundred and eighty degree turn. Hands were slapping on the trunk as she floored the accelerator and burned rubber again. Her face blanched with fear when the car chasing her headed straight for her. The freak’s eyes grew large, and he swerved at the last minute and shot past her, back where she’d come from. She had a moment to wonder why he didn’t slo
w down before his car sped past and plowed right into the packed crowd behind her, parting it like the prow of a ship before vanishing into and beneath the human wave.
Trish slowed, watching and waiting for the car to back out, but it never did. Meanwhile, the fire engine continued in her direction, siren blaring and lights flashing. There was time to wonder briefly why it was following, but not time to stick around. The things were in pursuit again and already pounding on the back of her car.
Trish decided to roll the dice and take a chance. Instead of trying to escape, she drove toward the approaching emergency vehicle. She could see at least one person in the cab, hunched over the wheel. The siren still blared, and the lights still flashed as the truck rolled to a stop in front of her. She realized she knew the driver when he threw open his door and jumped to the ground. The yellow bunker suit confirmed it—Mills, the good-looking firefighter from the police station. She opened her own door and ran to meet him, exulting inside, but still aware of the danger surrounding them. The crowd was closing in, and it was bad enough that she worried there would be no running away this time.
He swept her into his arms; she was the one to keep her head.
“Adam, we have to go!” she cried, pulling away and tugging his hand. He followed, obviously not as worried, and they ran together to the fire truck. A tall, thin guy with long, hairy, spidery arms reached out and snagged her shirt sleeve. Mills yanked her free with only the loss of most of her sleeve from the shoulder down. He took Trish’s hand in his and pulled her along.
Another zombie, middle-aged, with a roll of muffin-top fat, and clad only in yellow short shorts, stumbled in between them and the truck. The woman’s breasts had little sag for their size, and Trish realized they weren’t real when she saw a large bite in the right tit. The wound revealed a gel pack hanging partway from the gouge. Whoever had been chewing on her must have latched on. Mills stiff-armed the woman, stepped to the side, and nearly entangled both of them with yet another middle-aged woman. This one had a frizzy hairdo and caked make-up. Trish narrowly avoided her grasping fingers and ducked to the side.
Mills pulled his pistol and shot the frizzy-haired woman in the head. He turned, and shot Spider Man next. The horde was closing so fast he didn’t have time—or enough bullets—to shoot them all. There were three pursuers between them and the driver’s side of the truck, on the passenger side there were two, and countless more were closing in, with the furthest only ten feet away.
It was going to be close. Mills dropped her hand.
“Follow me,” he said, and ran toward the two undead approaching them from the passenger side of the truck. Mills never slowed, and was nearly sprinting when he crashed into the two zombies and fell to the ground with them. Trish followed closely, and forced herself to mount the side of the truck, open the door, and climb inside.
For a moment, she froze up, unable to believe that she had made it while below her, Mills was struggling with one of the things. The first was trying to sit up, and the second, a middle-aged guy with a bushy beard and a big build, was grappling with the smaller but burly firefighter. The zombie couldn’t get a grip on his bunker suit, but Mills couldn’t stand because he was tangled up with the dead guy. Trish looked around the truck’s cab for any kind of weapon. She spotted his big fire axe and shotgun right away. She knew she had to make a decision quickly. To use the axe, she’d have to leave the truck, while with the shotgun she could wreak devastation from the cab. She reached down and hefted the big gun, nearly despairing at the weight. It was like lifting a small dog, and she guessed it was over ten pounds. Panic was overtaking her, because she knew when she turned back to the window, even as she did so, that the zombies would probably be on top of Mills.
They were! The image of them, so close, as she poked the barrel through the still open door, was horrifying. She didn’t even try to aim, and pulled the trigger, half-expecting it to be locked and still on safe. The resulting roar, recoil, and the graphic, devastating damage she wrought was gratifying. She fired from left to right, unaware of the savage smile on her lips, or the tears coursing down her cheek. Some shots seemed to do nothing, and she figured that those were when she failed to lower the barrel enough. The gun seemed to have unending ammo, and each shot did tremendous damage, so she forced herself to aim, and stay focused.
Only when it clicked on empty and the sound of the siren was noticeable again did she allow herself to look down. Mills was sitting with his back to the truck with the two zombies dead at his side. One still had an arm stretched across his splayed legs. His gun was in his lap, and he was holding a knife in one hand, and what looked like a chewed ear in the other. His chest hitched, and she thought she heard him sob.
She dropped down to the ground beside him. He didn’t react. Probably in shock, she thought. “Please Adam,” she said, “you have to get up.”
“Run, Trish,” he answered. “I cut off the rest from the base, but probably not soon enough. I think I have a concussion, too. Hit the back of my head when I fell. Real dizzy.”
“Get up. You’ll be okay…please, I need you,” she said, acknowledging the pleading tone of her voice but unable to stop or change it.
She knew more of the dead were coming, but forced herself to take the hand holding the ear in hers. “Throw it away, Adam.”
His eyes were glassy. There was no question that he was going into shock.
“Snap out of it!” she shouted, and slapped his face. He dropped the ear, looked up at her. He kept his eyes on hers as he climbed to his feet on shaky legs.
“Sorry, Trish,” he said. “I lost track of what I’m doing.”
“Never mind that, just get in the truck, please, before it’s too late!”
He nodded, still dazed. He climbed the steps and swung himself into the cab. She followed, still not able to look up, and shut the door.
Mills was sitting behind the wheel and shifting into reverse. Blood poured down from a ragged wound on the right side of his head where his ear used to be.
“You have to pay attention,” he said as the truck turned to the right and began to crush the bodies that lay in its path. “When I turn, you have to shoot me.”
Trish turned away. The look in his eyes was too intense to bear.
“Promise me, Trish. Be hard. Survive this.”
She couldn’t answer, but she always found a way. One day, she knew, there might not be a way, but until then, she would always try.
She would die trying. Her parents had been survivors, and so was she.
“Don’t sweat it, pal,” she said, mustering a grin from somewhere. “If you need shooting, I’m your girl.”
He laughed. “I noticed that a few minutes ago. I wonder what the odds are that the virus, or whatever it is… Maybe the thing clamped down on it ripped it off with its teeth, I don’t know…”
She was desperate to change the subject, and she could hear something. “I hear a voice. You have a cell phone or something?”
“Wha…?”
He pushed aside a towel and a shirt that were piled on the center console between them. The voice was familiar.
Mills pulled a walkie-talkie from under the pile. “Keller, is that you?”
Now she could place the voice. It was the big guy at the police station. The cop’s sidekick.
Mills floored the gas pedal. They sped along, back the way they came, going south.
56. Jacobs
There were two choices, as Jacobs saw it. Follow the guy, or try to rescue Kyle. It wasn’t much of a choice. The better course would be to simply write him off and go back to the others. Only problem with that was that the kid trusted him. In effect, Jacobs was coming to accept these kids as his responsibility. Committing. The other part of the problem—if Sid was telling the truth—Kyle was already gone.
Only one choice then. Unless he was selfish.
Part of him wanted to run away. Forget about them. They weren’t family or anyone he knew. What made him care? He knew he wasn�
��t a good man. A good man doesn’t murder a woman and her kids. Who was he kidding?
He was reminded of something his friend Booth told him long ago. The two of them had been sitting in a bar, drinking all night, and both were plastered. He never could get drunk enough, but Booth’s advice had simply been, “Be your best, amigo. Doesn’t have to be the best. Just your best.”
He missed the guy. Of all his soldiers, Booth was the steadiest and most reliable. Good listener, too.
“I’m doing my best, amigo,” Jacobs said as he ran through the door that Sid had disappeared through. He wasn’t ever going to be perfect, but those kids deserved his best.
On the other side of the door was a staircase, a hallway, several doors to either side, and an entry door still creaking in the breeze. Jacobs had to assume Sid had gone that way, and he pushed the door open and stepped outside. He saw Sid’s back disappear, rounding the corner of the wall where a gate stood open.
Jacobs ran, feeling the weakness still present in his ankle with every step, but he was used to ignoring pain and pushing through. One other thing was aggravating all his problems right now—exhaustion. The few hours’ rest he’d snatched weren’t near enough to make up for the sleep debt he’d built up in the last few days. He knew it was affecting him, and that he was going to make some costly, if not terminal, mistakes unless he slept soon. He didn’t even slow going through the open door, where he saw a big, lean man right in front of him. Jacobs tried to bring his carbine around, but the other man was already stepping to the side. The man threw a punch that Jacobs walked right into. The punch rocked him, and Jacobs’ vision blurred as he stumbled backward off balance.
Jacobs was easy meat.
Being helpless was the image that Jacobs wished to portray. The other man drew a knife, made a grab for Jacobs’ shoulder, and swung the knife upward, intending to gut him. Jacobs deftly blocked both the grab and the stab. He followed up with closed fist strikes, one striking the man in the jaw, and the other in the throat. The first blow dazed the guy, and the second sent him to the ground choking. Jacobs palmed the knife and cut the man’s throat with the ease of long practice…and without flinching.
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