Fire Birds

by Shane Gregory

  “Wait,” Cheryl yelled, but I was already running toward the wreck.

  There was a creature standing near the overturned vehicle. It moaned and came at me. I reached for my pistol, but it wasn’t there. I’d left my weapon in the car. I stepped backward. Cheryl fired, and the thing’s head snapped back.

  “You’re gonna get your ass chewed on if you don’t start thinking,” she said.

  I ran up to the windshield and cupped my hands around my eyes to look in.

  “I can’t tell if they’re in there,” I said.

  She came up next to me and looked in too.

  “If they did get out, we should see some evidence of it–an open door or broken window.”

  I ran around the vehicle looking for any sign Sara and Grant had escaped. When I returned, Cheryl had her hand on the hood.

  “The engine is cold,” she said. “This happened a while ago, maybe this morning…maybe yesterday. There was a crowd around it for a while too. Look at how all the grass and brush has been trampled down. I don’t see any dead zombies, except the one I just shot, so maybe they never came out of it.”

  “Maybe they got out before the zombies got here,” I said. “Maybe they climbed out through the side door, and it shut.”

  “You can climb up there and see, or–” She pushed a button on her keychain, and the trunk popped open on her car. “There’s an ax in the trunk,” she said. “You can bust the windshield out of this thing.”

  I ran back and got the ax while Cheryl walked around the wreck.

  “The zombies headed toward town,” she called out to me. “They left a snail trail of their juices on the pavement. It’s funny how they would still use the road.”

  The first swing of the ax bounced off the windshield. The next three punched holes in it and spider-webbed it. The fourth caused the glass to cave then collapse into the cab all in one big floppy piece. I started to climb inside, but Cheryl grabbed my shoulder.

  “You might not like what you find in there,” she said. “Just wait out here and let me take a look.”

  “Honestly, I don’t think anything bothers me anymore,” I said.

  “Do you really want to see her if something has happened? Do you want to see her like that? Is that how you want to remember?”

  I thought a moment, and a vivid image popped into my head of Jen with her throat ripped open. “Okay. I’ll wait out here.”

  She stepped through the opening and climbed over the driver’s seat.

  I turned and looked around for any sign of visitors that might have been attracted to Cheryl’s gunshot. Far out in an old bean field beside the road I spied some movement in the weeds. It was a gray horse. I didn’t know if it was the same gray horse I had tried to help the week before, but I liked to think it was. I’d been so preoccupied with Sara’s return that I had not had another thought about it since that day.

  It was on its way across the field, and it was taking its time. It was walking with its head down, but I didn’t see anything on which it could be grazing. Occasionally, it would lift its head to get its bearings then the head would go down again. I whistled. Its head came up, and it looked at me, ears perked. I whistled again.

  There was a racket inside the RV and Cheryl came into view.

  “What is it? Do we have trouble?”

  “No,” I said. “Sorry. There’s a horse in the field over there.”

  She stumbled out of the hole where the windshield had been and looked out.

  “I haven’t seen any livestock in a while,” she said.

  I faced her and looked past her into the RV.

  “They ain’t there,” she said.

  I was relieved but also concerned. If they climbed out of the wreck, they would have had to go on foot. But where? There weren’t any houses in view; it was just woods and fallow farmland.

  “What do you think?” Cheryl said, as if reading my thoughts. “Would they go into the woods or walk down the road and try to find a house?”

  I thought about our experience in the woods behind the Lassiter house.

  “They wouldn’t go in the woods,” I said. “The RV is pointed toward town, so I would presume they would go back and find a house they might have passed.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” she said. “We passed a house just the other side of those trees. We’ll go back.”

  I looked out at the horse again, and Cheryl’s gaze followed mine.

  “Danny said we’re going to need horses soon,” she said. “Too bad we don’t have a way to catch it.”

  “I had a whole herd out there at the farm,” I said. “We let them go. There’s still one on the property somewhere.”

  “You don’t look after it?” she said, sounding perturbed.

  “No,” I replied, offering no defense. “It looks after itself.”

  We watched the horse move through the weeds a moment longer.

  “Come on,” I said.

  At the house, the lawn was waist-high. The paved driveway and concrete sidewalk gave us neat corridors through the grass. The front door was unlocked. The place had been looted, and the zombies inside had been executed. I didn’t remember doing it, but it could have been me that did it. I had been in so many houses, and unless there was something odd or spectacular about it they all kind of looked the same. I had tried to mark the front of the houses I went into, but I hadn’t marked them all.

  Sara and Grant weren’t there, so we drove down to the next house. We repeated this four times.

  “I don’t think they came this way,” I said as I sat down on a blue sofa in the living room of the last house. “If they were hiding a while to recoup from injuries, they would have stopped at the last house. There were plenty of supplies in that one.”

  “Maybe they found a car in the road that worked and took it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, frustrated. “Could be…I hope so.”

  “Listen,” she said in a whisper. She ran over to a window and looked out to the road. “Do you hear that?”

  I could make out the sound of an approaching vehicle.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Could be them.”

  We both ran out into the driveway. A white truck came in fast from the east going toward Clayfield. If the occupant or occupants of the vehicle had seen us, they probably thought we were zombies, because they didn’t brake.

  “Who the hell was it?” Cheryl said.

  “I saw as much as you.”

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s chase ‘em down.”

  We got in the car, and Cheryl had us rolling before I could get my door shut. I sank back into the seat as she mashed the accelerator. The engine roared and the transmission tried to keep up. I watched the speedometer needle cross 60 then 70 then 80…

  “There’s a pistol in the glove box,” she said. “We put one in every vehicle, just in case.”

  There was an abandoned car in the road ahead. She slid into the other lane. I opened the glove compartment and pulled out the weapon.

  “They’re hauling ass,” she said as we passed the wrecked RV.

  We were on a long, straight stretch of road with several low, sloping hills. The truck was three hills away. The straightness of the road would be ending for them soon. They topped the next hill, and their brake lights lit up then they disappeared behind the rise.

  “Take it easy,” I said as I put on my seatbelt. “We have curves coming up.”

  When we crested that particular hill, I felt funny in my stomach as we briefly became airborne. The mob of creatures that had left the RV was right there at the bottom, scattered across both lanes.

  “Holy shit!” Cheryl screamed.

  Some of them had been struck down by the truck. The rest were still walking with their backs to us. Everything seemed to slow down. I took a deep breath. Just before we made contact, one of the creatures looked over its shoulder. Then–

  Thump! Thump thump!

  Something like a bucket of pea soup splashed against our windshield. A da
rk form sailed over the car. Cheryl’s airbag deployed.

  Thump thump!

  My airbag hit me in the face, slamming me backward. The car groaned. The tires screamed. I was in a daze. I exhaled. The engine hissed. There were moans. I smelled decay and hot rubber.

  We were still.

  “Goddamn airbag knocked the shit outta me,” Cheryl said hoarsely. “You okay?”

  “Huh?” was all I could manage to say.

  “Fucking foreign car,” she said. “If I’d been driving my seventy-nine Caprice, we would have made it just fine. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Whuh?”

  I wiped the blood from my nose. She tried to start the engine. It turned over and over and over but wouldn’t catch. I heard her pumping the gas pedal.

  “Goddamn foreign piece of shit.”

  It turned over and over and over and…it started.

  “Okay, baby, stay cranked for me,” she said. She revved the engine.

  I rubbed my eyes again, but I couldn’t wipe the blur away.

  “Jesus Christ. I can’t see a damned thing,” she said under her breath. Then she screamed, “Fucking move!”

  We lurched forward. The windshield wipers came on and smeared the zombie juices.

  “You’re making it worse,” I said.

  Something was scraping under us. There was another thump against the car. The light from outside filtered in through the shifting movements of the zombies surrounding us.

  “Talk to me over there,” she said. “How are we doing?”

  “I can’t see,” I said.

  Then outside, there was a gunshot.

  “Dammit,” Cheryl said. “Gun. Gun. I need a gun.”

  Three more shots rang out. Cheryl’s hand fumbled over my lap and came away with the pistol I’d taken from the glove compartment. There was another shot.

  “Move now!” yelled a man’s voice from some distance away.

  “Is he talking to us?” I said.

  “I can’t see shit,” Cheryl said.

  “Drive!” the man yelled. “Drive now!”

  “Do it,” I said.

  We crept along at first then Cheryl punched it. We traveled for several feet then–

  “Whoa!” the man yelled. “Stop!”

  Cheryl slowed. “What do you think?”

  “Stop the car,” I said. “Just stop. We’re not going anywhere like this anyway.”

  We came to a dead stop, and she shifted it into park. She checked the gun to make sure it was loaded.

  “Be ready, but give the man a chance.”

  The dark shape of a man approached. He was carrying a rifle.

  Cheryl was silent. I squeezed my nose with my shirttail.

  “Y’all alright?” the voice said.

  “Hell no; we ain’t alright,” Cheryl said.

  “Climb on out if you can,” the voice said. “Y’all need to come with me. They’ll be up our ass pretty damn quick.”

  I could see the shape of the man through the windshield, but I couldn’t make out any features. I tried to open my door, but I couldn’t get it to budge.

  Cheryl climbed out of the car then reached back in for her shotgun.

  “Come on,” she said.

  I crawled over the seat and out through the driver’s door. Once out, she handed me the pistol. The man was ahead of us, jogging toward his truck. He took a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure we were following. Then he stopped and turned.

  “Well, shit fire, son!” he grinned. “I’ve been looking all over for you since yesterday!”

  “Mr. Somerville?”

  CHAPTER 35

  Nicholas Somerville stood still and waited for us to catch up. Like everyone, he’d lost some weight since I’d last seen him. His beard and hair were a little longer too. He gave me a friendly slap on my shoulder then looked past me to the approaching zombies. His rifle came up, and he let off two rounds. Then the three of us proceeded to his truck. Cheryl climbed to the back seat, and I sat up front with Nicholas. I introduced the two as we pulled away and resumed our course to downtown Clayfield.

  “What happened to you?” I said. “Where have you been?”

  “I spent the better part of two weeks in Bubbleland thanks to some bad navigating on my part,” Nicholas replied.

  “Bubbleland?” I said, puzzled. “You mean Kentucky Bend? That place?”

  “Long story,” he said. “What I want to know is did Judy and Sara make it back? I finally got to Springfield. They weren’t there.”

  “Sara’s in Clayfield,” I said. “Judy’s in Biloxi.”

  “What the hell is she doing down there?!” he said, frustrated.

  I explained everything that had happened as quickly as I could, including some of the information about Cheryl’s groups.

  “We’ve got to find that girl so she can show me where Judy is,” Somerville said. “I want to get down there as soon as possible.” Then he looked in the mirror at Cheryl. “Can your brother fly us down there?”

  “I don’t know if there’s a plane in Clayfield that will make it that far and back.”

  “What about Doctor Bailey’s bird? Is it still parked out there? He was always going on about it at the country club. It was some kind of cloud name. Cumulus?”

  “Cirrus,” Cheryl said. “Cirrus CR-22.”

  “That’s the one. Is it there? That should get us there.”

  “It’s there,” she replied, “but we never went out in that one before. There’s a little Cessna there that we used when we went out together, but I don’t know if it would make it to Biloxi and back. Danny knows more about it than I do.”

  “We can worry about the return trip after we get there,” he said.

  “Danny might have a different opinion on that,” she shot back.

  “No need to get your hackles up,” he said. “I apologize for making assumptions. I’m just worried about Judy.”

  Cheryl nodded, but I could tell the “hackle” remark had made her angry.

  “Have y’all seen any other aircraft? Helicopters? Drones? Anything?”

  “No,” I said. “Sara told me they’d seen drones down south.”

  “They’re around,” he said, “and they’re bad news. Those sons of bitches have been laying down incendiary bombs whenever they see sizable crowds of the infected. That’s all fine, but the collateral damage is unacceptable in my book. They’re burning everything. It’s only a matter of time before they work their way to Clayfield. I reckon they’re spread pretty thin, so it might be a while before they show up around here.”

  “So the government is still intact?” I said.

  Somerville snorted, “I didn’t say that. Somebody somewhere is controlling those drones. Somebody is flying those choppers. Their chain of command might not go any higher than lieutenant. The President is probably in a bunker somewhere eating his advisors.”

  We got to within two blocks of the courthouse and had to stop. The undead were crowded in around the square.

  “What’s all this?” Somerville said.

  “They’ve been parking cars here this morning,” Cheryl said. “I guess the things are stirred up from all the activity here. Andrew thought something like this might happen.”

  “You don’t think they’re stuck in there somewhere do you?” I said.

  “They wouldn’t risk getting caught up in all that,” she said. “I imagine they’ve been keeping an eye on it. I doubt this crowd showed up all at once–probably been trickling in. They’re probably at the airport now waiting for things to die down.”

  A bloated creature with a black beard stopped by my window and looked in at us. It put a scabby hand on my mirror and pressed its nose against the glass. Oddly enough, this reminded me of my own nose. I pulled down the sun visor so I could look in the mirror there. The bleeding had stopped. My nose was a little swollen and starting to bruise, but I didn’t think it was broken. It would match nicely with the bruise and swelling on my cheek where Bruce Lee had
kicked me.

  From our location I could see the building Andrew had chosen and the solar panels sticking up on top of it.

  “Why did Andrew want that particular building? Was it arbitrary or was there a practical or tactical reason?”

  “It’s the tallest one on the same side as the church,” Cheryl said. “It ain’t the tallest by much, but it’s the tallest.”

  I hadn’t noticed that. I didn’t think I’d been in that building since Canton B had struck. At one time, when I was a boy, it was a shoe store. I remember my mom taking me in there and buying me those Red Goose Shoes around Christmas time. The shop owner gave me a golden egg with a slot in it that I could use as a bank. That was a long time ago, before my parents separated and my dad left. A flood of memories rushed in that made me smile–Christmases and trick-or-treating and our family trip to Opryland. Then I thought about all the bad and my frown returned.

  I looked around at the other buildings surrounding the square. I had not been in many of them, because I didn’t think I’d be able to find any useful supplies inside. Houses were where most of the supplies were. I looked at the courthouse itself. It reminded me of a haunted house with its tall spire, open door, and broken windows. I hadn’t seen the need to go in there either. I thought there would be guns inside because the building also housed the sheriff’s office, and it was adjacent to the county jail. However, I never thought it was worth the risk. The building was almost 130 years old with four levels, including the basement. It was like a maze in there, and I could easily see myself getting turned around and cornered.

  Of course, if the square were to be secured, all of the zombies would have to be eliminated inside. We’d have to clear out every room and dark basement. After that, I could finally wonder around inside the courthouse without the fear of being accosted. I was glad it was going to happen, but I was also glad I’d be going back to air conditioning and artificially flavored Pop-ice at the end of the day.

  “Want to pull back and wait a while for them?” Somerville said.

  “Nah,” Cheryl said. “Let’s go back to the airport.”

  Somerville put the truck in reverse and backed to the next cross street and turned around.