AniZombie

by Ricky Sides

  “We’ve got five miles to go after this turn,” Randy said, consulting the map.

  “Yes, and from here on out, we need to have our shit together. I have a feeling things are about to get intense.”

  As they made the turn, the first thing they noticed was the absence of traffic joining them in heading in that direction. They had only driven a few blocks when they saw the reason. The Little Rock Police Department had set up barricades to stop people from going in that direction. Herb felt it odd that the blockade was unmanned, but considered that their good fortune. Someone had opted to ignore the barrier and smashed through the traffic control sawhorse-style barricade and safety orange cones that the police had left in place. Herb didn’t slow down. He went through the gap that had been created by another driver prior to their arrival.

  “I wonder who ran through here,” Randy murmured.

  “Probably a relative of one of the students at the university,” Herb speculated. “A father would do that to get his daughter out of a bad situation.”

  “Yeah, I guess they would at that,” Randy agreed.

  The two friends continued down the road until they came to their next turn. “It shouldn’t be hard to find the university,” Herb commented with a rueful grin. “All we have to do is follow the map and look for the busted barricades.”

  Randy grunted in agreement. “Whoever is doing this is saving you some paint,” he observed.

  “Yep, and more than a few dents too, I’d imagine.”

  They didn’t encounter any more barricades for the remainder of the trip. Traffic was nonexistent. Apparently, no one else was attempting to get out or into the area. A curve in the road brought the truck around so that it was facing the direction of the university. Herb and Randy saw smoke in the distance. “Oh man,” Randy said. “That looks bad.”

  Herb agreed, but he withheld comment and concentrated on driving.

  “How are we going to find her?” Randy asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Herb admitted as they drove closer to the rising column of smoke. They were close enough now to see that it wasn’t a single fire that was generating all that smoke, but rather several smaller blazes which contributed to it. “Try to tune in a local radio channel. Maybe we can learn something,” he instructed Randy.

  Randy used the seek button on the radio to seek out a channel, but all he could find were the channels that they had been listening to earlier. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. It’s worth a try,” he said as he punched in the phone number of the radio station that they had been listening to most of their trip through Little Rock. Randy spoke in an urgent tone of voice to the person who answered the phone when he said that he was with the government and he needed Doctor Langley out at the university to call him. When the person on the phone with him asked why he was attempting to contact the woman, he said that he knew her and was here to rescue her.

  The radio station, sensing a big story, decided they had nothing to lose by airing the man’s request and giving his phone number. Better yet, they decided to let him make the plea himself and recorded it.

  Less than two minuets later, Randy heard his own voice from the radio as he said, “Erma, This is Randy Lions. I helped you secure the vulture a few days ago. I’m with Herb, and we’re in town to see if you need our help. If you do, then call my cell phone. We’re close but need directions to reach you,” he said, and then he recited his cell phone number.

  “That didn’t sound anything at all like me,” Randy carped as the broadcast personality stated that the station couldn’t confirm the story, but were airing it on the off chance that it was legitimate. He then repeated the cell phone number again, slowly.

  Herb chuckled at his friend’s denial. “That sounded exactly like you,” he stated.

  “I don’t think so,” Randy countered indignantly, and then his cell phone rang. He answered the call hopefully, only to discover that by airing his number, he had opened himself to prank calls. He hung up in disgust when a juvenile voice asked him if he was from outer space.

  “What a nut case,” Randy said in disgust. His phone rang again and he answered prepared to deal with another prank call.

  “This is Erma Langley. Is this Private Lions?” Erma asked. Randy thought she sounded upset. She was sniffling as if she had been crying.

  “Yes, Ma’am, it is. Herb and I heard about what was happening and thought you might need our help getting out of the city.”

  “You shouldn’t come to the university. This place is crawling with zombies. I’m secure in my trailer at the moment, but my assistant, Oliver and the Homeland Security agent with us, Kevin Baker, were killed trying to get to the truck to escape.”

  “Have her tell us where she is,” Herb instructed. He had slowed their forward speed to buy them time as they got directions.

  Erma asked what road they were on and when Randy gave her that information, she told him how to reach her location with only two turns. Randy repeated the instructions for verification and Herb increased their speed, now that he knew where they needed to go.

  “Tell her to be ready to leave the trailer. She’ll ride with us,” Herb instructed his friend.

  Randy relayed the message, but Erma asked to be put on the speakerphone so that Herb could hear her. “Corporal Bennett, we can’t leave the trailer. The nanotechnology solution seems to be working. I have samples of the prototype and important computer information in this mobile lab. Frankly, those materials are more important to the recovery of the country than my life.”

  “Damnit, Erma, the university has to have backups.”

  “They do, Corporal. Do you see the right hand column of smoke?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “That was the building that contained the rest of the prototype and the electronic files. It’s still smoldering, but it burned half the night. Zombies attacked the researchers. So you see, you need to get this trailer out, whether you get me or not.”

  “We’ll do our best, but there are only two of us.”

  “Our truck is fueled and ready to roll. Poor Oliver had the key in the door when those things grabbed him. If you can get to the truck, you should be able to pull the trailer.”

  “We’ll try,” Herb said noncommittally. “You should have called the police. You’ve been sitting there all this time exposed to danger.”

  “I did. They said I was on my own. They already lost several officers trying to put down this outbreak and now they are trying to evacuate the children from the city.”

  “We’re almost there. If this works, it’s going to be one hell of a bumpy ride, so secure your surroundings and get to the safest place you can inside the trailer. Oh, are you transporting a specimen?”

  “Yes, your vulture. He’s been cured, Corporal. I’ve run the tests several times. He is clean now. The nanotech worked.”

  “That’s the only one you have in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, we need to get off the line so we can prepare. We should be less than five minutes out.”

  “Good luck to you both, and thank you for coming for me.”

  “We’ll get you out of this fix, Ma’am,” Randy promised, and then he killed the connection.

  “How are we going to do this? Do we take both trucks or leave yours?” he asked Herb.

  “We take both. I wouldn’t want to get stranded in this area. She thinks her truck has plenty of gas, but there’s no guarantee that’s the case, and you saw what the service stations around here are like.”

  “You’ve got that right!” Randy agreed.

  “Okay, this is what we are going to do,” Herb said, and then he explained his plan to Randy.

  “Stop here, where it’s clear and I’ll get the rifles,” Randy said.

  “Good idea,” Herb said as he brought his truck to a smooth stop. He left the engine idling in the open stretch of roadway. When Randy opened his door, Herb smelled the odor of the fires. His friend thrust the ri
fles toward him and Herb took them while Randy got the rest of their gear. He tossed the satchel inside the truck and scrambled back into his seat.

  Herb had the truck in motion before the door slammed, but then he stopped again. “We need to exchange places. You should drive the rest of the way,” he explained.

  “I can drive the truck,” Randy protested.

  “You don’t have any experience towing a large load. I do. Besides, this whole crazy plan was my idea. Getting into that truck is going to be dangerous. This one is on me, buddy.”

  Randy yielded because he knew enough to know that Herb was right about the towing experience. There were at least a dozen ways to crash a vehicle when you were towing a large load behind you, and if Doctor Langley was right about the nanotechnology, then the contents of that trailer were priceless.

  The two men jumped out of the truck and raced past each other as they traded places. As Randy drove the pickup, Herb examined the rifles and chambered a round in each. “They’re hot, but locked,” he explained, and then he laid half the grenades they had brought with them on the seat beside Randy. He then took several magazines for the rifle and pistol and placed them on the seat as well. Herb slid forward in the seat and equipped his web belt with its holster. He picked up his pistol, flicked off the safety, and then jammed it inside the holster.

  Herb cupped his rifle in his hands as they made the next to the last turn. He saw several zombies ahead that they would have to pass on the way in and again on the way out. He rolled down his window. “Go to their left, out of their reach,” he said to Randy, and then he prepared to take them out. “Slow, just a bit,” he said as they drew closer.

  The blood covered zombies, once students at the university, turned their attention to the approaching truck and opened their mouths to vent their moans. As they drew abreast of the creatures, Herb stuck the barrel outside the window and fired several shots. The three zombies fell dead as Randy drove away, but the two friends soon saw more. A lot more.

  Ahead of the truck, Herb saw dozens of zombies. He grabbed one of his grenades out of the bag and pulled the pin.

  “Oh God, don’t drop that thing in here,” Randy said with trepidation.

  “Do you want to live forever?” Herb asked his friend, quoting an old movie that he had loved as an impressionable young man.

  “It would be nice,” Randy countered with a smile.

  “Break left a bit more and hit the gas,” Herb instructed.

  The left fender of the truck slammed into a zombie as Randy complied with Herb’s instructions. “Punch it, now!” Herb shouted, causing Randy to step hard on the accelerator. The truck hit several more zombies with glancing blows as it sped away. Behind them, there was a loud explosion and bits of flesh and bone rained out of the sky in their wake.

  Herb grunted in satisfaction. “That might not have killed them all, but it will limit the mobility of the survivors.”

  “Three more on the left,” Randy pointed out.

  “Leave them. They are out of position for me to attack.”

  “That’s my turn coming up. Oh God, Herb. Look at them packed up down there.”

  “Stop!” Herb shouted.

  The truck slewed to a stop a hundred yards from the zombie pack that stopped and looked at them. A couple of the creatures started walking toward the friends making that eerie moaning sound. Others soon joined them.

  “What’s the plan for this?” Randy asked. Then he said, “Oh shit!” as Herb jumped out of the truck with his M4 and a grenade.

  Herb fired his M4 toward the pack of zombies methodically until they closed to within fifty yards. Then he pulled the pin on the grenade and hurled it straight at them. He dove back inside the truck and slammed the door. “Back up!” he said with a sense of urgency.

  Randy shifted the truck into reverse and started backing it away from the zombies. He had put an extra dozen yards between the creatures and the truck when the grenade detonated. A ghoulish rain of meat and bone fragments descended onto the windshield of the truck.

  “You good?” Randy asked as he stopped the truck and turned on the wipers. He was referring to whether or not Herb had been splattered by the remains.

  “Yeah. I got the window up just in time,” his friend responded. Then he said, “Let’s go and use the washer fluid before that shit dries on my windshield.”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry,” Randy replied as he complied with his friend’s instructions.

  “That’s just nasty,” Herb griped as the fragments were flicked off his windshield by the wipers.

  “It worked. You thinned them out a lot, though some are still crawling around,” Randy observed as they raced past the remnants of the large zombie group that Herb had just decimated.

  “Better crawlers than runners,” Herb quipped as he replaced the magazine in his M4.

  The truck made the final turn as he grabbed another grenade out of his bag and looked toward the large, white, trailer that he had last seen in Athens at the armory. He blinked in surprise when he saw that only a couple of zombies seemed to be near the trailer. His eyes fell on the corpses that must have been what was left of Oliver and the Homeland Security agent who had attempted to pull the trailer out of the area. Both bodies had been ripped to shreds. There wasn’t enough left of either man to form a zombie. Entire limbs were missing.

  Herb swallowed hard as he thought of what the two men must have suffered before they died. “I do not want to go out like that,” Randy said quietly as he brought the truck to a halt beside the dark colored extended cab Ford that was hooked to the trailer. Just as Erma had told them, the keys were in the door.

  Herb jumped out and locked the passenger side door, grabbed his gear, and slammed the door. He turned to the Ford and tried the door, but it was still locked. He heard a moan come from behind him, followed by a pistol shot as he unlocked the door and scrambled inside.

  Herb locked the door and then fumbled with the keys as he tried to insert it into the ignition. The truck rocked sideways slightly, which made inserting the key all the harder. He heard another gunshot as he finally pushed the key into the ignition switch.

  The truck started immediately. Herb put it in drive and blew the horn to let Randy know he was ready. He saw his friend wave as he rolled up his window, and then Randy led the way out of the university parking area.

  The trip back out to the main highway was almost as bad as the trip in had been. This time, neither man was operating with a gunner who could use weapons while they drove, so they relied on the speed and weight of their vehicles to smash through the few zombies who got in their way.

  The two trucks reached the deserted, open, stretch of road where Herb and Randy had traded places just minutes before. Herb pulled his truck to a stop, and Randy followed suit. Both men checked the backs of the trucks and then Randy knocked on the door of the trailer while Herb looked under the trucks, and then climbed to the top of the government truck to look on top of the trailer.

  Erma opened the door and grabbed Randy in a fierce embrace. “Thank you so much,” the scientist said.

  “You’re welcome. We need to thank the radio station. They made this possible,” Randy said.

  “All clear on top of the trailer,” Herb said. Then he muttered to himself, “Oh hell. There must be a thousand of them.” He could see hundreds of milling bodies spilling out into the roadway behind them.

  Herb jumped to the bed of the truck. “Doctor Langley, get in the truck with Randy. We’ve got to go, and we’ve got to go now.”

  “I have to call in a report on the satellite phone in the truck cab,” Erma protested.

  “Then get in this truck, but do it now!” Herb insisted. Turning to Randy, he asked, “Do you remember the route?”

  “Yeah, it’s easy.”

  “Then get going, buddy,” Herb responded.

  He jumped down off the truck bed as Randy said, “Oh, my God.”

  “Move it, Private!” Herb shouted as he got into the governmen
t Ford.

  Randy burned rubber taking off. Herb had to make a more sedate acceleration because of the trailer that he was towing.

  In the front passenger seat, Erma was attempting to make her call to the CDC in Atlanta, but no one was answering. “I can’t believe no one is answering,” she told Herb.

  “They may not be able to answer. You heard about Atlanta, didn’t you?” Herb asked.

  “No. What about Atlanta?” she asked.

  “They had several outbreaks. The authorities think news crews picked it up in Decatur.”

  “Those idiots,” Erma fumed. “But even so, someone at the CDC should be answering the calls.”

  “Erma, they may not be there anymore. They could have been moved, or the President may have ordered the city nuked like Decatur and Athens.”

  “That’s not funny, Corporal.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be, Lady. I lost everyone that was dear to me when they hit Athens two nights ago. Everyone except him that is,” he said and indicated the truck in front of them with a jerk of his head.

  “You’re serious?” she asked.

  “You mean you didn’t know?”

  “No. No, I didn’t,” she said in a subdued tone of voice. Herb noted that the tremble in her voice and knew she was telling the truth. “There was nothing about that in my daily briefing from the Homeland Security agent. He said everything was under control.”

  “To his way of thinking, I guess nuking us was having it under control. I could even understand the necessity of the sacrifice, if it had worked.”

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “Decatur was hit. We’d been told that the Decatur nuclear strike was coming and that we were to ride it out in Athens. My sergeant cut the unit loose because we were under orders to begin disarming the public the next day and we said we wouldn’t. So Randy and I left to go to my cabin here in Arkansas.”

  Herb continued the story of what had transpired. Doctor Langley broke down and cried when he related how many nuclear missiles had been used on American soil.