A zombie in a mail carrier's uniform stumbled toward them, bloodstains on his chin and shirt.
Jen sped up. "This'll be easy." She swung the truck around the semi, making everyone lean to the right. The left side of the bumper knocked the mail carrier into the overturned trailer.
They cleared the pile, and the way forward opened up. Twenty yards ahead more than forty zombies milled about in the road.
"Back up," Grant said.
"No," Doc said. "Take a deep breath and get us going as fast as you can."
Jen tried to see past the horde in case there were stalled cars or debris behind them, but the zombies were too thick to see anything.
Fuck it. She slammed on the accelerator. "Hang on."
The zombies in front turned toward them, no doubt alerted by the shriekers behind the truck. Jen leaned forward and gripped the steering wheel with both hands, her knuckles turning white.
She aimed for the right side of the horde. If they got stuck and had to bail out, she didn't want it to be right in the middle of them.
The horde ran directly at them. She veered to the right, and they angled toward the truck. They weren't giving her a choice—she had to go right through the middle.
She squinted as they hit the first three zombies. Two of them bounced to the side, but the other went under. The truck shuddered and Jen struggled to keep it straight.
Running into the first wave slowed them down. Jen pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The front wheels spun, creating black smoke and the smell of burnt rubber. "What the hell are we stuck on?"
A zombie slammed into Mark's door. Mark shoved the door outward, sending the damn thing flying. Mark peeked out and under the truck before he leaned back in and slammed the door shut. "We're lodged on a couple of their bodies."
Grant leaned forward and twisted a knob on the dashboard. "We weren't in four-wheel drive. Try it now."
Jen pressed the gas pedal and the truck jumped forward, just as the zombies from behind reached it. Two of them managed to grab the tailgate and were dragged behind while the truck ran into the middle of the rest of the horde. Mangled hands grasped at the windows and doors, and rotted faces pressed against the glass, their yellow eyes filled with hunger.
The truck bounced and twisted, rumbling over undead bodies. They passed the last of them and Jen steered to the middle of the road. It looked as if it had been cleared at some point, with broken-down vehicles pushed to the side.
Grant aimed his pistol at the one remaining zombie holding on to the tailgate. A round in the head and their last hitchhiker was gone.
Doc ran his hands through his hair and smiled. "Now that was intense."
The zombies faded away in the rearview mirror, but Jen wasn't slowing down. She got them to Boniface Parkway in minutes and took the turn on two wheels.
Mark put a hand on her arm. "Do you want me to take it?"
Her heart hammered. "Sorry. Didn't mean to take it so sharp. Just want to get to the plane."
Boniface was clear enough that Jen could increase speed, and she only had to make small adjustments to avoid abandoned vehicles.
A chorus of shrieks rose to their right, and a tidal wave of zombies spilled onto the road behind them.
"Shit!" Jen pressed the accelerator to the floor. They were almost to Northern Lights Boulevard.
Another horde ran onto the road ahead of them, about a hundred feet past Northern Lights. There had to be a couple hundred. Too damn many to run through.
The tires squealed as Jen braked and turned left onto Northern Lights. The zombies still chased them from behind, with the horde they'd just avoided joining them.
The road curved right. "We can take Bragaw Street north just after the high school," Jen said. "A little further up from there we take a left and it takes us to the airport."
She came out of the curve, barely missing a huge dump truck that lay on its side. Ahead of them, just past Bragaw, there had to be a hundred more of the undead. Three zombie dogs in their group turned toward the truck and howled. The other zombies answered the call, and the horde streaked toward them.
Jen glanced in the rearview mirror. The zombies already chasing them filled the back window of the truck. Thousands of them.
Can't go back. Can't make it to Bragaw. A replay of the zombies washing over the Humvees flashed through her mind.
We're so screwed.
23
The zombies behind the truck fell back as the truck raced down Northern Lights Boulevard, but that meant the horde running at them from the front was closing in fast.
A high school came up on their right and dense woods on their left. The horde ahead crossed the intersection. No chance making that road. Jen jerked the steering wheel to the right.
"Head for that set of double doors," Mark said. "We just have to hope they're not locked."
Screw that. Jen had learned her lesson about locked doors at the mall. The truck jumped the curb and bounced across the grass. She aimed it right at the seam between the two school doors.
Glancing to her left, she did a double take. Like the two zombies at the mall, a group of about thirty zombies no longer chased them. They'd changed direction and raced straight for the door. What the hell?
"Slow down," Grant yelled. "You won't be able to stop."
Jen leaned over the wheel and double-checked her seat belt. "Better make sure you're buckled in, 'cause we ain't stopping."
A dozen of the zombies reached the door, spun, and ran at the truck. Just when I started to believe they had some smarts.
"Hang on," she yelled. They hit the zombies. Several bounced off to the sides and a few slipped under the truck. Two smashed against the grill like bugs, their teeth gnashing and arms reaching out toward the windshield. Another, a female firefighter still in her yellow suit, was tossed in the air and landed on the hood, her drooling, bloody face pressed against the windshield.
Blinded by her, Jen concentrated on keeping the truck on course despite the bouncing and shaking as it rolled over the undead. If she was off by even a couple of feet, they'd slam head-on into a wall.
The truck shuddered and its rear wheels came off the ground. It hesitated for a second, then found traction again and the zombie on the hood slid off. The truck rocketed through the doorway, the doors ripping off their hinges and slamming to the side.
"Whoo-hoo," Doc yelled. "That's mighty fine driving, young lady."
Jen slowed the truck down. The damn hall didn't go straight through the school. She'd have to make some turns.
Mark glanced over his shoulder. "They're right behind us." He turned to her. "Do you know where you're going?"
Jen kept her eyes on the hallway. A turn was coming up. "I spent a few years in this school after my mother died."
She spun the wheel to the left, and the truck screeched on the tile floor, its rear end bouncing off the wall. No sooner had the truck straightened than she hooked it right. She passed two more corridors and turned hard left.
She stopped before a set of double doors with a sign that said No Street Shoes on the Gym Floor. "Get them open, and close them after I get the truck in."
"What?" Grant said. "Are you fucking crazy?"
Mark jumped out and ran to the doors. He pulled one open and braced it, then opened the other. Jen drove the truck in. Mark closed the doors and jumped back in the truck.
"Damn, Jen," Doc said. "You're like Wonder Woman."
Jen smiled. "Those doors open out, so pushing on them won't get them open." She zoomed to the doors on the other side, stopping under a basketball hoop.
Mark and Grant hopped out and held the outside doors open. They closed them after the car was through and got back in.
The roar of the combined horde, even though it was on the other side of the building, drowned out any sound the truck made. "Holy shit," Grant said. "How many thousands of them does there have to be to make that racket?"
Jen hit the gas and the wheels sent dirt and grass flying into the sc
hool walls. She raced the truck over the football field, bounced through the parking lot, and ran through a gate with stop signs on it. The truck zoomed across the road and in between two eight-plexes.
She slammed on the brakes, stopping just before running into another apartment building. Grant craned his neck and looked left and right. "It's a dead end. I thought you knew this town."
Jen glared at him. "I don't know every damn inch of it."
Several zombies ran out of one of the apartments behind them, screeching into the air. The screeches were echoed by thousands of zombies back at the school.
Mark threw his door open. "No way to back out of here now. We'd run right into that big group."
Jen grabbed her axe and exited the truck. "We need to find a place to hide."
The zombies from the apartments chased after them. Jen and Mark stood at the rear of the truck and were joined by Doc and Grant. A ten-year-old girl zombie with her nose chewed off made a beeline for Jen. Jen hoisted the axe backward and timed the swing precisely, an uppercut that split the zombie's jaw and skull in half. The girl flew back and landed on the asphalt.
Grant slammed his sword into the side of an old woman, knocking her over. But she struggled to her feet, and he had to give her another whack to put her down for good.
Doc stood on the bed of the truck and let a twenty-something man with half his face flayed off scramble to climb up the tailgate, then he gave a mighty swing, splitting the zombie's head open and sending bloody splatter over Grant.
"What the hell, Doc? Watch out."
"Sorry."
Mark had positioned himself three feet in front of Jen. The next two zombies closed in, and Mark stepped between them. He brought the mace down to crush one zombie's skull, then spun and crashed it into the back of the other zombie's head.
"Damn impressive," Jen said. She readied herself for the last two. She timed the swing to take out the one on the right, but before they got close enough they stopped and split, one to her right and one to her left.
What the hell?
They came at her at the same time. The damn things were coordinating their attack?
She swung for the one on the left and gave it a glancing blow on the shoulder knocking it off course. It ran into the other one just before it reached her and kept it from tackling her.
"Need some help here," she yelled.
Mark bashed in the head of one of the zombies as the other turned and leapt at Jen. She slammed the axe's blade into the top of his head. He fell to the ground, lifeless.
Jen freed the axe. "Did you freaking see that? Those two damn zombies were working together."
Doc nodded. "That is so not cool. That's not the first time they've coordinated movements, so it's not a rarity. Seems the virus is mutating even faster than we initially thought."
Mark stepped around the truck. "No time for scientific discussions. We need to get moving. That big horde will come around that corner any second now."
Jen ran to the side of the eight-plex in front of the truck. "Follow me."
She threaded between the buildings, then turned left and ran past several more. They would have to hole up somewhere, but she wanted to be at least a little closer to the base.
She ran right past another couple of buildings and stopped. The others caught up with her. "Where are we going?" Grant asked. "We aren't going to outrun them."
She pointed to the building on their right. "Grant, you and Doc check for an unlocked door on that side. Mark and I will try this side." She ran to the first door to her left without waiting for an answer.
Locked. She moved to the next one and it was, too. When she tried the fourth one, she began getting nervous. Mark stood in front of another one and shook his head.
"Over here," Doc called. He stood at the open door for the middle apartment in the building across the street.
The roar of the zombie horde had become so loud, it felt like a tidal wave about to crash over them. Jen expected to see them blasting around the building at any second. She and Mark sprinted to the door Doc held open. Grant streaked in just before Jen and Mark. Doc ducked in and closed and locked the door.
"Everyone upstairs," Mark said.
They ran up the darkened carpeted stairway. Mark flipped on a flashlight. "End of the hallway and stop."
They huddled underneath an old clock on the wall. "Everybody quiet," Mark hushed.
The floor vibrated as thousands of feet pounded the pavement outside the building. Jen held her breath.
Something banged into an outside wall downstairs. Startled, Jen jumped. More thumps came, like when a rainstorm was just picking up speed. The damn zombies are running into the building.
"Even that many won't penetrate a wall," Doc said.
Another sound, a hollow thumping, came from downstairs. That doesn't sound good.
Jen ran halfway down the stairs and looked down the front hallway. The front door shook with the impact of undead bodies slamming into it. As she watched, a crack spidered down the length of the door frame.
Jen rushed back upstairs to the others. "I think we're about to have company."
24
The stampede of undead had ceased shrieking and roaring, with nothing but the pounding of their feet marking their passage by the building.
Jen opened the last door at the end of the hall and entered. "Come on."
She closed it after the others joined her and sat on the floor, leaning against the door. If the zombies came upstairs, the flimsy-ass door was their last hope.
The pounding, both of the feet and on the building, slowed until the last of it faded into the distance. Jen turned on her flashlight. Its beam fell on an empty crib.
Where's the baby now? Is it a zombie, or did the parents get it to safety?
One corner of the crib had a dark brown stain on it. Jen pointed the light to the floor below. It showed a larger stain about the size of a dinner plate, with parts of it so dry it had begun flaking off. A crushed pink rattle lay next to it. Her mind flashed back to the young couple with the baby that were torn apart.
Jen swallowed. She shoved the image to the back of her mind and continued to the window. Pulling out the edge of the shade, she watched the street.
A zombie shambled past the apartment, seemingly aimless as it zigzagged down the road.
Movement to her left caught her attention. Another three zombies lurched out from an open garage. Their movements seemed more purposeful. Holy shit. They changed directions together, perfectly synchronized.
Jen leaned back and whispered. "Doc. You need to see this."
Doc joined her. She pulled the shade back a few more inches and pointed to the trio. "Look."
Doc's left eyebrow rose. "Well, I'll be dipped in dog shit."
"That one in front of the other two seems to be leading them," Jen said. "Watch. As soon as it changes directions, the other two follow its lead."
The lead zombie, a middle-aged woman with an afro and a bloody hole in her chest, angled toward the door of an apartment across the road. The two zombies behind her changed direction as soon as she did.
"Is this another one of those mutation things, Doc?" Jen asked. "Are these things getting smarter?"
Doc stepped back. "I don't know. Could be. They're acting almost like a flock, where they fly in a vee formation and all the other birds follow the lead."
Jen dropped the shade. "So do we have to worry about these things tracking us down, or opening doors?"
They slipped back into the hallway.
"I don't know," Doc said. "So far it doesn't rise above instinct. But who knows how far it could go?"
"What are you two talking about?" Mark asked.
Jen turned her flashlight off since Mark had his on. "There are only a few zombies that I can see, but some of them are acting strangely. Like they're learning things."
Grant wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. "What kind of things?"
"There's a small group of them out the
re sticking together, staying in a formation. First time I've seen that."
Mark frowned. "We don't have the luxury of time." He looked at his watch. "Down to just under two hours. I don't think we can worry about evolving zombies. We need to get the hell out of here."
Doc put his hand out to Grant. "Let me see the phone."
Grant handed it over, and Doc turned it on. It rang almost immediately, the loud sound rattling Jen. "Lower the damn thing."
Doc reduced the volume, then pressed the speaker button. "Colonel?"
"Where are you?"
"Just north of the high school on Bragaw," Jen said.
The phone crackled. "Where's the doctor? I want to speak to him."
"Right here, Colonel."
"Doctor, I don't think we have more than thirty or forty minutes before we're overrun. I'll stay as long as possible, but you need to get your ass over here."
"Roger," Mark said. "We're on our way."
Automatic gunfire sounded from the phone. "Shit," the colonel's voice said. "Got to go. Just get here." The phone went dead.
Doc handed the phone back to Grant. "How are we supposed to get there? We're pretty much trapped."
Jen crossed her arms. "There are a few zombies out there, but we can take them."
"Before they set off the alarm?" Grant asked.
Jen sighed. They'd have a thousand more zombies on their asses before they could finish off the few out front.
"We'll drive out," Mark said.
Jen scowled. "There are a lot of cars out there, but the zombies will send out an alarm before we could—" She snapped her fingers. "The attached garage downstairs. If there's a working car in there, we're set."
"Guess it's another road trip," Doc said.
Mark led the way downstairs, shining his flashlight in the kitchen. "I'll check in there for keys. Jen, why don't you look in the garage? Doc and Grant can split up and rummage through the bedrooms."
Jen turned on her flashlight and shined it down the hallway. As she approached the door to the garage, she bit her lower lip. If the garage was empty, they'd have to come up with something else.
The Gauntlet_Book Two in the Zombie Uprising Series Page 12