by Rand, Thonas
John ended that desire with a few well-placed grenades; father and daughter were gone.
The big rig rolled down the road parallel with the channel. Its dark waters looked uninviting, but it was their only choice. “Tom, how far is the boat launch? Over.” Ardent said into a radio.
“Quarter mile ahead, we’re almost there,” Tom answered.
They watched as many dead runners came out of the parking lot to pursue them. Lauren looked at the corner of the outside wall where she knew John was inside. They could hear and see his grenades exploding everywhere; it was a war zone in there. She wanted him with them and the desperation of it strained her eyes.
“Come on. Come on,” she tensely muttered. “JOHNNN!” she screamed at the top of her lungs as they drove by.
John kept firing, but there were too many. They reached the small truck and surrounded it. He abandoned the launcher and turned for a rope on the wall. The stenches clawed their way into the truck bed after him—they almost had him, but he kicked them off and climbed. Halfway up, he took out the remote detonator and pushed its button—the claymore mines Anthony had installed at the truck exploded and destroyed a couple dozen of them—he tossed the detonator and climbed for his life as flames nipped his feet.
On top of the wall, John got a look at the situation—the big rig had already passed as they headed to the boat ramp. A large group of fast movers were gathering to his left and would be at his location within seconds. He jumped, hit the ground, checked his rifle, and ran after the big rig.
“Hold on!” Tom said into the radio as the boat launch grew larger in his windshield.
Tom dropped his foot on the gas pedal and the large truck accelerated, its engine roaring and its wheels spinning up dirt and concrete fragments as it reached ramming speed.
John pushed his legs hard. He heard a gathering storm of thunder mass behind him and he glanced back to see around two thousand of the undead pouring out of the hospital. They crammed at the bottleneck of the gate, their immense pressure collapsing the wall and crushing the ones on the outside—a gigantic wave was coming and John would be the first one they reached.
He ran faster.
“Oh hell!” Tom said loudly as he braced for impact.
The truck reached the boat launch and sped down the steep concrete ramp at full speed. The impact into the water was violent and sudden, a wall of white water exploding into the air as the truck displaced hundreds of gallons. Tom jerked the wheel to the left to get the truck out of the way for the boat. His face was thrown into the steering wheel, but the airbag deployed and saved him. The group in the boat were rocked and thrown to the deck, but they quickly regrouped and got ready for action. Some of the stenches were already there—on the other side of the channel—many undead assembled at the puny fence. They tore it down and walked over the channel edge to get at the group, splashing into the black waters and disappearing.
The truck cab flooded quickly and Tom was waist deep in water as he tried to unbuckle his stuck seatbelt. He managed to get it free and went to open his door, but the water was already halfway up the window and the pressure was too much to open it. He grabbed his handgun to shoot out the window, but stopped just as a corpse appeared and pressed its face on the glass—it wanted in badly. Tom turned and shot out the passenger window, water rushed in, but he was able to pull his way out and swim for it.
John’s legs were burning from running hard and his breathing labored as he used all his might to get away from the oncoming horde that was catching up with him. He took a grenade, pulled its pin and then dropped it at his feet for the undead to run into. He dropped a second one. The following explosions only took out a few of the thousands after him. Up ahead, he saw the big rig and the boat in the water.
“Untie the boat!” Ardent shouted, and Bear ran to the rear of the boat and untied the straps.
Bear saw Anthony near the front of the boat waiting for Tom. “Anthony, untie the bow!”
Anthony reached down over the bow of the boat for the main tie down that was hooked into the steel eye in the hull, but he couldn’t undo it because of the boat’s weight. “I can’t unhook it!”
“Then cut it!” Ardent shouted.
Anthony took a knife and tried to cut the tie strap, but it was at a difficult angle and the boat was moving around. He extended his body on the boat’s rail, holding himself from falling over with one hand while he tried to cut the strap with the other; he was exposed to whatever lurked under the dark surface of the water, now only inches from him. A hand burst through the surface and grabbed Anthony—it took the knife from him. “I’ll do it,” Tom said as he swam up and Anthony nearly shat himself.
Ardent started the boat’s ignition and one motor spun to life. The other one kept turning over, but wouldn’t catch. They didn’t realize the motor’s noise was serving as a beacon to the underwater dead—several stenches burst out in splashes of white across the stern of the boat—it was shallow water at the launch ramp and the dead were able to stand. They immediately attacked. “They’re coming!” Maggie yelled and grabbed her weapon.
Lauren checked her AK and started firing. They all did, except for Anthony and Ardent as he kept trying to start the second motor. “Goddamit! We didn’t test that motor long enough!” he looked toward Anthony. “Is the strap cut?”
“Almost!”
“Hurry up!” Ardent shouted.
Tom was slicing the strap as fast as he could, but the material was tough and taking more effort than he expected. The knife’s serrated edge sounded like a zipper against the thick material as Tom pulled it back and forth as fast as he could.
Halfway through…
More ghouls emerged from the water at the stern end of the craft and threw themselves at the boat as they tried to climb in. The group continued to repel them.
Tom was three quarters through the strap when a corpse splashed out of the water behind him and pounced.
“Oh fuck!” Anthony shouted and tried to grab his pistol, but he fell back onto the deck.
Tom ignored his attacker and kept cutting the strap because he saw all the stenches attacking the boat—he had to cut them free. The beast tried to bite and claw into Tom’s back, but his PVC armor protected him. The thing reached up toward the side of Tom’s body, which wasn’t completely protected, and dug its filthy claws into his armpit. Blood sprayed the water and Tom screamed in pain…
Dozens of them thrashed in the water aft and the group killed many with nonstop gunfire, but more kept appearing, faster than they were being killed.
Tom cut the rope and then swung the knife around and impaled it into the top of the stench’s head. “Tom!” Anthony cried and extended his hand down. “Grab onto me!” Tom was weak and barely grabbed his brother’s hand.
“Is it cut?” Ardent shouted.
“Yeah, go! Hit it!” Anthony answered. As he pulled Tom onboard, his blood spilled on the white deck. “Oh no! No!” Anthony said with devastated eyes and looked for something to stop the bleeding.
Ardent pushed the boat’s throttle forward and the one engine revved to full power, water churning violently from the propeller. The legs of a foul corpse were shredded and it was pulled under the red waters. The other engine never started so they only had the one and it wasn’t powerful enough to break them free from the hold of the creatures. “Damnit!” Ardent mumbled. “They’re holding us!” he shouted to the group.
“Shit! Come on!” Derek said as he reloaded his weapon and continued to fire.
Anthony got back to Tom with the only thing he could find—a dirty towel and some duct tape—and wrapped the towel around his brother’s armpit, securing it with a few feet of the tape. “I’m sorry, that’s all I can do right now,” Anthony said in near tears.
“It’s okay. Go help them,” Tom said in a weak voice. “I’ll be alright.”
John got to the launch ramp and saw the predicament the boat was in. He fired a few rounds from his rifle, but saw it was useless with s
o many. “They’re coming!” John shouted to them and pointed back.
“Oh God,” Ardent mumbled when he saw the large horde coming down the channel road. “Hurry! Get them off our ass!” he yelled to the group.
Many of the ones in the water took notice of John and came after him—too many for him to kill by himself, not to mention the horde closing in behind him—so he ran down the road. Several undead began to climb over the boat’s railing one-by-one and the group shot them pointblank in the heads; they wouldn’t stop, and more waited to replace them. Bear had an idea and turned to their supplies stacked in the center of the cargo area. He threw some stuff aside and found what he wanted—a chainsaw—he turned on the gas valve and pulled the starter cord. It roared to life. “Move! Move! Move!” he shouted.
Everyone moved out of his way as Bear lifted the cutting machine over his head and squeezed the accelerator. The saw spun at full speed and Bear dropped the blade on the undead holding the boat. The blade melted through arm after decayed arm, slicing them all off in a continuous motion. The armless beasts battered their severed stubs against the boat hull. One of them jumped at Bear and tried to bite his hand—it didn’t make full contact, but it did gnaw Bear’s skin—he pulled back and looked at his bleeding hand.
“Shit! Goddamnit!” Bear moved quickly and unscrewed the cap off the chainsaw’s gas tank; he haphazardly poured some gas on his hand, pulled a Zippo lighter out of his pocket, and lit his hand on fire. He cried in agony as his skin burned but he didn’t put it out—he wanted to incinerate any of the infection on him. He picked up the chainsaw and continued to slice and dice the undead. Some spilt gasoline on the chainsaw caught fire from Bear’s hand and the blade spun ablaze. The thin flames transferred onto the shoulder of one of the stenches, spreading upward and catching its hair on fire.
That gave Milla an idea. She dashed to the stacks of supplies, opened a box, and pulled out one of Tom’s bottles of expensive alcohol. She broke off the bottle’s neck against a railing and splashed the flammable liquid all over the raging corpses. They caught fire as she poured the bottle along the back of the boat. “Yeah! Burn, you bastards!” she said in hatred.
“They’re coming!” Maggie shouted and pointed toward the horde on the channel road.
The flame engulfed stenches let go of the boat. It finally moved forward, just in time as the horde on the road crushed into the water, producing a wave as if a cruise ship had been launched. The group escaped as the boat chugged along with only one engine and the dead followed them. Every dead thing in the area was being lured to them from the noise; causing the hordes on both sides of the channel to swell.
“You okay?” Maggie asked Bear.
“Yeah, I think I got it in time,” he said, looking at the top of his charcoaled hand.
“Let me see,” she said and Bear let her look at it. She tore a piece off her blouse and wrapped his hand with it, then wrapped a couple feet of tape around it. “That should hold it, for now.”
“Thanks,” Bear told her.
John glanced back and saw that the boat had gotten free; it was a few hundred feet behind and closing. Undead appeared in front of him and he shot at some, but it was more than he could handle so he ran for the water. He dived in and swam to the middle of the channel; he treaded water to wait for the boat. Some of the putrid undead followed him in, but John wasn’t concerned when they sank like rocks. A moment later something yanked on his leg, pulling his head underwater momentarily. He resurfaced and kicked at whatever dead thing had him, got free, and paddled a few feet away when another one grabbed onto his legs again. He could feel it trying to bite into his calves, but his armor prevented the creature from reaching his flesh. John kicked it off again and then grabbed his pistol, jammed it into the water and fired, stopping only when the magazine was spent. Patches of blood floated to the surface and he swam away, farther down the channel.
Lauren was looking for John and she saw him firing his gun at the underwater undead. “There’s John. He’s in the water!”
Ardent saw him as well. “Get ready to pull him in. Don’t miss because I’m not stopping!”
They couldn’t stop with the hordes right on the boat’s ass. If they did, they would be overrun. Lauren moved back to the starboard side of the boat. “Grab a hold of me!” she said to Bear and then bent over the railing, ready to catch John.
“Maybe I should catch him?” Bear asked.
“No!”
Bear grabbed Lauren by the belt and held her tight despite the pain of his burnt hand.
She extended both her arms like hooks skimming over the water.
John saw her and got ready.
He was in the right place to be picked up, but then the bow wave pushed him away from the boat and almost out of Lauren’s reach. She threw herself over the railing farther to get him and Bear almost lost his grip from the sudden jolt. She reached as far as she could and was barely able to grab John’s hand; they locked in a tight grip and she tried to pull him in, but he was a wet two hundred and fifty pounds. The weight dragged Lauren down the rail and Bear struggled to hold on. If Lauren lost her grip, John would be left behind and swallowed by the horde, but she wasn’t going to let that happen.
She groaned from the strain as she used all her strength to pull him in. Finally, he got close enough and grabbed onto the boat railing. He pulled himself up over and Lauren grabbed him by the waist and yanked him in. John fell on the deck and took Lauren with him; she landed on top of him. They were face to face. “Thanks,” John said.
“You’re welcome,” she answered with a slight smile.
They enjoyed a moment of comfort as they lay on the deck looking at one another, but quickly snapped out of it and got to their feet.
“Get a room already,” Bear said under his breath.
“Permission to come aboard, sir,” John said to Ardent.
“Granted.”
“How we looking?” John asked.
“We’re okay, we’re running on one motor but, besides that, we’re gonna make it,” Ardent said.
“Provided our one motor doesn’t die on us,” John noted.
“That’s not funny, man,” Derek told him.
“I’m not laughing,” John replied.
“Let’s not worry about that until we have to worry about that,” Ardent told them.
“Good advice,” John answered.
The group watched as they slowly pulled away from the hordes on both sides of the channel; every dead thing in the area was drawn to the action, continuously increasing their size. The one engine struggled to propel the boat as thousands chased them and kept pace, only losing an inch or so every few hundred feet. With the rising sun behind them, the shadows of the undead stretched after the boat like so many teeth of a shark bent on devouring them.
Distant figures of the undead gathered ahead of them, but not as many in numbers as the ones behind them, many running into the water to attack them. The group felt the impact of the dead things on the boat’s hull as they passed. The boat moved fast enough that the corpses didn’t have time to grab on and the ones that did manage to get a hold of the railing were met with a gun barrel to the face or a boot kick.
They pressed on.
As Ardent steered, he took a pair of binoculars and scanned the area ahead. Panning left and right slowly—he stopped and focused on something directly ahead—“We have a problem.”
“What is it?” Bear asked.
Ardent gave him the binoculars and Bear looked for himself. “Goddamnit.”
“Let me see,” John asked and Bear passed the binoculars.
John adjusted the focus ring and got the lenses to clarity—there was a bridge about half a mile ahead of them, which was no problem as it was high enough for the boat to clear. The problem was the fifty undead gathered on it—they were waiting for them. The group looked and saw what they were heading for, except Tom; he was too exhausted to stand.
“That’s great, man! Just fucking great!�
� Derek said. “We need to shoot those fuckers before we get there!” Derek readied his weapon.
“Don’t fire right away, wait until we get closer,” John said.
“Why?” Maggie asked.
“The more we fire, the more of them we attract,” Bear told her.
“I don’t think that matters now,” Milla added.
The numerous undead on the bridge saw the boat coming and they knew what was on it, a meal that they would destroy anything in their path to get to. The fifty dead things grew to a hundred and increased in size with each passing moment.
“We need to start firing now!” Anthony said.
“He’s right, all of us, right now!” Lauren said.
“Okay. Get ready then!” Ardent told them.
Everyone got their weapons ready and moved to the front of the boat for clear shots; Ardent grabbed his weapon, but couldn’t leave the wheel unattended. “Tom, take the wheel for me.” There was no answer and—when he turned back to look—“What the hell?” Ardent said at what he saw.
“Clear a path!” Tom shouted.
They turned to see Tom standing there with a large portable rocket launcher in his hands he had retrieved from one of the weapon crates—a Javelin missile—Anthony stood a few feet in front of his brother in awe. “Holy shit!”
“Do not stand in front of me,” Tom ordered.
They all stood aside and Tom placed his eyes in the targeting system and depressed the first trigger to zoom in on his intended target. Once satisfied with the selected location for the missile, he depressed another trigger. The missile was programmed and it locked on.
“Fire in the hole!” Tom shouted and depressed the final trigger.
A moment later, the missile was ejected from the launcher, its stabilizer fins extended and, after twenty feet, its rocket engine ignited. The missile sped off in a blur and immediately arced up into the sky, leaving a fiery trail.
“Up, up and away,” Tom said somberly.
The missile reached an altitude of a few hundred feet and then suddenly veered down in a steep angle. When it hit the center of the bridge, the explosion instantly vaporized the stenches while blasting a huge hole in the concrete bridge. The undead corpses that weren’t blown to bits were ejected off the bridge by the concussion shockwave.