Z-Railed

by Holcomb, Joshua

  "Larry..." Franklin interrupted hurriedly and pointed behind him as a wall of rotters had walked to the edge of the parking lot and started to spill in. "The defecation is about to hit the oscillation! It looks like we might have to take on the whole commie army right now!"

  Larry turned to look. "Well, bring 'em all on! I fought in 'Nam, and I was married to the same woman for forty years, rest her soul, and I ain't scared of no commie science fiction critters!"

  Larry pulled out an old single action revolver and walked confidently back to his truck. He pulled out a hunting rifle and leaned over his hood. Soon, the crack of the gun echoed across the empty parking lot as rotter after rotter fell and ceased moving.

  Larry paused to reload and shouted over to Franklin, who was knocking over shopping carts to create a front line, "You'd have thunk they'd have made these commie goons faster!"

  Franklin shook his head as he toppled over more carts on their side. The old man is a little cuckoo, but dang he can shoot, he told himself.

  Larry popped off two more rounds and two more rotters fell where they stood. However, too many were pouring in too fast.

  Franklin yanked his pistol out of his shoulder holster just as soon as the front wall of rotters hit his shopping cart barrier, the momentum shoving the carts back. He calmly walked the line and began firing his .45 almost point blank range into rotters’ heads. Emptying his mag, he dropped it, popped a full one in, and walked back along the line doing the same thing.

  Rotter bodies began stacking up against the carts. Bits of brain, skull, and skin and hair were splattering everywhere and began coating the asphalt..

  "Out of rifle ammo!" Larry shouted as he dropped his rifle and began blasting away with a revolver. "Semper fi, you filthy scum-buckets!"

  Franklin shoved his .45 back into his shoulder holster, having fired his last round. He un-slung his shotgun and pumped five shells into the wave of oncoming dead. The rotters were now sliding over the cart and wall of rotter carcases.

  "Reloading!" Larry bellowed and began retreating.

  Franklin turned and fired four more shells into the rotter close to Larry. One blast took out two of the closest and another turned a head into pink mist. One shell hit a rotter square in the chest, knocking it completely off its feet, and the last shell missed completely.

  "Reloading!" Franklin bellowed, following Larry's cue. Larry fired two rounds into the rotter about to grab hold of Franklin, decimating its brain pan.

  Franklin popped his last three shells into the feeding tube and quickly pumped them into the faces of the oncoming rotters. "I'm out!" he shouted, slinging his shotgun onto his back and yanking out his tire iron.

  Larry and Franklin backed up to the outside wall of Lowe's. "I'm out too," Larry yelled. He dropped his revolver and pulled out a metal bar with a small ball welded on the end. He swung it and connected it with the side of the nearest rotter's head, making a sharp cracking sound.

  Franklin swung away with his tire iron, kicking and shoving and swinging. Fatigue began to creep into his muscles, making his blows less forceful, but he pushed on..

  He glanced at Larry. Larry was fighting valiantly, but he was simply too old for this kind of continuous engagement. His breath rattled in his throat. He weakly shoved back one rotter, but two more overcame him.

  "Kill them all!" he screamed as they tore into him. It was too late to save him. With no time to pause, Franklin kept pounding away.

  With his last breath, Larry gurgled, "Lucille..." and his eyes went blank as the rotters feasted on his entrails.

  With the rotters now more interested in feeding on the body of Larry than in Franklin, he turned to escape. But just then, a particularly tall, obese rotter staggered into him. Franklin tried to leap out of the way, but three hundred plus pounds jammed his foot into the pavement and tripped on top of him. Franklin's head slammed into the asphalt and everything went black.

  * * *

  The stench of death permeated Franklin's nostrils, awakening him from the fog of his involuntary sleep--the pressure of the dead porker on top of him reminding him of his circumstances. His heart sank as he remembered Larry and peered out from under a flabby arm at the piles of human corpses steaming on the asphalt in the heat of the day. Suddenly feeling overwhelmingly claustrophobic, he bucked and wiggled his way out from under his rotter prison. Crouching, he instinctively grabbed for his tire iron and not finding it, he instead grabbed Larry's homemade weapon. His quick survey of the parking lot discovered that the group of rotters had wandered apart almost like a herd of cows grazing in a field. Two vehicles remained: Franklin's car and Larry's truck.

  Larry won't be needing his truck, I reckon, Franklin reasoned. He said something about having weapons too...

  He reached down into the pants pocket of Larry's mangled remains and pulled out the keys to the truck and a wallet. Pocketing the keys, he pulled out a worn wedding picture from behind the driver's license. On the back in faded ink, Franklin could make out the words "Larry and Lucille--March 31, 1973." Shaking his head sadly, he pulled out the driver's license and read the address "1105 Bradford Pear Lane, Mt. Vernon, KY."

  "Well, Larry..." Franklin said aloud, "I'm going to go borrow whatever weapons you have, if you don't mind."

  Several rotters noticed him and began their shuffle towards him. Franklin noticed and moved back to his car. Grabbing his wife's GPS, he locked up the car and headed over to Larry's truck and climbed in. It definitely smelled and looked like a work truck.

  "Guy must have been into welding," Franklin muttered. "Heck of a bumper on this thing."

  He put the truck in gear and lurched forward. A few rotters stepped into the truck’s path, but they were no match for the thick steel bumper. They became mere speed bumps on Franklin's ride home.

  * * *

  After arriving home, Franklin didn't do much the rest of that day. His body ached with every move, so he sat still as Jackie silently bandaged up his head. She was giving him the silent treatment for almost getting himself killed again.

  At least she used to be a nurse and can't help herself taking care of people, Franklin thought, grinning a little as he touched the bandage on the side of his head. He gingerly slid down from his perch on the kitchen counter and limped his way onto the couch in the living room.

  It wasn’t long before Seth ran into the room and jumped on his daddy's lap. "You're home!" he shouted.

  "Easy there, buddy..." Franklin groaned. "Daddy has a headache."

  "Sorry, daddy..." Seth laid his head down on Franklin's chest. "Did you get all the bad guys?"

  "No, son, I didn't get them all. There's a lot more out there. Why don't we just go play with your cars, huh? How about that?"

  Seth squealed with joy and ran to get his bucket of toy cars. Franklin put his head in his hands and let out a deep sigh. This is no situation for a kid this age, he thought. I can't protect him forever. As Seth ran back in and dumped out his cars on the carpet, Franklin picked up his head and watched as Seth began a police chase.

  A surge of pride, love, and strength flowed over him as he watched his son playing there, secure, knowing that his father was watching over him. Right then, he vowed, I will do whatever is necessary to protect him and Jackie! He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes. His fists were clenched. We will survive!

  ***

  The next morning, Franklin told Jackie about Larry's possible weapons stash.

  "But don't you have enough guns?" Jackie inquired.

  "It's not necessarily the number of guns that's the problem," Franklin answered. "It's the ammo. I didn't have a large stash to begin with."

  "Can't you just go to a gun store and get more?" Jackie retorted.

  "I can try, but I'm sure that's the first place other survivors went. I should have gone, but I didn't. It's water over the dam now."

  "But do you really have to go all the way down to Mt. Vernon?"

  She has a point there. It is about forty-fifty miles away or
so, Franklin said within himself. Aloud, he said, "Hey, the way this guy was talking, it sounded like he was preparing for the apocalypse."

  "After what happened at the hardware store, you're not going alone!" As she stood there with her hands firmly on her hips, Franklin noticed how formidable Jackie was when she made up her mind. She was not one to be messed with. One time, when they were in college, she punched a professor in the face for making an inappropriate comment to one of her friends. "You need to find others to go with you, so you can protect each other!"

  "You are absolutely right, babe, but I don't even know if our friends are alive!" Franklin was losing the argument, but he was dragging it out anyway.

  "Then go find out before you go traipsing down to who-knows-where by yourself!"

  Franklin grunted and chewed on a piece of beef jerky. She was right; there was no use arguing further. He would go try to find their friends if he could.

  * * *

  Standing in front of a table strewn with weapons and ammunition, Franklin surveyed his inventory. The battle at Lowe's had just about wiped out his ammo supply, but he had plenty of .22 rounds and a decent amount of .38 special left. He decided to leave that for Jackie to use for her and Seth’s protection. I’m just going to have to use blunt trauma, he thought grimly to himself. He holstered his .45 loaded with his last eight rounds of .45 acp, grabbed his Mosin-Nagant, and walked out to the truck.

  He lurched the truck out of the driveway and headed across town to his buddy Jacob’s house. Since they met on a hiking trip in college, Jacob and Franklin had remained friends in the years after graduation frequently going on camping and hunting trips, in addition to periodic trips to the gun range. Even in their professional lives, they had a lot in common, talking shop about the businesses they managed.

  “If there is anyone who won’t let this situation let him get down, it’s Jacob,” Franklin informed Larry’s hula girl bobble head on the dashboard. And he was right. Always quick to smile no matter the circumstances, Jacob would focus on a bright spot and make the best out of dire situations. Tall and lanky with short blonde hair, he gave the appearance of being a little goofy, but Franklin knew him deeper than most. There was a resiliency and determination waiting to be awakened in him.

  A solid thud on the right front bumper of the truck suddenly grabbed Franklin’s attention, and he jerked his gaze towards it. Guts and a few shards of bone splattered up on that corner of the windshield, causing Franklin to grimace a little bit—not because he hit a meatbag, but because it was particularly large and could bend the bumper. He noticed that they were becoming commonplace to him, these rotting shells of human beings, no longer something out of the ordinary. Now awakened by the impact, he made sure to avoid the larger clusters, but still indulged himself in running over and on top of the individual ones he didn’t feel like driving around.

  Pulling into his friend's driveway, he noticed a pile of bodies in the front yard. Glancing upward, he saw his friend standing on the roof, grinning, a cigar clenched in his teeth.

  "Welcome to my apocalypse abode, Franklin!"

  Franklin laughed as he stepped out of the truck. "Jacob, you don't even smoke! What's with the cigar?"

  Jacob picked the cigar out of his mouth and grinned again. "I don't smoke. It enhances my tough guy corpse-killing image," he shouted down at Franklin, coughing a little.

  "So what do you have going on here?" Franklin asked, gesturing around him with his left hand.

  "Well, I've been doing some baiting. I get up here and holler and yell, and they come a-growlin'. Then I shoot them.” He chuckled as he told the story.

  "How are the wife and kid?" he asked, switching subjects abruptly.

  "Oh, they're great," Franklin responded. "Jackie shredded a couple of these rotters with the twelve gauge the first night all this went down. She and Seth have been laying low inside since, but they're both good."

  "So you're calling them rotters, eh?" Jacob asked. "I've been calling them big piles of buzzard food. What you said is shorter; I like it."

  "Yeah, don't remember where I heard it, but it works," Franklin responded. "Hey, I got a road trip for us. You'll like it."

  “Oh yeah?” I’ve been getting bored of my current fun, so I hope this is just what the doctor ordered. I’m running out of ammo anyway. What’s cookin’?”

  Franklin filled him in on what had happened since the outbreak, ending with the story of Larry’s demise and what he could have stockpiled at his farm. “Poor ol’ bugger,” Jacob muttered, “He didn’t even get to use his weapons cache.”

  “Possible cache,” Franklin corrected. “I don’t even know for sure he has one, but he seemed like the kind of old-timer who liked to stockpile amm each time a Democrat wins the presidential election.”

  “Whatever the case is, I’m game.” Jacob replied. “Let’s mount up.”

  VI

  Interstate I-75

  “Holy catfish!” Caleb exclaimed as he brought the Humvee to a screeching halt. Bits of sod and gravel sprayed the interior wheel wells as he cut through the median separating I-75 south from north.

  “What is it?” Jesse asked, squinting in the bright afternoon sun.

  Caleb pointed to a delivery truck abandoned alongside the road, and a smile spread across his face faster than a wildfire on the Kansas prairie. “See that? It’s holy water… The best drink on God’s green earth. It’s Kentucky ginger ale, son!”

  “Oh that soda is pretty good!”

  “Pretty good? Pretty good? Dang boy, it’s more than that.” Caleb opened his door and checked to make sure a round was chambered in his rifle. “Grab your weapon and come on.”

  Jesse told Katelyn to stay in the vehicle, and followed the ambitious sergeant to the back of the truck. Caleb grabbed the handle and opened the door. As the door withdrew into the interior he let out a loud whistle. Dozens of crates of bottles lined the walls, and even spilled onto the floor.

  “You ever see a sight as beautiful as this one?” Caleb whooped and hollered and cracked open a bottle, downing the ginger soda in a heartbeat. “Grab what you want and we’ll be on our way!”

  “I’ll take one, please,” Katelyn beamed as Jesse and Caleb returned to the Humvee.

  Jesse handed her one and turned to Caleb. “We should be pretty close to the Kentucky River crossing, right?”

  “That would be correct. I’m a bit worried, though. It’s a narrow choke point and I’m willing to bet there will be lots of abandoned vehicles blocking our way through.” Caleb spun the wheel to avoid a black Ford Focus in the right lane. As he continued weaving through abandoned cars and trucks he began whistling the tune of Dixie.

  “So where are you from?” Katelyn suddenly piped up.

  “Well originally I’m from Mississippi. But I grew up over in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I spent many a day traipsing through the wooded hills finding new caves to poke my head into. Some of them nobody had ever seen before.”

  “Oh boy, here we go,” Katelyn mumbled as she watched Jesse’s face light up at the sound of Caleb’s response.

  “No way!” Jesse shouted. “Did you ever get in on any of the exploratory trips into Mammoth Cave or Flint Ridge Cave systems?”

  “Nah, I pretty much did my own thing with my older brother, Thomas.” Caleb paused for second. “But there was one time…” his voice trailed off as he suddenly braked, sending Katelyn’s head smacking into the seat in front of her. “Sweet Baby Ray’s!” he exclaimed, and pointed down the hill towards the bridge spanning the Kentucky River.

  Jesse squinted in the evening sunlight and was taken aback by the sight before him. The mangled remains of a large school bus and Wal-Mart tractor trailer were flipped over on their sides. Behind that, on the south side of the bridge was a massive horde of rotting feeders, preventing further travel.

  “Got any ideas?” Caleb asked, as he spat out the window. Katelyn and Jesse shook their heads, shocked at the sheer numbers before them.

  “Isn’
t there another smaller one lane bridge down below?” Caleb asked. “I thought I read about it once for a class assignment.”

  “There was,” Katelyn corrected, “until a flood last spring damaged the support foundations and the Army Corps of Engineers destroyed it. I saw it on the news a few months ago.”

  Caleb looked around energetically, and then a sly grin slowly spread across Caleb’s face as he pointed to an exposed hillside to the right of the freeway with abandoned construction equipment. “Look at that beauty,” he said. “That’s our ticket outa here!”

  “A steamroller?” Jesse asked. “Are you serious?”

  “Heck yes, son.” Caleb looked him in the eye. “Now listen carefully; here’s what we’re gonna do.”

  * * *

  “Okay, Katelyn, the winch is tight! Go ahead and ease it into gear and give it some gas!” Jesse shouted as Caleb maneuvered the steamroller into position. Jesse had hooked a winch strap up to the school bus’s bumper in an attempt to swing the totaled vehicle like a pendulum and provide a narrow passage to drive through.

  “Nice and easy, girl, and lay down in the seat when you get this bus pulled away” Caleb reassured as he quickly took in the controls for the monster rig. “Okay son, you ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jesse replied, climbing onto the roof of the cab. He unslung his M4 from his shoulder and laid down flat. “I’ll take out any feeder that goes for the Humvee.”

  Katelyn slowly engaged the transmission and the Humvee crept forward in first gear. The tires found their grip and slowly pulled the front of the bus away from the edge of the bridge. As the metal screeched in protest against the asphalt, Caleb readied himself.