Keep Your Crowbar Handy

by SP Durnin

  The younger man grinned, chambered a round, and turned towards the west end of the roof.

  "I told you I'm not a kid," he called over his shoulder. "And I don't remember you doing much talking."

  A smile warred on her face with an attempt at a stern look as she pointed to the far side. "I'll get you for that," Elle said.

  * * *

  By the time the Mimi's rear hatch cycled to the ground, Jake had pulled the skids of topsoil they'd used to block the Agri-Supply's door clear with the pallet-jack.

  While he wasn't sure why the others had abandoned Rae's cache, he was glad they managed to find their way south to them. It was testament to Foster's skill at handling the mobile fortress that, even without a scout vehicle, the pink transport made its way through devastated areas containing zombies, wreckage, and whatnot.

  He checked outside through the two foot window. Seeing none of the creatures, he unlatched the simple deadbolt and ran towards the Mimi. As its loading ramp settled to the pebbled earth, Rae, carrying what looked like a SIG 540 assault rifle, was the first one down its corrugated surface. Laurel followed close behind her. A little dirty, showing some smudges here and there, but to Jake she'd never been more beautiful. The growing tension in his chest released at the sight of her and, slinging his M4 across his back, he rushed forward to take her in his arms.

  He held her tightly, lifting Laurel partially off the ground, until only the toe of one hiking boot remained in contact. The redhead responded to his relief in turn, gluing their lips together as Foster and Gertrude made their way to the rear hatch.

  "What happened?" Kat asked, helping the older woman down the ramp.

  "Don't fuss over me, dear. I've got my cane," Gertie chided.

  Kat smiled and ignored her, continuing to support her arm until she reached the ground.

  "We got caught with our pants down," George fumed. There was a cut along the side of the older man's scalp which had bled messily down the side of his face.

  Jake kept his arms around Laurel's waist as he looked into the transport. "Where are the others?"

  "They were taken," Rae said grimly.

  "What?" Jake was stunned. "They're dead?"

  Gertie put a hand on his arm, shaking her head. "No, dear. They're all still alive. But most likely they're wishing that wasn't the case right about now."

  * * *

  Jake got the full story during their return trip north.

  He sent Elle and Leo in their Hummer with the two newcomers, then listened as Laurel recanted the events which had prompted them to flee Rae's safe house.

  They'd been attacked mid-evening. Just a few hours after Jake had checked in over the radio. Foster and Gertrude had been familiarizing Rae with more of the Mimi's systems, insuring the statuesque woman was adept in their operations, just in case. While it was unlikely that George, Allen, and Gertrude would be out of action all at once, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

  The three were hip deep in the Official Operations Manual, when Vince entered the transport. He told them that while monitoring the radio, he'd contacted another group of survivors. They stated they were convoying down County Road 25 at that very moment, seeking aid. The voice on the radio said their party had wounded and were in need of any assistance available, even if it was only a safe place to sleep for the night. Vince offered them shelter within the junkyard's thick walls, then let the others know they were expecting visitors.

  Rae wasn't pleased, to say the least. Even though there was no point in worrying about national security any longer, she didn't feel the need to advertise her cache's whereabouts. Regardless, she absorbed the news that Vince had taken it upon himself to reveal their location to an unknown group gracefully. She told him he was a presumptuous ass.

  George however, was absolutely livid.

  The old soldier had given Vince a dressing down—reminiscent of a Master Chief breaking the spirits of new recruits on the first day of Navy SEALs training. There were pointed comments to the Corporal's inability to pull his head out of his ass, along with outright references to the man's pedigree. Being dropped on his head repeatedly as a child was suggested. Mental retardation was implied.

  Laurel was reworking one of their food storage lockers in the second module, when she noticed the yelling. The redhead added another week of supplies to their vehicle's stores, even though she had to repack the recessed container twice. Upon hearing Foster preparing to cut the Corporal's useless balls off, she'd hurried to the rear of the Mimi in an attempt to keep George from stomping a mud hole in his ass.

  When Rae told her why Vince was half a minute from embarrassing levels of pain, the object of Jake's affection reached for the Field Fighter knife on her hip. Giving the worried soldier a bloodthirsty look that spoke volumes, Laurel offered to help Foster fix him.

  George, so angry he started repeating various curses, told Vince to go inside and gather the others in case the coming group was hostile. The corporal then hurried inside, making damn sure to shut the door behind him at Foster's full-throated urgings.

  Which was when the bus composing the junkyard's entrance, was blown in half.

  The force of the explosion knocked Laurel and George's lovely friends from their feet, while the concussion of the blast threw George against the Mimi's inner hull. That was how he received the cut on his head. Foster had still possessed the presence of mind to free his pistol and send a full magazine of rounds through the smoke, towards the gate. He was rewarded with a trio of screams, but the rest of his shots missed altogether.

  A pair of armored trucks then busted through the wreckage, knocking chunks of debris aside as they pushed their way through. Each carried a quartet of armed men holding weapons ranging from pistols to AK47s, and the trucks headed without pause for the safe house. More vehicles followed. Half a dozen SUVs, an F150 pickup, and three racing bikes in all.

  There hadn't been time for them to reach the safety of the cache. Foster was still groggily trying to keep his feet; Gertie was up in the drive unit...

  Rae then made an executive decision. She'd activated the door mechanism, causing the Mimi's loading ramp to cycle shut. Laurel wanted to go out and fight the intruders (she'd become quite good with a silenced pistol), but George's female counterpart convinced the redhead to help her get him up to the front instead. At least from there, thanks to the transport's near-impervious skin, they could get some idea of what their options were from the bulletproof cabin.

  As it turned out, they didn't have many.

  The Mimi didn't have any offensive weaponry, so all the four survivors could do was watch as the attackers rammed one of the armored cars, rear first through the reinforced door of Rae's safe house.

  Gertrude activated the external audio sensors (sneakily hidden in the hubs of the massive vehicle's wheels), allowing their group to listen to the assailants yelling for everyone to come out of the cache. They received a hail of small arms fire in reply. While Rae's hideaway was only half the size of Foster's, there were plenty of weapons within and the other members of their group were pretty motivated just then.

  The driver of the lead SUV, a shaven-haired man in full skinhead regalia (complete with steel toed Doc Martins and suspenders over a white sleeveless shirt), began shouting orders. Two of the other attackers muscled a thirty-gallon drum of gasoline from the rear of the F150, and then rolled it over to the cache's door. They proceeded to break the top seal and upended the drum, spilling the fuel into the safe house and across the floor of the ground-level machine shop.

  Lighting a road flare, Skinhead passed it quickly in front of the broken entrance, allowing anyone inside with a view of the door to see it and yelled that they had two minutes to come out, unarmed, or be charbroiled. That worried Rae. While her cache had been relatively tough (unless you rammed an armored truck through the door), the interior was far from fireproof. If the others didn't come out, they'd burn to death.

  Laurel and Gertrude suggested—even though the older
woman was obviously in no shape to do so—that they use the Mimi's large supply of weapons to attack the raiders. Rae and the still- groggy Foster had quickly convinced the two near-frantic women that would be not only futile, but suicidal. The attackers were simply too spread out, and there was no way they could mount any kind of successful counterattack to aid their friends in Rae's cache. The quartet watched, utterly helpless to aid Allen and the others, as the seconds ticked away.

  Shortly, their companions filed outside. Allen and Vince were in the lead, then Heather and Karen, followed closely by the extremely pissed off looking Maggie. The four in the Mimi heard the attackers' leader ordering his men to cuff their friends, because Poole—whoever the hell that was—wanted them alive and unharmed. Skinhead had smirked, commenting that even though they weren't allowed to have any fun, he was sure the women would be useful in drawing the others out of the Pecker-mobile.

  George scowled at Skinhead's comment, hand moving involuntarily to his sidearm, as they watched the attackers cuff their friends and move them up beside the drive module. After getting Allen and the others into position, their leader looked thoughtfully at Vince and pulled a battered notepad from his pocket. Leafing back a few pages, he'd then asked the corporal what his name was. Vince replied per military regulation with name, rank and, serial number. Skinhead checked his notebook and said, "Not one of them." The he pulled a police-issue Beretta from the shoulder holster he wore, and put a round through the soldiers head with all the emotion of someone swatting a bug.

  The girls outside shied away as Vince's body hit the ground at their feet, his head bouncing off the grimy drive. Skinhead repeated the process with all his captives, nodding as each said their name, checking it against the list he evidently had in his notebook. Satisfied, he walked up to the Mimi, pounded on its hull with the butt of his pistol, and yelled for the others to come out or watch a repeat of Mr. ROTC over there, pointing at Vince's body.

  Allen revealed then, that even though he looked like a geek, he had a mile of guts. The mechanic had burst forward, bellowing for Foster to start the transport and bug out. He nailed one of the men guarding them in the face with a roundhouse kick to the temple, and then caught the very surprised asshole next to him with a hatchet kick, breaking the man's collarbone with a loud, wet snap. Jake's slim friend then proceeded to stomp the first man into unconsciousness, continuing to yell for the Mimi to get under way. When one of the other captors moved to restrain him and got a two-fisted, sucker-punch from Maggie, due to the handcuffs they'd secured on her, the sound of the man's nose breaking was audible through the transport's sensors. Rae had given a cheer as the blonde EMT kneed him squarely in the testicles, lifting him a good eight inches off the ground.

  As the other hostiles moved to secure the gleefully, rampaging pair, one of them bellowed in panic and pointed at the gate. A number of infected had begun making their way through the wreckage and, drawn by the short battle, were in full hunting mode. A few had already crossed the low flames, ignoring the way it burned their rotting skin, and set their clothes to smoldering. Long-dried gore coated their faces as they stumbled awkwardly towards the humans, and the sight of the crowd was enough to sober even the formerly-smirking Skinhead.

  The attackers began firing into the creatures, dropping the horrible things as they approached the safe house, but there were more coming. The men finally got their two, unruly prisoners under control by butt-stroking Allen from behind, and a trio of them took Maggie to the ground. Heather and Karen were then shoved roughly into the lead armored car, followed closely by Allen's limp form, and the still-struggling EMT.

  Skinhead started yelling empty threats for the Mimi's occupants to get out or they'd kill the others again, so Foster activated the transport's external PA and attempted to lie his ass off. He told the skinhead that their commanding officer was out on a scavenging mission and that for him to give up their vehicle prior to his return would contradict his express orders. George said it would be five days before his superior would get back with the rest of his strike team, and he would advise his commander to surrender the Mimi in exchange for their people, if Mr. Skinhead would give him the assurance they wouldn't be harmed prior to that time.

  While this hadn't pleased the man, Skinhead told George their friends wouldn't be killed, at least not on the drive back to their camp. The longer it took Foster's superior to respond though, the higher the chances of someone getting friendly with one of their captives, and it would be a good idea for George to get him back. Fast. Then he proceeded to tell the fixer which radio frequency he would have to use to initiate contact with their stronghold. Foster assured Skinhead he'd pass the information along, and if there was anything else the man wanted to say before he, and the rest of the butt-bandits, scurried back to Looney-land. Laurel, sick with worry for the others, had slapped at the fixer's shoulders until Rae pulled her away. Skinhead turned and headed for the nearest SUV as his men continued holding back the oncoming ghouls, stopping only to shoot an angry look over his shoulder at the Mimi. The rest of the attackers then began pulling back to their vehicles, and in a move of pure spite, their leader threw his road-flare through the door of Rae's cache.

  The massive Whoomp of gasoline igniting had turned the head of every creature in the area, as a fireball the size of an Escalade shot from the door of the cache, filling the junkyard with light pulled straight from perdition. The SEP-skin hull of the Mimi repelled the awful blast, while the raiders scurried to their rides and proceeded to roll out.

  Some of the creatures plodded after the invaders, slowly walking back the way they'd came, but more made their way past Foster's pink behemoth and into the growing conflagration within Rae's hideaway. Drawn by flickering light and the growing roar of the flames, the dead had pushed against each other to enter the dying hideaway. Over a hundred of them shambled into the blaze, seeking the warmth of living flesh, and were turned into walking torches. For roughly two minutes.

  The temperature inside the steel-reinforced building was more than sufficient to begin cooking a zombie brain almost immediately. The mindless things didn't have enough intelligence to realize that the flames would kill them. Dead, grey skin crisped with frightening speed. Eyeballs roasted in their sockets in seconds. The dead didn't feel fear, but from the cab of the Mimi, Laurel and the others had been privy to a ringside view of what Hell was sure to look like.

  They left the junkyard shortly thereafter. There was no way to save Rae's cache. The fire was raging by then, destroying anything combustible inside. Flammable ingredients for use in a dozen different explosives obliterated the entire north wall, as George drove the Mimi through the gate. When he'd turned onto the service road, all the excess ammunition in Rae's armory expended itself. Thousands upon thousands of rounds went up through the second floor living area and the roof above to sail wildly into the night sky.

  The four traveled south, detouring around several destroyed bridges and half a dozen now- impassible traffic jams, before meeting up with Jake and the others.

  "How did you find us?" Kat asked.

  Rae grinned smugly. "You don't think I'd let my baby out of my sight without a way to track her do you? I installed it in the chassis when I modified her. The system runs off an independent battery source that charges any time the vehicle's engine is running. It's got a month-long charge capability, and it's effective up to a hundred kilometers. "

  Foster's eyebrows went up. "It's not GPS based?"

  The stunning woman shook her head. "Nope, RF. As long as the transmitter in the search vehicle is within effective range, the beacon in the Hummer pings back the signal. That's how I extended the battery life. The beacon doesn't transmit per-se, it receives the locator signal from the primary vehicle and absorbs it. That causes a dead spot in the area which the sensors on the transmitting unit detects, translates into distance using ground radar technology, then gives you the location within two meters. Think of it as a post-apocalyptic On-Star"

  Fos
ter gaped at her in surprise.

  Rae gave him an annoyed look. "Hello? Gear-head? At least I didn't rewire my TV remote to open my front door..."

  "Moving on," Jake said firmly. You just knew some discussions weren't going to go anywhere productive. "How are we going to find the others?"

  Now it was George's turn to look smug. "I guess you've never taken a real close look at yer vest, huh?"

  That baffled Jake.

  Foster snorted in exasperation. "Below the left pocket?"

  Jake felt along the garment's edge. Something about the size of a pack of Wrigley's chewing gum and maybe half as thick had been vertically sewn into the seam. His eyes widened. "A locator beacon?"

  George waggled his bushy eyebrows.

  "When did you…?"

  "Just after the Iranian Hostage Crisis," The fixer told him, steering around a wrecked Dodge Durango. The vehicle had what looked like chain link fencing screwed into the body covering its windows, giving testament that there had once been survivors in that area. The gore streaks along its dented quarter panels and bloody splatters on the interior of the windows were evidence that said survivors were long gone. "Carter believed in the expandability of covert operators. I was never big into leaving our guys to rot in some hellhole and get tortured. Maybe turned into some scumbag's fifteen minutes of fame on YouTube. Told the president to his face that he was a cowardly son of a bitch over that one, then had some fellas I was tight with in the NSA make locators for me."

  "Tactful and, from you, completely unsurprising," Rae quipped.

  Foster gave her a wry look. "This is why you ended up manning an installation in the middle of Ohio. Fer such a hot broad, your people skills really suck."

  "Enough! I take it the Mimi has the capability to track the locators, right?" George nodded and Jake went on. "Do any of our people know about them?"