Both women nodded.
“We need to up the odds in our favor, Dallas, and I trust Luke. He wouldn’t steer us wrong. If he thinks the Gulf is safest, then I believe him,” Butcher said.
Dallas looked at Roper who was slightly nodding. “Then so do I.”
When they returned to the masonry plant, Safety was burning up and his wound was infected. “We need to go into town and get better medical supplies,” Butcher said, washing her hands in a bucket of water. “I need peroxide, some bigger gauze, butterfly bandages, and a buttload of Superglue.”
“Town is a bad idea,” Einstein said, “but he is burning up.”
“Penicillin at the very least,” Butcher said. “The kids can stay here with Safety and keep him cool with cold rags.”
Dallas agreed. “What about Cue?”
“He’ll go with us.” To Einstein, she said, “Can you handle being alone?”
Standing up a little straighter, he nodded. “Yeah. I got this. This place is pretty damn secure, what with the whole thing surrounded by a rock wall.”
“I’ll want you to build a solid structure behind the gate when we leave so they can’t push it in.”
“All over it. I’ll move one of those semis up to it. We’ll be fine. Just get him what he needs and hurry back.”
“Let’s roll, then. We have to get in and out quickly. Straight to the hospital. Butcher and Roper, you guys will find the meds. I’ll stay with the Hummer. Cue will watch the hospital door at the base of the stairs and shoot anyone who comes near. Any questions?”
“What if I don’t necessarily want to risk my life for a boy I don’t know?” Cue asked.
“First off, he’s a man. Secondly, if you don’t want to be part of our group, you can get along, little doggie, but you need to make that decision right now. It’s your call. What’ll it be?”
Cue folded his arms. “I’m not doing anything without a rifle. No rifle, no help.”
Dallas tossed him one, which he caught with two hands. “Point that at anything other than the undead and you’ll join them.”
“Where’s the love?” Cue said under his breath as he climbed into the Hummer.
“I don’t like that guy,” Roper growled. “Can’t we leave him here? He’s as useless as tits on a boar.”
Dallas sighed. “He just wanted a rifle and now he has one. He’ll settle down now.”
They drove through a ghost town where nearly every building was one story and almost all of the windows had been busted out. At one time, it had been an old gold mining town, but now, it was just another place for meth heads to escape to and undead to limp through.
There were a couple of man eaters roaming around, but no other signs of life. The eaters never even looked up or noticed the Hummer as they drove through the deserted streets. The going was slow, and sometimes they had to get out to push cars out of the way. Abandoned vehicles littered the metered parking stalls and paper, lots of paper, blew across the lonely streets like tiny tumbleweeds.
“This is seriously creepy,” Butcher said as she gazed out the window. “Where are all the people?”
“Dead or hiding. We’ll be lucky if they don’t start shooting at us. I’m beginning to wonder if the Hummer is worth keeping.”
“If Luke is right, it won’t matter anymore and we won’t have to hide. We can trailer the horses and make a push to get to the Sequoia in less time than you can shake a stick.”
Butcher watched a man eater repeatedly walk into a pole. “Trailering the horses is a good idea. I’m all for getting the hell out of here as quickly as we can. We’ll patch Safety up and get a move on whenever he’s ready to move.”
“We’ll head out in the morning. I want Safety to rest as much as you do, but we have to get the lead out. Let’s bring his fever down and sleep tonight. We can get a fresh start in the morning.” Dallas’s eyes continually scanned the streets for the living.
“Hospital up on the right,” Roper said, pointing. Eaters roamed around either side of the building, and Roper estimated there were ten to twelve man eaters near the door.
Dallas handed Roper her Buck knife. “Think you can make it without firing?”
Taking the knife, Roper nodded. “You two ready?”
Butcher replied, “I’ll start up the stairs first. Roper, you watch my back. Cue, you make sure no one and nothing comes up behind us.”
“Like those things can walk upstairs,” Cue muttered. Roper slowly turned. “Can you handle the job or not?”
The atmosphere in the Hummer became thick with tension.
“I can handle it,” he groused.
Roper turned to Dallas. “Watch your backside.”
“Hurry back.”
When the doors opened, Butcher, Roper, and Cue jumped from the Hummer and ran to the hospital entrance. Butcher entered without incident, but Roper had to slash one eater in the neck before getting inside safely.
Cue bashed a second eater in the face before closing the glass doors and turning the lock. Three eaters started pounding on the glass door, and Cue went up a few steps so they couldn’t see him.
Still, they pounded.
It was only a matter of time before they broke the glass.
Roper could barely keep up with Butcher, who took the steps two at a time. When they hit the third floor, two eaters came out of side rooms and attacked them. Butcher pushed the first one down the stairs, and Roper shot it through the forehead before swinging the rifle around and blowing the head off of man eater number two.
“Damn, these military rifles are so much smoother than mine.”
“Don’t get your ladywood out of whack.”
Roper chuffed. “I bet my ladywood is bigger than yours.”
Butcher chuckled as she found the room she was looking for and stood back to stare at the chaos. The whole room looked like it had been tossed. “Cover me. This is going to take a little longer than I thought.”
Roper nodded. “And what did you mean out of whack?”
Butcher started opening drawers and rifling through cabinets. “I can’t believe you don’t see it.”
“See what?” Roper’s head moved from side-to-side as she surveyed the room and kept her eyes on the hallway.
Butcher shook her head. “Boy, are you clueless. Dallas. Haven’t you even noticed how she looks at you? How in the hell can you not see it?”
The rifle suddenly felt heavier and her palms sweatier. “I’m a little busy trying to stay alive.”
“Well, when you have a moment, pay attention to how she is around you. Jesus, Roper, the woman’s got it bad.”
“Bad? But I—”
“Got it!” Butcher held up a bottle of pills and dropped them into her backpack. Then she found a bottle of peroxide and that, too, went into the backpack. “Gauze, gauze. Where is the damned gauze?”
Roper thought she heard something, so she put her rifle to her shoulder. “How does she look at me?”
Butcher stopped searching and shook her head again. “Like she doesn’t see anyone else.”
Dallas scooted way down in the Hummer so the man eaters couldn’t see her. The moment her friends were out of sight, she began timing them. She didn’t like this one bit. She wanted to be out of this town, away from this state. She wanted to feel as if they were making some progress….hell…any progress would be great. She wanted to take her people to safety...if only she knew where that was. She needed to tell Roper…
Suddenly, a car came screeching around the corner. Popping her head up, Dallas watched as a truck filled with young guys slammed on its brakes as it skidded by the Hummer before slowly backing up.
“Shit.”
Four young guys in their twenties hopped out and surrounded the Hummer, trying all four doors while one stayed in the back of the truck with his rifle poised. Reaching for her sidearm, Dallas sat up.
“Oh fuck, man,” one said, jumping back as if bitten. “There’s someone in here!”
Just then, the three eaters a
t the hospital door started for them and were picked off by the guy in the back of the truck, who seemed to view killing them as a sport. The others high fived and hooted and hollered each time one went down. As the third man eater was killed, several others came to the street from alleys, stores, and parking lots. They streamed out like rats to cheese.
“Get out of the Hummer, lady,” one guy said, pulling his rifle out and leveling it at Dallas’s head.
Dallas leaned away from the window and set the muzzle of her Glock against the glass. “I don’t think so.”
“You fucking kidding me?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
That was when she saw it. A tiny red dot appeared on his chest a second before he was blown backwards into the street, blood erupting from his chest cavity.
“What the fuck?” one of the others yelled. “Shooter!”
The other three backed away from the Hummer, looking in the direction of the gunshot and scrambling to get back into the bed of the truck. A second shot picked off the guy who’d killed the three zombies, and as he fell from the truck, it took off, stranding three on the street.
“What the fuck? Get back here, you sumbitch!” A camouflage-wearing blond yelled, waving his arms.
Already, two man eaters were feasting on their two dead friends as more closed in. They seemed to be coming from every direction. The three men pumped bullets into the surrounding man eaters, breaking windows and glass doors with erratic gunfire.
One of those doors was to the hospital.
Before Dallas could get out of the Hummer, three zombies limped in through the open hospital door. Dallas watched with interest as two of the men headed across the street to an antique store, the third turned, eyes full of fear, and said to Dallas, “A mob a them things is comin’, lady. Either get moving or get the hell out of the damn car!” Then he, too, ran for cover in the shop.
Dallas frowned. A mob? Where had they come from?
Glancing toward the north part of Main Street, she saw exactly what he was talking about.
At the sound of gunfire, Butcher stopped shoving meds into her backpack and glanced over at Roper, who was already making her way to the stairs. “Where you going?”
“The roof. There were shots fired and we need to see what the hell is going on out there. Dallas might need our help.”
Roper felt Butcher right behind her as she opened the emergency exit to the roof. They were only three stories up, but it was high enough for them to see everything on the street, and it didn’t look good.
Four men had surrounded the Hummer, and one had his rifle pointed at the driver’s window. “Oh shit,” Roper said, bringing her military issue M16 with laser to her shoulder and aiming it at the guy by Dallas’s door. Looking through the scope and seeing the red dot on his chest, she calmly squeezed the trigger, blowing him six feet away from the car and killing him instantly.
Butcher stroked her trigger moments later when another Neanderthal swung his rifle in their direction. “Jesus, Roper, what in the hell is going on down there?”
A sound behind them made them both whirl around, hot muzzles pointing directly at Cue. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s just me.” He quickly slammed the door behind him. “They’re in the hospital making their way slowly up the stairs! Help me bar the door! Hurry!”
Roper and Butcher exchanged glances.
“I’ll cover Dallas,” Butcher said. “You get the door.”
Roper ran to the door and looked around for things to put in front of it. Since it opened outward, it would be easier to block as long as what they used was heavy.
There wasn’t much on the roof, so Cue ran over to the air conditioning unit and examined it.
“Too heavy for us,” Roper said.
“Not looking to move it.” He reached up and started pulling on a bar. When it finally snapped off, he jammed the top part of the T-section under the door handle and drove the other end into the roof as hard as he could.
“That’ll hold ‘em for a while. Maybe they’ll lose interest.”
“Maybe the moon will fall out of the sky, too,” said Roper.
“Holy...shit...” Butcher murmured. “Umm...guys?”
Roper and Cue quickly rejoined her at the edge of the roof just in time to see the truck pull away, leaving three of their friends stranded in the middle of the road.
“We taking them out?” Roper said, shouldering her rifle. Just before she looked through her scope, she saw what Butcher had seen.
Streaming over from the frontage road were hundreds of man eaters. Maybe even thousands. “Oh my God,” Roper whispered, lowering her rifle. “Look at all of them.”
When the three guys ran across the street and into the antique store, Roper yelled down, “Dallas, go! Go! Go! Get out of here!”
Butcher started capping any zombies near Dallas’s door. “She won’t leave without you.”
“Goddammit, Dallas, go! They’re coming!”
Roper popped a few more, but the wave that was coming wouldn’t be stopped with the ammo they had.
“Make a path for her,” Roper said, firing into the man eaters wandering around the Hummer.
“To?”
“Not the antique store. How about that card shop over there?”
Roper nodded. They had to do something fast. The horde was closing in on the town, and once they got in, Dallas would be trapped. They would never be able to kill that many hovering around the Hummer.
“Dallas!” Roper called down. “Dallas, get out of the Hummer!”
When the driver’s door opened, Dallas pulled her rifle with her and shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked up. The nearest man eater was only ten feet away. It wasn’t coming at her, but just stood there long enough for Butcher to take care of her with a single shot.
“Over here!” Roper waved her arms. “Get to the card store! We’ll create a path!”
Dallas nodded and saw Butcher pointing behind her. When she turned, she understood what horde meant.
Like a wall of water in a flooded street, an army of zombies hobbled into town. There had to be hundreds of them. She realized this slight hesitation had cost her a few steps but, suddenly, heads began exploding all around her as Butcher and Roper covered for her.
Taking off running, Dallas made it to the card shop and immediately started barricading the double glass doors, throwing everything she could in front of them. As she did, she could hear gunshots and knew Roper and Dallas were buying her just enough time to get her door barricaded.
Heart racing, Dallas pushed furniture, filing cabinets and display cases against the door. Once the door was blocked, she peered out a small crack and watched as a few initial zombies wandered around moaning, but strangely, not one had followed her.
Not one.
Instead, they bumped into each other while a dozen or so made their way to the antique store.
The gunfire stopped suddenly, and when Dallas looked out the little slit, she saw the beginning of the horde fan out as they took over the street.
As she peered through the opening, she couldn’t figure out what was bothering her, and as she watched, she had the strangest feeling…the oddest thought that…that the zombies were actually looking for something.
“That’s enough,” Butcher said, lightly laying her hand on Roper’s shoulder. “She’s safe inside.”
As Roper lowered her rifle, she stared in disbelief as the horde plodded into the city, moaning, wandering, and bumping into each other and anything in their path.
“What the hell?” Cue stared at them as they moved like an amorphous blob. “What the fuck are they doing?”
Butcher cocked her head this way and that as she studied the slow moving horde. She watched in muted silence as her medic’s brain kicked into gear, putting together pieces of a puzzle that had been gnawing at the back of her brain for days. When at last she figured it out, she quietly murmured. “I’ll be damned.”
Roper joined her just as the pounding
on the rooftop door began. “What do you see?”
“Jesus,” Cue said. “What are they looking for? Us?”
Butcher slowly, hesitatingly shook her head as the last piece fell into place. “You know, I would have said yes a few days ago, but look at their numbers. They’ve managed to coalesce—to grow bigger. They seem to be collecting others along the way, but I don’t think they’re looking for us.”
“Not us, but humans?” asked Roper.
Butcher shook her head again as the pounding on the door continued. “All this time, we’ve been thinking that they’re driven by some sort of bizarre hunger, that they are consumed by the drive to eat human flesh…but I think we’ve been off base. I think there’s more to it than that.”
“How so?” Cue asked, backing away from the door and the loud thumping from behind it. “Better make it quick.”
“We’ve been told this is a virus, right? But the virus doesn’t see itself that way. I’ve been struggling with something for a couple of days now…the way they act seemed so familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The horde is acting like while blood cells. I knew their actions looked familiar, but not until I saw them today, from up here did I figure them out.” She shook her head. “Like I was looking through a microscope.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Me, too.”
Butcher looked over Cue’s shoulder. The door remained closed. “White blood cells circulate in the blood so they can go to an infection and battle it. Neutrophils kill bacteria by actually ingesting them. By eating them.” She paused for emphasis.
“Oh shit.”
“I still don’t follow,” Cue said.
Butcher checked the door once more. “The zombies don’t see themselves as a virus—”
“They see us as the virus.” Roper interjected.
Butcher ran her hand through her hair. “The way they collect other zombies is what happens when immature neutrophils sense an infection is present. They are attracted by certain chemicals, and then kill the bacteria by a process called phagocytosis, in which they completely surround the bacteria and digest them. Sound familiar?”
Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 1): Ride For Tomorrow Page 21