All That I See - 02

by Shane Gregory

  “Dork,” I said then laughed.

  Chapter 42

  From what I could gather by the mail and other items around the house, the woman’s name was Michelle, and she was single. However, reading her diary, I found that she did have a serious interest in one of the troopers at the local state police post. She was also planning to go on a hunting trip to Canada. There were other things in the diary that were quite tender, like how she talked about her younger sister and how they were dealing with the death of their mother. I found myself tearing up a little, and I welcomed it. Her last entry was made in February. She was worried that she had caught “that bug that’s going around.” I guess she did.

  I slept in her bed that night. It was one of the most restful sleeps I had gotten in a long time. I woke up late the next day (after eight). It was still gray out, but the rain had stopped. I had a peanut butter protein bar and some instant coffee from her pantry then got dressed. I used her first aid supplies to clean up my missing earlobe stub.

  I decided to leave all the antique guns behind. I loaded up everything else, including the medieval weapons from the bedroom. I didn’t know if it was wise; they were made for display purposes, and I didn’t know how much punishment they could take. I loaded them all into the back of the truck and headed back over to the stables.

  The creatures I’d killed the day before were still dead in the driveway. After taking the guns into the house, I dragged the dead zombies out into one of the front pastures, poured kerosene on them and set them on fire. I watched them burn for a while, but the smell was getting to me, so I went inside.

  Of course, in the back of my mind, Sara’s absence was nagging at me. I forced myself to think about other things like the location of the garden, the location of the cistern, and finding more chickens and maybe some goats. These were necessary things, but thinking about them left me feeling hollow inside.

  I didn’t see any farming implements anywhere on the property except the tractor. I would need to break the ground, and I didn’t like the idea of having to do that with a shovel. I would probably have to do that the next year, unless I could figure out how to train a horse to do it. This time around, I saw no reason why I shouldn’t make use of the tractor while it still worked. It would be noisy, but maybe I could come up with something to counter that. I was feeling anxious trying to keep Sara out of my head, so I decided to just go out again and check the usual places one more time. I armed myself with one of the AR-15s, a holstered 9mm, and extra magazines for both.

  I made the rounds to all the county locations then I drove into Clayfield. I pulled into the museum lot, parked in my normal spot, and got out. Walking around the back of the truck, I noticed that metal bull’s scrotum swinging on the bumper.

  “Ridiculous,” I said, but I made no effort to remove it.

  Sara wasn’t in the museum either and being in there made me feel sad. I walked around looking at the dusty exhibits with new eyes. I suppose it had been pointless to have all that stuff before, but it felt especially pointless at that moment. When I got to the Prohibition display, I stopped. Eventually, all the gasoline in the area would go bad. The moonshine still in the museum could be made to work. I could generate not only drinkable alcohol but also fuel. I only had a cursory understanding of how to operate a still—just enough to discuss the topic when giving tours—but maybe I could learn through trial and error. Hopefully, I wouldn’t kill myself in the process. I would just have to find vehicles that ran on ethanol. I knew the Riverton city transit system did, but I had no interest in driving around in a city bus. Maybe they had switched their government vehicles to it too. I would have to look into it. Hell, I might just try it out on normal gasoline engines; it’s not like I had to be concerned about damaging them.

  I heard a very deep boom outside. I thought it must have been a gunshot, but it was so much deeper and louder than anything I had heard lately. It almost reminded me of those big fireworks the City of Clayfield would set off on the Fourth of July. I got very excited, because that meant there were healthy people around.

  I went outside and waited for a second shot. There was another, and I felt the sound vibrate in my chest. It didn’t sound like any gun I’d ever heard. It was difficult to tell with all the buildings around, but I thought the sound was coming from farther north. A block over, three scrawny creatures emerged from behind the newspaper office on their way toward the sound. I got in the truck so I could also investigate.

  I headed north on 8th Street. There was another boom. I really didn’t want to just drive up on whoever was shooting, but I couldn’t get a fix on their location. I was coming up on the edge of the city limits, and I found the source of the noise. It was a tank about a quarter of a mile up the road. It was surrounded by a couple of hundred zombies. I immediately stopped.

  The cannon on the thing was pointed away from me toward a used car dealership. There was smoke coming up from two buildings farther down the road. The turret turned a little then stopped. The whole machine jerked, fire belched out of the end of the cannon, and dust and smoke swirled. One of the cars in the dealership lot was immediately engulfed in black smoke. Then the boom from the gun rattled everything around me and in me. The black smoke cleared enough that I could see the car burning.

  The turret moved again, turning my direction. I put the truck in reverse, but didn’t pull away just yet. It stopped moving before it was pointed directly at me. There was a long pause then the hatch opened on the top. A man stuck his head out and looked my direction. He ducked back inside then came out again with binoculars. He watched me for a while then he brought what looked like a walkie-talkie or cell phone up to his mouth.

  He dropped inside again and closed the hatch. I waited. Then the turret started moving again, swinging around to point at me. I put my arm on the back of the seat and stomped the accelerator.

  “Sons of bitches sons of bitches sons of bitches,” I chanted through my teeth.

  Mud and asphalt erupted in front of the truck. Then I felt funny in my stomach like when I ride an elevator. The front end of the truck went up and up and paused and down. Then the sound of the cannon arrived with a deep boom! The front end of the truck connected with the road again and bounced, throwing me against the ceiling. When I landed in my seat, I put my foot on the gas again. I lost control, but fortunately, my careening took me around the corner of a building, shielding me from a second shot.

  That didn’t stop them, however. The side of the building blew out and brick sprayed out in front of me. Then: Boom! I stopped the truck and rubbed at the pain in my neck cause by me hitting the ceiling. I took a couple of deep breaths then continued to back down the side street until I was a block over. I grabbed the AR-15 I’d brought along and climbed out to take a look at my ride.

  My new ass-kicking truck had a few scars, but I didn’t see any major damage. Even the tires were fine, which surprised me. I’d lost the chrome bull’s scrotum. I could hear Corndog’s voice in my head saying, “They done blowed off my nuts and ever’thang!”

  There was another shot from the cannon, but I couldn’t tell what had been targeted. I didn’t need to be anywhere near that thing, so I decided to get away from there for a while and come back later. Maybe by then, they would have used up all their shells.

  I didn’t go back to the stables. Instead, I drove out to the east side of town and parked on the bypass in the exact spot where Jen had been shot so I could hear when they were done shooting. I could have probably driven out to Blaine’s; I remember hearing the fireworks going off in Clayfield a couple of years before from Blaine’s when I was there for his Fourth of July cookout, and I thought I should be able to hear the tank from there. But that intersection was a good location, because it gave me four escape routes. I doubted I was out of range over there, but really I didn’t know how far those tanks could shoot. If they hit me there, it would have been accidentally.

  The cannon went off. I started counting between rounds to see how long
it took them to reload. I got up to thirty, and they fired again. I counted up to ten and another round went off. I didn’t know anything about tanks except what I’d seen in movies. Maybe they didn’t have to reload maybe it was automatic—

  Another round interrupted my thoughts.

  They shelled the north end of Clayfield for the next half hour, averaging two every minute. I hated to think what that end of town might have looked like when they were done, but I could see the black smoke billowing up over the tree line, and I knew it wouldn’t be good.

  Then it was quiet. I gave them another half hour before going to take a look. I went in the same way I had before. They had moved closer to Clayfield’s downtown and had parked on the bridge that rises up over the railroad tracks, near the historic Sons of the Confederacy Cemetery. That put them about six blocks north of the museum.

  I parked about halfway between the museum and the bridge. I had a limited view, and I was hoping their view of me was just as limited and that they wouldn’t notice me. They were still surrounded by hundreds of creatures, which were crowding onto the bridge and even spilling over the side, falling to the tracks below. The hatch was open on the top of the tank, and there were two guys sitting on top. It looked like they were sharing a bottle and maybe having a sandwich. They were not the least bit concerned about the groping zombies reaching for them. They couldn’t see or hear me.

  At the entrance to the cemetery, another truck was parked. Two armed men were leaning against it, talking. I wished I had brought along one of the hunting rifles that had a scope so I could get a better look…and a better shot. They had fired on me, so I knew they weren’t friendly.

  I hadn’t tested the AR-15, but I could move a little closer to make sure the men were all in range, and I thought I could hit them. The only problem was that I could shoot one, maybe two, but I wouldn’t get all four. Also, what if there was another one down in the belly of that tank? What if there were more parked around town? While I was considering my options, one of the men on the tank took a wallop from the bottle, passed it over to his friend, and then got on the belt-fed, mounted machine gun.

  Chng-chng-chng-chgung! Chng-chng-chng-chgung! Chng-chng-chng-chgung!

  Black and red zombie gore filled the air like fog. The creatures jerked and splattered and piled up around the tank. Every time there was a pause from the gunfire, I could hear whoops from the four men. I saw it as an opportunity. I got out and ran toward them, taking cover behind a parked car in the street. I steadied myself on the hood of the car and took aim at the man nearest the cemetery.

  The belt snaked into the tank’s machine gun. Chng-chng-chng-chng-chgung! I pulled my trigger. The man collapsed in a heap by his truck. His friend noticed him fall, but didn’t know what had happened.

  The machine gun continued. Chng-chng-chng-chng-chgung! I took aim and fired. A mist of blood sprayed away from the head of the second man. He dropped to his knees then to his back. I turned my rifle toward the men on the tank. The man on the machine gun was the most distracted, so he would be last. I killed his friend while his head was tilted back for a drink. The man’s body rolled back off the tank and into the groping hands of the undead. The gunner turned to help his friend, and I fired again. I hit him in the shoulder. He grabbed it and dropped down inside the tank.

  I watched for a while, waiting for him to come out, but he didn’t. Then, after a couple of minutes his hand came out searching for the hatch. I fired at it. He quickly pulled it shut. A minute later, the tank began to move south toward Clayfield, toward me.

  Chapter 43

  I ran back to my truck and climbed inside. The tank rolled over bodies—dead and undead—as it approached. The turret was turned so that the cannon was pointed away from me. It looked like he was going to try to ram me. I put the truck in reverse, but before I could get moving, the tank cut hard to the left, ran up over a parked car and stopped.

  I shifted the truck into park again. The metal beast was about fifty yards out from me, idling. A few of the zombies that had survived the machine gun began to trickle in, following the tank’s path to join it. I watched them surround it again and waited. Nothing happened. I kept waiting for the guy to crawl out, but the hatch never opened.

  I looked past the tank to the entrance to the cemetery and the two men dead by the pickup truck. The zombies weren’t over there, and the men were untouched. Not knowing what to do at the moment, I drove over there. If nothing else, I could get their guns.

  I parked close to their bodies and got out. They were some of Wheeler’s men. Both of them had laughed at and cheered for Corndog that afternoon when I was in the cattle trailer. I didn’t understand why they were still on this side of the river. When the guy in the Cincinnati Red’s clothes told me strangers had built the bridge out of barges, I just assumed it must have been Wheeler’s gang.

  I took their guns and stowed them in my truck, and then I quickly searched their truck for anything useful. I didn’t see anything I wanted except some binoculars and an unopened bottle of cheap red wine.

  I looked over at the tank and saw that the hatch door was open on top. I hadn’t been paying attention, and he had opened it while I was distracted. I didn’t know if he had crawled out yet or not, but I doubted he had because the tank was surrounded. I moved to put the truck between me and the tank, and I lifted the AR-15 to my shoulder, ready to fire.

  Slowly the man’s head eased out of the hatch. My finger pressed against the trigger, but then I hesitated. There might be a chance that this man had seen Sara and Judy Somerville. He pulled himself up with his good arm until he was sticking out from the waist up. He was obviously addled. The zombies stretched for him and howled. He looked around at them. He reached inside and pulled out a big handgun.

  He turned around, assessing his situation. Then his eyes found me. He paused and stared. He swayed a bit, and I thought he might faint. Then his gun came up. I ducked down, and he fired. I heard a thunk! when the bullet hit the side of my truck. He fired again, but it was a complete miss.

  I looked over the hood, and he was fidgeting with his gun. I took aim on a zombie and fired. The zombie fell and the man sank down into the tank for cover. I began to pick them off one at a time. The wounded man inside the tank didn’t come out at all for fear of being shot. There were twenty-two zombies over there, and after I’d killed half of them, the turret began to turn. I didn’t know if he had any rounds left for that cannon or if he was bluffing. I thought the latter, because it had taken him so long to decide to do it. Still, I thought it would be prudent to move. I wanted a word with him anyway, so I ran off to the side, then toward the tank.

  As I ran, I exchanged magazines on the AR-15 and took out two more zombies. The remaining creatures were on the other side of the tank, and I thought I could climb up on it without having to engage them. When I was about twenty feet away from the machine, and pretty damn close to the business end of the turret, I was knocked off my feet by the concussion of the cannon blast. I landed hard on my back, and my ears were ringing. I twisted on the ground and rubbed the dust from my eyes. My ass-kicking truck looked like…well, it looked like a tank had hit it.

  “Bastard,” I said.

  I figured he would either be coming out soon or reloading, so I knew I had to act fast. I rolled to my feet and ran as hard as I could at the tank. I climbed up onto the tracks then onto the turret. Once on top, I hunkered down on the back side and waited.

  A minute passed and then, cautiously, he peered out of the hatch toward the now destroyed truck. When he was feeling more confident, he pulled himself out farther for a better look. That’s when I planted the muzzle of my rifle against the base of his skull. He was startled and tried to move, but I pushed harder.

  “Put your pistol down and climb out,” I said. I was speaking louder than I normally would have because my ears were still ringing from the blast.

  He tried to look at me out of the corner of his eye, but I was behind him. I took his handgun and p
ushed it into my belt.

  “Do it,” I said. “I could have killed you already if I wanted to. Climb on out.”

  Gingerly, he lifted himself out, favoring his wounded shoulder.

  “Completely out and have a seat,” I said. He obeyed.

  I moved so that I could see his face. It was another of Wheeler’s men.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked. “Why haven’t you crossed the river?”

  He looked at me a moment then seemed to recognize me.

  He said something, but he sounded muffled.

  “Talk louder!” I said. “I can’t hear you.”

  “I said I know you. You’re that fuck that done killed ol’ Corndog.”

  “Why are you here?” I said.

  “Be alright if I smoke?”

  “Answer my questions.”

  “Shit, man, if you seen what’s on the other side of the river….” He said, shaking his head and lighting a cigarette.

  “Have you seen my friend? Pretty blonde?”

  He took a deep drag and grinned through his exhale, “Nah, but she sounds real nice.”

  “Why are you in Clayfield?”

  “One place is as good as the next,” he shrugged. “This was the easiest place to lure the goons.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This ol’ hoss has sure been fun,” he said, patting the tank, “I learned how to drive one of these before they sent me to Iraq.” Then he looked up at me, and his eyes narrowed. “You hear what I say, asshole? I’m a gol damned vet’ran. I learned shit in the service. I could take that piece away from you and cut you before you even knowd it. I’m jus’ havin’ a smoke break is all.”

  “What do you mean about luring the goons?”

  “The damn thing is loud as fuck, ain’t it? We’d fire a couple rounds, then drive a couple miles, fire a couple rounds, drive a couple miles. Hell, I’ll bet every goon in Riverton has followed us. I reckon they’ll be comin’ into town in another hour or two. Gayfield is about to get all gooned up. That’s what Wheeler likes to call it--Gayfield.”