by Rescue
"Are you fucking serious?!" came the reply over the radio. Apparently the idea wasn't going over to well with the men in the other car.
"I second that," Marshal chipped in from the back seat.
"You would," Liam barked back.
Alex pressed the button to explain further. "Think about it, will you? These things are slower than we are and we can drive through most of them if we have to. All we really have to do is slow down a little, just fast enough that they can't catch us, but slow enough that they will keep following. We just lead them out of town like the Pied Pipper."
Silence greeted Alex from the passengers in his truck and from the humvee behind him. A moment later, the radio crackled and the doctor's voice came through.
"Let's do it Alex. These people could use some help."
Turning to look into the faces of the men with him, Alex asked the question again. "Well?"
Each man nodded in turn. Only once, as if the effort to do so was immense. "Okay," Alex said returning the handset to Liam. "Let's see what we can do."
-----
Alex's plan worked, and far better than he actually thought it would. On the Corsairs drive out of Farifield, TX they were able to draw off hundreds of zombies that were wandering the streets or harassing the citizens of the town. Once they had reach a suitable distance away from the town, Liam suggested that they burn the deaders as they walked. They filled a bottle with diesel lit a rag that had been stuffed into the neck. Lobbing the cocktail as hard as he could, the bottle smashed into the lead zombies, instantly covering them in burning diesel.
The hordes of dead continued to follow the humvees as the flames spread through them. The team could hear popping as parts of their bodies exploded as trapped gases heated and erupted through their rotting skin. The front ranks of the dead toppled as they succumbed to the raging fire serving to blockade those behind and spread the flames as the mob continued forward.
Alex pulled the humvees to a stop about one hundred yards away from the flaming mass. The heat from the burning bodies was intense and could be felt by the men in the trucks even from that great a distance. The line of bodies spread to the left and right as some of the dead tried in vain to find a way around the blockade of bodies, only to be overcome by the flames, further widening the choke point. Sporadic fires flared to life in the trees and vegetation around the perimeter of the burning horde and quickly spread in to the surrounding area.
"We may have caused a big problem," Liam said quietly to everyone in the car.
Alex shook his head slowly at the thought. "Better the fire than the walking dead. The fires will go out. The zombies," Alex paused for a moment thinking. "The dead, the dead will never stop."
Liam looked to his friend with concern on his face. "What do you mean by that?" Liam asked. "There will be an end to this, Alex. Someday, somehow, there's going to be an end. You've got to have hope."
Alex shook his head again. "My hope is back there at the farm, Liam. And right now," he stopped and looked in the mirror at the ragging fires behind them. "Right now, I can't see any way that this is going to turn out good."
Liam snorted a bit. "You know, man. You have always been the pessimist. Look behind you," he said and pointed out the back window. "We just took out a few hundred of those things. In one fell swoop. We can do this..."
"Something is going to go very wrong with this, Liam," Alex interrupted. He looked down at the steering wheel in front of him. "I have a bad feeling."
"Hey, do you think we could get out of here?" asked Marshal from the back. "That fire's starting to get a little close."
Liam shot the man a dirty look across the back of the seat. "Keep your panties on, Nancy. We're going." Liam turned back to Alex and said, "Why don't you let me drive? You could use a break."
Alex shook his head for the third time. "No. No, I'll drive. It'll distract me some from my pessimism." Alex threw the car into drive again and pulled back into the middle of the road on their journey south.
CHAPTER NINE
Hard Choices
The humvees continued south on the back roads of Texas without much incidence throughout the day. Travel was slow due to the number of cars that littered the roadway. On several occasions Alex was forced to navigate off the road in order to bypass a particularly nasty snarl of cars. The team was lucky that they did not have any recurrence of the previous days events.
The Corsairs' only real problem arose when they were approaching the city limits of Bremond. A massive tangle of cars blocked the road and surrounding area into the city proper. The team pulled up short of the blockade and exited the vehicles so as to figure out how to deal with the new obstacle.
"What the hell happened here?" Shawn asked as he made his way around the vehicle to join everyone else.
"Not sure, but it looks like someone did this on purpose, maybe to keep people out..."
Trapper screamed and fell forward clutching at a his chest. The gunshot sounded a fraction of a second after.
"Get down!" Donovan yelled and pulled Shawn and Luke down behind one of the humvees. Trapper writhed on the ground, crying and grasping at a growing pool of red spreading across his chest. He was yelling something unintelligible. Dr. Cahn raced out towards the dying man.
"Doc, get back here!" Alex yelled and ran out to meet him. Gunshots cracked in the distance. Rocks and dirt kicked up around the two men as they reached the injured man and pulled him back to the safety of the humvees.
"Contact. Southwest. Second story of the white building," Shawn yelled out and popped around the back of the humvee to provide suppressing fire on the sniper. A second gunman took aim on the party and opened fire from the southeast, trapping the men in a crossfire.
"Fuck!" Marshal yelled as blood ran from a wound in his shoulder. "I'm hit!"
Dr. Cahn glanced over at the man and quickly dismissed his need for attention. "You'll live, Marshal. Now get those shooters off us!"
"What do you need, doc?" Alex asked in a hurried voice.
"I need for you to get those snipers off us so I can work. Now go!" Dr. Cahn pushed Alex away with a bloodied hand. Alex scrambled to the side of the second humvee where Liam was working on stemming the blood flow from Marsha's shoulder.
"They shot me," Marshal whined.
"And if you don't shut the fuck up and start shooting back, I'll finish what they started. Liam," Alex barked, "we need to take those guns out. Where are they?"
"Not too sure," Liam answered as he finished tying the make shift bandage around Marshal's wound.
"Ow, that hurt," Marshal cried. Liam pulled the knots tighter. "Stop it, god dammit!"
"Then do it your fucking self if you're going to bitch about it, pussy!" Liam yelled back. "Here," he said, shoving the man's carbine back into his hands. "Shoot something," and he pointed towards the buildings that hid the snipers.
Marshal mumbled under his breath as he pulled himself up to his knees. "Mother fucking, son of a bitch," he cursed and pulled the trigger on the Kriss Super V. "Shoot me, will you, cocksucker!"
"I think you hit a nerve," Alex smirked with more humor than he actually felt. "Well, let's shoot something." Alex and Liam popped their carbines over the hood of the humvee and took aim at separate rooftops, trying to find the source of the second shooter. Their own rifles popped as they opened fire.
In between gun bursts, Alex could hear the doctor behind him desperately trying to save Trapper's life. "I can't stop the bleeding," he cried as he worked furiously in the dirt to get at the wound. "I can't get to the bleeder."
Rod, tears streaming down his face, knelt by the doctor's side. His hands were shaking almost as much as his voice. "Wha...what do you need?" the boy asked, his question barely understandable. "What can I do?"
"Get back in the humvee," Dr. Cahn ordered the boy. "It's dangerous out here." As if on cue, two shots kick up dirt and rocks in front of the doctor. "Get back in..."
Rod's face exploded in a wet cloud of blood, bones, and br
ain matter. His body wavered momentarily where he had been kneeling next to the doctor before falling forward onto Trapper. There was a ragged gunshot wound in the back of the boy's head.
"No!" Dr. Cahn screamed and pulled at the boy's body, turning him over. "No!"
Hands grabbed at the doctor and he was pulled away from the boy's body. Alex held him behind the humvee, preventing the man from entering the crossfire again. "He's dead," Alex yelled in his ear. "They're both dead!" Trapper Lainey's body now lay still in the road, his eyes glassy and vacant.
"We've got to get out of here!" Alex shouted at his team. "Liam. Shawn. Get in the humvees and get them fired up. Everyone else inside. Let's move!"
Each man moved without hesitation and the trucks roared to life, belching thick black smoke from their exhausts. Dr. Cahn lunged for the bodies, but was caught quickly by Alex and dragged back against the humvee.
"There's nothing you can do about them, doctor. Not get your ass in that truck." Dr. Cahn stole at look at the two bodies lying lifeless in the road. Thick pools of blood spread around them. The doctor looked back to Alex, tears swimming in his eyes, and nodded his head once before climbing into the waiting humvee.
The two drivers slammed on the accelerators and cut the wheels hard. The humvees spun around, spraying dirt and rocks behind them as they fled from the area. One last shot rang out from the city of Bremond.
-----
Silence once again engulfed the team as the sped away from the ambush in Bremond. Dr. Cahn cried silently in the back seat. Most of the men were in shock, expecting that they would be dealing with the walking dead, but never anticipating that survivors of the outbreak would attack them.
Liam found and navigated the group down a narrow, almost imperceptible trail through what was once a sprawling ranch. The trail brought the team back to within sight of the city of Bremond, but allowed them to pass by without incident. Despite this lack of hostilities the second time around the city, all of the men held their breath and waited for the shooting to begin again. They were thankful that this trip was uneventful.
Continuing south along the country roads, there was little contact with zombies aside from the usual fair that they were now used to seeing. Flailing bodies, half or almost completely decomposed sat trapped in cars that littered the roadway. The random corpse wandering the field in search of something, anything, living. Because of their location when they succumbed to the disease, these deaders had little to feed on and aimlessly walked back and forth. Liam dispatched these as he could, simply by driving through them as they staggered their way towards the only living thing that they could find.
"Sun's setting," Liam said casually to the passengers in his truck. It was the first time anyone had spoken since the attack at Bremond. He looked into the rear view mirror at Alex. "What's the plan?"
"There's a town up ahead. Rosebud. We'll find a place to shelter there." The tension in the humvee rose to an almost unbearable degree. "We'll be fine. Should be there in a couple of minutes."
Each man began to nervously check and recheck his carbine, cleaning any speck of dust, both visible and invisible off of their guns. Clips and magazines were checked and filled capacity with ammunition. When nothing else could be cleaned, adjusted or reloaded, silent prayers were offered up to the gods.
In about the time that Alex had predicted, the city limits of Rosebud came into view. Smoke rose from several buildings within the city and a large barricade loomed into view. "Shit," Marshal cursed. "Go around. Go around! God dammit, not again."
"Shut up!" Alex yelled. "Liam stop here."
The humvees pulled to a stop roughly thirty yards from the make shift barricade. The engines remained on and in gear in case a second quick getaway was necessary. Nothing moved anywhere, adding to the unease that the team was already feeling.
"I'm getting out," Alex announced to no one in particular.
"Are you crazy?" Marshal shrieked. "You're going to get killed..."
"One way or another," Alex said. "This road block was put here on purpose, and it looks like it has been taken care of pretty well. I just want to get a closer look to see what it's all about."
"I'll go with you," Liam said and put the humvee in park.
"No," Alex cut him off. "If something goes down, I need you to be in this truck, ready to get them out of here."
"You mean get 'us' out of here," he corrected. Liam knew what Alex really meant.
"No, I mean them. If the shit goes down, get everyone out of here and a safe distance away. If something happens, I'm going to get killed right away, so no heroics." This time his reprimand was for the doctor. "Our mission is to get Hill's family out so that ours will be safe. Don't forget that. Their safety depends on the success of our mission, not a man."
"You just have to be the hero, don't you?" This time the hateful voice did not come from Marshal. It was Dr. Cahn. "You are the leader, the one making decisions for everyone, and we are just supposed to fall in line, goose-stepping our way to meet your own ends. Aren't we?"
Alex looked at the doctor with an expression of mild shock on his face. He could have expected this kind of talk from Marshal, but not from Dr. Cahn. "Whatever gets you through the day, doc," Alex replied with more hate in his voice than he had intended. "My goal is to get everyone back to New Hope as quickly and safely as possible, with the colonel's family in tow. If you have any better ideas, please feel free to offer them up. I seem to remember you were all too quick to vote me in as the leader of this rabble. I guess when the tough decisions have to be made, it's easier to play armchair quarterback..."
The doctor lashed out with his fists and caught Alex off guard. Alex's head snapped back as Dr. Cahn's fist slammed into his jaw, sending Alex sprawling against the door of the humvee. Marshal and Liam grabbed at the doctor in an attempt to keep him from continuing his assault, but the doctor had made the point that he had set out to. Alex looked shocked at what had happened and none to angry either.
"Your objections are duly noted, Dr. Cahn," Alex said, rubbing his jaw. "Does anyone else have a problem with how things have been handled? Anyone else wish to make the hard choices?" Silence answered Alex's question. "Fine then," he said and opened the door of the humvee. "I'm be back in just a minute. If the shooting starts, get the fuck out of here, keep heading to Austin, and get the colonel's family out." Alex looked hard at Dr. Cahn once more.
Alex slammed the door to the truck and pulled his carbine up to his shoulder. Carefully he made his way towards the barricade in the road, looking from left to right for any kind of movement in the area. Upon reaching the make shift road block, Alex proceeded to inspect the structure. He reached out to touch it when a voice spoke from the shadows.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," the voice said. It sounded distant and almost jovial. The voice seemed to come from all directions at once and Alex spun around, trying to find the source. "That roadblock is booby trapped, set to go off if anything touches it. It's meant for those fucking corpses walking around, but it'll work just as good on you, I figure."
The doors of the two humvees started to open, but Alex waived them off. Not really sure what was going on, everyone closed the doors of the trucks and kept a watch on the scene in front of them.
"Where are you?" Alex asked. "Who are you?"
"Who are you, is the real question? And just what are you doing here?" the voice asked again from the shadows. "I can blow your head off at any time, so you had better start talking, boy."
Alex sighed and realized that the mysterious voice was right. He was out in the open, with no idea who was out there or how many. Alex was screwed.
"Okay, fine. You win," Alex said and lowered his carbine to hang from his side. He raised his hands and placed them on top of his head. The doors of the humvee opened once more, and Alex again shook his head to keep the others in their trucks. The doors closed and the engines remained running.
"My name is Alex Kemp," he shouted to the shadows. "Me and my t
eam are trying to get to Austin on a rescue mission. We are looking to shelter in Rosebud for the evening." Alex chuckled more to himself than to anyone else. "We really just need to place to sit, sleep and possibly get drunk off our asses. Know of a good place?"
The shadows chuckled back at Alex. "Yeah, I think I know a place. I'm Jimmy Wayne. Glad to meet you." The shadows to the west of the barricade moved and the silhouettes of five men appeared in the tree line just under the spreading canopy of leaves. Each man sat on a deer stand, hunting rifles and high powered scopes adorning the shoulders of each. "Let's get you boys inside before it gets dark. No need to waste our 'how-dos' out here."
The man in the center deer stand moved to climb down from the tree tops. He was a larger man and somewhat older, and it surprised Alex some when he leapt over the ditch and fence line to the side of the road to meet Alex. "Put your hands down, boy, we ain't gonna shoot you." The man laughed again, this time at Alex's expense. Collecting himself, the man pushed his hand out to shake Alex's. "Jimmy Wayne. Nice to meet you Alex Kemp. Now, let's get you boys a drink."
-----
A beer slid across the table towards Alex and he caught the glass just before it fell of the edge of the table onto the floor. Beer spilled from the mug onto Alex's lap and a raucous laugh filled the air.
"I thought you'd have better reflexes than that," Jimmy Wayne bellowed. Jimmy was an older man, most likely in his late sixties or early seventies with a sizable belly and big scraggly beard that looked as if it had not been trimmed in quite some time. The perpetual grin on his face grave him the look of Santa Claus. Santa, who had been on an all night bender, Alex thought.
"So what are you boys really doing out here?" Jimmy Wayne asked, taking a seat across from the younger man who was furiously mopping at the wet beer in his lap.
"Just heading to Austin. We're trying to get some family out of there." Alex did not look at the man until he had finished explaining. When he looked up, he could tell that the man did not believe him.
Jimmy Wayne chuckled to himself and shook his head. "Now, boy. I've been working the farms and ranches in these parts for a long time, and there's always one thing that I keep a look out for." He paused for a moment, waiting for Alex to ask the obvious question.