“Semper Fi? Always faithful?”
“That’s faithful, not watchful.” Peter said, calling on long practiced habits to keep from rising to the challenge she was obviously trying to draw out of him. “No one can hold the edge twenty-four seven. No one.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, meeting her gaze.
She studied him for several moments, her thoughts masked behind a cloudy expression of boredom, then shrugged and exhaled out of the side of her mouth in the direction of her open window. “Great. I’m riding through the heartland of America with three fuckers counting on luck to see us through.”
“Whatever chickie.” Smith said. “Just remember we’re in this together.”
“I’m so screwed.”
“Finally, a bright side.” Whitley laughed.
“Fuck you.”
Whitley cranked the rearview mirror down again so she could see Crawford and blew a loud smoochy kiss, making sure to smack her lips loudly to ensure the gesture’s sound carried into the backseat. Peter missed what Crawford did in response — probably shot the finger back — as he faced forward once more and studied the roads ahead.
The interstate on-ramp stretched south for several blocks, closed access all the way. Finally the end came into view, but a clump of several dozen zombies was down on their knees almost dead center of the lanes, about fifty feet from where the concrete barriers bordering the ramp lane ended and the ramp dumped out into regular road. Their bodies were blocking the view, but clearly they were eating someone or something.
“Can’t fit past them without some contact.” Whitley said.
A loud metallic clacking filled the truck’s cab as Crawford racked the charging bolt on her M-16.
“I’ve got a better idea.” Smith said.
Peter started to turn in his seat to look behind himself, but Crawford’s howl of objection clued him into the suggestion before he could complete the motion.
“Not fucking fair.”
“Hey, you coulda qualified on a 203 if you hadn’t pussed out and picked arty.” Smith laughed.
Peter checked the forty millimeter grenade in Smith’s hand so he could read the color coding banding the round. “Yeah, that ought to clear most of them.”
“You know there’s a one-thirty casualty radius on that, right?” Crawford said immediately, her voice in full on sulk mode now.
Whitley braked sharply, jostling everyone forward as she brought the truck to a halt. “So we stay back some.”
“Waste of a fucking grenade.” Crawford muttered as Peter and Smith opened their doors.
“Keep an eye out.” Peter ordered as he glanced swiftly around outside the truck before he stepped down. He hefted his AR and moved past Smith as the Guardsman opened the breach on the M203 grenade launcher slung beneath his M-16’s barrel.
“Fire in the hole.” Smith said as Peter stood watching the road behind the truck. There was a dull thump, followed by a faint whistling, then the round went off with a startlingly loud crash of noise that split the early evening. Peter turned as the explosion started reverberating off the buildings to the east. The several dozen zombies were no longer in a tight knot. They’d been tossed and scattered across the asphalt like toys in a child’s playroom.
Most were still moving; but the tube fired grenade had left its mark. Peter counted several severed or seriously mangled limbs, and a couple more of the not-dead had suffered torso wounds that spilled organs out into the open. Nothing short of massive head trauma stopped a zombie for good — and sometimes not even then if it wasn’t massive enough — but Peter just wanted to keep moving. Knocking them down and out of the way was fine.
“Let’s go.” he said, clapping Smith on the shoulder as the man’s hand strayed toward one of his pouches like he was considering using another grenade.
“Right.” The two of them piled back into the truck.
“Waste of a fucking grenade.” Crawford repeated as Whitley got going again.
“Quick and easy.” Smith chuckled.
“We’ve got a lot of five-five-six you know.”
“Yeah, but since Smith has been so good I figured it was only fair to let him play with his toys.” Peter said.
“Not fair.” Crawford said.
“Too bad, so sad.” Smith said, still laughing.
“Fuck you.”
“Sweet, two girls one guy. My lucky day.”
“What?”
“You’re fucking Whitley and me, right? That’s two of you and just me. See, luck pays off.”
“Fuck you.” Whitley and Crawford said in unison.
“Shit.” Smith said dejectedly. “What if I said it was my birthday?”
“You’ve got a hot tube in your hands right there.” Crawford told him, gesturing at the launcher beneath his M-16’s barrel. “Get busy whenever you want.”
“It’s not the same.” Smith said with a level of dejection that was almost palpably felt.
Peter grinned as Whitley rolled over the zombies. There were too many to avoid completely, but she curved and twisted the truck through in a reasonable attempt to dodge as many as possible. Still, the truck rocked back and forth on its shocks as the tires bumped over bodies. He purposefully didn’t check the mirrors to see what condition the zombies were in after being driven across; he’d seen it before, and it was old news.
Instead, he looked at the first road sign, then checked the Memphis map in his atlas. “Uh . . . okay, if I’m reading this right, straight south if you can and we’ll hit the ramps for I-55.”
“Straight south huh?” Whitley asked.
“Well, follow this road.” Peter said, looking up from the atlas. “It’ll curve some but . . .” He trailed off as he saw the fairly thick horde arrayed across the road a few blocks ahead.
“Straight you said?” she asked again.
“Okay, shit—” he said, checking the map again. “Displace us a few streets deeper into the city. Work south and back around to the river as best you can.” he said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Peter nodded. She looked at him, and he shrugged. “Fuck it, Crawford’s so hot for some action, it’ll give her something to do.”
“Talking about me again?” Crawford asked.
“Yeah.” Peter said as Whitley turned left away from the road that was loosely tracking alongside the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, a few hundred feet away. “You can—shit!” he started, cutting himself off as Whitley slammed on the brakes and almost threw him into the dashboard before she’d gone more than a few dozen feet up the road that rose up into the city away from the river bank.
“I know, I know.” Whitley said as she shifted into reverse and started backing up. Peter looked ahead and saw the remains of what looked like a fairly tall building — relatively speaking for Memphis — collapsed over the road and intersection. Most of the buildings in the immediate area were only a few stories high; but the one that was down had been much taller. Enough so that its destruction had generated enough debris to make passage impossible.
What had brought it down was a tale no one seemed to be around to tell, but Peter saw a number of bodies mixed in with the rubble. Some were eaten down to skeletons, but others were still intact; a sure sign they’d been pulseless before perishing the second time. Zombies never ate other zombies, not even after the second death. Why was just one more mystery the dead kept secret from the living.
“Come on, let’s fight some. It’s not like anyone’s going to sue us for damaging the city.” Crawford said wistfully. “I mean, look at this shit.”
“Stop fucking off; pay attention.” Peter ordered. “And anyway, this keeps up and we might get some of that action you’ve been bitching about.”
“Good.”
Whitley backed out onto Riverside Drive once more and went north another block, then turned into the city again and found the way reasonably clear. She threaded the truck past a couple handfuls of zombies and turned south a few blocks in. Peter unsnapped the
catch on his holster so he could get at the M45 quickly, but focused mostly on the atlas in case more detours were needed. Navigating by street signs wasn’t what he was trained for, but when the intersections were marked it was quicker than referring to compass directions and grid box markings.
Memphis obviously had suffered its fair share of apocalyptic damage during, or since, the appearance of the zombies. Unlike Atlanta, it didn’t seem to have been hit by a post-outbreak bombing, but the chaos wrought by the zombies looked to have done a respectable job of duplicating plane delivered ordinance.
Bodies were everywhere; at least a couple per block, and usually more. Though ‘bodies’ was stretching the definition past the breaking point. Skeletons was more like it, usually. Most of them had been eaten down to the bone by the undead hordes roaming through the dead city. The remains were scattered around a little, but not nearly as badly as they would’ve if animals had done the deeds; zombies didn’t spread their dinner all over the place it seemed.
The carnage didn’t bug Peter nearly as much as the isolation and sense of desertion. A city the size of Memphis just felt wrong when it was so empty. Even if it were a Sunday morning, there would be people around. Cars would be moving about. Some of the businesses and offices would be open. Lights would be on. There would be — even faintly — a background hum of noise as engines ran and machines operated, even the distant chatter of voices; the sounds of civilization.
Not here. The only cars were leftovers from wrecks, or occasionally simply abandoned. Once they passed a little two seater sports coupe that had a zombie determinedly pulling at the seatbelts holding it in place behind the steering wheel. The car itself had wrecked head-on into a panel van, but the car’s driver had ‘survived’ the collision by rising from the dead. Of whoever had been driving the van, there was no sign.
The zombies infesting the streets were eerie, but compared to the lack of people, they weren’t that troubling. Peter shook his head mentally as Whitley threaded through the constant zombie presence and persistent wreckage of city and vehicles; working back and forth from block to block, turn to turn, as she directed the truck toward the southwest corner of the devastated settlement. It wasn’t anything new at this point, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
“Where’s my action?” Crawford complained as Whitley slowed to weave the truck through a particularly crowded intersection. There was just barely a passable amount of space between the vehicles left all across it. Bones crunched beneath the truck’s tires as she had no choice but to drive over the remains of dead and twice-dead bodies. Skulls were the worst; they made a hollow crackling sound that tended to be much louder than anything else. Though, once, a mostly intact rib cage was close to overtaking the aural title.
And the rapid-fire popping and snapping and cracking of the ribs left Peter flinching as ice crawled along his spine. He really didn’t enjoy listening to it.
“We’re not out of the city yet.” Smith said.
“Dude, don’t encourage her.” Whitley said.
“Watch it.” Peter said sharply as she started to swing around the corner when she cleared the latest building and overturned car. Ahead, the road she’d been about to take was completely obstructed by a delivery truck that had skidded around sideways to jam itself nearly end to end across the street. There might have been enough room to squeeze past on the sidewalk, maybe, but the truck had come to a halt between two utility poles that left no room.
“Yeah, shit, sorry.” Whitley said, braking.
“Oh man, what a waste.” Smith said.
“Yeah, no shit.” Crawford added.
“What?” Peter asked, looking back. He glanced at the two soldiers, but he was mostly interested in looking at what they were now backing toward as Whitley shifted into reverse and accelerated again.
“All that beer.” Smith said, sounding mournful.
“Finally, something we agree on.” Crawford said.
Peter looked forward again and registered what had spilled from the truck’s cargo area. Case after case of beer, with more visible on the shelves lining the truck’s side. Loose cans were strewn across the pavement, cardboard flats of plastic-wrapped cans having tumbled to a rest in large numbers as well; and some dried stains that showed some had broken open in the wreck to spill the cans’ contents out.
“You’re kidding me, right?” he asked as he looked back again.
“No, it’s seriously a huge waste.” Crawford answered.
Peter shook his head in mild amusement, but the mirth faded as he saw the ground floor windows of the building they were backing up towards suddenly shatter from within. It had to be the structure’s lobby, with floor-to-ceiling plate glass that was typical for a corporate layout. He didn’t have a chance to catch anything about the interior though, because zombies were pouring out.
“Oh shit.” Whitley said, seeing it in the mirrors.
“Don’t hit any cars.” Peter snapped as he registered just how many zombies were staggering out onto the sidewalk. There were . . . it had to be close to a hundred of the nightmares, all shoving their way through the glass that wasn’t up to the task of resisting that many bodies pushing on it. Window after window broke apart with sharp cracks and the tinkle of falling shards that were audible even over the truck’s engine. What that many zombies had been doing inside the building, he couldn’t guess; but they weren’t inside anymore.
“Rock on.” Crawford said, hitting the button to roll her window down.
Peter didn’t bother trying to warn her off; he just jammed his hand into his breast pocket and scooped out his earplugs. Her first bursts made him wince — the noise of the M-16’s reports echoing loudly through the truck’s interior — but then he managed to get the plugs stuffed hastily into place which cut the sound down to something he could bear.
Whitley drove the truck straight back into the emerging crowd. She was braking as the rear tires hit the curb and bounced up, but the vehicle’s back end sent over a dozen breathless bodies tumbling. Inevitably, the uneven footing and tumbling corpses tripped up and slowed down the zombies, who never seemed to pay attention to where they were stepping or what they were about to walk over. Crawford’s fire was sending more down, but the truck had done most of the damage.
Shifting into drive as upright zombies close enough to reach slammed and banged against the rear panels of the truck, Whitley pulled forward and curved around left then braked again suddenly. Peter caught himself against the dashboard and looked forward to see what she was considering. There were more wrecked vehicles in the block and a half in that direction that he could see, but it didn’t look impossible. But there was also the makings of another forming zombie horde.
“Yeah, no.” Whitley said, catching his eye when she felt his gaze move to her.
“Good call.” he said loudly.
The truck accelerated backwards again, and Crawford cursed.
“Oh come on, let me—”
“Shut up!” Whitley said as she reversed the truck away from the lobby horde.
“Damnit.”
“I think you hit maybe two.” Smith observed.
“Fuck you.” Crawford shot back. “It’s not like I had chance to aim.”
“It’s not like you don’t suck or anything.”
“Shut up!” Peter ordered as Whitley reached the end of the last block they’d just crossed.
Smith and Crawford both muttered something — different things, he was pretty sure — that he didn’t quite catch through the earplugs, but Peter ignored that too. Whitley stopped the truck and turned away from the zombie infested street to try a different route. She sped to the next intersection, looked south and saw another street covered in upright corpses.
“Fuck.” she and Peter both said at the same time. She stepped on the gas again and drove one more block to check that street.
“Ah.” she said, sounding satisfied as she saw mostly clear pavement and a sign that indicated US-61 and I-55 were b
oth ahead. She made the turn and accelerated aggressively to where the Interstate crossed through the city and made that turn as well; putting them on a western course again that should —if he remembered the map correctly — take them right to the southern bridge.
There were still a lot of zombies in view, but not enough to be a problem as long as the truck kept moving. Peter trusted Whitley to — at worst — simply crack the headlights when she needed to use some bumper to get through a zombie that wasn’t avoidable. Headlights being out he could deal with. Even at night. Those he could fix one way or another. A busted radiator, on the other hand . . . not so much.
“This is better.” Smith said.
“Boring.” Crawford complained.
Whitley sighed as the road curved slightly and the bridge came into view. It was a more squat construction than the other one; thicker beams that didn’t soar nearly as majestically into the air above the roadway. The number of lanes dropped to two in each direction, but even so it had a more modern feel than the I-40 bridge.
“The point is to make it to South Dakota,” Whitley said as the truck whipped past a clump of zombies. One of the creatures reached out to the vehicle and was both knocked down and had its arm torn off at the elbow as it made contact. The truck didn’t even slow down or sway at the slight contact, though the zombie tumbled across the pavement behind them in one direction as its arm went skittering away in another.
“This is totally dull.” Crawford said.
“Safe.”
“Boring.”
“Christ, are we back to that?” Smith said.
“Still on it, you mean.” Whitley replied.
Peter was squinting at the travel lanes ahead. Whitley drove onto the bridge, slowing some despite the zombies investing the area as she started weaving around some abandoned vehicles. Peter was fumbling his binoculars up into his hands so he could look through them. When he finally got them into place and focused he groaned.
“Goddamnit.” he swore.
“How bad is it?” Whitley asked.
Apocalypse Atlanta (Book 4): Apocalypse Asylum Page 8