Peter had never really been into things that flew, big or small. Nor had he ever had much of any interest in radio beyond walkie talkies and standard Corps communications equipment. But he’d heard about the building fad of civilian flying toys, and this seemed to fit that bill.
It was four big circles, arranged in a two by two pattern horizontal with the ground. Red lights shone on the left side, green on the right; and the blinking center light was on the bottom of a rectangular fuselage suspended between and beneath the four circles. Spinning blades buzzed within each of the circles, which Peter supposed were probably safety housings for the whirring propellers.
The whole thing was maybe three or four feet wide. And it was clearly under control, he saw as it stopped perhaps ten feet away, well up out of reach even if someone got on the Dodge’s roof and jumped for it. And, it had a camera mount, he realized, as he saw what could only be a camera dome of clear plastic on the front of the little fuselage. A little red light, barely visible, was moving around inside the dome.
“Do we have a problem?” Crawford asked loudly.
“It’s not doing anything.” Whitley pointed out.
“It’s looking at us.” Peter said, reminding himself to check his perimeter again. “Smith, keep an eye out so nothing else sneaks up on us.” he ordered as he swung around to look beside and behind himself.
“Got it.”
“It’s coming closer.” Crawford said.
Peter looked forward again and saw the drone was indeed sliding toward the car, and dropping in altitude. He kept his light on it, wary despite the lack of anything he registered as a true threat. The fuselage could possibly contain a bomb or something, but he was betting it was probably packed full of batteries and electronics. There were some folding struts of some kind along the bottom in various places, but they looked like retractable landing legs to him.
He realized he might be wrong when the drone got to head height a few feet in front of the Dodge. The car’s headlights were now illuminating it clearly, revealing it fully for inspection. The dome inside had an electronics module with a lens on it that he knew could only be a camera of some sort; and it was mounted on a two direction swivel that permitted it to orient itself along any angle that wasn’t blocked by the drone itself.
And while some of the struts were definitely long enough, and arranged correctly to be landing gear; some others along the bottom of the fuselage were in fact little grabbing arms. As he watched, he saw two of them unfold away from the drone body and point straight down. They had something fluttering from the mechanical fingers at their ends, something white that fell to the ground when the fingers opened.
The drone hovered in place for several seconds as the things that had been dropped swirled down in the wash of the quad-rotors. Then it lifted abruptly and swiveled around to face the way it had come before heading in that direction. Peter blinked at how fast it was going as it retreated; it clearly had been holding back on the approach; but now it was clipping along faster than a person on foot could have matched.
“Gunny?” Crawford called.
Peter shook himself. “Smith, how we doing?”
“Clear.”
Nodding, Peter eased forward past the front of the Dodge. He looked around carefully, then knelt and picked up the first item. It was a piece of paper, folded into fourths and held closed with a paperclip. He duck walked sideways with a suppressed groan as his knees protested the effort and picked up the other item, which was identical to the first.
Standing straight once more, he looked around, then unfolded the papers and examined them in the headlights. One was a black and white printout of a road map. He examined it for a moment and managed to orient himself when he saw I-229, I-90, and I-29 labeled, along with shaded areas between -29 and -229 that had to be Sioux Falls. If he was standing somewhere on this map, then Crawford had made better time than he’d expected when he dozed off.
South of the city was a big circled X, centered on an intersection east of I-29. An arrow had been drawn in, pointing at the X. And the shaded area around Sioux Falls had several hand drawn trefoil symbols, with little stick figures next to each, that he was pretty sure of someone’s — someone with an odd sense of humor — idea of a ‘warning - zombies’ graphic. The stick figure drawings had outstretched hands, and other figures in front of them in running poses.
The other paper was a handwritten note. The writing was sloppy, but he’d read worse, and whoever had written it had taken care to write big to counteract the messy lettering.
“Friendly survivors seek like-minded others. Meet at the X if you are. ps - Sioux Falls overrun, steer clear!”
Peter straightened and glanced around, then looked toward the intersection and the clearly human activity beyond it. The drone’s lights were nearly back to the group with the flashlights. He watched as the drone dipped down, to head height before the lights winked out. Then it was all just shadows and bobbing beams of flashlights once more; no real details that he could make out.
Turning, he walked back to the front passenger door of the Dodge and got in.
“What’d it drop?” Whitley asked.
“Note, and a map.” Peter said, displaying both. “Crawford, where are we?”
“On that, or on ours?” she asked, reaching for the folded roadmap Peter had left on the dashboard before he went to sleep.
“Yes.” he answered.
“Funny guy.” Crawford grumped, unfolding the roadmap. “Okay, I didn’t want to get near the city based on your rule about avoiding urban areas, so I got off -29 about here.” she said, tapping her finger on a crossroad just south of where I-29 began entering the outskirts of Sioux Falls.
“Unless I got more turned around than I think, we should be on this road.” she continued, moving her finger as Peter craned his head to see what she was pointing at. “My plan was to just get north as directly as I could before making -90 and cutting west toward Ellsworth.”
“Where along there?” Peter asked, marking the position of the north-south road she was indicating.
“Shit, I don’t know.” she said.
“Real great navigating.” Smith said.
“Look, it’s not like it’s really possible to get lost.” Crawford snapped. “All the roads that head north eventually run into -90, and that’s what I was aiming for.”
“Shut it.” Peter ordered absently as he transferred his attention to the map the drone had delivered. If he was reading it correctly, and if Crawford was more or less correct about where she thought they were, then the X on the drone’s map was maybe five or so miles southeast.
“Okay, give me that.” he said abruptly, reaching for the road map.
“What are we doing?” Whitley asked.
“Turn around.” he ordered Crawford. Glancing at Whitley, he shrugged. “They want to meet us, let’s go meet them.”
“Sounds fun.” Crawford said with a laugh as she started backing and filling in a multi-point turn to get the car’s direction reversed without driving off the pavement.
* * * * *
“I’m cold.”
“Bitch some more, the hot air will warm you up.”
Peter looked over his shoulder in time to see Crawford twisting around on the roof of the car. She was trading glares with Smith, who had elected to walk a circle around the car rather than sit while they waited. “We can rotate through the car, use the heater.” the Marine said mildly.
“They’re taking too long.”
“So puss out.” Smith told her. “Waste some gas because you’re a wimp.”
Crawford flexed the fingers of her right hand several times. “You know, we are in South Dakota now. I know one way to warm both of us up.”
“Congratulations Smith.” Whitley said in an amused voice. “Crawford has decided to make you her new boyfriend.”
“What?” Smith said.
“Fuck you.” Crawford said to Whitley.
“Knock it off.” Peter put in, resisti
ng the urge to laugh with difficulty. Crawford wasn’t happy if she wasn’t bitching, and he was pretty sure she bitched the most when she was concerned about something. She might be somewhat as cranky as she came off, but he also figured at least part of her discontent was because of how she felt about threats and danger to the group as a whole.
“You’re next on the list Whit.” Crawford said to the other woman.
“Didn’t know you swung both ways.” Whitley shot back. “But I’m not a cheap date like Smith, you’ll have to at least buy me dinner and bring flowers first.”
“You’re losing it girl.” Crawford said with a scowl.
“Knock it off.” Peter said again. “Anyone who’s cold can take ten in the car to warm up.”
“They’re taking too long.” Crawford said again.
“It’s only been an hour.”
“How long are we planning to sit around out here in the dark?”
“A while longer.” Peter decided.
“The zombie problem isn’t that bad here.” Smith said, hefting the bundle of tool handles he was using as a hand weapon. Peter was still concerned about the ammunition situation, and where possible wanted to conserve rounds. Crawford thought it was silly, since she still had the pink AR-15 and could draw on the rounds all four had been carrying; but she also wasn’t armed with anything else except a pistol and knife. The others still had the tools and weapons they’d picked up in Arkansas.
“Take a break in the car if you need to warm up.” Peter said. “Otherwise we’ll keep waiting.”
“Great.” Crawford said, finally subsiding. She lit another cigarette and started puffing.
Peter returned his full attention to the quiet crossroads they were parked right in the middle of. A pair of two lane roads came together in a perfect north-south and east-west intersection on a landscape that was almost equally perfectly flat. Some overgrown crops were on all four corners of the pavement, weeds and whatever was left of the actual useful plants swaying lightly in the breeze.
It was cold; the temperature had to be no better than the low forties. Peter had endured worse, but he’d been younger then; and a little better dressed. If it wouldn’t set Crawford off again, he would have pulled on one of his other pairs of socks to help his feet; but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing him agree with her. He would take turn in the car with the engine and heater running if he got too chilled, but for now he could hold on.
Smith was right though; the area didn’t seem too overrun by zombies. He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that. According to the map they were only a couple of miles south of the Sioux Falls outskirts, and maybe a mile and a half west of a small little disconnected suburb town. Population figures weren’t marked on either map, but from the look of it he’d guess the suburb had been home to maybe a few thousand folks.
If he’d been asked prior to getting here, he would have opined the area might easily be prime turf for zombie hordes. He’d been prepared to see just that, and have to come up with some other plan for investigating the drone scavengers. But the area was quiet. Only a small handful of zombies had stumbled out of the darkness while they’d been waiting, all isolated singles that were easily dealt with.
“Headlights.” Whitley said abruptly.
Peter turned again, then twisted around in the other direction, and slid off the car’s hood. A vehicle was definitely approaching from the west, coming straight down the road. He frowned as the pattern of lights registered; they were far too high, and numerous, to be a regular car or truck. Briefly he considered whether it might be something flying at low altitude, but he dismissed that notion after a few moments. Whatever it was, it looked like a ground vehicle to him.
“What the fuck is that?” Crawford asked.
“Yeah, seriously.” Smith said.
Peter lifted the binoculars and focused them, trying to look past the lights. It was difficult, but he could just make out the shape of a very large truck of some sort. And ‘large’ was an understatement; it was at least three or four times taller than a standard pickup, and over twice as wide. In fact, it took up most of the two lane road as it drove along the pavement.
“I think it’s a construction dump truck.” Peter said slowly as the vehicle continued driving toward them. He could hear the engine now, a heavy and powerful rumbling diesel that was steady and calm. Only a big engine turned out that much power at such a low rpm, which reinforced his guess at what it was. Plus there was the tire noise, a distinctive humming of revolving rubber that was like a dozen cars driving in unison.
“What’s the plan?” Whitley asked.
“Stay alert, don’t let shit sneak up on us, don’t assume anything, don’t start nothing.” Peter answered.
“And let you do the talking.” Crawford sighed. “I know, I know.”
“Right.” Whitley and Smith said in unison.
“Hey fuck you both.”
“At the same time?” Whitley demanded. “Jeez, porn star much?”
“Whit, listen honey,” Crawford retorted in a tight voice, “when you’re cleaning out your ears, and there’s resistance, stop. Okay?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Peter ordered. “Watch the perimeter and shut up. Everyone.” He shot glares at all three of them in turn, taking care to not linger overly on any of them. “Pay attention.”
The crosstalk subsided, thankfully. Peter watched the truck coming closer. It wasn’t going very fast, but that just drew the waiting out further. As he stood considering the vehicle’s approach, he abruptly realized the Dodge was parked almost dead center in the intersection. That might be bad . . . he had no desire to be walking again if the oncoming super truck hit the car, purposefully or not.
“Whitley.” he said as he decided.
“Yeah?”
“Hop in the car, move it over there.” he said, pointing at the south side of the intersection. “And keep it running. Don’t get hit or run over if you can manage it.”
“On it.”
He stepped away from the car and listened as she got in and started the engine. By the time she’d driven out of the crossroads, the approaching truck was near enough for him to really be able to pick some details out; darkness or not.
It was enormous. As in, really, really, really huge. The MARTA bus they’d been using back in Georgia would’ve been a toy next to it. It was some sort of specialty construction vehicle, he realized; the size alone would’ve given that away even if it weren’t the customary yellow of American work site vehicles. It was so tall there was a staircase on the front, mounted right in front of a radiator that was the size of a house’s garage door. There was a railed walkway in front of the wall of a windshield, all of it roofed over by the protruding front lip of the dump bed that extended forward.
There were people on that walkway, and more on that forward bed lip as well. Some of them clearly had long guns in their hands or slung behind their shoulders, and most had flashlights that were clicking on as the truck got closer. Some of them were moving around, were pointing the lights in his direction, but as far as he could tell that was the extent of the pointing. No weapons seemed directed at him just yet.
As the truck got closer still, Peter blinked again as some more of the details registered. He had only a passing, academically professional knowledge of such vehicles; but as he studied the behemoth he was momentarily puzzled when he realized he couldn’t see the front tires. That was odd; they should’ve been in the range of a dozen or more feet high, and at least a third of that wide. Then he realized something had been mounted to the front of the truck to shield and cover them.
What it was he couldn’t quite say just yet, but the covers extended nearly all the way down to the ground. A gap of a foot or two had been left as ground clearance, but otherwise the tires were fully protected.
Peter was still working on that one in his head — what, why, would such a monstrous vehicle need extra protection like that — when the truck’s engine changed pitch a
nd he heard the groan of brakes. Tires like that were built beyond tough; they had to be in order to support the weight of a working machine in the rough terrain it visited. They would cost more, each, than a luxury civilian car. Even some — smaller caliber — bullets wouldn’t bother the tires very much.
The truck came to a halt about twenty feet short of the intersection, and squatted there with its engine idling sullenly. It really did take up the entire road, no joke. Any other traffic would have to make way or get hit if it tried to share the road with the truck; because there was no chance of anything except maybe a motorcycle squeezing past without kissing metal or shoulder.
Peter had his hand up in front of his eyes, shielding them against the light as best he could. The truck’s headlights filled the space ahead of it with plenty of illumination, both wide and high beams mixed in among the mounts. This close the flashlights were redundant, but he still saw some of them bobbing around on the front walkway, and then descending the stairwell.
“You guys lost?” a female voice called out.
“Lost?” Peter said, pitching his voice loudly so it would carry over the diesel’s background grumble. “No. Why, do we look lost?”
“Where are you from?”
“Georgia.”
“Georgia?” he heard several voices exclaim.
“Shhhh.” the woman said. Five people were on the road in front of the truck now, silhouettes against the truck’s headlights that gave him nothing but outlines to go on. Actually seeing who he was talking to was right out.
“Uh, is it possible to kill some of those lights?” he called. “Or maybe you could come over here and we could turn sideways to the truck and talk properly?”
“You’re from Georgia?”
“Yeah, Georgia.” Peter repeated.
“What the hell are you doing all the way up here?”
“We’re on the way to Ellsworth Air Force Base.”
“Damnit, I knew it.” a man’s voice said.
“Shut up.” the woman said. Peter, still squinting around his fingers and hand, saw one of the people walking forward. He stepped to the side as the person moved around on his right, taking his suggestion to put them face to face with the truck on one side so he could see who he was talking to without the headlights blinding him.
Apocalypse Atlanta (Book 4): Apocalypse Asylum Page 22