United States of the Dead - 04

by Joseph Talluto

  Speaking of which, the group had gotten a lot closer and were within twenty yards. I pushed the family along and then ran to scout ahead. We had reached the main road I was looking for when the first wet sounds of Z’s hitting the pavement reached our ears. I looked back and saw the hose had done the trick, tripping several zombies and causing them to trip up others as well. It was like watching dominos. Zombies in the back paid no attention that their brethren in front were hitting something and they hit it as well. If I was extremely lucky, they might bounce off that hose for a while. If I was lucky beyond reason, we might be able to make the ball fields and lose the group entirely, which would improve our chances of survival significantly.

  We turned right on the main road and moved as quickly as we could through the town. We passed abandoned early-century-style homes, some with their windows broken, others intact but just as empty. Around us, the sounds of pursuit diminished as the trailing zombies dealt with the trap I had laid for them. Eventually they would get through, but not for a minute.

  We passed side streets to neighborhoods and I could see plenty of townsfolk milling about, enjoying the night air after a cool summer rain. Trouble was, their eyeballs glowed and they wanted to eat me, so I didn’t stay for their impromptu block party. We had to keep moving.

  After passing three side streets, the town began to open up. I knew we were getting close to our rendezvous point, but we were far from safe. The houses at this end of town were closer to the street and it was easier to see which ones were home to the dead. Darkness shifted in many of them and will-o-the-wisp lamps promised something other than paradise. White flags hung on all of them.

  We moved past the open and empty fire station and I looked at the empty bays with regret. Flashing lights attract the ghouls like junkies to crack and might have bought us some time. The fire station did have one thing in it that caught my attention. Actually, two things and they came running out at us as we passed.

  Two little zombies, kids no older than six or seven, fairly hurtled out of the darkness, hissing fiercely. They raced at me and the couple and there was nothing I could do about it. The one that streaked towards me was a little boy, wearing only dirty blue pajama pants. His naked torso showed several bites and scratches and his mouth was ringed in dried blood. I jumped to the side to give myself room and waited with my pickaxe. When he came within reach I swung hard, intending to knock him down and finish him off. The pick connected right under his arms and I could hear ribs snap like twigs. He flew off his feet and skidded across the firehouse lawn, scrambling to regain his feet. I didn’t give him the chance. Following his flight, I ran up and slammed the pick into his head, closing his eyes forever.

  I quickly turned back, fully expecting to see one of the couple getting bit. But I was very pleasantly surprised to see that wasn’t the case. The second little zombie was pinned to the ground by the man kneeling on its back, while its head thrashed to the sides, trying to bite anything within reach. The man drew a large knife I didn’t know he had and with a practiced plunge and twist of the blade, the threat was over.

  The man wiped his blade and stood up as I came over. “Anybody hurt?” I asked, placing an innocuous hand on my SIG.

  The man saw my motion but ignored it. “We’re good. Thanks. This one wasn’t as fast as yours, so it was easier to deal with.”

  I looked at the man for a long second before replying. “Nice work, anyway.” I wasn’t fooled. I figured the man had some skills, otherwise he and his family would have been dead a long time ago. He was too steady for an amateur, too easily accepting of what I was doing. I had caught him watching me on occasion, not sizing me up for an attack, but looking for information that might be useful. “Let’s keep moving,” I said.

  As we stepped up again, I heard the man give a long exhale, which told me he was relieved all went well. I couldn’t blame him since I was doing the same thing.

  Fifty yards later, we reached the park district building and I looked it over with a practiced eye. No first floor windows, one metal door to the parking lot, seemed to be okay. When I reached the other side, it was obvious it would never do. The ground sloped up and reached the second floor, which had many nice big windows and a big glass door. Hmm…no. We needed to get up, someplace off the ground.

  We walked though the playground, trying our best to ignore the decaying remains of something small. There was an open pavilion at the other end that might work, provided we could get up on top. I looked back at the family and saw the woman was about done. Her arms were sagging and she kept shifting her child from one arm to the next. Pavilion it was. I went over and checked out the interior and didn’t see anything. Pulling a picnic table over I made more noise than I wanted to but it couldn’t be helped. The man had put his son down and was standing guard, holding the shotgun at the ready. I pulled another table over then a third. I hauled a fourth and managed to lever it on top of the other three. A fifth joined it, then I worked like a lunatic to get a sixth onto the fourth and fifth.

  Finally finished and completely covered in sweat, I waved the family over. “I don’t know how steady it is, but it’s what we got.” The man clapped me on the back and climbed up to the top. He waved his son up, who scrambled up and was quickly on the roof.

  I motioned for the woman to go and she climbed up slowly. Just as she reached the top, a deep moan sounded from behind us. The zombie group had freed themselves from the hose trap and had found us again. Damn. Well, we would be safe on the roof. I climbed the picnic tables and found the woman still on top. Her husband was reaching out to her to pass the baby over, but she refused to move. I had left a six foot gap between the tables and the roof, the idea being that I couldn’t push the tables over once I was on the roof, so I had better make sure we couldn’t be followed. Right now, that plan was working against us.

  “You need to jump over, right now,” I said as calmly as I could. I could see the small army of undead working their way through the playground and it was a matter of minutes before they were on us.

  “I can’t!” She cried, holding her daughter tighter. “What if I miss and fall? We’ll both be killed!”

  “Pass your daughter to your husband. You can do it.” I tried to be reassuring, but it was hard when the dead were closing in.

  She stepped to the edge, then stepped back. “I can’t” she whispered.

  Her husband was getting desperate. “C’mon, honey, you can do it. It’s just a little jump. You’ve jumped farther than this, you can do it. Please, honey, you have to get moving.”

  She stepped to the edge again as the first of the zombies reached our little pyramid. I felt the stack shift as they bumped into it, then I heard a creak as they began to slowly climb up.

  I stood next to her. “They’re coming. If you want to live, you have to jump now,” I said in a forced whisper. I looked down, and figured we had fifteen seconds to live, as dead hands reached up for us and glowing eyes hungrily stared at us. More zombies had reached the tables and the moaning was awful. I never got used to it, no matter how many times I heard it.

  She stepped to the edge again and again stepped back. “I’m so sorry, I can’t. I can’t!” She was hysterical now and screamed slightly at the sight of us being surrounded by ghouls.

  “Dammit, Jesse! Do it now!” Her husband was furious and his outstretched hand grabbed at empty air.

  “Fuck it,” I said, not wanting to be dinner. I grabbed the little girl and tossed her into the waiting arms of her father as her mother screamed at me. Spinning back to Jesse, I grabbed her under the arms and threw her hysterically over the opening as dead hands reached up to grasp at my legs. I stepped back, ran the gauntlet of dead arms and leaped over the opening, managing to get tripped by a hand that caught a little too well on my foot. I fell into the opening, but my outstretched hands were able to grasp the edge of the roof as I went. My legs swung down and knocked over several zombies who watched my dive. I didn’t wait to be chewed on, quickly used my ba
ckswing as momentum and swung my legs back up to the roof. I managed to get a foot over, levered myself up and rolled over onto the gravel surface as dead hands grasped the air where I was a second ago.

  I looked over at the picnic tables and watched as the zombies walked towards the edge and promptly fall to the ground. One tallish specimen smacked his head sharply on the edge of the roof, leaving a black mark.

  I glanced back at the family, where the wife was sobbing as her husband held her, saying she was sorry, over and over again. All three of them were crying, the only one not interested in the proceedings was the baby.

  I took off my backpack and took out a bottle of water. I drank deeply, then passed it to the family. All of them drank and the husband looked at me.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Now we try to call in the cavalry,” I said. I pulled out my flashlight, took out the clear lens and put on a red one. I walked to the edge of the roof, away from the fountain of Z’s and shined the light around three times. I waited five seconds, then did it again. I repeated this procedure twice, then went back to the family.

  “Well?” the man asked.

  “We’ll have to wait and see. They may have had their own troubles getting back to the vehicle. We’ll see,” I said.

  “So we’re just going to wait here, then?” He sounded a little agitated.

  “Jump off if you want to, but we’re safe here. They can’t get to us and in all likelihood my friends will be along shortly,” I replied, probably more testily than I intended.

  “What if they aren’t coming? What if they’re dead?” he asked, forcing me to acknowledge what might be true.

  I looked hard into his eyes. “Then I won’t leave until I kill every one of these bastards. You’re free to do what you want,” I replied.

  He looked like he wanted to say something more, but at that moment, across the baseball fields, a flare suddenly sparked up. It hovered for a minute, then flew up into the sky, illuminating the fields and the Z’s that were after us. The flare arced over the field and landed in the surrounding neighborhood, attracting the attention of the ghouls not on the picnic tables. We watched as many of them detached themselves from the group and head off towards the glowing light. I swung up my flashlight again and shined it on the dark shape I knew now was the recreational vehicle we had modified for our traveling purposes. I clicked it on several times and then put it away. I could hear a motor being fired up and when I looked up, the black shape had detached itself from the surrounding darkness and was making its way over to where we were.

  In a minute, the large RV pulled up alongside the pavilion and the roofs were nearly level with each other. I quickly transferred the family to the RV and pounded on the top hatch. The truck pulled away from the pavilion and the hatch popped open. I looked down at the grinning face of my old friend, Duncan Fries.

  “Hey, John. How’s it hanging?” Duncan said with his usual penchant for trivializing the momentous.

  “Great,” I said. “Help me with these. The baby’s sick, by the way.”

  Duncan recoiled. “Sick?” he said, his hand straying to his gun.

  “Seems like a cold, had it for a couple hours,” I said reassuringly.

  Duncan visibly relaxed. “Send ‘em down,” he said, raising his arms to help.

  I helped Jesse down first, followed by the baby, then the boy, then the father. All of them looked worn to hell and I had to admit a wave of exhaustion came over me as I swung down into the vehicle and closed the hatch.

  The family was seated at the table and I threw a wave to Tommy, who was sitting in the back area and keeping an eye on our disgusting friends as we left them. He lifted a hand from his rifle and went back to guarding our rear. I passed through the kitchen area and up to the cab of the big vehicle, plopping down in the passenger seat.

  “Nice work, bro.” Nate worked the big vehicle around a couple of objects as he made his way out of town.

  “Thanks,” I said, closing my eyes. “Anything on your end?” Outside, the rain started up again, which would slow pursuit once they couldn’t see us or hear us.

  Nate laughed. “Nothing. You managed to have all the fun.”

  “You don’t know half of it.” I proceeded to tell Nate about the whole mess, from the hardware store to the pavilion. His eyes got wide at the mention of the zombie kids, but he’d seen them before, so it wasn’t as big a deal. He thumped me on the chest when I told him about my near fall at the pavilion.

  “You get yourself killed, slick, where would Jake be?” Nate asked severely. “You’re taking some chances out here. Sarah would skin you alive if she knew.”

  I managed to look properly chastised. “I know, I know. I’m going to talk to our friends and see what they want to do,” I said as I heaved my tired self out of my comfy chair. Zeus moved his head for a pet from his perch and I gave him one just for luck.

  I sat at the table and spoke with the family for a few minutes. I gave the baby a dose of children’s medicine, much to the thanks of her parents. After a while I went back to the front.

  “What’s up?” Nate asked.

  “They’re going to get a car and head west, get away from the population centers. I told them about the towns we had found and they’re going to try and settle into one.”

  “Sounds good,” Nate said. “Hey John?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Nice work.”

  “Thanks. Maybe this is a sign of things to come.”

  “Dreamer.”

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter 14

  It was hard to fathom, in some ways, just how things turn out. Just a few months ago, Bodie California was the center of the world, a place to while away the time, not thinking too much about the future.

  But sometimes, all it takes is an idea and through sheer will and determination, not to mention a forty man backup team, that idea can come to fruition. There is a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing something through, whether it be a sound idea or a crazy scheme.

  Such was Major Thorton’s state of mind as he looked out over the Potomac River at the Washington Mall. He was standing at the base of the Jefferson Memorial, having crossed the river late last night. The only bridge that was available to him was the one that crosses the Potomac at Alexandria. Thorton and his men had discovered that most of the bridges to D.C. had been destroyed by the military in an attempt to cut off the swarming zombies. The delay had cost a day of fighting and backtracking, but after some skillful maneuvering, they had managed to cross the river and make it north. The Jefferson Memorial was the first place Thorton saw that was related to D.C., so he declared that they should stay there for the evening.

  One of the men discovered the small museum under the memorial and after the necessary precautions against the dead, they had managed to at least rest.

  In the morning, Ken wanted to move on, but listened to his sergeants when they told him that the men could use a little more rest. They had been pushing hard for the last few days, doing little but ride in the trucks and there was less chance of desertion if they just took it easy for a day.

  Reluctantly, Ken agreed and as he looked back he could see several men lounging on the steps of the memorial. It was a good idea and as he shifted his binoculars at the various monuments, he could see a great many things.

  He saw stacks of corpses used as barricades and bodies strewn about where they had been run down by marauding zombies. The roads were choked with cars and dead people, both moving and not moving and nearly every one had a bad story to tell. He could see the remains of a woman who had been dragged from her car and eaten as she lay on the hood, her hands still gripping the windshield wipers as her legs were torn off. He could see dozens of small bands of roving zombies, shifting left and right as they looked for prey. The Lincoln Memorial was pristine white in the morning, save for hundreds of black splotches on the steps overlooking the reflecting pool. There was a glittering about the entrance that puzzled Ken until he rea
lized it was the sun reflecting off thousands of spent casings. Apparently a last stand had been made there.

  Through the trees to the West was another memorial, but Thorton didn’t know what it was or if it had been a place of death as well. From his vantage point he could see a small house on a hill across the river, but it looked like it had been a last refuge as well. Scorch marks topped every window and the tan colored marble was black at the roofline. It stood about a huge graveyard and Ken was sure it was Arlington, although he had never been there. Fact was, Thorton knew very little about D.C. and had no real idea where the documents he wanted might be found. He knew there were some museums and figured they would be in one of them. He’d find it, of that he was sure.

  The other thing he was sure of was he had made it to D.C. ahead of John Talon. The zombies he had seen were still wandering about aimlessly. If another group had arrived, the zombies would surely be agitated. But since they were docile, it indicated that they did not yet know that Thorton and his men were around and no one else was either. One of the things Thorton had noticed was there was no one left alive in the nation’s capitol. Everyone had either left or succumbed to the plague. There was no in between.

  One of the problems they had encountered was the trucks were too big and beat up to make it much further. They could easily push aside a swarm of zombies, but they couldn’t keep pushing aside cars without taking some damage. After three thousand miles of hard travel, the trucks were on their last legs. But since this was D.C. and there were several military installations around, Thorton figured he’d get new vehicles without too much trouble. As a matter of fact, Thorton had planned on such a visit to resupply and to see if he could get better weapons for his men. Something heavier in caliber was what he was thinking.