Zombie Rush

by Joseph Hansen

  “We got two at ten and eleven o’clock and three out by the van. Ernie’s truck is clear,” Colleen said as she watched the parking lot from the small security window in the steel door.

  “Alright, Tommy and Jen, you’re with me to the van. Ernie, you’re with Colleen. Load all the weapons you can into the back of your truck and we’ll put the rest in the van.”

  “Really, Tanner? You’re sticking me with Ernie?” Colleen said as she rolled her eyes. “Give me the keys, Ernie.”

  “Hey, nobody flares my ride but me,” Ernie said, his eyes wide and lips curled with indignation.

  “You’re shooting, I’m driving. So give me the keys,” Colleen ordered.

  “Oh… okay,” Ernie replied.

  With a nod, Colleen flung the door open and slapped her rifle to her shoulder, firing as she advanced into the parking lot. Tommy was impressed by her skills and how effectively she canvassed the whole lot in one sweep. She took out the two closest at ten and eleven with four perfectly placed headshots before she spun toward the van where she placed rounds center mass on the other three. They were down but still moving until Tanner finished them off with his 9mm.

  “Headshots,” he said. “Everything else is useless with these fuckers. Tommy, follow them to Ernie’s truck and grab us more guns and ammo.”

  “Okay, Chief!” he said and changed direction for the truck as Tanner slid the key into the door of the old van. His new angle from the parking lot showed him how many of the creatures on the street had noticed them and were heading their way.

  “You gotta hurry,” Tommy said as he slammed into Ernie at the back of the truck and pointed to the approaching horde. He grabbed what he could identify quickly, which turned out to be a 12-gauge like the one Jen already carried and a 9mm Glock. Even with a cloth bag to carry shells, he was loaded enough to impede his run back to the van where he threw the bag in the side door and climbed in.

  Avoiding the masses of bodies, Tanner headed out the back of the parking lot with Ernie and Colleen in the truck behind them. He didn’t know where they were going; he just knew that they had to get away.

  “So what’s the plan, Chief?” Tommy asked.

  “Not real sure other than getting away right now. I got a boat in the marina that is big enough to fit us all,” Tanner said with an eyebrow cocked into the rearview mirror so that Tommy could see.

  The Ojibwa man thought about it for a little before he replied. “Unless your boat is a riverboat casino that we could live on, we can only go as far as Blakeley Dam. Otherwise, we will be left in the wilderness.”

  “Nope, not a casino, just a real sturdy fishing boat,” Tanner replied.

  “I think we should try the bridge or take the highway north through Piney up to Ida.”

  “Mount Ida? Why? There ain’t nothing up there ’cept maybe my brother and his kid. No, the bridge I think is a better plan. Central Avenue so we can get on to one of the ferries if we have to,” Tanner said.

  Tommy nodded as he watched the streets around them. Like most work vans, there were no back windows so Tommy strained his neck to see out the side window what Ernie was shooting at.

  ****

  “Calm the fuck down, Ernie! Roll that damn window up and quit calling attention to yourself. Save your ammo for when we really need it. Keep in mind these used to be people for Christ’s sake,” Tanner scolded when they stopped before reaching the Ferry Road Avenue. “Take a look at the 70 Bridge; does that look right to you?”

  “Holy crap!” Ernie said as he reached into the glove box and pulled out a small spotting scope. His eyes widened and he pulled the glass from his eye before quickly turning to face forward, the blood rushing from his face giving him a sickly pallor. “Oh my god they… they’re… eating each other. They’re breaking into the jammed cars and eating each other,” Ernie said as he turned white.

  “You calm yourself now, Ernie,” Tanner coaxed. “Is there any traffic moving?”

  “Nope, most people are out and walking or running. Eastbound lane looks as if it is mostly gone; cars are smoking and other ones are burning. No way in hell is anybody getting out of there unless they take a swim.”

  “Alright, Central Avenue Bridge is our best bet. Colleen, you ride shotgun and Ernie, you’re in lead. We don’t need you shooting up the town and attracting unwanted attention.” Tanner walked back to the van and climbed in the driver’s seat.

  The two vehicles had become their foremost hope for survival. The streets were showing more vehicle husks than people—alive or dead—and forced them to weave in and out of stalled cars, up on sidewalks, down center medians, or whatever presented an opening large enough. Regardless, Higdon Ferry Road was a wide four lane with a center median that accommodated an extra vehicle, so they were able to make decent time. Tanner couldn’t help but fear for what the bridge would be like, where the shoulders were narrower and there weren’t any yards to drive up on.

  Tanner looked at the destruction that had been caused in such a short amount of time, but there was something not quite right. There just didn’t seem to be the amount of infected that Tanner expected. Over thirty-five thousand residents with between five and ten thousand tourists and surrounding areas brought the numbers real close to a hundred thousand people at any given time in and around Hot Springs.

  He scanned down side streets to see if there were larger hordes collected there, but other than a few of the living here and there, the streets were abandoned and devoid of the dead.

  “Where in the hell are they?”

  “Who, Chief?” Tommy asked.

  “The zombies… We had twenty or thirty around the station but now the streets are pretty much empty.”

  “They are moving to where the food is. Instinct is same for the dead as it is for all creatures,” Tommy replied

  “The need to feed. Everybody fled to the outskirts, so it is safe to assume that the Zs followed,” Jen added.

  “Zs, Jen? That’s a little utilitarian for a secretary, isn’t it?” Tanner replied sarcastically just before his jaw dropped slack in amazement as they rounded a curve and looked down upon the lake, “Holy shit, would you look at that.”

  The shoreline was a sea of bobbing heads, similar to looking down upon a fully packed stadium, except that this stretched beyond sight in both directions and the fans were mostly dead. Pockets of living here and there fought back with guns and clubs but there were simply too many zombies to fight at once. The remaining survivors were getting overwhelmed as more and more dead reanimated. Gunshots, screams, and squealing tires echoed through the air while small individual fires filled the air with smoke, carrying the scent of blood and released bowels. The view that Tanner had known from living his entire life there—and regarded as the most picturesque in existence—was now tainted with visions of the feasting dead.

  “The road looks pretty good though,” Jen said, trying to be optimistic. “A few vehicles here and there, but those will be easy to avoid.”

  “I can see that,” Tanner said gruffly as he struggled against tears forming due to the sun and excessive smoke.

  ****

  Startled by a loud thump in the drivetrain, Colleen, ahead in Ernie’s truck, asked, “What was that?”

  “That was military-grade Posi-Lock engaging in both axles. Uh huh, who’s your daddy now, Colleen?” Ernie’s immature voice always tried to poke through when he was putting on a show. It had become a running joke; no one really knew if he did it intentionally or not.

  “Ernie, you will never be my daddy… and don’t call me Colleen.”

  “It’s your name, isn’t it? I mean… if we’re going to be partners and all, I should be able to call you by your first name, don’t you think?”

  “I think you’ve thought about this way too much. Call me whatever you want, but get us out of here before more of these things come,” Colleen said, looking at the creatures whose heads came midway up the doors now that the lift kit was engaged.

  “No problem,
” Ernie said.

  “Kind of looking like we’re cut off before we even get going.” Colleen regarded a wall of stalled and abandoned cars between them and the first expanse over the lake.

  “This is a piece of cake,” Ernie said

  She watched as he lined up with a hatchback-style smaller car then threw a switch on the dash that instantly caused the truck to lift farther from the ground in the front. Ernie tossed another switch and the compressor switched to the back axle, bringing it up to the same level. “What the hell are you doing, Ernie? Turn around and get us out of here!”

  “There ain’t nothin’ back there for us, Colleen. The city has been overrun and there ain’t nothin’ back there but death.”

  “What was that Ernie? A Few Good Men? The Outsiders? What movie did you steal that from?” Colleen said as she felt the oversized mud tires drive over the car underneath them and flatten it.

  “Ernest’s Drive to the Island is what they’ll call it—if there’s anybody left to make movies. I said, I got this; I’ve been moving cars around my whole life and they were a lot bigger than these pieces of shit.” Ernie’s words and head bounced when they came down on the other side of the pileup to find relatively open road before them. Again he reversed and at the last minute released the pressure from the lift kit so he could line up the cars that he was to move. In a normal tone, with a wink that was so cheesy Colleen couldn’t help but warm a little to the awkward kid, he said, “Yee-haw.”

  “How old are you, Ernie?”

  “Twenty-one next month… old enough to legally do anything. I dropped out in eleventh grade, took the GED, started at the academy the same year,” he said.

  A look of confusion crossed her features; she never would have guessed him to be that young. The truck slowed down as they approached the east Marina on Grand Isle. A few zombies moved toward the sounds, and although they were not close enough to bother with, they found it hard to pull their eyes away from the horrid wounds and crazed faces. Torsos twisted from abuse; limbs hanging loosely, too damaged to move; and blood still flowing from their pumping hearts. Colleen was puzzled; her mind swept into a vortex as she pondered the implications. Grabbing the binoculars, she scanned the approaching crowd further. There was no end in sight to the sea of weaving heads. They looked strangely like a field of ripe wheat trapped within a dervish of wind in the way they moved. It would have been almost pretty if she hadn’t known was happening beneath those swaying heads. Why had they congregated? Were they simply following the food?

  She watched as Ernie put the truck in gear, impressed by the resolve on his face. She was loaded and ready but wasn’t going to open the window until she had to. The truck was beefy enough to hold its own, she was sure of it. She verified that the van was still behind and not swarmed with the infected. They knew that Chief Tanner wanted to check into the ferry situation, but the place was swarming with walking corpses; if they could still move on the roads though, that would be the best and quickest way across. The zombies coming from the east side marinas toward his truck were picking up speed when they saw food. One lurched forward in some type of jumping/falling motion that smeared his mangled face down the side of Colleen’s window, leaving a slimy red streak.

  Ernie heard the sound of rifle fire nearby, and took off in its direction. The scattered cars began to appear as if they were intentionally placed to form a funnel directing anything on wheels—or feet—to a roadblock. Colleen pointed when an army reserve marksman came into view, his rifle lined up with the infected between Ernie’s convoy and the roadblock.

  “Hit the lift kit buttons, will you please, Colleen? I think we gotta clear some of these zombies out Ernie style,” Ernie said with mock bravado and another cheesy wink. Colleen couldn’t help but smile, he was such a geek but kind of cute.

  Colleen reached over and with one hand hit both buttons at once; the truck simply grew straight up, exposing the heads of zombies for several feet back with the higher elevation. She smiled when the compressors kicked in with a quiet powerful hum mixed with a hissing rush of air before letting out a powerful burst when filled. She found herself looking down at the mass of zombies converging on the roadblock that were intent on feeding upon the few soldiers who were left to hold it.

  “It’s okay to shout out Yee-haw anytime you like, Colleen. Oh, and try not to think of the carnage too much. They’re not like us anymore.”

  “Shut the fuck up and drive, Ernie. I ain’t never going to say Yee-haw.”

  It only took a few feet before the truck felt as if it was in a vat of mud as opposed to a blocked highway filled with zombies. The wheels sprayed pulverized bone and blood up along the side and out back of the pickup, shooting giant, sporadic, red rooster tails into the air. He swerved the truck back and forth, fishtailing through the mass of bodies, taking out giant swaths of ex-humanity at a time. His truck lost traction in the bloody quagmire, spinning into a series of full three-sixties before it finally was halted by both the curb and a telephone pole.

  “Just get us out of here, Ernie. Yee-fucking-Haw, okay?” Colleen snapped as she pointed to the soldier motioning for them to follow the van through the roadblock as three others fired into the masses still converging on the soldiers despite Ernie’s efforts.

  Silently they headed toward the opening, realizing that maybe they were causing more harm than good—he was putting them and the soldiers in a dangerous situation by limiting the areas that they could fire and leaving an opening in the barricade. One splintered femur through a tire or a broken suspension or a multitude of other things could leave of them as zombie food. Colleen slammed her fist into Ernie’s thigh several times and pantomimed a slap as Ernie drove through and swerved hard to the right to avoid the two big Caterpillar D8s and four giant front-end loaders coming from the opposite direction. The giant machines, weighing forty tons apiece, moved forward, pushing cars and infected back into one giant pile. When the bulldozer backed off, the front-end loader pushed the pile of blood and steel higher until the D8s moved back in, pushing the whole mountain back out and off the edge of the bridge. A rap on the window snapped Colleen’s head around to see the snarling face of the chief.

  “Hey, you wanted him to drive!” Colleen pleaded her case before Ernie could even get the window down.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, hotshot?” He shoved a radio he had brought with him into Ernie’s chest. “From now on you don’t make a fucking move without talking to me first. Got it?” he shouted and Ernie nodded. “And you, you’re supposed to be watching him!” he shouted, putting some of the blame on Colleen.

  “Me? It’s his truck!”

  “Not anymore it isn’t; it’s just become community property. Now where are we going from here?”

  “What do the reserve guys say we should do?” Colleen asked.

  “Nothing. They’re acting on their own. Most of that equipment is from Jerry’s excavating company,” Tanner said as he pointed toward the soldiers. “He hasn’t heard from command since the initial deployment. They’re blocking this highway so they could get their families and run. Hot Springs belongs to the dead. My wife and daughter are up north visiting family, Jen is single, and Tommy doesn’t have anybody here to go look for. What about you two?”

  “We should go and check on my uncle and at least stock up on some things that he has tucked away,” Ernie said. “It’s all fenced in and should be pretty safe, for a day or two anyways.”

  “You know I’m on my own,” Colleen offered up. “I’m always on my own.” She gave herself a mental slap for being a sad sack about things.

  “Well,” Tanner said, ignoring Colleen’s sob story. “If Ernie’s the only one with a plan, then we’ll play it his way for now.”

  One of the D8 drivers walked over to the truck, slapping his leather gloves on his jeans and sending a cloud of dust into the air.

  “It’s time to think about heading out of here, kids. My boys have set the pile as well as they can. We gotta pull o
ut onto the bridge and do it again before we’re done today. Then we have to blaze a trail out of here,” the man said as if he were digging a basic septic system and planning out the day’s workload. “I wish we would have brought one of the backhoes. We could sweep this bridge left to right all day long with my big one.”

  “Is Rockwell still clear as far as these things go?” Tanner asked.

  “Oh hell no! These things are everywhere,” the man said. “Where the hell have you been, Chief? We’ve been pushing these things over the side of the bridge for a couple of hours now and the numbers never seem to dwindle.”

  “We’ve got to get to the other side. Do you know if Johnson’s ferry is still down there?”

  “Nope, Johnson took both of his bridge ferries and loaded them up with his neighbors. They’re hovering around the damn down south, waiting to see what happens.”

  Tanner scanned the southern horizon and was just barely able to see a couple large specks mixed with smaller ones. They’d set up a small flotilla, trying to avoid what was happening on dry land.

  “Shit,” Tanner said, knowing there was no way to get across the rest of the bridge, even with Ernie’s truck. They were going to have to wait and follow the bulldozers and loaders out. A shout from one of the soldiers interrupted his train of thought.

  “They’re coming back up on the islands!” someone shouted.

  The group turned to see the new horde that was focused upon them. They heard some scattered gunshots from the island, but as a whole, the entire populace appeared to have one singular focus: them.

  This told them all they needed to know; the island was a mass of dead and it was surging toward them. It seemed as if every single one they had pushed off the bridge came back at them. The physical damage done to them was not enough to keep them from lurching toward the potential meal still on the bridge.

  “We’re rollin’ out, Tanner; could use some support if you’re game,” the excavator driver said.