“So what do we do? I mean… what are we supposed to do?” Lisa asked.
“What can we do?” Benson added.
“You can survive these next twelve hours in particular, and then take back your city. That is what you have to do,” the major said point-blank.
“But…” Lisa stammered.
“I think that you’re expecting a little too much, don’t you?” Benson interjected.
“I didn’t sign up for a full-scale war,” Brett added.
“What are you going to do then? If you think the building market was slow in 2007 you can imagine how good it is going to be now.” The major interjected his own brand of sarcasm, bringing a little light on to the situation of how hopeless things are and will be. “Look, we’re an army that is run by citizens and filled with citizens. You, my friends, are citizens so… welcome to the army. The war is on your doorstep and you”— he looked at Lisa—“are the man in charge. I didn’t do that… you did. You also have to keep spreading the word on the radio for as long as that holds up.”
“What do you mean?” Lisa asked, feeling like she was the butt of some sick joke.
“You have followers now, Lisa. People who are thousands of miles away are struggling just to hear what you say next. As long as there is a satellite connection, your broadcasts will be heard. Tell them how to survive, tell them what to do, how to kill these things and find food, and tell them not to take any shit in the process.”
Benson looked at Lisa with a tight-lipped smile; things were getting way out of control and he was just going to have to watch things for a while.
****
Loud music and the intense flashing of strobe lights were the first indication that the zombies had arrived in force. Lisa’s jaw was still on the floor after hearing what the major said.
“It’s show time,” Brett said as he got up. He made to head back to his father’s side then he stopped. “There is a Teledyne over there that should get ya’ll high enough to see what is going on.” He finished just as a soldier arrived to talk to the major. Brett headed off towards his father, knowing that he had other things to focus on.
“Sir, the hospital has been cleared for the most part and we were lucky to find a couple doctors and other personnel surviving in many of the rooms. The ER doctor, nurses, and a PA were lost early on, which sent the others into hiding.”
“Good job, Captain. Now we need a bird up there filming the attack. Put it out on a live feed to the satellites so that maybe somebody else can see it and learn something.”
“Roger that, sir,” he said and ran to a small two-person helicopter parked on the landing pad behind the hospital with the pilot still in position.
“So how do we feed so many people long term?” Lisa asked as they all stood to walk over to the man lift.
“Scavenging at first; if you don’t eat it, it will simply rot and smell. I would focus on the warehouses and leave the grocery stores to whatever is left of the wandering populace. Eventually, sooner rather than later, you are going to have to secure crops and livestock.”
“What about you? What are you going to be doing?” Benson asked, not accusingly but close.
“I am sure that I will be playing my part, whatever that part may be. Shall we?” the major finished as he indicated the open gate of the man lift.
Lisa looked out over the parking lot, seeing the vast amount of people still working on closing off the wall to hold back the oncoming horde. Skit and Buck worked together at putting tents and canopies up as others manned grills, where food was being prepared. Her vision broke the wall’s edge and she saw the mass of corpses that had found them and she was thrown aback by the contrast. Inside the encampment it appeared to be a picnic setting as the living hustled and bustled back and forth each with their own little jobs. The scent of sizzling brats and Italian sausage on the grill as others put out tables looked as though it was an outdoor patio at a sports bar. A row of tents was appearing in a hurry and people bustled in and out of the hospital. If it wasn’t for the dojo boys getting ready to clear Sam’s Club, she would have thought it was a company event or sidewalk sale of some sort.
A simple one-eighty was enough to dispel that misconception. Bright strobe lights and the blaring sound of Slayer ripped the air, attracting a mass of black and gray dead people highlighted with a brackish red. The stench of expelled lacerated intestines overwhelmed the other odors but there was the sickly sweet corpse funk underlying everything. Moans like the sounds of millions of wasps could be heard beneath the blaring music. None was louder than the next, simply an emotionless drone devoid of personality or pain.
They were fifteen feet above the trailers now and looking directly down at the mass of thousands that were piling up against the outside point of the trailer corridor. Several had already crested the lip of the outer walls of the two grain trailers that met at ass ends and formed a point or dead end to the corridor. Bodies poured into the side trailers, practically filling up the insides with zombies before they would spill out the other side and into the encampment where shooters would take them down as the telescoping platform with the speakers and strobe lights pulled back. Thirty then forty zombies were on the ground inside when large cables lifted from the ground, pulling the ass end of the second row of trailers together, closing them off once again, and leaving the first set of trailers as an island of writhing bodies amongst the swirling mass of past humanity. A new point formed and the Zs were forced to start their piling climb all over again.
The controller in the lights lift suddenly fired three flares into the air in high arching trails of light that issued a screaming whistle until ending in the flash of high-end fireworks to drift down on the ravenous agglomeration. Lights from skid loaders, huge backhoes, front-end loaders and all sorts of other equipment sprang to life as the strobe stopped, the sound of diesel engines adding to the orchestrations of rock music, moaning dead, and a busy camp. The zombies seemed stunned at first but the men in the equipment knew what they were doing and were soon mowing down the zombies as if they were nothing less than grass.
“They must have balls of steel to sit there as the horde passed them, separated by a little glass and steel. I have to say that I am more than impressed,” the major said.
“So was I when I saw Larry take on a horde by himself in an alley with nothing but his skiddy. That looks like him right there.” Lisa pointed at a small orange and white chunk of steel. He was whirling in a circle with his bucket at head level then driving back and forth over the piles and slamming his bucket down on heads, making sure none could survive before moving out into the ranks of undead. His little machine was covered in black and red spray patterns as he continued his devastation, taking out ten or fifteen every time he stopped to spin.
A front-end loader lifted the back of one of the abandoned trailers filled with zombies, flipping it upside down and crushing everything that may have escaped. They weren’t as maneuverable as the much smaller skid steers, but what they lacked in agility they made up for with speed and weight. Taking large swaths out and even decapitating with thousand-pound sharp-edged buckets as they drove back and forth with their impenetrable tires. A few of the zombies did manage to climb on board and when they got to be too much, the operator would speed off and shake the majority off. The engine air intake was high off the ground and the risks to the machines were minimal when matched up against flesh and bone. Then they would simply roll the trailers as if they were logs, crushing everything in their way.
“Holy crap!” the major said in amazement as Benson and Lisa stared on in shock at the efficiency of the heavy equipment.
Snipers from inside the encampment—also on man-lifts—started firing on the ones who were gathering and bogging down one machine or another. Their damage was minimal compared to what the machines themselves could do but it did prevent swarming. This was a hunting area and many survivors had arrived with their own 30-30s or 30.06 and even a couple of .45/70s, so most were experienced e
nough shooters to not put the drivers at risk. High-tech scopes graced a lot of their weapons as well as high-dollar ammunition.
Backhoes stayed stationary and worked in a back and forth spinning pattern, stretching their buckets out in any direction for up to a hundred and twenty feet. Most had buckets or metal shears that could half a Ford truck in a matter of seconds. Many zombies were hit multiple times and large piles had large sections of the hydraulic arm turning the ground to undead mush, every piece was solid steel and weighed hundreds—if not thousands—of pounds. A human skull or any other part of the anatomy simply could not withstand contact with such devastating force and they were smashed and splattered all over the lot with hundreds being picked off the machine’s body by snipers in the distance. Drivers were all locked behind steel and glass that was rated to withstand blunt force from things well beyond the capacity of a human body to deliver.
Lisa and Benson soon joined in on the shooting as the major recorded what he could on his phone. The helicopter flew overhead, appearing as a roving dragonfly hovering over the entire mass, filming the attack. Over five thousand zombies were killed in the first foray and they all knew that more would be coming soon. A couple of diesel tankers that were far beyond the walls fired up their lights, showing that they were open for business. The skid loaders headed over for a fill and a spray down to keep air intakes clear before taking defensive positions on the outskirts as they awaited the next onslaught. Thanks to CB radios, they all knew when and where that would be coming from. The vans with their blaring music were pretty much directing traffic to where they wanted it though they couldn’t determine how many were coming at any given time.
Front-end loaders quickly cleared the field of dead bodies, creating another obstruction of corpses just a couple of blocks away and right in the path of the next approaching horde. The operators had no fear of the zombies; the human body is simply not designed to withstand the weight of steel coupled with velocity and the sheer awesome strength of hydraulics. Fluid pushed via pump and engine through hoses as little as a half inch thick in the hydraulic lines, moving several tons with ease against flesh and bone, no… their fears came from somewhere else entirely.
These were builders and excavators; some were ex-soldiers but most were not. Most were passive workers who wanted their cable TV, weekends on the lake, and a nice restaurant once a month. The thought of destroying and disposing so many bodies of what used to be their neighbors weighed on each and every one of them. So much blood and flesh caked their tools as they sat inside a heated cab listening to 1430 AM. The DJ relayed the events in front of the Sam’s Club in detail, hoping that others would pick up on the tactic and maybe more lives could be saved across the country.
Soon they shut down and waited, trusting in the viscera covering their machines to camouflage the scent of a living human inside. The collapsed corridor of trailers was restored to do it again, and the men were left to their own thoughts and bratwurst, which had been run out to them on the local roach coach.
****
Trapped in a tiny cab in the middle of blood-washed buildings with the stench of death and spent bowels all around him, Larry took another bite of his brat. Well… a man’s gotta eat, he thought as he waited inside his cab musing about how he was going to invoice the city on this one. He thought about how many contracts he was under the gun to get accomplished before full-on summer set in. I He would miss out on all of that money; on the other hand, money didn’t mean the same thing as it did twenty-four hours earlier.
A zombie stumbled along its path right in front of him and he was tempted to send all his rage into the obliteration of this one Z, but he knew that was not the plan. Larry, like so many others, had already lost so much and it pained him beyond imagining. He thought back to the lack of emotion on his sister’s face this morning before he caved her head in with a lamp. Then he watched as his pregnant wife reanimated after his own sister had fed on her. He had never hit Chelsea, never wanted to; it just wasn’t in him—until she came at him, moaning with that look of hunger in her once-living eyes.
He hit her halfheartedly with the lamp and backed away as she continued to pursue him, her only desire to bite. Her jaw worked feverishly as if she were already chewing on his flesh. He hit her again, harder and the lamp broke into two pieces yet still she pursued. He ran to the garage where he had shoved his son inside and locked him up until he figured it all out. His son still pounded on the door trying to get in; his moans feverish and his hunger relentless.
Larry hit the door hard, knocking his only child to the floor. He knew that it was no longer his child. His son was gone. His son had become something obsessed with eating living flesh and it was up to Larry to put him out of his misery. He wondered who truly was feeling misery as his wife whom he adored and the boy who he always considered to be the perfect child advanced on him. His beloved family didn’t look miserable; they looked hungry. The misery was within himself and but he couldn’t leave them as something less than human. He wrapped his hand around the blue, rubberized, steel handle of his Estwing camping axe and brought it to his shoulder. He then used the head to push his son down to the ground so he had time to line up a clean swing at Chelsea’s temple. With a solid crack, she fell to the ground in a heap and lay there unmoving.
There was no rage or pain in his son’s eyes after having seen his mother’s head bashed in. There was only hunger. He advanced as if it had never even occurred. The only pain in the garage was Larry’s and he hated himself for what he had done. Toby advanced and Larry brought the axe high over his head and waited for the ten year old to come within range.
Now he sat in his skid loader as the first line of defense of those who had survived the first few hours of the zombie infestation. He didn’t worry about seeing his friends or neighbors—he had ran over most of them just getting out of his subdivision. Now, watching as the horde filled up the area outside of Sam’s Club, he wondered why he should keep on fighting. He had nothing; everyone he loved was dead and he owed nothing to anybody, so why did he insist on fighting? He decided that it was for retribution. Somewhere there was someone or something where he could extract a little revenge and he would live to see that day. Once he extracted his pound of flesh, then he could die. But until then it was war.
They were inside the walls, stabilizing the encampment that he now protected, and he wondered if there was one soul out there who was surprised that the ever-prompt landscaper never showed up on their job this morning. He chuckled as he slammed down the last bit of coffee before he settled to his immobile state to await his cue in the battle once again. His voice chuckled as he forced funny thoughts into his head, but his eyes streamed with tears. His life was a living paradox, a confusion of right and wrong battling within him as he waited. More would come so he waited. He would destroy all that he could in honor of Chelsea and Toby; it was all he could think of and, in truth, it was his last grip on reality. He waited for his turn and hoped that he would die clean or the pain would stop tearing him up inside.
Soon they began to trickle in as the loud music poured from the speakers, the strobe lights drawing more to the corridor that was ready for round two. He checked the location of his axe just in case he had to bolt from his rig, but he didn’t think anything made of flesh and bone could stop a fully powered skid loader. The physics were abnormally stacked in his favor.
****
“I highly recommend that you drop that pistol, mister. You have three experienced rifles trained on you, and one of them is big enough to sink that tub you call a boat.”
Ally smiled at the man’s attitude almost as much as she smiled at the fear on the other man’s face. Not only did the newcomers have the drop on them, but they out-gunned them too.
“Hey now, everybody just calm down; we were just trying to help the ladies out is all.”
“It doesn’t sound like they want your help anymore. I can’t see why a complete stranger would call you a rapist unless they had a reason.�
��
Ally was tempted to jump in but saw Elise shake her head and purse her lips, telling Ally to just stay silent and let this work itself out.
“It was just a misunderstanding is all, huh? And just trying to help them out too? It doesn’t sound like you have too much invested in this situation so you won’t mind packing it in… will ya?” the newcomer asked, leaving no doubts that it wasn’t a question.
“Naw, I don’t mind a bit one way or the other,” he said as he holstered his sidearm and threw his boat in reverse, backing out into the river. The men on the other boat watched them until they were far enough away to avoid being taken off guard by a chicken shit shot before he turned to the girls.
“What can I do for you two then?”
“We need to get to the police down in Hot Springs.”
“We know right where they are staying. Crawl on up here. Here… let me give you hand. That’s quite a bandage on your head; it’s bleeding through.”
“Yeah, I only had a little bit of gauze,” Elise replied.
Ally ignored the conversation and introductions, as she was suddenly starting to feel very queasy. “Is there a place I could lie down?” she asked as she looked toward the miniature stairs that led down into the bow of the boat.
Chapter Thirteen:
Questions and answers
“How can you even think of eating right now, especially meat? Ugh,” Lisa said with her head in her hands.
“It ain’t easy; could you pass me the sauerkraut, please?” Benson replied as he chewed on his first brat. She passed him the condiment and then just stared at him for a while until he got a little uncomfortable.
“Why are you staring at me?”
“Why? We just fought a war today and it has left me physically and emotionally drained and you look like you are ready to run a marathon,” Lisa said. She meant it as a compliment but she could tell immediately that it wasn’t taken that way.
Zombie Rush Page 22