“Go,” Della demanded over her shoulder, “before it’s too late. You gotta go now. Here,” she said as she quickly reached down and tossed him the other backpack. He watched it sail through the air and roll to a clanging stop some yards away from him. And the last thing Neil heard her say was, “God bless and keep you, Neil.”
Hearing his name from her lips was enough to shake Neil from his stupor. He fired the shotgun several times into the horde. Della, for her part, swung the bat high above her head in lethal, swooping circles that struck head after head. In her left hand, she brandished the machete, which sliced off reaching hands that drew too close to her.
Della’s hum became a grunt which quickly transformed into an animalistic growl, but it was of no use; there were simply too many of them for her to be able to hold at bay indefinitely. She flinched slightly when a few of them made their way around the other side of the truck and began to gnaw on the slowly reawakening Steve.
Poor Steve didn’t scream, but instead only whimpered, his consciousness thankfully not completely revived. By the time his arm had been pulled ruthlessly from his body, his eyes had again closed and his breathing had stopped. Gnashing teeth rived flesh from bone, creating great red rupturing geysers which coated the inside windshield of the truck.
With both backpacks tossed over one shoulder, Neil did as he was told and left Della while she was still fighting. The concrete barricade, if he was lucky, would help to stall his pursuers indefinitely. Of course, there was always that possibility that some of the infected souls had already found their way around or over the low wall, but he would simply have to deal with those possibilities as they arose. For the time being, he needed to find Jerry and Emma and get the kids out of harm’s way.
Neil snaked in and out of a maze of parked vehicles, afraid for a few moments that he had been thrown into an adjoining salvation yard or something. He couldn’t fathom why they’d been parked so precisely otherwise. Should he be wary of some lingering, bitter, but determined junkyard dog waiting to pounce from the shadows? Could there be more than just the undead to fear in the dark?
Neil stumbled and fumbled his way clumsily through the narrow spaces between doors and fenders. His eyes wide, Neil was nearly blind in the dark. There may have been a flashlight in one of his backpacks, but he didn’t feel like he had the time to stop and search. He had to keep moving. He needed to get back to the school. They were all counting on him and now he only had bad news to bear.
After several painful strides, Neil found himself standing in what appeared to be an open lane. To his right, he saw a gate and maybe a building on the other side. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe he could get his bearings and then find his way back to the others in time to be of assistance.
His legs and back aching more with each step, Neil forced himself forward. The backpacks on his shoulder felt as if they weighed a ton and the gun in his hands weighed another. He would simply have to carry the weight. They would likely need the guns and definitely the ammunition in the future.
57.
For all the talk and the swagger shown over the past few weeks, the militiamen seemed pushed to their limit from the outset of the assault. There just seemed to be so many of the skins attacking all at once. They’d never seen anything so frightening.
The citizen soldiers watched from atop the school buses as a sea of festering soulless beasts spread out before them in undulating waves. The creatures pelted the buses with their fists and their heads, shaking the large yellow vehicles until they were no longer safe to be used as platforms. Getting down from the vehicles proved no simple task.
One young man with hopeful blue eyes and shaggy, fair hair lost his balance and had the misfortune of toppling forward amidst the hungry ghouls. His screams lasted only a few brief moments but the sheer terror of them shook all within earshot. And then another unfortunate person, this one a young woman, fell to the same fate. If Jess had been there to witness it, she would have been horrified to see that it was Francine, the pretty Native girl, who had been lost.
With the deaths, fear and doubt began to intrude into the rudimentary discipline which had been imposed upon the defenders. Cohesive and mutually supporting gunfire was exchanged for wild shots fired in manic bursts. Orders from composed group leaders were ignored and met with wild, fear-filled screams. It appeared as if their redoubt was doomed to be overrun and suffer the same fate as every other bastion, large and small, which had been created in the apocalypse.
One voice rose up above the fury to calm frayed nerves and regain control of the dispirited militia. Carter walked up and down the line of defenders, shouting orders and directing traffic. He watched the buses as they teetered on their deflated tires and threatened to fall onto their sides. Carter knew that it was time to act before he was unable to do so.
When the militia had first arrived with all of their military equipment all those days ago, several of them, Carter included, had set about preparing their defenses using some of those tools. On the outsides of three of the buses and at about shoulder height, they had taped a curious item that had the words Front Toward Enemy embossed upon it. From the curious items ran wires which were connected to small, olive colored devices not much larger than cell phones but with a working part that looked like the grip of a hole puncher. The three pieces of equipment, thought to be merely detection tools, were then nearly forgotten by everyone else in the compound.
Carter went to a small wooden box into which the wires had been led and removed the three small olive colored devices. He shouted for everyone to cover their ears and then calmly triggered the devices.
Following World War II, governments and industry devoted much of their collective attention to developing and producing new and innovative ways of conducting warfare. The approach of total war mobilized a new way of thinking, which gave birth to entire new industries and opportunities. Antipersonnel mines, too, went through an evolution of sorts with the discovery and application of shaped charges. While land mines had seen widespread use during World War II as a means to create defensive perimeters, their random nature and uncontrolled detonations proved to be somewhat problematic.
A shaped charge was simply an explosive device whose destructive force could be directed through the proper application of a solid base or backing surface typically made of steel. The blast couldn’t go through the metal surface, so it was forced to direct itself away from that surface, spreading in a controlled arc a hail of deadly shrapnel produced by the explosion. Such charges could also be controlled through command detonation or, more simply put, a soldier could wait until the device would have the most optimum effect and then trigger it manually. The design was quite simple and very innovative.
From this development arose a new type of killing tool called a Claymore mine, which saw mass production beginning in the 1950s. The mine was used in limited numbers during the Korean War but improvements in design and effectiveness increased its use in subsequent conflicts.
And, as with all things mass produced, the Claymore found its way into the black market, which was where Colonel Bear was obtained several for his own use. The olive green mines sat for years in specially designed cases in the Colonel’s storage shed waiting for their opportunity to do what they did best.
Carter had always wanted to use the Claymores and was all the more eager to detonate the explosives that night. With his head down, he touched off the mines. In three great, horrific flashes of fire, smoke, and steel, the bombs belched death out away from the defenders. An arc of death and dismemberment roughly the size of half a football field opened in three large cones spreading out from the buses.
Entire bodies of zombies simply disintegrated while others were decapitated or similarly disfigured. Decomposing limbs and torsos were tossed into the air over the ranks of the undead further back. The lull that followed swept through both the living and the living dead. No one, not even Carter, had anticipated such a raging torrent of sound and fury.
W
ith his ears ringing and his chest still pounding from the concussion of the explosions, Carter stood up and began to shout orders. He directed some of the defenders to climb onto the buses while others were sent into the buses to shoot through the windows. Much of this was done in pantomime with the aid of a flashlight because everyone else’s ears were still ringing as well.
He looked for a specific face, and finding it, he shouted, “You! Fucking New Guy, get your ass into the bus and make yourself useful.”
Alec, his eyes distant and nearly empty despite the battle in full throttle, nodded and climbed onto the bus. He was now toting a twenty gauge shotgun, which carried quite a bit more kick than the small caliber rifle he had carried with him from his family’s cabin all those weeks ago.
None of the militia had found the courage to enter the buses before, but with Carter ordering them to do so and that new kid jumping in so readily, none of them hesitated for very long. They took advantage of the lull to reestablish themselves into better positions. Thankfully, the explosive devices had worked exactly as designed, leaving the buses only scorched from the blasts but seemingly still very much intact.
The bus Alec stepped up into was filled with blinding, choking smoke, which made walking down the narrow, off kilter aisle very difficult. Alec and the others found their way onto the bus and into firing positions through the bus’ shattered windows. With the tires of the bus having been flattened, the militiamen didn’t seem to be nearly high enough for comfort any longer. In front of them was a sea of bobbing heads appearing out of the darkness and these heads were just inches below the muzzles of their guns.
Gnarled fingers reached into and around the militiamen brave enough to set about their tasks. At first Alec hesitated, his courage melting with his first choking fit as he made his way to the end of the bus. Alec’s position next to the emergency exit was more than he had anticipated. He had essentially two walls of partially broken windows to defend and a single gun with a handful of shells with which to do it.
Alec’s hands were lead weights hanging at the bottoms of his arms. He could barely feel the gun in his quivering hands. He missed his mom and his dad. Hell, he even missed his little brother. He missed being a kid without any worries beyond looking and acting cool, which seemed to be as far from his mother’s and father’s grasp as he could imagine. He missed that guns were something that he used only in video games. His head filled with all that he missed and threatened to burst at any moment. He couldn’t possibly be expected to fight.
A loud rap on the outside of the bus drew his attention. He turned and saw Carter there with a big smile and a menacing bat. Carter shouted above the din, “Don’t think! Just shoot! Remember, this is for your sister.”
Alec shook all over as his resolve struggled against his terror. With the will of a titan, he raised his shotgun, held his breath, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Again, he heard the loud crack behind him against the bus.
“Turn the safety off, dipshit,” Alec heard Carter chastise.
Alec found the switch with his thumb and fired a quick, nervous blast which sailed well over all of his possible targets’ heads.
“Remember your sister,” Carter said. “She’s counting on you.”
With the shotgun at his shoulder this time, Alec aimed better and fired a slug which plowed a furrow through the nearest head in front of him. He looked back over his shoulder but found that Carter had already moved away.
There wasn’t time to consider the departure. Alec looked to his right at the others on the bus-turned-redoubt and wasn’t filled with comfort. They all looked as ill-prepared and as terrified as he was. He couldn’t see all the men on the bus but he was fairly certain he was the youngest. The man closest to him looked to be at least his father’s age if not older. The smoke was starting to disperse, but the darkness again resumed its overwhelming crush all around them.
Firing his shotgun, Alec turned to face the advancing ghouls pressed against the bus’ metal skin. Their nails, like steel claws, raked across the painted metal, removing scorched bits of paint while seeking soft bits of clothing or flesh. He screamed as he shot the next several blasts from his shotgun. He fired until there were no more shells to discharge.
He looked to his right again in time to see another young man make the mistake of following his gun out the window as he fought to keep hold of it. As soon as the young man started out the window, his legs went vertical and then he was gone. Alec thought he could hear the man’s screams, but they may have been his own.
Alec reloaded quickly but with clumsy fingers. It wasn’t fast enough to save another from the party on the bus. There were only three of them left including Alec when they decided it was time to abandon the bus. The first man, an older guy wearing an orange hunting vest over a business suit coat, looked down toward Alec and simply turned and ran off the bus. As he fled, he ran into another militiaman and knocked him onto his back. When the second man regained his footing, he too decided it was time to depart and followed the lead from the other man. Alec, feeling very alone and all but surrounded, ran too.
He emerged from the position, fully expecting to be berated by a violently disappointed Carter, but there was no sign of him. The defense was starting to unravel, despite all the carefully scripted plans. Alec’s wasn’t the only position which had been compromised.
On another of the buses from which a Claymore mine had been detonated, the side of the vehicle had started to give way. At first, the windows fell from their frames and then seams began to open as rivets loosened and welds separated. Leaning across the larger window apertures, the unfortunate souls in that bus forced the weakened side of the vehicle free. It didn’t collapse fully like an opening drawbridge but it opened enough to spook the men and women fighting within it. They panicked and tried to withdraw, which only invited more disaster.
The storm of death around them began to rage and intensify, the dark clouds swirling uncontrollably. Scared and desperate people ran in both directions screaming and pointing and shooting mostly blindly. They shot at every shadow while from behind the shadows, the undead continued their assault.
Like frightened eyes, searchlights and flashlights scanned the ground and the heavens but found only more and more ugliness emerging from the night. Carter walked from defensive pocket to defensive pocket trying to calm his troops, but he was finding it hard to compete with the chaos.
Pulling out all the tricks at his disposal, Carter began handing out Molotov cocktails to those standing around him. “Light ‘em up! Light ‘em up!” he kept shouting.
Carter knew the battle was not going well, but also that it was far from lost. There just seemed to be so many of the undead. There simply weren’t enough bullets. They needed to get creative in dealing with them. If only he had a handful more Claymore mines. There were some more, but the Colonel had other intentions for them.
58.
There was no use trying to ignore the battle raging in the front of the school. The horrific sound, filled with terrified screams and echoing gunshots, defied Jerry’s and Emma’s best efforts. The locked gate stood between them and another smaller car lot situated around the school’s receiving area. The gate was secured with a heavy, intimidating lock and an equally imposing chain. Neither Jerry nor Emma had on them a tool capable of dealing with either the lock or the chain.
“Now what?” Jerry whispered. “Do we shoot it off?”
The shooting on the opposite side of the building might mask their own gunshot, but there was no guarantee. If a guard had been posted to cover this entrance, shooting might just alert them to Emma’s and Jerry’s presence. They could ill afford finding themselves in a firefight. They needed to get in and get out as quietly as possible. That was their only chance.
Thinking all of this in an instant, Emma answered, “No, we climb.”
Jerry, desperate to find Claire, slung his rifle over his shoulder and started to climb. The gate sagged and swayed too much, so they ascen
ded a section of chain link fence with what appeared to be a wooden fence of sorts behind it. He hooked his fingers and forced the toe of his boots into the crisscrossed openings in the stiff, twisted wires comprising the fence. He pulled and pushed himself up.
Once atop the wall, Jerry paused momentarily to survey the area. He appeared to be looking down at basketball courts but there was something else toward the middle. It looked like dog kennels or something. He couldn’t be sure but he thought that perhaps there was something or someone in the cages.
Emma, feeling exposed and vulnerable while she climbed, pulled herself up next to Jerry. She looked back over her shoulder to prove to herself that her fears were unfounded and saw nothing but empty space. They hadn’t been followed after all.
She whispered, “C’mon, let’s go find your girl.”
They climbed down carefully, though the presence of the wooden fence posed new challenges. On Jerry’s second step, his foot slipped and he fell painfully to the ground below.
“Fuck!” he screeched as the pain from his ankle and the bottoms of his feet crept up the length of his spine to his brain.
“You okay?” Emma called to him.
Shaking his head and rubbing his ankle, he answered, “Yeah, but watch that last step. It’s a bitch.”
It was darker down below the height of the wall, as if the moonlight dared not venture so deep. It felt as if Jerry had fallen into a well of shadows. He stepped tentatively through the dark hoping for dear life that he wouldn’t run into something.
Emma leapt down behind Jerry, startling him and causing him to jump. “Sorry,” she partly giggled the word in a rare moment of levity. More seriously, she asked, “Where’s your flashlight?”
Jerry felt like a fool. With the flashlight in hand, he clicked it on and pointed its beam into the gloom. The light reached out and found the kennels they had spied from the top of the wall. Both Jerry and Emma recoiled slightly when the festering, rage-filled faced suddenly filled the light. It snapped its jaws closed hungrily and aggressively several times, pressing its face roughly against the bowing fence, which gouged darkening troughs in its skin.
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) Page 29