Charlie stepped over to a bookshelf thrown together from scraps of wood and searched for a moment. Finally, he pulled out a dog-eared road atlas and carried it over to his bed. While Pete not-so-patiently stood and waited, Charlie paged through the book until he found what he was looking for.
“We’re going by boat?”
“Absolutely,” Pete agreed. “Cross country would take too long even if it wasn’t a logistical nightmare at this point.”
“It’s a hundred miles from the coast, Pete.”
“Hey, it’s me. Have you ever known me to go off without being certain of a plan?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I would never have tried something like this last week. But things are different now. We’ve got the support to pull it off, but more important, Charlie—the things are changing. We have to be ready for whatever comes next, and this is a big part of that.”
His friend met his eyes for a long, silent moment until he finally nodded his assent. “When do we leave?”
Pete glanced at his watch. “East gate in one hour. Pack plenty of socks and undies. It’s a long sail.”
Chapter 11
April 5, 2018
Southwestern Illinois
Z-Day + 169
The current wasn’t as strong as Sandy had expected it to be, but it still felt as though they were traveling two feet downstream for every foot of progress they made across.
Rather than take the risk of drawing attention, Jason and Richard had spent the prior evening removing the outboard motor from the Ranger fishing boat they’d chosen to make the jaunt across the river. Now, as Sandy, Jason, and Richard augmented a couple of electric trolling motors with paddles, he wondered if the silence was worth the lack of speed. At least they didn’t have the dead weight of the outboard to deal with—though he wondered if they might not want it at some point should they needed to make a quick escape.
His arms ached with fatigue already, and they were almost halfway across the river. “How wide is it here?” Sandy asked, resisting the urge to stop paddling.
“Bridge was over two thousand feet,” Richard managed. “That’s what, almost half a mile? Yeah.”
They paddled a bit more in near-silence. With the engine, swivel seats, and a few other odds and ends removed the boat itself was fairly light, though unwieldy. “Should have used canoes,” Jason muttered.
“We don’t have any,” Richard pointed out. All at once, Sandy cursed. The other two paused in their efforts and glanced at him.
“We should have left the outboard on,” he said. “We could have headed upstream for a couple of miles, then drifted back. If any tracked in on the noise, they’d be looking in the wrong place.”
Jason groaned. Richard stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Well, shit. Next time.”
“Right,” Sandy agreed. He half-considered suggesting they turn around, but the opposite shoreline was getting close. After a few more minutes of paddling, Jason shut the trolling motors down and took hold of a long pole. He peered into the water and eased the pole beneath the surface as though leery of stirring some sleeping monster. Sandy considered the murky water and tried to tell himself that the current was fast enough to carry any sunken infected away.
Of course, the sunken wreckage of the fallen bridge was already starting to gather debris. At some point, something more threatening than wood and trash was liable to wash up.
Levering on the pole, Jason scooted them up into the shallows and hopped out of the Ranger bearing the bow line. They’d steered in under the western span of the fallen bridge. The sudden shade brought a chill to Sandy’s skin.
The boat scraped on the bottom. Richard and Sandy got out on opposite sides and hauled it further up while Jason took in the slack on the line and looped it around one of the massive concrete cylinders that supported the bridge. He tied it in a loose shoelace knot. If they needed to run for it, they’d be able to release the line quickly, but it should be secure enough to keep the boat from washing away.
If it does go adrift, we’re screwed.
The area under the bridge was tidier than Sandy had expected. A graveled path with intermittent railroad timbers for steps led down from the road, and there were a handful of boulders in the shaded area of the bank. Jason pointed one out. “Caught a mess of crappie off there last year. If this area is secure enough, we should bring some poles over some time.”
“That’d be a damn sight better than stale potato chips,” Richard said. Sandy didn’t reply, though his mouth watered at the thought. He’d generally passed on seafood before the outbreak, but after months of eating stale, prepackaged food or out of cans, it sounded close to heaven.
He checked that his pistol was loose in the holster and pulled his softball bat from the cubby where he’d stashed it in the Ranger. Jason had one of Pat’s deer rifles slung over his shoulder, but they had limited ammunition for it. He carried a fire ax in his hands to make up the difference. If they had to shoot their way out, it was bad news anyway. Sandy had given Richard the pistol-grip shotgun from the RV. In lieu of any other weapons, he toted a small satchel of tools over one shoulder. “Lead the way, Jason,” Sandy suggested.
“Slow and quiet, guys,” Richard added.
Jason took point and headed up the trail. Despite his slow steps, the gravel crunched under his shoes. With the backdrop of the river behind them, they at least had some cover.
Sandy’s mouth was dry with tension, and he tried to keep himself from looking everywhere at once. Save for the graveled path, the slope of the bank up to the road rose at a sharp angle. Any infected that didn’t come straight down the walkway at them was going to end up tumbling ass over teakettle through the long grass. If he could have forgotten about the possibility of sudden death, the clear skies, sunshine, and chirping birds would have it a fine day indeed.
Jason reached the top of the cut and eased his head up for a peek. He drew it back fast, but despite that, when he turned back to look at Sandy and Richard, his eyes were wide and his face was pale.
The youngest man was silent until Richard whispered, “What? Is it clear?”
Jason swallowed and nodded. Sandy adjusted his grip on the bat and followed right behind Richard as he moved up to Jason’s level. Together, the two men took their own look at the road.
The National Guard had assembled an inward-curved wall of concrete Jersey barriers across both lanes of the bridge. A trio of olive-drab painted Humvees sat right up against the inner arc of the wall. Sandy guessed that had given the assemblage a bit of stability. Since the wall was still intact, the position of the vehicles must have fulfilled the intended purpose.
The persistence of the construction was cold comfort for the men and women who’d manned the blockade.
The pile of skeletal remains started a good twenty feet in front of the curved wall. The mound grew in height as it drew closer to the barricade, limbs, ribs, and skulls interweaved into an unrecognizable mess of human detritus; a literal wave of bone coated in scraps of rotten flesh. The torn remnants of clothing fluttered here and there in the breeze.
The stink must have been ungodly. Sandy realized his jaw was hanging open and he closed it with a soft, abrupt pop as he continued to study the remnants of the doomed last stand. The wave of bones rose and crested over top of the Jersey barriers. In some spots, they covered the Humvees to the roof line. Piles of spent brass winked in the sunlight. The barrels of heavy machine guns sagged down on all three of the big trucks, though the turret stations were empty on all save the one closest to them. The skeleton still wore shreds of camouflage fatigues and a helmet, but lay half-out of the turret, prone on the windshield. The exit hole punched in the helmet and the locked-back pistol still clutched in one desiccated hand told Sandy all he needed to know.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Richard crossed himself.
“How many?” Jason asked. “Hundreds?”
Sandy scanned the bone
slope. “Thousands.” He started counting skulls and gave up after he got to twenty just on the hoods of the Humvees.
“Go tell the Spartans,” Jason muttered.
Sandy shook his head. “They rang the damn dinner bell for them. Big guns like that, you can hear them going off for miles. They died hard, but they also died dumb.” He glanced at Richard. “Where’d they all come from?”
“Louisiana, I’d guess. Is it all of them, you think?”
“If we’re lucky. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up.” Sandy studied the blockage. “How are we going to get back behind the wall?”
Jason pointed at the side of the bridge. “If we take it slow, could we shimmy along the side until we’re past the barricade?”
Richard made a face. “That’s one hell of a drop if you miss a step.”
“So, don’t miss a step,” Sandy said. Jason snorted and Richard rolled his eyes.
No one else seemed to want to make the first move. Sandy slung his softball bat over his shoulder and eased off the path. Stymied by the wall, some of the attacking infected had spread out, but the drop-off on either side of the bridge had thinned out most of those. A few still lay in the grass here and there. He tiptoed around the skeletons after confirming each was truly down. “They don’t rot, really,” he said loudly enough for the other two to hear. “Any damage you see is usually a wound they’ve suffered before the infection takes over. But once they’re down for good, whatever is keeping them up and moving switches off, and they decay.”
“You got close enough to see that?” Richard had fallen back, but he was close enough to Sandy that he didn’t have to raise his voice.
“I spent last fall and most of the winter watching them and taking notes. Not like I had much else to do—I went through all the reading material in the office pretty fast.”
“That’s screwy,” Jason grumbled. “Zombies should rot. That’s how it works. If they don’t rot, how long are they going to be around for?”
“Don’t call them zombies,” Sandy snapped. “There’s a scientific explanation for what’s happening, and that cheapens it.”
“What is it?”
He picked his way through the weeds, quiet in thought as he tried to think of a way to explain. When he reached the edge of the bridge he admitted, “I don’t know.”
“I’m still calling them zombies.”
Sandy sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He studied the side of the bridge. There was no pedestrian walkway, as he’d seen before on larger spans in cities. A metallic fence made up the exterior wall of the bridge, suspended within the frame created by the trusses. The horizontal members were just wide enough to walk on, though he’d have to balance himself by holding onto the rising truss at first. By the time the truss reached too far above his head to hold, he judged that he’d be past the barricade and would be able to reach across to the fence and climb over.
Sandy didn’t even realize he’d taken the lead until he was out on the support. The bank wasn’t too far below him, but it sloped enough that he didn’t think that he’d enjoy the experience if he lost his footing.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
With his hands over his head, holding onto the arc of the first truss, he glanced across and noted that he was right at the rear tire of the closest Humvee. Close enough, he judged. He ensured that he had his balance, then brought one arm and then the other down and reached out to grasp the top of the bridge wall.
“If I was any shorter, this would suck,” Sandy muttered. He two-stepped off the outer support and put his toes on the bridge deck. He took a deep breath to steel his nerves and clambered over.
“Touchdown,” Richard said. “The crowd goes wild.”
“Right.” Sandy grinned. He unslung the softball bat and studied the area behind the barricade. If any infected had gotten past the vehicles at the barricade, they’d stumbled off the broken edge. The only bodies he saw were still and skeletal. All wore the remnants of military uniforms. Tents and crates littered the bridge, though the wind had blown over or collapsed most of the former. Sandy eyed one that was still standing and fingered the handle of his bat.
Feet scuffed on the bridge deck, and he looked over his shoulder. No matter how clear this part of the bridge looked, the presence of the shotgun in Richard’s hands eased his anxiety. They waited while Jason climbed over, then huddled.
Sandy went first. “How do we want to do this?”
“I sure don’t look forward to trying to haul anything back the way we came.” Jason shook his head. “And how the heck are we going to clear a path, even if any of the Humvees are drivable?”
Sandy grimaced at the thought of the rotting, stinking mess in front of the barricade. “We take it one step at a time. First thing we do, we clear this area. Nice and slow, see if there’s anything of use.”
“Works for me,” Richard said.
“Let’s work our way back,” Sandy suggested. “Make sure the dead are dead, and then we’ll come back from the edge and check the Humvees last.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jason agreed.
The three of them spread across the lanes of the bridge and crept forward, picking their way through clusters of tarnished shell casings. In the end, their caution was unnecessary. The dozen or so bodies they found were well and truly gone. Anything mobile on the bridge must have gone over the edge long ago.
“Tents?” Sandy wondered aloud. Jason shrugged.
Richard frowned. “Maybe, maybe not? How bulky are they?”
After messing around with one for a few moments, they decided that they weren’t worth the effort to pack up. After six months in the elements, seams were starting to fray and tear. They tossed the tents over the side to clear some room out. Sandy felt guilty about littering for the barest of moments until he recognized the inanity of the sentiment.
For the most part, the bodies were long dried-out, but it was still a gruesome job. Load-bearing harnesses were useful, as were the pouches of magazines and ammunition. Blood and other foulness stained many of the bits of gear. They would have to be boil or clean them somehow, but Sandy insisted they take them, nonetheless. A pile of equipment began to grow on one side of the bridge.
Most of the weapons had visible spots of rust, and Sandy had a tight, nervous feeling in his chest as the three of them retrieved and stacked each weapon. “We’ll figure it out,” Richard muttered. “If nothing else they’re good for parts.”
The crates were the most useful thing they found—while the defenders had broken the seals on a few, the remaining contents, for the most part, were still good. The first crate they opened was a bit disconcerting. It was full of rolled-up, olive-drab body bags. Sandy gave Richard a look and asked, “For the infected? Or something else?”
The other man shrugged. “Who knows. Army logic sometimes isn’t.” He pulled one of the bags out and fingered it. “Case in point. That crate over there? Claymores.” Sandy shrugged in confusion, and Richard smirked and shook his head. “Antipersonnel mines,” he explained. “Devastating at close range. Surprised they didn’t string them up along the concrete barrier. Bet the officers wouldn’t give them clearance to use them.” Richard glanced toward the siege line. “Might have been the same dumbass who called for this roadblock.”
They moved on, continuing to assess the contents of the crates. Metal cans of ammunition hissed as Sandy broke the seal and lifted the lids, revealing stacks of cartridges in stripper clips. The green-painted tips of the rounds made for an odd contrast with the copper coloration of the cases and bullets.
“Yes,” Richard drew out. “Steel-core M855. They’re little, but they’ll go right through bone, baby.” He patted Sandy on the back.
Sandy gave him a curious glance, and the other man shrugged. “Hey, I wasn’t always a boat salesman. I did a stint in the Army, back in my younger days.”
The crates that didn’t contain ammunition contained something even better—food. They po
pped the lid on a clustered quartet of boxes and looked down in stunned delight.
Various terms and identifiers stamped on the cardboard boxes inside were foreign to him, but one was recognizable even to Sandy. MRE—Meal, Ready to Eat.
“Three lies for the price of one.” Richard chuckled and tapped the boxes as he counted them off.
“How many are there?” Jason wondered.
“Eight boxes per crate, twelve meals per box,” Richard announced. “That’s, uh.” He started counting off on his fingers.
“Ninety-six meals per crate, that’s three-eighty-four total,” Sandy interjected. “Divided among eight people, that’s forty-eight. Sixteen days?” He looked at the crates and felt like crying. It looked like so much more than two weeks’ worth.
“More than that,” Richard replied. “Kids can split one and to be honest, we can make do on two a day. That takes it to twenty-seven days.” He shrugged. “Better than nothing, huh?”
“I guess,” Sandy murmured. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but the find was somehow disappointing. It was still a lot more than they had, though, so he supposed he should feel good about that.
“More important, how are we going to get all this back?” Jason wondered out loud. He lifted up one corner of a crate. “It ain’t heavy, but it ain’t exactly light, either.”
Richard shrugged. “We’ll have to cache it under the bridge and make a couple of trips. Anything that isn’t water-tight, we can zip it up in the body bags. They should keep the elements out of the way. There’s so much stuff that we’ll have to do it in stages. We’ll swamp the boat if we try to bring it all over at once.” He pointed to the trio of vehicles at the barricade. “Let’s check there, see what else we can find.”
Sandy scrubbed at the dust-coated rear passenger window of the middle truck and squinted inside. Other than equipment and piles of used brass, the interior was empty. “Looks good,” he said. Richard popped the rear hatch and climbed inside.
A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2) Page 11