by Ricky Sides
“You want to go for a ride, boy?” Herb asked the dog as he stroked the big animal’s head. Ox squirmed around in excitement, licking Herb’s face in response. “Okay, okay, you silly, mutt. Lay off with the tongue. I don’t need a bath,” he said.
Sheba shouldered her way up beside Ox, using her body weight to nudge him aside enough so that she could present her head to Herb for his attention. Herb chuckled at her antics and gave her ears a scratch. “Okay, you two, let’s go.”
Herb met the rest of the team at the bus. “Did you men leave the newcomers’ weapons with our security people?” he asked.
“We did,” Randy replied. Then he pointed at the two dogs and asked, “Are they going with us?”
“Yes. Erma wanted us to take them with us. I think she believes we’re having too much bad luck this trip,” Herb replied.
“We haven’t exactly gotten off to a smooth start,” Randy conceded.
“No, but we have gained a considerable number of new people the past couple of days.”
“I know. We’re growing so fast I’m afraid it might come back to haunt us. We’re increasing in number faster than our new people can acclimate to their new home. And then there’s Raman,” Randy pointed out. “He’ll be out of quarantine before we get back. I just hope he doesn’t start any problems.”
“So do I, buddy,” Herb said.
Herb instructed Jason and Ed to secure the two dogs to the seat frames near the rear of the bus to ensure that they didn’t bolt out a door at an inopportune time as Ox was accustomed to doing from time to time. “I don’t want to lose them because he smells a squirrel in the woods when we stop, and we can’t spare the time to search for them or wait until they come back to us,” he explained.
Chapter 9
On the road again.
About a mile from Hunter, Herb slowed the bus to a crawl. “You’d better get topside, Randy. I want you to take out as many of the zombies as you can while we pass through. I’m hoping the noise will draw the zombies out of Hunter and get them to following us back to the north.”
“I’m on it,” Randy replied.
“Jason, he may need additional ammo,” Herb said.
“I’ll have it ready,” Jason promised.
As Randy opened the sliding glass panel in the roof of the bus, Ox, who had been lying on the floor of the vehicle, got to his feet and lifted his nose to the air. A low rumbling growl alerted Herb to the fact that the dog sensed danger. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed that Sheba was also on her feet scenting the air. Though she was silent, her body posture indicated that she was alert and tense.
“The dogs must smell zombies,” Jason said, letting Randy know what was happening inside the bus.
“I can smell them from this position,” Randy confirmed. Then he said, “Herb, I need you to slow down a bit. I see several near that grayish house on the left up ahead.”
As he drew closer to the house, Herb slowed the vehicle so that Randy could target the zombies efficiently. “Ed, don’t let us get blindsided by any of them that might approach from our right. I’m concentrating on the targets and the road ahead.”
“I’m watching,” Ed responded. Near him, Ox growled in warning and Sheba sat up alertly and placed her front paws on a nearby seat. She looked out a window. Her hackles rose as she watched the zombies approaching.
Randy’s first shot took Herb by surprise. After that, he fired with a steady rhythm. One by one, the five zombies near the gray house fell to the ground.
“We’ve got a crawler on the right,” Ed reported. “How’d that thing get wounded? I thought everyone was out of town now,” he said.
“More are coming from the left!” Randy shouted. He fired and fired. Jason saw that a large group of zombies was coming toward the highway they were traveling, and Randy was doing his best to eliminate them before they could close the 300 foot gap separating them from the bus. Herb slowed a little more to give Randy sufficient time to dispatch the group. A momentary lull in the firing informed Herb that his friend was reloading his rifle.
“We left that crawler behind,” Ed reported in the silence as Randy finished reloading his weapon.
Soon, rapid-fire single shots began to sound off again and communication among the men became more difficult. Ed saw some zombies on the right and tried to inform Herb, but by that time, Randy was firing so fast that it was impossible for Herb to hear him. Ed could see that the zombies might reach the road before they could drive past, so he grabbed his rifle and worked the charging handle, chambering a round. He opened one of the firing ports on the right side of the vehicle, but had to wait a few seconds for the zombies to enter his field of view through it.
Ed’s first shot let Herb know that they had a problem on their right side. Herb whipped his head around to examine the area and saw the pack of zombies. Ed fired three more rounds and then closed the firing port with an air of satisfaction. “Three down on the right,” he reported.
“I heard four shots,” Jason quipped. “You’re getting sloppy.”
A scream shattered the quiet outside the bus.
“Oh shit,” Jason said. “Was someone living left in the town?!”
Herb was angry. Raman had been a thorn in his side all day, and now it seemed that the man had left one of the people of the community behind during the evacuation. “Damnit, I should have done a head count!” he said.
“I’m going to kick Raman’s ass!” Jason said angrily.
“Help me!” a voice shouted from somewhere to the rear of the bus.
“Is it safe to stop?” Herb asked his team.
“Yeah, at the moment,” Randy said.
“As far as I can tell from my side,” Ed added. Then he said, “Oh shit! Here comes a guy running up the road behind us, and he has a lot of company!”
Herb used the side mirror outside the bus to check behind him. He could see a man running toward them. Behind the man was a group of zombies that must have numbered in the dozens.
“Randy, can you cover him?!” Herb shouted.
“No! We have more coming at us from the left! Where the hell did they come from?!” Randy responded, and then he opened fire again.
“Ed, get to the back and open the door. Cover the guy from inside the back of the bus.” Herb ordered, but Ed couldn’t hear him over the firing of Randy’s rifle. When his weapon fell silent a few moments later, Herb repeated his instructions, adding a caution for the man to be prepared for a violent maneuver of the bus.
This time, Randy’s rifle stayed silent longer than normal. Herb glanced in the mirror and saw Jason handing his friend a loaded magazine. “This is going to be close!” Randy warned as he reloaded his rifle. Then he was firing once more.
Ed opened fire from his position near the back of the bus. He was shooting from the open back door. He could see a middle-aged man running toward them. The terrified man was twenty feet or so ahead of the undead that were trying their best to catch him as they moaned in anticipation.
“Help!” shouted the man who was trying to reach the back of the bus. “Don’t leave me!” he screamed in terror.
“I need to slow down!” Herb shouted to Randy during a brief lull in the firing.
Randy must have taken a look at the situation because he shouted, “Go ahead, but only for a few seconds!” His rifle began firing again, but then it abruptly stopped firing. Herb heard Randy curse and then he saw the stock of his friend’s rifle descend behind him.
Jason grabbed the weapon and Randy released the sling, letting his partner take the full weight. Jason dropped the weapon to the floor of the bus and handed Randy his rifle. The exchange took less than five seconds, and then Randy was once more firing at the zombies.
Jason picked up the firearm and checked it for function. He found that the bolt had jammed part way forward and wouldn’t go into full battery so that the weapon could fire. It took him three attempts to clear the malfunction. He tossed the rifle aside. The extractor had broken, and unti
l it could be repaired, the M4 was useless.
“Ammo!” Randy shouted, causing Jason to grab another loaded magazine and hand it to the shooter. He noted several empty magazines lying on the seats and on the floorboard. He hoped they had enough spares loaded for this engagement.
Behind Jason, Ed was shooting the zombies as the running man drew closer to the bus. When the time came that he was so close Ed couldn’t fire for fear of hitting the man, he moved closer to the door and held out his hand. “Come on and grab my hand!” he shouted.
The man was running as best he could, but he was beginning to tire. He reached out desperately toward Ed while he was still several feet away. Then he seemed to get a burst of energy and he closed the gap. He grabbed hold of Ed’s hand with a grip made stronger by his fear. Now he was half running and half being pulled by the bus. He lost his balance and fell, but Ed managed to pull hard enough to get his upper body inside the bus.
Ed backed up, pulling harder as he sought to drag the rest of the terrified man’s body inside the bus to safety. He heard Ox growl in warning, and then he felt a violent jerk on his hand and thought the man was trying to get him to let go. Then he heard a blood-curdling scream and was almost dragged from the bus as the man he was attempting to rescue was pulled back away from him with overwhelming force.
If not for Jason, Ed would have been pulled from the bus along with the man he had been attempting to rescue. Jason saw two of the fastest zombies close with the man and grab his legs. They were pulling their victim out of the bus when Jason reached Ed and grabbed hold of his belt behind his back. He grabbed hold of the back of a seat with his free hand to anchor them, and then pulled backwards with all his might. It was difficult, but he managed to pull Ed away from the door. Unfortunately, the two forces pulling on the two men were too much for their tenacious grips, and they were pulled apart.
The man screamed when his grip on Ed’s wrist was broken and the weight of the zombies holding him began to drag his body out the back of the bus. His flailing left hand encountered an obstruction and he grabbed it in the hopes of stopping the creatures from pulling him from the bus. The small hard-shell case offered no resistance as the zombies pulled hard and drew their victim from the vehicle, along with the case.
“Stop!” Ed screamed as the man disappeared.
“No! You can’t stop now! There are too many zombies here!” Randy warned. He had lowered his chair to see why he hadn’t been handed another magazine for the rifle. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw the red storage case that contained their supply of immunization shots. It was on the road near the tangled mob of zombies that were swarming over and tearing at the man the team had attempted to rescue. “Shit!” Randy yelled. He scooped up two magazines from the open bag on the seat as he headed for the rear of the bus.
“Randy, where are you going?!” Herb demanded as he watched his friend through the rearview mirror and tried to decide if they had the time to stop.
Randy didn’t answer. Instead, he kept moving toward the rear of the bus, but Ox’s chain blocked him as the big dog lunged for the back of the vehicle, pulling the steel restraint taut.
Randy stepped over the barrier and would have jumped out if Jason hadn’t placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“What are you thinking?” Jason asked. “You can’t go out there. That man is already dead!”
“The nanobots are out there!” Randy screamed by way of explanation.
“Leave them!” Herb shouted as a zombie began beating on the side of the bus in an attempt to get inside it. Then he added, “Jason, close the door!”
“Shit!” Randy screamed as Jason closed and locked the door. Now more zombies were banging away at the screen material that covered the windows. Both dogs snarled and growled, adding to the growing din inside the confines of the vehicle. The zombies could see the people and animals inside the bus and they moaned in anticipation as they tried to get through the flimsy barrier separating them from warm human flesh. They tried to get their fingers through the screening to get to the glass beneath it, but the openings were too small. Some hammered at the material with their fists trying to break through, which proved impossible.
The Army had made the modifications well. The material was supported by rigid framing that wouldn’t permit the screen to flex enough under their impacts for the zombies to make contact with the glass. The military had tested it with ball bats, perfecting the design in the process. However, a note left in the glove compartment had pointed out that it was theoretically possible that enough zombies could grab hold of the fencing material and tug at it until they tore it free. If that happened, then the zombies would find it easy enough to break inside the windows.
Herb had slowed to a crawl when he thought Randy was about to jump out of the vehicle. Now that the zombies had closed in on the driver’s side of the bus, he had no choice but to accelerate away from the area.
Ed tried to settle the dogs down while Jason and Randy worked to reload the empty magazines and collect the shell casings that had fallen inside the bus. They were hazards because they could roll under the foot of a man at an inopportune moment and cause him to fall.
“Well, this is just lovely,” Randy said irritably when he learned that his rifle would remain out of commission until they returned to the refuge.
***
Dana saw the door to her quarantine room open and she stood up as the nurse walked inside, followed by five women.
“This room will be your quarters for the night,” the nurse explained to the women.
“I thought I had to be isolated,” Dana protested. “And in case you haven’t noticed, there’s only one bed in here.”
“Some bedding will be brought in soon,” Nancy explained. “Under ordinary circumstances, we don’t place groups in one room, but we’re dealing with medical emergencies, and we have thirty plus new arrivals who need to be processed. There’s no way we can get to everyone today.”
“Well, hell, if you’re this crowded, you could let me out. You said they could be processed out tomorrow, so why not let me out?”
“Yes, but they weren’t been attacked by anizombies,” Nancy responded.
“I feel fine. Those nano things must have worked,” Dana said.
“I’m sorry. I thought you understood that it will take three days for you to clear quarantine,” the nurse explained patiently.
“This doesn’t make any sense to me. If you people are so concerned that I may be contaminated with the parasites, then why in the hell are you putting people in here with me?” Dana asked. Prior to the collapse of the country, she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a room with women like these, and she was not pleased to be sharing her accommodations with them now.
“All of these people have been injected with the nanobots,” Nancy explained. “They are in no danger. They will have to go through decontamination before they are released, just as you will. That’s standard procedure. Since you are all women, there shouldn’t be an issue with their presence.”
Dana still didn’t like what was happening, but since the efficient nurse had addressed all of her complaints so easily, there was nothing she could say that didn’t cast her in a bad light. Therefore, she resolved herself to the situation.
The nurse turned her attention to the other women. “I’m sorry the accommodations are going to be so crude, but by this time tomorrow, you’ll be out of here and assigned one of the FEMA trailers for your living space.”
“We’ll be fine in here for the night,” one of the older women responded politely.
The door opened and Dana noted that the man who entered appeared to be as flustered as she felt. She saw the barely suppressed anger on his face and grew interested.
“Hello, ladies,” Raman said. “I just stopped by to check on you before I get assigned to my room,” he added. Then he saw Dana. “Hi there,” he said to her. “You look as happy to be here as I am.”
“Just serving my time until I can get
released,” Dana quipped.
“I hope to see you when we get out of here,” Raman responded. He felt an instant attraction to the dark haired woman, who was a beauty despite the wounds on her face.
“Make a point of looking me up then,” Dana said, not making any secret of the fact that she found the man attractive and was interested in him. “We can compare notes about the way we were treated when we first arrived,” she added, looking pointedly at Nancy as she said it.
Nancy ignored the barb. She was much too busy to let Dana’s bad attitude get to her. Instead, she focused on getting the room secured, which meant the male visitor, who wasn’t supposed to be in the room in the first place, had to go. “Okay, it’s time for you to go. You’re not supposed to be in here.”
Raman winked at Dana and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and then he turned and left the room.
“Things are finally beginning to look up around here,” Dana muttered to herself as Nancy closed and locked the door.
“They lock us in here?” one of the women asked.
“Yeah,” Dana responded. “We’re more like prisoners than guests.”
“Doctor Fielding said we’d be locked in for our own safety,” one of the older women interjected.
“Who are we being protected from then? If they are locking us up to protect us from some violent people, then why don’t they have guards to protect us?” Dana asked.
“I imagine they are concerned about what would happen if some zombies got in the building. I know I’d be concerned about that if the door wasn’t locked,” interjected June Simmons, the elderly woman Herb’s team had met in Hunter.
“What zombies? These people have cleaned out all the zombies in this area,” Dana argued.
“The men had done the same around Hunter, but that didn’t keep more from coming in and it won’t here either,” June said with an air of finality.
Dana shook her head in frustration. “Let’s hope you’re right, because if you’re wrong, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.”