by Paul Hetzer
“We wouldn’t make it to the door, but Kera had the sense to pick up a chunk of concrete and bust out a small front window. She and Amanda climbed through. I shot two more that were almost on me and then climbed through the window. The crazies were trying to get through behind me and I smashed them in the face with the butt of the gun and knocked them back out. We could hear them all around us. The glass front doors looked like a scene from some horror movie with all the bodies of these crazy people pressed up against it, clawing and biting at the glass. They were at all the windows banging on them, trying to break in. I told the girls to see if there was a back way out of there, otherwise we were ghoul food.
“More tried to come through the window and I started shooting them hoping to clog it up with bodies. Amanda said there was a back way out, but it was a steel door and chained shut. I knew then we were done for, but I was going to take as many of those punk motherfuckers with us as I could!” Frank was back on his feet in his excitement at the telling of their story, his hands waving wildly, expressing the emotions of those moments.
“Another window broke when a crazy put his head through it. A shard of glass still embedded in the frame sliced into his neck and it looked like he was trying to take his own head off. I obliged him and shot it off for him. They had thinned out around the front door and that’s when I heard Kera scream. One of those crazy fucks was charging the door full force. I shot at about the same time he hit the door. Then they just started pouring in. I took the head off one more and then I was empty. I started swinging that thing like a club. We ran to the back side of the room to where there was a door, but it led to a storage room.
“I clubbed two or three more to the ground before we got in the room and got the door closed. Last thing I saw was dozens of them pushing into the room. We shoved an old soda cooler in front of the door when they started beating on it from the other side. I didn’t think it would hold long and there was no place else to go. We were fucked.
“Then the shooting started outside. I thought the military had arrived because it sounded like a bunch of people were shooting. I was praying for that door to hold just for a bit more. A few more shots came from outside the door and it got real quiet and that’s when I called out to our saviors here, Steve and Holly.” Frank bowed to us earnestly.
Holly, Jeremy and I had been so enthralled with their stories we hadn’t spoken a word during their long narratives. The sun was sinking toward the western sky, but we probably had about five hours of good daylight still. I told them our stories on how we ended up here at the right moment to pull their asses out of the fire. They liked the moniker “Loonies” for the infected, and both girls actually giggled when I said the name the first time.
I had studied the three newcomers closely for the past few hours as we sat around relating the events leading up to now, and was relieved that they were symptom free. We were now a coalition of six.
CHAPTER 11
We stayed there by the old church for another hour. I gave Frank our FN-FAL rifle to use for as long as he remained with us, along with a .44 magnum revolver and about a dozen 20 round mags for the rifle loaded with .308 ball ammo and a couple of boxes of Federal ammo for the revolver. Holly and I reloaded our spent magazines and filled our pockets with extra rounds. The firefight had taught us a few lessons about having enough ammo.
We spent some time going over gun safety and use with the two teenagers, as neither had ever handled a firearm before. When I felt a little more confident that they could hold one without shooting their own leg off or killing one of us, I gave Amanda a Saiga 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun and Kera the sawed-off double barrel. That was the most that Holly and I thought we could trust them with for now.
We filled up two of our water bottles from the river and let them put a few rounds downrange. When they had finally taken out the water bottles we decided it was time to get on the road before the noise we had made brought any unwanted company.
It was a tight fit, however, we all managed to pile into the truck, with the girls in the back seat and the guys up front. We eased back across the road and crawled up and over the bridge. The way ahead was deserted. The bodies of the Loonies we had killed still lay thick around the front of the building. The vultures had already begun their feasting.
We carefully wove our way past the tangled and burnt wreckage, drove up the street and turned the corner, heading north on Route 17. We attracted the attention of a few of the infected when we drove by some of the buildings near the outskirts of town. They would chase after us even though we would quickly outdistance them.
The countryside became sparsely populated again, with the occasional farm set far back from the road between long stretches of green forest. A house or two dotted the landscape here and there. We were all lost in our own thoughts while we watched a world go by that was no longer ours, no longer normal, no longer safe.
“Have any of you been on this road before?” Holly asked from the back seat.
“I’ve been as far as Lake Anna,” Frank said. “It’s pretty rural except for where we enter the Fredericksburg suburbs. Lots of shopping centers and housing developments there. When you get on 208 it gets all rural again.”
“Let’s hope for the best and plan for the worst,” I suggested, hoping that we had already seen our worst for this trip. “Let’s keep our weapons ready and hope we don’t have any more run-ins with the locals.” If I had only known how much of a cakewalk it had been so far compared to what lay ahead, I would have turned the truck around right there.
We were making good time with only the occasional deserted vehicle to maneuver around. I didn’t dare drive faster than about 40 mph on these winding curvy roads. A disabling wreck would be disastrous for us. Most of the Loonies we saw were well off the pavement, except for one small group that we were well past before they could react. So far we hadn’t seen any other survivors.
We decided to try and get past the next chokepoint, Thornburg, a southern suburb of Fredericksburg, before stopping for the evening. Large housing developments were beginning to appear set back off the road and we felt that trying to find refuge in this area would be exceedingly risky.
The sun was setting into a hazy orange sky and we had maybe an hour of light left. We crossed over I-95. Besides a scattering of stalled, empty vehicles in both directions, it was eerily still. We raced ahead toward the next juncture.
Before we realized it, we were driving through a large shopping district and I slowed down. The Loonies were all around us, in ones, twos and groups bigger than I could count. Many had been sitting or lying in the shade of trees alongside the roadbed.
I accelerated as we went by, trying to avoid their clawing hands. The truck bucked violently when I drove over one then another, eliciting screams from both Kera and Amanda. An intersection lay before us, and it was choked with cars and trucks.
I frantically looked for a way around and Frank pointed to a spot on the right that we might fit through on the sidewalk between a retaining wall and a metal utility pole. Loonies were filling the area, running to meet our slowly moving truck as we wove our way through the abandoned vehicles. They sounded their siren call, and infected seemed to pour out of the shadows in terrifying numbers.
I looked in the mirror, horrified to see large masses of them racing down the road to catch us. In the fading light it seemed like the population of Hell had been unleashed upon us. I slid the truck to the right, toward the wall, and the right side tires bounced up over the sidewalk. We raced down the narrow expanse, scraping the passenger mirror off the truck with a loud crunching noise while the truck screeched up against the rough brick of the retaining wall, repeatedly striking one after another of the infected. One flipped up onto the hood, bloody but alive.
We weren’t going to fit. The space was just too small. I slammed on the brakes, throwing the injured Loony into three that were running toward us, bowling them over.
“Get us out of here fast!” Holly screamed,
her voice shrill with terror. My mind was racing, searching for a way out. They were surrounding us from all directions, hundreds of them. There were too many. There was no going through them. We would be overwhelmed, even in the truck.
I slammed the transmission into reverse and jammed my boot heel onto the gas pedal, causing the rear tires to smoke as they fought for purchase. The truck sped backwards into the nearest group of infected, plowing over and through them. The rear end fishtailed sideways off the sidewalk and into an abandoned delivery truck, crushing five or six of the Loonies with bone-splintering force.
“The wall, bro,” Frank said with surprising calm, nodding toward the eight foot high retaining wall with its gently sloping grassy bank rising up behind it. I knew immediately what he was thinking.
The Loonies were beating on the windows, climbing into the truck bed, and swarming over us when I threw the shifter into drive and jammed the pedal again. The truck lurched forward, dragging half a dozen infected with it and crushing several more beneath it. The rear tires bounced up over the sidewalk and I swung the wheel turning the truck parallel with the wall and jammed it up against the bricks, smearing a handful of Loonies like a grotesque painting along its face. Frank was working the switch to the window, trying to get it down. It wasn’t moving. Something had failed when we crushed the truck up against the wall.
“Shoot out the damn window!” I hollered at Kera who was frozen in shock in the back seat. She just looked at me vacantly. Holly ripped the double barrel from her grasp and placed it against the side passenger window. She pulled the trigger and the buckshot tore through the window. The sound was deafening. Frank punched out the remaining safety glass when the truck ground to a stop against the wall. He quickly pulled himself and his rifle out onto the roof.
I yanked the .45 out of its holster just as he disappeared out the window. The infected grew frenzied at the sight of him and were streaming over each other and the truck in a crushing mass to get at him and us. I heard the FAL open up over the ringing in my ears and watched bodies drop away. Holly shoved the shotgun back into Kera’s hands and grabbed her own rifle, pushed the seat forward, and slithered out the window onto the roof. Her rifle shot twice and then she was up over the wall.
“Go!” I pushed Jeremy toward the window. He was halfway out when the shooting from the FAL paused and a big hand grabbed him by the collar, yanking him the rest of the way out the window and bodily tossing him up on the wall. Jeremy’s .223 caliber shots joined Holly’s rifle in an echoing chorus with the FAL. I snugged my rifle to my chest in preparation for my turn to exit.
I could no longer see out any of the windows through the mass of Loonies pressed against the glass. Kera was whimpering as she worked her way out of the window. Again, Frank was there and helped her out and up the wall. Hands were reaching for him when he turned back around and I heard him kicking at their grasping claws before he changed magazines and resumed firing.
Amanda was crawling toward the side window, pushing her Saiga before her. She stuck it out the window and Jeremy reached down and grabbed it, trying to pull the shotgun and her out the window. She lost her grip on the butt-stock just as the back window to the truck caved in and a clot of infected pushed in, mobbing her.
I spun around in my seat and emptied the magazine of my handgun into the crowd, sending blood and brains splattering in every direction. Amanda was looking at me, her face tight with terror as more hands reached through grasping for her. One hand tangled in her long blonde hair and yanked her head back toward the blood-streaked faces of the raging creatures. The sound of shooting intensified outside and I saw the Loony who was pulling her out arch its back and then fall limp.
My hands were shaking. I dropped the empty mag from the pistol and slammed a new one in. More Loonies were trying to squeeze into the back over the dead bodies that clogged the window. Amanda screamed and fought them off frantically with blood-streaked hands.
Frank yelled urgently for us to get out of there now and then the sound of him jumping off the roof onto the wall. The infected moved like a living swarm over the truck. The driver’s window shattered inwards as I slid over to the passenger side while simultaneously reaching back and trying to pull Amanda free from the clutching hands of the feral humans. I had a bunch of her shirt tight in my hand, pulling her to me. They had her by the hair again and her tee shirt ripped loudly as the tug of war persisted. She screamed, beating at them ferociously with her bloody fists.
More hands grabbed for her as the bodies outside piled up over those beneath them. The mass of infected blotted out all light in the truck cab, I heard them on the roof and over the din I caught my son’s voice screaming for me to hurry and get out. With one hand on the collar of Amanda’s tee shirt I jammed the .45 past her head and shot at the arms holding her.
More were pressing in the driver’s side window reaching for me and I swung the gun around and shot two in the head who were halfway through the shattered window. Amanda whimpered, then screeched, “Please – no!”, and she was ripped from my grip leaving me holding onto the remnants of her shirt.
She was yanked headfirst out into the drooling, chomping mouths of those beasts that were no longer human. Her bare chest was rent before my eyes. The clawing hands raked over it, trying to pull her further out. The bile rose in my stomach at the sight one of her small breasts being peeled back like a tomato. Her slim blood-splattered legs kicked desperately as she disappeared out the back window and her muffled screams faded away. Her legs jerked spasmodically and then ceased moving when she was yanked violently the rest of the way out of the truck, leaving behind a small, bloody tennis shoe.
I kicked my body up and out of the passenger window into a mob of infected. I shot at them until the gun was empty, batting away their clutching arms, madly fighting my way to the roof. Strong hands closed on my upper arms and I yelled in relief when I was yanked up to the top of the wall above the writhing mass just feet below me.
Darkness had settled in, making the horde of infected look like a single living carpet of flesh. The cacophony of their snarls and growls overwhelmed our senses.
Before I could even catch my breath Holly was pushing us up the slope of the hill. Hands and arms were draping over the wall as the infected tried to pull themselves off the truck onto the hillside. Holly emptied the rest of her magazine into the churning chaotic mob and then sped up the hill behind me.
Through the ringing in my ears I could still hear the scratching sounds as first one, then many more pulled themselves to the top of the wall we had just abandoned. We were headed toward a darkened parking lot. The power was obviously out in this section of Virginia. Frank, Jeremy and Kera were waiting there for us.
“Is Amanda…?” Kera asked tearfully when I caught up to them.
I nodded then looked away, overwhelmed with guilt at having let it happen. Frank had given Kera Amanda’s Saiga and had taken the sawed-off double barrel from her and shoved it in his empty leg scabbard. Kera was clinging to Frank with one arm and the strength seemed to leave her body when I acknowledged her question.
After a moment she let go of Frank and stood up straight. She wiped the curtain of her dark hair away from her face, and her eyes seemed to shine brightly, even in the darkness. A determined look came over her pretty face and she shoved past Holly and me.
Three of the infected topped the rise behind us. Kera raised the Saiga and dispatched all three. “Fuck you!” she screamed bitterly at them, trembling noticeably.
Holly put her hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Kera, we need to get away from here.” More figures topped the rise behind us.
“We all need to fucking move now!” Frank urged, herding Jeremy, Holly and Kera in front of him. I loosened my rifle and fired several rounds at the approaching silhouettes and was rewarded with several of them dropping to the ground. Frank fired off a couple of rounds and we both turned and ran through the parking lot toward a building about one hundred yards away in its center.
> I fell against the wall of what looked like a restaurant, scanning for any targets behind me.
“How are you?” Holly asked.
“Okay,” I answered tentatively. She was quietly loading spent mags with the loose ammo from her pocket.
“This place looks deserted,” Frank said after looking in a couple of windows. Kera was with Jeremy who stood beside a shrub in a large concrete pot. He was looking back the way we had come at the dark shapes up on the hill.
“I don’t want to end up trapped in no stupid building again,” Kera said harshly looking over her shoulder at Frank.
“Me neither,” Jeremy chimed in.
I could make out several shadows moving along the edge of the parking lot, meandering in no general direction.
“I don’t think they can see us here or know where we are,” I whispered to the group. “Is the front door open?” I asked Frank in a low voice.
He slid along the wall to the entrance and pulled quietly on one of the double doors. “No,” he replied, barely audible.
“We have to find someplace safe for the night,” Holly said quietly. “We won’t make it out here in the open against that many of those things.” She finished loading her last mag and stuffed it in a cargo pocket.
Frank sidled up to us, looking out at the shadows moving less than a hundred yards away. “If we bust in here it’s going to bring them things running. I agree with the young-uns and don’t want to be stuck in some fucking building with thousands of them trying to get in.”
I nodded agreement. “Let’s keep moving.”
I slipped past them and around the building, followed by Holly and the kids, with Frank bringing up the rear. From the corner I could see that there was a road separating this complex from another which also contained what appeared to be a restaurant. There were no Loonies moving in the darkness that I could spot. I was hoping that most had responded to the sounds of our gunshots and their own dinner call when we entered the town and were back there with the horde.