by TW Gallier
The situation was deteriorating so fast.
"Can't do that."
The mob turned really ugly. Even the children looked enraged. I'd heard mobs could be infectious, making everyone within go crazy, but it was too farfetched to believe. Until that moment.
"Then we'll take it all!"
They rushed towards us. I'd never seen a mob go wild before. Suddenly, they all had that same wild, furious look the zombies all had. They went from a slow movement forward to a full on run in nothing flat.
Sean raised his weapon, took aim, and shot the leader dead. Paul, then Bill and Greg opened up next. I gawked at the men and women dropping like flies. My brain went numb.
When Sean and the others opened fire, I only hesitated a second. Thoughts of Timmy and Harlan being torn to pieces by that insane mob overrode all other concerns. I started shooting, too. The slaughter was horrific. After only a moment the mob couldn’t take it any longer, so stopped and turned away. We stopped firing when they began running away from us.
"They'll be back," Sean said, looking sick, too. "We don't have much time to prepare."
My head began to spin. I felt hot one second, and cold the next. Then my breakfast surged up. I bent over and puked. Tears came in buckets as I sobbed and puked, over and over.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry!" I cried. "I don't want to become a monster, too."
Chapter 11
The town looked abandoned. We'd avoided all roads and towns until then. Now we were almost out of fuel. We'd even used the diesel in the jerry can. So we turned onto a one-lane country road and followed it to that town before us.
I killed the engine to save what little diesel we had.
Standing in my seat, I looked the town over through binoculars. The small town was atop a hill, surrounded by farm and ranch lands. Scattered all around were small barns and other outbuildings. The town itself looked like a grove of old hardwoods, with houses between and under the trees. It looked quaint and peaceful.
We were out in the open, but hopefully far enough away that anyone who took a shot at us would most likely miss. No shots rang out. I didn't see any movement. I still felt exposed and vulnerable.
"We go in on foot. Find a gas station and some gas cans, and then fill them with diesel. If the town is abandoned, then we should be able to each bring two five-gallon cans back," I said. "Our tank only holds twenty-five gallons."
"We should've stolen a vehicle with better gas mileage," Charlie said. "I can still see the Rockies."
Military vehicles were not known for fuel efficiency. I hadn't realized it was that bad.
"Keep your eyes out for a better option," I said.
We went into that town like it was full of Taliban fighters. Our caps were replaced with Kevlar helmets and all weapons ready with the safeties off. We took our time and did it right. No house was passed without checking inside. Most of the houses were unlocked. I could imagine how they never had to lock their doors.
Of course there was no power. I wanted to refill my canteen, but there were no water, either. That was odd. Every house showed signs of a quick departure. The furnishings were mostly in order, but we found the odd piece of clothing or boxes of food on the floors. Closets and cupboards were mostly empty. Many of the doors were left open.
I didn't see any old cars or trucks, just 1980 models up to present. Some still had the keys in them and on. The EMP hit them hard, too.
We went into town through a residential area. There were just three streets of houses. On the second street we spotted the first zombie. She was a middle-aged woman, naked, and bloody. From about a hundred yards away, it looked like her hair was burned away, and much of her exposed skin badly burned.
"That sucks big time," I said. "I just want to put her out of her misery."
We watched her test a door. It was locked, so she pounded on it a moment. She moved over to look in the window, and then moved to another. She pounded on the second window, but didn't break it. Then she vanished between two houses.
"If there's one," I said, before darting across the street.
I took a position to defend Charlie as he came over on the run. He continued on past me, to check out the next street over. Mike ran up to me, and then we looked in the windows, checked the back door. It was locked. So we hurried over to the back of the house Charlie was waiting next to, finding the back door wide open.
"Bottled water," I said, and twisted off a cap. I drained it quickly. There was a case of them. It was probably overlooked when they bugged out. Mike took a bottle to drink while we looked through the house. "We'll set the rest out on the street to pick up on the way back."
The house didn't offer anything else useful. I carried the water out to the street, and took a bottle to Charlie. While he drank the water, I ran across the street. It was commercial and the main road through town.
I looked down their main street. It was two blocks of Great Depression era redbrick facades and sidewalks. The block of shops across the street looked burnt out. There was only a single red Chevy Silverado parked on that street. The truck looked new. I wanted it so badly, but knew its electronics were all fried. The driver's side door was open, which meant the owner was trying to start it before abandoning it in a hurry.
On the far side of downtown was a country store with pumps out front. One of the signs displayed the price for diesel. Bingo. Except for the five zombies. I waved Mike and Charlie up.
"We have diesel and zombies, boys," I said. "The question is, are there too many zombies in this town for us to handle?"
"There's another issue we haven't discussed," Charlie said. "How do we get the diesel out without electricity?"
I felt like a total idiot. Of course, in the Army, tanker trucks brought us fuel when we needed it. They'd set up somewhere, and everyone in the unit would swing by and top off. We had people whose only job it was to make sure we never ran out of fuel.
I looked around the corner at the Chevy pickup. It did not say "Diesel" so it was gas-powered. There had to be other vehicles left behind with diesel. We could siphon out of another vehicle, but I couldn't imagine what it would take to pump fuel out of an underground tank. I knew I didn't have that kind of suction.
"I think we have our solution," Charlie said. He pointed at the red Chevy pickup. "See the fuel tank behind the cab? I bet that's a farmer's work truck."
"So?" I asked. "It's a gas pickup."
"But I bet there's diesel in that fuel tank," he said. "Farmers and construction workers carry fuel to their equipment in those tanks. And it probably uses a manual pump, too."
I looked past the pickup. I could only see four zombies. God only knew where the other one wandered off to.
"I don't think we can push it fast enough to outrun those zombies," I said. "There's just three of us, and that's a full-sized pickup."
"We just have to get it out of the parking space," Mike said. "It's downhill all the way to the Humvee."
I still wasn't convinced, but what choice did we have? There was no way we could get it moving without the zombies spotting us. The question was if we had enough firepower to fight them off long enough to refuel our vehicle.
"Let's check it out," I said.
I went around the corner in a low crouch, M-4 at the ready. Though heading for the pickup, my eyes were locked on the zombies two blocks away. When I reached the truck, I peeked in the passenger window. There were no keys, but it was a manual. Five speed. So I waved the other two guys up.
"Check the fuel tank, Charlie," I said, while easing the passenger door open. I slipped inside, scooted over to the driver's seat, and pressed down on the clutch. After easing it into neutral and releasing the emergency brake, I slipped back out through the passenger side. "Well?"
"Diesel. It's not full, but should be enough," he said.
I dropped to one knee to survey the situation better. The hill peaked about the halfway point of downtown. We were on a slope, but not much of one. The grade increased around the corner.
But the pickup was parked straight in, so we'd have to push it back enough to turn the wheels and clear the curb. And the zombies were a block and a half away.
"Okay, I think we can do this." I moved over in front of the pickup, and leaned into it. I was able to rock it easily enough by myself. Movement at the corner of my eyes alerted me. "The zombies have seen us. Charlie, steer us back and around enough to clear the curb. Help me push, Mike."
Mike and I put our all into pushing that pickup away from the curb. Charlie kept one hand on the steering wheel and also pushed. The zombies were halfway to us, moving at a slow jogging pace. One of them wailed angrily.
"That's enough," Charlie shouted.
He jumped in to wrestle the wheel around while Mike and I hurried around back and started pushing. The pickup rolled forward just as I could distinctly hear the footfalls of the approaching zombies. The truck started moving faster and faster.
"Keep pushing!"
I stopped and turned on the zombies. With M-4 at the ready, I advanced on them. Taking careful aim, I started shooting them in the head. One. Two. Three down. And then the other two were on me.
I kicked one male in the knee, a loud snap filling the air. He didn't cry out or anything. The monster dropped to one knee. I moved past him, keeping him between me and the other zombie. She was a thirty-something woman. I hesitated killing her because she kind of reminded me of Jenny. They wore their dark, shoulder-length hair in the same style. The zombie woman's throat was torn up pretty badly, and she was missing fingers off her left hand. At least two of her front teeth were broken and bleeding. Yet, she had the eyes of a demon. Pure, unadulterated rage.
Three more zombies, all young females, came rushing out of shops and hurried towards us. A quick glance showed two more coming from the north side of town and pursuing the pickup.
"Mike, watch out behind you!"
The zombie plowed through the kneeling male. He toppled over, one hand grabbing my left ankle. I cried out and butt slapped the female. She landed on top of the male. I didn't even bother with aiming. I pointed my rifle at their heads and opened up full auto. Blood, bone, and brains splattered all over the road behind them.
Ducking, I avoided the next zombie to reach me just as Mike opened up on his pursuit. After pumping two rounds in her head, I lit up the next one from crotch to head in full auto. I swear it all was in slow motion, and I saw every hit on her body. Blood splattered, as she started doing that death dance as bullets pounded into her body. One shot ripped her belly open, and intestines spewed out.
My rifle locked back, the magazine empty.
I charged the next zombie, and kicked her in the chest. She went stumbling back, and that's when I saw four more coming around the corner by the store. Ejecting that empty magazine, I slammed in another, racked it, and blew her brains out. Then I took careful aim and took down two more zombies before turning to run.
Rounding the corner, I saw the pickup was halfway to the Humvee. It was going so fast downhill that Mike was riding on the bumper. More zombies were emerging from homes and from the side streets. Some were children. Seeing that hurt so bad.
"These mothers are multiplying like rabbits!" I screamed. "Faster!"
I couldn't stop running to aim, so did my best. I emptied two magazines just running past those three side streets. Most of the zombies were killed, but not all of them. I worried about running out of ammo before I reached the Humvee. I only had one more magazine.
Charlie and Mike reached our vehicle before I was halfway. I slowed down to shoot back at the zombies chasing me. There were a dozen.
"Where the hell are they coming from?"
While Charlie refueled the Humvee, Mike moved across the road to get a better angle and helped lay suppressive fire. Only zombies aren't afraid of anything, so there was no suppression from that fire. Mike figured it out, and started hitting them. He didn't kill any of them, but they fell down when hit. That was enough to let me put some distance between us.
"It's not full, but it's all we have," Charlie shouted as he dropped behind the wheel and cranked the engine.
Mike and I jumped in back. I thought he'd turn around and get the hell out of Dodge. Nope. Charlie drove straight ahead and over the zombies. Mike fired them up on the right side, and I covered the left. He drove us up to the main road, and straight through the town. We shot any zombies we saw.
"How much juice do we have?" I asked, finally able to relax.
"Three quarters of a tank," Charlie said. "I suck at math, so can't tell you how many gallons that is."
Neither could I.
"It's enough," I said, still huffing and puffing. "Keep an eye out for eighteen-wheelers on the side of the road. They are our new gas stations."
Chapter 12
We heard the gunfire before we saw topped the hill and spotted the battle. It looked like seven survivors were looting an abandoned eighteen-wheeler. They had five ATVs with trailers to take their treasure away. It was a plain silver trailer, so I had no idea of its contents.
We rolled to a stop atop that rise in the road. The battle was a good two hundred feet down the road. There was a city on the horizon, which our map showed was on the Mississippi River. There was a bridge over the river according to the map.
I rode shotgun, with Mike driving and Charlie in back. We were cold, wet, and miserable due to rain and an open vehicle. It was amazing how cold you could be in the middle of summer. I blamed the far northern climate. It wasn't that cold in Georgia.
I watched the zombies attacking them for a long moment. There were a lot more zombies than men, but those guys were good at killing them. Under normal conditions, I'd dive into the fight without a second thought. We were not dealing with normal circumstances anymore.
"Outlaw bikers," Charlie said. "Why am I not surprised they thrive in an apocalypse?"
I didn't know if they were outlaw bikers or not. They could've been big, muscular men who liked long hair and beards. Of course, the blue jean jackets with the sleeves cut off, with patches all over them, made me think they were indeed bikers. Outlaw bikers?
"They may be the perfect men to survive this," I said.
More zombies came out of the woods north of the 18-wheeler. The bikers started backing toward their ATVs when one of their number went down under a flood of zombies. One of them jumped on his ATV, only to be tackled off of it by two rather large black zombies. As we got closer to the Mississippi River, I'd noticed more racial diversity within the zombie hordes. One of the other bikers shot both zombies in the head, and then his comrade.
"Damn! Why'd he do that?" Mike asked.
"I guess he thought his friend was going to become a zombie," I replied.
That was the only reason I could think of to justify his action. Memories of those cops changing in the back of the SWAT armored car returned. It made me think about us. Should we have a plan in place?
"People change pretty fast once bitten. I've seen it," I said. "It probably only takes a minute or two."
"That's scary," Mike said. "You guys have my blessing to shoot me if I get bitten and start to change. But, um, make sure I'm really starting to change first? Okay?"
"Deal. Same applies to me," I said. "So, do we help them? Or backtrack and look for a way around?"
"We need gas," Mike said. "We're down to a quarter tank."
"Diesel," Charlie corrected him.
"I know what the fuck we need."
Mike always called it gas. He couldn't break himself of the habit. But he was right. We were low on fuel, and that 18-wheeler might have full tanks. The question was if the bikers would fight us over the fuel? And did we really need the fuel bad enough to kill?
"They're survivors," I said. "We should help them against the zombies."
Neither of them offered any argument. We stood up in the vehicle. Mike and I used the window to steady our shots, and we opened up on those crazy bastards. Zombies started dropping like flies. We were actually getting pretty good at killin
g them. Unlike in war, we were shooting an enemy that did nothing to save or protect himself. They didn't duck, run, or hide. Most of the time they turned toward us and gave us easy heart shoots, too.
The bikers ended their retreat, and returned to slaughtering zombies, too. It only took a few minutes to kill all of those poor infected people.
Pap-pap-pap-pap! As the bikers turned their guns on us.
My first thought was to shout that we were friends, but then I saw the evil grin on one of their faces. So I shot him in the head. Charlie picked up the SAW and mowed them down in a flash. I saw incredulous looks on a couple of faces as they died.
"Those idiots!" Mike screamed, hands curled into fists. "We saved their lives, so they try to murder us? What the fuck, man?"
"Some people will turn into savages when law and order go out the window," I said.
"Savages. Exactly. They were savages," he said.
I wasn't that surprised. Everyone knew how people reacted with just a power outage that lasted too long. Or the local team won a championship. Why should they act civilized during an apocalypse? Maybe I'm just more cynical than him?
"We have a problem," Charlie said. He was standing in the back of the Humvee and looking down the road through binoculars. "They weren't alone. There were two bikers heading this way, and they just turned around."
"If there are more of them, then they will be coming after us," I finished it for him. "Shit. Let's fuel up fast."
The 18-wheeler was parked in the middle of the road. Mike pulled up next to the driver side tank, positioned so we could siphon straight into the Humvee's tank. We were getting pretty good at it due to our terrible fuel mileage.
While Mike took care of topping off, Charlie and I checked out what the bikers were taking from the trailer. And as I expected, it was food. Not the best food, but still long shelf life sugary breakfast cereal and oatmeal. It was too bulky for us to take, though the oatmeal tempted me. If we only had a pot to cook it in.
"Do we want to take their weapons?" Charlie asked.