by David Rogers
“Yeah, you both right. I just . . . if them Watkinsville folks scrambling to stay fed, we gonna miss out on some stuff.”
“There’s plenty of places we can still get food from.” Darryl said, reluctantly. “We ain’t hardly done much north of 78, or much past five miles or so from the house. If the whole state done got fucked up, there gonna be a lot of stores out there we can get to and bring stuff back from.”
“Longer trips, more danger.” Bobo sighed. “But we got ourselves into about as good a position as I figure just about anyone left probably has. Guess we can have ourselves a little bit of a party.” He grinned suddenly, his teeth white in the half-darkness. “That one thing we pretty good at.”
* * * * *
Chapter Ten – Just, keep thinking
Peter
“Oh man, you’re fucking kidding me.” Roper griped as Crawford brought the Humvee to a halt a block north of where the map said South Forsyth High was.
“That’s a lot of zombies.” Swanson said.
“How do you know they’re all zombies?” Crawford shot at him without looking at the backseat.
“Crawford, I can’t say I hate to tell you this, but you’re a fucking idiot.”
“You’re just cruising for a beating when we get back.” she said dangerously.
“Look at that.” Swanson said, ignoring her threat. “Blood all over them, dangling limbs, holes, ooooh there’s one that keeps tripping over her own intestines. What the fuck else are they but zombies?”
“Maybe they’ve just been through a lot.”
“Maybe you’re just not paying attention, as usual.”
Crawford started to turn, but Peter slammed his hand against the headrest of her seat in a bid to keep her from reaching past him. “Shut up, tired of it, get a room.” he ordered both of them. “Any of this sound familiar?”
She cast a threatening look over the Marine’s arm at Swanson, then faced forward again. The second Humvee pulled up next to them, and Whitley called through the windows that were cracked a few inches to permit air flow. “Gunny, that’s a lot of zombies.”
“Yeah, I see that.” he answered, looking around before lowering his window some more. “The Wonder Twins were just arguing about it.”
“Don’t call us that.” Crawford and Swanson said in unison.
“Shut it.” Peter explained, otherwise ignoring them as he continued talking to Whitley. “They’re on both sides as well, and from the looks of it the back of the building is covered too.”
“Yeah, the school’s surrounded. What’re we going to do about that many?” Whitley asked.
“I’m thinking.”
The school sat on a very big lot, the sprawling building sited well back from the road, with quite a bit of grass and parking space between it and the four lane divided highway out front. Parked cars and trucks had spilled off the parking areas out into the grass, a little haphazardly positioned but still with at least a vague sense of order.
Up close to the buildings, and flooding back around the vehicles, was a horde of zombies easily worthy of many the unit had seen back in Atlanta. His guess was somewhere around a thousand, though with so many the exact number didn’t really matter all that much. The zombies showed the usual mix of demographics, from children to the elderly, men and women, all manner of clothing including military and police uniforms, and a generous division between the common racial types in the state.
Those further back from the school were milling about a little aimlessly, but the tight pack close to the buildings indicated they were probably busily trying to batter their way inside. He heard a smattering of guns going off on the other side of the mass of not-yet-dead corpses, which clearly argued for survivors holding out despite the sizable numbers outside the school.
“Did we even bring that much ammo?” Swanson asked, not entirely unreasonably.
“Yeah, but the shooting would have to be pretty on point. There’s only a couple of cases in each hummer.” Roper offered. “I could do some math if you want, but off the top of my head we’re looking at no more than two shots per zombie.”
“Better not let Swanson pull any triggers then.” Crawford said.
“I’ve got a better idea Crawford, we can drop you off and come back by in a few hours after you—” Swanson started, before Peter broke in tiredly.
“We’re not going to take out a thousand some odd zombies by shooting them all in the head.” Peter said sourly. “That would take hours, and odds are the noise would just bring who knows how many more before we even started making a dent. We’d start fighting the school and end battling the entire fucking city.”
“Maybe if we got some help?” Whitley asked from the other Humvee. “Maybe go recruit some of the people from Central and arm them?”
“No.” Peter shook his head.
“Can we peel them off the school, like we’ve been doing?” Oliver called, leaning forward and raising his voice to be heard from the passenger seat of the other Humvee.
“Worth a shot, I guess.” Peter shrugged.
“This’ll be fun.” Crawford said, taking her foot off the brake.
“Don’t get us buried in the middle of the pack.” Peter told her quickly.
“But—”
“Don’t.” he repeated. “I promise, I’ll kill you first if you get us stuck in a crowd of hungry zombies.”
“Zombies are always hungry Gunny.” Swanson pointed out.
“Shut up.” Peter explained. “I’m serious.” he added to Crawford.
“I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid.”
“Shut up.” Peter said again, turning his head to Swanson. The Guardsman was grinning in anticipation of his obviously ready comment, but let it go unsaid when he saw the look on Peter’s face.
“And let’s see if we can avoid beating the hummer up.” Peter continued. “Try to peel, not run over.”
“You’re taking all the fun out of this.” Crawford griped as she steered left for the curb separating the school’s lot from the road. The Humvee crossed the curb with a slight bump as the vehicle’s extensive suspension system absorbed the height difference without issue. Crawford swung further left and accelerated, then started a broad curve across the grass that would bring them near the parked cars before beginning to pull away in the direction of the far corner of the school’s lot.
“Can I run over just a few?” she asked maliciously before the heavy vehicle’s bumper slammed into the first zombie in her path. The not-dead teenager disappeared as the metal barrier slammed into its legs just above the knees, followed by a slight bump as the tires rolled over the mobile corpse.
“Run over ones probably can’t follow us.” Peter observed.
“Yeah, yeah.” she griped, starting to swerve erratically to try and avoid as many zombies as she could. The Humvee still ran over some, but Peter recognized she was making a reasonable effort to guide the vehicle around the largest clumps in the way.
They wove through the milling zombies with Whitley following close behind in the second vehicle. Swanson poked himself up out of the top hatch and fired a magazine off slowly, trying to draw as much attention to the Humvees as possible. Crawford started jerking the Humvee back and forth some, attempting to keep any zombies that ended up on the sides of the vehicle as it went by from having a good chance to slam themselves or their hands against the windows.
Peter hadn’t been holding his breath, but as the Humvee exited the school’s lot, he was frowning. They had gathered maybe a hundred zombies, but the dense pack nearest the school building’s entrance was completely ignoring anything else besides the refugees within the school. The zombies further from the doors, bordering the ones right up against the entrance, were too thick to get close enough to really attract and lead away without having to get into a pitched battle.
“Not sure it’s working.” Swanson said, dropping back into his seat and ejecting his empty magazine.”
“Yeah, it’s not.” Peter sighed. “Was
worth a shot though. Crawford, head south. We need to come up with a plan.”
“Where we going?” Crawford asked as she accelerated away from the depressingly small portion of the zombie horde she’d started to pull in.
“I don’t know yet. Just . . . drive around. Look for ideas. Fuck, I don’t know.” Peter said in frustration, glancing out the window.
Central and West Forsyth High had each had only a light zombie presence. The conditions at the schools had been a mixed bag of understandable and cringe-inducing, but they could hold out until tomorrow, at least, without any more hardship than those refugees were already under. He had already started planning what he was going to say to Carlson when he got back, and he knew the ‘acting governor’ wasn’t going to like it , but he was past caring.
Things were tough enough, there was no need to leave people to fend for themselves in those sorts of conditions. The refugees at West Forsyth hadn’t even been boiling the water they drank, which he just knew was going to lead to a wave of dysentery – or worse – even with the support of the main FEMA camp.
But first he had to figure this out. From the cars present in the parking lot there could be hundreds of refugees trapped in South Forsyth. Possibly quite a few more if even half the cars had arrived carrying three and four people rather than one or two. And he figured the odds were most had. Most people who’d had the means and ability to flee in the direction of a designated refugee point probably had their families with them, to say nothing of friends or the odd wandering survivor they might have picked up along the way.
“Think we could find any explosives?” Swanson asked.
“Where?” Crawford said.
“I don’t know, we could check the map. There should be a Guard armory somewhere within twenty or thirty miles shouldn’t there? They’re scattered all over the place in case the Russians or Chinese or someone invaded, right?”
“That’s assuming it’s not empty, or crawling with zombies.” Roper pointed out. “And do we have anyone who could rig them up even if we find some?”
“Smith or Oliver might be able to do it. They were infantry weren’t they?” Swanson observed.
“Knowing how to place a claymore doesn’t equal EOD expertise.”
“Didn’t we see a construction site back between Central and West?” Crawford offered as she wove around a clump of zombies just past the school.
“Yeah, so?” Swanson asked challengingly.
“Maybe there’s a steamroller or something we could use to run them all over with.”
“That’s brilliant. Oh fuck, I can’t believe I just said that.”
Crawford grinned. “Let’s dwell on that for a while shall we?”
“Forget it, that’s a horrible idea.”
“You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it.”
“The hell I am. Didn’t you hear me, it’s a horrible idea.” Swanson shot at her quickly.
“A minute ago it was brilliant.”
“That’s before I remembered who said it.”
“Table it.” Peter said shortly, glancing around as Crawford kept heading south. A strip mall was coming up on the left, and he let his gaze flick across it idly. The construction vehicle idea wasn’t all that bad, but getting something big and heavy enough down here would still take some time, and it would be an exercise in 80s arcade game problem solving to manage to lure all the zombies out away from the vehicles so they could be properly run over; which would take more time.
“It might thin them out.” Crawford shrugged. “Maybe bring the numbers down to something even Swanson could kill off.”
“Let’s keep track for the next day. I’ll bet I tag more than you.” Swanson sneered.
Peter gave up trying to corral the two of them for the moment as they started going at each other again, and looked around, thinking. There was a barbecue restaurant in the front corner of the strip mall’s parking lot, unattached to the strip part of the mall and close to the road. He looked at it briefly, then tracked his gaze across the rest of the store fronts before his eyes widened and he looked back at the restaurant. The sign out front listed a BBQ plate for $5.99, medium drink included.
“Wait a minute.” he muttered.
“What?”
“Barbecue.” Peter said slowly.
“Gunny, I told you I’m logistics, not kitchen.” Roper said immediately. “And anyway I don’t know anything about barbecue. Plus I don’t think we want to eat anything out of a fridge or freezer without power anymore; especially not pork. You know how fucked up you can get eating bad pork?”
“That’s not what I mean.” Peter shook his head. “I mean fire.”
“Fire?”
“Yeah, fire. What if we figured out a way to set the horde on fire?”
Crawford laughed. “I like it. How?”
“Is that going to work?” Swanson asked.
“Why not?” Crawford shrugged.
“We’ve already seen how they ignore everything except massive head trauma. They’re not people. Burns aren’t going to bother or disable them.”
“Yeah they will.” Peter disagreed.
“How’s that when fifty cal through the chest doesn’t?”
Peter turned in his seat to looked at Swanson and Roper in the backseat. “Burns won’t, no. But disabling limbs will. They get scorched bad enough, it’ll take out the muscles and tissue in their arms and legs. Who cares if they’re still not-dead at that point; they can’t move.”
Roper frowned. “First, that’s pretty disgusting. Second, it’ll smell like you won’t believe, trust me. Third, we’re going to need one hell of a fire.”
“And four, how in the hell are we gonna get all of them into it?” Crawford asked. “And what if we end up setting the school on fire, or the town? The fire department isn’t exactly on call anymore.”
“That’s four, and five.” Swanson said, holding up the fingers of one hand and waggling his pinky and thumb. Learn to count.”
“Fuck you. Be helpful.”
Swanson blinked at her, then grinned slyly. “Okay, so what draws zombies in?”
“People.” Roper said.
“Right. Crawford, I volunteer you to be the bait.”
“You wish. Anyone know where we can find a kindergarten class?”
Peter gave her an odd look. “A what?”
“Bunch of kids. Small kids. Best possible distraction in a zombie apocalypse.”
“That’s not fucking funny.” Roper said in a shocked voice.
“Not supposed to be funny. And anyway, it’s true.”
“We’re not sacrificing a bunch of kids.” Roper said firmly. “I’ll kick your ass myself.”
“Leave it!” Peter said sharply as Crawford opened her mouth. “You’re a bad ass, he’s a bad ass, everyone here is a fucking bad ass. Now help me think. We’ve got a school full of people to save.”
“Zombies follow people.” Swanson after the silence had mounted for a few seconds. “We all saw that in Atlanta.”
“But they react to movement sometimes too.” Roper offered. “They come at our cars when we’re traveling.”
“Yeah, but is it the movement or the people inside?”
Roper shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Haven’t we seen some zombies join in on eating someone?” Peter said, raking though his memories since Friday. “I mean, someone who was already dead when the new zombie starts chowing down?”
“Sure, I guess.” Crawford nodded.
“So they’re hungry.”
“Zombies are always hungry.” Roper sighed. “Just like the damn movies.”
“And Crawford.” Swanson laughed.
“Will they eat meat?” Roper continued, pointedly ignoring Swanson’s comment.
“People are meat.” Crawford pointed out.
“Yeah, but I mean animals. We don’t have a lot of other use for most of the shit in the restaurants around here anyway, right?”
Crawford swung the Humvee ov
er to the far right side of the road, then spun the wheel left and carved a sharp U-turn that threw everyone around as the vehicle came about. Then they all bounced some more as she went through the median separating the two sides of the highway.
“Hey, watch it.” Swanson complained, pushing Roper off him as the Humvee straightened out northbound.
“You know you like it rough.” she said, otherwise ignoring him to glance at Peter. “Let’s find out Gunny.”
Peter looked at the barbecue restaurant coming back up ahead and nodded, reaching for his radio. “Whitley, we’re going to run a quick test on something. You guys cover us outside while we go into that restaurant real quick.”
“Hey Gunny, Oliver was thinking we might want to try explosives if we can find any.”
“It already came up. Keep thinking, but watch our backs from the parking lot for a minute.”
Crawford led the pair of Humvees right over the curb, though she did slow down enough to avoid unduly stressing the tires as the military vehicle ran from road to grass to parking lot. The shocks and suspension, built to take it over the kind of terrain tanks could manage, barely even noticed, then the wheels were back on flat pavement. She brought the Humvee to a stop near the restaurant’s door and grabbed her M-16.
“Everybody out.” Peter said, following suit with his AR and checking out his windows before cracking the door. He hastened around the front of the Humvee as Whitley stopped a few yards behind and to the side of it. Crawford beat him to the door and tried the knob.
“Locked, hang on.”
She backed off half a step, then launched a respectable looking side kick into the door next to the knob. Splintering wood was audible over the thud of her boot hitting the door, but it stayed closed. Peter closed his mouth and shrugged. It sounded like she was making progress. And the restaurant’s windows were little panes set in wood dividers, not big plate glass, so if she could get through . . . let her. Crawford kicked it twice more, and on the third the door finally yielded.
“Everyone’s a bad ass my ass.” she muttered, turning on the flashlight duct taped to the hand guard covering the weapon’s barrel.
Peter followed a few feet back as she eased into the restaurant. The dining area was reasonably well lit, but there were no windows in the kitchen as she worked her way past the counter, in amid the stoves and cookers and prep areas. The back wall had a row of floor-to-ceiling stainless steel doors which looked like cold storage.