by David Rogers
“I’m glad you’re going to get better.” she told him as buried her head next to his shoulder.
“I’m tough. Just like your mom.”
Candice sat back and looked at Jessica, then nodded. “Just like mom.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifteen – Desperate measures
Darryl
“Zombies ahead, get ready.”
Darryl tightened his hands on the steering wheel of the battered station wagon as the voice came over the radio. The town of Watkinsville had provided everything they’d said they could, including the cars they’d mentioned. Leading the way were two six wheel heavy duty pickups with plow blades attached. Four regular trucks followed, each one carrying a pair of townies in the back. Then came the Dogz, every one behind the wheel of a car of some sort. Then the semi-trucks, followed by two tow trucks that brought up the rear.
The convoy stretched nearly a thousand feet. Seventy men, armed and ready. From the kind of hardware that had been handed out, Darryl suspected a military armory somewhere had been raided, but he didn’t honestly care where it had come from. Everyone had an assault rifle, and four of the townies were responsible for carrying machine guns as well. Darryl still wasn’t sure if any of it would be enough, but the time for second guessing was past. Now there was only doing and praying.
He passed over the small creek he remembered from the map. The waterway was barely worthy of the name, maybe a couple of feet deep and not much more than that wide. He supposed it might fill up some during a heavy rain, but at the moment it was just a landmark. It meant they were less than a mile from where the road was supposed to curve up right next to Loop 10, so they could cross over into Athens.
The convoy was traveling at a steady forty miles per hour, closed up tight. He was at the head of the Dogz, which put him right behind the leading pickups. It left him unable to see anything much past the back of the truck, but that was okay. The theory everyone was going on was to keep moving and stay tight. That was supposed to keep any zombies from doing much to harass the vehicles following the lead trucks.
He heard some gunfire from ahead. A few seconds later he started passing zombies. Some were tumbled to the ground, rolling or crawling across the pavement. Others, slightly further back, were still on their feet. They were all staggering toward the vehicles. His wheels hit the first body that hadn’t been knocked fully aside by the plows and the station wagon lurched. Darryl clung to the wheel and maintained his speed. The car only had to last maybe two more miles. He didn’t care what happened to its shocks.
“They’re not too thick so far.” Craig’s voice said on the radio. Darryl nodded unconsciously, hoping that was true. The man had been a deputy, but he was the sole surviving member of the town’s police force, and the mayor had promoted him to police chief. Darryl wasn’t sure how useful a ‘police chief’ was anymore, but it wasn’t his concern. What was involved whether or not Craig’s plan was going to work.
So far it was. Quick glances snatched from his side mirrors showed him all the cars were holding tight in line with him. Just as he couldn’t see ahead past the trucks, behind he couldn’t see past the first of the semi-trucks, but he didn’t care. He had eyes on every one of his brothers, and so far they were all staying with him as the convoy headed north, and then northwest, along Daniells Bridge Road.
“Okay, the crossing’s in view. Be ready to swing right.”
Darryl saw the brake lights on the truck ahead of him come on, and he applied his. He barely felt the heavy rocking of the station wagon as the bodies he was rolling over started to become more numerous. His concentration remained on the truck ahead, holding only feet from its rear bumper. What attention he could spare stayed on the side mirrors, willing all the other cars to keep moving. For his brothers to keep rolling.
“Turning now.”
Darryl could see the trees on the right starting to thin. Open space appeared ahead, a two-lane stretch of pavement with dozens of zombies on it. The first of the plow trucks turned right off Daniells Bridge and crossed the short expanse of grass to reach Loop 10. The plow blade had been raised for the off-roading, and not all the zombies in its way were being knocked to the side. Bodies were falling beneath the big vehicle. The tires were mangling them as it kept moving, rocking violently on its shocks.
The second plow truck was right behind it, adding its weight to the carnage. Darryl frowned, then grabbed for his radio. “Dogz, watch your ass when you hit the grass.” he said quickly, pressing the button to talk. “Keep your foot down so you don’t get stuck.”
Trucks were following the plow equipped leaders, rolling straight across the Loop. It was a pair of two-lane roads that ran in opposite directions to encircle Athens, separated from each other by only a small grassy meridian with a slight dip. The crossing from Daniells Bridge was almost directly across from the exit for US-29. Normally there would be back tracking and turning around to get from here to there, but with zombies, the rules were out the window.
Now they just rolled straight across the lanes, the meridian, and hit the exit in a direct line; ignoring terrain and zombies alike to barrel right for the outskirts of Athens proper. Darryl bottomed the station wagon out twice crossing the grass, though he was pretty sure the frame was bouncing off zombie bodies and not the ground, then again as he angled across the meridian. There he felt the front bumper dig in despite his alteration of his course to try and minimize the straight on approach. He was ready for it, his hands and arms locked and braced against the steering wheel, and he had his head tipped forward with neck muscles clenched to keep from snapping his head back and forth.
A zombie staggered in from the side as he fought for control after the meridian, managing to hit the gap between Darryl and the truck he was following just perfectly. The station wagon slammed into the corpse just above the knees with a barely heard snap of breaking bones. It rolled up and over the hood as Darryl kept pressure on the accelerator, then up and over the windshield, but when he glanced reflexively at the mirrors he didn’t see the body tumbling off behind him.
Frowning, Darryl concentrated on following the truck. As he swerved to make the exit ramp, he saw the zombie he’d hit finally fall off the left side of the roof. It hit the pavement, still tumbling, as he brought the car around to the right.
Darryl hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he thought the route Craig had picked out was a good one. The only thing Darryl had wondered about was whether or not the stores would be there, but as he turned at the end of the ramp, he saw the sprawling parking lot of the supermarket on the right. It really was right there, just as Craig had promised.
“Motherfucker came through.” Darryl muttered before he felt his head hit the roof when the station wagon bumped over two more zombies in the road. “Shit, ow!”
The plow trucks made the turn into the lot, and kept turning as they curved around to run down the side of the big building to get at the rear loading alley behind the store. Now he could see what they were doing, and he had to admit it was a little impressive. Both had the plow blades low enough that sparks were flying on a regular basis as steel scraped asphalt, the sparks flying right along with zombies who were hit and hurled aside by the plows.
What little he could see of the specifics of the bodies was that they weren’t winning their confrontations with the truck driven steel. Limbs were snapping, necks were breaking, and chests and backs were splitting open. The drivers had their speed up despite the turn, and they were doing a number on anything in their way.
There weren’t as many zombies behind the store, but there were enough that the plows stayed busy. The second driver swung out from behind Craig, who was driving the first truck, and began sweeping to the right as Craig barreled along behind the store.
“Semis, park on the two middle docks.” Craig said. “Everyone else, we’re making a circle around the building while they get matched up.”
Darryl nodded. This had been discussed. Both semis were driv
en by owner-operators with lots of experience, but swinging around and backing a trailer up to a specific spot was not something that could happen quickly. And it couldn’t happen at all with vehicles in the way. Plus there was the front of the store to consider.
The plows reached the end of the long ‘alley’ behind the store and turned left, racing up the other side of the store as zombies continued to tumble away from the blades. Darryl bottomed out a few more times, feeling and hearing the low slung station wagon scrape on the asphalt, as he ran over more zombies that weren’t quite clear. His mirrors showed him all the cars were still following him, or at least he thought it was all of them. He was too busy to count.
When they burst out into the front parking lot once more, the plow trucks turned left to sweep along the front of the building. Darryl made the turn and felt his jaw drop. It was like something out of a video game. The parking lot was just covered in walking corpses. He’d been too busy when the convoy turned in and headed for the back of the store to notice, but now he was racing right toward them. Through them. Into them. They were everywhere. It had to be hundreds and hundreds, with more out on US-29.
Darryl realized he was gripping the steering wheel hard enough to hurt his hands, and forced himself to relax. Just breathe. Just breathe. He’d known this was going to be part of the deal. Just stick with it and focus.
But it was a lot of zombies.
“DJ, you’re up for the front doors. Block and hop a ride with your guys. We’re going to circle again in case you have trouble.”
Darryl swallowed his fear and braked, letting the pickup ahead of him open some separation. “Dogz, slow the fuck down. Lead cars, pick your spots and jam them fucking doors.” He saw the front doors of the store approaching and swung to the left. Standing on the brakes, he resisted the dumping momentum’s attempt to slam him forward into the steering wheel. The station wagon skidded to a halt just ahead of the door. He released the brake and let the wagon roll some more, then turned the wheel further left and crashed the bumper into the brick wall on the far side of the door.
He heard screeching tires behind him and braced himself as the next car in line rammed into his, rocking him, but not hard enough to do any damage. Darryl grabbed for the M-16 he’d been given, then had to lean over and stretch to pick it up off the passenger floorboard where it had fallen. He heard more skidding and crashing, but no one else hit his car. He straightened up in the seat and checked his mirrors.
The line of cars was stopped. Zombies were surging toward them from the parking lot. Darryl got his door open and levered himself up out of the low slung car. The duffel bag slung across him to rest on his left hip caught on the doorframe, slowing him, but he twisted and gained his feet in the narrow space between the store’s glass doors and the car.
Guns were going off. Dogz whose cars hadn’t been needed to barricade the front doors were firing from the driver seats, aiming out the passenger windows at nearby zombies. Darryl looked around, then scrambled up on the hood of the station wagon, then stepped to the roof for a better look. He counted six cars, six Dogz including himself, who’d given up vehicles to form the block. They were out of their cars.
The press of zombies in the parking lot was being inexorably drawn to the activity, to the warm flesh and enticing movement, happening at the front of the store. In just the time it had taken him to park, exit, and get up on the roof, over a double handful of occupied cars had zombies reaching through the windows trying to dig the Dogz out. More zombies were clustering around the blockade cars, straining to get at the humans moving around behind them.
A hand grabbed onto his ankle and yanked. Darryl just barely had time to catch himself as his leg was pulled out from beneath him. He landed on his hands on the roof with a grunt and a creak of compressing metal as the roof dented under his weight. The M-16 hurt his hand as he held onto it. Something was gnawing on his boot. Turning on his side, feeling his hip and knee and ankle protest as whatever had hold of him resisted the motion, creating torque, he looked down to see a zombie with its teeth in his boot.
He could feel teeth through the thick leather, pressing down on the bit of cow skin that was all remaining between him and losing everything. Darryl’s eyes widened as his heart hammered in his chest. Kicking reflexively, he managed loosen the grip enough to roll fully over on his back and bring his other leg into play. His right heel shattered the zombie’s nose and rocked its head back, but it hadn’t let go yet.
Two more zombies were on either side of that one, reaching to add their hands to the first’s. Panicked, Darryl kicked again as hard as he could. He heard something break in the zombie’s skull, and he flexed his thigh back toward his chest. Still the zombie clung to his foot, and it was coming with Darryl as he pulled his leg up. Snarling in fear and rage, Darryl lashed out with both feet – the one with zombie fingers on it as well as the free one – and sent the zombie tumbling away.
Scooting back toward the store side of the station wagon’s roof, Darryl’s hands came down on empty air and he felt himself tipping over the edge. He yelled and twisted frantically as he grabbed for the car. He just managed to twist and rotate with the help of one hand that got a grip on the edge of the roof, coming down at a heavy angle on his feet rather than falling flat or landing on his head. He staggered back against the glass door behind him, breathing hard.
The M-16 was somehow still with him. He’d only fired one a couple of times, borrowing someone else’s at the range for a few magazines, but his thumb found the selector switch as he brought it up and pulled it against his shoulder. He leveled the barrel and began firing over the hood of the car behind the station wagon to clear where he needed to go next. He didn’t need to donate any calories to the zombies, and he didn’t want to end up having to eat a bullet to avoid becoming one either.
Zombies on the far side rocked under the impact of the bullets, which were relatively small and light but coming out at a very high speed. He clicked the switch again and the next pull of the trigger started firing three round bursts. Tracking his fire up, he started toppling zombies as bullets tore through faces that stared at him with gaping mouths and teeth already starting to chew in anticipation of getting at him. The magazine emptied and he felt for the release as he looked around.
Two of the afoot Dogz were almost to occupied cars, but three more were stationary. Juice had his rifle up and firing, but two others were just standing like they were frozen with panic. Darryl found the proper control on the rifle and the spent magazine dropped out. He fumbled in his duffel bag for a fresh one as he yelled. “Climb! Move! Let’s go, in the cars! Get in the damn cars!”
A few heads turned to him, and he made a sweeping hurry up motion with his hand as he got the new magazine seated. “Move!” he repeated. He was not a small man, but he turned himself sideways and sidled between vehicles and doors and walls, making himself fit through, until he reached the first occupied vehicle. The back seat was already crammed full with three Dogz, so he headed for the second one. Juice and Light were already in the back, and he shoved his way in without regard for how they might feel about it.
Several zombies were on the right side of the car; a couple pounding on the rear passenger window while a third strained to reach Spider in the driver’s seat. Darryl’s ears protested as the biker fired half a dozen rounds with his pistol into the zombie. The gun’s reports were deafening in the enclosed space, but the bullets hammered the zombie back before one caught it in the face and it slumped down out of view.
Three more were right behind it though, and Darryl reached for his own pistol. Light was in the way, and Darryl couldn’t fit his hand down past Light’s hip to reach the holster.
“Look out Dogz, plows coming by on your right.” the radio squawked.
Spider glanced to his right, then flinched violently. “Holy Christ!”
Just as Spider swore, the car rocked heavily in time with a screech of metal as one of the plow trucks literally scraped past, in conta
ct with the car. The side mirror ripped free, and then suddenly the truck was past and there were no zombies within eight feet of the car.
“Dogz, fucking go!” Darryl said, giving up on trying to reach his pistol and instead grabbing for the radio that was clipped to the strap of the duffel bag. “Go damnit, go.”
The lead car accelerated after the trucks, and Spider followed suit. Darryl and the other two in the back seat were thrown back and into each other, but Darryl didn’t care. They were moving. He twisted around to look behind them. The plow trucks had left another trail of bodies in their path, and the line of cars were all with them, following in the cleared wake. He bumped his head into the roof again as Spider went over some bodies, but Darryl ignored the pain and grabbed for the head rest as the Taurus swung hard to the left.
Despite his grip, he was still flung against his brothers in the back seat, and Juice snarled angrily as Light and Darryl’s weight compressed him against the door. The window next to Juice’s head was webbed with cracks, but it was still intact. Darryl got a better grip as Spider approached the back of the store. The car came around and it was Darryl’s turn to take a beating as Light and Juice slid against him when Spider over corrected while straightening out of the turn and shifted the car back and forth.
“Damn cuz, you fucking blind?” Light yelled.
“Fuck you.” Spider said without turning.
Darryl ignored them and looked through the windshield. The semi-trucks were in place against the small elevated concrete walkway, lined up with two loading docks; but the store-side doors were still down. He saw two of the pickups parked almost directly up against the sides of the closest semi. The people in the backs had guns in their hands, rifles and pistols, up and firing past the approaching cars.
This part had been gone over very carefully, but Darryl still held his breath. A lot was happening, and there wasn’t a lot of time to talk or try and exercise any control over things. But the Dogz driving responded beautifully.