Glancing over my shoulder, though, I noted I wasn’t completely in the clear. Backlit by the flaming foyer, several zombies darted toward the van, and one of them managed to grab ahold of my rear bumper. Clad in dirty overalls and clearly missing his lips, he tried to claw his way inside.
I jolted the van to the right, hoping I could shake him loose as I veered around the driveway, but he was one determined fucker. As I turned onto Church Street, a gunshot pierced the darkness, and when I looked back to check on my tagalong, I noted the zombie’s entire head (not just his lips) was gone. I was still dragging the body behind the van, presumably because his arm was caught in the bumper, but at least he could no longer try to kill me. Another shot rang out, the arm exploded, and the body tumbled into the street, leaving only a hand and part of a forearm flopping in the cool night air.
Scratch what I thought. Adopting Ray’s kids would be like having a small army. That kid’s an amazing shot.
Once the immediate danger had passed, I slowed down to fifteen miles per hour again and started to repeat my earlier routine: honking the horn and driving around in a circle, along the driveway and Church Street and back again. Unfortunately, however, I no longer had a badass ex-Marine with a shotgun in the back. So, I had to keep glancing awkwardly between the windshield and the rear, to ensure no zombies climbed aboard.
As I made my second circuit around the driveway, I noticed quite a trail of undead creatures behind the van. By the time I’d made my third trip past the burning church entrance, I could still make out the open doors leading into the sanctuary, but I could no longer see Ray’s boots beneath the flaming curtains. Although it pleased me to think he hadn’t been eaten or burned in the fire, I knew, from the sound of gunshots inside the sanctuary, that not all the zombies had vacated the church. In his effort to shoot as many as possible, Ray hadn’t even had a chance to shut the doors, as he’d planned.
Abruptly, I heard a beep coming from my shirt pocket. Someone was signaling me via my walkie-talkie. Either Ray or the kids.
I removed the device from my pocket and turned up the volume. “This is Joe. Go ahead.”
“Almos’ to da offices, but we gonna hafta leave t’ru a top-floor window. Too many downstairs for us to handle. Over.”
I pressed the talk button. “I’ll get the kids. Then if you can get everyone out the windows and onto the lower roof, I think I might have an idea.”
I turned onto Church Street before remembering walkie-talkie protocol. “Over,” I added.
“Gotcha,” Ray replied. “Talk to ya in twenty. Out.”
I took one more pass around the driveway, to see if I could lure a few more zombies away, and then gunned it down Church Street. When the undead creatures following my van failed to catch me, they quickly lost their enthusiasm and headed back to the church. I could only hope the flames were enough to deter them from reentering the building and pursuing Ray upstairs.
As I retraced my route down East Second Street and North Millet Avenue, it occurred to me I no longer had hot air blasting in my face. With all the preparation and excitement of the past hour or so, I hadn’t had a chance to enjoy the simple pleasure of driving without having to worry about the radiator. Based on the gentle snoring inside the covered carrier, Azazel was grateful as well – or else, she was too exhausted to give a shit.
Chapter
15
“I came here to do something. So, we are gonna stand around, or we are gonna do something?” – Pillsbury, Land of the Dead (2005)
As I pulled alongside the house where Ray and I had left Frankie and the kids, I could see Travis and Nicole were already packed up and waiting for me near the edge of the roof. After helping them lower the ladder to the ground, I braced it as they scurried downward, and together, the three of us waited for Frankie to leap down onto the roof of my van.
I glanced at the kids. I didn’t have to tell them their dad was still inside the church, working his way toward the offices. They had one of my walkie-talkies, so they’d heard his last report with their own ears.
Most children would’ve freaked out over the idea of their father being trapped inside a burning church, surrounded by flesh-eating zombies. But not those two.
True, Nicole didn’t look as carefree as most girls her age. Though she stood several feet from my headlight beams, she seemed paler than when I’d met her in the Hamiltons’ garage. Still, even at eight years old, she remained calm. No tears yet shed.
Naturally, I was delighted to see her smile when Frankie leapt from the roof of my van into my extended arms.
I huffed. “You’re heavier than I expected. Thought you were more hair than muscle.”
Frankie licked my face in response, and Nicole actually giggled.
Then, there was Travis, who, at fourteen years old, already behaved like a seasoned Marine. As soon as I set Frankie inside the van and detached the bungee cords from the rear doors, the boy helped his sister climb aboard, slid their gear across the floor, and kept watch while I clambered inside. With impressive speed and agility, he followed me into the van, closed one door, and reached for the other one just as a random zombie (no doubt attracted to the lights and gunshots) careened around the corner of the house and took a swipe at him. Without hesitation, Travis pulled his pistol from his hip holster, put a bullet right through the creature’s left eye, kicked the corpse to the ground, and then closed and locked the back door.
Fucking kid’s as hardcore as his old man.
Before any other zombies could stumble upon us, I shut off my headlights, donned the night-vision goggles, and reversed over the dead zombie. As I backed onto North Millet, the walkie-talkie beeped again.
For how little they’d cost me, the devices had a pretty decent range. During the two weeks I’d spent readying for the impending apocalypse, I’d often relied on the recommendations of other RVers and doomsday preppers. The purchase of my four walkie-talkies had directly resulted from one such recommendation, and as with many of the essentials I’d bought, I was exceedingly grateful for other people’s expertise and willingness to share information… even if most of the folks with whom I’d corresponded hadn’t believed me about the zombie epidemic and were likely dead.
“Sitrep,” Ray said. “Over.”
I stopped the van, squinted at the walkie-talkie, and then looked over my shoulder at Travis, who sat with his sister at the dining table.
He chuckled at my confusion. “Situation report,” he explained.
While I’d often heard the term sitrep in various movies and TV shows, I’d never actually used it or even looked up the definition before. That was the sort of thing Clare usually did.
Nicole giggled again, and I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment.
I continued toward East Main Street, pressed the talk button, and said, “Hi, Ray. Frankie and the kids are in the van, and we’re back on the road. We’ll be there in a minute. If you can bust out those windows facing the parking area, I can pull the van alongside the church, and you can all drop onto my roof. Over.”
Luckily, the survivors were huddled inside an upper office overlooking the rooftop of a single-story addition to the building. If they could find something to break the glass of the two slender windows I’d mentioned, they might be able to escape before the entire fucking church burned down around their ears.
“Sound good,” Ray replied. “Only one problem… we got an injured man up here. Over.”
Crap.
If by injured, Ray meant the guy had a zombie bite, the situation had become a lot more complicated.
“Maybe you could lower him down first,” I said, “and then the rest of you can hop down. Over.”
“Might jus’ hafta carry him myself. No matter what, we’ll bust out da windows now, so we be ready. Over an’ out.”
I neared Church Street and removed my goggles.
Good news: The flames have spread, so I don’t need the goggles anymore. Bad news: Uh, well, the flames have spread.
What isn’t?
But I spared him the thought and instead asked, “What do you mean?”
“Ya frowned when my dad said someone was injured.”
Real nice poker face, Joe.
Despite the goggles, the kid had still read me like an open book. With ridiculously large print.
“I’m not sure,” I stalled. “Let’s just get your dad and the others outta there before the whole damn church burns down.”
I turned onto Church Street and stopped the vehicle.
Shit.
It looked as though even more zombies had amassed outside the burning building. Either the intense glow of the spreading fire had lured more of them to the scene or the heat of the flames had chased others from inside the church. Either way, the rescue wouldn’t be a cakewalk.
So, here was the actual sitrep: Ray and his pals were currently on the second floor of a burning church, the front third of which was engulfed in flames. Zombies poured from the dilapidated church entrance. Many of them were on fire, but as with the Mardi Gras Indian, that hadn’t stopped them yet. I was planning to drive right through the horde, across the lawn, not far from the office windows, so that Ray, the super Cajun Marine, could help lower a bunch of trapped people onto the roof of my home-on-wheels. Before we all burned to death or got ripped to bloody pieces.
OK, seriously, how do I get myself into these fucking situations?
In a fifteen-hour period, I’d encountered more deep-shit scenarios than I had in all of my forty-five years on the planet. And I was still about forty-five goddamn miles away from the love of my life.
Chapter
16
“Run for it? Running’s not a plan! Running’s what you do once a plan fails.” – Earl Bassett, Tremors (1990)
While surveying the bizarre scene, I couldn’t help but wonder… if the eyes of a zombie on fire melted away, would it still be able to sense fresh meat nearby?
Normally, I would’ve said that zombies could smell living humans even better than they could see and hear them. But many of the undead creatures presently stumbling across the circular driveway, grassy lawn, and parking lot were rather preoccupied. In fact, at least half of them seemed to be ablaze. Silhouetted by the flaming church behind them, they were flailing their limbs, swiping at each other, and banging into their fellow undead creatures like steel balls and plastic flippers in a malfunctioning pinball machine. Naturally, they also happened to be spreading the flames to other hapless zombies.
So, the fact that the fire was baking their eyes down to the size of shriveled grapes and rendering the orbs absolutely useless was the least of their troubles. I doubted, too, their aural and olfactory senses were topnotch at the moment. The overwhelming odor of charred, rotten zombie flesh assaulting my nostrils likely hampered their own ability to sniff out me and the kids in the nearby van.
I wasn’t sure yet if the limited brain functions of the undead included pain reception, but they certainly moaned as if the fire hurt them.
Man, I hate that fucking sound. Don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
Of course, only half of the zombies wandering around the church were on fire, which meant the other half had their full sensory functions. As soon as they spotted my van on Church Street, they promptly rammed themselves into the front and sides of the vehicle, which rocked from the ongoing assault. No doubt, they were also smearing their gross zombie goo all over my beautiful baby.
Yep, I said beautiful. Beauty had always existed in the eye of the beholder, and to me, my zombie-proof step van was as gorgeous as a swimsuit model.
Well, almost. But in a zombie apocalypse, the van’ll take me and Clare much farther than a hot chick would.
Before the undead could completely surround us, I resumed moving forward, knocking over the zombies in my path, crushing their body parts beneath my sturdy wheels, and trying to avoid the flaming ones at all costs. As I approached the designated pickup point, I saw glass spray out from one of the upper windows. At least someone was still alive up there. Hopefully, it was Ray.
Glancing over my shoulder, I was again amazed at how calm and well-behaved his children were. As stoic as his father, Travis quietly slid off the built-in bench and stepped toward the front of the van, likely for a better view through the windshield. Meanwhile, all color might’ve drained from Nicole’s face, but she didn’t make a peep.
In fact, the only one making any noise, besides the undead horde on all sides, was Frankie. He didn’t tremble. He didn’t bark. But as he’d demonstrated with the zombies near the Hamiltons’ back fence, he seemed to know those outside had nefarious intentions. With his bird-hunting nostrils, he could surely smell the death and decay, so it was no surprise he’d braced himself in fighting stance beside the table. Every time a zombie jolted the van, his hyper-aware eyes widened, and he released a low growl, his teeth bared. I suspected that, if a zombie slipped aboard my ride, Frankie would know exactly what to do with those teeth.
A badass dog for a badass family.
I turned toward the passenger seat and pulled the towel from atop Azazel’s carrier. I hated leaving her in the dark for too long. To her credit, she merely peered at me through the narrow slits, but refrained from her usual chirping or crying. She was either too scared or too tired to say much of anything.
Shifting my focus back to the windshield, I said, “Keep an eye out for…”
Before I could finish my thought, though, Travis interrupted me. “Mr. Joe, my dad jus’ tossed a rope outta dat window.”
I followed his gaze to one of the upper office windows. It didn’t appear to be a rope – more like a chain of knotted tapestries. Something assembled in a hurry. I just hoped it would hold as my soon-to-be passengers ventured down the church roof and onto my van. I also hoped no one was too overweight – not because I fretted about the sturdiness of my roof, but because it would be difficult to squeeze a fat ass through such a narrow window. Crude as it sounded, we simply didn’t have time to grease someone out of a tight spot.
It had already taken longer than planned to push through the zombies in the parking lot, across the lawn, and alongside the church. Although I managed to plow through most of the overly eager creatures, many others slipped beneath the vehicle and became little more than zombified speed bumps.
When the van was only a few yards from where I planned to stop, a heavy chalice sailed across the roof of the building, bounced onto the hood of my van, and left a sizable dent behind.
“Goddammit,” I grumbled as I slammed on my brakes.
I wasn’t pleased about the latest dent, but when it came to zombie-mobiles, functionality mattered more than cosmetics. Besides, it amused me that desperate times had called for sacrilegious measures. I doubted anyone in the soon-to-be-burning office cared that the chalice had once held the sacramental wine during Holy Communion. When survival mattered most, even devout Catholics were willing to sacrifice religious relics to break the thick glass covering their only possible exit route.
“Uh, Mr. Joe…”
Travis’s concerned tone dispelled my inconvenient musings, and I realized three things at once. One, a tall, lanky woman had already begun emerging from one of the narrow windows, onto the roof of the lower story. Two, several men and women awaited their turn behind her. And three, the zombies around us had begun working themselves into a fury, trying to reach the tasty humans on the second floor.
Without further delay, I rolled toward the building and halted beneath the eaves. Not ten seconds later, I heard a thunk on the roof of my van. I could only assume it was the first woman I’d glimpsed, as I could no longer see the windows above me.
Over the next few minutes, I heard at least five other thunks. Unfortunately, the undead frenzy outside the van had only worsened. In fact, so many of them had pushed their way toward the smorgasbord above me that they’d begun to form a couple of piles between my van and the building, with toppled z
ombies forming the base and others climbing over them to reach the roof. The more zombies that approached, the higher the piles grew.
As I waited nervously in the driver’s seat, I recognized the one major flaw in Operation Batshit-Crazy: I had no idea how many people I was rescuing, so I didn’t know how long I needed to wait, and the zombie piles were getting bigger by the second.
I was about to signal Ray on the walkie-talkie when he beat me to the punch.
“Joe, ev’ryone on board ’cept me an’ Clovis. I gotta carry him down da roof, so it’s gonna take a minute. Over.”
“Just hurry,” I replied. “The zombies are getting closer to you. And the folks above me. Over and out.”
I considered rolling down my passenger-side window and shooting some of the more ambitious creatures in the head, but before I could make a dumbass move like that, I heard whacks and gunshots from above. Clearly, those who’d landed on my roof had brought a few weapons with them, and Ray had obviously replenished their ammo from his treasure chest of a backpack.
Several zombies tumbled from the top of the surrounding piles, but the situation could still go south quickly. For those outside as well as for me and the kids.
After all, zombies were pressing against the front, back, and sides of my van, which was in imminent danger of being irreversibly encircled. Worse, I could feel the heat from the encroaching flames. Just like in the burning French Quarter.
Zombie Chaos (Book 2): Highway to Hell Page 11