Gunny stared at him for a minute, breathing quickly, processing what Cobb had just said, then closed his eyes, taking it all in.
Cities have fallen in a matter of hours.
No way.
It’s impossible.
So are Zombies.
You just killed two of them.
Cities have fallen.
Thousands… no MILLIONS of these things were out there.
Right now.
Zombies.
What are you going to do?
What is most important right here, right now?
Prioritize.
Gunny reached his hand up to his forehead, stretched out his thumb to form a C with his fingers and in a slow, measured, fluid motion, he raked his hand down his body. He closed his chakras. All of them. Completely. He would deal with all this later.
It was a trick he had learned in his mandatory counseling sessions to determine his mental stability before he was quietly handed his walking papers. He was told never to darken the door of any government institution again. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard, Reserves... All ties severed.
Don’t call us, we’ll call you. He had asked if that included the IRS. They were not amused. He didn’t know if he really had chakras to close, or if it was all just a mumbo jumbo new age calming device, but either way, it worked. The one good thing that came out of those hour-long sessions twice a week was a way to close off his mind, to slow down the nightmares, to contain his rage before it got out of control. To shut off emotions for a while. To get his headspace and timing back in order.
He opened his eyes to Cobb still staring at him. “I’m good,” he said, breathing evenly. Calm again. “I’m going to go talk to Wire Bender, then I’ll grab a tarp and take care of this. But I don’t have a good knife. You have keys to Switchblade’s shop?”
Cobb unhooked a big ring of keys from his belt loop, handing them to Gunny. “It’s marked. Switchblade doesn’t open till nine. I don’t think he’s gonna make it.” Gunny took them and started to turn away
“Get a good one,” Cobb said. “He keeps those in the glass cases. Ain’t got a key for them, you’ll have to snap the lock. Now I gotta go tell these people it ain’t just the Three Flags. The whole damn world is melting down.” Cobb sighed, seemed to sag, and looked older than ever.
Gunny felt a bit sorry for him. It wasn’t a job he would have wanted. He looked out past Cookie, at a diner half full of people who didn’t have the experiences with hardship and death that most of the drivers here had been through. Most of them weren’t going to take it very well. He looked back at the haggard old man.
“Semper Fi, Top,” he said softly.
Cobb seemed to shake himself, harrumphed and spat out his Lucky. “Don’t you got some business to be attending to?” he growled, but Gunny saw his shoulders straighten and his back became stiff again as he turned and stomped out of the kitchen.
Switchblade’s knife shop, The Cutting Edge, was near the main hall and carried a vast assortment of knives and swords and other less than lethal weapons. He had paper weights cleverly disguised as brass knuckles. He had props from every movie that ever had a sword or fancy knife in it, tons of cheap Chinese knives and, like Cobb had said, a small selection of quality knives locked away in display cases.
These weren’t his best sellers, why buy a two hundred dollar knife if you didn’t need it? You could buy a whole handful of twenty-dollar knives that looked cool and came in garish colors for the same money.
After he had let himself in, Gunny grabbed a sweet looking dagger with a stack of skulls for a handle and stuck it in the little lock to snap it off the showcase. It snapped at the hilt. So he grabbed a bright green knife that looked like a snake was curling around the grip.
It didn’t do much better, although the blade lasted longer than the plastic handle. Sighing, he looked behind the counter and saw a screwdriver. It snapped the little lock right off. Switchblade didn’t have many high-quality knives, only a few dozen, but they really were top shelf.
Genuine Ka-Bars, Gerbers, a few SOG Seal Team knives and H&Ks, among others. Gunny just grabbed a Gerber because the sheath was right there with it, and it looked as sturdy as any of the others. He slid it onto his belt, then finally headed down to the CB shop to see if there was any news from the Atlanta area.
As he passed Doc’s office, he could see Scratch standing near the entrance door, talking to Hot Rod, but he was a good distance from the others.
Gunny smiled to himself, remembering a quote from General “Mad Dog” Mattis, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
It looked like Scratch was doing just that. As he opened the door to the cluttered Radio Shop, he could hear the sound of a dozen different voices over the CBs and Ham and shortwaves. They were vying to be heard over the televisions and internet feeds from around the world on all the monitors he had rigged up.
A visit to his den was always a headache-inducing endeavor if you didn’t like the sound of background static and roger beeps and distant voices over loudspeakers, but now he had really cranked it up a few notches. Some of the guys noticed him as he came in and gave him nods.
“Cobb said those things are all over the place. That true?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the pandemonium coming from the speakers. He looked around at the multiple monitors and screens and saw the answer on their faces without being told.
Wire Bender finished talking to someone on one of the Ham radios, noticed Gunny, then hit a switch quieting the cacophony down so he wouldn’t have to yell to be heard.
“Saw what you did out there, man,” he said in his somewhat reedy voice, nodding toward the closed circuit video monitors on the back wall. The whole five minutes was on replay on one of the screens. It looped from the time the couple on the bikes left, to him and Pack Rat climbing up out of view toward the catwalk.
He watched it for a minute, saw himself shoot the little Mexican kid in the face, then turned away to see the rest of the men staring at him.
Hard men with hard faces.
Were they judging?
Did they think they could have done it better?
Were they Monday morning quarterbacking what he had to do?
Griz finally spoke up, said, “I don’t know if I coulda done it, bro. That was some pipe hittin’ shit.” Then held his massive fist up for Gunny to bump. The tension broke and there were a few pats on his back, and “it had to be done” and “Thank God you didn’t get your ass bit” comments. Then truckers, being who they were, somebody had to crack wise about Gunny’s bow legged run. Then they were chuckling over the Ferrari he had plowed into.
Gunny went to the counter and Wire Bender was sitting there surrounded by his electronics, like an all-knowing oracle, like he had been waiting for this ever since Gunny had walked in the door.
“Atlanta?” he asked.
“Not good,” Wire Bender said. “I got on the horn with some guys I know in that area about the time you were introducing Mr. Kenworth to Mr. Ferrari.”
He tucked a length of long gray hair behind his ear. “Only one of ‘em answered. He’s way out in the sticks. He hadn’t seen anything. As far as Atlanta proper…. Man, it’s the same as everywhere else. All hell broke loose about seven or eight o’clock, their time. I’ve been up since way early, watching this develop. It’s not just here, Gunny. While we were sleeping, most of Europe went through this. It’s like it’s following the path of the sun, or something. People wake up and turn zombie. I didn’t think it could happen here, though.”
Gunny watched the televisions, the internet channels. It was the same all over. Fire, mayhem, zombies, police in full riot gear.
“Some of the East Coast TV stations aren’t even broadcasting. Half of the sites I go to for real news in Germany and France and England, aren’t there anymore. I scan the radio dials and you don’t hear voices, just music. Playlists on repeat, probably.”
&n
bsp; “But if it’s been going on around the world, maybe following the sun as you say, why haven’t we been warned? You know the military, the government has been watching all this!” one of the drivers said.
“Maybe it was all too fast,” another opined. “If it comes with the sun, by the time Washington realized it was happening here, it already had.”
“How can the sun make people turn into zombies?” Gunny asked, “there’s no way unless….” He thought for a minute. “Unless we’re already infected with something and the sun is the catalyst that sets it off?”
It was a stupid idea, but no one could come up with anything else that was even remotely more plausible. It was getting hot in the overcrowded room, and Gunny started edging his way out. He still needed to get rid of the thing in the freezer and watching all the footage and the news reports had left him utterly resolute. He now had no qualms whatsoever about putting one of those things….zombies…. down.
There was no shred of human left in them, as far as he was concerned. As he slipped through the door, he pulled his phone out to check for any texts that may have been missed in the noise and confusion, and saw that there were. Two of them!
He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and hurriedly swiped the screen to read the rest of the messages. They were both from his wife. The first must have been sent much earlier, but they both came through at the same time.
It read: Dropping Terry and Linda off at the airport this morning. He said you can use his boat, but don’t drink all his beer this time. LOL. Your boy has been fighting again. I’m out of oranges, can you pick some up at one of those roadside stands? Avocados, too. XOXO
The other one read: Been trying to call you for hours. Can’t get through. Thank God you are OK. If you’re reading this, then you know what is happening. Haven’t heard from Jessie, but he had in-school detention. If he stays put, he will be OK. I am at work, but a group of us have barricaded ourselves on the 28th floor. We have Phil with us. He has killed 2 of them so far. We are OK for now, going to get to the roof. Mr. Sato said the Army would rescue people off rooftops. Once I’m off, I’ll get Jessie. I love you, Honey. Please be safe. We will probably be in an Army camp when you get back. XOXOXO
Gunny leaned against the wall, almost weak with relief. Lacy was okay. She was at work. That sucked, would have been better if she wasn’t, but she was safe. They had 30 more stories to go to get to the roof. He wondered why they just didn’t hop in the elevator and go.
Phil was the security guard and Gunny had seen that he carried a pistol when he’d met him on a few of the occasions he had taken her out to lunch. Her boss, Mr. Sato, was there with them. That was good. He was the CEO and if he said the Army was rescuing people, he must have a connection somewhere. They were setting up refugee camps. He hadn’t heard or seen that on any of the news feeds they’d been watching, but that didn’t mean anything.
Things weren’t as bad as all that if the Army had birds out pulling people from rooftops. And Jessie was in detention. But that was good too. He knew from hearing him describe how isolated, unfair, and horrible it was the last time he wound up in there.
Locked up in a dungeon was how he put it. No cafeteria lunch, had to bring one from home, or go hungry. Had to beg for bathroom breaks. No phone. No iPod. A camera watching your every move. Just a notebook, paper, and one book.
Oh, the unfairness of it all. He’d told him to take his fights off the school grounds next time. Lacy had told him to walk away and not resort to violence. Whatever. He wasn’t raising a Nancy Boy. His family was safe. That was good. Now all he had to do was drive 2400 miles through zombie infested country, find the right refugee camp, and collect them.
Piece of cake.
8
Jessie
Day 1
Detention
Jessie was taking care not to bob his head to the beat of the music, the ear buds ran carefully up his sleeve, out the top of his shirt, and hidden under his collar-length hair. Of course, the iPod was strictly forbidden in detention, and that was why everyone had one. Or their phone.
It was going on ten o’clock and the essay he had to have finished by the end of the day was nearly done. The old man always said if you had a job to do, just buckle down and get it over with. Not that he’d follow any advice the old man gave, but he didn’t want to spend another day in this hell-hole of boredom, so he’d knock out the assignment and then knock out Kyle Farson’s teeth after school, and off school property.
He’s the bastard that got him in this mess. Then when the old man got home, he’d have to deal with him being pissed off and going on about military school if he screwed up “one more time”. Kyle would pay for that, too. Busted nose. Maybe black both his eyes. Or not. He knew he would just let it go, but it felt good to dream of revenge.
Jessie didn’t think of himself as a badass or anything, it’s just that these private school kids were all a bunch of pansies. He’d been raised up on the military bases and even after his dad got out, he still went to the daycare and school on base because his mom worked there as a civilian. Military kids were pretty rough and tumble, they played hard and weren’t mollycoddled when it came to scrapes and cuts. More than once he’d heard, “What are you crying about? I don’t see a bone sticking out.”
When they moved to Atlanta, he kept up with his karate classes and when he got in his teens, the old man had started showing him some really devious fighting moves. Stuff they didn’t teach at the dojo. Stuff that he had to swear never to use unless he was prepared to be arrested and maybe sent to jail. Stuff only to be employed in a life or death situation. Brutal moves his old man said he’d been trained in while he was in the Army.
Things like eye gouging, elbow breaking, and neck snapping. Moves designed to kill or permanently maim. With the knowledge that he could crush anyone that came up against him, he had walked away from a lot of fights, had let them push him and call him a pussy or whatever. Because in his mind’s eye, he could see the outcome, could see the jerk laying on the ground screaming in agony in about 2 seconds, and that was enough, just knowing he would win.
But Mr. “My Dad Is A Lawyer” Kyle Farson the Third had caught him off guard with a blow to the back of his head, had knocked his lunch tray out of his hands and sent it flying across the floor.
True, he’d called him a cock gobbling douche nozzle, but that wasn’t enough reason to sucker punch him. Jessie had kicked out on instinct and followed up with a few punches before he stopped himself. By then it was too late.
All the teachers saw was him pummeling on the richest kid in the school, it didn’t matter that Kyle had started the whole thing. Poor little Kyle was laying on the floor with the wind knocked out of him and bleeding from a split lip, and Jessie didn’t even have his hair messed up. So unfair.
Jessie looked up from his writing. He thought he’d heard something. Sheila was staring at him with an exasperated look, obviously trying to get his attention. Had he been singing along with the music?
He moved his hand to his pocket and hit the pause button, then nodded his head in a “what?” gesture. They never knew when someone from the office would be looking at the monitor, or when they would turn the sound up to listen in to ensure there was no talking in the room.
But he heard it now, heard what she must have been trying to get his attention about. He could hear screaming. Faint, but definitely there. They were in the basement of the school, in the mostly unused section, now that the new wing had been added a dozen years back.
The only classrooms down here that were still used on a regular basis were the practice rooms. Band, cheerleaders, the Glee Club. Basically, anybody that was loud. And, of course, detention.
Jessie glanced around the room. Everyone was listening now, nobody was pretending to do their work while playing on their phones, or zoning out to music. Definitely screams. He stood up and went to the door, trying to see out of the frosted window. Nothing. The door was locked, but he tried it anyway, jiggling t
he knob. Sheila had walked up to the camera and was waving her arms at it, saying, “Hello! Hello! What’s going on?”
Gary rolled over in his wheelchair and cupped his hands against the door’s window, trying to see out, but it was useless. The glass was too opaque to make out anything definite, just a single running figure that darted by.
“Fire drill?” Doug asked, standing behind the wheelchair, looking over his head, also trying to see out of the frosted glass.
“We would have heard the alarm,” Gary said.
Another shadowy shape ran by and he started pounding on the door, yelling for them to open it.
Whoever it was kept on going.
“This is so weird,” Sheila said, giving up waving at the camera. “I heard if you even get out of your chair, someone is on the speaker telling you to sit down.” This was her first time in detention, a result of getting caught texting for the third time during class.
“True enough,” Gary said. He had been here a few times before, his “poor attitude” and angry outbursts always seeming to land him in hot water. He had only been paralyzed for a few years, was still trying to adjust to it. The dirt bike wreck that had broken his back hadn’t even been that bad. He had just landed a small jump wrong and woke up in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down. He couldn’t even remember how it happened.
He was one of those popular kids who got along with everybody: the jocks, the stoners, and the nerds. It didn’t matter to him, he was usually an upbeat and friendly guy, and the teachers had let him slide on a lot of things.
Sometimes he went too far and found himself in the dungeon, paying for his outburst with a day of monotony and boredom. His black moods and depression, which had plagued him since the accident, seemed to be finally lifting a little and his competitive spirit was coming back. He had recently taken up wheelchair racing and was concentrating on more of the computer science classes, finding he had a knack for it.
The Zombie Road Omnibus Page 9