“It got the point across,” he said, a little defensively.
“You’re right about that,” she replied. “Nobody wants you arrested anymore. Except maybe the Ferrari guy. He’s probably still upset. But his girlfriend hates him now. Called him a coward for pushing her in front of him. Kind of funny, actually. You want some lunch? Cookie made up a bunch of stuff, just grab a plate and head to the buffet.”
There seemed to be more people than there were this morning and Gunny mentioned this as they got in line behind Scratch, waiting to load their plates.
“There are,” Tiny said. “After everything quieted down, when you guys were all out back digging the graves, a bunch of guys that had stayed in their trucks made a run for the front doors. There’s enough room to squeeze past Pack Rat’s trailer and get inside. But Cobb’s blocked that now, there are too many of those dead things out there.”
Gunny hadn’t been up on the roof again, and the view from the windows was blocked by the trucks. “Really?” he said. “They’re coming in off the road?”
“Yeah,” Tiny replied. “They’re trickling in by ones and twos. Sometimes a half dozen. But they just keep coming. There is probably sixty or seventy out there, now, just milling around. I was up on the roof for about an hour till Peanut Butter relieved me. I guess the noise, or maybe the smell of people, is attracting them.”
“Crap,” Gunny said. “I was planning on leaving after I ate and said my goodbyes.”
“Might want to wait till Wire Bender has his say,” Scratch said. “He’s gathered all the information he has so far, and him and Cobb are planning on giving a little brief to everyone. Kind of let everybody know everything that they’ve been able to figure out, I guess.”
Gunny nodded and added an extra slice of meatloaf to his plate. Cookie had been a Mess Sergeant in the Army and his food was never very fancy, but it was always good and filling. He found a booth by the window and the three of them sat in the same configuration they had just a few hours ago, watching the firm backside of the leather clad girl on the motorcycle, ignorant to the death and destruction that was only a few minutes in their future.
“Déjà vu,” Scratch said. Voicing what all of them felt.
The TV was off now. None of the cable channels worked, and the local stations only had test patterns. Some of the radio stations were still playing music, but they hadn’t heard a live voice over the air in hours.
Cobb clomped in a few minutes later with Wire Bender and The Preacher following close behind, both of them carrying papers in their arms. “Preacher made it in. Cool,” Scratch said. “I was wondering if he was out in the chapel.”
“Yeah,” Gunny said. “He was out back with us while Cobb had you on cleanup detail. He said some words over the ones we buried.”
“Right,” Scratch groused at him “Thanks for that. Next time do you have to let it leave a blood trail a mile long?”
“At ease!” Cobb barked and the truckers quieted down instantly, the others in the dining room soon realized the strange command meant ‘shut up’ and stopped talking to pay attention. He was standing near the entry doors and Wire Bender was helping Preacher unfurl a map of the world and pin it to the bulletin board, covering up the ‘trucks for sale’ and ‘drivers needed’ posts that were on it.
“Since Gunny’s little display of marksmanship, and the proper way to ruin a perfectly good floor,” Cobb started in without preamble, his drill sergeant voice carrying easily to the back reaches of the diner. “Everyone knows what we are up against. Right now there are about seventy of those things outside, wanting inside.”
There were gasps from some of the people, and a murmur started up. Cobb didn’t get louder, or acknowledge the interruption, just carried on in his command voice and the people talking quickly hushed.
“Wire Bender has been in communication with people all over these United States and between that, and monitoring the internet, he’s put together a pretty good picture of what we are dealing with. These two girls have some medical experience and have a little something they want to say about what they’ve been able to figure out.”
He pointed his chin at Sara and Stacy to indicate them. “The Padre here is going to say a little prayer, and then Wire Bender will brief you on what we know.” He moved aside and Preacher stepped up and asked for the people to bow their heads. If there were any atheists in the room, they didn’t voice any complaints.
Preacher was succinct in his prayer, mentioned the bible passages that talked about the dead rising, asked for guidance, and when he finished, there was a hearty Amen.
Wire Bender stepped up then, looking a little nervous at all the eyes on him. He started out hesitantly, with many “um’s” and “er’s”, but once he got going, the facts and figures and numbers came fast and hard. He referenced the map, pointing out all of the cities he knew for certain were in utter chaos. He had highlighted them in red.
They were all red. Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, London, Seoul, Beijing, New Delhi, New York, Mexico City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta…. All of them. This contagion had spread so fast, no one could figure out the trigger that had caused it. From gleaning through all the news reports, he had determined that it started two days ago in limited areas, but today it had exploded worldwide.
Everywhere at once. There was something instigating it, some release mechanism no one had figured out yet, and it was following the path of the sun. The CDC scientists in Atlanta and the Military had been frantically working all night, trying to determine the cause, but when the sun came up in America, our cities had gone the way of the rest of the world. As near as anyone could determine, it had started in Japan, spread to China and Russia, devastated Europe in a matter of hours and started in North America around 6 am, Eastern Standard Time.
Reports from South America were spotty, but from everything he had heard, they weren’t spared either. As far as he knew, Hawaii, Australia, and the islands in the Pacific hadn’t been affected, maybe some of the Caribbean Islands, but he didn’t know for sure. There was stunned silence when he wound up his report, nearly every city on the world map was red.
Overrun.
Dead.
Except for one glaring exception.
“What about the Middle East?” Gunny asked. “Tehran? Cairo? Damascus? Riyadh? I don’t see any red marks in any of those countries. Anything from Israel?”
Wire Bender looked back at the map like he was seeing it for the first time, seeing it clearly. He tilted his head, hand to chin, looking like he was deep in thought. “I never noticed…” he started then took off out of the diner, heading back to his shop.
“He probably doesn’t have any communications with them. He doesn’t speak Muslim does he?” someone asked.
Most of the former soldiers snorted or laughed. Muslim wasn’t a language, and every nation over in the Middle East had their own tongue. But they were right in their assumption. Wire Bender probably didn’t speak any of the languages from those countries.
Stacy stepped up and gave a brief rundown of what happened to the deputy, Brian and Ozzy. How fast it attacked their respiratory system, how the fever spiked, then they died. And came back. All from one bite, all within a matter of hours. But based on what the drivers told her, if you die from blood loss, or any other reason, after being bitten, you came back almost instantly.
Like a shot of heroin in the veins, the saliva was in your system as soon as it broke skin and got into your bloodstream. She told Hot Rod to stand up and explained about his scratches, and how he was showing no symptoms, then briefly told about the few tests she could run on the painter that had been in the freezer.
No pulse, no heartbeat. No change in pupils with white light stimulation. No blood pressure. The only way to kill them is to destroy the brain. It was alive, somehow, and controlling the rest of the body. Kill the brain, kill the body. She stressed how important it was that if anyone was bitten, that they be isolated. Even the smallest bite.
&nbs
p; Cobb came back up to squint at the map for a moment then started in again with his drill instructor’s voice, “People, we’ve made this place as secure as we can, and everyone here is welcome to stay as long as you want. By the same token, you’re welcome to leave if you want to try to get back home. If any of you drivers have loads of food and you’re planning on staying here, then plan on unloading the truck. Tommy is working on a way to safely get them in the bays.”
“I’m planning on heading out,” Squeak said, “but we can unload a bunch of cookies and crackers if you want.”
A few other drivers voiced the same, offering some of their freight, from fruits and vegetables to refrigerated beef and ham.
“Fine, fine,” Cobb barked. “Get with Cookie and let him know what you can spare! Now ‘as-you-were’ and let me finish.” He continued, “If your car got smashed up in the parking lot melee, we’ll figure something out.” He eyed the man who had been so vocal about his dented up Ferrari. He wisely said nothing.
“If it’s too damaged to drive, just come back inside when we open the doors. If you’re leaving, the sooner the better. Those things are steadily piling up out there. They seem to be pretty calm unless they see a person, then all hell breaks loose.”
“How are we going to get to the parking lot, then, if they are already outside?” a woman with a couple of children at her side asked.
“We’ll create a diversion,” Cobb replied. “Speaking of which, Gunny, I need you and Griz for a powwow with me and Tommy after this. You two got the most sandbox experience. We need to figure out the best way to get these folks to their cars in one piece, if they’re leaving.”
Gunny nodded and Griz gave a “Roger that.”
“I don’t suppose anybody’s hauling ammo?” he asked, without much hope.
No one was.
Cobb went on a few more minutes about some other things and Gunny scanned the room from the back, where he was standing. He knew the drivers would be paying attention and that Cobb had their respect. He wondered how the tourists, the civilians as he thought of them, were taking his words now that they realized he had acted in their best interest when he was barking orders and guns started blasting a few hours ago.
All of them were attentive. There were a few sour looks about some of the things Cobb had said. But as they listened and heard the interactions between this grizzled old codger and those younger and stronger than him, they were starting to realize he was much more than just a grumpy, scarred up old man.
Gunny tried to get into their heads, to get a feel for what they were thinking, tried to read them through their facial expressions and body language. Tried to see if there were any potential problems. He was falling back into old military habits without even realizing it.
Carl and his girlfriend, Tina, had stopped in to check this truck stop out after reading about it on one of the travel blogs they subscribed to. They liked it, very quaint and unique. Now he couldn’t decide if they were lucky they happened to be here when the Zombie Apocalypse happened, or if they would have been better off to have skipped it and had breakfast at home. If they hadn’t stopped, they would still be in their car and then been able to drive back to their apartment. Their Prius was one of the cars that truck driver, the one everybody called Gunny, had smashed into. It bounced off the front bumper of that big rig and he didn’t know how much damage it had sustained, it all happened so fast he couldn’t tell. It looked okay from what he could see out of the window, just the plastic bumper cover was hanging askew.
At first he and Tina had thought these uncouth drivers were a bunch of redneck jerks. They had heard them make fun of that poor boy with the missing arm. But as they watched them, they heard them joking with him and treating him the same as anyone else.
Cobb hadn’t even batted an eye when he told him to grab a mop and clean up the mess in the dining room left by that crawling monstrosity. He had no consideration for his handicap. The young man did it. No excuses, no complaints. There was respect and deference when they talked to the old man, when they called him Top. It seemed to be a military rank or something.
He must have been somebody important at one time. That guy was kind of a nutjob, with all those loaded guns just lying around where the kids could have gotten to them. But he had been fast to realize what they were up against. He supposed he really had saved everyone’s lives. Him, and that one they called Gunny.
Now he was a scary one. Cold-blooded killer. He was the first one to react, the first one to run out in the parking lot and shoot that little kid in the face. And he had let that thing just crawl within a few feet of that poor frightened woman. Then he blew its head half off and drug it off like they were going for a Sunday stroll. Wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.
The old man had said something about him, and that huge guy called Griz, having a bunch of time in the sandbox. He knew that meant Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or anywhere over there, he supposed. He wasn’t even sure which countries they were fighting in anymore. It had been going on for nearly his whole life, and no one on campus cared about such things.
He looked around the room, at the men in the diner and then at the men over in the “Professional Drivers Only” section. Wow. What a difference. He felt a little awkward about his and Tina’s matching Salvation Army outfits now. He had quietly untied the hand-dyed scarf that he’d been wearing as an ascot.
They had thought it so jaunty, but now he thought it was ridiculous. The guys on this side all looked a little soft, he had to admit. Slacks and polo shirts. Loafers and Dockers. Those guys over there looked like hard cases. Blue jeans and flannel. Canvas jackets and T-shirts with 2nd Amendment phrases on them.
It looked like the world was reverting to survival of the fittest, and those guys had a pretty good head start on everyone else. No wonder most of them were packing pistols. He would have to get one. Learn how to shoot it. He was pretty good at Call of Duty, it shouldn’t be too hard.
Well, at least he wasn’t wearing pink, like that fat guy who kept screaming about his stupid Ferrari. Or Li’l Wayne over there with all his ghetto gangsta clothes and tattoos, and that big chrome grill in his mouth. That guy hadn’t said a word since he came in and sat down in the booth. Just kept staring out the window at the gap between the truck and its trailer. He had even been crying.
He had helped bring in that poor guy that died and turned into a zombie that Gunny had shot to pieces. Wonder if he knew him? They had pulled up together. Even he had a gun. And probably a criminal record as long as your arm. But that was racist. Profiling. Shouldn’t think like that.
He and Tina went to Berkeley and they prided themselves on not being judgmental. He was better than that and felt a little ashamed for even thinking such a thing. She was in electrical engineering and he was studying philosophy, still undecided on a “real” major, as his dad kept cajoling him to declare. It was almost laughable.
Last week… hell, yesterday, he would have told anyone there was no reason to own a firearm. But today he was thinking he needed to get a gun, learn how to use it. He was looking at the differences in the people, their clothes, their hair, and their attitudes. What separated ‘them’ from ‘us.' It had to be more than the fact that they all looked uneducated, maybe barely graduating high school.
The people on his side of the diner looked more refined, definitely. Better clothes that didn’t come from Wal-Mart, expensive watches, good haircuts. Maybe it was because most of them seemed to have military experience. Poor people joined the army. Maybe that was it, being raised in deprived conditions. He noticed the one called Gunny staring at him and rapidly turned back to pay attention to what Cobb was saying, feeling like he was back in school and had just been caught doing something wrong.
Chapter Twelve
After they had wolfed down their chow, Gunny and Griz headed to the shop with Tommy and Cobb. The rest of the drivers were making their plans to either leave or stay, still trying to call and text and find out any information they could
from the internet.
It was the only news source that still worked, although more and more websites, especially those housed overseas or on the east coast, were failing to load. Many of the tourists pitched in to help with the kitchen and dining room cleanup, waiting until they could safely get to their cars.
They had appreciated Cobb’s offer of a safe place to stay, but most didn’t even consider it. They needed to get home. They had loved ones waiting for them. Once the families were back together, then they could make plans, then maybe come back here if things were really that bad out there.
As they walked into the shop, Tommy grabbed a paper floor mat they put in all the customer's trucks when they worked on them, to keep the mechanic's dirty boots off of the carpets. He laid it on the counter and flipped it over to the blank side, then quickly sketched out the layout of the Three Flags.
“All of the people in the diner are parked here,” he said, indicating the automobile parking area in front of the store. “So, how do we get seventy zombies away from there long enough for them to slip out and get to their cars?”
“How much ammo do we have?” Griz asked. “Not pistol, the M-1 or the .223.”
“Not enough for what you’re thinking,” Cobb said. “I’ve got about a hundred rounds, total.”
“I’m thinking we need a diversion, something to draw them away,” Gunny said, looking at the quickly drawn map. “Someone on the roof can see if it’s clear, and radio down when it is. We open up the front doors, they slide out under the trailers and run for their cars.”
“What diversion, though?” Tommy asked.
Cobb drew on his Lucky Strike and added a few more lines to the makeshift map. “If we take the tow truck out of the back gate,” he indicated the seldom-used junkyard gate behind the shop, “we could bring it around to the front, hit the lights and air horns, and then drive off. They should chase it.”
The Zombie Road Omnibus Page 12