The Zombie Road Omnibus

by David A. Simpson

  “Anybody got a calculator?” Griz asked, eyeballing the terrain, already building the wall in his mind.

  “How long are they?” Lars asked, then closed his eyes for a moment when Gunny told him 40 feet.

  “We’d need 132 per mile,” he said and they all turned to look at him

  “Easy math,” he said. “Try calculating grams and kilos and exchange rates, while negotiating in Spanish when you’re buying a pound of the good stuff.”

  Gunny shrugged. “That’s easy enough,” he said. “How many rail cars would we need? Two boxes per car.”

  “Sixty-six,” Lars came back, almost instantly.

  Griz raised his eyebrows, obviously impressed. “I think you found the new Secretary of Math Stuff, Mr. President,” he said, grinning at Gunny.

  “Piss off,” Lars said. “Besides, it would be Secretary of Treasury. Look at that narrow part.” He pointed to an area on the map that was only a few miles wide, between the lake and the river. “Wonder how far it would be to run a line of them between the waters. We can get the dozer to cut a smooth path, knock down any trees in the way. We can run the containers from the edge of the lake over there all the way to the river below the dam.” Lars looked up from the map and traced his arm in an arc, indicating a large semi-circle that probably encompassed two, maybe three miles.

  “It would be like a fortress, even with loads of room to plant fields or have cows, if we wanted,” Stabby said. “A bit like a stronghold from the King Arthur days.”

  Griz took it all in and counted on his fingers, doing some quick math. “We could pull that in one trip. We’d only need a hundred rail cars. Trains pull longer than that all the time don’t they? Hook two or three engines up and it would be easy.”

  They had a plan. It was a quick way to build an easily defendable wall. The land was mostly flat so the dozer work would be minimal, the walls would be 8 feet high and should keep anything at bay, they could set up roving guards on top of them and as an added bonus, they would have all of the supplies that were stored inside of them.

  “I think we should double them, though,” Gunny said. “I think I’d want more than an eight-foot wall between me and a swarm of those bastards. How many we need for that, Lars?”

  “Gonna need about 800 containers for the whole perimeter,” he said. “That’s 400 train cars.”

  “Damn,” Griz said. “That means 3 or 4 trips, doesn’t it?”

  “I think we can do it in one go,” Lars said. “I saw a documentary when I was a kid, they pulled like 700 cars full of iron ore over in Australia, in the Outback.”

  They had all gotten used to him spitting out weird trivia. Being raised on boxes of VHS tapes his mom got from the second-hand stores and church rummage sales, and having a naturally sharp mind led to all kinds of useless knowledge bouncing around in his head. Except some of it wasn’t useless anymore. It was a shame Billy Travaho had died when this all started, those two would have been unbeatable in Trivial Pursuit.

  “How many engines would it take to pull it?” Gunny asked.

  “I don’t remember that,” Lars said after a moment. “I guess all we can find.”

  “Is there going to be enough there?” Stabby asked. “That’s a lot of boxes.”

  “Yeah, there’s thousands in the rail-yards they’re stacked high and deep,” Gunny replied. “Let’s hope there are enough railcars there to haul them. Maybe we can get a train that hasn’t been offloaded. Save us a bunch of work putting them all back on.”

  They had a rudimentary plan. They’d hash out the details back at camp, see if they had somebody that knew something about trains. If not, how hard could it be. Put it in gear and go. You didn’t even have to steer.

  Gunny figured if all went well, they could get into the rail-yards in Dallas, steal a train, and have this whole thing done in a week. Then the General wouldn’t have any more excuses for him to stay. Cobb could figure out the other details, maybe run strands of barb wire in the water to keep that area of access safe from the off chance of an undead swimmer. He’d let them worry about that. He needed to get this part of the job done so he could get on the road to Atlanta.

  They spent the rest of the day mapping out the path the bulldozer would clear and setting out stakes. It turned out the shortest path across the peninsula already had a few dirt roads they could use for parts of it.

  They didn’t have to kill anything out in the open, the area was zombie free. They cleared any houses they came across. They weren’t many, they were nearly five miles from the center of town. The trucks zigzagging up and down all the surrounding roads had drawn the infected to the noise over the last few days.

  In the end, they decided to expand the area to be contained to enclose a portion of a ranch. It would add nearly a hundred containers, but they would gain a working farm that had a large peach orchard and numerous berry bushes. While they were there, they fed and watered all of the animals, most had done okay by themselves. The dog was happy to see them, and even the barn cats gave them some love when they found the bags of food and poured it out for them. The chickens ignored them, the goats only cared about the grain. Gunny hoped there was a vet, or at least a farmer, in the groups of people that were showing up. Some of the cows had dried up, but a few didn’t look well at all. They were lowing pitifully out in the fields, probably had mastitis from not being milked. The only dead animals were some of the horses that had been trapped in their stalls and died of dehydration or starvation.

  Gunny dropped the crew off at the camp as it was nearing dark and headed out to the mass grave where the dozer was finishing up, covering the last of the townspeople. He wanted to see it for himself. See the tomb of an entire town. He thought he owed them that.

  Preacher was there, singing prayers for the dead.

  When the bulldozer operator and his security team finished the grizzly work just as the sun was dipping below the horizon, Gunny waved them on and they left in one of the cars. They were eager to be away from so much carnage, and the smell that still lingered in the air.

  Gunny waited, leaning against the truck, as Preacher sang. His old-time gospel preaching voice rang out strong and clear in the gathering gloom, the night birds and occasional early coyote howl joining him in the mournful hymn. His lament was reaching out for the Gods of the Christians, the Jews, the Indians, and the non-believers, alike. He beseeched them all to gather these souls in their embrace and welcome them home. He sang in English and Latin, and something else Gunny didn’t recognize.

  When he finished the sorrowful song, he bowed his head for a few moments then turned away from the thousands he had buried today.

  “It’s the devil's work,” he sighed. “Everything God did, he tries to copy and pervert.”

  “God made zombies?” Gunny asked.

  “No, son. He brought Jesus back from the dead. Perfect and uncorrupted. So the Devil, that wily old Serpent, copies him. Mocks him. He walks to and fro on the earth roaring like a lion, seeking to devour.”

  Gunny nodded. He could see where Preacher was going with this, could see that so much death had hurt him deeply. Preacher wasn’t like the guys doing the killing. He hadn’t learned how to shut it all off, to compartmentalize. He still felt the pain. Still cried when he buried unnamed babies in unmarked graves. Gunny didn’t want an argument, but he figured it was Man who created the virus that reanimated the dead, not the Devil. Maybe ol’ Scratch whispered in somebody’s ear, but some psychotic human had created it. He still found it hard to believe the Muslims had the scientific know-how to do it. Someone had to sell it to them. Some full-fledged idiot if they thought the Jihadis wouldn’t employ it to kill everybody. That whole religion of peace was a death cult. Maybe they thought they would just use it among themselves. The Sunni killing the Shiites or something. Whatever. In another week or so, all of them would be dead if the Russians let their nukes fly. He wondered about the soldiers still in the sandbox, if they were still alive and fighting, or if they’d been o
verrun by tens of thousands of frenzied Islamists. He wondered about his Muslim friends, if Hasif was still alive. If he was still inside the safe areas of the Middle East, wreaking havoc on the extremists. He hadn’t talked to him in a long time. He suspected he was one of the guys he’d followed on Facebook that reported atrocities from Mosul, or kill counts of the Yazidi women fighters or anywhere else he was. He wasn’t sure, it wasn’t something you could ask online, but some of the phrases he used sounded familiar. Slang he had picked up from the Americans, and his dark sense of humor, had Gunny fairly sure it was him. He hoped he was surviving somewhere. Maybe he was on vacation, he always talked about visiting the Bahamas. It was his dream. He was getting older, maybe he had extracted enough vengeance from what ISIS had done to his family. Maybe he had gotten out.

  They leaned against the front of the pickup, staring at the ball of fire settling below the horizon. It was beautiful in its simple glory.

  Gunny pulled out his poke and rolled one up, offered it to Preacher. He took it and Gunny rolled another for himself before lighting them both, the warm smell of the tobacco masking the odor of death.

  They smoked in silence, burying the dead in their hearts in their own way.

  25

  Hasif

  Cairo, Egypt

  Day 14

  Hasif had made sure he wasn’t followed, but still waited for long minutes standing quietly in the darkened doorway, watching for movement. When he was certain he was alone in the alley, he knocked softly three times. He waited for a ten count, then knocked again. Twice this time. He heard the bolts being thrown and the door opened into a dim room. He nodded to the guard, then made his way to the stairs leading down. He was amazed at the number of people who chanced death by stoning to be here. Worried, too. He had his doubts that a group of this size could keep a secret. Sergeant Meadows had told him a saying that a biker group in America had. Three could keep a secret, if two were dead. Maybe they could keep these assemblies to themselves, after all, their lives depended on it. Hopefully no one would be stopped by the wandering Sharia Patrols. They were everywhere and each group was enforcing conflicting laws. You never knew what you could be fined or beaten for. One day short pants were a sin against Allah. The next day they weren’t. Hasif had an idea that only the most fervent were actually happy. The rest of the people were quietly afraid of this new world. Their joy at getting what they had always wanted quickly turned to fear when they realized they had gotten what they wished for.

  This new Caliphate would never survive, the cracks were already starting to show after only two weeks. After the most successful war ever waged, with the most undisputed and decisive victory in the history of the world, the internal arguments would tear the new government down. It happened too fast. Wars weren’t supposed to be won overnight. There were no great battles, no mighty heroes to be sung about. No time to plan, or consider what would happen the day after the victory.

  The validity of the self-proclaimed Mahdi was already being questioned. He didn’t fulfill any of the prophecies. He didn’t have a seven-year peace with Israel. He rode around on a white horse like it was written, but he looked ridiculous on it, not noble and conquering. Hasif gave it another month, if that long, and the wars would start up again. Sunni against Shiite. Strict Wahabis from Saudi Arabis against those who didn’t want to live in the thirteenth century. A government couldn’t be run by religious leaders. They only knew the words of the Prophet, not how to manage a country.

  There were only a few hours before the first calls to prayer, and attendance at them was no longer optional. In the few short weeks since they had conquered the world, many things had changed. The gathered men and women had already spoken at length of their outrage and horror at what had been done in the name of their religion. By the time they realized what was happening, it was over. They went to bed as usual and woke up the next morning with the radio and TV telling them of the great victory. Too late to do anything but tear at their beards in lament. These dozens of clerics, civic leaders, and shopkeepers were just a small part of the resistance that quickly sprang up when they learned about the death of the rest of the world. But they learned just as quickly not to speak out or show their anger publicly. The roundups of moderates, or infidels as they were quickly labeled, was instant and permanent. All of the warriors had been called home and they had no more enemies to fight, no more Westerners. The streets ran red with public beheadings and the frenzy of the fanatics was insatiable. It wasn’t a Night of Long Knives, it was an entire week of Bloody Scimitars eliminating anyone who wasn’t a true believer. Everyone joined in the celebrations the first few days. The Western World was dead, conquered overnight. The new Caliphate that had been dreamed of since the days of Mohammed was finally at hand. The long awaited 12th Imam had declared himself. No more American Soldiers occupying their lands, no more drones killing whole families at wedding parties. The West got what they deserved and if you weren’t on board, if you weren’t joyous in the streets, then maybe you were the enemy. The societal madness was far worse than it had ever been in Germany at the height of Nazi furor. That was for Country, for the Fatherland. This was for Allah, for religion. The few rational voices who tried to decry what the small handful of self-appointed leaders had done were quickly silenced. Publicly and permanently. If you valued your head, you learned to keep your opinion to yourself, and not miss daily prayers. The foreigners in their lands had been eradicated, their military bases quickly destroyed. Those installations had fallen with the rest of the world. Or so the radios and televisions were broadcasting.

  Hasif knew better. He had been a translator for the Americans and British for many years, and fought tirelessly with the Yazidis and Christians. He’d even had the honor to meet Prince Harry when he was fighting in Afghanistan. He had military and ham radios, now an offense punishable by death, and he had been spending nearly every waking hour scanning the dials in all the bands, trying to determine what the situation was really like. He didn’t trust the news on the state-run radio or televisions. How could the victory have been so decisive? How could it have worked on every single living person outside the safety zones of barricades protecting the Middle East? Iran had their own satellites orbiting the earth and the Rasad-1 had been sending down a constant stream of images as it circled the globe. The only lights showing at night were in the Arabian and Muslim countries, the daytime pictures showed the great western cities in flames. He didn’t know how they were planning on keeping the hordes of undead out of the Northern African countries. There was no way to wall off nearly four thousand miles of desert land across the top of the continent and keep them away from Egypt and Libya. Maybe they thought the zombies wouldn’t wander through the desert to get them, but they probably would. They never should have infected South Africa. Hell, they never should have infected anyone, but it was too late now. Much too late.

  The footage from Iran’s satellite spoke the truth, but not the whole truth. The rest of the world was broken, but not dead, is what he had learned. Some of the American bases in Afghanistan and Iraq were still operational, still being fiercely defended. He’d heard from others of the radio broadcast in America, calling for survivors to go to a town in the state of Oklahoma. It was said that Sergeant Meadows was leading a band to a new stronghold. This was a mistake, it only let the teams in all the mosques in the States know where to find them. When they finished with their task of loading all of the nuclear rods onto the ships, their next objective would be to eliminate or subjugate those survivors. One of the reasons he had risked coming to the meeting tonight was to hear the recording of the short broadcast. Fariq had a copy and he was sure it was truly the voice of Shaytan, as he was known by the armies of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. If it were, Hasif would have to try to figure out some way to get word to him. To let him know there was already a small army of radicals in the Americas, and they would be coming for him.

  Hasif had worked with Sergeant Meadows off and on for years as the wars raged, fir
st across his country, then the entire region. Only the Devil of Ramadi had a bounty on him higher than Shaytan. Chris Kyle was deadly with a sniper rifle and could kill from a distance, silent and unseen. The fighters had to worry about being dead before they knew what had happened, if he was within a mile of them. But Meadows was an up-close killer. He wanted you to know death was coming. He was known as Shaytan, a rebellious spirit far removed from Allah, a hateful, deceitful demon who ghosted through the night and could take animal forms. Meadows didn’t try to quell any of those rumors, either. He wanted them to circulate, wanted some young Muslims to maybe reconsider joining the Jihadis, if they knew he was always in the shadows. Knew he was always ready to put a knife into their kidney and fill their mouth with bacon, sending them into eternal damnation. He could smell a trap, spot an IED, know when a woman in a burka was strapped with explosives, or when you had information he wanted. Shaytan KNEW! He’d been in-country for a decade, had too many tours to remember, and too many missions to count. He had an extraordinary 6th sense that kept him and his team alive. Hasif owed his life to him, more than once. A lot of men did. Sergeant Meadows was one of the guys who didn’t play by the rules. In an insurgent war, you couldn’t. Not if you expected to live very long. What happens outside the Green Zone, stays outside the Green zone as they used to say. He was given great latitude from his superiors because he brought results. The political climate started changing, though, as the Americans grew weary of war and voted in a new president who promised to get them out. Old battle-tested commanders were forced into retirement and replaced with political lackeys. The rules changed. It seemed as if they weren’t really trying to win anymore. They were kinder and gentler.

  Hasif had been working with Meadows when he was an untested Sergeant in the first Gulf War. After they had spent a few years together, Meadows made it a point to look him up if he needed a translator for anything. A native man you could trust was hard to find because their religion itself encouraged lying and deceit. Taqiyya, as it is called. He was with him in a hundred forgotten villages. He was with him in Fallujah, and later in Mosul. He was there during that last year of madness that some say drove him crazy. The year the one called Shaytan had the bounty on his head upped to $50,000. The year the Americans started calling him Gunny.