The Zombie Road Omnibus

by David A. Simpson

  “Stabby, stay on the door.” He pointed him back to guard the entrance when he came running over.

  Lars turned on the men in a fury and started pushing them over to one corner behind the pool table, daring any of them to do anything to give him a reason. He knew they had all been passed out when they busted in, but that didn’t lessen his anger. They could have warned them somehow.

  “Give me a reason!” he told them again, his Berettas in their faces.

  “I need tape,” Griz said in clipped tones. All business, emotionless. “Sucking chest wound. Through and through.”

  Gunny jumped up and sprinted for the little office alcove he’d seen off the kitchen. He rummaged through the drawers, dumping their contents on the floor, until he found what he was looking for: a roll of silver duct tape. He dashed back and started tearing long pieces off.

  “It was an AK, right?” Griz asked as he turned Scratch on his side to cut away his leather shirt. They had their own distinctive sound, much heavier and louder than the M-4s they carried.

  Gunny nodded.

  “Hold this,” he indicated the gauze on the front of Scratch’s pale chest, already soaking up the blood.

  “That’s good. The bullet probably didn’t tumble, just punched in and out. Cheap rounds, low grain count. Not much cavitation. Looks like bone fragments are mixed in with the blood, so it got a rib.”

  He was speaking to himself more than anyone else. Auto Pilot. Shut down the emotions and get the job done. Going over the steps in his mind and talking to reassure himself he wasn’t missing anything. Like most guys who had earned their paycheck by killing people, he’d taken numerous field medicine training classes. His mind had shut out the unimportant, focused on what was right in front of him. He was taking it all in and trying not to let his buddy die. Seconds counted.

  Gunny could hear the air hissing out of the hole with every painful breath Scratch took. The lung might collapse. They needed to seal the wounds. Griz placed the gauze over the hole then covered it with the plastic from the package. He grabbed the strips of tape and started wrapping it tightly, leaving a small opening for the air to escape, but not be sucked back in. They laid him back down and did the same for the front.

  Scratch groaned and coughed, blood staining his lips and dribbling down his chin. Griz had done all he could do. He had the bleeding controlled. The plastic would act as a valve and stop air from being sucked in through the holes, hopefully preventing the lung from collapsing. He sat back, just beginning to let it sink in. Scratch had been shot and it was bad. They didn’t have any kind of ability to do surgery. The Sisters had set up in the old doctor’s office, but it wasn’t much better than Doc’s clinic back at the Three Flags. They needed a hospital. A real doctor. He looked down at the man who wasn’t much more than a boy. The man who’d had his arm blown off half a world away and hadn’t let it dampen his spirits one bit. The pain in the ass that was always ragging on him and playing his stupid jokes. The dumbass with the goofy mule laugh. Griz couldn’t lose him. His eyes filled with tears and they ran down his face, unchecked, into his beard. Scratch’s breathing was shallow and pained, but his eyes were clear.

  “Lars, get the chain unhooked from the car, we need to get him back to Lakota,” Gunny said.

  Lars ran for the door, with Stabby following to help.

  “Any one of you moves out of that corner and I’ll kill you,” Gunny calmly told the men cowering with their hands up. There were nods. They believed him.

  Scratch groaned again and saw the tears rolling unashamedly down Griz’s face.

  “Hey,” he panted with the waves of pain.

  “I wanted to tell you…”

  “I think Lars is right.”

  Griz leaned close to hear him. His face an open book of sorrow.

  “What’s that?” he whispered. “About what?”

  “I think her name is Boomquifa.”

  Scratch tried to laugh at the look on Griz’s face, but only managed to cough, more blood coating his lips.

  Lars roared up to the curb and jumped out to open the rear door as Griz and Gunny carried Scratch out as gently as they could and put him in the back seat. Griz climbed in and cradled his head on his lap as the others piled in the front seat, Gunny hitting the gas before their doors were closed.

  It was nearly thirty miles straight up the county highway to Lakota. The old Lincoln was tired and had seen better days, but she stretched her legs for them now. The gas gauge was down to a quarter and that was plenty. Gunny held it to around one ten. Not pushing too hard so he was barely in control, not poking along. Lars kept trying the hand-held radio and at three miles out, he finally got Wire Bender on the line.

  “Tell the Sisters we got a gunshot wound coming in,” he said. “We’re taking him straight to their place.”

  Both gates of the sally port were wide open when they got there and word had spread fast. People were on the streets rushing toward the Doc’s office and twenty helping hands were waiting as they pulled up. Scratch had finally passed out and his breathing was growing shallow and rapid. Griz helped carry him in and didn’t leave his side until Sara literally pushed him out of the door of the examination room and slammed it behind him.

  Gunny sat on one of the chairs in the waiting room as Griz paced, muttering black curses directed toward Casey under his breath. Lars and Stabby were outside, slowly taking off their armor and blades. Kim-Li came running in a few minutes later, her hands and face still white with flour from the bread they were making.

  “How bad is it?” she asked Gunny, her face stricken with fear, but underlying it was a quiet woman’s rage, not tears.

  “He got it in the lung,” he replied, standing up and hugging her. “But he should be all right. It went straight through. Griz said it didn’t tumble and tear a lot of stuff up.”

  Collins rushed in and when she spotted Griz hulking in the corner, she stopped in her tracks. Gunny was looking over Kim’s head. He could see the look of relief on her face, then it quickly turned to concern when she figured out who was hit.

  Sara came bustling out from the examination room and went straight to Gunny.

  “We need to operate. We don’t have the equipment or supplies we need here. Get your war rig and meet me out front in five minutes.”

  “Wait, what are we doing?” Gunny asked as she turned to run off.

  “Going to the hospital in Beulah. We’d already planned on making a run there next week. We’re going now.”

  “Just give us a list, we’ll go get it. You can stay here and help Stacy,” Gunny protested.

  She whirled on him. “Do you know what we need for wide area debridement? Do you know what size drainage needles to get? Do you even know what an Eldon card is? Do you know what the package for antibiotic IVs looks like?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “NO? Then stop dicking around and meet me out front. You get me in and out and I’ll get what we need.”

  She left at a run to get her leathers.

  “Two trucks,” Gunny said. “Griz, you in?”

  He jumped at the chance to be doing something to help and nodded. “Collins, get me the best shooters we have, at least four or five guys. We’re going in hot and hard. The hospitals are probably overrun with those things. We don’t have time for a drawn-out operation. We’ll go in guns blazing, get what we need, and blast our way back out. Be back here in five. Go!” he shouted. Everyone ran for the doors.

  They were driving through the gate ten minutes later, Gunny rolling coal and winding the gears. He took the big truck up to seventy and held it there, the oversized tires up front wanting to shimmy if he went much faster. The nearest hospital set up for trauma care was the one in Beulah. It was on their ‘to do’ list of places to raid, but it simply hadn’t been done yet. Too many other higher priority jobs. Like building a wall and burying the thousands of dead to prevent disease from running rampant. And to do it right, it would take a big crew with a lot of trucks to bring X-ray machines and everyt
hing else the Sisters wanted. Today was just a quick run. Very specific items. Kill anything in the way and leave it lying.

  Bridget had climbed into the back of the truck along with Lars and Stabby. Gunny hadn’t noticed until they were already rolling, he’d been busy strapping on extra hardware and ammo. If he had, he would have told her to stay. This wasn’t a mission for untested people. He just didn’t believe she could go from the screaming, crying wreck of a bottle blonde movie starlet to a G.I. Jane just by cutting her hair and spending a few weeks playing with guns. Collins and Sara rounded out the other five in his truck. Griz had a handful of vets riding with him, all of them loaded for bear and ready to wade into the breach for Scratch because they knew he would do it for them.

  Twenty minutes later, Sara pointed the hospital out on the map and once they got within a few miles, Gunny just followed the blue signs posted along the road. It was on the very outskirts of town. It was the new building, less than a decade old, named after some Senator no one had ever heard of. That was all right with them. The old hospital was probably near the center of the little city.

  “Griz,” Gunny said over the CB. “I’m going to drop my crew off and then run interference. Hang back for a minute and let me pull any runners away. You’ve got a bigger sleeper so get up close to the doors. They can load everything in there.”

  “Roger that,” was all he said as Gunny hit the Jake and started making noise, pulling all of the wandering undead toward him. Even those trapped inside the hospital who couldn’t get out would hear the raucous straight stacks and be drawn to the windows, maybe they wouldn’t hear Griz and the rest of them going after the supplies.

  Gunny dropped his passengers off under the Emergency room awning then took off again, leading the pack of runners a half a block away, back out on the street, as the crew hid behind an ambulance. Bridget opened the door to it and when the light came on, she had an idea.

  “Hey, Sheriff. We can load this up and drive it back can’t we? It’ll be easier than cramming everything in the sleeper.”

  She was right, Collins realized. Plus they could really use an emergency vehicle back in Lakota.

  “Good idea,” she said. “Make sure it’ll start, though.”

  It did. The tank was nearly full so they opened the rear doors and she backed it up to the Emergency Room entrance.

  When Griz pulled in a minute later, his crew was out and running for them in seconds, two men ready to pry the doors open as the others lined up to open fire as soon as the gap was a few inches wide.

  There were only about twenty of the zombies in the lobby and soon there were twenty double dead zombies they were climbing over to make their run for the surgery section.

  Gunny zipped back in, plowing down the dead and sending them flying off in all directions as he cut through the parking lot. Car alarms started going off as the bodies smashed against them. ”Ooops,” he thought as he gripped the spinner on the steering wheel aiming for more runners. “Probably should have thought about that before I pulled in here.” There were a lot of them running toward him, but none of them were very fast, he noticed. The rot and ruin were slowing them way down. A man in decent shape could probably out run one now. For a little while anyway, until he started getting tired. They were still relentless.

  He kept it up, driving back and forth, keeping them from piling up around the hospital doors, trying to lead them off a half-dozen blocks before he spun around and cut them down. His mind was racing with worry about Scratch, about whether they should go after Casey or hope he’s gone for good, about the Muslim forces that might be getting ready to attack them any day, about Lacy and Jessie. About his own mindset that he was nonchalantly killing as many people as he could in the ten minutes it was taking them to get what they needed for Scratch. He tried not to hear the sound of splintering bones and heads splashing open when they bashed into the plow. So far, the radio had been quiet. No chatter from Griz or Collins, so they must be doing fine. No unexpected resistance. Those two oilfield workers that joined them a week back had turned out to be good assets. Both of them had been in the service and had a few tours under their belts. They had been some of the first to volunteer for this run, knowing it was only half planned and sure to have heavy numbers of the undead. Cobb had kept them off of the Ammo Plant raid because he wanted a few experienced men in Lakota in case he needed them. This apocalypse had brought out the good in most people. Nearly everyone was trying to do their best and help wherever they could.

  Gunny cut the engine when he was under the emergency room awning on this trip through the parking lot. There were probably more runners coming, or speed walkers would be a better description, but everything nearby was dead or crawling. There was a lull in the battle. He rolled the window down and listened. He heard gunfire, but it was sporadic. Room clearing, it sounded like. The infection had come on so hard and fast, he guessed the hospitals didn’t even have time to get overrun with new patients before it was all over. Killing these things was almost too easy. They weren’t like a living opponent, they were so mindless and predictable. Make some noise, they would come running. Knock on a door, they would be immediately on the other side of it. Now that they were slowing down as their muscles and tendons slowly deteriorated, they would be less dangerous.

  Gunny was impatient. He wanted to get out and run in to help them, but that was a good way to get himself shot. Plus, he knew how important it was to have a backup plan if everything went south. If he left the safety of the truck and the escape it represented, another situation like Salt Lake City could happen. Trapped in a building with no way to communicate and no way to send for help. So, he waited. Impatiently. He heard the occasional crack of a rifle, but that was it. He pulled out his tobacco pouch and started rolling himself a cigarette. Slow and easy. “Calm down,” he told himself. “Don’t call them and ask how they're doing. Don’t act like a Butter Bar Lieutenant.”

  Waiting was harder than fighting.

  He kept an eye on his rearview mirrors. Nothing coming. No unexpected horde. His mind wandered to his Presidential duties. He couldn’t think of anything he was supposed to be doing. He’d told the general it would be a good idea to get some of the ships the Navy still had steaming toward the Middle East. He wanted one to make its way straight up into the Aegean Sea and put as many shells as it took into the wall Turkey had put up. He wanted it leveled, if possible. Let them have a taste of their own medicine. Maybe the Germans could get a massive horde riled up with one of their drones and lead it through the breach. Maybe they could offer fire support for Israel. The General had agreed quickly. Gunny figured they were already on the way, Carson was just humoring him, probably the submarines and Aircraft Carriers, too.

  He was leaving for Atlanta soon. That mayor they had rescued was one of those born and bred politician types and had already made it clear he was still Mayor of the town and he should be appointed Governor. Gunny had ignored him, told him to go see Cobb. The old First Sergeant had basically taken over the day to day running and organizing of the town. That made sense, the population wasn’t much more than a couple of companies in the Marines and he’d had plenty of experience running one of those.

  Cobb had organized the quick construction of the wall and was already having guard towers installed. He had Liza, and her spreadsheets helped him figure out who was best for which jobs. Tina and the two linemen they rescued had been out at the little power plant at the dam trying to teach themselves how to get it back online and operable. He had put the Mayor in charge of a lot of the city workings, like guard duty and trash collection and proper ways to dig temporary outhouses in the back yards of the houses that didn’t have septic tanks. Since the town was the largest in the county, they had their own water treatment and sewer plant so once they had electricity back on and a few people figured out how to run those stations, they would have running water and flushing toilets. The Mayor was a self-serving politician, but he knew how to make the town function and Cobb took full
advantage of it.

  Gunny had done what needed to be done. They had traveled across half the country to a safe area, the town was secure, there were plenty of people smarter than him to run it and organize a few raids to food distribution warehouses. After the wall had been completed, he’d driven the distance from it, to the center of town. Nearly five miles and a good three miles across at the narrowest point. Plenty of land to farm for fresh veggies. The Captain was at the Munitions Plant and they would have a train load of heavy machine guns and ammo and whatever else was there in a day or so. For being in the middle of a total meltdown of society and a zombie uprising, they were doing okay. Much better than anyone in the movies or books he’d read over the years. They always seemed to make the same mistakes over and over until everyone was dead.

  He had his own list of things to do and he had already started another ‘people to kill’ list in his head. Casey was the wild card. He had to go. There were always those marauding gangs of bikers in all the movies who went around raping and killing and raiding. There was no need for any of that. There had been three hundred million people in the States. Now there was maybe a hundred thousand. There was enough of everything just laying around for the taking, no one had to be killing anyone for supplies. But Casey was a nutcase. He thought he had to. Had to shoot people. Not out of necessity, but it’s what he wanted to do. He could have been anybody he wanted to be in this new world and he chose to be an asshole. He was no better than the Muslims. Worse, actually. At least they had a religion to blame for doing what they did, no matter how screwed up it was. He was long gone probably. There were other things to worry about. If he showed back up, they would deal with him then.

  First was to get Scratch whatever he needed. The gunshot wound was dangerous, but with the Sisters and the right equipment, he didn’t think it would kill him.

  Next was to see if anyone wanted to make a run with him to Atlanta. He had to get Lacy and Jessie. He’d already plotted the route he wanted. Nearly nine hundred miles of two lane roads, avoiding the cities. Or maybe a train. He’d been considering that the last few days. It might be a better option. He wondered if he could get the General to map a route out for him with the satellites, find a clear path. That would be the fastest and easiest if he didn’t get halfway there and then find it impassable. The trucks were good, about the best you could get for the roads, but a traffic jam could stop you in your tracks. He wouldn’t have Sara running his front door this time to guide them around any blockages. He was going to cross the Mississippi, too. The population over there, even on the backroads, was a whole lot more than out West. Maybe the train. He’d have to ask if they could map if for him.