“Got him,” she said.
Rocky stepped inside the room and the door swung closed as the deader collapsed. He jabbed the muzzle of his rifle against the creature’s head, but it was limp and still.
“You penetrated the skull,” Rocky said to Sonia with some admiration.
“I’m stronger than I look.”
They both turned to Arjun, who was looking down at the zombie he’d failed to extinguish. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Sonia patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll get plenty of practice, assuming we live another day. Now let’s find some keys.”
“Maybe next time, pretend you’re in a videogame again,” Rocky said.
The keys turned out to match a Honda CRV, and after raiding the kitchen and loading up on some food, towels, and bottles of juice, they set out for the interstate. Hannah rode ahead and radioed back that the coast was clear all the way to the 540 Beltway, where all the interchanges were blocked. Worse, the knot of vehicles was infested with deaders.
“At least we were spared a few miles of walking,” Sonia said from behind the wheel.
“Yeah, but how do we get across?” Meg asked. “Four exit ramps means two dozen lanes of zombies.”
“Hopefully Hannah can spot a way around,” Rocky said. “We sure don’t have enough firepower to force our way through.”
“We could always turn back,” Arjun said from the rear seat.
Rocky, in the front passenger seat, swiveled the rearview mirror until he could look Arjun in the face. “We can stop and let you out anytime.”
“I didn’t mean I was giving up. Just that maybe we can look for some help.”
“Where?” Sonia asked. “Promiseland? That’s a non-starter for me. Besides, I have a feeling they wouldn’t welcome us back.”
“I meant hitting up some of these other hotels,” Arjun said. “We know some them have survivors inside.”
“Organizing our own private army could take days,” Rocky said. “And time wasn’t on our side to begin with.”
“Right,” Meg said. “Any chance we have of curing the virus will have to come before we totally collapse. Otherwise we’re back to magic spells and herbal ointments.”
“Look!” Jacob said, sitting forward and pointing to the crowded cars in the opposite lane.
A school bus weaved around vehicles along the shoulder, occasionally scraping against one when the passage was tight. The bus was more than a hundred yards away and difficult to see among the towering tractor trailers, but it was making headway despite the thicket of abandoned cars.
“I wonder where they came from,” Sydney said. “There aren’t any exit ramps between here and the beltway.”
“Pull over,” Rocky said to Sonia. When she slowed to a stop, giving the CRV room in case they needed a fast getaway, Rocky leaped out and sprinted across the median.
He glanced around at the massive traffic jam, which was worse on the inbound lane. There was movement behind some of the windows, but none of it appeared threatening. The rumbling of the bus grew nearer behind a pair of tractor trailers. He slipped around the front of them and stepped into a clearing on the asphalt, waving at the bus with both arms above his head.
At first the bus accelerated, and Rocky thought the driver mistook him for a deader. Then it slowed as he walked toward it, screeching to a halt with the diesel engine knocking. He walked up to the driver’s window, and it slid open.
A round-faced woman with curly gray hair eyed him warily. “I only stopped because of your uniform,” she said.
Rocky looked along the row of windows. Children, scared and silent, stared back at him with vacant, morose expressions. “Where are you from?”
“Briar Rose Elementary School. We were stuck for two days and finally made a move. But the road’s blocked.”
“How many do you have?”
“Thirteen, but some of them are sick. We already had one…” The woman’s lower lip quivered and she swallowed to regain her composure. “I can’t let them see me cry.”
“We can help,” Rocky said, although he wasn’t comfortable dragging the rest of the group into this situation. Meg in particular would oppose the delay, but she was a mother and wouldn’t turn away from children in need. He couldn’t be there for his son Nicholas, but maybe he could help these poor youngsters.
The radio on Rocky’s belt squawked. He answered it.
“Do you hear that?” Hannah said. “Sounds like jets.”
“Can’t be. The airport’s shut down.”
“From the east.”
Now Rocky could hear the sound over the bus engine, a tearing shriek across the belly of the clouds. He shielded his eyes and squinted up at the sky. Five silver-gray specks appeared against the clouds. It was clear the squadron was tracking Interstate 40. The jets swooped into a descent.
They’re bombing the interchange!
Rocky yelled at the woman to evacuate the bus, glancing up in horror at the rapidly approaching jets. They were close enough and flying low enough for him to identify them as B-1 Lancers. He’d seen them in action during his Afghanistan tour. Only this time he was the one in the bombers’ sights.
The first explosion sounded before he could circle the bus and help the children away from the road. The concussion rolled over him, rocking the vehicles on their shock absorbers. A wave of heat bloomed over him. He tumbled to the ground and crawled on his elbows until he was beneath the protection of a pickup truck.
The second explosion was somewhere to the west, maybe half a mile away, and he sucked in a gritty breath as dust swirled around him. But the third bomb—Joint Direct Attack Munitions, if he had to guess—was closest of all, and he scrambled on his belly until he’d reached the median. He rolled into the drainage ditch in its center, clamped his hands over his ears, and pressed his face into the dirt.
The flyboys must’ve ordered a run on the interchange because of the dense zombie population. From the air, the pilots had no way of telling survivors from deaders. They were given coordinates to hit, and that was that. The series of bombs erupted along the length of the interstate toward the beltway, progressively moving farther away. Thick black smoke roiled in the air, making it impossible to see. After what seemed like minutes, the final sonorous throomp faded away.
Rocky stayed low for another minute to make sure, and then he lifted his head. Fires raged here and there among the massive traffic jams, with large strips of asphalt peeled away to reveal trenches of bare earth. Cars lay in jagged heaps, twisted together like tin-foil origami, and the sky was dark at mid-morning with the fallout. Rocky brushed dirt and pebbles from his clothes as he stood on trembling legs.
Meg, Sonia, and the others emerged from the wending curtains of haze. All accounted for, but stunned.
“Bombers,” was all Rocky managed, his throat dry. He staggered back to the lane where the bus had been, even though he could see the tractor-trailers were askew.
“Good Lord,” he whispered, dropping to his knees.
The bus had been sheared off at window level, with just a few rags of scorched sheet metal clinging to the cab. Fire danced along the chassis, consuming plastic and diesel and body fat. One tiny charred skull hung from the wreckage, white teeth visible against the black crenulations of flesh. A coloring book had blown free of the blast, miraculously intact. My Little Pony smiled coyly up from its cover.
The others had followed Rocky and now looked on, not comprehending the hot and senseless carnage all around them.
“They were just kids,” he said, but maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe youth no longer existed in this world. Evolution had gone too far, grown too old, passed its expiration date.
He heard the static of his radio. He reached for the clip on his belt but it was empty. He’d dropped it in his quest for safety.
Sonia found it near the median and picked it up. She keyed the mike. “Hannah?”
“Are you guys all right?”
“Yeah, more or less. How
about you?”
“A little shaken, drew some blood, but still kicking.”
“Looks like they were bombing the road.”
“Yeah. I got good news and bad news.”
“I think all we want is good news.”
“Too bad. The good news is the bombs cleared a path for us and smoked a bunch of deaders.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“There’s no road left. We’ll have to hoof it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kit had a large appetite for such a small girl.
She ate a bowl of soup Bill heated on the gas grill, along with a can of tuna fish, a salad made with wilted lettuce and carrots, a pint of apple juice, and half a can of peaches. She emitted a loud belch without bothering to cover her mouth, patted her tummy, and declared herself as fat as a tick.
She wasn’t too forthcoming, but Bill eventually managed to coax her plans out of her. After finding her parents dead, she decided to try to reach an aunt in Winston-Salem. But she underestimated the number of zombies and spent most of the past few days fleeing and hiding.
“What about you?” she asked, slumped in his easy chair surrounded by bookcases, magazines stacked on a coffee table, and newspapers scattered across the floor. Laundry was piled in the corner, and a pair of flannel underwear was draped over a lamp.
He sat across from her on the couch, finishing off the peaches. Seeing his life through her eyes, Bill realized he must seem like an eccentric homebody if viewed generously, or a kooky recluse if not. He realized how little time he’d spent outside these walls and how rusty his people skills were. Now there weren’t many people around to practice on.
“Like I said, I don’t really have a plan.” He almost told her about his secret body count and how he hoped to best Charles Whitman’s total, but now it sounded foolish even to him. What was the point of killing a dozen zombies when thousands more—maybe millions, maybe even billions—walked the Earth?
“So we’re just going to sit here until you run out of food, and then maybe raid the neighbors’ house?”
“Pretty sure my neighbors are dead. Haven’t heard a peep out of them in days.”
“Did you ever think of knocking and checking up on them?”
Bill didn’t like her accusatory tone, probably because she had a point. “In this neighborhood, we tend to keep to ourselves. We don’t go sticking our noses in other people’s business.”
“Even if you could’ve saved them? Like maybe one of them turned into a zombie and tried to eat the others?”
“I saved you, didn’t I? I didn’t sign up to save the whole world.”
“You’ve got a truck. Why didn’t you just leave?”
“Before the power shut down, the radio said all major roads were impassable. And that State of Emergency the governor declared means we’re supposed to stay home and keep our doors locked.”
“You don’t seem like the kind who listens to authority figures.”
“Neither do you,” Bill said.
“Well, I’m not sitting here waiting for one of us to get sick and turn.” Kit toyed with her leather bracelet, spinning it around her pale, slender wrist.
“Do you expect me to drive you to Winston-Salem?”
“Oh, heck, no.” She mugged a cheesy grin. “Just give me your keys.”
“I think you need to play it safe for a while, until things settle down.” Bill wasn’t sure what “settled down” looked like. He didn’t expect the police to arrest the zombies, the courts to dispense justice, and the government to restore order. Everyone would just have to address the problem on their individual terms.
“This house doesn’t seem that safe. I could break through these windows in a heartbeat.”
“And by the second heartbeat, I’d have a bullet in you, and that would be your last one.” Bill sounded gruffer that he intended. “But at least your heart’s still beating. Better than some can say.”
“We heard all the rumors at school, about the Klondike Flu and the first cannibal murders in Alaska. But then this zombie outbreak happened so fast, nobody had time to deal with it. Have you heard anything since then?”
“Not much more than that. Just some stuff on the radio. You know how the bastards are. They act like they’ve got a handle on it, but they’re really just making up a bunch of bullshit to buy some time.”
“And then time ran out,” Kit said. She studied the bookcases. “Science fiction. Horror. History. A bunch of biographies. Have you read all these?”
“The radio said there was a shelter at Promiseland. It’s only two miles from here as the crow flies, but five miles if you take a car.”
“Too bad we’re not crows,” Kit said. “What’s Promiseland?”
“Big, fancy church run by that Ingram fellow. He’s kind of a local celebrity, and maybe even national if you’re into the Christian thing. He was appointed to some official position because of the outbreak, so the army’s stationed there. It’s probably the safest place left in the city.”
“If that’s where the people and the guns are, maybe we should go,” Kit said.
“What about your aunt?”
“Let’s not fool ourselves. She’s either dead or deader, maybe even deadest. I could spend a week getting there only to open her door and have her chew my face off.”
“You’ve seen the roads. Don’t think the truck will make it. Maybe if we were heading into the country. But towards downtown, or what’s left of it?” Bill drank the syrup in the peach can. It was a little rich for his taste but he figured he’d better absorb what nutrients he could. Times could get lean real fast.
“Think they’ll let us in?”
“It’s a government shelter. And we’re U.S. citizens.”
“Fine with me,” Kit said. “I’d get depressed if I had to spend another day in this dump.”
“It’s nicer when the lights are on,” Bill said.
“Sure. And whenever you’re expecting company, I suppose.”
Bill couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a guest in the house. Three years ago, when he’d made a cup of coffee for the postal carrier? He didn’t even have a cat. Pretty pathetic excuse for a recluse.
“If we leave now, we can get there before dark,” he said. “Assuming no surprises.”
“How much ammo you got?”
“Four boxes.”
“As long as I don’t have to serve as bait anymore.” Kit tucked her legs against her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Let me pack a change of clothes and get my toothbrush. What about you? I might have an extra one in the bathroom.”
Her face curdled. “Yuck.”
“It’s new. Keep one around for surprise company.”
“Too much information. When’s the last time you even went on a date?”
“After my wife died. Believe it or not, I had a few lady friends. But then things…well, none of them could ever hold a candle to her.”
“Jeez. What a sob story. And I’m the one who just lost her parents.” Despite her words, Kit’s tone softened. She pointed to a photograph on the entertainment console where the television should’ve been. “Is that her?”
“Yeah. Shirley Flanagan. The joy of my life.”
“Bring me the toothbrush and let’s get out of here.”
Minutes later, as they stepped out the front door, Bill took a final look around the living room. He wondered if he would ever see the place again. He still had two years left on the mortgage and he and Shirl had spent a lifetime accumulating their library. On impulse, he picked up a black magic marker from the cup of pens and pencils by the telephone. He scribbled a note on a pad:
STEPPED OUT FOR A BIT. BACK SOON.
BILL
He wasn’t sure if he was leaving the note for Shirley or for someone else. Or nobody. Maybe it was just his way of leaving an anchor in the world rather than just casting himself adrift on an unknown sea.
Bill tucked the marker and pad i
n his back pocket in case he needed to leave himself more notes. He started to lock the door and then decided someone else might need the shelter in an emergency.
“Think I need a gun?” Kit asked. “Maybe we can break into one of these houses and find one.”
“Do you even know how to use a firearm?”
“Sure. Kids shoot each other up all the time. Haven’t you heard?” She gave him a look. “Oh, yeah. I forgot you don’t have television.”
“Well, I don’t have time to teach you, and you’d be more dangerous than a zombie.” They headed out of the driveway, cautiously approaching the street. The neighborhood was too quiet. Not even a dog was barking.
“You’re no fun,” Kit said, instinctively lowering her voice when she realized the same thing.
“If we come across any deaders, let’s try to evade them,” Bill said. “Shooting is a last resort. From what they said on the radio, noise attracts them.”
“We know they can smell us,” Kit said. “And probably see us. But that old deader at the church—its eyes were rotted away. So they have some kind of sense besides sight and smell.”
“It came back from the grave,” Bill said, checking the yards on each side of the street for movement. If any zombies were inside the houses, they probably would stay trapped until…until what? They completely rotted away, dried up, or starved to a state of utter enervation.
“So there’s some kind of supernatural shit going down,” Kit said.
“You’re too young to cuss,” Bill said. “It’s not ladylike.”
“Right, Grampa. Because your outdated notions of decorum are soooo important in a world where dead people are walking around. May as well yell at the zombies for chewing with their mouths open.”
“It’s the little things that make a civilized world,” Bill said. “There’s a social contract. There aren’t enough cops in the world to make people stop at red lights if we didn’t all agree that it was a good thing to do.”
Kit stopped in the street and pointed at the second-floor window of a Victorian-style house. A deader pressed against the glass, a white curtain twisted around one arm. Bill couldn’t tell if it saw them, had run into the wall and was too stupid to turn around, or was simply trying to escape and find something to eat.
Revelation: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller (Arize Book 2) Page 9