by Tufo, Mark
“On it, sir.” She turned to grab a piece of paper.
“You sure do pick luxurious accommodations,” BT said as he grabbed a case of MREs and ripped the box open.
“Hey, this has to be at least a four-star highway,” I told him.
“Think quick.” An MRE packet hit me square in the chest.
“Ham and bean soup? Yeah, I don’t think so,” I told him as I went over and grabbed a tuna casserole. “You alright, man? You look a little flushed.” I thought it might be the food choice.
“I used to like tuna casserole.” He sighed.
I opened my packet up, deliberately not asking him what had changed. Had an inkling already.
“Brussels sprouts, Mike. She put Brussels sprouts in it,” his head sagged, “and no sauce of any kind, man. No noodles, no crunchy stuff on top. That’s my favorite part! She opened cans of tuna, put it in a dish, threw in a bag of Brussels sprouts and cooked it. That was it. She didn’t even drain the cans.”
“This is so good.” I made sure to chew with my mouth open.
“At the Safeway, Mike, when we first met, I had you in the sights of my rifle. Can you imagine how much better my life would be right now if I had pulled that trigger?”
“Want some?” I swirled a large spoonful near his nose. He backed up like I had a five-pound tarantula.
“What are you kids up to?” Gary asked as he sat down next to us. “Oooh…tuna casserole,” he said, reaching into the carton.
“I hate Talbots,” BT grumbled away.
“What’s his deal?” Gary asked after taking a couple of mouthfuls. “BT don’t like Brussels sprouts?” Gary stopped chewing and carefully inspected his MRE.
“It would appear that somehow our sister’s cooking has gotten progressively worse.”
Gary looked up to the burgeoning stars. “Is that even possible?”
“Stranger things have happened, but not many.” I took a swig of water. The squad, seeing the expression on the gunny’s face, were very busy finding other things to do.
The night was uneventful; had a small herd of deer cross by to the northeast, and either a fisher or fox stalked after a rabbit. Other than that, nothing. Nice not to be descended upon by zombies, or worse, people who, once civilization had broken down, decided they were going to let their worst inner asshole-self show in all its muddy colors.
Got going just as the sun began to show itself, and again, the driving was clear. I hate to say “too clear,” but we hadn’t seen anything. No cars, no people, and no zombies. It was unusual to travel this far along and come across nothing. We’d ventured into Oregon and would soon be hitting Idaho. The farther we went, the more doubt crept into my mind; had the dream even been real? Sure, I dreamt it, but what did that mean? I also had a dream I gave an oral report in the fifth grade in my socks and nothing else. Pretty sure that didn’t happen because embarrassment alone would have killed me long ago. Plus, I would have had nicknames like Buck, or Birthday boy, or Long John.
Hey. It’s my journal. I’ll write what I want.
But the fact that BT had the dream as well added validity. Didn’t it? His could have been the direct result of indigestion, though. No telling with that one. At the end of the day, we had made the same sort of camp; unfortunately, there was no grace given for those that performed rituals. Much to the chagrin of the Obsessive Compulsive everywhere; after all, random is as random does. Assuming every morning will be the same is kind of like trying to predict what’s going to come out of Trip’s mouth next. God, I wish he was here. One more soul I could claim from the insatiable jaws of death. I looked to the West; the sun was nearly set. A crimson sky streaked back toward me, the illumination reflected beneath heavy clouds overhead. We were going to get a storm in more ways than one. Of course, I didn’t know that then; felt no inkling of foreboding, but fuck. I should have. Every clue was there for the taking.
BT smacked a packet of beef stew into my chest. “That’s the one you’re eating,” he said in no uncertain terms.
“Sir? The ZAD is not working right.” PFC Kirby was on his knees, checking out the power supply box and control station.
“It’s on,” I said astutely.
“Yeah, that’s not the problem, sir. It’s giving false positives. Look.” He pointed toward the east highway; it was as clear as the darkening day would let me see. “Now look at the screen.” There were indeed five blips. My pulse quickened in response to the threat the machine was telling me was out there, but wasn’t.
“What’s causing that?” I kept looking from the screen to the highway, expecting bogies to magically appear.
“Is there any chance they’re invisible?” Grimm tossed out that wet and smelly gaggle of words. “You know, like the Invisible Man,” he added for clarification as I looked over at him.
I had to figure they hadn’t gone see-through, but camouflage…that could be within their updated repertoire. And maybe not zombies, but humans could easily do that. Were there, even now, five snipers hiding down there with rifles pointed toward us? But the ZAD had the blips pegged right on the roadway, not in the overgrown sides. No chance someone could hide in a ghillie suit on the asphalt.
“They’re gone.” I looked back to the screen.
“They’ll be back, sir. Different spot, different number, different alignment the next time…and it's random enough I can’t discern a pattern.”
The moon was waning and had been roughly a quarter the previous night, but that mattered little; the cloud cover was dense. There would be no light from above tonight.
“Whaddaya think?” BT asked.
“Last night nothing happened,” Gary replied as we all looked at the malfunctioning piece of equipment.
“Kirby, radio in. See if there’s a quick fix,” I said to him. To Gary and BT I said, “Don’t like it. The idea that nothing happened last night makes me more convinced something will happen tonight, and we’re going to be effectively blind. Especially when the rain starts coming down.”
By the time Kirby was done trying everything the tech on the other end had told him, it was dark and the first smatterings of rain had begun. “Same thing,” he said before knocking the side of the machine.
Corporal Stenzel was handing out rain ponchos; I smiled. This was fitting, given our mission. “Double the guards?” she asked me.
I’d no sooner donned what was effectively a plastic sheet when the heavens opened up in force. Having a conversation without yelling was impossible as the heavy drops exploded on the ground.
“For now. When this lets up we’re going to get going—it will be safer moving.”
“Um, Decker says that this is a huge weather system—going to rain for a couple of days,” Kirby said, referring to what the tech at the base had relayed.
I felt like my hand was being forced. “Okay, we’ll eat a little, rest an hour, then we’re heading back.”
“Heading back, sir? Without your friend?” Stenzel asked.
“No choice. I’m already thinking this is a fool’s errand.”
“It is for a fool, alright.” BT groused.
Tommy, Gary, and Winters were playing cards in the middle Hummer. Besides PFC Springer and myself, the rest were resting, catching small naps, or in Stenzel’s case, reading by her red lens-covered flashlight.
Springer, from what I could see, appeared miserable as sheets of rain cascaded off his body. He was walking with his head down. “Springer.” He jumped, as I had startled him. “The only way you’re going to be able to see anything is if you run into it,” I told him.
“Sorry, sir…it’s not much better with my head up.” I had to agree. He was referring to the rain and the bank of fog that had decided to roll in. Seemed strange this far inland, almost like it was manufactured just for us. I didn’t like where that thought was going.
“Another hour and we’ll leave.”
“Works for me, sir.”
As I was making another long loop around our impromptu camp, the ZAD t
rilled an alarm. I thought Kirby had put it on mute due to the problems it was having. I checked on it and wasn’t even sure what I was looking at. The westbound side of the highway and the surrounding grounds were bathed entirely in blips to the point where it looked like ground cover. “Is that rain?” I asked aloud. If it was, it made no sense because nothing showed on the eastbound side. “Springer, you have a better light than those government issue ones?”
“Thirty-five hundred lumens,” he said, handing me the small torch.
The coincidence of that was not lost on me, considering that was what was used in the haunted house Trip inhabited. I walked over to the guardrail and shined the light straight down. All was clear—that is, until I moved it further down the roadway. The eyeshine staring back at me was that of hundreds of zombies.
“Everyone up!” I yelled, quickly shutting the light off and hoping I hadn’t attracted any undue attention.
“What’s up?” Sergeant Winters asked.
“That real?” BT was pointing to the screen.
“Completely. Grab the gear. We’re bugging out.”
“In this soup?” my brother asked.
I pointed to the ZAD.
“I thought it wasn’t working?”
“It is now.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, brother, it isn’t.”
“Where are they coming from?” Tommy asked as he was quickly stowing our gear. “We would have seen signs of a hive that big.”
“Doesn’t matter now.” I waited until everyone had got into their respective rides before climbing into the lead one. I’d no sooner shut the door when the vehicle was rocked. A zombie had smacked square into the front end, its head slamming hard off the hood.
“Shit!” Tommy yelled out, uncharacteristically. He started it up, the headlights illuminating the nightmare ahead of us.
“Back, go back!” I yelled over the radio before the other two Hummers could be overrun.
I could see Winters’s Hummer; its headlights were beginning to diminish. Stenzel, who was now driving the middle Hummer, was also in reverse. I could see the zombies smacking every side of her ride. We were encircled. Our way out would involve smashing the zombies from our path. I’ve never driven a Lamborghini before, but I’m told they have horrible lines of sight when going in reverse; I was having that same problem now. I think whoever created Hummers thought perhaps Marines should never retreat and designed the vehicle with that mindset. Winters’s Hummer was beginning to swerve back and forth—if he wasn’t careful he was going to smack a guardrail. Not sure if it was possible to flip one, but it looked like he was about to give it a go.
“Get that shit under control,” I mumbled. Stenzel was driving straight and true, actually went past Winters on the far side of the roadway. She was going to attempt to turn around so driving wouldn’t be so difficult. That was what I thought until rifle fire flew from Stenzel’s Hummer and toward Winters like they were ships of old in a broadside skirmish.
“What the hell is going on?” BT was looking at the chaos and trying to bring it under some kind of control with his attitude.
“BT! Move!” He was taking up nearly the entire back windshield. Tommy was craning his neck to look around him.
We were thrashing around as we were assaulted on all sides and jostled as we went up and over zombie bodies. Tommy’s hand was slipping all over the wheel as it bucked wildly. A shower of sparks shot up from his side as he ran up alongside the guardrail; it had the desired effect of scraping off zombies like a chisel to a row of barnacles, but also slowed our escape considerably. We had zombies on the hood and zombies to our side, and worse yet, zombies to the rear. Stenzel and Winters had made enough room to be able to maneuver and turn around. We weren’t in that position. If Tommy stopped now, the Hummer would be overrun, and even with its extraordinary power, it would not be able to plow through the sheer number of bodies. I was contemplating shooting, but zombies were quite literally smashed up against the window; I’d have to move closer to Tommy to even get a shot off for fear of the rifle being ripped from my hands, and I wasn’t sure how effective it would even be for me to try. Shooting five out of five hundred wasn’t going to provide the relief we needed.
Stenzel and Winters had made it to the on-ramp and were speeding toward the highway; they appeared to have just enough of a lead from the zombies racing down the roadway that they would be able to make a clean getaway.
“What do you want us to do?” Gary was in the Hummer with Stenzel.
“Get away,” was all I could think to tell him. The Hummer was slowing down, even though Tommy’s foot was attempting to go through the floorboard. His ass was lifted off the seat as he applied more pressure to the gas pedal. If we came to a standstill, it was over. Out of necessity, Tommy was hugging the guardrail on his side.
“BT, you and me. Need to clear a lane to the right. When I tell you, Tommy, cut the wheel. The onramp is a no-go; you’re going to have to keep going down this road. Ready?” I asked BT.
“Nope.” He pulled his charging handle back just enough to see the chambered round. He was reaching for the handle to roll the window down; I stopped him.
“They’re too close—through the glass.” The explosions in the confined space were eardrum-splitting. Have to admit, at the time I didn’t even notice it. The Hummer was rapidly filling up with smoke as we expended cartridges. I had been all against the work of the compound we had saved at the New York laboratory, and even more hesitant to take their tainted bullets on this excursion for a test run. Right now, I was thrilled. They had concentrated the mixture and created special bullets to house the poison. The most minor of wounds caused the zombies to drop quickly; shots that blew through heads and then found shoulders, arms and legs of those behind them were enough to kill our attackers in multiples. Bennington was right. If we could take them down in vast numbers, surely we’d be able to deal with the few that survived, adapted, and mutated, right? The immediate results were too colossal to overlook.
“Now, Tommy,” I urged. He moved quickly. There was some serious thrashing about as we nearly high-centered on bodies, and then we were free. The only sound was the slapping of feet in hot pursuit. He went another quarter of a mile before he felt he had the space needed to turn the Hummer around. BT and I were covered in blood; we looked like extras that had got entirely too close to the climactic scene filmed in Carrie. Maybe tuxedoed extras from the prom.
“Sir?” Stenzel queried over the radio.
“We’re fine,” I told her. I didn’t feel fine though; my guts were still churning. Where had that horde come from? Had they been specifically looking for us? Or were they just on an eating raid, much like a pack of army ants foraging for food by running down everything in their path?
“They came so fast.” BT looked to be in a mild state of shock as he grabbed some spare shirts, giving me one. He proceeded to clean himself off.
I hit the radio. “We aren’t able to get back to the highway yet, but we’ll find a way on. In the meantime, you two make some distance and radio back to me when you have a secure location.” I didn’t remind them that I thought the place we’d just left had been secure. What was the point.
“We’ve got a problem,” Tommy said. I looked over to him; the steering wheel was wobbling, as was the Hummer. I knew it couldn’t be a flat because Hummers were equipped with run-flats, a tire designed to withstand bullet holes so that the occupants could continue on their way and not have to whip out a jack in hostile territory.
“Any idea how bad?” I meant more like: “Can we keep going or not?”
“Not a mechanic. Axle, tie rod, bent wheel…any of those could stop us,” Tommy said.
“Winters, Stenzel, we’re having mechanical issues. Still operational, but as of yet, we haven’t determined the extent of the damage or how long we will keep running. Be ready for extraction, if possible.”
“Roger that, sir,” Winters replied.
“On it, si
r,” from Stenzel.
The faster Tommy went, the more pronounced the wobble became. Had a feeling the zombies were playing a practical joke on us and had replaced the tires with concrete ones. He slowed down to around fifteen miles an hour.
“How fast can zombies run?” BT was looking out the rear window.
“In a marathon, I’d say what, eleven, twelve miles an hour?” I was thinking about the problem.
“Good. At least we’re still going faster than them.”
“Not really,” Tommy spoke up. “At a sprint, which they are doing and can do seemingly indefinitely, they’d be closer to twenty miles per hour, maybe faster.”
“Can you inch this thing up some?” I asked, now looking back the way we had come.
“I was thinking of going slower,” he responded.
“We can’t have much more than a mile lead, maybe less. They could be on us in five or ten minutes,” BT said. “We have to abandon this ride and find someplace to hide.”
Not only was he right, but we’d have to run a significant distance away from the Hummer so that when they inevitably began to search for us when they found it empty, we would be far enough away to go undetected and slip away later, once they gave up.
“You sure about this ride failing?” I asked Tommy.
“As sure as I can be.”
“Stop. We’re going to have to run.”
“Run where?” BT was looking at the same desolation I was. Wasn’t so much as a strip mall in the vicinity.
“The zombies are catching up already, BT.” I was outside, grabbing what supplies I figured I could carry, run with, and still shoot effectively, as were Tommy and BT, though the latter was reluctant about it. “If they get close enough to see us make a run for it, we won’t make it a mile before they catch us. This way, we have a chance to melt into the woods.”
“Not him.” Tommy thrust his chin, pointing toward BT.
“Of course he will, Tommy. Yeti sightings are pretty rare.”
“Fucking hilarious. Two cracker vampires giving me shit. I oughta call you ‘crampires’ for short.”