Black Tide Rising - eARC (26 page)

“Ok, here is the deal. If we just drive in, we are toast. We stop at the edge of the square, no lights, no siren. We see what we see. If we spot the container truck with our guys, we disable it, buying time for more help to arrive. The cops gotta be enroute with all the shooting. Got it?”

Silence answered her. Solly looked at her, his hands tight on a chicken bar, braced against the movement of the truck. Erich kept his eyes on the road, but didn’t respond either.

“Hey! Got it!?” Colleen yelled.

Erich said, “Yeah. Edge of the square. No lights, no siren.”

Solly slipped the M4 from the door sock and checked the mag, then looked back her silently. His eyes were calm, but his fingers were white against the black rifle.

What the fuck?
thought Colleen.

There was no time, she could see the landmark Washington Statue and the open MetBank truck nose first into its pediment, doors open and lights on. Steps away she could see a trademark Overture Suburban and in its headlights, the open back end of a Hyundai lowboy trailer. Bodies were stacked neatly, bare feet and boots both clearly visible.

“Oh, this is not on. Erich stop where you can hit them with the highbeams when I say. Solly, priority to anyone you see with a long gun, then everyone else. If I shoot, or they shoot, don’t wait for my call to light them up.”

Erich eased to a stop, engine running. Solly opened his door, aiming towards the scene. Colleen did the same on the front passenger side. She spotted Emmanuel, that prick, talking into a cell phone and waving his arm. She’d ask him nicely. Once.

Aiming carefully, she said, “Erich, lights, now!”

As the headlights and cab mounted spots blindly lit up the Overture crew, Colleen used her weak hand to key the bullhorn.

“Hey Emmanuel. Don’t move. You really don’t want to even fucking twitch. Tell all your men to stop moving, and we can have a little talk.”

He couldn’t see her, Colleen knew. He knew the voice apparently.

“Hey puta, that you? You want some zombies. Come help yourself! Plenty here!”

Colleen saw his men dodge behind their trucks, leaving their lead pinned in the light.

“Next man moving gets shot Emmanuel. No warning.” Colleen wasn’t feeling calm. She unkeyed the bullhorn. “Solly, be ready.”

“C’mon, MetBank. Come get your zombies. You might recognize some!”

Colleen knew at that moment that she wasn’t getting her team back. She knew that cocksucker was waiting for any opening to add her, Erich and Solly to his take.

Aiming with exquisite care, she shot him in the mouth, snapping his head back and crumpling his body to the ground. She heard Solly shoot, and then a heavy, persistent chugging and muzzle flash appeared from behind the Suburban.

Solly yelled, “Thats a fucking machine gun, we can’t fight that! Move!”

Colleen yelled, “Get in, get in, Erich go gogogogo!”

The truck lurched backwards, gathering speed and Colleen heard bullets striking her vehicle. The windshield fractured. She gave up trying to close her door and held on, looking over her shoulder.

Erich tried to pull a Rockford, banging the front of the truck across parked cars, but getting the vehicle turned around.

“Head south, keep going.” Colleen yelled. “Solly, you okay?”

She looked in the rear. Solly was belted in and bleeding from small cuts on his face, changing his mag, and looking at her evenly. “I’m good.”

“Erich?” Colleen asked.

He didn’t answer, but drove with one hand and held his head with the other. Blood streamed down his arms.

“Erich!”

“He might not be able to hear you,” Solly said.

The trucked lurched as they turned right and then left again, throwing them around the cab. She tapped Erich shoulder to get his attention and pointed south. He nodded.

Cops, call the cops!
she thought.

She transmitted on the bank channel.

“Any station, this is MetBank Zero One. Our Three unit is gone. The other guys have machine guns and shot us up. Were hurt and running south. Recommend that all BERTs disengage. Request call to law enforcement.”

A few responses, including one, “Holy fuck!” from someone holding the transmit button down inadvertently, were plain.

“MetBank BERT, this is the NYPD, pull over and stop.” A loud speaker sounded behind them. Erich looked in his rear view at the same time and spotted a blue and white with its flashers running, but no siren. He took his foot off the gas.

No siren. Huh, smarter cops than average,
Colleen thought. She looked closer. The driver wore his hair in braided dreds.

“Erich, punch it, that isn’t a cop. Go!”

He didn’t respond. She punched hard in the shoulder and pointed forward screaming in to his ear, “Go!”

The truck accelerated again.

Solly was looking left and right behind them.

“Two cop cars. Three. I don’t think we can outrun them.”

The BERT was blowing down Broadway, coming up on Houston, when more cop lights showed in front of them. Colleen punched Erich again and pointed right. He reefed the truck towards the Hudson at the next block.

Solly yelled over the windroar, “Where are we going? Bank is the other way?”

“Overture has the cops in his pocket. They aren’t gonna arrest us, you understand!?” she yelled. “We have to go around, we can pick up West Street, or the Greenway and get past them. If you haven’t figured it out, it is time to jump!”

Solly nodded, but the fingers on his right hand, holding onto the bar between the front and rear, started tapping.

The truck started lurching more, and side swiped a parked car, nearly spinning them. She looked at Erich. He was starting to sway.

“Solly, shoot the cop cars up, get us some room. I gotta drive!” Colleen yelled.

As soon as the fire started, the blue and whites fell back more than a block. Colleen recognized the neighborhood, this was West Village. She was only blocks from home.

She started tugging on the wheel to get Erich’s attention. Solly’s rifle popped consistently as he peppered the cop cars, pushing them further back.

She pointed left towards Seventh. The truck slowed as Erich turned. He looked more ghastly than the yellow street light glare warranted, Colleen recognized. She had to switch places. She looked back after the turn.

“Do you see them?”

“Naw. They dropped back too far, maybe they are giving up?”

Colleen wasn’t feeling that lucky. She motioned to Erich to stop and hopped out to get in his door and push him over. The front of the truck was heavily damaged from gun fire and the reverse turn. The sides of the truck were scratched too. She had good tires, it appeared, and the engine roared when she goosed the accelerator. Erich sort of slumped against her now closed door.

Could they make it all the way to Tribeca on 7th? The streets were empty of all traffic. She spotted runners—pedestrians maybe, but infected probably.

Sarah—I have to get to the bank, then get Sarah and go!
Her gut burned with regret and fear as she remembered her decision to make it one more night.
Stupid stupid stupi…

She never saw the blue and white that perfectly crashed into her truck, punching them diagonally across Seventh. The blue and white took the brunt of the collision, and swerved crazily, hitting a building wall, the driver buried face first in an airbag.

She shook her head, seeing more lights behind her again. No headlights. The brake pedal felt weird, spongy. Her door was slightly dished in.

She tested the gas and the engine responded as she aimed back onto 7th. A a loud scratching and rubbing sound accompanied her efforts to push the truck past thirty-five or so. She wasn’t going to outdrive the blue and whites.

She spotted a narrow loading alley next to a street side restaurant and turned into at speed. The truck ground into the alley, striking sparks and making even more noise.

She turned to get Solly and Erich. Her driver’s head was laying past a right angle on his back. His neck was clearly supported only by muscle.

Solly looked back at her, his jaw muscle jumping.

She keyed the radio mic. Dead.

“C’mon, get out through the windshield!” Colleen said. We can try to find another car while they work to get around the truck.

He pointed silently ahead of them. There was nothing but a blank wall, not even fifty feet away.

“Well, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck and more fuck. With little fuck sprinkles.” Colleen wasn’t thinking too straight. Her left arm was really starting to hurt too.

She could see the flashing cop lights reflecting in the alley.

“Hey Colleen, that you?” a loudspeaker sounded behind her.

Ramon. Perfect.

“Fuck you, Ramon.”

“What?”

She screamed, “Fuck! You! Ramon!”

“Colleen, let me help you, we got an ambulance. We can get you out. All you have to do is chill out. We just want to talk.”

“Fuck you, Ramon,” she whispered.

Solly limped back from checking the walls of the alley. He shook his head.

“Solly, you there man?!”

Solly jerked his head up, eyes wide.

Colleen shook her head.

“Solly, don’t be stupid, man.” Ramon went on, “You can live through this. I remember you from before, I know you and Colleen roll together, big man. Tell her that she has to chill out!”

Solly looked at her, his eyes still wide. “We are out of rounds for my rifle. I don’t see yours in the truck, must have lost it somewhere. We got two mags of pistol each. This is not going to end well. Maybe…”

Colleen shook her head again. “Do you want to be vaccine?” She leaned back through the windshield. The engine was still idling but was suddenly drowned out by the BERT truck siren.

“What do you think you are doing?” Solly demanded.

“Siren. We are a couple hundred meters from the Canal Street Station.” Colleen was feeling even more dizzy and her entire left side throbbed. “All we gotta do is keep that asshole Ramon from comin’ over the top of the truck long enough for the fucking infected to show up.”

Solly looked at her. “You are fucking crazy, you know that? Give me your pistol, you aren’t in shape to shoot. I will watch the top, because those Big Mac assholes are going to figure this out quick.”

She could hear the loudspeaker over the siren, barely.

“Nice play, Colleen, but it’s no good. We got enough firepower for a few zombies!” Ramon’s voice was faint, but clear.

She heard some shots strike the back of the van. “Much good that will do them, with a locked armored panel between the cargo and the cab.” She laughed to herself. She must be getting really loopy and felt even dizzier.

The siren kept wailing. She could hear steady gunfire now, but nothing striking the truck. It sounded like a machine gun was shooting without stopping.
Good way to get a jam
, she thought. The firing went on for minutes it seemed, then tapered.

She could hear screams over the siren, faintly, but the firing stuttered and ended. A little while went by. The siren suddenly shut off and she looked up.

Solly sat down heavily next to her, with an angle to see under the front of the truck.

“I want to hear what is happening before I poke my head over or under,” he explained.

Her ears rang. Her vision seemed bright but blurry. It was too bright. She tried to marshal her thoughts. The bank. Vaccine. Sarah.

Solly fired a few rounds at a scrabbling form under the truck. Then he fired a few more. “I think that was your friend Ramon.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Well, if growling is saying something, sure.”

Huh. Near instant karma. Nice…
thought Colleen.

Solly stood quietly, but jerkily. “I’m going to listen at the panel.”

He came back some time later.

“It’s quiet. I peeked through the spy hole. No movement, no infecteds in view. No cops. No one. If we move quietly, we can try to get to a car.”

Solly sounded a little jittery. “That’s weird—if the bad guys are gone…” Colleen tried to focus. “You think?”

“Sure. Let me help you.”

Slowly, with Solly helping, they crouched through the armored divider, then slowly eased the rear door open. Colleen noted that their sole infected capture of the night had been shot.

The street was clear of any living thing. The yellow streetlights didn’t show blood well, but dark puddles collected near scores of corpses. Most were naked, or nearly so—infected that had attacked from the subway. A few bodies wearing uniforms were visible, but were hard to make out, being mostly disassembled.

They stumbled south a few blocks along the Greenway, dodging the ever present NYC construction debris, traffic cones and orange plastic fencing. The West Expressway, normally busy with traffic, was empty. They turned east towards the 9/11 memorial pools.

Solly stopped in his tracks. Colleen looked up. For at least a block in every direction, there were groups of infected. They were congregating around the edge of the memorial.

She jerked reflexively. Solly’s grip on her arm tightened.

“C’mon, turn around!” she whispered urgently.

Too late. Loud growls rose from the groups nearest them, not even a hundred meters away.

Solly turned to her. “Sorry boss. One of us is going to make it.” He shot her leg, making her drop into a shallow hole at the edge of the Greenway construction. Colleen could see him as Solly turned and half jogged away as the growling grew in volume.

Motherfucker…
thought Colleen.

A bright neon green shape drove Solly to his side. The pistol sounded, futilely. Solly screamed briefly.

The growling was closer and Colleen looked up.

She did like that green dress.

The Road to Good Intentions

Tedd Roberts

“TURN THAT OFF.” Sally Metzger reached over and turned off the radio before the preacher got fully warmed up in his warnings about the apocalypse and end times. Leonard Morris barely managed to keep from slapping her hand away from the dial. The mood in the house was tense enough as it was, with the reports coming in about folks going nuts and biting people! The President had made some announcement about a new viral disease, but none of that made sense.

“Sweetie, we should keep it on for the news. I can turn it to another station.”

Len turned the radio back on, volume low at first, then started hunting for other stations. The emergency radio could bring in multiple bands, and could even be operated by a hand crank in the event of electrical failure. He had deliberately stocked the “mountain retreat” with low-technology items—both to compensate for being up in the mountains, and as a deliberate respite from their usual habits. There were still stations that didn’t carry constant news reports, so he selected one playing classical music in hopes that it would calm the tension.

“I still don’t understand. Why can’t we just go online? At least I could Skype with my friends,” Sally pouted.

She hadn’t been too pleased about their sudden departure from the city, nor the prospect of an extended stay in their “weekend getaway cabin.” Len knew that he would lose the argument, no matter what his justification, and frankly, he didn’t want to argue with her. She started warming to her usual litany of complaints: “When you said you wanted a mountain home, I figured you meant one like you see on cable—sweeping vistas, hardwood floors, and a hot tub on the deck! I am so bored of seeing nothing but trees and cooking on a wood stove!”

That wasn’t entirely fair, he thought. He’d bought the house to get away from the city, and had selected a lot with a decent slope and elevation. It was just that Sally had been set on one of the much more expensive homes and vistas up on the Blue Ridge. In truth, the house had central heating and a satellite dish for TV and computer—it’s just that Len liked getting away from the electronic intrusions that ruined his normal working day. A log fire and lanterns were much more relaxing. Speaking of which, this would be a good time to go chop more wood; it would give him something to do that would get him out of the house and he could just take the radio outside with him. Sally had her phone and could text all her friends about what an idiot he was. She’d be happy and he’d be able to stop thinking and just lose himself in the exertion.

After an hour of chopping and stacking cordwood, he heard sounds of a vehicle on the road beyond his driveway. There was a gate at the end of the drive, but it was downhill and around a bend so that it was out of view from the house. Unfortunately, that also meant that he couldn’t see the road from his current location.

Now he heard the sound of breaking glass and bending metal. That could not be good. Hmm, I need a better view. He hurried down the drive and around the slight bend. Right, there it is, opposite side of the road, bumper crunched against a tree.

Is that…the driver, slumped over the wheel? There’s blood…is he dead?

Len still had the axe in hand, his subconscious thinking that he might need it to break a window or pry open a door. There was a locked metal bar across the driveway, but a smaller gate was located to one side. He opened the gate and went across to the car to check on the driver. The window was down, but he hesitated to touch the driver, even to see if he was alive. There was a lot of blood, and many cuts around his face and neck. That doesn’t make sense, there’s not that much broken glass or metal. The man wasn’t moving, so Len finally steeled himself to check him for a pulse—there was none.

The passenger door was open, and Len started around to check beside the car for another injured person when he heard rustling in the trees to his right, he spun, axe in hand to confront a woman struggling through the brush. She was naked, scratched and bloody; there was a large gash on her forehead. Len’s first thought was that she had also been hurt in the accident—that is, until she snarled and lunged at him.

For a moment, Len froze.

This isn’t real. She’s dazed, injured, and maybe amnesiac.

He’d heard the news reports, seen the videos, but it was all far away. After news of the airplane crash in Pennsylvania last week, he’d packed up and brought Sally to the cabin, but that still didn’t quite make it real.

She’s…she’s one of the INFECTED
, finally registered in his brain.

He was numb, his brain sluggish, despite the self defense training when he was younger and bi-monthly trips to the gun range the past few years. Time slowed, and he felt like he was moving in slow motion as he raised the axe, gripping it in with a hand at each end of the wooden handle—it was all that he could think to do in his sluggish state.

The woman came at him, growling, and working her jaw as if to bite him. One arm was torn and bloody, the other hung at an odd angle, so she didn’t try to grab him, just lunge and bite. He managed to keep the axe handle in her face, practically in her jaws, but she kept pushing, and he could feel himself losing his balance. The world was still in slow motion, and he saw her finally raise the bloody arm to reach for him at the same time he felt an obstruction behind his left foot. He was going down, and she would be on him immediately.

As he lost his balance and began to fall backward, there was a shot from behind him and to the side. The woman was knocked back, and turned to look at the shooter, but quickly turned back to Len despite the new hole and spurt of blood from her chest. The first shot hadn’t stopped her, but the next shot took her in the forehead and knocked her back and away from Len. He lay on the ground a moment, feeling dirt, gravel and rocks around and under him, but nothing appeared to be broken or lacerated. He looked up as the approaching man slung a shotgun across his back.

“You get any blood on you?”

Len looked down at his hands, arms, and torso. “No…no, I don’t think so.”

He looked up at Donald Collingsworth, his next door neighbor—“next door” being a relative term in an area where the houses were a half mile apart.

Don reached out a hand to help him up. “Good, I won’t have to shoot you, too.”

He wasn’t joking, Len realized. Suspicions were high in this small community; there had already been rumors of folks shooting strangers.

“Don,” Len said, “Thanks, I don’t know what I’d…well…I don’t know.” He looked down at the axe he’d dropped in the brief encounter; picked it up, swung it a few times. “I never even thought to use this, just didn’t seem like enough time.”

“‘Ya train and train, but ya never kin train for surprise.’ It’s like huntin’, when a big ol’ buck jumps out of the brush smack dab at you and you just sit there.” Don’s hill country accent was usually pretty thick when he tried not to show his own nerves. He pointed to Len’s belt, then to the holster on his own. “You need to carry, Len. Open carry is legal up here, and ’tween the bears, snakes and the Zee’s, you need t’be able to react fast and pump out lead.”

“I know, but Sally hates it.” He stopped and worked his jaw a few times. “Damn, now I’ve got drymouth something fierce. Come up to the house for some iced tea?” He cocked his head in the direction of the driveway, and Don nodded agreement.

The two passed through the small gate, and Len swung it closed without latching it.”Best lock that, and you might want to add some fencing to the driveway instead of that bar, too.” Len looked quizzically at Don’s remark, and Don answered. “You and me kin climb fences; I hear tell Zee’s can’t.”

“You coming from the ‘city’?” Len asked as they walked up the driveway. The small town of Lowgap was about two miles away in straight distance, but double that following the mountain lanes. Don grinned in return, it was a common joke between them—the recently incorporated “City of Lowgap” claimed a bare ten thousand residents, mostly due to extending the city limits five miles out from town to include the Cumberland Knob area of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Boy Scout camp just south of town. They’d met at the university where they both worked, and Don was one of the reasons he’d bought this land and built the cabin. Don had lived up here most of his life, while Len was a relative newcomer, despite spending many summers at the camp, and spring-fall weekends at the hunting club to the west.

Don looked grim in response. “It’s getting bad in town. Refugees from the cities. I guess we’re lucky that few of them know we’re here. Oh, and Pastor Garber has been asking for you.”

Len made a face at that. Pastor Dwight Garber of the New Covenant Church of Lowgap, had somehow gotten it stuck in his head that Len was an electrical engineer. It was well known in town that the Pastor wanted to extend the reach of his radio program.

“Aw, come on, I don’t have time for his nonsense. Can’t someone convince him I’m not that kind of engineer?” He shook his head. “You know Sally doesn’t care for him, so I’ve tried to avoid him as much as I can.”

Len was most comfortable with religion at arm’s length. The…zeal of the local preacher was just a bit too much for him. “Changing the subject, what else is going on?”

“Well word is, Mount Airy’s had some trouble with gangs,” Don continued. “Chief Griffith has instituted a curfew there and put up roadblocks. Folks in town are talking about blasting State Road 89 and putting our own roadblock on Hidden Valley.” The state highway was the main road into town; with State Road 1338—Hidden Valley Road—it was the only way into town that didn’t involve the mountain lanes.

“Oh, crap.” They’d reached the house by now. “Come on in and sit, we need to talk about this. Where are they planning on putting the roadblock?” It was a question that was quite relevant to both Len and Don, since Hidden Valley was also their own route into town. If there was going to be a roadblock, it would affect them and their immediate neighbors.

They went into the house and Len waved Don over to sit at the kitchen table while he grabbed a couple of glasses, a few ice cubes, and poured them both some iced tea, the standard drink for this part of North Carolina. The glasses had been another argument with Sally and their sons when they visited. Len had insisted that they use—and wash—dishes and glasses, instead of plastic cups and paper plates. There was no sign of Sally, so that probably meant she had gone back to the bedroom with a “headache.” Len knew there was a big argument coming, but he’d deal with that when he had to. Right now, he and Don needed to discuss the roadblock.

Sitting down at his own chair, Len returned to the previous conversation.

“So, just where are they planning to block the roads? Clearly if they want a roadblock on Hidden Valley, they’re not blocking 89 that close to town.”

“Jesse Branch was talking about dropping trees and bulldozing the embankment at the Buck Mountain trail and dropping the bridge at Camp Branch Creek with a roadblock across the road between Mt. Vernon Baptist Church and Skull Camp Fire Station.”

Don pulled a map out of his backpack and pointed to a spot about a mile from a point where the road cut a pass through the hills surrounding the town. He took a sip of the sweet beverage.

“They both figures that anyone caught on the other side will know the mountain trails.”

“Like the camp road?” Len asked. He and hundreds, even thousands, of youth had spent one or more weeks of their summer each year at the Scout camp. It was a well-known and marked road, although it would still be a fair distance to town via that round-about routing.

“There was talk of a roadblock on Old Lowgap Road and another at the Hidden Valley crossroads, just below the camp entrance. Clay Davis says we can use granite blocks from the quarry over in Mt. Airy and block ’em good and solid.”

Those two roads were the only other paved roads into town. Aside from the Camp access, there would be no reason for anyone to travel those roads if they didn’t live in the area. Even refugees would be unlikely to find their way to the narrow, hilly roads by accident. “For the crossroads, they’re talking about setting up right at that hairpin turn on Eagle Point Camp Road. The corner is pretty blind, and they can set up a roadblock with clear line of sight from there to the camp entrance. With control of the bridge and crossroads, they can shunt people into the camp or turn them away back to the Interstate.

Actually, that wasn’t a bad plan…except for one detail.

“What about the kids? Aren’t the Scouts supposed to start arriving on Sunday?” With the end of the school year across most of the state last week, the summer camp should be starting up soon.

“There’s a few boys here already, but Dave says the camp is considering sending them home.” David Wright was one of the year-round camp staffers, and lived on the other side of Don’s property from Len. Don would have gotten his information from Dave, who got it directly from the camp administration.

“With the news and the tone of the President’s weekly radio speech, I hear tell the staff’s mighty nervous about having an incident in a camp full of teenage boys. You heard about that airliner crash—where was that, Beaufort?”

“Bellefonte. Little town in Pennsylvania, practically a suburb of State College and Penn State.” Len made a face.

“You know the place?” Don was surprised.

“Yeah, my grandparents used to live there. Nice town, but small and pretty bad economy for a while. I still have an aunt there.”

“Any word from her?”

“No, I talked to Mom a couple of days ago. No word, and she’s pretty worried. She’s been calling the town hall, county seat, state police, and even tried to get my cousin to drive there from Philly.” Len got rather quiet, and looked down at his tea for several minutes before standing up.

“Y’know, I think I need something stronger.”

He went to the cabinet for another glass as Don continued.

“Well, anyway, Dave says they’re still going to enforce a strict ‘no firearms’ policy in the camp proper, but the camp staff and adults in town are expected to carry at all times.” Don caught Len’s eye and made a stern face. “That means you too. If you don’t have a good holster, I’m taking some guys on a run into Mount Airy for supplies, and I can get you one. Also, you need something with a substantial magazine, not that six-shot hand cannon you favor.”