Dead Surge (15 page)

I admitted she had a point, but there was a good reason and I let her know. “If we take off now, the little buggers could shift direction and we’d be running blind. Meanwhile, town after town falls to them, with the dead kids building on their own army. If we keep nearby, find some communication, then we can lead the army right to them and watch the show.”

Sarah mulled that one over and I could almost hear her nod. “That makes the most sense so far. Why didn’t you mention it before?”

Chapter 32

At about two in the morning, I woke up. I couldn’t say why, I just did. I sat up very slowly, letting my eyes look around without moving my head. Sarah was sleeping on her side, snoring very softly in the back portion of the seat. The sunroof was cracked open about an inch and the doors were thankfully locked. The driver’s side of the truck was close to the van, and as I sat there, wondering what it was that woke me up so completely, I heard a noise outside between the two vehicles.

It was so subtle, gentle almost, like a caress. But there was no mistaking the sound for the wind. It sounded like someone or something was running their hand along the truck as they slowly walked around it. From where I sat, I would be face to face with it in seconds if I didn’t move.

I slid down onto the seat and removed my sidearm from the center console. After a quick moment of thought, I realized I didn’t have a shot, since the bullet could strike the van and hurt someone inside. Add to the fact that I would have to shoot through the window, it didn’t work out as a viable solution. The upside, I was safe. There was no way a zombie could get in here. My concern was there might be others, and a confrontation would bring them in a hurry.

As I lay there, I kept my eyes on the window, hoping for some sign of what was moving out there. I couldn’t see over the seats, as I was lying down, so my vision was limited to the passenger side. All I could do was wait.

After ten seconds, the top of a head appeared at the window. It was a scruffy head of hair, tangled and matted. From what I could see, it could have been an orphan, come out to check if anything interesting was in the two vehicles that showed up out of nowhere. I closed my eyes so I could barely see, but keep anything from seeing the whites of my eyes as I looked around.

The head stopped and I could see it slowly rising, as if the person were getting on their tiptoes. I breathed as quietly as possible, knowing the slightest sound would draw attention. I could hear Sarah still snoring, but I hoped it wasn’t audible through the windows. The sunroof was cracked slightly to give us some air, but that was only done on a high vehicle like our truck. We learned a long time ago that windows opened even slightly were like giving a key to the door to a zombie. They just grabbed and pulled the windows out.

As the head rose, I could see a faint glow, coming from under the forehead, and I knew immediately this was no live orphan. This was a dead one and its eyes were in full bioluminescent glow. The head stopped as the eyes cleared the base of the window and it took all of my willpower not to shoot the damn thing, as it was inches from me. I knew it couldn’t see very well, as the windows were slightly tinted, and it was very dark outside, just a sliver of a moon to light the landscape. But none of this was much of a comfort if the zombie decided to make an issue of things and bring a horde of little zombies our way.

The eyes darted around for a few seconds, and I had a moment of panic when they stared down at me. I had to resist the urge to move and bring my weapon to bear, as well as resist the urge to avert my eyes.

As slowly as they had risen, the head and eyes descended, and started to move to the front of the vehicle. I breathed a low sigh of relief and quietly eased myself to a semi-sitting position. I could see over the dash and hood, and saw the little zombie walking slowly away, its little hand running over the hood of the truck. I was actually in a bit of a dilemma, as I watched it walk around the front of the truck. Do I kill it now? Or do I let it go, note the direction it took, and hope it’s part of the larger horde?

As I was contemplating this, the decision was made for me. The passenger side door was suddenly opened on the van and I could hear someone getting out. The zombie heard it, too and walked quickly around the front of the truck and in between the vehicles. If I didn’t do anything, someone was going to have a zombie on them without warning. I didn’t dare fire a shot, because the bullet would go through the zombie, then through the van. If anyone got hit, even just wounded, they were dead, because the virus would likely transfer on the bullet.

I took the easy route. When the zombie passed the driver’s side door, I opened it hard, trapping the zombie between the vehicles, waking up Sarah in the process.

“What…who?” she said sleepily.

“Nothing dear, just killing a zombie kid, go back to sleep.” My words of comfort had the exact opposite effect as the zombie scrabbled and clawed at the door, grabbing my pants as it tried to free its head from entrapment. Sarah jumped up and quickly assessed the situation.

“Hang on, I got it.” She rummaged a bit and produced my trench ‘hawk, exiting the vehicle from the opposite side and circling around the front. One spiked head later and the zombie dropped to the ground.

I shrugged off that mental image and was about to say goodnight when the grass around our open area began that clicking sound again. Charlie and I looked around and again I had that feeling I knew what that sound was, I was just having a hard time trying to figure out what it was.

“Those bugs are persistent,” Charlie said, hitching his pants a little.

Sarah came up behind us and said, “I can’t help but think I know I’ve heard that sound before, and it wasn’t bugs.”

I had to agree. I did a quick rundown of the things we had learned about our enemy on this trip and was coming up short. Nothing we had seen was telling me this was anything else but big grasshoppers, but my instincts were screaming at me that it was something else.

I thought about the survivors of the previous expeditions, and I kept coming back to the one camp that had been attacked in the night. That thought led me to the man I had shot over in Illinois. He said some crazy stuff, like clicking and teeth. I often wondered what he had meant by that.

Suddenly it hit me, and I shouted aloud. “Teeth! Jesus!”

Sarah and Charlie looked at me like I was nuts, and I swear Charlie looked at my teeth.

“That’s what that guy in Illinois was talking about. Teeth clicking together! That’s what that sound is. Now I remember where I’ve heard it before. Remember the pit of zombie heads that was like a pond of piranhas?” I looked out over the grass and heard the clicking intensify.

Charlie and Sarah heard it as well, and just as they were about to comment, about twenty zombie kids burst from the grass, racing towards us.

Chapter 33

“Christ! Back in the trucks! Get moving!” I yelled pushing Sarah ahead of me into the truck. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Charlie had made it to his vehicle just in time. In seconds, little zombies, their hands pounding on the windows and grasping at the mirrors, surrounded us.

I yelled into the radio. “Get driving, head south towards the tracks and the silos! Stay close!”

“Got it. Nasty little things, aren’t they?” Rebecca replied. She was driving the van. The big vehicle pulled away, dragging a few of the little creatures with it, as they were pulled under the van.

I pulled away as well, pointing the truck towards the road and to relative safety. We were effectively trapped. Unless we could shake these little rats, and unless we had some serious highway to use, then we were going to have them dogging us for a while. The good news was we were relatively safe in our vehicles. The bad news was we couldn’t get out without getting swamped and killed.

I pulled through the grain elevator main area, with the van right behind me. Behind us, the zombies were running full tilt, and a glance at the speedometer told me they were good for fifteen miles an hour. I pushed it to twenty and the zombies began to fall behind. I couldn’t go much faster, since I had to go around some pretty big obstacles, but that was fast enough.

Sarah was busy next to me, setting out magazines and getting the rifles ready. I was about to turn the truck towards a building when the radio popped on.

“Exactly. I’m starting to see why those communities fell so easily.” I pulled the truck into the silos by the tracks, and the van pulled alongside. Between the two of us, there was only enough room to open the doors on the driver side on the truck and the passenger side on the van. Tommy and Duncan jumped out of the van loaded for bear and I pointed them to the opposite sides of the silos. Charlie, Rebecca, Sarah and I stood in the bed of the truck, giving us a chance to talk and cover the other two.

Charlie started us off. “What the hell?”

I concurred. “No shit. I’ve never seen a zombie break off pursuit, especially when it could still see us. That’s just wrong.”

Rebecca shook her head. “It was wrong. We’re fighting these guys as if we’re still fighting the first years of the Upheaval. If these little guys have had the time for the virus to simmer for a while, then chances are it’s evolved into something we aren’t used to.”

Sarah nodded. “We’ve seen zombies that were able to learn rudimentary behavior after a lot of trial and error, and retain enough memory of the action to be able to do it again under similar circumstances. In this case, they have spent years learning and learning, and now they’re free, we’re just trying to catch up.”

I looked over at Charlie. “I guess we know who the thinkers are of this group.”

Charlie shrugged. “I know, I married up.”

“Let’s get back to the basics. What do we do?” I asked. “I’m willing to admit these are the smartest zombies we’ve come across, but they are not the smartest humans ever and are still motivated by hunger and the need to survive. They can be tricked and they can be killed. We just need to make sure we do both.”

Everyone agreed, and we hopped off the truck in time to see Duncan running back to us.

“They’re coming! They aren’t running, so they may not know where we are yet,” he said, checking his weapons.

I looked over at Tommy and whistled softly. Tommy looked over and shook his head. Nothing on his side. I had a feeling, so I told Charlie, Sarah and Rebecca to go to the front with Duncan, and I was going to be in back with Tommy. Charlie looked at me funny, so I answered his question. “If these things are smart, then they might split up. If they do, we can offer a surprise from our rear.”

Sarah winked at me and took off for Duncan’s position, checking her mags as well. Charlie loosened his ‘hawks and Rebecca switched on the red dot sight on her rifle. She hopped into the bed of the truck and was going to be our backup from above should the need arise.

Chapter 34

I went back towards Tommy and took up a position next to him. He was kneeling and had his rifle trained towards the side of the silo. Spare magazines were ready and waiting on his leg. I moved a little further to his right and settled down in the same fashion. From my viewpoint, I could see just a little further. In front of me was a long set of railroad tracks that stretched out into the night. Long grass swayed slightly and bits of small stone turned over when a small gust of wind blew in from the south, stirring the area.

“Me, too.” The hardest part of a situation like this was waiting. Most of the time it worked and we killed the Zs. Sometimes it didn’t and we had to go out and find the zombie again, sometimes surprising them as much as we were surprised.

I did know that once the ball opened up on the north side, that the zombies would be attracted to the noise, but if we left our rear unguarded, we could be wiped out in a hurry if they circled around.

Everything was silent for a few long minutes. The wind picked up a bit and rattled the roof of the silo, causing Tommy and myself to jump a little. We shook it off and waited some more.