Dead Surge (16 page)

After a few minutes, I could hear them. They were walking slowly down the long road, nearly marching in unison. I could hear the crunch of the gravel as dozens of small feet walked towards our position.

By Tommy’s stiffening posture, I could tell he was hearing it, too. We brought our rifle stocks to our cheeks and put our aperture sights on the area just next to the silo. The second anything showed up, we were going to blast it to hell.

Suddenly, the crunching gravel stopped. I looked over at Tommy and he shrugged slightly. This kind of behavior was way past what we were used to and I couldn’t help but feel we were really behind the learning curve.

My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden blast of gunfire to the north. I could hear Charlie’s rifle barking and Sarah’s as well. Duncan was holding off until he had a shot. Rebecca was probably nervous in her perch, but I knew she was steady.

The firing stopped and there was a pause. Tommy and I waited, and then I decided to see what was up. Slapping Tommy on the shoulder, I sprinted for the north and stopped by Charlie. I could see six or seven small bodies out on the parking lot and that was it.

“What’s up, are we done?” I asked.

Duncan spoke up. “There was way more than that in that group. Don’t know where they are.” Duncan looked agitated, as if we would blame him for misreporting the number of ghouls.

I skidded to a stop next to him and didn’t bother to kneel. I fired at a glowing spot that moved quickly towards me and knocked a little zombie dead. I fired again, trying to shoot after Tommy did. He dropped three and I killed another two, killing the second barely two feet from our position.

“Getting closer,” Tommy said, dropping his magazine and replacing it with a fully loaded one. He took a few loose rounds out of his vest and refreshed the used mag.

“I know. I feel like we’re battling living people,” I said, aiming my rifle at a clump of grass across the tracks that looked like it was moving.

“That’d be easier, since we could just shoot those anywhere and put them down,” Tommy said.

I reflected for a second. “After all these years, I doubt I could shoot anything anywhere but the head.”

Tommy contemplated that one for a second. “You know, you might be right.” He looked hard for a second. “You see anything out there?”

That must have been some sort of signal, because suddenly there was a rush. A dozen little zombies burst from the grass and launched themselves at us. I didn’t waste time trying to line up every shot for a kill. I just wanted to slow them down some. By the firing going on next to me, Tommy was feeling the same.

“Dammit, they’re fast!” He said, quickly switching out another magazine.

“No kidding. Got you, you little bastard!” I cracked another one in the head and his headlong rush tumbled him another five yards. A second zombie jumped over the still corpse and raced towards us. Tommy fired and put him down, and then a trio of little girls came racing around the corner. I couldn’t fire, because Tommy was right in my way.

“Your left!” I called.

Tommy swung his rifle up and just emptied his magazine at them. The bullets halted their forward progress and pushed them back, two of them being struck in the head and falling for good. The third, a girl of maybe eleven years, slowly got back to her feet. Her right arm was useless, having been shattered at the elbow by a bullet. Two more bullets tore her face, and her skin hung in ragged chunks, where a bullet had gone through her mouth. She glared at Tommy, and snarled with what was left of her mouth. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Tommy looked at her for a minute and then shot her between the eyes, killing her on top of her friends. He looked down at the tracks in the gravel and whistled when he saw the footprints just four feet from his spot.

Chapter 35

We ran up to the north side, taking opposite sides of the truck and van, and saw Duncan, Charlie and Sarah fighting for their lives. Sarah was kicking over a small zombie, while stabbing another in the eye. Duncan was holding off three with his sword, and Charlie was holding one by the neck while killing another with his tomahawk. In the open space to the north, I could see ten more sprinting across the parking lot towards us.

I quickly raised my rifle to fire, killing three before the rest split off and ran to the sides of the silo. Tommy killed another two on his side.

“About time!” Sarah yelled, bracing for the charge of the one she had knocked down.

“Just in time, I’d say,” I said, drawing my pistol and blowing a huge hole in the head of the zombie scrambling to get up. I fired again at one of the zombies Duncan was dealing with, dropping him from the side.

“My thanks!” Duncan yelled. He leaped forward, swinging hard. His sword connected with a small zombie, lopping her head off. Duncan brought the blade around for another swing, this time kneeling when he struck, adding power to his swing. The long blade sliced a zombie completely in half, including the arms. The body fell in four pieces, with the severed torso struggling to use arms that suddenly had been shortened by half.

Charlie threw the struggling corpse of the zombie he was holding against the silo. It landed in a heap, but sprang up faster than it had fallen. When Charlie turned to deal with it, it was already on him. He managed to fling it off again, but not before the little zombie managed to bite him on the arm.

Charlie roared in pain and anger, and brought out his second tomahawk. The zombie boy, probably no older than seven when he originally had died, scrambled up again and charged one last time. Charlie chopped him into little nasty chunks, saving the killing blow for last.

Sarah was the first one to notice Charlie had been bitten. She touched my arm and pointed to Charlie. I stopped scanning the grass for more threats, and then waved Rebecca down. Charlie was holding his arm, staring down at the reddening wound on his forearm.

We gathered around Charlie and Rebecca started crying. Sarah took her to the van and told her it was going to be okay. I looked at Charlie.

Charlie and I walked over to the parking lot, and Charlie took the time to take off his weapons. His ‘hawks, he placed gently on the ground, and then he removed his knife and pistol. Charlie then faced me and shook my hand one last time.

Charlie lay down on the asphalt, his injured arm held away from his body. I stood watch, making sure we had no surprises when things came to their inevitable conclusion.

While I waited for Charlie, I looked around at the landscape. In the lean hours of the morning, I could just make out the dark shapes of the hills to the north. The setting moon provided just enough light to see, but not enough to be useful in finding targets.

After twenty minutes of lying still, Charlie began to twitch slightly. His arm spasmed and jumped a little and I knew it wasn’t going to be too long, now. I checked my pockets to make sure I had what was needed, then waited some more. Sure enough, the heavier spasms hit, and Charlie’s back arched briefly. His body clenched itself, with his arms and legs bending, bringing him to a fetal position.

Slowly, slowly, his body straightened out, and I could see his arm was very red, with black where the zombie had bitten him. I reflected on all the things we had been through, all of the fights we had survived without so much as a scratch. It always seemed to happen this way. I started to get angry at the whole situation. First, I was angry at Dot, then I was angry with the people sent out here, who couldn’t handle the problem, then I was mad at the townspeople who had died, and finally I had just enough anger left for the little shit that had bitten Charlie.

After an hour of Charlie lying perfectly still, his hands began to move. After a minute, he rolled over onto his stomach and carefully put his hands by his head. Pushing up, he got his legs under himself and stood very slowly, bits of rock that had clung to his clothes falling to the ground. I placed a hand on my sidearm and waited.

Charlie brought his hand to his head and shook it slightly. He turned and spotted me standing there. Moving in my direction, one-step at a time, Charlie opened his mouth.

Chapter 36

“Ouch.”

“No doubt. Aspirin?” I held out a small bottle of the pills and a canteen.

“Please. Jesus, I have a headache.” Charlie shook out six of the pills and tossed them down his throat, chasing them with large gulps of water.

After a minute, he took a huge breath and gathered up his things. He put his gun and knife back, and replaced his ‘hawks. Steadying himself, he opened his pack and pulled out a packet of penicillin. Crushing the pills, he scattered the powder over his wound, and wrapped it up with some gauze.

We walked slowly back to the vehicles and I could see the crew waiting in the vehicles. As soon as they could see us, Rebecca came racing out of the van and nearly toppled Charlie over. I swear her hug almost popped his head off.

Sarah came out to meet me and I gave her a hug and kiss as well.

“All good?” she asked, looking over at the other couple.

“Yeah, this one wasn’t as bad as the last,” I said. A long time ago, we had a doctor who decided, for whatever reason, to take blood samples of everyone who was living in the community. I thought it was for transfusions should the need arise, but the good doc had figured that anyone surviving the Upheaval, given how contagious the virus was, had to have some kind of immunity. As it turned out, Charlie was immune. I was informed that I was probably immune as well, but I had never tested it, and wasn’t really willing to try. Charlie first got bitten in Nebraska, then a second time in Denver. Each time the virus tries to take over and each time Charlie manages to fight it back. Every once in a while he makes a trip to the capital to donate some blood for testing and an attempt at an anti-virus. So far, no luck. Charlie gets to suffer through some serious headaches, and his spasms once broke a window, which is why we moved to the outdoors when the bite in Denver occurred.

Charlie said the fight royally sucked, and his head felt like someone had shot him in the forehead, but other than the bitten area becoming little black teeth marks, he was none the worse for wear.

Rebecca redressed the wound and Charlie settled into one of the back captain’s chairs in the van. Tommy was going to drive for a while.

I looked at the corpses surrounding us and then at the lightening sky. I decided we needed to rest a bit, so I climbed aboard the truck and we pulled out of town. I moved north until I hit 34, then pulled over onto the driveway of a small farm. Radioing back to the van, I said we needed to catch up on sleep, so we would stick around there for a few hours. Everyone agreed, so we slipped back into the sleep we left, after what seemed so long ago.

Sarah practically fell onto me and we dropped the seats back to rest. As I fell asleep, I swore I could hear clicking in the wind.

Chapter 37

I leaned over and kissed Sarah good morning, and then turned back to my map. I had a large Iowa map spread out over the steering wheel and I was staring at the marks we had made.

“I’ve been over this map, and over it, and I’m trying to figure out what is linking these communities together,” I said, tracing a finger over the towns we’d marked and the ones we had been to, frustrating myself.

Sarah leaned over to look at what I was doing. “There aren’t any clear roads that travel that way, and there’s a river that the zombies would have to cross.” She looked up. “Huh. That is curious. How are they able to get to these towns and then get away? Somebody should be able to track them, especially if there’s as many as we think there are.”