Dead Surge (8 page)

Two deputies, dressed in civilian gear but wearing badges, sized me up as I got out of the truck, and their eyes widened when Charlie and Duncan stepped out of the van. We were dressed for battle, and I caught one deputy trying not to be too obvious about putting his hand near his gun.

I related to the two of them who I was and what I was doing out here. Both of them said they hadn’t heard of any problems, but now that I had mentioned it, they hadn’t seen anybody from the southern part of the state in a while.

“All right, well, we’ll keep going, and if anything and I mean, anything is out of the ordinary, lock up tight and spread the word.” I warned.

“You think it’s another outbreak?” Asked the shorter deputy. He glanced around, as if he expected to see a zombie roll out from under the bushes.

“Wish I could tell you, son. Take it easy and keep your eyes open,” I said as I climbed back aboard the truck.

We rolled out of Oakland and ten miles further west we turned south again towards Glenwood. I will admit I was getting nervous, mostly from the astounding lack of information we had regarding this whole mess. Part of me just wished something would happen. Anything that might give me a clue as to what we were facing. Hell, I would have welcomed even a former campsite from another group just to look for a few clues.

At Treynor, we stopped and stretched our legs. This town was wide open and completely abandoned. During the Upheaval, these people had gone to Council Bluffs for protection and to help defend the city there from the hordes of zombies that lined the river at Omaha. Hundreds of people lost their lives defending the two bridges keeping away the Zs, and to this day, they still have men manning the bridges, making sure the defenses don’t fall. The people of the surrounding communities are fully aware of the sacrifices the people at Council Bluffs have made, and are appropriately grateful.

Most of the houses were nearly buried in tall grass and unkempt bushes. We passed dozens of homes that were in severe disrepair, and some that had burned down. I pulled over at the corner of Eyberg and Main, and Sarah nodded to me absently. I knew she was starting to feel things as well, not the least of which was the nagging uncertainty.

Charlie came over from the van while Tommy and Duncan wandered off to find a place to go to the bathroom. I suggested just pick a nearby bush, but they must have been sensitive souls given their response.

“How far?” Charlie asked, looking over the building we parked next to. It was Anderson’s Service, but what it serviced I couldn’t say.

I stretched a bit. “By the map, we should be there in about an hour. I figure we’d get closer to Council Bluffs and head south, come in from the north.”

“Good enough. I think we can rule out rogue group, by the way.”

“How so?”

“I figured someone would have heard about it by now, and our two deputies back there seemed bored enough to check up on anything out of the ordinary,” Charlie said, taking a look into the big brick building.

I had to admit he was probably right. Groups that try to establish themselves tended to blast through the countryside pretty quickly, and after a brief flare up, were typically handled and quieted. We had a run in up in Montana with a group but when it turned out their leader was an old friend of ours, it worked out pretty well.

“Well, we’ll see things for ourselves in a bit, and go from there.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Tommy trotting up to us.

“Hey. Duncan climbed the water tower for a look around and he says there’s a zombie stream to the south of us, heading this way,” Tommy said.

“All right. Tell him to come down and we’ll have a look. Did he say how long?” I remarked, my hand straying to my sidearm.

“Couldn’t make a determination, all he said was it was on its way. The upside was it was close to a road.”

That helped. It was a pain in the neck to deal with a zombie stream in the middle of nowhere. Zombie streams are what we called the long lines of zombies that trailed away from population centers. Typically, one would get the notion to roam, another would notice, and so on until several were strung out in a long line from wherever they came from. The bigger the city, the longer the stream. We had one that went for fifteen miles once.

“Let’s go. Maybe this is the start of an explanation.” I waved on Sarah and Rebecca, and we hopped back into the vehicles to go take a look.

Chapter 18

I let Charlie take the lead, since Duncan had seen the stream and knew where it was. We drove out of town and headed south on a county road. The van turned right almost immediately and followed a farm road for a about a mile. I looked over at Sarah as the van took another turn south and went down an oil and gravel road that connected several small farms in the area. I knew from experience these farm roads were typically a mile long, so we would find the next intersection in a minute or two.

“Do you think Duncan was seeing things?” Sarah asked as she stopped herself from hitting the ceiling when we went over a particularly large bump.

“Not Duncan. He’s a goof, but he’s never wrong about Zs,” I said, steering around a large pothole. The van in front of me swerved and swayed, and I wondered if Charlie was trying to hit the most number of potholes.

We reached the next intersection and went west again, turning south once more at another farm road. Sarah pointed out that there was a small town in this area, which explained why there might have been a drift.

Suddenly, Charlie hit the brakes, and I was glad of my seatbelt when I slid to a stop behind him.

“That was fun,” I said as I climbed out of the truck and grabbed my carbine from the area behind the seat. Sarah did the same and I pulled out my pickaxe from the truck bed. Sarah hefted a small spear, and then nodded. The spear was one Duncan had brought home one day. It was four feet of pole, then two feet of sharpened, pointed steel. It cut as well as it poked. I’d use one myself, but my pick was just so comfortable.

As we went to the side of the van, it suddenly opened and very deadly looking people spilled out. Duncan came first, followed by Tommy, then Rebecca and Charlie. Everyone bristled with weapons, and I smiled as I saw the big sword strapped to Duncan’s back.

Duncan noticed the smile and returned with one of his own. “You’ll see, it will replace the gun, eventually.”

I liked to needle Duncan about his weapon choices, but truth be known it made a lot of sense. Medieval weapons were making a comeback in the war on the zombies, and a lot of people trained with them these days.

“Where’s the stream?” I asked Charlie since I assumed that was why he stopped.

“Saw the head over…there.” He pointed to the south and sure enough, a stumbling form was headed this way. In the distance, more could be seen, moving in a slow shamble towards us.

“All right. You all know what to do. Charlie, you take number one, I’ll head off for number two. No guns, in case there’s bigger problems around. The rest of you spread out and take them as they come.” Nodding heads and grim faces went off to battle. In a situation like this, we tended to let the zombies come to us and kill them. If we ran out to them, we had to come all the way back to our transportation.

We went to the other side of the van and I walked forward as Charlie went to meet our first customer. It was a short man, with blood steaks all over his head and arms. His eyes scanned all of us before they locked on Charlie, and by that time, it was too late. Charlie planted one of his tomahawks in the Z’s head and sent him to the ground. The second one on line, a tall female, stumbled somewhat quickly towards me as I walked her way. My pick was already in my hand, and I dodged her arms as she lunged. I slammed the head of the pick into her knee, sending her crashing to the ground. Her reaching hand caught my pant leg, but I was already in the downswing of my killing stroke. The pointed end of the pick cracked her skull and kept her on the ground for good.

The rest of the team spread out and waited, and naturally, the zombies came to us. Big, little, old and not so old shambled to the killing zone, eager to try their luck at the succulent morsels just out of reach. We took turns killing them, and ran out after about fifteen zombies had bitten the dust.

We cleaned our weapons and piled back into the vehicles, since where there was a zombie stream, chances were there was a zombie town nearby. The nearest one that was in the general direction of the source of the stream was Mineola, so we headed that way.

Mineola was an extremely small town literally in the middle of nowhere, so it was a something of a surprise to see any zombies hanging around out there, but as we pulled into the outskirts of town that’s exactly what we saw. There were about three dozen zombies wandering about, and when the first ones spotted us and started groaning, the rest soon joined in.

I drove slowly around the town, following the convenient road that kept to the outskirts. When it turned into the town, I kept going, making sure the zombies were able to keep us in sight.

“Look for a place to take care of them all at once, will you?” I asked Sarah. I had to keep an eye on the road, since there was more debris than I expected there to be. This town had been active, and by the looks of things, there seemed to be a lot of chaos about.

“I’ll try, but these trees aren’t making things any easier,” Sarah said, sitting straighter in her seat and looking in every direction she could.

I looked. It was a long, low building with windows up near the roofline. Perfect. I pulled the truck in to the back of the structure and ran towards the front. The feed store had a single doorway, and was open all the way to the back. A second structure was attached which I presumed was the warehouse for goods.

Charlie was beside me and as we stood by the door, the first group of zombies that had followed our vehicles walked into view. I waved my arms and they lurched a little faster in our direction. I took the time to look them over and something struck me as odd, but I couldn’t put a finger on what it was. Something just wasn’t right, but I didn’t have time to put it through my problem-solving process.

Chapter 19

“You want the front or the back?” Charlie asked, hefting a ‘hawk in each hand and looking very grim.

“I’ll take the back. Just get out of the way this time, all right?” I said as I went into the building, dodging piles of feed sacks.

“You act like I’m the only one who’s done dumb things.” Charlie called, perturbed.

“I wasn’t the one who managed to trap myself behind a door for two hours.” I yelled back, but Charlie didn’t hear me. He was waving his arms and making noise, trying to make sure as many zombies came towards the door as possible. I stayed about three-quarters of the way into the building, ready to start calling the zombies in further to trap them in the building. I positioned myself between the piles of fertilizer and pesticide, guaranteed to make my tomatoes the best ever.

As I looked to the front door, I saw Charlie duck inside and hide behind the big swinging door. Five seconds later, a zombie made its way into the store, and I immediately banged my pick and my knife together to get its attention. I didn’t want it to sniff out Charlie’s hiding spot and cause some serious problems. The zombie’s head snapped up. I could almost see its eyes narrow and its lips peel back from its teeth as it marched towards me. Behind it, several more zombies streamed in through the door, and I was going to cut this close in order to get as many zombies in here as possible before Charlie could get back outside and secure the door. If there were stragglers, Duncan and Tommy were likely hiding nearby to lend a hand. Sarah and Rebecca were probably getting some kind of firebomb ready to light this building up.

A few more bangs and a small stand on top of a pile of feed to get as many focused on me as possible allowed Charlie to dart outside and close the door behind him. I took that as my cue and ran towards the back door ready to get out and set this place on fire.

Great plans typically are designed around the guiding principle that everything will go right. Good plans have backups for the inevitable screw up that twists things sideways. Lousy plans are doomed to failure, usually because of some sort of oversight or cruddy planning.

I evaluated my plan for evacuating the building when I pushed on the emergency bar on the back door and walked right into the door. I shook my head and tried the door again, which stubbornly resisted my efforts to open it. Looking at the door, I saw it was opening, but it was secured in place by a latch and very effective padlock.

“Oh, shit.” I didn’t have much else to say, and it would have been a wasted effort anyway.

I turned around and saw the zombies had covered the distance fairly well and the first two were going to reach me in just a few seconds. I whipped out my pistol and quickly fired two shots, knocking over the nearest zombies. The shots seemed to galvanize the rest into charging the rear of the building, which had the effect of making me very nervous.

To make things worse, there was a pounding on the back door and Sarah’s voice, which seemed very far away. “John? John? John! Duncan, help!”