Deadrise (7 page)

"Put your weapons down!" someone barked from the jeep.

Frank opened the door as the jeep came to a halt beside them. Three soldiers wearing camouflage fatigues and helmets and carrying M-16s exited the jeep. The first one hurried up the steps as Frank stood from behind the wheel and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word the butt of the soldier’s rifle caught him in the stomach.

"Sit down!" the man screamed, shoving Frank back across the steering wheel.

"What are you doing?" David asked, but the soldier turned and backhanded him across the mouth, sending him sprawling.

"Leave your hands off my boy!" Frank lurched at the soldier, grabbing his shoulders. But a second soldier had entered the bus, and he clubbed Frank across the back of the head. Frank fell aside, dazed. The first soldier turned around and kicked him in the chest. He fell back against the stairs and tumbled out of the bus. David charged with a scream but the soldier drove the butt of his rifle into his stomach.

Frank fell face first on the cold pavement and was lifted to his feet by two more soldiers.

"Do-don't hurt my f-f-family." he gasped weakly.

"Shut up motherfucker!" one of the soldiers punched him in the stomach while the other held him up on his feet.

"What are you are doing?" Sharon screamed at the top of her lungs. Her eyes were wide, her teeth bared, her hands in claws. She could take no more and lunged at the nearest soldier. But he just smiled and delivered a solid punch directly to Sharon’s chin. She crumpled to the floor of the bus, out cold.

Susan cringed in shock.

"Well, well," smiled the first soldier. "Hey Chet," he called back to the second soldier. "Look what we have here." Chet looked over his shoulder where Susan huddled in fright.

"Party time." he said with a laugh…

"I can't believe this is happening." Matt said from inside the store.

"We have to stop them." Zack said.

"Are you crazy? As soon as we walk out there they will shoot us!"

"We can't let them kill Frank."

"Do you want to go out there?"

"No. But I can't sit by and watch them beat Frank to death." Zack looked into the bus, where he could see Susan wrestling with the two soldiers. He watched in disgust as they ripped her blouse down the middle. When she tried to fight back, one of them punched her in the stomach. She crumpled out of view. The two soldiers were laughing at one another.

"They are going to rape Sharon and Susan." Zack said. Without another word he stood and raised his rifle to his shoulder and walked out of the gas station.

"Fuck!" exclaimed Matt, right behind him.

"ENOUGH!" Zack screamed, training the barrel of his rifle on the head of the soldier who was beating Frank. The soldiers turned, startled. "Let him go right now!"

The soldiers did not comply. Matt had fanned wide to the left, his gun trained towards the bus.

"I said right now!" Zack walked towards the bus, looking the soldier in the eye. "Or I put this right through your brain." The man held his eye for a long moment, his gaze hard, but he saw Zack was dead serious.

"Let him go Sam." He said over his shoulder. The soldier holding Frank released him, and he slumped to the pavement.

"Hands up." Zack said. He was now less than ten feet away from the nearest soldier. "Both of you." The two soldiers raised their hands.

"You fucked up real bad my friend." the first soldier said, his voice full of bravado.

"No you’re the one who fucked up." Zack said. "Call your boys out of the bus."

"No."

"I'm warning you I will shoot you dead where you stand if you don't call your boys out of the bus."

"You can't possibly kill us all before we reach our guns." the man said.

"No but I can damn sure kill you. Now don't fuck with me! Call them out of the bus."

Inside the bus, both soldiers had gone to the floor with Susan, and her muffled screams of fright could be heard among their bawdy laughter.

"Don't do it Joe." Sam said, slowly lowering his hands. "They’re just going to kill us anyway."

"No we're not." Zack said. "We just want to get some gas and get out of here. Now keep your hands up." He switched his aim between the two soldiers.

"If you go for that gun, you die." Matt said, moving in closer, aiming at Sam.

"Chet! Don!" Sam called into the bus. "We got some trouble out here!" The two soldiers popped up into view.

"What is it? We're kind of in the middle of something." called one, then he saw Matt though one of the side windows.

"Get the fuck away from her! Now!" Matt screamed, aiming his gun at the soldier through the bus window.

"Down!" said the soldier on the bus, and both of them disappeared from view.

"Watch it!" Matt exclaimed. "On the bus!"

"Face down! On the ground!" Zack screamed at the soldiers who stood outside the bus.

"Fuck you!" screamed Sam, and dodged to his right around the front of the bus, un-slinging his M-16.

The soldier who had been beating Frank fumbled for his rifle, but before it was even off his shoulder Zack put a bullet through his chest. He fell back over Frank, gurgling bloody foam as he went through his final motions.

One of the soldiers in the bus popped into view, M-16 in hand. He squeezed a three round burst through the window at Matt, but it passed harmlessly to his right. Matt ducked his head, moving for cover behind the bus.

Bullets whizzed by Zack’s feet, and he realized that the soldier who had ducked around the front end was shooting underneath the bus.

Frank pulled himself painfully to his knees, reaching for the dead soldiers M-16. He heard gunfire coming from inside the bus.

My Family!

He lurched to his feet and entered the bus to see one of the soldiers crouched in the center of the aisle, rifle trained out a driver’s side window. The other soldier was moving in a crouch towards the rear of the bus. Sharon lay unconscious on the floor. Susan lay beside her, her blouse and bra hanging in torn rags at her sides. David was crumpled on the ground underneath a seat. The nearest soldier looked at Frank, eyes wide with terror. He began to swing his gun around but Frank already had a bead on him.

"Bastards!" Frank screamed, squeezing the trigger of the M-16. A three round burst caught the soldier just below the throat, and he fell back, firing into the ceiling. The soldier in the rear of the bus spun around, and Frank fired. The rounds hit the soldier in the shoulder, and he fell back against the rear door. He lifted his M-16 weakly in one hand, and let loose a burst just as Frank fired again. The soldiers face exploded with the impact of the heavy bullets, but his own aim had been true and Frank’s chest burst as the M-16 rounds tore it to shreds. Frank crashed back against the windshield, before falling down the steps once again…

Zack popped around the front of the bus to find the soldier had rolled out from underneath and was already rising to his feet. Worse yet, he was drawing a bead on him! Zack flung himself back around the front end, but not before hearing the soldier fire. He felt an impact like a sledgehammer in his left arm and side, and then he was flat on the pavement, fighting for breath as the white-hot fire of a bullet burned through him.

Matt came around behind the bus and saw the soldier fire at Zack as he leapt for cover. Matt raised his rifle and shot him between the shoulder blades. He let out a gurgle of pain and fell face first on the pavement. Matt spun around, adrenalin pumping, heart pounding, lungs gasping, ready for the next target. His ears were ringing from the gunfire, but he saw a couple of zombies walking in from the far end of the lot. He targeted them one at a time. His hands were shaking, and it took him five rounds to hit them both through the head. He spun around, looking for more…but there were none.

After several long moments, he slowly began to come out of his daze, and he became aware of the bodies lying around him. He spotted Frank lying halfway out of the bus, feebly trying to pull his broken body off the stairs and to the ground. Matt dropped his rifle and pulled Frank out of the bus, rolling him onto his back. Blood was pumping from Frank’s ruined chest, and a thick dark stream of blood ran from his mouth, covering his face in thick rivulets. His eyes were wide, unfocused.

"Frank." Matt sobbed, unable to peel his eyes away from Frank’s ruined chest. Franks hand raised and gripped his shoulder.

"T-t-take care of m-m-m-fam--!" he broke into a liquid cough and vomited a thick spray of blood. His hand gripped Matt’s shoulder painfully tight, then loosened ever so slowly as Frank faded into death.

Matt hung his head. When he raised his face, his eyes were tear stained and his face full of rage.

"GODDAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!" he screamed at the night sky. As he fought back the tears he made a promise to Frank; A promise to see his family to safety. He pulled himself away from Frank’s body. David stood in the bus door, looking down in horror at his father’s mangled corpse.

"Dad?" he said, not wanting to believe his own eyes. "DAD!" he screamed, falling to his knees beside his father’s body.

"Zack?" Matt called, looking around for him. He walked to the front of the bus, where he saw Zack lying in a growing pool of blood, writhing in pain. "Zack!" Matt raced to him. "Where are you shot?" he asked.

"Through my arm, into my side." Zack hissed through clenched teeth. "Help me sit up." As Matt propped him up against the front of the bus, Zack let out a scream of pain.

"Easy. Easy." Matt said, looking down at Zack. He shirt was soaked with fresh blood. His left arm hung limply at his side. Matt carefully peeled Zack’s shirt away to look at the wound in his side. Despite his care, Zack still let out another scream of pain. The wound was a ragged meat hole, with dark blood bubbling out. Every time Zack exhaled, Matt could hear a hiss of air, and see escaping air bubbles.

"How bad is it?" Zack asked, stifling a cough.

"It's not good." Matt said.

"FRAAANK!" Sharon’s scream pierced the night, and split through Matt’s skull.

"What happened?" Zack asked, lurching as if to rise to his feet, before screaming in pain, and coughing up a mouthful of blood. He slumped back against the front of the bus. "Whu-what happened?" he asked, weakly this time.

"Frank was killed." Matt said, choking back more tears.

"Shit!" Zack exclaimed. His eyes were closed, his fists in balls. Sharon’s screamed again, longer, louder, and then faded to wracking sobs.

"We have to get you to the hospital." Matt said. He bent over to lift Zack, and Zack again screamed in pain. Matt grunted with the effort but managed to lift Zack in his arms. "Easy buddy."

Matt hurried around the side of the bus, where Sharon was bent over Frank’s body, crying with all her heart and soul. David knelt next to her, arms on his mothers shoulders, head hung in sorrow, weeping his own silent tears. Matt heaved up the step of the bus and deposited Zack on the long seat that ran parallel to the bus just behind the driver’s seat. Zack screamed again as he hit the cushion.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Matt cursed himself for not being more careful. He looked up and saw Susan huddled a few rows back, hair disheveled, and face smeared with blood, wearing only the tattered remnants of her blouse. Her eyes were glassy with shock. Further back were the bodies of the two soldiers Frank had killed on the bus. The one at the back slumped against the rear door, practically headless, and the other on its back, dead from a chest wound.

Why can't I slip into shock? Just blank this all out?

He hurried out of the bus, and bent to Sharon.

"Sharon we have to get out of here." he tried pulling her away from Frank, but she clung tightly to him. "Sharon please?" his voice cracked, and he broke into tears once again. "Please? We have to get out of here." He pulled harder, and she finally came away from her dead husband, turning and throwing her arms around Matt. Hers sobs shook him with the fury of an earthquake. "We have to gas the bus and leave. Zack has been injured. We need to get him to the hospital or he will die." Sharon wiped away her tears and nodded in agreement. She looked back at Frank and burst into fresh tears.

Suddenly, Susan screamed from inside the bus. Not a scream of sorrow, but a scream of fright.

THE DEAD SOLDIERS!

Matt had forgotten all about the corpses. Only one of them had been shot through the head. The other still had an intact brain, and it could revive! Matt looked for his gun, but he had left it on the ground when he carried Zack aboard. Luckily an M-16 was lying next to Frank and Matt snatched it up and ran aboard the bus.

The soldier Frank had shot through the chest had become a zombie, and it was on its knees and using a seat to pull itself to its feet. Matt stepped up to it, put the barrel of the rifle to the creature's forehead and squeezed the trigger. The back of its skull exploded and it fell dead between the seats.

"Up to the front of the bus." Matt ordered Susan and David, and they complied silently. Matt quickly dragged the two corpses out of the bus. He then went back aboard and pulled a blanket out of one of their packs and went back outside.