Fallback (11 page)

I smiled in response and admired the way those strong, go-bag-toting shoulders flexed as he reached for an object near his knee. “What’s that?”

“Do-it-yourself portable anvil.” I raised a brow, showing my lack of comprehension. “Otherwise known as a piece of railroad rail.”

“Oh. Clever.”

“Now, see, this piece is just about ready to work.” He indicated the glowing metal bathed in the torch’s intense flame. He positioned it on the rail and reached for his hammer just as Daisy showed up with the other half of the broken rod. She stayed to watch, and I had to remind myself to keep one eye on the dense underbrush and the heavy forest just beyond. Contrary to all the horror films made pre-apocalypse, the dead didn’t announce their arrival with convenient moans. They did make some noise, but it didn’t seem intentional. I wasn’t sure they even needed to breathe, and they definitely didn’t communicate with each other through vocalization. This meant one of them could possibly get very close to our position before we noticed it if we weren’t alert.

I flinched at the first ring of Ty’s hammer on the truck part. Damn, that was loud. My shoulders tensed as I stepped up my surveillance of the tree line. This was exactly the kind of noise they’d key on, and I was sure it carried for a considerable distance. I hoped the trees and hills distorted the echoes enough to keep them from zeroing in on the source of the zombie dinner bell.

Melissa returned and sat in the shade beside the van, writing in a spiral notebook, though she kept casting nervous glances toward the forest and kept her hatchet by her side. Journaling was one way she worked through the trauma we’d shared, and the more general trauma of living in a dead world. I’d never asked to read what she wrote, and I never would. If she ever wanted to share, fine. But privacy was a precious commodity in our group-survival lifestyle, and I wasn’t about to intrude.

Tyler lifted some kind of spike and began hammering it into the flattened piece of rod, creating a hole, then doused the finished piece in the bucket and began work on the other.

Javier appeared from behind the truck. He’d been watching back the way we’d come, scanning for the herd we knew wasn’t far off. “I could see them back a way when they came over a rise in the road on the other side of that sod farm,” he said. “You’ve got a little time, man, but not much.”

Ty grunted in acknowledgment and kept the torch focused, turning the metal to heat it evenly.

A commotion on the opposite side of the road drew our attention. Rebecca stood on the far side of the ditch, sword drawn, all her focus on the two zombies crashing their way through some blackberry bushes. Their clothes—and flesh—were already tattered, and seemed to suffer no additional damage from the thorny shrubs. Their mottled gray-green flesh was an oddly effective camouflage, if you thought about it. I chose not to think about it.

Rebecca dispatched the pair of targets with her usual ruthless efficiency and scanned for other threats. Ty was hammering again, and before long, pairs of fighters were dealing with encroachment at the edge of the woods on both sides of the road. I drew my machete and stood a few feet behind Ty’s left shoulder, prepared to defend him if need be. I’d come a long way from hiding behind a cherry tree, and at the moment that felt damned good.

Ty plunged the glowing end of the metal he held into the bucket, creating a loud hiss and a burst of steam. While it cooled, he rummaged in his pack and produced a thick, sturdy-looking bolt.

I heard a shout and turned to see Marcus atop the SUV raising his bow and pointing it in our general vicinity. I whipped my head in the direction of his aim and saw a thick stand of vines choking some head-high bushes, which were rustling wildly. I took up position between Ty and Daisy and the disturbance as they struggled to line up the two halves of the tie rod and insert the bolt through the overlapping holes on the two flattened pieces, being sure to keep myself out of Marcus’ line of fire.

The vines parted forcefully, and the dead poured through. How many? Four? Six? More? I knew there were some behind the first few who emerged, but couldn’t begin to guess how many. There was a soft whistle and a wet impact sound as an arrow pierced the skull of the foremost zombie. The gap in the vines widened, and I was able to count at least ten dead before I leaped into action. I wished Theo were beside me, but I guessed he was one of the lookouts at the back of the convoy. I was relieved when Rebecca materialized at my side, having apparently dealt with the threat on the other side of the road.

Cody was fighting near us and doing a good job holding his own, while the rest were scattered along the ditches at various points, battling other zombies, which appeared in pairs and small groups. Rebecca and I kept swinging, arrows kept zinging through the air from Marcus’ perch…and the dead just kept coming.

A shirtless man lurched across the ditch and made a grab for me. I danced back a few steps and almost gagged—which was saying something. I thought I’d lost my gag reflex a long, long time ago. The zombie swayed as it realigned itself with my new position. He had a huge, crescent-shaped chunk missing from his side, extending nearly to his spine. If whatever had caused the injury had gone an inch or two deeper, it would have cut through his spine, leaving the creature to pull itself along on its hands until one day it could no longer move. Then…who knew? Maybe they eventually died, or perhaps they just lay there, aware in whatever way zombies were, longing for a meal they’d never find.

The edges of the gaping hole in its torso were ragged and stringy, like the strands of ribs you’d pull from your teeth after a barbecue, but what had my gut gurgling were the blackened, fleshy, necrotic intestines bulging up from the bottom of the void, threatening to spill sludge and gore onto the ground.

I swallowed the bile building at the back of my throat and swung my machete, hacking deeply enough into the side of its head to put the pathetic thing down once and for all. I risked a glance over my shoulder to assess the progress Ty and Daisy were making and saw them tightening the bolt to fasten the two halves of the tie rod together.

The tide of zombies coming from the gap in the undergrowth had finally slowed. An arrow dropped one more, and Rebecca and Cody each took down two in quick order. I picked off a straggler coming in from the left, then swept my gaze along the road looking for others.

Seeing no immediate new targets, I started to loosen my grip on my machete. Suddenly, I heard a shout from inside the van and spun around. Three zombies, moving very quickly, rounded the back of the van and made straight for Ty and Daisy. Rebecca and Cody were scouting the brush on the far side of the ditch, and the van was blocking Marcus’ line of fire, leaving me the only fighter close enough to help.

“Ty, heads up!” I shouted, rushing to cut off the zombies’ approach.

Ty and Daisy sprang to their feet. When Ty focused on the zombies, he turned to Daisy and gave her a shove. “Go!”

Daisy lunged toward the cargo truck then hit the ground, rolling beneath the front of the cab. Ty bent and grabbed the freshly-mended rod and slid it toward Daisy. It skittered across the cracked asphalt, then began rolling, stopping just outside Daisy’s reach. She inched forward and stretched until she was able to grasp the end of the metal piece and drag it underneath with her.

As Ty straightened and tried to square his feet under him, preparing for the attack, one of the zombies strayed a little too far to one side and was rewarded with one of Marcus’ freakishly accurate arrows through the back of its skull.

The two remaining zombies were almost upon Ty, and I was still a good six or eight steps away. He raised his hammer and struck out at the mobile corpse, but he hadn’t had time to quite center his stance. His off-balance swing glanced off the attacker’s shoulder, and the momentum sent Ty to the ground, his hammer falling loose and spinning out of reach, and the zombie dropped atop him. It scrabbled for a grip, but Ty used his still-gloved hands to hold it off. Its jaws snapped inches from his face, and the zombie’s companion was only feet away from joining the frenzy.

I didn’t have time to think, yet a million thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant.

Quinn, killing the reanimated nightmare of the human monster who had been my captor. Being unable to help him because I was too afraid, causing him to have to protect me as well as himself…and failing. Quinn’s ghastly wounds and the light in his eyes slowly being replaced by the cloudy, soulless gaze of the dead. His last words, encouraging me to live, to find my place in this brutal world.

The crack of the pistol as I shot him…killed him…saved him?

Fuck it, I didn’t know. The only thing I did know was it was not happening again. My fellow patrol members had been in some tough spots, but I’d never come this close to losing someone. Maybe we were that good, or maybe we were just lucky, but I’d be goddamned if that run of luck would end with Ty.

My grip tight on the handle of my machete, I also drew the dagger on my left hip. If there was any hope, I had to go in with everything I had. Some distant portion of my brain registered Rebecca’s shout and the sound of pounding feet, but it would all be over before anyone else could arrive.

One way or the other.

The muscles of Ty’s forearms between the tops of his gloves and the end of his t-shirt sleeves bulged and quivered with exertion as he struggled to keep the zombie’s ragged fingers and gnashing jaws from his flesh. It didn’t have to tear him apart; a scratch or a bite would be just as fatal for Ty.

I curved a bit to the side for a better angle and swung my blade at the incoming zombie, my fear and rage somehow giving me the strength to sever its head with one wild stroke. Before the head had even hit the ground, I spun to the other monster intent on devouring Ty. How he had managed to hold back its relentless attack, I had no idea.

With a desperate lunge and thrust, I sank my dagger into the back of the creature’s skull, and it dropped—finally truly lifeless—onto Ty’s chest, leaking a fetid, semi-coagulated ooze onto his shirt. He heaved it aside and jumped to his feet, rushing to retrieve his hammer and run a frantic visual search of the surroundings. No threats in sight, he met my eyes and somehow conveyed we had a lot to talk about, but not now. We both turned to the truck.

“Daisy,” he called out. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” came her reply. “You?”

“Close call, but some wicked-fast fighting librarian came along and saved me.” He glanced at me with a wink. I might have thought he was unaffected by the ordeal, had I not noticed the tremble in his hand as he wiped at the sludge on his shirt.

Rebecca skidded to a halt at our side. “Ellen, that was fucking incredible! I saw it play out in my head about ten different ways, and none of ’em came out like that.” She slung her braid over her shoulder and raised her sword at me in salute before returning it to its scabbard.

Cody ran up and stopped beside Rebecca, gasping for breath. “Everybody all right? No bites? No scratches?”

We all took a moment to check ourselves. In the heat of battle and surging with adrenaline, it was possible to miss wounds. Once we were sure we were uninjured, we turned our attention to the clanking sounds coming from under the truck.

Ty knelt and peered beneath the undercarriage. “How’s it going? How long?”

“If you can come under here and help hold this steady, maybe ten minutes.” Daisy’s reply was punctuated with more banging and a couple of grunts.

I sheathed my dagger but kept my machete in my hand. “Get under there and help her. We’ll stand guard.”

Just as he was about to slide under the disabled truck, I heard a sound that made my blood run cold. Gunshots echoed from the direction of the back of the convoy, and the animals began screaming in distress.

This was bad. This was a thousand times worse than bad. We only used firearms in the face of massive numbers, when relatively quiet dispatch of the dead was no longer a factor.

I felt a stunning disconnect from reality. Something potentially disastrous was happening perhaps fifty yards away, and I couldn’t go help. If this truck couldn’t move, a lot of us would certainly die.

Rebecca drew her sword again. “You and Cody stay here and make sure this truck gets fixed, and I’ll go lend a hand.” She ran off, her boots sounding loudly on the roadway.

I turned to Ty and motioned for him to get busy helping Daisy. There was only one word of advice I could give before he disappeared under the truck.

“Hurry.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Every nerve and muscle in my body was twitching to run to the rear of the caravan and help in the battle I could hear raging. I didn’t love fighting the way Rebecca did. Still, I’d worked hard and knew I could be useful. But I was part of a team, and I had a role to play, and that role for the moment was to remain here and protect the two people responsible for ensuring we could all escape this mess with our lives and our mission intact.

I heard shouting behind me and saw Marcus and Monte on top of the SUV, both perched in the steel turret. They appeared to be arguing. Monte leaned close to Marcus and spoke forcefully for a minute, after which Marcus seemed to calm. He lifted the walkie to his mouth and began shouting orders and waving his free arm in emphasis, though the person he was talking to was in no position to see him.

“Boatman!” he yelled at Cody, startling the quiet, intense young man at my side. “Open the back of that truck, grab two five-gallon cans of gas and some flares. Then run back there and report to Theo. Go!”

Cody’s expression blanked for an instant, then he took off for the rear of the truck. I heard the door rumble up, and a few moments later back down. I stepped away from the front of the truck far enough to catch a glimpse of Cody disappearing around the second passenger van behind the disabled vehicle.

The sounds of gunfire intensified. Were we mounting a dedicated attack to eradicate the front ranks of the zombies, or were we firing frantically in an effort to stave off inevitable doom? I hoped it was the former, and trusted that Marcus had a plan.

I didn’t see any more lurkers in the nearby woods. No doubt any who were wandering the area were now being drawn by the sound of gunfire rather than the earlier ringing of Ty’s hammer on his makeshift anvil.

As that thought cleared my head, Ty and Daisy wriggled out from under the truck, liberally coated in road dirt, smudges of grease or oil, and—in Ty’s case—a good portion of malodorous zombie goo. Both of them were grinning.

I wasn’t about to relax, even a little, until I heard the words. “Please, please tell me it’s fixed.”

Ty gave Daisy a high five. “Yep, it’s fixed.”

“Well?” Marcus yelled from his lookout post.

Daisy flashed a thumbs-up.

“Fire it up!” Marcus ordered.

After a brief debate as to which of them should drive, Daisy climbed into the driver’s seat. She’d worked in our community motor pool and had more experience with big trucks. Ty had driven oversized pickups hauling horse trailers, but it wasn’t quite the same thing. So he rode shotgun.

Marcus clambered down from his perch and hurried to the van, while Monte got in the SUV and keyed the engine to life. Back inside the van, I was greeted by a teary-eyed Melissa and a snuggle-seeking Skip.

“Oh, god, Ells, I was scared to death.” She hugged me then pulled back and slugged me on the shoulder. “Are you out of your mind? You almost got killed!”

I rubbed my shoulder—the girl packed a pretty powerful punch—then drew Melissa back in for another hug. “No, sweetie, I didn’t almost die, but Ty did. He saved Rebecca last night, and every other team member would have done the same for me. I wasn’t going to stand back and watch him be torn apart while he was trying to help us all.”

Melissa wiped at her eyes and sighed. “I know, Ells. I really do. And I like Ty. I don’t want anything to happen to him, or anyone, but if you…” Her voice caught and she let the sentence die. After a moment, she said, “Just be careful, okay? Promise me.”

Telling someone to be careful, then agreeing to the promise, was essentially an empty gesture in this day and age, but for some reason we still seemed to find it comforting.

“I promise.”

She accepted my oath with a grateful smile, and I dropped into the seat behind Marcus, suddenly exhausted. Skip hopped up and commenced snuggling. Jocelyn handed me a bottle of water, and I’d never tasted anything sweeter.

Behind us, the horn of the supply truck sounded in one brief, encouraging beep as the engine awoke with a rumble. Before the incursion from the woods began, some of the team had packed dirt and rocks into the undercut area of the road in an attempt to shore up the surface for the vehicles yet to pass over it. I hoped it would be enough.

Marcus keyed his walkie and loudly ordered, “Report!”

There was a burst of static followed by, “Stand by, eyes rear.”

The mood tense, we all faced toward the back window. Within seconds, clouds of black smoke began billowing skyward from somewhere behind our convoy.

“What’s your window?” Marcus demanded.

Crackle. “Better move it. Not long.”

He stuck an arm out the window to signal Monte, and the SUV rolled forward, our van close behind. I turned back again, watching the progress of Daisy and Ty. When we were far enough ahead that they could move quickly if necessary, Ty leaned out the window, watching the pavement edge beneath their tires. Daisy gunned the engine, nudging the big vehicle from the ditch and back onto the unstable road. Ty appeared to call instructions to her from time to time. They picked up a little speed, and Daisy adjusted the truck’s trajectory slightly, angling toward the edge of the wreck extending farthest into their path. Thankfully, the massive vehicle managed what our smaller ones had not, and edged the burned and twisted metal the critical few inches necessary. After several heart-stopping minutes, they’d successfully brought the truck across the damaged section of pavement.

With one look back at the cause of this entire mess, I had a flash of insight. Lives had been lost in that accident, probably needlessly. In the apocalypse, it seemed ridiculous to die in something as mundane as a car crash. I just hoped no more lives had been lost here today. I wouldn’t breathe easily until I saw every member of our team present and accounted for.

The clouds of smoke increased, and the scent of burning fuel choked the air. We traveled a couple hundred yards down the road and waited as the second passenger van, the livestock truck, and the rear SUV safely crossed the danger zone and pulled up behind us.

Marcus and Monte had a brief consultation, since as the team leader and one of our escorts, they both knew our ultimate destination. Their conversation was in a kind of shorthand I couldn’t decipher, but we were soon moving down the road at a slightly higher speed than we’d traveled earlier. About fifteen minutes and five or six miles later, we made a sharp left onto a side road.

The interior of the van was quiet, everyone too emotionally and physically drained to carry on a conversation. We traveled in silence for quite some time, and I fretted about things beyond my control. I knew we’d escaped whatever was left of the herd we’d fought, and I hoped we didn’t encounter more any time soon. Our energy reserves were too depleted. I worried Ty’s repair job wouldn’t hold up, once again halting our progress and leaving us vulnerable. I could no longer see the smoke, but had it been dwindling right before we lost sight of it? It would attract all the zombies in the area like undead moths to a flame, but it would also alert any hostiles in the region that someone else was nearby, or had been recently. Plus, I really didn’t want to burn a large portion of Kentucky forest.

I slumped in my seat and dozed, brought back to awareness when I felt the van slow. I rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes and sat up to find we’d entered the parking lot of a public boat launch. A weathered building where fishermen had once purchased live bait, fuel, sunscreen, and snacks stood at the edge of the paved lot, while three docks extended from the concrete ramp into a small river.

Marcus turned in his seat to address us. “Just a pit stop, folks. We need to regroup, take stock, and maybe clean up a little.” This last was directed at me, and I glanced down at the relatively minor splatters on my t-shirt. Ha. He should be glad he didn’t have to ride with Ty.

As the rest of our team arrived and disembarked, I swept the tired faces, doing a quick head count. A huge knot of tension released when I realized everyone was accounted for. We hadn’t lost anybody. I swallowed a hiccup that might have been a tiny sob, shook it off, and went to join the others.

Marcus stood on the front step of the bait shop with Theo. “Listen up. Those of you who were in the fight against the herd can go clean up, grab something to eat, clean your gear…whatever. Ellen, Ty, Daisy, the folks who were in the van, c’mon over here with me while I get the full report from Theo.”

The combatants hurried off, pulling clean shirts—and probably more than one pair of underwear—from packs and headed toward the river. I couldn’t wait to join them, but first, I really needed to know what had taken place.

Theo got right to it. “I don’t know where they all came from, but the swarm we passed before we broke down must have at least doubled by the time we saw it again. And there were more coming out of the woods and joining them.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes, as if wishing he could erase the sight. “They caught up a little sooner than I figured. We had skirmishes all along both sides of the road, loners and small bunches coming at us from the trees. The main herd was closing in, and we didn’t have the time or the ammo to take ’em all down. That’s when Davey had an idea, and we radioed Marcus.”

The team leader gave Theo a few hearty slaps on the shoulder. “Wasn’t nothing we haven’t done before, but never so few of us against such a huge number of deadlies. I gotta admit, I had serious doubts. But with the disabled truck in front of ’em, and the herd behind, there wasn’t really a choice.”

Theo resumed the tale. “We grabbed the spare fuel containers from our end of the convoy, along with some flares. We started making a few Molotov cocktails, but figured out pretty quick we didn’t have that kind of time. I got up top in the turret to gauge the herd density and distance, then sent some runners down about fifty yards to start pulling whatever they could—brush, logs, garbage if they could find it—and dump it across the road.”

Oh, I got it. It wouldn’t stop them, of course, but if they could slow down the ones in front, the others would press up from behind, creating more of an obstacle for the ones farther back and packing them in close together.

Theo dragged his fingers through his hair, dislodged something, looked at it, grimaced, and wiped his hands on his jeans. “We got our hands on every gun we could find and set up a firing line. We kept shooting until we had a good pile of bodies from one side of the road to the other.”

“What about the ones already inside the perimeter, and the ones coming from the woods?” Marcus asked.

“We were spread pretty thin,” Theo admitted. “Helped when Rebecca showed up, then Cody. We fought like hell clearing the ones between us and the pileup, and trying to keep them thinned out a bit beyond. Then it got insane.”

Then
it got insane? Like it wasn’t before?

Theo continued. “Somebody grabbed each of the gas containers and ran right at ’em, like some charge from an old war movie. They started dumping gas all over the corpses and across the ditches, clear to the edge of the woods.” He paused, and I thought he almost grinned. “Then they threw some flares.”

I glanced at Ty and shook my head slowly in amazement. “Wow,” he mouthed at me.

The fire-starters raced away from the flaming barrier, still fighting the occasional zombie that emerged from the woods, though those quickly dwindled as they were drawn to the fire. The march from beyond the barrier halted, the creatures both unable to walk undamaged through the blazing pyre and distracted by the fire itself.

“We knew it probably wouldn’t burn too long,” he concluded, “so we loaded into the vehicles and hoped you’d get the truck rolling pretty fucking soon.” He gave Ty a solid two-fingered salute, and Ty returned it with a cocky smile.

“I’ll shit you not,” Marcus said, “I was about two minutes away from pulling the plug and ordering them to abandon everything and run for the two mobile vehicles we had left.”

“Glad I didn’t know that,” Daisy muttered. “My hands were shaking bad enough as it was. I wouldn’t’ve even been able to hold a wrench if I knew we were that close.”

Ty draped an arm lightly over her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “You did great, Daisy.”

“You all did,” Marcus added. “I knew when I picked my team that I had a damned fine bunch, and every last one of you proved it today.”

I agreed. The team had meshed perfectly, coming together to pull off the impossible.

“I got a few more questions for Theo,” Marcus said, “but the rest of you go clean up, get some food. I want to be back on the road in about twenty minutes. I’m gonna talk to Monte and figure out where we’ll stop tonight. I plan to cut it short today. I think we all need rest more than we need to get to…” He paused and redirected his speech. “Well, even with today’s delays, we’ll get there probably early afternoon day after tomorrow.”

Dismissed, we all turned and started across the lot toward our vehicles. I noticed Ty wasn’t wearing his gore-soaked shirt anymore. He must have had a spare shirt in his pack.

“Wardrobe change?”

He laughed. “Yeah, Daisy didn’t give me a choice. Made me throw that filthy thing out the window after about two minutes.”