Last Stand of the Dead - 06 (5 page)

Sarah and Rebecca walked quickly to the
houses
and with Duncan and Tommy checking windows, they ducked inside.

Charlie and I walked over to the couple headed our way.  The husband looked normal enough, save for the bloodied shirt and torn neck he was sporting.  The woman, for whatever reason, just seemed to irritate me.  She was a short, heavier zombie, with long black hair that probably was as lank in the living world as it looked in the dead one.  Her face was long, but pinched, and she had small piggy eyes that stared out of her fat face.  I don’t know why she annoyed me, maybe she
reminded me of someone I had dealings with in a former life, but I was going to take a small measure of joy in killing this creature.

She took small, waddling steps towards me, stumbling slightly over a few errant rocks in the grass.  Her face and arms were torn, but her throat hadn’t been opened like her husband.  She raised a fat arm at me, and I waited for her to try and cross a small ditch before taking her out. 

Charlie jumped the ditch and took out the man, a small, balding specimen wi
th lots of blue tattoos on his
arms.  Charlie just pushed him over and killed him as he crawled to get up. 

Mine stumbled face first into the ditch, landing heavily on the other side.  Her arms flew out and she was face-planted in the tall grass.  Her knees were at the bottom, and her feet were up the other side.  It would have been difficult for her to get up out of there. I took the opportunity to crack her skull with the pointed end of my pick, and left her there in the ditch.

Charlie came back and looked at the dead woman.  “That looks like it was nasty when it was alive.”

I nodded.  “I was thinking the same thing.  For some reason…”

My reply was cut of
f,
as a burst of firing erupted from the third house down the row that Sarah and Rebecca were going to check.

Charlie and I didn’t even hesitate, we just ran towards the houses. We didn’t run directly to the trouble, since the rest of the crew wasn’t expecting us and would fire in our direction, not knowing we were there.  We ran close to the first house,
and then
made our way across the yards when there was another crash of gunfire.  We moved as quickly as we could, but the overgrown side yards had hidden vines and grasses that tugged at our feet.

“Sarah!  Rebecca!  We’re on the south end! 
You all right?”
  I yelled as we approached the third house from the side.

“Be right there!” Sarah called. Her voice didn’t seem to be concerned with anything, so I figured the situation was under control.

We waited for a minute,
and then
the four of them came strolling out the front door.  Duncan was grinning like a loon, while Tommy was scowling. The two women were stifling giggles, so I knew this was going to be a doozey.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

Sarah spoke up.  “The first two
houses
had two and four adults in them, respectively.  They weren’t any trouble at all.  The third had a couple and some teenagers, maybe orphans they picked up from the area.  Anyway, that’s it for us.  Duncan?”

Duncan laughed and picked up the narrative.  “Tommy was upstairs in the house and heard something in a closet, so he opens it up and
le
ts
out four seriously pissed off
cats.”

Tommy, to his credit, said nothing at this point.

Duncan continued. “Tommy falls back, thinking they’re little zombies and opens up, wounding three and killing one.  So then we had to hunt down these cats and finish them off.”

Tommy didn’t say a word.  He really didn’t have to.  Duncan had screwed up so many times
that
it would take a computer to chronicle them all.

Duncan turned to Tommy.  “I’m not laughing at your mistake, dude.  Just the look on your face when those furry things came leaping out at you.”

Tommy reached up and thumped Duncan on the head, forgiving him for laughing and signaling we should get back to work.  I agreed.

I turned to Sarah.
“Any little kids?”

Sarah sadly shook her head.  “Not here.”

I nodded.  It was what I expected.  “Tommy, find somewhere high and check around for any movement.  We need to keep moving.”

Charlie and I resumed our walk through the town, with Rebecca and Sarah covering us.  I didn’t expect to find any more
zombies,
they would have come out at the sound of the shots.

As I looked into a pink building creatively named
,
‘The Pink’, Charlie tossed a question to me. 

“You ever wonder what happe
ned
to
Zeus?
”

That took me back.  I hadn’t thought about that cat in years.  We’d picked him up on our trip to DC, and lost him when we crashed into the Smithsonian.  I figured he probably never made it out of DC, and said the same to Charlie.

“ I’m
just guessing
,
” I said
,
  “For all I know, the little guy escaped and is living in some forest between here and there. Why?”

Charlie scanned the porch of a small motel before replying
,
  “
Just thinking about cats.”

I looked back at Sarah who just shrugged.  I knew how hard it was to catch a cat, but even the slickest of those little suckers couldn’t evade the grasp of thousands of zombies forever.  Chances were, little Zeus, or big Zeus now, was long gone.

Chapter 9

We reached the end of the
town,
and for some reason
,
I was more depressed than when we started.  The town was small, but for the life of
me,
I couldn’t really come up with a reason it existed in the first place.  It didn’t touch the river, the railroad was too far north, there wasn’t any industry, and the houses didn’t follow any pattern I could see.  I couldn’t imagine growing up in this place and not being bored out of my skull on a weekly basis.

Our search concluded, we walked quickly back to the trucks.  I noticed as we were mounting up that two crows were picking at the body of the woman I had killed.  “Good
riddance,
” I said softly.

“What?” Sarah asked, buckling in.

“
Nothing,
” I said. 
“Nothing at all.”

We headed north, and I was hoping we would run into some of Freeman’s men, but as we followed
Carmann
Road, I wasn’t seeing anything, or hearing anything on the radio.  Tommy had reported that he had seen some mowed down grass to the north, but we would have to take a backcountry road to get there.

I didn’t have any other plan, so when we hit 575N, which incidentally went east and west, I took the road east.

We travelled about a half mile before we spotted them.  They were walking along the road in single file, being led by a boy about six to nine years old.  The ones in the back were smaller, but they were not as ragged or bloody as the first three.  My guess would be the ones in the rear were the new recruits, being led by the older ones. 

I slowed the truck down to a crawl, keeping it moving the same speed as the zombies.  They were walking briskly, but seemed only interested in following the road.  We were about three hundred yards
behind
them and there was a decent breeze, which made enough noise in the long vegetation to cover our approach.

I stopped the truck just behind a small curve in the road, which would keep us from being seen.  The road went through a small copse of trees, for about a quarter mile, from the look of it. 

I got out of the truck and grabbed my rifle, Sarah right behind me.  I jogged over to the van and met everyone as they came outside.

“We have one shot at nailing them before they scatter into the weeds
,
and it would be a nightmare to chase them down.  So here’s what we’re going to do.”

I outlined the plan carefully, and the only one to complain was Sarah, but she was only complaining because I was the one taking the biggest risk.

We moved carefully but swiftly, trying to get into position before we were spotted.  If they saw us or smelled us, we’d have trouble, and I was actually more worried about delay than anything else.  If we could get this group nailed down, I’d say we’d be safe in saying we’d secured the portion of the horde that had made the southern crossing of the
Mississippi
.

As we reached the woods, Rebecca and Sarah split off on the left and right sides of the road, blending into the trees and finding suitable firing positions.  Further in,
Tommy and Duncan ghosted off into the woods.  About two hundred yards later, Charlie disappeared without a sound.  The woods ended in another hundred yards, and I could see the little zombies trudging along.  This was the big catch of the plan.  In order for this to work, the zombies had to chase me right through the woods.  I had to hope my aging legs could get me moving fast enough.

I jogged a little ways forward, closing the gap, and then yelled out
,
“Hey!  You kids okay?”

You would have thought I had electrified the road.  The group jumped around and stared at me for a minute,
and then
the older ones raced towards me, their dark eyes locking on me and their lips baring their teeth.  The younger ones followed suit, racing after the older ones as best they could.

I waited for two heartbeats,
and
then spun around and ran.  They were right on my tail, and as I pelted down the road, I wondered if I hadn’t cut it too close.  Halfway through the woods, I snuck a glance to the left and right and saw my crew readying their guns.  They were going to wait until Charlie made his move, which I hoped was very soon.

The air was split by the sound of a
high-powered
round cracking through the air, and passing uncomfortably close to my ear. Several snarls and
high-pitched
wheezes flew through the wind as the zombies spun around to the new threat from their rear.  They advanced only a few feet, before the reports of four rifles brought them down.  The leader, a bigger boy, turned around again and ran for me, only to be put down by my wife’s unerring aim.

“
Thanks
,
honey!” I called, lowering my rifle.

“You’re welcome!”

I waited for the crew to come out
from
their trees.  We dragged the bodies off into the ditches, and as usual, I felt a small pang at the loss of life of the younger ones.  Sarah picked up on it right away.

“It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” She asked, putting a hand on my arm.

I looked down at her.  “No.  These guys never had a chance.”  I looked over at Charlie.

“You shot was a little close, my
friend,
” I
chided.

Charlie looked sheepish.  “You went to the right just as I shot.  Scared the shit out of me, thanks very much.”

“Scared the shit out of
you
?” I asked.  “I could have turned my head and kissed that bullet.”

Charlie shook his head.  “Quit running like a girl and we won’t have any problems. OW!”

I didn’t have to answer that
,
because Rebecca took up the charge and kicked Charlie in the shin.

“Let’s get moving, if we’re lucky
,
we can hook up with Freeman and get a better plan hammered into his
head,
” I said, moving back to the trucks.

“What if he doesn’t want to listen?” Tommy asked. 

“Then we probably will have to make a call to the president and have him relieved of
command,
” I said.  “Do I want to do that? No, but if I have no choice but to watch men and towns die, I’ll have to get it done.
”
I looked
into the face of each of
my crewmembers and said
,
  “
Believe me, all I want to do is get this done and get home, just like the rest of you.”

We left it at that and headed along the road.  The going was rough, and there were a lot of washouts that needed to be traversed with care, especially around the crossroads.  One was nearly a foot wide, and we lost a good twenty minutes while Charlie and I attacked it with small spades and filled in the ditch so we could cross.

Back on track, we worked our way north, trying to se
e
if there was any sign of the army.  There were no towns in this region, just isolated farms and homes, most of which were empty.  The ones we did find occupied were warned about the danger and told to fort up, especially at night.  Everyone we met was a veteran of the Upheaval or the Zombie Wars, so they knew what to do, and with the new threat explained, would unlikely be overwhelmed.  These were the people that had made up our original army, and they would not go quietly into that dark night.