The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak (34 page)

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Garrett found that the further back on the secondary roads they got from the main routes in town the easier it was to navigate.
They had seen nothing in the way of a police presence or other form of government interaction. A single abandoned police cruiser parked alongside an intersection had been their only sign of any authorities so far. They had come within two blocks of a small medical center on the east side of town, but the place looked as though it had suffered a significant fire on the inside and they had seen a lot of zombies walking around the grounds in front of the buildings. The tangled mess of cars and ambulances strewn around the building had been a testament to the rush on emergency services that Calvin had reported hearing about. They passed by the facility without slowing, fearful that they would attract the zombies already in that area.

Garrett knew that the larger hospitals in the area where situated even further into the more congested parts of town. Reaching them would put them even more at risk of getting stuck in the tightly packed snarl of abandoned vehicles they kept encountering on the primary roads. Even in the less populated areas of town where the roads were easier to navigate they kept seeing a heavy zombie presence as the creatures moved out of their houses and took to the yards and streets of neighborhoods. Everywhere they saw them it seemed that they were flocking together and forming crowds ranging from a handful to some that pushed close to fifty at a time.

They all decided that for the time being it was going to best if they headed to less populated areas where they was a better chance of them finding somewhere to lay low for a while. Kimberly needed the chance to rest and recover if she was going to pull through and the more they kept driving aimlessly around, the better chance they had of coming into a situation they couldn’t get out of. Garrett offered up the idea of crossing into the Great Falls area. It was an upscale town with houses most often set a good distance apart. The park on the edge of Great Falls would offer them a place to rest for a time, it was well separated from any significant population center and there were a couple ranger stations where they could find medical supplies and shelter.

He pulled them onto the far end of Lewinsville road with the intention of connecting up with Spring Hill road that would then dump them out on Old Dominion and a straight shot into the outskirts of Great Falls. The more he thought about the park and wilderness area out there adjoining a narrow stretch of the Potomac River the better he liked the idea. It was about as far from any built up areas that you could get in this county and since the outbreak hit the hardest over a Sunday night it was likely the place had been deserted ever since zombies started appearing.

"Trouble ahead," Garrett said as he pulled to the road on the outside of a bend just before the intersection with Spring Hill road.

They had just pulled into an area where there was a long stretch of open and overgrown field between them and a large neighborhood on their right hand side. On the opposite side of the bend and almost right at the intersection where they needed to make their turn
, he saw a vehicle on the side of the road that was about to be completely overrun with zombies as they raced across the road towards it from the parking lot of a sports center just past the intersection with Spring Hill road.

"Damn, looks like a cop car. Do you think someone's actually inside there?" Calvin asked.

Garrett could think of no other possible reason that so many zombies would suddenly be so interested in a single car unless there was something inside that had their interest and the only thing they seemed to have interest in were survivors like themselves. It looked like the car had become stuck in a strip of soft mud along the shoulder of the road that had probably formed when cars used that spot over time as a turnaround point to enter the sports center if they overshot the road. Since it was shaded by brush and on the downward side of a slight slope, rain water would naturally run into that spot and over time had turned it into a marshy mess that was now like a fly trap for anything driving into it without rugged tires and four wheel drive.

"I think that if those zombies are that interested in the car, then there is someone inside." Garrett replied.

"Oh my god, we have to help them!" Exclaimed Miranda from the back seat as she leaned forward and watched as the horde of zombies descended on the trapped car and its helpless occupants.

Garrett spotted a stream of mud shooting up into the air behind the car and saw it slip a little sideways towards the
driver’s side. The driver was working hard and gunning it to try and drive them straight out of the mucky trap that was holding them firmly in place. Unfortunately it looked like all he was accomplishing was a back and forth slide as the tires spun uselessly in the slick mud but could not bite down on anything that would provide enough traction to let them move forward. That flying mud and the slight motion of the car cinched it for Garrett, someone was definitely still alive inside that car and fighting for their life. Zombies were all around the car but the mud was also creating a difficult barrier for them as well, they would slip and fall while those coming along behind would simply step on the backs of the ones who fell in front of them and move a little closer. In the short time since they had spotted the cop car, three zombies had made it through the mud and climbed out the trunk clambering quickly up towards the roof. The car lurched again as the driver gunned the gas and two of them lost their footing and flew off into the mud on the passenger side, the third was knocked to its knees but managed to hold on and continue moving forward onto the roof. Two more zombies were pulling themselves up from the mud near the trunk and also working hard to pull themselves up onto the back of the car. There were now so many zombies either already in the mud near the car or just on the outskirts that Garrett couldn't even begin to put a number on how many he was seeing.

"What have you got in mind?" Calvin asked as he observed the determined look that had come over Garrett's face and his fingers tightening on the wheel.

"Just buckle up, hang on and keep your fingers crossed." Garrett replied as he checked his own seat belt and turned back to see that Miranda and Kimberly were as tightly secured as they could be. His eyes met Miranda's for just a second but in that time she must have seen in his eyes what it was that he was planning, her eyes twinkled back at him and she dipped her head in an approving nod.

Garrett once again switched the truck into four wheel drive and turned them off into the surrounding brush and took them on a wide bumpy ride around the side of the stuck police car until he reached a point past it where he could turn around and line up on a straight path to the rear bumper of the car. As he passed by the police car he cast a quick glance towards the vehicle and for a moment he made eye contact with a uniformed police officer behind the wheel, when Garrett had first spotted him through the dirty glass of the windshield he had could have sworn that he saw him holding a pistol in his hand and pointing it towards the passenger seat. The truck had bucked for a second as the bounced over a rivet in the dirt and when he again looked towards the officer, the
man’s hand was out of sight and he was looking towards Garrett with a look of hope creeping across his face. Garrett nodded quickly towards the man and then turned back to concentrate on driving as smoothly as possible through the bumpy field.

Keeping his speed slow but constant
, Garrett eased into the mud twenty feet behind the cruiser, five zombies at the edge of the mud pit rushed towards the side of the truck but before they could reach them, the truck passed from solid dry ground into the slippery muck. As the zombies followed along they started slipping and falling as they lost traction along the edge of the mud. Garrett ignored them and continued pushing ahead. Two zombies were just pulling themselves up from the mud onto the back bumper of the patrol car when the truck crushed them between its bumper and the soft metal of the car’s trunk. For almost a solid foot the bumper crushed zombie and trunk forward into the car until finally striking a solid cross beam along the rear quarter panel and began pushing. One of the zombies that had been trapped between the two vehicles had turned its upper body towards the truck just before the impact and was clawing towards Garrett trying desperately to reach him. As the trucks bumper pushed into the car’s hood the zombie was ripped in half with everything below his belt line dropping out of sight into the ground up muck between the truck and police car. The separation of his upper half freed him from the point of impact that was holding him in place and he now began to claw his way onto the hood dragging a stringy trail of gray and brown entrails behind him up and onto the hood. Miranda screamed in horror at this sight and looked away from the grisly remains that had just hours before been a banker, accountant or other business professional judging by the tailored suit jacket and smartly arranged necktie. With the truck now connected to the back of the police car and using its energy to push the car slowly forward inches at a time, there was no real motion or rocking to throw the remains of the zombie clear of the hood and as improbable as it was to both Garrett and Calvin staring at it from only four feet away it was actually making progress across the hood towards the windshield.

"That is just fucked up." Calvin said in utter amazement as he watched
the crawling figure work its way closer to them across the hood, the entrails had slipped off to the side and were hanging over the side of the hood and dripping a green and brown substance down the side of the truck that neither of them was willing to venture a guess as to what it might be.

With both hands tight on the wheel and his concentration focused on keeping them lined up on the patrol car and moving forward so they both didn't end up stuck
, there was little Garrett could do about the obscenity approaching them across the hood of his truck. "Get rid of the damn thing!" he shouted at Calvin.

"How is that possible!?" Miranda cried out from the back of the truck.

"Yeah, that’s one other thing about these damned things. They are almost impossible to kill unless you hit their brain." Garrett replied matter-of-factly without taking his eyes off the connection between truck and car.

Lowering his window
, Calvin pulled his pistol free from his belt and leaned out just enough to draw a bead on the half man crawling over the hood, his first shot was high and wide as the truck lurched forward just as he pulled the trigger. Miranda squealed and flinched at the roar of the shot and then pressed both hands over her ears and lowered her head towards Kimberly still laying unmoving across her lap. The second shot scored a hit in the zombie’s neck and blew away most of the front of its throat. Even with that additional damage it continued to make progress closer to the windshield.

"It's right in front of you Calvin! Hit the damn thing!" Garrett bellowed as the zombie came almost face to face with him separated only by a thin sheet of protective glass. He suddenly felt like
an animal on display in a glass cage at the local zoo. Only in this case it was the spectators looking in who wanted to eat the exhibits behind the glass.

"
It’s a little harder than it looks, unless you would like to pull over for a second and give me a steady shot!" Galvin yelled back at him.

He pulled his aim up to the left just a fraction and his third try put a hole from ear to ear in the zombies head and sent it tumbling off the hood to sink into soft mud next to the trucks front tire.

It took a moment before they could see any progress, but little by little they picked up speed as that police car was pushed forward towards the end of the mud trap. The cop managed to anticipate each little deviation in their direction and kept the wheels turned straight to flow along in line Garrett's truck behind him. Thirty seconds after ramming into the back of the car the rear tires reached solid enough ground to gain traction and the cop eased down on the gas and wrenched the crushed rear end free from the front of the truck.

Zombies were already running along the outskirts of the mud pit and quickly closing on both vehicles. Garrett climbed the truck the rest of the way clear of the mud and drove around to the side of the police car, the driver shot him a quick thumbs up and Garrett motioned for him to follow along as he led the way back onto the road and cut the turn onto Spring Hill.

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The 711 gas station and convenience store at the intersection of Spring Hill road and Old Dominion drive was the closest logical place for them to pull over again after covering enough distance that any zombies trying to pursue them from the mud hole and around the sports center would be at least fifteen or more minutes still behind them. Garrett drove a quick circle around the store and small collection of adjoining buildings to ensure they were as alone as possible for a short stop to regroup and check on the cop and anyone else in the car with him.

Pulling the truck up in line with the gas pumps, Garrett thought this would also be a good opportunity to top off their tank, power was still on at the moment but there was no telling how long that would last. Once they lost the juice they would have to take the time to siphon gas from either underground tanks or out of the gas tanks of other cars and trucks they came across.

Calvin and Garrett collected their rifles and jumped out of the truck to walk back to the police car and meet the people they had just risked their lives to save. They found the police officer behind the wheel already digging through a first aid kit and helping the woman in the front seat with him. Her entire face was coated in blood and her nose looked as though it had been smashed flat across her face. Garrett and Kyle exchanged brief introductions while Kyle continued to wo
rk on the woman, it appeared to Garrett that she was just regaining consciousness and seemed very woozy and disoriented.