The Rabid: Rise (19 page)

25

Somewhere around one hundred people are lined up right down the middle of the Southbound lane of Preston
Road. Women and their children. Husbands and wives. Friends linked arm and arm. Fear courses through the gathering. There are tears aplenty. One woman collapses, insisting that she
just can’t do this
. A few soft spoken words of encouragement and some pats on the back and she’s back on her feet in no time, wiping at her nose, head down, a rolling bag of luggage at her side. There are four Humvees breaking up the gathering of bodies; one up front, two in the middle, and one towards the very back. Katia, in her jacked up pickup, fills out the very end of the column. Two gunners ride in the bed with automatic rifles perched across their laps. They laugh and smoke cigarettes, eager to get moving. The Humvees all have experienced gunners on the .50’s. Each one has been given an extra belt of ammo. Anything beyond that will have to be scavenged. The rest of the column is guarded by foot soldiers, sprinkled up and down the line, armored up, carrying handguns and high caliber rifles. Ruiz emptied the armory for this mass exodus. The women and children aren’t exactly defenseless, most of them carry some type of edged weapon: butcher blades, hatchets, machetes. There are even a few swords in the mix. Our food is packed. Our course has been set. All that’s left are the final
goodbyes
and
good lucks
and we’ll be on our way.

I’m in the Humvee at the front of the line. I’ve got my suppressed M4 and my tactical .45. My driver is a portly older gentleman named Marv. He’s got a few remaining sprigs of hair and a sloppy beard. He’s got a silver revolver sitting in the cup holder. Something about him reminds me of Bo.

“Ready to get this on the road. Get done what’s gotta get done. We gotta die, hell, I figure today is a fine day to do it.” His seat moans beneath his movement as he shifts back and forth with visible discomfort. “Not sure how I’m gonna make this drive. Fuckin’ arthritis. Fuckin’ legs swell up. Don’t do well on long trips, cramped up in a vehicle. We may have to switch out.”

“I
’m fine with that.” I’m staring into the side mirror, watching Ruiz and Norton walk the line. They’re shaking hands. Making sure everyone is set.

“They even know what the situation is like down there in Mexico? They just
pullin this outta their ass?”

“I don’t know, to be honest.”

“Goddamn, has to be an improvement, right? Can’t be no worse than what it was, no sir. Anyplace ever needed fuckin’ zombies to tear it a new asshole, it was fuckin’ Mexico.”

I don’t know if I can handle being trapped in a vehicle with this guy.

Sacrifices...we’ve all gotta make them.

Momma and Bethany are in the third Humvee. Bethany is behind the wheel. There’d been some bitching and moaning from the group over
her being selected as a driver, despite her experience behind the wheel.

A face appears at my window follow
ed by the rapid
tap-tap-tap
of knuckles against glass.

Bethany.

I hit the button, the glass falls, and an icy cold swoops into the cab.

“Jesus, put it back up,” Marv grumbles, pulling his collar tighter.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be driving?”

“They’re taking forever to get us going. Wanted to come see you off one more time. Momma told me to give
you a kiss for her. Give me your cheek.” She signals me towards her with an index finger.

“Oh, come on, seriously?”

“Momma’s orders.” She closes her eyes and puckers her lips.

Resistance is futile. “This is embarrassing.” I slide my head over and brace myself.

She pecks me hard on the cheek. Animated. Loud.

At least she doesn’t wear lipstick.

“Who’s your gunner?” I ask, briefly checking my face in the mirror.

“I
dunno, some guy with an accent. I can’t really understand him. He’s quiet, usually, so that’s a plus.”

“Yeah, good deal.
Ya’ll locked and loaded?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, Tim, we’ve got o
ur guns. I’ve even got my sword.”

“Forget the sword
. Shit goes down, I want you shooting, not playing ninja. I don’t want you getting close to them if you don’t have to. Understand?”

“Yes, relax, it’s just a backup in case.”

I nod, satisfied. “Good.”

“So did Katia wish you good luck and safe passage?” Her animated gestures and a small giggle let me know she’s just poking fun.

“Yeah right, I’m already dead as far as she’s concerned.”

“Nah,”
Bethany says as if she holds the solution on the tip of her tongue, “she still cares about you. Just give her time.”

Time,
we’re going to have plenty of that. With the amount of people on foot, with the speeds we’ll be traveling, Mexico is a good two weeks down the road; that’s if the Rabid don’t pick us apart on the way.

Fuck, this is a stupid idea.

But, it’s not like I’ve got a better one. Well...I do...destroy the USB drive. Drop all that shit into the same dark hole our government has placed every other dirty little secret since its inception.

Not
gonna happen. That much has been made clear. So, here we are.

“Everyone get saddled up. This train is about to move out,” Norton’s voice comes booming down the line.

“Bout fuckin’ time,” Marv squawks, starting the engine.

“I’m
gonna get back, see you on the road.” She slaps me playfully on the back of the head, turns, and starts running back towards her ride, her shoes scratching against the blacktop.

The smell of diesel is already filling the cab as we sit idle waiting for the command to gas it. Norton approaches my window and leans in, reaching across me to shake Marv’s hand.

“You boys ready for this?”

I can see my apprehens
ive reflection in Norton’s wrap-around shades. “Couldn’t be readier.”

“I’ll punch the pedal whenever you give me the word, sir,” Marv says with a hollow tone.

“That’s what I like to hear. Here, you’ll need this. It’ll keep you in contact with the other vehicles.” He drops a black radio into my lap. “You’ve got some good men with you. Capable men. Tim, I know from experience that you’re a capable young man as well. You’ve got some long weeks ahead of you before you get down South. Like I said, I’d prefer you take these people as far down as you can get, go till you hit the water. You keep your eyes up. Keep your wits. You’ll get there in one piece. With me?” He offers his hand to me this time.

His grip wraps over my fingers like an iron band, squeezing the blood right out of them.

“Alright then, Gentleman, move out.”

Marv nods, waits for Norton to clear the window, and slowly eases onto the gas, checking the rearview to make sure the rest of the column is following his lead.

I settle back in my seat and prop the muzzle of my rifle on the window ledge, as ready as I can be for the road ahead.

26

We spend nine hours on the road and barely make it out of Dallas.

As the sun sheds the last of its light across the shattered carcasses of the towering office bu
ildings behind us the drivers situate the four Humvees in a crude semi-circle in front of our shelter for the night; a rundown motor inn with abandoned semis and an overflowing garbage bin occupying the back lot.

The journey
, thus far, has been uneventful considering our exposure. The perimeter foot soldiers dropped a few Rabid on the interstate. Stragglers moping around and chewing on mangled corpses. There were a few muffled pops and the bodies twitched to the ground. A little girl screeched at the horror and was quickly muffled by her mother.

That was it though.

Everyone is safe and ready to settle down for the night. Their legs tired. Their bellies begging for a meal.

While a couple of our guys go door to door, clearing the motor inn, Katia and a few other women drop rations into eager hands.

“Which watch do you want?” Marv walks up beside me, squelching a burp with his fist, and resting his arms across his ample belly.

“I don’t care. I’m not really all that tired, so I guess I’ll join the first crew.”

“Good enough. I feel like someone done hung me up at a party and beat the fuck outta me with a stick; I’ll probably go in for second or third.”

I watch Katia bend down slightly, smiling as she hands a bag of chips to a little boy wearing torn up jeans and a red hooded sweatshirt. “You feel like a
piñata?”

“Yeah,” he snaps, “that’s the name of them goddamn things. Couldn’t think of the name.
Woulda been more clever if I could have come up with the name, huh?”

“
Meh, I thought it was pretty clever on its own.”

“Yeah, I suppose it was.” He blocks another burp with his fist. It turns into a cough. “Shit, goddamn indigestion.”

“Have you even eaten anything?” I try to hide my disgust.

“Nah, can’t say I have.”

“Jesus, man.”

“I know, I got me some issues.” He hacks and pats his stomach.

“Who’s putting the watch together?”

He pumps a thumb into his chest. “Yours truly. Guess I need to get my butt in gear.”

“I guess so, sun is just about gone.”

He slaps me on the back and
lumbers away between the gathering shadows.

I see Bethany and Momma, leaned up
against one of the exterior stairwells, plates in hand, cold vegetables and slabs of imitation meat sliding around in the center. They motion for me. I take up my rifle and scoot between the murmuring crowd sitting cross-legged in the middle of the lot.

“You
gonna eat, sweetie?” Momma asks as I crouch down.

“Yeah, at some point. I’ve got first watch. Might just do it then.”

“Okay, well, as long as you get some food in you. No one needs to be going hungry during these times. Hard to keep your eyes up when you’re focused on an empty belly.”

“I know
, Ma, I’ll make sure I eat something.”

“What shift am I on?” Bethany’s words are
jumbled up, a plastic spoon is still crammed between her lips.

“You’re not.”

She huffs, prodding at her food a little more violently than before.

“Really? You’re mad because you get to sleep through the night?”

“Not mad, just, I got used to switching out watch with you, I suppose. Routines, they’re tough to change.”

“Yeah, we
ll, this is a good change, sis.”

“I suppose,” she says
without much enthusiasm.

Katia walks behind me and bends
down in front of an elderly couple on my left, handing them a plate, smiling, and completely ignoring my existence.

“Cold. As. Ice.” Bethany razzes me.

“What?” Momma looks at Katia as she saunters away and then narrows her eyes at me and Bethany with no small amount of suspicion. “Who’s the girl?”

“Well, that
waaaas
Tim’s girlfriend.”

Momma raises her eyebrows. “Really? Tim, she’
s a little bit wild looking for you, don’t you think?”

“She’s something,” Bethany laughs.

“She’s a great girl, Momma.” I shoot daggers at Bethany and she lowers her head, trying to hide her smile. “Really, she’s probably one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.”

“Well, introduce us, silly,
” Momma sounds excited.

That lead weight
appears in the pit of my stomach again. Just drops in like a ten ton hammer. No warning.

Inconsiderate bastar
d
.

“Yeah, I can’t really do that.”

“Why not?”

“Cause Tim decided to shoot one
of her best friends in the head,” Bethany says without pause.

“Oh, come on, really, sis?”

Momma gasps. “Tim, is that true?”

“It’s not what it sounds like.”

“So, it is true?”

“Ma, he had a gun, things just went bad.”

Momma frowns and hangs her head. “I’ll never get used to this. I never want to either.”

“Get used to what?”

“You kids carrying guns and shooting people. Won’t get used to it. It’s not right.”

“Yeah, well, let me know when you get used to people coming back from the dead. Let me know when you figure out how to put them back in the ground with flowers and poetry and I’ll lay my gun down by the river tomorrow.”

She stares at me sharply. “You can save the sarcasm, Tim. You asked!”

“Yeah, and I won’t make that mistake again, trust me. Besides, Bethany shouldn’t be sharing that kind of stuff with you.
Ya’ll weren’t there, sounds worse than it was. You would have made the same call.”

“I wouldn’t have gone up there in the first place,” Bethany says, matter-of-factly.

“You know, I’ve got like a hundred people that I need to see to safety. I don’t have time for this.” I hoist myself up.

Momma doesn’t protest,
she just keeps stirring her food with that same frown on her face.

Bethany comes running up beside me as I’m moving back through the crowd. “Come
on, Tim, you know I’m just pulling your chain.”

“Yeah, well, Momma doesn’t. She’s obviously still adjusting
to us and all of this. So, I need you to watch what you say around her. More important than that, I need you to watch over her. I don’t want her getting like she was before.” People are getting up with their empty plates and shoveling past me, bouncing me back and forth between their shoulders like a speed bag as I stand there trying to hold Bethany’s attention with my serious face.

“Tim, I’ll watch out for her, okay? No worries. Didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

I hold my hand out low and she slaps me five and smiles. “No big deal. Ya’ll go find your room. Looks like everyone is filing back. I’ll find you later.”

Back at the Humvee
, I start preparing myself for the first watch. There’s the big metal flashlight, my suppressed M4 (which I finally got a strap for), and my tactical .45. I’ve managed to scrounge away a couple of granola bars along the way. I stick two of them in my pocket, grab a bottle of water and set off towards the group of armed men standing near the edge of the street. Marv is at the center of them, puffing on a thin pungent cigar with a white plastic tip.

“That convenience store over there still had smokes,” he says to me with a smile, holding the plastic tip between his front teeth.”

“Anything else?”

“Empty coolers and a dead clerk.”

“Twice dead?”

He shakes his head. “Nope, looks like she only got one go around. Someone blew her guts out and ransacked the register. Left the smokes though.”
H shakes one of the boxes, a few of the other guys laugh.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this either.

Not sure I want to.

“
So, you got the watch set up?”

Marv nods. “More or less. We need to get these folks to finish hauling their happy asses inside so we can get everyone in place.”

“Alright, someone come with me. Let’s wrangle them up.” The guy to my immediate right volunteers.

It doesn’t take long to push everyone inside.
No one is eager to be outside once the sun is gone.