Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (19 page)

The metallic sound got louder. I approached
cautiously. The sound was coming from behind a large home-heating
propane tank. I thought (hoped) it was merely the wind pushing
something against the large drum, a great theory, mind you, if
there had been any breeze at all. The air was as still as death.
Great analogy, Talbot.
I berated myself. I gave a wide berth
to the tank as I approached, I saw large legs first, splayed out on
the ground. I moved quickly around to see BT leaning up against the
tank, his revolver planted firmly under his jaw, I didn’t move fast
enough as the hammer came down on an expended round. He pulled the
trigger again, the metallic click sending me flying to pull the gun
from him.

BT barely registered my existence as I pulled
the gun from his hand. He looked up at me with a tear-soaked
face.

“I’ve been bit, Mike,” BT sobbed.

C
hapter Ten
- Paul, Brian and Deneaux

“Mrs. D, I really think you should take more cover,” Brian said as
he hid behind some strategically placed road debris. The overpass
they were on appeared to be the perfect place for their ambush.
There was no access to the highway on this road and by the time
anyone traversed the steep grade to get to them, they would be long
gone. That was the theory anyway.

“Nonsense, I am no spring chicken. I’m not
getting on the ground like a savage.”

Paul shrugged his shoulders at Brian, as if
to say, I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.

Mrs. Deneaux had searched four backyards
before she found a lawn chair that she liked. Brian had carried the
piece of furniture here for her. He would have left it behind if he
hadn’t thought she was nearly his equivalent with the firearms. He
thought Paul was a loyal and brave friend, but when it came to
shooting, Paul was best left to the job of spotter.

Mrs. Deneaux, was sound asleep, head lolled
to the side and half a burnt cigarette hanging out of her mouth
when the earth begin to tremble.

“You feel that?” she asked, awakening with a
start.

“No, what’s up?” Paul asked.

“Nothing. Must be gas,” she said,
laughing.

“Wonderful,” Paul answered moving slightly
away.

“No, I felt it too,” Brian said, looking up
over their barricade.

“You must be ripping them,” Paul said to Mrs.
Deneaux. “Whoa! I felt that,” Paul looked down the roadway. “You
see anything?”

Brian placed his binoculars up to his eyes
and held them steady. “Nothing yet,” he said calmly, but his true,
rampaging emotions were threatening to rip through his imposed
demeanor.

Mrs. Deneaux flipped her rifle’s safety off
and rested the barrel on top of the guardrail. Her heart cracked
off some rust as it beat a little quicker. She had led a decent
life, not fulfilling and not overly happy, but it was her life and
she was not in any rush to give it back to her maker. Besides that,
she had some serious sins she still had to atone for. She wasn’t
convinced there was an underworld, but who needed to believe in
that when evil is present all around, every day. But she was not
one to test her luck either. If there was a Hades, he would have to
wait just like everyone else to get his due. She put her index
finger in her mouth and stuck it in the air to find the prevailing
breeze.

“Does that really work?” Paul asked.

“Watch and learn,” she said, placing her eye
to the scope.

“Here they come,” Brian said, pointing down
the roadway as he pulled his binoculars down.

“How can we be sure it’s them?” Paul
asked.

“Well, first will be the smell, and then the
underlying sense of evil that will pervade everything and then the
old standby, your friend said they’d be coming this way and in this
form,” Mrs. Deneaux said, never taking her gaze from her
aperture.

“Okay, so there’s that,” Paul said.

“This a little much for you, bud?” Brian
said, egging Paul on a bit.

“You do get that I was a manager at FedEx
before this shit happened, right? I didn’t go off and play Army boy
for a few years. I’ve played paint ball maybe three times my entire
life and the only gun in my house belonged to my wife. So excuse me
if I’m a little fucking nervous that we’re about to get into a fire
fight with an enemy that probably outnumbers us a thousand to one,”
Paul said heatedly.

“Quit your bitching,” Mrs. Deneaux said,
looking up. “Most of them won’t even have a weapon,” she cackled,
referring to the zombies that were being carried in the trucks.

Brian snorted. “Sorry, man,” he said when
Paul directed a glare at him. “I was just trying to gauge your
combat readiness.”

“He didn’t do so well,” Mrs. Deneaux said.
“They’re in range,” she said steadying her eye back down on the
scope. “You give the word, Brian, and the driver of the first truck
is a dead man.”

Brian shivered at the iciness with which she
delivered those words. Killing a man was not an easy task. She,
however, sounded practiced at the event. “I want you to be able to
tell if he’s a genteel before you shoot.”

Mrs. Deneaux laughed.

“I don’t get it,” Paul said.

The trucks rumbled closer.

“God, there’s so many of them,” Paul
said.

The driver of the lead truck saw a glint of
light from above. As he looked to see what was reflecting, he
thought he saw a small wisp of smoke, followed immediately by a
warm, stinging sensation in the center of his chest. His heart
stopped beating from the ruptured aorta long before his brain
caught up with the fact that he was dead. The truck jerked to the
right and then immediately back to the left, the G-forces pulling
the cab free from the trailer. The cab went off the embankment to
the left, smashing into a tree with the tortured sound of twisting
metal and breaking glass. The trailer’s front dropped onto the
pavement. Sparks shot back forty feet as metal grated noisily on
the roadway.

The trailer may have come to a peaceful stop
had not the truck behind it plowed ferociously into its rear end.
The troop transport’s rear tires came off the ground as it slammed
into the tractor-trailer, spilling the undead contents all over the
roadway. Zombies that weren’t immediately liquefied from the
accident got up and looked around. The small group atop the
overpass was left to wonder why the zombies didn’t do anything
except stand in place, almost like they were awaiting direction.
But those questions would have to wait to be answered as Eliza’s
real men got out and began to search for the threat.

Mrs. Deneaux, smoothly pulled her bolt action
back and then forward, placing another round in the chamber. The
driver of the third truck had stopped in enough time to avoid the
collision and had just stepped out of the cab when Mrs. Deneaux
sheered his arm off above the elbow.

Paul, who now had the binoculars, told her
that the driver was not dead.

“I did it on purpose, sweetie,” Mrs. Deneaux
said, almost kindly. “I was hoping that maybe the sight of blood
and someone screaming and running around like a headless chicken
would get the zombies moving. Doesn’t seem to have worked,” she
said, pulling the bolt back and pushing it forward again.

Brian once again got that chill up his spine.
She’s either mad as a hatter, or insane. Neither is a very good
prospect.

Brian started to shoot, not nearly with the
precision or icy coolness with which Mrs. D dispatched of the
enemy, but it was effective all the same.

“Might be time to get going,” Paul said as he
saw troops rallying. “It looks like they know where we are and
they’re getting ready to fight back.”

As if on cue, shots began to pepper their
location.

“Good enough warning for me,” Brian said as
he shifted to get his things together, ready to leave post haste.
The round that hit him, smashed through his collarbone and exited
his abdomen. He immediately rolled on to his back. “Fuck! I didn’t
think it would hurt that bad!” he said as his breathing became
rapid.

“What would?” Paul turned, beginning to rise
with his rucksack. “Damn,” was all Paul managed to say as he looked
down on Brian and a blossom of blood spread from Brian’s shoulder
to his stomach.

“Bad?” Mrs. Deneaux asked, as she realized
they weren’t leaving quite yet. She dropped her magazine and
started to put more rounds in it. “I’ll keep shooting; you need to
get pressure on his wound.”

Brian was breathing heavily, straining the
air through clenched teeth. “It feels like someone has dragged a
branding iron across my chest,” he hissed. “And I can’t move my
left arm.”

Paul gingerly opened Brian’s light jacket and
pulled his shirt up. The sharp intake of air was all the
information that Brian needed.

“It’s bad?” Brian asked.

“Brian, everything’s bad to me. Remember me
saying I was a manager at a FedEx? Worst thing I ever had to deal
with were cardboard cuts,” Paul told him as he took an extra shirt
from his backpack and placed it over Brian’s exit wound. “It looks
like your collarbone is pretty busted up and the bullet grazed
across your chest. That’s why it’s burning; and then it went in and
out of your stomach.”

“Gained twenty-five pounds since I’ve been
out of the Army. Most of it is gone now, but if I had stayed in
shape, the bullet would have missed,” Brian said, still in pain,
but realizing he might not quite be dead.

“That extra weight might have saved your
life, at least the sexual part,” Paul told him.

“What are you talking about?” Brian asked as
he repositioned himself.

“Look at the direction that bullet was
heading,” Paul said as he got some bandages and tape.

Brian looked down to his left, past the
busted collarbone, at the scrape that went to the right of his left
nipple to where the bullet entered into his stomach and came out
right below the navel. “Oh shit! That was close,” Brian said,
placing his right hand on his still present male equipment.

“I’d take a scar on my mid section any day of
the week,” Paul commented, doing his best to place a field dressing
on the wound so they could get out of there.

Mrs. Deneaux was still rhythmically shooting,
but their location was under heavy fire. Mrs. Deneaux’s lawn chair
had already suffered two grievous wounds. The only thing saving her
life was how thin she was.

“Well, that helps,” she said as she lifted
her head from the scope.

The shooting had stopped on both sides, but
the screaming intensified from the highway below.

“What’s going on?” Brian asked.

“I think Mr. Talbot has held up his end of
the agreement,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she gleefully clapped her
hands.

Paul got into a crouch to look over the
guardrail.

“Oh, I think you could do the Samba and no
one would take any notice of you,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she stood
to get a better vantage point of the slaughter down below.

Paul was perfectly happy with his vantage
point. “The zombies are attacking Eliza’s people,” Paul said,
pumping his fist.

“I think now would be a good time to get
gone,” Brian said, pulling his water bottle over.

“Let me get a sling on your arm first,” Mrs.
Deneaux said, placing her rifle down and accessing Brian for the
first time.

Brian was none too pleased with her
scrutinous eye. He could tell she was sizing up his mobility, and
if he were left wanting, she would not have any problem leaving him
behind.
She’s a dangerous one
, he thought. But he said
nothing as she did a reasonably good facsimile of a sling with an
old t-shirt.

“Not bad,” Brian said as he stood up slowly.
Blood rushed out of his head, sending him into a brief, but intense
bout of vertigo.

“You alright?” Mrs. Deneaux asked and it
almost sounded like she cared.

“Fine,” Brian answered as he steadied himself
on the back of her lawn chair. He prayed that its compromised
integrity would sustain his weight for just a little while longer.
If he plunged to the ground now and passed out, he was certain he’d
find himself alone on the bridge when he awoke. Blood slowly pushed
its way back up and into his head, and the dizziness passed.

If Mrs. Deneaux hadn’t been so busy assessing
Brian, she might not have missed a chance to end the entire
conflict. Paul decided to seize the day as he grabbed Mrs.
Deneaux’s rifle. He stood completely upright. A slight breeze was
blowing left to right as he placed the crosshairs of the Winchester
30-30 on Eliza’s breast.

Brian and Mrs. Deneaux turned as Paul
fired.

“I hit her!” Paul screamed.

“Who?” Brian asked, swallowing down some bile
that had swirled up from his gut.

“Eliza! I hit Eliza!” Paul shouted, almost
dropping the rifle off the railing.