Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (14 page)

Meanwhile, the rain and the dark worked hand in hand as unwitting allies to the small band’s survival gambit. They hunkered down beneath blue tarpaulins and waterproof tent vinyl. Their hands and feet threatening to lose feeling in the damp cold, they each reminded the other to flex fingers and wiggle toes as much as possible. The waiting and the wondering created frustration and anxiety all night as each new sound sent off alarm bells in their heads. It promised to be a sleepless and restless night once again.

The cold wet night passed into a cold wet morning with the zombie migration finally starting to show signs of waning. The torrential river of undead was fast becoming a trickling stream. Despite the numbers seeming manageable enough to force a confrontation, Neil knew that it was a bad idea. If the beasts were simply allowed to pass without ever knowing that Neil and the other survivors had been there all along, that seemed to be the best option.

It seemed that with the dawning of a new morning, perhaps they would for once enjoy a little good luck. The children were all awake by then but still sitting out of the rain beneath and on top of a tarp. Della had stirred them from their sleep but forbade them from coming from beneath the plastic cover.

Things were really looking good. Neil counted perhaps ten of the foul creatures still on the road. Most were sporting injuries to their legs which slightly inhibited their walking, causing them to straggle far behind the main pack, but straggle and continue forward they did.

These few barely constituted a threat, given the numbers Neil had faced in the past. It felt like maybe things were starting to get better. He knew he shouldn’t tempt fate with his optimism, but it was hard to resist. So little had gone their way that he couldn’t help but feel somewhat contented with the current turn of events.

He turned back away from the road and looked down toward DB and Alec, who were the farthest south of their group. Beyond where they hunched behind some larger, round rocks, Neil thought he spied some movement. He was still sitting down, so much of the distant area to the south of them was obscured. Still, he thought he saw something. It could just be his eyes playing tricks on him but he couldn’t tell for sure. He’d been staring so intently into the darkness through most of the early morning hours, he could have just strained his eyes.

No. He was certain he saw it that time. There was something coming toward them up the tracks.
Something?
There was no doubt in his mind what it was.

He grabbed Jerry’s arm and pointed down the tracks. He needn’t do more as the ghouls’ heads were slowly coming into view. At precisely the same time, Jerry’s and Neil’s stomachs rolled themselves over into nauseating knots. Now something had to be done. Ignoring the problem and hoping that it would merely go away was not an option. The problem was coming straight at them.

This was one of those moments in which Neil would have been thankful for someone else to make the decisions. They could easily take the three nearest to them but would also more than likely attract the attention of the monsters still on the highway. Neil was fairly confident they could even kill the ten or so zombies on the road handily, although it would require the use of firearms. This eventuality would in all likelihood be the force about which Jerry had spoken responsible for turning the horde back on its heels and straight at them in the first place.

All of this raced through Neil’s thoughts as he watched Della rise up from her roost like an agitated bear. Neil didn’t realize the ghouls were as close as they were. She was upon them with such fierce suddenness she set all three of the creatures off balance. She wielded her bat with the deft skill of a ninja but the brute power of a Viking.

She struck the first one’s rotting skull so hard, she very nearly severed it from its similarly decaying body. The impact created a hollow, wet thump of a sound, followed by the beast crumpling lifelessly to the ground. She squared off with the other two still coming at her. One must have noticed the children and recognized them as easier prey because it bypassed Della and started toward them instead.

From Della emerged a scream that would have rattled both heaven and hell. The fearsome spawn of primal rage and maternal instincts, it was a ferocious growl with all the subtlety of an atomic shockwave. Like a linebacker, Della stormed right over the beast in front of her and, in the same motion, swung the bat in a high, air-cutting arc. The bat struck its target with a bone-crunching thwack between its shoulder blades.

The zombie collapsed onto its belly and tried to get back to its feet, but to no avail. Della had crushed its spinal column and broken its back. She took one step and finished it off as it tried to claw its way closer to the children.

The third ghoul was just getting to its feet from Della’s rush. She wasn’t apparently in the mood to give it a moment’s reprieve. This time, she swung the bat in a low, wide sweep, hitting it squarely in the legs. The blow broke at least one of its legs and sent it too sprawling to the ground.

Neil looked at Jerry and then back at Della as she stood amidst the carnage. Jerry said flatly, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to see how this turns out.”

Neil cracked a humorless smile and agreed with a nod. And as Neil had suspected, Della’s assault did draw the attention of the undead octet on the highway. Luckily, there were just the eight and no more of the larger group in sight. Neil stood, ready to wade into battle with his bat, but stopped when he heard the gunshots.

It was DB and Alec. They were shooting wildly at the advancing zombies, both wasting ammunition and creating exactly the kind of ruckus Neil wanted to avoid. Realizing it was too late to avert disaster, Neil nodded to Jerry who fired off three successive shots, bringing down three different targets.

By then, the fiends were less than twenty feet away, so Neil leveled his shotgun against his shoulder and let loose a deafening blast which brought down another. DB had also claimed one, leaving just three more still coming at them.

The hideous wretches started to gain speed the closer they drew to their prey. They were a trio of nightmares. All three would have to gain weight to be considered wraiths, but that was not the worst of their appearance. Their flesh was ripe with open, festering sores and pulled tightly across the protruding bones of their hands and arms and was starting to pull back away from their eye sockets and mouths revealing brittle, weather-beaten bone. Their heads sagged and bobbed with all the muscle control of newborns, but the hunger animating their expressions belied any suggestion of innocence.

Emma and Maggie were no longer content to watch. The two of them, closest to their assailants, leaned against the slate slabs and fired their own firearms. Meghan was using a smaller caliber shotgun, while Emma was sporting a pair of semi-automatic pistols. They created a field of leaden punishment that spread out before them. Neil too fired his weapon, as did Alec. It was a triangulation of fiery death into which the three monsters charged and never emerged. Their shattered bodies rested in horrible twisted heaps beneath the still settling smoke.

Neil, with a look over his shoulder, confirmed that Della was still okay and then did the same with everyone else. His breathing was coming fast and shallow, trying to keep pace with his rapid heartbeat. There was something more though. He felt satisfaction and a little bit of lingering adrenaline that bordered on blood lust.

Looking out over the bodies scattered across the road, Neil wondered if he was feeling the same emotions as guerrilla warriors after a successful ambush. Could they, he and the other survivors, exist in this manner? And for how long? There were guerrilla movements all over the world that had faced overwhelming government forces and materiel for years and had somehow successfully emerged time and time again victorious. Could his group be as lucky?

There was very little time for consideration at the moment. They needed to get themselves going before the horde turned about and started heading back toward them. The tarps were folded into tight but still wet rolls and lashed to backpacks. That was all the packing needed before they were back on the path heading south.

The junction for the Portage Highway was a short way south on the railroad tracks. Typically a bustling crossroads of vehicles coming and going from the scenic Portage Glacier Park and the city of Whittier, today it looked like the busiest intersection on Venus.

Actually, defining Whittier as a city was only possible in the village and small town dominated nature of Alaska. Whittier sat in a sheltered bay and became a stopover for large and small water craft in days gone by. The community that grew up around the anchorage was a hodgepodge of small and large commercial ventures ranging in interests from simple tourist trade, to fishing guides and processors, to government services. The largest structure in the community was the monstrous and largely vacant Buckner Building which was a relic from, first, World War II and then the Cold War. There were a few houses, hotels, and even some multiplex apartment buildings. To refer to Whittier as a city would have been insulting to the smallest of traditional cities in most other places in the world, especially given the fact that the arrival of a single cruise ship to the port was enough to have a significant growth impact on the city’s population for the day.

Despite all of this, Whittier had one remarkable feature that set it apart from all of the communities on the road system in Alaska: it had a single land route entrance that could be closed off by a gate which resembled the impregnable gates of medieval castles. To get to Whittier, a passage had been cut through a mountain which was part of a range walling off Whittier from all other approaches. The passage had been created intentionally narrow and limited with the intention that the gate would be opened and closed to help control the flow of traffic, both vehicular and rail, in either direction. No moat had ever as effectively guarded its palace walls as did Mother Nature’s contributions on the Kenai Peninsula.

Whittier, if the gate had been closed in time, could be safe and free of the infection that had wreaked so much havoc on the rest of the state. Whittier could be a safe haven, if...

It was that hope which propelled Neil on his way that morning. They were so close. It was only a few short miles up the road. His enthusiasm was, however, tempered by their recent experiences. They had been running from safe haven to safe haven since that first morning so many weeks ago, and every refuge they found was short-lived. They had been temporary due to glaring flaws. Whittier might be something different. There were a lot of ifs and maybes standing between them and this next possibility.

Scanning the highway, Neil saw, scattered both on and off the road, a few abandoned vehicles; cars, vans, and trucks left by their owners when it seemed like there was no other option. Many of the bones of those owners were left to rot not far from their abandoned automobiles, the zekes close on their heels having overcome them. There were also the rotting, stiff carcasses of ravens who had picked the contaminated flesh from the bodies only to succumb to the same fate.

Dark and damp, the slick pavement of the highway stretched itself defiantly into the scant tones and grim moods of the late autumnal weather. If Neil didn’t know better, he would have guessed that they were at the crossroads of Hell and Purgatory. The trees themselves, leafless and seemingly lifeless, appeared to claw at the sky, angry for having ever sprung from the sorry earth.

To make matters worse, the weather had soured. The misting rain was becoming more aggressive, manifesting itself in heavy, colder droplets threatening to freeze upon impact. Coats, gloves, pants, and boots were all starting to soak through. Their discomfort increased with each passing, miserable moment. With chattering teeth and shivering lips, they made their way across the road to the Visitor Center to take a short rest. The building and its contents had been gutted, but its walls were still standing and the roof provided some respite from the rain.

Thankfully, there were no surprises waiting for them in or around the building, so they got inside without incident. From the floor, Jerry gathered discarded brochures of activities that visitors to the state could enjoy ranging all up and down the Kenai Peninsula. Thinking the paper might make good kindling for a much needed fire, he began to twist some into tight rolls. Neil and DB, meanwhile, looked for ways to hang their blue tarpaulins in the gaping windows, trying anything to limit the cold’s entrance into the building.

Della and Meghan helped the four children out of their wet clothes, again trying to mitigate the effects of the cold on their little bodies. The two women wrung gloves and pants of as much water as possible while the children scrambled to put on drier clothes from their backpacks. Most of the adults did not have the luxury of putting on dry clothes and were forced to suffer into the chilling grips of the onset of hypothermia.

They worked quietly, trying to keep their presence a secret to all but themselves. Dealing with the cold alone was bad enough. To have to do so while fighting off the walking dead would have been a grim prospect at best.

The undead had been thankfully absent since the skirmish earlier in the day. The shooting from the battle would likely draw the horde back toward them, so the break in the storm was very welcome.