Apocalypse Aftermath (2 page)

The SUV shifted as Austin stepped down from the running board and headed up front to organize the clearing effort.  No one was complaining at the work, which was both
dangerous and difficult.  Not that objections would have altered the dynamic in the slightest; but she was still pleased to see the focus.

The roads in and around Georgia’s capitol were littered with motionless vehicles.  As far as she knew, most of them were a result of the chaos on Friday when the zombies began appearing.  When everyone in the city’s sprawling metro area hit the roads at the same time, it was going to be bad.  Add zombies to the mix, and she was actually slightly surprised the convoy was making as good time as it was.

Since Friday, there hadn’t been much left to anyone except simple survival.  No one was doing anything that wasn’t necessary for that single goal.

Austin and the others out front were moving briskly to get the convoy back into motion.  Several had been detailed to stand guard, facing out in different directions around the area while the rest converged on a dented
and scorched minivan laying on its side at the front of the collection of wrecks.

Jessica recognized what Austin was planning; she’d lost count of how many times the convoy had stopped to get through a similar blockage.  Taking another look around the right side of the car, she glanced over her left shoulder at Candice.  The girl was kneeling on the seat, studiously turning her head back and forth as she watched the left side of the car.

“Candy Bear, they’re going to tip one of the cars back on its wheels in a minute.  Be ready for the noise.”

Candice nodded without turning from the windows. “Okay.”

Jessica resumed her own watching, splitting her attention between what she was supposed to be doing and keeping an eye on the clearing effort.  The shoulder was still clear.  The trees would have demanded more of her focus except she saw the underbrush between the tightly packed trunks was thick and tangled nearly waist high.  The odds of any hungry zombies emerging quickly were very low.

The Eagle employees – everyone in the convoy save Jessica, Candice, and Tyler’s sister-in-law
and brother worked for the security company – were now tugging on the minivan. Working in unison, they quickly had it rocking back and forth; each time getting it to tip a little further.  Finally they got it rotated far enough over that gravity took care of the rest.  With a groan of tortured metal as the van’s mangled rear end scraped across the oversized pickup next to it, the van dropped down on its wheels and bounced several times.

People skittered away as it fell, but reconverged after several seconds.  One
looked inside it, then leaned in and checked the controls before giving a thumbs up.  Pulling and pushing, they were able to roll the van away and off to the side to open a channel through the rest of the wrecks.  Jessica was getting good at eyeballing that sort of thing as well; it would be tight, but she thought it was big enough for even the large SUVs of the convoy to fit through without a problem.

Austin apparently agreed, though he climbed up on the hood of a sedan
flanking the opening for a look at the other side of the blockage.  Jessica let her eyes drift away on her next scan around the side of the SUV, but snapped them back forward when she heard a gun go off.  Two more shots sounded before she could refocus on the scene up front.  Austin’s MP5 was up against his shoulder, aiming across the far side of the wreckage.  She squinted as he fired several more times, but she couldn’t see what he was shooting at.

“Everything’s fine at the moment.” Jessica said without turning.  “Candice, anything happening on your side of the car?”

“No.” her daughter replied.  “All clear.”

“Good girl.” Jessica said, taking a swift glance around
her
side to make sure she wasn’t missing something.  Nothing but trees and road shoulder, just barely enough for a car to pull off the road without hitting the trees.  Nothing moved except the rustle of weeds in the wind and a few similarly swaying branches higher up.  Nothing hungry was in view.

As she looked back forward, she saw Austin’s gun was still up and ready, but he had stopped firing.  She saw confusion in the body language of those on foot at the wreckage, some standing uncertainly, others backing away from it, while a few were hesitantly edging closer with their weapons raised.  She heard Austin yelling something the SUV’s armor and soundproofing turned indiscriminate, his attention still fixed on the other side of the blockage.  Those who were approaching stopped, and a ragged concave of armed observers began to form about fifteen feet from the roadblock.

Jessica forced herself to make another scan around her side of the car.  Still clear.  She repeated the scan, then looked ahead once more when she heard a fusillade of shots erupt.  Austin was off the sedan’s hood, now positioned behind the line of Eagle personnel as a clump of people who moved with a shambling, staggering walk toppled under the bullets hitting them.  She saw Austin shouting and gesturing, his head swiveling back and forth as he made sure those he’d designated as observers kept their attention on the areas they were supposed to be watching.

Taking a deep breath, Jessica looked to her own area of responsibility as the shooting continued.  Still clear to the right of the SUV.  But she couldn’t help herself from checking on what was happening forward when she finished the circuit.  Most of the zombies were down now, but many were still moving.  She shuddered as she saw people who – as far as she knew from what the news had been saying were
dead
– continued crawling and clawing their way forward even as more bullets hit them.  Some were missing limbs, others had limbs only attached by ragged remnants of tissue and bone, and many showed obvious signs of heavy damage to their chests and backs.

Yet they kept moving, not showing the slightest sign the shocking injuries bothered them at all.  It was horrific, but she’d seen a lot of horror of late.  It was disturbing, but not to a level that paralyzed her.  Not anymore.

“Candice, you’re still watching where you’re supposed to?” she asked as she saw one corpse take a series of shots that shredded its back enough to reveal a lot of its previously internal organs.

“Yes.  Mr. Morris is out of his car, but he’s just standing next to it with a gun in his hands.” Candice confirmed.  Jessica glanced over her shoulder quickly to see Tyler Morris visible on foot next to the BWM he and his family were riding in.  He had a pistol in his right hand, but he wasn’t firing.  Candice’s head was still making a steady circuit across the left and back windows, and she continued speaking without pausing or
turning.  “No zombies.”

“Good.” Jessica said, turning back and surveying the right side again before looking forward once more.  The shooting was tailing off, but she made herself check her area twice before pausing to try and figure out what was happening up front.  All the zombies were down now, though some were still moving.  Austin seemed to be urging everyone to back off and stop firing.  Slowly the Eagle people got the idea, and the shooting stopped, though no one lowered a weapon.

Austin eased forward after a few seconds, sliding through the firing line, and aimed carefully.  His weapon spat a single bullet, and a zombie stopped trying to get up and lay still.  The killing field in and in front of the cleared channel in the roadblock was covered in gore; mostly bodies and body parts.  There was blood, but not nearly enough it seemed to her.  For the amount of damage the twenty or so zombies had suffered, she would have expected the asphalt to be coated with a thick pool of blood, but what little she saw seemed almost gel like.

Her gorge twisted within her, and Jessica tore her gaze from the sickening scene, refocusing on the right side of the SUV.  Several more shots sounded as she scanned across the shoulder, each spaced well apart from the previous one, and she figured that was Austin finishing off any zombies who were still . . . alive . . . dangerous . . . whatever.  She didn’t have to try very hard to keep her gaze off the horror show out front as she watched the trees and listened to Austin cleaning up the last of the danger.

She heard voices, raised to shouts, but none sounded panicked. 
“Everything’s fine.”
she told herself as she kept studying the roadside. 
“There would be a lot more shooting if it wasn’t, or Austin would get everyone back in the ca—”
  Jessica jumped in her seat as the driver’s door opened abruptly.  She banged her bandaged knee into the bottom of the dashboard as she flinched violently, her head snapping around to the left even as her right hand grabbed for the pistol holstered on her belt.

“Easy, easy.” Austin said, holding his hand up to her.  “Just me.”

“Jesus.” Jessica breathed.  “You . . . damnit!”

“Sorry.” he said, sliding in behind the wheel and pulling his door closed.  A heavy smell of gunpowder came in with him, cloying and acrid.  He thumbed the locks, then bent to pull a black metal case from beneath his seat.  “How we doing ladies?” he asked as he propped the case up on the center console.

“That was a lot of shooting.” Candice remarked.

“Yeah, but we’re good.  Problem solved.” Austin answered as he opened the case to reveal cardboard boxes of bullets.  “No one’s hurt, and we’ll get moving in a moment.”

Jessica shifted as she avoided looking forward.  Her knee was throbbing somewhat, but the thick bandage had taken the worst of the bump.  The painkillers she’d been given were wearing off, and the joint was hurting again.  She had more pills, but she had decided she wanted to hold off taking any more if at all possible.  They made her head fuzzy, and the pain was easier to deal with than the fear that she might not have her full attention available in case something happened.

Jessica
got her heel settled back into place on the towels, then held her hand out to Austin.  “I can do that.”

He looked at her for a moment, then smiled and put the magazines he’d pulled from his equipment harness into her hand.  “No hurry.”

“Not on this, no.” she replied.  “But get us out of here as soon as everyone’s ready.”  She didn’t want to linger in the area.  The gore was a minor concern, but the chance the shooting could attract more zombies was a big one.  Get while the getting’s good, as Brett had used to say.

“No argument.”

Jessica pulled a box of nine millimeter bullets from the metal case as Austin looked over his shoulder toward the back of the convoy.  Jessica glanced too, and saw Candice was still kneeling on the seat.  “Candice, sit down.  Seatbelt.” she told her daughter

“Okay.”

“Scott, let me know when everyone’s back in their vehicle.” Austin said into his radio.

“Almost ready.” a man’s voice said from the speaker as Candice’s seatbelt clicked from the backseat.  Jessica opened the box and started fitting fresh bullets into the first empty magazine.  It was slightly warm, and it and the bullets had a
faintly greasy feel, but she took her time as she loaded the magazine methodically.  The MP5 magazine was longer than the one for the .45 pistol at her side – which she’d read the manual for – but she quickly found the same procedure described for the pistol worked to refill the 9mm magazine.

“Okay, starting the go signals.” the same voice said from Austin’s radio.  Jessica’s eye was drawn to flashes in the side mirror, and she saw headlights coming on and blipping their high beams briefly one after the other as the convoy drivers confirmed they were ready go to.  The BMW directly behind them flashed its lights, and Austin got the SUV rolling.

“This is going to be bumpy.” he remarked.

Jessica nodded without looking up.  She’d already seen more than she cared to of the carnage left after the zombies had been dealt with.  “Are we going to get stuck?”

“I’m a touch worried about the BMW.” Austin admitted.  “But we’ve got ropes.  If they get bogged down and can’t work free, I can pull them out.  This has got enough ground clearance that I’m positive we’ll be fine.”

Jessica nodded again, concentrating on the magazine and bullets.  As she continued stuffing them in it was getting harder, which she remembered the manual had mentioned.  Something about the spring that fed them up during firing compressing as it was pushed down.  The SUV rocked as its own shocks compressed when the tires hit the first bodies.  Jessica stopped her work with the bullets, but kept her eyes on her hands as the vehicle drove through the gap in the vehicle wreckage.  She had to force herself to think about the bullets and the magazine to keep her mind off what was probably happening beneath the heavy SUV’s wheels.

“And we’re through.” Austin remarked.  Jessica risked a glance up and saw open road ahead of them, two lanes of clear asphalt bordered by shoulders with scrub grass and weeds clinging to red clay soil before the ubiquitous pine trees took over.

“Yay.” Candice chirruped from the back seat.

“Yay is right.” Austin smiled briefly, his eyes on the rearview mirror as he let the SUV creep forward with his foot off the accelerator.  Jessica wanted to look herself to see how the BMW was doing, but that would mean . . . no.  She went back to stuffing bullets into the magazine.  The last two took considerable effort to get in, but she managed while Austin watched what was going on behind them.  The other magazine still had bullets in it, but when she tried to load a fresh one there was room, so she started on it as well.