Apocalypse Aftermath (65 page)

Four times,
he hopped down from the walkway and did a circuit around the inside of the makeshift barricade of cars.  When he came to each Dog, he’d clap them on the shoulder to get their attention, checking to see that they were still alert and in the fight.  A few looked annoyed at his interruption, but most gave him fierce grins or shaky thumbs-ups.  Darryl didn’t fault any of them for fronting their bravery; he was scared nearly shitless himself.

Everything about this was beyond unreal.  Last week they’d been bikers
who cruised around and partied; and now they were shooting it out with hundreds of zombies in Athens.  But none of the Dogz were giving up the fight.  Each one kept the rifle in their hands up and firing, combining their bullets with those of their brothers, working to hold the nightmare back as the townies continued to fill the semi-trailers with the store’s contents.

Some of the
Dogz were less measured with their firing than the rest.  These were starting to have serious problems with their weapons overheating.  Darryl had heard a few stories of such things happening, but this was the first time he’d ever seen it.  The affected M-16s had barrels that were smoking quite heavily, and radiated heat that could be felt without even touching them.  That could be felt even when just holding the weapon by the grip.

He never would have guessed metal, weapons grade metal, could be pushed so far just by firing bullets; but it was happening.  And, based on the same gun-store rumors and ‘no-shit stories’ he’d heard about; he knew if
it went on too much the guns could actually catch fire.  That the metal could begin to burn, not just smoke and heat up.  Darryl came down off the walkway to warn the Dogz about the problem.

A few of the brothers realized something was wrong; others had to be told when Darryl
alerted them.  In all cases, he instructed them to switch over to their pistols, and to slow down their firing.  A couple had to have it explained to them very specifically – in shouted words over the mass of gunfire – what would happen if they didn’t lay off the M-16s so they could cool some.

The piles of bodies on either side of the semis grew deeper, which slowed but didn’t stop the zombies.  The machine guns lashed out
twice more, adding to the height of the line the gunners had apparently decided was their sweet spot.  There was hardly any blood, but there was plenty of gore.  The zombies didn’t bleed much, mostly not at all; but they had all the bits and pieces inside them humans did.  Organs spilled out and mixed with the broken corpses. Body pieces were everywhere like a macabre jigsaw puzzle had been upended.

Darryl was inured to it without even trying.  It should have been utterly disgusting, but he took a perverse sense of relief at the sickening array of carnage.  Every little piece of the horror show was one less thing trying to eat them.  One less zombie that would have a chance to add to the forces of the cannibalistic hungry.
  Only a head shot stopped a zombie for good; but dismantling it into its component pieces was almost as good.  Dead or alive, it couldn’t walk or crawl if the limbs were removed.

Just as he was about to drop down for another check of his positions, he was interrupted. 
The tap on his shoulder he didn’t even feel, until the tap turned into a hand that grabbed.  He barely stopped himself from lashing out with a reverse elbow as he turned.  It couldn’t be a zombie, but he was keyed up and way beyond being on edge.  When he looked, one of the townies was standing there holding a walkie-talkie.  He leaned in close to Darryl, putting his head next to the biker’s as he shouted.

“We’re almost ready to leave.  Sixty seconds.”

Darryl didn’t bother to lift his own radio.  He grabbed the townie and twisted the man’s head to the side.  “What about the plows?” he yelled.

The man shifted so he could yell into Darryl’s ear again.  “
One is circling around now.  When we’re all in the cars, he’ll blast through here and lead us out.”

There were supposed to be two plow trucks, there
had
been two plow trucks, but Darryl didn’t bother to ask why only one was coming back.  He knew whatever the reason, the townies had probably already had that question and answer session over the radios.  One would have to do.

“Okay.”  Darryl pointed at Tank.  “Tell him when you all out of the store and loaded in your cars.”

“Got it.”

Darryl dropped off the walkway between the semis and went to the cars blocking the cabs near the trees.

“We about to roll out.” he yelled to 180, though he had to grab for and tip up the biker’s M-16 when the man startled and jerked around with it.  The barrel was hot enough to hurt even through the palm of the fingerless leather riding gloves Darryl wore.

“What?”
180 demanded aggressively.

“We gonna roll out.  They almost done.”  Darryl repeated, leaning in close with his head next to 180’s. 
The biker nodded, and Darryl leaned in closer, raising his voice further.  This next part was important.  “Us Dogz all gonna pile up in these cars.  Tell your guys.” he said, indicating the ones at the front.  “We gonna leave the rest.”

“Alright.” 180 shouted.

Everyone seemed deaf.  Darryl wasn’t surprised, it was loud work trying to avoid being a zombie snack.  He repeated the same message to the other drivers and had to keep himself or someone else from getting shot when Dogz startled at his touch twice more.  Then he almost over reacted himself, again, when a hand fell on his shoulder from behind again.

The same townie was there.  “Ready.” the man shouted.

Darryl nodded and started moving and yelling.  The Dogz at the front slid into the cars and kept shooting from the drivers’ seats.  Darryl pulled the south side shooters first, then the north ones.  They piled into the cars, climbing over them to get to the outside vehicles as the close ones filled.  Most switched to pistols and kept shooting at zombies in the trees.  Some ditched their rifles entirely, unable to find a way to put them in the cars without the heated metal causing problems.

Darryl looked down each side of the semis, then at the walkway, but he was the last man still on his feet.
  He stepped across the hood of a sedan and dropped down into the back seat of another one through the open rear window.  The interior of the car was hot as hell, and he had to lean his rifle against the window frame to keep from burning himself on the barrel.  The gun was smoking from all the rounds he’d put through it.

Grabbing the radio off the
now much lighter duffel bag’s strap, he clicked the button.  “Dogz ready.” he shouted over the continuing sound of gunfire before jamming the speaker up against his ear.  The machine guns were firing again in both directions, replacing the loss of the Dogz rifles with long bursts that ripped through the zombies.  The heavy weapons were impressive, but they didn’t put out enough fire pressure to hold the horde back.  Especially when the ammunition feeding them finally ran out and the guns fell silent.  Now it was just down to bad footing and time, and there wasn’t enough of either left.

The zombies would be on them all in seconds
.

“Coming around.” he heard a man say.
  A moment later he realized it was coming from the radio.

Darryl saw zombies were getting a little close on the tree side, but it was okay for the moment.
  Dogz were shooting at them from inside the cars, buying some more time.  It was okay until the zombies from the alley joined in; then everyone was going to be swarmed.  Weasel twisted around in the driver’s seat and gave him a wide eyed look.  “What the fuck we waiting for?”

“The damn plow truck.” Darryl said loudly, pointing through the windshield, past the cars in front at the pile of bodies.
  It was an impressive, and formidable, obstacle.  He wasn’t sure if even the semis could push through it.  Maybe some of the cars could if they got in a line and pushed together in a big daisy chain.  There was an even bigger pile in the other direction, behind where the cars were pointing.  “We can’t push through that.”

“The fuck we can’t.”

“Just chill.”

“Damnit!” Weasel swore, then his eyes widened further still.  “
Oh fuck.”

Darryl turned
.  He saw bodies and parts of bodies arcing up behind the north side pile, but the truck wasn’t through.  The mass of corpses was too thick, piled up too deeply.

“Oh fuck bro, what we gonna do?” Weasel was rocking back and forth with his hands on the wheel.

“Dogz, hold tight.” Darryl shouted into the radio.  “This DJ.  Hold tight!  Stay cool and hold.” he said, trying to ignore Weasel.  They had to act together.  Everything they’d accomplished so far would fall apart and get a lot of people killed if everyone started splintering off on their own.

“Zombies starting to get close.” one of the
Dogz said on the circuit.

“Hold.  Cover the cars and hold tight for the plow.” Darryl repeated.  He could see the truck backing up.  The driver was going to take another crack at punching through.
  There were zombies pounding on the side of the truck, but the driver was weaving a little as he got going backwards.  It seemed to be working; none of the zombies managed to reach inside and grab him.

Zombies
were
getting really close to the waiting cars.  Gunfire was lancing out as bikers within fired to hold them back.  Most of the bullets were going toward the tree line, because that was where the car windows were facing.  Very little was going north or south, and those zombies who had made it over or through the body bulwarks were starting to get uncomfortably close.

Darryl heaved himself up out of the
car and turned, sitting on the edge of the window, with his Glock in hand.  He fired off the little flush magazine into the encroaching zombies, taking out three and dropping another two temporarily.  Switching the empty for one of the big extended magazines, he inhaled, blew the breath out, and started firing as rapidly as he could shift his aim.

“Don’t think, just shoot.  Don’t think, just shoot.”
he told himself distantly.  Decaying and frayed faces kept appearing in line with the sight dots, and he kept squeezing the trigger back.  He was so adrenalized the recoil was all but unnoticed.  The trigger would come back, the gun would kick a round down range, a zombie would stagger or go down, and then a new face showed up behind his sights.  Squeeze, fire, hit.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

An almost explosion of bodies
startled him out of his fugue state.  The plow truck was through the north side pile, with bodies, pieces of bodies, and things that weren’t even recognizable as having once been either human or zombie flying away from the gore stained blade.  The truck’s windshield was cracked in three places and blood and bits were stuck to the plow, the hood, the radiator grille, the body; but it was still going.  An arc of zombies tumbled off in a bow wave forward as it shoved through the horde.

Darryl dropped back into the seat as the truck
barreled past on the right side.  Cars started peeling away from the barricade to follow it.  He grabbed for his radio.  “Line up on his ass Dogz.  Help push through.  Bumper to bumper, go go go!”

The truck slammed into the
mass of zombie bodies to the south, and it was seriously impressive.  Zombies, pieces of zombies, unidentifiable things; they all splattered up and out as the plow blade carved a path through heedless of the gore.  Some of the cars were fishtailing as the drivers redlined their engines and spun their tires to catch up with the plow.  There were multiple cracks and crumps of metal as cars rammed into each other, and the lead car rammed into the truck.  Engine noise replaced gunfire as drivers pushed the vehicles and each other.

Weasel
was facing forward, rocking anxiously in his seat, until the car ahead of him finally pulled out and he could go.  Darryl caught the M-16 as it tried to fall back against him.  There was a melted spot on the plastic on the inside of the door, with sticky overheated strings of gooey material clinging to the rifle’s barrel.  Darryl didn’t care about that, he was just trying to avoid getting burned by the gun.

He braced his legs and dropped the radio as he propped his right hand against the seat next to him in preparation
for the rough ride.  The M-16 he jammed against the driver’s seatback with his knee on the receiver, holding it in place.  The truck was only part way through the killing line of bodies, but this time it had the line of Dogz driven cars helping it to push through.  Less impressively, but steadily, the truck and the line of bumper-to-bumper vehicles forced their way through.

The ride was rough as the cars rolled over the carnage
all over the alley behind the store.  Everyone was flung back and forth.  As the bodies gave way under the combined weight and power of the vehicles, abruptly there was vaguely ‘clear’ space ahead.  The plow truck accelerated for the end of the alley, gaps opening between the convoy vehicles as they stopped pushing on each other and gave way in preparation for the turn.

Weasel took
it fast, the tires squealing, and almost lost control when he hit a zombie that was already down on the ground.  The car lurched and slid alarmingly to the side, then the tires came off the body and back to the pavement.  With a lurch, the car swayed and rocked heavily back and forth as the tired gripped and pulled it through to complete the turn.