Apocalypse Atlanta (Book 4): Apocalypse Asylum (22 page)

“Gunny.  Gunny!”

Peter started awake and grabbed for the M45 holstered at his side.  With his hand on the grip, he blinked several times and managed to focus on Crawford, who was behind the wheel once more.  “What is it?” he rasped before coughing to clear his throat.

“Problem.” she said, taking her hand off his shoulder and pointing through the windshield.

Still blinking sleep from his eyes, Peter peered forward.  “What time is it?” he asked as he tried to decipher what he was looking at.

“I don’t know, like three or something.  The time change has me screwed up.”

Peter shook his head tiredly, pointedly ignoring whether or not things like time zones were even in effect.   His eyes were picking details out of the moonlit darkness ahead of the car.  It was an intersection, a T junction where this road ended against another going perpendicularly.  Beyond the crossroad’s pavement, on the other side, was a collection of buildings — row houses or apartments he couldn’t tell which — that had clearly suffered from fire at some point.  There were holes in the roofs, and some of the walls were collapsed as well.  That wasn’t particularly notable, not these days; but the intersection itself was . . . a good bit more interesting.

It was a jammed tangle of abandoned and wrecked vehicles.  The motionless mass of metal completely blocked the roadway, the shoulders, and even a lot of the overgrown grass on all sides.  It stretched for at least dozens of yards in either direction along the intersecting street, and comprised . . . he wasn’t even sure.  Hundreds of vehicles, at least.

Even that wasn’t all that strange, again, not these days.  But first of all, a good portion of the vehicles were military or medical.  Over two-thirds that weren’t civilian were Humvees or marked ambulances, with the rest mixed between fire trucks, military five-ton trucks, and even an armored Bradley on the far side of the intersection, near the buildings.  And second, there were a
lot
of zombies milling about the scene.

Peter gaped at the collection of wrecks and monsters for several seconds, making sure he’d fully registered what he was looking at, then cleared his throat again.  “Okay, so what’s the problem?” he asked, keeping his annoyance at having been woken up for something this routine from his voice only with the long practice of a career senior NCO.  “Just detour; turn us around.”

“This is my third reroute.” Crawford said in a voice that was clearly forced into semi-respectful patience.  “And did you notice the activity beyond the road?”

“Zombies?”

“No, people.” she corrected, pointing again; this time leaning over like she was trying to indicate a certain star in the sky for him.  He looked along her arm and extended finger, and felt his gaze inevitably narrow some.  It was dark, hours before dawn still.  The car’s headlights were the main source of illumination, that and the moon above; but the area was mostly layered shadows and pools of inky blackness only vaguely threatened by light.

Nearer the buildings though, near the distinctive shape of the APV, he saw what could only be the bobbing motion of handheld flashlights.  Nothing but people carrying a light source produced that distinctive movement and jitter of the beams as they walked about and directed the lights around themselves.  Some figures were illuminated, fleeting shadows as the beams swung about and the backscatter off buildings caught them sometimes; definitely humanoid in size and shape.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Crawford said dryly.

Peter fumbled for the binoculars, removing the lens caps.  “Anything sneaking up on us?”

“Not so far.” she said.

“Well, back us up, slow, and keep an eye out.  Let’s not have something jump out of the night at us.”

“We’re good.”

“Just do it.” Peter ordered as he lifted the binoculars.  “My rule about what I’ll do if you or anyone else driving gets us eaten by a zombie still stands.”

“Whatever.” she shrugged, putting the Neon’s transmission in reverse.  As she started the little sedan slowly backing up, Peter focused the binoculars and found the area near the buildings.

Even with the magnification, there wasn’t much he could make out.  His binoculars weren’t a light gathering or night vision model, so all he got was a closer view of what was still shadow shrouded darkness.  But whoever it was, they were definitely carrying flashlights and moving around the rubbled buildings.  It looked like they might be going in and out of the buildings, and he saw others standing on the Bradley shining their flashlights around in security sweeps to make sure nothing hungry was sneaking up on
them
.

“Well?” Crawford asked.

“It’s either people, or a whole bunch of zombies who have flashlights taped to their hands or something.” Peter said slowly.

“What people would be running around in the middle of the night, that close to a zombie horde, in armored vehicles?”

“Are they using the APV?” Peter asked absently.

“Well, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know.  It looks like it’s just parked.” he said, studying the Bradley.

“Well, even if they
did
drive the Bradley out here, how is it they’re still that close and not having problems with the horde?”

“That’s a good question.”
he thought in surprise.  Looking through the binoculars again, he studied the wrecks and intersection more carefully.  Now that he was properly paying attention, he saw the zombies amid the abandoned and smashed vehicles seemed to be trying to press inward against the accident sites.  “The zombies are all interested in the intersection.” he said slowly.

“How did they manage that?”

“Something’s drawing their attention.”

“No, Gunny; the flashlight brigade.” Crawford said in an annoyed tone.  “How’d they distract the zombies?”

Peter swept the scene again.  “I can’t tell what the zombies are going for, but they want to get into the middle of the intersection.”

“Are there people trapped in one of the cars?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s fucking dark.” he said, annoyance leaking into his own voice to match hers.

“Okay, okay, my bad.” she said after a moment.  “So, we’ve got scavengers who aren’t afraid of the dark, and a zombie horde who isn’t trying to eat them.”

“Yeah, we should check it out.”

“How?”

Peter frowned.  The Dodge was definitely not an off-road vehicle; he wouldn’t even really want to trust it very far on gravel, much less full on grass and dirt.  And the pavement ahead was well and truly blocked off; there might have been a partial path through on the right, but it would involve negotiating part of the curb
and
dealing with a couple dozen zombies who were directly along that path.  And he knew that whatever was distracting the zombies, it was far too much to ask that they’d ignore a car full of four juicy humans motoring unevenly along that close.

“What’s wrong?” Smith asked abruptly.

“We’re trying to figure that out.” Peter said.

“Yeah, go back to sleep.” Crawford added.  “Unless you want to get started on your ass kicking.”

“Are we there yet?” Smith replied.

“Pretty sure.”

“Yeah right.”

“You’ll be sure too after I thump you upside the head a few times.”

“Concussions are off the table.” Peter said warningly.  “I told you, bruises are fun and games but real damage will piss me off.”

“Would I do that?”

“Yes.” Peter said.

“Try it.” Smith said at the same time.

“Fun it is.” Crawford chuckled.

“What the hell is that?” Smith said, leaning forward between the front seats, pointing through the windshield.

“We call those zombies, short for flesh eating undead monster.” Crawford said, swatting at him.

Smith’s left hand smacked outward in her direction, blocking her swipe at him.  “No fucktard,
that
.”  He pointed with his right.

Peter returned his attention fully forward, and saw a set of lights moving in midair.  Red and green, two of each arranged in a four point pattern; plus a fifth one that blinked steady yellow and white between and below the other four.  They were moving straight for the Dodge, at least twenty or thirty feet up in the air.

“Uh . . .” Crawford said.

“Is that a missile or something?” Smith asked.

“Whitley, wake up.” Peter said loudly, resisting the urge to draw his pistol.  “It’s not a missile.”

“It’s coming right for us.” Crawford said.

“Too slow.  Stop the car.”

“Huh?” Whitley said in a sleep-thick voice.  “Whazzit?”

“Incoming UFO.” Crawford laughed as she braked.  “Perfect.”

“What?”

“It’s not a UFO either.” Peter said, glancing around his side of the car as he started rolling down his window.

“There’s only so many things it can be.” Smith said, clicking the safety off his shotgun.

“Wait, what’s that sound?” Whitley demanded.

“What sound?” Crawford asked.

“Shut the fuck up and listen.” Peter said, straining his ears.  His hearing had taken a beating over the years, from engines and loud music and gunfire and combat, and the Neon’s own engine noise wasn’t helping at all either, but he thought he could make out a sort of humming sound.

“Is that a drone?” Whitley said, cranking the handle to lower her own window.

“A drone?” Smith demanded.  “How could it be a drone?”

“Oh sure, like
that’s
going to be the strangest fucking thing we’ve run into since zombies showed up.”

Peter looked around the car again, then opened his door and got out.  Now he did draw his pistol, and his flashlight as well.  Crossing his wrists to align light with weapon, he panned around quickly to sweep the area immediately to the right of the vehicle to make sure he wasn’t missing something hungry lurking nearby.  Nothing was nearby, but he made himself take a second pass with the light along ground level to check for crawlers.

Reasonably reassured he had a bit of breathing room, he swiveled forward and pointed his light at the approaching noise.  The little tactical light wasn’t all that great for anything at a distance, but the flying object was getting closer and dropping both speed and altitude.  It was catching and reflecting a good amount of what light the flashlight was putting on it, courtesy of the thing’s white color.

“It’s a drone.” Smith said from inside the car.”

Peter had never really been into things that flew, big or small.  Nor had he ever had much of any interest in radio beyond walkie talkies and standard Corps communications equipment.  But he’d heard about the building fad of civilian flying toys, and this seemed to fit that bill.

It was four big circles, arranged in a two by two pattern horizontal with the ground.  Red lights shone on the left side, green on the right; and the blinking center light was on the bottom of a rectangular fuselage suspended between and beneath the four circles.  Spinning blades buzzed within each of the circles, which Peter supposed were probably safety housings for the whirring propellers.

The whole thing was maybe three or four feet wide.  And it was clearly under control, he saw as it stopped perhaps ten feet away, well up out of reach even if someone got on the Dodge’s roof and jumped for it.  And, it had a camera mount, he realized, as he saw what could only be a camera dome of clear plastic on the front of the little fuselage.  A little red light, barely visible, was moving around inside the dome.

“Do we have a problem?” Crawford asked loudly.

“It’s not doing anything.” Whitley pointed out.

“It’s looking at us.” Peter said, reminding himself to check his perimeter again.  “Smith, keep an eye out so nothing else sneaks up on us.” he ordered as he swung around to look beside and behind himself.

“Got it.”

“It’s coming closer.” Crawford said.

Peter looked forward again and saw the drone was indeed sliding toward the car, and dropping in altitude.  He kept his light on it, wary despite the lack of anything he registered as a true threat.  The fuselage could possibly contain a bomb or something, but he was betting it was probably packed full of batteries and electronics.  There were some folding struts of some kind along the bottom in various places, but they looked like retractable landing legs to him.

He realized he might be wrong when the drone got to head height a few feet in front of the Dodge.  The car’s headlights were now illuminating it clearly, revealing it fully for inspection.  The dome inside had an electronics module with a lens on it that he knew could only be a camera of some sort; and it was mounted on a two direction swivel that permitted it to orient itself along any angle that wasn’t blocked by the drone itself.

And while some of the struts were definitely long enough, and arranged correctly to be landing gear; some others along the bottom of the fuselage were in fact little grabbing arms.  As he watched, he saw two of them unfold away from the drone body and point straight down.  They had something fluttering from the mechanical fingers at their ends, something white that fell to the ground when the fingers opened.