Apocalypse Atlanta (38 page)

“No fool, medicine.” Darryl said, scowling.  “Like from the pharmacy.”  He watched as EZ led the way in, Vivian close on his heels, then looked back to Evil.  “They bring any weed?”

“Shit yeah man.” Evil laughed.  “I thought you knew.”

“Naw, I was busy guarding for Bobo.” Darryl shrugged.  He stepped back into the store behind Smoke, who was following Vivian.  Darryl covered the right side, glancing frequently behind himself, as Evil covered left.

The pharmacy was clearly visible from the doors, off to the left a little with a sign that loomed above the store’s shelving.  It looked unmolested, though some of the over-the-counter items in the shelves surrounding it looked as disordered and picked over as a lot of the rest of the store did.  The frosted glass windows on the pharmacy counter were closed, and when Vivian tried the door over to the side it rattled without opening.

“Locked.” Vivian announced.

Darryl scowled again, giving the door a quick look.  It was wood, or at least he was pretty sure it was wood.  He hefted the shotgun, trying to decide if it would be better to try and shoot out the lock or hinges, or just kick it in.  EZ spoke before he could make a decision.  “Naw bro, like this.”

The biker reversed his shotgun and hammered the stock sharply against the closed customer window.  It fractured with a fairly loud tinkle of breaking glass, but less loud than a gunshot.  EZ gave Smoke a look.  “Need a hand getting up and over the counter?”

Smoke shook his head, but he did move down to get away from the pile of broken glass before heaving himself up and walking, bent at the waist, over to the broken window.  He eased through, dropped down, and tried the door from the inside.  It swung open with a click.

“Presto.” EZ said smugly, moving past the open door and taking a watchful stance.

Vivian shoved her cart at Smoke, and pushed his in next when he grabbed hers and pulled it through.  Darryl turned his back on them, listening as he kept a look out.

“What we want?” Smoke asked.

“Anything with codine, codone, or ‘cet on the label.  Like Percocet.” Vivian answered, sounding distracted.  “Or if it say it for pain.  And anything that say it an antibiotic or for infection, or if it have ‘cillian on the label, like penicillin.”

“Fuck.” Smoke said.  “How I gonna know all that?”

“Damn–look.” Vivian said.  “Here . . . everything on this shelf.  And . . . that one too.  Grab all that while I look for more.”

Darryl heard pill bottles began rattling into carts as Smoke obeyed.  It seemed to take forever, but he knew it had to be only a minute or two, before he heard Smoke speak again.  “Okay, they empty.”

“This one, this one, and this one too.” Vivian said.

More bottle rattled and thumped into the carts.  Darryl saw a few people looking at the trio of Dogz standing guard on the pharmacy, but none of them made any move to step closer.  They just kept looping around the aisles with their own carts, grabbing whatever it was they thought they needed.

Darryl wondered how successful the other looters were going to find their trip, now that the Dogz had showed up and cleaned out what Jody said were the best things to take.  The store wasn’t empty by any means; there was still meat and lots of fresh produce, for example.  And cereal, he remembered, and the potato chip section hadn’t been completely gutted when the Dogz had went by it.  He supposed you could live a while on cereal and beef, if you had too.  Until the beef went bad, then it would just be dry cereal.

He shook the thoughts off as he saw the same trio of men from earlier, the ones with the expensive pistols, appear near the front of the store.  All of them were pushing their carts, now packed full of various things.  The first two were watching forward, but the third, the one who’d confronted Darryl, was looking in his direction.  His eyes made contact with Darryl’s, and the biker was sure he saw the man smile at him.  It wasn’t the kind of smile that was a nice one.

Behind him came a rather large sound, like an entire shelf had just been cleaved off into one of the carts.  Pills shook like seeds in gourds as they bounced and pinged around inside their bottles, tumbling into the cart.  Darryl blinked and involuntarily started to turn, then caught himself and stayed on watch.  He saw the three men from earlier head through the doors at the front of the store.

“Good.” he grunted softly.

“What?” Evil asked.

“Nothing.” Darryl shook his head.  “How it going in there?” he asked, raising his voice some.

“Almost done.” Vivian called back.  “Okay, there room, so take all this too.”

“Hey, where you going?” Smoke protested.

“Taking this half cart out front and look for first aid stuff.”

“Fuck.”

“You fine.” Vivian said.  “Everything from here to here, in the cart, then come on out.”

Vivian came out of the pharmacy a moment later, dragging a cart half full of pill bottles with her.  They weren’t the little orange bottles the pharmacy normally gave you either; these were bigger, in different colors or shapes, holding what had to be at least a thousand pills per.  There was also a rather thick hard bound book with a title on the spine that included the words ‘drug’ and ‘handbook’.  It was in the cart where a kid would normally sit.

“Hey, don’t wander off.” Darryl said as she started past between him and EZ.

“I ain’t going but right here.” Vivian said, pointing at one of the little aisles right in front of the pharmacy, where all the over-the-counter stuff was kept.  Darryl frowned, but stayed in position as he watched her push the cart in between the short shelves, stop, and lean down out of view.  Behind him came more loud sounds of shelves being rapidly cleared.

Darryl started having to ward off the urge to fidget.  The clock in his head seemed to be running long.  He looked toward the front of the store, half expecting to see one of the Dogz standing there making ‘hurry up’ gestures, but no, none of his brothers or anyone else who’d come along on the looting run were visible there.  Vivian was tossing brown bottles that seemed to be heavy into her cart, moving quickly.

He was about to say something when he heard Smoke’s cart moving.  Turing his head, he saw the biker pushing it out of the pharmacy, full nearly to the top with bottles.  Darryl opened his mouth, but before he could say anything he heard gunshots from outside.  At first it only sounded like one or maybe two guns going off fairly quickly.  But in moments he heard more than that.  A lot more than that.  There was a lot of shooting happening.

“Shit, that’s it, we rolling.” Darryl said, flexing his fingers on the shotgun and starting forward.

“I–okay.” Vivian said, throwing a last pair of things in her cart and moving around to its handles.  Leading the way, Darryl walked quickly past the silent and dark registers, peering anxiously out through the windows along the store’s front wall.  There was still shooting, though not as much now.  It sounded like it was back down to one or two guns firing.  Tank was covering the doors, but he was the only one.

Suddenly angry, Darryl went through the ‘airlock’.  There should be at least one other Dog watching the doors with Tank, but the big biker was alone in observing Darryl’s little group emerge from the store.  The other Dogz Darryl could see were looking forward, in the direction the convoy vehicles were facing.  Some Dogz were already in the vehicles, though he saw guns in a lot of hands as they peered at the disturbance.

“What’s wrong?” Darryl asked loudly between another pair of shots.  They were pistols, he was sure now.  He couldn’t see who was doing the shooting, but it was coming from the front of the convoy, on the other side of the lead Home Depot truck.

“Sick people.” Tank said shortly.

“You mean zombies?” EZ asked.

Tank shrugged.  “Whatever.  Heard Bobo telling someone to get away, then he told them to stop.  Guess they didn’t.”

Darryl scowled and opened his mouth as he turned his head toward one of the Escorts in view who was staring forward instead of where he was supposed to be looking.  Before Darryl could say anything a man yelled in pain up near the front.  Darryl frowned, then grabbed EZ by the upper arm and leaned in close to make sure the other man heard him.

“Cover the fucking doors with Tank.”

“It’s cool.” EZ nodded, turning.

Darryl jogged forward.  “Guard where you’re supposed to be guarding.” he yelled.  “Stop all looking in the same fucking direction.”  He had to grab a few more of the Escorts and Guards to get them to listen, but by the time he’d made it up to the front he was a little happier.  Still pissed, but less than he’d been seconds earlier.  There was a reason people were supposed to be watching in different directions.

When he got to the lead truck he saw Little Chief slumped against the steering wheel.  There was blood on his shoulder and neck.  Mad had the door open and his t-shirt off, having wadded it up into a makeshift bandage he was pressing against Chief’s arm.  Darryl spared that a single glance, wondering how in the hell Chief had managed to get hurt while sitting behind the wheel, then checked forward.

Five bodies were sprawled out on the pavement.  Oddly, even though they appeared to have been shot a bunch of times, there was almost no blood.  Not on their wounds, nor on the ground around or beneath them.  He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.  It was less gory, but it seemed . . . wrong.  Wasn’t killing supposed to be messy, like that was part of the price you had to pay when you did it?

“Bobo.” Darryl heard himself ask.  The older biker was standing next to the Home Depot truck’s front wheel, his battered Beretta in his hands.

“How’s Little Chief?”

Darryl glanced inside the truck.  Chief was sweating as he climbed out of the driver’s seat, trying to fend off Mad’s attempts to keep the makeshift bandage in place.  But he looked up at the mention of his name.  “Hurts like a mother fucker.”

“Get everyone mounted up.” Bobo said.  He turned to the left and gazed across the parking lot.  Darryl glanced in that direction almost automatically.  He saw some cars, driven in by other looters he assumed, and a couple of people who seemed to be hiding behind their vehicles as they peered this way.  But nothing that looked like a zombie or a problem.

“DJ.” Bobo said, and Darryl started.  He couldn’t figure out why he was so tired.  Normally he didn’t even go to bed until about five in the morning.  But whatever the reason, his focus was drifting and it was a problem.

“Yeah, right.  Sorry.” Darryl said, then turned and raised his voice into a loud shout.  “We rolling!  Hop on your rides!”

He went down the line of vehicles quickly.  Doors were opening and closing as Dogz slid into seats.  Motorcycles roared as their engines came to life.  He looped around the back of the convoy and went up the other side.  When he reached the Silverado he opened the door and stepped up on the floorboard so he could see over the vehicles.  “We ready.” he called forward.

Bobo was still studying the parking lot, but he turned and gave Darryl a quick glance before nodding.  Still with his Beretta in his hand, Bobo slid in behind the wheel of the Home Depot truck.  Little Chief was in the passenger seat now, with Mad crouched in the space behind the seats fussing with the bloody shirt.

Dropping into his own seat, Darryl pulled the door closed.  Making sure his shotgun was on safe, he wedged it in between his knees so it wouldn’t flop around inside the truck and dug in his pocket for his cigarettes.

“What the fuck happened to Chief?” Low asked.

“Dunno.” Darryl shrugged, sticking a smoke in his mouth.  He flicked flame to life on his Zippo, then dragged deeply.  “Worry about it when we get back.”

“He gonna make it back?” Low asked as the truck ahead of him released its brakes and started forward.

“Dunno.” Darryl said again.

* * * * *

“Christ Almighty, there some place they ain’t?” someone behind him muttered.  Peter didn’t bother to turn, nor did he say anything.  The last several hours had been hard on everyone, and the weekend warriors he was stuck with were barely holding it together.  A few, technically, weren’t.  He knew there was only so much gung-ho by-the-book bullshit they could tolerate before they started snapping.

Instead he nudged the point once, and made a hold here signal.  Johns nodded once and sank to one knee, peering around the corner silently.  Peter took another good long look at the street to the north, but the zombies there didn’t seem to have noticed them yet.  They would soon enough, especially if the unit tried to move in that direction.  In the mean time, he could leave the Guardsman covering point to do just that.

A couple of the zombies wore the tattered remains of costumes, something he was still shaking his head over.  There had been a convention of some sort happening this weekend, something that drew people into the city with the intention of wandering around dressed up colorfully.  Zombies were bad enough, and seeing children or the elderly staggering toward you with the same pale skin and hungry eyes of a ‘normal’ zombie was worse still.

But for some reason the prospect of having his throat chewed out by a zombie dressed as a comic book or movie character just really bugged Peter.  He would have preferred the zombies all be a little more generic.  Or, at the very least, maybe the apocalypse could have waited a week or two more before kicking off?

Shaking his head as a zombie wearing a ninja outfit tottered about amid the others blocking their path, Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out the smartphone he’d appropriated from one of the Guardsmen.  The cellular network was down, or at least it had been every time someone checked.  The phone wasn’t much use for anything Peter was used to using a phone for.  But phones apparently had turned into little handheld computers sometime when he wasn’t paying attention, and this one was one of those.

It had a mobile version of a street map program he was familiar with from home.  And this one worked offline, or perhaps it just kept the local area’s maps in its memory.  It didn’t matter how it was working, just that it gave a proper map view of the area.  Among the many things that would have been given to the Guardsmen as they deployed were this for a combat operation, and that they were lacking, were maps.

The phone’s screen lit, and once he’d swiped his thumb across the unlocking icon the map filled the screen.  Peter scrolled carefully, still unused to the touch screen gadget, and tracked along the last couple of twists and turns they’d made until he found their current position.

A quiet footstep caused him to glance up, and he nodded as Foreman joined him.  “Sir.” Peter greeted him in a low voice.  Whispers tended to carry further than just speaking quietly, so he didn’t whisper.  Foreman had a smartphone in his hand too, and Peter could tell almost immediately he was looking at the same map.  “Not sure what our best bet is right now.”

Foreman grimaced as he zoomed his map out and scanned around the area with his finger, dragging the map in a circle about their current location so he could check out the surroundings.  “I know what I’d do if someone would answer the Goddamned radio calls.” he muttered softly, too softly for anyone except Peter to hear.

Peter said nothing, merely scrolled his map while trying to provoke something that might qualify as ‘A Good Idea’.  So far, the best he or Foreman had been able to come up with was to keep moving, and when pressed, run.  It seemed like the zombies were everywhere.  No one had told Peter how the zombies were being created, but it was ultimately an academic question when there were so damned many of them.

For some reason, probably a bad one, the radio was going unanswered.  They had some communication trained soldiers with them, and the radios had been checked as best as was possible while moving nearly constantly.  The radios were fine, or seemed to be.  There just didn’t seem to be anyone monitoring the frequency.  Surely someone at Clay, at least, should be on communications watch; but theirs was not the only Guard unit deployed tonight.  There were a couple of likely answers to those questions, and none of them boded well.

About two hours ago Peter had decided, and very carefully kept to himself, that out of all the places to be stuck in during a zombie apocalypse, the middle of a big city was not a good one.  Especially one that was playing host to a number of different events at the same time, each one guaranteed to draw extra people in that would normally be elsewhere.  Labor Day was on Monday, and Atlanta had been gearing up for a very busy weekend.

In addition to the science fiction convention, apparently a big one that drew tens of thousands of participants, there had been two college football games scheduled.  The first would have been earlier tonight, and the second tomorrow; both in the Georgia Dome.  All four teams involved in the games were out of state schools, and each had brought thousands of fans along to root for them.

Then there was the three game series the Braves had been supposed to play as well, also having been scheduled to have started earlier tonight.  And rounding out the sports draws was a NASCAR race on Sunday.  To be fair, the race would be happening south of the city at the Speedway, but some of the fans had apparently taken hotel rooms within the city rather than closer to the track.

There were representatives of all of the above mentioned groups amid the zombies that were hounding and harrying the Guardsmen through the streets.  In addition to the not infrequent ‘comic book’ zombies, there were zombies wearing the colors and clothing of all four of the college football teams, more decked out in Braves hats and shirts, and others sporting attire emblazoned with the faces and names of various race car drivers.

Added together, they actually out numbered the ‘regular’ zombies.  Peter caught himself before he chuckled, mindful of the need for quiet.  Whatever a zombie wore, be it tights or sweatshirt or business suit or plain and simple blue jeans; they all wanted to eat you.  They were slow, but their numbers almost made up for that.  Well, and the fact that they seemed to be around every corner, on every street.  Hungry roadblocks.

As bad as all of that was – the lack of phones and communication, the concentration of workers and visitors in the area, and the press of buildings and concrete canyons that limited the ability to maneuver – the worst probably was the exact makeup of Atlanta itself.  The part of Downtown that actually met the stereotypical image of a downtown area, big buildings and such, wasn’t really all that big.  Pretty quickly the skyscrapers thinned out and were replaced with neighborhoods of houses.

The neighborhoods surrounded Downtown, any of them differing from a suburban development only in the size of the lots (invariably smaller) and the age of the houses (usually much older).  Rather than providing a buffer zone that perhaps could have broken up or maybe even ‘absorbed’ the crush of the zombies, they had instead fueled it.

Peter and Foreman had been trying, kept trying still, to break either north or east.  It had seemed logical; they were east of the Connector and on the northern side of downtown.  It was a laudable plan, one Peter couldn’t see anything wrong with.  They just weren’t able to execute it.  Instead they were being herded south and west, further into downtown.

Peter hadn’t seen any evidence of intelligence in the zombies yet.  It didn’t seem to matter much though; the reactionary instincts they were driven by was serving well enough.  See humans, pursue humans.  And, once those two steps were completed, eat humans.  He shuddered briefly.

Regardless of how the zombies were doing it, whether by design or accident, the result was the same.  The unit was being herded further and further into downtown.  At every hungry and eager roadblock they had to turn away from the chance to get out into the suburban areas that, presumably, would be less heavily infested.

They kept having to dodge deeper into the city, where Peter knew they’d run out of room to run.  Sooner or later.  And, unlike the map, Atlanta was a city of hills.  Maybe not like San Francisco was, but still bad.  There were few streets that were level.  Every stretch tilted at some angle.  You were constantly feeling the burn in your knees as you went down, or in your thighs as you went up.

It was killing them.  Well, not true.  The zombies were killing them.  The running was just wearing them out.

“Shit.” Foreman said.  He looked up to see Peter giving him a look that wasn’t quite a recrimination, but still with enough rebuke in it to be visible.  “Right, I know.” he muttered more quietly as he stepped closer and moved around to stand next to Peter.  Holding his phone up so they could both see the screen, Foreman pointed without touching the screen.

“Every time we try to go east of Piedmont we’re turned back.” he said softly, the frustration evident in his tone.  “Maybe if we can get further south, but there’s no way to know for sure.”

“Honestly sir, I’m not sure how much longer we can keep everyone on their feet.” Peter said very quietly.  “They’re just not used to this.”

“Hell, I’m not used to it.” Foreman agreed.  “And I’ll bet you aren’t anymore either.”

Peter frowned, though not without a trace of humor.  “Hoorah sir.  Whatever it takes.”

“Right.  That’s you and me, and maybe a handful of others.  What’re we going to do, leave everyone else to fend for themselves?”

“Maybe we can rest up somewhere?”

Foreman sighed.  “If I knew help was coming, no question.  But you’ve seen what we’re dealing with out here.”

“They haven’t caught us yet.” Peter pointed out.

“No, but they’re persistent.  I’m afraid if we hunker down we’ll be treed in and trapped.  What do we do then?”

Peter suppressed a sigh and looked at the map.  “Maybe we can split off a group of runners, try some misdirection to open a hole?”

Foreman shrugged.  “If they get cut off they’ll have even less chance than all of us would in the same situation.  Plus we probably won’t be able to cut them clear.”

Peter nodded unhappily.  The unit looked like it was in decent shape, everyone dressed in BDUs and carrying a rifle.  It was almost just costuming though.  Some of the soldiers were down to their last magazine.  If they shared out what was left Peter figured that might average it out to three magazines per soldier.  With zombies ignoring all wounds that weren’t kills to the head, the unit effectively had enough ammunition for one stand up fight against a pack.  A brief fight.

After that the rifles would be no better than clubs.  Peter didn’t like to think about what would happen then.  Still–

“Maybe we can find some improvised weapons, clubs, long ones.  Something like that?” Peter suggested.  “We could try to find a way east that doesn’t have an overwhelming number of zombies on it and beat our way through.”

“Contact rear.” a voice said loudly, not shouting, but sounding almost like one in the quiet.  The city, normally alive with the engines and tires of vehicles whipping through on the Connector, more rolling through the streets, was now eerily quiet.  The voice came from the back of the loose formation of Guardsmen, and heads turned.

While Foreman straightened and peered in that direction, Peter checked to make sure the soldiers who’d been assigned coverage duties didn’t get distracted from their areas.  A few twitched and flinched like their instinct was to look at the contact report, but none actually did.  Peter nodded approvingly with tired pride.  They were learning.

Switching his attention, he looked toward the back of the group.  Sure enough the pack they’d encountered one street and two corners back was now rounding on them again.  There was a little swearing, some groans, but they lacked heat.  Peter gave Foreman a shrug when the captain turned back to him.

“Whatever.” Foreman said, dismissing it.  He held up his phone again.  “Look, let’s see if we can get south of the Connector here.”  His finger hovered over, but did not touch, the screen.  The Connector cut southeast right as it entered the center of downtown, not curving back due south until it had gone almost a mile.  “Maybe we can pick our way through to the south and break that way.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Peter said, though he wondered in the back of his head.  That was in the direction of the heart of the hotel district.  All these damned sports and science fiction fans had to have been staying somewhere.  He just hoped that maybe the number of zombies the unit had been encountering meant the areas that had birthed most of them were less populated now, that the zombies had scattered out in search of something juicy to eat.

“Alright, we’re moving.” Peter said, just a touch louder than a normal speaking tone.  “Try to keep up.  South.” he added for the point’s benefit.

Johns was already on his feet and moving.  He left the northern corner and crossed the street to the southern one, swinging around it to go in the indicated direction.  The block was clear in that direction, except for the abandoned car about three-quarters of the way down.  Then, just after the cross street, a double handful of zombies milled aimlessly.  Several of these were already looking up, noticing the movement.

Peter watched as Johns gave the abandoned car a wide berth.  The soldiers had learned the hard way one of the worst aspects of the zombies, apart from their desire to eat anyone they could lay teeth on and their irritating ability to be undeterred by nearly any amount of injury.  Once you got past those details, you were left with a surprisingly big problem when dealing with the zombies.