Apocalypse Atlanta (77 page)

“Nice shot.” Candles said, stepping up near Hernandez and dropping to one knee.  He propped his elbow up on his upraised knee, steadying his weapon as he aimed.

Peter left them to handle the zombies in view and gestured to Smith and Dorne.  “Give me a hand.”

“With what?” Smith asked.

Peter pointed at the closer of the two vehicle bays.  “I want to see if there are any hummers in there.”

“Why?” Dorne wondered.  “We got the bus, right?”

“Hummers are better dude.” Smith said.

“I like the bus.”

“You would.”

“Just come and cover me, okay?” Peter said, not interested in a protracted debate while they were standing around in the open.

“Whatever.” Dorne said, shrugging.  He followed Smith and Peter as they went over to the building.  Peter tried the personnel door, then the big double-wide roll-up door.  Both were locked.  “Damnit.”  he muttered.

“Uh sarge?” Smith said.

“What?

“Allow me.”

Peter stepped back as Smith brushed past him.  When he saw the Guardsman pointing his weapon at the door, Peter stepped back a couple more feet and made sure he was to Smith’s rear.  Smith fired, once as if to test out how it would go, then several more times in rapid succession.  The rounds blew through the wooden door next to the door knob, and on the fifth Peter saw the door move a little.

“Ta-da.”

“Thanks.” Peter said, shaking his head.  “Want to go first?”

“Hell no.  Right behind you sarge.”

Peter stepped back up and nudged the door with his boot.  It swung inward, and he eased in carefully.  The interior was dim, but he saw a light switch on the wall next to him.  They’d seen the power outages seemed to be mostly in downtown, and other parts of the base had security lighting on, so Peter reached out and flipped the switch experimentally.

With a faint crackle the overhead fluorescents lit, flooding the building with stark white light.  A short hallway stretched out before him, an open doorway on his left a little ahead where he knew the paperwork for the vehicles in the bay was done and kept until being filed with the base admin pukes.  Beyond that were two more doors, both marked with pictograms indicating they were restrooms.  Then the last door at the end, which opened out into the big workspace.

Peter moved slowly, taking his time.  The office was empty, as were both bathrooms though they could stand a solid cleaning.  When he stepped out of the hall he paused, his instincts lighting off.

“What?” Smith asked after Peter had stood almost fully blocking the door for over half a minute.

“You don’t smell it?” Peter answered softly.

He heard Smith take a sniff, then another.  “Smells like a garage to me.”

Peter frowned.  The air was heavy with the odor of gas and oil and grease, ever present in any working garage, but beneath those familiar smells was another.  Fresher.  Fouler.  Something was rotten in here, and he didn’t like it.  There were three humvees in the building, one of them straddling a lift.  A parts cage was in the far corner, and tools were on tables and in rolling chests along all the walls.  It looked normal, but he didn’t trust it.

“Hello?” Peter called, finally tired of waiting for something to happen, but unwilling yet to push into the room.

He waited for several moments.  The workspace remained quiet.  Peter was about to step forward when he heard a muffled thump.  He scanned around as he heard another thump, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.  Then he noticed the humvee on the lift was rocking slightly on its shocks.

“There.” Peter gestured at the suspect vehicle.  “See it?”

“Yeah.” Smith said, doubt no longer present in his tone.

“Gonna check it out.” Peter said, moving forward slowly.  He crossed to the humvee, weapon up and pulled in tight to his shoulder, his eyes examining the vehicle carefully.  When he got close enough, he peered inside.  Front seat, back seat; both empty.  This humvee had a hard shell cover on the cargo area at the back, so he eased around and looked in the back window.

“Oh man.” Peter said, his nose wrinkling as he recoiled a step.

“Zombie?” Smith asked.

“I guess.” Peter said, fighting the urge to vomit.

“How bad can it b–?” Smith said, stepping around and looking into the back of the humvee.  His voice trailed off, and he stepped back from the humvee as well.

“Okay, I believe you two.” Dorne announced.

“I didn’t say anything.” Smith said.

“Yeah, but it’s gotta be bad.” Dorne shrugged.  “Since no one’s shooting yet, I guess you two can handle it without me.  I’m going to go push the button for the bay doors.”

“Right.” Peter said, shuddering.

“Sarge, do we have to do anything about it?” Smith asked as Dorne started walking over to the front wall of the bay.

Peter opened his mouth, then hesitated.  After a moment, he shook his head.  “I guess not.  Unless it turns out we need the vehicle.”

“There’s two more.” Smith said hopefully.

“I’m agreeing with you.” Peter said.  “I don’t think that one’s going anywhere, so let’s just leave it.”

“Good.”

There was a rustle and hum as the door started rolling up, metal rollers sliding back in their tracks as the electric motors powered the door up.  Peter stood still, waiting, until the door was fully up.  He saw a couple of the shooters outside covering the door as it retracted, but they relaxed when they recognized Dorne and Smith and Peter inside the bay.

“So check that one there.” Peter told Smith, pointing at one of the other humvees.  “If it starts, leave it running and check the fuel gauge.”

Smith nodded and started over to the indicated vehicle.  Peter went to the third one himself.  He quickly, but carefully, checked the interior out before opening the driver’s door and sliding in behind the wheel.  Out of habit, he checked that the parking brake was set before he put his finger on the starter button and pushed.  The engine turned over and caught immediately.

Peter revved the engine a couple of times, but it sounded fine to him, and had three-quarters of a tank of fuel.  He got out and walked around the humvee a second time.  He finally decided it was either already fixed, or had been put in the shop to have some scratches on the right front panel touched up.  Some officers got real anal about penny-ante shit like that.

“Other one’s fine too.” Smith yelled, and Peter glanced over to see the second humvee idling with trace wisps of black smoke emitting from its exhaust.

Peter walked over.  “Gas?”

“Half.”

“Okay.” Peter nodded.  He glanced around, jerked his head.  “Help me put a few things in them.”

“What are we grabbing?”

“Tools.” Peter said as Smith followed him over to the nearest work table.

“What for?”

“I’m a master mechanic.” Peter explained.  “I can fix a lot of broken shit, but I need tools.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense.” Smith shrugged.

“Shut up and help.” Peter said, slinging his AR and rolling a standup tool chest away from the wall.  With Smith helping, he was able to get the tool chest loaded, along with a pair of oversized tool boxes that he glanced through briefly before deciding to take.  The items he was grabbing weren’t as good as a full shop, and they were definitely not as good as the ones he had in Snellville at his own shop, but they’d do.

He also, to a considerable amount of bitching from Smith, got an empty five gallon plastic gas can filled from one of the shop barrels of motor oil.  While Smith was pumping the oil into the can using the barrel’s hand pump, Peter found three more gas cans and threw them into the humvees as well.  They were empty too, but they’d come in handy if they had to ferry fuel back to one of the vehicles.

“There, done.” Smith said as he finished loading the gas, now oil, can into the back of the humvee.  Peter glanced over, prepared to remind the Guardsman, but saw that he’d already used a cargo strap to lash the can to the side of the cargo space’s wall so the can couldn’t tip over.

“Great, let’s get ’em outside and see how everyone else is doing.”

He rolled out of the building slowly and parked near the bus, but out of the way so the bigger vehicle could back up without hitting the humvee.  As he headed for the bus, Whitley came around the rear apparently looking for him.  “What’s the story?” Peter asked.

She seemed more cheerful than she had when they’d pulled up.  “We’re golden.  They’re hauling stuff out and packing it into the bus as fast as they can.”

“There’s a weight limit you know, even for a bus.” Peter said, glancing at it in concern as he tried to judge if it was riding lower than it was supposed to on the shocks.  It didn’t look like there was a problem.  He hoped he was just being overly cautious for no reason.  Actually, he decided he probably was.

After all, he’d seen MARTA buses during rush hour with every seat filled and more people packed standing room only all down the center aisle.  That had to be something like sixty, maybe seventy people aboard under those conditions.  Considering that the average American weighed more than two hundred pounds, he was definitely being too cautious.  A case of 5.56 was about thirty pounds, so ten of them was effectively one fat man.  The bus could handle some weight.

“I know, but after all the crap we’ve been through, no one’s all that eager to hear about how we shouldn’t take this or that.”

“Well what are we taking?” Peter asked.

Whitley shrugged.  “Lots of ‘16 ammo.  I stopped counting cases at thirty.  More ‘16s, so we have extras and parts, plus some M203s.”

Peter shook his head.  He couldn’t say he would turn down having grenade launchers handy, but he also couldn’t honestly say how useful he thought they’d be against the zombies.  They didn’t wound like people did, and grenades were designed to wound not kill.

“I was coming to find you and ask if we should bother with any SAWs or not.”

Peter opened his mouth, then hesitated.  Machine guns hadn’t been all that useful Friday night; wasting a lot of rounds for every kill shot they managed to land.  But if things were as bad as they seemed, zombies might not be the only threats soon.  “A couple, two or three.” Peter said finally.  “And enough ammo to keep them going for a few fights, but let’s not go crazy on them.”

“That’s kinda what I thought you’d say.” Whitley nodded.  “I got two loaded on the bus now.  I was wondering what else we should bring though.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged.  “There’s at least a little of just about everything in there sarge.  Hand grenades, mortars and mortar rounds, long guns, mines . . . hell I think I even saw a flamethrower or two stuck way in the back.”

Peter considered briefly.  “Make sure we bring a box or two of hand grenades, and a couple of the long guns.  If there are M-24s, bring ten.  And ammo.  Don’t bother with the rest of it.”

“Got it.” Whitley said, turning to head back around the bus.

“Hey, you okay to keep driving that thing?” Peter asked.

“The bus?  Sure, why not.” Whitley said with a shrug, stopping to glance back at him.

“Okay, then you’re on it for the time being.”

“Where we headed next?” she asked him.

“Finish loading, then we’ll have ourselves a quick pow-wow and hash it out.”

In short order the soldiers tired of playing the parts of kids in a candy store, and the trail of explosive goodies packing aboard the bus trickled off.  Peter whistled the shooters all in, and everyone gathered aboard the bus with the doors shut for security.

“Okay, so we’re out of immediate danger.” Peter said.  There were some ragged cheers, which Peter didn’t bother to dissuade.  He even grinned tiredly himself.  “We’ve got transportation, we’re loaded for bear, so it’s time to decide what our plan is.”

“I’m with you sarge.” Whitley said immediately, speaking loudly.

“Kiss ass.” Candles said, though he didn’t sound too put out or angry as he spoke.

“Fuck you for fucking with her.” Mendez said.  “I’m with sarge too.”

“Yeah.  Right on.” a couple of other voices said.

Peter spoke up as Candle’s expression began flashing towards actual irritation.

“You haven’t even heard what I want to do next.” he said, smiling like it was funny.

“You’re not crazy.” Whitley said.  “And I’m pretty sure you’re not suicidal either.  So what’s your plan?”

Peter took a breath.  “Okay, I think we should head for one of the evacuation points.  The FEMA camps that are supposed to be outside of Atlanta.”

Whatever people had thought he was going to say, some of them clearly had not expected that.  There was an immediate tumult of noise as people exclaimed or protested or tried to weigh in with comments.  Peter waved his hands, trying to encourage them to quiet down so he could be heard.

“Hang on, give me a minute to explain.”

“Sarge, people are dangerous.” Hernandez said, looking a little sullen.  “Those camps would be like magnets for any zombies in nearby.”

“Hell, they’d be buffets for anyone who converts in one.” Johns pointed out.