Beyond the Barriers (33 page)

“She was trapped with us. They kept us in a cage, and she helped us escape. Her name is Haley, and she’s very brave,” I spoke up, feeling fiercely protective of the girl for no reason other than our companionship. I had never had kids, and didn’t know how to talk to them or relate.

One of the men approached and whispered in Lee’s ear as he lowered the gun. He squinted as the man spoke, looked toward the woods, and then back at us.

“Looks like you stirred up a hornets’ nest. There are a bunch of bodies heading our way, and when I say bodies, I think you know what I mean. So do I leave you here, or take a chance that you won’t do anything stupid and get us all killed? I really don’t have any use for more creepers.”

Scott stared at the man like he had never seen him before. I wondered if he were about to break into a cry of protest, but his face stayed tense. He looked at me then back at the large man.

Lee turned away and talked to the other guy, giving orders that I couldn’t hear. Scott leaned close and whispered in my ear.

“Shit! That’s him. What the hell are we going to do when he recognizes you?”

We didn’t have a choice. Maybe if we slunk to a truck, in the back we could get some food, and then sneak away at the next stop. It was a shitty plan, but it was either that or remain here and wait for the dead to find us. I doubted he would let us join his group. This was the same man that set a trap for my friends. These men were thieves, murders, and rapists. If I could fool them for a few minutes and get on board a vehicle without Lee noticing me, I might be able to get my hands on something useful, but I didn’t think I could stomach being so close to them.

We were on an open stretch of road, and it would make us perfect targets if anything came out of the woods. Across the double-lane road was a fresh copse of woods into which we could crash and try to hide. I didn’t like either option, but maybe we could join up with the men and get away later.

“Are you okay, girl?” Lee had his full attention on Haley, and that concerned me.

She stared at him but didn’t say a word. She wasn’t shaking anymore, and I was glad she was coping with the cold better than I was. She probably had more practice at it.

“Haley?”

She turned to regard me. Her eyes were darker now, lined in red—bloodshot and desperate. Had her eyes always been that color? I thought they were hazel, but now they were just black.

“Are you okay?”

She looked at Lee and took one step back.

“What the hell?” Scott took a step after her.

Lee took a pair of long strides, brushing past me.

Lee grabbed her arm as she put it out as if to push him away. He took her wrist and yanked her to him.

I went red with rage. What was he planning? If they had burned a family out of their home just to get their food, what was he going to do with a sixteen-year-old girl? Surely the entire world had not descended into anarchy. There had to be some humanity left.

“Let me go,” Haley roared. She struck at Lee, but he deflected the blow with one hand like he was swatting a fly. He leaned over so he towered above her head as he stared down at her.

“Let her go, God dammit!” I said, trying to get to my feet.

At my cry he turned and looked at me—really looked this time. Then his face darkened. Strom clouds filled his eyes, and I could tell I was about to meet an early end. I hoped fate hadn’t planned for us to make it this far only to be shot down like dogs. I wasn’t planning on lying here and watching something bad happen to one of us, especially not Haley. She had come back when she could have ran, could have left us. In fact, we told her to, but she still came back for us. Without Haley, we would still be in the cages.

“Erik,” she cried and looked at me. I met her eyes. They were filled with … something that wasn’t fear. They were brighter than before, like she had changed contacts. They had been dark, but now they were brighter and partially green.

“Hello, Tragger. Nice to meet you, son,” Lee said in a low voice.

Gasping, I tried to get to my feet.

“Let her go.” I said with as much force as I could muster.

“I’ll let her go, alright. Then you can join her. This little bitch is becoming one of them, and if you were paying attention you would have known that. But you know something?” He paused for dramatic effect. “Even if she wasn’t turning into one of those ghouls, I would still do this. Because I owe you.”

Lee pointed his gun at her head. I screamed from the ground and rose, but someone pushed me down. Thrusting my hand out, I found an ankle, hooked my hand in a claw and yanked. The man cried out in pain and nearly fell over. There was one other man near me, and he had a gun pointed, but I didn’t care. I planted my hand flat on the ground and shot my foot out. It slammed into the other guy’s shin, knocking him off his feet. In case he fired, I slid to the right.

The soldier went down, and I struggled to my feet, but I didn’t have anything left. Lee moved fast. He slid to his left, boots shuffling over the wet ground with a whisking sound. He had Haley’s arm in hand and dragged her along with him.

“Stop!” he yelled, pointing the gun at my face.

If I were on my feet, I might have had a chance, but from my position on the ground, I would be dead before I could try to knock the gun aside and go for a strike. It was suicide, but I didn’t see the folly of my action. All I knew was that I had to rescue Haley before Lee did something to her.

One of the guys I hit came back to his feet, and he was not happy. He pointed his gun at me, jabbing it in my face. The other guy rolled on his back, still clutching his shin. “Ah shit, man, that hurt. That fucking hurt!”

“Don’t shoot him,” Lee ordered the guy with the gun pointed at my chest.

The man looked at Lee, then at me, and snarled. He flipped the gun over and jabbed the butt into my gut, and I went down hard. My breath went out, and I couldn’t catch it again. Jack moved toward us, but the guy swung the gun at him. He stopped and held his hands out.

Lee stared at me for a few seconds, while Haley struggled to get away. She snarled and pulled at him, but he held her just as firm as if she were tied to him. His face was unreadable. If he was trying to tell me something, then I didn’t understand the message.

The next event would be burned into my brain for as long as I live.

Lee pushed Haley down. She fell back on her behind and stared up at him with something approaching rage. Her eyes were bright, and something should have clicked in my head, but all I saw was the girl who had helped us.

The gun boomed across the silent morning. A few seconds ago, the birds had started to call to each other again, making their plaintive cries, each struggling to be heard. I also wanted to be heard. I wanted to scream my rage, wanted to yell against the injustice, but all I could do was sit there, defeated, while Lee put a fucking bullet in the girl’s head.

She was gone, and I think part of me fled as well.

I stared, unable to think, unable to even make a sound. I was in shock, but it faded to white-hot rage in a few seconds. In that time, something happened.

The dead had arrived.

I backed up on my ass as an army of the things broke from the cover of the trees. They lurched and drooled blood as they set eyes on the living. Lee turned his gun on the nearest and fired. One of the zombies spun to the right but recovered, turned to face us, and lost the back of its head to a bullet.

There were five, no ten—there were fifty of them. They moved toward us, intent on our flesh. One of the ghouls broke from the trees and paused to study the scene. I looked at him and knew it was the same bastard that had taunted us at the camp. He snarled when he saw me, then his eyes went to the girl’s corpse.

Scott helped me up, and we backed away. I was filled with rage over Haley’s murder. My body and soul hurt, and I was angry and exhausted.

The undead came on and were killed. The men and women around us moved with precision as they fell back to their vehicles. One of the campers had only one door, and they ran for it, covering each other as they entered. I wished I had a gun in my hand, but I was so exhausted that I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift it.

I studied the soldiers dumbly, wondering if any had been at the ambush last week. They moved like pros now, not like the heartless scavengers that had tried to take our weapons and gear.

Scott and Jack moved me between them. We were forgotten, left behind by the men with weapons. They were swarming their vehicles, firing as they went, but they didn’t get all the undead.

The ghoul obviously had some time to plan and act. His line of zombies moved from the other side of the road. A canvas covered truck left, with a female soldier half hanging off the back. She tried to grab a hold of the back of the Jeep, but missed and fell off. One of the men reached for her. He had a frantic look on his face, as the driver gunned the engine and the car took off, only to smack into a pair of dead, knocking them to the side.

Lee was clinical. He moved backwards, covering his crew. He fired slowly, accurately, and when he ran out of rounds, he just as calmly dropped the magazine into his hand, put it in a pocket, and came out with a fresh one.

There were too many of them, and they were everywhere! Their moans chilled me to the bone; their calls for us, the living, made my heart race. We had come so far, so very far in the night, and we were back where we started. Back among the dead.

We stumbled, and I went down first. One of the soldiers had gotten turned around while he sought targets, and we all crashed together. I fell on top of him, and I didn’t even think about my actions. The gun was there, on the ground, and I picked it up. It was a small-caliber handgun, but it would take out the dead just as well as a hand cannon.

“Get the fuck off me!” the man screamed.

Jack grunted and moved back. Scott was first on his feet and pulled me up. The guy struggled to get up, but the strap from his rifle was wrapped around his shoulder, and he fell flat again.

I should have just left him, but I offered my hand, and he took it. With Jack’s help, we staggered back toward one of the vehicles. It was surrounded by the dead things, but the guy with the gun started shooting. I dragged the pistol up and put one in the side of a creature’s head. It fell off the back of the car with one hand clutching the guy it had been trying to bite. The man struggled and pushed but was dragged off the back. His screams were furious.

Lee called orders as he made it to the large trailer. Guns sprouted along the sides where the windows had been. There were slits in the sides, and metal plates slid out of the way to allow more guns to point outward. Shots rang up and down the road as the vehicle lurched forward and smashed into a couple of the dead that were trying to climb to the roof. They groaned as the big RV pulled away and ground them into the dirt.

We made it to the side of the military vehicle. It was surrounded, but we cut down a few in front. Scott moved like a man possessed. He had a look on his face I hadn’t yet seen on him. He was mad—beyond rage. Swearing, he jumped into the car and kicked one of the dead away from the driver’s side. He picked up a small machine gun, looked like an MP5, and jacked the chamber back to check the load. The zombie he had pushed off the side of the truck was replaced by a black guy with part of an ear and cheekbone missing. His mouth moved like he was talking, but he was probably imagining meat between his jaws.

Scott stuck his boot in the guy’s chest, and calmly held him back while he took the magazine out of the gun, as the dead man peered inside. Satisfied, he jammed it home, raised the gun, and blew the thing backward with a tap to the head. Scott didn’t waste ammo. He aimed and fired—one shot per zombie. Aim, fire, shift. Aim, fire, shift.

“Let’s go, man!” Jack screamed. He plopped down in the back and tried to look everywhere at once.

There was a large-caliber machine gun mounted above us, but it wasn’t like the movies, where I could just hop on the gun and start firing. The gun had to be checked and loaded.

The soldier with us jumped in the back of the car beside Jack and fired as fast as he could, but we were surrounded. Scott sat down and handed me the MP5. “There are a few shots left. Make ‘em count while I get us moving!”

He cranked the keys, and the truck roared to life. I held the gun in unsteady hands and shot the zombies as they came at us. Another truck roared past us, with one of the dead hanging from the back while the gunner on the big .50 caliber tried to take aim. The driver turned, pulled a pistol and shot the thing in the face, but his car was pulled to the right, and he clipped our truck then ran off the road, into the bushes. They were swarmed in a matter of seconds, and their screams went on for a long time as they were eaten alive.

“So sick of this shit,” I muttered as our vehicle lurched forward. One of the dead was just ahead, so I stood up in the tiny space, held onto the front windshield, and shot him in the head. Scott swerved slightly, but we still pulped the zombie.

There were more of them ahead, at least a dozen, and we didn’t have enough momentum yet to escape them. If we were going thirty or forty miles an hour, we might be able to barrel through them, but we were at a crawl. Scott punched it and knocked a few out of the way. The soldier with us stood up, changed his magazine, and then started shooting at everyone ahead of us.