Forget The Zombies (Book 2): Forget Texas (5 page)

“Roy, look at me.” He didn’t look my way as he was focused on what was behind him. “ROY, look at me!”

He did, but all of his instincts wanted to just get the hell through the gate. Had our places been switched, I would have been the same, but I needed him to be calm and follow my directions.

“I need you to be cool about this,” I said, keeping my tone even. “Once I open the gate, I need you and whoever else to come forward to grab the guns. Then I need you to move to the guard towers to side of the gate and cover everyone as they come through, okay?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Roy, I’m going to have to trust you.” I had no other choice. “Just be careful not to shoot any of the other people.”

The screams at the back of the crowd intensified again. There was no more time.

I ran to the main guard station looked frantically around for some sort of button to open the gate and finally found it. It was a big red button with the word “OPEN” on a small plaque below it. I needed to take my own advice and calm down.

I took one last look at outside the gate and into the faces of the refugees who were scrambling anyway they could to get inside, but making no progress. Then I looked at the exterior gate. I could see the glow of the taillights of truck in the distance, like two red demon eyes in the night. It was now or never. I slammed my hand down on the button and tore out of the guard station, sprinting like the devil was chasing me.

I didn’t look back.

It was about seventy yards from the guard station to the north exit and another fifty to the back of the truck.
Mack couldn’t have parked any closer?

When I made it twenty five yards, I heard the chatter of gunfire behind me. No bullets came in my direction so I could only guess that the refugees were taking on the zombies.

My legs and lungs started to protest the output of energy. Although we hadn’t been in the camp all that long, there had been no place or time to get any exercise. There was no resting though, as the screams of panic got louder as I assumed the refugees were pouring through the gate into the north guard post.

I whizzed out the gate and I quickly cut the gap to the truck when the damnedest thing happened. The brake lights went off on the truck and it started down the road.

What the hell, Mack?

It wasn’t going all that fast, but I knew if it got going, I was going to be eating road dust with a horde of panicked refugees and hungry zombies crawling up my ass in less than a minute. That wasn’t something I relished so I dug deep and put on my jets. Even with this burst of speed, I barely kept up with the truck’s progress. I could only keep this up so long as my lungs felt like they were going to explode and I was sure my legs would fall off any moment.

The road curved gently and the truck picked up speed as it went along expanding its lead on me. The brake lights flashed on for a moment and the truck bucked, but then started forward again. I was able to cut the distance between me and the truck down some, but still had a ways to go. I couldn’t run off road without the fear of running across an unmarked landmine. I don’t know where I found the energy, but I kicked my speed up another notch.

When I hit the curve, I was able to see out of the periphery of my vision as refugees streamed out of the exit gate. Dozens made it out when out of nowhere a Humvee came up from behind the ones still clogged at the exit and slammed into the crowd. Bodies flew in every direction. The screams of the refugees filled the night. I nearly faltered in my sprint, but knew there was nothing I could do.

I thought that was the worst of it, but then someone popped out of the top of the Humvee and fired an automatic weapon into the crowd. The panicked refugees scattered like wild dogs in every direction. One ran into the field blindly and across a landmine. The explosion tore him to pieces and send body parts in different directions. My jaw would have dropped to my chest, but it was pre-occupied with my breathing.

A part of me considered going back to see what I could do, but if that Humvee made it through the scrum of people, it would be me with only a pistol to face it down. It wasn’t a winning proposition, so I continued on.

Just as I redirected my full attention back to the truck I heard the muffled report of a gunshot and saw a splash of light, like a camera flash, fill the cab for the briefest of moments. The brake lights flashed on and the truck jerked to a complete stop.

This wasn’t good.

I maintained my pace, my head feeling light as I saw starbursts of multi-colored lights behind my eyes. My brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen as I had diverted all reserves of energy to my legs. Still, I pushed on.

I could hear more gunfire behind me as I sprinted toward the back of the truck. Another flash and a gunshot came from the cab of the truck just as I made it to the back of the truck. I decided to avoid jumping in the back and kept running along the passenger side of the truck towards the cab even though it felt like my legs were about to collapse under me.

I slowed at the last possible moment as I came up beside the cab and despite my pulse pounding in my ears, I heard someone grunting with exertion.

“Come on, you big bastard, let go of the wheel or do I have to shoot you again?”

In my oxygen deprived state, I didn’t recognize the voice, but I knew it meant trouble. I tried not to pant as I pulled my gun out of waistband and held it as firmly as I could, but my body trembled from the run.

“Naaahhh,” someone said, but it was more like a grunt of protest. That was Mack.

“We’re leaving that son of bitch behind, so let go of the wheel,” the voice said. It was Bill. The scene was easy to explain. I had let their son get killed therefore he was leaving me behind for the zombies.

The screams behind me intensified and I took the quickest of peeks back just in time to see the Humvee burst through the crowd as whomever was on top fired back at anyone who tried to cling onto it. Bodies rolled off it like human barrels, spinning off into the low scrub on the side of the road. None of them got back up. We were going to have company soon.

I collected myself as best I could and jumped onto the running board and aimed my gun into the cab. Bill was attempting to push Mack away from the steering wheel, but Mack held it in a death grip. There was blood all over Mack’s face. Bill had a pistol in his hand and started to aim it at Mack.

“Drop it, Bill!” I shouted.

He jerked around in my direction, his face seething with hatred. He tried to whip his aim in my direction, but the close quarters of the cab restricted his range of motion, slowing him down.

I wasn’t sure what was going on and there was no time for a blue ribbon fact finding committee to do an investigation.

In the U.S. Marshall Service, we went through mandatory gun handling and shooting every week. All that ingrained training kicked in and I shot Bill, aiming directly into the mass of his body. He grunted, expelling a burst of air and fell back against Mack, dropping the gun to the floor of the cab.

I ripped the door open and jumped inside.

“What the hell were you doing, Bill?” I asked, pulling his limp body off of Mack. Bill wasn’t moving or breathing.

Joni poked her head through the canvas and took the scene in with a look of shock. It took a couple seconds, but she finally said, “He went sort of crazy once you jumped off the truck. He grabbed a gun and tried to get Mack to drive away without you.”

“Oh my God,” a voice came from behind Joni. It was Bill’s wife, Freda. “Bill, Bill, Bill!” she said and with each time she said his name, her voice increased in pitch and volume.”

“He shot Mack,” Joni said.

It was all coming so fast, but so was the Humvee. There was no time for a Law and Order investigation right then.

“Sammy, Huck, whoever, get some guns ready, there’s a Humvee with some bad people coming up our ass in just a few seconds,” I said. “Be ready for them, but don’t shoot unless you have to. Everybody else, get down, now! Joni, check on Mack.”

I couldn’t see into the back because of the canvas cover, but I heard movement and felt the truck sway. With some effort, Joni pulled herself into the cab.

I leaned out the passenger door and saw the Humvee coming up the road at top speed. I jumped down from the truck and ran around the front of it. When I made it there, I peeked around the front fender and saw the Humvee quickly approaching, kicking up a dust cloud in its wake. Their shooter still stood out the top of the vehicle and he still had his rifle at the ready.

I tensed myself, getting ready for anything as the Humvee approached.

It turned out to be, at least for us, much ado about nothing. The Humvee sped up the road and whizzed by us without a second glance. Still, I never took my aim off the man with the rifle but he barely looked our way.

I would imagine he was much more concerned about what was behind him and what was ahead rather than the blip on the radar that was our truck. I watched as they disappeared into the distance. In fact, I was so distracted that I didn’t see the first zombie until I turned around to get back in the truck.

It was a burly looking male just a few feet away from me. It was doing its zombie shuffle, a broken back and forth wobble, as it came at me. It was a ragged looking thing that barely had on any clothes, and while that made me witness things I never wanted to see, it didn’t make it any less deadly despite its indecent appearance. I shot it in the head and it sprawled across the dirt road, knocking up a small cloud of dust.

I stared into the blackness of the land around the camp and saw more silhouettes shambling in the darkness in our direction and also towards the camp. While the zombies weren’t military strategists, it wasn’t beyond the pale that some would come up from the south and passed by the camp, then heard the commotion and turned back in our direction. I only hoped it wasn’t an overwhelming number.

“Grant!” Joni shouted into the night. There was both a sense of pain and urgency in her voice.

I jerked my head back in the direction of the truck and saw her waving her arm at me from the cab. I bounded to her, climbed up on the running board to find her cradling Mack in her arms. Her hands were red with blood and he looked as pale as a sheet. Bill’s lifeless body lay against the passenger door, his eyes open, staring into the nothingness of what was beyond.

I didn’t know what to say. We were less than a mile away from the camp and we were on the verge of losing our second person. To make matters worse, one was dead by my own hands.

“He thought you were the reason his boy was killed,” Mack said, his voice barely a whisper. “Wanted to leave you behind. Didn’t let him.”

“Yeah, you did good,” I said.

“I couldn’t leave you,” he said. ”At least, not without a fight.” His eyes closed for a moment and his breathing came in fitful gasps.

Rosalita stuck her head through the canvas, looked at Mac, and placed a hand to her mouth. It took her a moment to recover, “Is there anything I can do? I know a little about nursing.”

Joni just shook her head. It didn’t take a medical degree to know that Mack was dying.

I reached out and patted Mack’s hand, “You did good, Mack. You did good.”

His body shuddered for a couple seconds, he smiled with his eyes closed and then he died.

Joni looked to me, her expression imploring me to do something, but it was past anything I could do.

I thought it was over when we came to the camp — all the death and dying. We were stuck there, yes, waiting for the wheels to turn for us to get processed and allowed to move on. It was everyone’s expectation that we’d only be there a few days, but the excuses kept coming from the authorities both inside and outside the camp. I think we all knew that deep down that things were spiraling down around us, but convinced ourselves that everything would work out, that we’d be home any day now.

In any normal situation (if you called any of what we had just gone through normal), we’d be allowed to take care of our dead. We’d take time mourn them. We would have to time to celebrate their lives, to reflect, and even cry. But there was no time for tears in the zombie apocalypse as survival demanded we abandon any sentimentality.

The screams, shouts, and sound of gunfire coming from the camp intensified by a factor of ten. When I looked back in that direction, I saw refugees spilling out the gate. I also watched the zombies, caught in the lights of the camp, as they swarmed over those still trapped inside like a horde of angry predator insects descending on their prey, tearing into them and devouring them.

A few of the people must have grabbed weapons left behind because I could hear the report of guns being fired and could see the muzzle flashes. It was too little, too late, though. The zombies overwhelmed anyone still caught inside. Those outside the gate had a fighting chance, though. At least to survive the night. If we didn’t start moving soon, we might not.

I didn’t think I could hate the zombies any worse than I had before, but I did. It didn’t matter because they didn’t care if I hated them. They only cared about their hunger.