LZR-1143: Evolution (36 page)

Kate’s head peeked up from below.

“What’s up?” she asked, curious.

I looked back at her, then scanned again, looking toward Route 50.

“Not sure. Thought I heard gunfire,” I said distractedly.

Then I saw the movement. It was a small black sports car, trying to thread itself through the thickly packed cars in disarray on the highway. A man sat on the open hatchback, firing to the rear. They weren’t able to gain much speed, as they plugged through, struggling to find the few gaps in the traffic as they plowed forward. I squinted into the sun, but it seemed blindingly bright as I looked to the West.

The car shot toward a small gap, and it felt like the scene was converting to slow motion, as the pack of zombies, several hundred strong, came into view. They were far closer than they had any right to be, and I could only imagine that the packed cars were slowing the flight consistently along the way. They shambled forward, arms splayed out, bodies slamming into parked vehicles and moaning the constant, spine-tingling refrain that had become so familiar.

The small car was aiming for too small a gap; we could see that from where we stood. But the driver, either too tired or too careless to notice, floored the accelerator, seeing a short expanse of open median on the other side.

His front right fender slammed into the rear of a parked truck, bouncing the left side of the car hard into the front of a minivan, and I heard the crunching of steel as the car lifted up from the rear and flipped into the air, landing hard on its roof in the grass beyond the stalled cars. The rider in the back spun awkwardly in the air, cartwheeling and then flying forward, landing with a sickening crunch on the dark pavement. He didn’t move again.

I broke my stare, and lurched unthinkingly toward the rear ladder, even as Kate dropped to her stomach and shouted inside for a weapon. Nearly falling down the ladder, I started toward the fence.

The passenger started to pull himself from the wreckage, slowly and painfully. Shattered glass covered the ground near the destroyed window, and he slithered through the small shards of razor-sharp material, groaning in pain and leaving a trail of blood behind him as he crawled.

The driver’s side was slightly less crushed, and the driver emerged, pulling himself up on the bottom of the car, and stumbling as he leaned forward to catch his breath. Blood streamed from his head as he tripped once, falling to the grass. He looked up as he rose, seeing the pack of creatures approaching. They were less than fifty feet away, hundreds of mouths opening and closing, hundreds of arms reaching for food.

The driver panicked, and turned to run. His friend from the passenger side saw him turn, and shouted, the words indecipherable from where I stood. The driver shouted back, flinching once toward his friend, then shaking his head and tearing off down the road.

On the pavement, the man who had been seated in the hatchback stirred, groaning once.

The passenger had pulled himself out of the car, but merely flipped onto his back and was now breathing hard. He had likely punctured a lung, and I could see a compound fracture in his left leg. A single pistol was in a holster next to his right hand.

The pack was less than thirty feet away now, and as I reached the fence, I knew I was too late. But I started to climb the chain link anyway. Behind me, I heard Kate hit the fence and start climbing as well.

The hatchback rider called out a name, but in the cacophony of moans I could hear nothing but the high pitch of his pain and fear. I looked at him as he called out, his arms and legs were motionless, and a trickle of blood ran from his nostrils.

He was too far away for me to help.

The horde was barely ten feet from him. I saw him arch his head, eyes wild as he saw them approaching. He screamed again loudly, a line of curses following the animal-like howl. I saw his eyes shift to the shotgun laying fifteen feet away. Then they met mine.

I saw the mouth form the words that I would say if I were him.

“Shoot me.”

I dropped to the other side of the fence and crouched low, raising the weapon and lining up a shot.

The pack was five feet from his head, the first creature already stumbling to its knees.

The blood spat out onto the concrete, and his eyes stared at me as they reached him. The muzzle streamed a small curl of gun smoke as I started forward toward the passenger. But I had known I couldn’t help. Even as I heard Kate drop behind me and curse, I knew we were too late.

He was facing them and firing fast, scoring several head shots before the slide shot back and he reached to his pocket for another clip. I fired into the crowd, trying to get closer, trying to find an angle to reach him, but there were too many.

Their noise was loud in my ears, and as I fired, they started toward me.

The passenger’s gun clicked again, and as they closed over him, I heard the sound of tearing flesh, like the amplified sound of the skin being torn from an orange; then the coughing screams and the hair-raising sound of mortal agony.

We ran back to the fence, and climbed quickly, zombies no more than ten feet away as we dropped to the other side and ran back to the bus. They were moving toward the fence line as George started forward. They followed along the fence, but were soon lost behind as the trees thickened and blocked their shambling pathway.

Kate and I sat on the roof, numb and silent, staring forward as we approached the next station. We passed under an overpass that led to Route 50, and as we moved through the vacant station, I absently wondered if those three men had bought us the time and window of opportunity we needed. I wondered if the station would have been packed with zombies if we had come through minutes before.

We moved along the tracks steadily, and as the day began to wane, we approached and moved parallel to the Anacostia freeway, through heavily wooded surroundings and some industrial and commercial areas. We saw only one pack, and this one from a distance as the tracks raised up to pass over several streets below. They were moving slowly to the West, and there were thousands of them, dark bodies crowding along the street, and filtering through the adjacent woods. Mindless in their wandering, but doubtlessly with some basic purpose motivating them forward.

We passed three stopped trains at the Minnesota Avenue station, doors opened and no signs of movement aboard. Four other trains were empty, and stood on the other side. It was a curious cluster, as we expected the trains to be spread out over more stations and more distance, but it appeared that they had moved together to this designated point.

Fortunately, the Northbound trains headed toward New Carrollton had been pulled through the platforms and parked further on, as if being staged, allowing us to move from the Southbound tracks to the Northbound in order to bypass the platform. As we passed through the station, we began to make the long turn into the bridge over the Anacostia River, and Kate and I dropped down into the bus as George slowed us to a stop over the river itself.

We would go underground permanently after we crossed into the District, and we gathered to discuss our next few hours.

“We keep on as we’ve been going, and use the spotlights through the tunnels. Isolated zombies, no problem; if we encounter a horde, we back up or go through them, and look for an exit. We’ll stop every two to three stations, shut down and run silent for a while
—
no light, no sound, nothing. As far as those things are concerned, we’re just another empty train on the tracks. It will prevent us from driving blindly into a pack that hears us clattering along the rails.”

I was positive that we had the details clear, but wanted to make sure.

“We stay in the bus until we can’t, then we’re on foot. Any contact is called out immediately, and we can rotate the night vision goggles between the adults—sorry Ky—if we’re forced to hoof it. Remember, our protection in the tunnels is the bus. If and when we have to ditch it, we need to move quickly. If we have to go topside, we continue to move West.”

George cleared his voice and spoke up as Ky counted her arrows for what must have been the fiftieth time.

“Remember, I’ve got some goodies stored up in back that we can use if we’re pressed. Just make sure you take cover.”

He smiled through his large beard and clamped his teeth down tightly on his pipe, leaning with his hands in his pockets against the side of the bus.

I nodded. Having seen his little concoctions, I knew they’d be a hit with the crowds, but did worry about finding appropriate cover.

Kate looked at me, curious.

“Start tomorrow morning, or go in tonight?” she asked, looking out the front window at the soon to set sun.

“Tonight. If we have to bug out, these things will have to hunt us topside in the dark, so we might as well take away one of their available senses. They hear and smell pretty well, but they don’t see for shit.”

She nodded and stood up, as George turned around and went back to the driver’s seat.

Time to visit our nation’s capital.

Chapter 37

As we passed into the tunnel, I took one more short look at the setting sun, before tears welled in my eyes and I had to look away in pain. I hoped in earnest that it wouldn’t be the last time I ever saw it.

From the peak of the bridge over the river, we could make out nothing more than the D.C. skyline, set against the rapidly dropping sun, but as we moved down from the bridge, we saw another large pack moving parallel to the tracks through the neighborhood to the West. They were separated from us by the fencing around the tracks, and we couldn’t even determine if they had seen or heard us, but it was unsettling to have seen two large groups as we approached the city and began to descend underground.

The dark of the tunnel was absolute, and we turned on the headlights and flood lights, startling two rats into a small hole near the tracks. The metal rails extended into the dark unknown and we clattered over the ties slowly, all of our eyes plastered to the windshield and the dangers we imagined ahead. The walls of the tunnel were wet with streaks of condensation, looking to my eyes like trails of blood, and we passed several metal maintenance doors as we drove through. The lights lining the walls were dark, and I cringed as I thought of the prospect of being caught in one of these tunnels or one of these trains during the outbreak.

We made good progress for the first hour, and as we approached the platform of the first station, we took the precautions we had arranged before the trip. I handed George the night vision goggles and he cut the lights, moving the bus forward with no illumination in the hopes of cutting as low a profile as possible.

In the pitch blackness, we could see nothing. It was an eerie feeling, descending further through the heart of the earth, underneath streets that we knew to be teeming with undead, in pitch blackness. Behind me, Ky’s small hand crept into mine and I heard Romeo snort, as if to signal his displeasure.

George’s voice drifted back in a soft whisper.

“Coast looks clear. None of those things in here. In fact, the station doesn’t look as if it’s been opened. Looks completely empty. No blood, no bodies; nothing.”

I thought a moment and then reached into my pocket for the lighter, flipping the small light on and looking at the Metro map.

Armory Station, where the blue and the orange lines met, close to RFK stadium. If the outbreak hit D.C. at night, or early in the morning, the station could have been closed. Or the station could have been closed after the fact. Either way, this was a good sign. One access point to the subways was closed off. One down, but far too many more to go.

After we passed the platforms, George flicked the lights on again, and plugged forward, passing the goggles back.

“Who are we looking for when we get to the Pentagon?” Ky asked suddenly, breaking me out of a trance as I stared into the unrelieved black of the tunnel ahead.

“We’re looking for someone who can make a vaccine out of our blood,” I told her frankly, knowing that Kate had explained to her our unique physiology after my accident on the roof.

“How do we know anyone will be left alive there?” she asked from the floor, where she was laying with Romeo. He was fast asleep, having long since become accustomed, in his doggy way, to the bumps of the train tracks.

“We don’t,” said Kate, looking down at Ky. “But we heard on board the ship that the Pentagon was still standing, and that there might be scientists there from a military research institute. So we thought we’d give it a try.”

Ky looked thoughtful for a minute, then nodded. “Okay.”

Then she asked the question that we had been avoiding.

“So how do you know that it will matter? I mean, aren’t all the zombies out there already? You can’t cure them, right? So it’s just ...” she struggled with the next thought.

“It’s just for uninfected people.”

She looked up at us and asked sadly. “How many of those do you think are left?”

Suddenly, the bus jolted hard, waking even the slumbering Romeo, whose ears perked up as George muttered.

“Shit, sorry. Didn’t see anything in front of us ...”

It jolted again, and George slowed.

“Christ,” I said, swallowing what I had been prepared to say in response. Ahead of us, bodies littered the tracks and the gravel along side. The markings on the side of the tunnel indicated an approaching station, and I quickly handed George the goggles.

“Keep us in the loop,” I said to him as he cut the lights again. He nodded briefly, and the bright green glow from the specialized lenses disappeared as he slipped them over his head.

“More bodies,” he whispered harshly, slowing the vehicle as we pulled near the platform. “They’re ...” another large thump, and I was jolted from the bench seat and onto the floor. Romeo squirmed as I moved my foot from his paw.

“Sorry ... they’re on the tracks and spread out over the platform. They’re dead zombies and half eaten real folk. Smeared all over the damn platform,” he said, disgusted.