Plague Town (38 page)

“We’ll hold the ramp as long as possible.”

“Could you leave a nightlight on?” Tony, of course.

Nathan smacked him on the back of the head.

“Burn the ramp if you need to. We can always get in the back way, if we make it that far.”

Suddenly Simone appeared next to Paxton.

“Nathan, I swear I will haunt you if you don’t bring every one of them back alive!”

He just grinned. Then he waved his arm at us.

“Let’s do this!”

Déjà vu, just like the darts. We dashed back into the fields, spreading out in an arc of controlled mayhem. We sent out more darts into the oncoming zoms, exploded them, cut down stragglers before they could close in on us, and then repeated the process. Gentry used the flamethrower with deadly effect. Heads melted, clothes caught fire, and flaming zombies stumbled like really clumsy stuntmen into other approaching corpses, passing the torch.

We couldn’t keep them from reaching the razor wire. There were just too many of them. At this stage of the game, all we could do was take out as many as possible, stem the tide so that the incoming wave wouldn’t be enough to sweep over Mount Gillette.

I ran out of darts and switched to my M-4. I had to give my arms a rest. I’d lost sight of the other wild cards, but could hear the occasional roar of the flamethrower, and could feel the heat.

The body count was over the top, and still they kept coming. Rotted faces, gaping wounds, staring white pupils in a bloodshot sea of yellow. How could there still be more when I was so tired?

It wasn’t long before the zoms were too close and I had to resort to my katana. Promising my arms and shoulders a massage and icepacks if they stuck with me, I drew from a reserve of strength I didn’t know I had, pulled out my weapons, and had at it.

Three figures came at me at once, one of them getting through my guard to grasp at my left arm even as I hacked the head off its friends. I tried to shake it loose, but the thing’s grip was like steel and I couldn’t dislodge it.

“Motherfucker, let
go
of me!” It was too close for me to use my katana; I would just as likely whack my own arm off. I made a split second decision as it moved in, teeth angled toward my neck.

Stabbing my katana blade first into one of the fallen zombies, I released it, grabbed the tanto from my left hand and shoved the point into the zombie’s eye before it could sink its teeth into me. Its grip on my arm loosened as it fell to its knees and collapsed onto the ground. Bracing one foot next to its head, I pulled out the tanto and then retrieved my katana with another quick movement.

I heard a holler to my left and turned in time to see Lil, a few hundred feet away, stumble and go down, her pickaxe flying to one side. A half dozen zoms immediately converged on her before she could get to her feet.

“Lil!” My frantic cry probably carried across campus as I raced across the gore-strewn ground to reach her before the zombies tore her to pieces. I could hear her yelling in anger, but then those yells turned into high-pitched shrieks of pain as the bastards tore into her.

Oh god, please, no...

The space between us was mercifully empty. I leapt
over several fallen corpses, covering the remaining distance, and brought my sword down. A head went flying, then an arm. My ears rang and blood filled my vision. Body parts fell as I hacked and slashed, shrieking like a banshee the entire time, ignoring hands and teeth ripping at me, until all of them lay in pieces on or around Lil’s prone body. One of the zombies lay unmoving on top of her, a big, meaty thing that had to weigh twice as much as she did.

Dropping to my knees and, totally uncaring of anything else around me, I muttered an undefined prayer.

Shoving the zombie off to one side, I took in her still face, torn clothes and the bite marks on her arms and legs. They’d managed to get their teeth in-between the armor. She was still breathing, and her limbs were still intact, nothing torn off, but she looked bad.

Nathan appeared next to me and immediately knelt.

“We need to get her back to Big Red.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Other zombies were closing in, but I had to know.

Nathan nodded.

“I think so. But she’s not going to be able to fight, so we have to get her out of here.”

Lil’s eyes fluttered open.

“I can
so
fight,” she mumbled. “I’m good.”

We both ignored her. Nathan put a hand on my shoulder.

“I can carry her back. You gonna be able to keep this up?”

“Just get Lil out of here,” I responded. “I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t waste any more words or time, just scooped Lil up and ran back toward Big Red like some sort of super hero. Which in my eyes he kind of was.

I got to my feet, trying to summon up more of the fire of righteous fury that had carried me. Zombies still staggered forward, their unholy moans filling the air, no longer white noise but now an almost unbearable din.

After that I moved through a fog, both figurative and literal. I found my swings getting weaker and sloppier with each kill, and knew it was only a matter of time before I collapsed or made a stupid mistake. I had no idea where any of my fellow wild cards were, or if they were even still alive. The world was reduced to a tunnel vision of zombies.

If I wasn’t killing it, it didn’t exist.

Then suddenly I reached my breaking point.

Nothing special preceded or prompted it. I decapitated a zombie and then my arms just refused to do any more. They fell to my sides, blades hanging limp in my hands. I stared blankly at the corpses littering the ground around me, and the fresh ones still moving toward me.

I sank down to my knees, exhausted. I knew I should run, at least try and make it back to the barricades, but I just didn’t care any more.

“Ashley!”

I heard someone yell my name, but I was too tired to respond or even look to see who it was, although I was pretty sure it was Gabriel. But I ignored him. He’d just want me to get up and keep fighting anyway.

I closed my eyes and waited for death.

“Ashley!” Gabriel seized me under my arms and hauled me to my feet.

“Just let me lie down,” I protested, eyes still shut. “Okay?”

“Not okay.” He shook me hard. “Snap out of it, Ashley!” He shook me again and my body screamed in outrage.

My eyes snapped open and I glared at him. Then he did something I hadn’t expected.

He laughed.

“Are you
laughing
at me?” I smacked his shoulder as hard as I could.

“That’s better.” He kissed me then, hard and quick. “We’re falling back. There’s too many of them. Can you make it back to campus?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m just pissed enough to do it.”

“Better than an energy bar,” he said. “All-natural, of course.”

Gabriel slung an arm around my shoulder and we
turned toward Big Red, only to find our way blocked by zombies who’d decided that we were easier pickings than the meat behind the barricade. There wasn’t enough space to dodge between them, and I didn’t know if I had another sword cut left in me.

“Do you have any darts left?” Gabriel asked, voice carefully controlled.

“No. Do you?”

He shook his head.

“Nearly out of ammo, too.”

“Any chance of the cavalry coming to get us?”

“Everyone else fell back already,” he said. “I stayed out to find you.”

“So no cavalry.” I wanted to be grateful, but couldn’t manage the effort.

He shook his head again and shouldered his M-4.

“Let’s make every shot count.”

Sticking my blades into a corpse, I followed suit. Zombie after zombie fell to his deadly accuracy, and a good number fell to my marksmanship, as well. But for each one that dropped, another took its place, and they were coming from all directions. I slapped the last clip into my M-4, realizing I wasn’t ready to die, no matter how bone-weary I might be.

When I’d fired my last round, I dropped the M-4 and retrieved my blades. Time to find out if I had another cut in me or not.

Suddenly a low rumble filled the air, drowning out the moans. The rumble became a roar as something approached through the fog from up the road. The roar was joined by the sound of screeching metal as something shoved a Prius out of its way. A huge, yellow, industrial-strength snowplow careened into view, scattering zombies—whole and in pieces—off either side of the angled blades. The plow slowed to a stop a few feet from us. I thought I’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

Until I saw who sat behind the wheel.

Mack waved at us, grinning from ear to ear.

“Want a ride?”

Gabriel and I scrambled up onto the plow and into the cab, out of reach of grasping hands and gnashing teeth. I gave Mack a bone-crushing hug before settling in. He accelerated the engine and started crushing zombies again.

“How did you make it out alive?” I asked over the roar of the engine.

“I managed to make it through the woods to the back of that church we saw. Got in through a second-story window they hadn’t barricaded. Scaled a drainpipe like Spider-Man,” he added proudly.

“They?”

“Yup, a bunch of survivors holed up there. They’re waiting for me to come back and get them. I figured I’d better get some help first.

“Man, I’m glad to see you guys!”

“What about Kaitlyn?” Gabriel asked.

Mack’s smile dimmed as he shook his head.

“She’d lost too much blood.”

I reached over and squeezed his shoulder.

“You tried your best, Mack.” I paused, then added, “I’m just so glad to see you, and Lil is gonna be over the moon.”

The grin reappeared.

“You saved our asses, Mack,” Gabriel said. “But where the hell did you find a snowplow?”

“Saw it parked behind the church.” Mack veered to the left to avoid a car. Zombies tried to clutch at the sides of the plow to hoist themselves up, but couldn’t get any purchase.

“But what made you take it instead of a car?” I asked. “I mean, it’s sheer genius!”

“Saw the swarm headed your way and thought it might come in handy,” he said with a self-deprecating shrug. “I guess it did.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess it did.”

“And so will this.” Gabriel held up a backpack, dipping inside and pulling out handfuls of full M-4 cartridges and, wonder of wonders, déjà vu darts.

He looked at me.

“You up for it?” I nodded.

“I think I just got my third wind.”

Gabriel turned to Mack.

“How much gas you got left in this thing?”

Mack grinned.

“You just tell me where you want to go.”

We literally plowed through dozens of walking corpses, making broad sweeps up and down the length of the parking lot. Gabriel used his M-4 to lethal effect, his aim unaffected by the movement, while I made the most of the déjà vus, sharing the wealth in as widespread a pattern as possible until the cache was depleted.

Then, while Gabriel kept up his sharpshooting, I used the transmitter to detonate the darts. A few explosions rocked the snowplow, but the cab offered us protection against flying zombie viscera.

We drove along the row of cars at the edge of the lot until we came to the gap where the car had exploded. I peered through the fog at the figures lurching their way across the fields and up the road toward us.

“Is it my imagination or are they thinning out?”

“Déjà vu on your right.” Gabriel pointed toward a zombie staggering in our direction, a dart sticking out of its neck. I hit the transmitter, smiling grimly as the explosion took off its head. The thing took one more step before falling to the ground.

“I don’t think it’s your imagination,” Mack said.

A shout rose up behind us, from Mount Gillette.

“Get us back there,” Gabriel said urgently.

Mack immediately put the plow into reverse and turned back toward the barricades. I strained to see what was happening, but could only make out the glow of the klieg lights, and what looked like the lick of flames.

As we drew closer, I saw that the ramps over the razor wire had been shoved away and set on fire, the smell of burning flesh warring with the sound of crackling fat as zombies got too close.

“Burn, you undead mothers!” Mack yelled. The three of us cheered and hooted like crazies—but our howls of celebration died in our throats a moment later.

“Oh, god...” I breathed. Through the patches of fog we suddenly saw why the horde seemed so much smaller now. Mount Gillette had failed to hold. There were no defenders along the wall.

Worse, there was a breach. The zoms had managed to get over the razor wire, and their numbers had collapsed the coils of jagged metal. Those underneath were being ground into a thick sludge of flesh and bone.

It looked as if an explosion had blown out a segment of the wall about a meter wide, and the horde had done the rest, boiling through the gap like a swarm of ants, eager to get at the food inside.

“What do we do now?” I said. “Run for it?”

Mack shook his head.

“We won’t get far on the gas we have left.”

Gabriel looked at me.

“What do you say, Ash?”

I took a deep breath.

“I say we ram this thing right on top of those fuckers and pound the shit out of every last one of them, until they kill us.”

Gabriel grinned.

“Works for me. Mack?”

“I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“All right then,” I said. “Let’s go Thelma and Louise on their sorry undead asses.”

Mack gunned the engine with a lion’s roar, and we drove straight for the breach. Stragglers crunched underneath us, and then our plow carved deep into the thick of their ranks, unstoppable. We held on for dear life as the gore-covered snowplow bounced along, flattening, pulverizing, and cutting through rotting bodies by the dozens, until we ground to a rocky, bone-jarring halt, mired right in the middle of the swarm.

The hungry dead filled the windows of the cabin, scrambling for purchase and hurling themselves at the glass to get at us inside. Cracks began to appear like spider webs under their bloody, unfeeling blows.