Slow Burn (Book 5): Torrent (20 page)

The man hurried back to the Humvee to gather up some ammunition for his weapons.

I got out and went over between the vehicles with Murphy.

Working to disconnect the chain, he asked, “You didn’t give him a silencer did you?”

I looked over past the highway’s access road. The rain was starting to slacken, and I could make out a tall red and yellow sign for Rudy’s Barbecue. “Maybe.”

The chain clinked to the ground and Murphy gave me the
look disappointed mothers save for when their children do something stupid. He unwrapped the chain from the trailer hitch.

“You’re the one that wanted to stop and help,” I said.

With the chain off, Murphy stood up, looking around out of habit. “Don’t do that, Zed. You know you would have done the same thing. I just came to the decision sooner.”

“They’re all immune. They may have the magic genetic combination to start over.”

“So you’re saying the Mighty Null Spot gave him the silencer to save the human race?”

“I’m just banking some good karma.”

The man came back around and Murphy handed him his chain.

Greg said, “Thank you so much.”

Murphy said, “Don’t sweat it, man.”

I gave him a nod.

The rain was rapidly settling down to something like a sprinkle and visibility was back. As if to punctuate that, the howls of a few hundred infected rose up from down the embankment and across the access road.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Murphy yelled at Greg. He moved to his left to get a better view and raised his new silenced M4 to his shoulder.

Greg started to mouth something else.

“Go,” Murphy yelled at him.

He ran for a door of the SUV.

I was beside Murphy by then, and without the SUV blocking my view, I saw the Rudy’s Barbecue down the steep embankment and across the access road. Wrapped around the front and one side of the building was a wide, covered patio large enough for tables to seat a couple of hundred people. It was also a great place for Whites to huddle and stay dry, which is what they had been doing until the rain eased enough for them to see us in our noisy vehicles.

But they were already pouring off of the patio and out across the parking lot. Some were on the access road and several were trying to run up the steep, slippery embankment.

Murphy fired his weapon at those closest.

The SUV’s starter cranked and the engine growled.

I fired my weapon toward the oncoming infected, but couldn’t tell whether I’d hit anything or not.

The SUV started to roll slowly forward. Murphy slapped the back window with his hand. “Go! Go!”

It did.

At least twenty Whites were already clawing their way up the muddy slope. The SUV was picking up speed and already beyond the hope of any White to reach it.

I shouted, “They’re safe. Let’s get out of here.”

Murphy gave the SUV one more look and bolted for the Humvee.

With the first of the infected just clamoring their way out of the mud and taking steps onto the asphalt, we accelerated our Humvee north on the highway.

Not two miles up the highway, we were right back into another squall and I slowed the Humvee down to fifteen miles per hour.

“What is up with all this rain?” Murphy asked.

“Maybe
Dalhover was right.”

“Top is right about a lot of shit.”

Then something occurred to me. It was only mid-afternoon, so unless something drastic happened on the way back to the river along the circuitous route we were taking, we’d get there well before dark. “There’s an Academy up here on the left.”

“An Academy?”

“You know, that store that sells all of that camping and sports stuff.”

“Tell me this isn’t going to be another inspiration of yours.”

I swerved the Humvee out of the center of the roadway until I was driving along the shoulder. “Hear me out on this one.”

“Whatever. You’re
gonna do whatever you’re gonna do. That’s the way it works when you’re driving.”

“Don’t be petulant.” I U-turned onto an exit
ramp, cut across the access road and jumped a curb beneath the Academy Sports and Outdoors sign. In the process, I ran down some crepe myrtle trees, really just tall bushes that had lost their bright pink flowers in the rain. The parking lot was mostly empty, at least what we could see of it. Coming to a stop about halfway across, I looked at Murphy for confirmation. “I’m going to crash right through the front doors.”

“Crash and grab? I like it.”

“Do you think it’ll damage the Humvee?”

Murphy shook his head. “Nope. It’ll make a hell of a noise when we go through, but I’m betting the Humvee will be fine.”

“Once we’re inside, there’ll probably be some infected. I mean, the damn things are everywhere right? They’ll probably be in there, too.”

“And?”

“Do we open the hatch and shoot them with the fifty caliber machine gun?”

“Nope. I say we jump out and shoot ‘
em, unless there are a bunch standing right there when we drive in. If so, we drive out and leave.”

With a nod, I revved the engine and aimed at the entrance.

The pavement between us and the store disappeared quickly. I braced for the impact. The Humvee bounced over the curb and smashed through the glass and window frames. A second later, we rammed through another wall of glass at the back of the foyer and hit some product display shelves. Scores of multi-colored T-shirts exploded across the hood and windshield.

Still, the Humvee’s momentum was carrying it forward and I pushed hard on the brakes. Tires skidded on waxed floors and more display racks fell victim.

And we stopped.

The hood was covered with so much debris from the collision that we couldn’t see through the windshield. Murphy shouted, “Well,
here goes!” He wrestled his door open and I did the same.

We’d made one hell of a mess out of the front of the store. Glass, bent aluminum and merchandise lay everywhere.

“Up top!” Murphy shouted.

I didn’t see any infected coming at me, so I followed Murphy’s order, turned and climbed as quickly as I could to the top of the Humvee. Murphy beat me there. He had his rifle up and was firing before I got my feet under me.

A long row of cash registers ran across the front of the store and Murphy shot down two infected who were running past those on their way from the fishing department.

On my side of the store, the weightlifting gear filled out the corner and a long wide aisle led up to the shoe racks. I assumed that to be my area of responsibility. Women’s sports apparel was directly in front of the Humvee. Murphy and I would have to share that.

An infected woman came out of the shoe section, wearing an employee’s blue smock. She was hungry and in a hurry. I fired.

Of course, I missed. My aim really was getting worse. I fired four more times before a round caught her just above her left eye. She did a grotesque pirouette as blood, brain and bone exploded out the back of her skull.

To my right, Murphy was firing again, but stopped by the time I looked over.

“Damn, there must have been a bunch of them on your side.” He grinned at me.

“Yeah.”

“Did you get them all?”

“Yeah.”

We held our positions for a few more minutes.

Murphy called into the cavernous store. “Hey, Whitey, it’s dinner time. Come and get it.”

No more of the infected came out.

Turning to Murphy, I said, “What I’m thinking is, we grab some coolers, some sleeping bags, winter coats, boots, Coleman stove, tents…”

“Yeah, yeah. I gotcha. Some of everything they’ve got here.”

“Let’s stick together while we’re shopping.”

“Yep. You push the basket. I’ll ride shotgun since I can hit what I shoot at.” Murphy couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, funny man.”

Having loaded the Humvee with nearly as much as we could stuff into it—the damn things just weren’t as roomy as they looked like from the outside—Murphy and I were in one of the aisles in the camping section. I found myself eyeballing a machete display.

“I think you miss your machete, Zed.”

“I do.” I picked up a particularly wicked-looking machete with a black plastic handle and black powder-coated blade. On the side of the blade was painted a white skull over the name “Zombie Killer.” Pointless curves and cutouts adorned the blade’s back edge. It was a frightening tool.

I tore off the plastic and cardboard wrapping and hefted it while I admired its inherent evil.

Murphy laughed. “Man, don’t get that piece of crap.”

Embarrassed, I asked, “Why?”

“Look at it. It looks like a movie prop.”

“So? It’s sharp.” I pointed it at him. “It’s got a pointy tip.”

“You’re not going to be sword fighting. I mean, get it if you want. I’m betting it’s a piece of shit.” Murphy grabbed a Zombie Killer off of the display rack, tore off the packaging and wrapped his fingers around the handle a couple of times until he had a good grip. He stepped over to the end of the aisle, gave me a smile and started hacking at the metal shelving.

I jumped back as pieces of merchandise flew. All along its forty feet, the shelf rattled with each impact.

On the third hack, the blade got stuck and Murphy had to wrestle it back out again. Breathing heavily from the exertion, he held the Zombie Killer out so I could see the blade.

“Holy crap.” The blade had big gouges where it had hit the shelf. One gouge looked like the blade had been bitten away by a sizable lizard. I looked down at my blade and back at Murphy’s. Was the Zombie Killer really that shoddy? Or was Murphy just that strong? “Let me try.”

I hauled back and swung the machete at the same shelf. Mine got stuck on the first swing. I wrenched it out and hacked twice more. When I was done, I held up my Zombie Killer and compared it to Murphy’s. It looked just as bad. Even the plastic handle was cracked. I couldn’t believe it. It had looked so damn lethal. “What a piece of crap.”

“Uh-huh.” Murphy tossed his Zombie Killer on the floor.

Looking at the price, I said, “I can’t believe this thing cost sixty bucks.” I dropped it.

Murphy pointed to the most utilitarian of the machetes on the display. It had a plain wooden handle and was wider at the end of the blade than near the handle. It looked quite a bit like my first machete. Its blade
didn’t glisten and it didn’t have a name. It was just a machete. It cost seventeen dollars. I picked it up to see how it felt in my hand.

Murphy nodded at the shelf. “Try it.”

“Okay.” I went after the shelving unit just as before. The blade had more weight than the Zombie Killer and it hit the thin metal shelf and bit in deeply. I yanked it out and hacked twice more. When I was done, I held the blade up for inspection. It was nicked, but there was no significant damage.

“I know which one I’d buy, if I was a machete man.” Murphy nodded at the blade in my hand, just in case I needed a hint.

“I agree. And I’ll save forty-three dollars.”

“Plus tax.” Murphy turned and headed over to look at other bladed tools on the aisle.

I left the nicked machete on the shelf, put four more into our shopping basket and took the last for myself. While Murphy selected some hatchets, several axes, a few dozen knives and propane lanterns, I worked on fitting my machete sheath across my back so I could pull it out over my shoulder without cutting my ear off.

I practiced the movement several times and pumped myself up with badass confidence. I’d wielded my last machete through some pretty horrific business. Having one in my hand felt good.

We loaded the last of the gear into the Humvee’s back seats. Murphy put himself in the driver’s seat while I got in on the passenger side and we drove out into the rain.

“What time is it?”

Murphy looked at his big gold watch. “Twenty after four.” He turned onto an exit ramp for Highway 183 and drove the Humvee north in the southbound lanes.

“The rain is letting up.” I looked through the windows to see behind us. The sky was black to the south and east.

Murphy took a long look at the clouds. “Looks like the worst of it is past.”

Every detention pond I could see was brimming. Every low spot in the road was a pond. Water flowed down every slope. “I think we’ve got plenty of time to make it back before dark.”

“I don’t want to spend the night out here.”

“With the rain past us, the Whites are going to start coming out again. It might be slow going.”

Murphy shrugged. “I’ll run ‘
em down.”

The rain was falling lightly and we had good visibility. We made quick time running north on the highway. As we drove, I kept an eye out for the SUV we’d towed back onto the road. I wondered if they made it out of town.

Some of the infected were coming out of their hiding places in the stalled cars on the northbound lanes. A few were venturing out of businesses lining the access roads. None gave chase, however. Most seemed too distracted, frazzled by their experience in the storm. That was good to know. Thunderstorms were advantageous times for us.

We got off of 183 at Anderson Mill Road and Murphy deftly wove the Humvee through a jam of cars at the intersection. He manhandled it through a ditch with several feet of flowing water to get around a long row of parked cars with broken windows. Some of those held corpses.

After a few miles, the road was lined on both sides with six-foot stonewalls built to keep the noise of the traffic out of the neighborhoods. They also served to keep the infected residents corralled inside. At least, those not bright enough to find their way out along the roads that cut through the walls. As with every other street in the city, sometimes a few cars and sometimes many were in the road, on the shoulders and on the sidewalks. Some were wrecked, but many simply empty, with doors swung open.

At the intersection of Anderson Mill Road and FM 620, cars were crowded at every angle. To get through, Murphy used the Humvee’s bumper to push a minivan into a ditch. That opened a way across somebody’s lawn and a path into a shopping center parking lot. Of course, the section of the parking lot in front of the big grocery
store which anchored one end of the shopping center was a maze of abandoned vehicles and shopping carts.

Some of the infected came out of their rain shelters as we navigated the parking lot. We were moving slowly enough that it was easy for a couple of them to jump onto the Humvee. But their presence didn’t bother either of us. Perhaps we were becoming used to the Whites.

“I’ll shake ‘em off when we get out on 620.”

I pointed to a restaurant in the strip center. “I used to go there for tacos.”

“Torchy’s?”

“They make some damn good tacos.”

“Never been.”

“That’s too bad. All mankind ever built or ever did, every war, every pyramid, every medical discovery were just sign posts on the way to the pinnacle of mankind’s greatest success, the
Torchy’s taco.”

“I miss hamburgers.”

“You’re a burger man?”

“Not just any burger. There’s a place called
Hopdoddy down on South Congress. Man, what I wouldn’t do for a big burger and a cold beer.”

“I hear
ya.”

Murphy bounced the Humvee through deep running water in another ditch. Both of our infected riders lost their grip and fell off.
That put us westbound on FM 620, finally heading toward the Colorado River and home.

We passed a dealership that specialized in exotic and restored cars. “I used to drive by that place all the time and drool.”

Nice old automobiles were still parked in the lot in front of the building. Murphy looked over. “You used to live around here?”

I pointed north. “My mom lived a couple miles that way.”

“So this is where you grew up.”

“Yeah.”

“This is memory lane for you, then.”

I thought about that for a moment. “No. Maybe. I hate this place.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I know. Just keep driving.”

He did.

I looked around at the trees growing thicker along the roadsides as the number of businesses thinned out. Most of the property along FM 620—on the northern edge of Austin—hadn’t yet been developed. Now it never would be.

The sky was still matted in a thick layer of clouds, but the rain only sprinkled lightly down. We passed fewer and fewer abandoned cars the further we drove. Even the Whites were absent, another inexplicable black hole. I wondered about that until I slipped off into an old fantasy, imagining myself as the last living man on Earth, a fantasy not so far from my new truth. I thought about all of the things from the world I lost that I loved or hated. And oddly, in all of that, the loss that seemed most significant at that moment was Torchy’s Tacos.

Of course, that conclusion made me feel like a total shit.