Snareville (12 page)

She nodded again. We stood beside the fire trucks. At one hundred yards, we ordered fire and cut down a swath of Zeds. Heads exploded. Brain splattered across the countryside. Everyone shifted to new targets. Deaders went down in piles. Still, they came.

At fifty yards, I yelled at Pepper to open up. Her slugs swept the first row like a scythe. As her muzzle made its pass, Zeds hit the ground. We ordered our troops to fall back. We still had close to two thousand zombies in front of us.

Kenny slapped the door of the fire truck beside him. The firefighters opened up their high-pressure hoses. At twenty-five yards, we ceased fire as the water tore into the swarm. The geysers scattered the front ranks like rice in the wind. We fell back to our trucks. It was a short mile into town, where we sent our troops to their rooftop positions. Our radios crackled. They were past the trucks. Ken ordered the firefighters to stay buttoned up until everyone got past, then reel their hoses in and follow.

I stood at the last gate with Bill and Tony. We were the bait. It worked.

The Zeds stumbled toward us. We popped a few singly. That seemed to encourage them. If we could shoot, we must be alive. Fresh meat.

When they were twenty-five yards from us, we started to back up. We led a sick parody of the annual Snareville parade between the fences and along the main road into town.

Their moans filled my head. The noise grated on my nerves and made me want to break and run. I ground my teeth together and popped another deader. My radio crackled to tell me everyone was in place. Good.

We turned the corner onto Main Street. For a moment, the swarm paused. Some of the Zeds looked undecided, like maybe they sensed the trap. Tony dropped one, and that seemed to make up their minds. They came on.

We backed up three blocks. I watched the roof lines. I saw the top of a head here and there, but I couldn’t pick out any particulars. Some of the Zeds wandered off from the crowd, as if they knew the place and thought they might check out some of their old hangouts.

When the street opened up into the residential area, I opened fire. As fast as I could pull the trigger, I cracked Zeds. The swarm surged forward.

Tony and Bill ran behind me to swing the gates shut. We'd welded pickup beds onto steel rails and mounted them on hinges strapped to power poles. I heard the bar fall into place, and an end loader crawled forward to reinforce the gates. At the other end of Main, the other set of gates swung closed. I scrambled out of the cage, hoping the Zeds couldn’t do the same.

As soon as I got clear, the order went down the line. The people of Snareville stood up and started hurling everything they could. Rocks, bricks, and chunks of concrete block rained down. From two stories up, the missiles crushed skulls and knocked Zeds to the ground. Kids cheered one another on. Adults laughed and hooted as one zombie after another hit the pavement. Pockets of deaders backed away from the kill zone, and a few shooters finished them off.

From the front door of the Catholic church, Father Ed stepped out into the swarm. For a moment, he stood on the steps, resplendent in full vestment. His sash fluttered in the wind. Behind him, Father Joseph swung the pot of incense. A few months back, the two decided the Zeds were demons from Hell. Father Ed wouldn’t fire a gun, but now there he was, going after the deaders with a vessel of holy water.

He made about three steps before the zombies came up to meet him. He splashed some holy water on them before he died. His assistant followed in short order. One of our varmint hunters put a couple of bullets through the priests' heads.

At long last, only about fifty Zeds still stood upright. Rotted corpses carpeted Main Street. Bill, Tony, and I, plus John and a few of the other guys, pulled on our helmets and swung over the gates with our pistols. We went to work.

Two dead women turned toward me. One had the shaft of a pen sticking out of her left eye, holding her thick-framed glasses cockeyed. Short, black hair hung in limp strings around her head. I laughed when I recognized her. One of my old supervisors from work who always used to give me shit. Always on my ass about something or another.

I let her get a few steps closer. How many times does one get to shoot one's boss and get away with it?

She stumbled onward, arms out, black blood gurgling from her mouth. I raised the pistol and put a slug dead center in her forehead. She went down in a pile.

I swung the front sight to the second woman. This one was missing her shirt. A filthy bra hung across her chest. Her right breast was gone—chewed off—and her left hung like a deflated balloon. I recognized the roses tattooed on the boob that was left. Terri. My last girlfriend before all this started. We'd worked together at the warehouse. Bitch played me like a fool, broke up with me, then went to HR to keep me away from her.

She wasn’t from Princeton. The virus must have gotten into the warehouse, too. Good thing I wasn’t at work the day the shit hit the fan.

Terri came right at me. I could see the black circles at her neck and shoulder where she'd been bitten. I hoped her new boyfriend was the one who ate her tit.

She opened her mouth as she reached for me. To this day, I sometimes still hear that fucking moan and see those dead-white eyes. I put a slug into Terri's black, soggy mouth, and she went down just like the rest of them.

We used our pistols to work our way through what was left of the swarm. The job went quick, and soon enough, we were out of targets. My ears rang from the gunfire and the yelling. I stood next to Tony for a moment as I caught my breath. A rock bounced off my helmet.

I spun, pistol up, eyes darting back and forth across the street behind me. Nothing.

I glanced to the roof. Jenny and Pepper stood next to each other. They shouted something at me, waving their arms. I looked where they were pointing and froze.

John stood on the far side of the street, helmet off. In his right hand, he held his pistol. His left arm was wrapped around a little Zed. The girl wore a green soccer uniform. Her long, brown hair hung in limp strands. I could hear her snarling as she tried to chew through John's coveralls. Tears streamed down his face as he rocked her back and forth.

Oh, shit.

I saw it coming.

"John, don't! Stop!"

He put the gun to little Jessie’s temple and blew her brains out. Before I could get to him, he stuck the muzzle under his chin and joined her.

John's skull was a smoking crater when I reached him. Wrapped up in his left hand lay a dirty, pink necklace that read,
Daddy’s Girl
.

Fuck
.

Later, we buried those two together in the same grave. We added both names to the board in the middle of town.

We lost seven town folk that day. We worked well into the next morning to clean up. The fire trucks hosed down the streets, along with those of us who'd climbed into the pen with the Zeds. Bucket tractors hauled corpses out to the trench we'd dug with two of the backhoes. There were too many bodies to burn; we just kept expanding the pit as we needed to. We handled the dead like haz-mat, wearing masks and face shields. When we were done, I threw my gloves in the pit with the dead. We counted more than four thousand put to rest.

At home, I took a cold shower that did nothing to wake me up. I fell into bed with my girls. Jenny spooned me, and I spooned Pepper. I felt the baby between us as Jenny pulled herself closer. I tried not to let Cathy’s crying bother me, and we fell asleep. I heard the faint, comforting voices of Heather and Sandy as I dozed off.

A geyser of asphalt shot into the air ten feet in front of the school bus. The driver pulled his foot off the gas as the rig rolled down the hill to the valley floor. Behind him, the small convoy slowed.

“
I think that means stop, Boss,” said Max, the driver, to the blonde woman standing beside him. She held on to the pole bolted ceiling to floor. Max continued to slow.

“
Aw, hell… he’s a lousy shot," a scruffy man said from the first seat back. "Plus, he’s a mile away. How’s he gonna hit us?”

“
That was a warning, Roach,” Max said. “Like all those Zed heads hung up on the poles along the road and all the dead cars every few yards. We’re in their space, and I'm thinking they might not want company.”

“
Well, he missed. What’s he gonna do? Scare us? I bet—”

A second shot shattered the driver’s side mirror. Glass blew out the window from the concussion. The slug left behind a hotdog-sized hole in the mirror frame.

“
That
meant stop,” Max said, hitting the brakes.

The bus came to an abrupt halt. Behind it, the other three vehicles stopped as well, halfway down the hill. Nearby rested the burned-out hulk of a modified pickup. Two Zed skulls hung from the mile-marker post. A bitter north wind rattled the bus windows.

Max tapped on the gas gauge. “Now what, Boss? We can’t sit here long. We’re running on fumes as it is.”

The blonde woman considered. She unzipped her jacket and pulled off a white sweatshirt stained various colors. She stepped outside and stood there in her bra, waving the sweatshirt over her head. The wind snatched away the gray plume of her breath.

Thirty seconds later, she pulled her shirt back on and hopped onto the bus again. Through her binoculars, she watched the roadblock a mile away.

“
This was your idea, Roach,” Max said. “We get stuck out here and end up on foot, I’ll kill you myself.”

The woman watched intently through the twin lenses.

“
Turn on channel nine,” she said. “They must have a radio.”

The CB crackled to life. Terse orders issued.

"Pull up to the checkpoint."

"Better to roll in now than try to turn around," the woman said.

They wouldn’t make it to the next town anyway.

Slowly, Max pulled the bus forward as ordered. The other vehicles followed. Ten yards from the checkpoint over the creek, a figure up ahead waved them to a stop, and they looked down the barrels of five AR-15s. The people behind the guns could have been male or female. Wrapped in heavy winter clothing, faces swathed in scarves, three of the figures approached the bus to tap on the door.

“
We’re supposed to escort you into town,” said the first—a man. “We’ll ride along. You the boss?”

The blonde woman nodded.

“
Then let your people know you’ll be killed if they try anything.”

She keyed the CB and passed word as the troops climbed aboard. They took positions along the aisle, moving in among the newcomers. Max rolled the bus through the gates. Roach started to reach for something in his pants. The second trooper thrust the muzzle of a rifle under his left eye.

“
Did you think we were kidding, Roach?” a woman’s voice snapped. The muzzle of her gun didn’t waver.

The troops guided the convoy into a small parking lot in front of a convenience store. Max parked facing an old, brick library. The blonde woman was told she would get off here, as would her second. Roach was also escorted off the bus. Several armed figures waited for them outside. Someone shoved Roach against a wall of the store. The armed woman reached into his pants and pulled out a pistol. She checked his coat pockets and found another.

“
Haven’t changed, have ya, niño?”

Roach stared at her covered-up face, puzzled.

“
If this asshole moves, kill him,” the armed woman told the crew outside as she entered the library.

“
Who
is
that?” Roach asked the others.

No one answered. No one moved a gun barrel.

Inside, the blonde woman was walked into a smaller room off the side of the main library. It had been the children’s story room once, but it now looked to serve as an office. A man with a trimmed, gray beard and a long, gray pony tail sat behind the desk. To the blonde woman, he looked like a hippie version of Robert E. Lee.

“
Come in, sit down, warm-up.” The man stood behind his desk. “Would you like some coffee? My name’s Kenny One Shot.”

The blonde woman took the man’s proffered hand. “Name’s Connie. They call me Boss.”

She accepted the coffee, wrapping her hands around the warm mug.

“
The kid here,” she said, nodding to the young man beside her, “is my second. His name’s Jake, but we call him Cypher.”

Kenny shook the kid's hand. “Cypher, huh?”

“
Yessir. I’m good with computers and electronics.”

Standing to the side of the desk, a second man spoke up.

“
Most kids your age are.” He held out his hand as well. “Name’s Danny Death. Gal behind you is Pepper.”

"Dan's
my
second," Kenny explained. "Pepper's one of my squad leaders."

From there, they got down to talks. Connie had twenty-three people to her group. They were travelers, not scavengers. They traded for what they needed when they could, but they were just about out of gas and low on rations. They just wanted some supplies, and they would move on. They didn’t want any handouts.

It was mid-November. Winter was setting in. Kenny made a counteroffer for Connie's group to stay until spring. Then they could decide whether to leave or stay.