Zompoc Survivor: Exodus (7 page)

We were close to the line of trees that marked the drainage ditch we’d skirted when I heard a deep bass sound, like the rapid thumping of a helicopter, but not like the St. John’s Life Flite. This was faster sounding, and louder. A black shape loomed over the houses across Sunset and flew north, blotting out a part of the night sky for a few seconds as it went overhead. Twin rotors at the front and back held the long body aloft, and I heard the familiar whine of a turbine engine. A Chinook, flying with no running lights and no markings that I could see. I filed it away as one more entry on a list of weird shit that was getting longer and longer by the second. We cleared the edge of the trees and for some reason, I felt a little safer as soon as we were out of the black chopper’s line of sight. Porsche wasted no time getting back on the trail, and soon we were heading toward the cover of trees.

We slipped past the first branches and found ourselves looking at more asphalt. The Greenways trail paralleled a residential street here, and for almost a quarter of a mile, it looked like we would be exposed on the left. I leaned forward and stuck my face near the opening in the cab’s rear window.

“Turn your headlights off and stay on the trailway,” I said softly. “Go slowly.” Porsche nodded and switched the lights off. The trees grew thick enough overhead that the trail was mostly in shadow, but the streetlights gave us enough illumination to see where we were going. I stayed hunkered down by the back window as we coasted along. Off to our left, a row of apartments loomed, the windows darkened and eerily silent.  We crept past quietly, and an agonizingly slow two or three minutes later the trail led back into the trees. Sunset angled closer on our right, and I could see more movement on the road through the trees. Porsche kept the headlights off as she sped up a little, trusting to the narrow bands of light that bled through the leaves to show us where the trail was. Ahead, we could hear the screeching of tires; it ended with the unmistakable
crump
of cars hitting each other at speed.

When the trees began to thin out, we could see a knot of cars stopped on National and the sound of raised voices. The road itself looked clear on either side of them, and as we got closer, it looked like your average pileup. A light colored little hybrid was on its side in the middle of the road, with the rear end of a Caddy sticking out from behind the front of it. I could see the back end of a truck jutting out from behind the rear end and another car with its nose buried under the truck’s rear bumper.

Gunshots shattered the argument, and I saw a body fall to the pavement on the far side of the truck as I looked under it. A skinny guy with a jumble of tattoos on his lanky arms in a loose wife beater shirt and ripped jeans that threatened to fall off his hips walked around the back of the Caddy while someone else walked behind the truck. The tattooed gangster wannabe peered in the windshield of the hybrid, then stepped back and pulled a chromed revolver into view. The gun boomed four times as he pumped his arm into each shot. Five more pops from another gun corresponded to five flashes of light from the other side of the car jammed under the truck’s bumper.

“You’re dead, bitch!” the skinny guy crowed as he gestured with the gun. The other guy came around from behind the far end of the pile up with an automatic held high and sideways in his right hand. He was wearing loose pants of his own that drooped around his hips, and a button down shirt over a white wife beater, with a baseball hat worn with the flat bill off to one side.

“Killed that motherfucker!” he yelled to his friend. The two examples of Rule Twelve met near the middle of the vehicles and started talking. From fifty yards away, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they gestured at the cars. I was guessing their wannabe pimp-mobile was totaled. Judging by the headshaking that was going on, I was willing to bet that the other three cars were out of commission, too. Porsche and I stayed still as they started looking around. The skinny guy with the revolver pointed to the north, and I glanced that way. Movement caught my eye, and I uttered a whispered curse.

“Dumbasses,” Porsche hissed from in the cab. I agreed silently and hoped they were going to take off running. But then the kid in the button down shirt turned toward us. He started walking our way and raised the pistol homey-style, gun sideways, held up almost over his head.

“Bitch, you better get out my truck!” he yelled as he strode toward us sounding like a walking stereotype. It was time to introduce this would be bad-ass to Dave’s Rule Number Fourteen: Guns are not magic wands. Pointing one at someone didn’t mean they were automatically going to do what you told them to.

“Get down,” I whispered, “and light him up.” She leaned across the seat and reached for the light controls on the steering column. The headlights caught Hat Wannabe flatfooted and he squinted against the sudden light. Then he started popping off rounds our way.

“You did NOT just flash that shit in my face, bitch!” he said as he fired. Bullets whizzed by us, but only one actually hit the truck, proving that readiness to pull the trigger did not equal any ability to actually hit what you were shooting at. The gun stopped making noise, and I surged to my feet. Unlike the two thugs, I was not too cool to use the sights, and I knew how to hit what I shot at. They were about to learn a hard lesson in cause and effect: shooting at someone means that they just might shoot back. Hat Wannabe was framed in the cone of light as he tried to drop the magazine from his pistol. Behind him, I could see his buddy bringing his hand cannon up. Time slowed for me as I brought the M4 up and tried to put the red dot in the optic in the middle of his chest. When I got it dancing around more or less where I wanted it, I pulled the trigger twice. He dropped like a rag doll, and I moved the sight to Six Gun.
Fourteen, fifteen.
His gun boomed and I heard a bullet whine by as it ricocheted off something. I pulled the trigger again, but he stayed up, so I tried again, and this time sent him spinning.
Sixteen, seventeen.

“You okay?” I called out to Porsche, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Porsche said, relief plain in her voice as she got herself upright again.

“Get us out of here!” I said as I dropped back down. She wasted no time in putting the truck into gear and leaving fresh ruts in the grass. We bounced off the curb and onto National, then she was making a hard right as we went around the nose of the hybrid. Six Gun was trying to crawl toward his shiny pistol, and Porsche swerved in his direction. He gave out a strangled scream as the front wheel hit him, then went silent when the back wheel got him.

“Asshole,” I heard Porsche call out as she powered the truck into a sharper left than I thought possible under the laws of physics as I understood them. Once I was done bouncing off the side of the truck bed, I pulled myself up to see that we were barreling down Sunset. The street was empty, so even though we were going the wrong way down the divided road, there wasn’t much chance of us hitting someone else coming the other way. We crossed over to the right side of the road as soon as it merged back to four lanes again, and slowed down enough to make sure we wouldn’t get sideswiped when we crossed Fremont, the next big road. Porsche turned her headlights off as we blazed through the intersection, and we coasted forward quietly.

More screams came from our left, but to our right, it was silent. Trees lined the street on that side for about two hundred yards, cutting off my view of the park. I knew from countless past trips that an empty swimming pool took up this corner of the park. A little further down the road was a playground and a parking lot. I hoped that there was no one out tonight. The thought of zombie kids in softball uniforms sickened me. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t just the thought of dead kids lurching around. It was the thought that followed: I’d shoot them to stay alive. It bothered me that my brain was even able to envision doing that. Still, I kept sweeping left and right for movement.

Porsche slowed to a stop as we got past the edge of the trees, and I focused forward. Nothing was directly in front of us, but up ahead at the Glenstone intersection, I could see what made her stop. Truth was I should have expected this. Glenstone was one of the major roads through town. It made sense that it would be one of the most backed up roads right now. I could see three cars on fire, and the glow from more fires flickered through the windows and off the paint of other cars further to the south. Silhouetted against the glow were several figures that seemed to be wandering back and forth among the vehicles.

“Well, we’re not going that way,” Porsche said with an upbeat tone.

“Damn straight. Fremont looked pretty clear, and I think we can get past the hospital by taking one of the side streets.”

“We can,” she said as she shifted the truck into reverse. The back tire bumped over the almost nonexistent curb before she stopped and shifted back into gear. “I used to live in the apartments at the corner of Fremont and Seminole.” She took us back toward Fremont and turned right. According to the mental map I had of this area, she would have lived caddy-corner to the southeast corner of the hospital campus. I hoped she knew what she was doing, because I’d only been through this area a few times, and I didn’t trust my memory of it in the dark.

As we pulled even with the first street on the right, screams pierced the night, and we could see shapes emerging onto the road. Porsche straightened the wheel and hit the gas. The next road looked deserted, and she took the turn. As we started down the street, movement on either side caught my attention, but we were going too fast for me to make out what it was. I had a sneaking suspicion, though. Frantic barking broke out ahead of us, and I felt the truck slow. As we got closer, I could see something moving up ahead of us, and the barking got louder. Then I heard something in the dog’s barking that made my gut clench up. In between barks, it would let out a whine, then bark again. We pulled up until the dog was to our right, and I dug my flashlight out of my backpack. The cone of light showed a Rottweiler in front of one of the infected. The infected was sitting up slowly, and the dog was down with its forelegs in front of it but it’s haunches up in the air. I caught sight of its tail, and gave a smile of approval for its former owner. Most people bobbed the tails on Rott’s, but this big fella had his intact. I felt a surge of pity for the poor creature. The Rottweiler was a very devoted breed, and if I was any judge, this one was trying to make sense of what its human had become. It looked at me, then back at the thing that was struggling to its feet in front of it.

There is a saying from the Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai, that one should make decisions within the space of seven breaths. It took me less than one to jump over the side of the truck. I went around to the back and pulled the tailgate down. The dog backed away from the infected, and I let out a whistle.

“Come on, boy!” I called out. It gave a low whine, then ran toward a pile of things in front of the house behind it. My jaw dropped in disbelief as it carried a rolled up green wool blanket back in its mouth. Barely breaking stride, it jumped into the back of the truck, then turned around and dropped the blanket at its feet. I closed the tailgate and hopped back in, fighting the urge to go back and bash his former owner’s skull in.

“Picking up more strays?” Porsche asked as she gunned the accelerator. I could hear the smile in her voice. The dog gave my proffered hand an experimental sniff before laying eight feet of slobbery tongue across it in what I guessed was his canine approval. I chuckled as I patted his shoulder. A thick leather collar encircled his neck, and I followed it around until I found the tag.

“Sherman,” I read aloud. He gave me a short bark in reply. The name fit. Up close, I could see how broad he was across the shoulders. Like the tank he was named for. He laid his head down on his paws and looked up at me with big, soulful doggy eyes, and I imagined I could see the sadness behind them. I ran my hand along his back as I looked out the front windshield at the perilous new world that was being born around us.

Even humans who hadn’t been infected were preying on their own kind. As much as I wanted to judge myself superior to the two men I’d shot earlier, in truth, I couldn’t say I was that much different. It had been way too easy to pull the trigger the first time, and even easier the second. My gaze went to Sherman as he nuzzled my hand. If there was one difference, though, he was the result of it. My father had always said that you could tell a lot about the character of a man by the way he treated folks around him when he held power in his hands. When we’d had the chance, Porsche and I had helped Sherman out. It was a small difference, but it was enough for me to hang on to my humanity.

Chapter
7

Average
, Ordinary Heroes

Unhappy the land in need of heroes

~ Bertolt Brecht ~

We drove along quietly after that, Sherman leaning up against me as I rode in the back of the truck, Porsche quiet in the front. All told it had been only a couple of hours since the world started its one way trip to Hell, but already I was feeling the strain. She wound her way through the back streets, and I could hear the moans of the infected and the distant screams of the dying. Gunshots sounded in the distance, and I heard another Chinook fly overhead. That sound stirred questions in my head. What in the Hell were Army helicopters doing flying over the city without their running lights on?

“Turn the radio on,” I said. A heartbeat later, static filled the air. Porsche turned the volume down before she turned to me.

“The Q’s off the air,” she said.

“Try KTTZ,” I told her. “If it’s news you know they’re gonna be all over it.” She hit one of the presets on her radio, and an unfamiliar voice came over the speakers.

“…again, evacuation is in progress. Army National Guard personnel and Homeland Security agents are asking all citizens for their cooperation as they evacuate uninfected members of the population. If you have encountered an infected person, please inform the soldiers or agents who are evacuating you and medical help will be provided for you. If you are in a safe place, such as a school or your place of employment, please stay where you are and call this station or 417-555-EVAC. Emergency evacuation is in progress. Stay indoors and do not make contact with anyone who is infected.” Silence followed, then the voice began again. “Citizens of Springfield, please stay in your homes and cooperate fully with your local, state and federal government representatives. Martial law has been declared for the state of Missouri and an immediate curfew is in effect. Looters will be shot on sight. Emergency evacuation is in progress. Again, emergency evacuation is in progress. Army National Guard personnel-” Porsche turned the radio off as it started to repeat what we’d already heard, then turned to me with wide eyes full of questions.

“Should we…?” she let the question hang in the air between us. I shook my head slowly.

“No, if this was legit…we’d be seeing running lights on those choppers overhead,” I said. “This doesn’t feel right.” She nodded, and I felt a pang of guilt when she turned her attention back to the road. Up until today, we’d just been co-workers, sharing a few hours at a time, talking about inconsequential things. Now, she was trusting me with her life.

We made a left, then she took a right down a side street and a hundred yards later, we were turning right on to Seminole. The street was clear ahead, save for a few bodies. When we passed the first one, a man in what was left of a patient’s hospital gown, I saw tire marks across the side of its head in the pale light of the street lamp. Further on, one of the infected in a white lab coat and suit pants had been reduced to crawling along, its legs and hips twisted almost completely around. Tire marks were clearly visible along its back, and there was broken glass imbedded in its face. A third body was splayed out in the middle of the road, with a bloody tire tread running straight up the back of her skimpy yellow minidress. A grim smile creased my face as I let a spark of hope kindle in my heart. Someone had been this way not long before, and I was willing to put good money on my girl Maya. How she’d gotten past Campbell and the St John’s campus was a mystery to me, but if anyone would have been able to figure it out, that person would have been Maya. Glenstone looked like it was still backed up, but I saw an opening a little ways to the left as we got closer. I pointed over Porsche’s shoulder, and she nodded. Moments later, she was taking the left turn into the parking lot of a liquor store, then cutting across the lot of an old gas station that had been converted to an auto glass shop. The driveway out of their parking lot led into the narrow opening between two compact cars that were at an angle to the lane they should have been in. Broken glass and shards of black fiberglass littered the edges of the opening, and I could see two strips of black where someone had left a layer of rubber on the concrete. The rear of another car had been pushed out of the way in the next lane, and then the way was clear. I felt a moment of pity for anything between Maya and Amy as I surveyed what I figured was her handiwork. We sped across the empty northbound lanes, into the parking lot of a shopping center I’d passed a million times without ever going in, and cut behind a motorsport shop. I pointed across Seminole to the street that angled between the big community blood bank and the Brentwood Branch of the library. She followed my directions, and in seconds, she had us heading down Brentwood.

“Stay on this street. It’ll branch, take the left fork and follow it around to the right after that!” I called to her as she sped along the road.

“Nice neighborhood,” she said as we rounded the first curve.

“Yeah, her ex is a lawyer; he specializes in insurance cases.”

“That explains a lot,” she said with a soft chuckle. She followed my directions to the letter, and in less than two minutes, we were pulling into the driveway of Maya’s ex-husband’s house. Karl had done well for himself, and his house was in one of the older, upper middle class neighborhoods. It was one of the old Federal style house plans, with tall columns in front and a driveway that went past the left side of the house to a detached three car garage in the back yard. My heart leaped when I saw Maya’s battered black car was parked next to the house, and I could hear the faint sound of voices coming from inside as Porsche turned the truck’s engine off. Sherman followed me when I jumped over the side of the truck. Porsche was climbing out as well, and I took a moment to assess the area. Rule seven was to know your terrain, and I was making sure I did.

“Okay, I need you to stay alert out here,” I told her. “Rule Twelve. Assume that people suck after shit hits the fan, and that they’re after your stuff. If you see anyone, let me know.”

“I think I figured that one out for myself the hard way back at the park,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, you did. Dave’s Rule Number Thirteen: Don’t be one of the people who suck after shit hits the fan. I’ll be back out as soon as I can, and we’ll work on getting the hell out of town.” She gave me a quick nod, then stepped past me. Sherman followed me to the front door, his claws clicking on the sidewalk. The front door opened when I was a few steps away, and Amy barreled into me with a hug that made my ribs creak. From behind her came raised voices, easily audible until the door shut.

“Thank God you’re here!” she murmured into my chest. I put my free arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, then reluctantly let go. Affection was all well and good, and I wanted nothing more than to hug the stuffing out of her, but not when I was carrying an assault rifle. She stepped back and I found myself looking into dark eyes that reminded me of Maya’s. Most of her features favored her mother, in fact, from the wavy dark hair to the high cheekbones her distant Cherokee ancestors had gifted her. She might not have been my blood, but when it came down to it, I loved her as if she was my daughter. She and Maya were the reason behind Dave’s Rule Number Twenty Two: Watch out for your friends and family. No part of my survival prep had been more important.

“Sounds like they’re really going at it,” I said as I heard the muffled voices even through the door. “How long ago did your mom get here?”

“Like ten minutes ago.” She turned and headed back for the door, leaving me to follow.

“Man, that escalated quickly,” I said as I heard Karl’s voice from inside.

“Yeah, they pretty much started yelling at each other the second Mom walked in the door. I tried telling Dad what you said, but he wouldn’t listen. Once Mom showed up, I didn’t even try to get between them.” She opened the door, and we were inundated by Karl’s booming voice as soon as we walked in the house. I noticed the black backpack sitting next to Maya’s purse on the table in the foyer as we headed for the dining room. I felt a sense of pride seeing that she’d had grabbed the bug-out bag from her car. I added ‘good partner for the zombie apocalypse’ to the list of reasons I’d made a damn good choice in her.

“I don’t care what that crackpot loser you’re shacked up with says, we’re staying
here!
I’m her father and her custodial parent and my word is the only one that counts! You gave up any right to dictate anything about her life when you walked out on us!” He was looming over Maya with his face inches from hers, shouting at the top of his lungs with a gun in his right hand. With anyone else, it might have been intimidating. Against Maya, it was like water on rocks. In a thousand years, it might wear her down a little. Karl was a big man, standing an easy six feet four inches to Maya’s five and a half feet. Success had turned him from a muscular man into a beefy one, softening the edges of his features and giving his face a rounder, fuller look to go with the perfectly coiffed hairdo. Maya, on the other hand, was still lean and her face held every well-defined line that I’d fallen in love with when I first met her. Her dark eyes were blazing as she looked up at Karl, and I knew he’d made a mistake.

“I wasn’t the one fucking my secretary!” she hissed. “I wasn’t the one who left his daughter to shack up with the bitch for six months until he could get custody. I didn’t give any of my rights up, you son of a bitch! You stole them from me! And I’m not the idiot who’s going to wait for help that’s never gonna come!” Something in Karl’s face changed, and I saw his hand draw back. My body tensed to move, but Sherman’s low growl stopped everyone in the room cold. Karl turned to face me, and his expression transformed into a sneer of disgust.

“Get that dog out of my house before I shoot it,” he said as he pointed his pistol at Sherman. I recognized the gun from one of our previous encounters. I’d been on the same side of it then, too. He’d waved the same Colt Python in my face during a drunken tirade the first time I’d brought Amy back home from Thanksgiving three years ago. I hadn’t been anywhere near as well armed then as I was now, and it took him a second to realize that he was on the losing end of the pissing contest this time. The pistol wavered for a moment, then slowly lowered as he gave a barely audible gulp.

“Yes, Karl, my dick’s bigger today,” I said as I stepped into the room, deliberately keeping the barrel of the M-4 pointed down and away from anyone. “Now, we’re going to deal with this like reasonable people. The guy with the big gun is going to talk, and you’re going to hear him out.”

“You’re going to jail for this,” Karl said. I hefted the M-4.

“Big gun. Talking. Now shut up and listen.” I turned to Amy. “Amy, what do you want to do?”

“I want to leave, Daddy,” she said in a wavering voice. “I’m scared, and I don’t think anyone’s going to come help us and I want you to come with us!”

Both Maya and Karl wilted at her words, and Maya rushed to her side. Karl might have been a grade A buttmunch, but where his daughter was concerned, he was still a man trying to be the best father he knew how to be. Even if the best he knew how to be was an asshole, I still had to give him credit for the effort. I slung the carbine and closed the distance between us.

“See, that wasn’t so hard. So, what’s it going to be?” I asked quietly.

“I refuse to simply flee like lemmings. The roads are blocked, and even if we could get through, we don’t stand a chance of making it past the city limits. Even if we could make it
that
far, where do you think we’d go?” He tried staring me down from his greater height, but after the things I’d seen and done in the last two hours, five or six inches of vertical advantage just wasn’t enough to get the job done.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got the where covered. And if Maya can make it here from halfway across town, unarmed and alone, why is a big man like you pissing himself over leaving the house?” He puffed up at that, and I knew I’d hit him right where he lived: his pride.

“The government has imposed martial law. I’m not about to let my daughter get herself shot following you,” he growled at me.

“Because starvation and disease are much slower deaths for her,” I shot back. “And you want her to suffer for as long as possible, right? Look Karl, there is no help coming. None. This is happening nationwide, and we’re one of the last cities to be affected. There is almost nothing left to spare by now.”

“But…they said on the radio…they’re evacuating people,” he stammered. I felt as much as heard Amy and Maya come up behind me.

“Dad, come on,” Amy said with all the sarcasm inherent in her teenaged body. “They didn’t tell anyone what to do or where to go. It’s all just ‘Stay put and wait.’ Where’s the evacuation centers?” If there was one expert in the room on being lied to by adults, it was Amy.

“Listen to your daughter, Karl,” Maya said gently. “You raised a smart girl…with a little help.” He gave us all a glare that melted against the collected wills of the three people staring back at him, then he sort of deflated.

“Alright,” he huffed. “Give me a few minutes to get some stuff packed, and we’ll go with you.” He left the room with a long suffering sigh, and I turned to Amy.

“Way to go there, munchkin,” I told her as I gestured for her to come to me. She gave me a quick, tight hug before she backed away to regain her teen composure.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Got your go bag ready?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s by my door. I’ll be right back.” She turned and scampered down the hallway. I held one arm out for Maya, and she wrapped both of hers around me, gun and all. I held her tight and enjoyed the way her form fit against me. I never got tired of the way her body felt pressed up against mine.