Greer was sitting in the passenger seat and frowned. There was a man and a woman sitting behind them in the troop compartment, and she still doesn’t know their names. They were cuddling two children, perhaps theirs, perhaps not, a boy and a girl. She knew their names to be Carl and Dorothy, from the two adults soothing them. Greer unconsciously let her hand fall to her abdomen, and then turned away from the troop compartment, not wanting to stare any longer, and realizing that their passengers were already self-absorbed. Instead she opened one of the magazine pouches on the tactical vest she’d pulled on over her t-shirt, allowing her faster access to a spare magazine. There was also a built in holster on the vest, which was suitably adjustable that it now carried Greer’s Colt. She’d even had time to pull on a pair of BDU pants which more or less fit, and now covered her legs.
A part of Greer wished she was riding with Hardigan. Another part of her wanted to go curl up into a ball and cry. And still another part of her quietly whispered that in two separate vehicles, there was a better chance of one of them getting out alive. If what her father told her was true, she wasn’t sure how much good that would do, but one step at a time, she reminded herself.
“Almost open,” Nellie said, revving the engine. She claimed to know how to drive a Humvee, and Greer was inclined to believe her. Nellie had proved to have a surprising depth of calm beneath her surface frailty. Am I like that, Greer wondered?
Nellie noticed her staring and smiled, “Don’t worry, it’ll all be just peaches.”
“Peaches,” Greer repeated, then forced a smile. She assumed that be a favorite expression of Nellie.
One of the children whimpered in the back, only to be shushed by one of the adults. Greer put it out of her mind and focused forward, pausing for only an instant to finger the bandages that Dr. Kaufman had wound around her head. “Just like old times,” she said quietly. So long as she focused on the moment, on the here and now, she knew she could keep going.
“Yeppers,” Jenny said from the gunner’s position, sounding cheerful. She hadn’t asked Greer about the baby, or about her father, or the rest of it. When they’d gotten in, she’d paused only long enough to grasp Greer’s hand and whisper, “No rush, tell me what you’re ready to tell when you’re ready.” For some reason that simple gesture had almost brought tears to Greer’s eyes.
The door slid open revealing the sunlight, and also hundreds of revenants. Greer’s eyes snapped to the front as Jenny triggered a long burst. For some reason Greer felt light headed but in a good way. As she brought the rifle up to her shoulder, preparing to fire it out the open window, and felt the Humvee lurch into motion, she realized that she had never felt more alive.
“I feel like I’m half dead,” Tanner said, yawning. He wasn’t sure it was sleeping in the tree that had done him in, or if it was from staying alert waiting for more motorized noises.
“I’m not sure which way them sounds was headed any more,” Dale had said before they’d tried to get what sleep they could.
Tanner had had to admit that he wasn’t sure either, what he did know was that he felt lousy. “I hope we don’t have to sleep out in the rain much more,” he said morosely.
“We’d best get started,” Dale said, shimmying down the tree. He waited for Tanner at the bottom, his shotgun at the ready. Despite their limited amount of remaining ammunition, neither of them planned to go down without a fight.
Tanner carefully dropped the last few inches to the earth, it was still wet from the rain, but at least the temperature was up a bit. He tugged a somewhat damp cigarette loose from in back of his ear. At least they’d managed to save most of the cigarettes.
“What do you is so important about those books and papers we’re supposed to find?” Dale asked, voicing the question not for the first time.
“Guess maybe some people just want bits and pieces of their old lives back,” Tanner said, fidgeting with his hat and glasses a bit more.
“Seems a lot of trouble, but I guess so long as we get paid,” Dale said, “You think they can help us get a new truck?”
“I don’t know,” Tanner admitted, “I suppose they’ll say it was our fault for wrecking it, cause we was high and such.”
“Their fault for hiring us, bro, I mean folks ought know we get high,” Dale reasoned.
“True enough,” Tanner said, “Six of one half dozen of another,” he said cryptically. “What I think is this, we go down there and find what they told us to, then see how grateful they are. If we don’t bring anything back, or don’t come back, we don’t get anything anyway.”
“Shit, are we having fun yet?” Dale muttered.
“Whee,” Larry said, “I love this ride, Mac,” he said, beaming.
“Thanks kid,” Mac said, adjusting his goggles and turning his head to the sidecar slightly. “Just hang on tight, okay?”
Larry nodded, and contentedly kept a watch on the woods around the road.
Molly held on tight to Mac, she had the Smith and Wesson Model 3000 strapped over his back. Her hair was whipping around wildly behind her, despite the fact that she was wearing Mac’s skater helmet. “This is fun,” she admitted, yelling into Mac’s ear to be heard.
Mac had his sombrero and goggles on, and he liked to imagine that he cut a dashing figure. For once, he felt his cycle jacket was back in its element. The bike had been an odd find; they’d found it in back of the post office of all places, hidden behind a pile of empty mailing container and an overturned mail jeep. It had had a full tank of gas and still started on the first try.
Mac had been going to the post office periodically to siphon propane off of a large tank they had to run his stove. He’d never noticed it before, and they probably wouldn’t have unless Larry had seen the spangles attached to an antenna on the bike. The bike’s CB got nothing but static of course, but it still ran.
The plan, such as Mac had come up with on the fly, was to circle around the worst of the revenants and get to the helicopter and recover the thermate charges. After that, they could either cut out on the bike, or maybe try to find a Jeep or truck. Getting around the revenants had proven to be a bit of a problem though, as they’d discovered stragglers to the column were stretched out for quite some distance along the road. Mac was happy just to have avoided any serious fights, but he had his Tommy gun along just in case.
They’d passed a newly wrecked truck that was loaded down with supplies on their way. To Mac, it looked as though all the vehicle might need were four new tires and some other minor work. He’d made a note of its location. If they had a trailer for it, they could even carry the bike.
He mentally berated himself for getting too far ahead of the plan. Still, he had a better feeling than he had for some time. Who knows, he thought, if he and Molly could find some parts and tires, and get that truck started again, they might be able to find some place up in the mountains somewhere, or even find their way to a port and get on a boat. Most of Mac’s anger at Molly was now repressed, if not altogether forgotten. She was right about one thing, as far as Mac was concerned, and that was that they at least had each other.
“We might just be okay after all,” Mac yelled back to Molly. Before them, on the far horizon, Mac could see the remains of a few skyscrapers. A larger city must have been up ahead, he thought. He wasn’t even sure which one it was, or whether it mattered in the end. “We’re on the return portion of the loop now,” Mac said. “If those things are thin enough, we might even be able to beeline it right back to the apartment.”
“Whichever is fine with me,” Molly yelled back, “It just feels good to be out and about.”
Mac knew what she meant; it was a powerful sense of freedom to be on the road again. Even to be outside of the cramped four walls of their apartment cum fortress was proving to be a treat. The bike was giving them mobility enough that Mac didn’t feel the need to keep looking over his shoulder. On foot, every tangle of bushes or pile of wreckage might be a death trap. Even with the sidecar, the bike was maneuverable enough to avoid most of the wrecks still littering the roads.
“This is how it used to be,” Molly yelled. “Being able to go places.”
Mac thought he could hear a trace of sadness in her voice, “Almost as free as flying,” he yelled back.
“Will we get to ride in the helicopter, Mac?” Larry asked hopefully. “I’d like that a lot.”
“We’ll see,” Mac said. “Tell you what, at least you can climb on it. I’ll let you sit in the front seat and you can play with all the controls.”
Larry beamed and went back to staring at the countryside wide eyed. Mac wondered had happened to the boy’s parents. He’d never asked, and Molly claimed not to know either. Larry never talked about them, except for alluding that his father had given him the GI Joe figures, and his mother the Teddy bear. Mac wondered if the boy’s father had been a soldier. That might explain why he’d survived and his parents hadn’t. When the Army finally came apart, some dependents were the last ones left still being defended in the rescue centers.
“We could get away on this, couldn’t we Mac?” Molly asked, pulling her arms tighter around Mac.
“Maybe,” Mac agreed. In fact, that’s not a bad idea, Mac thought to himself. “The problem is where to we go,” he admitted.
“Go, go, go,” Hardigan yelled into the mic of the PRC-77 as he jumped back into the Blazer. The door was up, allowing the vehicles access to the ramp, but allowing the thousands of revenants to mill towards this sudden new opening. To make things even more interesting, some revenants already inside were now swarming up behind them. “Gun it,” he yelled, slamming the door and tapping Jerry on the shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell me twice Sarge,” Jerry said, pulling on a pair of Oakley’s and turning his garrison cap backwards.
Suddenly Hardigan’s ears were ringing from the muzzle blast of his own carbine going off, being fired by Kaufman. “Roll down the rest of the windows!” he yelled, feeling the concussion of the blast reverberate.
Jerry toggled the power windows down as the Blazer shot forward, assuming rear slot in the convoy, right behind the number four Humvee that was entirely full of refugees and was the only one lacking a gun mount.
Kaufman was riding shotgun in a very literal sense, as she was firing Hardigan’s Remington Model Seven, letting the shell casings bounce off the dash as she cycled the action. Hardigan looked out the rear window and realized that she was shooting at revenants coming up behind them. He thought he caught a glimpse of some larger, darker shape, but he couldn’t be sure.
The rear window suddenly spider webbed as one of the revenants rammed himself into it, a spray of half congealed blood and yellowed teeth running along the glass as the Chevy picked up speed.
Hardigan grabbed Jerry’s M4 carbine and flicked the safety to semiautomatic. He leveled the muzzle and fired it out through the window, his ears ringing even worse afterwards. The glass shattered, pebbles of safety glass flying around the interior.
“Son of a bitch,” Kaufman yelled, jumping slightly and slapping at her chest.
Hardigan fired several more shots at the revenants closest to their tailgate before he could turn his head. His first thought was that a stray round had somehow hit Kaufman. “You hit?” he yelled.
“No, God damn it,” Kaufman said. She’d apparently shot the carbine dry as she now pulled the Sig and leaned partially out the window, firing it first behind them, and then in front.
“What happened?” Hardigan yelled, yanking back the bolt on Jerry’s carbine to clear a jam. The weapon didn’t appear to be well maintained.
“Hot brass down my cleavage,” Kaufman yelled back between shots.
“Ouch,” Hardigan agreed as he shoved the forward bolt assist to finish chambering a new round. He was able to fire another shot, and the weapon promptly jammed again. “Fuck,” Hardigan cursed, dropping it to the side. He pulled his Kimber from his shoulder rig.
Looking back forward, Hardigan saw the daylight wash over them as they spilled out into the courtyard. The M113 was in the lead, Whitey behind the .50 caliber, pumping out rounds. No one seemed to be worried about the barrels of their weapons burning out. “I hope you can cut a path Whitey,” Hardigan thought.
At that very moment, Whitey was thinking much the same thing, as the APC lurched over the bodies of several revenants that had become caught in the tracks. He wondered how many bodies it would take to foul the treads. Replacing the treads if they came off was a difficult and time consuming process, one that he didn’t really want to attempt in the midst of the current swarm.
Whitey swung his heavy machine gun and trigged another long burst. The ammo box had a 1:1:1 mix of tracer, ball, and armor piercing, so he was aiming only coarsely and using the tracers to visually correct his fire. The .50 caliber had been designed after the First World War as an anti-tank weapon; advances in armor negated its value as such. But it still made a hell of a weapon against all things living, or dead, or quasi-dead, Whitey thought as he watched a ricochet bound up from the dirt and tear open the chest of a revenant wearing a disco medallion.
“Disco Stu is disco dead,” he intoned solemnly, tracking fresh targets. “Can this beast go any faster?” Whitey yelled into the intercom.
“This isn’t a sports car,” Abernathy replied from the driver’s seat. “And I can’t see much through these vision blocks to be begin with.”
The bow of the APC hit another revenant, severing her neatly in half. The bottom half of her body was ground to a pulp under the treads, the strap on a Gucci shoe catching and sucking the rest of her under. A dull reddish-black smear fouled the ground behind them. The upper portion of her body remained hanging on to the front bow, banging a bloodied fist on the hatch.
“Shit,” Whitey muttered, the .50 caliber wouldn’t depress enough to let him shoot her off.
“Damn it, shoot that bitch,” Abernathy screamed over the intercom, “I can’t see with her blocking the ports!” Almost as if to illustrate the point, their right side clipped through a milling crowd of over a dozen revenants, greasing their treads with still more entrails.
“I’m on it,” Whitey replied tersely. He was glad that he’d secured a tanker rig like Hardigan’s for his own .45, as he’d never have been able to reach the Browning Hi Power hanging from his hip in time. As it was, the moving and swerving vehicle delayed him briefly in pulling his Springfield Armory 1911A1 and brining into bear. “Say bye bye,” Whitey muttered as he shot the revenant in the head, splitting her skull. Her torso soon fell beneath the tracks.
“We having fun yet?” he asked the intercom.
“Looks like someone else died with their best clothes on too,” Alice commented dryly between squeezing off rounds from her M1 carbine. She’d just seen a woman in a Chanel dress and Gucci shoes, or what had once been a woman rather, cut in half by the APC, and then shot in the head. What was left of her was just a smear on the ground now.
“It did seem like a valid theory,” Baldwin said, gritting his teeth as he jerked the wheel hard, pulling them towards the remaining gun tower.
“Shit, shit, shit, going to die, going to die, going to die, shit, shit, shit,” Frenchy kept repeating from his seat behind their .50 caliber.
“Shut up!” Stavros yelled, emptying her M4 out the window and reaching for a Mossberg Model 590 shotgun. She snapped the rubber recoil pad of the shotgun to her shoulder tight as she could, but still winced as she pulled the trigger. “Who loaded this with magnum shells?” she yelled, followed by a string of Serbo -Croatian curses.
“Going to die, going to die,” Frenchy kept yelling, holding down the butterfly triggers of his .50 caliber the entire time.
“You sound like me,” Finley yelled cheerfully as he fired his snub nose .38 out the window, covering his own sector.
There was more Serbo-Croatian cursing as Stavros fired the shotgun again. “There’s so many of them!” she yelled, switching to English.
Alice wondered what Stavros had been saying, but thought that Frenchy was probably far too busy to want to translate. Instead she concentrated on sighting down the barrel of her own weapon, wanting to make each shot count. “I even wore my last remaining set of good underwear,” she muttered, pulling the trigger again.
“Yeah?” Baldwin grunted, twisting the wheel again and sideswiping a man in a rotting UPS uniform. There were hundreds more swarming towards them, but he slowed the vehicle temporarily, to help provide cover for the other vehicles to rescue the gun tower crew. He pulled his own pistol from his hip holster and began firing out the window.
“Victoria’s Secret,” Alice said, firing again, not even able to take a moment to look at Baldwin. “Purple, matching French cut…” she dropped her empty magazine and slammed a fresh one home. “I was on a trip when all this started…” she fired again. “Silly me, there was this guy I had the hots for, we were going to meet up and head to…” She fired again, a long string as fast as she could pull the trigger.
“What happened?” Baldwin yelled, dropping his own empty magazine and clawing out a fresh one.
“We never met up,” Alice yelled, pulling the trigger again. “I still had those and this suit in my carry on case this whole time.”
“Maybe you can show me some time,” Baldwin said, meeting her gaze for just an instant before swinging his pistol back up. It was just long enough for Alice to see his smirk.
“I might just do that,” she whispered back, continuing to track the incoming revenants.
“What is this, a match making service?” Frenchy yelled down from the gunner’s seat. “Shit, we’re all going to die,” he added, before the .50 drowned him out again.
“Don’t feel bad, you’re a good looking guy-,” Finley started to say.
“Eww,” Stavros said, “You’re so going to get it later.”
“What, it was your idea to-“
There was more Serbo-Croatian cursing as Stavro’s shotgun slammed into her shoulder again.
“There’s hundreds of them,” Alice said, looking at the surging mass.
“They’d better get those people out of the tower soon,” Baldwin agreed.
“Christ, watch where you’re going,” Jenny yelled down at Nellie, who as they pulled to a temporary stop near the tower. Jenny’s M240 didn’t recoil as much as one of the .50 calibers, nor was it as loud. This was allowing her to plant more precise, short bursts, into the surging crowd. Even so she doubted that they could hold back the tide for long.
“I’m sorry,” Nellie yelled back, feeling rattled. She’d come within six inches of hitting one of the 2-½ ton trucks.
Next to her, Greer was doing her best to continue to concentrate only on the moment. She did hope that Nellie wouldn’t start crying again, she wasn’t sure that her nerves would be able to take it. She cast a concerned glance at the two adults and two children in the troop compartment. They seemed to be doing their best to huddle down and avoid the hot brass falling from Jenny’s M240. “It’s going to be okay,” Greer yelled, smiling and trying to be encouraging. She didn’t realize it, but one of the masonry cuts on her cheek had reopened and there was not a trail of blood down her chin.
“I hope they hurry,” Nellie whispered, and then suddenly she floored the gas and swerved them violently to the side.
Greer barely had time to brace herself, and even so, she dropped the spare magazine she had been pulling free to the floorboards where it joined several empties. “Damn,” Greer muttered, leaning to the floor to retrieve it, and wondering what was going on.
“What the hell?” Jenny exclaimed, the sudden evasive maneuver had caused her to momentarily turn the M240 into an anti-aircraft gun as she painted the sky with tracers.
“I didn’t want to get hit by the tank,” Nellie said calmly.
Greer and Jenny both focused at about the same time to see the M113 skidding half out of control, and hit one leg of the gun tower. It had nearly hit them on its way past.
“That was some good driving after all,” Jenny whispered in appreciation.
Whitey had less kind words for his own driver. “Jesus H. Christ Tripod, are you trying to kill us all?” he asked as the impacted one leg of the gun tower. He had been thrown forward in the cupola, but only his pride was bruised. A quick glance into the troop compartment showed that it was in disarray, but that everyone seemed to be moving around okay.
“I told you I couldn’t see,” Abernathy said. He cracked the hatch and stuck his head out for a moment. Seeing the mass of revenants already in the courtyard, he did his best turtle impression and promptly ducked back in.
Two ropes landed on the deck of the M113 almost simultaneously with the roar of the charges blowing paths through the wire. Whitey looked up to see two people, a man and a woman descending on the ropes, rifles strapped to their backs. The gun tower was already starting to sway and seemed likely to collapse. “Get ready to back us the hell up,” Whitey yelled.
“I’m on it,” Abernathy replied, as the APC started to reverse.
The two occupants of the gun tower landed on the deck of the M113. “Better hang on,” Whitey yelled at them.
Both threw themselves flat, the woman, Nikki if Whitey right, flashed him a smile and a thumbs up. “I always was partial to redheads,” he muttered as he swung the big .50 forward again.
“We need some tunes,” he heard Tripod say on the intercom, before the exterior speakers keyed on. Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of a yell and a bullwhip as the Rawhide theme song filled the air.
The M113 had been used by a civil affairs unit to assist in the evacuation of neighborhoods during the early days of the crisis. The PA and sound system was still in place, and somehow Abernathy had found a CD to insert.
“Don’t try to understand them,” Whitey sang along, raking a line of revenants with gunfire as they began to lead their small convoy towards the newly formed gaps in the wire.
“Just rope, throw, and brand them,” Baldwin and Alice sang in duet in their own Humvee.
“Through rain and wind and weather,” Jenny screamed at the top of her lungs as she swung her M240 in a wild arc to starboard.
“Hell bent for leather,” Kaufman screamed hoarsely, firing her Sig out the winter.
The convoy sped forward, running down and shooting revenants as they shot through the opening in the wire. Abernathy had the song on a loop, and it seemed to invigorate everyone’s efforts, the occupants of each vehicle screaming along at the top of their lungs. As the loop continued and they sped past the obstacles, Greer stole a glance at the battered Blazer in the rear of the column and hoarsely sang, “My sweetheart is at the end of this ride…” a single tear dripped down her cheek, lost amidst the blood trail.
“Looks like we’re at the end of our ride,” Tanner said as he and Dale warily approached the house.
“Bout damn time too,” Dale said bitterly. “There better be some pants in there.”
Tanner simply nodded and kept the barrel of his M16 pointed towards the house. Things had been quiet so far, perhaps too quiet. They hadn’t seen any movement, or any revenants since they’d come down from the nearby hillock.“Just keep your eyes and ears open, okay bro?” Tanner cautioned. He’d taken the time to clean his glasses, in case there was more shooting to be done.
Dale grunted in acknowledgement and slung his shotgun, pulling his Colt instead. “I got the hog leg out,” he said, “We run into anything, they’ll know they been bit.”
Tanner took the lead as they approached, passing several other abandoned houses. He noticed that there was still a white pillowcase blowing in the breeze along the shattered front window. “Something chewed this yard up,” Tanner commented as they stepped over some ruts in the lawn that had never been overgrown. He remembered being told something about a vehicle hitting the house.
Dale walked up to the door and tried the knob, “It’s open,” he said simply
.
Tanner pulled a flashlight from his pocket and turned it on, moving past Dale and into the living room. Water damage from rain as well as small animals had left the living room a mess. Hearing something move, Tanner swung the barrel of his M16 one handed towards the corner mantle. A picture fell to the ground and a squirrel ran past, headed back to his burrow under the couch.
Dale, who’d been tracking it as well, lowered his Colt. “Want squirrel for supper?” he asked, smiling.
Tanner ignored him for a moment and picked up the picture that had fallen. It showed a young and fairly attractive woman standing in front of the same house they were now in. There were two older men, and a middle-aged woman standing with her. Written in silver marker on the back was the legend “Nora (mom), Lisa, Dad, Uncle Emil.” There was no date.
“That her mom?” Dale asked, looking at the photo.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Tanner said, removing the picture from the frame and dropping it into a trash bag he noisily pulled out.
“Her mom was hot dude,” Dale said.
“Yeah, I guess so, but we got business, here take the bag, we’ll grab all the pictures and stuff, cause I don’t know what all they wanted,” Tanner said.
Dale grunted and simply followed along, “They said upstairs, that her shit would be upstairs,” he said.
“Don’t mean we can’t look for us,” Tanner said, smiling. “All they said to bring back was that tub with pictures and such.”
“All cause Hardigan’s girlfriend said this would clear some shit up,” Dale said, scratching at his beard.
Tanner shrugged and entered the kitchen. The cupboards were mostly open and looked bare. There was enough light coming in through the windows that he didn’t even need his flashlight. All of the windows were still intact. “Looks like she was out of food, or someone came and took it later,” Tanner said, frowning at the growl in his belly.
“Could be either way,” Dale said, nudging some empty cans. “We could look in the fridge,” he suggested.
“Nah, that shit’ll be all moldy,” Tanner said. Then he saw a door leading to a set of stairs leading downward. “Let’s look in the basement though dawg, this was a nice house, maybe they got a wine cellar or some shit.”
“Sweet, I could use a good drunk,” Dale said.
Tanner switched his light back on and they made their way down the stairs. Shining his light around, he saw mostly tools, a weight bench, and washing machine. There was also an electric train set, some children’s toys which had obviously been put away for years, and two half open cabinets. Tanner pulled one open, and saw only paper products. He grabbed two rolls of toilet paper and dropped them into Dale’s bag. “Here, we’ll need these later.”
Dale grimaced, “Yeah, my poor suffering ass, my poo hole is festering something awful,” he agreed. He nodded towards another door, “What do you suppose is in there?”
“Only one way to find out,” Tanner said, prodding the door open with the barrel of his rifle.
“What stinks?” Dale asked, “And don’t say my poo hole, I already know that stinks.”
Tanner shined his light around the room. Dozens of yellowing newspaper clippings were tacked to a corkboard on the wall. “Headless Prospector Bodies Found in Amazon”, “Boy 12 Kills Girl 8”, “Solar Flares Disrupt Satellites”, “Militants Kill Forty in Disputed Zone, Hundreds Missing”, and more of a similar nature.
“What is all this?” Dale asked, wrinkling his nose as he looked around.
“Some kind of office, this stuff might be important, we probably ought grab some of it,” Tanner said. He looked at an open book on the desk. Sitting next to it were computer printouts covered in charts and graphs. “Solar Cycles” one was labeled, and another read “Cellular Mutation Rates in Test Subjects”. Puzzling at the colors for a moment, Tanner looked at the open book instead. He flipped through a few pages.
“That got any pictures?” Dale asked, hopefully, “Maybe this guy being a scientist, some naked pictures?”
Tanner shook his head, “No, looks like someone’s diary,” he said.
Dale frowned, but then brightened, “Are there any sex parts?” he asked hopefully.
“I dunno, lots of stuff about seeing something coming, and a bunch of sci fi shit I don’t get. Tremors on the moon this, satellite that,” Tanner said, furrowing his brow. He flipped more pages. “Something about not being able to save someone, his wife maybe.”
“Just throw it in the bag then dude, and let’s get going, this place is starting to give me the heeby jeebies,” Dale said. He turned away and moved aside a blanket covering the top of a box near him. “What the hell?” Dale said, gasping, “I know what stinks.” He pointed down at a shape lying in a box that had been obscured by the blanket.
Tanner looked down and saw the decomposing body of a woman. There was a bracelet on her arm. He moved it with a pencil to avoid touching the flesh, “To Nora, Best Luck Always, E.L..” it read. Tanner thought the bracelet looked like gold, so he grabbed a sheet of paper and removed it, dropping it in the bag. “They might pay extra for that,” he said to Dale.
“I don’t know dawg, robbing the dead is bad luck,” Dale replied hesitantly. “You think those things got to her?”
“No way dude,” Tanner said pointing, he remembered all the crime scene programs that he used to watch on TV. “She’s been shot, see the hole in her forehead?”
“That explains what stinks then,” Dale agreed. Then he pointed to the box, “Looks like someone lined the box with space blankets to make it like a cooler and put in dry ice. You can still see the containers.”
“Weird shit,” Tanner surmised. “Come on, let’s look upstairs.”
The upstairs yielded little of interest, though they added a few more pictures, these of a smiling and happy couple, to the bag from the master bedroom. The hallway and bathrooms were also empty of anything of interest. Then they came to the last bedroom upstairs. “Son of a bitch,” Dale said, “What is this place, a morgue?” He pointed his shotgun at two bodies lying on the floor, near some torn clothing in front of the closet.
“Looks that way, don’t it?” Tanner said. Both of the bodies were wearing cover alls. They still had “NASA” emblazoned on them. One of them still had a torn piece of T-shirt in his hands.
“That’s some crazy shit,” Dale said. He reached down and picked up a pistol from the floor, where it had fallen almost under the bed. “This is a silenced .22, like on TV.” He ejected the magazine and inspected it, and then pulled the slide back, catching the live round that popped out. “Still loaded too, must have dropped under the bed when one of these dudes got popped.”
Tanner nodded as he looked in the closet, there was a pair of jeans on the floor and a pile of food wrappers as well as a still half full bottle of Evian. “Someone was hiding in the closet it looks like,” he said.
“I found that tub,” Dale said, pulling a small purple tub off a desk near the bed. “It’s got a photo album, some papers, and other junk in it. It’ll probably all smell like dead guy though.”
“Bag it, then it won’t stink,” Tanner said absently as he picked up another book from the floor. It was already open, and scrawled across the page was a single word, written in flowing bold ink “Betrayal.”
Mac fervently hoped that Molly wouldn’t feel let down when they reached the helicopter. It had taken them only a small chunk out of the afternoon to reach it’s resting place near the on ramp. The nearby Wendy’s had burnt down in the interim, though the helicopter was still there, resting on it’s partially deflated wheels and with the windshield now pock marked with bullet holes.
“Looks like someone used it for target practice,” Mac said, stepping off the bike and drawing unslinging his Thompson. “Best be sharp, there might still be some raiders out and about,” he warned.
“If there were, they’re probably long gone by now,” Molly reasoned, but she unslung her shotgun all the same.
“Wow, a real live helicopter,” Larry said, he started to move towards it, but then hung back, waiting for Mac to check it out first.
Mac smiled, seeing how Larry had restrained himself. “Just let me have a look, then you can climb up inside for as long as you want.” He dug out a WSJ cigarette that he already had rolled from his shirt pocket and lit it. There was nothing more fun than smoking around thermate charges, he reflected grimly.
He pulled open the door to the cockpit and saw that the insides were pretty well torn up. Someone had gone through and smashed the console and the radio fairly thoroughly. “Shit, someone trashed it,” Mac muttered.
Molly looked over his shoulder, “Maybe they needed parts?” she asked.
A glimmer of movement caught Mac’s attention and drew his eyes towards the passenger compartment. He saw an olive drab painted wooden crate still lying right behind the co-pilot’s seat. “There’s the thermate grenades at least,” he said. Behind them, what he saw made his blood run cold.
“What is it?” Molly asked, seeing Mac tense up and freeze.
Mac ran his eyes over the pile of bones in the cargo compartment, and the small, black, furry forms beginning to move around under them. “Reavers,” he whispered, “It’s a nest.”
“Oh God,” Molly said, shielding Larry behind her with one hand and moving the shotgun level along her hip. “Stay behind me Larry,” she ordered.
Larry immediately grasped her knees and hugged them tight, showing every inclination to do just that. He buried his head and began to back away with Molly.
Mac didn’t’ really blame him, reavers tended to be nasty business. They’d first shown up around the same time as the plagues and the revenants, and he wasn’t sure which had been worse. Carefully, Mac exhaled his pipe tobacco cigarette. One nice thing about smoking was that reavers seemed to have a potent sense of smell, but tobacco smoke seemed to throw it for a loop.
“Easy does it,” Mac whispered as he carefully crawled into the cockpit.
“Mac…” Molly hissed.
Feeling no choice but to ignore her for the moment, Mac simply motioned with his arm for Molly to get back, as he climbed inside the cockpit and carefully grabbed one of the straps on the case of thermate grenades. The case weighed over thirty pounds, but with his adrenaline now flowing, Mac hardly noticed.
A hideously bloated and half rotted skull fell from amidst the pile of bones, causing one of the eyes to pop out and burst. A small black tongue shot out and began licking at the ichor. The babies are alive and awake Mac though, now I just wonder where Mama is. Slowly he backed out of the cockpit, inhaling and exhaling as rapidly as possible to spread the smoke behind him. “Don’t fail me now Swedes,” he whispered, hoping the pipe tobacco burned long enough. Even immature reavers could swarm up and be a real threat.
Molly was all the way back by the bike, partially shielded behind it and was training her shotgun on the copter. She relaxed only slightly as Mac approached. “Are you okay?” she whispered, “you didn’t get bitten or anything did you?” She eyed him warily.
“Nada,” Mac said, slinging his Thompson and sighing in relief. “That’s a hell of a next in there though, and we’d better beat feet before Mom comes back to feed the little ones,” he added as he pulled loose his mini crow bar and tore open the packing straps on the crate.
“Are those the thermite grenades?” Molly asked, wide eyed as Mac pulled the box open.
“Thermate,” Mac corrected, “But yeah, one case of them was still there. Whoever smashed the rest of the shit up must have grabbed the other case.”
“Why would they leave one?” Molly asked, opening the saddlebags on the bike to allow Mac to dump in the grenades
.
“They might not have had time, or maybe meant to come back,” Mac said. He quickly put most of the two dozen grenades into the motorcycle’s saddlebags. He then handed two to Molly, “Here, take these and put them in your pack,” he said, shoving one into the side pocket of his BDU pants as he did so.
Molly hastily complied and looked up as Mac pulled the pin on the remaining grenade. “Burn them Mac, burn them all,” she said fiercely.
“That’s the plan,” Mac said. “Larry, get in your side car and keep your head down, try not to look at the flash.” He waited for Larry to nod and climb inside before continuing. “Molly, start pushing the bike down the hill, don’t kick it on yet, those things don’t hear too good, but they’d hear that for sure.”
Molly nodded numbly and climbed onto the cycle, kicking it into neutral and pushing it back towards the ramp. “Be careful,” she whispered, her face gaunt and colorless.
“I was born careful,” Mac said giving her a smile and a thumb up. He waited until Molly had pushed the bike a bit farther away, wanting to make sure that she was clear. “Time to instigate something,” Mac said, releasing the grenades safety spoon, letting a jet of hot exhaust from the fuse spray out. “Fire in the hole,” he muttered, tossing the grenade so that it landed against the cargo bay doors, and then running. “Hot time in the old town tonight,” Mac said, laughing hysterically for some reason.
Hardigan looked at the burning wreckage of the number four Humvee as Jerry sped past it in the Blazer. He wondered if they should have let only refugees pack into it. Now it was on its side in an embankment, with a handful of revenants still crawling on it, flames licking at them.
“They must have burned themselves before-“ Kaufman started to say, but then she noticed the look Hardigan gave her and paused. “It’s not your fault, you’ve done as well organizing this on the fly as any one could have,” Kaufman said. She had her hat cocked back on her head again and was smoking a cigarette.
“That doesn’t make me feel much better,” Hardigan said. They’d fallen behind the rest of the convoy when trying to get through the wire. A Blazer simply wasn’t designed to get through the same obstacles as an M113 or a Humvee. Now they were struggling to play catch up as the rest of the vehicles made their way to the airstrip.
“I hope they don’t fly off and leave us,” Jerry said, worried, as he squinted through the cracked windshield.
“Doctor Kaufman is a pilot, so don’t worry,” Hardigan said.
“Actually,” Kaufman said, smiling sardonically, “Tom knows how to fly too, he’s ex-Navy.”
“Great, just great,” Jerry muttered.
“Just once, you could try to be reassuring,” Hardigan said, running his hands through his hair. He reached forward and lifted one of Kaufman’s cigarettes from her hatband. She leaned forward and let his light it off of hers.
“You’re charming when you want to be Hardigan, enough for both of us,” Kaufman said.
“I feel real charming right now too,” Hardigan said. He adjusted the straps on his gas mask bag, having strapped it back on and regaining possession of his Remington Carbine. He hadn’t had a chance to inventory the contents to see how much ammo was left, but it still felt hefty.
“Let’s hope no one else at the airstrip decided to fly off into the wild blue yonder yet,” Kaufman said.
“Remind me to buy you a beer when this is all over,” Hardigan said, rubbing his eyes.
“Careful, or the deadly Ms. Greer might be jealous,” Kaufman warned.
Hardigan nodded as they began to pull even with the back of the convoy, which seemed to be mercifully intact aside from the number four Humvee. A blonde head was visible behind the gun of one of the vehicles, firing intermittent short bursts into the nearby fields. The M113 was still taking point, though it was slowest overall, it had the mass to barrel any wrecked vehicles aside. Two figures were lying on the deck, firing rifles, and the .50 caliber was occasionally thumping more authoritively. The speakers were now blaring the William Tell Overture, better known as the Lone Ranger Theme song.
“Quite the picture, isn’t it?” Kaufman said, admiring the view for a moment.
“I just wish that there were more of us left,” Hardigan said. Listening to his own voice, he wondered if he was as spent as he felt.
“Couple hours and we’ll be in Norfolk, maybe you can get me that beer then,” Kaufman said cheerily. She picked her Sig up from the dash and pointed it casually out the window, squeezing off a shot at a one legged revenant dragging itself along the road. “Never could hit much from a moving vehicle,” she commented as the bullet missed and simply showered the revenant with dirt.
“I’ll get him,” Jerry said, swerving the vehicle abruptly.
“No, don’t!” Hardigan started to say, but even he wasn’t sure if he finished his though as the vehicle began to spin out of control. As they careened toward the ditch, Hardigan thought about how good that beer would have tasted.
“We just lost the Chevy,” Alice said, watching the vehicle swerve off the road and into the ditch. The broken side mirror still painted all too clear a picture as the Blazer’s driver over corrected from the impact of hitting the body. The front tires promptly hit a rut and spun the vehicle sideways before it rolled once and settled.
“I see it,” Baldwin said, starting to turn the wheel.
“Negative,” Stavros said, reaching forward and grabbing his arm. “You’re the only other one who can fly, if Kaufman is wasted, we’re all be counting on you to get us off the ground.”
“I can’t just leave them,” Baldwin said, slamming his hands into the wheel in frustration.
Alice reached out and laid a hand on Baldwin’s shoulder, “She’s right Tom, and we need you.”
“This is bullshit, they’re toast if we don’t swing back,” Baldwin swore.
Frenchy keyed a long burst of .50 caliber fire back to cover the sector near where the Blazer went into the ditch. “Listen to the ladies Doc,” he yelled down.
Baldwin gritted his teeth but kept them going forward.
Just ahead of them, Nellie was seized by a similar impulse. “Laura needs us, we need to go back,” she said, already starting to sob.
Greer shared Nellie’s feelings, but as she looked back at the refugees in the troop compartment, she felt a sense of dread mixed with responsibility. After the number four Humvee had also crashed, they’d stopped briefly to pull about the three survivors who’d made a run for it. Now they had three adult women, one man, and three children aboard
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