Reanimates, page 15
part #1 of Reanimates Series
A confused pair exited the store with their arms over full. I watched as their confusion turned to horror when they saw the horde closing in on us. They moved as swiftly as possible back to the truck, but it was slower than it would have been if their arms were empty. I had Karen opened the back door that was facing the store. When Frank and Michelle arrived, they practically threw their pilfered items into the back seat before climbing in themselves.
This all took too long. As Frank slammed the door shut, we were surrounded by an ocean of reanimates. Immediately the Humvee started to rock back and forth under the stress of the horde trying to gain access to us. I cursed myself for not having parked with the nose facing the main road. Now was a time for action though, I could run myself into the ground after we survived this.
I put the Humvee in four-wheel drive and started to move forward. I knew that the engine in this was insanely powerful and I hoped that it would have the strength to make it out of this mess. Although it had looked promising at first, I stalled the engine when there was too much resistance from the reanimates surrounding us. We had successfully plowed through a smaller horde back at the bridge, but this was at least double, if not triple the size.
Panic started to set in and was only made worse when I heard the sound of glass cracking from somewhere behind me. I knew that with so many of them out there, it would only be a matter of time before the structural integrity of the truck lost and we would become an afternoon snack. I quickly decided to try a different tack and restarted the engine. Frank was yelling something at me from the back seat, but I could not make out what it was over the multiple loud moans and groans coming from outside.
It seemed like it was do or die once more, and like all the other times, it was on me to save us. I had a semblance of a plan forming in my head and a ton of urgency pressing down upon me. As I got ready to try my plan, whichever window had begun to crack failed and the cockpit was filled with the sound of a shattering window. Everyone behind me screamed and a few shots rang out. I was out of time and I floored the gas pedal. The engine roared and I watched the tachometer rise, the needle rapidly approaching the redline. Just before it did, I dumped the clutch and the Humvee shot forward.
This was a little trick I used to do when I was fooling around and wanted to spin my tires. I knew it would provide a quick shot of extra power to the drivetrain and hoped that that would be enough to move the reanimates from our path. It turned out I was either lucky or right, though they did not exactly move out of our way. The extra power knocked the reanimates that were directly in front of us to the ground. The Humvee in four-wheel drive had no problems with driving over the fallen bodies and before long I could see the street in front of us.
Gallup Court was a cul de sac, which meant I could turn around without losing a lot of my speed. It also meant that I would have to face the horde again. I needed to come up with a plan, and fast. There would be no driving through a thousand undead. The end of the street was rapidly approaching, and no ideas sprung to mind. The property upon which the gun shop sat was much larger than it, so if the street was full, I could always drive across the lawn. The problem with that being that the undead filled up not only the street, but the lawns on either side of it as well.
I have never been the kind of person that believed in either luck or coincidences, so I cannot explain what happened next. Frank yelled at me to stop the Humvee, and he did so with such authority that I did not even pause to object. I slammed on the brakes and we came to a screeching halt. Before I could turn to ask him why he had yelled at me, Frank was climbing in the passenger’s seat next to me.
“Drive!” he yelled, and I complied. We were rounding the end of the street when I noticed Frank was rolling down the window in his door. As we came out of the curve, I stole a look in his direction and saw he had something small and metallic in his hand. It was a grenade. Understanding dawned on me and a smirk rose to my lips.
“I found this in the back,” he said. “It was the only one, almost like it was left as a gift, weird I know. When we get close, I am gonna throw it off to our left and hopefully clear out enough of them so that you can plow through on the lawn.”
With Frank’s window down I could smell the stench of the reanimates as we got closer. I fought a gag and concentrated on driving. When we were within thirty feet of the horde, Frank half climbed out of the window and sat on the door. He had already pulled the pin and was counting down from ten. When he reached five, he threw the grenade with all of his strength. I watched it fly and land deep within the shambling corpses to our left.
When the grenade exploded it was like nothing I had ever seen or heard before. There was a flash of light and all of the reanimates in a fifty-foot circle fell to the ground. Then came the sound. The bang was louder than I had expected, and I could feel it in my chest. My ears started to ring, but that did not remove the smile from my lips. I could see a clear path to the main road. It was going to be a very bumpy ride, but I was confident that we would make it.
I knew that we needed speed, so I pushed the accelerator to the floor. As the front tires made contact with the first bodies, there was a loud bang from the front end and the nose of the Humvee shot up. I do not think that the tires actually lost contact with the bodies, but for a split second we felt weightless. It did not take us long to lose any of the speed that I had built up. As we ran over countless bodies, I was thankful for the fact that each tire had its own suspension. The road got closer, but our speed had fallen to just over a crawl. If I tried to drive any faster, then I would not be able to control where we were headed. The extreme loss of speed had two effects.
The first and most immediate was that the part of the horde unaffected by the blast was closing in on us. Although there were quite a few of the reanimates tripping over their fellows, enough of them remained ambulatory. I did not want to end up surrounded again while trying to drive over the fallen bodies. I was not entirely certain that the truck had enough power to handle both obstacles.
The secondary effect of our slow speed was that it allowed the fallen reanimates that had only been knocked over by the blast to regain their footing. These two things were causing our clear path to disappear. I decided to push down on the gas pedal a bit more to gain some speed. This caused the steering wheel to jerk violently in my hands and my ribs to complain from the extra effort I was exerting to keep us moving where I wanted.
We had all learned so much about this new world, yet we were all still capable of forgetting to remain vigilant. All of us were so focused on getting to the main road that we had all momentarily forgotten that Frank’s window was still open. We were reminded by a reanimate stuffing both arms inside of the vehicle and grabbing on to Frank’s shirt in an attempt to wrest him from his seat.
Frank yelled in surprise and Jess screamed in terror. Michelle was the only one of us that managed to keep their cool. She drew her pistol and aimed it at the reanimate’s head, pulling the trigger. The thing’s head exploded and it fell from the window. The sound of the shot inside the close quarters of the Humvee caused us all to temporarily lose our hearing. The only sound I could hear was the sharp ringing that is caused by a sharp, loud noise.
Despite the fact that my ears and head were both throbbing with pain, I kept my focus on the road ahead. We were within twenty feet of it, but the more reanimates that got off the ground, the slower our progress became. We were now doing less than three miles an hour and the horde had closed in on us again. I could feel the tires begin to spin on the ground as we lost traction. I began to doubt that we would succeed.
Looking out of the windshield, I saw nothing but the undead. I turned my head and saw the same on my left and right side. It was like there was nothing left of this world except the reanimates, and the five of us were about to join them. Karen held Jess in her arms as if that would shield her from what was about to happen. Michelle was turned around and facing the blown-out window behind her, hacking at the hands of the reanimates with a knife.
Our forward progress was little more than a crawl now, though I had the accelerator pressed to the floor. Frank and I made eye contact and I saw that he had no more hope than did I. I could not believe that this was how we would meet our end. We had already survived so much. It was unreal that an attempt to better arm ourselves would ultimately be our undoing.
I raised my voice as loud as I could without actually screaming. It was the only way to be heard over the groans of the reanimates and the roar of the engine. “Listen, I am not sure we will make it out of this. We got what looks like a fair number of bullets from this run, so take as many with us as we can.”
I was about to go on about how I was honored to have known them all and how they were like a family to me now. The typical farewell kind of things one says when two things happened simultaneously to shut me up. My window shattered and I found a dozen arms reaching in and grabbing for me, and the front tires made contact with the pavement.
In typical movies or stories about zombies, a scratch from one of them was enough to doom you. A scratch would get the infection or disease or whatever it was that turned one into a zombie directly into your bloodstream and you would turn. This was not something that had been seen yet in reality. Given the fact that my left arm was being dug into by so many hands, I hoped that it would not prove to be true.
The front tires found better purchase on the pavement and our speed started to grow. Before long, the back tires were on the road as well and I could see open space about ten feet in front of us. We were about to exit the horde and be on our way to safety. A hand found my ear and started to pull. I let out a cry of pain and tried to wrest the ear free with my left hand. I did not succeed. The reanimates were gifted with a strength that was almost supernatural. I only succeeded in causing the skin at the top of where my ear met my skull to tear a bit. I could feel the blood start to flow.
We were free of the horde before I was free of the grip on my ear. I floored it, thinking that the thing would stumble and lose the hold it had on me. Extreme pain from my ear informed me that I was wrong, the tear growing. I knew that if we kept going that I would be short one ear. We were around ten feet from the horde, so I slammed on the brakes and hoped that we had enough time to free me before we found ourselves surrounded once more.
I yelled out to Frank, hoping that he knew what I wanted. With all forward motion stopped, the reanimate that had a hold on me took the opportunity to start to climb in through the broken window. I was using both hands to try and hold it at bay, but all of my injuries were conspiring against me and its teeth were getting closer to my shoulder. With millimeters to go a shot rang out and it released me.
I let out a sigh of relief and looked in the rear-view mirror. The horde had closed the gap once again and we were about to be surrounded. With no undead in front of us I knew that it would be a simple thing to lose them. I floored the gas pedal and we shot forward, leaving them in our wake. It would be smooth driving from here on, as we had already traveled this road and knew that there were no dangers ahead.
Though I was bleeding pretty freely from my left arm and ear, we all started to cheer. We had once again escaped a certain death and this time we had not lost anyone. In celebration, Karen withdrew a six-pack of beer from the trunk and started to hand them out to each of us. I could find no fault in celebrating.
Have you ever watched a sporting event, or a competition where the person in the lead is so confident that they are about to win that they start to celebrate early? If not, let me fill you in, they end up being passed by the person in second place and end up losing. That is the problem with early celebrations, which was exactly what we were doing.
The horde had barely vanished from our view, we still had several miles to go before we arrived at the fort that we did not yet know to be safe, or ours for the claiming, and we were still toasting our success. Instead of celebrating, I should have been paying attention. I do not know what had happened to cause the engine to overheat, maybe one of the reanimates that we ran over had gotten wrapped up in a coolant hose, maybe one had punctured the radiator, it did not matter. What mattered was the fact that I was so focused on patting myself on the back that I did not notice the temperature gage was pinned over as far as it would go. In my defense, there was no steam because we had already lost all of the coolant. In hindsight, I am fairly certain that I would have noticed a vast amount of steam. That in neither here nor there now.
What I did notice was the scream from the engine as the pistons warped and were pressed into the cylinder walls, causing the engine to seize up and us to come to a quick halt.
Chapter 14
We all sat there in stunned silence for far longer than was wise. My wits slowly returned to me and I started to look around at our surrounding. Either irony was at hand, or God did really have a cruel sense of humor, because to our right was a large cemetery. All of the headstones that I could see had piles of dirt in front of them where the once dead had clawed their way free of the Earth that had held them. To our left was a line of trees with a hint of some buildings behind them. I knew that those buildings were in the town’s industrial park and would be of little help to us unless there was an emergent need of shelter. In front of us was the open road and we were not very far from the Ford dealer where we had stopped to swap out positions before entering town. We all knew what was behind us, and none of us wanted to encounter that again any time soon.
“Jim,” said Frank. “We need to get going.”
His words echoed my thoughts and I nodded. “Let’s gather up what we can all carry without being weighed down to the point that we cannot move fast. I say we go down the Babbie Road on our left to Jonergin Drive. That will take us out of sight of that horde. Maybe they will lose interest and go elsewhere.”
Karen was the first to respond. “Can we all address the fact that someone let all of those things out? Someone wanted us dead.”
She was right, but we did not have the time to discuss it.
“You’re right,” Michelle replied. “We need to keep our eyes peeled for any threats from the living as well. We might still be in what they feel is their territory.”
I nodded and said, “OK, let’s get going then.”
We moved as one towards the side road that led to Jonergin Drive. I knew that that road housed a bunch of manufacturers, but I was hoping that it also had a house of two on it. We needed a place to stay until morning, maybe even luck into a working vehicle. Michelle, Frank, and I all carried weapons and ammunition while Karen carried as much food and water as one person could. Jess was kept in front of Karen so that she could keep an eye on her.
We came to the spot on the Babbie Road where we could turn either left or right onto Jonergin. I came to a stop and tried to look down the road in either direction in an effort to see if there were any houses. I felt a chill run down my spine as the rasping voices of the reanimates from the horde started to grow in volume. They were closing in on us and I needed to make a choice.
I was very much against heading back in the direction of that horde, so I chose to go right. We all carried a heavy load, but I broke into a slow jog, attempting to put some distance between us and our pursuers. We passed a farm equipment dealer on the right and I found myself admiring some of the larger pieces of equipment when movement caught my eye. We had taken too long, and the Horde had arrived at the Humvee. If one of us was spotted by one of them, we would be in for the run of our lives.
On the far side of the farm equipment dealer was a small open field and then a tree line. There would be nothing to keep us hidden from view, except maybe some luck. I chuckled to myself at that thought. If luck was a commodity, surely, we had spent all of ours by now.
With every step my ribs sent out waves of pain. I knew that I could not push myself any harder. My left arm also started to throb from where all of the scratches had gone deep enough to draw blood. I looked back at Karen and Jess and saw that they were moving as fast as they could as well. Luck it would have to be then.
An excited snarl from the front of the horde let me know that we had in fact spent all of the luck we were to have on this day. Again, our only saving grace was the fact that they did not run. I was confident that we could keep the distance between us for now. Humans grew tired though, we needed rest and sleep. The reanimates did not. Eventually one of us would tire enough and the horde would close the distance unless we could find a place to hide. As with the house in Milton, if they could not see us then they would not know we were there.
I was immensely happy that the farm store’s yard was surrounded by a chain-link fence. This kept the horde from cutting through the property and gaining some of the lead back from us.
On my left was a large building. The front looked to have three stories for offices while the back looked like it was where manufacturing was performed. The sign on the front identified the business as Leader Evaporator. There were several cars parked in the lot, which made me think that we might be able to gain access to the building to hide. I started to head in that direction when Frank called out to me and directed my attention to beyond the tree line.
I had never seen anything quite so beautiful in my entire life. There sat a ranch style house with an attached two car garage. The house was white with the main entrance enhanced with brickwork. The house itself was not remarkable, neither was it the thing of beauty. The beautiful part of it all was that the front door stood wide open. This meant that we would be able to get into the house swiftly and hopefully none of the horde would see us enter. Perhaps I had spoken prematurely about us running out of luck.
We all veered towards the house, even Jess managed to speed up a bit. I was the first to reach the door and I stopped. I would send Frank in first with a gun and then the others would follow him. I would be the last to enter. When Frank reached me, I freed him of all the weapons that he carried except a shotgun. It was some sort of shot barreled, tactical shotgun. I could not be sure of the make or model.
