Apocalypse Aftermath (5 page)

“How do you know the other side of the blockage isn’t clear?” Tyler asked.
  “They could get out that way.”

Austin maintained his impassiveness, which impressed Jessica after having spotted the subtle indication he wasn’t pleased with the tact the conversation was taking.  “Because I’d bet they’d already have done that if they could.”

There was another long pause.  Jessica focused on the driver’s side mirror again, and managed to see Tyler in the driver’s seat of the BMW.  His head was turned as he held the radio, speaking to the others in his car.  His wife seemed unhappy, but beyond Vanessa’s reaction, Jessica couldn’t see what else was going on in the vehicle.  The backseat, where she presumed Dennis and Trudy were seated, was too shadow shrouded for her to make out.

Tyler faced forward and his voice came from the radio as he held it up to his mouth.  “I don’t see what we can do to help them Mr. Carter.
  We’re on a time table here and our people are getting tired.  You yourself said any stops were a risk.”

“Are those people on those cars?” Candice asked from the backseat.

“Sweetie—” Jessica began quickly, then stopped herself.  “We know.  We’re trying to figure out what to do.”

“But—” Candice started, then cut off when Jessica gave her a sharp, unhappy look.

“Sir, it’s not right to just leave them there.” Austin said calmly, very calmly.  “They need some help.”

“
Yes.” Candice declared.

Jessica couldn’t disagree.  She knew
exactly
what if felt like to be stranded and surrounded by zombies.  Maybe not by quite that many; but it only took one to end it all.  She looked forward again.  The zombies clustered around the wrecked vehicles hadn’t taken any note of the convoy yet.  They seemed intent on the people above them.  Upraised arms stretched seemingly tirelessly, straining to reach the humans.  It was definitely closer to seventy than it was to fifty.  It might even be eighty.

“Mr. Carter.” Tyler’s voice sounded a little tired.

“Can you drive this thing?” Austin asked abruptly.

Jessica blinked as she realized he was talking to her and not Tyler.  “Uh, sure.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded.  “It’s an automatic.  I’ll be fine.”  She hesitated a moment, then searched his face.  His expression was still fairly neutral, but now she detected something in the back of his eyes as he looked at her.  He seemed . . . she wasn’t sure.  Angry wasn’t it.  Neither was frustrated.  Motivated?  Jessica summoned the best serious expression she could and nodded again.  “I’m sure.”

“Okay, we’re going to stop and I’ll help you over the console and get you settled here, then I’m going to get on the roof.”

“The roof?”

“The roof!” Candice blurted in unison with her mother.

“I’m going to run a couple of lines between the doors so there’s something to hold on to.” Austin said before the radio interrupted.

“Mr. Carter, what’s the problem?”

“Dam—” Austin cut himself off before he could complete the oath.  “Mr. Morris, you can hold everyone else back. 
I’ll take my vehicle up and handle it.”  He tapped the brake pedal several times in warning, then swung out to the center of the two-lane highway and brought the SUV to a halt.

Jessica saw Vanessa gesturing sharply to her husband as Austin set the parking brake and lifted his MP5.  He got it looped across himself and settled as he liked, then looked quickly around his side of the car.  “Girlie-girl, keep an eye out on your side for me, okay?”

“Okay.” Candice said, and Jessica glanced back in alarm when she heard the seatbelt clicking.

“No!” she said sharply.  “Keep your seatbelt on.”

“But—”

“No buts.” Jessica said firmly.  “Seat belt
on
.  Watch from the seat.”

Candice hesitated a long moment, then obediently put the buckle back into its slot.  She looked a little confused, especially when Jessica took hers off, but she didn’t protest as she turned her head to look out her window at the landscape outside.

Austin opened his door and got out.  He stepped up on the running board and looked around, then came down and leaned into the car.  “Okay, nice and easy.” he said, stretching his arms across toward Jessica.

She gripped his shoulder and pushed herself up off the seat.  Austin assisted as she shifted closer, letting her use him as support, until he was able to get his arms properly around her.  His right curled around her waist, gripping her hip while his left slid under her thighs.  She was startled when he lifted her clear of the console between the seats without any apparent strain.  She knew he was strong, but while she wasn’t what could fairly be called fat
or heavy, she knew she wasn’t a waif-like model either.  Yet he handled her with ease, moving her slowly across to the driver’s seat.

He took it carefully, letting her have plenty of time to angle her nearly immobilized left leg to fit across without unduly bumping it.  She stopped trying to do more than manage her leg and just hung on as he got her over and down behind the steering wheel.  When she was on the seat, he reached beneath it and pulled out the metal case of bullets and put it on the passenger seat.

“Seat adjust is down here.” he said as he straightened, pointing at the little panel on the side of the seat, next to the door.

“Got it.” Jessica said, reaching to thumb the little four way slider to start the seat moving forward.  The motor was well shielded; she couldn’t even hear it as the seat powered forward slowly.  It was going to take a while; he had it quite a ways back.

He reached into one of the pouches on his gear and pulled out a tightly wrapped bundle of black cord.  When he had several feet unwound he shut the door on it, leaving the length spooling in her lap.  She watched as he threw the bundle across the top of the SUV, then moved around the front quickly.  His head swiveled around as he walked, taking in the surroundings, but except for the zombies up ahead it was clear.  He opened the passenger door and reached for the loose end of the cord.  Jessica preempted him, handing it across helpfully.

“Thanks.” he said, reaching up to a knife he had sheathed upside down on the right of his chest.  His thumb unsnapped the
catch holding it in place, and he used a quick slicing pull to sever the cord before laying the knife on the seat and starting a knot.

“What’s the plan?” Jessica asked as the seat continued moving forward.  She could almost reach the pedals comfortably.

“You’re going to pull up to maybe a hundred feet or so, slowly.  I’ll bang on the roof when you’re close enough.  Then hold there while I do some shooting.” Austin said as he pulled the cord tight and knotted it again for tension.  He was using some sort of complicated knot that she didn’t recognize and had no idea how to duplicate, but his fingers were moving with brisk assurance.  “Hang on.”

He grabbed the knife
and a few boxes of bullets out of the metal case before closing the door.  Looking around quickly as he moved back, the big man opened the rear passenger side door.  “Here girlie-girl, hold this for me.” he said, reaching across with the free end of the remaining cord.  Jessica couldn’t see her daughter sitting in the seat directly behind her without adjusting the mirror, but she must have taken the cord because Austin shut the door with the cord at the top of the door and moved around the back of the vehicle.  Jessica saw him tucking the bullets away in one of his many pouches and pockets.

He opened Candice’s door and started another knot.  “I’ll do some shooting, try to thin the horde out.  When I’m happy with how things look, I’ll give you the signal.  You’ll need to pull up and put the side of the SUV as close to the trailer they’re on top of as you can, okay?”

“Okay.” Jessica said as she finally got the seat adjusted properly.

“Don’t worry about scratching the paint or anything like that, just roll up and turn so you’re right next to that trailer.  Try to angle it so you can curve in and get it positioned without having to back and fill, but if you need to back and fill then go ahead.”

“Okay.” she said again.

“I’ll bang once for go forward, twice to stop, and three or more times for get out of there.”

“One forward, two stop, three get out, got it.” Jessica said.

“Now, this vehicle is da—uh, really tough.” he continued.  “The windows aren’t glass, so don’t worry about anything short of a bullet or an explosion breaking through them, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Same goes for the doors and all the bodywork; it’s armored and can hold up against a
crowd beating on it.  As much as you can, just stay calm and don’t do any sudden maneuvering or fast accelerations.  I’m not so much worried about you spilling me off the roof, but those guys up there might not be as good at holding on as I am.”

“No sudden moves.” Jessica nodded, proud at how even her voice sounded.  Her heart was hammering away in her chest as she looked at the zombies before them.  There were a lot.  She kept repeating what he’d just said over and over in her mind.  The windows aren’t glass.  The SUV is armored.  Nothing’s getting through. 
“Right.”
she told herself as she took a deep breath.  There were a
lot
of zombies up ahead.  Especially for one gun to deal with.

“You got it.” Austin said.  “You’ll do fine.”

“Be careful.” Candice said.

“Always.” Austin said, and did something with his face that made Candice giggle while he replaced his knife in the sheath.  The door closed, then he was stepping up on the driver’s side running board.  The SUV swayed on its shocks as Austin pulled himself up on the roof, and some more as he shifted around and got himself settled.  Jessica waited, the engine humming faintly as it idled, then
a solid sound thump sounded almost directly above her.

Taking another deep breath, Jessica shifted into drive and took her foot off the brake.  Nothing happened, then she kicked herself.  She leaned forward awkwardly and tugged the release for the parking brake.  When it clicked free, the SUV began rolling forward.  She applied a bit of pressure to the accelerator, then a little more after a few seconds, until she saw the speedometer ticking past ten miles per hour.  She held it there, holding the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip.

Dividing her attention between the speedometer and her breathing, Jessica held the SUV straight along the dotted line between the two southbound lanes and tried to relax.  The zombie horde continued to ignore them, locked into their futile attempt to reach the people atop the trailer.  Jessica began to be able to pick out more detail about the trapped people.

Two women and a man.  She saw a long shape in the hand of one of the women that looked an awful lot like a weapon of some kind, and her brow furrowed a little.  If they were armed, why weren’t they able to get themselves out of the jam?  And it looked like both
women were wearing body armor.  She recognized the vests.  They were watching the SUV as it eased closer, though the woman without the gun seemed a lot less calm about the zombies below than her companions.  She kept looking down at them, and stayed close to the armed woman.  The guy just watched the SUV approach, his hands hooked in his pockets, while the brunette with the gun kept glancing over her shoulder at the southbound side of the wreckage from time to time.

Jessica’s nervousness was starting to spike by the time two thumps came from above her.  They seemed very close to the back edge of the horde.  A few of the upright corpses had noticed them and were starting to shuffle around to head their way.  She made herself brake slowly and steadily, then sat with her hands on the wheel and her foot firmly on the brake when the vehicle came to a halt.

The first gunshot made her flinch quite badly, but she took a breath and tried to relax. 
“Nothing can get into the car.  The car is safe.”
she told herself as Austin started a steady rhythm of firing up on the roof.  He was good, she saw as the shots rang out.  Zombie heads were snapping back as bullets went into foreheads and faces and necks, but the gore wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d feared.  Bad, yes.  But not horrible.  Except for the ones that hit low on the faces or necks.  A couple of those made the heads flop around in a way that made her stomach twist uneasily within her.

“Candice, you okay back there?”

“Yes.”  The girl’s voice sounded a little tight, but otherwise steady.  Jessica glanced behind her, but found Candice was paying attention to the windows on either side of the SUV rather than craning to look forward through the windshield.  It wasn’t like Candice hadn’t already seen some bad things, but Jessica couldn’t help herself when she thought to try and keep her daughter from seeing something like this if it wasn’t necessary.

There was a pause in the firing that stretched out for several seconds, then it resumed.  Already more than a dozen zombies were down, only two still twitching.  The rest lay motionless while Austin continued shooting at the others.  Jessica tried to let her gaze unfocus so she couldn’t catch the graphic details, but she still saw sprays of
things
that were supposed to be inside heads erupting despite her efforts.

The shooting continued until only the horde had been considerably thinned out, with maybe a
few handfuls of zombies still on their feet.  The asphalt was littered with corpses, most of them all the way dead.  Some were still flopping and flailing around, but they didn’t seem to be able to regain their feet.  Jessica was waiting for it, and when the single thump came she didn’t startle.  Her foot came off the brake, and she started forward.  A thought occurred to her, and she glanced down at the door armrest long enough to thumb the lock button.