Beyond the Barriers (Novella): Ghouls (2 page)

W
e had only made
it a few slow miles before we had to come to a stop. The road was an old two-lane that hadn’t been repaved in decades, and it was littered with pot holes and runnels carved into the pavement by heavy rain.

Scott whistled as he took in the sight. Cars sat in both lanes blocking the road. There was a nice looking Cadillac sitting across the median. Another driver in a small compact had hit the car, T-boning it. A skeleton hung out the broken front window and lay across the hood. Animals or birds had pecked away most of it’s flesh, leaving a sad reminder behind in a flannel shirt.

“How far are we from anything major?” I asked.

“Not much. Should be some warehouses and a train depot around here somewhere. We can walk it if we have to,” Scott said.

“And give up this fine military vehicle? I say we keep to it as long as possible,” I said.

Scott grunted.

I sat back and looked toward the roadblock and wondered how we were going to get around it. A couple of cars had pulled over in an attempt to move around the mass and had become stuck. We could try and push the cars aside but one side of the transport was damaged from our escape a few days ago. Scott had hit the Stryker at a good clip with our own truck, unsettling the guy on top that was taking pot shots at us. Now the front fender hung by a thread and, every once in a while, there was a loud pop from that wheel cover, like something was loose. The more we drove the worse it got. We weren’t likely to find a full service garage to go over the damage. I didn’t really have a plan except to drive it until we found something more reliable. Maybe we would have to dump this thing after all. For some reason I thought of how I’d taken it from Lee, like it was a trophy, and I didn’t want to give it up.

“Shit.” Scott echoed my thoughts exactly.

I didn’t have time for this. I had to find Katherine, sick with need for her. We had all lost a great deal in the apocalypse that was now our time, but I refused to lose her.

I checked the gun at my side. Among the gear in the truck, I had come across a holster that was for a slightly larger pistol than the Beretta 93F I carried out of the undead camp. Still, the comfort of the weapon at my side was worth the frustration of it bumping across my hip every time I stood up.

I popped the magazine down and slid it back in after assuring it was still loaded just as I had left it a few hours ago. Some habits are hard to break. I slid the chamber back a half inch. The copper jacket caught my eye so I let it close with a click.

“I’ll get Bessie,” Scott said. He pulled out a pump action shotgun and slid a leather bag around his shoulder to hang at his side.

He dumped out a box of shells and pushed them into pockets and sack.

Jon looked scared so I smiled and talked to him but the rest of our refugees had to know I was addressing them.

“It’s probably no big deal. We’re going to check out the roadblock and see if we can figure out how to get around it.”

“I got your back.” Edward leaned down from the turret and nodded. His hair was long and black but caked in mud. It gave him a crazed look. It didn’t help that he had found some kind of face camouflage and painted his cheeks dark green. He wore glasses that were missing one side so they frequently hung low on his right. I liked Edward from the start. The first time I saw him pick up a gun his eyes lit up like it was Christmas. It took very little effort to explain how it worked, how to load on the fly, and how to shoot in a hurry. He took to it with a zeal I couldn’t help but appreciate.

We all dealt with things in different ways and if his way was by wishing to shoot every dead thing in the state, who was I to say no?

“Just don’t set us on fire.” Scott grimaced.

Jon left Janet’s side along with Chris. They both grabbed weapons and untied the rope that bound the rear door shut. Chris left last. He took an old hunting rifle and looked it over. He held it by the barrel with his hand on top. I could tell he wasn’t familiar with guns but that was fine. A little on the job training wasn’t a bad thing.

When we first took over Lee’s Stryker vehicle, the rear door didn’t even work so we had to crawl on top of the vehicle and shimmy down the ladders. One of the men had spent some time playing with the controls and figured out how to get the hydraulics working. Only they barely functioned, so he drained fluid here and there and then, with a clang that probably alerted every thing in the area to our location, the door striking the ground like a bad day.

Lee’s band of idiots must have rigged the door up this way for some reason. Maybe it was to keep interested parties out if they were stopped somewhere for the night. I suspected there had been a camera that showed the back of the vehicle but all of the electronics had been torn out for some unknown reason. Maybe they needed the room to fit more people. Maybe to make room for weapons or it was due to the failure of electronics in the air, satellites and drones. Not to mention the ever present AWACS over a typical battlefield. The kind of stuff that didn’t work worth a shit nowadays.

Jon lowered the door and a few of us stepped out.

I pulled my Beretta and trained it around the location. I stopped to listen for movement but my legs were cramped and demanded a stretch. I felt a knee
pop
and my hip twinge in protest. The fall down the stairs at the ghouls’ hideout just a few days ago left a huge bruise.

I was a big, miserable ball of sore. My head hurt from being struck in the fight with Lee. My upper body hurt from the week in the prison camp not to mention the fact that we had been on the run for days on end.

My legs unfolded like I was in my eighties. Each step was a groan of pain from my feet to my hips.

I sighed and glanced up at the sky, which was a gray drizzle. Rain fell in a steady staccato. It was light but annoying and I wished I had a rain jacket to wear over my camouflage duds. I was cold, chilled in a matter of moments. The time in the vehicle with air rushing in every time we moved had not helped. Just like the electronics, a lot of the other items were missing as well as a heat source. I hoped the city had something approaching human comfort.

Portland.

It was like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Something you set your sights on knowing full well you won’t ever make it. I had my doubts from the moment we gathered the refugees and, as we made it a mere few miles from the farm, I realized just how impossible our dream might be.

L
eaves
lay like dead things around the side of the road. A tree had reached out and hung over the road, intruding on the wires and cables that used to carry electricity and phone connections. One of the larger cables had broken loose and lay on the ground like a black snake.

“Erik. We got something,” Scott called from inside the vehicle.

I clambered back onboard and only managed to rack my knee in the process.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We got them back on the radio. Listen,” Scott said.

A burst of static, and then the channel clattered to life. We had been on the same channel that Lizbeth had used a few days ago but this was the first time we had been able to reach them.

“Liz? You there?”

Static, then a couple of clicks.

“Tragger?” her voice was scratchy

“Lizbeth. Quick before we lose the connection again. Where was Katherine’s last location? I need to find her and the other survivors.”

“Two seconds, Tragger.”

“Roger that, Liz. Thank you,” I said.

I waited. Twenty seconds, then a minute. Nothing. I called for her but she didn’t answer.

Goddamnit!

Finally she came back on the line.

“Sorry about that. Had to get a map and work out the coordinates. Hope you have a pen and paper handy,” she said.

“We have a map?” I asked Scott.

“Probably somewhere in this heap.” He shrugged.

“Okay, Liz. Go.”

She rattled off numbers and I jotted them down as quickly as possible. A year ago I would have been able to load Google Maps and find the location in thirty seconds.

“What else can you tell me about the caravan?” I asked.

“It’s in bad shape but from the tracks it looks like some escaped. Either that or they were dragged off,” she said.

“Christ.”

“Sorry, Tragger. Do your best. We’re near Portland now. Join us. There’s real resistance here. A genuine force. That’s why I called you. We need more smart fighters.”

“I’ll do my best, Liz,” I said, “but I have to know Katherine’s fate. Hers and the rest of the men and women I knew in my old neighborhood. I’ll go crazy if I don’t get to the bottom of their disappearance.”

“Shit, Tragger. Best of luck, my friend. I have to go. We don’t have a lot of juice for the radio but we’re working on some generators. I’ll call again as soon as I can,” she said.

“Thank you, Liz. We liberated some survivors from a ghoul camp. Hope we can all meet up soon,” I said, but she was already gone.

I sat back in the chair while Scott dug through pockets and bins. He’d written down the coordinates on a scrap of paper. Jon helped toss the Stryker while I dug around the steering column. Finally, Scott yelled, “Bingo,” and came up with a roll out map.

It showed the area of Portland and at least fifty miles around the city. Jon proved his worth by studying the numbers Liz had given me.

“I can convert that to latitude and longitude but it takes a little math. I don’t suppose anyone has a calculator?” Jon said.

“Sorry, man. I left my nerd calculator watch back at the house,” Scott said with a wink.

“I didn’t see one in the vehicle,” I said.

Jon nodded and got to work.

“See. You have to convert the numbers to minutes and seconds. Then cross those against the latitude and longitude on the map. I should be able to pinpoint the location. Gimme about fifteen minutes. I’m rusty at this stuff,” Jon said.

“But he’s also very good at it,” Janet said with affection. She ran her fingers through his hair while he jotted down numbers on the slip of paper.

“Let me guess, used to be a teacher?” Scott said.

“A professor actually. Anthropology. But I remember how to convert thanks to a class I took years ago,” Jon said.

I sat back and thought about what Jon had said. We’d lost so much and GPS was the least of it.

I wondered how long it took for electricity to die down once the dead arose. Had it been days, or even a week? Figure there was the panic. People fleeing but nowhere to go. Then the power plants that normally need some kind of human intervention would have triggered alarms and failsafes would have kicked in. Would the nuclear power plants have gone up in smoke by now? Were there now vast shafts of irradiated land around once proud hundred foot-tall chimneys?

I took a quick stroll and found a stump to sit on, pulling out the Desert Eagle to inspect it. I considered digging out a rag and some motor oil to clean the gun, which was the best I could do without a cleaning kit. I didn’t need a misfire in the coming days.

Chris crept up beside me. He’d quietly followed me out of the Stryker and approached from my six. I glanced to my left and saw a hard set jaw below scrunched together eyes. He was looking for something to shoot. I knew the feeling all too well. Not too long ago my body raged against the injustice of all I had been subjected to. I wanted to kill anything that moved. Now I was back to being myself. Back to being centered. I had a goal in mind and I was determined to reach it no matter the grudge he felt toward me.

On second thought, I decided to get to the bottom of it. It would be easy to ignore for now, watch him stew in a sauce of passive-aggression. But that would just bleed out to the rest of the survivors. We needed to have it out here and now.

“How come you don’t like me?” I asked him point blank.

Chris stared at me for a few seconds, his eye brows going up at my forward question. His lip trembled but no words came out.

“Did I wrong you somehow? For the life of me, I can’t remember ever seeing you before the camp.”

“It’s nothing,” he mumbled. His mouth sounded like it was filled with marbles.

“Nothing?” I said and got in his face. “If it’s nothing then we don’t have an issue now do we? If you do have a problem, I suggest you just walk away right now. Where we’re going, I don’t have room or time for someone I can’t trust.”

He stepped back a pace and looked down. I took in his body language with my peripheral vision. His knuckles were white on the gun and he shook although he tried to hide it.

I had to be careful with this one. Every instinct was telling me to distance myself from him. But I also recognized the fact that I needed everyone I could get. Things weren’t going to get any easier in the near future.

“Make up your goddamn mind!” I said louder than I had anticipated.

“Don’t you take the lords name in vain!” He shot back, and then swallowed hard.

I was as tired as I had ever been in my life but I was already marking striking points on his frame. He stood slightly off center and I knew a decent blow would take him off balance. Then I could take him to the ground. I’d have the gun away from him and pointed at his face in seconds.

Movement to my left drew my attention. A hand broke free of the foliage surrounding the road, followed by another one, and then a head. The thing saw us and moaned.

Chris backed up, fumbling for his weapon. I didn’t want to hear a gunshot. It would carry and probably attract more of them. I motioned for him to lower the weapon but he seemed to ignore me and raised it. I reached for the barrel, to bat it down, but I was too slow and a sharp retort tore at the air.

The others stopped what they were doing and dropped to a crouch.

The shot missed and the thing got loose. Unsure what to do now. Chris raised the gun to his shoulder and tried to fire again. This time I was successful in smacking it. I hit it so hard it fell out of his hand and bounced on the ground in a clatter. He glared daggers at me.

“Idiot. You’ve drawn every undead bastard in the area to our location!” I said, raised the handgun, and shot the dead man in the head. He flopped back into a branch and then fell forward. Rotted brain matter spilled out of a cracked skull and dropped to the ground in front of us.

Chris had seen enough. He tried to turn to leave but ended up throwing up instead.

I left him with his hands on his knees, but not before I took away his hunting rifle and returned it to the vehicle.