Books of the Dead (Book 1): Sanctuary From The Dead (17 page)

It was then
the SUV freed itself and shot backwards twenty feet before Mike slammed the breaks.

“Let’s go!”
he screamed.

I switched my gun to auto
and moved towards the front of the SUV.  I swiveled my rifle towards a small group of undead closing on Kara and let them have a quick blast, knocking them back.  Kara looked my way, and I nodded my head signaling her to head back to the SUV.  She hesitated for a moment, taking aim, and shooting past me at one that was closing fast.  Her shot struck home, a plume of blood and gore erupting out of the back of the zombie’s head.  She pulled her rifle down and sprinted past me.  I blasted a few more as I backed up toward the SUV, my aim less than expert now.

I ho
pped into the back seat and slammed the door. 

“Where’s Logan?” Mike asked looking to the empty passenger seat.

We all swiveled our heads and looked out the back of the SUV.  Logan was about twenty feet behind us, firing at four of the undead closing quickly. 

Things slowed down for us in the vehicle while I would imagine they sped up for Logan.
He got off two shots and ran out of bullets.  He dropped the gun to the ground, and his hand disappeared from view.  One half-burned creature moved too fast and was just about on him.  I reached for my door handle and had the door half open when Mike grabbed my shoulder, yanking me back. 

“Get your heads down!”
he yelled.

Mike and Kara both ducked down, but I didn’t.  I couldn’t.

Logan had the grenade out and was pulling at the pin with his bad hand.  He must have gotten it, but the zombie broadsided him and he went down.  He struggled to get up, but another one descended on him.  He kicked out at the one on top of him and it rolled away.  The second one landed on his legs as he tried to scoot backwards.  Two more were closing fast.  The one he kicked off lunged forward on all fours and gripped Logan’s leg, lowering its head and taking a bite out of his thigh.

I don’t know if I heard Logan’s howl of pain in my head or whether it carried back to us.  He yanked his leg away and held the grenade up with his hand.

It went off a second later.  All four zombies were blown to bits along with our friend.  Shrapnel peppered the back of the SUV cracking the back window.

Kara started to raise her head
, but I shot out my hand and pushed her back down.  “Drive!” I shouted to Mike.

He punched the accelerator, slamming into the Nissan
, spinning it around.  Several of the undead were moving up the bridge in our direction and Mike made took no evasive actions, slamming the SUV’s bulk into them with an unrelenting vengeance.  Several of the undead were propelled off the bridge while Mike steamrolled the others.  We hit the bottom of the bridge doing fifty when Mike plowed into another small group.  It wasn’t like a hot knife through warm butter, but the creatures didn’t stand a chance.  I don’t think Mike cared if he damaged the SUV. I know I didn’t.  I looked his way and saw silent tears streaming down his cheeks.

We made it to the pharmacy without further incident.  It turned out to be a treasure trove of medicines -- painkillers, antibiotics, and a boatload of other medications we needed, plus bandages and other supplies.  We loaded up with all we could, but while no one said it, we would have traded it all to have Logan back.

Depression and regret hung over us like a thick fog as we started
on the return trip.  I don’t think we could have felt worse.

CHAPTER 23

When It Rains, It Pours

We saw the first sign of trouble before we heard it.  When we crossed back into New Boston it hung on the horizon, a harbinger of doom.  Kara drew a deep breath.   A small but ugly plume of smoke drifted over Portsmouth.

I grabbed the walkie-talkie and keyed the send button, “Sanctuary, this is foraging party one.
Come in Sanctuary, this is foraging party one.”

Nothing came back but static.  We were still too far out.  I rolled down the window and heard a booming noise that sounded like rolling thunder only there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

I looked at Mike, “Thunder?”

“No,” he said.  “There’s no storm anywhere near here.”

“What is it?”  Kara asked leaning forward from the back seat.

Another boom rumbled our way.

Mike looked at me but didn’t speak and then redirected his attention back to the road.  He pressed down on the accelerator and started weaving in and out of the abandoned cars.  Our day had been really shitty up to now, but something in his face told me it was about to get worse.

“Mike, what are you not saying?”  I asked.

He started to talk, but stopped.  Kara put a hand on his shoulder and he finally said, “That sounds a lot like artillery.”

“Artillery?  From what?  Or who?”  The questions came out of my mouth in a stream.

The walkie-talkie sounded before he could answer.

“Sanctuary, this is the Clearing Party One, please come in.”  It was Greg.  “This is the Clearing Party One.  Sanctuary, please come in.”

I keyed the send button, “Greg, this is the foraging party.  Please come in.”  We’re not supposed to use names, but I was a bit flustered. 

Greg answered immediately.  “Foraging Party One, what is your
twenty?”

“We’re in New Boston just east of Walmart.  What’s going on?”

“No idea yet.  Our twenty is just south of Rosemount.”  Rosemount is a bump on the map, a small pass-through burg just north of town.  They had a straight shot back to the church just like us.

“Why aren’t they answering at the church?”  I asked.

“I have no idea,” Greg responded back.  “We’re heading there right now.  Stay in contact.”

“Will do.”

Mike was hauling ass, dodging vehicles, hopping curbs and driving on sidewalks - whatever it took to get us back in one piece.  At one point, he drove over a curb so fast my head hit the ceiling of the SUV.  Kara lashed herself in with the seat belt after that. I did the same.

By the time we passed the McDonald’s on
route 52 we could hear gunfire punctuated with the booming of something much bigger than handheld weapons.  The source of the smoke seemed to be coming from the downtown, but it could have been closer.  I looked over to Mike and his face was set into a grim stare, his hands locked on the steering wheel.  His thinking must have mirrored mine -- that smoke could be coming from the church. 

“What’s your
twenty now, foraging party,” Greg’s voice squawked from the walkie-talkie. 

“We’ve just passed Mabert,” I said as we sped past L
ittle Caesars Pizzas.    

“I’ve been listening to another channel,” Greg said.  “Whoeve
r is in town has got to be military or ex-military from how they’re communicating.”

This had been one of our worst fears.  If some military group came to town armed to the teeth, there was not much we could do.  Because we had two parties out in the field, those that could def
end the church were spread thin.

“We had better tread lightly and consider our approach and resources.  Do you copy foraging party one?”

This was pre-arranged code that told us to be careful with what we said.  Anyone could be monitoring the walkie-talkie channels.  “We copy.  We were coming up on the fork where Gallia split off onto a side street.  Gallia was the most direct route back to the church, but an over turned semi-trailer blocked the way. 

The gunfire was more distinct now.  There had been no more big booms
. I hoped it didn’t mean we were too late to do anything. 

“We need to make sure the dead stay dead,” Greg said.  This was another code for us to meet him at a rendezvous point.  Greg had set plans in place just in
case.  Caches of arms, ammunition, and other essential supplies had been placed at strategic locations all over the city.               

“Roger that,” I said and looked over to Mike who nodded his head.

“”Make the dead stay dead”” was our code to head to the cemetery.  As much as it pained us to not go directly to the church, we peeled off onto Robinson and headed up to Greenlawn Cemetery. Back in the 1970’s, one of the national TV network’s evening broadcast signed off with a story about how Portsmouth’s cemetery population had eclipsed its living population.  When the Outbreak hit that number increased exponentially as the living became a dramatic minority.

CHAPTER 24

Rendezvous

The rendezvous point was the cemetery’s largest mausoleum in the northwest corner.  The cemetery actually
had two mausoleums - both are single-story buildings which went up in the early 1900’s.  The largest one was our destination.  Both of the mausoleums sat about two hundred feet off a wrought iron fence that surrounded the cemetery.

They were made from granite and employed a classic architectural style with squared-off faux columns spaced along the building’s exterior.  The roofs were flat and I could remember as a kid climbing up on them one time when playing hide and seek.  I can also remember being hauled down by a couple cops and being grounded for a month with no TV and no computer time.  That was sheer torture for me.  Now, no TV or computer time was
just a way of life.

Mike nearly spun out of control on one of the cemetery’s gravel roads, but got the
SUV under control before we smashed into a couple tombstones.  We spotted Greg’s Jeep parked behind the northern mausoleum, partially concealed by a large evergreen. 

    Mike was out of the SUV almost before it came to
a stop.  Kara and I jumped out and followed close behind.  The gunfire was very clear now, carried on the moist twilight air.  Each burst increased the sense of urgency we had stirring inside. 

The large steel door creaked loudly when we entered the darkness of the mausoleum.  We had to take a couple seconds to let our eyes adjust to the dark.  The air inside was cool and damp.  I felt a wave of
goose bumps descend down my arms as if I were a ten year old kid.  I wondered why I still felt that way around graveyards when the real living dead were out there walking around. 

We heard Greg and his group before we saw them.  A rhythmic pounding noise reverberated off the walls originating from the northern.

Greg and a guy named Chuck were watching a third guy, who I think was called Jerry, taking whacks at one of the crypts with the butt end of his rifle.  Each impact reverberated off the walls like Thor’s hammer.  Greg looked up as we turned the corner, holding his gun at the ready position, but relaxed when he saw us.  With one last good hit the door fell off and slammed against the floor, breaking into several pieces.  Greg shined a flashlight inside and we saw the stocks of several rifles, several ammo cans and a wooden box, sealed tightly.

“What do you know about who’s shooting up the downtown?”  Mike asked.

“In a minute.  Let’s get this stuff unloaded,” Greg responded. 

Jerry was in his late thirties and had linebacker’s shoulders and tree trunks for arms.  Chuck was a slight man with a runner’s build, all lanky with long sinewy muscles
that seemed to want to copy Greg’s economy of movement.  Some of the group called him “Little Greg” behind his back. 

Greg reached in and started handing out guns.  When they were all removed, he grabbed the ammo cans and hauled them out onto the floor.  Chuck start
ed opening them immediately, assessing how many rounds we had.  Greg gave the long wooden box a yank and while it came out a few inches, I could tell that Greg was having trouble taking it out.  Before he could attempt a second tug at the box, Jerry shouldered his way and pulled box out in one clean jerk.

Greg started to open the box, but stopped and looked up at us. “Wait.  Where’s Logan?”

Mike froze.  His mouth opened and closed but no words came out.  His face broke and he had to turn away. 

“Logan didn’t make it,” Kara said and laid a hand on Mike’s back.

“What!”  Greg said, more of an exclamation than a question.  “What happened?”

“It was a real mess,” I said.  “On the overpass into Sciotoville we got tangled up in a bunch of cars.  Then we got sandwiched between two small hordes of the dead.”  Something caught in my voice and my vision blurred for a moment
, but I pushed it all back down.  “He died saving us. It was...”

Another one of those loud booms sounded in the distance. 

“There’s no time for this now,” Greg said.    “You’ll have to give us the details later,” he said.  I was wondering if there would be a later.

“How do we look for ammo
?” Greg asked Chuck.

“There’s enoug
h in here for all of us,” Chuck said.  “At least for now.”
                Greg opened the wooden box and laid out six grenades gently on the floor.  He pulled out a shoulder mounted missile launcher next.  I had no idea we had this kind of firepower.

“That might come in handy tonight,” Jerry said, his voice higher pitched than you would expect from a man his size.

“We need to get going,” Mike said.

Greg stood still holding the missile launcher.  “We will, but we can’t just rush in before we know what we’re getting ourselves into.  We need to get some vantage point to the downtown.  Any ideas?”

“My uncle used to live in the Offnere Street apartments at the top of the hill,” I said.  “If we get to the roof, we should be able to see down to the high school and maybe the church.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Greg said. “Let’s pack this stuff and go”.

The apartment building offered a good view of the whole downtown, not that any of us liked it.  A house just down the street from the church was fully engulfed in flames.  That was what was spewing all the smoke we had seen earlier. 

Greg used
binoculars to get a better view.  The muscles in his jaw pulsed almost as soon as he brought the binoculars up to his eyes.

“What do you see?” Mike asked.

“Nothing good,” Greg said. “I was right.  These are military or ex-military -- probably gone rogue from their outfit, moving from town-to-town, taking what they need by force -- if they have to.”  He dropped the binoculars from his eyes.  “They brought armor to the party.  I saw at least two Humvees with fifty calibers on top.  I think the artillery is a MAV.”

“A what?”  Kara asked. 

“A medium armored vehicle.  MAV for short.  It’s basically a little tank on wheels.  From the sound of the gun they’re firing, I’d say it’s a Stryker.  We’ve done a good job of fortifying but that thing will huff and puff and knock our walls down.  They must have come in from Kentucky or Cincinnati.  One of our groups would have seen them if they come from the east or the north, but I guess where they came from doesn’t matter because they are here.”

“What do we do?”  Kara asked.

“We can only assume they knocked the radio out at the church so we have no idea what is going on there.  I see some return fire from the third floor and the roof.  I won’t lie.  It doesn’t look good.  I’m guessing there are at least forty of them and they’re heavily armed.  Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t taken the church by now, but God must be looking out for our people.”

“Him and us,”
Mike said.

“Yes,” Greg said. “And that’s what we have going for us.  They don’t know we’re out.  If we do this right we might be able to turn these suckers back.  Or, at least, make them think twice about continuing to attack the church.”

While Greg was talking, I turned northward and I didn’t like what I was seeing.  When it rains, it pours.  Small groups of the undead moved through the houses and into the streets.  They were coming in a steady flow heading toward the downtown, drawn by all the sound. 

“Things might be worse than we thought,” I said pointing northward.  Everyone
looked.  Several zombies shambled among the tombstones, moving southward.

“Holy shit,” Jerry
said under his breath.

“Maybe the
y’re not so bad this time,” Greg said. “The more distraction these guys have the better chance we have.  Gather around and listen, we only have enough time for me to go through this once.”  He laid out the plan.  It seemed sensible, but he was the one with the military background and I was just some dumb mook who was along for the ride.  The only short-sidedness of the plan was that Greg badly underestimated the flow of the undead to the area.  The booming of this rogue army’s guns sounded for miles and there were a lot of hungry ears listening.  Each boom was an announcement that dinner was about to be served.

Just as we were about to break from our little huddle a voice came from Greg’s walkie-talkie.  “Sanctuary to Clearing Party One. Sanctuary to Clearing Party One.  Over.”

Greg held the walkie-talkie close to his mouth, but didn’t key his talk button.  “It sounds like Roger.”  Roger was Greg’s second in command, an older guy who had served in Vietnam.  He was a crusty guy with bad knees that kept him out of a lot of field operations.  What I liked most about him was that he kept a decent sense of humor throughout our ordeal unlike some of the other tight asses in our group.

The voice called out again, “Sanctuary to Clearing Party One.  Over.”

“Why aren’t you answering?” Kara asked.  There was some annoyance in her voice.

“Because others could be listening,” Greg said.  “Roger knows this.  The only advantage our side has is that the others don’t know about us.”

Greg held up a finger to his lips telling us to be quiet.  He depressed the key three times then let up on the talk button.  “That’s our code to let them know that we are listening.”  These warriors were a crafty lot if you asked me.

“Clearing Party, if you’re listening, the marauders are asking for us to surrender.  We are still in control of our location, but we have several breaches.”

Greg pressed the talk key three times. 

“Isn’t there anyway we can talk to the people at the church?”  Kara asked. 

“Not without the risk of others hearing,” Greg said.  “Roger knows what to do.  He’ll stall for time and say he needs to get the elderly and children gathered and then move to a safe location.”

“We’re just wasting time,” Mike said.  “Let’s get moving.”