Dead Stop (33 page)

“Okay, Harley.”
She refocused on the task at hand. “Let’s pull that hand out so I can take a
look at it.”

He lifted his
hand from where it had been soaking in a sink full of hot soapy water, and she
took it and held it up to the light.

Fortunately,
during the fight he had forced the hand deep into the monster’s jaws where the
molars had been doing most of the damage. Otherwise he would have most likely
lost half his hand. As it was, a deep semi-circular bite mark stood out in
bloody relief, and the last two fingers on his hand had swollen up like
sausages.

“Can you feel
this?” she asked as she gently pinched the end of each finger.

He nodded in
affirmation, which relieved her. At least the nerve hadn’t been severed. The
bite was just in the right place to do that kind of damage.

“Okay,” she
instructed. “Now make a fist.”

He complied, but
she noticed he wasn’t able to fully close the last two fingers. Which was
exactly what she had feared. The hand would heal with time, but for now its use
was limited.

“Harley,” she
spoke up and looked him firmly in the eye. “I’m going to get straight to the
bad news. Your plan to climb that power cable is now out of the question.”

Harley had
filled them in on the plan while Marisa locked the doors between the diner and
the store, before heading up to the roof. Rachel thought the overall scheme had
been a little crazy in the first place, but admitted the idea of using Grandpa
Tom’s truck to get them all out of here had been inspired.

The man grimaced
and tried to clench his fist tighter.

“Forget it,”
Rachel snapped. “I don’t care how tough you are, your hand won’t have the grip
to support you. That bastard chewed it up good, and you’re lucky the damn thing
is still attached.”

The tall redneck
obviously didn’t want to hear it, but she could tell he was too smart to argue
with reality. Another experimental flex of his hand, and she could see the
resignation in his face.

“Yeah,” Harley
sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

“That’s the
spirit. We doctor types love hearing that.”

“Okay,” he
grinned ruefully, “you win. So tell me something, Doc.”

“What?” Rachel
studied the fingers, trying to decide if a splint was in order.

“How the hell
are they so strong?” He frowned in obvious memory of the fight. “I remember you
warning they might be. Then I remembered how the first one I fought was tough
but I never really gave it a chance to show its stuff. But the second was
definitely in my league power wise. And this last one… Holy shit! I thought I
was fighting a bear or something.”

“Yeah,” she
nodded and decided to settle for just wrapping the two fingers together. “I’ve
got a theory about that. Since this stuff is hijacking these corpse’s nervous
systems, the usual safeguards aren’t in place.”

“Usual
safeguards?”

“Uh huh.” Rachel
picked a strip of rag and started to wrap the two fingers. “We only use a
certain percentage of our muscles potential strength. It’s like a throttle
built in to our endocrine and nervous systems to keep us from injuring our
muscles and joints. But I don’t think these things have that. I think they are
using what muscle they have left at close to a hundred percent. And the
percentage probably gets closer to a hundred percent as they feed.”

“Damn,” Harley
breathed in dismay.

“Yeah,” she
warned, “and if the same holds true for that monster that used to be Buddha
Boy—and I’m betting it does—then you absolutely do
not
want to get into
a tussle with it. It tore Gerald’s head off with one hand.”

“Right,” He
watched her wrap his fingers for a second then turned his head towards Marisa.
“Marisa, did you happen to get a fix on where Buddha Boy was.”

“You told me to,
didn’t you,” she replied shortly. “At the moment he’s over on the store side of
the parking lot.”

“At the moment?”

“Yeah,” she
finally settled for hanging her umbrella from a hook above the grill. “All the
others have pretty much gone to just standing around out there. But that one
walks around.”

“Yeah,” he
sighed, “I noticed.”

“I also did it
like you told me to for out back,” she continued. “There are four of them back
there, all just standing there too. One of them is standing only a few feet
from the breakers, so he’s going to be a problem. Or at least he was. One is
out past him between the cornfield and the diner. One is by the lightpole off
to the right between here and the trucks. And one is standing back there near
the shower rooms. Oh, and there is one crawling around in front of the trucks.
I’m not sure what’s up with it, but its legs don’t seem to work and it doesn’t
look like a threat.”

Harley started
to speak but she held up a hand and continued.

“I checked from
both ends of the roof, like you said, so I would have different angles and
there would be less area out of my view. And also like you said, I made note of
any areas outside my view. The one area I couldn’t totally make out was behind
the dumpster enclosure. There could be a zombie behind it, but if there is, it
is either right up against the fence or really short.”

Rachel watched
Harley nod as he took all this in, and remembered him coaching the girl before
sending her up there. The veterinarian had insisted on treating his wounds
before letting him run off up to the roof, so he had instructed Marisa in what
he wanted done and sent her ahead.

It was just as
well he did because an ugly situation had been brewing and Marisa had been
right in the middle of it.

Marisa had been
furious at Deke about the glow stick incident and had been dressing him down
righteously over it. The boy took it in hang dog fashion, but it got to the
point Stacey had come to his defense. Then, when Harley’s plan and the reason
behind it had been revealed, it was Stacey’s turn to get mad about being kept
in the dark. She pointed out Deke wouldn’t have even been trying to find
Gladys’s purse if they hadn’t been sent on an errand just to keep them busy.

And everybody
remembered whose decision that had been.

Since that had
resulted in all of them looking at her, Rachel had chosen to try and cut the
impending fracas short. She could tell everybody was exhausted and reaching
their snapping point. With tempers fraying, she decided to take no chance of
making things worse by offering a defense that might be taken the wrong way.

Instead of
attempting to explain how she had been worried about dumping more stress on
Stacey, she simply went straight to taking complete blame for the fiasco,
offering a full on apology for underestimating them both and promising she
would not leave them out of anything again.

The unqualified
apology had surprised and mollified Stacey and Deke, but she could still see
Marisa fuming and sending dire looks in Deke’s direction.

That’s when
Harley told Marisa he needed her to cover for him and go to the roof while he
got tended to. The volcanic glare the raven-haired waitress had fixed on him
left no doubt she suspected she was being sent out to cool down, but since it
really needed to be done she hadn’t objected. Rachel also had a hunch the girl
didn’t protest because it gave her a graceful way to de-escalate in her own
way.

Now as Marisa
made her report, it was obvious her main focus was on it being understood that
she had done the job right as opposed to carrying on a grudge with Deke.

“Thanks,
Marisa,” Harley winced as he started to pull his shirt back on. “It’s important
to get good info on what’s going on out there even if Plan B is cancelled.”

“Good. It was a
stupid plan. It would have only gotten you killed,” the waitress grouched. Her
mood mustn’t have improved all that much, even if she weren’t directing her ire
at the younger redneck.

Still, Rachel
found herself forced to agree with the young woman’s blunt assessment. It had
been a plan borne of desperation, and it was probably just as well it hadn’t
been attempted.

But it also left
them back at square one…in a truck stop that the dead had now breached, and
some or all of them possibly infected with the fungus. Up the creek without a
single paddle in sight. So although the plan had probably not been practical in
the first place, it still felt like a blow to have lost the ability to even
attempt it.

Apparently
Stacey hadn’t gotten the memo.

“But, the truck
part…” she looked at Harley. “That part would have worked, right?”

“What do you
mean?”

“I mean, if you
could have gotten to the truck you would have actually been able to drive it,
and we would have really been able to get on it from the roof?”

“Yeah. Tom says
it has a ten speed manual. I can handle one of those. I would just have to be
careful to remember the length of the trailer. The roof part would be a cinch.
There’s a couple of long folding tables in the storeroom, and they would make
easy bridges.”

“But it doesn’t
matter,” Marisa cut in. “That truck may as well be a thousand miles away.
Harley can’t get to it. Even if his hand wasn’t hurt, and he didn’t get killed
trying to cut the power to the line, I don’t think he could have made it.”

“Well, no,” the
smaller waitress agreed. “But what if somebody drove him up to the truck? He
could get into it then before the zombies got him, right?”

“Sure!” Marisa
snorted. “And since we’re daydreaming here, they can serve him coffee and
waffles on the trip!”

“I like coffee
and waffles,” Harley mused aloud.

“Well be sure
and order them with your dream car,” Marisa snapped, “because all the real ones
are surrounded by zombies, remember?”

“Not all of
them.”

Now all eyes
really did turn on Stacey.

“What do you
mean, Stacey?” Harley leaned forward intently, “I’ve studied all the cars. The
only one that was even possible to get to was Gerald’s, and now it’s gone.
We’re cut off from all of them.”

“What about the
one in the shop?”

For a second
they all looked at her blankly. Then Marisa gasped and Harley did a quick look
from Stacey to her.

“The shop?” he
asked.

“Yes!” Marisa
came alive, “Oh shit, yes! Arnold was working on a car in the shop! And there’s
almost no zombies between us and there! Stacey, you’re a genius!”

The room came
alive with excited chatter.

Rachel felt a
surge of excitement as well, but she also remembered the haunted look Stacey
had assumed earlier when the topic of the shop came up. Whatever the situation
was back there, it couldn’t be good.

“Okay,” the
veterinarian cautioned. “Hold on a second. Stacey? If they were working on the
car, how do you know it would be running?”

“Because they
were done, Doc. I know because the car was off the rack, and the hood was
closed. And…” the girl went slightly pale again, “…Arnold’s red toolbox was
closed. I remember because…because Leon’s head was lying right next to it.”

That calmed
things down a bit.

“
Mierde
,”
Marisa closed her eyes. “They must have been cleaning up to go home when these
damn things hit.”

“Probably,”
Stacey started to look tearful. “Oh God, those poor guys. They were almost out
of there.”

“But, the keys.”
Harley interrupted. “What about the keys to this car? Where would they be?”

Stacey and
Marisa looked at each other, and Rachel could tell they both knew the answer
and didn’t really like it.

“They would be
in Arnold’s pocket,” Marisa answered. “He always pulled whatever car he was
working on out into the parking lot before leaving, just in case a truck came
in needing repairs later.”

“So the keys are
there,” Harley pulled a toothpick and started chewing it, “that’s good. That’s
very good.”

Rachel worried
that desperation might still be forcing his hand, and tried to bring things
back down to earth.

“Okay,” she
reminded them, “but even if they’re there, there’s also enough zombies to kill
and devour three men in there with them. I don’t see how this is any better
than the cars out front.”

“No,” Stacey
replied, emphatically shaking her head. “Most of them chased me. When I looked
back I saw them pouring out both doors…from the mechanic’s shop and the
showers. All the ones from the trucks went to Gladys’s side of the building. If
there’s any left in there, it’s probably only one or two.”

“Just like the
ones in the store when those cops showed up,” Harley muttered. “They go for the
kill even when they’ve got a dead victim right at their feet.”

“That’s not a
surprise,” Rachel mused. “It’s a hunting strategy that makes sense at their
level. Their victims aren’t going anywhere, so chase the fresh meat.

“And we’ve got a
gun now!” Marisa chimed in. “So if there is one or two left…no problem! I’m
betting you’re a pretty good shot, aren’t you, Harley?”

“Pretty good,”
the man nodded absently, still chewing the toothpick, “but there’s only five
bullets left. And it’s a snub nose. Not good for the kind of accurate shooting
these things require unless they’re close. So we can’t afford to get too
cocky.”

“Right,” the
waitress nodded, all business now. “You carry the gun, I’ll go with the bat.”

Harley didn’t
look happy about that last part, but didn’t object. Rachel guessed he had
finally given up on dissuading Marisa from accompanying him on these kinds of
things. He just sighed and then gestured at her rain gear.

“You’re going to
have to leave that stuff behind,” he said. “It’s too brightly colored, and it
will slow you down. I guess you can loan them to Doc and Stacey while they’re
up on the roof.”

“Right.”

Rachel looked at
the two in dismay, shocked at how fast this was developing.