Deadlocked 7 (18 page)

Annie was gone.

A dog yipped and Jill looked up to see the pug near the entrance of the church, barking at Ben as he came back in. “I’ve got it!”

“Get it over here, now!” Clyde stopped trying to revive Annie long enough to take the small white backpack with the looping wires dangling from it. “Jill, Laura, you two need to get off. Back up.” He took the paddles out and then peeled a paper film off their flat, metal side.
Jill took the unit from him, leaving Clyde with the paddles, and then told him when it was charged. He pressed the paddles to Annie’s chest and said, “Clear.”

Annie jolted in the pew and Laura gasped as if she’d been hurt just by seeing it happen.
Clyde checked for a pulse and then looked up at Jill. She didn’t need an explanation and waited until the unit was ready again.

“Charged.”

“Clear.”

Thump. Annie’s body bounced in the pew again.

They heard trucks begin to start outside. The caravan was nearly ready to leave.

“Everyone needs to get out, now,” said Abe.

“Leave without me,” said Laura. “You guys leave as soon as you can, no matter who is left in this church. Do you understand?”

Abe didn’t answer.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Abe as if he were a frightened child that had stumbled into a funeral.

There were gunshots as the Rollers tried to keep the horde at bay. The church was nearly cleared of survivors.

Harrison came to stand beside Ben and looked down at Annie before putting his arm around his friend.
The old man accidentally knocked over a bag of Clyde’s medical supplies and bent to retrieve the spilled contents, apologizing as he did. Jill saw Ben watching the old man.

“Charged.”

“Clear.”

Annie gasped.

Laura cried out in excitement and then put her hands on Annie’s cheeks. Clyde put the paddles back on the unit that Jill was holding and then put his thumb over Annie’s eye to lift the lid. “Annie,” he said. “Are you there?” He put two fingers on her neck.

Jill saw Annie’s eye move to look up at Ben, and she smiled.

“We’ve got her!” Clyde yelled. “We got her back! We’re not done yet, but we fucking got her.” He looked at Jill with tears in his eyes.

Ben and Harrison embraced as Laura kissed her daughter’s bloodied cheek. Zack was crying as he hugged Arthur, and then he picked David high up into the air and started to kiss his forehead before setting him back down again.

Jill put her hand on Clyde’s shoulder as they switched places so that he could focus on the wound that she’d been holding. She squeezed and leaned in close to whisper, “Thank you.”

Seven months after the apocalypse

Billy and Clyde are outside of the facility in Estes Park.

Billy led the way as Clyde followed close behind. They stayed low as they made their way down the street. He was wary to cross, afraid that running out into the open here would make them easy to spot.

The soldiers’ trucks were faced toward the apartment complex that they walked beside, and the headlights illuminated the grey brick, which all but exposed them as well. There was a small hill between the sidewalk they were on and the
road, which provided just a few feet of shadow that they could move through. Billy tried to stay crouched, but his back brace made it near impossible. He had no choice but to get on all fours and crawl along.

That’s when the gunfire started. The rapid blasts were muffled, clearly coming from inside of the warehouse that Hero and Reagan were searching.

“Shit,” said Clyde. “We need to move.”

Billy was already standing, ready to race directly into the headlights to defend his friends. “Come on,” he said to Clyde as he rushed over the hill and down to the street.

Clyde cursed, but Billy ignored him. He’d been to hell and back with Reagan and Hero. He would do anything for the two of them, including run head first into a blaze of gunfire.

Two of the Humvees were parked on the street, with the third turned partially into the warehouse lot, its lights focused on the entrance
. It was nearly impossible to see past the blinding light of the headlights pointed his way, but Billy kept going anyhow. He kept his rifle pointed forward, aiming at where he thought a driver might be sitting. If someone started shooting, he’d fire back, if only to buy a second to get out from in front of the vehicles.

“Pete!” One of the soldiers yelled. “Look out! Look out, man!”

Billy slid the last few feet and slammed into the front of the closest Humvee. He saw Clyde running his way just as more gunfire exploded from the top of the vehicle. Clyde spun violently; his right shoulder suddenly thrown out behind him from what Billy assumed was a gunshot. The medic fell face first to the pavement as the gunfire continued. The Humvee was shaking with each shot fired and Billy understood it was from a mounted chain gun on the top.

He placed his rifle on the hood and inched up until he could see the soldier behind the mounted gun as it shook from firing. The muzzle blasts were orange and seemed even brighter than the headlights. Billy started shooting and the soldier was shocked, apparently oblivious that Billy had made it to the front of the Humvee.

Billy’s first several bullets were deflected by the metal guard that framed the mounted gun, but then he was able to aim better and the soldier slumped out of his standing position and into the Humvee.

There were still
other soldiers, and they certainly knew where Billy was at now. He decided his best chance of surviving was to charge up and over the vehicle, hoping that they were expecting him to move around one of the sides. He gripped one of the bars that protected the radiator and used it for leverage as he bounded onto the hood. There was another solider at the mounted gun of the vehicle parked behind the one that Billy had leapt onto. He was aiming to Billy’s left, to the side of the Humvee, but quickly moved to point the gun up. Billy aimed faster.

The shadows from the headlights might’ve been playing tricks on him, but Billy thought he saw the top half of the soldier’s head split off before he fell down into his Humvee. He didn’t have time to ponder it, and turned to look at the last vehicle that was parked to his right, inside of the fenced area of the warehouse.

He saw movement near the front, and could see a shadow cast against the warehouse from the man that was hiding in front of the headlight. Billy was going to get down when the soldier started to scream out.

“My gun jammed! I’m not armed. I surrender. I surrender!” It was the same soldier that had screamed a warning to Pete just moments ago.

“Come out where I can see you!” Billy stayed on top of the Humvee’s hood and aimed at the other soldier as he peered around his vehicle.

“I surrender…”

Billy shot him as soon as he had a good view. Then he looked back at where Clyde had fallen and saw his friend gripping his shoulder as he stared out at the dead soldier, aghast that Billy had murdered the surrendering man.

That’s when Billy saw two other bodies out on the road.

The reason Clyde was still alive was because he wasn’t the only person the soldier in the mounted gun had been shooting at. The two young boys that Clyde had brought back to the apartment had followed them out here.

Billy had no doubt they were dead now.
The mounted machine gun had ravaged them, leaving shreds of flesh strewn about the road as the pool of bright red blood grew, gleaming in the headlights.

“How bad were you hit?” asked Billy as he stayed on the Humvee. He aimed at the warehouse, ready to shoot any soldiers that appeared in the doorway.

“Just in the shoulder?” said Clyde. “It hurts like hell, but I’ll live.”

“I’m going in.”

“I know,” said Clyde, and it almost sounded like he was disappointed. “Be careful.”

“I always am,” said Billy just before he jumped off the hood. The shock of his landing pounded up through his spine. His
back had been giving him trouble recently, but he’d been ignoring it as much as possible until now. He fell to his knee, as if genuflecting, and had to put his left hand on the pavement to keep from falling further. “Oh fuck.”

“You okay?” asked Clyde, who was now sitting up, clutching his shoulder as he started to stand. “Is it your back?”

“Yeah,” said Billy as he gasped. The pain had stolen his breath, and he found it nearly impossible to move. Every gasp came with a struggle as the pain in his back sent waves of spasms through his muscles.

“God damn it, Billy,” said Clyde. “Why are you trying to jump around like that?”

“I’ll be okay.” The pain started to subside and Billy was able to stand. Clyde was covering the door with his pistol now as Billy regained his footing. “That hurt more than usual.”

“Yeah, because you keep acting like you don’t have a back injury. You’re going to end up paralyzing yourself if you’re not careful.”

Billy ignored the pain as best he could and then headed for the entrance.

Reagan had already killed the other soldiers, and Billy was sent back to retrieve the pipe bombs to blow another hole in the warehouse to get them out. He continued to pretend that his back was fine, but each step was torture. It was the beginning of a slow decline in health for him, and he would continue to attempt to ignore the degradation for as long as he could. In the years that followed, he wished that he could go back and treat his back injury with the respect it deserved before it crippled him.

*   *   *

August 24
th
, 20 years after the apocalypse

Billy is outside of the church, heading up the impending evacuation.

The Rollers were in imminent danger. The fire that had started in the field was now blazing out of control in the town, consuming the wrecked buildings voraciously, as if nature had been dreaming of the day it could reclaim this space. The heat caused Billy to sweat, and ash clung to his wet skin. When he wiped his brow, his hand turned black.

Every breath came with heavy smoke, and the particles tickled his throat, causing him to cough as he tried to usher survivors into the trucks. Gunfire continued unabated as the Rollers tried to keep the horde at bay, but the fire had consumed the remains of Kim which was what seemed to be enticing them before. Now the horde was fleeing the fire, but their insatiable hunger for flesh kept them focused on the caravan. As they fled the flames, they discovered the caravan that they’d temporarily forgotten, and any fear they had of the fire was lost as they gnashed at the Rollers that were outside of the ring of trucks, working desperately to pull down the barricade.

“Full retreat!” Billy screamed out, trying and failing to be louder than the gunfire. He opened the driver’s side door of the nearest truck and saw a frightened Roller inside, his pistol aimed out the passenger side window to kill any zombie that dared approach. “Hit your horn,” said Billy. “We’re pulling a full retreat. Tell the guys on the other side to forget about the barricades. We’re driving whether they’re pulled down or not.”

“Won’t that…” The driver tried to ask a question, but Billy was quick to ignore him.

“Just do it. Now.”

He got back down and planned to move to the next truck, but his back started to tighten again. Only a few minutes ago he’d been forced to the ground because of his back, curled into a fetal position as Abe got the survivors out of the church. Bonnie had been the one to find him and help him up again. She pleaded with him to let her help him into one of the trucks, but he refused. He intended to protect the survivors no matter the cost. He was far past ready to die, tired of a life filled with pain and regret. Dying while protecting the other Rollers and the survivors of Vineyard seemed like a fitting end for him.

Word reached the Rollers on the other side of the caravan that they were mounting an emergency retreat. This would mean that the barricade system that had been built along the side of the caravan would be largely ruined as the trucks drove off before the moorings were detached, but they couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

He saw Kayla leaving the church, tears in her eyes as she helped Arthur along. David was behind them, moving quickly on his customized crutches.

“Where’s Laura?” asked Billy.

“Inside with Annie and the others,” said Kayla.

“How’s Annie?”

“Alive,” said Kayla. “But just barely.”

“Do they know that they’ve
got to get out of there?”

“Yes, but
Luara’s insisting that she has to take care of something first. She told us all to leave immediately, but she headed to the back of the church.”

“We don’t have time,” said Billy as he pointed at the fire that was blazing less than twenty yards up the hill.

“She’s taking care of that pilot. She said she swore to you guys that she would check on him and the guy named Ben.”

Billy saw Clyde and Jill coming out of the church, carrying a blanket with Annie on it. Zack walked behind, holding the other side of the makeshift stretcher as they moved slowly down the steps.

“Okay, get in one of the trucks,” said Billy.

“Come with us,” said Kayla. She grabbed Billy’s sleeve and looked him up and down. “You’re in no shape to be running around out here.”

“I’m fine,” said Billy.

“No you’re not.”

He pulled away from her grip and was about to argue when he saw one of the barricades break apart. The metal wall stood between two trucks and it looked like the Rollers had been able to detach half of it before Billy signaled for the full retreat. Now it was left half attached and grey fingers were pulling it apart.

“Get in a truck!” Billy aimed at the breach and fired, but it was too late to stop the wave. The creatures had no trouble prying their way in, and once the barricade had been pulled down they flooded in
to the circle. The razor wire that was looped above the wall fell down and the Greys were caught in it as they pushed through, but it did little to slow their advance. The coils tore into the zombies’ flesh, pulling strips of skin away from them as they pushed at one another in a furious attempt to overwhelm the inside of the camp.

The driver of the truck beside the breach hit the gas and slammed into the tanker in front of it,
crushing several Greys between, but this meant the barricade behind that truck had now certainly been pulled apart. Billy focused on the creatures that had escaped the crushing death between the trucks, but he could hear the screams from behind as the Rollers warned of another breach. Billy had no choice but to signal for the caravan to start moving. They’d run out of time.

“Go, go, go!” Billy rotated his arm, waving at the drivers to start rolling. He looked back at the church, but saw no sign of Laura. Whatever the reason was that she’d decided to stay behind might end up killing her.

“Laura!” Billy tried to scream, but the sound of gunfire around him and the trucks drowned him out.

Abe was nearby, fulfilling his promise to walk sentry beside the caravan. Billy waved him over, but a stream of Greys poured in and Abe was forced to focus on them. Billy saw the caravan start to move, and looked at the church again to see if Laura was coming. There was no sign of her.

“Laura!”

His cries were lost in the chaos, and there was no sign of
his captain.

He could feel the heat from the flames and the wicked shadows that were cast against the church was all he needed to see to know that this entire area would be aflame in minutes. The caravan was moving now, and he would have to go with it if he had any hope of living.

“Fuck it.”

Billy headed for the church.

Seven months after the apocalypse

Billy and the others are loading supplies into a stolen Humvee in Estes Park.

“You’re obviously not okay,” said Hero.

They were outside of the warehouse as Reagan and Jill continued to load two of the Humvees with pilfered armaments. This was too go
od of an opportunity to pass up. There was a wealth of ammunition and rifles at their disposal in crates outside of the warehouse.

Jill had been saddened by the loss of the two boys that had previously been test subjects with her, but understood that they didn’t have time to waste. She elbowed Hero as she passed, silently making her point that he should be helping as well.

“I’ll be fine,” said Billy. He was leaning against the Humvee’s tire, still crippled by his old spine injury. “Just hurry up and get the stuff loaded.”

Is your back acting up again?” asked Hero, unwilling to leave his friend in pain.

“Yes, but I’m okay.” He started to stand to prove his point. He pushed against the tire and his legs wobbled, as if the pain in his back had weakened them. He steadied himself and groaned as he gave a thumbs-up. “See.”

“Let me help you in
to the truck.” Hero lifted Billy’s arm over his shoulder and then walked him around to the other side of the Humvee.

Billy tried not to complain and continue to pretend he was fine, but the surge of pain that rushed through him when he moved forced him to curse. “Fucker, mother fucker. Ouch.
Just keep going, keep going. Get me in the seat. Just lift me up.”

Hero did as Billy instructed. He forced him into the seat as Billy grimaced in agony. “There you go, bro. Fuck, man, you really screwed yourself up.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. I just need to get off my feet for a while,” said Billy. “Go help Reagan and the hot chick you guys caught.”

“You think she’s hot?” asked Hero as he looked over his shoulder.

“Hell yeah,” said Billy. “Don’t you?”

“I guess so. She’s no fan of mine though, I can promise you that.”

“Shit,” said Billy with a forced grin. “No one likes you when they first meet you. That’s kind of your thing.”

Hero acted offended. “I’m adorable. All the bitches say so.”

Billy started to laugh, but the muscles in his back tensed as he did, and then the momentary tightening threatened to turn into spasms. He closed his eyes and waved Hero off, like a king dismissing a servant as he sat high in the Humvee’s plastic seat.

Hero left to continue loading the supplies and Billy breathe
d steadily as he tried to get comfortable on the hard plastic seat. He gripped a fabric handle near the ceiling and pulled himself forward when he caught sight of a reflection far off, near the lake in the center of town.

He stared at it, frightened and wary of the odd flash. There was another quick flash from near the bridge
that crossed the still lake, and then another in quick succession.

“Hey Reagan,” said Billy as he kept his eyes on the source of the light. “I think there’s...”

“Hands up!”

“Weapons down!”

There were several voices screaming at them.

“You’d better get on the ground now, mother fucker!”

“Hands up!”

“Get out of the vehicle!”

“Get out of the vehicle!”

“Are you deaf, asshole,” said a man that sounded impossibly close to Billy. “I said get out of the vehicle, now!”

He searched for the source of the voice when a white light blinded him. As if emerging from the night itself, a soldier was suddenly beside the Humvee’s door. He grabbed Billy’s shirt and jerked him off the seat. He fell on his face to the pavement as the soldier put a boot on his back.

Billy cried out involuntarily as the pain overtook him.

“Get off him,” said Hero. “I said get off him.”

“Back off, or I’ll blow your head off,” said the man standing over Billy.

“Get off my friend!”

“I’m not going to warn you again,” said the soldier as he pressed his foot even harder against Billy’s brace.

“And I’m not going to warn you again either, mother fucker,” said Hero. “Get your boot off my friend’s back.”

Billy couldn’t see what was happening, but hoped that Hero had a gun and wasn’t just trying to act tough with nothing but the best of intentions as his weapon.

“Hold up, everyone,” said a new, deep voice. “No need to get violent. We saw what you folks did out here, and I’m willing to bet you ain’t military. That makes us friends, cause we ain’t military neither. At least no more. Okay? So how’s about we all calm down a bit? What’cha say? Huh?”

“Tell your boy to get his boot off my friend,” said Hero.

“How about you put your gun down, boy,” said the commanding officer. “And realize that you got caught out here with your pants down. We got everyone else dead to rights, pal. You ain’t in no place to be making any kind of demands. If you play ball, then you’ll walk out of here in one piece. All we came here for were the weapons. Okay?”

Billy squirmed to get a view, but the man talking was on the other side of the Humvee. All he could see was the man’s boots and what appeared to be another man on his knees. Billy realized that the commander of the new group of soldiers was standing behind Reagan, apparently having snuck in when they were loading the weapons. While Billy couldn’t see much, he was able to watch as Reagan pulled his favorite knife, the same that he’d been carrying the day the apocalypse started, out of his boot.

“Put the gun down, kid,” said the commander again. “Don’t get yourself killed over…”

There was a quick struggle and then an M-16 clattered to the ground. Billy could see that Reagan had moved to stand behind the commander, and he could only imagine that the blade was now at the stranger’s throat.

“Settle down!” Reagan pivoted, using the commander as a shield to prevent the others from shooting.

“Who the fuck?” The commander tried to struggle, but then his voice changed pitch and Billy knew Reagan was choking him.

“Shut up, little man,” said Reagan. “I’m the one in charge now.”

“You’re going to get your friends killed, asshole,” said the commander.

“Like hell I am,” said Reagan. “We’re all going to have ourselves a nice discussion and talk this through. Okay? But there’s one problem. I get real nervous when people have guns pointed at me and my friends. In fact, whenever I try to have a rational conversation with a group of people like you, I just can’t get comfortable unless I’m the only one with a weapon. So why don’t you all just put your guns on the ground. Okay? I don’t want to have to pop this guy’s head off.”

Hero put his gun down.

“Not you, Hero.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Hero as he bent to pick it back up.

“Now hold up, hold up,” said the man in Reagan’s grip. “We’re not the enemies here. We watched you guys blast the soldiers to kingdom come so you could steal their stuff. We’ve been planning on raiding this place for days now. It’s only fair that we share. Hell, maybe we can even work together.”