Generation Dead (Book 3): Beyond The Gates (17 page)

Chapter 41

“What do we do?” Julia asked in a whisper.

Good question.  We were twenty yards from the building and thirty yards from the Jeep and our weapons.  I had my pistol and knife on me, and that was it.  Julia had her knife, and her pistol was in her belt, but she had no spare magazines.

“Run for the building.  I’ll cover you.  Jake and Kayla have to know what’s out here. Go!” I waved at Julia who clearly wanted to stay with me, but knew I was right.  We were in a bad spot, and every second counted.

I hoped that with me staying still they wouldn’t yet make their attack, but you never knew with them.  They were smarter, faster, and a whole lot sneakier than their older brethren.

If they stayed still, I was going to try for the Jeep and my sword.  If not, then we were going to see if I could outrun them to the building.

They didn’t.  As soon as Julia reached the building, they broke from cover.  Eleven zombie kids burst out of the tall grass across the road and raced towards me and the station. I spun around and bolted for the building, stretching my legs to gain as much ground as possible.  I didn’t bother to look back, remembering what my father taught me.
When you’re being pursued, anytime you take your eyes off your path is when you wind up face down and dead.
I did know there was a decent ditch the kids had to cross, so that might slow them down.

I reached the building just a few steps ahead of their fastest runner, and I skidded to a stop just inside the door.  I knelt down and took a half second to aim, waiting for the kid to get closer.  My heart was racing, and my hands shook slightly, but when the gun went off the kid went down. A hit was a hit, and that was all that mattered.  A noise behind me made me turn quickly, but it was just Jake and Julia coming up to the front. Jake’s gun was out, and his face was grim like it usually was when he had to kill kids.   But his skill was vastly improved lately, as demonstrated by the three shots he took, putting down two more of the zombies. Julia fired as well, but her shot went wide as the rest of the kids veered off and looked for places to ambush us from.

As quick as it had occurred, the attack was over.  They weren’t going to come through the front door, and they had the patience of the dead to wait us out. 

Jake looked down at me.  “You’re faster than I remember.”

I shrugged as I stood up.  “Amazing what motivates me sometimes.”

Julia hugged me, and then we all cautiously looked out the window. Jake pointed silently to the shadows, and we could see one of them hiding just around the corner of the building.

I pointed to the roof, and Jake nodded.  Julia guarded the door while Jake and I looked around.  In the back, in a corner, there was a steel ladder attached to the far wall.  It led up to the roof, and we were relieved when the hatch was secured with a simple deadbolt, and not a lock we had to pick.

I found a can of power steering fluid in a pile of debris in the corner and handed it to Jake.  He looked at me quizzically until he realized I wanted him to use it in the bolt to keep it from squeaking. 

Jake went up the ladder and squirted a little fluid on the deadbolt.  It protested a little, then was quiet as Jake moved it along.  I was about to tell him to put some on the hinges when there was a shot from the front.  Julia had been joined by Kayla, and it was Kayla who had fired. In front of the building, another body lay sprawled where there hadn’t been one before.

I nodded to Kayla and winked at Julia and went back to the store room.  The ladder was empty, and looking up I could see nothing but sky. Not wanting Jake to have all the fun, I quickly went up the ladder myself. 

On the roof, I found Jake walking quietly to the edge of the building. The roof was covered in tiny rocks, which crunched loudly if you moved too quickly.  We had to be slow and steady for this ambush.

Jake was working his way to the back of the building while I decided to go to the side. It took a lot longer than I wanted, but it couldn’t be helped.  If we wanted to get the rest of these monsters then we were going to have to surprise them.

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally reached the side of the building.  Looking over, I could see two of the zombies just standing there, waiting for us to make a move. I looked back at Jake and raised two fingers.  He raised three and by my count that made two more on the other side.  We’d have to time this one carefully.

I leaned over the edge and aimed carefully at the lead zombie.  His little head of curly black hair seemed innocent enough, but that was how a lot of people had been killed, taking these zombies for something they weren’t. I looked back at Jake, and he nodded his head in a silent countdown.  I copied his cadence and turned back to the job at hand. 3-2-1…

I fired once at the black curly hair, then shifted quickly to the second one as it raised its head to see where the shot came from. The 9mm bullet tore its way through the little skull, crumpling the body in a heap.

My shots finished, I ran to the front to see if the other two unaccounted for had been flushed out. Jake was aiming carefully on the back wall, so someone had gotten away.  Three shots sounded from the front, and when I arrived, two more bodies were laying in the asphalt. 

Jake fired again and then swore.  He turned back to the ladder and hurried down.  I followed him, wondering what the problem was.  He went outside and then towards the back.  I stayed a little ways behind, just to make sure the ones we killed were the only ones there.

Behind the gas station there was a small fenced area that contained a rusting dumpster.  Jake walked over to that area, then jumped back as a small body grasped at him from behind the fence.  The boy was on the ground, having had his backbone shattered by Jake’s bullet.  But he tried crawling towards Jake, snarling and grabbing.  Jake took another step back and fired, killing the zombie.

“Well, that was fun,” Jake said.  “Next time I pick the place to stop.”

“Whatever,” I said. I was used to Jake’s little criticisms to the point where I barely heard them anymore.

Chapter 42

We went back to the front where the girls were waiting for us.  Kayla hugged Jake, and Julia hugged me, so all was good.  I looked over at Kayla and asked about the back room.

She shook her head.  “It was a tiny little apartment.  There was space for a cot, a desk, and a small dresser.”

“Anything worth bringing with?” I asked, seeing the small case under her arm.

“Just this little gun.  Whoever ran the place back in the day probably lived there and wanted protection when they were all alone in the middle of the night.” Kayla showed me the gun.  It was a small, nickel-plated automatic.  On one side of the slide it said Colt Automatic Calibre 32 Rimless Smokeless.  The other said Colt’s Manufacturing, Patented Apr 20, 1987. Dec 22, 1903.  It didn’t have an exposed hammer, just a rounded back end of the slide.  It was a bit small for my hand, but it would work well as a backup for one of the women.

“Nice enough.  Any ammo?” I was curious about how it would be effective on a zombie skull.

“Just a box,” Kayla said. 

Julia laughed. “How come we keep finding guns in these places?”

Jake took that one.  “This is the west.  Don’t you remember your history lessons?  They all had guns out here even before the zombies came.”

I thought about it.  “That might explain why we’re seeing a lot more living people than I thought we would.  They might not have seen the apocalypse coming, but they sure could hold their own against it.”

Jake held up the little gun. “Not armed with these, I’ll bet.”

Kayla took it back from him.  “Don’t knock it.  I’ll bet this gun kills a zombie before we’re finished.”

“It’s a bet,” Jake said.  “Can we get out of here?”

“Yep.  Let’s finish the gas, Jake. Ladies, you get to figure out where the hell we are and where we are going.”

We pulled out of the station and moved steadily westward.  Julia told Jake we were heading towards Idaho Falls, which was a pretty decent sized city.  Chances of it still being alive after all of these years was pretty slim, but stranger things have been known to happen, like people rising from the dead.

We followed Route 26 as it ambled along Crow Creek.  Here and there we would see homes, but everything had been abandoned long ago.  In some cases we could see modest fortifications that tried to stem the tide, but the broken windows and doors usually told the same story. The area was weirdly flat, with just a few foothills in the distances.  It was hard to believe we had just come out of the mountains not a few hours ago.

We reached the outer edge of Idaho Falls a little before noon, passing an oddly named place called Beaches Corner.  Everywhere we looked it was the same. Old time destruction and desolation.  If the rest of Idaho Falls was like this, then it was well and truly gone.

Jake took us through the center of the town, passing numerous cars and abandoned trucks.  Every single place we saw had the windows smashed in, and the elements hadn’t been kind.  One fast food place had so much mold coming out of it that the black stuff was everywhere the sun couldn’t reach.

At a major intersection, we had to get out and push two cars out of the way, since the overturned truck wasn’t going to move ever again.

Several of the buildings had been burned, and one entire block was completely leveled without any real explanation why.  Here and there papers and debris still flew around, and at another spot we had to pull a power line out of the road to get by. 

The silence was the weird part.  We were used to some sort of hum of human activity, voices, or movement.  Places like this that were just dead silent were downright spooky and played hell with the nerves.  Dad used to say that during the early years of the Upheaval, every once in a while he would come across someone who survived the zombies, only to go insane from the silence that followed.

Jake kept on driving through, following the rusted signs that said Route 26. Kayla reminded him that at some point we needed to try and cross the river, since we had to keep going that way.  Jake nodded and looked at the signs, but they told him nothing.  I kept an eye out for any route that would lead us to the water.

On the fifth block in, we got lucky. 

Chapter 43

“Turn here! I see the river!” I said, pointing to the right. 

Jake braked hard and had to back up, apologizing for the rough ride after Kayla tapped him on the shoulder. We moved westward about a block and found ourselves on a bridge that spanned Crow Creek.  At least that what the sign told us.  The bridge had been blocked with a huge, fifteen foot pile of gravel, and there were several piles of bones in front of the it, telling us that there might be something to the other side.  Jake looked at the rocks, then back at the Jeep.  Back to the gravel, then back to the Jeep.

“You’re not serious,” I said, reading his mind.

Jake shrugged.  “What are these things for, then?  I’ll admit the angle is steep, but it looks like someone else did it, too.”  Jake pointed to the twin tracks that led to the top of the gravel pile. “Given that the rocks extend all the way back to the other side, I’d say the top is flat and probably patrolled once in a while.”

“Guys?” Julia asked.

“Maybe,” I said, ignoring her. “What if there’s a dip in the center and we get stuck?  What if there’s another barrier on the other side.”

“Guys?”

Jake ignored her as well.  “We need to cross this river, and
that
bridge isn’t going to get us there.”  Jake pointed to the larger highway bridge upstream, and from where I stood, I could see that it had been split into two pieces. Not a big opening, but big enough to keep zombies out.

“Guys!” Julia yelled it this time.

“What? Oh. Damn. Right.” My intelligent reply was beat by Jake’s

“Hmm,” he said.

“Looks like you win, Jake.  Gravel pile it is.” The girls scrambled to get inside the Jeep and get moving. I grabbed the boards on top of the rack and threw them on the rocks to give us a better chance.  The boards fell about halfway up the pile.  Beyond that, it was up to the Jeep. Behind us, every zombie that had been hiding had come out, attracted by our noise and movement.  There had to be over three hundred of the ghouls shambling their way down the road, moaning and snapping.  The entire horde was a nasty shade of dark grey, and the oldest ones were nearly black.  Half of them were nearly naked, since their clothes had been rotting off.  The rest were just horrid, and while I would have loved to have figured out a way to deal with them all at once, now really wasn’t the time.

Jake put the Jeep into four wheel drive and slowly made his way up the hill, the gravel slipped and slid, but the weight of the vehicle helped us move forward, and we slowly, agonizingly clawed our way to the top.  Several landslides and a bucket of sweat later, we angled our way onto the hill.  Jake had to focus to get his hands to come unglued from the steering wheel, and my hand was slightly crushed from the grip Julia had on it. 

I got out of the Jeep and made my way to the back, cautiously peering over at the huge hoard of zombies making their way to the gravel pile. The first ones to reach it made it up a few steps, then they slipped and fell.  The next did the same, so I figured they were going to stay where they were.  If I shot some, then that gave them a little higher ground to start from, and I certainly wasn’t going to do that.

Jake and the girls joined me, and we all looked down.

Kayla asked the obvious question. “What if we couldn’t get the Jeep up here?”

Jake shrugged.  “We had three choices.  Get out and climb ourselves, jump in the water and swim for it, or back up like crazy and try and blast our way through.”

I spoke for us all when I said, “Glad the Jeep made it then.”

We left the horde behind and drove into Idaho Falls, or what was left of it.

On the other side of the gravel pile we carefully drove down and touched real pavement again, much to the relief of the passengers and vehicle.  Waiting for us was a small reception committee. We got out and introduced ourselves.  The standard line we used was we were from the New Capital, looking to see if there were any survivors on the other side of the Gates.  That was technically true, although I didn’t think it would serve any purpose to admit we were originally just wandering about looking at the mountains.

The conversation did turn interesting when we learned that in a town south of here, there was a person who claimed to have been at Enterprise.  I took Jake aside for a conversation, and he was of the same mind that we needed to speak to that person.  If for no other reason than to determine if it was even worth going on or just going home.

We bought some supplies and traded information, and the people of Idaho Falls then fired up two bladed tractors and went to the gravel barrier.  They scraped off a good amount from the top, and dumped in on the zombies that were trying to still climb up.  Probably fifty zombies were buried in that maneuver, and another thirty were trapped from the waist up.  The bulldozers went back for another run, and wiped out another fifty zombies.  I had to admit that was far better than anything we could have dreamed up.