Last Stand of the Dead - 06 (25 page)

“We going?” he asked.

“Just now.
  Follow
me,
” I
said. I didn’t pay any attention to speed limits or road conditions.  I just rode like a bat out of hell, with Charlie and Duncan right on my wheels.

Chapter 45

I flew up the exit to 127
th
street,
and then
raced towards
Leport
Road.  I nearly slid as I turned hard and I gunned the engine, gritting my teeth in frustration as the bike refused to grow wings and fly.  I could hear Charlie’s bike screaming behind me, and the roar of the truck as Duncan tried to keep up.

I rocketed down the hill towards the river, and nearly dumped the bike as I approached the small crowds of people waiting to get on the barges.  Dot was there, and she looked at me in worry as I braked hard.

“Get on the barges!  Get the hell out of here!  The zombies are on the bridge, they’re headed right for you!” I pointed at a man stan
ding by Dot. 
“You!
  Get the people
with weapons ready!  They might need them now!  Go! Go!”  I didn’t wait to say any more, I just kicked the bike into gear and yanked on the throttle.  I nearly unseated myself in my haste to get moving.  I waved Duncan to go up the left side of the bridge, since we’d need him there.

As I ran the bike up the tall bridge, I could hear more firing.  It seemed to be coming from right in front of me, and as I reached the top, I could see the group still running, still pausing to throw lead behind
them
,
and
then running again.  On the far side of the bridge, a massive horde advanced steadily.  They left behind their dead, a trail of little zombie breadcrumbs.

I brought the bike to a stop, turning it sideways and backing it up to the wall.  I put the kickstand down and watched as Charlie did the same.  The two bikes blocked most of the road, and on the other side, Duncan turned the truck as well.  It covered the two lanes decently, but a big rush would blow by, nearly
undelayed
.  It couldn’t be helped.

We could see the group running towards us, and there was a long stretch of level ground that would have been useful as a firing lane, but we couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting our comrades. Behind them, an undulating wall of zombies ran, and even from this
distance,
we could hear their wheezing cries and clacking teeth.  If any of that group fell, they’d be dead.

In one motion, the group stopped, and paused to throw bullets at their pursuers.  I could hear the sharp crack of rifles and the lower pitch of heavier caliber guns, and my heart suddenly leapt to my throat.

“
Oh,
my God.
  That’s Sarah’s
gun,
” I said to myself, raising my carbine.  Charlie heard me, and his gun whipped up as well. 

Duncan saw the two of us, and looked carefully at the runners.  “That’s Tommy
,
Sarah and Rebecca.  Dammit, what do we do?”

I held the rifle steady, and put full faith in their ability to move, and in what I had to do.  “We hold the
line,
” I said without emotion.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Charlie stare at me for a long time,
and then
slowly nod his head.  We were the only ones standing between those zombies and the people exposed on those barges, and if we lost it here, then everything
was
lost.  There wouldn’t be anyone to stand in the way of the zombies, and they’d wipe out everything we had built for the last seven years. 

I went to the far side of the road, noticing that the group stayed pretty close to the center of the bridge.  Charlie jumped the median and set up a firing position on the far side.  Duncan stood up on the median and signaled the group by firing once in the air and waving his arms.  The men and women responded by running harder, but it was easy to see they were at the end of their steam.  The
Leport
Bridge
was over a mile long, and it wasn’t easy to run that entire distance at full
speed.I
laid out my magazines on the barrier next to me.  I had six in all, and fully loaded that gave me nearly two hundred shots.  I had three magazines for my 1911, although I doubted I was going to use that gun much at all.  I stepped a little forward and put my trench hawk and pickaxe on the barrier. Saving even the half second it would take to draw them from their sheaths.

Charlie saw what I was doing and did the same thing, placing his ‘hawks on the wall, and putting his magazines within easy reach.  Duncan stayed on the median, yelling out encouragement as he aimed his rifle.

Charlie suddenly fired, and I could see a zombie stumble and fall, only to get up again.  Charlie cursed, and I didn’t bother with any smack talk for his accuracy.  He was shooting at a softball sized target well over three hundred yards away with open sight.  If he’d hit
,
I’d have been stunned.

Duncan wasn’t so kind.  “Throw a rock next time,
doof
.” 

Charlie growled but he smiled, too.  He knew Duncan was trying to loosen the tension, but
his
wife wasn’t running for her life in front of a horde of vicious zombies.

The group stopped to fire again, and they were only about two hundred yards away.  I could see them much more clearly, and was glad to see Tommy, Sarah, and Rebecca still alive. I almost took a shot at the pursuing zombies, but knew I had to wait a little longer.  I wanted to kill them, but at this
range,
it would have been more luck than skill.

A sound behind got my attention and I turned to see two cars racing towards me.  One was the car we had turned over on the other bridge, and a second was unknown to me.  But they both held more people and weapons, and they were able to block the roads better with more cars.  Charlie sent one man and the second car careening down the road to get to the other side to help block that side.

I didn’t waste time.  “Spread out, ten on a side.  Don’t fire until our people are clear.  Save your ammo, we’re going to need every round.”

No one
spoke;
they just did as they were told.  A lane was left clear for our people, and they were a hundred yards away, now.  I could do nothing for them, so I just waited with my rifle up and my sights on the oncoming horde.  The river stretched out on either side of me, sparkling in the sun.  The valley contained multitudes of colored trees, brilliant in the sunlight of the day. I’d seen the same thing from Starved Rock hundreds of times, but there was something special about this place.  It was where I had decided to start over, where we made a safe place to live and take back what we had lost in the Upheaval.  For hundreds of people it was home.  If anyone asked why I fought, that would be my answer.  So we could have a home.

“Here they come!” Duncan shouted from his slight perch.

Chapter 46

Men and women sighted their rifles over hoods, trunks, truck beds and motorcycles.  We needed to make the first few volleys devastating, or all would be lost.

Tommy, Sarah, Rebecca, and about ten other people came running forward, quickly climbing over our barricade.  Sarah slumped into my arms, breathing heavily.

“Thank…God…you’re…safe…” She panted.

“Back at you.”
I guided
and carried
her over to the other people who were leaning back or leaning over, gulping air.

“I’m glad you’re all safe.  We have some work to do, and I need you all to be the
back up
point. If we retreat, wait for us to clear,
and then
fire,” I
said, helping Sarah to lean against a median.

I kissed her on the top over her head.  “
Gotta
go to work, babe, I’m happy you’re here.”  I pointed to the truck blocking the road.  “Ammo’s over there, load up.”

She looked up at me.  “
No where
else,” Sarah
said firmly.  She stood and started over to the truck, waving a couple others to help. 

I went back to the line.  Tommy was waiting for me.

“We’re good on this end.  But it was close.”  He didn’t say anything more, and I wondered how close it really was.

“Wish we could block the other
end,
” I said as the first of the zombies came into view. They had stopped running, and were jogging slightly, their little feet slapping the pavement nearly in unison.

Tommy smiled.  “Got that covered
at least
, thank you very much.”

“How?”
They were out there on their own as far as I could tell.

“You’ll see.  Here they come.”  Tommy shifted his rifle and stood over one of the motorcycles. 

I went over to the side where my magazines were.  As I picked up one and held it in my left hand, I noticed a small bird looking at me from about fifteen feet away.  It was a sparrow, and by the look of it, it was pretty well fed.  It cocked
its
head at me, and for no reason I could think of, I winked at it.  To my surprise, the bird peeped once at me, looked down the road, and flew off, circling under the bridge.  I watched it until it was out of sight, then looked at the oncoming horde, which was now only twenty yards away and closing quickly. There was nothing left to do. 

“
Cut them down!
” I yelled
,
as I aimed quickly and fired.  Several rifles fired at once, and the entire front row of the zombies on both sides of the road flew back, spraying their brains and black blood over their comrades to the rear.  The rest of the zombies clacked their teeth and charged as one.

I emptied my first magazine, and quickly reloaded the rifle with a new one.  I kept firing, and saw that the others were firing as well.  We were blasting holes in their lines, but they still kept coming. 
Every one
I put down for good would be replaced with another.  Some were knocked off their feet, only to get up again.  Others were hit in the spine and dragged themselves across the road, scraping their dead flesh
from their fingers as they clawed forward.  Some were hit in the neck and went down paralyzed, only able to thrash their heads in futile rage.

We were able to hold them at bay with our firing, but I knew we were going to get into it as soon as we started to run out of ammo.  There was no helping
it;
it was going to get ugly.

Already I could see parts of the zombie line able to advance as someone took a second or two longer to reload.  All it took was a few seconds, and they gained yards on us.  There didn’t seem to be any end to the zombies, and I was running down to my last magazine.

Charlie
started it. 

“I’m out!” He yelled.  He set his rifle down and picked up his tomahawks.  In a rare display of emotion, he stood on the median, slammed the heads of his weapons together in a huge metallic clang, and roared his defiance at the zombies.  Anyone unfamiliar with Charlie would have thought a Viking berserker had suddenly appeared on the scene.

I kept firing until I heard two more people yell they were out as well.  “Fall back!”  I yelled over the shooting. 
“Secondary line!
  Fall back, now!”

The groups on both sides of the road retreated slowly, still firing as they went back.  The second line was only twenty feet away, but it felt like a hundred as the horde advanced towards our makeshift barricades.  I picked up my pick and trench hawk, and fired my last rounds as I walked slowly backwards to the line.

As soon as I crossed, Tommy called out. 

“Pick your targets!  Stay on your side.  Don’t cross the center unless you have to!”  The rifles started firing, but not as rapidly as before.  They were shooting around the motorcycles and the trucks, and I watched ruefully as a bullet tore through the seat of one of the BMW’s.  I cheered up when I realized it was Duncan’s.

Sarah and Rebecca were
side-by-side
, firing in turns.  Bodies piled up around the edges and began to make another barricade. When the corpses reached about two feet high, the horde stopped advancing and it seemed like they were going to run the other way.

“Tommy…?” I asked in the lull.

“Wait for it.  They were told to hide until the last of the zombies passed
them,
”
he
said cryptically.

I fired my last shot at a zombie five year old crawling across the hood of the truck.  His body slumped down,
and then
slid off, leaving a dark trail across the metal.

“Tommy, I’m really not in the
mood,” I
said, placing my rifle against the median wall.

“Here they come.”

Chapter 47

I heard them before I saw them.  Metal was scraping on asphalt, grinding and pushing.  It was a harsh, nasty sound, nearly as bad as scratching fingernails across a chalkboard.  I looked around and everyone was wincing in some fashion.