Last Stand of the Dead - 06 (3 page)

We walked slowly over to the other side, and about halfway there
,
the zombies saw us and began to head in our direction.  The one on the ground looked over to see where his friends went and started rolling our way as well.  His legs were torn to pieces, which explained his vertical challenges.

When they were about fifty yards away, Charlie opened up on his side, shooting one in the face and the other in the knees.  The second one had some problem where
its
head was rolling forward, so it was pretty well protected by the helmet.

I shot one on my side, then the other, not having the problem Charlie had.  I went over to inspect my two
,
while Charlie finished off the second one, which was dragging itself across the pavement,
and
leaving dark streaks in its wake.

Mine had been bitten
o
n the neck and arms, with additional bites
o
n the face.  The hands were torn up pretty bad as well.  From where I sat, it looked like these guys had engaged the enemy and been overwhelmed.  The big question was how come they left the safety of their trucks?  By my reckoning, they could have taken a good chunk out of the enemy with little danger to themselves.

I stood up and walked over to where Charlie was finishing off the crawler.  He didn’t bother with his
tomahawk,
he just shot it at close range.

We kept walking and reached the edge of the bridge where it reached the other side of the river. There was a small grove of trees on the left of the road, and a mess of wild bushes on the right side, where the railroad tracks ran alongside.  A bit further east
,
we could see the tracks and road split into north and south directions.

There
were
also several small zombie corpses lying about, and dozens of brass casings shining in the rising sun.  Four cars had been parked in a rough diamond shape, and there were four zombie corpses draped over the hoods and roofs of two of the cars.

Charlie was looking around, and I le
ft
him alone while he read the signs.  He was the best woodsman I had ever met, and his tracking skills made
much more sense than my uninformed
guessing.

After a minute
,
he straightened, and looked over at me.  “Well, any idiot could figure out what happened here.”

Sarah pulled up the truck and Tommy shouted down from the roof. “Looks like a fight here.”

I gri
nned and ignored Tommy
when he asked,
“What?”

“Go
ahead,
”
I said.

Charlie wiped the smile off his face.  “They set up this post as a
fall back
position from the trucks, but something distracted them at exactly the wrong moment.  What it was, I couldn’t tell you, nor could I tell you why the soldiers from the trucks would abandon their safety to come here.  Just doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe more than you
think,
” I
said cryptically
,
as I pointed eastward.

“What’s that?”  Charlie asked as he brought up his rifle with its scope.

“The only thing ever to get men to abandon their posts, since the dawn of
warfare,
” I
said.

Chapter 5

As we waited, a small car came rolling down the road.  One of the tires was very low, but that didn’t deter the driver from trying to get here as fast as humanly and mechanically possible.

The car hit a large bump, and there were several squeals from the passengers as the driver corrected badly
,
and nearly wound up in the ditch.  I had my doubts as to the ability of the driver, and I moved into the relative safety of the four vehicles as the car came careening up and screeching to a halt.  Charlie was collecting the weapons of the soldiers and checking for any spare ammunition.  He kept a small bag around his shoulder for that purpose, and when he started doing it, he had to endure a lot of ‘man-bag’ ribbing, but the little bag had proved
in
valuable over the past few months.

The car stopped and the occupants spilled out, four girls and two guys, none of which was a day over nineteen.  One of the men eyed Charlie and I with a more than a little belligerence, and I cocked an amused eyebrow at Charlie.

“My God, are they all dead?”  One of the girls asked.

“How many were there?” I asked, hoping to have some survivors.

“Ten, my God, are they all dead?”  She asked again.

“Yes, they’re all dead.  When did you leave them?” I asked.

The girl stopped looking at the dead soldiers and looked at me directly.  She was a pretty, thin girl with long brunette hair that looked to be recently styled.  My suspicions were becoming more confirmed as to what got the soldiers down this way. I matched her gaze and waited, trying to hold down my impatience.  If the little zombies had hit recently, we might be able to catch them and deal some serious damage, or direct the army to the correct spot to set up an ambush.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?  Did you kill them?” She said directly.

I noticed the other kids were milling about the car and the men were talking in low tones.  I stuck a finger in the air and made a circular motion,
and
then answered the questions.

“Look miss, yes we killed them the second time.  The first time it was done by zombies.  See those bites and tears?  Bullets don’t do that.  These guys were attacked and recently, by the amount of fresh blood that’s around here
,
” I said
.
“When did you
last
see them alive?”

The girl thought for a minute,
and
then looked back at her friends.  One of the boys shook his head at her and she turned back to me.  “I don’t
know,
”
she
said with a small shrug of her shoulders.

I was reminded
then
of a lot of the students I used to have that would answer in the same way.  It was annoying then and
it was
annoying now.  “Well, I would guess you’ve been gone an hour, and your leaving saved your lives.  What we’re tracking here is a group of zombie kids, fast and smart.  If you wish to stay alive, and keep alive those you know, then you should get back in your car and get the hell home and tell your folks trouble is all around you.”

The girl’s eyes
widened
and she looked around into the brush and across the river.  I didn’t blame her, it was a natural reaction.  She was old enough to remember
the Upheaval, and in all likelihood, those memories weren’t baby ducks and sunshine.

The girl nodded and ran back to the car, speaking quickly to her friends.  The girls and one of the men looked around and quickly got into the car.  The other man, the one who had shook his head at the girl, walked over with a
n
angry look on his face.

“What about their weapons?  If we’re in danger, we should have their
weapons,
”
he
said
,
stepping
up to the small pile of corpses I had been making while speaking to the girl.

“You’ll be fine.  Go home, get your own weapons, and brace for an attack.  If you’re not attacked for three or four days, chances are
,
they’ve moved on.”  I said.

“Just give me one gun, then.  You’ve got only six people and ten more guns than you need.  You can’t just leave us defenseless.” The man said this with a sly smile, which I am sure he
thought
was charming.  I wondered if he actually practiced it.

I thought about it,
and then
relented.  I took one of the rifles and made sure it was unloaded.  I handed it to the boy and watched as he looked it over.  Charlie threw a quizzical look my way as I did that.

“What about ammo?”  The kid asked, holding the weapon down and away from everyone.

“Not
yet,
” I said.  I took the magazine for the rifle and walked over to the car. I handed it to the other man and spoke to him for a few seconds.  The first boy came back to the car and put the rifle alongside the seat, next to him in the front.

As I walked away, the car backed up, and slowly drove out of sight, turning off a side road and heading in a southerly direction.

Charlie approached me.  “How come you gave them a gun and ammo?  Weren’t you worried he might try to take a shot at you?”

I shrugged.  “That’s why I took the mag out.  I told the other guy not to give it to his friend until they were out of sight.  I also told them they were facing at least fifty zombies, which was twenty more than they had bullets for.  I figured they’d save their ammo.”

“So they were the ones that got the soldiers down here, huh?” Charlie asked, changing the subject.

“Yeah, one or two of the girls must have run across the soldiers, and said they’d be back with friends.  In the meantime, the other soldiers back at the trucks heard about the party and wanted to join in.  Trouble is, the party wasn’t what they had hoped
for,
” I said.

“Sounds about right.
  How’d they get jumped so
badly
?”

I pointed to the bridge.  “The little
Zs
came across on the railroad part, so they were hidden until the tracks and the bridge separated, which is only about thirty yards back.  Hell, regular zombies could have jumped this crew, let alone fast ones.”

“All right.
 
Next move?”
Charlie said, walking over to the van.  Tommy and Duncan jumped out of the bed of the truck, Duncan electing to ride with Sarah and myself for a bit. 

“Let’s get rolling and see what towns are on this heading.  We need to make up some time and get this horde nailed down
,”
I said.

“All right, we’re behind
you,
” Charlie said
,
as he closed the van door and secured his rifle.

I climbed into the truck and Sarah smiled at me.  “Cheer up, we’re almost home.”

I smiled back, but inside I was worried.  We were close to home, closer than we’d been in days.

But so were the zombies.

Chapter 6

“Come out, come out, wherever you are, you little
bastard,
” Duncan said, slowly walking through the aisles of a small grocery store.  I could hear him talking to himself the next aisle over, and I could also hear Sarah laugh a little in response
,
while she walked down the aisle on the other side.

“Watch for the friends, these things never attack alone.” I said quietly to both of them.

“Clear on my
side,
” Sarah said.

“So far so good, although it looks like the chili has
expired,
” Duncan said.

“Dare you to eat
it,
” I said.

“I prefer to keep my guts inside, thank you.”

“Double dare you!” Sarah called from the other aisle.

“You
first,
” Duncan said.

We
had
crossed the bridge into I
llinois a half hour ago, and
made our way east as best we could.  We knew the little zombies were around us somewhere, but didn’t have a notion as to where.  We were chasing a small group, detached from the main horde, and I was hoping to have them lead us to them.  But as we worked our way through a small town, Tommy had spotted a small group of them out in the open.  We chased them to this small grocery store and the three of us chose to go in.  Charlie, Rebecca, and Tommy were outside, making sure none of the kids got away.

Ordinarily we would have been
quieter
, but I wanted to draw them out, make enough noise to drive them crazy and attack us.  We were in good spots.  They couldn’t attack any more than two across, and Tommy had reported only
seeing
  five
of them.  So we were in here trying to get them out and kill them.

“Quiet!” I hissed.  “Listen.”

Sarah and Duncan silenced immediately, and we all stood stock-still.  A few seconds later, we could hear it.

Click
click
click
click
.  Click
click
click
click
.

We had all heard that sound before, and we all knew what it was.  They were in here, and they were getting ready to attack.  That clicking seemed to be one way they communicated with each other.