Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse (23 page)

     He raised his rifle slowly to take aim. Unlike the last time the rifle had been pointed at me, I had no trouble keeping my eyes open. I stared intently at the little black hole at the end of the barrel, waiting for the flames to shoot out and my life to end.

     Images of Kat and Christina and Taylor flashed in front of me. A crush of disappointment and failure pressed down on my shoulders at the thought of how I had not managed to protect them. I only hoped that they would find someone more capable than me. If that was not possible, I wished for the next best thing. That was for them to find a quick exit from this world.

     I stared for what seemed like minutes but must have been only seconds.

     Suddenly, instead of seeing the weapon unload its rounds on me, I saw it swatted to the ground. The large shell of a soldier had moved from somewhere and caught both Granger and me by surprise.

     “Cease fire,” the shell said as it grabbed the colonel’s arm. “Cease fire.” I recognized the shell as the soldier I had seen shot in the throat.

     I had not really been aware of Granger’s incessant giggling until it stopped abruptly. The shell ended the sound by sinking its teeth into the top of the colonel’s shiny bald head. Granger slowly collapsed to the pavement, and the flesh stretched at the top of the head, leaving the shell with a mouth full of blood and some sort of gray jelly.

     Suddenly, other uniformed shells gathered around the still body of the colonel. A moment later, they swarmed all over him.

     I dropped the empty pistol on the ground and moved back against the row of cars. I crept slowly out of the area and to the back of the terminal. The few shells I saw on my way were shuffling toward the sounds of Colonel Granger being devoured.

     In a matter of minutes, I was inside the truck. It started right up.

     I drove back the way I had come. The truck bounced over the corpses of the soldiers in the street.

     I slowed and looked over at the place where Granger had been swarmed by the shells. The spot was now empty. Had they completely eaten him? Something about the question made me smile briefly before returning back to the business of getting this poison to the terminal.

     Fortunately, the streets were relatively clear, and I pulled up in front of the Tiburon Ferry Terminal in only a few minutes. I shut off the engine and sat there, thinking about all the dead soldiers, Colonel Granger, and me.

     How could it be that I was still alive? Those were all soldiers trained to survive, trained to fight against any threat. When it really came down to it, I had no right to still be alive. There was nothing special about me. No matter how I tried, I was unable to get beyond the question. Perhaps, it was a question as old as mankind. Why me? I imagined a caveman out hunting with his tribe, or whatever one calls a group of cavemen. A rock slide crushes all of his companions, leaving a single Neanderthal asking “Why me?”

     That question had spawned the religions of the world, after all. They were all about the need to find some rhyme or reason to the randomness of the universe. Why me?

     Glen’s smiling face came to mind, and I wondered how the young minister would answer the question. I imagined he would say, “Well, it’s all part of God’s plan for each of us. We only have to accept that and stop asking stupid questions.”

    I smiled at the thought and said, “I guess, that’s as good an answer as anything else.”

     I must have looked as though I had completely gone over the edge, sitting there behind the wheel of the truck smiling like an idiot. That’s probably why the soldier seemed so hesitant about knocking on the window next to my head.

     “Are you okay, Sir?” asked a soldier who looked young enough to be a high school student.

     I looked over at him and considered the question. Was I okay? Not long ago, I would have automatically replied that I was positively okay. Now, I could not be so sure. However, the young soldier appeared impatient for an answer, so I said, “I’m still breathing.”

     Another soldier moved up behind the questioner. “What are you waiting for, McGee? If that’s the truck we’re waiting for, let’s get it unloaded.” This soldier looked about as young as the first one, but he carried himself with an arrogance that signaled he had some sort of rank.

     “Yes, Captain. Just questioning the driver, Sir.”

     Both of the soldiers looked at my smiling face with something like disgust.

     The captain stepped up to the window and motioned for me to roll it down. I smiled some more and wondered if he was old enough to remember when you had to actually turn a handle to lower a car window.

     I pushed the little lever on the door, and the window slid down.

    “Sir, is this the payload the general is waiting for?” the captain asked loudly.

     I nodded.

     “Outstanding, Sir! We will begin unloading it as soon as Colonel Granger and his troops return.” The captain stood at attention as if awaiting my response.

     “They won’t be returning,” I stated flatly.

     The captain heard my words but did not want to accept them. “Okay, give us a location so that the general can send support,” he stammered.

     I watched as the young captain did his best to maintain his composure. “I’m sorry, but they don’t have a location. They’re just gone.”

     He looked like nothing as much as the air being let out of a balloon. My reply seemed to have caused him to shrink considerably.

     “You should take me to General Thompson,” I offered. “Tell the soldiers to unload the truck.”

     The young captain recovered his military presence a bit now that he had some sense of direction. “Yes, let’s go to the general,” he repeated and then turned toward the other soldier. “Monroe, get Baker and Santana to help you unload the truck to the rear storage area.”

     “Sir, yes Sir!” the soldier responded enthusiastically.

     I could not rid myself of the idea that they looked like a couple of kids playing army.

Chapter 15

     The general looked rather surprised to see me as the young captain led me to a table in what had been the terminal’s dining area.

     “Captain Parker, Turner, to what do I owe this visit?” He tried his best to conceal his discomfort and perhaps also a touch of dread.

     “Sir, this man drove a truck and…” The young captain found it difficult to continue.

     “General, I got the truck back with the poison. However, I am, well, I am the only one who made it back.” I looked to him for some response, but none came immediately.

     Finally, Thompson asked quietly, almost too quietly for me to hear, “All of my men?” He looked directly into my eyes. “Granger?”

     I held his stare even as my brain was running over the best option for answers. “Yes, all of them.” I pictured the zombies pouring out of the buildings to surround us. “It seemed almost like the things were waiting for us. Your men fought the best they could to the very end. Granger went down trying to save them.”

     General Thompson was looking down at the ground, nodding his head. When he looked up at me again, I thought there was a slight expression of doubt as to my story. “We heard the fire, of course. I simply thought that streets were being cleared. Thank you, Turner. You have done more than you realize. I can only hope that this poison works half as effectively as you say it does. We will test it as soon as possible. In the meantime, I expect you’d like to get back to your family.”

      I nodded and turned to leave.

     “Oh, Turner, a ship will be taking you and the others to a secure island off the coast of Southern California at 0600 tomorrow.”

     The general’s words nearly knocked the breath out of me. We were actually going somewhere that would be safe, somewhere that we could relax, where Christina could be a little girl, Taylor could be a teenager, and perhaps a place where Kat and I could truly be in love. I didn’t quite know how to respond to him, so I gave Thompson an awkward wave as I left the room.

     Back in the terminal, a buzz was running through the crowd. I spotted Kat and went quickly to her.

     “I was so worried about you!” she said, lunging into my arms and kissing me wildly. “We heard a bunch of gunshots,” she managed to say between kisses.

     It may have been due to the tension of the situation around us or a simple matter of biology, but, at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be out of our clothes and exploring each other.

     Kat must have sensed the growing intensity of my kisses among other things as she moved her face back to look at me.

     “As much as I hate to do this, we better slow down,” she regarded me with a seductive smile. “You’re getting me all hot and bothered.”

     I pulled her close again and whispered in her ear. “Hot and bothered sounds good to me.” I nibbled on her ear, and Kat giggled.

     “So did you get the poison?” she asked, completely ruining the mood.

     I loosened my embrace and looked at her. “You’re such a cold shower.” I shook my head and stuck my lip out in an exaggerated pout. Kat looked genuinely hurt.

     I held her hand. “There’ll be plenty of time for us later. Anyway, I take it you got the good news about—”

     A loud call from behind us interrupted my words.

     “Turner, the general needs you front and center,” a tall black soldier announced.

     I smiled and kissed Kat on the cheek. “Duty calls.”

     I followed the soldier to the back exit of the terminal. An area had been divided using crates and other large objects in the parking lot. They had made a sort of corral. I saw the boxes of the rat poison stacked right inside the overhead door of the loading platform about twenty yards away.

     The general was standing at the side of the barrier talking to a soldier inside the makeshift corral.  “…so we can observe at close range without risk of exposure.” Thompson stopped speaking as he saw me approach. “Ah, here he is, the man of the hour.”

     I sensed that I was being mocked, although I could not be sure.

     “General,” I responded with a neutral nod.

     “Turner, if this works as you say it does, the tables may well be turned in our favor.” He looked at me carefully before continuing. “I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Things are not looking great for the good guys right now. Reports I have been getting from around the globe are not promising. These, uh, what did you call them?”

     “Shells,” I answered.

     The general smiled. “These shells, zombies, dead fuckers, or whatever you want to call them are basically kicking our asses.” He paused as his smile faded. “We lost some good men today, but that’s only a tiny fraction of the good soldiers as well as civilians that have been massacred by these bastards. If it was up to me, I’d nuke the whole damn bunch of them, but—”

     “But you’d have to nuke the whole world,” I finished his thought.

     “Right. So that’s why I have high hopes for this.” He nodded to the corral, which now contained two shells. They were the shells of a young blonde woman wearing a light green hospital gown and a heavyset man in plaid boxers and a dirty white undershirt. “But just because I have high hopes doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a buncha horseshit. Please prove me wrong.” He waved his arm, signaling to proceed.

     I had not been under so much pressure in quite a long time. I actually began to worry that I had built up the effect of the poison too much. Now, if it didn’t work as well as everyone expected, I would be the target of a whole lot of scorn. 

     I tried to hide my wobbly legs by striding quickly over and grabbing a big box of the rat poison. It was heavier than expected, and Thompson observed with amusement as I struggled to carry it to the side of the corral. 

     I smiled back at the general. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

     My sarcasm was lost on the officer who did not move, but commanded, “You need to re-create the conditions in which you say that this substance incapacitated the enemy. Was it most effective in an airborne distribution or as simply placed in tactically advantageous locations?”

     “I’ve only used this stuff a couple of times, but it didn’t seem to matter which way. The rat poison worked either way.”

     “Well let’s see what you got, Turner,” the general said with exaggerated enthusiasm.

     We had been joined by the soldier I had seen previously inside the corral as well as a few others. The gathering crowd appeared to have been clued into what was supposed to happen. I caught bits of conversation from the soldiers. They seemed to be debating the reliability of my claim. Fucking bullshit seemed to be the clear consensus.

     I attempted to open the large cardboard box and was having some difficulty. A soldier moved from the group.

     “Here you go,” he said, stepping in front of me to slice open the top with a box cutter. He quickly moved out of the way, and I grabbed a few of the yellow containers of Pest-B-Gone and headed over to the side of the pen.