The King of Clayfield - 01 (47 page)

One of the three in the
 
pickup got on the horn when they
 
saw I was in trouble.
 
It didn't distract him at all. I could see more feet coming in around me. The revolver was on my right hip; I couldn't reach it. I did my best to angle the shotgun around to get him, but it was too long. The best I could do was shoot his leg with it. So I did.

I had the shotgun up under my left armpit. I pulled it back until the barrel lifted off the ground. I prayed it was lifted enough not to get me instead. I squeezed the trigger and his whole body jerked and rolled off me. I was on my feet as quickly as I could. The blast had nearly taken his leg off just above the knee. He was trying to stand, too.

Two women were there. One was wearing a flannel shirt and a denim skirt; the other was wearing nothing at all. They came in fast, too. I pulled the .45 and hit the flannel woman in the face. I took aim on the other, but the hammer clicked. I was out. I'd have to reload the shotgun, too. I holstered the .45 and turned the shotgun around like a club. One hit was enough to give me time to get into the bus.

Once inside, I pulled the lever to shut the door. It squeaked and folded shut, and then the naked woman slammed herself against it. I reloaded the shotgun and climbed in the driver's seat.

The pickup was completely covered. I got some speed on the bus, and swung in as close as I could, raking them away from the driver's door. I continued toward the barns and turned the bus around in the wide patch of gravel in front of the buildings. I came in close again, so close, in fact, that I took the pickup's side mirror off. I stopped and opened the bus door.

It had been my intention for the three to come into the bus' door
 
through the truck
 
window, but Sara rolled her window down just enough to get her hand out.
 
She wanted the keys.

I
 
shot a girl
 
that had clawed up to the roof
 
of the truck and handed Sara the keys. Her window went up, and I shut the door.
 
Up the driveway, a new group
 
was approaching.

"Where the hell are they coming from?"

The pickup started up and began to move.

In my rearview mirror, I watched another group spill into the yard from the back pasture. Several in front of the pickup went down then under as Sara attempted to bulldoze her way through.

She was crying, and Brian kept trying to take the wheel. The truck had made it no more than its own length when it could go no farther. She tried reverse, but just like the front, the bodies fell and were caught up underneath.

The creatures were far more interested in the pickup than the bus. I was able to pull away without much trouble, and decided to try plowing them aside like I had before. Sara, Jen, and Brian needed to get in the bus if we were ever going to get away.

I
 
reversed toward the barns, and then came back, scraping away the ones on the driver's side of the pickup with the front of the bus. There were so many, and they piled up so quickly, that the bus actually tilted as it
 
went over them. That scared me. I didn't want to do that again.

I decided to try to push the truck out. I backed up again and returned. This time, I squared up the bus with the back of the truck. I didn't hit it hard, because I didn't want to hurt
 
Jen, Sara, and Brian, but I did hit it hard enough to mash the creatures between us. I couldn't actually connect with the rear of the truck, but
 
instead made a zombie sandwich with arms and legs and heads sticking out.

I put the gas pedal to the floor. Sara helped on her end, but
 
we couldn't dislodge them. So then it was back to the original plan. I put it in reverse, and then
 
pulled alongside them once again, ramping up a little on the bodies.

Shotgun loaded, I opened the door to the bus. I shot two on the hood then motioned for Sara to roll down her window. She cracked it.

"Come on, Sara! Roll it down!" I said. "You'll have to crawl over to me!"

"I can't! They're everywhere!"

I shot another one in the face when it started up onto the truck. The creatures
 
were making an awful noise. It reminded me so much of the lowing
 
of
 
cattle.

"I have another idea," I said, reloading. I'd gone through half a box of ammunition. "I'm going to back up again. When I do, open your door. I'll pull back in fast
 
and just take the door off. You'll be able to step right in."

"Bullshit!" Brian yelled at me. "That will never work."

"What else then?" I said. "We don't have many options. Both of you are injured. You might be able to outrun them, but Jen never--"

I stopped and shot another one.

"Jen would never make it! The longer we sit here, the more come in."

Sara nodded.

"Go," she said. "Come back fast."

"No!" Brian said. "That door is the only thing between us and them."

I did it anyway. I backed up.

Don't open it too soon, Sara.

I put it in drive and barreled toward them. Just before I got to the truck, the driver's door opened. One of the creatures was right there. It started in. I smeared it against the side of the truck, and then slammed on the brakes to keep from overshooting them. The door didn't come off, but it bent back against the front fender. The two vehicles were only inches away from each other.

The twisted remains of the thing that had once been a woman
 
were between us and still struggled to get in the cab. I opened the bus door and beat it down with the butt of my shotgun.

"Kill it!" Jen yelled.

I didn't want to shoot it this close.

"It'll splatter," I said.

"Do it anyway! Fast!"

I put the gun against its head and pulled the trigger. Gore sprayed out away from the blast like a giant sneeze.

We'd all be getting drunk that night
 
if we made it out.

I helped Sara through to the bus. I had to shoot two
 
of the things away before Brian could come through.

"Come on, Jen!"

She was having trouble scooting across the seat. I handed the shotgun to Brian and crawled into the cab. He fired the gun, but I didn't turn to see. I grabbed Jen and trusted Brian to keep the things off me.
 

"Sorry," Jen said.

"We're fine," I said. "Just try and help me."

She untied the straps that held the splint on her leg. She bent it and winced.

"Okay," she said. "But this is going to hurt."

She pushed herself toward me with her legs and cried out. Brian fired again. The empty red shell bounced off my back then dropped to the space between the vehicles. Even in all the moaning and lowing I could hear that hollow plastic sound as it rattled to the gravel below.

I was in the bus. I had Jen under her armpits. I slipped back against the bus steps and Jen fell back on me. We were both on the bus, not fully, but enough. Sara had already shifted it into drive and we were rolling. Jen and I had to pull out legs up in the air to keep from having the clipped off in the doorway.

Even after we cleared the front of the truck, we had to keep our legs up and out-of-reach of the clawing hands of the undead.

Brian started helping us up, but we were already out of the driveway before both of us were completely in and the door was shut. The creatures pursued us--a running/jogging/shuffling mob. Some were wild things and others were ambulatory corpses. They all funneled in down that long
 
driveway between that white board fence trying to catch us, but we were too fast.

"Everyone okay?" I said.

No one answered. They were alive, but that was all. Jen's wounds had opened up. There was blood soaking through her jeans.

I know how these things are supposed to end. I've seen the movies; I've read the books. The little band of survivors
 
is supposed to make a perilous trek to some possible safe haven, usually to find it overran or deserted. Or they dig in, and, standing back to back, they engage in an epic battle with the horde that surrounds them.

Maybe somewhere in the world those scenarios were playing out with different groups.
 
In Grace County, Kentucky,
 
just a few miles southeast of
 
Clayfield, this particular little band of survivors
 
just wanted a
 
place to hide. Two of
 
us were
 
injured.
 
We had only one working gun with ten rounds (give or take), no food or water, and only the clothes on
 
our backs. Supplies could be had for now, but a place to hide and truly be safe had been impossible to find.

For our group, there might never be a
 
decisive end, just a dwindling--a dwindling of resources, health, people, hope, and will to live.

Sara entered the little community of Farmtown. She took us through the shuffling crowd and abandoned cars with slow, serpentine turns. The bus swayed. Jen's jeans were down around her ankles, and she
 
was wrapping her thigh with my t-shirt. The bandage she'd put around it that morning
 
was completely blood-soaked.

"Has the bleeding stopped?" I said.

"It will," she said. "But all my medicine is back at the truck."

"We'll give them time to leave, and I'll go back."

"What if they don't? Something was drawing them there."

"We're thinking the smoke from the fire," Brian said.

"We've always had a fire," she said. "No, something changed."

"It's warmer today than it has been," I said. "It's also windy. Maybe they picked up our scent or something."

"I sure picked up
their
scent," Brian said.

"Do you think..." Jen started, then stopped.

"What?"

"Never mind," she said, "it's silly."

She secured the bandage with her belt then pulled her jeans back up.

"No," I said, "nothing is silly. What are you thinking?"

"Well, I started my period last night. It's no big deal, but I've read before how some animals can pick up on that."

Brian shook his head.

"Urban legend," he said. "Or rural myth.... either way."

"Okay," Jen shrugged. "It must be the wind and smoke."

We passed through tiny Farmtown almost as quickly as we'd entered it, headed back toward Clayfield.
 
Less than a mile away
 
from the
 
town was the Farmtown Elementary School on the right.
 
On the large
 
playground in front of the school was a
 
crashed Chinook helicopter. It was bent in on itself and the double propellers were tangled together.
 
It looked like a
 
massive
 
sculpture.
 
Bodies lay all around it.

"Sara," I said, "pull in. I want to
 
check
 
it for supplies."

She looked at me in the mirror then pulled into the entrance to the school grounds.

"Stop right here," I said.

I made sure the shotgun was loaded, and then I stepped out of the bus. I turned and looked back up at Sara.

"Keep the engine running," I said. "I'll try to be quick."

Chinooks were troop transports. I'd seen them in the sky many times
 
on their way
 
to and
 
away from
 
Fort Campbell. If no one else had gotten to the crash there could be weapons on board and possibly food.

The helicopter looked like it came down on its tail. The cockpit area wasn't as damaged as the rear. There had been no fire, and the craft wasn't as mangled as one might expect. This led me to believe it hadn't fallen that hard. Maybe it hadn't been that far off the ground. The bodies on the ground all had head wounds. There were spent rifle and pistol
 
casings everywhere.

There was
 
a door toward the front near the cockpit. It was open like the black entrance to a cave.
 
It was about chest high and at an angle. I stepped up to it and stuck my head in, letting my eyes adjust to the low light. The cockpit was to my right. The bay was to my left.
 
Both were
 
tilted up in
 
sort of a gentle V shape because of the crash. There were still soldiers strapped in their seats in the transport bay. They were wearing
 
green camouflage, helmets, and goggles. They were no longer people. The two creatures--once a man and a woman--looked at me with curious expressions. The side of the male's face had been eaten away by the female. His bare jawbone was exposed.