The Passenger (Surviving the Dead) (12 page)

Hicks gave him a grin, handed his spear off to Ethan, and swung into the saddle. As he rode toward the horde, the others turned and made for cover behind the treeline.

Hicks spurred his borrowed mount in
a wide circle around the ghouls, keeping the horse’s speed at a low canter. In a few minutes, he managed to bunch the majority of ghouls into a cluster in the field between the wall and the ravine, then slowly began circling wider and wider, leading the horde toward the river. Ethan realized what was happening and grinned.

When the horde was within a few yards of the ravine’s edge,
Hicks slowed his horse to a walk, leaned forward, and whispered soothing words to calm the creature’s ragged nerves. Raising a hand, he signaled to where Ethan and the others waited behind cover.

“I got it
,” Michael said, urging his mount forward. He broke cover and galloped toward the river.

Hicks dismounted, keeping an eye over his shoulder
, and handed the reins over when Michael reached him. As the horses were led away, he maintained a brisk walk until the animals were out of sight. When he once again had the full attention of his audience, he began making his way down toward the water, waving and shouting as he went. Doggedly, with faces slack and arms outstretched for their prey, the infected began to follow him. Hicks quickly went out of sight, sliding down the hill with close to two dozen undead trailing after him. Ethan noticed that many of the walkers, unable to maintain their balance once they started down the hillside, toppled over as soon as they stepped over the edge.

Three times
the crack of Hicks’ rifle sounded, each time from a different location. From the reports, Ethan surmised that Hicks was moving closer to the bridge. When no more shots sounded for more than a minute, he began to worry. Images of Hicks being overwhelmed by ghouls and dying in agony gnawed at his mind, but he shook his head and dismissed them. If Hicks had been caught, they would have heard the screams. So he waited. And waited.

And waited.

Finally, just as Ethan was about to break cover and move in for a closer look, Hick’s topped the rise at a sprint, clutching his M-4 and sweating despite the cold. Ethan let out a breath. He motioned to his men. “Let’s go. Switch to your rifles, and stay alert.”

Hicks walked over to the others as they
broke cover. “They’re all in the ravine, boss,” he said. “Ain’t gettin’ out any time soon.”

“Go
od work. We’ll have to remember that trick. Okay, everybody check your weapons, make sure you got rounds chambered and safeties off. Fingers off the trigger until you make contact. Hicks, you and Holland pair up. Cole, you’re with me. Zeb, you know this place, right?”

The old man nodded. “Yep. Been here many a time.”

“You mind taking point?”

“Not at
all.” He drew a big .357 revolver from hip and gestured to Hedges. “Chris, I believe it’s your turn to watch the horses.”

The deputy frowned but reached for the reins. “Be careful in there, Sheriff.”

“Always am.”

Michael sheathed his massive cleaver and drew a lever action rifle from behind his saddle. He checked the chamber, dismounted, and walked over to his uncle. “Ready when you are.”

“All right. You boys stay behind me, and watch where you point them damn rifles. Any stray fire will be returned. Understood?”

Ethan smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ve done this before.”

Zeb grunted, and began walking toward the shattered entrance to Broken Bridge. Ethan had his men fan out in a diamond formation and followed. As they walked, his heart began to beat faster, and he felt a cold metallic taste form on the back of his tongue.

“Keep your eyes open,” he said, more to himself than his men. “Maintain visual on each other at all times, and don’t fucking go anywhere alone. We don’t know what’s waiting for us in there.”

Cole chuckled. “Shit, man. When do we ever?”

Ethan looked up and saw the sun clearing the horizon to the east. A low bank of clouds hung over the hills in the distance, turning the sky the color of rust. Already the vultures were circling, indifferent to the men walking amongst the dead husks that would be their next meal.

As they grew closer to the wall, it seemed to rise up and loom over Ethan, heavy and forbidding. He remembered what it had felt like charging up the hill at Singletary Lake, bullets whipping past his ears, the undead groaning loud enough to rattle his teeth, men around him screaming as they fell, all the while wondering when it would be his turn, when a stray bullet would catch him and send him spinning to the ground.

Taking a deep breath, he focused his thoughts and cleared his mind as best he could. The old fear quieted, but stayed where it was
, cold and gnawing. His father’s voice drifted back to him from across the years, deep and strong.
Son, when you got a job to do, it’s better to get it done than to stand around fearing it. 

Gritting his teeth, he
squared his shoulders and walked on.

FIFTEEN

As Ethan suspected, the main gate wasn’t really a gate at all.

Formed of several tons of concrete and steel, it was nothing more than a false front designed to fool attackers. It was, in fact, the strongest point of the town’s defenses, heavily reinforced and bristling with machine guns. The purpose of its design was obvious: lure the enemy here, distrac
t them by defending vigorously, and then flank the shit out of them. From the bullet holes, scorches, and scars along the outer defenses, Ethan guessed it had been an effective strategy.

Until now, at least.

After making a circuit of the inner perimeter, Ethan didn’t spot any other entrances. He did, however, see plenty of rope ladders and primitive cranes, indicating these people had an escape plan, and at least some of them got away. His hopes of finding survivors began to grow.

What few infected they saw within the walls were mostly crawlers
, along with a few crippled walkers too slow to make it out with the rest. Not wanting to waste time, Ethan and Cole killed them with headshots and left the corpses in the streets.

All around them, they saw the destruction left be
hind by the horde. Hundreds of dead bodies littered the ground—most of them obviously long dead—which made sense, considering the horde outside the gate had been mostly townsfolk.
But what happened to the rest of them, the horde that breached the town to begin with?

It just didn’t make sense. If this town
was attacked recently, why weren’t there more ghouls still wandering around? Usually, the infected stuck around for a few days after a kill, too distracted by the scent of fresh blood to move on. And in this case, it would be especially hard for the horde to escape because the shattered service entrance was the only way out. So what lured them away? Ethan gripped his rifle tighter, and kept moving.

Finished with t
heir patrol, he and Cole returned to the entrance to find Zeb waiting for them. The old lawman was examining the shattered gate with a flashlight, shining it on broken hinges, twisted steel doors, and the singed archway. He spotted the two soldiers approaching and motioned them over. 

“Sergeant,
I need you to look at this.”

Ethan stepped closer. “Sure. What do you got?”

“Look here.” Zeb pointed at the bent and blasted remains of a three-inch steel plate. “You see those scorch marks, the shape of the distortion?”

“Yeah
.”

“This door was blown inward from the outside. Look at the arch. Those hinges weren’
t just broken, they were torn away. Whatever took this gate down, it ripped through three inches of steel and made it look easy. What kind of weapon could that, you reckon?”

Ethan blew out a sigh, not liking what he was hearing. “I’m not sure. RPGs wouldn’t have been strong enough. Artillery, maybe, but the angle isn’t right. Whatever hit this door, it did it straight on, like a bullet. Anybody pushing a cannon close enough to hit the gate at this angle would have been spotted.”

He walked over to the other half of the door and squatted next to it, tracing a hand over a blackened, half-moon shaped hole in the middle. He thought back to Singletary Lake, and the large marauder compound the First Recon had raided there. Another squad had taken down the main gate, but he remembered what it looked like after they destroyed it. He was on the run at the time, and under heavy fire, but the memory stuck out clearly.

He also remembered the weapon that did it.

“If I had to guess,” he said. “I’d say this was done with a LAW rocket.”

Cole searched the scene, taking it in. After a moment, he ran a palm over his bald head and sighed. “You know
, I think you might be right, man. If somebody got close enough, and had enough infected with them … but you’d have to be one crazy motherfucker to try it.”

“Well,” Zeb said, standing up. “This gate didn’t blow itself up. Somebody did this intentionally, and with malice aforethought. If
they used a rocket launcher to blow the gate, then that begs an obvious question.”

Where did they get it, and do they have more?
“There’s another problem,” Ethan said. “The infected we fought here are almost all townspeople. The corpses they killed in the fight are all older. Way older. How many people used to live here, Zeb?”

“The last census was a
bout six months ago. They put it at two-hundred twenty, but I know for a fact some people joined up afterward.”

Ethan nodded.
“Sounds about right. I’d say we killed half of them in the field, and the other half are either crawlers, down in the ravine, or survivors who escaped.”

Zeb’s stoic mask began to crack, and his eyes filled with anger. “What kind of sick fuck would do something like this? They didn’
t even steal any weapons or supplies. All the caches are still locked up. Nothing’s been taken. What the hell was the point?”

Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know, Zeb. I’ve seen some crazy shit, but this…”

The three of them went silent. They stared at the gate for a while longer, as though standing in its presence might somehow unlock the mystery of its destruction. The silence became so oppressive that when Ethan’s radio crackled in his ear, he almost screeched like a little girl.

“Alpha, Bravo, how copy?
” It was Holland.

Cursing inwardly, and fighting down his racing heartbeat, he keyed the mike. “Copy loud and clear, Bravo. You find something? Over.”

“Affirmative. We got a survivor, but I don’t think he’s going to last much longer. You might want to get over here fast.”

“Copy,
Bravo. What’s your twenty?”

“North side of town, place looks like one of those pre-fab metal garages, only bigger. There’s a flagpole on the roof, but no flag. Shou
ld be easy to spot. Over.”

Ethan
looked northward and saw the flagpole standing above the loose clusters of buildings less than a hundred yards away. “Copy. We’re on our way. Try to keep him breathing until we get there. Out.”

Zeb and Cole stared
at him. The old sheriff’s eyes held a spark of hope. “Holland found a survivor. North side of town. We have to hurry.”

“Lead the way
,” Zeb said. Ethan took off at a run.

Their passing caused a multitude of fleeting reflections to pass across the life
less, staring eyes of the dead. High above them, the vultures continued circling, unabated and unconcerned. They were patient, those scavengers. There was no need for them to rush in, to risk landing when danger was nearby. They could stay right where they were, perfectly safe from harm until the loud, two-legged creatures below moved on.

T
heir meal wasn’t going anywhere.

*****

Holland waved to them from the roof.

The building he stood on was large and yellowish, and
as he had said, it looked like a pre-fab steel garage, only about three times larger. The rolling doors were still intact, but a smaller side entrance lay bent and broken on the ground. Ethan entered first, shoving the battered door with his foot and sending it sliding across the concrete floor. As he walked inside, pale yellow sunlight filtered in through high windows, casting the room in a dull copper glow. The stench of rotting meat crawled into his throat, sticking in his nose and threatening to make him retch. Although he had smelled it hundreds of times, the odor of death still had the power to trigger his gag reflex. 

“Over this way, boss.”

Ethan looked to his right and saw Hicks clinging to a ladder descending from a trapdoor in the ceiling. Ethan raised a hand. Hicks nodded once and climbed back up.

Looking around, he couldn’t tell what the building’s original purpose had been
, but the people of Broken Bridge had converted it into a barracks. Rows of wooden bunk beds and footlockers lay all around in broken, overturned disarray. The kitchen area near the back was in shambles, and several nearby tables lay flat on the ground as though crushed by a massive hand. Thick, rust-colored streaks smeared the concrete from one end to the other, splattered on overturned beds and scattered sheets. Patches of ripped-out hair, torn gobbets of flesh, and discarded bones littered the ground.

Ethan spotted something in the shadows a few feet away and clicked on the small tactical light attached to his rifle. When he
raised the beam, he saw a single amputated thumb standing on end, propped up on its ragged stump. It pointed straight up in the air, as though offering a cheerful welcome to the reeking slaughterhouse and the horrors within. Ethan grimaced and kicked it away.

He turned his head and spoke over his shoulder
. “Come on. Let’s get to the roof.”

The others followed behind him, eyes wide and hands tight on
their weapons. Every few feet, they spotted the remains of crawlers Hicks or Holland had put down during their sweep. One of them was missing its arms and legs, and the rest were so mangled they were almost unrecognizable as human.

“The infected must have got in here,” Cole said, stating the obvious.

“But where are all the bodies?” Michael replied.

Zeb spoke up. “
Either outside the gate where we killed ‘em, or trapped in the riverbed. ‘Cept for those poor bastards.” He gestured at a dead crawler.

Ethan
led the way up the ladder, emerging from the gloomy interior into the rapidly brightening morning. A few feet away, Holland knelt beside a man who lay propped against Hick’s backpack. The man’s clothes were torn and bloody, and one of his hands lay in his lap, swaddled in a thick wrapping of bloodied bandages. Holland poured water from his canteen into a metal cup and held it to the man’s lips. The man reached up with a trembling hand and drank from it, but pushed it away after a few swallows, sputtering and coughing.

“Alan!” Zeb
said, emerging from the trapdoor and rushing over.

The man lying on the ground looked up groggily. “Sheriff Austin? That you?”

“It’s me, Alan,” he said, kneeling. “What happened to you?”

Alan reached up with his good hand and gripped Zeb’s sleeve. “I got bit. Don’t have much time left-” Another coughing fit wracked him, and Zeb had to wait a few moments
while the stricken man caught his breath. “Listen,” he finally managed to croak. “You need to know what happened here.”

Zeb’s face went tight
. He gripped Alan’s hand in both of his and held on. “I’m listening.”

“There was a horde. Had to be over a thousand strong. They got through the gate last night around midnight.”

“How?” Ethan asked. He was fairly certain about his rocket launcher theory, but wanted to know for sure. “What destroyed the gate? Did you see it?”

Alan shook his head weari
ly. “No. I was on watch at the southern wall, wasn’t close enough to see what happened. I caught a flash of light and heard a sound like a gunshot, only a hell of a lot louder. Then there was an explosion. Powerful as hell, my ears are still ringing from it. Blew the gate right off its hinges. The next thing I know, everybody’s sounding the alarm and there’s infected pouring in like a flood.”

“What about the charges on the bridge?” Zeb asked. “Why weren’t they triggered?”

Alan’s eyes opened wider. “Some bastard killed the guards at the gate. Scrawny fucker in a big coat, dressed like one of us. He knifed ‘em both, then the infected got ‘em. I saw it happen, but I was too far away to stop it. I tried to shoot the fucker, but he ran off too quick.”

Ethan felt a creeping coldness start in his gut, spread through his arms, and tingle its way up to his face
. He thought about the front gate, and the blast marks, and the absence of the horde that destroyed the town. Looking at it from a distance, the pieces began to fit.

“They were t
he only ones close enough to throw the switch,” Alan went on. “By the time I got there, the dead were everywhere. We tried to hold them at the gate, but there were too many of ‘em. They broke our line, and everybody fell back. It was pitch dark, most of the torches were out. We were fighting blind all the way back to the southern wall. I got cut off and had to duck into the barracks. Bunch of other people followed me in, but we couldn’t all get up the ladder fast enough. They tried to hold their ground, but the dead just kept packing in tighter and tighter. I was the first one up, but by the time I reached the roof, everybody else was dead or dying.”

Alan stopped to take a few wheezing breaths and a sip of water.
His face was ghostly pale, his lips so blue they were almost translucent, sweat standing out in beads on his forehead. The shivers gripping him were rapidly devolving into convulsions, and his eyes were beginning to glaze over. Grimacing against the pain, he continued.

“The man at the gate, the one who kil
led the guards, he’s the one who did this. He led those ghouls here. He destroyed the gate somehow, and he turned them loose in the compound. You have to find him before he does it again, Zeb. You heard about them other towns, right? It can’t be a coincidence.”