Zombie Rush 2 (16 page)

A soldier waved them down as they drove along the line of trailer-less tractors and over-sized pickup trucks carrying multiple skid loaders in many varieties. New Holland, Gheils, Cat, or Kubota all performed equally well and were the fast approach to their war against the dead. Huge front-end loaders destroyed massive amounts of zombies, but for close in fast attacks, the skiddies cleaned house every time.

“What’s up?” Skit asked through the rolled down window as Lisa clutched her ribs, ready to scream from the change in momentum. Not for the first time, she wondered if she should be going on this trip.

“Make room for passengers.”

“This is Reynolds’s ride. We aren’t taking passengers,” Skit replied.

“
No empty seats, no exceptions
is what comes down from the front.”

“It’s all right Skit, clean out the back seat for them. We could use some company.”

Lisa smiled when she saw the tall man who had helped her with Howard and was on the council climb into the back seat. A couple of days ago, he looked like everyone else in a buttoned-down shirt, shiny shoes, and perfectly groomed hair and nails. To say his appearance had changed would be an understatement of grand proportions.

“Hey, Mitch,” Skit said as Mitch gave him a slap on the shoulder.

“Didn’t feel like walking, did ya?” Lisa added with a smile.

“I’m feeling pretty lucky to be riding with the queen herself,” Mitch said when he saw Lisa in the passenger seat.

The pleasure is all mine as long as your chamber is empty and your magazine full,” she replied, referring to his rifle.

“It is and they are. Little Rock, here we come.”

Another man crawled into the back with Mitch whose dress alone set the others back. He was fully decked out in a designer suit and Gucci loafers, looking as if he was dressed to kill; at a nightclub, at least.

“Hello,” Lisa said as he sat down in the back seat.

“Hello,” he said, and then didn’t seem to want to say much more. Lisa scrutinized him, wondering what his deal was. He went back to his tablet that was with him and remained focused upon what was on the screen.

“Ah, I’m Lisa, this is Skit, and that’s Mitch right next to you there.”

“Oh, sorry. I tend to forget pleasantries when I am in the middle of a project. My name is Temple.”

“Oh, a project? What kind of project are you working on, Temple?” asked Lisa, her curiosity piqued.

“Well, it’s highly confidential. I have been contracted by Work Source Inc. to optimize their temporary work staff.”

“Hey, Temp. You know that shit don’t matter anymore, right?” Skit said over his shoulder to the backseat, causing a moment of discomfort to cross Temple’s brow.

“Yeah, the world just isn’t like that anymore,” Lisa added, seeing Temple become so uncomfortable he was starting to squirm. Lisa looked at Mitch, who was mouthing the letters
OCD
.

“I had a friend in college who was dedicated like you, Temple,” Mitch began. “He would focus on one thing so intently that he could only take on subject at a time, but when he was done, it was perfect.”

Temple glanced at Mitch and flashed a very slight smile, thinking that Mitch might understand.

“Yeah, some things have to be followed through no matter what,” Lisa added having picked up on what Mitch was assuming. Temple was finishing his project because he had to finish his project; he didn’t have a choice. It was simply how his mind worked. “However, we’re going to be together for the next couple of days, so you have to tell us what you’re working on.”

“Oh, I could never reveal the specs; this could revolutionize employment practices worldwide. I’m under a confidentiality agreement,” Temple protested.

“Oh, well then you don’t mind walking.” Lisa was getting annoyed.

“No, we’ll let him stay. We just won’t let him plug in his tablet,” Skit said with a cynical smile. “We gonna watch the boy squirm with every second he burns on that tablet.”

Temple stared at them, stumped as to what he should do.

“Are any of you software designers?” he asked, and all three shook their heads. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but it has to stay here; here is like Vegas, okay? What is said here, stays here.”

“No worries, mate,” Mitch said in a mock Aussie accent.

“I have made a breakthrough in the twenty-four hour tracking chip.”

“What?” Lisa asked, expecting it to be much more than that. “Why?”

“This way Work Source Inc. or WSI can track the movements of a future or present employee. They’ll be able to see and record lifestyle habits before they even hire that person. Then, on the job, they could monitor their health and habits to see that they are getting their optimal value for said employee,” Temple finished excitedly.

Skit looked at Temple in the mirror. “That’s disgusting.”

“Dude, that’s worse than Big Brother,” Mitch echoed.

“What do you mean? This will ensure that the company is operating at optimal capacity.”

“Yeah, at the expense of the sanity of your workers. Fucking-A, Temple. Do you realize what that would do to the mentality of the populace as a whole, knowing that they are never alone?” Lisa said.

Mitch said nothing more and clammed up with a perturbed look upon his face.

“What’s worse, being chained by links of iron or links of circuits? Slavery is alive and well,” Skit said and shook his head before closing his mouth and focusing on the road.

Lisa wanted to rage on the man and ask how something like that could actually be good for the world, but she didn’t; instead, she faced front and admitted silently that he was not worth the pain it took in her ribs to look at him.

Mitch didn’t bother to hide his disgust. “Hell, if that’s the world we were going to live in, we’re better off now.” Temple just stared straight ahead, shocked by their reaction to the work that he had been so devoted to.

A column of semis pulling front-end loaders and large backhoes passed by their passenger side as they made their way toward the front of the column. They were approaching groups of zombies on the left being dispatched via rebar or rifle. A large mass was approaching the column from across a field, and four skid loaders moved slowly out to meet them long before they would affect the safety of the procession. Lisa wondered how many groups they would come upon along the way. They would have to be eliminated, of course. They had to live under the assumption that each and every one of these left moving would eventually end up on their doorstep.

The four humans and Tonka watched the scene of destruction crossing the field between the road and woods. They waited for the telltale signs of the Skiddies coming to life.

Keeping the buckets low, they started to swing back and forth, only going a couple of feet forward and back. Then they switched direction, getting a four- to six-foot swing before heading back again for eight to ten until they were spinning full circles. The front-end loaders waited, knowing that this type of battle was better suited to the smaller, more agile machines.

The masses of dead quickly overwhelmed all four of the skid loaders. Those watching worried when the horde obscured their view of the machines. This had become a common strategy to eliminate as many as possible in a short amount of time. The four piles soon looked like one as more and more bodies piled on from all angles. A small machine with a low center of gravity, weighing no less than four tons was not at risk of tipping from the mass of death.

To Lisa, it looked as if the single pile started to buck in four places at once. From her vantage point, it looked like a machete chopping through cattails, creating only a small space at a time. Corpses broke and twisted from the weight of the tiny power houses with the sharp, heavy buckets as the operators sat safely locked behind solid steel and Plexiglas caging. The door being the only exception, which was instead a thick, contoured piece of safety glass.

As the machines built up mobility, their speed increased and larger swaths of red began to appear. They raised their buckets, pushing more and more back, severing spines. Once the machines had full mobility, the operators brought the buckets to head height and full speed, causing skulls to crack and burst from the impact of heavy steel and hydraulics.

The horde was huge and started to sweep around the outside of the skiddy defense and the people leapt out to meet them. Shooters took precise, measured shots, never focusing on one individual more than one bullet. If they missed, the handgun and rebar wielders would finish them off. All the while, Krupp was with them—as were other soldiers—shouting commands.

“This is not a competition, you are part of a team, let that team protect you as you protect them.”

              It made Lisa think of what she had always imagined boot camp to be like, and it dawned on her what Krupp was doing. All he had were the people who survived. There was no Army, and those few soldiers who made it to the compound were such a valuable wealth of knowledge, he couldn’t waste them as fighters.

Krupp was creating an army. A new army born of need, an army designed specifically to fight the undead. Zombies were not a skilled force by any means, but what they lacked in skill they more than made up for in numbers. The runners were becoming more of a problem; she felt that maybe they were becoming smarter and now watched before they attacked at a breakneck pace. They would require more scrutiny. They seemed to have an effect on the lumbering dead, who would get excited and follow in the paths of the runners.

“I want to go help those shooters,” Lisa said nonchalantly.

Skit shook his head. “You got some healing to do before you get back in the fight, girl.”

Lisa watched Temple’s expression as he watched the battle. “What’s the matter, Temp? Never seen a zombie before?”

“No. I mean, not really. I was always running away so fast that I never looked at them.”

Lisa laughed. “Well, if you need a new assignment then use your little etch-a-sketch to find out what started this thing and how to stop them. Your last assignment was crap, borderline slavery, and it is officially over. I am your new boss, Temp. You had better get on board with that in a hurry.”

“Nothing fucking ‘borderline’ about it; it
was
slavery,” Skit said with passion.

“I think I know that now. It never even dawned upon me before. I will begin gathering data on the present plight. Is there some kind of contract that you would like me to sign?”

“No, Temp, there are no more contracts. Not anymore.”

Chapter Thirteen

Dirt Road

Krupp liked the chair rail system they had rigged in the back of Ernie’s truck, made from a fishing boat seat and some old playground equipment. The steel was strong enough to handle the Ma Deuce that was mounted on it and hold his weight; that was all that Krupp cared about. He knew it wasn’t a good weapon to use against zombies, but Krupp suspected they would find more than just Z’s. Being in the lead truck, he had already seen suspicious roadblocks dissipate once the size of their column revealed itself. He didn’t think there would be many problems on the way to Little Rock, but on the way back, when they were exhausted from their mission, then the marauders or desperate would strike; especially if the group from the compound didn’t return as a singular force. He had visions of smaller groups spread thin on the way home, which would never happen with Regular Army, but with this group of untrained civilians, anything could happen. They all knew one important fact—Hot Springs was safe. Home base was secure and where they had to go if things went to shit.

He had a few trained people that he kept organizing the flow to make things go smoother, but they still only made twenty miles the first day. They formed a circle when masses of zombies appeared, covered wagon style, opting for one large one with multiple patrols as opposed to smaller ones that could be cut off or under supplied. There was a constant flow of dead that insisted on attacking the group but only two instances where they needed to fire up sizable machinery to deal with them. He knew that would change once they set up camp for the night. Then the Z’s would come.

The scent of decomposition was starting to precede the hordes. Decay was also evident in their motions; everything on them was slowing down and stiffening up. After a couple of days in the elements, there was no question that they were indeed dead.

They camped under and around the overpass at the junction of Highway 70 and Interstate 30, just southwest of Benton. The Trace Creek housing development offered up a lot more zombies than it did the living, but their group easily handled it by sending some equipment into the development. A couple of hours later, the National Guard led a small convoy of ten separate groups of rescued survivors, totaling nearly fifty, back to Hot Springs. The disbursement of survivors was planned, as they had limited supplies based only on the number of people they originally had with them.

Their next stop was Benton and Krupp doubted they would make it through that city before the end of the next day. They had to clear an easy-access route from Hot Springs to Little Rock along the way. Tomorrow would start the trials of their journey as they cleaned out one small town after the other. Hopefully the locals had heard their broadcast and survivors would be there to help before being reassigned to Hot Springs. The whole stretch from Benton to Little Rock had populations that needed to be isolated and resources stripped and sent back to the compound. Time was ticking; frozen goods were already on their last legs. The fresh produce had to be processed now or they wouldn’t make it a year, let alone the two or three needed to restart.

What most thought would be two-day ordeal, Krupp and Benson knew would take over a week, if not two. The horde waiting for them in the big city was enormous and they couldn’t survive all of them at once or even spread out. The mass of undead would overwhelm them, even with their unique combat strategies. They needed a secure passage home, an area they could close off and defend or use to box the zombies in.

“Art, this is Krupp. Over.”

“Hi, Ed. You had a full head of steam heading out this morning; how far did you get? Over.”

“We made it to the I-30 and 70 junctions. We’re finishing up the clear-out phase of the Trace Creek housing development. It will be ready for you to send reinforcements to by tomorrow. We also have fifty survivors coming your way from the development. Over.”

“Good, we’ll put them to work as soon as they get in. I’m still not comfortable with setting up a base in that development, Ed. Over.”

“Neither am I, now that I’ve seen it. Houses are made of fancy cardboard and glue. We’ll secure a couple of houses for showers and sleep but much more than that would be an invitation to be overrun. Over.”

“What is the next option? Over.”

“I’ve sent some Guard members up to the armory on the edge of Benton. They say it’s a new brick and block building with all the bells and whistles. If it’s in decent shape, we’ll set up house there. Have you had any more people showing up? Over.” Krupp asked.

“Yeah, we found a pocket of survivors holed up in Lake Hamilton and Rockwell. Some of them have had it pretty rough, but they’re still alive; we are transporting them with ferries. We have a mass of zombies forming up in Piney that seem intent on heading our way, so we’ve started thinning-out procedures. We’ve located a FEMA bunker, that had several cases of small arms and rifles, and we got into the main armory downtown, so we’ll finally be able to rest easy on the munitions front for a bit. Over.”

“Cool, when are you going to start patrols on our path? Over.”

“Got three going out tomorrow in four-hour shifts. Each group will do two trips since they’ll just be going to Benton and back. I have four more squads going through training and should be ready in a couple days. Over.”

“I wish we could have taken more time, but we’ve already lost three days’ worth of resources,” Krupp said, thinking about all of the spoilage without power. “The outside edges of a batch were probably thawed and some spoiled, but the rest of it would be good if consumed immediately.”
We’ll have a lot of fresh meat on the trail, at least.
“Over.”

“Agreed. I would focus food recovery in Benton more so than in Little Rock. There’s no telling when you’ll get there at this rate. Over.”

“Yeah, it all depends on how quickly we can get through the little BS towns first, not going to risk manpower unnecessarily though. There’s a pretty large locker plant on the edge of Little Rock; we’ll check that out and a couple of distributor warehouses I’ve seen from the highway, but other than that, we’ll stay focused on machinery, ordnance, and medical. Over.”

“We need a big focus on medical. We also need you to add a dialysis machine to your list. Over.”

“Can you send out a picture of one so I know what they look like? Over.”

“There’s a pharmacist with you named Mitch Galbreath; he might know what they look like. The radio station has been getting some on-line contact with a security guard at an acclimatized warehouse. He’s the only one left and is worried because a gang has been harassing him for the last few hours. Over.”

“Yeah, I guess I don’t get the relevance, Art. Over.”

“It’s an acclimatized, full-security facility, Ed. The guard doesn’t even know what’s there, but a street gang is sure interested. It might be worth checking out. It’s off Vulcan Road, east of Haskell at the tracks there, just beyond 229. Over,” Benson finished, knowing that it was a lengthy direction but for some properties, there was no choice.

“I know it; there’s some good dirt riding out there, so we should be able to get right up to the back door. I think the lieutenant and a squad of civvies mixed with Guard will head up there and give it a look-see. I’ll talk to you at 0700. Out.”

***

Krupp, followed by a military Humvee and three other trucks, pulled up to the driver’s side of the 300. Skit powered down the window.

“I know you’re trying to rest and recoup and all, but we have a little situation I need you to take care of.”

“Okay, what do you have in mind?” Lisa said.

Krupp explained the situation with the acclimatized storage and that he wanted her and Skit in a Humvee to lead the operation.

“Now I gotta find Mitch Galbreath.”

“I’m Mitch!" the tall man shouted from inside the car. "What can I help you with?”

“I need to know what a dialysis machine looks like.”

“No problem. When you get to one I’ll let you know.”

“Are you a doctor, Mitch?” Lisa asked.

“Nope, pharmacist, but we sell equipment too.”

“Why don’t you come with Skit and me? I’m getting kind of used to you being around.”

“Gladly,” Mitch said as he cast a quick side-glance at Temple.

“Temple,” she said, snapping him out of a daze.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Got a driver’s license?”

“Of course.”

“You’re taking care of our ride. Stay out of the trunk and don’t take on any passengers.”

“Yes, Mom,” he replied.

“Oh, so you suddenly develop a sense of humor? Just for me?”

“Sorry.”

“Oh shit. We’re going to have to find you a set of balls somewhere on this trip, Temp. You’re also taking care of Tonka. He’s seen enough action over the last couple of days.” Lisa looked at the sleeping hound. Everybody chuckled at her “balls” comment except Temple who nodded his head as he moved to the driver’s seat, seemingly oblivious to their ribbing.

***

Twenty minutes later, they were heading slowly down a mowed area for power lines between trees, coming up on the facility through the back door. They came upon a twelve-foot-high chain fence with the top two feet bent toward the outside. Coils of razor wire graced the top and placards declaring
high voltage
added to the ambiance. A concrete pad came out from the fence for twelve feet and had concrete barriers along the full length of the fence every two feet. The barriers were mere inches from the fence and tire shredders, spanning out to twenty feet and completely surrounded the structure. The team stopped at the forest edge, deciding to observe the area before they moved in. The electric fence hummed with energy, creating a feeling that the property itself was alive and on high alert.

The buildings behind the fence were basic; they were the typical pole barn-style buildings with multiple garage doors. They were all secure, with several loading bays all within sight of a guard station. One building was the exception; it stood behind the others and was clearly constructed with commercial concrete panels, lifted and fitted by crane. Lisa figured that anything of real value would be inside that structure.

The fence line ran for over a hundred yards toward Vulcan Drive, where a scattering of cars could be seen. Lisa decided to take the bulk of the civilian group down the train tracks to the blind side of the building while Tim, who led the Guardsmen, followed the tree line to where the cars were parked.

They stopped before the road and dismounted while still in the trees. One man stayed in the turret mounted behind Skit, who had taken over driving, and Lisa, who rode shotgun.

Lisa shook her head in disgust as she watched the soldiers make their way through the trees while the gang members were fully in view. They were relaxed and unconcerned with any potential threat outside the fenced-in area. Lisa knew that by staying still, they could watch them for a while unnoticed.

Suddenly, shots rang out from the trees on the opposite side of the building.

***

Tim and the ten Guard members with him walked out in a fanned out pattern through the trees, locating several gang members who stood on watch facing away from the compound. It was obvious that they expected something but their patterns made no sense. He focused on one couple; a man with an aluminum baseball bat and a woman dressed in leather carrying a black Gerber machete.

He signaled for his troops to spread out, which must have created some disturbance, as the two suddenly went on guard and started watching the woods. They looked as if they were sniffing the air as a hound might do. The woman slipped around a tree, out of sight, as Tim moved in with his M4 shouldered and ready, set to three-round bursts. He was almost ten feet away from the tree where the woman hid; she and the man with the bat were still unaware of his presence. He took three more steps and, as if sensing him, the woman came out with her machete held high and ready to strike.

“Drop your weapon!” Tim shouted.

The woman froze in place, staring at the assault rifle pointed directly at her. Her face went from fear and rage to relief as her weapon arm fell limply to her side. Tim was confused; he hadn’t known what to expect, but it surely wasn’t that. He straightened and looked at the man, who also bore a look of relief as if they had finally found their lost child. Tim saw it immediately.
What the fuck? This isn’t a gang; these are just scared people.

“Hold fire,” he said through the helmet comms. “Civilians are not aggressive.”

“Finally, the Army shows up. Where the hell have you been?” the woman said.

Tim was taken aback; it was not at all the situation that he expected.

“What are you doing out here surrounding this facility?” Tim asked.

“Solomon says it’s the last safe place to hide, and with how long it’s taking for us to get in, I think he might be right,” she responded.

Tim lowered his weapon just as the man with the bat rushed toward him while winding up his swing.

***

Rifle fire erupted on the other side of the compound, putting Lisa on edge.

“Pull out and drive slowly, straight toward them, Skit. Get their focus on us. The rest of you walk the ditches out of view until we get close enough to engage. Sit low and try to let the engine block protect you in case they start shooting. What’s your name back there, son?”