“We’re good on this end. But it was close.” He didn’t say anything more, and I wondered how close it really was.

  “Wish we could block the other end,” I said as the first of the zombies came into view. They had stopped running, and were jogging slightly, their little feet slapping the pavement nearly in unison.

  Tommy smiled. “Got that covered at least, thank you very much.”

  “How?” They were out there on their own as far as I could tell.

  “You’ll see. Here they come.” Tommy shifted his rifle and stood over one of the motorcycles.

  I went over to the side where my magazines were. As I picked up one and held it in my left hand, I noticed a small bird looking at me from about fifteen feet away. It was a sparrow, and by the look of it, it was pretty well fed. It cocked its head at me, and for no reason I could think of, I winked at it. To my surprise, the bird peeped once at me, looked down the road, and flew off, circling under the bridge. I watched it until it was out of sight, then looked at the oncoming horde, which was now only twenty yards away and closing quickly. There was nothing left to do.

  “Cut them down!” I yelled, as I aimed quickly and fired. Several rifles fired at once, and the entire front row of the zombies on both sides of the road flew back, spraying their brains and black blood over their comrades to the rear. The rest of the zombies clacked their teeth and charged as one.

  I emptied my first magazine, and quickly reloaded the rifle with a new one. I kept firing, and saw that the others were firing as well. We were blasting holes in their lines, but they still kept coming. Every one I put down for good would be replaced with another. Some were knocked off their feet, only to get up again. Others were hit in the spine and dragged themselves across the road, scraping their dead flesh from their fingers as they clawed forward. Some were hit in the neck and went down paralyzed, only able to thrash their heads in futile rage.

  We were able to hold them at bay with our firing, but I knew we were going to get into it as soon as we started to run out of ammo. There was no helping it; it was going to get ugly.

  Already I could see parts of the zombie line able to advance as someone took a second or two longer to reload. All it took was a few seconds, and they gained yards on us. There didn’t seem to be any end to the zombies, and I was running down to my last magazine.

  Charlie started it.

  “I’m out!” He yelled. He set his rifle down and picked up his tomahawks. In a rare display of emotion, he stood on the median, slammed the heads of his weapons together in a huge metallic clang, and roared his defiance at the zombies. Anyone unfamiliar with Charlie would have thought a Viking berserker had suddenly appeared on the scene.

  I kept firing until I heard two more people yell they were out as well. “Fall back!” I yelled over the shooting. “Secondary line! Fall back, now!”

  The groups on both sides of the road retreated slowly, still firing as they went back. The second line was only twenty feet away, but it felt like a hundred as the horde advanced towards our makeshift barricades. I picked up my pick and trench hawk, and fired my last rounds as I walked slowly backwards to the line.

  As soon as I crossed, Tommy called out.

  “Pick your targets! Stay on your side. Don’t cross the center unless you have to!” The rifles started firing, but not as rapidly as before. They were shooting around the motorcycles and the trucks, and I watched ruefully as a bullet tore through the seat of one of the BMW’s. I cheered up when I realized it was Duncan’s.

  Sarah and Rebecca were side-by-side, firing in turns. Bodies piled up around the edges and began to make another barricade. When the corpses reached about two feet high, the horde stopped advancing and it seemed like they were going to run the other way.

  “Tommy…?” I asked in the lull.

  “Wait for it. They were told to hide until the last of the zombies passed them,” he said cryptically.

  I fired my last shot at a zombie five year old crawling across the hood of the truck. His body slumped down, and then slid off, leaving a dark trail across the metal.

  “Tommy, I’m really not in the mood,” I said, placing my rifle against the median wall.

  “Here they come.”

  Chapter 47

  I heard them before I saw them. Metal was scraping on asphalt, grinding and pushing. It was a harsh, nasty sound, nearly as bad as scratching fingernails across a chalkboard. I looked around and everyone was wincing in some fashion.

  On the hill, six snowplows, three on each side of the road, came slowly over the crest. They were spaced in such a way that the blades overlapped, and left no room whatsoever for a zombie to slip past. If they tried, they’d get crushed between the blade and the wall, or they would get pushed over the edge and fall to the river sixty feet below.

  When they reached about two hundred yards from us, they stopped, and the people in the cabs got out and started firing down on the Z’s. In the crisp fall air, with the leaves changing color, and the sun glancing off the shiny steel blades of the plow, it was a beautiful sight.

  “Well done, Tommy. Well done,” I said in admiration. It was a brilliant strategy. The Z’s had nowhere to go but straight at us, and we were keeping them bottled up. If we could get some reinforcements in the next ten minutes, we’d be good to finish these guys off.

  “Thanks,” I thought… “Oh, shit.” Tommy looked at the barricade and whipped up his rifle, firing methodically.

  I looked and my heart sank. The plows had given the zombies a reason to rush, and they came barreling at our barricades, pushing aside dead comrades and climbing over the only thing left separating them from us.

  “Watch yourselves!” I shouted. “Pair up! Watch your backs!” I ran over to the other side of the road. “Charlie! On me!” I turned back to Sarah and Rebecca, who were paired up already. Sarah held what looked like two short swords. I had no idea where she got them, but I prayed she was good with them. Rebecca had what looked like a baseball bat with short fingers of metal protruding from the end. Whatever the hell it was, it sure looked effective.

  “Sarah, you and Rebecca are the end of the line. If it gets past us, it can’t get past you,” I said, taking a position in the front with Charlie. Duncan and Tommy were on the other side, slightly further apart, since Duncan was hefting his long sword.

  “You got it, babe. Hey, John?”

  “What?”

  “If we survive this, I’m going to screw your brains out.”

  I looked back at Sarah and she gave me a lascivious wink while licking her lips. It was so absurd I just chuckled. I glanced at Charlie and he was about to say something when Rebecca chimed in.

  “Goes double for you, big boy.”

  Charlie turned red and as I laughed and I could feel the cold fire of battle building within. I had chased these bastards across two states. They had killed my friends and killed my brother. My breathing started to slow and my hands gripped my weapons tighter. I inhaled and growled at the same time when the first little zombie came at me.

  “Die, you fucker!” I snarled, crushing its skull with my pick. I kicked the body out of the way and waited for the next one. Tommy and Duncan were busy on the east side while Charlie and I waited on more to clear the obstacles.

  “John?”

  “Yes, Charlie?”

  “How come we keep getting into shit like this?”

  “Because we’re a couple of morons who haven’t got sense enough to stay home and not answer the damn phone.”

  “That would explain it. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. On your left.”

  Charlie began killing with his tomahawks, using both hands to devastate the zombies. Kids flew back with their heads cracked, or the slumped down with severed necks. Black zombie fluid flew in great arcs as Charlie fought and killed.

  I had little time to admire his handiwork. I sidestepped a lunge and backhanded a kid on the back of his neck, throwing him behind me where Sarah finished him off with a quick stab to the head. I thrust the pick forward into the teeth of another, dragging it forward to be spiked with my ‘hawk. I reversed the spike and slammed the blade end into another who was trying to get in between Charlie and myself.

  I got down on one knee and put my axe on the ground. I swung my pickaxe with both hands, snapping backs and cracking skulls as the zombie kids came at me in wave after wave after wave. Several got past me, and got past Tommy and Duncan, only to be finished by Rebecca and Sarah. Zombie bits surrounded Duncan, and Tommy looked strangely uncomfortable to be covered in little Z parts.

  I killed until there was a ring of dead around me; Charlie had a similar ring, only his was deeper since he tended to fling their corpses further than I did. But they kept coming. They were swinging at me with both hands, trying to get hold of me somewhere, anywhere, so I couldn’t fight them off and they could overwhelm me. All they needed was a second of hesitation and it was over.

  I couldn’t give it to them. I swung, killed, knocked over, killed, kicked, killed, and piled up my pay to the ferryman. On a back swing, I missed the head of the boy I was aiming at and buried the blade in his neck. He grasped the axe and pulled, yanking it out of my grasp. I swung hard at another zombie, and then pulled my long bladed knife out of its sheath. I didn’t have time to switch to a more effective grip, I just speared the grinning zombie in the eye, taking him down to the ground. I pulled the blade out as I slammed the pick on another head, sheathing it quickly. I yanked out my tomahawk with a wet squelch.

  “Mine,” I said to the corpse. “No touching.”

  I lost track of how many I killed, and when a lull occurred, I actually went to one knee, I was that tired. Bodies were piled around me and I had little room to maneuver. I stood up and saw Charlie finish off the last one on his side, and on my right Tommy and Duncan were wiping off weapons.

  Charlie rolled his shoulders and flexed his hands. “That it?” He asked, addressing no one in particular.

  I waited. On the other side of the median, they had fared better than we did. More of the zombies had been on our side, and they actually were stepping forward, looking to clear their lane.

  Chapter 48

  I signaled to the crew to follow me, holding a hand up to Sarah and the rest. The four of us carefully made our way around the barricade, walking carefully along the barrier which separated the two lanes. On the other side was simply slaughter. Corpses filled the road from one side to the other, and here and there was slight movement from zombies that weren’t quite dead but couldn’t move to attack us. We stayed along the median and the far barricade, quietly working our way through the destruction.

  I had to admit, I was sad to see so much of the future wasted. So many precious children taken away from life before they knew what it really was. They didn’t ask to be turned, didn’t ask to be ripped from their parents, didn’t ask to be killed on a road far from home. They would never even be buried near people who could mourn them, and remember them from the little life they did have.

  “Did we get the leader?” Duncan asked, poking a moving Z in the head with his sword.

  “Couldn’t tell you,” I said. “I never got a clear look at her, so if she’s here, she’s dead.”

  “No, she’s not,” Charlie said, pointing with his tomahawk.

  Over by the plows, a single zombie was cowering under the curve of the blade. The people on the plows had their rifles trained on the spot, but from their vantage point, they didn’t have a shot.

  When we were within fifty yards, she became aware of us. She glared hate and frustration as she swung her hands at us. Even at that distance, I could hear her frenzied wheezing.

  I guess I never thought I would be here, facing an enemy I had chased across two states, losing several good people and a brother in the process. I was filled with hate and rage, and I threw my weapons down as I advanced on her.

  My companions called out to me as I moved forward, yelling at me to stop. I advanced to within twenty yards and I could see her much more clearly. She was light grey, with black eyes. The white of her eyes were black as well, and it was an eerie thing to see. Her hair was short and greasy, missing in several places. She bared her teeth at me, and I could see they were chipped and jagged, black from clotted blood.

  I stopped at fifteen yards and she hissed, looking up and around. If I didn’t know better, I would have figured she would have tried to run.

  Like hell. I pulled my Springfield and fired every round at her, beating her into the plow, and shredding her with hollow points. I didn’t even aim all that well, I just shot the magazine dry, then replaced it. I waited to see if she would fall, and when she didn’t, I fired six more times. One bullet managed to hit her spine and dropped her to the ground. She clawed her way forward, dragging herself slowly in my direction. I walked up to meet her, and when I was about six feet away, I knelt down and waited. She crawled within three feet and stretched a hand towards me as she looked up at my face. She didn’t look much better close up, I had to admit.

  I quickly brought the .45 up and fired. The heavy bullet rocked her head back as it blew out the back of her skull, sending bits of dark brain matter all over the road. She slumped down and was still.

  I holstered my gun, and looked down at the hand that had stretched towards me. On the wrist was a small bracelet, and there were little white beads on it. There seemed to be some letters, so I turned the wrist over and saw “Ellen” written in flowers on the beads.

  I stood up as it all came flooding back in a rush, the first few weeks of the Upheaval, the fight to survive, and the little girl I had rescued from that scum at the pharmacy. I never knew what happened to her after she left with Todd and his family, but somewhere she must have left them, grew up some, and gotten infected.

  “Holy shit.” I said aloud. I had nothing else to say.

  Charlie, Duncan and Tommy came walking up, likely wanting to see what had caused so much trouble for so many people.

  “That it?” Charlie asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “There may be some cleanup to do around the edges, but that should be it.”

  “What a mess,” Duncan said, kneeling down by the corpse. “Wonder what was different about her that caused the virus to change so much?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Tommy said, shaking off some zombie goo from his weapon.

  “I guess I just don’t understand why there was this need to go east. Why that way?” Duncan persisted.

  Charlie shrugged, but I threw out an answer.

  “Probably the strongest urge we have as humans, and even in death it won’t escape us.” I postulated.

  “What urge?” Duncan asked.

  “The desire to go home,” I said.

  Chapter 49

  We left the clean up to the people of Leport, which at first seems like a rotten thing to do, but since there were already six plows ready to go right at the battle scene, if it took longer than an hour, I’d be surprised.

  As we made our way back to the other groups, Charlie pulled me aside.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said.

  This was different. “All right, what is it?” I asked, curious.

  “Every time we fought, I always had something in my mind that I was fighting for, be it Julia, Rebecca, or you guys. Something that made me hit a little harder, fight a little longer, just something,” Charlie confided.

  “I can relate. Same goes for me. For a long time it was Jake, then Sarah, then the rest of you combined.” I understood this part pretty well.

  “This time it was different,” Charlie said.

  “How so?”

  Charlie looked up the road to where Sarah and Rebecca were waiting. “All I could think about was getting laid if I survived.”

  I tried not to grin too broadly as I clapped Charlie on the shoulder. “Me, too,” I said. “Me, too.”

  We gathered up the rest of our crew after an appropriate reuniting, and spent the next hour cleaning our weapons and watching the town of Leport disgorge from the barges. They never did get everyone loaded, and it would have been a bad thing if we had failed to stop the zombies on the bridge.

  We met with the veterans who had answered the call, and I gave each of them a personal thanks. If they hadn’t fought as well as they had, who knows where this fight would have ended.

  As we walked up the street, I met with Dot and gave her the news. She didn’t seem all that surprised that the little zombie leader was just trying to go back to home. But then, nothing seemed to surprise Dot, so I just let it go.

  While leaving her house, a black cat came scampering around the corner of the porch. It was an older cat, and looked like it had seen its share of hard times. It looked at me with half closed eyes, as if it was trying to remember to tell me something.

  The cat looked familiar, and I pointed it out to Dot.

  “Where’d you get the cat?”

  Dot smiled. “He just showed up one day, rolling in like he owned the place. He made himself at home, and we’ve gotten used to him. He’s a bit funny. He likes to sleep in cabinets, so you get surprised once in a while.”

  That jogged a memory loose. I called Tommy over.

  “Tommy, does that cat look familiar?”

  Tommy looked, and then did a double take. “Hang on.” He walked over to the cat, and after letting it smell his hand and approve of him, Tommy picked up the cat and held it carefully in the crook of his arm. He looked hard between the ears of the cat and set him down gently. Tommy looked at me and nodded.

  “I’ll be damned. Well, good to see you, Zeus.” I left the contented cat to stay with Dot; he didn’t belong to us any more than he belonged to anyone. If a cat that had managed to survive a fifteen hundred mile journey wanted to set up shop in the president’s house, who was I to stop him?

  Chapter 50

  We rode home the next morning, and Sarah had made good on her promise the night before. Duncan complained about the seat on his cycle, but nothing else went awry.

 

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