Last Stand of the Dead - 06 (7 page)

Another man spoke up, a thin drink of water with a long scar on the side of his face.  “They just ran through town, biting anyone they met.  Crazy thing, they didn’t stop to eat, just bite and run.  If they couldn’t get you right away, they ran off.”

That was weird. 
“Anything else?”
I asked.

Another woman yelled at us. “They took some of our kids!  They just grabbed them and ran away!  You have to get them back!”

I looked down.  “Your kids are dead.  These guys aren’t taking kids for
food;
they’re taking them for recruits.”

Several people yelled at once, and one man walked forward, holding a length of lumber which was dark at one end. 

“Damn you!  Why
weren’t
you here sooner?  You could have stopped them with all your damn guns!”  The man stepped up to about fifteen feet away when a shot from behind me split the air between us.

Charlie lowered his rifle slightly.  “Let’s try and stay friends, shall we?”

One look at Charlie in full gear changed the minds of several men who were beginning to walk forward.
I hadn’t even flinched when the shot was fired.
  I smiled to myself,
and then
changed the subject.

“We need to get moving if we have any chance of catching these zombies.  Just let us know which way they went and at the least
,
we can avenge your
dead,
” I said.

That set off another round of yelling, which was only interrupted by a low moan coming from the
firehouse
.  I turned quickly and saw one of the wounded in the building come stumbling out.  His arm was black from the virus, and he was pale from death.  His dead eyes looked around and he uttered another moan.

Charlie was closest, so he just raised his rifle and shot the man in the head as he took another step f
orward.  In the bay of the fire
house, several prone forms were beginning to twitch and stir.

“Excuse us for a
moment,
” I said.  Following Charlie, we walked the bay and efficiently put a rifle round through each of the people lying there.  The biggest danger was a round ricocheting off the concrete and hitting us after passing th
ro
ugh a zombie.
We were careful to aim at an angle which kept the round away from us.  It didn’t help the back wall any, but that wasn’t our lookout.

We finished our task and went back outside.  The crowd had dispersed somewhat, but there were still several people milling about.  They looked dazed, like they had fallen from a good height and had the wind knocked out of them.

“Can anyone tell me anything more about these zombies?”  I asked the crowd in general.

A teenager stepped forward.  He was about nineteen or less, and wore loose jeans with a plain white t-shirt.

“I could tell you where they
’re
headed,
”  The
boy drawled slowly.  He was armed with a long knife, the end of which was black and rusty.

“Which way?”
I asked, getting into the truck.

“I said I could. 
Didn’t say I would.”

I looked at him for a moment.  “Suit yourself.” 

We left him open-mouthed and his cohorts in a similar state behind as we drove south to get back to 34.  Tommy radioed to Freeman what had happened, but was unable to get a response.  I figured we needed to get west as quickly as possible.  We were right behind these guys, but we had to detour a bit to get ahead of them.  That was one of the problems with travelling by truck.  We were limited to the roads while the little Z’s could travel wherever.  I wasn’t about to go chasing them down on foot.  Not that I was worried about meeting the zombies, but Sarah would shoot me dead for such a stupid idea.

Chapter 12

We reached the end of 164 and turned east again on 34.  The countryside was heavily wooded, interspersed with farms and small ponds.  There were no more large population centers the further we moved away from water, and I was grateful for that.  We drove as quickly as we could, and Sarah pointed out to me that the next town on the map that connected with the railroad was
Biggsville
, and we might be able to set up an ambush there.

I looked at the map for a second and it made sense.  We had covered the distance in about ten minutes, and with the small ten-minute head start the zombies had on us, we might just get a break with this one.  The only thing that worried me was the possibility that the kids might leave the railroad and get around us.  In that case, it was up to Colonel Freeman.

We reached
Biggsville
, and turned up S. Church Street, which seemed to be the main road through town.  The first row of houses we passed showed no signs of any recent habitation, and the side roads we passed were full of homes falling into disrepair and ruin. The Illinois Department of Transportation building seemed to be in good shape, being made of brick, but the
Biggsville
United Presbyterian Church had one wall completely cave
d
in, giving the building a grumpy frown.

Further north, the rows of houses ended at Arthur Street, and it was where the tracks passed through town.  It was there I figured we needed to set our ambush.

I parked the truck on Church
Street
, backing it up to a small building that was built close to the street.  Sarah got out and we both started filling our pockets with loaded magazines and ammunition.  Charlie drove the van to the bridge and parked it on the top of the bridge overlooking the railroad.  Sarah and I jogged over to the van as the rest of the crew was loading up.  We took the time to put on our gloves, balaclavas, and goggles.  This fight might get very close, and I wanted everyone to have as much protection as possible.

Duncan, in his usual way, had to have something different.  His forearms were sheathed in leather greaves, which he had modified to accept a large nail.  With those bad
boys,
he could punch through a zombie’s head with little trouble.  They did interfere somewhat with the swinging of his sword, but that was his trouble to figure out.

We mat at the van and I outlined the general plan.  “We’ll hit them with everything we have from the top of this bridge.  We’ll wait until they are on that little bridge there, so there is nowhere to go but forward or backward.   If they get past that choke point, we’ll let them come to us and we’ll take them as they try and get to the bridge.”

It wasn’t complicated, and required little in the way of preparation.  The only glitch would be the kids getting off the track early or coming from another direction.  I had an uncomfortable thought that the kids had already passed us, or were going around us, but we had to try something.

Rebecca was standing on the van, using her
riflescope
to scan the surrounding area and look down the tracks.  While she was up there, Charlie and I spoke in low tones, looking over the terrain and trying to figure out where we could hit them
again after the initial shock.  I motioned for Tommy and Duncan to go to the south side of the bridge, and fire from a lower position, driving the zombies back into the firing zone from the high part of the bridge. The creek ran along the north side of the tracks, so there wasn’t anywhere for the zombies to go on that side.

If we were working with normal zombies, this wouldn’t be necessary.  They would just shuffle forward and trip consistently over their fallen comrades before it was their turn to get shot.  But the zombies we were after were not what we were used to
,
and we were adapting to them as quickly as we could.

Charlie and I were alerted by Rebecca tapping her foot on the roof of the van.  She was looking intently through her scope, and we knew she had seen something.

“They’re coming!” She whispered.

I pulled my rifle around and set up on the side of the bridge, just south of the van. I put a spare magazine on the rail next to my gun, just to make reloads faster.  Charlie stationed himself on the north side of the van, and Sarah quietly climbed up to the roof of the van and joined Rebecca, who just
laid
herself prone on the same roof.

I looked through the scope on my rifle and waited.  The railroad bridge was just an opening through a small swath of forest
,
which reached around the town and stretched off to the north and east.  The sun was just past
its
zenith, so there weren’t many shadows on the ground.  The trees were just beginning to turn, so the area was beginning to show a decent amount of color.  Illinois wasn’t known for its forests, but it did the best it could with the trees it had.

“Sarah?  Rebecca?” I whispered.

“What?” I didn’t know who answered.

“Wait until the first ten clear the bridge, then take them out.  Charlie and I will clear the middle, and Duncan and Tommy can get the ones that run for
cover,
” I said, barely audible in the breeze.  I wanted to get them on this side of the water, because if they went back, we’d lose them in the brush and it would be twice as hard to hunt them down.

It took a long time for the kids to show up.  Rebecca must have had a
powerful
scope on her rifle.  Looking through my own scope, I could see the lead zombies heading through the opening in the brush that led over the water.  The zombies walked single file, and the ones who had been bitten earliest led the way.  They were grayer in color, with black circles around their eyes.  They walked quickly, but I knew they were capable of much faster movement.  Younger, fresher zombies were in the middle, and I felt a pang as I saw several that were Jake’s age.  They never had a chance to live.

I could almost hear Sarah and Rebecca count to themselves as the zombies crossed the bridge.  Ten passed, then twenty, and I was getting nervous that they weren’t going to fire, then I was getting
more
nervous because that was a larger group of zombies than I had expected to meet.

The air suddenly split above me with the sound of
high-powered
rifles.  Rebecca and Sarah worked their bolts like professionals, and kept the rounds pumping into the zombies.  The first five were dead and finished, and the rest stopped short at the sudden sound of gunfire.  Charlie and I opened up next, firing quickly, since our guns
were semi-autos.  I put down six on my side, and Charlie put down four more on his side.

The zombies recovered quickly enough.  Ten of them raced towards us, while ten more ran off the tracks towards the south.  Duncan and Tommy started firing, and the rest of us did, too.  We put down six more before they vanished underneath us.

“Duncan, Tommy, get out of there, they’re past us!” I shouted.  I expected them to run towards us and take cover in the van while we drove around and finished off the zombies.  What I didn’t expect
,
was the two of them run south, directly away from safety, and setting up a collision course with the ten who left the tracks.

Chapter 13

Charlie noticed it, too.  “Are you kidding me?”
He said, more to himself than
to
me.

“Come on, we have to get the other ones first!” I ran over to the other side of the bridge, covered by Sarah on the van. 

I looked over the side of the bridge and a small head looked back at me. 
Its
tousled hair was matted and bloody, and the face was bloody as well.  The lack of wounds told me the blood didn’t belong to the zombie.  The face snarled at me, and I put a round through it before it could duck away into the brush.  I didn’t see the other ones, so they were under there somewhere.

“Sarah!  Take the van and back up Tommy and Duncan.  Charlie and I will get these
three!
” I
shouted.  There was no point in whispering now.

“Got it!
  Be careful!”  Sarah scrambled off the roof of the van and got in, slowly pulling off the bridge and heading out after the dynamic duo.  Rebecca threw Charlie a small wave as she rode the roof to the rescue.

Charlie joined me on the side and used his rifle to guide his search as he looked over the side.

“Nothing here.
  Lot of brush over there, think they went that way?”

I shrugged. 
“Got to check.
  I’m going to walk wide, keep your rifle ready.”

I took the long way, circling wide around the base of the bridge.  Charlie leaned over the side of the bridge, keeping his rifle pointed at the ground.  If a Z jumped out from there, they were going to get a round through the top of their head.

I moved carefully, trying to ignore the firing I heard from behind me.  All it took was a second and these little bastards were up your ass.  I stepped carefully around the base of the bridge and out into the open. 
A small line of trees and brush
hid the railroad, so they could have been anywhere.