Convoy 19: A Zombie Novel (7 page)

Tracy nodded. “Will do.”

“Thanks,” Henry replied absent-mindedly. He opened a folder containing a map of every DDC in San Diego and carefully studied it. His eyes drifted to the dot that marked the Tierrasanta DDC where his wife was located.

He shook his head in disappointment as he fished his phone out of his pocket. He knew it was futile, and the lack of a response from Kelly would only make him feel worse, but he sent the text message anyway. “I Love you. I hope you’re okay.”

Chapter 10

Kelly sat on the ground with her back pressed against the stairwell entrance. Her feet slipped and slid on the linoleum, as she struggled to brace herself against the undead horde snarling and screeching on the other side of the door. Dr. Thomson fought alongside Kelly while he looked around for something – anything to use as a barricade.

Terrified children bawled at the sight of the struggle, but their parents rushed to aid Kelly and Dr. Thomson – the lives of their kids hanging in the balance. A handful of mothers and fathers had their full weight pressed against the door, but still it threatened to give way.

“What… what do we do?” Kelly gasped over the sound of scraping, splintering, and shrieking.

Dr. Thomson kept himself propped against the door as he slid downward and reached for the rifle Kelly had dropped. “We have to… we have to lure them away! It won’t hold.”

“How?”

Another heavy thud snapped the frame and flung the door open half a foot before it was slammed back shut. The moans and growls intensified. The promise of flesh worked the ghouls into a frenzy. Every moan or bang was a commotion that drew another curious undead monster to investigate and add its strength to the press.

Dr. Thomson sighed. He pulled himself out of the mass of desperate people pressing against the door. Sadly, he looked back at Kelly. He seemed to stare through her for a minute as if he were deaf to the chaos around him.

Kelly’s cheeks were streaked with the tears of her struggle. Exhaustion on her face, she looked back up at Dr. Thomson curiously.

“You’ve always been a great doctor and a great friend, Kelly.” Dr. Thomson’s bottom lip quivered. “You’re in charge now. Keep everyone safe. It won’t be hard to do a better job than I did.”

“What… are you…” Kelly began.

The upper corner of the door splintered open. A bloody claw groped through. Screams of horror rolled through the room, but someone grabbed the undead arm by the wrist and pinned it to the wall.

Dr. Thomson rushed to his office as quickly as his elderly frame would permit and flung the door open. A snarl erupted from the shadows of the office before being silenced by the thunder of gunfire. Four more shots rang out, and a moment later, Dr. Thomson shuffled back out of his office, smattered in blood. He stuffed small round objects into his pocket as he looped the strap of a second rifle over his shoulder. He made eye contact with Kelly again before making his way down the hallway to the roof top exit. He dragged a white sheet behind him.

“Where are you… going?” Kelly couldn’t finish the question before he disappeared onto the roof.

Another series of heavy slams hit the door and she gasped. Any second now, the door would snap off its hinges, or break to splinters and the dead would be on them.

“Kids!” Kelly closed her eyes. “Kids! Go to my office! Go! Go to my office and close the door now!”

The top hinge snapped off the doorframe, and the wood around the bottom hinge began to splinter. Kelly felt herself inching across the floor. The door was sliding open. Three arms wormed their way through the opening and fumbled around for purchase. A maniacal face pressed itself through the crack and snapped at the air wildly with bloody and broken fangs.

Others realized that they were fighting a losing battle and added their voice to Kelly’s.

“Sarah, take your brother and do what Dr. D says!” A woman shouted. “Mommy loves you.”

“Jean, get to Dr. D’s office. Go!” a man’s voice yelled out. “Go now!”

“Vince, hide, honey! Please hide, sweetie! Do what mommy says!” Another woman pleaded.

Kelly looked around for something, anything within arm’s reach that could help her. The children were paralyzed with fear and moved with slow confusion toward the office. That door wouldn’t hold either, but it might buy the children enough time to hide while the adults spent their lives delaying the undead onslaught.

“It’s breaking!”

“I can’t hold it!”

“They’re coming through!”

The deafening roar of an explosion drowned the commotion. The entire DDC shook, and sounds of breaking glass rang through the ground floor. Another chorus of screams erupted from everyone. The children wailed. Some stood paralyzed with terror, others hid beneath blankets or cots, and a few crouched down and wet themselves.

The pressure against the door subsided ever so slightly.

“Come here, you rotten motherfuckers!” Kelly heard a voice from downstairs yell. The sound of gunfire followed the taunt.

The force she struggled against weakened further. Kelly imagined mindless dead turning one-by-one from their frenzy to pursue the source of this new commotion.

A man and a woman took their weight off the door, rushed into the living area, and returned a moment later with cots that they propped up as a barricade.

“I wanted to help you!” the voice screamed again. More gunfire echoed through the clinic.

The undead limbs that had wormed their way through breaches in the door withdrew, and people worked as a team to pile everything they could find against it. Boxes, cots, chairs, shelves…every object that wasn’t nailed down was piled up as barricade.

Kelly was confused for a second. As dread filled her, she got to her feet, rushed to the roof where Dr. Thomson had gone, and looked around frantically. A white sheet hung over a ledge tied to a metal bracket. She looked down to see the tail of the improvised rope gently dangling low enough to allow someone to drop easily to the pavement below and enter the DDC through the hole in the wall of the music store.

“You don’t remember me, you ungrateful pieces of shit!” the voice came back again.

Kelly had never heard Dr. Thomson in the throes of rage. She barely recognized his voice. She gripped her hair with both hands and pulled as a sense of helplessness washed over her. Dr. Thomson was sacrificing himself, luring the ghouls away from the stairwell, to give everyone a chance to survive.

“You took my wife!” sounds of gunfire followed his scream.

“You took my children!” more gunfire echoed from the store into the streets. The small bands of undead that roamed the area began to take notice and wandered over.

“Come and get ME!” Dr. Thomson screamed. His voice was filled with anguish and anger.

A few quiet seconds passed, filled only with the moans and growls of the undead, and Kelly wondered if they had gotten Dr. Thomson.

Another explosion from inside the store knocked Kelly off her feet and sent a plume of debris and dust rocketing into the air. Kelly’s ears rung from the blast, and she rolled over and began crawling on her hands and knees toward the door. Exhaustion overcame her about twenty feet from her goal, causing her to collapse in a heap on the gravel roof. There she lay, staring into the purple dawn sky.

A million thoughts raced through her head. She thought of all the people she had cared for these past few months that were now dead, her friend, Dr. Thomson, who was also now dead, the hopelessness of the situation they were now in, and the face of her husband, Henry, that she had not seen in far, far too long. She lay there in silence, overwhelmed by the burden Dr. Thomson had placed on her shoulders. She hadn’t slept in weeks, but in this moment, she could sleep for a year.

“Dr. D?” A voice called out. A blonde woman stood not far from where Kelly lay. Her hair hung in ragged strands, her arm pits were soaked with sweat, and she braced herself against the wall in exhaustion.

Kelly turned her head to acknowledge the woman, but said nothing.

The woman stumbled over to Kelly and plopped down next to her. “I’m Nicole. You probably don’t remember me, but I’ve been here for a couple months with my son, Vince.”

Kelly heard the words, and summoned a lucid response. “Thanks for helping with the door. We couldn’t have held it without you.”

“We all would have died. No thanks necessary. Thank
you
. My son and I would be long dead without you and Dr. Thomson,” Nicole replied.

Kelly sat quietly as she struggled to form the words. “Dr. Thomson’s dead.” A tear began to streak down her cheek.

Nicole sat quietly nodding for a minute, a look of sadness on her face, “Yeah, he was a great man.”

“Mom?” A child’s voice rang out.

Kelly and Nicole looked over to the door. A small child, about five years old, stood peeking out.

“There’s a dead man talking in Dr. D’s office.” The child continued.

Kelly and Nicole looked at each other in confusion and then in fear. The living dead didn’t talk, but the child could have heard a sound from a newly risen ghoul that he mistook for words. Panic drove the women to their feet despite their exhaustion, and they marched back into the clinic.

The families had all retreated back into the living areas that they had called home – minus the cots and furniture. Small groups sat huddled under blankets on the floor, recovering from the night. As they made their way down the hallway to Dr. Thomson’s office, Kelly could hear a familiar voice. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there?”

She passed the barricade still piled in the hall. It was by no means impenetrable considering the condition of the door beneath it, but it would defend against a small handful of zombies. As long as they remained quiet, that should be all the protection they would need. Another undead frenzy, however, would spell doom for everyone unless a backup plan was developed quickly.

Kelly entered the room and looked around. Two dead bodies lay on the ground. Blood pooled beneath them, and they stared back at her with lifeless eyes. They were soldiers – men who had provided DDC security for months as the world fell apart. They had stayed at their posts and given their lives for her and the few remaining survivors.

The grenades clipped to the soldiers’ vests were gone. Dr. Thomson had intended on taking as many ghouls with him as he could, and grenades were not only a loud distraction that would catch the ghouls’ attention, but they were also a good way to avoid a painful death by tooth and claw.

“Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there?” The voice of Private Stenson repeated over a walkie-talkie the dead soldier had fixed to his belt.

Kelly grabbed the radio, and pressed the button. “Private Stenson? Is that you?”

“Dr. D?” Stenson asked with a mixture of relief and confusion.

“It’s me,” Kelly answered. “Where are you?”

Private Stenson paused for a moment as if considering where he was. “I’m in the sound-proof office with two civvies. What the hell happened? Where are you?”

“I’m upstairs in the clinic with almost twenty people.” Kelly answered. “How’s the situation down there?”

“Situation isn’t great, but we’re alive and no one’s bit,” Stenson answered.

“We have to figure out a way to get you up here.” Kelly realized that there may be other civilians trapped in the music store offices.

“I’m open to ideas, Dr. D. There’s a shit-ton of those dead fuckers down here,” Stenson replied. “Unless you have a plan, we might be stuck down here for a while.”

Chapter 11

The suburbs of San Diego were always much quieter than downtown. Where the densely packed population of the city had resulted in an apocalyptic urban environment of cramped oppression, the suburbs always maintained a sharp contrast - quiet and lifeless. Ghouls roamed the streets, yards, and sidewalks alone or in small packs. Carl hated the tranquility– it was seductive and comforting…and made it impossible to keep your guard up. The adrenaline had left him, and his mind drifted to the men and women who had been killed under his command: seven more at the roadblock. He and every other soldier in the convoy had learned to shut most of the grief out, but it always tickled at the back of their minds. There was no family to tell, and no remains to send home, just the emptiness that each man or woman left behind, and the gnawing guilt that they now numbered among the enemy.

“Do you think we could have helped any of those people?” Specialist MacAfee‘s voice rang out across the communications relay. Someone always broke the silence when the convoy hit a quiet patch. Being alone with one’s thoughts for any length of time was too much to bear for most people.

Pam adjusted the global positioning system on her laptop. “This is wrong; the road is blocked up here. Keep straight.” She instructed Carl, before responding to Specialist MacAfee. “The only way to get to the fleet is if you’ve been cleared by a DDC doctor. It looked like about half those people were bitten, and even if we somehow found the ones who weren’t and gave them a ride…they’d be turned away at the docks anyway.”

“We coulda taken them to a DDC and then back with us.” Private Barona’s voice came back.

“Why do you think we have orders not to do that?” A hint of anger rose in Pam’s voice. “Did you hear what happened in convoy six? Picked up a family on the road with four young kids – looked unhurt, desperate, just like everyone else out here. The dad had a hidden bite. He turned JUST as they got to the DDC and attacked the driver. The hummer went right through a fence, killing the crew and punching a hole big enough for every goddamn WD in the city to walk through. Lost the whole DDC and half the convoy…those are innocent people who died because some driver felt sorry for a complete stranger. I don’t like what we have to see on this job, but we have to do it and we have to do it the way we’re supposed to do it…or bad things happen.”

Stillness reigned for a few minutes, while the convoy team observed their surroundings. The area was once a middle-class neighborhood where the blue light of dawn would normally bring the rush of school and work. Instead, lawns that should have been finely manicured were overgrown, and garbage piled high on the sidewalks. Vehicles littered the streets, and every house hinted at a tragic story. The words “dead inside” were scrawled on a garage door. A sport utility vehicle was wrapped around a tree, dried blood on the windshield. A toddler’s tricycle sat motionless in a driveway, and missing person’s signs covered telephone poles and trees. As they passed through an intersection, they saw a roadblock flanked by sandbags. The fortification was abandoned, and two machine guns sat pointing at the sky. A half-dozen corpses lay scattered about the ground, and a single walking cadaver in military uniform leered at them as they drove by.

“Did you hear what happened to Convoy Twenty-Six?” Miguel’s voice cast out over the network. Soldiers couldn’t help but pass the time by sharing stories – horrible as they might be.

“No, what?” someone’s voice asked inquisitively.

“They got to their DDC and started loading up people and supplies. They didn’t know it, but a group of armed civvies had taken over the place. So when the crews were out of their vehicles, the civvies ambushed them.” Miguel continued.

“Man…” someone interrupted. The thought that they could be walking into just such a trap, did not appeal to anyone.

“So the remains of Twenty-Six starts heading back to the dock and gets to the checkpoint. Of course, they don’t have the pass code – probably didn’t even
know
there was a pass code. Control turns them away, but they decide to keep on going.” Miguel stopped, letting the anticipation build.

“What happened?” Another voice shot back, unwilling to let the story end without closure.

“What do you think happened? We’ve been consolidating bits and pieces from convoys for weeks now. You ever hear of anyone or anything from Twenty-Six? Cap blew the whole convoy to ash!” Miguel answered. “Control does
not fuck around
with fleet security. There are two Black Hawks in the air every second of every day, and if they have orders to bring the heat…that’s what they do.”

Silence crept back in, and more signs of an otherwise normal community that had tried to survive the rise of the living dead became evident. A white billboard read, ‘There is a vaccine! Supplies limited. Call 1-800…’ The rest of the number was obscured by red graffiti stating, ‘you killed my brother.’ As they passed a grocery store, a large sign plastered on the wall depicted a woman wrapping her children in a protective American flag. A dark figure leered at them next to the words: ‘Stay safe. He’s not your husband anymore.’

Government efforts to guide public behavior always had an element of patriotic propaganda in them. Pamphlets on how to construct a barricade properly were stamped with official government seals, and had testimonials from patriotic celebrity sponsors. Federally subsidized advertisements that provided information on how to sterilize water properly, or store food were always rife with nationalistic imagery. The undead crisis was handled so poorly that the government had spent its last remaining days in a state of damage control, desperately trying to repair widespread public outrage. Their efforts to advertize a contained threat and a priority of public safety, simply added to the perception that leadership was incompetent. Hordes of ravenous ghouls rampaged through every city in the world, and the failures of leadership were plain to see.

“Anyone hear what happened to Convoy Ten?” Sergeant Ornstein asked. Sergeant Ornstein had only been with Convoy Nineteen for a few days, but the man had seen a great deal while he was passed around from one destroyed convoy to another.

“I don’t think that’s a good story to tell…” Pam began, only to be shouted down by everyone who wanted to hear another tale.

Sergeant Ornstein continued. “I think it was about four months ago. The lead car of Convoy Ten decided to take a detour and grab his family in some out-of-the-way neighborhood. Everyone else in the convoy sees this, and decides they want to take a detour, too. So they decide to hang together and get everyone’s family and whoever else they find along the way. Whole convoy starts tearing off around California and stopping at every house they can… they really had their shit together, too. Made sure not to pick up anyone who was sick or turning- screened everyone with their own DDC doctor. They were real American Heroes…modern day Robin Hoods…who broke with military command and brought hope to the people stuck outside the DDCs. Everyone loved them.”

“Ever see a vehicle with the number ten written on the side?”

“Yeah,” someone’s voice responded over the network.

“That’s a nod to them. That’s a statement saying, ‘I’m here to help and I’m not with the military.’ It was a big deal. In an ocean of hopelessness, that one image that spells hope can spread like fire.” Sergeant Ornstein continued.  “So anyway, the crews are really feeling good about themselves. They were picking people up outside of L.A. - crazy shit, going to places that you can’t even imagine. Just when they’re feeling invincible, like they could drive to New York and back with someone’s long-lost Grandma, they run out of gas.”

“What? How does a convoy run out of gas? How stupid can you be?” Carl chuckled in disbelief, but glanced down at his fuel gauge just to check.

“Their plan was that they’d get gas wherever they could on the road, while they looked for a place to set up long-term. They didn’t realize that all the gas stations had been looted. So there they were, stuck just outside L.A., when every WD in the city starts crawling after them. I heard the firefight lasted all day, but in the end, every soldier and every civilian was swallowed up by the dead.”

“So if Convoy Ten is gone, how’d you hear the story?” Pam asked.

“I heard it from someone in the communications room at Control. As soon as Control realized the convoy had gone rogue, you can bet your ass they did everything they could to get it back home,” Sergeant Ornstein answered. “He said the last thing he heard over the long-range channel was everyone yelling that they were out of ammo, and then nothing but screaming. Then… and I don’t know if I buy this part…I think he just made it up to scare us, but… supposedly, after the screaming stopped…a few seconds passed before this deep raspy voice comes over the comm: ‘send more troops.’”

Stillness washed over the convoy again, as chills ran up their spines.

“How many convoys are left?” someone asked over the network.

No one answered for a minute, until Pam replied, “I’m not sure, us and maybe six others.”

“No way. Convoys aren’t supposed to operate with fewer than five cars. You think there are thirty five vehicles left? I bet there’s only two or three, counting us,” Carl replied.

Pam shot him an angry look and covered her microphone, “Carl!”

Carl looked back at her confused. “What?”

“You really think we need to be telling people we might be the last convoy in San Diego?” Pam remarked. “Maybe there’s three convoys left, hell, maybe we’re the only convoy left, but our guys don’t need to know that… and we sure don’t want them letting DDC civvies know that.”

“Contact up ahead.” Miguel turned his gun to face a group of figures visible beneath a flickering streetlight. While small groups of zombies could be ignored, it was military policy to fire on large packs, which were not only a danger to convoy teams and DDCs, but maximized the effectiveness of remaining ammunition.”

“WDs…open up,” Carl ordered casually. He recognized the shambling gait and slack-jawed motion of the undead from a mile away.

“Copy,” came back in the same unemotional monotone.

The machine guns atop the three hummers erupted in a rattling torrent of firepower.  The group of undead was pulverized. Carl watched body parts and gore explode in every direction. His eyes caught the form of a figure standing in the second story window of a nearby house. Framed by the yellow light behind her, she was dressed in a nightgown, middle aged, and expressionless – almost ghostlike. She held back a curtain as she watched the vehicles drive past…until they were out of sight.

Carl’s mind wandered. There were still living people hiding in barricaded houses and office buildings in this city. The Convoy couldn’t help everyone it encountered, but people like the woman in the window were, day by day, surviving against the odds. Their chances were slim, and food and supplies were limited, but—for the moment—they were alive.

“We’re approaching the DDC. Stay alert.” Pam’s voice came over the communication network. They approached a part of the suburbs that had started to grow thick with the walking dead. The clatter of machinegun fire and cacophony of moans punctured the serenity of the beautiful San Diego morning.

As they continued their way down the empty road, the community began to look less like a residential zone and more like a war-torn no-man’s land. Abandoned sandbag fortifications sat next to empty armored personnel carriers. The charred black frames of burnt-out houses poured gray ash into the air. Metal husks of overturned cars with broken windows littered the street and driveways. The ground was riddled with craters, and among it all lay the countless bodies of the deceased. There were no survivors here, only the dead and the undead.

Rising up from its cruel surroundings stood a school. The multi-storied brick building once filled with perhaps several thousand students, now stood as a battered but implacable bastion against the swarms of undead that assailed it. Snipers nests lined the roof placing the approaching convoy in their sights. Several dozen yellow school busses were parked front-to back and served as a defensive perimeter around the front of the school. With their tires deflated and their roofs lined with razor wire, their ten-foot-tall steel walls served as perfect protection from the lifeless hordes that raged below. More soldiers patrolled atop the wall and trained their rifles on the approaching vehicles, wary of imposters or raiders. Several hundred writhing, screeching, and angry dead packed themselves around the wall, clawing and scraping in frustration at the living flesh that stood just out of reach.

“Holy fuck…” Pam said, not realizing her microphone was on. This DDC was not the largest that they had seen, but it was by far the most battered. While every DDC gradually devolved from a friendly, clinical, civilian living area to a harsh militarized defensive entrenchment, this one had seen more than its share of horror.

A soldier on top of the improvised wall directed them to enter into an alley created by two buses. Once inside, a third bus drove into place to block the entrance before a fourth bus drove forward to provide the convoy access to the DDC; a makeshift zombie air lock.

Signage on the sides of the buses and walls of the school had been left in place from when the DDC was taking in refugees. The classic image of a pointing Uncle Sam asked, ‘Do YOU need to be here?’ with subtext that read, ‘You may be safer on your own.’ Another sign depicted an image of a family atop a shining hill with text that read, ‘There’s a place for everyone! Turn your home into a safe haven.’ Imagery of independence and self-reliance disguised the true intended message: The DDCs could not take in any more people, please go away.