Dawn of the Apocalypse: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel (8 page)

            "Please, we need help," a man called.  "We're starving.  We need food and shelter."

            "We don't have any to spare," Sean called.  "This is a dead end.  You'll have to turn back."

            My stomach churned.  Too much.  The world was losing its humanity.  All any of us wanted to do was survive.  I struggled to think of something, anything, we could do for them.

            "You have to help us!" the man cried, starting to get angry.  The crowd behind him agreed, looking more and more hostile.  Pleading faces began to turn angry.  "You have food.  We need food!"

            "We don't have enough," Sean said.  "We don't even have enough to feed our own families."

            Others back in the mob began shouting.  All I could do was stare.  They turned so fast.  I had a feeling we weren't first to turn them away.  Maybe we weren't the first they'd turned on and attacked.

            "Give us half!"

            They weren't asking.  The mob was demanding.  My eyes darted downhill.  More were coming, and they'd want their half.  And then the next mob would want their half.

            Sean's weapon was pointing at the sky until that moment.  He lowered it toward their spokesman.  I noticed his finger tighten on the trigger.

            The situation was deteriorating so fast.

            "Can't do that."

            The mob turned really ugly.  Even the children looked enraged.  I'd heard mobs could be infectious, making everyone within go crazy, but it was too farfetched to believe.  Until that moment.

            "Then we'll take it all!"

            They rushed towards us.  I'd never seen a mob go wild before.  Suddenly, they all had that same wild, furious look the zombies all had.  They went from a slow movement forward to a full on run in nothing flat.

            Sean raised his weapon, took aim, and shot the leader dead.  Paul, then Bill and Greg opened up next.  I gawked at the men and women dropping like flies.  My brain went numb.

            When Sean and the others opened fire, I only hesitated a second.  Thoughts of Timmy and Harlan being torn to pieces by that insane mob overrode all other concerns.  I started shooting, too.  The slaughter was horrific.  After only a moment the mob couldn’t take it any longer, so stopped and turned away.  We stopped firing when they began running away from us.

            "They'll be back," Sean said, looking sick, too.  "We don't have much time to prepare."

            My head began to spin.  I felt hot one second, and cold the next.  Then my breakfast surged up.  I bent over and puked.  Tears came in buckets as I sobbed and puked, over and over.

            "Oh god, I'm so sorry!" I cried.  "I don't want to become a monster, too."

Chapter 11

            The town looked abandoned.  We'd avoided all roads and towns until then.  Now we were almost out of fuel.  We'd even used the diesel in the jerry can.  So we turned onto a one-lane country road and followed it to that town before us.

            I killed the engine to save what little diesel we had.

            Standing in my seat, I looked the town over through binoculars.  The small town was atop a hill, surrounded by farm and ranch lands.  Scattered all around were small barns and other outbuildings.  The town itself looked like a grove of old hardwoods, with houses between and under the trees.  It looked quaint and peaceful.

            We were out in the open, but hopefully far enough away that anyone who took a shot at us would most likely miss.  No shots rang out.  I didn't see any movement.  I still felt exposed and vulnerable.

            "We go in on foot.  Find a gas station and some gas cans, and then fill them with diesel.  If the town is abandoned, then we should be able to each bring two five-gallon cans back," I said.  "Our tank only holds twenty-five gallons."

            "We should've stolen a vehicle with better gas mileage," Charlie said.  "I can still see the Rockies."

            Military vehicles were not known for fuel efficiency.  I hadn't realized it was that bad.

            "Keep your eyes out for a better option," I said.

            We went into that town like it was full of Taliban fighters.  Our caps were replaced with Kevlar helmets and all weapons ready with the safeties off.  We took our time and did it right.  No house was passed without checking inside.  Most of the houses were unlocked.  I could imagine how they never had to lock their doors.

            Of course there was no power.  I wanted to refill my canteen, but there were no water, either.  That was odd.  Every house showed signs of a quick departure.  The furnishings were mostly in order, but we found the odd piece of clothing or boxes of food on the floors.  Closets and cupboards were mostly empty.  Many of the doors were left open.

            I didn't see any old cars or trucks, just 1980 models up to present.  Some still had the keys in them and on.  The EMP hit them hard, too.

            We went into town through a residential area.  There were just three streets of houses.  On the second street we spotted the first zombie.  She was a middle-aged woman, naked, and bloody.  From about a hundred yards away, it looked like her hair was burned away, and much of her exposed skin badly burned.

            "That sucks big time," I said.  "I just want to put her out of her misery."

            We watched her test a door.  It was locked, so she pounded on it a moment.  She moved over to look in the window, and then moved to another.  She pounded on the second window, but didn't break it.  Then she vanished between two houses.

            "If there's one," I said, before darting across the street.

            I took a position to defend Charlie as he came over on the run.  He continued on past me, to check out the next street over.  Mike ran up to me, and then we looked in the windows, checked the back door.  It was locked.  So we hurried over to the back of the house Charlie was waiting next to, finding the back door wide open.

            "Bottled water," I said, and twisted off a cap.  I drained it quickly. There was a case of them.  It was probably overlooked when they bugged out.  Mike took a bottle to drink while we looked through the house.  "We'll set the rest out on the street to pick up on the way back."

            The house didn't offer anything else useful.  I carried the water out to the street, and took a bottle to Charlie.  While he drank the water, I ran across the street.  It was commercial and the main road through town.

            I looked down their main street.  It was two blocks of Great Depression era redbrick facades and sidewalks.  The block of shops across the street looked burnt out.  There was only a single red Chevy Silverado parked on that street.  The truck looked new.  I wanted it so badly, but knew its electronics were all fried.  The driver's side door was open, which meant the owner was trying to start it before abandoning it in a hurry.

            On the far side of downtown was a country store with pumps out front.  One of the signs displayed the price for diesel.  Bingo.  Except for the five zombies.  I waved Mike and Charlie up.

            "We have diesel and zombies, boys," I said.  "The question is, are there too many zombies in this town for us to handle?"

            "There's another issue we haven't discussed," Charlie said.  "How do we get the diesel out without electricity?"

            I felt like a total idiot.  Of course, in the Army, tanker trucks brought us fuel when we needed it.  They'd set up somewhere, and everyone in the unit would swing by and top off.  We had people whose only job it was to make sure we never ran out of fuel.

            I looked around the corner at the Chevy pickup.  It did not say "Diesel" so it was gas-powered.  There had to be other vehicles left behind with diesel.  We could siphon out of another vehicle, but I couldn't imagine what it would take to pump fuel out of an underground tank.  I knew I didn't have that kind of suction.

            "I think we have our solution," Charlie said.  He pointed at the red Chevy pickup.  "See the fuel tank behind the cab?  I bet that's a farmer's work truck."

            "So?" I asked.  "It's a gas pickup."

            "But I bet there's diesel in that fuel tank," he said.  "Farmers and construction workers carry fuel to their equipment in those tanks.  And it probably uses a manual pump, too."

            I looked past the pickup.  I could only see four zombies.  God only knew where the other one wandered off to.

            "I don't think we can push it fast enough to outrun those zombies," I said.  "There's just three of us, and that's a full-sized pickup."

            "We just have to get it out of the parking space," Mike said.  "It's downhill all the way to the Humvee."

            I still wasn't convinced, but what choice did we have?  There was no way we could get it moving without the zombies spotting us.  The question was if we had enough firepower to fight them off long enough to refuel our vehicle.

            "Let's check it out," I said.

            I went around the corner in a low crouch, M-4 at the ready.  Though heading for the pickup, my eyes were locked on the zombies two blocks away.  When I reached the truck, I peeked in the passenger window.  There were no keys, but it was a manual.  Five speed.  So I waved the other two guys up.

            "Check the fuel tank, Charlie," I said, while easing the passenger door open.  I slipped inside, scooted over to the driver's seat, and pressed down on the clutch.  After easing it into neutral and releasing the emergency brake, I slipped back out through the passenger side.  "Well?"

            "Diesel.  It's not full, but should be enough," he said.

            I dropped to one knee to survey the situation better.  The hill peaked about the halfway point of downtown.  We were on a slope, but not much of one.  The grade increased around the corner.  But the pickup was parked straight in, so we'd have to push it back enough to turn the wheels and clear the curb.  And the zombies were a block and a half away.

            "Okay, I think we can do this."  I moved over in front of the pickup, and leaned into it.  I was able to rock it easily enough by myself.  Movement at the corner of my eyes alerted me.  "The zombies have seen us.  Charlie, steer us back and around enough to clear the curb.  Help me push, Mike."

            Mike and I put our all into pushing that pickup away from the curb.  Charlie kept one hand on the steering wheel and also pushed.  The zombies were halfway to us, moving at a slow jogging pace.  One of them wailed angrily.

            "That's enough," Charlie shouted.

            He jumped in to wrestle the wheel around while Mike and I hurried around back and started pushing.  The pickup rolled forward just as I could distinctly hear the footfalls of the approaching zombies.  The truck started moving faster and faster.

            "Keep pushing!"

            I stopped and turned on the zombies.  With M-4 at the ready, I advanced on them.  Taking careful aim, I started shooting them in the head.  One.  Two.  Three down.  And then the other two were on me.

            I kicked one male in the knee, a loud snap filling the air.  He didn't cry out or anything.  The monster dropped to one knee.  I moved past him, keeping him between me and the other zombie.  She was a thirty-something woman.  I hesitated killing her because she kind of reminded me of Jenny.  They wore their dark, shoulder-length hair in the same style.  The zombie woman's throat was torn up pretty badly, and she was missing fingers off her left hand.  At least two of her front teeth were broken and bleeding.  Yet, she had the eyes of a demon.  Pure, unadulterated rage.

            Three more zombies, all young females, came rushing out of shops and hurried towards us.  A quick glance showed two more coming from the north side of town and pursuing the pickup.

            "Mike, watch out behind you!"

            The zombie plowed through the kneeling male.  He toppled over, one hand grabbing my left ankle.  I cried out and butt slapped the female.  She landed on top of the male.  I didn't even bother with aiming.  I pointed my rifle at their heads and opened up full auto.  Blood, bone, and brains splattered all over the road behind them.

            Ducking, I avoided the next zombie to reach me just as Mike opened up on his pursuit.  After pumping two rounds in her head, I lit up the next one from crotch to head in full auto.  I swear it all was in slow motion, and I saw every hit on her body.  Blood splattered, as she started doing that death dance as bullets pounded into her body.  One shot ripped her belly open, and intestines spewed out.

            My rifle locked back, the magazine empty.

            I charged the next zombie, and kicked her in the chest.  She went stumbling back, and that's when I saw four more coming around the corner by the store.  Ejecting that empty magazine, I slammed in another, racked it, and blew her brains out.  Then I took careful aim and took down two more zombies before turning to run.

            Rounding the corner, I saw the pickup was halfway to the Humvee.  It was going so fast downhill that Mike was riding on the bumper.  More zombies were emerging from homes and from the side streets.  Some were children.  Seeing that hurt so bad.

            "These mothers are multiplying like rabbits!" I screamed.  "Faster!"

            I couldn't stop running to aim, so did my best.  I emptied two magazines just running past those three side streets.  Most of the zombies were killed, but not all of them.  I worried about running out of ammo before I reached the Humvee.  I only had one more magazine.

            Charlie and Mike reached our vehicle before I was halfway.  I slowed down to shoot back at the zombies chasing me.  There were a dozen.

            "Where the hell are they coming from?"

            While Charlie refueled the Humvee, Mike moved across the road to get a better angle and helped lay suppressive fire.  Only zombies aren't afraid of anything, so there was no suppression from that fire.  Mike figured it out, and started hitting them.  He didn't kill any of them, but they fell down when hit.  That was enough to let me put some distance between us.