“Redrye,” he whispered.
Six to go.
*
The sun had just passed its zenith when he blew up the next station in a roar of flame and a trembling of earth. Bits and pieces of debris cascaded down like smoking meteors, bouncing off the asphalt as he thundered down the street to the next gas station. He’d lingered at the third until a handful of zombies had come out from some nearby houses, reminding him to get in his truck and focus on his task. Gus drove the length of a football field, then stopped to gaze back at the dark figures still pursuing him, walking along at their own speed.
A monstrous gout of flame blurred them away.
On the south side of the city, near the infamous cul de sac where Gus had almost cashed in his chips twice, stood a dilapidated gas station with a built-on convenience shop and diner. As he went about setting the fuse, he looked at the nearby houses and roads, searching for the mob of zombies he’d encountered twice. Not one deadhead showed itself, which made Gus more concerned than anything else. He would have liked catching the entire crowd in a blast of flame as payback.
He polished off another bottle of rum as he pulled away from the doomed station. Moments later, the earth shook, and flames shot skyward like demons escaping hell. Black clouds of smoke hid the damage, but Gus knew it had to be massive.
The fourth and fifth stations, really nothing more than gas bars, were more like carefully studied experiments as Gus drove only as far from them as he believed necessary after lighting the fuses. He parked the pickup close enough to witness the underground tanks of the fourth station explode spectacularly. He glimpsed the earth erupting from below, flinging up chunks of asphalt, dirt, rocks, and even tree roots to rain down half a kilometer away. The fifth station went up with just as much force. He felt the breath of the blast through his visorless helmet. The explosion was strong enough to make him fear again, and he steadied himself against the pickup, staring in mute awe at the uncoiling blooms of smoke blotting out the once blue sky. He even heard occasional explosions from parts of the city where the other stations had gone up earlier in the day. Apparently, the fires were spreading.
The increasing smoke veiled the sun, and Gus felt daylight creeping away from him. There were the remaining two stations he had to get to, and he felt a growing need to destroy them before he left the city that night. He didn’t understand exactly why, but he believed the element of surprise was gone. The dead knew what he was doing, and he sensed something was hunting him in an attempt to stop him from further destruction.
“Red fuckin’ rye!” Gus screamed in the crumbling aftermath of the third station’s explosion. He sped away from the bubbling black smoke and raging fire.
17
The second to last gas station was part of one of the smaller, independent hardware shops Gus had once visited long ago. Trying to compete with the larger chains that had invaded the valley, Rodmell’s One Stop had had its business slowly sucked away until only the older, loyal customers frequented the business. Al Rodmell had been an old codger with a reputation as something of a bigot, someone not to cross, as well as a solid mechanic. It had been a year and a half ago, give or take a month, since Gus had last visited the One Stop, which sold gas, ethanol, and hardware and serviced vehicles, including the larger transports trucks. Gus remembered old Allister preferred to work on the big vehicles as, in his words, “That’s where the money is..
At that time, Gus had found old Al and two of his sons, still in their blue work coveralls, turned into gimps. The three men had been some of the first gimps Gus had to put down.
Across from the One Stop was an out-of-place duck pond and sitting park, nestled between two great forested hills covered in melting snow. He parked his pickup in front of the duck pond, a little closer to the station and its tanks than he had the others. He got out of the truck with his Benelli in hand. The roads and immediate area were empty of zombies, and he saw nothing but smoke in the sky, even faintly tasting it on the air.
He quickly located the small manhole cover that gave access to the underground tanks and pulled it off with a crowbar. Standing and catching his wind for a moment, Gus realized that he was next to a hardware store and that old man Rodmell just might have carried motorcycle helmets. He didn’t like walking around without a visor, as he remembered all too well the incident where he thought he’d swallowed some deadhead’s fleshy matter. A dark time that was, probably the darkest, and he sent a silent thanks to Scott for saving him.
Uncapping the pipe, Gus jabbed the end of the bed-sheet fuse inside and walked the other end back to the truck. When the fuse ran out with ten feet or so to spare to his pickup, Gus walked back to the station. On the side of the building that had two bay doors for the service and repair department, Gus eyed a number of tall green and gray cylinders. The cylinders lured him away from the hardware shop, pulling him off his intended path like iron to a magnet. Some of the containers had numbers and letters stamped on the sides, but Gus didn’t know what they meant. He did know what was in the cylinders. Studying the dozen fuel containers, he remembered a conversation with a buddy who worked in propane. The guy had told him that the gas was stored as a liquid in cylinders, and a person could pour it out onto the ground. He didn’t know how many liters were in a standard cylinder, but he did know that one liter equaled two hundred and seventy liters of vapor. Vapor was what he wanted, where all the magic was.
And there were a dozen of those cylinders lined up in front of him. A grim smile spread across his face. He’d found a much more potent firebomb than mere Molotov cocktails. He reached out and caressed a cylinder, fingers grazing the metal shell. Finding them was a good omen if ever there was one. He paused only a second longer before running back to his truck.
Backing the truck up to the cylinders took only a few seconds, but loading them into the bed proved much more difficult. Keeping the first container upright, he rolled it on its base to the lip of the tailgate before almost breaking his back lifting and finally pushing the thing into the bed. He climbed in behind it and moved the mountain bike and remaining fuses, taking care with the tip of the cylinder, which wore a protective metal cover over the valve that dispensed the gas.
It took him ten minutes to load one cylinder. Figuring he could only lay three more in the back of the pickup, he took the next half hour getting them packed. When all was done, he had four green torpedoes aboard the truck and felt ready for war.
“Hey!”
Gus froze as if he’d just been caught stealing. A good fifteen meters away, across the street and partially obscuring the duck pond, a beat-up, red, four-door sedan was parked. The driver of the car stood on the other side of it with only his shoulders and head showing. Not able to see his features, Gus didn’t know what to make of the man who suddenly waved at him.
“Hey!” the stranger repeated, arm pausing over his head as if wondering if all was well.
Gus jumped over the side of the truck and took cover, his heart racing.
Who’s that guy?
the captain wanted to know.
“Fuck if I know,” Gus answered as he opened the door to the pickup and slid out the Benelli. “But I don’t want him around.”
He eased up over the edge of the truck and pointed the shotgun at the stranger. The newcomer became still at spotting the weapon, arms suddenly dropping to his sides.
Gus used the scope and targeted the man’s head. The guy was older, with short-cropped silver hair. Gus squeezed the trigger.
The old man ducked a split second before the gun went off. The window on the passenger side of the car shattered.
“Goddamn!” Gus stood up and unleashed the full might of the weapon upon the car. Seven shots punched the air, shattering the passenger door and the windshield, speckling the hood, the two doors, and both windows facing him.
The driver took the hint and jumped into his car while Gus stopped to reload. Five seconds later, the battered car screeched down the road.
Stuffing shells into the breach, Gus ran out from behind his truck, far enough to get a clear shot at the escaping car. When the last shell went into the Benelli, he braced the skeleton buttstock against his shoulder and targeted the rear of the car. Four more shots rang out. The back windshield of the sedan crumbled. The trunk flew up and fluttered. The vehicle swerved out of his line of fire and disappeared down a side road before he could take aim at the tires.
“Goddamn redneck.” Gus stared in the direction the car had gone, just in case the driver decided to come back. It would be a mistake if he did. Gus no longer needed booze to shoot a man, not if the fight was being brought to him.
He stood on the parking lot of the One Stop, waiting and watching, before finally realizing it was best to get moving. He had all the propane he could safely carry in the truck, and––
A moan came from behind him. Then, he smelled it.
Gus whirled to see the biggest zombie he’d ever encountered. The thing towered over him, naked from the waist up, with a chest clawed open to several gleaming ribs. Its face was swathed in reeds of congealed grease and hair, with widened jaws filled with nubs of black teeth. Glints of black coal eyes mesmerized him for the second it took the monster to close in. It swung a heavy arm and caught Gus across the helm, knocking him over and sending his shotgun flying. Gus rolled onto his back. The gimp bent down, reaching with fingers that had been worn into bony points. Gus lashed out with one foot, sweeping the legs of the creature that might have been a basketball player in its life. The thing crashed to the ground.
Gus scrambled to his feet and stomped on the zombie’s left knee, breaking it with a sick sound. A hand snaked out and gripped Gus’s right knee, as if wanting it to replace the one just lost. Gus brought his foot down on its face, destroying the nasal cavity of the beast. Another stomp and the zombie stopped moving.
Gus didn’t stop until he had crushed the head into a pulp. .
He drew back from the unmoving mass and took a deep breath. The streets were empty, the car he’d shot at long gone. Smoke continued to thicken in the sky, and shrugging off his shock at the attack, he retrieved his shotgun and gave it a quick inspection. Before he did anything else, he plucked red shells from his bandolier and fed them into the Benelli. Thoughts of where the creature had come from, along with who had been driving the car, jammed his head.
Who was that guy?
That was all he needed. Another human pain in the ass. He didn’t need to be looking over his shoulder for living predators. The dead ones were bad enough.
None of it mattered in the end, he supposed. He might have missed the man in the car, but he had driven him off and put down one more dead thing. And the best part was, Gus was only getting started.
He went into the store’s hardware section. The place had been ravaged, but there was an amply stocked motorcyclist’s department, and within moments, he found a generic black motorcycle helmet. He pulled off his ruined one and tried on the new helmet, grunting at the snug fit.
“I’ll take it,” he announced, patting the new helmet. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to search any further in the store. Jogging back out to the truck, he checked the propane again before jumping aboard and driving out to where he’d left the fuse. Moments later, the fuse burned to its explosive conclusion while Gus raced away, heading toward the middle of town.
The blast still made him jump in the driver’s seat.
One station left
, he told himself in the fiery afterglow.
And then the grand finale.
18
The sun started slipping toward the mountains as Gus parked his pickup, pointed away from the final gas station. He got out and studied the building he’d come to destroy. Irving’s Gas Bar and Convenience, a red sign declared, and Gus remembered rooting through the place about two years ago. Located on the main drag of the city, just before the numerous shopping malls and superstores, the Gas Bar had been a first stop for several panicking individuals back when the zombies were taking over.
“Dark days,” Gus muttered, and the captain agreed. Gus looked at the sky filled with storm clouds of smoke.
All because of him this time.
A depressing thought, but ultimately destroying the stations and the city had to be done. War had casualties. Annapolis would be the casualty of his war.
His attention drifted back to the station. Time was growing short, and he had to light the place up relatively fast if he wanted to blow up the Western Oil facility, and he very much wanted to do that before escaping the blazing city. Standing at one end of the building was a large cylindrical propane tank, painted ocean blue and mounted on its side on concrete blocks. The tank probably held the same as two dozen of the smaller ones he had in his truck, perhaps more. He knew it would deliver a respectable secondary bang after the undergrounds tanks went up.
The expanse about the station appeared clear, but he couldn’t see very far back the way he had driven because of the smoke choking off the street. He put on his new helmet, grabbed a fuse, and made his way to the tanks. He knelt on the asphalt and wrenched back the cover protecting the pipe. After removing an inner lid, he stuffed the cloth fuse down the hole using the coat hanger.
Gonna burn, baby, burn big
.
He unrolled the lump of cloth as he walked backward to the truck, looking around as he got closer to it. With the exception of the gimps he had run down and the basketball corpse, he hadn’t come across the mob that had almost killed him twice. Nor had he seen any rats, not that he expected to see any of them during the day.
The fuse ran out at sixty feet, just before he got to the truck. He dropped the end on the pavement and fished out his lighter. Stooping, he thought of bad horror movies, where anything that
could
go wrong
would
go wrong. He paused for a moment, catching the faint smell of gasoline on the fuse. He flicked the lighter, got a tall flame, and applied it to the end. The fuse ignited, and flames followed the fuse to the tanks. Gus went around his truck to the driver’s side, leaned in, and started the engine. He checked and saw that the ribbon of flame was halfway to the target, and debated whether he should waste time watching the place explode.