LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (52 page)

Which was basically a much more violent version.

Instead of a plow, this machine had an attachment that was designed to cut down trees and hold them together with a giant claw. Located at ground level—roughly a foot above the earth—the saw would neatly remove the ability of the zeds to offer an resistance in my front quarter. Once they were unable to cluster against the front, the large tires would do their work, and I would drive the requisite distance on a bloody carpet of de-legged zombies.
 

 
Lovely, huh?

Eli had memorized the manuals and was walking me through the controls, which were remarkably difficult for a seemingly simple machine.
 

“And don’t forget that if the engine stops because it’s overheated, you have to give it time, or you’re going to flood it and if it floods it’s going to take a while to restart.”
 

“Got it. What does this do?” I pressed a red button on a joystick emerging from the panel in front of me.

“Don’t!” he yelled, but it was too late. The large attachment in front raised slowly and I heard a hellacious whirling sound, like metal gears grinding the bones of the damned.

In front of the machine Ethan bolted back from where he had been working on a nearby vehicle, mouth visibility contorted with a flood of curse words. I grimaced slightly and waved a brief apology.
 

“That’s the arm control,” Eli said, exasperated as he shut down the saw and lowered the rig.

“As long as you’re already there, I guess we can get into that.”

The plan was as simple as it could be. And just about as stupid.

We had to get Bessy out to draw them away. In order for Bessy to leave, we had to open the gates. If we opened the gates, a flood of those creatures would overrun the position, making it difficult—if not impossible—to shut them again. Once they were in, they would make directly for the mill.
 

In theory, once Bessy and I were on the road to ruin, the bulk of the herd would follow our show. But there would be hundreds, if not thousands, who would insist upon punching the tickets of anyone still inside the perimeter.
 

That’s where Ethan’s background as a cattle rancher centuries ago came in really handy.
 

“You loop the chain through the gates. As they open, you let the chain slack out until it’s lying on the ground. Those bastard fuckers will come in over the chain. Then you,” he had pointed at me over the dusty table in the light of the rising sun as we pulled the crappy plan together. “Get your ass through on that bone crusher of yours. Once you’re through, we take up the slack. The tractor throws it into reverse. The chain is attached to the tow hitch on the front.
 

As it reverses, it takes up the slack between the two gates and pulls them shut. I ain’t never met an obstacle that couldn’t be defeated by a Caterpillar engine. We’ll have a few to deal with inside, and they’ll probably be able to squirt through the gap in the fence one or two at a time, but it ain’t gonna be like opening the gates to Hades.”
 

In theory, it sounded solid. We open the gates, I leave, we close them again with a huge tractor assist.
 

But that was this morning. Now, half a day later, and nearly time for my grand exit, they were starting to top the fence. And I was on the verge of hanging my ass out in the wind.
 

The sun was invisible behind the thick, ash laden sky above. But we could tell time by the amplifying chorus of the undead. No longer were they simply clustered at the front of the compound. They had nearly completed a full encirclement, with thousands now ringing the fence.
 

Even more ominous was the fact that nearly a dozen of them had already pushed themselves clumsily over the front gate, and shambled close enough for Rhi to take them out from her overwatch on the roof.
 

“It’s getting dicey out there,” she shouted down from her perch, a long metal walkway that ran along the entire ridge at the apex of the slanted metal roof. A slim ladder ran from a small doorway and fire escape on the second floor up to this vantage point.

“We just need another ten minutes,” said Reggie as we struggled with the heavy sliding doors at the front of the mill. In addition to Bessy, we had managed to get two other machines working and had moved them into defensive positions already. Both machines were identical, and they looked capable of inflicting some punishing damage on enemies that couldn’t comprehend the danger.
 

We just called them Grinders 1 and 2. And they looked it. Eli said that they were designed to cut through brush and grind down rough edges. With each attachment roughly three feet wide, and operated at the end of a long, fifteen foot articulating arm with a fairly accurate joystick inside the cab, the grinding head could be maneuvered quickly and violently in a full circle of motion. The operator wasn’t quite as protected as they were in Bessy, but the cab was still about four feet from the ground on top of two huge treads.
 

We had stationed one right inside the main gate, and one directly inside the main doors to the mill, which were our biggest liability. Although made of steel, they were large and on tracks, lacking the proper locking mechanism to get them sealed tightly. We had used Bessy to help drag a large conveyor belt in front of the main doors, and had even managed to pull several large tree trunks—felled months ago but never processed—across the doors.
 

Since the doors slid open to each side, rather than in, we had also done our best to jam the thick steel tracks that each one was on by pressing more machinery behind them.
 

But they were still a liability. The steel was thin, and the structure wasn’t built to withstand thousands of pounds of force distributed along the entire length. At some point, it would give.
 

That’s why Grinder 1 was positioned at the point most likely to see the first invading corpses, on the other side of the blocking conveyor belt, nearest to the centerline of the doors. The theory was that as they came through the gap, they would have to push under or over the conveyor, which would slow them down. Guns from the second floor would take out the remaining creatures.
 

We were using the rear door to enter and exit the building—a single slab of steel that had no handle on the outside, and would be damn near impossible for those things to push in once it was locked.
 

“I’m going to check on Kate and the other Grinder and then mount up,” I said, waiting until Ethan nodded once and then slipping out the back. We had gone over the plan several times, and there was no need to belabor the point. Either it worked, or it didn’t.
 

We didn’t have much of a choice.

Jogging, I found Kate and Eli staring at the fence, with Ky scanning the rest of the perimeter. Grinder 1 was parked about twenty feet back from the gates, its treads pointed toward the massing horde. Several gunshots rang in the air as Ky zeroed in on the creatures topping the fence and sent them wheeling back into the crowd.
 

“We don’t have long here,” she said over her shoulder, as Kate squinted into the herd and turned to me. Eli slipped past her into the cab of the machine with a large sheet in one hand. Suddenly, the roar of the huge engine drown out the moans of the undead clambering for entrance.

“Everything good with the chain?”
 

Kate nodded and gestured at the thick length of metal coiled in front of the Grinder.
 

“When we pop the gate, it’ll open from the center and the chain we looped through this morning—quite fun, by the way, I got a nice little nip on the hand for the effort—will drag out until the gates are open against their stops. You drive through. Once you’re clear, we back this beast up until we’re pulling the looped chain tight again. Kind of like rustling a big cow.”
 

“Except this cow eats
you
,” I said absently.

“So eloquent, Mr. McKnight,” she muttered. Three more shots sprang from Ky’s rifle as Eli shouted over the engine noise.

“You’re good in here.” He glanced to the gates. “Sure you don’t want me to stay with you?”
 

Kate laughed and shook her head, pulling the boy out.

“No thank you. You get your butt inside with the rest of the kids.” She paused and put her hand on his head. “Thanks for your work, Eli. You did a great thing here, helping us with these machines. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
 

The child’s eyes showed a light that had been absent, and he smiled briefly then jumped down, as if hiding his emotions.
 

“No problem,” he said curtly, then started running up to the mill.
 

“Talkative,” I joked, then turned to Kate. “You have your sheet?”

She frowned and stared at the rumpled dingy sheet of canvas sitting near the floorboard.
 

“For whatever good it might do me. I can’t believe you did that.”

“Believe it,” I said, watching as two more flopped onto our side of the fence. “It’s why I’m alive right now.”
 

Ky circled to our side of the Grinder with her rifle still raised.
 

“You kids ready? We really should get this show on the road.”

I nodded then turned to Kate. Her eyes were heavy with emotion, her mouth already beginning to move, to form the words I knew she would say. I cut her off.

“It’s nothing,” I said, smiling. “We’ve done stupid shit like this before, and we will again. It’s one of the burdens of being superhuman, right?”
 

She bit back what she had been about to say and nodded, though a tear managed to escape her left eye. She blinked quickly.

“I just … I feel like I’ve lost so much. I’m on the verge of losing hope. I can’t lose you. Not again. Not this way.” Her hands came up to my face, cupping my cheeks gently as she leaned in and kissed me deeply.
 

I could taste the tears on her face as she pressed herself against me and then suddenly released, her hands wiping away the evidence of her anxiety.

“We’ll see you back here in a few hours. Bring the beer.” She managed a quick laugh before turning on her heel and mounting the Grinder.
 

“I’ll be here in two and a half. With whiskey.”
 

Empty promises. The cornerstone of any good relationship. Especially while you were both on the verge of a bloody, painful death at the hands of a horde of slavering undead.
 

“Hate to break this up, but …” said Ky, her voice slightly anxious.

“Yeah, yeah, kid. Let’s go.”

***

“How did you even find this crap?”

“No judgment, man. You want to use my iPod or not? Considering you’re probably riding to your stupid death and nobody’s offering shit for download nowadays, this is a gift of immense post-apocalyptic significance.”

“I’ll take it, I’m just curious. It doesn’t seem like your style.”

“It’s retro, dude. Get with it.”

Ahh. Retro. That explained it.
 

I guess Britney Spears wasn’t something that teen girls were supposed to like anymore. It certainly seemed a little out of place to me. But I was a hundred years old, so my opinion was suspect.
 

“You know how to use this, right?” Her voice was laced with old-fogey contempt and I gave her a tight smile.

“It’s just like the ones I used on my brontosaurus on my way to the rock quarry, right?”

She gave me a blank look. From the roof of the mill, three shots rang out in sharp succession.
 

“Whatever, gramps. Play, back, forward, etc. Volume here. I’ve got this rigged to two portable speakers on the top, and two I rewired from the stereo in the office. You should be decently loud with those. My favorite part, though, is this.” She smiled as she reached forward and plugged in a cigarette lighter adapter in the front console.

Christmas lights, strung from every conceivable vantage point, burst into vibrant, blinding light. Three spot lights, stolen from various vehicles, pierced the midday gloom, making solid lines in a faint dusting of falling ash.
 

“Wonderful,” I said, genuinely amused.
 

“So I’m riding to my death in a vehicle that Elton John would have been ashamed to ride to Liberace’s house, huh?”

She looked at me, her face blank. No Flintstones references. No Elton John references. How did these kids make it to adulthood?

“We thought it was fitting.” She added. “And it does have a giant killer saw.”

Laughing out loud at the absurdity, I swooped in and caught her up in a huge hug.
 

“It’s perfect. And it could be worse. You could have had only Justin Bieber.”
 

“Word,” she muttered against my chest.
 

Score! I used a reference she understood! That’s it!
 

Drop the mic, I’m out.

“You know you’re not allowed to ditch us again, right?” Her voice was worried as she pulled away, even as two more shots rang out from the sky.

“Even if I find better friends with a much improved taste in music?” I smiled and mounted the vehicle, turning the engine over and sitting down in the cab, a canvas tarp wadded up in the corner. The controls seemed foreign to me, but I had survived my hour-long indoctrination with Eli, so I knew where everything was located. It would be interesting to employ my knowledge surrounded by thousands of the undead.
 

“Especially,” she said shortly, adjusting a string of lights on the top of the cab and pointing the spotlights to angles that shot out horizontally, so they couldn’t be missed as they moved along.
 

I checked the fuel gauge and she slapped the roof and jumped down, her face even with the open door.