Apocalypse Atlanta (68 page)

Worse, some of the numbers she was trying included friends and former co-workers of Brett.  Most of them were fire fighters like Brett had been, or were friends with other people with emergency response jobs.  Just like everyone else she was trying, they weren’t picking up.  What worried her most about that was that nine-one-one and the two firehouses she had direct dial numbers for in her contact list, the ones Brett had worked at before his death, were all going as unanswered as everything else she tried.

The third option, perversely, was the one she liked the least.  Simply go home.  It was familiar, she knew where it was, and there was food and shelter there.  But she really didn’t want to do that.  She didn’t know if she could bring herself to . . . do anything to her mother.  Plus her father’s body was still upstairs, and if she returned there, that would have to be dealt with somehow.  She couldn’t imagine how she’d be able to get it moved, and she didn’t know where she’d move it to anyway.

Ultimately, she didn’t feel safe there.  The house was basically open for anyone, anything, who seriously wanted to get in, and the zombies seemed to always be serious.  The big glass doors that opened out to the back yard, all the windows on the ground floor . . . she thought she’d rather do almost anything else than have to stay there.

Jessica put the phone to her ear as the first number started dialing.  Ahead she saw the signs for I-85, and she could already see the lights that illuminated the interstate’s lanes during the night.  She’d pull over somewhere on 85 and make her calls.  Her prayers were now for someone to answer one of them.

* * * * *

“Alright, last time, anyone unclear on how this is supposed to work?” Peter said loudly over the sound of idling engines.

Mendez shrugged.  “Follow the car in front.  Touch bumpers and push if it stops or gets stuck.”  Heads were nodding along as he spoke, which was reassuring.  More of them were looking nervous.  It was a lot harder to ignore the zombies when they were standing only a few yards away, rather than dozens when you were also inside a safe building.

Now there were quite a few gathered up along the fence.  Some were reaching through, straining as they tried to reach for the humans on the other side.  Others just stood, staring hungrily.  Peter wasn’t sure which kind were more disconcerting.  They were all pretty unsettling.

“Right.” Peter nodded at Mendez.  “Blade people, you want to take another few practice stabs?”

“Fuck, it ain’t that hard.” Candles said.

“We’re about to step back out into the thick of it.” Peter said mildly.  “This is the time for people to get settled and ready.”

“We’re already in the thick of it.” Candles said.

“Dude, chill.” Hernandez said.

“Yeah, we’re going.” Whitley pointed out.  “Dorne, you said the gates were all set?”

The guardsman nodded.  “Totally.  Pull the last couple of bolts and the gate moves without power.  Slide and drive.”

“All front shotgun guys, you’re cover for Dorne when he opens the gate.” Peter reminded them.

“Some of us riding shotgun ain’t guys.” Whitley pointed out.

Peter grimaced.  “It’s just an expression.”

“I know, it’s fine.” she shrugged.

Peter glanced around.  “So, everyone okay?  Let’s hit it.”

He turned and got into the Bronco.  He’d siphoned some gas out of several of the vehicles they weren’t using to get the SUV’s tank up to about two-thirds, which should be enough one way or another.  As he settled his AR on the seat next to him he heard car doors slamming shut as the others piled into their own waiting vehicles.

In addition to the Bronco, he’d hot-wired three other sedans of various makes, a pretty well maintained Jeep Cherokee that he was wondering why the owners hadn’t fled with, and a completely riced out Honda CRX.  The street racer looked odd next to the other, more utilitarian vehicles, but Peter had actually been pretty happy to see it.

He wasn’t entirely sure the car had the power to plow through a big zombie crowd on its own, but that was fine.  They could push the little racer through.  What made it valuable to Peter was its low clearance.  The previous owner had, among many other modifications, lowered the car considerably.  As a result, there was not enough ground clearance for a body to get stuck underneath.

Crawford was driving that, at her insistence.  She revved the engine up a few times, then pulled up a couple car lengths before braking.  Peter swung in behind her, and eyed his rearview mirror until he saw the others sort themselves out.  He didn’t really care about the order so long as Crawford was first and he was second, and Smith was last in the Jeep.

When everyone was ready to roll, Peter blipped his high beams momentarily.  Crawford took off, sedately, in response and headed down the short stretch of street to the gates.  There were actually two sets of gates into the complex, but they’d decided to use the west ones since they opened out onto Courtland Street.  That would give them a straight shot down to the ramp where they’d passed the bus, and Courtland didn’t look overly crowded with zombies at the moment.

The shadows were long already, even though the moon was well up and almost completely full. For some reason the dark made the zombies that much scarier, even though it was silly.  Broad daylight, middle of the night; what did it matter?  The zombies would eat you either way.

Crawford braked just shy of the gates, and Swanson hopped out of the passenger side.  Peter couldn’t figure the two of them out.  They bickered a lot, and Crawford seemed to like threatening Swanson almost as much as Swanson seemed to like being threatened, but they didn’t have the ‘vibe’ of being lovers.  Based on their familiarity, he was convinced they’d served together before, but beyond that it was just strange to watch them go at one another.

Whitley had her door open before Peter finished stopping on the CRX’s bumper.  She ran to join Swanson at the fence, yelling something that made his head turn.  Peter couldn’t hear, but whatever it was Swanson was taken off guard by it.  Whitley grabbed his arm and pulled, and he moved with her off to the right of the gate.

Others joined them, Harper and Teves setting up on the left side of the gates while Nailor joined the other two on the right.  All of them started stabbing zombies through the fence’s vertical bars while Dorne fiddled with the gate’s drive train.  When powered, it would roll the gate aside, but without power it was like the gate was anchored in place.  But Dorne apparently knew something about how they worked, and now Peter watched as he removed something small and metal, throwing it aside.

After pulling something else off, Dorne grasped the gate and started pushing.  It moved, sliding to the right steadily.  He had it open in seconds, and moments after that the ‘gate team’ as Smith had called them once during the planning were running back to their vehicles.  The gate team had cleared or at least wounded most of the zombies who’d been gathered at that part of the fence, and the two who moved into the opening created by the gate were bumped aside as Crawford rolled through.

“Damn she’s eager as hell.” Whitley muttered, breathing hard as she slid back into the Bronco next to Peter.

“Yeah, she’s not lacking in confidence.” Peter agreed, taking his foot off the brake as soon as he saw Whitley was in.  Her door slammed as he reached the gate, and he turned left to line up behind Crawford.  There were two shots behind them, but when he looked the other vehicles were beginning to move.  Shrugging, Peter checked the street ahead.

Zombies were scattered across Courtland randomly, with a lot of those in view near the fence.  That was already changing, as zombies turned and began staggering into the street.  But Courtland looked basically clear up to the big intersection at Ralph McGill Boulevard.  Just a bit past that was where the off-ramp from the Connector joined up with Courtland.  That was where they were headed.

Peter blipped his high beams as he saw the Jeep start moving. Crawford took off again, faster than Peter would have liked, but still reasonably sedately considering.  It was just that when he wanted to hold to fifteen or twenty miles per hour, thirty seemed overly quick.  He accelerated to catch up, settling in close enough behind her to have gotten a middle finger from her had this been a normal drive without things like zombies or bombs in the equation.

Crawford swerved, the CRX darting to the right smoothly as she cranked the wheel, then back to the left a few seconds later.  Peter followed, and saw in his mirrors the rest of the ersatz convoy sinuously weaving like a snake around zombies in the way.  The instructions were to not ram or run over anything they didn’t have to.  The vehicles would last longer that way.

When they reached Ralph McGill Peter looked in both directions.  East was clear for about three blocks, but to the west, at the next intersection, he saw a fairly large crowd milling about.  “Fuck, I hope they stay there.” Whitley said.

“Pray.” Peter said with a shrug.  “Maybe it’ll get heard.”

“Sure, why not.”

Crawford moved the CRX over to the left as far as she could as the meridian separating exit ramp from street ended.  Peter swung over with her, then followed as she began a wide U-turn to the right.  She clipped three zombies during the turn, knocking two of them aside while the third seemed to get hung up somehow on her hood.  Peter frowned, but concentrated on staying with her and not hitting the Honda.  He risked a single glance at his mirrors, and saw the other vehicles still with them.

Crawford finished her turn and began rolling down the exit ramp.  A few seconds later, she swerved over to the right, putting the CRX almost in the grass between the asphalt and the beginning of the retaining wall at the Courtland/Ralph McGill intersection.  Peter had an idea what she was doing and didn’t follow her over; instead he slowed some.

Sure enough, a moment later she jerked the Honda very sharply back to the left.  The zombie on her hood tumbled off into the grass.  Peter watched as she got the CRX under control and stabilized right on the dotted line dividing the ramp into its pair of lanes.  He closed back up on her bumper.

About fifty or sixty yards ahead was the bus, just in front of the overpass that allowed Ralph McGill to cross over the Connector and exit ramp.  Peter eyed the big vehicle critically, beginning his evaluation.  It was sitting at an angle across both lanes, front end against the retaining wall on the left.  Long black lines of skid marks on the asphalt showed that it not been left that way in a calm and routine fashion.

There was just enough room at its rear end for a vehicle to fit around by going onto the grass.  Peter hoped Crawford wasn’t going to try to put the street racer she was driving over the uneven surface without good reason.  The Honda was so low Peter had no idea how the former owner had dealt with things like speed bumps.  Fortunately Crawford did stop near the back of the bus, but shy of the grass.  Peter pulled out around her and slowed to crawl, more out of a concern for what might be on the other side of the bus than for the Bronco’s suspension.

As he eased past the bus he put the high beams back on.  The underside of the overpass was already fully dark where the SUV’s headlights didn’t hit.  He saw immediately why the bus had stopped where it had; there were two cars and a small pickup blocking the lanes.  Peter paused so the headlights stayed on the scene and studied it carefully.

“See anything moving?” Peter finally asked.

“Nope, looks okay for the moment.” Whitley replied.

“Okay.”  He cranked the wheel over and turned sharply to the left, then backed up to the right some so the Bronco’s headlights covered the front of the bus.  “Let’s get to it.” he said, setting the brake and opening his door.

Peter stepped out and slung his AR behind his shoulder, then folded the Bronco’s seat forward so he could reach his ILBE.  Carrying it in his left hand by the top handle, he headed for the bus.

“Ramp is blocked behind us.” Smith said, coming around the back of the bus.  “Took all three cars and the Jeep, but the only way anything’s getting past without moving them is crawling or climbing.”

“Good.  Guards posted?”

“Hernandez and Mendez are setting their people now.  And mine are right behind me.” Smith said, turning as other Guardsmen started coming into view, Candles leading them.

“So far, so good.” Peter muttered.  Then, louder.  “Set up and watch the Connector.  Roper, Oliver, you two hold position there.” He pointed at the back of the bus.  “Keep an eye open in both directions and sing out if there’s a problem.”

“Got it.”

Peter turned back to the bus.  Dropping his pack near the door, he dug his hands through the rubber fittings that covered the cracks between them and pulled.  Slowly, moving but reluctantly, the doors parted.  Peter had just gotten them fully open when two things happened almost simultaneously; a cold and squishy hand grabbed his wrist, and a gun went off, twice, right next to his head.

“Jesus!” Peter blurted, instinctively pulling back even as he clawed for his pistol.  The expected resistance was already gone, and he stumbled and fell on his ass in the road.  But his M45 was out and pointing vaguely in the direction of the bus as he tried to focus his thoughts past the ringing.  His left ear felt like it was completely submerged in water.

Whitley was standing to his left, her M-16 up and against her shoulder.  Her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.  Peter blinked and saw a zombie corpse sprawled on the steps of the bus, right next to the driver’s seat.  There were pieces of . . . head and brains he guessed . . . splattered across the left side of the windshield and the left window and the driver’s seat.