DEAD RAIN: A Tale of the Zombie Apocalypse (10 page)

24

The troopers hurried across the barracks parking lot to their assigned SUVs. Each unit had canvas tactical bags loaded with ammo and extra magazines, riot helmets, tactical trauma kits, SWAT vests and semi-automatic rifles.

Cat realized this was no routine mission. She’d been sent off on similar tasks in Afghanistan, and was feeling the same vibe now.
Something about this doesn’t smell right,
she thought.
What aren’t they telling us?

“Yo, Otis,” Bronski shouted. “Where are you guys headed?”

“Down to the prison farm,” the burly black trooper replied. “They told us to wait there, pending further orders. How about you?”

“The back road down to the Courthouse.”

“Damn. You get all the action. Wanna trade?”

“Action?” Bronski replied. “We’ll be driving right into the storm while you’re parked on your can in a nice warm office.”

Otis winced. “That prison farm stinks like horse shit.”

Bronski shrugged. “Luck of the draw
, big guy. Catch you later.”

They climbed into their SUVs and headed out. As they drove to the overpass leading to the main roads they saw troopers positioning SUVs and barrica
des, preparing to set up a roadblock.

“They know more than they’re telling us,” said Cat. “Look how they’re buttoning this place
up.”

“Better safe than sorry, Princess.”

“Safe from what?” Cat asked.

“That’s what we’re going to find out. Buckle up.”

25

The little Chevy crawled towards Route 9, heading away from the coast. The rain had picked up again. The headlights barely made a dent in the teeming downpour. The road was pitch dark. The poorly drained streets were quickly flooding.

Ryan gazed at the hulking black buildings along the roadside and realized the power was out in the
entire area. He checked the Chevy’s fuel gauge. The warning light was on, a cute little orange gas pump indicating that the tank was almost dry. He felt a little sick to his stomach, knowing he was heading into the thick of the zombie infestation—not the ideal place to run out of gas. Especially not in the middle of a blackout.

Please God,
he whispered in his head,
just a few more miles. Just give me an honest chance to make a run for it.

As he expected, the intersection at Route 9 was thick with the walking dead, slogging through ankle-deep puddles. Drawn to his headlights they turned and flocked into his path.
Ryan took a deep breath and floored the gas, plowing through the slow-moving corpses. They rolled to the ground off his bumper. The Chevy crawled over their bodies, snapping arms and legs, its puny engine growling as it bounced over the bony obstacles.

Suddenly the car got stuck as a mangled torso got sucked into a wheel well. Ryan cursed softly and shifted into low. The little car whined as it fought to break from the heap of squirming muck jamming its wheels.

Cold bodies pressed against the car, clawing at the doors and the windows. They were barely visible in the darkness, lit only by the feeble glow of the dashboard lights. But their scraping and moaning and their stench seeping in through the vents was unsettling.

Ryan glanced at the St. Christopher statue. “Come on, Chris. Help me out here.”

His heart was pounding as he shifted into reverse and slowly pumped the gas, taking care not to flood the engine. Sweat poured from his armpits and his head felt light as he imagined the tank running dry. The car rocked backwards… hesitated as it snagged on the fallen corpses… then it finally broke free and backed several feet down the street.

Ryan sat for a moment, collecting his nerves as he studied the writhing pile of
fallen bodies clogging the road ahead. Behind and on either side of them, a phalanx of cadavers shuffled forward, drawn to the glare of his headlights.

Shifting into low he turned the wheel sharply and drove up onto the sidewalk, choosing the path of least reanimated corpses. His palpitating pulse calmed a bit after he passed through the crowded intersection, leaving the unholy congregation behind. By the time they could turn their stiff limbs to follow, he was half a block away.

The shadowy walkers grew thinner in number as he drove towards the outskirts of town. The few he passed lurched toward his approaching lights and the sound of his engine, then turned to give hopeless chase as he sped away.

Some kind of memory or instinct survives,
Ryan thought, his naturally curious mind at work, sorting and analyzing the things he’d observed that night.
They seem to be drawn to sound and light and movement. One gets drawn to a sensory stimulus and the rest see it moving and they follow. There’s definitely a herd mentality at work.

He passed through his neighborhood, deliberately keeping his eyes off the wraithlike shadows on the street. His mother and brother were probably long gone by now, but he didn’t want to risk seeing them again. Not the way they were now. He didn’t even want to think about them
, knowing he might collapse if he opened the floodgates of his emotions. He would sort out his memories later, when he was safe.

The houses grew farther apart as he drove and the patches of woods between them grew denser. Through the teeming rain he spotted a grotesque figure trudging along the side of the road, hunched against the rain. He was tempted to run it down—but was surprised when it suddenly turned and dashed into the glare of his headlights, trying to flag him down. He hit the brakes and swerved to stop, elated when he saw it was a woman with a backpack.
A live one.

Kerri ran to the passenger side and hastily climbed in, throwing her gear in the back. Drenched with cold water she was shivering and pale and her lips were swollen and blue. She seemed more alive than dead—moving faster than the plodding reanimated corpses—but Ryan had sudden doubts. He pointed the dead policeman’s Glock at her. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“Do I look like one of them?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Would you mind pointing that thing somewhere else?”

“Well…” He hesitated, studying her carefully, then he lowered the gun. “I guess not. You haven’t been bitten, have you?”

“No, I haven’t been bitten. Have you?”

“Of course not,” Ryan shrugged. “Would I be driving this car if I were?”

“I don’t know. Would you?”

Ryan was somewhat stumped by the question. “I guess not. And thank God for that. Could you imagine if those things could drive?”

“Are we going to sit here all night yakking?” Kerri asked. “Or are you getting us out of here, someplace safe?”

Ryan started driving. “I just want to warn you. We’re almost out of gas.”

“Great. Well just keep going until we run out. The further we go, the safer we’ll be.”

“You think so?”

“I hope so. Unless you have a better idea?”

“No.” He drove slowly. The storm had picked up and the rain was hammering down. The wipers sloshed dutifully over the windshield, but it remained a blur of dancing water. “What the hell is going on back there anyway?”

“You know as much as I do, Sherlock. My partner and I were responding to an emergency call. We found one of those… things…” Kerri paused, not sure she needed to complete the picture. “… feeding. Then on the way back someone crashed into our ambulance.”

“Ambulance?”

Kerri tugged at her uniform. “I’m an EMT. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Oh. Yeah. When you said your partner… I thought you were a… you know.”

“Jesus, kid. You obviously spend too much time on the internet. Well, you can stop your fantasizing. My partner—Hector—was pinned behind the steering wheel. It broke my heart to leave him like that but I still had hope I might get him some help. I tried walking to the hospital… but…”

“I know. That’s where I went. After those things got my mom.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” A knot rolled up in his throat but he forced himself to hold it together.

There was a long solemn silence as he drove. But it was comforting for them both to have company. To know they weren’t alone. Kerri was grateful that her parents lived far away, across the Delaware River in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She kept telling herself it was safe there.

“Do you think this is happening everywhere?” Ryan finally asked.

“No. Let’s hope not. ‘cause if it is…”

Ryan felt a lump in his throat.
Cause if it is, we’re fucked.

Kerri saw the look in his eyes. “There’s no sense worrying about what we don’t know. We have enough to deal with at the moment.”

Suddenly the car stuttered, lurching forward in short jerky motions. “Shit.”

“Just keep going,” Kerri urged. “Let’s get as far as we—”

The engine died and the car crawled to a stop. Ryan tried to start it again. It was no use. The starter whirred hopelessly. The engine coughed weakly but didn’t ignite.

“Forget it.” Kerri said. “You’re only making noise. Noise seems to attract those things. Noise and lights. Kill the headlights.”

Ryan reluctantly complied. He knew she was right, but dreaded what the darkness would bring. They sat in silence, listening to the drumming of the rain on the roof. The darkness was all-encompassing. They might as well have been blind.

“What now?” Ryan finally asked, afraid of what Kerri would suggest,
but knowing the answer already. The sound of the rain was soothing, but he wasn’t looking forward to stepping out into the downpour.

“Now we walk. Unless you want to sit here and wait to see who shows up.”

“It might be another car,” he replied hopefully.

“Yeah. It might be,” she s
aid, her words soaked in doubt.

Ryan sighed. As lightning flashed he took one last look around the little car that had saved his life, smiling at the statuette on the dashboard.  “Thanks, Chris,” he whispered. Then he quietly opened his door.

26

The troopers’ SUV sped through the woods, halfway to their destination. The road curved and dipped like a thrill ride. Occasional flashes of lightning lit up the sky, framed by tall black trees on either side. The fog was still thick, but the slow-moving storm was not far away.

Cat checked their assignment sheet by flashlight as Bronski drove. “We’re supposed to touch base with the Lenape Creek Sheriff.”

“Where the hell is Lenape Creek?” asked Bronski.

“I’m sure you’ve driven through it. Cute little town. Looks like a picture postcard. Neat old Colonial homes, painted like gingerbread houses. It’s just a speck on the map. Out in the boonies
, not far from Dennisville.”

“Oh yeah…
” Bronski nodded. “There’s a station there?”

“That’s what it says. ‘Make contact with Sheriff Leeds’.”

“Great. We’re checking in with Andy of Mayberry. And his deputies Goober and Gomer.”

“You mean Barney,” Cat replied.

“Whatever. He’s probably not there anyway, at this time of night.”

“Somebody will be.”

“Barney Goober.”

Cat laughed. Lightning flashed again, closer, illuminating the tops of the trees around them. Th
under boomed two seconds later.

“
Wow. That was close.”

“Just what we need,” said Cat. “I thought the storm wasn’t due
for a few more hours.”

“
Accu-weather. Look on the bright side. Maybe it’ll cool things down. I mean, whatever is happening on the roads down here.”

“And maybe baby blue monke
ys will fly out of my butt.”

Bronski laughed. “Cat, please, I asked you not to talk about your butt. I have enough on my mind as it is.” Despite his lighthearted tone his request was half-serious. The ink on his divorce decree was barely dry, but his marriage had ended years ago. His wife hadn’t been interested in fulfilling her wifely duties as much as she was in spending his money on clothes and expensive make-up. If she’d held a job it might have been a bearable situation. But that would have cut into her shopping time. Nick was either very patient or very slow to catch on, but eventually he realized he was merely a financial c
onvenience for the little lady.

The first raindrops splattered on the windshield. Quarter-sized droplets. Just a few at first, then dozens, hundreds, faster and harder. In seconds they were flooding the windshield and hammering the roof of the vehicle.

Cat sighed, shivering as the temperature dropped in the vehicle. She turned up the heater. “Otis might have the last laugh after all back at the prison farm. We could be driving into a monster storm.”

“Relax, it’s just a big ole nor’easter. We’ll touch base with the yokels, find out that there’s no big catastrophe going on and be back at headquarters in time for a nice hot lunch.”

“Please don’t talk about food. All I had for breakfast was a half-stale pretzel and a—Nick, look out!”

Bronski hit the brakes just in time. The SUV swerved and slid to a stop next to a dead
sapling blocking the road. “Whew,” Bronski sighed. “Thanks. That would not have been pretty.”

“What the hell were you looking at?”

“I thought I saw something on the road.”

“Yeah, there was,” Cat said. “Right in front of us. Jesus.”

“No harm, no foul.” He switched on the vehicle’s flashers, then popped the rear hatch. “Wait here ‘til I set out the flares.”

Cat joined him a minute later by the fallen tree and they dragged it off the roadway. Their lightweight plastic ponchos whipped madly in the wind, exposing their legs to the icy rain. Dropping the tree by the side of the road, they hurried back to the SUV. But as Cat reached the middle of the road, a shape leaped at her, nearly bowling her over.

She shrieked in surprise and spun off-balance, but Bronski caught her and steadied her. They turned and saw a deer, silhouetted in the red glow of the road flares, bounding away down the road, in the opposite direction they were headed.

“Jesus Christ!” Cat cried. “Frigg
ing deer almost nailed me!” Before she could gather herself, another deer came charging down the road. Bronski pulled her back into his arms as it bounded past.

A third deer followed on its heels, just missing the huddled troopers.

“What the fuck?” Cat yelled, as the panicked animals disappeared into the darkness beyond the flares.

“Get
in the car,” Bronski urged her.

They climbed in and slammed the doors.

“That was pretty trippy,” Bronski said.

“That’s one word for it,” Cat retorted. “Christ, I’m soaked to the bone.”

Nick turned the heat up full blast. Hot air blew from the vents. “Better?”

“That must be one hell of a storm we’re driving into,” said Cat. “Those deer were running for their lives.”

“Yeah,” said Nick quietly as he shifted into gear, suddenly feeling that their mission might not be as routine as he’d believed. “Let’s get this shit over with.”