The Apocalypse Crusade 2 (17 page)

“Move,” Courtney said, trying to shove the big dog back. He was too strong and she had to resort to tossing a piece of meat past him. Once in the driver’s seat, she said, “Please God,” and reached for the ignition. The keys weren’t there. A groan escaped her. Hotwiring a car fell into the category of theoretical knowledge and she wasn’t about to try it fifty yards away from a road block guarded over by trigger happy soldiers.

She tried another prayer and opened the glove box; it was empty except for the usual stash of papers. She did happen to see the dog’s leash on the floor in front of the passenger seat. The dog went crazy at the sight of it in her hands. He was all over her, barking and licking her face and hands.

“Shut up! You have to stop, please.” The dog was making so much racket that she was sure they were going to be heard. For some reason that scared her badly even though, at the moment she wasn’t trying to escape The Zone—the voice in her head said: You know the reason why.

Yes, she did. The massacre couldn’t have been a legal shooting. The orders handed down were very clear: fire only if fired upon. There had been women, children and unarmed men among the dead. That had been murder, perhaps necessary murder, but murder nonetheless. She might be looked upon as a witness and if they were willing to kill who knew how many defenseless people, they’d be willing to kill her as well.

“Sit!” she hissed in a final attempt to corral the dog’s excitement. He stopped his frenzy immediately and sat in the passenger seat with his tongue hanging out, panting. Courtney hooked the leash to his collar and read the tag:
Sundance
. “Good boy, Sundance.” He whined in agreement and with joy that was almost beyond his ability to contain.

Now for the tough part. She gripped the leash in one hand and slid out—Sundance stayed in place, though he trembled in anticipation. Giving the leash a tug, Courtney said, “Heel.” Sundance came out of the truck in a bound and stuck his right shoulder against her thigh, ready to go anywhere with her as he had been trained. “Good boy,” she said scratching around the base of his pointy ears.

Keeping low, she and Sundance went from car to car looking for one with keys. She had hope. This was still rural America where crime was a rarity; people were more apt to leave their keys in the car. The Audi she had stolen the turkey meat from had keys in the ignition, but she hesitated, remembering the bog and her marooned Bug. Fearing to get stuck again, she left the Audi but five minutes later came back. The other cars and trucks were all locked or were otherwise keyless, at least the ones further back in the mess. The ones closer to the edge of the slope were simply too near the barricade for her liking.

After pushing the cooler down to the floorboard, she snapped her fingers and pointed into the car. Sundance leapt in easily. He sat so tall that his ears bent on the roof. His nose was working overtime and he gave extra sniffs to both the cooler and to the window before giving Courtney a look full of meaning.
I would like more food and please open the window so I can stick my head out
, the look said.

“Not yet,” she told him. “Not until we are well away from here and then we’ll see. Wish us luck, Sundance.” She turned the engine over, stuck it in gear, and peeled the car around, keeping her foot hard on the gas. The Audi fishtailed on the grassy shoulder before catching its grip and then they were flying back up the road. She had five seconds to marvel at their speed—the Audi was so much faster than her four-year-old Bug—and then she saw something that made no sense: clods of dirt began leaping up on the side of the sunken road. It was a moment before the reports of the gun firing at her caught up and she was able to put the two together.

Instinctively, she threw an arm over Sundance and pulled him onto her lap as she cringed down. A second later, what sounded like someone banging on the trunk came to her and then the driver’s side mirror exploded. By some miracle, she didn’t scream, and by a greater miracle, they made it into the tree line without getting hit anymore.

She didn’t slow. It was with dread that she stared in the rearview mirror as the trees flashed by on either side of the car and dust billowed up behind. The army had to be coming for her. She had seen what they had done and she was sure they would try to silence her, and there was only one sure way to do that, they would put a bullet in her brain…or maybe two.

Suddenly she lurched forward, straining against the harness of her seatbelt. Beneath her, the wheels begin to chug and rumble. At first, she thought one of her tires had been punctured by a bullet, but then she remembered the bog! Water splashed high, obliterating the view of the trees, and then she and Sundance were thrown forward as the mud seized their momentum. This time she didn’t let up on the gas. What’s more, she aimed the Audi at the side of the sunken road where the ground had been a touch more firm.

They started to slew and the revving of the engine was a roar in the silent forest as the wheels spun in a blur. With agonizing slowness, she passed her pitiful little Bug and then, just as she thought she was going to strand the Audi as well, the wheels caught on a root and the car lurched, gaining a touch of momentum, enough to keep it going, then there was a stone the size of a football that gave them a little more oomph, and then there was a log just under the mud, and then suddenly they were on the other side of the bog.

“Oh, thank you, God!” she cried. Sundance turned from the window to give her a quick look and a bark at her excitement. “We’re not free of The Zone yet,” she scolded him, trying to hide her smile. “So keep quiet and, I’m sorry, but we should keep the windows up for a little while longer. Just in case.”

She sped the Audi in a straight line up the logging road until, after fifteen minutes, they came, quite unexpectedly to a two-lane road; she cut the wheel hard left and suddenly the ride was smooth and quiet. It was almost as though she had driven back in time to a point where there were no such things as zombies. She even reached for the radio.

There was nothing but static. That chilled her to her soul and brought her back to her senses and she hit the gas harder, wishing to be free of The Zone as fast as she could. When they broached a hill and she felt the car leapt a little under her, she glanced down at the speedometer: 104MPH.

She grinned and didn’t know why. Then she saw the water tower at Myers Corner and just like that, she knew where she was. Her speed dropped as she felt a wave of relief wilt her muscles. “Ok, now that I know where…” Her words dribbled to a halt. There was an army helicopter hovering over Myers Corner not half a mile away and as she watched, it started to descend.

Her foot slammed back down on the gas: she wasn’t going to be left behind again. She would drop General Collins’ name, or lie, or do anything to get out of The Zone. The Audi leapt forward like a gazelle, but not five seconds later, she slowed as the helicopter started shooting from guns that hung out the doors. The firing was terrifying to her. She had never seen anything like it; the sides of the helicopter looked to be on fire. It lit up the sky despite that it was daytime.

Then the helicopter dropped even lower and she hardened her heart against her fear and tromped again on the gas, determined to get to it. Even though the Audi was a speed demon, there was no getting to the copter in time. When she was a quarter mile away, it lifted straight up into the air, and then flew off, heading east. The sight was a stab in her heart.

Courtney slowed, bringing herself and the car back under control, wondering: Now where was she going to go? There was no answer to that.

Someone was shooting down the road from her; it seemed to be coming from the vicinity where the chopper had been hovering. “What could’ve lived through that?” she asked, remembering the amazing guns and the way she had blinked at the intensity of the fire. She drove up to see that the helicopter had left too early. There were hundreds of dead zombies and parts of zombies all over the place, but there were also live ones attacking three soldiers who were huddled together firing outwards.

The zombies weren’t thick on them yet, crowding in so close that they couldn’t move, but they soon would be. Courtney darted the nimble Audi between the ugly beasts and rushed forward honking her horn. The soldiers, seeing her coming, concentrated all of their fire at the zombies between them and the car and then came stumbling up, moving dreadfully slow due to their cumbersome protective gear.

Seeing the gear, Courtney felt a stab of fear. Were they contaminated? Was she? Was Sundance? The dog was barking like mad, showing huge, white teeth. Those teeth kept the men at bay long enough for Courtney to come to a decision. She would need to take chances to get out of The Zone, and letting in these soldiers was one of those chances.

“Sundance! Heel!” She pulled the huge dog as far onto her lap as she could and the men scrambled in. With their guns and their bulky outfits, they were so terribly slow and the car so dreadfully cramped that she actually started driving away before the last one was fully in. He was trying to share a seat with Sundance who was growling and again showing teeth. The man was saying something but his mask and his heavy breathing made him incomprehensible.

Courtney soothed the dog as well as she could and when he settled down, she smiled at the strange men in their strange, bug-eyed costumes. “My name is Courtney Shaw and I’m not sick or anything,” she said, suddenly aware of how she looked, covered as she was in drying brown mud. “This is just mud from a ditch.”

The man in the passenger seat held up his arms, turning them in exaggerated movements. He then disturbed Sundance, who was perched uncomfortably on the console, by looking back at his friends. “I think we’re clean, too,” he said and then pulled off his mask. “My name’s Max.”

His brown hair was wet with sweat and stuck up in every way. His brown eyes were rimmed red, which matched the blotches on his face where the mask had gripped his flesh. He was somewhat of a mess, but both Sundance and Courtney were very glad he was there.

He jerked a black thumb toward the back seat. “That’s Will and Johnny. Tell me, Courtney do you know this area? We’re looking for any road out of here.”

“I’ve tried them all and they’re all barricaded. And…and they’ve been shooting people. A lot of people.” The men stiffened at this; Courtney hoped that it was just an automatic defensive response and not a guilty one. The car was silent for a few seconds as she decided that, guilty or not, she was going to have to trust the men. “Can you get us past the barricades?”

Next to her, Max’s eyes shifted away quickly. “Probably.”

Courtney slowed the Audi. “What do you mean by that? Are you saying that I won’t be able to get through, or all of us?”

Max was quiet for a few seconds and his face gradually took on a pained expression. “I think I’m saying they won’t let any of us out. Those were our orders. No one is to leave under any circumstances. Everyone was to be looked upon as a potential carrier of the disease.”

Will snorted. “But that was before they fucking just left us. Maybe it’s different now. Maybe during all that time we were fighting off the zombies, the line broke. If so we can get out of here.”

“No,” Courtney said. “The line didn’t break. It was shifted outward to a radius of twenty miles. I’m with the state police and even we didn’t know. We were like you, trying to maintain a line that was all in our heads.”

“So what do we do?” Johnny asked.

Courtney shrugged with just her right shoulder; it was always the same old question. She’d been hoping the soldiers would have answers. “Some of the state troopers are going to make a stand at the station. You can do that, if you want. I’ll drop you off.”

Max shot her a look over Sundance’s head. “You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“No, especially after seeing all those zombies you guys were fighting. I’m going to find a way out of The Zone, one way or another.”

All four of them, five if Sundance were counted, looked around at the countryside. It was normally pretty quiet among the rolling hills and the green forests, but this was an unnatural stillness. As far as the eye could see, nothing human moved but them.

“I think we’ll take our chances with you,” Max said. “Now that I’ve seen them up close, I know that nothing will hold against the zombies.”

“What’s your name?” Anna whispered.

The boy shot his distrustful, darkening eyes her way. Anna consciously thrust her bosom out further and hid her bandaged left hand. She made sure that her smile was small and friendly and that her blue eyes remained locked on his. Her experience with Von Braun had taught her that an infected person was prone to look upon anything more than a neutral countenance with deep suspicion.

He said: “Tyler,” in an equally quiet voice. It was a good sign; he still had some wits about him or he’d been born with a greater than average share. “Do you know who did this to me?” he asked, moving closer.

Anna’s smile faltered at his proximity. He was not in a contagious stage, that only came when his eyes became black and leaked fluids and his mind was just about beyond the least reason, when the intense demand to feed and the even greater desire to kill was all that he could comprehend. But the boy could still be covered in Com-cells. As of yet no one knew how they were passed from victim to victim. The boy could be coated in spores that were even then being sucked into her respiratory system where they would spread and multiply, building up by the billions along her neurons, slowly taking over her mind. If so, having him shift over a few feet wouldn’t make a hill of beans worth of difference. The tent was shut up tight and the air felt stagnant and heavy—a perfect breeding ground for the fungus used in the Com-cells.

Then again, he could be clean. There was no way to know and for that reason, she should’ve been taking universal precautions. She should’ve covered her face with layers of cloth; she should’ve moved further away and made sure that he didn’t speak directly into her face. And she damned well shouldn’t let him touch her.

He grabbed her white coat and she steeled herself not to react beyond a slight shiver that went up her back. To react visibly could set him off on a rampage. “Who did it? You have to tell me.”

Before she answered, she gave a significant look to the others on the other side of the long tent, and then she turned her face toward him, conspiratorially. “If I tell, you have to promise that you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do. It’s the only way to cure you. Ok?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding eagerly.

“We can’t seem too friendly.” Again, she gave a look to where Thuy and Deckard and the others sat. Tyler also looked their way and shifted to his right a few inches; still too close in Anna’s opinion, however he had to be played just right and she feared letting him get too far away. Now came the question: who was she going to unleash this human shaped weapon on? Dr. Lee came immediately to mind: she had left her hanging in an elevator shaft and she was a know-it-all condescending bitch who needed to be brought down a peg or two. Then there was the man sitting a few feet away: Eng.

She would love to kill Eng. Nobody deserved to die like that dumb-ass chink. He had started all of this, and despite committing mass murder on a tremendous scale, he was turned on his side, sleeping with his damned chink-eyes partially open just as they had been the night before after he had raped her. If Anna had a knife, and if she could have gotten away with it, she would’ve happily cut his balls off right there in the tent.

And yet, she felt Eng might still come in handy. As much as she wanted him dead, he was a criminal, just like her, and he would be properly ‘cutthroat’ if the situation called for it, while she was sure the others would hesitate at the wrong moments, overcome by morals or goodness, or whatever.

She wouldn’t turn Tyler loose on Eng, nor would she bother with the others: Deckard was an embarrassment, mooning over Dr. Lee. Even then, he was holding her hand, caressing her wrist with the ball of his thumb, tracing the blue lines that twined there It was pathetic. Dr. Wilson was even more pathetic. He was in his fifties and pudgy in the middle. He looked too exhausted to do much of anything but become a snack for the zombies if they ever got out of the tent. Chuck Singleton was as cow-eyed as Deckard but far less of a threat. Stephanie Glowitz was playing up the ‘damsel in distress’ role and had her head in Chuck’s lap. Anna dismissed her without a glance.

This left John Burke and Anna would never kill him. Burke had been riled when they had first come in, but he too was drowsing. He looked thin and drawn, close to being done in by the cancer consuming him. Despite that, he was more useful than the rest, combined. The poor sap thought he was immune to the Com-cells. His ignorance, combined with his bravado and the fact that he was an idiot, would make him an ideal tool in the right hands, her hands.

“Who?” Tyler repeated, slightly louder now.

“He’s not here right now,” Anna told him. “You have to be patient. Any excitement or anger is going to make things worse and speed up the disease, so please close your eyes and rest until I tell you. There you go. No. Keep them closed. Now, the man who did this to you also has the cure. When the time comes you’re going to have to hold him hostage, but don’t kill him.”

Tyler’s eyes popped open and he glared. “But he deserves to die. It’s not just me. It’s my whole family and the Holden’s from across the street. They got it too. I saw them and their eyes…it was horrible. It was fucking horrible!”

“Sshh,” she whispered. “Not so loud, Tyler. You’ll be able to kill him but first we need to get the cure. Now, you have to calm down for your own good. I can’t help you if the disease gets you, too.”

“Okay. Thanks. You’re the nicest person I’ve met since all this started.”

She smiled a lie and said, “Close your eyes.” Now, by her estimation, she had thirty minutes to come up with a plan. Thirty minutes until Tyler went ballistic, beyond her ability to control. She went over everything she knew about their location: the edge of a rinky-dink town that was bordered on three sides by tree-covered hills and on a fourth by fields where Holsteins grazed placidly behind a simple post and rail fence. She considered her assets: the ticking time bomb that was Tyler, a shaky alliance with Eng that would turn sour the second he got the upper hand and, lastly, the fact Burke could be counted on to do something “heroic” because he thought he was immune.

Oh, and she couldn’t forget the vial of Com-cells lodged in her bra. She had never been more aware of her tits since they started coming in back in the seventh grade. Back then, she hadn’t gone five minutes without giving herself a feel, now she was afraid to move. If the vial slipped out and broke? She didn’t want to think about that.

The thirty minute window she had given herself evaporated in what felt like a blink and twenty-nine minutes later she had yet to think of anything more than pointing Tyler out the front door of the tent and hoping he caused a big enough distraction to allow Anna to slip away.

A minute early, Tyler grimaced and said, “My head is really killing me. Is it time yet?”

“Can you hold on a little while longer? I haven’t heard his jeep yet and you don’t want to ruin your chances at getting the cure.”

Tyler endured the pain for another three minutes and then he groaned loudly. Thuy’s black eyes were instantly upon him. “Are you ok?” she asked him.

“He strained his back when he was captured,” Anna answered, quickly. “I don’t suppose any of you have any Tylenol?”

Heads shook all around, all except Thuy’s. “Maybe Dr. Wilson should take a look at him,” she suggested. “He is a medical doctor, after all.” Anna could tell that Thuy hadn’t been fooled by the excuse.

Anna smiled as though she thought the suggestion was full of merit. “Tyler, it’s time to get up,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear. Quieter, she added, “The man who did this to you is here. He’s in one of the other tents. His name is General, uh, General MacArthur. Run and grab his gun. He won’t…”

“Ms Holloway!” Thuy suddenly demanded. “What are you saying to him?”

“Don’t listen to anyone but me,” Anna continued in a whisper. “They can’t be trusted. Just run to the other tents and don’t let the guards get you.” She reached out to help him up, but at the last second drew her hands back. He didn’t notice. His boyish face had turned mean: his lip was now a snarl and the innocent eyes were visibly darker. He was staring with a building hate at Thuy.

“Anna, is that boy infected?” Thuy was on her feet now as well, with Deckard standing a half-second later. The others remained seated, staring with eyes that bulged wide and fearful.

“He is infected,” Anna answered. She then turned to Tyler and hissed, “Go!”

“No! Don’t touch that zipper!” Thuy commanded with such authority that Tyler hesitated with his hand on the zipper. “He can’t be allowed to leave. He will spread the Com-cells outside the perimeter of the quarantined zone.”

“Ignore her,” Anna hissed.

Curiously, no one added a thing, nor did anyone but Eng jump up when Tyler started to unzip the tent door. He raised his eyebrows toward Anna and asked: “Breakout?” She nodded.

Thuy started forward, but Deckard held her back. “Don’t. He’s infected,” he said.

“Exactly!” Thuy said. “That’s why he can’t be allowed to leave. Why am I the only one who sees this? Every one of you knows what’s at stake. You know what will happen if this gets out. It’ll destroy the entire country.”

Tyler had turned at all the shouting and wavered. His mind was crawling with the black Com-cells and his soul was beginning to burn with desires that were too vile to even consider and yet he was still free enough to try to make sense out of what he was hearing. Were they thinking he was going to destroy America? Was that real or was that more of their games? He was beginning to think that they were playing at something. Like this was a cruel practical joke. He wavered, fighting to right his thinking so he could understand. As he stood there, John Burke ambled to his feet and with a sigh, he started toward the boy.

“I’ll keep him penned up iffin that’s what y’all want.”

Anna was shocked to see that it was Deckard of all people who pulled Burke back by the collar. “You’re not thinking straight, Thuy,” he said as he hauled Burke back, easily. This sentence upset the entire apple cart. Anna was sure that no one had ever accused Dr. Lee of not thinking straight. Everyone stared at Deckard in disbelief and that included Thuy who could only splutter.

Deckard went on: “You’re not thinking. Your guilt is blinding you to reason. This tent can’t hold one of
them
. Pretty soon, he’ll tear it to pieces and if we stop him then we’ll only get infected as well and in another couple of hours, we’ll be the ones who tear it apart. And when we do, we’ll escape and spread the germs from here to Hartford.”

“Then what do we do?” Thuy asked in a soft, powerless voice. She felt faint like some belle out of the old south with a case of the vapors.

Deckard put a hand around her waist to steady her. “The only thing we can do is hope the guard shoots him. Either that or we kill him ourselves and throw his body out the front.”

Now Thuy’s legs buckled under the weight of her guilt, because once again this was her fault. Even with Anna and Eng right there, she couldn’t see it any other way. “I can’t do that,” she said, sagging to the floor of the tent. “It’s not right. None of this is right.”

“I wouldn’t worry, none. He’s a dead already,” Burke remarked. “He jes don’t know it yet.” He made a sudden leap for the door and both Eng and Anna rushed to get between him and Tyler.

“Go Tyler!” Anna yelled, grabbing Burke’s stained chambray work shirt. “Run! Get to the general.”

Tyler had been a step behind during the entire conversation, but he heard the order and it made sense. Action was what was needed. Action and killing and…eating. He rushed out of the tent with a sudden hunger that was like a cold railroad spike right in the pit of his stomach.

He ran, and Anna went to the front of the tent to watch. Behind her Eng urged her to run as well: “Go! Now!” But she held him back. The guard, in his heavy mask, was slow to recognize the blur that suddenly leapt out of the tent. “Hey!” he cried, uselessly. Tyler wasn’t stopping for anything, especially a useless scream. The guard gave chase, hampered by the thick protective suit and clinging mask.

Only then did Anna take off running. Eng rushed after her leaving the others standing there staring, wondering what to do. Chuck was first to jump to his feet. “Come on,” he drawled, helping Stephanie up. “This is our chance.”

“They might could shoot y’all,” Burke said. As he thought of himself as both immune and special, he wasn’t looking to go rushing off half-cocked.

“I’ll take gettin’ shot over bein’ eaten alive any day,” Chuck said and left through the front opening, dragging Stephanie behind him. She didn’t relish either option.

“You heard him,” Wilson said to Burke, “He does have a point. Being immune won’t save you if I turn and get a hankering for hill-billy.” They also left and now it was just Deckard and Thuy.

“We’re going,” Deckard told Thuy. She thought she could stand but just then, there came three loud gunshots, her body flinching with each one. There was a long pause and then came two more shots. “We’re out of time. Please get up.” When she refused to look up, he calmly bent down and hefted her hundred pounds up onto his shoulder. She didn’t fight it. He was too strong and she didn’t care whether she lived or died.

Deckard stepped out into the gloomy afternoon where everything was chaos. Soldiers were running every which way and Humvees were being gunned into life. He didn’t think he would get far with Thuy on his shoulder but was disappointed that he only made it seventy yards into the light forest before a Humvee came slashing to a halt right in front of him. He half raised his arms as the driver came out pointing an M16A1. Deckard felt his heart drop when he saw that it was Special Agent Meeks with his mask partially askew from having thrown it on so quickly.