American Apocalypse Wastelands (44 page)

Not all of them went down without a fight. But the chaos just poured blood in the water for the predators. We had more than a few of them that we barely held in
check as it was. They heard “Food” and gunshots and smelled opportunity.

Three cars that seemed to be a pack suddenly pulled off the road and gunned across the field, heading for a side street into town. With them moving, the dam broke. Everyone spooked and the herd stampeded.

I saw the cars hit the field and I laughed. I felt good. No more dicking around with containment and gently moving people along.

It was time to dance, and the BAR led off with a backbeat that was as steady as anything that came out of Muscle Shoals back in the day. These guys may have been predators back in the city, but they didn't have a clue about driving in wet Virginia clay, especially in frontwheel drive Hondas with low clearance.

I saw the lead driver's face contort as he fought the wheel. I saw his face change as he realized that perhaps this was not such a good idea after all. I confirmed that for him by splattering his head all over his buddy, who was riding shotgun. Then I walked the next three rounds across the passenger windows.

The second car, a Honda with a double-deck spoiler on the back, came screaming off a small rise and bottomed hard. I punched a couple of shots into the engine compartment, and the engine screamed at me in rage. I shot out the back window and refocused my attention; the third vehicle, an SUV, had decided to change course and was heading toward me.

I wasn't alone; it just felt that way. The patrol screamed at people to get back in their cars. It didn't do any good.

I started punching rounds into the grill and windshield of the oncoming SUV. Finally, one of the squad members
detailed to the tollbooth realized that he could be more helpful by shooting the shit out of it instead of screaming at people who were not going to listen anyways. He hit the SUV with at least three bursts in the side.

Like a rhino it just kept coming. It took out the tollbooth and the female guard and caved in the side of an old Dodge van that was in the way. I heard screaming from inside the Dodge a few seconds after it hit. It sounded like kids.

That's when a man standing behind the passenger door of a BMW about seven cars down the line decided he wanted to kill me. I shot him through the door as I swung the BAR around; then I shot the driver through the windshield.

I looked across the field; the three-person team assigned to patrol about a mile back must have shown up. I didn't see them, but I heard them. I don't think anyone in the cars had figured out even approximately where they were firing from. That was a good thing. As Tom Clancy would have said, “They were operating in a target-rich environment.” Not that they cared right then what he would have said.

About then I had my
Oh, shit
moment. At least seventy-five cars peeled out of formation and began an awesome demolition derby straight for town, using the field as an off ramp. Night was right: I didn't have enough bullets to kill all these people. In the meantime, people in parked cars were still shooting at us.

I ducked, rolled, and came up on the other side of the SUV. That's when Max got into the game with the Barrett. He was killing cars with single shots to the engine blocks. I realized immediately what he was trying to do: Let the cars come and he'd build himself a wall of dead iron.

Meanwhile I knew what I needed to do. I had to clear out the shooters who were too close to the booth. Eventually someone would move the militia down to the dead car wall. My job was to help hold the new line until then.

I undid the BAR magazine belt and slapped the squaddie who was raining fire on the assembled multitude on the road.

“Use this!” I handed him the BAR. He nodded. Then I was gone.

I could see in my head what needed to happen. Max would stop the headlong approach and fill the field with dead cars. The reserves would push into it to clear it. The three-man team firing from the field would nail anyone on their side. The tollbooth people would have to plug the road gap from hostiles moving in on foot. I had to clear the parked cars of hostiles far enough back that we could create a dead zone.

Then we'd torch the cars. Max would love that, the crazy little firebug that he was. I actually thought that, too. It was funny.

I ran around the white van, jumped onto the hood of the first car behind it and laughed.
Crazy little firebug! Crazy little firebug!
played on a loop in my head as I drew the Ruger and the Colt and shot the two people inside the car. They died staring at me goggle-eyed.

I hopped from car to car shooting anyone who was out of his vehicle. I leaped off one hood, hit the ground, rolled, and came up face-to-face with a mother and her kid. I screamed at them, “Run, you stupid bitch!” and shot the guy who was searching for me with a scoped deer rifle four cars down. Iron sights would have worked better.

I remember getting hit in the chest once. God bless armor. The force of the slug pushed me backward, and I let my momentum take me down. I rolled under a car, scrambled out the other side, and tried to spot whoever had nailed me. I didn't see anyone so I kept moving.

I made it back to the tollbooth. I was limping a bit. I had leaped onto a car hood that was slick with blood and had slipped off, landing awkwardly. I was also running low on ammo. There was a lull in the storm, at least where I was. I needed it.

We were holding the new line for the moment. But it wasn't going to last. The people on the other side of the cars were not stupid. And they were motivated by one of the strongest drives a human can experience: hunger.

 

When they did decide to advance, they would easily move around us and any barrier we could throw up. We didn't have enough bodies to set a wall around the town.

We might be able to hold part of the business section for a day or so. But then we would run out of ammo, and they'd be on us like the weevils of death.

Where was Freya?
We could use her magic aerial display right about now.

I told the people manning the tollbooth area at our new wall that I was going for ammo and water and that I would be back. An occasional shot zipped past me as I ran.

Max was about three hundred yards down. I found him trying to organize the handful of militia that had made it over from the massacre. He was yelling, “Set some of those cars on fire! Come on, we can do this!”

I could tell it wasn't going to happen. One of the guys was crying, and not quiet tears. His were gut sobs with snot running from his nose. I knew he wouldn't be moving from where he sat.

Then the lull ended. I didn't know if the car people had seized the moment and organized or it was just a spontaneous charge.

What I did know was that a horde at least four times the town population was moving toward us. One little group rallied behind an American flag on a pole that some unlucky guy had gotten stuck carrying. Another group raised a Washington Redskins flag.
Really?
I thought. The crappiest team in the NFL was going to inspire them? They probably couldn't have given you a coherent answer if you asked them—and I had no intention of doing so.

I looked out at the approaching mass and I felt drained. There was no killing rage. No desire. No focus.

I knew it was over for me, at least for the time being. No way did I have it in me at that moment to shoot down all the children in front of me. Because that's what it would have taken to stop them. Hose them all and bury them in a pit.

I looked at Max. More hung in the balance than just the lives of the people marching toward us. I think, just for a second, he was considering the pit. And then he stepped back from the brink.

“Safe your weapons!” he roared at the militia that were scattered around us.

“It's over.” This was not roared. It was spoken, yet it carried to every ear.

Almost every one of them looked relieved—almost, because there's always an asshole.

He heard Max, looked at the people, and yelled, “No!” Then he swung his M-16 up to his shoulder.

That was as far as I let him go. I had the Ruger holstered again before he hit the ground. I started walking back to the station. I made it about six paces when I stopped to look back at Max, “You coming?” He nodded.

I waited for him, and we walked together, headed toward the station. Usually I could read him. I wasn't seeing anything now. His face was stone. My radio was going nuts. I turned it off.

“So, Max. What's our Plan B?”

He didn't answer immediately, and I didn't press him. He stopped and we stood there. I saw smoke, from a house probably, since that was the only thing over that way.

Max spat on the asphalt and said, finally, “Well, I am going to get weaponed up, go over to Shelli's, eat some apple pie, and kill people until I am down to two rounds.”

“Yeah. If Night doesn't want to try our luck elsewhere, then I guess I'll be doing the same.”

We stared at each other. I held out my hand and we shook goodbye. “It's been real, Max.”

“Yeah. Real fun.” We both laughed and started walking to our fates.

I had gone about twenty paces when two assholes came racing around the corner, headed for the station. I dropped both of them and picked up my pace.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Radio Freya began broadcasting in my head. Digital quality, too. “Do you really think it is over?”

“Yep. Unless you got a Plan B?”

“Of course I do. It has only just begun for me.”

Then she went aerial on me. It was like looking at a high-resolution gray-scale Google map taken from a lowflying helicopter.

“Shelli and Night await you in the station. Ninja is on the way. You have three minutes. This is the current status.”

The helicopter or hawk pulled up a little higher. The view was ugly. We were being overrun. The hawk—if that's what it was—suddenly switched to a view from perhaps ten thousand feet.

I laughed. I could sense her amusement also. Whoever thought they were gaining themselves a town were in for a rude surprise before they finished their first stolen meal. Behind them was another wave, and another, and another. The town was just a tiny sand castle on a North Carolina beach, and the tide was coming in fast. Maybe a New
Jersey beach—someplace where the water came rolling in with all kinds of nasty shit in it. Beach-closing nasty.

“Hey, Freya.”

“Yes?”

“Can you do a conference call?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, can you have Max, Night, Ninja, and Diesel all hear me at the same time?”

“Yes.”

Max had changed direction and was heading toward the station in long loping strides.

“Night. You there?”

I got a hesitant, “Yes . . . ?”

“You ready to go? Are you getting the aerial feed?”

“Yes. Please hurry.”

“Oh, my God, Max! They're in the diner!” This was Shelli wailing into my ear “Shit! They're going to ruin it!”

Maybe this conference call thing wasn't such a good idea.

“What's going on, G? Why is this girl in my head?”

“No time, Night. We need to pack.” Instead of talking I sent images. “Did you get that?”

“Yes.”

I knew she was packing. Night may not have wanted to leave, but she never had a problem adjusting to new realities.

“This is cool. I can fax images. Hey, Max!” I sent an image of him with a horse's head in place of his. In response I got three variations on the theme of “Grow up and focus” and one with my head instead of his on it.

Freya sent an image of bottled water to Shelli and Night. A half minute later I went through the station door
right behind Max. Shelli was throwing water bottles to Night, who was stuffing them into an old ALICE pack.

“Time to go!” There was no mistaking the urgency in Freya's voice or what the aerial view was showing.

Max thought,
Back door!

I grabbed the pack and swung it over my shoulder and almost fell over. “Jesus, Night!” No wonder. It was filled with water bottles and .45 ammo.

Night threw me a box of .357 ammo and I jammed it into one of my pants pockets.

“Do not worry. I have food! Go!” Freya sent an image of five packs sitting in a line in the woods under a camo tarp.

“Where are we going?” I was surprised no one else had asked.

“Bruxton. Safety.” She sent an image of a small camouflaged opening on the side of a mountain.

“Where are Ninja and Diesel?”

“We're here.” Ninja sent a picture of them kneeling in the woods watching the town from just outside of it. Behind him stood Freya.

“Go this way!” Freya outlined a path through the back of the business district, through Trailer Town, and into the woods about a mile off the road to Bruxton. There were only about a thousand people between us and where we were going, I estimated. I heard Freya say, “1,134. No, make that 1,130.”

“Thanks for the update.”

I heard Max think,
Back door.
We had company. I grabbed a shotgun and made sure it was loaded. Then I poured two boxes of double-aught buckshot into my pants' pockets. I was a walking ammo dispensary now. Max had the Barrett.

“Now?” I sent.

“Now,” Max replied.

I went out fast and hard. The lassitude and lack of focus I had felt before were gone. I had seen through Freya that there were four of them. Two looked to be wearing armor of unknown quality. The male reaching for the door wasn't.

I hit him as he opened it. I was moving at half speed, but I weighed over three hundred pounds with all the crap I was wearing or carrying. He went backward, and I went over the top of him and veered right. Max paused, and shot through the wall into the guy who was pressed against it, covering the lead intruder.