Crawford started climbing over the edge of the bridge. “Rally point?” she asked.
“Downriver, west bank.” Peter said, pulling his cap off. He liked it, liked wearing it, and his bald spot made his head cold if it wasn’t covered. The hat got folded and stuffed into a pocket as he talked, both action and speech going fast. “Also, there’s a highway I was planning taking once we got across. Route 63. If we completely lose contact, get to where I-55 and US-63 diverge. It’s north of here.”
“How far?” Smith asked as Crawford started doing down the rope.
Peter shrugged. “Maybe thirty miles. Map’s in the truck. If -55 and -63 are a no go, then go north along -63 somewhere. Leave a note or a sign or something to show you’re alive; and we’ll all look for each other on the other side.”
“Great.” Smith said, turning and bringing his weapon up. He started firing off his magazine at the western horde, which was now getting uncomfortably close. Whitley took the cue and resumed firing to the east.
Peter glanced down over the edge and saw Crawford was just reaching the end of the line. As he looked, she dropped down past the end -- hanging by her hands on the last knot — and studied the water beneath her while she stabilized herself for the fall, then let go. Peter wanted to watch her drop, to see how she did, but there was no time.
“Smith, go.” he shouted, clapping the man on the shoulder. The eastern zombies were only maybe half a dozen staggering steps from the back of the truck.
The soldier slung his weapon and moved to the line. Peter unslung his AR and started firing to the west. He was tapping bullets into zombie skulls, but the kills were incidental to what he actually needed; bodies on the deck to tangle the horde up some more. At this point, every delay helped.
“Jeez, hurry the fuck up Smith.” Whitley snapped loudly behind him as her firing stopped. Peter glanced over his shoulder and saw her in the middle of a reload; then looked at the rope. Smith’s fingers were still visible at the edge of the bridge.
“I don’t deal with heights real well.” the Guardsman’s voice floated up.
“Clear that rope so we can get out of here or I’ll knock you off myself.” Peter yelled.
“Thanks Gunny.”
“Hurry the fuck up.” Whitley repeated, punctuating her words with a loud metallic click-snick as her weapon’s bolt snapped forward on the fresh magazine. She switched over to burst mode and resumed firing.
“Shitttttttt!” Peter heard Smith yell after a few seconds, his voice receding rapidly.
“Go Gunny.” Whitley said.
“No, you.” he said, ignoring the zombies that were seconds from bumping into the hood of the truck. “I’m trained in how to do it.”
“Bullshit.”
“Semper Fi.” he shot back. “Fucking go, we’re running out of room.” He clicked his AR’s selector lever down to one he rarely used; even if he’d personally done the modification that made it possible. It wasn’t a mode M-16s had enjoyed for a very long time; but the AR was the original M-16. Most people assumed it was the other way around — that the civilian version was a copy of the military model — but the AR predated its military designated version.
Automatic fire had sounded like a good idea in the weapon’s design phase, and generally wasn’t a horrible thing when used by a good shooter with a good reason to employ it. But the US military’s various branches that equipped their personnel with the initial full-auto M-16 had discovered those personnel tended to use it.
A lot.
Ammunition had a cost; and not just in dollars and cents. For boots-on-the-ground men and women, it cost time and effort to ship into theater, to get up to the forward bases, to put into the hands and packs of the warriors, and for those armed personnel to carry up to the point of contact as part of their gear.
Marines were trained in marksmanship because the USMC’s expected deployment pattern often involved fragile or non-existent logistical lines. Making every bullet count wasn’t just a point of pride; it could literally be the margin between victory or defeat when a Marine landing force saw its — usually Navy — supply sources driven away or cut off by enemy activity. In fact, that very thing had led to a good portion of the Corp’s bloodshed in some prior wars.
But as the zombies pressed inexorably in along the truck, Peter used the automatic mode now. He pulled the AR in as tight against his shoulder as he could, gripped it firmly with both hands, and held the trigger down as he swept the barrel across the encroaching front. Bullets chattered out of the assault rifle in a seemingly solid line, ripping into the dead so fast it was impossible to truly register where the bits and bone and gore raised by the impacts was actually coming from.
Peter held his fire at about neck level, knowing his line of aim was going to waver up and down some. Up would put it into something’s head; down would go into something’s shoulder or chest. It was almost impossible to for any single bullet to miss though; the zombies were just so
close
, packed so tightly together, that everything he fired hit something.
The magazine ran dry in three seconds. He’d toppled a good chunk of the front edge of the horde on this side of the truck. Peter thumbed the release and reached for a fresh one as the empty dropped out. He got it seated and let the bolt slam forward before emptying the second one as well. As he reloaded again, he glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, the zombies were at the back edge of the truck. And Whitley was out of sight.
He was down to a bare handful of feet of clear space, seconds before he was in something’s grasp. Peter clicked the rifle’s safety back on and slung it, then bent and grabbed the line he’d tied to his pack. A quick loop and hitch secured it to his belt, and he carried the pack over to the edge of the bridge.
Whitley was at the end of the rope, looking down at the water. Peter dropped the pack and braced himself against the girders against the pull as it hit the end of its cargo line. The metal of the bridge was cold, having soaked the frigid temperatures in all day. Suddenly he was even less sure than he’d been before that climbing it would be possible. Even through his gloves he could feel the heat being sucked greedily out of his hands by the cold iron or steel or whatever it was.
Bending down, Peter clambered over the side of the bridge and reached for the line. He felt a jerk on the rope as Whitley released, but he was busy trying to get onto the rope himself. As he got into free space, with nothing but a single rope and the Mississippi beneath him, he felt cold, stiff fingers grabbing at his left hand still on the edge of the bridge.
The zombies had consumed all the free space; they’d pressed in from both sides of the bridge and met in the middle. Peter was the only thing left in reach, and the dead were reaching for him. As he got situated for his descent, they were trying to pull him up. There wasn’t enough room in the crush of bodies for them to fall to their knees and start chewing; but they were trying that too.
Suppressing his urge to shudder at the hands clawing at his, Peter locked his legs around the rope and made sure his right was gripping as tightly as he could make his fingers squeeze before he yanked with his left arm as hard as he could. His glove pulled free of the zombies’ hands, and he felt himself start swinging on the rope when his weight was fully on the rope. The pack dangling below him, and the rope itself, were prone to movement and that was bad.
First though he had to get out of grabbing reach. He’d trust his knot and the rope to hold against anything the zombies might manage to do to it; they weren’t smart, and persistently dead or not, their hands and fingernails weren’t going to rip the line apart anytime soon. But there was no sense in waiting around to find out. Quickly, he let himself slide down; feeling the warm friction of contact through his pants and gloves.
When he was halfway down, he stopped and started going down more slowly. Friction burns hurt, and cold or not there was no sense taking on that sort of injury if he didn’t have to. He was out of reach now, it was fine. Hand over hand, he lowered himself down the line and ignored how his arms and shoulders protested. Again, Peter reminded himself that — trained or not — he was closer to sixty than fifty. He’d compare himself favorably to the vast majority of men his age; but he wasn’t an athlete and old was old.
But he made himself take it carefully. In a few moments he was going to be happy for the hot blood surging through his tired muscles. Even as he reached the end of the line and glanced down, the river was still quite a ways below him. He made sure his legs were locked onto the rope, feeling the knots pressed against his limbs and body as he hung on, and reached down to the line on his belt so he could try and stabilize the pack.
It took several seconds, but he managed to get it to dangle instead of swing. Peter refused to look up; he knew what would be staring down at him. Nothing but hungry faces and intent eyes fixed on his every motion. Just as he thought that, something hurtled past him close enough to make him blink and flinch.
Swaying once more on the end of the line, Peter checked below just in time to see a humanoid form smack nearly full length — horizontal, without making any attempt to control how it hit the water — into the river’s surface. Now he did look up, and saw two more zombies toppling over the edge of the bridge as they mindlessly stretched and reached out to try and grab him. Peter flexed his legs to try and change the direction he was swinging in and barely managed to be out of the way when the closer of the two falling zombies went by him.
“Holy shit.”
he swore, reaching down once more to still the pack’s sway. There was no time, no time for anything; but he was terrified of going into the water the way the zombies had. The drop was too high. He’d rather shoot himself than drown, or end up with a body so shattered he washed ashore and had to lay there waiting for something without a pulse to find and eat him.
Another zombie fell past him, but Peter focused on his momentum and position. The pack stopped moving, and he got it and his body dangling true to gravity; in a straight line from the end of the cord. Taking a deep breath, he unraveled his legs from the rope and let go.
Peter fell like a rock, pulled by the pack and his own weight. He locked his legs together and looked down to judge where he was. The drop seemed to just go so slowly, as air rushed past him nearly silently and the water came up to greet him. He had time to windmill his arms twice for balance, then he pulled them in tight against his chest and dropped his chin to his chest with his eyes and mouth closed tightly as he got his legs crossed and squeezed himself as tightly as he could to control what happened when he hit.
The impact hurt. A lot. He felt it in his feet and ankles and calves, felt both hips tweak painfully, and even his shoulders some, when he hit the water. Then he was below the surface, and had to stop himself from gasping as the liquid engulfed him. It was
cold
. He’d known it would be, expected it; but now he was in it, and it was worse than he’d figured. Or maybe it was just age again.
Whatever it was, the icy water stabbed at him like needles and knives all over. Sharp, piercing, insistent, and unrelenting. Peter unfolded himself out of the entry position and took his bearings. There was an audible thud of a splash above him as another zombie hit the water, and Peter decided it was time to stop thinking and start moving.
There wasn’t much light left, the sun was fading rapidly; but he knew how to feel for which way his body wanted to float and headed that way. Kicking strongly and pulling with his arms, he kept telling himself he was fine on air. He was almost there, he wasn’t even close to his limit yet; but it felt like miles instead of feet as he swam upward with the river’s current tugged him sideways.
When he broke the surface, he shook his head to spray water away from his face and took a deep breath. Some drops went up his nose and down his throat the wrong way, and he hacked a pair of ugly, violent coughs to clear his airway before drawing a second full breath that went down easier. Water was streaming down from his mostly hairless head to foul his vision, tickle at his nose, and he had to wipe his skull backward and face downwards to clear it. Air flowing once more, he automatically tipped himself back in the water into a floating position and looked around.
His pack was bobbing nearby, so he started hauling it in. Contrary to common expectations, the pack was actually a floatation device as long as it was packed and secured properly. The pouches and spaces in it trapped air, and that air wanted to go up when submerged. And he wasn’t even carrying a full combat load of gear in it; not compared to what he’d usually humped around in the field.
Going
in
to the water with the pack on would have been less than pleasant; but now that he was in, he wanted it. Moving as quickly as he could with the water pushing against his every motion, he got the pack hauled in and his AR unslung so he could shrug his arms through the backpack’s straps. Tightening them down snuggly, he got the AR resituated and pulled it tight too; he didn’t want things flapping and floating around on their own.
And it seemed like he was taking too long to do everything; like his fingers and arms and muscles didn’t want to fully cooperate. That would be the cold he knew. One way or another, the clock was ticking on him and the others the same as it had been when the zombies were closing in. Hypothermia would kill just as surely as teeth and hunger. He didn’t bother trying to stop himself from shivering; the muscular action would actually help him generate heat that would help counter his body’s losing battle against the water’s thermal sapping efforts.
While he was doing all that he had a chance to look around a little. The current was pulling him south at a pretty decent clip. Maybe not as fast as a full on run, but to him it looked at least jogging pace. He saw two other people splashing around downstream of him, but commanded himself not to assume the worst. He wasn’t really looking for the others yet; just sort of snatching glances here and there. There was no reason to assume all three of his companions hadn’t made it down in one piece.
Finally Peter got his gear resituated, and let himself tip back in the float posture once more. With the pack strapped on, he was even more buoyant than before. He took a long look around, evaluating his situation.
The bridge was visible to the north. Some zombies were falling from it, but not many. To him, it almost looked like the zombies that took dives were just falling accidentally. What he could see of the horde on the structure just seemed to be milling about aimlessly now that the dinner they’d been focused on was gone. The current would pull the zombies south along with the humans, but Peter wasn’t too concerned. Any zombies that ‘survived’ the drop into the water would just sink.
Zombies didn’t swim, and they didn’t float since their bodies soaked up the water like sponges and drew them down to the bottom. The creatures didn’t know to not swallow the water in, and that removed a lot of the natural buoyancy humans normally enjoyed.
The sun wasn’t quite gone just yet, and Peter could tell from the angle of its remaining light that the water wasn’t actually moving south right now. The river was curving around to the west. He tried to think back to the map, wishing he’d checked it again before jumping. From what he could remember, the river snaked a sort of S-curve to the west before cutting back south. How far it doglegged out west before turning again, that’s what was stumping him.
Okay, that was fine. That was just semantics; where it was going didn’t really matter right now. Getting out of it safely did. Unfortunately, what he could see of the banks on either side revealed balance-challenged figures moving around. There were buildings and structures near the water’s edge — more to the Tennessee side than the Arkansas to the west — but even amid the sand and dirt and trees he still saw more zombies roaming around than he’d care to deal with right now.
“Gunny!”
A hand waved above the water, and Peter abandoned his visual sweep of the land. He recognized Whitley, and waved back. “You okay?”
“Christ this is cold!”
“See the others?” Peter asked, turning himself in the water to start a side stroke toward her. He was bobbing along pretty high in the water, and staying at the surface without much effort thanks to the pack.
“Just one; Smith I think.”
“Crawford! Smith!” Peter shouted as he crabbed downstream. “Gather up! Everyone swim toward each other.”
The figure ahead of Whitley turned its head, and Peter recognized Smith. Crawford wore her hair pretty short, but still in a vaguely feminine style; Smith’s was effectively a civilian crew-cut and was enough to recognize him by even under these conditions. The man thrust a hair up in the air, and Peter paused his own swimming long enough to return the gesture. “Come this way!”
“Current.” his voice answered back, drifting across the light chop of the river’s motion.
“Just swim.” Peter yelled back. “Slow yourself up so we can catch you.”
“Okay.”
“Where’s Crawford?” Whitley asked as Peter resumed his swimming in earnest.
“Don’t know.” Smith called in reply.
“You don’t see her?”
“No, do you?”
“Did she drown?”
Peter frowned slightly as he kept swimming. His blood was starting to warm up from the exertion — there were few activities that would really put demands on a body like swimming fully clothed and hauling gear — but he could still feel himself cooling off regardless. He could stave the temperature loss off with activity, but it was a losing battle. The water would win.
“Swim!” he yelled to the others. It was troubling that no one saw Crawford. The current wasn’t
that
fast; nor was the river white-water choppy enough to make it likely they’d miss her even in the twilight. If she wasn’t in sight, he took that as a bad sign.
“Trying.” he heard Smith answer, while Whitley just started splashing in a vague approximation of something midway between a dogpaddle and a very sloppy breaststroke.
“Just swim.” Peter repeated as he kept his arms in legs in motion, propelling himself through the water. “It’ll help keep you warm.”
“Yeah right.”
“Just swim.”
Whitley was closer, but by the time Peter reached her he could feel his shivering starting to move beyond his limbs. Muscles in his back and chest and abdomen were starting to twitch in an effort to warm his body. He jerked his head at her as he drew even with the Guardswoman, and she just turned in the water and started swimming alongside Peter as both made for Smith.
It seemed to take a long time — Peter knew that was just his own overblown sense of alarm starting to really get into gear — but they finally reached Smith. The soldier shifted around as the other two reached him, copying Peter’s floating posture in a clear bid to conserve some energy.
“Okay, anyone see Crawford?” he asked, pausing his swimming and gesturing with one hand for the others to look around.
“N-no.” Whitley said, shaking her head as she treaded water. Peter noticed her face was drawn with stress, and her breathing was pretty fast. Her color was way down, leaving her shivering expression pale and stark.
“Did you see her go into the water Smith?” he asked. “You went in after her.”
“I was kind of busy climbing down and doing my own drop.”
“So that’s a no?”
“That’s a no.”
“W-w-e n-need-d-d to get-t-t out-t-t of the wat-t-ter.” Whitley said.
“Shift around on your back.” Peter said, pulling his gaze off the river back to her. It was an effort for him to annunciate his words clearly, but he made it just like it said in his little unwritten senior NCO’s instruction manual; never let the troops see anything bothering you. It confused and distracted them. It bothered them.
Whtiley’s drawn expression was getting paler still, and he could see her shivering getting worse. “Float, catch your breath.”
“T-t-t-trying.” she answered as she twisted into a back down position and spread her arms out for buoyancy.
“T-t-there aren’t s-s-o many z-z-zombies on the banks-s-s now.” Smith said, craning his head up and looking from east to west.”
“We want to get out on the west side if at all possible.” Peter said, looking in that direction.
“W-w-hy?” Whitley asked.
“Because we already know the Memphis side is crawling with corpses, and we’ll have to do this again if we don’t.” he answered. The bank wasn’t what he’d call any sort of proper beach, not in the civilian sense, but it was sort of sandy; not much in the way of immediate settlement right along the water’s edge. And a little downriver, he could see the course starting to curve back around to the south.
Most importantly, he didn’t see anything that looked like a zombie horde along the riverside to the west. A few scattered zombies, yes; but any large packs, no.
“Come on, let’s head for the beach.” he said, gesturing with a hand that shook when he lifted it clear of the water to point despite his intention to conceal how the cold was getting to him.
“G-g-good.” Whitley said, turning immediately and striking out in a crawl stroke.
“I can-n-n- barely m-m-move.” Smith complained as he struggled to get swimming.
“Backstroke.” Peter advised as he started pacing Whtiley, pulling with his arms and kicking some. It was clear Smith wasn’t a strong swimmer, and the man’s sodden clothes and gear harness with all the added weight wasn’t making it any easier for him to manage. “Float, kick your feet, pull with your arms.”
“T-t-trying-g-g.”
Time seemed to spin out like some sadistic entity kept turning it back on them, or at least pulling the shore away as they swam; but slowly the trio moved away from the middle of the river. Peter was really feeling the chill now, could feel his heart racing and breath heaving as his body tried to power his muscles and warm itself at the same time. He was really having to work — not just on keeping himself moving — but also on keeping his focus.
Despite his best efforts, despite knowing how dangerous it was, he found his attention kept wavering. He’d blink and realize he had no memory of what he’d been doing as he swam. He’d see a figure moving on the riverbank and couldn’t remember if he’d already noted its presence or not. Right now it was lost seconds; it could easily become lost minutes, and then more. That was bad. He knew it was a sign the cold was getting to him, a worse sign than the shivering and other physical symptoms.
They were maybe twenty-five or thirty feet out from land when he saw Whitley abruptly stop swimming. She’d been pulling ahead, slowly but steadily, as she swam at a brisk pace; but now she was motionless, face down in the water. As he blinked at her and started to open his mouth, he saw her begin to sink; her clothes and gear were pulling her under.
“Whitley!” he blurted, summoning a surge of strength and surging forward quickly in a redoubled amount of splashing as he kicked rapidly against the water.
“What?” Smith asked, splashing out of his back stroke so he could look around.
“She’s in trouble.” Peter answered as he pulled a burst of activity out of his aching and tired body. Half a dozen powerful strokes got him close enough to reach out and grab for her boot. She was floating below the surface, and didn’t move as he hauled her in and got himself to where he could get a grip on her shirt.