“Anna, call them when the things leave the area, don’t wait until they’re all gone, just until Chris and Dallas can successfully negotiate any Limas in the way without getting snagged. Snipe what you can from here to cover them, but don’t waste ammo. Rick, follow me.”
The two men moved to the front of the house, into another bedroom. This room looked out over the cornfields twenty meters away. It also just happened to be above a quaint farmer’s porch.
“I’m going to jump down there, and when the pus bags follow me, you shoot any that get too close.”
“There are a lot.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve got to do this sooner rather than later, or that basement door will cave in and our buddies are chow.” Seyfert swung his legs out the window, sitting on the sill. “You ready?”
“Yeah, good luck.”
“Damn, Rick, you’re not even going to try to talk me out of it?”
“You’d only get pissed and do it anyway.”
Seyfert walked to the edge of the farmer’s porch and looked down, then looked back at Rick, “Don’t miss. Tell Anna to drop the ladder now!”
Rick nodded and yelled to her, and Seyfert started yelling for all he was worth. It didn’t take long for many undead to come looking, and soon there were a baker’s dozen right under him, with loads more on the way. He adjusted his weapon strap on his shoulder, took two steps back, then ran forward and leapt out into space. He flew over the creatures below him gracefully, and rolled when he landed, coming up in a crouch and aiming his weapon’s tac-light. Comically, the creatures stared at him momentarily as if to ask:
Are you fucking nuts
? A moment was all he got though, and then they started to amble toward him.
A wall of shadows was coming out of the pre-dawn darkness from both the left and right sides of the house too, but Seyfert didn’t move. “I forgot the hot sauce, you dead fucks!” he screamed, and then spit at them. A
pap!
came from Rick’s M4, and the dead kid that was behind Seyfert dropped. The SEAL had just enough time for one half of his brain to think that this was a terrible idea before the other half kicked in and told him to run. Unfortunately, he was a peninsula in a sea of rot. They were coming for him from three sides. With no choice, he turned and darted into the corn, yelling.
True to their nature, the creatures followed, and Rick watched the tac-light bob through the corn twenty meters in front of them. He watched the steady stream of undead pour back into the rows, then ran back to Anna.
There were nine creatures remaining in the back yard, two near the ladder, but the others spread out pretty thin.
“I’m going to call them!”
“Okay, tell Chris to come up the ladder first.”
“Why?”
“Because Dallas might have a concussion, and if he falls off the ladder with Chris under him, they’ll both get killed.” He aimed his suppressed handgun and destroyed the two creatures near the ladder.
“Chris, you come up the ladder first, are you ready?”
“Hell no, but we’ll do it!”
“Now!”
The latch bolt on the steel bulkhead sliding back made a loud noise, but it was nothing compared to the horrendous creaking screech that sounded when Chris threw open the old doors. All seven creatures in the back yard turned to gaze at a potential meal, their red eyes shrouded by the shadows.
Rick fired five suppressed rounds and scored two head shots as the men outside made their escape. Other dead had noticed the commotion, so more visitors were on the way.
Chris was up the ladder in less than three seconds, Rick and Anna pulling him in the bedroom window, but Dallas was struggling. From where Rick stood, half out of the window, Dallas looked unsteady as he very slowly climbed the chain rungs. Half way up, and just out of reach of the growing crowd below, he hooked his arm through a rung and stopped moving, swaying slightly.
“Rick, the ladder might not hold him!”
“Come on buddy, you’re almost there,” Rick called down. “Don’t stop now.”
The big man blinked a few times, looking up at Rick. “Hurt my noggin, pard. Feel like I gotta puke.”
“Puke when you get in the damn house, now climb, you dumb redneck.”
Dallas smiled through his misery and did continue his climb. When his three friends finally pulled him through the window, and he was lying on the floor on his back, he tried to sit up. “Damn,” was all he managed before he passed out.
Anna pulled her wrist across her forehead. “Jesus, the guy weighs a freakin’ ton!”
“I know, right?” agreed Chris. “You’d think now that he’s been off the pasta for a month, he’d lose weight.”
Anna tried to pull the ladder back in, but an enterprising young dead man had the bottom of it clenched in both fists.
“Good idea,” Rick said. “Pull that up, you never know.”
“It’s July, ain’t it?” asked a groggy southern voice. “There ain’t no snow. And I know one of y’all said somethin’ ‘bout spaghetti.” He promptly passed out again.
Anna fired two shots outside and quickly retrieved their means of egress, then all three conscious survivors moved their large friend to the bed with difficulty.
Anna looked at Rick. “So now what?”
“We wait for our ride.”
16
Every time the breeze blew through the stalks, it sounded like one of those things was right next to him, hissing. Seyfert had jogged through the yellow rows yelling with the things in tow for what seemed like an eternity before he decided to go into stealth mode. He stopped yelling and picked up his pace. The problem was he had no idea which direction he was travelling in, and it was still mostly dark. It was also extremely difficult to be quiet as he ran past the corn, and it had cut his face and arms. The lacerations were small, but one was in the scalp over his left eye, and it gave a steady trickle, partially blinding him. He didn’t know if the dead could smell his blood, and he was leaving a trail of it on the husks.
He had only come across one dead person in front on him in the corn so far, and had dispatched it quickly, moving on. He knew they were around him, and he was pretty sure they knew he was there too. Suddenly, an elephant loomed in front of him, scaring him witless. He raised his rifle, to shoot this living dead Goliath, but realized it wasn’t moving. It was a tractor abandoned in the field. He lowered his rifle, breathing heavily and thinking himself a fool when hands grabbed him from behind, and something bit into his shoulder. The SEAL did a forward roll, and the thing released him as it flew forward. He shot it in the face as it tried to stand and continued on his way. He now knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would not live through this night, and made an extremely quick peace with himself. He was a SEAL, the baddest of the bad, and his job was to die if necessary. Bitching about it wasn’t going to change the job.
He wouldn’t go out puking and crying just to turn into one of the Limas though. Uh uh. He’d shoot himself as soon as it got bad. Until then, he’d continue fighting, destroying as many of the pus bags as possible. He could hear them following, crashing through the stalks behind and to the sides of him. One stumbled in front, reaching, and he juked to the side, spinning and running. Was he going in circles? Was there a town load of zombies in the fields? Two more emerged, arms outstretched, and he shot one, and ran from the other. Now they were in front of him too, or maybe they always had been. He wiped his hand across his eye and it came away bloody. His shoulder ached where the thing had clamped down on him.
His warrior’s mind was racing. Would it be better to be caught and torn to pieces or to die slowly, enduring hours of terrible sickness only to swallow a bullet before expiring? Being eaten alive would hurt, but it would be over in less than five minutes, probably in less than two. The corn was starting to play on Seyfert’s mind, every noise amplified, and coming from every direction. It was almost sunup, but even when the sun rose, he wouldn’t be able to see anything past the tall stalks. He had gotten lost in a corn maze when he was eight, and had to sit between the rows crying until his father had come for him.
A growl from his left made him jump right, and the lunging dead farmer in denim overalls missed him. He ran. They were everywhere. He hoped that his friends would make it, and that they would find the cure. He hoped his mom and dad were okay, and his sister studying abroad in Australia had escaped the plague. He was hoping that his parents’ Dalmatian Sparky was still alive when he burst through the corn and stumbled into a shallow roadside ditch.
Dawn’s first light peeked over the stalks as he looked up into the barrels and blades of several different weapons. “Lookey what we got here boys,” a gruff voice said. “A bona fide soldier.” Seyfert looked at the speaker, a barrel-chested man dressed in jeans with a black leather vest, forearms covered in tattoos. The waxing sun glinted off of the chrome from a line of silent motorcycles stretching down the road in both directions.
Oh shit
… thought the SEAL as visions of murderous post-apocalyptic biker gangs flew through his head. He would endure a thousand tortures before he revealed the location of his buddies to this trash. Saying a silent prayer, and a sorry to his parents, he started to bring his weapon up to fire when a little boy showed up behind the big biker’s tree-trunk legs.
“Who’s that, daddy?”
“Why don’t you ask him, Danny?”
The boy looked up at his father and shook his head.
Uh-uh.
“Forgive my son, soldier-boy, he’s shy. Before you join my group, I gotta ask, are you bit?”
A shot rang out and someone yelled, “Rotters!” and then all hell broke loose.
“Get up here, boy!” the man yelled to Seyfert, who didn’t need to be told twice. What unfolded next stunned the SEAL. Men on both sides of the road aimed into the corn with rifles and shotguns, while the women and kids unfolded poles and snapped them together. Each was two meters long, with a crossbar on the end so that the thing looked like a T. The firing began, but soon the odd items were passed to several of the men, who in turn passed their rifles to the women and kids. Several more shots rang out before the poles could be put into use, but they were still brought to bear quickly.
“Stand back, son, and save your ammo until you need it,” the big guy told Seyfert. As the dead poured out of the corn, the men stopped them in their tracks with the T-poles. Others used harpoon-like spears to pierce the skulls of the impeded zombies. One or two more shots echoed across the fields before Seyfert looked upon the carcasses of more than forty re-killed bodies. The operation had been executed with military precision.
“How many were chasing you?”
“More than this, I think.”
“Eyes open! There are more out there. Calvin, are you finished with the tire?”
Seyfert noticed a man fixing a flat on one of the motorcycles. He also noticed that no self-respecting homicidal scumbag would ride some of the bikes in the procession. There were big touring bikes, rice rockets and even a Ducati racing motorcycle with the Harleys. There were women and kids, and even a bird in a cage. These were families.
The guy fixing the tire wiped his hand across his forehead. “Three minutes! If you leave me the hell alone.”
The big man laughed, “That there’s Calvin. My name is Teems, Mark Teems, and this is my family.” He spread his hands in both directions.
Seyfert stuck his hand forward. “John Seyfert, US Navy.”
“Navy? You’re in Nebraska, sailor, you lost?”
“No. You’ve got a pretty extended family.”
The man chuckled. “Yeah, most of them are strays we picked up along the way. Started off with me, Danny, and nine of my biker buddies. We picked up a guy and his kids outside of Sturgis, and we’ve picked up everybody else since. Couldn’t leave them behind.”
“Thanks for saving my ass, Mark.”
“Teems. Nobody calls me Mark.
“Teems! We got Rotters in the corn on the same side as before.”
The biker looked at Seyfert with a wry smile. “See?”
The group took care of the emerging dead as efficiently as before. None of the creatures ever reached the road. The mechanic said he was done with the tire, and Teems decided it was time to go. “I don’t like being inside this damn corn.” Everybody packed up quickly, and Teems with two of his friends continued to speak with Seyfert.
“You’re welcome to come with us, sailor. Oh yeah, back to my original question, are you bit?”
“Yeah, yeah I am.”
Instantly three weapons were pointed at him. Half the column of people were looking on now.
“Sorry, sailor, but you know how this works. Pass me your weapon slow-like.”
Seyfert nodded and did as he was told. “Where did they get you?” He pulled his tac-webbing to the side and his shirt down so they could view the bite. One of the three with a gun on Seyfert stepped forward. A skinny man in glasses, he leaned in and inspected the wound. Moving his fingers across the SEAL’s shoulder, he pushed the shirt this way and that.
“How long does he have, Doc?”
The doctor shook his head. “Fifty, maybe sixty years unless he really gets bitten. They didn’t break the skin, son, but you’re going to need new gear.” The man showed Seyfert teeth marks and a tear in the padded part of his tac-webbing. “You’re a lucky man.”
Teems passed the MP5SD3 back to Seyfert. “Guess you can come with us. We could use a man with military training. What did you do in the Navy?”
Seyfert smiled. “I was in the Teams.”
That earned him a guffaw and a hearty slap on the back. “So what do you say? We’ve got room, and your fortunes would improve some if you were mobile.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Teems, but I’ve got some friends trapped in a farmhouse, and some more that are missing. I’ve got to figure out how to help them.”
Teems looked at the doctor, who nodded. “We’ll help you, kid, that’s kind of what we do.”
“I couldn’t ask—”
“You didn’t, as I recall,” the biker yelled over the sounds of the bikes starting up. “Calvin! Calvin, where’s this depot you’ve been promising me?”
“Eight miles east on twenty, and a mile south on RR nine.”
“You take everybody there and hole up. I’ll take the Steadys with me and help this young man’s friends. Calvin knows where there’s a big garage-type place with its own well,” he told Seyfert. “He says it’s built like a fortress, so we’re going to catch our breath for a couple days and then move on.”
Seyfert was puzzled. “What are Steadys?”
“That’s the name of my bike club, the Rock Steadys.”
Nodding, Seyfert reached for his radio, only to find it missing, “Damn.” He noticed Teems looking at him queerly and relayed the information about the missing radio. “Must have happened when the one almost got me at the tractor. I’ve waded through rivers and swum oceans, crossed mountains, traded fire with insurgents, and spent a week in a sandstorm as a SEAL, but I have never had so much radio trouble as I’ve had in the past two weeks.”
A suppressed gunshot sounded, and everyone looked to see another dead woman fall just inside the corn. Seyfert had his weapon trained on the corn looking for more targets.
“So where are your friends?”