The Death Doll (21 page)

BOXED IN

Didi had heard people say they should count their blessings when things looked bleak.  One of hers was that Craig had reinforced some of her key bones to make them harder to break after a jump like that. 

The first boneheads grabbed her right away, but soon found her unappealing and let her go.  Same with their buddies behind them.  It was a good thing she kept her teasing mild and generally unthreatening.  The others slowly figured it out and dispersed, but that took a while.  She was tempted to hack her way through, but the crowd was too thick.  She could wait as long as she needed to.  It wasn’t that dark yet.

Still, she worried.  Even after seeing Kenny’s impressive R.V., she hadn’t anticipated the bastard having more where that came from.  She knew the bus could take a pounding, but too much could go wrong and kill her friends—kill Cody.

Don’t think like that
, she told herself as she waited. 
Worrying won’t add to
his
life, either.

She stared at all zombies wandering away from her, trying not to feel as alone as she looked.  It was a fitting allegory, really: surrounded by bodies yet being alone.  She understood it as a kid when her dad died.  It stuck with her as a teenager when all those guys kept trying to get into her pants, during her career when a bunch succeeded, every second as Murphy's sex slave, the moment she killed herself, and—despite Cody’s attempts—as a zombie every day since. 

When the dead crowd thinned out enough for her to weave her way to the end of the next block, she saw Craig nervously waiting behind the wheel of the Ford, further proving she wasn’t alone anymore.  She thanked God and ran toward the truck.

“Did you pack them?” she asked when she reached the truck. 

He opened her tech backpack and showed her the items she needed most.  “Special delivery.”

She smiled, slid into the passenger seat, and pulled her makeup compact from her jacket pocket.  “Time to finish up.”

*****

Paula grew more terrified with each madman driving up on the bus.  It wasn’t enough to lose her home and everyone she cared about to a zombie plague, then her freedom to find protection; now she had soulless devils trying to kill her and her husband for … what?  She wasn’t sure anymore.  Though ruined by their efforts, the camp still had plenty of useful things left behind.  Did these fiends want everything else on the bus, too, or did they just lust for death and destruction?  How could such animals call themselves the Pride of
Life
?  She had no answers to guide her; only a bunch of relative strangers shooting down each approaching car, truck, van, or motorcycle for her. 

The guns up top never stopped blasting for longer than a few seconds at a time while Brad and Oscar handed Ron and Max the ammunition they needed.  Most of the other teens—including Pepe and Dawn—jumped into the fight as well, eagerly praising each other for each hit as if they had been playing video games this whole time.  Blake cursed his machine gun for frequently jamming on him and abandoned it all together for a pair of nearby pistols, claiming the “Ma-Deuce” would blow up if he didn’t give it time to cool. 

All their efforts seemed fruitless.  No matter how many of their pursuers the others took out, more came from whatever hell spawned them.  A few stray bullets managed to slip through the gun slits, one hitting Max in the leg.  The lunatics firebombed the walls, which so far only singed a few hairs.  There seemed to be no end in sight.

“Hold on,” Bob shouted from up front.

The bus sharply turned again.  Half of the camp fell onto the children in the center seats; the rest onto the floor as the bus completed the last leg of its turn.  Ron and Max bravely stayed in the fight, each sitting on a strap bolted to the ceiling.

Blake fell out of his chair and cradled his bleeding arm.  Gilda rushed to his side, examined his wound, and ripped off the sleeve. “It’s okay.  I’ve got you,” she said while Chuck and one of his colleagues shot out of the back with their automatic rifles.

Flames spewed through one of the central gun slits, startling Paula.  Roy fell into his seat with his hands over his face.  He grunted and cursed at the top of his lungs as his son Lee rushed to his side.  Gilda yelled for Pepe, tossed something to him, and pointed at the fifty-something grouch, whose eyes were scarred shut.  Pepe rubbed some kind of cream on the man’s scorched face, which took a lot of effort with Roy flailing and cursing the whole time.

A ricocheted bullet cracked right by Paula’s ear.  She hit the ground, shut her eyes, and covered her ears while thundering gunshots and muffled yelling raged on all around her.  Then a thud.  She opened her eyes and found Megan lying on the floor nearby, her blue eyes empty and still.  Paula crawled over to the girl and tried to rouse her.  She shouted, shook, and even slapped to wake the girl up.  Nothing.

Gilda appeared and looked Megan over, then sighed hard.  “Poor Megan,” she muttered as she closed the poor young girl’s eyes and rushed to another part of the bus.

The nightmare grew worse by the second, and now it claimed another child.  Megan.  Lydia.  Adam.  The ones responsible were outside laughing at them.  It had to stop, and the answer rested above her in a welded sheath. 

Paula sprang to her feet, snatched the handgun from its holster, and screamed as she rained hell on the maniacs outside.  She was well past caring about the sanctity of human life that wasn’t on the same bus as her.  No one closing in on them deserved any mercy.  She would die before she let another monster destroy another child’s life.

Another sharp left turn forced her to grab the overhead bar.  Through the gun slits, she recognized the old Country Club—dilapidated as it was—and realized they had been routed back into Sibley.

*****

Rock Rapids looked completely clear, as did the road ahead, which made Isaac smile.  Free of the mess piped through the little earpiece Cody gave him, he didn’t want to see another thing—living or dead—in his way.  The map said that the long stretch of empty town ended just after the top of the horizon.  Freedom awaited, and he was taking it.

After passing the second major intersection in town, Rachelle pointed behind them.  “You missed it.  The gas station back there.  That’s where they’re meeting us.”

He gave his rearview a look, watched the broken Popke’s sign shrink, and focused on the road ahead.

She glared at him like she wanted to sock him.  “You’re leaving them behind, aren’t you?”

“I had places to go before I fell in with y’all.  I didn’t ask for this shit.”

She drew down on him, but it didn’t take much for him to wrest her revolver from her little hands.  He barely even had to adjust the wheel to stay on the road afterward.  She tried to take it back, but he shoved her against the door hard enough to make her stop fighting him.  It didn’t stop her from yelling at him, her eyes all teary.  “She took you in, you ungrateful fuck.   How could you do this to her?”

“Be grateful you’re away from that shit back there.”

“I’ll take that shit over a coward like you.  Now, let me out.”

Isaac stared at the little dumbass.  “You going to walk back there or something?”

“I’ll run if I have to.  Maybe I’ll steal a car.”

Isaac laughed.  “Good luck finding one that works.”

She cussed under her breath and opened her door.

He grabbed her arm and kept her from getting out.  “Whoa, what you doing?”

“I’m going back for my friends,” she yelled while trying to yank her arm free, her other hand still on her door.

“Close that door, or you’re going to get yourself hurt.”

“What do you care?” she shouted while struggling.  “You obviously don’t give a shit.”

He slammed her door shut and shoved her against it.  “Sit your ass down and shut up.  It’s going to be a long ride to San Francisco, and I don’t want—”

“You’re kidnapping me?”

“I’m saving your ass from yourself.  Why do you want to go back to that face-muncher?  You know she can conk out and eat you like she did Clarissa’s man.”

“‘Cuz she’s my friend,” she said with a whole lot of attitude.  “She could’ve eaten me in juvie, but she busted me out.  Why wouldn’t I do the same for her?”

“Don’t be feeding me the loyalty bullshit.  My crew back in Chicago tried that, but they just wanted shit from me and turned on me when they stopped getting it.  Ain’t no one out there who won’t do that in the end.”

“Except Didi.”

He shook his head.  “There weren’t any Didis around to save my girl, so I don’t need one.”

“Your girl?”

He couldn’t believe he let that slip.  He released her shirt and focused on the winding road ahead, which had nothing but wild farmlands on both sides.

“What girl are you talking about?” Rachelle asked.

“Just shut up and watch the road.”

Rachelle leaned closer to him with a shocked look on her face.  “Who did you lose?”

He wanted to shove her back, but he kept his temper in check.  He wasn’t sure telling her would help, but maybe it would shut her up.  “My girlfriend took me in after I got out of prison.  Then the face-munchers came.  I couldn’t get there in time.  My little brother Reggie said there wasn’t anything I could do.”

“You’re keeping me because you’re blaming yourself for losing your girlfriend?”

“Well, she had my baby, didn’t she?” he shouted.

Rachelle’s wide-eyed face stayed as still as a picture.

He faced the road again and realized he was crushing the steering wheel.  He loosened his grip.  “I barely even got to know her.  Shit, I was shopping for her diapers when they came,” he added with a sad laugh.  “I made one stop to check in with my parole officer, and that dead-ass fucker tried to eat me.  I got back as fast as I could.  I had to fight off a whole bunch to see them both, but they—” He had to stop himself from sobbing.

“You’re just like Paula,” Rachelle said.

Suddenly wanting to throw the brat out of the window, he cussed her out and loudly added, “Did I get in your business about going out?  No.  I never condescended you like she does, but I ain’t going to just let you get yourself killed.”

“Is that why you didn’t take the truck when you had the chance?” she spat, which drew a very surprised look from him.  “Yeah, Didi told me about that.”

“So, how come she gave me this one?”

“Because she believed in you.  I guess she was wrong after all.” She crossed her arms and pouted at her window.

Glad she was finally silent, he faced the road again.  He may not have liked what she said about him, but at least some quiet time would make the sting go away.

Light flashed beside him, drawing his attention to his side-view mirror.  Headlights followed him.  Three sets, one belonging to Kenny’s R.V.  The other two sets turned out to be four motorcycles speeding toward him, its riders drawing pistols.  He cursed and floored the gas pedal.

“What now?” Rachelle asked her window, still pouting.  Then she noticed the storm coming at them in her side-view mirror.  “Holy shit!”

Gunshots sparked all over both doors, forcing Isaac to lean away from his side window and Rachelle to duck. 

“They're going to blow us up,” she yelled over the gunfire.

“They better not if they want this gas,” he said before tossing her revolver back to her.

A gunshot clipped one of the two metal bars holding his left side-view mirror in place.  What was left reflected one of the bikers reloading his pistol. 

“Can you shoot this asshole for me?” he asked, hoping her little arms could reach before the crazy dude finished reloading.

“Only if I’m in your lap, and that’s not happening.”

A metal-on-metal crash rocked the cabin.  Isaac fought to keep the truck on the road, then got a look back at the R.V. leveling out. 

“Maybe they ain't after the fuel,” he realized.  He rammed the R.V. before it could hit him again, crushing one of the bikers in between.  The R.V. recovered and moved behind the tanker while the other bikers took to the off-road.

Rachelle fired her revolver out of her window.  Three shots later, she cheered herself for taking out one of the bikers, but another stream of gunshots damn near took her out.  She ducked onto the floor and shot blindly out the window until she clicked empty.  She dug into her jacket pockets and hastily reloaded, looking like she was fighting a panic attack.  “I can’t load this with you swerving all over.”

Isaac pointed to the M4 on the floor.  “Ain’t that loaded?”

The kid looked at the rifle like she was embarrassed and picked it up, fumbling with it before she stuck it out of her window and pull the trigger, but nothing happened. 

“How hard can it be, huh?” Isaac said.

Rachelle flicked the safety lever twice and rained bullets out her window in rapid groups of three. 

He shrugged.  “I guess not that hard.”

She smirked at him, then ducked down when several gunshots flashed around her window.