Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (44 page)

None wondered more than Jess. She knew most of the people back at the school, and there were still some she cared about. A couple of small fires burned here and there, providing a ghostly, flickering light by which to behold the ghastly tableau. It looked like the fires of Hell lighting the procession of the dead. Jess swallowed hard as the lost oasis faded behind them.

Jerry, on the other hand, was quiet and largely absent, not much more animated than the undead. He couldn’t force the images of Claire’s tortured and disfigured body from his mind. The guilt of his failure defied purging.

Emma turned to Neil and asked, “So what happened to Della and that guy? I mean, besides the obvious.”

Neil shook his head and looked back at the kids, saying only, “Later.”

They sped out of the parking lot and almost immediately, their truck began to sputter and struggle. Emma looked at the gas gauge. “Uh, Neil. I think we’ve got a problem.”

“What?”

Jess spoke up from the back seat. “Shit. I’m sorry. You couldn’t have known. The Colonel never left fuel in the vehicles out back in case someone tried to steal one to get away. When you said you had a ride waiting, I just assumed it was one you brought with you.”

Neil allowed a defeated laugh to escape. “No fucking gas. Great. How far can we make it?”

The Suburban answered for itself when its engine choked again, gasping for fuel to fire its engine. The vehicle shuddered twice and then the engine went quiet. They coasted for a few more yards and then they were still again.

There wasn’t time to lament their worries however. They had to keep moving. The bridge was just up ahead and beyond it was Soldotna.

Straggling well behind the main body of shuffling ghouls, a dozen or so undead were still making their way across the expanse to join the battle already engaged at the former high school. These wraiths moved slower due to their advanced decay or the severity of the fatal injuries which had originally claimed their lives. These were the first zombies they saw after abandoning their stalled Suburban on the highway just out of sight of both the school and the bridge.

Emma and Jerry, at the front of the emerging line of survivors, had a hard time in seeing clearly all the threats that lurked, but there appeared to be enough room to be able to continue their exodus. Unfortunately, the zekes immediately sensed the emergence of new prey and began to wander closer and closer, their collective moans steadily rising in volume.

Jerry, whose grief become anger, hefted his hunting rifle to his shoulder and squeezed off a round which took all of them by surprise. The high caliber bullet struck its target in the dark but it wasn’t an effective kill shot and the beast was back on its feet in seconds. Neil wanted to stop him but whatever potential damage could have been wrought by the decision was already done. The undead knew that they were there. There was no need to chide his friend, not that it would have done any good anyway.

Neil looked at Jess and ordered her to stick close to them and keep the children between them. He looked at Danny and was both surprised and pleased to see the boy take a small revolver from his own pocket. The boy was quickly becoming a much needed asset to their survival. Danny caught Neil’s stare and nodded to the man that he was ready.

They walked out together, with Emma, Jerry, and Neil forming an arc like an umbrella in front and the others with Jess at the rear falling under the protective screen. The seven of them walked briskly but didn’t run.

An abandoned Ford Explorer approximately halfway across the bridge served as a way point around which they gathered their nerves and their breath for the rest of the bridge crossing. They waited for just a handful of heartbeats but it was enough.

From around the front of the sport utility vehicle appeared a frail ghoul still wearing a dressing gown. Jules and Nikki both let slip a small, surprised squeal as the old woman’s emaciated, skull-like face became visible. Neil fired a deafening blast from his shotgun which splintered the woman’s sternum and opened a hole clean through her chest. She was thrown backward several yards and ended up on her back. Lying there still for a few seconds, she started to struggle to her feet again.

Dispatching the zombie was less important than getting away, so they continued their retreat with a little more speed in their steps. Another of the demons, this one a teenager still wearing a bright colored drawstring backpack, approached them with a little more dexterity than the old woman. Emma shot this time, sending a single bullet through his head just below his right eye. First its head and then its whole body was flung backward and landed with a chilling thump on the pavement out of sight.

Emma hadn’t intended to fire only one shot, but apparently the magazine on her assault rifle was empty. She knew how to reload her weapon, but in the dark she was afraid she might do something wrong. Instead, she slung the rifle over her shoulder and put a pistol in her hand.

They continued forward with a growing band of undead drawing closer and closer. Neil said to all of them, “We have to keep moving. No stopping. Just keep moving.”

For some strange reason, Emma, upon hearing Neil’s command, remembered a line from Pixar’s
Finding Nemo
. She began to repeat over and over in her head,
Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming
. Ellen DeGeneres’ voice immediately brought a very surprising smile to her face.

The words repeated as she spotted another target which she quickly brought down with a pair of shots that split its ossified skull. Ellen’s silly voice filled her head as she continued forward alongside Neil and Jerry.

She had never felt so much an equal as she did at that moment. The real difference that she could sense in the moment is that she felt justified in judging her peers as equal to herself rather than the other way around. She had never before possessed the confidence to find herself in that position. And so with her chest filled with a swagger and her head brimming with a Disney fish’s voice, Emma set about clearing a path through which they could pass to...

To where? To what really? To safety? Was it even possible to find such a lofty possibility? Emma would just be happy to not be on her feet any longer. She was really going to miss that truck.

It was then, as they stepped from the bridge onto the main roadway, that Jess said curiously, “I think I have an idea. We need to head straight up this road.”

“What’s up there?” Neil asked.

Jess was still a little guarded and didn’t want to reveal her secret, so she only said, “At the main intersection. Right before the Fred Meyer.”

Neil remembered that a fuel truck was parked at the intersection. Did Jess know something about that truck that perhaps they didn’t? And why the hell wouldn’t she just say? He wanted to ask her, but there were other pressing concerns at hand.

The more they fired their weapons and the more noise they made, the more attention they drew to themselves. The numbers of flesh eaters beginning to shuffle hungrily in the shadows was beginning to grow. They moved slowly but their sheer numbers were beginning to worry all of them.

Neil forgot his pains and Jerry forgot his suffering. They worked like the team that they had become. When Jerry had fired all the rounds from his rifle, he and Emma switched places so that Jerry was in the middle. He could reload while they moved forward and had Emma and Neil to protect him. They went through the same process when Neil needed to reload his shotgun.

In this way, they were able to cover the ground behind them and their goal some distance away. Using the path in reverse that Jess had used to return to the fortified school on her last excursion, they moved behind the Aspen Hotel and several other businesses. A small drainage ditch combined with their speed and stealthy movements to deliver them without further incident to their destination.

Soon, they were within reach of the intersection and Jess’ surprise. Neil looked at the fuel truck and wondered what she had in mind. Was this some kind of revenge ploy? Did she want to drive that truck into the school in some grand suicidal gesture?

Jess, of course, was only using the tanker truck as a point of reference. She was more interested in her car which had been left all those days ago. When she caught sight of its silhouette in the scant light, she almost began to laugh. Not much had worked out for her recently. Jess had suffered separation’s sting and death’s remorse far too much.

Jess’ daughter and the man she loved were worlds away and hopefully safe and waiting for her. Hell stood between her and them. Finding her car was the one bright spot of hope she’d had in quite some time. These people might be one more. Only time would tell.

She looked at Neil and pointed. Realizing he wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees, she said, “That’s my car and it’s got gas in it.”

“Will it start?”

Jess nodded. “That car’s a champ. It’s never let me down. We just have to get out to it.”

Neil nodded his understanding and looked over at Emma and Jerry. “You heard the lady. We got a ride out of here...”

Emma was in the process of loading another thirty-round magazine into her assault rifle and Jerry was checking the load on his hunting rifle. Jess didn’t appear nearly as experienced with her own assault rifle, but she followed Emma’s lead and prepared her own firearm.

As ready as they would ever be, the group of seven hopeful people stepped from their cover and into a side parking lot of a long dormant business. At first, they neither saw nor heard any of the undead. Jerry stopped abruptly and pointed to the gas station across the street. There were three or four zombies loitering between the pumps and the station building. Jerry raised his rifle to shoot but was interrupted with a swat to his shoulder. Emma was pointing toward the road leading toward the school. There were dozens of rambling specters marching toward the continuing ruckus of the battle. It appeared as if all of the creatures were thankfully moving away from the seven of them.

Emma shook her head from side to side and then put her finger to her lips in the universal
Shhhh
gesture. Jerry nodded and noticed that Neil and Jess were already moving across the street. Danny was doing his part keeping the other kids and himself tight to Neil’s tail.

Reaching the car without mishap, Neil found himself standing at the driver side door. Jess whispered, “The keys are on the seat.”

Neil started to come around to her side, but Jess chided him with, “Just get in and drive for God’s sake.”

Neil did as he was told, getting in and putting the keys into the ignition. Unfortunately, when he did so, his door was still open which triggered a series of beeps warning a forgetful motorist the keys were still in the ignition. He cringed and quickly shut the door, which also created more noise than he wanted.

The cluster of sound did alert the zombies in the gas station and a handful of others from the road to their presence. Jerry and Emma slid into the back seat, each placing one of the smaller children upon their laps.

“Okay, let’s go,” Emma pled from the back seat.

Neil turned the key and to everyone’s gleeful surprise, the car started. He flipped on the lights to see a gathering mob coming at them from multiple angles. Neil squealed the tires as he punched the car forward and swung around. He drove them back out toward Sterling and the Seward Highway beyond.

For just a second or so, Jess was tormented to scream at Neil to drive them back south. South was where Syd was...where she might be. South was where Bob was...where he was supposed to be. South was where she needed to be. She reached over and lowered the driver’s side visor. Syd smiled back at her from last year’s high school photograph. Seeing her daughter’s face surprisingly calmed Jess’ nerves. She pulled the photograph from the visor clip and said coolly, “The road is blocked to the south. North. Take us north.”

Neil nodded and did as he was told, which was his plan all along. The car was already moving, so he pulled hard on the wheel and got them moving back along the Sterling Highway and to the Seward Highway further on.

Anyone who has ever suggested that silence was empty couldn’t have been more wrong. The silence in Jess’ car as they headed north on the Seward Highway was spilling over and splitting at the seams with emotion and tears. Tears of sorrow. Tears of relief. Tears of exhaustion and hunger. And tears of disbelief about all that had happened.

It wasn’t bad enough that the world was being overrun by flesh-eating monsters who had once been neighbors and friends. In the midst of that horror, some men continued to prey upon other men, women, and even children.

Neil was feeling very conflicted. They had gotten away...well, most of them. What about Claire? Della? Alec? He felt guilty about inviting disaster upon everyone at the school. There was no pleasure in having wrought destruction upon a bastion such as that. And yet, having safely retrieved Danny and Jules meant more to him than he had imagined.

He thought he had been motivated by a sense of duty to the children, but he now understood that it went much deeper for him. He’d not been granted the opportunity to be a father. In point of fact, he had always doubted his own abilities at parenthood, as had his ex-wife, which was why they never had children.