Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (29 page)

The SUV to which Oscar’s execution rope had
been tied was left for those staying behind. The Colonel had no
fear that Cody and the others representing his rearguard would do
anything other than follow their orders and do their jobs. Carter
had just made sure of that. Oscar’s swinging feet erased any notion
any of them had entertained about using the vehicle to make an
escape as soon as the Colonel was out of sight.

The tunnel was dark and endless. Its air,
moist, cool and foul with rot, was like the icy breath of a demon.
And it was into the gloom that the militia was preparing to go,
despite anyone’s misgivings.

Plunging into the murk felt as if they were
being swallowed, as the light behind them grew dim and then
disappeared entirely. They were in the belly of the beast and they
could all sense it. Many of Carter’s boyhood insecurities, long
buried and forgotten, reemerged and made themselves comfortable in
the shadows. Unfortunately for Colonel Bear’s militiamen, more than
Carter’s dormant fears lurked out of sight.

The trip through the tunnel, with railroad
tracks sunk into the concrete road, was slow and unsteady out of
necessity under normal circumstances, and this was anything but
normal. Their vehicles’ headlights and the few flashlights any of
them still carried did little to illuminate their way. Predicting
barriers or other hazards potentially blocking the way was nearly
impossible, slowing their speed still more. They couldn’t afford to
find themselves having to stop to unclog the pipe so to speak,
especially if that clog happened to be Carter’s truck.

Colonel Bear’s militiamen were thankful for
the cars and trucks in which they were riding, regardless of where
they were going. Most of the people in the Colonel’s command were
not and had never been soldiers. They were just ordinary folks
benefiting from the philosophy of safety in numbers. That wasn’t to
say these people were cowards or incapable of defending themselves,
but in the face of such wanton destruction some of them had lost
the will to live when the disaster first started to unfold. The
militia reawakened a sense of hope and possibility in many of them
and now, for the most part, they willingly followed the orders
given to them. If only someone had remembered to order them to have
no fear.

To some, the walls on either side of their
little convoy felt impossibly close and narrowed the deeper they
drove. The darkness, like cold pitch, closed around them,
swallowing them into its depths. Skating precariously along a
razor’s edge, tensions soared to new heights.

Carter squinted, his sweaty hands clinging
to the steering wheel, trying to see beyond his truck’s hood. Not
seeing but not knowing what awaited them was unnerving. If it
weren’t for the pinch of tobacco between his lower lip and his
brown teeth, his mouth would have been as dry as the Mojave.

Carter would never admit to feeling fear. To
him, such admission was a sign of cowardice and weakness. Men, real
men, simply did not experience fear. If it weren’t for that
particular worldview and an association with those of similar
minds, Carter would likely not find himself in the lead vehicle nor
would he be Colonel Bear’s lone lieutenant.

The truck ambled along at an excruciatingly
slow pace, but that was the Colonel’s order. He didn’t know what
could be waiting for them in the tunnel. The morbidly obese
Colonel’s words were, “Don’t move too quickly or you might run
afoul of something that might damage your vehicle and render it
useless. That would be a death sentence for us all.”

Carter had once heard that the way to boil a
frog was to put it into a vat of warm water and then gradually add
heat until the water boils and you have soup. The little critter
wouldn’t struggle or protest a bit. Carter wondered if he and all
of the Colonel’s militia were simply acting the part of the frog,
wandering deeper and deeper into their own vat of warm water.

The rumbles of their engines running at just
above an idle were only slightly louder than the exasperated
breathing of all the truck and sport utility vehicle
passengers.

There were other sounds creeping in the
gloom as well. The occasional breeze finding the tunnel entrance
stirred leaves, discarded plastic shopping bags, and other odds and
ends. The distinct sound of running water, likely the result of
snow melting in the sun, also echoed around them as the trickle
found its way into pipes and gutters meant to direct the water away
from the tunnel. Perhaps the most troubling sound was a faint echo
of a deep, guttural moan that was growing stronger. There were
times when the men and women sitting in the vehicles thought they
could hear the uneven but recognizable shuffle and drag of a skin
walking but no one had seen any yet.

When the tunnel was constructed, the
designers included plans for Safe Houses along the route to be used
in case of any emergencies that might close the way. Like caves
with a door, these rooms were cut out of the mountain in the same
manner as the tunnel itself. They contained emergency food, water,
and first aid supplies, as well as temporary shelter if the need
arose.

Passing the first of several of these doors
and vehicle pull off spots, Carter realized the shelters had been
sought out by desperate souls seeking refuge from the onslaught of
death which had followed them into the tunnel. In the pull off lane
in front of the safe house’s propped open door were several
mutilated carcasses picked nearly clean of skin and tissue. Having
resisted the changing of seasons in the sheltered confines of the
tunnel, clouds of little gnats and other flying insects feasting on
the carrion rose and fell as Carter’s faint flashlight beam was
cast upon the macabre scene.

He slowed his truck as they passed and saw a
procession of shadowy wraiths stumble through the open door. Men,
women, and, tragically, children emerged from the room, drawn out
by the sound of the vehicles and the infection’s furious hunger
raging in their brains. They crept into view, reaching and grabbing
with claw like hands and bone thin stumps jagged with exposed
bones. They flashed their cracked, yellow teeth and snapped their
ravenous jaws wildly at the air, like feral cats.

“Looks like we have some customers after
all,” Carter announced to his passengers. “Let’s put ‘em down and
be quick about it.” His voice was calm, evincing no emotion
whatsoever. His was the voice of the somber executioner going about
his duties. “Let’s drop these fucking skins and get moving
again.”

Carter opened his door, and with a growl
lifting itself from deep within his chest, he stepped onto the
pavement. He brandished a blunt hammer with a sharpened claw in his
right hand and a black revolver in his left. He was already diving
into the crowd before his four passengers were even out of the
vehicle.

They could see the bloodlust in his eyes and
in the wild grin stretched across his face. Carter’s arm whipped
the hammer around in deadly arcs, bludgeoning everything within
reach. From the whirling depths of his berserker rampage, Carter
began to laugh hysterically. This was where he belonged and was
meant to be.

He had nearly killed all of them before the
four militia were able to join in the carnage. Carter was breathing
in deep gasps and his reddened forehead was drenched with a torrent
of sweat. He was holding one of the gnashing ghouls by the throat
while he forcibly extracted the blunt end of his hammer from
another zombie’s skull. His hammer freed, Carter kicked the still
fighting ghoul away from himself and then sank his hammer’s claw
into its eye. The thing shuddered violently and then fell limp,
hanging from the end of the hammer.

The final three monsters were dealt with
similarly by the others, though the total fury generated by all
four of the militia could not come close to measuring up to
Carter’s alone. He was on a different level. They could see just
how different he was from them. In a lot of respects, he more
resembled the ghouls he had just butchered than he did the humans
with him.

Looking around, it was obvious to all of
them that this was the high-water mark for the survivors on that
day so many weeks ago; this was as far as those last few survivors
made it before being overwhelmed. Those souls were now little more
than rotting piles of bones surrounded by faint greasy patches left
on the otherwise dusty ground. There were rags and bits of cloth
here and there as well, likely the victims’ clothes torn from their
bodies and cast aside, out of the way. There was no way to
determine if the remains were male or female...adult or child.
There simply was not enough left of any of them.

The mystery of whether Whittier was free of
the plague or not had been answered a couple hundred feet into the
gloom. The city had not been spared. It was probably good the
Colonel had decided to leave the tunnel open. The likelihood they
would be staying in Whittier long term was now pretty slim. With
any luck, they would be back on the road and heading toward The
Ranch in a few hours.

Without a word, Carter wheeled around and
strode back over to the truck. Sitting and turning the ignition of
the truck in a single, deft movement, Carter spit out the wad of
tobacco from his front lip onto the dark street below. He tucked a
fresh pinch of chew, strong and minty, into his mouth, noticing
that there was a new cold sore on his gum. The stinging sensation
to Carter was just short of absolute bliss. He was certain to
position the caustic clump against the fresh wound and revel in the
burn. He revved the engine twice, getting his passengers’ attention
and hurrying them back to the truck, which was already starting to
roll.

After a few quiet moments, Carter leaned
over toward the passenger next to him, a twitchy, dark-haired young
man named Lincoln, and said, “Keep your eyes open. There’s bound to
be more skins in here with us and all the noise we just made is
just like ringing the dinner bell for ‘em.”

On cue, a pair of wraiths, not much more
than two gray heads bobbing in the truck’s headlights like fishing
buoys on the surf, appeared in the road in front of them. Carter
said, “Hold on. The drive might get a little rougher.”

He pressed his accelerator, letting the
truck leap forward. The big vehicle’s grill gobbled up the
creatures and sent them under its tires. It didn’t feel much
differently than driving over a pair of speed bumps. Carter smiled.
“That was easy.”

Further along and deeper into the tunnel,
they came upon another of the safe houses. Carter slowed the truck
a bit to get a better view. His morbid curiosity was piqued and
ready to burst. In the flashlight beams, they could see there were
yellow and black hazard stripes and signs with directions and
cautions. There were also discarded duffel bags, backpacks, and
suitcases.

There was more evidence of a struggle than
at their first stop. He could even see spent shell casings and
items which likely had been used as clubs but which had also been
dropped.

Panning the ground with the light, Carter
saw even more. There were bodies, but these were largely intact.
They hadn’t been devoured like many of the others. They were skins
that had been taken down. He counted at least four of them. Some of
those people, terrified and running for their lives, had stood
their ground. Maybe it was a father defending his family or a woman
fighting for her child. Regardless, he was proud of those brave
people refusing to simply lay down and die. There were always
fighters in groups of people and those people did what they could
for the others. It didn’t look like it had worked long term, but
they had tried. In Carter’s mind, there was a certain degree of
respectability in fighting, even if it was a futile battle.

Lincoln asked timidly, “Should we go take a
look?”

Carter shook his head. “No. Whatever’s in
there can stay for now. There may not be anything left anyway.
There may be more skins in there waiting for us to open the door.
What do people say when old shipwrecks are found? They should be
left alone because they were tombs or something. Probably the same
with places like this. It even smells like a tomb in here. We
should just leave ‘em alone and move on down the road. Pretty soon
we’ll be out of this tunnel and out of the dark. Then we’ll be able
to figure out what to do.”

The woman sitting behind Carter, a tough
tomboy named Kit, leaned forward and pointed. “There’s more of
them. Look.”

Sure enough, a group was starting to gather
and move toward them from further ahead. The mob was just entering
Carter’s high beam range and were still some distance away. It was
mainly movement without form that they saw, but on occasion a face
would flash into the light and then disappear again.

“Okay, hop in the back and get ready to
repel boarders.” Carter had always wanted to say that. He had an
interest in pirates and the age of piracy; one of the few holdovers
from his childhood. He’d heard in some pirate movie long ago the
captain say that just as the pirates grappled his ship.

There was a pause with everyone in the
truck. Carter said again, “In the back, and ready yourselves to
repel boarders. Now goddamnit! I’m not asking. We need to fight our
way through this and we can’t do it from inside. You’ll be up high
enough in the back of this truck to be out of reach. We’ll keep
movin’ too, which will help keep them off of us. Use your guns or
your clubs to fight them off. We don’t have all day. Now move!”

With visions of Oscar swinging above the
highway in their heads, Carter’s four passengers got themselves
into the back of the truck just as he started to move forward
again. Lincoln pulsed his flashlight back at the vehicles following
them, and the other drivers followed the example.