Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution (55 page)

Kit could see otherwise. Quicker than she
would have thought possible, the truck was swarmed with the dead,
rapidly closing any opportunity for escape from the two still
trapped inside. It was starting to resemble a crumb of food beneath
the gathering force of an entirely ant colony.

Taking a step back, Kit fired her pistol
again and killed the second ghoul still coming at her, though its
pace was seriously hampered by its right ankle, which was twisted
around backward and provided little support. She wondered where
Nils had gone but found him with a quick scan of her surroundings.
He was in the road trying to fight off a gathering pack of the
creatures piling against him like jackals taking down a raging
elephant. Poor Nils was unarmed but he swung his massive arms like
mighty clubs, violently striking anything and everything within
reach. Many of those he struck did not get back onto their feet,
but there were so many of them. They just kept bearing down upon
him until Kit could no longer see him. Nils disappeared into a
growing pool of vicious, clawing hands and chomping jaws. Kit fired
her pistol several more times into Nils’ attackers but nothing was
going to change the man’s fate so she stopped.

She didn’t have time to consider the guilt
that she should have felt, but that was how it was with her all the
time. The man had saved her by pulling her out of the truck, and
she was unable to do the same for him. Most people would have felt
something...anything, but the distance at which Kit held most
people, whether knowingly or not, insulated her from anything but
superficial feelings for anyone else. It was a lonely but very safe
place.

Kit’s shooting had drawn the attention of
more fiends, so she was starting to feel it necessary to run. She
was worried that if she did, she would find herself isolated and
without a way to escape. She backed herself down the slope behind
her but never took her eyes off the truck. She kept hoping that the
convoy would turn about and come to their rescue, but as the
seconds passed a rescue seemed less and less likely. They were on
their own and it was starting to look like she was really on her
own...again.

That was how she got hooked up with Colonel
Bear’s militia in the first place. She wasn’t a fanatic, or hadn’t
been before the end of the world anyway.

Back in the day, she liked to tell people
that she worked at a bank but the reality was that she just cleaned
it at night. She also cleaned some state offices too. She spent
most of her adult life cleaning up after others. She’d never had
any ambition to do anything else.

She had no family and few friends, so when
everything came crashing down for everyone else not much really
changed for her. During the first couple of days, she just enjoyed
sleeping in late and not going to work. When the electricity failed
and she ran out of food and especially beer, that was when the
crisis really began.

Kit had ventured out into Kenai to see
things for herself and had encountered a group of people gathering
supplies for a place they called The Ranch. With no other plans or
possibilities to consider, she elected to accompany them back to
the armed encampment. She thought that maybe she could get a job as
a barracks housekeeper or something. She went along because she
didn’t know what else she should do.

It was at The Ranch, under the guidance of
men like Colonel Bear and Carter, where Kit discovered she could
detach herself from the person she was before The Fall and become a
ferocious fighter. Her flat demeanor helped her to remain calm when
others had difficulty managing both their fear and their rage.
Kit’s lack of connection to others also contributed a very
effective means of dealing with both the living and the dead
without any meddling emotions.

As a result, Kit became an asset in ways she
could never have known in her past world. She maintained a low
profile, but found herself called upon to take active roles in
supply runs and the aptly named search and destroy sweeps into
Soldotna and Kenai. She had a reputation for being coolheaded in a
fight. She had started to enjoy her status and her new life.

Now, she regretted having left her trailer
and placed her faith in the Colonel’s militia. She was no better
off than she was in her previous life. She was alone again and
without hope.

Kit wondered to where she should run. Behind
her was the Inn at Whittier, but also getting back there through
the growing congregation of dead behind her. She felt like an
animal caught in a snare, contemplating chewing off her own foot to
free herself from the trap.

Above the mayhem of the unfolding tempest,
Kit could still hear the Ford’s engine rising as more and more fuel
was fed into it. The truck sounded as desperate as its occupants to
free itself.

Then it happened; one of the rear tires
found a moment of contact with something firm enough to provide
traction. The truck lurched forward unexpectedly to everyone both
inside and out of the vehicle, then spun to the left just as
quickly. The big black truck found itself on a sharper incline; too
sharp to maintain its balance. Instead of freeing them, Dwight sent
the truck into a slow motion tip and roll down the small hill,
ending with the truck on its side with rear tires still spinning
uselessly. Most of the contents of the covered truck bed, including
three rifles, blankets, and some backpacks full of supplies spilled
into the snowy grass.

Kit was tempted to try to grab something,
anything. She could almost hear the rifles calling to her. She’d
likely need the rifles. She only had so many bullets for her pistol
and the backpacks probably had more of those too. She started to
move forward but stopped before she even began. The truck’s engine
and then the crash had attracted dozens of the things from all
around them. There was no time for anything more than just getting
away.

In the few seconds it took Kit to collect
her thoughts and formulate a plan, she heard Eddie’s desperate,
shrill plea: “Nooooo! Get away! Noooooo! Stopppppp! Nooooo! Please
stopppppp! Oh my Godddddd! Nooooooo!” Eddie’s sad protests then
degenerated into a garbled, grunting cry. Kit never heard Dwight
and assumed that he was unconscious.

Isolated and now on foot, Kit started to
run. She ran toward the buildings in front of her, hoping that a
closed door and some walls might be the key to her survival.
Anything was better than being out in the open with all those skins
around her. Keeping her eyes focused on the mustard colored
building in front of her, she hustled through the knee high grass
poking itself through the shallow layer of snow that had
accumulated. Pushing herself through and even over a few individual
skins thinking Kit looked like an appetizing snack, Kit finally got
to the back of the building but couldn’t find an immediate
opening.

She crept along the back wall, hoping to
find a window or a door but it was solid. She moved steadily,
trying to keep a watchful eye both in front of and behind her.

She stumbled, tried to regain her footing,
and then fell flat on her face. Knowing how vulnerable she was
lying there, Kit got her legs under her and pushed back against the
ground. A creature had gotten almost within arm’s length without
Kit’s awareness.

She removed her knife from its sheath and
quickly forced it into the fiend’s right eye. It paused for a
second considering the sharp blade lodged in its brain, and then
collapsed without so much as a peep.

Kit turned about and ran headlong into
another one with its gaping maw at the ready. Its yellow teeth and
fetid breath were against her cheek before she could react. The
jagged incisors sunk into her ruddy skin and removed a mouthful of
tissue before pulling away. Kit let loose a scream full of rage and
pounded her still bloody knife repeatedly into its face. The
walking corpse fell to the ground, and she maintained her grip,
thrusting the blade deep into its shattered and mutilated face.
There were no longer discernible features. It had become a swampy
morass of crushed bone and dark, necrotic fluid, much of which
splashed up onto her own face and neck.

Kit finally stopped, crying she was so
angry. Leaving her knife in its forehead, she staggered away and
saw a sign for a lounge that was close enough for her to make it.
As luck would have it, her path to the lounge was clear; Dwight’s
wrecked truck down the road was drawing all of them in the area to
it.

Kit climbed the stairs and forced her way
through a pile of chairs and other odds and ends blocking the door.
Finally inside the tavern, Kit allowed herself to lower her vigil.
She slumped over to the bar and, without checking first for any
threats, stepped behind to look for a drink. Lying on a glistening
bed of shattered bottles, the withered, gray, lifeless corpse of
the former female bartender greeted her. To Kit’s relief, the
corpse appeared to be dead and nothing more. She reached onto one
of the shelves and pulled out a bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila.

“Figures,” she lamented out loud. I hate
tequila.” She twisted off the cap and poured a greedy belt of the
spirit into her mouth and onto her face. Her wound was oozing a
seeping flow of warm, salty blood, and some of the liquor found its
way onto her open cheek, sending jolts of electric pain in
lightning waves to her brain. She swooned, her head in a cloud of
pain.

Seating herself on one of the few remaining
intact chairs, Kit spent the next few minutes finishing the more
than half a bottle of tequila. She never left the bar again, ending
her the remaining moments of life exactly how she wanted.

Carter saw the headlights and knew what had
happened. He was surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner. He was
pretty sure that it was the last truck in their convoy, which had
been lost. He wondered who it was for a moment. They couldn’t
afford to lose anyone.

If the Colonel was right and there were
dangerous people encamped out in Shotgun Cove, Colonel Bear’s
militia was going to need every able body at their disposal. He was
tempted to swing around and help sort things out. The rest of the
vehicles could move on toward their objective. Carter could rescue
the survivors and the supplies and then be on his way in no time at
all.

Before they had departed, however, the
Colonel had been very clear. Carter was to keep them moving forward
no matter what happened. He had agreed and was bound to follow that
order, but it certainly chafed his pride. It felt to him like he
was running away from a fight.

He stopped his truck once he reached Shotgun
Cove Road and waited for those behind to catch up with him. The
Colonel’s Hummer pulled alongside Carter’s own idling truck and the
passenger side window was lowered.

Colonel Bear asked, “D’you see who it
was?”

Carter shook his head and spat a brown
mouthful of tobacco and saliva, “Nope. Too far behind for me to
catch ‘em. You?”

“No, but Sorensen thought it might be
Dwight.”

From inside the Colonel’s big ride, a voice
from the backseat confirmed, “I’ve seen everyone else’s rig but
his. He was a dumbass behind the wheel anyway. He had no business
driving. It was his truck though. Dumbass.”

“You want me to—?”

The Colonel cut Carter off. “Nope. We can’t
afford any delays. The longer we sit here, the more of those things
show up and the more time we give them that done us wrong to
prepare for us.”

Carter wanted to point out that it was very
unlikely that the people in question were even remotely aware of
the militia’s presence, but he didn’t want to be proven wrong. He
silently closed his window and put his truck back into gear.

The militia convoy sped away from Whittier,
leaving behind Dwight’s wrecked truck and the people who had been
in it to fend for themselves. With any luck, those militiamen
involved in the accident would be able to survive long enough for
Carter to figure out a way to return to them. If not, Carter
figured they would just have to determine a way to get back with
fewer troops.

When the convoy departed, they left behind
something else, something much more sinister and threatening. The
horde, thousands of undead strong, was gradually picking up steam
and following the living toward the Shotgun Cove sanctuary. The
militia was like a bastardized pied piper leading an army of death
from the city.

“Shoot ‘im goddamnit!” barked Carter.

The middle-aged man shook his head
defiantly. “I did but he keeps comin’ at me.”

Irritated by what he perceived as
incompetence, Carter gritted his teeth and bit back his anger
before it found his voice. It had been some time since they had
seen skins capable of running. It was certainly disconcerting, but
Carter had been able to control his emotions and his fears. He
expected everyone else to do the same. It was the only way they
would be able to survive the Colonel’s war.

They had arrived at the first residence
along Shotgun Cove Road, a mobile home, which was more mobile than
it was home. The yard was little more than a cleared lot with a
gravel bed thrown down as a driveway. There was a red Ford F250
with as much rust and mud along its frame as paint. Its windshield
was spider-webbed with cracks, some of which ran the length of the
vehicle. There were a couple of other remnants of trucks covered
with blue tarps and a few lean-to sheds serving to cover various
tools, animal traps and snares, and old engine parts. It looked
like the place had been there for generations, but Carter knew
otherwise.

Shotgun Cove was a fairly new development.
He was unaware that the road had ever been finished and building
had begun. Yet, there stood one of Shotgun Cove’s luxurious
residences, full of glitz and glamour and evidence of the good
life.