Crusade (Eden Book 2) (22 page)
Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Maurice hustled Lauren and Nicole after Eva, who had reached Sonya, Victor and Nelson and directed them towards the wall of stalled vehicles fronting the southern edge of what had been a circle. Maurice looked and saw the circle had been broken down at the front of the line where half a dozen or more vehicles had pulled out. The vehicles cut off following the detonation. Zombies came around those cars and were gunned down but more followed, stumbling over and past their fallen.
A group of men and women had popped the hood on a mini-van. While three fended off zombies with rifle and shotgun fire, two were frantically at work under the hood. A man wrestled with two zombies on the ground.
“Look out!” Eva cried.
Lauren looked up. A booker came loping across the parking lot, ignoring everyone else around except her. It screamed as it ran and had murder in its eyes.
Maurice straight armed his 9mm and unloaded on the beast, holding fast to Nicole. The creature caught a slug in its chest and shuddered but kept coming; a second and third round from Maurice’s pistol rocked it.
“Fuck you!”
Eva fired the shotgun mounted under her M4. Everything above the beast’s shoulders disappeared in a red spray. The legs went out from under it and the creature pitched to the ground, skidding a few feet forward on sheer momentum.
“Where’s my mommy? Where’s my mommy?”
Maurice looked down. It was one of the kids from around camp—he thought the kids’ nickname was Buckwheat—tugging on his arm.
“Come with me,” he shouted, trying to grab the kid but his arms were full.
“My mommy!” the boy screamed and would have taken off into the chaos except for Eva, who snatched him by the arm and dragged him along with them, yelling:
“Come on now, kid!”
The boy allowed himself to be pulled along, his cheeks streaked with tears as he continued to cry for his mother.
Gasoline cascaded across the parking lot and splashed over their feet. The smell was overpowering. All Lauren could think was one of the tankers spilled itself out.
“Through the truck! Through the truck!” Eva pulled back the bolt on the M-26 and pushed Maurice towards the cab of the nearest truck. Its passenger side door was ajar.
Maurice hopped into the cab and slid himself across the seats to the driver’s side door, banging his thigh on the gear shift. He looked through the window. All he saw was more barren parking lot and beyond that a field where reeds grew chest high. He opened the door and stepped down onto the parking lot. Eva ushered Sonya and her children through the passenger door.
As Lauren waited her turn she held tight to Buckwheat, and watched Eva snap the M4 to her shoulder then fire once, dropping a slow-moving zombie that had been intent on them. She thought she saw Steve scuttling away like a crab on his hands, one foot under him, the other dragging behind. One of the mechanics at the mini-van clubbed a zombie over the head with a wrench. Before she knew what was happening, Eva bodily pushed Lauren up then through the passenger door and into then through the cab.
“
Vre
!
Ella etho
!”
Maurice looked up. The Greek—the one who didn’t speak any English—was running over to him, looking confused, holding on to a pump action Remington 870 like he didn’t know what to do with it.
“Yo, Greek dude. Whatever your name is.” Maurice was relieved to see him. They both reached up and helped Sonya out of the truck then helped her kids.
“Maurice, can you tell me what’s going on?” Sonya tried to keep the panic she felt out of her voice.
There were small groups of people escaping under and through the vehicles around them, tearing off into the field. Maurice wrinkled his nose and looked down. Gasoline pooled from underneath the truck. He imagined the space between the cars and trucks must be a virtual river of the stuff by now.
“We’re on the other side of the trucks,” Maurice said.
“My babies—are my babies all here?”
“Your kids are fine. I got Nicole, and here comes Nelson.”
“What about Eva? Where’s my sister?”
“I’m here, Sone, I’m here.” Eva was the last one through the cab, having pulled the passenger side door closed behind her then slamming the driver’s side door shut.
Lauren looked around and realized Edward was not with them any longer. She wondered where they had lost him.
“Let’s go!” Eva yelled at the group. “Into the field! Stick together!” She grabbed the Greek by the shoulders and pointed. “Through the field. We’re going through the field!”
They reached the reed bed without incident, the gunfire behind them building to a crescendo.
“What now?” Maurice asked Eva.
“We stick close. We stay together.”
“Wait! Help me! Take me with you!” A man they recognized from the convoy, but did not know, staggered out of the field towards their voices. It was evident from the way he clasped his eyelids shut and held his hands out in front of him that he couldn’t see.
“What’s your name doo?” Maurice demanded.
“Zach.”
“Zach.” Maurice grabbed the Greek and put one of his hands on Zach’s shoulder. “You stick with my friend Saki here, okay? Do everything he says and keep quiet.”
The man said nothing, but a look of immense relief washed over his face.
An explosion from somewhere within the convoy drew their attention. As they watched, the vehicles were engulfed in fire from left to right and began detonating one by one.
“
Panavia’ mou
!,” the Greek said, pulling his Kangol back and scratching at the bald spot on the top of his head.
“What the hell just happened?” the blind guy asked.
They looked back before plunging into the field. The clear sky above the convoy filled with a roiling black smoke. There were screams and howls as the living and the dead perished in the fire, entire families trapped and burnt alive between and inside the cars. A few of the sturdier among the undead shambled out of the conflagration ablaze, toppling to burn in the parking lot. In the distance a huge plume of smoke from the city billowed and dissipated outwards.
The field gave way to trees. They moved quietly through the foliage. Eva walked at the front of the line with her assault rifle/shotgun combo at the ready. Lauren held Buckwheat’s hand, leading Sonya who had one hand on her shoulder. Nelson and Nicole stayed close to their mother and Lauren.
“Come on, doo.” Maurice did his best to keep up with the women. He took turns with the Greek, half-leading and half-dragging Zach along. The blind man moaned and rubbing at his eyes periodically. “You too. Don’t drag ass, Stymie.”
The boy protested, “I’m Buckwheat.”
“Whatever. Move your little white ass, doo.”
The Greek brought up the rear spooked, constantly looking back over his shoulder.
By mid-day they reached a point where the red shoots and flowers of the maple trees gave way to another road, a six-lane highway, its asphalt cracked and grown over with weeds. There were no vehicles in sight and the road stretched on in either direction. The mushroom cloud was behind them. If it still hung in the sky they could not see it because of the tree line.
They stopped and ate a small lunch from cans and drank some of the water they had taken from the convoy.
“Maybe we should put all our food in one knapsack and all our water in another?” Lauren asked.
“No,” Eva said.
“Give all the food and water to one person, even two people,” Maurice explained, “then what happens if we lose those people?”
Lauren understood his point and nodded.
“Evangeline,” Sonya asked. “What happened to Edward?”
“I don’t know.”
The children were especially tired, but it was decided without much debate they needed to continue and would follow the road, heading in a general direction away from the city, putting the caravan as far behind them as they could.
They spread out along the road and moved along silently, meeting no one.
“You okay?” Maurice held Buckwheat’s hand and walked beside Lauren and Nicole.
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
“Okay.” Maurice thought of Damar and his other friends and wondered where they were and what had happened to them and if they had perished back at the convoy.
“I think I’m getting my vision back.” Zach said. The Greek cursed at him and pulled him along.
Eva crested a rise ahead and held up a hand, waving them forward, signaling the group to keep quiet. Lauren with Sonya and the kids were the last to reach the rise. Lauren looked down upon what had stopped Eva.
“What is it?” Sonya asked.
“Cars,” Lauren said. “Tons of them.”
From where they stood it looked like a parking lot. Thousands of cars of all makes and models stretched as far as the eye could see, carpeting all six-lanes of the highway, covering the grassy median separating one direction from another, covering much of the shoulders on either side of the road.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Maurice asked.
“
Apo’ pou sto thia lo
?
Erthe aufto
?
Po po
?” asked the Greek but he knew no one understood a word he said.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Eva said.
“I don’t see Zed,” Maurice noted.
“Just cause you don’t see any zombies don’t mean they’re not there,” Zach said. “What am I missing anyway?”
As Lauren filled him and Sonya in on the scene Eva and Maurice debated the next move.
“We could circle it,” Maurice said. “Stick to one of the tree lines.”
Eva looked over either shoulder. There was a seamless melding where the cars, packed from the highway to the shoulder, disappeared into the trees. It didn’t look like they’d be able to skirt all the vehicles and Eva wasn’t comfortable doing so.
Anything
could be lurking in those trees.
She pointed this out to Maurice and he nodded.
“Want to camp here for the rest of the day?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Can’t tell how long those cars go on for. Where they hell are we? Is there a town or a city nearby?”
“I don’t think so.”
“This is a weird fucking place for this. I think we have another hour or two of daylight.”
“We get stuck down there,” Maurice indicated amongst the cars, “we can find a couple vans or something. Spend the night in them.”
“Or on top of them.” Eva had no intention of being trapped inside a vehicle with who knew what gathering around in the night.
“Or on top,” Maurice echoed.
“Okay, listen up,” Eva called to the group. “We’re heading down there. We don’t see anything but that just means we have to be extra careful. I’m going first. Lauren I want you to follow me with Sonya and the kids, including Farina there.”
“I thought he was Stymie,” Maurice said.
The kid laughed and said, “Buckwheat.”
“Greek, listen to me.” Eva signaled with her hands then explained what she wanted him to do. “You stay on our left flank, near the median. Keep an eye on the road over there and the tree-line up on that shoulder.”
“
Pragmatika katalava lexi apo ti epeis
.”
“Shit. Okay, Maurice, you get our flank on that side. Greek,” she pointed as she spoke slowly. “You-bring-up-the-rear, okay?”
“
Den milao-Anglika
.
Den em ai vlakas
.”
“He’s not retarded, Eva,” Sonya said. “He just doesn’t speak English.”
“And you’re blind and I’m standing right over here, so shut the fuck up. I mean, I’m your sister and I love you and all, but right now we’re in some shit, so I need you to listen to me so we can all get through it, all right? Greek, go, now. And take this other blind motherfucker with you.”