Respect for the Dead (Surviving the Dead Book 1) (17 page)

Beth glared at Matt for moment, “How can you be so happy about being right about zombies?”  She demanded.  Matt merely shrugged, shaking her head she turned to look out the small back window.  There were two zombies approaching, she watched them running after the truck.  “Wait didn’t you just say that zombies don’t run?”  She asked grabbing Matt by the shoulders. 

Matt’s eyes were huge as she shook him, “yes that’s right they don’t” he squeaked. 

Jumping up to her knees Beth gripped the rubber gasket around the window.  She watched the two figures flaying and running after them.  A zombie stumbled out of a doorway close to them.  Beth saw a muzzle flash from the hand of the taller of the running figures and the zombie crumple.

“Stop!  Stop the truck!”  She yelled. 

The two figures were waving frantically at the back windows. 

“What’s wrong?”  Devin asked as he applied the brakes.

“There are a couple of guys running after the truck.  Stop!”  Beth yelled as she threw the back door open.

“Wait!  What if they are like those guys who tried to kill us at the ball park?  This could be more like them!”  Trevor protested.

The smell of burning wood and burnt meat assaulted Beth’s nose.  She was waving the two men on ignoring the admonishments from the other passengers.  Beth gave a small scream and ducked.  One of the men raised his gun and fired. The bullet whizzed past the truck. Beth opened her eyes and saw a zombie with a bullet hole through its head lying just at the back bumper.

“Move!”  One of the men shouted gesturing for Beth to move to the side.  She did not need telling twice.  Flattening herself against the wall of the truck, the two men jumped in.  One was in a police uniform the other in military fatigues.  The police officer spun around and slammed the doors. 

“Go Go Go!”  He exclaimed.  Devin did as he was told. 

              The man in fatigues hit the wall next to Beth slipping down next her, across from her the police officer slid down the other wall.  Both men sat in silence except for taking deep breaths.  The police officer had his head in his hands while the military man was staring straight ahead clutching at stitch in his side.  Martin looked over at the cop and asked, “What is your name officer?” 

The officer looked up, recognizing the Mayor he tried to compose himself.  “Sorry sir, Officer Kline, Max Kline.”

Martin nodded, “Welcome aboard glad you made it this far, Officer Kline, and you are?”  Martin gestured to the military man.

  “Corporal Hector Rodriguez, sir.”  Was the man’s reply between breaths. 

“Corporal, are you with the national guard post in Somerset?” 

“Yes sir, we were order to town to evacuate the civilians.”  Hector shuddered.  “It didn’t go so well sir.” 

Devin turned sharply down another alley and stopped.  It was late afternoon and it was starting to get dark.  He put the truck in park and turn to address the two additions to their crowded vehicle.   He opened his mouth, stopped, took a breath, opened his mouth again, shook his head then, “What the hell happened?” He blurted out. 

Hector looked over Max.  Max stared back, Hector sighed, “We lost control, we lost control of the situation.” 

Max spoke up.  “I was sent to the ball park to secure the area for the evacuation.  The first couple of helicopters that came in were just dropping off soldiers.  There was this Captain that kinda took control as soon as he landed.”

“Captain Rhodes,” Hector interrupted.  “Complete asshole, didn’t have a clue how to run an op.” 

Max looked at Hector and when he didn’t continue Max resumed his story.  “I couldn’t believe what was happening or what that Captain had just told us. The guy told us the people with the flu; the sick people were going crazy. It was like rabies or something, it made them attack and kill other people.  He told us to shoot them on sight, but not just shoot them, but to shoot them in the head, only.” 

Hector interrupted again, “That is because he didn’t tell you everything.  They weren’t sick anymore, they were already dead.” 

Max stared at him.  “What do you mean they were already dead?  You mean like zombies and shit?”  At this Martin spoke up and filled in the shocked officer.  “Holy shit.”  Max muttered at the end of the explanation. 

“Well at least we know that zombies don’t eat brains, I mean that would defeat the whole purpose of infecting the brain.”  Matt added.  Everyone stared at him, “what?”  He asked.  “It is all about the brain.  That is where the infection is and why you can only take them down by shooting them in the head.  Destroy the brain destroy the zombie.” 

“Yeah and we had order to take out anyone sick.  None of them were to make it out of the city.  So we had to break up families and tell people they couldn’t leave.  A buddy of mine in another unit told me they were going to the hospital to sterilize the infected. ” Hector stated.  “Sterilize, nice way to say kill.  We lost contact with them right before it all went to hell at our post.”  Hector sighed rubbing his eyes. 

Martin persisted, “So what happened though?  How did we lose control?”   

Max took a moment to gather his thoughts,  “Well I took up my position behind my cruisers just in front of the concrete barricades that were set up at the entrance of the Ball Park… I still don’t believe it, really zombies?”  Max stared around the truck waiting for someone to say it was a joke.  Beth nodded at him.  “Shit…Well like I said I was at the Point, there were two other places that were set up as evacuation sites.  The park up on Eisenhower, and at the Richland Mall Movie Theater on top of the hill.  We had just lost contact with the guys at the park and the guys at the theater were having a bad time of it, there was a lot of shooting going on up there with people overrunning the barricades, panicking, trying to get to the helicopters.” 

Max shook his head Hector decided to give him a break.  “I was briefed at the camp and told all about the virus and to avoid anyone that was sick.  If you got bit you were pretty much screwed.”  He paused, thinking back on the briefing.  “I understand this started yesterday in New York.  The Army guys there got overrun pretty damn quick.  They blew up all the bridges and tunnels out of the city the last time we had contact with them.”  Hector sat for a moment. 

“We lost New York?”  Beth sat stunned.

“New York, Philly, Pittsburgh, we haven’t been able to reach any of the big cities for hours.  We got orders to come here and evacuate from Colonel Miller.  No one is sure where he got orders from but he’s in charge so we loaded up and came here.”  

Martin gave a sad smile, “Well at least he tried to help out the city.”

Hector grunted at this.  “By the time we got here the city was already lost we just didn’t know it.”   Martin raised his eyebrows at the corporal.  Hector stared back.  “My chopper landed and we fanned out to help the local police guys with their barricades and to set up an orderly evac.” 

Max nodded “They were armed to the fucking teeth, oh sorry.” He said noticing Beth and Matt. 

“Please I’m in high school; like that is the worst I’ve heard.”  Beth gave a laugh at the embarrassment on the officer’s face. Hector gave an impatient snort.

“Go on,” Martin encouraged.

“Well like I said we landed and deployed around the ball park.  The police had things set up for like a concert or that kind of crowd control.  We started closing the holes in their set up while moving the civilians through.”  Hector closed his eyes for a moment.  “We had a special area set up for the sick to go to be…”

Max interrupted.  “The tents along the river?...You."  What did you do?” 

Hector looked down at the stock of his gun. “Those guys were to shoot the sick and dump them into the river.”

Gillian gave a strangled cry.  Matt grabbed her arm. 

“Dear god.”  Devin exclaimed. 

“We couldn’t take the chance of one of them dying in the helicopter and attacking the others.  We had already decontaminated our camp.  We couldn’t let any infected in.”

Beth glared at the soldier.  “Decontaminated?  You mean killed.” 

Hector fired up at once.  “We lost two of our Docs to some guys who turned.  We couldn’t lose anyone else!  We had families coming in who needed us to keep them safe!  We had our own people to look after not come here!”  He slammed the back of his head into the wall of the truck.”

“Well sorry for ruining your day!  But it hasn’t been a ray of sunshine for us here in case you missed it.”  Beth threw back at him. 

Max looked back and forth from the military man to the teenage girl like he was watching a tennis match of shouting.  Hector glared at Beth for several seconds, she did not look away.  Hector’s expression changed to exhaustion.  “Sorry,” he mumbled. 

Trevor shouted out exasperated, “we're all having a shitty day!  What the hell happened and where should we go?  I mean more of you guys are coming to get us right?” 

Hector glanced over at Max.  Max shook his head, “no, I don’t think they are.”

Trevor stuttered, “ wh wha what do you mean? No?”

  Hector looked up.  “We lost control of the city.  They own it now.” 

“How?  How did we lose control?”  Trevor pleaded.

Max put his head in his hands and sighed, “What difference does it make?” 

Martin straightened up and spoke with the authority and presence of a man used to being answered, “What the hell happened?”

Shocked, Hector looked around at the faces in the truck.  He nodded to the Mayor and spoke in a clear military tone.  “Things were going alright, at first.  We were separating the sick from the healthy.” 

“How” Gillian asked. 

“We told them...”  He faltered, “we told them we had a vaccine and to go to the tents.”

Gillian looked down at her hands in her lap. Beth closed her eyes and turned her head from the men.  She looked out the back window and listened to Hector return to his story. 

“We had the people leave their stuff and go up into the stands.  We took their guns so, they couldn’t cause trouble if they couldn’t get out on the chopper they wanted or if they found out what was happening in the tents.  We had heard that was what happened up at the theater.” 

Hector gathered his thoughts as Matt breathed...”Dude” 

“Like I said, things were going ok until we saw a group of them heading toward the south entrance.  These were not refugees; this was a whole group of infected.  I don’t know if it was the noise of the helicopters or the living or what but they started coming out of everywhere.   The cops were shouting at them to stop but, well that didn’t work.”

Max gave an angry grunt, “like we knew what the hell was going on, no one told us they were already dead.”

Beth turned back to the men as Hector continued.  “Well, we knew they weren’t going to stop so we opened fire.   There were so many of them we had to fall back.  Head shots aren’t the easiest and grenades don’t work if the person isn’t going to notice shrapnel sticking out of them, these things don’t exactly bleed.  So we start to fall back.  Well I guess the people in the stands took notice of us losing ground and they start to panic.” 

Max spoke up, “well what the hell did you expect?  There they are in a place with barricades all around it, the army shooting and falling back and all their weapons were confiscated when they came in!” 

Hector gave a mirthless laugh, “yeah that caused a lot of problems.  Captain moron is trying to keep those folks from getting their weapons so the dumbass has some of the guys open fire on the crowd.  A crowd already in a panic, that turned it into a total cluster fuck.”  Hector sighed. 

Disgusted, Beth snarled.  “So he opens fire on the people he was told to come get?”

“Yep, then he calls for a full retreat.  The rest of the guys start heading for the choppers, well so do all the civilians.  I grabbed this guy,” Hector motions to Max, “and I head in to try to get the fuck out of dodge and that is when that chopper slams into the stands.”  Hector looked back down at his rifle. 

Max then spoke up.  “It was total anarchy after that.  Living, dead, army, everyone was attacking everyone.  People were getting shot left and right and then getting right back up to try and chew your face off.  That chopper sliced through the crowd, Blades dicing bodies as it slammed into the stands.”

  Max sat there staring at nothing and just kept talking. “People were jumping out of its belly as it careened into those stands and burst into a fireball.  The living and the dead were engulfed in the flames.  The only difference was the dead were still walking.” Max seemed to have lost the ability to continue as he covered his face. 

Hector reached across the van and gave Max a pat on the knee then continued their story.  “Well, now the flaming dead were shuffling toward the barricades.  It was a mess of screaming, those things making this howling noise, gunfire and explosions.  The rest of the people who were trapped just started shooting at anything living or dead as we tried to evacuate and,”

“Leave several hundred survivors to scatter and run from their fate.” Beth finished for him.

“I don’t see me safe at camp do you?  Me or half the guys that were outside the park.  We were fighting for our lives on two fronts and lost both.”  Hector finished bitterly.