There were others. It looked like the zombies were coordinating their attack. This was shaping up to be a Very Bad Day.
Frank caught sight of one, this one standing and crouching about ten feet off the ground in a tree. He swung the rifle up in a smooth arc and took aim at its head and fired once. The bullet entered its right eye and exploded out the back of its head. It crashed to the ground.
Another one bites the dust, thought Frank.
Frank heard two more shots. He looked over at Todd and there was a wounded freak with a hole in its chest limping toward Todd and Kelly. The chest shot hadn't done much more than slow it down a little. Its blood was thick and dark.
Frank's next thought was that when this whole thing was over, if they made it through this, someone would have a lot of splainin to do. The zombie looking to make a snack out of Todd and Kelly used to be Mrs. Roberts, the gal who taught second grade at the elementary school. Before today she'd been a nice lady. A bake sale kind of girl.
But the Mrs. Roberts Frank knew from parent-teacher conferences wasn't the same as the thing coming at Kelly and Todd now. Frank took aim and shot a round that hit its neck. Dark blood spurted from the wound. It jerked its head toward him and tilted its head like a fighter that had just gotten clocked a good one in the jaw.
Frank squeezed the trigger a second time. The second bullet bullet smacked it through the ear and splattered its undead brains against a pine tree. The brains were stuck to the bark and pine needles in gray red clumps. The zombie dropped face up with its mouth and eyes open.
Frank didn't know if they'd be able to outrun these things. It would've been one thing if the zombies had been dumb, but now it felt like they were being hunted. He tried to cool it and think straight because that was the only way to get out of a tight spot alive (he'd learned that in Fallujah during his tour in Iraq) but that was getting harder by the minute. He looked over at Kelly and she was on her ass, clutching her knees with her head between them, shaking. That happened sometimes, raw panic taking over.
"Todd," said Frank. "You take care of Kelly. We're going upslope now."
Todd nodded and extended a hand to Kelly; she looked up at him. She was shaking bad. He helped her to her feet and she looked around her feet, looking for the gun. It was just sinking in for her that she'd left it back at the car.
"This is it," said Frank. "Up we go." He led the way up the tree-covered hill and he looked back to make sure Kelly was right behind him, with Todd in trail. If they were being hunted, the things had stopped coming at them at least for now. It looked like maybe they were getting the message that Frank was a crack shot with the AR in the daytime.
It didn't mean they could relax, but it bought them a little time.
The going in the woods wasn't too bad. Pines had a way of making forest easier to travel because the old brown needles made thick mats that kept the other vegetation down. The climbing uphill was starting to level out, too. They were making good time now.
There was the sound of a distant explosion, then a secondary. Frank stopped for a second to listen. It had to be at least three miles away, toward the other side of town. It was high explosive. If there were explosions then the Army was getting serious about quarantine. Or maybe the zombies were getting more creative with destruction. Frank thought it could be either.
"What do we do next?" said Todd. "I mean, once we reach the top?"
"Scope it out," said Frank. "See where the smoke is coming from and move away from it."
"We still trying to make it to that airplane?" said Todd.
"Only if it's in the right direction. I don't want us going into the middle of a death trap."
After a while, they broke out of the woods and they were up at a grey fire tower on a hill. Frank looked up at the tower. It was abandoned and didn't get any official use, but that didn't make it useless now. Frank looked at Todd. "I'm going up to have a look. See if the airplane option is still worth trying."
Frank went up the rickety metal stairs to the top of the tower. They creaked. He smelled more smoke in the breeze and he could see fires burning all over town. The smoke smelled bad. He also thought he heard moans, distant ones getting carried by the wind. How close were they? he wondered. Close enough to reach out and touch? He still didn't know how the freaks were tracking them. It might have been by scent, but he didn't know enough about the things to be sure. He turned around and went back down the tower, his boots making the whole structure resonate with the clacking.
"How's it look?" said Todd.
"Like we might be able to make it to one of those airplanes, if Kelly still thinks she can fly us out of here. If we stay sharp on the way to the field, we might avoid running into more freaks."
"Do we go right now?" said Kelly.
Frank shook his head. "No. Not right now. Better to wait until dark. Better cover." Waiting till dark was a double-edged sword. Frank figured they'd be able to avoid detection better, but it would be harder to shoot back if they did get spotted.
He looked up at the tower. As nice as it would be to go up there to pass the time until nightfall, it might also spread their scents far and wide. They were better off down low. If they stayed at the base of the tower they'd have some buffer in the clearing if zombies came up to them at night.
7
It was a long time until dark. And then when the sun started to go down, there were noises around them. The wind blowing branches and leaves and the sounds of squirrels jumping around. It was enough to make Kelly startle more than once. She was jumpy.
Frank wanted to go right then, right after the sun went down. They all wanted to. But it was better to wait a little longer. Full dark meant they'd be harder to see. There were more explosions and automatic gunfire in the distance. The fighting was getting more intense. But Frank thought it was weird that they hadn't sent in any fast movers. The air cover wasn't running interference. His only thought there was that whoever was in charge was trying to avoid a panic. Jets had a way of terrifying a civilian population. And if the outbreak was contained to town, keeping it under control with ground troops only was a good way to hide how bad it was from everyone on the outside.
They waited around the base of the fire tower, Frank clutching the rifle. Todd looked at him. "I'm going up to have a look," said Todd. "See if I can spot anything in the dark."
"You won't see much," said Frank. "Don't stay up there too long."
"Yeah. Just a sec." Todd went up the stairs up to the top of the tower. Kelly watched him climb up. He took big steps, his legs looking thick and strong. She guessed that having a purpose made it easier to deal with all this. She wished she had one right now. She knew she was on the hook for flying the airplane to get them out of this mess. That was, if the plane was still at the Morrison place and it had fuel and none of the zombies had gotten to it first. There were a lot of 'ifs' here.
One more thing: Kelly just now thought about her husband. He was supposed to be at work at the dealership. But there was no telling where he was now, or what had happened to him. He might have made it out, but she wasn't hopeful. Maybe he was one of them now. Or just plain dead. She didn't know how she felt about that. But she did know that she didn't want to stick around town to find out.
There was a clanking sound as Todd's boots hit the metal steps on the way down. "Looks good from up there," he said. "Some fires and activity but it looks to be on the borders only. Nothing happening inside town."
Frank said, "Thanks for having a look. I don't think we're going to get a better chance than right now. Let's move."
Kelly sighed and stood up. She'd been sitting Indian style. Her knees were stiff. "Thank God. I just want to get the fuck out of here." She wanted a beer. A cold Shipyard straight from the glass bottle.
"Yeah," said Frank. "There's a trail that goes off this hill. Goes to the sand pit and then over Route 100 before bringing us close to the Morrison place. Stay sharp. No talking. If you see or hear something, you whistle. If they come running for us, run like
hell. Understood?"
Kelly and Todd shook their heads in agreement. Frank said, "Kelly, you stay with me. Todd, you bring up the rear."
The three of them started walking down the hill. Frank was in front of Kelly by five paces and Todd held his weapon out at the ready. They all thought they had a chance. And maybe they did, if they were smart and lucky. They walked for forty-five minutes, down the trail and over roots and rocks. None of them tripped. They were getting into the rhythm of it.
But it was at the bottom of the hill, when they'd passed the sandpit and were walking by a white farmhouse with dark windows and a red barn next to it, that they all heard the scream. Then there were shots. The moans that weren't quite human or animal came right after.
8
Frank didn't like it. He dropped to one knee and held up the rifle to scan around them. He turned and motioned for Todd and Kelly to stop moving. Kelly looked like she had terror fatigue. Her eyes were glassy. She peed herself right then.
There was movement over by the barn. The moans seemed to be coming from there. There was another shot that cracked through the night. Frank took Kelly's arm and moved toward the sound. If he'd valued self preservation then maybe he would've gone the other way. But this reaction was more training than anything. There was someone in trouble over there, and he wasn't going to let them