*****
The deputy looked at the trailers nearest to the entrance as the squad car slowly rolled down the hill.
“There should be about fifty to seventy in total people down here, according to the guys in the bus,” Captain Wyatt said from behind the steering wheel.
Deputy Holmes removed the shotgun from its storage cradle and pointed the muzzle toward the floorboard after checking that the safety was engaged.
“Easy Rambo,” Wyatt chuckled. “We're just here in case they need us. They get to go inside, drag them out, and throw them in the bus for a free ride. All we get to supervise, if anything.”
The squad car was on the last bit of road just before the wrecked cars, at the bottom of the hill, when both officers heard two distant explosions. One was followed by another after a couple of seconds. Wyatt saw part of Mrs. Remlap's roof collapse as smoke billowed up from the debris.
“What the hell?” he said, stepping on the brake. Staring across the trailer park at the old house he grabbed the radio handset. “Sazera, you kids back there have got this raid all to yourselves. We've got real work to do.” Not waiting for a response, he hit the car's siren switch and sped off toward the burning house.
Large flocks of big black birds flapped up into the sky as the siren blared, but neither officer seemed to notice them as they stared at the distant Remlap house.
Shoemaker parked the bus between the wrecked car and van. By doing that the exit was effectively blocked.
Sazera looked at his team. “We'll do this by the book, guys. No shooting unless absolutely necessary.” With that, he opened the bus door and they split into two teams running toward the trailers. Their attention was focused on the closest trailers, and no one noticed the group of men running toward them from Colonel Lester's trailer.
The closest trailer door hung open as Shoemaker ran up the wooden stairs and yelled in Spanish then in English, “Hands up! Immigration!” Holding his flashlight and revolver he stared at the filthy room as the other agents rushed inside and past him. Hadden stumbled and fell over the body a small boy. The boy's head looked as if someone had shot it and several good size chunks of flesh were missing from the body.
“Oh, good God,” Hadden managed to say before throwing up his breakfast.
Puckett bent over to check on his partner and asked one of those clever questions that gave him the reputation as having ridden on the short bus every day of his life, “Are you okay?”
Minarges ignored the mess, walked past his fellow agents, drew his stun gun, and shined his flashlight down the hallway. To his sometimes confused mind, what he saw was a dungeon corridor covered in blood and body parts. It reminded him of some of the fantasy games he played. He held the shaking flashlight and stun gun while shouting down the hallway in Spanish, “You down there, come out with your hands up!”
A grunting bloody man ran at Minarges with his arms outstretched toward him. The man's face was streaked in blood, his eyes were glazed over, and both his hands were nearly skinless.
Minarges instantly recognized it as a monster he'd often battled while participating in role playing games.
“Hey everybody, we got zombies!” He excitedly called back into the living room, as he fired the stun gun.
Two needle-like probes attached by thin wires to the stun gun struck the man in his chest. A brief intense discharge of electricity made him stop in his tracks and collapse to the floor.
Watching the hallway warily, Minarges trotted over to the face down zombie and quickly yanked out a plastic zip tie from his belt and secured the bloody wrists together behind the deadish man's back. After snapping in a new set of stun probes, he checked for a pulse and wasn't surprised at all that the zombie didn't have one. Minarges laughed loudly as he yelled over his shoulder, “Hey guys, it’s just like a game except this is for real,” and laughed harder as he shined the light up under his chin.
Shoemaker stood near the front door and yelled, “Minarges, shut up and take your prisoner outside!”
Hadden quickly recovered and with Puckett’s help got back on his feet as Minarges went by dragging the bloody prisoner toward the front door.
With a disturbing grin on his face, Minarges smiled at Shoemaker who stood in the living room watching Hadden and Puckett go down the hall. “Want to see the zombie, I caught?” Minarges asked, chuckling.
“Just take him outside keep an eye on him and knock off that zombie crap,” Shoemaker said, intently watching Hadden disappear down the hall as Puckett followed.
“No, really, he's a zombie. Don't let them bite you or you'll be sorry,” Minarges warned with a cackle before going outside and down the front steps. He dumped the tied zombie to the ground and wondered if this was all just a dream. Sure feels real. I wonder if this is a lucid dream where I can steer it the way I want. Zombies. This is so cool. It’s just like a movie. Of course, in a movie they’d be a lot harder to deal with. This could actually be a lot of fun, he realized with an odd looking grin on his face.
The zombie on the ground started to moan and tried to rise to his knees.
Minarges kicked him in the butt and continued to smile.
There were three more doors: two were open and the one at the end of the hall that was closed.
Hadden held his night stick in one hand and his flashlight in the other as he lit up the first doorway. He shouted in Spanish, “Immigration, come on out!” He still tasted vomit in his mouth and felt like he might faint as saw the filthiest bathroom he'd ever seen when Puckett yelled from behind him. Turning around, he saw Puckett running back toward the main room.
As Hadden tried to follow his partner (He wasn't sure why Puckett was running away but doing likewise seemed like a fairly good idea) hands reached out of the dark hallway clutching and clawing at his back.
He swung the club, shouting, “Get back!” while frantically trying to run. Hadden felt himself being pulled down by the weight of several people, some of whom were inexplicably biting his legs. Someone else bit into his arm as he reached for his pistol. “Puckett, you douche bag! Help me, damn it!” Hadden yelled from under the onslaught of attackers.
He got his hand on the gun but someone else pulled and bit that arm too. Crushed down on the filthy floor, he felt a brilliant flush of heat and his last coherent thought was very simple if not uncharacteristic: Kill!
Hadden looked at the gun clutched in his bloody hand for a second then dropped it and began screaming with a mindless fury as his attackers seemed to tire of him and started running in the direction Puckett had gone.
Shoemaker and Puckett fired repeatedly as several bloody men charged out of the hallway. The shots threw the first man against the wall, but three more took his place and even more filled the narrow hallway behind them.
They both fired faster at the group of apparent crazy men as Minarges could be heard shrieking something unintelligible from somewhere outside the trailer. Adding to the confusion, Hadden's screaming voice could be heard coming from somewhere down the hallway.
“Shit! It's a horde of zombies! Run!” Minarges yelled through the doorway, before running from the dozen or more wild looking men quickly sprinting toward him. He ran between the trailers and heard the men screaming and howling right behind him.
Startled birds took flight as he ran behind the trailers.
Stumbling over a large pile of copper pipes and electrical cables that some of the more larcenous residents had previously stolen, Minarges lost his balance and fell to his knees. There were dozens of copper pipes of various sizes scattered on the ground and they clanged together as he got back up and continued to run. He vaguely wondered why the obviously zombie attackers could run. ZOMBIES are supposed to be slow moving, Damn it! He thought while sprinting away.
The pursuers also lost their balance because of the copper pipes and cables. They fell in a screaming biting and furious heap.
Minarges pulled his gun from his holster and quickly fired back at the men who were scattered behin
d him and temporarily having trouble chasing him. At the corner of the trailer, his gun clicked empty and he slammed in a fresh clip and continued to fire while thinking, Gotta hit their heads, and tried to aim.
He realized while firing that it was one thing to be involved in role playing games- sitting at a table drinking soda and rolling dice with your friends- but real life encounters with monsters was much more difficult to deal with. Minarges continued firing at the closest man but due to his badly trembling hand, out of a total of sixteen shots from two ammo clips, he managed to hit him only once. The bullet severed the zombie’s thumb on his right hand but the rest of the pack had crawled past the pipes and started chasing Minarges again.
Where the Hell is the rest of the team? He wondered, sprinting back toward the front of the trailer.
Shoemaker stared in disbelief as his shots hit the men repeatedly with no lasting effect. They were all direct center mass shots, but he quickly stepped back toward the doorway as first one then another got back up and charged again.
Then Hadden, or what had once been Hadden, ran out of the hallway. His eyes were a bright crimson red color where the white parts should have been and trickles of blood were flowing from both eyes. Hadden howled and then leaped over the other men and landed on top of Puckett who was still firing his gun.
Shoemaker continued to shoot as he backed toward the front door. He saw Hadden bite and tear at Puckett’s groin as the other men scurried across the main room grunting and pushing each other as they ran toward the front door.
Leaping outside, Shoemaker slammed the door shut and pressed his back against it. He saw Minarges sprinting across the small clearing in front of the trailers. He was being chased by several more men who appeared every bit as insane as the ones still inside the trailer. The door was knocked partly open and he leaned back harder, feeling it slam shut again. He looked at the bus then heard rapid gunfire coming from the next trailer. As he leaned against the door and slipped a new clip into his gun, he yelled, “Minarges! Quit fucking around! Get your stupid ass over here and help me!”
Minarges leaped over a picnic table and ran while laughing maniacally.
Staring down the barrel of his gun, Shoemaker took aim at the closest man chasing him and fired. The trailer door was pushed open partly again, badly throwing off his aim. The bullet hit Minarges in his upper arm as he ran. He yelled, “Shit head!”stumbled, and gave Shoemaker a brief dirty look but didn't fall or slow down. However, he finally stopped laughing.
Coming out of the other trailer, Sazera was trying to carry Crawford to the bus. He was having difficulty because she had woken up since being struck unconscious after being attacked inside the other trailer. She was screaming, biting and scratching at Sazera as he moved toward the bus. It's like trying to carry a pissed off mountain lion, he thought.
Exasperated, he finally gave up and said, “Fine, bitch,” and threw her to the ground. He glanced at the shredded sleeves of his uniform and saw blood covering his muscular arms. Stupid cunt! I’m going to need stitches. What the fuck is going on? He wondered, while turning to fire at the bloody men spilling out of the trailer behind him. Sazera saw Shoemaker running across the small clearing. “Get the bus started, and hurry!” Sazera yelled, while firing back at the ones who had followed him out of the trailer.
Crawford was grunting on the ground at his feet as the other trailer's door burst open and several more apparently insane people came running out, including Hadden. His grunting and frothing mouth instantly convinced Sazera of his best option. He sprinted for the bus.
Sazera fired as he ran. His shots were hardly aimed at all. They mostly hit tequila and beer bottles, a few hit the first trailer, and one incredibly unlikely shot blew apart a vulture’s head. The bird’s headless body fell from its perch atop one of the trailers.
With each running step, he felt increasingly confused but somehow gradually less terrified. He saw one of his shots shatter a man's head. His arm stung where Crawford had attacked him and he ran faster upon hearing Jerry starting the bus engine. Upon reaching the stairs, he looked at his hand in confusion and dropped his gun into the dust.
The bus engine roared and Shoemaker was yelling something.
Sazera looked over in confusion at the groups of pursuing bloody men, turned and staggered up the stairs feeling extremely shaky. He had a pounding headache and felt queasy before grabbing onto the back of one the bus seats to keep from falling.
“Sit down! We've got to get out of here!” Shoemaker shouted as a few men climbed up on the hood of the bus and others beat on the now shut folding glass doors.
Sazera felt more confused and shaky when he heard Minarges screaming outside.
Minarges was beating on the rear door of the bus. Staggering toward the back of the bus, Sazera stared blankly down at him. Extending a bloody hand toward the door, the big man's body shook uncontrollably before finally collapsing to the floor of the bus.
“Don't leave me! Open the door, you prick!” Minarges shouted, as the bus drove away into the park.
Minarges ran a few seconds trying to keep up with it but quickly realized he'd never catch up. He turned and ran back up the road heading out of the trailer park while a pack of zombies chased after and continued beating on the bus.
“Sazera, use the radio and get some help,” Shoemaker said, driving the bus in a big circle and headed back toward the exit, without noticing Sazera had fallen to the floor.
A howling mad man on the hood was beating at the windshield with his bloody hands. Smears of blood made it difficult to see clearly.
Shoemaker flipped on the windshield wipers, but the trails of blood only smeared making it even harder to see where he was heading. Pressing the fluid sprayer button the blood thinned as he lifted the radio microphone up to his mouth and called out, “Wyatt! We need help! Can anyone hear me!?”
The bus picked up speed and was going almost fifty miles an hour when it clipped the wrecked van and sent it crashing against the nearest trailer. The bus jerked and shimmied as he shifted gears and sped up.
Shoemaker was fiddling with the radio knobs when he spotted Minarges in the middle of the road. He was waving his outstretched arms over his head.
There was no way he could stop in time.
Dumb bastard, he thought as the bus ran him over with a large bump.
On impact, the steering wheel swung hard to the right and the bus careened toward the ditch. He tried to correct the steering, but between the blood smeared windshield and the speed it was hopeless.
“Hang on!” he yelled, glancing in the rear view mirror. He saw Sazera's bleeding eyes and mouth frothing as he came up behind him.
“Shit!” Shoemaker screamed as the bus went nose first over the embankment and crash landed in a nearly vertical position. The seat belt dug into his shoulder and gut painfully yet he felt lucky in comparison, as Sazera flew through the air and smashed headfirst against and then almost all the way through the windshield.
The bus teetered and almost flipped forward completely upside down before it stopped and slammed back against down to the road. It creaked for a few seconds and then all that could be heard was a series of mindless screams from outside.
Shoemaker unsnapped the seat belt and fell from the driver’s seat. His head struck the dashboard and he tumbled down to the bottom of the bus' stairwell.