* * *
An hour later the bridge was cleared of vehicles and just over a hundred people had been registered and escorted to the hospital. Half a dozen cars still needed to be checked in, but the security crews had fallen in to a smooth and efficient routine. Carolyn was acting as a kind of information officer, chatting with the remaining refugees while somehow always managing to be the center of attention. Two security teams remained at the checkpoint, and Michael was hopeful that they’d be able to swing the bridge after finishing repairs on a hastily disabled motor. He turned to the other men in the control room and observed, “I think we’ve got it now. I’ll stay here and make sure, but you guys should fetch a boat to get me off this thing once it’s open. You know swinging the bridge is really a one man job, and we’ve been getting a little too cozy in here for my taste.”
As soon as he got a thumbs-up from Eli, Michael rebooted the system and fired up the motor, causing the traffic lights at each end to begin blinking. A small cheer erupted from the security team members still positioned on the shore until Robbie shushed them. “Everybody, quiet for a minute,” he barked. “What the hell is that?”
Across the water, a lone truck was speeding toward the bridge, honking its horn wildly. People were shouting from its windows as it thundered onto the bridge. Michael swore under his breath and climbed down from the control room to confront these latest arrivals, but they just sped by him. He swore again, and was a bit disappointed that he hadn’t swung the bridge a few minutes earlier. The truck crashed through the road block, sideswiped a police car, and finally stopped with its front end crunched around a “Welcome to Little Current” road sign. Michael jogged after it, furious at the reckless driver and thankful that no one on shore had been injured. When Michael had covered nearly half the distance to the scene, he had to stop running and try to understand Carolyn, who had begun frantically waving her arms and calling out to him. He cocked his head to listen, and while he couldn’t make out the words, the terror in her voice was unmistakable. Instinctively, he glanced back over his shoulder and what he saw almost stopped his heart.
Hundreds of creatures were stumbling out of the woods and pouring out onto the road behind him, heading directly for the bridge. Without any conscious thought, Michael began running back towards the control room.
“He’s going to swing the bridge!” Carolyn shouted as the remaining refugees were organized into a convoy and directed to follow one of the officers to the hospital.
A little boy in one of the cars was becoming hysterical, “I knew that they were following us!” he sobbed. “Dad said they were too slow, but I knew they’d find us!”
At the first sign of the creatures, Eli had put out an all points distress call requesting back-up for combat and all the firepower available. For a moment, he was too distracted to notice the driver of the banged-up truck unloading an arsenal of weapons from the bed of the vehicle. A familiar voice caught his attention, “Hey, Eli, let’s get these distributed before the zombies get here.”
“Corey? What the hell? This is military stuff. Saiga shotguns, ARs, hell, you even have AKs here. Jesus, did you bring all those refugees too?” Eli was glad to see his younger brother, but he had a strong suspicion that Corey was at least indirectly responsible for the current crisis.
Corey ignored his brother’s questions. “You know they don’t like water, right? We can pick ‘em off as they cross the bridge; we can kill all of those flesh eating monsters.”
Robbie grabbed Corey by his collar and threw him against the side of the truck. “You stupid bastard! You led them right to us, didn’t you?” The first of the creatures had reached the bridge, but Michael was almost in position. “Do you see that guy out there? He’s a friend of mine.” More zombies crowded onto the bridge while even more poured in from the countryside. “If he can swing this thing he’ll keep the infected from reaching us, but what happens to him?”
Corey was defiant. “Swinging the bridge is no solution—we need to kill those things while we have the chance. They’re like lemmings; they’ll just keep coming across regardless of the firepower. We can wipe out the whole lot of ‘em.”
“You think more aren’t right behind these? You think you can make a dent in the pandemic by killing a couple hundred of the infected?” Robbie still had a tight grip on Corey’s shirt.
“Of course not, but we can make a dent here, just here. We can make things a little safer in our neck of the woods. Now let’s stop arguing and start killing some zombies.”
Robbie had never liked Corey Tessier. He didn’t want to admit that there was any merit whatsoever to Corey’s plan, but if they stormed the bridge and met the creatures half-way they could annihilate an impressive number of the infected with the firepower that had been stashed in the constable’s truck. Reinforcements were already arriving from town, and if they could keep the creatures on the far side of the bridge they could cover Michael’s escape from the control room once the bridge was turned. They’d need boats to evacuate the fighters from the bridge once it had been disconnected from the island, but that wouldn’t be a problem, and, at this point, Robbie couldn’t see a better option for Michael anyway.
Robbie let go of Corey and picked up a Saiga 12-gauge shotgun with a box-style magazine. Like Michael and many others on the island, he was wearing leather clothing, gloves, and carrying a goalie’s mask in a pack. A small sledge hammer and long knife hung from his thick belt. “We’re storming the bridge,” he shouted, “and we can’t let the creatures cross the middle. We need to keep the control room clear—“
“I think Michael is about to turn the bridge,” Carolyn breathlessly interrupted.
Eli tossed Carolyn a radio. “Call him and tell him to hold off. Let him know what we’re up to.”
A few seconds later Carolyn shouted, “Michael knows what you’re doing. Grab the flare gun from his glove compartment; that will be the signal to swing the bridge.”
Two roughnecks who’d scrambled from the cab of Corey’s truck when it finally stopped joined the rogue lawman as he trotted out onto the bridge. Eli and Robbie were right behind them, while several local police officers quickly took up sniper’s positions off to the side. Corey and his buddies soon slowed down as they closed to within thirty meters of the approaching horde, the smell of the zombies’ putrid flesh hanging so thick in the air that they choked on the stench. The creatures were gore-covered and loudly moaning in anticipation of their next meal, and some of them appeared to be moving much more fluidly than they had during the early days of the infection.
Corey and his two companions finally stopped and began firing at the mob crossing the bridge, trying to make head-shots but finding it much more difficult than they had anticipated. Eli, decked out in full biker-gear, was using his pistol with no great effect when the ear-splitting booms of 12-gauge rounds being fired from the Saiga Robbie had grabbed from the truck roared past him from the right side of the line. The gun was fully automatic and loaded with double-ought buckshot, which was nothing short of devastating on the front ranks of zombies that were within five meters of the men by the time Robbie opened fire. The only problem was that the Saiga had been loaded with just a ten-round magazine, and while at least a dozen zombies were killed and as many wounded in the four-second burst of flame and lead, hundreds more were waiting beyond the fallen bodies to continue the assault when the gun fell silent.
Robbie instinctively knew that he and the other men needed to move forward so they could catch the monsters off-balance as they tried to navigate their way over the corpses and wounded lying on the bridge in front of them, so he grabbed Eli by the collar of his coat and pulled him along to stand directly in front of the black-blood soaked bodies he had just slaughtered. Corey followed his brother, with his buddies not far behind, and in a few seconds they were all together in a ragged line where they silently awaited the next zombie charge. The creatures came stumbling across the carpet of dead and wounded, many of them fallin
g to their knees where they continued forward by crawling toward the humans. Robbie noticed that in spite of the ragged chorus of gunfire from his comrades, few of the monsters went down to stay. He flashed back to the community center and wished he’d brought along a hockey stick; he decided that if he survived this fight he’d never be without one again. Finally, a small female zombie with a five-o-clock shadow of dried blood around her mouth fell at Robbie’s feet and clawed at his boots. He had been waiting with the hammer and Bowie knife in his hands, and with a shout of relief that he was back in the fight he swung the heavy, steel head in a wide arc and crushed the small skull with such force that brains, blood, and bone flew across the feet of every man in the line.
Eli, Corey, and the two men beside them were now close enough to the zombies that they couldn’t miss, and the air above and around the monsters was filled with flying gore as the men emptied their pistols into the faces of the relentless monsters. Several fighters from the island were running up with their rifles to join the officers attempting to snipe the zombies from shore, and when Robbie heard shots ring out from behind him he knew that he was now in danger from both directions. Even well-trained troops had to worry about friendly fire, and the locals weren’t even close to trained when it came to making head shots on moving zombies at nearly fifty yards. Fortunately, Carolyn was on shore giving the shooters hell about firing too close to Robbie and the other fighters, and the men soon started aiming at the back of the mob of attacking zombies rather than at those currently engaged with the humans on the bridge.
Eli had joined Robbie on the hammer-team after he unloaded his pistol into the charging horde, and as he heard his brother’s gun and those of his friends go silent, he prayed that they had a back-up plan. He realized that not too many people had thought about the possibility of being cornered by so many zombies and then running out of ammo, or simply not having the time to reload before the monsters were on them. His arms were quickly growing weary with the strain of unceasing swinging against an enemy who understood no concept other than attack and feed. Dozens of zombie corpses lay strewn across the bridge in front of them, but the numbers of creatures moaning and clawing as they reached for them seemed not to have diminished at all.
Out of the corner of his eye Eli could see that Robbie had retired his hammer and was now essentially body-checking the zombies over the railing of the bridge. The former hockey star had proven to be the most deadly human in the battle, having accounted for more enemy dead than the other four men combined. None of this was helping the rapidly weakening Eli, though, and Corey and his two friends were also in big trouble.
Using his pistol as a club, Corey had managed to crush the skulls of several zombies before a pack of the creatures forced him to back up several steps, causing him to trip over a corpse and tumble to the ground. A huge male fell on top of the constable, and they began wrestling across the surface of the bridge as Corey shouted for help. At the same time, the two men who minutes before had been so anxious to kill zombies dropped their now useless firearms and were running back to the truck with several zombies in hot pursuit. Eli finished off one more attacker before turning to splatter the brain of the creature furiously trying to eat his brother with a vicious side-arm swing that nearly decapitated the gnashing monster.
Robbie saw that his left flank was now uncovered and realized that their small defensive line had crumbled. He grabbed Eli by the collar of his leather coat and began pulling him to the rear. Eli drug Corey with him, aware that they had lost control of the situation. Even as Robbie was pulling the two men behind him, he felt the crush of the monsters swarming around them and pressing toward the people standing on the Manitoulin side of the bridge. He realized that there was only one course of action remaining if he was going to protect the island, so he stopped to pull the flare gun from his belt.
To her credit, Carolyn didn’t hesitate to radio Michael and make certain that he saw the signal, even though it meant that she was almost certainly about to lose several friends and a lover by trapping them on the steel span with over a hundred zombies. Michael had been waiting with everything fired up and ready to go, so when the order came through to swing the bridge he was able to immediately initiate the movement. As the turn began, a handful of zombies were stumbling toward the island and had made it more than three quarters of the way to shore. The first of them reached the edge of the bridge just as a small gap began to appear between the two sections of the structure. The men who’d been serving as ineffectual snipers continued to miss most of the head shots they were attempting to make, so a few of the creatures managed to leap the growing chasm and reach the island intact.
While this drama was unfolding, Katie pulled up in Michael’s car to check on her husband and friends. The teenagers, dressed like fashion-challenged bikers, had managed to load the car with what they considered their personal anti-zombie gear, and Katie was too distracted to argue about a few duffle bags in the back seat. When Katie rushed over to Carolyn for an update, the kids broke out the new weapons they’d been working on. Connor had reinforced his goalie stick with sheet metal that was bolted through the wood halfway up the shaft; the other boys liked the idea and had made similar modifications to their own sticks. They all agreed that metal reinforcements would make the equipment that killed several creatures in Espanola even deadlier the next time they had to face the zombie-monsters that killed Connor’s mom.
Grant, Alec, Connor, and even Tracy saw the chaos on the bridge and immediately finished suiting up with gloves and masks. They were all running to help resist the zombies about to reach the shoreline when they saw Robbie fire the flare, but Grant and Connor were significantly faster than the others so the kids quickly separated into two groups. Katie didn’t immediately recognize the older boys as two lanky young men in mish-mashed hockey/biker gear raced by her, but ten meters behind, Alec and Tracy were unmistakable. As Carolyn and Katie intercepted the youngsters, Katie realized where the older boys were and let out a terrified wail as she turned towards the slowly rotating bridge.
When the lead zombies leapt across the gap, they landed directly in front of Grant and Connor. Each of the boys calmly executed the maneuver they’d discussed in detail and practiced repeatedly against soccer balls, foam floats, and unsuspecting lawn furniture. They brought their metal-sheathed sticks across the lower legs of the monsters with such force that the creatures were immediately swept off their feet, hitting the surface of the road hard enough to briefly stun them as they slammed into the asphalt face first. At that point, the boys, each of whom had been playing hockey for over ten years, swung their sticks into the heads of the zombies, metal-edge first, spraying the road with black blood and brains. In less than half a minute the three creatures who had managed to cross the bridge and leap to the island were reduced to several slimy piles of blackened guts and bone. Grant grabbed Connor’s hand to celebrate the minor victory and yelled “How’d that BC two-hander taste, you bastards!”
While the teens were finishing off their victims, Robbie and his comrades were finally realizing that they were surrounded and cut-off from their escape route. Corey had obviously been injured in his wrestling match with the huge zombie, and he was limping so badly that Eli was nearly carrying his brother along. Robbie was stuck with all of the fighting in the effort to try to keep the creatures off of the trio, and he was quickly approaching the end of his strength even as the number of zombies trying to eat them seemed to be growing. Finally the moment came when he realized that he was going to die, and he was slightly puzzled to learn that he didn’t care so much now that the moment he’d dreaded was finally here. He managed to crush one more zombie skull with his hammer, but he lost it when the metal head stuck in the brain of the dying monster as it fell away from him. Then he was hit by several of the flesh-eaters and knocked backwards on top of Eli and Corey who were already lying on the bridge with zombies frantically tearing at them. Robbie soon saw black spots dance in front of his eyes as he s
truggled to breathe with the weight of his attackers pushing down on him. In his mind the phrase “it’s over” kept repeating itself, and he waited for the final darkness to overwhelm his consciousness.
After Michael had set the swinging of the bridge in motion he was no longer obliged to stay in the control room. But with at least a hundred zombies streaming past him in their effort to reach the island, his first impulse was to quietly stay put until the tumult died down. Then, not far away, he saw Robbie, Eli, and another man go down beneath a pack of flesh eaters. Michael knew he had no choice but to help his friend, so he chambered a round in his pistol, checked to see that the hammer and knife were attached to his belt, climbed down from the control room, and set off trotting toward the scrum.
Moving in the same direction as the zombies bought him a few seconds of unmolested running time, and by the point the monsters noticed that a fresh meal was unexpectedly in their midst Michael had reached the writhing pile of humans and flesh-eaters where his friends were fighting for their lives. Doing his best to avoid hitting the men with any bullets, Michael used his gloved left hand to pull zombies up by the hair before sending a round through their ears and tossing them aside. Since he still had to deal with the fresh creatures attacking from every direction, the process took more time than he would have liked, but in less than two minutes his friends were breathlessly climbing to their knees amid a ghastly pile of gore-covered corpses lying all about. Michael knew they only had a brief respite before they were overrun once again, and he didn’t think they could make it back to the stairs that ran all the way down from the control room to the ladder on the central hub that led to the surface of the lake.
Michael grabbed Robbie first and threw him over the side of the bridge as gently as possible under the circumstances. Fueled by adrenaline, he accomplished the task easily, and he shouted at Eli to do the same with Corey. Then, with zombies grabbing onto their backs, the two men leapt over the railing themselves, Eli deciding that he preferred drowning to being eaten alive, and Michael praying that the boat he’d requested earlier would be nearby. As he fell he was almost giddy to see a small fleet of various water-craft gathered near the bridge. The escaping humans were quickly rescued, and any zombie falling into the lake was powerless as it sank to the depths. Michael was pulled into a boat with Robbie, who was sputtering and swearing, but remarkably, he didn’t seem to have suffered any major injuries. The pilot of the boat radioed ahead that he was bringing the two men to shore, and Katie’s voice was the next thing Michael heard. “Michael, are you hurt? Is anyone hurt? My God, those things are all over the bridge . . .”
Michael looked up and saw scores of creatures swarming from the control room down the length of the structure, the bulk of them piled up at the end that would have recently led them to shore. Now that the each end of the bridge led only to open water, it appeared that the zombies were trapped. Every few seconds one of the infected would plummet off the edge as creatures in the middle continued to push toward their previous destination.
“ . . . they can’t swim can they?” Katie nervously continued over the radio.
The pilot answered for Michael, “No, ma’am. They sink like stones. Looks like we found ourselves another way to kill the demons.” He handed the radio to Michael.
“Hey baby, I’m fine. Robbie here seems a little worse for wear, but it looks like he’ll be okay too.” He looked at Robbie, who pointed to the shore opposite the island. It was crowded with what looked like thousands of flesh eaters, moaning piteously at the water’s edge. Michael asked his wife, “Everybody OK on your end?”
Carolyn replied for Katie, “Except for the almost heart attack Kittiekat had when Grant and Connor sliced up a few zombies, we’re all fine.”
“They what?” Michael felt a tug in his own chest.
“Oh don’t worry,” Carolyn sounded amused, “the Robster is an excellent coach; those cannibal things didn’t have a chance. I’m sure the boys will tell you all about it.”
Michael and Robbie reached shore about the same time as the boat carrying Eli and his brother. Corey was very pale, and his pant leg was soaked with fresh, red blood. It was obvious that the two men were arguing.
The boats delivered their cargo and headed back to help search for any other human survivors. After they left, Corey was the first to speak up. “They got me.”
Before Michael or Robbie could respond, Grant, Connor, and the other teens hit the men like a hurricane. “We got three of them!” Tracy boasted.
“You didn’t get any,” her brother corrected, “but Connor and I smashed three zombies into oblivion—“
“I would have helped but you guys didn’t wait,” Alec complained.
“It was awesome!” Grant shouted. He looked over at Connor, who was smiling but silent. “Hey, man, take some credit here.”
Katie and Carolyn caught up with the kids, and each woman threw her arms around her man. Katie was crying and collapsed in Michael’s arms, but after an amorous kiss Carolyn stepped back to inspect Robbie. “Did they bite you?” she asked in a detached tone. Robbie thought she sounded like a grammar school nurse.
“Not that I know of, but you can do a thorough inspection.”
Carolyn noticed Corey, and the blood that was starting to pool on the ground around his foot. “Jesus, Corey, what happened? You’re not looking so good.”
Corey laughed a dry, humorless laugh. “You know I always look good. At least that’s what you used to tell me. Unfortunately, one of those hungry zombies took a good sized chunk from my calf. Then my know-it-all brother took my gun.” There was no affection in his eyes when he looked at Eli. “I was just sayin’ how it’s probably hard to keep up appearances when you’re turning into a zombie.”
An awkward silence followed. Even the teenagers felt the tension between Eli and Corey, and the hopelessness of the situation; they didn’t argue when Robbie finally sent them to clean and pack their gear and wait by the car. Michael asked Katie to take them home as soon as possible, and she nodded her understanding before reluctantly leaving her husband’s side.
Eli was adamant, “Look, we don’t know exactly how this virus works. We don’t know that every person who gets bit gets the disease. We need to take you to the hospital, get that wound cleaned up, and put you in isolation. You can’t throw your life away when you don’t know for sure what will happen.”
Corey opened his mouth to argue, but changed his mind. He exchanged a quick glance with Carolyn, then sighed. “OK, but you have to promise me that if I do start to turn you won’t object to finishing me off.” He smiled coldly, “Carolyn, that used to be your department, but I bet old Robbie here might just volunteer for the job this time around.”
“You’re still disgusting,” Carolyn observed, “and I’d rather not stand around here reminiscing all day. You’re likely to bleed out. We should take you in Michael’s car.”
“I’ve got some medical supplies in my truck. Eli, if you get my camo backpack from the passenger seat I’ll let Carolyn have her way with me one last time.”
Carolyn’s mouth twitched, but she held her tongue. When Eli turned to jog to his brother’s truck, Carolyn quickly reached her hand into her purse and clandestinely slipped something to Corey. Only Robbie noticed.
“Why don’t you drive your truck down here so Corey doesn’t have to walk?” Robbie suggested to Michael.
“Good idea,” Michael agreed. “Don’t move.”
“Not planning on it,” Corey called out as Michael sprinted towards his vehicle. Turning to Robbie and Carolyn, he added, “I’m really thirsty. Why don’t you go tell Eli to bring back some water with that med kit—make it snappy, too.”
They had walked no more than five steps toward the truck when the shot rang out. Eli came running, but Robbie blocked the path to where Corey rested in the grass. “He shot himself in the head. Eli, you don’t want to see it. You need to remember him the right way—not like this.”
Inspecto
r Tessier suddenly realized that he could not separate himself from big brother Eli. He released a long, shaky breath and agreed, “You’re right. Can you take care of him?”
Michael pulled up as Robbie answered, “You know I will. Get on your bike, and take a long ride; I’ll find you tonight and give you any personal effects.”
As Eli walked off, Michael turned off his engine. “What happened?”
“He must have had an extra gun on him,” Carolyn answered. “I hope Eli can understand.”
“If I’m ever in the same position, I hope I have an extra gun on me too.” Robbie was staring at Carolyn, and she felt a sob catch in her throat. After a moment he turned his gaze to the creatures still on the bridge, then to the moaning horde on the other side of the lake. He slapped Michael on the back, “So, Mr. Mayor, where do we go from here?”
Michael shook his head, “We don’t go anywhere, at least not for a while. We diligently police ourselves and this island, and we do what we have to do if we see any signs of the infection. We may just be the luckiest people in the world, and I really hope we won’t be the only people on the planet when this thing has run its course. We have everything we need here—plenty of fresh water, agriculture, hunting, fishing, and decent people willing to work together. We’ll monitor the outside world as best we can with our radio towers, and eventually we’ll use our waterways to venture out and see what’s left. I believe we can survive. I don’t know about anybody else.”
Carolyn leaned back into Robbie, who wrapped her in his arms. She spoke quietly, “I don’t mean to sound cold, but we shouldn’t advertise that we’re here to anyone. I mean, we can handle the folks who just got here, but we can’t save the whole world.”
Robbie pulled Carolyn closer. “I know what you’re saying, but I think Michael’s point is that we might just be the whole world.”
Michael sighed. “We’ll keep to ourselves for now, even if anybody else is out there. If we’re not careful enough, we may be the First Nation and the Last Nation right here on this island. I think we need to come together and become the Invisible Nation—an isolated, self-sufficient place where humanity gets a chance to carry on or start over.”
Carolyn studied the blood stained grass nearby. “What if we don’t deserve to? What if humanity isn’t meant to survive?”
Robbie shrugged. “I’ve never been a particularly religious guy, but I know in my gut that these creatures weren’t meant to be—what I mean is that they aren’t natural. You know what humanity is meant to do? Fight and survive. And that’s exactly what we’ll do.” He picked up a shovel left behind by the crew that had constructed the road blocks and headed toward the shore. Not bothering to look back, he muttered, “Some of us anyway.”
Zombie Crusade Snapshots are quick glimpses of critical locations around the world as the zombie pandemic detailed in the Zombie Crusade series begins to unfold. While the snapshots connect to the main storyline of the novels (some in obvious ways, others in ways that will become more apparent as the series continues), they may also be read as stand-alone stories.
Books in the Zombie Crusade Series:
Zombie Crusade
Zombie Crusade II: David’s Journey
Zombie Crusade III: Evolution
Zombie Crusade IV: Eastern Front
Zombie Crusade Snapshots: Israel, Ontario, POTUS, Maine,
&Tennessee (a short story collection)
Coming Soon:
Zombie Crusade V: Winter War
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