Zombie Rush 4 Read online

  The group split up at the University and Highway Five intersection. Portions headed out to set up distractions while others went to claim rigs and semi-trailers. The group as a whole had over a hundred and fifty people slightly trained in driving semis with approximately twenty-five experienced drivers to help them out. Fuel trucks and refrigerator trucks were their focus, obtaining anything perishable or medical, and the rescue of the living was their objective. Reefers would be sent back to Benton, where the frozen food would be separated from the thawed. The thawed would be unloaded and cooked immediately and the frozen packed with more frozen from other trailers and shipped back to Hot Springs. The fried chicken was an example of what they had to do in order to stretch things as far as they could be stretched. Lisa knew that with thirty thousand pounds of chicken thawed and ready to spoil, there was more than just fried chicken floating around. There would be chicken soups, salads, lunch meat, and anything else they could do to avoid waste. Lisa had even seen rendering areas, where people boiled the carcasses of all meats into broth, which was then packed into a deep freeze where they could be used months down the road.

  Lisa commandeered a couple of trucks; one had a skid loader trailered behind and was filled with what looked to be three good ol’ boys and one girl. The other held two athletic-looking couples who seemed extremely well armed for civilians. Lisa got out, approached the two pickup trucks, and laid her arm on the door so she could talk to both.

  “Hi, I am Lieutenant Reynolds. We’re headed into some rough territory; are you going to be okay with that?”

  “I don’t know about them, but we followed that guard soldier, Tim, in to rescue some people off a roof of an old filling station and did pretty okay,” one man said.

  “Tim was a great guy. We’re going to miss him,” Lisa said.

  “He didn’t make it, huh? I was kind of worried about that by the way he scurried off so secretive like,” the man said. The others with him bowed their heads on hearing the news. “Hey look, they call me Kibble. I don’t know why, they just do. I’m not the leader here, but I do own all of the equipment, so I guess that makes me kind of in charge. I hear good things about you … they say you’re tough but fair, so if you want my help, you got it.”

  “That’s great, Kibble, I appreciate it,” Lisa said. She knew he really didn’t have an option, yet recognized that letting him feel like it was his decision was a good thing. “Listen, we gotta go deep into the neighborhoods and find live people. We’re going to need every living soul for what’s coming, and this is the best way I can come up with to do it. If the Zs are too thick, we’ll draw them off, if we can, then pull the living out and call for a truck to bring them here. Now, Little Rock is pretty big so we’re going to need some more with us.”

  “We’ll help out,” an unknown voice from the side broke in. Lisa looked to see a man wearing colors standing in a group. By looking at the others and the varied gang colors, she realized that these were gangs who had grouped together after having lost so many of their own already.

  “Perfect. Do you have vehicles and weapons?”

  “We have vehicles for most and some weapons, but we’re low on rounds for the guns we do have. We had some trouble getting out of the city and almost ran dry,” the man replied.

  “Okay, I’m sure your weapons need cleaning and some attention so I’m going to have you draw new until you can tend to yours. I want you and Kibble here to go over to that truck and get a couple of full autos and a thousand rounds for each. If the shit hits, I am not getting caught empty-handed. Don’t get any rockets or grenades until you get trained on them; I have enough for what we are doing.”

  “Okay,” they said in stereo.

  “The term is roger. And gentlemen? Welcome to the army,” Lisa said.

  “Hey, ya finally made it in, didn’t ya, Kibble?” one of the guys from the truck shouted, to which they all laughed. Kibble fidgeted, his eyes averted away from Lisa. He looked up at her before speaking, the clarity in eyes showing how important it was to him.

  “My daddy was military and so were my grandpas on both sides. I had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War in the cavalry; and me … well, I decided to get drunk one night and steal a car and … it didn’t turn out so good. Army wouldn’t touch me after that,” Kibble said, and Lisa nodded her head, having heard the story before.

  “Don’t worry about it, bro. I have a similar situation from when I tried to get in. It could have made my life right; you know what I mean? But I was a business man who had been caught by the law so they wouldn’t even talk to me,” the gang member said. Kibble looked at him, amazed that he had the audacity to compare their lives.

  “What’s your name?” Lisa asked.

  “Franc,” he said, hitting the c like it was a k.

  “Well, Franc and Kibble, the world as it was … is now gone. There is no more male or female, black or white, republican or democrat; there’s only the living and the dead. There is no longer a past. All that shit you did back then and the people you fought with, it’s all gone. It’s done, vamoose, it doesn’t exist anymore. There’s only the present, and if we manage to do the present right, then there may possibly be a future, but even if we work at it, that isn’t guaranteed. It’s going to take more; it’s going to take people setting the bullshit aside and working together, all right? Now go get supplied and meet back here in ten minutes,” Lisa said.

  Kibble and Franc looked at each other for a moment and gave a single nod before they headed over to the truck, side by side, as if they had known each other for years.

  Lisa walked around to the driver’s side of the other truck, whose occupants had heard her entire conversation but neglected to go and re-fit for ammo.

  “So, you’re sitting pretty good on ammo and weapons then?” Lisa asked the driver. His hair and skin tone was of a nature that made it impossible to figure out his nationality. Salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than pepper and a little on the thin side. Clean shaven, he could have been considered white, Latino, Middle Eastern, or even mixed white and black. She couldn’t tell and she didn’t really care as long as he was ready.

  “I’m Lisa, you can call me that or Lieutenant Reynolds; whichever you prefer.”

  “I’m John, this is Sally, and that’s Tina back there next to her husband, Neil. We’re at your service, Lieutenant Reynolds. We have enough weapons for now, thank you.”

  “How are you sitting for food?” Lisa asked on a hunch.

  “We’re good; we have some MREs and bottled water for a few days. Why do you ask? Is this mission going to take a while?”

  “No, I just have never met a prepper before and was wondering when some of you would start to show up,” she replied with a smile.

  “There are more of us around than you think. We always thought it was going to be the government that we would go up against. I guess we couldn’t have been more wrong,” John replied with a smile of his own.

  “So I take it you know how to use those ARs you’re sporting?”

  “Three M4s and a mini 14, actually. We have a couple of ARs in the back and even a few AKs, but for the hordes we’ve faced, fully automatic was necessary, or at least the three-round burst was.”

  “Full auto is illegal for civilian possession, you know that, right?” Lisa replied.

  “Was illegal, Lieutenant; I’m assuming that was one of the laws that disappeared a few days ago, wasn’t it?” John replied as the rest in his truck smiled, knowing that the situation was in their hands.

  “Yes, John.” Lisa returned the smile. “It’s one of the laws that have been left on the wayside. I’m going to be relying on your expertise in here; you know that, don’t you?”

  “I would expect nothing less, Lieutenant.”

  “Thank you, John, I appreciate it. Anyone in there capable of operating a grenade launcher?” Lisa asked.

  “Neil was in combat several times; he should be good to go,” John replied.

  “Good, send him over to th
at truck to get hooked up with some ordnance.” Lisa started to walk away when John stopped her.

  “Here are some short-range walkies for the other vehicles; only a couple of blocks of range, but they might come in handy. Keep them on channel two; if I need to speak to you privately I will refer to you as Lisa.”

  “Thinking of everything, aren’t you, John? If I need to talk privately to you, I will ask how Sally is. It’s not foolproof but might work. Thank you.”

  Twenty minutes later, they were headed down Fair Park Boulevard with the University of Arkansas as their first stop. The campus grounds were empty, the buildings looking more like a ghost town after a war had ended. Partially eaten bodies lay in random piles here and there as litter drifted on a slight breeze fanning across the campus. The lack of undead was almost unnerving, but they knew a large portion of the population had been drawn out yesterday. There were still dead there, but not in the numbers they would have been and most were located on the other side of the river. A thought occurred to her and she grabbed the radio. “This is Lisa, who is online? Over.”

  “It’s Carlos, Lieutenant. I just got back from Hot Springs.”

  “Perfect. Carlos, we are a little short of commanders right now so you have been selected. I need you to stay where you are; be my eyes and ears and coordinate anything that comes your way. Can you do that?”

  “Roger.”

  “Okay, I want you to find some people who can get to the bridges over the river and block them off. The streets are almost empty of Zs here, so if we can isolate them to the other side, we could be heading home tomorrow.”

  “Roger, Lieutenant. I’ll get some construction guys on it right away. Over.”

  “Thanks, Carlos. And welcome back; I heard it was a rough time in the compound. Over.”

  “Yeah, everything is pretty messed up everywhere. Over.”

  “That is a huge understatement friend … huge! Out.”

  Lisa set the radio down and relaxed when she finally saw some living, breathing people coming across the campus toward them. It appeared to be a group of faculty and students, and they looked as if they had been through the proverbial wringer.

  “Lisa to Carlos. Over.”

  “Carlos here. Go ahead, Lieutenant. Over.”

  “Send trucks for about thirty to be extracted from the university; just a half mile from your position, on Fair Park Boulevard. Over.”

  “Roger. Out.”

  Lisa waited for the first of the trucks to show as Skit explained the process of what was going to happen to the newly arrived and where they could get food and clothing. Showers would have to wait until Benton. Lisa watched as Tonka refused to take his eyes off of one man who stood behind the gathered college people.

  Lisa got out of the car and, speaking over the roof, said, “Hey, you in the blue T-shirt. Yeah … you. Come on over here for a second.”

  The man reluctantly came over to the 300.

  “When were you bit?” she asked plainly. She could see the perspiration smattering his brow and the lack of color to his skin.

  “Ahhh, I’m not sure what you mean,” the man stammered nervously.

  “Bit … you were bitten. How long ago?” Lisa said.

  The man looked as if he was going to try to deny it. Tonka started barking ferociously, spreading spittle and dog nose goo all over the window.

  “Tell me the truth now, or I am letting Sergeant Tonka out of the back seat.” She looked down through the window and saw Temple getting beat up in the process of trying to dodge the flailing tail of the large canine.

  “About an hour ago. It was through my boot though; surely it couldn’t have …”

  “How do you feel? Because to be honest, you don’t look so good to me.” Lisa twisted her head, emphasizing her scrutiny.

  “I … uh, I’m … I’m not so good, to be honest. My legs hurt and I am starting to feel really weak, or tired; I don’t know which.”

  “What’s your name, bud?”

  “Dean.”

  “Dean, huh?” Another one? No, not the same. “Separate yourself from the group, Dean.”

  “But … but—”

  “Come on now, help me to do this with a little dignity, okay? Do you have any friends in the group?”

  “Yes, uh, my sister and her son.”

  “Do what you have to do then, Dean. Be quick and then come see me and we will discuss some options,” Lisa said.

  Dean begrudgingly nodded his head as he walked over to the group.

  Lisa hated these moments but it was their new reality. Everything went off without incident when, surprisingly, Dean decided to opt out early. It seemed waiting to turn did not appeal to him in the least.

  They secured the rescued people and helped with more that started to gravitate toward the survivors. Lisa headed deeper into the city, listening to calls for backup in order to block off the bridges. Swarms had been piling into the city for the last day and the zombies were still concentrated down at the river banks. It was a grim reminder of the first day in Hot Springs all over again; only this time, they were prepared.

  “Carlos. Over.”

  “I’m here, Lieutenant. Over.”

  “Make the bridges priority, send every piece of equipment you can without compromising your station. Over.”

  “Roger. Mustafa has arrived, Lieutenant, and is requesting your instructions. Over.”

  “Good, we can use him. Fill him in and have him take over your position there at the receiving grounds. I need you on those bridges. Explain what you find to Mustafa and see if he has any suggestions. Over.”

  Mustafa’s voice took over. “Roger, Lieutenant. Just as a quick update, regular army arrived in Hot Springs on a couple of C130s. Officer Benson had arranged for them to take care of the hydro facility. We have another thousand armed fighters and trained drivers heading our way and should be here within the next couple of hours. Over.”

  “Sounds good, Mustafa. We’re walking through a virtual wasteland right now and I would like to keep it that way, if possible. In order to do that we need to seal off the Four-Forty and Four-Thirty Bridges and everything in between. Any suggestions? Over.”

  “Well, we’re pretty good at blowing things up. Why don’t I give that colonel a call and see if he has a demolition man with him? If not, I’m sure I can rig up something with the right type of fertilizer. If we left the Thirty for us and park a train on the railroad bridge, we should be able to drop the rest. Over.”

  “That’s a good plan, Mustafa, but I would really like to leave the real estate if we can. Is there a way we can block them off until we’re ready to clear out the other side of the river? Over.”

  “I’m sure we can figure something out; let me talk to the contractors and see if they have any ideas. Over.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Over and out.” Lisa set the radio down. As they drove down more empty streets, more people would come out and they would get them going in the right direction. Although everything seemed to be abandoned, Lisa suddenly stopped the car when she looked down a side street.

  She got out of the car, stunned by what lay before her. A path the size of a single vehicle wound down the street with piles of bodies on either side. Heads were smashed beyond recognition by either blunt force or large-caliber bullets, making it obvious that a full-scale war against the zombies had taken place there. The hope that the living prevailed was confirmed by the existence of the path.

  The hum of diesel trucks came to them and Lisa signaled for her group to spread out and get ready. Between the incident at the storage locker and the racist downtown, she didn’t know what to expect. The carnage looked as though it spread for several blocks, but she couldn’t be sure. Gun shots started to echo from a couple of blocks down the street.

  “Your kids are back in there, huh?” she asked. Skit nodded. Smoke from burning neighborhoods rose steadily into the air. It was no wonder the people had fled and drew the zombies with them. Little Rock looked more like a war
zone than the city. She looked up at a sign that said Arkansas, The Natural State—Regnat Populus.

  “What does that mean, Skit?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t speak Latin,” Skit replied.

  “The people rule,” a forgotten voice said from the backseat.

  “I’m sorry, Temp. What did you say?”

  “Regnat Populus; it means the people rule,” Temple said, barely looking up from his tablet.

  “The people rule, huh? I like it. Franc and Kibble, on me,” she whispered into the short-range walkie-talkie that John had given them.

  “Sounds like we have some type of confrontation up ahead of us and I don’t want to get trapped in a vehicle, so we have to come up with a plan. Skit has a couple of kids in the complex ahead, so be very careful of what you shoot. Do either of you know this neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, I mean, a little bit anyway,” Franc started and then hesitated. “We used to do some business down here and over at the campus, so we have spent some time down here. There’s only a church back there and a big townhouse rental complex called Madison Heights.”

  “Townhouse complex? Is it defensible?” Lisa asked.

  “Yeah, it’s a big complex and there are some bad dudes in there. Somalians on one side and Syrians on the other. Cops spent a lot of time down there so we always met them off site … a long way off site,” Franc said and chuckled as if he had some worthwhile secret.

  “Those days are gone, Franc. If you want to kill yourself with that shit go right ahead, but you’re going to do it on your time, not mine. Right now you’re on my time, so get your head in the game and guide us in.”

  Chapter 3

  Cat and Mouse

  Dean didn’t bother hiding the sound of his steps or creeping around corners. He knew that Web had seen him coming and it was important for the doctor to see him moving through the city without concern of the zombies. He was playing a game with the hyper-intellectual doctor. It was a mental game that someone as smart as the doctor would see through instantly, with the exception of three very important details; Dean was real, Dean was specifically focused upon him, and nothing stopped Dean. He had Web’s number. He caught him, bound him, and disciplined him with a broken nose on the APC when Web got out of line. Dean had even damaged Web’s arm during his escape with a wildly thrown buckler from Shaaka.