A Time To Run Read online

  “Where does this come out in the garage?” Harry asked.

  “Back corner,” Vance said and bent to draw a map in the now thick dust on the floor. He indicated where tools and other gear was stored. “I can’t see how much damage there is to the trucks because the cameras are out. But if they’re screwed…”

  “So are we,” the big former Marine said with a nod. “So if we can’t use those grenades, that means we’re going to have to throw a lot of lead. A lot of lead,” he said. Vance looked at the second of the three carts, the heaviest one, because it was stacked full of ammo cans. “You ever fired an M4 until the barrel failed?” Vance shook his head no. “Let’s see what we can do to maximize our chances.”

  * * *

  Six infected huddled against the rising April heat in the partially collapsed garage. The building was in bad shape, and the entire structure was hot. Still, their simple instincts had drawn them there. Two were worrying at an MRE package, the same instincts telling them that there was something inside worth the effort. A creaking sound made one of the two MRE eaters look up just as a .22 long rifle bullet punched through his left eye and out the back of his head.

  The infected who’d been sitting next to him stopped ripping at the plastic with his teeth and turned to look at the suddenly slumped figure. He cocked his head in confusion. The part of his brain that was once capable of making complex associations struggled. It was still struggling when another .22 went through his brain.

  Harry pushed himself the rest of the way through the hatch and carefully crawled toward the two bodies he’d just shot. Two more infected came into view, both huddled against the partially collapsed garage door. Pop, pop went the Ruger Mk III .22, and they both went down. He moved to his next target.

  Vance stood on the elevator with all the equipment and the rest of his people. Everyone had full battle-rattle, their M4 carbines clipped to single point harnesses and held at the ready. It had been almost five minutes since Harry had climbed the ladder up into the garage. He’d volunteered for the duty as the only one of them that had done ‘sentry elimination’ as he called it. The process was brutal to watch.

  Harry shot two more infected who’d been tearing apart a groundhog by the door, then crouched by one of the corpses. He expertly replaced the nearly spent magazine, stashing it in a belt pouch, and slowly looked around, the gun held high and close to his body. After a moment, he turned and waved to Vance.

  “Stay down,” he stage-whispered to the women still in the basement. The dogs, Lexus, Rock, and Dewey, were all sitting with muzzles on. He could just hear them growling, hackles raised. None of them liked the infected. They were all worried about the dogs, what with the story of how the infection was passed by ingesting flesh, the animals were at high risk. The women held their M4s and watched him with big eyes. Ann, his wife of only a week, tried to smile, but fear was etched on her face in stark lines.

  Vance nodded to his friend Tim and they both quickly moved to the pair of trucks sitting in the middle of the garage. There were broken boards and other debris lying on the vehicles. The two men carefully moved it aside. They split up and began examining the trucks.

  “Shit,” Tim hissed in a minute.

  “What?” Vance asked, moving over next to him. The trucks were both 1976 Ford F-350s. Over two years Vance and Tim had spent thousands having the vehicles carefully gone over. The electrical systems were upgraded but left pre-electronic. The engines were rebuilt. The suspensions were replaced and upgraded. Armored glass and bullet resistant panels were installed. The two friends jokingly called them their Mad Max badlands specials. The hood of the second truck was open, bent upward. It looked like it had been hit by a wild animal. The radiator was breached, antifreeze on the ground. “People did this?”

  “Looks like it,” Tim said.

  “What’s the story?” Harry whispered by the shattered door.

  “One of the trucks is fucked,” Vance said.

  “Can you fix it, quick?” Harry asked.

  Fix, sure, Vance thought, but quick?

  “Let me see,” he said.

  The hood could be secured without too much difficulty, at least temporarily. The radiator was another matter. Normally switching a radiator could take hours, was a noisy operation, and required power tools. Thanks to all the money they’d spent, he had another option. Vance started under the hood to switch some valves he’d had installed.

  “It won’t run for long,” Tim reminded him.

  “We should get five to ten miles,” Vance replied. They both spoke in whispers, conscious of just how close more of the infected were. Harry slipped closer and spoke.

  “We can’t take just one truck?” Harry asked.

  “This one’s the crew cab,” Tim said, and used his head to indicate the other truck. “We’d all fit, if we left everything behind. Including the gas cans.” Harry’s mouth became a thin line and he nodded, understanding that he and his wife were part of the problem.

  “I can fix this,” Vance said, “go get the spare radiator and stow it.” He turned to Harry. “Make sure there’s room, get all the doors open, and then signal the women.”

  “We’ll get the dogs in first,” Harry suggested.

  “Good idea,” Vance agreed. They all knew the animals could go wild at any moment. The trucks were both preloaded with some supplies, but not much. They needed what they’d brought from below.

  Everything started to happen fast from that point on. Tim got one of the spare radiators from under the tool bench, loading it into the front of the other truck’s cargo bed along with a half dozen one-gallon jugs of multi-use anti-freeze. While he did that, the girls boosted the dogs up to the garage level, one at a time, and Harry took the freaked-out, growling animals and put them in the back seat of the crew cab, clipping their leads to the front seat headrests. Finished with the anti-freeze, Tim switched to jugs of water. They were going to go west, into the desert high country of Texas. Water was essential. Vance had just finished switching all the valves under the hood when it happened; he dropped a wrench.

  Vance made a mad grasp as it slipped out of his fingers, just missing it. The drop-forged steel hit the floor and rang like a bell.

  “Fuck,” he snarled. Someone, or something, grunted outside, then several more. “Move,” he snapped at the other two men, then sprang into action. He reached under the front of the truck and snatched up the offending tool, turned the valve its last turn, then locked the wrench back into its holder before pulling the hood closed and securing it with an all-rubber bungee. That done, he dropped to one knee and spun, his modified M4 coming up to his shoulder. Three of the infected had just rounded the corner of the garage door and were looking in hungrily. The hydraulic mechanism of the lift started. It wasn’t extremely loud, but it was loud enough. The 3 infected ran toward him, and Vance shot all three. The gunshots brought a chorus of screams from the infected as they fell, and more yells from the others outside by the house.

  “I’ll take the door,” Harry said, and ran toward the garage exit, “you guys load!”

  “Got it,” Vance said, got to his feet, and ran to where the lift was just reaching the top. All three women jumped up the last foot ahead of the lift, each heavily burdened with packs and running toward the trucks.

  “What happened?” Ann demanded.

  “We were made,” Vance said simply. “Load, as fast as you can.” He let his rifle fall on its one-point harness and grabbed two packs. Tim was right behind him. They’d taken some of the time while trapped in the bunker to fill every pack they had with the essentials of survival. Medical gear, food, and ammo. Now they worked feverishly to load it into the trucks. Harry’s carbine began to speak in fast semi-auto fire.

  “Don’t take long!” he yelled between shots. “There are a fuckton of them.” Vance stopped just long enough from a trip to run up behind the Marine.

  “Here!” he barked and leaned his full-auto rifle against the sagging garage door. He dropped half a
dozen magazines as well, including his only pair of 40-round mags. “Make them count!”

  “I will,” Harry said, firing out his semi-auto. He unclipped it and handed the weapon to Vance, who burned himself on the smoking barrel as he secured it to his own sling before running back to help Tim. He was feeling all his years and pizzas as he huffed across the rubble-strewn concrete floor. He snatched another pair of packs, the comforting sound of clean, crisp three-round bursts started up. Marines were, first and foremost, riflemen, and Harry was using the weapon to deadly effect.

  “Start the good truck!” Vance yelled to his wife as the last of the packs were grabbed up. “Put all those packs in the back. Leave room in the back of the crew cab. Some of us are going to ride in the back.” She nodded, her eyes big with fear and adrenaline. “Tim, you drive the crew cab. Nicole, with Tim. Belinda, with Ann.”

  “But,” Belinda started to complain.

  “Do it!” Harry barked, firing out a 40-round magazine and swapping for the other. He was taking time to stuff empties in his waistband. Vance didn’t know if he approved or not. He’d think about it later. Smoke from the automatic rifle curled up through the sand-colored foregrip. He didn’t worry about lasting damage; he was more concerned with survival.

  The smaller truck roared to life, the last of the bags were tossed in, and the doors closed. Vance waved at Ann and used his hand to gesture toward the door. She gave her head a little shake, and he repeated the gesture, only more vigorously. Her jaw set, teeth showing, she put the truck in gear and with crunching boards, deftly maneuvered around the big crew cab and toward the door. A partially-collapsed tool bench was in the way, and she plowed over it. The big brush guards on the truck’s front protected it from any damage besides some scuffed paint. Tim cranked the other truck, but it didn’t start. Oh fuck, he thought. Ann stopped just outside the garage door, the bodies in her way.

  “Go!’ Harry barked, making a sweeping motion with his arm. The pause in his firing allowed a group of at least 20 infected to get dangerously close. He reloaded and fired half a 30-round magazine, dropping six of them. “Go!”

  “But the bodies!” Ann complained.

  “Fucking go!” Vance screamed. Ann closed her eyes and punched the accelerator. The truck leapt forward, mounting the bodies with a meaty crunching sound and the squeal of tires spinning on meat. For a horrifying second the truck slid sideways on the bodies, and Vance though it was going to crush Harry against the wall. He was busy firing now and paying zero attention to the truck. Then the big oversized mud tires spit a body out and the truck lurched forward. The body slid backward like a bloody egg skidding across a plate. The other truck continued to crank.

  “The carburetor must have been damaged!” Tim yelled. Both trucks were carbureted, not fuel injected. They were EMP proof and could burn almost 50% alcohol with just the turn of a switch. Vance ran over, unhooked the hood and raised it with a screech of tortured metal. The air cleaner was bent akimbo, the intake hose crushed. He grabbed it and ripped it clear.

  “Try again!” Vance yelled.

  “We need to evac, now!” Harry yelled and backed toward the truck. The barrel of the rifle was cherry red, and he was firing 6 round bursts, holding the rifle by the pistol grip only, an extra magazine in his left hand. It would have looked cool if they weren’t about to be overrun. Tim turned the key. The engine cranked for several seconds. Vance felt every thump of his hammering pulse. He pulled up his own carbine. Through the half-broken walls, he saw infected coming around the right side, opposite Harry. He fired through the wall and heard screams just as the truck’s engine roared to life.

  Vance slammed the hood as best he could, not bothering with the bungee, and he whipped around the front and onto the side board.

  “Come on!” he yelled to Harry.

  “Don’t wait for me!” the Marine snapped. Tim put it in gear, gunned the motor, and dropped the clutch. The big 350-cubic inch engine roared, and the tires squealed as the truck shot forward. A mass of infected was framed in the door. Tim hesitated.

  “The wall,” Vance said, and pointed. Tim spun the wheel, Vance holding on for all he was worth. He had a brief glimpse of Harry, firing the last shot in his magazine as the truck swerved and began to race by. Vance let his rifle fall on its sling, hooked his arm through the big handle mounted to the back of the cab you used to help mount the truck, and put out an arm for Harry. The man swung, and their arms slapped together. Vance roared in exertion and pain as the other man’s grip closed around his forearm like a vice. Vance pulled and pivoted. Harry swung around and back, catapulting into the bed of the truck.

  Harry screamed as he landed, rolling frantically. Vance could see charred flesh across his chest. But he didn’t have time to see how bad it was, the wall was right there. Vance flipped himself back into the truck bed, too, just as the Ford plowed into the wall. It gave in an explosion of already weakened siding and splintered 2x4s. The truck bumped and almost threw both men out of the back as it rode up and over a trio of infected who’d been about to come around the corner. Somehow they stayed in the back, and Tim steered the truck back on to the driveway and after the other truck.

  Vance rolled over and looked back to his retreat. The place he’d spent a decade of his life building, he now left in the hands of the hordes. Dozens raced after them, but the trucks soon left them, and his home, far behind.

  * * *

  Near Kendalia, TX

  “Go, go, go!” Cobb roared as he spun the big .50 caliber around to the back and let loose with a long burst. Even through the foam hearing protectors, the gunshots hammered at his brain. The rain poured down on him with huge drops, splashing off his helmet and body armor, and on the turret shield to fly back in his face. A couple dozen infected sprinted with unreal speed, faster than the Stryker could accelerate. They’d stopped, planning to get a bathroom break and some sleep next to an abandoned gas station. But as soon as they stopped, at least a hundred infected poured out in a screaming mass.

  “All you do is yell,” Colbert bitched from the driver’s compartment as he pushed the accelerator to the floor.

  “You don’t move our asses,” Bennet said, heading to the rear with his rifle, “you won’t have anything to bitch about anymore.” He ducked around a rain of .50 caliber casings and slid the rear firing port open. He stuffed his carbine through and unloaded an entire magazine, sweeping the barrel back and forth. “Fuck!” he yelled as one of them reached past the blazing barrel, stuck its hand through the firing slit, and grabbed Bennet around the throat. He tried to yell for help, but only a gurgling, strangled gasp came out as the fingers squeezed with vice-like force, penetrating his neck and ripping out his esophagus. He released his gun and fell to his knees, trying to scream though his missing throat as he put his hands to the fountaining wound. He was dead in less than a minute.

  “Okay, we’re ahead of them,” Cobb said into his throat mic. “Bennet, report?” The Stryker lurched slightly as Colbert rode down another infected who’d ran right at the hurtling APC. The wheels made a dull thudding/crunching sound. “Bennet?”

  “He’s on the deck!” Colbert yelled, having craned his neck to see behind him.

  Cobb safed the .50 caliber and slid down out of the turret hatch, taking a second to slide the access closed before moving back. Immediately he saw the spreading pool of blood.

  “Oh God,” he said as he knelt next to the fallen soldier and reached around to check his carotid pulse. His finger found an open wound, torn artery, and blood. He used his other hand to activate his throat mic. “Private Bennet is dead.” The Stryker raced on.

  They found a quiet point on the road half an hour later. Colbert pulled the Stryker off to the side, being careful not to slide into a drainage ditch because the rain was still pouring. Cobb dropped the back ramp and unshipped a pair of shovels. For a change, Colbert didn’t complain as the two men carried their comrade outside, wrapped in a poncho. The two took turns digging in the wet mud, one watc
hing for infected while the other worked. It took almost an hour to get a hole deep enough for them to carefully lower the body inside. It was half full of water already.

  “Shouldn’t we say something?” Colbert asked when Cobb picked up the shovel.

  “Are you an ordained minister, or something?”

  “Well, no…” Cobb nodded and started shoveling mud. Colbert went back to work. Filling in the hole was easier than making it. Cobb finished in a few minutes, then ordered Colbert to get a few of the big flat rocks lying around to cover the grave. It probably wouldn’t stop the coyotes, but it might. He watched the private while that was finished, then they both relieved themselves before climbing back aboard and closing the door.

  “First time we’ve gotten out without being attacked,” Colbert said, shucking his rain poncho and hanging it from a hook. “Maybe we can stay a while?”

  “No,” Cobb said and gestured at the front. “Get us moving.”

  “I don’t think we should move.”

  “I don’t care what you think, private,” he said, turning to look him in the eye. “Drive. Now.”

  “Sir,” he said, looking down and moving to the driver’s compartment. A second later the engine roared back to life and the Stryker lurched forward.

  Cobb dropped into one of the metal seats. The pad was only an inch thick, and he leaned back against the mid-back support. His hands were shaking. He put his face in his hands and his whole body began to shake. Before he knew it, tears were rolling down. He’d lost men before; you didn’t command an infantry battalion without losing men. But he hadn’t been in the Army for years and hadn’t been responsible for individual lives for longer than that. He’d left Ft. Hood with three good men, and now one was dead, and another might be as well. He’d set out on a trip of more than one thousand miles. He hadn’t yet made it a hundred, yet, and he’d lost half his team.