900 Miles (Book 2): 900 Minutes Read online

  They all knew how this was going to end.

  Even from that distance, and over the noise from the helicopters flying toward us, I swear I could hear the final scream from Mr. Flamethrower as the canister exploded in a brilliant burst of light that showered flames across the base camp.

  God had passed judgment. He’d hit his mark.

  Just moments later, all the lights went dark in the camp. Even through the sight on my weapon, I couldn't see a thing. Suddenly, a line of ten or fifteen truck headlights all turned on at the same time and started inching forward. They had made the decision to move in on Avalon.

  A bloodcurdling scream pulled my attention back to the Yard. Looking down, I could see a fire-engulfed creature, fully covered with that death armor, running maniacally through the mud, taking a swipe at anything it came near.

  Clearly blinded, probably from its eyes melting out of its sockets, the monster’s accidental course spun it running toward the garage where we held our trucks, and the fuel that ran them. A number of people took shots at the moving target, but it didn’t seem to affect it as the bullets simply passed through every part of its mangled body - except its head.

  Ignoring the flaming boxes now floating directly over me, I instinctively felt one foot move over the other as I took off into a sprint down the narrow top of the cinderblocks. In my gut, I knew that if the creature made it to the cars, the explosion would be catastrophic.

  Once I arrived directly above the burning beast that continued to spin erratically as it headed toward the first car in the parking lot, I dove down onto the concrete, pulling the rifle up to my eye. For a moment, everything went still, as if time had stopped. No noise, just my breath as I slowly pulled the sight across the flaming skull of the death armor. Sliding my finger across the trigger, I thought to what Kyle had told me atop the school…You’re a terrible shot.

  Letting a deep breath out as I heard the trigger click back, I felt the rifle push into my shoulder. In near amazement, I watched as the bullet passed directly through the creature’s skull, dropping it like a flaming sack of potatoes into a pile of burning flesh just yards away from our fuel tanks.

  “Holy shit!”I exclaimed. I was as surprised as anybody.

  Pulling myself back on my feet, I glanced at Kyle and the rest of the group. They were standing with their backs against the cinderblock wall, just out of the line of sight from the gunship, as the second series of flaming boxes released from the chopper above. Leaning back against the topside of the wall myself, I watched as the gunship once again riddled the Yard with bullets, spitting up blood-soaked mud in all directions, dropping men and creatures alike.

  Seconds later, the flaming wreckage from the boxes started to shift and move as the dead began to pull themselves up. Some crawling, others still able to walk, they all moved in different directions, branching out like a disease through the sludge-covered Yard.

  Only this time, we were ready for them.

  With the gunship turning around to follow the Chinook, Kyle stepped forward out of the shadows and screamed,“Fire!”as he and seven other heavily armed people laid waste to the creatures. From the distance, it must have looked like a small war inside our walls as the light from the muzzle flashes and fire refracted through the smoke and clouds up above.

  Led by Kyle, the firing squad systematically created a half-circle around the twenty or so Zs, dropping each of them into that giant bonfire of death. Legs, arms, torsos all decimated as Kyle’s line stoked the flame with each of the fallen monsters, shooting burning ash up into the sky.

  Just as quickly as it had started, everything went silent as the final Z splashed down into the mud. Looking down, I found myself amazed at how Kyle had been able to pull everybody together without Jarvis.

  With my back still against the wall, I watched the headlights slice between each of the crenellations. Illuminating the rising smoke, it gave the illusion of souls floating into the heavens. Thinking of the burnt flesh smoldering in the Yard, I’m not so sure it wasn’t.

  Gripping the rifle close to my chest, I turned toward the field, ducking down with my eyes just high enough to see the blinding lights still inching toward our walls. Unable to see past them, I couldn't help but wonder what madness Gordon would throw at us next.

  Deciding to join the men below, I crawled over to the nearest wooden ladder and slid down until my boots hit the loose mud. Noticing every able-bodied person grabbing the creatures piled up in the now-smoldering fire and spreading them out around the Yard, I darted over to Kyle. Breathing heavily, I stopped at his feet and lifted the other side of one of the creatures he was carrying until we had it covering an open space in the field.

  When I looked him with an eyebrow raised, he simply said,“They need to think we’ve retreated to the bunker.”

  Knowing exactly what he meant, I nodded my head before sprinting back to the fire. Bending down, I dragged what was left of another creature to an open piece of field. Trying to stay quiet, we all did our part. Now we had to hope that Gordon would take the bait.

  Lying adjacent to the wall, covering myself in mud, I looked around to the rest of the people hiding in the corners of the Yard as we waited. The dampness had soaked to my bones, and I had to fight hard to keep my body armor from rattling as my body shivered.

  A simple bluff. Sometimes they paid off big. Sometimes you get called and lose everything. On that day, all we could do was hope that Lady Luck was back on our side. There was no other choice.

  As the engine from the gunship boomed back to life, we all held our breaths and listened while the sound rumbled closer and closer to the Yard. Feeling the water pooling up around my stomach, I looked up and saw Kyle crouched down behind one of the sets of ladders with his eyes glued to the clouds.

  My hiding spot is absolute shit, I thought to myself, just as the spotlight from the gunship entered the Yard, quickly followed by the chopper, which began circling around the inside of our walls. With my face sideways in the mud, I shielded my eyes as anything not bolted down spun up in the air from the downdraft while the spotlight moved from body to body.

  With any luck, the chopper would make the assumption that we’d retreated back to the bunker, signaling the troops to move in on the wall. While it may seem crazy to want Gordon’s men to move in, we didn’t have much of a fighting chance with that gunship flying overhead and Gordon’s men out of firing range. Our only hope would be if they came closer, moving in for the fight, maybe letting their guard down, thinking they had us. Maybe giving us that little wedge of a shot, we’d need to turn this thing in the right direction.

  Continuing to fly overhead, the gunship was lingering longer than I would have expected. I couldn’t keep my mind at rest. Was it too easy for them? Had we played this card too early?

  I froze, not moving a muscle as the spotlight moved in my direction. Holding my breath, I closed my eyes as the bright light passed directly over me, sliding along the entire interior of the Yard. Exhaling, I slid my face slightly up to see the damn thing hovering right in the middle of everything.

  With a crack, a gunner with a large-caliber machine-gun pointing out from the right-hand side of the chopper started to take random shots down into the Yard. Cutting bodies in half, the bastards inside had decided to do what in business we called“spot checking.”They didn’t want to shoot everything, but they’d started to randomly test by blowing holes through some of the bodies below. They were trying to call our bluff.

  Sometimes running is easy. It’s remaining still that’s really hard. I know I had the urge to get up and run, so I was sure others did as well. It took everything I had in me as one of the dead Zs less than three feet from my head burst into a bloody mess when the gunman set his sight on it.

  I knew it as well as everybody else. Our plan hinged on nobody making a move, so I lay there trying to become one with the mud as the gore from the creature slid across my face, into my nose, and down my lips.

  The gunfire moved over to the
trucks near the fuel where there were a few men hidden under the trucks themselves. Glass and metal shards flew up into the air as the chopper chipped away at a black Jeep Wrangler. Moving to another vehicle, the gunman nailed a tire, dropping the vehicle down far enough to catch the leg of one man that was hidden beneath it. Cringing, I could nearly feel his leg being shattered. Still, he didn’t make a sound. He held his ground, probably saving us all.

  Then, just like that, as quickly as it had flown in, the gunship lifted into the air and floated back across the field.

  I’m not sure if I’d actually taken a breath while the gunship hovered above the trucks, but I found myself nearly hyperventilating as it flew away. I wiped the dripping black gore from my face and stood up with the rest of the thirty or so people still left to fight. We all knew what we had to do.

  Crawling back up the ladder, I peeked over the edge, careful not to be seen. Giving me a bit of a scare, Kyle slid in next to me, dropping to one knee while sticking his head up just enough to see the lights.

  “They’re halfway here,”he whispered.

  We both knew we had one equalizer when it came to the field. One way to ensure that anybody moving in on our walls would have a hell of a time doing it. Peeking my head over the wall, the door of the Dead Shed came into view.

  It was our turn to spring a trap.

  Turning his face to the microphone on his shoulder, Kyle called out his orders. I knew a few of the men below would begin heading over to the lever across the Yard that would release the counterweight designed to pull the door open, much like a garage, on the Dead Shed.

  “Wait for my signal,”he called out.“We need to make sure they don’t see it coming. They have to be close so they can’t escape!”

  Looking across the wall, I could see the black silhouettes of our remaining forces crawling up the ladder in the darkness, spacing themselves out across the top of the cinderblock wall, each ducking down below the headlights that were getting brighter and brighter. Hearing a few weapons clack against the concrete, it knew it wouldn’t be long before Gordon’s men were upon us.

  Looking down at my hand gripping the handle of the hammer, I was reminded of a moment I’d had with Tyler. A single, solitary moment when he was sitting in my lap crying uncontrollably. Lost, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing as a father, as most fathers would probably admit. I remember trying everything I possibly could to calm him down, when he suddenly reached up to clasp his tiny hand around my ring finger. As if his crying was on a light switch, it just suddenly turned off. I remember watching him, with his eyes still closed, holding on like he’d found his grounding. He’d found his father.

  He’d found the person who’d protect him. There was no letting him down.

  Kyle reached out his fist and extended two fingers to the group. Two minutes until we’d pull the lever.

  Shaking my head, I started counting down the seconds, refocusing my mind on the monsters outside. Not the dead, but Gordon’s army, as they marched toward our home. Willing to murder every last one of us, this group was far worse than any zombie. They had intention. They had the ability to think. They had made the decision to kill us. They’d made that choice. I felt no remorse for what we were about to do.

  Kyle’s hand extended once again, holding up just one finger.

  Waiting to see the white in our enemies’eyes, as the old saying goes, I couldn’t help but look around the Yard. Death, fire, bullet casings…the whole place was destroyed, with one exception. Somehow, the garden at the far corner had managed to go unscathed. There were still flowers from crops that hadn’t been pulled, waving to me in the darkness. A small reminder of the beauty we’d created here. A small sign of the life that was still standing strong.

  “Pull it, pull the lever!”Kyle spoke into the microphone.

  Feeling the seconds tick by, as if watching the second hand slowly rotate around a clock, I looked to Kyle. His eyebrows were raised in anticipation, but slowly they came back down as he looked to me.

  “I said pull the lever!!”

  “We are, but nothing’s happening. It looks like the rope to the counterweight has been cut!”the man on the other end cried out in a panic.

  Kyle’s red-rimmed eyes went wide as he pounded his fist into the concrete.“Son-of-a-bitch, someone’s sabotaged the line.”Kyle scowled as he cried out, a little too loud for my comfort,“Remember when we said Rodgers wasn’t as big a dick as we thought? Well, I take it back!”

  Dropping my head, I had a fleeting question in my mind. What else could Rodgers have sabotaged?

  Gunshots, slamming into the concrete above, rained chunks of rock down across my head as the fresh smell of gunpowder mixed with the smoke from the burning bodies. A scream came from someone to my right, as they took a shot to the head, dropping backwards into the Yard.

  Panic struck as we all stayed glued to the crenellations, not sure what to do.

  Kyle was the first to react, as he snapped,“Follow my lead,”into his microphone. Standing, as if he was fucking bulletproof, my friend lowered his machine gun and set his sight upon the wooden door of the Dead Shed.

  As he pulled the trigger, I watched the muzzle flash burst into the air. Hitting his target dead on, Kyle dropped the clip and locked in another, continuing to blow holes through the wooden door.

  In a symphony of fire, sparks flew outward along the entire length of our upper wall as the bullets ricocheted and reverberated through wood. It was hard to tell who was screaming into the night louder, the Zs behind the door or the men along the top of the wall, firing madly. Either way, it was working.

  Arms and bodies began flooding out into the darkness like a black tide. Gordon’s men couldn’t possibly have known what was down there. Looking back, I have to assume that Rodgers wasn’t able to get word out about the shed. He was just able to sabotage it. As such, the men standing nearly helpless in the field didn’t have a fucking clue what hit them…until it was too late.

  The first of the creatures to reach the cars poured around them like water sliding through a sand castle. I watched as the monsters crept through the grass and over the vehicles while pulling down Gordon's front line forces.

  There was a sense of sweet madness in the air as we watched those men get taken down. I felt myself cheering inside as I watched from the wall. Trying to retreat, Gordon’s forces turned back, sprinting through the grass. However, the men on the front line, the first to fall, had risen and were already up and sprinting after their prey. None of them had a chance once the whole thing really got going.

  After standing there in amazement, for what was probably too long to be safe, our group finally lowered down behind the safety of the wall. We continued to gaze out between the crenellations into the darkness of the field. The horde, fueled by our creatures from the Dead Shed and stoked by the men they’d overrun, had already reached Gordon’s base. Looking through my scope, I patted Kyle’s back in amazement as I watched the creatures crawling over the gunship, tearing through its passengers and pilots. I couldn’t hear them screaming, but I doubt Mozart himself could have crafted a sound more beautiful.

  We had won. I couldn’t believe it. We’d pushed back Gordon’s forces. The dead were taking them down. We were safe behind the walls. It all seemed too good to be true.

  In boxing, they tell you that it’s not the blow you see coming that you have to worry about. It’s the one that you don’t see that will knock you on your ass. Nothing could have been closer to the truth.

  Suddenly, from behind us, there was a BOOM. Twisting around, looking beyond the hill to our back, we saw light shooting out from the Greenbriar Hotel. The sound waves from the explosion actually made my body armor rattle against my legs.

  “What the hell was that?”I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “They’re coming in from the back, through the Greenbriar entrance,”Kyle yelled, clearly as surprised as I was.

  In that moment, it hit me. The frontal attack was a distracti
on. We’d been flanked.

  Gordon’s men would be entering Avalon. Now I feared the maniac was right. There wasn’t a thing we could do about it.

  Chapter 31

  (BOHICA) Bend Over! Here It Comes Again

  Darting through the mud and leaping over burnt corpses, what was left of our little group slid down the stairs leading toward the oversized entrance of the Avalon bunker. Seeing the circular metal door wide open, as if someone had popped the top to Pandora’s box, I cringed as we approached the dark halls leading down deep into the bunker itself.

  Flooding through the opening like mice trying to escape a storm, scattering down the hallways, each person headed to what they knew to be our only remaining option.

  Richards stood by the entrance, waving his hand as we darted by. Worriedly making eye contact with Kyle, nothing was said, but we knew exactly what he needed us to do. We just had to make sure everybody was in the bunkroom, one of only two reliable places that the gas wouldn't penetrate. The other being the cafeteria, where Richards would be heading off to in just moments.

  Sprinting down the long hallway, I winced as the florescent lights above flickered, followed by an earthshaking blast. I couldn't be sure, but I was guessing they had just broken through the metal blast door leading into the Great Hall itself. They’d only have one final door to bust through before our halls would be filled with the enemy.

  Screams of the dead floated down the corridor, slapping into my face like a brick, as I realized we hadn’t gotten them all. Somehow, some of the Zs had managed to escape from the Yard, infiltrating the only safety we thought we had left. Stepping over the body of an African American man with a blade sticking out of his forehead, Kyle and I continued charging further into the depths of Avalon.

  Monsters inside, Gordon's men coming in soon…death was floating around the walls of our home, looking for anybody to tap on the shoulder.