Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER SEVEN


“Hubris! Mankind’s hubris is a sin in the eyes of the Lord! Damnation is at hand! Fire will cleanse the soul and purify the wicked! The end is nigh!”

From: Collected Radio Transmissions of the Fall,

University of the South Press, 2053



“We are so going to die,” I murmured quietly as we crept through the darkness.

Of course, I volunteered for the most dangerous part of the mission Sister Ann had decided to call “Operation Not-A-Tank.” I don’t think anybody expected anything else. Not a single other girl on campus was capable of what I was going to do—with the exception of one other, who had the misfortune of being with me at the moment. With full hunting gear taken from the clothing closet and my red hair tucked safely away under a black beanie, I blended in better with the environment than usual.

The poor individual Sister Ann had sent with me was Lucia, dressed similarly but carrying a bag instead of my loadout. She was the only person both Sister Ann and I trusted to get past the bulk of King Dale’s crew. The tiny Latina was not happy about it, though. She started to let me know about it from the moment we left campus and hadn’t stopped complaining since.

“Of course we’re going to die. This is stupid,” she whispered for the umpteenth time as we made our way down the railroad tracks. We knew already where Appalachia Rex and his crew were holed up. I’d been watching them for days, after all. The abandoned gas station turned liquor store near the ruined paper mill was a good place—close to the river, and with good lines of sight to their bridge. The building also had bars over the windows, which had helped protect it during the Fall. It’d been high on my list of buildings to potentially clear when Sister Ann gave the word.

Aware that the shambler population had grown a lot since this morning, I shushed her and made a walking motion with my two fingers. She sighed, held up the letter B in sign language to her chin, and jerked it down before giving me two quick waves of her hand. I giggled.

Bitch please, I mentally translated. Lucia had a point. We didn’t need to be silent, merely quiet.

For the record, I was not one “those” girls who liked to traipse about in the darkness after sneaking out at night to meet townie boys, pre-Fall. Not my thing. The woods and mountain used to be terrifying to me when I first arrived. Back home, it was never really “night” in Orange County like it was out here. At night in Southern California there were always light in the background, and noise as well. It didn’t matter how late the hour, there was always the persistent glow of the cities, from Santa Ana all the way up to the Anaheim Hills.

Out here, up in the Alleghany Highlands, the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains? My first night during a camping trip with Sister Ann had been an experience, to say the least. None of us had ever slept out under the stars, and all of us all came from big cities. It was the first time I’d ever truly appreciated just how small I was compared to the rest of the universe.

The spot where we’d camped had overlooked an entire valley. The lights from Covington were blocked by the mountain. There was dark, and then there was that night during what Sister Ann called our “crucible.” There was nothing but the small fire we’d built and the billions of stars in the sky above. It was the first time I really considered a future—not just mine, I mean, but the future of all those around me, and how our choices would affect not only ourselves, but those who cared for us. It’d been an uncomfortable experience for me.

The sky was mostly cloudy now, the moonlight sporadic. We moved like ghosts through the trees, confident in our knowledge of the game trails leading alongside the Jackson River. Lucia knew these paths almost as well as I did. It was still the best way to sneak down to the river without revealing the back entrance to anybody who might be watching. Plus, I hated using the main entrance and remembering the secret codes to avoid raising the alarm, so everybody was happy.

For now. If everything went according to plan, King Dale wasn’t going to be too pleased. Not that I gave a crap about how he felt. Screw that guy.

Eventually we found where King Dale and his goons had tied up their mostly-completed bridge, which bobbed up and down gently as the river washed beneath it. I had no idea what sort of bridge it was, but it looked like the logs were thick enough to drive over. Watching them move with the current slightly, I began to have doubts. Cutting the lines would have been easier and probably safer, but unless those logs were destroyed King Dale could just fish it out and tie it back up. We’d delay them for a day, maybe two tops. What Sister Ann had in mind would was a more permanent solution, and a slap in the face to his ego.

Sister Ann always preached about hubris and how it would lead to the downfall of mankind. I liked to think people weren’t that bad, just . . . prone to bouts of the stupid. The real stupid.

After watching it for thirty minutes, we took a risk and crossed the makeshift floating bridge. Both Lucia and I kept watching the riverbanks, certain that we’d get spotted by a lookout or something. Surprisingly, he didn’t have anybody out there to protect it. Considering they probably didn’t have any way to see in the dark, it made sense the more I thought about it. It wasn’t as though the shamblers would do anything to the bridge besides cross it, right? He had to be thinking something along these lines. Plus, a school filled with teenage girls protected by a single nun? How dangerous could we be to his plans in the middle of the night?

The poor man had no idea what nun he was messing with.

One thing Sister Ann had done before we departed campus was to pass out handheld radios. They were good ones, not the cheap sort you’d find at a discount store. They had to be to work in these mountains. Sister Ann had hoarded these radios, keeping them safe from harm and conserving all the batteries we could find. There was a surprising amount of batteries in the bunker, actually, but since most of them were size D and didn’t match up with the handhelds, we hadn’t really used the radios all that much. There were plans to, whenever we started going farther out to scout for supplies. The D batteries we had in abundance were perfect for the shortwave radio, however. Emily thought we had enough to last the shortwave five more years at our current use. Though sometimes we really didn’t want to use it. Other than reading and chess, which I hated, the shortwave was our only source of entertainment—as depressing as it was.

I turned my radio on and switched to the prearranged channel. We were risking a lot in using these radios. Anybody who happened to have the same channel we were using could potentially hear us. It was why Sister Ann told us not to talk, merely turn it on and hit the transmit key three times before shutting it back down. The signal was meant to tell her we were safely across the bridge. The next time we were supposed to use the radio was when we completed the second stage and found the stolen BearCat.

Staying in the shadows of the parking lot across the street from the mill, we snuck in closer. Still no signs of any lookouts. Hubris. I could almost hear Sister Ann’s lecture in my brain. Ducking behind a particularly large pile of debris left over from the dam failure, I spotted the BearCat parked directly in front of the liquor store. The massive beast of a truck was partially blocking the front door. It was a smart idea, actually. It provided King Dale with added reinforcement to the station’s main entrance while keeping their vehicle close. We peeked inside. I almost laughed. The problem with King Dale’s brilliant plan, however, was that he had left the keys in the ignition and nobody outside to guard it. The doors were unlocked as well, and we didn’t see anyone sleeping within.

Talk about a stroke of luck. God really was looking out for the juvenile delinquents of St. Dom’s. It would make what we were about to do next that much simpler.

We quickly climbed inside. It smelled like ass but otherwise was in good shape. The quick lesson the twins gave us on how to “theoretically hot-wire a car” wouldn’t be necessary. Locking the doors, Lucia slid into the back area to ensure it was secured as well. We did not want any unexpected passengers during our attempt at grand theft auto. Satisfied it was locked and there was no way, outside of a spare key, anyone else was getting in, I flipped the radio back on and clicked the transmit key three more times. Turning the radio off, I climbed behind the driver’s seat and waited. My gaze drifted toward the makeshift floating bridge, which could just barely be seen down the block.

Shadows moved around the bridge. I prayed that it was only our girls and no shamblers. I doubted the twins would respond well to a couple of shamblers showing up while doing their thing.

It took a bit longer than expected. I chalked it up to the logs being wet from the rapidly flowing river. Or perhaps the coolness of the evening. But eventually the combined kerosene and Styrofoam packing peanut bags lit the logs on fire. Soon there was a bonfire any good ol’ Southern boy would have been proud to call his own. If anyone had been outside on watch, that is.

Of course, the fire wouldn’t burn the logs completely. The bridge could still be repaired. That was where the second part of the plan came into play.

I was growing irritated by the moment, though. Sister Ann and the girls had worked hard on making their makeshift napalm, and there was nobody from Rex’s crew to witness it. For the first time, I was disappointed there was no lookout. I leaned forward and peered inside the gas station. There was absolute darkness inside. This was another smart move by the intrepid King Dale, since shamblers were drawn to light. I looked back down at the river. The flames were high in the air now, creating enough light to gain the attention of anyone within five hundred yards. The bridge was still holding fast. The wait was almost unbearable. I looked at the handheld in disgust. What was taking them so long? There was a lot of smoke rising into the air. I turned back to let Lucia know what was going on when disaster struck.

I slipped and my elbow slammed down hard on the steering wheel. The loud car horn of the BearCat echoed into the still night. I jerked away from the horn, horrified, and scrambled into the back with Lucia. She was staring at me, eyes wide.

“You think anyone heard?” she asked in a hushed whisper.

As if in response, a keening wail answered. Then another, and another. Dozens, if not hundreds, of angry shamblers howled somewhere out in the darkness in reply.

“Shit,” I hissed, terrified. “Yeah, someone heard.”

Men started running out of the darkened gas station. They were well-armed but clearly had not been expecting a truck horn to signal all of the shamblers to wake up. We ducked down and hoped we wouldn’t be seen by Dale’s men. Confused, a few tried the doors to the BearCat, only to find them locked. I could hear them arguing outside.

“Who locked the fucking keys in the tank?!” someone screamed. It sounded like Rex, though I couldn’t be certain.

“Forget the keys!” another voice interjected. “The bridge is on fire!”

“How did the bridge catch on fire?” a third voice asked. “Quick, to the river!”

I risked a peek and I counted eight men, all armed with AR-15s similar to mine, running toward the fire. As they drew closer one of them raised his rifle and shot across the river. Someone was out in the open. It was either Finlay or Fiona. I winced, but the shot thankfully missed. She continued scrambling behind a small pile of rocks but there wasn’t enough cover. As the shooter readied a second shot, a screech interrupted him. A shambler bodied him to the ground. Struggling, the man tried to turn the AR. The shambler was in too close, and the shooter started screaming as the shambler’s teeth started gnawing on his face. A melee erupted as more shamblers poured into the men. Vengeance was no longer an option. Saving the bridge was secondary. They were fighting now purely to survive.

Then the bridge blew up and I finally understood why Sister Ann almost had a heart attack the first time the twins asked about using Tannerite to take care of shamblers.

As Finlay and Fiona had pointed out to us back up on campus and before we started this trek into town, Tannerite was not something that exploded when it caught on fire and I was worrying over nothing. Even something like a handgun round didn’t always set it off. No, it needed something with a little more oomph behind it. A powerful impact worked the best. Since we were all out of blasting caps, though, someone needed to shoot the backpack filled with the stuff. And since the Tannerite wasn’t about to shoot itself, my little shambler-killing protégé Ulla had been given the task of hitting the backpack filled with fifteen pounds of the stuff with her rifle from long range. And one thing I’d quickly learned about the tiny blond girl was that she never, ever missed.

The twins were wrong about one thing, though—I definitely would have been worried if I’d known about the size of the explosion beforehand.

The blast was felt by both of us, even through the heavy plating of the BearCat. For a moment, the sensation of my insides being squished sideways almost made me throw up. The vehicle rocked slightly from the explosion, the shocks absorbing most of it. A second later it began to rain logs. One particularly large chunk of wood crashed down on a shambler that was about to reach King Dale. The upper half of the shambler simply disintegrated. King Dale, who somehow made it through completely unscathed, was bathed in blood, guts, and who only knew what else. He looked surprised. Another splintered, smoldering log was driven through the engine block of an abandoned truck nearby. Not one of those small pickups, either. It would have made an awesome flagpole.

Considering how far away the truck was from the source of the explosion, though . . . 

“Holy shit!” Lucia squeaked in a tiny voice. She looked terrified. I probably looked the same.

“Damn. I think it’s time to go,” I muttered and crawled back into the driver’s seat. Once Baby was safely in the small, mounted rack, Lucia climbed into the passenger seat. Checking the dashboard, I was surprised to see the truck had similar controls to a regular car, just as Sister Ann had predicted. I softly cursed. “She was right. I owe her three packets of noodles.”

“You bet against a nun? Stupid,” Lucia grunted as I turned the key. The well-primed diesel engine coughed and roared to life. I flipped the switch for the lights, which drew the attention of all of the shamblers—as well as King Dale and his men.

I revved the engine once and shifted it into gear. If pressed, I will swear before a court of law that I’d never driven before I got behind the wheel of the BearCat. Between you and me? I’d “borrowed” my mom’s car the first time when I was thirteen. Driving was easy. Passing the written test was a little more difficult.

The BearCat had a very powerful engine and it kicked up a lot of smoke and dirt as the wheels spun out a little before finding traction. The heavily armored vehicle slid sideways just a tad, then quickly straightened out as I barreled over a small group of shamblers that were late to the party. I barely registered their impacts. It was glorious. I preferred this method of killing shamblers over any other I’d tried so far. With gore sticking to the windshield and more shamblers trying to grab hold and overwhelm the truck, I decided it was time to get out of there. A tactical decision and all. However, I had one more pass to make.

Not only were we there to steal his not-a-tank, there was also a message that needed to be sent.

The look on King Dale’s face when I shot him the bird as we drove past was one I’ll cherish forever.

Sideswiping another shambler and running over two more, I pressed the gas pedal as far as it could go. The big diesel engine roared in response. I’m almost certain another shambler was killed by the exhaust plume alone. A large crowd of mindless hordes soon tried to follow us, but the armored BearCat was too fast and soon enough we left them behind. I guided the truck up State Road 60, cresting the large hill on the eastern half of the town. From what I could see behind us the shamblers were falling behind in their pursuit. I had no idea what happened to King Dale and his men but it seemed like pretty good odds they had bolted when the shamblers had all decided to chase after the BearCat.

“Well, Rohena isn’t going to be happy,” I commented and slowed down as we passed the gas station she had wanted us to explore. It had been burned to the ground at some point and now was nothing more than a charred husk of a building. The roof had collapsed in during the fire and the front was completely gone. I counted six bodies near the fuel pumps, all burnt to a crisp. There were signs they’d been gnawed on a little, but with that much fire damage there wasn’t much left for a shambler to eat. “I seriously doubt there’s any bottled water or supplies in there.”

“Ay, cabrón,” Lucia added. “I hope none of them were that cute boy Rohena liked.”

“Probably all shamblers now,” I suggested and turned the BearCat onto I-64. From there we began to head west, the abandoned interstate only partially overgrown with kudzu in this part. Sticking toward the center of the freeway we passed over the Jackson River, the bridge well above where the mass surge of water had been when the dam gave way. It was still terrifying, though, since part of the opposite side of the road had fallen off sometime. One of the support beams must have failed on that side.

Once we were across the high bridge with no visible pursuit, we were home free. I knew the back way into the school was at Mile Marker 10, then we’d have to backtrack a bit to make it to the school. A rockslide blocked the eastbound side, but that wasn’t a big problem. Before I could get off the freeway, though, Lucia had me stop.

“Just . . . wait a sec, okay? Stop the tank,” she said. I obliged and parked the BearCat right there in the middle of the freeway. It wasn’t like we were going to stop traffic or anything. Plus, something in the tone of her voice suggested that correcting her about it not being a tank would be a bad idea.

Looking over the fuel gauge, I was surprised to see it was at almost full. Rex had gotten gas somehow, somewhere. I made a quick mental note to ask Sister Ann about it. I had no idea how long fuel was good for before it went bad. She might, though. If not her, then definitely Emily. Still, there had to be diesel fuel somewhere.

“What’s up?” I asked Lucia as I shut off the engine. No point in wasting gas. We were completely safe inside the armored vehicle and had time to spare. Sister Ann and the other girls wouldn’t be able to return to the school for at least an hour. It wasn’t the shortest hike, even following the railroad tracks.

“We could go home,” Lucia whispered.

“We are,” I said. “We get off at the next mile marker and head back to school. This way is safest, just like Sister Ann said.”

“No,” Lucia shook her head and pointed straight down the freeway ahead. At the dark and foreboding west. “I mean, home home.”

“Oh.” I understood. She meant California, where our families were from. Had been. Possibly still were, but that was unlikely. It was about twenty-five hundred miles away or so. There was no way we could make it, not on one tank of gas. It was impossible. And yet . . . the temptation was there. The idea of driving off, going home. Finding our families and discovering that they all somehow survived. We could use the armored BearCat to go anywhere and not worry about the shamblers. Maybe head out to Utah? I’d always wanted to go to Utah and see the mountains there.

I sighed. In my heart I knew they were gone. Los Angeles had a massive breakout before the rest of the country had even been infected. It was a mess. The last thing we’d heard over the shortwave before Sister Ann had made us turn it off was that LA was half-burned. Fires had torn though Chavez Ravine. The San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys had been devastated by structural fires. Even Orange County, my home, was ruined. There would be no more trips to Knott’s Berry Farm anytime soon.

“It’s all gone,” I reminded her. “Our families. Our old lives. Even if we could go back, what would we find? Nothing will ever return to normal. Not the way it was. I know, deep down, my family’s gone. Yours? I don’t know. But . . . why not build something here, for them to come to? Maybe . . . I mean, if we could get lucky heading west, maybe they’ll head east, to us? Luck swings both ways, you know?”

“They wouldn’t make it,” Lucia said in a despondent voice. “My mama can’t drive. Mi padre is a horrible driver on a good day, and Tia Juanita’s car couldn’t even get out to Riverside. No, they’re stuck there, if they lived . . . which they probably didn’t. I don’t know, Maddie. I just want to go home.”

“I know. It’s a hard decision, but one we need to make. Tonight. So what’s it gonna be, chica?” I asked Lucia. “Head west, possibly make it all the way there—doubtful, since fuel is scarce—and find out what happened to our families? Or stay here, be the protectors of the younger girls, and maybe build something better for ourselves here?”

“Odio cuando tienes razón,” Lucia muttered in a quiet voice.

“No habla,” I told her. “White girl from the O.C., remember?”

“I hate it when you’re right,” she translated for me and let out a weary sigh. “Let’s get this tank back up to the school. I don’t think we need to worry about King Dale tonight. Or anytime soon. Not as long as we have his tank, and the bridge is burned up.”

“The BearCat, but yeah. Pretty sure it did. Plus, that was a lot of shamblers drawn to the bonfire. And that boom? Epic. As long as they’re not on their way up to the school already, we should be okay. Maybe we got lucky and shamblers ate King Dale and all of his men?” I suggested as my mind drifted.

In my heart, I’d figured my family was dead months before, but I don’t think I’d really accepted it until that moment. The weight of it felt crushing on my chest. It hurt. As annoying as my brothers were, they were still my brothers and I loved them. My parents, too, even if they’d shipped me off across the country to make sure I graduated high school. I wiped my eyes as they started to burn from tears and tried to comfort Lucia instead of focusing on my own pain. Home wasn’t California anymore, not for either of us. “Besides, you know our families are probably . . . dead, right?”

“I know.”

“This is the safest place to be. At the school, I mean.”

“I know!”

“Hey, it’ll get better. Maybe one day some hot, single marines will leave Wolf Squadron and come to rescue us.” I tried, but Lucia still appeared upset. It was hard to cheer someone else up while I was on the verge of bawling my eyes out as well. Humor had always been my fallback position. I decided on my one remaining option. “So . . . you wanna drive the tank back to the school?”

Lucia looked at me, a frown upon her face. She’d stopped crying at least. This was good. “I don’t have my driver’s license.”

“Neither do I. What, you worried about a ticket? Ha!”

Lucia was quiet, clearly intrigued by the idea. Her facial expressions ranged from curious to fearful, with a dash of excitement at the prospect of driving something like the BearCat. I couldn’t blame her for any of it. The thing was pretty awesome, and helped quash some of my anxiety. I recognized her facial tics. They were probably the same ones I had on my face when Sister Ann first suggested we steal the armored vehicle. Finally, she nodded. It was only once, but there.

“You know what? Yeah, I want to drive the tank up back to the school.”

“Attagirl!”

“Um . . . I’ve never driven before . . .”

“That’s cool. This thing’s armored like a boss. But . . . let’s go real slow, okay? Just in case.”


Back | Next
Framed