Gary smiled. “So I guess we’re going forward?”
“The devil we don’t know in this case is better than the one we do know.”
“Should we keep looking for a car?”
“Won’t do any good if we find one here.”
“You’re right,” Gary said. They couldn’t take two steps without dodging something; anything less than a city plow would only get mired in the devastation.
“Let’s go back. I want to be clear of this place before nightfall,” BT said.
Two shots from Deneaux’s direction hastened their pace.
“Sorry,” Deneaux said a little unnerved. “I was enjoying the sun and dozed off a bit. A zombie grabbed my ankle. If it had bit first I’d be a zombie waiting to happen.”
A soldier zombie with crushed legs had crawled over to Deneaux; its outstretched hand had sought purchase on her leg before she put two rounds through its skull. BT still hadn’t made up his mind if he would have been upset or not if the zombie had succeeded in its mission.
“We need to go,” BT said.
“No words of consolation?” Deneaux asked.
“For the dead soldier?” BT asked.
“I like you more and more every day,” Deneaux said as she kick-started her bike.
“Zombies!” Gary yelled. Speeders were sprinting out of the woods across the highway.
“Which way, hot shot?” Deneaux asked BT.
“Forward,” he said as he ran for his bike. “Company bringing up the rear.”
“Fuck me,” Gary said as he looked down the roadway in the direction they had come. A legion of motorcycles were coming their way, and he was fairly certain they weren’t heading to Sturgis. “Q-Ball?” He asked as BT’s bike roared to life.
“A good a guess as any. Get on Deneaux’s bike, that’s your best shot,” BT said.
“Are you sure?” Gary asked.
“Get on or I’m leaving,” Deneaux said as she stowed her cigarettes.
BT nodded tersely.
Gary hopped on.
“Hold on tight, when I lean you lean. Understand?” Deneaux asked Gary.
Gary merely shook his head as the bike took off. Zombies were within fifty yards and vengeful gangsters were less than a half mile away. BT was rapidly falling behind as Deneaux expertly weaved her way in and out of the traffic. BT looked more like a blind man trying to make his way through an unknown and unseen obstacle course.
“Stop the bike,” Gary said. After a couple of hundred yards he repeated his request. She didn’t acquiesce. “Deneaux, stop the fucking bike!” he yelled.
“Why?”
“BT isn’t going to make it.”
“What do you think we should do? Join him?”
“I know you won’t, but I’m going to help him.”
“Your funeral,” she said as she stopped just long enough for him to get off. She sped away without looking back.
“Bitch,” he said quietly.
Deneaux flipped him the bird.
“No way, there’s no way she heard me.” He turned to get in position to cover BT’s approach.
The zombies were sprinting to catch up, but the gang was motorized. “It’s almost going to be a tie,” Gary said, not really knowing which group he should start to sight in on. It seemed that the zombies were having the same problem. BT was who they had been focused on; but the bigger, louder (more food) group was coming into their killing grounds. The majority of the zombies peeled off their pursuit of BT and headed to the new dinner buffet.
Q-Ball was so fixated on exacting his revenge he was blind to the new threat, but not all of his gang were. A fair number slowed and either turned around or waited on the periphery. Q-Ball was close enough to BT that he pulled his sidearm out of his holster and rested it on his handle bars. Gary had opted for the zombies to BT’s left because his avenue of escape was being threatened. What the biker’s did wouldn’t matter if BT couldn’t make it to Gary to begin with.
BT had the luck of the angels on his side when Q-Ball’s shot whined off the top of BT’s handlebars. BT presented a much larger target, and as such, should have been the one to catch the round. As it was, BT almost crashed as his front wheel shook violently—his great strength the only thing keeping the bike upright. Gary turned his attention to Q-Ball when he heard the round.
Gary’s gut wrenched as he sighted in on a human being, but Q-Ball had gained more ground on his friend and the odds that he would miss again had been greatly reduced.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…” he said as he pulled the trigger.
A geyser of blood erupted from Q-Ball’s throat. The bike fell and slid along the ground, it slammed into at least five zombies, destroying their bodies as it went. However, there were plenty more where they came from as they descended on the dying biker. Gary imagined he could hear the gurgled screams for help as the zombies tore him apart. BT had surged ahead of the lead zombies who now turned their attention back to the gang that suddenly found themselves leaderless and cut off from retreat.
Gunfire blazed as BT pulled up to Gary. “Where’s Deneaux?”
“She took off,” Gary replied.
“Thank you, Gary.”
“It was you or him,” Gary said, looking a little worse for the wear.
“I’d have to say you chose wisely, come on, man, hop on.”
Gary looked at what remained of the motorcycle seat and was not convinced that an anemic spider monkey would be able to fit. Still, he hopped on, half his ass hanging over the rear fender. The gang would not last long and the zombies were always hungry. Always fucking hungry, he thought dourly.
They had traveled a couple of miles at the most when they could no longer hear gunfire.
“Do you think it’s over?” Gary asked. He didn’t have to yell, the traffic was so thick the bike was barely moving.
“Doesn’t matter, whichever side won will still be coming for us,” BT said, dodging an engine block that looked like it had been ejected from its former location by a rocket launcher.
“What the hell happened here?” Gary asked, looking around.
“Not sure, but I bet it has something to do with that.” BT took his hand off the handle bars for a moment to point before quickly putting it back.
“Checkpoint ahead, be prepared to stop and have your vehicle searched,” Gary read the sign. “Well, leave it to the military to really foul things up.”
“I don’t think your brother could have said it any more eloquently.”
“There it is,” Gary said, pointing past BT’s face; although how BT could have possibly missed the hastily erected gates replete with razor wire, gun turrets, and the standard deuce-and-a-half military trucks was anybody’s guess.
“So the US military in all its infinite wisdom backs up traffic for days and the zombies swoop in thinking this is the world’s largest food court,” BT said.
“And then they start firing on everything, living and dead, trying to contain the virus,” Gary finished. “These people start firing at the zombies and the military…bad news.”
BT merely nodded. “Almost out of here.” The closer they got to the front, the worse the devastation. Large divots of earth where mortars, grenades and rockets had hit were removed. Finding a viable way around was becoming its own hazard.
“I’m getting off,” Gary told BT.
“You can walk faster than I’m going anyway.”
“Not that I’m not appreciative, BT, but I’d rather find another ride.”
“Fuck it.” BT got off the bike. He shut it off and put the kick stand down. “I’ll leave it here just in case, but there has to be something up closer than we can take.”
“I hope so,” Gary said. He wasn’t holding out hope, though; it looked like the cars here had been used for target practice. Large caliber machinegun rounds were ripped through most of them. People, plastic, wood, and steel were shredded along with the occasional zombie. “It doesn’t really look like they cared what they were shooting at,” Gary said as he did the Holy Trinity on his chest. BT remained silent, the anger inside of him threatening to boil over.