“Sally!” Tim Tom yelled. “Where’s Ponch?”
The Doctor tried to explain by cupping his ear, we could still hear the siren.
“Who do you think is driving the cruiser with the siren on that drew them away?”
Tim Tom figured it out while he was grabbing the welding equipment and getting what he could through the bars. The helmet wouldn’t fit so he just snapped off the visor.
“Oh, is that him in the police car?” Tim Tom asked.
The Doctor nodded then looked at me.
“Seems that Eric was also a car thief as well as a drug dealer and meth maker.”
“What about the rest?” Tim Tom asked.
The Doctor looked grim. “We’re the only ones who made it.”
Tim Tom saw his face and knew what he had said. “Marcus even?”
The Doctor just shook his head.
Tim Tom looked sad for a sec but a loud bang on the van reminded him he didn’t have time to mourn right now. He started cutting the bars with the welding equipment, pulling the tubes through as best he could. It was a bit awkward because the whole tank couldn’t come through, but he was making good time which was good because more of the affected were coming back, collecting at the bars and it sounded like banging on the sides of the van.
“Oh, here,” I passed a couple of the .45s through the bars, “Do you know how…”
Cassie pulled the top back to see if there was one in the chamber, then slipped the clip out to see if it was loaded, slid it back in and was ready to go.
“You scare me,” I said. “So you know how to use a gun?”
“Why do you think I was sent to the forensic ward before getting over here?”
“Oh.”
She went to the front, rolled down a window and put the gun right up to the bars we had welded on the outside and shot the affected that were right up against them. It might attract more but at least it seemed to distract them from rocking the van.
Timmy had two bars down and was moving fast. The Doctor had passed me the map we had made so I would remember what to do and was catching me up as best he could over the welding and the chanting and the screaming and the groaning, “so we are going through the sewage treatment plant to get to this tugboat. Now, there are fires there and there that we will have to get around, and then hope that there aren’t more.”
I studied the map, committing it to memory as best I could. I knew at least that I could remember it long enough to get us there unless something stopped us.
The siren came closer and attracted them away again and then screamed back off into the distance.
“You said you could probably work the tug.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “I can, I learned that before my injury.”
“OK. We hadn’t really discussed it but we could try some of the islands along the coast, just to rest for a while, and maybe we could see if Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket is clear and find food and shelter there for a while, and maybe another boat.” The Doctor had some good ideas.
Tim Tom had all the bars out now and the doctor splashed some water from a bottle he had packed on it to cool it down. “I packed all the food we had and as much water as we can carry.”
“Great, now take these.” I handed him the big bag of guns.
“Wow, quite a haul.”
“Yeah.”
I motioned to Tim Tom to go through first.
“Tim Tom, weld a few holes in the side, big enough…” I used my hands to point to the side and then circled the end of the shotgun, “for this.”
“Make holes for the shotgun?”
“Yes.”
I handed a gun to the Doctor, “you know how to use this?”
“No.”
“Just point and pull the trigger. Cassie will show you how to reload.”
“Everyone ready?”
Cassie had two guns, the Doctor had one, and Tim Tom was holding a boom stick in his good hand. It had a pistol grip and he was big and strong enough that he could probably shoot it with one hand and handle the kick. Guess we’ll find out.
“OK, let’s do this.”
I jumped in the driver’s seat and we were off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
From the journal of Jude Guerrero
12/25/2012
First we had to ram the entry gate, which shouldn’t have been a big deal, the delivery van was big enough. The problem was that there were a whole lot of affected on the other side of it, trying to get in to see what all the commotion was. In fact, it quickly became quite obvious that the gate had been keeping a whole lot of affected away from the hospital this whole time, making things easier on us. And now here they were, crowds coming from all over the island to get us.
I built up speed and we hit it hard plowing through a crowd of wackies several bodies thick. But we slowed down quick, running over bodies as we went, almost getting stuck like we were going through mud. The van was sliding and shifting, I didn’t want to think about on what.
“Shoot, thin them out,” I hollered.
Tim Tom had already burned a couple of holes in the sides just big enough to shoot through, and Cassie started with the .45 on one side, taking several shots as we all realized the problem with this plan.
“Fuck, Cassie, stop!”
My ears were ringing, but probably not as bad as Tim Toms and the Doctors. Course, Cassie didn’t notice because she already had earplugs in and her head wrapped.
“Oh yes,” I think the Doctor said as I saw him reaching into his pocket in the rear view mirror. He pulled out some more earplugs. “Thought we might need these.” And he handed them to me and Tim Tom, putting some in his ears too.
Tim Tom was busy welding more holes as best he could with the van rocking. He had a few at eye level some big enough that he was able to start with his shotgun on the opposite side of Cassie.
We were so fucking surrounded that there was no way you could take a shot without hitting some of them. The front windshield was swarmed, the affected grabbing onto the bars we had welded on. But the van kept moving, and soon we were through the worst of the crowd and I was moving faster. Blind, but faster. I was able to get back up to speed as I turned onto the road that would take us to the sewage treatment plant and slammed on the brakes. Everyone lurched.
“Sorry, I should have warned you.” I needed to get the affected off the windshield. “Get down,” I yelled and motioned with my hand and started driving again, swerving to try to get them off. It was working, but they did leave a few fingers behind, broken off in the criss crossing bars. I tried to look behind us and took my earplugs out to see if I could see or hear Eric in the police car. I was hoping we had managed to make a path for him through the crowd. He made it, even covered in affected. Now we were on the way.
I took a hard right turn, heading towards a wasteland of smoke and gases, hoping we would even be able to make it on this side. I had studied the map right before we took off so I knew which way to go if it was still open.
It was, to some extent. It was smoky, but it was coming from the other side, so it definitely could have been worse. The affected were also getting thicker, I guess they were attracted by the smoke or explosions, I’m not sure, but they didn’t seem to give a fuck that they were taking in deep breaths of acrid smoke.
There were even bodies of affected scattered about that must have passed out or even died from the smoke. Man, these fuckers were dumb. The ones who were all over the road were actually harder to deal with than the ones running at the van. I could knock the standing ones right out of the way, but had to start trying to dodge the bodies to avoid the bumping and the possibility of puncturing a tire on their bones.
The smoke seemed to start clearing out and that is when I saw the bad news, a wall of flame right in the path I had been planning to take.