The barks, growls and groans of the zombies rose like a tsunami wave in the silence. Eric ducked under the bus and tried to move as far away from the dead corpse as he spied the press of zombies spewing out of the elementary school. The sight of a never ending tide of miniature zombies herded by the occasional adult sized zombie was the exact kind of thing he remembered fearing that first day outside the elementary school on the south hill.
Eric was wiggling his way back out from under the bus when a little girl zombie with slick greasy pigtails heard the scratch of his jeans on the asphalt and turned her famished eyes on him. Her lips peeled back over spotted black gums and yellowing teeth as locked eyes with her next meal. She darted towards the bus quickly falling to her knees leaving scraps of cloth and skin on the ground as he dug like a tick towards Eric who was scrambling to get out from under the bus. He could see the legs and feet of other zombies turning in the direction of the bus drawing by the snarl and hiss of their comrade hoping to discover what tasty morsel had driven her into such a frenzy.
Eric’s shoulders slide out from under the bus, he could turn halfway around and see both his small group of would be heroes and keep his eye on the fast approaching zombie girl. “Give me a knife!” Eric’s words were a commanding yell and within a few seconds the smooth wooden handle of a large skinning knife was in his outstretched hand. Army crawling back under the bus Eric moved quickly towards the zombie girl whose fingers were raw and bleeding as she dragged herself across the asphalt. Eric’s heart was thundering in his chest as he moved closer to the girl, sweat running into his eyes as he moved closer. His left eye stung and he wanted to wipe away the sweat but didn’t have the time in the face of approaching death.
He jabbed at the zombie’s head, the blade cutting off two fingers as the zombie girl tried to swat away the blade. A wheezing scream of fury tore through her dry throat as she pulled back her damaged hand. Eric’s arm was thrown wide as the blade hit her bones and it took everything he had to pull the blade back in front of him as the zombie lurched forward her jaws snapping as she got a half foot closer to Eric’s exposed left forearm. She was so close now that Eric could smell the perfume of rotting flesh and boiling stomach acid on her breath. Eric tried as best he could to wriggle backwards but for every half foot she gain on him he only managed to put another inch or two distance between them.
The zombie girl hopped forward again hitting her head on the under carriage of the bus before her head thumped against Eric’s forearm like a hammer. It was the thing that saved him from her bite, stunned by the impact of the blow to her head the zombie’s mouth had been forced shut and her face had crashed into Eric’s arm jaws closed.
Taking the half second the hit to the head bought him Eric grabbed a handful of the zombie’s hair clutching one of her pigtails and pulling her head up. The zombie girl fought him and as she tugged and jerked trying to free herself of Eric’s grip and get at his throat he could feel the hair start to tear free of her skull. Before she could rip herself free Eric brought the knife up in front of him and jammed the blade into her skull through her left eye. The body twitched once a leg kicking out in a spasm before she fell silent.
Eric took a deep breath, sheets of sweat running down his face and plastering his shirt to his chest. The relief was short lived as he saw two more zombies peer under the bus and set their sights on him. “Get me out of here,” he yelled and two seconds later two pairs of strong hands gripped his ankles and pulled him back out from under the bus.
“We need our best shooter under there taking out anything that moves, Don get back to filling up the bus. Someone else stay here and guard Don while he works, the rest of you follow me and get in the truck beds.” Eric was pointing as people as he spoke, remembering only four names out of the ten people who were part of the rescue mission. Stephanie dropped to the ground and wiggled under the bus, she stopped once her entire upper torso was under the shade of the bus’ chassis.
Robert stayed by Don’s side keeping guard while the rest of the people on the mission turned to Eric looking at him with blank worried looks as he waited for a minute before grabbing the edge of the truck bed nearest him and hoisting himself into it.
Eric didn’t have time to look back and see if the rest of the group was following his lead, his eyes were glued to the horrific scene shifting in front of him. In every direction he looked the dry festering corpses of the zombies were moving towards the rescue party. Windows were shattered in the houses around the school. Blood coated the shards of broken windows; in others the shards of glass were draped with sheets of flesh or ropes of intestines. Some zombies were far less mutilated then others and with the exception of a small bite to the arm, leg or near the neck were largely intact. Some were terribly mangled by zombies who had eaten their fill and abandoned half consumed bodies for fresher meat. Some had sections or arms or legs picked clean to the bone, a few had limbs that had been ripped off. Scraps and cuts along torsos and faces.
The wave of corpses was as different in death as they had been in life with the exception of their milky dead eyes and the smiles and sneers of their hungry black mouths. They growled and rasped their ravenous cries as more and more faces alighted on the living flesh standing on the truck beds like they were the last defense taking to the walls of some medieval castle preparing to fight to the death.
The echoed report of a gunshot rang out over the mumbled war cry of the dead. As if the lone gunshot was the agreed upon signal to attack the zombies, finding some deep reserve of strength, began to charge the trucks and the handful of defenders.
With his hammer Eric swung down on the head of a zombie who was pressing itself against the wheel well of his truck, the blow punching a quarter sized hole in the top of the zombie’ skull. The zombie wavered for an instant and then collapsed to the ground. Within seconds zombies were clambering and tripping over their fallen brother reaching with claw-like fingers towards Eric. He reared back and delivered another blow with his hammer to a zombie who wilted like a flower in a drought; it fell to the ground but was quickly trampled and replaced by another zombie.
Gunshots rang out from behind at a more rapid rate, they sounded controlled and Eric hoped with each shot the child zombies were building a defensive wall under the bus that their brethren wouldn’t be able to breach. Eric swung again and hammered a hole in a zombies left temple before three or four more zombies crowded the truck. There were seven or eight zombies pressing themselves against the side panel of Eric’s truck some reaching for purchase on the truck bed trying to climb up after their fierce breakfast.
Swinging like a rabid lumber jack Eric crushed the skulls of every zombie in sight, his vision blurred all that existed in his mind was the down swing of his hammer, the moment of resistance as he struggled to pull his hammer’s head free of another skull and the faces of the dead, grey flesh torn at some places, eaten away at others, always with their eager reaching claws trying to get just a scrap of him to feed on. The sound of gunfire behind him, the smell of death that radiated off the zombies like a sick cologne, the feel of fire in his chest as he grabbed desperately for a lungful of air as his arm swung back and forth and the hammer, his instrument of death, singing an aria of mayhem.
At some point he came back to himself. The zombies were still scrambling to get into the tuck bed but they were getting closer to succeeding as the bodies of their fallen brothers was begin to create a staircase into the truck beds. Eric took a moment as he hammer swung spun him to his left and saw that the same problem plagued the others.
“How are we doing Don?” Eric yelled over the sound of the groans and gasps of the dead. He looked over his shoulder briefly to see the towering balding man give him the thumbs up. A second later he slammed his open palm twice against the side of the bus. There was a rumble like the giant beast hidden under the bus’ hood would protest to being woken up and then a black cloud of exhaust erupted out of the muffler and the engine began to purr. Eric turned back to the zombies trying to pull themselves into the truck bed. Two had managed to drag themselves onto the lip of the truck bed, with two quick strikes Eric sent their dead bodies back into the scrum of zombies pushing at his truck’s side panel. “Everyone get ready to move!”
Eric watched as the small group took their last few parting shots at the zombies before jumping out of the truck beds. They pulled open driver’s side doors and the small group of survivors on the inside of the protective ring jumped in. Don ran to the lead truck, Robert to the rear and Stephanie after taking one last shot pushed herself out from under the bus and jumped through the open door Eric was holding and slid to the passenger side. The Lead truck took off rising to a thirty degree tilt on its right side as it caught the edge of the mountain of dead bodies that had piled up. As it crushed down the dead it came level and then started cutting a meandering trail down Washington St. Eric now behind the wheel followed Don followed Don, the bus coming in behind Eric’s truck and Robert’s truck bringing up the rear. They moved at a moderate pace drawing the zombies after them, the dead looked like a wake behind a speed boat to Eric. The continued driving west, luring the zombies farther away from the school. At 11th St. Don turned right, Eric followed and Eddie the bus drive did the same.
The plan was for Robert’s truck to continue on another two blocks, turn left and then gun it down Jefferson St. and double back to 7th before coming back to the rooftop refuge. As Eric steered the truck left and the bus made the turn behind him he lost sight of Robert’s truck. The small convoy with the bus bringing up the rear continued north on until they hit Merriem St and turned right. They drove encounter no zombies until they hit 7th St. and turned left. Halfway up the block there was an alley that cut across 7th and 6th street and would provide a perfect choke point behind the storefronts that made up the Davenport survivors new home. They took the left into the alley and drove the two blocks over until they were safety behind the storefronts.
Don and Eric used their trucks to make a barrier on the eastern edge of the alley. Once they had made sure to block the mouth of the alley they climbed out of their trucks and took their place in line behind the kids who were all quickly climbing up the later to safety. Eric heaved a sigh of relief as he realized that they had successfully saved the kids in the school bus and the handful of adults who’d been with them but the sun hadn’t reached midday yet and there was a far more dangerous mission that they were about to be sent on.