army could pick up our radio signals?'
Steve shook his head wincing as the bandages around his neck shifted, 'I doubt it. The radios only have a two mile range, and I doubt the army is monitoring that frequency anyway. I am not saying not to try, by all means yell your heads off that we are alive on every channel we have, I am just saying not to expect them to come rushing out to save us.'
'Still,' said Paige, 'we should set a bunch of the kids up with radios on different channels and tell them to keep yelling for help as we get closer, someone may hear us and they may send the cavalry.'
'Sure do it. Use kids in the front bus or maybe even put someone in with Bob in his truck.'
Steve shook his head again, 'I think we're not going to want any kids up front, remember we think we are going to be running into a horde up here, so there will be fighting. I want the kids as safe as possible, so we'll keep as many as we can in the second bus. You know as soon as we hit any kind of resistance those three,' Steve pointed at the cars parked on the highway behind them, 'are going to come right up on our asses and take another shot at us.'
The council members all nodded agreement to this and Paige called out to everyone at the rest stop that they were leaving in fifteen minutes. The council meeting broke up and as they walked their separate ways to take care of eating and other business. Dora realized they hadn't decided much of anything at all.
'It looks like an all-out charge to the finish line then Paige.' Dora said as the two walked over to their bus.
'Yeah, but is there a finish line to get to?'
Dora laughed, 'Usually you're the optimist! I think we'll find something and I think we will end up a little safer. If not, then we turn around and head back to Doraville.'
'Fuck that, I will just keep heading north. Canada has to be better off than we are.'
'Traitor!' Dora said with a laugh, 'Still, in case you don't make it, it has been fun.' Dora held out her hand to Paige.
Paige became flustered and said, 'Wh-what? In case I don't make it? Like you are a shoe-in or something?'
'Well if I were a betting woman, I think I stand the best chance.'
Paige laughed, ignored Dora's outstretched hand and turned and walked to the bus. 'Load up people! Iowa here we come!'
Behind her a small smile came to Dora's mouth and she checked the new shotgun she had for the fiftieth time then made sure she had her pockets overloaded with shells.
After everyone was loaded up again they took a quick head count and pulled out of the rest area. Behind them the three vehicles paced them, getting off to a belated start, and even further back Jake's caliber started up as the super zombie tailed the other three vehicles.
First contact came outside of Bethany, Becka was cruising along slowly when a group of three zombies leaped out at her from in front of a vehicle by the side of the road. Becka turned sharply into the median and sped up to get away as supporting shots rang out from the two pickups that were behind her by only about sixty feet. The three zombies all fell, two disabled and twitching, one with his head turned to mush by a well-aimed shotgun shell.
'First contact.' radioed Bob from the truck.
Smoke was hanging in the air ahead, reducing vision to three hundred yards. Paige yelled out, 'Dora! The three behind us are coming up fast!'
Gunfire erupted from Steve's pickup bed as the crew there started trying to fire at the zombies trailing them. They were too early yet and their shots had little effect. Steve was doing a good job of keeping his truck next to the other pickup, even though his seat was still loose and he had no windshield. The truck was mechanically sound even if the seating left a lot to be desired.
Paige thought she could see some sort of shimmering in the air around the truck, either debris or heat from the engine, she wasn't sure as she watched the lines in the air became more distinct. What she was seeing looked more like lines from a comic book, lines that would be drawn to indicate motion or action. These things, almost invisible lines, were colored. They seemed to be almost black where they touched objects in motion and then faded out to white and almost colorless the farther in front of the moving object that they went.
Many of the lines split apart into fragments of smaller strings. All of the lines coming from so many moving things were making a hazy cloud in front of anything that was moving. Combining the lines altogether made vision nearly impossible for Paige. It didn't help that they were starting to drive into the smoke of Bethany either. Paige waited patiently for a clear shot as the three zombie filled vehicles catch up to the trucks. The lines were getting in the way, she closed her eyes tightly, trying to clear them from her vision. When she opened her eyes again the lines were still there, even more pronounced than ever.
'Chris, do you see a bunch of lines all over everything?' asked Paige to the man riding in the tail gunner position with her.
Paige watched as the black and white lines arced from Chris's head, then his head turned and looked at her, matching up with the black lines perfectly, as the white lines faded away he said, 'Lines? What are you talking about?'
'I just see crap in my way, my eyes are clouding up or something. Fuck I don't need this now.' she watched as the lines around Chris changed, before he moved a muscle Paige knew he was going to turn back towards the oncoming vehicles and raise his shot gun to fire.
'Well clear out your head out girl, here they come!'
Everything clicked in an instant for Paige, somehow the lines she was seeing matched up to where things were going to be, if the lines were darker it indicated a more sure form of movement, if they were white they were potential moves. Rising to the level of the window again, she looked at the scene behind them. One of the cars had hit the back of Steve's truck, not hard, but the vehicle was stuck between the slow moving bus and the faster moving car, he had nowhere to go and Paige saw where the impact was going to turn the truck slightly just a second before it happened, the whole tapestry behind her was woven in distortion and she was having trouble sorting all the images out. Beside her Chris was firing his gun, he yelled at Paige, 'Shoot! Shoot!', but Paige held her fire, still trying to sort through the mess.
A zombie got her over her inhibitions. Two jumped off of the trailing vehicle into the back of Steve's pickup, the other truck was having similar problems as zombies swarmed onto it from another car. Briefly Paige caught sight of the trailing vehicle, inside Tiller was driving while the remaining wonder twin was frantically jumping on the seat beside him, behind them in the back seat was a third zombie.
Turning her attention back to Steve's truck she saw one of the supers there toss out little Vince Salm, a fifteen year old that Paige had gotten on with well. The super zombie picked up Vince and casually tossed him out of the pickup bed and under car driven by Tiller, Paige noted the black lines flowing from the zombie and raised her gun aiming right for Steve's head.
The zombie turned and dived through the window right into the back of Steve' seat. Steve's eyes opened widely in surprise as he stared down the barrel of Paige's shotgun from less than twenty feet away. Then the zombie crushed him forward, seat and all into the steering wheel, a split second later Paige fired, driving the shotgun pellets through the top of his head and down into his neck for good measure. Killing the zombie was not enough to save the pickup, Steve couldn't recover from being slammed into the steering column or pull himself up and away from the newly broken seat to regain control. The truck veered off to one side and crashed into the side of a semi-trailer that had been abandoned by the side of the road. The front of the hood on the driver's side hit the trailer and spun the truck around. Only the fact that the nose was caught under the trailer stopped the truck from flipping over. The other super zombie flew out of the pickup bed and rolled to a stop against the larger tires of the semi-tractor. When one of the three trailing zombie vehicles slowed to pick up their companion Paige shot again and anticipated the zombie's dodge, hitting it through the windshield and taking off the top of the thing's head.
'Fuck. We are out of trucks. You killed three of them!' Chris said with awe in his voice, 'I haven't even hit one!'
Two shots, thought Paige, I only fired twice, the other zombie near the trailer was not dead, hopefully neither was Steve, but he was on his own now. 'Here they come.' she said, bringing up her shotgun.
'The trucks are gone Dora!' yelled Chris just before one of the two vehicles touched bumpers with the bus.
