“Copy that.”
She turned and eyed her driver. “You’d better be ready to shoot through that gate, then lock it up before we eat Hank’s bumper. There’s barely room to fit both vehicles in that staging area, and to come in hot and have to stop short of the doors?” She shook her head.
“I’m ready.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and feathered the clutch on the little car.
Hank could catch glimpses of Candy’s headlights behind them when they’d swerve to miss a Zulu that had shot under the truck. He downshifted the transmission and floored the accelerator.
Wally leaned back in from the window and tossed his shotgun to the side. “I’m out.”
“We’re less than a block to the warehouse.” Henry fought the large steering wheel as he tried to slide the big truck around a corner. “I just hope they got somebody on the gates.”
Wally glanced in the rear mirror, then pointed to the gates swinging open ahead of them. “Candy must’ve called ’em.” He pushed back in his chair instinctively and braced a hand on the dash. “The inner doors are closed, Hank! You better BRAKE!”
Hank locked up the brakes and slid into the transition area, the truck sliding sideways slightly before the front bumper smashed into the reinforced metal doors of the warehouse foyer. He glanced to Wally who was picking himself up from the floorboard.
“Any landing you can walk away from, I say.” Hank shot him a toothy grin, then slammed into the steering wheel as the compact car Candy was in careened into the rear of the truck.
“Son of a…” Hank and Wally jumped down from the cab and watched as a team opened fire on a quickly approaching band of Zulus.
Candy’s car had struck the rear bumper of the truck and nearly bounced off. The driver was groaning as he crawled out of the car and Candy was cursing as she rubbed her chest where the seat belt had cinched her tight.
Wally pointed to the front end of the car where licks of flame began popping up between the ruined front end and the crumpled hood. “Fire!”
Hank grabbed the driver’s side pillar and began pushing it back through the chain link gate and toward the road. “Come on, dammit! Help me!”
Wally slid in between the block wall and the side of the car. He pushed on the passenger side pillar until the car had rolled back into the street and now acted as a flaming barricade between the humans and the Zulus.
Hank slipped in the gap of the closing chain link gate just as the roof watch started dropping Molotov cocktails on the approaching Zulus. “Serves ’em right,” Wally spat.
Hank turned and gave him a cheesy grin. “Told ya we’d make it back okay.”
Wally rolled his eyes, then turned toward the truck. “You get to unload this one.”
Chapter 14
Hatcher could see the rest of the trail leading to the top of the mountain in the quickly fading light and knew that this would be the path they took in the morning. He threw gravel as he spun the ATV around and headed back down the steep trail. The woods appeared even darker and shadows stretched across the narrow gap as he pushed the ATV even further.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he could almost feel the eyes of the infected following his path. He pushed the accelerator even harder and bent low behind the handlebars.
From the corners of his vision, he could make out figures darting from tree to tree. If they were screaming at each other, he couldn’t hear them over the engine as he roared across the rough terrain and toward the makeshift camp. He prayed that none decided to dart in front of him or he’d be sent flying. Since the good lord hadn’t see fit to gift him with wings, he was certain that any flights he attempted would end badly.
He took the curve on the trail a bit too quickly and felt the rear end of the ATV try to slide out from under him in the loose sand and pea gravel. He feathered the throttle and maintained his course, preventing a collision with a boulder that had once been at the top of the mountain.
He stiffened as his lights swung around and flashed on two of the Zulus darting out from cover and attempting to flank him. He goosed the accelerator again and shot between their haphazard gauntlet. He could have sworn that he felt fingers trying to gain purchase with the material of his jacket, but he quickly tossed the thought aside. Another steep curve was directly in his path and this one led to a steep drop in the trail.
He pushed the throttle wide open and tried to put as much space between him and any pursuers, then locked up the rear brake as he approached the curve. The little ATV tried to spin out from under him, but Hatcher locked the handle bars in a hard left and shot over the edge of the outcrop as if shot from a canon.
He felt that tingly feeling in his guts as he realized just how much air he had caught and prayed that the ATV wouldn’t flip before his tires touched ground again. He found time slowing down and he leaned as far back as he could, trying to keep the nose of the machine up.
He didn’t register the back tires sliding through the loose gravel, but he certainly felt it when the front tires hit and the suspension bottomed out. It took everything he had to maintain control of the machine as it slid down the hill at a dangerous speed.
The headlights bounced across the terrain as the ATV found every divot, hole, rock, or branch in its path. Hatcher gripped the handlebars as tight as he could and almost let off the throttle when he
