Shane somberly nodded. "Yeah, everybody we wanted volunteered. That no good bastard driving away is mine to deal with."
Junior wore motocross gear as he straddled a black 450cc Kawasaki dirt bike. He started the engine as we approached and let it warm. It had been modified with customized mufflers to suppress the exhaust noise, so it wouldn't draw the attention of zombies. Two pickups waited, fueled and ready to roll with five people in each. Shane got in the driver’s seat of the first truck, and I rode shotgun in the second truck with Maria Gonzales driving. Right off I noticed she wore her black leather racing gloves. I hadn't seen them in awhile. Junior waved and took off in a cloud of dust and gravel with the front wheel pulled high off the ground. I swear I heard a high-pitched rebel call come through the confining black helmet.
A tracking transmitter had been stealthily inserted into one of the last boxes loaded in the trailer, and Junior wore one in his clothes. Martin Radcliff held the receiver on his lap in the first truck. Junior would keep the truck and trailer in sight, and make sure our pickups didn't get close enough to be seen. He had the most dangerous role because of the high risk of zombie attacks. But Martin Sr. wasn't overly concerned about his son being attacked and caught by zombies because the seventeen-year-old had won every motocross competition he'd entered since he was ten. If he couldn't out maneuver the stumbling undead no one could. While I was good on a bike, Junior was fantastic.
My main concern for him was the fast zombies we kept seeing in increasing numbers. Those moved a lot quicker than the others, albeit in jerky uncoordinated moves. Some fraction of the monsters must be mutating or evolving in someway. When Carl Schafer was infected by a fast mover, he became one of them within a minute. Their numbers might be growing exponentially by the month. But then I reasoned, the increase might not be that dramatic because few uninfected humans remained.
An added danger was that the kidnappers could have people watching to see if we'd follow Scumbag. Then Junior could be captured or killed. As I got in the truck, I gave Ed Jarnigan a thumbs up sign.
He replied, "God speed," and gave me a knowing and reassuring wink above a broad smile.
Junior and each of our rescue trucks carried radios with a two mile range. A maximum range of two miles; if a big hill came between two radios the operators might be lucky to communicate a mile apart. Martin Sr. stayed in occasional radio contact with Junior for four hours. We ran fifty MPH and had traveled well into Missouri when Junior called.
Loudly he blurted over the radio. "I got too close and had to lay the Kaw down in a ditch. Zombies are charging—"
The sound of gunshots shocked us into action. Both of our trailing trucks increased speed to one hundred MPH and precariously dodged debris on the roadway.
“— from an abandoned house beside the road. Hurry, I'm in deep shit."
We heard more gunshots before he released the send button, and the radio went dead. My guts tightened at the thought that we might have lost Junior.
Forty-five seconds later, the drivers braked hard to slow and stop. The undead still standing had advanced to within six feet of Junior as he changed magazines in his .45 caliber Glock 41. At least seven zombies littered the ground between his bike and a dilapidated shack thirty feet from the road. Junior fired again as he scurried backward toward us. Eight heavily armed men and women exited the two trucks. Before our ground crew could act, two sharpshooters laid waste to the remaining three zombies from the moon roof openings. I counted ten of the undead on the ground besides the last three. The youngster did great considering the semiautomatic had a thirteen round magazine capacity. Junior waved, kick started the bike, put his gloves on, adjusted the helmet, and took off like a missile to catch our target. We were glad to quickly get in the trucks and follow Junior with the windows down to get rid of the stench of the undead we'd been too close to.
We continued south on Highway 63 for another hour. I wondered if Scumbag had been delayed by the undead we'd encountered or if he had merely stirred them up as he blasted through a minute ahead of Junior. So many rotting corpses littered the ground it was impossible to know which might have been fresh kills.
Junior called again. An encounter with a large group of zombies north of Columbia, Missouri, slowed him down as he detoured to evade them, and he'd lost precious minutes. He hadn't caught up to Scumbag before he reached the I-70 intersection. The scumbag in our truck could have turned east or west. We'd gotten too far back from the target for Martin Sr. to pull in a signal from the tracking device. I couldn't let my thoughts dwell on what would happen to our kidnapped friends if we'd lost the scumbag leading us to them.
Shane and I quickly agreed his truck would head east on I-70, and my crew would drive west. We'd drive as fast as possible for ten minutes, and then we'd reverse direction if we didn't catch up to our stolen equipment. Junior would continue south on 63. All three groups would lose radio contact and be on its own and left to its own methods. I held faith in the decisions Shane and Junior would make, but I was concerned about leaving Junior on his own again without backup for the time we'd be separated.
Before we reached the I-70 interchange, we met the same horde of zombies Junior had eluded. Upon hearing
