on their way to the athletic park only sixteen hours before. The road was little better than a four wheel drive muddy lane, but the tractor had no trouble getting through the notch cut in the trees. When he reached the rail road grade he angled sideways and the tractor almost tipped over, somehow he wrestled it back into balance and shot up onto the rough gravel rocks that made up track bed. The men in the wagon fired their rifles at any zombies who got close to them, but the roughness of the ride and their fatigue made most of their shots wild and inaccurate. In minutes Bill had the tractor to the bombed out section in front of the bridge, he gunned the engine and hopped for the best as he hit the rough terrain. A cry went up from the wagon behind him, but he couldn't slow down or he risked stalling, when he finally fought the machine up to more level ground he stopped and looked back. Joe had fallen off the wagon and was rolling around in the dirt, clutching his leg. Bill put the tractor in neutral and hopped off of it. Zombies and pieces of zombies immediately made the landscape come alive, it was like the ground was moving and Joe was in the middle of them.
“Barry, you stay here and cover me. Glen stay in the wagon. I am going to get Joe. Bill ran back the twenty yards to the fallen man whose lower leg was twisted sideways and bent in a spot that didn't correspond to human anatomy. Reaching down Bill pulled the man up and said, “Sorry Joe, it was a rough ride, this is gonna hurt, but we are almost there.”
Rifle shots whizzed by the men as Barry fired at something behind them. Bill watched as Glen crawled out of the wagon onto the tractor seat.
“Get Glen off the tractor! Don't let him drive on the bridge!”
Barry shook his head and kept firing behind the men, finally Bill heard a meaty thunk of a bullet hitting flesh, from what sounded like only a few feet behind him. Barry then turned and tried to stop Glen from driving the tractor forward onto the bridge. From across the other side Bill saw Ruben and a couple of other men from the squad making their way across the bridge with their rifles. Barry barely grabbed the back of the wagon as Glen started driving forward, then was carried along dragging on the ground for a couple of seconds before he rolled free. When the tractor jerked forward Joe too was thrown out onto the ground from the kneeling position he had taken in the wagon. One of the pack straps was wrapped around his leg and it got caught on the end of the wagon, dragging him along. Ruben and his men were waving Glen to stop driving the tractor forward, but the man didn't notice or didn't care, he drove it right into the crater in the bridge. As the tractor drove over the edge Joe pulled out a knife and slashed at the backpack holding him to the wagon, the strap didn't give and the man turned over onto his belly and plunged the knife into the rocky gravel, trying to gain some traction and not be dragged into the hole.
The tractor had been heading parallel to the tracks on the left hand side, Bill had not been able to steer it towards the less damaged right side, when it hit the sink hole Glen screamed and jumped from the tractor as it fell, he managed to catch a hold of the twisted rail that was left hanging over the opening. Joe's knife finally got purchase on a wooden rail tie right before he was pulled through the hole, the pack strap, weakened by his earlier slash, ripped free. Joe, legs and feet hanging over the opening, lay on his belly panting in exhaustion. The tractor was heavy and the momentum it had caused it to hit the opposite side of the crater before it fell and disappeared through the bottom of the bridge. As it struck the concrete going down the entire bridge vibrated so badly that everyone on it stopped in their tracks. Worse yet the tractor bounced right, careening into and through the shattered cement that made up the remaining base of the bridge, dust and gravel flew everywhere momentarily obscuring Bill's view of Ruben, then the bridge shuddered again and creaked ominously.
Dragging Barry along with him Bill approached the hole, where Glen was still holding onto the swaying rail with his feet dangling sixty feed above the river below. With Barry on his one arm Bill reached down with his other hand to pull Joe up and onto firmer ground. In the river under the hole Bill could see the tractor sitting in water that looked to be about two feet deep. The backpack that Joe had slashed was sitting on his side of the hole, caught up on some reinforcing pipe the stuck out at an angle from the concrete. The section of the bridge they were on was still shifting dangerously. Bill eyed the remaining bit of bridge that was still present, then looked back at the zombies that were behind them.
“We gotta get across here.”
“I'm done.” Joe said flatly, and he looked very bad, the lack of rest had taken a toll on him and Bill didn't know how the man was still standing.
“No. You are not. You go first. You weigh less than Barry and I, so you have a better chance of making it. Watch for the loose gravel.”
“Sarge. I can't make it, I can't hardly stand.”
“Then crawl, but you go.” Calling out to Ruben Bill yelled, “Get up here and help him!”
“I'm getting there. You two fire at the close ones.” Ruben said to the soldiers he had brought with him. Both started firing methodically at the zombies moving towards Bill and the other two.
“What about me! Help me!” cried Glen, “I can't hold on much longer!”
“Glen, we can't do anything for you, you have to climb over yourself, just use your hands and slide over slowly.” Bill said.
Glen put one hand forward and grabbed at the rail, his hand missed and he swung violently down and off balance, his other fingers slipped from the rail and he fell, screaming into the river below. It happened so fast Bill didn't even have time to react, the soldier hit with a shallow splash and his screaming redoubled. Peeking into the hole Bill saw the Glen in water about two feet deep thrashing around. The man had just missed the tractor and wagon, but that didn't make his fall any less devastating. Glen could not seem to keep himself above the water and his voice came out as a constant incoherent scream when his head rose above the surface.
“Here!” shouted Ruben, focusing Bill back to the task on hand, “Worry about private dumbfuck later, we need to get you across.”
Perhaps seeing Glen fall motivated Joe or perhaps he just found the very last bit of energy inside of him, either way he crawled forward onto the gravel strewn concrete to make his way across to Ruben. A few pieces of concrete flaked off and a lot more gravel tilted and fell through the hole, peppering Glen below. The man's screaming could not get any louder, but it changed pitch as each chunk of gravel hit him. Bill slid Barry down the gravel incline towards the cement base, standing on his good leg Barry braced himself against the crumbling side of the bridge and then tilted over towards Ruben's out stretched hand. He started to fall and Ruben hopped halfway down the slope to catch the wounded man's arm, he pulled the man up the slope and with a few muffled moans of his own Barry was safe.
Bill looked at the hole in the bridge, at the remaining slender ledge with twisted support wire sticking out of it and then back at the zombies behind him. There was no need to rush things, he had a minute to catch is breath. Down below in the river Glen's screaming had attracted unwanted attention, three zombies were stumbling through the water to his position.
“Shit.” Bill said, looking down.
“Shit.” echoed Ruben when he saw what Bill was looking at. “I wouldn't want to be eaten to death.”
“No rope?” Bill asked hopefully.
Ruben just looked at him and frowned, then shook his head. The bridge shuddered again.
“With all due respect Sergeant. I think you better get over here.”
“Did Javier and Matt make it back?”
“Yeah. About five minutes before you did.”
“What happened to their tractor?”
“What tractor? They came back on foot.”
“Oh. Ready?”
“Yeah, think light thoughts.”
Taking Ruben's advice Bill smiled and started across the ledge saying, “I am a cloud, a balloon, a…” and the concrete he was standing on fell out from underneath him.
Chapter 18
