The Inevitable Zombie Uprising (9)

The truck never reappeared. It felt terribly ironic to suggest they'd caught his scent. More likely, they'd guessed about the ambush. Probably saw his dust when he was behind them. He'd chosen the perfect place. Perhaps it was too perfect. The single Yamaha slogged mud. At least they'd left tracks. This bike was not built for cow pastures. He couldn't catch up, but following was easy.Eventually, he decided he was close enough to use the rifle. Maybe a half mile away. Half a minute later, the weapon barked once. Then three times more in rapid succession. He was just aiming at the shape, now. Shoot low, hope to hit a tire. In the distance, the truck wavered, but he could not tell if he'd hit it or just scared the driver. A fourth shot, then a fifth. No explosions. Reload. Damn, they've got to give these things bigger mags.By the time another round was chambered, his target was out of sight. The panic in the cab was duller than it might have been. “See, Vince, I was right. You're now welcome to sing my praises.”“Yay for you. Where's that bridge you told me about?”“You should be practically on top of it now.”And they were. An ancient, wooden thing. Painted red and looking for all the world like a barn perched perilously over a ravine of a creek. Its opening was far too low for the truck to be admitted, but it was wide enough.“Well that's a minor trouble.”“Ram it.”“Leo, have you been relieved of your senses? The roof of that thing is at my waist level!”“It is not. It should be just over top the cab. We'll plow though the beams if you're going fast enough, and I'll drop a couple charges to keep us from being followed.”“We'd have better luck if you told me to jump the creek! Those beams look pretty solid.”“Trust me, ok? It's old, it'll give.”Fear of the peruser him was enough to convince Vincent, even if trust of his comrade was not. Fortunately for them, Leo's estimation of wooden architecture proved as good as his cross-country navigation. The bridge was designed and built when 'internal combustion' was a walk-in oven. Its deck planking nearly gave way at the first impact of the wheels. The roof-timbers splintered and exploded around the crown of the truck. Fiberglass and aluminum tore away. The exhaust stack mufflers ripped loose, adding one more thunder to the symphony. For a precarious moment, the truck's whole weight was on the bridge. Something very large gave a slow groan as it came apart. Vince kept his eyes closed the whole time, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. Leo casually tossed an explosive out the window. It was hardly needed, that bridge was ready to collapse even without it. On the other side of the creek, the biker saw his quarry escaping. He might have going around to the next bridge, but that would cost time. He could probably have put some more holes in the truck, but that would risk blowing it up. In a split second decision, jumping the creek made sense. It wasn't all that wide, maybe thirty feet at the most. So Evel Knievel hit the gas and nearly free-spun his tires, despite their velocity. It seemed to him that truck's passage over (heh. through) the bridge was horribly improbable – surely his jump was more likely to succeed.It seemed that Knievel's planning teams knew more about basaltic physics than this biker. There was no ramp to angle the bike upward. About ten feet into the jump, he realized he wasn't going to make it, and reacted quickly. He leaped from his bike, forcing it farther down into the rapidly approaching wall of muddy soil, and bringing him up just a little higher...Nearly enough to make it. Half way to safety. His legs took the brunt of the impact, fracturing painfully beneath him. His upper body, clear of the obstruction, kept flying for a moment. He didn't even really have time to cry out. Behind him, his bike turned, in a moment, from performance machinery into smoking scrap metal. Sliding mud, loosened from its place in the ravine, promptly covered it.The biker's head now struck the dirt, bringing his broken legs over his head, and down into the dirt in his direction of travel. The motion would have snapped his neck if the armor around him had been less solid.As it was, the messy crash-landing blissfully provided enough force to shut off the biker's consciousness. His broken body eventually came to rest. Somewhere in that, the great rifle slung to his back came loose. The armor, splintered now, and ragged, was not enough to save his life. Instead, it prolonged it. The bloody gashes where bones came though his skin, coupled with grievous internal injuries might not have killed him, had there been shade. And a medic. But the sun beat down and no one came. He never regained consciousness.The truck, its cargo of death intact, drove on. Just a few miles before it would reach the city.
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It was a different world, to be back in that dark cellar. Last time they closed that door, barely a half hour ago, the world had gone completely mad. Now, someone. No, something, was banging at the door. Giving the monster a classification drove the panic back a little. Here in the dark, terror and insanity were close at hand.Alvin, from some unseen back corner, proclaimed “Found the lights! Knew they were around here somewhere!” After the bright sun above, these electric candles were a dim glow, but they were welcome. The thuds on the door – irregular, syncopated, not the pounding of a person, but the clanging together of pots in the wind – it would have been maddening if it stayed dark. But one minor mystery solved, its restless detective asked another question:“What do we do now?”