Beyond Green Fields (Book 1): Beginnings [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology] Read online

  Martinez bit down on the inside of his cheek to stifle his laugh, silently shaking his head at me. Yeah, I was deceiving no one here. I was sorely tempted to stick out my tongue at him, and since neither Burns nor Bates could see it, I did, just for the hell of it. That cracked him up for real, so it was a good thing that I gave him a hard shove to make him focus on what mattered. “Come on, we need to get going. We’re wasting a perfect distraction if we don’t use that very same route now that they’ve cleared it of the undead.” My own assessment of Nate’s actions made me wonder if he’d planned that from the start, to create an exit for us when we might be needing one. A quick look around—this time also including the residential area behind where the others had been hunting for guns—revealed movement that made my gut seize up. “And we better do it right fucking now.”

  My tone was enough to sober Martinez up, and we both hurried off the roof as fast as we could. Once back inside the warehouse, I threw caution to the wind and ran right across what little open space there was, never mind the thundering of my boots on the concrete. Burns looked up, alarmed, as he saw us coming, whistling at Bates who was fiddling with the controls of the loading dock gate.

  “I presume the shots we heard were from the other group?” Burns asked, getting busy closing up the rear of the truck.

  “And the explosion, too,” I offered. “They must have found some C4 somewhere. Blasted a hole through the wrecks to get across the highway. I say we take that route, too.”

  No way I was letting Bates drive, but I didn’t protest when Martinez climbed up into the driver’s seat—he was way quicker than any one of us hot-wiring vehicles. It only took him a few seconds to work his magic, and we were in luck—the truck came to life with only a little stuttering and coughing but then did what it should steadily—but incredibly loudly. Had those always been howling like jet engines?

  “Go, go, go!” Bates called out as he shoved open the second part of the gate, finally having managed to unlock it. Martinez scrambled over, making room for me, and I quickly climbed up, happy that he’d already adjusted the seat as well. Now I just needed to familiarize myself with the controls…

  Fuck.

  Before I could even properly start, Bates was at my door, jerking his head to the right for me to squeeze in with Martinez and Burns. My dignity took a hit, but considering I had no clue how to drive a truck this size, it only made sense to let someone do it who could. Between the packs stashed haphazardly in front and behind us, there wasn’t too much room—but still enough so that I didn’t necessarily need to sit on anyone’s lap. How I still ended up on Burns’s was a mystery, until he pushed his rifle into my hands. “Not enough room in here for me to shoot, but this way, you can!” he called, his now free hands grabbing my hips to keep me from slamming into any part of the cabin. I was glad for the support when Bates floored it, making the truck move forward and through the gate with more acceleration than I’d expected. And off we went.

  We were halfway out of the warehouse as the first shamblers came for us. I tried to brace myself as best as I could as the first reached us, knowing all too well how much such impacts could rock the Rover—and was almost disappointed as the truck pretty much plowed through it. Sure, there was an audible “plunk” as it hit the grill, but the overwhelming mass of the truck was far too large to be deterred by a hundred and fifty pounds of former human. A few more hit, but not even going over those that disappeared underneath our behemoth were more than a slight bump in the road. Bates was grinning like a madman as he steered the truck through the few parked planes and toward the western end of the airport where only the wire-mesh fence stood between us and the access road that led to where the car wrecks were still burning on the highway.

  The fence was no match for us, but as soon as the truck hit the uneven grass, it started rocking and shuddering, making me snap my jaws shut not to accidentally bite my tongue off. It sure drowned out the sounds of a few more zombies hitting the vehicle, now mostly the back and sides rather than the front. Through the side window, I saw more and more coming streaming from the town, but already, the majority of them got held up by the downed ones left behind by our other group. Bates braked hard as he swerved to get the truck back onto the road, rocking all of us painfully. Metal groaned and shuddered, and something snapped with a sound loud enough to make me jerk, instinctively looking for who had shot at us.

  “Sounds like the transmission,” Martinez offered, gritting his teeth as he braced himself.

  “No shit!” Bates grumbled, making the engine whine as whatever he tried to do didn’t work any longer. At least we were still moving—and actually gaining speed—as we headed for the breach in the blocked-up road. “This is going to be a shorter ride than expected. Hold on to something! I’m trying to get as much as possible out of this piece of shit before it breaks down for good!”

  My gaze was inadvertently drawn to the controls. We were going thirty-five miles per hour as we shot through the still-burning wrecks—and hit the dirt on the other side hard. A few yards away was a small road leading south but it was backed up as well. Before I could think about pointing it out, we crashed through a cattle fence, and only Burns’s death grip around my middle kept me from smashing into the windshield.

  The entire truck shuddered as physics forcefully decelerated it but Bates kept flooring the accelerator, making the engine howl loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Come on, baby, just a little farther,” Bates cooed, urging the truck on as he fought for control of the wheel. How he managed to hang on, let alone steer, was a miracle. We kept rocking and rolling south, leaving the lake behind until it was all brown grass around us once more, crashing through two more fences that barely slowed us down. Up ahead, the winding band of a small river or canal bisected the prairie, maybe six to ten feet wide. I knew it was futile but I still cast around for a bridge or something, yet the determined cast that came to Bates’s jaw already told me that we were out of luck.

  Still going fifteen miles per hour, the truck plowed into the canal—a slight dip, and then we were all slammed around as it went back up the opposite side... Until it didn’t, the force of the sudden stop driving the air out of my lungs. Objects in motion and all that, my ass! Metal screamed as the engine stuttered, but somehow, some of the tires still found purchase and pushed the truck out of the shallow water to limp a few more feet before it died.

  I distinctly felt like someone had worked me over with a sledgehammer.

  Everyone was groaning and trying to extricate themselves from the heap of limbs and gear our abrupt stop had turned us into. Martinez perfectly summed up my thoughts as he observed, “Bates, you’re the shittiest driver still alive on the planet.”

  Burns snickered, even though it came out quite pained. That must have been his lower torso my elbow had embedded itself in. Oops.

  Bates himself looked quite rattled but snorted at the criticism. “Actually, I think I’m one hell of a driver! We’re still alive, right?”

  “No thanks to you,” I offered, finally finding enough air in my lungs to speak. “I don’t think this vehicle is made for that terrain.”

  Still unperturbed, Bates shrugged, but his attention had already strayed from the inside of the cabin to what was going on outside—which wasn’t much. “We should be far enough from the town that not many will follow us here to investigate,” he observed as he kept scanning what we could see of our surroundings. “Unless the engine blows, we should be good.”

  “Is that something engines actually do outside of bad movie magic?” I felt it was a valid question.

  “Not like that,” Martinez responded. “But we should still check. The fuel lines are likely torn, so that might be problematic.”

  Burns first, we piled out of the wreck, Bates remaining behind the wheel for a little longer. My legs were shaky enough that I had to lean against the truck to remain upright, not feeling up for a fight—or flight—at the moment. Martinez and Burns went to check on the
undercarriage—and what other, mud-splattered parts were still affixed to the truck; we’d lost some in the deep furrows we’d left in our wake. The rear was only inches away from the bank of the canal but unloading our cargo wouldn’t be that hard. In the distance, I could make out the highways to the north and west, and while there was some movement in our direction, Bates had been right—not many shamblers were stupid enough to follow.

  Bates finally joined us, revealing what had taken him so long. He was limping heavily, his left leg not looking like it was supporting his weight. Dread immediately clawed at my throat but Bates looked relaxed enough, and neither Burns nor Martinez started to freak out when they realized we were one down for the count.

  “I say we wait here for someone to come pick us up,” Burns proposed. “If they haven’t seen our valiant ride out of town, they’ll very soon see the truck, and then it’s just a matter of waiting until any unwanted attention dies down before they can drive over here.” We all looked at each other yet nobody protested.

  “We have rations for two days and a few bottles of water,” Martinez offered. “We can easily wait until tonight, and if worse comes to worst, we can sleep inside the truck and wait until morning.”

  Bates laughed softly as he started pulling something out of his pack, revealing a bottle of booze. “And we have this to keep us company until then.”

  Somehow, that didn’t sound like a good idea, but the appreciative grunts coming from the other guys told me I was the only one thinking like that.

  “So back into the truck?” I asked, not liking that we wouldn’t really be able to check on what came up on us from behind that way.

  “Nah, too cramped,” Burns replied. “I say we climb up onto the roof, if our expert driver can manage?”

  “Easily,” Bates jeered, although his pained grimace made me guess that was bravado speaking.

  Martinez nodded. “Gives us a good view of our surroundings, and even with the wind exposure, it should be warm enough until sunset.”

  At least where I was standing, it felt more like we would be grilled like juicy pieces of steak up there, but who was I to protest?

  In short order, we climbed up onto the roof of the truck’s cargo container, using the driver’s cabin as stepping stones. Bates went last, cursing under his breath as he pulled himself along, the rest of us ignoring him until he’d joined us. Martinez did a quick check on his leg but pronounced it simple blunt-force trauma that would take a few days to heal.

  We spent the first fifteen minutes watching the shamblers draw closer, but a lot of them either got distracted, or stopped at the canal. Far to the south I thought I saw a plume of dust, hinting at our third group making away with their prize, but nothing close enough to identify. Even with the wind blowing, it was kind of cozy up here, making it tempting to try to shed some layers but I wasn’t stupid enough to do that.

  “So we’ll die of boredom up here,” Bates observed from where he was sitting, looking up at us, squinting at the sun.

  “I got a better idea,” Burns proposed as he dove into his pack, only to resurface brandishing a romance novel of all things. I practically recoiled from the paperback, laughing both at the ludicrous thing and my reaction.

  “What the ever-loving fuck? Where did you find that?” I wanted to know. “And, much more importantly, why bring that along?”

  Burns snorted. “It’s going to be one hell of a long winter. Trust me, that’s going to get a lot of attention.”

  “Yeah, remind me not to touch it after said attention happens,” I grumbled.

  Bates chuckled under his breath as he took a swig—purely medicinal, he claimed—before he held out the bottle to me. “I’m sure that goes down way smoother with this.”

  I glared at both him and the bottle, but started to feel stupid when Burns sat down next to him with Martinez following suit, leaving just enough room for me between them. I still considered moving to the very end of our little daisy chain but the wind was picking up, and I knew I’d be more cozy in the middle. So I gave up with a grumbled curse and parked my ass between the guys, wincing at the whiskey slowly burning its way down into my stomach. “We should conserve water,” I remarked after swallowing a few times and handing the bottle off to Martinez, who barely nipped at it before passing it to Burns behind my back.

  It was a logistical impossibility for four people to read a single book while sitting side by side, so we ended up lying on our backs, squished together, with Burns holding it up. I was sorely tempted to get up after a second but the amused grin Martinez beamed my way kept me rooted in the spot. Yeah, I knew I was being silly, but still—shouldn’t someone have kept watch? But the thing was, it was impossible to miss the sounds of the shamblers that finally did draw close, and with us being mostly silent, they didn’t exactly know we were up here—as long as we kept quiet and remained low enough on the roof of the truck to be out of sight. So I resigned myself to my fate. Keeping the bottle a little longer every time it passed helped somewhat.

  At first, I didn’t really read along, but the sounds going on around us kept me from falling asleep—or even trying to—and with literally nothing else to do, I eventually caved. The book wasn’t as terrible as the cover had made it appear, and while I wouldn’t have gone as far as claiming I was invested in the story, I winced at the appropriate parts as the heroine stumbled from mishap to mishap. Unlike the state of undress of the characters on the front had made me guess, it took them a full one hundred and twenty pages to get to the good parts, and it was Martinez who grunted dismally as Burns paused in turning the page to take a swig from the bottle. “You can’t keep us waiting now!” he hissed under his breath, making Bates laugh hard enough—if mostly silent—that I felt the vibrations two people over.

  “You sure you’re not getting confused?” Bates teased.

  Martinez glared at him across our bodies. “So what if I pretend that it’s Jack telling the story rather than Jill?”

  “Her name’s Alison,” I pointed out wisely—and with the kind of stupid grin that should have made me pass up the bottle as Burns offered it to me, but I was damned if I read what came next with a semblance of being sober.

  “Point missed,” Martinez retorted snidely, laughing softly as he declined the bottle. All the more for me, I figured, before handing it back to Bates. “And will you finally turn that damn page?”

  “Sheesh, someone’s needy,” I muttered, snickering when the sound of my voice made one of the shamblers next to the truck pound the side enthusiastically. “And you’re not alone.”

  At least the others found my remark hilarious, although Bates offered a succinct, “Not very nice of you to rub it in our faces that you don’t have the same problem as us.”

  I snorted derisively, if a little distractedly as Burns—finally!—turned the page. “I haven’t gotten laid since Nebraska, so pot. Kettle. None of us getting any.”

  Burns shifted next to me so he could get a better look at my face. He was frowning in earnest when I looked up at him. “Girl, I hate to break it to you, but you’re doing things wrong if that’s true.”

  I gave him the most blank stare I could manage, which was likely too bright-eyed with a hint of a grin for my own good. “Did you miss his grand no-fraternization speech? And considering we’ve been practically sitting on top of each other in that damn bunker, it can’t be hard to verify the truth of my statement.”

  I got a wry grin from Bates for that. “You do realize that none of us expects you two hypocrites to keep it in your pants? That speech was entirely for Emma and Bert’s peace of mind.”

  Martinez snickered. “Actually, I think it was a direct warning for you that Miller will cut off your dick if you keep slobbering all over Sadie like you did when you helped her get some more rope up for drying laundry in the pantry.”

  “Yeah, like I’d be that stupid,” Bates shot back. “I was just being helpful.” When he got three disbelieving sounds of varying incredulity, he grinned. “And I w
as making myself scarce because Zilinsky was looking for someone to drag out with her on a scouting mission. So sue me if that came with a few opportunities to catch a glimpse here or there. It’s not like I’m the exception here. Martinez gets a pass. You two don’t.”

  Burns wisely passed me the booze when he saw me narrow my eyes at the accusation. I took the opportunity to formulate my response wisely. We were doing a stellar job at conserving that water. “Barely legal really doesn’t float my boat,” I snipped. “And trust me when I say that I need another refill of this to look forward for another sausage-party reel when we come back home tonight and it’s clean-up for everyone at the same time again.” I wasn’t sure if Martinez was grinning at my gripe or because he saw things differently, but I sure as hell cracked Burns and Bates up. Assholes! Served them right if I kept the bottle.

  “Can we bury that subject now?” Martinez teasingly complained. “My balls are getting about as blue as dear Simon’s here, and you’re doing a stellar job killing my buzz.”

  Burns laughed, while Bates looked back to us from where he’d been reading. “It’s a stupid name for that character. They should have called him something like Ricardo. Or Fernando.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with Simon? Just imagine Tom Hanks playing him in the movie,” I suggested.

  Bates narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re reading a very different book than I am. He’s totally a Fernando. And she should be a Maria or Sofia. Epic telenovela style.”

  Burns was wheezing with laughter, which only got worse when Martinez griped once more. “The book would definitely benefit from a scheming best friend or sister, but we’ll never find out if you fucking morons keep interrupting!”

  “Sure lacks some explosions,” Burns remarked, following that up with a terrible wink and equally bad “bow chicka wow wow,” as if any of us had been able to miss that point.