Class of 2013 - 21

Chapter Twenty One

“So how many do you think he’s going to get, Chien?” Lea asked as the two teens waited at the back of her GTO. For the first time since everything had started, Chien had finally found a time for a smoke break. He hadn’t turned eighteen yet, but he usually bummed a pack of smokes off his dad when he went out on cross country hauls – after all, it wasn’t like there weren’t three or four just sitting around. His dad never seemed to notice, or if he did, he never really cared enough to call him out on it. Just like my dad, Chien’s had been in the Vietnam War. The difference was that while my dad was a US Marine, Chien’s dad was in the South Vietnamese Navy. I can’t quite recall what, but if memory serves, he’d been a radio operator or some such on one of their destroyers.

“I think he’ll be lucky to get three of them to help us. Most people don’t want to risk their lives.” Chien shrugged a bit, “Even the ones that should be capable of fighting usually don’t want to. They’d rather have the comparatively cushy jobs around here. After all, what’s more dangerous: going out and doing missions in a zombie infested wasteland, or staying behind the walls, fences, and gates of a compound and building things right from some blueprints?”

“I suppose you’re right.” She sighed. “It would be nice though if he could convince at least some of them to help us out. Hell, any of them. It’s not like we can’t teach them to shoot. Anyone can shoot a shotgun, now can’t they?”

“That they can.” The new voice captured their attention, and the two stood straight, glancing off to the side. When they saw Johnny, he gave a slight wave and stepped closer. “Apparently I’m assigned to you guys.”

“Oh yeah?” Chien asked, brow raised. “Anyone else?” He added as he tossed the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under his shoe.

“Yeah. One more assigned to this.”

“Who?” This time it was Lea asking the question.

“Christine. The redhead cheerleader?”

Lea nodded. “Yeah, I know who she is.”

Chien smirked. “Oh yeah, the one that you and Roy both have the hots for, huh?”

“You mean, the one that’s going to be mine, Chien.” Lea smirked, and then glanced at Johnny when she saw the young man tilt his head. “What?”

“You know she has a boyfriend, right?”

Lea’s eyes went wide. “No! I didn’t know that!” She put a hand over her face and hung her head. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! If she has a boyfriend, why has she been acting like she has? All those looks she’s been giving me… what the hell is that about?”

Johnny shrugged. “I dunno… but she’s already taken. I’m sorry.”

“Who is her boyfriend, anyway?” Chien asked.

“The quarterback of our team. Basically the only one of us that actually looked like he was in any way p-pro-professional.” The last word was forced out through Johnny’s stutter, and he clenched his eyes shut. Lea and Chien both blinked and looked at one another, then back at Johnny curiously. “Condition.” He said quickly – and then at that thought, he held the little requisition note out to Chien. “Uhm… Colonel Sweet wanted me to give this to you.”

Chien looked at it quickly, Lea leaning over to read the note. “A requisition form for… morphine? From the infirmary?” He blinked. “Whatever for?”

Johnny looked away. “For me.”

Chien raised a skeptical brow, and Lea stepped forward, grabbing Johnny’s wrists and pushing up the arms of the jacket. The first one was fine, but the second showed all the various needle marks scattered across his arm.

“Condition my ass!” Chien snapped, glaring at the water boy. “You’re going through withdrawal, aren’t you?” No answer. That didn’t sit well with Chien, and it certainly showed when he reached out and grabbed Johnny by the collar. Lea stepped out of the way just before the Asian hauled Johnny forward. “Aren’t you?” He glared, speaking lowly.

Finally Johnny answered. “Yeah, I am, alright? H-happy now?” He bit his tongue, frustrated at his own stuttering. “It’s not exactly like I enjoy this, just so you know.”

“Then why the fuck do you do it?” Chien asked, pushing Johnny back. “There’s nobody making you stick those fucking needles in your arm, is there?”

There was a pause after the question, but Johnny answered before anyone could say anything. “No… there isn’t.”

From the corner of his eye, Chien could see the doubtful look that Lea gave him. However, if the guy wasn’t going to admit it, there was nothing that they could really do about it at the moment. Sure, they could beat him to a pulp trying to get him to admit it, or they could sit down and talk with him and try it that way, but in the end… he probably wouldn’t admit a damn thing until he was ready. Glancing back at the note to make sure it was Sweet’s handwriting for sure, and seeing that it was, Chien blew out a breath.

“Alright… since this is from the Boss, I’ll give it to you – but don’t you ever come asking me or anyone else for it unless Colonel Sweet said to. Got it?”

Johnny nodded. “Yes Sir.”

Chien paused for a moment, and then tugged down the arms of Johnny’s jacket. “Also, don’t lie to me again. I don’t want liars working with me, and I’m sure none of my friends do either.” There was an awkward silence for a couple seconds, and then he added. “And the name is Chien. This is Lea.” He thumbed to the sniperess. “The fat one is Roy. The short, mouthy one is James. The rest of our group you can meet later, if you feel like doing so. What’s your name?”

“Johnathan B. Goodhew.”

“What’s the ‘B’ stand for?” Lea asked curiously, and Johnny looked away.

“You’ll just end up laughing at me like everyone else.” He said quietly.

“No I won’t.” Lea smiled softly. “I promise you, I won’t laugh.”

He was silent for a moment, glancing over at Chien.

“Hey man, I’m Asian and she’s never laughed at my name.” He shrugged, “Granted, she has no idea what my name really means in English, so she can’t know to laugh or not.”

“You’re lucky.” Johnny said, and then sighed. “Fine… it stands for Beauregard. Happy?”

Lea blinked. “It stands for Beauregard?” She tilted her head a little. “You’re not from California originally, are you?”

Johnny shook his head. “Nope. I’m from Nashville, Tennessee, originally.”

Lea’s eyes practically lit up at hearing that. “Nashville! Really? Are you serious?”

“Yeah…” Johnny blinked a bit, looking at Chien once more.

“She’s a Johnny Cash and Hank Williams fan. You’re stuck with her now.” Chien smirked a bit, looking at the Tennessean. “Hope you can’t sing or play.”

“Why’s that?” Johnny blinked.

“Because if you can, she’ll turn you into a walking country jukebox.”

“Oh.”

A sly little grin came over Lea’s lips then. “Can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Play guitar or sing.”

“…No comment…”

Chien grinned. “That ain’t gonna help, my friend.”

“Well I can’t outright lie.”

“You need to learn, Johnny.”

Lea swatted Chien’s arm. “You shut up. At least there’s one honest boy around still.”

Chien rolled his eyes. “Who probably has never had a girlfriend.”

Lea scowled. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Chien glared. “Everything, in case you didn’t know it, Lea.”

Before the argument could go any further, Johnny cleared his throat. “Uhm… I don’t mean to interrupt… but…” He winced, a hand going to his opposite forearm, his teeth clenched, “…I could use that morphine right about now. Cramps hurt.”

Chien blinked. “Oh, right. This way; follow me.” He said, and waved for Johnny to follow him as he headed to the infirmary. Of course, as they walked, Lea wasn’t going to just let that go. No, she wanted an answer.

“Now what’s not having had a girlfriend got to do with being honest?”

“Because guys can’t be honest with their girlfriends all the time.”

“And why not?”

“Because girls are fucking insane; that’s why.”

“Oh, like boys aren’t nuts?”

“No, we are, but we’re the kind of crazy that actually makes an amount of sense.”

“How do ya figure that?”

“Because we do things that can be explained through logic.”

“And girls don’t?”

“Fuck no.”

Lea raised a brow. “Okay hotshot, give us a couple examples.”

“Fine. For instance, a guy might street race; that’s insane. However, it’s also fun, and if you’re skilled enough, it’s not as dangerous as people think. If you’re not skilled, you can die, but if you are you usually win a race, or at least survive it. Meanwhile, girls want you to tell them the truth about things, or at least they say that they want to know the truth, and then when you give it they bitch you out over stupid shit.”

Lea blinked. “Chien… have you ever known me to be like that?”

Chien paused. “Well no, but then you’re different.”

“…How? I’m a girl, Chien.”

“No… you are a woman.”

There was a pause, and then Lea finally spoke. “Okay… and what do you think is the difference between the two?”

“Maturity.”

“Mind being a little less vague?”

“What I mean is that a girl will fly off the handle. Meanwhile, a woman usually won’t. There are other differences too – namely how they walk, talk, and act around other people. Also, they usually treat their significant others differently. For instance, a girl will usually demand one of two things: either to be allowed to pay for herself, or that their boyfriend pay for everything for them. It’s always one of the two – they don’t want a middle ground. They also don’t talk to the person beforehand. A woman will usually both talk to the person, and if they aren’t happy with it, they’re usually willing to compromise in some way.”

“So basically what you’re saying is that girls demand and women ask?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Girls hear all the time about how they’re supposed to be empowered and liberated and independent and all that other bullshit, and yet are treated like their parents’ little princess their whole fucking lives. Then when they get old enough to really try and flex that theoretical muscle of theirs, they find out that the other gender doesn’t usually tend to just bend over and take it like they thought. It’s how they handle that realization that decides if they ever become women or not. If they figure out how the world really works and they’re willing to compromise with their other half, then they’re women. If they continue to bitch and complain, they’re still girls, and it probably isn’t going to change at all.”

“Okay, then what about the chicks you get with? If girls are so bad, why don’t you ever try and go out with a woman?”

“Because women were incredibly rare, even before the zombies showed up and started eating everyone. Girls were a dime a dozen, and usually could be traded in every other week for the latest model. Ya see the logic there, Lea?”

“Did you just compare girls to cars?”

“Nope. That would be an insult to cars.”

Lea glared. “You ever thought that maybe it’s not girls that are the problem, but you instead, Chien? Honestly, have you ever considered that possibility?”

“Not for a damn second.”

“And why not? The only thing your girl problems really have in common… is you.”

“And the gender of the people I go out with.”

“Having a vagina or a penis doesn’t mean anything when it comes to personal attitude.”

“Tell that to the crazy chicks that I’ve been with.”

“I don’t need to. I’m telling you, because you’re the one that needs to hear it.”

“Oh yeah? Really? So then explain something, how the fuck is it my fault?”

“Because you picked them, genius.”

Chien paused as they reached the infirmary door, looking over at Lea. “Half of the girls that I’ve been with came to me. How is that my fault?”

“Your style of dress, the way you act, and how you present yourself.”

“You know, that’s the same argument assholes use to try and justify rape.”

“There’s a difference with this though.”

“Oh yeah? Sounds the same.”

“The difference is that you do have the option to say no. You just don’t.” Lea smiled primly, and Chien glared at her. “What? You know just as well as I do that it’s the truth. You put on that bad boy attitude, and those Yakuza clothes, and all the little fillies come pouring in. You wear that same stuff, and act that same way, whenever we have a free dress day and you don’t have to be all steel and stern… so of course they get the impression that outside of school that’s how you usually are. Just what the hell do you expect? Do you really think some innocent little angel with no mental defects is just going to fall in your lap and love you unconditionally? Is your brain fucking broken? A good girl that isn’t fucked up in the head is going to take a look at you and walk away, because they know that the guys who are really like that aren’t worth a shit.”

At that, Chien was silent. However, Lea added one more thing.

“Ya know what a male like you is called though? One that pretends to be something that he really isn’t?”

“What’s that?”

“A boy, because what they’re doing is still just fucking make believe.”

==X==X==X==

About fifteen minutes later, the trio was inside the infirmary, and Johnny had been given his temporary fix. The effects had kicked in a few minutes ago, and now his body was finally relaxed again, the symptoms of withdrawal subsiding quickly. Chien and Lea had been silent since the end of their argument outside, and the Tennessean was hoping for the uneasy peace to last. Of course, he knew that this was a pipe dream considering the looks that the two gave each other every now and again, but he could dream, couldn’t he?

“So Johnny…” Chien finally said, “What do you think about all of what we said?”

Johnny blinked and looked toward the Asian, trying to feign as if he hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, but knowing that he was about to be dragged into the middle of it all.

“You know what I’m talking about. That whole argument that Lea and I had on the way here. Who do you think was right?”

Lea rolled her eyes, standing off to the side. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, Johnny. He’s just pissed off because he knows what I said was true, and he doesn’t like it.”

“Oh please, Lea. Let the guy answer for himself.”

“I’m giving him the other option, Chien.”

Chien was about to speak again, when Johnny finally answered. “You’re both right.”

Chien and Lea blinked and looked at the Nashville born lad between them.

“Chien,” He said, looking at the Asian – and thankful he’d taken note of their names, “you’re right about the difference between girls and women. However…” He looked toward Lea, “Lea, you’re right about… well… him.” He thumbed toward Chien, and then looked at him. “I’m sorry man… but she’s right about you. You never denied anything she said, you even halfway confirmed it, and from everything that she’s said… you’ve kinda brought it all on yourself.”

Chien sat in stunned silence as Lea and Johnny swapped glances, wondering what he would say. However, he didn’t get the chance to open his mouth before Christine walked into the infirmary. She looked about the same, though Lea and Johnny both noted the fact that her hair looked as thought it had been recently brushed – or at the very least combed through by fingers.

“I don’t suppose there’s any mouthwash in here, is there?” The redhead asked as she began looking through things, “I hate having this morning breath.”

“Top shelf in that cabinet.” Chien said, pointing toward the cabinet in question. “Saline too if you’d rather taste brine water than undrinkable bathtub brew.”

A half chuckle came from Christine as she opened the cabinet, and in fact pulled out the saline and the mouthwash. Swishing the saline first and spitting in the sink, she put it back and then did the same with the mouthwash. When she shut the cabinet, she saw Chien with his eyebrow quirked and grinned a little. “Saline gets rid of the surface stuff, and the mouthwash can handle the rest pretty easily. Makes the effect last longer.”

“Ah…” Chien nodded. “That makes sense.” Even though he said it, he still didn’t quite see how it actually made sense.

It was Lea’s turn to speak up then. “So what can the two of you do? Colonel Sweet wouldn’t have assigned you to a mission if you still needed to have weapons’ training.”

“I’m trained with shotguns and pistols. Would have been certified if I’d been older.” Christine said as she leaned back against a counter. “My uncle was the Perris Chief of Police.”

Lea nodded, then looked to Johnny. “And you?”

“Shotguns and rifles. My dad was in the US Marines when he died.” Johnny replied, sitting up in the chair he sat upon. “So just what exactly are we going to be doing?”

“We’re going out to find a semi truck with a refrigeration trailer unit, and then we’re bringing it back here.” Chien said. “I’ll be the one identifying and driving the rig. The rest of you will be there to give me cover when I first get inside the damn thing.”

“Alright, and the next obvious question… Where are we going to be looking for one?”

“Along the south bound stretch of the 215 freeway. A mission a couple days ago went down that way; apparently there’s a large blockage that was caused by a wreck on the day everything started. It stretches back pretty far, so if there’s any likelihood of finding that kind of rig, it’s probably there.”

“…What about behind Stater Brothers?” Christine asked.

“Nope. Nothing.” Lea answered. “I was up on the roof. There’s no rigs behind there at all. None over at Food 4 Less either. There might possibly be something over at Wal-Mart, but the likelihood of a rig being stopped at a store is less likely than one being on a freeway when you compare how many rigs are usually en-route to how many are stopped at a given time.”

“Alright, what about the truck stop a little north of here? That place had big rigs in it all the time. Wouldn’t the probability be higher there than it would anywhere else?”

“Possible, but we haven’t been over there yet. Not to mention that if a semi is surrounded by cars, you can have a decent shot at zombies, but if it’s surrounded on both sides by tractor trailers you can’t give cover very well. It’s an easy way to get killed; would be better just to drive south on the north bound side of the freeway with clear lines of sight and ease of travel.”

Christine nodded. “Alright, that makes sense to me.” She grinned then, walking over to Lea and putting her arms around her neck lazily. “I do so love a woman with intelligence.”

Lea simply raised a brow. “What are you doing?”

Christine blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Let me put it another way…” Lea glared, standing tall and looking down at the redhead. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

Christine’s eyes went wide, and in an instant she turned to glare daggers at Johnny. “I can’t believe that you told!”

Johnny simply glared back at her. “We have an obligation Christine. A pact. We promised to help him, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. You know what will happen if we don’t! He’ll get it worse than anyone!”

“You should have trusted me, Johnny. I know he needs our help. I’ve known him since before you came along, back when he lived with his mother. You think that you really need to tell me how much help he needs with this? I can’t believe you sometimes, y’know that?”

Lea at first had been indifferent to the little spat, but the longer that it went on, the more curious she was becoming – and the same went for Chien. However, while Lea was content to let this little drama play out, Chien wanted some answers.

“Okay, hang on a minute!” Chien said as he stood up and stepped between the two, looking back and forth. “What the hell is going on here? What are you two going on about?”

As if they’d been slapped, both Perris High students looked away – both from Chien, and each other. They remained silent. With a roll of his eyes, Chien made his way toward Johnny, but the Tennessean didn’t even bother to look at him. Grabbing the southern boy’s jacket, he pulled him up out of his chair and got right in his face – but Johnny didn’t seem the least bit fazed by it.

“I’m not telling you a damn thing, and if you think anything you say or do is going to change that, you’re sadly mistaken, Chien. Unlike some people, I won’t violate my friend’s trust.” Christine almost visibly flinched at the words.

Even so, Chien still held his jacket tighter, though Johnny just relaxed as if nothing were wrong – which also had the effect of Chien using his strength to keep Johnny upright, instead of just holding him threateningly. Despite this fact, Christine sighed and spoke up.

“I’ll tell you.” She said softly, looking at Chien, and then at Lea. Despite a sudden snap from Johnny telling her not to, she continued. “My boyfriend is gay.”

As the words left her mouth, Chien let go of Johnny’s leather jacket, allowing him to fall on his rear in the seat he’d been in before. Turning, he blinked, and shared a look with Lea that told both of curiosity – and of the wonder why that hadn’t just been said in the first place.

“Okay, so… your boyfriend is gay. Makes sense for why you don’t regret going after someone else. The relationship is just a cover, I’m guessing.” Chien began.

“…But who is your boyfriend and why would he end up in so much trouble?” Lea asked, stepping close to Christine.

“His name is William. He’s our best friend.” Johnny answered, and Christine hung her head a bit, a hand going to the back of her neck.

“And… he’s Novik’s son.” She looked up then at Lea, “He lived out here with his mother, she was a single parent, but she did well for herself. Beautiful and smart and funny… she took very good care of him. Three years ago, Novik showed up out here just after she got into an accident and ended up in a coma. He talked William into having the plug pulled…”

“My god… he could’ve only been thirteen or fourteen, right?” Lea asked, putting her arms around Christine, and letting the redhead lean against her a little.

“Thirteen at the time. Just a few days before his fourteenth birthday.” Christine said softly, holding onto the sniperess. “After that, Novik moved into William’s mom’s house and took a job at Perris High. His mother knew that he was gay and she was fine with it, but he learned quick that his dad had a prejudice against it, a strong one, and he never said a single thing about it to his dad.”

“Shit, can’t blame the guy…” Chien said. “How bad is his pops?”

“Bad.” Johnny answered, “Doesn’t really even care about Will, I don’t think. Half the time he seems jealous of him. The rest of the time he seems pissed off or disappointed, like nothing he does will ever be good enough. Even becoming the team’s quarterback, winning most of their games, and keeping straight A’s hasn’t been enough to keep his old man off his back.”

“Jesus…” Lea whispered, “I can see why you guys wanted to help him out.” She smiled slightly then. “Don’t worry. We won’t tell anyone about this.”

Chien glanced at Lea. “You mean you won’t.”

“Chien, you can’t be serious!” Lea protested, “He’ll get beat if his dad finds out. You heard them just as well as I did!”

“I’m not talking about going and tattling to his dad, Lea. I’m talking about Sweet, Roy, and James. I think they have a right to know what’s going on – especially Roy, considering you’re his cousin. Family doesn’t keep secrets from family, at least not this kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

Chien just looked at her and then pointed at her and Christine. “Guess, oh genius.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. Think about it, Lea. What if Roy finds out Christine has a boyfriend, is curious, says something in front of someone without realizing it, and that gets back to Novik? Could cause more problems if he gets curious, and eventually lead to Novik finding out anyway. If we fill in Sweet, Roy, and James they won’t have any reason to say anything about you two, and there won’t be that problem. Ya understand?”

Lea nodded. “Okay, you’re right.” She paused then and looked at Christine. “One more thing, gorgeous.”

“What…?”

“So you really want me, huh?”

“Oh my, must you really even ask?”

“No, but I want to hear you say it anyway.”

Christine blushed some, but Lea did so deeper when the redhead whispered in her ear.

==X==X==X==

Less than ten minutes later, the group of four had found their way to Lea’s GTO and were headed toward the overpass down the street – being that the backup of vehicles stretched that far. Their intention was a simple one: start from the back of the blocked up freeway and move along the side until they came across the vehicle that they wanted. They just had to have the good fortune to find one. All eyes were on the south bound lanes as Chien had told them what to look for. As for gear, Lea had taken the AR-15 instead of her Remington 700, and Chien had taken a Mini-14; meanwhile Christine and Johnny both were armed with shotguns – though Christine had a Colt .45, and Johnny had a Ruger 10/22 as their additional weapons.

Most of the space on the freeway was occupied by cars and SUVs, and only the occasional pickup truck would come across. A few semi trucks dotted the bottlenecked and blockaded asphalt landscape – though thus far none of them were the proper type that they were looking for. Most were the right size and shape for it, but were for standard cargo loads. The rest had all been some sort of tanker – be it for gas, water, milk, or one of the specially shaped ones that dumped out the bottom and hauled grain or something of the like. Not a single vehicle was running still – whether it was from having sat for a few days and running out of gas, or from being turned off by the driver while they were still around, was hard to tell.

Most of the vehicles actually looked like they were completely fine, aside from being blocked in by those behind them. Some of them might have even had full tanks of gas – and come to think of it, the gas stations themselves probably still had fuel in their tanks too. It was doubtful that many people had bothered to stop at a gas station when everything started happening. After all, how many people would be worried about getting gas when the gas stations were just as likely to be overrun by the living dead as anywhere else? Thankfully it wasn’t really as bad as all that, but in the minds of most people, at least those that had ever seen a zombie movie, it was that bad… or worse. That left the freeways as a likely place to find transportation, assuming you could find the keys for any of the vehicles. Then again… how many people would bother taking the keys with them when the car was blocked in and couldn’t move? Not many.

The drive was a fairly boring one really. The same sights, sounds, and things to expect were seen as they went. There were zombies mixed in with the cars, but after nearly a week of seeing them around… it really wasn’t all that terrifying to just see them. Being near a large number of them was still a frightening thing, but just to see them lined up on the other side of the freeway was somehow… normal… now. The boredom abruptly died as they neared the last overpass before the 215 freeway left Perris. There, off to the side, was a rig – with a refrigeration trailer. Anything inside it would probably be bad after sitting this long, unless it had a very good battery or a good sized fuel supply, but that didn’t matter much. The point was that they had accomplished the first objective of their mission; they’d found one.

Stopping the car, Lea put it in park set the emergency brake before everyone got out. A quick sweep revealed that there were a decent number of zombies, but not more than could be handled. They were slow moving targets and they weren’t very far away – probably less than a hundred feet no matter what way you measured it. Using pistol and rifle, Christine and Johnny joined Lea and Chien in picking off the zombies near the semi truck, and then Chien moved to the center divider. Piston in hand, he looked over the divider to check for any crawlers, and seeing none, continued forward; making sure to keep his eyes low just in case. He remembered what James had said about the one that had grabbed his ankle, and he didn’t want that to happen to him any time soon – or ever, really.

As they all kept focus on the other side of the freeway, Johnny was feeling distracted. At first he was blaming it on the after effects of withdrawal and the bit of morphine he’d been given, but the longer it lasted, the more pronounced it became. It felt like there was someone coming up behind him. Try as he might, he couldn’t shake the feeling, and finally to reassure himself that there was nobody behind him, he decided to turn around. When he did his eyes opened wide, and he turned on his heel. Bringing up the Ruger, he took quick aim and fired off the last shot in his magazine – watching in horrified fascination as the bullet passed through soft tissue in the zombie’s cheek and kept going. The damned creature was only a few feet away, and he had missed anything and everything vital by firing too quickly. Thankfully, he wasn’t just frozen. He had his wits about him, and tossed the Ruger onto the trunk of the GTO – grabbing the shotgun off his back.

Pumping it to load the first shell, he fired, and the zombie’s head was blown into pieces of mangled, bloody gore. By the time that the thunderous blast of the shotgun was heard, Christine had turned around to see just what Johnny had seen – a small horde had come from behind them while they were clearing out the area near the semi truck. She too began to fire into the crowd – though with better results than Johnny’s first attempt. Of course, the heavy hitting .45 was capable of blowing out an entire section of skull as it left its target; the .22’s were lucky if they went through two solid pieces of bone.

Lea took note of the situation behind her, and then glanced to the source of the zombies. Despite being the outskirts of town, this was actually one of the more heavily populated areas, and the size of the horde that was still to come spoke well of this fact. Picking off a few more zombies, until Chien had a wide berth, she tried not to focus on the impending danger. Johnny and Christine could handle things for a while. The closest zombies were done with, and Johnny had switched back to the Ruger and was firing it now. That meant that they were probably far enough away that he was comfortable shooting a single bullet at a time. Now she was just waiting for Chien to find the keys. The apparent cursing he was doing, be it in English or Vietnamese, was not a good sign.

He was already up on the rig, with the door open, but apparently the keys weren’t in the ignition as he had expected. A scowl on his face, he looked around to see if he could find any zombies or corpses that looked as though they may have been the trucker – and his face suddenly brightened. Jumping down, he walked a couple car lengths away and bent down. A second later came that shout of surprise and he popped up like a rabbit. In a flash the pistol he had carried on the way to the rig was raised and three shots were fired in rapid succession. Apparently the trucker hadn’t been dead in the way that Chien had thought he was. A sigh, and then he moved forward again and rummaged through the trucker’s pockets until he found the keys. As soon as he had them he bolted back to the semi truck and climbed up to the cab.

Sitting in the seat, he shut the door and fired the rig up, a grin on his face… until he looked over and saw the horde. Immediately he looked to Lea and started waving for her to get the hell out of there, and she quickly took the advice. Grabbing Johnny and Christine, the three of them scrambled into the GTO, and once the doors were shut the emergency brake was taken off, the car was shifted into drive, and they were off. However, instead of just leaving, she drove down the freeway a bit, past the overpass, and waited – revving the engine a bit to keep the attention of the zombies. If the semi truck got surrounded or blocked, Chien was had.

Of course, the noise that he was making trying to move the rig was dividing the attention of the ghouls. Not only was the rig louder, but it was in the middle of some cars. There weren’t very many options to pick from when it came to getting the massive truck free, so Chien just went with the obvious – ram the car in front until he could get around it. It took about three hits before the car was out of the way enough to maneuver around it, but after that (and having to move it up the crowded off ramp) it was fairly smooth sailing. Driving over the overpass, he drove down onto the north bound lane… actually headed north for once… and Lea turned the GTO around. The horde had just started to move onto the freeway as the rig drove down the on ramp, smashing a few of the first zombies that got on the road, and simply continuing on as if nothing had been there.

Safely away from the horde, they now had one more thing to figure out.

It was something that they probably should have planned ahead for.

How were they going to get a fifty three foot long refrigeration unit inside the school?