Priest pondered this for a minute. “They say God will never give you more than you can handle, so it seems you have a huge heart for a reason. Few can love like you do, and that is a rare trait. One that is definitely missing in this world. It was missing before all this shit started. I am undeserving to know you like I do now, although I’ll take it and thank God for it. I would have loved to know you before all this, without the death and chaos. Regardless of what you are going through now, you’re still a light to me!”
“You sure spread it on thick.”
“Yeah, just like Shaw, I’m from Alabama. We know nothing else but thick…. syrup, gravy, bullshit.” She kissed him and pulled back for a few beats. He looked at her and couldn’t believe how beautiful she was, and what was more unbelievable was that she loved his dumb ass. He watched her walk back inside and thought, “Just say thank you and move on, dumbass”.
The next morning came without incident. Priest and Webb were kneeling down on the catwalk with their bino’s searching for viable transportation options. There were some infected lumbering around off in the distance, but nothing that was an immediate threat. “You seeing anything?” Priest asked.
“Negative. All these snowflakes with their Prius’ and these other little shit cars. We need at least two SUV’s or pickup trucks.”
“Agreed. With all the abandoned cars along the road, I don’t want to get stuck because this little car can’t drive through a fucking puddle, much less a couple of infected,” Priest mused out loud. They continued to look for several more minutes. “Oh, wait a minute. Hold up,” Priest sounded excited. “Look at our two o’clock. Right past the base of the water tower.” Webb turned toward the direction Priest described. Priest continued, “Is that a Chevy and Jeep dealership over there?”
“You know, I think it is.”
“Hot damn. We get our pick of some brand-new shit!” Priest was even more excited.
“I believe you are right, my friend. So, we need to check out a couple of these pieces of shit and see if they are operational. As long as they can get a team over there, that’s all we need out of them.”
Priest nodded, and they both went back into the tower.
Priest started directing the team, “Neville and Lia, you stay on the catwalk and provide oversight, sniper style. Webb, Doc, Shaw and myself will take two of these puddle jumpers to get us to the Chevy dealership a few miles northeast of our location. We get in, find the keys for two Tahoe’s, Suburban’s, Jeeps or whatever, and we bail the fuck out. Questions?” Everyone shook their head. “Ok, gear up. Check your equipment, weapons and ammo. After we gain transportation, we will have to locate a facility to resupply. A base or National Guard Unit.” Everyone nodded.
Everyone was in place and the deployment team made their way down to the cars in the parking lot. They had checked the office in the tower for keys as they progressed down to the ground level with no luck.
At full battle rattle, the team systematically waded through all the cars. They found one with an extra set of keys in a magnetic box under the car. The other was an older model, which Shaw busted the steering column and used his Leatherman to crank over.
From their previous recon, they could see that the highway was extremely congested with abandoned vehicles and a quick glance down the streets of the town revealed a much less hindered route. They made their way through a quarter of the route when the Old Grand Marquis Shaw was driving shuddered. It was gasping and wheezing and sputtered to a stop. “Damn piece of shit Ford,” Shaw spat. They all got out to pull security, while Shaw checked out the car. Doc pulled up behind them and they all got out. Webb came running up.
“What’s the problem?”
“Looks like a vacuum leak issue,” Shaw responded. As Shaw continued to work, a distant wailing started. They all were on their toes were looking for the source. It was early morning, and the sun hadn’t bu
rned off the morning mist and fog yet. This made it difficult to see very far.
“Dude, what the fuck is that?” Doc asked wearily. He was becoming frazzled as the sound got louder and more voices joined in. “Seriously, what the hell is that?” In front of them, barely seen through the fog, figures appeared. They appeared as small shadow figures and were aggressively tilting their heads from side to side. Instead of the clicking noise, they were making those screeching/crying noises. They were slowly coming toward the team as the fog dissipated.
“Mother fucker!” Webb said as he looked closer. “They’re fucking kids. Little infected kids!”
Doc turned to Shaw, “Come on big man, get his thing started. I don’t want to shoot no kids.” His voice was trembling.
“I’m trying, I don’t want to shoot any either,” Shaw barked back. They could now see the building up the street was a daycare facility.
“Aw, shit. This ain’t right,” Priest added when he saw the daycare playground. The scene was something out of a Clive Barker Novel, think Hell Raiser, but with children.
The tiny figures were infected kids from toddler to maybe six or seven. They slowly shambled towards the Team as they emitted the crying/screeching sound. It was high pitched and creepy as hell.
The breath caught in Priest’s throat when he saw the playground. The kids had killed, no mutilated, some adults. Possibly those that worked there. One woman was sitting on the merry-go-round with her abdomen ripped open. Her intestines were splayed all over the merry-go-round and draped over the bars. Some were using them like ropes to hang on while other kids spun the merry-go-round.
Another woman was swinging back and forth on the swing set, looking like one of the swings. She was hung by her own entrails from the top bar of the swing set by her neck. Two kids pushed her legs and watched her swinging back and forth while they giggled. All the while, their heads were tilting left and right.
“Fuck me,” Doc uttered. “Holy Mary Mother and Joseph.” He made the sign of the cross. Just as the first kids were now 25 yards from them, they heard the car’s engine start up. They all turned and ran back to the car. The kids let out a horrifying shriek and came after them.
Everyone was back in their cars and Shaw was ready to speed off. The kids were running straight for them, so Shaw gunned the engine and his face was white with fear and guilt.
“I hate to do this, I really do.” He closed his eyes and stomped the accelerator. The car lunged forward and the sickening sounds of the kid’s heads bouncing off the hood was sickening. Everyone in the car winced with the noise as the sounds of thuds and crunches as the car ran over the little bodies being thrown under the wheels reached their ears.
Shaw was looking straight ahead when they cleared the last of the kids. He was ashen and sweat was rolling down his forehead and it was weird for Priest to see Shaw like this.
With the amount of combatants Shaw had killed over the years while never batting an eye, to see him this shaken, let Priest know how much Shaw loved kids and this had really gotten to him. Hell, it had gotten to them all.