Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Simpson, A. (new books to read .txt) 📖

Jessie gripped his forehead and squeezed. He had to write her off. She was going to get herself killed. So long, little lady. You should have stuck with me.

Right his inner voice laughed. Run away and get your little painting. Talk about a suicide mission with no payoff. Do you really think you’ll be coming back? A city of millions and you’re going to walk right in and take it? Meanwhile, why don’t you turn your back on someone who looks up to you, thinks you’re one of the good guys, doesn’t shy away when she looks at your face. Wave goodbye in the rearview as she marches off to her death. I know you don’t care about yourself, you don’t care if you get killed but you’re really going to let her die, too? For no reason?

“What?” Jessie said. Natty had a hand on his arm and was asking him something.

“It’s okay.” She said. “I know you have to go. We’ll figure something out.”

He stopped squeezing his forehead, the maniacal laughing voice of the monster in his head was fading but the wolf stared at him. It didn’t pace or snarl like it sometimes did, it simply stared. All eyes were on them and he could see careful hope in some of them. The ones that believed Bastille’s stories. The ones that believed he was still the Road Angel.

Jessie studied the large drawings and hand carved pieces laid out on the conference table. They’d been getting things ready for a week and tomorrow was the day. They were going over the plan one last time, looking for anything that might screw up everything. The drawings weren’t to scale but to the best recollection of everyone the roads, bridges and buildings were accurate. Even the model of the hospital with the entrances and delivery doors plainly marked. Their nurse, who had been a nurse’s aide in an old folk’s home before the fall, had been in it a few times. She knew where the dispensary was and the best route in. Solomon, one of the Amish farmers that was quick with a whittle knife, had made little figures representing every person on the raid team and the vehicles they would be using. They had come up with a decent plan that involved subterfuge, stealth and a big distraction.

The hospital was in the middle of a town that was across the river and some fifteen miles away. Too close to drive straight back. If ten thousand shamblers showed up in a few weeks they wouldn’t be able to kill them fast enough before they were overrun. When he’d asked them why they didn’t hit an easier target, a pharmacy perhaps, Miles told him they’d tried but those were in the center of towns, too. In the two they’d hit, all the good medicines were in the safe, locked up tight. The hospital was open 24 hours, they were betting their safe was open. If it wasn’t, there would be a large selection of alternate meds that could be used.

Jessie had gone down river in a canoe to a marina and found a rich man’s sailboat. It was a little big for the Hudson, a little overkill, but it would haul a lot of weight without getting tippy. He slipped back up to a railroad bridge that crossed a feeder creek less than a mile from the hospital. He tied off then used the canoe to get back to the island. Their quietest trucks were gasoline powered and still ran fairly good even though they occasionally stumbled, sometimes died, from the degraded gas. They were armored with bars over the windows and steel bolted to the bumpers. Everything was cut with hacksaws and drilled by hand, they didn’t have a welder or torches, but they were solid.

“Okay.” Jessie said, looked up at the gathered men and women and moved his marker as he spoke.

“Plan A. We’ll assume the hospital is chock full of the undead. Everyone went there when they started getting sick and as soon as the power went out, the zeds would have been trapped by the sliding doors. They’ll be day one zombies. Hundreds of them. As soon as the first one spots you, it’ll start that godawful keening they do and the rest will come running. I’ll go in loud and proud with the Merc. We’ll be blasting music and Natalie will be on the machine gun thinning their numbers. We go straight into town, circle the hospital, and maybe shoot out some of the windows on the far side to get their attention. After that, we try to clear the streets for you, lead as many as we can away from the river. That’s our job. Wallace, you’re up.”

Sergeant Wallace stepped forward and moved her four carved wood pieces on the map.

“My fire team comes in five minutes after you. We stay quiet and get to the hospital unnoticed. Your guns and music should have pulled any of the dead inside to the other side of the building. We back our pickup truck in here.” She indicated the loading dock. “We have sledgehammers and wrecking bars to break open the door if necessary but if it had keycard entry and a magnetic lock, it should open right up. We secure the area without using our guns.”

“Steyer.” Jessie said and the other patrol sergeant stepped forward to move his pieces into position as he spoke.

“We’re the second and third trucks and we back into any open docks next to Wallace.” He said. “My team assists with the plywood and nail guns, we fall in behind fire team Wallace and secure all doors between the docks and pharmacy with said plywood. When that phase is completed, half of us will start collecting everything on the list Nurse Bell has given us from the pharmacy and the other half get the monitors and other equipment she wanted. Top to bottom in order of importance. She