Bus Number 13
Disclaimer: I do not own Dawn of the dead, however, the characters and their story belongs to the author, me.
Chapter 2: Pit stop
They had been driving for few hours now; the dawn was slowly turning to day and the suburbs had turned in to more countryside. Gone were the nice looking duplexes, half-luxurious homes with pools and what not. Occasionally they would see a speeding car and a farm here and there but that's about it. It seemed pretty peaceful… Perhaps the army has made itself useful for a change? They had comfort in knowing that if you get bitten, you're a goner. Not much of a thought warmer but it still gave a change to possibly avoid any bitten people. They were as hazardous as the ones who had already perished.
Gordon was sitting on the bench right behind Alan; he was looking out of the window, thinking about his family and what happened to them. He had a weird feeling that his family was still alive. Yeah, that's right. They could have made it to somewhere safe. The National Guard might have secured the area just now. This would be over soon, only few hours, maybe days and he could return home, watching reruns of famous football matches on TV while his mother cooked. The thought made him smile. Goddamn Cleveland Browns for sucking.
He was brought to the real word when Alan yelled at him; ¨Gordon! We have a situation! ¨
¨Yeah, what's wrong? ¨ Gordon asked and adjusted his position on the seat.
Alan pointed at the gas meter. The gas tank was almost empty, and the nearest gas station could be miles away. He had no idea where to get more gas. Not to mention that gas stations could turn to death traps. Re-fueling a bus wasn't a quick job to do.
¨Fuck!¨ Alan said and punched the steering wheel. Think Alan, think!
Vanessa had noticed that there was a problem. She made her way towards the driver's seat. Gordon looked at her gracious figure while it passed him.
¨What's wrong? Don't bullshit me? ¨ She said. Alan was surprised by the cut-no-crap attitude Vanessa pulled.
¨We are running out of gas and we've got no idea where we could get more. We could try some of the houses we come across, but it would be pure gambling. ¨ Alan explained. He tried driving in a more steady way to preserve gas
¨Oh my god ¨ Vanessa said and pointed forwards.
Not far, maybe 100 meters away, there was a young girl standing on a bus stop, waving the bus to stop. Was it safe? What if there were those crazed out figures in the bushes just waiting for an opportunity? Or what if the girl was bitten and she would turn in to one of those things? But on the other hand, she would be completely defenceless if someone would attack her… The Samarian inside Alan decided to take the risk. He put on a lower gear and pulled next to the girl.
The bus stopped.
WOOSH! The door of the bus opened and the little girl stepped in. Alan guessed she was about eight to ten years old. She was wearing yellow rubber boots and a little jean jacket. Her blue eyes stared at Alan and her arm, holding a quarter straightened towards Alan.
¨Please sir, It's all I have.¨ The little girl said.
Alan looked at the others and said;
¨Hop in kid.¨
The little girl sat on one of the benches behind Alan. The girl seemed to be in a trance like state. She sat down and quietly stared out of the window. Alan switched the gear and kept driving. His eyes locked with Gordon's and he motioned her to come closer. Gordon took his time to stand up and walked next to Alan.
¨Try asking her where's the nearest gas station… Check for blood. I'm sorry, but I'm tossing her out if she's bitten.¨ Alan said to Gordon. He understood.
Gordon sat next to the girl and looked at her for a while. He then noticed that there was blood on the sleeve of the jacket. He pressed the stain, but it was dry. He tried to act calm and nice, yet you could heard from his voice that he was a bit scared. Not for himself, but for the little hitchhiker.
¨What happened to your jacket? Are you hurt?¨ Gordon asked. He was hoping for a no.
The girl was quiet for a moment, almost like considering what to answer.
¨Mommy said never talk to strangers¨ She said
Gordon smiled and stood up. He walked past Vanessa, who was now polishing her gun. She holstered the weapon and turned to Gordon.
¨Yes, what is it? ¨
¨Try asking that girl where is the nearest gas station…" Gordon replied. He was a bit ashamed how his attempt at questioning the girl turned out.
Vanessa made her way to the girl. She sat in the bench in front of her. The bus drove over a few bumps, making her attempt at looking calm and collected a bit less convincing.
"Do you like horses? I sure do, I used to have a pony when I was a little girl living in Utah… " She said, but the girl interrupted her. Her eyes lighted up.
"Really? I always wanted a pony but mommy never let me have one… I'm allergic or something." Girl said in a sad tone.
"Now that's sad… But I have to agree with your mother. Ponies are not that easy to take care off. By the way, where is your mother? You live around here?"
Girl pointed out of the window, towards a rather big farm. That must have been where the girl lived. Chances that there would be gas were pretty good… It was a huge farm.
"Is that your home?" Vanessa asked
The girl looked in the eyes of Vanessa and nodded. Vanessa turned to see if there were any signs of the living, but she saw something else on the yard of the house, in front of the big red barn.
There was a gas pump!
"Alan! I know where we can get ourselves some gas!" She yelled at the direction of the driver's seat. Alan turned around and saw Vanessa pointing out of the window. Alan looked to the left, there was a gas pump indeed! He smiled at Vanessa and turned left from the next intersection, taking them to the yard. He drove in front of the gas pump and noticed a quite large white house which had to be where the family had lived. Alan opened the door of the bus and stepped out. The fresh air of the countryside made him feel a little better. Everyone else on the bus hustled forward to listen to Alan.
"Alright, Vanessa and Gordon, go check the house while me and Stack are going to fill up the tank. Scott and Peter, guard the bus. If you see something non-human running somewhere, just honk. In that case everyone haul your asses back and we're leaving. Simple as that. We're not taking any chances." Alan quickly told them what to do and made his way towards the gas pump. Stack followed him, moving around like a bald Harry Callahan with his constant circling around with the handgun. Alan took the pump and injected it to a small hole on the side of the bus. Gallon meter started counting up numbers. He grinned.
Vanessa and Gordon now stood on the porch of the house. At first glance, everything was alright… But it was then when they noticed the door. It was covered in blood. They stepped in and creeped around like ninjas around the lobby. From the lobby they made their way towards the living room. The living room itself was in a horrible condition. The TV was broken; pieces of paper and furniture were all over the ground… nothing was where it should be. It was silent except for the weird sound coming out of the room to their left. It was the kitchen, they could tell because of the image that was on the door. A fork and a knife. The blood trail lead to the door. Gordon looked at Vanessa, motioning that he would enter.
He put his hand on the door knob and slowly opened the door. He saw a man on the dining table, one arm missing, his face still locked in a horrible shouting expression with glassed eyes staring towards the ceiling and a woman in her early 40's pulling out bloody intestines from the stomach. Under the table was a boy, approximately twelve years old, munching on a hand. Vanessa's boot hit the side of the door and the two deceased figures turned to the door in a split-second. The woman laid out a screech and started running towards them. Gordon quickly smacked the door shut and turned to Vanessa.
"We better not tell the girl about this."
He heard banging on the door, sound coming from the lower part of the door. Apparently the kid was trying to come through the door, with bad success. Gordon and Vanessa immediately thought of the same thing.
"How come the woman isn't doing that?" Vanessa formed their thoughts to words.
The answer was standing couple of meters away from them. The stood there, hissing. Her white sweater was partly covered in blood and she had one cheek missing. She was beautiful. At least in her previous life. The woman sprinted towards them but Gordon smacked a deadly blow with his lead pipe. Hitting the woman in the temple, her head made an almost 90 degree turn to the left. The woman fell and started twitching. It didn't take long for it to stop. The spinal cord was badly damaged from the hit.
"Nice going" Vanessa said In a slight shock.
Gordon just looked at the now permanently dead corpse of the woman. But now they had more trouble. Apparently the father of the family had turned, because they heard a man shout in the kitchen. There must had been an other door out of the kitchen since the woman had gotten out. But too late, the father and the son were already in the living room. The two figures noticed Vanessa and Gordon and started running in their direction. Gordon took a defying battle stance with his pitiful leadpipe while Vanessa started shooting at the man, hitting him few times in the chest before hitting a bullseye. The bullet went straight through the eye, bloody pulp coming out of the occiput. It crashed through the remains of a table. However, the boy kept running towards them and managed to take a good grip out of Vanessa's leg. Vanessa was terrified.
"Get it off! " Vanessa shouted. She didn't feel like shooting since she could have shot her own leg in the process. Gordon raised the lead pipe and smacked the boy few times in the head with the pipe. The boy let his grip loose, his skull shattered.
Gordon then made his way towards the kitchen. He remembered seeing something important in the kitchen. He had indeed, on the ground next to the table where the man had been laying was a pump action shotgun, with a whole box of ammunition next to it. It seemed that the father was reloading his gun while the rest of his family members attacked him. Unlucky man. Whether it was getting eaten or shooting his family, Gordon felt bad for him.
"Should we check upstairs? if The girl has any siblings alive… "Vanessa asked from Gordon
Gordon crouched next to the now permanently dead woman and ripped her necklace around the ghoul's throat. It was one of those necklaces which could be opened. Inside it were two pictures. One of a boy and one of a girl. Gordon knew the boy lay dead next to him and that the girl was quite possibly the only survivor of the family.
"No. Everyone else is dead."
Outside, Alan and Stack had filled ¾ of the tank. They had heard the struggle inside and they assumed that there had been figures inside the house. They faith in Vanessa and Gordon. They better be alright. They couldn't risk Alan getting attacked so Stack had to stay outside. Everything was peaceful outside though. The only sound they heard was the gallon meter racking up numbers. If only they had given value to other things, they had heard the birds sing and wind sweeping down the grassy fields. Unfortunately they weren't ready to appreciate these little miracles yet.
"This takes too much time. For Pete's sake, we don't know how many of them could be lurking around here" Alan said, he was nervous of the all the silence surrounding them. In reality, it wasn't silent. He noticed Vanessa and Gordon running out of the house. Gordon motioned Alan by nodding that the house was secure for now. Alan noticed the bloody handmarks on Vanessa's clothes.
"Was she bitten?" Alan asked
"No, but it was a close one though…Listen, about the girl. Her whole family is dead; we found a little boy and her mother and father inside. They had already changed…we had to kill them." Gordon said. Alan understood, but he knew that the little girl should not know that her family members are gone. If this would happen to him, he would have been crushed by the loss. The truth could wait for a while. He cleared his throat.
"Come on, let's check the barn. Vanessa, stay here with Gordon" Alan said. He had no particular reasons to investigate the barn house, but he felt that it should be checked.
Alan and Stack approached the big double doors of the barn. They pulled the doors open, hinges made a high pitched sound. It was rather dark in the barn, the only light came from the three small windows on the eastern wall. It was quiet. It was disturbingly quiet, it was one of those moment that in the movies when someone not relevant to the script was going to die. The barn was nearly empty; there was a tractor and a big pile of garbage for some odd reason.
"Ah shit!" Stack said as he had tripped in something.
While on the ground, he turned and realized that he had tripped on a human leg. Unfortunately, that was the only thing. Where was the corpse? Out of instinct he kicked the leg away quickly. The ants had already launched their own D-Day on the limp.
"Alan!" Stack quickly whispered
Alan turned to Stack and kneeled beside him.
"You hurt? Come on now, that couldn't have hurt." He said, trying to fetch a few laughs. He failed.
"No, it's not that. I think we might have someone lurking around here." Stack whispered quickly.
Alan felt something sting his nostrils. The stench was horrible. Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder! He turned around and saw… An old man. The man looked fresh, he had rather clean clothes and there were no hanging intestines or stuff like that. The old man was dead alright, Most of its neck was torn away, showing fragments of bone and dried blood. The old man's weight was enough to make Alan collapse on the ground. He struggled for his life, the old man had much greater power than it seemed. The creature had Alan's head pinned down, jaws closing in for a final bite. Alan closed his eyes, and wished for a quick death. He just would have wanted to see his daughters one more time. "Come on Alan, don't make such a coward" He could have heard his father say in his mind. That was the thing that made Alan realize that it wasn't his time to go. No, not yet. Alan quickly rolled and gave the zombie a headbutt. He reached for his revolver and BANG! The old man was dead, as it let loose of Alan. This whole event took maybe 10 seconds.
Alan stood up and looked at Stack.
"Feel free to step in any fucking time! The next time I see you chickening out I'm going to pistol whip your head all the way to Nevada." Alan nearly shouted at Stack. He was frustrated for the fact that he could have died. Everyone else would have too though.
"Why? You seemed to manage well" Stack said and smiled at him.
Alan laughed. Stack was such a comedian…
They walked out of the barn. Vanessa and Stack weren't filling up the tank anymore. They were ready to go. Gordon walked to Alan.
"Remember, her family wasn't here"
Alan understood and nodded at Gordon as a sign of an agreement.
WOOSH! The door of the bus opened and Alan sat on the driver's seat. He turned the keys in the ignition switch and the engine roared. To be honest, it wasn't a roar, more like a little snarling. But in his mind Alan pictured a huge animal yet to be named by science roaring at the lesser life forms.
Gordon sat next to Vanessa.
"What did you say to the girl?"
"I said that her family was gone, that they were probably at Fort Lawrence. She seemed to believe the story…" Vanessa said.
Alan noticed a single tear roll down on Vanessa's cheek. He gently wiped it away with his thumb.
"What's wrong?" Gordon asked. It was a quite stupid question, in world where dead people are coming back to life everything was wrong.
"I just realized that my own parents could be dead by now… My fiancé could be dead, my sister could be dead… God, I hope that they are safe." Vanessa said and bursted into tears. Alan noticed it but decided not to say anything. Gordon was there for her at the moment.
"Please don't cry…" Gordon tried to relax the young woman. He thought that it would be smart to make her think about other things…
"So how long have you been a cop?" Gordon asked
Vanessa wiped her eyes
"Two months ago I passed the academy. After that, I was working in New York and when I was patrolling with my partner, we noticed a young man mugging another man, so we decided to step in and help the man. The young man quickly ran away, and I yelled him to stop. Well, he didn't and I pulled out my gun. I shot him… A lethal shot. I got transferred here and now I'm working with Stack." She said.
Gordon didn't want to ask too much, so Vanessa wouldn't feel like he was being interrogated or anything like that. He noticed Scott sitting on the bench at the back of the bus. The man looked out of the window and seemed to be thinking something real hard.
"You ok?" Gordon asked
"Yeah… Just little shocked of the experience." Scott said. Gordon left the man alone, the worst thing that could happen besides ending up dead, was panicking in situations like this. On the other hand the little girl had been cheered up by the news that her family would be waiting for her at Fort Pastor. She was now playing cards with Stack. The girl must have had a pack of them with her. She seemed quite happy, as she kept winning Stack once again. Stack acted like he would have been so sad about his loss. He winked at Gordon.
Peter approached Alan.
"Listen… that was some nice stuff you made happen back at the farm." He complimented Alan and tapped his shoulder. Alan smiled.
They kept on going and after twenty minutes of driving, Alan noticed Smoke coming behind that small hill. It was normal that there were houses burning, as they had seen plenty of them. The only thing that wasn't normal was the automatic gunfire they heard. Alan accelerated and hoped that everything was ok there. What a wishful thought.
"Ready everything up! There is a change we are picking new passengers aboard!" Alan shouted behind him. Even though busses are slow, the bus seemed to accelerate fast enough. Alan hoped that they would arrive there before it was too late…
A/N: Chapter rewritten, read and review please! There might be few errors here and there but meh… enjoy!