This chapter introduces my current version of the "zombies", which are here called kudlaks. Here, they are much closer to the romero archetype than in my novel "Walking Dead", but I have retained a variation on the undead's vulnerability that I introduced in that book.
Rescue mission
Notwithstanding the obvious dangers, Carlos barreled toward the station center. The Bus's main controls were a yoke, more like an airplane stick than a conventional steering wheel, which controlled speed as well as steering. He dodged several abandoned cars and trucks, neither of which were Joe Weis's flatbed. His progress came entirely to a halt 4 km from the center. Here, a dirt road used by ranchers intersected the paved road, and a little satellite to the station center provided a paddock for exercising and inspecting livestock and a restaurant for the truck drivers who brought them. A truck had jacknifed as it turned left onto the asphalt, apparently while carrying a load of sheep. Two dozen of them now lurched about, and more were wandering in from the paddock. A large cluster jostle each other for bites out of a broken body of a driver who had been ejected through the windshield.
"Jonny!" he said. "Can you give me any recon?"
"Yes," Jonny anwered, sounding dazed. Images began to appear on a dashboard screen.
It was a satellite video feed of the town center, of quite poor quality. At irregular intervals, the video stopped, blurred or went entirely black. But it was enough. He could see the sprawling three-story infirmary on the northeast edge, intact but clearly uninhabited. Practically next door, a vehicle depot that held anbulances, buses and maintenance vehicles was in flames, with vehicles and fuel tanks exploding one by one. When the slow chain reaction reached the main refueling bay, an underground tank ignited, and a mushroom cloud of flame and smoke shot into the sky. The blast created a halo of secondary explosions, and the blast front of the combined explosions shattered winows, blew off shingles and fractured masonry all over the eastern side of town. An equal and opposite implosion did further damage. The general store had its roof torn off before the whole building looked at the time stamp. "This feed is on a five-minute lag," he said. "That's the blast we saw from the school!"
On the other side of the road from the general store was the company housing, two long, two-story apartment buildings with a lane running between them. It was clear at a glance that the inhabitants were beyond help. The few who had their own cars had managed to block the mouth of the lane with a pile-up. One building was in flames. The only life in evidence were scores of strangely indistinct figures that moved about in a slow, dragging walk. Most would call them zombies. Carlos knew them (or something very like them) as kudlaks, the Serbo-Croatian name for the feared undead.
"Zoom out, Jonny," Carlos said. The scope of the picture doubled. Three "satellites" to the station center became visible. One was the ranchers' stop, the fate of which was in no doubt. To the north, a third apartment building held the station center's own staff. It had been damaged by the blast, and the strangely slow human forms were lurching in and out of the smashed front doors. To the west, a cluster of three free-standing townhomes held 12 of the better-paid staff and their families. Two were clearly no longer inhabited, apart from the lurching kudlaks. The last was besieged by dozens of undead. Two of the units already had doors broken open, and the feed showed a third breached. Two shotgun blasts were fired from the last unit, but not one of the figures did more than stagger.
"All right, Jonny, that's where I want to go," Carlos said. There was a bump against the left passenger door, and another. Carlos looked out the door and saw a ram lunge forward to strike a glancing blow with its horns. "But first, I make some mutton."
The ram backed up unsteadily, clearly intent on a running start. Carlos opened a window and shot it in the forehead with a .22 round. Another sheep leaped up and almost caught the gun in its teeth. Carlos stood up and fired the .410 barrel downward. The sheep let out a bleat, but slammed against the door with enough force to shake the Bus. Then a hard jolt came from the right, followed by a steady pushing. A whole group of sheep were pushing from the right. The vehicle was much too sturdy for them to break through, but at only 700 kg, it would be quite easy to push over. Carlos did the only thing he could: Pulling back the steering yoke, he sent the Bus into reverse. The sheep fell over each other. One went under the wheels, giving Carlos a double jolt. Within 10 meters, the Bus rolled off the road. Carlos pushed the yoke forward to brake, and came to a stop with the Bus's right side facing the advancing sheep. He withdrew to the back, where boxes of ammunition were ready, and threw open the sliding door.
A ram charged, after a fashion, bounding like a rabbit in slow motion. He caught it in the side of its head, and it fell while still thrashing. He fired the .22 at a ewe lurching slightly faster than the general mass of sheep. The round struck the ewe in the ribs, and she fell with a strangled bleat and a spray of blood. Carlos reloaded and fired three more times before the sheep reached him. He slammed the door on the head of a sheep that had survived a .410 blast, then dispatched it with a blow from a rock hammer. Once again, a wall of red-streaked fleece pushed and piled up against the van. Sheep beat themselves senseless, or pushed till they were smothered. Carlos continued to fire, until the vehicle tilted enough to pitch him against the wall. He returned to the driver's seat and drove forward, rolling across the road and past the truck while the sheep stumbled over each other. A ram hurled itself at the Bus, only to split its head against the fuel tank.
Carlos glanced at the video feed. The things that had been men were already pushing at the door of the remaining unit. One of them lost an arm to a shotgun blast. Blood and assorted gore spattered everywhere, but there was none of the gushing and spurting to be expected from a living heart. A second blast tore off the top of another creature's head. It fell, but promptly got back up. "No," Carlos muttered, "it has to be the back of the head."
He steered toward the lane, where a column of kudlaks ambled fom the company barracks toward the townhomes. He pulled back the stick to shoot an undead woman low in the back of her skull, at the spot known to anatomists as the occipital condyle. The tightly packed shot of the .410 shredded the hind brain, which controlled the major functions of the body, and severed the spinal cord. It fell in an istant, inert save for a convulsive thrashing of the body. Carlos then slowed still more and fired the .22 barrel into the ear of another kudlak. It did not die, but staggered and fell, its organs of balance destroyed, and failed in every attempt to get up, while others walked by or over it indifferently.
Carlos ran over three kudlaks as he steered onto the road, and moments later plowed through a dozen as he entered the townhome parking lot. He honked his horn, and threw a stick of dynamite out the window. Two hapless kudlaks were torn to pieces. Many more fell, either blown off their feet or massively disoriented by trauma to the inner ear. He blasted one of the few still standing with the .410. Then he began driving in circles, running over fallen kudlaks. Finally, he drove onto the sidewalk, straight for the besieged unit.
A dozen gathered kudlaks fell at the blast of another stick of dynamite. The door was caved in, but there was still some hope; the townhomes did have basements. He threw open the Bus door, paused to shoot a kudlak that tried to bite his ankle, then ran inside. Three kudlaks were inside. He took one with a .410 shell, and punctured the ear of another with the point of his rock hammer. The last he struck in the forehead with the heavy, blunt end of the hammer. Its skull split, and it went down immediately.
Two more kudlaks were scratching at a cellar door. He shot both from the top of the stairs. He rushed down and used a .410 slug (actually a .45 pitol round) to shoot out the lock. He looked inside, and his shoulders sank. The occupants were a family of four. The man of the house, defending himself and his family with a double-barreled 12-gauge, had used his last four shells on his children, his wife and himself.