Tanked Read online

  Battle Born by Five Finger Death Punch started playing through the iPod that was hooked up to the truck and he turned the volume up. No reason to not enjoy a good song while he waited. Rocking out to his music, he was unaware of the screams that rose in the night. When people began to pile out of their vehicles and run back the other way, he realized something was going on. Turning the music down, he heard what he’d missed before. Between the vehicles up ahead, he caught his second glimpse of what he now knew was the dead come back to life. There were a dozen or so of them shambling toward him. Judging by the bodies lying on the ground with undead feeding on them, it seemed that people hadn’t initially known what these things were.

  No, shit, Allen thought. Like maybe the walking dead person coming toward me doesn’t just want a hug. It wants to eat my face.

  As Allen watched the bleeding, bruised, and sometimes disfigured undead stumbling toward him, he couldn’t help but wonder how this had all started. A virus? A government weapon? A science accident? A contaminated burger? Created by the Lich King?

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now. It is what it is,” Allen said to himself.

  He calmly turned his truck, veering through the lane of oncoming traffic, and pulled onto the sidewalk north of the road. People scrambled to get out of the way and he felt a little sorry for them at first, but then he realized he didn’t really care. He would survive this night and if scaring people out of the way was the worst he had to do, he was off to a good start. The undead didn’t seem to understand that a large vehicle bearing down on them meant danger, so when he arrived at a small cluster that had veered off from the larger group, he sped up.

  The undead slammed into the brush guard on the front of his truck, their bones breaking and blood spurting from their bodies. Oddly, as he ran them over they felt just like squishy speed bumps and they even managed to slow his momentum. After his tires popped the last one’s head like a pumpkin, he was past them and in the clear. He had to weave through a small cluster of abandoned vehicles in the middle of the road, but when he reached the other side, he slowed the truck in awe.

  Before him lay carnage like none he’d ever seen before. The whole intersection was littered with bodies, undead, and vehicles. It looked like the apocalypse had just swept through the street, leaving it in shambles. How had it happened so quickly here but not in other places? As he gazed around, he noticed something on the ground in front of his truck. It was yellow tape with black letters printed on it—Police Line Do Not Cross.

  A few of the undead stumbled toward him, attracted to the movement of his truck, no doubt. Most, however, were preoccupied with their fresh meals and other running vehicles scattered around the street.

  “I need to get out of town, now,” Allen said, “and I should probably stop talkin’ to myself.”

  Stepping on the gas, he ran over an undead that had strayed too close. The thing made a crunching sound and he barked out a laugh while flinching at the same time. It was as humorous as it was just plain wrong. He’d just run over what had once been a person—a living human being. He wasn’t heartless, like some thought he was, and running over someone, whatever state they were in, was something that seemed deeply wrong to him. But that didn’t stop him from running over the next one that wandered into his path. He would survive this night, even if it cost him a small piece of his humanity.

  Headlights flashed in his rearview mirror and he glanced back, noticing that another vehicle was following him. He was paving the way for other survivors brave enough to follow into this disaster. Flashing his hazard lights twice, the vehicle, a green Ford Ranger, flashed its brights twice in response.

  Allen smiled. “Looks like I have the start of a caravan.”

  He continued down Drake, heading to Timberline. Once there, he’d take a right on Prospect and be past the worst of it and well on his way to I-25. His little caravan was making decent time. There seemed to be more people and less undead now that he’d gotten past the last intersection. Quite a few people with backpacks and bags were walking along the street, heading east. Some were even heading back into town.

  Arriving at Timberline he turned left, heading north.

  “Damn,” Allen mumbled.

  He’d figured the past mile had been too easy. Timberline was packed with people trying to head north, and there was just enough traffic in the other lane to make it too risky to try and swim against the current. Only just making it past the intersection, he slowed to a stop with the rest of the traffic. A husband and wife were walking alongside his truck with a little girl between them. The husband looked at him and nodded. Allen nodded back. The small family continued on.

  He couldn’t even begin to imagine having a family in this situation—a wife and children to look after. How would he feel if his wife or child was bitten? How would he go on without them? For once in his life, he was glad he was a bachelor.

  “Although it’s gonna be a lonely trip north,” he said, “it’d be nice to have company… Ah, who am I kiddin’? As long as I have my music, I don’t need anyone slowin’ me down.”

  There I go again, Allen thought, talkin’ to myself like a crazy person.

  Glancing back, he noticed that the same Ranger was still behind him. It looked like there were four people crammed into the small truck—two men and two women. At least he still had his caravan. Inch by miserable inch, the line of vehicles slowly moved forward at a snail’s pace. After taking another ten minutes to make it only a half a mile, Allen was tempted to drive into the other lane since it seemed that the oncoming traffic had stopped a few minutes ago. But it was a good thing he didn’t because suddenly a vehicle sped down the street, heading back into town. A man was yelling frantically out the window as he drove by.

  “Turn around! There’s a quarantine zone at Prospect! Turn around!”

  The man passed Allen and drove on, yelling the whole time. Soon a cop car sped by in pursuit of the vehicle. A quarantine zone? That didn’t sound good. In all the movies, that usually meant they were checking people to see if they were infected and disposing of them. Or taking people to a “secure location.”

  “Well, hell,” Allen said. “This just keeps gettin’ worse and worse.”

  Pulling out of traffic, he flipped a U-turn, heading south back to Drake. The bald man driving the Ranger nodded to him as he passed and turned around, following behind. Arriving at Drake in a fraction of the time, he turned west, heading for Lemay. He would take Lemay north to Country Club Road, go around Long Pond Reservoir, turn north on Turnberry, and finally take Mountain Vista to the interstate. Or he would make a detour to the Budweiser Brewery and get a beer or two. Considering that it was the end of the world, they probably wouldn’t even card him.

  He made it onto Lemay and north of Prospect before his plan began to fall apart. Slowing, he cursed.

  Up ahead, just past Riverside Avenue, there were train cars sitting on the tracks and a roadblock with flashing lights. A large white pavilion sat off to the side with armed men standing around it. A woman was walking down the street toward him in a hurry. She looked to be in her mid-thirties with long black hair and a frantic expression on her face. Walking right up to his window, she held her hands up, showing him they were empty. Why she felt the need to do that, Allen didn’t know, but it didn’t bode well for how things were developing.

  “You don’t want to go that way,” she said hysterically as she stopped next to him.

  “And why is that?” Allen asked.

  “They’re not letting anyone pass. They keep telling people to return to their homes, that the situation will soon be under control.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The government, I think, but if you try and leave, they’ll shoot you. I just watched them shoot my neighbors!”

  Allen sighed. “Okay. Thanks for the heads up.”

  She nodded stiffly and moved on as Allen turned his truck around and headed back south, the Ranger following. What made those people decide that f
ollowing him was a good idea was beyond him. It did, however, make him feel better knowing he had others with him, even if they were strangers.

  If all the roads heading to the interstate were blocked, he would need to try a different approach. Maybe he could sneak out through Laporte, head north on US-287 and then worry about getting onto I-25 in Wyoming.

  Arriving at Prospect, he turned west, this lane being almost completely clear. Who would want to go back into the center of town, right? The Ranger continued to follow him. Before he knew it, he was on the other side of town, only having to pass through two more “undead zones,” as he called them. Turning north on Overland Trail, he let out a pent-up breath. He’d made it out of the worst of it.

  In the distance to the north, a crowd of people had gathered in the middle of the road and were walking toward him. No, those weren’t people, but undead. And there was a shit ton of them!

  He cursed. There were way too many to try and break through, and he was tired of this damn wild goose chase to get out of town. So, if he couldn’t go through them and didn’t want to try and find another way around, what could he do? The obvious choice made him laugh.

  “That’ll work.”

  Flipping what seemed like his hundredth U-turn of the night, he headed back south on Overland Trail. In the darkness of night, his hiding spot was completely invisible. It would be the perfect place to hang out for a few hours and let the horde pass. There wouldn’t be anyone in the place since it had been closed down for a few years now. Turning to the right, he entered the driveway to Hughes Stadium and pulled around to the back side of the stadium complex, completely hidden from the horde. His truck slowed to a stop and he shut it off, sitting in the darkness as the Ranger pulled up behind him.

  Allen grabbed Frostmourne and a flashlight and jumped out of his truck. It was time to meet the other people in his group. Walking to the back, he waited for the others to get out of the Ranger. Movement in the darkness toward the stadium made him shine his light in that direction. A group of a dozen survivors stood there, weapons pointed at him. He cursed, realizing too late that other people might’ve seen this as an ideal place to hide.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked a pouty brunette with soft features. “You’ll bring all the zombies right to us!”

  “Calm down, sister,” Allen responded, lowering Frostmourne so he seemed less threatening. “I was far enough away that they didn’t see me, and even if they did, they’re not smart enough to hunt us.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “Trust me, these things are stupid. They don’t even try and get out of the way when you run ‘em over.”

  “Who are those people with you?” asked a man with long blonde hair. He held an AR-15 of some sort and looked to be in charge.

  “Not sure. We haven’t really met yet.”

  The four people in the Ranger finally came around to the back of their vehicle, hands in the air.

  “We want no trouble,” said a bald-headed, tanned-skinned man, who’d been driving.

  “Good, because neither do we,” said the blonde-haired man.

  He lowered his rifle and motioned for the others to do the same. Now that Allen could look beyond the possibility of being shot, he noticed that only half of the group had guns. The rest were armed with melee weapons. And he could see more people at the edge of the light.

  “We need to get back inside. We’re exposed out here,” said the blonde-haired man.

  “Good idea,” Allen said and then thought. This guy actually knows what he’s doin’.

  The blonde-haired man smiled, walking over to him and offering a hand. “The name’s Garett. What’s yours?”

  Allen almost responded instinctively, but something stopped him. This was the end of the world but the beginning of something new—a new adventure, a new life, a new start. He’d never liked his name much or the life he’d been living lately. And if the world was truly ending, what did it matter anyway? He could call himself whatever he wanted to.

  “Call me Tank.”

  Part 2

  Escaping FoCo

  “It’s been four days and we’ve done nothing!” Tank exclaimed. “If we don’t make a move today, I’ll be leavin’ alone. I’m not gonna stick around here ‘til I die!”

  “Look,” Garett said, “I understand you’re frustrated, but they told us to hold tight. We don’t even know what’s going on or how bad it is. It’ll endanger everyone if we go out now!”

  “We’re endangering ‘em sittin’ here with our thumbs up our asses!” Tank exclaimed.

  He looked out the windows at the back of the press box to check on his truck sitting outside below them. Having spent the last few days with strangers, he realized he had some trust issues. He’d already caught two of them trying to make off with some of his weapons. And that was after he’d already given them three of his swords. Granted, they were crap and he’d told them as much, but still, they’d wanted them.

  “Here’s the deal,” Tank said, turning back to Garett. He liked the guy, because Garett reminded him of the brothers, but he was being overly cautious and it would be the death of them. “I know you don’t want people to die, but they’re gonna. One way or another all of us are gonna bite the big one—whether it’s today, cowerin’ in this stadium, or fightin’ out there on the streets or somewhere out on the road, givin’ our lives for somethin’ bigger. I don’t know how or when, and neither do you, but we have to move this afternoon or we won’t make it long. You know as well as I that the undead are growin’ in numbers. It’s only a matter of time before they stumble by here. Then, we’re screwed.”

  He watched Garett’s face in the sunlight streaming in through the windows. The whole place smelled like fear, it practically emanated off the forty-some people crammed into the small room. The enclosed press box sat on the top row of seats on the back side of Hughes Stadium. Even though the stadium sat on the outskirts of Fort Collins, none dared go outside, which spoke volumes about how scared these people were.

  The more Tank studied Garett’s face, the more he realized he had no clue on how to read the man, who was always calm and collected. “Whatever you decide, you have ‘til this afternoon,” Tank said, turning to the door leading outside. “Then I leave, with or without you.”

  He exited the press box, grabbing Frostmourne on the way out, before anyone could respond. Taking the stairs down the back side of the stadium, he walked to his truck. Inside, he turned on some music and rested his head against the seat. Daylight Dies by Killswitch Engage played through the speakers and he let himself relax. The song perfectly summed up how he was feeling and how the world was falling apart.

  Why was he even staying with these damn people? He could’ve left three days ago after the horde had passed by that first night or the next morning when it was light out. But he’d decided to stick around. Now he wasn’t so sure it’d been the best choice. The first day after spending the night at the stadium, an emergency broadcast had told everyone to stay where they were. They were bringing in the National Guard, and they even went so far as to say that they’d have everything cleaned up in a couple of days. The worst part was, he’d believed them. Or at least he’d wanted to, and it’d been enough to convince him to stay around that first and second day. Then, yesterday morning, the radio station was offline and never came back on. He’d given it a day and now it was time to get out while he still could. The only problem was the hordes of undead. He would like to leave with the group because they would have strength in numbers. But he’d leave today, one way or another. And who knew? Maybe he’d be better off on his own. He dozed off in his truck with the music playing.

  Tank woke up as something smacked against his window. Opening his eyes, he glanced out, and it looked like one of the survivors was knocking on his window. As his eyes focused he realized that wasn’t it at all. There was an undead trying to get in. He quickly glanced around. There were a dozen other undead meandering around
behind the stadium.

  “What the hell?” Tank said.

  He glanced up at the sky and noticed the sun was high, so it’d be early afternoon. He’d only fallen asleep for a few hours and now everything was coming apart. Great. Looking around again, he noticed that there were fourteen undead now with a few more walking around each side of the stadium. Luckily, only a couple were coming towards his truck.

  Grabbing Frostmourne from the passenger seat, he made sure his 1911 handgun was tucked into the holster on his hip. Quickly, he slammed open his door, knocking the undead to the ground. He jumped out and brought his sword down into its skull, punching right through bone and entering the dirt beneath. He pulled the blade out, covered in blood and brain matter. This was the first undead he'd seen up close and killed. The ones with the truck were different; this one was more personal. Was it weird that he wanted to laugh at the same time he was feeling such disgust? Probably, but he’d always known he was a little odd. He shut the door to his truck and took off towards the stairs leading up to the press box. There were three undead in his way and more were coming at him from each side now that they'd seen movement.

  He arrived at the first one and swung Frostmourne at its head. The blade smacked against bone, but instead of slicing, it bashed its head in. It fell to the ground sporting a shattered skull. The next one came at him and he stabbed it through the eye. He pulled the blade out as the undead fell to the ground. It was a lot more effective to stab than slash, although it took more strength and was awkward. The four coming at him from the sides were still far enough away, so he just had one more between him and the stairs. This one stumbled at him, and he swung, bashing it across the knees. The undead fell to the ground and he stabbed his blade into the back of its head. Quickly, he jerked the blade out and ran the rest of the way to the stairs.

  Climbing to the first landing, he looked down. Sixteen undead were below, heading towards the stairs. He hoped that they wouldn't be able to climb, but even if they did, it’d take them a while to get up all eight landings as he didn't think they’d have the coordination to take them quickly. He burst through the door into the press box, bloodied sword in hand and gore speckling the front of his shirt.