Clutch signaled to Kurt and Joe, and they took off at a sprint for the gas tanker truck. Clutch stood there, in plain sight, at the end of the bridge in the middle of the road. Bryce stood off to the side, more skittish.

Once Kurt and Joe both gave a thumbs-up that they were in position, Clutch waved his arms toward Griz’s team’s pontoon. They waved back, and went under the bridge to where they’d go ashore on the western bank.

“Hey!” Clutch shouted.

Several zeds toward the back of the group turned.

“Yeah, you! Come and get me, you dumb fucks!”

It was irresistible bait, and I wanted to run to Clutch and yank him away from danger. The zeds moaned as they changed direction to head back down the bridge toward Clutch. The West team crept up around the edges of the bridges and started pouring gasoline across the bridge, just like the East team had.

Clutch waved at the zeds and gave them the bird. “Come on, you slow shits!”

I had to remind myself to scan the entire area, not just the bridge, with the noise Clutch was making.

Behind me, the gas truck’s big engine started, and I turned to see Kurt pull the truck out and back it toward the bridge. Joe was on top of the tank holding the hose. When Kurt approached the bridge, Clutch stepped to the side with Bryce and held up his hand. Looking in the side mirror, Kurt stopped the truck.

Clutch and Bryce climbed up on the back of the HEMTT, and I could hear them take position around us.

“You’re up, Speedy,” Clutch said.

Jase held up a lighter. “I’m way ahead of you.” He got to his feet, climbed down from the HEMTT, and sprinted toward the bridge.

Movement in the tree line caused me to adjust my aim. I fired.

“Nice shot,” Bryce said after the lone zed fell.

While I continually scanned the landscape, out of the corner of my eye I saw Joe stand on top of the truck and started spraying gasoline over the incoming herd as the truck pulled slowly away from them. They continued until they reach the end of the bridge.

Joe waved frantically. “I can’t get the hose to turn off!”

The zeds were nearly to the truck.

“Leave it! Get out of there!” Clutch yelled, motioning them to us.

Joe continued to work with the hose and then finally tossed it away. Gas continued to spray out. With the engine still running, Kurt jumped just as Joe was climbing down the back. A zed grabbed Joe’s leg, but Kurt shot it several times until its gripped relaxed enough for Joe to tumble onto the ground. He regained his footing and took off at a sprint along with Kurt toward us.

As soon as Kurt and Joe passed Jase, he lit a small, weighted rag and tossed it onto the gasoline-soaked bridge. Fire erupted down the line, forming a wall of flames across the western end of the bridge. Jase ran back toward us and was back up on the HEMTT in a couple seconds flat.

Even though they weren’t smart, zeds tended to step back from fire. That was, if they weren’t preoccupied with trying to get to us. These zeds stepped right into the flame, like we were counting on. As each gas-soaked zed touched fire, it went up in a whoosh.

Garbled hisses came from deep within the flames. Human-like shapes writhed and moved in a macabre dance in the fire. The zeds that passed through the flames made it several feet, sometimes even more, before they finally collapsed into abstract, angled shapes as their bodies cooked and brains melted. Zeds smelled horrible, but barbequed zeds smelled even worse. Burning rot and flesh made my eyes water, and I swallowed back bile to keep from throwing up.

Clutch put a hand on my back. “Don’t look.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been staring.

Clutch and the others climbed down to dig up the ground to prevent the fire from spreading. As they frantically worked, I forced myself to scan for zeds coming at us from other directions. But my gaze kept going back to the charred zeds burning at the edges of the flames. Another memory to haunt my sleep.

We couldn’t see the flames spread from behind the wall of fire, but it didn’t take them long to reach the gas truck. A massive explosion blasted us and rocked the HEMTT. I clenched my eyes closed, but the heat nearly cooked us. My eyes watered and my cheeks felt seared, and I leaned my face against the cooler metal of the HEMTT. Once my tears slowed, I looked back up to the fire. Heat still tingled against my skin though we were a couple hundred feet away. Even when we were confident the zeds were all dead, we still had to wait until the flames died down before we could return to the Aurora. Not that we had any way of putting out the fire. We could grab buckets of water from the river, but it wouldn’t make a dent on the searing flames that hadn’t yet died down.

An hour passed, and the flames still didn’t die down, even though the bridge was made of steel and concrete. Dread filled my gut, and looking at each of the men up there with me, they were thinking the same thing. I didn’t understand all the science behind fire, but my lack of knowledge didn’t change the fact that the bridge was burning.

A screeching sound of bending metal made me jump to my feet. My mouth opened. I pointed, and yelled out, “Did you see that?”

Clutch’s jaw clenched. “I see it. The bridge is going to collapse.”

Chapter XXVI

 

There was nothing we could do as fire-tortured steel made horrendous cries. The northern edge of the bridge gave way first. When the arch’s cables snapped, the pavement curved before setting off a chain reaction of concrete and rebar porpoising down the bridge. An avalanche of fire, steel, and dusty concrete plummeted into the Mississippi with a sonic sizzle. Much of the bridge sunk, sending up waves down the river. Many huge chunks of debris still littered the surface and burned while the current grabbed at it.

“Oh, shit.” I could no longer watch for zeds. I stood and helplessly stared as the burning debris floated directly toward the Aurora. My hand flew to my heart and I clutched my shirt. My stomach churned as people ran out on the deck, screaming and shouting. When the first debris slammed into the towboat, I gasped. Someone fell off the edge and screamed the ten short feet down to the water, where the sound was abruptly cut off. As debris piled up against the boat, both it and its barges rocked.

The two barges that had been barely hanging onto the rest of the group broke away with a drawn-out metallic screech. Embers on the grain in barge Number Eight erupted into dark clouds of smoke.

I jumped off the back of the HEMTT before remembering to take a cursory scan for zeds. I stopped, found none, and ran up to Clutch, whom everyone had been gathering around. “What do we do?”

“They need our pontoons to speed up evacuation. Bryce, Kurt, and Joe, you’re with me on the pontoon to help with rescue at the Aurora.”

“How about me?” Jase asked.

He pointed to where I’d spent the last couple hours. “You and Cash need to keep this area clear of zeds, so Camp Fox can safely land. Make sure none of these grounded zeds can endanger people as they get to the dock.”

“Okay,” I said.

Clutch and the three other men took off running toward the woods and back to the pontoon. “Be safe,” I called out, but I had no idea if he’d heard me.

Griz’s pontoon was already in the water and halfway back to the Aurora, but they were having trouble zigzagging through the debris and kept having to back up and go for a different route.

I swapped my rifle for my machete and made a winding path through zeds on the ground. I stopped at each one that still had life in it and swung. Jase and I carved a path to the boat ramp in ten minutes. We spread out to make a wider path.

“Hey,” Jase called out. “Three tangoes at my eleven o’clock.”