Read Online The North: A Zombie Novel by Sean Cummings - Free Book Online Page A

dressed in a tattered police uniform slid off the front of the carrier and onto the ground. Doug tromped on the gas pedal, crushing the zombie beneath us.
    “Where the hell did
that
thing come from, Sid?” I shouted into the microphone.
    The radio squawked loudly in my earpiece and then Sid made a grunting sound. “It probably crawled across the hull to the front of the carrier when we stopped a few blocks back. I must have missed it. Hey, I see a clear path to the river, Dave. Do you see it?”
    “No – it’s pretty much obscured from where I’m at,” I shouted back. The vibration from the engine made my voice sound like I was a robot. “What have you got?”
    Sid was silent for a moment. I could hear the electric motor of the turret engaging the driving gear behind me, so I knew Sid was spinning left and right to get a clearer view.
    “If we keep going straight for another five hundred meters or so we’ll hit another green space that looks like it leads to the south side of the river. I can’t tell what’s past that – it’s all low ground, but I’m pretty sure there’s a railroad track down there. Does the map show anything in the low ground?”
    I tapped Doug on the head and told him to stop as I switched on a lamp and stared down at the map. I ran a shaking finger ahead of where I thought our position was to the green space Sid was talking about. The railway line cut right through the low ground, just as Sid said, but it was an area thick with woods and undergrowth. Also, the railroad track was a big obstacle for an eight-wheeled vehicle – each rail had to protrude a good five inches above the wooden railway ties, and there would be a sharp embankment on either side of the track.  Our vehicles’ independent suspension might get wrecked if we hit the tracks too hard, and there was also the possibility that we’d wind up with a flat tire.
    I peered through my periscope to get a real time view of the route ahead. Six months’ worth of uncut grass waved in the breeze and I could see countless pillars of smoke towering up into a blackened sky. Not a bird could be seen anywhere in the distance and I thought for a moment that if I popped open the hatch, the air itself would poison my lungs.
    I grabbed the radio handset and clicked the toggle. “Ark Two … how’s your field of view?”
    The radio hissed for a second and then I heard Cruze’s voice. “If you swing left, you’ll see the fourteenth street overpass. We can’t go through there – it’s filled with smashed-up cars.”
    “We’re just in front of Millennium Park. Can you see if there’s a way to cross over Sixth Avenue? If we get past that, we’ll avoid the train tracks and we can cruise along the river bank until we hit the spot to ford the carriers across.”
    “One sec,” she shouted back. The sound of the rumbling engine filled my ears and I glanced back over my shoulder to check on Jo. She was huddled in a corner against the back door with a poncho liner draped over her tiny frame, and she threw me a wide-eyed smile along with a big thumbs-up. I gave her one back, and then turned to look out my periscope again.
    The radio squawked. “Dave, just swing left and you’ll be directly in line with Sixth Avenue. From what I can see, it’s a hell of a mess of smashed cars, but I think we can push through.”
    Cruze’s view was better than mine. I tapped Doug Manybears on the shoulder and yelled into his ear. “Swing left and then straighten your wheels. Go slow as hell – we’re going to try to push through to Sixth Avenue. After that just follow my lead and we’ll be on the paths alongside the river.”
    His helmet bobbed up and down and the vehicle lurched forward. The smell of diesel and engine oil clung to my nostrils as I slid the periscope left and right, all the while keeping a sharp eye for obstacles that wouldn’t be in Doug’s field of vision. In minutes, my APC was crossing Sixth Avenue with the riverbank no more