Free Snareville by David Youngquist Page B

to the tire-and-lube center unlocked, so we could get in and out in a hurry. We'd barricaded and chained the front doors of the main building long ago. Now it sounded like someone wanted to open those doors the hard way. No telling what we might run into out there.
    Rounding the corner, we saw them. There stood a group of scavengers. A group of bad scavengers, from the looks of them. I saw an open-top Jeep, an old pickup with hog panel wiring welded over the windows, and an old Cavalier. Ten people argued in front of the doors, decked out in the best of the post-apocalyptic look: leather vests, chains, shaved heads, heavy makeup, lots of tattoos. A bunch of Mad Max wannabes.
    They were too involved in the argument over the failure of their little joke of a bomb to pay us any attention, so I had my five armored pickups roll into position behind them. None of the group even looked our way. They probably didn’t hear us. Explosions tend to make one a bit deaf for a little while, and my trucks still had the stock exhaust on them. I don’t like to draw any extra attention to my crew when we pull a raid.
    Finally, though, I had Bill blow the horn. That got their attention. They turned to find themselves looking down the barrel of my AR-15.
    “ You folks realize that little blast just alerted every Zed on this side of town?” I asked. “Now we’ve all got about ten minutes before they find their way into the lot.”
    “ Hey, look,” said one of them. “It’s Jerry Garcia.”
    “ Naw,” another replied. “Too young. He’s a blonde Tommy Chong.”
    “ Chong’s old, too. He looks like Garcia.”
    Another argument began. I was wrong about this crew. Less Mad Max and more Beavis and Butthead.
    “ Boys,” I broke in, “we either gotta leave now or move faster before the deaders come for dinner.”
    “ We’re not boys. We’re Bone Crushers. Watch your mouth, asshole. I’m Worm. This’s my crew.”
    The leader sported a sky-blue Mohawk that stood up tall from the top of his head. War paint covered his face, and his outfit, like those of the others in his bunch, was made up of chains and leather. I supposed he probably scared the hell out of some types of people.
    “ Worm, is it? You name yourself after your dick or your IQ?”
    He bristled. “Nobody talks to me that way! Now you're gonna die, and we're gonna take that pretty truck of yours!”
    Yeah, he was dumber than I thought.
    I slapped the roof of my truck. Twenty-five Raiders stepped from the cabs, all armed with AR-15s stoked with thirty-round mags.
    “ Do I have your attention now?” I asked.
    Worm just nodded.
    “ Now, as I was saying, we’re down to about eight minutes before the Zeds come to investigate. We work together, or we leave.”
    Out of necessity, an agreement was reached.
    We pulled around back to the shop area. We backed in two of my trucks, plus Worm’s old pickup and Jeep. A few guys set up a perimeter outside. Ten of my crew members disappeared inside the store to do our shopping. Five of Worm’s groupies did the same. The rest of us stayed outside to man our positions.
    It wasn’t long—five minutes, by my watch—when the first Zed stumbled around the corner. I dropped her with a head shot that splattered her black brains all over the blue wall.
    More corpses followed. My crew and I had made this run a couple times, and we didn't have too many problems. But we'd done it quiet. This time, Worm and his crew drew way too much attention.
    Before long, the Zeds converged on the parking lot from all directions south and west. My crew is trained for disciplined fire. We only take head shots, and only when the deaders are in range. One hundred yards or closer. Worm's ragtag bunch of scavengers, on the other hand, just threw a bunch of lead downrange and hoped they hit something. Pretty soon, a hundred or better deaders were stumbling our way.
    After five minutes of holding them off, I ran into the shop to see how far along we were. Not far