Chapter 75 New Wheels

Chapter 75 New Wheels
Kira looked at me. "We only have four drivers who've handled something this size." "Derek makes five when we get back. And Ava." I held up the key sets. "Three trucks, six drivers between us, twenty-six people. It's tighter than the bus but it works." She did the math in her head. Nodded. "The zombies we killed on the way here," Ryan said. "That bought us a window. But the noise from the engines when we start these up—" "Will draw everything in a two-block radius," I said. "I know. We start all three at once, move fast, don't stop until we're back at the building. The cluster won't be able to sustain pursuit at our speed." He processed that. "Okay." We started the engines simultaneously. The sound was enormous in the quiet. Three large diesel engines turning over, catching, settling into their rumble — the kind of sound that didn't just draw attention, it announced itself to everything within half a kilometer. I was already moving before the first zombie appeared. They came from the east side first — a group of eighteen, the nearest cluster, drawn by the engine sound the way they were always drawn. They moved fast for standard class, which meant we had maybe ninety seconds before they reached the lot entrance. "Drive," I said into the radio we had taken from the police station armory. All three trucks rolled. I had the lead vehicle. Kira in the passenger seat, her hand on the door, watching the approach. The cluster was at the lot entrance when we hit it. I didn't stop. I accelerated. The truck's front bumper hit the nearest three at once. The impact was firm — I felt it through the frame, a solid resistance — but the truck didn't slow. The three zombies went down under the wheels and the truck rolled over them and kept going. Two more came at the passenger side. Kira's window was up. They hit the door and fell back. One of them grabbed the mirror — I felt the drag — and then let go. The road ahead was clear for two hundred meters. I kept the speed up. In the mirrors, Ryan's truck and Nathan's truck were both moving, both clear. No pursuit that could keep pace with us. "Clear," Kira said. "Back to base," I said into the radio. --- When we pulled up to the building, the group was waiting. Sophie had them at the door — not packed to leave, just ready, the weapons visible, the positions sensible. She had managed the wait well. She looked at the three trucks and then at me. "All three?" she said. "All three." She exhaled. Derek was already moving toward the second truck, running his eyes over the frame, checking the tires. He looked up at me after thirty seconds. "This one rides better than the other two," he said. "Take the medical supplies in this one. In case we need to stop in a hurry." I looked at him. "Good call," I said. He almost smiled. Then he went back to inspecting the tires. --- Loading took forty minutes. The weapons went in the rear truck, locked, accessible from the cab through the pass-through. The medical kit and water in Derek's truck, middle position. Supplies in the lead truck with me. Kira sat in the lead truck's passenger seat while loading happened. She wasn't resting — she was watching the street, tracking the zombie movement, making the constant low-level assessment she always made. But she was sitting, which was what she needed to be doing with three fractured ribs. Jade came to the truck window. "Can I ride with you two?" she asked. I looked at her. Then at Kira. Kira gave a small nod. "Yes," I said. Jade climbed in the back. She sat behind Kira, close enough to reach her if the healing ability was needed. She didn't say she was doing it for that reason. She didn't need to. Zhang Li came to my window before we moved out. "The dormitory girls," she said quietly. "The ones who haven't leveled yet. Cora especially — she's scared, but she's been holding it together. She's stronger than she looks." "I know," I said. "She's on the afternoon run list." Zhang Li nodded. Then: "Also. Last night. What you heard." I looked at her. Her expression was direct. She never danced around things. "Yuan Ying is looking for protection, not a person. You should know that going in." "I do," I said. "She's also not entirely wrong," Zhang Li said. "She just went about saying it badly." A pause. "She's been leveling faster than anyone except you. She's going to be important to this group whether she wants to be or not." "I know that too," I said. Zhang Li held my eyes for a moment. Then she nodded once, and went to load into Ryan's truck. --- We were on the road by midmorning. Three trucks, north on the perimeter road, looping wide around the commercial district to avoid the worst of the blockages. Derek had marked two alternates on the atlas. We took the first one — a residential bypass that added fifteen minutes but kept us clear of the jam at the main intersection. I drove in the lead. Kira watched the road. Jade sat behind us and looked out the window at the city going past. After a while Jade said: "Do you think Zhao made it?" Kira didn't answer. She was watching a cluster of zombies a block to the east that were moving the wrong way — not toward us, away from something else. Her attention was on that. I answered. "I don't know," I said. "Maybe some of them." Jade was quiet. "Marcus," she said. "He was annoying. But he wasn't—" "No," I said. "He wasn't." She looked out the window again. The trucks kept moving north. The highway on-ramp was three kilometers ahead. Beyond it, six hours of road and then Sacramento and whatever the government facility had built in eleven days of apocalypse. I needed it to be real. Not perfect — real. Functional infrastructure and generator power and a space where Thorne could work. The rifts were counting. We needed to be ready before they were done. The trucks moved north.