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Texas Zombie Reporter: Tales of the Rio Grande	By : TheByronicMan Category: M through R > Newsflesh (trilogy) > Newsflesh (trilogy) Views: 1097 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Newsflesh Trilogy or any of the related published works. I do not make any money from this story. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or living dead is coincidental.

Chapter List
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I sat and watched the clock count down past five minutes. I had been planning this for some time, since well before I knew I would have the chance to do it. Bobbie had cajoled a friend of hers into setting up a simulation and over the course of months I ran it repeatedly, adjusting the variables over a wide range. I found a deserted road that roughly approximated the terrain I now saw before me, minus the tunnel of course, and practiced until I had to replace all six of the very expensive tires on my LAV. I was confident I could perform the necessary maneuvers, and do them on the schedule I had set for myself.
The reason for going to all this trouble is that I wanted to do a live show for my fans, and not have it turn out to be a legendary failure. And this was one of the few places I could be sure of finding large numbers of infected at a predictable location, at a predictable time, and standing on a road. I've got a handful of premium subscribers who follow the live feed whenever I'm in the field, but I really wanted a larger audience to have that same experience.
The countdown approached zero, and the hit counter approached 2500. I ran through the final checks with Bobbie. Viewers could choose between six cameras or split-screen any combination of up to all of them. There would be four fixed views from the LAV, forward, rear, left, and right. Bobbie would be operating one tracking camera. And there was the one I had left with Anna. I wished I'd had a way to set one up with a view of the other end of the tunnel.
The timer hit zero and my microphone went live.
“Hello to all of my viewers, and thank you for joining me for this special live event. Today you get to watch me do something really stupid as I test whether or not the unstoppable force can penetrate the immovable object. In the tunnel ahead waits a zombie pack of undetermined size and composition. Wrapped around me is sixteen tons of steel. I really want to see what is at the other end of that tunnel. I think I'll go take a look.”
With that I started driving, smoothly accelerating to 50mph. Once I got closer to the tunnel, I turned on the front-mounted floodlights, getting my first good view of the occupants. Somewhere around twenty human infected, at least that many deer, even more coyotes and javelina, and three horses or donkeys, hard to tell at this distance. Good, too many of the larger animals would have slowed me down too much, maybe even enough that I would end up with a few passengers hanging on, which could be a problem. The push of a button started magnesium flares spewing to either side as I plowed through the infected. The LAV shuddered as it struck a horse and a donkey just before exiting the tunnel.
I wrenched the transmission into second gear, turning hard to the left. The poor state of the road surface helped for a change, aiding more than fighting my attempt to go into a fishtail. I found myself sliding sideways down the road for an instant before rotational inertia completed the 180 degree spin. It wasn't exactly a textbook bootlegger reverse, I was now moving backwards, but the LAV's powerful engine brought me to a stop and put me into forward motion again. It was uphill this time, and I had a shorter run up to the tunnel, limiting my speed. I could not accurately count the number of infected I had flung aside or run over, but the flares I had dropped along the sides of the tunnel had driven the survivors to line up in the center for my second run. Those flares also helped illuminate them better than my floodlights alone could do, especially since one of the larger deer had gone over the LAV and smashed one of them. As best as I could tell I had taken out better than half of the pack.
I re-entered the tunnel. Going slower, I could see each infected as I hit. Humans, deer, javelina, and coyotes were left littering the road behind me. One young female infected managed to cling to the front of the LAV for a few seconds before falling under the tires. I swerved to clip the last standing donkey on the way through, sending it slamming into the wall. Exiting the tunnel again, I quickly executed another bootlegger reverse. The uphill slope helped me stop sooner, and heading back downhill got me up to speed faster. My third run through the tunnel was met by just a handful of remaining infected, and I ran those few down easily before passing through into the sunlight once again. Swerving to the left one more time, I slid to a tolerable t-stop.
“Once again, I'd like to thank everyone for joining me, especially my loyal subscribers who made this possible. I hope y'all enjoyed it as much as I did. Once the video of this little experiment has been professionally honed and polished, everyone will receive a complimentary copy along with a bonus file, unavailable to anyone else, containing all of the raw video. As a more immediate bonus, anyone who cares to stay with me will be able to keep watching the camera feed until my next stop. I can't promise you'll see much except for some spectacular scenery, but you never know. Thank you again.”
After signing off, I called Anna. “Okay you can join me now, but try not to run over any flares, they'd do ugly things to your tires.”
“I already figured that out, thank you very much. And I'm already on my way. How in the hell did you manage to get blood on the tunnel ceiling?”
“When you hit something squishy with a 16-ton hammer, it's going to splash a bit,” I pointed out.
“It's dripping on my windshield. Ew.”
“Don't worry, Rob's Traveling Car Wash will soon be open for business. Just pull up along side the LAV and sit tight.”
I hit the power take off for the pressure washer, then went into the back. After putting on a disposable rain suit, face shield, and turnout boots, I grabbed the stepladder and stepped outside. I picked up the sprayer and cleaned off one side of the LAV, then got on the ladder to clear a section of the roof. Then I climbed on top and started working on the rest of the roof. It wasn't as bad as I had expected, mostly drips and splatters, just one long smear where the deer had gone over. Anna pulled up, and I cleaned off the parts of her Ford that I could see from my perch. That went quickly, and I motioned her to turn around so I could get the rest. That done, I gestured for her to pull away and went back to cleaning the LAV. The roof, back, and sides were fairly easy. When I got to the front, I remembered something Bobbie had requested. She wanted me come up with a cool nickname for the LAV. Looking down on what was plastered to the front end, I was thinking “Meatwagon” would be appropriate. Too bad Bobbie had already taken that one for her car.
I had to change heads on the pressure washer to something a little more vigorous, but I managed to get it clean. Then I climbed down to get the lower, inward slope of the armor on all sides and the tires. Finally, I put on an extension and an angled spray head to deal with the undercarriages of both vehicles. Good thing I was near the river, I'd just about emptied the bleach water tank. I had enough extra bleach along to do this twice more, but no way could I carry that much water. After putting away the sprayer and bagging and binning my outerwear, I got back into the driver's seat. Time to get this show headed on down the road.
Once we got moving, I contacted Bobbie. “So, how'd we do?”
“2743 viewers, not counting those that a certain someone let on for free. If you had found some way to stretch things out for another half an hour, we might have gotten another six hundred or so. My minions have sampled several dozen assorted internet forums and found threads talking about your little stunt. Comments are running about 82%/36% 'wish I could have seen that' and 'what an idiot'.”
“Um, Bobbie, that's more than 100%.”
“I know that. 18% of posters are saying both. Based on revenues, we can now afford that paint job you wanted and add two tiers to the wedding cake. Along with a corresponding upgrade to the wedding itself, of course.”
“Couldn't we just have the wedding sooner instead?” I asked.
“No. I need enough time to plan, send invitations, and shop for a dress. Besides, the Tower is booked up until July.”
“Sounds like the wedding is going to be lovely,” I said. “Hope I can make it.”
“Rob, you're going to be at our wedding if I have to lock your reanimated corpse in a giant hamster ball and have your best man roll you in.”
“I don't think a post-conversion marriage would be valid.”
“There are thousands of precedents for posthumous marriage in France and China, and a few in the United States. You won't get away from me that easy.”
“But why do I have to be locked up? Doesn't the condemned man at least get a hearty meal?”
“I'll put my cousin Shelly in with you at the reception. Not much heart, put plenty of meat on her bones.”
“Thanks but no thanks. I'll just have to make sure to live long enough for the wedding.”
“You do that. I'm signing off, some of us have work to do. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
As I took the turnoff towards Boquillas Canyon, my thoughts turned back to the recent carnage. My attempt at showmanship aside, the encounter was highly unusual in itself. It's almost unheard of to find that many different species of infected banding together. Zombies tend to cluster with their own kind, except for some instances of mixed packs of humans and domesticated animals. There seems to be some dim instinct that survives after conversion that results in homogenous packs. The one rare exception that I've encountered and has been reported by a few others is mixed packs of humans and coyotes. The only reasons I've been able to figure is that coyotes look enough like domestic dogs that the human infected will associate with them. And coyotes are known to hunt with another predator species, and share the kill even when the coyote could keep it all for himself. But humans don't look that much like badgers.
I slowed down abruptly, having gotten so lost in my thoughts that I'd almost missed the next turn. I took a right and drove down to the border crossing station. Or rather, what would have been a crossing station if not for the Rising. Throughout the park's history, the village of Boquillas had lived off of cross-border tourism, selling handicrafts and rocks. Since the area has some distinctive geology and it was illegal to collect rocks inside the park, that was a more lucrative business than you might think. Having the only bar within fifty miles of Rio Grande Village and the only restaurant or hotel within thirty helped as well. But increased security after September 11, 2001, put an end to legal border crossings anywhere closer than Presidio, and the population of Boquillas shrank by more than half. After more than a decade, the Departments of Interior and Homeland Security came to an agreement, and an official crossing staffed by Park Service employees was approved. By the summer of 2014, construction was nearly completed on the US side and underway on the Mexico side.
And it was the one place where the road led all the way to the river's edge. I cautiously pulled up to the edge of the ferry dock, and once it proved solid I hit the PTO for the pressure washer again and got out. I had modified it so that with the turn of a valve and the addition of a hose it can draw water from an outside source. In a pinch, I can use it to fill up the water tank, and it saves having to cram another piece of equipment into the LAV. Anna pulled up as I was dropping the end of the hose in the river, a look of comprehension appearing on her face when I popped the spray head off and stuck the nozzle in the tank. It took about ten minutes, giving me plenty of time to pour a jug of concentrated bleach into the tank as well.
With that necessary chore taken care of, I got back in the driver's seat and led Anna the last mile or so to Boquillas Canyon. The parking lot at the trail head was covered in sand and rock washed down from uphill, distinguishable only because the brush was sparser that the surrounding area. I parked at the start of the trail, with Anna pulling up beside me. I got into my usual hiking gear, adding a light riot shield that I slung over my pack. Anna met me outside, also dressed for hiking.
Glancing at my new piece of equipment she asked, “Expecting trouble?”
“Not at all, I'm expecting fun of the non-zombie variety,” I responded.
“What kind of fun?”
“You'll find out when we get there.”
The trail led up over a bluff before reaching the canyon proper. I started up, with Anna following some distance behind. I paused at the top of the hill to let the cameras get a good view of the river and the canyon mouth beyond, and the metates in the limestone slab at my feet. Metates are mortar holes worn into the rock from decades of the former native inhabitants using them to grind grains and beans. The trail continued down the hillside and skirted the edge of an alluvial flat before approaching the river. As we reached the river bank, we encountered some welcome shade provided by stands of river cane. The trail was fairly short, less than a mile, and we soon reached the end. Anna caught up to me as I was setting up a field camera near the base of a huge sand hill piled up against the canyon wall.
“Ah,” Anna said, gazing up at the steep sandy slope, “So that's what the shield is for.”
“Yep. This was a popular spot for the kids back in the day. Something about the geography of the canyon and the prevailing winds means this pile of sand is always here.”
I set down my pack and most of my weapons, then took the riot shield and started climbing up the rocks next to the sand. The climb was steep, but not dangerously so, and it took me about ten minutes to climb the hundred feet or so to the top of the sand slope. The canyon wall extended another few hundred feet above me, but there was a shallow cave at this level so I took a few minutes to check it out. Not much to see, but it was nice and cool. Stepping out onto the sand, I set the shield down and hopped on. It made a decent sled and I picked up speed quickly, whooping loudly as I slid down to the bottom. Luckily I didn't have time to pick up too much speed before I got to the bottom, and I came to a more or less graceful stop when I ran out of sand.
“Okay, my turn,” Anna said.
“Help yourself,” I replied, handing her the shield.
I got out my pocket computer and took manual control of the camera, recording Anna's progress up the hill. And ten minutes later, I was barely able to keep her in frame as she slid back down, laughing all the way. After we each took a few more trips down the hill, we packed up and hiked back to the vehicles. I took a few minutes to get into my heavier leather and chainmail gear and lay out a full weapons load. Most of the local zombie pack would have been up in the tunnel during the heat of the day, but there were probably at least a few in and around the handful of permanent structures near the campground.
“Either there's a leather bar around here somewhere, or you're definitely expecting trouble soon,” Anna commented.
“There might be some infected hanging around the campground area, so it won't hurt to be prepared.”
With that, I lead the way back in the direction we came from until we reached the road leading to the campground. Turning left, it was just a few minutes before we passed the burned out ruin of the small visitor center. A few hundred yards farther along was the store, and I parked at the front. After hitting the switch to raise the camera mast, I grabbed the rest of my gear and got out of the LAV. I scanned the surroundings as I settled my weapons into place. The store showed signs of being hastily fortified at some point, probably during the Rising. As far as I knew, no one living had been down here since then. And that means that no help came for the people who had holed up here. Maybe they had gotten away, but I doubted it. Most likely they had tried to hold out waiting for rescue, but instead perished when the improvised barricades finally gave way. It was a story repeated time and again that summer.
My thoughts were interrupted by a noise from inside the store. I'd actually had my fill of zombies for the day, and briefly held out hope that the sound came from a living animal. But as Anna got out of her truck to stand beside me, I heard the moaning start. Activating and tossing a pair of field cameras, I told Anna, “No messing around this time, we'll take them as soon as they show themselves.”
Anna nodded, “Got it.”
The windows were still boarded up more or less securely, the only visible access to the interior was through the shattered remains of the front door. I'd already drawn my right side handgun, and when the first zombie poked its head out into the daylight I put a bullet through it. I also got the second one, while Anna took care of the third. With three bodies piled up in the doorway, slowing down the rest of the pack, our task became easier. Five more de-animated corpses had joined the stack when Bobbie yelled through my helmet receiver “Check your 4 o'clock!”
I swiveled to my right, drawing my other handgun as I saw a group of horses and donkeys charging our way, apparently from a grove of what passes for trees around here. Why was it that whenever I encountered a mixed human and animal pack, the animals always ambushed me from the rear? They weren't nearly as fast as when they were alive, but their four-legged gait was still faster than a human infected, and the odd shambling gallop of the horses in particular covered the ground with distressing speed. With their smaller brains and sloped skulls, it was hard to get a kill shot, and I emptied one gun taking out the first two horses. Switching to my other pistol, I needed four shots to bring down the third horse. I'd put three rounds into the skull of the last horse when it slammed into me. I was knocked back into Anna, sending both of us spilling to the ground.
Luckily, that last shot had finished off the horse and it was just momentum that had sent it crashing into me. Luckier still, it hadn't bled on me as near as I could tell. Best of all, the donkeys were lagging behind and I had time to get back to my feet and reload. Behind me, I heard Anna reload and then go to full auto. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder, I needed to trust her to handle herself until I'd finished off the critters coming from this side.
I had just put down the last donkey when I was grabbed from behind. I felt something trying to bite through the left shoulder of my jacket, and I struggled to get free. There was a hard impact against my back, my jacket came free from the teeth, and something wet splattered across the back of my neck. The grip on my upper arms slackened and I wrenched myself loose, turning around to see Anna standing there holding a zombie by the hair. She had a punch dagger buried in the back of its neck, and her SMG lay on the ground with its bolt locked back and the folding stock shattered. She had blood and other fluids flowing over her hand and splashed across the front of her body. No doubt my back was similarly decorated. I scanned the area, but it looked like all of the infected were accounted for.
“Go!” Bobbie said in my ear, “I've got four other people on the cameras, we'll warn you of any more problems.”
“Okay,” I said, then turned to Anna. She pulled the knife loose and let the body fall to ground.
“Drop the knife, don't touch the blade, and stand over there,” I pointed.
I ran to the LAV and leaned into the driver's compartment to hit the PTO, then hurried to the pressure washer. I put a multi-stream medium pressure head on the nozzle, hooked it into the clamps installed for just this purpose, and turned it on. I had pointed Anna to just the right spot and the bleach water spray had already soaked her thoroughly. After grabbing a couple of pairs of disposable flip flops and a bag of testing units from an outside locker I joined her, turning in the water stream to get full coverage.
“Rinse yourself completely,” I instructed Anna, “Then strip off your outer layer of clothing. Rinse again, then take off the next layer. Repeat until you run out of clothes. When you're ready to take your boots and socks off, put these on.”
As I began the process myself, I noted that Anna's belt was already undone. Apparently the dagger had been disguised as her belt buckle. After a few minutes we were stripping off our underwear, and I was glad that I'd taken the time to refill the tank earlier today or we would have run out of water. When our bare skin was thoroughly rinsed, I shut off the water and we checked each other for cuts, bites, and abrasions. Under other circumstances I would have been having a great time, and part of an old country song about checking for ticks drifted through my mind before I willed myself to be as serious as the situation required. I handed her a test unit, taking one for myself, and we broke the seals and pressed our thumbs to the pads.
After what seemed like a lifetime, both tests came up green. I hit the switch to lower the rear ramp on the LAV, and once it was open enough I reached in to grab one of my spare blankets to pass to Anna. Wrapping a second blanket around myself, I led Anna inside and closed the door behind us.
She sat down, shaking, on my cot. “I'm so sorry! A large group came around the side of the building and I couldn't put them down fast enough.”
“Not your fault,” I said, sitting beside her, “If I hadn't bumped into you I bet you would have handled them just fine. I shouldn't have let you get involved.”
“Wait a minute!” she said sharply. “You didn't 'let' me do anything. I chose to get involved and you couldn't have stopped me.”
That worked better than I had expected, now she wasn't blaming herself anymore. “You're right. Besides, we're both okay, no need to assign blame.”
She laughed and changed the subject. “I suppose the video of my impromptu striptease will bump up your site traffic.”
“Nah, Bobbie won't post that, and she would have cut the live feed to the premium members area before you got naked.”
“You know what? I've realized that I don't really care about the cameras anymore.”
Anna sat up straighter, releasing her hold on the blanket and letting it fall to her waist. Now that I wasn't distracted by fear of one of us converting, I could confirm my earlier estimation. They were indeed magnificent. She turned towards me and threw her arms around my neck. My own blanket fell away as my hands reached for her, one going to the back of her neck to pull her into a hard deep kiss, the other slipping around her waist. I fell backwards onto the cot, pulling her down on top of me. She squirmed and kicked to get the blankets out of the way, unwilling to let go of me long enough to use her hands for the task. There was no foreplay, just a burning need to reaffirm the fact that we had survived. She slid down to engulf me, and moaned into my mouth as her pubic hair mingled with mine. We held each other so tightly it was as though we were trying to crawl inside each other's skins. Only her hips moved away from me, and only far enough that just the head of my cock was still inside her, then slammed back down to take my full length again. She came after just a few strokes, and I had to bite my lip to hold back my own orgasm when her muscles clamped down.
She started sliding up and down my body, her dripping juices leaving a wet trail across my stomach, her nipples so hard that I half expected them to leave grooves in my chest. Part of my brain insisted that this was a mistake, but the rest of me yelled 'Shut Up!' My hands slid across her skin and found her breasts, something they had been itching to do for two days. Whoever said that more than a handful is a waste had never gotten his hands on these. I pinched down gently on her nipples, and Anna responded by throwing back her head and moving faster. I spread my hands as though trying to encompass as much of her breasts as possible, then closed my fingers, catching her nipples between the joints on the middle and ring fingers of each hand. I squeezed hard, and this time when she clamped down on my cock there was no stopping from joining her in orgasm.
My apologies to our premium subscribers, but anyone wishing to lodge a complaint should first look at the Terms of Service. We do not have a signed model release from Ms. Guillen on file, and therefore have a responsibility to respect her privacy and modesty. We are not going to take advantage of dangerous situation just to titillate the public at her expense. Of course, should she choose at some point to voluntarily expose herself, I won't argue.
- From Yes Sir! F*** You Sir!,
  
  the blog of Bobbie Cardille, April 5, 2040
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Texas Zombie Reporter: Tales of the Rio Grande