Halverson knew he and the rest of his crew needed to find a safe place before they would be able to get any shuteye. So much for sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“This is hopeless,” said Mannering. “What are we trying to prove?”
He produced a can of beer he had bagged at the grocery store. He popped open the can and guzzled the beer.
He pulled a face. “Ugh. Warm beer. Oh well. It’s better than no beer.”
He took another swig of the beer.
“Just don’t get drunk,” said Reba, her hands on the motor cart’s steering wheel, her eyes on the sidewalk she was navigating.
“Then what’s the point?”
“I don’t wanna be driving around with a juicehead while those creatures are surrounding us.”
Mannering chugalugged the beer and crushed the aluminum can in his hand. He tossed the crumpled can onto the sidewalk to his right. The can clattered to a halt on the cement.
“I guess we don’t have to worry about littering or recycling anymore,” he said and snagged another can of beer from the back of the cart.
“And you a cop.” Reba squinted ahead. “What’s that?”
He followed her gaze. “Looks like firemen standing around a motor cart.”
“That’s one of ours.”
“It must be Becker.”
“He found some firemen. Maybe there’s some kind of emergency government like Homeland Security still functioning, after all.”
Reba drove to the next block to meet up with the three firemen gathered around Becker’s cart.
“What’s he doing?” she said. “It looks like he’s arguing with them.”
“Maybe they’re trying to steal his cart.”
Reba drove closer to them.
“Hell,” said Mannering. “Those aren’t firemen.”
Cleaver in hand, Mannering leapt out of his cart even as it was still moving and joined the melee.
Indeed, Becker was staving off the firemen with his shovel, shoving them away when they got too close to him. The ravenous creatures kept scrabbling toward him. Terrified, he had his hands full battling all three of the zombies at the same time. As soon as he pushed one away, another one came at him from a different direction and he had to wheel around to defend himself from that onslaught.
Mannering waded into the fracas, holding his cleaver raised over his head. He yelled, charged a shaggy-haired six-foot-tall creature from behind, swung the cleaver, and decollated the creature in one fell swoop. The severed head flew off toward the road, bounced off a sports car’s roof, and dribbled onto the asphalt. The headless body collapsed on the sidewalk.
One of the creatures stumbled around to face Mannering’s assault. This creature Mannering punished with a vicious blow from the cleaver to the top of the creature’s skull. The skull split in half, as well as the brain inside it, sliced neatly in half by the cleaver’s blade, which cut all the way through the skull to the throat. The two halves of the skull fell away from each other.
Its head bisected, the creature wobbled at its knees then toppled to the sidewalk, as Mannering lifted the cleaver free from the thing’s throat.
Mannering let out a war whoop, brandishing the cleaver above his head. The cleaver’s blade was smeared with the creature’s oozing brain matter and shards of skull.
The remaining creature groaned at the sight of Mannering and lumbered after him, clawing the air.
This creature was well over six feet. Its navy blue uniform was ripped to shreds, revealing a bloodstained white T-shirt underneath it. The creature’s clouded eyes glowered at Mannering. It grimaced and opened its huge jaws lined with rotting green teeth.
Mannering swiped at the creature. The cleaver’s blade whistled through the air and Mannering cut clean through the throat. The creature’s sneering head plopped into Becker’s lap. Shying in the driver’s seat, Becker flung the head off his thighs and out of the cart.
The head rolled onto the sidewalk. The head was still alive because its brain had not been destroyed, but Mannering figured the thing was harmless lacking mobility. The head rolled to a halt, working its jaws.
“Fuck that thing,” said Mannering, waving at the head in disgust.
The head’s body dropped to the sidewalk and sprawled motionless.
“I’m glad you guys showed up,” said Becker.
Sighing with relief, he wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand.
“We should’ve let those things tear you apart,” said Reba, pulling her motor cart to a halt beside him.
“What are you talking about?”
“You took something that doesn’t belong to you.” Reba eyed the moneybag that sat in the passenger seat of Becker’s cart.
“It belongs to me as much as it does to you.”
Mannering stood by and listened to their discussion with curiosity.
Victoria drove up.
“Why’d you take off without us?” demanded Halverson, riding shotgun.
“I saw things coming down the sidewalk,” answered Becker.
“Then why didn’t you signal us?” said Victoria.
Becker hemmed and hawed. “I panicked and ran for my life.”
“You couldn’t have panicked very much,” said Reba. “You took the time to take that extra sack with you.”
Nonplussed, Becker gazed at her.
At last he said, “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“You knew exactly what you were doing,” said Halverson.
“You don’t give a damn about the rest of us,” Reba told Becker.
“I was coming back to help you when those three things attacked me,” said Becker.
“Oh sure. Then why is your cart pointed away from us?”
“I was just about to turn around when the things bushwhacked me.”
“The more lies you tell the bigger they get.”
“I should’ve let you get eaten by those things,” said Mannering. “Would’ve served you right.”
“I admit I made an error in judgment,” said Becker. “I lost my head and fled. I made the wrong decision. I admit that. What more do you want from me?”
“For starters, give us back that bag in your front seat,” said Victoria. “You swiped that from our vehicle.”
Becker hoisted the moneybag and returned it to the back of Victoria’s motor cart. “What’s the big deal?”
“You know.”
“You people sound like the media that tarred my reputation and forced me out of office with all the lies they told about me,” he huffed.
“And what about all those girls that accused you of sexually harassing them?” said Reba. “Don’t forget them.”
“Can I help it if women are attracted to me? Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Everyone knows that. Ask Henry Kissinger. It wasn’t his ugly face that turned women on.”
“Henry Kissinger didn’t harass women.”
“Neither did I. Can I help it if women fantasize about becoming romantically involved with me.”
Reba sniggered. “They had mass hallucinations, huh?”
“You’re too naïve to know what it’s like to be in the power hub of Washington, DC. That’s not your fault. I can’t blame you. Not everyone can be rich or powerful—or both. You just can’t have any idea what it’s like.”
“Well, excuse me for not being rich.”
“I said it’s not your fault.”
Reba rolled her eyes.
“You’re painting yourself into a corner every time you open your mouth,” said Mannering.
“If you stop talking, maybe we’ll let you stay with us,” Reba told Becker.
“We ought to throw him to the wolves, I’m telling you,” said Mannering.
“I admit I made an error in judgment when I left you,” said Becker. “I was frightened. Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Maybe.”
“And stop assuming the moral high ground on this, pretending you’re more righteous than me.”
“I never said anything of the sort.”
“You make it sound like you wouldn’t have taken off if you were in my position.”
“At the very least I would have honked to let everyone know there was trouble before I left.”
“There you go pretending to be more righteous than me, you sanctimonious prig.”
“The fact is you screwed up. I’m not the one who did that. You are. Stop accusing me of something I didn’t even do.”
“That’s what you’re doing to me.”
“You make it sound like we’re the ones who are guilty,” chipped in Reba.
“You’re guilty of being sanctimonious,” said Becker.
“You’re the one who double-crossed us and took off with our stuff.”
“That’s enough,” cut in Halverson. “Let’s just get out of here before more of those things show up.”
Halverson flinched in his seat when he heard a thud on the sidewalk behind him.
CHAPTER FORTY
A creature slammed into the sidewalk from up above.
The thing hit so hard, it must have broken its legs, decided Halverson, turning to take a gander at the creature writhing on the cement behind him. Halverson looked up at the high-rise that bordered the sidewalk. The edifice was at least seven stories tall. It looked like an apartment house.
As he had his neck craned upward, a creature appeared on the balcony of the sixth floor, spotted Halverson, climbed over the parapet, and plummeted to the sidewalk. The thing thudded on the sidewalk, landing on its knees and crushing them. Halverson saw that it was a short, twentysomething male with a scowling hirsute face.
Its white-filmed eyes on Halverson, the creature endeavored to reach him by crawling.
The hot Santa Ana winds gusted and blew an empty, grease-stained brown paper grocery bag into the creature’s face. The creature squinted and shook its head to rid its face of the bag. The bag tumbled down the sidewalk, alternately skipping and floating over it, borne by the howling wind.
The creature continued crawling toward Halverson.
Another creature, this one an overweight middle-aged female brunette, dive-bombed from above and landed on top of the crawling creature’s head. The impact of the fall fractured the crawler’s skull and pulverized its brain. The male creature expired, its brains leaking out of its riven skull all over the sidewalk.
Reba didn’t plan on hanging around waiting to be crushed. Mannering jumped into the motor cart with her. She drove off.
Becker drove after her.
Victoria put her motor cart in gear.
Another creature thudded from above onto the sidewalk less than a foot away from the passenger side of her vehicle. Halverson, who was sitting in the passenger seat, could feel the air displaced by the creature’s drop whoosh past his face.
Not waiting for the thing to rise to its feet, Victoria floored the gas pedal. The motor cart screeched forward.
“Those things don’t care whether they live or die,” she said.
Halverson braced himself in his seat with his outstretched hand propped against the dashboard. “They’re already dead. All they care about is eating. And they’ll do anything it takes to sink their teeth into living human flesh.”
“What if the whole world’s like this?” said Victoria, aghast at the idea.
“We just have to keep moving. Put one foot in front of the other.”
“But if everywhere is like this, what’s the point?”
“You think too much.”
“But what is the point?”
“Either we go on living or we don’t go on living. That’s all it boils down to now. Do you want to just sit here and wait for the creatures to eat us?”
It was too depressing to dwell on it, decided Halverson. He needed to think about something else.
He withdrew his wallet from his pocket. He flipped through it till he came to a photograph of his brother. He showed the photo to Victoria.
“Here’s a picture of my brother Dan.” He said. “I hardly ever see him. It’s my fault. My job keeps me busy 24/7. I should visit him more often.”
“Don’t hold it against yourself.”
She glanced over at the photo. “You look similar.”
“I don’t think so. We’re not at all alike.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“He’s my only living relative. I really should make a point of seeing him more often or, at the very least, talking to him on the phone once in a while. It’s too late now probably, with the end in sight.”
“You’re bumming me out.”
“Yeah. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Where are your parents?”
“They’re both dead.”
“Oh.” Victoria paused. “I guess I didn’t choose the right subject, did I?”
“That’s OK. I don’t mind talking about it. They died on 9/11.”
Victoria gasped. “Oh no.” She held her hand to her cheek.
“They were riding in their car near the World Trade Center at the time it was attacked.”
“How awful.”
“That’s a main reason I got into my profession.”
“Journalism? I don’t see the connection.”
Halverson realized he was running off at the mouth, revealing too much about himself. He couldn’t tell her about his job with the Agency. He had to extemporize with a believable lie.
“I wanted to make sense of what happened that day,” he explained. “I thought if I found out all that I could about why it happened, that would somehow make it easier to bear.”
That was indeed part of it, decided Halverson. Also, he wanted to make the perpetrators pay for their terrorist atrocity. So he joined the CIA.
A fraught silence hung in the air between them.
Victoria changed the subject. “There’s a picture of Shawna in my wallet in my purse. Take a look.”
Halverson was only too glad to think of something else.
He lifted her tan purse from the footwell. He rummaged through the purse and plucked out her white leather wallet. He opened the wallet and flicked though it till he noticed the photograph of a little blonde girl’s smiling face. She wore her hair in pigtails.
“This must be Shawna,” he said.
“Nobody’s gonna take her away from me. Not those creatures. Not anyone, ever.”
Halverson deposited Victoria’s wallet back into her purse. He had no idea where Dan was. Dan had been injured in a car accident and hospitalized. How could Dan move around in his condition? wondered Halverson. Could Dan somehow have returned to his residence? Dan had been bedridden at the UCLA medical center. How could he move around?
“Why are they doing that?” asked Victoria, hunching over the steering wheel with concern as she gazed ahead through her bloodshot blue eyes.
“What?”
“They’re heading in the wrong direction. Reba’s turning left off Wilshire with Hank.”
“I don’t see any of those things around. What’s the problem now?”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Why are you turning?” Halverson called ahead to Reba and Mannering.
It was Mannering who craned his neck around in the motor cart and answered. “We’re heading toward the police department for ordnance.”
“We don’t have time,” said Victoria, steering wheel in hand.
“We need decent weapons to protect ourselves.”
“Felix took both our pistols,” Halverson reminded Victoria at his side.
“We already have a shotgun, but we don’t ever use it,” she said.
“Gunshots would attract the things.”
“Then why get more guns, if we’re not even gonna use them? I need to find my daughter ASAP. She could be in danger.”
Reba pulled to a halt. Victoria caught up to her.
“What about silencers?” Halverson asked Mannering. “We need silencers, too.”
“We have sound suppressors at the department,” sa
id Mannering. “We have everything. Glocks, Sig Sauers, H&Ks. Stun grenades, flash bangs. You name it.”
Halverson thought about gunshots. There might be another way to find Felix, decided Halverson.
“Do you have any MP7s?” he asked.
He felt naked going into battle without an MP7.
“You betcha. All sorts of H&Ks.” Mannering winked at Halverson. “On full auto, too.”
“Great.
Mannering cocked an eyebrow at Halverson. “Where’d you learn how to shoot an MP7? Not many people know how to handle one of those babies.”
Halverson stuck to his cover story. “I wrote a magazine article about them once.”
“The only guys I know of that use MP7s are Navy SEALS. We have MP7s for our SWAT team but those guys hardly ever use them.” Mannering scratched his bald head. “I can’t imagine who would want to read about MP7s.”
“It was an article for a military magazine,” Halverson ad-libbed.
“What’s the problem?” Reba asked Victoria. “Why did you guys call out to me?”
“My child. She might be at my house,” answered Victoria. “I need to find her.”
“You don’t know she’s there.”
Halverson started thinking about gunshots again.
He spotted a sixtyish male creature with tufts of white hair blooming around his bald pate gimping through the intersection chockablock with parked vehicles.
Halverson slid out of his seat, strode over to Reba’s cart, commandeered the shotgun, and blasted the creature in the head.
The creature’s head burst like a melon. Blobs of brain matter hurtled through the intersection and plastered windshields and hoods.
“What’d you do that for?” demanded Becker from his cart. “The noise will bring those things from all around.”
“That’s the idea,” said Halverson.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Reba, Victoria, and Mannering were all staring at Halverson in bewilderment.
“We need to find Felix,” explained Halverson. “If we can’t go to Felix, maybe we can get him to come to us.”
Zombie Apocalypse Page 43
