Calvin shouldered his gun and they crouched, ready to spring, waiting for the current patrol to get out of sight. As soon as they were clear, they burst out of the bushes and sprinted across the road. As they hopped the median barrier, an engine rumbled in the distance, lighting a fire under their asses to haul across the rest of the highway.
As they approached the ditch, they slid across the shoulder like they were stealing second, falling off of the dirt and into the grass, laying as flat as they could. They breathed heavily, waiting for any signal that their cover had been blown.
The car rumbled closer, and then as it faded in the other direction, they let out simultaneous sighs of relief.
“That was close,” Calvin huffed.
Zion nodded as he caught his breath. “Too close,” he agreed. “Not ready to start killing just yet.” He motioned for his partner to lay low as he pulled himself up over the edge of the ditch. Their target was about sixty yards away, and he peered through the blades of grass to watch the foot patrol coming around the side of the building. They casually walked past the broken window, not even giving it a second look.
As they continued to walk, Zion motioned for Calvin to get ready next to him. As soon as he saw the guards turn the corner, he raised his hand and they sprinted through the grass and into the parking lot, rushing the window.
As they grew close, the patrol car’s engine returned, coming around the building. They pushed harder, reaching the window and leaping blindly through it into the darkened store. They landed hard and stayed down, out of sight, breathing hard as they waited for the car to roll past.
They shook their heads at each other, amazed they’d made it through the small window of opportunity, let alone the actual window they’d targeted. Zion nodded at Calvin, who gave him a thumbs up, and they began to move.
The clothing store was dark, the only light coming from the front windows. They moved through it quickly, assuming that with the broken window the guards would have taken care of any potential threats. As they got to the storefront, they ducked against either side of the giant front display of mannequins showing off the latest fashion trends. They studied the area carefully, scanning a typical small down street filled with shops and restaurants.
As they waited, the foot patrol walked by, and they hid again.
“Looks like they’re just walking in circles,” Zion whispered.
Calvin shrugged. “Good work if you can get it, I guess,” he murmured.
They peeked back out after a beat and noticed a storefront across the way with a swinging door blowing gently open in the breeze.
“I don’t know about that one,” Calvin said quietly.
Zion chewed his lip for a moment. “Well, it’s either that, we break a window, or stay on the street with the patrols.”
“I don’t like any of those, either,” his partner admitted.
“With the other two options, we’re pretty much guaranteed to get caught,” Zion pointed out. “So, do you want a surefire fight, or merely a likely one?”
Calvin shook his head with a snort. “The fun never stops with you, does it?”
Zion grinned. “You know you’re rather be hanging out with me than being back on the farm fighting badgers, or whatever the fuck they were.”
“I know my buddy would,” Calvin admitted. “If he was doing this instead of fighting those critters, he’d still have his nipple.”
Zion blinked at him and shook his head. “When we get back, you’re telling me that story.”
“Deal,” Calvin replied with a smile.
They crept to the front door, and the sniper removed his rifle just in case of trouble, clicking the lock open as they waited for the patrol car to drive by. As soon as it turned the corner, they flung open the door and rushed out into the street, sprinting towards the swinging one across the way.
Just before they reached it, a voice from above screeched, “Stop right there!”
They skidded to a stop and looked up behind them, noting one lone guard standing on the roof above the clothing store. Calvin immediately raised his rifle, pointing it at the guy, who hadn’t had the wherewithal to even raise his weapon.
“Drop it now!” Calvin demanded.
The guard immediately dropped his gun, and lifted his hands in the air.
“Now, we’re gonna keep on going, and you’re not gonna do a goddamn thing, you got it?” the cowboy asked, voice like venom.
The guard nodded frantically. “Yeah, I’m not gonna do anything.”
The duo backed up towards the door, but it was too late, as the foot patrol came around the corner.
“Stop! There!” somebody yelled.
Calvin reacted immediately, firing down the street, shattering a window right next to the guards. As soon as it exploded and they ducked, he and Zion tore for the door.
Gunfire filled the air, several shots whizzing by them as they burst inside. Zion quickly shoved it back and locked it, and they darted further in before skidding to a stop at the dozen or so guys sitting in the restaurant, frozen in a tableau of utensils scooping food into their mouths.
Zion blinked at the display. “Um,” he said sheepishly, “who do I talk to about getting a to-go order?”
Two men at a nearby table immediately leapt up and rushed him. He swung his weapon at kneecap level, plowing the rebar-enforced wood through both of them. The first impact shattered the man’s joint, resulting in a horrific scream, and softened the blow for the second, however still with enough momentum to send them both to the floor.
A few others got up from their tables to move towards the duo, but a woman behind the counter pulled a shotgun and fired it into the air.
As the dust settled, and all the eyes moved to her, she cried, “We ain’t doing this in my place!” She aimed the gun at Zion, who froze.
“Ideas?” Calvin asked, as the door behind them thumped.
The foot patrol guards held up their guns, aiming through the glass at their back.
Zion slowly raised his hands. “Surrender.”
Calvin sighed, and carefully laid down his gun before lifting his hands as well.
“Look, all we came here to do was to talk to Edward,” Zion said as the guards approached them, patting them down and putting them in cuffs.
“Well, he don’t want to talk to you,” one of the guards replied gruffly.
Zion raised an eyebrow. “We came here to help solve his little problem across the river,” he added.
A few of the guards looked at each other, contemplating silently between them.
“All right,” one of them said, “we’ll run it by him and let you know.”
Calvin cocked his head. “How do we know if he agrees?”
“If we don’t shoot you in the back of the head,” the guard replied with a sneer, “you’ll know he wants to see you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The guards led Zion and Calvin into the small courthouse, their hands cuffed in front of them. The building looked like it had been built in the seventies, with a concrete facade and faux marble flooring. Adorning the walls were portraits of the city council and mayor, most of whom were probably dead or undead.
They stopped at an intersection of hallways, and one of the guards shoved Zion hard in the back.
He turned around and glared at his captor. “You shove me like that again, and you’re gonna have to rely on your buddies to avenge you.”
The guard gulped, eyes wide, and nodded his apology. Zion turned, satisfied, and continued down the hall.
When they reached the end, there was a large office door with a frosted glass window. One of the guards knocked on it, and there was a muffled noise of approval from the other side.
“Wait here,” the guard said, and slipped in through the door. There was some muffled conversation, and then after a few moments, it opened. “Today is your lucky day,” the guard said with a dark smile. “Edward has agreed to hear you out.”
“Good,” Zion replied, and led Calvin into the office
.
It was a nice room, corner of the building, though the windows had been reinforced with wooden planks for safety. Not exactly statuesque, but functional.
In the back of the room, a middle-aged white man with slicked brown hair and deep set eyes sat behind an oak desk filled with papers. There were a few assistants sitting at a table against the side wall, scribbling away.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” the man—presumably Edward—said, waving at the people along the side of the room. “This is going to have to be a short chat, because I’m juggling half a dozen shitshows at the moment and don’t have a lot of time for outsiders looking to make trouble in our little community.”
Zion cocked a brow. “Well for starters,” he drawled, “your boys were the ones who started the trouble.”
“One well thrown pipe bomb and my baby is damaged and submerged in the goddamn river,” Calvin added.
Edward stopped shuffling papers and looked up at them, brow furrowed. “Somebody blew up your baby?”
“His truck,” Zion clarified.
Edward sighed, shaking his head, and got up from his desk, circling it to approach them. “You’ll have to forgive them,” he said, pressing his palms together as if in prayer. “We’ve had some issues with the people across the river hoarding supplies, so my men are on edge when it comes to people they don’t know.”
“That’s not the way they tell it,” Zion replied.
Edward nodded, leaning back on his desk casually. “I’m sure it isn't,” he agreed. “But regardless of the he said, she said, the fact of the matter is that they killed and maimed several of my men, which means they’re a problem I need handled. Now according to my man here, you have a solution to that problem, which is why we’re having this little chat.” He clucked his tongue. “Now, is that true?”
“It is, but it’s a little confusing,” Zion admitted.
Edward raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Well, you got a small army of trigger happy assholes at your disposal,” his prisoner replied. “Seems like you should be able to take them out without much problem.”
Edward sighed. “You’re probably right,” he admitted. “But as I mentioned earlier, I have half a dozen shitshows I’m juggling. I have a hundred and eighty-five people I’m responsible for. Our food supply is running low, and we’re having issues securing a long term solution. I have several zombie clusters to the south of us that are taking a lot of my resources. I’m also running low on medical supplies, since the hospital in this area was little more than a souped-up pharmacy. So while I can overrun them, it’s not worth sacrificing the manpower to do so.
“Which is why you’re here. Do you have a solution for me, or should I Just have my men pop you in the back of the head and toss you into the river?” He crossed his arms.
Zion smiled. “Okay, Edward, before we get going here,” he said, inclining his head to his partner, “I’m Zion and this is my buddy Calvin.”
“Delighted,” their captor replied, waving his hand dismissively. “Go on.”
“Not only do I have a solution to your cross-river problem, I may have a solution to some of your other problems as well,” Zion continued. “You see-”
Edward held up a hand. “One step at a time,” he said shortly. “Let’s deal with my immediate problem you claim to have a fix for, before you start offering me more miracle solutions than a late night infomercial host.”
“Fair enough,” Zion agreed. “We’re from Portland, just north of the city. And we have a collection of communities under our protection. We’d be willing to let the group to the north join us and get out of your hair for good.”
Edward crossed his arms, nodding. “I think I can work with that.”
“Before you get too excited,” Zion added, “there’s a couple of conditions on that.”
His captor motioned for him to continue. “I would expect nothing less,” he said. “State your terms.”
“For starters, we get free passage out of town,” Zion began, “with the understanding that if anybody takes a shot at us, we’ll come back here in force and burn this motherfucker to the ground. Women and children all.”
Edward didn’t even blink at the threat, just simply nodded in agreement.
“Second,” Zion continued, “twenty-five percent of that hardware store comes with us.”
The man thought for a moment and then shook his head. “Twenty percent, and no more than twenty percent of any specific item.”
“What if there’s only one of an item?” Zion asked.
Edward paused again, staring into his prisoner’s eyes in appraisal. “I leave it to your discretion and trust you’ll make it up to me in future negotiations.”
Zion stared him down for a moment, and then smiled. “I can live with that.”
“Anything else?” Edward asked.
His prisoner-turned-business-partner nodded. “Yeah, we’re gonna need a couple of trucks,” he said. “One for what we’re hauling out of town, and one to replace my friend’s ride with.”
“I’ll even throw in a full tank of gas on each,” Edward replied.
Zion extended his cuffed hands to shake, which Edward accepted and then motioned to one of the guards.
“Why don’t you uncuff our friends here, and start getting the trucks they need?” he suggested, but before the guard could comply, another guard burst into the room, eyes frantic.
“No, please, come on in,” Edward declared, rolling his eyes with sarcasm, “we weren’t doing anything of importance anyway.”
“We… we have a problem,” the guard stammered. “It’s zombies.”
“Great,” Edward replied with a sigh. “Another cluster to the north?”
The guard vigorously shook his head. “There are hundreds on the interstate coming this way.”
“How close?” Edward demanded, eyes turning hard. When the guard didn’t reply, he stepped forward and shook him. “How close, man?”
“Maybe a couple of miles?” came the shaky reply. “I was stationed at the rest stop and saw them coming.”
Edward clenched his jaw. “Must be from The Dalles,” he muttered. “You sure it’s only a few hundred?”
“Yeah, I could see the tail end of them, but it was a ways back,” the guard replied quickly.
Edward glanced at the handful of men at the door. “Pull everyone you can and tell them to get geared up.”
“I will, but the beach guards are in the infirmary,” one replied.
Edward’s brow furrowed. “Infirmary?” he glanced at the cuffed duo. “What did you guys do?”
“Accidentally concussed one of them,” Zion replied casually, “and my buddy here connected the other one’s hand to the table with a drill bit.”
Edward glared at Calvin. “How in the holy hell did you think that was okay to do?”
“He called my friend here a monkey boy,” Calvin shot back, “and I wasn’t going to stand for it.”
Edward clucked his tongue. “That was probably Billy,” he said with a sigh. “That should knock the racism out of him.”
“If you’d like, I could head up this little operation for you,” Zion piped up.
Both Edward and Calvin gaped at him.
“Our friends to the north can help out as well,” Zion continued. “We just need some rides and a couple of gunmen.”
Calvin raised his still-cuffed hands. “And your pipe bomb maker.”
Edward threw a nod at the cluster of guards. “Get them whatever they need,” he said. “If those things are at the rest stop they’ll be here within an hour. One of you, get the families on lockdown at the hotel.”
They all rushed out of the room, and Edward approached the duo, making quick work of their cuffs himself.
“We’ll get this mess cleaned up for you, then get out of your hair,” Zion said as he freed his wrists. “If you’d like, I can come back down in a couple of days and we can talk about your needs and how I can help.”
Edward
extended his hand. “Tomorrow’s out, but the day after that I’m good. You like steak?”
“Damn right I do,” Zion replied with a smile as they shook.
Edward nodded. “Come down around lunch and I’ll take you over to Annie’s.”
“Unless there are multiple restaurants in town,” Zion replied with a grimace, “she might not be too happy to see me, as we kind of forced her to shoot a shotgun into her ceiling.”
Edward waved his hands. “Just bring her a bottle of whiskey and she’ll forgive you.”
Zion chuckled. “I can do that.”
“Be safe and we’ll see you soon,” Edward replied, dismissing them as he circled back around his desk.
The duo nodded to each other and headed out the door, ready for a fresh zombie assault.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zion rode in the lead truck of a caravan of three, all the way into White Salmon. The man behind the wheel was a gruff-looking man in his early fifties, and didn’t seem interested at all in talking. Zion was okay with that, though he missed Calvin’s chatter.
“Stop two blocks up,” he directed.
The driver scowled. “I know where we’re going.”
“Then you oughta know where you boys got your asses handed to you, and why you shouldn’t be driving up on it,” Zion shot back, “which is why I told you where to stop.”
The driver shook his head. “Relax boy, you’re with us now,” he replied, condescension in his tone. “They ain’t gonna do-”
He stopped short as a wooden stake smashed through the window, embedding itself in the driver’s seat right next to the man’s head. Zion immediately hopped out of the truck, waving his arms above his head.
“Harold, it’s me!” he yelled. “Calm down, man!”
“Oh, sorry!” Harold called back. “You okay?”
Zion nodded, keeping his hands up to make sure the other trucks stopped behind him. “Yeah, I’m good,” he assured him. “Stand down for me, will you?”
Harold gave him a thumbs up through the opening, and Zion leaned back into the truck.
“Maybe next time your dumb ass will listen to me?” he asked. “It don’t matter if I’m with you or not, if they don’t know that I am.”
Dead America The Third Week Box Set, Vol. 1 [Books 1-6 ] Page 32
