After watching the inky darkness swallow up the retreating ferry, Riker ushered Steve-O inside the truck and then climbed in after, claiming the passenger seat for himself.
Face washed red from the brake lights on Tobias’s pickup, Tara regarded Riker. “You’ve been up for nearly twenty hours,” she said gently. “You should close your eyes and take a nap. You’ll feel better.”
Grunting, Riker shook his head. “I’m going to wait until we get underway.”
“That’s what … fifteen minutes, at most?” said Tara. “By the time you close your eyes, we’ll be on the other side. What’s that going to do for you?” Indicating the pickup just beginning to creep toward the ramp, she went on. “There’s still two vehicles ahead of this monstrosity. That’s a full hour. It’s eleven o’clock right now. How about I wake you at the witching hour?”
Popping open an energy drink, he said, “Six eyes are better than four any day. Plus, there’s bound to be more—”
“Zombies out there,” she interrupted. “That’s what I was just thinking. If they come, what good are you to us if you’re fatigued?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I’m worthless to us asleep,” he stated soberly.
“Good point,” said Tara. She started the motor and pulled the Shelby forward, leaving half a truck’s length between the two pickups. When she shut the motor down, Steve-O was already snoring loudly in the back seat.
“Just like that we’re down to two sets of eyes,” Riker said as he tipped back the tiny silver and blue can and emptied it in one long pull. “That settles it. And as I was saying before you so rudely cut me off—which, you know, you’ve been doing since before you could talk—I do think we’ll be seeing more zombies before the night is over.”
Beneath the magnolia tree to their left, the card game had grown in size and become a raucous affair. Bottles clinked and folding chairs creaked as the white cards were dealt around for what seemed like the hundredth time.
As far as Riker could tell, no money was changing hands. Which made him wonder how the game was keeping a dozen adults engaged, considering all that was happening in the large cities east and south of the panhandle.
Windows rolled down a couple of inches, Tara and Lee watched the people assemble cards in their hand and throw others down.
“What game is that?” asked Tara.
“I was wondering the same thing,” he replied.
As they waited for the ferry to return, short periods of absolute silence were bookended by eruptions of uncontrollable laughter brought on by the dealer reading the players’ discards.
Ear cocked toward the action, Tara said, “This game is nasty.” She turned to face Riker. “What’s bukkake?”
“I have no idea,” he replied. “Maybe it’s Japanese for Here zombie, zombie … please come and chomp on us.”
“If they don’t shut up,” said Tara. “I’m going to go over there, break their lantern, and tell them to.”
“That won’t derail their game, Sis. Most of them are wearing headlamps.”
“Then I’ll threaten them with Miss Shockwave.”
“That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?”
“It’s almost that time of the month,” she shot back, smiling. “On second thought, I won’t be needing the shotgun.”
“Remember, you show off a gun … you better be willing to use it. It’s my experience that bluffing only works in Texas Hold ’em or when threatening to end a relationship.”
While they watched and listened to the amusing displays of immaturity the game was bringing out of the players, the ferry returned and then disembarked again with the next two vehicles onboard.
Riker took his eyes off a woman doubled over in laughter and regarded Tara. “Fire her up and wait here until I call you forward. Don’t ask questions, just do whatever I say. OK?”
She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. She saw in his eyes an intensity that usually preceded him doing something he wasn’t going to enjoy. So she nodded and shooed him out the door.
Riker elbowed open the passenger door, then shut it quietly behind him. Under the Caveman’s steady gaze, he looped around front of the Shelby. Seeing Tobias Harlan watching him in the Chevy’s wide, driver-side wing mirror, Riker approached the occupied cab, hands in plain sight and calling the older man’s name.
Attention again drawn to the card game, Tara missed the short animated conversation between Riker and Harlan. When she looked forward, the Chevy’s lights went dark and her brother was motioning for her to crank the wheels right and drive the Shelby around.
Dropping the transmission to Drive, she released the brake and edged around the wide camper shell.
Standing by the Chevy’s right front fender, Riker met Tara’s gaze as she rolled the truck by. “Pull up to the water’s edge,” he instructed.
After doing as she was told, Tara shut the truck down and set the emergency brake, giving it an extra hard press of her toe. Something about parking the truck on a decline this close to the water was highly unnerving to her.
Appearing outside Tara’s window and staring in at her, Riker said, “Why don’t you get out and stretch your legs. Best bring Miss S with you.”
Not following, she shot him a quizzical look.
Speaking slowly, he said, “Bring the Shockwave.”
Tara powered the windows up, stepped out, and set the locks. Peering in the back window at a sleeping Steve-O, she said, “Think he’ll be OK by himself?”
With a tilt to his head, Riker looked down at her.
“I know, I know,” she replied. “He’s a grown ass man. I’ll try to remember that.”
Out of the Chevy and sitting on a folding chair, Jessie cast a watchful eye on the pair.
Riker said, “Let’s walk and talk,” then struck off in the direction of Shorty’s house.
Passing the card game, Tara cupped a hand to her mouth. Whispering, she asked, “Why did we pull ahead of the Harlans?”
“I told them Shorty wanted my truck loaded first.”
“When did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t. I lied.”
“And they bought that?”
“When Tobias asked why, I told him that since the engines are set back near the stern, and his rig is so darn big, a little balance was required to keep Miss Abigail from riding low in water at the ass end.”
Tara stopped to inspect the pair of WaveRunners for sale. Looking up, she said, “Any truth to that?”
Riker shook his head. “I know a lot about cars and how to drive them. But I’m Sergeant Schultz when it comes to stuff that floats.”
“Sergeant who?”
“Come on,” he said, incredulous. “Miss I Fall Asleep To Old Television Reruns doesn’t know who Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes is? Does Stalag 13 ring a bell? How ‘bout Colonel Klink?” In a terrible German accent, he went on, “I see nothing. I hear nothing. I know nothing,” then looked at her, one eyebrow arched.
Crickets.
Nearing the edge of the spill from the porch lights, Riker stopped and stared into the dark.
Tara said, “We better head back.”
Riker nodded but said nothing. In his mind he was already on the ferry and wondering what awaited them at the end of the trip.
As they started to turn back toward the house, a lone form launched from the dark a dozen yards to their right. It was snarling and twitching and didn’t see them. Arms and legs pumping, the male Bolt, somewhere in its twenties, hit the low hedge bordering the rear of Shorty’s home at full speed.
Equal and opposite reactions being what they are, as the runner’s legs were arrested by the foot-and-a-half-wide thicket, its upper body whipped forward.
Hitting the ground face-first on the grass beyond the hedge, the zombie went heels over head and continued to tumble, rag-doll-like, until all forward momentum was spent.
After having witnessed the reactions of people who have suffered from similar embarrassing situations, R
iker half-expected to see the Bolt sit up, flash a sheepish grin, and then proceed to spit out the dirt and grass that had accumulated in its gaping mouth.
Instead, as if the hedge incident had never occurred, the Bolt rolled onto its stomach, went to all fours, and then shot off for the noisy card game, covering almost a dozen feet before once again going bipedal.
“Oh shit!” Tara blurted even as she was scanning the darkness for more of the dead things—her own self-preservation first and foremost in her mind.
“Where there’s one,” Riker said, “there’s bound to be more.” He tugged her shirt sleeve and, after reminding her to not flag him with the Shockwave’s muzzle, motioned for her to follow.
Keeping low with the Sig drawn and a round chambered, Riker led them in the direction they had come, past the left side of the house and across the front walkway. Just as they arrived behind the WaveRunners, the card game hit a lull and the laughing and chattering ceased.
The silence lasted for a second, maybe two, before there came a loud thud and crash and the lantern and the cooler it had been sitting atop was sent flying.
From fifty feet away, Riker heard a guttural grunt followed closely by the unmistakable sound of air leaving someone’s lungs.
In the next beat people were rocketing from their camp chairs and the noise of bottles breaking filled the air.
The screams came next.
Acting as a sort of lookout, a man on the dock bellowed, “It’s one of them,” and hustled toward the lawn.
A woman, her voice suddenly going shrill, warned, “There’s more coming,” then turned and ran.
Riker saw two bodies rolling around on the ground beside the overturned cooler. The man on the bottom kicked and threw wild haymakers at the undead assailant.
There was an ear-splitting boom as a gun discharged. The lick of flame accompanying the report lit up the lookout, now brandishing a pistol and running up on the pair on the ground. Wearing a stunned look, the shooter did a little happy dance over the unmoving Bolt. Voice displaying equal measures incredulity and confidence, he cried, “I got it. Hot damn, I got it.”
No sooner had the man let his gun hand drop to his side than a second Bolt rushed from the gloom and laid him flat out on the grass amidst a jumble of beer bottles and game cards.
The impact with the ground stole the air from the man’s lungs and knocked the revolver from his hand.
Light glinting off its chrome finish, the stubby weapon went tumbling end-over-end through the air until gravity brought it back to earth on a patch of trampled grass a dozen feet away.
Beyond the unfolding mayhem, Riker spotted a trio of dark forms trudging slowly toward him. They were spread out in a ragged line on the dock and nearing the Chris-Craft. As they entered the warm light spilling from the yacht’s many above-deck windows, the long shadows trailing them shrank to nothing and Riker learned he was looking at two women and a man.
The women were in their late forties when they died. With defensive wounds on their hands and forearms, it was obvious to Riker they had fought back hard against their attackers. Along with the remains of their bloodied clothing, ribbons of dermis and long strips of partially rendered flesh dangled from their pale extremities.
The man had been fit and young before death. He wore only a tiny yellow swimsuit, which Riker called a banana hammock and wouldn’t be seen dead in. Cause of death wasn’t clear. There were no visible bite marks or gunshot wounds. Judging by the way the gray skin hung slack from the walking corpse, Riker figured it had spent some time submerged in water after succumbing to the virus and reanimating.
Drawing a breath, Tara said, “He’s hung.”
“Like an elephant,” Riker said, at once feeling a tinge of inadequacy and the hot rush of embarrassment for gawking at the baby arm sloshing around within the swimsuit’s sheer yellow fabric. That the twenty-something wasn’t already head down and sprinting for them made Riker think of Swamp Girl. The two had been roughly the same age and fitness level before joining the ranks of the living dead. And both looked to have been among those ranks for quite some time.
Maybe Bolts do suffer some kind of degradation after time, was what he was thinking as undead Magic Mike was cut down by gunfire from above.
Standing on the Chris-Craft’s deck, just a few yards from the siblings, was an elderly gentleman. He wore a captain’s hat, its polished black brim gleaming under the dock lights. The pointed ends of the red kerchief knotted around his neck hung over a stark white tunic. In his hands was a scoped long rifle, a wisp of gun smoke curling from its upturned muzzle. Working the bolt to eject the brass casing, the man shouted, “There’s more coming. Save yourselves while you still can.”
As the man fumbled in his pocket for something, a fresh round, presumably, Riker noted the blood-stippled bandage wrapping the hand. And though he couldn’t tell from the angle, he guessed the severed thumb in the mouth of the head-shot corpse behind the porta potty likely belonged to the captain.
Ignoring the warning, Riker swung the Sig toward the pair of plodding women.
Thanks to the motion sensors in the reflex sight, the holographic pip was already activated and glowing red when he threw the safety off and lined up for a shot at the leading zombie. Drawing a breath, he exhaled slowly and pressed the trigger.
Once again, he must have been anticipating the recoil, because the first bullet struck low and left, tearing a substantial chunk of flesh from his target’s neck. Riker’s eyes were closed when the second round discharged, so he missed seeing where it impacted.
When Riker reopened his eyes, the first undead woman was sprawled on the grass near the dock walkway, a gaping, smoking hole where a nose should have been. In the next beat, there was a sharp crack to Riker’s right and again a tongue of flame erupted from the captain’s rifle.
Taking a direct hit through the crown of its head, the second slow-mover pitched forward and landed atop the face-shot woman, brains pushing from the rear of its ruptured skull.
A few yards left of the walkway, the man who had shot the first Bolt with the pistol was on the ground, unarmed, and fighting with both hands to push the second Bolt off of him.
Sitting cross-legged on the grass within arm’s reach of the ongoing struggle was the man who had been tackled off his camp chair. He was bare from the waist up and pressing his blood-soaked tee shirt to the back of his neck. Clearly in shock and oblivious to the flecked bone and brain tissue sliding down one side of his face, he simply rocked back and forth, a thousand-yard-stare fixed on nothing in particular.
The captain was berating the siblings for sticking around when Tara peeled off to her left.
Over the ringing in his ears, Riker detected the harmonic thrum of Miss Abigail’s twin outboards. That he could hear them at all told him the ferry was close to docking. When he turned to alert Tara, he saw she was navigating the debris field underneath the magnolia tree and coming up real fast on the Bolt’s blind side.
The man on his back was tiring. Though both arms were locked at the elbow, they were beginning to quiver.
Showing zero signs of fatigue, the Bolt continued to claw at the prone man’s face, each wild swipe bringing its yawning maw a little bit closer to tasting the flesh it sought.
Bringing the Shockwave level to the ground, Tara encouraged the man to keep his arms locked and his head down.
Hearing her brother in her head saying: Never aim a gun at something you don’t want to destroy, Tara stopped a yard from the melee, planted her feet a shoulder-width apart, and slipped her finger into the trigger guard.
“Sorry,” she said as she pressed the trigger and subconsciously closed her eyes.
Nothing.
No click.
No boom.
All that reached her ears was the snarling of the dead thing a foot from the shotgun’s business end and the steady thrum of boat engines somewhere to the right and behind her.
Yelling to be heard over the ferry, Riker said, “Safe
ty.”
When Tara threw the safety, she immediately pressed the trigger.
The ferocity of the ensuing report was wholly unexpected and hit her like a clap of thunder. The violent recoil ripped the stubby shotgun’s bird’s head grip from her right hand. And since the fingers on her left were threaded through the nylon hand-strap attached to the shotgun’s fore-end, when she lost control of the weapon, that arm was taken on a wild counterclockwise ride over her head.
Still rooted in place, Riker saw the second Bolt’s face all but disappear in a puff of pink mist. He also noted the effects of the recoil and grimaced as Tara’s body followed the travel of the five-pound weapon attached to her arm.
The initial expression of shocked surprise on her face was expected. He was sure he’d worn one similar when he forgot to throw the safety on his Sig back at the swamp.
Her reaction to the shotgun’s abbreviated grip hitting her squarely between both butt cheeks caught Riker by surprise. Still wearing that look of intense pain, she covered the distance to him with the Shockwave dangling from one hand and the other beckoning for him to meet her halfway.
With a few feet separating them, and Tara developing a pronounced limp, she bellowed, “Take this evil motherfucker,” and thrust it at Riker butt first.
“Tell me how you really feel,” he joked as he took the shotgun from her. “I didn’t warn you that thing’s recoil is like a mule kick?”
“Shoulda, coulda, but didn’t,” she fired back.
On the deck of the yacht above the two, the captain’s rifle discharged.
Behind them, Jessie and Tobias were yelling for them to hurry back and get the Shelby started.
A volley of pistol fire sounded from the lawn near the magnolia tree. When Riker looked, he saw a petite blonde, shiny revolver in hand and firing at the dead things filing out of the dark.
For the first time since they’d been waiting in line, a fog horn on the ferry sounded as it nosed in against the boat ramp. Just a short toot to get Riker’s attention. “The ferry is docking,” he said, tugging on Tara’s hand.
Resisting his pull, Tara said, “Lee,” and pointed at a fast-mover coming down the dock, straight for them.
The Plan Page 20
