“Right direction. Wrong answer. There are more than the four Cardinal points on a compass.”
Seeing where he was going with this, Raven pointed out the other four she knew of, beginning with southeast and ending with northeast, a full circle that when completed put a smile on her dad’s face.
“Bingo,” Cade said. “If you’re really getting down to precise waypoints and such, there’s three-hundred-and-sixty degrees on the same compass. North is zero. The degrees count up clockwise from there, ending at north, where they started. Strange enough, zero degrees is bordered on the left by three-hundred-and-sixty, which also happens to be north. Are you confused yet?”
She gave him a bored look.
“Okay,” he said. “This’ll be my last Bushcraft 101 question … for now.” He noted the time on his Suunto. “We have a little less than an hour and a half before we need to be parked where on 16?” He looked at her.
“South of the intersection and in plain sight of 39.” She smiled. “You going to fill me in on what’s next … or do I have to keep guessing?”
He waited a beat before answering. “I didn’t want to worry you on the way here, so I didn’t let on that Black Beauty here isn’t steering like she should. I’m pretty sure it’s due to air loss prior to me applying the liquid patch.”
“We can drive on it, can’t we?”
He nodded. “But you shouldn’t drive fast with an improperly inflated tire. Especially tires this big. Plus, I’m not certain we don’t still have a slow leak. And if we do—”
Interrupting, Raven said, “Please tell me we’re not going to be stranded out here after dark.”
“I never lie to you, Raven. That being said, anything is possible.”
She took her hat off. Put it in her lap and worried the tassel with both hands.
“We won’t if I can help it. First things first. We go down to the shop there and see if there’s anything useful inside. A foot pump, maybe. A tank of compressed air would be ideal. It’s pretty likely there’ll be something we can use in there.”
She put the hat back on. He noted she wasn’t without it since the day they’d buried her mom. He supposed it was her security blanket of sorts. He looked at the bandage wrapping her knuckles. Thanks to Glenda’s instruction, Raven was keeping the dressing changed.
“You ought to wear your mom’s old gloves from here on out.” He fished in the console and pulled out the black leather items.
After watching Raven snug the gloves on, Cade let up off the brake. To conserve fuel, he kept his foot from the accelerator and allowed gravity to drag them downhill toward the 16/39 junction.
Chapter 15
Duncan was a handful of miles removed from his surprise encounter with the herd of dead when he saw a UDOT sign indicating Huntsville lay just eleven miles ahead. For reasons unknown to him, seeing the sign led to him recalling a specific detail of Glenda’s flight from Huntsville. One night, shortly after her arrival at the compound, the two had been sitting near a dying campfire. They were watching the star show when, suddenly, she got a faraway look and launched into her story. Fighting back tears, she had recounted how she finally granted her undead husband a second death. She divulged that she’d done it in their shared bed in their home on the hill above the Pineville Reservoir. How she had fashioned makeshift pieces of armor for her arms and legs using gossip magazines and duct tape. Especially harrowing was her escape from Huntsville disguised as the one of the monsters and having to hole up for the night in the garage of a burned-out Shell station. She had related everything in great detail from beginning to end when her journey to Woodruff was cut short by Daymon’s roadblock, where she had been forced to abandon the old red Schwinn that had delivered her safely over many miles of state route teeming with walking corpses.
Glenda had liberated the bike from a house once belonging to a friend of hers—an AA teetotaler named Violet who had introduced Glenda to recovery. And if Duncan’s memory served, Glenda had said the two-story house with the stoop full of unread newspapers and a Volvo wagon in the driveway was roughly ten miles east of Huntsville. Which meant, if his calculation was correct, he should be seeing the rutted uphill drive any second now.
***
Duncan’s “Any second” ended up being a little over two minutes. The house was set back in the trees and partially hidden by shrubs growing out of control.
The drive from the road to the dilapidated two-story affair was fairly steep and rutted by parallel tire tracks. The siding showing through the bushes was a shade of blue, chalky and fading from changing seasons and the steady march of time.
He turned off the state route and motored up the drive at a walking speed. Along the way he sized up the place. The screen on the front door was closed and he could see the pile of Huntsville Times—a week’s worth at least—Glenda had mentioned in her telling of the story. Stained glass windows flanked the door. Drawn horizontal blinds backed the windows in front.
Nosed in at an angle on the oil-stained cement parking pad next to the house was the Volvo wagon. On the back tailgate were dozens of stickers. Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Bryce Canyon were represented. Mixed in with the stickers attesting to places the car had been were those touting the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and a slew of other activist groups whose social values fell much farther to the left than Duncan’s.
He jockeyed the Land Cruiser around and parked it facing downhill with its rear bumper a foot from the wagon’s. As he stared the length of the drive he envisioned Glenda straddling the Schwinn and dodging rotters as she bombed downhill toward the distant two-lane. And in that split second flashback based solely on her exceptional oration skills, he saw her pedaling east with a shit-eating grin on her face. Savoring the first bit of hope she had experienced since deciding to finish her undead husband and leave everything dear to her behind in Huntsville.
Back to reality, Duncan shut down the motor and, using all three mirrors, took quick inventory of his surroundings.
The house was on the right and cast a shadow over the SUV. The fir tree the Schwinn had been leaning against dominated a wide stretch of tilled soil between the house and Volvo. In front of the Volvo, its wood slat doors hanging wide open, was a small swaybacked garage.
Duncan stepped to the drive and locked the Toyota. Head on a swivel, he drew his .45 and made tracks to the garage. A quick turkey-peek around the open door told him, save for the cobwebs strung between the rafters and shadowy corners, a recycling bin full of newspaper, and an old-fashioned push mower leaning against the back wall, the structure was empty.
Turning his attention to the rear of the house, he learned the horizontal blinds in the rear-facing windows were also closed. On the side of the house facing the drive was a small bay window. In the window was a trio of dead houseplants. To the left of the bay window was a rectangular window the size of a pool table. The drapes were parted in the middle. He saw nothing moving in the gloom behind them.
Running behind the fir from the rear corner of the house to the garage was a waist-high fence. The gate was hanging by one hinge. Caught on the failed upper hinge was a foot-long strip of tattered denim.
Duncan squeezed through the gate and quickly surveyed the backyard, finding it as unkempt as the front. Rising up at the rear of the property was a wall of gnarled rhododendrons that looked to have been ignored for many years prior to the dead walking.
The ground beyond the gate was mostly mud. Pressed into the mud were dozens of different prints. Some were made by bare feet. Others were made by shoes and boots in all different sizes and possessing varied sole patterns. So much was going on here that after just a few minutes he gave up searching for the tread pattern specific to Glenda’s hikers.
He scaled the short stack of stairs and tried the knob on the back door. Finding it locked gave him a bit of hope. Maybe the familiarity of the place had drawn Glenda here just as the snippet of memory of her story had changed the trajectory of his journey. He looked through t
he square pane of glass and saw on the back porch a broom with tired bristles, a couple of cold weather coats on a hook, a ratty pair of tennis shoes coated with mud, and, the best clue yet as to who lived here, rain galoshes in two sizes and colors. The size twelve gunboats in black screamed his, while the smaller bright green pair had to have belonged to the woman of the house.
Duncan pounded on the door with a closed fist then crouched down out of sight. As he waited to see if the action might draw out any dead roaming freely inside, he thought back to the night Brook turned. Sitting watch on the stairs outside the RV while a woman he’d grown to respect and love like a daughter died slowly inside was a trial he wouldn’t wish on anyone. Spending the subsequent hours waiting for Cade to return by a dying fire with the shell of that woman slamming around inside the RV was life changing. In fact, at the time, it had made him question God’s very existence. Which started the slide down the slippery slope that deposited him here, alcohol on board, faith shaken, and his chances at maintaining long-term sobriety shattered.
“Glenda! You in there?” He paused and listened hard. During the ensuing seconds of silence, he saw Glenda’s face. Only the smile she wore riding the bike to safety was gone. Hopefully not a portent of things to come, he pictured her shark-eyed and slack-jawed. One of them. Just like Brook had eventually become.
Duncan waited an additional ten seconds for good measure, then rose and peered inside. Still quiet. Nothing moving that he could hear from outside. So he holstered the .45, grabbed ahold of the stair rails, and delivered a swift kick to the door. His boot heel made contact just below the handle, the ensuing bang shattering the still. There was a vicious tearing sound as wood splintered and the door was driven inward.
Duncan stopped the door midway on its return travel and stepped into the gloomy anteroom. Dust motes and particles of drywall from the hole punched in the wall by the door handle cruised the still air. Straight ahead, Duncan spotted a small galley-style kitchen. On his right was a door blocked by all manner of camping gear. There was a medium-sized cooler with a 24-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer resting on its lid. A trio of sleeping bags jammed into multicolored stuff sacks sat in a neat row beside the cooler. There was a gas lantern and stove, but no fuel canisters for them. Two empty Rubbermaid bins sat amongst the gear.
After prying a beer from the case, Duncan closed the door behind him and braced it with the broom.
The sound from him cracking open the warm beer echoed in the small kitchen.
As he stood there downing the beer, he took in his surroundings. Aside from the dead plants in the bay window and a light coating of dust on everything, the kitchen was immaculate. No dishes in the sink. Though not running on account of no electricity, the refrigerator was clean and contained only a few condiments gone bad long ago.
It was clear to him whoever was going to go camping had wanted to return to a clean house.
A paper flyer lying on the counter added an important piece to the puzzle. It was an official-looking FEMA document with detailed warnings from the Centers for Disease Control about the Omega Virus and directions to a sanctuary being set up by the state government north of Salt Lake City. The admonishment NO WEAPONS ALLOWED — ALL WILL BE SUBJECT TO SEIZURE was emblazoned in a large bold font across the bottom of the sheet.
No mincing words there, Duncan thought as he turned the notice over. Written in pencil on the flipside was a detailed shopping list complete with milk, eggs, butter, bread and a dozen other items necessary for a long stay in the woods.
Good luck with that. The stores in Portland were empty, or in the process of being picked clean by looters before Z-Day plus two was fully underway.
The only item Duncan found worth keeping during a quick sweep through the rest of the main floor rooms was a full roll of double-ply toilet paper. Apparently they wanted to come home and be able to take a dump, too. The hard to find commodity went into his coat pocket as he approached a door off the living room he guessed to be either a coat closet or stairs going up.
Betting on the latter, he again went through the bang-on-the-door-and-listen routine. Which after a few seconds got results. Not the good kind, though. Instead of silence, a distant scratching noise—like fingernails raking an interior wall—sounded from behind the door. A dry hiss followed. Then, a tick later, the scratching commenced again.
Looking to quell a little of the guilt he carried from leaving Brook to suffer, he drew his .45, worked the doorknob, and dragged the door slowly in his direction.
“Glenda?”
No reply. Just the sounds of restless dead things filtering down the darkened stairway.
Wooden rail in one hand, Colt in the other, he climbed the narrow stairs. All seventeen of them. Halfway up the reek of death was palpable. Another few steps upward and his eyes went level with the floor. Seeing the wide open space in tiny increments between the spindles of a safety rail encircling the top of the well lent him a good impression of the floor’s layout. And it was much like that in Glenda’s home. Basically a renovated attic with gables on either side and a big window looking out over the front yard. No portico, but there was a king bed pushed against the wall to his left. On the bed was the festering corpse of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. Her face in death was a mask of peace and contentment. Sticking from the crook of one arm was a syringe with its plunger driven all the way to the stop. Even viewed over a dozen feet of gloom, he couldn’t see any obvious signs of infection. Maybe the state of the world had gotten to her and she couldn’t take it any longer. Rode the dragon right into the light.
Turning a one-eighty revealed a small bathroom at the rear of the converted attic. Its unfinished wooden pocket-door was open partway. The scratching noises were coming from its general direction.
Business end of his hand-cannon leading the way, he curled right at the top of the staircase, walked straight toward the bathroom and stopped a few feet short of showing himself. To his right was a doorway with no door. All he could see through the sliver afforded by his viewing angle were rows of clothes on plastic hangers. A footstool was lying on its side in the doorway. He took another step forward and, keeping the Colt tucked close to his body, swept its muzzle to the right, cutting the corner by degrees, until he spied the source of the sounds he’d picked up on downstairs. A bearded man, mid-thirties, give or take, was staring at him bug-eyed from a yard away. The man’s lips were an angry shade of purple from what Duncan guessed was lack of oxygen prior to death. Both arms were outstretched toward the door header which bore weeks, or maybe even several months’ worth of gouges into the wood from scrabbling fingers, the tips of each worn down to splintered bone ringed by blooms of flesh and dermis.
Prior to ending up in this sad state, the man had punched out two holes in the sheetrock overhead, looped a length of yellow climbing rope over an out of sight beam, then jumped off the nearby footstool to hang himself. There was a bite wound on the zombie’s left forearm. Fused to the wound with dried blood was one end of the bandage that once covered the near-perfect oval where a mouth-sized hunk of flesh had been excised. The bandage had come unraveled over time and now swayed back and forth pendulum-like as the rotter strained to reach Duncan.
“You know what, Stretch,” Duncan drawled. “If you hadn’t gone off and got yourself bit before enacting your exit plan”—he holstered his pistol and dragged his knife from its sheath—“your E-Ticket off this planet would have been punched.” He pointed the blade at one of the writhing creature’s milky eyes. “But you and the missus apparently weren’t privy to all of the rules. I saw the flyer from FEMA on the counter downstairs. Newsflash, my man. All of the government types were holding their cards close to the vest. Keeping us all in the dark as their failed push for containment ramped up.”
A viscous black fluid seeped around the blade as it plunged through the cornea and found brain tissue. A quick little twist of the wrist and the struggle was over.
“You’re free now, friend. And all i
t cost you is that suitcase of camping beer downstairs.”
He left the man in the noose and the woman in their bed. Went downstairs and checked all of the cupboards for a suitable alcoholic replacement for the beer. Striking out, he hefted the red, white, and blue box and lugged it to the Land Cruiser.
Chapter 16
With Main impassable from Center Street to the post office several blocks north, Cade had to improvise to get them close enough to the body shop so Raven could stay in the Ford and be his eyes and ears while he went inside to search the place.
After sprinting down 39 to the junction with 16, he cut a left and drove a few hundred feet north until the two-lane was blocked by trampled corpses, downed wires, and debris from the collapsed rehab place. From there he turned left, jumped the curb a half-block short of Center Street, and drove west.
Off of Raven’s side was a twenty-foot-wide gully. It looked to be deeper than the Ford was tall and ran straight as an arrow from the series of culverts carved underneath 16 to a gently sloping hillside topped by a copse of juvenile aspens.
Flicking by Cade’s window was a nondescript weed-choked expanse of ground that stretched all the way south to the guardrail-topped dirt berm running parallel to State Route 39.
Cade drove off road for twenty yards, said, “Hold on,” and dove the truck into the gully. Brush scraped the sides and undercarriage and the rig rocked like a ship at sea as it bounded down what was maybe a thirty-degree decline. Though Raven had the grab bar by her head in a two-handed death grip, she was still thrashed hard against the door and window. The engine growled and small rocks pinged off metal until they hit the flat and entered a twelve-foot expanse of brackish, standing water. For a couple of beats, as the tires fought for traction, twin fans of brown water cut visibility out the side windows. When the Ford left the flat and came up against the much steeper opposing incline, Cade felt the suspension compress and some of the forward momentum bleed away. Halfway to the top, the steering went mushy and the front end started pulling to the left. When the horizon finally reappeared over the Ford’s hood, the body shop lay due north across a couple of hundred feet of open field.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 13): Gone Page 11
