Nate shot Otto a knowing look. Then, with Holly still facing the Land Cruiser, he mouthed, “We need a stripper pole.”
“Mount up,” Otto said, a sly grin materializing. “Our party pad awaits.”
Chapter 24
Wilson burst onto 39, arms following his body as it spun counterclockwise and his feet lost contact with the dirt path. Before he could recover from the hockey check just delivered to his left shoulder by the weathered corner fence post, he was flat on his back, legs and arms akimbo, the M4 lying across his neck.
“You just lost your shit, Wilson,” called Sasha, her voice carrying across the desolate two-lane. “I wish I would have gotten that on video.” As soon as she said that last part, her smile disappeared.
Breathing hard from running his first ever sub-eight-minute mile in boots and parka while carrying a ten-pound weapon, he gasped, “What are you doing here?”
Already walking west down the center of 39, Sasha patted the little Ruger 10-22 rifle and pointed its muzzle at the pair of twice-dead corpses stretched out side-by-side on the nearby shoulder. “I’m pitching in,” she said. “That’s what.”
Rising up off his haunches, an M4 cradled in the crooks of his folded arms, Tran said, “I gave her permission.”
Having arrived a few seconds before Wilson, also unaware she’d just run her first sub-seven-minute mile in boots, parka, and carrying a weighty rifle, Taryn said, “Surprised the hell out of me, too.” Unlike Wilson, Taryn was standing upright on the fog line a few feet from the fencepost, breathing normally and still in possession of her rifle.
Wilson picked himself up off the road. Rubbing his shoulder, he shot a perturbed look at Tran and said, “Who died and made you guardian?”
Wearing a thoughtful expression, Tran said, “Cade asked me to keep an eye on the girls while he was away. Sasha falls under that category. The situation, I would think, falls under those orders.”
“I’m her brother,” Wilson said. His hands went to his hips. “She could have gotten killed by those things.”
Taryn was standing by the fencepost, one ear cocked toward the foliage-choked fire lane Wilson had just erupted from.
“I know that,” Tran replied calmly. “Cade also asked that I watch Sasha when you’re not around. As a courtesy. I definitely wasn’t trying to step on your toes.”
“No worries,” Wilson shot. “I’m just pissed at the fencepost. That’s all.”
Holding the M4 at a low-ready, Tran approached Wilson. He said, “No affront taken. Seth isn’t ready to come out here. And someone had to drive.”
Shooting a look of incredulity at Tran, Taryn said, “You don’t know how to drive?”
“I’m just rusty,” Tran admitted.
“It’s no big deal,” Sasha interjected. She zipped her parka to her neck, then pulled the fur-trimmed hood over her shock of red hair. Looking skyward, she added, “It’s about to rain.”
Taryn said, “I can hear them coming now.”
Tran asked, “How many?”
“Dozens,” replied Wilson as he went through the motions of checking the M4’s magazine and confirming a round was chambered. Looking up from the task, he added, “That we know of. I have a bad feeling the mega herd … or horde, whatever they’re calling it, has split up.”
“Makes sense,” Tran conceded. “There’s a big herd chasing Cade and Raven. Bear River called with word of a second smaller horde that surged north on 16 last night.”
Brow furrowed, Wilson asked, “When?”
Tran said, “Real early. Between two and three in the morning.”
“I’ve heard Cade call that time of the morning zero dark thirty,” Taryn added. “Did you inform him? How about Lev and Jamie … they’re up north. Did you tell them?”
“I called them both on their satellite phones. Lev and Jamie were real close to Bear Lake and hadn’t seen the actual horde yet. There’s a lot of damage from their passing, though.” Tran cocked an ear towards the fire lane. “And these ones are getting close.”
Wilson was standing over the corpses. Addressing Sasha, he asked, “You did both of these?” He squatted and examined the male first turn. Cause of second death was obvious: one eye was reduced to a pool of milky sludge ringed by tiny black dots. The last outfit it had shrugged on as a breather consisted of gray sweatpants and an oversized Pittsburgh Steelers jersey. The sweatpants were black in places where blood had soaked in and dried. The jersey appeared to have taken a ride through a wood chipper. And from the looks of the ashen, welt-addled dermis showing from underneath, the middle-aged rotter had been wearing the jersey for the ride.
The female first turn wore tightly laced leather hiking boots and was dressed in expensive outdoor gear, most of it new looking. Blood trickled from a pencil-eraser-sized entry wound an inch in front of its left ear. The powder burns to the temple were identical to those around the male’s eye.
Both kills had been of the up close and personal variety.
Sasha nodded. “I watered my balls, Bro. Two bullets … two rotters down. Good ROI if I don’t say so myself.”
Head tilted at an angle, Tran said, “ROI?”
“Return on investment,” answered Sasha. “Cade wants us to conserve ammo.”
Tran nodded and smiled.
The loud crack of a substantial-sized branch breaking sounded from within the forest somewhere beyond the corner fence post.
Wilson rose and stared off to where the sound had come from. “How fast do you think the rotters move?” he said to nobody in particular. “A mile … maybe a mile and a half per hour?”
“Not these ones,” Taryn said. “I think you’re being real conservative with your estimate.”
Wilson asked, “Well, what do you think then?”
With the others looking on, Taryn made her way to the fence on the far side of 39. She leaned against the weathered post. It was sunk deep into the ground and didn’t budge. Next, she reached over and tugged on the barbed wire. Some of the strands were firm. Others showed some give. She walked her gaze up the gently sloped clearing. The graves of her friends were up there somewhere, but that wasn’t what was on her mind.
“They’ll be here in less than fifteen minutes,” she said, her face a mask of concern. “We shouldn’t be out in the open like this.”
Sasha shot the young woman an inquisitive look.
“Those things in the woods are in full-on hunt mode,” Taryn said. “Hell, they were already all spooled up by the deer or elk or whatever those things were when they spotted me and Wilson.”
Wilson said, “Those were elk.”
All business, Tran said, “They were following the elk. Maybe we can draw them away with the truck. Honk the horn and drive real slow. That’ll keep them following.”
“I don’t think we should split up,” Taryn said soberly. “No disrespect, Tran. But there’s just me and Wilson here who can drive.” She paused to return Sasha’s sour look. “Besides,” she went on, “with Duncan and Glenda AWOL there’s already too many of us scattered to the wind.”
“Speaking of Old Man,” said Wilson. “Any word from him or Glenda?”
Tran shook his head. “Neither of them answered last time I radioed.”
“He’s a big boy,” Wilson said. “At least that’s what he always says when Daymon goes off—”
“Newsflash, bro,” Sasha interrupted. “Daymon isn’t just missing. I get the feeling from what Cade saw the other night … Heidi getting killed and all, that Daymon would fall into the presumed dead category.”
Tran looked to Wilson. He drew a deep breath and exhaled. “I hate to say that I agree with your sister. But I do. When Cade said he was going outside the wire with Raven, I got the sense that searching for Daymon was a thing, just not the thing. Then when I called to relay the message from the new sheriff at Bear River, he seemed to be more interested in what he had going on than fulfilling the sheriff’s request.”
Wilson said, “The writing’s on the wall. Capta
in America is on a mission to toughen her up.”
Sasha made a face. She said, “Like make her kill a deer and eat its heart and drink its blood kind of tough?”
Taryn said, “That’s some Red Dawn shit right there.”
Head taking a strange tilt, Wilson shot Taryn a questioning look that went unanswered on account of Tran saying, “Cade asked if he and Raven could watch me next time I dress a deer. I gather it’s mostly for her benefit.”
“With no Daymon to kill said deer,” Wilson noted. “It may be a long while before that happens.”
“Enough jawing,” Taryn said as she slowly backpedaled away from the fire lane. “The dead are coming and we’re standing around and doing nothing.” She looked to Tran. “You’re the oldest here. Do you have any ideas other than fracturing our already fractured group?”
Tran was shaking his head the moment she looked to him. By the time she finished her thought, he was pointing at Wilson and staring her in the face. “You and Wilson,” he said. “You’ve seen and done way more than me.”
Taryn shrugged and put a hand on Wilson’s shoulder. “Sasha. Tran.” She beckoned them over. “Bring it in close. I have an idea.”
Chapter 25
Jamie and Lev were in a place familiar to them. Less than a week ago, Tran had broken in to the home via the dog door inset into the garage rollup. Five minutes ago, after having employed the usual knock and wait protocol, the pair had waltzed in through the unlocked front door. With Adrian and her gang disposed of, neither Lev or Jamie expected the place to be occupied by anything living or dead. In fact, they found the brown two-story affair perched on the southern edge of Bear Lake just as they’d left it. Situated in a row of homes of similar style and earth-tone hue, the only thing that made the nondescript home they were in stand out from the others was the white Ford Raptor nosed in against the street-facing two-car garage.
Standing on the upstairs wraparound porch and being buffeted by an onshore breeze, Jamie was busy steadying the tripod with one hand as she rotated the humongous spotting scope a few degrees left. After giving the locking nut a quick twist, she smoothed out the bandage covering the wound on her neck and cheek, then positioned her face above the ocular lens. Holding that pose, she stared one-eyed into the eyepiece and applied downward pressure on the aiming handle until the top third of the three-story house she was surveilling filled up the lens. A quick twist of the focus knob and everything snapped crisp and clear.
The cul-de-sac the house sat on was the makeshift town square of what had been a satellite outpost established and manned by the gang of cannibals led by Adrian. The red-roofed home was one of three that had not been occupied by Adrian and her ilk the last time the Eden group tangled with them here.
Acting on Duncan’s orders, Daymon and Lev had torched the other houses around the cul-de-sac.
Now, Taryn was focused only on a tiny porch she thought was called a Juliet balcony. It was a small outdoor space at the front of the home. A white railing supported by a picket of vertical wood balusters surrounded the porch on three sides. Four adults, three men and a woman, were crouched down behind the rail, just the tops of their heads visible.
Behind the people, in the shadow of a two-foot overhang, was a pair of French doors. They were both hinged open, the full-length drapes framing them blowing in the wind. Though she couldn’t see inside what she assumed to be a top floor master suite commanding a stellar view of Bear Lake’s stunningly blue water, she knew from the short twenty-minute recon she and Lev had put on the place that there were three grade-school-aged children upstairs with the adults. And judging from the size of the home, the space behind the gloom likely wasn’t suitable to accommodate a group that size for very long.
Nose crinkling at the thought of the stench produced by that many unwashed bodies in such close proximity, she said, “You think they were already calling the place home? Or did one of the hordes come in so fast last night that they were forced to flee from somewhere else and got to the lake and had nowhere to go but up?”
Hands on his hips and staring off to the west, Lev said, “My money is on the former. The courtyard is pretty chewed up. Lots of foot prints made by the passing horde. But those patches by the house. They’re too symmetrical. I think those were going to be gardens at some point. Soil is much darker than the rest. And I don’t remember that chain-link fence being here before. Last time we were up this way the place was ringed by cement panels. I see the holes where they used to stand.”
“But no panels,” said Jamie.
“I could see Adrian returning to her airport compound up north and ordering her gang to come back for the panels.”
Yeah,” Jamie said agreeably. “I don’t remember the chain-link either. And the dirt sticking to the bottom of the fence posts looks pretty fresh.”
“This all happened hours ago,” Lev said. “The horde probably caught them sleeping.”
“Or caught their only guard sleeping.”
Lev ran a hand through his chin stubble. He rested his elbows on the porch railing, squinted, and watched the ant-like figures roaming the cul-de-sac and trampled landscaping encircling it. Saw a single rotter stagger from the house’s broken front door and tumble down the porch stairs. Though he couldn’t see it without the telescope, Lev still shuddered at the thought of the corpse he’d spotted on the ground by the toppled stocks. The same stocks Duncan had left Adrian to die in. From collarbone to toes, the human remains had been stripped of every last scrap of flesh. Not that there were any toes left. Or fingers for that matter. Where there had been feet and hands, only bloody nubs of bone, cartilage, and severed tendon remained. Adding to the nightmarish vision, the Omega-infected body had turned. Aside from the wisps of black hair clinging to its skull, only its jaw moved. It was barely perceptible. Just a slow chewing motion. Millions of years of instinct still being relayed from its intact brain to the last vestiges of temporalis and masseter muscle making the movement possible.
“How sure are you those are the same men?”
Lev met her gaze. He said, “One thousand percent.”
“And what do you base that on?” she asked, a trace of skepticism evident in the tone.
“Me and Daymon freed them from the basement of one of the houses we burned. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when we opened the door to the combination laundry room/pantry they were being kept prisoner in. As you may have already guessed, the shelves were bare. Not a can or bag of food. Just knives and saws.”
She looked up at him. Making a face, she said, “Rendering tools?”
Lev nodded. “The men were trussed up on the floor.” He paused and looked toward the distant compound. “And the floor was slick with blood. So much that it had run across the room to the floor drain and was backing up.”
She threw a shudder and went back to watching.
Lev tapped Jamie on the shoulder, causing her to hinge up and shoot him a questioning look.
“Keep an eye out for their hands. They’re both missing some fingers.”
“Ewww.” She put her eye back to the lens. “Seeing Oliver’s leg on the grill was enough to make me puke.”
“You and me both,” admitted Lev. “The smell of his flesh cooking did make me puke. I still haven’t forgotten it. Sometimes I find it damn hard to eat Tran’s venison without thinking about that charbroiled leg.”
Jamie put her hands on her thighs. She said, “My back is beginning to ache. One of you dudes needs to do something.”
As if they had been listening, both men rose up until their chests were level with the rail. The younger man on the right grabbed the handrail with both hands and stood up straight. It was clear he was missing at least one digit on each hand. The man on the left with the narrow face and deep-set eyes began talking. While Jamie couldn’t hear what he was saying or read his lips to any degree that would be useful, she did see his hands when he began gesturing at the nearby foothills. And sure enough, he was missing two fingers on each h
and. The two fingers bookended by the pointer and pinky. The person responsible must have thought themselves a comedian, because as his mouth moved both hands were constantly flashing the universal rock on sign, or, depending on what generation you came up in, devil’s horns.
“We have confirmation,” she said, her voice rising an octave. “Guy with the hat is short a couple of fingers. Narrow-face beardy guy next to him has a total of six fingers. That is if you’re allowing thumbs into the finger category.”
“They’d fit right in at a high school shop teachers’ convention,” quipped Lev, cracking a joke for the first time in a long time. He caressed Jamie’s shoulder. “I want to take another look. Just to be sure we won’t be rolling into a trap.”
“They’re the ones who are trapped,” she said, stepping aside and resting her hand on the war tomahawk strapped to her right hip. “And they’re going to die up there if nothing distracts the deaders and draws them away.”
Lev stared at the house through the scope for a few seconds, his lips moving as he counted heads.
“How many Zs, you think?”
“I stopped counting at thirty.”
“We need to talk to those people,” she said. “See if they saw Daymon recently.”
“He does stick out in a crowd,” Lev said. “And logic tells me, if he was following whoever took Heidi, he’d have to pass within sight of our fingerless friends in the compound.”
“How do we go about making contact without ending up trapped up there with them?”
“Let’s go,” he said, already heading for the glass slider. “I’ll tell you my plan once we’re underway.”
She picked up the telescope and put it inside where she’d found it. As she followed him down the stairs, she said, “I’m driving.”
Looking up at her over his shoulder, Lev said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Chapter 26
Avoiding the stretch of Main demolished by the passing horde, Cade canvassed Woodruff without seeing anything to point to Daymon’s whereabouts. No spent shell casings speaking to a skirmish. Not a single dead breather. No piles of decapitated rotters being watched over by their own neatly arranged severed heads.
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