Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 13): Gone

by Chesser, Shawn

  “It might make it a little easier on Peter if he thought his dad shot himself, then died and stayed dead. I wish I didn’t know Mom turned,” she said, her voice cracking. “Makes it harder to remember her as she was.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I wish I would have been there at the end, though. So I could have held her. Told her how much I loved her.”

  Cade said, “I did that for the both of us.” He reached out and wiped the tears from his daughter’s cheeks. “You sure you’re up to it?”

  She nodded.

  He thumbed the Colt’s slide release, sending the slide home with a loud snick. He de-cocked the hammer, then dumped the mag and pocketed it.

  “Hold tight,” he said, then ran back to the Ford where he fished a single .45 caliber shell from the small stockpile of different caliber rounds that, over time, had collected at the bottom of the center console. On the way back to where Raven was waiting for him, he loaded the single bullet into the magazine, inserted the mag back into the Colt, and smartly chambered the round.

  Showing the pistol to Raven, he said, “There’s one in the pipe.” He pointed to the lever on the pistol’s backstrap. “It’s a bit different from your Glock. That’s your safety here on the back of the grip.” Next, he indicated the hammer behind the slide. It was in the down position, yet still stuck out a half-inch or so. “Since a round is chambered, all you have to do is get a solid hold on your pistol, aim it at what you’re going to shoot, and thumb back this hammer.”

  Raven had been listening intently and nodding during the entire demonstration.

  Handing the pistol to her butt first, he added, “She kicks like a mule. Hold her real tight. And to make sure you don’t wear any of the Z’s brains, stand back a few feet.” That he had not called the creature Dregan was by design. No reason to chill her this far into the exercise.

  Gun at her side, Raven regarded her dad with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Go on,” he said. “I’ll get a tarp from the truck.”

  She looked a question at him.

  “We’re going to take him home.”

  She shook her head ever so slightly.

  “I’ll take him out,” Cade promised. “I’m a big boy. Pretty sure I can get him into the truck solo, too.”

  She turned and they parted ways.

  Cade was jumping down from the open tailgate when the single report sounded. He met Raven in front of the ice cream truck with the tarp in one hand and Screamer in the other. He said, “Is it done?”

  She nodded as she handed the gun over. She said, “Mister Dregan is no longer suffering.”

  Trading the Screamer for the Colt, Cade said, “Get in the truck and dig out the sat-phone. I have a call to make.”

  Chapter 30

  Jamie tried to mimic Taryn in the way she drove the race-tuned Raptor, using as much of the 6.2 liter engine’s 411 horsepower as she dared while transporting her and Lev from the house on the southern tip of Bear Lake to the once walled-in subdivision roughly a mile or so north by west. Showing zero concern that the noise of their approach might reach the people trapped in the home on the cul-de-sac, she threw the off-road beast into each corner, powering through them with enough zeal to cause the rear tires to chirp and tattoo the road with chevron-patterned skid marks.

  Crouched down in the bed, back against the tailgate, Lev held on for dear life. He was armed with Jamie’s war tomahawk and sitting on what was to be his primary mode of communication with the people he and Jamie hoped to spirit to safety.

  When Jamie wheeled the Raptor onto an unnamed and unfinished access road running north into the heart of the cul-de-sac, it was clear to Lev that the dozens of undead were well aware of the rapidly approaching vehicle. He also saw the three adult breathers on the upstairs portico rise up and gesticulate wildly to draw attention to themselves.

  The noisy approach was supposed to check two boxes at once: distract the dead and gain the undivided attention of the breathers. By the time the entire cul-de-sac was visible to the occupants of the Raptor, it was clear they had accomplished both tasks in spades.

  Jamie braked hard, causing the Raptor to judder to a halt half a block from where a gate once prevented access to the cul-de-sac. Previously ringed by a patchwork wall comprised of cement freeway barriers and a myriad of other fencing components, the homes still standing and facing the turnaround were now entirely exposed. Which was a good thing. Because it gave Jamie room to maneuver the white pickup. It also provided three or four viable egress points, versus the two available when the fortifications still stood. Since the Raptor was designed to drive at high speeds over rolling desert terrain, possessed nearly a foot of ground clearance and a stance much wider than a stock F-150, driving over bodies and debris to keep from becoming trapped was a viable option should things go sideways on them.

  Taking a page out of Duncan’s playbook, Lev had written a message for the survivors on a 12x24-inch piece of cardboard he found in the lake house garage. WE ARE FRIENDLY was printed across the top in black Sharpie. Below that were succinct instructions he feared the survivors would balk at following—the woman, especially.

  He moved forward to the cab and stripped off his coat. He spread the coat out on the bed floor. Sign in hand, he rose and displayed it for the survivors to see.

  The woman’s mouth fell open and her head began a slow side-to-side wag.

  Lev didn’t need binoculars to see she didn’t like his written proposal.

  As the men spoke to the woman, apparently trying to reason with her, the head wag grew so pronounced that her shoulder-length brown hair was slapping her in the face.

  In the next beat three little faces appeared from behind the adults and the woman seemed to calm down.

  Lev leaned down and spoke to Jamie through the sliding rear window. He said, “I think they talked some sense into her.”

  Before Jamie could respond, a group of rotters eight strong staggered into the open and started a slow, steady advance along the left side of the access road.

  Lev sat, snaked an arm through the slider and took hold of the back seat headrest. Bracing one boot against the wheel arch, he banged the tomahawk on the bed floor and told Jamie to drive.

  As the truck accelerated and Jamie swerved right to avoid the dead, Lev’s sign was caught in the slipstream and fluttered away. In the next beat Jamie was driving the Raptor over the recently added chain-link fencing and he was being thrown back and forth like a ragdoll in a clothes dryer. Just when Lev thought the ride couldn’t get any rougher, the off road tires rolled overtop a post studded with steel mailboxes and without warning he was weightless. The sensation lasted a microsecond. When the truck came back to earth, his tailbone paid the price.

  The lightning bolt of pain running up his spine was like nothing he’d experienced before. It was ten times worse than the headache caused by the vast overpressure following the detonation of the one and only roadside bomb he’d had the displeasure of tangling with in Tikrit, Iraq. If given the choice between a swift kick to the balls or the sphincter-clenching sensation he was suffering now, he’d gladly go for two rounds of the former.

  The Raptor striking the front stairs broadside and coming to a sudden halt helped to clear the fog from Lev’s head. Jamie’s hollering at the top of her voice brought him to his feet.

  The first thing to occur to Lev was that the truck was seconds from being surrounded on three sides. The second thing he saw was a familiar face looking down on him from above. The man’s expression was one of resignation. Out of the pan and into the fire. He disappeared for a second then came back into view holding a young girl by the wrists. She was kicking and screaming as the bearded man lifted her over the rail and thrust his arms out over space.

  Adding a bit of bend to his knees, Lev nodded, reached to the sky, and mouthed, “Drop her.”

  He was hit across the arms and chest by fifty-some-odd pounds of squealing girl. Tensing every muscle in his torso and lower body saved him from punishing his tailbone for a
second time. Instead, the girl’s weight pulled him forward and a resonant gong-like sound rang out as both of his knees struck the ribbed metal floor.

  Pointing to the jacket by his feet, Lev told the girl to cover up and keep her head down. As he was issuing the instructions, a pair of rotters hit the rear bumper with a bang and draped their pustule-riddled arms over top of the tailgate. That was all the girl needed to see. She turned ostrich and buried her head deep in the rumpled camouflage coat.

  The second kid was already being dangled overhead when Lev rose up. More rotters were arriving at the truck to his left, the hollow thuds of their bodies colliding with the sheet metal making the girl by his feet flinch and cry out for her mom. As the growls and hisses of the dead rose in volume, the girl curled up into a fetal position and the words trailed off.

  “It’ll be OK,” Lev said, stretching and tensing to accept the next kid.

  The shock from catching the falling weight wasn’t as bad the second time around. Having his feet a shoulder width apart and knees bent a little less helped to distribute the weight and soak up the momentum. That the boy was several years younger and a dozen pounds lighter spared his knees. However, it did nothing to alleviate the nonstop throbbing near his butthole. In a way it felt like he had to crap, but he was pretty sure he didn’t. Or maybe he already had and wasn’t aware of it.

  Lev set the little blond boy down next to the girl. Forgoing the instructions on account of the pale arms swiping the air near the huddled kids, he held a finger up to hold off another falling kid and snatched up the tomahawk. Feeling the eyes of the hungry dead boring into him from two flanks and the frantic gaze of the living cast on him from above, he shuffled to the driver’s side, grabbed one of the arms reaching over the box bed, and brought the tomahawk down hard atop its owner’s head. The skull came apart like an overripe melon, oozing brains and releasing one eye from its socket. Lev kept hold of the arm as the rotter it was attached to went limp. Supported by the creatures pushing in from behind, the twice-dead corpse added an extra eight-inch buffer between the kids and newly arriving monsters.

  Lev lashed out two more times, the vicious downward blows from the razor-sharp weapon sending bone and hair and brain tissue into the gathering crowd.

  With the carrion barrier stretching from the rear of the cab to the tailgate, maybe five feet total, Lev returned his attention to catching the third kid, who to his horror was half the size of the second. A toddler at best. Maybe even younger. He was no expert on these things. In fact, he was an only child who’d rarely been around small children prior to deploying to Iraq. After coming home, he’d avoided them like the plague.

  Problem here wasn’t catching the girl. It was detaining her after that had him worried. Judging from the videos of relatives’ kids he’d seen on social media before the zompoc, the little buggers were slipperier than greased pigs when they wanted to be.

  Catching the girl proved to be the easy part. She actually seemed to enjoy the freefall. Like it was a game. However, her body went limp and folded in two when she hit his arms. Breath stolen from her lungs, the girl stared at him questioningly, tears forming in her blue eyes. No time for consoling. Thankful she hadn’t tried to rabbit, Lev nudged her under the jacket with the other kids.

  “Hold on to her real good,” he whispered before rising and looking up at the balcony.

  Lev saw the bearded man and his clean shaven friend helping the woman over the rail. She looked to be somewhere between thirty and forty, likely closer to the former. And thin as a scarecrow. But real tall. The men each had one of her wrists in a two-handed grip as she planted her tennis-shoe-clad feet on the steeply pitched porch roof.

  “Jump,” one of them urged.

  She shook her head.

  Lev felt fingers brushing the seat of his pants. Every little tug and tap on the fabric sent fresh bolts of white hot pain up his spine.

  Ignoring the grabby dead, he stretched his arms wide and beckoned to the lady.

  I’m not catching you was what he was thinking when she committed. It was a slow motion type of thing. Like a person jumping off a quarry wall into deep black water for the first time. First the knee bend. Then the hip bounce as nerves were steeled. Then the head wag as body language still said no even as gravity was in control.

  Miraculously, she landed feet first. While her knees soaked up some of the momentum gained from the fifteen or so foot drop, they still suffered the same fate as Lev’s.

  The woman was rolling around on the floor of the box bed and clutching both knees when the clean shaven man alit ninja-like next to her. It almost looked like one of those parkour moves making the rounds on Facebook before things went to shit. Lev always wondered how that would help a person in times like these. Maybe he’d just found the answer to that question.

  The man with the beard was carrying a little more weight than the other—most around his hips and belly. He landed feet first and off axis. Knees buckling, he rolled sideways, bowling over both Lev and Parkour Guy in the process.

  The third loud thud told Jamie all of the adults were in the box bed. With the truck still spasming on its springs from the impact from above, she threw an arm over the seatback and craned her neck to see out the slider. One, two, three, and, most importantly, Lev. He was on his back, head to the tailgate and staring at her. He was mouthing “Go” even as ashen, stick-thin arms were hooking over the tailgate and bony hands grabbed at his shirt.

  Accelerating and wheeling left to escape the dead spilling from the home’s destroyed front door, Jamie flicked her eyes back to the mirror and saw Lev batting at the hands hauling him over the tailgate’s top edge.

  In the next beat, as Jamie watched helplessly, Bearded Guy and Parkour Guy, propelled backward by the sudden acceleration, slammed hard into Lev, causing him to cry out and the dead hands to lose their purchase on him.

  Dead things caromed off the truck’s bumper and a couple were sucked underneath as Jamie laid twin stripes of smoking rubber down on the cul-de-sac’s asphalt. She fought the fishtailing truck for control, spinning the steering wheel in the opposite direction the rear end was drifting. A dozen feet before she reached the spot they’d entered, she reined the Raptor in by letting up on the gas and braking hard.

  The equal and opposite reaction part of Newton’s Law kicked in and Lev, Bearded Guy, and Parkour Guy shot forward and piled into the others. Sparing the occupants in back the same fate that had befallen Lev’s tailbone, Jamie let off the brake and allowed the idling motor to pull the truck up and over the partially crushed bank of mailboxes at a walking speed.

  In seconds Jamie had wheeled the Raptor over the fallen chain-link, through the debris field, and was speeding down the short access road. At the T she swung wide around a clutch of rotters and pointed the grille east towards Bear Lake’s southernmost shore.

  Chapter 31

  Getting Dregan’s body into the back of the truck all by himself took much more out of Cade than he would be willing to divulge to anyone other than Brook or Duncan. If he was still on the teams in the old world and a peer had witnessed him struggle like he had with the near three-hundred-pound corpse, it could have led to him being bumped to a secondary role on the teams. If you couldn’t pick up a wounded comrade in a fireman’s carry and get them to cover or a waiting helo, what good were you? It all boiled down to the weakest link in the chain theory. As it was, he had damn near pulled his groin getting the top half of the man’s torso onto the tailgate. Heaving Dregan’s tree-trunk-like legs after and folding them so he’d fit in with the other stuff in back of the F-650 hadn’t been much easier.

  Catching his breath, Cade thumbed the Thuraya to life and placed a call to the Bear River sheriff whose name escaped him. The call was picked up after two rings and a female voice said, “Sherriff MacLeod here. To whom am I speaking?”

  “Cade Grayson. I’m one of the—”

  “Eden gang,” MacLeod interrupted. “I use the term gang affectionately. I know of you
. You’ve earned yourself one hell of a reputation at Bear River.”

  At Bear River, Cade thought. Not, here in Bear River. Wondering where this MacLeod was at the moment, he said, “I’m relieved we got all of that out of the way.” Without any pleasantries or words of condolence, he added, “We found the ice cream truck with Alexander still at the wheel.” He paused.

  As silence descended, Raven looked sidelong across the cab.

  The sheriff spoke first, saying, “He didn’t make it, did he?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Cade conceded. “But we’re bringing him home. His body is in back of our rig.”

  “Oh good,” she said. “That’ll bring his son, Peter, a little closure.”

  “That’s what my daughter and I were thinking.”

  “We’ll bury him inside the walls. Someplace prominent. A place worthy of what he did for all of us,” MacLeod stated solemnly.

  “We’re a few minutes from making the 39/16 junction,” Cade said. “I think we still have a bit of a wait before the herd makes the junction.”

  “Understood,” said MacLeod. “See you in a bit.”

  Cade said nothing. Heavy of heart, he ended the call. He put the phone down and started the motor. Stared out over the front of the truck and compared where the horizon sat in relation to the left front edge of the hood. He panned right and found that the distant break in the trees was still lined up perfectly with the crease in the hood. Satisfied the truck was sitting the same on all four tires as it had been when he pulled up behind the ice cream truck, he applied pedal and started into a wide-ranging one-eighty turn that would put them back on the two-lane and see them heading south.

  Finally Raven broke her silence. “At least you didn’t have to lie to her.”

  “Thank God for that,” Cade replied as the Ford tackled the incline paralleling the state route. At the apex, all four wheels working in conjunction pulled the oversized F-650 onto the blacktop where Cade stopped to shift out of four-wheel drive.