Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home

by Chesser, Shawn

  In Jedi One’s right seat, Ari’s attention was focused on Axe and Lopez as they closed in on the fallen rider. Though their options for cover diminished greatly the closer they got to the fence-lined sidewalk, Alpha Team’s carbines were always aimed at the prone form atop a rapidly spreading pool of blood.

  Eyes never leaving the men on the move, Ari smothered his boom mike with a gloved hand. “You know,” he said to Haynes, “after Evel cleared the fountain, he came down on this very spot.”

  Seeing Lopez and Axe reach and quickly strip a rifle from the fallen rider’s back, Haynes swiveled his head in Ari’s direction. Covering his boom mike, he said, “It’s also the spot where Evel almost died.”

  “C’mon,” Ari shot, “he only broke just about every bone in his body and lapsed into a month-long coma. I’d hardly call that”—he made air quotes with his free hand—“‘almost dead’.”

  Back to watching the hotel entrance, Haynes said, “The coma rumor was just a promotional stunt. Saw that in a documentary a few years back.”

  The coma talk steered the conversation to Cade Grayson and started a back and forth about how resilient the man was.

  “They say guys like him are just hard to kill,” Ari said.

  “Even though I’ve known Wyatt for only a short while,” Haynes replied. “From all I’ve seen, I agree with you one thousand percent.” He took his eyes off the hotel entrance long enough to fix Ari with a concerned stare. “I’ve heard grumblings amongst some of our customers about him not being fit enough to return to the teams.”

  Looking side-eyed at his left seater, Ari said, “Not these guys. They’ve bonded. There is a true brotherhood about them. If Wyatt wants back in, he will make it happen.” He paused. “And they will accept him. Of that I have zero reservations.”

  Haynes said nothing to that. He didn’t know all the history the two men shared. So he kept his mouth shut and focused solely on his slice of the pie.

  As Cross entered the lobby, the stink of feces and metallic tang of spilt blood hit him full on. It rocketed him right back to an op gone bad. Only thing missing was the snap-crackle of incoming rounds and moans of the gut-shot breacher taking half a dozen enemy rounds that could have just as easily struck him.

  Breathing through his mouth, Cross swept the foyer with his eyes and rifle and found it clear of immediate threats. While the pillars to their fore were not wide enough to fully conceal an average-sized human, the sofa to his left and adjacent chest-high check-in counter could be providing someone with pretty good cover. Keeping his rifle trained on the former, he flicked his gaze left.

  First thing Cross saw—besides the destroyed motorcycle and bloodied remains of its rider—was the yard-long MANPADS missile launcher.

  Nodding at the unfired air-defense weapon, Cross said, “Looks like we just dodged a bullet.”

  Griff quipped, “We caught Murphy sleeping, is what happened.”

  On the floor next to the MANPADS was an oval puddle of vomit. Before Cross could point it out to Griff, the bearded operator was stepping in it.

  “Christ almighty,” Griff exclaimed. “I don’t know what’s worse… having to look at the contents of this dead Chicom’s bowels or stepping in his buddy’s fresh yack.”

  While Griff dragged the partial corpse from underneath the bike so he could search the tattered uniform for anything of importance, Cross was peeling off to search the rest of the lobby.

  Finding only a length of what looked to be large intestine on the floor behind the sofa, Cross moved on to the combination concierge/check in counter. Muzzle cutting the plane first, he peered over the counter. Seeing only brochures and office supplies littering the floor, he called out, “Clear.”

  “Found a small notebook and laminated surrender card on this one,” Griff called. “Can’t believe the dumbass wasn’t wearing body armor.”

  Finished negotiating the colorful miasma of human detritus to get back to the twisted bike, Cross said, “Stupid is as stupid does. Anything in the saddlebags?”

  Griff shook his head. “This one was bingo on supplies. Probably another reason they let the horde go on autopilot.”

  Eyes roaming the lobby, Cross hailed Lopez. As he was relaying their findings, an out of place sound echoed from the far end of the foyer. Hinges in need of lubrication was his first guess. As he brought his suppressed M4 to bear on the spot in the dark he figured the noise emanated from, a stocky form, hands raised over its head, materialized from the gloom.

  “Look what you did to my beautiful floors,” called the man as he emerged into the light.

  Griff had raised his M4 and grabbed some cover behind a marble column. Upon seeing that the man was unarmed, he relaxed, dropping his rifle to a low-ready position. As if on the outside chance there was another person with the same face tattoo and golden grin, Griff called across the distance, “Champ? That you?”

  “I was at one time,” said the man, chuckling. “How about you call me Mike.” He turned to face the dark hall he’d come out of and clucked his tongue.

  “I don’t like this,” Cross said, his M4 never leaving the stocky survivor.

  “It’s OK,” Mike said as an adult tiger, its coat shiny and well-groomed, padded from out of the gloom. “He’s domesticated. Harmless as a church mouse.” He pointed at a hunk of meat on the floor and whispered something to the big cat.

  The tiger stretched, then sauntered over to what looked to be a chunk of human thigh. It sniffed the item once, then trapped it to the floor with one big paw and started to chew on it.

  Stomach going queasy on him, Griff said, “Have you seen these riders before?”

  Nodding, Mike said, “Oh yeah. All the time.”

  Cross looked a question at the champ.

  Griff asked, “How often?”

  “Once a week I hear engine noise on the 15.” He gestured to the boulevard. “And I’ve seen them from my balcony four or five times since late November when we all moved in.”

  The cat finished with the meat, licked the blood off the floor, then took a few tentative steps in Cross’s direction, stopping only when it came across another substantial piece of dead Chicom.

  “We better go now,” Cross said. As he backed away from the feeding tiger, he mentioned the revival of Colorado Springs and invited the champ to relocate there if things went south here.

  “We’re staying here,” said the former champ. “You should see the penthouse.”

  “I have,” Griff replied. “In the movie.”

  “So much nicer in person,” Mike said. “I’ve got enough supplies to last a year or two.”

  “Are you alone? Just you and Tigger, I mean?”

  Wide smile revealing the picket of gold teeth, Mike said, “Got an uncle, a cousin, and a couple of Harrah’s dancers upstairs. We’ll make it.” Looking to the tiger, he added, “His name is Buster. But I like Tigger.”

  Obviously awed to be in the presence of the former champ, Griff said dreamily, “What I wouldn’t give for a selfie.”

  Lowering his rifle, Cross said, “You have got to be shitting me.”

  Griff shrugged. “If I had a phone. Just saying.”

  Calling Buster back to his side, Mike said, “I’m going to need you and your buddies to mend the fence before you all leave.”

  “I’ll see what we can do,” Cross said. “No promises.” Shaking his head at the surreal encounter, he tucked the intel into a pocket and struck off for the rectangle of daylight.

  Chapter 29

  Lopez went to work removing the rider’s helmet. It was a matte-black full-face number with a smoked shield.

  Axe quickly checked for a pulse. Feeling the flutter of a heartbeat, he drew his blade and sliced through the strap to the rider’s bullpup carbine.

  As soon as Lopez peeled the helmet off the rider’s head, he found he was staring down into the almond-shaped eyes of a twenty-something Asian woman. Her face was angular and flexed with equal measures hatred and pain. Her lips were press
ed into a thin line, rimed with blood and quickly turning blue. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “This ain’t no man.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Axe shot, tucking the woman’s combat knife into one of his own pockets. “She’s still our enemy.” He dove into the medical pouch. “I’m going to patch her up so we can take her in and wring her for intel.”

  Lopez said nothing. He was busy cinching a tourniquet above the entry wound high on the agitated woman’s thigh.

  Our enemy, thought Axe as he worked hard at holding the thrashing form to the ground on the growing pool of her own blood. I’ve become a bloody Yank.

  Exasperated, Lopez said, “She’s bleeding out. I think you nicked an artery.”

  Axe worked the glove off his left hand. “Let me check.” As he probed the wound with two fingers, his face screwed up and he shook his head. “It’s retreated,” he said soberly. “I can’t save her, mate. Only one way left to do this.”

  Axe rooted around in the gaping wound until he found what he was looking for.

  As soon as the SAS man found the nerve and applied pressure, the Chinese soldier’s body went rigid and her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

  Having watched Cade Grayson do something similar to a renegade former SEAL at the lake house in Idaho, Lopez started firing questions at the woman in Mandarin.

  Though Axe had one knee planted on the rider’s shoulder, the other knee on her ribcage, and the hand not currently touching nerves pressing hard on her sweat-slicked forehead, it was all he could do to stay in control of her.

  Lopez went quiet and nodded toward Axe, who understood the silent command and released pressure on the out of sight nerve cluster.

  Body going limp, the rider’s face worked into a wicked smile and a sharp retort spewed from her twisted mouth.

  “Press again,” Lopez said to Axe, and he switched to Mandarin and resumed the battlefield interrogation, saying, “I’ll save your life if you answer me.”

  Body arched off the ground, the rider spilled her guts to Lopez.

  “That was a good start,” Lopez said to the rider. “Where?”

  The rider went on with Lopez shooting back follow-up questions and Axe watching the nearby fence flexing under weight of the dead things pressing into it.

  “You lied to get her to talk,” Axe said.

  “You’re the one two fingers deep into her thigh and pressing the live wire,” Lopez replied. “Got no room to talk, bro.” In his ear he heard Ari report that Cross and Griff had just returned and were aboard the helo. Peering back at the dying rider’s ashen face, he made a decision that would prove to haunt him for some time.

  Rising with one arm around the rider’s neck and the other hooked around her narrow waist, Lopez clean-jerked her off the ground. “Brace the fence with your rifle,” he bellowed and hoisted the hundred pounds over his head.

  Without question, Axe rose and shored up the chattering chain-link with his rifle’s collapsed buttstock. “Fence is failing, mate. We have got to go.”

  Thinking only of the survival of the crew in the waiting chopper and the trio of Pale Riders under his command, Lopez fed the PLA scout to the dead.

  With the screams of the doomed rider competing with the rising turbine whine at their backs, Axe and Lopez each searched a saddlebag for any useful intelligence. Coming up with a map and some papers scrawled with Chinese characters, the pair rose and began the long trudge back to their ride, which was already going bouncy on its gear and blowing fronds on the nearby palms into a frenzy with its rotor wash.

  Chapter 30

  The Antlers

  Cade quickly learned the thirteenth floor of the Antlers was nothing like the tenth floor of Penrose. In place of the dim lighting, hushed voices, and occasional squeak of orthopedic shoes against vinyl flooring was a frat-house atmosphere where leaving doors wide open and yelling between rooms to communicate seemed the norm. Though he had never set foot in a frat house, Cade imagined this was what it would be like.

  In less than an hour, Cade had become a recluse, opting to take his meal away from the others, in his room, where he could keep the shades drawn shut and allow his hearing to adjust to this new environment.

  Now, an hour later, the vegetable omelet whipped up by Tran was not sitting well in Cade’s stomach. While he’d been eating solid food for some time now, the meal consisting of powdered eggs and homegrown vegetables was a far cry from the tapioca pudding, Jell-O, and off-the-shelf protein drinks Glenda and the other nurses had been shoving down his gullet at Penrose. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d have thought they were fattening him up for slaughter.

  The vigorous workout on the exercise bike, he guessed, was not helping matters.

  Cade removed his right hand from the tepid water, moved the champagne bucket aside, and dried the hand with one of the Antlers’ monogramed towels.

  While Raven’s suggestion worked wonders once his hand was numb from prolonged immersion in the slushy snow and water mix, once the water rose above freezing, the tingling and phantom pinpricks returned. He made a mental note to give her credit for thinking of it once she returned from walking Max.

  As the invisible hornets renewed their attack on his fingers, Cade’s attention was drawn to the cold plate of food he’d set aside for Raven. Wondering what was keeping her, he threw on a fleece jacket, grabbed a long-range radio and his binoculars from his bag, then made his way to the Founders Suite’s west-facing balcony.

  Strangely, the communal living area was quiet. On one chair, both legs draped over its overstuffed arms, was Sasha. The top of a book and her mane of red hair was all Cade could see of her as he threaded through a maze of high-end furniture to get to the French doors leading to outside.

  Closing her book, Sasha craned around. “You need anything, Mr. Grayson?”

  “It’s Cade. And thanks, but I think I’m good.” He paused, hand on the door handle. “Where is everybody?”

  As if reading from a pre-prepared list, Sasha said, “My brother and Taryn took Tran to get a tattoo. Glenda is at Penrose. Peter is down in the weight room, why is anyone’s guess. He’s already a catch and pretty buff. And I believe Duncan is downstairs with your daughter and Max.”

  “What are they doing downstairs?”

  Sasha sighed and rolled her eyes. “Who do you think I am?” she shot. “Your secretary? Raven called on the radio while we were eating. She spoke with my brother, then asked to talk to Old Man. They all left pretty soon after that. Duncan took his pistol and a radio. Oh … and he also had his toolbox with him. That’s all I know.”

  As the teen buried her face in her book, Cade stepped out onto the balcony and powered on the radio.

  “Raven, Dad here. How copy?”

  After a few seconds the radio hissed static and Duncan replied in her place. “Her hands are dirty, Wyatt. You still on restriction? Or did Mommy say you can come out and play?”

  Having missed his friend’s sense of humor, he stifled the urge to laugh. Instead he asked, “Where are you two?”

  “In the park.”

  “Which one?”

  “Your daughter’s park,” Duncan said. “She’s adopted Antlers Park and is in the middle of a beautification project.”

  “I’m not following.” Cade lifted the Steiners and glassed the park, left to right, stopping at the bench he knew Raven favored. Seeing that it was vacant, he said, “I don’t see either of you.”

  “Wait one,” Duncan said.

  While Cade waited, he aimed the binoculars on a spot outside the west wall. Frozen mid-trudge, on the road between two boarded-up buildings, were about a dozen Zs. Though the cold had gotten to them, nobody else had. They all still possessed their right ears. Which meant he was staring at free credits for someone willing to break the two-mile rule and go and collect them.

  Seeing a flash of movement near the park’s northwest entrance, Cade panned the binoculars and spoke into the radio. “I got you, Duncan. You know, you waving your arm at me l
ike that reminds me of the old cowboy sign in Vegas.”

  “Vegas Vic,” replied Duncan, relaxing his arm. “He towered over the Pioneer Club on old Fremont.”

  “I don’t know why it came to me,” admitted Cade. “Ever since my emergence, I keep recalling the strangest stuff.”

  “I know the Pioneer well, amigo. All the money I gave to them over the years, figure I could have bought a house … or two.”

  Cade said, “I’m coming down,” and strode back to his room to put on boots and gun up.

  He had the elevator to himself for the ride to the lobby. The doors opened and he stepped out onto the gleaming tiled floor. Though he’d been in and out of the former hotel on several occasions, he was having a hard time remembering whether he needed to go left or right.

  Seeing the woman security guard whose name he couldn’t recall, he strode in her direction. After offering the woman a subtle nod, he hit the panic bar and pushed through the door to outside.

  Hunching his shoulders against the sudden chill, Cade grabbed the handrail for stability. Eschewing the short run of stairs, he followed the wheelchair ramp to the sidewalk.

  Navigating the recently shoveled sidewalk, Cade made his way to Antlers Park’s northeast entrance.

  Halfway to his destination, two things happened. First, legs going a little wobbly underneath him, he wished he would have checked his pride at the door and brought along the cane Dr. Cole insisted he use when venturing outside. Oh the ass-chewing he’d get if the doc could see him now, in the snow, one slip away from possibly finding himself back in ICU.

  As Cade stood on the sidewalk, pausing to catch his wind and give his overtaxed leg muscles a moment’s respite, Max ripped around the corner at full speed. Seeing his master, the dog skidded to a halt on the sidewalk.