One of the dead things was a teen female with a badly disfigured face. It looked almost as bad as her dad’s face following his rescue from the squad of Chinese soldiers: puffy and bruised, with lacerations on the cheeks and forehead from being slapped and punched for hours on end. Speaking to the savageness of the human animals who had done this to the Z, both arms were bound together behind its back. The rusty length of barbed wire they had used was twisted so tightly that it had cut deep fissures into the decaying flesh. Viewed through the NVGs, certain details were hard to pin down, but clear as day was the fact that both of her forearms had been removed just below the elbows. There was no splintered bone sticking out. No scraps of flesh or skin dangling from the cuts. It looked as if they’d been taken off with the type of instruments Tran and Daymon used to butcher big game.
The only solace Raven took from the arm situation was that the damage had likely been done after the girl had turned.
The undead teen spent most of its time patrolling the sidewalk at the terminus of the Craftsman’s driveway. While Raven had no doubts she could drag the teen’s body off the sidewalk and stash it someplace out of sight, it was the other Z that was literally standing in the way of her getting into the house. The only house on the block that would afford her a bird’s eye view of the bungalow.
The middle-aged Z was nearly as tall as Daymon. It had to be at least a hundred pounds heavier. Whereas Daymon was muscled and lanky, this rotter was the opposite, with a big beer gut hanging over a pair of blue jeans barely hanging onto its wide hips.
A full beard seemed to make up for the fact it was completely bald. Coal-black, heavy-lidded eyes peered out from under a caveman-like brow.
A half-moon chunk of meat and sinew had been rent from one side of Caveman’s neck. Arteries and jagged flaps of skin ringing the yawning wound jiggled with each plodding step. The resulting torrent of blood had streaked the front of its white tee shirt and continued on down its tattered pants. The blood had dried to black. When viewed in white-phosphor, the jagged runners resembled forked lightning slashing a summer sky.
Raven was tiring of watching Caveman pace. He was relentless. And tireless. He would plod away from her hiding spot, stop, make a clumsy pirouette, and then head back down the sidewalk toward her. About every other circuit the thing would pause before the walkway, its back facing the Craftsman’s wide front porch, and stare longingly across the street.
To Raven it seemed as if Caveman was searching for something. Maybe it had heard the trio arrive across the street on their bikes. Perhaps the trio had made some noise when they leaned their bikes against the hedges lining the driveway. Maybe the click of a door closing somewhere over there had carried all the way over here.
No matter the reason, Raven was certain the Zs hadn’t spied the fresh meat entering the house. For if they had, they would not be blocking her from entering her house. Instead, they would be across the street, banging against whatever door they saw the prey enter through.
Of that, Raven was certain.
Though the thought of trying the gate in the twelve-foot fence ringing the Craftsman’s backyard had occurred to Raven, with no way of knowing if it was locked, or if the backyard held undead surprises, she was content to wait out Caveman and his armless companion.
She didn’t have to wait long. Coyotes calling in the distance got the teen moving off to the east.
Caveman, however, was unfazed. He just kept on going. Like the Energizer Bunny—back and forth, back and forth.
Armless had been gone close to ten minutes when a noise piqued Caveman’s interest. When the woman’s laugh rolled across the street, he was in stationary mode. A second noise—a bottle breaking—resulted in him taking a few tentative steps into the street.
Finally, a door opening and closing finished what the previous noises had started.
Go, go, go, was what Raven was thinking as Caveman’s head took a downward tilt and, like a fire-and-forget missile, he struck off on a laser-straight tack for the bungalow’s narrow driveway.
Raven stayed behind the little Toyota long enough to see three things happen. First, Caveman reached the garage and slammed hard into the door. Then, there was more breaking glass and a hand holding a suppressed pistol emerged from one of the four tiny, square windows running horizontal across the garage door.
The gunshot was muffled but still carried to Raven’s position. The crash and discordant rattle from Caveman falling into the partitioned rollup door was much louder.
Soon after the point-blank head shot, a face filled the window. It was Pirate. He looked left and right, then stared straight down the driveway. He stayed that way for a minute or so before pulling back from the opening.
The second Pirate disappeared from view, Raven was up and running for the walk leading to the Craftsman’s front door. She didn’t look back. Took the turn on the run, leaped the six stairs in two bounds, and skidded to a halt before the door.
Moment of truth. With no time to complete the customary “knock and wait” routine, she grabbed the knob and twisted.
Success.
The mechanism clicked and the door swung inward. Since Raven didn’t have the symbols used by the cleanup crews committed to memory, she was going in blind—so to speak.
She got inside and closed the door without taking fire from the breathers or being set upon by a lurking rotter.
Lifting her gaze, she saw that she was alone on the main floor, which had been remodeled in a style that had left everything open. Which was a good thing, because it left her just one door to check. After knocking and waiting a long ten-count, she opened the door to a cramped bathroom containing only a toilet and sink.
Upstairs was arranged similar to her home in Portland: one full and one half-bathroom. Four bedrooms—one of which was used as a home office, complete with a computer and filing cabinets and a wall full of framed certificates of education. The most important bedroom was the one with a zoo animal theme. Tiger-print curtains framed a large picture window that looked out over the front lawn.
After finding the upper floor clear of dead things, she returned to the room with the zoo theme, moved a chair by the window, and took the camera from her pack. She aimed the Nikon at the floor and powered it on. Making doubly sure the flash was turned off, she removed the lens cap and trained the telephoto lens on the garage across the street.
All she could see were dim shadows and flashes of movement. Her first thought was that the focus needed tweaking. When she found that the camera’s autofocus feature was turned on, it occurred to her the problem was a combination of poor angles and awful lighting.
Just like that, the wind left her sails.
She had scaled the wall, nearly breaking her neck. Come close to crossing paths with civilians on a Z-clearing operation. Then sat in hiding very close to a Z she could only defeat with a bullet—or three.
Enduring all of that and here she was with nothing to show for it. Zero effing evidence of whatever Pirate and his merry band of dipshits were up to.
Doing the first thing that came to mind, she phoned a friend, so to speak.
Daymon answered his radio right away.
Raven started the conversation with a sincere “I’m sorry.” After that, she told Daymon everything that had happened up until her hitting the proverbial wall that caused her to reach out to him.
He said, “I saw the garbage cans and bicycles and knew immediately that it was your doing. I was getting ready to go over the top myself when I heard the commotion coming from somewhere down I-25. When I got to the top of the wall, I saw exactly what you just described: Pikers doing what pikers do best. No way I could have gotten past them at that point. And I damn sure wasn’t going deep into East Springs on foot just to get around them.”
“What would you do if you were in my position?” she asked. “Because I know they’re up to something in there. Something bigger than burning a fuel truck or painting stupid stuff in the park. I have a feeling they’re t
errorists.”
“I agree,” Daymon said. “But you can’t make contact with them all alone. Can you improve your viewing angle? Switch lenses, maybe?”
“I have one lens. I can try to improve my angle. Get a little closer to the action.”
“Just be careful,” Daymon urged. “You get in trouble … help is a ways out. Even the soldiers at the gate couldn’t get mounted up and rolling in less than five minutes.”
Jaw taking a firm set, she said, “I have an idea,” and signed off. But not before she and Daymon had agreed to switch channels on their Motorola radios to the next set on their short list.
Chapter 61
First thing Cade did as Jedi One was powering away from the LZ was to call the TOC at Peterson, identify himself as “Anvil Actual” and then confirm that he and his team were “Boots on the ground and Oscar Mike.”
Though the rain had let up, the Ghost Hawk’s rotor wash had not only beat the grass down all around the team, it had also sent standing water airborne, drenching them all the second its wheels left terra firma.
Looking west, across the open expanse of grass, Cade saw that the Zs flushed from the trees rising up all around the field were drawing near. They were encircling the team from three sides, the noose drawing tighter with each passing second. Instead of striking out from the LZ on a course that would take him and his team straight to the corner of 48th and Gladstone, a course that was currently blocked by several walking corpses, Cade rose from one knee and moved off north by east, toward a narrow passage bordered on the right by the rear of Creston School and on the left by a head-high chain-link fence.
Beyond the fence was a deep, bramble-choked gully. Raven was in either first or second grade when a rumor the gully was haunted circulated the school. At the time she was convinced the rumor was true. It had spooked her so badly she would go out of her way to avoid the area altogether.
Instead of worrying about ghosts, Cade was concerned they might come into contact with more ghouls. If they did, and the undead vastly outnumbered he and his team, the chokepoint would be the last place he wanted to be.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
If the Zs currently surrounding them and advancing from nearly every point of the compass was the “rock”, so far the “hard place” was looking like their best option.
“I’ll get point,” Cade said over the comms. “Cross and Griff in the middle. Nat, get the rear and cover our six.” Though the men replied with an “Affirmative” or clipped “Copy that,” most of what he had just said was not necessary. They were all professionals and knew what was expected of them no matter the order they found themselves slotted.
Keeping a few feet of separation between each other, the team entered the passage, NVGs deployed, weapons at the ready.
Halfway along the thirty-foot run that saw them hemmed in by stucco wall and chain-link fence, Cade heard scuffing noises coming from beyond the blind corner. Dead ahead from him was the wooden play structure that had been a favorite of Raven’s when she was much younger. On days when it wasn’t raining—few and far between in Portland—she would beg him to bring her here to play. She especially liked to sit on the tire swing and be pushed in ever-widening circles.
It had been clear to Cade and Brook early on that their “apple” hadn’t fallen very far from the tree. Like them, she was an adrenaline junky from the get-go
Ten feet shy of the spot where the passage opened up onto the asphalt playground, Cade raised a fist in the air. It was a silent signal telling the team to halt in place and observe perfect noise discipline.
After stopping and listening hard for a beat, Cade heel-and-toed it forward, keeping far left of the school gym, the suppressor on his carbine tracing a slow, smooth left-to-right arc.
Speaking softly into the mike boom, Cade said, “Contact. One tango. I’ll handle it.” Letting the center-point sling support his M4, he drew his dagger.
On the ground, half a dozen feet to his fore, was the saddest undead specimen he’d ever seen. The woman had been in her late sixties when she died the first time. The evidence of the attack that had infected her was clear: meat stripped from one arm. Raised bite marks on her shoulder and neck. And on the same side as the feeding had begun, the entire half of her face was missing. It was as if it had been ripped clean off. As a result, the thing seemed to be flashing the world a perpetual half-smile. Yellowed, cracked teeth aside, it was the kind of look that suggested the thing knew something the living weren’t privy to.
Adding insult to injury, the Z had lost its entire right leg. A hollow hip socket ringed by fatty tissue was all there was to see where it used to be.
From continual contact with the ground, the left leg had been reduced to a short length of femur protruding from a ragged mess of abraded skin and putrefying flesh.
As the crawler looked up at him, a sad-sounding hiss crossed its thin, ropy lips.
While Cade was never one to show much empathy for the dead, thinking they were just soulless shells of their former selves, he truly felt empathy for one of them for the first time since that last Saturday in July when the entire world was turned upside down. Sure, he’d been saddened by some of the sights he’d come across. The suicides really stayed with him. Particularly the ones involving parents and their kids. He’d encountered so many of those last-resort murder/suicides that he’d started to numb to them, too.
This one was different, though. Because he had known her. Had watched her tend to her tulips in the spring as he jogged by her little one-story ranch on Gladstone. Saw her walking Gremlin, her little Boston Terrier in the spring and summer, when the weather was agreeable.
Kneeling near Bea’s lolling head, careful to stay clear of her snapping teeth, he grabbed a fistful of white hair and said a quick prayer for her soul. He paused for a few seconds, staring into her dead eyes. Finally, he whispered, “I’m sorry this had to happen to you, Bea,” and buried the Gerber’s black blade deep into her roving right eye.
“You going to ask it to go to prom with you?” It was Nat speaking over the comms. “We’ve got company on our six. So if you are, better get it over with.”
Cade said nothing. He rose and took hold of his carbine. Pointing the way, he set off for the empty parking lot on the far side of the playground.
Leading the team through his old neighborhood, Cade noted all the darkened windows and marveled at how some lawns had grown chest-high, while others had just died and remained barren plats of land fronting homes slowly losing a fight against the forward march of time and Portland’s unforgiving climate.
Three times along the way, to ensure nobody had followed them from the LZ, Cade stopped the team and hunkered down. Each time they stayed put for seven or eight minutes. And each time the only noises they heard were the buzzing of insects and steady drips as foliage and structures shed rainwater.
One block from his two-story Craftsman, near the mouth to the alley running behind it, Cade nearly led his team straight into the midst of a large group of wandering Zs.
With mere seconds to act, using hand signals only, he ordered the team to split up and go to ground.
Acting independently, Nat and Cross peeled away to the left, entered the front yard of a powder-blue single-level ranch, and found concealment behind the cedar fence bordering the alley.
Griff opted to sidestep into the street and slink off on a diagonal that took him away from the advancing dead. Just prior to the mini-herd spilling from the overgrown alley, he reached a pair of parked cars and took a knee between them. With just the top of his helmet rising over the trunk lid of the Volkswagen Jetta to his fore, he froze in place, his suppressed MP7 shouldered and ready to rock.
Cade had only enough time to take a knee in the deep grass just inside the mouth of the alley and freeze in place. With just the impenetrable darkness of night on his side, he watched—in full color—the dead passing by in front of him. Twice his face got brushed by a cold, dead hand. And twice, he steeled
himself for the fight to the death he thought was sure to come.
Chapter 62
Raven’s idea entailed her to leave the Nikon and pack on the sidewalk beside the compact car she had hidden behind earlier. The camera, with its telephoto lens, would be no use to her where she was going. Furthermore, the backpack, prone to catching on things, would only slow her down.
For a split-second she considered leaving the SBR with the pack and camera and going forward with just the suppressed Glock and her blade.
She was working the SBR’s sling over her head when, suddenly, something her dad had said to her mom back at the Eden compound popped into her head: A handgun is only good to fight your way to a rifle.
With that in mind, she checked the SBR’s magazine and confirmed the stubby carbine held a round in the chamber.
After panning her head left-to-right, scrutinizing everything across the street with the aid of the white-phosphor NVGs, she rose up, SBR held at a low-ready, and darted for the van blocking the bungalow’s narrow driveway.
On one knee beside the van’s right front tire, Raven listened hard and looked the street up and down. There was nothing moving in her line of sight. However, coming from the east, maybe a block away, was a noise she attributed to shoes scuffing along a hard surface. Also, the low thrum of a power tool hard at work coming from the distant garage.
Figuring she would deal with the former when the time came, she rose into a combat crouch, then crossed the sidewalk and continued on up the driveway. Keeping low and moving fast, she made her way to the garage door.
Again she took a knee. Only this time she wasn’t staring at the ground as she listened—she was staring into Caveman’s glazed-over eyes. Even the eyes of the undead changed after they had been granted final release. Twice-dead was what Duncan called it. Threat eliminated was how her dad approached it. He was all business when it came to life and death. His only goal was to be the one still breathing after each and every encounter.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home Page 32
