Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home

by Chesser, Shawn

  Cade made a patting motion with one hand and turned his muzzle away from the man.

  The man did the same.

  Cade said, “The chair is against the wall.”

  The man replied, “John has a long mustache,” which confirmed to Cade he was staring at one half of the Two Davids. Which one, he wasn’t certain.

  “You’re FBI?” Cade asked.

  The man nodded. “David Feather. Special Agent In Charge … Portland Division.”

  Feather looked to be mid-fifties and very close in height and weight to Cade. Instead of the ubiquitous navy windbreaker emblazoned with FBI, he wore olive-drab rain gear. On his head was a woodland camo boonie hat. Partially hidden by the hat’s floppy brim was a weathered face crisscrossed with a roadmap’s worth of lines.

  Feather asked, “Any issues getting here?”

  As Cade started to bring Feather up to speed, in his ear, he heard Griff say, “We’ve got company. Some of the pusbags from the parking lot followed us down.”

  Regarding Feather, Cade said, “We have to go, now.” With Feather working to untie the RIB, Cade summoned the rest of the team to the dock, and they all piled in, Nat nearly sending them all spilling into the river as he stepped on the gunwale.

  Gesturing toward the RIB’s outboard, Cross said, “What about the noise? It’ll carry like a mo-fo out on the river.”

  Working to untie the bow line, Feather said, “Grab a paddle. We’ll be staying close to shore. The safe house is less than a klick downriver.”

  Tone even and measured, Griff said, “They’re on the ramp, Wyatt. Permission to engage?”

  “Negative,” Cade said. He grabbed a paddle and, thrusting the blade end to the dock, pushed with all his might.

  On the port gunwale, behind Cade, Cross was doing the same.

  Having taken a seat on the starboard side near the bow, Griff tracked the pack of undead with his suppressed MP7A1. A dozen or so of the reeking, waterlogged corpses were now setting foot on the dock. Behind them, twice their number jostled for position at the top of the narrow ramp.

  When the bell-cow, a first turn twenty-something female, reached the midpoint of the dock, Griff repeated his request.

  Knowing how fast and far even a suppressed gunshot would travel over water, Cade again shut Griff down. In the next beat, two things happened back to back. First, with maybe five feet of separation between the RIB and dock, the combination of the paddle shove-off and the river’s current started the RIB’s bow moving in a clockwise circle.

  Then, as Cade and Cross stabbed their paddles into the roiling water, the first of the dead to make it to the end of the dock fell in. Like so many lemmings, the rest followed.

  The water beside the dock, in the exact spot the RIB had just vacated, now looked like the shallow end of a public pool on the hottest day of summer. As the Zs continued to spill from the dock, a large number of them failed to sink.

  For a few seconds pale hands beat the water to a froth. Then, slowly but surely, the foundation of corpses under the surface was swept away by the river’s strong current. As the foundation went, so did the flailing bodies it had been supporting.

  Barely ten seconds had elapsed between the shove-off and the last of the dead disappearing from view.

  Knowing that fifty or sixty dead things were in the depths below the RIB, tumbling and clawing reflexively for the fresh meat that had drawn them to the water, Cade locked his gaze dead ahead and put his back into the job at hand.

  Chapter 72

  The safe house was a floating home half a mile downriver. It was fifth in a row numbering thirty or more. There was a thirty-foot-wide channel between the strung-together homes and shore. Shore was a sandy beach backstopped by a picket of mature dogwoods. Beyond the trees was Oaks Amusement Park. Cade saw the top of the Ferris wheel rising up over the trees. Between the branches, he caught fleeting glimpses of the twisting and turning red tracks of the Mad Mouse rollercoaster.

  With two levels and a rooftop deck, the safe house was more mini-mansion than the image of a floating home Cade’s mind conjured up.

  The lower level was ringed by black rails and home to a half-dozen planters containing long-dead palms and other assorted plants. Pool furniture with faded padding sat helter-skelter on the open-air portion of the home’s riverside deck.

  Weathered wood-shingle siding, like the kind found predominantly on beach homes, wrapped the safe house from top to bottom.

  Like the majority of the other floating homes, the safe house’s roof was flat. Two-thirds of the roof was home to twenty or so solar panels. Mixed in with the panels were a number of small oval satellite dishes.

  Everything was staggered and angled south. A yard-high parapet shielded all but the top edges of the nearest panels. Cade wouldn’t have noticed the setup had Feather not mentioned it.

  Each floating home in the marina had a floating boat garage out back. Most were empty. The safe house’s was not. The rear end of some kind of vessel stuck out a half-dozen feet. It was covered by a black tarp, which made identifying the craft next to impossible.

  As Feather guided the RIB through the channel and past the garage, Cade caught a fleeting glimpse, through the structure’s cloudy windows, of the sleek enclosed cabin of a totally blacked-out boat.

  They paddled the RIB between the safe house and the floating home abutting it to the north.

  David number two came out and offered a hand up to Cade and the team.

  Standing on the deck, with Feather securing the RIB a few feet away, Cade introduced himself and the team.

  “David Lee Cox,” said the man, shaking hands all around. He was wearing a black windbreaker over brown Carhartt coveralls. Holstered high on his right hip was a Colt .45 Model 1911.

  Cox’s gray beard, rosy cheeks, and abundance of smile lines suggested to Cade that the man was in his late sixties. Though he was carrying a few pounds north of two hundred and had a slight limp, he moved about the deck with ease. Even shod in scuffed cowboy boots, Cox struggled to rise to Cade’s height.

  There was a hint of the southwest in the man’s voice when he spoke. Which Cade didn’t find strange, considering the Pacific Northwest attracted people from far and wide, like moths to a flame.

  Strange thing was: Cade couldn’t quite place the accent. Interest piqued, he asked, “That accent … where’re you from originally?”

  “Northern Louisiana. We tend to sound more like Texans than Cajuns.”

  Cade said, “Got it. Makes sense, now. Care if we call you Cox? It’d cut down on the confusion.”

  After a hearty chuckle, Cox said, “That’ll be fine. I’ve been called worse.”

  Hand resting on his holstered Glock, Cade said, “What about neighbors? Anyone we need to be concerned about?”

  Cox shook his head. “They all moved out long before Dave set this place up. I’ve poked around the other homes. Nothing much to see. Just a few biters and some long-dead corpses. I put the biters down … left the rest for the river rats. Except for the bourbon, that is.” He smiled, revealing a straight picket of pearly whites. “I’m slowly drinking my way through that.”

  Moving closer to the outside wall to get out of the rain, Cade said, “You’re not worried about this place attracting squatters? Or maybe people coming back to retake their homes?”

  “Evidence says most of them left by boat early on. Relocated to somewhere downriver from the city. Far, far downriver from the city if they were smart about it. Dave and another agent disconnected the gangway a few months back. Anyone who’s shown up here since … just two or three small groups, really, proved pretty easy to run off.”

  MP5 at the low-ready, Feather interrupted. “Let’s get inside. We’ve got lots to go over and very little time in which to do it.”

  A certain sparkle in his eyes, Cox made a sweeping motion before Cade and the team. “Age before beauty, gentlemen.”

  The safe house’s interior was more bunker-command-center than what the rustic
exterior would lead one to expect. The concept was entirely open, with the kitchen and bathroom at the dock-side end of the home. All of the furniture was pushed up against the walls. Dark curtains were strung up over the massive west-facing windows. The smaller windows on the safe house’s other three elevations were papered over with pages culled from an Oregonian newspaper.

  In the center of the living room, completely inundated with electronics, was a pair of eight-foot-long folding-tables. Though the outside temperature was hovering near sixty, inside the safe house the communications gear and computers and their assorted monitors had the place feeling like a hot-yoga studio.

  Indicating the electronics, Cade said, “All of this runs off of solar?”

  Feather shook his head. Pointing to a spot on the floor near the kitchen, he said, “Come over and stand there.”

  Cade humored the man.

  “You feel anything?”

  “A little vibration. It’s not the river, is it?”

  “That’s our generator. It’s in an insulated, sound-proofed box. Exhaust is purged through a hose that runs underwater and then snakes up onto the bank. The end where it vents is partially buried. A person isn’t going to just stumble across it. They’d have to be looking for it to find it.”

  Griff said, “The head G-Man has got all his ducks in a row.”

  As Cox set up a third table, Feather retrieved the intel packet he and his operatives had collected over time.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” said Griff. “I can handle the coldest of surf. Sugar cookie evolutions doled out by a dickhead BUDS instructor, no problem. Sleeping in the open in the Hindu Kush, under the stars at ten thousand feet … been there, done that. But this, this steam bath… I feel my ass cheeks melting.” He looked to Nat. “Is there steam coming out from under my helmet?”

  Mimicking the Wicked Witch of Wizard Of Oz fame, Nat said, “I’m melting. Melting, I tell you.” He paused and winked at Cross. “Naw, Griff … all I see is your ugly mug under that helmet.”

  Feather cleared his throat. “Target Alpha … or, if we’re splitting hairs—Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.”

  “I know it well,” Cade said,

  On the table, beside the map Cross had drawn the night before, were a number of photos taken from long-range. Some were overhead shots. The former, Feather explained, were taken from the twentieth floor of a high-rise across the river from Target Alpha. The latter were Cox’s doing. He’d found a high-dollar drone in a hobby shop and captured the footage from well above OMSI.

  “They didn’t see or hear me,” he assured Cade. “Hell, from the viaduct, maybe sixty feet higher than where OMSI sits, I couldn’t hear it. I’ll be the first to tell you I need another round of LASIK, but my hearing is like an owl’s. No concerts … ever. I don’t like headphones. When I used to drive, no radio. And—”

  A glare from Feather silenced the former Multnomah County Sheriff.

  Cade said, “These are new? You have video?”

  “Drone footage was last Saturday. Yes, I have video, too. It’s on the hard drive and shows General Jinlong arriving. Like clockwork, he shows up at the same time in the courtyard and chooses one or two from the stock of comfort girls the soldiers keep in a pen in front of the launcher.”

  Cade said, “We’re aware of the hostages.”

  Cross said, “I’m overwatch tonight. The general never deviates?”

  Shaking his head, Feather said, “Not yet. The evening patrol leaves the wire. Fifteen minutes later they escort the general’s black Mercedes G Wagon back to the gate. They wait there until he’s safely inside.”

  Crossing his arms, Cade said, “Then the patrol resumes? They stay gone for how long?”

  Eyes boring into Cade’s, Feather said, “They stay out every … single … time. They patrol for thirty minutes to an hour and then return by way of the thoroughfare to the east. It cuts east/west underneath the viaduct.”

  Cross said, “Right about where we holed up last night.”

  Cade nodded. Uncrossing his arms, he said, “Does the rest jive with your observations?”

  Both operators had been periodically consulting their notes taken during the recon, so they were both ready with an answer.

  With no hesitation, Cross said, “Take the general out of the equation … it’s exactly what I observed.”

  Griff said, “Ditto.”

  Clapping his hands, Cade said, “Then we’re a go. Eat and hydrate. Square your kit away. Make sure to feed new batteries to all your gear.” He smiled for the first time in a long while. “We roll out in ten, Pale Riders.”

  Sensing the stage was now his, Feather said, “Everyone pull up a stump. I’m going to cue up the drone video.” He pulled a chair in front of a nearby computer and turned the monitor to face the Pale Riders.

  Fingers attacking the keyboard, the FBI man had the footage up and running in a matter of seconds.

  Chapter 73

  Dressed in black fatigues, with black balaclavas pulled down and NVGs deployed, the Pale Riders looked like modern-day ninjas as they stood on the back dock awaiting the big reveal.

  Going by Cox’s description of the craft he had spent his entire retirement nest egg building, Cade expected something resembling the Batboat to reverse from the garage.

  Cox had removed the tarp from his baby at 8 p.m. sharp and asked that the team remain on the dock until he could get the “systems” up and running.

  Cade thought it strange that the former sheriff had taken a one-thousand-amp portable jump starter in with him. He grew skeptical when the FBI man leaned over and said, “What Cox didn’t mention in there is that he spent most of his career patrolling the Willamette and Columbia. He also didn’t let on that this Croc of his is all electric and semi-submersible.”

  To Cade’s right, interest suddenly piqued, Griff and Cross took a step forward and craned to get a better look at the boat through the garage windows.

  Cross said, “Rumors about boats like these were circulating before Omega hit. No way to confirm this, but apparently DEVGRU already had one at Dam Neck. Also heard Team 10 was slated to receive something similar at Little Creek. Trials were supposed to start in August of last year.”

  “Day late and a dollar short,” said Nat. “Army is the same way with procurement. They have a tendency to get the goods to us after the fact.”

  Cade nodded in agreement.

  Feather said, “That’s Cox’s competitor’s electric boat entry.” He winked. “It’s called Alligator.”

  Cade said, “It’s still electric, though. All the electric cars I’ve ever seen are gutless wonders.”

  “Those are hybrids,” Feather pointed out. “This fella in California sells an all-electric vehicle called the Tesla Roadster. You know, after the famous inventor … Nikola Tesla. They were very limited production and impossible to come by unless you knew someone or had fuck-you-money.”

  Cade shook his head. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” After looking at his Suunto and learning that Cox had already been aboard his floating Prius for five minutes, he added impatiently: “If he doesn’t produce soon, we’re going to have to commandeer your RIB.”

  “Give him a minute,” Feather said with a smile. “He’s an MIT grad. He values precision over speed.” Pointing out the twin columns of reverse-turbulence at the Croc’s stern, he added: “He’s got the motors running.”

  Shooting Feather a look, Cade said, “Motors? If they’re that quiet at idle, what do they sound like at speed?”

  “Quiet as a ghost fart.”

  Cade was shaking his head in disbelief when Nat asked, “Does it have any get up and go?”

  Smile fading, Feather said, “Neck snapping.”

  All eyes were drawn to the inky water as the sleek, low-to-the-water craft began to reverse out of the garage.

  Achingly slow, its pace measured in inches-per-second, the prototype Croc revealed itself to those standing on the dock.

  With its
angular cabin and flush windows that could have been produced by the same factory where the Ghost Hawk got its wraparound cockpit glass, the Croc looked more like the Jedi ride than the Batboat.

  Feather said, “It’s got internal ballast tanks. Cox can lower her draft to the point where her windows ride just above the waterline. This cuts her radar sig to that of a … crocodile. Her black paint has radar-absorbing qualities that make her nearly impossible to track.”

  The Croc was entirely out in the open when Feather said, “Sitting as she is, her heat sig is nearly nonexistent. No exhaust, nothing to see here … move along.”

  Soberly, Griff noted, “She’s got no armament.”

  Poking his head out of the cabin’s topside entrance, Cox said, “I couldn’t get permission from the pols here to arm her. Remember, this is … or was, Portland. So for now, you’re her armament. Hop aboard and we’ll get underway.”

  ***

  Three minutes after stabbing quietly into the Willamette’s north-flowing current, with only one electric motor online and driving the Croc’s powerful, twin water-jets, the houseboat marina was a mile behind them and the stealthy craft had navigated the majority of the narrow east-bank passage fronting the hundred-and-forty-acre Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge.

  Cade crouched near the cabin entrance, head on a swivel, eyes probing the bank on both sides for any tell-tale signs of an imminent ambush.

  While he’d spotted an abundance of wildlife on the east bank and quite a few walking corpses, he didn’t see any human forms toting weapons.

  The only sounds he heard out on the water was the constant swish of the Croc’s prow cutting the river and the occasional muffled report of flotsam and jetsam striking the hull.

  With each thunk and thud that reverberated through the hull, in his mind’s eye he saw a submerged Z—the byproduct of their brief loiter on the dock—grappling to find purchase on the low-slung craft.

  Though he knew it was just his imagination messing with him, the possibility was real the creatures that had fallen off the dock would emerge downriver and catch a fellow survivor by surprise.