“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Daymon barked. “Keep fighting.”
As Wilson paused for a tick to let the next wave of dead negotiate the mounting pile of corpses and step right up for a proper skewering, the truck began to vibrate and a male voice he vaguely recognized could be heard clear as day through the open sliding window. As he wondered what the hell Jamie was thinking throwing what amounted to a mini concert out here in Indian country, he glanced in Taryn’s direction and saw her arch forward, exhale sharply, and grab a fistful of an elderly rotter’s wispy gray hair. Then, forearms and biceps bulging noticeably, she clean-jerked Grandpa, or Grandma, whatever the case may be, off the ground and drew it toward the outside sheet metal where its knees impacted with a resounding clang. In the next beat the thrashing monster was grasping for Taryn’s hair only to have the just-shorn jet-black locks slip through its claw-like fingers. As Wilson turned back to reengage the Zs whose kneading fingers were now coming dangerously close to finding purchase on his unzipped parka, Taryn slamming the waifish monster down chin first on the side of the box bed and her knife entering its right temple registered vividly in his side vision.
Having seen enough to know Taryn’s recent and all too numerous close encounters with grabby zombies wasn’t affecting her adversely, he went back to work with his blade, adding yet another pair of walkers to the growing pile on the roadway.
“Almost there, boys and girls,” Duncan said into the radio. And no sniper fire whatsoever. He put the transmission into Park and set the brake. Let his gaze roam the mirrors and focused on Foley, who appeared as just a small figure hinged over the Chevy’s roof.
“Foley … what do you see?”
Foley’s head jerked and he rose, exposing his body from the waist up above the roofline. “Not a thing moving,” he answered. “Just the birds.”
“Good news,” said Duncan, seeing the light of the darkening sky reflecting off the binocular lenses. “If I was the hombre manning an ambush up there, I would’ve sprung it when Daymon and the gang had their hands full with the locals.”
“I’m no tactician,” Foley conceded. “But I’d have to agree with you.”
Duncan turned to Tran. The man was slumped in the seat, hands covering his eyes.
“We’re good, Tran, my man. The last of the rotters are about to meet Kindness.” And some slug, shot, slug treatment. He grabbed hold of his new shotgun and, with radio in hand, exited the truck.
The stench of death was thick outside the Dodge. Save for one lone shambler on the passenger side and the trio of hissing creatures still standing on the last clear patch of blacktop by the driver’s door, twice-dead corpses in all kinds of grotesque death poses were lying knee-high where they’d fallen on both sides of the F-650.
After seeing Daymon cut down the last zombie on the right, Duncan realized the remaining three were still standing because they were just out of Taryn’s reach. So he thumbed the Talk button. “Leave those three for me. I want to test out my new toy.”
Taryn, Daymon, and Lev acknowledged the request; however, Jamie made no response. As Duncan advanced on the remaining rotters, he cut a wide berth to his left, staying clear of the fallen Zs and stepping over the rivulets of fluids leaking from them. As he closed to within ten feet of the driver’s door he heard the faint rasps of the dead and felt the low timbre rumble of bass coming from inside the Ford.
Eight feet away and still the zombies were ignoring him.
Buncha one track mind mofos, he thought.
Then the window pulsed down and the music—if you could call it that—coming from within became more pronounced. A male was rapping about things that held no relevance to Duncan before or after the outbreak. He hollered to get the rotters’ attention. No result. Nothing. They were locked onto Jamie and the tunes seemed to have them in some kind of a trance. Hell, he thought, a couple verses of that stuff turns my perfectly good brain to mush. No tellin’ what effect it has on a walker’s already short-circuited thinker.
Suddenly there was a whirring sound and the Zs jostled with each other for first dibs on whatever was about to emerge.
Knowing what was about to take place, Duncan slung his weapon and back-pedaled slowly away from the truck.
As hi-hats and cymbals crashed over the heavy beat, the rotter that had won out on the shoving contest had its skull split front to back by Jamie’s black tomahawk. Zombies number two and three stepped to the open window and in quick succession suffered identical fates.
Seeing the last of the threats that had been blocking passage on 16 fall to the wayside, the four in the truck bed started gyrating to the music, doing their own versions of a happy dance that lasted until the song ended and Jamie popped her door and leaped over her kills.
Seeing no need to clear the road entirely of the corpses, the group made quick work of opening a path wide enough for the other vehicles to follow the F-650 through, then mounted their own rides.
***
Three minutes after leaving the killing fields behind, the four-truck caravan was stopped single file on 16 within spitting distance of the burned-out wagon which bore writing in the soot marring its rippled flanks.
Duncan was on the road first, shotgun in hand, his head moving on a swivel. As he neared the left side of the hulk and cleared its front where the grill had melted away, he could see the angular engine block under the hood, but little else. Inside the vehicle only the seat frames and oval metal steering wheel ring looked familiar.
After going down on his haunches, Duncan pushed his glasses up on his nose and read the passage written on the driver’s side door. It had his attention at ADRIAN and held it through the entire rambling bit of prose that was equal parts warning and declaration.
After taking the time to read similar messages scrawled on the roof and opposite side of the car, Duncan scanned the hillock, fields and scrub flanking the road, then finally the road itself lengthwise, up and down, for as far as the binoculars could reach. Satisfied they were still alone, he radioed for the others to stay put and, with a cold lump forming in his gut, set out across the field to see what was attracting the carrion feeders.
“Want some company?” Daymon called.
Duncan trudged ahead a few more steps, the mud sucking at his boots. He felt a raindrop hit his cheek. One wet his nose. Then the back of his neck was being pelted.
Shielding his glasses from the fine mist beginning to fall in wispy sheets from the darkening sky, he turned and caught Daymon’s eye. He shook his head and waved casually. “No reason for all of us to get soaked. Why don’t you see to getting the trucks pulled around this heap.”
Since his pants were still plenty damp, there was no argument on Daymon’s part. Instead, he remained tight-lipped and threw Duncan a mock salute.
As Duncan continued on to the spot in the field where the birds were congregating, the sounds of doors opening and closing and engines starting up reached his ears. He heard four distinct motors idle down as transmissions were thrown into gear. Finally, coinciding with the carrion feeders’ raucous retreat—which amounted to an initial explosion of feathers followed closely by throaty cries of displeasure as the birds took to flight—he was afforded his first glimpse of what had attracted them there.
Chapter 60
Cade smelled the pair of first turns well before he set eyes on them. As he passed along the wall with the shadows still rippling across its smooth white surface, he picked up a muffled sound that reminded him of an autumn wind caressing brittle corn stalks.
When he reached the nearby T and raised one hand, silently ordering the rest of the team to halt, not only did he get an eyeful of the sorry sights responsible for the gesticulating shadows and stench hanging heavy in the wide, sparsely illuminated corridor, but he also got an up-close earful of the subtle hissing escaping the edges of the silver tape wrapped around their craning heads.
Why someone would duct tape a man and a woman to rolling office chairs like some kind of a frat hou
se prank and leave them in a deserted hallway instead of just putting them out of their misery was beyond him. Maybe out of sight, out of mind worked for some folks. For Cade, it did not.
The tape job holding the writhing zombies at bay began at their thighs and continued wending around both torso and chair until stopping abruptly just south of their sternums. For some reason whoever did this to them left their arms outside of the silver cocoon. They both had suffered defensive bite wounds to the arms, that much was clear as they reached and strained for Cade. Time and decomposition had taken their toll, leaving the wounds resembling purple-rimmed craters oozing viscous black blood. Whether alive or dead when they were taped to the chairs and left here to turn, it was no kind of humane way to go.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” said Cross, giving voice to Cade’s thoughts. “Whoever left them here to turn had probably been too close to them to do the right thing.”
“Cunts is what they are … or were,” Axe interjected. He unsheathed his knife, then looked a question at Cade.
Cade nodded, then watched the SAS man send the Zs to a merciful second death, starting with the waifish woman and finishing with the balding, middle-aged man.
After completing each grisly task Axe bowed his head and mouthed some kind of prayer. Cade had watched him do this in the DCC after putting down the Zs there and couldn’t help but admire the man for the respect he obviously held for the former human beings.
“They’re at peace now,” Griff said, casting a pensive glance at his watch. “We have to get moving.”
After consulting his Suunto and noting the time remaining until the charges rendered the computers in both sub levels useless, Cade picked up the trail of muddy boot prints and proceeded right at the T.
Halfway down the corridor, Cade said, “We’re underneath the road right now.” He slowed his gait for a second and looked up at the ceiling. “And I hope these tracks lead us to a stairwell.”
The hollow clomp of boots on tile mixed with the rustling of fabric chased the team as they double-timed it down the long tunnel. They slowed at another T where Cade bellowed, “Engaging,” and began squeezing off shots, the muzzle flash escaping his suppressor lighting the inside of the gloomy stairwell he was shooting into.
The action lasted a second, two at most, and then he was pushing past a previously jimmied steel door.
After pausing for a beat to inspect the dents and scratches on the backside of the door where someone had used a tool to breach it, he was scrabbling over the Z corpses sprawled out and leaking blood in the stairwell going up. He scaled the steps one at a time, his rubber boot soles muffling the sound of each footfall. At the right-hand bend before the landing, M4 tucked in tight, muzzle tracking with his gaze, he cut the corner, slowly, by degrees measured in inches and on the lookout for any movement or telltale glint of light off of glass or metal.
Finding the next upward run of stairs clear and seeing nothing but muddy footprints on the treads, he forged ahead, confident that the PLA soldiers had come this way.
“Watch for booby traps,” Axe reminded, his voice bouncing off the cement walls. “We’re hunting breathers now, not deaders.”
No sooner had the word deaders spilled from his mouth than a Z lurched through yet another open door on the next landing, saw the team, and came spilling down the stairs, teeth snapping and its pale, twisted fingers kneading the air in front of its face.
Stepping aside just in time to avoid the thing’s gnashing teeth, Cade shouted a warning that reached Cross and Griff’s ears in time for them to sidestep the cartwheeling bag of bones. Axe, however, was not so fortunate. The Z hit him while in the heels-over-head aspect of its rotation and delivered one knee to the Brit’s bump helmet and, on the follow-through, from behind and underneath no less, another solid, though wholly unintentional, flailing right uppercut to his testicles.
All at once a guttural oomph passed over Axe’s lips and he doubled over, one gloved hand going to inventory the family jewels.
The finale to the surreal chain of events saw the Z ride the half-dozen remaining stairs face first and juddering like a malfunctioning Slinky. Shards of broken teeth tinked against the wall like so many miniature Craps dice as the twitching body tried to right itself.
“Bollocks,” Axe exclaimed. “I don’t have the energy to trek back down and give him a stick to the eye.” True to his words, he shouldered the M4, sighted through the holographic optic, and put a single round into the back of the monster’s already misshapen head.
“Way to break a tackle,” quipped Griff.
“Nice shooting,” Cross added sincerely.
Practicing a little shallow breathing to soothe the boys, Axe shook his head at the ribbing and took the remaining stairs two at a time.
Poking his head around the jamb, Cade looked to his right, where he saw five putrefying bodies laid out neatly before a head-high stack of cardboard boxes brimming with papers and blocking a pair of double doors. As if they had been placed there some time ago, everything wore a light coating of dust.
Looking left, Cade followed the boot prints with his eyes all the way to the end of the long, windowless hall. And like the passageway running under the street, the wall-mounted emergency lights spaced every few feet here cast orange-yellow cones of light on the walls and floor.
Without pause, Cade continued following the trail to the end of the hall where he brought the team to a complete halt a few feet from yet another T-junction.
“Axe, six,” Cade said, again fishing the map from his pocket.
“Comms?” Griff asked.
“Negative,” Cade answered. “This building is shielded, too.” He went to a knee and smoothed the map out on a patch of tiled floor less muddy than the rest. After a second spent reorientating himself to due north with help from the Suunto, he rose and tucked the map away.
“This way.” M4 shouldered, Cade padded to the T, one-eyed it around the corner, then peeled off to the left. Again with the clenched fist raised, he signaled the team to stop a dozen feet down the hall where they found themselves flanked by a pair of metal rollup doors big enough to accept a full-sized semi-truck. Beside the interior rollup to the team’s left was a smaller, pass-card-controlled door. All three doors were windowless and bore the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, the letters blaze red and scaled proportionately to fit the larger roller doors.
“These two lead into the DCC,” said Griff, adjusting his pack which still contained a brick of C4 and the means to detonate it. “Shouldn’t we go in and blow the CRAYs here, too?”
“Negative,” Cade answered. “There’s nothing we need on them.”
“If my hunch is correct,” Cross said, hooking a thumb at the rollup door behind them. “There should be a secure, fenced-in loading area beyond that door. It would make for a great exfil location.”
Shaking his head, Cade said through clenched teeth, “These tracks are eventually going to end with the men who beat us here. I aim to kill them, take back what’s rightfully ours, and complete this mission without losing anybody. If the map was correct, the door at the end of the hall should spit us out in another main level foyer near the building’s northeast side.”
“In view of the soccer pitch?” Cross said.
“Close,” Cade replied. “When we infilled I saw a patch of open ground near an entrance. It was teeming with dead. If the Zs went to hunt the Screamers, I think we can exfil there.”
“Copy that,” Griff said. “Two minutes until the DCC annex ceases to exist.”
***
Thirty seconds after conferring in the hall before the rollup doors, Cade and the team were standing before yet another windowless door. Like the others they’d encountered since leaving Sub Floor 3, the door had been breached and stood wide open to the east entry where the NSA director and other high-level ninth-floor workers came and went. The setup here was much the same as the main entry, only on a smaller scale. There were two elevators left of the access door, not four.
Instead of six security turnstiles flanked by bulletproof glass and various sniffers and metal detectors, there were three, each with its own pass-card reader. Next to the narrow turnstiles was a swinging, polished metal gate wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and wheeled mobility carts. And lying lengthwise on the floor, its pustule-ridden arms wedging the swinging gate in its open position, was a headshot and trampled zombie corpse. Which had befallen it first, Cade couldn’t tell.
The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood polished to a high shine, and the tile floors were pale, tumbled travertine home to too many dead bodies to count. Veins of semi-dried blood snaked out from under some of the corpses. A mosaic of muddy footprints painted the floor around the fallen.
With barely ninety seconds to go until the inevitable subterranean explosion, Cade wove a serpentine path toward the entry. With the footfalls of the team close on his six banging off the floor and walls and ceiling, he crabbed over the flattened Z and through the brushed-metal pass-through. On the run and picking up his pace, he altered course from the glass revolving door to his fore and charged toward the set of double doors that looked to have recently had the glass machine gunned out of their chromed frames.
Shards of green-hued glass crunched and popped underfoot as he passed from inside to outside. Finding himself standing underneath what looked to be a poured cement portico, the pavement underfoot muddy and rife with freshly culled Z corpses, he hailed Jedi One-One on the comms intent on asking for an immediate extraction.
Nothing.
He tried raising the TOC at Schriever.
Still no response. All he heard was the dark vacuum of dead air. And to his left, way off in the distance, the muted wail of the Screamers, hopefully still doing their job.
Moving from under the portico, he tried Ari again and let his gaze wander off to his left, where he saw a trampled expanse of what was once lawn. It was now mud-blanketed with dozens of twice-dead Zs. Then, just as Ari responded to his second call, he saw reflected in the mirrored glass at ground-level something that may just redeem his failed mission.
District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 34
