After making a slashing motion across his throat, telling Brook to shut it down, he called Wilson forward, pointed at his bum ankle and said, “I’m afraid you get the honors. You’re going to have to unwrap the cable and take it to the farthest vehicle and thread it all the way through ...”
Wilson said incredulously, “All seven of them?”
“And do it quickly.” Cade pointed to a small herd of dead just topping the hill east of them.
Thankfully the barriers had landed mostly upright and it only took Wilson a few seconds to unwrap the cable and run it back. Then, on hands and knees, with Sasha who had defied orders and left the confines of the Raptor following his every move and peppering him with questions, he shuffled forward and passed the hook behind the driver’s side tires of all seven vehicles.
“Better hurry,” Sasha urged.
“Shhh,” he hissed.
“There are more than twenty of them.”
Ignoring his motor-mouthed sibling, Wilson rose from his knees and asked, “What now, Cade?”
Interrupting again, Sasha said sharply, “They’re getting closer.”
“I want you to wrap it around the front axle and click the hook back onto the cable. Then I need you to get inside the car and put the transmission into neutral and make sure the brake is disengaged.”
Throwing his hands in the air, Wilson said, “Is that all?” He rolled onto his back and scrunched his lanky body underneath the GM wagon. Then a slew of choice cuss words later, he resurfaced with sweat dripping from his brow and blood oozing from a couple of scraped knuckles. He hinged the door open and was hit face first with a cloud of flies riding the nose-scrunching pong of weeks-old carrion. Holding his breath, he hauled the cadaver out and performed the necessary tasks inside. He shimmied off the slimy bench seat, steadied himself on the open door, and took a deep cleansing breath. Held it for a second and exhaled, saying proudly, “Done.”
Seeing that the throng of Zs had closed to within a hundred yards, Cade said to Wilson, “One down, six to go.” Without waiting for a negative response, Cade looked Sasha in the eye. Unsmiling, he shifted his gaze a one-eighty, let it waver on the advancing dead for a tick before completing the three-sixty and nodding the teen toward the safety of the Ford Raptor.
She put her hands on her hips. An act of defiance against the worst person du-jour on the face of the earth—the man who she perceived as trying to act like he was her dad or guardian or something.
The heat was oppressive coming from above and radiating off the blacktop underfoot. Cade was losing his patience. He stared for a tick and said forcefully, “Now!”
After spewing a flurry of excuses crammed into a few seconds with the former Delta operator’s unwavering icy glare cracking her resolve, Sasha finally realized she wasn’t winning this battle. Relenting, she harrumphed and turned and stomped back towards the second worst person du-jour on the face of the earth—the woman who she perceived as trying to replace her mother.
Six minutes later, Wilson had six of the seven vehicles ready to roll. The seventh and last in line, however, was one of those new VWs done up to look like an old VW and had a fully bloated Z occupying the driver’s seat.
“Paper, rock, scissors for this one?” asked Wilson.
“I’ve got it,” said Cade. Nearly in unison, both men gazed down the line of cars and saw that the dead were now nearly to the roadblock. Cade went on, “You can take care of them.”
“I thought we needed to keep the noise down.”
Cade said, “If this works, noise won’t matter.”
“If?”
“It will. Don’t worry.” He turned and put his elbow through the VW’s rear quarter window. As he cleared the webbed glass with the suppressor, the monster craned around, displaying a mouth full of roiling white maggots.
Fighting a rising tide of bile, Cade swallowed back a mouthful of thick saliva and then shot the abomination between the eyes. Stomach on spin cycle, he reached inside and popped the door open. Thankfully the seatbelt hanging slack against the B-pillar spared him from having to reach across the stinking biohazard. Instead, he simply tugged on the sack of rotten meat, starting it on a three-stage slow-motion roll out the door. First the putrid cadaver folded over sideways, releasing an eruption of noxious smelling gasses from its relaxed sphincter. Second, its massive head, acting like a ship’s anchor, lolled sideways, speeding up the inevitable. Lastly, a tick before the vicious face plant that would leave the thing face down on the road with a mouthful of splintered teeth and pulped fly larva, there was a faint tearing sound as the fabric and dermis and underlying flesh that had become fused to the seats peeled away cleanly.
For Cade, the unexpected sight of several pounds of marbled muscle nestled in a pillow of greasy yellowed fat quivering away on the driver’s seat was the last straw. The puke came out Linda Blair-style. A thin jet of hot, bitter bile and partially digested MRE pound cake that painted the already fouled steering wheel, dash, and seat. Hands on knees, Cade emptied his stomach and then endured a few more dry heaves. Saying nothing, he wiped the spittle on his sleeve and stepped over the body. Holding his breath, he reached in and manhandled the standard shifter into neutral and disengaged the E-brake. Still holding his breath and wanting nothing more to do with the leaking corpse, he left it where it had come to rest, looped around back of the VW and stepped over the cable. He formed up next to Wilson, who wore a sour look and was digging for something in a cargo pocket.
Cade asked, “What?”
Handing over an MRE napkin, Wilson said sheepishly, “Thanks. I owe you one.”
After dabbing the corners of his mouth, Cade said, “That makes nineteen or possibly twenty that you owe me ... but who’s counting?” He turned and waved the napkin at Brook.
Seeing the prearranged cue, Brook released her foot from the brake and started the F-650 rolling slowly to draw up the cable’s tension. When the cable snapped straight under the sum of the seven vehicles’ rolling weight, she pinned the accelerator, bringing the already hard-working power plant to a howling mechanical crescendo.
Suddenly there was a rapid fire clacking as the cars merged bumper-to-bumper and then the VW’s rounded rear end started rolling toward the Ford’s bumper at a jogger’s pace. In her side vision, Brook saw the parked Raptor slide by from right to left. She glanced over and read Taryn’s lips: Get out of the way.
And she did. Craning over her shoulder and seeing both lanes clear, she wrenched the wheel hard right. The sharp J-turn took the Ford out of the way of the unmanned ten tons of rolling metal now tracking towards the far ditch.
Enunciating every word slowly, Raven said, “We’re in trouble, aren’t we, Mom?”
“The fat lady isn’t singing yet,” replied Brook. Thinking quickly, she shifted into Drive and matched the VW’s speed for a couple of car lengths, until, like a slow motion train wreck, it went ass end into the chest-high ditch and the U-shaped slack in the cable straightened out incrementally as each car pounded into the next, their combined weight scooting the VW along the ditch while at the same time grinding it deeper into the dirt.
From forty feet away the sound of exploding Goodyears and buckling metal was loud. But from five feet away the sharp reports from Wilson’s Beretta was deafening.
Cade ignored the gunfire and watched the F-650 jerk around violently. For a second he thought they would be needing a new vehicle until the cars it had been towing ground to a halt, leaving the battered Ford sitting perpendicular to the ditch.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Cade spun around and joined Wilson in engaging the dead from less than a dozen feet. Glock bucking in his fist, he suddenly heard Brook call out a warning and when he looked over she was kneeling next to the assless bloated Z, her stubby M4 belching fire.
Seconds later, after walking into the barrage of withering fire, the Zs were lying in an untidy tangle and a blue cordite haze hung heavy overhead.
Changing mags, Brook called over to Cade, “Let’s get the hell out of h
ere before more of them show up.” Saying nothing, he stalked back to the truck and returned with a red gas can in hand. Still tight-lipped, he bypassed Brook and Wilson and the pile of Zs and made his way to the fallen soldiers. Once there, he stooped over each one of them and took their dog tags. He removed helmets from three of the corpses, then splashed the contents of the plastic can, five gallons of precious gasoline, liberally on the entire row.
Brook and Wilson watched Cade for a second and then headed to the F-650 to untangle the winch cable.
Head down, empty can hanging at his side, Cade passed his gaze over the dead soldiers, letting it linger momentarily on every pair of empty eye sockets. With each of their death masks ingrained into his memory, he trudged back to the Ford, tossed the helmets and empty can in the box bed, and climbed up and into the passenger seat. He clicked his belt and started to open his mouth to speak but Brook cut him off. “I know what you have to do,” she said quietly. “I’ll stop across from the bodies.”
He nodded and stuffed the handful of jangling dog tags into a cargo pocket.
Brook waited until Wilson was back inside the Raptor before beginning the slow roll towards the roadblock.
One round from Cade’s Glock was all it took to create the spark. The gas fumes ignited with a breath robbing whoosh and orange flames leapt up and enveloped the dead.
Feeling the heat from the impromptu funeral pyre warm on his face, Cade said a simple warrior’s prayer for his brothers and sisters in arms and then powered up his window.
Sensing her man had made his peace, Brook urged the F-650 forward. They climbed the hill in silence and rolled down the other side, passing a burnt-out gas station, its yellow plastic sign the only thing left standing. And with the smoke column fading in the rearview, Brook glanced at the navigation unit and for Raven’s benefit announced, “Fifteen point three miles.”
Chapter 57
Daymon had the doe dead to rights. Its ears twitched as the beautiful animal tugged at the bushes bordering the game trail. Peaceful, thought Daymon, the sound of the nearby creek serenading him. He looked back at Chief and nodded. But when he turned around and raised the crossbow, finger tensing against the trigger, the deer went rigid, spooked by something, and then bounded away with a snort and a crashing of brush.
“Shit,” muttered Daymon. He’d had enough processed food for one lifetime and could almost taste the savory sizzling venison.
Shaking his head, Chief whispered, “You win some you lose ...”
Interrupting his lament, the sound of a vehicle or possibly two on the nearby road caught them both flat-footed.
Chief’s carbine was off his shoulder and in his hands in under a second. In the next breath, Daymon was fumbling for his radio but stopped abruptly and muttered an obscenity when he realized how far from the compound they were.
The State Route wound along for a dozen miles, climbing and dipping and diving while gaining no substantial elevation. Then the verdant groves of pines harboring small pockets of white aspens thickened to full-blown forest that encroached upon the road from both sides. At the fifteen-mile mark the thick canopy suddenly gave way to open sky, which by now was reflecting fiery orange from the rapidly setting sun.
The first thing that caught Cade’s eye—and apparently Brook’s too, as she slowed the truck immediately—was the burned-out hulk of what could only have been a Humvee, the squat blocky body and squared-out window openings the dead giveaway. Sitting on warped steel rims and listing at an unnatural angle, it looked sad and alone, discarded like a piece of trash in the roadside ditch. The smoke resulting from the conflagration had streaked the tan paint with sooty zebra-stripes. And as they rolled by the wreckage, Cade picked up on something else. There were dimpled bullet holes in the buckled side panels that spoke of an ambush involving heavy weapons and some kind of explosive device. Not the kind of chassis bending, break the vehicle’s back roadside IED prevalent in the sandbox. He guessed the damage had been inflicted by something cobbled together hastily, yet deadly all the same.
Breaking the brooding silence, Brook said, “We’re close ... ya think?”
Cade said nothing for a half-beat. He walked his gaze ahead, up the two-lane, over the shallow rise and then right to left along its gentle curve. Finally, he answered with confidence, “I’m dead certain that this is the place where Duncan and his brother tangled with the Huntsville bandits.”
Brook couldn’t resist. She said, “I think Duncan’s and Merriam Webster’s definition of the word are miles apart. Different sides of the scale. Pretty one sided tangle if you ask me.”
“They hit first and hard. Like we did to those pukes from Green River ... they came looking for trouble and got some.” Fifty feet beyond the destroyed Humvee was a burned-out SUV nosed into the ditch on the right.
Raven popped up between Brook and Cade. Her arms dangled over the seat back and her ear buds hung down in front of her. She asked breathlessly, “What happened here?”
“Stay down, sweetie,” said Cade. He popped the console open and pulled out the satellite phone. Thumbed it on and resumed scanning the tree line on both sides of the road.
The two-way came to life and Wilson said, “We’re not rolling into an ambush ... are we?”
Cade thumbed the talk button. He said, “Negative,” and dropped the radio on his lap. He craned around, taking it all in. The whole place had the feel of some kind of hallowed ground. There was no wind rustling the boughs. The birds, for the most part, had turned in for the night, and unlike the last couple of miles where the trees crowding in on them amplified the exhaust notes, only barbed wire lined the road here and both vehicles combined to create but a whisper in comparison.
The road climbed slightly for a couple of hundred yards and when the hill’s apex was within spitting distance, startling them all, the voice in the box boomed: You have reached your destination.
Brook pulled hard to the shoulder. She looked around and asked, “Do you see a road?”
“Negative,” said Cade.
Raven added her two cents. “Why don’t you honk, Mom?”
“Not a good idea,” she answered.
“Where is everybody?” pressed Raven, a measure of concern evident in her voice.
“Give it a minute,” said Cade. He let his eyes walk up the grass-covered hill to his left where he noticed freshly tilled soil. Then his eyes were drawn to two deep parallel tracks traversing the hill. He let his gaze linger on the crushed grass and disturbed low brush just beyond the rectangular patches of disturbed earth. “Those are graves,” he added. “And just beyond them ... is where I’d place an over watch position.”
Partially blocking Cade’s view, the Raptor stopped abreast and the passenger window whirred down. Wilson asked, “Can we get out here and stretch?”
Brook looked the question to Cade. He nodded. Brook said, “Get out, but stay frosty.”
That’s my lady. Smiling, Cade returned his attention uphill. To the spot set back from the clearing. A warren of low brush and shadow. He felt a subtle tingle in his gut. Then the hairs on the back of his arms stood at attention, his sixth sense telling him that someone was indeed watching them. He tore his eyes from the hillside and regarded the sat-phone’s display and saw that it had successfully shaken hands with a satellite somewhere and the signal it was receiving was strong. After cycling through the menu, he found the entry he wanted and hit the talk button. A second or two later he heard an obnoxious electronic trilling in his ear. He let it go on for a five count, then heard a tone and was forced to listen to a generic greeting delivered by an unconvincing human voice prompting him to leave a message. Instead he ended the call and met Brook’s inquiring gaze.
“Nothing?”
“Nope,” he admitted. “But at this point if Daymon is still alive and still has Tice’s phone, he will call me back. No doubt about it.” He traded the phone for the two-way. Changed the main channel from seventeen to ten. Then he set the sub channel to one. Ten-one, he t
hought. Tried and true. The old standby. He thumbed the talk button and said, “Anybody there?”
Nothing.
He tried again. “Old Man, are you there? It’s your amigo from Portland.”
A burst of static emanated from the speaker and a reedy sounding male voice replied, “Who are you?”
“Cade Grayson.”
“What was Logan’s nickname?” the man asked.
“Too easy,” said Cade.
“Nope. Go fish,” replied the man.
“The question ... was too easy,” said Cade sharply. “Logan’s nickname was Oops.”
After a second or two, the man came back over the two-way. “Wait there,” he said. “I’m coming on down.”
Hunch confirmed. “Copy that,” said Cade. He cycled the two-way back to the previous channel and told the others to expect some company. He ended the call and slipped the radio in a pocket. He snatched the Glock off the seat and checked the chamber and mag. Shielding his eyes against the setting sun, he opened the door and climbed down from the truck. He looked uphill and scanned the tree line, stopping a foot-and-a-half to the right of the spot he had pegged as the prime location to post a lookout and spotted the slender form just as it slipped from the shadows.
A minute later, the wiry man dressed in camos and wearing a tan ball cap had made his way down the hill to the fence. He passed his rifle over the fence and crawled through himself. Shouldering his rifle, he strolled to the centerline and introduced himself to Cade. After the pleasantries were out of the way, a quick question and answer session ensued and then Phillip sauntered over to the camouflaged entry.
Cade followed him all the way and then stopped in his tracks and silently chastised himself for failing to notice the wall of faked foliage overgrowing the fence for what it really was. Clever set up, he thought as Phillip worked the lock.
After showing Cade how to get to the gate release, Phillip swung it away quietly, faux flora and all, revealing the gravel feeder road. “It’s a short drive,” said Phillip. Then, inexplicably, the achingly thin man straightened up, faced Cade and delivered a pretty fair salute. “And they’ll be waiting for you, sir.”
Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 29
