Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  Empirical evidence, thought Daymon as he halted on the second step and gaped at the sad sight staggering from the gloom.

  Still recoiling from the sudden start, Cade first noticed the unmistakable smell of bourbon and then took note of the pair of hands reaching out for him. They were large and calloused, probably scarred from a lifetime of manual labor. Then, shaking mightily, they beckoned him inside with a sweeping motion.

  Still in sort of a daze and with blood trickling into his eyes as a result of the near scalping, Daymon drew back a few pounds of trigger pull and sidestepped Cade to get a better angle. Suddenly Cade blurted out, “Hold fire.”

  Your lucky day, dude, thought Daymon, lowering the bow.

  One at a time, a little jumpy and still full of adrenaline from the recent brush with death, the makeshift team followed the obviously inebriated man. Once over the threshold and acting purely on survival instinct, Lev and Daymon pushed past him and rushed into the circular foyer. Lev called out “Clear!” and then the two fanned out, poking their heads into each individual room and making sure they were indeed alone.

  Meanwhile Duncan closed the front doors, reached into a nearby display and grabbed a handful of graphite shafted clubs—five-hundred-dollar drivers with ridiculously large heads. Feeling something heavy impact the door, he quickly slipped a number of clubs through the interior door pulls, his way of augmenting the single deadbolt.

  In seconds, Lev and Daymon had returned from their cursory recon and had taken station next to Duncan, who was listening with amusement as presumably the last remaining denizen of Whitetail Country Club offered them all a warm yet rather incoherent welcome.

  Lev handed the Glock back to Cade, who was listening and trying to mine pertinent details from the man’s rambling narrative.

  Accepting the Glock, Cade swapped magazines and checked the chamber. Loaded. After looking around the entry, Cade locked eyes with the blabbering fella and asked him his name.

  “Walter,” replied the man, casting his gaze through a grand arched doorway towards the deeply polished mahogany bar beyond. “I used to keep the greens. Now I own the joint.”

  Cade looked the drunk in the eyes and said slowly, “Pleased to meet you, Walter. Lovely joint you have here.” Then he asked the next question even more slowly, but with an added measure of authority. “Do you have keys to any of the cars in the lot?”

  The man processed the question for a long while, during which Cade could almost hear the gears working inside his booze-soaked gray matter. Finally, while heavily slurring his words, the man said, “Hell no. I’m not giving up my car keys. I’ve only had one or two tonight, officer.”

  Taking a different tack, Daymon crowded in, bloody face and all, and said in as nice a tone as he could muster, “I need to get to the hospital. Will you drive me?”

  Something clicked and the man staggered across the foyer and into the bar area. In a few moments, with a jangling noise preceding him, he returned and shook the keys at eye level and said, “Let’s go.”

  While he was gone, the entry doors had started to tremor slightly. Then the golf clubs shoring them up began to rattle, the vibrating alloy heads producing a tinny resonance.

  After snatching the keys from the man’s grasp, Cade rifled through them and found what looked like an ignition key. Only it was a basic black, probably a backup cut by Ace Hardware and not behind the dealer’s counter. Therefore there was no proprietary logo stamped there. So Cade asked the man what kind of car he drove.

  Thinking hard, the man looked at the rafters and ran his hands through oily slicked-back hair. A tick later there was a flash of recognition in his eyes and, still slurring his words, he replied, “Yes. It’s parked around back.”

  No help, thought Cade. He said, “You stay in here. We’ll come back later and shoot the shit. Maybe even tip back a nightcap with you.”

  His face lighting up behind already reddened cheeks, the man said, “Perfect. I’ll be waiting with shots lined up.” Then he looked Daymon in the face, swiped a finger through a rivulet of blood there and said, “You better go to a hospital. I can drive you.”

  At once four resounding No’s echoed through the overhead beams.

  Keys in one hand, Glock in the other, Cade hurried through the foyer and threaded his way between the white linen-shrouded tables of what had once been a four- or five-star restaurant. With the others close behind, he negotiated the kitchen, passed through a narrow dish room clad all in stainless steel, and then found the back door which he guessed led to a receiving area where there just might be a vehicle waiting.

  And there was. A quick peek through the peephole showed the distorted image of a boxy SUV-looking thing. So they moved what seemed like a hundred pounds of boxed russet potatoes blocking the door and tugged it inward.

  Glock leading the way, Cade stepped out first. He looked left then right and called out, “Clear.” As the others filed out behind him, he lowered his body from the loading dock to the grease-stained parking pad and made his way to the vehicle.

  Stumbling over one of the Simplot boxes, Duncan made his way through the door and onto the loading dock. Daymon emerged next and when he saw the vehicle he threw his arms up in disgust and said, “Pontiac Aztek. You have got to be shitting me.”

  After instructing Walter to shore the door with the boxes of potatoes, Lev threw the lock and closed it behind them. He passed by Daymon and said, “Wheels are wheels.”

  There was no alarm fob so Cade tested the key in the rear hatch first. Success. He placed his ruck inside and circled around, opening the other doors along the way. Completing the circuit, he placed his M4 in the footwell, Glock on the dash, and slipped behind the wheel. In no time the others had stowed their gear and the hatch was shut and Cade had coaxed life out of the engine. A beat later he found Reverse with the shifter and was backing rapidly out of the confined space.

  After pulling a quick J-turn, as a courtesy to Walter, Cade wheeled the man’s ride around front, passed underneath the covered valet area and brought the Aztek to a halt. He rolled down his window and whistled and cat-called to the gathered dead pressing on the double doors. After acquiring their undivided attention, he proceeded east with the needle barely registering a numerical speed on the gauge.

  With the Pontiac’s back end just out of their reach and the radials clicking a slow steady cadence against the pavers, all two dozen staggering messes gave slow speed pursuit.

  Chapter 76

  Contrary to Daymon’s opinion, Cade found the Aztek, although a hell of an eyesore, to be a fairly capable ride. With four adults and all their gear and guns it was cramped inside for sure. And come to think of it, kind of squeaky and rattily. But capable nonetheless.

  After goading the undead into the unwinnable goose chase and keeping them enticed until the clubhouse was out of sight (and hopefully out of mind), Cade sped up and drove east through the parking lot and past a dozen luxury sedans.

  At the entrance, he turned right and jinked the ride around a pair of doddering first turns and continued east, still negotiating the golf course roads for a spell, then passed by an algae-choked water feature, its aerial display fountain no longer in business. Finally they came to a stop sign at a ‘T’ with one of McCall’s four-lane arterials. There, Cade consulted his mental map while watching a trio of dead wade after the geese floating in the dormant water feature. Finally after a long pause, during which the Aztek’s engine purred quietly, he hung a left, once again sending them on a winding northeasterly tangent on Boyostun Drive through a verdant canyon of pines blocking their view of the lake to the right.

  After five minutes on Boyostun, Daymon broke the silence and called out from the back seat, “Why are you keeping us in the dark, Boss?”

  Cade said, “I’m just trying to maintain focus. That’s all.”

  Stopping short of delivering an elbow, Duncan turned towards Daymon and said, “Let the man work, would ya? He saved our collective asses back there on the links.�
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  Recalling how Duncan had sprung into action, saving his ass with three perfectly placed shotgun blasts—all without hurting an additional hair on his head—Daymon decided to practice what Heidi liked to preach and quit sweating the small stuff. “My bad,” he said.

  With the Panasonic on his lap and hinged open on his lap, Lev zoomed the satellite image in a couple of stops. After tilting the screen to get a better viewing angle, he read one of the notations on the overlay and said, “We’re looking for Sylvan Beach. It’ll be on the right ... a couple of miles ahead.”

  Dabbing his head wound with a swatch torn from his tee-shirt, Daymon instantly forgot his previous pledge to self and asked Lev, “What’s at Sylvan Beach?”

  “I’m not in Cade’s head ... but from what I see here I’m guessing that’s where we’re going to cross the lake.”

  Cade nodded, then gazed right and noticed shadows darken the lake’s surface as the sun slipped behind the peaks to the west.

  Daymon said, “We’ll be sitting ducks crossing before dark.”

  “It’ll be OK. Besides ... they won’t be expecting callers,” drawled Duncan. He looked at the driver. “Right, Delta?”

  Keeping his eyes on the road, Cade said, “Affirmative.” Then suddenly a little worry slipped through his self-imposed mental barrier. His thoughts raced. In them Brook was mourning him. Then, as if in a time machine, the vision fast forwarded and Raven was grown and seemingly surviving the apocalypse on her own. Snapping him back to present, Lev said, “Sylvan Beach ... next right.”

  Seeing that their encounters with the walking dead had fallen off substantially the farther north they travelled, Cade decided to ditch the Aztec here, a quarter mile short, in order to assure a stealthy approach. “Lock and load,” he said. He pulled into the nearest side road where a hundred yards east the massive rear facade of a two-story house blocked most of the lake view.

  Once again they donned helmets and packs and inspected their weapons. Once again Cade handed Lev the suppressed Glock and then unslung his suppressed M4. Staying inside the tree line, they cut through a handful of yards and were at the Sylvan Beach parking lot in a little under ten minutes.

  Stopping at the south end of the parking lot, Cade knelt down next to an overflowing garbage can, wrestled the Bushnell’s from his pack, and surveyed the scene. To his left, beyond a picket of broadleaf trees, he saw a couple of red clay tennis courts. Dead ahead there was a public use restroom built of cinderblocks and painted a bland shade of yellow. Arranged outwards from the structure, like the spokes of a wheel, were a contingent of hunter-green picnic tables. To the right of the bathrooms, stretching nearly to the lake’s edge, was a very large swimming pool surrounded by a built-up wooden deck, its still waters slightly murky with algae. And beyond the pool, across a couple of hundred yards of open water, was the tip of the heavily wooded peninsula he’d so far seen only in the overhead image.

  Glassing the gently curved stretch of beach ahead, Cade spotted the two things that had piqued his interest in the satellite image. Stretching a dozen yards out over the water and built up on telephone pole pilings was a stark-white dock. Tied up and bobbing on the water on its lee side was some kind of low-to-the-water two-man power boat, a giant chrome-plated engine sitting out back. Closer in still, upside down on the sand, were a dozen wooden rowboats identical in style and size, but varying vastly in color. Cade guessed they were most likely rented out to the throngs of tourists either by the day or smaller increments thereof.

  Thinking back to the ‘90’s John Candy comedy The Great Outdoors, Daymon so wanted to quote a line from the movie and start chanting ‘kick ass drag-boat’ over and over. But seeing as how that might give them away to the dead, he kept it to himself.

  Seeing Cade lower the field glasses, Lev said, “What next?”

  “We cover each other and cross in the boats. The State Park over there”—he pointed to the overgrown finger of land on the other side of the narrow channel—“as best as I can tell from the imagery, that is the western boundary of Bishop’s territory. And on the opposite side are some houses and across the lake from them is where he is holed up. We’ll pick a house adjacent and start observing.”

  “And?” asked Daymon.

  Though there was more he could add, Cade simply said, “And we move on them when the opportunity presents itself.”

  Shaking his head, Daymon put his bow aside and sat on the curb. He removed his helmet and discarded the bloody knot of fabric he’d stuffed inside. He tore another piece from his shirt and applied pressure to his wound.

  After checking his Suunto, Cade said, “We’re oscar mike in five.”

  Duncan cracked a water and sated his thirst in one long, drawn-out gulp, all sixteen ounces, followed by a stifled belch.

  Conversing quietly amongst themselves, Cade and Lev agreed to split up. He would cover Lev and Duncan who would be crossing first in one boat. Once on the other side, Lev and Duncan would extend the same courtesy and provide security until they were all four on the peninsula.

  “Looks good on paper,” conceded Cade.

  “Remember ... Mister Murphy’s got scissors,” quipped Lev.

  Shaking his head at the prospect of crossing open water in daylight, Daymon positioned the makeshift bandage and cinched his helmet down as best he could.

  Five minutes later, two boats, one pink and the other black, bobbed in the water next to the dock.

  “Age before beauty,” said Lev.

  Saying nothing, Duncan steadied himself by bracing the pair of oars across the boat’s gunwales. Then, after pushing them off, Lev hopped in and sat down quickly on the center thwart and rowed as fast as he could.

  Cade glassed the far shore, looking for movement or a glint of light off of glass. Seeing nothing, he lowered the binoculars and prepared to board what he’d secretly dubbed, on account of its pink splendor, the Good Ship Lollipop.

  After navigating the still narrows, the two men clambered ashore and Lev gave the signal.

  Already in the boat and with the oars chocked in the oarlocks when Cade jumped in, Daymon started rowing immediately. Taking fast and deep cuts in the water while Cade trained his M4 on the receding shoreline, Daymon put them on the white sandy shore of the peninsula in half the time it had taken Lev.

  After taking care to stow the boats in some low bushes a dozen yards from shore, the ragtag team melted into the trees.

  Chapter 77

  With Cade walking point and practicing proper noise discipline, the trek from the landing site to the State Park entrance burned an additional sixty minutes of daylight.

  Raising a clenched fist, the age-old silent signal meaning stop at once, Cade halted and went to a knee beside the trunk of an old gnarled pine. He craned his head over his shoulder, made eye contact with the spread-out line, and whispered into the comms, “Vehicle approaching.”

  Lev turned to their rear and took a knee, keeping the Glock trained down the trail.

  Duncan and Daymon both went to ground two yards behind Cade. The former crouching next to a hearty pine and the latter on his butt, cross-legged, with his crossbow parting a low-to-the-ground clump of ferns, its deadly end aimed at the nearby strip of asphalt.

  In the few seconds it took the team to react to the engine noise it ceased getting louder and a couple of beats later, died off altogether.

  Surrounded by deepening shadows under the double canopy, they remained frozen in place for what to Duncan, who was itching to make someone pay for Logan’s death, seemed an eternity. He looked at his watch and saw the minutes slowly crawl by. A full thirty minutes passed before he saw movement ahead, but shortly into the thirty-minute wait the cravings had begun. First just a thought. Then something washed over him and he wanted nothing more than to open up a bottle of Jack Daniels and forget.

  After staying still and silent and hearing nothing more for a full thirty minutes, Cade rose from the needle-strewn floor. He motioned silently for the others to follow
and padded forward on the same course paralleling the single-lane road from several feet inside the tree line.

  Three hundred yards south, Cade repeated the same routine. But this time, after taking a knee, he looked and listened for just a couple of minutes and then called Lev up front.

  From a dozen feet away Daymon watched as the two former soldiers conversed. They must have turned off their comms because their mouths were moving but he wasn’t hearing the words. However, he followed Cade’s arm movements and tried to read his lips, picking up on only a smattering of words—among them, house and go stood out prominently. Before they had finished their exclusive tête-à-tête, Daymon saw their only two suppressed weapons once again change hands.

  As Lev crept past Duncan and Daymon, suppressed M4 in hand, he whispered, “Cade’s going forward to recon some houses up ahead. He asked me to tell you two to ‘stay frosty.’”

  Watching Cade pulling items from his ruck, presumably in preparation for his impromptu foray, Daymon muttered, “Never heard that one before.”

  Leaving his pack behind, Cade stuffed a flashlight and a half dozen zip ties into a cargo pocket and crept towards the road, being careful to maintain a low profile along the way.

  He stopped and looked, first left and then right. Nothing to see here but shafts of ambient light dappling the road with an eerie pattern resembling clawlike hands ready to trip him up.

  He padded south to a darker stretch of roadway with a good deal of cover on the opposite side and sprinted across in a combat crouch, Glock leading the way.

  A couple of hundred yards east he could see a trio of houses separated by great expanses of lawn and beautiful landscaping and surrounded by wooden picket fencing. Beyond the houses he could see the lake and small structures he guessed to be boat houses. Docks with personal watercraft tied to them reached dozens of feet into the lake.