Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  Chapter 81

  There was a loud knock at the door. Nothing cheery about it. All business. Reluctantly Jamie put down her book and padded across the room. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Ian,” came the muffled reply. “Won’t you join me downstairs?”

  “Give me a minute.” Suddenly Jamie’s fight or flight instincts revved up. She took a couple of calming breaths, slipped out of the shorts and dressed in the jeans that had been provided her earlier in the day. She pulled her hair into a high ponytail and looked at herself in the mirror. “That’ll do.”

  There was a trio of knocks at the door, closely spaced. Urgent. With a little edginess to his voice, Bishop said, “Everything OK?”

  Jamie swallowed hard and opened the door. What she did next was planned. She wanted to deliver a knee to his groin but was presently unsure of herself. Bottom line, her level of desperation hadn’t risen there yet. So instead, sticking to her original plan—to further the idea, in dribs and drabs, to her tall, dark, and handsome suitor that capture-bonding was indeed taking place—she stood on her tiptoes, gripped his bicep, and delivered a peck to his cheek. Hell, she thought. If female spies can use their feminine guiles to get what they want, so too can I. And right now what she wanted more than anything was to carve the fucker into little tiny pieces. She’d killed to protect herself on two separate occasions already since the world went to shit, and this one, if she got the chance, was going to be very different from the others. It was going to be very gratifying.

  Smiling, Bishop said, “Cheeses and crackers and a surprise after sunset. Does that sound good to you?”

  Mind racing, Jamie held her composure and said, “I love surprises. I think I can get used to this treatment.” Then, thinking she’d laid it on too thick, she felt a cold pit forming in her stomach.

  Bullshit, thought Bishop. His smile turning wolfish, he said, “Let’s get some fresh air.” Stepping aside he swept his arm in a kind of grand gesture and ushered her ahead and followed her down the hall.

  Chapter 82

  Cade moved aside so that Duncan could get his eyes on the target house. The suppressor on the end of the MSR tracked left to right in tiny increments as the old aviator glassed the house. “I can’t see a thing,” he finally said.

  “Because of your vision ... or there’s nobody to see?”

  “The latter. I wasn’t blowing smoke when I told you these glasses were doing the trick.”

  Interrupting, Foley said, “Just yesterday Carson and his crew brought three women back from their foraging trip.”

  Suddenly wishing he hadn’t played his cards so close to his vest, Cade asked, “Why didn’t you divulge that earlier?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  Cade straightened up and ran a hand through his dark hair. After a beat he said, “Enlighten me.”

  Foley repeated what he’d overheard the other guards say about the women, leaving out the vulgar descriptions of certain parts of the women’s female anatomy.

  Across the lake

  Once downstairs, Bishop followed Jamie through the kitchen and living room, then through the slider. That she’d eyed the block of kitchen knives along the way wasn’t lost on him. At the rail he sidled up behind her and whispered, “Have you ever seen a sunset so grand?”

  Playing along—for now—Jamie answered, “Why no. No, I haven’t.”

  He pressed closer, grinding against her now.

  Though the temperature had dropped a few degrees in just a handful of minutes, the shiver Jamie threw was one of revulsion. Then his cheek brushed hers and he pointed over her left shoulder north by west and said cryptically, “In a short while you and I are going to be blessed by a sky show few humans live to tell about.”

  Reacting to the absence of direct sunlight, multitudes of insects seemed to come on the scene at once, buzzing the two of them.

  Pushing back against Bishop’s advance, Jamie said, “The bugs are killing me. Can we go inside?” There was no word of warning. Not so much as a grunt, but suddenly she found herself freed from his weight and following him back inside, her hand in his.

  Foley’s place

  As the sun sank from sight somewhere far away in the west, the windows across the lake broadcast the event, reflecting the oranges and reds of the fiery evening sky. Meanwhile, inside the A-frame guest house overlooking Mother Nature’s stunning sky show, Duncan said, “The way you described the brunette ... athletic, medium height ... gotta be Jamie.” No sooner did the young woman’s name roll off his tongue than he was staring her in the face. And that face, amazingly, was unmarred. There were no obvious signs of abuse, only a pinched smile and a hard set jaw—subtle tells of the stress she was no doubt under. Nothing like Jordan though, he thought. The image of her death mask he’d no doubt carry with him for a long time. “I have eyes on Jamie. And I think I’ve made the Bishop fella too.”

  “Carson?” asked Cade.

  “Nope. Just the two. They just stepped onto the porch. And oh how I wish I could kill the bastard right now.” Then, recognizing the fact that he was observing them with Cade’s scoped rifle, he rose and backed away from the dresser. “Shoot the fucker. Please take the shot,” he pleaded with Cade.

  Taking position behind the rifle, Cade switched frequencies on his comms. He clicked the send button twice and, after less than a second, was relayed instructions from somewhere on high. Responding with a quick, “Copy that,” he switched back to the frequency shared by his small team, clicked the send button twice, and then answered Duncan. “Timing’s got to be just right if you want Jamie to come home with us alive.”

  “Cade ... you’ve gotta make sure she’s not harmed,” said Duncan. “You know Logan was smitten with that girl.”

  Foley blurted, “Can I go with you ... wherever home is? I’ve got nothing here.”

  “Stay in line and out of the way and I’ll consider it,” answered Cade. A half-beat later, in his earpiece, he heard a pair of soft clicks. He answered with a pair of clicks of his own and snugged the rifle in and put his face to the scope. Too late. He watched helplessly as Jamie, following closely behind Bishop, disappeared back into the house. A few seconds later he saw a flare of light inside. Brilliant at first, then the single flickering flame became two and the original died out.

  He saw Jamie sit down, her face a golden mask of beauty illuminated by the flickering candlelight. Then Bishop pulled out a chair and sat down, his head and upper body eclipsing her entirely.

  Chapter 83

  Hearing the two clicks he’d been anticipating, Lev clicked back twice and when his response was answered in like fashion, he flashed Daymon a thumbs up. They’d agreed ahead of time that Daymon would start the ball rolling and Lev would join the party only if necessary.

  Twenty feet away, concealed in some low brush, his woodland BDUs and rangy mop of dark hair effectively breaking up any kind of outline the faint light of dusk might illuminate, Daymon received the signal. Just a bear, he told himself. In fact, if the man at the gate had to be compared to any animal—a bear would be the logical choice. Easily over six feet tall and weighing in well north of two hundred pounds, the bearded man had already displayed a nasty streak in the way he’d been toying with the arriving dead. Instead of sticking a dagger in their brains like the other, much smaller, guard had been wont to do, Big Beard was fond of carving pieces off of them first. Not a way to treat your former fellow Americans. And though the man appeared to be an asshole of the highest order, no matter how hard Daymon tried to dehumanize the man in his mind, the thought, however doubtful, that the sadist might still have kids or a wife somewhere gave the former BLM firefighter reason to pause.

  Sighting through the bow’s optics, Daymon could sense Lev’s eyes on him, beaming the chanted words, do it, do it, straight into his brain. Then he remembered that these men may have been the ones who’d kidnapped Heidi. Who’d held her against her will and defiled her after Robert Christian had his way and cast her out like yesterda
y’s trash. At the very least they were guilty by association. Something shifted in him. The last modicum of empathy melted like an ice cube on the surface of the sun. Suddenly he was full-of-rage Daymon. The very same guy who had sacrificed the fat lawyer to the dead in Hanna. Bye bye Ursa, he thought, drawing up a few pounds of trigger pull. Then, with the crosshairs centered over the bearded man’s throat—targeting the soft, fleshy indentation right below where the whiskers stopped growing—he sealed the deal.

  Silent, save for a barely perceptible twang which was followed by a slightly louder crack, like a twig giving underfoot, the arrested tension was released and the barbed arrow shot from the carbon fiber bow, covered the short distance in the blink of an eye, and found its mark dead on.

  Buried to the feathers, blood pulsing in sheets around the fiberglass shaft, the arrow quivered for a second until Big Beard’s hands instinctively came up and grabbed ahold.

  Whether due to the commotion or the coppery smell of blood, or both, the dead on the other side of the gate reacted instantly. Their moans intensified and they thrust their stick-thin arms between the horizontal slats.

  Busy notching another arrow, Daymon hadn’t been witness to the actions of the dead or the bearded man’s eyes rolling back into his skull. Nor did he see the man’s mouth working frantically to draw a breath against the torrent of his own frothy blood that was effectively drowning him.

  Daymon finished reloading and snugged the crossbow to his shoulder and targeted the smaller man, who by now had turned a one-eighty and was watching the life drain from his companion’s eyes.

  As the realization that he had crossed over and was now a killer of men settled heavily on Daymon’s shoulders, he hovered the crosshairs on the little guy’s ribcage, right side, below the arm and above the hip. Just a grouping of muscles and a few slats of horizontal bone protecting a whole mess of important organs. Seemingly unfazed and presuming he was out of the line of fire, the second guard raised a radio to his lips. Too late and wrong assumption, thought a changed Daymon. I’m behind you, fucker.

  From a spot of concealment thirty feet from the gate and with his finger tensed on the Glock’s trigger, Lev watched as Daymon channeled his inner Grim Reaper and put an arrow into the second guard’s right side. The reaction was instantaneous as the guard dropped his weapon and another item he’d just pulled from inside his fleece vest and then fell over onto his left and curled up into a fetal ball.

  Instantly Daymon popped up and sprinted towards the gate.

  Lev covered Daymon’s approach and once he’d taken a knee beside the second guard, broke from cover and hustled over there as well.

  Having already disarmed the guard, Daymon held up the silent two-way radio and said, “I don’t think he got the call off.”

  “Let’s find out,” said Lev darkly. Over the moans of the agitated Zs and the guard’s whispered pleas for help, he grabbed the arrow shaft, gave it a tug, and hissed, “How many more men are inside the perimeter?”

  The man’s glassy eyes suddenly gained some cognition. Mouth moving, the man shot a hate-filled sidelong glance at Daymon but said nothing substantive, just pained grunts and groans escaping his mouth.

  Twisting the shaft, Lev hissed, “How many?”

  Looking around, worried reinforcements were soon to emerge from the lengthening shadows, Daymon said, “Cade wants us to get these guys out of sight and then get right back.”

  Hoping to get some extra intel, Lev ignored Daymon and jiggled the arrow, an action that was met by a shriek and then a beat later a muffled, “Thirty or forty,” left the man’s mouth between gasps.

  Addressing Daymon, Lev said, “You can look away if you want.” He unsheathed his matte black blade and without pause drew it across the doomed man’s throat, pressing hard enough to produce the sound of honed steel dragging against bone. Blood sprayed everywhere, hot and sticky. After a handful of seconds the man went limp and the bleeding let up, signifying the end of his life.

  The stench of the dead when combined with the stink of loosened bowels and the metallic tang of the freshly spilt blood was enough to make Daymon’s stomach clench. Wondering to himself if the acts he’d just committed, or the byproduct of those acts, was the responsible culprit, he swallowed against a throat full of rising bile.

  “You going to be OK?” asked Lev as he wiped away the blood and sheathed his blade.

  Nodding, Daymon grabbed the smaller guard’s arms and draped the limp dead weight over his neck in a fireman’s carry. Then he rose slowly, straightened his arms and heaved the warm corpse over the gate where it was received with open arms and gnashing teeth.

  It took a combined effort to drag the bear-sized guard into the underbrush, and when they were finished both men were fighting for breath.

  Without a word, Lev tossed the smaller guard’s weapon into the mass of feeding dead. On the run back to the guest house the radio went into his cargo pocket. Then, broadcasting the mission’s success, he clicked the transmit switch on his headset twice.

  Chapter 84

  Finger tensed on the trigger, Cade felt the faintest of stirrings in his chest, a sensation like no other, certainly one he’d never forget. The first time he had experienced the unique harmonic overpressure, which was the way his mind interpreted it, Mike Desantos had been on this side of the dirt. The last time he’d had the pleasure was at the NBL in Canada, when, exhausted and nearly overrun by the dead, the glorious sound like no other signaled his Delta team’s imminent rescue.

  He breathed in deeply, filling his chest with warm, still air. Held it in check for a tick then exhaled, a whisper of breath escaping slow and steady. Between heartbeats, he drew off the remaining trigger pull, saw the barrel jump and felt the considerable recoil pummel his shoulder and send gooseflesh rippling down his ribcage. Upstairs in the loft, the suppressed report sounded like a single hand clap, sharp and attention-getting and, before it had made the rounds and finished echoing off the slanted ceiling, Cade saw the grievous damage inflicted by the .338 Lapua round. First to take the brunt was the sliding glass door as the bullet riding the air at a supersonic pace punched through both sandwiched panes, causing the entire 4X7 sheet to web first then splinter and fall inward, leaving him an unobstructed view of what came next.

  When the bullet struck Bishop, his right arm was raised to shoulder level; whether he’d been talking with his hands, about to strike Jamie, or shoveling food into his mouth, Cade wasn’t certain.

  In the time it took Cade to draw in his next breath, three things were going on inside the target house. First he saw Bishop’s upraised arm jerk violently forward towards Jamie as his entire bulk, reacting to the kinetic energy behind the sudden mule kick, followed suit, hinging forward over the table, scattering china and service as the dark wood slab reared up on one end and he disappeared from view, pulling everything down atop himself. Next, in slow motion, Bishop’s form was replaced by a spreading pink cloud of mist and Cade saw, clear as day through the powerful optics, Jamie’s expression go from one of taciturn acceptance, to surprise, to sudden revulsion as the expanding cloud of flesh and blood pelted her from the neck up.

  As Cade worked the MSR’s bolt back, simultaneously sending the spent piece of smoking brass on a tumbling journey to the floor and the next match-grade shell smoothly into the breach, he witnessed two things. First Jamie disappeared from view, her slight form slipping behind the teetering table. In the next instant, a black angular shape, the source of the harmonic disturbance, crossed the night sky smooth and dangerous, its near silent rotor wash rattling the open windows and frothing the lake’s placid surface.

  A half-beat later all hell broke loose northeast of the lake as well as in Cade’s ear bud when unexpectedly, over his team’s shared channel, he heard, “Good shooting, Wyatt. Target is down.” Then the voice he recognized as belonging to Ari said, “In five, four, three, two ... ” At ‘one’ Cade saw the black shape flare and level out over the target house and instantly there were
a pair of fast ropes uncoiling snake-like from the aircraft’s open doors. He blinked and two forms, all in black, weapons strapped across their chests, rode the ropes to the ground below. Then, a second after the first pair appeared, another two ninjas exited the hovering Ghost Hawk and rode the ropes to earth.

  For a second the radio was silent in Cade’s ear. Then a voice he recognized rattled off a couple of orders and the comms went suddenly quiet—for a second.

  “What was that all about?” asked Daymon over the comms.

  Finally seeing the black shape for what it really was, the lone remaining Ghost Hawk, Duncan whistled low and slow and stated, mostly for Daymon’s benefit, “Cade’s been holding out on us. That there is the cavalry and I’d give my left nut to sit in the pilot’s seat of one of those birds.”

  Still cuffed at the wrists, Foley crabbed past the furniture and had just taken up station, nose to the sliding glass, when an explosion, lighting his face up red, rocked the house immediately left of the target house. Then there was a continuous laser-straight red and orange stream of fire lancing groundward from the orbiting Ghost Hawk and the house on the right side of the target suddenly caught fire.

  After the fast-moving shock wave rippled the water and rattled the east-facing windows, a muffled ‘Whoomph’ rolled over the guesthouse. Cade heard the loud thumping of what could only be a Chinook and then it came into view far left of the lakefront homes. And as licks of small arms fire lanced up towards the lumbering chopper, in his ear bud, he heard whom he guessed was Ari’s co-pilot speaking in clipped syntax, directing the action on the ground.

  Then there were more explosions to the north and more chatter and then again he heard Lopez’s unmistakable tone and delivery followed by, “Copy that,” which, deep and sonorous, could only belong to the surfer-boy-looking Special Agent Adam Cross. All of a sudden Cade imagined an old Thin Lizzy song befitting the battlefield reunion taking place, then he heard the unmistakable thundering cadence of a new pair of Chinook helicopters entering the airspace over the lake. The boys are back in town, indeed, thought Cade as the all too familiar combat tingle returned. Juices flowing, he shrugged on his ruck, snatched up the MSR and Lev’s M4 and said, “Let’s move.” The newly flowing adrenaline countering any latent ankle pain, he hustled downstairs following Foley’s shiny bouncing dome. At the bottom of the stairs, the man of the house turned a one-eighty, held his hands in the air, and shot Cade a what about me look.