Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series

by Bryan Cassiday

  She heaved a sigh.

  What nightmare did life have in store for her? she wondered.

  She would find out soon enough. Of that she could be certain.

  Chapter 53

  The light was failing.

  Banks of fog were rolling in from the west, smothering Alcatraz in a swirling grey mist that clung to the eaves of the buildings like caterpillar nests.

  Bascomb liked the feel of the dank wisps of fog that crept along his naked arms, embracing him like a phantom lover. He also liked the tangy aroma of the brackish seawater borne by the fog as it stole over the island in grey clouds harried by the wind. He breathed the musky odor deep into his lungs relishing the feel of it as it cleaved to the alveoli in his lungs.

  He was on his way to make sure his diggers had picked up their pace excavating his bunker in the recreation yard.

  Instead of cutting through the prison, he decided to take the path bordering it and enjoy the aromatic fog outdoors a while longer as he made for the rec yard.

  Visibility was low due to the creeping fog. He found it tricky negotiating the path.

  At the last second he avoided colliding into two men who were bustling toward him from the opposite direction.

  Their faces flush with excitement, Goatee and Tattoo Head greeted Bascomb.

  “Why can’t you two wear normal shoes like everybody else, instead of jogging shoes?” asked Bascomb. “I couldn’t hear you coming.”

  Tattoo Head glanced down at his Adidas. “We were heading to your house to see you, boss.”

  “Well, here I am.”

  “We searched the strangers’ sailboat like you told us, and look what we found.”

  It was only now that Bascomb became aware of the two stuffed navy blue nylon sacks that Tattoo Head and Goatee were gripping in their hands.

  “Those look like moneybags they use in armored trucks. What’s in them?” asked Bascomb.

  “Like you said,” answered Tattoo Head with a smile. “Money. They’re crammed with dough.”

  Bascomb leaned over, pried open one of the sacks with his hands, and peeked inside at the bundles of cash secured with red rubber bands.

  “This money is from a bank,” he said, standing up. “You know what that means?”

  “We sure do,” Goatee answered with a grin. “It means we’re rich.”

  “No, you idiot. It means this money was stolen. Our visitors are looters.”

  “Damn.”

  “I knew there was something fishy about them the moment I laid eyes on them.”

  Bascomb heard footsteps approaching in front of him. He could not make out anyone in the swirly fog. He held his forefinger to his lips, motioning to Goatee and Tattoo Head to hold their peace.

  The two stiffened and looked alert in the direction of the footfalls.

  At last Bascomb could discern the figure of a man coming into view.

  It was Kobe Jones.

  “Were you heading to my house, too?” asked Bascomb.

  “As a matter of fact I was,” answered Jones, surprised at seeing Goatee and Tattoo Head with Bascomb.

  “What for?”

  “I got to talking with Halverson like you wanted me to.”

  “And? Did you find anything out?”

  Jones gazed at Bascomb with his hooded eyes. “He says he’s planning to kill you.”

  “I figured as much,” said Bascomb smugly. “What can you expect from looters? Does he want to take over the island?”

  “He wants to get out of here. That’s what he told me.”

  “I knew they were too good to be true. Doctors, journalists, dressmakers, students . . . Yeah, sure. Crooks, the whole lot of them, is more like it.” Bascomb hung fire, pricking up his ears. “What’s that?”

  An eerie low-pitched ululation reverberated through the air.

  “It’s the infected,” said Jones. “They make that moaning-howling sound when they’re worked up.”

  Tattoo Head felt a frisson run down his spine. “Gives me the willies.”

  “Why are they worked up?” asked Bascomb.

  “They’re massing and doing something on the coastline,” answered Jones. “We don’t know what they’re up to.”

  “Well, find out.”

  “What difference does it make? As long as they can’t get over here, that’s what matters.”

  “There’s no way they can get over here,” said Tattoo Head. “Not those dumb clucks. They don’t know their asses from their armpits.”

  “I want to know what they’re doing,” demanded Bascomb.

  “Sure, boss,” said Tattoo Head a tad sheepishly. “We’ll take a Zodiac over there and check it out.” Tattoo Head motioned to Goatee to follow him as he struck off into the fog.

  “Aren’t you two forgetting something?” said Jones.

  “Like what?” asked Tattoo Head, coming to a halt.

  “How are you gonna see anything in this fog?”

  “He’s got a point,” Goatee told Tattoo Head. “We’re socked in.”

  The two of them waited for Bascomb to tell them what to do.

  “Check it out as soon as the fog lifts,” said Bascomb. He cut his eyes toward the moneybags. “And take those bags to my house.”

  “No problem.”

  Bags in hands, Tattoo Head and Goatee started on their way to the house when they came to an abrupt standstill.

  “Jeez,” said Tattoo Head.

  “What is it?” asked Bascomb, wheeling around to see what had caused them to stop.

  Nobody answered.

  Then Bascomb saw what Tattoo Head and Goatee were looking at, and he knew why they had not answered.

  Standing in front of them was Brittany Pine. She was stark naked.

  Chapter 54

  The fool, decided Bascomb, sizing up Brittany. Why hadn’t she put her clothes on? Why in the world was she traipsing around in her birthday suit in the fog for all to see?

  “Didn’t you forget something, my dear?” he asked.

  She stood in front of them, her head bent to the side at a weird angle. She said nothing.

  It was difficult for Bascomb to distinguish her features courtesy of the fog that was swirling around them.

  “Cat got your tongue?” he said.

  He was getting horny again, glimpsing the contours of her naked body as it appeared fitfully through the floating fog.

  She was hanging her mouth open, he could now see as a gap in the fog appeared. Her flesh looked livid. Her long chestnut hair, usually so full and wavy, fell lankly over her shoulders. It had no body to it. It must have been the humidity that was wreaking havoc on her hair, decided Bascomb. She was no doubt freezing to death, too, standing out here naked in the dank fog.

  She said nothing.

  “You’re gonna catch your death of cold,” said Bascomb.

  “She’s starting to creep me out,” said Jones. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Maybe it was better she didn’t talk, decided Bascomb, the more he thought about it. He didn’t want her blabbing to the others about his session with her in his bedroom.

  “You need to go back to the house, Brittany,” he said in a soothing voice.

  She said nothing, standing there like a statue with her head canted to her right. A wisp of fog eddied around her torso for a moment then dissipated.

  “I’m telling you she’s making my flesh crawl,” said Jones, fidgeting.

  “You’re not the only one,” said Tattoo Head sotto voce.

  “Why doesn’t she say something for Christ’s sake?” said Goatee.

  “She doesn’t look right to me.”

  “Make her say something!”

  At that moment, Brittany lurched toward Goatee, who was standing nearest to her, grabbed his shoulders, leaned toward him, and clamped her teeth around his throat. She tore a clump of flesh and a three-inch section of the carotid artery out of his neck.

  Goatee screamed in pain. He clutched his wound, blood spewing through his finger
s that he was using to stanch the bleeding.

  Blood gushed and sprayed from his throat all over Brittany’s face and body.

  Blood streaming from her mouth, she munched on the chunk of flesh from Goatee’s throat and purred like a contented cat.

  Unable to stanch the bleeding, Goatee dropped to his knees, his fingers pressed around his throat soaked in blood.

  Jones cursed.

  He whipped out his Sig Sauer P226 automatic from his leather holster on his waist and let loose three 9 mm Parabellum hollow-point rounds into Brittany’s blood-soaked chest.

  Jerked back by the impact of the slugs, Brittany, nevertheless, continued chewing on the bolus of flesh from Goatee’s throat.

  Swallowing his flesh, she stepped toward Goatee, who knelt dazed on his knees. She leaned down so she could reach his mutilated throat and tore a chunk of flesh out of the other side of it.

  Goatee wailed in pain and fell flat on his face onto the path.

  “Put her down!” shouted Bascomb, lest he’d be the next entree on Brittany’s menu.

  Jones unloaded three more shots in quick succession out of his Sig’s eleven-round clip into her upper body mass with no effect.

  “Why won’t she go down?” Tattoo Head asked Bascomb.

  “He must be missing her,” answered Bascomb.

  “I can’t miss her at this range!” exclaimed Jones, gnashing his teeth. “I’m firing point-blank! If I was any closer, I could touch her!”

  Frustrated, Jones took a step toward Brittany, brought his pistol to bear on Brittany’s forehead, and fired his Sig.

  The round slammed into her forehead, coursed through her brain, and blew out the occipital bone as well as a portion of the parietal bone. The bones and brain matter attached to them blew ten-odd feet through the air.

  Her face smeared with Goatee’s blood, Brittany stumbled backward and dropped dead. She landed on her buttocks in a reclining position.

  Angrily, Jones reared back his leg and kicked what was left of her blood-smeared head.

  Her corpse flattened out and lay supine, motionless. Her hands shuddered briefly.

  “Time for a beer,” said Tattoo Head, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  Not convinced she was dead, Jones fired one more round for good measure into Brittany’s shattered head.

  “Enough already,” said Tattoo Head. “She ain’t going nowhere.”

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” said Bascomb.

  A puzzled expression registered on Jones’s face as he holstered his gun. He said nothing.

  “It means she was infected,” said Bascomb, eyes intense.

  “I sort of figured that when she wouldn’t go down,” said Jones dryly.

  “But how did she get infected, you idiot? None of the infected are walking around loose on the island.”

  Jones frowned. “I never thought of that.”

  “Duh.”

  “Then how did she get it?” said Jones, irritated at Bascomb’s sarcasm.

  “It means she must have gotten infected before she came onto the island.”

  “We should never’ve let her stay here.”

  “It makes you wonder if any of the other visitors are infected,” said Tattoo Head.

  Nobody said anything. The silence was deafening.

  Bascomb heard movement in front of him to his left.

  He saw Goatee roll over onto his back and sit up. Goatee had trouble holding his head up on the mutilated remnants of his neck.

  “Give me a break,” said Tattoo Head, watching Goatee rise to his feet with herky-jerky movements.

  “No way he’s still alive,” said Jones and snapped out his pistol.

  He blasted Goatee three times in the head.

  The first bullet tore off one of Goatee’s jug ears. The second bullet drilled through his cheek. The last round tore a hole in Goatee’s right eye and ripped through his brain. Goatee’s knees buckled and he hit the ground in a heap.

  “He’s not anymore,” said Jones, holstering his Sig.

  Chapter 55

  As soon as Halverson sat down on the bunk in his cell, he was out like a light.

  He heard a clang as he lay on his bunk and through his half-shut eyes peeked at a ghoul shambling into his cell. The male creature had only one eye and no arms. The other eye was hanging halfway down the creature’s cheek on a stalk oozing with aqueous humor.

  Revolted, face sweaty, Halverson bolted upright in his bunk. He tried to grope for something he could use to clobber the ghoul, but he could not move. Paralyzed, he wanted to yell at the creature to scare it off.

  Halverson’s heartbeat accelerated. If only he could move, he might be able to find a club. He thought his heart was going to burst as he watched the creature skulk toward him out of the shadows.

  And then he snapped open his eyes and realized it was a dream.

  He was alone in his jail cell.

  Sighing, he got to his feet. He massaged his sweat-soaked brow. He felt claustrophobic in here. He needed to get outside and get some air.

  He reached the door in three strides and yanked it.

  His heart stopped.

  The door would not open.

  He yanked on it again.

  Nothing.

  The door was locked.

  Halverson cursed. How could he be locked in? he wondered. Was he still dreaming? Was this one of those nightmares within nightmares like one of those Russian dolls that you open up and find another doll inside it and another inside that and so on? A nightmare where you think you’re awake but in reality you’re still dreaming?

  He pinched his arm to wake himself up. He felt the pinch.

  But nothing changed. He was still standing in front of his closed cell door.

  He grabbed two steel bars in the door, one in each hand, and tried again to jerk it to the side to slide it open.

  No soap.

  He was locked inside.

  He glanced over at Reno’s cell. Reno was fast asleep on his bunk.

  “Reno,” said Halverson.

  Reno stirred.

  “Reno,” Halverson repeated.

  Reno sat up and peered at Halverson through blurry eyes.

  “What?” asked Reno drowsily.

  “How did I get locked in?”

  Reno shook his head in bafflement. “You’re locked in, too?”

  Halverson heard footfalls approaching on Broadway.

  Bascomb and his retinue swept into view.

  “Did you have a good rest?” asked Bascomb genially.

  “Somehow my door got locked,” answered Halverson. “Open it up.”

  “I’m the one who locked it.”

  Halverson looked nonplussed.

  “What’s going on in this madhouse?” demanded Reno, standing up, grouchy from having his sleep interrupted.

  “Your luck ran out,” answered Bascomb.

  “What do you mean?” said Halverson.

  “We found the stolen moneybags on your yacht. You’re a pack of looters. You know the law. All looters will be shot.”

  “We didn’t loot anything,” said Reno, trying to rein in his temper.

  “Those moneybags were stolen from a bank or from an armored truck. Banks are the only ones that use those moneybags.”

  Halverson didn’t know how he was able to exercise enough self-restraint to prevent himself from reaching out between the bars and strangling Bascomb.

  “This is a trumped-up charge,” said Reno.

  “Don’t worry,” said Bascomb. “You’ll have your say in court. You’ll get your due process. The law is what separates us from the chaos and anarchy of the infected. Otherwise, you both would have been shot by now.”

  The two moneybags were, in fact, from an armored truck, Halverson knew. He also knew that Reno was in the dark to that fact. Reno had not been there when Halverson and Victoria and several of Halverson’s erstwhile companions, now deceased, had appropriated the moneybags. It hadn’t b
een Halverson’s idea, but he had gone along with the others and done so grudgingly if not willingly.

  “Why?” asked Halverson, at a loss for words.

  “Your luck sucks,” said Bascomb. “You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you commit a crime on this island, you do the time. After all, this is the Rock.”

  “This is bullshit,” spat Reno.

  “Just think. If you were anywhere else on the apocalyptic landscape except on this island where we still have law and order, you’d still be scot-free.”

  “You’re a lunatic who makes up your own laws to suit yourself.”

  “Our American legal system has been around a lot longer than I have. I didn’t invent it.”

  “But you’re using it for your own ends.”

  “You’ll have your day in court where you can present your defense.”

  “How many trials am I gonna have for Christ’s sake? You’ve already got me on a murder charge. Now you’ve got me on a looting charge. How many more charges are you gonna trump up for me?” Reno kicked one of the steel legs on his bunk out of frustration.

  “As many as there have to be. How many crimes have you committed?”

  “None! I killed a ghoul, which isn’t murder. And I didn’t loot anything.”

  “Tell it to the court.”

  Reno threw up his hands. “I hate this place. All that’s missing in this nightmare is bats flying around.”

  “Sorry we don’t have a palace suite for you,” said Bascomb.

  Reno turned to Halverson. “At least you have only one charge against you.”

  “Not true,” said Bascomb.

  “Say again,” said Halverson.

  “Not only are you being charged with looting, as are your companions, you’re also being charged with conspiracy to commit murder.”

  Halverson pshawed. “Murder? Who am I plotting to murder?”

  No sooner were the words were out of his mouth than Halverson recalled his conversation with Jones about murdering Bascomb.

  “Me,” answered Bascomb.

  “Says who?”

  “Says Kobe.”

  Bascomb eyed Jones. Jones nodded.

  “I was set up!” exploded Halverson. “It’s a put-up job. It was Jones’s idea to kill you, not mine. This is nothing but entrapment.”