It works its jaw, letting loose a series of keens and clicking noises. The rest of the zombies swirl around it, heads cocked as they listen. They click and keen in response.
A shiver travels down Ben’s spine. He swings around, his eyes meeting Kate’s. “We have to get the fuck out of here. It’s another alpha zom.” The name rolls off his tongue without thought.
Kate’s eyes widen. “Alpha zom?”
“Yeah, like the one we saw on campus the other day. The kind that issues orders to the rest of the zombies. There’s a good two dozen of those fuckers around the alpha.”
“Follame,” Jesus mutters again.
Kate leads them away from the herd, pushing hard through town. They barrel past the strip mall, working their way deeper into the streets and away from the pack.
They pass a few lone zombies, which are dispatched with knives and screwdrivers. Kate sticks to the narrower streets and alleyways. Ben spots a few other large clusters of zombies, but Kate steers wide of them.
Fifteen minutes later, she draws to a halt on the side of a warehouse building. They clump together without speaking, everyone breathing hard.
“Evolution,” Carter breathes. “They’re evolving.”
“Learning to communicate with one another.” Kate bites out the words.
Jenna rubs her arms, looking over her shoulder as if expecting to find the pack there. “Do you think we lost them?”
“I think so.” Jesus runs his thumb over the hilt of his gun. “Unless they can track. Then we’re fucked.”
“We should scrap the rescue mission,” Ben says. “Fall back and regroup.”
Kate shoots him an irritated look. “No such luck, soldier.”
He tamps down the urge to list out all the reasons why this is a bad idea. If it’s one thing he’s learned about Kate, it’s that she’ll lay it all on the line to help people. Up until today, he thought that only applied to the residents of Creekside. Apparently, that extends to complete strangers in Arcata, too.
“Come on,” Kate says. “It’s not far. We should be able to see the bay as soon as we get past this row of warehouses.”
Ben resigns himself to the mission. He might think it’s idiotic, but there’s no way in hell he’ll turn his back on Kate.
9
Road Crossing
KATE
The fastest way to reach Humboldt Bay is across Samoa Highway, a four-lane country highway. Until now, there hasn’t been a reason for us to push this far south to the town’s boundary. There are cars everywhere, most of them abandoned. Many have plowed across the narrow margin between the east- and west-bound lanes to crash into other cars.
The undead are everywhere. They meander in small circles, clogging up nearly every passable space between the vehicles.
This must be one of the routes people took when they fled in the early days of the outbreak. Then they zombified behind the wheel and everything went sideways.
“How are we going to get across the road?” Reed whispers.
I study the scene. On the other side of the highway are native grass fields that transition into marshland. The marshland rings Humboldt Bay.
I replay our run-ins with the alpha zombies, both here in town and back at the university. I can’t write them off as isolated incidents, especially since Johnny has confirmation of it happening in other locations.
We could very well run into alphas on Samoa Highway. There are, quite literally, hundreds of zombies out here. If one or two of them step up as leader and get wind of us, we’re fucked.
Stealth is the only way to get to the other side.
Fifty yards up the road is an abandoned semi. Its length spans two lanes before the front end pierces the muddy margin. Several cars have plowed into its side, effectively creating a barricade against zombies. I gesture, leading my people toward it.
“We go in groups of two,” I whisper. “Under the semi and out the other side. No one make a sound. If there’s another alpha out here ...” I leave the rest of that thought unspoken. By their expressions, they’re as rattled by the alpha zombies as I am. “Everyone understand?”
I make eye contact with each person, waiting for nods. Unease crawls through me. Is this a mistake? Am I an idiot for risking my people to save two strangers?
Maybe. But there aren’t all that many people left in the world. We need to help each other if we want to survive.
I can’t help thinking about the houseful of soldiers I murdered a few months ago. Hypocrite. I’m stained by that action, even though I’d do it all over again to keep Carter and the others safe. Maybe I can diminish some of that stain by helping others—people who aren’t sadistic, rapist, murdering assholes.
“Ash, with me,” I say. “We’re going first.” I take my screwdriver in one hand and my new zom bat in the other.
Ben opens his mouth. I silence the argument on his face with a single shake of my head.
“You bring up the rear,” I tell him. “Watch our backs.”
He hesitates before nodding. “Prove me wrong out there.”
I grunt. He wants me to prove this isn’t a suicide mission? That makes two of us.
I steal to the edge of the roadway with Ash by my side, eyes darting left and right. She carries a military-issue knife in either hand. On a bad day, Ash looks like a poster child for CrossFit. On a good day, she looks like Xena’s little sister.
Like now. Her eyes glow with inner ferocity. I don’t envy the zombies that come up against her.
We slip between a narrow gap formed by two cars that collided with the semi. There are no bodies inside either of the vehicles, dead or undead, but the force of the impact left shattered glass all over the pavement.
Our running shoes crunch on the glass. The nearest undead is two hundred yards away. It’s a thirty-something woman with long hair that had once been thick and lustrous. The months exposed to the elements have turned it grimy and lank.
It turns in our direction, nose scenting the air like an animal. We dart underneath the semi and pause. Shade blankets us. The smell of gasoline is strong. A breeze wafts in from the ocean, carrying with it the scent of saltwater and rot.
I scan the path on the far side of the semi. There’s an undead wedged between the front bumpers of two collided cars. Both legs are crushed, leaving the undead man splayed on the hood of one car. White eyes roll in its head as it bobs back and forth under the summer sun.
“I’m going to stab the one on the hood,” I whisper. Better to take it out so it doesn’t alert any of its brethren. “Cover me.”
Ash nods, knuckles tightening on her knives.
I dash forward, my blade outstretched. The zombie crushed between the cars stirs as my feet whisper over more crushed glass. I pour on a burst of speed and slam the knife into its ear.
Yanking it free, I keep moving. Ash comes up behind me, her eyes never ceasing their constant scan of our surroundings. We slip around the cars and into the margin.
The eastbound lane isn’t as clear as the westbound. I search for a kink in the armor, but it’s no use. There is no clear path from one side to the other. We’re going to have to make a path.
I sense movement behind us. Turning, I see Reed and Jesus dart through the underbelly of the semi and sprint toward us.
“Ben sent us,” Reed whispers. “He said you’d need help to clear a path.”
Through the corridor beneath the semi, I see Ben crouched down and watching. I nod to him in thanks. His decision was a good one.
Jesus flips the knife in his hand. “Let’s do this, Mamita.” The guy is a pro with a blade. I’ve seen him target practice with the wooden benches on the inside of the track; he can sink his knife into them from twenty feet away.
“See that yellow car?” I point. They lean in to hear my words. “We cut left around it. Jesus and Reed, you two take the three zombies on the left. Ash and I will take the two on the right. That will leave an opening for the others. Remember, the priority is to minimize nois
e.”
We sprint forward, heading for our respective targets. My new zom bat finds the forehead of a senior citizen zombie. The skull collapses with satisfying speed beneath the force of the small bat.
Ash, Reed, and Jesus fell their targets just as quickly. Jesus takes out the fifth one with a knife thrown expertly into the undead’s forehead.
A thumping sound to my right makes me jump. I spin around in time to see Ash backing away from the yellow car. Inside, a woman beats her fists against the glass. Smears of blackish-red blood streak the window. The zombie lets up a keen that can be heard up and down the highway, even muffled as it is by the car.
All around, zombies turn in our direction.
Dammit!
Ash yanks on the door handle. The door is unlocked. The zombie inside tumbles out. I dart forward and whip my bat against the side of her head.
The four of us crouch in a small circle between the cars, not daring to move. All around us, the zombies moan and scent the air.
I hold up a hand, indicating everyone to stay where they are. Any sound we make could bring them on us in a rush. I watch those zombies nearest to us, looking for sign of another alpha.
The zombies shift and moan, shuffling about. None of them emit the combination of clicking and keening that seems to initiate an order.
I look back and see Carter, Jenna, and Caleb still crouched on the far side of the road, watching our progress through the gap beneath the semi. Ben is nowhere in sight. Shit. Where did he go?
A second later, I get my answer.
A car alarm goes off somewhere to the west. Every zombie whips toward the sound.
Ben. He’s clearing a way for us.
I don’t hesitate. I break into a sprint, peeling for the open grass on the far side of the eastbound lane. Reed, Jesus, and Ash run in a tight circle with me.
We hit the grass and keep running, putting as much distance between us and Samoa Highway as possible. Ben is still nowhere in sight. Carter, Jenna, and Caleb have already made it to the eastbound lane.
I draw up short as a pack of zombies lumbers in their direction. Their blindness will buy Carter and the others precious seconds, but not much more than that.
Jenna leads them forward in a blind sprint. After Reed, she’s the fastest of our group. She’s the first to break past the pack and reach us. Carter is right behind her.
Caleb brings up the rear, wielding his rifle like a club. A zombie lumbers in front of him, coming between Caleb and the rest of us.
The young man doesn’t hesitate. He slams the butt of the rifle into the face of the zombie. Blood sprays. Caleb leaps over the body as it falls and sprints the rest of the way to us, leaving the rest of the pack behind.
“Where’s Ben?” I hiss as he joins us. We huddle in a tight cluster five hundred yards from the highway. The car alarm still wails. Zombies bump and flounder their way through the tangle of cars, fighting to reach the noise.
I scan up and down the highway, my chest clenching. There is no sign of Ben anywhere.
“He left to set off the car alarm,” Caleb whispers. “Don’t worry, the guy is as tough as shoe leather. He’ll make it.”
Tough or not, it only takes one slip out here to get you killed. And with no one to watch his back, the danger only increases.
And what if there’s an alpha out here? Dread settles on my shoulders. The thought of something happening to Ben makes me feel sick.
I scan the zombies amassing around the car alarm. They’re in a frenzy, pushing and shoving one another in their desperation to get to the source of the noise. More zombies stream in every second.
If there is an alpha in that mess, it’s impossible for me to pick it out. There are too many bodies crammed together.
Where the hell is Ben?
“There.” Carter points off to our left. “He’s okay.”
I follow the line of Carter’s hand. At first, I don’t see anything except tall grass bent by the breeze.
Then I notice a shape low to the ground headed straight for us. It’s Ben, army crawling his way through the grass. Dressed in his camo, I hadn’t been able to pick him out. I start breathing again.
“Next time, I’m going to make him wear fluorescent orange,” I mutter.
“Good luck with that,” Ash replies. “Even before the end of the world, I doubt the guy even owned a regular pair of jeans.”
10
Marshland
BEN
Ben is proud of the years spent in service to his country. He’d spent his entire adult life fighting wars. Every tour had been someplace hot and dry.
Afghanistan. Pakistan. Iraq. Somalia.
If he’d been born two decades earlier, he’d have spent time in Vietnam like his old man. He remembers his father cursing the humidity and the swamps of the rice paddies.
Now, as he and the others follow Kate toward Humboldt Bay—ankle deep in murky marshland—Ben wishes he’d paid more attention to his old man when he talked about the rice paddies. No doubt his rants contained tidbits of info Ben might have found useful in his current marsh-filled situation.
“That’s the Fairhaven.” Caleb lowers a pair of binos, gesturing to a charter boat with a blue roof grounded half a mile east in the marsh grass.
“Fuck,” Ben grumbles. “There is no good way to recon that thing.”
Caleb gives him a tight look. “We’re going to have to get muddy.”
“No shit.” Ben huffs out a breath and looks at Kate. “You still gonna to let us recon before going in?” He says this just in case she’s thinking of changing the plan. Kate’s been known to do that.
Like the time she said they only had to run for two hours. Which was fine, but when she realized it was going to be a hot day, she moved the workout to the middle of the day. She had some long explanation about the importance of heat training. He would never complain in front of her, but that had been one of the shittiest workouts ever. He’d taken several large bottles of water into his room that night to rehydrate, and his piss had still been dark yellow the next day.
He looks into her eyes, waiting for her nod. It’s reluctant, but it comes.
Ben shifts his gaze to Carter and Jenna. “I don’t suppose either of you were science majors? Anything useful you can tell us about the environment that could help us on the recon?”
Jenna grimaces. “Sorry. Art and business major.”
Carter adds his grimace to Jenna’s. “I took a general science class that focused on local ecosystems. All I remember is that Humboldt Bay is responsible for more than half of the United State’s oyster production.”
The fact doesn’t do shit for their current situation, but he files it away for later. Oysters may be a reliable food source for them at some point, especially if they can ever get Arcata cleared to the point that travel isn’t so treacherous. Shit, he’d just love to get to the point where they could ride bikes instead of going everywhere on foot.
“Wait here until we give the all-clear.” Ben adjusts his rifle and drops into a crouch.
Caleb joins him. Ben would rather have anyone else with him on this mission, but Caleb is the most qualified. He resigns himself to running side by side with the younger, stronger man. Cold water sloshes around their ankles, soaking them up to the knees within seconds.
A hostile truce hangs between him and Caleb. They co-exist by avoiding and ignoring one another.
When they’re a quarter mile away from the charter boat, Ben drops to all fours. His elbows sink into mushy mud. Water laps across his torso, soaking his clothing.
All this to save a man supposedly stupid enough to get himself attacked by a shark.
“Do you think it’s a trap?” Caleb whispers to him, dropping into the water beside him.
“Yep.” He said as much in the beginning.
“You’re just doing this for Kate?”
Ben doesn’t answer. There’s something about that question that feels like a trap.
“For what it’s worth,�
�� Caleb says, “I think she might like you.”
Ben draws up short, momentarily frozen by the younger man’s words. Caleb arches an elegant dark brow at him in silent question.
Ben snarls and turns away, refocusing on the charter boat. He can’t afford to be distracted right now.
What did Caleb mean by that statement, anyway? Ben knows what it means in the junior high sense, but he isn’t sure what it means with Kate. Most days they barely speak.
Charter boat, he reminds himself. Focus on the charter boat.
Fifty yards from the boat, he and Caleb draw to a halt. His body is already chilled from contact with the marsh water. From this distance, he can see the name Fairhaven scrawled across the side of the boat.
Caleb lifts the binos and studies the boat. After a few minutes, he passes them to Ben.
Ben has to prop both elbows in the water to hold the binos in place. There is no movement on the Fairhaven.
“Blood,” Ben murmurs. There’s a big smear of it on the side of the ship and part of the railing.
“From the guy who was attacked by the shark?” Caleb asks.
“Or the last idiots stupid enough to ‘help’.”
Caleb lets out a huff. “You always assume the worst about people. Not everyone is out for blood. I’m going to circle around the Fairhaven. Be back in five.”
Ben glares as the other man slips away. “Paranoia will keep you alive, motherfucker,” he growls under his breath, too soft for Caleb to hear. Paranoia had kept his team from blundering straight into a landmine field in Pakistan. Paranoia had kept his men out of a house rigged to blow in Afghanistan.
Caleb is young and stupid. He’ll learn. He’ll learn, or he’ll die. Ben doesn’t give a shit either way.
He keeps the binos in place, watching the ship. He tenses as a tanned woman with a messy red bun comes up on deck. Her face is drawn, her eyes exhausted. Blood is smeared on her cheek and neck. When she brings up a hand to brush errant strands of hair from her face, he spots more dried blood on her fingers and forearms.
Undead Ultra Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 65
