The Humvees had also seen some modification. They'd done time in the Gulf, so the bodies were already armored. Slits in the windows allowed troops to fire from the inside with armor in place. Two of the trucks carried M-60 mounted in the spider holes. The other two boasted MK-19 grenade guns. We weren’t fucking around on this trip.
Marines milled around the vehicles as they waited for the order to mount up. Jenny stood beside my truck, holding Rachel in a sling across her tummy. I smiled as I took her into my arms.
“I was hoping you’d show up,” I whispered.
“Mmhmm,” she sniffled into my chest. “I didn’t want you to leave without saying goodbye to us.”
I kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be back in a week at the latest. I can email you guys from Tom’s computers. Look for me there.”
She only nodded. If she kept this up, I was going to cry like a bitch.
“Thanks for letting me be with Pepper last night.”
“She has separation issues.” Jenny smiled, her face streaked with tears.
“We all do, baby. I love you.”
I kissed her goodbye, gave Rachel a hug and a kiss, and ordered the troops to mount up. We all slid into our rigs and pulled out onto Main Street. Tess sat beside me with her son in her lap. Jinks and Bill took up the back seat. In a small column, we rolled out of town.
“Why are you bringin’ him?” I asked Tess as we rolled past our fields.
“Not all that easy to find a sitter around here.”
“Yeah, I don’t reckon it is.”
We drove out of the valley, past our warnings of burnt-out vehicles and Zed heads on posts. Up on the flats, we sped into Princeton. Downtown was fenced off now, and the city parks and courthouse lawn had been converted into community vegetable patches. Gardens filled the yards of the transplants' homes. A hundred new people lived in town now. They'd decided to take the downtown area with the houses in the blocks just behind the main drag. We waved to some folks pulling weeds in a garden. A parody of normal human interaction.
They waved back as we turned west on a side street. After a few more blocks, we buzzed down Route Six. I keyed the radio in the Humvee and checked on the troops in the warehouse. We owned it now, and we'd started up a few rudimentary trade routes. Wal-Mart and the grocery store were now ours as well. We'd barricaded the stores and guarded them with armed troops. All was well, and everybody wished us a safe trip. If the world ever gets back to normal, little towns like this will be the start of it.
We didn’t jump onto I-80 in Princeton. We'd blocked that route by dragging all the dead cars from the streets out to the off-ramps. That way, we kept the vultures from a direct entrance into town, and we kept the Zeds wandering the road instead of coming into town for a bite.
Ten miles down the road, we turned north. Another two miles, and we eased onto I-80. I radioed everyone to stay tight. Early-morning sun glittered like a thousand diamonds on the dew in the long grass. The fields lay empty this season. No corn. No beans. Weeds grew tall. Plenty of places for people to hide.
Tess began, “We need to follow this road until we get to—”
“We’re going to Andalusia, right?” I cut her off.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I know how to get there. That’s one of the reasons Kenny wanted me out here. I’m from up that way.”
“Oh.”
I eyed her. “Why’re you girls comin' on this trip?”
“Who wants to take care of two girls infected with the Z-virus?”
“None of you are contagious."
“Neither are lepers when they're in the dry stage.”
“Oh.” She had a point.
“Besides, O’Shea can’t afford to have his source for the anti-virus too far away. He developed it from my blood and Cindy’s. The inoculation came from Trevor.”
The little boy looked up when his mom said his name. He giggled and patted Tess’s face. She played with him for a few moments, tickling his little ribs. Trevor squealed with laughter. In spite of myself, I grinned.
“You’ve got two babies," Tess said, glancing at me. "They were inoculated against the Z-virus, I assume.”
“Yeah, when they got their other infant shots.”
“And your wives?”
“Everyone in town.” We drove past the splattered squad car we'd passed on our very first trip out of town. Someone had finally dragged the car off the pillar at some point. Papers and electronic components lay scattered though the ditch.
“If we don’t retrieve this data, there’s a chance that if someone else finds it, it won’t matter. We’ll go through all of this all over again. This time, we don’t have enough of a population to survive another wave of infection.”
“I get it. I just don’t like it. If we had time, I’d rather take the water routes and meet Tom up there.”
“We’ll make it.”
I looked at her. Tess never took her eyes off her son. “You psychic or something?”
She laughed. “No. I just want Trevor to grow up to be a doctor, like Mommy was going to be.”
I gazed at her without saying anything. The girl was a mystery. She seemed smart enough, but I didn’t know her connections to any of this. And I didn’t have time to pry. We were almost to the Geneseo exit. The Interstate eased over a gentle hill. Through a shallow valley, the town spread out to the north. We'd secured the town over the winter. We thought about establishing a group of survivors there, but the scavengers beat us to it.
Several empty buildings right off the Interstate provided plenty of cover if someone with a radio wanted to signal a team over the rise west that another victim was on the way. I wasn’t planning to let us become an easy target.
I keyed the comm-link. “Raiders, checkerboard formation.”
I pulled my Humvee over into the right lane. Bill climbed into the spider hole behind the M-60. I heard Jinks load her M-203. Lance Corporal Justin Cody swung his Humvee into the left lane beside me. A Marine climbed through the roof to man the MK-19 grenade gun.
We went across the overpass as the Rhino eased into the middle of the lanes. Over the comm-link, everyone confirmed they were in position. I put my foot on the throttle as we headed up the long hill out of the valley.
“Take down anyone who tries to get in the way,” I said into the mike, then turned to speak over my shoulder. “Jinks, pass me up that body armor.”
I took the jacket as she handed it forward. I passed it to Tess.
“Put this over you and Trevor and get down in the seat.”
She nodded at me, eyes wide, and hunkered down.
It didn’t take long. From over the hilltop, a cluster of beater trucks and cars flew toward us. I cussed into the mike. I'd been hoping they’d still be asleep.
“Take ‘em when they get into range.” The big diesel snarled as I hammered the throttle.
Behind me I heard the big Ma Duce open up from the Rhino. Flaming tracers reached out to touch one truck. It burst into fire. Bullets smashed the engine block. Gas flared up in a greasy cloud. The impact sent the truck out of control, and it rolled into the ditch. Grenades from Cody’s rig exploded among the other vehicles. Two of them flipped onto the side of the road.
Bullets pinged off the hood of my machine as the scavengers returned fire. They were either desperate or ballsy. We held ground as we tore toward each other. It was a game of chicken at sixty miles an hour. No rules. Everybody armed. Yeah, Mad Max it was.
They blasted past us in the ditch of the eastbound lane. We kept going.
“Tail-end charlie, watch our back!”
“Got it, Captain.”
The gunner on the fifty pivoted the big gun and opened up on the scavengers as they tried to make a turn. I heard the Pig as it chopped away. Grenades added their fun to the mix. Marines: when it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight.
How anything could have survived that firestorm, I don’t know, but four trucks came up beside us in the eastbound lane.
Rifle fire raked our Humvees. Bullets pinged against the side of my rig. One passed through the port in the window, skimming the body armor Tess had wrapped around her, and lodged in the passenger door. Tess screamed and ducked lower in the seat.
Bill swung the Pig and blasted the scavengers' lead truck. He must have hit the gas tank with a tracer. The old Chevy blew in a wicked fireball. From somewhere, an RPG streaked across the median. It slammed into the Rhino point blank. The explosion rocked us in our rig. Curses screamed out over the comm-link. We kept going. Every gun we could bring in opened up on the last three trucks, but they’d had enough. We crested the hill, and they fell behind. I watched in my rearview as they faded behind us. My mood started to improve, but that didn’t last long.
We topped the hill, went into a gentle turn, and I saw them. Three cattle trucks parked at an angle across the lanes. The back doors on the trailers rolled open, and hundreds of zombies swarmed out.
"Fuck!"
From a quarter mile, bullets and RPGs streaked in. The head of one rocket clipped the front fender of my Humvee, deflected, and exploded in the ditch. From the corner of my eye, I saw the Marine in Cody’s rig go down. Hands reached through the hole to pull him inside, and another Marine scrambled to take his place. Her ponytail cracked like a whip in the wind as she screamed her rage.
“Hit the trucks!” I shouted. “They got sixties on the roofs of the trailers!”
I heard curses on the comm-link. The last three limping trucks moved in behind us, trying to box us in.
"Private Kelli's hit!" I heard from the Rhino. "O’Shea's working on her!"
The Marine in Cody’s rig was dead. The bullet hit him square in the face.
Zeds swarmed toward us. I couldn’t see a way through this roadblock. One of the cattle trucks took two grenades. The trailer erupted into a fireball. I stopped the Humvee.
“Jinks, get out here with that popgun!” I shouted as I swung open the door. “Throw some WP into these deaders!”
I had the angle on one of the trucks to pop the gas tank. I counted my shots. Two went into the oncoming Zeds, and the next two went into the tank to make it nice and messy. The fifth, a tracer, went right into the diesel. The rig went up in a nice, slow ball of fire. Shots still rang out from behind us. We were in a nasty crossfire.
“We gotta get outta here, Boss!” Jinks shouted.
I jumped inside and slammed the door as a Zed reached for me. The rotted bastards were among us now. Return fire from the scavengers faded out. Deaders pounded on the side of my rig. Above me, Bill popped away at them with his pistols.
I saw a way out. “Raiders, single file. Follow me. Stay on the guns.”
I received radio confirmation as I dropped my rig into gear. Two hundred yards up the road, the scavengers fired on us. My troops concentrated on the men on top of the trailers. Incoming fire died away. I plowed through a wall of rotted bodies, headed into the brush, and put the Humvee’s off-roading abilities to the test.
We dozed our way through deep weeds clogging what had once been a cornfield. Engines snarled. Sod flew up and rained down as we tore through the turf. I ripped through the fence, and my troops followed. We swung as wide as we could, found a low rise for the county road that crossed the Interstate, climbed over, and headed out the other side.
As we emerged from the weeds on the other side, my troops opened up on the wrecked rigs from the west. Zombies swarmed around those trucks now, and our shots added to the scavenger’s misery. Served them right.
I hit pavement on the Interstate, mashed the throttle, and we were gone. All my troops' rigs made it through.
“I hope this little trip is worth it,” I muttered. Behind me, Jinks tended to a bullet wound in Bill's forearm. Nothing serious, but the round left a bloody crease as it passed.
I glanced at Tess. Her eyes still showed wide and white as she tried to calm Trevor. A bullet had found its way inside and blasted through the top of her seat.
The comm-link crackled. “Captain Death, this’s Sergeant Devon at tail-end Charlie.”
“Go, Gunny.”
“Sir, we acquired two intelligent assets when we stopped back there.”
“Acquired?”
“Yessir. We advanced on their truck when we stopped and convinced them to come with us.”
I could just about imagine Gunny’s version of the event. “Where are they now?”
“Flex-cuffed and stuffed in back of the Humvee, sir.”
“They can make the rest of the trip there, then. Be sure they can’t see where we’re going.”
“Already covered, Captain Death. Gunny out.”
I grinned. Good crew I had. I turned to Tess. “You okay?”
She nodded. Trevor was starting to calm down now that the shooting was over. I knew just how the kid felt. But I was supposed to be a tough grown-up; we’re not allowed to cry at all the noise.
Radio reports came in. From the Rhino, we heard Kelli would survive. She took a round through the shoulder, but she’d make it. Over in Cody's rig, we’d lost Private Mike Adams. Bill would heal. Four others had minor wounds. Not bad. Training and luck paid off again.
Thirty more miles rolled away under our tires. The off-ramps were clogged coming out of the cities. We took the median in more than one place. At the Andalusia exit, the road was clear. Apparently, traffic flowed better here. We got off the Interstate and swung onto the four-lane into town. I didn’t want to think about going into Rock Island. Not yet, anyway. We could worry about that tonight, if we decided we wanted to stay on the Arsenal.
At the main intersection, Tom’s men had been at work. Rows of cars lined the ditch. A huge jam had bottlenecked here after the outbreak. Andalusia and the western towns around the Quad Cities had been at the epicenter. After what Tess told us, I knew why.
We turned right at the light and rolled the two last miles to Andalusia. It never was much of a town before all this. When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend once who lived here. For a weird moment, I wondered what ever happened to Julie, then I shook my head. Probably what happened to most of the rest.
We passed the Casey’s convenience store. I saw windows busted out and glass covering the parking lot. One of the pumps had been plowed over. A rattle-trap pickup was buried in the wall. An empty restaurant overlooked the river to our right. The grade school sat silent on our left. Tom told me the survivors took to their boats and anchored off an island a couple hundred yards out in the river. They only came in to forage and trade.
We passed through town.
“Where?” I asked Tess.
“Keep going. About a mile out.”
“You better remember how to get there, lady,” Jinks said. “It’s been a long trip.”
Tess frowned and said nothing. She watched the south side of the road.
“There," she spoke up a minute later, pointing out my side of the windshield. "Up there, where that old windmill is.”
I slowed the truck. An ancient farm poked from the weeds and timber beside the road. Wild grapevines climbed the struts of the windmill. Grass as tall as the hood of my rig tangled the driveway. I turned in.
“Stop in front of the barn,” Tess said. “We should be able to get them all inside.”
I parked. She opened the door and stepped out.
“Guns, cover,” I said into the comm-link. I pulled a pistol and followed Tess.
The metal barn stood massive—a newer building, what the farmers called a machine shed, big enough to contain all their equipment. Dents ran along one wall. Vines grew up one corner and covered a window on another wall. The paint had faded. We stood in front of a set of double doors, at least twelve feet tall and eighteen wide. Typical barn. Nothing anyone would likely look at twice. A perfect cover for folks doing something they shouldn’t be doing.
“Door’s locked,” I noted. “How do you plan to get in?”
Tess pulled an ID badge from her pocket. It had a black strip on the back like a credit card. Trevor ro
de her hip.
“The electricity should still be on," she said. "The windmill’s a generator, and there are solar panels on the roof. Everything should be good.”
She slid the key into a slot beside the door. I heard a high-pitched beep, then a buzz, and the doors started to hum. They pulled in opposite directions as bright, florescent lights came on inside. I saw one side of the building lined with private cars and white vans with signage for a lawn-care company. The polished, concrete floors held a thin layer of dust. Not even mouse tracks disturbed that film. Solid, reinforced walls stretched to the far end of the building, where another door waited.
I stepped just inside. “Bravo squad, let’s clear this building.”
I heard Corporal Cody’s rig empty out. I had five Marines behind me as we searched the barn. Nothing. Still, I felt uneasy as we pulled all the Humvees and the Rhino inside. The doors rolled closed behind us. I heard the final clang as the locks fell into place.
I followed Tess to a small keypad in front of the inner door. She paused beside me. Her fingers trembled. Cindy, the blonde, looked jumpy.
“No-no-no, Tess," she mumbled. "We can’t go back. We got out. We left. Can’t go back.”
As Doctor O'Shea came up behind the two of them, Tess took Cindy in her free arm and gave her a brief hug. “It’s okay, sis. We have to do this. We’re home.”
She swiped the card, the electronic lock accepted it, and the door clicked open.
“We’re home,” Tess said again. Cindy broke into incoherent gibberish.
Chapter Ten
Danny stepped forward with four Raiders. An empty hall lit up as they entered. Motion sensors on the overhead lights assured they'd be able to see as they moved inward. A blast of cool air washed over them before they came to the next door.
“Filters are still in place,” Tess noted. She stepped between the Marines and met Danny at the closed door. “Good sign. Means the systems are still working. We oughtta be able to retrieve all the data.”
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