by Joe McKinney
“What do you make of that?” Rawley said when the bikers turned and roared off into the Idaho night, red taillights diminishing in the distance.
“They’re bandits and they’re sizing us up. We’ve got enough vehicles here that they probably decided to get reinforcements.”
“Do you gather they’re the same murderers Duncan mentioned?”
“Dollars to doughnuts, one and the same,” Cade said bleakly.
*****
Everyone awoke at dawn; as soon as the sun arose so did the temperature. It was going to be a hot day in the high desert.
Cade filled the group in on the evening incursion and reminded everyone to stay frosty and be aware of their surroundings. He finished by telling the drivers that in case of an attack or ambush, “Accelerate through the kill zone and regroup. Whatever you do, do not stop!” He spoke slowly and was careful to add extra emphasis on the do not stop part.
Breakfast consisted of MREs and bottled water. Weapons were loaded, gas tanks were filled and then the five dusty vehicles exited the rest stop single file.
“This is Rawley, come in.”
Cade found it amusing how unnatural Rawley sounded when he talked on the Motorola, considering he used to make a living singing and playing the guitar.
“Copy that,” he replied.
A little static came from the speaker. “How about I take the lead for a while?” Rawley asked.
“Copy that,” Cade replied again.
Rawley’s white Bronco overtook the Sequoia and held a steady forty-five miles an hour while dodging single stalls and slowing considerably for multiple vehicle choke points. On a couple of occasions he put the bull bar on the Bronco to use and handily pushed the stalled cars off of the road.
They were making good time and nearing Nampa, Idaho when they needed to stop to siphon fuel. A group of undead thrashed about in a Chevy Suburban as Rawley nervously emptied its large gas tank of unleaded. He was pretty sure they couldn’t unlock the doors, but stranger shit had happened. With one eye on the undead and one eye on the gas can he finally finished his unnerving task. Not wanting to waste ammo he left them to bake in the sun on their eternal road trip.
Leo had taken to riding with Shelly and she also welcomed his company and felt more secure with another person in the car. Their conversation settled on how things had been growing up with a close sibling and how they had enjoyed the camaraderie, but abhorred the rivalries. Shelly changed the subject and tried to imagine the future without Sheila. Not wanting to think about what was in store for him, Leo clammed up.
*****
Harry’s Camaro started running rough soon after they left the rest stop. It was overheating and wouldn’t hold water. They inspected under the hood and found a burst hose. Not wanting to attempt a roadside repair, Harry reluctantly decided to leave it on the shoulder. He put his meager belongings into Duncan’s truck, got in and rode shotgun. He took one last glance at his fully restored pride and joy and then focused on the road ahead. Being a quiet sensitive kind of guy he was having a hard time coping with the new reality, as well as the loss of his one true accomplishment. He and his wife had lovingly restored that car. Harry was in a real funk that stemmed from the fact he wasn’t around to help his wife when the dead started walking. Losing the Camaro was the last straw.
Sensing his sadness Duncan said, “You can get yourself any one of those 2010 models when we find a Chevy lot. And I’m pretty sure that some dead guy walking around out there isn’t going to need his classic Camaro… either way I’m sure you’ll find a replacement.”
“Screw the car. I want to find my wife.” Tears were forming in Harry’s eyes. “She never came home from the mall the first day of the outbreak. I tried calling the police, the hospitals and her family out of town. Poof! She just vanished.”
“Do you have any other family nearby?”
Harry dried his eyes with his sleeve. “No, none whatsoever. My wife has a brother and sister up in Olympia, Washington, but nobody answered their phone when I called. My wife Margaret had been gone less than a day when I tried to report her as missing. They told me that it had to be more than twenty-four hours since there was any contact before they would take a report. I waited and tried to make the report… by then it was too late, the police were not answering anyone’s calls. I suspect that they were combating the violence that was breaking out all over the city. Anyway… I couldn’t handle the stress. I just started driving.”
“I’m sorry man, I had no idea,” Duncan commiserated with a pained look on his face. He was clearly embarrassed that he brought up replacing it at all. Being a lifelong bachelor and never really getting along with the fairer sex, Duncan didn’t have much to say concerning Harry’s wife’s disappearance. Besides, he thought, Women are always leaving me and not coming back.
“It’s OK. I plan on going back and looking for her when the quarantine is lifted and Portland is back to normal. I just followed you people because it was the path of least resistance.”
“If there is any way I can help, let me know.”
“Thanks Duncan. If I ever do get over losing that Camaro, how about you do the negotiating when we find a car lot? I hate car salesmen anyhow… especially undead ones.”
Given the absurdity of their situation, the men laughed at the thought.
They drove on in silence, each man wrestling with his own thoughts.
“Why didn’t I think of this earlier?” Duncan asked himself, breaking the quiet and startling Harry. Duncan reached over and punched open the glove box. Inside was a shiny new Citizens Band radio. Duncan answered his own question. “I guess out of sight is as good as out of mind. I never have used this toy anyways.”
He turned on the CB radio and asked Harry to scan the channels while he focused on driving. Harry seemed pleased to finally have something to keep him busy.
“Did you catch that?” Harry asked excitedly.
The transmission was faint. On channel fourteen they listened to two men talking about five vehicles on the highway. A light bulb went off in Harry’s head. “I’m beginning to think those fellas are talking about our little convoy.”
Duncan honked his horn and flashed his lights to alert the others.
The four vehicles crowded close as they slowed and stopped in the middle of the road.
“They’re stopping,” a man’s voice said over the CB.
“Keep an eye on them. Tell me when they move again.”
“Roger that. Hey man, they’ve got a blonde with them.”
Harry arched his eyebrows and knowingly looked at Duncan.
“There’s the proof. They are talking about us. We had better be careful; it doesn’t sound like they are watching us for fun.”
Cade leaned in the open driver’s side window. Harry told him his suspicions and repeated verbatim the conversation they had intercepted.
They listened to the CB for a few minutes.
Cade keyed the two-way and hailed Rawley to fill him in. “No offense but I’m going to take point again.”
“No problem, want me to bring up the rear?”
“Yeah, but be extra vigilant and watch your six, we don’t know where they’re watching us from. I want to give your radio to Harry so he can keep me informed of what they’re saying on the CB,” Cade said into his Motorola.
Cade walked down the line of vehicles to the Bronco and retrieved the radio from Rawley. Note to self, we need to find a couple more radios and fresh batteries for the ones we have before they go dead.
Harry was going to have his hands full, literally, CB in one hand, two-way radio in the other. Once they were on the move again the same voice on channel fourteen continued reporting their actions. If Harry’s hunch was right, these people watching them were the same group that had probed them the night before. Harry started to worry.
They drove through open range, interspersed with small stands of trees. They didn’t plan on stopping again until the flatland turned hilly and the trees we
re abundant enough to provide them adequate cover.
Cade’s SUV led, followed by the red VW Cabriolet containing Leo and Sheila. Rawley was in the “O.J.” Bronco, and Duncan and Harry brought up the rear in the lifted 4x4.
“We’re still being watched,” Harry reported to Cade on the Motorola.
Cade planned to continue driving until it appeared they were no longer under surveillance, then double back on foot and go on a solo recon of the surrounding hills to find their secret admirers.
The flat open area they had driven through for the last ten miles was finally giving way and they entered a pine tree-lined highway.
Cade registered the out-of-place mound of dirt a second too late. The Sequoia absorbed a fraction of the blast, just enough to move the big rig a little. In the mirror he saw the little red VW disappear in the violent explosion, recipient of the bulk of the energy and shrapnel.
Cade remembered all too well the distinctive sound of automatic weapons fire and bullets impacting sheet metal. These first sounds of an ambush were engraved in his memory from his time spent in the sandbox.
“Do not stop!” he screamed into the hand-held Motorola. The first order of business was to get out of the kill zone.
The remaining two vehicles rolled through the blast area and took sporadic fire; they had to swerve to avoid the carcass of the little convertible. As he passed by, Rawley was high enough off of the ground to see into the smoking VW. Under the shredded remains of the soft-top, Sheila and Leo were still moving. Rawley started to slow his Bronco while anxiously glancing in the rear view mirror, but thought better of it. A side quarter window on his passenger side exploded. Gunfire continued pouring from the woods.
The Sequoia and the Dodge were safely out of the kill zone but the white Bronco lagged behind. Cade abruptly braked and stopped in the middle of the road. Duncan nearly collided with him but managed to squeeze the big 4x4 by on the right and perform a U-turn to form up next to the Sequoia. They had stopped several hundred yards from where the attack had taken place.
Back at the ambush site undead emerged from the woods, shambling towards the wreck.
Rawley watched helplessly in his rearview mirror as the ghouls arrived at the stationary car and began tearing apart the boy and the young lady he secretly had taken a liking to. Making an emotional snap decision, he applied the brakes. The Bronco’s tires chirped, belching blue smoke. He made the Bronco do a one-eighty, stopped in place momentarily, and then raced back to the horrific scene. While driving one-handed, he depressed the thumb switch for the laser on the SKS assault rifle and flicked the safety off. Next he pushed a button on the dash that started the motorized sunroof opening. Screeching to a halt, he put the Bronco in park and stood up in the sunroof shouldering his rifle. The zombie he targeted had no idea there was a red dot painting its gray forehead; the only thing it knew was that it needed to eat. A 7.62 bullet stopped the need.
Leo and Shelly had initially suffered dreadful mortal wounds from the blast. The undead sped up the process as they stripped the pair of their flesh from the waist up. Rawley watched as they both started to reanimate and were now fighting to escape their seatbelts. Saying a heartfelt “Sorry” under his breath, Rawley shot Leo through the temple, ceasing his struggles. He painted the laser beam on what used to be Sheila, his finger tightening on the trigger. His head was blown apart by a supersonic .50 caliber bullet before the command from his brain could make his finger pull the trigger.
*****
Randall Trask was enraged that his spotter had detonated the device two seconds too late, not to mention the fact that the other penetrator IED failed totally. His incompetence ensured some of them would escape. Dumb fuck was probably stoned.
The moment Trask saw the pink vapor through the scope and watched the man’s headless torso slump over the windshield, the former-Marine scout sniper knew he had another confirmed kill. He caressed the hog’s tooth hanging from his neck while he waited for “dumb fuck” to spot another target for him.
“I think the other two trucks got away,” the spotter said, stammering nervously.
“Keep glassing idiot.”
The skinny spotter watched the baited zombies. They were clumsily trying to get at the bottom half of the man stuck in the white SUV. Since the windows were only half way open, it was going to take them awhile to eat the cooling corpse.
*****
Earlier that day as the rising sun washed the Idaho foothills with golden light, the shooter and his spotter watched the men prepare the ambush site on the road below. Jerrod dug the holes for the two devices; they were roughly two hundred feet apart. When the digging was finished the zombie bait was strung up. The two men had survived the previous day’s ambush. Now they both wished that they hadn’t. It took an hour for them to bleed to death; the two in the sniper hide watched the men suffer terribly as the ghouls ate them from the feet up. Not only did it provide morbid entertainment, it also guaranteed there would be undead milling around the kill zone.
*****
Cade observed the Bronco slew around, stop, and accelerate in the other direction through the haze from the smoking tires. He watched it all unfold in slow motion knowing that Rawley was out of control and putting his life in danger.
The moment Rawley’s head disintegrated, Cade knew that his new friend was dead. He had been on the giving end of a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle and had seen firsthand, magnified thirty times, the damage it could inflict. Shaking his head bitterly, he knew there was nothing he could have done to change the outcome.
Chapter 31
Day 3 - 15 miles from Boise, Idaho
As soon as the bomb went off, Jerrod opened the gate on the horse trailer and watched as the rest of the zombies surged towards the road. So far without fail every caravan except for this one had stopped immediately to help their traveling companions. The walkers proved to be the perfect way to find out if they were armed, or how much fight they had in them.
Jerrod was giddy with excitement as he climbed down from his tree stand. This was the sixth time they had staged an ambush on this highway, never in the same place though and each time the outcome had been different. Sometimes there were women survivors. That was what Jerrod hoped for this morning. It reminded him of Christmas because Randall Trask, his mentor and former employer, let him keep some of the spoils gained from their exploits. That’s also how Jerrod got his very first lay and the AR-15 he now carried. He was hooked after his first ambush. As grateful to Randall that he was, it would only be a matter of time before the government would regroup and start to restore order. After the infection was sorted out and all of the walking dead were dispatched they would come calling. This, Jerrod was certain of.
Before the outbreak he had worked for Mr. Trask at his gun store. Eventually he wanted to join the Navy SEALs and become a sniper. Now his only goal was to take some ill-begotten supplies and hopefully a girl back to his dad’s compound up North. There was no way Jerrod was going to stick around. When the United States military came looking for their missing soldiers, he would be long gone.
From a safe distance he watched the zombies attack the two people in the small red car. The other ghouls were a sight to see as they tried to get to the remains of the driver in the Bronco. Smart ass racist that he was, Jerrod said out loud, “Donner, party of five. Will we be having white meat or dark?” He laughed like a maniac at his own joke while the black kid and white girl were dying. Jerrod’s comrades climbed down from their tree stands and cautiously edged towards the highway.
*****
Trask had appointed Jerrod the official zombie wrangler, even going so far as to try to convince him it was a prestigious posting. This was a dangerous job but Jerrod was used to the dog catcher’s pole. On the user’s end there was another loop of wire that had to be pulled to tighten the noose. It was very effective and it kept the undead out of biting range. The other men helped prod the infected in the direction of their makeshift pen. If the world ever retu
rned to something that resembled normal, at least Jerrod had found his calling. He figured he would make a hell of an animal control officer.
While Jerrod hurriedly locked the horse trailer, the other men pulled Rawley’s headless body from the Bronco and started a thorough search. One of the attackers let out a wild rebel yell and held up the SKS carbine, showing off his prize to the others and then rattling off twenty rounds into Rawley’s headless corpse.
Hearing the distant gunfire, Cade grabbed his M4 and sought cover off of the road. Duncan drove his truck into a copse of trees. He and Harry joined Cade inside of the tree line. There, the three discussed their next move.
Cade would go it alone. He could move faster and quieter that way. First he wanted to get info on the size of force they were dealing with. If the opportunity presented itself he would kill as many as of them as possible. The ruthless way these fuckers operated had turned this into a personal vendetta for him.
Harry and Duncan would stay behind with the vehicles and keep in contact with Cade on the hour. It was decided that if he failed to make radio contact two times in a row, they would leave the keys to the Sequoia on a predetermined tree branch nearby and then continue on in Duncan’s truck.
Cade extracted the long canvas bag from the back of the Sequoia; he removed his ballistic vest and knee pads, and then swapped his Blazers cap for the flat black, low profile, tactical Kevlar helmet. Cade randomly applied camouflage paint to his face and neck. Lastly he extracted his Remington Modular Sniper Rifle from the bag. The gun was chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum and had a magazine that held ten rounds. It was very easy to carry with the stock folded and the suppressor removed. Cade slung the weapon over his shoulder and picked up his trusty M4.
“Stay frosty,” was all he said before he slipped into the thicket of trees bordering the road and stealthily padded in the direction they had come from.
*****
Hunkered down, he watched from cover as the four attackers looted the food, weapons and anything of value from the Bronco.
