The cabin door creaked again as the second trespasser emerged and joined his buddies near the 4Runner. The kid’s boonie hat was pulled down low over a snarled mop of blonde hair; he wore the same woodland camo as the other man and an AK-47 dangled freely from his shoulder. He looked like a baby-faced teen and the youngest of the group by far.
Lev had the best position and took it all in. He still struggled whether they should be taken out now or if live and let live was the best policy. He knew that sooner or later these guys were going to come snooping around the compound again and then they would have to be dealt with. If it were his decision he would take them out here and now, but it wasn’t his to make alone. Logan had stressed from day one that all of the decisions that were made concerning the wellbeing or day-to-day workings of the compound would be handled democratically. So Lev waited.
The 4Runner driver poked his head into the Land Cruiser and pushed a button somewhere. The rear hatch opened automatically revealing two bound and hooded women. Baby Face grabbed the nearest woman and violently yanked her out of the cargo area, throwing her to the ground head first. Before he could grab ahold of the second prisoner she shimmied out of the truck under her own power and stood unsteadily, using the rear bumper for support. The men backed away silently and formed a loose circle around the prisoners. The upright woman’s head swiveled back and forth inside the burlap sack. She took a few tentative steps and stumbled around blindly before the bearded man knocked her to the ground with a vicious hockey check.
Logan didn’t like where this was heading. “We have to hit them while the women are down.”
Lev whispered, “I was thinking the same thing. I left my rifle behind. I only have my pistol... so you’re going to have to initiate.”
The driver of the 4Runner was an extremely skinny twenty-something with an upturned nose and closely set eyes. A soiled wife-beater that swished when he walked hung loosely over his ratty cutoff blue jeans; the man looked like one of the “presumed innocent until guilty” stars on the reality TV show Cops. He crouched between the two women with his face hovering, menacingly, inches from their hooded heads. “You two ain’t going nowhere... we’re your new friends...” He paused to let the words sink in before continuing, “And you both better get used to it. We’re going to be friends for life.”
“Where did you find them?” Baby Face asked the man in the wife-beater.
“They were looting our Costco when we rolled up.”
“Well let’s see what we have. Please tell me you brought us some Ginger and a little Mary Ann,” the gimpy man said as he pulled off both of their hoods.
“Holy hell,” Wife-Beater blurted. “One of ‘em must have been bit and turned on the way here.”
The zombie lunged. Only the thin strip of silver duct tape covering its mouth saved Baby Face from being bitten.
Frantically the other woman rolled away from the writhing creature.
“Did the other one get bit too?” the driver of the Land Cruiser, a terribly overweight middle aged man, inquired.
Baby Face looked up dumbly and said, “I don’t know.”
“Well gawdammit... check the bitch for bites,” the fat man barked. “And then check and see if the other one is still warm...”
“Eww Chuckie... you ain’t goin’ there again are you?” Baby Face said, revulsion showing on his face.
Chuckie smiled, displaying his lack of front teeth. “We’ll see,” he said with a wink. “If I get in the mood who knows what might happen.”
Lev wished he hadn’t been close enough to hear the last exchange. Bile rose in his throat and the urge to shoot them all tugged at his trigger finger. Come on Logan, he thought, let’s do this.
Logan looked over at Gus and nodded, then whispered a quick reminder to Jamie and the Chief. “Head shots are good, but not vital, so remember to aim for center mass... they are not walkers.” He aimed at the man standing closest to the bound women and squeezed off two shots. Crimson flowers bloomed on the scrawny man’s wife-beater as he dropped in a heap.
At the same time Jamie struck Gimpy, who was standing next to the 4Runner, with a perfect head shot, dropping him like a rag doll. Chief wielded the M4 with deadly accuracy, pumping four rounds into Baby Face. The successive impacts walked from the young man’s navel to his sternum, lifting him off of his feet. His body hit the SUV with a hollow thump and bounced off, ending up in the dirt where he died silently curled up in a fetal position. Chuckie turned, much faster than a man his size should have been capable of, and waddled away, only to come head on into the storm of buckshot from the sheriff’s shotgun. Mister Rapist’s face dissolved in a halo of gore, eliciting a satisfied grin from Gus.
Logan keyed the mic. “Four tangos down on our side.”
Lev didn’t have time to answer; he took the initiative and rushed the last two men from behind. One of them, a dead ringer for Howard Stern with long black greasy hair and a thin rat face adorned with oval wire framed glasses, was crouched near the rig’s rear bumper with a chrome .45 clutched in his hand. He was intermittently stealing glances through the side glass trying to figure out who was shooting at them. The other man had just retrieved an assault rifle from inside the Land Cruiser and was in the process of charging the weapon. Both of them were using the vehicle for cover, totally unaware that they had already been flanked.
Howard Stern never knew what hit him; he took two 9 mm slugs behind the ear leaving some blood and brains of his own on the 4Runner before slumping to the ground.
Time slowed to a crawl for Lev as he swept his pistol to his left, bracketing the man with the assault rifle in his sights. “Drop it now,” he said forcefully.
The man either didn’t hear Lev or didn’t want to hear him; he turned his head first, and then his body and the assault rifle followed in a slow deliberate arc.
Without a thought Lev shot the man in the neck, covered the distance in two quick strides, and then kicked the rifle away from the dying man. Lev watched as the lifeblood steadily pulsed between the dirtbag’s kneading fingers, stared into the man’s dimming eyes and said, “Good choice, asshole.”
Logan’s voice came over the two-way and spoiled the moment. “Come in Lev.”
“Clear... two Tangos down,” replied Lev. The entire encounter lasted less than ten seconds.
Sheriff Gus bolted into the clearing and pulled the woman out of the zombie’s reach. The look in her eyes didn’t say thank you, it screamed, out of the fat and into the fire, as she realized that a new group of armed men now owned her.
A single shot rang out as Chief took the initiative and put down the zombie.
“Sampson. You and Gus clear the house. Chief, keep an eye on the road, and Jamie, you need to take care of this one,” Logan whispered to the camouflaged woman as she materialized from the foliage.
The prisoner’s eyes widened and she recoiled and began scooting away on her rear after her first glimpse of the gun-wielding bush.
“Don’t worry... we’re not going to hurt you,” Jamie said softly as she laid down her rifle and peeled off her hood and face mask.
A look of relief washed over the young woman; her shoulders and head slumped as her entire body seemed to uncoil.
Jamie flipped her blade open and held the woman’s cold white hands as she cautiously sawed through the zip ties, and then with kid gloves she slowly peeled the duct tape covering her swollen mouth. “What’s your name?”
The woman looked Jamie deep in the eyes and broke down. Between sobs she said, “Jordan.”
Jamie held her and tried to think of some comforting words. “That’s cool... we both have unisex names,” was the best she could conjure up.
The creaky cabin door opened, snaring everyone’s attention. Gus jumped off the porch and approached Logan. “The cabin is clear... really clear... it’s spartan inside. There are only a couple of sleeping bags and a little bit of food. But I found these.” Like he was displaying a trophy big mouthed bass, Gus held aloft two assa
ult rifles and a sawed off shotgun.
“Good find Sheriff. Toss those in the 4Runner. Weapons and ammo are as good as gold now. Especially the ammo... I don’t know about you, Gus, but I am not a big fan of reloading.”
“I never had to,” Gus replied. “The county provided as much ammo as we needed. Hell of a perk... while it lasted.”
Chief gestured to the cargo laden SUVs and said, “Looks like these desperados were just moving in. What should we do with the gear and the trucks?”
“I say we take the stuff as the spoils of war,” Lev said with a lopsided grin from the passenger seat of the 4Runner where he was sitting and reloading his pistol. “Besides, this thing still has that new car smell.”
“Maybe on the inside... but it’s definitely not smelling like lilacs on the outside. That thing looks like it crashed into a rendering plant,” Sampson said, crinkling his nose while he munched on a liberated power bar.
Logan stared off into the forest seemingly frozen in a kind of trance and said, “I’m siding with Lev... but we need to get out of here twenty minutes ago. For one thing these guys might have more friends on the way and second, the gunfire might have gotten the attention of any walkers in the area... not to mention it’s going to be dark in an hour or two.” Logan sighed. He was trying to find the strength to dispose of the body at his feet. Most of all he was having a hard time getting used to the killing part of surviving by any means necessary. Logan had no problem dealing with walkers. In fact they were rather easy to kill without striking a chord. The living though... not so much. The kid laying face up with his dead eyes wide open and the shock of dying prematurely frozen on his face was only number three for Logan.
He had killed his first two men during his flight from Salt Lake City over a week ago. It had been necessary to prevent them from stealing his truck. They were manning their twisted version of a civilian roadblock outside of Ogden and had demanded that Logan and Jamie exit their truck unarmed. Logan played the tape through and didn’t like the ending... more so for Jamie than himself. As soon as he put two bullets into each of the menacing men he was a changed man forever. The look of surprise on their faces when things went sideways was going to the grave with Logan. And now he had added another death mask to the collection.
Lev stripped his kills of weapons and anything else useful before dragging the stiffening bodies behind the same fern-covered log he had used for cover. He retrieved his rifle and then sauntered to his friend’s side. “What’s the matter Logan... are you feeling sorry for the soon-to-be rapist piece of shit? It had to be done.”
Logan shooed the ebbing thoughts of remorse from his head and softly said, “I know.” Then he grabbed the skinny kid by one thin wrist and dragged the leaking body into the underbrush.
“Cover up the blood trails,” Chief said loudly enough to be heard by the entire group.
“Everyone be sure to police up your brass,” Sheriff Gus added.
Lev took the wheel of the 4Runner with Sampson riding shotgun. Logan had Jamie drive the Land Cruiser while he rode in the passenger seat with the carbine between his knees. Chief hurled some of the redundant supplies into the woods and then crammed his large frame into the rear cargo area along with Gus. Initially Jordan did not want to get back into the truck where she had already spent untold terrifying hours trussed and hooded, but after some coaxing she eventually yielded and crawled into the Land Cruiser with the others.
***
After one-and-a-half grueling miles bouncing along the rutted single track road, Lev turned left onto the smooth blacktop and stomped on the brakes. The truck’s knobby tires chirped as the 4Runner came to a complete stop.
Jamie, who had been following closely, almost drove the Land Cruiser up the 4Runner’s tailpipe.
“Sorry for the abrupt stop but we’ve got a few walkers on the road. They’re about a hundred yards up ahead,” Lev said over the two-way radio. “Their backs are to us... scratch that, they made us and they’re coming this way. We are going to have company very soon.”
“Can’t we just go around them?” Logan inquired as he shifted in his seat to get a look at the zombies.
“I say we do ‘em now so we don’t have to worry about them later. Takes the same amount of ammo either way,” Lev said matter-of-factly.
“Copy that, Lev.” Logan said as he exited the Land Cruiser with rifle in hand.
Lev, who was already out of the 4Runner and standing in the road, removed his camo blouse, rolled it up and placed it on the hood of the truck to use as a makeshift barrel rest.
Slowly picking up speed, the quartet of moaning zombies lurched and staggered down the center of the double-lane highway.
Sampson, who was also now out of the 4Runner, said to Lev, “The rotters were moving north, they must have been coming from Ogden or Huntsville.”
Logan, who had just walked up, joined in on their conversation. “I hope they came from Huntsville... because we don’t want to tangle with the living dead from Ogden. I think there were like... eighty thousand people in Ogden.”
“Look alive,” Lev said as he shouldered his Les Baer and chambered a round. He sighted on the nearest walker. The female zombie looked like any soccer mom except she was definitely a “first turn;” her pallid skin hung slack from her ninety pound frame. She had probably been in her thirties, Lev guessed.
The .300 Winchester round struck the walker on the right side of the forehead with a glancing blow. The energy was still great enough to cleave a vee-shaped wedge in her skull, causing a gray geyser of brain matter to erupt from the wound. Before he could chamber another round, Logan had already dropped the freshly turned walker on the left with two well-placed rounds from his M4.
Two staccato volleys from Sampson’s AR downed the remaining two creatures.
“Hey Logan... get the eff in here. There are more walkers coming up behind us and some more of them over there,” Jamie said, pointing out the open passenger door of the Land Cruiser.
Logan looked across the field where, silhouetted in the low hanging sun, more zombies lurched towards them. “Let’s go... we need to get back to the compound before dark,” he said. Then, heeding Jamie’s words, he hopped into the passenger seat.
Jamie followed Lev single file past the sprawled corpses, being careful not to run them over. She winced and looked at Logan after something popped under the SUV’s big tires.
Logan grimaced and said, “Better them than us.”
***
State Route 39 ran perpendicular to the compound’s two mile long, gravel covered front entry road. The swinging gate which was set back from the road and camouflaged with native foliage was concealed so well that if a person didn’t know where to look they would be hard pressed to locate it.
Logan jumped out of the Land Cruiser and manipulated the manual release he had hidden near the base of a red volcanic rock. Suddenly he froze and looked skyward.
Lev also heard the thundering thwap-thwap of rotor blades cutting the air immediately overhead. The aircraft flew close enough to the ground to make the 4Runner vibrate. “Come on Logan, hurry up,” Lev barked. They had to assume that the helicopter wasn’t friendly and that meant that they needed to get to the airstrip in a hurry.
Chapter 26
Outbreak - Day 8
Over Eden, Utah
Duncan checked the coordinates a second time, decreasing altitude and slowing the Black Hawk at the same time. The dirt strip looked the same but the colorful airplanes were gone. Either he was overflying the wrong clearing or his old eyes were failing him. The next thought that crossed his mind was that maybe he had keyed in the GPS coordinates wrong. Duncan brought the helo to fifty feet AGL. “Good work,” he said aloud when he spotted the mottled brown and green shapes. Since he was here last all of the aircraft had been expertly camouflaged and wheeled into the tree line on the periphery of the unimproved airstrip.
He settled the bird in the knee high grass as close to the edge of the clearing as possi
ble without endangering the rotors. He cut power and waited for the rotors to slow considerably before exiting the DHS Black Hawk with his hands reaching for the sky.
Six armed men approached with their black guns trained on him. Duncan smiled; each of the men wore a different style of camouflage making them look like armed calico cats.
“Keep your hands up!” the man in the lead yelled convincingly.
Duncan complied.
“What’s your business here,” the same man stated in a more even keeled tone.
“I’m Duncan Winters... Logan Winters is my baby brother. I was here a couple of days ago... in a medevac Black Hawk.”
“What is your brother’s nickname?” the man asked.
“My mom and dad, may they rest in peace, gave him the nickname Oops. Safe to say at their advanced age he wasn’t planned,” Duncan said, a shit-eating grin spread across his face. He loved to divulge Logan’s secret to his peers and did so every chance he got. He noticed that some of the armed men were finding it hard to keep from smiling as well.
The man who had been doing all of the talking extended his hand. “That is correct. Good to meet you Duncan, my name is Seth. We’ll take you to the compound where you can get a bite to eat and put your feet up if you want to. Logan and a few others are out on a patrol and should be back before nightfall. Did you have a long flight?”
Duncan made a mental calculation and said, “About six hundred miles, give or take... my butt is sore. Cold beer and a stump is all I need.”
“You got it,” Seth said.
“Thanks for your hospitality,” Duncan drawled. Leaving the flight helmet in the helo, Duncan perched his Stetson on his head and followed the patchwork army to the compound.
“What’s it like out there?” came a voice from behind him.
Duncan answered without looking back. “It’s bad out there. From a few hundred feet in the air, not so much, but on the ground--near the cities--better watch your six. I have seen a lot of good folks die this last week.” He walked a few steps in silence and then continued, “Make that a six pack and a stump... I’ve got a little forgettin’ to do.”
In Harm's Way Page 18
