HVZA (Book 2): Hudson Valley Zombie Apocalypse 2

by Zimmermann, Linda

  One of the brothers thumbed through the worn pages of the phone book until he found “Tasi, E., 53 Sparrow Lane,” thereby confirming that the address was the same place as where the woman had been found. But where was E. Tasi and their son? Where were all the supplies they must have stockpiled? And was this army doctor dead or alive? If there was anything the two cautious brothers hated, it was loose ends. They were in conference late into the night to plan how to tie up those loose ends, or cut them clean out of New Ridgelawn once and for all.

  Two other people were making their own plans that night. Becks and Big Eddie also worked long after dark, carefully formulating Plan A and Plan B. They also framed out Plan C, but they hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Right on schedule, Becks and Eddie heard the massive suburban assault vehicle rumbling toward Sparrow Lane shortly after dawn. However, this time they watched as it turned onto Bennett Lane to avoid the massive crater in the road caused by the exploding Humvee, and the charred pieces of the huge oak tree that had fallen on it. Easily pushing aside all the debris on Bennett, it turned the corner and came down Sparrow, stopping directly in front of the Tasi house—just as they had hoped.

  Becks and Eddie had an excellent view of what was going on, because they were in the attic of a house on Squire Lane, the street behind the Tasi house. Since the mass exodus when quarantine ended, Eddie had used all that time wisely to clear and set up no less than eight different safe houses. Not only was it a prudent defensive strategy to have a number of fallback positions, it helped to break the apocalypse monotony when the family would take “vacations” to one of the other houses for a couple of days.

  Becks was in the prone position on the floor of the attic with her eye to a high-powered scope, with the silencer end of the sniper rifle from Eddie’s arsenal masked by a false vent he had installed the year before. While he had planned for many emergency scenarios, none had been quite like this. Still, Eddie’s foresight gave them options other than defending against a full scale assault.

  Eddie held no weapon. Instead, he had a walkie talkie in one hand, and with the other he held together the ends of a few thick blankets wrapped around his head just below his eyes to muffle his voice. It was a good plan they had devised and everything was ready—although what Becks didn’t know, is that if the brothers brought Isabella and offered to release her if Eddie turned himself in and gave up all their provisions, he would abandon that plan in a heartbeat.

  The brothers were too cautious to bring Isabella, though, and they left the majority of their fighting force back in town. They figured it would only be a matter of time before Eddie would come looking for his wife. But they still had about 30 shooters—if you could call the dozen or so scrawny and scared adolescents, and the disinterested women who weren’t quite sure how to even hold their weapons, real shooters. Still, there were at least fifteen men and women who looked like they meant business. Overall, it was a sizable force against only two people.

  Unfortunately, the brothers were also too cautious to exit the cab of their truck. Instead, one of them held a megaphone out the window.

  “Eddie? Eddie Tasi?” the voice squealed. “Your wife is very sick. We are doing our best to take care of her, but she needs you, and she wants to see her son. Let us bring you both to her.”

  Becks didn’t need to turn around to know that flames of hatred had turned Big Eddie’s expression to one of a volcano about to erupt. On a positive note, the brothers were unaware that Little Eddie was already dead, so Isabella couldn’t have given them much information, if any at all.

  Seconds of tension ticked by as the shooters spread out. Then the silence was broken by a voice from inside the Tasi house.

  “GO…FUCK…YOURSELVES!”

  Eddie shouted those words into the walkie talkie, which were transmitted loud and clear to the other walkie talkie cranked up to full volume by an open window in his house. The trick fooled everyone into believing Eddie was inside. The next move was Becks’.

  The big gorilla was out of her line of sight behind the truck, so she settled on the next biggest, meanest, badass motherfucker in the brothers’ army—a satanic-looking version of Mr. Clean—and silently put a bullet through his skull. The pink mist sprayed the faces of two adolescents next to the slain man, and they promptly dropped their weapons and ran back into the cargo container, crying and screaming.

  A few others ran, but the rest opened up on the Tasi house, spraying it with bullets from top to bottom, as they had no idea where the kill shot had come from. As fast as Becks could, she “culled the herd” of shooters, only rather than the weak, she concentrated on the strong. Eddie quickly joined her and took out a few of his own targets, until the Tasi house burst into flames. Then the two snipers stopped firing and just observed, so as not to give away their position on the next street.

  The brothers yelled at their diminishing army to get into the house to grab supplies and weapons. No one moved at first, until the big gorilla emerged from behind the truck and “suggested” that three of the men get their asses into the house. Kicking in the front door, a lashing tongue of propane gas-fed flame shot out, singeing them from head to foot. An instant later, numerous propane tanks in the living room exploded with an awe-inspiring, spilt-second sucking sound, followed by a deafening WHOOOSH, as huge splinters of wood and flaming debris killed the three men, and severely wounded at least ten others.

  In the midst of the chaos of the retreating army, dragging and carrying their wounded into the cargo container, Becks decided to take two more quick shots. While she didn’t dare hit any people—thereby signaling that she and Big Eddie hadn’t been killed in the Tasi house blast—she couldn’t resist puncturing tires in the truck and in the flatbed trailer which carried the cargo container. Whichever brother was driving, he had a hell of a time backing up the street with two flats. But before the brothers could curse their ill-fated attack, or Big Eddie and Becks could rejoice in their victory, something happened that made everyone stop and look up in amazement.

  It was a helicopter—an Army helicopter! It didn’t fly directly overhead, but the smoke, flames, and explosion had clearly attracted its attention. It made one wide, arcing pass around Sparrow Lane, then headed off to the southwest. Becks knew that there were semi-regular flights between West Point and the Picatinny Arsenal, sometimes following particularly large convoys on Interstate 287, and she wished she had been outside to wave a big flag or send up a flare.

  But obviously they had found another way to get the Army’s attention in the form of the enormous bonfire that was once the Tasi residence—and the house next door, which had ignited when a flaming propane tank rocketed through the wall and exploded. But for now there were more pressing matters, and as the suburban assault vehicle rattled and squeaked away, grinding on its rims, and zombies drawn by the noise waited patiently for the hot flames to subside so they could chow down on the casualties, Becks and Eddie fine-tuned phase two of Plan A.

  “What the fuck!?” one of the brothers shouted in their office back in The Capitol. “I mean, what the fuck!?”

  “I know! How could we expect that crazy bastard was going to blow himself up?” the other brother lamented, looking over the list of the names of the eleven dead, and the four others not expected to live—not to mention the eight people who were severely burned and bloodied.

  “He must have known that his wife was going to die anyway,” the other brother said.

  “But his child? His own son? How could he let his son die?” the other yelled to no one in particular, as he nervously scratched a spot on his bald head that he had already rubbed raw.

  There was a moment of silence before the other brother responded.

  “Do we even know if his son was alive?” he said thoughtfully, trying to make sense of it all, as best as the deli-manager-turned Commander-in-Chief could. “After all, Jennifer had no knowledge of the family since the schools closed. A lot has happened since then, brother.”

 
“Yes, brother, you’re right. The world has lost a lot of good souls since then,” he replied, missing the irony of the fact that they were responsible for their share of departed souls.

  “But the helicopter! Maybe the military has started their push this way?”

  “Ssshhh!” the other brother cautioned. “Don’t let anyone hear you. They haven’t shown any other signs of movement, and it’s doubtful they would start anything right before winter.”

  “You’re right, brother. The helicopter must have just seen the explosion and smoke. We have nothing to worry about from the Army.”

  “And Ed Tasi is dead.”

  “Yes, Ed Tasi is dead.”

  “But what about that doctor?”

  “Probably killed in the swarm that got Reggie—God rest his soul.”

  The brothers both paused to cross themselves.

  “And if not, and she was with Eddie, she’s dead.”

  “And if not, she’s probably long gone, because she doesn’t want to have anything to do with the mighty Rovers!”

  As the brothers high-fived one another, two figures dressed head to foot in camo, bristling with weapons, began their slow and careful journey toward the heart of New Ridgelawn.

  Chapter 8

  BZA, the sound of ringing phones was as ubiquitous as traffic noise, the buzz of airplanes, and the incessant chatter of people everywhere. No one anticipated how quiet an apocalypse would really be, and for many people, they just couldn’t adapt to the silence. Therefore, the ringing of a phone was now as jolting as an air raid siren.

  Frederick Mackenzie, or Freddie Mac, as he was commonly known at the compound, was at his post in the central watch tower early one morning when the satellite phone rang and he almost jumped out of his skin. It could have been anything from a routine status check from West Point, to a warning of a massive zombie herd coming their way. Or, it could be that a friend or relative of someone in the compound had made their way to a military survivor camp somewhere and was calling to let their loved one know they were alive.

  Those were usually the best calls, but not always, as Freddie Mac knew from experience. He had been certain that his wife, Emily, had been killed when they were trying to flee to Canada after the quarantine. Their car had broken down, they were overrun by a ravenous pack of zombies, they ran for their lives, got separated, etc.—the same story that had literally played out millions of times around the world, AZA—and he had heard her terrified screams off in the distance. What he thought were her death cries haunted him every night in his dreams.

  However, during his waking hours, he had slowly overcome his grief and found solace in the arms of Rachel, a pretty, young widow at the compound. They had recently been married by The Monk, and were expecting a child. Then a few weeks ago, the sat phone rang and there was a voice from the grave—Emily was calling from the Air Force survivor camp at the airport in Plattsburgh, New York. She told him all about her horrific journey and many near-death adventures, and how she only made it through by thinking of him and praying they would one day be reunited. Then, when she saw his name on the Official LOL (List of the Living), she knew all her struggles to survive had been worth it.

  Of course, he was thrilled to find out that Emily was alive and well. Unfortunately, he doubted that Rachel would be as pleased by the news. But he couldn’t be sure, as he hadn’t found the nerve to tell her yet. He also failed to tell Emily about Rachel.

  Emily was scheduled to come to West Point in a convoy in just a couple of days, so Freddie Mac almost hoped the phone call was to inform him of a rampaging horde of zombies descending on Saugerties. It would be far less painful than the impending “Two Wives Apocalypse.” Unfortunately for Freddie Mac, he was to have no such luck. The call was actually from Phil at West Point, who wanted to speak with Cam about some “curious news.”

  “Hey, buddy, what’s up?” Cam asked, after Freddie Mac had jogged over to Cam’s cabin with the phone.

  “Now don’t get your hopes up,” Phil began cautiously, but couldn’t continue as Cam immediately jumped to conclusions.

  “They found signs that she’s alive? Where is she?” Cam practically shouted into the phone as he sprang to his feet and began pacing nervously.

  “Let’s try this again,” Phil said laughing. “Now don’t get your hopes up, but an Army recon helicopter photographed something curious.”

  With Cam constantly interjecting that Phil should hurry up—which, of course, only slowed down his story—Phil finally managed to tell him all about the burning houses that just happened to be on the same street where Becks’ convoy had the accident. When the high-res photo was analyzed, they also found fresh bodies in the street and a large vehicle driving away.

  “This means that she is alive!” Cam concluded with absolute certainty.

  “No, Cam, please don’t set yourself up for more heartbreak like this,” he cautioned his friend, even though Phil had jumped to the same conclusion when he heard the news from the Picatinny Arsenal. “All it means is that someone is alive in that neighborhood. It could have been survivors fighting zombies, rival groups fighting one another over supplies; it could have been anything.”

  “And it could have been our girl stirring up a hornet’s nest of trouble,” Cam said in a more subdued tone, while wiping away an errant tear.

  “Yes, this does have Becks written all over it, doesn’t it?” Phil admitted, his own emotion rising in his throat.

  Once again, Cam was ready to gear up and bring his men down to New Jersey, but Phil could not stress strongly enough how dangerous that would be. Recon photos also showed the streets choked with zombies for miles around. The Army was planning to begin an offensive in early spring, but there was no way in hell they would participate in, or even allow, any rescue efforts until they could begin thinning the herds.

  If that activity on the ground did indeed indicate that Dr. Rebecca Truesdale was still alive, she would have to find a way to survive on her own through the winter.

  Chapter 9

  Becks was amazed at how silently and almost gracefully Eddie moved, for a big man. She wasn’t exactly a bull in a china shop, but no one would ever mistake her for a ninja, either. Of course, with not one, but two head injuries, she was just lucky she could stand up and move at all. If she only had another day or two to rest—but the clock was ticking with Izzy’s fragile condition.

  In the dark, the eyesight of the undead was even worse than their living counterparts, given the general tissue degradation from the ZIP network management of the body. The parasites seemed to allow for the minimum requirement to keep a corpse upright, mobile—and most importantly—feeding. Other than that, everything else was nonessential. In other words, there was an acceptable level of decomp.

  Still, while living humans had the upper hand at night, it all became a moot point if you turned the corner and went face-first into a couple of dozen zombies, regardless of their poor vision. So, moving with extreme caution was still the best way to approach night maneuvers—that, and the helmet-mounted, night vision goggles that Eddie had bought for himself and his son. He had hoped the extravagant purchase would encourage Little Eddie to go out hunting and camping with him, but the boy had been much happier sitting inside, examining the unit’s optics.

  AZA, the goggles had saved Eddie’s life at least a dozen times, and were particularly helpful when searching dark basements for supplies. It just creeped him out how these damn zombies would “nest” in basements by huddling together in corners or under staircases. Of course, flashlights helped, but they also acted like beacons to help the zombies see you, too. The night vision googles kept the zombies in the dark and gave the wearer a lethal advantage.

  Becks had used similar goggles before, but just for the Midnight Paintball parties that Cam and his men had at the compound. They used some special paint that fluoresced, and any time someone was hit they looked like a 100 watt bulb running through the woods, which only made them a bigger target. It was al
l great fun, but it was also a great learning experience, driving home the point Cam endlessly stressed—the most dangerous enemy is the one you can’t see.

  Remaining invisible was what Becks had been striving to do from the day she was stranded in this suburban New Jersey hell hole. Of course, she had no idea she was failing miserably, because Eddie had been watching her every move. At least she was able to take some pride in the fact that the Rovers never found her, even after she gut-shot Mr. Reggie.

  The game was changing now, though, as they would be walking right into the Rovers’ stronghold. But in their favor were the facts that Eddie had carefully studied New Ridgelawn’s defenses, they had night vision goggles, Pat and Mickey Riley were idiots, and everyone thought that Becks and Eddie were dead, so they weren’t expecting company. If Plan A continued to go as they hoped, they would get in, get Izzy, and get out before anyone realized that Eddie, at least, had not died in the propane explosion ruse.

  As they slowly and carefully ducked in and out between cars, and behind backyard sheds and shrubbery, part of Becks was telling her she was crazy. A voice was telling her she should have grabbed a sack full of MREs and run like hell to the west, toward Interstate 287—until a louder and more persuasive voice spoke.

  “Izzy is the only reason I have left to live,” the big man said, as they crouched behind the shell of an old Mustang that no one would ever restore. They waited for a pair of adolescent zombies to shamble on by, and then Eddie continued, “If I lose her, I lose myself.”

  “We will find her,” Becks whispered, choosing her words carefully. Finding her was one thing. Finding her and keeping the dangerously ill woman alive was another.