“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Suzy ejected a spent mag from her rifle. “You lead, and I’ll hold them back!”
Hailey saw there were no fighters left at the far end of the wall. They’d been overcome by the tide of zombies, and pale faces turned toward them with a deep, ceaseless hunger in their dim, dust-coated eyes.
He led Suzy toward the ladder, blasting away at corpses as they appeared over the top of the wall. The zombies grunted and groaned, reaching for them as they ran past. One zombie managed to plant itself right in their path, and Hailey raised his rifle. The ghoul’s head suddenly deflated as a bullet tore through it. Surprised, Hailey looked down.
Victor Kuruk stood on the ground below them, his rifle shouldered. He frantically waved Hailey on then pivoted and fired up at the wall again. Several writhing bodies crawled toward Victor and his companions, trailing crushed and mutilated legs.
Hailey and Suzy made it to one of the ladders, and he stepped aside. “Go on, take it!” he said.
Several zombies shuffled toward them. He raised his rifle, stuck the barrel over Suzy’s right shoulder, and fired.
She winced and cried out, “Jesus, Mike!”
Hailey released her and continued dropping the stenches as fast as he could. “Go on! Get down!”
Bodies rolled off the walkway and tumbled to the ground. Hailey glanced over his shoulder, where another ladder had been built into the side of the wall. More defenders had gathered there, the ones who had been pushed back from the other side. The incursions at that end weren’t as numerous, so they’d had enough time to attempt an orderly retreat. Hailey and those few around him weren’t as lucky. They were sandwiched between several groups of zombies hauling themselves over the wall like clockwork. The stenches’ movements were slow and uncoordinated but hardly without zeal. When their flat, dead eyes locked onto Hailey, they moaned and flailed, trying to reach him. In many instances, they knocked fellow stenches off either side of the wall. The effect would have been almost comical if Hailey didn’t know how deadly they were.
Grunting, another zombie hauled itself over the wall right beside him. Hailey turned and fired a bullet into its head, then he snapped back and continued covering Suzy’s descent. Below, gunners were opening up, taking out zombies that shuffled toward him. More bodies fell, and the walkway at the top of the wall was becoming slick with black gore.
Halfway down, Suzy shouted, “Mike, come on!”
Her voice captured the attention of a zombie, and it launched itself off the wall, reaching for her as it fell. Its fingertips barely brushed her as it dropped past. It wound up spiking straight into the ground at the base of the ladder, forcing several townspeople there to scatter, then it lay still.
Hailey dropped the zombies closest to him then attempted to climb onto the ladder. But the zombies were too close, and even though they were uncoordinated, reaching for a guy mounting a ladder while he was simultaneously trying to shoot them was an easy play. Hailey had to stop with his feet on the ladder’s top rung and fire again, drilling two stenches through their chins. The rounds traveled through the soft tissues of their dry sinuses and exploded out the crowns of their skulls. One of the ghouls collapsed on top of him, and Hailey half-stepped, half-fell to the next rung. His rifle got hung up beneath the motionless corpse, and for an instant, he was trapped, held in place by the weapon’s strap. He pulled the strap over his head and left the weapon there.
Putting his feet on the ladder’s side rails, Hailey used his hands to lower himself down. He slid so quickly that he almost ran into Suzy as she stepped off at the bottom, forcing her to duck to one side. She stumbled over a corpse and fell on her ass with a squawk. Hailey landed a second later and started to apologize, but Victor grabbed his arm and yanked him away from her.
“Look out!” Victor shouted.
Zombies began crashing to the ground all around them. Hailey pulled his pistol and started shooting, the sweat pouring off his body as his heart hammered in his chest. He felt as if he couldn’t get enough air, and his limbs were suddenly shaky. It was happening fast, all too fast, and he couldn’t quite get to a space where he could deal with things. It’s a nightmare, a fucking nightmare—
He shot zombies on the ground as they writhed and crawled, sending heavy .45 caliber rounds through their skulls. He charged toward Suzy when Victor did, and they both grabbed her and pulled her away from the wall. One of the stenches, its body shattered from the forty-foot fall, managed to latch onto her ankle with one alabaster-white hand. It hissed and struggled as it was dragged along, trying to reach for Suzy’s leg with its other badly broken arm. Bone poked out of the skin of its forearm, glistening dully in the sunlight. Suzy shouted and kicked the grotesquerie in the head with her other foot, and her boot broke teeth and jaw. Still, the zombie held on, ignoring the damage.
Hailey and Victor got her twenty feet away before another defender put a bullet through the clingy ghoul’s brain. The zombie fell to the ground, animate no longer.
Overhead, dozens more zombies tumbled over the wall. They overwhelmed the remaining gunslingers up there and crested the barrier in a tsunami of rot. Men and women screamed as they fell victim to the horde.
Victor helped Suzy to her feet. “Are you hurt? Are you bitten?” He had to shout over the turmoil, and the usually stoic tribal chief’s eyes were full of fear and concern.
“I’m fine!” Suzy said. “Mike, what about you?”
“Good to go,” Hailey said.
Victor slapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for covering my niece. Now, both of you, get the hell out of here. We have to fall back behind the next barrier.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder where a row of HESCOs had been erected. They weren’t even a quarter as high as the secondary wall, and Hailey wondered if they would serve as even a speed bump in the face of the zombie advance.
Behind that row was another line of HESCOs, then fencing and Jersey barriers. Beyond those was another wall, one that had been designed to channel the dead into a kill zone. Hailey pretty much knew it wasn’t going to work. If the zombies numbered in the hundreds or low thousands, maybe, but the coming horde contained tens of thousands.
“What about you, Chief?” Hailey asked.
“I’ll be right along. Don’t worry about me. You get my niece out of here.” Victor’s face hardened as he gripped his rifle with both hands. “Get moving! I’ll keep them off you!” He shouldered his LWRC and ripped off several shots.
“Uncle, come with us!” Suzy said. She squared off against the dead as well, adding her own rifle fire to the fray.
While the pair killed several stenches right away, more were coming over the wall, and some of the new arrivals were capable of pursuit. Their stand was attracting the dead’s attention, and the corpses shambled toward them, moaning through open mouths. The rest of the fighters were falling back. Some were retreating like soldiers, covering each other, but many were simply fleeing like frightened rabbits. In a short period of time, Victor, Hailey, and Suzy would be facing the horde alone.
Hailey grabbed her arm and pulled her after him. She dug in, and for such a small woman, she was damned strong.
He tugged harder. “Come on. We’re leaving! Your uncle will be right behind us!”
“You got that right!” Victor shouted then dropped three more stenches. “Get moving, girl!”
SANTA ROSA ISLAND, CALIFORNIA
Three weeks had passed since Reese and the rest of the cops had joined the elements of the LAPD that had staked a claim on Santa Rosa Island, a small body of land off the coast of Santa Barbara. The island had no transportation system, running water, or plumbing. Accessible only by boat or a small dirt airstrip, Santa Rosa wasn’t the most accessible place in the world, but it wasn’t as remote as the dark side of the moon, either. Despite the hardship conditions, hundreds of Californians had found their way to its rocky shores.
As the Harbor Patrol dive boat closed in on the isle, Reese wasn’t surprised to see scores of boats s
urrounding it, everything from sixteen-foot center consoles to seventy-plus-foot luxury yachts. While a small part of him was happy that at least a small slice of humanity had the fortitude to try and eke out an existence there, the larger part of him wondered how many of the survivors might already be infected from zombie bites received on the mainland. Fighting a horde on that small patch of rocky soil in the middle of the Pacific was the last thing he wanted to undertake.
The cops had created a fortified settlement a fair distance from the beach, atop one of the ridges overlooking Johnson’s Lee, near the westernmost side of the island. The water there was deep enough for the dive boat to safely anchor near the rough shoreline and remain visible to the settlement. Even though there was a crew aboard at all times, theft was a major concern. Without the large vessel, the cops and their families would be stranded.
The settlement, dubbed Fort Apache, was a collection of tents surrounded by four- and five-foot walls of sand bags. The only other protection came from the Torrey pine trees native to the area. Their stunted growths provided some minor cover from the wind as well as a bit of camouflage, not that the latter was of much help, since everyone on the island knew where the place was. As the cops had the most weapons, supplies, and organization, Reese figured that if life on the island went to hell, any survivors would make their way to Fort Apache.
Reese shared a tent with four other single cops. He slept in a military surplus sleeping bag that wasn’t all that bad. When the nights grew cold, the sleeping bag kept him surprisingly warm.
The commanding officer was a Lieutenant Robert Robbins from the LAPD’s Wilshire Division. He was also known as Button-down Bob due to his rather officious nature. Reese didn’t know him very well, and he was surprised to discover the well-coiffed officer was an avid outdoorsman. The Santa Rosa retreat had been his idea, and he’d looped in his buddies from Harbor Patrol because they had the muscle to move men and material aboard the big dive boat. Robbins was a short, slender man with sandy hair and perfectly tanned skin and matinee idol looks. His personality didn’t suit the package, however. He was generally sour in disposition, and Reese had heard that most of the cops who’d worked for him at Wilshire station kept their distance. Robbins had a reputation as an ass-chewer, and if that was true, then the end of the world was unlikely to buoy his spirits.
New arrivals appeared regularly during the first week. Many a fiberglass hull was dashed against the rocky shores, but everyone who made it to the Channel Islands survived. Some zombies had found their way to the island was well, either by floating in on the currents or by walking across the bottom of the Pacific. As soon as their presence was known, anyone with a firearm immediately went to the dead’s location and shot it. Everyone had learned their lesson. The reanimated had to be returned to death’s embrace as quickly as possible.
At the end of the second week, they decided that shore parties needed to begin assessing conditions in Santa Barbara. Reese didn’t think that was an awesome idea. Reconnaissance from the water had already shown that the dead had overrun the town, though not to the extent that they had taken Los Angeles. But even a few were bad enough, and just knowing they were in the town was enough to give him pause.
Robbins believed the cops would soon need to start launching foraging missions, and they would need to start operating on land to gather enough intel to better coordinate those trips. Reese spoke to some of the other cops about the wisdom of that. Bates was generally noncommittal, though the veteran street cop admitted that the plan was probably premature. Thanh, the wiry Vietnamese cop, agreed that it was way too soon to start upping the ante. Since Reese was a senior officer, equivalent in grade to a sergeant, he was elected to take their concerns to Robbins. Reese did so, but Button-down Bob wasn’t having any of it. The recon missions were going to happen, and if Reese didn’t like it, he could leave Fort Apache. That pretty much settled it.
The first recon took place just south of Stearns Wharf. The dive boat anchored a mile offshore and dispatched three rubber-hulled boats loaded with heavily armed police. The landing on the deserted beach was uneventful, but the team barely made it past East Cabrillo Boulevard before sighting a large contingent of zombies emerging from the buildings on the campus of Santa Barbara City College. Estimating the zombie herd numbered in the hundreds, the cops immediately retreated.
Robbins wasn’t deterred. He ordered additional recons of the beaches to the north. The teams would initially check the Douglas Family Preserve, a city-owned park surrounded by Elings Park to the east, the subdivisions of Campanil to the north, and West Mesa to the south. As one of the single guys, Reese was tapped to go ashore on the second recon.
“Kind of sucks you have to head out,” Bates said when Reese stepped into their tent.
Reese glanced at him then started gathering his gear. “I guess you’re not coming along?”
Bates smirked and held up his left hand to display his wedding ring. “I have other priorities, Detective.”
Reese snorted and began inspecting his rifle. He organized several topped-off Magpul magazines for it then ensured the spare mags for his pistol were in a similar condition.
“You know, you held it together pretty well out there, Reese. Back in LA,” Bates said.
Reese looked up from his work. “Praise from you, Bates? Pretty uncharacteristic, right?”
Bates shrugged. “I always had the impression you were a dilettante. You proved me wrong. Nothing wrong with admitting it.”
“Why bother?”
Bates favored Reese with his blank blue stare for a long moment, then finally smiled. “Eventually, one of us will run out of time. I like to try to leave things with a clean slate, wherever I can.”
“Don’t worry, Bates. I’m not going to wind up as zombie chow.” Reese went back to his firearms. “So I hear Manalo’s got the lead today. He’s pretty solid.”
“Roddy’s as good as they come. Hey, if it makes you feel better, First Sergeant Plosser is going on the trip,” Bates said. “He’s got his shit together. I’ve been talking to him over the past few days. He’s not just some weekend warrior. He’s the real deal. Full-time Guard after serving with the 101st in Iraq.”
“And how does that matter? Are we going to be fighting Saddam again?”
Bates cocked his head. “Detective, the skills he has are just as effective against the stenches as they were against Saddam’s Fedayeen. You stay close to him, you might be making it back. Remember, he was kind of useful when we were trying to get out of LA.”
“I remember,” Reese said.
“Gonzales is going too. She’s competent enough. Unfortunately, Marsh’ll be with you, so get ready for some vomit action.”
Reese winced. “Yeah, that’s hardly going to make things easier.”
Bates stepped closer. “You like him?”
“Who, Marsh? Not a damn bit. He’s a lazy fuck, the kind to always leave early to beat traffic. Like there is such a thing in Los Angeles.”
“Well, then… maybe having him along isn’t such a bad thing.”
Reese frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“You don’t like the guy and think he’s a boat anchor, right? So when things get hot, you can always shoot him in the leg and leave him for the stenches.”
Reese scoffed. “Shoot a fellow officer and leave him to die? You’re not serious.”
Bates merely cocked one eyebrow then turned and marched out of the tent.
###
The team left just before dawn. The Pacific was choppy, and even inside the comparative shelter of Johnson’s Lee, it made the transfer from the small fiberglass center console boat to the sturdier aluminum-hulled dive boat a bit treacherous. Afterward, they immediately stepped into the boat’s heated salon area, which was only slightly illuminated by red lights. A good amount of fog hung over them, and it wouldn’t burn off for several hours yet, so Reese wondered if more light would be better. The dive boat’s bridge was raised a few steps at the end of a na
rrow gangway. The bridge was also lit by red lights, with the addition of the brighter output from the flat-panel navigation displays.
Reese trudged up the short gangway and stuck his head inside. “Hey, guys, what’s up with the lights? Tough to see back here.”
“Red lights don’t destroy your night vision,” one of the Harbor cops replied. “It’s going to be dark later, and you guys will probably want to be able to see the beach when you head out.”
Reese nodded. “Good point.”
“We got coffee down there,” the boat commander, a wiry man named Bay, said. “Grab a cup while you can. This isn’t a cruise ship, so no continental breakfast for you.”
“That’s fine. How’s the coffee?”
“It’ll kill you.”
“Sounds great. How long until we get to the coast?”
“We’ll take it slow because of the conditions. Not everything we can run into shows up on radar. Call it an hour.”
“Thanks.” Reese returned to the salon and sat down across from Renee Gonzalez in one of the four booths. Renee’s eyes were at half-mast, and she looked pale and exhausted.
Reese placed his backpack on the table. Aside from weapons and ammunition, he carried water, sport drinks, and three MREs. The rest of the team—all cops, at least ninety percent of them LAPD, with officers from the Port Police rounding it out—either sat or stood in the salon. The area had been designed for LAPP officers to man up in wetsuits before jumping off the back of the boat into the silt-filled, polluted waters of the Port of Los Angeles.
The big catamaran’s twin diesels came to life with a rumble. Detective Marsh, who was sitting in the next booth, appeared a little green around the gills. The bald detective had managed to hold down his breakfast during the thirty-second transfer to the dive boat, but the sound of the engines powering up seemed to have signaled that his brief spell of gastric fortitude was evaporating. Reese sighed and shook his head. He checked his watch. It was five minutes past five in the morning. He placed a mental bet that by five ten, Marsh would be spewing his guts into the boat’s wake.
The Last Town Page 51
