“Build some more—”
“The carpenter building them for me disappeared... can’t really blame him if he left on his own accord though—hell, he couldn’t even set foot outside of his front door after word got out about what he was making in his shop. Truth is, he probably got snatched up by the other Essentials and he’s dead and buried in a backyard by now. Besides, Robert... we cannot afford to make examples of people any longer. We need living breathing bodies. The extent of the infestation is staggering. I-89 is a natural conduit from the south. The dead are coming. I’m not exaggerating. I sent out several helicopters to recon the roads this morning. The pilot who followed 189 was white as a sheet as he gave me his report. I think your vision for NA is going to have to take a back seat for a short time. The survivors are close to insurrection, I suppose.”
“What is your expert opinion? What steps do we take to ensure my vision comes to fruition and move NA forward?”
”We need to slow down. My men are spread too thin. I recommend we pull back and regroup—our survival is at stake if we don’t.”
“Tran, more Dom Perignon... now,” the silver haired eccentric shouted, waving a champagne flute in the air. “Bishop—I need more details out of you.”
He’s fishing for the one positive nugget to cling to, Bishop surmised. “I trust my pilot’s report. Besides... I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The tide of walkers isn’t ebbing,” he said, shaking his head slowly side to side, “fact is, more of them are showing up hourly. One of my guys has been going over the barrier and taking wallets off of the dead walkers.”
“What the hell did he do a fool thing like that for? If he needed a new wallet there’s a Gucci store on Main Street in town.”
Ignoring the comment from his out of touch boss, Bishop went on. “We checked the identification and found that most of the dead are coming from Salt Lake City and the surrounding areas in Utah, but a good number are from as far south as Nevada. There were thousands of tourists in Jackson Hole when the virus surged. Gas stations went dry within hours. A good number of the dead—but not the majority I suspect—are those same tourists who choked the roads trying to leave and then took over the rest areas and campgrounds when their cars died and they realized getting home wasn’t going to happen.”
After a moment of uneasy silence, Robert Christian drained his Dom Perignon and bellowed for more.
Bishop raised his voice in order to get through the alcohol clouded shroud of denial that seemed to have left his boss unable to face reality, much less make a simple decision. “The walkers are moving in packs,” he said, allowing a second for that to sink in. “Big fucking packs... herds.”
Christian continued to pick at his food, popping a mini croissant into his mouth. “Wonderful meal Tran...”
Tran merely nodded and kept his eyes locked on the ground.
“Continue,” Christian implored, dabbing his lips with a stark white linen napkin.
“I have the bridge rigged with explosives,” Bishop admitted.
“Who gave you permission? First the nukes and now this, I’m beginning to question your loyalty.” Christian’s voice was icy.
Bishop said nothing.
“How in the hell are we going to cross the river if we have no bridge? No... The bridge is off limits. That is final,” Christian said, fixing bloodshot eyes on the man he was finding harder to trust with each passing second.
Bishop strode closer to the table and said slowly and confidently, “I’m finished asking permission.”
Robert Christian froze mid bite and pivoted his head slowly. His watery eyes—burning with laserlike intensity—probed Bishop.
Matching Christian’s glare, Bishop laid out his ultimatum—and for all he cared the loony fucker could take it or leave it. “I sent my men to the Air National Guard base near Boise to search for ammunition. They flew out an hour ago... if they come back empty the men holding back the dead will have no other choice than to drop the span into the Snake River and retreat into town. If it comes to that I’ll come get you... but if you hear an explosion and you can’t raise me on the radio or the Iridium... assume the worst has happened and you are on your own.”
Bishop paced a few steps, giving thought to the ramifications of abandoning Jackson Hole. The Humvees, Bradleys and other assorted military hardware sitting near the airport would be lost, but seeing as how the vehicles were nearly out of fuel and had little ammo left, losing them wouldn’t be a harsh blow. “Your G6 is fueled. I already alerted the pilots... give them a five minute heads up and they can have their preflight done and you will be wheels up. I cannot stress this enough—you must get to the airport as soon as possible.”
“What happened to our army?”
“I’m losing men nightly at the barrier. I lost a good kid last night. I have sent half of my men over the Teton pass to recon west of here. We will need a safe place to retreat to when... I mean if Jackson falls.” Bishop grimaced. Bad time for a Freudian slip, he thought to himself. Certainly Christian had noticed. “Following your orders—I sent the others out in smaller patrols. They were the troops who set up the garrisons that—once again—you ordered.”
“And my garrisons... just call them back.”
“Mack isn’t answering. The men you sent south... haven’t heard from them in forty-eight hours.”
“Get a handle on this Bishop!” the self-appointed President of New America bellowed as he sprang from his chair red of face. Then, in a fit of rage he overturned the wooden table, spilling the sterling service and Tran’s exquisitely prepared meal onto the ground.
***
From his hide in the tall grass Daymon picked up on some telling body language. Oh-oh, trouble in paradise. While the older man had remained seated, methodically working his way through the elaborate meal, the dark haired soldier paced the grass keeping his arms folded tightly across his chest in a defensive posture. The conversation was far from one sided by his estimation and when the man who he guessed was Robert Christian exploded and threw his tantrum and everything else he could get his hands on—Daymon knew something big was brewing.
***
“Face the facts, Robert. We are stuck here, and to make matters worse Francis kicked the hornet’s nest but failed to kill the queen. Think about it—laying low won’t be such a bad thing. Let this Omega virus peter out. Let the walking dead decay until they are no longer a viable threat. Wait the winter out someplace besides Jackson Hole and then we can reconstitute, rearm, and swell the ranks with the survivors hunkered down out there.”
Finally calmed down a bit, Robert Christian ran his hands through his hair. “What about the gold—how are we going to transport all of it to wherever your contingency plan has us relocating? You’ve got that figured out... yes?”
Bishop shot him a look that said, ‘weren’t you fucking listening.’ “Sixteen tractor trailers are not going to make it no matter where we go. First off, the amount of fuel we’d need isn’t available. Secondly, a convoy that big could be tracked by a third grader with pop bottle lenses. Valerie Clay’s fleet of Keyhole Satellites are alive and well. There’s no way we could move around the west without drawing the attention of every eye-in-the-sky orbiting this dead rock.” He shook his head slowly side to side. “Face it sir... there’s no use for the gold. There’s no demand for the gold—and there will not be for a long, long time. It’s ironic... man has always had a fixation with trying to turn lead into gold. Now... I wish we had a way to turn gold into lead.”
“What do you mean by that Ian?”
“We need bullets sir. We can’t cull the dead without them. Furthermore, if Clay comes banging on our door...”
“It’s too late, Ian. Though Francis didn’t ‘kill the queen’ as you so aptly put it, he did cause them significant pain. Not just in the near term because he didn’t kill the principal, he went on a tangent to quote our man at Schriever. Pug made an appearance.”
Bishop stopped pacing and with a bewildered look asked, �
�Who the hell is Pug?”
“All of these years Francis has taken care of my problems. The Senator who said he would swing a vote to my benefit and didn’t follow through...”
“Shackleford... he died in a car wreck—right?”
Christian snorted. “That was Francis’s doing. That bitch who said I raped her and then tried to extort me...”
“Francis?” Bishop said with a sly smile.
“She slipped in the tub and hit her head. Quite tragic don’t you think?” Christian said with a wink.
“If he’s so good at the wet works then what went wrong this time?”
“For some reason he snapped. Pug is a suppressed alter identity... super ego maybe. It’s Greek to me. Pug has only shown up one other time which was fifteen years ago. That was a mess. Cost me two hundred thousand dollars and two bodies buried in the Nevada desert to make it go away.”
Bishop pivoted and paced closer to Christian, saying, “So how bad did Pug step on his dick this time?”
Christian gazed at the Tetons and when he finally answered he sounded different—empowered. “Pug killed the government scientists who were working on a cure for Omega. In fact, he destroyed their research facility and the antiserum they had already perfected and used to cure at least one patient.”
“You just made my case for me sir,” the former SEAL said in a low voice. “They won’t let that slide... they’re coming. Time for you to make a decision.”
Christian made a sound—part chuckle and part growl. To Bishop it was the sound a wounded and cornered animal might make. “It’s too late,” Christian muttered. “Any day now another blow will be dealt to those people. They didn’t take Francis seriously when he wanted to serve them. And they persecuted you for doing the right thing... that was by all accounts a just cause in your eyes. They will pay—even if it kills me.”
If I don’t first, Bishop thought. He had a gut feeling he wasn’t going to be able to sway the man’s opinion but he had to fire one last shot across the bow. Maybe he could scare him into action. “Valerie Clay has already used nukes on Colorado soil. Not singular but plural—nukes— in case you didn’t catch that little nuance.”
“I know,” the old man said in a tired little voice. Hunched over he looked withered, seemingly losing six inches in only two weeks’ time. Finally he sat back down on the rickety chair in the midst of the broken china and dirt smudged tea service and burrowed his face into his hands.
A chink in his armor or a mental meltdown, Bishop didn’t know and he could care less. He stayed on the offensive. “Why do you feel safe here? You know when the next attack is carried out she will be gunning for us with both barrels.”
Silence.
“Why are you blinded to everything that is stacked against us?” Bishop continued, his voice rising. “We have no allies. Cranston—no way. The idiot father and son duo from Kennebunkport—forget it. Self-centered and self-serving, one and all. The other so called Guild members, the new money guys. Hell, they probably would have been adequate in any scenario—except for Omega.”
“It didn’t go as planned.” The old man shook his fist skyward. “All of the pieces were in place and then Omega happened.”
Silence.
“In the SEALs we have a saying, Robert...”
Christian watched Tran pick up shards of china, then humored the former SEAL. “How does that saying go Ian?”
“The only easy day was yesterday. Keep that in mind... answer my call and I’ll come get you. It’s the least I can do—after that consider us equals.” My liege.
With that Ian Bishop left his boss and marched to his luxury SUV. The same kind of rig the fucking Windsors favor, he mused. Or used to favor at any rate. He gunned the engine. The tires spewed mud on Tran who was in the act of policing the tangle of china and silver. Bishop watched in the rearview to see if Robert Christian had composed himself. Sadly he had not. He was still hinged at the waist, his hands covering his face—hiding from the truth he knew to be evident.
***
Click, Clack.
Daymon shuddered—a sort of Pavlovian response after hearing the unmistakable metallic sound. His breath seemed to have been sucked from his lungs. He lay perfectly still, listening to the overwhelming noise his heart made jack hammering in his chest while he waited for death or instructions. He hoped for the latter.
“Lucky I wasn’t a rotter Mister Essential,” the familiar voice intoned. “You could’ve gotten yourself bit—whatcha doin’?”
“Keep outta sight and I’ll fill you in.”
The Chief went to one knee, his shotgun unwavering.
Staring down the barrel of his shotgun Daymon replied, “I’m doing exactly what you told me not to do. I got some information from someone in town—”
Chief Jenkins clicked the safety on the stubby shotgun and laid it on the grass next to the prone firefighter. “I saw your green rig parked outside of Gerald’s place this morning. You should think of getting a ride that is a little less conspicuous.”
“The thought crossed my mind but I have a feeling there’s a fine line between liberating and stealing these days... at least here in Jackson.” Daymon pulled himself up from the ground, being careful to remain in the shadows, and retrieved the shotgun that Duncan had given him.
“I don’t care if you go shopping. There are plenty of shiny new vehicles to go around. Hell, every one of the Hollywood crowd’s mansions has got two or three parked in the garage. I’m pretty sure they won’t be back,” Jenkins said with an awful Schwarzenegger impersonation.
“I’m good with Lu Lu.”
“You sure?” Jenkins asked, looking over the top of his mirrored aviators. “Cause something a little newer might be less likely to break down on you and get you stuck in the middle of a swarm.”
Cryptic shit, Daymon thought to himself. What does he know that he’s not sharing?
Jenkins removed his sunglasses and methodically polished the lenses one at a time as he watched Tran open the Escalade door so Robert Christian could take his place in the back seat. Then the little man climbed into the massive truck. He looked like a little kid as he swayed behind the steering wheel, maneuvering the bucking SUV through the muck towards the blacktop.
Once the Cadillac was out of sight Daymon said, “That little meeting didn’t seem to go over very well.”
“Very astute observation sir,” Jenkins, replied hiking one brow. “I hope you’ve got your go-bag in order and that rig of yours is gassed up.”
Daymon began the long walk back to where he had stashed Lu Lu. “Whose side are you on Chief?”
“These days... I’m on the side of Me, Myself, and I,” Jenkins admitted as he tried matching Daymon’s stride.
“I’m going to be frank with you Charlie. If I can’t find Heidi—or if I find out something happened to her... I will find out who is responsible—and I will take my pound of flesh.”
“Better hurry because there are thousands of rotters down the road just dying to beat you to it.”
“Funny, Charlie.”
Heading south in a hurry, a pair of Little Bird helicopters blazed overhead at treetop level.
“Son... I’m going to give you one last piece of advice. Better heed it—you may never see me again.”
“You done working for the Storm troopers?” Daymon asked as he tossed the shotgun in the Scout’s open window.
“Listen closely,” Jenkins said. “Those monsters are walking the highways. The NA boys have the 189 barricaded north of Hoback... it’s holding—but not for long.”
“How long do you give it before the walkers breach?” Daymon asked. Test coming up... what about the bridge?
Chief Jenkins continued, “Bishop had them wire the bridge with explosives. C4 I presume. Even those retards can’t foul that up. Eventually they are going to have to drop the bridge into the Snake.”
“What did you mean when you said: I’m leaving as soon as possible?”
“You know as well as
I do—with the shitty salaries Teton County paid us before the shit hit the fan—no way either one of us could to afford to live in this valley.” Removing his hat Charlie ran a hand through his receding gray hair. “Sally got bit early on... she’s gone and I have got no one to go home to. I don’t know where I’m going... but it’s not gonna be that house. It took everything in me to put her down. Shit... her body is still in the bathtub. I couldn’t deal with it at the time. That thing I shot in the head was not my Sally.”
“That’s fucked up,” was the only response Daymon could conjure up. “What about Pauline—she lived somewhere in Utah right?”
“Haven’t heard from her,” Jenkins said. He rubbed his eyes then replaced his glasses.
Daymon gazed at the Tetons.
“My little girl Pauline... she just got her divorce finalized, moved into a tiny one room studio in Salt Lake. I couldn’t convince her to come back home and dammit it’s all our fault. We taught her how to stand on her own two feet. She was always independent to a fault... a real strong woman like her mom.”
Grimacing at that revelation Daymon cleared his throat. “Charlie... I’m sorry to hear about Sally, but you know Pauline sounds like a fighter. The kind that survives this shit... she’s probably in her place riding it out.”
“Fuck off!” Jenkins bellowed. “You already told me about Salt Lake, remember?”
“I do remember. I was just trying to remain hopeful for you,” Daymon said awkwardly. “For me... hope is startin’ to be a four letter word. As soon as I find out what happened to Heidi—no matter the outcome—I’m headin’ someplace else, anyplace but here... too many memories here.”
Silence reigned for a long moment.
“Maybe we can finally get the hell out of here... you and I,” Daymon added, his voice filled with resignation.
“I’ll chew on that for a while. Hell... the way you watch your own six... You’re going to need someone to run with you.”
Though Daymon was loathe to admit that since the shit hit the fan he hadn’t had the best of luck going it alone, he nodded reluctantly.
A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 19
