Battlefield Z Omnibus, Vol. 1 [Books 1-9]

by Lowry, Chris

  “No Sir,” he answered. “These are fresh.”

  Pretending to be respectful in front of the girl, trying to impress her.

  Punk.

  “I can’t do a CT scan,” said the Doctor. “You don’t seem to have internal bleeding. There’s bruising and you’ll have a headache, but if you can hold food down, you just need to take it easy for a few days.”

  I scarfed the second sandwich and paused mid chew.

  “Did you eat?” I said to the kids.

  Guilt washed up like nausea and threatened to make me vomit.

  “I fed them,” Zach piped up.

  He flashed a smile at Bem. She blushed and flashed one back.

  I stood up and the sheet that was covering me fell away from my chest. I turned around to slip into the scrubs and heard the kids gasp. Maybe the nurse too.

  “Dad!”

  “I was going to ask about your back,” said the Doctor.

  I felt his fingers on part of the skin, and then just pressure as he ran them over sections of damaged flesh.

  “What made this?” he touched.

  “Whip.”

  “It’s fresh.”

  “Less than a week old.”

  “Someone whipped you?” the Boy grunted.

  I started to turn around, but the Doctor stopped me.

  “This?”

  “Grenade.”

  “This?”

  I couldn’t remember and told him so.

  “It was a rough trip to get the kids,” I explained. “I ran across some bad people.”

  I turned around then and slid into the scrub top.

  The look on my kid’s faces broke my heart.

  The look on Zach’s face made me grin. He shivered and that made me grin more.

  “I’m okay,” I assured them. “Sticks and stones.”

  “Jesus, Dad,” Bem wiped tears from the corner of her eyes. “What did they do to you.”

  “They tried to keep me from you.”

  “They whipped you,” the Boy was outraged. “Shot you. Burned you.”

  “Yeah, but not all at the same time.”

  I put my arms around them and pulled them close, finally, and they reached around me. Tenderly at first, as if they were afraid of hurting me more, but then tighter as they felt my grip close over them.

  “I could keep you here a week, but like I said, our resources are limited. I’m sure I’ll see you around town and I’ll check on you.”

  I watched the doctor leave. He took the nurse with him, I guess to check on other patients.

  “What did you find out about Vicksburg?”

  I didn’t want to let the kids go, but we still had a plan to make, and ground to cover.

  “We were here with you.”

  “Zach offered to give us a tour,” said Bem.

  I glared at him.

  “You want to give me a tour Zach?”

  He gulped.

  “Yes Sir.”

  I let him lead us out of the room, and I promise it was only with a little bit of sadistic satisfaction when he kept looking back at me.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Zach wasn’t the worst tour guide a person could ask for. I would never tell him that though.

  He led us out of the hospital, which was a converted school building.

  What was it with school buildings in the south, I wondered? I guess they were good multipurpose buildings and close at hand.

  You didn’t have to look far to find a school in almost any neighborhood. They usually had a big meeting space, and lots of smaller rooms that could be used for different things.

  He led us down the street toward a strip mall of metal building storefronts. I couldn’t recall if Vicksburg had a historic district, but if it did, this wasn’t part of it. The roads were clear, lots of green space and pre-fab metal buildings slapped up and housed stores.

  I thought Vicksburg had a lot of history, but there was no way to tell from this part of town.

  Zach walked a little too close to Bem. The Boy noticed my glare and nudged my elbow.

  “Stop,” he whispered, then snickered at my raised eyebrows as I gave him my best “who me?” look.

  “I’m from Gulfport,” he was telling us. “We got hit pretty hard. But I heard about this place and when I got here, they let me in.”

  “You don’t let a lot of people in?”

  I wanted to hear a lot more, since I had been unconscious when we arrived. The kids could fill me in on their version of the details later, but Zach knew the city, or at least pretended to know it.

  “Most that I know of,” he said. “When they get to the gates, the guards interview them. I don’t hear of too many that get turned away. You are the first people to come on the river, except for pirates from Natchez.”

  “What did you do in Gulfport?” Bem asked. “Were you an EMT?”

  I thought my little girl was crushing, but saw a squint in her eye. She looked like Zach might try to trick us too.

  That made me wonder what happened while I was asleep. What did they overhear? What could they share?

  “Where’s the marina?” I asked.

  “We didn’t come in a marina,” said the Boy. “They’ve got a suspension bridge across the water.”

  “What happened to the Interstate Bridge?”

  “It’s still there. Blocked. I went to look at it once. The cars caught on fire and burned the metal, now we can’t use it.”

  He pointed in the direction of the bridge.

  “There’s the old Bridge,” I told him.

  I’m not sure why I said it.

  Maybe just to let old Zach know this Dad wasn’t falling for his charm. That this old Dad knew a thing or two about his new hometown.

  I’d driven through here on several occasions since I was an adult and over two dozen times as a kid. I remembered the rusted red bridge just north of the Interstate bridge, and wondered if it was a railway connection or if it had been adopted into the trail system and turned pedestrian and bike path.

  Zack didn’t need to know any of that.

  He licked his lips and smiled.

  “It’s still there. But we don’t go over it. Both of the bridges are outside the wall.”

  The had a wall.

  Keep talking Zach.

  “Where’s the wall?”

  He turned up a side street and led us half a mile.

  I could see it before we got there, a giant metal plate shoved into the ground, twelve feet high.

  Closer we could see it was a series of metal plates welded together, the scars of metal bulging with thick iron poles set into the ground to support the great weight of the wall.

  Zach opened his mouth to speak. Opened his mouth to spill his guts and tell me everything we needed to know to get out of here.

  “Look!” the Boy shouted.

  We turned to look as a small plane buzzed over the river and floated down in a smooth landing somewhere we couldn’t see.

  “A plane?”

  I couldn’t keep the wonder from my voice.

  But it made sense. If cars worked, then so would planes. It’s not like we had an EMP. What we lost were the people who knew how to fly them, unless zombies could find the friendly skies.

  Z weren’t that friendly to begin with.

  Zach’s smile got wider.

  Cocky bastard.

  “We have a couple of them that land over in the old military park,” he pointed again.

  As if we could tell where it was by the direction of his finger.

  “Is that in the wall?”

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “We can go see it if you like.”

  It was my turn to nod. I liked.

  I didn’t know how to fly a plane, but if we could borrow a pilot and one, we could make it back to Fort Jasper in an hour. Maybe less.

  I was going to ask him who was in charge of the airfield when we heard it.

  Bootsteps.

  Marching in sync and moving our way fast.

/>   A group of men in black rounded the corner.

  I reflexively pawed at my waist for a pistol but there was nothing there. I grabbed the kids instead and pulled them behind me, blocking them with my body and squared off while we waited.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Someone had my idea.

  The cops, if they were cops, surrounded us in a crescent. The men were covered in Riot Gear. Arms and legs protected, faces hidden by thick plastic helmets. If they were dressed like that, I hoped Z weren’t in the city walls that loomed around the community.

  We pressed back against the wall.

  Closer I could see they were iron plates, like the sides of railway cars welded end to end and bolted to posts in the ground. It was cheap, strong and effective, creating a twelve-foot steel barrier of multicolored metal. Two crews working hard, one cutting, the other locking them in place, could put up a wall this big in a week or so.

  Whoever had the idea was smart.

  Smarter than me. I hoped to meet him.

  Then we watched a man in a white suit pull up in a Golf cart. A silent electric Golf cart.

  He rolled his bulky belly from under the steering wheel and fought gravity to make his feet where he tottered between two riot police waiting to catch him if he fell. Or jump out of the way.

  I was surprised.

  The Zombie apocalypse was the best diet I’d ever been on in my life. I was down forty pounds, maybe more. Each of the kids had dropped fifteen pounds since I had last seen them.

  Everyone I knew was always on the verge of starvation since the Z came, hunting for food or running for their life.

  The people here looked normal.

  Zach looked well fed.

  The Doctor, the nurse, the cops now in front of us.

  None of them looked hungry.

  Normal as in mostly larger than average, which was the norm in southern Louisiana. This man made them look svelte by comparison. His ruddy face was topped with stringy white hair that swept around and over a war with a bald spot peeking under the strands.

  He mopped the humidity off his face with an immaculate handkerchief and stuffed it into the breast pocket of the pristine white suit.

  “Warren Cotton, Krew of Mardi Gras,” he held out a fat hand.

  I reached to shake it and two men jumped forward to wrap shackles around my wrist.

  “We’ve been expecting you,” he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Back before the world went dark, I was a manager in a midsized company. The title said Director, which put me on the bottom rung of the C-Suite. My bosses were all Army, and if you know what direction the crap slides in, you know the bottom step is one slick rung.

  One of my direct reports once asked me how I could stay so stoic, keep such a poker face when they could hear the yelling in the meetings, most of it directed at me.

  I would smile and quote something that I thought sounded wise at the time.

  "This too shall pass."

  I remember my Dad told it to me once when I was sobbing in bed from a teenage broken heart.

  This too will be over.

  This won't last forever.

  Because the ups of corporate leadership were always followed by the downs, and they would come again. It's called a roller coaster for a reason.

  The best leaders learn how to even out their moods, and it was something I practiced daily.

  It's going to be over soon.

  That's how I survived running 100 mile races. It's how I trained to run a 200-mile race that I never got to try. Thank you, zombies.

  Or the CDC that made them.

  Running taught me to focus on the now, and know that no matter how I was feeling, it was going to pass. It prepared me for bonks, crashes and runner high's.

  Same thing in the boardroom meetings.

  No matter how much they questioned, yelled, cajoled and bitched, it was going to be over and I could get back to the business of making them more money.

  "This too will pass."

  I told myself. It was a mantra I chanted in time with the swinging of a cage. It was a giant dog crate, thick metal bars chained to the ceiling. A guard stood just at the end of the arc and every couple of swings, he would kick the cage with his boot to keep it going.

  I didn't know why they caged me.

  "We’ve been expecting you," the man in white told me.

  Expecting what?

  Who's talking about little old me.

  "Do you know why the caged bird sings?" I asked the guard as the crate spun around and we made eye contact.

  Technically, the eye contact was mine. His face was hidden behind a face shield.

  I thought it was overkill wearing it inside, where there were no zombies, but my sense of fashion had been limited to jeans, layers of shirts and thick jackets since they came to town.

  Besides, if he was dressed like that, maybe he expected the Z to come through the door.

  If they did, I wondered how long I could cling to the top of the cage before my arms gave out, I fell to the bottom and they could reach me through the wire.

  The door opened and I clenched up, ready to jump.

  The man in white stepped through.

  Warren Cotton, Krew of Mardi Gras.

  He nodded to the guard who left the room. He shut the door behind him, and I relaxed a little. No Z yet.

  I wondered what the man in white had planned though. His suit was immaculate, but he did not look like he had a secret recipe with twenty-six spices.

  "You don't look comfortable," he said.

  I was just glad the spinning was stopping.

  "Where are the kids?"

  "The kids?" he noticed. "Not my kids. Not my children?"

  Bastard. I gripped the bars and flexed, testing the metal. It was a dog crate, it couldn't be that strong.

  "There are three guards right outside the door," he drawled. "I've ordered them to shoot you if you do something foolish. I hope that won't be necessary."

  "That depends Warren," the bars made a creaking noise as I pulled harder. "Did you order them to shoot me if I don't act foolish?"

  We locked eyes for a moment and I suspected he was taking a measure of me.

  "Your children are fine," he said. "They're finishing the tour."

  No way to check. I had to take his word for it. But it was an olive branch. I released the bars and he seemed to relax too.

  “I have heard rumors of you.”

  “I can’t say the same.”

  “One man destroying entire communities just to find his children.”

  “When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”

  “Now here you are.”

  Cotton shoved the bottom of the cage with the tip of his gleaming cowboy boot. It swung back and forth over the concrete floor, rotating in a slow circle that made balancing on the thin cross bar tough. The muscles in my thighs were on fire.

  “What ever will we do with you?” Cotton drawled.

  I gripped the pipes of the cage as the room spun around me. The fat man in the white suit twirled into view and out.

  “Are you here to destroy my home?” he shoved out a boot and stopped the spinning.

  “Isn't Krew a plural?”

  “It is. And I am. A self-declared Krew of one. This is my crew of many. My Crew. See the difference?”

  I shook my head.

  “One is a K, one is a C. Krew versus Crew.”

  It's the same thing, I wanted to say. A kid in kindergarten would make the spelling mistake. But he was from New Orleans. I knew people in NOLA and they love the Krew, a Mardi Gras tradition. There were Kings and Queens, belles and beaus, and more trombones than anyone would ever see outside of on orchestra or high school band.

  The Krew watched my face. His cheeky jowls quivered as he chuckled.

  "You'll spend too much time trying to figure it out, so just let me clue you in on it. I am the HMFIC around here. Do you know that that means?"

  I did.

  "Then
we won't have any problems. If you need to think of it a different way, this is a kingdom and I am the absolute ruler."

  "I got it."

  "Then we won't have a problem, will we? Why are you here?"

  Part of me wanted to say "Because I passed out on the river and my panicked kids pulled into your port."

  Another part wanted to say, "Because I want my kids to be safe."

  But he thought I came to destroy his world, which had my brain spinning like the cage I was suspended in.

  He paced in the opposite direction of the twirl.

  "I've worked very hard to build up these walls, to keep the riff raff out, as it were. The undead, the people who would destroy our world. Those who relish in the misfortune of others."

  "I'm not any of those," I pointed out.

  He chuckled.

  A chuckle was good. It meant we were finding common ground. That's what they teach you in any speech class. Get the audience laughing with you and you win them over.

  "No," he grabbed a bar and stopped the cage.

  Warren put his face close to the bar, within my reach if I chose to lunge.

  "You are something else entirely."

  It was a test.

  I recognized it and stayed in the corner, legs trembling from being in a squat for so long, arms clenched against the metal.

  He nodded and smiled.

  "You know, don't you."

  I wasn't sure what I knew, but I nodded anyway. Better to have the King of Mardi Gras give me credit than open my mouth and prove I was a fool.

  "You passed the test."

  He let go of the bar, and the cage did a slow turn. Guard stepped through the closed door, one with a shotgun, not necessarily aimed at me, but in my general direction.

  The second marched to the cave and unlocked the door. He held it steady as I climbed out.

  Warren waited by the door.

  "I think you will find I am a reasonable man," he drawled. "I like to dine while I think, it aids the digestion. I'd like you to join me."

  He motioned to the door with an out swept hand.

  The guard with the shotgun stepped to one side and moved the weapon my way. Not at me.

  But a threat.