“No way, bro. I’m not going out there... it fuckin’ stinks. Plus the noise coming outta their pasty pie holes makes me want to shoot myself.”
“Get your ass out there or I’m going to shoot you, Liam,” he said, fixing him with a steely gaze. “And please refresh my memory... where’d you say you saw the minty-tasting stuff?”
Ignoring the last question, Liam unloaded on his brother. “I got the wire out of RC’s Cadillac. Then I jury-rigged the generator all so that you could watch your precious DVDs. So how about you go out there and you kill the thing.”
Silence. Except for the low level murmuring of the abominations pressing the front gate.
“Tell you what, bro,” Lucas hissed. A multitude of silver and turquoise bracelets clicked as he ran his baseball mitt-sized hands through his stringy blonde locks. “OK... I’ll do it. Don’t wanna... let’s call it a trade-off. I’ll take care of our other problem if you go outside and take care of the rest.”
Calculating the value of getting out from under one unenviable task—the messy job neither of the brothers Brother wished to undertake—and instead venturing outside of the mansion, Liam finally conceded. “OK. OK. I’ll go out there. Just kill that fucking repeating soundtrack,” he said angrily, pulling a bulky black semi-automatic pistol from his waistband and gesturing towards the high end Blu-Ray player built into the far wall. “Or I’m going to put a bullet through that goddamn thing.”
Stretching his arms to full extension over his head, Lucas clapped his hands. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
As Liam left the room, still in a bit of a huff, he called out, “Crème de Menthe is in the kitchen by the espresso machine.”
“Which kitchen?” Lucas called back as he crabbed sideways between the sofa and coffee table, tiptoeing through trash and broken glass.
“Downstairs kitchen,” Liam called back, the echo of his voice quickly drowned out by the calls of the dead the second he opened the outside door.
Wincing from the aural and olfactory bombardment, Lucas grabbed his go bag: a fully stuffed black nylon internal frame backpack, and his AR-15—a semi-automatic civilian version of the military’s venerable M-16. He visited the kitchen first to collect the libations, then went to the guest house to make good on his end of the bargain.
***
What’s the hold up, little brother, Lucas thought to himself as he manhandled the package into the back seat and closed the door. Fucker’s probably bogarting a bottle of the good stuff. He was cramming the backpack into the minimal space between the backseat and rear hatch when the overhead fluorescents hissed off, throwing the multicar garage into near darkness.
Good job little bro, thought Lucas.
Diffuse rays from the brutal summer sun infiltrated through the frosted rectangular windows inset high along the far wall, providing just enough light so Lucas could make his way around to the driver’s side of the Hummer without banging his knees on the beefy plate bumpers.
He ducked his head and forced his 6-foot-5 inch, well-muscled, two hundred and fifty pound frame into the SUV. His knees crushed against the padding under the dash and the crown of his head brushed the headliner when he tried to sit up straight. Fucking midget, he thought to himself, cursing the Hummer’s former movie star owner, who, when not on the big screen, was only a handful of inches over five feet and had left the seat all the way forward on its rails and jacked up to the maximum. The fucker must have looked like a little kid driving this big rig around downtown Jackson, Lucas mused as he adjusted the mirrors from the Lilliputian’s settings to something more reasonable. Perfect.
With the truck set up and ready to go, he made his way back into the house and walked right into a wall of questions.
“You put the M-60 back in the truck?”
“Yes Liam... immediately after you blasted the shit out of everything but that silent black helicopter. The veranda. The air. The air around the helicopter. And if I recall correctly, the bad guys killed Cheeto Cliff, Ed, and Hutsell, and then took off into the night with R.C. aboard,” came the monotone reply.
“Not my fault,” Liam mumbled. “That thing was stealth or some shit.”
Lucas grimaced and rubbed his eyes.
“Is the ride gassed and ready to go?” Liam asked.
“Yes Liam.”
Liam stood in the doorway staring down Lucas. “Did you take care of your part of the deal?” he asked.
“Yes Liam. Any more questions Liam?”
“Was it hard?”
“No Liam. We’ve got a couple of hours to kill Liam. Can you please shut the fuck up Liam.”
“Yes Lucas... where’s the Crème de Menthe?”
With a broad smile Lucas closed his eyes.
***
Three hours later at the ‘House’
“Wake up,” Liam whispered.
Oblivious to his brother’s presence, Lucas rolled over and farted
“It’s time. Let’s go.” Words were not going to work, he decided, and against his better judgment he put a hand on his slumbering brother and nudged him. Gently at first, and when that didn’t bring Lucas to, Liam resorted to a simulated 5.0 on the Richter scale. The latter approach resulted in him staring down the business end of Lucas’s brushed metal .45.
“Relax bro,” he said, slowly lifting his arms in surrender. “Let’s go.”
Shaking off the cobwebs, Lucas inquired about the dead.
“There are a lot less of them now. I told you the generators lured the pusbags.”
“Or the heavy machinegun fire. The helicopter. The gunfire inside the mansion. Take your pick, just don’t blame it on me wanting lights and a hot shower.”
“And Die Hard,” Liam added with a wide grin.
“Fuck off,” Lucas answered, patting his sibling on the back. “Let’s go... the H2 is ready. You unlatch the gate.”
“Yes Luke...” and with a sweep of his arm Liam said, “age before beauty.”
***
Liam popped the safety lever and with considerable effort sent the garage door on an upward journey.
“Get in the back,” Lucas said as he turned the key.
The inevitable questions that began spewing from Liam’s mouth were instantly drowned out as the Hummer’s four hundred horsepower engine roared to life.
“What the fuck...” Liam blurted when he opened the rear door and saw Lucas’s responsibility stretched across the floorboard, unmoving. Greeting him were the yellow-soled black canvas slippers still attached to Tran, who had been Robert Christian’s personal chef and sometimes driver. “Why in the name of God did you bring the body?”
Liam looked up, meeting the other man’s gaze in the rearview, and by the twinkle in Luke’s eyes immediately knew he was up to something.
Lucas replied with a one word answer. “Bait.”
“Bait,” Liam responded incredulously. “Those things only eat the living... right?”
Ignoring the query, Lucas inched the eyesore yellow H2 out of the garage and let it roll slowly over the cobblestone pavers and around the perimeter of the mansion. As the twelve-foot wall crept past the passenger windows and the gate came into view, the sounds of the dead became more noticeable.
“How many goons are out there?”
“Bout fifty to seventy-five,” Liam answered.
Lucas stabbed the brakes, stopping the Hummer just inside of the solid twelve-foot-tall gate. Coming from the floor, a muffled moan sounded as Tran’s body rolled forward and then returned to where it had been placed, face down across the transmission hump.
A string of expletives filled the cab and Liam launched off the seat. “Shit... he’s still alive!”
Lucas chuckled. “I clobbered him good. He went down like a sack of potatoes. He was out cold... plus he’s a little squirt. That’s why I only taped his hands.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal, Lucas. He’s gonna slow us down.”
“Like I said, he’s bait. Toss him out after I bull the gate o
pen. The goons will go for him and leave us be... at least most of ‘em should.”
“Good plan, bro. But you owe me one. Cause once again I’m stuck doing your dirty work.”
Tran regained consciousness and realized his wrists were bound but his feet were free. He kicked at the door with both feet, inviting a swift kick from his captor’s boot. Then a sharp pain shot through his scalp as he was pulled from the floorboards by his hair.
“Go,” Liam said as he man-handled the slight Asian man onto his knees and then used his muscular left arm to pin him upright against the seatback on the driver’s side.
“Pull off the tape so they’ll hear him scream,” Lucas called out over his shoulder.
Doing as he was told, Liam wrenched the duct tape from Tran’s face, taking with it several days’ worth of growth.
Silence… except for the rising crescendo of growls and moans coming from the agitated creatures.
Liam looked into the mute prisoner’s almond-shaped brown eyes. Somewhere in there he could sense a smoldering coal of hatred. It didn’t register on Tran’s slack expression—only in the man’s eyes. Suddenly Liam, who enjoyed a foot and a half height advantage and at least a hundred pounds over Robert Christian’s former chef, was breaking out with a case of cold feet.
The Hummer’s grill met the iron gate with a screech. Slowly, on well-oiled hinges, the thousand-pound gate began tracking a steady arc outward, pushing a number of the assembled zombies with it.
With dexterity and speed that belied their awful appearance, a clutch of creatures slapped at the fenders and hood of the slab-sided sport utility vehicle.
“Almost there,” Lucas stated. A gap widened between the gate and the compound wall, and he forced the rig through the undead throng, wrenching the steering wheel left and right.
Liam reached across Tran’s writhing body and couldn’t help but take another look into the man’s narrowed eyes. Fucker, Luke, he thought. This was too close and personal. A bullet would have been easier. Least I’d sleep better. He opened the door with a click, waited a beat...
“Now!” bellowed Lucas.
It was over in seconds. Lucas elbowed Tran, who barrel-rolled out and hit the pavers amongst bare feet and clawing hands. The door slammed and Liam urged his brother to step on it.
The dead, numbering at least a hundred strong, surged around the yellow vehicle, hungering for the fresh meat.
“Not a sound out of him,” Lucas said as he downshifted and maneuvered the H2 through the tail end of the herd, half of which had taken the bait; the rest swiped at the windows leaving a viscous blood-tinged residue.
“Fucking lemmings. Those things are pouring down the bluff,” Liam said, stealing a look through the narrow rear window. “Maybe he got away. The look he gave me was like a thousand-yard stare. Like he was on a fucking mission from God.”
“Don’t matter, he served his purpose,” Lucas said coldly. “And you know what, bro... I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t be makin’ lovey dovey googly eyes at you either if you were about to feed me to the goons.”
An uneasy silence prevailed.
Sunlight filtering through the high canopy splashed a mosaic of gnarled shadows across the slowly moving truck.
Lucas glanced at the rearview. “Bottom of the hill... what do you think? Should we go left or right?”
Receiving no response from his brother, Lucas thought it over for a second and made an executive decision. “We’re going right, over the Teton Pass. I’ve got a feeling the majority of the goons took the path of least resistance and followed 189. Jackson Hole’s probably swimming with them.”
“Teton Pass, here we come,” Liam said with all the enthusiasm of a Griswald on vacation.
“Liquor store, here we come,” Lucas added, making bubbles in the Crème de Menthe. “Want some, bro?”
After a millisecond Liam relented. “Why not? It’s noon somewhere.”
Lucas removed his eyes from the road for a brief time in order to hand the bottle back. And when they flashed forward he immediately knew they were in trouble. The H2’s huge disc brakes grabbed as Lucas jumped on the pedal. Smoke billowed from the colossal tires as he wrestled the rig from forty miles per hour to a dead stop.
“What the fuck?” Liam cried.
“Take a look.”
Liam poked his head between the front seats. Less than a car length away, in the center of Butte Road, two dozen dead were kneeling around a carcass the size of a compact car. The large three-point rack with the unmistakable rounded edges jerked with each hunk of flesh rent from the bull moose’s carcass. One by one, bloodied faces swiveled towards the H2. Then, totally forsaking their cloven-hooved meal, the creatures arose and like lifeless-eyed automatons lurched stiffly towards the yellow vehicle and the meat contained within.
“Go around or go over the top!” Liam yelled. “Do something. Please... just fucking drive.”
Stealing a sideways glance at his brother, Lucas was dismayed to see tears streaming down the younger man’s cheeks. At a loss for words, Lucas returned his gaze forward, pretended the Hummer was equipped with a cowcatcher, put the transmission into a lower gear and bulled the gathering dead out of his path. Pale hands high-fived the windows and bones crunched under the off road tires as he wheeled the wide Hummer around the seemingly immovable four-legged carcass. Engine groaning, the once yellow SUV parted the dead sea.
“You can look now, bro,” Lucas said as the truck gathered a head of steam. “They’re gone.”
Slowly Liam hinged up from the classic doomed airline passenger position he had assumed. He panned his head right and visibly shuddered at the sight of the sheen left on the window by the groping hands of the undead. He pulled his shirt to his face in order to wipe the accumulated sweat and surreptitiously stole a look through the pillbox-sized rear window—just in case.
“You lose a contact back there or something?”
“Something,” Liam shot back, visibly embarrassed. “Quit busting my balls and drive.”
Lucas chuckled as he shifted the whining gear box from four-wheel into normal two-wheel drive, and after three more tight hairpins the gore-streaked Hummer sat idling at the interchange.
Taking into account that in all likelihood Jackson Hole was overrun, there was only one way left to go. Lucas, being the smartass that he was, flicked his right turn indicator and looked both ways before turning onto the Teton Pass highway.
Chapter 16
Outbreak - Day 15
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
With the lurching throng literally nipping at his heels, Tran had thrown caution to the wind and hurled his body face first into the void. And after a landing violent enough to steal his wind, he skidded several yards down the pitch before gravity gave in to inertia and his feet traded places with his head. His slippers flew in two different directions and the underbrush tugged at his pajamas.
Thirty yards flashed by in dizzying fashion, and when he finally came to rest flat on his back, it was nothing short of a miracle that his bare feet pointed south and his trussed arms were not broken. Struggling to draw a breath, he stared at the bluebird sky. Then, reluctantly, he took mental inventory of his injuries. His left ankle throbbed angrily—no telling whether it was broken or sprained. The forked lightning pulsating up his spine brought him the most worry. What if a bone was broken back there and he moved and worsened the injury—maybe pinching the cord, leaving him paralyzed and helpless? His mind raced. The demons would surely get to him then. There would be nothing left for him to do but hope they started in on his lifeless legs. Pushing the worst case ruminations from his mind, he tested his theory and tried to wiggle his swollen and dirt-encrusted toes. Movement. A smile crossed his face. He bent his bloodied knees, testing the joints. Not so bad. The tartan pajamas that he had been wearing when Lucas had come to get him were in tatters, and adding insult to injury, he could feel a draft somewhere down below.
Strangely enough—though he had bashed his head repeatedly o
n who knows what on the way down, and swallowed a great deal of dirt in the process—his teeth still remained firmly anchored in his head. If he was going to have any chance of getting off the butte and eluding the undead mob, he had to find a way to free his wrists. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the pursuing zombies began to spill into the void. Dozens of pale limp bodies went cartwheeling downhill past him. Many more became entangled in the brambles and low brush on his left and right flanks.
Shocked into action, he rose, and trying his best to ignore the currents of pain arcing from his rapidly swelling ankle, attempted to put some lateral distance between himself and the undead raining down around him.
Maneuvering on the precipitous grade with the luxury of four functioning limbs would have been an achievement worthy of a mountaineering merit badge. Doing so with tightly bound hands that had turned from pink, to white, to a deep shade of purple and had lost all feeling proved to be impossible. After attempting one small step for Tran, he lost purchase, and once again watched sky and earth trade places too many times to count before a writhing drift of decaying flesh arrested his free-fall. Oblivious of the excruciating pain he was experiencing, he pushed up and away from the snapping and grabbing abominations and, as he sensed his body once again rag-dolling down the decline, his world suddenly went silent and dark.
Chapter 17
Outbreak - Day 15
Near Driggs, Idaho
Eight miles from the Teton Pass
Sometimes, when he closed his eyes and the smell of death was downwind or supplanted by the heady aroma of blooming roses as it was at this very moment, he could trick himself into thinking that the world was still somewhat normal. That the Omega virus was a thing from the movies or a figment of some twisted fuck’s imagination. That the infected didn’t die and then rise and hunger for living flesh. That his Moms was going to call at any moment and ask him about Heidi. Ask him if he’d been eating right or if he was getting enough exercise. At that moment, in his manufactured fantasy, he was off duty lounging at his little home in Driggs, waiting for Heidi to return from her nightshift at the Silver Dollar, and soon they would be enjoying each other intimately.
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