Duncan looked in the mirror and spied Phil with his hands at the proper ‘
ten and two ’ on the wheel. “It almost did you in Phil, old boy,” he said aloud. Then he drove on in silence. A totally glorious vacuum of space type of silence.
Chapter 20
Outbreak - Day 15
Schriever AFB
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Taryn took a sharp right and bounded up the steps of a much nicer structure than Wilson could have imagined she would call home. “We’re here,” she proclaimed proudly.
He waited patiently, kicking an errant pebble with the toe of his boot as she worked the lock. He could feel the subtle twinge as the sun cooked his pale dermis. Suddenly he was self-conscious of his appearance. What really worried him was that maybe the brim of his hat hadn’t provided adequate coverage for his nose, and when he removed it he might be mistaken for Ronald McDonald. Oh well, he thought. At least there was one positive thing about having a sunburned face. It provided good camouflage for a blushing fool like him.
He admired the row of squat pre-fab buildings. All were painted the same battleship gray as most everything else on the sprawling base, and with their rectangular angles and flat roofs he thought they belonged inside a prison’s walls. In a way, the entire base had become quite penal to him these last few days.
“This thing is tricky,” she said over her shoulder. Then, after fiddling with the lock for a few seconds, the tumblers fell and she made her way into the shadowy interior. “It’s dark. Watch your step.”
Wilson noticed a slight drop in air temperature when he reached the top step. Then, as he crossed the threshold into the spacious living quarters, a refreshing blast of conditioned air enveloped his body, causing a wave of goose bumps to break out on his pale arms. He whistled, a long drawn out note that commingled with the low thrum emanating from within the room.
“Surprise,” Taryn said, her arms spread wide like Vanna White giving away a new car. The air inside her quarters was at least thirty degrees colder than the air outside, and through her black tank Wilson couldn’t help but notice her nipples reacting to the shock.
Surprise indeed, he thought. Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away, turned and crossed the room. “How in the heck did you score this?” he called out as he spread his arms and wallowed in the cold air blasting him. Shoehorned into a window, two feet above a row of desks lining the wall to the right of the entry, the boxy modern unit looked out of place—like some kind of an afterthought that had been added recently.
Taryn parted the curtains flooding the room with natural light. “It was already there when they assigned this trailer to me. It’s funny though, I keep waiting for them to figure it out and send me packing. That’s one of the reasons why I haven’t gone out much since I got here.”
“You’ve been here three days—right?”
“I did the mandatory twelve plus hours of quarantine first. Followed by two and a half days of self-imposed solitary right here.” She shrugged. “Might as well call it three.”
“When you arrived here did they give you the TSA pat down and the full naked search?”
Taryn nodded. “You?”
“Yep. I received the full on drop the shorts once over. And the whole ‘have you been bit?’ yada, yada, yada,” Wilson said.
Taryn nodded. “I’ve never felt more violated... and I’ve been through my fair share of airport security.”
“I wouldn’t think that would rattle you. You seem really confident to me. Like you could handle yourself before all of this. You know, with guys and stuff. But against the monsters, how’d you pull that off?”
“One day at a time.”
“Sounds like one of those twelve step slogans.”
Taryn didn’t get the reference but laughed anyways. Then she suddenly became aware of the climate’s effect on her anatomy, and folded her arms across her chest and smiled sheepishly at Wilson.
“I have a sister, remember... I’ve seen ‘em before.”
“Gross—” she cried.
“No, no, no...” he stammered. “I didn’t mean outside of her shirt. At least not since me and her were kids.” The more he said the deeper the hole got. So he clammed up. The last thing he wanted to do was get on her bad side.
Taryn glared from across the room, arms still clamped in front.
He blushed, but thankfully the red badge of embarrassment was masked by the second degree sunburn that made his face feel like he’d been bobbing for apples in a tub of Tabasco.
Trying to salvage any modicum of respect she might have for him, he quickly changed the subject. “You want to talk about... things?”
“I’m ready.” She crossed the room and took a spot on the lower bunk, her thigh resting a few inches from his. “Where to start?”
“From the beginning,” Wilson said in a low voice.
She drew a deep breath and began by describing how the two passenger jets—one from Salt Lake and one from Vegas—had delivered the Omega virus to Grand Junction Regional. She went on about witnessing her family, friends, and the entire world outside die over the span of a few short days, in real time, via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, brought front and center on the Retina display of her iPhone. She described her glass-walled prison at the airport—her undead boss’s office—as a skybox seat to the end of her old life. She recounted how her boss, Richard Lesst—also known, not so affectionately, as Dickless—had constantly harassed her when he was still alive. Then she gleefully recounted how the nonstop nitpicking and sexual innuendo had finally died when he did, going so far as to describe in painstaking detail how his rotting, lifeless corpse had stared at her through his own office door for nine straight days.
“So what happened to Dickless?” Wilson asked.
“I shot the fucker.”
Struck by the irony of the situation, Wilson lost it. And wracked by uncontrollable laughter, he collapsed onto the bunk which jounced under them after each of his full body spasms.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “You killed Dickless. The Cohen brothers couldn’t have written a better ending.”
“That’s not all.”
“There’s more.”
“It’s not as funny.”
“Lay it on me.”
Taryn stretched out on the bunk next to the redhead, gazed up at the loadbearing slats above her, and finished telling her story.
“So after you survived the fall from the airport terminal and shot Dickless dead, a silent helicopter full of soldiers scooped you up.”
She reached up and drummed her fingers on the bunk bed overhead. “That’s what happened.”
“Sounds like something out of a Michael Bay movie. But I believe you.”
“I’m done spewing, Wilson. I’m not kicking you out. In fact, as cliché as this may sound... I need you to stay and just hold me.”
He shifted his gaze, looked into her eyes.
“Just hold—” she said, and then quickly looked away. But before she did Wilson noticed a crack in her brave facade. She seemed embarrassed by the simple request. Hell, he couldn’t blame her. After a long moment she regained eye contact and the corners of her mouth upturned into a half-smile. “At least for now,” she cautioned. “And I’m going to warn you... I’ll be thinking of my dad at first.”
Wisely, Wilson said nothing, and there was silence except for the low hum from the wall unit.
“Why couldn’t I have died like everyone else?” Taryn asked. Then her body went into convulsions as those final words crossed her lips. She rolled over, facing away from him, and with sobs wracking her body drew her legs and arms into a fetal ball.
He wrapped his gangly arms around her and drew her body closer. Abruptly his own survivor’s guilt reared its head. His thoughts turned to his own father whom he hadn’t had much contact with since he was a little boy; for all he knew he was probably dead before the outbreak started. Then he shut that part of his past away and thought abo
ut his mom and all of the things that he had been meaning to tell her, but thanks to the dead would never have the opportunity to. And as he lay there spooning with the young woman he wanted to get to know better, his throat constricted and his own bottled emotions welled to the surface.
***
Shivering and disoriented, Wilson woke up first. He dodged his eyes around the room. After a few seconds he remembered where he was, but since his watch was on his left wrist and his left arm was trapped under Taryn’s dead weight, he had no clue what time it was. Not being used to sleeping during the day had left him feeling groggy and hung over. Like someone had jammed cotton balls into his cranium, his thinking had gone fuzzy. So he closed his eyes, lay still, and tuned in to the rising and falling of Taryn’s chest, let himself be comforted by the calm steady tempo to her breathing. Still sleeping, he thought. Then the realization that he had left Sasha alone to fend for herself, God knows how long ago, hit him like an electric current. While holding Taryn’s head off the pillow with his right hand, he tried to worm his left arm out from under her limp form. Almost there, he thought. Don’t wake her up. Because if she’s anything like Sasha, he thought to himself, there’ll be hell to pay if I do. His arm was almost free, when suddenly he found that he couldn’t move it any farther. Good job, Wilson. He supposed his watch was snagged on her long braided hair.
He lowered her head to the pillow. “Taryn,” he whispered.
She mumbled something unintelligible, then rolled towards him, curling his arm up in the process.
As he recalled Operation Arm Removal, a morbid smile crossed his face. Oh how the tables had turned, because this time it was his arm that had become stuck in someone else’s hair.
He tried again, a little bit louder this time. “Taryn, wake up.”
Nothing. He couldn’t coax a twitch out of sleeping beauty.
“Taryn!”
Two things happened simultaneously. She came up swinging, landing two well-placed blows to his chest, thus freeing his arm which hadn’t been entangled in her hair after all. However, the thin filament with the thumb drive hanging from it had been. The clear line snapped, resulting in the metal drive going airborne and finally coming to rest underneath one of the desks.
“What the heck, Wilson!”
He tapped his Timex. “I didn’t want to wake you but your necklace was hooked on my watchband.” He rubbed his chest through his shirt. “Gonna bruise up good.”
“Well you scared the shit out of me. Up until today I’ve been sleeping with one eye open.”
“Because of your boss?” Wilson asked her.
“Mainly him and Karen. She worked at the Subway at the far end of the concourse. They’ve been visiting me in my nightmares. I’m sooo afraid to close my eyes.”
“Could have fooled me. You were out, o-u-t, out. Almost like you had been drugged or something.”
“I felt safe, Wilson... for the first time in a long time... I felt secure in your arms. And I have only you to thank for that.”
Wilson’s eyes went wide and he nearly threw up in his mouth. Not because her words seemed trite or insincere, but because he sensed that he was venturing into uncharted waters. Then another one of his mom’s favorite sayings popped into his head, ‘Be careful what you wish for, Wilson.’
“Let me get this for you,” he said, changing the subject while at the same time trying to deflect her praise. He crossed the room and retrieved the brushed aluminum thumb drive.
Taryn went silent as she observed the redhead turn the device over in his hands, giving the thing more scrutiny than a thumb drive in a world with few operable computers deserved. And when he walked his gaze over to meet her eyes she noticed that the color had drained from his face—sunburn and all.
“What’s the matter, Wilson,” she asked, worry cracking her voice. Fearing that he was suffering from a touch of heatstroke and was getting ready to pass out or something, she bolted to his side. “Are you OK? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“I think I just did.”
Taryn made a face, then stared at him trying to decide if she needed to get him to a doctor—if there were any left, she thought to herself. He ignored her. Just stood there staring at the drive resting on his open palm. Then, after a few seconds of quiet layered atop the subliminal rumble of the hardworking A/C unit, he spoke up. “Where did you get this?”
She grabbed his elbow, guided him to one of the U.S. Air Force issue metal chairs, and parked him there. “I found it sticking out of that top bunk,” she finally replied. “Wrapped up with some Oreos. Why do you ask? It’s probably filled with nothing but country and western music anyway.”
From his seated position Wilson had to look up to meet her eyes. “Take a look at this...” He held up the drive and pointed to the words ‘Property of the C.D.C.’ “The C stands for Centers, the D is for Disease—”
“The other C stands for Control,” Taryn said, finishing Wilson’s sentence. “And why would that be here in Colorado Springs?”
He turned the drive over.
“Do you know who Fuentes is?” Taryn asked.
“I recognized the name but the letters didn’t make sense... at first. Now, I think I know the answer to both of your questions... but I need to go see somebody to be certain.” Gripping the drive between his thumb and forefinger he held it in the air. “And I need to take this with me.”
He snagged his boonie hat off of the desktop, crushed it over his hair pulling it down tight, and then in passing gave Taryn a quick peck on the cheek.
“You’ll need this too,” she proffered.
Wilson turned back to see what he was being ordered to take. She was holding the silver key that worked the lock to her lonely quarters.
“Come back and stay the night here. And please bring Sasha if she’ll come... let her know that she’s welcome here too.”
He glanced at his watch. More than three hours had passed since they’d left his sister in the mess hall. “OK,” he said. “I’ll see what she says. But if she doesn’t accept your olive branch I won’t leave her alone. She’s family.” He paused for a second and then jounced down the steps. And with that the door closed after him, cutting off the stark white light streaming in from outside.
Taryn stood alone in the trailer, stock still, allowing the cool conditioned air to flow over her. “You better come back to me Red,” she said aloud. “Or I’m going to have to come and get you.”
***
Twenty miles east of Yoder, Colorado
The needle edged past eighty. Smooth, Cade thought. He abruptly changed lanes and marveled at how the F-650’s body exhibited a lot less roll than expected.
Next, still clipping mightily along the laser-straight interstate, he steered directly towards an unmoving human form laying spread-eagle perpendicular to the centerline. And as the truck passed over the supine Z, its stout suspension shrugged off the rotten obstacle as if it hadn’t even been there.
In the distance, the Rockies were becoming more pronounced, meaning that Schriever wasn’t far off. Farmhouses blurred by, rusting farm equipment and old cars languishing in the sun.
But the clear straightaway didn’t stretch on forever. So Cade chose an arbitrary spot which he guessed to be about a football field’s length away, and then, gripping the wheel tightly, he eased off the gas and stood on the brakes.
A violent judder rocked the truck, vibrating from the road through the massive tires, ran through the frame and right up his spine. It lasted for a fraction of a second and then the ABS—antilock braking system—began to automatically pump the brakes faster than any human being could.
The massive pick-up slewed minutely and then stopped short of the pair of wrecked SUVs he had chosen as the imaginary end zone of his imaginary three-hundred-yard run out. “I’ll take it,” he said jokingly to the imaginary salesman sitting in the passenger seat. “Put it on my AmEx.” He let himself enjoy a rare moment of uncontrollable laughter.
As the blu
e-gray smoke from the superheated rubber wafted by the driver’s side window, he reached back and gripped his M4. He popped the door and slid out of the cab. Once he was standing on the hot asphalt, he shifted his gaze, letting his eyes follow the dual black stripes painting the road some seventy yards behind the idling Ford.
Keeping one eye peeled for Zs, he hopped up onto the rear tire, collected the empty gas cans and the length of hose from the bed, and then jumped back down, his Danners sticking slightly to the sun-scorched asphalt.
Returning his attention to the tangle of American iron, he strode purposefully toward the back of the vehicle that did the rear-ending. Noticing some movement up the road to the west, he propped the M4 against the rig’s rear tire and set the hose and cans in the shadow of the big red Suburban. He popped open the filler door with his Gerber and twisted off the cap. He inserted a couple of feet of hose, and as much as he hated this part of a necessary evil, sucked until the vile-tasting liquid hit his lips.
One after the other, he filled the four extra cans while ignoring the handful of walkers that were now only a dozen yards away.
“Bring it,” he growled at the noisy monsters as he returned to the Ford and deposited the liberated fuel into the bed.
Without a moment to spare, he turned back to face the creatures. He snicked the M4’s safety off, and in his best Eastwood said, “Not your lucky day.” Starting with a leathered first turn, he worked the muzzle left to right, emptying the entire magazine one accurate head shot after the next into the moaning crowd.
Barrel still smoking, he tossed the carbine on the seat ahead of him and clambered aboard his new ride. Leaving the interstate littered with twice-dead zombies, he set a course west.
Next stop Schriever .
Chapter 21
Outbreak - Day 15
Winters’s Compound
Eden, Utah
Allegiance Page 14
