Allegiance

by Shawn Chesser

  That the interchange was choked with dozens of shambling undead, and led to nowhere he wanted to be, quickly solidified his decision to go right and trudge up the pass road.

  Wavering on unsteady legs, he gripped the wooden fencepost for balance. He lifted his right foot and inspected it from the big toe to the heel, then plucked a handful of inch-long thorns from the cracked and bleeding flesh. Thought about performing the same maintenance on the other foot—the one attached to the ankle he feared was broken—then dismissed the idea since there was no kind of feeling in it anyway. Flies bombed at his head then alit and skittered around with impunity on his mask of dried blood. With both hands he gingerly walked his fingertips along the inches-long gash running from just above his left eye to the crown of his head. His short-cropped black hair had soaked up a good volume of the blood lost, along with dirt and twigs, and then had dried thoroughly, stiffening up like a helmet. He looked at his fingers. “No blood,” he said aloud. The sound of his own voice, hoarse and gravelly, caused his heart to skip. Aside from the murderous brothers who’d left him for dead, he hadn’t spoken or heard another voice for quite some time.

  Ignoring the buzzing and flitting insects, he about faced and kept to the inside of the fence line. He limped along at half speed, passing dozens of the crude wooden crosses on which noncompliant Jackson natives—whom Robert Christian had decided were no longer necessary—had been crucified alive, then left as morbid examples for all to see: a warning of what would happen to anyone who didn’t buy in lock, stock, and barrel to his dystopian version of a New America.

  Chapter 32

  Outbreak - Day 15

  Schriever AFB

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  Throaty exhaust notes reverberated in the confines of the metal airplane hangar as Cade wheeled the gore-covered dust-bomb past a half dozen static aircraft in various stages of maintenance.

  Like everyone else on the base, from the handful of doctors on down to the airmen fixing chow at the mess, the crew chiefs and flight engineers were working with what they had— practicing their own version of triage on the small fleet of aircraft that now called Schriever home. The helos and aerial refueling birds received the most attention; the rest of the fleet received spit and a band-aid if the manpower became available.

  He backed the big Ford into the same spot where it had been parked earlier in the morning, set the brake and looked through the open hangar doors at the aircraft sitting on the tarmac just beyond Whipper’s office. One of the pair of charcoal-black Ghost Hawks—larger, but stealthier and nearly silent versions of the venerable H-60 Black Hawk helicopter—sat crouched on the apron. Its carbon fiber blades were tied down and both of the mini-guns had been retracted inside the bird, giving the appearance it was taking some sort of nap while the SOAR pilots who put it through its paces so capably were enjoying their seventy-two hours mandatory stand-down.

  Beyond the Gen-3 “Jedi Ride,” he could see the unmistakable outline of Marine One, the President’s hulking twin rotor Osprey. The bird’s V/STOL—Vertical and/or Short Take-Off and Landing—capability, paired with its 275-knot top speed and the fact that it carried a much larger fuel load than most helicopters made it a no brainer to ferry President Valerie Clay to and from the super secure Cheyenne Mountain complex. For a moment Cade stared, wondering why she was here at the base. Then he zeroed in on First Sergeant Whipper’s stomping grounds. Though it was at an oblique angle, he could just make out the taxi-yellow door which he expected would fly open any second and disgorge an angry mechanic hell bent on revenge. After a few seconds had elapsed and the wrath of Whipper hadn’t descended on the road-weary operator, he unfolded himself from the truck and hopped out.

  The tailgate hinged down with a gunshot-like bang and a puff of powdery soil. Shooing the dust from his face, he removed the cardboard box that was almost lost in the middle of Yoder’s main drag. He made short work of the strapping tape holding the rectangular box together, then unfolded the sides flat to the floor, revealing a host of chromed and multi-colored parts. He looked at the components for a few long seconds. Undeterred, he set off on a quest for a toolset.

  ***

  Two hours, several scraped knuckles, and a host of salty curse words later—most of them fully accredited to the late Mike Desantos—Cade stood back to view the finished product. Fully satisfied that he had done his best with what he’d had to work with, he stowed the tools and locked the Ford. Finally, he righted the shiny new contraption and headed for the Grayson billet.

  Chapter 33

  Outbreak - Day 15

  Near Driggs, Idaho

  “Let’s hope the fourth time’s the charm,” Lucas Brother said as he put the H2 into park.

  “We won’t know until we get inside,” Liam said. “After the last three you’d think this is a dry county or some shit.”

  Lucas rubbed his temples. The cold sweats had returned, and his headache was getting worse by the minute. This search for booze and a place to stay was beginning to wear him down.

  “Quit yer stalling,” Liam said. “It’s your turn, bro... get out and ice those things.”

  “Hell, you mean get out?” Lucas spat, throwing Liam a sidelong glare. “I’m driving, dumbass. I thought we agreed... the driver always stays in the truck. Didn’t you learn anything from the 189 Junction? We almost bought it back there.”

  “Yeah, right. The driver stays in unless I’m the driver,” Liam muttered under his breath.

  “I heard that,” Lucas shot back.

  The house at the end of the driveway was unremarkable. It was one notch up from a mobile home and appeared to have been a one-level ‘50’s ranch style before someone decided that adding an unsightly second floor on top to double the square footage seemed like a good idea. Painted beige, with lavender trim that screamed “old folks live here,” the humble abode seemed to be unoccupied.

  “Looks promising,” Liam said. “And that old pickup might have some gas in it we can siphon.”

  Lucas squinted. Took a long look at the burgundy older model Chevy. Checked out the house trying to detect any movement. “All right... get out and pop the gate.”

  Liam looked out the rear window in the direction of the road they had just turned from, staring hard at the three creatures stumbling along the blacktop. Then the wind shifted and their moans carried uphill along with the smell of death. He looked over at Lucas, who was grinding the wheel with his palms. “I’m not getting out here. It’s your turn,” Liam declared. He crossed his arms and pressed his body hard against the seatback.

  “Suit yourself, Liam. I’ll push that fucker in with the bumper.”

  “No sense in smashing it up if we don’t have to,” Liam whined. “Besides, I’ve never had anything as nice as this thing. Shit... never had anything with leather seats.”

  “Who says it’s yours?”

  A staring match ensued. Neither brother so much as blinked.

  Finally, with the zombies drawing nearer and his eyeballs drying to the point that they were beginning to sting, Lucas relented. “Fine... let me show you how it’s done, bro.” He snatched the entrenching tool from the back seat. It was a medium-sized military shovel with a serrated edge that folded down small and compact. Ian Bishop had no doubt left the thing in the Hummer and it had already proven useful at killing silently.

  He unfolded his long frame from the Hummer and slammed the door behind. And with a swagger that belonged in the Octagon, he loped towards the undead trio. “You’re trespassing, fuckers!” he bellowed, veins on his neck bulging. The zombies answered back with muted hisses of their own.

  He chose the smaller of the three, a teenager he presumed, judging by the video game-inspired tee shirt. Modern Warfare didn’t prepare you for this, Lucas thought darkly. Hardest war this kid ever faced was against puberty, he mused. And that was before something chewed half of his face and a goodly-sized chunk of his neck away.

  Lucas stopped mid-stride, and then when the former gam
er was at arm’s range, put everything he had into swinging the entrenching tool. It traced an arc parallel with the ground, and with a gut-churning crunch struck the creature just above the ear, delving a half a foot in before the serrated edges seized on bone. He held the limp body up with one wavering arm, planted a boot on the soldier silhouette painted in the center of the soiled black tee shirt, and kicked the limp body from the shovel. Then he pivoted on one boot and squared up for the next two combatants. His nose crinkled at the stench wafting off of them. Only clumps of gray hair remained, dotting their skulls like furry islands in a white sea. First turns, he thought. Probably a couple of travelers who got stranded after the outbreak. An eerie wet rattle emanated from the nearest one, setting the hairs on his neck to attention. He raised his arms overhead like some kind of medieval warrior and brought the tool down in an overhead chopping motion. The blow missed by a fraction, glanced off of the Z’s skull, and severed its ear, leaving a wet hole where the decaying lump of flesh and cartilage had been. The ear plopped to the ground and the remaining inertia sent the shovel’s sharp edge plunging deep into the monster’s clavicle, severing muscles and tendon along the way. The arm, now rendered useless, hung limp at the creature’s side while it continued flailing and grabbing with the other. Cold fingers grasped at Lucas’s shirt as he struggled to pull the makeshift weapon free. “Motherfucker...” he cried out. He released the handle and felt a rising panic taking over. Then, against his better judgment, he pulled the .45 from his waistband and fired a single-jacketed hollow point into the walker’s head. The thing’s forehead imploded, spraying blowback in Lucas’s face. After a long couple of seconds it finally released its frigid grip and collapsed to the ground.

  Lucas shifted his aim and squeezed the trigger twice. The first round blew clean through the second zombie’s upper chest but did nothing to halt the abomination’s plodding advance. Things slowed and Lucas tracked the brass shell casing’s tumbling arc with his eyes. The second lead slug hit six inches higher, shattering its jaw into a hundred pieces and propelling teeth and bone upward through the soft palate, effectively destroying its brain. The body hinged back and struck the asphalt violently, producing a hollow-sounding thud. And as the booming reports rolled away to silence, he shifted his gaze towards the Hummer where Liam had thrown his arms into the air—a universal gesture silently asking his older brother—“what the fuck did you just do?”

  Lucas shrugged. He walked past the gas-guzzling symbol of excess and flipped his brother the bird. Standing on his toes, he reached over the fence, feeling for a lock. Nothing. He removed the six-inch cotter pin holding the gate in place, opened the clasp, and let the gate swing wide aided only by gravity. “Hurry up!” he bellowed, banging on the quarter panel as the Hummer squeezed by.

  Liam spun the tires, launching the truck over the threshold, and without missing a beat Lucas closed the latch to lock the dead out and vaulted into the idling truck.

  Pinning the accelerator to the floor, Liam barreled up the unimproved drive, keeping the truck’s tires glued to the well-worn ruts while the strip of grass growing in between slapped the underbelly of the SUV, producing an eerie swishing sound and leaving a turbid plume of husk and seed in its wake.

  “Nobody home...” Liam said as they neared the house with its darkened windows and closed front door. Whether it was a question or a statement Lucas couldn’t be sure. “No one’s shooting at us,” Liam added with a dumb grin pasted on his face.

  Lucas couldn’t resist. “Yet,” he replied.

  Liam turned the wheel sharply, decimating a family of garden gnomes with the Hummer’s off-road rubber. He smiled, obviously happy with his handiwork. He finished off the three-point turn without destroying anything else and backed the yellow rig up to the tiny front porch.

  The doors hinged open simultaneously and the brothers jumped out, weapons in hand. “You go around back,” Lucas called out, motioning with the AR-15. He jammed the dull gray .45 between his waistband and the small of his back. “I’ll stay here... give you a minute or so and then I’m going in. If there is someone inside they heard the gunfire and know we’re here. Watch for them rabbiting out the back.”

  “How far you think they’re gonna get?” Liam said, pointing out the AARP sticker displayed on the Chevy Silverado’s rusted rear bumper.

  “Don’t take ‘em for granted, bro,” Lucas fired back, pointing to the NRA sticker pasted on the rear glass slider. “Now git,” he snarled, and without any attempt at being stealthy mounted the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  Three strides and he was standing on the square porch. It was four-feet wide and nearly as deep. A sticker that read “NO SOLICITORS” was affixed to the inner door at eye level. “Ohhh... I’d better leave now,” he said in a smartass tone as he tried the outer screen door. He found it locked, but the metal mesh screen was nearly rusted out. He easily thrust his thumb through, enlarged the hole and angled his wrist so that he could reach the lock and pop it. To his amazement, the pair of ancient-looking hinges didn’t screech out an alarm as he eased the flimsy thing open.

  He peered through the inset glass. At first glance, the interior of the house seemed unoccupied and didn’t offer many clues. There was no movement in the living room, and he could see no farther than a shadow-filled hallway leading into the back of the house. The furniture was plain. A low table containing dozens of dust catchers displayed on yellowed doilies sat against the far wall, alongside an emerald green davenport. Dominating the opposite wall, the television sat on wooden legs, dark and quiet. It was an old console model of some sort, made from dark wood with a rounded glass screen that had probably displayed its fair share of Leave It to Beaver. Bingo, he thought to himself. Old folks. He jiggled the doorknob. Locked. In his mind’s eye he could see Liam standing in plain sight out back of the house. A bullet catcher if there ever was one.

  He brought the AR-15 level with his head, preparing to break out the leaded glass. But before he could follow through with the intended blow, a single gunshot, sounding like it came from Liam’s Beretta, rang out. He froze with the AR’s collapsed butt stock wavering an inch from the pane.

  Then someone began to shout but the words were garbled. Distant. Lucas grimaced because he couldn’t make out whose distressed voice he was hearing nor what was being said. He eased the screen door closed, backed off the porch, and instead of following in his brother’s footsteps he peeled off to the left, keeping his head below the windows as he padded past a number of chest-high bushes. He halted at the rear of the house, pinned his blonde hair behind one ear and listened for a second.

  But by now the shouting had ceased, and the only thing he could make out was the noise of some sort of fabric flapping and popping in the wind. He risked a one-eyed peek around the corner. Liam stood in the center of the yard, roughly thirty feet away, his face a mask of worry. The black Beretta clutched in his right fist was trained on an elderly woman who in turn was pointing a derringer-style pistol of her own directly at his midsection.

  A gust of wind ruffled the sheets on the line, revealing a man’s body lying near the woman’s slippered feet. He was splayed out, pale and unmoving, atop a pile of white sheets that had been splattered crimson with his blood.

  “Put it down,” Liam barked as he looked over his shoulder towards the front of the house.

  Lucas crouched low and sprinted a dozen feet to his left, keeping the line full of flapping laundry between him and the gun-wielding granny. He glanced over and could see the look of distress on Liam’s face change to one of recognition and then calm as their eyes met.

  “OK... I’ll put mine down if you put yours down.”

  The lady shook her head. She began bleating, “Why?” Saying it repeatedly, her scratchy voice rising in volume until her wails nearly drowned out everything else. The wind. The clothes on the line. And Lucas creeping up behind her with his pistol in a two-handed grip.

  The small gun trembled in the woman’s skeletal hand. Everythi
ng slowed down for Lucas as he cut the angle, taking his brother out of the line of fire. He pulled the trigger on the move and watched her head hinge sideways at an impossible angle as the slug impacted behind her left ear, splashing chunks of brain and ruptured skull onto the drying wash. The supersonic slap from the .45 caliber projectile lifted her from the ground and out of her fuzzy slippers. Death had come so quickly that the tiny Derringer remained unfired and was still clutched in her fist when her body fell back to earth.

  “Liam... you OK?”

  “I don’t know,” came a shaky reply as he checked his torso for bullet holes.

  “So why did you ice the geezer?” Lucas said as he stood over the man’s body. “He doesn’t even have a gun.”

  “Shit... you look at that face, it’s all pale and skinny. I shit you not, I thought the dude was a zombie.”

  “I can see the resemblance.”

  “Let’s see what they left us in their will,” Liam said. Chuckling, he stepped around the corpses, climbed the back stairs and entered the house through the open back door.