Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2)

by Durnin, S. P.

  She could handle the zombies. She could handle the constant fear and death. She could handle the uncertainty of whether or not they'd live through another day. What she couldn't handle was Jake sacrificing himself. The thought of never seeing him again. Kissing him again. Feeling her heart beat wildly as he held her.

  “Kat,” she said, clutching George's arm, as Rae activated the hydrogen drive and began bringing the Mimi to life. “I need to talk to Kat.”

  * * *

  “He didn't!” Penny exclaimed as she ran across the tamarack beside Gwen and Elle.

  The trio had spent the last few minutes scurrying about the control tower, attempting to locate Kat to no avail. The pretty ninja-girl wasn't in the second hanger Warren Jenner, Bee, and the other two members of his little survivor group had sheltered either, which left the rear offices of the Mimi's hanger for them to check.

  “Fraid so.” Gwen sped along beside her in Elle's wake. “It sounds like something Jake would do. He's one of the bravest people I've ever known. Not the most intelligent when it comes to not doing super-dangerous stuff on his own mind you—which does nothing but piss off both Laurel and Kat—but definitely one of the bravest.”

  “I can't believe he'd be that stupid!” Elle slammed the door to the Mimi's parking place open and hurried for the rear. “There's no way in hell he could pull off a swap like that. Not without support and one hell of a lot of firepower.”

  The three women ran through the offices, yelling for Kat as Penny asked, “We can catch up with him, can't we?”

  Gwen bit her lip. “I don't know. The Mimi is really awesome, but I don't think it's very fast. George has only had it up to about forty miles per hour. That might just be because of all the wrecked and abandoned cars on the roads though. I'm not sure if it can go any faster or not.”

  “It's an amazing piece of armor, but it’s still armor.” Elle was scowling like a thundercloud, kicking in doors as they searched the main hallway. “Abrams tanks can only get up to forty-five miles per hour, maybe fifty if you don't care about blowing the engine quickly or shaking the whole thing apart, but the Mimi's no tank. It seems to be more functional on actual roads than something with two steel tracks for a wheel-base. Maybe we'll be able to get to Jake. Before he does something else really stupid.”

  Penny and Gwen shared a skeptical look and continued yelling for Kat.

  * * *

  Justin Lowery had been having the time of his life.

  He’d always said The End would be something like this.

  Everyone in Flovilla, Georgia—the nearest town roughly nine miles away—had laughed at him for years about it. Well, they weren’t laughing so loudly now, were they!

  The diminutive man had spent the last eleven years of his life readying himself for just such a situation. He’d made millions—prior to the housing bubble bursting a few years back—selling overpriced mansions to addle-headed pop stars, and he’d prepared extensively for the inevitable fall of civilization. Lowery had built himself an underground home. Its walls were two-feet thick concrete with steel reinforcements that could withstand the force generated by the detonation of an atomic bomb. He had an efficient solar power system, dual six-thousand gallon potable water tanks which were supplied by the entire four-thousand foot surface of his large roof, the works.

  He’d stockpiled food. Twenty-five years’ worth of freeze dried food, purchased in bulk from online supply stores, nearly all of it as tasty as that provided in the five-star restaurants he’d used to frequent in St Louis.

  He’d read numerous books on wilderness survival, taken land navigation courses, learned to forage his area for wild edibles to supplement his horde of supplies, lost his beer gut doing lots and lots of cardio, and was able to run for over five miles now before becoming winded.

  When the dead began coming over the hills from Flovilla, however, he would’ve traded every bit of it for a simple, bolt-action rifle.

  Prior to the outbreak, Justin Lowery had been an emphatic anti-gun advocate.

  -Chapter Nine-

  Jake felt like the Pied Piper.

  The trip to the Ohio-Kentucky border had begun with unloading the Hummer he currently drove in the wee hours of the morning. He'd removed the Starlight and thermal scopes prior along with most of the weaponry, with the exception of its mini-gun. It would've taken too long, and surely he would've made far too much noise unbolting the weapon, so he'd had no choice but to leave it.

  It hadn't taken long to empty the vehicle. He'd spent far more time writing the note he'd left for Laurel. That had taken a quite a while. He'd been torn about how much to actually say to her. Not just because he knew the others would likely read it too, but because he didn't want to cause her more pain. His leaving would hurt her; there was no way to avoid that. However, giving himself over to Poole would buy Karen's freedom.

  O'Connor cared for Laurel deeply. He honestly couldn't picture his life without her any more. He knew he'd fallen in love with her, but finally admitting it in a letter, just as he was preparing to drive headlong to torture and probable death? Not really the kindest thing to do. He'd thanked her for the time they'd spent together, trying to keep the tone light and failing miserably. Jake had considered rewriting it, but he'd spent two-thirds of his guard shift unloading the Hummer—and then on the note—so he'd needed to get moving. He'd left his guns and vest in the Mimi, keeping only his crowbar and its sheath, then walked from the hangar.

  Luckily, his group had kept their Humvee parked out front. George had been of the opinion that it wasn't worth opening up the immense doors a second time after they'd shut the Beechcraft’s hangar, and parked the Hummer before them. Jake had thought it to be a good idea as well. Leaving the armored vehicle outside meant they had the ability to quickly deal with a group of the creatures (if some of them managed to gain access to the airport grounds), without exposing their entire party to danger. He'd been very glad of that decision when he got behind the wheel.

  While the tarmac in front of the hangars was level—sort of—the service road fifty yards from the doors was actually sloped towards the gate by which his party had made entry into the airport. Pushing the Hummer had taken a lot of effort. O'Connor had been soaked in sweat after muscling its armored bulk across that expanse. He'd almost collapsed in sheer relief when the Humvee had begun rolling slowly down the gravel slope, and he had barely slogged his way forward into the cab when it began to accelerate downhill. Upon reaching the gate, he'd made damn sure none of the creatures were about before unlocking it, pulling the Hummer through, and quickly securing it again.

  Jake followed the route he'd outlined on the map in the glove-box. Watching for any of the creatures, he lit another American Spirit and thought about how crappy the trip west was turning out to be. They hadn't even made it out of Ohio yet for pity's sake.

  Other than the odd thump of a zombie bouncing off the steel of the ram-like front bumper, his drive to the Purifier's compound was relatively peaceful. It was forty-one miles from the old DHL hub to the Cincinnati Gas and Electric Lake and, since he was traveling back roads—hence, there were only a few easily circumvented wrecks—it only took a little over two hours for him to arrive. He stopped about a mile away and, using the binoculars he'd brought along, scanned the site's surroundings. Afterwards, he was extremely thankful he'd been so cautious.

  There were a lot of ghouls clustered in front of the plant's entrance.

  Even the pod Jake and the others had watched on the security cameras from safety inside George's safe-house, and the one he and Kat had narrowly escaped from when they'd fled Rebecca's grainery with Penny in tow, was dwarfed by the one outside the power plant. Jake had never seen a larger concentration of the things in one place before. Even the groups he'd spent hours avoiding on foot back in Columbus couldn't compare to that crowd. Their numbers most certainly were in the thousands. To him, it looked like a sea of moldering ruin outside the gate. A foul-smelling wave, endlessly breaking against the heavy
barrier, in a maggot-riddled version of a rock concert from hell

  “Well. At least I know why Poole wanted the Mimi,” He muttered to himself wryly, as he watched the awful horde. “How the hell am I supposed to get through that??”

  He sat in the Hummer smoking, considering the lake-sized mob between himself and the Purifier's front door. There was no way even the Humvee could make it past so many zombies. The things may not be able to breach its armored shell due to all of Rae's modifications, but he wouldn't be able to power through a mass that size, at any speed. Their numbers would eventually flip even his heavy vehicle, leaving him ass-out in an overturned, zombie-proof, sardine can, where he would surely spend the next week dying of dehydration. What he needed was a distraction but—as far as he could tell—there was exactly squat around.

  Checking the map he found Pond Run Road to the south that might have a house or three. It dead-ended into Route 52, which ran basically north-south next to the facility. If he could draw the creatures there somehow, it should provide him the opening he needed to gain entry to the compound.

  He circled in from the east and, four-hundred feet before reaching Route 52 again, turned the Hummer right onto a private drive leading to a fairly large home. As Jake pulled to a stop, he noticed not only a modest, two storey, guest home/garage out back butted up against an in-ground swimming pool, but also a full-sized tennis court. While he hated to do it, the guest house should provide everything he'd need to start herding the creatures. Shutting down the Humvee, he jogged quickly across the drive and pried the door open.

  “Anybody in there?” he called inside and waited, crowbar at the ready. He repeated the question a few more times, then stood listening intently for any sign, any sound, any hint of movement.

  A few minutes later, since nothing had come shambling out to try to bite his face off, Jake moved carefully into the garage—after jamming a nearby chair under the outer doors knob—and started searching. It didn't take long to find a pair of five gallon gas cans. One was full, the other sat at about two-thirds. He wasted no time emptying the full one throughout the garage, hallway, front room, and the small kitchen on the ground floor. He turned on the stove and, as the unruly-haired writer hoped, the propane tank sitting next to the garage was full. The gas immediately began hissing from the burners and he sloshed yet more of the partial can over the stove. He headed for the front door, checked outside (just in case), then ran a thick line of gasoline to within ten feet of the Hummer's tailgate. O'Connor dropped the can in the yard and waited a good ten minutes while he had another smoke, before bringing the vehicle to life. After turning it around to face the road again, he took a last puff off the cigarette, and then tossed it into the line of gasoline. The trail caught immediately, so he laid some fresh rubber on the driveway as he sped from the property.

  He saw it when the fuel he'd splashed around the lower level caught, heard it when the gas in the kitchen exploded—shattering most of the guest-house's windows outward—but he felt it when the large propane tank blew seconds later.

  The tank being there to supply cooking fuel had been a stroke of luck. He had been certain he'd have been able to jury-rig some kind of noisemaker out of the battery from the car and an old alarm clock he found in the garage, but the thundering boom of all that propane igniting made it unnecessary. Fully a third of the guest house collapsed with the initial blast. Also, the entire western face was on fire—along with most of the ground floor—as he stepped from the Hummer and faced the intersection of Pond Run and Route 52. He pulled the Spas-12, semi-automatic shotgun from its resting place beside the driver's seat, set it to single shot, and began firing at the yield sign four-hundred feet away. Squeezing of one shot every twenty seconds, he kept shooting until the weapon's eight plus one capacity had been exhausted, reloaded, and repeated the process twice more. Then he shut down the vehicle and listened.

  The dead were coming.

  He could hear the hellish symphony of their low, gurgling moans getting louder, even over the roar of the blazing guest-house.

  “He-e-e-e-ere zombie, zombie, zombie!” He called, feeling decidedly reckless. The last thing you wanted to do in the zombie apocalypse was make a shitload of noise by yelling at the top of your lungs, then hang around to see what showed up. “Breakfast is served you ugly fucks! Co-o-ome a-a-and get i-i-i-i-it!”

  He continued calling out, firing the occasional shot into the surrounding area, for fifteen minutes or so. Then the dead began rounding the corner to the west. They were (as usual) horrible in the extreme. It was difficult to determine where clothes ended and flesh began on some, due to all the deterioration. Frayed shirts and dead skin sloughing off arms and torsos were frighteningly similar. All the grit and grime and gore and mud and blood didn't help much, either.

  Jake had plenty of time to study the growing crowd as it began flowing east towards him. The gray-skinned things were becoming more animated due to the noise of the fire, but also at seeing him waving at them in the distance. He could've sworn the same feral expression was displayed in unison, as hundreds of filmy eyes locked onto his position.

  The creatures didn't show emotions. They had none to speak of. So what was it he saw in their faces as they moved towards him? Anger? Hatred? O'Connor realized, as he watched them stumble on in putrid, single minded purpose, that it was hunger. Mindless, all-consuming hunger. He felt the cold thrill of fear shoot up his spine but pushed it down again until it lay squirming in his stomach like an icy tapeworm. Tossing the Spas on the passenger seat, Jake hastened back into the Hummer and slammed the door shut. It only took a few seconds for its glow plug to power up and, after bringing the armored vehicle to life, he quickly drove a few hundred yards farther to the east.

  Over the next quarter hour, he continued luring the creatures in increments away from the Purifiers location. In all honesty, he'd much rather have blown the gate of their impromptu fortress from its hinges with an RPG, and then watched the dead eat the lot of them. He would've too, if they hadn't been holding Karen. Once he finally reached the one mile mark, he put the pedal down and raced north-west again, circling around to the facility's gate.

  There were still a few ghouls in the road, just before the entrance. Maybe thirty or so. Close to the number he and Kat had fought in the alley behind Foster's Columbus safe house. They heard the Humvee coming and began shuffling, or crawling—since there were a few missing their legs and even entire lower torsos—towards the source of the noise.

  He ran the stinking things over, grinning all the while.

  Jake made three passes, turning around each time a short distance past the group so he could get them all. It was moments like this that brought a smile to his face. Granted, a certain redhead could generate one that was larger and far more lasting, but at this point he'd probably never get to see her again, so he'd take what he could get. Bodies and limbs went flying as the Hummer rammed through the pack. Many were killed outright by the impact of its reinforced, steel bumper, or by their skulls being pulped as they smashed against the hood and armored quarter panels.

  After backing over the final pair who were still attempting—unsuccessfully—to rise, due to having their spines and legs crushed, he turned into the driveway. Upon reaching the gate, he gave two brief honks on the vehicle's horn.

  The sentries were noticeably impressed at the sight of the gore-covered Humvee from Hell, because they just stood there staring at it, holding their weapons in unfeeling hands. Jake took a chance and rolled down the driver's side window carefully. While the grid-work of steel bars on the outside would prohibit zombies from getting their hands on him, they had little chance of stopping bullets.

  “Somebody order a large pepperoni with extra anchovies?” he called up at the guards.

  The quartet glanced at each other.

  “What are you doing here?” one called down to him.

  “Poole's expecting me,” Jake responded. “Now, are you assholes going to open up? Or do I get him on the
horn and tell him the deal's off because his doormen have better things to do?”

  That got the sentries moving. Jake rolled up the window again and waited impatiently as they moved something from behind the gate, just in case any of the creatures didn't actually stay occupied with the house fire, or a crafty one was hiding in the overgrown strip beside the entrance.

  “Smart-ghoul,” he breathed, smiling to himself. He would've really liked to have been able to say goodbye to Kat, even though he knew it would have caused people to ask questions. They'd become close, even if they'd never actually been intimate. Leaving the note for Laurel had been a must. That had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his entire life. It had hurt a hell of a lot to keep up a normal appearance at dinner as well. But just taking off, without letting the amazing blue-haired woman have so much as a word...

  He simply couldn't shake the memory of how she'd felt, body pressed against his own on the roof of the Agro-supply store, only a few nights prior. He couldn't forget how his pulse raced when she'd kissed him with those mind-numbing lips. For a moment, Jake could've sworn he could smell her perfume.

  Then the gate was swinging ponderously open. He dropped the Hummer into gear and slowly pulled through, taking note of the semi-trailer sitting to one side. It was hooked to a small bulldozer, allowing the guards to swing it around and reinforce the entrance quickly if need be. Not a bad secondary barrier all in all he decided, remembering Rae's gate at the junkyard.

  A group of men, armed with everything from AK-47s to SIG 516s, waved him towards a large, Quonset-hut style bay on the right, sixty yards inside the gate. Jake pulled the vehicle in, killed the engine, and lit another smoke. After taking a healthy lungful, he passed the strap of his crowbar sling over one shoulder and stepped out.