“We can’t leave him,” I said.
“Oh, fucking hell, it’s too late. He’s already bleeding out,” Diane said.
I grabbed Frosty around the collar and pulled her back, pushing her to the floor. The dog looked at me like she wanted to go out there and have the last word… that word being a few ripped out throats.
Steve fired one more time. Then his legs stopped scrabbling at the ground as the round punched into his head.
Douglas didn’t wait around to give a eulogy, and instead spun the Escalade hard to the left as he backed up. Gravel and dirt flew as he hit the gas. I held on, but kept my eyes glued to the shufflers who feasted on our companion.
At least he didn’t feel it. Steve was gone, along with half of his head. The gun still smoked where the barrel lay next to his temple.
###
34 – Bait and Switch
17:00 hours approximate
Location: Somewhere near Vista, CA
“What the hell just happened?!” I practically yelled.
The SUV was quiet with the exception of Frosty’s soft growls as Douglas drove us across the dead town.
Diane stared outside, one hand on the window and the other on her sidearm.
Christy held my shaking hand. Frosty panted between us, so Christy put a hand on the dog’s head and tried to reassure her, but our mutt wasn’t interested in quiet time. She wanted to go back and kick some ass. I felt the same way, but I knew better.
A pair of shufflers, a checkpoint overrun. A full army of Zs. As far as days starting out, this was not a good one.
“They came out of nowhere,” Diane whispered.
“I thought you all were good at this shit. There were no tactics just now. You went in like they were expecting a church service. No over-watch, no respect for the dead’s need to rip us to shreds…” I trailed off.
Diane turned to answer, but choked back tears instead. Douglas put a hand on Diane’s shoulder. She shrugged it off and moved a half step away.
“That’s never happened before. We have these forward bases setup for a reason. Guys stay and keep watch while we make our runs. We leave them scattered but safe. How the zombies found them is weird,” Douglas said like he was reciting a report.
“Weird? Shufflers and Zs are the new order. You never get comfortable, you never let your guard down. That was a goddamn massacre, and I’m surprised any of us got out alive.”
I was fuming. Who were these fucking amateur hour rejects? I hadn’t seen such a cluster in a long time, and didn’t ever want to see another one. Maybe Christy and I would be safer on our own.
“Thank you, man, for saving us. I’m glad you held onto your wrench. Hell of a weapon,” Douglas said.
He roared through a dead stoplight, and then slowed a block later to hang a left. Cars had been pushed off the road, except for a huge multi-trailer fuel truck that was jackknifed and sitting over the median and sidewalk. Tubes ran out of holes punched in the top.
I caught sight of a couple of scavengers who ducked into a building when the Escalade passed. One guy wore a hoodie and carried an assault rifle; the other lifted a handgun and didn’t exactly aim it at us--it was more of a warning. Douglas sped on and soon we were past them.
“Not stopping for everyone, I see?” I asked.
“No time, and look at them. They’re well-armed, and probably not interested in our little pitch. I gotta be honest, if not for Diane coming across you both I would have just left you alone. Now I’m glad I didn’t, because you have some decent skills out there, my friend,” Douglas said.
“Steve’s fucking dead, and all you can talk about is shoulda coulda woulda. Christ, Douglas, we just lost a checkpoint and several men, including Steve,” Diane said.
I didn’t say a word, but couldn’t help but nod.
“The next checkpoint will be good, promise. We just left it yesterday. The boys at three delta had been alone for too long,” Douglas said, like he was reading from a script.
Was this fucking guy on something? If one of my friends had just been killed I would have been livid. I would have been looking for stuff to punch or shoot. When we lost the mercenaries at the hotel a month ago, I’d fought harder than I’d ever fought. I’d managed to toss a grenade at a truck and blow that thing and McQuinn’s army a new one.
But here we were, in a Cadillac Escalade, the pinnacle of modern excess, talking about how checkpoints would be okay. These guys didn’t get it. They had no damn clue.
“What’s the plan if the next checkpoint is also overrun? Why don’t you give me back my gun and some 9mm rounds if you have them? I’m not a great shot, but I can hold my own,” I said. “Christy too, she’s a crack shot.”
“You two just chill until we get to the base,” Douglas said.
I sighed in frustration. The thing was, I could get my pack from the back of the SUV and there wasn’t much they could do about it, except wave guns around the already loaded vehicle.
“Know what’s really on my mind? That damn mushroom cloud. How long until the ash blows over us?”
Diane sat up and grabbed a small bag. She dug around and came up with something I hadn’t seen in a while: a functioning tablet. The tiny screen flickered to life as she paged through a number of notes.
“Here’s what happened,” she began. “That was a very small tactical nuke. They were designed for warfare, not for wiping out cities. What Bright Star has done is to begin gathering up the zombies with large noisemakers. They get them into one location and then they blow it up.
"Collateral damage for anything in the vicinity is bad. Get twenty miles out and with the wind blowing in the right direction, you wouldn’t even know a nuke had been set off. In this case, the bomb went off at a time when the winds were projected to be blowing west. That means that most fallout will float out over the ocean.”
“Fuckers,” I said.
“No, it’s actually not that bad. From what we’ve gathered, the type of weapons are airburst, so the amount of dust and debris is minimal, relatively speaking. It’s enough to cause some problems, but not enough to radiate all of California. As long as that debris is carried to sea we’ll be fine.”
“Where did you learn all of this?”
“We have communications gear and pick up Bright Star's signals.”
“Really? Aren’t those things encrypted?” I asked.
“Yes, but we have similar gear and simply tune into their channels. Enough gets out to tell us what happened.”
Sounded like a bunch of bullshit to me. Anyone hacking military encryption was a goddamn genius.
“What about the fish?” Christy asked.
“Where’d you get the iPad?” I asked.
A functioning tablet? Fuck the nuke, I wanted one of those.
“There will be some exposure to radiation for sea life, but the long-term effects can only be guessed at. Contrary to popular belief, when the Fukushima plant leaked radioactive material into the oceans, it wasn’t as bad as some speculated. But none of that matters now, does it?
"We are in the middle of the apocalypse. Eaten by zombies is a much more present fate than succumbing to radiation,” Diane concluded her little speech, in a monotone that just about bored me to sleep. The weird thing was that she rarely made eye contact, and often shifted her gaze if I tried to catch it.
She flicked through some kind of encyclopedia on the little screen, and handed the device to Christy.
“The tablet?” I asked.
“One of many. We have a large supply, as well as generators to keep things charged.”
“Tried to call anyone on a cell phone lately?” I asked, thinking of my parents.
“The cell networks have been completely disrupted. We have people working on it,” Diane said.
I practically snatched the tablet from Christy when she reached to hand it back to Diane. I hadn’t seen working technology like this in months. I spent a little time marveling at the display and the icons on the front page. I e
ven started a game of Angry Birds out of nostalgia.
“Please don’t waste the battery,” Diane said.
I handed the tablet back with a grunt after I finished another level. “I need to get me one of those.”
“Maybe we can work something out,” she said.
“Fuck yeah. I’ll teach you all how to fight, how’s that sound?” I joked.
“We know how to fight, but we can always learn more,” Douglas said. “We’re almost there.”
The SUV took a right and pulled up a boulevard. It was getting dark out, so it was hard to make out the signs, but Douglas wisely didn’t turn on the headlights.
When we came in sight of an apartment complex with a huge closed gate, I wondered if we’d arrived at their base.
###
17:15 hours approximate
Location: Somewhere near Vista, CA
Douglas hopped out of the SUV, but left it running.
I smiled at Diane, then reached into the back of the SUV and grabbed a bag. I’d watched her put our guns away, and knew which backpack to choose. She reached for her sidearm, but I showed her one hand, in what I hoped was a sign of peace.
“Diane, please. Your boy out there doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He may be more of a hindrance. Please let us help. We want to, but in order to help, I can’t keep swinging this club.”
She considered my words for a few seconds, then sighed.
“I suppose that if you are going to do something stupid, this would be the place. I sense you’re not a bad guy, Jackson. I have concerns, though,” she said, and nodded at Christy.
“Oh, give it up already. She’s like a kid sister to me, no funny business.”
Christy actually recoiled, and stared at Diane like the woman had slapped her.
“He’s a good guy, and eww,” Christy said, pulling her lips back in a grimace.
I didn’t wait around for Diane to argue. I dragged the bag into my lap and fished around until I found Christy’s piece. She took it and inspected the load.
“I have three rounds,” she said.
Douglas waved at the building, and someone waved back. He lifted a latch on the gate and swung it open while looking over his shoulder. I did a visual, checking all directions while I fished out my Springfield XDM 9mm.
The piece didn’t have a safety per se, but it had a guard that had to be squeezed just along the grip. If it wasn’t engaged, the gun didn’t shoot. A quick look at the nipple on the back of the slide showed it poked up, indicating it was ready to fire, and the ridge along the barrel top was up, so it was locked and loaded. I ejected the magazine, found just a few rounds, and then slid it back home.
I put the gun in my holster.
Douglas finished maneuvering the big, heavy wrought iron fence out of whatever it was latched to and backed it up. He waved again and looked toward the building, but his companions didn’t appear. He shook his head, grabbed the fence, and lifted then pushed it into the courtyard.
“Got any 9mm?” I asked Diane.
“There’s a box in my bag, just a moment,” she said.
Diane dug out the shells and handed them to me. I ejected the magazine and loaded it with practiced fingers.
“.38 load?” Christy asked like a pro.
“I don’t think so. I have another gun you can use if you have to,” Diane said. “But you’re so young. You shouldn’t have to live in a world that requires you to handle weapons.”
“Tell that to the Zs,” Christy said.
I couldn’t help but grin.
###
17:45 hours approximate
Location: Somewhere near Vista, CA
Douglas opened the SUV’s door and slid into the front seat. He gunned the big vehicle and moved us behind the gate. He nodded at me in the rear view mirror, then jumped down from the urban assault vehicle. I was close behind.
Frosty looked at me as I opened the door, and whimpered quietly.
“It’s cool, Frosty,” I said, and rubbed her head. “You stay here and guard the vehicle."
Frosty responded by pulling back her gums and growling low in her throat. Her attention had left me; it was on the little building we were about to investigate.
“Someone’s in there,” I said.
“Yeah, our people,” Douglas replied.
I patted Frosty’s head again in reassurance. She nudged my hand, but didn’t take her eyes off the building.
“Can’t help but notice you’re packing heat,” Douglas said as he came around the side of the SUV.
“Who says that?”
“What, packing heat? Didn’t you used to watch movies?”
“Yeah, but most of them were made some time in the last thirty years,” I said.
I closed the door. Frosty crawled into the back seat and stared at me. What I wouldn’t do to have a shuffler-like mental connection to my canine pal.
“I get it. Diane is easier than me. I don’t trust and she does. It will get her killed one of these days.”
“Maybe, but in this case she made the right decision. If I was up to no good I would have killed you by now. So do us both a favor and follow Diane’s lead.”
“I suppose I don’t have a choice now,” Douglas said.
“She’s a little weird, but Diane seems smart.”
“Ah. You probably notice her clipped speech,” he turned to regard me as we lifted the fence off the asphalt.
“A bit. Didn’t think much of it.”
“She’s got a touch of Asperger's--the real thing, not the self-diagnosed kind. You know, meet a person with a weird tic and they tell you they have autism.”
“I don’t know much about it,” I said. We moved the fence into place and locked it.
I looked toward the hotel, but didn’t see men in black. I wasn’t sure if I should be concerned or placated.
“Anyway, I know how she is. She doesn’t see the danger in a lot of situations. Sometimes she’s good at following orders and sometimes she has great ideas. Thing is, she trusts people too easily. But I get it. You proved yourself back at the checkpoint and quite frankly, you saved my ass.”
“Yep,” I said.
“You don’t sound surprised that I’m acknowledging your contribution.”
“I am a little. My companions before, we watched each other’s backs at all times. We worked as a tight team and there was no questioning our loyalty toward each other. You guys, well, as far as survivalists go, I’m sorry to say,” I looked Douglas in the eyes. “You guys fucking suck at this.”
Douglas looked down and cracked a half-smile.
“I know. Hang on, let me move the SUV into the compound.”
“Compound…” I muttered under my breath.
The Escalade surged forward once Douglas was inside, and stopped a few feet short of the gate. Douglas didn’t get out, and I guessed it was his way of saying “Fuck you, close the gate.”
I was tired from days on the run. My body hurt from our escape from yet another damn apartment building not too far from here. Christy and I had faced a number of Zs, including a big one and an almost-as-big mate who'd nearly taken me out. We’d managed to escape and had had very little sleep since.
Before long I was going to start feeling more serious effects of exhaustion. That included possibly half-hallucinations and a general lethargy that would make me close to useless. I’d been this tired too many times over the last few weeks. A body needed rest, and sadly, there was little to be found in the zombie fucking apocalypse.
The gate closed, and I found that the latch wasn’t much to write home about. There was a thick wire that ran around the chain links and closed against the other end. There had been an electronic lock, but the thing was busted off and had been tossed on the ground next to a dying shrub.
Something shambled out of the bushes near me and hit the gate.
The Z was a mess. His hair was gone, having been pulled out in clumps. He was missing skin from his forehead. His nose had been bitten off,
and and most of his throat ripped out. When his mouth opened, I saw the muscles and tendons moving. I realized with horror that he was trying to swallow. Something pink and wet stuck out of the damage to his throat.
I lifted the pipe wrench off my shoulder, and placed the end right next to the guy's temple. He turned to regard the hunk of metal, eye popped partially out of its cavity. Stuff leaked out and ran down his cheek.
“You are one ugly fuck,” I said. “Batter up.”
I swung the wrench.
The Z dropped without a sound. The worst part was that I had to open the damn gate again and pull the body into some bushes so no one would wander by and wonder if the complex was occupied.
I hoped this was what Frosty had been snarling at.
Turned out, I should have stopped and listened to the dog.
###
18:00 hours approximate
Location: Somewhere near Vista, CA
The hotel was was barely even a 2-star. A sign out front advertised day and hourly rates. A couple of palm trees marked the entrance, but other than, that most of the vegetation was unkempt. No telling if the place had looked like this before the event, but I suspected it hadn’t been much better.
The hotel was a shade of brown that looked even worse up close. Paint peeled and flaked, revealing primer. Not all that large: maybe twenty units. The parking lot stretched back into even more rooms in another single story affair, this one U-shaped. There were a few cars, but most of them looked like they hadn’t moved in months; they were covered in dust and debris.
I walked the entryway, gun drawn, peeking into windows, but nothing lurked behind the glass. Most curtains had been pulled back. I poked my head inside the first unit, numbered 110, and found the lock was busted, like someone had kicked in the door.
The bed was still made but the top cover was a mess, like someone had slept here. Thankfully there were no bodies to stink up the place. Even more thankfully, no Zs moved within.
Reavers (Z-Risen Series Book 4) Page 4
