Now on the ground, his wind slowly returning, Dregan strode purposefully toward the gate.
Seeing Dregan approaching, the gun-wielding group of men and women who had been expecting him formed a ragged line and snapped to attention.
Still following Pomeroy’s rules, thought Dregan, eyeing the wavering formation. “At ease,” he barked. “I’m your sheriff, not the provost marshal of this damn place.”
After the recent flyby of the black helicopter and subsequent presidential phone call to Judge Pomeroy, the job of watching over the citizens of Bear River had been returned to Dregan. So, with a renewed sense of purpose, the self-proclaimed Natural Gas Baron of Salt Lake City had made a solemn vow to himself to spend his remaining days on earth making the town of nearly five hundred not only a safe place for his sons Gregory and Peter going forward, but also a thriving community where the rule of law was respected and its citizens held a vested interest in keeping it that way. Gone were the expulsions for petty crimes. The literal interpretation of the biblical tenet ‘An eye for an eye’ that Judge Pomeroy had employed with impunity before President Clay’s intervention was also a thing of the past.
Mandatory service had become the great equalizer. Men who once only manned the towers and patrolled the streets looking for work for Pomeroy now helped with the laundry at the washhouse. Conversely, once relegated to the tasks the men felt themselves above, the women now found themselves taking up arms and sharing in the most important security duties.
Dregan racked a round into his AK, confirmed the selector was on Safe, and approached the deputies standing in the shadow of the concrete-laden bus serving as the main gate. He picked two from the group—David Hunt, a heavily tattooed man of about thirty whom he knew had once seen combat, and a bespectacled woman named Joan MacLeod who was nearing middle age and carried with her a reputation of being a tough-as-nails survivor.
Though he doubted it needed saying, he looked to the pair and did so anyway. “I’m going to see what our callers are up to. Cover me … but keep your rifles at a low ready.”
The pair nodded a silent affirmative.
Dregan moved closer to the bus’s open driver’s side window. As he did, the heavyset balding man at the wheel greeted him with a nod.
“I want a man-sized hole,” he said to the driver. “Nothing more.”
Eyes narrowed, the driver leaned forward in his seat. A tick later, there was a metallic rattle of the engine turning over. A deluge of blue-gray exhaust poured from the rear of the vehicle as the big diesel roared to life.
As the bus began to reverse, Dregan stood by the front bumper, holding his hands a shoulders-width apart. Slowly but surely, the bus’s springs creaking in protest, a sliver of light appeared beside the concrete freeway noise barrier, dwarfing Dregan on his left.
Dropping his arms to his sides, Dregan said, “That’s good.” Then, wasting no time, he hefted his rifle and moved on through the opening with both of his deputies in tow.
Keeping the AK’s business end trained on the copper-colored pickup, he hollered, “Close the gate.” Next, he looped around front of the pickup, keeping his eyes on the driver’s upthrust hands. Seeing MacLeod fanning out to his right, and Hunt doing the same on their left flank, he ordered the outsiders to leave their weapons behind and step out of the vehicles.
Opening his door by the outside handle as instructed, the driver of the lead truck began pleading for the gate to be reopened. “We need to get inside,” he insisted. “They’re coming.”
Dregan covertly sniffed the air. Knowing the answer, he asked anyway. “Who is coming?”
The man was standing on the packed earth beside his truck. “The dead,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and tired-sounding. “Fucking thousands of them.”
“At least ten thousand,” added a woman who had just climbed from the second truck.
Dregan watched her go to her knees, hands still reaching for the sky. Through the entire process of throwing her leg over the silver truck’s bed, issuing the warning to no one in particular, and assuming the position usually reserved for gangbangers and wanted felons in the old world, the fifty-something woman never took her eyes from the feeder road running away from the entry west by south.
Once everybody had exited the pickups—thirteen total—Dregan ordered they be checked for weapons and bites. Through the whole ordeal, the woman watching the road chanted the same two words: They’re coming.
“Clear,” called MacLeod, her rifle now aimed skyward.
“We’re good over here,” said Hunt.
“Everyone on their knees,” ordered Dregan. “I want to see your hands behind your heads, fingers interlaced.” He walked over to the occupants of the first truck and asked them where they were going in such a hurry.
The driver from the first truck indicated they had camped the night before a dozen miles south of Evanston and were set upon by the horde at first light. He went on about how they hastily broke camp and put some distance between them and the dead until the Chevy overheated from a punctured hose and they were forced to stop and search for a compatible part to get going again.
Hoping the unfortunate breakdown had happened some time ago and very far south of here, Dregan asked, “When and where did you break down?”
Brows knitted, the man unlaced his fingers and looked to the south. “Four miles back. My brother tried to lure the pack away. To save the kids, mainly. They got him, though. They got my brother, Doug.” Tears welled in his eyes. “There was no way I could save him. There were just too many.”
“Wasn’t anything left of him, Larry,” the woman called from a dozen feet away, her voice all nasally and insistent.
Larry shook his head. Cheeks wet with tears, he said, “He bought us enough time to get the rigs moving, but—”
Seeing the man freeze up, Dregan crouched down and pressed him for more.
The man raised his head and met Dregan’s gaze. “Those things are on the hunt now. They move much faster when they have prey in their sights.”
“I know how they operate,” Dregan said. He rose and looked to the tower he’d just vacated. The shades used to cover the opening on all four sides during a lockdown—semi see-through bamboo mats—were already in the down position. He plucked a radio from his vest pocket and called for the southwest tower to report in.
“Armstrong,” came the reply.
“Anything new to report?”
There was a long pause on the other end, during which Dregan heard the man’s ragged breathing. Then, overcome by a pain unlike nothing he’d yet to experience, Dregan doubled over and palmed his knees. Holding that pose, he took a few shallow breaths—gulps really—counted to ten, then hinged upright and found all eyes in the immediate vicinity locked on him.
Waving his hand at his deputies—universal semaphore for It’s nothing, I’ll be OK, he thumbed the Talk key. “Armstrong … do you see evidence of anyone or anything pursuing these folks at the gate?”
Up in the tower, thirty-year-old former pizza shop owner James Armstrong pressed the binoculars to his eyes to ensure that what he was about to report to the man in charge of security was not a byproduct of his sometimes-overactive imagination.
Sure enough, from the far rise roughly two miles out to the bend in the road a quarter mile further south, all he saw were bodies in motion. Rotten and ashen living corpses of men, women, and children who used to be fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, neighbors, perhaps even his dead kids’ school mates. Hell, he thought, some of them may have even noshed slices of his famous New York style pizza before the cruel hand of fate consigned them to spend the rest of their days hungering for the flesh of the living.
He focused on one particularly tall specimen at the head of the lurching train of hard-driven hunger. The near seven-footer wore a button-up shirt that was plastered to his jutting breastbone by a miasma of fresh-looking blood. The thing had eaten well recently and clearly it was still hungering. Hanging by a long strand of corded
jaw muscle, the abomination’s dislocated lower mandible bobbed to and fro like an infant working a Johnny Jump Up. And like a kid in one of those bouncy suspended contraptions, the movements the tooth-studded jaw bone made were chaotic and non-stop.
Pepperoni or Hula-Lula, Armstrong mused crazily. None of the above, the raspy undead voice in his head answered. I’ll have a trip through the Flesh and Organ Bar, thank you all the same.
As the undead leaders of the pack approached the point in the distance where road and horizon parted, the entire horde came into view. Moving in a stilted, half-in-the-bag manner that was strangely hypnotic, the river of marching corpses crested the hill, then picked up speed and flowed snake-like down the decline.
Armstrong swallowed hard and set the binoculars aside. He drew the radio to his lips and depressed the Talk button. Let it hang there in front of his silent, gaping mouth for a long second as he tried to think of how to accurately describe what he was seeing. Finally, unable to fully put into words the magnitude of the juggernaut filling up all three lanes of the passing zone, he said in a near whisper, “Sheriff … you need to come back up here and see for yourself.”
Chapter 12
Eden Compound
A piercing scream rolled across the clearing, causing the half-dozen birds perched on one of the Black Hawk’s drooping rotor blades to take flight unexpectedly. The laughter and joyful sounds that had been keeping Glenda company were all but drowned out by shrill cawing and a furious flapping of wings as the raptors sought higher station in the bare trees crowding in on the motor pool.
The matriarchal figure jolted upright and fumbled the ladle into the stainless-steel stock pot. Narrowly avoiding a splash of hot venison stew to the face, she snatched up the rifle leaning nearby and craned around the RV’s rear quarter to see what was afoot.
Fully expecting to see a stray rotter emerging from the forest’s edge, instead, Glenda spied Max stretched to full extension, front paws on Raven’s shoulders and the twelve-year-old’s crimson-cheeked face on the receiving end of a thorough tongue bath.
“Ewww … dog spit!’ wailed Raven, her words rising over the noisy birds.
Nearby, Sasha, also flush in the face, was laughing and holding a yard-long branch aloft. In the next beat, she began wheedling Max by shaking the branch near his muzzle and calling his name repeatedly.
False alarm, thought Glenda, as she was struck with an overwhelming sense of gratefulness. Cradling the long gun in the crook of her arm, she walked a few feet to her left and saw Jamie, twenty yards from where the unfair game of keep away was unfolding. She was sitting atop the group’s lone Humvee and actively panning a pair of binoculars over the far tree line. Satisfied all was as it should be, Glenda made her way back to the al fresco kitchen.
“Glenda,” a familiar voice called from behind her. “You save me some?”
After turning to see Lev, all decked out in woodland camouflage and carrying a black carbine, step from the nearby tree line, she smiled and said, “Of course I did, young man. There’s enough for everyone.”
Rifle held at a low ready and head moving on a swivel, Seth emerged from the forest close on Lev’s heels. “What about me?” he asked, one hand loosening the rubber band securing his long hair in a tight ponytail.
“I made extra with you in mind, Seth,” she said playfully. “Wouldn’t want the compound’s eyes and ears to go into a shift change on an empty stomach.” She wiped a bit of splattered stew from her denim shirt, then extinguished the Weber’s burner. Giving the pot a stir, she went on, “Grab a couple of bowls and get some before it goes cold.”
Steam rose from the shiny thermal liner as Seth peeled off his black parka. He propped his AR against the RV and grabbed a pair of bowls from the abbreviated counter affixed to one end of the stainless-steel grill.
Meanwhile, hovering near the stove and eyeing the stew hungrily, Lev had plucked his radio from a pocket. He cleared his throat and thumbed the Talk button. “Anything new to report?” he asked, quickly relaxing his grip on the Motorola.
Tran answered, saying the compound was empty and locked tight and stressed that he hadn’t seen Bridgett show up on the cameras since her brief pow-wow with Glenda and Jamie.
As soon as Tran broke the connection, Jamie jumped onto the open channel and noted that she’d been sitting in the motor pool for some time and hadn’t seen the woman, either.
“Did you boys check the latrines?” asked Glenda as she accepted the bowls and spoons from Seth. “After I ladled her some stew, she headed into the trees and struck off in that general direction.”
Lev shook his head. “We just came from there. Both were empty. As was the shower stall. I’m thinking she looped around behind us and made for the road.”
Always applying a glass-half-full outlook on things, Glenda pressed, “Now why would she go and do that? She got a taste of what the security shift is like. Maybe that motivated her to find another way to pitch in. She could be filling water bottles over by the collection barrels.”
“Save for begging me to let her sit and learn the routine at the security desk, I’ve never seen her take the initiative on anything,” said Seth, his eyes fixed on the steaming pot of stew.
Lev stared off toward where the feeder road spilled into the clearing. “My money says she just grew tired of Cade and Duncan’s rules and decided to boogie.”
Glenda regarded Seth. “Where’s she going to go?” She motioned with the ladle at the clouds overhead. “And in this weather to boot.”
Lev nodded toward Raven’s purple and white mountain bike sitting on its side a dozen yards away. “We know she’s got food. But she’s got no wheels. That will be a big problem if Old Man Winter decides to up the ante on the hail and go all in with another snow event like we saw last week.”
Seth had been standing by the stove, bowls in hand and listening to the exchange. Without a word as to why, he set the bowls down hard on the stove and looked first to Lev, then back to Glenda.
“What?” said Lev.
A knowing look settling on his face, Seth arched one brow and strode over to the fire pit.
Standing with the stew-filled ladle hovering in midair and the bowls now an arm’s reach away, Glenda watched Seth kneel by the fire pit and pry a hunk of charcoal from a blackened piece of firewood.
Head tilted dog-like, Lev said, “What’s up, bro?”
A twinkle in his eye, Seth displayed the finger-long piece of charcoal. “I have an idea,” he said, a smile curling his lips. “Be right back.”
Men, thought Glenda. Can’t live with them, can’t kill them. After watching Seth for a moment, she cupped her hands in front of her mouth and hollered in the direction of the airstrip. “Raven. Sasha. Jamie … food’s ready!” She turned toward Lev. He was standing, hands on hips, watching Seth cut a laser-straight path through the grass toward the compound entrance. “Cade’s expecting an update,” she said, the long-range CB thrust in his direction.
“Right away,” Lev said, accepting the radio and walking away to find some quiet. With a head full of unanswered questions troubling him, he adjusted the volume and placed the call.
Bear River
Dregan didn’t need to climb any rickety ladders or set foot in one of the guard towers to see anything with his own eyes to know the kind of danger they would all soon be facing. Though his head was pounding and the churn in his guts had loosened his bowels so that his adult incontinence pants required changing, his sense of smell and hearing were not compromised. There was no mistaking the sickly-sweet stench of decay carrying on the wind for anything other than what it meant. Nor was there any denying what the fleshy slap of bare feet meeting asphalt and rasps of first turns coming from the nearby highway meant: The horde was back. And it was drawing nearer by the minute.
While Dregan looked on, the two deputies who’d accompanied him outside the gate frisked and disarmed the adult survivors who had inadvertently led the dead to Bear River’s doorstep. Despite the fact
the mercury was hovering in the mid-fifties, Dregan ordered them all to strip down to their undergarments. Starting with the kids, each person was checked thoroughly for bites, females by Deputy MacLeod, males by Deputy Hunt.
Covering his deputies with his AK, Dregan watched them perform thorough head to toe inspections on every survivor before allowing them to stand together.
Seeing his deputies getting to the last of the adults, Dregan motioned toward the bus with his free hand and bellowed, “Roll the gate!”
“Done,” said MacLeod. “No bites or major open wounds on the females.”
Deputy Hunt finished with the last of the males. After gently steering Larry to where the others were congregating, he regarded Dregan with tired-looking eyes. “Good to go.”
Satisfied that his deputies had vetted the outsiders to the best of their ability considering the circumstances, Dregan made a sweeping motion with his rifle toward the gap in the gate. “Take them to quarantine,” he called out. “Get ‘em clothed and fed before you begin the debriefing period.” He regarded the shivering group and simultaneously felt contempt for the undead and an overwhelming sense of guilt for the dignity-robbing ordeal he had just been forced to put those fleeing the horde through. But it couldn’t be helped. He’d already learned the hard way the unacceptable number of casualties just one infected inside the walls could inflict on the living. To let a hot outsider into Bear River with the specter of a long siege looming would erode the modicum of trust he’d built back up among the people, while at the same time emboldening Judge Pomeroy’s many supporters.
The man with the sandy hair calling himself Larry shuffled from the group, near nude and barefoot. Exuding an air of authority belying his appearance, he asked, “What about our belongings? Our weapons? The trucks?”
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 7
