Cade swallowed hard and cast a cursory glance at the snowmobile in the back of the F-650. He saw it shift a few inches to the right as he came out of the long sweeping right-hand curve. That Taryn was not following his orders precisely was a good thing. Should the spirited driving shake the cargo loose, not only would the snowmobile be a total loss, but so might one of the group’s more reliable vehicles.
Always thinking for herself. Taking the initiative without having to be micromanaged. Definitely attributes that endeared Taryn to him. In fact, she was a little like Brook in those regards. And as the apocalypse entered its fourth month, Cade was starting to see some of those same traits manifesting in Raven. His hand went to his neck and he pinched the chain between two fingers. He dragged it through his hand until his fingers found the wedding ring. Oblivious to the action and unaware Duncan was looking sidelong at him, Cade drew the reminder of his recent loss to his lips and kissed it.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Just watching our six,” Cade lied, blinking back a tear. “Call ahead and make sure Glenda has what she needs to go to work on Jamie when we get there.”
“On the side of the road?”
“No choice,” said Cade. “Have the girls take the 4Runner and drive whatever Glenda needs out to her.”
“They have to deal with the gates. And any rotters that might be on the road. Not to mention the fact that without a stint on a medieval rack Raven is not gonna be able to reach the pedals.”
Cade glanced at the rearview. “Then Sasha is going to have to rise to the occasion.”
Duncan shook his head. “I don’t like it. Why not have Tran run the stuff up to Glenda?”
Cade shot Duncan an incredulous look.
“You’re right,” Duncan conceded. “Wouldn’t be smart to leave the eyes and ears of the compound unattended. Hell, Tran would probably need the rack treatment, too. That or wood blocks for the pedals.”
“Set it in motion,” said Cade. “We’re less than ten minutes out.”
Duncan made the call to Glenda first. Then he hailed Tran and had him call Raven and Sasha over.
A few seconds ticked into the past before the speaker hissed and Raven said, “Dad?”
“No honey, it’s Uncle Duncan. Your dad is driving. But I’m going to hold the walkie talkie and he’s going to talk to you.” He lifted his thumb off the Talk key.
“It’s a two-way radio,” corrected Raven. “Walkie talkies have longer range.”
Duncan shrugged and held the radio in the airspace between him and Cade.
“Raven. This is Daddy.” He paused for a moment to steer around a Z, a maneuver that caused Duncan’s thumb to slide off the Talk key.
“Are you coming back now?” asked Raven as the channel cleared.
Grimacing, Duncan depressed the key.
“Yes, we are,” answered Cade. “It’s complicated though. Here’s what I need you and Sasha to do. Is she listening in?”
Duncan relaxed his thumb.
“She’s right here,” said Raven.
Cade heard the teenager say, “Hi.”
Skipping the formalities, he nodded to Duncan and said, “Do you have your learner’s permit?”
Duncan lolled his head animatedly as he let off on the Talk key.
“I’m fourteen,” shot Sasha. “I was supposed to get one next summer. But the Rapture had to happen and screw it all up for me.”
Ignoring both the teen’s snotty tone and her ongoing Rapture made the dead rise theory, Cade waited for Duncan to do his thing then said, “Next summer just arrived eight months early.” While Tran and the girls listened, he rattled off detailed instructions.
Duncan mouthed, “Thumb’s getting tired.”
Finished, Cade said, “Did you get all that, girls?”
Though the connection with the base unit back in the compound was far from crystal clear, the exuberance evident in Raven and Sasha’s tone when they accepted the task was unmistakable.
Chapter 54
Seeing a roadside sign with the universally recognized symbol indicating a series of switchbacks lay ahead, Cade eased off the pedal and tapped the brakes. “See anyone shadowing us back there?”
Duncan hunched over and peered into the side mirror. After a few seconds had elapsed, he said, “Just Taryn driving her truck like Danica Patrick.”
Might as well be the woman herself, thought Cade as he muscled the F-650 through the final two opposing turns preceding the pair of quarry feeder roads.
“Snowmobile is still with us,” declared Duncan.
“Yes it is,” said Cade. “Unfortunately, it shifted and that’s about all I can see.”
On the left side of 39 the bullet-pocked sign marking the lower quarry road slid by. A tick later they passed by the overgrown road leading to the upper quarry.
Near the end of the long run of gradually descending S-curves, just prior to the two-lane straightening out, a woman’s voice emanated from the liberated two-way radio. At first the signal was weak and garbled. Once the F-650 was out of the trees and tracking straight for the westering sun, they heard, clear as day, the same voice ask, “Is that you, Joy?”
Cade looked to Duncan, who was already wearing a puzzled expression.
“Think you can fake a woman’s voice?”
Duncan made a face. Running a hand through his hair, he said, “Not without sounding like a Texan.”
“Do your best,” prompted Cade. “Just make sure to keep the channel locked open and cover the microphone grill when you’re done saying your piece.”
Duncan looked a question at Cade.
Cade said, “Just pretend you’re Joy and tell Iris we’re close.”
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
Back at the ambush site the engine noise of the first group of arriving vehicles had travelled all the way to Cade’s hide from the far edge of town—eight to ten normal city blocks by his estimation. He recalled the rule of thumb was twenty city blocks to the mile. Which after doing the math in his head, converted to roughly four-tenths of a mile from the hide on the rise to Woodruff’s northern limits. Call it half a mile, he decided.
Figuring that the trees lining the stretch of 39 dead ahead would act as a natural funnel and carry the engine noise faster and farther than a two-lane bisected by cross streets and dotted with buildings, he concluded that Iris had detected their approach from more than a mile out. Maybe two, if one considered that both the F-650 and the Raptor were not equipped with a typical dirt-hauler’s motor and exhaust.
Next to Cade, Duncan cleared his throat and thumbed the button on the radio. In a choked falsetto he said, “We’re almost there, Iris,” and then kept the Talk button depressed.
With the channel the cannibals were using to contact Iris—and vice versa—locked out, Cade hoped to insert a wedge of confusion between the two parties. He noted where the needle hovered on the speedometer and performed a rough calculation based on the estimated distance to Iris’s position on 39. Then he quickly dropped his gaze to the odometer and noted the mileage down to the tenth of a mile.
“Sometime in the next ninety seconds we’re going to come into contact with Iris,” he declared confidently.
“And you know this how?”
“Trust me,” Cade said.
***
Duncan had been keeping the radio channel open with his thumb and pressing his palm to the microphone grill for just south of a full minute when he spotted far off in the distance what looked to him like a pile of clothing laying smack dab in the middle of the road. In the next beat the dark object stirred and grew arms and a head. Then, moving slow and deliberate, the strange-looking form twisted around and assumed a kneeling position. After a brief pause the form leaned forward, pushed up off the road, and staggered a few feet to the right of the dashed yellow centerline where it inexplicably froze in place.
“Think that’s Iris?”
“Has to be,” said Cade, confidently.
“Look
s like she’s injured,” added Duncan.
“Or got bit and is in the process of turning.”
Duncan looked sidelong at his friend. “Well, whatever the hell is going on, you’re about ten or fifteen seconds from making a hood ornament out of her. You may want to deviate left a hair so we can roll her up and squeeze her for info.”
Steering the rig to the left by a degree or two, Cade said, “There’s nothing she can tell us that we don’t already know.”
Sweeping his gaze to the fore, Duncan saw that barely two hundred feet now separated the F-650 from the form wavering in the road. From this distance, he could see that its clothes were soiled and shredded in places. Also, one of the pants legs had ridden up to mid-calf exposing a horrible mud- and blood-caked wound. The softball-sized fissure was ringed by a tangle of frayed skin with shiny red muscle bulging from its center. Mind made up that the thing in the road was a live human and not a rotter, Duncan said, “Enlighten me then, Cade. What do we know?”
Cade put a finger in the air. Universal semaphore for wait one. He plucked the radio tuned to the group’s channel from the center console and ordered Taryn to fall back a couple of truck lengths. Then, to curtail another one of Wilson’s question and answer sessions, he set the radio aside and looked to Duncan. “We know that Adrian’s gang have the patrol Tahoe Dregan gave Ray. Therefore we know that they slaughtered the Thagons and also butchered the Bear River wood cutting crew for their meat.”
“That’s not much of a stretch,” said Duncan. “Maybe Iris can tell us how many more people remain up north. How well they’re armed. Where the weak link in their chain is so we can exploit it.”
“I wouldn’t trust a word she says,” said Cade, glancing at Duncan. “I trust the map I found in the attic.”
“The what?” asked Duncan, incredulous.
“I had my motives for keeping it to myself,” he said. “Anyway … I looked it over. And it shows the location of their main compound as well as where they set up their listening posts up and down the Bear River range.”
As Cade returned his gaze to the road, Duncan saw the Delta operator’s eyes narrow and noticed his squared-off jaw take on that damn granite set. Taking a cue from the sudden change, Duncan swung his gaze forward and saw that the form in the road was now less than three truck lengths away. In that snapshot in time he got a clear look at its facial features. Though streaked with dirt, the wide forehead, full cheeks, and thick lips were familiar to him. And instead of the usual jaundice-eyed, faraway stare of the dead, he detected in those eyes a measure of recognition which prompted him to blurt, “Stop the truck.”
Cade moved the wheel to the right a hair. “What are you going to do, Duncan?”
“Make her pay for running Oliver down like a dog.”
“I was wondering when you were going to put the pieces together,” Cade shot. “Too much of a coincidence her showing up on the tail of all that had happened between Woodruff and Bear Lake.”
As Cade’s words were sinking in, Duncan felt the truck pick up speed. With both hands wrapped around the two-way radio and no way to brace for impact, the only thing he could do was trust the shoulder belt and watch Iris get exactly what she deserved. He saw the cannibal’s eyes go wide and her mouth form a silent O. In the next beat, she was falling to her knees, both arms thrust in front of her as if embracing fully what was to come.
At the last second, Cade pulled the wheel to the left and stepped on the brakes.
In the F-650’s bed the snowmobile straightened out and with a bang snugged in tight to the rear of the cab. A beat later two thuds rang out as the Thagons’ bodies followed suit.
In the passenger seat, Duncan lifted up off his seat and tracked the kneeling woman with his eyes as the truck skidded to a halt. After losing her behind the rear fender flares, he swung his gaze forward and picked her up again in the wing mirror. Throughout the entire evasive maneuver her arms had remained outstretched. Duncan saw that she was still assuming that pose and held a two-way radio in one hand.
In the Raptor, Taryn had reacted to Cade’s calmly delivered instruction without pause. She had lifted her foot from the accelerator, tapped the brakes gently, and steered the pickup into the oncoming lane and watched the bigger Ford slowly pull away.
In the back seat, Lev had been oblivious to the call coming in over the radio. The sudden change in speed and direction also failed to register. He was focused solely on holding Jamie upright and maintaining constant pressure to the blood-soaked three-by-three squares of chemical-treated fabric covering up what was in danger of becoming a life-threatening wound.
Seeing the truck carrying Cade and Duncan abruptly steer into her lane and the brake lights flare red, Taryn slowed accordingly and steered her rig farther left until the tires on her side were tracing the white fog line. No sooner had the black truck stopped completely than the driver’s side window motored down and Cade was waving her closer.
Pulling the Raptor alongside the larger truck, Taryn flicked her eyes to the rearview. Nothing. The road was clear all the way back to the last bend in the road.
Wilson’s window seated into the full-open position at the same time Taryn was stopping the Raptor abreast of the other truck.
Face showing concern, Cade asked, “How is Jamie?”
“Hanging in there,” Lev said from the back seat. “But we need to go.”
“I need a radio and a roll of tape from the first aid kit.”
Wilson scrambled to police up the items. As he did, he asked, “Is that her?”
“I think so,” answered Cade truthfully.
Wilson placed his radio and a roll of white tape on Cade’s upturned palm.
Singling out Lev, Cade said, “Get her to Glenda. Once she’s stabilized you know what to do.”
Wilson asked, “What are you going to do with her?”
“That’s up to Duncan,” answered Cade. Eyes locked with Wilson’s, he nodded west down 39. “Now go.”
Chapter 55
Cade watched the Raptor speed off to the west, dive into the turn ahead, and disappear from view. He regarded Duncan. “Has she moved?”
Still staring into the wing mirror, Duncan shook his head. “Not a muscle. What’s the surgical tape for?”
“You tired of holding that channel open?”
Duncan nodded. “My thumb was already cramping from holding it down before.”
Cade peeled off a foot-long strip of tape and tore it off with his teeth. Then he repeated the process and came away with a second piece barely two inches in length. Next, he thumbed a live 9mm round from one of the Glock’s spare mags. Nodding at the radio in Duncan’s hand, he handed the bullet and tape over. “Put the bullet lengthwise on the Talk button and then wrap the long strip around a couple of times so the channel stays open. Use the short strip to cover the microphone.”
As he prepped the radio, Duncan said, “And Wilson’s radio? What do we need that for?”
“You’ll see when you get back from dealing with Iris.”
Dealing with Iris, thought Duncan as he placed the taped-up radio in the center console cubby. He elbowed the door open and stepped to the road. Swinging his gaze right, he saw that Iris still hadn’t lowered her arms. He began a slow walk in her direction, the .45 clearing holster before he reached the truck’s bumper.
Keeping the muzzle trained center mass on Iris, he walked a counterclockwise arc away from the truck, stopping only once he was head on to her.
Her eyes were closed, that much was clear.
He said, “What the hell are you doing outside the wire?”
She made no response.
He thumbed back the .45’s hammer. On the desolate run of road, the metallic click of it locking in place was loud in his ears. He said, “I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for strays. Well, no more.” He paused. “I know who you really are. Your name isn’t Bridgett. It’s Iris. Like the flower tattooed on your arm.”
Her eyes snapped open. Then, as she
lowered her arms, slowly her eyes tracked up and right and locked with his.
“North of Woodruff, the same day we found you back there”—he nodded east down 39—“you ran over a man on a bike with your car, didn’t you?”
She blinked one time.
Duncan saw a tear roll from the corner of her eye and follow the established streaks in the dirt on her face. Then he noticed her pulped hand. It was jutting bones and beginning to palsy. For a couple of seconds, it thumped against her hip uncontrollably.
Finally, in a hoarse voice, she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Eventually, you and your friends were going to kill our friend and eat him, weren’t you?”
Her eyelids fluttered. Simultaneously, she looked up and to her left and said, “I told you the truth when you picked me up the other day. I ran out of gas trying to get to Huntsville.”
“Tell me your name?”
Again, with the flutter and subtle eye roll, she said forcefully, “My name is Bridgett.”
Seeing the signs for what they were—Iris engaging in wholesale deception—he squeezed the trigger.
The report was thunderous. It crashed across the road and flushed a dozen crows from a nearby copse of mature firs.
Cade watched the whole encounter unfold in the passenger-side wing mirror. He saw the lick of flame and the brass shell casing tumble through the air. The single mule kick folded Iris’s upper torso over backward, leaving her legs still bent at the knee and her feet trapped under her ample backside. Even viewed from a distance as a reflection in the wing mirror, the smoking hole below the woman’s sternum was crater-like in appearance. The impact from the speeding projectile left a six-inch gash in the threadbare shirt. Crimson tendrils spiraled outward from the wound and played connect the dots on the periphery with the blood droplets deposited there.
Moving slowly, as if he’d just emerged from a saloon throw down, Duncan holstered his pistol, bent at the waist, and dragged the limp body to the shoulder, where a nudge from his boot sent it rolling into the tall grass.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 29
