Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss

by Chesser, Shawn

  Cade saw Duncan retrieve Iris’s radio from the road. Then the older man planted his hands on his hips and stared east down the length of 39.

  Cade used the time to ready Wilson’s radio. Finished, he swung his gaze to the rearview just in time to see Duncan turn a one-eighty and begin the lonely trudge back to the truck.

  Cade dropped the transmission into gear.

  Duncan reached the open door and paused there looking into the cab over the top of his bifocals.

  Cade handed the jerry-rigged radio toward the open door. He said, “Hide this face up in the grass right next to the shoulder.”

  “Our very own unmanned listening post,” noted Duncan as he hinged over and secreted the radio behind a baseball-sized tuft of grass.

  Nodding, Cade said, “And it should give us a few minutes heads up that the motorcade is coming.”

  “If it’s coming.”

  “Get in,” prompted Cade. “We’re pushing our luck sitting here.”

  Hand shaking from the adrenaline still coursing through his body, Duncan gripped the grab bar and hauled himself into the passenger seat. Emitting a pained sigh, he dragged the door shut and pressed his head against the headrest.

  Cade noted the time down to the second on his Suunto. Matting the pedal, he heard the F-650’s engine roar transmitted over the open channel of the roadside radio. “You did the right thing,” he said. “We’ve got to stop leaving loose ends.”

  “I already owned my part in that,” drawled Duncan. “As for doing the right thing … guess I’ll find the truth to that when I get to the Pearly Gates.” He paused for a tick then went on, “Hell, Iris was number five today. Six if you pin the woman at the Thagons’ place on me.”

  “That’s not on you,” insisted Cade. “She committed suicide.” He cast a quick glance to the rearview. Saw the black raptors floating from the trees on wings spread wide. A beat later, coinciding with the F-650’s engine growl fading from the two-way’s speaker, the crows’ cawing was back and coming in loud and clear over the open channel.

  Cade noted the elapsed time on his Suunto then flicked his eyes to the speedometer needle. Working the calculation in his head, he took one last look at the black mass no doubt already digging sharp beaks and claws into their newfound meal.

  Oblivious of this, Duncan lamented, “I caused that woman to fall through the ceiling, though.”

  Cade took his eyes from the opportunistic carrion feeders and steered the truck into a long left to right sweeper.

  “She was dead the moment she swore allegiance to Adrian.” He pushed the Ford’s speed to double the limit as trees crowded in on both sides of the long straightaway. After putting a full mile behind them in a little under a minute, he braked hard and threw the rig into another gradual left to right sweeper that ended in a wedge of daylight where the underbrush thinned and the trees backed off the snaking guardrails.

  Coming out of the turn the transmission geared down and 39 straightened out again and began a gradual climb to the next sweeping turn a quarter of a mile distant. On the left, beyond the white guardrail, the grass-covered ground fell away at a steep angle. On the right was a head-high wall of red dirt wearing a mohawk of scrub brush the color of muddy water. The earthen berm hosted a phalanx of juvenile aspen growing up through a footing of verdant ferns. It followed the laser-straight run of road for a thousand feet before rounding off and again merging with the state route’s undulating shoulder.

  Where the two-lane started off to the left at the top of the rise, Cade could see a roadside sign planted in the dirt next to the guardrail. Barely visible behind the white state route sign was the box-like roofline and squat turret mounted atop the desert-tan National Guard Humvee.

  Letting his gaze wander both sides of the road, Duncan raised the radio to his mouth and announced their arrival.

  Still giddy from being selected for the very important mission outside of the wire, Raven closed the middle gate and, with a spring in her step, hustled back to the idling Toyota 4Runner. Closing the door behind her, she said, “Step on it,” and smiled wide.

  “I don’t know why you’re smiling,” Sasha said sharply. “This doesn’t mean we’re done with dish duty.”

  Raven frowned.

  “There was nobody else in the compound,” declared Sasha. “I betcha if Max could drive he would be in this seat instead of me.”

  Hearing his name uttered, Max poked his head between the front seats and received a scratch behind the ears from Raven. She said, “No, Sasha. My dad wants you to learn to drive. He wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think you have it in you. Just this morning he told me that he wants both of us to start pulling our own weight. Doesn’t mean we’re freed from daily dish duty, though. You’re right about that.” She paused for a beat as the hidden gate came into view at the end of the long straight. “Gotta admit,” she added, “sneaking out without telling anybody where we were going was pretty stupid.”

  As if contradicting Raven’s positive assessment of the situation, one of the SUV’s front tires met a pothole. Which in turn caused the wheel to jerk from Sasha’s grip and the rig to shimmy wildly and slew sideways on the washboard gravel road.

  “Happens to Taryn all the time,” said Raven reassuringly. Ignoring Sasha’s sour look, she pushed the bag of medical supplies in the footwell aside with her boot, reached down, and picked her mom’s rifle up off the floorboard.

  Having regained control of the wheel, Sasha asked, “Think there will be any rotters at the gate?”

  Raven shook her head. “There weren’t any when Glenda and Seth went through.”

  “You can call Tran if you want and ask him what he sees on the cameras.”

  “I got it,” said Raven, patting the stubby black rifle trapped between her knees.

  Sasha jumped as a thick branch raked the 4Runner on her side.

  ***

  There were no dead things roaming 39 near the hidden gate. Using every last ounce of strength Raven was able to open the gate wide enough to allow Sasha to drive the Toyota through. However, closing the gate after was another story. She needed Sasha’s assistance to get it seated correctly and looking like the rest of its surroundings instead of a garden-variety steel gate festooned with both real and imitation foliage.

  ***

  The drive east to where the Raptor and Humvee were parked was short and uneventful. Though Raven hadn’t been paying close attention, she guessed they had traveled a mile, maybe two at the most.

  Sasha was pulling the Toyota to the shoulder a few feet shy of the squat military vehicle when Raven caught sight of the reason they’d been given a list of supplies to pull from storage and rush to Glenda outside the wire.

  Lev and Glenda were kneeling beside a person laid out on the road behind the Humvee. That it was a woman was undisputable. The white shirt underneath the unbuttoned camo blouse was red with blood and adhering to her breasts.

  Sasha fumbled with the transmission for a second before finally getting it set to Park. “Is that Taryn?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Raven. “The hair’s the right color, but way too long.” Bag of supplies in one hand, carbine in the other, she elbowed open her door and stepped to the shoulder.

  Sasha remained behind the wheel with the engine running.

  As Raven closed her door, she looked around the pillar and said, “You coming?”

  Sasha nodded, pried her fingers from the wheel, and stilled the engine.

  The familiar growl of the F-650’s engine reached Raven’s ears at about the same time she saw Wilson and Taryn emerging from behind the Raptor. Guns in hand and wearing serious expressions they split up, Wilson making a bee line for Sasha, and Taryn going forward to meet the approaching vehicle.

  Raven rushed to Glenda’s side and set the bag on the road next to her. “Everything is in there.” She cast her gaze to Jamie and looked her over from head to toe. The only obvious injury was to her face on the right side where Lev was hol
ding a bandage of some sort.

  Without acknowledging Raven or Sasha, Glenda tore into the bag and came out with a bottle labeled Iodine, a small tube tapered at one end, and a stainless-steel hemostat.

  Raven cringed when Lev lifted up the skin that used to be Jamie’s cheek. She felt her salivary glands go into overdrive when he tugged the underlying bandage up. Upon hearing the wet sound it made and seeing the corded muscle and bone the action revealed, her jaw locked open. With the pale, half-moon flap of skin jiggling in Lev’s shaking hand like a slice of bologna, Glenda clamped down on something out of sight with the scissor-like tool and then poured the dark red iodine into the wound.

  Having seen way too much, Raven backed away a couple of paces, spun around and dropped to her knees on the road. Simultaneously, she pitched forward and a torrent of hot bile spattered against the cold blacktop. The next thing she remembered was someone pulling her hair back from her face and helping her to stand. She dry-heaved once then leveled her eyes at the person who had one gloved hand on her elbow and the other bracing her hip.

  “Daddy,” she said, the drawn-out word bookended by a pair of wet burps.

  Seeing the bandage on Raven’s hand, Cade said, “What happened there?”

  “I punched a mirror,” she admitted, wiping a strand of drool from her lip.

  “Mom?”

  Raven nodded. Her eyes were moist. Cade couldn’t decide if it was caused by emotion or a result of her having just purged everything from her stomach.

  She looked him square in the face. “Is Jamie going to be OK?”

  Inspecting the bandaged hand, he said, “Did Glenda wrap this up for you?”

  Again, Raven nodded.

  “Then Jamie is in good hands,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Because this is a damn fine job she did on your injured paw.”

  This brought a half-smile to Raven’s face.

  Cade looked past the Humvee and regarded the distant bend in the road. “Bad people are coming.” Slowly bringing his gaze back to Raven, he added, “I need you and Sasha to get back to the compound right now. Get there and go to the dry storage. Don’t unlock the door until you hear my voice.”

  Raven nodded. She said, “I forgot and left your helmet in the Toyota.”

  “That’s OK. Thank you for remembering to bring it, sweetie. Have Wilson deliver it to Duncan.” He hugged her and kissed her forehead. Then he handed over her carbine and shooed her along to the 4Runner where Sasha was already behind the wheel and engaged in conversation with Wilson. He watched until she was aboard, then upped the volume on Wilson’s radio and strode off to reposition the vehicles.

  Chapter 56

  Having already pulled the pair of pickups a dozen yards farther west on 39, Cade hopped behind the wheel of the Humvee and started the motor. With Duncan walking alongside the multi-ton vehicle, Cade backed it off of the hill’s apex and let gravity pull it down the lee side until he figured that all but the very top of the turret and pair of whip antennas would be hidden behind the military crest of the hill.

  He killed the noisy diesel engine and relinquished his seat to Duncan.

  As Cade was dogging down the antennas sticking up from the Humvee’s rear corners, Lev approached him. In one hand was the MSR rifle. In the other was a two-way radio. They discussed the best place for Lev to set up his overwatch; then Cade asked how Jamie was doing.

  “The QuikClot bandage stopped most of the bleeding,” said Lev. “Still, it burned the hell out of her cheek.”

  “Glenda’s done with her?”

  Lev nodded. “She cleaned the wound and put in a few sutures. Finished it all off around the edges with Super Glue.” He paused and moved his gaze from Cade to Duncan then back to the former. “She wants to stay and fight.”

  Holding the Humvee door open with his knee, Duncan inclined his head and asked, “How is she doing mentally?”

  “As good as can be expected for a person who just took a bullet fragment to the face,” replied Lev.

  “Can she see to shoot?” asked Duncan.

  Lev jumped on the radio and asked Glenda to send Jamie over. He looked to Duncan and said, “Ask her yourself if you’re so concerned.”

  Jamie appeared from behind the Raptor a few seconds later. She was carrying the bolt-action rifle and a bottled water. The right side of her face was swollen and mostly obscured by a white bandage tinged reddish-orange by the iodine Glenda had so liberally applied.

  “Duncan wants to ask you something,” said Lev, hitching his brow.

  Stopping beside the partially open door, she said, “What?” The word came out sounding more like wood.

  Duncan made a peace sign with his right hand and held it up for Jamie to see. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  In response, she flipped him the bird. “How many do you see?”

  Acting as if he didn’t see the upthrust middle finger, he said, “Sure you don’t want to go back with Glenda and put your feet up for a spell?”

  Jamie’s eyes narrowed. She said slowly and carefully, “Don’t you fucking patronize me. I just took a piece of lead to the face.”

  In a show of surrender, Duncan raised his hands off the wheel. “So what do you want?”

  “I want to get even with the people who did this”—she gestured to her face with the bottle—“and I’m not letting some wannabe father figure stand in the way of me achieving that goal.”

  While Duncan was getting his ass chewed, Cade had been standing beside the rig and glassing the distant bend in the road with the Steiners. To save his friend any more humiliation, he looked over at Jamie and asked her nicely if she would like to accompany Lev into the woods.

  Just the words she wanted to hear. She about-faced and began to stalk off in Lev’s direction.

  “Wait,” Cade called. He reached into his pocket and came out with a couple of oblong pills. “Pop these. You’ll thank me for it later.”

  She reached out hesitantly. “What are they?”

  He dropped them into her palm. The creases there were still caked with blood which made the white pills look large in her hand. “Grunt candy,” he said, pointing to his mostly healed left ankle. “Ibuprofen. Eight hundred milligrams each.”

  After swallowing the pills dry, she said, “Thanks,” and hustled to catch Lev.

  “Same rules of engagement as before,” Cade called after the pair. Then he turned and addressed a red-faced Duncan. “What do you think?”

  “I think Lev has his hands full. You think she’s scary now … just wait until she has that scar-faced scowl down pat.”

  Cade hung his head. “Not Jamie. I was talking about the distance and angle of deflection to the bend in the road,” he clarified.

  “It’s a Browning,” drawled Duncan. “What’s the distance … a quarter mile or so?”

  “To the turn—give or take a few—should be about four hundred and fifty yards.”

  “Sheeit,” said Duncan. “The old gal’s not even breaking a sweat at that range. She could probably reach out and touch Woodruff if those trees weren’t in the way. Just let ‘em come until you see the whites of their eyes. Then let her eat.”

  Cade glanced over to see Lev and Jamie pushing into the forest off to the right of the Humvee. He swung his gaze back and said, “What if the column stops short before all their rigs are exposed?”

  “We cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  Cade passed the binoculars back then clambered aboard and took his spot behind the cupola-mounted heavy machine gun. Grabbing the fifty’s grips, he peered through the circular sight and trained the weapon on the first visible point at the bottom of the hill. From there he simulated strafing the entire length of the road by slowly walking the barrel along the solid yellow centerline to the point where it curled left and disappeared from view. To test the turret’s range of motion, he popped the locking lever by his right knee into the down position and grabbed hold of the crank handle by his left knee. A few turns counterclockwise started
the vented barrel swinging around to the right. Reversing the process, he swung the Ma Deuce over to the left shoulder and then brought it back on line with the center of 39. Satisfied with the commanding fields of fire the high ground afforded, he dropped down into the turret, leaving just the top of his head showing, and surveyed the Humvee’s left and right flanks through the opposing pairs of rectangular windows. Though the ballistic glass distorted everything a bit due to its thickness and was spotted with dirt (a problem easily rectified), it would do just fine in the bullet-stopping department.

  As if he had been reading Cade’s mind, Duncan said, “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “We’ve definitely got the advantage,” agreed Cade.

  “What about the Kids … Wilson and Taryn?” asked Duncan. He had donned Cade’s tactical bump helmet and left the straps dangling by his cheeks.

  “They’ve seen and done enough killing today to last them a month of Sundays.”

  “Sending them back with Glenda?”

  “They’re taking her and Seth back in the Raptor,” said Cade as he started counting the .50 caliber rounds Phillip had so dutifully linked by hand weeks ago.

  The helmet straps danced and bounced off of Duncan’s graying beard as he nodded agreeably. “Good call,” he said, dropping his gaze to the center hump on his right. Positioned there in a neat line smallest to biggest were three two-way radios and the single long-range handheld CB taken off the woman at the Thagons’ home. The first radio was tuned to the same channel as the radio Duncan had positioned by the roadside ditch to the east. It was broadcasting a steady stream of white noise interrupted now and again by caws from a murder of crows hanging out somewhere nearby.

  The second radio was powered on and locked on the channel Iris had been using to communicate with her people. Since freeing up the channel a few minutes ago, the radio had been silent.

  Radio number three was a Motorola handheld tuned to the same channel shared by all of the Eden survivors as well as Tran, who was manning the base station back at the compound.