Standing there on the edge of the clearing with his teeth threatening to chatter, he looked skyward into the inky black and thanked God for the moonless night and high clouds. Couldn’t have asked for a better set of circumstances in which to prosecute a solo attack on an enemy whose numbers and resolve remained an unknown quantity.
After thumbing the headlamp switch, he stuffed the Motorola in the pocket opposite the Thuraya and pulled the Glock 19 from his waistband. He checked the magazine and action, pressed the pistol to his leg, then struck off into the woods on a heading that would see him to the outdoor latrine.
***
Raven’s handiwork gave away the thrown-together outhouse as the beam from Cade’s headlamp swung up from the worn dirt path. Still in the frame, the slivers of mirrored glass sparkled bright above the cobbled-on wash basin.
As Cade stepped up to the sink, he saw drops of crimson blood. When he looked up, he noticed a haggard-looking fella staring back at him: pronounced crow’s feet. Downturned mouth hidden in a thicket of whiskers. He couldn’t will that frown upside down even if Robin Williams appeared out of thin air and started in on a standup routine. He was run down and doubted the cold water was going to help. Still, he had to try.
But first he had to set his plan into action. He set the Glock on the narrow shelf above the sink and plucked the satellite phone from his pocket. The phone screen lit up when he pushed a random button. After thumbing in the digits to unlock the handset, he scrolled to the messaging feature and banged out a lengthy message. Finished, he hit Send and placed the phone on the shelf next to the Glock.
He wet one corner of the towel with water from the container hanging on the latrine wall beside the broken mirror. Taking his time, he wiped the cold, damp fabric over his entire upper body, starting with his face and ending with his hands.
Five minutes after sending his message, he thumbed the phone on and glanced at its upturned screen. Nothing. No missed call. No new SMS message. He took the Glock off the shelf and, leaving the phone behind due to the old adage that a watched pot doesn’t boil, turned the corner and yanked open the latrine’s flimsy door. Instantly, his headlamp beam illuminated the plywood sheet passing itself off as a toilet seat and revealed the sloppy contents of the fifty-five-gallon drum below it. No sooner had the door cleared his face than the newly awoken flies attacked the beam’s source. Having no doubt recently been at rest atop the feces and soiled toilet paper, the shiny black pests took station around his head.
No stranger to the insects and other beasties the foreign lands he’d spent time in had to offer, Cade ignored the shit kamikazes and took care of his business.
***
A minute after utilizing the plywood “throne,” the flies followed Cade and his beam out of the latrine.
Cade eyed the satellite phone as he washed up. As he was drying his hands off on a clean corner of his towel, the screen flared to colorful life, stayed lit for a half-beat, then went dark again.
Blinking the tracers from his eyes, he grabbed the phone off the shelf. Then, with an upward swipe of the back of the hand clutching the Glock, he angled the headlamp’s beam to the heavens and thumbed the phone to life. There on the screen was the response to his SMS message. It was short and succinct. It read: Timing is everything, Wyatt. A string of GPS coordinates was below the text. Then below it all, the number 0200 sat all alone.
Main Street, Woodruff, Utah
Dregan had waited until the staggering juggernaut of rotted flesh and tattered clothing reached the 39/16 junction before making his move. Praying for his estimation of the gap between the cars to err in his favor, he stomped the pedal and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
The truck lurched as the V8 spooled up and forward momentum was established. The steering wheel wobbled in Dregan’s grip as the transmission geared up. Soon the centerline was rushing under the front bumper and the two vehicles loomed.
Aiming the Brady Mobile’s squared-off front end at the opening, he took the lesser of two evils approach and steered left by a degree or two so if he had to hit something, it would be the smaller import instead of the boat-like slab of American iron.
With two truck-lengths to go, the headlights revealed the gap to be even narrower than Dregan had guessed.
With one truck-length to go, he made a final micro-adjustment with the steering wheel, narrowed his eyes, and braced for impact.
As the barreling ice cream truck came even with the roadblock, its front bumper on Dregan’s side met the import’s right front fender. There was an explosion of sound: bending metal, tinkling glass, and the screech of unwilling rubber moving against the grain.
In a fraction of a second the ice cream truck had punched through and Sweet Georgia Brown was again top billing.
Dregan checked the rig’s gauges. The oil pressure looked normal. Voltmeter needle was hovering where he remembered. And most importantly, the water temperature seemed to be holding, the needle parked firmly in the green zone.
Seeing is believing being important to Dregan, he inched up in his seat and peered over the wheel. When he saw there was no steam pouring from the hood, he exhaled sharply. Because if anything up front save for a headlight or blinker were to fail, it was likely going to be the radiator. Which would stop him in his tracks well before he led the dead out of Woodruff and got the lot of them going exactly where he wanted them to: much farther north into the Bear Lake basin.
Adrian’s territory.
A “no-go zone” according to the late Ray Thagon.
Fighting back a rising urge to hack more spongy lung tissue into the already bloodied kerchief, Dregan swallowed hard and steered the raucous, rolling dinner bell through Woodruff.
***
Barely a minute after turning the import into a mass of compacted tin, Dregan was pulling to the shoulder and running his gaze over a roadside sign admonishing him not to litter and threatening a hefty fine for doing so.
Letting a rare grin crease his face, he shifted his attention to the side mirror, stared off into the dark, and waited patiently for the inevitable arrival of the ever-persistent Washington Generals.
Chapter 68
After reading the brief message, Cade had spent a few minutes in deep thought all alone in the dark.
Having come to a hard-fought decision, he retraced his steps to the compound entrance, along the way throwing the soiled towel on the heap of camouflage clothing destined for the fire pit.
Passing through the security station, he stopped to inquire about Daymon and Heidi.
“Still not a word,” said Lev, his voice suggesting defeat.
“Duncan been out and about?”
Lev was silent for a few seconds. Finally, he said, “He went outside briefly. When he returned, Glenda headed him off in the foyer. He said a couple of words I couldn’t make out. Next thing I know she’s lighting him up. That goes on for a few seconds and then they passed through here all quiet and icy.”
Having a good idea what was brewing, Cade said nothing. Instead, he pulled up the message on the satellite phone and showed it to Lev.
“Where there’s a will …” began Lev, meeting his friend’s steely gaze.
“There’s a way,” finished Cade, his jaw taking a hard set.
“Still hell-bent on going solo?”
Cade nodded.
Lev offered Cade a fist to bump. “Stay frosty, friend.”
Cade touched knuckles with the former soldier. Then he took a pad of paper and pen from the desk and continued on his way.
SR-39
Dregan had to wait just south of two minutes for the dead to again show their faces in his side mirror. At first, the glimpses of arms and legs pistoning mechanically as the front ranks staggered into the splash of multicolored light made him think he was on some studio back lot and staring at horrors made up in a special effects shop. He was dragged back to reality a half-beat later when angry-sounding snarls rose over the music being piped through the speaker. And a
s the mega-horde drew nearer, shrubs and hedges growing up beside the narrow sidewalks folded over and disappeared from view, victims of its steady, unstoppable advance.
Spurred on forcefully from behind, the expanding edge of the lead element met a two-story house head on, causing it to shudder and slide from its foundation. Gunshot-like cracks resounded as mature trees in front and back of the house knuckled under to tremendous pressures when the walking corpses surged around the home as if it were a stone in a fast-moving stream.
With a bone-jarring bang, a dead thing smashed against the passenger side glass. It had come out of the dark and the resulting shock caused Dregan to jump in his seat and drop the spotlight on his lap, the heated glass lens singing his skin through the fabric of his pants.
Letting out a yelp, he brushed the spotlight from his leg and inadvertently let his foot slip off the brake pedal. Whereas the Brady Mobile should have started a slow roll forward under power of the idling V8, it didn’t move an inch.
Dregan’s stomach relocated to his throat as the realization hit him that he could no longer feel the vibration of the engine through his boot soles. Somehow it had stalled out. And between the ditty coming from the speaker and the noise of the horde destroying everything in its path, its untimely death had gone unnoticed.
As he cycled the key in the ignition and listened to the starter crank futilely, the lone zombie gave up on the passenger window and started a slow shuffle through the headlight beams.
Dregan glanced at the gauges again. Saw that the needles were all parked in the acceptable ranges. Strangely, though he’d logged roughly ten miles—some of them over questionable terrain and had left the motor idling for substantial periods of time—the gas gauge was still pegged at Full.
When Dregan tapped the gauge with his finger, three things happened simultaneously. In unison, both the gas needle and his stomach started a freefall, with the former hitting the stops at Empty. As the latter began to do acrobatics, the flimsy glass slider to his left shattered and a cold, gnarled hand took hold of his beard.
Leaning his upper body hard to the right, Dregan shot his left hand toward the window and grabbed the creature by the neck. Cursing himself for letting his guard down, he straightened his arm and drew the .45 from its holster. As he thumbed back the hammer, in his head he heard Gregory’s voice saying It was full when Hodges gave me the keys. And when he jammed the pistol’s blued barrel between the deadhead’s snapping teeth and pulled the trigger, he was also cursing himself a second time for believing the recent retiree would part with the only link to his past life and deliver it to the self-professed Gas Baron of Salt Lake with a full tank of the precious commodity.
The resulting discharge was deafening inside the cab. Because of the barrel’s angle relative to the zombie’s throat, the expanding gasses exiting the muzzle caused its cheeks to balloon to Dizzy-Gillespie-like proportions. A microsecond later everything from the lip up was being rearranged by the 230-grain slug.
Like a scene from a cartoon, the thing’s milky eyes bugged out an inch from the sockets and its nose ripped away at the base and smacked against its forehead.
Dregan watched the monster slip from view. There one second. Gone the next. Then he was aware of the steady ringing happening between his ears. The one positive takeaway from discharging the weapon at close range and in confined quarters was that the cacophonous duel between the looping song and calls of the clamoring horde was now replaced by the constant high-pitched tone.
Causing Dregan to wish his olfactory had also been compromised, the stench of death and decay riding a surge of air enveloped the truck. The gunpowder nose was quickly usurped as tendrils of the carrion-heavy air entered the cab through the broken window.
Eyes locked on the side mirror, he grabbed hold of the spotlight, hung it out the window, and switched it on. The sight that greeted him was not good. True to the admonition etched into the mirror, the objects were truly closer than he had anticipated.
“Damn you, Hodges,” exclaimed Dregan as the slow-moving wall of walking dead slammed hard into the Brady Mobile from behind and sent it rolling forward. With the engine stilled, the power steering wasn’t working. Which stopped Dregan from correcting the truck’s trajectory before the right-side wheels slipped off the shoulder and found the ditch.
The roll was slow at first, but picked up speed as the horde slammed into the truck’s rear end a second time.
Dregan was propelled forward out of his seat. Then, when he should have been coming back down on the cushion, he instead crashed face first into the windshield, his ribs taking a beating from the steering wheel. In the serving area behind him, metal items clanged together as drawers and cupboard doors opened, spilling their contents on the floor which was quickly trading places with the ceiling.
As the truck settled on its roof in the roadside ditch, Dregan found himself curled in a ball and staring up at the seat he’d just been bucked out of.
Before he had a chance to drag himself to a sitting position, hands were probing for him. In no amount of time the hands pulled back and the face of a long dead woman filled up the space.
There was a prolonged groan of buckling panels and the truck was forced deeper into the ditch. As a result, dirt spilled in around the wriggling corpse.
Ducking down and peering over the upended dash afforded Dregan a true read on the fix he was in. He saw dozens of faces mashed against the windshield. Behind him, more sneering faces filled up the passenger glass.
After saying a quick little prayer asking for his boys to be happy and safe from harm for the remainder of their lives, he took his .45 from its holster, pressed the gaping muzzle to the flat underneath his chin, and squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 69
Raven was snoring louder than ever when Cade entered the Grayson quarters. Apparently the melatonin was doing its job. As he closed the door, Max approached and nuzzled the Glock in his hand.
“Don’t want to do that again, boy,” he whispered. He set the pistol on the table by the door and spent a minute lavishing the dog with attention. Finished, he knelt on the floor and slowly pulled the foot-locker-sized Pelican case containing his gear out from behind the bunk that Brook—when she wasn’t involved in a body-warmth-seeking incursion to his side—used to call her own.
Sitting on his bunk, he popped the latches and hinged the top over. He took from the box his black kit: fatigues, plate carrier, chest rig, backpack, and tactical bump helmet. He fished out a pair of night vision goggles and spare batteries for them. Wading through the gear at the bottom of the box, he selected batteries in the correct sizes for his M4’s tactical light and EOTech optics. Lastly, he plucked out the orange bottle of Hoppes No. 9 gun oil and some clean rags and set it all on the table with his Glock.
With Max supervising, he spent an hour preparing his kit. He stripped, cleaned, and oiled his weapons, checking every moving part twice along the way. The batteries in everything he would be taking north with him were replaced with new items taken from packaging stamped with the best Use By dates.
He broke the MSR down, seated the pieces in the foam, closed the case and set it by the door with his suppressor-equipped M4, Glock 19, and Gerber dagger.
Cade moved the chair to the table by the door and sat down. He spent a few minutes writing on the pad, then tore the sheets off, labeled them, and folded them neatly. Next, he removed the ring from the chain around his neck and placed it neatly atop the folded pages. After setting the Suunto’s alarm for 0100, he killed the light and stretched out on the bunk. A few short seconds of listening to his daughter’s calm breathing put him out like the bulb he had just extinguished.
***
Cade awoke from a light slumber and, despite the impenetrable dark inside the Conex container, kept his eyes sealed shut for a long ten-count and listened hard to the goings on around him. First thing he detected was the slow, steady cadence of Raven’s breathing. Then he heard a low groan and faint scrabble of nails on wo
od that told him Max was underneath his bunk somewhere and likely engaged in a doggy dream.
Next, he thumbed the Suunto’s light button and learned he had five minutes to spare before the alarm was set to sound. Which was a good thing. First, it meant he had twenty minutes instead of fifteen to get his ducks in a row prior to the agreed-upon extraction time. Second, it meant he could use that extra five minutes to make sure he and Lev were both on the same page.
After strapping on his helmet and powering up the attached pair of night vision goggles, he dressed in his black fatigues and collected his gear and weapons.
He stooped to collect the Pelican case and felt a cold nose brush his wrist that earned Max a ten-second scratching behind the ears.
Standing there in the dark, he let his gaze roam the room. Seeing the place he had called home for several weeks bathed in the soft green glow of the NVGs was eerie. Seeing his daughter lying on her bunk, blissfully aware of his presence, was disconcerting, to say the least. For when he usually saw people in this light, both literally and metaphorically, he was usually killing them in their sleep. Blowing her a kiss across the distance, he crept out of room and closed the door at his back.
Out in the corridor, Cade left the NVGs powered on but swiveled them up on their mount.
Squinting against the light thrown from the bulb in the security area, he rounded the corner and greeted Lev.
“Any word on Daymon?”
Lev shook his head. “Nothing. I’ve been trying them every hour on the hour. All of these—” he indicated the trio of radios and lone long-range CB handset lined up on the desk before him”—have been silent as a brick since you were here last.”
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 36
