As Titan crested the hill, his eyes widened as his headlight gave him a quick, final glimpse of the horde, what Halsey called the Stampede, spread out ahead of him. Before the biker could even touch the brakes, the motorcycle drove into the thick of the pack and was instantly swallowed. Brief screams were cut short a moment later, the outlaw biker torn apart before his Harley stopped moving.
• • •
Vlad’s right foot was numb, the ragged leather at the tip of his boot slick with blood, making the control pedals slippery. He tried to ignore it, to focus on flying, but it was like a pulsing red shriek at the end of his leg. He was wearing the NVGs now, the world around him transformed to a bright green.
The Black Hawk thudded toward the surrounded cabin.
He didn’t feel any ground fire slamming against the combat chopper’s armored belly, didn’t have time to worry about it anyway, and was shocked he had lifted off ahead of the horde. They had gotten close, though, and the hollow, metallic slapping of their hands along the length of the tail boom and fuselage was a noise he knew he would hear in nightmares for years to come. If he had years. It might only be minutes.
Another narrow liftoff, another human life depending on his skill as a pilot. “I have been to this dance before,” he said through gritted teeth, aiming the chopper for the bullet-scarred tower atop the cabin. He hoped Halsey was smarter than he portrayed himself, for the Russian had no way to communicate with the man.
As the Black Hawk slid in beside the tower, rotor blades pounding dangerously close to the peaked roof, Halsey appeared at the wooden wall with a canvas pack and a rifle slung across his chest. The rotor wash blew the man’s John Deere cap into the night as the ranch hand leaped, scrambling into the troop compartment. In an instant Vladimir was banking and climbing.
Halsey watched his home fall away beneath them. It was swarming with the walking dead, and in that moment he knew it was home no longer.
• • •
Blue January skies greeted them in the morning, the sun rising to melt away the thin layer of snow. Groundhog-7 sat quietly just off a shaggy green patch with a flag poking out of the ground. The flag read 9 and the golf course was quiet and empty around them.
“Hurt much?” Halsey said, sitting beside his friend on the lip of the troop compartment, legs dangling over the side. His calf and chin were bound in gauze, the bandage wrapping around the top of his head, making him speak through clenched teeth. Adhesive pads were taped to his elbow and ribs.
The Russian’s boot was off, his foot a lump under white wrapping. Between the two of them they had exhausted the helicopter’s first-aid kit.
“Da,” said the pilot. He had managed to blow off not one toe, but two. The aspirin from the kit did little to ease the pain. “I believe if I had not done this to myself, the pain would not be so great.”
“Pride can hurt worse than the wound.”
“You are very wise,” Vladimir said, “for a man with farm animal shit on his boots.”
Halsey wiggled his feet. “Two boots. Did you notice that?”
A sigh. “It did not escape my attention.” The Russian looked at his friend. “You are a mess.”
The ranch hand spat tobacco through his teeth, staining the bandage on his chin. “Been better.”
The handheld Hydra radio sat between them, a silent black brick. Vlad had tried to call Angie, Skye, and Carney repeatedly. No one had answered, and the pilot was visibly unsettled.
“You cannot go home,” the Russian said quietly. “I am sorry.”
“I know. I am too. Nothing to be done about it.”
Vladimir nodded. “I am in need of a gunner.”
“Got nothing better to do.”
The Russian nodded and patted the M240 machine gun mounted in the door. “Then let me introduce you to my friend.”
RENDER UNTO CAESAR
TWENTY-FIVE
January 13—Southeast Chico
Lassiter stood in front of a small statue of a Chinese dragon, urinating into its open mouth with an exaggerated “Ahhh . . .” Russo was one shop down, looking at books in a broken display window. He selected a paperback from an author he liked and tucked it into his backpack.
The shops were set up in a small semicircle around a brick-paved plaza with little metal chairs and tables, an almond tree growing out of the center. In addition to the Chinese restaurant and bookstore, there was a candle store, a small gallery, and a boutique coffee shop. An empty bicycle rack stood to one side. Russo used to like coming here before the plague, sitting alone at a table beneath the almond tree with a latte, surfing on his tablet computer.
The film student looked around and shook his head at the random violence of earthquakes. On his side of the street there was only broken glass and overturned chairs. The opposite side of Wisconsin Street was a line of rubble and shattered timbers, barely recognizable as a row of houses. An eight-foot-wide fissure had opened up just down the block, swallowing part of a two-story house. Lassiter’s truck was parked well away from the crack, just in front of the little plaza.
“There isn’t shit here we need,” said Lassiter, zipping up and walking to join Russo in front of the bookstore. He didn’t even glance at the books in the window.
“I like it here,” said Russo.
“Whoopee. Let’s get back to work.” The former armored-car driver walked toward the truck. “There’s a little outdoor sports place not far from here. I saw a crossbow on display in there, back before all this shit. I want to check, see if maybe it’s still there.”
Russo looked at the books a bit longer. There would be no one writing new ones anymore, and he found that sad. He looked up at the blue early-morning sky and then followed Lassiter to the truck. They had been at it since first light, just another day of scavenging, and already the bed contained several cases of canned vegetables, a twenty-four-pack of bottled water, and three cases of motor oil.
“Bits and pieces,” he muttered.
“What?” Lassiter demanded. “What did you say?”
“I said bits and pieces. That’s what we do,” Russo said, “collect scraps from the old world.”
“You’re such a whiner,” Lassiter said, leaning on the hood of his truck and staring at his partner, “and you think you’re so much better than everyone else because you had some college. There is no old world, there’s only this one, it’s just changed. But everything has to have some big meaning for you, doesn’t it?” He hawked and spit to the side. “This is nothing more than survival. It’s simple. No deep meaning. If we want things to keep running, and if we want to keep eating, we go out and take whatever we can find, ’cause sure as shit no one’s making any more.”
Russo shrugged. Maybe that was right, maybe it was as simple as survival, but what kind of life was that? Not much of a life at all, at least not for him. He watched his partner kneel in front of the pickup to tie his boot and decided this would be their last run together. Russo wouldn’t kill him, not because he didn’t want to or think he could, but because it just didn’t matter anymore. This was Lassiter’s world, and the man was perfectly suited to it. Hell, he’d probably been wishing for something like this his whole life. But not Russo. He wanted to be away from all this, to be alone. Maybe he could find a little house in the mountains where no one would bother him. It would be hard living, and frightening at first, but he didn’t think it would be as frightening as life in Chico, under the rule of a madman and rubbing elbows with murderous scum.
The young man decided that he would pack up what he could and leave tonight, find a car that still ran and head north. A fresh start. That sounded nice.
• • •
Angie, Skye, and Carney caught a few hours of sleep in an upscale furniture store, crashed on couches and in recliners while sharing the watch. At daybreak they were moving again, walking in a line down East 8th Street. On point, Carney startled a deer that was grazing in the front yard of an animal hospital, nibbling at a row of hedges. The ex-con watc
hed the creature bound up the street and out of sight between two buildings.
Behind him, Angie walked without looking around, eyes on the pavement and her boots. Skye caught up to her. “You okay?”
Angie shook her head, and Skye walked beside her in silence.
Carney led them around a blockage where the quake had shaken light and telephone poles into the street, dropping them on parked cars. One of the crucifixes they had seen throughout the city had toppled as well, and whatever had been hung upon it had managed to tear itself free and wander off. Part of a gray hand was still spiked to the crossbar.
After a few minutes Skye said, “We don’t have to stay. We can just go back to the ship.”
“Go if you want to,” Angie said, not looking up.
“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it,” Skye said. “But if we’re going to stay and do this, we need a better plan than just wandering around until someone shoots at us.”
Angie kept her eyes on the pavement, her voice flat. “Carney is looking for signs of their activity. Then we’ll find them and kill them.”
“Oh, I see,” Skye said, “simple like that.”
“Simple like that.”
Skye grabbed the woman’s shoulder and spun her, moving her face in close. “Then get your head in the game, lady.”
Angie bared her teeth. “Get your hand off me.”
Skye did, giving her a hard shove. “You’re walking around feeling sorry for yourself, not paying attention, and it’s going to get us killed.” The younger woman pointed at Angie. “I told you to go cold. Fucking do it. Carney and I aren’t going to waste our lives for someone who’s already given up on her own.”
When Angie simply glared at her, Skye pointed at her again. “You think you’re the first one to lose somebody? They might even still be alive out there, and you could live on that hope your whole life. I watched my family die.”
Angie bristled, wanting to scream that Skye was a kid, she didn’t know what it was like to lose a child, a man she loved. A child! It was something Skye couldn’t possibly understand. What did she really know about loss?
Then Angie looked at the hard, unyielding face, the gray, scarred skin and patch hiding a blind eye, souvenirs of horror. This was a girl who should be concerned with dating and grades, not field-stripping rifles and chopping up corpses with a machete. The anger blew out of her like a sudden wind.
“I’m sorry,” Angie said softly.
“Fuck your sorry,” Skye growled. “Fuck sympathy and pity”—she waved an arm at the dead city—“because they did. Remember the ranch? Your mom and dad?” She stepped close to Angie once more, and in a low voice said, “No more pity, Ang. Not for yourself, not for them. They’re worse than zombies. At least the dead don’t kill for sport.”
Angie met that single cold eye and nodded slowly. Skye gripped the woman’s shoulder briefly and joined Carney.
The ex-con had been watching outward during the exchange, as was his habit, but now he turned and walked back to Angie, cradling his rifle in his arms in that easy way of his, like he was involved in nothing more pressing than a hunting trip with old friends. He cocked his head. “It’s okay,” he said.
“What’s okay?” The woman had a deep weariness about her.
“To hurt. To miss people. And it never goes away.”
Angie let out a small sigh. “Is that supposed to make things better?”
The corner of the ex-con’s mouth lifted just the slightest. “No. And that’s not the point. We’re still here, and we have to keep on.”
“So tell me what’s the point in that.”
Carney’s mouth lifted a bit higher. “Most people would give you a load about living for their memory, that it’s what they would want.” He shook his head.
“Then why?” Angie asked.
“To be spiteful.” He turned and walked back toward Skye, calling over his shoulder, “Death hates it when we live just to spite him. It’s enough.”
When Carney led off once more, Angie was following with her head up.
After only a few minutes, however, Carney held up his hand and snapped his fingers. The two women stopped at once, rifles moving to shoulders as they looked and listened. An engine, a heavy diesel like those used in construction equipment. It was coming this way.
“Cover,” Angie whispered, and the three of them fled up a short driveway, ducking out of sight behind a two-story Victorian with a wraparound porch.
• • •
They were almost ready. It had taken weeks of planning and small trips out together, Leah in the carrier on Dean’s back as he made his runs with a two-wheeled hand truck from the convenience store. Most of the time he carried it to avoid the extra noise, only setting it on its wheels when he was ready to load up.
Each day he would go out with a list and return with all the items he could find, rolling the hand truck through the streets, piled with boxes and plastic totes. He placed the pilfered goods in stacked rows inside the garage beside their house, a precise plan for how it would all eventually be loaded. It wasn’t nearly as much as he wanted—Chico was good-sized, but there had been plenty of scavenging, and his range was limited—but it would have to be enough.
There was some canned food, water in an assortment of odd-sized containers, clothing, coats and shoes in both their sizes, or at least close enough. He had a few tools and tarps, a couple of packages of batteries, and some camping equipment. One tote held toys, books, and crayons, and some larger kids’ clothing Leah could grow into. Their meager first-aid supplies and medicine were packed in a small red tote, while maps, a compass, some road flares, and a hatchet were nestled in a green one. Six full jerry cans of gasoline were lined up at the back of the load.
Dean stood now amid the shadows inside a small sporting-goods store, his latest plunder strapped to the hand truck with bungee cords: a sleeping bag, half a case of Sterno cans, and some small bottles of propane for camp stoves. Atop it all was a compound bow and bundles of arrows he had found high on a shelf in the store’s small stockroom.
“Last trip, Daddy?” Leah said over his shoulder.
“That’s right, honey,” Dean replied, checking the street. He saw only one figure moving, a corpse in the middle of the road, half a block away.
The little girl clapped her hands. “We’re going bye-bye.”
Dean smiled. “Yes we are, after it gets dark.”
“I can stay up late?”
“Just tonight.”
“Wawas is coming with me,” she confirmed.
“Yes, Wawas is coming.” He reached back and squeezed her hand. “Ready to run?”
“Ready.”
Dean opened the door and trotted into the street, pulling the hand truck behind him and gripping his Glock in the other hand. He ran in the direction opposite the lone corpse and turned at an intersection.
Telling Leah this was their last trip wasn’t exactly true. This was their last trip for supplies, but there would be one more right at sunset. That was when the two of them would travel five blocks to where Dean had a red Chevy Silverado crew-cab pickup stashed in a garage, fueled and waiting. His plan was to retrieve the truck, drive back to their little house, and load the supplies he had staged so carefully. He had allotted himself one hour for all of this. Then they would leave under the cover of night, when he figured it was least likely for the raiders to be out, and head north.
Dean jogged down the street, his hand truck bumping behind him. He stopped to check an intersection and jogged through. The convenience store in front of their little house was just up on the left, and he crossed the distance as quickly as he could. When they reached the garage, he rolled the door up and then quickly back down once they were inside.
“Can I go color?” Leah asked as he set her down.
“Sure, but go potty first, okay?”
“I will, Daddy.”
Dean held her hand as he walked her to the house, unlocking the door and then locking it behi
nd her. Then he unpacked the latest supplies and placed them in the loading arrangement.
• • •
Shit, you see that?” Lassiter whispered, about to climb into the cab of his F-250. He snatched a pair of binoculars off the seat and looked up the street that intersected at their trendy little plaza.
“See what?” Russo asked, coming around to his partner’s side.
“I’ll be damned,” Lassiter breathed, and then started to grin. About two blocks away, a man in dark clothing was crossing the street pulling a loaded cart of some kind behind him. A little girl was riding on his back in a carrier. Lassiter watched them duck out of sight between a house and a little convenience store.
“Remember what Little Emer told us to look for when we were out?” Lassiter asked, checking street names and addresses.
Russo nodded. He had seen the running shape but at this distance couldn’t make out the details with his naked eye. “You think you saw them?”
“I know I saw them,” Lassiter said, “and I found their fucking nest.” He shouldered Russo aside and reached into the truck cab for his walkie-talkie.
“Rome, this is Salvage-Four, come in.”
There was a long pause, and then, “Go ahead, Salvage-Four.”
“I need to talk to the man.”
Another pause. “What do you want him for?” asked the voice on the radio.
“I said I need to talk to Little Emer. Now go get him, goddammit!”
The radio was silent for a long while, and Lassiter simply stared at it, saying nothing to his partner. Beside him, Russo wished he had left yesterday.
The warlord’s voice came over the speaker. “What do you have, Lassiter?”
The former armored-car driver told him what he had seen and gave the location. Little Emer asked a few questions, then told Lassiter to sit tight and wait.
Omega Days (Book 3): Drifters Page 24
