“I want my daddy,” she said.
“I told you who your new daddy was. But right now, let’s go see Grandma.”
• • •
The pungent ripeness of the dead had finally erased all trace of chlorine. It hung in the air like a brown cloud, clinging to everything. From the pool rose the shuffle of dozens of little feet, accompanied by hungry snarls. Against the far wall, Lenore Franks growled and tugged at her chains.
Little Emer tugged Leah along by one arm, jerking sharply when she dragged her feet. She was crying. “Look, it’s Grandma,” the biker said, holding the little girl’s face and forcing her to look at the rotten thing struggling against the wall.
“Not Gramma!” she said, pulling away.
He pulled her to the edge of the pool. “And here’s your brothers and sisters.”
Leah saw the agitated corpses, all about her age. “Icky,” she said. “Bad boys.”
The biker laughed, the sound echoing through the high-ceilinged room. “Don’t you want to go down and play? There’s toys down there.”
Leah tried to run, but he held firm. Little Emer stood her back at the edge. “They want to play with you.”
“Bad boys. Bad boys!” Leah shook a finger at the mass of small, reaching bodies.
Little Emer placed a hand against her back. Perhaps she could be a shield. Or maybe just one last push, for old times’ sake.
• • •
Big Emer Briggs did not find himself a place on the wall, but he did find a rifle, an M16 with a handful of loaded magazines. He made his way to the greenhouse, glancing at the empty lawn chair outside the door. Andrew Wahrman had been his friend since before his son was born, and now he was gone.
A cough rumbled in his chest, and Briggs bit it back with difficulty, pushing into the greenhouse. The humidity and sweet aroma of weed hit him, but it failed to put the usual smile on his face. The grow meant nothing now. None of this shit did.
He moved down the leafy rows and into the small tool room where he kept a cot. Within ten minutes he had packed a pair of canvas gym bags with clothes, weapons, and food. These he carried to the flatbed truck parked beside the greenhouse and dropped them in the cab along with the M16. Then he took the time to fill half a dozen plastic jugs with water.
Son or not, Little Emer was dead to him now. Let him go down fighting if that was what he wanted. Big Emer was dying, the number of his remaining days counted in weeks now probably, but he wasn’t suicidal. Any fear or worry he might have had for his son’s life had evaporated, replaced by the agony of a broken finger, a murdered friend, and the madness seething behind a warlord’s flat, dead eyes.
He took three trips to load the water jugs into the cab of the truck, then reentered the greenhouse one last time to collect his plastic tub of handpicked, fragrant buds. When he came out, tub tucked under one arm, he found his son standing at the truck, leaning back against the cab door and holding an Uzi low at his side.
“Time to bail, Daddy?”
His father stopped and stared. Little Emer stood between him and the assault rifle inside the truck.
“What are you going to do, Daddy, crash the back gate? Leave it wide open while you drive away, so the dead come inside to keep us busy?”
Big Emer swallowed hard. That was exactly what he had intended to do.
“My daddy is running out on me again,” the warlord said. “I may cry.”
The elder Briggs dropped the plastic tub of weed, heavy buds scattering across the ground. There was only one way to survive this. “Who do you think you’re talking to, boy?”
Little Emer said nothing, and the old man took a step forward. “You think you’ve got balls?” the old man said. “You think you can scare me? Why don’t you piss yourself like you always did, little boy? Show everyone that you’re really a scared little girl.” Big Emer advanced another step, huffing small, wet coughs. “I’ll beat the ears off the sides of your goddamned head!”
Little Emer smiled. “Daddy,” he hissed. His father saw the barrel of the Uzi rise a half second before a long burst cut him down.
• • •
Big Emer strained against the leash, the leather dog collar cutting into the cold skin of his throat, a pain he could not feel. The chain gave him about four feet of slack from where it was anchored to the front bumper of the flatbed truck.
On the ground just out of reach was meat, a man in sunglasses and sandals, covered in sweet-smelling blood. Big Emer’s milky eyes widened and he let out a long moan, reaching, reaching, reaching.
TWENTY-NINE
January 13—East of Chico
Halsey and Vladimir watched a girl of about nineteen limp up the fairway toward where Groundhog-7 sat near the ninth hole. She had been Hispanic, her skin now a mottled black and gray, and she wore a belly shirt and great hoop earrings that swung when she moved. Much of the flesh had been bitten away from her left arm, exposing bone, and several fingers were missing from the hand on the same side.
A dozen or more drifters shambled after her.
Halsey had the Winchester resting back over his shoulder. He had left the .22 and the scoped rifle in the tower. “Don’t think I can make a head shot at this range,” he said, “not with these open sights, anyway. The thirty-thirty ain’t much for distance.”
Vladimir walked to the helicopter’s troop compartment. Angie and the others had not been able to take all the gear when they left for Chico; there hadn’t been enough room in the Polaris. Still lashed to the metal deck was a case of MREs, a pair of M4s, and a five-hundred-count can of 5.56-millimeter. He loaded the M4’s magazine and handed it to his friend.
Halsey examined the rifle, not so very different from the M16 he had trained with during his time in the service, seemingly a lifetime ago. But as was often the case, time could not completely erase training, and what he had learned about military rifles so long ago came back quickly. He immediately saw and felt that this weapon was better than the M16 of his youth: more durable, higher-quality manufacturing, and the sight optics were first rate.
His first round hit the Hispanic girl just below the neck and to the left, shattering her collarbone. She stumbled and her left shoulder sagged, but otherwise her slow, relentless pace was unchanged.
“That felt pretty good,” Halsey remarked, adjusting the luminescent green chevrons within the sight and firing again. This bullet hit her square on the chin, knocking her down. She stood up a moment later, her lower jaw obliterated and looking like ground beef sprinkled with bone bits.
“Gonna take some getting used to,” the ranch hand said. Halsey was right-handed, and that elbow, grazed the night before by a bullet, ached when he held it elevated for any period of time, as he did while shooting. The bullet in his calf forced him to adjust his stance, but it was his chin, torn to the bone, that filled his head with red-tinted pain every time it was jolted, which meant movement of any kind.
His daddy would have looked over the top of his glasses and simply told him to be a man.
Halsey’s next shot hit the mark and put the girl down for good.
“Unfortunately,” said the pilot, watching from nearby, “there are no spare magazines other than what is in the other rifle.”
“Load that one as a backup, just in case,” Halsey said.
“That is bold talk for a man who used three rounds to make a single kill.”
The ranch hand shrugged, closing his eyes briefly at the stab in his chin, and gestured with the rifle barrel down the fairway toward the crowd of drifters. “By the time I sort them out, I should be okay.” He looked back at the Russian. “And I’m not boasting about not needing the second magazine. I just don’t believe in wasting ammo.”
Vladimir retrieved the ammunition can and the second rifle, loading the magazine slowly while his friend shot. It turned out that the cowboy didn’t need the second magazine. He had cleared the field with three rounds to spare.
“I suppose it’ll do,” he said, gingerly spitting to
bacco so as not to disturb his wounded chin too much. “Far from proficient. I’d say comfortable.” He set to reloading the magazine.
The Russian was holding the Winchester. “This is a cowboy rifle,” he said, running his hands over the smooth, dark wood, “from the movies, yes?”
“Winchesters were around long before there were such things as movies,” Halsey said. “It’s a thirty-thirty lever-action, shit on long range but a good close-to-medium brush gun.”
Vladimir frowned, trying to follow.
“It’ll bring down a deer and do plenty of damage to a man, I’m here to tell you.”
The Russian raised it to his shoulder, enjoying the smooth, warm feel of the wood stock against his cheek. “I like this weapon. You will teach me to use it when there is time?”
“Sure. But don’t think you’ll be twirling that lever like True Grit.”
Vlad confessed he did not know what True Grit was.
Halsey looked at him incredulously. “You’re not kidding, are you?” When the Russian shook his head, he asked, “How about Unforgiven?”
“Nyet.”
“The Long Riders? Silverado? Hell, what cowboy movies have you seen?”
“Tombstone,” Vladimir said. “With Kirk Russet.”
Halsey laughed and winced. “Kurt Russell. Yeah, that one was pretty good. Well, you’re in for a treat, my friend. I imagine we’ll be able to pick up a whole pile of westerns with no one to tell us otherwise. I assume this aircraft carrier of yours has a DVD player?”
The Russian assured him it did. “You have reconciled yourself to returning with us, then?”
“Yep. Unless you’re planning on dropping me back at the cabin, but I don’t think it’s too hospitable anymore.” He spat. “That window has closed.”
Vladimir smiled. “As I said, tovarich, you will be most welcome.” When Halsey shook his head slowly, Vlad explained that the word meant friend, and then it was Halsey’s turn to smile.
The two men waited throughout the morning, Halsey explaining the workings of a ranch, and Vladimir talking about life back in Russia, and what it meant to him to be an aviator. The ranch hand heard about Sophia and Ben, his adopted family waiting for the pilot back on the ship, and he couldn’t help but notice the way the homely Russian beamed when he spoke about them.
They complained about their wounds in the casual way of men, pretending they didn’t hurt all that much, and shared a canteen when it was time for more aspirin. Every so often Halsey would make a tour around the Black Hawk to ensure that no drifters were stalking up behind them.
The Hydra radio rested between them, still silent. Vladimir attempted to reach his companions twice every hour, without response.
“You said all three of them had radios?” Halsey asked.
Vlad nodded, frowning deeply.
“Don’t want to sound obvious or morbid,” said Halsey, “but it doesn’t seem likely they’d all crap out at once.”
“No, it does not.” Vladimir had been nervous about calling them at first, fearing they might be hiding quietly someplace and trying to avoid detection. His transmission could put them in jeopardy, and Angie had said she would call him when it was time for an extraction. It had been quite some time since last contact, though, and his worry had overruled his fear of exposing them at a crucial moment. “I fear the worst,” the pilot said.
Halsey just nodded and looked out at the golf course.
The Russian began to pace, head down and hands in his pockets, limping a circle around the helicopter. After fifteen minutes and four circles, he stopped and clapped his hands together sharply. “Time to go.”
“Figured as much,” Halsey said. He patted the barrel of the M240 door gun. “You still want me behind one of these things?” The training Vlad had provided was limited to reloading, clearing weapon jams, and the basics of aiming. Halsey had yet to fire any live rounds.
“Yes,” said the Russian. “Clip into your safety harness and keep your headset on. I will give firing directions at first.”
“I reckon in short order I’ll have to pick my own targets.”
“Da. By then you will know what to shoot at, and this is a complicated aircraft, requiring my full attention. I cannot be distracted by a farmer who needs me to explain the difference between mud and pig shit.”
“I’ll do my best not to disturb Your Majesty.”
“I like that,” said the Russian. “Feel free to address me with that title whenever you please.”
“Got a few more names for you, Ivan.”
“Your Majesty will do quite nicely.”
Five minutes later they were airborne.
• • •
Vladimir flew them back over Halsey’s ranch. It took only a few minutes to cover the distance by air, and they settled into a slow rotation, both men looking down at the place that had been Halsey’s home for so many years. The Stampede, grown to over three thousand strong, had lost its direction and now not only swarmed among the buildings and vehicles, thick as maggots on roadkill, but also wandered across the fields in all directions.
“They got into the cabin,” Halsey said into the intercom. “Damn, I thought that door would hold.”
“Enough constant pressure,” the Russian said, remembering the fence line around NAS Lemoore, “and any barrier will fall. Better that you were in the air.”
The raiders’ pickups and motorcycles remained where they had been when the two men flew out in the predawn darkness. None of them had survived; they only served to strengthen the ranks of the dead. Vladimir pointed out a corpse wearing biker leathers with the image of crossed knives on its back. The sheer numbers of the walking dead below ensured there would be no landing to recover supplies or anything else Halsey might want from the cabin.
“I’ve seen enough,” the ranch hand said.
“I did not bring you here to reminisce,” the Russian said, “but to practice. Lean out as far as you dare and fire down onto their heads. It will increase your mathematical probability of achieving kills.”
Halsey tipped the M240 almost straight down and put his faith in the safety harness, body extended over his weapon and open space. He fired short, hesitant bursts until he got used to the machine gun’s vibration and kickback, then triggered it steadily, sweeping the M240 back and forth. Vlad had been right. Raining lead straight down on them, though far from surgical, resulted in plenty of head shots. He decided that if the fuel and bullets held out, they could clear the entire area in this manner. Both, however, were in finite supply.
The pilot let Halsey run through half a belt of ammunition before he began calling out specific targets. “Man in the red shirt” and “The big woman near your truck” and “Those two men in the cabin doorway.” Vlad would swing the Black Hawk around to expose the targets to the door gun, and Halsey would have only seconds to identify, then gun down the target before Vlad jerked the aircraft away. He quickly learned that hitting individuals, especially with head shots from a jumping automatic weapon, was much more difficult than hovering above them and chopping them down with indiscriminate fire. The vibration was making his wounds throb as well, especially his elbow and chin.
Once the box of ammo was exhausted, Vladimir ordered Halsey to reload. The ranch hand would have to scramble on his butt to retrieve a can of belted ammunition from a storage space at the rear of the troop compartment, detach the empty can, secure the full can to the side of the M240, and then successfully feed the belt and arm the weapon. The Russian had instructed and drilled him on the process several times while the Black Hawk was safe and steady on the ground, but Halsey found it was another matter entirely on the move in the air. To make it more challenging, the pilot took the Black Hawk into high-speed turns, dropping low and buzzing over the heads of the reaching dead, then banking and climbing sharply.
In the back, Halsey fought to keep from sliding out the side door and almost dumped an entire can of ammunition out into space.
“Son of a bitch,” he g
rowled.
“Gunner, are you having difficulty?”
Halsey cursed. “Goddamned right.” A thump and a hiss as his bullet-grazed elbow slammed into the steel deck. “Son of a bitch.”
Vladimir snapped the Black Hawk left, and Halsey slid toward the opening but quickly stopped himself by bracing a boot against the weapon mount. The pilot had been watching over his shoulder and allowed himself a small smile.
“Perhaps I should fly level and slow,” the Russian said over the intercom. “That way you might perform your tasks in ease and comfort.”
Halsey unhooked the empty ammo can and pitched it out the door.
“And that would make us a big, slow-moving target for our enemies,” Vlad continued.
“Dead things don’t shoot back,” Halsey muttered, attaching the fresh ammo can to the side of the weapon mount and snapping open the top of the M240. He braced himself as the Russian dove at the ground, then climbed again in a steep bank.
“Then,” the Russian went on, “you will have the privilege to die in aerial combat, instead of being trampled to death by a milk cow.”
Halsey fed the belt, closed the weapon, and hauled back on the arming handle with a loud click. “Right door gun is armed,” he announced over the intercom.
“Right?” bellowed Vladimir. “There is no right on an aircraft! Port and starboard. Port and starboard!”
“Hey, buddy,” Halsey said, “I’ve noticed there’s some sort of metal stop built into this weapon mount that keeps me from pointing it into the cockpit.”
Vlad leveled the chopper and began a long turn to bring them around to a westerly heading. “Da, and there is a very good reason for that.”
“When we land, I’m gonna take that part off,” said Halsey.
“You are assuming we will live long enough to stand on Mother Earth once again.” Vlad lined up the nose of the bird with the gray ribbon of the Skyway below. “You are ready, tovarich?”
“Good to go, partner.”
The Russian nodded. “Our friends are dead, or in need of assistance,” the pilot said. “Either way, we are going to war.”
Omega Days (Book 3): Drifters Page 27
