by JE Gurley
“Maybe your hormones….”
Renda balled her fists and brought them up to her sides. “If you bring up my damn hormones one more time,” she snarled, “I’ll lay you out cold.”
Jeb believed her. His face clouded for a second before saying, “I’m sorry.”
Renda relaxed and nodded her head at Karen. “You can’t do anything for her until she decides she wants to live. If you’re looking for some kind of redemption in her eyes, you won’t get it. Other people are fighting for survival. You might be able to help some of them. You decide.”
With that, she turned and left Jeb to contemplate her words or to dismiss them as he saw fit. She had grown to like and respect the psychologist, but she wouldn’t endanger herself, her unborn child, or Mace because he wanted to give up. She knew Jeb would come around soon, but soon wasn’t quickly enough. In the three months since their return from San Diego, no zombie threat had materialized outside the door, no Hunters had found them, and no one had turned zombie. Everyone was too complacent, resorting to their pre-plague personalities, constantly bickering about minor issues. A group had even proposed relocating to a nearby gated community so everyone could have their own homes. Sometimes she wanted to give up and leave, but that would force Mace to decide between her and Jeb. She knew he would side with her, but he had developed an inexplicable friendship with Jeb and abandoning him would be difficult.
Vince Holcomb would have no trouble leaving. The crowd of discontented people bothered the former Air Force technical sergeant. “Too much like my time in the bunker at Red Rock,” he said, referring to the secret underground first-strike nuclear base beneath the Pinal Air Park just outside Tucson. He eagerly volunteered for any mission that got him away from Biosphere2 for a few hours or days. He and Dan Mateo had left on an errand for Mace early the same day the three strangers had arrived. On the way to the garden, she spotted Billy Idol sitting alone and, on an impulse, went up to him. His eyes were closed, but she knew was not sleeping.
“Good morning, Billy.”
He opened one eye a crack and looked at her. He didn’t smile, but his lips twitched as if toying with the idea. “You cook good.”
His comment surprised but pleased her. “Oh? Thank you.”
“My mamma could cook.”
Renda didn’t bother asking if she were alive. She could guess the answer. “Where are you from?”
“Amarillo. I was at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque when the death hit. Everyone was dying. I tried to go home, but...” He looked up with tears in his eye. “I got a call from my next door neighbor telling me mom was dead. My dad left years ago. She was all I had left. I grabbed some canned goods and high-tailed it into the country. Nick found me.”
“What’s your last name, Billy?”
It was a simple question, one Renda thought innocuous; just a way to keep the conversation going but Billy pressed his lips together tightly and his eyes suddenly went cold. “Idol,” he snapped. “I’ve got no other last name ‘cause it doesn’t mean anything now.”
He sprang to his feet and stalked off leaving Karen mystified as to what she had done. “That boy has some issues,” she said to herself; then snickered. “Hell, we’ve all got issues.”
10
Only eighty men survived of the almost three hundred facing the zombies. Colonel Schumer had lost nearly a third of his forces as well as three tanks whose commanders had panicked and opened the hatches during the battle and two howitzer crews who had tarried too long during the retreat. The remaining zombies continued toward the city of Delta almost without pause, as if his army had been not been there. Estimates of the zombie dead ranged from one hundred to nearly three hundred. If he split the difference, say call it an even two hundred dead zombies, it still had cost him almost one man per zombie. Tens of thousands of zombies followed a few days, maybe a week behind the vanguard he had just fought. His remaining forces were all that stood between the zombies and Salt Lake City.
He had ordered an airstrike from the Apache helicopters and the A10 Thunderbolts, wasting precious fuel. They had accounted for most of the dead, especially the CBU-24 cluster bombs dropped over the area as part of the A10s’ payload. Each of the bomb’s 665 tennis ball-sized bomblets exploded on contact, covering an area an acre is size, hurling shrapnel in all directions. It had been spectacular to watch, like a Fourth of July fireworks display, but had been little more effective than the artillery. The zombies covered just too much territory in their march. It would take a nuke to stop them, but even the military frowned on nuking their own cities.
His orders remained – stop the zombies from reaching Salt Lake City.
He realized he was standing silent before the large table bearing a map of the area. A dozen faces stared at him.
“Gentlemen, I have failed,” he began. He heard a few polite mumbled ‘nos’, but he knew they agreed with his private assessment of his plan of attack. He continued, “I thought of the zombies as ‘the enemy’ and formulated my attack based on textbook scenarios. While they are most certainly our enemy, they behave more like a herd of wildebeest trekking the Serengeti. They will not bunch together, rendering our firepower ineffective. We do not have the planes or the artillery to stop them and... and I have cost us most of our men.” He fought to keep a sob from escaping his lips. He pointed to the city of Delta. “Here,” he said, jabbing the dot representing the city, “here is where we will stop them.”
“How?” a nervous young lieutenant asked.
“Bombs won’t be enough. Neither will artillery. I propose we flood the entire city’s irrigation system with gasoline. Pump it onto the dried out alfalfa fields, the buildings, and the city streets – anything that will burn. The mountains to the west and east will force the zombies into the city. The Gunnison Reservoir will slow them down. Even zombies need water. We can release hundreds of cattle in the area to provide the zombies with a feast to keep them there. Then we attack with every weapon at our disposal, obliterating the zombie menace.”
It was a risky move. Fuel was in short supply and he intended to use every drop he could spare. If he wasted thousands of gallons in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the zombies, his career would be over. He did not mention the tens of thousands of zombies lagging days behind the vanguard. He hoped to turn them by eliminating the scouts.
“What if they refuse to enter Delta?” the same lieutenant asked.
“We’ll use the choppers and A10s to herd them like aerial sheepdogs.” He smiled to break the tension. A few jittery faces returned his smile.
“Do we have time?” another voice asked.
“If we move fast. We leave fuel tanks at strategic points on the irrigation system with remote triggers to fire the pumps. I won’t risk any more men.” He looked around the room. “Any more questions?”
There was none. He walked out of the room to let them question his decision in privacy. He knew they would obey his orders, even if they did not think his plan would work. He had no other options. Salt Lake City could not be evacuated.
* * * *
Private Lloyd Osterman drained the last few drops from his canteen, wishing he had thought to salvage water from the fallen. He had awakened from a nightmarish, fitful sleep among the bodies of the dead. Night had fallen but the air was still hot with the day’s heat. The air was rank with the smell of death. The battle had been swift and merciless. Zombie bodies lay everywhere but so did his comrades in arms. At least a third of the force facing the zombies was gone, wiped out in fifteen minutes, a sickening waste of life.
Stumbling from the wash, he left the dead behind him. A wan moon provided enough light to see. He moved north towards Delta, the only water around, following the zombies’ line of march. He had his M16 and blood-covered shovel, but he hoped he did not encounter zombies. He was too exhausted to fight. He came across the occasional zombie corpse that had succumbed from its wounds, but very few. Most recovered quickly. He wished he were so lucky. His arm, ripped op
en in three places by zombie claws, burned and itched, probably infected by the plague. His forehead burned but he didn’t know if it was from fever, the heat or the first signs of the plague. Regardless, he would not give up.
After several hours, he noticed dots on the horizon to the north – zombies. He had caught up to the tail end of the zombie herd. He wiped his hand across his dry, parched lips. He needed water. He could smell water ahead, but so could the zombies, and they were between him and the Gunnison Reservoir. He would have to avoid the reservoir. Any irrigation line would do. He would refill his canteen and strike out east toward I-15 and into Salt Lake City. He figured Schumer would resume the attack on the Little Sahara Sand Dunes north of Delta. It was open country, perfect for the choppers. Delta was too valuable to become a war zone.
The Brush-Wellman mine was west of the city in the Topaz-Spor Mountains. The beryllium it produced was vital for high-strength, lightweight metals for military uses. It was shut down now, but could be reopened. They could not afford to lose it. The countryside around Delta once provided alfalfa for herds of dairy cattle. It could easily produce food for thousands, another valuable asset. The Gunnison Reservoir and the series of irrigation lines provided water to irrigate the crops in the desert heat.
He saw rows of irrigation booms lining several streets and wondered at their purpose, but didn’t give it much thought. He assumed the residents had placed them there in case of fire. With no fire department or working fire hydrants, fire could quickly devastate a town. He sniffed the air and caught a whiff of gasoline. A broken fuel line on one of the pumps, he thought. Poor maintenance. A moo started him. He turned a corner and stood facing a cow. He noticed several more.
He smiled at the cow. “You’d better hide, Bossy, before you become zombie food.”
By dawn, after breaking into several homes, Osterman managed to find a house at the edge of town with a swimming pool half-filled with dirty water. He was trying to decide if he should attempt to drink it, when he noticed several five-gallon plastic jugs of water sitting on the back patio, forgotten in the hasty evacuation. He quenched his thirst and poured water over his head to cool off. The back door was standing open. He went inside, leaving wet boot prints on the dirty linoleum floor. He was starving. His last meal had been a meager breakfast the morning before. He searched the kitchen, rummaging through empty cabinets until he found half a box of stale Fruit Loops. Insects had also found them. He shook the cereal out on the kitchen table, picked out the weevils, flicked them off the table, and downed the colorful circles greedily. He was not full but it would do. Noticing the filthy bandage on his throbbing arm, he realized that he needed to replace it.
He had no more gauze in his first-aid kit, so he ripped a clean sheet into strips using his teeth and his good left hand. The blood-soaked bandage adhered to the skin in several places. Removing it sent fire lancing through his arm and into his shoulder. He tried tugging it loose gently at first to no avail and then yanked it off quickly in frustration. It was like stripping the skin from his arm. He clenched his jaw tightly to keep from screaming in pain.
He no longer feared turning into a zombie, but his arm was badly infected. Used for ripping and tearing flesh of animals both living and dead, zombie claws harbored hundreds of germs. One nasty little bug was turning his arm black, the first signs of a blood infection. Foul- smelling pus oozed from the wound. If he didn’t make it back to base and a doctor soon, he could lose his arm, maybe his life. Already, his hand was so stiff he doubted he could pull the trigger of his M16.
He dabbed at the wounds with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball he found in the bathroom medicine chest but most of it stuck to his skin. He braced himself for the shock and poured hydrogen peroxide over the length of his entire arm. It felt as if he had shoved it in a roaring blast furnace. The deep gashes bubbled and foamed as the peroxide rinsed blood and dirt from the wound, but the pain almost caused him to pass out. When he had recovered sufficiently to move, he wrapped the wound with the strips of cloth hoping none of his buddies ribbed him about the yellow daisy pattern on the cloth.
A howl just outside made him pause in his meal. He tiptoed to the window and peeked through the curtain.
Zombies!
Dozens of zombies prowled the street in front of the house, their mouths bloody from what he presumed was Bossy and her bovine companions. The zombies searched cars and entered houses through open doors or by crashing through windows. They would reach his house soon. He knew the house offered no real protection and he couldn’t hold off so many zombies with two clips of ammo. His only chance was to run. He slipped out the back door, noticing his wet boot prints. No time to deal with them. He ducked back inside just as two zombies raced down the alley behind the house, their noses lifted into the air. They have my scent. He was trapped with no place to hide. He fought a rising panic. His eyes passed over the swimming pool; then darted back. A water hose lay neatly coiled beside the pool. A scene from an old John Wayne movie popped into his head – Back to Bataan. He smiled.
Abandoning his rifle in the face of zombies was difficult, but he knew it was useless. He dropped it and his belt beside the pool, took out his knife and sliced off a six-foot section of hose. Slipping into the dirty water as quietly as possible, he placed one end of the hose in his mouth and laid the other end on the side of the pool. He went under, holding the knife in his good left hand. He could barely see through the murky water and hoped the zombies’ vision was no better than his was.
He held onto the drain at the bottom of the pool to keep from popping to the surface. Breathing through the long rubber hose was more difficult than he had expected. He had to blow hard to exhale or he would simply be re-breathing his own carbon dioxide. He hoped he wasn’t making too much noise. Several zombies appeared. He tried to make himself invisible at the bottom of the pool. They definitely had his scent. They kicked his rifle and belt around the concrete deck, howling in frustration. The water muffled the sound somewhat but sent shivers up Osterman’s spine. He could hear them ransacking the house. They knew he was nearby. To them, he had simply vanished.
He almost choked when a zombie female leaned over the edge of the pool and began lapping water. She was several months pregnant. He stared into her eyes but she either did not see him or her simple animal mind could not comprehend a person under water. She left. He waited but no splashes or howls of discovery followed. Footsteps pounded on the concrete. Suddenly, the end of his breathing tube fell into the water, kicked in by one of the zombies.
Osterman waited until he thought his lungs would burst before surfacing, his knife ready. He was alone. Unable to find him, they had given up on the chase. He crawled out and lay on the side of the pool to recover. Lack of sleep and the long hike into Delta had used up all his energy. He needed to rest. He crawled beneath the patio roof and collapsed.
11
Brother Malachi extended his prayers until his knees began to ache. He did not want to meet with the Gray Man or his colleagues. He was indignant at their intrusion, as if the New Apostles’ sanctuary were a motel or roadside inn. The Gray Man’s ilk was an abomination, an affront to God. Seizing hapless people immune to the plague and using them for their blood went against God’s message. Those who could change into zombies were blessed and they became Angels; those that could not were cursed. Munies served no useful purpose except food for the Children of God. It was the new and proper order for mankind.
The Gray Man killed Children of God. For that alone, Brother Malachi would have punished him, but any harm he delivered to the military’s scions would be visited upon the New Apostles tenfold. He checked his watch. He had kept them waiting two hours. That was sufficient time to make his point. As he rose, his knees creaked. I’m getting too old for this constant kneeling, he thought. Perhaps a stool might be better. I don’t think God would mind.
When Brother Ezekiel had brought word of the Hunter team’s arrival, Brother Malachi had known it was the Gray Man. No other man
could elicit such disapproval from his aide. Brother Malachi’s heart had been heavy all morning and knew an ill wind was blowing. He had had a vision at the previous evening’s prayers before the Brethren gathered in the Cathedral. The setting sun had washed the interior of the Cathedral with blood-red light. Blood had covered his hands, along with the robes and faces of the Brethren. He had heard a few gasps from those gathered but did not allow his own unease to mark his face or stain his voice. Something evil was coming their way, and Brother Malachi could think of no one closer to the Devil himself than the Gray Man was. An acolyte had escorted the Gray Man to Brother Malachi’s office half an hour earlier. He preferred to speak with the Hunter alone and on his own ground. The significance of his late appearance would not be lost on the Hunter.
The Gray Man was sitting with his feet propped up on the desk as Brother Malachi entered. A scar sliced from near the bridge of his nose to below his right ear, drawing his gaunt face into a constant smirk. Today that smirk was at full bloom. All he needs is a monocle and a swastika on his gray uniform, Brother Malachi thought coldly. After a stern look of disapproval from Brother Malachi, his unwanted guest dropped his feet to the floor with a thud.
“Brother Malachi,” the Gray Man said. “So good to see you again.” He made no effort to rise or offer his hand in greeting.
Brother Malachi brushed off the insecure greeting. “You bring unclean people into this Temple.”
The Gray Man nodded quickly and held out his hands in a half-hearted conciliatory gesture. “You mean munies? Think of them as cargo if you prefer. We encountered a slight problem and require your assistance.”
Brother Malachi bit back a bitter retort. “So I was informed. Your room is comfortable?”
