A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2)

by Daniel Humphreys

  The group sat for a long moment until Charlie grumbled, “Now you tell me.”

  Pete laughed first, and then the snickering circled the table. Eberman tried to look indignant for a moment, but he shook his head and finally started laughing, himself.

  “Well,” Pete managed, composing himself. “Now that you’ve brought us all down, Doctor, what about locally? Any chance that we’ll have a run of luck and this part of the country is free of enhanced?”

  “It’s possible, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Anywhere we’ve seen tight groupings, we’ve seen the progression. It’s possible the specimens in this area have spread out too much, or they’re so damaged that the swarm rejects them. What’s the phrase I’ve heard you all use? ‘Plan for the worst, hope for the best’?”

  “That’d be the one. And your point is well-taken,” Pete agreed. “Captain Wilhite?”

  “Well, I hate to bring the mood down any further, but we cycled a series of drones out to the target objective.” She nodded to the enlisted man with the computer. “EM, first slide please.”

  The picture that flashed up on the screen was remarkably clear, though pitched at a slight angle. The definition and clarity drones were capable of had been nothing to sneeze a when Pete had retired, and it didn’t look like development had slowed down any in the duration.

  “We ran along California Highway 126. These are intermittent screenshots from the video stream. If you’d care to see it, I have it on disk, but we pulled out the high points. As you can see, traffic is thoroughly blocked with wrecked vehicles in both directions. Infected density is surprisingly light along the path of travel, though still high enough that I’d hate to make the run on foot.”

  Pete grimaced. On foot would be about the only way you could make it. Even the breakdown lanes overflowed. He didn’t think a motorcycle could have picked through the wreckage. The wave hit right around morning rush hour PST. We see an open stretch of road, it’ll be a miracle.

  “The towns get smaller, and things start to clear out. Keep going, EM—back up one.” Wilhite held her tongue for a moment and let them process the visual on the screen. “This is the intersection of I-5 and 126.”

  The chains of wrecked cars returned, but in full effect and spread across even more lanes of traffic. What held their attention was the literal carpet of undead that filled every nook and cranny in the multi-mile traffic jam and covered every inch of pavement and dirt.

  Look at all those gray bastards. Pete’s mouth went dry and he took a drink of water. He almost slopped it out onto the table as he lowered the glass, and he hoped no one else had noticed his shaking hands.

  “Are they moving?” Foraker managed.

  “Not as far as we can tell. It doesn’t look like they could if they wanted to.” Wilhite signaled the EM. “Next slide. We doglegged south along the 5, and as you can see, conditions aren’t much better.”

  “Congratulations, Lieutenant Brumley,” Pete said. “It’s official. You’re the only ticket in or out.”

  “Oorah, Major,” she replied.

  Chapter 24

  April 8, 2018

  Southwestern Illinois

  Z-Day + 172

  “This is crazy.”

  Sandy set down the box he’d pulled off the truck and turned to Jason. “Not going to argue the point. I told you that you wouldn’t like it.”

  “She’s my sister! I should go, too!”

  “Maybe so. But considering that Stacy can barely stand to look at me, I can’t shake the feeling that she blames me for what happened to her husband and Richard.”

  “That’s crazy, and you know it. It’s not your fault.”

  Sandy smiled sadly at the younger man. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But what do you think would be better for Stacy and her kids—having someone they’ve known for years watch over them, or some dude that wandered by in the last few days?”

  Jason clenched his fists in frustration. “Fine, I get that. So why you?”

  “I’m expendable. If I can bring Kendra back, great. If things go south, then the four of you have a shot, at least.” Better than they would if I ended up leading things.

  For a long moment, Sandy wasn’t sure if Jason was going to concede the issue. He stood there, jaw clenched, gritting his teeth. “Okay,” he said finally. “Bring my sister back, okay? As well as yourself.”

  “I’d be lying if I promised that. But if I don’t make it back, know that I died trying to get her.”

  Jason barked a laugh. “You’re a gloomy sucker, aren’t you?”

  “Just trying to be realistic.”

  “Fair enough.” He stuck out a hand. “Good luck, man.”

  Sandy shook it. “Thanks.”

  They’d thrown the bicycle that poor, doomed Barry had used to commute to and from work into the back of the truck. Jason mounted it and looked back over his shoulder. “One hour. If I don’t hear anything over the walkie, we pull up stakes.”

  “That’s the plan,” Sandy agreed. “Get moving.”

  As Jason pedaled away, he climbed up into the bed of the truck. With the collection of boxes and crates from the other side of the river neatly arranged in the middle of the road, the cargo area was mostly empty. He unfurled a tarp he’d found in the back of the dealership and threw it over the bed to camouflage the contents. It took him a few minutes of fussing, but he got the tarp arranged so that it wasn’t immediately apparent that the truck’s bed only held a single barrel. It was an old 55-gallon oil drum that Pat and his people had been using to collect scrap metal. Satisfied with his misdirection, he made sure that the bungee cords were tight and climbed behind the wheel of the truck.

  The house Lee had indicated to Jason was a straight shot, a few miles north on the country road that split off from the road the dealership sat on. As he drew closer, Sandy got his first glimpse of where the raiders had set up shop. He had to admit that they were sharper than he’d given them credit for.

  The two-story ranch house sat on a hefty slice of the surrounding farm ground. If the lawn wasn’t enough of an indicator of the property line, the mature trees spaced around the exterior of the plot sufficed.

  The trees formed the basis for the raider’s security. Layered rolls of chain link fencing weaved in and around the trees. They’d nailed still more fencing to the outside, but higher up, stretching the height of the fence to well over Sandy’s height. The property was devoid of trees along the driveway, but Lee and his people had parked their stolen military vehicles across the gap in such a way to create a two-deep barrier. As he pulled up outside the front entrance, he noted that the cars on the interior row were plain old civilian pickups and SUVs. The raiders’ vehicles before they upgraded, or maybe even the homeowners, he guessed.

  He didn’t have to wait long before a raider appeared behind the rows of cars. As he caught sight of who it was, he had to resist the urge to bare his teeth in anger. The raider Carver started speaking. Sandy got the window cranked down in time to get the last few words of his statements.

  “—surprised to see you here, Doc. You bring us anything good?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Sandy replied, trying to keep his voice pleasant. “Lots of goodies.”

  “Hot dog!” the raider whooped. “Don’t move, Doc. Let me get the door for you.”

  Other people that Sandy didn’t recognize showed up. To his surprise, there were more than a few women in the group. Some of the women—and all the men—carried weapons of some sort. They were all military-style assault rifles. As far as salvage went, Lee and Carver’s team of raiders had been the early bird that got the guns.

  The sight of the women solidified the tight, nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he forced himself to ignore it. Kendra. Focus on Kendra.

  Carver pulled one of the SUVs on the inner row out of the way, then another one of the raiders climbed into the rear of a Humvee and pulled it forward, creating an opening for Sandy to pull the truck through Ruts cut through the grass, showing the
abuse that the raiders had inflicted on the property. Had it been his house, Sandy would have tried to keep the gate close to the driveway, but it was offset to the front door. He guessed that the raiders had positioned their opening out of sheer laziness. He tried not to wonder about what had happened to the original owners of the house. In this case, succumbing to the outbreak would have been a small mercy compared to the murder and pillaging this crew seemed all-too-willing to inflict on those in the surrounding countryside.

  Sandy guided the truck through the opening. He misjudged the gap and dug the edge of the plow blade into the bumper of one of the inner line of parked cars. The raiders thought this was high comedy, and they hooted and hollered as he reversed and cut the wheel over a bit to steer through.

  “That’s far enough,” Carver hollered. Sandy put the truck in park and killed the engine. At this point, gas was far too precious to waste on idling.

  That may not matter a whole lot here in a minute.

  He licked his lips and opened the door. He kept his hands up above his shoulders as he stepped out of the truck. In the end, he needn’t have bothered—Carver slapped him on the shoulder and stepped toward the bed of the truck. He grabbed one of the bungee cords, ready to throw the tarp aside.

  “Hold on, now!” Sandy and the gathered raiders turned. Lee stepped out of the front door of the house. “You tryin’ to open my Easter basket, brother?”

  Carver laughed and backed away from the truck. “My bad, boss. Got excited.”

  Lee stopped just out of Sandy’s reach and grinned. “Well, now, I guess I can understand that. How you doin’ today, Doc?”

  Sandy shrugged. “Well as can be expected.”

  “Now, don’t be going all sourpuss on me, boy. You kept up your end of the deal, I kept up mine.” He turned toward the house. “Bring her out!”

  The front door opened again, and a hard-faced female raider guided Kendra out at the point of a knife so long Sandy might have called it a sword. Other than looking a bit tired, she seemed none the worse for wear. Her hands had been bound in front of her with a length of cord.

  “You all right?” Sandy called.

  She raised her hands a bit, and he saw that the cord also looped around her waist to keep her from moving her arms. “I’m okay,” she said.

  “Well, all right. Now that you know your friend is good to go, let’s see what you brought me, Doc.”

  Sandy gave Kendra an intent look and wished she could read his mind. He turned back to Lee and watched as the man released the bungee cords and threw the tarp aside. His shout elicited a murmur from the gathered raiders, and Sandy swore he could feel the tension in the air ramp up.

  “What the fuck, Doc? This some kind of a joke?”

  He swallowed. “No joke. This is my way of making sure you don’t screw me over.”

  Lee’s face turned red. “You better start talking, or I’m going to let Louise cut a few pieces off your lady friend.”

  “The rest of the stuff is about half a mile south. Stacked in the middle of the road, ready for you to pick it up.”

  “This was not the deal, Doc. What’s to stop us from shooting your ass and taking your shit anyway?”

  Keeping one hand up, Sandy reached down and pulled the remote detonator out of his pocket. The indicator light on top was already blinking a slow, pulsing crimson. He favored Lee with what he hoped was a cocky grin and shrugged. “Go ahead. I’ll blow it all to hell.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Try me. You think all we found over there was guns and some food? Think about it. That was a major National Guard defensive effort. They had everything except tanks. I’ve got enough claymores rigged up on the supply crates to send them into orbit.”

  Lee’s color was turning more normal, but he was still frowning. “What’s this?”

  Sandy shrugged. “Free sample. Evidence of good faith.”

  “Boss, let me check it…”

  Lee cut Carver off with a wave of his hand. “I’ve changed my mind, Doc. If you’re messing with me, I’m going to have Louise start cutting on you.”

  “Seems fair.”

  Lee stared at him for so long that Sandy wondered if he’d let more slip than he’d intended. The slow pulse of the detonator kept time for him, and when he reached a count of twenty, the raider nodded. He put a foot onto one of the back tires and pulled himself into the truck and began to wrestle with the lid of the barrel.

  Sandy turned and fixed Kendra with a stare. He mouthed a single word. She turned pale, but she nodded. Louise’s eyes had been on Lee in the bed of the truck, but she caught some of the exchange. Her face wrinkled in confusion, and she opened her mouth to call out.

  Sandy beat her to it. “Hey, Lee. You were right. I was bluffing.”

  The raider turned and opened his mouth. Before he could speak, Sandy dove to the ground and squeezed the button.

  The barrel was, as he’d indicated, full. Whether that cargo qualified as ‘goodies’ depended on your perspective.

  Sandy had placed a 4x4 from the scrap pile behind the dealership into the barrel. He'd centered it, with more scraps of wood braced against the inner wall. The timber itself served as the mounting point for eight claymores—two rows of four, with one on each of the cardinal points. With the elevation of the truck bed, the blast radius started about four feet off of the ground.

  It was moot for Lee—he was standing right at ground zero when Sandy’s redneck IED went off in a rapid-fire crackle that sounded like the world’s biggest firecracker. His body disintegrated from the waist down, spraying the surrounding area with the ravaged remains of his legs and hips.

  Other, more insidious pieces of flesh went along for the ride.

  Sandy had managed to cram the bodies of three fresher infected specimens into the single body bag he’d brought back from the other side of the river. After he ensured that neither of the children were watching, he’d proceeded to glove up and cut the bodies into small enough chunks to fit between the curved plates of the claymore and the interior wall of the barrel. There was more than enough to fill in the nooks and crannies.

  He’d been thankful the infected didn’t smell, but the sight alone had been enough to make Jason retch as he helped Sandy secure the lid.

  The side walls of the truck bed blew out from the blast of ball bearings and diseased flesh. He pressed himself into the dirt, wriggling under the bed of the truck as the crowd of raiders screamed from the surprise of the explosion and the sudden agony.

  Sandy rolled onto his back and reached up. He’d duct-taped a shotgun from across the river to the bottom of the bed, and he crawled out from under the passenger side with it now, scanning this side of the vehicle for raiders. There were three close to the side, but all were down with various injuries—one fatal, the other two just wounds. The injured pair were in too much pain to pay him any mind.

  He considered putting them down for the barest of moments, but he didn’t have the shells to waste.

  Gunfire pelted the side of the truck as one of the raiders in the yard spotted him. He crab-crawled forward, trusting in the density of the engine block to save him. In a lull in the fire, he peeked up and over and saw the man who’d been shooting struggling with his rifle.

  Sandy laid the barrel of the shotgun on the hood to steady it then fired. The raider cried out, clutching at his injured arm. Even from a rest, Sandy had almost missed the guy, and he thanked his lucky stars he’d gone with the shotgun. The firepower offered by the M4s had been tempting, but he couldn’t trust his own skill level to actually hit anything with them, especially in a yard full of screaming and confused people.

  The injured raider ignored him for the moment. Sandy racked the shotgun’s pump and put his head down, sprinting toward the front door of the house. Kendra had puzzled out his mouthed ‘Duck’, but she was struggling with the raider Louise on the lawn. The other woman had the upper hand at the moment, though she must have dropped her knife in the confusion. She sat a
stride Kendra with both of her hands wrapped around her neck. Kendra beat and clawed at her, but her movements looked to be growing feeble.

  Sandy didn’t hesitate. He brought the shotgun up and fired on the run. He had to aim high to keep from injuring Kendra, but it worked. Louise shrieked and fell back, her face and shoulders a mangled ruin.

  “Get up,” Sandy snapped. “We’ve got less than two minutes before they start to get back up. ” He reached down and pulled Kendra to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

  She tore her arm out of his grip. She shouted, hoarse, “What are you talking about? How can you even know that, Sandy?”

  Gunfire slammed into the side of the house near them, and he pulled her away, toward a concrete planter set in a circle of decorative mulch. There wasn’t much to it, but it was a better obstacle than nothing at all.

  “Sandy!” Kendra demanded.

  This isn’t the time for this. He pumped and fired back in the direction of the shots. There was no accompanying cry, but another hail of gunfire sprayed chips of concrete in the air. He ducked back down and wished the planter was six inches taller.

  Pressed to the ground, he met Kendra’s frantic eyes. The words tumbled from his mouth before he could muster the will to stop them.

  “I know all about the virus, Kendra. I helped make it.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You…you…”

  “I packed the bomb full of infected bits and pieces,” he continued. “Any moment now, any one of these scumbags that got so much as a scratch is going to get up in search of a snack.”

  She slapped him. “You son of a bitch! What if I got hit?”

  “There’s a neutralizing agent,” he managed. He patted one of the pockets of his cargo pants. “I have two left. Are you okay?” Nervous, he leaned in to get a closer look at the whites of her eyes, but she reared back and hit him again. This time, it was a punch, and he blinked away sudden tears as he felt the hot rush of blood from his nostrils.