The Last Town (Book 6): Surviving the Dead

by Knight, Stephen

  Reese glanced up at the tall patrol sergeant for an instant, then returned to inspecting his rifle. “I guess you’re not coming along?”

  Bates smirked and shook his head. He held up his hand and showed off his wedding ring. “I have other priorities, Detective.”

  Reese snorted and continued his work. He organized several topped-off Magpul magazines for the rifle, then ensured the spare mags for his pistol were in a similar condition.

  “But if it makes you feel better, First Sergeant Plosser is going on the trip,” Bates continued after a moment. “He’s got his shit together. Been talking to him over the past few days. He’s not just some weekend warrior, he’s the real deal. Full-time Guard, after serving with the 101st in Iraq.”

  “And how does that matter? Are we going to be fighting Saddam again?”

  Bates cocked his head to one side. “Detective, the skills he has are just as effective against the stenches as they were against Saddam’s Fedayeen. You stay close to him, you might be making it back. You might remember, he was kind of useful when we were trying to get out of LA.”

  “I remember,” Reese said.

  “Gonzales is going too. She’s competent enough. Unfortunately, so’s Marsh, so get ready for some vomit action,” Bates said.

  “Yeah, that’s hardly going to make things easier.”

  Bates stepped closer to Reese. “You like him?”

  “Who, Marsh? Not a damn bit,” Reese said. “He’s a lazy fuck, the kind to always leave early to beat traffic. Like there is such a thing in Los Angeles.”

  “Well, then. Maybe having him along isn’t such a bad thing.”

  Reese glanced at Bates again. “Don’t follow you, Bates.”

  “You don’t like the guy and think he’s a boat anchor, right? Then when things get hot, you can always shoot him in the leg and leave him for the stenches.”

  Reese snorted again. “What, you serious? Shoot a fellow officer and leave him to die?”

  Bates merely cocked a brow, then turned and marched out of the tent. That was more than answer enough.

  The team left just before dawn. The Pacific was a bit choppy, and even inside the comparative shelter of Johnson’s Lee, it made the transfer to the anchored dive boat a bit treacherous. Despite the conditions, Reese and the rest of the cops were able to make the transfer from the small fiberglass center console boat to the sturdier aluminum hulled dive boat. They immediately stepped into the boat’s salon area, which was heated and only tepidly illuminated by red lights. Reese wondered about the low light level. There was a good amount of fog from the marine layer, and it wouldn’t burn off for several hours yet—certainly more light would be welcome? The dive boat’s bridge was visible from the salon deck, raised a few steps at the end of a narrow gangway. The bridge was also illuminated in red light, alongside the brighter output of flat-panel navigation displays. Reese trudged up the short gangway and stuck his head inside.

  “Hey, guys, what’s up with the lights?” he asked. “Tough to see back here.”

  “Red lights don’t destroy your night vision,” one of the Harbor cops told him. “It’s going to be dark for a while later, and you guys will probably want to be able to see the beach when you head out.”

  “Good point,” Reese said.

  “We got coffee down there, grab a cup while you can,” the second Harbor cop said. He was the commander of the boat, a fairly wiry man named Bay. “This isn’t a cruise ship, so no continental breakfast for you.”

  “That’s fine. How’s the coffee?”

  “It’ll kill you.”

  “Sounds great. Thanks. How long until we get to the coast?”

  “We’ll take it slow because of the conditions. Not everything we can run into shows up on radar. Call it an hour.”

  “Thanks.” With that, Reese returned to the salon and sat down at one of the four booths there, placing his backpack on the table before him. Aside from his weapons and ammunition, he carried water, sport drinks, and three MREs. The rest of the team—all cops, at least ninety percent of them LAPD, with officers from the Harbor Police rounding it out—either sat or stood in the salon. It wasn’t exactly a sociable place; the compartment had been designed for LAPP officers to man up in sealed wetsuits and the like before jumping off the back of the boat into the silt-filled, polluted waters of the Port of Los Angeles. But for now, it would serve as the team’s waiting area during the transit to the California shoreline. Reneee Gonzalez was already sitting in the booth, right across from him. Her eyes were barely open. She looked pale and drawn out. Reese sympathized. The world was a very different place now.

  The big aluminum-hulled catamaran’s twin diesels came to life with a cackling rumble. Seated at a booth opposite him, Reese saw Detective Marsh begin to grow pale. The bald detective had managed to hold down whatever he’d had for breakfast during the thirty-second transfer to the dive boat, but now that he heard bigger Cummins diesels powering up, it seemed that his brief spell of gastric fortitude was evaporating. Reese sighed and shook his head. He checked his watch—it was five minutes past five in the morning. He placed a mental bet that by five ten, Marsh would be spewing his guts into the boat’s wake.

  First Sergeant Plosser dumped his pack on the table beside Reese’s and lowered his frame into the booth next to Reneee. He glanced at her when she didn’t rouse, then looked across the boat at Marsh.

  “Marsh, how are you hanging in?” he asked, his voice rough.

  “Just fine,” Marsh said. Compared to Plosser’s, Marsh’s voice was thin and weak.

  Plosser chuckled and looked at Reese. “What do you think, Reese? Two, three minutes until he starts puking his guts out?”

  “I’m giving him five,” Reese said.

  “I’ll do two. Bet?”

  Reese considered it. “What’ve you got?”

  Plosser opened his Army-issue pack and pulled a bottle of Starbuck’s Frappuccino coffee drink from it. Reese was impressed. “How’s this?”

  “Tasty. Where’d you get it?”

  “Picked it up in LA before we bugged out. It’s been with me all this time. A shame to give it up, but I don’t think I’m going to lose this bet.”

  “Fuck both of you,” Marsh said. He was already gripping the table.

  “I’ve got some Gatorade, that’s about it,” Reese said.

  Plosser considered that. “Got any jalapeño cheese spread in any of your MREs?”

  Reese groaned inwardly. Jalapeño cheese spread was quickly becoming the currency of the day, as it was by far the tastiest thing in a Meal Ready to Eat. And it only came in some of them, not all. As it so happened, Reese had two MREs with that same substance.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Two Gatorades and one jalapeño cheese spread. Deal?”

  Reese considered it. “Deal,” he said.

  The dive boat rocked a bit as it came off anchor and began powering its way out of Johnson’s Lee. As it pushed away from the island, the vessel’s twin bows began to gently rise and fall on the tide. Marsh made a choking noise, got up, and hurried for the door leading to the boat’s long cockpit. He made it across the threshold before vomiting in a gurgling roar. The cops in the salon jeered.

  “Attaboy, Marsh!” Plosser said.

  Reese checked his watch: 5:07. He shook his head, disappointed in both Marsh and himself. Still the optimist.

  Plosser held out his hand, smiling broadly as Marsh stumbled across the back of the boat, slipping in his own vomit. “You can give me the Gatorades later … but I’ll take the jalapeño spread now, Detective.”

  Reese sighed and opened his backpack. I never was a betting man.

  The boat made it to the coastline in just a little less than an hour. It had been an arduous crossing, and by the time the vessel’s crew started scoping anchor lines, even Reese was feeling a bit nauseous. Detective Marsh had pretty much puked up his own asshole by that time, and he was basically lying on the floor of the boat’s cockpit. The Harbor Poli
ce crew had to step over him as he lay motionless on the wet decking. Reese kicked him in one of his feet to rouse him.

  “Come on, Marsh—develop some testosterone. We’re here.”

  “I can’t go,” Marsh said weakly.

  “The fuck you’re not. I’ll throw you over the side of the boat if you don’t get up and make you swim to shore, you lazy fuck.” Reese kicked him again. “Get up!”

  “Stop that shit!” Marsh snapped, rolling over onto his side. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You going to open a case on me?” Reese replied. “Gonna go file a report? With who? We have a job to do, so let’s get to it. Now, get up!”

  Marsh glared up at him with half-lidded eyes. “You were always an asshole, Reese.”

  “How’s that? I never did anything to you before.”

  “I could just tell.” Marsh slowly started to pick his way to his feet. The boat still rolled from side to side, even though it had anchored well outside the surf line. The day was still gray and windy, and if the sun had risen, it was well hidden behind the marine layer that hovered over the Pacific. The California coastline was dark and forbidding, an inscrutable land mass a mile or so distant. Reese regarded it from the boat’s cockpit with more than a little dread. He most definitely did not want to go back to where the stenches ruled. It was a potentially suicidal act, and for very little gain. He tore his eyes away from the landmass as Marsh clambered to his feet.

  “So you could just tell I was an asshole?” he asked the seasick detective.

  “Yeah,” Marsh said. He retched again, but it was a dry heave punctuated with a small burp. “I could just fucking tell.”

  “So now you become a detective,” Reese snapped back. “Great timing, asshole. Get on your feet. We’re going ashore.”

  “What the fuck for,” Marsh asked. There was a note of resignation in his voice, as if he had already given up fighting for common sense, or whatever he believed in. Reese felt pretty much the same way, but he had no meaningful answer to give.

  “We’re doing it because we were told to,” he finally said. “And that’s all we need to know.”

  The transfer ashore was rough and uncomfortable. Using two rubber-hulled inflatables, the cops made it through the choppy Pacific surf. Reese found he had to hold on for dear life against the stiff offshore breeze and the pounding waves. The only distraction was afforded by seals meeting their explosive ends courtesy of sounding Great White sharks. On more than one occasion, Reese watched as cavorting seals were attacked from below by the sleek sharks which hurtled upward from the steely depths like gray torpedoes. More often than not, the sharks crashed back into the sea with writhing, bleeding seals clamped tight in their powerful jaws. It was only marginally more comforting than what might lie waiting for the cops on the coastline, and Reese was hardly comforted by the display. If anything else, it was undisputedly a bad omen under the circumstances.

  The two inflatables powered through the foamy surf until their blunted bows struck the rock-strewn shore of Hendry’s Beach. Reese and the rest of the cops bailed out, dragging the inflatables out of the water. The beach was dark and deserted, which was fine all around. It hadn’t been extremely hospitable even before the “zompoc” as some of the officers called it, so the lack of stenches wasn’t surprising. It wouldn’t be a prime hunting ground this early in the morning—or ever, since there were likely no sunbathers remaining in Santa Barbara. The beach was overlooked by silent bluffs. Reese regarded them as the offshore breeze tugged at his clothing. He saw nothing moving overhead; another good sign.

  The element was commanded by an LAPD sergeant named Manalo, a burly man of Filipino extraction. He had a round face and a shaved head dominated by big eyes. His cheeks were riddled with acne scars. He motioned the cops to form up on him as he set off down the beach. Reese trudged along after him, swinging his rifle into his hands. Plosser pushed past him, holding his own weapon in one hand as he momentarily fiddled with his helmet’s chin strap. The tall National Guard NCO’s eyes were alert as he scanned the bluffs to their left. Reese checked them again, but saw nothing.

  “Plosser, something up?” Reese asked.

  “If they’re going to come, they’ll come from there,” Plosser replied. “There’re houses up on the other side of the bluffs. Keep your eyes open.”

  “You know it.”

  Sergeant Manalo led them toward a stand of palm trees, their fronds swaying in the wind-driven gloom. Just beyond them were a parking lot and the darkened structure of a commercial building. A small stone breakwater stood between the parking lot and the beach. Garbage was strewn everywhere; paper and plastic fluttered in the breeze. Reese caught a whiff of decomposition, and an instant later, he saw bones were scattered amongst the refuse. Human bones. Hundreds, if not thousands of them.

  The parking lot had been a kill zone. Apparently, it had been used as a rally site for the local community, and it had been overrun. As Reese and the rest of the cops stepped around the stone seawall, he saw the tattered remains of corpses lying everywhere. They had been pulled apart and stripped clean of almost all flesh. Amidst the carnage, some broken bodies stirred. Mutilated corpses that had reanimated while being fed upon, Reese knew.

  Plosser pointed at one. “Watch out for the zombtards,” he said.

  Once a body transitioned into a stench, those ghouls feeding on it abandoned it. Of course, by that time, the corpse was so severely diminished that it couldn’t hunt on its own; without limbs or enough musculature remaining to support its weight, all the broken zombie could do was writhe and glare at the passing cops. They did so in silence, as their diaphragms were gone, torn away by the feasting hordes. Without them, the “zombtards” couldn’t even take in a breath to moan. That made them a little more dangerous, because until they moved, the cops and Plosser wouldn’t know if they were truly dead or reanimants waiting for a chance to grab a lucky bite.

  Manalo led them deeper into the parking lot. Reese’s boots crunched across bone and other detritus. The boathouse was actually a restaurant, and it lorded over the darkened parking lot, its shattered windows seeming to leer at them like dark eyes. Tattered blue umbrellas fluttered in the breeze from the patio dining area. Plosser came to a halt before the building, rifle shouldered as he stared into its dark recesses while the element picked its way through the parking lot. Reese knew the Guardsman was waiting for something to emerge from the restaurant and attack them. It would be a perfect hiding place at this time of the morning, but the only sounds coming from the structure were those made by the wind whistling through jagged glass. Seagulls perched on its roof, watching the cops file past with beady eyes. Reese kept going with the others, looking back every now and then to check on Plosser. The tall soldier stood motionless, silhouetted against the gray sea. After a few moments, he drifted away from the restaurant and rejoined the formation.

  The parking lot led to a street. To the left was a small residential neighborhood. To the right was the shadowy expanse of the Douglas Family Preserve, separated from the cops by a body of water that had been designated Arroyo Burro on the maps Reese had studied. Nothing moved amongst the trees and scrub. Abandoned cars and trucks filled the debris-strewn road, and silhouetted against the brightening sky to the east, houses crouched on the hilltops overlooking the street. The homes appeared to be abandoned.

  Manalo slowed and came to a stop, raising one fist. The rest of the cops halted, and Reese looked around. All the dead traffic and garbage served to make every sightline more complex. While he saw no movement, there was a bonanza of hiding places where hungry ghouls might lurk, and stopping alongside the street made him nervous.

  “Why are we stopping?” Reneee asked him, her voice pale and tremulous.

  Reese heard something above the whisper of the sea breeze. Looking ahead, he saw Manalo must’ve heard it as well, for he pulled his rifle tight against his shoulder as he turned his head, scanning the area. Reese looked to the rear of the formation, se
arching for Plosser. The Guardsman was still playing rear guard and was facing the parking lot. He held his rifle at low ready. Reese heard the noise again.

  A dry, thin moan, coming from the other side of a row of tall bushes that separated a private residence from the street. It was joined a moment later by another, then another. The bushes rustled. Things were coming through.

  “Reese,” Reneee said, her voice tight.

  Reese turned and looked toward Manalo. For a moment, the burly Filipino cop continued scanning the area, panning his AR-15 from side to side as he sought a target. When the brush before him began to part, he turned and threw a knife-hand toward the parking lot.

  “Boats! Boats!” he snapped, as dozens of stenches suddenly pushed their way through the line of bushes. They were held back momentarily by a short chain-link fence hidden amongst the vegetation, but it was an almost trivial impediment. As more stenches pushed aside the bushes before Reese, he saw dozens—possibly hundreds—of tottering shapes in the gloom on the other side. The first wave fell over the fence and thrashed about amidst the bushes. This proved to be a much more effective blockade than either the fence or the bushes, as the zombies became entangled with each other in a chorus of moans and flailing limbs. But over the din, Reese heard more moans. On the hillsides and bluffs, more figures appeared, emerging from overrun houses. Most staggered toward the group. Some ran.

  “We got runners!” Plosser announced.

  “Reese,” Reneee said again, eyes wide behind her glasses as she raised her rifle.

  “Forget about them, Reneee—run!” Reese pushed her back toward the way they had come. Gunfire rang out, and Reese glanced over his shoulder to see Marsh opening up on the horde, firing right into the mass piling up on the other side of the fence. Manalo had almost run into his lane of fire, and he jerked away with a curse. At the same time, one of the stenches in the line of bushes reached out and managed to grab ahold of Manalo’s vest. The cop was snatched toward the bushes, where other pallid hands grabbed and pulled at him. Marsh watched this for a moment, a dumbfounded expression on his face, before tentatively lowering his rifle and extending a hand toward Manalo without even taking a couple of steps toward him. Manalo grunted and reached back, but the gap was too far.