by Dave Lund
Bexar could hear yelling. Guillermo was attacking the growing flames of the shop with a fire extinguisher. Years of being a cop didn’t make one a firefighter, but it gave Bexar a feel for fires and response. Guillermo was fighting a losing battle. Finally understanding what Angel was yelling, Bexar let his rifle hang on the sling and ran as fast as the cast would let him, the massive adrenaline dump of the attack and battle blocking any pain that he’d had just moments before. As he charged into the open door, thick black smoke poured through, choking him, the heat searing his lungs with each breath. Bexar didn’t stop. The light on his rifle shone dimly in the smoke, but he still couldn’t see anything but smoke and flame. Bexar stumbled to the floor; looking back, he realized he’d tripped over Heath’s body, burned and blackened. Standing and grabbing Heath under his arms, Bexar walked backwards, dragging with all his strength, struggling against the cast on his leg. He made it into the courtyard before collapsing, choking and coughing on smoke and soot. The last thing he saw was Guillermo tackling him with a heavy wool blanket.
The Beetle
Chivo followed Stan’s excited instructions and turned onto Twin Lakes. Reaching the long driveway felt like a half hour for Stan; the forty-five miles per hour Chivo drove seemed like a walking pace when it was obvious that the compound was on fire. The main gate was intact. Stan made quick work of the combination lock and chain, opening the gate for Chivo before closing and locking it behind the VW. Chivo didn’t wait, but sped off to the end of the drive and towards the fire. Anger flushed through Stan before he realized that Chivo had the training and could probably help immediately with whatever had gone wrong. Stan locked the gate and began running up the long driveway.
Chivo slid to a stop in the courtyard. The shop was fully engulfed and would have to burn itself out. He looked at the fire and the embers floating in the wind. Thankfully the wind was out of the north and was pushing the flames and embers away from the house. Four bodies lay in the courtyard; one was very badly burned, another had an obvious life-ending head wound, and the other’s neck lay at an unnatural angle. Ignoring the obvious casualties, Chivo ran to the only remaining patient and found Bexar.
Covered in black soot and unconscious, Bexar lay there, his rifle next to him, the sling removed, and the tactical carrier badly damaged and cut off him. His clothes were in a ruined heap, also expediently removed by a pair of EMS shears. Guillermo knelt over Bexar, latex gloves on, working methodically and quickly, an IV already started. Jennifer stood nearby holding the IV bag above Bexar. Angel ran up to Chivo.
“What the fuck happened, Angel?”
“They attacked again, that’s what happened. They blew up the shop, and I think they somehow rigged the propane tanks.”
Chivo doubted they could have rigged anything without getting inside the wire, which someone would have noticed.
“Did you mount a patrol, a security sweep?”
“No.”
Chivo cursed, “Get me Coach and Brian. We’ll do it.”
“Coach is dead.”
“Fuck, mano. Fine! Just get me Brian. We’re going out the side gate to make a sweep. Make sure those fucking bodies don’t get up again, and get Bexar and everyone else the fuck inside in case there’s another attack!”
Angel turned and yelled for Brian, quickly executing the instructions Chivo gave him. This was not the time to argue, and Angel knew he was right.
Brian hustled over, visibly shaken.
“Brian, I need you to focus, mano. We’re going to need to do this the right way or more people might die. I can’t babysit you while we do this, and it would help me for you to come along. Can you handle your shit?”
Slowly nodding, Brian turned, looked at the shop, and saw Angel standing over Heath’s badly burned body before firing a single shot into the skull. His eyes narrowed as anger burned deep in his soul.
“Yeah, Chivo, fuck’em all! Let’s roll.”
The pair jogged to the side gate next to the garage. Brian worked the combination lock, and the pair were outside the wire. Chivo began moving west, quickly putting distance between the fence line and the compound and themselves. Brian followed about a dozen yards behind him, and they each moved methodically and quietly. Brian tried to match Chivo’s movement, but Chivo was less than a ghost; he seemed to absorb light and sound, a dark quietness in the desert that was reserved only for master hunters. Halfway to the road, Chivo turned and began moving south. A few moments later, he stopped and melted into a crouched position. Brian stopped and crouched, unable to detect whatever it was that Chivo saw. The moon barely gave enough light to create shadows on the low vegetation. The light of the burning shop a few hundred yards away danced across the desert, and his ears pounded with a heartbeat so loud that he was sure Chivo could hear it.
Movement. Someone was crawling through the desert, coming from the direction of the compound, almost on a straight course for Chivo. Brian froze, holding his breath, trying to be a shadow of a hole in the ground while moving only his eyes back and forth, looking for more movement besides the single person. He didn’t see any, and he couldn’t even see Chivo’s form anymore.
The crawler reached the area where Brian remembered Chivo had been. Waiting, anticipating a rifle shot, all Brian saw was some fast movement before seeing Chivo’s hand sticking up and motioning him to come close.
Face down on the ground was a man whose hands and feet were bound with flex cuffs. Chivo’s shemagh was wrapped around his eyes and tied, the ends stuffed into his mouth.
“He said that he’s the only survivor of the raiding party, that the other three were killed by someone inside the compound after the RPG attack.”
The sound of the dead crashing through the desert behind them to the west became more apparent, growing in intensity and size. Chivo was confident that they were about to have a serious problem with all the undead moths heading to the flame. It was still hours until sunrise; once the sun was up, the fire wouldn’t be as obvious. Chivo knew that they needed to act quickly or be overrun. The fence would eventually fail, just like the bridge that killed Apollo.
“OK, mano, let’s get this fucker back to the compound. We’ll tag him and bag him, and then I’ve got to unfuck the march of the dead.”
Chivo stood and pulled the bound man into a sitting position, drew his pistol, and struck the man across the face. His body went limp. Chivo then squatted and pulled the prisoner over his shoulder into a modified fireman’s carry. Moving carefully but swiftly, they made their way back to the side gate, passing the three bodies of the remaining raider party.
The Compound, Saint George, UT
Bexar gasped awake. It took him a moment, but he realized that he was lying on the kitchen table; Guillermo was standing next to him, as were Frances and Jennifer. Another moment passed, and then he realized that he was nude and the cast on his leg was gone. Bexar didn’t know why he kept waking up nude in strange places, but he was sure it wasn’t from being an alcoholic.
“Frances, if you wanted to see me naked, you could have just asked.”
Guillermo laughed.
“Honey, if I want to see a dick, Merylin has a whole drawer of them.”
Bexar began laughing, which quickly started a coughing fit.
Brian walked into the room. “Guillermo, Chivo caught one of the attackers. He’s chained to the flagpole outside.”
“Where’s Chivo?”
Stan ran into the room. “Chivo left, tore ass out of here in that Beetle we got.”
Angel replied, “You got it, good job. What about the horses?”
“I think the horses are a loss. I’m sorry.”
Angel scowled, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry, buddy; we were overrun and couldn’t get them as we left. On the way back we felt the blast and saw the flames. What the hell happened?”
“They somehow got the shop to
catch fire, and I think the propane tanks exploded.”
Brian interrupted, “No, the captive said it was an RPG attack. Three of his party were killed. One of them had a launch tube, at least that’s what Chivo called it.”
To Bexar, the attack felt like a bad dream, lingering after waking up. “I killed three of them before going into the shop.”
Angel patted his shoulder.
“As much fun as this is, Guillermo, I don’t feel like I’m hurt. Do you have anything I could wear? I want to get up.”
Guillermo laid a towel over Bexar’s midsection and groin. “The towel will have to do for a few minutes. You aren’t hurting because I shot you up with morphine, guy. Heath is about your size, and Jennifer can fix up something to fit tomorrow if it’s not quite right. I also gave you some antibiotics in the mix. That’s about all we can do for you right now.”
“What all is wrong with me then?”
“We’ll have to wait and see about your leg. The cast was damaged in the aftermath, so it came off. You have some pretty good burns on your arms and chest. Your gear and your clothes were burned and ruined. I think your rifle is OK. We washed most of the soot off and cleaned the burns. It’ll all probably hurt like a son of a bitch tomorrow.”
“Such optimism.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Bexar; you’re the one flying on the morphine rocket.”
Jennifer walked down the hall and returned a few minutes later with some underwear, a pair of socks, a T-shirt, some heavy-duty work pants, and a pair of work boots. Guillermo helped Bexar sit up. The IV bag hung from the light fixture over his head. Jennifer and Guillermo carefully helped Bexar get into the shirt and underwear before helping him to his room and his bed to rest.
The Beetle
Chivo stopped in the middle of the road at the end of the compound’s long driveway, revving the obnoxiously loud engine and honking the horn. The smashed-out tail lights and turn signals kept the vehicle dark, except for the headlights, which Chivo had switched to bright. The dead slowly began shambling toward the loud air-cooled car, and Chivo began slowly threading his way through the undead on the road, making his way down the hillside and back toward the Interstate. He didn’t know the area away from the compound at all; the surface streets were a mystery to him, and anything he couldn’t see from the powerful optic of his big 50BMG Barrett rifle was unknown. Frank, the captured raider, wouldn’t tell him anything about his group’s location either—yet. Chivo would take care of that first thing in the morning. He had left Brian with specific instructions to cut off the man’s clothes, chain him to the flagpole, and spray him with the hose until he regained consciousness. Once he was awake, Brian was to make sure he didn’t fall asleep. Chivo needed the man shaken, cold, tired, and disorientated.
Slowly, Chivo made his way to the frontage road. He took a right and found a tanker semi-truck abandoned on the road, a car wedged under the middle of the tank, the top of the car crushed from the crash. Chivo pulled alongside the tanker, rolled down his window, and fired a half-dozen times into the aluminum side of the tank with his pistol. He wasn’t sure what the tanker held, but the red hazard placard told him what was in the tanker was combustible. Liquid spewed out of the tanker, covering the crashed car. Chivo pulled forward and turned around, the dead continuing to swarm to his obnoxiously loud car. The camp lantern from the garage where the VW had been kept still sat on the passenger floorboard. A few moments were all it took to get the dual mantels lit and burning. Chivo stopped next to the tanker and the crashed car to roll down his window again; the air stank of the dead and raw fuel. Smiling, he threw the lantern onto the fuel-slicked roof of the crashed car, which whooshed into flames. Chivo accelerated as hard and fast as the VW would go, dodging the dead the best he could while resisting the urge to watch in the rear-view mirror. The air around him glowed bright orange, shadows of the dead approaching the flames dancing against the hillside; the hard thump of an explosion seemed to propel the car even faster. The tires squealed as he made the left turn to go back up the hill toward the compound and the burning shop, and Chivo was glad to see that the fuel truck burned much more brightly than the burning shop. It appeared that the small strip center near the semi-tanker had also caught fire. Together it might as well have been a bug zapper for the dead. The mass of the dead shifted. Chivo saw more macabre faces shambling down the hill than the backs of heads this time coming up it.
Yup, Bexar, one piece at a time.
CHAPTER 7
Outside of Boulder City, Nevada
April 5, Year 1
The air churned and buzzed with the sounds of flies. Aymond lay on the ground high upon the rocky mound with binoculars to his eyes, scanning the curved roadway; marked units sat idle and abandoned at each end, the police officers who’d placed them long missing.
The rest of the team knelt in a loose defensive position around the M-ATVs and the PLA radar truck. The dome was up and ready to run, but since the device was unknown and the Chinese seemed to purposely keep from walking in front of it, they would only activate the dome if Zeds appeared on the bridge.
Aymond, reasonably sure they were alone, or at least that the PLA or Koreans weren’t around yet, stood and began hiking down the south side to where the rest of the team was waiting. As he reached them, the team gathered close enough to hear but remained facing outward in a defensive posture.
“Completely overrun. There are police vehicles on either end, but obviously they appear abandoned. There are no signs of survivors; I have no idea if some are sheltering in the facility below.”
“What about the generators?” Happy asked the question that everyone was thinking.
“I have no idea, but some of the exterior lights are on, though the fuses on the transmission lines appear disconnected or blown. We’d have to get a Corps of Engineers team in here to really know, unless one of you dickheads knows anything about electricity.”
“I fucked a stripper called White Lightning once.”
Muffled smirks and coughing erupted from the group.
“Outstanding, Gonzo, your mom would be so proud.”
“That was his mom!”
Aymond tried to ignore Hammer, but the whole team was straining, trying not to laugh.
“OK, gentlemen, and you too, Gonzo, saddle up. This is a wash. Time to point north to Nellis.”
The convoy lurched out of their spot on Highway 93 near the Hoover Dam, turning right on Lakeshore Road. The route that Snow had mapped out on a civilian road atlas was a meandering, indirect one, but it kept the team from driving through Henderson and it would drop them near Ellis Air Force Base without having to drive through the heart of Las Vegas. Aymond had no idea what they would find in Vegas, but he assumed it wouldn’t be magic shows and gambling.
The road loosely followed the far edge of the shore of Lake Mead, passing a few RV parks and establishments along the way. December was apparently high time for the area. The RV parks looked full, a handful of Zeds shambling through the mass of expensive-looking mobile homes, but the convoy passed far enough away that by the time the Zeds turned to follow them, the rising dust was all they caught. They took Lakeshore to Northshore Road, a narrower two-lane roadway with open desert sprinkled with vacationers, which led to Lake Mead Boulevard. The drive with a sports car or a motorcycle would probably have been enjoyable, but lumbering along in an armored truck, even one as advanced as the M-ATV, wasn’t exactly deserving of a hot lap on Top Gear.
As they exited the mountains, the roadway abruptly crashed into the eastern edge of Las Vegas. Snow stopped and glanced at Aymond in the front passenger seat, holding the civilian road map.
Aymond pointed out of his side window. “Take a right. If we go through open country, we’ll run into the southern edge of the base.”
Snow nodded and radioed the following trucks with the plan before turning the wheel and crunching onto the
rocky desert floor. A few hundred yards later, the convoy bounced across a small paved road and continued northward across the desert, the edge of civilization’s rotting City of Light out their left-side windows. Without GPS, an overland route required orienteering skills that the team members possessed, with compasses they had in their kits, but they needed better maps to be accurate. Dead reckoning was all they really needed, just as long as they kept the edge of the city in sight. Much like early explorers sailing down the coast of Africa, they could get home as long as they kept land in view. Little league fields required a minor course correction, as did the gravel quarry, but the fenced-off edge of the air base stopped them in their tracks. Happy made quick work of the fence with his bolt cutters before removing the cross beams to make room for the trucks. The convoy drove slowly onto the tarmac of the runways. A row of angry-looking A-10s sat on the ramp with flat tires. A few members of the team had trained with the PJs at Nellis before and had a good idea where they would be found; the runways and taxiways would lead them right to their doorstep like the yellow brick road.
