“Could be zombies,” Travis reminded her.
Curtis snorted. “Fuck, we’re worse than them half the time. Humans are shits when it comes to survival of the fittest.”
“That’s a bitter view of humanity, Curtis.” Yolanda frowned at the younger man with disapproval.
“They killed Nerit’s husband,” Curtis snapped.
Katie walked into the room just then. She had been helping build a new wall. Her hair was up in a ponytail and her face was reddened from being outdoors. “I hear there’s trouble. Can I help?”
“Yeah. We’re calling a Code Red.” Travis tried to keep his nervousness out of his tone.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“We knew it was a matter of time.” Travis lightly rubbed her shoulder as she moved to his side.
“It’s been almost a month. A girl can hope they dropped dead or got eaten or something.” She forced a smile.
Travis kissed her. “We ain’t that lucky.”
She sighed. “Yeah. I’ll see you up at the post, then.”
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll be there, Katie.” Travis watched her leave, then turned his full attention back to the situation at hand.
Yolanda slid into Curtis’s chair as he stood up. Putting on the headphones, she looked down at Curtis’s notes.
Travis asked Curtis, “How far out are they?”
“Twenty minutes. Bill’s flooring it.”
“Okay. Let me know when he gets in, Yolanda. I’ll be in position at the gate with Katie and Juan.”
Yolanda gave him the thumbs-up. Travis and Curtis hurried out.
3.
Nowhere Is Safe
In the van, Katarina scrambled between the front seats and scooted past the family and the minister in the backseats as she made her way to the rear window. She held her rifle tightly in one hand as she peered at the receding road.
“Anything?” Bill’s voice was tense.
“Nothing.” Katarina glanced toward him. “Are you sure you saw a truck?”
“Positive. Out of the corner of my eye as we passed that billboard back there.” Bill was frowning at the road ahead of them. He glanced warily toward the setting sun. They had maybe thirty minutes before sunset. His palms were sweating and he knew in his gut things were going bad fast. A cop’s instincts never faded.
The family, the Gilbreaths, haggard, thin, and smelly, huddled together behind him. They were an intact family: young father and wife with three small children, a rarity in these terrible days.
The Reverend Thomas sat in the very last seat. He was a poised, older black man with sad, dark eyes.
It had taken almost two hours to get the family out of their home. The reverend had helped talk them into leaving. The older man had been holed up alone in the church, living off the donated canned goods. He had kept in contact with the fort via ham radio. A month earlier, the reverend had spotted one of the Gilbreath kids squatting over the edge of the roof of their family home to defecate. He had thought he was the sole survivor in the town until that point. It was the reverend who had directed Katarina and Bill to the family’s boarded-up home.
The rescue had not been easy. It had taken nearly two hours to lure the zombies away from the church and down a back road by driving the van very slowly. Finally, Bill had floored it and doubled back to rescue the survivors.
“Are you sure this is safe?” the father, Harry, asked for the millionth time. “This fort you are taking us to, is it safe? Yer looking mighty scared right now.”
“The fort is safe. Getting there is another story,” Katarina answered.
“Nothing is truly safe in this world, but it’s safer than where you were,” Bill added truthfully.
The family clung to one another. The father’s sheer determination had kept them alive. A longtime survivalist, his house had withstood the attacks of the zombies in the first days. They had lived in the basement until the plumbing failed. Then they had carried everything up into the attic. Bill had to respect their tenacity.
Katarina stared out the back window, her long red braid curling over one shoulder. “Shit! We have company!”
Reverend Thomas twisted around in his chair and saw a truck racing toward them from behind. “Why are you afraid of them? Aren’t they also survivors?”
“Not everyone in this world is a good guy, Reverend.” Bill’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
The truck sped after them. Katarina could see two men in the cab. The men looked scraggly and rough. There was a camper attached to the bed of the truck. It looked ominous to her.
“I see only two guys,” she said, “but there’s a camper in the bed and there might be more people in there.”
Bill kept the van moving at a quick pace and dared a peek in his rearview mirror.
Katarina scrambled back to the passenger seat and let out a deep breath. “This feels bad.”
“I agree.” Bill kept his focus on the road ahead as he accelerated the vehicle. He was determined to get the family safely to the fort.
“Who are those men?” Harry asked.
“We think they’re bandits,” Bill answered. “I want all of you to get down on the floor right now. Keep your heads down and keep as close to the floor as possible.”
“I thought you said my family would be safe!” The young man looked both frightened and angry.
“They will be. Just get down!”
The pursuing truck was closing fast.
Katarina looked back to see that their passengers were nervously obeying. She usually loved rescue missions. The expressions on people’s faces when they saw other humans, their relief at being safe, and the exclamations of thanks made it worth the risk. Usually on rescue missions, they had to fight zombies, but this felt worse. Fighting other human beings in a dead world was just wrong.
The truck pulled alongside them. Katarina could clearly see the mud and gore spatters and what appeared to be bullet holes on its roughened side. She flicked off the safety on her rifle.
Katarina glanced over into the cab of the truck as it paced them. A scruffy man with lots of wild blond hair rolled down the window and shouted at them. It didn’t take a lip-reader to see he was yelling at them to pull over.
Bill shook his head and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. The van edged ahead of the truck, but only for a moment. The scruffy guy leaned out the window and literally knocked on Bill’s window. His voice was barely heard above the whine of the road and the wind.
“We want to be friends with you!” he was yelling. “We want to be friends!” But his expression was too wild and he looked at Katarina in a way that made her want to bash his teeth out with her rifle butt.
Barely glancing at the unkempt man as he kept the van on the road, Bill said, “Sorry. Gotta keep moving.” He floored the gas pedal.
The children cried as their parents tried to shush them. The reverend prayed under his breath. Katarina made sure her seat belt was on tight and watched the truck anxiously. The guy who had banged on the window had crawled back into the cab and was talking with the driver.
“We’re almost to the bridge,” Bill said. “We have to beat them there.” He had pulled ahead and swerved in front of the truck.
Katarina wasn’t sure when the minivan had been souped up or who had done it, but right then she felt like hugging whoever it was. The van’s engine was roaring and it was handling fine.
The truck sped past, then swerved sharply in front of them.
“Shit.” Katarina felt her adrenaline rushing through her body.
“They plan to trap us at the bridge,” Bill said grimly.
The children were crying louder now. Katarina didn’t even want to think about what those men might do to the kids, their mother, or to her.
Katarina took a deep breath as she made up her mind. “We need to do something now.”
“Can you pull a Nerit and shoot out the tire?”
Katarina furrowed her brow, then said, “I’ll t
ry.” She rolled down her window.
Bill concentrated on the road and kept the van steady. The truck was speeding ahead of them, kicking up dirt, heading straight into the sunset.
Katarina perched in the window. The reverend scrambled forward and grabbed hold of her legs to keep her steady. Trying to balance herself, Katarina took aim at a tire.
“Don’t swerve!” she yelled at Bill.
Katarina fired. The shot hit the camper and shattered the back window.
“Shit!”
She aimed again, trying to adjust for the speed, and the bumpiness of the road. A face appeared in the shattered window. It was a young girl, maybe thirteen. Her face was badly bruised and caked with blood. Her hands were tied in front of her and her mouth was gagged. She tried to wave at them.
“Sweet Jesus,” the reverend whispered.
Katarina felt her gut coil as she stared at the captive in the back of the truck. She couldn’t let any of those in her care share her fate. Sadly, she realized what she had to do. Katarina hesitated, but the cries of the children behind her were a reminder of what they had to lose. She had never fought a human being before, but she was certain she could kill the living just as easily as she killed the dead to protect the people in their charge.
“Do it,” Bill called out in a ragged voice.
She fired.
The truck tire unrolled like a ribbon and the vehicle careened wildly. The girl fell out of sight. The truck tipped. The camper went flying into the gorge that bordered the road. The truck slammed onto its side and slid off the road in a shower of sparks, revealing the bridge just ahead.
Katarina struggled back into her seat and thanked the reverend for his help. She felt sick to her stomach.
“You had to,” Bill said.
“I know,” Katarina whispered, trying not to think of the girl’s face. “I know.”
The minivan roared over the bridge, then sped around a hill. The hotel, in all its lighted glory, came into view. She sighed with relief.
“Almost home,” Bill assured the people clustered behind him.
Katarina picked up the CB. “We’re almost home. We had some issues, so please keep us covered.”
“Copy that,” Yolanda’s voice answered, then said more softly, “What kind of issues?”
“Bandits,” Katarina answered. “It’s the bandits.”
4.
Watching the Board
The gates closed behind the minivan. After being checked for bites, the newcomers were quickly ushered into the hotel. Just like that, the excitement was over.
Jenni watched through the binoculars as the man who had been watching the fort turned and vanished into the darkness. She never saw the stranger’s vehicle leave town.
She dutifully reported what she’d seen to Nerit, then settled in to wait.
They all waited.
The minutes, full of tension, full of fear, ticked by until they turned into hours.
“What do you think is going on?” Travis asked Nerit at around four in the morning. They were standing on a sentry platform near the gate. Travis’s eyes were bloodshot. He was gulping coffee.
Nerit took a slow, luxurious drag off her cigarette. “I have been thinking about it and I have a theory.”
“What is it?” Bill asked.
“Their plans went awry,” Nerit said simply.
“And?” Travis arched an eyebrow.
“That is all for now,” Nerit answered. “They’re done for now.”
Morning came.
The shifts rotated. People fell asleep in their clothes, guns nearby. Still, there was nothing.
One day slipped away without incident.
Then another.
And another. And another.
“Time to see if my theory is right,” Nerit said after the fifth day of peace, and gathered her team of Jenni, Bill, and Travis.
The gates slid open and Nerit’s new pride and joy, the Manns’ black H2, roared out of the fort, heading for the bridge. The Manns had been furious when they were ordered, in no uncertain terms, to relinquish the vehicle. When they’d protested, Nerit had fastened her steely gaze on them and said, “Do you really think you can just jump into it and go shopping? Because you can’t. Not anymore.” Finally, they had handed over the keys.
The H2 was far too luxurious for Nerit’s taste, but it drove well. If they ran into the bandits, Nerit could take the vehicle off-road with relative ease.
“I could get used to riding around in something like this.” Nerit could tell from the sound of her voice that Jenni was happy to be out of the fort and doing something instead of sitting around, waiting.
“Up ahead is where they went off the road, Nerit,” Bill said solemnly from the backseat.
Travis sat in the front passenger seat, rubbing his brow. He looked haggard; Nerit could see the stress eating away at him.
“Keep a lookout,” Nerit said. “We don’t need them sneaking up on us.”
“Who? Zombies or bandits?” Jenni asked.
“Both,” Nerit answered.
As the Hummer glided over the bridge, Travis looked down into the river. “Heh, there is a zombie down there in fishing gear, wading through the water still clutching its fishing pole.”
“Wonder if he’s catching zombie fish?” Jenni joked, then frowned. “God, I hope there’s not zombie fish!”
Skid marks on the asphalt showed them where the bandits’ truck had lost control. Nerit pulled over and everyone cautiously disembarked. It appeared the truck had slid into the gorge that bordered one side of the road. As the group from the fort neared the edge of the road, they saw the camper and truck below, firmly lodged in the trees that grew in the crevasse.
“It fuckin’ stinks of the dead here,” Jenni moaned.
“Let’s check it out. Travis, watch the road,” Nerit said, and started downward. The others followed.
Travis stayed on the road, looking far more at ease with a gun in his hands than Nerit had ever seen before. He looked alert and ready. Nerit glanced back at him, feeling pride in how far he had come.
Nerit reached the camper, each step carefully measured. Bill slowly rotated as he walked behind her, taking in all that was around him. Jenni held her gun firmly, alert to the slightest sound.
Gazing into the back of the camper, Nerit said, “One dead. Young female. Broken neck.”
Bill sighed sadly. “Probably the best thing for the poor kid.”
Nerit descended toward the truck, using the roots of the trees as a natural staircase. She stopped a few yards before reaching the toppled, battered vehicle.
“Two male bodies at the bottom of the gorge. Both bound and gagged. They appear to have been raped, then shot execution-style in the back of the head,” she said with no emotion. She’d seen such things before, and worse.
Bill frowned. “Sounds like Deliverance. Every man’s nightmare.”
“These men are a nightmare.” Nerit felt no remorse for the fate of the men.
Bill said to Jenni, “Follow me down. I want to get a closer look.”
Nerit held her position as they made their way to the bodies. Looking up through the trees, she saw Travis keeping a watch on the road with a troubled expression on his face.
Bill took his time examining the bodies and moving around the crime scene. Nerit observed his expressions and realized that he was coming to some terrible conclusions. With a sigh, he motioned to Jenni and they both struggled up the slope.
“What do you think?” Nerit asked as they reached her.
“Honestly, Nerit, I think they were punished for failing. It’s very methodical. Very intense. It feels … angry. It’s both the guys that I saw the other day. No forgiveness for either of them.”
Nerit nodded. “The young girl, the loss of an asset; the loss of the truck, another asset. But what was worse, I think, is that they probably weren’t supposed to attack anyone from the fort. We know the bandits have been watching us, probably trying to determine our stre
ngths and weaknesses. Maybe even deciding their approach. Either they would have attempted to deceive us into letting them in or would have just launched a surprise attack. But now the element of surprise is gone. We know they’re out here and that they’ll be coming for us at some point.”
“This is what you’ve been thinking since that first night,” Bill said after a beat.
Nerit slightly rolled her shoulders. “I just needed the proof.”
“So now what?” Jenni followed the others toward the truck.
“We stay alert. They will wait now, until they feel we are vulnerable. We are at stalemate.” Nerit opened up the door to the Hummer and slid in.
Jenni got into the car, saying, “Great. One more thing to worry about.”
Bill slammed his door shut as Travis climbed into the front seat. “Nothing is easy now, is it?”
“No, not at all,” Travis answered grimly. “Not at all.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1.
A Move Is Made
A wave of zombies hit the fort two days later. After it was over, Stacey, the guard who first sounded the alarm, explained that she had been leaning over to pick up her thermos when she heard a growl. Standing up and looking over the wall, she had seen a zombie beating on one of the trucks that made up the first perimeter. Stacey had raised her gun to pick him off when suddenly thirty zombies shambled into view and rabidly attacked the boundary.
“Good for sniper practice,” Nerit said when she was informed. She lit a cigarette and walked out to view the newcomers, joining Travis, Katie, and Curtis on a guard platform.
“Not from this town,” Curtis told Nerit. “I don’t recognize any of them.”
“Think they’re migrating?” Travis asked.
“Maybe following food,” Nerit said thoughtfully.
“How do they even sense us?” Katie folded her arms over her breasts, frowning at the thought of zombies migrating toward the living.
Bill yawned as he joined them. “Well … shit,” he said, looking at the horde of walking dead.
“Understatement.” Travis watched the zombies assault the perimeter with tired eyes. Katie slid her arm around his waist to give him comfort. Turning, he kissed her forehead.
As The World Dies Trilogy Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 58
