Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  “Just a tiny bit of pressure,” she said in a joking manner. Then she got serious and broke it to him that Chief was going with her to Woodruff, softening the blow with the caveat that they wouldn’t be gone long.

  Seemingly unaffected by the news, Seth asked, “Taking the kids?”

  “Yeah ... I figure it’s best to have the two vehicles and a couple of extra guns ... just in case. I tried to tell Sasha she was needed here, but she wasn’t having it. Said it’s still a free country.” Brook said the last part with air quotes and added, “You and I both know how stubborn she can be.”

  Seth nodded. He looked up at Brook and said, “That only leaves Heidi or Tran to watch Raven.”

  “I buried the hatchet with Heidi. It was hard but I went to her, tail between my legs.”

  “And?”

  “She was equally sorry. At least she said as much. She and Tran both volunteered to sit with Raven round-the-clock. I wrote down detailed instructions letting them know what warning signs to be on the lookout for.” Brook dragged her forearm across her eyes. Slung her carbine over her shoulder and, gesturing with the brick-shaped radio, said, “Listen ...” She paused, her eyes twinkling with newly formed tears, “I only want to hear this thing go off if her condition worsens.”

  “Copy that,” said Seth. He removed his Utah Jazz ball cap and ran a hand through the shock of greasy black hair. “When are the others coming back?”

  “Cade, I don’t know. I just got a text on the sat-phone from Duncan saying he, Lev, and Jamie will be back before dark. I guess they diverted to Bastion where the helicopter is getting some much needed maintenance.”

  “And Cade just left them there?”

  Without going into detail, she said, “That was the plan from the start. He didn’t have the heart to break it to them until the last minute.”

  “I bet that twisted Dunc and Daymon into pissed-off pretzels.”

  “I bet it did,” conceded Brook. “Lev and Jamie too, I’d bet.”

  “Think Dunc will be good to fly when they get done working on the chopper?”

  “Beeson won’t let him fly if he isn’t. However, if they do get back here before us, I need you to make sure he gets a proper introduction to the new girl Tran told me about. Her name’s Glenda Gladson.” She slapped the younger man on the shoulder, and before he could object to his new role as matchmaker, she ambled off towards the entrance, a half-smile curling her lip.

  Chapter 50

  Terminal Island rotated below the Ghost Hawk as Ari spun it ninety degrees on axis and nudged the stick, putting them on an easterly course. As the northernmost bridge grew larger he turned the helicopter ninety degrees back to the north and slowed the aircraft to a veritable crawl over the channel separating Terminal Island from the mainland.

  Close in, clearly, the demolitions used to drop the bridge had not only done their job but had also caused catastrophic damage to the nearby railroad crossing. Huge I-beams once laser straight and capable of bearing the weight of a shipping-container-laden locomotive were now twisted like gnarled arthritic fingers after having been sheared off by the blast and intense overpressure.

  Cade looked away momentarily and saw the last man in the ship worrying his forearm through his fatigue sleeve. Shifting his gaze back to the bridge, he noticed a twenty-foot-run of the vehicular bridge sticking vertically from the strait’s murky water. And like a ragged assemblage of stepping stones across a creek, dozens of colorful automobile rooftops were visible just under the water’s surface, with no doubt scores more settled on the sea floor beneath them.

  North of the bridge, on a tract of land stretching off into the distance, was what looked to Cade like a traveling carnival or some kind of an impromptu renaissance fair. And just like the campground near Lake Meade, every spare square inch of ground was occupied by brightly hued tents. Unsecured nylon doors flapped freely in the offshore breeze and, like urban tumbleweeds, trash was piling up against them.

  Near the makeshift shanty town on a triangle of ground bordered on two sides by water and empty marinas and hemmed in on the other by the 710 Freeway sat a sea of abandoned vehicles.

  As Ari overflew the refugee camp and began a gradual turn to the west, Cade saw thousands of Zs milling about and became acutely aware that there was no way anyone could still be alive down there.

  Pulling Cade’s attention from the disheartening scene below, Ari came over the comms and announced they’d be coming back around and then following the 710 Freeway north to the USC campus where they would rendezvous with the Osprey carrying their QRF (Quick Reaction Force).

  Across from Cade, the two Navy SEALs, Cross and Griffin, were busy reloading their magazines and checking their other equipment. The crew chief to his right was scanning the ground; periodically he would look up and swivel his head around, checking the sky off of the starboard side. And directly across from him Lasseigne had taken off his right glove and was rolling up his sleeve. Seeing this conjured up a bad memory that sent a cold chill down Cade’s spine. Then he met eyes with the SF soldier and detected a measure of concern in them.

  Shaking his head, Lasseigne rotated his forearm towards Cade and said, “They got me.”

  “Zip-ties,” said Cade to Cross even before he was out of his seatbelt. Then he leaned forward and spoke directly into the cockpit. “Keep her steady, Ari. We’ve got a situation.” Twisting towards Lasseigne, he grabbed the man’s arm, looked closely, and saw what looked like two pin pricks, about an inch and a half apart, oozing blood. He took the zip-ties and looped one around the operator’s thickly muscled bicep and cinched it tight, like a tourniquet.

  “I’m already getting cold,” Lasseigne said.

  “Do it now,” Cade ordered. “Or I will.”

  With a sheen of sweat blooming on his forehead, and a barely perceptible palsy affecting his hands, Lasseigne pulled the cylinder from a pocket and twisted off the cap. Looked a question at Lopez as he dumped the auto injector into his left palm.

  “Here,” said Lopez, stabbing a finger at his own right thigh, roughly eight inches north of his patella.

  With no further questions or any hesitation Lasseigne jabbed the business end of the slender device into his muscled thigh, then, whispering some kind of prayer, leaned back and secured the infected injector in its container.

  “Hands,” Cross said. “We have to do it, brother.”

  Complying, the Special Forces operator clasped his hands in his lap and closed his eyes.

  As Cross secured Lasseigne’s hands at the wrists there was an audible zip as the plastic teeth ripped through the locking mechanism. He said, “Mask,” and reached one arm across the cabin.

  The crew chief ripped the wicked-looking face shield from his flight helmet and handed it over.

  Cross accepted the spare flight helmet handed to him by Lopez and affixed the mask. He then removed Lasseigne’s tactical bump helmet and snugged the flight helmet over the stricken shooter’s sweat-drenched hair and buckled the chin strap.

  Feeling totally helpless, Lasseigne let out the breath he’d been holding and said, “I’m sorry, fellas. There were just too many of them.”

  “Forget about it,” Cade said. “How are you feeling? Any of the euphoria the tutorial spoke of?”

  “Not yet.”

  Cade said, “Hang in there ... and keep us posted.”

  Near simultaneously Cade and Lopez started the stopwatch functions on their watches.

  Ari said over the comms, “Four minutes.”

  Cade caught sight of the crew chief sans the mask and noted his clean-shaven face and easy smile, conceding inwardly that both were miles apart from his first impression.

  Over the comms, Haynes said, “Oh my Lord.”

  Cade could only see the back of the aviator’s helmet, so he leaned forward and peered out the port windows and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Down below he saw dozens of bomb craters big enough to swallow up a small compact car. The bombs, five
hundred pounders he guessed, seemed to have been walked the length of the freeway from the south, where a number of ramps met to a point a half of a mile north where an overpass had been dropped to the roadway and covered all eight lanes, remaining mostly intact. Thrown about on the southbound side of the freeway were hundreds of barely recognizable vehicles. Roofs were bowed up like the tops of so many soup cans way past their expiration dates. Hatches and doors here and there had been ripped away, some flung as far away as the northbound median. And to add insult to injury not an intact pane of glass remained in any of the blackened and twisted shells.

  Hundreds of civilians had died in the obvious attempt to seal off Terminal Island. As the scene blipped by, Cade could make out vague forms still hunched over steering wheels. There were dozens of lifeless corpses sprawled out on the oil-stippled-pavement near their cars, and surrounding most were pools of dried blood from mortal injuries received from indiscriminant hunks of shrapnel or the initial explosions themselves.

  Zombies were few and far between on this particular stretch of the Interstate. The seagulls, crows, and ravens, however, were not lacking for food. Nor would they be for weeks to come.

  “Does Basra ring a bell?” asked Haynes, referring to the highway of death leading away from Kuwait towards Basra where miles and miles of fleeing Iraqi Republican Guards had been trapped and decimated by Coalition air power.

  “Those were mostly old Soviet tanks and BMPs and Hilux trucks,” Ari replied. “Besides, we were all still in high school. Except for maybe Griff there. The old man was probably already in BUDs training.”

  Ignoring the quip, Griffin placed two fingers on Lasseigne’s carotid. Held them there for a second then sat back in his seat, a grimace on his face.

  Chapter 51

  The sun was high and the clouds were moving in quickly from the southeast. A long white band of them growing pewter around the edges and threatening rain looked to be on a collision course with Woodruff. A bad day about to get worse, thought Brook. She opened the F-650’s door and tossed her M4 on the seat. As she climbed into the cab, the other door hinged open and Chief was joining her, his silhouette fully blocking out the light spill.

  “We’re leaving a light crew behind, so I suggest we not rush into Woodruff without giving it a once-over from a distance.”

  “What Cade would have said for five hundred, Alex,” Brook said. She turned the engine over and listened to the low burble for a second.

  Chief propped his carbine on the seat barrel down next to Brook’s M4 and snugged on his belt.

  Finally Brook looked his way and said in a low voice, “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  “What Cade would have said for six hundred,” Chief said. “I wasn’t trying to sound patronizing. Just thinking aloud.”

  “Copy that,” said Brook, then smiled. “Also what Cade would have said.”

  “The Kids are in,” said Chief, mercifully stopping the running gag in its tracks. He picked up the radio and keyed the Talk button. “You guys ready?” He heard a whistle and craned around and saw Max hop into the bed of the idling Raptor.

  “We are now,” Wilson said over the radio. “I’ll get both of the gates.”

  “What’s your gut saying to you about Glenda?”

  “I think she’s on the level,” Chief said. “And that part about her husband ... who would make something like that up?”

  “Yeah,” conceded Brook. “Plus she knew about the dirtbags who let the Zs into our fence a while back. And then she was able to describe Bishop’s men and their helicopters to a T.” She went silent and watched in the rearview while Taryn backed the mud-and blood-spattered Raptor around and then smiled when the best driver in their small band gunned the off-road rig towards the feeder road, sending up a rooster tail of dirt and rocks and uprooted grass.

  “Give them a second head start,” Chief said.

  “Why?”

  “What do you think we should do about Heidi?”

  “I’ve already given that some thought. While I look for the stuff I need for Raven, I want you to keep your eyes open for Celexa or Zoloft or Citalopram ... all antidepressants. It’ll be a starting place, at least. Her PTSD is going to take time to overcome.”

  “Gives me something to do,” Chief said with a smile. “Now we better catch the Kids.”

  ***

  A freshly killed rotter was propped up against the inner fence and Wilson was waiting to seal it up behind them all when Brook squeezed the oversized Ford between the two posts. She slowed and opened her window and said, “It was waiting for us here?”

  Wilson nodded. “It was stuck in the fence. I walked the perimeter fence in both directions last night and didn’t see any other breaches. I’m pretty confident it’s just a straggler from the group we culled yesterday.”

  Brook made a face. She looked long and hard down the fence line in both directions. Then she said, “We’ll call it in. Just in case,” and wheeled the Ford ahead a few feet.

  While Wilson closed the fence, Chief called Seth and told him about the encounter. Seth came back on the radio and said that he’d seen very little rotter activity on the State Route since morning.

  Sure enough, when both trucks arrived at SR-39 the road was free of rotters. Wilson had the gate yawning open for them in no time and both trucks wheeled through and formed up on the road facing east. After playfully flipping the nearby camera the middle finger, Wilson closed the gate and in seconds he was back riding shotgun and the two Fords were rolling in the direction of Woodruff, the F-650 in the lead.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes had slipped into the past by the time the red bluff, rising several hundred feet above the road and casting a shadow on the nearby Ogden River, came into view. Brook looked up at the depressing knuckle of earth as they blazed past and her heart hurt when she thought about the pain, both physical and emotional, Jordan, Logan, and Gus had endured while they were dying up there.

  For the first time since turning on to the two-lane blacktop she noticed how the weeks-long accumulation of pine needles covering it had been recently disturbed. There were two wide tire marks, some distance apart, tracking straight and true and equidistant from both shoulders. As she slowed to negotiate the corner her eye was drawn to the horizon where, judging by the smattering of oranges and russets and muted yellows showing on the trees blanketing the rolling hills, autumn was right around the corner. In fact, Brook thought, if she remembered correctly, the first day of fall was September 22nd. Around the corner, indeed.

  Brook and Chief sat tight lipped as the miles ticked off. Along the way the two-vehicle convoy passed a handful of walking dead, and either blew by them at speed or slowed and bulled them aside where there was no room to pass.

  Knowing that 39 met up with State Route 16 at the end of a short straightaway around the next bend, Brook halved her speed and flicked her eyes to the rearview where she saw the Raptor’s black grill filling the mirror, the word Ford spelled out in the cooling vents there.

  The scene ahead was revealed in degrees as the F-650’s massive snout cut the corner. Seeing a clutch of rotters near the overturned bus dead ahead, Brook pulled to the right-side shoulder and jammed to a stop. A tick later she saw a flash of white in her side vision as the Raptor pulled in tight next to her door. The Raptor’s passenger side window whirred down and Wilson looked a question at Brook.

  She said nothing; pressed a pair of binoculars to her face and glassed the intersection.

  Peering through a pair of his own, Chief asked, “You see that?”

  Brook exhaled then put the binoculars on the center console. Finally, she met Chief’s steady gaze and nodded, a pained look on her face.

  Head hanging half out of his window, Wilson waved his arms at Brook and said, “Well?”

  Sasha’s voice filtered up from the back seat. She was going on about stopping, whining and fretting about the Zs patrolling the road ahead of them.

  Brook craned and shot Sasha a look that mom
entarily silenced the teen. Then she passed her Bushnells through the window to Wilson and said, “Better look for yourself. And those are yours to keep.”

  With the faraway murmurs of the dead competing gamely with the sound of the two idling motors, Wilson glassed the scene for a full minute. When he lowered the binoculars his mouth was hanging open and, as if what he had just seen was but a heat mirage or a figment of his imagination and in no way reality, he looked up and flashed Brook an incredulous look.

  Suddenly Taryn picked the black and white vehicle out of the clutter. Quietly, she said, “That’s Chief Jenkins’s cruiser ... isn’t it?”

  Wilson sighed and slumped in his seat. “It’s the Tahoe all right.”

  Sasha asked, “Is he there?”

  Wilson said, “Thankfully, I didn’t see him.”

  “Maybe he’s just trapped inside,” said Sasha, wild-eyed, her upper body hanging over the seatback. She looked left at Taryn. Let her gaze linger. Then she panned her head to the right, locked eyes with Wilson, and added breathlessly, “We have to help him.”

  Taryn said, “We owe him as much. Ask Brook if we can check it out.”

  In a low voice, Wilson said, “There’s a lot of rotters there.”

  Taryn squared up in her seat and shot back, “He’d do it for us.”

  Wilson nodded and leaned as close as he could to Brook’s window and ran the idea by her.

  A ten-second huddle ensued between Brook and Chief. Finished, she ran the window down and nodded in Wilson’s direction. Said, “Better open the slider and let Max in with Sasha.” Then her window pulsed up and the F-650 pulled ahead of the Raptor at little more than walking speed.