Duncan had nothing to say to that. Instead, he shifted his weight and looked longingly up at the sheer rock face.
“Now gather round,” Cade called, his voice carrying down the road to the others.
Chapter 39
Underneath the three-hundred dollar jacket that he could not have fathomed paying half as much for had he the money to burn, Gregory Dregan was sweating like a whore in church—as his highly religious, albeit none too politically correct mother had been fond of saying. The spot on the overgrown fire road he had chosen to take a break from walking was sheltered from the still-falling snow and in sight of yet another victim of the virus let loose on humanity by some dumbass in a supposedly secure facility somewhere on earth. That much he was certain of. The lies to the contrary had piled up early on, with leaders of every country on earth pointing fingers and, in some cases, nuclear-tipped missiles at each other. Rumors ran rampant that last week in July. And the first inkling that Gregory had that the President of the United States wasn’t being totally honest with the people he served was when POTUS had urged everyone, except those in essential services, to stay home and ride it out even while news outlets were reporting that government bigwigs were fleeing D.C. like rats from a sinking ship. This was confirmed when a Russian language internet site Gregory liked to get the other side of the story from showed a still photo of Air Force One lifting off from Andrews and, in the background, clear as day on his computer monitor, he saw inert cars clogging the surface streets and highways and a background haze dotted with points of orange light that told him D.C. was burning. So much for essential services, he had thought at the time.
The part that really confused him, however,—to the point of making him think the photo might have been manipulated in Photoshop—was that after watching footage on television and online and then consequently seeing, in person and up close, armored personnel carriers on the streets of Salt Lake City—was the President’s live message from the White House situation room in which he doubled down on his initial call for citizens to, in his words, ‘shelter in place and ride the effects of this nasty virus out.’
The infected forty-something woman kneeling on the snow a yard from him was all the proof he needed that the President’s words had been meaningless bullshit. Shelter in place or run for the hills, it didn’t matter what you did—this immobilized monster was proof that Omega would find you regardless. And that aspect of how the virus was delivered was most insidious of all, for if this victim on the fire road was a decade older she might as well have been his mom. People’s reluctance to confront the fact that a loved one could suddenly turn and immediately hunger for the nearest meat certainly hastened Omega’s spread.
In the end—even with all that he had learned about the government’s failed attempt at containment and seeing first-hand that there was no surviving a bite—he couldn’t bring himself to put his own mom down. In the heat of the moment, nothing anyone said could convince him that who and what she had meant to him—which was the world—was no longer inside that ambulatory shell.
She’s dead, Peter had screamed to him as the pistol wavered in his numb hand on that hot July day.
They were pulled off at a rest stop near Arsenal, Utah, where Dad had made the executive decision to bypass the burgeoning FEMA facility near there and ‘head for the hills’ as he put it then. The self-proclaimed Gas Baron’s old overloaded Buick, threatening to overheat, was parked in the furthermost spot from the looted vending machines standing sentinel before the cinderblock bathrooms. Mom had been raving about how her head hurt one moment then was dead the next. Flatline, as the doctors on television called it. No pulse. No respiration. And all because they had listened to the President and sheltered in place in their two-story colonial at the end of a once quiet cul-de-sac while the world died outside their multi-paned windows. One tiny bite from a wandering neighbor kid did her in. She was a slow burn, as some of the scientists started calling the ones who didn’t turn right away. Mom had taken sixteen hours to succumb, whereas the kid who bit her was dead in less than twenty minutes.
Just like the assholes who watch their dog leave a steaming dump in the middle of a park, then look over both shoulders before walking away without doing their civic duty—the grandmother warding over the recently turned kid wanted nothing further to do with him and released him onto the street like a feral dog. Then Silvie, always the kindhearted one, tried to round the infected boy up to do what was right. The ‘compassionate thing’ were her exact words. And that vein of compassion that ran so deep in her was what did her in.
At the rest stop, with Dad’s revolver in hand and a stern ‘just do it’ echoing in his head, Gregory Dregan saw no kind of compassion in what he was being told to do … only murder. So he had walked away from the Buick, leaving Silvie thrashing and snapping at him like an animal. No amount of begging and pleading from him could convince his dad to do the same as the elderly neighbor had done with the neighbor boy—simply let her go. Just drive off and leave the rest up to fate.
The word ‘coward’ rang out at Gregory’s back, then, a millisecond later, he flinched when his dad, Alexander Dregan, put a bullet into his mother’s brain. The people at the rest stop didn’t flinch like he had. Not a person. They just went about their business as if the woman was a rabid dog being put down.
That was the day the new normal hit Gregory Dregan.
And that was the day any respect he had had for his dad was at its lowest.
Now, weeks later, Dad still hadn’t apologized for calling him a coward in front of his brother and all of those people at the rest stop. Pot calling the fucking kettle black. Send a boy to do a man’s job and all that jazz. Therefore respect for the elder Dregan was nowhere near to where it had been before that day in Arsenal.
“Sorry, lady,” Gregory said to the undead thing as he drew the long blade from his hip. Though this one, like all the others he’d encountered since the snow started to fall, was unmoving and unresponsive, he still approached the slight woman with caution and from the side. “I have to do this to you. It’s my duty.” He grabbed a handful of the thing’s matted blonde hair and was startled by how it crackled in his grasp. It was slippery against his glove, so he pushed the thing onto its side and put his boot on its thin neck. And like every female roamer he’d dispatched since denying his mom sweet release, he said, “Bye Mom,” before thrusting his dagger into the soft spot between ear and eye socket. Lips set in a thin white line, he pushed hard on the handle until the hilt struck bone, then continued applying pressure until the horrid sound of cracking skull made him ease up. He drew back the blade and, like the seven roamers he’d already come across and dispatched since leaving the snowmobile under the tree, no blood spilled from this kill. No maggots squirmed from the jagged gash. But best of all, somewhere, he knew Silvie was watching and proud of how far he’d come.
He dragged the corpse off to the side. Straightened the body out face up and arranged the arms so they crossed over where he guessed the heart to be.
After saying a prayer, which he did for every female regardless of age, he shed a glove and again consulted the map. Ten minutes studying the myriad roads and symbols only confused him further. The Ogden River and fire lane had taken divergent paths a mile back. Since then the fire lane had twisted and turned on him and made a big run in a direction he thought was south before abruptly turning back on itself.
As he stood there, his dim shadow falling over the dead woman, he realized several things were stacking up against him. One, the map taken from a car left behind a ransacked and burned-out Shell station just outside of Huntsville weeks ago predated the 9/11 attacks. Two, it had gotten wet the last time he had it out and as a result had started to tear at the creases, two of which intersected near where he thought he was. And three, with no compass and snow-laden clouds blocking out the sun, orienting himself west where he knew the missing orb would soon be setting was an exercise in futility.
Eden Compound
“Girls,
” Brook called. “Get your coats and gloves on. We’re going topside.”
“C’mon Mom,” replied Raven, a defiant tone to her voice. “Can’t we watch just one more episode?”
“Shut it off, now,” shot Brook, a rare hint of anger creeping into her tone. “The fuel in the generators isn’t there just so you two can binge watch the entire Twilight series.”
After a bit of grumbling the girls assembled, dressed and ready to go, albeit a little blurry-eyed.
“What do you have in mind, Mrs. Grayson?”
“Sasha ... like I said, call me Brook or Mom. Mrs. only makes me feel old.”
“But you are, Mom.” Raven’s eyes went wide, as if she couldn’t believe the words that just spilled from her mouth. In the next beat, instead of atoning for the transgression, a chuckle escaped her lips and she looked to Sasha for approval.
Knowing it was normal for a newly minted twelve-year old to continue testing boundaries, Brook let it slide. She cast a glance at Sasha, who was older than Raven by nearly three years. The girl was standing silent, her eyes twinkling with a newfound intelligence. Either due to the recent deaths or simply time’s effect on her maturity, the fourteen-year old had become steadily more respectful. The smart alecky outbursts were few and far between and she’d even softened her anti-gun stance. It was as if in some strange Jekyll and Hyde sort of way the two girls were switching poles. And Brook found it kind of refreshing. A little sass aimed in the proper direction never hurt anybody. In fact, she reasoned, it might be just what Raven needed to boost her confidence a little. She made a mental note to pick and choose her battles very carefully in the near future and let Bird win the ones that—though inconsequential in the big scheme of things—might be monumental in importance to the still maturing tween.
With both girls looking on, Brook opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of Beretta semi-auto pistols. They gleamed dully under the lone overhead bulb as she placed them side-by-side on the tabletop. She set the pair of loaded magazines next to the pistols and closed the drawer. She took one of the nine-millimeters in hand, pointed the muzzle at the floor and struggled to grip the slide fully with the forefinger and thumb of her right hand. Still lacking in that hand the motor skills and strength necessary to perform this very important task, she gripped the weighty pistol between her knees and easily pulled the slide back with her left. Visually, she verified the chamber was empty, let the slide snap shut, then holstered the pistol. She repeated the process with the other Beretta and handed one to each girl. “We’re going to shoot off-hand again, today. That means with the hand you don’t write with. One magazine each.” She rose and grabbed her own Glock 19, which was in a holster and hanging off the corner post of the bunk near to her head. She strapped the drop-leg rig on and regarded Raven with a no-nonsense look. “Antiserum check.”
Raven fished the metal canister from her jacket in front. Held it for all to see and rattled the contents. “Satisfied?” she said, letting go of the string securing it around her neck.
Brook went about tightening the thigh strap while out of the corner of her eye she watched the girls cinching their weapon belts on. Then to her surprise, like a scene unfolding before a mirror in a Gap fitting room, the girls looked one another up and down and smiled like they were doing something as innocuous as accessorizing new school clothes.
“Let’s go, Max,” she called. The dog appeared at her heel out of the gloom. She looked at the girls with an arched brow. “We’re Oscar Mike, fashionistas.” Walking with a slight limp and unaware of the funny looks being sent her way by both girls, Brook led them down the hall and when they reached the security desk, sent them ahead with Max. She craned towards the foyer and, once confident the girls were out of earshot, asked Seth, “Have they checked in?”
“Nope,” he replied, munching on a stale Cheeto, the orange crumbs raining down on his black beard where too many to count already languished in the lengthening tangle. “I don’t think we’ll hear anything until they’re on their way back.”
Brook looked at her Timex. “Not a lot of daylight left.”
“Probably will take them longer to hump their gear through the fallen trees than make the drive back from Huntsville.”
Brook nodded, then grimaced as a dagger of pain shot through the taut skin around her healing wound.
Seth pushed the Cheetos bag away, rose and offered a steadying hand. “You OK?” he asked, his face gone tight with worry.
“Same ‘ol, same ‘ol.” She gestured at the monitor and tensed up. After a second she relaxed and muttered an expletive at herself for forgetting so quickly that every sudden movement had its consequences. Steadying herself on the counter, she drew a deep breath and asked, “Is the road still clear?”
Seth wiped his hands on his pants, leaving orange tracks there from his fingers. He sat down and, while absentmindedly worrying his black beard with one hand, said cheerily, “Nothing. And I mean nothing is moving up there.”
“The microphone working now?”
Seth shook his head. “Foley couldn’t work his magic on it.”
“Couldn’t hear anything but wind in that piece of crap anyway,” Brook said. “Is the shroud over the cameras doing what it’s supposed to?”
“Don’t know if it’s the shroud, the WD-40 Foley shot on the dome, or a combination of the two. But whatever the case, the snow is avoiding it like the plague.” Seth winced and then flashed a wan smile at Brook. “Sorry,” he added. “Very bad choice of words.”
“No worries,” Brook said, returning the smile. “I’ll be at the range with the girls if you need me.”
Seth noticed that the corner of Brook’s mouth and her cheek on the right side still drooped a little. Then, highlighted by the overhead bulb, the streaks of gray shot through her dark hair were suddenly evident. He looked away before she had a chance to catch him gawking. Locking his gaze on Chester the Cheetah on the Cheeto bag, he said, “Heidi’s pulling watch for me in a few so I can take a pee break and get a little something more filling than these puffs of air.”
The skin around her right eye and mouth still slack, Brook said, “Yellow the snow well away from the entrance, please.”
Seth looked up, smiling. “Maybe we ought to yellow up a few snowballs for Lev to chuck at Daymon when he gets back.”
“Better yet,” she said over her shoulder. “You ought to write Lev’s full name in the snow in front of Daymon’s trailer.”
“What is his full name?”
Already out of earshot, Brook made no reply.
Shrugging, Seth looked into the bag, picked an extra cheesy specimen, and turned his attention back to the monitor.
Once topside, Brook, Max, and the girls tromped across the snowy clearing, walked around the Winnebago and then entered the trees near the Black Hawk. With their every breath producing a churning white cloud, they followed the snowy path for thirty yards or so until reaching a small clearing where the ground rose sharply, creating a perfect backstop of packed earth and clay twenty-five feet across, and nearly half as high. Likely created instantly by some kind of violent seismic upheaval, it curled at the top like a dirt wave frozen mid-break. There were rusty cans scattered about, all misshapen and with jagged holes torn in their sides. Tatters of colorful paper still clung to some of them and quite a few remained stuck in the mud wall where they’d been placed as targets, each consecutive bullet burying them deeper. Brook’s first impression, though she was partially responsible for the mess, was that someone had indiscriminately shot up a supermarket’s entire canned goods aisle.
Obviously excited to be out of the compound, Raven and Sasha scurried ahead and assembled a dozen cans and plastic bottles of varying sizes against the backstop. Some they pressed into the mud. Others they arranged on horizontal slabs of bark inset into the mud here and there and acting as makeshift shelves.
“That’s enough,” Brook said. She looked over her shoulder and was pleased to see Max sitting on his haunches behind them all.
She told the dog to stay then looked at the girls saying, “I want to go first.” She donned the pair of shooters muffs and dragged the Glock from its holster.
Without being told, the girls formed up well behind her and stuck Day-Glo yellow earplugs into their ears.
With the Glock clutched in her off- hand, working the slide with her dominant right not only was unnatural but also next to impossible. Though she’d been working on her fine motor skills and strengthening her grip through a variety of exercises Glenda had taught her, it was apparent and humbling that a full recovery from the effects of the battle waged in her body between the Omega virus and the antiserum Cade had injected into her would take a lot of hard work and time, the latter of which, thankfully, she had an inordinate amount.
After a valiant ten-second struggle—exactly nine seconds too long to be effective in a true survival situation—she managed to finally cycle the slide back and release it, chambering a round with a metallic snik. A week ago she couldn’t grasp a soda can let alone hold the pistol in the hand in question. Progress, not perfection. With sweat beading on her lip, she held the Glock in as tight a two-handed grip as she could muster, set her feet apart a little wider, and cast a surreptitious sidelong glance at the girls. Tracking her eyes straight, she drew a breath and exhaled slowly while simultaneously drawing the trigger pull in. The gun bucked, yet she kept it under control. The sharp report seemed to circle the small clearing then rolled over their heads like a mini sonic boom.
Already bouncing lightly on her toes, Raven beamed and clapped excitedly.
Strengthening her grip on the Glock, Brook took three or four calming breaths then repeatedly caressed the trigger. Three more thunderous booms, spaced seconds apart, crashed and banged the cold air around them.
The hot expended brass tumbled through space and disappeared down a trio of holes burned into the snow near the first.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed Page 24
