Cade glared but said nothing.
Suddenly changing the subject, Duncan stuck his index finger in the air. “Hey Delta. Does it feel like the temperature has buoyed a bit since we were here last?”
Cade nodded. “We’ll have to keep a close tab on it. Wouldn’t want to get stuck in a town full of these things when they come back alive.”
Duncan threw a visible shudder at the prospect. “That big ‘ol watch of yours tell the temperature?” he asked.
Shaking his head, Cade said, “It does a bunch of useful things ... but monitoring the air temp isn’t one of them. It’s got a barometer that is flatline right now. If the pressure starts dropping and the line on this thing takes a dive, I’m afraid the temperature’s likely to spike big time.” He looked over his shoulder and saw Taryn putting the boxed chains in the back of the 4Runner. Unlike his, the box hers had come out of looked to be intact, the chains, benefitting from a woman’s touch, no doubt coiled neatly inside. Thirty or so yards east, Lev, Daymon, and Jamie—the self-anointed Clean Up Crew of this trip—were walking along the shoulder and kneeling here and there, presumably providing a swift second death to any of the fallen corpses they had missed earlier.
“Let’s git,” Duncan said, looking in Taryn and Wilson’s direction. Then he whistled to get the others’ attention and then waved them forward.
With the thin satellite phone in one hand, Cade caught Duncan’s eye and nodded towards Daymon, who was now walking ahead of the others, the sheathed machete banging against his hip. “Go ahead and let him ride up front again. I’m going to call Brook.” Without waiting for an acknowledgement, Cade thumbed the Thuraya alive and started out across the road, the new hitch in his step pretty obvious.
He stood on the road looking out across the rolling snow-covered grassland. The low bluffs to the right shone white on top, while the steep dirt flanks remained mostly reddish brown, shot through with white—like finely marbled steak—only where snow had settled in the vertical crevices.
The Thuraya’s call-waiting indicator blinked steadily. The number indicating that the call had originated from Major Freda Nash’s personal number now had a small numeral 3 next to it. Persistent one, that lady, thought Cade as he dialed Brook.
There were several electronic trills before she picked up. After they exchanged pleasantries, Cade filled her in on everything that had happened up until now, putting extra emphasis on how he thought the hundred-and-fifty tons of strategically placed gravel-laden plow trucks was going to hold for some time while conversely omitting the crispy critter in the Shell garage as well as his newly reinjured ankle. The former would have to take the spotlight. However, the latter two minor details—no blood, no foul, he figured.
She ran down the day’s events for him, crowing proudly about how well the girls’ off-hand shooting was improving. Then she spent a second or two lamenting the fact that she was still far from proficient with her off-hand and might as well just surrender if forced to rely on her dominant hand.
“It’s going to take time,” Cade said, telling her something she already knew. “Keep working with the ball and bands. It’ll come.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s just that I’ve got nobody else to complain to.”
“That’s what I signed up for, honey. For better or for worse ...” His voice trailed off into a long silence.
“What is it, Cade?” Brook asked calmly.
“I’ve got bad news.”
Now there was silence on Brook’s end.
“It’s not that bad of news,” Cade said.
Silence still.
“We’re going to have to stay the night in Huntsville.”
“Why?” she said, her voice rising a little.
“Took us longer than we thought to clear the road and seal the breach.”
“What are you going to do now? It’s not going to be dark for another hour or two.”
Cade looked at his Suunto. “Ninety minutes … give or take. Even with the cloud cover the moon should provide the ambient light we need to work. Brook … we can’t pass up the opportunity to clear as many dead from in and around Huntsville as we can.”
“What about Eden?”
“We’ll go check it out first thing in the morning.” He went quiet again. Finally he said, “Brook, it just makes sense doing this now so we won’t be hunting them down later in the countryside or woods. Less chance of one of us getting ambushed again.” That last part he regretted saying the moment it left his lips.
There was dead air for a hard three-count. Brook finally said, “And we all know how that turned out.”
“Can’t go feeling sorry for yourself,” Cade said. “Bad wing or not, it’s on you to hold the fort down.” Sensing someone watching him, Cade peered over his shoulder. Less than ten feet away, Daymon was standing, hands up and opening and closing his fingers, mimicking a blabbering mouth.
“Don’t worry, we’ll all stay frosty,” she said, erupting in laughter. “Say, the girls are going stir crazy in here.”
Cade turned his back towards Daymon. “After one day?”
“They’re burning through the DVDs at a furious pace.”
“What are you proposing?”
“Let them explore a little while the things aren’t ambulatory,” she proffered.
“In layman’s terms, Nurse Grayson.”
More laughter on Brook’s end.
Mission accomplished, Cade thought. “Might not hurt to give them a radio and let them explore a little inside the wire.”
“Weapons?”
Automatically, Cade shook his head. “Not without you or me around. Not yet. They should be OK without … if they stay close in.”
“Stay safe, Cade Grayson.”
“Always. I’ll check in with you before noon tomorrow. Earlier if anything comes up.”
“I love you,” Brook said.
“Love you, too.”
Cade took the phone from his ear and was about to thumb it locked when he heard Brook’s tinny voice calling for him. So he put the phone back to his ear. “Yes,” he said.
“Nash has called and left messages on both of the sat phones. Do you want me to check them?”
Cade thought for a minute. Finally he said, “No. What we’re doing here is more important than anything she might need from me right now.”
Incredulous, Brook said, “Anything?”
“Anything,” he said matter-of-factly. “The troops are getting restless. Gotta go.”
“Stay frosty and come home to me, Cade Grayson.”
Cade said nothing. He thumbed the phone off and turned to see that Daymon had given up and Duncan was in his place and tapping his watch with big exaggerated motions while mouthing, “Let’s go.”
Cade pocketed the phone and raised his arms in mock surrender when he saw the 4Runner’s occupants also shooting expectant looks his way. In spite of his troublesome ankle, he jogged across the westbound lane, wincing noticeably after every other footfall. Seeing Daymon in the passenger seat, Cade again clambered into the back of the Land Cruiser and sprawled out on the supple leather.
“Where to now?” Duncan asked.
“Downtown is a good a place as any, I suppose,” Cade said. “From there we can work our way east to Glenda’s place.”
“Copy that,” said Duncan. “Next stop ... downtown Huntsville.” He shot Daymon a look that screamed ‘you reek’, then released the brake and started the Land Cruiser rolling smoothly eastbound with the 4Runner close to its rear bumper.
Chapter 45
Duncan slowed the Land Cruiser to a crawl on 39 near the T-junction with Trapper’s Loop Road. He looked to the right out Daymon’s side glass and whistled, low and ominous. A few hundred yards down the intersecting road, and mostly shielded from view from 39 westbound by an upthrust mound of earth, was a full-blown horde of walkers. And like most of the Zs they had encountered since the temperature dipped below freezing, these too were stalled out, upright and wedged shoulder-to
-shoulder into the straight stretch of fenced-in two-lane splitting the jagged rocky knoll.
Duncan’s stomach dropped at first sight of them. He guessed the mass of rotten flesh to number close to a thousand, their snow-dusted heads just little white dots going on and on southbound for as far as his old eyes could see.
“I spotted them on the way out of Huntsville,” Cade said.
“I missed them,” Duncan said unapologetically. He brought the Cruiser to a halt in the middle of 39.
The two-way warbled and Wilson asked, “Where the hell did all those come from?”
The radio remained untouched in the center console, the Land Cruiser’s occupants all fixated on the dead.
The 4Runner pulled to a smooth stop alongside the bigger SUV. The passenger window pulsed down and Wilson was staring at Duncan, his hand forming the universal Hang Loose gesture, thumb and pinky finger extended, and pressed to his head like a telephone. He was mouthing, “Pick up your radio.”
Ignoring the redhead, Duncan tapped his knuckles on the leather-wrapped steering wheel in time to the low music coming from the speakers. Voice thick with disappointment, he said, “No chance we’re going to cull all of those today.”
“Or tomorrow ... or even the next. Why don’t we stop and do these ones right now?” Daymon pleaded, gesturing ahead to another throng of unmoving creatures hundreds strong. A few of them dotted the greenway between 39 and the cement boat ramp cutting the reservoir’s sandy shore. The majority, however—no doubt attracted by the nonstop sound of water lapping the hulls of dozens of grounded watercraft and looking like faithful fans crowding the stage at a Phish concert—had congregated along the sandy shore down by the waterline.
“Hell, Urch’s right. We’re going to need a week of snow and ice and every last person from the compound poking eyes to put all of these down,” Duncan agreed.
Wilson was now gesticulating wildly with both arms.
Duncan snatched up the radio. “Keep your shorts on, Red,” he said, still not ready to give the twenty-year-old the courtesy of his attention.
“They’re not our problem right now,” Cade said. “If history proves”—he craned and looked out the rear quarter window at the horde—“when they do start wandering again they’ll continue on south to Morgan.”
“They’ll be back ... eventually,” Duncan said. “You know that.”
“Yeah, they will,” Cade agreed. “But now that we have the Ogden approach sealed off, we can winnow them down starting in Huntsville and keep at it until midnight or so. Turn in and get up early and work our way over to Eden while the weather holds.”
“All in a day’s work,” Daymon said, rubbing his sore right shoulder.
Duncan pulsed down his window. Stared daggers at Wilson. “Just like an ankle biter … what was so goshdang important it couldn’t wait a few seconds?”
Looking sheepish, Wilson said nothing.
Duncan cocked his head. “Come on. I’m sorry for callin you Red. Now spit it out.”
“What about them,” Wilson stammered, hitching a thumb at the distant horde.
The cloud cover parted momentarily. Duncan squinted against the glare, collecting his thoughts. “You get your baseball bat, hop out, and get started. We’ll be back for ya in the morning.”
Wilson stuck his hand in the window opening, first three fingers extended vertically. “Read between the lines.” He smiled wanly and powered up his window. Then, thinking out loud, he added, “Wonder what the eff is eating Old Man?”
“He’s a dick when he’s not drinking,” Taryn said, watching the Land Cruiser pull away. She looked Wilson square in the face. “If you haven’t figured that out yet. You, my friend, are blind.”
He looked at the dead standing three deep at the reservoir’s edge. Cast his gaze farther out to a lonely cabin cruiser anchored offshore. He noticed a female form above deck, snow-covered and frozen in place, clutching the rail two-handed. Suddenly his feelings didn’t factor into the equation. Remembering how his mom always drilled the golden rule concept into his head, he decided he didn’t have anything to say.
In the back seat, Jamie leaned against Lev and in his ear, whispered, “See … I’m not the only one who has noticed the change in Duncan.”
***
A short distance east on 39, where the straight stretch of State Route became a steady carving arc north toward downtown Huntsville, Duncan braked and nosed the truck perpendicular to the shoulder and parked there facing north.
“Is this good?” he asked Cade.
“Perfect,” Cade answered. He punched his window down and flinched as a gust of east wind blasted him full on in the face. He reached back into the cargo area, rummaged in his pack, and came back with his Steiners in hand. He braced his elbows on the window channel and brought the military grade optics to his eyes, their 7x magnification instantly adding sharp detail to the panorama laid out before him.
With the stench coming off his clothing now invading every crevice of the vehicle thanks to the intermittent wind gusts, Daymon twisted his upper body around and faced Cade. “I could have sworn some of those deadheads down there by Main Street were standing when we took the bypass through here earlier.”
Unable to see for himself, and eager to hear Cade’s response, Duncan lowered the stereo volume, putting Hank Williams Junior’s crooning about country boys surviving way into the background.
“Why don’t you turn that all the way off,” Cade said. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”
Duncan killed the radio just as the 4Runner pulled up smartly outside his window. He looked and saw that all eyes were glued to the town across Pineview Reservoir’s slate gray surface.
Duncan turned to Daymon. “How do you know there’s a Main Street in Huntsville?” he asked. “No way you can read the signs from here.”
“Yes I can,” Daymon replied. “Next one over from Main is Gullible Lane. Then comes Naive Drive and the far one there is ... I’m Yanking Your Chain Boulevard.”
Doing his best to ignore the banter, Cade swept the binoculars over the finger of land that curled west by south away from downtown. It was narrow, maybe a few hundred yards wide at most, and dotted with headstones of all different sizes and all with inches-high wedges of snow perched atop them. There was a black hearse parked sidelong among the grave markers, its last delivery, a gun-metal gray casket, still inside and visible behind the curtained side windows. He continued the sweep left-to-right over Huntsville, which was very small, encompassing no more than six blocks to a side. The destruction wrought on it by the runaway conflagration was near total. Save for the Queen Annes bordering the downtown core on high ground to the east and what looked like a gas station plus a couple of nearby houses rising above the ashes to the north, all that remained centrally was the same trio of buildings he recognized from the cursory recon taken earlier from atop the hill southeast of town. “Nope,” Cade finally said, lowering the Steiners and clapping Daymon on the shoulder. “There is no Main Street. Nor is there a Naive Drive. But I did see one called Daymon Talks Too Much Crap Lane. By the way”—Cade made a show of sniffing the air—“you, my friend, need a bath.”
“Sheeit,” said Daymon, feigning slapping his leg. “Captain America does have a funny bone in his body after all.”
“Yeah, but my timing and delivery are all off,” Cade replied, deadpan. “In all seriousness, though, looks like the streets are all numbered. If we keep going straight where 39 cuts east towards the compound, the road turns into the central drag that splits Huntsville, demarking east from west. That’s where we need to be.”
Now eschewing the radio in the event that anyone was listening in, Duncan lowered his window and, talking over the whipping wind, conveyed the information directly to the others. He finished by telling them to be on high alert because both he and Cade still had a feeling that they may not be the only humans in Huntsville.
With Wilson’s wide-eyed look on his mind, Duncan backed away from the shoulde
r and pulled out on 39 ahead of the 4Runner. He caught Cade’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Where to after we hit the center of town?”
“Let’s start west at the cemetery and work our way east to those houses on the hill. Pause there at Glenda’s place for some food and then do our best to mop up as much of downtown as we can before turning in.”
“Solid plan,” Daymon said, smiling. “Kindness likes a bedtime snack before I tuck her in for the night.”
Duncan turned Hank back on. Then he caught Daymon’s eye and winked. “You keep talking about that machete like she’s your new girlfriend or something, and I’ll be obligated to tell your current one about your infidelity.”
“Fiancée,” Daymon said, grinning.
“No shit?” Duncan and Cade said at once, seemingly in full-on Dolby surround-sound-stereo.
“Nah ... just me talkin crap.”
Touché, thought Cade.
Chapter 46
Cade looked out his window and shook his head. There was a Main Street and it ran east/west. Then he gazed right and chuckled at the irony on display. Hanging out over the sidewalk and gently swaying was a sign adorned with red two-foot-high letters that read DAVE’S BBQ and, somehow, name withstanding, the joint had survived the fire. The storefront faced west and the reservoir was reflected in the small windows inset just above the thick sheets of overlapping plywood that looked to have spared the larger plate windows below them from falling to looters. That the place was still intact seemed a miracle to Cade given the surrounding blocks had been razed by fire.
Sharing the wall to the right of the BBQ place and running the length of the block was what used to be a bar called The Angle On Inn. The mirrored back bar was trashed and the furniture reduced to sticks. It looked as if one hell of a bar fight had broken out with the window glass and neon beer signs suffering the worst of it.
Sandwiching Dave’s to the north was a sundry store called Rhonda’s Reservoir Requisites. Cade especially liked the play on words here. The door was but an empty bent frame hanging ajar by the top hinge, which looked to be one loose screw from parting with the frame itself. Left of the entry, affixed to the wall at eye-level, were a pair of steadfast survivors of the apocalypse. The colorful cardboard sign advertising cold Budweiser twelve-packs for $13.99 was done up red, white, and blue with stars and stripes, a holdover from the final holiday America enjoyed free of death and destruction. Below the patriotic beer advertisement was a weathered cardboard sign that read: LIVE BAIT $1.99. Emblazoned on one flapping corner of the bait sign was a happy little worm wearing a fedora and flashing a grin suggesting he knew nothing about the fishhook and hungry predators in his future. A fitting metaphor for mankind’s upcoming tangle with the Omega virus, indeed.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed Page 27
