Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed

by Chesser, Shawn

  He released his grip on the rotter’s hair, letting the skull strike the roadway with a solid thunk.

  The other adult Z was face down and had frozen to the pavement—also a victim to the same instrument used on the other.

  The kids shared the same injuries to their eyes. However, judging by the minuscule purple pucker marks on their temples, their brains had also been skewered and scrambled from the side. A clean through and through to the temple, thought Daymon, to make doubly sure they would never wake up. Which to him was overkill that suggested whoever was responsible possessed a measure of compassion he didn’t have for the already turned—kids or otherwise.

  Over the intermittently gusting east wind he heard doors opening then thumping closed. During a lull, he detected footfalls squelching in the snow. Then in his peripheral he saw three pairs of scuffed boots; two were military issue with identical MultiCam fatigues tucked and bloused. The third pair were some expensive hiking models with snow-crusted blue jeans riding over their tops. He turned and peered over his shoulder and saw Cade, Lev, and Wilson standing between him and the vehicles.

  “So Daymon, what’s your finding? Cade asked.

  “Great minds run on the same tracks,” he answered. “Goldilocks seems to think someone’s been culling our Zs for us.”

  “And they’re still around here somewhere,” Cade said.

  Lev nodded. “I’ve had the feeling we were being watched ever since we came in off 39.”

  “I felt it, too,” conceded Daymon. “Figure when it’s my time to go ...”

  Another door hinged open. There were more footsteps. Jamie said, “What’s up?”

  “We’re being watched,” Wilson answered. “And D here thinks that whoever it is has already been culling the dead here in town.”

  “What makes you say that?” she asked, her hand resting on the tomahawk, carbine held loosely in the other.

  Again Daymon took a fistful of the female Z’s hair and lifted and rotated its head off the ground so the group could fully see its slack face. With his knife, he probed the older of the two wounds and then chipped off a quarter-sized sample of the frozen fluids. Next, he moved the tip around in the other eye, a clockwise motion that showed there was still some viscosity to the milky fluid there. Without explanation, he let the cadaver down easy and stood tall. “The two little ones were done the same way.” Then, pointing to the boy’s temple with the blade, he added, “And they got a little extra attention when it came to the brain scrambling part.”

  “So they were all put down before the temperature dropped,” Cade said, nodding. “That would explain why the fluid migrated before freezing.”

  “Bingo,” Daymon said. “What is that old ass saying from that ancient tic-tac-toe game show Duncan is always dropping?”

  “X gets a square,” Duncan said as he formed up next to Wilson. He stared down on the dead for a second then looked up and met Daymon’s gaze. “What made you think to stop and check ‘em out?”

  “It was obvious to me that the wind didn’t knock these ones down in this perfect little pig pile,” Daymon answered. “And I think whoever stacked them like that wanted them to stay together ... forever.”

  Like some kind of affirmation from on high, a vigorous gust of east wind swept in, clearing the roof of the once white car of several inches of snow. Covering the ten feet in the blink of an eye, the tiny razor-sharp crystals spread like buck shot and blasted the gathered crowd face-high.

  Harsh words and snow spilt from Daymon’s mouth as he reflexively turned away.

  The others were dusting themselves off and angling for their respective rides when the first gunshot rang out.

  Chapter 48

  Thankful for finding a lonely bulging can of something other than sauerkraut hiding behind the Vienna sausages, Helen stirred the corned beef and hash with a spatula, added a few dashes of Tabasco and three generous shakes of ordinary everyday black pepper—just the way Ray liked it—and stirred it again. She divided it up three ways in the sizzling skillet and then carefully transferred the portions of steaming hash onto the three plates lined up on the counter. She placed a pale excuse for a sausage beside each serving of hash and dusted all three plates with ordinary everyday iodized salt. Nothing fancy in the Thagon household. Never was and never would be.

  She thought back to her first date with Ray and the words he had uttered that at once had both appalled and endeared him to her. Being an East Coast city girl, never once in her young life had she heard a person say to a waitress, in as calm of a manner as he had, what Ray had said that day. After ordering a steak and potato dinner, the waitress inquired how Ray wanted his steak prepared. His reply was all country. Short and sweet and to the point. He had said: Knock its horns off, wipe its ass, and bring it to me mooing. Helen came to learn that day for Ray words weren’t meant to be wasted. And that’s what she loved about her simple man.

  Still smiling at the memory, Helen bent over next to the stove and shut off the flow of propane with a quick clockwise twist of the knob. Yet another thing to be grateful for, she thought. For just days after martial law was declared, it seemed as if the utility folks up and discontinued natural gas service to the entire county without warning. And without Ray and his shed full of tools and head full of knowledge gleaned from a lifetime of observing and listening, the conversion to propane would never have happened and she would be looking at a long winter subsisting on their stockpile of barely palatable MREs. No amount of seasoning or hot sauce, in her humble opinion, could make a meal of those things something to look forward to. What a catch that man was ... ingenious, and never afraid to get his hands dirty.

  The propane, however, was a different story. Though Ray had scoured the county and outlying areas for a truck with a full load to liberate and bring back and stash in the barn, he had come up empty. Furthermore, every little store for miles around that had always had an ample supply of the ubiquitous white canisters (usually kept in a locked cage out front) had been picked clean when the first wave of survivors fleeing Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Jackson Hole breached the National Guard roadblocks established on the Interstates and State Routes and, like an invading army, swept through the high country, bringing their infected loved ones along with them. Once the motels and campgrounds were full, people took to staying in their vehicles or pitching tents on private property. A week later, the scourge the television talking heads had started calling Omega knocked those same stations off the air and dashed what little hope Ray and Helen still held for the government—FEMA, DHS, the military—to turn the tide on the dead. Remembering how his family had scratched out an existence during the Great Depression, Ray came up with a plan.

  Before the dead had started roaming the countryside in herds, and later hordes, he and Helen had put that plan into action, making as many forays from the farm as daylight would allow, oftentimes coming back with the old truck sagging on its springs, the box brimming with everything but propane.

  Then, one day roughly two months back, after the herds and hordes began roaming the countryside with impunity, Dregan and his boys came poking around the farm. But instead of coming with bad intentions, they had come as emissaries of sorts, offering sanctuary in Bear River. That day they had also learned that Dregan was the one who had beat Ray to both of the Bear Valley Propane trucks locked in the sprawling yard, as well as every pound of propane on the premises. In the old days that was called a monopoly. Even so, without a second’s thought about leaving their farm, Ray and Helen had declined the offer; instead, they’d bartered three alpacas, each one a ten-thousand-dollar animal before the fall, for eight weeks’ worth of fuel—amounting to about twelve canisters that would have cost all of one hundred and fifty dollars in the old world.

  Now, with the last of their propane dwindling, and no more alpacas to trade for fuel, a new bargain needed to be struck. A bargain that might eventually boil down to someone either living or dying.

  Helen scooped up the plates and, car
rying them with all of the agility of that waitress Ray had offended all those years ago, delivered them to the dining room. She deposited one in her usual spot at the table and continued holding the other two in one hand close enough to Ray’s face so that tendrils of steam curled about his nose.

  “Smells good,” he said. He moved his pocketknife aside and brushed the accumulation of ash from where his plate was to go. He set the corncob pipe he’d been cleaning on the table above his plate and regarded Helen, his face a mask of concern. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

  “Positive,” she answered. “What’s that old Middle Eastern proverb? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  “No, honey ...” Ray said. “That, my dear, is a Sun Tzu quote.”

  “Well, I stand corrected.” She smiled and made a play like the plate still in her hands was burning them.

  “Tell me,” Ray asked. “How do we know the difference between the two?”

  “Exactly,” she said, a smug smile forming on her lined face. “That’s why we don’t ever need to tell Dregan or anybody close to him what we know.”

  “That Brook girl had hard eyes,” Ray said. “I’m certain Mikhail wasn’t her first.”

  “And not her last,” Helen stated, as if she were privy to future events. Again she nodded toward the side door and did the floating plate thing.

  “He can wait,” Ray said, sampling the hash. He motioned with the fork. “Sit. Eat.”

  She did.

  And they talked some more.

  Finished with the hash and just starting in on the sausage, Ray said, “What makes you so sure that if Dregan gets the best of those folk they won’t tell him that we knew they killed those kids? Because if he does find out we withheld anything ... the fight we’ll have with him and his kin, no matter what Pomeroy has to say about it, will require the application of a lot more of our friend Sun Tzu’s rather unconventional wisdom.” He sliced the sausage in two and stuffed one-half in his mouth while thinking how nice the addition of farm fresh eggs would be. If only the monsters hadn’t eaten the hens along with the alpacas.

  Helen made no reply. She went on chewing and swallowed, but still kept her thoughts to herself.

  Behind her eyes, Ray could see the wheels turning. Processing everything he had just said. There was a long pause, then he added, “I’m just thinking aloud here, Helen. Did the negroes ever give up the people who hid them along the Underground Railroad?”

  “Good point,” Helen said at last. “Switzerland.” She pushed her empty plate forward and rose with the full one in hand.

  “Is it cold?” Ray asked.

  She nodded. “It was never going to make it up there any other way. Now go on upstairs and cover me.”

  Ray rose from his seat, grumbling under his breath. The stairs were not his friend. Especially with a full stomach and loose bowels. Put forth as more of a statement than question, he said, “Darn it, Helen, why don’t we just call ‘ol Cleo on down for dinner with the radio. It’s gotta be on the same frequency as ours.”

  “Because Dregan is no dummy. I’m sure they’re all on a predetermined channel. Like the party lines of old. Remember those?”

  “I’ll cover you. Now git.” He started grumbling again at the foot of the stairs and no doubt would still be bellyaching when he finally reached the top. And though she would be trudging through the snow when he did, the old coot would probably still be goin’ on when he opened the window and placed the bolt-action rifle’s crosshairs right on ‘ol Cleo’s poorly camouflaged sternum.

  Chapter 49

  Cade’s first indication they were taking fire was the crackle-hiss of the rounds cutting the air, validated a millisecond later by the two puckered gray ovals appearing back-to-back and just inches apart on the nearby STOP sign. Blasting flakes of red from the sign’s surface, two more hurtling bullets punched through the thin metal just inches from the others. Reacting instantly to the impacts and their following reports, he pushed off of the car he’d been leaning against and, with a handful of Taryn’s parka, crashed to the ground, dragging her along with him. Their fall was cushioned partially by snow, but mostly by the quartet of corpses Daymon had just been examining.

  The final two reports rolled over the leveled town like twin thunderclaps.

  “Get down,” Cade hollered at Wilson, who was rooted in place, totally exposed and panning his head dumbly left-to-right.

  The barked order was enough to get the redhead moving; however, instead of making headway towards the vehicles, the young man did a clumsy shuffle on the snow, fell to his knees, and scooted off on all fours like a dog, quickly covering the fifteen feet to the 4Runner’s rear bumper where Duncan and Lev were crouching.

  On the passenger side of the car Cade and Taryn were using for cover, Daymon raised his head up off the snow and whistled softly a couple of times. Once he had Cade’s eye, he hissed, “I told you we were being watched.”

  Cade said, “Where’s Jamie?”

  “I’m behind you,” she said from afar.

  Cade craned around. Below the stop sign that had just taken the hits was a bright orange fire hydrant. There were four gloved fingers waggling at him from behind its base and he could just make out the woman’s slender frame stretched out long and pressed tight to the ground. Everyone accounted for.

  “What are you gonna do, boss?” Daymon whispered.

  His adrenaline now flowing furiously, Cade sensed the action slow as he snapped into an all too familiar state of hyper-awareness. Just as he was about to answer Daymon’s question, the sonic signature of two more closely spaced shots crackled the air just yards over their heads, but struck nothing.

  Same pattern and coming at them seconds after the first shots fired, a fourth volley struck the stop sign, the bullets punching through equidistant and an inch below the others. He peered through the corner of his eye and saw that the final three shots to hit the sign had created a sort of arced horizontal line below the other points of entry. Six shots to the sign and two just to keep our heads down, thought Cade as he dug the Motorola from his pocket and keyed the Talk button. Staring across the half-dozen yards of open ground between the burnt shell of a car and the east-facing SUVs, he said, “On three, one of you throw half a dozen rounds at Glenda’s house. Aim for the circular windows above the upstairs porch.”

  “That’s where the shooter is?” Taryn whispered, her face a foot from his, her breath hot and sour-smelling.

  Cade nodded an affirmative. He thought, Not exactly. In his side vision he saw Lev flash a thumbs up, and when the count in his head hit three, two important things happened. First, brandishing his carbine off-handed, Lev leaned to his left around back of the SUV and squeezed off three quick shots along its flank. Then, following Wilson’s tracks in the snow, his boots kicking up tiny white rooster tails, Cade crossed the open ground between the burned-out car and 4Runner without catching a bullet. In fact, even after Lev checked his fire and the glass had ceased raining down on the upstairs porch two country blocks distant, the anticipated fusillade of bullets didn’t come.

  Cade was breathing hard from the combination of pain radiating upward from his left ankle and the new surge of adrenaline introduced into his system. “Good work,” he said, clapping Lev’s shoulder. He looked at Duncan. “Are you good to go?”

  “Me?” Duncan said, his head jerking to face Cade.

  “Gotta have Lev’s eyes down here. I want you on my six.” Cade nodded and locked eyes with the older man. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  In a rare display of humor, Lev turned his head and said, “You don’t want me to tell Glenda you pussed out, do ya?”

  Duncan made no reply. He pulled the Land Cruiser’s fob from his pocket and triggered the automatic tailgate feature. Staying low, he disappeared around the 4Runner’s passenger side.

  Duncan was gone less than two seconds when a pair of shots rang out and the familiar metallic sounding tang-tang issued forth as th
e speeding lead passed through the stop sign, showering Daymon and Taryn with jagged white and red shards.

  “I got a muzzle flash.”

  “Middle house ... Glenda’s?” said Cade.

  Lev nodded. “Second floor alcove. I’m guessing it’s a covered veranda.”

  “Copy that,” said Cade, just as Duncan returned with a stubby shotgun in one hand and the suppressed M4 slung over his shoulder. He went to one knee, shrugged the M4 off and handed it to Cade, who immediately began detailing how he wanted to take down the shooter.

  Eden Compound

  “Bedtime,” Brook hollered. “And turn off the laptop … we need to conserve the batteries.”

  “Can Sasha stay over?” called Raven from the dark recesses of the Grayson quarters.

  Though her fingers ached, Brook continued working the rubber therapy ball. “I don’t see why not,” she called back over her shoulder. “Question is ... which one of you is going to freeze your butt off and let Max out to make his obligatory yellow hole?”

  “Or brown stink bomb,” Sasha added, her giggles echoing up from the rear of the container.

  “Or ... that,” Brook said, smiling. “Better up there than in here.”

  There was the hollow double thump of the girls jumping down from Raven’s bunk. Then footsteps on the plywood flooring. Raven rounded the corner first. Her face reflecting the dull yellow thrown off by the single hanging bulb, she said, “If he does, maybe we can get a couple of sticks and play a game of turd hockey with it.”