Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed

by Chesser, Shawn

  “Gross,” Brook cried. “Thanks for the visual, Bird.”

  “I’ll take him out,” Raven said. She slipped on her boots and jacket then clapped and called for Max to come.

  There was a scrabble of nails on the wood floor as Max crawled from under Brook’s bunk. He loitered for a second, stub tail going a mile a minute. In arm’s reach of Brook, he spun a couple of circles and when the usual scratch between the ears never materialized, was out the door in hot pursuit of Raven.

  Trying to ignore the dull ache deep in her shoulder, Brook started in on another set of ten, and when Raven’s footfalls were out of earshot she put the ball on the bed and regarded Sasha. After an awkward silence, she thanked the teen for about the thousandth time since her near undead experience weeks ago. Mainly she was trying to show gratitude for Sasha being a positive influence on Raven. But how she really wanted to word it was: Thanks for not continuing to act Raven’s age. And thanks for not being a b-word to Wilson every waking moment. I’m happy to see you growing up ... let’s keep it that way. But she didn’t. She had been fourteen once, and though conjuring up positive memories from those heady times was growing more difficult for her with each passing day, Brook was certain that when she was their age, the similarities far outweighed the differences.

  “Hang out here for a sec.”

  Sasha nodded. Sat on the bunk and snatched up the discarded therapy ball. It was still warm and damp with sweat.

  Brook rose and gave Sasha an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder. Then she left the Grayson quarters and struck off in the direction of the security container. The dim corridors seemed to be crushing down on her until she reached the security pod and Heidi greeted her warmly.

  The young woman, whose blonde hair was now maintained in a short pixie cut, was illuminated by both the overhead bulb and the large flat-panel monitor to her fore. On the monitor, lit by the final light of day, was a number of partitions, each displaying a CCTV feed from one of the many cameras arranged about the compound’s sprawling grounds.

  “Raven’s right here,” Heidi said, pointing at the image from the camera trained on the clearing. “And Max is taking a dump.”

  “Mission accomplished,” Brook said.

  “And here they come,” Heidi said. “Prepare for the cold draft.” She grabbed a knit cap and snugged it on.

  “How’s 39?”

  “Clear.”

  “The outer and inner gates?”

  “Closed, locked, and clear.” Beating Brook to the punch, Heidi continued, “Tran topped the generator. Foley filled all of the water bottles and shoveled snow into the water collection system ... just in case we wake up to a thaw like Glenda’s been predicting. Oh ... and I also had him move the RV to the feeder road entrance. Figured since me and Daymon wouldn’t be sleeping there ... putting it to use as a roadblock wouldn’t hurt. Keys are on the shelf by the phones.”

  Brook shifted her gaze to the shelf and saw the keys. Then her eye was drawn to the message warning lights still flashing incessantly on the pair of sat-phones sitting there. “Did we get any new calls?” she asked.

  Nodding, Heidi said, “Another one came in about an hour ago. For the record ... I feel like a turd not answering them.”

  “Out of my hands,” Brook said. “Cade will address the elephant in the room when he’s good and ready to. Hell, if Nash really needed him, she’d have already dispatched a team to come and pick him up.” The moment the thought was fully voiced and out in the open, she wished she hadn’t said it. For the truth of the matter was that it hurt her insides more than any amount of scar tissue could her outside.

  Heidi made no reply. She took a bag of Cheetos from the counter and offered Brook some.

  “No thanks,” Brook said with a wan smile.

  The cold air preceding Raven and Max came in as a blast, not a draft. As the pair brought the frigid air through the foyer with them, Brook noticed that her girl had more pep to her step than the dog. She looked at the wood flooring after the two passed on by and saw wet boot prints left there by Raven and, overlapping the minuscule bergs of melting snow, a trail of bloody paw prints. Lest the dog disappear under the bunk and she forgot to address the issue, she called after Raven, “Sweetie … we need to take a break from throwing the ball for Max. His paws are taking a beating from chasing the ball on the snow and ice.”

  Finally, against her better judgment, she snatched a Thuraya off the shelf and thumbed it on. The keys lit up and, with Heidi casting a watchful gaze her way, she found the heading for the phone Cade had taken and hit the Send button. The phone trilled in her ear, but there was no answer. Instead of leaving a message that would prove to be as confusing as her feelings, she ended the call before the voice-mail prompt sounded.

  She put the phone on the shelf and attached the power cord. Before turning to leave, she put her hand on Heidi’s shoulder and squeezed gently, wincing in pain as a result.

  Heidi put her hand on Brook’s. “Don’t worry about me.” She rattled the pill container in her breast pocket. “I’ve got these ... thanks to Cade. I’ve got coffee, also thanks to your man. And Seth’s relieving me at midnight.”

  “I’m feeling up to pulling a shift tomorrow. The noon to six open?”

  “It’s all yours.”

  “Thanks,” Brook said. She took a big handful of Cheetos. “For the girls.”

  “Sure they are,” replied Heidi, grinning.

  Brook said nothing. She turned and followed the crimson paw prints back to her quarters and along the way a single Cheeto made its way into her mouth.

  Chapter 50

  With Duncan and Wilson looking on, Cade checked the volume on his Motorola. He turned it down a notch and tucked it into an inside pocket. Addressing Lev, he said, “When I break squelch, give us a three-count, and if you’re not taking fire send another half-dozen rounds into the siding above that veranda.”

  “I’ve got one question,” Lev said. “Why don’t you want me to shoot to kill?”

  “I’ve got a hunch about this one,” Cade answered. “However, if you’re receiving direct fire ... do not think twice about taking them out.”

  Wilson broke his silence. “Seems like we got Stevie Wonder taking pot shots at us.”

  Duncan said, “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  His confidence slowly building due to the short lull in gunfire, Wilson said, “Can I come?”

  In unison, each replying a little differently in inflection and verbiage, the other three men shot the redhead’s idea down.

  “You stay here and spot for Lev. Watch the buildings down the street. There may still be some slow movers in there.” Cade nodded at the Beretta holstered on the kid’s hip. “And Wilson, if you have to shoot … I want you to shoot to kill.”

  “Roger that,” was Wilson’s reply. He unholstered the 9mm semi-auto pistol and went through the motions of checking its operation with practiced ease. “Good to go.”

  “He even sounds like a soldier,” said Duncan with a soft chuckle.

  Cade tapped his Suunto. Looked Lev in the eyes. “Shouldn’t take but a few minutes for us to get into position.”

  Lev nodded. Flicked the Les Baer’s safety off and shouldered the tricked-out M4. “Go, go, go,” he called softly, swinging the suppressed rifle’s muzzle up next to the 4Runner’s quarter-panel and opening fire on the Painted Lady on the hill.

  ***

  From his position on the curb next to the burned-out car, Daymon watched shell casings arcing from Lev’s rifle, tumbling in front of Wilson’s face, and settling in the snow behind the Toyotas. He also saw snow kicked up by Duncan and Cade’s boots as they made a break for the cover of a low wall and picket of partially burned trees half a block southeast from the SUVs.

  Crouched low to make as little a target of themselves for the shooter as possible, the two sprinted uphill and against a new blast of wind coming at them. When they reached the wall, Lev was ducking back behind the 4Runner and Wilson, happy and smiling about so
mething, was flashing a thumbs up his way. The smile, however, evaporated like a breath in the cold the second the shooter resumed the inaccurate, yet seemingly systematically timed barrage. There were four shots, which strangely all missed the SUVs and instead shattered the globe of a light standard precisely one block west of Taryn and Daymon and the car they were still using as cover.

  Cursing himself for leaving his rifle in back of the Land Cruiser, Daymon went for the pistol on his hip. He flicked the retaining strap off with his thumb and heard Taryn behind him whispering, “Don’t do it.”

  He craned over a shoulder and shot her a glare hot enough to melt snow. In the next beat he thumbed the snap closed and flinched as Lev began firing uphill again. The gunfire ceased about the time Cade and Duncan skirted the front of the low wall and came to a skidding and slipping halt behind a wildly misshapen garden shed that looked to be constructed of some type of flimsy metal. You win, Daymon thought to himself, content for now to just watch Delta Boy, Fly Boy and the always silent Lev do their thing.

  Thagon Farm

  At first Cleo thought he was seeing things. The apparition coming at him was cloaked in white and its face was blurred by a shroud of fog that seemed to be following it. He wasn’t drunk nor drinking now, and hadn’t had a nip since breakfast. The fact that he was a firm nonbeliever in the occult or ghosts or things that go bump in the night led the rational part of his brain to initially dismiss the form as a byproduct of the combination of failing light and his old eyes playing tricks on him. That thought was barely fomented when the crunch of footfalls on the crusty snow reached his ears. He hadn’t believed the dead could walk until they did. Now, what he was seeing approaching his hide was beginning to open his mind to the likelihood that specters and apparitions might be real.

  With a cold chill tracing his spine and feeling like one of those soon-to-die guards in an old black and white World War Two film, in a booming voice he said, “Halt. Who goes there?”

  “The password is sausage and hash, Cleo.”

  Momentarily confused, Cleo stammered, “What?” then leveled his rifle at the hooded being.

  “I know you’re cold,” came the familiar voice. Then the form stopped a dozen feet away, reached up with one hand and folded the hood back, revealing a face he recognized. “I figure you’re hungry as well,” Helen added, tilting the plate forward to show off the tepid meal.

  Cleo lowered the carbine. “Helen, what are you doing out here?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing. But now that the watcher in the field’s identity has been confirmed ... the what and why component is crystal clear. And furthermore ... you can tell Dregan he just lost a measure of my respect for sending you out to spy on me and Ray.”

  “This is nothing personal, Helen. I’m just trying to get ahead like everyone else. It’s not like I was sent to kill you two.”

  “Good for you,” Helen said with a wolfish grin. “You’d have ended up like the others who tried and failed and are currently buried behind the barn.”

  Cleo’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. The emergency blanket crinkled as he reached for the plate.

  “You are hungry.”

  He nodded.

  “Come on in where it’s warm then. I’ll reheat this food and we can sip some brandy and you can tell us about Colorado Springs. Sure sounds promising what the woman president is doing there. Never thought I’d live to see the day ...”

  Like someone else had control of his limbs, Cleo shed the sleeping bag and emergency blanket. Going through the motions without putting much thought to it, he grabbed his rifle and pack and started following Helen down the gentle slope towards the farmhouse and its inviting candlelit and no doubt toasty warm interior. Suddenly yanked back to reality, he halted dead in his tracks ten paces west of the brambles. His face screwed up for a tick. Then he was digging out the CB radio. Wearing a sheepish grin, he turned his back to Helen and called and checked in with Dregan. The information he relayed was all general and contained no mention of sausage and hash or an invitation to enjoy it in the house he was watching with the very people he was supposed to be spying on. Finished lying, he kept the radio to his ear and nodded a couple of times while offering up short one- and two-word answers to whatever Dregan’s inquiries may have been. Finally, less than a minute from making the call, he ended it and stuffed the bulky CB in his pocket.

  “Mum’s the word?” said Helen, who had also stopped and waited while the act of subterfuge was being committed. She pantomimed zipping her lip by dragging a gloved finger horizontally across her mouth. Then for good measure she pretended to lock an invisible lock hanging there near the corner of her mouth, held up the invisible skeleton key, and tossed it away.

  Satisfied that Cleo was in her pocket, Helen about-faced and resumed the slog toward the house, where in the upper window she could just make out Ray silhouetted by the diffuse light filtering in from the doorway at his back.

  Seeing Helen’s reaction to the spate of white lies, and knowing both her and Ray’s character to be rock solid from trading with them in the past, Cleo kept up with the elderly woman and the aromatic plate of food, fully confident that this harmless little deviation would never be shared with Dregan.

  Chapter 51

  After cutting the corner, hustling south down the cross street and making it to the shed, all without hearing the angry hornet sound of bullets scything the air anywhere near him or Duncan, Cade figured one of two things to be true. Either Lev’s last half-dozen rounds of 5.56 hardball striking around the windows and raining splinters and glass down on the veranda had convinced the shooter, or shooter’s, to keep their heads down. Or, the less likely of the two scenarios, whoever was up there squirted just after the previous volley.

  Shattering Cade’s hypothesis, and the still that had settled over Huntsville, four more shots came from the middle house. From his new vantage point, the muzzle flash lancing out from the gloomy confines of the upstairs veranda was a star pattern of flame that looked a lot like it belonged to some sort of carbine. Lots of them hanging around nowadays, thought Cade. And sadly, lots of dead National Guardsmen who wouldn’t be needing their M4s any longer. He caught Duncan’s eye and broke squelch on the radio. “Anyone hit?”

  For a brief second the radio crackled with white noise. “Negative,” Lev finally said. “Another street sign is KIA, though.”

  “Check fire, then,” Cade said quietly. He looked at his Suunto. Seven on the nose. That meant sunset was only a handful of minutes away. That also meant there would be a small window of time during which the sun would dip below the cloud cover and slide behind the curvature of the earth. And if all proceeded as it had without fail for millennia, the sunflare off the snow-covered mountains ringing the valley would be spectacular and short-lasting, and just the advantage they needed to safely cover the terraced block and a half to the southernmost home without catching a lethal lead overdose.

  Hastily, so as not to miss the celestial bus, Cade relayed that part of his plan to Lev, following it up by giving him the green light to kill anything that threatened them once they were out in the open.

  Listening in, just an arm’s reach from Cade, Duncan nodded soberly. His jaw took a firm set as he jacked the shotgun’s breach back a couple of inches to confirm a shell was ready and waiting. Slug, shot, slug, and so on is how he had loaded the shells into the pump gun prior to leaving the compound. Slug would do just fine for what he figured to be the opening shot in the upcoming engagement.

  At three after seven by Cade’s watch, the angry purple clouds to the west changed dramatically. Save for a thin horizontal band turning white at their base, the rest had gone coal black. Cade thought for a second he was looking at one-half of a giant Oreo cookie suspended in midair. One big enough to sate Godzilla and which extended all the way across the horizon from left to right, only the band of white was an optical illusion created by the rapidly changing play of light, not a layer of sweet creamy filling. The sun�
��s rays were piercing the bottom of the clouds and they stayed lit up like that for a few short seconds until the dropping orb’s aspect in relation to the horizon hit the sweet spot and the halo effect imparted on the Wasatch Mountains made them look as if they were cloaked in molten lava. The flare that quickly followed was brilliant—like that of a million diamonds twinkling around the jagged-edged range.

  Cade was on the move when the clouds above the mountains were just turning color. By the time the mountain range bathed in coronal flare was mirrored in all of the west-facing windows to his right, he and Duncan were another block east and weaving their way northbound through the maze of corpses littering the streets running up to the homes.

  The flare lasted only a handful of seconds and then a rapid transformation occurred. As if a switch had been flicked, the lower strata of clouds darkened and seemed to merge with the Wasatch and its shark’s-teeth-like crags there lost all definition.

  Crouched low and ready for combat, Cade continued north past a waist-high white picket fence and then made a ninety degree cut to his right. Head on a swivel, and with his ankle throbbing angrily, he made short jabbing steps in the snow and quickly ascended the slick driveway bordering the first house in line. After zippering through a number of corpses prostrate on the level stretch leading up to a one-car garage, he crab-walked to his right, keeping the M4s suppressor tracking with his eyes. As he cut the corner by degrees, left-to-right, thirty yards to the fore he spotted a snow-covered mound with a shovel speared into it vertically. To the left of the mound was Glenda’s house. To the right was a one-car garage. The door was up, and sitting inside and out of the elements was the antique Austin Healy roadster he had heard Glenda telling Taryn all about.

  With Duncan still close on his heels, Cade passed through the open gate and took a knee in the shadow of the two-story house, where, a tick later, his breathing ragged and labored, Duncan did the same.