Caldera Book 2: Out Of The Fire

by Stallcup, Heath

  Daniel Hatcher stood silent for a moment with his friend stuck to the end of the blade. He felt a warm, sticky fluid wash over his hand and he twisted the knife the other way and pulled it back, allowing Mitch to fall into a pile along with the other dead zombies. Hatcher didn’t remember dropping the knife, but his ears picked up the tinkle of the metal as it bounced against the polished tile floor.

  Without looking down at his friend, Hatcher shouldered his weapon and staggered back to the door, his eyes staring forward, his mind still dazed. He glanced once more out the window. He really wanted Vickers to now come swaggering back to the station. He needed to make somebody pay for all of the pain he was feeling, but couldn’t allow himself to show.

  Bill entered the rear of the house and could smell the coffee brewing before he ever walked into the kitchen. The bone-weary ache in his body hadn’t really had a chance to settle in between the bouts of adrenaline rushes and rapid escapes. The dark-roasted Columbian beans smelled heavenly as he nearly collapsed into the chair at the counter.

  “Truck is all loaded,” he breathed as he pulled his bandana from his rear pocket and swiped at his forehead. “I found some camping gear in the garage and took the liberty of tossing it into the back. Just in case we end up having to overnight it in the middle of nowhere.”

  Richard glanced up from the cooler he was packing and nodded with a forlorn stare. Bill didn’t miss the look and probed him, “Did I do something wrong?”

  Richard startled from his gazing into nothingness and gave a halfhearted smile. “No,” he replied softly. “I just…” He looked up from the cooler and sighed. “I had intended to take Harriet camping one day. She was always too busy.” Richard stared out the window and chuckled lightly. “Truth be told, I think she hated the idea and always had an excuse, but I held out hope.” He turned his attention back to the cooler. “Just packing a few perishables for the trip. Don’t want them to go waste.”

  Bill noted the luncheon meats and cold cuts, the cheeses and crackers, condiments, and a couple loaves of wheat bread sitting beside the cooler as Richard packed every square inch. He set a blue ice pack on top of each section and sealed the top. Patting the top, he turned and shut the refrigerator door. “As soon as the coffee’s done brewing, I can fill the thermos and we’re ready.”

  “I could use one now.” Bill yawned. “Do you have any cream or that powdered stuff?”

  Richard opened the refrigerator again and pulled out a small carton of Half & Half. “I got the flavored stuff, too, if you want it. Harriet always…” He paused and turned away.

  “That’s okay,” Bill said, standing and picking up the carton. “This is just fine.”

  Richard pulled a matching set of stainless-steel travel mugs and filled them, pouring the rest of the pot into the matching thermos. As the pair left, Richard grabbed the cooler and Bill took the mugs toward the door. Jason, who had remained silent the entire time, picked up a small canvas bag and fell into step. Bill noticed the small blue bag and raised a brow.

  “What you got there, son?”

  Jason never missed a beat as he stepped past Bill. “Ammo.”

  Bill watched the young boy as he walked out the back and carried the heavy bag to the truck, following his grandfather. He paused at the rear of the house and watched the two load their burdens into the back of the truck, wondering if either would ever truly be okay again.

  Bill slipped in behind the wheel of the truck and started the engine as Jason crawled in and Richard shut the door solidly behind himself. “Which direction should we try?” Bill asked.

  “I was thinking about what you asked before. About anybody who might have a plane,” Richard said. “I know a fella who might have access to a helicopter. He used to fly one for crop dusting. But that’s a long shot, and it’s a pretty good trip in the wrong direction.”

  Bill nodded. “And the other option?”

  Richard shrugged. “Try to run the blockade where all those soldiers were.” The way he said it, Bill knew he was leaving the decision up to him.

  Bill looked to Jason who seemed to be staring at the radio. “Any suggestions?”

  The boy just shrugged. “Nothing itches.”

  Bill’s brows hiked up and he stared at the kid as if he had grown another head. “Nothing…huh?”

  “Sometimes he can ‘see’ things. Sometimes he ‘hears’ things. Sometimes he gets…feelings. Like an itch. If nothing itches, that’s his way of saying, he doesn’t know.”

  Bill nodded. “Well, the shortest distance is the fastest way out of Crazyland.” He turned to Richard. “My vote is the road block.”

  “Then let’s go,” Richard said. “No sense in wasting daylight.”

  Bill pulled the truck out of the drive and avoided the Buick as he approached the roadway. He half-expected Jason to yell at him to stop at any second, but the boy continued to stare at the radio. Bill reached out and flipped it on for him and hit one of the presets. A country station twanged out old western songs on an AM frequency and Jason smiled slightly.

  Bill checked the road and pulled out, gunning the truck to close the gap between the house and military vehicles parked near the highway. It didn’t take long before they saw their first zombie. Dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, the creature was covered in blood, dirt, and filth. Bill slipped to the oncoming traffic lane and watched as the creature maneuvered to intercept. He was running full speed toward the oncoming truck with no intention of slowing down.

  Bill caught sight of Richard’s arm going forward, his hand bracing against the dashboard, preparing for the impact, when he suddenly braked and jerked the wheel to the right, narrowly missing the feral man. Richard’s eyes followed the man as he turned and began to chase the truck, much like a dog might chase a car that dared cross into its neighborhood. “I thought you were going to hit him,” he breathed as he let go of the dashboard.

  “I’d really rather not. Hitting a human body with a vehicle can do a lot of damage.” Bill turned and glanced toward Richard. “To the vehicle.”

  As he crested the next ridge, he saw two more on the side of the road, but they didn’t have time to track the truck and get in the way before he passed. “I figured they’d hear us coming,” Richard said as the truck blew past them and they turned and began pursuing.

  “I figured they would, too.” Bill looked around. “I’m thinking maybe the rocky ridge and the trees are throwing the sound off to them. Or maybe their condition makes it somehow harder for them to zero in on sounds.” He shrugged. “Either way, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

  They continued on and pushed past two more zombies, both in uniform, one still with his rifle strapped to his back. Bill wished he could have found a safe way to run him over and retrieve the weapon, but there was no sense in risking themselves over a stupid gun.

  Although he was avoiding hitting people, he was still fighting fatigue. Bill sipped at the hot coffee and shook his head to stay sharp. “I’m a little turned around here, buddy. How much farther to the blockade?”

  Richard pointed up ahead. “Should be around this next bend.” Bill slowed the truck slightly and craned his neck to see. Just as Richard prophesied, the military vehicles were parked in the road around the next bend and down the hill. Bill scanned the area looking for any human-sized movement and didn’t spot anything. He studied the vehicles and noted that the blockade was mainly the two Humvees parked across the lanes of traffic. “There’s not enough room on the shoulder to get around them.”

  “Ya think we have time to get out and move them?”

  Bill shrugged. “We’ll have to make time.”

  “I hope they left the keys in them.”

  “If not, we toss them into neutral and push them out of the way.” He looked to Richard and smiled. “We can use the truck to push. My back ain’t as young as the rest of me.”

  They stopped the truck at the blockade and Bill threw the transmission into PARK. As he stepped out, Jason g
rabbed his arm. “Watch out for the Army mans,” he whispered. “They bite.”

  Vickers sat in the seat of the chopper, the mobile satellite phone case across his lap. “Yes, I know he isn’t in his office yet, but I need to speak to him. Tell him it’s Colonel Vickers and it’s important,” he yelled into the phone. “Yes, I’ll hold.”

  He sighed as he slumped back into the uncomfortable seat. Vickers held the phone to his ear and craned his neck around to watch the ultrasound device be loaded into the back of the transport truck. A handful of his Ghost Team members had come back to replenish their supplies and load the GPS positions of dropped tangos for the regulars to pick up and dispose of. He decided this would be a good time to reassign them to positioning the attractant device.

  He was a bit perturbed by some of his men referring to the infected as zombies, but at this point, he didn’t really care. Yellowstone was about to have a goodly portion of its acreage laid waste to. They could call them mole people for all he cared.

  Vickers heard the phone come alive and he snapped to, “Yes, general,” he yelled into the phone. “This is Vickers.” He paused and nodded. “Yes, sir. Clean up efforts are underway, but we’ve run into a few issues, sir.” He nodded and smiled. “Well, sir, it would seem that the infected have taken to the woods and scattered. Even the ghosts are having extreme difficulties in tracking them, sir.” He waited and shook his head. “Negative, sir. Even with air support, they’re too scattered. It takes far too long to cover the amount of territory they’ve…” He trailed off as the general from the Pentagon continued to throw armchair options at him. “Negative, sir. We tried that as well. Ineffective, sir.” Now was the time. “I do have an idea, sir. It is a bit…unorthodox. And it would take a bit of media spinning, but I believe it is workable and will be effective.” He waited as the general took the bait. “A series of MOAB runs, sir.”

  Bingo. Then comes the shit storm, the rants, and ravings of blowing up a pristine national landmark, blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-yadda…

  “Sir!” Vickers interrupted. “The infected are beginning to extend beyond the perimeters. We can break protocol in such circumstances, and when you consider that Yellowstone is volcanically active, we have plausible deniability. Sir, we can claim that it blew up on its own, killing civilians that were here on an overnight concert that was to benefit the park and attempt to preserve it. The military just came in to try to save the civilians.” He allowed his option to sink for a moment. “Truly, in the end, the only difference is that we flatten a few trees and possibly start a few fires. Fires that will hide any evidence…”

  Silence.

  “Sir, it truly is a win-win for us,” Vickers offered.

  The general came back with a line of questions and Vickers happily answered them. In the end, he was more than content with the answers he got.

  “Yes, sir. We got what we really wanted, anyway. We just need to contain the outbreak before it gets out into the civilian population here in our own country.” Vickers continued to nod, continued to kiss the general’s ass, and continued to bow and scrape as long as he had to. He got what he wanted.

  Yellowstone was about to be flattened. Burned to the ground in a brilliant flash of non-nuclear firepower that had never been used on American soil except for testing in the badlands. He couldn’t help but smile.

  Chapter 9

  Bob pushed the Jetta up the hill as hard as it would go. The little German made car belched and farted, backfiring as it lurched and jerked, missing and sputtering, choking on its own fuel as it climbed the steep hill. Bob could see the sunlight glinting off the chrome of the chopper just ahead. So many thoughts ran through his mind as it came into view. Should he just ram the bike and try to knock it over, driving the car through while it was still running, or should he risk stopping the little car and hoping it stayed running while he tried to push the bike out of the way and making a hole large enough for the Jetta to get through? And if the Jetta got through, was the shoulder solid enough for him to drive the car the rest of the way to the ranger station?

  As Bob approached the bike, he realized, the chopper was far too large for him to even consider knocking over with the car. Even if he could, he couldn’t actually drive over it! He pulled the Jetta up to the bike and put it into PARK. Why the car began running like crap, he didn’t know. Maybe somehow the car formed a Vulcan mind-meld with him and decided since he was half a step from death, the car needed to be, too. Who knew?

  As Bob opened the door to step out, the Jetta farted real loud, backfired, and then died. So did his hopes of ever starting it again as steam began shooting from the radiator. Bob fell back into the seat and turned the key, looking for a temperature gauge. Nope. He looked for an idiot light. He saw where one was supposed to be, but…even when he turned the key and all the other lights came on, the TEMP light didn’t glow. Great! he thought. I just burned up the only transportation I had, plus I just backtracked probably three-quarters of a mile. Bob stepped from the car and approached the bike. Maybe…nope. No keys. He wasn’t that lucky. And since Bob hadn’t been trained in the fine art of grand theft auto or horse thievery, he was sort of fucked.

  For shits and giggles, he pushed the bike out of the way and got back in the Jetta. “Please start,” he mumbled. He turned the key and heard a grinding noise. “Well, farfegnugen!” he yelled. “Ya little piece of shit.” He pounded the dash and wished he hadn’t. The dash was much more solid than the plastic looked.

  Bob crawled out from car and began trudging back down the steep hill. “I don’t suppose one of you fuckers want to volunteer to take me down there, do you?” he asked the line of cars. None stepped out of line. Apparently, they’d all been in the military at some point in their mechanical lives. “That’s what I figured.”

  As the sun rose, the tall trees ensured there was no breeze. Bob suddenly felt very warm, the thick paste forming in his mouth making his tongue feel three sizes larger. He could feel his feet dragging along the dusty road, and although he was still checking door handles, he had long since given up hope.

  He remembered reading an old western book where a fella had got caught in the desert and his mouth had gotten so dry… The fellow had bitten his tongue to force his mouth to water. Bob tried it and cursed the writer of the book for being a damned liar. All he got was a bit tongue, and, he was almost certain, a bug in his mouth from having his tongue stuck out. And the worst part was, if it was a bug, he couldn’t work up any spit to get rid of it. Whatever the gritty bit was, it would just have to stay trapped to the sticky stuff until he could find real water to rinse his mouth.

  Bob paused on more than one occasion when he thought he heard something in the woods. He’d listen intently for a bit until he was certain that nothing was moving, then trudge on again. More than once, he heard gunshots in the distance. Once he thought that maybe they were firing at him, but no puffs of dust around him assured him he wasn’t the intended target.

  It seemed to take forever before he came to the rolled pickup that caused him to have to backtrack. He stood and looked at the truck for a moment, wishing he could roll the damned thing back over and use it. He could see the keys right there in the ignition. So what if the truck was bent like a pretzel. He was almost certain it would start. It had keys…why wouldn’t it? With a muttered curse and a slow kick to the tailgate, Bob trudged past it and continued his journey. He checked doors and sunroofs, tapped windows and rear doors of SUVs. Eventually, he came to a minivan, and, without thinking, he pulled the door handle and it popped open as he continued staggering by.

  Bob paused and turned his head slightly. Was he seeing things in his exhausted state? He stared at the door, slightly ajar. Nope. It was open. He turned back to the van and pulled the door open even wider. It actually felt cooler inside. He noted that the car was sitting in the shade, whereas he had been walking in the sun.

  Duh.

  Bob chuckled slightly to himself and slid open the side door. He rifled through the
interior and didn’t find anything promising. “Son of a…,” he began, then paused. A glimpse of white plastic in the rear of the minivan stopped him. “What is this?” he asked himself as he climbed onto the backseat, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Bob pulled the ice chest closer to him and felt a thrill as he realized there was something in it!

  He flipped the lid up and…Glory Be! Tears tried to run down his cheek, but his eyes couldn’t really form them. There, floating in a slurry of mostly melted ice, sat sodas, an unopened package of bologna, a bottle of mustard, and a soggy loaf of bread.

  Bob shuffled around to the rear of the minivan and opened the rear hatch. He sat down heavily in the back and turned the ice chest toward him. Pulling a small chunk of ice, he sucked on it as he popped open a lemon lime soda and drank greedily. It was so cold it gave him a brain freeze.

  It hurt so good.

  Bob was nearly giddy as he pulled the partially soggy loaf of bread from the cooler and began building a very basic, but quite awesome sandwich.

  As he sat in the back of the van eating, he glanced around the interior of the car. If this thing came standard with a machine gun and a spare set of keys, he’d think he had died and gone to heaven.

  Bob couldn’t find the machine gun anywhere. He did, however, find a set of keys, but none that fit the van. Probably to an office or an apartment somewhere. He continued to dig and found the tire tool. It was light, had an almost pointed end and a large lug wrench on the other. Handy defensive tool. As long as the other person you were going against didn’t have a gun. Or a knife. Or a crossbow. Or hell…a baseball bat. Bob shrugged. It beat having his dick in his hand, and that was all he had before he found the tire tool. He wasn’t going to bitch.

  He dug around a little bit more and pulled out a Dora backpack. He stared at it a little bit before shaking his head and shoving it full of sodas and the bologna. He crammed as much of the dry bread as he could fit into it and slung it over his shoulder. “Say map!” he chuckled as he stepped away from the van. He stopped and stared at his reflection in the tinted side window of the van. “Damn, Bob…you’re losing your mind,” he muttered. “But you do look good in a Dora pack.” He tapped the window with the tire tool in salute to himself and trudged off.