Slow Burn Box Set: The Complete Post Apocalyptic Series (Books 1-9)

by Bobby Adair

  “Am I going the right way?” Murphy asked.

  “Yeah,” I pointed. “Just stay on this road for now.”

  “What do you mean, not natural?” Mandi asked.

  “I mean,” I said, “these are the only bald Whites that we’ve seen. And as porn king Murphy pointed out, they definitely weren’t hairless. I’m not a doctor or anything, but it seems to me that if the virus was going to make your hair fall out, it would all fall out, not just the hair on your head.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.” Mandi turned back forward in her seat. “What then?”

  “I don’t know.” But that didn’t prevent me from speculating. “Maybe they do more than follow each other around. Maybe it’s another emergent behavior thing and they’re trying to look alike too.”

  “So what,” Murphy scoffed, “one bald nudist walks down the street and all the other Whites say to themselves, hey, I wanna be like him?”

  “Maybe,” I shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “It’s your idea,” Murphy countered.

  “I don’t know.” I wasn’t going to put too much into defending a guess.

  Nothing was said for a bit after that until we passed back through the small, nameless town and the pecan grove. Mandi said, “When they started to come up the slope toward, I think one of them had a knife.”

  “What?” I asked in surprise.

  “No way.” Murphy responded.

  Mandi nodded and looked at us. “I think so. It was far away. I can’t be sure, but I think one of them was carrying a knife.”

  That was enough to kill the conversation in the Humvee. Perhaps we all knew the ominous implications if some of the infected could use weapons. There was indeed a whole spectrum of intellectual capacities among them.

  The Humvee bounced down the bumpy country roads, back in the direction we'd just come.

  Without any of the usual pep in his voice, Murphy asked, "You're the man with the plan, Zed. Where are we going?”

  “Not Russell’s house,” Mandi interjected, staring despondently out the window.

  Pointing needlessly out through the windshield, I said, “Let’s head back to that bridge over I-35 that was clear.”

  “At Thirty-Second Street?” Murphy asked

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Are you thinking back to the university?” he asked. “Back to one of those big old buildings? You think we can hold out against…?” Murphy’s voice trailed off, as though mentioning the endless horde would confirm that they were more than a nightmare.

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  “Okay.” Murphy glanced back at me. “Let's hear it."

  I scooted up in my seat. Russell mimicked. The mood in the Humvee was settling into a darkness from which it would be hard to come back. Mandi had gone silent and was staring at nothing. The absence of Murphy’s smile was hard to bear. He was in no shape at that moment to pick the mood up off of the floor, but it needed to be done before despair set in and we gave up. So it was up to me redirect our collective mood.

  “Do you know where Mt. Bonnell Road is?” I asked Murphy.

  “On the other side of town, where all the rich white people live.”

  “Yeah, well not all of them, but some of them,” I said. “That's where we're going.”

  “Back into the hornet’s nest,” Murphy absently muttered.

  “It's not that bad, if we do it right,” I told him.

  Murphy's voice flipped to defiance. “Yeah, I'll just run down any mother fuckers that get in our way.”

  “Not any,” I disagreed. “There's an upper limit to that.”

  “Yeah,” Murphy answered absently. His mind was back on the horde.

  “If you see any really big groups, let's not try to plow through them,” I said. “We'll need to drive around.”

  Murphy grunted an acknowledgement.

  Mandi was still silent.

  I took a moment to explain my tactic of zigzagging through the neighborhoods to keep the infected from clogging the streets ahead. I emphasized how important it was not to lose the other Humvee in our maneuvers.

  With that taken care of, I changed the subject. “I used to date this short red-headed girl named Jackie.”

  “War stories?” That surprised Murphy, but his tone suggested that he wasn’t in the mood.

  Defensively, I said, “There's a point.”

  Mandi looked over her shoulder at me, showing her watery eyes. Then she went back to staring through the glass.

  “When I was a freshman at UT, I met her in my psychology class,” I said. “Well, she met me. I mean, she kind of picked me up in class and then we started going out.”

  “Was she cute?” Murphy asked.

  “Of course,” I answered. “Really nice little ah...” I looked over at Mandi, but she was working hard at ignoring me. “Well the thing is, she still lived at home and drove into school each day. Her parents had a big house up on Mt. Bonnell.”

  Murphy raised his voice for emphasis, “God damn, Null Spot. How many women do you want to try to save?”

  “That's not where I'm going with this,” I countered.

  Mandi muttered, “I doubt that.”

  “No, really,” I said. “Hear me out.”

  “I'm guessing we don't have a choice.” Murphy smiled.

  I continued with my story. “So, like, back when we were dating, I'd go over to her house and we'd watch movies and stuff and study together.”

  “Uh huh,” Murphy's tone implied a lot inappropriate activity.

  “I'm sure you were studying.” Mandi was sarcastic, not at all happy with my topic of choice. But at least she was starting to engage.

  “Sometimes, maybe,” I said. “Well, the truth is, we were both eighteen and horny as hell, and it seemed like all she ever wanted to do was screw.”

  Mandi scoffed, “Like you didn't.”

  “Oh, no, don't get me wrong,” I answered. “I love sex. Lots of it.”

  Murphy snickered.

  I continued, “But Jackie, oh my God, she was like a nympho or something. She'd wanted to screw every day, more than once. Sometimes four or five times.”

  “Oh, whatever,” Mandi scoffed.

  “You'd be surprised how virile a motivated eighteen-year-old can be,” I countered.

  Murphy raised his eyebrows and gave us a speculative, “Maybe.”

  “Well, she wore me out, I'll tell you. There were times when I'd make up excuses not to go over to her house just so I could get a day of rest.”

  Mandi shook her head. “This story is getting unbelievable. You said there is a point, right? It's not just you making up stories about your sexual exploits.”

  I said, “Well, there is that part, but...”

  Murphy laughed.

  “…I’ll get to the point,” I finished. “Jackie liked to have sex everywhere. In her bed, of course. In the wine cellar when her parents were upstairs…”

  “The wine cellar?” Mandi asked.

  “Rich people,” Murphy muttered.

  “Everybody who lives on Mt. Bonnell has money,” I said. “People with money have wine cellars.” At least that’s the way I saw it.

  “A rich girl who likes to have sex all the time?” Mandi didn’t believe a word of it. “And why would you ever leave a girl like that?”

  “She dumped me,” I admitted. “She said I was too emotionally distant.”

  Murphy laughed out loud. “I’m so surprised.”

  “Well, to get on with my point, we’d sometimes go for walks in the neighborhood, and whenever they were building a new house, she’d want to sneak in at night and have sex in it.”

  “Say what?” Murphy grinned.

  “No way,” Mandi scoffed again.

  “No, I’m serious,” I said. “I told you. She was kind of a nympho and a little kinky. And I’ll admit, it was kind of a turn-on.”

  Mandi made a show of looking back out the window. She wasn’t ready to give up on her mood. “A
nd the point is?”

  I said, “There was this one house just off the street, kind of set back in the trees. It was an ugly kind of modern-ish box thing, like a tiny three-story Walmart or something. All concrete and not enough windows.”

  “Sounds hideous,” Mandi said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s what I thought. We went there probably three or four times. Then, one night, we were upstairs in what was probably going to be a master bedroom or something. It had these great views over the cliffs of Lake Austin and we… you know, were doing our thing, when this dude with a flashlight and a gun came in and scared the crap out of us.”

  “What?” That surprised Mandi.

  “It was a security guard, an off-duty cop,” I said. “He was kind of pervy about seeing Jackie naked. I think that’s why he didn’t arrest us for trespassing. After that, there was a cop there all the time. And I mean all the time.”

  “Why?” Mandi asked.

  “I think the place belonged to some reclusive rich dude or something. I’m not sure, but I think they built a wall around it. I mean, they were building something the last time I was there. But the way the terrain is there, you can’t see the place until you go through the trees and just kind of run into it. You can’t see it from the road. You can’t even see it from up at the park on top of Mt. Bonnell.”

  “The owner must have been really paranoid,” Mandi deduced.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  Murphy said, “If they finished that wall, it sounds like it could be a safe place for us, if there’s nobody there.”

  “Even without the wall, the place seemed pretty secure.” I said. “I’m guessing the owner holed up there pretty quick once this whole infection thing started. So going there might be a waste of time.”

  “After what we just saw at that farm, I say we give it a shot.” Murphy looked over at Mandi, as if for permission. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Mandi nodded, neither enthusiastically nor reluctantly.

  Chapter 22

  Mt. Bonnell, like every hill in central Texas, is covered in a forest of squat cedar trees, sprinkled with stunted oaks over jagged limestone and thin dirt. Most trees are ten to fifteen feet tall but thick from root to tip with dark green foliage. They look to be as much shrub as tree.

  The uncurbed asphalt road disintegrated at its edge into gravel and dirt under the overhanging branches of cedars all along Mt. Bonnell Road. The only breaks in the forest were wide patches of green grass lawns fronting oversized houses and lush flowerbeds. Relatively few people had lived in the area before the virus hit. That meant few of the infected—the formerly wealthy or their live-in domestic help.

  Halfway up Mt. Bonnell Road, the houses on both sides of the street suddenly stopped and only the shadowy cedars remained. And we were alone. A few infected chased up the slope, but far behind. They’d lose interest soon enough.

  “Slow down, Murphy.” I scanned ahead, looking for a familiar break in the trees.

  Murphy let up on the gas and the Humvee coasted down to twenty-five miles per hour.

  “The place we’re looking for is near the top, but it’s easy to miss,” I told him.

  “And you can’t see it at all from the road?” Mandi asked.

  “No,” I answered. “You can’t tell, because of the trees, but the road we’re on isn’t on the crest of the hill. It’s on the Austin side of the hill. All the houses on the left, between the road and the river, are on the crest or on the other side of it. This house is like that, on the other side of the crest, and with all the trees, you can’t see it.”

  “Why do that?” Mandi asked. “It seems like if you spent a bazillion dollars on a big house with a gorgeous view, you’d want to show it off.”

  “The same reason that the Klingons have a cloaking device,” Murphy answered.

  “I’m sorry, Murphy, I have a life.” Mandi’s tone was disdainful. “You’ll have to explain to me what that means.”

  “If you don’t want to fight,” Murphy explained, “you hide. The cloaking device makes you invisible.”

  “Just like the house,” I finished. “The people who own the place like their privacy a lot. I doubt they were thinking about fighting anybody when they built the place, but hiding the house is a big step toward making it secure. For us, if the infected never see the place, they won’t ever try to swarm over it.”

  A narrow caliche driveway split the wall of cedars on the left. I pointed. “I think that’s our turn.”

  Murphy slowed the Humvee and turned into the gap. Ahead, the narrow, dusty road curved almost immediately, allowing a view of nothing from the road but more cedars. Dalhover’s Humvee followed very closely behind.

  Mandi said, “It’s like a road to a trailer park.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  The road made a wide arc and curved back to the left before coming up along a wall. We were headed back downhill again on the dirt road as it ran along the wall on our right, with Mt. Bonnell Road on our left, on the other side of a hedge of cedar trees.

  “Looks like they finished the wall,” Murphy observed.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Mandi asked.

  “It’s got to be,” I answered.

  Murphy said, “That wall has got to be at least ten feet tall.”

  After a few hundred feet of wall, we came to the end of the drive, a large semicircle that allowed room for cars to turn in and out of the gate. Rectangular blocks of limestone the size of coffee tables bordered the semicircle. Outside the ring of limestone, the terrain grew much more rugged. The gate itself was designed to roll on a track on the other side of the wall for opening and closing. It was covered from top to bottom in sheets of steel and hid the property just as effectively as the wall.

  Murphy stopped the Humvee and we all shared a look. We were idling at the gates of a possible refuge with no obvious way to get inside.

  I looked at the shadows in the cedars. “Do you guys see any Whites out there?”

  All eyes peered into the darkness under the trees.

  Nothing. We were momentarily safe.

  “Keep an eye out,” I told them. I opened my door and very deliberately climbed out, allowing Russell to come along. I didn’t need him making a noisy scene. Who knew what could be hiding in the dusky shadows?

  An obtrusive surveillance camera on the top edge of the wall was pointed down at an intercom on a post. I pressed the call button on the intercom, and a red light indicated something, so I spoke while waving up at the camera. “Hello in there.”

  I watched the camera, listened, and waited.

  Nothing.

  I gave it another moment, then tried again. “Hello in there. Listen, we want to come in. If you’re in there and don’t want us inside, now’s the time tell me. Otherwise, we’re going to climb the wall.”

  I waited. No response.

  “Hello,” I tried again.

  Still nothing.

  I pressed the button a final time. “Listen, I’m coming over the wall. If you’re in there with a rifle, it’ll be easier to tell me to go away than it will be to shoot me. At least it’ll be easier on me. Hello. Hello.”

  Nothing.

  I looked around into the growing darkness under the trees. I had no idea if any Whites might be around, but if there were any close, the idling Humvees would eventually draw them in. I went back to the Humvee and maneuvered myself and Russell inside.

  “Okay guys,” I said. “There’s either nobody home or they chose not to answer. Murphy, if you can angle this thing up against that wall, I may be able to get on top and climb over.”

  “That’s your plan?” Murphy asked. His dislike for the idea sounded clearly in his tone.

  I shrugged. “I’m making it up as I go along.”

  “Yeah, aren’t we all?” Murphy nodded. “We don’t know what’s over there and you’re not exactly an expert with that rifle.”

  “I’m getting better,” I protested. “I hit most of what
I shoot at.”

  “Eventually.”

  “I’m not staying here by myself,” Mandi protested.

  “It’s not safe for you to come with us,” Murphy told her gently.

  I thumbed back at the other Humvee. “I’m gonna let them know what’s going on. I’ll get Dalhover to come up here with you, Mandi. Cool?”

  “That’s fine. What about Russell?”

  I looked over at Russell, who was staring out the front window with no expression on his face. “Mandi, he seems to respond well to you. Can you sit back here with him and keep him calm?”

  “Okay.”

  I cast another glance around before I swung my door open and hopped out. Better safe than dead. Once my feet were back on the ground outside, I looked around and listened. Russell was having a fit, but the sound was muffled through the armor and thick glass. The wind was blowing through the cedars. Birds were squawking. There was a sound of shuffling in the rocks and twigs somewhere off to my left. Something was out there, something noisy.

  I raised my M4 to my shoulder, pointed it at the noise and said, “Hey.”

  The noise stopped immediately.

  I relaxed. It was more scared of me than I was of it. Probably an armadillo.

  I hurried back to Dalhover’s Humvee. He got out halfway and looked around cautiously before settling his sad gaze on me. He softly rasped, “What’s this place?”

  In as few words as I could manage, I explained that it might be a refuge for us and told him our plan for going over the wall.

  “Will you be able to open the gate from the inside?” Dalhover asked.

  “You know I can’t answer that. I’m just hoping.”

  Dalhover nodded. “Yeah, I know. Listen, after you and Murphy go over the wall, I’m going to stay on the top of the Humvee and keep an ear out.”

  “I’ll holler over and let you know what’s shakin’,” I told him.

  “We need some tactical radios,” Dalhover groused. “Running around like a bunch of yahoos is going to get us all killed.”

  I nodded. We needed a lot of things.

  Murphy got the Humvee into position right up next to the wall and cut the engine. With both engines off, only the normal noises of the evening were left: the wind, the birds, the crickets. But somewhere in the background was the sound of electric motors. I angled my head but couldn’t pinpoint the direction of the source.