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

by Bobby Adair

  “You let go of that rail,” the female voice commanded urgently.

  Above, over the second deck railing, I saw the silhouettes of three heads, and more importantly, I saw the long barrel of a rifle, angling down toward Murphy.

  “Hey, hey,” I shouted.

  Russell was suddenly on his feet beside me.

  What the hell was he doing?

  “I can’t swim,” Murphy hollered to anyone who would listen.

  “You should have thought about that before you jumped on our boat,” the woman replied.

  “I fell,” Murphy yelled back.

  “Be cool,” I hollered to the people on the boat. “Just let me come back over and get him.” I steered the slow-moving ski boat toward Murphy.

  The heads appeared to be conferring.

  “Look,” I said, “we thought the boat was deserted. We don’t mean any harm.”

  “If you guys try to get on, I’ll shoot.”

  You guys?

  I looked over at Russell and calmly said, “Russell, sit down, please.” I put a hand on his shoulder and guided him into the seat beside mine. I called back up, “We’re not trying to jump on your boat.”

  “Yet, there’s your boy, hanging from the rail,” the voice replied.

  “His boy?” Murphy’s tone suggested that he was offended by that.

  Making my voice as smooth as possible, I pleaded with her. “We don’t want to hurt you. We thought the boat was deserted. Just let me get Murphy off of the boat and we’ll go, if that’s what you want. You don’t need to be afraid of us.”

  “You’re all infected,” she said. “I can see that from here.”

  The ski boat’s bow bumped the hull of the riverboat next to Murphy, and he danced his legs in the air until he managed to get a foot into our boat.

  “Yeah,” I called back up, “we are, but we’re not like the other infected.” I got a little exasperated. “Hell, that much should be obvious just because we’re talking.”

  Murphy hauled himself into our boat and as soon as he was all the way in, I reversed the boat and backed away to a distance of ten feet or so.

  Then, with the engine idling, I asked, “You okay, Murphy?”

  “Man, I’m fine.” Murphy grinned sheepishly. “As long as Crazy Bitch don’t shoot me.”

  “Be nice,” the girl said, in a normal tone of voice.

  “Be nice?” I laughed. “You were gonna shoot us a second ago.”

  “You’re off of our boat now,” she answered.

  Murphy said, “Man, let’s get out of here.”

  “Hold on a sec,” I said. I called up to the girl, “Now that we’re back on our own boat, can we talk for minute?”

  “As long as you keep your distance,” was the answer.

  Great. What did I want to ask? “Look, we’re staying at a place downriver and we’ll probably be coming this way to look for food and stuff. Do I need to worry about you shooting us every time we pass by?”

  Conferring again. “Just don’t get too close.”

  “If you don’t want me to, I won’t,” I assured them.

  Then, another voice, a younger voice blurted out, “Why do you guys look infected, but act normal?”

  Harsh, muffled words followed between them.

  “We’re Slow Burns,” I answered. “We got infected but then we got better. Are you all immune? Do you know?”

  “Slow burns?” Another female voice asked.

  Well, that answered that question. They were all three girls.

  “That’s just what they called us. We have a higher temperature than normal. Obviously we’re white. Well, except for Murphy, he prefers mocha frost. Besides that, we’re normal.”

  “How many of you are there?” a girl asked.

  “Don’t tell ‘em,” Murphy whispered.

  “There are six of us,” I answered.

  “Are they all like you?” she asked.

  “No,” I answered, “the others are normal. They’re immune.”

  “Immune?” There was excitement in the voice. “How do you know?”

  “One’s a nurse. They were at the hospital until…until… Well. They’re with us now.”

  “Until what?” the voice was suspicious.

  “The hospital was overrun.” I paused and said, “Hey, my name is Zed. That’s Murphy there in the bow and this is Russell here beside me, but Russell doesn’t talk. Why don’t you at least tell me your names so I know who I’m talking to?”

  The girl with the rifle stood up. “My name is Amy. This is Brittany and Megan.”

  It was hard to make out their features in the darkness, but Brittany and Megan were shorter. They had higher pitched voices. I guessed they were in junior high or grade school.

  “Null Spot,” Murphy scolded me in a low voice.

  “Dude, chill,” I told him.

  The girls had to be alone. If not, why send a woman and two young girls to defend the boat? They had to be poorly armed. Again, why send one hunting rifle against two heavily armed men?

  “Are you guys okay?” I asked in a voice that showed sincere concern.

  There was a hesitation, but in a voice that belied the truth, Amy answered, “We’re fine.”

  “They’re not fine,” Murphy whispered, suddenly concerned.

  “I know,” I told him.

  “What are you saying?” Amy asked.

  I answered, “We don’t think you’re fine. It’s just the three of you, right?”

  Another pause and Amy answered, “No.”

  “Yeah,” I answered with just enough sarcasm to let her know that I didn’t believe her. “We just scavenged some stuff from a house downriver. We’ve got some food and some bottled water. You guys can have some if you need it.”

  I looked at Murphy, ready to defend my choice, but his face showed me that he agreed. He must have come to the same conclusion as me. The girls weren’t doing well.

  The three conferred for a moment.

  I called over, “We can pull alongside and put the stuff on the deck and pull away. We have a case of bottled water we don’t need. We saw some bodies floating in the river. It’s probably not safe to drink the river water.”

  “We boil it,” Brittany answered.

  “Good,” I said. “Do you have any food?”

  “If you have some you don’t need,” Amy answered.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” I called, “but we could spare a few bags. A lot of it’s canned. Do you have a can opener?”

  “There’s a galley in the back of the boat. Yeah, probably.”

  “Good,” I said. “Can I pull alongside and put the stuff on?”

  “Yes,” Amy answered, “but don’t get on the boat.”

  It took a minute to maneuver the boat over. Once there, Murphy moved the case of bottled water and a few pillowcases full of groceries over to the big boat. As he finished up, I picked up one of the revolvers I found at the safe house and handed it to him. “Give ‘em that, too.”

  “What?”

  “They only have the one gun,” I told him. “We can get more.”

  Murphy grudgingly took the revolver and laid it on the deck, along with a box of bullets.

  When I pulled the boat away, one of the girls disappeared from above and reappeared on the bottom deck.

  “We left you a gun and some ammo,” I called across the water. “You need more than one gun.”

  “Thank you,” Amy said, with deep sincerity.

  The other girls thanked us as well.

  “I’m curious about how the boat thing is working out for you, but maybe we can stop back by tomorrow night. I don’t want to overstay our welcome tonight.”

  “Yes,” Amy said. “You guys can stop back by tomorrow.”

  “Cool,” I responded. “Oh, one quick thing. Do you know if the infected can swim? Have they been able to get to you in the boat?”

  “No,” Amy answered, “they can’t. They come to the banks when they see us, but they never com
e out into the water.”

  “Listen,” I said. “You know the movie star, Sarah Mansfield?”

  Of course, all of the girls did.

  Megan said, “She has a big house down the river. My dad showed it to me when we were skiing last summer.”

  “Cool,” I answered. “That’s where we’re staying. I’ll make a deal with you, if you’re interested.”

  “What’s that?” Amy asked, cautious again.

  “We’ve got plenty of room down there. If you guys get in trouble and need to get out of here, you can come down.”

  “How do we get up there?” Megan asked. “It’s way up on the cliff.”

  “There’s eight or nine mansions right down on the water on that side of the river. A little ways past the last one on the left is a boathouse. Just come there.”

  “How will you know we’re there?” Amy asked.

  “Security cameras,” I answered.

  “You said a deal,” Amy said. “What do you want from us?”

  “Pretty much the same thing,” I answered. “If we get in trouble and have to bail out in a hurry, can we come here?”

  Brittany was back on the top deck and the three of them deliberated for a moment. She answered, “It’ll probably be okay.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Well, Amy, Brittany, Megan, it was good to meet you guys. I think we need to get back before they get too worried about us.”

  The girls thanked us across the water as I turned the boat around and headed downriver with the current.

  With the tourist boat shrinking in the distance behind us, Murphy came over and stood on the deck between where Russell and I sat. “That was a good thing you did, Null Spot. It was the right thing to do.”

  I smiled and nodded, hoping that he was right.

  Chapter 35

  At first, I thought it was thunder. But the sky was still clear. The wind hadn’t changed direction. Nothing was different. It was just another hot, mosquito-filled Texas night. But the rumble grew louder the further we went downriver.

  Russell was growing agitated in the back of the boat. Murphy was looking up at the mountain crests on the north side of the river with worry furrowing his face.

  “That can’t all be gunfire, can it?” I asked him.

  Murphy slowly nodded. “It’s over in west Austin somewhere. I’m betting Camp Mabry. Sounds like they’re shooting everything they’ve got.”

  “I’m glad I’m not a White over there right now.”

  Murphy shook his head. “I’m just glad I’m not over there right now.”

  “That’s all machine guns and grenades and stuff?” I asked.

  “Yep.” Murphy was nodding again.

  “I can’t even imagine how many Whites they must be slaughtering with all that.”

  Murphy stood and looked off into the darkness. “I can’t imagine how many Whites are attacking them if they’re still shooting.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered, as the realization of that sank in.

  Murphy looked down at me with a request forming on his lips, but it didn’t need completion. I throttled forward. Noise be damned, and get the pontoon boat another night. Shit was going down. There was no time to waste.

  The miles disappeared in a hurry as the ski boat slid over the smooth water. We skipped the drift phase and motored right into the boathouse. After docking, we ran up the tunnel with several pillowcases full of groceries and the extra revolver. When we exited the elevator in Sarah’s basement, Steph was waiting for us with a poker face, but with dread in her eyes.

  “What’s the story?” I asked.

  “Sergeant Dalhover and Mandi are on the roof—” Steph started.

  “What are they doing there?” I interrupted.

  “Listening.” Steph was terse.

  Murphy asked, “What’s going on?”

  Steph gave Murphy a stern look. “You take the video room. We don’t know yet what’s happening, but you know as well as I do that it’s big. Zed, all of the steel doors have been rolled down over the windows and the patio. We’re secure, but you take Russell and check every window and every door. Double-check the garage.”

  “But we haven’t been out there,” I protested.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she told me. “Double-check them all. Do it now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” That grated on me. I hated being told what to do. But she was the boss. And she was right about the double-checking. I ran toward the stairs.

  “When you finish up here, go back down and double-check the boathouse.”

  “Do you want us to bring up the rest of the groceries on our way back?” I asked.

  Steph was surprised. “There’s more?”

  I pointed to the pillowcases we’d laid by the wall. “That much and a little more.”

  “Bring what you can, then come to the roof. That’s where the rest of us will be.” She turned to Murphy. “I’ll send Mandi down once we get upstairs.” Then she looked at all of us. “Stick together. Stay in your buddy pairs until this blows over. Now go.”

  Murphy went to the video room. Steph headed for the elevator, and Russell and I ran up the stairs.

  It took maybe thirty minutes to check all the windows, the garage doors, and the boathouse. It was a big house, but everything was as buttoned up as it could be. We were secure.

  Russell and I got off the elevator on the roof to see Steph and Dalhover leaning on the rail looking east toward the sound. I looked too and saw nothing but trees.

  “It’s all secure,” I told them I as I walked up.

  “Thank you,” said Steph. “Double-checking all of the windows makes us more secure, you understand that right?”

  “Of course,” I answered. “Mistakes are paid in blood.”

  Both Steph and Dalhover gave me an odd look.

  I shrugged, but didn’t think it needed explaining.

  Steph said, “You’re right. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

  “Murphy thinks there’s a battle over at Camp Mabry,” I said, diverting back to the salient issue.

  “Yeah,” Dalhover agreed.

  Steph pointed east over the trees. “We’ve seen flashes from explosions over there. Sergeant Dalhover doesn’t think they’re far away.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “Camp Mabry is only a couple of miles that way. It sounds intense. Do you think that maybe the Army is finally here?”

  Dalhover shook his head and looked back out into the night.

  I didn’t pursue the point. I knew it had been a stupid question to ask.

  “It sounds like it’s slowing down to me. But it doesn’t look like we’re going to learn anything up here that we can’t learn from downstairs,” Steph said. “All we’re doing is exposing ourselves to stray bullets, even if we are out of their effective range. Sergeant, what do you think?

  “Can’t see dick up here,” Dalhover answered.

  Steph pointed toward the door. “Let’s go down to the video room.”

  So we all trooped downstairs.

  When we got there, Murphy and Mandi were sharing cold Pop Tarts. It didn’t take much more than the smell of the sugar and the crinkle of a foil wrapper to tempt the rest of us to join in. After several days of perfectly healthy veggies, the Pop Tarts were delicious.

  Steph spoke first. “Sergeant Dalhover, what are your thoughts?”

  Dalhover spent a minute collecting those thoughts before he answered. “I’d say there’s a pretty good force over at Camp Mabry. National Guard. Maybe some regular Army. Maybe some civilians. Probably hiding out there the same way we were at the hospital.”

  He paused for a long time.

  “With the same result?” I asked.

  Everybody silently looked at me.

  Uncomfortable moments stretched through the silence.

  “Looks that way,” Dalhover finally confirmed.

  Steph asked, “Why do you think there are so many infected?”

  Dalhover shook his head. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s the bunc
h from the hospital. Maybe it’s the bunch from the farm. Maybe the guys just started shooting at some Whites and didn’t stop soon enough, so everyone on this side of town came running. Maybe the Smart Ones found ‘em.”

  “Any other guesses?” Steph asked.

  There weren’t any.

  “Are we in danger?” Mandi asked.

  Murphy put a hand on her shoulder, but didn’t say anything one way or the other.

  “We don’t know, Mandi,” Steph told her, “but we’re going to play it safe. Tonight, we’ll keep watch in pairs.” She looked at me and then Murphy. “You guys have been out doing your job. Sergeant Dalhover and I will take the first watch.”

  While Steph was looking at each of us for questions, I said, “I think we should all stay down here tonight. Close. We can sleep in the recliners in the theater.”

  “I can do that,” Murphy said. “Those things are comfortable.”

  “We should probably keep a bug-out pack close too,” I added. “Just in case.”

  “Hide and run,” Steph confirmed. “That’s our strategy. I agree.”

  “Wait,” Murphy’s tone got everyone’s instant attention. He pointed up at one of the screens.

  Three people were running across the road; two soldiers and a civilian. It took half a second to extrapolate their path through the trees, onto the dirt road, and right at our walls.

  I did a quick check of my rifle, pistol, and machete and was stepping toward the door while asking, “Are we going to bring them in?”

  There was a pause. Dalhover looked at Steph. Murphy looked at me. Mandi looked worried. Russell followed me over to the door.

  “Somebody open the gate when they come to it,” I said. “Don’t let ‘em through the second gate until I’m there.”

  “No,” Steph said, suddenly past her indecision. “Don’t go alone. Mandi, you stay here and watch the monitors. The rest of us will go. Let’s not take any chances.”