Horowitz and Brown had caught up and scanned the surrounding concourse. “I don’t like it,” Horowitz said. “They’ll hear us.”
“Then let’s get them out and move.” Cyrus glanced at his watch. It was nearly four. “Go inside and take cover,” Cyrus said to the people in the office, and then stepped back and raised his AR-15.
“No, dude,” Brown said. “That’s too messy. Let me do it.”
He pulled a hand grenade from a jacket pocket. “Concussion grenade, not a frag. So you don’t have to worry as much about shrapnel. But you might want to get your ass around the corner there.”
Cyrus and Horowitz retreated to safety, bracing behind a column. “If there are any zombies in the place, this will bring them out,” Horowitz said.
Even though he was expecting it, the explosion stunned Cyrus and the report thundered through the entire terminal. By the time he returned to the storefront, Brown was pushing aside the mangled metal near the lock. People emerged from the shop’s cramped office like sleepwalkers fleeing a bad dream.
“Get them to the Humvee,” Cyrus told the soldiers. “I’m going to make a final sweep.”
“Check that,” Horowitz said, pointing his flashlight up the concourse.
Dim shapes moved in the murk just beyond the reach of the beam. Feet shuffled on the tiled floor.
“We better open up,” Brown said, dropping into firing position. “Sounds like a metric fuck-ton of deaders.”
“Hold on,” Cyrus said.
The first figure staggered into the beam. Cyrus recognized him. Ted Weatherby, the reverend’s personal pilot. More people came forward, drawn by the flashlight and commotion.
One of them was Sarah Beth Ingram.
CHAPTER FIVE
Meg awoke before the others, taking advantage of the privacy to remove her shirt and wash herself using water from the toilet tank.
They’d taken turns using the bathroom, and miraculously they’d all resisted their instinct to flush. She was grateful for the preserved water but not the smell. Meg avoided breathing through her nose as she swabbed her skin, finishing up by soaping her hands. She certainly wasn’t worried about her appearance, but she knew that bacteria could be just as deadly as a virus.
In the faint light of dawn through the window, she studied her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She barely recognized herself.
“Ian, wherever you are, I hope you can still love me like this.”
She couldn’t afford to dwell on her missing husband, or her dead daughter, for that matter. Much of her initial research on the virus that caused the Klondike Flu was stored on her Google Drive. She could only hope that the IT experts at BioGenix had restored enough of their computer capacity for her to retrieve the data. No doubt they were already studying the virus and looking for ways to suppress it. Meg was under no illusion that she could offer any breakthrough insights, but she was driven to tackle the problem with all her heart and mind.
Even if that meant shutting off the part of her heart that had once been filled with family.
She checked on Jacob, who was sound asleep in the bed they’d shared. When she went downstairs, she found Sonia and Rocky going over the map spread across the coffee table in the living room. Rocky sipped from a cup of steaming coffee. The rich aroma almost made Meg’s head swim.
“Where’d you get that?” she asked.
“Le Café de Sydney,” Sydney said in a mangled French accent. She came from the kitchen with a metal percolator pot and some ceramic mugs that she placed beside the map. “From some camping gear I found in the hall closet.”
“Do I smell eggs?”
“There was a propane burner. The eggs were in the fridge. Snacks on the dining room table. Help yourself.”
“This is better than room service,” Meg said.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat on the sofa beside Rocky. He used the width of his thumb to measure the distance on the map.
He tapped the X Meg had drawn on the map on the east side of Research Triangle Park. “If BioGenix is here, and we’re somewhere around here, then we’ve got about twenty miles to go.”
“If we’re going on foot, we can cross Umstead State Park and go past the airport,” Sonia said. “If we want to try the roads, then Interstate 40 is best.”
“I don’t trust the interstate,” Rocky said. “Our intel was that much of it is jammed. We maybe could get around the worst of it using a four-wheel drive to navigate the shoulders, but I’d imagine parts of it are impassable.”
“We could take the long way and use Highway 70,” Meg said. “But that’s the same problem, plus it could take us an extra day or two.”
“Well, if we wanted to split up, Hannah could take you on the motorcycle,” Sonia said to Meg.
“No. I’m not ever leaving Jacob. You guys can do what you want, but I’m not losing anybody else.”
“Easy,” Rocky said. “We signed up for this. We’re a team.”
“Sorry I lost my temper,” Meg said. “I guess we’re all a little wired. And I know you guys have missing loved ones, too.”
Sonia reached over from her chair and touched Meg’s knee. “That’s why we need to solve this thing and end it. And if we can help do that, it’s worth the fight.”
“Where’s Arjun and Hannah?”
“Arjun’s outside on sentry duty and Hannah’s exploring some other houses. That woman just can’t sit still for five minutes.”
“If we could all ride motorcycles, we’d be there by noon,” Meg said. “But I can barely operate a bicycle.”
“We can keep on like we have been,” Rocky said. “Send Hannah up ahead to scout while we hoof it. And if we find a good ride, we’ll hop it and take it as far as we can.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sydney said. “These sandals are giving me blisters.”
“Maybe you should look for some boots or sneakers,” Sonia said.
“I’d feel icky wearing a dead person’s shoes.”
“But you have no problem eating their food?”
Sydney grinned. “You’ve got a point.”
“I’ll wake up Jacob and meet you at the table,” Meg said.
“I’ll take over for Arjun,” Rocky said, picking up his field pack.
The sun was all the way over the horizon by the time they were packed and ready to leave. The storm had passed but great gray rags of clouds still stretched overhead, shredding and then recombining in the breeze. The earth was saturated and the temperature had dropped ten degrees, unseasonably chilly for April.
Hannah had found a hunting rifle and a box of bullets in a neighboring house, and Arjun eagerly volunteered to carry it. Rocky showed him how the bolt action worked and how to operate the safety, as well as aiming by use of the iron sights. Sonia and Jacob were now the only ones without firearms, and Sonia was happy with the knife Rocky had given her. Meg wasn’t quite ready for Jacob to learn the art of murder.
They set out heading northwest, using street signs to lead them to Umstead Park. Meg reasoned that the park would be relatively free of zombies, since there would be no people to eat. They spotted a lone deader shortly after they embarked, but Hannah led it away when it chased the noise of her Kawasaki. By the time she rejoined them, they’d already covered several miles.
Along the way they encountered a number of bodies, some of them relatively fresh. Meg couldn’t tell how many had died from the virus itself and how many had been killed by deaders. One thing was certain, the virus had a multiplier effect by virtue of being spread via bites. She imagined the CDC and other research centers were compiling census data and epidemiological surveys, but no doubt they were working with limited resources. Despite her determination and firm belief in science, she was afraid they were all flying blind.
Some of the land and buildings were churned up by bombing runs made before the storms. The military in its obsessive desire to establish boundaries had blasted large portions of the suburbs to ruins. The roads were pocked with
potholes and debris, inhibiting vehicular traffic. The damage eased as they drew nearer to the park, probably because of a lack of targets.
They came to a service station that had caught fire, a few threads of smoke still rising from the ruins. A number of vehicles were parked outside the garage area and Rocky checked them for keys. He hit pay dirt with a Silverado pickup truck with a camper shell and started it with a deep rumbling of its engine. Meg and Sonia explored the camper and found two rumpled sleeping bags and a scattering of groceries inside.
“Hold it,” somebody behind them said, and Meg turned to find a double-barreled shotgun pointed at her stomach.
She raised her arms in surrender and Sonia did the same. The man sported a long, stringy beard and a tangle of hair beneath a leather bushman’s hat. His eyes were red and darted wildly around at the rest of the group, which was waiting at the intersection. He was half hidden by the kerosene pump.
“We’re friends,” Meg said.
“Sure you are. I saw your weapons.”
“Those are for killing deaders,” Sonia said. “Seen any around?”
“A few. And I don’t need you folks around here stirring up any more. Jets have already bombed us back to hell because of them.”
“We’re just passing through,” Meg said. “We were looking for a ride.”
“Well, you can’t have that one.”
Rocky must’ve witnessed the confrontation in the side mirror, because he killed the engine. He stayed inside the cab, and Meg realized he was probably rearranging himself to target the man with his M16. She didn’t like having a gun pointed at her, but she didn’t want the man to die. He was as scared as they were.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Sonia said to the man. “We’ve got you outnumbered.”
“Maybe you do and maybe you don’t,” the man said. “You think I’m alone? For all you know, we’ve got twenty guns aimed at you right this second.”
Meg glanced at Arjun, who was maybe seventy or eighty yards away, waiting with Jacob and Hannah. They were too far away to hear the discussion, but Arjun nervously shifted the rifle around. Meg was afraid Arjun would react under the delusion of playing some kind of hero. She had to defuse this situation fast.
“We don’t want your stuff,” Meg said. “We’ve got more than we can carry already, and there are plenty of cars around.”
“If you’ve got so much, then I guess you don’t mind sharing,” the man said. He nodded to Sonia. “Put down your pack, and you”—he motioned his shotgun at Meg— “throw down that handbag and the Glock in your waistband.”
“What’s the effective range of that shotgun?” Sonia asked. “Thirty yards at most? We’ve got rifles that can knock you down at a hundred or more. You might get the two of us, but you’re going down.”
“Clem,” a woman’s voice called from behind a parked Toyota. “Don’t risk it.”
“Why the hell not?” the man answered without turning. “Everything’s a risk these days.”
“Your reasoning is flawed,” Sonia said. “You’ve got a scarcity mindset, but do some math.”
Clem glowered, his bushy eyebrows wriggling like electrified caterpillars. “What the fuck?”
“Population’s probably been reduced by, what, eighty to ninety percent? That means there’s ten times more to go around for the survivors. That’s why we’re willing to give you some of our stuff in exchange for not having to kill you.”
“Clem!” the unseen woman shrieked.
“Then what’s the problem?” Clem said. “Put down your stuff and your guns and go.” He raised his voice so the others could hear. “That means you, too, if you don’t want your friends turned into potted meat.”
The shot, the shattering of glass, and Clem’s grunt of surprise seemed to occur simultaneously. He swayed bug-eyed for a moment as the red dot in the center of his forehead expanded into a weeping wound. He folded up as he dropped to the ground, the shotgun clacking across the tarmac. The woman behind the Toyota rushed from concealment, wailing and waving her arms. She collapsed next to Clem, cradling his head and moaning his name over and over.
Meg pulled out her Glock and approached cautiously. The woman was thin and scab-faced, and her lack of hygiene wasn’t a recent development. “This didn’t have to happen.”
The woman looked up, tears making streaks in her dirty face. “He wasn’t going to hurt nobody.”
Meg felt sorry for her. But they’d all suffered losses. Some just deserved it more than others did.
“Come on,” Sonia said, pulling Meg away.
Rocky stood by the driver’s-side door of the truck, his M16 pointed at the ground. The bed of the truck was filled with shards of glass. Rocky’s shot from the cab had blown out the rear windshield and the camper shell’s windshield and still hit its target dead center.
Hannah rumbled up on her motorcycle and Arjun and Jacob soon joined them. “We’re taking the truck,” Rocky said.
Meg and Sonia slid the sleeping bags from the truck bed, along with the plastic sacks of groceries. They piled the woman’s possessions on the ground. She gave them a disconsolate stare, contemplating a future alone.
“Did you have to kill him?” Arjun asked Rocky.
“No. But he didn’t have to threaten us, either.”
“You don’t seem too torn up about it.”
“I’ve killed before.”
“But he was a civilian.”
“This guy stopped being a civilian when he pointed a gun.”
“At least you got him clean,” Jacob said, with some admiration. “He’s deadest for good.”
“I didn’t want to have to waste another round if he came back,” Rocky said. “Let’s load up and get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER SIX
If you wanted to shoot a lot of people, it was best to be in a high place.
Lee Harvey Oswald only killed one person from a sixth-floor window, but he could’ve bagged plenty more if his handlers had let him. Charles Whitman slaughtered eleven from an observation deck at the University of Texas atop the twenty-seventh floor. The maniac who shot up the concert in Las Vegas—picking the wrong era to be even remotely memorable for mass murder—set the record with fifty-eight kills from the thirty-second floor of a hotel.
For killing, the higher the better.
Bill Flanagan was in a church belfry only forty feet above the ground, so his expectations were modest. He wasn’t even sure his targets counted as “people.” They were already dead, for one thing. The radio even called them “deaders,” which Bill thought was a dumb name until he heard a scientist describing them as “re-animated postmortem entities,” which was even dumber
The building was a quarter of a mile from his house. He’d never attended services at the little white Episcopalian church, but he lived close enough to hear the singing on Sunday mornings. Bill had no particular religious leanings, but he didn’t mind the music, and he figured regular services kept a few people out of trouble. Now Bill had a much stronger opinion about God—the bastard was either a sadist or had one hell of a sense of humor.
He sighted through the Leupold scope mounted on his Winchester .30-30. The targets were moving slowly enough that he could’ve pegged them without the scope, but he’d wasted a box of rounds before figuring out you had to hit them in the head. Since that discovery, he’d taken pride in knocking them down for good on the first shot.
Pride was one of the seven deadly sins, but at age sixty-two, he’d pretty much burned through all seven and was making a victory lap. Besides, he was in a church, so that protected him from sin, didn’t it?
Bill targeted a frumpy-looking woman in a white sweater and floral dress. She must’ve been dolled up for Easter when she turned. She shambled across the lawn with her quivering arms held before her, oblivious of the corpses around her. Maybe some instinct was pulling her toward the sanctuary of the church, or maybe she got a whiff of Bill’s flesh. He hadn’t showered in a few days, which he could’ve
chalked off to the circumstances, but in truth he wasn’t much for personal hygiene.
He squeezed off his last round and watched her skull explode in the crosshairs of the scope. He racked the lever and the smoking shell kicked out of the chamber, rattling among the others on the wooden floor of the belfry. The bell had been removed some years before due to a local noise ordinance that imposed a maximum allowable decibel limit. That was fine with Bill—he had plenty of room to maneuver and a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the church property.
The graveyard to the west was a mess, the ground all torn up and plastic flowers and wreaths scattered amid the red mud. Bill wondered if it had been hit by a bomb, but instead of a single impact crater, there were dozens. One of those tornadoes could’ve touched down, too, but the church was relatively unscathed and only a few of the grave markers had tumbled over. Considering the scale of the recent destruction, maybe it was just the way things were now, but something about the plowed-up earth made Bill uneasy.
Beyond the hedged borders, several pillars of smoke rose from the adjoining town of Beckworth. A siren whooped and faded in the distance, and an occasional scream punctuated the spring morning. As Bill reloaded, he conducted a quick body count. He was well ahead of Oswald but still trailing Whitman.
Another figure came out of the trees that lined the parking lot, and Bill rested the Winchester’s muzzle on the ledge to steady his aim. But this one was moving too fast for an easy bead. It was a kid, with tangled and floppy hair, black T-shirt and baggy jeans that made it impossible to tell the gender.
Bill wasn’t as cynical about modern youth as many of his fellow Baby Boomers. After all, Bill’s generation had soaked up the post-war economic growth, turned selfish and given itself massive tax cuts as a loan against the future, and refused to accept the slightest sense of responsibility or any obligation to those that followed. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if Boomers were to blame for this shitshow happening right now.
The kid tripped and stumbled, squealing in pain and panic. The deaders made deep groaning noises, nothing like this kid. She was alive.
Revelation: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller (Arize Book 2) Page 4
