Riker's Apocalypse (Book 3): The Precipice

by Chesser, Shawn

  Though most of the little man’s body was shielded by his vehicle, the shooting angle was awful. If he hadn’t already accidentally peppered the hood or windshield with buckshot, or put a slug into the engine compartment, it was only a matter of time before he did.

  Worry crept in as Riker inserted a full magazine into his custom AR’s magwell. As he racked the charging handle back, he hoped he hadn’t jinxed himself earlier with his When’s the last time you saw a cop? statement. Last thing he needed now was to have to justify a bunch of bodies in the street and then explain how all of the Lins’ food and weapons made their way into his truck.

  Gesturing at the liberated AR-15—a Colt LE6920—Lia said, “I’m a pretty good shot.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Riker said. “No doubt about it. But we’re talking people here, not targets.” He trained his carbine’s business end down the street and switched the selector to Fire.

  Voice wavering, Lia said, “I already killed once today. I will do it again if I have to.” She picked up the Colt. Having watched Riker with his AR, she seated a magazine, then pulled the charging handle.

  There was a metallic snik-snik as a round was chambered.

  “It’s semiautomatic,” Riker said. “Safety’s on the left. You have thirty rounds. You’ll know you’re out when the bolt locks open.”

  Lia set the AR on the ground by the Shelby’s right rear tire, got down on her knees, then went prone behind the rifle, snugging the buttstock to her shoulder, trigger finger where it should be: horizontal above the trigger guard.

  Riker said, “Don’t shoot until I give the word.” Regarding Benny, he added, “Be ready to jump in the truck when I say. Should one of us get hit, the other is driving.”

  Benny said nothing. His slack-jawed expression did the talking for him. Even though he’d been shot recently, the life and death seriousness of the zombie apocalypse was just now beginning to dawn on him.

  A couple of seconds after the last shotgun report rolled up the road and echoed about the cul-de-sac, a whole bunch of things happened at once.

  As the EarthRoamer resumed reversing toward the Shelby, a compact car slow-rolled around the corner, then crashed into a tree, its engine still revving. The compact’s windshield was spiderwebbed, the driver unmoving and draped over the steering wheel.

  White dust from the airbag deploying still danced about the driver’s head and shoulders.

  Again Steve-O’s voice came out of the radio: “A pickup truck and a black SUV is chasing us. Shorty says he is going to squeeze Marge past Dolly. He says do not fire until we are out of the way.”

  Copy that, thought Riker, his trigger finger getting itchy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lia looking up at him. As he established eye contact with her, she mouthed, “Marge? Dolly?”

  Riker shook his head. “Long story.”

  Down the street, tires squealed and a jacked-up pickup appeared. It was the same one described by Shorty. As the lifted ride took the corner, it wallowed like a small boat in rough seas. On the pickup’s tail was a shiny black Cadillac Escalade still wearing dealer plates. All of the windows save for the windshield had been given a limo tint. The baby-faced African American behind the wheel was grinning like a madman.

  As soon as the pickup straightened out, the Cadillac accelerated and formed up on its right side.

  Riker looked grimly at the approaching vehicles. “Wait,” he barked. “Do not shoot. Let Shorty get his rig past Dolly’s front fender. I’ll get the pickup. You two focus on the Cadillac. ” He watered down his language on purpose. “Get” and “focus” carried a less-lethal connotation than words like “engage” and “target.” The Cadillac’s deeply tinted windows informed Riker’s decision to assign it to Benny and Lia. Out of sight, out of mind. He only hoped those windows kept the targets hidden until the entire engagement was beyond the point of no return.

  “Understood,” said Benny.

  Lia nodded and flashed a thumbs-up.

  As the vehicles halved the distance to the mouth of the cul-de-sac, Riker’s hopes were dashed when the Escalade’s windows rolled down and people with weapons appeared where the impenetrable black glass had been.

  It was a diverse group. A Hispanic teen rode shotgun. As he emerged, pointing some kind of pistol over the side mirror, the slipstream whipped the tails of the red bandanna atop his head into a frenzy.

  An Asian kid, also likely not old enough to vote, filled up the window behind Bandanna. Though Riker couldn’t be certain, the weapon the kid was bringing to bear appeared to be some kind of pump shotgun.

  Behind the driver, an obese white girl wriggled her upper body through the open window. Her shock of brilliant blue hair whipped by the wind, massive breasts barely constrained by a white tank, the young woman roared something unintelligible, raised a boxy black pistol, and opened fire.

  A bullet crackled over Benny’s head. As he ducked instinctively, a second round snapped the air to his left, grazing his bicep. Wincing in pain, he called to Riker. “You are aware we’re trapped here, right?”

  Riker said nothing. He was focused on keeping his lower body still and the crosshairs parked squarely on the face of the young man at the wheel of the pickup. The wall of wind pushed by the squared-off EarthRoamer hit him in the face a tick before the big vehicle reached the Shelby’s left front fender. Pushing Benny’s warning from his mind, Riker said, “Now,” and pressed the trigger.

  The recoil was minimal as the first round left the muzzle traveling 2,600 feet per second.

  The damage inflicted on the pickup’s windshield didn’t show until Riker was six rounds deep into the thirty-round magazine. When the windshield finally bowed inward, the driver had gone totally limp, his cratered head hinged all the way back and resting on a pillow of his own brains.

  With the driver out of commission, Riker walked his fire toward the passenger, whose face was a mask of concern. Nothing like the movies, he thought as some of his rounds found their mark.

  Sorry, kids.

  Rising over the hollow pops coming from Benny’s Glock was the reassuring sound of Lia’s AR entering the fray. With the pickup out of commission, Riker turned his attention to the speeding Escalade. The result of the Olympian’s outgoing fire, directed solely at the remaining vehicle, was catastrophic and near-instantaneous.

  Turned out the woman was beyond a good shot. Relying on iron sights alone, she had put two rounds through the Escalade’s windshield, striking the driver squarely in the face. Her follow-on shots were just as lethal, hitting Blue Hair center mass. As two distinct crimson splotches blossomed on the young woman’s tank, her upper body snapped backward, and the pistol fell from her lifeless hands. In the next beat, all the extra weight up top—whether God-given or surgically implanted—dragged Blue Hair’s torso groundward.

  A loud bang sounded when the shooter’s upper body slapped the Cadillac’s passenger door. Then, slowly, like sausage leaving the grinder, Blue Hair slithered limply from the SUV’s open window. She hit the road face first and, pushed along by the SUV’s forward momentum, performed a ragged somersault that left her skinned up and prostrate in the middle of the street.

  In the seconds immediately following Riker’s initial attack on the lifted pickup, and Lia’s well-aimed barrage directed at the Cadillac, both vehicles swerved in opposing directions, crossed paths with just inches to spare, then continued on their altered courses, picking up speed until the pickup ran over the curb and collided with a low wall and the luxury SUV rode up and over a Mazda Miata parked curbside thirty feet from the mouth of the cul-de-sac.

  Ignoring the pickup’s death throes—revving engine and spinning tires—Riker swung the AR to the Escalade, settled the crosshairs on the passenger’s red bandanna, and pressed the trigger three times in quick succession. Without pause, he shifted aim to the left a few degrees, targeted the stunned Asian kid, and repeated the process.

  Seeing the Asian kid go limp and the shotgun slip from his hand and clatte
r to the road outside of the Escalade, Riker bellowed, “Cease fire!” Keeping his eyes glued to the static vehicles, he dumped the half-spent magazine from the AR and jammed a full one home.

  To Riker’s right, Lia’s weapon had already gone silent. To his left, still caught up in the heat of the short, albeit one-sided battle, Benny snapped off another pair of poorly aimed rounds at the stalled-out pickup, then lowered the smoking Glock to his side.

  Seeing blood leaking from the inches-long gash in Benny’s jacket sleeve, Riker waved to get his attention. “How bad is it?”

  Benny shrugged. “Hurts like a mofo. But nowhere near as bad as the through-and-through.”

  Appearing seemingly out of nowhere, Shorty filled the gap between Riker and Benny. Wide smile on his face, he said, “So much for the General Custer moment I was envisioning.”

  Riker was surprised, too. He’d had an idea in his head, a picture he’d built up of what the bad guys ought to look like. These kids were the farthest from that picture. No studded leather. No mohawks. They weren’t meth-mouth dirtbags missing all their teeth.

  It suddenly dawned on Riker that he had just participated in the wholesale slaughter of the Breakfast Club. And it had him feeling sick to his stomach.

  Averting his eyes from the carnage, he said, “Out by the road. Did they really shoot at you first?”

  A retching sound rose up from the Shelby’s passenger side. Benny craned and made a move to investigate.

  Riker extended his arm, barring Benny’s passage. “It’s Lia,” he said. “She just killed two people. Best leave her be for a moment."

  Benny clamped down hard on the superficial wound and cast a long stare down the road.

  Shorty said, “With God as my witness, they shot first.” He plucked some shotgun shells from a pocket and started feeding them into the Shockwave.

  On the road beside the parked EarthRoamer, door just starting to swing shut behind him, Steve-O said, “Shorty is right, Lee. The driver pulled a Greedo.”

  The retching had ceased, but Riker could see that Lia was still prone behind the rifle, her face buried in the crook of one elbow. Regarding Steve-O, he asked, “Who’s Greedo?”

  Planting his hands on his hips, Steve-O walked Riker through a bit of Star Wars lore, explaining that in the Mos Eisley cantina, when the audience first meets Han Solo, he survives a near-miss blaster shot directed at him by an interstellar bounty hunter by the name of Greedo.

  Hearing this, Shorty said, “Oh hell no, buddy. I saw Star Wars in the theater. Han shot first.”

  “Not in the Star Wars I saw,” Steve-O countered.

  Finished puking for the moment, Lia rose up from behind the Shelby. Wiping a hand across her mouth, she said, “Who gives a shit who shot first! Shouldn’t we be getting the hell out of here?”

  Shorty said, “I like the way Carlos Hathcock thinks.” He regarded Lia. “Where the hell did you learn to shoot like that? Wow! You did about the same damage as Big Guy here.” Smiling, he hooked a thumb at Riker. “And you used half the ammo Lee did. Great return on investment if I may say so myself.”

  Riker made a mental note to have Shorty explain the Hathcock statement if they got away from this scene without all going to jail. Looking to Benny and Steve-O, he said, “Batten down the hatches and get ready to roll. I’ll be right back.”

  Incredulous, Lia said, “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to go and make sure nobody is suffering.” He paused and stared at her for a second. “Are you going to be OK?”

  Lia stared past Riker. A gun smoke haze hung over the cul-de-sac. After a half-beat, she nodded, her eyes never leaving the Escalade.

  Riker said, “What I’m about to do is necessary. While we didn’t start this, I feel obligated to finish it. Plus, if one or more of them is infected, I can’t in good conscience let them reanimate.” He scanned the immobile vehicles and the road behind them. Only the drivers, Red Bandanna, and Blue Hair were visible. After all of the intense action, the silence was deafening. Turning back to Lia, he said, “You’re welcome to come with me.”

  The sudden adrenaline dump to Lia’s system had her entire body shaking. She planted her hands on her knees and wagged her head side to side. “I’ve seen and done enough today to last me ten lifetimes. I’m staying right here.”

  Riker said nothing. Part of him wanted to console her. Stretch out his arms and wrap her up and draw her close to him. But he knew it wasn’t his place. Probably never would be. Such was his luck. So he about-faced and strode down the street, AR at the ready position, stomach roiling at the prospect of having to dole out mercy shots.

  By the time Riker reached a spot in the road where he could see inside both vehicles, he was feeling the first acidic tang of bile tickling the back of his throat. Seeing that nobody was left alive in either vehicle did nothing to relieve the rising tide of nausea.

  Jaw clenched, Riker left the grisly scene and trudged on. When he finally reached Blue Hair and discovered she no longer had a pulse, he whispered, “Why couldn’t you all have just left us the hell alone?”

  He let his gaze roam the scene. It was only when he was back to staring at the lifeless corpse with the vibrant shock of blue hair that he realized he had just lost another small piece of his humanity and the dam was about to break.

  Hot tears streaming down his cheeks, Riker planted his hands on his knees and vomited until his stomach was empty.

  Chapter 33

  Trinity House

  Rose was standing in the kitchen, eyes glued to the monitor, one hand worrying a damp dishrag. In one of the monitor’s multiple panes, a newly arrived zombie stood in the center of the cul-de-sac, lips drawn over yellowed teeth, jaw constantly moving. Like a big cat searching for prey, it panned its head left and right and back again.

  “Biters can’t smell, right?”

  Tara seated a fresh magazine in her Glock, chambered a round, and holstered it. Regarding Rose, she said, “Huh?”

  “The dead … can they smell us?”

  “Never gave it much thought,” Tara replied. “I’ve always acted on the assumption that they hunt by sight and sound.”

  Rose pointed to a pane on the monitor. She said, “Looks like this one is sniffing the air.”

  Tara watched the thing for a beat or two. Then, turning so she faced the rear of the house, she said, “You hear that?”

  Startled, Rose followed suit, whipping around and craning her neck. With a slight rearward tilt to her head, listening hard, she said, “I don’t hear it.” She took a step toward the hallway, where Dozer was lounging on the wood floor.

  Tara said, “I was just testing a theory.”

  Rose returned to the kitchen wearing a quizzical look.

  “Care to share?”

  Pocketing a bottled water, Tara said, “You looked just like that thing on the monitor.”

  Brows lifting, Rose said, “I don’t get it.”

  “When you were trying to hear what I pretended to hear, your body language mirrored that thing on the monitor.”

  Rose shifted her attention to the monitor.

  The “thing” had moved a few steps closer toward the driveway gates.

  “Keep watching,” Tara advised.

  “What are you planning? You’re not going out the front door, are you?”

  “Just watch.” Tara swiped a pitcher off the kitchen counter, filled it to the top with water from the sink faucet, then padded off toward the front door.

  Rose did as she was told, but first, she quickly walked her gaze over the other eight panes. Nothing was moving around the rest of the perimeter. The camera focused on the perimeter wall door was broadcasting a macabre scene. The zombies Tara had put down earlier were still there, sprawled out in various death poses. From the looks of it, one of them—a woman in her twenties—was nearly headless. Next to the woman, lying flat on its back, an arm bent to a peculiar angle, was a kid-sized zombie. It, too, had been shot in the head. Clumps of what could only be
brain tissue lay in a pile beside its ruptured skull.

  The third zombie had fallen close to the wall. Due to the camera angle, all that was visible were its lower extremities. Its feet were bare, the pads worn to the bone. On one ankle, Rose saw a deep wound oozing some kind of fluid.

  Zombie number four looked fairly fresh. If there wasn’t the bullet wound on its forehead, it would appear as if he were taking a nap alongside a bunch of dead bodies. While Rose had heard the gunfire that caused this scene, she had averted her eyes from the monitor at the time.

  Wishing she hadn’t broken down and looked now, she focused on the zombie near the front gate.

  Calling out from the direction of the foyer, Tara asked, “You watching?”

  “Yes,” Rose called back. What are you trying to prove? she thought, when a single gunshot-like bang of a door slamming had her nearly leaping out of her skin. Coinciding with the sudden noise, the zombie turned in the general direction of the front door, repeated the head-tilt thing, bared its teeth, then resumed the back and forth pan of its head.

  Still watching the monitor, Rose saw Tara creep the length of the curved path connecting the front door to the circular parking pad. She flicked her eyes between panes and noticed nothing new in the zombie’s behavior.

  Tara didn’t stop at the gate. Instead, she made her way to the pair of rolling bins pushed up against the garage. She gingerly lifted the lid to the bin dedicated for garbage, removed the bloody towels she had used to clean the pavers of Raul and Benny’s blood, then threw them on the ground by her feet.

  After emptying the pitcher on the towels, Tara scooped them off the wet pavers and lugged them to the wall.

  A lightbulb went off in Rose’s head. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “Pretty damn smart.” She watched Tara walk around the house. It was kind of strange how she jumped from pane to pane, blipping from one corner to another, seemingly at random, until she was in the back, by the perimeter wall door, and lifting the ladder off the ground.