Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City (11 page)

“Here comes another one,” Matt said and Luke turned to see a zombie, a female one with what looked to have once been blond hair, came crawling out of one of the warehouses. Its legs were twisted and broken below the knees and Luke wondered what the hell it had been through. The zombie pulled itself along the concrete, nails broken and bleeding.

“My turn,” Pete said and raised his MP5. Luke remembered researching that model of machine gun one time on the internet, back when there was such a thing. They had been two thousand dollars apiece.
And now the choice of teenage simpletons in Zombie Town, U.S.A.
, Luke thought.
Shit, maybe I’m the one who’s going insane.

Pete let fire and hit everything but the zombie. “Damn, boy,” Ted said. “You got to do better than that!” Luke did not care to let Ted drag out the execution and walked as close to the zombie as he dared. As it crawled toward him, he aimed his shotgun at its head.

“Fire in the hole,” he said and pulled the trigger. The zombie’s head exploded and its body slumped to the ground.

“Damn!” Ted yelled. “You see that shit?” Pete giggled at the display of violence.

“Enough screwing around,” Matt said. “There will be plenty of time for this shit later.” Matt told Ted to go find a wheelbarrow and the redneck came back with an industrial hand cart. They loaded up the bodies and Pete helped Ted dump them off the marina and into the water.

“I wonder if the fish will eat them,” Ted wondered out loud. Then he laughed a little chuckle that made Luke’s skin crawl. Trying to ignore the psycho among them, Luke turned to Matt.

“What’s next?” Luke asked.

“A couple things,” Matt said. “The way I figure. We have two priorities. We need transportation and a new stash of supplies.”

“If we don’t have food and water,” Luke said. “We won’t be needing transportation.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Matt said and looked around for Ted and Pete who were pissing into the water. “Hey! Get over here, you two dumb shits.”

Ted whispered something to Pete and got him giggling again before they came over like two kids caught causing trouble. “What’s up, Boss?” Ted asked.

“Let's get the ambush set up,” he said. “No sense risking our necks looking for supplies when it can come right to us.” Matt pointed at the second floor of the first warehouse. “Ted, I want you up there. With that bridge out, people will be looking for alternate routes across the water. All we have to do is open the gate here and let people drive on in. Anyone dumb enough to come along, light them up.”

“I like it,” Ted said.

I’m sure you do
, Luke thought and lit a cigarette.

TASHA

Tasha lugged her new gear out of the bunker and felt ridiculous buried under all of the weapons and equipment Cleveland had issued her. Bent over from the weight, she felt like a turtle and she was still hungry.
A hungry turtle
, she thought.
Nice image
.

Wind from over the Puget Sound whipped around the bunker and she looked out over the coast. Before the apocalypse, Broken Top’s main draw was the view. On a good day, a person could look out over the islands in the Sound and enjoy watching the ocean. Today was not one of those days. It was windy and cold and Tasha could only see tall dark clouds rolling in. “Going to be one hell of a storm,” Cleveland said, following her gaze.

“I think you’re right,” Tasha replied and adjusted her helmet. “This chinstrap still isn’t right.”

“Yeah, that’s my fault,” Cleveland said and stood in front of her. She saw him hesitate before he reached up near her ear and adjusted the chin strap to tighten it. “How’s that?”

Tasha shook her head from side to side and the helmet held fast. “Better,” she said. “Thanks.”

Cleveland blushed and turned away. Tasha wondered how much experience the soldier had with girls. Not much from the way he was acting around her. She decided that as young as he looked, he probably joined the service as soon as the apocalypse started. She wondered if he had even graduated from high school and was considering asking him when they were interrupted.

“Cleveland!” Williams yelled, stepping out of the radio tent.

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“Need you on the radio. Pronto.” He looked at Tasha, sizing her up. “Got everything you need?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tasha replied. “I think so.”

Williams frowned and looked at Cleveland. “No flak vest?”

“Sorry, Sergeant,” Cleveland replied. “I went through the supplies, but we don’t have an extra vest that is small enough to fit.”

“It’s okay,” Tasha said. She already felt weighed down and could not imagine wearing anything else. Cleveland had put together an L.B.E., which he told her stood for ‘Load Bearing Equipment’ and rigged it with a fancy military flashlight, two water canteens, a gas mask, and pouches for extra ammunition. He had also set her up with a radio the same way the rest of them had theirs. The radio itself was on her belt and the hand mic was up on her shoulder where all she had to do was reach up and press the actuator. Cleveland had clearly enjoyed showing off all the toys. Tasha thought it was overkill but she did not think she was in much of a position to complain.

Williams nodded. “Okay, we do what we can with what we have. Cleveland, move your ass. I said to get back on the radio. If anything comes in over the comm, I want to know.”

“Can’t Tanner cover it?” Cleveland asked with a frown.

Williams glared at Cleveland. “Tanner doesn’t know jack shit on how to run the radio,” Williams said. “Now get your ass in the tent!”

“Got it,” Cleveland said and sprinted off.

“Tanner!” Williams shouted.

Tanner came running from around a bunker. He slipped in the mud again and went down on one knee. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said as he sprang back up and wiped the mud off his pants.

“What’s wrong with you?” Williams asked.

“Two left feet, Sergeant!” Tanner yelled. “Won’t happen again.”

“Take it down a notch, Private,” Williams said. “I want you to take care of our new friend here. Give her the tour. I want everyone on the same page at all times.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Tanner said. Apparently satisfied Tasha was in good hands, Williams left the two of them and walked away towards one of the bunkers. Tasha’s stomach growled loudly. She was hungry and thought of the remaining cans of cat food in her backpack still halfway down the hill.
What would I do if I even had one?
she thought.
Crack it open and start eating? Everyone would think I’m insane.
Still, Tasha was unsure if she should ask for something to eat.
Better to be rude than to stand here and starve to death
. “I don’t suppose you have something to eat?” she finally asked.

“What? Yeah,” Tanner said. “You hungry?”

“Starving,” she said.

“You should have said something,” Tanner replied and smiled. “We got a crap ton of MREs. Come with me.” Tanner lead Tasha into yet another bunker and down a short hall to what looked to be some kind of dining hall where there were more military crates and boxes. Two crates were already open and contained large brown plastic packets with ‘MRE: Meal Ready to Eat’ stamped on the side.

“What kind you want?” Tanner asked.

“I, uh … I don’t know,” Tasha replied.
Not liver or seafood, for sure.
“What would you recommend?”

Tanner held up one of the MREs for Tasha to see. “Well, one of my favorites is
pork with rice in barbecue sauce
.”

“Um,” Tasha said.

“It’s good,” Tanner replied and read from the label. “It’s got ground pork, tomato paste, water, rice, brown sugar … “

“Anything with peanut butter?” Tasha asked.

“Peanut butter, we have,” Tanner said and dug into a large black garbage bag they had on a shelf. Tasha saw it was stock full of peanut butter packets.

Tanner pulled out a handful of the small gray packets. They were all identical to the one that Williams had been eating from earlier. “We collect these,” he said. “Most of us are pretty sick of peanut butter.” Tasha knew she was grinning like a kid at Christmas, but she didn’t care. She dug into the bag and stuffed two handfuls of peanut butter packets into her cargo pockets.

“I’ve been living on … well, let's just say … I’ve missed real food,” she said.

“No problem,” Tanner said. “Take as much as you want.”

Tasha looked at him to see if he was joking. She was pretty sure he wasn’t, so she grabbed two more handfuls and put them in her pockets with the rest.

Tanner smiled at her. “Come on,” he said. “I need to show you the mountain top before Williams comes back and chews our asses for standing around.”

While Tasha tore into a peanut butter packet, Tanner walked her around the base. He pointed out the trenches, the sandbags, the barbed wire, which he called “concertina wire,” and the various defenses set up on the road. “A couple times things have gotten pretty out of hand up here,” he said. “Early on, when we didn't know any better, we had these two vegetables find their way up here and we blasted them to shit. Everybody unloaded on them. But the noise we made? Shit, about twenty minutes later a whole bunch more vegetables came running up the road ... which we then had to kill. It took us awhile to figure out our shooting was what was drawing them. Williams had us all go to silenced weapons after that.”

“So gunfire draws them then?” Tasha asked.

“Seems to,” Tanner said. “That’s not the worst though. Have you seen how they react to helicopters?”

Tasha nodded. “They go crazy.”

“Right. Well we didn’t know that early on either. Command sent a chopper up here to check on us this one time and it brought a hundred vegetables with it. We were able to hold them off for a couple hours, but the more noise we made blowing shit up, the worse the vegetables got. We finally had to barricade ourselves in the garage and wait for backup. It really sucked.“

“You have a garage?” Tasha asked through a mouthful of peanut butter

“Yeah, for real,” Tanner said. “I’ll show you later. It’s on the backside of the base. It’s where we keep our Humvee.”

“Humvee?”

“High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle,” Tanner said. “We don’t use it much. There is nowhere to drive up here and we only have the one road. But if we ever need to drive out of here … although the road down isn’t so great.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Tasha said.

“Yeah, yeah I bet you did,” Tanner continued, smiling. “Anyhow, we just locked ourselves in the garage for a couple hours until more helicopters came along and got smart enough to draw the vegetables off. Those stupid zombies went and chased those choppers right over the side of the mountain.” Tanner stopped and pushed up the front of his helmet with his finger. “Thinking about it now, that wasn’t really a bad outcome. I should ask Williams why we don’t draw them up here more often. We took out a whole bunch of them that day.”

“How about you wait until I’m out of here,” Tasha said. They stood at the edge of one of the trenches. “So, what’s up with all the trenches?”

Tanner laughed. “Depends on who you ask. Cleveland and I are pretty sure we dug them just so Williams had something for us to do these last couple months, but he says they are for defense. They do work pretty well though,” he said. “The vegetables are not the smartest creatures to roam the earth.”

“Is that why you call them vegetables?” Tasha asked.

“Yeah,” Tanner said. “We figure they are all brain dead. Anyhow, we use these trenches as our main defense on the mountain. We have a whole series of them because, like I was saying, sometimes the vegetables wander their way up here and when they do, we don’t want them surprising anyone. So, we dug these trenches and sometimes they fall in and can’t figure out how to get out.” He looked across the mountain top. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s walk the lower perimeter and see if we caught anything.”

They walked around the base again, this time lower and looked through a different series of trenches. Tasha ate peanut butter and Tanner talked. “Sergeant Williams is the guy in charge up here,” Tanner said. “And he is a big believer in these trenches. He also believes in keeping what he likes to call ‘strict military discipline’. He’s ex-regular Army and now running our Guard unit, so he keeps the rest of us on a pretty tight schedule. Just like the regular military, we wake up early, get into formation for roll call, do our physical training, and follow military procedure … every military procedure.”

“Why?” Tasha asked. “Aren’t you guys all alone up here?”

Tanner paused and looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was nearby. “Williams says he does this to keep the squad focused and on task, but I think it’s because he’s a tight ass.” Tasha smiled. “Still,” Tanner continued. “I can’t argue with the value of the trenches, they have caught more than their share of vegetables. Williams has been talking of expanding and widening the main trench to where we could use it as a running track around the top of the mountain. I don’t particularly care for the extra work, but then again, it would be something to do.” They finished the loop around the lower perimeter and began walking back toward the top. Tasha got the impression that Tanner was disappointed they had not found any zombies.

“Better luck next time?” she asked.

“Ha!” Tanner laughed. “Maybe. I have to admit, I didn’t really expect to find anything. When there is one in the trench, they usually make a pretty good racket. I tell you what though, when we do find one, we have to put them down quick before they alert any other vegetables in the area. I’m not interested in trying to take on another swarm of them. Not with just the four of us. Well, five now that you’re here.”

Tasha took a drink from her canteen to wash down the peanut butter. The idea of facing a swarm of creepers did not interest her either. “So, why is there only the four of you anyway? ”

“Well,” Tanner said, lowering his voice. Tasha thought he was trying to sound like Williams. “Originally we were deployed up here to act as lookouts. ‘Observe and Report’ is the official order. I guess since we weren’t regular Army, they thought we should stay off the front lines. Guess they screwed that up, we’ve seen plenty of action.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘not regular Army’? What are you?” Tasha asked.

“We’re National Guard! Seattle’s front line!”

“Okay,” Tasha said, starting to understand why everyone looked so young. “So, you’re pretty new to this.”

“I went to boot camp last summer,” he said. “But you’re right, only Williams has seen real combat. Other than fighting vegetables I mean.”

Still a lot more than I’ve done,
Tasha thought. “So what do you do up here then?”

“Honestly?” he asked, his voice back to normal. “Not a whole hell of a lot. Mostly just keeping an eye on the city below and report anything weird back to Command over on Mercer Island. That and dig trenches, saw down trees, and fill sandbags.”

“How long will you be stationed up here?” Tasha asked.

“As long as it takes,” Tanner said. ”Command says the vegetables are slowly starving themselves out and up here we have enough supplies to last us years. Plus, we have our Humvee to use if there is an emergency or something. Not to mention, we have the best view of the apocalypse anyone could ask for.”

Tasha looked around. The top of the mountain had once been lush with evergreen trees. Now they were all cut down to stumps. “Did you guys saw down all of these trees?” she asked.

“Yeah. To give us better lines of sight. We found out real quick that we couldn’t chop down the trees because the thumping of the axes against the wood would bring the vegetables like worms to the surface during a rainstorm. And you can forget using chain saws.”