Allegiance (6 page)

God, how Brook missed
the woman. She pulled Raven close to her hip, giving her a half hug on the
move. The action drew a look from Raven that said,
Mom, you’re weird
.

Making a concerted
effort to hide her emotion as they finally left the hall, Brook looked toward
the Rocky Mountains and covertly erased the forming tears.

Outbreak - Day 15

Yoder, Colorado

After talking to Daymon
for a couple of minutes and hearing the encouraging news about his girlfriend,
Heidi, Cade spent a few moments contemplating his new reality.

Try as he might, he
still found it hard to fathom how suddenly and completely his country had
fallen to the dead. He considered that before the onset of the Omega virus
there had been upwards of two hundred and fifty million firearms in the United
States, and at least half as many citizens ready, willing, and able to use
them. That, combined with the vast numbers of people who tuned in to watch
prepper TV shows, or were actually actively preparing for a world-changing event
like a financial collapse, or for a few more who were on the fringes—the zombie
apocalypse—the fact that so few survivors remained was hard to wrap his mind
around. It was almost like every man, woman, and child had shit themselves on
the spot and then offered up their jugular at first sight of a real walking
corpse.

He sat inside the Ford
and observed the upstairs windows for any signs of life. After two or three
minutes had elapsed and the curtains remained drawn and hadn’t so much as
fluttered, he was confident that the upper story was free of the dead—he could
only hope the same would hold true for the downstairs.

He shifted his gaze to
the ground level.
This was going to be a tough nut to crack
, he told
himself. The manner in which
Abe’s Value Hardware
had been boarded up
made the former Delta operator think Scotty had beamed him to New Orleans or
Galveston or any number of Gulf Coast cities where hurricanes routinely ravaged
the people and structures caught in their path. Here in Yoder, Abe—or whoever had
swung a hammer for the store’s namesake—had gone to great lengths to protect
the contents of the two-story brick building. Quarter-inch plywood covered the
front door glass. Four larger wood sheets covered what Cade assumed were
massive panes of plate glass flanking the entry on the ground level. On them, a
warning had been rattle can sprayed, in black, and it read, ‘LOOTERS WILL
GLADLY BE SHOT ON SIGHT.’ Cade supposed the comedian who posted the semi-humorous
message had been witness to the grocery across the street being ransacked, and
was merely trying to protect his livelihood from the same animalistic
desperation shown by those looters. And judging by the hardware store’s front
facade, which had been splattered with dark crimson smudges and scores of
smeared bloody handprints, Abe’s fortifications had spared the store and
whoever might still be inside from a fate much more sinister.

The rearview mirror
showed Cade that the main drag to his six was still clear. The walkers that he
had just dispatched lay where they had fallen, the rotten bodies twisted into
various death poses. Lastly, the small throng that had been advancing from the
east while he was engaging the others still were half a block distant.

Getting trapped in the
store would be massively stupid. Been there, done that, no thanks to Mister
Hosford Preston. Big Hoss had paid the ultimate price for leading the dead to
the country home in Hannah, Utah—the type of price Cade wasn’t willing to pay.
Plenty
of things still left to tackle on the ol’ bucket list
, he mused.

Cade turned the key and
the engine roared to life. He powered down the driver’s glass, shifted into
drive, and let the idling power plant pull the truck ahead at a walking speed.
Keeping his right hand on the wheel, he thrust the suppressed Glock out the
window. The F650 had ungodly-sized mirrors protruding from both A-pillars.
Good
for towing
, he thought,
but awful for lining up a shot on the move
.

Parking the rig
sideways, perpendicular to the half-dozen shamblers in his line of sight, he
brought the semi-automatic to bear on them. All but one of the Zs looked to
have been dead a long time. Cade’s pistol chugged twice. The freshest member of
the group lost its head from the eyebrows up, timbered forward and ceased
moving. He shifted aim by a few degrees, aligned the sights on the female
walker to his right and squeezed off two closely spaced shots. The first 9mm
slug left the muzzle riding three hundred and fifty foot pounds, impacted low
and to the right from where he had aimed, carving out a shredded fleshy cavern
and taking a sizable chunk of cheek and jawbone with it. A millisecond later
the unfazed first turn marched headlong into the second speeding bullet which
entered its right eye socket and exited out back along with the entire contents
of its cranium. The wet mess, propelled by an incredible amount of kinetic
energy, spread out and splashed the four remaining monsters with something
resembling rancid ground chuck.

Cade moved his aim right
but found the telescoping side mirror between him and any kind of a reasonable
shot, so he backed off the brake and goosed the accelerator. The truck lurched
forward a yard or so, leaving him a better angle on target; as he waited their
approach, the creatures started in with their raspy snarls, setting the hairs
on his neck standing on end.

He drew a bead on the
blinding white pate of the nearest and put a closely spaced double-tap into the
center of the horseshoe-shaped clearing atop the Z’s head. Then he walked six
rapid-fire shots across a flat plane. Halos of pink mist bloomed into the air
as the three flesh eaters fell to the blacktop in a moldering heap.

Cade changed magazines
with practiced movements, placed the pistol on the seat and powered the truck
through a tight one-eighty. He rolled up adjacent to the hardware store with
the Ford’s pug-like snout pointing west towards Colorado Springs and the thin
smudge of mountains on the horizon. Then, with the Ford straddling the curb and
blocking the recessed entrance to Abe’s, he slid across the leather bench,
popped the door, and jumped out onto the sidewalk.

Outbreak - Day 15

Schriever AFB

Colorado Springs.
Colorado

Trying his best to
remain calm, cool, and collected—when in fact his guts were churning—Wilson
covertly tracked the new girl out of the corner of his eye. The sensation in
his stomach reminded him of the teen angst he’d lived with all throughout high
school. Wanting so badly to talk to the new girl, any girl for that matter, on
the first day of school—the hours spent building up false self-confidence until
lunch period—then the shame he’d shouldered because he could never follow
through. The pressure cooker build up coupled with the lack of release made him
feel like the antithesis of Yellowstone Park’s Old Faithful.

“She’s coming this way,”
Sasha said, a little too loud for comfort.

Might as well use a
megaphone
, Wilson thought. His
face flushed hot as he panned his head back to twelve o’clock, then tore his
eyes from her, panned them forward, slowly, incrementally, only to meet Sasha’s
prosecutorial gaze. “Who is
she
and what the heck are you talking about
Sis?”

“Her,” Sasha said,
pointing at the dark haired young woman with a stabbing motion of her spoon.
“You’ve been hawking her since she walked in the door. Like a cheetah watching
a gazelle. Heck, if you had a tail, Wilson, it would have been twitching.
Nothing,
and I mean
nothing
, gets past me.” Sasha smiled, then shoveled in
another spoonful of oatmeal.

“I wasn’t watching
her...” he lied, dragging out the word
‘her’
as if the lithe, toned and
tanned woman were well below his standards—she a mutt and he the star
quarterback. In reality, a puddle of mental drool an inch deep had pooled
around his boots on the Formica floor.

“I’m calling bullshit,
Wilson,” Sasha blurted.

He stared daggers.
“Language, Sash.”

Busting his balls in new
and different ways was a constantly evolving talent in which Sasha took great
pride. The frequency and tone had gotten worse since their mom had gone missing
the day Washington D.C. fell to the dead. He didn’t understand her. Most kids
her age found pleasure in reading. Some even enjoyed lusting over the long dead
and gone boy bands. Sasha—she just enjoyed fucking with him. He had to hand it
to the fourteen-year-old; she had a knack for getting under his skin. And when
she found a chink in his armor—which happened often because there were many—the
needling and jabbing and prodding usually commenced until either his Irish
temper made an appearance and he made an ass of himself, or he disengaged from
the conversation silently, seething. Either way Sasha usually won.

She’s coming this way
, he thought to himself. He dabbed a paper napkin
across his brow and then wiped his palms on his khaki cargo shorts.

Then in that sing-song
voice, Sasha said, “What’s a matter
Casanova
... you nervous?”

The room seemed to
contract and then expand, like it was alive, and the steady thrum of the
generators and the whooshing hood system in the kitchen was the sound of its
breathing. He gripped the table to steady himself, then shot her an icy glare.
Then his mom’s voice entered his head, recounting the advice she had given him
the day he went for that first Fast Burger interview.
“Remember to be confident.
Be in control of the situation at all times. And Wilson,”
she had said
,
“
be yourself
.” The memory of her face and her soothing voice smothered
the looming anxiety attack. The events of that day seemed to have happened
years ago. In reality, only months had passed since
interview day
. And
only weeks had passed since Z day. How he would apply Mom’s advice here and
now, with the girl ten feet away and closing fast, he had no idea. But he did
have a strong suspicion he was about to find out.

“Here she comes,” Sasha
chided.

“Shhh!” he said as he
hunched his shoulders, trying to make himself smaller—to disappear altogether.

She stopped behind him.
“What’s the matter Red... got a flat?” Her husky voice made him jump, nearly
stopped his jack-rabbiting heart.

“Who, me?” he stammered.

“You were the one
shushing
,”
she answered.

Silence.

“May I join?” she asked.
“’Cause everyone else in here’s a dinosaur.”

Sasha continued to chew
her food and motioned to the bench next to her with the spoon.

Wilson gaped at the new
arrival, who smelled like sunshine—or a dryer sheet, he couldn’t decide. At any
rate, his mom’s posthumous advice disappeared the moment the girl had spoken, leaving
him with a choice to make: run—or as Sasha had so eloquently put it—“
grow a
pair and wing it
.” He chose the latter.

The breakfast rush was
now in full swing all around them.

“You shoulda been here
the other day. They had
Pop-Tarts
,” Sasha said, breaking the ice. She
raised her eyebrows an inch and went on, “Freakin’
cherry
Pop-Tarts...
thought I was in heaven.”

New Girl placed her tray
next to Sasha, and then took a seat on the bench directly across from Wilson,
who had a lock on her like a cat on a canary.

“Taryn,” she said,
extending her hand across the table.

After a few quick swipes
against the cool fabric of his khakis, he reciprocated with a clammy offering
of his own.

“My name’s Wilson,” he
stammered. He motioned to his sister with a flourish and an upturned palm.
Instantly he felt silly. “And she is...”

“My name is Sasha,” she
said, flashing the brunette a toothy grin. Then, after extending her pale freckled
hand, she added, “Wilson
should
have stopped talking for me when I was
like... three or four. But I’m not surprised ‘cause he’s been doing it my whole
life.” Sasha punctuated the statement by delivering her brother a look that
said,
You owe me or I will
ruin
this for you
.

While Sasha and Taryn
exchanged pleasantries, Wilson caught himself staring at the skulls and dragons
and various dangerous looking things inked up and down the young woman’s arms.
Full sleeves, he thought. His mind reeled, wondering where the artwork
stopped—or whether it continued on under the fabric of her form-fitting black
tank. He was smitten, and it showed.

Sasha pushed her tray
forward, leaned back in her chair and twirled a long scarlet lock with one
hand. Clearly she was enjoying seeing Mister
I’m in charge now that Mom
isn’t here
squirming under the Klieg lights of life.

Suddenly at a loss for
words, Wilson picked at the bowl full of spackle. He studied the wall above the
entry where someone had painted a blue badge. A unit insignia he guessed. On it
was a white creature with the body of a horse, the head of a dragon and wings
like a Pegasus. Written in blue, on a curled herald at the bottom of the
shield, were the words:
Master of Space
. And though he hadn’t paid too
much attention to mythology in school, he had a hunch that the thing might be a
Griffin.

Taryn stared across the
table and addressed Wilson directly. “Kinda the tall, dark, and quiet type,
huh? Only the dark part... not so much.” She smiled and laughed at her own
joke.

“With skin like this,
SPF
two thousand
doesn’t cut it,” he said.
That was easier than you
thought, Wilson
, is what he didn’t. Before his mojo disappeared, and while
he had a scant amount of forward momentum going in this —
talking to girls
thing
—he recounted their journey from the Viscount in Denver to the gates
of Schriever.

Seeing an opportunity to
bring Casanova down a notch, Sasha elaborated on their stop in Castle Rock and
all of the gory details of her run in with Sam the undead butcher and her
involvement in Operation Arm Removal.

With a fresh trace of pink
painting his cheeks, Wilson downplayed his adverse reaction to the dead
appendage clutching his red mane, but didn’t waste the opportunity to talk up
his skill at driving, which he credited for getting them all to Schriever in
one piece. Strangely enough, neither he nor Sasha mentioned Pug’s murderous
spree or the dominos that had fallen since. Sasha, he guessed, didn’t want to
expend the energy. His motive was different. He didn’t want to spoil this
moment by dredging it all up.
Two days was two days
, he thought. Soon he
would forget about the past and get on with living. He just wanted to heed Mom’s
advice and
be himself
.

Sounding neither
repulsed nor impressed by the epic tale, Taryn quietly said, “Sounds like you
two ran the gauntlet.”

“Now that you know our
story, how did you end up here?” Sasha probed.

Taryn looked up and
fixed her gaze on the redheaded teen.

On the receiving end of
a look she couldn’t interpret, Sasha squirmed. She was beginning to regret
prying into the new girl’s business. But Wilson was her brother, she reminded
herself, and it was her job to evaluate
anyone
he had eyes for—whether
he liked it or not.

Taryn regarded the
people around her. The place was hopping now. Then her thoughts raced back to
Grand Junction Airport, Dickless and the others who had died after the planes
brought the plague. Some were her friends—most were not. She needed a diversion,
a second to decide if she wanted to spill her guts here in front of strangers,
or choose a more appropriate time and place to recount her week and a half in
hell.

“I
totally
understand if you don’t want to talk about it. And I’m
really
sorry if
anything
I said upset you,” Sasha said.
What have you got to hide, Miss Tattoo?
a
silent voice in her head whispered.

Taryn stood up abruptly,
looked toward the kitchen, but said nothing.

You blew it, Wilson,
the condescending naysayer in his head told him.

Silently Taryn policed
her trash, piled it on the tray, and walked towards the garbage cans. And as
she retreated Wilson watched, trying his best not to look at her rear end. He
failed miserably.

Once Wilson was certain
Taryn was out of earshot, he unloaded. “Thanks a lot
Sasha
. I had
something good going there until you had to go all graphic about you and the
zombie butcher. And you definitely didn’t need to tell her
all
about
that zombie hand stuck in my hair. Think about it Sash... if you were in her
shoes would you want anything to do with me after hearing that kinda stuff?”

Touché
, Sasha thought. Then, subconsciously, she
reached down to massage her bare ankle which still bore the yellow-green
bruising caused by the big zombie’s death grip.

An uncomfortable silence
ensued between her and Wilson as she observed Taryn dump her tray into a bus
tub and then proceed to weave her way through the tables and chairs on her way
back to where they all were sitting together. Sasha turned her full attention
across the table. “
Wilson
... you need to grow a
pair
and ask her
out.”

Unsure of how to process
the accusation that he was a freaking
eunuch
, he tilted his head back
and stared at the acoustic ceiling tiles. Next, the Griffin painting received
more scrutiny from him. Finally, as he gazed off into the distance, through the
row of small rectangular windows near the ceiling, he broke his silence. “Where
do you propose I take her, a drive-in movie? Colorado Springs Fast Burger store
number 65?” he asked, his voice a near whisper and his head on a swivel
anticipating Taryn’s return.

“She is vulnerable,
Wilson. Strike while the iron is hot.”

“You’re
fourteen
,
Sasha... where in the heck did you hear that saying?”

“The Young and the
Restless.”

“Figures.”

The same sweet smell
accompanied Taryn when she returned.
Definitely not dryer sheets,
thought Wilson as the same heady feeling overwhelmed him. He pulled it together,
and as absurd as his sister’s advice had seemed, he was a nanosecond from
asking her out and proving that he had a
pair
…

“So you want to show me
around?” Taryn asked, beating him to the punch. She stood next to him, waiting
for an answer. Close enough that her bare thigh brushed his elbow, sending a
wave of current through his body.
If this were a comedy on the big screen
,
he thought,
her character would have been tapping an imaginary watch
.
But this wasn’t a comedy, and Wilson’s heart knew it, even if his imagination
didn’t.

He sat there feeling the
warmth of her touch and paused for a half a beat, crafting in his head an
eloquent way to say yes—but this time Sasha beat him to the punch.
Shit
,
he thought. Good thing he wasn’t a fighter, because with all of the openings he
was missing he’d have been knocked out cold by now.

“We
can both show—”

“Not you, little miss,”
Taryn snapped. “Just your brother and me. My story is rated NC-17.”