Blood Soaked and Contagious (44 page)

“You see? That was the perfect thing to do to break you all out of that horrible mood!”

“I must say; they are very nice breasts.” Jaya smiled, and that seemed to give us all permission to breathe again. “Where did you learn your comedic timing?”

“Oh, well before you were born! I was part of a burlesque troop in Hong Kong. That’s how I met my husband.” She put her hands on her hips, did a little jig, bowed, and smiled with theatrical grandeur.

“It just goes to show,” Charlie added, “you never know who your neighbors are, even after you’ve seen their titties.”

We all started to laugh when our heads exploded with someone yelling “INCOMING!” Without even looking around, we all went flat to the floor. There was a muffled explosion not terribly far away, but the shock wave rattled us from above rather than from the side.

I beat everyone to the front door. Omura was in the middle of the street, being rained on by debris, sheltering his head behind his arms.

“What the Hell happened?” I shouted.

“I just shot a grenade or a mortar out of the air, and aside from the hot metal falling from the sky, I feel very impressed with myself.” Omura stood up, brushed himself off, and walked over as if nothing odd had occurred.

“Good job! I’d feel pretty impressed if I’d done that,” I gave him a comradely clap on the shoulder.

He looked me up and down with a critical eye. “Did you fall into a cat food factory while you were out?”

“Something like that. What do we have out there?”

“I don’t know. I think—” He stopped talking abruptly, pivoted on one foot, and fired his gun into the sky almost at the same moment that I heard the telltale noise of another projectile. “I think I just got another one.”

Nodding, I took off from the front porch and made a running leap onto the roof of my store, landing in the gummy asphalt that had been used to waterproof that surface. I had barely looked up when I pinged on something airborne heading in my direction with a characteristic whistling noise.

I bellowed, “Fucking Hell! INCOMING!”

The unexpected seems to happen around me more often than what might be called “normal” does. Instead of diving for cover, I pulled my .45, hit the safety, and squeezed the trigger. There wasn’t a conscious thought in my head, and I’m not sure that I aimed, but something exploded in the sky above my head and little hot things fell like hail all around.

“What the
fuck
was that?” Charlie’s voice was so loud in my head that I winced. Another thing went onto my rolling list for Santa Baj if and when we managed to get him back—volume control.

“I think I just shot a rocket-propelled grenade out of the air.”

“Damn!” She said and covered my sentiments with precision. “Is there anything else headed our way?”

“Not that I know of, but ping anybody who has the new iBrain upgrade and find out. Omura is standing on the front porch. Snag him if you need anything.” I had always wanted to coin a new “i” product name. Charlie closed the connection in my skull, and it was another strange sensation to catalog and review after I found out what the latest news was.

When I looked down, I saw where the projectiles had come from. There was a topless Humvee on the corner by the gas station, and some zombie was reloading a shoulder-mounted weapon of some kind. There wasn’t even a need to aim my weapon, because our side already had things well under control.

Nate and two of his comrades in arms descended on the Humvee and the occupants like a trio of homicidal cephalopods, all arms and weapons. They were fast, accurate, and brutally efficient. They also managed to take the Humvee without damaging it. Score!

However, they didn’t seem to notice the five zombies approaching them from the shopping center on the opposite corner. I decided to give the mental address system another try, pulled up my map, slapped Nate’s sparkle around, and hollered at it. “NATE! Watch your six!”

I took aim and did my absolute best to knock down the enemy’s numbers a bit. From the look of things, I was a helpful distraction, but unnecessary. Nate and his chums moved like a greased killing machine and took all five of the opponents down from a hundred yards away.

“Thanks, Frank. Do me a favor, not so loud next time. I almost pissed myself.”

“No problem, Nate!” I cut the connection, took one last look around, and dropped back down to the ground in front of my store. We needed to discuss eliminating our local infestation more than I needed to clean myself up. As things stood, I was still dressed for killing, and there wasn’t any real reason to change if more wet work needed to be done.

Omura was walking over with the Three Ladies trailing behind him, and I gestured toward Shawn’s garage. That seemed to be growing into the staging area of choice over the past day or so, and I didn’t mind the chance to invade someone else’s space instead of filling my own storage room with rowdy freedom fighters. It was also the most likely place for Nate and the guys to head with our newly appropriated vehicle. They’d probably have to shift an IED or two out of the way, but that was a better plan than leaving the thing on the street.

We got the vehicle, fair and square, by murdering our enemies in cold blood. Simple. Direct. Eventually, if we didn’t destroy the thing ourselves, another party might turn us into bloody cottage cheese, and then they could have our spoils of war. For a moment, I missed the days when satisfaction happened with a swipe of a credit card, rather than random acts of violence.

By the time I turned the corner, Nate was carefully moving the IED closest to the open bay of the garage. I think we all held our breaths a bit, even being aware that the man was a professional and may have actually placed that trap himself. We didn’t need another shock, chorus of pained screaming from grievous wounds, shower of body parts, or funeral. In fact, after my day, I could have used a month-long break from any of those things.

The guys got the Hummer settled and the IED replaced with no hassle at all. High fives were passed around, and Buttons nodded with satisfaction at the day’s catch. It didn’t seem like ten seconds had passed before Shawn had the hood up, doors open, and every storage area bare to the work lights. I told myself that he was looking for explosives or booby traps, but I was pretty sure he was having a geek moment over examining our acquisition.

This isn’t to say he wouldn’t find any potential booby traps, because he certainly would. I know him well enough to be sure that his main motivation was curiosity, not whether or not something would likely blow up if it was disassembled.

Omura turned to Buttons and said, “Sir, I think we need to wipe these fuckers out before they mount the large assault. Unless, you think the larger attack is less likely now, due to the crater?”

“Unlikely. I’ve been hitting the refresh key on the satellite feed every thirty seconds since we dropped the baby. They’re trying to put together a convoy.” Buttons did not look pleased. “That presents a certain set of options. They’re preparing to create a new staging area for the assault on this side of 66, or they’re going to attempt to nail us early. Alternately, they’re going to change the location of their entire operation.”

Flower and I chimed in together, harmoniously. “Is that likely?”

Buttons blinked a few times, and said, “No. There is too much materiel that would require delicate handling if it could be moved at all. Whether or not Hightower himself would change locations is open for debate. His dossier suggests he’s capable of a number of different decision forks when he’s up against opposition.”

“You’ve got a dossier on the man?” Charlie looked a little surprised.

“Oh yes. I have one on every single one of you and access to the files on your families as well. Are your mother’s pickles really made with cucumbers from Danielle Chalker’s garden, three houses over? It must have bothered you when her daughter, Missy, stole your boyfriend and was crowned Homecoming Queen three days after that.”

Charlie turned white. Shawn didn’t hear it, or if he did, he was buried head first in the Humvee and didn’t show it.

“Mister Buttons, I am fairly sure I dislike you.” Charlie’s tone of voice was surprisingly even, considering the ferocity in her eyes. “I just noticed something about you as well.”

He looked up at her, cooler than Mrs. Chalker’s cucumbers, “And what would that be?”

“Your nose has healed.” She was right.

“So good of you to notice.” His voice was oily and expressionless, but the smug little smile told a more complete story.

“We need to nail the convoy when they’ve got it complete,” Nate broke the tension by pulling us back to the original topic by the scruffs of our necks. If I had taken an anonymous poll, I think 100 percent of the respondents would have said the next thing that would be broken wouldn’t be the topic, but Buttons’ nose for a second time.

“I agree. The railgun is not the best choice for this and is not in range again until tomorrow.” Buttons shifted his attention from Charlie to the laptop without even blinking. I cataloged it as another bit of odd behavior from an odd man. “We do have the laser weapon available, and we could target individual vehicles with excellent accuracy.”

I brought up my encounter near the Methodist Church, which elicited a few groans of annoyance. Buttons made his fingers dance on the keyboard and made little thinking noises under his breath.

“We could take that position in one shot from orbit at high power,” he announced. “That would give us several low power shots for the convoy. With any luck, destroying three or four vehicles would be a deterrent. I do not believe in luck.”

Flower asked, “What sort of resistance is there at the church? Could a small team get in there, break it up, and get across the bridge on foot?”

“I count forty combatants, six people who appear to be in a corral or a pen, and one Humvee-sized vehicle. Nothing appears in these shots that indicate any kind of heavy-weapon emplacements. There is a small heat signature in the bell tower and, in all likelihood, that’s a sniper.

Flower smiled in a very disturbing fashion for a former man of the cloth. “Partners in arms, I think I have a reasonable plan. Anyone interested in hearing it?”

There were universal nods and grunts of approval from the assembled lot of us. Flower stretched his arms, laced his fingers, and cracked his knuckles. “We are relying on one major environmental qualifier. We need to do this as a night raid.”

“Step one, we take the church area as our staging area. Step two begins with Buttons and his fancy light show.” Matt continued explaining how we would wait until after nightfall to proceed beyond taking the church back. Buttons would use laser strikes to create confusion and vehicle damage in and around the convoy, and our team would then infiltrate the area during the post-laser freak out.

“The vast majority of that plan is sound; however, there is something you need to consider. If we strike the convoy in position, that liberates a large number of personnel to defend the area.” Buttons pulled up a local map on the laptop screen, and we all craned around to see. “We need to allow the convoy to leave and disable or destroy it at least midway to their destination. That gives you a window of time to execute the rescue with fewer opponents and at least begin a return to our side before the convoy stragglers can return on foot.”

If there had been a fly on the wall, watching us, it probably would have written a description much like this one. “Late afternoon, garage wall: gang of two-legged giant mammals making noise and nodding in unison like trained meerkats. Smaller mammal kneeling before a black box with bright colors. Perhaps this one is the Shaman and this is a religious ritual of some kind?”

There was one potential issue: communication across the distances involved. If the built-in communications system that our happy critters gave us had a distinct range, we would need to rely on flaky cellular phone service or some kind of series of human relay stations between the team and home.

Channing brought up the issue before I could, and Buttons suggested that he take a run to the edge of our neighborhood, which we generally felt was about nine blocks away. One of Nate’s chums headed out with him for extra security and they both promised to call in to test the range.

While they were gone, we attempted to polish the plan and pick out a reasonable team to take back the church, and decide which of that larger team would continue on for the rescue and hopeful massive disruption of Hightower’s group. In the end, we decided to stick with the original team for the rescue: Flower, Charlie, Omura, Franklin, and myself. We added Ramos and Fitzgerald to the mix for the church and to hold that position until we returned.

“Townhall, this is Ramos. Do you receive?” We all looked up at the same time, hearing his voice in our heads.

“We read you, Chico,” Nate replied, “pull it in. We have matters to discuss.”

“I hate it when you call me Chico. You know that, right?”

“Yes. Your point would be what?”

There might have been a whiff of vulgarity as Ramos closed the connection, but it was garbled. Nate stood there, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. It didn’t take long until he was back in deep consultation with Flower and Buttons over the satellite images of the church parking lot. Omura seemed to take it all in without comment.

Never having been a formal soldier, some of the terms went right over my head, flapping into the afternoon on little olive drab wings. The gist of the church operation boiled down to three approaching from the houses directly to the nearest side of the parking lot and the other four flanking to the right around the near side of the main building.