District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (24 page)

“Hurry up,” said Oliver, watching the trees flash by outside
his partially opened window. “I don’t want to get caught outside the wire in
the dark without my armor and night vision goggles.”

“It’s pretty obvious to me you were never a Boy Scout,”
Daymon said, as he slowed the Chevy to negotiate a near hairpin turn just
beyond the quarry entrance.

“Yes I was. Made Tenderfoot and got bored with it. Either
that or Scouting got in the way of skiing.”

“Doesn’t show,” Daymon said. “A Boy Scout is supposed to
always be prepared.”

“You’re not perfect. You wouldn’t go up into that attic. And
you know what else, Daymon?” He removed his stocking cap and raked his fingers
through his thinning hair. “A leader is supposed to lead from the front, not
the rear.”

Feeling a vein in his temple begin to throb, Daymon flicked
his eyes to the rearview where he saw the mud-streaked Raptor on his bumper.
Behind the Raptor was the hulking black F-650 driven by Lev. Having used the
distraction to calm down a bit, he parked his gaze straight down 39 and said, “This
is about getting
you
ready … not analyzing
me
. Besides, I’m effin
claustrophobic. There, I said it. I
hate
enclosed spaces. My mouth went
dry, breathing became a chore, and my heart started banging like a jackhammer
the moment I set eyes on the attic opening. Are you happy now?”

“I never get satisfaction out of someone else’s discomfort,”
Oliver admitted. “But I do feel a bit of vindication knowing some kind of fear
has a hold over you. That there’s a chink in
your
armor.”

“Hold over me …” Daymon said, speaking real slowly. “Chink
in my armor,” he muttered under his breath as a pair of zombies showed up on
the centerline near the next right-hand bend in the state route. He tapped the
brakes to warn the others and began to slow down.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to push you out again, if that’s what you’re
worried about.”

“I’m not worried,” Oliver said through clenched teeth.

Daymon chuckled.
Your eyes contradict your words
.

He said, “You survived the first time I made you walk the
plank. No reason to tempt fate by doing
that
again.”

“Pull over,” Oliver hissed, snatching Kindness off the seat
before Daymon could react.

“Careful you don’t get the blade lodged in one of their
skulls. It’ll be pretty hard to get it out if you do.”

“Any pointers, then?”

“Follow through,” Daymon said. Seeing that Taryn had taken
his cue and was lagging back, he sped ahead another hundred feet or so and
braked hard broadside to the pair of first turns, roughly the same age at death.
Daymon figured the pair could have been a couple in life. She had been wearing
denim shorts and a shirt bearing the words
Property of Yellowstone
on
her last normal day on earth. Now torn in dozens of places, the once-white
shirt no longer hid her midriff from prying eyes. Red at the edges and oozing
yellow pus and insect larvae, numerous welts crisscrossed the expanse of pallid
dermis north of her grimy navel. Presumably once mid-thigh items, the faded
blue shorts had become crusted with dried blood and rode up in all the wrong
places.

Likely the cause of infection, purple-ringed divots where
mouth-sized hunks of flesh had been rent ran up and down both arms.

The male had suffered horrendous wounds and massive blood
loss fending off his attackers. Now dead and sans several fingers and nearly
all of the skin, muscle, and underlying tissue on both sides of his neck, the
thirty-something cadaver plodded alongside the female, matching her step for
step and dry-throaty-rasp for dry-throaty-rasp.

‘Til death do us part
, thought Daymon as Oliver
slithered out the door and slammed it behind him.
Be careful what you wish
for
.

The death dance on 39 lasted much longer than it should
have, with Oliver plodding in a never-ending semicircle before finally parting
both of the rotters’ heads from their bodies.

Shouting out his open window, Daymon said, “You made the
mess, you clean up the mess.” He watched Oliver kick the heads, eyes and jaws still
moving, across the road where they rolled under the guardrail and plunged to
their final resting place on the north bank of the Ogden River. Though he felt
bad seeing the slightly overweight man struggling to drag the corpses off the
road, Daymon remained behind the wheel.

“What’s the holdup?” Wilson asked over the two-way radio.

Daymon ignored the voice emanating from his pants pocket. He
was busy tracking Oliver across the two-lane and kept his gaze locked on the
man until he opened the door and climbed aboard. Remaining silent, Daymon
shifted the Chevy into Drive and started them rolling west toward the setting
sun.

Oliver buckled in. Having already wiped the machete clean on
the female Z’s jean shorts, he snugged Kindness home into its sheath and placed
it atop the center console. Fixing a gaze on Daymon, he said, “Well?”

“A deep, dark hole in the ground, last I checked.”

“That it is. So, how did I do?”

On the final straightaway before the compound entrance
Daymon slowed considerably. He remained silent as 39 arced gently into a slight
uphill climb. Finally, as he brought the pickup to a complete stop beside the
hidden entry, he spoke up. “Still a work in progress, I’m afraid.” He shifted
the truck into Park. Squaring up with Oliver, he added in a low, menacing
voice, “I watched you getting high at the fix-it shop. That does not happen
outside the wire … ever!”

Oliver’s eyes went wide. “Says the guy who blazed up with me
on the ski hill the other day.”

“The rotters were not a threat that day. Quit trying to make
your baptism by fire about
me
.”

Speechless, Oliver shook his head slowly side to side.

Daymon went on. “Smoking when you need to be sharp is the
least of your problems. Your playing up your prowess against the dead could
have gotten any number of us killed. If you lie to me or anyone else again—.”
He went quiet. Figured he’d let Oliver’s active imagination finish the threat
for him. Probably way worse than anything he could conjure up.

***

Five minutes after Oliver had received his final warning,
all three trucks were barreling down the final quarter-mile of feeder road with
the outer and inner gates closed and locked behind them.

Daymon slowed to walking speed prior to entering the
clearing, swung a wide looping turn and nosed the Chevy in next to Duncan’s
white Dodge pickup. As he set the brake and silenced the engine, his attention
was drawn to the activity near his RV. Under its deployed metal awning, Tran
stood before a pair of stainless-steel propane-fired barbecue grills. Moving
what was likely venison around one grill with the fork in his left hand, while
at the same time busy flipping what looked like potatoes on the opposite with
the pair of tongs in his right, Tran’s culinary performance was more Benihana
chef than backyard burger flipper.

Raven and Sasha were huddled together under a blanket on one
of the folding chaise lounges that had been secreted in a cubby beneath the RV.
On a folding chair set up next to the girls, dressed for an arctic storm in a
wool-lined jacket and matching boots, Glenda was opening cans of something with
a handheld opener.

“We got back just in time,” Oliver said, shouldering open
his door. “Suddenly my appetite has returned.”

Schriever AFB

3:01 p.m. Mountain Standard Time 4:01 p.m. Central 5:01 p.m.
Eastern

After the lengthy aircrew briefing, which consisted of
handing out call signs, going over building diagrams, and explaining why
certain ingress and egress points had been selected, Nash started a color image
moving on the largest of the five displays behind her.

It was obvious from the angle that the image was recorded by
a satellite holding a fairly steady position over the target. Though it was
captured from an incredible distance overhead, the detail was exquisite. The
beltway running around the nation’s dead capital was choked with cars and
teeming with dead. So many dead traveled the expressways and tollways that a
channel was created between the vehicles. Cade had seen what the unyielding
forward march of a mega herd could do. Firetrucks and tractor trailers were
nothing against the surge of frigid flesh. The passenger cars and trucks and
their human cargo fleeing D.C. had fared no better than their counterparts
fleeing Denver.

“It’s total gridlock for five miles in every direction,”
Nash said, sounding like a person indifferently narrating a public service
announcement meant to get people out of their cars and onto public
transportation. “Belowground is more of the same. Panicked engineers trying to
flee stations filling up with newly turned citizens pancaked their engines into
stalled-out train cars. Metrorail likely won’t be running again in my
lifetime.”

 The image on screen flickered and suddenly Cade was staring
at the target building. The same structure he’d seen from the air during a
joint services training mission years ago. It was all reflective glass and
nearly cube-shaped.

“The lone road leading into and out of the target will have
to be secured before Anvil Team enters the building. Which can’t happen until
the grounds around Building Alpha are cleared of Zs.”

The satellite capturing the footage was clearly moving away
from the target. Suddenly its optics zoomed in a few stops and the situation on
the ground was crystal clear.

Rarely did Cade’s heart skip a beat. However, this was one
of those times. That the previous had happened ten minutes prior when Nash
broke the news about the antiserum’s newly discovered propensity for failure
was not lost on the operator. The reason for this particular cardiac gymnastic
move was milling around the building’s west and north perimeter in real-time on
the HD monitor. The dead things were packed in so tightly to the building that
they’d snapped off fixed bollards and pushed massive planters, a handful of
cars, and dozens of what looked to be two-thousand-pound Jersey barriers up
against the building’s glittering lower façade.

Dozens more Jersey barriers were scattered like gray Lego
blocks about the cement plaza and vast expanse of dying or dead grass. Most
were toppled on their sides, the yards-long dark gouges trailing them in the
soil a testament to the sheer numbers of dead that had been there during what
had to be a long siege which the incredibly patient Zs most likely won.
Time
waits for no man
, Cade thought as the camera lens miles above the once
great state of Maryland panned over the hundreds of vehicles sitting idle in
the multi-acre lots. And to add insult to injury that was the near total
destruction of the once-beautiful adjoining landscaping, hundreds of Zs, their
shadows long and gangly in the late evening sun, trooped about among the
gleaming sea of glass and metal with seemingly no rhyme or reason to their
movements.

Nash hit a button on her wand and the screen went dark.
“That, gentlemen, is going to be a tough nut to crack.”

Cade sensed movement in his right side vision. He swallowed
hard and took his eyes off the darkened monitor, the image of the Zs packed in
like sardines burned indelibly into his mind. It was the SAS operator beside
Cross who had raised his hand.
So polite, the British
, Cade thought.

“Yes,” Nash said. “What is it, Nigel?”

In unison, Cade, Griff, and Cross shifted in their chairs
and stared at Axelrod.

 “With all due respect, ma’am,” he said with a full-blown
accent not much unlike Agent 007 of movie fame. “Is there a reason we can’t
infil via the roof?”

“Good question,” Nash said, parking her arms on the podium
before her. “And that reason is—”

“That campus held forty thousand people on a normal day,”
Cade said, stealing the major’s thunder. “The building you’re looking at was
probably home to a couple thousand of them. Even on a Saturday I’d guess the
skeleton crew would consist of a thousand or more.”

“Bingo,” said Nash, drawing the operator’s attention her
way.

“There have got to be twice that many autos in the
surrounding lots,” Nigel pressed. “Which would explain the crush of dead things
bandying on about the grounds. Which begs the question, ma’am … how do we get
infilled by helo and sneak in on the ground floor?”

Nash pushed off the podium and walked around front of it.
“I’ll throw a question back at you, Nigel. Would you rather fight your way
through sixteen floors of who knows how many undead government employees, or
six?”

Simultaneously, Cade, Griff, and Cross said, “Six,” and
looked to Sergeant Axelrod for a reaction.

“Settled,” said the SAS shooter, folding his arms across his
chest.

For most of the engagement the Rangers had remained silent,
to a man watching the conversation as if it were a tennis match, heads craning
back and forth, eyes landing on the officer in charge of the briefing, then
falling back to the team that would be going inside the belly of the beast.

Finally, a forty-something Ranger with an impeccably cut
high-and-tight haircut cleared his throat.

Nash craned to see his nametape. “Yes, Lieutenant Nolen,
what is it?”

“You set us down ahead of the D-Boys and we’ll clear ‘em a
path through those things,” he said, brimming with confidence and the usual
can-do-attitude Rangers are known for. “We’ll breach a hole all the way to
Hades for them if needs be.”

“I have no doubt about that, Lieutenant,” Nash said. “But
we’re going to need you and your men to watch the team’s six. The mechanical
problems Whipper is dealing with have changed the timeline so that it appears
we’ll be cutting it much closer to the bone than we’d planned. You can breach a
hole to Hades and send the PLA there if you make contact.”

Causing Cade to smile for the first time since bad news
darkened his doorstep, a chorus of “Hooahs” filled the room.

Once the cheers died out, Nash shushed the residual murmur.

“I don’t care how you eventually get inside the target. Just
know that we have intel from captured PLA personnel that leads us to believe
they are also trying to get to Target Alpha. If they beat us there they’ll be
able to access the same cell tower records that helped us find Two Guns and a
host of other high level government officials who went dark early on. We’ve
been busy running rescue ops since the Long Beach Port mission, but have barely
made a dent in the list of survivors found on the hard drives your team
rescued.

“If the PLA are able to breach the system, download the
data, and break the encryption they’ll be privy to the exact location of every
one of our people who went to ground after the fall. If we don’t succeed
tomorrow, gentlemen, the Chinese, though their motives aren’t entirely clear,
will likely begin a slow war of attrition akin to a systematic series of
amputations that I’m certain will ultimately deliver them here to our door.”

After pausing to let that sink in, Nash wrapped up the
briefing by going over the finer points of entering the target building from
the ground level. Next, she handed out diagrams of the half-dozen subfloors
underneath the building. Finally, before releasing the twenty-eight men to
assault the mess hall, she said, “And gentlemen, I’ll leave you with this … the
monkey wrench I know you’ve all been waiting for. You may come into contact
with survivors somewhere in the bowels of the building. How many? I have no
idea. Who? I have no idea. We are not in contact with them. However, someone
has been keeping the lights on and the servers humming along down there. Which
is a good thing, because if you do come across them, your job of downloading
terabytes of information should go off without a hitch. Questions?”

Just the soft tap-tap-tap of fingers striking computer
keyboards.

“OK,” she said, stepping away from the podium. “Bravo and
Charlie Teams are dismissed.”

Cade remained seated until the Rangers filed out. While he
waited, he folded the handouts and tucked them away in a pocket. Once the
cacophony of voices died down, he leaned forward, extended his hand, and
introduced himself to Nigel Axelrod.

“Pleasure’s all mine, mate,” the SAS sergeant said.
“Everybody calls me Axe.”

“Grayson or Wyatt works for me,” Cade said. “Are you the
computer specialist Major Nash alluded to?”

“That’d be me,” Griff said, working his fingers through his
beard. “Nigel does locks real good. Almost as good as Lopez.”

Cade shot Griff a raised brow look. “Why didn’t you let on
during the L.A. mission?”

“Just following the don’t ask, don’t tell,” Griff said with
a wink. “You didn’t ask … so I didn’t tell. Anyway, figured anyone with a pulse
could pull hard drives and police up memory sticks, thumb drives and the like.”

“And we did … losing Lasagna in the process.”

“I was out there shooting alongside the man,” said Griff.
“He got the short straw. Sucks. But it couldn’t be helped.”

“When it’s your time …” Cross said agreeably, “it’s your
time.”

“He’s in Valhalla waiting for us,” Axe stated. Then, turning
the direction of the conversation back to the mission, added, “Is she pulling
our bell-ends? Ground level entry … really?”

Cross plucked his MP7 off the floor next to him and rose
from his chair. “Wyatt, you should know.”

Cade said, “She’s not pulling anything.”

“Not good,” said Cross. “Because Axe here hates the
Zeds
—his
special name for them—almost as much as Lopez does.”

Nash put a hand on Axe’s shoulder, causing him to jump.
Looking up at him, she said, “If I was pulling your …
bell-end
, you’d
damn well be aware of it, Axelrod.” She smiled. “But if you men want to fight
through twenty or more security checkpoints and breach three times as many
doors on your way to the prize… go ahead. You have Ari deposit you on the roof
and when you get stuck after going down three of four floors”—her smile
broadened—“you can call your Ranger QRF force. Have them go in on the ground
and come save your butts.”

“Ground floor,” Cade, Griff, and Cross said nearly in
unison.

Sensing the major’s need to talk to Cade, Griff rose and
elbowed both Cross and Axe. “C’mon’ my little surfer twins. Chow awaits.”

Leaving Nash and Cade alone, Cross, Axe and Griff filed out
of the room behind a handful of 50th Space Wing personnel.

Nash watched the light from the hall diminish and once the
door sucked shut sat on the chair next to Cade.

“How’d she take it?”

“As expected,” Cade replied. “With a stiff upper lip.”

Nash sighed. “Figured as much. It’s not a death sentence
until the symptoms manifest. I just wanted her to be aware so she can watch for
any changes in her physiology. How are
you
taking it?”

“I’ve already shoved it down into the dark well behind my
heart. Figure I’ll hash it over later.”

Nash said nothing.

“Thank you,” Cade said. “Telling me was the right thing to
do. The
only
thing to do.”

Nash remained tightlipped, tears forming in her eyes.

Cade placed a calloused hand atop hers, squeezed once and
rose. He scooped up his carbine from the chair and made his way out of the room
without uttering another word.