District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (33 page)

Duncan lowered the Bushnells and spit a couple of
obscenities under his breath.

Standing on the road apart from the others and squinting in
the same general direction, Daymon turned toward Duncan and asked, “What do you
see that’s got you so pissed off?”

“You need prescription glasses now?” Duncan asked, handing
the binoculars down. “Take a look for yourself. There.” He pointed. “Near that
black hulk blocking the road.”

Grumbling something about having perfect 20/20 vision,
Daymon put the binoculars to his eyes and glassed the landscape to his left,
eventually picking up State Route 30 meandering off to the northwest. After scanning
the road east to west from where it intersected 16 he saw the reason for
Duncan’s verbal outburst. A half-mile west of the 16/30 junction the road was
blocked by a large, tightly packed throng of dead. However, these corpses
weren’t twice-dead like the ones stacked like cordwood on the road behind the
group. These dead bodies bracketed in Daymon’s binoculars were mostly first
turns and fully aware of the idling trucks. And in the center of 30, some
distance behind the rotters, was the completely burned-out shell of what looked
to have been a station wagon.

“So what’s your concern?” Daymon asked, casting scrutiny on
the dirt berm beside the blackened hulk.

“Yet another great place for an ambush,” Duncan answered.
“Hit us while we’re passing the wreck and let those rotters finish the job.
I’ve seen it before on the road outside of Boise … early on in this shit.” He
shuddered at the memory of the young kids burning alive in the convertible VW.
How they’d flailed, bucking and straining against their belts for long seconds
as they died. He imagined Rawley’s SKS chattering as the thirty-something
musician ended their suffering, performing that final good deed before he was
shot dead by the outlaw bikers.

“What do we do then … just turn around because of a few
maybes
and
what-ifs
?” Jamie said, one hand resting on her hip. “If we let the
rotters come to us… meet them where the road is at its widest, kill them there
and then give the car and road ahead a closer look before moving on.”

Taryn said, “At least we won’t have to worry about an ambush
while we’ve got our hands full culling rotters.”

Daymon panned the binoculars away from the wreck and walked
them the entire length of a feeder road running perpendicular to State Route
30. “Might not be necessary,” he said. “The last part of your plan, at least.”

“And you base that assumption on what?” asked Lev.

Squinting and pointing to the field to the right of the
advancing zombies, Wilson said, “Does it have something to do with the birds in
the field over there?”

“Very perceptive,” Daymon said. “Those look like turkey
buzzards, which are wary birds to begin with. No way they’d still be out there
feeding if a force of any size was lying in wait for us anywhere near that
charred car.”

“I second that,” Foley added. “I’ve done a lot of hunting
and found that a blind has to be pretty good to fool even the dumbest of
birds.”

Daymon nodded. “And I don’t think there’s a squad of snipers
in ghillie suits hiding in the hills, either. Whoever we’re dealing with is far
from professional. Pretty much everything I’ve seen so far has been done pretty
sloppily.”

“Not the walkers in the fix-it shop,” Wilson said, his voice
wavering. “That was engineered perfectly. Taryn had
no
idea they were
waiting just inside that door.”

“I’ll give you that,” Daymon conceded. “Doesn’t excuse her
for letting her guard down a second time. But I digress. The crucified guy and
the verses in the church was a bush league message. The bleeder leaving the
matchbook and cigarette smoke hanging in the air at the rectory … both rookie
mistakes.”

“The trap on the back door wasn’t the work of a novice,”
Wilson said, throwing another shudder.

Ignoring the redhead’s valid point, Daymon went on, “Sasha’s
bike and Oliver’s gear … all discarded haphazardly with little effort to
conceal any of it. None of
that
makes sense to me.”

Hand on her tomahawk and staring at the road by her boots,
Jamie shook her head subtly. Then, as if something had just dawned on her, she
chuckled and lifted her gaze to the group. “Anyone remember Hansel and Gretel?”

“Yeah,” Daymon said. “But what’s a story about a couple of
kids lost in the woods got to do with this?”

Dying to hear the correlation, Duncan inched his head
farther out the Dodge’s open window and looked on in silence.

“Bread crumbs,” Jamie said. “Someone’s leaving us crumbs to
follow.”

“You may be right, young lady. But let’s deal with our most
pressing problem first.” Duncan pointed to Taryn. “I want you to get Cade’s
truck and pull it forward.” Then, like a kid at recess picking his team for a
game of dodgeball, he pointed to Wilson, Daymon, Lev, and Jamie. “You four will
ride in back of the 650.” Meeting Jamie’s icy glare he singled her out. “Sorry
to bump you from your ride, darling. We’ll need our best driver at the wheel of
that monster. She’s going to shuttle you all into their midst and everyone
needs to chalk up six or seven kills each. I figure it’ll be over real quick
and then we go check out the car and see what the birds are up to.”

“Shooting from the back of the truck while it’s moving?”
Foley asked. “Aren’t you even a little bit concerned about one of them catching
a ricochet or friendly fire?”

“No gunplay,” Duncan said, shaking his head. “Do them with
your blades.”

Next to Duncan, Tran whispered, “They’re coming.”

“What will you be doing?” asked Daymon. “Supervising?”

Nodding to Tran, Duncan said, “Me and him will be shadowing
you in the Dodge. We’ll intervene if things go sideways.”

“All right. If you say so,” Daymon said. “What’s Foley going
to be doing while we’re all putting our lives on the line?”

Duncan got Foley’s attention. Met his gaze and said, “I’m
going to need you to stay behind and watch all of our backs.”

Foley nodded in agreement.

Duncan cleared his throat and spat a wad of phlegm into a
handkerchief. “Things are going to get real noisy on the road. Better keep your
radios close and the volume dialed to ten.”

Wilson turned the volume up on his Motorola and then stepped
aside as the F-650 rolled to a stop and the passenger window powered down.

“I’m not driving,” Taryn said, staring down at Duncan
through the open window. “I didn’t earn the right to.”

“It’s okay,” Jamie insisted.

Making eye contact, Taryn set the brake and climbed down
from the idling rig. “No, it’s not,” she insisted, closing the door before Max
could jump from the cab.

Jamie stepped aside, a confused look on her face.

Daymon materialized from around the rear bumper, slapping
the 650’s rear quarter as if it were a stubborn horse refusing to leave the
paddock. “Oh no you don’t, Miss Best Driver in the group,” he chided. “The dead
are closing in on us. Get back in that beast.”

“Give me a moment,” Taryn said.

Daymon removed his cap and ruffled his dreads. “Don’t look
now,” he said. “Taryn’s getting cold feet.”

Flashing Daymon a one-finger salute, Taryn withdrew her
knife from the leather sheath on her hip. Glaring at the dreadlocked man
through eyes narrowed to slits, she handed her knife to Wilson hilt first.

“And what am I to do with this?” he asked, brows furrowing
in confusion.

Shifting her gaze to her man, she reached behind her back
with one hand and stretched taut the two-and-a-half-foot length of braided,
raven-black hair she’d been growing out for more years than she cared to
remember.

Knife held limply in one hand, Wilson gaped down at her.
Mouth hanging open, he shifted his gaze to her long locks. After a few seconds’
pause, he met her brown eyes again.

“Do it,” she ordered.

“All of it?”

“Did I stutter?” she said, her face tight from the tension
that pulling on her pony tail was putting on her scalp.

“Do it,” Daymon urged. “I did mine a while back.”

Glancing up at Daymon, Taryn asked, “Do you regret it?”

Slowly at first, Wilson began to saw back and forth.

Once the sharp blade had passed the halfway mark—the point
of no return, by Daymon’s estimation, he said, “Every single day.”

Taryn brought the bird back, slowly thrusting it in his
face, even as his shit-eating grin told her he was pulling her leg.

“Just effin with you,” he said. “Short hair is pretty
liberating. You’ll get used to it.”

A tear traced Taryn’s cheek as Wilson made the final few
cuts. Her eyes were welling with big fat drops when what was left of her
hair—essentially a jagged Pixie cut, not much unlike Jamie’s—fanned out around
the nape of her neck.

Nearly in tears himself, figurative tears, because he really
enjoyed it when she let her hair down, Wilson handed the length of braided hair
to her over her shoulder.

“I’m not driving,” Taryn said, shooing Jamie towards the
driver’s door as she fought to keep the tears at bay. “I need to get back on
the horse and ride. Earn all of your trust back.”

Shrugging, Lev helped Jamie into the Ford and closed the
door.

“Suit yourself,” Duncan called across the road. “Whoever’s
getting in back better get to doing it.”

Wilson helped Taryn into the F-650’s bed then watched Daymon
vault the tailgate and take a spot atop the passenger side wheel arch next to
Lev. Finally he crawled in and plopped down next to Taryn, mentally exhausted
and still in shock from the unexpected turn of events.

Cade powered off his NVGs and flipped them away from his
eyes. He swung his M4 behind his back, leaned over Cross’s shoulder and looked
at the crystal-clear image splashed on the door probe’s color display. Straight
away he learned that Nash had been right about the power being on in the areas
that mattered. That he was looking at a full color image of an illuminated
stairway meant he owed an apology for doubting her on the matter.

Cross maneuvered the probe, training the lens on the
stairwell wall where shadows, long and lean, seemed to be performing an eerie
dance. “We’re going to have company right away,” he said.

“How many?” Cade asked.

“Looks like more than one,” Cross offered, twisting the
stalk to the right.

“Stop,” Cade said. “What’s that? Can you hold it steady?
Zoom in, maybe?”

Cross said nothing. He manipulated the controls and the
blurry object behind the door suddenly became an overturned chair. It was a
metal item from the looks of it and had come to rest lengthwise to the flight
of stairs leading up, its four legs pointed directly at the camera lens.

Cade said, “Think it’s close enough to block the door
sweep?”

“No telling. These things weren’t designed with depth of
field in mind.”

“One way to find out,” Griff said.

“I’m running point,” Cade reminded. “Cross at two then Griff
at three—”

“And the Brit brings up the rear,” Axe finished.

Without a word, Cross handed his lock-pick gun over his
shoulder.

“No need for that here,” Cade said, reaching into his breast
pocket and producing the pass card Nash had given him after the briefing. There
was no writing on either side of the white card. On its back side was a black
magnetic strip containing the information making it a master passkey. Holding
the card vertically, Cade swiped it downward over the door at waist-level with
the magnetic strip facing the spot on the door where a knob or handle should
be.

There was a soft click and a slight give when he pressed
inward with his other hand.

A blast of air a few degrees cooler than that in the hall
escaped around the door’s edge. The pong of carrion, though not as pronounced
as it had been in the main lobby, was impossible to miss.

Under his breath, but still picked up by the comms, Axe
said, “Smells like arse.”

“Based on the angle of the shadows,” Cross said, “I’d bet
whatever is casting them is at least one flight down.”

“The chair?” Griff asked.

“No idea,” Cade answered. “Maybe someone’s failed attempt at
barring the door from inside.” He stowed the card away and swung his M4 back
around front. Gripping the carbine at a low ready, he tested the door swing.

“Quit bandying about with it for bloody sake,” Axe
whispered. “We’ve got company. Three zeds on our six. Ten meters out. Shall I
engage?”

“Negative,” Cade said. “They can’t see us yet.”

Voice rising an octave, Axe pressed, “But
I
can see
them
now
, mate.”

As Griff kept watch down the empty hallway running away from
them, he wondered to himself who, between Axe and Lopez, would win a bitching
contest if Zs were the topic of discussion.

Ignoring Axelrod, Cade continued pushing the door inward.

Six inches.

A soft rasp, perhaps the rustle of fabric on a handrail,
filtered through the gap.

Twelve.

The stench of death was more evident now.

At eighteen inches all forward movement ceased when the
metal door hit a chair leg and a noise like a struck gong sounded from within.
As the resonant tone crashed off the walls, a second noise—a steady
tap,
tap, tap
—could be heard coming from behind the partially opened door. Then,
as if the initial aural assault wasn’t confusing enough, the Zs down the main
floor hall began to hiss and rasp excitedly.

At once, from somewhere down the stairs and out of Cade’s
sight, an eerie moaning drifted up from the depths. Hairs rising on the back of
his neck, he came to two quick conclusions: Whatever was behind the door was
the immediate threat and therefore priority number one. Then the fresh turns
responsible for the telltale moaning echoing up the stairs had to be searched
out and dealt with.

“NVGs up,” Cade called out over the comms. “Going in. Cross,
cover me.”

Moving in a low crouch, Cade rolled around the door jamb
moving nimbly on the balls of his feet. Once he’d negotiated the narrow
opening, he backpedaled left a full stride and looked sidelong down the stairs.
“Clear left,” he called. “Checking obstruction.”

Under Cross’s watchful gaze, feet planted a shoulder-width
apart on the dimly illuminated cement landing, Cade leveled his carbine at the
door, reached out one-handed, and started it swinging closed.

As the door crept slowly to his right, the thick shadows
behind it were chased away in degrees and fully supplanted by the pale white
light being cast from the wall-mounted emergency lamps.

In a heartbeat, Cade’s gaze flicked from the metal chair,
crossed the gray cement landing, and locked onto the pair of well-worn tennis
shoes that had been toeing the back of the door. He thumbed the switch on the
carbine’s forward grip, causing a stark white cone of light to lance from the
tactical flashlight affixed to the M4’s forward rail. He walked his gaze up the
living corpse. Saw that it had died wearing comfortable clothes: blue jeans,
pink Polo, and Chuck Taylor All-Stars. The makeshift noose keeping it aloft had
been passed through a tangle of overhead pipes and tied off to the stair handrail
with a messy knot. Wavy blond hair framed the thing’s bloated, blue and purple
face. There was a trio of raised bite marks on one side of its face, and like a
road map of highways and byways, burst capillaries snaked every which way
across its fluttering lids, on down its cheeks and continued their run
underneath the skin-splitting ligature. Those bugged-out, bloodshot and
jaundiced eyes consumed Cade as the corpse jiggled and wriggled silently like a
prized catch on the end of a hundred-pound line.

Must have sucked to have not been allowed to leave here
after Casual Friday, thought Cade as he finished his split-second processing of
the death scene.

As if in agreement, the moaning down the stairs grew
louder—and nearer.

“Clear right,” Cade called, as he moved the chair aside and
opened the door for the others.

“Suicide fail,” Cross quipped, taking in the grisly sight of
the male Z banging its knees and toes against the back of the door.

At once Griff padded to the left, peered down the stairs and
craned over the rail. “Still clear,” he called back softly.

Cheeks showing a considerable rosiness clearly visible even
in the low-light, Axe made his way onto the crowded landing, closing the door
behind him. “Right close there, mate,” he said to Cade, the sound of nails
raking the door competing with his words.

Stealing Cade’s thunder, Griff unknowingly repeated one of
Duncan’s favorite phrases. “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
He paused for effect and aimed his HK down the stairs where the swaying shadows
were growing longer. “Unless, that is, you guys don’t play horseshoes across
the pond.”

Now Axe was the one who said nothing as, from somewhere down
the stairs, amplified and more hair-raising in the enclosed subterranean
confines, the moaning started anew.

Ignoring the noisy ghouls for the moment, Cade righted the
chair. Left ankle feeling better than ever, he stepped onto the seat and ended
the Z’s struggles by plunging his Gerber into its eye socket.

“Regular Jack Kevorkian,” Axe quipped as Cade shouldered his
rifle and started down the gloomy stairwell.

***

With Cade running point and Axe lagging back to watch their
six, the four-man team dove deeper under the towering NSA building. Three
levels below the lobby, which amounted to six full switchback runs of stairs,
Cade came around a right hander and spotted the source of the rising stench and
disconcerting moans. Sharing the landing marked Sublevel 3 with the jumble of
rolling office chairs preventing them from climbing the stairs was a recent
turn and a badly decomposed first turn. The former was male, mid-thirties, and
had been scratched and bitten multiple times about the arms and face. He died
wearing clothes much like the failed suicide victim upstairs. Only Casual
Friday for this guy, probably mid-level management, or a GS-5 in government
ranks, was slacks and Oxford. The once-white button down was stained with food
and bore yellowed rings under the arms that bespoke of a lengthy post Z-Day
stay at good ol’ Club NSA.

The first turn was female and barely clothed. What remained
of her blouse and pants were shredded, bloodied in spots, and soiled greatly
with dried mud that looked to have come from the Fort Meade grounds some time
ago. An identification tag was still clipped to a scrap of fabric that may have
been a breast pocket.

“Looks like misery loves company,” Griff said over Cade’s
shoulder, his weapon-mounted light flicking on and painting a second pair of
twice-dead Zs in a revealing light. Tucked away to the team’s right, partially
hidden under the stairwell, were two more female zombies in much the same shape
as the first turn. Same dried mud. Same defensive wounds and blood dried to
black on the arms. And the same office casual attire that all but screamed
these people had no idea what was about to go down in and around the District.

Beyond the barrier and reaching hands of the agitated Zs was
a closed door identical to the one on the main floor—gore streaks, card reader
and all. Cade took one more step then halted, thumbed the M4 off Safe, and
stuck the suppressor against the first turn’s forehead.

“Check your fire,” said Griff over the comms. “There’s
sensitive stuff behind the Zs.”

Trusting his teammate unequivocally, Cade lowered his rifle
and drew the Gerber. Too late. The first turn had snaked one spindly arm
through the barrier and found purchase on his MOLLE rig, ripping back a Velcro
strap and sending a full magazine on a slow tumble to the floor. Grabbing the
thing by the wrist, Cade glanced down at the flopping ID tag and said, “Will
one of you please put Miss Lockwood down for me?”

Squeezing past Cade on the right, Griff parted the top
couple of leather, high-backed chairs and grabbed the walking cadaver by the
wrist and throat. In one fluid and overpowering move, he twirled the undead
woman around to face Axe, who was ready with a drawn dagger that slid cleanly
tip-to-hilt into the thing’s left eye socket.

Cade sliced the tendons in its wrist to release the dead
fingers locked onto his chest rig.

“Just like we knew what we were doing,” Griff said, looking
at Cade.

“She
almost
got you, mate,” said Axe, emphasizing
“almost” as a subtle dig to Griff. “And she ain’t U-shaped nor does she have a
pin to pull.”

“Thanks,” said Cade, looking to Griff. “I owe you. Now kill
the fresh one so you can tell me why you didn’t want me to shoot these two in
the first place.”

Griff pulled a chair from the bottom of the pile, starting a
fabric, leather, and chrome avalanche that freed the Oxford-wearing Z to
shuffle toward him unimpeded. “Because,” he said, wrapping a gloved hand around
the GS-5’s neck, “one ricochet could’ve introduced liquid under tremendous
pressure to dozens of CRAY-RS supercomputers with enough electricity coursing
through them to light up a hundred electric chairs. It could have ended badly
for all of us.”

Shooting Griff a look that said
spill the rest
, Cade
regained his grip on the M4 and plucked the reader card from his pocket.

As Griff opened his mouth to elaborate, he was interrupted
by something impacting the door from the other side with sufficient enough
force to make it flex against its hidden hinges.

Then the keen of nails raking metal began.

So Griff cleared his throat and spoke loudly enough to be
heard over the undead awaiting them on the other side of the door to Sub
Level-3 where, during the pre-mission briefing, Nash had promised they would
find the NSA’s newest off-the-books addition to their main above-ground Data
Collection Center.

Under the watchful eye of the rest of the team, Griff went
into detail about the original Data Collection Center they had overflown on the
way in, telling them about the first floor where the banks of computers were
housed and then finishing with the stunning fact that the eight-thousand-tons
of water and Fluorinert used to cool the dozens of CRAY supercomputers’ very
hot electronic components was housed on the floor directly above the DCC.

Working a gloved finger under his tactical bump helmet to
scratch an itch, Axe asked, “What does all of that have to do with whatever the
beasties are guarding beyond
this
door? And just what in the bugger is
Fluorinert?”

“Fluorinert is the name for the 3M company’s line of
electronics coolant liquids. It’s an electrically insulating, stable
fluorocarbon-based—”

Cade raised a gloved hand, cutting Griff short. “All right,
Bill Nye. Where’s the cooling apparatus in
this
building?”

“Nash only knew this existed. As for schematics and
floorplans, she couldn’t access that kind of intel.”

“What’s your best guess?”

To keep up with the rapid-fire exchange, both Cross and Axe
were shifting their gazes between Cade and Griff and back again.

After a brief pause, Griff answered, “I’d put the water
pumps on Sub Level 2 then excavate deeper and run pipes down and let gravity do
most of the work.”

“You’d still have to pump the water and Fluorinert back up
to keep it circulating,” Cross proffered.

Cade shook his head. “We’re here to destroy the computers
and wipe data anyway. So what difference does it make?”