District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (39 page)

Laketown, Utah

The rotter had been mashing its face against the plate glass
window, barely six inches from where Duncan was seated in the red vinyl booth,
for the better part of an hour. With no lower mandible to keep its tongue in
place, the constant pendulum-like-movement of the seven-inch length of bloated
black flesh had created on the reverse side of the window a milky cataract the
size of the Vietnam veteran’s wide-brimmed Stetson.

Over the course of that hour, Foley had been pacing behind
the counter, stopping now and again to engage Taryn or Jamie or Wilson in inane
conversation.

On the chipped Formica along with sets of salt and pepper
shakers, placards declaring daily specials and bulging plastic ketchup bottles
were a pair of AR-15 carbines and Taryn’s unholstered Beretta.

Using a whetstone found in the kitchen area, Jamie had spent
the time putting a fine edge on everyone’s blade then honed her tomahawk
razor-sharp.

“When are they going to get here?” asked Wilson, casting a
glance over his shoulder at Duncan.

The
when are we going to get there
act wearing thin
on Duncan, he tore his gaze from the Make Out Bandit and rose, the black Saiga
shotgun clutched in one hand. “Just be grateful Brook … or whoever swayed
Dregan to come, was able to do so in the first place.”

Changing the subject, Foley said, “Sounds like the folks
outside of Garden City have a pretty elaborate setup.”

“Same as Bear River,” said Jamie. “It’s not too hard to
erect a few concrete barriers.”

“Then why haven’t we done the same at the compound if it’s
so easy?” Taryn asked.

Wilson fielded the question. “They’d be a dead giveaway that
someone was trying to protect some pretty cool toys and food—mostly the
food—behind said recently installed barriers.”

Duncan nodded, then turned toward the hideous sight
relentlessly slathering up the nearby window.

“Want me to take care of it?”

“No, Foley. If more of them start showing up, we’ll take measures.
Until then, just keep your eyes and ears open for our Bear River friends.”

No sooner had Duncan uttered the words “Bear River friends,”
than two things happened, one right after the other.

First the low rumble of what sounded like a dozen approaching
vehicles could be heard from the state route. Then the two-way radio sitting on
Duncan’s table warbled to life and Daymon was calling for yet another update.

Timing is everything
, thought Duncan as he snatched
up the radio. “Calvary is here,” he said to no one in particular as he made his
way to the locked front door, inadvertently bringing the jawless zombie with
him. Along the way he spoke into the Motorola. “Give me a second, Mister
Patience,” he said. Without waiting for Daymon’s answer to that, he pocketed
the radio and eyed the zombie still stalking him.

“Here,” Jamie said, offering up the wooden handle of the
knife-sharpening tool she’d been using on the blades. She nodded at the door.
“It should fit through the mail slot.”

“Smart,” Duncan said, hefting the tool and eyeing its
ten-inch tapered metal shaft. He crouched down on his haunches, opened the
metal flap with one hand, and stuck the fingers of his other through the
horizontal opening. “Hey, Gene Simmons… come and get it.”

The engine noise grew louder, but didn’t trump the fleshy
digits wagging the air less than a yard distant. Rheumy eyes locked and tongue
doing the grandfather clock back and forth swing, the undead man grabbed onto
the horizontal push bar two-handed, dropped to his knees like a trapdoor had
opened beneath him, and struck the door head first, starting a series of cracks
running every which way from where his forehead struck the glass.

Duncan pulled his fingers from the mail slot a tick before
the jawless monster set the door to vibrating in its frame. He held the knife
sharpener level with the slot, its tip keeping the one-way mail door propped
open.

“Come on,” Duncan called. “Work with me here.”

What was left of the zombie’s upper teeth—mainly jagged
stumps—scratched against the metal flap as its limp tongue deposited on the
opening a thick rope of the same putrid excretion that was drying on the front
window.

“It’s not going to cooperate,” Jamie said. She craned to see
around the pickups parked out front. “Dregan’s brought the Humvees.”

Still probing the opening with the tool, Duncan said, “How
many?”

“Two.”

“And?” He stabbed the zombie in the cheek hard enough to
send it sprawling backwards onto its butt. Then there was a hollow thud as the
back of its head hit the concrete, sending a vibration rippling under the door
and up through his boot soles.

“That had to hurt,” Foley said. He had come around the
counter and was standing next to Jamie, the two of them casting a misshapen
shadow over Duncan and the dusty
Welcome
rug he was kneeling on.

Still wincing from the resonant sound of bone striking
cement, Jamie cast her gaze on the road south. “I count four vehicles.”

“Plus the Hummers?” Duncan asked as he rose creakily.

“Counting the Hummers,” Jamie answered.

A black and white SUV slid into the spot next to Duncan’s
Dodge.

Wilson crawled into a booth left of the door and pressed his
face to the glass. “That’s Jenkins Tahoe,” he said, incredulous.

Stick-on letters spelling out
Bear River Police
Department
now covered the Jackson Hole PD markings.

Standing beside an unoccupied booth, Duncan said, “Who’s in
the blue truck?”

“That’s old Ray,” Wilson said.

Duncan snatched his shotgun off the floor and snicked the
door lock open. “Four vehicles and what… seven bodies at the most?”

The rotter was on all fours now, holding a sort of downward
dog position with the crown of its head facing the door and its tongue nearly
touching the ground.

“I count five,” Taryn said, as the pair of Humvees rolled
onto the drive-in’s lot behind the black and white.

There was a screech of metal on metal as the battered blue
pickup ground to a halt on the south side of the parking lot.

Still scrabbling to stand, the rotter slapped the glass and
pawed at the metal door handle.

In one fluid movement, Duncan flipped the Saiga into the air
and caught it atop the barrel one-handed. Simultaneously, with his off hand he
unlocked the door then yanked it inward causing the zombie to pitch face first
where it said
Welcome
on the rug.

In a blur of movement, Duncan brought the shotgun’s butt
straight down to the back of the monster’s skull, which had already been
partially cratered by its earlier fall. Instantly the creature went still, a
trickle of dark blood spilling from both ears.

“Help me move this thing,” Duncan said to Wilson. “Jamie,
greet Dregan and then sweep the lot for more rotters.”

Wilson was up and helping as soon as Jamie had squeezed out
the front door.

After pulling the corpse inside, Duncan fished the radio
from his pocket. He thumbed the Talk key. “Still there?”

Daymon was back on at once. “How’s that for patience?”

Duncan said nothing.

“The weather’s lifted here,” Daymon went on. “How is it
there?”

“Rained enough to soften the bugs on our windshields. That’s
about it. What are you seeing there now?”

“You’re not going to believe what these fuckers are up to.”

“Did you find Oliver?”

“I think it’s him,” Daymon said, his voice softening. “And
if it is him… he doesn’t look so good. He’s got road rash on his face and a
broken leg ... looks like a real bad compound fracture.”

“He’s walking around?”

“No,” Daymon said. “He’s been put in one of those things.
Those torture devices the Pilgrims locked people up in. You know … like in the
town square, to humiliate them.”

“Stocks?”

“If that’s what you call ‘em, sure.”

“Are you compromised?” Duncan asked.

“Huh uh. The storm moved on and now I can see twice as far
with this scope. Except for a couple of rotters, nothing’s moving on the beach
or in the campgrounds.”

“Good. Hang tight,” Duncan said, the gears already turning
in his head. “Dregan and his guys just pulled up.” What he didn’t say was how
few of
his guys
there really were.
Oh well
, he thought.
We’ll
just have to make lemonade out of lemons
. At least the Humvees Dregan
brought were the two he used to briefly put the Eden compound under siege. The
lead vehicle, painted woodland camouflage—mainly greens and browns with a
little black shading thrown in for good measure—came complete with a
turret-mounted MK-19 grenade launcher. The same launcher one of Dregan’s men
had used to lob the high explosive rounds at the compound, bringing Brook
speeding to the gate in the F-650 all full of piss and vinegar. Duncan
chuckled, recalling the story she had relayed around the campfire that night.
Catching Dregan with his guard down was a hell of an achievement by anyone’s
standards.

The second Hummer coasted to a noisy halt beside the first.
It sported the same dark camo paint scheme and was armed with a Ma Deuce .50
caliber Browning. The heavy machine gun was identical in every way to the one
atop the National Guard Humvee currently parked in the motor pool at the Eden
compound.
Great place for it
, Duncan mused. What he wouldn’t give to
have had the foresight to bring that and the three-hundred-plus rounds of .50
caliber ammunition he’d had Phillip link up for him weeks ago.

Suddenly he missed Phillip’s constant nagging and calling
him “Sir.” But that feeling was pushed aside the moment Dregan swept into the
diner, his duster-shrouded six-foot three-inch frame filling up the doorway as he
did so. Then Duncan saw Gregory, oldest son of Dregan, who had received a dose
of the same suspect Omega Antiserum as Brook. It was apparent the moment he saw
the younger man enter behind Dregan that he was far from death. Instantly,
though he didn’t let it show, Duncan was awash with emotion. Maybe Brook wasn’t
carrying a latent dose of the Omega virus. He had burning questions he wanted
to pose, but knew he had to hold his cards close to the vest.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice, Alexander,” he
said, extending his hand to the elder Dregan.

“Dregan,” the giant of a man said as his hand enveloped
Duncan’s. “Call me Dregan, please. And this is my son, Gregory.”

The entry Duncan was looking for. He reached out and shook
Gregory’s hand. It was warm and the man’s grip was firm. He said, “It’s good to
see you under better circumstances.” He sized up the bandage covering the bite
wound to Gregory’s neck. Inexplicably, it was clean and white. “And you look
much better than when we met last.”

“So much was happening the other day,” Gregory answered,
looking embarrassed, “what with me kidnapping the kids and nearly paying for it
dearly.”

“Helen said you were down for the count,” Duncan said. “But
you look healthy as a horse to me.”
A lie
. In fact, the broad-shouldered
young man was pale and gaunt and his eyes were shot through with blood.

“He was coming down with the flu before he got bit,” the
elder Dregan interjected.

“And the healthy as a horse thing,” Gregory said. “I don’t
know about that … but I could probably eat one right now.” He cast his gaze at
the menu on the wall above the pass-through window behind the counter. It was a
two foot by ten foot sheet of white plastic with horizontal slots designed to
hold interchangeable plastic numbers and letters. The dust- and cobweb-covered
thing offered everything from plain old hamburgers to French dip sandwiches to
onion rings. Twisting the culinary dagger in his gut, colorful pictures of hot
fudge sundaes, dipped ice cream cones, and banana splits framed the lunch
offerings on both sides. “As a matter of fact a jumbo hot fudge sundae would
fill the void.”

At the tail end of Gregory’s fast food fantasy the door
opened and Ray entered. He paused on the blood-and-brain-matter-soiled
Welcome
rug and walked his eyes around the diner. Finally settling his gaze on Duncan,
he said, “I know the kids. But you and I haven’t met.”

Duncan stuck out his hand. “Duncan Winters. Pleasure’s all
mine.”

Ray reciprocated and asked, “Where’s that easy-on-the-eyes
lady named Brook?”

“She’s back at the compound. Came down with the flu
yesterday,” Duncan said. “Probably the same strain that’s going around Bear
River.”

The door opened again and Jamie stuck her head in. She
matched Ray’s smile, then motioned for Wilson and Foley to join her outside.
“We’ve got more rotters coming up the state route.”

“No gunfire,” Duncan said.

Dregan regarded Jamie. “Cleo’s in the police rig. He may not
look like much, but he ain’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Take him with you.”
Then, changing the tide of conversation, Dregan sat on a stool at the counter
and stared at Duncan. “Please, fill me and my boy in on what we’ll be going up
against.”

Maryland

As Ari backed the Ghost Hawk down and away from the
refueling probe, Cade’s one-hundred-and-eighty-pound frame got light in the
seat and the pitch of the four-blade rotors punishing the air over his head
decreased sharply. In seconds, the helicopter had performed a tight one-eighty
and was diving south toward the stretch of highway located roughly seven miles
southeast of the District of Columbia and nearly equidistant to the Maryland
cities of Suitland and Morningside.

Recent flyovers of each city by the Stealth Chinooks had
returned grim news: Both were teeming with dead and even after multiple low-level
passes, the pilots, crew chiefs, and Rangers aboard the helos had failed to
spot a single living soul.

As the parkway and tiny vehicles scattered haphazardly on it
grew larger, Cade gazed off to the west where the sun was getting low in the
sky and noted the presence of clear blue sky. It looked as if the flight home
across a pitch-black United States was looking good for viewing celestial
bodies. But first, he reminded himself, they had human bodies to identify and,
hopefully, stolen data to recover.

From his seat by the starboard window Cade saw the Chinooks
come into view, flying in tight formation and gliding slow and low over the
treetops. Vectoring in from the south, the two birds came within visual range
of the convoy then suddenly parted ways.

As planned, Jedi One-Two banked west and came in low over
the PLA convoy. After clearing the whip antenna atop a scorched desert-tan
multi-wheeled personnel carrier near the head of the convoy, the hulking
matte-black next-gen Chinook flew another thirty yards down the parkway, flared
and settled softly on the only clear spot of blacktop in sight.

Out of sight around the slight bend roughly a quarter-mile
west of where One-Two had just set down, Cade could see the mini-horde of Zs
lured there by the recently deployed Screamers. The rotten mass was ten to
twenty bodies deep and spread across all four lanes of oil-streaked blacktop.

Flicking his eyes right, Cade picked up One-Three just as
she cleared the end of the convoy. He knew the Rangers aboard were finished
tightening ruck straps and checking weapons and were chomping at the bit to
deploy.

He watched the Chinook flare and hover a few feet off the
deck, its wheels inches from the mangled Z corpses the passing Chinese convoy
had left in its wake. Even with the ramp fully deployed, it looked to Cade as
if the Bravo chalk of Rangers on One-Three were left with a three-foot drop to
the road.

After watching the Rangers leap from One-Three and move into
their blocking position on the east end of the kill zone, Cade’s thoughts
shifted to his wife and daughter. He uttered a prayer for each—the first for
Brook to stay strong, the second for Raven to be a pillar of support for her
mom in his stead.

Ari’s voice snapped Cade back to the mission at hand.
“Wheels down in five,” the aviator said over the shipwide comms.

Cade peered down through the window and saw the dashed
yellow centerline of the mostly clear westbound lanes rushing up. Quickly, he
went through the ritual of checking his M4’s magazine and chamber. Finding the
rounds seated in the former and the latter empty—as expected—he charged a round
and set the carbine to Safe.

“Four,” Ari called.

As Skipper started the port-side door on its rearward slide,
Cade unhooked his safety harness and stomped his feet to get the blood flowing.
And when he moved to the front of his seat and put some weight on his bad left
ankle, he was pleasantly surprised to find that thanks to the Motrin in his
system, it was virtually free of pain.
Thank God for grunt candy.

“Three,” Ari called, never breaking cadence in his long,
drawn-out count.

“Stay frosty,” Cade said, letting his gaze sweep across his
cobbled-together Delta team. And though he had already gone over the mission
details twice over the course of the recent refueling—once as the team had
hatched the plan, and a second time when he had shared it over the comms with
all three aircrews and the lieutenant and first sergeants who would be leading
the Rangers—he ran over it one last time in bullet-point fashion. “We’re looking
for WIAs, motorcycles, and backpacks full of data storage devices. Griff and
Cross will head east and curl around the rear of the column, then work their
way west toward the lead elements. Me and Axe will exfil and head west, toward
the front of the column where we all meet up. Remember … don’t catch a bullet
and don’t get bit.”

“Two,” Ari called.

Focusing his attention on Griff, Cade said, “We’ve got to
locate those backpacks.” Swinging his gaze around the cabin, he finished with,
“And watch your fire. We’ve got Rangers and helos at both ends of the parkway.”

Ari was calling out, “Wheels down,” just as the bird settled
on a patch of bare pavement in a lane adjacent to the three Humvee-looking
vehicles bringing up the rear of the column.

Before the subtle vibration of the shocks sucking up the
helo’s weight could fully course through the ship’s airframe, Cade was out the
door with Axe on his six. “Weapons free,” he called, fanning left while keeping
his M4 trained on the soot-covered vehicles. After clearing the ship’s tail
boom and wildly spinning tail rotor by a dozen feet, he took a knee and peered
over his shoulder, seeing that Cross and Griff had already hurdled the
guardrail and were nearing the end of the column.

The usual muffled whine and uncomfortable harmonic
thwop,
thwop
of the spooling rotors pummeled Cade’s chest and lungs. Guarding
against flying debris, he put his gloved hand over his nose and mouth and
watched Jedi One-One rise slowly from the road, turn in place until its nose
was pointing south, then rocket up and over the trees.

After One-One was out of sight, Cade brought up the TOC back
at Schriever to alert them that his team was safely on the ground.

“Anvil Actual, Schriever TOC,” an anonymous airman replied.
“Good copy. Good hunting.”

Cade said nothing. He flicked his carbine off of Safe, rose,
and motioned for Axe to follow. With the stench of decay, cooked flesh, burning
electrical, and jet exhaust assaulting his nose, he padded to the far guardrail
and scrutinized the dirt on the shoulder.

Nothing.

He peered over the guardrail and let his gaze walk the
shallow embankment and nearby tree line.

Still nothing. There were no tire tracks, motorcycle or
otherwise.

Axe shook his head. “Nothing.”

Cade hailed Cross. “Anvil Two, Anvil Actual. Be advised. No
joy on any trace of the PLA tangos. No bodies. No motorcycles. No backpacks.”

Immediately following their rapid egress from Jedi One-One,
Cross and Griff had sprinted off to their right, keeping their helmeted heads
ducked until they were clear of the helo’s whirring composite, carbon-fiber
main rotor blades. A few seconds later they had already hurdled the Jersey
barrier dividers, curled around the tail end of the convoy, and were beginning
their east to west sweep while keeping close to the guardrail bordering the
parkway to the north.

Now, after hearing Cade’s discouraging SITREP, Cross checked
in with bad news of his own.

“Anvil Actual, Anvil Two. We’re at the midpoint. No joy to
report here. Still searching. How copy?”

“Good copy,” Cade replied. “Proceed to rally point.”

Crabbing sideways, Cross kept his stubby MP7 trained on the
spaces between the dozen-plus inert vehicles. As the two operators crept
forward, Griff kept his gaze fixed on the rock face and nearby copse of trees
beyond the guardrail.

Nearing the third vehicle from the front of the failed
expeditionary force, Cross halted and took a knee. With the first two fingers
of his left hand splayed into a V, he pointed to his eyes, then did the same in
the direction of the nearby troop transport.

Understanding Cross had detected movement inside the vehicle
he had pointed to, Griff nodded and joined him in the shadow of the looming
troop transport.

On the opposite side of the PLA convoy, Cade was turned away
from the guardrail and facing the carnage. He let his gaze roam the tangle of
rent steel and charred flesh. Up close, the vehicles didn’t look like toys in a
diorama as they had from the air. They were stopped in a ragged line, most of
them facing away at different angles, having been destroyed in place when they
had tried to flee the aerial attack. From a dozen feet away he could see the
individual pocks and craters and paint missing on the armored vehicle’s outer
skin. Each vehicle sported fist-sized gaping maws surrounded by jagged metal
where 30mm shells had punched through them as if they were constructed of
papier-mâché. The personnel who had tried to escape the gun runs had suffered
the same fate as the vehicles. There were no tidy dime-sized entry wounds with
blossoms of crimson surrounding them. No dead PLA soldiers were lying prostrate
on the road and staring wide-eyed at the darkening sky. The destruction to
anything organic had been utter and final. Bloody hunks of charred flesh were
scattered around the rear guard APCs surviving the conflagration that had
consumed the majority of the column.

Save for scraps of camouflage PLA uniforms and a couple of
bullpup-style carbines lying on the road, only a severed hand and a right foot
still in its knock-off combat boot was distinguishable to Cade. Nothing
remotely resembling a human body was left intact after catching one of the
A-10’s massive bullets.

“Fuck all,” Axe said, staring down at the white leg bone
protruding from the fire-singed leather boot. “Some of my mates were on the wrong
end of one of those beasts over in the sandbox. Glad it wasn’t me.”

“News of those blue on blue instances hit all of us real
hard.”

“Fog of war,” Axe responded. “These things happen.”

Then something did happen. A series of gunshots rang out
from the front of the column.

Four total.

Closely spaced.

Then there was silence.