District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (44 page)

After skimming the mast-styled flag poles in front of the
dried-up fountain directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from Target Bravo, Jedi
One-One was wheels down for a scant three seconds before the turbines spooled
back up and she was lifting off minus the Delta team.

By the time Cade and his team were away from the rotor cone
and sweeping their weapons toward the center of the expansive United States
Navy Memorial, the near-silent stealth helo was climbing away to the west over
their heads, the tricycle-style landing gear already retracting into its smooth
underbelly.

“Schriever, Jedi One-One,” Ari called over the comms. “Anvil
Team is boots on at Target Bravo.”

“Copy that, Flight Lead. Stand by for SITREP,” came a female
voice from the TOC.

Hearing the exchange between Ari and the TOC at Schriever,
Cade rose and led the team off in the same direction the helicopter was
retreating. Weaving between the jam of cars choking Pennsylvania Avenue with
his M4 leading the way had looked to be less of a challenge from the air. On
the ground, he and the team were forced to step up on bumpers and scramble over
grimy hoods and trunks to get across the westbound lanes.

Once Cade made it to the yard-wide expanse of concrete
separating Pennsylvania Avenue’s westbound lanes from the eastbound, he paused
and regarded the rest of the team coming up on his six. Satisfied with their
progress, he walked his gaze north across the tops of the traffic snarl. On the
far side of the Naval Memorial, dozens of Zs attracted by the black helicopter
were making their way across the plaza. He watched Griff and Cross slide across
the trunk of a dirt-streaked Mercedes one right after the other and take a
knee, each training the deadly end of their suppressed weapon a different
direction down the narrow cement island splitting Pennsylvania Avenue
lengthwise.

In the rear of a nearby city bus something dead was clawing
at the clouded windows. Ignoring the monster’s interest in him, Cross said,
“That landing zone isn’t going to work for exfil.”

Cade nodded, his eyes tracking Axe as the SAS operator
clomped across a Crown Victoria’s flat hood and hurdled the rear end of a
Yellow Cab. “I think I’d rather wade through three lanes of shamblies than go
bonnet, boot, bonnet, boot like that again.”

“Be grateful for the jam,” Cade said to Axe. He gestured
toward the LZ. “It’s all that’s keeping them from us.”

Axe rose and made a slow turn to the north. Seeing the
excited throng, he whistled and said, “I stand corrected.”

“Let’s move,” Cade said, striking out between a narrow gap
separating a Prius cab from the city-bus-cum-tomb whose shadow they’d been
crouched in.

The going got a little easier as the team crossed the fifth
and sixth eastbound lanes. Leading them across the sidewalk and angling for a
triangle of tall grass on the northwest corner of Pennsylvania and 14th Street,
Cade heard Nash break in over the comms to tell Ari about developments in their
search for the PLA team. But before any details were exchanged, Nash said
something to the effect that the satellite footage would speak for itself and
then signed off.

Encouraged by what the cryptic snippet of conversation
alluded to, Cade led the team charging south down the sidewalk with the
entrance to the looming target building in his sights.

As he neared the recessed doors leading to the marble
structure’s lower level, Cade found his path along the litter-strewn sidewalk
blocked when a lone shambler emerged from between a pair of static cars to his
right. Slowing his gait, he leveled the carbine to take aim, but was confronted
by two more child-sized first turns spilling through the same opening. After
putting a Danner to the lead undead kid’s chest, Cade sidestepped the pair as
they fell and fired two rounds into the first shambler’s balding skull. Seeing
the thing’s forehead implode from the double tap, he went to a knee in front of
the alcove shielding the building’s entrance and motioned for Griff and Cross
to engage the kid walkers. Next, he caught Axe’s eye as the operator was coming
to a halt on their six and mouthed, “Cover me.” He turned from the action and
removed the lock gun from a cargo pocket.

After a quick visual sweep of the ten-by-twenty entry, which
was thankfully occupied by only ankle-high drifts of orange and red fallen
leaves and a yellowed Washington Post front page emblazoned with the headline
Super
Flu Outbreak Hits China
, Cade kneeled before the steel door and worked the
pick gun into the first lock.

Immediately following a flurry of suppressed gunshots, Cross
called, “Get us inside, Wyatt. We’re drawing a crowd.”

After popping the first lock, Cade moved to the upper
deadbolt, which took him just a handful of seconds to thwart.

Having alternated between watching Cade’s progress and
scanning 14th Street for more unwanted visitors, Axe saw the second lock fall
and in his headset heard Cade call for Cross and Griff to disengage and rally
at the entrance.

Motioning Axe forward, Cade said, “Cover me while I go in.”

“Roger,” Axe said, raising his M4 from its low ready
position.

Slowly easing the door inward, Cade one-eyed it around the
corner and saw a wide run of white marble stairs going up and a set of brushed
stainless-steel elevator doors to his right. Casting a glance at the floor, he
noted the fine coating of untracked dust. “Clear,” he called, rising up and
shouldering the door open.

Once everyone was inside and the door was secured, it was
evident their NVGs wouldn’t be needed. A diffuse light was spilling down the
stairwell, painting the foyer a soft golden color.

Taking point, Cade scaled the stairs one at a time, keeping
wide left and his M4 trained on the turn as he approached it.

Three more turns and a landing crossing later they found
themselves in an equally dusty and identical foyer. On the wall in front of
them was a sign directing them to the Rotunda Room.

Seeing the sign, Cross raised a brow and pointed it out to
Griff and Axe, both a few steps to his rear.

Continuing on through the doorway, Cade noted that the air
in the building’s interior was cool and musty. With the computer-controlled
HVAC units that usually scrubbed the air and kept the humidity in check not
running, it didn’t surprise him that the elements were already taking a toll on
the building and its contents.

As Cade entered the rotunda, he was blown away by its sheer
scale and complexity of design. Underfoot, the marble floor was decorated with
dozens of large circles inlaid with red marble. Each of the circles were
bordered with black marble. A fine sheen of dust coated everything under the
dome. Motes danced in the light shafts bisecting the room from the front dais
to the retired grand entry.

At the fore of the great room opposite the entry was a
quartet of columns, the smaller two honed from black marble similar to that
used on the floor, while the larger outside columns were the same red marble as
the circles on the floor. Between the columns stood a pair of United States
flags. Roughly thirty feet above the dais, supported by the smaller two
columns, was a white marble arch. Intricate inlays of black marble and carved
dentil details were used liberally in the grand arch’s design. And bookending
the columns and arch—rising from just below the base of the columns and ending
where the dome began—were beautifully painted murals, one depicting men in
powdered wigs and shawls attending the formal reading of the Declaration of
Independence and the other showing the nation’s forefathers observing the
presentation of the United States Constitution.

After sweeping his gaze from left to right and determining
that he and his team were alone, Cade padded across the room and stopped
beneath the arch, peering down at the first of five glass cases. Inside was a
leaf of worn, yellow-brown paper. He read the words
We the people
and
instantly felt an electric current race along his spine.

Cade turned and directed Cross and Griff across the room to
where natural light was spilling in from a huge multi-paned window and casting
a grid-like pattern across a series of cases rising up from a marble dais.
“Start there,” he said, pointing at the cases. “And put them next to those.” He
hooked his thumb over his shoulder.
Those
he was alluding to were a pair
of bronze doors taking up nearly a third of the rotunda’s south-facing wall.

Working the screwdriver’s star-shaped tip into the flush
fastener on the argon-filled panel he was hunched over, Cade looked sidelong at
Axe. “Are you okay with this?”

“Earl Grey under the bridge,” Axe replied. “But that’s
ancient history. I know I would have been a Minuteman had I been alive back
then.”

“You and me both, brother,” Cade said, drawing out the
fastener. Moving to the next corner, he called up Ari and detailed how they
were going to get the priceless artifacts aboard Jedi One-Two.

***

Ten minutes after entering the National Archives building,
the team had secured the documents the President had requested, breached the
largely unused double doors on the Rotunda Room’s south side and were handing
the glass-encased artifacts through the doors to the waiting hands of the
Rangers from One-Two. Having just delivered the chalk to the stairs fronting
the Archive building’s south side, the stealth Chinook was now waiting a
stone’s throw away on Constitution Avenue, performing what was essentially a
pinnacle maneuver, nose up at a fifteen-degree angle with the back wheels
perched atop a pair of yellow taxi cabs, their roofs buckling a bit under its
weight. One-Two’s wide rear ramp was down and barely minutes after disgorging
the Ranger chalk she was already receiving the first of five glass cases
containing individual pages of the Bill of Rights.

Cade handed the Declaration of Independence through the
yawning bronze doors to a Ranger and watched the master sergeant from the 75th
Regiment pass it to another Ranger. Bucket-brigade-style, the documents a proud
nation was founded on made their way down the stairs, overtop the snarled
traffic, and were handed off to the crew chief on the ramp of the helo expertly
piloted by an unknown aviator from the 160th SOAR.

As the last case containing the United States Constitution
left Cade’s hands and started down the stairs, there came a ripping sound as
the minigun on One-Two’s port side opened up with a short, three-hundred-round
burst.

One by one the empty-handed Rangers descended the stairs to
the sidewalk, negotiated the static cars, and boarded the helicopter tasked
with bringing home the Charters of Freedom.

In his earpiece Cade heard Ari warning the Chinook pilot
that he was in danger of being overrun from his blind side.

As One-Two responded by going light on her gear, the Rangers
on the ramp began firing their carbines at the Zs slithering through the jam on
the helo’s six.

To Cade’s right, Cross and Griff were busy engaging the
monsters coming into view off of 14th Avenue. On his left, Axe was firing and
changing magazines faster than Cade had ever seen. At the SAS trooper’s feet
was a growing pool of body fluids and a mound of twice-dead Zs nearly
waist-high to him.

The increasing turbine whine drew Cade’s attention back to
the Chinook. The ramp was motoring up and the rear wheels were no longer
resting on the car roofs.

“Jedi Lead, Anvil Actual. Requesting immediate exfil. We’re
about to be surrounded on three sides.”

“Copy that, Anvil Actual,” Ari answered back. “Hold onto
your bonnets. Coming in hot.”

After calling the rest of the team to his position on the
sidewalk paralleling Constitution Avenue, Cade dumped his empty mag and reached
for another, all while looking skyward at the black obelisk blocking out the
flat light.

The harmonic tremor of three sets of rotors bashed Cade’s
chest as One-Two and One-One crossed paths at different altitudes, the former
launching with the mission’s objective and full complement of Rangers safely
inside, the latter coming in at a steep angle, the minigun laying down a
curtain of lead a dozen feet in front of the soon-to-be-compromised Delta team.

“Go, go, go,” Cade bellowed, pushing Axe ahead of Cross and
Griff. He watched them negotiate the chewed-up concrete and body parts of the
Zs Skipper had just decimated with the mini. He was relieved to see them scale
the same cars the Chinook had used as a platform. Then he dumped the remaining
rounds from his magazine to cover them as Jedi One-One, its wheels still stowed
internally, filled up the airspace Jedi One-Two had just vacated.

Like the last man off a sinking ship, putting his trust in
both Skipper on the mini, and the brace on his still-healing left ankle,
Captain Cade Grayson broke into a sprint for the hovering Ghost Hawk. Once he
reached the car Griff had just scrambled atop, he bashed the M4’s
semi-collapsed stock into a first turn’s head, put a boot on the car’s rear
tire, and performed an improvised half-barrel roll onto its dented roof. With
gnarled fingers tugging at his fatigues, Cade rose to a knee and lunged for
Cross and Axe’s outstretched hands.

The rest was a blur of black blades overhead and colors of
the rainbow spinning below as he was yanked forcibly inside the cabin. There
was the metallic click of his M4 being unclipped from its sling and then hands
were guiding him to a seat as the door began motoring shut.

“I’d say that’s one for the
close
column,” Axe said,
wiping hair and rotten dermis from Cade’s still-smoking carbine.

Cade nodded at the quip, but couldn’t conjure up a smile,
because, like the ring of Tolkien lore, the satellite phone in his pocket was
calling to him.

The parking lot and road out front of Merlin’s Drive-In was
crowded with vehicles. The two U-Haul trucks and Dregan’s Humvees were lined up
on 30 pointing south. Parked side by side next to the restaurant were the
Raptor, F-650, Bear River patrol Tahoe and Daymon’s black Chevy. Laden down
with supplies stripped from Adrian’s compound, all four vehicles sat low on
their springs.

Traveling order was established and with a low rumble and
puff of diesel exhaust the Humvees driven by the senior Dregan and his oldest,
Gregory, grabbed gears and slowly pulled away. Next in line with Cleo at the
wheel was the fully loaded seventeen-foot U-Haul package truck bound for Bear
River. And after figuring how to get his new set of wheels into gear, Ray
pulled the patrol Tahoe off the lot and formed up on the U-Haul’s bumper.

Once the first group was underway, Duncan struck out after
them driving the U-Haul containing the bodies of their fallen. Close behind was
the Raptor with Taryn at the wheel and Wilson riding shotgun. The seventh
vehicle in line was the F-650 with Lev at the helm and Jamie navigating. The
black Chevy pickup being driven solo by Daymon brought up the rear.

The multicolored convoy rumbled along on 16, radios quiet,
the conversation inside the individual vehicles practically nonexistent.

Randolph proved to be quiet and free of rotters when the
vehicles motored through.

A few miles farther south not a thing was stirring in
Woodruff.

Forty-five minutes after leaving Merlin’s behind, the convoy
parted ways at the 16/39 juncture.

The orange glow from the burning lake houses was still on
Duncan’s mind when he watched the U-Haul, two Humvees, and the patrol
Tahoe—gifted by the elder Dregan to Ray as a replacement for the rickety blue pickup—roll
on south down State Route 16 towards the Thagon farm.

After steering the U-Haul onto westbound State Route 39, the
dam broke inside of Duncan and suddenly he was awash in emotion the likes of
which he hadn’t experienced since the Sunday in July when his best friend in
the world, Charlie Hammond, took his own life. As the road began to climb and
the package truck began to bog down under weight of the full load in back, hot
tears rolled down his cheeks. Starting with Charlie and ending with Foley, the
faces of the dead scrolled through his mind like an old silent film.

“Want me to drive?” Tran asked as the road crested and
leveled out.

Startled by the sudden inclusion of sound into the cab,
Duncan jerked involuntarily, causing the truck to cross the centerline as 39
swept into a blind right-hander a few hundred feet before the quarry entrance.
Then, coming at the worst possible time on the heels of Duncan’s course
correction, Daymon’s voice emanated from the Motorola in the center console.
“Drinking again, Old Man?”

Muttering an expletive under his breath, Duncan’s gaze was
momentarily drawn from the road down to the radio.

“Look out, demons,” said Tran.

Looking up and seeing a dozen rotters draped over a tiny
green compact, Duncan blurted, “Shit.” In the next beat he realized the things
Tran had taken to calling demons were about five seconds from making violent
and destructive acquaintance with the seventeen-foot U-Haul’s squared-off
grill.

Before Duncan could get his right foot to the brake pedal, his
arms were acting as if they had a mind of their own. Hauling hand over hand to
the left started the rig to slew crazily. Thankfully, as the vehicle went up on
two wheels, the brakes grabbed, slamming them back down, which started the
vehicle slewing in a serpentine pattern for another thirty feet before coming
to a screeching halt with Tran staring at the dead things and Duncan staring
straight at the Raptor’s rapidly approaching grill.

Because throwing his arms up in front of his face seemed to
be his last mortal defense against several tons of hurtling American iron,
Duncan missed seeing Taryn jink the wheel at the last possible moment. Instead,
when the anticipated meeting with St. Peter didn’t materialize, he opened his
eyes, dropped his hands, and saw a flash of white in his right side vision as
the Raptor’s bed hit a glancing blow off the U-Haul’s front bumper. Turning his
head instinctively he watched the white Ford roll another fifteen feet and come
to a sudden and grinding halt balanced precariously on the soft shoulder.

With the Raptor still rocking on its springs, Duncan
remembered there had been two other vehicles following behind the Raptor.

As the monsters started raking the sheet metal on Tran’s
side, Duncan turned his head left just in time to see the hurtling F-650’s
front end nose down hard. Then, for the second time in a handful of heartbeats,
he watched his life flash before his eyes as the rig went from forty-five miles
per hour to a complete stop in less time and distance than he fathomed
possible.

Thank God for adequate following distances
, he
thought, eyes flicking from the looming grill next to his door to his oversized
side mirror, where he witnessed Daymon swerve his Chevy pickup around back of
the U-Haul, its off-road tires leaving a spray of gravel in its wake.

Prying his hands off the wheel, Duncan looked to his right
and took in the aftermath from Daymon’s evasive maneuver. Zombies were
scattered like bowling pins across the road. The left front end of the Chevy
had clipped a rotter and sent it airborne like a meat missile straight into the
little Toyota Tercel’s rear window.

“There’s someone in the car,” Tran said, his voice rising an
octave. “It’s a woman, I think.”

“So close to home,” Duncan said, shouldering his door open,
shotgun in hand.

Meeting Lev and Jamie on the road, Duncan hurriedly told
them about the breather. Next he radioed the others and told them to stand
down, lest the thing moving in the car really was a breather. From experience,
he had reason to believe Tran had seen what he had. During all of his travels
after that day in late July when the dead began to walk, he had never seen a
rotter interested in one of its own. Especially not one trapped in an
automobile in plain view.

“There’s a woman in there, all right,” Daymon said. “We’ll
take care of the rotters.”

Tran flinched when the machete scythed the air in front of
his face. Blood spritzed the window and one rotter collapsed vertically.

Wilson spilling out of the Raptor a dozen feet to his right
caught Tran’s attention. In the redhead’s hand was a lock-blade knife. On his
face was a look of determination as he waded into the dead from their blind
side.

In less than a minute the zombies were prone on the road,
legs and arms akimbo, faces frozen masks of true death.

“Nine,” Daymon crowed.

“You got eight. I got four,” Wilson insisted.

“Quit arguing,” Duncan bellowed, as he split the two men and
leveled his shotgun at the compact car’s drivers-side door.

Hands raised in surrender, the person behind the wheel
yelled something that sounded to Duncan like “Bee hive.”

Duncan looked a question at Daymon.

“She said
she’s alive
,” Daymon said matter-of-factly.
He sidestepped a corpse and approached Duncan. “What do you want to do?”

“Let her say her piece.” Keeping the shotgun aimed at the
window glass, Duncan motioned for her to step out. “Slowly,” he said, as soon
as she lowered her gloved hands.

The woman nudged the door open and stepped onto the road.
She looked to be in her mid-forties. Close-cropped blonde hair framed a full
face, marred with crow’s feet and frown lines. The apocalypse hadn’t been easy
on this one, Duncan decided. Craning past her, he saw that the car was full of
belongings, mostly clothes from the looks of it.

“Hands up,” Duncan ordered. “What’s your name?”

“Bridgett,” she replied.

“Well, Bridgett. We’re not going to reciprocate,” Lev said.
“That’s just how it is these days.”

Holding her hands up at shoulder level, the woman regarded
Duncan. “I ran out of gas.”

“Poor planning can get you killed,” Daymon said, moving her
aside to get a look inside the car.

“I was trying to get to Huntsville before dark. Planned on
siphoning gas and moving on to Eden,” she said, still looking at Duncan, who
was half a head taller. “Though I might stay the night at the ski resort. But
some
assholes
dropped a bunch of trees across the road a few miles west
of here. So I had to turn back.”

“Asshole … right here,” Daymon said, raising his hand.
“Guilty as charged.” He looked to Duncan. “She’s telling the truth. Gas gauge
is on E. There’s garden hose and a gas can in back, too.”

Duncan saw a mental image of a coin in his head.
Heads
she gets mercy
, he decided, closing his eyes briefly. The imaginary coin
spun end over end and landed on heads. “Jacket, shirt, pants, shoes … take them
off, now,” he said, all business.

The woman stripped down to her bra and panties as ordered.

Taryn and Jamie moved in at once, checking her for weapons
and bites.

“What are all of these from?” said Jamie, gesturing to the
crisscrossing red welts running up and down the woman’s arm from knuckles to
elbows.

“Last time I tried to get some gas … back by Woodruff, I got
jumped and had to hide from the gawkers in some roadside brambles.”

Jamie looked to the others. “What do you all think?”

“Seems legit,” Wilson said.

After a second or two, Lev nodded in approval.

“Nice tattoo,” Taryn remarked, eyeing the multicolored,
tri-petal flower snaking around the woman’s bicep. “What is it?”

“A flower,” replied the woman.

“What kind?” asked Wilson, inching past Taryn to get a
closer look.

“An iris,” said the woman, as she threw a shiver. “Can I get
dressed now?”

Duncan nodded to the woman. Then, looking to the girls, he
said, “When she’s decent, blindfold and zip-tie her.” He thought for a second.
“Go ahead and stick her in back of the 650 with Max.”

While Daymon and Wilson cleared the road of the dead and the
stalled car, Jamie and Taryn were tying fabric around Bridgett’s eyes and
binding her wrists together with plastic cuffs. The woman didn’t fight. She
simply let it happen then allowed Jamie to lead her to the waiting truck.