Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (18 page)

Dropping the Steiners to the seat, he consulted the Blue
Force Tracker display—a GPS-derived digital map of the area, showing all
friendly forces in blue and all known enemy concentrations in red. He zoomed
out in order to see all of his teams, which were represented by a blue icon
labeled with their unique call sign. He gazed at the spiderweb of streets, focusing
on the yellow pixelated stretch of I-25 splitting the screen vertically. He adjusted
the crosshairs over a position to the south, toggled the
zoom out
key a
couple of times, and as the screen fully refreshed what he saw there warranted
an immediate double take. Represented by brilliant red pixels overlaying a
large segment of I-25, the computer-generated zombie horde crept continually north
towards his position, a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut he was about to meet
head on.

He noted the locations of his men and war-gamed the scenario
in his mind one more time. When the dead reached his forward deployed M-ATVs,
the crew would engage them with the turret-mounted 240s. Next, the drivers would
bump their lightly-armored vehicles down the nearby embankments and onto the
freeway, two at a time, and begin a series of low speed hit and run maneuvers designed
to entice the dead and lead them north on the 25 to the prepared stretch of
highway that—if all went as planned—would become their final resting place.

Should have named this thing Operation Cattle Drive
,
he mused as he turned up the volume and listened to the ongoing rescue operation
to the south and west of him. The pilots, who were alternating between calling
out targets on the ground for the door gunners and offering up reassuring words
to the men on the ground, sounded calm, cool, and collected. Every once in a
while the squad leader on the ground would ask, in a clipped, almost frantic voice,
for a situation report, which the Black Hawk pilots promptly delivered while
painting a much rosier picture than the men on the ground most likely faced.

Lamenting the fact that there was nothing he could do for
the surrounded squad but pray, he turned the volume down and rested his helmet
against the seatback, a move that earned him a wet sloppy Huddie kiss.

“Thanks buddy. I needed that.” After giving the German
Shepherd a much deserved scratch between the ears, he snatched his last can of
Amp from the console, finished the tepid energy drink in one gulp, and chucked
the empty on the floorboards. “Gotta stay frosty, boy.”

In full agreement, Huddie added a clipped guttural growl of
his own.

“Let’s see where the enemy is.” He glanced at the BFT,
noting the ever-present red inchworm of death had moved considerably northward.
Then, with the reassuring knowledge that the horde was several miles away and
the first contact of Operation Toll Booth likely an hour in the future, he closed
his eyes and recited a prayer he’d memorized for just such an occasion.

I-90 West of Draper

Sitting behind the wheel, left ankle throbbing madly, Cade
listened intently to the conversation between Cross and the flight engineer in
the Hercules circling overhead. And in just a couple of minutes he overheard
Dover relay to Cross all kinds of information pertinent to the hastily cobbled
together rescue plan. Finally Dover wished Cross and the Delta team good luck,
and signed off.

Craning his head, Cade witnessed the Hercules perform an exaggerated
wing waggle and break orbit. He twisted around in his seat and watched the
Hercules fly off on a southbound heading.

Seriously doubting the agent atop the van could hear him
over the tinny screech of dead hands raking against the rusty hood and fenders,
Cade asked, “Cross, did you by chance get
all
of that?”

“Roger that. Did you forget I head up the President’s detail
or something?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Cade shot back.

“To do my job, you have to have a near photographic memory
and possess a very high IQ,” Cross stated, sounding neither cocky nor full of
himself. “I had to remember a lot of faces and a ton of operational details. Can’t
be consulting notes with the big boss’s life on the line.”

“Yeah ... stay frosty,” said Cade half-heartedly. “So what
are you seeing now?”

“Looks better from up here than it does from the back of the
truck,” answered Cross over the comms.

“No shit,” Lopez replied as he shot a pair of Zs in the head
at point blank range. The haze of pink mist blossomed and drifted sideways
before fading to nothing. “Madre,” cried the deeply religious operator. “They
just keep coming.”

“We’re almost home free,” answered Cade reassuringly. “Keep
shooting them.”

“I’m down to one mag and my sidearm.”

“What about Tice’s ammo?”

“Burned through his last two mags while you were arguing
with Ari,” said Lopez.

“I was lobbying,” Ari said sharply, shooting a glare through
the back window. He swiveled his head forward, made eye contact with Jasper, and
asked the question he supposed everyone aboard was dying to know. “How in God’s
name did all of these cars end up stuck on the interstate here in Draper?”

“Human nature I suppose,” said Jasper. “Before all of this
we used to have the busiest Dairy Queen east of Rapid City and west of Sioux
Falls. Hell, our two little gas stations did a brisk business too. People are
creatures of habit, and with our little town sitting nearly halfway between two
of the biggest cities in South Dakota, I gather it was just a natural place to
stop and stretch, gas up, and get some fries and an ice cream cone to keep the
kids happy.”

Ari kept his gaze fixed on Jasper for a beat. “Doesn’t
answer my question,” he finally said.

“Right after the outbreak, just about the time the people on
the East and West Coasts were looting and acting crazy, the bad elements in Rapid
City and Sioux Falls jumped on the bandwagon.” He went silent for a beat. Made
a face and swallowed hard. “And as if the zombie outbreaks broadcast on the
news weren’t bad enough, the cities started burning. They were showing massive
fires on the TV.”

Ari noted the faraway look on the undertaker’s ruddy face,
as if he were attempting to recall something pertinent to the conversation. “So
these folks ended up in a place they knew,” he added, helping to fill in the
blanks. “But Draper didn’t know them. Especially didn’t want them bringing their
infected loved ones around.”

“You hit the nail on the head, Ari. In a matter of hours both
stations’ tanks were bone dry. Texaco first and then the Astro station. My good
friend Bernie died defending his pumps ... bunch of animals. They looted the
Thriftway after that.” Jasper pinched the bridge of his nose. Took a deep
breath. “Sheriff got the guy who killed Bernie. Apprehended a few of the
looters and then ran out of room in the jail. Then he set up a roadblock and started
turning folks away. Some left their cars but most drove as far as the fumes in
their tanks would take them ...”

“Which wasn’t very far from the looks of things,” Ari said.

Jasper nodded. “And then they walked,” he added quietly.
“And they kept walking even after they got bit.”

“The remnants of that same human nature I’d guess,” Ari
stated.

Jasper made no reply. Just stared straight ahead, ignoring
the sneering ashen faces of the walking corpses.

Suddenly the gunfire ceased, leaving only Jasper’s labored
breathing to compete with the ticking engine and the fingernails of the dead
scrabbling against the skin of the truck.

With his back pressed firmly against the white van and the
M4 pointing at his two o’clock, Hicks reached out with his left hand and rapped
his knuckles on the back window. Once he had Cade’s attention, he spun his
finger and raised his M4, a wisp of smoke curling from its muzzle. “I’m nearly
winchester
,”
he bellowed. “We gotta
go
.”

Just then a loud clang shivered the truck and the shocks
compressed as Cross landed in the bed after having jumped down off the panel
van. Simultaneously, Cade heard the man holler, “Go, go, go,” in his ear bud. He
slipped the transmission into a gear meant for towing, probably last used well
before the rattletrap had a quarter-million miles on the odometer. A time when the
big V8 engine could still transfer all that horsepower in the form of torque down
to the asphalt. Now, judging from the sounds coming from under the hood, he
doubted the rig could drive its way out of a wet paper bag, let alone through a
handful of determined Zs.

But he gave it the old college try, and when the Chevy
failed to deliver any kind of forward progress, slammed the rig into reverse
and accelerated backward with as much speed as he could coax. Hands groped and
metal screeched, and paint was traded as the two vehicles parted ways.

“Go around the Zs and continue until you pass the next three
vehicles,” said Cross. “Then you’ll see a silver compact, and just past it there’s
a school bus and a red SUV with a bunch of crap piled on top ... the only clear
passage is between the two. After splitting the bus and SUV, you have to move
to the left and pass a yellow VW Bug ... but keep to its driver side. Then once
you clear the VeeDub you move left to the breakdown lane and you’ll have a clear
path for ... let’s call it a couple of hundred yards.”

“Since I don’t possess a photographic memory like yours ...
who
is going to help me remember all of that?” asked Cade.

“I’ve got your back,” answered Cross.

“So ... what exactly happens after we pass the VW?” Lopez
asked out of the blue, a touch of sarcasm to his voice.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” answered Cross, who
went on to explain in detail what the air crew in the Hercules was planning and
what role each one of them had to play so everyone could get home to Schriever
with a steady core temperature as close to ninety-eight-point-six as possible.

Schriever AFB TOC

Propelled on rubbery legs, Brook made her way to a chair and
kept her eyes glued to monitor number three. Judging from the graininess of the
image, she guessed the camera recording it was perched on a satellite in a very
high standoff orbit. The footage also lacked a sense of depth, which made it
difficult to see details like dimension, angles, and direction. However, the unmoving
bodies and black splotches of spilt blood painting the roadway were
unmistakable.
Cade and the boys have been busy
, she thought, narrowing
her eyes in order to read the scrolling and constantly changing series of
monochrome letters and numbers at the bottom of the screen. But they told her
nothing. In fact, they only added to the confusion of the constantly moving, vertigo-inducing,
real-time feed.

Then, catching her attention, the image on the vivid display
abruptly refreshed. Everything was still in color but the distance from lens to
ground seemed to have been cut in half. Consequently the truck now looked more
like a Tonka than a Hot Wheel in size. And instead of jersey barriers she could
see some kind of cable separating the two directions of travel on the four-lane
highway. Then the new and improved resolution revealed a defined shadow falling
behind the stationary pick-up. And though she was no detective, its mere presence
told her the truck was heading west—towards the lowering sun. Suddenly a cold
chill traced her spine as she realized there was much more movement on the
roadway than she had previously noticed. Given away by defined shadows all
their own, the slow-moving figures homed in on the truck from every point on
the compass. Whether they’d been drawn in by the engine noise of the truck, the
gunfire, or the airplane that had already buzzed the pick-up twice, she hadn’t
a clue.

Oblivious to the others in the room, she walked a few steps
closer to the screen and tracked a path with her eyes from the pick-up down the
onramp, where crushed bodies and severed limbs and glints of brass offered proof
of the fight her husband and whoever was with him had already put up. She made
a cursory inspection of the freeway and the road feeding it.
More bodies
.
Then her eyes moved on to the crash site which was a smoldering dark spot in
the lower left-hand corner of the screen. And though it was removed from the
camera’s primary area of focus and grainier than the rest, she could still see dozens
more corpses scattered near what had to be a graveyard fronting some type of
church. She flicked her eyes back to the seemingly immobilized vehicle. Saw the
bodies in greater detail. Stretched out, limbs askew, and still unmoving in the
truck’s bed. Cade had to be hurting after a crash like that. She longed to
comfort him.
What are you doing, Cade? Where are you going?
Suddenly she
wished she were on the ground with him more than anything on earth. Fighting
alongside him. She wanted to hear his voice again. Hear him say something.
Offer up a clue as to what he was planning. She also wanted some insight into
how the major planned to redeem herself and rescue the team before they were
overrun. She shifted her gaze to Nash and Shrill, who had both donned headphones
sprouting boom mikes with little black sponges positioned inches from their
lips. And to add insult to injury, after being summoned to the TOC out of the
blue, and having been lied to, she was now being ignored entirely.

She cast scrutiny on the first monitor where the other
rescue mission was playing out. A small black helicopter had just buzzed into
the picture. Its guns were blazing, shiny shell casings spilling out and
raining down on a group of soldiers arranged in a semi-circle, guns pointed
out, muzzles winking white and yellow at the crush of walking corpses.
Simultaneously, the helicopter slowed and made an exaggerated turn and the
armored vehicle the soldiers were huddled atop rocked sideways, almost spilling
them off. A thick bar of sun flared off the bulbous canopy as the helicopter settled
into a hover directly over the frantic soldiers. Brook watched through the whirring
rotor blades as half of the soldiers clambered onto the straight tubular
landing gear she remembered hearing Cade call skids. Then, jiggling slightly
under the newly added weight, the black helicopter shot straight up and whisked
the lucky ones away. An identical helicopter moved in, gliding as if on ice, hovered
above the remaining survivors and was still for a half second before buzzing
off sans passengers. Then there was a flurry of movement, a strange commotion going
on around the armored vehicle.
Things are going sideways
, Brook thought glumly.