Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (30 page)

Oblivious of the eyes on him, he shimmied a few feet aft,
drawing the Gerber. Then, with a sawing motion, he methodically sliced through
the laces of his left boot. Wincing from the pain, he peeled the size twelve
off of his swollen-to-size-fourteen-foot and then slipped the
newly-stretched-out boot back on Ronnie’s bare foot where it belonged.

He bowed his head and recited a few private words. For a
minute or two he reflected on the mission as the plane droned on all around
him, and when he finally looked up he realized that Ari, Cross, and Lopez had
all been watching him. He looked around and then looked back and mouthed the
words, “Where is Hicks?”

Cross pointed amidships in the general direction of the
cockpit.

At that moment Cade noticed, though they were safely
airborne and underway to Schriever, Lopez performing the sign of the cross. He
looked left to where he thought Cross had pointed but didn’t see Hicks; only
the crew chief and the pilots and flight engineer farther forward were
immediately visible. That the fuselage was wide open with virtually nowhere to
hide a grown man was momentarily lost on him. Call it battle fatigue or denial
or a combination of both. No matter which, he still wasn’t following.

Until he realized that in addition to the general there were
three separate, distinct shapes beneath the large olive tarp.

First Gaines and Tice. Then Durant. And now Hicks to cap
off one hell of a bad day.

He made his way back to his seat. Strapped in and looked a
question at Lopez.

Leaning in, Lopez said in his ear, “He got bit. Little teeth
marks on his wrist.”

“Same as Desantos,” Cade said back. “Who put him down?”

With a tilt of his head, Lopez indicated Ari.

Cade shook his head and, thinking anything would be better
than replaying the day’s events over and over all the way back to Schriever,
closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

Six Hours Later

Schriever AFB

“Is she asleep?”

“Like a rock. I wish you would have seen her riding that
bike with Max herding her and the twins like they were his own personal herd of
two legged sheep.”

“Sounds like our Bird got to be a kid today ... really sorry
I missed it,” said Cade. “Where is the fuzz ball anyway?”

“Raven’s still calling those four bunks we pushed together
Raven
Island
. Max has taken to sleeping on the bottom bunks ... guess that would
make that Max’s Island.”

“Appropriate,” said Cade agreeably.

“How’s the ankle?”

“Throbbing.”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t broken.”

“I’m lucky I made it home. And grateful you spirited me away
before Nash could set her hooks into me.” He activated the light and checked
the time on his Suunto. Made a face because it was nearly midnight. “I’ve been
out for a while,” he said as the green glow dissipated.

“The pain killer knocked you on your butt. Do you remember
the ride from the flight line?”

Shaking his head, he said, “No. Just the wheels hitting the
runway and then you storming up the ramp ... and then Raven.” A tear, unseen by
Brook in the dark, rolled across his cheek and onto the pillow. “I don’t
remember much of the flight either. Just that it was a somber couple of hours.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“We did our best. Still ... four men died.” He crossed his
arms behind his head.

She laid her cheek on his bare chest, ran her fingers
through the soft hair there.

Something boomed far away. Muted, like thunder, but
definitely man-made.

Cade cocked his head in the dark and listened hard. Hearing
nothing more, he changed the subject and said, “What else did you and Raven do
today?”

“Took her shooting. And you’ll be proud—”

He interrupted her. “I’m always proud of you two.”

Brook smiled then said, “I showed Sasha and Taryn and Wilson
how to safely handle the M4. Got them shooting a little too.”

“Zs?”

“Except for Sasha. She wouldn’t get within five feet of a
gun. Not even Raven’s little rifle.”

“We’ll work on that.” This made him think. “Do they still
want to go with?”

“We’ll find out in the morning. I’m going to send Raven over
there to crack the whip. Get them packing.”

“Not much to pack.”

Remembering all of the crap Raven had taken to the aborted
sleepover caused Brook to smile. She kissed him on the chest. “I hope they come
along. Raven needs to interact with people closer to her age.”

There was another low rumble somewhere distant, south by
west. A helicopter transitted the base somewhere closer. Then, nearer still,
someone was firing a carbine. Single pops, spaced apart, echoing through the
crisp night.

“Sounds like they’ve got their hands full downtown.”

“Pueblo Horde,” said Brook. “Saw them on the screen in the
TOC. Figure they’ll be thinning them out for days.”

“One step forward. Ten steps back,” he said.

She sighed. “We’ll be long gone.”

“Yes we will,” he said, propping himself up on one elbow. He
activated the green glow on the Suunto, held it between their faces and looked
her in the eye. “If Murphy doesn’t intervene.”

The light timed out and they shared a quiet laugh. Then she
pushed him down flat. Shifted under the bedding and straddled him, being
careful not to jar his ankle.

“How’s that?” she asked.

Before he could reply, she leaned in and kissed him hard.
Probed his mouth with her tongue. He offered no resistance as her body pressed
into his. Even through her cotton tank-top he could feel her breasts brushing
his chest.

Then she took over and guided him into her. They made love
like that, quietly, without words, and when they were finished they lay
side-by-side listening to the night sounds.

“What if we get pregnant?”

“What if?” he said. “Gotta go on living.”

“Names?”

Cade didn’t think long. “Jasper,” he said.

Brook wanted badly to ask where he’d come up with the name.
Decided to broach it later. Pick your battles and all. “What if I have a girl?”

“Gonna be a boy. Call it a gut feeling.”

She couldn’t resist any longer. Asked, “Why Jasper?”

“It’s a very long story. But I promise to tell you all about
it one day when we’re both old and gray.”

“I love you, Civilian Cade Grayson.

“Love you back,” he replied. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Bushnell, Nebraska

Elvis left the house in Ovid and performed an end-around,
bypassing the streaming horde of zombies and returning to Interstate 80 which was
dotted with traffic snarls here and there but was still mostly clear of walking
corpses. He motored west, putting some miles between him and Ovid, his only
company the recurring visions from the basement from hell and his own mind
continuously asking him what he was hoping to accomplish by rejoining Bishop.

Low on gas, he pulled up hard to the curb out front of a
tiny, one-story, shotgun-style house. The yard was what caught his eye. Or
rather the multiple bird baths and Buddha statues and garden gnomes of all
shapes, sizes, and colors in the yard that were slowly being grown over by
weeds and rambling vines. Gotta be a hose somewhere in there, was his thinking.

The search took him around the house where he found a length
of hose and a badly decomposed abomination that had become hopelessly tangled
up in it.

He wasted no time or energy on the undead monster. Instead,
he cut the hose and was back in the pick-up and again tooling the side streets
in no time.

The gas he siphoned from a couple of cars nosed in next to a
darkened bakery.

He filled the truck’s tank and the spare red can and then
left Dix in the rearview, driving west until the sun was nearing the horizon
and the sky was beginning to flare yellow and orange. From experience, he knew
he had less than an hour of daylight to find sanctuary from the dead.

So now, six hours after leaving Ovid behind, he got off the
80 after deciding Kimball was too populated to go anywhere near. He jumped to
the 30. Passed by a reservoir with a number of small vessels riding its still
surface, and stayed on the two-lane for a couple more miles following the signs
promising
Bushnell, Population 144
was somewhere close by.

The sun had fully set by the time he reached the town
limits, but there was enough ambient light to see by so he ran the truck dark
and slow. Passed by a few creatures hanging around the entrance to town.
Ignoring them, he turned right on Birch Street. Saw a sign that said Birch
would eventually become County Road Seventeen on the north side of town.
A good
thing
, thought Elvis. A town on crossroads usually had at least one
convenience store and a gas station. He took a swig of water, trying to placate
his growling stomach, and continued cutting the town.

After driving around for a few minutes, passing the usual
suspects dotting every little town in America, and with full dark blanketing
Bushnell, he decided to drive back out to the 80 and sleep in the truck’s cab,
doors locked, one eye open. Better than getting trapped in a one-story, he
reasoned. No way to drive a house away.

Eden Compound

Sensing the first judder wrack Heidi’s body, Daymon removed
the surplus blanket from his shoulder and wound it around her tightly until she
looked like some kind of medieval figure ensconced in an oiled travelling
cloak. Finished wrapping her blonde hair with the second pass of the fabric, he
tucked the trailing corner under her chin and delivered a covert peck to her
cheek. He pushed a stray lock behind her ear and gazed intensely into her blue
eyes. The simple gesture, though lasting only a handful of seconds, garnered a
broad smile from the severely traumatized woman.

Painted gold and yellow by the licking fire, Heidi’s face
looked worlds different to Daymon than it did when they arrived at Logan’s compound
earlier in the day. The corners of her eyes had softened considerably and the
perpetual set to her jaw had given way to an occasional smile. And amazing as
it seemed—considering how bad off she was when Charlie found her on the Teton
Pass road, suffering from exposure and a near-death strangling—he’d been able
to coax a couple of laughs from her.
If only he could turn back time
,
Daymon thought. He would have never left her alone in Jackson Hole. Alone and
at the mercy of Robert Christian, Ian Bishop, and the other buzzards that had
descended on his favorite place on earth.

“Duncan ... you got a thing against the trees?” asked Daymon
as he shrugged on his green Gore-Tex shell. Embroidered over his heart in red
were the letters BLM, which stood for Bureau of Land Management, the government
entity he’d worked for before the shit hit the fan. The fact that his chief and
fellow firefighters from the old firehouse in downtown Jackson Hole hadn’t
survived the Omega outbreak meant that his well-worn coat was the last link he
had to his crew and former profession.
I’m probably never going to fight
another forest fire
, he mused—unless old Duncan continued piling wood on
the growing bed of white-hot coals.

But the flame and heat and the slim chance of an out-of-control
blaze were the least of the tall, dreadlocked man’s worries. All of the above
couldn’t be detected from the road which was a good distance away and separated
by thick old growth. It was the smoke that had him concerned. It could carry on
the breeze for miles, and if the wrong people got wind of it then another
confrontation like the one he’d heard folks talking about since his arrival
would probably happen sooner rather than later.

He glanced across the flames at the Vietnam-era aviator who
apparently had not heard him over all of the crackling and popping. Zippering
the green jacket to just under his chin where the collar battled with his
lengthening goatee, he repeated his question. “Duncan ... why are you hatin’ on
the trees?”

Caught in the act with one hand curled around a
well-seasoned piece of fir, Duncan grimaced and set it back down on the pile.
“Ain’t no hugger,” he drawled. “But I don’t hate ‘em neither.”

Daymon smiled and pulled the hood over his dreads. “The way
you keep stoking that fire tells me you aren’t worried about the friends of
those dudes you killed showing up.”

“They pretty much know where we are already,” countered
Duncan. “And if they come around we’ve got a few more surprises waiting for
them.”

“
When
they come around ... not
if?
” exclaimed
Phillip. Punctuating the apprehension he’d just voiced, the rail-thin man ran
his hands through his graying hair and shifted uncomfortably in the camp chair.

Looking up from the impromptu security huddle where Gus, the
former Salt Lake County Sherriff, and Charlie Jenkins, the newly-arrived former
Jackson Hole Chief of Police, had nosed their folding nylon chairs together,
Lev said, “We’ve
got
to be ready for them. And I don’t recommend we go
on the offensive with only Duncan’s Humvee with the Ma Deuce and the handful of
small arms we have.”

“I concur,” added Gus. “Whoever calls Huntsville home was
probably just probing us again. What’d you say Duncan ... we’ve only got north
of two hundred rounds linked up for the fifty?”

Resisting the urge to pile another log on the fire, Duncan
instead took a long pull from his warm Budweiser before answering. “I linked
about a hundred more. Still left Logan with enough for his Barrett, which we’re
going to need as a standoff weapon when we do move on Huntsville. Hell, it’d be
effective deployed from the Black Hawk if we take her up.”