ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story) (15 page)

“Give me a sec.” Charlie pointed the controller at the
television and held it like that as the Benny Hill action resumed—sans the
humorous ditty.

“That’s good,” Duncan said.

Charlie hit another button on the remote, causing the image
to resume playing back at normal speed. “So you know ... all of this is old
news, too.”

“I’m not real savvy in the tech department. But seeing as
how the satellite is down, isn’t this stuff you recorded
all
we’ve got?”

Charlie nodded and handed the remote over. “Knock yourself
out.”

Duncan manipulated the speed a little with the remote and
eventually learned from the scroll that the quarantine perimeter had been
stretched from downtown all the way west to the Washington Park Zoo, north from
Burnside to the Sauvie Island Bridge, and as far south as Lake Oswego. Finally
the words on the crawl said that the east boundary, which mattered most to
them, had been moved across the river all the way to 82nd Avenue, a stone’s
throw west of where they were now.

Duncan whistled. “That’s a wide net we’re liable to find
ourselves caught up in if we don’t get rolling real soon.”

Charlie completed a slo-mo turn towards his friend. “You’re
serious about leaving? ‘Cause that’s not going to look good, especially after
what happened at Providence. The way they let us go leads me to think they
recorded your plate number. There’s also the issue of that freshly dug grave
outside.”

“Relax,” Duncan shot, eyes still fixed on the crawl, now
going through aviation news. “I want to gather a little more intel before I
scoot.”

In his mind’s eye he saw aerial views of all the local
airports. Servicing more than five hundred flights a day, PDX would no doubt be
a parking lot jam-packed with aircraft of all sizes.

Then there was Hillsboro Airport southwest of downtown
Portland. Although it would not be jammed up with high-capacity commercial
jets, it would still be a hairball of unimaginable proportions considering all
of the private aviation assets based out of there. All of which started him
thinking. However, before he could properly ruminate on his epiphany, the crawl
finished listing all of the major airport closures and on came back-to-back
reports about a pair of commercial airline accidents that occurred prior to the
no-fly declaration coming down.

The first had occurred on approach to Salt Lake City and,
though Duncan had a hard time believing any pilot would open a cockpit door
after what happened on 9/11, was being attributed to just that, with several out-of-control
passengers reportedly having gained access to the flight deck and attacked the
pilots. Actions that brought the fuel-laden 767 down short of the runway where
it started a fire that consumed a long-term parking garage and nearby
subdivision containing dozens of single-family homes. The preliminary death
toll stood just north of three hundred and was expected to climb as fire crews
in the city were stretched thin because of outbreaks of violence similar to
that in the Square.

Duncan grunted as details of the second downed airliner
entered the screen right-to-left. Preliminary reports attributed this one to a
double medical emergency on the flight deck with the FAA admitting openly that
both pilots had been incapacitated with the door closed and locked—the flight
attendants helpless and unable to enter the cockpit. Eyewitness accounts
described the aircraft as flying low and erratically for a short distance
before crashing in a ball of fire in a posh area of Georgetown, killing all two
hundred and twenty-two souls on board and leaving many on the ground
unaccounted for.

Finished with the local news, Duncan rose on sore knees and
relinquished the remote to Charlie. “Can you cue up something national now?”
Without waiting for an answer, he shuffled to the kitchen.

Wearing an expectant look, Charlie watched his friend cross
the room and return a few seconds later, retaking his spot on the sofa, the
flip phone held up to his ear.

Holding the remote loosely in hand and staring sidelong,
Charlie waited with bated breath for the impending conversation to commence.

A few seconds passed and grunting in obvious displeasure,
Duncan snapped the phone shut, ending the call without uttering a word. Shaking
his head, he dropped the ancient device back into his shirt pocket.

“No luck raising your brother, I take it.”

Shaking his head, no, Duncan answered in a low voice, “Got
the stock recording telling me the circuits are overwhelmed. Looks like my
lucky streak has come to a screeching halt.”

Saying nothing, Charlie navigated through the DVR’s
graphical user interface to the playlist and selected the recording labeled
Sean
Hannity
. Holding out hope that the opinion man’s show had been preempted by
live footage from around the country, and maybe even the world as day broke
elsewhere, he thumbed Play on the remote.

Fingers crossed, Charlie watched the image on the screen
come to life. “This was all going down yesterday when we were returning here
from Providence.” His hunch correct, they found that the encore episode of
Hannity recorded by the DVR was not as advertised. Hell, if the man was smart
he was probably miles away from New York City before the footage occupying his
time slot was shot, because according to the perfectly coiffed male anchor in
Hannity’s stead, the city had suffered some kind of an outbreak much worse than
the others reportedly taking place around the country. The reporting was
augmented by moving images being broadcast on a phalanx of flat-panel
televisions covering the wall floor-to-ceiling behind the anchor. On the
largest of the lot and rendered in white over a red background was an outline
of the contiguous United States. Red dots denoting cities where a viral
outbreak the anchor was calling “Omega” had been detected pulsed steadily.

Walking his eyes right-to-left across Charlie’s widescreen,
Duncan suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Not only were New York, Boston,
Washington D.C., and Chicago already besieged by the so-called Omega Virus, he
saw that Houston, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, and Portland were as well.

Coming full circle, he felt the cold finger of dread tickle
his spine when his eyes fell on Salt Lake City and the pixelated dot there that
was also bright red and throbbing to its own urgent beat.

Charlie whistled. “Most of those cities have lit up in the
last eight hours.”

“And I’m here while my baby bro is in Salt Lake pretty much
all by himself. Fuck it all.”

The television screen flickered once and then went dark.

Abruptly, Duncan turned to face Charlie. “Are you coming
with me or staying here?”

With no hesitation, Charlie said, “There’s strength in
numbers. I’m coming.”

Duncan rose from the couch just as the power came back on.
The lights on the front of the DVR flashed and then a series of chirps and
mechanical sounds emanated from it as it entered into some kind of reboot
cycle.

Charlie set the remote on the table. “It’ll be finished
restarting in a moment.”

“I’m done watching that stuff,” Duncan said.

“You don’t want to see what President Odero has to say to
the nation before we hit the road?”

Shaking his head, Duncan said, “I’ve already made up my mind
to do exactly the opposite of whatever he’s selling.”

The windows shook in their frames as a low-flying jet
rumbled overhead, heading where, Duncan hadn’t a clue. He rubbed his knees to
get the blood flowing to them, noticing his hands shaking subtly. Suddenly,
like a crashing wave, a craving hit him and he wanted a belt of something hard
to drink worse than ever. Instead of turning toward the kitchen, however, he
made his way to the door, along the way extracting a folding knife from deep
down inside a front pocket.

“We loading up now?”

“I’ve got unfinished business.”

Without asking what said business was, Charlie followed Duncan
out into the still morning air. The sun was coming in at a low angle and
already the nearby pick-up and east-facing wall of the house was giving off
heat.

“Going to be a scorcher,” Charlie said.

Sniffing the soot-laden air, Duncan replied, “In more ways
than one. Good thing you didn’t have to go in to work.” Chuckling softly at his
Master of the Obvious statement, he made a solo trip back to the small shed and
returned with a piece of white chalk, a ball of frayed twine, and a pair of
barely used garden stakes in one hand. In the other he carried a few folded-up
lengths of decorative wire perimeter fence.

From the flat stakes he fashioned a makeshift cross, looping
the twine multiple times around the union before securing the two pieces
together tightly with a triple knot. He cut the twine with the folding knife
and chucked the ball into the truck’s bed.

“Can I lend a hand?” Charlie called from where he was
sitting on the short stack of stairs.

Already unfolding the foot-high fencing and laying it flat next
to Tilly’s grave, Duncan said, “Nope. I got this.”

He took the time to reshape the rounded tops of the fence
that were bent or bowed. Then, starting near where he knew Tilly’s head to be,
he stuck the first yard-long run into the newly disturbed ground.

Using all three lengths of fence, Duncan encircled the dark
patch of dirt as much as possible.

Satisfied the grave was as good as it was going to get
considering the circumstances, he stood and wiped the dirt from his hands with
a handkerchief taken from another pocket. Lastly, using the length of chalk, he
wrote R.I.P. TILLY on the horizontal part of the cross.

“Looks good,” Charlie proffered.

“Thank you,” Duncan replied sincerely. He cast his gaze
beyond the fence, expecting to see the old man or his dog looking on. The porch
and yard were both devoid of life—canine or human. However, running vertically
up the whitewashed porch posts
were
blackish streaks and a few splotches
that could have been blood left there by an old man’s gnarled hand. Pretending
not to see the clues that might lead to another encounter with death, he turned
and, instead of finding himself alone again, he was on the receiving end of a
much-needed bear hug.

Eyes misting, Duncan looked away and gave them a covert wipe
with the kerchief before letting go of his only friend.

Charlie hinged over and fixed him with a googly-eyed stare.
“Better, friend?”

Duncan forced a smile. “We better git,” he choked, before
turning on a heel and setting off toward the yawning front door.

Save for the two weapons, the folding knife and cherished
Stetson he brought down from its place of prominence high up in the hall
closet, Duncan saw no reason to take more than a change of clothes, a
toothbrush, and a few personal effects he’d been meaning to give to his brother
who he hoped, in turn, would pass on to his kids—if he ever got around to
finding a good woman with whom to procreate. Flashing a rare smile at the
thought, he shook his head and tossed the small gym bag into the truck’s
backseat.

Who am I to judge my bro?
Being a lifelong bachelor
with the smoking ruins of dozens of burned bridges in his rearview, he figured
his advice was about as useless as tits on a boar.

“That’s all you’re taking?”

“What should I bring, Charlie? Should I go down and break
into my self-storage unit and haul my
one
good frying pan and
three
whole pieces of silverware with me? Hell, while we’re at it we can throw your
flat screen in back and fire it up when we get to Utah.”

“I meant clothes.”

“All I need is my favorite thong and pasties to cover up …
what’d you call ‘em?”

Charlie heaved a bulging canvas bag big enough to fit a
week’s worth of clothes into the bed. He smiled and let Duncan come up with the
word himself.

“My man boobs. But you called ‘em something else.” He smiled
as it dawned on him. You called ‘em
moobs,
you fucker. That’s an open
and shut case of the pot calling the kettle black, you
mud-flap-big-titty-girl-shirt-wearing plebe.” For the first time since he could
remember he had a reason to laugh. And he did, belting out a cackle a
stereotypical drunken saloon goer in a spaghetti Western would be proud of. His
eyes teared from the laughter. This went on for a moment until the weight of
all that had happened over the last twenty-four hours settled over him like a
burial shroud. Heavy of heart and shoulders rounded, he opened the truck’s door
and ducked behind the wheel. “Get in,” he called. “Time waits for no one.”

Charlie hauled himself in and shoved the shotgun back under
the seat where it had been the day before. “What have you got in mind?” he
asked. “Going to chance I-84, or maybe go through Boring, meet up on 35 and
then squirt over the south flank of Mount Hood?”

Starting the motor, Duncan said, “You’ll see.”

Craning over, Charlie said, “You’ve only got a quarter of a
tank.”

“For a bus-riding guy you sure are a pretty conscientious …
back-seat
driver
.”

Charlie said nothing. He leaned back over to his side and,
with the events of the previous day still burned into his mind, checked the
back seat just in case. Seeing nothing dangerous back there—specifically not a
crazed person whom he had only wanted to get medical attention—he settled in
and clicked the shoulder belt home.

After affording the old guy’s bloody back porch one last
long visual once-over, Duncan accelerated down the drive and then wheeled right
onto Flavel.

The same light he’d turned at to go to Tilly’s the day
before was dead ahead and flashing red. Cars were moving through in both
directions in as orderly a fashion as could be expected considering a few
blocks behind them a couple of Humvees and a pair of tall, tan, multi-wheeled
deuce-and-a-half troop transports had taken up station at the intersection with
82nd Avenue.

Still waiting for the driver in the compact car ahead of him
to grow some balls and turn left on the flashing red, Duncan flicked his eyes
to the mirror and gestured toward the roadblock. “We got lucky. Looks like the
governor is content with 82nd as the east perimeter.”

Following Duncan’s lead, Charlie consulted his wing mirror.
“Gotta be a dozen armed soldiers there.”

“I’d imagine reinforcements have either been flown in
through PDX on transports or, more likely, Washington Guard units are
augmenting our guys and gals. No way to tell what they’re wearing from here,
but they may be regular Army who’ve recently come overland from joint base
Lewis/McChord.”

The car ahead finally turned left. Awaiting his turn, Duncan
let the two crossing cars go and, when the SUV sitting opposite him on Flavel
committed to the opposing left, he eased off the brakes just as a roar the
likes of which he hadn’t heard since joining in on a Shriner’s Toys For Tots
run a dozen years ago shattered the still air. He ground the truck to a
complete stop, the front bumper a hair into the crosswalk. Instinctually he
looked toward the noise and saw Charlie staring at him and mouthing, “Where the
hell did they come from?”

By the time Duncan saw the true cause of the sonic assault,
the initial flashes of denim and leather and sparkling paint and chrome, there
was no evasive action for him to take.

The first few bikes into the intersection were black and
nondescript. They stopped a yard in front of the old Dodge.

Ignoring the grim glares of the sunglass-wearing bikers,
Duncan tapped Charlie on the leg. “What’s the difference between a Hoover
vacuum cleaner and a Harley Davidson?”

Time and place
, thought Charlie, shooting his friend
a sour look. After a short beat and no punchline dawned on him, he shrugged as
if to say
Go ahead, lay it on me
.

Barely able to contain himself, Duncan delivered the
punchline real slow, but garbled the words because he had started cackling
before even getting started.

“What?” asked Charlie. “I didn’t catch that.”

Seeing the bikers going rigid, probably on account of the
sudden out-of-place outburst of laughter coming from the truck’s open window,
Duncan composed himself and said in a near whisper, “The position of the
dirtbag. Get it?”

Charlie got it. And he wanted to laugh. But considering that
the two muscled outlaw bikers within earshot probably harbored issues
concerning ego and self-esteem and mommy, he wisely kept a straight face.

Wiping away a stray tear, Duncan raised up off the bench
seat a few inches to get a better look at the bikers. Both men had blue
bandannas wrapped around their heads in place of helmets which, last Duncan had
heard, were required by Oregon law. Also bucking the law of the land, both men
wore pistols on their hips in full display, one a chrome revolver, the other a
boxy modern semiautomatic with a matte black slide riding atop a light-brown
polymer frame.

The biker’s leather vests were adorned with all kinds of
different patches, most of which were so small Duncan couldn’t read them. The
largest patch, however, which was plastered on the backs of both bikers’
jackets, featured a wild-eyed jester sporting a wicked snarl and brandishing an
AK-47—the latter of which was well-known to Duncan from his time spent in
Vietnam.

The gang’s name, NOMAD JESTERS, was stitched in red and
curled around the ubiquitous jester’s hat in a shallow rainbow-like arc. And
embroidered at the bottom of the main patch, in a similar descending arc, was
the city which each biker hailed from. The blond biker on the left was from
Boise, while the taller, dark-haired biker on the right was from Stanley,
Idaho, apparently. And rendered in black on a white background, Nazi swastikas
flanked both sides of each chapter city.

“Bad dudes,” Charlie muttered as more of the lead element
peeled off and blocked Flavel’s east side, stopping the SUV across the way from
completing the intended left turn.

Duncan and Charlie tracked the noisy mob with their eyes as
it passed by right-to-left. Scruffy bearded men atop Panheads, Sportsters,
Baggers, stretched-out choppers, and a few three-wheeled trikes made up the
stream of rolling thunder blipping by. Including the few women in the mix, they
all wore hard looks that reeked of bad intention. There were no stuffed animals
riding sissy bars on the way to a sick kid’s waiting embrace. In fact, Duncan
was certain these wastes of skin had never been on a toy run, let alone set
foot anywhere near a Shriner’s Hospital. And it became abundantly clear that
benevolence was not their calling card when a pair of them headed up by a big
redhead rolled their bikes up to the blocked SUV, where an emaciated woman
hopped from the back of the trailing chopper brandishing a stubby revolver.
After hitching up her leather pants, the grimy thirtysomething
old lady
approached the hemmed-in Chevy Tahoe, yelling and waving what looked to be your
garden variety snub-nosed .38 Special—a six-shot revolver usually lethal only
at close range.

Duncan read the look of terror on the Tahoe driver’s face
and saw her mouth moving as she pleaded for her life.

Seeing the carjacking taking place, Duncan realized that
until the bike gang moved on he and Charlie were also in danger of losing their
ride. So to counter any play they might make for the Dodge, he slipped the .45
from its holster and pressed it flat against the outside of his right leg. Then,
still returning the bikers’ steely glares, through clenched teeth he whispered
to Charlie, “See if you can reach the shotgun. Move real slow so the dirtbags
don’t catch on.”

Ever so subtly, Charlie nodded.

More bikes cleaved through the intersection bouncing on
springed suspensions, their long pipes emitting ear-splitting exhaust notes.
Those with passengers holding on or that were weighted down with an inordinate
amount of supplies out back scraped the oil-streaked roadway, throwing sparks
from underneath the already low-to-the-ground machines.

Charlie waited until a Harley loaded down by a case of beer,
a bulky bedroll and an especially large beer-bellied biker entered the picture.
He timed his move for the moment the bike met the convergence of Flavel and
92nd, where buildup from years of repaving and stop-gap repairs had left the
transition lightly raised.

Sure enough, when the tiny wheel and stretched-out front
forks crossed the threshold, the emerald green chopper bottomed out with a
shrill metal on metal grating noise that momentarily drew the nearby bikers’
undivided attention.

In a smoothly enacted maneuver, while remaining ramrod
straight in his seat, Charlie hooked the shotgun’s strap with the toe of his
boot, dragged it up to the firewall and balanced the barrel on said toe. Next,
with his left hand, he punched free of his seatbelt, leaned forward a degree or
two, and lifted the shotgun balanced atop his left foot off of the floor. The
combination leg lift and forward cant allowed his left hand to grasp the ribbed
pump with the bikers none the wiser.

“Got it,” he whispered, resting the shotgun flat on his lap.

The whole operation took less than two seconds. By the time
the leather-clad sentinels swiveled their heads back to the Dodge and lengthening
queue of cars formed up on its bumper, some whose drivers were now laying on
their horns, Charlie had gotten the pump gun turned around on his lap and had
covertly racked a round into the chamber.

Hearing the telltale click-clack of the pump gun’s well-oiled
slide in his right ear set Duncan somewhat at ease. Knowing Charlie had his six
definitely went a long way toward bolstering his confidence level. So much so
that he made the snap decision to take back the initiative.

Hoping to gain eye contact with one or the other of the
sunglass-wearing bikers, Duncan released his grip on the wheel, stuck his left
arm out the window, and waved them over.

Boise bit. With the heel of his dusty scuffed boot, he threw
out his kickstand. He removed the dark shades and fixed an icy blue-eyed stare
on Duncan. Let it hang there for a second before locking eyes with Charlie.

Come to Papa
.

Shedding his ventriloquist routine, Charlie raised his voice
to be heard above the din. “What the hell are you doing?”

Duncan said nothing. Instead, he smiled and again beckoned
at the nearest biker.

Boise unstraddled the vibrating machine.

Fish on.

“Duncan?”

As the flow of bikes, once a massive column consisting of
four or five abreast, slackened off to a steady stream of ones and twos, the
biker hooked his shades on the collar of his stark white T-shirt and loped up
to Duncan’s door.

“The fuck you want?” he growled.

“You have a permit for that parade of clowns?”

“
Jesters
, asshole. And my permit’s right here,
motherfucker,” the biker spat, his hand alighting on the handle of the
stainless revolver.

“Well, that’s all fine and dandy. But me and Charlie here
are late for an appointment,” Duncan drawled. “Y’all going to be finished
soon?”

Wearing an incredulity-filled
you’ve got to be kidding me
look on his face, the biker shook his head and took a step nearer.

Still locking eyes with Boise’s blue-and-bloodshot orbs,
Duncan lifted his left forearm an inch off the window channel and, holding the
.45 horizontally, gang-banger style, slipped three inches of its rectangular
barrel into the newly created space.

Boise’s eyes went to the gaping muzzle. Then, resembling an
Old West gunslinger trying to come to a decision, his eyes narrowed and his
gloved fingers hovering over the revolver twitched ever so slightly.

Three booming gunshots sounded from across the street as the
redheaded biker, whose body language screamed leader, gunned down a trio of
lookie loos drawn to the commotion.

With no hesitation and the largest pistol—short of Dirty
Harry Callahan’s .44 Magnum—still clutched in his monstrous fist, the shooter
dismounted his bike and sauntered a few feet to the prone and writhing bodies
to finish them off execution-style with single point-blank shots to the head.

Boise said, “Three more
biters
down. Ganz loves
killing the infected almost as much as he loves killing cops.”

As much as Duncan hated knowing the truth, the puzzle pieces
began interlocking inside his head.