Reavers (Z-Risen Series Book 4) (8 page)

I fired back, emptying my magazine at the shuffler.

Christy and Frosty stopped in their tracks. The dog turned and growled at the ghoul.

“No, go, keep on running!” I yelled to them.

Christy nodded, then seemed unsure. I didn’t blame her. I would never have deserted her, but she'd been left behind before.

The forklift managed to extract itself from the mass of Zs, and came around to help. It plowed into a trio of rotters who had their eyes on me. Thanks, dude. I’d have to find out his name later.

The shuffler leapt for me. He had a handgun in one hand and a knife in the other. I swung at him with my wrench, but he moved aside at the last second and I hit air. The momentum of my panicked swing carried me almost around in a circle.

The shuffler tried to shoot, but there must have been a safety on the gun, because nothing happened. I swung again, and the head of the wrench cracked into his
side
.

Another Z found me, and latched onto my back. I shook him off and found the shuffler right in my face.

The Z that had been trying to find my neck with his mouth got around my legs, and I was suddenly on top of him, scrambling with everything I had to avoid his bite. Teeth ripped at my jeans, so I kneed him in the face.

The goddamn shuffler was right there. He leaned for me, and that’s when he looked suddenly very surprised. A bullet hole appeared in his forehead and blood blossomed out. The shuffler dropped to his knees and fell over.

The gunshot echoed loudly around the building. I caught a glimpse again of the jeep, with a silvery barrel extended from the driver's side window.

Thank god for whoever was in the jeep, because they had saved me. I would make it a point to thank him and the forklift driver if I survived the next few minutes.

I kicked the Z in the face and rolled free, found my legs, and ran like my ass was on fire.

36 – Reavers

19:00 hours approximate

Location: Somewhere near Vista, CA

I had an idea for my gravestone:
“Never a dull moment.”

I wanted it set in granite and big letters. I wanted AC/DC playing from a stack of speakers the size of the USS McCluskey. I wanted dancing girls, and kegs and kegs of beer. That’s how I wanted to be remembered: in style.

There was a spot on my right shoulder that didn’t hurt and wasn’t too sore. The rest of my body felt like freshly-ground taco meat. I had scrapes on both hands and arms. My left knee hurt from slamming it into a shuffler. My head hurt because I’d been banged around so much over the last few days I was sure I had either a brain hemorrhage or multiple concussions.

All I really wanted to do was collapse next to Christy and Frosty and sleep for a few days. Make that a week. Wheel in the fucking cart of fruit and meat, a case of shitty beer, and I’d call it a vacation paradise while I was in a coma.

The lifts returned to the building and rolled to a stop. The driver who had saved my ass whipped his vehicle around in a circle until it was facing out. Blood, bits of clothing, and pieces of Z hit the ground.

Men and women moved around the entrance, keeping it clear of Zs. A couple of guys carried bows with quivers of arrows over their shoulders.

“What a mess. Thanks for watching our backs while we got this guy inside.” Douglas clapped my shoulder.

I nearly spun and decked him.

“You didn’t exactly give me a fucking choice when you and Diane took off running,” I said.

“Easy. We had to get this guy inside. We spent a lot of time and a lot of lives securing one of these shufflers,” Douglas said.

They’d dropped the tarp-wrapped body next to a wall. The shuffler struggled against his bonds and keened through his gag. I had the urge to pick up my wrench and silence this son of a bitch for good. I wanted to be sloppy about it too, miss a few times and do some damage before I bashed in his head.

“You need to kill that fucking thing before it brings an entire army of Zs here. That little soirée just now might be an expeditionary force. Imagine if ten thousand of those undead things converged on this location. You won’t be going anywhere for a while,” I said.

“Good point, my new friend,” Douglas said, and nodded toward the front doors.

They were rolled closed and then locked. Another pair of lifts, these larger and mounted with some metallic contraptions that looked to have been constructed out of old shelves, wheeled toward the doors and nudged right up against them. Another guy--dressed in a set of brand-new clothes--urged the drivers to press forward a hair until the doors were completely braced. They set brakes, turned off the machines, and hopped out.

“That’s real neat, but how long would it keep out a force of well-armed soldiers?” I asked, because I was pretty flabbergasted at how well the defenses had been thought out and I was in a pissy mood.

“Hopefully we don’t have to, but if we do we have an escape route planned,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.

Frankly, I’d be surprised if anyone tried to take this place. With the clear line of sight from on top of the Costco, they’d be able to pick off individual soldiers at a hundred yards. Of course, that wouldn’t stop anyone in a fucking tank.

“Like I was saying,” I continued. “Don’t keep that shuffler alive. Kill him and cut him up or whatever. They’re smart, you know, they have a way of communicating with their brethren. I know it sounds crazy but…”

“We are well-aware of their strangeness,” Diane said.

“Strangeness is one way to put it. I heard one of these things
talk
a week ago.”

“You had a conversation with a ghoul?” Diane asked.

“More of a one-sided one. He wanted us to all die. We shot him in the fucking head.”

“It is passingly strange, how they are evolving. We have a contingency plan for this ghoul,” Diane said in her monotone. “Our team has been standing by since we captured the creature.”

“Where are they standing by?” I deadpanned.

No one laughed.

Frosty advanced and stood over the shuffler. She growled and threw the thing a feral look.

“Come on, buddy,” Christy said.

She patted Frosty’s neck, but when the dog didn’t back off she put a firm hand on Frosty’s neck and grabbed a little skin. Frosty didn’t take kindly to shufflers or Zs. She looked like she wanted to rip this thing’s
throat
out.

“Frosty,” I snapped.

She looked at me and then whimpered once, like she was saying, “Come on, man. Let eat his face.” But she relented, and Christy pulled the dog away.

It was like the team had been waiting for me to ask where they were. They arrived and pulled out several tackle boxes, opened them, and sorted things on the ground. One of the men took out a long syringe and filled it from a bottle.

They unwrapped the shuffler and took out measuring tapes. One of the guys called out numbers while another wrote them on a clipboard. The guy with the syringe consulted the page and added a little more of whatever magic juice he was sucking into the syringe.

The shuffler thrashed in his bonds, so the team held him down. The woman cocked her head to the
side
and breathed through her nose.

“He smells like rotten fish,” she said.

“What are you shooting him up with?” I asked.

She looked me over and didn’t say a word. Like the male members of her little group, she was dressed in fresh clothes that still had pleats and creases in them from being folded up. She was probably my age or a few years older, and not terrible to look at, with long auburn hair that fell around her neck. She pushed it over her shoulder, trying not to let it touch the shuffler.

The guy with the syringe found a vein on the ghoul’s arm and tapped it a few times. Then he slid the needle in and injected the fluid.

“Thorazine. It will put him in something like a coma.”

“Can I get some of that stuff?” I asked.

The shuffler thrashed for a few seconds and then went still, except for the occasional rising and lowering of his chest. Had I ever noticed that before? That the shufflers actually breathed? Zs were weird, undead things. They strode around with holes in various places, dripping blood and guts. The only sound they made was an occasional low moan.

“I don’t think you want to be rendered unconscious,” she said.

“Let me be the judge of that. I haven’t been rendered unconscious for a few months,” I said.

“Were you drugged?” she asked.

“No, shitfaced.”

She shook her head and turned her attention back to the shuffler.

“Have you guys also studied the Zs out there?”

“The what?” the dark-haired woman asked.

“The damn zombies, ever notice they can make noises? Seems to me they’d have to suck air into their lungs to moan, know what I mean? Like, I can’t just make noise unless I exhale.”

“They are infected, not zombies. Zombies don’t even make sense,” she said.

“Lady, none of this makes fucking sense. You got things wandering around out there that want to eat us, fucking
eat
us, and then these shufflers, ghouls, whatever you want to call them. Damn glowing green eyes and they aren’t even superheroes. At least if they had powers they’d do some good, yeah? Instead they seem to want to kill first and not ask questions later,” I said.

She studied me for a moment, then smiled.

“Zombies are an undead creature that rise from the grave. Haitian myth. Romero zombies also rose from the grave and wanted flesh. Yes, I see what you are getting at. The infected have been just that: infected with a virus that was unleashed at several places across the US in something like a coordinated attack,” she said.

“I heard about that, but I’ve gone a little native out here, you know. Living day to day, hiding in one location or another, getting overrun and chased all over southern fucking California. I don’t know much more than that. Me, Christy, and zombie slayer there,” I nodded at Frosty, “haven’t had a lot of time to sit around and wonder how this all happened.”

The syringe wielding guy put his gear back in his kit and took out a stethoscope. He applied it to the Z’s chest, holding his hands up for silence.

I stood around watching the proceedings, because no one had told me what to do yet. As a former member of the laziest branch of the military, I was pretty good at this.

“His heart beats, but it’s strange. I count only a few every ten seconds,” he said.

“You did just put him in a coma,” I said. I’d been fucking serious. They could shoot me up right now and I’d just find a corner to pass out in. Wake me up in a day and I’d be ready to be action Jackson again.

“This is different. Stranger.”

“Cool,” I said.

“Yes, I’d put his temperature somewhere around eight-five, perhaps eighty.” He opened his kit again and dug around until he found a thermometer.

“If you stick that up his ass I’m going to puke,” I said.

The dark-haired woman chuckled but quickly covered her mouth.

Dr. Needle-Poker shot her a look of irritation.

“Melissa, please check his pulse.”

Melissa pulled a pair of blue latex gloves out of her jeans pocket and slipped them over her hands. She looked at me as she pulled one tight over her fingers with a snap.

I gulped and looked away, but not before I caught her half-smile. Thank the fuck Christ one of these people had a sense of humor.

“So Douglas, question for ya. You got your ghoul thing. Great. Now what in the hell do you plan to do with him?”

“I can fill you in on some details later. For now, why don’t we all go have a nice chat somewhere?” Douglas said.

“What kind of chat?” I asked.

“We’d like to ask you about your experience out there, how you survived, any ghoul encounters, what they were like,” the woman said.

“I’ll tell you how they act. They hunt in packs. They are smart, and they can call for backup and reinforcements if needed. Yeah, that shit is scary. A few weeks ago we hooked up with this group of retired folks who’d setup a nice little RV park. A shuffler--kid, really--got loose and screamed for help. He literally screamed a word. What kind of a Z does that?”

“What happened?”

“We fought and ran. No choice. Along the way we got separated. I can’t really say what happened to all of the others. They were great people, but I think a lot of them died that day,” I said with a sigh. I left out any mention of McQuinn and his men, because that would mean answering too many questions.

“That is fascinating,” she said.

“Scary as fuck is what I’d call it,” I said. “Want my advice? Kill that thing you captured. Don’t give it a chance to do any more harm.”

“I understand your concern, but he will sleep like he’s in a coma for a long time,” Melissa said.

“Answered enough questions? Look, I appreciate all this awesomeness. The secure location, food, water, I’m sure you all have an amazing system setup. That said, maybe we don’t belong here,” I said, looking among my new hosts.

“That’s up to you. You and the girl want to leave, that’s up to you. But like I said, we could use more help, and you proved that you both know how to handle yourselves out there. You showed me and Diane that you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty when faced with the infected.”

“It’s not so hard,” I said. “You’re out there long enough and you develop tactics for survival. Number one is kill the green-eyed assholes. Number two, you hide and you keep as quiet as possible, and when you are faced with the infected, you always have someone who covers your back.”

“Understood. Now allow me to show you a little of what we have built here. Then we’ll ask you a few questions, and if you decide to stay we’ll get you a place to sleep and some food,” Douglas said.

“You mentioned asking us questions. Haven’t I answered enough?”

“Yeah, nothing formal, but it’s best to get this information before you forget any of it. Kindly leave your weapons here. They will be taken care of and returned when and if you leave,” Douglas said.

“You make it sound like we don’t have a choice,” I said.

“Jackson, once you see the operation we have set up here, you may not
want
to leave. But we have to take precautions. Very few are permitted weapons in the warehouse. It’s for everyone’s safety, you understand of course,” he said.

“Fine. Fuck. Fine.”

“Glad you came along and helped us out when you did,” Douglas smiled.

For some reason, I did not trust this guy. I didn’t really like any of them except Melissa. I’d probably like her less if she tried anything with those damn gloves on.

“Wait a second, who was the guy in the jeep who saved my ass out there?”

“The jeep?” Douglas asked.

“One of your guys, right? He pulled up just as a shuffler was about to stomp my ass, and took the fucker out with one shot,” I said. “Do me a favor and point him or her out later so I can thank them.”