Slow Burn (Book 3): Destroyer (22 page)

At first, I thought it was thunder. But the sky was still clear. The wind hadn’t changed direction. Nothing was different. It was just another hot, mosquito-filled Texas night. But the rumble grew louder the further we went downriver.

Russell was growing agitated in the back of the boat. Murphy was looking up at the mountain crests on the north side of the river with worry furrowing his face.

“That can’t all be gunfire, can it?” I asked him.

Murphy slowly nodded. “It’s over in west Austin somewhere. I’m betting Camp Mabry. Sounds like they’re shooting everything they’ve got.”

“I’m glad I’m not a White over there right now.”

Murphy shook his head. “I’m just glad I’m not over there right now.”

“That’s all machine guns and grenades and stuff?”

“Yep.” Murphy was nodding again.

“I can’t even imagine how many Whites they must be slaughtering with all that.”

Murphy stood and looked off into the darkness. “I can’t imagine how many Whites are attacking them if they’re still shooting.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, as the realization of
that
sank in.

Murphy looked down at me with a request forming on his lips, but it didn’t need completion. I throttled forward.
Noise be damned
,
and get the pontoon boat another night. Shit was going down. There was no time to waste.

The miles disappeared in a hurry as the ski boat slid over the smooth water. We skipped the drift phase and motored right into the boathouse. After docking, we ran up the tunnel with several pillowcases full of groceries and the extra revolver. When we exited the elevator in Sarah’s basement, Steph was waiting for us with a poker face, but with dread in her eyes.

“What’s the story?” I asked.

“Sergeant Dalhover and Mandi are on the roof—” Steph started.

“What are they doing there?” I interrupted.

“Listening.” Steph was terse.

Murphy asked, “What’s going on?”

Steph gave Murphy a stern look. “You take the video room. We don’t know yet what’s happening, but you know as well as I do that it’s big. Zed, all of the steel doors have been rolled down over the windows and the patio. We’re secure, but you take Russell and check every window and every door. Double-check the garage.”

“But we haven’t been out there,” I protested.

“Doesn’t matter,” she told me. “Double-check them all. Do it now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” That grated on me. I hated being told what to do. But she was the boss. And she was right about the double-checking. I ran toward the stairs.

“When you finish up here, go back down and double-check the boathouse.”

“Do you want us to bring up the rest of the groceries on our way back?” I asked.

Steph was surprised. “There’s more?”

I pointed to the pillowcases we’d laid by the wall. “That much and a little more.”

“Bring what you can, then come to the roof. That’s where the rest of us will be.” She turned to Murphy. “I’ll send Mandi down once we get upstairs.” Then she looked at all of us. “Stick together. Stay in your buddy pairs until this blows over. Now go.”

Murphy went to the video room. Steph headed for the elevator, and Russell and I ran up the stairs.

It took maybe thirty minutes to check all the windows, the garage doors, and the boathouse. It was a big house, but everything was as buttoned up as it could be. We were secure.

Russell and I got off the elevator on the roof to see Steph and Dalhover leaning on the rail looking east toward the sound. I looked too and saw nothing but trees.

“It’s all secure,” I told them I as I walked up.

“Thank you, Zed. Double-checking all of the windows makes us more secure, you understand that right?”

“Of course,” I answered. “Mistakes are paid in blood.”

Both Steph and Dalhover gave me an odd look.

I shrugged, but didn’t think it needed explaining.

Steph said, “You’re right. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

“Murphy thinks there’s a battle over at Camp Mabry,” I said, diverting back to the salient issue.

“Yeah,” Dalhover agreed.

Steph pointed east over the trees. “We’ve seen flashes from explosions over there. Sergeant Dalhover doesn’t think they’re far away.”

“Yeah,” I said, “Camp Mabry is only a couple of miles that way. It sounds intense. Do you think that maybe the Army is finally here?”

Dalhover shook his head and looked back out into the night.

I didn’t pursue the point. I knew it had been a stupid question to ask.

“It sounds like it’s slowing down to me. But it doesn’t look like we’re not going to learn anything up here that we can’t learn from downstairs,” Steph said. “All we’re doing is exposing ourselves to stray bullets, even if we are out of their effective range. Sergeant, what do you think?

“Can’t see dick up here,” Dalhover answered.

Steph pointed toward the door. “Let’s go down to the video room.”

So we all trooped down to the video room.

When we got there, Murphy and Mandi were sharing cold Pop Tarts. It didn’t take much more than the smell of the sugar and the crinkle of a foil wrapper to tempt the rest of us to join in. After several days of perfectly healthy veggies, the Pop Tarts were delicious.

Steph spoke first. “Sergeant Dalhover, what are your thoughts?”

Dalhover spent a minute collecting those thoughts before he answered. “I’d say there’s a pretty good force over at Camp Mabry. National Guard.
Maybe some regular Army. Maybe some civilians. Probably hiding out there the same way we were at the hospital.”

He paused for a long time.

“With the same result?” I added.

Everybody silently looked at me.

Uncomfortable moments stretched through the silence.

“Looks that way,” Dalhover finally confirmed.

Steph asked, “Why do you think there are so many infected?”

Dalhover shook his head. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s the bunch from the hospital. Maybe it’s the bunch from the farm. Maybe the guys just started shooting at some Whites and didn’t stop soon enough, so everyone on this side of town came running. Maybe the Smart Ones found ‘em.”

“Any other guesses?” Steph asked.

There weren’t any.

“Are we in danger?” Mandi asked.

Murphy put a hand on her shoulder, but didn’t say anything
one way or the other.

“We don’t know, Mandi,” Steph told her, “but we’re going to play it safe. Tonight, we’ll keep watch in pairs.” She looked at
me and then Murphy. “You guys have been out doing your job. Sergeant Dalhover and I will take the first watch.”

While Steph was looking at each of us for questions, I said, “I think we should all stay down here tonight. Close. We can sleep in the recliners in the theater.”

“I can do that,” Murphy said. “Those things are comfortable.”

“We should probably keep a bug-out pack close too,” I added. “Just in case.”

“Hide and run,” Steph confirmed. “That’s our strategy. I agree.”

“Wait,” Murphy’s tone got everyone’s instant attention. He pointed up at one of the screens.

Three people were running across the road; two soldiers and a civilian. It took half a second to extrapolate their path through the trees, onto the dirt road, and right at our walls.

I did a quick check of my rifle, pistol, and machete and was stepping toward the door while asking, “Are we going to bring them in?”

There was a pause. Dalhover looked at Steph. Murphy looked at me. Mandi looked worried. Russell followed me over to the door.

“Somebody open the gate when they come to it,” I said. “Don’t let ‘em through the second gate until I’m there.”

“No,” Steph said, suddenly past her indecision. “Don’t go alone. Mandi, you stay here and watch the monitors. The rest of us will go. Let’s not take any chances.”

We spread out in a semicircle around the end of the driveway, where the gate would slide open. I was by the wall, with Russell standing too close. I had my machete and pistol at the ready. Murphy stood away from the door and would likely be the first one the soldiers saw once the door slid open. Dalhover was off to Murphy’s other side, and Steph was opposite me with the door opener in her hand.

The howling of Whites in the trees was noticeable. They weren’t there when we left the video room, and with no way to communicate with Mandi, we had no idea how many were out there. It was more than a handful and less than a few dozen. In the distance though, there were hundreds. Their vocalizations were starting to overwhelm the sounds of battle, which were decreasing significantly. What did that mean?

So we stood there, not knowing for sure what was beyond the door. Had Mandi opened the outside gate for the soldiers, only to have them chased in by a mob of Whites? We should have left the decision to open the interior gate in her hands. At this point, she was the only one who knew what was beyond.

That’s what I was thinking when Steph raised the opener and very dramatically pressed the button. The gate’s opening mechanism clanged and the tall steel gate lurched.

Murphy readied himself in front of the gap. I hefted the machete.

“Hello,” Steph called a greeting, barely audible over the sound of the rolling gate.

When the gap created by the opening gate was maybe eighteen inches wide, it became time to pay a bloody price for another mistake. But I didn’t think about that until later.

A gun went off.

In the microseconds that it took to be surprised and process the sound, Murphy’s head snapped hard to the right and he seemed to have lost his balance. There was blood in the air. He was falling.

Dalhover cursed.

My mood flipped from caution to blinding, white-hot rage.

Two hands, holding a pistol out in front, policeman-style, pushed through the gap in the gate and without the tiniest hint of hesitation, I swung my machete in a big arc over my head and chopped across both wrists.

A severed hand and a pistol spun off toward Steph.

A man shrieked.

The other hand dangled from a forearm on ragged tendons. Blood spewed.

The gate stopped and reversed as I dropped my Glock and machete and pulled my M-4 up to maximize my killing power, because it was time to do some killing. In half a second I was pushing my rifle barrel through the shrinking gap and pointing it at a handless, screaming man on the ground beneath a fountain of his own blood.

Steph’s voice was screaming, too, not in panic, but in harsh orders. The words didn’t process and I didn’t care. Only the trigger and the soon-to-be-dead man mattered to me. Just as I pulled the trigger, my rifle jerked hard upward and I sent three rounds over the wall.

“God damn it!” I raged.

Before I even knew what was happening, Dalhover had my rifle pushed back against my chest and pointed at the sky, while pinning me against the cinder block abutment where the gate closed. His eyes were hard to match for the blaze in mine.

The gate clanged shut.

“What the fuck!” I screamed at Dalhover.

With hands like stone and an expressionless statue face, he didn’t respond.

How could that skinny fucker be so strong?

My hands were shaking, I was so angry. But I fought to control the rage. Without that control, Dalhover wasn’t going to let go of me. And if Dalhover didn’t let go of me in those next few seconds, things were going to get very ugly.

Over Dalhover’s shoulder, I saw Steph kneeling at Murphy’s side. Her hands immediately went to work at his head. I had to get over there.

“Let me go,” I told Dalhover, in as calm a tone as I could muster.

He waited a few seconds before releasing me, using those seconds to reassure me that he was in control. But he let go and stepped out of my way.

I was immediately on my knees on Murphy’s other side.

“Cover that gate!” Steph ordered Dalhover, pressing a cloth to the side of Murphy’s head.

Murphy was breathing. His eyes were open, but didn’t appear to see anything. His left arm was busy trying to do something repetitive.

I felt helpless.