The Zone (18 page)

The dish would have to wait for daylight; it occurred to me that I might re-connect with the outside world just in time to be cut off by a failing power grid, which would be rather ironic.

Mick had left me three cases of vacuum-packed porterhouse steaks, twenty ounce premium cuts, and about twenty pounds of pre-cooked spiced curly fries which made me call blessings down on the wiry little guy’s soul.

I got the grill warming on the roof and went back downstairs to nuke a bowl of fries and heat a half-can of corn. Two steaks on the grill and the TV tray set up for my meal, I cracked a cold bottle of water and surveyed the city. There were flares far to the west, barely visible, and gunships were working out to the south, but the sight didn’t cheer me as much as it had yesterday. If the Miguel Principle held true those rocket runs were only shortening the operational efficiency of most of the infected in the kill zones. The million dollar question was going to be how long an infected could survive once it turned? Obviously the bodies were breaking down, but was it hours, days, or weeks? Could we kill them faster than they could infect others?

The little crew I was running with was doing quite well-we had dropped a huge number of infected in a day and a half in addition to bringing nearly forty uninfected to safety-maybe more, I couldn’t recall the numbers. But we were something of an exception, I imagined. Most people would have been taken before they knew what was going on; the people at the dollar store, the woman running down the street.

Sitting in the dark listening to grease sizzle and small arms fire pop in the distance the reality of my situation settled in: when the lights went out it would be a very long time before they came back on. No more take-out food, no more vacuum-sealed grain-fed beef, no more anything that you couldn’t scavenge. I was getting a front-row seat on what was possibly the beginning of a new Dark Age, if not the extinction of Mankind.

Staying behind was the best decision I could have made. Win or lose, the brave new world unfolding before me wasn’t looking like a place I would enjoy.

The meal knocked me back down; I checked the entrances and hit the cot again, this time leaving the hall light on.

The alarm had to run for quite a bit until I woke at seven; Charlie had said to meet at the Wheel at nine, and I wasn’t in a big hurry to start the day.

A hot shower helped with the stiffness and an aching back, but it couldn’t do much for my knee which had a sullen throb deep inside. I popped four aspirin and two anti-inflammatory pills and put a better brace on but it was just a delaying game. I had worked my knee daily as the therapist had recommended, but the fact was that keeping it limber and the muscles tight only made it as efficient as a knee that had been badly damaged and expertly repaired could be. I wasn’t going to keep up the pace for much longer without taking at least a day to recover.

For the first time since waking up in the hospital I felt at peace with the Department putting me out to pasture, which was something of a surprise. Being told you were handicapped was one thing, but you can lie to yourself: I walked a lot, often without a twinge, and believed I was fit, but the events of the last couple days demonstrated very clearly that no matter how willing the spirit might be, my flesh was not up to full-time active duty. I had long accepted the diminishment of ability that came in your forties, and now I was coming to terms with being in my forties and having a bum knee. You live, and you grow.

Part-time, though, was very possible. And sniping would put no strain on my knee at all- my war was still on.

The second steak, nuked, made for an awesome breakfast and motivated me to drag the satellite dish and gear up onto the roof, where I spent the better part of an hour cursing and struggling before I got a clear signal.

Getting the cable downstairs was a complication that I solved by running it down the side of the building to the second story window and drilling a hole through the window frame; I anchored the cable on the roof with a cinderblock so if an infected actually got a grip on the cable and used it to climb up, he would get fifteen pounds of concrete coming at him, probably with the dish following it.

Time was running out by the time everything had been strung, so the receiver and laptop stayed in their boxes. I suited up, added a scoped AR-15 in a rigid case to my gear and headed for the truck. 

Chapter Eight

The city was looking another few degrees of ragged today; naturally the street sweepers had not made their rounds in a while, so dirt, leaves, and litter were becoming noticeable even on roads free of wrecks. Burnt-out buildings were more common, too.

As I drove I reminded myself that I needed to get containers and stockpile fuel before the grid went completely down and the pumps no longer worked; ditto for water, both for drinking and washing. And I was going to need medical supplies as all I had at this point was a couple extremely basic first aid kits.

A handful of infected tried me at an intersection but I ignored them and kept on driving-they weren’t a danger until they figured out how to attack tires, although I was concerned for the last remaining windshield wiper. Against an ordinary vehicle, though, they were death on legs and it behooved me to keep that fact in mind.

Charlie opened the door and waved me in as I drove into the parking lot, alerted by the teenager he had posted on the roof. I parked the truck by the side of the building and headed in, noting in passing how grimy and dinged up it had gotten yesterday with our mister toad-ish wild rides and the pummeling of many infected fists.

“Loaded for bear as usual,” he grinned as I came in, the smell of ribs grilling giving the otherwise gloomy bar a rather cozy feel. “And on time.”

“I need tomorrow off, boss; my knee is going to need rest and tender care.”

“My whole body needs a week in a good spa. We had four more come in just after dark, so I figure we’ll be heroic today, and then just relay people out of the Zone for two days, let everyone recharge, and hit it again on Friday.”

“There many other groups doing this?” I took a seat at a folding table set up on the dance floor opposite Miguel, who was tearing into a pile of ribs. He gave me a greasy-faced nod but kept his attention on his meal.

Charlie grabbed a chair next to Miguel and slid a platter of ribs towards me. “Help yourself, Mick is in the back grilling like there is no tomorrow.” At a larger banquet-sized table a group of survivors were chowing down as well. “From what I can get from the Net there’s good number, but they vary in capability. Guns aren’t hard to come by, but safe transport is. Mick posted pictures of his work on the bus, and there’s a couple more who have armored cash trucks. A couple people are using RVs with the windows covered with plywood; the infected can’t get a grip like they can with mesh.”

A rib seemed polite, and I didn’t doubt I would burn it off today; I had been drinking water all morning, too, to prevent dehydration. Yesterday had taken a lot more than I had realized I had been giving, so I was being more careful today. “How do they see to drive?”

“Slits like in the first armored vehicles, although some have adapted the video backing kits to give all-around view. I’ve got a list, about thirty people in single sites, all more or less open,” Charlie passed me a bar receipt. “That’s your copy.”

I tucked it away and took another rib. “Mick’s pretty good with a grill.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of a renaissance man.” Charlie polished his glasses. “He cut down those shotguns you brought in yesterday, too.” He eyed me shrewdly. “I picked up a couple Fenders on the way back last night, and a kazoo for Miguel.” That worthy displayed a single finger but otherwise stuck with eating. “I’m gonna get a jam session going tomorrow if I can talk Bob into sticking around; one of the targets is a buddy of mine. Thing is, you gotta have a plan in a time like this, you can’t just live for the next op. You gotta be able to see the other side of it.”

I grinned and wiped my hands on a paper napkin with the bar’s name in blue and silver before grabbing another rib. “You worried about me, Charlie?”

He shrugged. “Just an idea. You left last night dirty and looking as tired as the rest of us, and this morning you’ve got everything back to just so: shaved, clean clothes, full pouches, oil on the weapon, bright eyed and bushy tailed. You look like a man with a mission.”

“We
have
a mission.”

“Sure, but there’s also what comes
after
a mission, too.”

“Charlie, I’m not going to suicide on you. But I’m going to ride out what comes in the Zone. If there is going to be an
after
, well and good, but there will be infected to fight for a long time in this miserable sprawl.”

“You don’t think its going to end well?”

“I think Miguel is right, and I think that a lot of the military are going to want to get to their families. Those who have their families on-post will probably stay, but the US military isn’t really all that big when you get down to it, and there’s far too many clerks and jerks. I think at least one Zone isn’t going to hold, the virus is going to get loose nationwide, and if we survive it won’t amount to much left.  Its all going to boil down to how long the infected can survive; before the Miguel Principle I figured two-three days. Now I’m thinking two-three weeks, more if they drink water. We’re not even a full week into the outbreak and we’re losing. Since I’m set up for survival I can make more of a contribution here than as a gimp refugee.”

“And you still got out of bed this morning,” Charlie grinned.

“I’ve been living a purpose-less life for months; bad as this is, I’m actually doing better now than I was a week ago. I’m thinking by the time this thing is wrapped up, I’ll be ready to retire for real. By choice.”

“Well, so long as you’ve got a plan. Man’s nothing without a future to look forward to, even if its nothing more than pussy and beer.”

“Nothing wrong with pussy and beer,” Miguel spoke for the first time. “Been a good friend to me, pussy and beer. S’why I hang my ass off a building eight-ten hours a day.” 

Bob came in from the back carrying a pitcher in each hand heading for the survivors at the long table; Charlie turned towards him and started to say something as I ripped a long strip of savory warm beef from a rib and chewed appreciatively. Plans and dreams and life ambitions are fine and good,
but well-cooked beef in front of you makes up for a lot bad things.

There was a yammering yell from an intercom on the bar, the topside guard I figured, and then we heard tires screaming outside, a real power turn. The screech turned into brakes howling and tires dragging across the gravel outside until they abruptly cut out as the over-strained master cylinder blew.

It sounded like an explosion, and for our purposes it might as well have been one; the wall to the left of the main doors blew in with an eruption of sheetrock dust, pink fluffs of insulation, and a spray of debris, followed by the largely demolished front end of a new all-wheel-drive station wagon that must have been going sixty when it hit.

The shock of the impact to the building sent dust showering down, neon tubes to bursting, and the fire alarms to wailing. Something heavy smashed into our table which in turn crashed into my chest and sent me sprawling; I was lucky that the impact caused me to spit out the meat I was chewing so I didn’t choke, but I was on the floor wheezing for breath in a dust-filled environment.  The table wasn’t heavy and it had hit a pocket on my vest filled with batteries, but I was still down.

Gagging, weeping, and trying to breathe, the polluted air burning in my throat like the CS tent in Basic, I struggled to my hands and knees and tried to get enough air into my lungs to function. My brain was screaming at me but I couldn’t connect with it, a server was down somewhere.

The impact or a short caused by the impact must have tripped the breakers because it was dark, pitch dark at first with just a few wobbly flashlight beams hanging like stark white bars in the particle-laden air. I dragged a trembling hand across my torso and found that despite the felt impact there were no ribs jutting out; for no reason than the inexplicable reactions of shock I stopped what I was doing and pulled on my tactical gloves when my questing fingers came across them hanging from my vest.

The visibility still sucked although they were getting bigger lights on; over the ringing in my ears and the alarms I could hear a woman screaming in pain, bad pain, and I popped the case and inserted my earplugs, still moving in an illogical haze of shock and low oxygen. My bum knee did not like the hard floor, either.

My cap was gone, but training finally started to kick in and I touch-checked the placement of magazines, Glock, gear; the little hiker radio
and my tactical glasses were gone but everything else was present and accounted for. The M-4 was still on its three-point tactical sling; holding it to the flickering light I extended the stock and checked it for damage, but other than dust it was intact. Dreamily I flicked on the flashlight and laser sight.

The sight of the bar of white light leaping to the ceiling started my brain to working, but the gunshots really snapped me around, and what a smarter part of my brain had been yelling since I hit the floor finally got clearance and flooded forward: there were no flashlights, the light was
sunlight
coming through the hole punched in the wall by the station wagon. We were breached.