The Zone (31 page)

They had. “You think this idea, the weapon, will help?” Key wanted to hear good news, I could tell.

“Probably not,” I admitted. “But I didn’t think rock salt would work, either, so I wouldn’t count me amongst the informed sources. We’ll just have to find out. If either of you wants to sit this one out, that’s OK.”

Neither did. “What’s the plan?” Jake tried to sound business-like, but obviously the footage last night had hit him hard. The world changing so drastically weighs heavily on the hardiest of hearts.

“Ted got us a lot of data-first we hit the security office, let the infected settle down, then I’m going to get the first site while you guys get the attention of every infected in a one-mile radius.”

“By yourself?” Jake did not sound pleased, and Key frowned.

“Yeah. Look, the rock salt weapons are quiet, and the sight of you guys will really draw them-I learned this sniping: the infected stay interested when you dangle meat out in front of them. You part will be far from a cake-walk-you’re going to have to keep them interested for a lot longer than we usually do. The first site is the easiest in any case.”

“ ‘Easiest’ is a very relative term,” Key observed.

We stopped at a car lot where I got a four by four dually with a big rear bumper; we had to stop and gas it up, but we were at the campus before nine. I felt naked following the truck in a vehicle with no window protection, but this was a short operation; I just hoped that the choke-point vehicle assaults which had been a daily fixture since I got the armored truck would hold off while I was in this rig-without armored glass they were a whole new fear factor.

When we had the security building in view the truck peeled off, and a block away Key started dropping baits while Jake held a personal alarm out the door and activated the siren.

When I heard the shrieking and then the shooting I shifted into four-wheel-drive; the campus security office was a single story office building from the early Seventies, brick façade with narrow windows at head height. Spinning the wheel, I rolled into the parking lot, did half a donut, and released my seatbelt to twist sideways. A little jockeying and then I stood on the gas and roared backwards, shearing off a handicapped parking sign before plowing through the glass outer and then inner doors and driving the reception’s desk halfway through an interior wall. Both fenders were torn off and the back windscreen blew out when the bed buckled forward from the impact with the desk.

Slamming it into drive I stood on the gas and held my breath-trucks still look big and macho but for the last quarter century they had gotten lighter and lighter, meaning less frame and more alloy pot metal with each year. If I had had time I would have found one from the Sixties or Seventies, but needs must when the devil drives.

Metal shrieked, the engine roared against the governors, the back bumper parted from the truck, and the rear wheels lost power as the rear U-joint or the alloy drive shaft gave way, but the front wheels were bucking forward, breaking traction and burning off three hundred miles’ worth of rubber for every inch gained, but gaining inches all the same. Cranking the wheel with both hands I managed to wedge the body of the truck solidly within the entranceway. Any infected coming through this opening would have to crawl over the roof of the truck, and delay was all I needed here. A dump truck would have been better, but I hadn’t driven one before and today was definitely not the time to learn.

I crawled out the rear window into the bed of the truck, cutting on the shotgun’s tactical light and laser sight; I made a quick sweep to see if any infected were present and to orient myself, and then I clambered carefully over the side; speed was much less important than hurting my knee.

The manuals I wanted were clearly visible, bright red binders with white lettering on their spines; I dropped them into my empty backpack and then used a two-foot pry bar to lever open the building’s supply room.

My target was the key box on the far wall, but I detoured to grab a Halagan tool and a box of traffic flares from the supply shelves, dropping my pry bar on the way. I didn’t bother with the lock on the key box-I used the Halagan’s curved beak to rip it off the wall and then wedged it into the backpack.

An infected wearing coveralls was climbing into the truck bed when I emerged from the storage room; I hit him with a load of rock salt and then pumped three rounds into those wriggling in over the cab. Thumbing rounds into the magazine, I counted doors and clumsily kicked open the third office door. The Halagan tool’s pry end snapped the file cabinet’s locking bar out of its socket; jerking open the second drawer I grabbed the gray cash box and shoved it into my dump pouch.

An infected, a college girl in a grimy letter jacket and jeans was at the head of the hallway when I popped out, but rock salt threw her into convulsions; I racked the slide and keyed up the radio. “One to Two, come get me.” My voice was a lot calmer than I expected.

The positioning of the crash truck and the need to push bodies out of the way had slowed the infected, but they were as motivated as always; I crossed the open reception area firing as I went, backing down the opposite hallway where the glass door and Exit sign waited.

I paused at the head of the hallway, firing two shots and sliding in one fresh round at the press coming off the truck and repeating the process, as usual the thrashing of the dying inhibiting the passage of those following, but eventually the firing pin punched air and I backed down the hall thumbing rounds into the shotgun. The low projectile weight and minimal powder charge meant I could actually see the wad fluttering away with each shot, a grimy white wisp of soft shaped plastic; the muzzle flash was subdued and the sound of each discharge oddly discreet.

My back to the glass, I worked the pump-action, two fired, one reloaded, a steady erosion of capability that relentlessly counted down to nil. I heard the truck squeal to a stop behind me; dropping the 870 to bump against my chest on its assault sling I pulled the cut-down, fired it into the face of a charging infected student, racked the action, and fired the next round with the muzzle pressed into the glass behind me, instantly transforming it into an opaque sheet. The next shot caused the sheet to collapse; I pumped the remainder of the magazine blindly down the hallway as I clumsily ducked under the static push-bar and emerged out into the fresh air.

Key’s Mini-14 cracked overhead as I scrambled up the ladder to the roof; Jake was rolling before I had both boots on the ladder.

On top, I hauled up the ladder and reloaded both shotguns while Key pounded away at the closing mobs of infected and Jake steered us out of the campus. Inventory by touch assured me that I had everything I had come
for
, everything I had come
with
, plus the Halagan tool and flares, less the pry bar. The backpack had split a seam from its load, but everything was still there.

From the smell and white dust it appeared that they had had to fire both racks of extinguishers; the roof was covered in expended brass.

“So, what did you get?” Jake asked as we gathered by the truck’s hood in a HEB parking lot a mile from the campus. He gave Key a kiss and ruffled her hair.

“Flares, a Halagan tool,” I produced the items in question. “Manuals on the campus fire alarm and sprinkler system, the complete spare key inventory, and the pass codes for the punch locks. Everything I came for plus extras. How did it go for you?”

“Tight.” Key was reloading magazines from boxes. “We drew out a lot, but there were plenty left to investigate your crash-there must have been a hundred outside your truck. I had to use both sets of extinguishers, and they
still
nearly got on the roof.”

“It was tighter than I expected,” I admitted. “I had hoped the baits would lure more away. This was a useful test of their ability to react.”

“They react pretty damned fast and in great numbers,” Jake observed, snapping rounds into a magazine. “We got maybe eighty between shooting and driving over them and I didn’t see where it really made a dent. There’s no way we could hold out long enough for you to go through an entire building.”

“You won’t,” I decided aloud. “Once you drop me off you’ll circle, drop bait, get them agitated on the side of campus opposite my location. It will just mean a longer reaction to my pick-up call.”

“Much more delay this time and you wouldn’t be around to pick up,” Key pointed out.

“True. It is not a great plan, and I’m the one who came up with it. But the fact is that to have a chance at all, we have to do it this way. One person on the truck can’t create much of a disturbance, and two inside a building won’t make enough of a difference in firepower. Nor would three. We’re too few to do it right, so the best we can do is to do it the least wrong.”

“I’m filled with confidence,” Key deadpanned.

Replacing the extinguishers left us with only three in reserve so we found another fire service company and restocked. I grabbed a boom box from the business’ office and we headed to the far side of the campus, where we lowered the boom box on a length of rope from the expressway. I sat in the cab and studied the manuals while Jake and Key shot infected, Key switching to sniping when they tore down the boom box and figured out they couldn’t get to us.

“That was fun. Now what?” Key climbed in, followed by Jake.

“You know how you blind enemy radar in a dogfight?” I folded up the papers.

Jake looked surprised. “They drop flares, and stuff like tinfoil.”

“Chaff,” Key supplied.

“Yeah, exactly. The principle is that the missile systems are pretty simple-minded, so they confuse them by offering multiple targets and clouds of interference. They obscure radar, and divert heat-seekers.”

“Infected are pretty simple-minded,” Jake said slowly, looking at the red binders.

“Yeah. And predictable. I think I’ve got a handle on the problem. We need to do some shopping first, though.”

Once we had secured what we needed, I implemented the first stage of my plan, which was to cut all water to three buildings, simple enough with the plans from the manual, the bolt cutters, and a T-bar water wrench we picked up at the same Home Depot I had raided a century ago.

The second stage was more dynamic: I drove along the front of a selected building while Key kept an eye on the infected and Jake heaved expended fire extinguishers through windows, following them up with plastic one-gallon gas cans with the vent covers open, filled with white gas for a higher ignition value. A quick U-turn and we retraced our steps with Jake igniting road flares and pitching them through the broken windows. We hit the three water-less buildings in this fashion, withdrawing out of the campus to restock after each building because I would not have Jake lighting flares while there were gas cans on the truck roof. We exhausted our supply of flares and Jake managed to drop an extinguisher on his foot (the re-enforced toe of his tactical boot saved him from a broken bone, but he would lose the toenail and be limping for a bit), but otherwise it went according to plan.

Back on the elevated roadway, I studied my handiwork. The sprinkler systems had kicked on, but they only had the water in the pipes, so all three buildings were still burning, although not very involved at the moment. The alarms were doing well, with screaming sirens and flashing strobes both inside and outside, and they were drawing the infected like ants to a puddle of sugar water. They were even entering the building to wander the halls. There were literally thousands-it looked like a free concert for the city’s most desperate and desolate homeless.

“OK, lets go,” I grabbed the back doors. “That ought to keep most of them focused for about twenty minutes-after that, you guys are at bat.”

Stage one of my intrusion was entry; I sat in the back of the truck as Jake whipped around the corner of the building and slid to a stop. Hopping out, I shut the door softly, avoiding a full-armed slam, and went quickly down the dozen steps to the side door. I had the four master keys to the building on retractable steel cable leads clipped to my vest; slotting in the key, I turned it smoothly, fighting an instinct to torque on it, and felt the deadbolt snap back into the door.

At my thumbs up Jake accelerated away while I slipped through the door and pulled it shut, locking it using the buffed steel knob on the inside while crouching below the window. There had been no infected within direct view of my entry, which had been below ground and screened by the truck.

Lifting a rear view mirror I had stripped off a wreck I checked the steps outside: clear. Good-the infected had not seen me dismount and enter. Very good. I broke squelch three times in rapid succession on my radio, signaling a clean entry.

The building still had power so the hall lights were on; after looking to insure that there were no overt signs of infected I peeled bumper stickers and applied them to the door’s long narrow window. Six stickers proclaiming what a great city this was insured that no infected on the outside would get an accidental glimpse of me while I went about my self-appointed rounds, at least from this window.

Checking the hallway, I noted positions and states of doors, the light switches, and fire alarms, and then moved forward at a ready walk, careful to duck beneath the vertical slit-windows in each door I passed. From what I had seen infected did not usually go downstairs, but assumptions can kill-best to be safe. Besides, technically this was the ground floor-two sides were set into a low rise.