Z-Burbia 2: Parkway To Hell (3 page)

“Not likely,” Leeds says as he gets up from the chair and leans over me to look at the panels.

Brenda Kelly is the HOA Board Chairperson. Yes, despite the fact that Whispering Pines pretty much burned to the ground, there is still a Home Owners’ Association. And that’s not the surprising part! Brenda colluded with Vance, to what extent none of us
knows, but she still colluded with him and it resulted in the deaths of my friends and neighbors.

Yet
, the HOA voted her back in as Chairperson of the Board! Why? Because they are frightened sheep and because she undermined any faith in me by leveraging the fact that I blew up Whispering Pines. Sure, I did it to help everyone and to try to stop Vance and his crazies. Problem was that I was in a semi-coma for a few days while she was busy rallying her troops. One vote later and she’s still in charge of Whispering Pines, and I’m out here, my hands sticky with Z yuck, while I try to figure out how to make things better for everyone. Unlike Brenda Kelly, the fat twat.

Not that I want the Chairperson job. Fuck no to that! Thankless job and one that is filled with bullshit. Some folks are made for bureaucracy. I am not one of those folks. I like to think around red tape, not create more just for the fuck of it.

“Jace? Hello, Stanford. You in there?”

“What? Sorry,” I smile
, “just mentally hating Brenda, that’s all.”

“Hate on your own time,” Leeds says. “Tell me why you don’t think the gas shut down was your fault.”

I point at a diagram in one of the manuals then at the control panels. “Each of these panels controls a sub-region of Asheville, see?”

He looks the panels over
and then shakes his head. “No, what am I looking for?”

“See this one? West. This one? East. There’s north, south, downtown, etc. You can shut down specific regions without shutting the whole station down.”

“Makes sense,” he nods. “So what did you find?”

“Look at these panels,” I say, pointing to all but one. They are dark, not a blinking light.
The last one isn’t dark, but has quite a few active lights. “They’ve been switched off. Not tripped because of any failsafe, but switched off.” I flip through the reference manual. “According to this, the failsafe is local. Whispering Pines did get shut off automatically, but probably at the main pipe down the road from the development, not from here.”

“That still sounds like it was your fault,” Leeds says. “Not judging, just observing.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right, but it can be fixed at Whispering Pines. As soon as it’s safe to turn the gas back on, we can do it locally. We don’t need to come here.”

“What’s that one?” he asks, pointing to the active control panel. “Where does it go?”

“North Asheville,” I reply, “and if I’m right, that includes us, unless we’re on the west line. I’m not sure. Doesn’t really matter for right now. What does matter, is that someone intentionally turned every region off except for this one.”

“So it was Vance then,” Leeds says. “What was he up to?”

“No, I don’t think it was Vance,” I reply. “Remember, his mansion is down in Biltmore. He may have set up shop in North Asheville, but the crazy fucker had his undead family still in the south part of town. Why would he shut off a resource to there? I’m sure he would still need it for something.”

“New player?”

“Maybe,” I shrug, “I haven’t got a fucking clue. I’m focusing on this right now.”

“Keep studying,” he says and sits back down
, “you’ve done great so far. Keep at it.”

“Great pep talk,” I smile as I get up and grab all of the binders, spreading them out before me.

Leeds closes his eyes and smiles. “I’m a born leader. Just comes naturally.”

I notice the fluorescent lights flickering slightly above and look over my shoulder. It’s dark outside. Fingers crossed
, I can work it all out before we have to turn the lights off.

“We’ll have company soon,” Leeds says.

“How do you know?” I ask, looking over at him. His eyes are still closed.

He taps his ears. “I can hear them out there. Not many, but enough. How are you doing?”

“I think I have a few things figured out,” I say. “How much time do I have?”

“An hour, maybe longer,” Leeds says. “What have you figured out?”

“I’m pretty sure I can switch these panels on and get the gas flowing to the entire town again,” I say.

“Do we want to do that?” he asks.

“Can’t hurt,” I say.

He opens one eye and locks it on me. “We’re talking about natural gas, Stanford. It can hurt quite a bit.”

“Right. My bad,” I say. “But that’s what failsafes are for. If there is anything wrong with the lines, then they’ll shut down locally.”

“That’s quite an assumption,” Leeds says. “Maybe they were all shut down for a reason. Maybe it was Vance and despite his mansion in Biltmore
, he cut the gas on purpose.”

“My gut says no to that,” I answer
, “I can’t say why, just that it doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t seem like Vance’s style.”

“You killed the man, Jace,” Leeds says. “You didn’t hang out and read each others’ diaries. You have no clue what his style was or what he was thinking.”

“What are you? The devil’s advocate? I’m floundering here at best. I could use a confidence boost, not a smack down.”

Leeds sighs and leans forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He fixes me with that Captain’s glare of his. “My job is to protect lives, not coddle intellectual egos. Your job is to be smart, not coddle your own ego. If I do my job and you do your job
, then shit will get better. If either of us fail, then shit will get shittier. How’s that for a confidence boost?”

“Perfect,” I say, giving him a thumbs up. “I feel like I can do anything now.”

“Good,” Leeds says. He cocks his head and then shakes it. “More Zs. The windows aren’t clouded enough. And they can probably hear us. Time to get silent. You have maybe twenty minutes before we go dark and really hunker down.”

I don’t even answer, just get back to studying. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes go by and I’m even more sure that Vance didn’t shut the gas off. But who did?

“I want to turn it all on,” I say finally, “before we sit here in the dark for the rest of the night.”

Leeds studies me for a very long minute. “You’re sure about this?”

“No,” I answer honestly, “I’m never sure about anything, yet everyone still asks me to figure it out. We’re going to have to take a risk.”

“And why turn them all on?”

That’s a good question. Why do it? Why not leave them off since the line that (probably) feeds Whispering Pines is already on?

“Because I can,” I say. “And because there could be other survivors huddled in their basements way over in East Asheville that need this gas to get through the next few days. If it isn’t already too late.”

“It’s the apocalypse, Jace,” Leeds says. “If they can’t figure out how to survive without natural gas, then they aren’t going to last long no matter what we do.”

“Just give me a shot, will ya?” I ask. “I won’t blow us up.”

“Right.”

“Seriously,” I say, showing him a diagram and the paragraph below it
, “the transfer station has backflow regulators. If something goes wrong, this place is perfectly safe. We’d have to pry open a pipe and drop a match inside to do any damage here.”

Another long minute of the Leeds stare.

“Captain?” I ask. Now I can hear the Zs outside. Their moans are getting louder. I don’t know how many are out there, but enough to hear our voices. We have to decide now.

“Fine,” Leeds says
, “do it.”

“Cool,” I smile. “Wish me luck.”

“No,” Leeds says, “luck better not have anything to do with this.”

I nod and look at the manuals
, then at the control panels. Slowly, carefully, I start to flick switches. I systematically go from one panel to the next, turning them on until the entire control bank is blinking and flickering.

“There,” I smile, wiping my hands together
, “Asheville has gas again.”

“Good,” Leeds says. He reaches over and turns the overhead lights off, plunging us into a darkness lit only by the control bank. “Now get some sleep and rest that brain. We’ll have some killing to do in the morning, I’m sure.”

I try to get comfortable in the rolling chair, but it just isn’t working. I contemplate lying on the floor, but the amount of Z yuck discourages that thought. It’s going to be a long night.

Then the explos
ions start. Quite a few of them. Way off across town towards the east.

“Long Pork,” Leeds snarls.

Dammit.

Chapter Two

“On your left,” Julio calls out as he pivots to the side and jams a spear through the eye socket of a Z staggering towards him. He twists the spear about and tosses the Z onto an ever-increasing pile of corpses filling the entrance to Whispering Pines.

Julio is a short Hispanic man, the parts of his torso that show from under the black tank top he wears is covered in dark black and blue tattoos. They run all the way up his arms and up his neck. His head is shaved except for a thin, short Mohawk. On his belt, strapped to his right leg, is a nasty looking short sword. But the spear is more appropriate for the Z clearing job at hand.

The person he’s talking to, Elsbeth, doesn’t pause to answer, just spins and slices the head off the Z with one of two curved long blades she holds. She kicks the head and the falling body towards the pile, but isn’t as precise as Julio. She is a tall, young woman, intensely beautiful. Her hair is cut short and tucked under a Hello Kitty trucker’s cap. The sleeveless t-shirt she wears shows off her muscled arms, and she moves about with the grace of a cat. A very deadly cat.

“Are you even going to try to hit the pile?” Julio asks as he spears another Z and disposes of it on the pile.

Elsbeth shrugs as she ducks under the outstretched arms of a Z and comes up with a blade through its chin, piercing the skull. The thing’s jaws clamp shut and it grows still as she pulls the blade free and kicks the Z over. It misses the pile by several feet. Elsbeth looks over her shoulder at Julio and smiles. The condition of her teeth is all that mars her beauty, but being raised a cannibal didn’t lend itself to a lifestyle of proper oral care.

“I kill them,” Elsbeth grins
, “let the others clean up.”

“Except we will be the ones cleaning them up since half the camp went back to the Farm today,” Julio says. “We’re short teamed until the new crew shows up in two days.”

“Why do we have to do all the work?” Elsbeth asks, a small whine in her voice. Most wouldn’t notice, but Julio has been fighting Zs with her, shoulder to shoulder for two months straight. He notices.

“Because we do it right,” Julio says. “Better us th
an some of those lazy asses we’re doing this for. We’d just have to come back and finish the job anyway.”

“I don’t like the lazy asses,” Elsbeth says, both blades lashing out, separating Z heads from Z bodies. She makes a small effort to push the bodies and heads towards the pile. “They should work harder. Not us. Them. Poop snotty fart faces.”

“You’ve been hanging out with the kids too much,” Julio laughs as he spears a Z in the gut, then turns it to block two that are coming at him from the left. Elsbeth moves in and takes the heads of all three. Julio yanks his spear free and stabs each decapitated head through the skull, ending their gnashing thrashing. Even separated from their bodies, the Zs still try to chomp some human flesh. Only way to stop them is to kill the brain. Such is the way in the zombie apocalypse.

“So?” Elsbeth asks
. “The kids are fun.”

“Not as fun as me,” Julio grins, his eyes looking Elsbeth up and down. He loves how the sweat soaks her t-shirt between her boobs and across her belly.

“No,” she grins back, “not as fun as you. We’ll have fun tonight, right? You fell asleep last night.”

“I was tired, El,” Julio says. “We spent the wh
ole day killing Zs. A man needs his rest.”

“A girl needs her fun,” Elsbeth counters. “No sleeping tonight.”

“You’re so cruel,” Julio laughs, “but I think I can handle it.”

“Promise.”

“I promise. No sleeping tonight.”

Elsbeth moves away from the Whispering Pines entrance and takes out one, two, three, four, five Zs before
retreating. Julio joins her, dropping three. They stand there for a second, looking at all the Z corpses that litter that part of State Highway 251. The sun is setting and the French Broad River that is across the highway, about twenty yards from the entrance, starts to reflect the sky’s orange and red glow.

“Pretty,” Elsbeth says.

“I can’t believe you decided to turn down Special Forces training to be part of this crew,” Julio says. “You’re crazy.”

“Crazy for you,” Elsbeth says, grabbing his ass. “Mmmmm.
And Platt yells a lot. I don’t like the yelling.”

“How about some screaming?” he asks, giving her a wink. “I know you like to scream.”

Julio takes her up in his arms and kisses her hard. Her hands squeeze his ass harder, making him jump. She presses against him and lifts one leg up over his hip. Their mouths are jammed together, hungry with passion.

“Jesus,” John says as he and Stuart come walking around the bend in the road. “Can’t you
wait until you’re in your tent?”

“And have cleaned up,” Stuart adds
, “you two are covered in Z.”

Elsbeth pulls away from Julio and smiles at the two men. “He’s not falling asleep tonight. I’ll be on him for hours.”

Julio shakes his head and takes her hand, pulling her towards the new gate that stands open at the Whispering Pines entrance. It isn’t as big or secure as the original gate, but it keeps the Zs out for the most part. Enough for those inside to get a good night’s sleep with only a couple of sentries on duty.

“You are one lucky bastard,” John says to Julio as he follows them inside, shutting the gate once Stuart is in. He and Stuart place reinforced bars across the gate, securing it for the night.

“It’s not luck,” Elsbeth says. “He has to work hard for me. No lazy ass gets in my pants. Nope, nope, nope.”

“Yeah, how about we eat a little
, and then clean up the Zs?” Julio asks. “You two up to lend a hand?”

“Sure,” Stuart says. “Let us stow our gear and grab a bite too.”

“I gotta shit something wicked,” John says. “Been holding it for the last mile.”

“Ooh, me too,” Elsbeth says. “I’ll come shit with you. We can talk about your day.”

“Still working on that personal space thing, eh?” John laughs.

“I don’t need any,” Elsbeth shrugs. “Not my problem if others do.” She looks at Stuart. “Except for Stuart. He has to have space or he’s a grumpy bear. Grumpy bear Stuart is not fun.”

“You can say that again,” John says.

“Hey, lay off,” Stuart says. “I can be fun.”

“Yes, you’re a barrel of laughs,” Julio says. He winks at Elsbeth. “Have fun taking that shit. Wash your hands before we eat.”

“Right,” Elsbeth nods
, “wash my hands. You’ll remind me, right, John?”

“You can count on it,” John says, smiling and offering his arm. She looks at it and frowns. He drops it and shakes his head. “Right. Off to the shitter we go.”

Julio and Stuart watch them walk away, and then Julio turns to Stuart, his face serious.

“What did you find?”
He asks as they walk up the hill towards the small, temporary camp set up while Whispering Pines is being rebuilt and put back together. All about them are burned out houses and scorched yards, from when Edward Vance and his people lay siege to the development.

“Nothing conclusive,” Stuart says. “We don’t know if the people are part of Vance’s crew or not. Our guess is no, but we can’t know for certain.”

“Why no?” Julio asks as he tosses his spear onto the ground and grabs a ladle from a large water barrel. He takes a drink and hands it to Stuart who does the same.

“For one thing
, they are pros,” Stuart says. “Weapons and gear point to a private military company. I’ve seen my share over the years. They look the part.”

“Why the Grove Park Inn?” Julio asks as he takes a seat on a large log set next to a small campfire.

Other men and women are busy cooking their evening meals at other campfires spread out across the subdivision. It would be more efficient to all cook together, but for security and safety, it’s better if the rebuild crew keeps to smaller, separate groups. That way, the whole team can’t get boxed in if the Zs get through the perimeter of the development.

The back of Phase One of Whispering Pines butts up against a fifty-foot limestone cliff. At the top of the cliff is a long, wide meadow. The meadow is filled with row after row of steel fenced razor wire interspersed between long and various ditches. There was a deck built into the cliff at the top so that sentries could watch twenty-four hours a day for Zs. But that was destroyed in the battle with Vance. It is one of the first rebuild priorities.

Part of Phase One and all of Phase Two, which is up on the second plateau of the development, is surrounded on two sides by a 100-yard deep ravine of huge rocks and boulders. Gotta love natural erosion. The ravine sides are covered in steel fencing and razor wire also. If the Zs make it into the ravine, they never make it up the sides. Or that was the theory before all the damage. Now sentries keep watch on all fronts to make sure stragglers don’t shamble through and eat the rebuild team in the night.

“I don’t know why the Grove Park,” Stuart answers
, “but something, or someone, important is in there. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a show of force.”

“Big Daddy won’t like this,” Julio says.

“Big Daddy doesn’t like anything that upsets the balance of things and his plans,” Stuart says. “But that’s life in the dead city.”

Hollis “Big Daddy” Fitzpatrick is the head of the Farm. A huge parcel of land over in Leicester, about thirty miles west, the Farm is where the residents of Whispering Pines have been holing up while their homes are rebuilt. A devout man, Big Daddy believes Z-Day happened for a reason
, and he aims to make sure that reason is for good and not evil as some would have it. His brother, Critter, is pretty ambivalent about the good versus evil part, but agrees with Big Daddy that a rebuilt Whispering Pines, and Asheville as a whole, is how they’ll all survive.

“Was that a joke, Stuart?” Julio smiles as he places a pot of chopped vegetables and water into the campfire.

“I hope not,” Stuart says, “that would ruin my reputation as a grumpy bear.”

“Can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t.”

Stuart sits with his back against the log and stretches his arms above his head. A retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant, Stuart is in his mid-fifties, but stronger and more capable than most of the twenty year olds back at the Farm. He rolls his head around on his neck, letting the vertebrae crack and pop. There is a chill in the late autumn air and Stuart looks up at the darkening sky above them.

“Jace and the rest aren’t back yet then?” he asks.

“Not yet,” Julio says
, “but didn’t really expect them to be. Fixing that transfer station, if they can, could take a couple of days.”

“John’ll head over and check on them tomorrow,” Stuart says. “He won’t have to go all the way, just find a vantage point and scope them out to make sure everything is all good.”

“Good,” Julio says. “He may be a pain in the ass, but we can’t lose that brain of his. Guy is fucking smart.”

“That he is,” Stuart says.

“Long Pork?” Elsbeth asks as she walks up with John and plops down next to Julio, pushing him with her hip, making him scoot his ass down the log. “You’ve heard from Long Pork?”

“No, no,” Stuart says. “We were just talking about-”

“Runners!” a shout goes up down by the gate.

“Son of a bitch,” Julio swears. “How many times do we have to tell them not to shout? It’ll bring more Zs.”

They all get up and make their way quickly to the gate. They are joined by a few of the others on the rebuild crew. One of the sentries pulls open the gate and several of Critter’s men hurry in. Once they’ve caught their breath, Stuart gets the story of what happened at the transfer station out of them.

“We have to go help,” Elsbeth insists. “I won’t have Zs eating Long Pork.”

“I don’t think anyone should eat long pork,” Julio jokes, then clams up as he sees the serious look on Elsbeth’s face. “Sorry. Chill, girl. We’ll go help Long Pork and Captain Leeds.”

“Not tonight,” Stuart says as the last rays of sunlight fade over the hills across the French Broad River. “It’ll have to be a job for the morning.”

“We can’t leave them there!” Elsbeth cries. “No! Not leaving Long Pork!”

She starts for the gate, but Julio and John grab her arms, both ready to get smacked around. Stuart stands right in front of her, his face just an inch from hers.

“You may be able to make it there in the dark, but it’s too dangerous for everyone else,” Stuart says. “And I’m not letting you go by yourself. End of discussion. We leave at dawn and we’ll double time it until we get to the transfer station.”

“It’s a
couple hours at a hard jog,” John says.

“Tell us about it,” one of Critter’s men says as he sits slumped against the gate, his body drenched in sweat and his chest still heaving from the exertion.

“Tomorrow,” Stuart says.

“Dawn?” Elsbeth asks. “When the sun comes up?”

“As soon as we can see enough to take a piss,” Stuart says.

“I can piss in the dark,” Elsbeth counters.