by Jill James
The cars appeared haphazard at first glance. But no pattern arose as he stared longer. No discernible obstacle course to use as a gauntlet for an ambush. It was what it was—the futile last attempt of people to get out of the city—and failing.
“Are we going to push the cars over the bridge?” the boys of Rogue Vantage asked.
He smiled as he lowered the binoculars and saw the young boys at the side of the car. Laughing at their gleeful expressions, he wished he could just push the cars over the side of the cement barriers, if only to hear them cheer and act like the little boys they were.
“Sorry, boys,” he explained. “We might be able to push some already headed that way, but I think we need to scout for new transportation, hopefully at the other end of the bridge.”
He jumped down from the car and stood in front of them. “Aidan and Bryant,” he said, pointing to the two oldest. “You are with me to scout the bridge and see if we can find some transport, maybe a truck or two.
“Connor and Dylan, you go and help Suz and Josh get food organized. I want everyone to eat something and drink at least a bottle of water. Can you do that?”
The boys puffed out their chests, just like he’d planned when he set each pair to a necessary task. He kept an eye on the smaller boys until they reached Suz’s side and she gave him a wave.
“Okay, boys.” He turned to Aidan and Bryant. Each had grown in the past few months and was now only a head or so shorter than him. He made the mental decision and handed them each a gun from his pack.
“You’re been shown how to be careful with these, but I want to remind you that an accident with a gun can’t be undone.”
“Yes, sir,” they intoned.
The intense and calm look on their faces reassured him. He winced at the thought of boys becoming men before their time.
“Keep them pointed down unless I say shoot. Walk in front of me, one to each side. Keep your eyes moving at all times. Look under cars and in them. There are no supplies we need bad enough to try to get in a vehicle with an undead. Understood?”
“Yes, Mister Paul.”
Satisfied they had at least listened to him, they moved out.
He watched with pride as the boys held the guns down at their sides with their fingers beside the trigger, not on it, just like they had been taught. Each boy’s head whipped from side to side. Aidan ran up to a car, squatting to check underneath. He jumped up and peered in the windows. He looked back at Paul and shook his head. He moved on up the incline of the bridge.
Bryant walked up to a raised pickup truck, bending over to look beneath. The boy stretched on tiptoe to check the bed of the vehicle. He turned with a smile. “Boxes of stuff,” he spoke in a low tone.
Paul walked up and checked the cab. No zombs. He pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket and put a giant X on the door. Grabbing his walkie-talkie, he keyed it on. “Suz, we found some supplies, maybe. Blue raised pickup. X on door. Safe to this point.”
“Will they come get them?” Bryant asked.
“Maybe. But it will be easier to get them on the way to the other side of the bridge.”
The young boy’s eyes brightened like a lesson learned. His heart clenched at the thought of all the lessons they would have to learn to survive when the older people were gone. It reminded him of ancient times when elders had to make sure to pass their knowledge on to the next generation or it was lost. The Internet had ruined people by letting them think knowledge was just a few keystrokes away.
His mind was snapped back at Aidan’s cry and the pop of weight on a car roof. Paul whipped around and spotted the boy a few cars away, standing atop an SUV. Three undead surrounded the vehicle. They were moving in slow-motion, their legs seeming to not have enough flesh to hold them upright. He watched with pride as Aiden stood still with his gun still pointed downward, knowing shots would call more skinbags to his location.
“Bryant,” he whispered. “You have my six.” He pulled his knife from the sheath and put his gun in the holster on his hip.
“Yes, sir.”
The boy turned and backed up to him. Paul moved slowly toward the zombs. He had two dispatched before the third realized he was there. The female turned with outstretched arms that he batted away before plunging his knife into her skull. The skinbag fell to the ground.
Aidan looked ready to jump down until Paul put his hand up. He squatted and looked under the SUV. Clear.
“I know it doesn’t look far, but never risk twisting an ankle or breaking a bone unless it’s an emergency and you can’t help it. Even a non-serious injury could mean your death.”
“Yes, sir,” Aidan intoned as he slid down the windshield and then down the hood to the ground.
“Bryant,” Paul instructed. “Check the car over there. Aidan, you check the brown truck and then we can move on.”
The boys quickly squatted and checked and strode back over to him.
“Dead dead people in the car,” Bryant reported.
“Nobody in the truck,” Aidan said. “No supplies either.”
Paul ran his fingers over his short hair. “Dead dead? Are you sure?”
“Come see for yourself,” Bryant said, running back to the car. Paul and Aidan joined him. They stared through the window at the man and woman seat-belted in the vehicle. Their bodies were deteriorated like corpses in a grave but it didn’t appear they had attacked each other or if one had attacked the other.
Paul located the answer in the piles of pill bottles in their laps and strewn across the seats and floor. Just like the parents of Rogue Vantage, the people in the car probably died too quickly and thoroughly to reanimate into zombies.
The back seat was covered in suitcases, but nothing looked important enough to violate the couple’s last resting place. He wasn’t digging pill bottles out of the couple’s laps for a few drugs.
He stood straight. “Let’s move on, boys.”
At the apex of the bridge, Paul stopped and looked back to the toll booths where they’d left the rest of the group. Other than a small flock of blackbirds, nothing moved on the bridge. The whistle of the wind the only sound. The other side of the bridge had fewer cars since no one was trying to get into the cities and towns when catastrophe hit, but still too many to move with their small group.
Looking forward, the cars and trucks were widely spread out as if the bottleneck had happened in the middle of the bridge on their side. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He didn’t like it. There should be more than three undead to cause the mess on the bridge.
“Boys,” he whispered. “Step careful. Be extra alert. Check and double-check each vehicle. I believe this is where the mess started.”
Aidan and Bryant stepped in front of him and Paul divided his attention between the cars and the boys. Seeing nothing, he was about to let his guard down when Aidan stepped around a large van and called out as loudly as you can whisper and still yell.
“Mister Paul. Over here.”
He whipped around the corner of the van and stopped. Bryant came around the other end of the vehicle.
A pile of undead greeted them. Thankfully, they were dead dead. The camo uniforms and bullet-ridden corpses told a tale of the army trying to stop a flood of refugees from the surrounding cities. The k-rail barrier was skewed and several shot up cars filled the fields and marshlands beyond the bridge.
He smiled. Three Humvee sat just beyond the k-rails. If they worked, they would be more than enough for their people to get through. His thoughts scattered at a moan from the pile of zombie soldiers.
A bony hand groped from the mound. Bodies fell as one undead pulled itself from the group. Before Paul could reach him, the hand latched onto Bryant’s ankle and tugged until the boy fell to the ground.
He rushed over, but before he could do anything, Bryant rolled over, placed the gun against the zomb’s skull, and pulled the trigger. He shook his leg until the bony hand fell off. The boy jumped up and shook his body.
“Gros
s. I’m sorry, Mr. Paul but you said in an emergency we could shoot.”
He put his hand on Bryant’s back. “Yes, I did. Good job.”
The walkie-talkie squawked on his belt. He pulled it up and to his ear.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, we are fine. A skinbag grabbed Bryant but he took care of it.”
“As long as everyone is okay.”
“Suz, we found some vehicles. Can you send Josh our way? The bridge should be clear but tell him to keep a look out anyway.”
“Will do. Over and out.”
He put the walkie-talkie back on his belt. “Let’s have a look at the Humvee, guys.”
“Yeah,” they whispered in a cheer.
Zombie apocalypse or not, boys would be boys.
Chapter Four
Jack and Lila
Commander’s Log
Highway 4, Antioch, California
Spring, 1 AZ
Left RV yard at 0400 hours. Encountered a few zombs and zero civilian population. Lila believes Juan will try to make it to Walnut Creek where he had family before Z virus. Holdouts missed by the general’s zombie army in the last autumn. Before the virus and the skinbags, the trip would have taken under an hour. With the wreckage on the freeway, I am hopeful we will make it within the week.
On a personal note, Lila shows all the signs of an abused wife. She jumps at every sound and has developed a nervous twitch of pulling on her ear and hunching her shoulders if I raise a hand or my voice. Have tried to take over most tasks on the trip to show her she is not a slave. Have made it as far as what would have been a BART station in Antioch. Was hopeful for more but clearing the road is not a one-man job and Lila is in no shape to help push or drive. The sun is setting and we will camp overnight at the remains of a never finished building.
Jack put the pencil and notebook back into the knapsack. He viewed Lila out of the corner of his eye. She hadn’t said a word since they started after she mentioned Walnut Creek as Juan’s probable destination, where a Morales family conclave still existed. Her thin arms wrapped around her body as if she were cold, even though Emily had provided her with warm enough clothing. The jeans fit well enough, but the long-sleeved T-shirt swam on her body.
“Are you okay with a cold dinner? I’d rather not risk a fire while we’re just off the freeway.”
Her curt nod was all he got. She added a short yes or no to each of his other questions about bread, jam, and peanut butter. He handed her a finished sandwich and watched as she took a bite and stared off into the darkening twilight. “Enjoy the bread. That’s the last of it until the group gets to somewhere with an oven again.”
“We’re safe here,” he added, wondering if she were worried about the assholes that’d left the church recently.
She finally looked up, her hazel eyes awash in tears. “I know you’ll keep us safe. But what about my baby?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t have an answer to that, Lila. I have to just hope and pray that Juan will remember she was his daughter for nine years. Was he a good dad?”
“He was okay,” she stammered out. “He wasn’t really mean until Reverend Bennett arrived. He could yell and stuff, but he never hit me until then. He never laid a hand on Selena, even when he realized she wasn’t his.”
Jack’s head shot up. “He only recently found out she wasn’t his? How could he not know?”
“He never asked and I never told him,” she whispered. “He’s always thought she was his child until he saw you and Selena together.”
Reaching over, he gently grasped her chin and raised her face. “Are you positive she isn’t his?”
She moved backward, out of his reach. “She’s yours. I knew I was pregnant when I broke up with you.”
His jaw dropped open and stayed that way. No words came that weren’t vicious and cutting, and that wouldn’t help either of them right now. Lila must have her reasons for the deceit, but he didn’t want to hear them—ever. He turned his back on her and faced the freeway, even though it was invisible in the fallen dark. Rustlings of nocturnal animals caught his attention. A coyote howled nearby and Lila moved to a wall and huddled there.
He should comfort her, but he found himself unable to do so, if only because she was someone else’s wife. All his training and instincts that had kept the Streets of Brentwood group safe and together for so long fell into a muddle of scattered thoughts. Memories of making love with Lila. Of their time together. Of that last day. He pushed his thoughts to a safer place.
A daughter.
He had a daughter.
His mind was a rambling stream of every laugh, of every remembered vision of the little girl who’d run around the RV yard with the boys of Rogue Vantage. Selena had been the instigator of practical jokes that kept the morale up of the entire community.
“I’m sorry,” she stuttered out.
Jack leapt across the space dividing them and slapped his hand on her mouth. Her hazel eyes widened and tears slid over the lids to wet his fingers. He brought his other hand up and put a finger on his lips in the sign of silence.
She nodded and he moved his hand away from her mouth. Her small inhalation was loud in the silence. He moved closer and whispered in her ear.
“I hear someone. Take the knapsack and move quietly to the far corner.”
He listened, noting she moved with stealth in the dark. He clenched his jaw at yet another sign of a battered woman. Walk on eggshells, don’t make waves. He’d seen enough of them in the military to last a lifetime.
Crawling through broken cement blocks, he pulled his night-vision goggles down. The darkness exploded in green undertones. Five, no make that six, men moved down the freeway in a loose formation. Their yells split the quiet night as they spotted the intact pickup truck. Weighing their options, Jack decided to let them have the truck. All their gear was in here with them and he might take out two or three men, but if he missed even one, Lila would be at their dubious mercy and they’d never find Selena.
He didn’t know all the church members by sight, but their attitude and mountain-man appearance laid good odds that was who they were. One of the men put a hand on the hood of the truck but the warm night air guaranteed he wouldn’t know the difference between warmth from driving and normal temperature from the night. Sure enough, he nodded to the rest and they piled in the cab and the bed of the truck. A couple of minutes and the vehicle roared to life and sped off down the concrete road.
He sighed. They would be on foot until or if, they found another car. The zombie apocalypse never got easier. Patrol in Afghanistan had been easier than now getting from point A to point B in the Bay Area.
Jack made his way to Lila’s hiding spot. “They’re gone.”
“But, they took the truck. What do we do now?” He could hear the fright and worry in her shaking voice.
“We’ll find something in the morning,” he replied, pulling a sleeping bag from the knapsack and spreading it on the ground. “Why don’t you try to rest? I’ll keep watch.”
“Don’t you need sleep?” Her worry was undercut by a yawn she tried to hide behind her hand.
“I’m used to going on little sleep. The army is great at training you for that.” He laughed. “Actually, the army was great training for the apocalypse.”
Lila lay down, her head resting on her folded arm. “You sound like you enjoyed it.”
“Well, it helped me through a rough time.” His good mood died. “Get some sleep,” he barked, as he grabbed his gun and went to stand by the broken wall, gazing out at nothing.
* * *
Lila bit her lip as she closed her eyes. Hot tears spilled down her face and pooled in her ear. They’d been so close to a real conversation. Like a light switch, he’d turned off his emotions. Before, his anger would have raged, he would have thrown things. This new, calm Jack was a stranger, a man she didn’t know. Sleep pulled at her. A thousand worries fought her fatigue. Sleep won.
The limousine pu
lled away from the Canida family mountain house. She turned in her seat until a curve in the road hid it from sight. Still, she stared out the window.
Tears flooded her vision as her father’s hand clamped onto her shoulder. “You did the right thing, my dear.” He laughed. The laugh she hated with a passion. The one which said he won, just like he always did. A business transaction or dealing with his daughter; they were the same thing in his mind. A negotiation to win.
“It’s not like you gave me a choice,” she cried out.
He moved, his hand falling away. “We always have choices. We have to make the right ones for the family.” He adjusted his cuffs on his dress shirt. “You had the choice of leaving the man alive or staying with him and seeing him dead.”
“Daddy, how could you? What did Jack ever do to you?”
“He was an obstacle. One I have eliminated. Now nothing stands in the way of your marriage to Juan Morales. Our families will be connected. We will own Sacramento. I wasn’t letting some measly army peon stand in my way. Nothing will stop us now.”
Lila gulped down her rising bile and put a protective hand on her abdomen. She would marry Juan to save Jack and to protect their unborn child.
She awoke with a start and Selena’s name on her gasping breath. Her gaze shot to the opening to find Jack still standing sentry as if he hadn’t moved all night. A lightening to gray outside hinted at a rising sun down the road and over the hills.
That tenaciousness was going to help them find their daughter. She could almost pity Juan when they found him. But if Jack didn’t kill him, she would. His cruel words and threats still rang in her ears. He hadn’t taken Selena to keep her; he’d taken her to sell, to use, to abuse. Her arms trembled as she wrapped them around her shaking body.
The sky lit up to a clear blue through the openings in the roof. She scrambled to get up, roll the sleeping bag, and stuff it in the knapsack. The longer Juan had her, the more risk that Selena would be lost to them.