I wasn’t surprised when Nate lied. “Likely another three to four days.”
“Splendid.” I couldn’t help but smirk at Minerva’s exclamation. “Then you’ll be just in time to help us with some cleanup.”
Silence fell, everyone seeming to hold their collective breath. That didn’t sound good. Nate briefly looked in my direction but didn’t say anything to me before speaking into the mic again. “Sure, we’re always happy to help. When do you need us?”
“Three days from now sounds about right. Let us know if you need anything when you get here.”
“Some chow and a place to crash is more than enough,” Nate stated.
“Good. Safe journey until then, and don’t let the zombies bite you,” Minerva offered and signed off.
Murmurs rose all around us but quieted immediately when Nate spoke up. “Opinions please on if I’ve deciphered this right: they have vermin sitting outside of their settlement and need us to be there in less than two days at the most or else we don’t stand a chance to break through. My guess is with undead sheep in tow, but that might just have been her way of being funny. That woman has our kind of humor.”
A few of the scavengers grinned at the last bit. Nobody spoke up to negate his guess. Hamilton finally piped up. “Sounds about right. It’s likely for the best if we cut it down to one day. Whoever is getting ready to prevent us from getting there likely heard that transmission. They likely won’t believe our three-day estimate since they know where we’re coming from, and also have estimates of how long it took us from Alabama to California.”
I hated to agree with him. Thankfully, Pia spoke up before I had to. “We should drive through the night and chance getting in trouble with some shamblers on the way there. If they have an undead problem outside of town, getting there in the morning will be the best time. That gives us the entire day to cut and shoot our way across the plain to their gates.” That she’d been to the settlement before was obvious from that statement—which likely put her ahead of me since I could only vaguely remember the one time we’d dropped by there. Somehow, that whole business about rotting from the inside out had overshadowed that part of the trip.
“Then let’s not waste perfectly good driving time,” Nate called, thus shooing us back into the vehicles.
We made surprisingly good time, but it still took us until four in the morning, the sky still dark, until we reached the territory officially claimed by the settlement—literally, a series of sign posts and openly positioned lookout towers proclaiming their presence. All of them were unmanned but showed recent signs of habitation, making me guess that when the California coast towns had gone dark, Minerva had pulled her forces inward to ensure that they could defend their core settlement at all costs.
Nate had us set up camp to refuel and get some rest but shooed me right back into the car after I relieved myself, Zilinsky and Burns following in Martinez’s Ford after ousting a sleepy Sadie and Chris and our very unhappy medic. Our cars weren’t exactly the best vehicles for going cross-country, but with only ten miles to the plains in front of the settlement, we took the road, trusting that going slowly enough that the tires made minimal sounds would let us be sneaky enough not to be discovered.
I could already see the terrain even out in front of us when my gut suddenly seized up, Nate next to me sitting up straight. I gave him a curious look but kept creeping forward. Just as we broke through the light cover of rocks and the odd tree, I felt it again, and this time it was unmistakable. “That’s a beacon.” I gave Nate another sneaky glance. “And you definitely felt it, too.”
He nodded, not looking disconcerted that I wasn’t the only one who could feel them now. I was less happy about that but kept my thoughts to myself. The other car stopped beside ours and we all got out, binoculars at the ready. There was no moon out and with the sky slowly starting to lighten, it was actually harder to make anything out than if it had still been pitch black. Even so it was hard to mistake the mass of shapes moving on the far side of the plains, drawing toward this side—the same side the settlement was on, only another few miles farther north—by what I tried to discern as either three or four attracting beacons. They were by far not as strong as those that New Angeles employed to keep the vicinity of the city well-controlled, but since we were too far away to make out a source, they must have been stronger than the few portable models we’d found strapped to zombies in the past. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to encounter more of them now but I still didn’t like it—not at all. Pia and Burns seemed oblivious to their siren call, making me hope that Nate—and maybe Hamilton, too—was the only one besides me who was susceptible to them.
“How long until they reach the settlement?” I asked no one in particular.
Pia, still looking through her binoculars, gave me the estimate I didn’t want to hear. “At their current speed? Before we can be back with all of our people.” She then glanced toward the mountains of the Wasatch Range to the east. “But by then the sun should be rising, so maybe that gives them a pause. We were right to get here as fast as possible.”
“We’ve seen what we need to,” Nate said, making a gesture toward the cars. “Get on the com and tell the others to come to us. No need to waste any more time. If they don’t know yet that we’re here, they will find out soon enough. Speed’s our best defense now.” The Ice Queen immediately set to it, leaving Burns and me to play lookout for now. I was a little surprised when, maybe five minutes later, Nate pulled me aside and told me to stretch and limber up. Sure, I’d spent most of the last fifteen hours in the car, either driving or trying not to fall asleep in the passenger seat, but I had a good ten more of the same in me with no issues. But when your man tells you to stick your ass up in the air and turn yourself into a human pretzel, who was I to protest?
I realized Nate had something different planned than what I’d figured when, as soon as the others arrived, he commandeered the car he and Hamilton had been sharing on the way to Dallas, telling the soldiers who had been using it in the meantime to split between that one and ours—leaving me pointedly out of the seating chart. He ignored my imploring gaze—well, glare—until everyone was assembled, safely out of where we could be visible from across the plain.
“The plan’s as simple as they come,” he explained to us before singling out Sadie and Chris. “We have one objective above all else—we need to get you two into that settlement and out of the killing ground that the plain will turn into as soon as we clash with the shamblers and whoever else is hiding out there. I’m sure Minerva has a sortie planned, so at the very least they’ll give us cover fire up to their gates.” He glanced at the brightening sky. “The sun will come over the mountains in about thirty minutes. By then we need to be ready.”
“Ready for what, exactly?” I asked as soon as he fell silent.
Nate gave me the kind of smirk that let me know I wouldn’t like what he had to say. “We’ll be using the ATVs—and decoys.” He let that sink in, but when all I had for him was a blank albeit murderous stare, he elaborated. “You’re driving one of them, with Sadie behind you. Since the passenger is always more prone to fall off, we’ll strap Chris to your front so that you can best protect her, even if Sadie should get thrown off; one of the others can pick her up and take her along. We’ll use the other four ATVs as decoys, so I need everyone who’s small and light on them. Martinez and Sonia will take one; the others I’ll leave up to you to fill. To make you harder to identify, I need everyone to cover your heads and faces as much as possible, and we’ll use backpacks in the front for the drivers and back for the passengers to make it as impossible as we can to tell who is actually carrying the kid. Strap your weapons to the ATVs—speed is key so you won’t get much of a chance to shoot at anything. The rest of us will try to give you as much cover fire as possible as you race toward the settlement. Best case, you get to the gate just in time before the first shamblers reach this side of the plain. Get ready.”
He left me e
xactly one breath’s time to protest—which I didn’t, partly because I agreed with him that it was a good plan, partly because I was still stunned that he expected me of all people to drive an ATV, and that with a wailing child strapped to my chest. Then he turned to the others, talking attack vectors and strafing runs. I couldn’t hold it against Sadie when I looked at her and found her frantically clutching her child to herself, but she at least tried to give me an encouraging smile. I didn’t tell her just how badly she failed.
“So I guess earplugs it is,” I muttered, more to myself.
I was surprised when Pia stepped up to us, pulling a small object out of her pocket. It took me a moment to realize what it was. “Poppy seeds? I may be nervous about this but I don’t think being all calm and relaxed for this is a good strategy.”
The Ice Queen looked ready to bite my head off, but instead she turned to Sadie, plucked the kid out of her arms, and offered the small seed pod to Chris as if it was a pacifier. The sleepy kid didn’t protest much, starting to suckle on the pod after minimal fussing. I didn’t know who was more appalled, Sadie or me.
“You do know what the active ingredient is in that? Fucking morphine!”
Pia barely glanced at me, instead cooing softly to the sleepy child. “Do I like the idea of subjecting her to this? Not at all. But how do you think I got her to remain quiet while we were hiding in the town? She’ll be fine.” Sadie still looked upset—and honestly, the same was likely true for me—but Pia made a shooing gesture with her free hand. “Go get ready. We need to be alive a few hours from now for you both to chew me out for this.” She had a point there, so rather than protest, I grabbed Sadie’s arm and steered her back to the car so she could get fully dressed.
Even in the relative cool of the morning, I was sweating in full gear, an old balaclava over my head with an extra scarf tied across the lower half of my face to serve as a gore splash guard that I dearly hoped I wouldn’t need until I got rid of my soon-to-be burden. I kept my knife and gun in their thigh holsters but otherwise forwent arming myself, except for the M4 pinned directly to the chassis of the ATV right alongside the driver’s seat, a spare magazine each in my jacket pockets. Sadie had a shotgun strapped to her backpack, but I doubted she’d get to use it even if she needed it. Martinez and Sonia were ready on their vehicle, both bringing rifles and plenty of spare ammo that we could share if we didn’t make it. Pia had in the meantime transferred Baby Chris into one of those carriers people probably used for hiking with their small kids, the girl fast asleep. Absolutely not familiar with the gear, I simply stretched out my arms to the sides and let Pia and Sadie strap that contraption onto me, securing it with a built-in belt around my hips and lower back. Looking down, I gently stroked a finger over the sleeping girl’s cheek, but she didn’t react. At the outside of the carrier I could plainly feel the ceramic plates someone had installed underneath the outer layer of kevlar, doing their best to shield the baby’s head and body. I could only hope that she wouldn’t be able to bat me in the face with her tiny hands or that her legs sticking out of the carrier wouldn’t get in the way, but honestly? A scrape or broken bone would heal easily, particularly at her age. If I crashed the ATV and we got swarmed by zombies, those relatively small injuries would be the least of my problems. But I would have been lying if I’d said that having that little helpless bundle so close to me didn’t do a number on me.
I didn’t need further orders or encouragements to hop onto my ATV, doing my very best to familiarize myself with the controls while it was still turned off and Sadie got busy climbing on behind me. No surprise that the other three ATVs remained mostly in possession of the scavengers, the three females and two slighter males not giving up their favorite rides. One of the shorter marines was delegated to riding shotgun behind the third woman, but, if anything, she seemed mighty pleased with having her own marine gunner on board. I was a little surprised that Buehler hadn’t jumped at the opportunity, but when I saw her follow hot on Pia’s heels to what used to be my car, I figured she had found herself an even better opportunity to let her inner war-pig out.
We were ready before the sun crested the mountains but judging from their bright halo, it would be any minute now. I had my com switched on to the general frequency and no real way of changing channels or turning it off, which meant I would get to hear the whole plethora of people screaming, shouting orders, and dying. Part of me wanted to remain optimistic and rule the last part out, but considering that, even here, a good five miles outside of the settlement fortifications, we could already make out the mass of shamblers moving on the plain, I didn’t see much chance of that happening. For a moment, I questioned the wisdom of making this a full-frontal run for the gates, but Nate must have a good reason for it, and the same was true for Minerva. Even a much smaller territory back in the day, our bunker had at least five exit vectors that we kept both maintained and mined at all times. Maybe it was a simple matter of the Utah people being incapable of giving us a good, safe route into their territory outside of the plain. That would also explain why they had, for the most part, suffered few losses over the past years—they were too tough a nut to crack. Clearly, that also came with disadvantages once that nutshell was closed.
For a last time, I glanced down at Christine, her face mostly obscured by how she had nestled into the carrier. As if she’d felt my attention, one bright blue eye cracked open, but almost immediately fell shut once more. I vaguely remembered that babies were born with blue eyes but couldn’t be sure. Both her parents had less impressive color schemes, although that could be due to her age entirely. I cut down hard on the impulse to wonder if my own child would have had eyes like that. It was much easier to idly wonder how afraid Sadie behind me must be that I would bite it and end up eating her daughter, if not outright kill her on the spot. Ah, fun times, indeed.
Glancing back to the shamblers, I decided I was done waiting. “I say we start now,” I proposed, hoping my mic would pick it up. Sonia, from the quad in front of mine, gave me a thumbs-up, likely both in response and to signal that my com was working. “The way is clear for the first mile, and maybe that’s exactly the head start we’ll need.”
A low if agreeing chorus of grunts answered me, until a few seconds later Nate gave us the go-ahead.
Feeling something between scared and excited, I started the ATV’s motor, using a few moments to get a feeling for the controls as we rolled along the road until we reached the actual plain. The ATV with the two male scavengers was going first, then Martinez and Sonia, followed by Sadie and me, the two female scavengers right on our heels, and the one with the marine gunner bringing up the rear. I doubted we’d keep anything resembling a formation up for long. Martinez, of course, had no problem with the quad, but I’d never driven one myself—and the last time I’d ridden on one, it was tied-up in the back when those assholes had grabbed us at our treehouse and carried us off to the slaver camp. Theoretically, I knew how they worked—Bates and Andrej, who had been responsible for most of my driving lessons, had taken some pains explaining pretty much every possible vehicle out there to me—but there were a few growing pains to deal with that I could have done without, considering that, a few minutes from now, we would be almost as blinded by the light as the shamblers, racing at top speeds across flat yet uneven country, possibly getting shot at and likely having to evade the quickest of the shamblers... and all that with a baby strapped to my chest. I told myself that, at the very least, possibly erratic driving would make me a harder target to hit, and the ATVs were harder to topple than motorcycles.
Yeah, this was so going to end in disaster.
But it started out well enough. It took me a little to catch up to Martinez after I fell back when I was still fighting with the perfect balance of accelerating and not hitting every little bump in the state, but the controls were more responsive than I’d had to work with in the past, and even when we went off-road, we were still following a track that similar vehicles must have plowed into the
hard-packed earth, so it went relatively smoothly. The pulsing of the beacons was a constant annoyance both at the back of my mind and low in my gut, but while it got increasingly stronger, it wasn’t getting harder to resist. Sadie was clinging to me as if her life depended on it, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the hand she didn’t use to grab onto the carrier strap she had cradled around Christine’s right leg. I felt like my entire body was getting shaken and stirred, but this wasn’t so bad.
The sun crested the mountains when we were maybe ten minutes into the plain, our little column finally traversing from the shadow into the light. I did my best to try not to squint too much, the tinted goggles doing their own to help protect my retinas. Ahead, the shamblers started to take on shape, and from what I could tell, they really didn’t like being out in the sunlight that gained intensity quickly with each passing minute. The steady advance toward the settlement had slowed, leaving the center of the mass maybe a mile outside their forward guard towers. A few crafty individuals had likely made it to the gates, but right at the line where the light continued to eat away at the shadow of the mountains, a stretch of free land remained—and that was exactly where we were heading.
Whether it was instinct to try to guard the weakest member of the pack—or just spoke of the eagerness to get to the gate—the two vehicles behind me were close enough that I could have called out to them, while the two in front continued to drive at somewhat of a larger distance from us. That way, when the lead ATV drove over a mine buried in the ground and disappeared in a massive explosion of dirt and undefined organic and inorganic shrapnel, Martinez still had a second to veer hard to the left, avoiding getting pelted by what used to be two people and were now large chunks of scrap metal. Sadie screamed as I instinctively wrenched our quad to the right, going around the sudden obstacle on the other side. The only reason my hearing was preserved was that it was only her voice close to my ear, without the amplification of the com. In hindsight, it made sense not to give her a com to keep her from hearing everything, but it still felt like an error to me.
Green Fields Series Box Set | Vol. 4 | Books 10-12 Page 91