Purchasing nearly 700 parcels of land—including 50 farms—he set out to construct a summer estate in the rural countryside near Asheville, North Carolina. Enlisting the expertise of New York architect, Richard Morris Hunt, Vanderbilt began construction on his “little mountain escape” as he referred to it. As the project expanded in stature and excess, he named his estate “Biltmore” after his family’s place of origin in distant Holland.
Seven years in the making, Biltmore became the largest privately-owned manor house in the United States. A three-mile stretch of railroad track was laid to transport tons of materials to the construction site. While over a thousand workers and sixty stone masons labored on his elaborate Chateuseque-style home, Vanderbilt went on extensive buying sprees in Europe, purchasing lavish furnishings, paintings, statuary, and tapestries for the estate. By its completion in 1896, Biltmore resembled a vast castle more than a simple summer home. The rich and famous of that time period, as well as men of great power and influence, visited Vanderbilt’s country estate, enjoying its extensive grounds—near 125,000 acres worth—and its four-story, 250-room mansion. The grounds featured lavish gardens and a conservatory at the southern end of the house and stables for Vanderbilt’s prized horses and twenty private carriages on the northern end. Biltmore itself was equipped with such nineteenth-century innovations as electric elevators, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms, and a call-bell system for summoning the estate’s legion of servants.
For years, Biltmore was a paradise of luxury and excess. But by the turn of the century, driven by the impact of newly imposed income taxes and the fact that the estate was getting harder to manage economically, George Vanderbilt initiated the sale of 87,000 acres to the federal government. Following Vanderbilt’s untimely death in 1914, his widow found it increasingly difficult to maintain the vast manor house and its property, and sold additional land, whittling the estate to 7,000 acres. Financial difficulties plagued the estate though the Great Depression in the mid-1930s. It was then that Vanderbilt’s daughter, Cornelia, opened Biltmore to the public as an upper-scale tourist attraction.
When conjuring and constructing his dream project in the latter half of the nineteenth century, George Washington Vanderbilt could have never foreseen or dared fathomed that his palatial summer estate would someday become a fortress against the unimaginable.
By the time Levi and the others reached the main road entrance to the Biltmore Estate, evening had begun to set in. The November sun had dropped below the dense forest to the west and the long-cast shadows between the ancient oaks and maples of the vast property deepened and broadened into the darkening gloom of dusk. The narrow one-lane access road wound sharply through the trees. Among them, shuffling, disjointed motion and the pale forms of Biters could be seen, working their way, en masse, through the woods on each side of the roadway.
“There’s sure a lot of ’em,” Nell said grimly. Every now and then one would lurch out of the forest and collide with the fender of the truck, either careening back in the direction it had come, or falling beneath the tires to be run over and crushed underneath.
Levi said nothing in reply. His attention was fully on his driving and the treacherous curves of the roadway ahead. He glanced at his wife once and saw that her face was tense and her eyes alert and bright with fear. The knuckles of her right hand were pale with strain as she clutched the nickel-plated Magnum revolver tightly in her grasp.
Every now and then, Tyrone would make his presence known with short bursts from the Thompson. The collective roaring of the three vehicles were drawing the Biters out of the forest. Bold and hungry, they began stumbling into the open, teeth gnashing and pale fingers working feverishly for a handhold on anything that sped toward or past them. Sometimes three or four would lurch toward them in unison. That is when Ty would unleash a burst of a dozen rounds or so, obliterating their heads and dropping them in their tracks.
“Damn!” said Avery. “This is getting downright intense.”
The boy’s simple remark seemed to irritate his mother’s already-frazzled nerves. “Oh yeah?” she snapped. “You really think so?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Avery, ducking his head a little, as if he’d been swatted at. “Sorry.”
“We’re all a little on edge,” Levi said aloud. “But we’ll get through this. We’ll get to that big ol’ house and we’ll be just fine.”
His wife and son nodded silently, looking more doubtful than hopeful. To tell the truth, his own words came across flat and unconvincing in his own ears. Levi glanced in the rear-view mirror. He could see the Yukon and the Humvee following closely behind him. As the sky darkened and daylight faded, the vehicles’ frames were swallowed up by the glow of their headlights. But that in itself was comforting. At least he knew they were still with him and hadn’t been overpowered by a disabling wave of the bug-ridden corpses.
Avery slid open the back window of the truck’s cab. “Hey, Ty! Where is this place? How much farther do we have to go?”
Tyrone’s dark face filled the opening of the little window. His face was bathed with sweat, despite the chill of the evening. “It’s kind of hard to tell, it getting dark and all. To tell the truth, I’ve only been here once before… on a field trip when I was ten or eleven. I remember there’s a visitor center up ahead and, past that, a parking lot and the iron gateway that leads onto the main property where the house is.”
Levi nodded. “I see it up ahead.”
Fifteen seconds later, he was speeding past the low, brick structure of the visitor center. Most of the glass in its tall windows was gone and he could see Biters wandering aimlessly inside. Levi recalled what Frank Gentry had said about how the dead tended to gather where they had once congregated in life. He figured tourist attractions around the country were probably full of Biters… the rims of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, maybe even Disney World.
Suddenly, the truck’s headlights shown on the slender, black rails of a tall, wrought-iron gate. It was a pretty piece of work and had probably cost a fortune back when it was installed in the late 1800s. But, then, “fortune” was what the Vanderbilt family had been all about in that day and time.
Levi didn’t slow down. He stamped on the gas and headed straight for the gate. As he neared it, he could see a heavy chain snaking through the openings between the bars and wrapped around the huge stone pillar to the right, secured in place with a large padlock as big as Levi’s fist.
“Y’all hold on!” he yelled. “This is gonna be a bitch to get through!” He hoped that Tyrone was braced in the back of the truck. If he hit the iron gate and it held fast, the big man was liable to flip over the roof of the cab upon impact and be thrown forcefully against the unyielding metal bars like a rag doll flung by an angry child.
A moment later, the grill of the truck collided with the gate. It felt like they had hit a brick wall, but their momentum did the trick and carried them through. The chain snapped and unfurled. Its heavy links struck the passenger side of the windshield, in front of Nell. The safety glass fissured, but didn’t shatter.
“Lord have mercy, Levi! You’re gonna give me a heart attack before we set a toenail inside the place!”
Her husband couldn’t help but grin. “Stop your bellyaching, old woman. I got you here, didn’t I?”
He took a sharp right turn onto a paved lane and there it was.
The Biltmore House was massive, towering, standing in dark relief against the evening sky. It was constructed of limestone, timber, Pennsylvania steel, and bricks fired in a kiln Vanderbilt had built on the property. Levi had seen the place before in magazines and on television, but neither could do justice to the sheer magnitude of the structure. It was truly an American castle.
Levi had half expected the grounds around the mansion to be empty, but instead there were at least two or three dozen Biters on the vast rectangular lawn directly in front of the house’s main hall. Apparently, there were places other than the main gate t
hat led onto the property and the zombies had taken full advantage of those access points.
The three vehicles made their way down the right-hand lane and pulled to a halt in front of the tall oaken doors of the main entrance. They noticed that the windows had been boarded up from outside. Sheets of plywood and particleboard had been screwed securely in place with masonry screws, stretching to a height of seven feet. The remainder of the eight-foot windows was uncovered, but completely out of reach from the destructive reach of any Biter that might attack the front of the house.
As they left their vehicles and started for the archway of the main doors, they saw the Biters coming for them. They shambled across the leaf-strewn grass of the lawn, black teeth snapping hungrily. Steep steps, guarded by two stone lions, led to the doors of the entrance hall. The heavy slabs of timber were scuffed and splintered, as well as decorated with dried blood, clots of flesh, and dislodged fingernails and teeth. It appeared to have withstood zombie attacks many times before.
Levi bounded up the steps to the door and pulled on the ornate handles. Considering the boarded windows, he really wasn’t surprised to find the barrier securely locked. It didn’t budge an inch.
“Somebody must be here, or it wouldn’t be shut up, tighter than a drum,” he told the others. “Or else they left and locked the door behind them.”
The brittle crack of a rifle shot told them that his former theory was the case. It echoed high from a parapet directly above them. They ducked their heads, figuring maybe the shot was intended for them. It wasn’t, though. A biter that was stumbling across the lawn from the direction of the rose garden suddenly dropped in its tracks, the uppermost portion of its skull obliterated by a .375 Magnum round.
“Shitfire!” exclaimed Avery. “What was that? An elephant gun?”
“Holland & Holland Magnum,” called a female voice from overhead. “Good for elephant, rhino, water buffalo… and the occasional zombie. Which isn’t quite as ‘occasional’ as it used to be.”
Levi and Avery stepped back into the courtyard and peered up into the gloom. They were surprised to see a dark-haired teenage girl wearing glasses and sporting a huge bolt-action rifle with a scope mounted on top. As they watched, she worked the bolt smoothly, jacked another cartridge into the breech, and centered the scope’s crosshairs once again. This time a matronly woman Biter bit the dust. She dropped to the ground, twitching, nothing much left above her splintered neckbone but the rise and fall of jetting blood and tiny black bugs.
“It’s an antique,” she said, matter-of-factly. “George Vanderbilt took it to Africa with him a month before he died of a ruptured appendix. It’s old, but works like a charm.”
“Miss, we don’t have time for a gun review or a history lesson,” Levi called up to her. “We just need to get inside as soon as you can unlock that door.”
At that moment there was a series of metallic clicks and clacks, and the big door swung inward a foot or so. “What makes you think we’ll let you in? Do you know how many assholes have showed up on our doorstep, asking for the same thing?”
The girl at the door was identical to the one above, with the exception of wearing no glasses and an elaborate tattoo of several knights on horseback and a king on his throne that graced her left arm from elbow to wrist. She had a holstered .50 semi-auto Desert Eagle pistol across her chest and held a pump shotgun—a ten-gauge from the looks of it—with a bore big enough to stick three fingers and a thumb in, with room to spare. The cannon-sized muzzle of the scattergun was aimed from her hip and both men knew that, if she fired, it would likely cut both of them in half above the navel.
“Damn! There’s two of ’em!” declared Avery. “Are you twins?”
The girl smirked sarcastically. “No, we’re clones. Of course we’re twins, doofus.” She shifted her eyes to Jem. “Looks like you have one, too… but better looking and sporting a higher IQ, I’d say.”
Avery glared. “You’re a brutal one, ain’t you? I’m not sure I’d want to step in there now. It’d be like sticking my pecker in a meat grinder.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Damn straight! Anyway, who says that you’re coming in? I don’t recall sending out invitations.”
“Please,” said Nell, “we have a little girl out here and a woman who’s expecting. You wouldn’t want them to get hurt, would you?”
The H&H boomed loudly overhead, dropping another Biter twenty yards away. It was followed by the clatter of Tyrone’s Tommy gun and the heavy-caliber rattle of Billy’s M2 mounted on the roof of the Humvee. “For heaven’s sake, Chelle!” hollered the girl with the rifle. “You know my night vision isn’t worth spit and it’s getting darker—and more crowded—by the minute!”
The girl with the shotgun peered past the gathering of people. There were perhaps fifty or sixty zombies on the lawn with more coming down out of the woods. “You’re such a party-pooper, sis! Well just don’t stand there like a bunch of mouth-breathing, inbred hillbillies… even if you are. Get your asses inside before they get gnawed down to the tailbone!”
A moment later, they were all inside. The last one through the door was Katie, blazing away with a Glock in each freckled hand. A biter lunged at her from the far side of a stone lion, but their host stepped in, drawing the .50 Magnum. The pistol went off with the roar of a cannon, punching a softball-sized crater through the zombie’s chest, clear past its spine. As it toppled off the steps, a second shot destroyed its skull, leaving only its lower jaw and thick black tongue behind.
Holstering the Desert Eagle, she locked four heavy deadbolts. “Well that was too damn close! We haven’t had a zombie within a hundred yards of this place in two weeks and then you show up and they’re all over the place! And what’s with ruining our gate? I loved that freaking gate!”
Levi and the others looked around the spacious entry hall. To the right was a small atrium with a marble fountain in the center, a winter garden as it was called in the Victorian era. Beyond that was a wing leading to the pool room and grand dining hall. To the left was a great, winding staircase. Ornate candelabras of gilded gold had been lit and cast a muted glow upon the stone walls and marble floors. They heard rapid footsteps on the stairs and turned to find the first girl making her way to the ground floor. The rifle was canted easily across her narrow shoulder. In addition to the bolt-action, she sported a long-bladed MTech survival knife on one hip and a holstered Ruger GP100 .44 Magnum revolver on the other.
“Hi!” she said, almost cheerfully. “Sorry we were so cautious. We don’t get many visitors showing up out of nowhere. I’m Melissa Webb and this is my sister, Michelle.”
“Much obliged for your help, Melissa,” Levi said. He then introduced himself, his wife and kids, as well as Tyrone and the Tauchee family.
Outside they could hear the shuffling of feet on the flagstones of the outer court and the grating of fingernails scrabbling desperately against the vast oaken doors of the manor house. “Do you think they’ll go away?” asked Jessie, clutching her doll to her chest.
“Sure, honey,” Michelle told her, dropping her defensiveness a couple of notches. “If we’re quiet for a while, they’ll forget we’re even here and wander off. If there’s one trait these zombies have in common, it’s their short-term memories.”
Her sister looked doubtful. “Maybe… except for the ones who come back here time after time. And it’s not like they’re looking for food, either. It’s like they know the place.”
Despite his initial irritation at Michelle, Avery couldn’t help but be impressed by the twins' firepower. The Holland & Holland and the ten-gauge looked like a Howitzer and a bazooka in their small hands.
“So, how many do you think you've killed?” he asked them. He figured fifteen or twenty at the most.
The one with the glasses frowned and shrugged her shoulders. “Now how in the world would we know—?”
“Two hundred and fifty-seven,” replied the other. “Two hundred and fifty-seven and three-quarters, if you c
ount a baby and a chipmunk.”
Avery smiled and laughed. “We got us some hardcore, sharp-shooting gals here! The Sisters of Slaughter!”
Melissa rolled her eyes. “Come on. Give me a break!”
“I don't know," said Michelle with a sly grin. “I kinda like it.”
They all stood in the big vestibule for a long moment. Awkward silence threatened to take over. Then Melissa stepped in and offered an olive branch, as usual. “I’d love to invite you to a wonderful supper, but truth is, neither one of us can cook worth a darn. Our idea of a gourmet meal is PB&J sandwiches and Ramen noodles.”
Michelle nodded grudgingly. “She’s right. We’ve got a pantry to beat all pantries, stocked with a two or three years’ worth of food, but we would burn water if we tried to boil it.”
Nell glanced over at Enolia and Kate. “Well, now I believe your hospitality deserves something in return. Just lead the way and leave the cooking to us.”
“I’m afraid our kitchen is sort of old-fashioned,” Melissa told them apologetically. “It’s huge, but it’s primitive.”
“Honey,” said Nell with a smile. “I grew up on primitive.”
As the twins showed Nell, Kate, and Enolia to the kitchen, Levi and the others remained in the entrance hall.
“Well, I’d say we got damn lucky,” he said. “If those gals hadn’t let us in, we’d be holed up in our vehicles out there right now, with Biters slobbering on the windshield and beating their skulls against the windows. Either that or on foot, running through the woods with a zombie at every twist and turn.”
“I don’t know, Papa,” said Avery shaking his head. “That Michelle… she’s like two hell-cats cinched up in a tow sack, doused with kerosene. If she breaks out the voodoo doll and needles again, I’m liable to take my chances with those bug-headed bastards outside.”
Chapter 25
They ate in the massive dining hall in the west wing.
The Buzzard Zone Page 19