The woman nodded dully and did as Kate said. “He did it,” she heard Tyrone say softly. “He cleared the path.”
Slowly they made their way down the steps, stepping on and over torn and shrapnel-shredded bodies. When they reached the spot where Billy had last stood, Tyrone stopped. “We’ve gotta be careful here… cause the stairs are gone. About six feet worth of them.”
Enolia opened her eyes. Blood and dark refuse hung everywhere—on the walls, the staircase railing, from the huge chandelier suspended over the expanse of the entrance hall. She also saw the black-rimmed crater that the dual explosions had caused.
“How are we going to get across?” she asked. Her voice sounded like it came from a thousand miles away.
Tyrone stepped back, then leapt and barely landed on the opposite side of the chasm. He nearly lost his balance, but steadied himself before he could fall. “Now you, Enolia.”
Without protest, the woman reached out for him. He hooked his big hands beneath her arms and lifted her over the crater with no trouble at all. Then he reached out for Kate.
“I… I can’t…” she said. She lifted her gaze from the jagged hole and looked him in the face. Her lips trembled and tears filled her eyes. “You… you don’t want…”
“Kate,” said Tyrone. “Look at me, baby.”
She focused on his broad, dark features through the prism of her tears. She was surprised to find no contempt, no hatred.
“Give me your hand,” he said. “I’m not going to let you fall.” His features softened and his own eyes grew moist. “I love you, baby… and I’m sorry. I know you did what you had to do. Now give me your hand. We don’t have much time.”
Kate slipped a Glock in her pocket and extended her right hand. He took it gently in his giant’s grasp and, with the other arm, scooped her up and lifted her bodily over the dark crater of burnt and splintered wood and marble. Soon, she was safely on the other side.
Below, a sea of milling, flesh-starved Biters filled the entrance hall with more pushing their way through the open doorway by the minute.
“There are too many of them,” Enolia said. “We’re never going to make it.” Her voice had lost its shell-shocked quality. Her eyes were sharpening, returning to the reality of what they were up against.
“We have to,” Kate told her as zombies began to climb the risers of the stairs, coming for them. “For Jessie and Austen… for my daddy and my brothers…” She looked at Tyrone. “For us.”
A flash of a smile crossed his face, if only for an instant, as if saying amen!
“Stay close,” Tyrone told them. Then he started forward, firing the Tommy gun and mowing down the first wave of Biters. “Let’s go!”
“Hold it still, will you?” Avery complained. “You’re gonna make me fall!”
“If you weren’t such a runt, you wouldn’t have to stand on a damn trash can!” Michelle told him as she attempted to hold the galvanized container steady.
“If they hadn’t made such tall doors way back in the old days, I’d be able to reach it!” He stretched and wound the shaved end of the wire around the connector bolt of the second signal junction box. On the other side of the sturdy double doors, he could hear the stirring of Biters, dozens of them, and see a slight bulging of the wood as their weight bore heavily against the barrier. He knew it wouldn’t last very long before giving way and releasing a gorge of the ravenous undead.
He was tightening the wire for a good connection when he lost his balance and tumbled off the garbage can. He grunted loudly as he landed on his backside.
“We’d better check you for a concussion,” the girl suggested, helping him to his feet.
“Very funny,” he said. He eyed the detonator box and nodded. “Looks good enough to me. Let’s get the hell outta here.”
The two ran down the slope to where Levi and the others waited beneath the chestnut tree. When they got there, Avery sensed that something was wrong. “Where’s Kate?” Billy and Enolia Tauchee and Tyrone Jackson weren’t present either.
Levi’s face was grim and lined with worry. “They were upstairs when the Biters overran the house and forced me and Jem out the back,” he told his son. “I heard an explosion a couple of minutes ago. It sounded like it came from an upper floor.”
“We heard it, too,” said Michelle. “I wonder what happened.”
Levi figured that it was one or more of the grenades that Billy had carried with him. Whatever his motivation for detonating them, it couldn’t have been a good one. He thought of his daughter and felt sick to his stomach. Lord, please don’t take my little girl. It was hard enough losing Nell… but Kate too...
Then his heart lightened as Melissa smiled and pointed toward the concrete stairs at the far end of the veranda. “There they are!”
Levi turned and was relieved to see Kate trudging through the snow with Tyrone and Enolia behind her. The Cherokee woman looked as though she was in a state of shock. It was then that he realized that someone was missing.
“Billy?” he asked.
Tyrone simply shook his head sadly and said nothing.
Jessie looked at her mother, her face growing frightened and confused. “Mama?”
“He’s… he’s gone, baby,” she said. She embraced her daughter and newborn son, deriving strength from their warmth and closeness. “You know your father. He was a soldier… and he did what soldiers do. He did what he thought necessary… to give us a fighting chance.”
Levi looked to the north and south of the Biltmore Estate. Waves of zombies, shoulder to shoulder, marched on both sides, continuing eastward. They seemed oblivious to their presence beneath the chestnut tree. He looked back at the house and saw Biters milling restless on the rear veranda. Some toppled over the railing and fell twenty feet onto the paved walkway below, shattering bones and rupturing bloated organs and rot-weakened muscle. Others were making their way down the rear staircase. He knew it would only be a matter of time before they noticed them and attacked.
“We’ve got to head out,” he told them. “A bunch have already gone past us and we’ll have a hard time making it around them if we stay here much longer.” He looked over at his son. “Are you ready?”
Avery took the signal remote from his pocket, extended its antenna, and aimed it toward the back entrance of the basement level. “Y’all better cover your ears. This is gonna make one hellacious bang!”
He hesitated, savoring the moment, then pushed the red detonation button. Nothing happened. “What the hell?”
“What’s wrong with the thing?” asked Jem. “Is the battery dead?”
“It’s fine. Something’s wrong.” Avery looked over at Melissa. “Let me borrow those binoculars, will you?” When she had handed them to him, he focused on the junction box above the door. A green light on its side was lit up, signifying that it was armed and ready. Then he noticed that the connector bolt on the side was bare. The wire had slipped loose.
“Shit!” he cussed. Avery tossed Melissa the binoculars and, without hesitation, headed back toward the house.
“Get back here, son!” Levi ordered. “Just forget about the house. Let’s get to the woods and be on our way!”
“Hell no!” Avery said defiantly. “Their rotten asses have got to pay! For driving us out here in the cold and snow… for what they did to Ma!”
As he turned to go, Michelle ran after him. “Hey, hold up! I’m going with you!”
Avery turned on her, his eyes blazing. “The hell you are! Get your ass back there with the others.” When he saw her expression harden, his softened. “Chelle… I’ll be okay. It’ll only take me thirty seconds at the most. Then I’ll be back.” He handed her the remote unit. “Here… if something happens… if you see me go down… you know what to do.”
“Are you crazy?” she snapped, “I couldn’t…”
“You have to.” Then, without another word, he turned and trudged back up the snowy hill toward the basement.
When he got to the door h
e was shocked to see that the wood was cracked and splintered, and the hinges were bent and bulging against the pressure of those on the other side. Quickly, he retrieved the fallen end of the wire and carefully mounted the trash can. He almost lost his footing several times, but finally steadied himself enough to thread the copper filaments around the connector bolt tightly. There, he thought. His heart pounded as the heavy wooden panels of the basement doors bulged and cracked. That’ll do the job.
Avery Hobbs crouched, preparing to climb down off the trash can, when the doors exploded in a hail of splintered wood… and all hell broke loose.
“No!” Michelle screamed as a flood of Biters burst from the ruins of the weakened doors and attacked the first warm-blooded thing they saw.
She stuffed the detonator in her coat pocket, picked up her shotgun, and began to run.
“Chelle!” her sister wailed. “You can’t… get back here… please!”
Michelle turned and looked at Melissa. “I’m sorry, sis!” she called out. “But I have to.” Tears bloomed in her hazel eyes. “I have to!”
She pumped the foregrip of the ten-gauge, jacking a shell into the breech. Soon she was up the rise and at the rear entrance of the basement. She fired, pumped, fired, and pumped again. Zombies flailed backwards, their heads disintegrating in explosions of decaying brains, blood, and tiny black bugs. But she knew there was no saving him. They had dragged Avery to the ground and were tearing him apart. She had never seen so much blood in all her life. She saw a Biter pulling at something, dragging it away, and realized that it was a stringy length of intestine. The sight both horrified and enraged her. She fired the shotgun until it was empty, then fought her way past the emerging hoard. Unsure of what else to do, she flung herself bodily upon the teenage boy.
Why? she thought as the weight of the zombies descended upon her and she was engulfed in searing agony as teeth tore at her scalp and back, stealing shreds of clothing, then fragile skin, then the throbbing tissue of exposed muscle underneath. Why am I doing this? I can’t save him.
But she didn’t have to ask. She knew. Deep down in her heart, she knew.
“Hey,” she said as she stared Avery in the face. It was splattered with his own blood and covered with crawling black mites, searching for entrance. Some of it was gone, torn away by hungry teeth and covetous fingers to be taken and devoured.
“Hey,” he said back. His eyes stared at her sorrowfully, as though saying why the hell didn’t you stay down there with the others?
Michelle screamed as the flesh of her back was stolen and bug-blackened teeth grated against her shoulder blades and the column of her spine. “You dumb-ass!” she cried. “You stupid, stubborn dumb-ass!”
For a moment, all they could do was look at each other, being torn apart, reduced to something much less than they had been a minute before.
“Chelle?”
She felt them bear upon her, driving her down toward him. “Yeah?”
Avery sobbed. Tears mingled freely with blood, running down his cheeks in crimson streams. “Chelle… girl… I love you.”
Michelle cried too and shook her head angrily. “I hate it… when you get the… upper hand.” The pain had grown so unbearable that it was difficult to speak. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. Their first—and last—kiss was thick with blood and regret. “I should have… said it… first.”
“Have you… have you got the… detonator… with you?” he asked haltingly. He heard, and felt, a wet ripping at his left shoulder as the tendons were stretched beyond capacity and his arm was torn savagely away.
She fought against the weight of their awful hunger, reached into the pocket of her tattered winter coat, and pulled the remote free. “I have it.”
Then Avery flashed that half-assed, redneck grin of his, despite the fact that a good portion of his face was gone. “What do you say we blow this joint?”
Michelle matched his grin, wicked and mischievous, even as she felt frantic hands invading her, plunging past her ruined kidneys into the depths of her abdominal cavity…searching, grabbing, tearing away. “Damn straight!” she said.
Pulling the detonator between the two of them, Michelle’s right hand found Avery’s only remaining one. And, together, they brought their collective agony to a swift and merciful end.
The others watched, stunned, as a chain of explosions shot through the foundation of the Biltmore House. Melissa and Kate screamed mournfully as the supports beneath the mansion buckled and crumbled. The massive structure imploded in an inward rush of dislodged stone, spinning steel, and dust. They watched as the stone walls of the basement level collapsed, covering Avery and Michelle with tons of refuse, along with the Biters that engulfed them.
Levi heard Kate and Jem cry out. He heard Melissa scream her sister’s name, again and again. The sounds echoed distantly in his mind as shock and despair seized his entire being and he felt himself falter. Levi’s legs gave away and he fell forcefully to his knees. All of his strength seemed to drain away as a spinning, disorienting darkness closed in upon him. Grief like nothing he had ever felt in his lifetime threatened to overtake him… to drive him to the earth, never to rise again.
Then he felt slender arms around his shoulders, attempting to comfort that which seemed beyond comforting. “Levi,” a voice urged softly. “Levi…we have to go. Now.”
He shook his head violently, words unable to form through the awful aching in the back of his throat. He sagged forward once again, but the hands held firm, fighting to lift him up.
“I know you are hurting,” Enolia told him. “So am I. More than I have ever known. I feel like I want to give up… like I want to die… with them.”
“Yes,” his voice croaked hoarsely.
“But we can’t. We’ve got to go now… got to get the others to safety.”
“No… I can’t…”
“Yes!” she said sharply. “We can’t do it without you, Levi… if you give up, we might as well give up, too.”
It was at that moment, when he had nearly abandoned all hope, that she came to him. He couldn’t tell if what he felt was merely his imagination… or something beyond mortal comprehension. All he knew was that her voice rang in his ears, just as clearly as if she had been standing there before him.
Get your ass up, Levi Hobbs! You’re embarrassing me.
The bearded man breathed deeply, feeling as though he was ascending from some black and depthless place in his soul. Soon, he was on his feet. He turned and embraced his remaining son and daughter. Jem and Kate clung to him, their hearts broken, their tears freezing on their cheeks in the frigid chill of the winter afternoon. When they parted, Jem held Melissa tightly as she mourned for the part of her that was lost… the part that had been her strength and comfort, her constant companion, since the day of her birth. Levi knew Jem’s loss was just as hurtful and real as hers, for he and Avery had not only been brothers, but the closest of friends.
He leaned down and picked up his shotgun, then shifted the holstered .44 Blackhawk on his hip. “Let’s go, people,” he said, surprised at the steel in his voice. “Into the woods… and don’t stop until I tell you.”
Together, they moved past the gnarled trunk of the big tree and headed for the cover of the forest. Levi lingered a moment longer. He stared at the slab of wood he had fashioned into a makeshift marker. On it was carved a single word and nothing more.
He recalled the promise he had made, one made under grief and duress, but one that was rock solid and undeniable nevertheless.
Levi lifted his eyes and saw that the others were nearly to the woods. He leaned down and kissed the name of his beloved.
Nell…
Then he shouldered the shotgun and ran to join the others.
Chapter 33
He smelled the salt air.
He watched the waves, flow to and fro.
He listened to the sea in a shell.
He wiggled his toes in the sand.
He would
have watched tiny crabs dance sideways in the sunshine… if there had been any left alive to watch.
Levi pulled on his woolen socks and laced up his hiking boots. He stood and allowed the ocean wind to fully engulf him. In the summer it would have been warm and pleasant. In mid-January, it was frigid and chilling to the bone.
He sighed and reached into his shirt pocket. Nell’s wedding band gleamed in the winter sun. Crouching, he dug a hole in the sand.
Before he could act, a slender brown hand closed gently over his. “Not here. She would want a warmer climate.”
Levi nodded. He placed the ring back in his pocket and stood up. He regarded Enolia gratefully. She stood beside him, as she had since they had left the ruins of the Biltmore, bundled in a heavy hooded coat, toting her baby in a padded pack across her back like a papoose in the old western movies. Enolia reminded him of Nell a lot—strong, compassionate, spiritual. She possessed wisdom beyond her years as well, and he respected her opinion.
“I reckon Myrtle Beach isn’t far enough south to be considered tropical, is it?”
She smiled. “Not in the dead of winter, no.”
“Nell, always talked about Florida,” he said. “Like it was some magical place.”
“I’m not sure magical places exist anymore,” Enolia said. “But if it was for her, maybe we should go. We’ve traveled over three hundred miles. We can walk three hundred more… or farther.”
“And what would we do then?”
Enolia closed her dark eyes. Her face grew grim and sad for a moment, then she smiled … remembering. “Abiaka Treadaway, Seminole… Long Pine Key, Everglades, Florida… 25 degrees 17’ 11,8140” North, 80 degrees 53’ 55,143” West… Code name: Gatorback.”
Levi frowned. “And what does all that mean?”
“Billy gave me a dozen names,” she explained. “Men and women he served with in Black Arrow. They considered each other to be of one tribe… family. And their families—wives, husbands, and children—were considered to be kin, like their own. Who knows…. they may all be dead. But if they are not… like Treadaway… it could be a new start for us. A chance to settle down and stop roaming like nomads.”
The Buzzard Zone Page 27