by Ben Reeder
“I’m a professional. Don’t try this at home.” She laughed and pulled the Stryker into a left turn, then I felt the vehicle come to a stop. A few moments later, someone tapped at the rear door. One of our passengers, an Asian man in slacks and a pale colored dress shirt, opened the door to reveal Kaplan and the man who’d taken the pistol back at New Eden.
“Supply stop,” Kaplan said. I started to pull myself out of the gunner’s seat, but he stopped me with a raised palm. “I need you on the radio,” he said, then pointed to one of the other well-dressed people, a blond woman in a grey business skirt and blouse and the man who’d opened the door. They followed him, and I let myself relax back into the seat, grateful for the break. As my overworked muscles started to relax a little, I switched the headset over to the radio feed and set it to scan.
“Sentries said they headed east,” Mickey’s voice came over the radio after a few seconds. “Ya’ll head for that house we found with the cars in front of it. They might go back to it. And remember, you kill them Marines, and you can even rough that sumbitch Stewart up some, so long as he survives the trip back, but you don’t hurt the girl. She belongs to the Prophet.” I switched back over to the internal system.
“They’re heading this way, we might want to get moving.” I pulled the headset off and went to the rear door. The man Kaplan had commandeered was trotting back from an old garage that opened onto the alley we were parked in, hustling back to the Stryker with my cache tube and one of the boxes of food, with the woman right behind him carrying a backpack and a box of her own. I grabbed the pack and tossed it through the opening then held my hands out for the box. She was all too ready to rid herself of her burden.
“Company?” Kaplan asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, headed straight for the house. Set your radio output to level one. We’ll try to stay within fifty meters of you.”
“Right. We’ll head south before we cut west and try to cross the river.” I gave him a thumbs up and headed back to the Stryker. Once I closed the rear hatch, I went back to the gunner’s seat and switched back to the radio. Trying to coordinate a search with radios was a doomed attempt so long as I had a working receiver. I turned the Stryker’s SINGCARs to its lowest power output setting, which gave us a transmission range measured in meters instead of kilometers. The vehicle lurched into motion, and after a little experimentation, I figured out how to turn the screen in front of me on so I could use the vehicle’s night vision capabilities. The world outside was displayed in monochrome, and the dead were all over the place. Both vehicles were moving without their headlights on, and the Humvee knocked the occasional infected out of its path as we went along, only the sound of our vehicles giving our position away as we headed down the residential street. Movement behind me and a sound of protest from Amy got my attention, and I looked back over my shoulder. Amy was braced against the bulkhead with her free hand in front of someone else.
“Don’t shush me young lady,” the blond in the business skirt said as she shoved her way past Amy. “I deserve an answer. I didn’t get an MBA from a top rated business school so I could haul his luggage around. I don’t do manual labor. So you answer me right now!” I turned in the seat so that I was facing her.
“You haven’t asked a question yet,” I said evenly.
“Why in the hell was I forced out of this vehicle at gunpoint and ordered to be your fucking packmule? What makes you too good to carry your own shit? I’m a vice president of a major corporation; people like you carry my luggage, not the other way around.” I looked at her for a long moment, unsure how to even respond to how aggressively out of place she suddenly was in the world I’d been living in for the past four days.
“He’s the guy who went out of his way to pull your worthless ass out of that place when he could have left you behind,” Amy said. “He didn’t have to come rescue you, but he did. He’s the guy who got shot at trying to cover our escape, and he’s the guy who made sure every guard in that compound was somewhere else while we did it. What the fuck did you and your top rated MBA do to help? Not a god damn thing, that’s what. So sit down and shut the fuck up.”
“Someone needs to teach you some manners, bitch,” another man said as he got to his feet. He reached for Amy with one hand and had his other balled into a fist. He stopped when he found himself face to barrel with my Colt. I looked down the barrel at him and scowled. A few days ago, with some gel in his hair, he might have been handsome. But several days without decent food or a shower had added years and no small amount of ugly to his looks. His indignation withered under the barrel of the Colt, and I was betting he remembered what I’d said earlier about pulling the trigger.
“Hernandez, stop the truck, please,” I said over the intercom. The Stryker slowed and then lurched a little as it came to a stop. I turned back to the two standing people. “Both of you either shut up or get out.”
“This is an outrage!” Miss MBA said. “You can’t do this!”
“I can, and if you lay a hand on my kid, I’ll shoot you first and then throw you out,” I growled at her. “You need to get one thing straight. You are at square one right now. Everything that made you somebody important a week ago means exactly dick today. ‘People like me’ are the only thing keeping people like you alive and free. If you can’t wrap your head around that, then you’re a threat to everyone around you and you have no place in this vehicle. So decide right now: shut up or get out.” They sat down and I turned back to my seat. Hernandez got the vehicle in motion again before I could say a word.
“Your daughter’s got a mouth like a sailor,” the grubby man said. “I bet you’re real proud of her.”
“I’ll take her mouth over your attitude any day,” I said wearily. “And if you don’t shut up, I won’t wait for the truck to stop before I toss you out the back.” I put the crew headset back on and switched over to the radio in time to hear Kaplan’s voice come over the wire.
“…ndez, what the hell is going on? Is everything okay over there?”
“We’re good, LT. Just had to sort out the chain of command. I’ll brief you on it later.”
“Copy that,” he said. I switched the radio back to scan and heard the Disciples lighting up the airwaves while they searched for us.
“They ain’t at that house,” one reported.
“This is Patrol Two. We’re heading south on Gillham past 31st Street,” another man said. His voice and the way he laid out where he was said cop to me. I looked at the night vision display, scanning for a street sign.
“Mobile Three, the hospital’s wall to wall zombies. No way they came this way.” We approached a corner, and I saw 28th Street.
“Kaplan, turn west on 30th,” I said. “That’ll put us behind one of their patrols.” I switched to the intercom and warned Hernandez that we were going to be turning soon, then switched back to the radio scan. I listened with half an ear as I turned on the overhead lamps and pulled the rolled up map from my vest pocket. “Amy, help me find a route across the river.” She laid the map down and bent her head over it.
“Okay, this is the store, right?” she said as she pointed to a red circle drawn in pen on the map. Her fingertip traced a line along the map, then she laid another finger on the river. Her two index fingers slowly traced their way toward each other. “Got it!” she said. I reached over and grabbed another headset for her.
“Okay, you navigate for Hernandez,” I told her, then hit the transmit switch. “LT, we have a route to the river. You mind if we take the lead?”
“Get out in front,” Kaplan said with the first hints of a smile in his voice. I watched as the Humvee pulled to the right and slowed until we passed it. Hernandez took the right when we hit 30th Street, and Amy had her stay on it as we got to the end of the road. Ten feet of grass separated us from Gilham Road, the street the other Stryker patrol had been on. Hernandez drove over the curb, over a couple of unfortunate zombies, across Gilham and onto the brick road that 30th became. As we went up th
e hill, we passed rows of brick townhouses on our right and older homes on our left, with only a half dozen infected to knock out of our way. The further up the hill we went, the fewer zombies we saw. By the time the street leveled off, I only saw a couple of them down side roads. Then we found ourselves going back downhill, and Hernandez pasted a couple across the Stryker’s front end before we hit another big road. The street sign said Main Street, and it was filled with zombies. An easy forty or fifty of them were wandering north. Across the way I could see a street sign that said “Street Ends No Outlet.” I turned the NVG unit left and right.
“Go right,” I said as I saw an opening between buildings. “And let’s go off road.”
“Oohrah,” Hernandez said as she pulled us out onto Main and flattened a couple more infected. She took the left turn on her own, and seconds later we were tearing up turf as she headed up another hill. We passed a pair of condominiums on our left, complete with a horde of hip looking infected that were on the wrong side of the gated community to get at us. We rolled down toward another street.
“Keep going,” Amy said with a grin. “If they’re watching the streets, they’ll never see us.” We hit the asphalt and kept going straight, bumping over the curb and onto the grass. It might have been just me, but I thought Hernandez aimed for the sign that said “No vehicles” and she certainly didn’t slow down when she plowed through the metal fence.
“Jogger, eleven o’clock,” I said as we sped across the open park. The Stryker swerved and the undead man in sweats and a hoodie disappeared under our wheels.
“Got him,” she said over the intercom. Our swath of cross country mayhem led us through open fields, then across several acres of wooded park until we crashed through one last hedge and hit another four lane road. Two barriers faced us there: a solid line of cars and concrete dividers in the middle of the road.
“Go left,” Amy said as she looked at her map. “I think this is Summit. Either way, it should take us to 31st Street, and we can follow that almost all the way to the bridge.” Hernandez stayed on the shoulder, and I did my best to not see the occasional body in the car sit up and watch us go by. Eventually, we hit an intersection that was dominated by a bullet riddled police cruiser, and Amy had us head back to the west. The road we ended up on was tree lined for the first half mile or so, which would have probably been beautiful during an autumn day, but at oh-dark-thirty in a burning city during the zombie apocalypse, it was just creepy as hell.
Maybe it was my surroundings or maybe it was just me, but I got a chill down my spine when I heard a familiar voice over the radio.
“This is Director Aaron Keyes, vice president in charge of security for Monos, Incorporated. I have a message for the Prophet of the Disciples of the Anointed. I know you’re broadcasting on this channel, and I know you can hear me. I understand you’re looking for a man by the name of Dave Stewart. I’d like to offer you my assistance in finding him. You have five minutes to respond.”
“This is Daniel, Prophet of the Lord. Make your offer, I’m listening,” Hall said a few seconds later. He sounded much calmer than he had earlier. I imagined him preening before picking up the mic like a man about to interview for a job.
“I take it our mutual pain in the ass Dave Stewart has recently been your guest,” Keyes said. “And I’d wager a truly ridiculous amount of worthless money that, despite your best efforts, he is no longer enjoying your hospitality, and did a little damage when he left.”
“I caught him and his daughter looting, and instead of shooting him on sight, I gave him shelter and aid. In return, he killed several of my men, stole from me and kidnapped members of my flock. I’d like him returned so he can face the Lord’s justice. How do you intend to help me make that happen?”
“Well, if I know Stewart, he’s heading west. There’s a bridge south and west of your location, one of three that cross the Missouri River that are still intact. Watch the skies.” Hernandez turned onto a larger road, and I switched the intercom on.
“Hold up.” She slowed the Stryker and stopped it, and I popped the hatch over my head, confident Hall was heading for a window or balcony that faced this way. I could hear the Humvee pull up behind us, and Hernandez and Amy popped their hatches, too. We all scanned the skies, waiting to see what Keyes was going to do.
“There!” Amy cried and pointed. Following her hand, I saw a streak of white against the ruddy sky. It slipped between columns of smoke, now bright, then faded, then bright again. Suddenly it dropped almost straight down, and we saw the sky light up to the west and heard the muffled whump! of an explosion.
“Drone!” Kaplan called over the radio. “That son of a bitch has a Predator! We need to get away from here, and in among the taller buildings.”
“Copy that!” I called out as I dropped back down into the vehicle. “Amy, find us a path downtown. We need to find a place to hide an eighteen ton armored vehicle.”
“”On it,” she said as she dropped down beside me. “I know just the place.” Again, she ran her hands over the map. “Take us back the way we came…uh, no, actually, don’t do that. Just follow this street back east until you get to The Paseo.”
“The Paseo?” I said. “I’m not sure we have time for the scenic route.”
“Trust me, I know this will work,” she said back. I nodded, and she gave me that heart- liquefying smile again. For a moment, I wondered if it might have been even more devastating if she’d been my own flesh and blood, but it hardly seemed possible. It was a couple of miles or so to The Paseo, so I sat back in the gunner’s chair and watched the world outside through the screen. Hernandez barreled down the road with little regard for traffic laws or traffic for that matter, and I kept an ear on the radio to see if the Disciples or Keyes had spotted us. However, Hall hadn’t mentioned that we’d stolen one of his Strykers, so Keyes probably didn’t know he was looking for one. To him, we were probably just another one of Hall’s vehicles.
“There,” Amy called out about five minutes later. We were heading down a gentle slope, with a park on our left and a large brick building on our right. “You can cut through the park if you want. The Paseo’s just up ahead.” Hernandez veered left and we were bumping over grass for a moment, then she veered left again, and the ride smoothed out as we hit asphalt again. We came out of the park and into a row of houses, most of them two story designer jobs with landscaped front lawns and two car garages. As we kept heading north, the lawns got smaller and the landscaping gave way to less manicured yards before it reverted to townhouses on the right and undeveloped lots on the left. Then we were crossing over 71 highway, and Amy’s plan made a lot more sense. The road was wide open and unobstructed for the most part as we sped through Kansas City, not even slowing down for the occasional infected that ended up getting squished beneath our tires.
Cars started to show back up as we got closer to US 70, so Hernandez brought the truck onto the broad grass median and kept going, albeit a little slower. We zoomed past the traffic jam at the US 70 on-ramp and bounced back onto the road long enough to cross the two lanes and under the freeway, then across asphalt again and back onto the median. A few blocks later, Amy was telling us to turn left. Our options were pretty limited anyway, since the grass median ended there, and a large stone monument took up the other side of the road from us. The road went uphill from there, and the skyline before us slowly rose into view.
“Mary Mother of God,” Hernandez said softly as we crested the hill. Ahead of us was a cityscape from hell. Flames billowed from the sides of almost every building we could see, sending smoke into the air and coloring the night sky overhead a bloody red. “We’re going into that?” she asked. When we’d crashed, it had still been light out and the smoke had been blowing toward us. Seeing it now, I understood her reluctance.
“I wouldn’t look for me there,” I said. The wind was blowing from the north, sending plumes of smoke across the sky. Heat made the upper levels shimmer, and I was certain they’d wreak havoc
on the drone’s thermal vision. All we needed was someplace to hide the Stryker and the Humvee. An overpass loomed ahead of us, and when we emerged from under the concrete bridge it was like we had just passed through the gates ofHell.
“If anyone sees a three headed dog, it answers to the name of Fluffy,” I said. Amy laughed at the terrible mash up of myth and pop culture. On our left, a broad building burned, and I caught the words “Federal Building” on the stone sign in front of it as we passed by. The stone building on the other side of it was belching smoke from its windows as well. Then we were between two buildings that looked like they’d been built by the same architect. The one on the left was in flames, but the one on the right seemed miraculously untouched by the fires around it, creating a sort of eye in the inferno.
“Turn right,” Amy said as we passed between the two buildings. Half way down the block, she pointed to the screen. “There! Turn in there!” Hernandez slowed the truck and pulled into the driveway on the left.
“Wow, good call, chica,” Hernandez said as she flipped the Stryker’s lights on to illuminate the inside of another parking garage. She drove up several levels and pulled across three spaces looking out at the one intact building we’d just passed. We were safe, at least for the moment. I pushed the hatch above me open and looked to my right while Kaplan pulled the Humvee up beside us. He opened his door and stepped out, his face looking haggard in the dim light.
“Not a bad bit of rescuing, if I do say so myself,” I said.
“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll leave saving civilians to the Navy,” Kaplan said. “So, we’re safe for the moment. But with that bridge out, I think we’re going to have to ditch the vehicles. For now, let’s take a look around and make sure there aren’t any infected wandering around in here.” I nodded and dropped back down.
“You need to let us out,” Miss MBA asked as I grabbed the M39. “We’ve been cooped up in this tin can long enough.”