Holly received her beer unopened. She promptly trapped it between her legs and turned in time to see Nate backing away from the gate.
Otto dropped the truck into gear and steered for the gate. Once the truck was inside the UDOT facility and the gate was closed behind them, Nate climbed back in for the short drive to the trailer. He was breathing hard. Despite the fall-like temperature outside, he was also sweating profusely.
Otto wheeled the truck to within a truck length of the trailer and parked it there with the grille aimed for the door. After killing the engine, he turned and fixed a hard stare on Nate. “You didn’t say if the chain was how you left it.”
With a dumb look parked on his face, Nate said, “Nothing looked out of place.”
Otto grabbed his rifle off the floorboard. He looked to Nate. Asked, “Was it, or wasn’t it, as you left it?”
Swallowing hard, Nate said, “Exactly as I left it.” It was a lie. And a poor one at that. Because he honestly wasn’t paying attention when Otto told him to make note of how he’d left the chain in the first place. Besides, if someone had come and opened the gate, why hadn’t they culled the meat sacks first? Experience told him it was always harder to leave a closed perimeter through a gathered crowd of the things.
Holly nullified the need for a second admission of incompetence on Nate’s part by noting exactly what he’d been thinking. She said, “The deaders probably came back around this morning when he opened the gate to let us out. That was way more than twenty minutes ago. Plenty of time for them to shuffle back here to wait for us to return.”
“Or wait for more meat to exit the place,” Nate added. He cracked the beer, thanked Otto with a tip of the can, and took a long pull.
“Keep your eyes open,” Otto growled. Stepping from the truck, he wagged a finger at Holly. “You stay put until I’m sure doofus here didn’t drop the ball completely.”
Always someone else’s fault, Holly thought as the doors thunked shut on either side of her.
“That chain was looped twice around the bars and pulled through the fence, just as I left it,” Nate said assuredly. He skirted a mud puddle in the trailer’s shadow then stopped long enough to drink the beer down. He crushed the can between his palms and tossed it to the ground beside the short stack of steps. In the next beat, as his foot landed on the first tread, his breath was knocked from him when Otto’s right arm came out of nowhere, swinging on a chest-high horizontal plane, the spider-web-tattooed elbow catching him square on the solar plexus.
As Nate wheezed and doubled over, the can he had just tossed onto the ground entered his line of sight. Though his eyes were clouded by fresh tears, he still saw why Otto had abruptly stopped him from climbing the steps. It wasn’t a trip wire attached to a grenade like in the movies. There was no rattlesnake waiting to strike from the gloom under the step. It was the second identical beer can already there that had spurred the spontaneous reaction. Which in turn had led to Nate hinging at the waist and avoiding receiving a face full of lead. Instead, his forehead and eyes became pin cushions for the wood splinters exploding from the hollow core door half a yard from his face.
The pair of ear-splitting booms preceding Nate nearly going blind were followed by the snap-crackle of a single bullet cleaving the air a foot over his head.
Otto wasn’t so lucky. One bullet struck him in nearly the same place on his body that his surprise elbow had connected on Nate’s. Only Otto hadn’t doubled over forward. The first millisecond, as the bullet reduced his sternum to a thousand tiny splinters of bone, his body went rigid and the kinetic energy from the mule kick to the chest stood him up straight. In the next beat another bullet struck home and his upper body was limp and bending over backward, both feet leaving the ground.
While Otto’s head was impacting the ground a few feet from the trailer steps, Nate was bringing his AK-47 on line with the door and pressing the trigger.
The first five rounds fired on full-auto stitched the door right-to-left in a neat diagonal line with maybe three inches separating each jagged bullet hole. The AK’s muzzle rise, when combined with the fact that Nate was seeing everything through the veil of crimson blood cascading off his brow, caused the next twenty rounds to walk a near vertical path from the doorknob to the top of the door. With the doorknob left dangling by a single bent bolt and the jamb beside it utterly destroyed, the door swung inward freely through a swirling gun smoke haze.
There was a keening of metal as three more bullets leaving the AK pierced the aluminum door header. The only sound that followed the final two AK rounds sailing harmlessly toward the pewter sky was the clack of the Kalashnikov’s bolt slamming closed on an empty chamber.
Clutching his chest, face up to the sky, Otto was in the process of dying. And he wasn’t going without a fight. One hand was clutching a gushing neck wound and he kicked at the ground, his boot heels carving deep furrows into the moist gravel as he tried to get ahold of the rifle that had landed just outside of his reach.
Dazed by the loss of blood and ears ringing from discharging an entire thirty-round magazine in just under three seconds, Nate fumbled to drag his Glock from the holster on his hip. As he fought to pull the long tail of the parka over the pistol’s polymer grip, he heard a man groan. Close on the heels of that disconcerting noise, a horn resounded behind him. Not a single toot. This was Holly laying on the thing as if she was trying to relay something urgent.
As the horn went silent, the blare was replaced by Holly yelling for him to step aside.
What’s she going to do, Nate thought, start the rig up and drive the shooter over?
Having finally wrenched his pistol free of the holster, Nate swung it up and aimed for the destroyed door. By now the dust and blue-gray smoke had mostly cleared, allowing him to get a good look at the damage done by his sustained burst.
It was impressive.
The wood paneling on the back wall of the trailer had a fault line running vertical from the back of the love seat all the way to the ceiling. The love seat was a mess of protruding springs. Cotton-like stuffing spilled from holes where the bullets had punched through it.
A body lay flat and still on the floor in front of the love seat. Next to the body was a shot-up cowboy hat and pair of glasses. The only details of the body Nate could make out from his viewing angle outside the trailer were the worn soles of the man’s leather boots and wisps of gray hair rising up over the neck of a rumpled camouflage jacket.
“I got you covered,” Holly called from the truck. She was aiming a long rifle at the trailer, the blued barrel wavering in the void of her open window.
Nate crowed, “I got the fucker.”
Holly asked, “What about Otto?”
Nate looked over his shoulder at the prostrate body. Otto’s arms were outstretched in a position of surrender. A crimson puddle had formed on his left side. Nate thought, Otto’s done. He said, “First things first. I want to see what I inherited from Cowboy here. Otto will be just fine.” He smirked at the last part as he turned back toward the yawning door.
Chapter 35
Eden Compound
Sasha was sitting on a folding chair under the RV’s metal awning. Nearby, stretched out on the ground, Max was resting his head on his paws and eyeing her every move.
Draped across Sasha’s lap was a colorful blanket with a host of Navajo-inspired patterns running its length. Her bare legs were propped up on the Coleman camp cooler on the ground before her chair. The wound on the teen’s ankle stood out starkly against the pale skin around it.
“I wish Glenda was here,” Tran said. “I know many things, but unfortunately, first aid is not one of them.” He wore purple surgical gloves and held a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in one hand. He poured a liberal amount of the clear liquid on the abraded skin above Sasha’s ankle bone. Watched it bubble and froth in the wound for a few seconds. “This is supposed to make the bad stuff come out.”
Crouched next to the cooler, voice wavering as he spoke, Wi
lson said to Tran, “Do you think it’s a bite?”
Standing under the awning, her shoulders slumped, Taryn sighed and wiped a stray tear from her cheek. Without a word, she turned and walked the dozen feet or so to the front of the RV, raised the tarp covering Seth’s outstretched corpse, and lifted his limp arm off the ground.
“These defensive wounds were made by nails and teeth,” she called. “Mostly nails, though. He was fighting it off at first. The one to the neck did him in. Severed the main vein or artery there.”
“The bullet to his head did him in,” mumbled Sasha.
“He was turning,” Wilson whispered. “I had no choice.” Hand shaking, he pinched the bridge of his nose and looked toward the sky.
Taryn’s head started a slow side-to-side wag. Voice exuding a measure of optimism, she said, “I don’t think that’s a bite on Sash’s ankle.”
Tran began, “Since we can’t be sure until—”
“We’re sure she isn’t infected,” finished Wilson. “I get it. She’ll need to be quarantined until we know she’s out of the woods.” He rose and regarded his sister. “Don’t worry, Sash. This is no different than what happened to you in Castle Rock when the undead butcher got ahold of your ankle.”
“I remember,” Sasha said, her voice cracking. “I’m thirsty.” She drew in a deep breath and coughed before accepting the offered canteen from her brother. “And Wilson … I know you had no choice. Don’t beat yourself up. You just happened to get to him first.”
Wilson said nothing. The tears carving tracks in the grime on his face did all the talking.
Without warning, Tran probed Sasha’s wound with a finger.
Gasping, she said, “Can you just bandage it up now?”
“As you wish.” Tran fished items from the kit and went to work wrapping the wound in gauze and taping it in place.
“I’ll get you some books,” Taryn said.
“I already read them all,” Sasha replied. She made a face and the tears started to flow. “It’s not fair,” she said between sobs. “Seth died because of me. Because I slipped and fell and this happened, he was forced to leave the compound without backup. I’m soooo stupid.”
“When it’s a person’s time to go, it’s their time to go,” Tran said. He nodded. “That’s my belief. Seth fulfilled his purpose on Earth. He’s off on another adventure now.”
The others said nothing.
Wilson took the canteen from Sasha. “This is yours until we know for sure. I’ll fill it and bring it back to you.”
“What?” said Sasha, a hint of a smile ghosting across her lips. “You afraid to swap spit with your sister?”
“Better to be safe than sorry,” he said. “That’s all. Glass is still half full where I’m concerned.”
Taryn and Wilson helped Sasha to stand.
Tran said, “I’ll go and check the area around the compound entrance for rotters. Then I’ll check the sat-phones to see if we missed anything.” He paused to face the trio. “You stay strong, Sasha. It’ll be all right. And you two … be careful out here when you’re coming and going. Our numbers are small. We have to use the utmost caution from here on out.”
Wilson nodded and opened the RV door. Ushering the girls in, he said, “I’m really worried about Glenda and Duncan. Radio me if you hear from them.”
“Will do,” Tran answered. He turned and nearly tripped over Max as the shepherd formed up next to him. Black rifle in hand, he strode across the clearing toward the compound’s camouflaged entrance, the dog matching his every step and stealing furtive glances toward the RV every few feet.
***
Six miles east of Woodruff, Cade was pulling the F-650 off the two-lane and onto a short gravel drive leading to a two-story farmhouse surrounded by too many outbuildings to count. He told the kids to hold on as he goosed the engine and guided the truck through a series of wide channels carved into the drive by runoff from the two weeks’ worth of heavy rains bookending the recent out-of-the-blue early-season snow event.
By the time they had motored halfway through the rutted section of the narrow drive, the zombies Cade had spotted from the road on the eastbound pass were turned away from the house and taking their first steps in the direction of the vehicle angling toward them. While initially Cade had counted only three shamblers, now there were four. Standing head-high to the female Z’s waist, the fourth rotter looked to have been six or seven when she died the first time. What at one time had been blonde ponytails sprouting from each side of the girl’s head were now two unruly tufts of hair that bobbed to and fro in concert with the lolling of her head. The pom-pom-looking things were home to twigs and leaves and streaked black by what Cade guessed was dry blood from a recent meal.
The surprise appearance of the undead girl started Cade thinking he was again witness to a phenomenon he and Raven had discussed earlier. When viewed together with the adult male, adult female, and portly, pock-faced, teenaged male Z, the girl Z rounded out the nuclear family. All that was missing from this decaying lot was the ubiquitous family pet.
Both Brook and Raven had sworn up and down that Max had seemed to be attached to a trio of undead they’d culled outside the Schriever perimeter back in August. That family unit had been a man, woman, and young boy. All seemed to have suffered the same rate of decay, which suggested they had all turned at roughly the same time. And adding to the mystery, all three of them had been moving in the same direction, never straying far from one another.
Cade stopped the Ford a fair distance from the shamblers. Gaze roaming the property, he plucked his Nomex combat gloves from the voluminous center console.
“Why are we here?” asked Peter.
Working his left hand into the glove, Cade answered, “You know we’re looking for our friend, Daymon, right?”
The boy nodded.
“We’re multitasking on this little trip outside the wire. Raven, here, has already bagged her first elk.” He looked in her direction, momentarily taking his eyes off the approaching Zs. “Sadly, she didn’t learn how to gut it.”
Peter said, “Roamers got to it first?”
Cade adjusted the glove so the thermoplastic rubber knuckle guards were in place. He snugged the hook-and-loop closures tight around his wrist. Slipping on the other glove, he added, “Then she drove this big ol’ truck for the first time.” Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw Peter’s eyes bug.
The kid said, “How did you reach the pedals?”
Raven said, “It’s complicated.”
Cade smiled at that. He added, “My baby Bird also stayed by herself outside the wire for the first time. Five whole minutes without anyone around. We’re planning on doubling that, though.” He bumped the knuckles on both gloved hands together and winked at her. “But with an added wrinkle.”
With Raven shifting uneasily in her seat, Cade urged the truck forward, steering clear of Father Z’s reach. He then drove another hundred feet with the Z family in pursuit before finally parking the pickup broadside to a small shed a little bigger than an outhouse. The boards were weathered to a light shade of gray. A rack of eight-point antlers off a white tail buck, still rooted in a saucer-sized oval of the beast’s skull, graced the header above the narrow door.
Raven looked to Peter. “I was in the truck for five whole minutes. I had the keys, a number of guns, and plenty of ammo. So no big deal, really.”
Cade said, “In the truck is where I want both of you to stay until I come back.”
Raven nodded as her dad picked his M4 off the floorboard. As he exited the truck, she said, “I won’t honk. Don’t worry.”
Flashing a half smile, Cade closed the door and stalked off toward the rear of the truck. He had the M4 slung over his back and the suppressed Glock 19 drawn and aimed at Father Z before the door locks thunked home behind him.
In the truck, Raven had scooted to the edge of the seat and was peering over the steering wheel and wondering what her dad was up to when a puff of reddish-black mis
t erupted around the nearest zombie’s head. As the monster was crashing vertically to the ground, her dad was turning back to the truck. For reasons known only to him, he climbed onto the rear tire on her side. Craning around to the right to see through the rear sliding window, Raven watched him vault into the bed, the Glock already holstered.
“What is he doing?” Peter asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” she conceded.
In the load bed, Cade took hold of the dog catcher’s tool he’d liberated from the A-Team van. After acquainting himself with how to lock and unlock the mechanism that allowed the plastic-coated cable at the far end to tighten and loosen, he aimed the collapsible aluminum pole at the sky and practiced running the cable out and drawing it taut without watching the hand doing the work. He did this until he was proficient at making a semi-flexible noose large enough—in theory—to slip over a human head. With the three remaining Zs nearly to the truck, he rapped on the sliding window.
Peter looked away from Cade and regarded Raven. On the teen’s face was an expression that was one part confusion, and one part horror.
“The latches in the middle,” she said, pointing to them. “Open the slider and see what he wants.”
When Peter parted the two halves of the rear window, Cade said, “Duct tape,” and thrust his gloved hand into the cab. “Saw it last in the door pocket.”
Raven dug out the roll of tape and passed it to Peter, who, in turn, put it in Cade’s upturned hand.
Pom-Pom Z made it to the truck before Mother Z and Zit Face Z. Remarkably, the undead girl was shorter than Raven, the top of her head barely reaching the FORD emblem centered on the F-650’s tailgate. Cade slipped the noose over her head, wriggling the pole side-to-side and yanking down on it rather violently to get the cable to slide over the twin tufts of hair.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 13): Gone Page 23