Sandwiched between the base of the nearest mountain in the Ogden Range and downtown Huntsville was the black and foreboding waters of the Pineville Reservoir.
The small flotilla of sailboats and powered watercraft once moored offshore was now scattered across the reservoir. A few still lolled at anchor. Others were white specks adrift on the vast expanse of water. Most had become beached on the south shore bordered by a long stretch of greenspace dotted with tents and vehicles and twisted corpses. Though he’d seen the breakdown of society ripple across Portland early on, he couldn’t imagine being among this first wave of thousands upon thousands of desperate people fleeing Salt Lake City and dozens of other zombie-choked towns and burgs along the Wasatch Range’s western flanks.
Pressing the binoculars he’d brought from the truck to his blood-caked face, Duncan glassed the burned-out city, left to right.
He scoured the cemetery first. Seeing nothing of interest moving amongst the headstones rising up from the grass- and weed-choked expanse abutting the reservoir, he panned a few degrees right and focused on the handful of buildings still standing in downtown Huntsville. It was as if he was looking down on a ghost town. Only shadows occupied the trash-filled doorways and once-bustling business concerns now fronted by windowless frames.
On Huntsville’s north side, where the road leading to Eden shot off north by west along the reservoir’s jagged shore, a small herd of rotters loped into town.
“Where are you, Glenda?”
He walked the binoculars back and forth, lifting them away from his face only when he was sure nothing moved close-in on the charred ground between the soot-blackened cement foundations of the houses once dotting Huntsville’s east side.
“Gone. That’s where,” he whispered, his hand absentmindedly going to the Dear John letter in his breast pocket.
The fifth of whiskey Duncan found in the looted supplies went in the Pabst case with the remaining beers. He grabbed his rifle, plucked the case off the seat by its cardboard handle, and stepped to the road.
The driveway climbing along the right side of Glenda’s former home was a narrow, sixty-foot run of moss-covered cement. Cracked and frost-heaved in places, it stretched from the street to a swaybacked garage sitting on the southeast corner of the lot.
Forgoing two steep runs of stairs leading up to the front porch, Duncan set out for the back of the house to enter through the same door he and Cade had breached weeks ago.
The gate to the fence bordering the drive between the house and garage was hanging open. He saw at once the mound of dirt he knew to be Glenda’s husband’s grave. On the muddy ground next to the grave, scattered along its entire length, were several articles of clothing he recognized as belonging to Glenda. He saw numerous footprints presenting the same pattern he’d seen near the roadblock on 39.
She was here.
But where’d she go?
Duncan stirred the clothing with the M4’s suppressor. Knelt and looked closely at the stains and detritus soiling the pants. Some of it was blood and still tacky to the touch. Scraps of flesh and what looked to be intestine clung to the fabric that used to be her shirt. On the ground near the clothing was more flesh and clumps of blood-matted hair. His skin went cold and his stomach twisted into a knot. He hung his head and cursed God. Hand shaking, he dragged the bottle from the case sitting near his knee and spun the cap off with a practiced flick of the thumb. He drank down a big swallow, making bubbles in the neck and feeling the burn that always preceded the all-encompassing warmth he craved.
“Fuck you!” he bellowed, shaking his fist at the air. “Why her and not me?”
The sky quickly darkened and big fat raindrops pelted the ground. Soon the sporadic drops were replaced by a furious downpour.
Rainwater overflowing the brim of Duncan’s tattered Stetson cut paths through the blood on his face. As he rose with his rifle in one hand and the box of booze in the other, a rivulet of salty water wet his lips.
Walking achingly slow, he made his way to the back door. Found it unlocked, just as he’d left it last time he was in Huntsville.
The mudroom was still home to cobwebs and not much else. The kitchen was as they’d left it.
Forgoing a side trip to the dining and sitting rooms in the front of the home, he turned right at the first hall and began the long climb to the second floor. He stopped at the landing to catch his breath. Finding the break a perfect excuse to drink down a beer, he fished a Pabst from the box and cracked the top. He downed the beer in two quick pulls and dropped the can at his boots.
Beginning to scale the remaining run of stairs, he chuckled and said, “Onward and upward, Old Man.”
Reaching the top of the stairs, Duncan saw that the master bedroom was in disarray. The acrid stench from the flash bang grenade Cade had deployed to stun Glenda’s son, Oliver, still lingered. The dark shape of a queen-size bed dominated the room. The bed was bare and flanked by a pair of Edwardian-era nightstands. To his left, pushed up against the stairway rail, was an ornate vanity and padded chair, the latter stuffed into the vanity’s kneehole.
Beyond the bed was a set of French doors. The doors opened up to a medium-sized deck overlooking Huntsville and the reservoir and mountains to the west, all of which were visible now due to the passing of the fast-moving storm.
Duncan set the box of booze on the bed and laid his rifle next to it. He stood at the end of the bed and planted his hands on his hips. Staring out at the darkening sky, he said, “Take a load off, why dontcha?”
Heeding his own advice, he grabbed the chair and booze and made his way to the second-story porch.
On the porch, he arranged the chair near the low wall overlooking the front yard and purple Dodge on the street below. Slipping another beer from the case, he sat down hard on the chair and put his boots on the rail. He popped the top and tilted his head back, can in hand. From this angle he caught sight of the alcove jutting out over the French doors. It was bullet-pocked, the wood scarred by multiple craters ringed by splinters and chipped orange paint. It was the perch from where Oliver wielded a precision sniper rifle against him and the others who were hunkered down in the snow on the streets of Huntsville. Purposefully inflicting zero casualties, Oliver had only wanted to keep their heads down long enough so he could rabbit under cover of darkness. However, due to Cade’s quick thinking and sound planning, the youngest of the Gladson boys was taken down without a shot being fired in anger.
Though only a couple of weeks had passed since that day in October, it seemed so long ago. And thanks to Adrian, Oliver was dead now. As was Heidi and, presumably, Daymon.
So much senseless loss in such a short span of time, he thought. And now all that is left of Glenda is a pile of her bloodied clothes and tufts of her hair.
Duncan finished the beer and set the empty on the rail. He drank two more beers, slipping generous slugs of whiskey in between. When he had a neat little can pyramid on the rail before him and a healthy buzz raging in his head, out came the Colt 1911. He dumped the partial magazine and slapped a full one home. Seven rounds plus one in the pipe.
What to do?
In answer to his own question, he racked the slide on his pistol and aimed for the can atop the pyramid.
The single discharge set his ears ringing. The bullet obliterated the can, the follow-on kinetic energy sending the jagged pieces spiraling down toward the yard and street below.
“Nice shootin’, Tex.”
He blew away the gossamer strand of gun smoke curling off the muzzle, then set the pistol on his lap. In one motion, he hefted the fifth bottle with his left hand, and took the Dear John letter from his breast pocket with his right.
“Now that’s multitasking,” he said with a sad chuckle as he spun the cap off.
After flipping a coin in his head and seeing it come up Heads, he said, “Stayed, for now, Old Man,” and brought the bottle to his lips.
Wearing a sad half smile and shedding tears for the recently departed,
he took a long, hard pull off the upturned bottle.
Chapter 42
In the farmhouse east of Woodruff, Raven was backing away from the papered-over living room window when the radio in her pocket came alive with a burst of static. The white noise was followed at once by her dad’s harried voice. “I want you to just listen,” he said, right off the bat. “I just engaged enemy soldiers on the road. I took all of them out … but it was only their lead element. Two pickups carrying more soldiers just arrived. I’m afraid I have no choice but to hit them first and try to draw them away from you and Peter. I just sent Peter into the woods to join you. I want you two to stay together and move west. Find a safe place outdoors to lay up. Wait there until either darkness falls or you are certain there are no soldiers looking for you. Then I want you to get to the 39/16 junction where you’ll be on the outer edge of your radio’s range. Use the emergency channel and hail the compound. Talk to Lev or Duncan … they’ll know exactly what to do.” He paused to catch his breath. Then, all the edge gone from his voice, he added, “I love you to the moon and back, Raven.” There was a click and the radio went silent.
Tears cascaded down Raven’s cheeks as she reached into her pocket and depressed the Talk key two times to let him know she understood. What she really wanted to do was drag the radio out and spew a whole bunch of syrupy stuff to him, but she didn’t. She knew in her heart of hearts all of it had already been conveyed by her in action and deed since Mom died. In fact, standing by the rear door with the real possibility she was about to lose him too weighing down hard on her, it suddenly occurred to her they had never been closer to one another than they had been since Brook’s passing. In response to the emotion welling within her, she heard her dad’s voice in her head: What’s the most important thing, Bird?
“Family,” she said aloud to herself as she threw the locks and shoved open the door. Rifle in one hand, the other bracing the NVGs on her head, she launched herself off the back porch. As she landed cat-like on the grass beyond the short run of stairs, she registered peripherally to her left a blurry snippet of someone dressed in camouflage clothing entering the tree line.
With the sounds of a major gun battle just breaking out somewhere behind her, Raven sprinted into the woods to her fore. As she took a left and batted branches and ferns from her face, she caught sight of Peter and called out softly for him to join her.
Panting hard, Peter emerged from a clutch of ferns. On his face was a confused expression that seemed to ask What now?
Raven said nothing. She grabbed his coat sleeve and dragged him along, moving west and plunging deeper into the woods with each forward step.
Moments Ago
Cade dropped the radio on his lap and regarded the scene on the road. Maybe the riders hadn’t given the soldiers a heads up after all. It looked as if the drivers were still trying to figure out what had befallen the bikes and their riders. If Cade hadn’t been the one responsible for them ending up dead and tangled atop their bikes, he might have presumed they collided or simply took a spill on the straightaway and were momentarily stunned. If that had been true initially, the jig was up now.
The driver of the first pickup, who was dismounted and looking down on the fallen riders, abruptly hinged up and turned toward the farmhouse. In the next beat he was drawing a sidearm and pointing a finger at Black Beauty, which happened to be a relatively shiny sore thumb sticking out against the group of structures in their sad state of disrepair.
Seeing the driver level his pistol and begin to drag it on line with the Ford, Cade drew the Glock 17 from the holster on his thigh and performed a quick press check. One in the pipe. Good to go.
He quickly tucked the pistol under his left thigh, scooped the M4 from off the passenger seat, and collapsed the buttstock all the way to its final stop. He flicked the selector from Safe to Full Auto and was pulsing down the passenger window when the sonic signature of poorly aimed shots reached his ears. Sounding like a downed powerline dancing somewhere just outside the passenger door, the bullets crackled and popped as they cut the air and kept on moving.
While the driver was snapping off shots and the other soldiers were readying their weapons, Cade released the brake, matted the pedal, and steered for the two-lane.
“Twenty-four rounds, Wyatt. Let’s see whatcha got.”
Working the wheel left-handed and clutching the M4 tightly in the other, Cade extended his right arm across the cab and rested the rifle’s suppressor on the far window channel.
Nearing the T at the end of the drive, the Ford began to buck and jounce like an angry stallion.
Just as the bikes and dead riders were blocked from view by the F-650’s front end, star-shaped muzzle flashes erupted from the soldiers’ weapons. As the truck transitioned from gravel to smooth blacktop, the tires caught and chirped. With the sudden din of incoming gunfire rising over the roar of the V10 and protest of tire rubber, Cade pressed the M4’s trigger and held it down. Spent shell casings bounced off the rear of the passenger seat and clattered into the narrow space where the dash and windshield met. What would Desantos say if he saw me spraying and praying like this? Cade fought the steering wheel and pressed the brakes hard to keep the wildly slewing rig from entering the ditch opposite the gravel drive. Desantos would say nothing at all, he told himself. Because he’s the one who taught me how to improvise. And improvising was exactly what Cade was doing. He wasn’t expecting to rack up a big body count by blindly firing two dozen rounds at the soldiers and their vehicles. His only aim was to make them duck and cover long enough for him to get a little bit of a lead on them.
In the next beat, as the F-650 regained traction and tore off to the east, Peter’s bags were ejected into the ditch and a flurry of bullets found their mark. The pinging on the tailgate and load bed wall behind him lasted only a couple of seconds. During the first second under fire, the sliding window imploded and pebbles of glass peppered the inside of the cab like a shotgun blast.
The car hauler and Ferrari blurred by on the left, just a flash of red, and then its bulk was blocking Cade’s view of the pursuers in the wing mirror. Unable to see out of his dominant right eye, he dumped the empty M4 on the seat next to him and snatched the Glock from under his thigh. Pulling the trigger as fast as humanly possible, he blindly fired sixteen rounds back at his pursuers through the very window they’d just destroyed.
Cade didn’t take the time to see the response his poking the hornet’s nest generated. Instead, blinking away tears and blood, he reached into the center console and, by feel alone, found the cord to the sat-phone. Tugging hard, he dragged the Thuraya into the open only to see the end of the cord he was holding had not been plugged into the auxiliary power port.
“No, no, no,” he chanted. Getting the phone oriented in his palm, he brought it above the steering wheel so he could keep his good eye on both the road and the tiny screen as he thumbed the green talk button.
Cade saw nothing come of the action. Where he would have seen a flare of color and the Thuraya logo splash across the screen, he saw only a solid field of dead pixels. He tossed the phone on the seat beside him and tore a thirty-round magazine for the M4 from his MOLLE rig. Still driving one-handed, he picked up the M4 and dumped the spent mag.
A quick glance to the driver’s side wing mirror told him he was being pursued by both trucks. The number of soldiers in said trucks, a mystery.
After jamming the fresh magazine into the well and getting the rifle charged one-handed, he swung his right arm wide around and rested the suppressor on the scraps of jagged glass remaining in she slider channel behind him.
Multiple split-second taps on the trigger sent the entire contents of the magazine at the pursuers in the form of several volleys consisting of four to six rounds apiece.
Cade peeked at the mirror in time to see the pickups swerving and falling back.
With no way to alert the others he was being hunted, he pressed the pedal to the floor in hopes of outrunning the hunters.<
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Seeing a distant road coming in from the left forced him to make a choice: go left there and possibly draw the bad guys back around to Woodruff, or keep running flat out on the straight and draw them up into the Bear River Range growing larger in the windshield with each passing second.
In the end the decision was made for him when a pair of southbound traveling motorcycles appeared at the end of the merging road and stopped just short of the juncture. They were followed by a single flatbed truck that slid past them and blocked the two-lane from fog line to fog line.
Displaying military-like precision, the riders dismounted and brought rifles to bear.
Cade glanced at the speedometer and saw the needle edging past seventy. Lifting his gaze, he judged the distance to the flatbed at half a mile and quickly learned that all of his options were off the table when the driver of the flatbed revealed the gaping muzzle of some kind of heavy machine gun.
Between a rock and a hard place, was how Duncan would have described the developing situation.
Total goat fuck, would be Desantos’ interpretation of what Cade had just gotten himself into.
Live to fight another day was what Cade was thinking and hoping when he jammed on the brakes and held the steering wheel firm as the tires grabbed and began to belch blue-white smoke.
The sound of bullets smacking the slowing truck were loud in Cade’s left ear. The impact from them striking him center mass punched him back into the seat and caused his hands and feet to come off the controls.
Without any kind of input, and still moving nearly twenty miles per hour, the F-650 slewed left, drove itself into the shallow roadside ditch, up the other side, through a barbed wire fence, and into a murky pond where it came to a full stop in half a foot of black water.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 13): Gone Page 27