“There isn’t time,” Spill said. “The infection is spreading too fast. I’m sorry, man.”
Griggs punched a tree in frustration. “Dammit, man, I wasn’t supposed to go out like this. I promised my sisters I’d come home to them.”
Spill didn’t say anything. He rose to his feet, hand still resting on his gun. Griggs continued to stalk back and forth, anger in every muscle of his body.
“He should have let me fight back in the Bohemian Grove.” Griggs stabbed a finger at the sleeping Leo. “I could have died fighting.”
Cassie licked her lips. “I saw you die back in the Grove,” she said slowly. “You fought off two mutants so the rest of us could get away.”
Griggs rounded on her. “What are you talking about?”
Jennifer understood what Cassie was trying to say. “I saw it, too,” she said. “Two mutants would have captured us if you hadn’t sacrificed yourself and fought them off.”
Cassie’s throat tightened as understanding dawned in Griggs’s eyes. The anger went out of him. His shoulders sagged with the grief of defeat.
“I saw it, too,” Spill said. “You died bravely in battle. That’s what will go into my debriefing. Everyone will know you died a hero.”
“If you live long enough to give anyone a report,” Griggs said bitterly. “America might not even survive this invasion.” He heaved a sigh, leaning up against a tree. He scratched at the infected veins seeping up his cheek. More disappeared into his hair line along his neck. “I promised my sisters.”
Spill held out his hand. “Give me your tags. If I survive, I’ll make sure they get them. I’ll make sure they know you died a hero.”
Time stretched as the two soldiers eyed each other. Bruce inched a little closer to Griggs in case he tried to bolt. Jennifer rested her hands on her machine gun, mouth set in a hard line. Tension swelled on every side of the crackling fire.
“You have to do it.” Griggs swallowed. “You have to do it for me, man. I’m Catholic. I can’t kill myself.”
Spill’s eyes widened, but he nodded.
Griggs turned to Cassie and the others. “It’s been a pleasure to serve with all of you.” He gave them a sharp salute. “Give the communist bastards hell when you get to Luma Bridge.”
“We will,” Jennifer said.
“Pleasure to serve,” Bruce said.
Griggs gave Cassie a weak smile. “Give them hell, chess captain.”
She nodded, throat too tight to speak. She wanted to say something, but words completely failed her. What could she say to a condemned man?
With one last look at them, Griggs strode away from the fire. Spill followed him.
Cassie, Jennifer, and Bruce sat in a tight knot around Leo. Cassie could hardly breathe. Would Griggs really go through with it? Or would he fight off Spill and make a run for it? What if he tried to fight Spill? What if he turned completely before—
A single shot cracked through the trees. Cassie jumped. So did Leo. He bolted upright in alarm, the top of his head cracking into Cassie’s chin.
“What happened?” he gasped, looking around in alarm. “What’s going on?”
Spill walked back into the clearing. His eyes were hollow. Griggs’s dog tags clinked in one hand. The dead man’s fatigue shirt was wadded in the other. He must have taken those for Griggs’s family.
“He died a hero.” Spill’s voice was wooden as he shoved the dog tags into a pocket.
“We all saw it.”
“We all saw it.” Cassie’s voice was so soft, she wasn’t sure it even carried until Spill nodded at her.
Leo exhaled and slumped back onto Cassie’s lap. “Griggs?”
“He died a hero,” Spill repeated.
No one said anything else. The crackling of the tiny fire was the only sound.
Chapter 40
Battledress
“WE HAVE TO MOVE OUT.” Leo swallowed his last piece of dried meat and pushed resolutely to his feet. His side ached, but he felt better after another nap, some more painkillers, and food.
Cassie cast him a worried look, but didn’t argue. She knew it was past time to be moving. They all did. It was ten in the morning.
The loss of Griggs weighed on Leo’s shoulders. He hadn’t known the man very well, but he was the leader of this mission. He was responsible for everyone here.
Griggs’s death was a grim reminder of just how much was a stake. They might not make it back from Luma. It was odd to think that less than a week and a half ago, his biggest problem in life had been picking apples. That last muggy morning he’d spent in the orchard with Dal and his dad was now a cherished memory.
“What’s the plan?” It was the first time Spill had spoken since declaring Griggs a hero.
“There are lot of homes in these woods,” Leo said. “We find a car and drive south. We stick to the back country roads and get to Luma.” Hopefully, they would be able to avoid Soviet patrols.
Leo’s shirt was a bloody, sodden mess on the forest floor. He hadn’t brought a replacement. There hadn’t been room in his pack.
To his surprise, Spill threw a wad of dark green fabric across the clearing at him. “Griggs wanted you to have it.”
It was the soldier’s fatigue shirt. Leo held it between his hands, awed that Griggs had thought to leave it to him. The man barely knew him.
“It’s his battledress,” Spill said. “It’s a big fucking deal to give it to you. He wanted you to make sure it sees some Russian blood.”
Leo nodded as he pulled on the shirt. It was a good fit. There was dried blood on the shoulder where Griggs had been shot. His fingers lingered on Griggs’s name patch as he buttoned it up. He wished he’d gotten to know the other man better.
“I’ll make sure it does.” Leo spoke as much to his companions as to the departed Griggs.
Bruce kicked out the fire. They divided up the weapons, making sure everyone had extra ammo and bombs. Spill added all of Griggs’s C-4 to his pack. Nonna had even sent an extra spool of fuse wire, which Jennifer tucked into her pack.
They set out on foot. It wasn’t long before they came to a one-lane gravel road.
Leo spotted a familiar red mailbox with a blue bird painted on one side. “I know where we are.”
“You do?” Jennifer wrinkled her brow at him.
“The owner of Gravenstein Pie lives a mile that way.” Leo gestured. “She was a friend of my mom’s. I used to deliver apples to her house
“Does that mean you know where we can get a car?” Bruce asked.
“Yep.”
Fifteen minutes later, they drove down the gravel road in an old jeep with faded gray paint. The keys had been found in the cigarette ashtray; people who lived out here in the country never worried about theft.
Leo drove, keeping them to remote roads as they navigated south. He’d wasted a lot of time out here when he first got his license. Sometimes he’d just get in his blue Chevy and drive with the music on. Even when on errands for the family farm, he always liked to take the long way home.
Those pointless meanderings now paid off in spades. It took them no more than an hour to reach a curve in the road that led back to the main highway. Instead of staying on the asphalt, Leo slowed and drove off the shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Spill asked.
“Scenic route. This is protected state land.” Leo gestured to the forest looming just in front of the jeep. “We don’t want to stay on the road. It will take us back to the main highway. The Soviets will be able to see us coming from miles away. We’re going to sneak up on them from the wilderness.”
It would take them longer to get to the bridge this way. But the light was on their side, and they had a four-wheel drive vehicle. They would cut through the forest and open grassland that bordered the ocean, then go on foot to the rocky overlook that bordered the road leading to the bridge.
He shifted into four-wheel drive, steering around a large blackberry patch and driving out into the uninhabited land of
the coastline. It wouldn’t be long now. Another few miles and they’d be at the bridge.
Chapter 41
Overlook
LEO DROVE SLOWLY, MANEUVERING around trees and rocks. The air was crisp as it flowed over the open-top jeep. The smell of dried grass and bay trees filled his nose. Mixed with it was the tang of salt from the ocean. Aside from the rumble of the jeep, birdsong and wind were the only things to hear.
“Out here, I can almost forget the world isn’t complete shit,” Spill said from the passenger seat. “I’m from Michigan. I’ve never seen anything like this.” He gestured to the nature around them.
“Wait until you see the ocean,” Jennifer said.
A short while later, the trees fell away, replaced with shorter manzanita and lupine. There were large swaths of open grassland between the plants. The blue of the Pacific Ocean glimmered in the distance.
Soon, the land opened up completely and revealed Luma Bridge. It was a dark necklace strung across the pristine blue of the ocean bay.
Leo drove another mile and a half, pulling the jeep to a stop when the land dropped away in a tall bluff. To their left, a steep, rocky hillside loomed up and cut off all views of the bridge.
“We have to climb up there.” He pointed to the steep jumble of rock and brush. “The top overlooks the bay and the northern entrance to the bridge.”
They piled out of the jeep. Leo took a brief moment to touch Cassie’s cheek before starting up the hillside. There was emotion clouding her eyes. He couldn’t decipher what it meant.
“You okay?”
She smiled and nodded, the expression not quite touching her eyes. She moved beside him to the base of the hillside. They grabbed rocks and shrubs and began to climb.
It was a quarter mile scramble up the steep landscape. Leo was panting by the time they reached the top. His side ached. The cut was an unneeded distraction. He ignored the pain as best he could, making a mental note to take another pain killer when they returned to the jeep.
The sun was bright, the wind loud in his ears as it blew in off the ocean. Leo and the others lay in a line across the top of the hilltop overlooking the bay. The entrance to the Luma Bridge lay almost directly beneath them.
It wasn’t a surprise there was no one up here keeping watch. The cliffside sloping down to the bridge was dizzyingly steep. There were no roads to the top. If Leo hadn’t spent his life out here and didn’t have a decent sense of direction, he wouldn’t have been able to find it. He pulled out his binoculars and studied the scene below them.
“What do you see?” Spill asked.
“Two jeeps on either side of the bridge,” Leo said. “Eight Soviets on each side. Minimal weapons. They have their standard machine guns and hand guns. That’s it. I don’t even see RPGs mounted on their rigs.”
“Sixteen against five.” Spill’s voice was grim. “Those aren’t great odds.”
“We’ve gone up against worst,” Jennifer replied. “Besides, only eight of them are on this side.”
“How do we know if the busses have come or not?” Cassie asked.
“We don’t,” Spill said. “Our best estimate is that they’ll arrive sometime within the next twenty-four hours.”
Leo passed the binoculars down the line, letting everyone get a chance to look through them. Before leaving Pole Mountain, he’d ripped the necessary page out of the Anarchist’s Cookbook. It was folded into a neat square and sealed inside a Ziploc. It was in his back pocket with his wallet, wrinkled from the journey, but at least it was dry.
He spread out the page from the Anarchist’s Cookbook on a rock. Cassie leaned in beside him to study it.
“‘The truss bridge is one of the strongest in the world,’ ” Cassie read, “‘and offers many problems for the sabateur. Be very careful when planning a sabotage of this type.’ ”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Spill muttered.
“No kidding,” Jennifer said.
“We have to blow the main cantilever on either side of the central foundation pier.” Cassie chewed her bottom lip. “We’re going to have to get to the middle of the bridge and climb up trusses to place the explosives. If we don’t destroy trusses on either side of the central pier, the Russians will be able to repair any damage we make.”
A beat passed. No one said a word as they took in the enormous bridge before them. It was several miles long. Climbing up the trusses would be no easy feat. It didn’t help that it was hundreds of feet above the water and they had no safety cables or nets. Leo had once seen a documentary on the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. A handful of men had died building that bridge when they slipped and fell into the water.
“I can do it,” Jennifer said. “I can climb it.”
Leo didn’t like it, but what choice did they have? Someone had to climb the trusses. Jennifer was the best suited for the job.
“Spill, you have a remote detonator for the C-4 bombs?” Leo asked.
“Yeah.”
“We wait until nightfall,” Leo said. “Jennifer and Spill, you’re one team. You’ll head back the way we came and hike through the woods to the main road. That will take you straight to the bridge. Do you think you can sneak onto the bridge without being seen?”
Jennifer took the binoculars and studied the entrance to the bridge. “It will be tricky, but not impossible in the dark. We’ll have to sneak off the road and slip through the brush. So long as we’re quiet and they’re not paying too much attention, we should be able to get past them and climb onto the bridge behind them.”
“Good,” Leo said. “You’ll climb the trusses and place the bombs. Spill, you take the C-4 and cover her from the ground. The rest of us will cover you from up here. It’s imperative you get on and off the bridge without being seen. We don’t want to blow the bridge until the busses arrive. The Russians can’t suspect we’re setting a trap.”
“We can do it,” Spill said. “We just need the rest of you to cover our asses in case anything goes sideways. Once the bombs are set, we can blow them anytime we want with the detonator.”
“Leo is a great shot. He’ll cover us ...” Jennifer’s voice trailed off, her brow puckering as she continued to look through the binoculars. “Did you guys get a good look at those soldiers? There’s something weird about them.”
“Let me see.” Leo took the binoculars and homed in on the soldiers. He immediately saw what Jennifer meant. “There’s something wrong with their skin. They have dark gray patches on their necks and faces.”
“All of them?” Cassie took the binoculars for a look. “They look sick. They’re sweating, too. One of the guys just sat down.”
“Maybe they caught the measles or chicken pox,” Bruce said. “Just because they’re immune to the zombie virus doesn’t mean they can’t get other kinds of sicknesses.”
“Maybe it’s polio and they’ll all be paralyzed,” Jennifer said. “It would serve them right.”
Leo didn’t think it was any of those things. He didn’t know what was wrong with those men, but he didn’t like the looks of them.
One soldier staggered to the side of the road and vomited. Uneasiness crawled across Leo’s shoulders. All his instincts said to get the hell away from here.
“Cassie, what do you think?”
She studied the scene below them. He could tell by the dent above her left eyebrow that she was working through plays in her head.
“We exploit their weakness,” she said at last. “That’s what I would do if this was a chessboard. The Soviets are sick and distracted. We take advantage of that and push for checkmate by having Jennifer and Spill infiltrate the bridge.”
“My sister has spoken,” Jennifer said. “You guys cover us from up here. Leave the rest to Spill and me. Right, Spill?”
“In and out,” Spill agreed. “They’ll never know we were there.”
Chapter 42
Asters
THEY HAD A FEW HOURS before nightfall. Cassie and the others returned to the be
at-up old jeep to get some food and rest before their nighttime attack. Leo drew Cassie aside, pulling her into a clump of trees. She was happy for a few private moments with him.
She leaned into him as he pulled her into a hug, nestling her forehead against his neck. His back was supported by a tall tree.
“I have something for you.” Leo held up a small sprig of wild flowers. They were small purple blossoms that resembled daisies.
“Asters.” Cassie leaned her nose into the petals and inhaled the soft scent. “They’re so pretty. Thank you.”
“They’re the best I could do out here.” Leo tucked the sprig into the front pocket of her flannel shirt. “How are you holding up? You look worried.” He smoothed his hands down her back.
“There’s a lot of things to worry about.” She let out a long sigh, deciding to be brutally honest with him. “I knew what I was signing up for, but losing Griggs made it all the more real, you know? Almost losing you made it real.” She rested her hand lightly over his knife wound. “I’m scared, Leo.”
He kissed the base of her throat, lips lingering just above her black knight. His fingers fiddled with the pendant as he leaned back to look at her.
“I’m scared too, Cas. I probably shouldn’t tell you that. I should probably tell you that everything will be fine. That’s what a real leader would do, right?”
“I’d know you were lying.” She tightened her arms around him. “How does your side feel?”
“It’s fine.”
She poked him in the chest. “Liar.”
He smiled. “It hurts a little. I’ll take another Tylenol before tonight.”
They held each other, softly exchanging kisses. Cassie almost melted when his hand slipped under her shirt and caressed her stomach.
She’d been doing a lot of thinking on the drive here. Too much thinking, probably. Jennifer always said she had a tendency to overthink things. But Cassie had come to several conclusions.
a) There was a high probability none of them would make it back to the Cecchino family cabin. Between Russians, mutant zombies, and their mission to sabotage the Luma Bridge, the odds of survival were stacked against them.
Zommunist Invasion | Book 2 | Snipers Page 22