“You two can walk home if you want.”
Ignoring the threat, Raven said, “Twenty each for me and Daymon. Nineteen for you, Duncan.”
“Why am I getting shorted?”
Addressing Duncan, Daymon said, “Just be happy you’re not walking back.” Regarding them both, he added, “And make sure those bags are double knotted. I don’t want Heidi smelling like a burial detail taxicab.”
Chapter 7
Eighteen miles west of Yoder, Colorado
Raven shifted in her seat and leaned against the wadded-up seat cover, crushing the plush item down to half its normal size. “This thing is cushy,” she said. “Who’s it for? Come on, Duncan … you can tell us.”
Shaking his head, Duncan said, “If I tell you—”
“He’ll have to kill you,” interrupted Daymon. “Old Man is probably going to put it on that ugly burnt-orange Scandinavian recliner of his. I bet it’s to keep his hemorrhoids at bay as he watches M.A.S.H. reruns while Glenda’s slaving away at work.”
Outside Raven’s window, bearing only the tire tracks left there earlier by the Bronco’s eastbound passage, the laser-straight run of Highway 94 scrolled by like bad news on a heart monitor. Eyes narrowed, she asked, “What exactly is a hemorrhoid? And what is Smash?”
Grimacing, Duncan looked to Daymon. “It’s your can of worms that just got opened, my friend. Means you get to tell the young lady all about ‘em.”
Daymon’s first instinct was to tell her to Google it. Instead, he gave her a sanitized definition, likening a hemorrhoid to a pimple, that of which had yet to arrive on her face.
Head tilted, gaze locked on Duncan, she said, “On your butt?”
Duncan didn’t respond to the question. Instead, he launched into a bland description of M.A.S.H that had Raven waving him off after a few seconds.
Daymon rolled his window partway down and pointed across the high plain. Cutting Duncan off midsentence, voice full of sarcasm, he said, “Look … it’s our old home.”
To their left, a mile or so distant, was Schriever Air Force Base. The rambling affair, complete with barracks and a handful of two-and three-story buildings, was garrison to the Air Force’s 50th Space Wing: the agency tasked with controlling the United States’ small fleet of military satellites.
A dead giveaway to Schriever’s main purpose was a Death-Star-looking sphere that no doubt housed all kinds of sensitive communications gear. Further breaking up the horizon were the multitude of antennas and oversized satellite dishes atop the buildings crowding in on the thirty-foot-tall sphere.
Only half joking, Duncan said, “With all those dishes, I bet they already got DIRECTV back up and running.”
“Why,” Raven quipped, “to torture us with crappy reruns?”
Daymon bumped fists with the tween.
“Here’s our welcoming party,” Duncan drawled.
Roughly a hundred yards beyond the opposite lane, the recently erected twelve-foot-tall run of concertina-wire-topped perimeter fence was but a gray blur. On the other side of the first layer of defense for the vulnerable base, its twin whip-antennas rising above the coiled razor wire, was a lone Humvee. Protruding from the desert-tan vehicle’s roof-mounted cupola, waving a gloved hand above the Browning heavy machine gun, was the same soldier from the Army’s storied 4th Infantry Division who’d watched them heading outbound a couple hours prior.
Duncan said, “Well, you going to respond to the sergeant, or just let him continue waving at us like a pageant girl?”
Daymon stuck his arm out the window and flashed a thumbs up. “I’m only doing this for you, Old Man. You know damn well he’s bored as hell out here and about to hit us on the—”
On cue, the long-range radio in Duncan’s lap emitted a short burst of squelch. A tick later the mobile sentry whose call sign for the day was Boulevard Three-Two began peppering them with questions.
“Boulevard Three-Two hailing the neon-green civilian victor, how copy?”
Raising the radio to his mouth, a half smile parting his lips, Duncan thumbed the talk key. “Boulevard Three-Two, this is Old Man Actual. Solid copy.” Releasing the talk key, he elbowed Daymon and chuckled.
“That’s mean,” Raven said. “He’s just doing his job.”
“But he’s always so formal,” Daymon replied. “Victor? C’mon already. He could have just as easily said vehicle.”
“How’s the hunting out there?” asked the sergeant.
Duncan said, “Well worth the gas it took to get us there.”
“Good to hear, brother. When you get back to Springs, hoist a cold one for me. Three-Two out.”
Knowing full well that wasn’t happening, at least if he wanted to live another day, Duncan keyed to talk and said, “Copy that. We’ll be thinking of you, Sergeant Bolan. Stay frosty out here.” Dropping the radio to his lap, he looked to Daymon. “What’s the count up to?”
A look of confusion ghosted across the dreadlocked man’s face.
Sighing, Duncan said, “How many cans of spray paint do you have on this wannabe Lu Lu of yours?”
“Try cases,” Daymon answered. “I just broke open the second one yesterday. So about fifteen cans.” He displayed his right hand for all to see. The nailbeds and tips of his fingers were stained green. “I still need to add another coat of paint and one or two of clear.”
Mesmerized by the fence scrolling by, Raven said, “Zombie blood and guts are going to show up on it real nice.”
Duncan stared dreamily at the roof. He said, “When I got back to the world, my account flush with cash I earned in Nam, I wanted to buy myself a Dodge Challenger. Had to be Sublime Green, kind of like your old girl, Lu Lu. I wanted the black hood and accents. Maybe the vertical stickers running down the side.”
Upshifting, Daymon said, “Hemi?”
Duncan fixed a no duh gaze on his friend. “Hell yeah,” he shot. “With the Shaker-style hood, too.”
“Why didn’t you buy it?” Raven asked.
“Because I drank and gambled my money away. Lasted about one summer. Not the first time I pulled a stunt like that.” He fixed her with a no-nonsense stare. Let it linger for a few seconds, then added, “Never, ever pick up that first drink. And if you gamble … set yourself a spending limit.”
Raven didn’t know what to say to that, so she sat back and stared out the window.
Daymon had heard the stories detailing his friend’s many attempts at self-destruction. With nothing to add, he merely shrugged and kept his eyes on the road.
***
A couple of minutes after the first interrogative radio call, they passed a sign announcing the main road into Schriever.
South Enoch Road was a two-lane affair bisecting 94, right to left.
On the left, completely sealing off access to Schriever’s distant northwest entrance, was a heavily fortified gate. Erected sometime after Cade and his family left Schriever for the Eden compound in Utah, the new entrance consisted of a heavy iron gate shored up by dozens of HESCO barriers—rock-filled mesh boxes used to construct blast walls.
Similar to the approach to some bases in the Sandbox, jersey barriers lined both sides of the lone drive leading to the gate. And to further thwart a vehicle intent on accessing the base uninvited, additional jersey barriers were arranged perpendicular to the sides of the cement chute. Placed at intervals meant to make incoming vehicles slow to a crawl and zigzag back and forth in order to navigate, the two-thousand-pound cement barriers were also effective at stopping even the largest of vehicles from ramming through.
Flanking the closed gate, with dual guard towers looming over them, was a pair of multi-wheeled Stryker armored vehicles. Sweeping slowly right to left, both roof-mounted remote weapon stations, outfitted with .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine guns, acquired the Bronco and commenced tracking its steady approach.
With less than a hundred yards to go to the crossroads, the radio on Duncan’s lap emitted a burst of static. Before he could snatch it up,
a soldier in one of the Strykers identifying as Boulevard Three-Three was wishing them safe travels.
Waving at the desert-tan, eight-wheeled armored vehicles, Daymon set his jaw and shifted Heidi into her top gear.
Shortly after leaving the crossroads behind, the dense gray clouds that had been hanging over Schriever gave way to wispy horsetails of white that seemed to stretch all the way to the snow-covered flanks of the distant Rocky Mountains.
With another sixteen miles or so to go through what Duncan liked to call “Indian country”—the unpatrolled no-man’s land between Schriever and Springs—everyone in the Bronco sat tall in their seats, weapons came out, and all eyes probed the darkened strip malls and abandoned subdivisions scrolling by outside their windows.
As they passed by a six-car pileup, the rusty vehicles still tangled together and languishing in the elements, Daymon looked to Duncan. “When’s the last time you heard of a brigand attack going down out here?”
“Day after we got here,” Duncan said, covering his nose with his sleeve. “A couple out on a firewood run got ambushed somewhere inside the Yellow Zone. Their rig was found stashed at the wrecking yard we passed on the way out. Both corpses were stuffed into a pair of fifty-five-gallon drums.” He went quiet for a moment, unsure if he should say what he was thinking, lest it reopen his friends’ old wounds.
“Why hide the bodies?” Daymon said. “Can’t throw a rock inside the YZ without hitting one.”
In a low voice, Duncan said, “Because they’d been stripped of their flesh.”
Having lost his Heidi in a similar fashion, Daymon swallowed hard and focused on the road.
Chapter 8
Two miles west of Schriever, with another two to go before reaching the newly reopened and heavily guarded Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, the pong of decaying flesh riding the crisp afternoon air became nearly unbearable as it infiltrated the Bronco’s drafty cab.
Moments later they came upon the latest in a long row of dozens of massive communal graves. Carved into the hard, high plain soil, the rectangular scar in the earth looked to be about the size of a football field. Though the pit’s edges were still dark—which led Duncan to believe it was, at most, a couple of days old—it was already filled to brimming with thousands of stiffened twice-dead zombie corpses.
Like whitecaps on an angry ocean, tufts of snow frozen on high spots in the drift of death sparkled like diamonds in the emerging sun. And as if the dead were struggling to stay above water, here and there arms and legs broke the illusory surface.
Duncan found that if he looked real hard, he could make out shriveled heads complete with windblown wisps of hair and mouths frozen in silent Os. As the Bronco clipped on by, the accusatory gazes seemed to follow.
Taking his eyes off the road for a tick, Daymon scrutinized the surreal scene. Recalling the time he had been running outside Schriever’s perimeter wire and had inadvertently careened into an open pit teeming with sun-baked corpses, he threw a shiver and felt his heart race. He had thrust his arms out to break his fall but had only succeeded in breaking through taut, pallid skin and putrefying organs. Though the event was old history, as he relived it, he heard in his head the wet pop that came when his arm plunged elbow-deep into the dead Z’s chest cavity.
At the time he had cursed like a merchant marine and reflexively yanked his arm free of the sucking cavity.
Now, he cringed and strangled the steering wheel as in his mind’s eye he saw his hand emerge along with long, greasy ropes of ruptured, feces-covered lower intestine.
The only thing close to surmounting the onslaught of putrid air following his unintended hand plant was the sulphur-like stink of gasses rushing from the bloated corpses that had continued to settle under the weight of his prostrate body.
The eruption of wet farts was quickly followed by tremors of movement and raspy moans as the string of expletives roused an unseen number of unfortunate living dead that had become entombed along with their lucky twice-dead brethren.
Though he had contemplated retelling the story as a cautionary tale, mostly for Raven’s benefit, he shoved the morbid memory away and did a short drum solo on the steering wheel, finishing with a little tap to the side of Hula Girl’s head.
Referring to the herd they’d just culled back in Yoder, he said, “That’s where our kills will eventually end up.”
“By all rights,” Duncan replied. “Hell, after what we’ve been through, that’s where we should be.”
Raven shook her head. “Not going to happen. We’re being looked over. I’m sure of it.”
Thankful for the diversion, Daymon relaxed his grip on the wheel. “By whom?” he asked.
“Who,” Duncan corrected. “Whom would imply there’s a whole gang of folks watching our six.”
Raven said, “God.”
“After all He has let happen to good people down here,” Daymon said, “I’m having a real hard time believing He has our best interests at heart.”
As if saying Suit yourself, Raven shrugged and resumed staring out her window.
Duncan also went silent as he caught sight of humongous mounds of snow-dusted earth that would soon cover the pit and conceal Omega’s handiwork from the prying eyes of future generations. Out of sight, out of mind wasn’t as easy as it sounded, because there were at least twenty or thirty pits, all containing tens of thousands of bodies. The evidence of the misery Omega had inflicted on man stretched away to the south, as far as the eye could see.
Rising a few feet above the mini white mountains was a pair of dead sleds—mega dump trucks weighing three-hundred-tons—each capable of hauling nearly their weight in corpses.
Dwarfed by the haulers and nearby piles of excavated dirt was a vast motor pool consisting of desert-tan D-10 dozers, Day-Glo yellow excavators, safety-orange CDOT road graders, and a trio of oversized steam rollers. Like faithful soldiers awaiting marching orders, dozens of mobile, solar-powered light standards were left arranged in neat lines on the pit’s periphery. Whether the heavy equipment was idled by Mother Nature, a lack of warm bodies willing to operate them, or a combination thereof, Duncan hadn’t a clue.
Looking to Daymon, he said, “Bet they’re going to need someone who knows how to move dirt around. Didn’t you do a lot of that in your previous life? Cutting fire lanes and such?”
Flashing the older man a sour look, Daymon said, “Let’s keep that little tidbit of info between you and me.”
Duncan chuckled and slapped his thigh. “I’ve got something on you, now, young man.”
Soon the view out the left-side windows turned to wide-open snow-covered plain broken up by scrub brush, scattered homesteads, and the occasional white-flocked tumbleweed.
A handful of minutes later, with the stink of death nearly scoured from the cab, the sprawl of buildings and lone control tower making up Colorado Springs Airport materialized off the Bronco’s left front fender.
Partially blocking the stunted skyline of the nation’s new capital, the airport’s sprawling cement footprint was a beehive of activity, most of it taking place north of the runway on tarmac belonging to Peterson Air Force Base.
Massive hangars, some with their floor-to-ceiling rolling doors yawning open, lined the north side of the shared space. A half-dozen black helicopters, their rotor blades tied down, contrasted greatly against the snow-blanketed apron they sat upon.
To ensure ongoing air operations, liberated fuel arrived almost daily aboard aerial tankers tasked with finding and tapping distant underground tank farms.
Convoys of semi-trucks, some of them towing double and triple tanks, were returning weekly from airports far and wide, their full loads of JP8 quickly filling Peterson’s vast network of underground storage tanks.
Coming up on treed acreage that had to be a golf course, the four-lane jogged left and became Platte Avenue. Simultaneously, as Peterson Air Force Base slid to the right and filled up the windshield, a pair of A-10 Thunderbolt II jets lifted, one at a time, i
nto the brightest blue sky Duncan had seen in a long while.
The aircraft formed up wingtip to wingtip, passed over the Bronco, then banked hard to the northwest, their twin engines howling like a winter squall.
“A ground pounder’s best friend,” Duncan said. “Wish we had those birds in Nam. Would’ve cooled down a lot of hot LZs.”
“Having a couple of those on station might have saved you a couple of hard landings,” Daymon noted. “Hell, you probably wouldn’t have the problem you do now with sitting for long durations.”
Exasperation showing in his tone, Duncan said, “The damn seat cover is not for me. And my roids aren’t that bad.”
Running interference for Old Man, Raven said, “My dad told me those things saved him and Mike Desantos one time.”
“Probably more than once,” Daymon said. “Your dad was a bad guy magnet. I can’t imagine what it was like being around him in a whole country full of bad guys. Must have had to stay extra frosty when in Wyatt’s orbit.”
Raven buried her face in her hands. Stayed in that position for a moment. When she rose up, she wiped her eyes on a sleeve and peered out the windshield. In the middle distance, maybe half a mile away, was the beginning of Colorado Springs’ Red Zone—a blocks-wide swath of burned and bulldozed ground that encircled the city just outside its drastically reduced perimeter. It got its name from the no-go zones marked clearly in red on all official maps of the new capital.
In the residential area they were passing through—still technically the Yellow Zone—garbage cans and recycling bins put out in front of some of the homes awaited sanitation trucks that were never coming.
Dead traffic lights swayed lazily over intersections blocked on both sides with inert vehicles shored up from behind by cement jersey barriers.
They passed by a long line of abandoned cars, pickups, and SUVs snaking around the block from a boarded-up Shell station. Someone had spray-painted NO GAS across the sign offering all grades of the finite commodity for an obscenely inflated price.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home Page 5