Peering groundward, she saw the ladder. It was only partially folded up and looked like a metal insect which had gone and died on a dirty windowsill. No care had been taken to hide it. It was just there in the open atop a dirt embankment that fell gradually away from the mostly flat, narrow track of dirt paralleling the wall. Pressed into the dirt and showing as narrow gray lines were a number of crisscrossing tire tracks. The only thing the tracks had in common was that they all ranged off to the north.
Sadly, Raven didn’t spot any bikes out in the open. Nor were there bumps in the ivy where one might be stashed.
The drop to the ground here was shorter: twelve feet or so, she guessed. She made sure the coast was clear in both directions then hung from the top of the wall by her fingers. This time she didn’t need to do any gymnastic moves. She just dangled for a beat or two, then let go.
After landing flat-footed on the track, the damp dirt making for a soft landing, she went to one knee and shouldered her rifle.
Determining she was still alone and fairly certain the Zs across the way hadn’t heard the single soft thud of her feet hitting the track, she struck off north, staying on the track but taking care to not disturb the tire imprints.
The tire tracks ended a couple of hundred yards north where the dirt embankment suddenly became poured cement. It was scored to look like large rectangular tiles and rough against her boot soles. Muddy tire tracks on the gradual decline told Raven that the riders had turned here and ridden down to the freeway, where all traces of them ended abruptly.
Raven walked down to the freeway and paused beside a stalled-out CDOT Ford F-450. In the truck’s bed was a darkened traffic update reader board. She imagined when last it was lighted up, the words had read: DANGER - ZOMBIES AHEAD!
Looking east, she spotted a bubble of light that had to be the distant North Gate. Swinging her gaze forward, she saw a couple of dozen Zs. They had followed the next ramp off the freeway and become trapped behind the row of barricades and Jersey barriers blocking the outlet. An overhead sign told her the off-ramp in question fed the neighborhood where she expected to find the house Daymon had shown her.
In the middle distance was a small herd of zombies, maybe thirty total. They were in a tight group and trundling through a copse of trees planted along the sloped embankment. Every footfall kicked up dirt that presented as little gray-white eruptions. Viewed through the goggles, the eruptions called to mind the surface of the angry Pacific during a winter storm.
Pulling up fifty feet short of the herd, she cut ninety degrees right from the freeway and tackled the treeless end of the embankment head on.
Hairs on her neck standing to attention, she put one foot in front of the other, careful to not make any noise that could be heard over the dry rasps and moans made by the rancid pack of first turns.
The handful of times her boot soles triggered tiny mud avalanches, the dead whipped their heads in her direction. Each instance, as she went stock-still and returned the curious glares from the safety of the all-encompassing darkness, those slack-jawed skull-like faces—as presented in the white-phosphor display—added a new level of horror to a world she thought could no longer faze her.
It was as if someone had powdered their faces, gouged out their eyes, then jammed shiny black marbles in place of them. It was so disconcerting, she almost wished for the old NVGs that showed everything in varying shades of green. Halfway to the top of the embankment, she said to hell with it, took a knee, and switched the NVGs off. She told herself it was to conserve batteries, when in reality, she feared that engaging the dead in one more protracted staring contest might be enough to break her will to continue. Send her slinking back to the Antlers empty-handed.
Just as her heart rate was getting back to normal, she detected the low growl of an engine. It was definitely diesel and laboring hard. Turning in the general direction the sound had come from, she switched the NVGs back on.
The moment the display flared back to life, she saw two things that created mixed feelings within her. On the plus side, she watched a multi-wheeled truck emerge from No-Man’s-Land, cross the overpass, turn down the ramp, and come to a full stop behind the Jersey barriers.
In the negative column, the dead that had been climbing the embankment, every stinking last one of them, lost all interest in the prey they were following. As the undead mob turned abruptly and fixed those shark-eyed stares on the Pikers riding in the back of the truck, any hope Raven had of them unwittingly leading her to the tattooers’ house was squashed like a bug.
With the Pikers already introducing the dead to their sharpened javelins, Raven made lemonade out of lemons, climbing the rest of the way up the embankment and slipping silently into the Exclusionary Zone.
Chapter 59
Bonneville, Oregon
In the twenty minutes since Jedi One’s harried launch from the parking pad behind Maryhill Museum, Cade had broken down his rifle, cleaned and oiled the important integral components, then reassembled it. Now, as the helo raced west, just feet over the Columbia River’s choppy surface, he was working on reloading the magazines he’d burned through.
Adrenaline from the combat high was just beginning to dissipate. As a result, his hand tremors had gone from a ten on the Richter Scale to maybe a five. So far nobody seemed to notice. If they had, nobody mentioned it. Probably because it was normal, with everybody experiencing it to one degree or another.
While the usual adrenaline dump had sharpened Cade’s senses and contributed somewhat to his performance, the severity of the aftereffects had taken him by surprise. He didn’t recall ever suffering such a long-lasting palsy.
Chalking the phenomena up to the fact that he was not too far removed from an actual life-or-death encounter, and that his last—being shot and then tortured by the Chicoms—actually saw him on the doorstep of the latter, he snugged the full mags into their slots on his chest rig, crossed his arms, then tucked his hands in his armpits where they’d be out of sight.
Cross leaned across the dimly lit cabin and thrust something in Cade’s direction. “PowerBar?”
Cade shook his head. “I’m good,” he stated. “I’m saving my appetite for when we get to where we’re going.” He looked up and smiled as a fond memory of home crossed his mind. Dropping his gaze to Cross, he went on, saying, “I know where all the good stuff is stashed.”
Cross said nothing. He unwrapped the bar, wolfed it down, and chased it with a long pull off an energy drink.
Flashing his easy smile, Nat said to Cade, “I have a five-hour pick-me-up if you want one.”
Cade was staring out his window. Though he could see only snippets of the landscape below, he knew they were overflying the spot in the Columbia River Gorge where the terrain slowly morphed from hardscrabble high desert to the rough mountainous terrain and lush green forest the Pacific Northwest was best known for.
Holding a hand toward Nat, Cade said, “I’m good. Protecting Ari’s tail rotor woke me right up.”
“You’re not good,” Griff shot. “Looks like Captain’s got a case of the jazz hands. You always come down hard like that?”
Cade glared across the cabin at the SEAL. While the man was an equal opportunity ballbuster, Cade hadn’t expected to be called out by him in public. Knowing that the DEVGRU guys pulled no punches when it came to critiquing their own, he took it as an act of affection and let it slide.
Ari unexpectedly entered the conversation. “Reminds me of a joke,” he said. “An oldie but a goodie. Who wants to hear it?”
Skip had been training the red beam from his tactical light on the laminated map on his lap. Hearing Ari’s question in his headset, the crew chief shook his head and made a slashing motion across his throat.
Haynes came on the comms next. “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I better take the stick.”
Ari said, “Haynes has the bird.”
Skip said, “Here we go,” and leaned away from his window, settling the flashlight’s beam on A
ri in the right-front seat.
Taking his hands and feet from the flight controls, Ari lifted his NVGs up and said, “Everyone’s heard of the world-famous Epileptic Diet, right?”
Crickets.
Ten seconds passed.
Finally, Griff said, “Spit it out, already.”
“Close, but no cigar,” Ari quipped.
Five more seconds passed.
“Five minutes out,” Haynes said, banking the Ghost Hawk hard to port, overflying a sprawling business park lit up in the orange glow of halide lights that had to be fitted with solar panels.
Taking Haynes’ warning as his cue to get on with it, Ari said, “The Epileptic Diet consists of a shake for breakfast. A shake for lunch. And a sensible dinner.”
Cade had a perfect view of Ari as he recited the joke. Each time the aviator said “Shake” (as if suffering a seizure) he had convulsed violently in his seat. After the second put-on attack of whole-body shakes, the pilot had leaned between the front seat and fixed the customers in back with an expectant gaze.
Griff started the slow clap. Soon, everyone but Cross had joined in.
“I’d take a bow,” Ari said, “but I need to retake the stick.”
In his headset, Cade heard the pilots of the other two helos state their intention to break formation and vector off for their loiter LZ.
Responding next, Ari said, “One-Two. One-Three.” He paused. “One-One here. Good solid copy.” He signed out, saying, “Be sure to leave a light on for us.”
Haynes brought the bird back to level flight and handed the bird over to Ari just as the helo entered a rain squall. As the bombardment on the radar-absorbing skin rose to a sonic tempest, Cade could barely hear the cockpit chatter piped into his helmet.
As per usual in early spring, Portland and its suburbs were under a near-constant barrage as storms rolled in from the Pacific Ocean some sixty miles to the west.
Driving the stealth helo deeper into the airspace over Gresham, Oregon, Ari came on the shipwide comms. “No sense in doing a recon of Target Bravo in this,” he reasoned. “We’ll have One-Three gather photo and video intel as soon as this weather breaks.”
If it ever breaks, thought Cade. He knew the rainy season in his former hometown: it stretched from roughly Labor Day weekend until July 4th, when Mother Nature saw fit to begin the usual two-plus months of solid sunshine. Sure, there were nice patches of weather bookending “summer”, but they were few and far between. He said, “Will this rain be adequate cover for you to get us closer to our loiter than the LZ in our original plan?”
Skip looked up from the map but said nothing. Clearly his job would be changing if the plan deviated in the slightest bit from the one already on the books.
Ari said, “I put Blue Thunder here in whisper-mode, I can insert you smack-dab on General Jinlong’s ball sack and he wouldn’t be any the wiser.”
Cade was well aware of Ari’s penchant to sometimes overstate the Ghost Hawk’s performance envelope. The aviator was also known to embellish his stories with pop-culture references—with Blue Thunder, an ‘80s television show featuring a high-tech helicopter, a favorite often revisited.
Cade asked, “Close? As in three blocks from the initial loiter, close?”
Ari answered, “Where exactly do you want to infil?”
The helicopter began to descend while Ari put it into a shallow turn to starboard. As he did so, he began to bleed airspeed, too.
“There’s Creston Park three blocks from our loiter. It’s roughly a quarter-klick north by west as the crow flies.”
“How’s the LZ?” Ari asked.
“It’s a patch of grass large enough to set the entire flight down, if need be. It’s about a quarter-mile around and ringed by a dozen or so hundred-foot-tall Douglas Firs. Creston School shares the park. It’s on the east edge and has a soccer field out back that’ll do in a pinch as a backup LZ.”
“Checks all the boxes,” Ari said. “What about our noise sig? Is it going to carry to Target Alpha?”
“Not with all this rain,” Cade answered. “And when we exfil … it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Because there won’t be any Chicoms left to hear good ol’ Blue Thunder,” Griff added.
Bristling, Skip looked up from the map. “It’ll work, Ari.” Flicking his eyes to Griff, he added, “Her name’s Elvira. Don’t you forget it.”
As the Ghost Hawk passed through a ground-hugging cloudbank, it shuddered subtly and lost a good chunk of altitude.
Pulling pitch and goosing the turbines to gain back some of the altitude, Ari said, “Seven minutes, gentlemen. Please return to your seats. Tray tables up. And please place all electronic devices on Airplane mode. And thank you for once again flying Night Stalker Airways.”
Cade smiled at that. He really had started to miss the adult company. The camaraderie shared by men willingly throwing themselves into the grinder. There was nothing quite like the bond they all shared. Not even close.
Cross tapped the glass near him. “Portland is your old stomping grounds, huh?”
“Yep,” confirmed Cade. “We are in my old stomping grounds. When we’re done cutting wire and slitting throats, I’d love to be able to treat you all to a pint at the pub near my place. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. Their kegs are probably all dry as a first turn crossing the Mojave.”
Nat shook his head slowly, side to side.
Griff groaned.
Cross clucked his tongue.
Coming back on the comms, Ari said, “Better stay in your lane, Delta. You do the face-shooting, I’ll provide the stand-up.”
Cade said nothing. However, he was smiling when Nat critiqued his comedic timing. “It’s not on point, bro. Not even close.”
“Understood,” Cade said, agreeably.
Cross and Griff were a flurry of activity, both busy readying their weapons and checking gear.
Skip had unbuckled and retrieved the thirty-foot-length of rope used by the team to fast-rope from the Ghost Hawk in the event, for some reason, it was not able to go wheels down on either of the LZs.
Outside it was still pissing rain.
Cade unbuckled and moved to the front of his seat. He flipped his NVGs down and powered them on. As the full-color display lit up, he noticed that the rest of the team had followed his lead.
Extending his pointer finger, Skip silently informed the Delta Team they were one minute out.
As the whirr and clunk of the landing gear deploying and locking in place sounded in the cabin, Cade was busy crossing himself and uttering a prayer under his breath.
When Ari announced, “Thirty seconds out” over the onboard comms, the minigun was fully deployed and Skip was on high alert, aiming the six-barreled personnel shredder groundward.
As Jedi One’s wheels touched down on grass Cade and Raven used to play Frisbee and Tee-Ball on, the cabin door stopped in its tracks, locked in the full-open position.
Skip said, “Out, out, out,” and started calling out the contacts flooding out of the park’s heavily treed areas.
Chapter 60
After avoiding the Pikers’ operation on the freeway ramp, Raven had left the NVGs powered on and immediately picked up her pace.
The deeper she pushed into the EZ, the more zombies she spotted going in the opposite direction. A couple of times, as she neared the cross street that fed to the distant North Gate, she was forced to double back a block or two in order to avoid large packs of Zs drawn south to the bubble of light rising over the quiet, tree-lined streets.
Thirty minutes after making it over the wall on her ladder fashioned from garbage cans and bicycles, she had found the intersection she was looking for. It was lorded over by a pair of seventy-five-foot-tall oak trees facing off from opposing corners. Maybe two hundred feet due east of the intersection was the yellow bungalow Daymon had fingered as belonging to the tattoo parlor terrorists.
Keeping to the sidewalk, Raven entered the block on the north side of the
street. Her search for a place to surveil the bungalow lasted all of a minute. The two-story Craftsman directly across the street from the bungalow was the only home in a row of four that had an intact front door. Like the others, the door had been marked on by the cleanup crews coming through the city early on.
Now, nearly an hour into her covert excursion, she was crouched down behind a compact Toyota Corolla across the street from and two houses west of the bungalow.
Parked out front and blocking a driveway running from the street to the one-car garage tucked behind the bungalow was a black Ford Econoline van. Painted in big white letters on its side: Loretta Jean’s Pies. Strangely, the address to the establishment was in Montana. Deepening the mystery was the California license plate affixed to the van’s front bumper.
At first sight, Raven was certain the van hadn’t been parked there the day before. She would have remembered anything that conjured up the images now taking up residence in her head. What she wouldn’t give right now for a big slice of banana cream pie heaped high with the kind of whipped cream her mom used to make. Real whipped cream. With lots of sugar and vanilla. Mom’s secret ingredients. Of which she had learned only recently from Tran were basically the only two ingredients, save for fresh cream—a commodity nearly impossible to come by in the apocalypse.
With no siblings to battle for the mixer beaters, Raven always got to lick them both clean.
Peering around the car’s bumper, Raven viewed the two reasons she wasn’t already inside the Craftsman and surveilling the tattooers.
Pacing the sidewalk out front of the Craftsman was a pair of Zs. While she could easily grant the recent turns a quick second death, hustle up the walkway and break into the two-story, the sudden appearance of two freshly killed corpses on a street free of corpses would not go unnoticed by people clearly up to no good and probably pretty good at watching their backs.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home Page 31