District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  The next flashcard featured a distressed-looking woman with exaggerated red bite marks running up one outstretched arm. Again, the delicate vertical writing meant nothing to him. The image, however, all but screamed: infected.

  And none too surprising to Cade: The documents, diaries, and weapons he had hurriedly policed up were very similar to the items he and Duncan had taken from the undead Chinese Special Forces scouts outside of Huntsville only a couple of days ago. However, somewhat startling was the stark realization that these MANPAD-armed PLA SF soldiers were less than a hundred miles west of Colorado Springs.

  Sensing eyes on him, Cade sidestepped the rising smoke and peered west down the length of the unnamed two-lane. Roughly a mile distant, judging by their stilted gait and that they were loping along on the centerline in a loose knot, he realized a handful of dead were onto them and shambling his way.

  Damn, he thought as he turned back to face Jedi One-One. The persistent rotten bastards are everywhere now. Even on a lonely stretch of road in the metaphorical shadows of the majestic Rocky Mountains.

  As the weary operator covered the distance from the scene of carnage to the awaiting helo, arms filled with items stripped from the enemy and his own slung M4 banging against his back, he noticed the matte-black bird suddenly go light and bouncy on her gear—a dead giveaway that Ari was eager to spool power, pull pitch, and get them all the hell out of Dodge.

  Chapter 30

  Causing everyone save for Daymon to turn in unison, the door to the outside creaked and the curtain divider fluttered. At the head of the aisle, having just returned from the vehicles, Oliver emerged through the curtains, breathing hard and carrying a red nylon first-aid kit. He unzipped the kit and from a plain-looking box the size of a cigarette pack he fished out a couple of white fabric-wrapped capsules and passed them off to Lev.

  There was a soft crunching sound followed instantly by a heady eye-watering blast of ammonia when Lev rolled both capsules between his thumb and forefinger. Turning his head away, he waved his closed fist directly underneath Daymon’s nose.

  One pass was all it took to snap the former BLM firefighter back to the present. He leaned to his left to see around the pistol hanging off of Lev’s right hip.

  Sure enough, he hadn’t been seeing things. The reanimated skeleton was affixed to a giant cross that was sure as hell not a fixture original to the church. Still gawking at the surreal spectacle, he accepted a hand up from Lev and thanked him for bringing him back from his shock-induced stupor.

  “You would have done the same for me,” Lev said, setting off down the aisle toward Jamie, who was angling in to finish the job started by the people who had skinned and flayed the poor man.

  Head still spinning ever so slightly, Daymon stopped shy of the raised carpeted platform and took a deep, steadying breath. “Shit,” he said, exhaling. “First sight of this one took me right back to a place I never wanted to revisit.”

  “I won’t even ask,” Jamie said. “Damn good to see you’re back with us, though.” War tomahawk in hand, she turned and, going up on her tippy toes, took one wide arcing swing at the Z’s gently bobbing skull. The blow was a perfect “one-timer” as she’d heard Cade call a single bullet-saving Z kill. There was a loud crack and the living skeleton’s upper body went limp, all with little energy expended on Jamie’s part. Furthermore, the sound made by steel cleaving bone meant a bullet was saved for a “rainy day,” the new catch phrase being bandied about Eden. Rainy and snowy days were coming, which made these last-minute runs outside the wire all the more necessary.

  Daymon bobbed like a boxer to avoid a hurtling sliver of hair-covered bone. Raising a brow at the close call, he looked over his shoulder towards the foyer, where Wilson, Taryn, and a panting Max were filling up the doorway. The thick burgundy-colored curtains used to seal off the sanctuary during mass crowded them on both sides, blocking the view behind. For a half-beat Daymon entertained the idea of asking where Oliver was, then thought better of it. Sink or swim. He’ll be the better for it.

  Swinging his gaze forward, Daymon ignored the slumped creature and instead focused on the cross. The upright was a four-by-four post with a substantial amount of cured concrete still clinging to the end resting on the dais. Dried clods of dirt had cleaved off the medicine-ball-sized plug of cement and lay scattered about the floor behind the polished wood pulpit. Some of the clods were flattened into irregular circles that bore distinct prints from some kind of footwear with lug soles.

  Seeing Oliver join the others now forming a rough half-circle around him, Daymon cocked his head and stared at the writing on the wall above the cross. Scrawled in a barely legible hand and likely with the crucified man’s own blood was the question: WHO THE FUCK IS THE WICKED?

  Bracketing the query on all four corners were sets of words and numbers. All four of what could only be Bible verses were scribbled with the same kindergarten-like sloppiness.

  “What the eff?” Daymon said, crossing his arms.

  “I have no idea what to make of the question,” Jamie said. “But those are—”

  Finishing for her, Oliver said, “Bible verses.”

  Without consulting each other, Wilson and Taryn moved quietly between the pews and returned with three Bibles apiece.

  “Great minds …” Lev said. “Gimme one of those.”

  Taryn handed Lev and Jamie their own King James.

  After distributing his extras to Oliver and Daymon, Wilson cracked his. Flicking his eyes to the numbers on the wall, he began leafing through the parchment-like pages.

  “Let’s see … Galatians 5:15, where are you?” He flipped pages for a moment then cleared his throat and began to read. “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”

  Taryn said, “Top right corner. Acts 15:29. That ye abstain from meats obtained to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.” She made a face and looked a question at Wilson, who simply shrugged and continued thumbing through the Bible.

  Daymon sat down hard on the front pew. “This one is heavy duty. 1 Peter 5:8.” He drew a breath and went on. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour …” He went quiet, eyes parked on the butchered Z.

  “I’ve got the last one,” Jamie said.

  Imitating an English barrister, Daymon lowered his voice and said, “Please cede the floor to the lady from Eden.”

  “Salt Lake,” she corrected. “Revelation 22:13. I an Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Now that’s come creepy, cryptic shit. Whoever did all of this”—with one arm, she made a sweeping motion at the wall—“I want nothing to do with them.”

  “Too late,” Wilson said, soberly. “We’re hip deep in it. All of it.”

  “Weather’s probably going to be mild again tomorrow,” Daymon said, still staring at the whole surreal scene. “I say we go back to Eden and regroup. Pick Duncan and Glenda’s brains. She might know more about Bear Lake. At the least we can consult an atlas and see what we’re looking at.”

  “Looking at?” Oliver sneered. “We’re looking at twenty more miles of zombie-infested road between here and Bear Lake. All the while we have to be on the lookout for psycho killers who just so happen to enjoy setting up Omega-tainted traps. That’s all. What could go wrong?”

  Rising off the pew, Daymon said, “That’s the attitude we’re not looking for. Keep thinking that way, Oliver, and you’re going to end up like him.” Then, as if he hadn’t just been kneeling there a few minutes ago in a near catatonic state, he strode down the aisle, seemingly without a care in the world.

  Eden Compound

  “Brook,” bellowed Heidi, “a man from Bear River wants to talk to you.”

  Two turns away, behind the closed door of the Graysons’ quarters, Raven slid off the lower bunk and tossed her mom a te
e shirt several sizes too big for the petite woman.

  “Does your back feel any better, Mom?”

  After rising up from her stomach with no attempt to cover herself, Brook spun around on the bunk and planted her feet on the wood floor. “I hate to say it, honey, but the pain is worse now than ever. Thank you, though. I appreciate all the massages you, Sasha, and Glenda are lavishing on me. You especially are getting way better at it. I ought to call you fingers of steel or something like it.”

  Pouting a little, Raven said, “No thanks … that sounds like a wrestler’s name.”

  “Like Nacho Libre,” Brook said, suppressing a smile and wondering fleetingly what had become of Jack Black after the shit hit the fan in Los Angeles.

  With a blank look on her face, Raven ignored the reference to Mexican food and said, “What do you think will make your back feel better?”

  “Just time, I suppose, sweetie. Just time.” Brook doubled over as a coughing fit gripped her.

  Raven rose from the bed, face a mask of concern.

  Wiping a rope of spittle from her lip, Brook faked a half-smile and straightened out the shirt. Forgoing her only bra, which three months into the apocalypse was threadbare and mostly just wire and straps, she shrugged on the shirt and rose gingerly. Then, hiding the true amount of pain she was experiencing, a seven or eight on the scale of one to ten she used to query her patients with, she grabbed her gun belt and headed off toward the security pod.

  “Brook!” Heidi called again, her voice echoing off the low metal ceilings.

  “I’m coming. I’m coming,” Brook said. “Keep your—.” She bit her tongue. Figuratively, of course. No reason to say the wrong thing and risk setting Heidi off again. The woman was even-keeling it at the moment. She’d found her baseline with the meds and most of the credit went to Cade for having scavenged them. No longer was the twenty-something sequestering herself belowground. Lately she had been venturing topside without any sweet-talking from Daymon. She’d even come so far from the dark place she’d been languishing in to have managed two consecutive nights topside with him in the purloined RV. Or “Love Shack” as she’d heard Duncan refer to it as.

  Reaffixing the fake smile, Brook rounded the corner and calmly asked the young blonde who from Bear River needed her on the phone this instant.

  “Alexander,” Heidi said, balancing the sat-phone on her palm.

  Baseline my ass, Brook thought as she received the slim black Thuraya. You spoke too soon, Mrs. Grayson.

  “This is Brook,” she said.

  After offering up a few pleasantries, which Brook reciprocated, Dregan got down to brass tacks. “Have you or your people been by Ray and Helen’s place? You know, the stubborn elderly couple.”

  “No, we haven’t.” Recalling the aid she and the kids had received from the couple, she grew concerned. “You think they’re in danger?”

  “They’ve always answered their radio,” Dregan said. “I didn’t want to have to, but I’ll stir up some volunteers and go have a look.”

  Listening intently, Heidi sat back in her chair and fixed her gaze on Brook.

  Alarm creeping into her voice, Brook asked, “Is the horde back in the area? We’ve got people outside the wire. North, actually.”

  “No, no, no. We haven’t seen them since before the snow fell,” Dregan said, then started coughing, the fit lasting a few seconds. “I just didn’t want to waste fuel to do what a radio could. Though growing scarce, batteries are still easier to come by than fuel.”

  Not in our neck of the woods, Brook thought. “I’ll call Daymon and have them go to the Thagon farm and see what’s up.”

  More coughing on Dregan’s end.

  Heidi furrowed her brows. “Is he OK?” she mouthed.

  Brook grimaced as a lightning bolt of pain shot out from the scarring where the Z had bitten her. “Do you need anything, Dregan?”

  “No, Brook, my bones have already been thrown and come up snake eyes. It’s just a matter of time before the cancer takes me. It’s Gregory I’m concerned about. He’s not doing so well.”

  “The sutures aren’t holding?”

  “They’re fine. He’s up and about,” Dregan said. “But the infection, it’s back. In his lungs, though.”

  “Sounds like the flu. Or walking pneumonia. He was out in the elements for some time.”

  “There’s a bug going around Bear River,” Dregan conceded. “So you know, we’ve doubled the dose of antibiotics Glenda provided. We’ll have to wait and see if it helps.”

  “No,” she blurted. “The antibiotics are to knock down whatever bugs the rotter may have introduced into your son’s system when it took a bite out of him. They do not work on viral infections. Period.”

  Silence on Dregan’s end.

  After doing the math in her head, Brook said, “This means you now have less than a week’s worth left.”

  “You are correct, Brook.” Dregan said. “So begs the question … will I outlast the remaining pills?”

  “Don’t go there,” Brook said. “I’ll see what we have here that we can part with. If we have any narcotics … for your pain, I’ll see that you get those as well.”

  Dregan thanked Brook and reassured her that Eden would be the first to know when the rotters made their return visit.

  Brook thumbed off the satellite phone and swapped it for the long range CB. Raising the group outside the wire, she relayed the information regarding the Thagons’ radio silence as well as Dregan’s confirmation that there’d been no recent sightings of the migrating horde.

  Chapter 31

  Immediately after launching off the rocky, snow-crusted soil adjacent to the blood-spattered kill zone, Ari had spun the Ghost Hawk around in a tight one-eighty and resumed their near laser-straight flight path towards Colorado Springs. Before the gear had snugged into place in the belly of the bird, a thick blanket of silence had descended upon the once jovial atmosphere inside Jedi One-One.

  Now, thirty minutes removed from the close call with the Chinese FN-6 surface to air missile, Cade could see the red rock spires of Garden of the Gods on the distant horizon. Illuminated by the late afternoon sun, the National Park bordering the southwest edge of Colorado Springs was one of the prettiest places he had ever seen, though admittedly, each time he’d made its acquaintance, it had been from altitude and through the thick Plexiglas window of one type of aircraft or another.

  Beyond the reddish ochre expanse, downtown Colorado Springs was bookended to the south by 14,113-foot-tall Pikes Peak. And just as downtown Los Angeles had appeared clear as day over the horizon weeks earlier, the pollutant-free air here also let him make out the city’s sparsely appointed skyline from twenty miles out.

  By Los Angeles, or even Denver standards, the buildings in Springs were stunted. Roughly a dozen high-rises between twelve and twenty-two stories rose up from the city center. Dozens more smaller buildings, nearly all of them less than ten stories, were scattered around the periphery of the taller standouts.

  In just a handful of minutes the helo had drawn to within two miles of the darkened city. By this time Lopez was sitting up straight and at times grimacing and groaning softly. It was also when Cade first spotted the vast wall undulating across the landscape’s natural contours. Constructed from what appeared to be hundreds of cement freeway noise barriers, the type of which bracketed nearly every metropolitan stretch of road nationwide, the impressive feat of engineering lent the impression that the modern structures the wall encircled had been dropped there through some manipulation of time and space.

  The metal and glass stronghold throwing off the westering sun appeared to be in the clutches of a giant sleeping snake, its rigid cement spine made up of hundreds of individual panels that ran in straight lines on the west and east perimeters and arced gracefully where they met on the north and south ends. Modern meets medieval; the juxtaposition was stunning.

  Seeing Cade craning his head to make the most of the limited viewing angle afforded by t
he small porthole-style window, Cross said, “You’re looking at miles and miles of unbroken twenty-foot-tall cement wall. Wherever possible, the engineers fortified the interior with dirt berms. In the places where it runs over cement or blacktop they resorted to driving ten-foot steel rods into the ground to shore it up. They finished their work at Schriever weeks ago. I’ve no idea how many panels that took them to complete. Stripped most of it from the interstates north of Castle Rock and southwest of Denver and Aurora. Smaller panels sourced from Yoder and south near Pueblo were used to shore up Schriever and Cheyenne’s fences.”

  The helicopter banked softly to port and Cade felt the airspeed increase. A half-beat later, Ari said, “The engineers have drawn up plans to stretch the south perimeter to Carson in the next week or so. Eventually they will have the north perimeter moved all the way up to the Air Force Academy.”

  “Wow,” Cade said, eyes glued to the city below. “Any idea why the engineers didn’t just use the 25 and 21 as natural borders on the east and west?”

  “The overpasses and side streets were a pain in the ass to deal with. President Clay figured that as long as we were taking back the city, we might as well take it all the way to Garden of the Gods and maybe even Schriever sometime next year.”

  “We … damn easy call for her to make from deep inside Cheyenne Mountain,” Cade said, incredulous. “What Gaines, his 10th group and the 4th ID all started, the sacrifices that they made going door to door clearing the living dead, was no small feat.”

  “She’s a good leader,” Cross said.

  “I get that,” Cade said. “That’s a lot of work in a short amount of time. I just hope she gives them a break … that’s all. Maybe do the extension once the temperature drops and stays low for a stretch.”

  “If we waited for Mother Nature to green-light the expansion,” Ari added. “We may never get it finished.”