District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  “Almost there,” called Skipper.

  “Jedi One-Two and One-Three report Screamers deployed.”

  “I’m working on ours,” Skipper said, handing the first activated Screamer over to Cade. “One to go.”

  Cade unbuckled from his safety harness and then clicked the crew retention lanyard affixed to the helo’s bulkhead onto his MOLLE gear. As the helo powered through a tight turn, he fought against the G-forces to rise from his seat as the door beside him motored open.

  As if Jedi One-One’s avionics were hard-wired to Ari’s brain, in one fluid set of movements he snapped her back to level, increased RPMs to the rotors, and settled the black helo into an unwavering hover directly above a knot of stalled-out civilian vehicles clogging one of the parkway’s eastbound lanes.

  “There,” Ari barked. “In the middle of the snarl-up.”

  As Cade depressed the arming button, he sized up the kill zone. Obviously this stretch of highway was chosen for the ambush because of the low rock formation on the north side and dense copse of trees on the other. It was a textbook-perfect chokepoint in that the terrain didn’t allow for maneuver after the trap had been sprung. Respect growing for whoever decided to hit the PLA forces here, he underhanded the active Screamer out the door then craned and watched it plummet forty feet, carom off of an old sedan’s raggedy black vinyl top and disappear from view, belting out the high-decibel scream that proved loud enough to be heard above the helicopter’s whining turbines and baffled rotor chop.

  “Is the caravan of death and tree line south still clear?” Ari asked.

  Eyes still glued to the FLIR display, Haynes answered, “Still no body heat signatures. I’m only picking up hot spots from the smoldering fires and hot metal down there.”

  “Copy that,” Ari said, as he finessed the bird’s nose around to the left.

  Once the helicopter finished its rotation and began side-slipping to the east, Skipper handed Cade the second Screamer. Same routine as before; Ari hovered and called out a target. This time it was the arcing copse of trees south of and paralleling the divided four-lane.

  “Tree line, three o’clock,” Ari called over the comms. “Then seal her up and we’re going to the well for a drink.”

  Hanging partway out the open door, Cade activated the second diversionary device and let it roll from his fingers, watching it all the way to the ground where it bounced on the sloped roadside, rolled through the grass a short distance downhill, and became lodged at the base of a pair of juvenile dogwoods.

  “Six, ten split,” Cross called from his port-side seat.

  “Spot on to cow corner,” Axe exclaimed, garnering curious looks from Skipper and the Delta shooters.

  As soon as Cade heard the Screamer come alive, he returned to his seat, leaving the lanyard clicked to the bulkhead next to the door. Looking groundward, he saw the undead horde immediately lower their expectant gazes and lurch for the nearby guardrail, the ones already there spilling over and rolling down the hill even before the Ghost Hawk began to slip west over the column.

  “Cow corner?” Cross mouthed as the helo gathered forward momentum, pressing everyone into their seats.

  “Some strange English soccer term?” Griff pressed.

  “Cricket,” Axe said. “It’s a bloody cricket term and I’m not going to bother expounding on it. You gents wouldn’t appreciate the nuance anyway.”

  “Greek to me,” Griff said, cracking a smile.

  In his headset Cade heard the pilots of One-Two and One-Three report success in deploying their two remaining Screamers. Having completed their aerial refuel during the leg from Meade to the current GPS coordinates Nash had provided, there was no need for the Chinooks to form up with Jedi Lead so they thundered off to the east to let the Screamers do what they had been designed to do.

  After watching the Chinooks depart low over the trees, Ari made the subtle course corrections necessary for Jedi One-One to meet up with the tanker at the agreed-upon waypoint.

  Chapter 65

  Laketown, Utah

  The rotter had been mashing its face against the plate glass window, barely six inches from where Duncan was seated in the red vinyl booth, for the better part of an hour. With no lower mandible to keep its tongue in place, the constant pendulum-like-movement of the seven-inch length of bloated black flesh had created on the reverse side of the window a milky cataract the size of the Vietnam veteran’s wide-brimmed Stetson.

  Over the course of that hour, Foley had been pacing behind the counter, stopping now and again to engage Taryn or Jamie or Wilson in inane conversation.

  On the chipped Formica along with sets of salt and pepper shakers, placards declaring daily specials and bulging plastic ketchup bottles were a pair of AR-15 carbines and Taryn’s unholstered Beretta.

  Using a whetstone found in the kitchen area, Jamie had spent the time putting a fine edge on everyone’s blade then honed her tomahawk razor-sharp.

  “When are they going to get here?” asked Wilson, casting a glance over his shoulder at Duncan.

  The when are we going to get there act wearing thin on Duncan, he tore his gaze from the Make Out Bandit and rose, the black Saiga shotgun clutched in one hand. “Just be grateful Brook … or whoever swayed Dregan to come, was able to do so in the first place.”

  Changing the subject, Foley said, “Sounds like the folks outside of Garden City have a pretty elaborate setup.”

  “Same as Bear River,” said Jamie. “It’s not too hard to erect a few concrete barriers.”

  “Then why haven’t we done the same at the compound if it’s so easy?” Taryn asked.

  Wilson fielded the question. “They’d be a dead giveaway that someone was trying to protect some pretty cool toys and food—mostly the food—behind said recently installed barriers.”

  Duncan nodded, then turned toward the hideous sight relentlessly slathering up the nearby window.

  “Want me to take care of it?”

  “No, Foley. If more of them start showing up, we’ll take measures. Until then, just keep your eyes and ears open for our Bear River friends.”

  No sooner had Duncan uttered the words “Bear River friends,” than two things happened, one right after the other.

  First the low rumble of what sounded like a dozen approaching vehicles could be heard from the state route. Then the two-way radio sitting on Duncan’s table warbled to life and Daymon was calling for yet another update.

  Timing is everything, thought Duncan as he snatched up the radio. “Calvary is here,” he said to no one in particular as he made his way to the locked front door, inadvertently bringing the jawless zombie with him. Along the way he spoke into the Motorola. “Give me a second, Mister Patience,” he said. Without waiting for Daymon’s answer to that, he pocketed the radio and eyed the zombie still stalking him.

  “Here,” Jamie said, offering up the wooden handle of the knife-sharpening tool she’d been using on the blades. She nodded at the door. “It should fit through the mail slot.”

  “Smart,” Duncan said, hefting the tool and eyeing its ten-inch tapered metal shaft. He crouched down on his haunches, opened the metal flap with one hand, and stuck the fingers of his other through the horizontal opening. “Hey, Gene Simmons… come and get it.”

  The engine noise grew louder, but didn’t trump the fleshy digits wagging the air less than a yard distant. Rheumy eyes locked and tongue doing the grandfather clock back and forth swing, the undead man grabbed onto the horizontal push bar two-handed, dropped to his knees like a trapdoor had opened beneath him, and struck the door head first, starting a series of cracks running every which way from where his forehead struck the glass.

  Duncan pulled his fingers from the mail slot a tick before the jawless monster set the door to vibrating in its frame. He held the knife sharpener level with the slot, its tip keeping the one-way mail door propped open.

  “Come on,” Duncan called. “Work with me here.”

  What was left of the zom
bie’s upper teeth—mainly jagged stumps—scratched against the metal flap as its limp tongue deposited on the opening a thick rope of the same putrid excretion that was drying on the front window.

  “It’s not going to cooperate,” Jamie said. She craned to see around the pickups parked out front. “Dregan’s brought the Humvees.”

  Still probing the opening with the tool, Duncan said, “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “And?” He stabbed the zombie in the cheek hard enough to send it sprawling backwards onto its butt. Then there was a hollow thud as the back of its head hit the concrete, sending a vibration rippling under the door and up through his boot soles.

  “That had to hurt,” Foley said. He had come around the counter and was standing next to Jamie, the two of them casting a misshapen shadow over Duncan and the dusty Welcome rug he was kneeling on.

  Still wincing from the resonant sound of bone striking cement, Jamie cast her gaze on the road south. “I count four vehicles.”

  “Plus the Hummers?” Duncan asked as he rose creakily.

  “Counting the Hummers,” Jamie answered.

  A black and white SUV slid into the spot next to Duncan’s Dodge.

  Wilson crawled into a booth left of the door and pressed his face to the glass. “That’s Jenkins Tahoe,” he said, incredulous.

  Stick-on letters spelling out Bear River Police Department now covered the Jackson Hole PD markings.

  Standing beside an unoccupied booth, Duncan said, “Who’s in the blue truck?”

  “That’s old Ray,” Wilson said.

  Duncan snatched his shotgun off the floor and snicked the door lock open. “Four vehicles and what… seven bodies at the most?”

  The rotter was on all fours now, holding a sort of downward dog position with the crown of its head facing the door and its tongue nearly touching the ground.

  “I count five,” Taryn said, as the pair of Humvees rolled onto the drive-in’s lot behind the black and white.

  There was a screech of metal on metal as the battered blue pickup ground to a halt on the south side of the parking lot.

  Still scrabbling to stand, the rotter slapped the glass and pawed at the metal door handle.

  In one fluid movement, Duncan flipped the Saiga into the air and caught it atop the barrel one-handed. Simultaneously, with his off hand he unlocked the door then yanked it inward causing the zombie to pitch face first where it said Welcome on the rug.

  In a blur of movement, Duncan brought the shotgun’s butt straight down to the back of the monster’s skull, which had already been partially cratered by its earlier fall. Instantly the creature went still, a trickle of dark blood spilling from both ears.

  “Help me move this thing,” Duncan said to Wilson. “Jamie, greet Dregan and then sweep the lot for more rotters.”

  Wilson was up and helping as soon as Jamie had squeezed out the front door.

  After pulling the corpse inside, Duncan fished the radio from his pocket. He thumbed the Talk key. “Still there?”

  Daymon was back on at once. “How’s that for patience?”

  Duncan said nothing.

  “The weather’s lifted here,” Daymon went on. “How is it there?”

  “Rained enough to soften the bugs on our windshields. That’s about it. What are you seeing there now?”

  “You’re not going to believe what these fuckers are up to.”

  “Did you find Oliver?”

  “I think it’s him,” Daymon said, his voice softening. “And if it is him… he doesn’t look so good. He’s got road rash on his face and a broken leg ... looks like a real bad compound fracture.”

  “He’s walking around?”

  “No,” Daymon said. “He’s been put in one of those things. Those torture devices the Pilgrims locked people up in. You know … like in the town square, to humiliate them.”

  “Stocks?”

  “If that’s what you call ‘em, sure.”

  “Are you compromised?” Duncan asked.

  “Huh uh. The storm moved on and now I can see twice as far with this scope. Except for a couple of rotters, nothing’s moving on the beach or in the campgrounds.”

  “Good. Hang tight,” Duncan said, the gears already turning in his head. “Dregan and his guys just pulled up.” What he didn’t say was how few of his guys there really were. Oh well, he thought. We’ll just have to make lemonade out of lemons. At least the Humvees Dregan brought were the two he used to briefly put the Eden compound under siege. The lead vehicle, painted woodland camouflage—mainly greens and browns with a little black shading thrown in for good measure—came complete with a turret-mounted MK-19 grenade launcher. The same launcher one of Dregan’s men had used to lob the high explosive rounds at the compound, bringing Brook speeding to the gate in the F-650 all full of piss and vinegar. Duncan chuckled, recalling the story she had relayed around the campfire that night. Catching Dregan with his guard down was a hell of an achievement by anyone’s standards.

  The second Hummer coasted to a noisy halt beside the first. It sported the same dark camo paint scheme and was armed with a Ma Deuce .50 caliber Browning. The heavy machine gun was identical in every way to the one atop the National Guard Humvee currently parked in the motor pool at the Eden compound. Great place for it, Duncan mused. What he wouldn’t give to have had the foresight to bring that and the three-hundred-plus rounds of .50 caliber ammunition he’d had Phillip link up for him weeks ago.

  Suddenly he missed Phillip’s constant nagging and calling him “Sir.” But that feeling was pushed aside the moment Dregan swept into the diner, his duster-shrouded six-foot three-inch frame filling up the doorway as he did so. Then Duncan saw Gregory, oldest son of Dregan, who had received a dose of the same suspect Omega Antiserum as Brook. It was apparent the moment he saw the younger man enter behind Dregan that he was far from death. Instantly, though he didn’t let it show, Duncan was awash with emotion. Maybe Brook wasn’t carrying a latent dose of the Omega virus. He had burning questions he wanted to pose, but knew he had to hold his cards close to the vest.

  “Thanks for coming on such short notice, Alexander,” he said, extending his hand to the elder Dregan.

  “Dregan,” the giant of a man said as his hand enveloped Duncan’s. “Call me Dregan, please. And this is my son, Gregory.”

  The entry Duncan was looking for. He reached out and shook Gregory’s hand. It was warm and the man’s grip was firm. He said, “It’s good to see you under better circumstances.” He sized up the bandage covering the bite wound to Gregory’s neck. Inexplicably, it was clean and white. “And you look much better than when we met last.”

  “So much was happening the other day,” Gregory answered, looking embarrassed, “what with me kidnapping the kids and nearly paying for it dearly.”

  “Helen said you were down for the count,” Duncan said. “But you look healthy as a horse to me.” A lie. In fact, the broad-shouldered young man was pale and gaunt and his eyes were shot through with blood.

  “He was coming down with the flu before he got bit,” the elder Dregan interjected.

  “And the healthy as a horse thing,” Gregory said. “I don’t know about that … but I could probably eat one right now.” He cast his gaze at the menu on the wall above the pass-through window behind the counter. It was a two foot by ten foot sheet of white plastic with horizontal slots designed to hold interchangeable plastic numbers and letters. The dust- and cobweb-covered thing offered everything from plain old hamburgers to French dip sandwiches to onion rings. Twisting the culinary dagger in his gut, colorful pictures of hot fudge sundaes, dipped ice cream cones, and banana splits framed the lunch offerings on both sides. “As a matter of fact a jumbo hot fudge sundae would fill the void.”

  At the tail end of Gregory’s fast food fantasy the door opened and Ray entered. He paused on the blood-and-brain-matter-soiled Welcome rug and walked his eyes around the diner. Finally settling his gaze on Duncan, he said, “I know the kids. Bu
t you and I haven’t met.”

  Duncan stuck out his hand. “Duncan Winters. Pleasure’s all mine.”

  Ray reciprocated and asked, “Where’s that easy-on-the-eyes lady named Brook?”

  “She’s back at the compound. Came down with the flu yesterday,” Duncan said. “Probably the same strain that’s going around Bear River.”

  The door opened again and Jamie stuck her head in. She matched Ray’s smile, then motioned for Wilson and Foley to join her outside. “We’ve got more rotters coming up the state route.”

  “No gunfire,” Duncan said.

  Dregan regarded Jamie. “Cleo’s in the police rig. He may not look like much, but he ain’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Take him with you.” Then, changing the tide of conversation, Dregan sat on a stool at the counter and stared at Duncan. “Please, fill me and my boy in on what we’ll be going up against.”

  Chapter 66

  Maryland

  As Ari backed the Ghost Hawk down and away from the refueling probe, Cade’s one-hundred-and-eighty-pound frame got light in the seat and the pitch of the four-blade rotors punishing the air over his head decreased sharply. In seconds, the helicopter had performed a tight one-eighty and was diving south toward the stretch of highway located roughly seven miles southeast of the District of Columbia and nearly equidistant to the Maryland cities of Suitland and Morningside.

  Recent flyovers of each city by the Stealth Chinooks had returned grim news: Both were teeming with dead and even after multiple low-level passes, the pilots, crew chiefs, and Rangers aboard the helos had failed to spot a single living soul.

  As the parkway and tiny vehicles scattered haphazardly on it grew larger, Cade gazed off to the west where the sun was getting low in the sky and noted the presence of clear blue sky. It looked as if the flight home across a pitch-black United States was looking good for viewing celestial bodies. But first, he reminded himself, they had human bodies to identify and, hopefully, stolen data to recover.