Keep Your Crowbar Handy (Book 4): Death and Taxes

by SP Durnin

  Forming his right hand into a straight-fingered spear, the hunter jabbed it sharply up under the creature’s jaw. His fingers rammed through the sickly tissue over its Adam’s apple, sank in deep, and he took a firm grip on the right of the creature’s mandible. Then, using his left hand to thrust the thing away by its breastbone, the hunter gave a swift yank and ripped its lower jaw free.

  Much of the zombie’s throat and the skin of its upper chest tore away, along with the entire lower half of its face. Yellowed cheekbones saw the light of day as its cheesecloth-fragile epidermis shredded, giving the once-good man’s body a visage only seen in nightmares. The hunter could see the thing’s severed trachea there in the hollow where its collarbones met. He could smell the rot wafting up as its moldy lungs attempted to push air through vocal cords that weren’t there any longer.

  And he didn’t give a damn.

  After fending off its clumsy attempts to latch onto him again, the hunter knocked the zombie’s arms away. He surged forward to take a crushing grip on its spine though the gaping hole in its throat, picked it up with the anger-fueled strength of one arm, and slammed it bodily down to the wet turf. The thing wasn’t even stunned. It continued trying to grab and bite and feed, even with its jaw laying thirty feet away where the hunter had flung it in his rage.

  That really pissed him off.

  He’d had enough of these things. These hellish revenants and their never-ending attempts to kill—and turn—anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. He was so tired of running and hiding and fighting every, single, goddamn day. Most of all, he was sick of looking at them.

  Groping at the earth quickly with his free hand, the hunter found a river rock the size of a large eggplant, drew back, and smashed it against the zombie’s forehead. Its skull parted with an audible crack, but the thing kept pawing at him, so he brought the rock back up and hit it again. That seemed to inhibit its motor skills because the corpse began waving its arms drunkenly, not even trying to get a grip on his person any longer. The rock continued to rise and fall, first pulping the creature’s left eye and zygomatic arch, then its frontal lobe. He continued his assault, beating on the thing until its brain-holder was nothing more than a goopy, reeking mess of mush covered bone, then the hunter collapsed on his side next to it.

  He pulled back on his rage and moved away from the dead creature on all fours. Now that all immediate threats had been removed, his body shook in the after-effects of so much adrenaline being dumped into his system and he struggled to get his wind again. As much as he wanted to, there was no time for him to lie there, panting in the mud and the blood and the already cold, wasted flesh. There was no help around, and—as the old adage went—the hunter had miles to go before he slept.

  Almost numb with exhaustion from his terrible game of hide and seek with the dead, the still trembling man pushed up unsteadily from the soggy turf and levered himself to his feet. His world spun for a few moments before finally settling down as he staggered towards the riverbank. More specifically, straight for the rack of flat-bottom canoes near the swollen Neosho. Upon reaching the boats, the hunter clawed earth away with his aching hands and grasped the lip of one canoe. The one lying upside-down on the sodden, muddy goop, where only one end had a small gap in the mud to allow air into the cavity below. It was there the hunter concentrated his efforts. Finally working enough room to get a grip under the metal lip, the shaking man slowly tipped the canoe over on its side.

  His companion lay unmoving in the mud below it.

  Relief nearly stole the remainder of his waning strength away and the hunter’s knees dropped into the mud. He cautiously lifted the limp form up until it was nearly cradled upon his lap then proceeded to wipe the glop from his companions face as best he could, desperately searching for a pulse at her carotid artery. Though still unconscious, the slow thumping beat against his fingertips revealed she was still alive. He clutched her tight to his chest and pressed his swollen face against her hair, unmindful of the half-dried gunk that coated his cheek. He wasn’t too clean himself, but he wouldn’t have cared regardless.

  After he’d snatched her from the river’s embrace, he’d cleared the water from her lungs on the muddy bank with life-giving breaths and frantic chest compressions, all the while screaming to the gods like a raving lunatic. Howling for them not to take her. Once she’d begun breathing on her own, he’d hidden her beneath the canoe to search the area, discovered the ghouls lurking nearby, and set out on a mad assassination mission. His friend would have slapped him into next week for attempting the task, but the hunter hadn’t been thinking very clearly at that moment.

  He rocked her limp form, sobbing quietly against her hair as his body shook and demanded rest. The rain was still coming down and, as he huddled trembling and weak, it began sloughing the mud from their battered bodies.

  Under his cheek, bright blue hair began peeking through from beneath the grime…

  -CHAPTER ONE-

  Rachael Norris wanted to bang her head against the interior hull of the Mimi.

  It had been nearly three days and there’d been no sign of Jacob O’Connor or Katherine Cho, so hope of their survival was fading fast. Three days since General Winston Hess and his big damn band of bastards had attempted to take Langley for their own, prompting Jake’s party to dish them out an ass kicking.

  Well… Truth be told, the horde of zombies they’d let into the fortified town had done most of the work. The nasty things had stumbled lengthwise through Langley, and walked into a virtual wall of steel-jacketed rounds as they attempted to reach Hess and his aggressor force. The horde had suffered monumental losses—to which they’d paid no mind at all—and continued their advance. Until that is, Hess began unloading on them with his own monster-sized MATTOC (Mobile Armored Troop Transport and Command vehicle). The heavily armored juggernaut had turned the crowd into hundreds of flesh-based Jackson Pollock’s in minutes, along with the easternmost defensive wall of Langley.

  That had nearly caused George Foster—navy lifer turned clandestine fixer in resident—to pop a blood vessel. He’d been operating under the belief that his baby, the Screamin’ Mimi, was one of a kind. His transport was segmented like a trio of subway cars and longer than one of those triple-trailer eighteen-wheelers that ruled the highways before the modern world had been turned into one, big, all-you-can-eat, zombie smorgasbord. It rode on heavy independent axles, sported massive combat grade, run flat tires, and its nose was an eight-foot-tall blade like the prow of a snowplow on steroids. There was only one method of entry or egress on the Mimi, a large C130-style hatch at its rear end, and the titan’s hull was nearly an inch thick. Also, a life-sized, 1950s-circa, hand-painted, pin-up girl with dark hair riding a bomb was emblazoned on the port side, or the driver’s side of an American automobile. Finally, the entire outer hull was the most hideous shade of bright, Pepto Bismol pink any of their little group ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon, but Foster brushed off their continuous wisecracks. Each of them knew his ugly baby had saved their bacon more than once. It rammed through zombie hordes and steel gates with equal ease, thanks to the frictionless SEP-skin (Synthetic Electron Polymer) coating on its hide. It had become their transportation, their fortress, their weapon of last resort.

  Their home in the hell brought about by the zombie apocalypse.

  George blew kisses at it. All the time. Most of his friends found it pretty disturbing when he did so, but none—save Rae—ever voiced their discomfort. George had glared at his buxom counterpart for uttering such blasphemy and patted the Mimi’s hull, mumbling to the machine that it would always be his Number One Gal, because she was pretty and quiet.

  Rae currently sat at the communications station of their heavily-armored RV, sweating through her tank top in the sweltering heat as she fought with the Mimi’s transmission array. The lush woman had vainly been trying to contact the only (friendly) survivor colony they knew about east of the Rocky Mountains, but all of her efforts had come
to naught. It was infuriating. Her own equipment was working per spec, the Mimi’s hydrogen power plant was cranking out enough juice for her to punch a signal through to Mars for God’s sake, and she hadn’t found anything amiss with the small broadcast antenna on its hull either. There was no reason they shouldn’t be able to speak with the refuge in Pecos Texas, and attempting to figure it out was driving her bat-shit bonkers. Hell, at this point, she’d rather be having another argument with her primary source of irritation, George Foster.

  That was a worrisome thought. The aging warrior was infuriatingly crass, extremely rude, had virtually no conscience to speak of when it pertained to achieving a goal, and didn’t possess a politically correct bone in his body. She had to admit though, while approaching his seventy-fourth year on Earth, George Montgomery Foster still possessed the physique of a man half his age. Oh, he carried a few extra pounds, but only a few. Hard work combined with strenuous exercise had a way of keeping you fit, and George had been no stranger to either. His chest remained deep, even though his hair had long gone far more salt than pepper. His tattooed forearms remained massive, his waist still (relatively) lean, and the cords in his rather bulky shoulders rippled noticeably as he knelt at the front of the drive unit. Clad in only his fatigue bottoms and a pair of combat boots, he torqued away with a large ratchet on one the bolts that held his driver’s seat to the floor.

  Rae tilted her head thoughtfully, fingers poised over the keyboard, momentarily distracted by the older man’s sweat-soaked back while she watched him work. She marveled at the muscles tensing under his skin, mentally berating herself to remember the fact that he had no filter between his brain and his mouth. She remembered that during one of their girls’ nights while recuperating in Langley, some of the other women in their party had noted George showed a striking resemblance to the actor Stephen Lang. At the time Rae brushed said observation off because—let’s face it—he was a bit of an ass.

  Well, more than a bit

  For example. They’d attempted an impromptu party once at the Mooney’s “Sunset Bar and Grill” back when Langley was still standing, with a few cases of Beefeater Kat’s team had scrounged and a karaoke machine. Feeling pretty good after a few “Mooney Mimosas”—vodka mixed with Tang, peach schnapps, and a little Rum 151 —Rae had sung Love Shack by the B-52’s with Elle and Bee, and they’d received a near-standing ovation.

  George however had stumbled back from relieving himself in a bush outside, crappy mimosa in hand, and asked, What the hell was that racket? Sounded like the mating cries of a retarded, Mexican Sasquatch…

  Needless to say, the party had gone downhill from there.

  He still cut a fine profile though.

  “Still no joy?”

  Foster’s voice snapped her attention to the present. “What?”

  “With the radio.” He waved absently over his shoulder with one grimy hand without turning, still focused on the stubborn bolt.

  “No. Dammit. I have no idea why either.” Rae crossed her arms, leaned back in her seat, and glared at the stubborn console. “It’s like there’s no one to receive our broadcast, but we know that’s not the case. I managed to connect with one of the HARP satellites earlier, and Pecos is still secure. Hell, I saw people and vehicles moving around! They’ve got to have a radio set-up somewhere. Maybe the guy on shift was taking a siesta or something.”

  George snorted. “Fer two weeks? Not likely. I know you’ve had a lady-boner at the thought of makin’ contact with ‘em to check if Allan an’ Maggie an’ Gertie made it down in the Beechcraft, but it’s a waste of time. I’d have told ya’ that, but you’da just thrown a fit an’ called me some more not-so-flatterin’ names.”

  “And just how do you know I’m wasting my time?” She demanded.

  “Fixer Training 101, hot-stuff.” George rose, tried to shake his seat with one hand and, satisfied with its stability, jammed his ratchet back into the ever-present satchel on his hip. “What’s the first things ya’ do if yer operatin’ in hostile territory? I’ll tell ya’: jam any enemy communications if ya’ can. Kill their radios. And, low an’ behold, here we are in a dead zone. No long-range comm traffic, period. I’ll bet you a million dollars Hess has a whole bunch a’ intel wonks in that MATTOC of his, monitoring radio transmissions round the clock. Muckin’ up the airwaves with so much white noise, you couldn’t punch a signal though if you had a SCUD missile with Mjolnir welded to its nosecone.”

  She thought about that. “They’d need some heavy-duty equipment-”

  “Which his monster-sized transport could easily haul.” George used a rag from the seat to wipe his hands.

  Rae frowned, clasped her hands behind her head as she leaned back in her chair and spun it about absently. “That’s a pretty bold assumption. But for sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Our transmissions are going out, but we’re not getting any response. That would mean Hess knows our general vicinity, like say within a fifty to eighty-kilometer region. Maybe he even tapped into the same satellite network I’ve been pulling from. That would mean he doesn’t…”

  “Doesn’t want us yappin’ with anybody who could give us a helpin’ hand?” Foster fished a stogie out of his satchel and lit it with a wooden match that he struck to life. Against his cheek. “I’m thinking that’s exactly what’s happening. He knows we’re making fer Pecos, and he’s trying to delay us by not lettin’ us talk with them. They’d be able to maybe tell us the best routes to use goin’ down, areas that are thick with zombies, those kinds a’ things.”

  “Well… Shit. As much as I don’t want you to be right, you probably hit the nail on the head.” Rae began chewing at one of her fingernails. “You know what would be ten times worse? If his people manage to access the cameras on a satellite or two, he could conceivably get real time images of where we are. If they located us with those optics? They could follow our route, all the way to Pecos.”

  Foster shook his head and moved to look over her shoulder. “We can’t take a chance of that happening. Can ya’ keep them out of the system somehow?”

  “Please. Remember who you’re talking to. I can write a program that no matter what they tried to access, the network would only enable them to view German bukkake websites, if I really felt like it. But there’s a problem.” Rae began typing swiftly on the keyboard. “If I do this, it won’t change the fact that we can’t communicate with Pecos. I’d have to break into Hess’s onboard server to access the satellite communication parameters and, if they noticed me trying to hack my way in, they could change the code every hour. Access to secure systems like that have thirty digit passwords that can be composed of either letters, or numbers, or both. Do I have to tell you how many different combinations that is?”

  George never took his eyes off the data streaming across Rae’s monitor. “I’ll take yer’ word for it. So ya’ can’t take control a’ Hess’s broadcast dampener, but you can keep them out of the satellite system?”

  “I can keep everyone out of the system.”

  “Which means, what?”

  “I could change the server passwords for the satellites. Those are also thirty digits long. His people could type for years and not hit the correct combination. But it will lock out everyone. Except us, that is. That would buy me time to break their code, but it would also make the system useless for anyone trying to change any settings. Which means the people west of the Rockies wouldn’t be able to access the system either.” Rae’s finger hovered over the ‘Enter’ key. “I’m really not sure I should. If what’s left of our government can’t use the system, that could get a lot of people guarding the western states killed.”

  Realizing it was a tough call—and would burden the conscience of any normal person one way or another, whichever option they chose—Foster took hold of Rae’s hand and moved it away from the keyboard. “Ya’ shouldn’t do it.”

  That surprised her. “I didn’t expect that from you. I thought you’d surely say something like ‘What the hell
are ya’ waitin’ on, sugar-tits? Keep them fuckers from fuckin’ with us!’ Or something along those lines.”

  George snorted. “That does sound like me I guess.”

  Then leaned around her seat and, using one thick finger, jabbed the “Enter” key.

  “What the fuck? I thought you said we shouldn’t do it!” Rae yelled, then swung her left fist around into his face.

  Her knuckles made contact with Foster’s honker, and there was a meaty crack as it broke. He blinked tears away as his eyes watered, reached up with one hand, and absently reset his nose. Other than that, the older man showed no sign of discomfort. He just stood there, half-hunched over her chair, staring at the monitor as blood ran freely from his nostrils and down his chin.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Rae jumped up and shoved him, barely rocking Foster back on his heels. “You did so! You just—! Why the hell did you do that?” She cocked back her arm again and sent another punch his way.

  George calmly intercepted her blow with one hand. Her knuckles slapped into his palm and his rough-skinned fingers closed easily around Rae’s entire fist, stopping it cold and holding it in place without bearing down with any pressure. That brought her up short. She’d seen George actually crush a brick in his grip. He had what Jake called ‘Scary Old Man Strength,’ built up by a hard life during some of the toughest times America had ever seen.

  Foster looked at her calmly. “I didn’t say we shouldn’t lock the system, I said you shouldn’t do it.”