Keep Your Crowbar Handy (Book 4): Death and Taxes
Page 20
While not by any means a gear-head, he was impressed. There were at least forty vintage automobiles in there, all with their own free standing plaque listing the vehicle’s manufacturer, make and model, the year it was constructed, and the name of who donated it. O’Connor followed her onto the display area, passing cars even he—someone who knew only where the gas, oil, windshield wiper fluid, and maybe the air filter went—was able to identify. A Ford Model T and 1958 Fairlane, the ’69 Corvette Stingray, and a Pontiac GTO from the same year. There was even a 1981 Delorean. He looked inside and snorted with amusement. Nope. No flux-capacitor to be seen there.
“This is my favorite!” Cho was standing a row over, staring at one vintage machine in particular with nothing short of naked lust. “I’d kill to take this lovely with us. Seriously. I could start with Rae.”
Jake shrugged. “Realizing you’re talking to someone who used to drive around in a crappy, army issue Jeep his best friend’s father put together. From its component parts. From a box. I’ll admit it’s nice, but to me it’s simply a car.”
“Bite you tongue, heathen! This isn’t ‘simply a car’!” Kat insisted. “This is a 1971 Barracuda hardtop, just like in the Phantasm movies! A ‘Tuxedo Black,’ hunk of solid Detroit steel, with a 340 small-block engine that will take it from zero to sixty in 5.8 seconds! Gods below, I’d part with an ovary to take her out on the road!”
“Oh-kay.” He hadn’t seen that coming. “You know, for as much crap as you give Rae about being an over-sexed grease monkey, I never would’ve guessed you’re so into cars.”
Cho lay her head on the front quarter-panel and hugged the hood. “Not all of them. Just this one! Besides, every bad-ass, monster-killing woman needs a drool-worthy ride, you know. And this one is just screaming to be mine. I wonder if I could scrounge her some Hello Kitty seat covers?”
“Well, at least you know where to find this thing.” Jake scratched his nose. “But I’m pretty sure the new hierarchy of Pecos would have issues with you driving away with it. And I don’t have the first clue how you’d get it to California. It doesn’t have any protection at all to keep zombies out.”
With a regretful sigh, Kat stood and ran a hand along the hood. “Yeah. Would be nice though.”
Jake looked around as she stared and made his way back to the counter they’d passed on the way in. Circling around behind it, he began pulling open drawers along the bottom until he found the right one.
She was still gazing longingly at the Barracuda when he came back.
“Hey. Look at this.” He’d tossed her something metallic.
She gaped at the keyring in her hand showing a Plymouth logo. “No way. No. Way! Where did you find it?”
He waved vaguely. “Back there. Want to try starting it up? See how she sounds?”
Quickly removing the sword and sheath from over her shoulder and shoving them into his hands she scampered to the door, nearly tripping over her feet with eagerness, Kat shoved the key into the lock and cracked open the door. She actually scuffed her boots on the floor in an attempt to clean their soles before carefully sliding into the driver’s seat and settling behind the wheel.
Inserting the other key into the Cuda’s ignition, she hesitated. “What about the noise? It would draw maggot-heads right to us”
“We’ll only let it run for a minute. Besides, Close’s marines cleared out the last horde over a week ago, and the guards along the wall haven’t seen any new ghouls for days now.” Jake wanted her to have a little fun. “And we’re inside. It would be hard for them to pinpoint the origin if we don’t have it on for long. Go for it.”
Not needing further encouragement, Cho turned the key and the Cuda came to life with the deep rumble of well-tuned head gaskets. She waited a few moments to see if the engine would complain, then gave its gas pedal a light touch. The engine revved momentarily, then settled back into an even, throaty purr. Kat gripped the steering wheel and did it again, allowing a little more time to tick by while she goosed the throttle. After maybe twenty seconds all-in-all of pure adrenaline heaven, she shut the Plymouth down and extracted the key. Jake watched as she ran hands over the steering wheel one more time. He could tell she’d wanted to enjoy the feeling of operating such a machine longer, but was concerned about attracting unwanted (read: undead) attention. The regret on her face made him wish he could push the car all the way to California for her by main strength, but he wasn’t superhuman. As solid as the Cuda was, even if he were foolish enough to try, he likely wouldn’t even make it four blocks before he collapsed.
That made him angry. Not Rrragh! Hulk smash! angry. More like the Captain America, quickly examine the problem, formulate a plan, and then knock its teeth down its throat angry. Jake really didn’t appreciate that zombies taking over the world kept this wonderful, slightly crazy woman he’d come to have strong feelings for, from having what she wanted. Alright, Kat was a bit of a bubble-head; but she’d had a promising career as a pharmacy tech before to the apocalypse. The fact she’d never owned a car, requiring her to depend on her roommate Laurel—or cabs and public transportation—to get around prior to dead creatures eating the living, didn’t sit right with him. That was surely one of the reasons she got such an enormous, goofy grin from driving their Humvee so much. O’Connor decided he’d have a talk with Allan and Rae about that, very, very soon.
Then she looked up and saw him watching her. And she smiled.
Exiting the car without closing her door, Cho stepped up beside him. “You know, there’s something I always wanted to try.”
“Yeah?”
In reply, Cho moved to sit on the front edge the Plymouth and bending her leg up, put the sole of one boot on its chrome bumper. As she did, Jake absently noticed the leather of her pants closely matched the color of the machine’s paint. She pulled her cut-off tee off over her head and, tossing it back to land on the car’s roof, rolled her shoulders slowly. That set the slim lines of her stomach rippling, along with some very appealing female endowments. She raised her arms, stretching them out straight above her head then leaned back until partially reclined on the hood.
O’Connor couldn’t have looked away if he’d wanted to as Kat arched her spine and undid her purple Demi cup.
She lifted an eyebrow. “So, hero… You just gonna stand there, or what?”
* * *
“I swear to…! Holy…! Crap!”
It was difficult for Jake to speak, because the dual accent lines of the Plymouth were digging painfully into his shoulder blades. He ignored the discomfort and focused on the sensation of her skin under his palms as he ran them south over Kat’s ribs to her waist.
Cho knelt over him, hips moving her up and down like sleek, organic pistons with a purpose, doing her level best to leave the imprint of O’Connor’s buttocks in the Barracuda’s steel hood.
Not halting, she huffed out, “I thought…it was every guys…fantasy to…do a really hot babe…on the front of a…muscle car?”
“I’m not complaining!” Jake gulped.
Her gaze radiated heat. “Good, because…I don’t recall…you being against it…when I took off…my leather.”
“Hey…I’ll cop to being a nice guy…but I’m not…stupid! Which I would have to be —holy shit where did you learn that?! —if I questioned—damn, woman! —this idea of yours!”
A wicked smile confirmed her total agreement and Kat rolled her pelvis about, making it impossible for O’Connor to remain still beneath her. His hands tightened on her waist, and she raised one of them up to her lips with her own to nip at its fingers.
“You’re going to kill me here… Don’t stop!” He drew a hissing breath and attempted not to have an aneurism.
Kat lightly bit the meat at the base of his thumb and pressed her cheek into Jake’s palm.
“Hey, if we have to go out…” She said.
-CHAPTER TEN-
Foster sat on the ramp of the Screamin’ Mimi after lunch, smoking and resting his knees.
After a head-shed with Close, Willow, Ted, and Szimanski (since Nichols and Garth were busy with the livestock), he was a great deal more comfortable about the Pecos defenses. They’d finished sealing off the east/west gates with double deep layers of shipping containers filled with dusty Texas earth, effectively turning the access points into doors that led nowhere save into solid steel walls. The southern gate was still open for business, but a pair of front-loaders stood ready to use pre-placed containers on that one too. At the first sign of hostiles, there would shortly be only one heavily-guarded way into the colony.
That pleased him to no end. They’d only have to shoot in one direction.
Counting Close’s marines, the town might…might…be able to match Hess just in numbers, but if it came down to a head-to-head slug-fest, who’d come out on top was anyone’s guess. Most likely it would be the attackers. The general’s force was simply better trained. They’d shit on everything the country had stood for pre-zombie, and broken their oaths to ‘defend it against all enemies, both foreign and domestic,’ but better trained for combat all the same. That’s why George—after much discussion, and a few actual threats—had convinced Secretary of Public Works Nancy (thunder-twat) Wilson to part with a dozen of her workers weeks prior. Combined with the fifty devil-dogs Close assigned to him (along with the team of drivers with bulldozers and backhoes) the old man had gone to work.
Before getting started, he’d given them the requisite “no-shitter.” That entailed telling those gathered that: 1-if they blabbed to anyone what he was about to tell them, they’d be “disappeared,” and 2-if they didn’t do exactly what he wanted, the way he wanted them to do it: they, along with everyone in Pecos, would shortly be dead. Hess and his army would either blow them to shit or flat out take over, and they’d be would be a permanent labor force. Basically, slaves.
Needless to say, upon hearing that the members of his labor force were some highly-motivated and hard-working sons-of-bitches. They’d dug what amounted to a thirty-foot wide, twenty-foot deep moat, that stretched around outside the gate in an enormous ‘C.’ Then,—first with bulldozers, and then with the backhoes—they demolished a two-block square above it. They pulled down buildings, even ripped up many of the streets when they could, and created an ever-narrowing funnel on either side of Route 285. With any kind of construction oversight or monitoring committee now long gone, they piled debris from the buildings and scraped the ground bare. Even with heavy earth-moving equipment (which Hess’s RUST army didn’t have) it would take them at least a week to hack a way through, all the while in range of the defenders on the Pecos walls with no cover to be had. That would force the general to come straight down 285 at them, limiting his options of attack. Which was exactly what Foster wanted.
He, Rae, Allan, Sampson, and a trio of air conditioning technicians had cooked up a surprise.
He still intended to use the Screamin’ Mimi’s full offensive capacities against Hess’s armored monstrosity. That was a given. Contrary to what his companions believed, she had some surprises built into her George hadn’t even told Rae about. He felt a little guilty about keeping information like that from the others, but the greying fixer had often held back little tidbits here and there over his long military career. Many of them had contributed to his survival, and success of many a mission objective.
Foster scratched his almost-unnoticeable stomach paunch and worked on his cigar.
This is gonna be one hell of a fight, he thought.
* * *
This is going to be a fucking bloodbath. Rae thought silently for the thousandth time.
While, yes, life in the zombie apocalypse (as Bee said) ‘sucked donkey,’ Rachel Norris, didn’t want to die just yet. She didn’t want to become a brood mare for RUST, either, and was torn about what to do next. That was why she sat locked in the Mimi’s front section alone.
Even with all the preparations they’d made, even with the Mimi, even with her friends—who seemed able to pull off half-baked plans in defiance of the odds with a disturbing rate of success—the honey-blonde woman didn’t believe they’d win the coming fight. Hess simply had a larger, fully-trained force of ex-military warriors at his command. He had transportation, weapons, supplies, and no scruples. His troops would be highly motivated, not only at the thought of adding the females of Pecos to their ‘breeding pool,’ but also because the South-Texas sanctuary was the only nearby haven from the dead between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. Hess would make Pecos his, or he’d see it burnt to the ground.
He had that fucking monster transport too.
I should have known there was at least one more MATTOC out there, dammit. Typical government reasoning: Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price? Not remembering that wasn’t too bright for someone with degrees in metal fabrication and bio-engineering, girl. Rae pulled at her bottom lip. Maybe that’s why you’re sitting here, talking with a voice in your head? Because let me tell you; you do this? And it’s going to cause a world of shit with you-know-who.
She’d been trying to convince herself that making a deal was their only option, even if it complicated life for her in the future. Granted, doing so hadn’t gone so well for Jake back in Ohio. William Pool, the once leader of a pack of neo-Nazi douche-canoes called the Purifiers, had welched on their agreement without pause. By the time Jake arrived at his compound (The Cincinnati Gas and Electric Lake Complex), poor Karen Parker, whom he’d traded himself for had already been killed, and zombified, by Jake’s ex-stripper, ex-girlfriend, Nichole. Who was (thankfully) now extinct after angering one Katherine Brightfeather Cho. They’d eradicated Pool’s little hate group and burned their clubhouse to the ground. Norris got a shiny-happy feeling every time she remembered rolling a fragmentation grenade into a cafeteria full of those bigoted bastards. That had been a good day. Except for Donna’s death. And then Laurel’s death. And Jake crossing paths briefly with the Grim Reaper himself as he’d bled out under her hands.
But now as then, it seemed they were running out of options.
Rae powered up the Mimi’s communications array and keyed her mic. “Thunderbolt, this is Hot Rod calling. Can you read? Over.”
Receiving nothing back, she tried again.
“Thunderbolt, this is Hot Rod. ID number is as follows: SOCS1448710-552. I’m transmitting on channel fifteen using wartime encryption protocols. I am active and require contact. Can you read? I say again, this is Hot Rod calling Thunderbolt actual. Over.”
This time she got a reply.
“Thunderbolt reads you five-by-five, Hot Rod. Over.”
“I need to talk with CO, Thunderbolt.”
“Hot Rod, wait one. Over.”
After a few minutes, another voice came through her headset.
“This is Thunderbolt actual. Good of you to finally make contact Hot Rod.”
Norris recognized the voice. “Roger that Thunderbolt, it’s been that kind of Doomsday.”
“Hot Rod, you have no idea. What can we do for you? Over.”
Using coded phrasing, she relayed their situation. Once finished, Rae could hear the sound of someone cursing emphatically coming over the mic. It was muffled, as if being cupped on the other end as they bellowed commands, but she caught enough to know the speaker was well versed in the art of verbal insults. They put even George to shame.
“Hot Rod. Alright Are you secure? Over.”
“For the moment, Thunderbolt.” Her hands were shaking. “But contact is estimated at seventy-two hours, maximum. We’re in it up to our chins here and hostiles are looking to plop a squat. Are any plumbers free to lend a hand?”
“You know us, Hot Rod. We carry Drain-O like normal people carry American Express. Assets can deliver support, but it’ll be close. Eagle-eye options are shit-canned. The egg-heads have been pulling their hair out trying to correct, but tell me they have no idea when —or even if—they can crack it open again. With no-go on real-time, co-ordination will be dicey. Over.”
/> If she’d believed in such things, Rae would’ve thanked the many fickle gods. “Thunderbolt...would regaining access to the orbital observation and communication network help?”
“Hot Rod. Damn right it would! Over.”
“Then get one of those egg-heads on the line with you, Thunderbolt.” A glimmer of hope finally showed on the horizon, and Rae sat up straighter in her seat. “Because I’m pretty sure I’ve got a can opener that’ll do the job…”
* * *
Hearing footsteps approaching from behind, George tuned from his seat on the ramp to see Rae coming back into the Mimi’s rear segment.
He watched while she moved smoothly closer, taking note of the way she walked. The way those “American hips” of hers swayed brought an appreciative grin to his face. Even in her normal attire—a standard issue flight suit, unzipped to her navel to reveal the mightily-straining tank-top beneath—Norris cut a damn fine picture.
Even with that smart mouth, that there woman is pretty righteous, he mused. Great rack on her, too…
“Hey.”
“What’s shakin’, hot stuff?” Foster drawled. “Get them compressors on the hydrogen cell calibrated?”
Reaching the rear end, she waved to Szimanski and his team as they passed in one of Al’s modified vehicles. Elle and Leo who were along for the ride, and both waved back from their places in the bed of the dump truck. “They’re good. I topped off the tank too, so we’ve got eighty-eight days before another change-out. Speaking of: Where did you get the water last time you filled up the Mimi? The filter looked like it had been used to strain Jamaican roast, and I had to syphon a ton of grit out of the fluid injectors.”
“Back in Langley.”
She squinted at him. “You pulled it right out of the Lake of the Cherokees, didn’t you.”
“Eh, water’s water.” The old fixer puffed away on his stogie. “We could pour glop from a swamp into the converter an’ my baby would still run like a raped ape.”