Daymon risked a glance uphill. The dead tumbled down the steep incline, cartwheeling and bouncing off of the snags and deadfalls, gravity helping them quickly close the distance to where he was kneeling. As the next shambling wave reached the crest of the hill the flames licking at their backs created the illusion that their heads were ablaze. The first waves of monsters were only yards away and they were bursting before his eyes like overcooked bratwurst, their outer dermis and the flesh underneath cooking from the extreme heat.
Still he kept hacking away. The bramble shafts were thick as a toddler’s wrist. Every effective swipe of the machete was countered by two that bounced off of the thorny runners.
“Hurry... they’re coming,” the woman prodded. She was caught deep in the thicket, the shark tooth barbs piercing her alabaster flesh. She was the reason Daymon decided to return home and not go to Eden.
Daymon renewed his efforts. His wrist ached and his right shoulder burned from the constant exertion as he chopped away. He was making little progress--he might as well have been cutting down a sequoia with a butter knife.
Daymon sensed the zombie approaching from his blind side. In one motion he spun on his knee and snatched up the bow, and without sighting shot from the hip. The arrow stopped, buried to the feathers in the walker’s cheek with the barbs and shaft protruding from the opposite side. It looked like an extreme piercing gone wrong. Undeterred, the blistered zombie trudged ahead, its taut burnt skin crackling with each step.
Lacking the time to reload, Daymon discarded the bow and fumbled for the machete. With a no look sweeping backhand he decapitated the crispy creature. The blackened body folded in on itself like a well-worn road map while the head, eyes darting, bounced out of sight down the hill.
“Be quiet,” Daymon whispered, “or all of them will be on top of us.” He reloaded the bow and continued slashing at the robust bonds, trying to free the one he loved.
“Leave me and save yourself,” Heidi implored.
“I’m not leaving you again... I’ll die first,” Daymon promised. He raised the blade but froze on the downswing when a large man-shaped shadow darkened the ground in front of him. He turned his head slowly towards the looming threat.
Hosford Preston stood less than ten feet uphill, fully blocking out the ashy beige sky, naked save for a tattered pair of Fruit of the Looms which were no longer white. His body had suffered from hundreds of bites. Hunks of flesh had been ripped from the dead lawyer’s three hundred pound frame, revealing glistening muscle and glimpses of bone.
Without thinking, Daymon dove for the crossbow in a desperate attempt to save them both. When he turned to train the weapon on Hoss it was too late. The polar bear-sized corpse was already on top of him.
Daymon jolted awake and shot up, wild eyed and disoriented. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, trying to recall his nightmare. He remembered that Heidi was somehow involved, but the absence of morning wood told him that this dream couldn’t have lived up to the earlier ones. Duncan had ruined those wonderful subconscious forays, on more than one occasion, by waking him up prematurely. Asshole. For some reason Daymon had a niggling feeling that he had been in the grip of a nightmare and Heidi had been in danger. The fact that he was still dreaming about her after not speaking with her in more than a week left him with a little bit of hope.
Daymon swung his legs over the edge of the bed and planted his bare feet on the carpeted floor. Using both hands, he placed the dangling strands of dreadlocks behind his ears and cocked his head. A summer shower hurled a steady patter of rain at the bathroom skylight and somewhere in the distance an engine rumbled.
He threw on his boots and gave them a quick lacing. Since the dead had started walking he had made it a point to sleep fully clothed with his weapons at arm’s reach. The approaching vehicle meant that he might have to contend with men--possibly even marauders--so he opted to arm himself with the stubby combat shotgun.
Daymon padded into his living room, glancing forlornly at the flat screen that would surely never display another Utah Jazz basketball game. His stomach growled, reminding him to check his cupboards. He rifled through the dry food finding only graham crackers, Fig Newtons and a half eaten bag of pretzels. Finally he came across something he had been craving for a week. A family size can of cling peaches in syrup was tucked in behind an assortment of Top Ramen noodles. After hungrily wolfing down the fruit he stuffed the rest of the provisions into the Kelty.
The rain slowed to a trickle, little taps here and there, but the engine noise was ever-present. Daymon had a strong suspicion that the Black Hawk had caught the attention of more than just the dead, and he hoped those people weren’t searching door to door.
Since the back of Lu Lu was fairly roomy he placed the Kelty backpack, his old beat up Bullard Wildland helmet, an axe, and his backup set of turnout gear behind the second row of seats. Who knows, he thought, fire season isn’t over yet and they may come in handy. He propped the crossbow, stock up, in the passenger foot well and the shotgun, along with the two machetes, stayed within easy reach next to him on the passenger seat.
He listened while the vehicle continued what sounded like a grid search; on more than one occasion sporadic gunshots punctuated the still morning. Daymon couldn’t discern if the gunfire was associated with the persistent patrol or just people like him trying to survive. Alone, and with no one to watch his back, he made a mental note to be very cautious; it was apparent that Driggs was no longer Mayberry.
***
The flat black Humvee crept down the street in front of his house. In the pre-dawn light Daymon could see a driver and a passenger. They wore black helmets and black uniforms; on the top of the gun truck a third person in the same attire manned the heavy machine gun. As the truck passed, Daymon noticed, stenciled on its door, a large red star encircled by a constellation of smaller red stars, all of them floating on a field of white. He never had been a very attentive student but he was pretty sure he had never seen that flag in any school books. The possibility that Idaho and Wyoming had been invaded by an army, foreign or domestic, sent a cold chill racing down his spine. Two things struck him as odd: one, they didn’t seem very vigilant--like they were bored and only going through the motions. And two, they were riding in an armed vehicle usually only found in the U.S. inventory.
Very grateful that the occupants hadn’t dismounted the Humvee and started a door-to-door search, he waited for the sun to rise over the western flank of the Teton Range, passing the time eating stale Fig Newtons and drinking semi-cool water ladled from the toilet tank.
***
Daymon hadn’t heard the patrol for more than half an hour. He waited another full hour before deciding it was safe enough to leave his home.
Lu Lu was loaded and her gas tank was nearly half full. Jackson was a hair under thirty miles from his place in Driggs, and most of the driving was going to be through the countryside.
So far all of the walkers that he had seen in Driggs could be counted on two hands. The small city was home to more than a thousand people. During the winter and summer months most of the younger ones worked on the Wyoming side of the Tetons. The ski resorts in Jackson employed them in the winter and Yellowstone Park in the summer when it was jam-packed with tourists who flocked there for the mountain bike trails, camping, hunting, and fishing.
Daymon cracked the curtains and looked up and down his street. A partially eaten corpse was laying on the lawn two houses down. Daymon didn’t know the man, but it appeared he had been in the middle of his honey-dos. An overturned lawnmower, its shiny blade glinting in the early morning sun, lay near the remains of his right arm. The dead man’s attackers had picked his bones clean, leaving his ribcage resembling skeletal fingers reaching from the ground. Crows were doing their best to finish the job, burying their heads inside, mining the soft bits that had been missed. Other than the feeding birds, the only movement outside was one lone zombie ambling down the middle of the street.
Lu Lu had
been garaged for two months but she still started right up. Daymon usually drove the Honda to and from work in the summer months, but in the winter he drove his trusty old 76 International Scout. The bright green and white truck was named after his great aunt Lu Lu. She loved their weekend drives through Yellowstone in the rattletrap. Her pet name for the Scout was Kermit. Daymon abhorred it, and he simply called her Lu Lu, mainly because every stitch of clothing his aunt owned was made of polyester colored much like his truck.
He let the Scout idle while he rolled up the garage door. Daymon surmised that the corpse down the street must have been sunning there for a while because the air rushing in was crisp and clean, not rife with the stench of carrion. He jumped in and slammed the door with a bang--instantly regretting it. Some habits were harder to break than others. Craning his head as he backed out, he noticed his transgression and the engine noise had summoned company. The single zombie was soon joined by two others and the moaning commenced. In seconds a much larger welcoming committee was lurching his way.
Chapter 33
Outbreak - Day 9
Schriever AFB
Cade opened his eyes and took in the surroundings. The inside of the Quonset hut still harbored shadows while outside the sun was just starting its journey through the bluebird sky. He had succeeded at sneaking in at 0200 without waking his family. It was now 0700, and five hours of sleep would have to suffice. He found himself sardined on the bottom bunk bracketed by Brook on one side and Raven on the other; both were snoring. He didn’t want to move and risk waking them so he remained still. His thoughts turned to the rumored cure. It was not just a rumor, that he knew--but he was very aware that medical breakthroughs never happened quickly. They most often happened on a glacial pace, after years of research and then after many more months or years of clinical trials. One alleged infected man and one dose of antiserum do not constitute a clinical trial. Unfortunately for Cade, at the moment he saw the glass as half empty.
After talking to Dan the night before, Cade had found that he couldn’t quiet the machinery in his mind so he took a long walk around the base and thought about what a cure might mean for his family and the rest of the living population. For Brook, who was pregnant, a cure would mean a brighter future for their baby. Raven would also be able to lead a semi-normal life without having to remain secluded in a fortress behind fences topped with razor wire while constantly watching her back. The pace of life would slow down for him and that wasn’t such a bad thing. Even though he lived for the adrenaline rush that walking the razor’s edge in combat provided, he could just as soon flick the switch and assimilate back into the family life that he had enjoyed for some fifteen months before the outbreak. He locked that thought away for now. The upcoming mission, which he was due to undertake in just a few hours, had to take priority over everything.
“Daddy?” Raven’s dainty voice interrupted his moment of contemplation.
“Yes sweetie,” he whispered.
“I was thinking. Schriever is kind of like our own little island... isn’t it?”
“Yeah... kind of,” Cade said, wondering where his eleven-year-old’s mind was steering this conversation. “Why do you think of it that way?”
“I have been reading Swiss Family Robinson,” Raven said as she propped herself up on one elbow.
Cade stroked her hair and said, “I read that when I was a little older than you are now. So, who do you think you are more like: Fritz, Eric, or Knips?”
Raven screwed up her face. “Not the monkey... Dad.” She said Dad like he had committed a mortal sin by comparing her to a monkey.
“OK then... how about Eric, he’s about your age and by the end of the book he becomes a pretty good shot with the rifle.”
Raven’s eyes lit up. “I almost forgot to tell you.”
“Tell me what... ” Cade said.
Raven grabbed her dad’s forearm to steady him lest the news cause him to roll out of the bunk. In her mind the revelation was going to be earth shattering. “Mom let me shoot a rifle,” she said rapid fire as a wide smile spread across her face.
“Did not,” Brook said groggily.
“Yuh huh Mom,” Raven countered.
Cade remained silent and let the facts present themselves.
“Alright... I confess. I did take her shooting, and I know you probably wanted to do it--you being the professional soldier and all, but you weren’t around. In fact, Cade Grayson, you’ve been gone a lot lately. I’m starting to feel like an army wife all over again.”
Cade looked at his arm. Raven still had it in her firm grip and was shaking it like a tree limb. “Raven, if you have something else to tell me please do so before the fillings fall out of my head.”
Raven let go of her dad’s arm and said, “I left out the best part of shooting the gun.”
“I let her shoot some walkers,” Brook said, stealing Raven’s thunder.
Cade was shocked but didn’t let it show. “Raven, this is real important. Look at me.”
She tilted her head at Cade and they locked eyes.
After an uneasy silence that he used to process the new information he said, “How did it make you feel?”
Raven bit her lip, obviously racking her brain for the response that she thought her dad would want to hear. “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” was her curt response.
That’s my girl, Cade thought. “You are eleven, Raven; tell me how it really feels in here.” He pressed one finger against her tee shirt, right over her heart.
“Kinda icky I guess,” Raven said as she plopped her head dramatically on the pillow.
Cade looked at his daughter. She was eleven going on twenty and it was time to lay almost all of the cards on the table. “It’s OK to feel that way sweetie, but remember they aren’t like us anymore. They are dead and they don’t feel. They don’t know they’re going to die. I really think that inside they’re happy to be relieved of the burden of walking around bugging us.”
“That makes me feel OK with it then, Dad,” Raven said in a smart alecky tone.
Cade knew it was Raven’s patented way of saying we’ll talk about it later. He touched his mouth to Brook’s ear and whispered, “Can we talk?”
Brook got out of bed, wrapped a sweatshirt around her waist, and followed her husband to a corner of the hut where Raven wouldn’t be able to listen in. “I didn’t think it would hurt her to shoot one of those things... after all she has been through. You weren’t there,” she said defensively.
Noticing that his absences had suddenly become a recurring theme, Cade began to feel pangs of guilt. “Honey, I just wanted to say you did the right thing. It was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said, parroting his little girl.
Smiling, Brook said, “Now where have I heard that one before?”
Cade winked at her and continued, “I’m sorry to leave you two again...”
Raven interrupted from the other end of the Quonset. “Mom, can we go see Mike Junior and the twins?”
“In a minute, sweetie,” Brook said holding up a finger. “You were saying, Captain Grayson?”
“I have to leave in a minute... another pre-op briefing to attend. I’m sorry but I promise that I will be back.”
“I know you will, I was just venting, and to be totally honest... I’m bored.”
“If you need something to keep you busy while I’m gone, see to it that our daughter gets some practice with the Glock,” Cade said with a sly grin.
Brook playfully punched her man on the shoulder and then embraced him, showering the big bad Delta boy with kisses. “I love you Cade Grayson.”
Cade returned the kisses and said, “I love you too Brooklyn Grayson.”
“Gross,” Raven wailed and plowed her head under her pillow.
Chapter 34
Outbreak - Day 9
Driggs, Idaho
The creatures grabbed at Lu Lu as Daymon slowly steered her through their ranks. Greasy handprints and gray slime coated the Scout’
s green sheet metal front to back. Daymon put the pedal to the metal after parting the Dead Sea. Two left turns and he was travelling south on Teton Pass Highway which ran parallel with the Teton Range. He couldn’t believe the damage in the center of the city. Broulim’s supermarket had burned to the ground; sagging metal girders and the pristine sign standing guard over the parking lot were all that remained. Across the street the Pines Motel had also been torched. The main thoroughfare was an obstacle course of stalled cars and dead bodies, the majority of them riddled with bullet holes. The foreboding feeling that he was heading into the depths of hell was getting stronger by the minute. He drove the next fourteen miles without a zombie sighting and at Milepost 28 he discovered why. Daymon saw the shimmering black mound from a mile away. He had no idea what he was looking at until Lu Lu’s exhaust note disrupted the feeding frenzy. The coal black mound broke apart and took flight. Thousands of crows, ravens, and starlings had blanketed the missing residents of Driggs whose hundreds of bodies were giving back to the food chain.
“Holy shit!” Daymon exclaimed. He had a hard time wrapping his mind around the sheer numbers of dead splayed out before his eyes. It was like he was looking at an old photo of the carnage wrought on the Jews and other “enemies” of the despicable Nazi SS during the holocaust. As he drove past he found it nearly impossible to tear his eyes off of the sight. In the back of his mind he wondered if maybe Heidi was somewhere in the tangle of rigor mortis-wracked bodies.
***
Maneuvering Lu Lu through the “s” turns was like driving a metal mattress. With every change of direction the truck listed considerably. Must get new shocks, Daymon told himself. Or better yet, a new truck. There had to be millions out there needing a new owner.
The last sweeping right hand turn allowed Daymon a clear view of the city of Jackson Hole, 8,431 feet below on the valley floor. Sparkling like an electric wire, the Snake River wound through the abundant foliage. Teton Pass was only a quarter mile ahead and Glory Bowl stretched up to the left. It used to be one of Daymon’s favorite slopes to hike up and ski down. Locals called the post hole-punching slog uphill through knee deep snow “earning the run;” the last few winters he called it too hard on his old knees. Give him a gondola or tram any day.
In Harm's Way: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 21