Renee tugged at his shoulder. “Reese, let’s go!”
“Go on,” Reese said. He continued firing.
The zombies were only thirty feet away, and their numbers were mounting on the sides. Soon, they would envelop the truck in a pincer-like movement. Someone grabbed his collar and yanked him away from the tailgate, sending his next shot wild.
“What are you, Dirty Harry all of a sudden?” a waterlogged Bates asked.
Reese hadn’t seen the patrol sergeant climb out of the flooded cab and get into the bed, but there he was, as big as life and twice as ugly.
“Good to see you again, Bates,” Reese said.
“You’re lucky you’re not seeing me blow kisses to you as I sail off in the RIB,” Bates said, dragging Reese toward the side of the bed where the inflatable boat waited. It was full of people, and the cops and Plosser were firing on the zombies that got too near.
“We got all the ammo?” Reese asked, sloshing through the truck’s bed.
“We have all we’re going to get. Come on, Detective. Get in there!”
Reese clambered over the side of the bed. The nearest zombies were only ten feet from the truck, standing in water up to their shoulders. Several of them were reaching for the vehicle, ignoring the slap of the tide as it rolled over them. Reese fell into the boat, crashing into two of the cops. They cursed as they hauled him off to one side, making some room for Bates. As the sergeant stepped over the bed railing, zombies appeared behind him, climbing up the truck’s left side.
Bates didn’t look back. He jumped into the boat, making it lurch in the water. The cop holding the boat hook lifted it away from the truck, and the officer manning the RIB’s center console slammed the transmission into reverse. Water poured in over the RIB’s short transom as it backed away from the truck. There was a slightly scary moment as the vessel crested an incoming wave, but the water didn’t swamp it. The boat kept reversing until it was far enough away from the truck and the zombies to be able to turn around.
Bow pointed west, the inflatable vessel motored over the next wave then accelerated toward the waiting dive boat several hundred feet away. The water behind the larger vessel seemed to boil as it used the engines to hold its position instead of an anchor. Reese figured it was safer that way, since any zombies lurking around beneath it could have climbed up the anchor line.
Reese looked around until he found Bates. The sergeant was leaning against one side of the boat. Reese carefully picked his way over to stand beside the big guy.
“Bates, thanks for getting me out of there,” Reese said.
Bates nodded. Reese put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Bates’s dark tactical uniform was cold and wet.
“Hey, you got a blanket or anything?” Reese shouted to one of the cops manning the tender.
“Wait until we get to the boat,” he responded. “Be just a few seconds.”
“Bates, you all right?” Reese asked.
Bates looked up at him as if he had just asked the world’s stupidest question. “Why yes, Detective. I’m just peachy. How about you?”
Reese snorted and slapped Bates on the shoulder.
“You sure took your time back there, Reese,” Marsh said.
“How’re you feeling, Marsh?” Reese asked.
Marsh’s expression turned sour. “I’m feeling fucking—buuurgh!” The paunchy detective barely managed to turn his face toward the water before he blew the remains of his chow.
Reese laughed and shook his head. Marsh clung to the side of the boat, heaving into the water.
“Damn. I ain’t never seen someone puke so much in my life,” Plosser said, deadpan.
Reese turned around as the tender approached the waiting dive boat. They would be aboard in just a few minutes. Barring any sudden setbacks, like the appearance of zombie whales or sharks, the group would be safe for the time being. He slapped Bates on the shoulder again. “You did great, Bates. Did it like a boss,” he said.
“Tell that to them,” Bates said, pointing.
Reese followed Bates’s finger. At the end of the Santa Monica Pier, a group of people—live people—were frantically waving at them. He hadn’t seen them during the approach to the beach, so he figured they’d been hiding in one of the shops along the long quay’s expanse. Some of them had weapons, and they fired at the mass of zombies rolling up on them.
But there were too many dead. Even as some of the civilians started to jump into the icy Pacific, they were overwhelmed by the horde.
Reese turned away from the sight. Dozens of zombies were crawling over the abandoned truck. Others floated in the water, still trying to follow the inflatable tender. A haze hung in the air, and to the south, the gigantic inferno around Long Beach still blazed. Immense columns of black smoke rose into the late afternoon sky, and licks of brilliant flame lapped after the rising clouds. To the north, the Santa Monica Pier extended out into the Pacific. Figures shambled along its length. Further inland, more smoke rose from uncontrolled fires. The towers of downtown LA weren’t visible, but Reese was sure they were standing silent sentinel over the demise of the city that had given them birth.
Los Angeles was history. It belonged to the dead.
SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA
“Man, why can’t we work during the night or something?” Shaliq asked.
“We do what they tell us,” Doddridge said. “We work when they want us to. We eat and sleep when they let us. Hate to say it, but this is how it’s gonna be for a while.”
Dodderidge, Auto, and Shaliq were working down the perimeter fence, filling in the holes around the support beams. They all wore red prison jumpsuits. Doddridge’s and Shaliq’s were far too big, while Auto’s was too small. The big white giant from the Pacific Northwest looked almost clownish with his pale ankles exposed. Each man had also been issued a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of gloves. The leg irons topped off the prison fashion statement. The restraints made walking slow and torturous, but Doddridge didn’t really mind. Having spent a great deal of time as a convict, he’d long grown used to them. And he’d grown used to being under guard, though the men watching them were a bit different than the sloppy prison guards. Dodderidge glanced over at the three men standing forty feet away. They held rifles and were dressed in military uniforms. They weren’t fat and out of shape, and while he couldn’t see their eyes beneath their sunglasses, Doddridge knew they were watching him intently. He had no illusions as to what would happen if he tried to make a run for it. While Clarence Doddridge was as mean as a junkyard dog with rabies, the three men standing guard were true apex predators. They wouldn’t hesitate a millisecond before they blew him away.
“Man, I wish we’d never left the pen,” Shaliq muttered. He was sweating heavily beneath his hat. His voice was practically drowned out by the roar of the bulldozer a few hundred feet away as it pushed a berm into shape.
“How long before we try to make a break for it?” Auto asked.
Doddridge snorted. “Boy, you can start right now. Go on. Get it over with. Let those fuckers with the machine guns shoot you down.”
The guards stood motionless. If the heat bothered them, they didn’t let it show. They were middle-aged guys with a lot on the line, a lot of experience, obviously military or ex-military.
“They don’t scare me,” Auto said.
“They fucking ought to, you stupid piece a shit,” Doddridge said. “They ain’t police. They ain’t gonna arrest you and read you your rights. They just gonna shoot you. Now if you gonna run, you go do it. Just let us know so we can get down on the ground and not get shot too.”
Auto eyed Doddridge for a couple of seconds then grinned beneath his thick, sweat-matted beard. “You scared, cuz?”
It took all of Doddridge’s willpower not to swing his shovel around and knock the smile off Auto’s face. “Got nothin’ to do wit that. I just don’t wanna get shot, you stupid fucker.”
“Gentlemen, get back to work,” one of the guards said.
“
We are working!” Auto shouted back.
“You’re also talking, which means you’re plotting, which means you’re about to die,” the guard responded mildly. “We already explained this to you. Stop talking. Keep working. Failure to comply will result in your immediate death.”
“You can’t fuckin’ shoot me for talking if I want!” Auto roared.
The guard raised his rifle to his shoulder and squeezed off three rounds. The sandy dirt between Auto’s feet exploded, and Shaliq cried out as he fell back on his ass. The shots were so close together that Doddridge wondered if the guy had let loose a burst on full auto. Auto just stood there, smiling, but Doddridge could see the fear in his eyes. Down the line, the construction crew working on the wall paused to watch.
“Next three rounds I fire will result in one bullet in each head,” the guard said. “You are prisoners and murderers. You have no rights. Our orders are to kill you the second you become an inconvenience. You’re a flea’s ass away from reaching that designation. If you don’t believe me, yell at me again.”
Doddridge raised both his hands, letting his shovel lean against his shoulder. Still on the ground, Shaliq gasped, eyes wide with fright. Doddridge eyed Auto. Your move, asshole.
Without a word, Auto firmed his grip on his shovel and went back to work. Doddridge did the same. Shaliq just lay on the ground, staring at the three guys in military uniforms.
“Louie, get up and get to work with Huey and Dewey,” the guard who had fired said.
Doddridge snorted. Before being taken out of the town police station, the guard had told them they had new names. Doddridge was Huey, Auto was Dewey, and Shaliq was Louie.
Shaliq got to his feet, his movements made slow by the tight embrace of his leg irons. With shaking hands, he went back to work.
They had already piled dirt around thirty support beams, and they had maybe two thousand more to go. It was going to be a long day.
###
The southern approach to the town was the first one to be closed off. Corbett attended to it personally, driving his big pickup along one of the back roads to the airport parking lot. Dozens of vehicles were already there: construction equipment, tractor-trailers, law enforcement trucks and squad cars. The lot had been sealed off with razor wire and portable fencing, and guards were in position.
Corbett parked his truck and walked toward the main entrance, which led to the highway. He was shadowed by Walt Lennon and another member of his personal security detail. In the distance, he heard a rap of gunshots, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Lennon reaching for his radio handset.
The man spoke into it quickly, asking for a status. “Just a demonstration for the prison work detail,” he explained a moment later.
With a nod, Corbett stepped past the gate and onto the shoulder of the highway. A hundred feet to the south, the police—a mixture of the town’s law enforcement and Victor’s tribal cops—manned a barricade of HESCO containers that stretched across the road so they could direct the inbound traffic to turn back. A tanker truck had been positioned nearby to dispense gasoline and diesel to those who needed it. A maximum of ten gallons was allowed per vehicle. It didn’t matter if the vehicle was a fuel-sipping Prius or an eighteen-wheeler with nearly empty saddle tanks, ten gallons was all they got. It was a tense scene, and a four-man team from Corbett’s security detail had positioned themselves in plain sight. They had an up-armored Humvee in order to respond to any crises, and while the vehicle wasn’t Corbett’s first choice for the role, the message it sent was unmistakable: Don’t fuck with us.
Some of the motorists weren’t inclined to turn around. The police made them do it anyway, sometimes at gunpoint. Pointing weapons at American citizens who were just looking for safety wasn’t what Corbett wanted, but it had to be done for the sake of the town. There was still a chance they could find safety elsewhere, but they had to leave if they were going to do that. It was an example of tough love writ large, though Corbett didn’t kid himself. He knew he was sending a lot of those people off to their respective ends, but while heart-breaking, there was no other choice in the matter.
“Feeling good about yourself, Barry?”
Corbett turned around and saw Max Booker had walked up beside him. The mayor was dressed in rumpled khakis and an equally rumpled Henley shirt, its sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His regular glasses hung around his neck on a lanyard, while a pair of sunglasses was perched on his nose. Booker’s tone was full of righteous indignation, which was nothing new.
“Max,” Corbett said. “What brings you here?”
Booker frowned. “It’s my town you’re destroying, Barry. That’s what brought me here.”
“Actually, it’s our town. As in, the people’s town, just in case you didn’t get the memo while sitting in your office polishing a chair with your ass. And they, the people, agreed to this.” Corbett motioned toward the barrier. “No one wants to do it, but it has to be done. Like you’ve been told a thousand times before.”
Booker’s wife, Roxanne, stood next to him. She was a heavyset woman with lank, bottle-blond hair and heavy eye shadow. She also had the dubious honor of being the local gossip maven. She was one of those miserable excuses for humanity that every town had, one that sowed rancor and discord in situations that even Hector Aguilar knew enough to stay away from.
“Hello, Roxanne,” Corbett said.
“Go to hell, Barry,” she replied.
“Already have.”
“It’s indecent,” Booker said, ignoring the exchange. He pointed at the police turning away the traffic. “It’s inhumane. You’re a monster for doing this.”
“Oh, I’m the monster? Well, okay. Then maybe you should leave,” Corbett said. “In fact, let me make it a real sweetheart deal. I’ll give you a full tank of gas. Hell, I’ll give you any vehicle you want and as much supplies as you can carry. Get the fuck out of town, Booker. Take your fat shrew of a wife with you, and get as far away from here as you can.” He pointed to the horizon. “Let’s see how you deal with real monsters. They’re out there, and they’ll even eat anyone they find, even if they taste as shitty as your wife.”
“Fuck you!” Roxanne snarled. She stepped forward, a hand raised as if to slap Corbett across the face.
Walt Lennon was there in an instant, and he shoved her back with the heel of his left hand. His right remained wrapped around his rifle’s pistol grip. Roxanne squawked as she fell onto her ass, kicking up a small cloud of dust when she hit the blacktop.
“There will be none of that,” Lennon said, his voice full of ice. He backed up a step, and his associate reached out and tugged Corbett away. Corbett shrugged him off.
“Hey!” Booker shouted, bending over to help his wife to her feet. “Nice, Corbett. Real nice, letting your thugs hit a woman!”
“I would’ve laid her out flat, and you too, you fucking pansy,” Corbett said. “Both of you need to listen to this. The people of this town are with me, not you. The world’s a different place, and surviving it is going to take a hell of a lot of work. All the decisions have been made, and you had a seat at the table, Max. Unhappy with what’s happening? Then leave, you two-faced son of a bitch!”
“You’re crazy, Corbett,” Booker said, holding Roxanne’s arm.
Her small eyes were narrowed, and she made to go for Corbett again. Booker yanked her back, then hooked an arm around her neck, hugging her close. He glanced at Walt Lennon, who had both hands on his rifle.
“Yeah, I’m crazy, all right,” Corbett said. “So damn crazy I’ll do whatever it takes to save this town, as opposed to just standing around wringing my hands and talking about it.” He looked at Roxanne. “So what about you, Roxie? Want to leave, maybe find your way to the nearest fat farm and chill out for a bit with a bottle of Chivas while you get treated for hoof-and-mouth disease?”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she shouted.
“What’s wrong with me?” Corbett stepped toward the Bookers, feeling his pulse
quicken.
Again, the bodyguard stepped in and took a hold of his arm, but with more force. Lennon moved to position himself between Corbett and the Bookers.
“Old man, you might need to dial it back a little bit,” Lennon said over his shoulder.
Corbett ignored him. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me, Booker. I’m sick to death of lily-livered scabs like you telling me we all need to fall on our collective sword because it’s the right thing to do, and then when I invite you to do the same, you weasel out of it. So here’s how it’s going to be, kids. You no longer have a seat at the table. Go clear out your office, Max. You’re out of a job. Someone will be in touch to put you on one of the work details. You too, Roxanne. Your lives are very, very different now, and it’ll start with you going on a two-thousand-calorie-a-day diet when you eat all the food in your house. Am I clear?”
“You’re insane,” Booker said, the shock clear on his face. “You’re absolutely insane!”
“No, Max,” Corbett said. “I’m just not going to play the victim role for you.” He pointed at Booker. “Go back to your house. Wait there until someone comes for you. Stay out of my way.”
“You can’t do this!” Booker shouted. “I’m the legally elected mayor of Single Tree! We’re not going to be your subjects, Corbett!”
“Then the open road beckons. Get out. You can either leave on your own, or I’ll have my men toss you on the other side of the walls. Alternatively, you can shut the fuck up and stop getting in my face about things that have to be done. Your call.”
Booker pulled Roxanne after him as he turned toward his BMW. “This isn’t over, Barry!” Booker shouted as he opened the car door for his wife.
“I think it is,” Corbett responded. “You have a choice to make.” Fuming, he watched as the mayor climbed in and drove off. When Lennon raised his rifle, Corbett asked, “What’s with the combat stance, Walt?”
“Just in case they decided to circle back and maybe do something dumb, like mow us down,” Lennon said. The BMW headed for the rear exit, and he relaxed minutely. “You were pretty hard on them, old man.”
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