Noting the tension, Raven cast her eyes downward and kicked at a chip in the concrete walkway.
Cade massaged his forehead, trying to decide if he should further the conversation. Then his competitive genes kicked in, settling the matter. “What are you implying?” he said, eyebrows arched, his gaze unwavering.
Brook silently returned the stare.
“So we’re having one of these... right here... right now? Can’t it wait until I get back?”
“I might not be here when you get back,” Brook spat.
Clearly the last twenty-four hours had taken a toll on Brook. Cade decided to leave it at that and take the high road. “Raven sweetie... I’ll give you a kiss when I come in. Brook, if you want to talk...”
“Don’t bother,” Brook countered. And before Cade had a chance to finish the thought she said, “We will talk when you get back from your mission... some things are going to have to change.”
Cade took it all in stride. This wasn’t the first time Brook had gotten heated before one of his missions—and he was damn sure that it wouldn’t be the last. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, he thought as he wheeled the golf cart into the drive and then stole one last glance at his wife and daughter entering the mess hall.
Chapter 5
Outbreak - Day 10
Schriever AFB
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Civilian Quarters
Honk! Honk!
“Keep your shirt on,” Elvis muttered. Then, after remembering who his driver had been the day before, he instantly changed his mind. On second thought, take your shirt off, he mused as a Cheshire Cat-like grin swept his face.
Leaving the canvas Quonset-style tent which was one of many set up to house civilian refugees at Schriever AFB, he snagged his black nylon day pack, a long sleeved work shirt and clicked a bulging black fanny pack around his waist. Then as an afterthought he grabbed his well-worn Nebraska Cornhuskers ball cap and jammed a red sweat stained bandanna into his back pocket.
The harsh high desert sun stormed the room the second he opened the door. Not another one of these days, he thought. Thankful for the carrion free fresh air, he drew in several deep lungfuls. After the run of danger filled days, he had learned to savor every second he wasn’t at work.
The same dust-coated green and brown camouflaged GMC pickup that had taken him to the job site the day before was parked in front of his wooden steps, a camo-clad soldier waiting behind the wheel.
Flip flops slapping his heels, Elvis went around the side of his tent and repossessed his detritus-covered work boots from the buzzing mass of black flies. The foul smelling boots went into the truck bed and Elvis climbed up front with the driver who immediately thrust a sweaty hand in his face. “Private Mark Farnsworth... you can call me Mark or just Farns if you like, pleased to meet you.”
Not wanting to conjure up the image of an aging, leather jacket-wearing greaser from the fifties every time he talked to the soldier—who come to think of it looked eerily like Richie Cunningham from the same television show—Elvis settled on calling the soldier Mark. After returning the handshake he introduced himself to the Opie looking fella—“Name’s Elvis Pratt and I’m damn glad to meet you Mark,” he said in a southern drawl tinged with hints of the street. The fact that the first female he had been within sniffing distance in more than a week had apparently been replaced by this soldier sitting to his left was a monumental buzz kill and a rotten start to his day.
“Forgive me but it’s killing me. I’ve gotta know. How’d you get the name Elvis?” Farnsworth asked without a trace of shame.
“I was born August 16th, 1977, the very day the Elvis died on the toilet face down and ass up. My parents... they happened to be dyed in the wool fans of his.”
“So you inherited the name.”
“Yep... they hoped I’d be the next King. Can’t play a lick on the guitar and my singin’ voice does not leave the shower,” Elvis stated wryly.
“Any other family?”
“That’s a sore subject.”
“I’m sorry...”
“No it’s OK,” Elvis said. “Shit, I don’t think I’m going to find a confessional anywhere near here—I might as well unload on you.”
“My wife always said I was a good listener,” Farns proffered.
“So I’m in Minot, basically in the middle of nowhere on that first day... when the strange news... you know the conflicting reports and all the stuff our government denied at first started to come out. I check my phone and I’ve got a voicemail from my folks in Oakland.”
“What happened to them?”
“Dad... he left the message... he said things were real bad and they were going to load up the car and get on the I-80 and get the hell out of the city... get to a temporary military shelter in San Francisco.”
“I heard the Omega outbreak got real bad, real quick in Oakland. Infected on every street, National Guard shooting civilians, and civilians shooting civilians,” Farnsworth noted.
“Apparently things got so bad that in order to protect their precious San Francisco the Army dropped the Oakland Bay Bridge into the drink. The second and final voicemail I got was my sister Steph telling me they were stuck in traffic on the bridge. Said they were nearly on the west side and as soon as things started moving again they would be safe... said she would call me right back.” Elvis looked out the window and discreetly dried a tear.
“They were on the bridge when it was demoed?”
Seething inside Elvis nodded and said, “Upper deck... and I hold the government fully responsible for not telling the truth about the virus right away... and secondly, for the murders of my family.”
“I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry for your loss...”
Elvis chuckled and looked coldly at Farnsworth. “Sorry is not going to bring them back. So I’m just gonna put my nose to the grindstone and get to work buryin’ the dead. And later... later I’m gonna drink myself numb.”
Farnsworth shifted uncomfortably in his seat, put the truck in drive, and drove slowly across the base. After a few minutes of uneasy silence he rekindled the conversation, taking it in another direction entirely. “You said you were in Minot before Z day. What the heck were you doing up there?”
“Working for a drilling outfit.”
“You drive a tractor there too?” Farnsworth asked as the truck skittered and bounced along the rutted track paralleling the twelve foot concertina topped fence, a thick plume of dust roiling in its turbulent wake.
“If it was made outta steel, painted a bright ass gay color and just so happened to have an engine... I was operatin’ it.” Elvis paused for a tick, his brow furrowed as he squared his shoulders towards Farnsworth. “If they sent you to interrogate me... then y’alls paperwork is fouled up. I sat down with a sour faced MoFo for an hour this morning... and I’m gonna tell you exactly what I told them, I came to Colorado Springs cause there was nothing left for me in Minot.”
Farnsworth glanced sideways at his passenger. The big man looked like he should be playing tight end for the Cornhuskers, not just sporting their hat. Behind the yellow-lensed safety glasses, Elvis’s ruddy sun-touched face wore a pinched expression—almost as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Hell, aren’t we all these days, Farnsworth thought to himself as he slowed the truck near the edge of the base proper. “All I know is that Colonel Shrill put each and every one of us on high alert. Stay vigilant is what we were told,” he said responding to the civilian’s accusation. “No I wasn’t prying. I was just being friendly... that’s all.”
Farnsworth brought the truck to a full stop in front of a padlocked double gate in the far northeast corner of the base, and he quickly rolled up his window in order to ward off the stench of death and decay and to keep the encroaching tail of dirt from invading the truck’s interior.
As the dust vortex subsided, three walkers materialized ambling towards the gate.
“No disrespect,�
�� Elvis said, “but what happened to the cute lady soldier who picked me up yesterday?”
“I’ve got no idea. We’re all spread so thin. And it’s only gonna get worse before things turn around... if they do.”
Elvis adjusted his hat, keeping a watchful eye on the advancing corpses. “I heard downtown Springs was nearly cleared out.”
“Getting close. The power outside of Schriever might be back on within a week,” Farnsworth said, shaking his head slowly side to side. “And I thought I’d never see that day. You’ve seen all of the zombies—shit—you’re the man burying them. It’s different now. Not only are we fighting the dead...but there is a group... there is a group of very connected people that want the old United States to disappear.”
“I can kinda sympathize,” Elvis said with a shrug.
“But Elvis... there are so few of us left now,” Farnsworth said solemnly. “Humans fighting humans... I fail to understand the rationale behind that shit.”
“It’s gotta end sometime,” Elvis added, a sly grin visiting his face.
“Give me a second, I’ll be right back,” said Farnsworth matter-of-factly. He let the engine idle, exited the truck, and unlocked the interior gate. Then he approached the padlocked outer fence with his Beretta drawn.
From Elvis’s vantage point in the truck, the first zombie to reach the fence looked pretty fresh—a brand new turn. Major portions of flesh had been rent from her torso, exposing glossy muscle and half eaten internal organs. Inexplicably her gait remained smooth—almost natural.
The other two zombies, badly decomposed first turns, lurched after—forming a macabre slow motion procession.
Farnsworth couldn’t decide which was harder to ignore, the moaning and raspy hisses coming from their dry pie holes or their milky dead eyes trying to stare the flesh from his bones.
He waited patiently until all three noisy creatures stood shoulder to shoulder, their pale bodies pressing the fence inward. Then he walked from left to right efficiently dropping each ghoul with a single gunshot to the eye socket.
Farnsworth clambered into the truck and wheeled the bucking quarter-ton vehicle over the three prostrate zombies and onward through the gates. “You know Elvis... I don’t think I’m ever gonna get used to that squishy crackling sound,” he proffered as a sudden wave of nausea churned his guts.
When the truck cleared the threshold, the fair haired private jumped from the GMC, his head and eyes constantly scanning for walkers, and loped the dozen feet to the gate. Doing his best not to look at the pulped mess, he quickly closed the gate and snapped the lock. An involuntarily shudder wracked his body as he padded back to the truck with his gun drawn. He hated the oppressive feeling of total vulnerability he shouldered when venturing outside of the wire. And that feeling increased exponentially whenever he had to exit the false security of the unarmored GMC pickup.
Silence occupied the sweltering cab as vestiges of the old world—the world of the living—slid by on the passenger side. Foreboding and dark, a fence-ringed sporting goods store sat adjacent to a partially boarded up strip mall. Inexplicably the shrines to instant gratification and retail excess had somehow escaped the widespread looting rampant in the days following the declaration of martial law.
Finally, after passing a half dozen empty, Olympic swimming pool sized pits carved into the sunbaked earth, Farnsworth ground the truck to a halt. He surveyed the expanse of cleared acreage a mile and a half from the safety of the base and said cheerily, “Here we are. Your chariot waits.”
The fifty ton D9 armored dozer Elvis would be calling home for the next few hours sat baking in the sun, heat waves shimmering from its desert tan skin.
“Is it too late to resign?” Elvis deadpanned. “Just joking, I don’t know why I volunteered... but I’m going to see this one to the end. Someone’s gotta be a worker among workers.”
“You are appreciated, Elvis. In fact by volunteering to do this nasty little detail you’re freeing up one of the soldiers to go out and kick doors and kill Zs.”
“Lucky guy... or gal... I suppose,” Elvis replied.
“This zone has already been cleared door to door,” Farnsworth stated with a sweeping motion of his hand. “But you should never ever let your guard down... stragglers and swarms are common and can happen anytime and anywhere in Springs. One day someone’s going to erect a statue honoring the efforts of the door kickers and the Civilian Corps.”
“I’m holding my breath,” Elvis muttered. Somehow the smart ass comment was lost on Farnsworth as he droned on.
“Here’s your two-way, it’s got fresh batteries and it’s tuned to the same frequency as mine. Range on these—”
Cutting in Elvis said, “Heard the speech already. The pretty lady ran it by me yesterday and much as I’d love to hear it again—you just ain’t holding my attention like she did.” He exited the truck, grabbed his hard hat, ear protection and work boots from the bed and then slapped the truck’s roof. “Thanks for the up-lift Farns,” he added with his thumb upturned Fonzielike.
“Wait one!” Farnsworth hollered.
Elvis glanced over each shoulder checking for Zs, then poked his head into the passenger compartment and arched a brow. He knew more of the spiel was about to be delivered. Where’s my girl?
“First rule: Stay in the cage. Do not leave your cocoon... under any circumstances. Second rule: Keep your radio on. I’ll be back and forth between the front gate and the flight line all day. Call immediately if you attract a crowd and I will be here ASAP,” Farnsworth said.
“Just you?” Elvis blurted, feigning a startled look. Then for a heartbeat he tried to appear that he was seriously contemplating getting back into the truck and saying “Home James.” But instead he said, “The lady loaned me a .45 yesterday... just in case...” He pointed at the glove box before continuing. “She put it right back in there... before she dropped me off last night. Any chance it’s still in there?”
Farnsworth leaned across the seat, punched the glove box open, and extracted the .45 semi-automatic pistol. “Take it,” he said, thrusting the weapon butt first in Elvis’s direction.
Before the Husker fan could voice his gratitude, Farnsworth’s Motorola beeped announcing an incoming call which he promptly fielded. “Copy that,” he replied to the person on the other end. Then he glanced at Elvis and said, “Trucks are on the way. I’ll be back in about two hours or so with water and MREs.”
Silence.
While Farnsworth had been blabbing on, Elvis had been thinking about his parents sitting on the I-80 Bridge, full of hopes that were so quickly and literally crushed when their car along with untold tons of concrete and rebar plunged into the frigid bay.
Still ignoring the soldier, Elvis perused the sign declaring the tract of land was to be the future site of Freedom Hills Estates. He surveyed the comatose subdivision which sprawled several hundred yards beyond. The dozens of one- and two-story homes fronted by overgrown lawns sat darkened, lonely, and uninhabited. Little did he know every house in the zone had already been cleared of Zs thanks to General Ronnie “Ghost” Gaines and the door-to-door grid searches performed by the combat hardened soldiers of the 10th Special Forces Group.
One specific word on the developer’s sign jumped out at him. Future, the six-letter word caused a morbidly funny thought to cross his mind. He wondered if the developers had had the foresight to pull a permit allowing thousands of zombies to be interred on the site. Oh how the environmentalists would have had a field day with that one. Employment would have surged among the picketing crowds. And the fines the local government could have levied. Hell, scrap the fines, the greedy sons of bitches could have written a whole new tax code. Elvis shook his head. He didn’t know which was worse: the shambling, flesh eating living dead or the old guard: politicians and fat cats who had lived only to strip every last monetary morsel from the average Joe’s bones.
Steering clear of the gut-encrusted tanklike treads he climbed atop the bulldozer. The hulk
ing Caterpillar remained as silent as the Motorola radio. The Husker fan waited patiently, sipping a water to pass the time.
Soon a house-sized cloud of boiling earth loomed on the horizon followed by the bass heavy rumble of a mustard yellow monster-dump truck.
Elvis’s radio crackled, “Incoming dead sled. Don’t move your machine.”
Mimicking military speak Elvis answered the unknown man on the other end, “Copy that.”
Backup alarm blaring and belching a dense black plume of diesel exhaust which did little to mask the stench wafting from its cargo, the dump truck, which loomed taller than most houses, reversed to the edge of the tawny gash.
Elvis watched the enormous dump box slowly hinge back. As soon as the dual gleaming thirty-five foot long hydraulic pistons reached half extension, putrid corpses began to spill forth, a dizzying dance of flailing arms and legs ensuing as the lifeless shells cartwheeled and tumbled like so many dead whirling dervishes into the pit. The mosh continued until the hundreds of waxen bodies settled into the massive grave.
Elvis thumbed the call button on the two-way and craned his neck in order to see the driver perched three stories in the air. “You workin’ alone today?”
“Just me,” came the driver’s tinny reply over the radio. He waved a gloved hand and honked a couple of short cheery sounding toots as he goosed the big diesel and drove away.
Maybe dude likes his new job, Elvis thought as he shot the big driver a salute. Oh well, to each his own.
Gears gnashing the dump truck pulled away, its box trailing a viscous mess; as the dust cloud cloaked the retreating vehicle, hundreds of ravens descended on the carrion pile in a blast of black feathers and rushing wind, squawking in raptor pleasure.
“Gotta fight the birds today,” Elvis muttered under his breath as he made sure the Kimber was loaded. One in the pipe. He removed the magazine and counted the rounds through the milled slots in the stamped steel. Seven in the grip. He jammed the pistol home near the small of his back and leaped from the five hundred horsepower steed. Then he pulled the red bandanna from his pocket and cinched it tightly so that it tracked across the tip of his nose, squashing it flat. Now a card carrying member of the mouth breather’s club, he yelled at the flying rats. “Move it fuckers. I’ve got a job to do.” His nasal twanged rebuke had no apparent effect and the birds kept up their feeding frenzy even as he stepped into their midst.
A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 4