While he estimated the spacing between the female zombie and the two fuel trucks, Hicks quickly mulled over which weapon he should use: gun or knife.
A second wave of nausea wracked his body. He was used to the stench from the air—not up close and personal. Gun it is, he thought as he sheathed his gore slickened blade.
Truth be told, Hicks didn’t want to earn his “Puker” patch. He had avoided that Scarlet Letter for more than a decade—while engaged in combat aboard a jinking, jiggering helicopter—pulling high-g maneuvers while hanging into the slipstream secured by only a wire that seemed as thin as a piece of dental floss. Even a couple of autorotations followed by very hard landings hadn’t taken his cookies.
While the Z in the Vegas shirt closed the distance, Hicks crabwalked to the right, and when the walker got between the Ghost Hawk and the two refueling trucks—which he hoped held thousands of gallons of JP-8 aviation fuel—he double tapped her in the forehead.
Then he then went to all fours to look for rotten feet shuffling around on the opposite side of the parked vehicles. Good to go. The coast was clear.
Cade and Lopez loped ahead, separated by a dozen feet, stopping only after they were a few more yards removed from the spinning rotor. Each man then went to one knee as their silenced rifles started dealing final death to the walkers.
“Wyatt, your six is clear,” said Maddox, who also was on one knee alternating between watching the port side of the helo and keeping an eye on Cade and Lopez’s backs.
“Copy that Maddox,” Cade answered back. Then he looked toward Hicks, who was now striking the tanker with the synthetic butt stock of his M4 starting near the top and tapping every six inches or so while walking it down.
Then Hicks, his breathing labored, said into his mic, “Left tanker is half full. Rough estimate—fifteen hundred gallons—more than enough to top the bird off... and then some. I was worried that the fueling nozzle might not be compatible—but gentlemen it looks to be our lucky day. I like being wrong—sometimes.”
“Anyone spots a 7/11 en route... be sure and remind me to land so we can buy a few bucks worth of Mega Millions tickets,” Ari deadpanned, clapping his gloved hands and stretching in his seat to try and get the blood moving again in his extremities.
“Your six is still clear... you’re good to go,” Cade proffered as he continued dinging Zs.
After a moment’s hesitation Hicks answered, “Copy that.” Though he trusted his life to the Delta operators explicitly, and relying on others to watch his back had been drilled into him over the years of training and then practiced successfully in combat—still he felt compelled to check his own ass. Then, after peeking over each shoulder, he holstered his pistol and spun around and began trudging towards the helo with the nickel plated fueling nozzle clutched in his gloved hands, and the large diameter hose steadily unspooling behind him.
***
Inside Grand Junction Airport
As Taryn looked on, one of the men ran towards the helicopter and plugged a hose into its side. In the years she had worked at the airport she had witnessed a refueling or two, but never while the helicopter’s blades where still spinning.
The other soldiers had retreated closer to the black aircraft and Taryn could make out their orange muzzle flashes as they held off the monsters during the ongoing refueling process.
The entire surreal event, from the moment she had started watching and the soldiers initially fanned out on the tarmac until they finished their task and the black helicopter bolted from the ground, took less than eight minutes.
That’s about how long it would take me to make two lattes, a cappuccino extra foam, take the money, and pocket the tips, she mused. Whoever those freaking badasses were—I hope they’re the good guys.
Chapter 23
Outbreak - Day 11
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Southwest Jackson Hole, I - 189 Crossing
Ian Bishop hated a fair fight, and during his days in the teams he rarely got caught on the wrong side of that equation. He and the SEALs he went down range with had always been blessed with the best intelligence: human and electronic—giving them the edge in almost any situation. Through superior training, overwhelming firepower, and sheer determination they oftentimes tackled a far larger force, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred they emerged victorious.
This was an entirely different scenario. On the south side of the bridge, the horde of walking dead numbering several thousand strong were being held at bay by a steel wall of city busses.
Overnight the zombies had successfully breached Bishop’s first line of defense. Man-sized gaps had appeared between two of the busses allowing two or three hundred of the persistent creatures to squeeze through every hour.
This enemy was like no other, Bishop thought, as he watched the line of vehicles across the way shimmy and shake behind the crushing dead. Truth be told, he was deathly afraid of the abominations and had been fighting the urge to cut and run the entire twenty-four hours he and his skeleton crew of defenders had been hammering away at the steady stream shambling across the bridge towards him.
Moving his combat boot side to side with a sweeping motion, he cleared a spot in the midst of the growing pile of spent brass. The sturdy scaffolding, pilfered from a commercial painting outfit, had been erected along the back side of the city busses serving as a second line of defense across the north side of 189. The scaffolding, while sturdy enough to support several men on each section, was not tall enough to allow the shooters the proper angle to cull the zombies that made it across the span. In order to do so a defender had to crawl along the semi-sloped roofs of the city busses, dangerously close to the edge, in order to fire down on the creatures.
Keeping his eye to the scope and a steady rhythm to his fire, Bishop asked the well-muscled shooter to his right, “How many rounds do you have left?
“Two hundred loose rounds and four full mags Sir!” Daly said, shouting to be heard over the moans of the dead and the staccato fusillades of gunfire echoing up and down the battle line.
Bishop raised the binoculars, and through the gray veil of cordite haze surveyed up and down the line of Teton County busses. The cobalt blue Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit or START busses were low slung Gillig models parked end to nose, stretching from the woods on the west side of the choke point across the four lane highway and finally abutting the strip mall to the east. If the first line failed then these ten people movers were the only thing standing between the living dead that had been arriving in large numbers during the last three days, and the few people still living in the city of Jackson Hole. He scanned the shooters to the left and the men positioned every few feet to his right. After confirming that indeed his orders were being followed and all of his men were wearing their makeshift harnesses tethering them to the tops of the vehicles they were shooting from, he let the binoculars hang around his neck and ran both hands through his dark hair.
He fished the Vicks Vapor Rub from his thigh pocket, slathered a liberal amount under his nose, and then chucked the empty blue jar at the moaning dead. His gaze followed the jar as it bounced then landed in a pool of blood next to someone he knew.
Bishop grimaced at the sight. Jacob’s corpse was splayed out as if afloat in the crimson pool of his own drying blood. With tangles of the man’s glistening entrails still clutched in their pallid hands, a half dozen unmoving zombies lay scattered around the black fatigue-clad body. As Bishop stared at the gory sight he relived the younger man’s death. In his mind’s eye, he watched Jacob’s arms flail and his face contort as he realized he had just lost his footing and there was no recovering from his inevitable fate. Jacob dropped his rifle and fell hard to the roof, then rode its slick curvature face first into the waiting arms of the dead. He screamed and pleaded to the other shooters for help, then his mom became his savior of choice; as he chanted her name, the dead pulled him down.
Bishop had reacted quickly but before he could draw a bead on the clo
sest Z the creatures were already into his friend’s chest cavity, their greedy white hands stuffing steaming entrails into their mouths. Bishop shuddered at the recollection.
One bite, he thought, and there is no such thing as help. The dead had an effect on the former Navy SEAL that no man had been able to accomplish.
Violence of action had been SEAL Team 10’s calling card. The dead weren’t affected by violence or intimidation. All of the tools of modern warfare that Ian had been taught in BUDs and had since refined on the battlefield weren’t applicable to the dead. And just as Bishop was about to revisit his single mercy shot to Jacob’s forehead, Daly’s words saved him from reliving that dreadful moment.
Daly looked at Bishop, who was seemingly zoned out gazing at the dead SEAL’s body, and gave him a quick inventory of his remaining ammunition.
Bishop didn’t respond.
Thinking his words had been drowned out by the cacophony of the one-sided gun battle, Daly repeated his update, “I’m down to four mags.” Then he punched an empty to the ground and inserted a fresh thirty rounds of 5.56. “Down to three mags now Sir!”
Bishop snapped back to the present and said, “Here, take these.” He placed five full magazines near the younger man’s feet. “I’ve got to talk to the boss man.” And this may be the last time if all goes according to plan.
Since that frigid gunmetal gray day in Coronado when he had finally earned the coveted Budweiser pin, which featured a golden eagle clutching a U.S. Navy anchor, trident, and flintlock style pistol, which acknowledged his completion of BUD/S or Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, he had been unflinching in battle and confident under duress—in one word, Ian Bishop was unshakable. He had been the best of the best that the U.S. Navy had to offer. He was a predator of men and had never before faced such a driven, emotionless force, one that was not deterred by injury and was merely slowed by missing limbs. Unlike the living, this adversary didn’t bleed to death and never stopped in its relentless drive for human flesh. Worst of all, Ian thought, this enemy could only be felled by a bullet to the brain, and supplies of those were dwindling fast. He supposed this feeling of vulnerability, which was foreign to him, was precisely what every one of his previous adversaries on the field of battle had felt like going up against him and his former Navy SEAL brethren.
Ian Bishop knew he had a difficult decision to make. It wasn’t in his nature to cut and run—never had been—he finished what he started, always seeing things through to the end no matter how hard the task. That drive and work ethic came from somewhere else in the family tree—it definitely hadn’t been passed down nor instilled in him by his father, who had disappeared when he was nine. The man, Ian had been told, had been a first class fuck up of the royal order and for all Ian knew was rotting in some prison somewhere.
Staring at the hungry eyes coming across the bridge had made up his mind for him, and when he talked to Robert Christian next he was going to hold nothing back. He hadn’t signed on for this and neither had his most trusted brothers in arms—most of whom were still disgruntled at the previous two Presidential administrations and the stuffed shirt politicians for meddling in the two wars in the sandbox. No, this time things were going to change, Ian told himself. Nothing would be gained by staying around and continuing to do Robert Christian’s bidding. Yes my Liege. No my Liege. He felt he was compromising what little he still stood for by sticking around against such insurmountable undead odds. Hell, he thought, this whole Extinction Level Event wasn’t what he and his dwindling group of men were hired to guard against—nor prepared to deal with.
Bishop cursed the minty smell of death invading his lungs as he hauled his tired carcass into the brand new Range Rover. He cranked the A/C, hoping the new car smell recirculating through the vehicle’s Hepa filter would somehow overpower the odor of the dead.
He thumbed on the Iridium 9555 satellite phone and pushed the number two key which was preprogrammed to connect directly to Carson, a former Army Ranger and Navy SEAL hopeful, who had washed out very early during his BUD/S training in Coronado. He didn’t inform his number two man of the reason he was being flown to rendezvous with the second convoy aboard one of the NA’s Little Bird helicopters, and after years of fighting alongside Bishop, Carson apparently knew better than to ask. By now, Bishop thought, the convoy should be nearing the predetermined spot he had chosen to stash the nuclear warheads that his men stole from Minot Air Force Base, and now that he had solidified his position he would bring Carson into the loop. Bishop waited patiently for his call to vault into space and route through one of the Iridium Corporation’s still functioning cross-linked Low Earth Orbit satellites. Then after a couple of seconds and two rings, a man answered at the other end.
“Carson here.”
“This is Ian, what is your position.”
“We are at the first set of GPS coordinates that you sent with me.”
“Punch the second coordinates in and order the driver and the rest of the convoy to proceed directly to that location. Do not deviate. Do not stop. And do not let anyone or anything slow you down. Wait for my call,” Bishop said briskly.
“Copy that,” Carson replied to an already dead connection.
***
Bishop watched the strip malls with their dead signage and pitch black interiors creep by. The Golden Arches and Wendy’s, half a block apart, were both darkened and uninhabited. He blew through intersections, ignoring the dormant traffic signals as he wheeled the Range Rover through the four block long cluster of new and used car lots, which usually had an army of white shirts and ties waiting to descend like vultures on anyone who looked halfway in the market for a new set of wheels. The colorful plastic pennants strung from corner to corner dominating the airspace above the dusty cars and trucks popped in the wind like semaphores on a ghost ship.
As quiet as the streets and sidewalks had become, it seemed like he was driving through Jackson Hole on a holiday. It didn’t break his heart so much as it served as a reminder of how upside down normal had become.
He slowed the SUV at the Teton Pass split and took a slight left on East Butte Drive. After climbing the hill and following a series of switchbacks that cut through dense woods, the two lane blacktop ended at an oversized cul-de-sac in front of the mansion on the hill, which the locals not so lovingly called The House.
Inside the mansion, a man who had been monitoring the hidden security cameras moved a joystick and zoomed tight on Bishop’s face.
“Wait one sir,” a male voice said over the intercom.
“Thanks Cliff,” Bishop replied blandly.
Then after a few seconds, the gate swung inward; much to Bishop’s chagrin no one approached or challenged him once he was inside the compound.
He watched the gate in the rearview and waited for it to close before stepping from the truck. The circular drive, which was usually choked with SUVs and the occasional NA Humvee, was unoccupied except for his ride. With the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention, he padded to the large ornately carved double doors, M4 held at low ready.
He paused for a moment, listening to the humming generators around the side of the mansion, and then punched his six digit code into the lighted keypad. He pulled open the heavy door, waited a tick, then cautiously entered the mansion. Except for the single beep of the alarm rearming itself, the house was quiet. Much too quiet for the former SEAL’s liking. Slinging his rifle, he drew his Sig Sauer. Leaving the grand foyer with its travertine, exotic plants and floor to ceiling Tuscan paintings behind, he went up the right side stairs, taking them slowly one at a time with his 9mm semi-auto pistol held in a two handed grip. His soft soled Blackhawk boots performing as advertised allowed him to sneak up on the security room unannounced.
He tried the handle.
Unlocked.
On well-oiled hinges, the door opened noiselessly, revealing a man sitting behind a bank of flat screens. It was the same man Bishop had just talked to via the main gate intercom.
“Cliff.”
The security guard fumbled a nearly full bag of Cheetos as his rear jumped from the seat. “You scared the shit outta me man,” he said, policing up his spilled snacks. With an open palm he wiped the greasy orange seasonings from the control panel. “Why did you have to do that?”
Ignoring the portly guard’s question, Bishop shot back, “Where in the hell is everyone?”
“The brothers went on a run to Driggs. Hutsell and Ed are here somewhere.”
“What about R.C.?”
“He’s not here,” Cliff said, wiping orange fingers on his black pants.
Bishop keyed in on the guard’s shaking hands.
“Look me in the eye Clifford. Where - did - they - all - go?” he asked slowly.
“R.C. waved them off.”
Bishop slapped the black ball cap from the seated man’s head. “What the fuck do you mean Christian waved them off?”
“He and Tran took a truck...”
“Where were they going... all alone?”
“The elk refuge,” Cliff said as he smoothed his mussed locks into place.
“Did they take all of the house vehicles?”
“Like I said—Tran and the boss took the black Cadillac. I didn’t watch the brothers leave.”
“When the brothers get back here I want you to call me ASAP. My phone better be buzzing before they pull in the gate—got it?” Bishop holstered his pistol then turned and faced the window, lacing his fingers behind his neck. “Watch those monitors like a fucking hawk... you hear?”
Cliff mumbled an apology.
Bishop left the man alone to collect his hat and a little dignity. He slammed the door behind him and retrieved the sat phone from his cargo pocket. He stalked down the hall, thumbing a number into the Iridium. After several rings without an answer, a string of expletives erupted from the former SEAL’s mouth. He thumbed in another set of numbers from memory.
A Pound of Flesh: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Page 15