Something thumped the door of the storage room behind us. Chris and I both jumped back and stared.
No mistaking the faint gurgle and hiss.
“Did Ahmed say something about Ivan being a zombie lord?” I crept closer.
“Get back, Lizzy.” Chris handed me a grenade and packed up the others. “I’ll be right back.”
He returned bearing a regulation jungle machete and a fully loaded M4. He handed me the blade.
I tested the weight and balance of my new weapon, genuinely thrilled. “This is so great. I felt naked without my machete.”
“Merry Christmas. And just in case we don’t make it to February, all I want for Valentine’s Day is you.”
I ran my thumb over the honed edge of the blade. “Xxx’s and oh’s, baby.”
A light beam shot out from the side of his rifle barrel, encircling the door latch. A barrage of bullets tore the lock apart. “Try it now—on three, just like before.”
I yanked the door open, and Chris fired on a pile of wheezing biters who all sprang for the exit at once. Arms flailed and hands clawed, as they jammed themselves in so tight, not one of them could wriggle through the doorway.
He stood just out of reach. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.” Bullets rocketed past snapping jaws, shredding lizard brains. Captain Oakley, the casual methodical killer of zombies was back. One by one, the biters slumped to the ground in a heap.
Chris edged closer, pointing the beam of light inside the storage room. I laid my hand on his back and he jumped. “Fuck—don’t do that.”
“Sorry.”
He swept the beam side to side. “Holy Christ.” He exhaled softly.
I craned my neck to see over his shoulder. Zombies lined the walls, in some places, three or four deep. Most of them hung from chains, too weak to fight or even try to escape.
Chris exhaled a harsh sigh. “Poor bastards.”
“Wh-why would Ivan do this?” I gasped, my voice a harsh whisper. “What does he want with them?” It’s hard to feel sorry for the soulless, rotting undead, but this was really sad.
He eased away. “Fuck if I know.” He pulled me back with him. “Where’s the grenade?”
I unhooked the explosive device from my belt. “Right here.”
“Toss it in there.”
“Me?” I swallowed.
“You need to learn this. Hold down the safety lever.” He covered my hands with his. “Pull the pin—squeeze the handle—that’s it.” He stepped back and demonstrated an imaginary free-throw. “Now, lob it there and run like hell.”
We’d cleared the exit ramp and were headed for the street when the grenade exploded. Kaboom! White hot sparks shot up out of holes in the ground.
A partial arm dropped with a thud on the hood of the car and bounced off.
“Jeezus.” Chris swerved through billowing smoke and flaming zombie parts for another fifty yards.
“Those are some grenades,” I said.
He glanced at the inferno in the rear view mirror. “Shock and awesome.”
“Chris—twelve o’clock just over the rise.” I nodded down the road. A black vehicle headed straight for town, leaving a dust cloud in its wake.
“I see him.” Chris turned down a narrow alley.
“Looks like Ivan found his way home.”
“Even if he spotted us, he still has to catch us.” Chris made another turn.
At each cross street, I checked the main road that paralleled with us. “Tail end of a black car,” I warned.
He sped up and executed several breathtaking turns. Back out on the main road again, he stepped on the gas.
For the next few minutes, we alternated between side streets and the main road, until Chris pulled up to the warehouse on the outskirts of town. He parked the car behind a shipping container.
“I’ll get the bike, you drive the car.”
“Do we really need the bike?” I asked. Chris slanted a look that ended all discussion on the matter.
“Don’t let me get in the way of your moto-crush.” I sighed.
He climbed back inside the warehouse and raised the garage door. In minutes he and the amazing motorcycle rolled up next to the car.
While he siphoned gas out of the BMW’s tank, I liberated a water jug and the snack bag from the bike. “Drink.” I shoved the container at him and stuffed beef jerky, peanut butter crackers and a fruit roll inside his jacket. “Eat something.”
“Try to keep up, this is going to be fast.” Chris signaled for me to follow. “We’re not going to slow down until we reach the border crossing,” he yelled over the bike’s rumble.
I gave him a thumbs up.
As he edged onto the highway, I glanced in the rear view mirror. There was little doubt I’d be scrutinizing the road behind us for hours, maybe even days. Ivan Ivanovich was black ops CIA, completely demented, and we’d just destroyed his secret zombie fortress.
Chapter Nine
WITH ONE EYE on the road ahead, and the other on the rear view mirror, I tilted the water jug and washed down a four-pack of Nutter Butters.
The road behind us narrowed into a thin strip of asphalt that faded into a camo-colored landscape. No sign of Ivan Ivanovich, zombie lord.
Yet.
Out in front, Chris led the way on the Ducati. We were headed south toward the Iraq border. From there, we’d travel in a southeasterly direction toward the joint military airbase known as K1. To get there, all we had to do is avoid the zombie hordes, and dodge the drone patrols in the DMZ.
The Dead Meat Zone. “Stay in your vehicle and go fast. Zombies don’t drive.” I contemplated the simple logic behind the French commander’s advice, as I wedged the plastic water container between the M4 and the shotgun seatback.
I didn’t want to think too long or hard about the roadblocks ahead of us. Maybe that was healthy, in a way. I was learning to take things one life-threatening event at a time. No sense in getting too worked up in advance. All that worrying plays games with your head. Drains your energy.
I’d survived a stampede of zombies at the refugee camp, spent three days in the Syrian desert—on my own—out of gas, fighting off zombie stragglers before Captain Chris Oakley showed up with his big gun, crystal blue eyes and arrogant, lopsided grin.
That was less than twenty-four hours and three orgasms ago.
The echo of my laughter flew out the open window and got swallowed up by the surrounding desert. As Chris was so fond of reminding me, we’d either be dead or undead in hours or days. So the question wasn’t if we should risk everything—we had to live like there was no tomorrow.
Ripping up Highway 10 by doing 145 kph on the straightaways was just another way of living dangerously. Every so often Chris would reduce speed to maneuver around a road crater, but otherwise, we blasted by dead bodies and abandoned vehicles. Occasionally, we passed remnants of civilization, like the old refugee camp from George W’s Iraq war. The one with the WMDs that were never found. That war.
Chris slowed to a crawl, signaling for me to advance. I rolled up beside him and braked. He had his binoculars out. “Half a click up. Humvee on the right side of the road.”
The sun hung low in the sky. I squinted at the military transport. A few fuzzy dots hovered in the brush to one side of the vehicle. “Do I see live combatants out there? Two o’clock.”
Chris shifted the binoculars, and studied the scene. “Not sure if this is good or bad news. It’s the French spec ops team from Ruwayshid.”
“The Humvee is theirs?” I asked.
Chris shook his head. “U.S. Military.”
“Stolen?”
“Commandeered.” He shrugged, lowering the binoculars. “Hood’s up, doors are open. It’s either engine trouble, or an ambush.”
The doctor side of me checked Chris over. His lips were pale with dry patches. “Trade you water and ChapStick for those field glasses.”
I didn’t want to say anything just yet, but that zombie scratch on his neck appeared
to be healing, A sign the interferon was working. I’d know for sure by tomorrow. Until then I’d follow the treatment protocol and keep my fingers crossed.
He tilted the water jug and drank deep. “That’s an M50 mounted on the roof.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I flashed on the surgery tent back in the refugee camp. A crisscross of footprints. Toes pointing this way and that, painting the floor with blood.
“I operated on a man nearly cut in half by an M50.” My voice sounded far away, distant.
“Those fuckers shred zombies.” Chris nodded further up the road, as he applied lip balm. I raised the binoculars. Several soldiers were returning to the Humvee.
“They’re waving at us. One of them is Ahmed.” I passed the field glasses back. “They seem happy to see us.”
He zoomed in, jaw muscles flexing. “Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t blow past them.” Captain Oakley was actually consulting me.
“Uh…because…they’ve got an M50 that shreds zombies.”
He stashed the binoculars and lowered his sunglasses. “Good reason.” He revved the engine and the Ducati moved out smooth and slow.
I checked the rear view mirror for signs of the zombie lord. Ivan had most likely returned to the smoking ruins of his z-fortress. I imagined milky eyes circling in their sockets and a low raspy growl. An icy shiver ran down my spine. The quasi-zombie would be coming for us, with a giant z-horde right behind him.
I shifted my attention to the road ahead and the French special ops team who might or might not remember that they owed us a favor.
FUBAR came to mind.
I tried to remember what the R in FUBAR stood for. Fucked up beyond all—recognition/repair/reason/redemption?
Why did I keep thinking we were headed for all the above?
As I pulled up behind the hulking transport, Chris was already talking to one of the French soldiers. I couldn’t hear very well, but I didn’t want to kill the engine, either. I put the car in park and joined him.
“Bonsoir.” I nodded to the men.
Most of the soldiers ignored me, except for Ahmed. Apparently, they were experiencing some sort of mechanical trouble. When they all moved to the front of the Humvee, I trailed after them.
Chris took a look at their problem. “The pump’s seized up. We need to replace the fluid and see if we can get it running again. The first Humvee we pass that still has its parts, we’ll harvest one.”
I motioned Chris over. “So, we’re caravanning?”
“Ahmed and his men left Ruwayshid, headed for Beruit, but the horde cut them off. They turned south and circled a massive z-storm. They just received new rendezvous coordinates an hour ago. There’s a submarine off the coast of the Amwaj Islands.”
I stared at him. “They’ve got an Iridium phone? The phone at the hospital stopped working hours before the evac.”
He shrugged. “Satellites are starting to drift—they managed to get an uplink.”
I nodded. “Where are the Amwaj Islands?”
“Northeast of Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “And how do we factor in this?”
“They help us get to the airbase in Kirkuk, and I fly them to the coast in time to make their extraction window.”
Chris ran his fingers through flattened helmet hair, roughing it up. He looked cute doing it. I wondered briefly, if there was any itch he might scratch that didn’t make me hot for him.
“Who’s helping who more?” My schoolyard pragmatism almost embarrassed me.
“They’re lethal fighters. They’ve got an M50, and they know the terrain.”
“You know the terrain, you fly over it all the time.”
“Exactly. I fly over it.”
“They’ll slow us down.”
“Possibly, but not once we find a steering pump.”
I chewed my lower lip. “What’s our advantage if we go it alone?”
“Small footprint. We’re barely a blip on the radar.”
I had to admit that safety in numbers sounded better than I thought it would.
I gazed out over the desert, past the low foothills we’d just traveled over. Far, far in the distance, a pale beige cloud rose along the horizon. The z-storm that had been chasing us all day. The black spec on the road, however, made my spine tingle.
I shaded my eyes. “Jeezus—it’s Ivan.”
Chris turned and squinted. “Son of a bitch.” He leaped from the fender to the roof of the military transport. “Incoming,” he yelled and pointed north. “It’s Ivanovich—if he makes a run at us, we take him down.”
Ahmed positioned his men like a firing squad across the road, and Chris dropped behind the M50. “Stay behind the Humvee, Lizzy.”
I stood beside the giant vehicle as the black Mercedes drew near and slowed considerably. “That’s close enough,” Chris yelled as the French team shouldered their rifles.
Ivan stopped in the middle of the road and gunned the motor. A visor blocked most of his face so I had to imagine the vibrating eyes and lethal expression. He revved the engine again. This went on for a solid minute or two. Ivan would stomp on the gas—in neutral—then Chris or Ahmed would order him to stand down.
“Give it up, Ivan. We don’t want to kill you, you crazy motherfucker.” Chris finished that last part under his breath.
The zombie lord continued to rev the motor. I squinted past the windshield glare and caught a glimpse of thin lips pressed together—determined but not necessarily angry.
This showdown was not going to go on forever. Sooner rather than later, one of these soldiers was going to put a bullet through his head.
And I breathed a sigh of relief when a white handkerchief appeared outside his car window. Ivan had come to his senses…maybe.
The ends of his mouth twisted up in a maniacal, scary smile. And if that wasn’t weird enough, he was caroling at the top of his lungs.
“Jingle Bells. Batman smells. Robin laid an egg…”
Chris looked down at me and shook his head.
I smiled. “Nothing like a certifiable black ops CIA interrogator turned zombie warlord to jolly up our Christmas Eve.”
“Kill the engine and toss all your guns out the window,” Chris shouted.
The car idled quietly, and Ivan made no move to surrender his weapons.
“I believe what we have here is a Mexican stand off.” I looked up at Chris. “Let me talk to him.”
“No way, Lizzy. In another minute he’s gonna gun that kraut wagon and try to take us all out.”
“I don’t think so.”
Chris stared down at me. “So what are you thinking?”
“We cut a deal—there must be something he’s got. He probably knows a shitload about the status of K1. Before you or those trained French killers blast him to bits, I’d like to know what he knows.”
Chris shot me a look that in better times I would have posted on Instagram. The caption would have read: This is how my boyfriend looks when I’m right.
Boyfriend.
There was no time to analyze that thought. We were in the middle of a stand-off with the zombie lord. Maybe later.
“Shoot him if he points a weapon at me.” I started toward the car. “Lizzy, get back here, goddamnit.” Chris jumped down off the transport, grabbed his M4 out of the BMW and followed me.
I didn’t cozy up to the driver’s side window, but stood close enough to reason with a Swiss cheese brain. Ivan stopped humming that dumb version of Jingle Bells and just stared at me. I tried to read his expression and gave up.
“Ivan, you locked us in that fucking CIA dungeon and left us there,” I explained in a firm tone. “What did you expect?”
Chris shouldered his gun, ready to fire. “Look at me, Ivan. I’m not going to shoot you if you stand down.”
Pale gray eyes swirled in their sockets. It was a lot to take in for a man zigzagging between life and undeath.
“Turn the engine off. G
uns on the ground. Do it now, Ivan.” Chris raised his voice. “Or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet through the rotten brain of yours.”
With a sad little jerk, Ivan killed the engine. “Seems our allies are looking for parts for the Humvee.” He rested an elbow on the open window. “Don’t tell me—they’ve blown out the steering pump.”
Chris lowered his weapon enough to eyeball Ivanovich. “How the fuck would you know?”
“Either the alternator is busted or it’s the fucking steering pump.” His head jerked back as he snorted a laugh. “I can fix the pump good enough to get you to K1. That’s where you’re headed. Don’t bother to bullshit me.”
The stealthy French team moved up and surrounded the vehicle.
Ivan stuck his head out the window. “I get the Humvee rolling. You take me with you. And she takes her top off, right here.” Ivan flashed a pistol back and forth, presumably between my tits.
I stepped around Chris. “You tell us everything you know about K1 and the DMZ and you’ve got a deal.”
“Deal.”
“No deal, Ivan.” Chris growled. The horror stricken look on his face was priceless. I didn’t dare check in with the French-Arabs. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He glared at me.
I shrugged out of my T-shirt. “I’m showing him my tits.”
“No you aren’t.” Chris pressed up behind me and covered my breasts with his hands. “Put the T-shirt back on, Lizzy.” His voice was softly menacing.
“For God’s sake, what is with you guys?” I sighed, loudly. “They’re just tits—”
“And mighty pretty ones.” Ivan winked.
I cringed and my voice grew weaker. “They’re…just…mammary glands—with milk sacks and nipples that infants latch onto for food.”
I pulled my T-shirt back on and Chris helped get my hands through the arm holes.
I thought about Ivan’s infection, and a very different kind of trade. Less pole dancer, more live to fight another day.
“Did you find the truck and the interferon?” I asked.
EAT, SLAY, LUZT: A sexy wild ride through the dark heart of the zombie apocalypse. Page 8