Assuming Room Temperature (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 3)

by S. P. Durnin

  The man snorted, fished inside the breast pocket of his shirt for a moment, and then pulled out a cigar. He put it between his teeth and lit it with a wooden match. That he stuck to life against his cheek. The fragrant smell of Cuban tobacco wafted through the cabin to tickle Mel’s nose, but it was an oddly comforting aroma. Then the rough looking man studied her for a minute.

  “Hi’ya kid.” He said finally. “Don’t mind us. Me and the niece here don’t agree on much—”

  “That’s an understatement.” The green-haired girl grumbled.

  “—but, you show me a family that don’t argue? I’ll show you one that only sees each other every so often. Like say once a year. During the holidays or somethin’.” He rose and stuck out a sandpaper rough hand for Mel to shake. “I’m George Foster, United States Navy. Retired now, thanks to our smelly-ass friends walking around out there.”

  George was a stocky, muscular man of average height, with a head-full of close-trimmed, long-gone-to-gray hair. He wasn’t fat by any means, he simply had the beefy look prominent in some males after a hard life full of sweat and physical exertion. Foster still had a thick chest, along with large biceps that bulged under his Army-green undershirt, and the man’s scarred forearms were rock hard. He’d been Jake’s landlord and owned the building the journalist had lived it, prior to the outbreak. That had only been his cover though. George Montgomery Foster was what those in the military called a “fixer”.

  Fixers maintained the countries secure safe-houses. They also worked both within the United States and abroad with Special Forces units around the globe. After a career in the Navy, George had leapt at the chance to keep “killin’ things an’ breakin’ people” as he put it, and become a domestic operative. He’d taken part in some of the dirtiest, most dangerous missions the US Government could devise, and had killed more scumbags than most would like to believe freely walked the face of the Earth at any

  given moment.

  Mel smiled meekly and shook his hand. “Hi. Um. Yeah.”

  “So you been alone out there, kid?” He asked, not really noticing how uncomfortable the girl was around new people after months of terror-punctuated isolation. “No family? Nobody else?”

  The teen shook her head.

  Foster scratched his stubbled cheek. “How the hell did you manage that? We been doin’ good just to keep our asses from getting’ chomped, and we got a shit-load of weaponry. Can’t imagine how hard it was for you, bein’ on your own and all.”

  “Uh.”

  George frowned as Mel attempted to speak and gave her a curious look. “What? Cat got yer’ tongue? Speak up, girl.”

  Mel tried to talk. She really did. The words just wouldn’t come out. Instead, she stood, meekly looking down at her dirty cross-trainers.

  “Well. That concludes the insensitive jackass portion of our programming.” Foster’s niece stood and brushed her hands on her jeans. “Hey Mel, I’m Beatrix. Just call me Bee, everyone does. Mr. Charm here never quite grasped the concept that normal people don’t spend their lives with an M4 assault rifle in one hand, and a vodka martini in the other.”

  Despite Foster’s unamused glance—which Bee ignored—Mel giggled briefly.

  “I—I hate to ask, but Kat and the others said you guys had...Um, food?” The smudge-faced teen looked at her shoes again. “All I’ve had to eat... Well, I had some fruit cups earlier, but—”

  Bee crossed her arm, then gave Kat and Rae a squinty-eyed gaze. “Of course we do! Did these two not get you anything yet?”

  “I was going to do that next,” Kat interjected, raising one finger. “Someone made a big deal about how George was having a snit-fit because we’d been out of radio contact though, so—”

  Rae glared at the pretty Asian. “Hey! Don’t try to throw me under the bus just because—”

  “Okay! Mel, come with me. Let’s get some eats in you.” Bee wrinkled her nose. “Afterward, I’ll grab you a bar of Zest. Not trying to be rude here, girlfriend. I understand you’ve been alone for months, but damn. It’s lo-o-ong past time for a shower. Then we’ll go through our stores in the back and find you some duds. Clothes that don’t smell as if they’ve been worn by a ‘Ded-header’ for the last few dozen or so concerts, ‘kay?”

  Mel nodded, then followed the still-babbling Bee back toward the rear of the Mimi and the survivors’ supply of Government-issue nutrition. More specifically, the cases and cases of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) that they’d packed into the transport’s primary storage units.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Bee continued as they left the drive compartment, “What is your natural hair color? It’s a little hard to tell under all the grit.”

  Rae sighed as the younger woman’s voice continued to recede. “Sometimes I wonder about your niece, George. Then sometimes I’m sure.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with her.” Kat raised one eyebrow in confusion.

  “You wouldn’t.” Rae sniffed.

  Kat was about to initiate hostilities when Foster growled, “Girls? Can the two of ya’ give it a rest for a while? I’m too old—and way too goddamn sweaty, after bein’ stuck in this giant, fuckin’ sauna all damn morning—to listen to the pair of you carp at each other like a pair a’ harpies today.”

  George was telling the truth. With no electricity to run the building’s air conditioning units, the garage and Post Office were beginning to get more than a bit stuffy in the midday sun. All they could do was stay hydrated, keep watch for any infected approaching the barricades with the rest of the survivors, and take turns going to the gravity fed showers in pairs.

  “Harpies?” Kat asked mildly.

  Rae didn’t sound pleased by Foster’s comment either. “And to think, I used to wonder why someone with all of your technical and tactical knowledge hadn’t been snapped up by a big-breasted bimbo, somewhere over the course of your career.”

  “We all have ta’ deal with life’s little disappointments,” George told her wryly, and taking a healthy puff from his Cuban, exhaled fragrant smoke toward the transport’s ceiling. “While we’re on the topic; what part of ‘check in every hour’ was unclear to you... Cho?”

  “I already got a scolding from Rae.” The ninja-girl really, really didn’t want to go through yet another lecture about “operational procedures”. She needed to fill the Hummer’s gas tank from the diesel pump at the rear of the garage interior, distribute the “feminine supplies” they’d stopped for, clean her sword, then her pistol, and then herself too. Her team had only been back maybe a half hour, and she was already funky from riding around in the Troll for half the day (without air conditioning), never mind fighting a pack of infected.

  Foster wasn’t appeased. “Dammit, Cho. I told you to keep in contact! What if the fuckin’ Humvee broke down and—”

  “Then Rae would be able to tell from the tracking device she installed before the outbreak, and you guys could come get us.” Kat said amicably. She took a seat in one of the swivel chairs on the cab’s raised platform and began kicking her feet easily.

  “Alright, what if you’d run outta gas—” George began.

  “Again. Tracking device?” She began spinning the seat, leaning back as it turned round-and-round, to look at the hull above.

  George pressed on. “Then what about if one of ya’ got bit? Or hurt? What—”

  “Then we would have radioed in.” Kat smiled innocently at the gray-haired fixer.

  Her response obviously caught him flat-footed, because George began waving his arms and sputtered incoherently.

  Kat sighed. “Look, George. I know you worry about us when—”

  The fixer laughed. “Worry about the Hummer? Yes. You? Not so much. When we agreed to make this little jaunt, I thought everyone was pretty goddamn clear, on just how goddamn dangerous roaming around out here, with the goddamn infected trying to eat us, would be. I knew I s
hould’a told them boys it wasn’t a goddamn workable solution!”

  “We’ve been doing alright so far.” Kat saw Rae shake her head. “What?”

  “Oh, yeah! We’re fuckin’ great!” George leaned back in his driver’s seat, and pointed at her in amusement with his cigar. “Let’s look at our track record, shall we? We’ll start with the Purifiers attacking Rae’s cache, and burning it to the ground. You know, when they kidnapped Allen, Maggie, Karen, and Heather? Then, after those assholes shot Heather for trying to escape, they beat the shit out of Maggie and Allen and—”

  Kat sat up in her seat. “To be fair? We did get them back, safe and sound.”

  Foster went on, “—and took Karen back to amuse that bitch Nichole. After playing her sick little games for a while, Nichole convinced the Purifiers to let one of the infected chew on the poor girl’s leg, then shot her point blank to insure Karen would turn into one of those things. When we went after them, thanks to Jake’s fool-ass attempt—”

  “George. Let’s not go there.” Rae watched as Cho’s face went flat. The young woman displayed no emotion and she could tell how much that worried the normally unshakable Rae. Much worried her, but the lack of emotion currently displayed by the blue-haired, young woman was one of the warning signs that Kat was getting dangerously angry.

  “Don’t get me wrong, girl. Jake givin’ himself over like that took guts, no doubt about it. Maybe it would’a worked if we’d been dealing with an enemy that had any kind of scruples, but Pool and the Purifiers were just scum. Christ, I’d be pretty amazed if a single one of them could’a even spelled conscience, let alone knew what it meant. Then, to make matters worse, Donna gets killed during the fight inside the power plant and poor Laurel...” The gray-haired man sighed heavily and seemed to shrink into himself for a moment. “Damn. I miss that girl. She had a yard a’ guts, blowin’ up the roof the way she did.”

  “Yeah,” Kat murmured.

  Foster shook his head to bring his thoughts in order again. “I’m just sayin’ if we don’t start pulling it together, I got some serious misgivings about any of us actually making it to Pecos. Let alone the West Coast.”

  “I’m sure Kat and the others are careful when they’re out and about.” Rae actually giving her a compliment was so rare, it surprised the Asian woman. “If they weren’t, the maggot-heads would’ve already gotten them on one of their scouting runs.”

  Kat felt genuine relief at Rae’s confidence in her. She’d been worrying about every decision she made while they continued their trek southwest, and it was nice to know.

  Rae shrugged, causing her breasts to rise and fall under her grime-smeared tank top. “Besides, Henry’s there. He can usually keep our scatter-brained friend here from taking really crazy risks, or doing anything just plain suicidally stupid, for that matter.”

  “Why doesn’t she listen to me then?” Foster asked. “I’ve been doin’ shit like this fer’ the last forty years, for fuck’s sake! Not on this large of a scale, mind, but I don’t think anybody was ready fer’ zombies!”

  So much for confidence, Kat thought wryly. “Guys?”

  “Maybe because you’ve been doing this for forty years?” Rae took a seat in the navi-guesser position Beatrix had vacated previously. “I mean, let’s face it, George. While you do have a lot of experience, you can’t really understand her.”

  Foster shot her a narrow look as he puffed his stogie. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  Rae gave him a sympathetic smile. “It’s just hard for older members of the armed forces to connect with those of the younger generation. They find it difficult to relate, and even more of a trial to change any procedures that might be, you know, outdated?”

  “Um, guys?” Kat waved a hand in the pair’s direction.

  “Well. That’s the pot’s callin’ the kettle black,” he snorted.

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?” Rae demanded.

  “Hello-o-o? Guys?”

  “That you ain’t doin’ such a great job at that yerself there, honey.” Foster chuckled and continued puffing away on his Cuban.

  “Are you implying that I’m old?” Rae’s voice went up a couple octaves.

  “Naw. Nothin’ you got’s saggin’ yet. But, while you ain’t reached middle age yet like I did a few years back, you ain’t no spring chicken anymore either,” George replied without a hint of embarrassment. That was because while the grizzled chief looked to be in his late fifties, George Foster was nearly two decades older than his appearance belied. He’d actually begun to creak when he rolled out of bed in the morning, which he’d taken as a personal insult from the gods.

  Kat knew Foster was trying to push the brown-haired woman’s buttons, and it seemed to be working. Rae was by no means unattractive. When the survivors first met the lovely fixer at her junkyard cache, Laurel had even felt it necessary to keep an arm around Jake’s waist to stake her claim on him as the three of them had been introduced. Rae was beautiful, no question. And that was after three months without salon-level maintenance.

  “I’ll have you know I just turned thirty-two this April! How does that compare to your... How old are you again? Seventy-five? Seventy-six? Who can relate to the younger generation more successfully now?” Rae fumed.

  “Believe that if it gets ya’ sleep at night,” George said, looking at his cigar as he rolled it absently between his fingers.

  Rae’s face went red. “Why, you son of a bi—”

  “Guys!” Kat called more forcefully.

  The two angry fixers swiveled their chairs back to face her. “What?” They yelled in unison.

  “If you two are so worried I’m gonna screw things up, why don’t we make someone else our group leader?”

  Rae’s mouth quirked in a joyless smile. “Yeah, that’s a great idea. I think we’ll pass.”

  “But you said—”

  “Forget it.” George folded his arms and gave her a hard look. “We’ve been over all this before. You’re in charge, an’ fer’ good reason.”

  Cho felt like pulling her hair out. She was determined to get out of leading their group of survivors any longer. She was tired of being worried all the time, she was sick of trying to second guess every choice she had to make every single day, and she hated how they treated her. Everyone kept looking to her like she had all the answers. The young woman had never experienced that before, and she was finding it to be thoroughly nerve-wracking. She could only imagine what military commanders went through every time their units went into action. Those men had the lives of their teams resting on their shoulders; they’d been trained to handle the stress and continue on, no matter what. Kat was just a pharmacy tech from Ohio. Granted, she was an ex-pharmacy tech who had an aptitude for firearms—and some serious ninja skills—but that in no way prepared her to make decisions that could mean life or death for one of her companions.

  It could very well come to that, she thought. They’d been lucky so far and hadn’t encountered any super-huge packs of the infected, but George, Rae, and even Elle, were positive the larger groups were out there, somewhere. Even with the near-impervious Mimi, they needed to avoid those enormous crowds of rotting things. While the survivors would remain safe thanks to the Pepto-colored transport’s SEP skin hull, some of the creatures seemed a bit more together than others. They realized prey was inside the massive vehicle’s belly and would follow it. This is not to say they were mental giants. All the zombies appeared to be as sharp as a bag full of turnips. A few did have a bit more brainpower than your average, everyday drooler, though. Some of them could even run, which was why Kat still worried privately about “smart-ghouls.”

  “I’m sure you believe that,” she began, attempting yet again to remain calm, cool, and sound completely reasonable, “but the thing is—”

  “Kat. No matter what kind of argument you make, it’s not going to change any
thing.” Rae said blandly, crossing one long, fatigue-covered leg over her other.

  “Damn right.” George growled in a voice that sounded like a bulldog gargling gravel. “Who else is supposed to take the position? Gwen? Don’t make me laugh. Yeah, she’s good people—and a good fighter now that we’ve trained her up—but she doesn’t know the first thing about leadership. Elle? She’s a shock-trooper. That woman’s idea of ‘strategy’ is to kick the door down and go in, guns blazing. After she throws in a couple a’ grenades.”

  Kat couldn’t refute that statement. The blonde-haired sergeant was one to shoot first and then let God sort out the innocent from the guilty.

  “My niece, Bee? I love the girl, but come on. She’s a ditz. An’ stop givin’ her all that damn bubble-gum, would ya? It’s bad fer her teeth, and the both of you leave it everywhere. Found a piece stuck to the dash in here yesterday... Henry? Sure he has charisma, but he doesn’t possess even as much training with weaponry as say Gwen does, and he’s already admitted he doesn’t have a clue when it comes to a firefight. He’s all ‘beat the problem to death with a hammer, and if that doesn’t work, smash it with a dump truck’. Penny? She couldn’t even tell that Rebecca chick to get bent. You know, the one who tried to pair her off with Jake, to further her little sex-cult? Then there’s Hot Rod over here.” He motioned at his appealing counterpart, referring to her by her internet ‘code name.’

  “Careful.” Rae crossed her legs the other way.

  George rolled his eyes. “Let’s be honest. There’s a reason that—even with a half dozen different degrees—she was manning a cache in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere Ohio for the CIA at the age of thirty-three—Alright! Alright, woman! Thirty-two! Whatever. Somewhere, sometime, she pissed somebody off, and got sent out to the boonies. Her career was over even before Doomsday rolled around, unless she’d have opted to leave the agency and go into the private sector. That means she doesn’t play well with others when put into a position of authority.”