Now Dean got angry. “Because it’s my place. You’re not making sense. And why are you strapped?” He pointed to the pistol on Juan’s hip.
The other man seemed not to hear him. “I tried calling. I didn’t think anyone would be here, but I drove down just to check. I saw your truck outside. Tony isn’t answering either. I’m going to pick up Marta and the kids.” It all came out in a rush, and Juan was leaning a palm against the worktable as if he might fall down. Dean held up his hands.
“Slow down, buddy. Breathe or you’re going to pass out.”
Juan looked at him as if Dean were speaking another language. “You haven’t heard the radio?”
Dean shook his head and pointed to the iPod.
“You don’t know shit, do you?”
Dean shook his head again.
“It’s fucking crazy out there,” Juan said. “There’s rioting, bodies in the streets, fires. . . . People are attacking each other, killing each other with their bare hands. I saw a police car on fire.” Juan grabbed his friend’s arm and gave him a shake. “Are you listening? I saw a helicopter fly over, and the guy in the door was firing his machine gun down into the street, looked like at a crowd of people.” He wiped a shaking hand across his face.
Dean tilted his head. “Don’t fuck with me, Juan. This better not be some gag you and the crew worked up, some punking bullshit.”
The look on the other man’s face told Dean it wasn’t. Juan wasn’t that good an actor.
“Tony doesn’t answer his phone,” Juan said again. “I’m going to get Marta at her office, and then we’ll get the kids from her mother’s. Where’s Angie?”
“Oakland. She’s with Bud and the film crew.”
“You gotta get Leah, man,” Juan urged, tugging on his friend and leading him out into the showroom. “You gotta get the fuck out of Dodge. People are gonna come here.” He gestured at the locked cases of rifles and pistols. “They’re gonna take all this. You can’t be here when they do.”
Before Dean could reply, Juan went around one of the counters and used his keys to unlock a rifle case and the cabinet beneath it, pulling down a pair of black clip-fed Mossberg twelve-gauges and stacking several boxes of shells on the glass. Dean said nothing, only pulled out his cell phone and dialed the daycare. Busy signal. He dialed Angie and it went straight to message. He texted her, R U OK?
Juan quickly loaded both shotguns and came from behind the counter, handing one to his boss along with two boxes of ammunition. “The radio was talking about a virus,” he said, “probably terrorism, some kind of biological attack. Another station said zombies . . . fucking zombies, man. I saw some shit in the street on the way over. . . .” He trailed off, looking at the door.
Dean snorted. “Zombies? Brother, if this is some kind of punk, you are so fired.”
Juan just nodded slowly, his eyes on the door. Then from outside came a pair of pistol shots, close together, and both men jumped. A third shot rang out.
“Does that sound like a punk?” Juan asked.
“Watch the door,” said Dean, going behind the counter and unlocking another cabinet, pulling out a Glock forty-caliber in a paddle holster and clipping it to his belt. “Go get Marta. Call me when you can.”
Juan looked sharply at his friend. “You’re not gonna try to stay here, right?”
“Hell no, that’s what insurance is for. It covers civil disorder, but I don’t know about zombies.” Dean had said it to make his friend smile, but it didn’t work, and that scared him. “Let’s go out together.”
The two men moved to the front door and peeked outside. In the lot was Juan’s white Jeep parked next to Dean’s black Suburban. Out on the road that ran past Premier Arms, a tractor-trailer was stopped in the far lane, the driver’s door open, no sign of the trucker.
“When I was coming over here,” Juan whispered, I saw—” He hissed and pointed. “There! What the fuck is that?”
A woman in a yellow tank top was walking past the Suburban, her shirt covered in fresh blood, most of her face missing, head tilted at an odd angle. She suddenly increased her pace, breaking into a grotesque gallop as she moved to the left and out of sight. A moment later there was another pistol shot, followed by a man’s scream.
Juan crossed himself and muttered something Dean couldn’t hear.
“Let’s go,” said Dean, racking his shotgun and pushing through the door. Once outside, Dean took the time to lower and lock the security gate—no sense making it easy for the bastards—before turning toward the parking lot. Juan was a few feet away, staring at a point just past the tractor-trailer. The woman in the tank top was on all fours in the road, kneeling next to a man in gray coveralls. They were ripping at the body of a man in a flannel shirt and work boots, still gripping a pistol. They were . . . eating him.
“Go,” Dean said, pushing his friend, “go get Marta.”
Juan nodded and walked to his Jeep, moving like a sleepwalker, unable to take his eyes off the grisly scene. Dean jogged to the Suburban and fired it up but didn’t pull out until Juan’s Jeep finally started moving. In his rear view he could see the two figures devouring the third, and he didn’t miss the fact that the sounds of the starting engines made them both look up. Moments later Juan was on the road, and Dean pulled out, heading in the opposite direction.
Sunrise Daycare was five miles away, almost an equal distance between Premier Arms and his and Angie’s house. It was a good, safe place where the teachers and kids regularly drilled on crisis procedures. Leah would be okay.
The busy signal that greeted him every time he called seemed to argue the point.
She would be okay, he insisted. But it didn’t prevent him from stomping the accelerator and rocketing into the commercial district.
Omega Days (Book 2): Ship of the Dead Page 35