by SP Durnin
"I don't know what you think," she continued, grinning coldly. "But it takes more than a lick and a promise to satisfy a woman. A real man knows that. I'm sure someone will eventually find the time to explain it to you. Right now, like I said, I have plans."
"You know what I think?" Barron's brow furrowed with a heavy scowl and he reached out for her when she moved by. "I think-errk!"
The last was forced from his throat as Laurel brought the point of her elbow into his solar plexus. His lungs seized up. While he struggled for breath, she grabbed the hand he'd planned on touching her with, bent the wrist back painfully and shoved him away. He stumbled a few paces, staring at her in a combination of fear and disbelief.
"Don't. Oh, and if you try that kind of thing with Karen again? Well, let's just say I've got a r-e-e-e-aly sharp sword in my room, and I'm not afraid to use it."
With that, Laurel turned her back on him, entered her room, and shut the door on an extremely bruised ego. She'd have to tell Jake and the others about this. It wasn't something she felt she should keep to herself.
"He's tried that before," Karen said, after Laurel sat in the room's only chair. The girl began twining two small braids just over her ears and went on. "He tried to get me alone on the roof last week, but Kat and Maggie came up to run the roof-line. Mike went back downstairs after."
Karen shuddered and began a smaller braid, starting at the crown of Laurel's head, leaving the rest of her hair loose. Laurel had worn the style before when she'd performed at a few renaissance fairs and it had always brought her great success, along with more than a few phone numbers.
"Just stay close to Kat or Maggie, and lock your door tonight," Laurel suggested, putting a lot of confidence into her voice in an attempt to reassure the girl. "I think I got my point across."
Karen nodded, unconvinced and pulled a brush through Laurel's hair, turning it into smooth waves. She'd hoped Mike would stop after the first time she'd said no, but he kept pressing her.
She didn't know which was worse. The monsters outside, or the one locked in with them.
* * *
That evening passed without incident. Kat went to bed early, leaving George to ride herd on the kids along with Maggie.
Jake and Laurel were absent for the rest of the night.
* * *
George was glad for a break when the others filed down into the metal shop. He'd been fighting the damn Internet for thirteen hours, pulling scraps of intel here and there. It was almost done for. The servers were going down left and right. The satellite connection was a sometimes thing, at best, now that no one was manning the control centers. He'd been up for almost twenty-four hours straight too. That wasn't as big a deal when he was younger, but seeing as he was approaching middle age—middle age as far as he was concerned—his body didn't want to obey him the way it used to.
"We have a decision to make," Jake said, once they'd settled around the room. He wore his khakis again with a CBGB tee, and stood sipping coffee next to Laurel. She was leaning against a table saw in a pair of jeans and an olive green tank top from their supplies. When Jake asked George why he had so many women's clothes on hand, Foster smiled and said, Boy Scout motto, kid.
The group was gathered around a large shop table full of maps and photos that George, Allen, and Jake had pored over the previous day. Maggie stood beside Karen and Leo, arms crossed over her remarkable bosom. Kat sat sipping tea on a bench beside Gertrude, Allen, and Heather. Mike and Nichole were slouching on a worktable opposite them, sporting truly impressive sets of bloodshot eyes.
Jake gave them the no-shitter. He'd learned the phrase from a SEAL who'd visited the brick he'd shadowed and had used it since, to remember the man. Though the crusty old frogman had been decades older, Jake had nothing but unbridled respect for him. Even though Jake was just a cake-eating, civilian, good-for-nothing, dip-shit, journalist (as the man told him the first day,) he had, in all truth, treated the writer like anyone else in the unit. If he succeeded in a section of the training, he got to rest. If he failed—and he did fail sometimes— Jake got to run. Do another twenty push-ups or pull-ups or sit-ups or crawl through assorted foul substances. Or... Well, that pretty much summed it up. He'd never thought to complain. The aged warrior had been right there, crawling through the muck with them, but doing it faster.
One trainee had questioned his instruction methods and earned a pitying look from the unit commander. The SEAL had stripped off his shirt to reveal a body almost untouched by age, covered in muscle and long healed wounds. He'd moved face-to-face with said Englishman and, in his friendly way, educated the poor sod.
"See these scars?" he growled. "I got those by doing, you stupid-ass, tea-slurping, wet-behind-the-ears, shit-eating guppy. So sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and pay fucking attention. You will see this material again…"
That had been the end of the discussion. Who could argue with that logic?
So, Jake took the advice that Englishman should've. (The man was washed out of the course a few weeks later.) He watched, he listened, he learned. Two months later, Jake was one of the men drinking Guinness with the rest of the brick, while Molly arm wrestled the old SEAL in a pub off Boddington Circle.
Jake pushed the memories away and laid it all out for his companions. News reports, emails, grainy satellite images, everything.
"In layman's terms, we are completely fucked," he summed up. "No help's coming."
Silence reigned.
"How long?" Maggie finally asked.
He passed a hand through his unruly hair. "Minimum? Two years."
"How long will our supplies last?" Kat set her mug of tea on the worktable.
"Just over four months," George said around his ever-present stogie.
That caused some uncomfortable shifting amongst those gathered. The prospect of starving wasn't a pleasant one. Then Jake explained The Plan that he, Foster, and Allen had worked on so laboriously. They'd mapped a route west around the cities, keeping always to the secondary roads. The carefully detailed journey bypassed any major population centers and wound a circuitous route south, past the Rockies. He covered the weapons he thought they'd need, food, and medical supplies, all of it.
"So, that's everything," he summed up. "We have to make a decision and we have to make it soon. Try for the safety of the mountains, or stay here and… die."
The others absorbed the news with varying degrees of civility.
"How do you expect us to survive out there?" Nichole demanded incredulously. "How are we going to get there for Christ's sake? What, we're all supposed to hop in that stupid Beast of yours, point the grill at California and say, Westward Ho? You're out of your fucking mind!"
Mike looked at her thoughtfully. "She's got a point, O'Connor."
"What choice do we have? Wait in here until we starve?" Allen came up off the bench. He was trying to retain his composure, so he kept his eyes locked on the offensive blonde. She didn't repulse him as much as she did Jake, but it was getting to be a near thing. "I for one want to breathe open air again."
"Oh, please. They'll send people to help us."
"They who?" George asked, curiously.
Nichole sputtered and flapped her hands at him. "Well… them! The…"
"The government? What's left is holding on to Hawaii and the west by the skin of its teeth. It's in shambles." George shook his head and flipped ashes off his cigar. "The overseas troops? If they're lucky and not running for their lives, they're in the same boat we are. The soldiers in the Fleet? They're all headed for the west coast and Hawaii. Besides, you see an ocean around here somewhere?"
The stripper sat with her mouth hanging open, trying to think of something, but it was evident the blonde's brain wasn't supplying her mouth with much.
"It's not a question of choice. The simple fact is we just don't have enough food to last. Water, reinforced walls, solid steel doors, none of it matters a pinch of shit without food." George stuck the stogie back in his mouth.
Everyone's eyes flicked to George, who looked more than a little shocked at Jake's introduction.
"Damn, son," he laughed. "I didn't think you'd ever put it together."
"I wouldn't have, if not for my time with the SAS," Jake admitted. "Something like that isn't covered in journalism one oh one."
George laughed.
"What's a fixer?" Kat asked.
Allen was giving George what could only be described as the stink-eye, clearly reevaluating him. "A fixer runs a safe-haven for special operations groups. They provide weapons, equipment, tactical information, large sums of untraceable cash, all supplied covertly by the government. That explains this place. It's a damn military safe house."
George rolled the cigar in his fingers, grinning. "Smarter than you look there, boy. Been doin' it for forty years now. Got started just after Vietnam."
"Oh please!" Nichole rolled her eyes. "You expect us to believe you're some secret agent whose cover is a building superintendent? That's the lamest thing I've ever heard!"
Foster gave her a wry look. "You probably think Oswald shot Kennedy too, don't ya'?"
Gertrude sighed.
Allen gave him a strange look, while the others tried to absorb that comment. "So… it was the second gunman on the grassy knoll?" he asked.
George shook his head. "Nope. It was the ninja in the tree 'bout a block away. Second guy couldn't get a clear shot."
"Third… ninja?" Allen had a noticeable tick under his left eye.
"What a load of crap," Nichole said.
"Nobody saw 'em did they?" Foster demanded. "Ninja are great at concealment. Besides, Kennedy was a murderin' pig. Had that woman offed, what's her name...Norma somethin'."
Kat's mouth hung open. "Norma Jean?"
Foster pointed at her. "That's the one. All because she wouldn't let 'im poke her. Dirty son-of-a-bitch. The higher-ups realized if he'd be willing to do that, he was capable of anything and took steps."
"I think we're getting a little off the point," Maggie said. "What's going on overall? I mean, maybe the situation isn't as hopeless as we think?"
Foster added to the information Jake had provided. Frighteningly, the human race had been pushed almost beyond endurance in just over a month.
It had begun when some idiot set off a nuclear bomb outside the pyramids. George told them how every country in the region had responded and now the entire Middle East would be uninhabitable for about forty-thousand years. Russia was on the brink, while China and eastern Asia had been overrun. Japan had evacuated everyone it could, but millions had been left behind to become part of the massive, moaning horde currently occupying Tokyo. The rest of Europe was pretty much fucked. Germany, France, and Italy each had a few small areas holding out, but all were largely empty now. There was a little hope. The Greek Isles had survived almost completely intact. Ireland, during the initial outbreak, had armed itself to the teeth. All the forgotten weapons of yesteryear, broadswords, axes, maces and shillelaghs, had been taken from museums, castles, even local pubs and had been put to use. The military, backed by every civilian who could swing a sword, cleared the entire Emerald Isle of the creatures. Then they set every ship they had afloat to England, put their shoulders up against those of Britain's finest, and were currently keeping the ancient line of Hadrian's Wall secure.
Australia was, to everyone's surprise, doing quite well. As were Hawaii, Alaska, Cuba, and the northern half of Canada.
The news closer to home wasn't good. The entire East Coast was a slaughter house and the Midwest wasn't any better. The Deep South was fighting a running battle, as were the residents of the Great Plains as they retreated to the Rockies. The west, California, Washington, and Montana, along with parts of Colorado and Nevada, were all cut off by strategically destroyed bridges. The defenders were sitting tight, letting the dead splatter against the bottom of the gorges and ravines when they attempted to cross the chasms.
"What's left a' the military's pulled back behind the mountains, and the fleet's been called around ta help guard Hawaii, Alaska, an' the West Coast," George told them. "The long and short of it is there's no help comin'. Not anytime soon. Could be a year or two, more likely three, before it's possible ta start reclaiming the country. It's jus' too big. There's too many dead scattered all the hell over the place and too few men. None with the training ta make a difference and not enough resources ta maintain a push. At least fer now."
"So how do we survive?" Kat asked.
"I'm glad you asked," Foster said, smiling widely.
* * *
The dead roamed the world's cities.
From Belfast to Bangkok. Bangladesh to Boston. They staggered woodenly through the hallowed halls of the Louvre, along the flagstones of China's Great Wall, and down the willow bordered streets of Williamsburg.
Survivors were being pushed to their limits. Constantly on the move, scrounging for edibles, water, weapons. They desperately sought refuge in hastily fortified disaster aid centers and abandoned houses. Some pressed on, ragged, dirty, tired, little more than zombies themselves due to lack of food and virtually no rest. The dead never stopped, so those that fled death and worse at their cold hands had to move twice as fast.
There was virtually no military presence. The odd platoon of Army Reserve members, a few Special Forces units, scattered Air National Guard recruits here and there. They all tried to save as many people as they could, while battling the ever-present hordes of corpses. While some of these brave men and women managed to lead their units and a few survivors to safety, the majority were overcome by the dead.
But they bought time, paying for their friends' survival with their lives...
Chapter Eleven
George led the others down through the plate behind the machine shop, into the subterranean motor pool. Once they were below, he hit the lights and everyone, save Allen and Jake (because they'd seen it before,) stood there with their mouths hanging agape.
"What in the blue hell is that?" Maggie exclaimed.
That, was a vehicle unlike anything the survivors had seen. It was segmented, like a trio of subway cars, and longer than one of those intimidating, double-trailer, eighteen-wheelers. The nose tapered back from a narrow, vertical, eight-foot tall wedge that protruded from the front, almost like a snowplow blade, and met seamlessly with the first segment just before the lead wheels. They could all imagine how easily it would push, or even just ram right through, the mangled cars that were surely littering the roadways. Its bottom hull sat a good three feet above the ground, riding heavy independent axles and gigantic off-road tires. None of the segments showed any obvious access hatches and there was a 1940s circa pin-up emblazoned on the side—a dark-haired girl riding a bomb. Below her, hand painted letters read, "The Screamin' Mimi."
It was also the most hideous shade of Holy-Fucking-Shit,-That's-Fucking-Ugly! pink, any of them had ever seen.
"This," Foster said proudly, "is a MATTOC, a Mobile, Armored, Troop Transport and Operation Command vehicle. Originally designed for use in case of widespread riots during the aftermath of Y2K. Her hull's covered with SEP skin. That's short for synthesized electron polymer. Impervious to damn near any impact, short of a nuke. Can't be cut, won't burn, and it's almost frictionless. Developed initially for the outside of the space shuttle, but it couldn't be produced in any other color and NASA didn't want to be known for sending big, pink peckers into space. Never mind that without all the wind drag, they could'a launched missions using only an eighth of the fuel it normally takes to achieve orbit. Pretty dumb for a bunch of eggheads if you ask me."
"Yeah, right," Mike sputtered. "Don't tell me any of you are buying this shit? Frictionless rocket skin? Gimme a fucking break."
George gave the clubber an amused look. "Go see for yourself, smartass."<
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Mike strolled over and leaned against the vehicle's side one-armed, wearing a smirk. His hand slipped along its surface. He stumbled and fell to the concrete floor. There was a round of unrestrained snickering from the others as Barron got back to his feet. After brushing dust from the seat of his scuffed pants and giving George a dirty look which the fixer ignored, he walked back to stand with Nichole.
"Now, we've come up with a route that could get us west. We'll have to cut south and avoid any population centers, but with a little luck we should be able to make it." Jake waved at the unbelievable machine. "We can load this up with enough food for just over a month. George can get us to other caches along the way too, so we can restock as we go, or even just scavenge for supplies if need be."
The group was silent, while each of them considered what he proposed.
"That's it. Those are our options. But if we're going to do this, I think we all need to vote on it." He pulled a cigarette from his pack and lit up.
"Yeah! Great, damn idea!" Nichole said, hotly. "You can fucking forget it! I'm not hopping into what amounts to a big, cotton-candy colored, tuna can and heading for the boonies, hoping I won't get my ass bitten off by all those zombies out there. I'm for staying right here where it's safe!"
"Well, there's one point of view. Maybe not a realistic one, but still an option. Feel free to stay here and starve, blondie," Foster said.
"Screw you!"
"Enough!" Jake exclaimed. "I vote for going. And just so you all know up front, I vote that George lead us. He has the technical knowhow and the most experience, so…"
"Not a chance," Foster replied, puffing away on his cigar.
Jake was confused. "What? Why the hell would we spend all night coming up with this plan if…"
"Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm damn good when it comes to shootin' things, and there's no way I'm gonna sit here while you all go hell-bent for the horizon. But I'm not leading this trip." He pointed at Jake. "That's your job."