Allegiance

by Shawn Chesser

  Wilson’s hamming it up elicited a half-smile from Taryn that disappeared quickly.

  “OK Mister Judgmental—your turn,” she said, flashing him a pouty look.

  “Well, I had a red Mustang. She got trashed in Denver. I had a dream of getting it on Overhaulin’... It’s a show about—”

  She cut him off. “I’ve seen the show once or twice.”

  Then Wilson got caught doing an obvious double take. And though he thought it could go no higher, his affection for Taryn elevated a notch.

  “Girls can be gearheads too, you know,” she stated emphatically and with a certain sense of pride. Then after a short pause her tone softened. “You know, before this disease, virus, whatever the hell it is happened, my dad was building a rat rod in his spare time. He let me and my brother help out a little.” She went quiet then added in a near whisper, “I couldn’t wait to ride in the thing.” Hands held horizontally a few inches apart she added, “It had a real short windshield up front... Brother and me couldn’t wait to get the wind in our hair.”

  “And bugs in your teeth,” Wilson quipped. “I loved those things... just the opposite of a hundred thousand dollar Trailer Queen. All primered out, peeps could actually drive one of those to the car show. Door dings and bad weather... no worries.” He glanced over. Tears had welled in her eyes, threatening to spill over. He had little experience with girls—except for the teenagers who worked for him at Fast Burger—and they had a tendency to cry over giving someone the wrong change. Where Taryn was concerned he didn’t know what to say.

  An awkward silence ensued.

  He fumbled through every pocket in his cargo shorts—eight in all—searching for a tissue... anything. Nothing, he thought to himself. Epic fail.

  Taryn tugged the neck of her black tank up to dry the tears and in the process revealed more of her anatomy than she had intended.

  Wilson diverted his gaze, but not before he got an eyeful, including, but not limited to the delicate details of her bra. It was black, low cut, and like Taryn—the lace was very complex. He also noticed something fall from her tank. It appeared to be machined out of brushed aluminum, was about the size of a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum, and swung pendulum-like on some kind of clear line. Without looking up she quickly tucked the pendant in and patted smooth the dampened fabric.

  He blushed for the umpteenth time since he’d met her. “No Kleenex—”

  “That’s OK,” she said, looking up and meeting his sheepish gaze. “I want to be quiet for a minute. You know... be still. Just think.”

  “OK,” Wilson said. It was about all he could come up with.

  They continued on in absolute silence. And when they finally reached the parade grounds—an expanse of brown grass encircled by an oval quarter-mile running track—Wilson steered them towards a fixed set of aluminum bleachers. Low to the ground and utilitarian even compared to the ones at his old high school, they seemed the perfect place to take a break so he could listen if Taryn decided she wanted to talk about her ordeal. Besides, he reasoned. With all of the melanin her skin possessed, he didn’t think she’d mind sitting in the sun for a while. Hell, from the looks of her olive skin there was no way she could have been trapped inside for nine days. He, on the other hand, pink-skinned ginger that he was—knew from experience that he was going to pay dearly for every millisecond he stayed out in the sun.

  They sat in silence, staring at the twelve-foot tall fences separating the base from the zombies’ hunting grounds on the opposite side. Out there, a couple of lonely Zs held vigil, eyeing them hungrily, fingers latched onto the outer ring of fencing.

  The wind was calm and the sun, nearing its apex for the day, seemed certain to drop another hundred degree day on them. There had already been three consecutive scorchers in a row, and the thunderstorms that the locals swore occurred like clockwork during the waning months of summer had yet to spare them one single solitary raindrop. Wilson decided to quit being Wilson and take charge. “Hottest part of the day is coming, we should probably head back,” he said. Then he released his red hair from the confines of his floppy boonie hat and wiped some sweat from his brow. “Maybe we could go inside... someplace cooler,” he added. Sasha’s voice invaded his head. ‘Gosh dang Wilson, take it any faster you might as well just asked her to sleep with you.’

  “That’s a great idea,” Taryn said, agreeing. “Then I can verbally vomit on you in private. Kinda what I had in mind in the first place. I went through nine days of hell... alone, and if I don’t talk about it soon I’m liable to go find a gun and quiet this noise in my head.”

  With the memory of Ted’s unexpected suicide fresh in his mind, Wilson couldn’t contain himself. “You don’t want to do that,” he blurted.

  “I was just being dramatic, Wilson. I didn’t give up at the airport. I’m sure as hell not taking the easy way out now.”

  “Did you make it here by yourself?”

  “Yes... and no. It’s complicated.” She went quiet. They took a few more steps before she spoke again. “Wilson...” her voice cracked. She halted in her tracks, feeling the sun bearing down on her. Heard heavy vehicles going somewhere important, the clunk and roar of engine and exhaust dissipating. She swallowed hard. “When I tell you how I got here I don’t expect you to believe me. I still can’t believe I made it out alive. And if you think I’m just being a whiny girl fishing for attention and don’t want to hear it... I won’t hold it against you.”

  Wilson didn’t particularly like the sound of her final statement. Every cell in his body wanted her to hold every bit of her against him. He blushed and pushed aside the romantic thoughts. “You don’t have to worry about me passing judgment,” he proffered. “You met my sister. She does all of the judging in our family.”

  “You know... I think I was a little too hard on her considering she’s lost contact with your mom and everything she’s been through in the last few days. That’s all way too much for someone her age to process.”

  Wilson crushed his hat over his hair. “She’s coping... in her own way,” he said quietly.

  “And you? How are you coping? And how much of Sasha’s retelling of the arm stuck in your hair is real and how much was due to teenage exaggeration?”

  “It all happened the way she said. I’ve got more to get off my chest. After you, of course. I think I might benefit from a little... what’d you call it? A verbal vomit session?”

  “Agreed,” Taryn said with a smile. She cast a sidelong glance at the zombies by the fence, and for the first time since her rescue from Grand Junction Regional the enormity of the situation and the true nature of the dead struck her. “What is the government going to do about all of those things?”

  “What can they do?” Wilson said dryly. “Before this thing broke out there were... I don’t know how many people in the U.S.”

  “I did a report on immigration last fall.” Trying to coax the obscure number from her memory, Taryn paused for a beat and looked at the sky. “I think there were... I want to say three hundred million. But don’t quote me.”

  “Oh no. I’m going to have to hold you to that number, young lady—” Wilson’s attempt to lighten the mood failed. He watched Taryn’s face go slack, the color flushing from it entirely.

  “That means there are a lot more of those things than I ever imagined,” she said in a low voice.

  “Let’s get back. We’ve got a vomit session to attend.” She smiled. “My place or yours?” he asked.

  “Mine,” she said at once. “I’ve got something to show you.”

  Wilson smiled. His imagination was running wild, and for the first time since those initial awkward moments when they’d met, he found himself speechless.

  Chapter 14

  Outbreak - Day 15

  Schriever AFB

  Security Pod

  The prisoner’s restraints clanked against the steel table as he raked soft feminine fingers through his full head of unkempt silver hair. Then, as if suddenly struck by
a wayward thought he might be privy to share, he sat upright and shifted his gaze from his open palms and fixed it on the interrogator. After a few seconds he looked away, then began to bob his head left to right, a barely perceptible metronomic shift of only a few degrees in either direction, like he was deciding something of little consequence. Perhaps which three hundred dollar tie he’d wear to a dinner party, or whether he wanted a blonde or brunette thousand dollars an hour call girl waiting in his penthouse when he returned. Over the last forty years, money had not been an issue. In fact, he’d had enough of it to alter elections. He’d even brought a small country to its knees through currency manipulation. He had been able to afford anything and everything he’d ever wanted. Immediately. No waiting. He was the king of self-gratification, and most importantly, he answered to no man.

  But recently, things had changed drastically for the ruthless ex-billionaire. In reality, the man Robert Christian regarded across the table from him—the imposing figure whose gaze even he found hard to match for any length of time without looking away—literally held his life in the palm of his hand. And the question his interrogator had just posed contained no uncertain words and had only one truthful answer, an answer that Robert Christian knew would be deemed unacceptable.

  He went light in the head. Suddenly, for the first time in three days, he saw the scale tipping in an altogether undesirable direction. And the slide started moments after he had been brought into the cold room and manacled to this very same table. That had been over seventy-two hours ago, by his estimation.

  The President had arrived and watched as the interrogators quickly shattered the illusion that Christian could threaten or buy his way out of this predicament. That way of doing business may have worked in the old world. It held no weight in the new one.

  His first offer of money had been met with silence by his lone interrogator. His belligerent ranting followed with a flurry of hollow threats earned him an open handed slap, and the last time he had been slapped across the face, he had recalled at the time, had been but a love tap delivered by a nun in accordance with Catholic school rules. The interrogator’s sneak attack had been nothing of the sort. He could still hear the roundhouse cutting the air before the crushing blow brought his fantasy world crashing down around him. And before the resounding smack had echoed into silence, he’d had a morbid epiphany: This hard-edged man writes his own rules and answers to no one.

  ***

  For Robert Christian, formulating an answer other than the truth wasn’t an option. He couldn’t lie to this man, he reminded himself. Without a doubt the grim-faced soldier—or whatever he was—had been trained to spot deception. No, he decided right then and there. He’d already told them all he knew, and spinning elaborate lies would only prolong the agony.

  He looked at his right little finger. It wandered off at a sharp angle from the others, snapped there by the attached tendons when the knuckle keeping it straight disintegrated. Just looking at the swollen purple digit brought forth a fresh dose of breath-robbing pain.

  “You indicated that Elvis was supposed to rendezvous with Ian Bishop and then kill him. As per your orders. Isn’t that correct?” The interrogator turned in his chair, looked at his own reflection in the two-way mirror.

  “Yes, for the tenth time. That is the truth,” Christian stated forcefully. “And Ian Bishop... that Goddamned traitor. He abandoned me. I have no idea where he went, nor do I know where his men took the nuclear warheads he fucking stole from me.” The thick vein that snaked across Robert Christian’s temple steadily throbbed, seemingly a living thing underneath his skin.

  The interrogator shot up from his seat, flipped the metal chair around so its back pressed against his chest, then sat back down heavily. The sudden movement caused Robert Christian to flinch and shrink away. In the attempt to distance himself from the anticipated blow, the former billionaire simultaneously stretched the manacles to their limits and arched his body backwards, away from the table. His chair screeched back several inches, teetered on two legs before coming to rest again, still upright on all four.

  The man leaned in close. Robert Christian could see the pores on his nose, the red capillaries in the yellowed whites of his eyes. Could smell the acidic coffee stench of his breath.

  “One more time. Tell me who Elvis was working with.” He said it slowly, enunciating every syllable. “You give me something that I can work with and then I’ll reward you. But if you don’t cooperate, I’m going to up the ante. And just to prove to you I’m not such a bad guy... I’ll allow you to choose which fingers get broken.”

  Robert Christian looked at his damaged right hand. He kept his eyes downcast. “I have already told you... Elvis volunteered to come here,” he stammered. “He was supposed to pose as a survivor, try to gain some trust and then wait. Francis’s mission was the same... only he was the one who had to smuggle the gun in. I wanted him to kill that bitch Clay.”

  The interrogator bristled. “Why did you want the President dead?”

  “So I could have the United States all to myself.”

  Shaking his head, the interrogator said, “The dead own the United States for now.”

  “But I had a plan.”

  “You’re insane,” the rough man spat. “Just as insane as the fool you sent for Clay. He’s dead and soon you will be too. ”

  “No... no... I can help you find Bishop. Get back the nuclear weapons. For what it’s worth... everything I’ve told you is the truth. So help me—” He stopped short of saying the three letter word that was nothing but a crutch for weak people. For him, power was God. So now, sadly, shackled to the table, he was not only utterly powerless over his situation, he was Godless as well.

  Once again the interrogator cast a glance at the mirror, pressed his finger to his ear, adjusted something there and without saying anything more exited the room, slamming the door behind him. The mirrored glass rattled and Christian’s reflection staring back at him undulated with it. Then, with a viscous sucking sound, the A/C unit kicked on. A low whoosh came next as frigid air burst through the plastic grill. Somewhere deep inside the box a bad bearing wailed, threatening to silence the beast for good. Having already put up with it for hours on end, and nearly losing his mind as a result, the former billionaire king maker silently prayed for it to fail.

  Chapter 15

  Outbreak - Day 15

  The House

  Jackson Hole, Wyoming

  Lucas Brother’s expression changed from one of mild annoyance to a crunched up sneer. He shuffled the picket of empty liquor bottles, lifting and slamming each one down noisily, and then in a fit of hot rage, upended the black lacquered table sending the empties and a two-day accumulation of cellophane wrappers and caviar tins crashing onto the travertine tiles. “Liam!” he bellowed. “Where the fuck is the clicker?”

  The younger man replied testily, his voice easily carrying from the kitchen and down the hall. “Get off your ass and look for it. And I’ll be damned if I’m watching Die Hard with you again.”

  It had been a full two days since their boss Robert Christian had been snatched from the mansion in the dead of night by an enemy the brothers hoped they would never have to tangle with again. The infiltrators had been equipped with night vision goggles and armed with silent weapons. To call them efficient killers would be an understatement. Clifford, Hutsell, and Ed could attest to that—their bodies were feeding the worms in a shallow communal grave behind the pool house. Furthermore, the way the ghosts had thwarted the estate’s security system, picked the locks to gain access, and then disabled the generators spoke volumes to their training and professionalism.

  As the credits finished and the ‘90’s synth-heavy music began its fade out, even from inside the soundproofed home theater they could hear clearly the shuffling feet and mournful moans of the dead gathered outside.

  The twenty thousand square foot multilevel mansion, once owned by a prominent Hollywood A-Lister, and most recently inhabited by Rob
ert Christian, the self-appointed President of New America, was nearly impenetrable. Perched on a protruding finger of rock and surrounded by steep, undergrowth-choked hillsides, the grand walled compound was only accessible via a mile-long drive snaking up from the valley floor. Ringed by the massive granite Teton and Gros Ventre Mountains, the locals had contemptuously dubbed the prominent display of wealth and opulence overlooking the valley floor, ‘The House.’

  “We’re out of Scotch...” Liam hollered from the hallway.

  “Did you check the butler’s pantry?”

  “We cleaned it out yesterday,” Liam answered.

  Lucas gave up the search for the remote, hastily reassembled the leather cushions and plopped back down under the weight of a looming decision.

  “That settles it...” Liam exclaimed as he strode, empty-handed, back into the cavernous home theater. “We have to leave today.”

  Tilting his head back, Lucas eyed Liam sideways and said, “I concur.” Then he upended one of the bottles that had somehow survived his tantrum and shook it violently over his gaping mouth, milking the last few drops of booze.

  Looking disdainfully at the sad lack of willpower currently on display, Liam shook his head. “It’s all gone... ‘cept a couple bottles of Crème de Menthe, and I’m not going there. Never had a Grasshopper... never gonna.”

  Lucas jumped up from the couch, hurled the drained bottle sidearm at the humongous dropdown screen (missing horribly) and said forcefully, “You unlock the gate but don’t open it just yet, and then kill the generator. I’ll load the Hummer... then we’ll be real quiet and maybe the rotten fuckers will forget about us and go away.”