Robson stared at Linda, dumbfounded. He didn’t know what bothered him more, the fact that this woman had endured so much, or the fact that she could relate the details as if she were talking about a trip to the mall. He felt guilty about pitying himself over his own misfortunes. “What about the second time?”
Linda shrugged. “That was my own fault. A week later I ran into these five guys who seemed decent enough. I thought I couldn’t be assaulted twice, so I made contact and asked if they had any food to spare. They gave me something to eat and drink, and then took turns with me that night and the next morning before leaving me alone in the woods. After that, I avoided all contact with people until one of Price’s teams found me asleep in a Seven Eleven.”
“So that’s why you were so leery of us.”
“Do you blame me?” Linda said without recrimination. “I still am.”
“Why did you come with us?”
“You offer the best chance of survival. The other girls who were with me won’t last two weeks before they’re either dead or camp followers again. Those who stayed at that looted bed-and-breakfast community won’t make it through the winter. If anyone’s going to survive, it’ll be your group. That’s why I’m here.” Linda stared out again over Waits River. “I only hope we don’t all die on the road while searching for the perfect spot.”
Robson thought the perfect spot would be back at Fort McClary with Natalie. That dream had been crushed forever.
“We don’t need to find the perfect spot,” he said. “Only the right one.”
“Why can’t this be the right one?”
“There’s no defensible position. If another gang or a sizeable number of rotters find us, we’re screwed. I know we’re vulnerable on the road, and I want to find a place where we can settle down as much as you do. Trust me.”
“No offense, trust is a very hard thing for me to offer nowadays.”
“Fair enough. Go below and get some rest. You and Clint can take over in a few hours.”
“Clint?” Linda furrowed her brow. “You mean the African-American?”
Robson nodded.
“He told you his name?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know his name is Clint?”
“I’m calling him that because of Clint Eastwood.”
Linda stared at him as though he had rotters sprouting from his head.
“In High Plains Drifter Clint Eastwood played the man without a name.”
Linda’s confusion became amusement and, for the first time since Robson had rescued her, she laughed. “That’s awful.”
“I was never known for my stand-up humor.”
“I’ll go get some sleep.” Linda headed back to the ladder and paused. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For listening. And for being a decent guy.”
“I’ll do everything I can not to let you and the others down.”
“I want to believe that.” Linda descended the ladder, leaving Robson alone. He went back to watching the road. He had meant what he said to Linda about not letting them down. He hoped he had it within him to still do what was right for the group.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The last half hour had gone better than expected. After setting out again, Napier’s platoon had moved through a stand of trees before emerging into the neighborhood known as Westwood Highlands. Here the streets curved, following the slope of Mt. Davidson. Because of the meandering layout, the platoon moved forward in a straight line, pushing their way through residential yards and common areas, and only breaking as the soldiers flowed round the thousands of homes dotting the area. They moved slower than they had earlier in the day due to the terrain. The platoon ran into fewer revenants here than along Sloat Boulevard, mostly those trapped inside homes, which they bypassed. A few wandered the streets or had been corralled in backyards, and those were put down with little effort. However, the squad saw abundant signs of earlier revenant activity—numerous abandoned vehicles parked at odd angles with the doors left open, suitcases and travel bags abandoned on lawns and streets, houses with broken doors or shattered windows, patches of dried blood, and dozens of bodies eaten so thoroughly the corpses did not reanimate.
After walking for nearly forty-five minutes, the platoon came upon a section of the neighborhood at the base of Mt. Davidson where the streets ran west to east. Ari and Doreen lucked out. They stood across from Cresta Vista Drive, and got to follow the street rather than traipse through backyards. Two hundred feet down Cresta Vista Drive, Ari heard the all too familiar moaning of a rotter, but saw nothing nearby.
Doreen tapped her on the arm and pointed to a white VW Beetle parked sideways across the street with the passenger side facing them. “It’s in there. I can see something moving.”
The driver’s side was open with a single rotter strapped inside. As she moved around the car, it became frantic, pushing against the seatbelt to get at her and snapping its jaws. It wore black high heels and a gore-encrusted skirt. Its blouse had been ripped off, and all the skin devoured from its left arm, chest, and head. The face that stared at them was part decayed flesh and part skull. When it opened its mouth, Ari could see through the jaw into its throat.
“I’ve got this,” said Doreen.
“I’m fine.” Ari moved toward the car, removing the bayonet from her belt. The rotter reached out for her with its right arm, the left dangling by its side, useless from being stripped of flesh and muscle. Ari grabbed the rotter’s arm and pulled it toward her while plunging the bayonet into the left side of its skull. She felt the blade hesitate when it touched bone, and then break through. The rotter convulsed. Ari twisted her wrist, twirling the blade around inside the rotter’s head and scrambling its brain. It went limp and slumped against the steering column. Ari withdrew the bayonet, wiped the blade on the headrest, and slid it back into its scabbard then rejoined the others.
Mesle had moved on ahead to another rotter that lay in the middle of the street. This one had been stripped of most of its flesh and muscles except for the head. What little tissue remained had been dried and tanned until it appeared like leather. It stared at them with eyes bleached white and blinded by constant exposure to the sun. It heard the approaching humans and snarled, its head tilting to one side. Mesle stepped up and crushed its skull with a single blow from the butt of his M-16A2, putting the rotter out of its misery.
Doreen sighed. “It only gets worse.”
“What gets worse?” Ari asked.
“Everything. We used to think fighting rotters around the Kittery Trading Post was a big deal until we fought those four hundred at Site R. Those were nothing compared to what we encountered on the trip out here. Now we’re doing this.”
“This is a lot easier than fighting hundreds of rotters at once.”
“It’s more personal, which is demoralizing,” Doreen said to her friend. “When I’m fighting hundreds at once, I don’t see them as individuals. They’re a lifeless horde. Killing them one at a time, I can’t help wondering who they were, how did this happen, who did they leave behind?”
“Try to think of this as the dark before the dawn.”
“I want to, but it always seems to get darker. If only—”
Mesle moved up behind the women and interrupted Doreen, his voice firm yet quiet. “This isn’t The View, ladies. Can the chatter and concentrate on what you’re doing.”
“Sorry.”
The platoon continued on for another third of a mile and approached the end of Cresta Vista Drive where it connected with a cross street. Ari heard it first, a low moaning in the background. It grew louder as they approached the cross street. She moved over to Mesle.
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That background noise that sounds like humming of a beehive.”
Mesle listened for a moment, and then his eyes widened. “Revenants?”
Ari nodded. “It sounds like a lot of them.”
; When they emerged onto the cross street, Mesle paused his people and waited for the other squad leaders. When he spotted them, he motioned to hold their position and then rushed over to explain. Mesle chatted with one squad leader a block to their south when another squad emerged from the line of houses off to the north, crossed the street, and kept on going, ignoring the stopped line of troops. Half a dozen soldiers marched along an open grassy area between the row of houses in front of them and those located at the corner. Ari went to warn them, and had only gone a few yards when gunfire erupted behind the houses. The soldiers retreated through the open area, firing behind them as they did so.
One of them screamed, “Revenants! Hundreds of them!”
A moment later, rotters poured out of the grassy area. Rather than fall back and form a line against the living dead, the retreating troops pushed past their comrades and headed west. Those left behind didn’t know how to respond. Some took up a defensive position and fired into the revenants. Most joined the others and ran away. The rotters followed, threatening to spread into areas they had already cleared.
Ari walked a few steps up the street and stopped. She switched her M-16A2 to full automatic and fired into the horde. Only a few rounds resulted in head shots, the rest slamming into dead torsos or overshooting their mark. She didn’t intend to stop them, though. She hoped to distract them, and it worked. The horde ignored the fleeing humans and went after Ari. The rest of the squad fell in beside her and began firing. For each rotter that went down, three more took its place. Every few seconds they had to fall back or risk being overrun. Soon other squads joined them. The tide of living dead slowed, although Ari knew it would not be enough. At some point they would have to fall back and give up ground.
Mesle walked up and shouted. “Try to hold on for another minute! We’ve got air support on the way!”
It better hurry, Ari thought, firing a round into the face of a rotter in a soiled 49ers t-shirt and shorts. The bolt of her M-16A2 stuck open. Stepping out of line, she discarded the empty magazine and switched it out with a full one from her ammo pack. The rotters had closed to within thirty feet.
The thumping of a helicopter’s rotor blades cut through the sounds of battle. Ari heard Mesle order, “Fall back!”
An AE-64 Apache approached from the south, stopping a few yards behind them and hovering one hundred feet above the street. Once the soldiers had safely pulled back out of its line of fire, the pilot descended until its rotor blades practically touched the surrounding roofs and dropped the nose slightly. An electronic whir came from the 30mm chain gun mounted in the Apache’s nose. A moment later, all Hell broke loose. A stream of bullets firing at the rate of 625 rounds per minute decimated the living dead, churning those in the front into a cloud of blood and body chunks. A rain of spent shell casings clattered to the street. The pilot swept the chain gun from side to side, walking the stream of gunfire along the horde until the street had been cleared. Raising his elevation, the pilot moved the Apache to the open grassy area and swung right. The chain gun came to life again, cutting down more revenants. Keeping the Apache’s nose trained on the open area behind the townhouses, the pilot rotated his helicopter in a one-hundred-and-eighty degree arc and fired a series of Hydra-70 general purpose rockets from its stub wing mounts. Over a dozen explosions ripped through the open area, sending balls of fire and clouds of smoke billowing above the rooftops. The pilot remained over target another minute, firing a few quick bursts from the chain gun before ascending to an altitude of one hundred feet and flying off to the west.
“The pilot said everything is clear,” Mesle called out after the noise from the Apache’s rotors had died out. “Let’s form up and move out.”
“Are you sure?” Ari asked.
“The pilot says there’s nothing left but squirmers.”
Ari didn’t want to ask what squirmers were. She found out soon enough as the line reformed on the eastern side of the carnage area. The chain gun had chewed up most of the revenants until they were hardly recognizable as once being human. A few of the rotters had lost legs and thrashed about in the pile of inhumanity. Others had shattered arms or torsos that prevented them from standing. Some had their bodies ripped apart from under them, leaving only heads that remained alive. Doreen raised her M-16A2 to shoot a disabled rotter in a UPS uniform that reached out to her with the one remaining arm on its legless torso. Mesle stepped forward and pushed the barrel down.
“Don’t waste the ammo. Only shoot those that are mobile. The penal battalions will take care of these.”
Placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder, Ari squeezed gently and ushered her forward. The two women avoided looking at the remnants of the living dead, although they could not avoid their presence. By ripping them apart, the Apache had ruptured their intestinal tracts so that the pent up methane and feces mixed with the sickeningly-sweet stench of decayed flesh. Several of the troops fell out of line to vomit. Ari’s eyes watered and bile burned the back of her throat. She fought back the urge to retch. Once they made it off the street, she would be fine. She kept telling herself that until she crossed the open grassy area, now covered in body parts, and moved to the open space behind the homes. Several hundred rotters had congregated in this area, and the Apache had generated even greater devastation, its rocket fire blasting body parts across the open field. Intestines and limbs hung off trees, dangled from roofs, or lay strewn across back decks where the explosions had tossed them. Coagulated blood splattered the rear walls of the outlying houses. Back here, the stench was even more intense than out front. Flies and wasps had descended to feast on the fresh remains, creating a nightmare for the platoon as they passed.
“Go around them,” Mesle offered. “If you see any that are mobile, shoot them. We’ll meet up on the other side.”
The squad moved south, giving the area a wide berth. Doreen moved up beside Ari.
“Remember what I said earlier about settling down here after this is over?”
“Yeah?”
“No fucking way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“That was a great meal,” said Windows.
“It was, Mr. Denning,” said Cindy. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Denning tossed his napkin on the table. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“Where did you get pork chops?” asked Windows.
“I used to own a pig. He died of old age shortly after the outbreak, so I butchered him. Most of the meat went into jerky, which is long since gone. Some of it went into pork chops which I froze for special occasions. This seemed as special as any.”
Windows appreciated the act of kindness.
Cindy asked, “What was his name?”
“Whose name?”
“The pig.”
Denning grinned. “My wife named him. His name was Porky.”
Cindy giggled. “Porky Pig?”
“I know. It’s stupid.”
Cindy lifted up her fork with a piece of pork on it. “Th-th-that’s all, folks.”
Cindy and Denning both laughed.
“At least we missed the rain today,” Windows remarked after the two settled down.
“The crops could have used it, though.” Denning frowned. “It’s been a while.”
“With all that thunder we heard from the north this afternoon, I’m surprised we didn’t get a downpour.”
“The funny thing was, there were no storm clouds in the sky.” Denning shrugged. He stood up and began to collect the dishes.
Windows stopped him. “I’ll take of those.”
“No need for that.”
“Yes, there is. It’s the way my mother raised me. Whoever cooks, the other cleans.”
“Well, your mother raised you right. At least let me help bring them to the sink.”
While the adults gathered the dirty dishes and placed them in the sink, Cindy asked, “Can I go outside and play?”
“I don’t know,” said Windows. “It’s already dark.”
<
br /> “I’ll be okay.”
“She should be safe as long as she stays near the house,” said Denning.
Cindy clapped her hands and headed for the door. Denning called out after her, “Don’t go off to see the chickens or Walther. Understand?”
“Yes.” Cindy pushed through the kitchen door out into the backyard.
A few minutes passed before Windows said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For taking us in.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
“No…” Windows picked up a dinner plate and rinsed it. “You didn’t have to give us a place to stay. You didn’t have to trust us. You didn’t have to…to….”
“Treat you decently?”
Windows averted her gaze.
Denning reached out and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s my pleasure. Besides, there was no way I could turn you two away. I would have to have been—”
“Windows!” Cindy yelled from outside. “Mr. Denning!”
Windows dropped the plate she held, shattering it into a dozen pieces, and raced for the door. Denning followed, grabbing his Bushmaster on the way out. Windows ran up to Cindy and hugged her. “Are you okay?”
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