Mortal: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  “Thought you said it’s like riding a bike.”

  “This ship is like the Space Shuttle in complexity compared to my old Huey,” said Duncan as the image on the screen moved in response to his manipulating the switches. Then by trial and error he managed to get it to zoom in and pan left.

  “Wow,” exclaimed Daymon. “Makes the city look like it’s built outta black Legos.”

  “Those are the cool spots. Keep your eyes peeled for bright white spots. Especially real bright ones that are moving.”

  Daymon craned his head closer to the display.

  “See anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’ll take us closer.”

  “You’re not worried about us getting shot out of the sky?”

  “Odds are against it. Besides, if you haven’t seen anything yet then there probably ain’t nobody home.”

  Pushing the stick forward and adjusting the FLIR pod with a nudge of the thumb, Duncan threw caution to the wind swung wide out over the reservoir’s calm waters and approached the city from the north.

  ***

  Up close, Huntsville was as dead as it appeared through the FLIR feed; except for a couple of dozen walking dead, nothing moved.

  “Those rotters look fresh,” said Daymon, binoculars pressed to his face as he watched a pair of zombies rending hunks of bloody flesh and entrails from a recent kill.

  “I’ve seen nothing but first turns the last couple of weeks.”

  Still framed in the binoculars, the creature facing Daymon jammed a length of shiny intestine into its maw and, like a kid slurping spaghetti, ground away on the slippery white morsel, the contents of the victim’s last meal dribbling from its working mouth. “Oh fuck,” said Daymon, putting the field glasses in his lap. “Good thing I didn’t eat this morning.”

  “Look at this,” said Duncan. He had the FLIR pod trained on something in the distance. He zoomed in and spent a moment fiddling with the controls before finally figuring out how to switch from the infrared feed. The image on the monitor switched from blacks and whites to color. Licks of black smoke rose from the remains of a very large house that had been built high on the hill with a commanding view of both the downtown area and the surrounding reservoir . From the looks of the concrete footprint, the herringbone-patterned brick circular drive, and the beautiful landscaping, Duncan guessed the place must have belonged to someone very important. A number of luxury SUVs were parked in front, and out back a swimming pool shimmered turquoise in the sun. “I’m going to take us downtown,” Duncan stated as he skimmed the Black Hawk over a block of commercial buildings housing a diner, a drugstore, and what looked to be Huntsville’s only U.S. Post Office—Old Glory still snapping smartly in the breeze.

  After skirting the city along the water’s edge, making a thorough recon to the south and finding mostly residential and not one living soul, Duncan spat a string of epithets into the comms. His drawl thick, veins bulging in his neck, he said, “We’re going to check the McMansion and then I’m going to bury my brother.”

  Remaining silent, Daymon twisted around and retrieved the shotgun from the floor behind his seat. Come on Cade, he thought, please look at your effin phone.

  Somewhere in Montana

  Elvis had been following the yellow squiggle in the plastic box. Turn left. Turn right. Continue to blah, blah, blah and blah, blah—doing exactly what the lady said to do.

  Hell, he thought, with a name like Tom Tom she sure sounded pretty sultry. He envisioned one of those brunette beauties from the forties or fifties in a low-cut top and hip-hugging shorts over fishnet stockings, all dolled up with lips pouting and red.

  Mountains looming north by west killed his fantasy. He slowed, pulled over, and looked closely at Tom Tom’s five-inch screen.

  Then a song popped in his head. Something about coming around a mountain and she’ll be there. God, how he hoped wherever Bishop was there were also a few ladies who sounded half as hot as the woman in the box.

  With the trucker-on-meth mantra blipping through his head, he hopped out. Retrieved the final two full gas cans and emptied every last siphoned drop into the tow truck’s extended range tank. Swept his eyes around and then tossed the empties behind the cab.

  He climbed aboard and set the truck to rolling. Goosed the big engine and turned on the stereo. Nothing. Just white noise. So he hummed a few bars of an old Grateful Dead ditty.

  Truckin’ indeed.

  Like a trucker on meth.

  Chapter 73

  Southwest of Colorado Springs, Colorado

  While the Chinook hammered a nearly-straight line westward through the cobalt sky, Ari took the airline pilot shtick to the next level by pointing out the Garden of the Gods off to the starboard side. The reddish-orange rock formations, a byproduct of geological upheaval when the Rockies were formed, dominated five square miles on the western edge of Colorado Springs.

  The new White House buried deep inside the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex received a spirited introduction from Ari as the 9,656-foot-tall rocky crag scudded by on the port side.

  While Ari provided the distraction no doubt designed to keep the younger passengers from keying in on the ongoing battle against the remnants of the Pueblo horde south of downtown Springs, Cade’s full attention was on the dark smudge to the north, where the nuclear-scorched earth near Castle Rock and the hazy horizon met. That was in effect for him hallowed ground; the very place where his best friend, Mike Desantos, got bit and in effect lost his life. As the helo droned on, he kept a laser-like focus on the twin craters until they were no longer visible through the Chinook’s tiny bubble window.

  ***

  After having successfully tuned out Ari’s voice for quite some time, Cade decided to be productive and power up the replacement sat-phone Nash had given him and see what kind of coverage it was drawing. He deployed the stubby antenna and thumbed the power button. After a long second, while the unit shook hands with whatever satellites remained aloft, the keypad flashed red and some kind of logo, colorful but vague, appeared on the tiny screen. He glanced at Brook, who appeared to be asleep, and when he returned his gaze to the Thuraya, the logo was gone and in its place were two identical ten-digit phone numbers—two missed calls that had come in back-to-back—both of approximately the same duration. But most importantly, the phone had recognized the number as the one Cade had assigned to the first slot in the contact list. And that could mean only one thing, Cade concluded—shortly after takeoff, Daymon had called him twice with the sat-phone Tice had given him in Jackson Hole.

  Cade retrieved the earpiece that came with the new phone, removed the rubber dustcover from the headphone port, and plugged the jack in. He navigated the menu and selected the first missed call. After listening to the message twice, he scrolled to the second missed call and repeated the process.

  Since the moment Cade withdrew the candy-bar-sized sat-phone from his pocket, Brook had been watching covertly from her side vision. And as she looked on, the expressions that crossed his features as he powered on the device and plugged in the ear bud said more than words alone. So she remained still and continued to watch his body language, which seemed to be changing by the second. His thumbs walked over the keypad and his shoulders seemed to inch closer to his ears. He clenched his teeth, and though he was wearing a flight helmet and had grown a partial beard, black and flecked with gray, underneath it all she imagined the muscles where his jaw hinged bulging to the size of golf balls.

  Then the phone’s keypad went dark; he glanced up and she was burned. Caught in the act, she mouthed, “Who was that?”

  “Daymon,” he mouthed back.

  “Who?”

  Providing a poor representation of dreadlocks, he waggled his fingers over his head.

  She made a face, nodded, and closed her eyes.

  “No more spying on me,” he said behind a sly grin. Then, eyes bugged, he stared at her until her resolve cracked and she smiled, opened her eyes, and mouthed,
“I love you.”

  Chapter 74

  Huntsville, Utah

  Hovering thirty feet above a copse of pines, and roughly a quarter-mile away from the mansion, Duncan put the FLIR pod through the motions. With the device set to pick up heat signatures he zoomed way in and slowly walked the optics right to left.

  Nothing.

  Next he chose the setting that allowed them to see the image being picked up on the cockpit display in full color. “Where the hell are they?” Duncan drawled. “A good day spent killing and kidnapping, you’d think it’s just about Miller time. Wish this thing had a rocket pod or two ... couple of Hydras into the middle of town might flush them out.”

  “I think there ain’t nobody home,” Daymon said. “Just walking rotters and twice-dead corpses. Can you zoom in on that garage?”

  “You see something out there I don’t?”

  “Think about it, Duncan. You almost got bit because you didn’t see a rotter ten feet from ya. The remains of the mansion is what ... couple of football fields away? The garage is another hundred feet.”

  “Quit bashing me and tell me what the hell you see and which side of the garage, the left or the right?”

  “Left side,” said Daymon. “A row of corpses. Lined up and stripped naked just like the soldiers at the roadblock.”

  With a little manipulation of the controls, the image on the screen grew in size and clarity. Duncan held the hover and craned his neck to see more of the display.

  “They’ve all been shot. What’d you call it ... center mass?”

  “That’s how every soldier learns to engage the enemy in basic training,” said Duncan, nodding an affirmative. “And that’s exactly how those fucks popped Logan ... two to the chest.” He grimaced as he heard his brother’s last words echoing in his head: Rotters don’t shoot back.

  “Taking that into consideration, what does that tell us?”

  “Boy should’ve been wearing a vest,” whispered Duncan, a hot tear tracing the contours of his cheek.

  ***

  After a slow fly by, during which no words were exchanged, Duncan set the Black Hawk down on the gently-sloped lawn in front of the still smoldering mansion. Newer grass clippings took to the air, creating a thin hazy veil that quickly dissipated after he set the power to idle.

  With the hypnotic blur of the rotor disc overhead dissipating and the turbine noise a steady tolerable din, Daymon removed his helmet and shook out his dreads. Then he called out over the steady thwop of the rotor blades, “Why don’t you stay here this time and let me do the lookin’ around.”

  Ignoring what seemed to him more of an order than a question or statement, Duncan went about flipping switches that quickly silenced the turbines. He removed his helmet and hung his head for a moment, stroking his silver mustache. Then, after having come to some kind of conclusion, he reached around and grabbed his stubby shotgun from the back, swiveled around and shot Daymon a hard look. Held it for a couple of seconds like some kind of Mexican standoff and then, without a word, toed open the door and slid out of the helo onto the neatly manicured lawn.

  Chapter 75

  Huntsville, Utah

  Without a shared word between them, Duncan and Daymon performed a thorough recon of the property. They walked slowly counter-clockwise from the static Black Hawk to the Olympic-sized swimming pool, stopping regularly so that Duncan could inspect the lush lawn.

  Finally, breaking the heavy silence, Daymon asked, “What’s with the lawn inspection?”

  Without making eye contact, Duncan swept his arm on a flat plane indicating the expanse of lawn north of the razed structure and said, “Same thing happened at the quarry happened here. Helicopters put down right here.” He pivoted and pointed at the Black Hawk. “And there also.”

  “How many?”

  “Half a dozen,” said Duncan, turning a full circle, eyes scanning the airspace all around. “There’s a lot more room to land here. I figure the shit went down so fast at the quarry that they didn’t need to land more than the two anyway. Puts the odds at like eight to four. Not winnable, especially if you get jumped like they did.”

  “And the other helicopters. What did they do?”

  “Probably just orbited the place while my bro was dying.”

  “So you think these dudes in the helicopters are separate from the folks who’ve been attacking the compound?”

  “Correct. We’re up against more than just the Huntsville yokels. Using your terminology ... some real bad dudes.”

  Daymon bent down to inspect the lawn. Pulled a couple of blades, threw them up like a pro golfer might. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because those are the yokels over there. And they’re dead as door nails. Ain’t coming back. And ain’t gonna bother us no more.”

  “I think I much rather prefer dealing with the yokels in their shiny SUVs over a group of bandits ripping around in helicopters.”

  “You and me both. C’mon,” said Duncan as he set off around the pool, dodging the white wooden pool furniture someone had lined up as meticulously as those on the deck of a cruise ship.

  Following a couple steps behind, Daymon kept his head moving—on a swivel, as he’d heard Cade say. And once they’d reached the garage which was standing open and filled with several new Toyota SUVs, all still tagged with paper dealer plates, it became obvious to him that Duncan’s hunch had been correct. He cast his gaze over the prostrate bodies, all of which sported puckered little entry wounds on their torsos—center mass, Daymon thought to himself. Scattered about near the bodies were a number of playing cards that for some reason looked familiar.

  “Like I said. It’s obvious that these guys weren’t soldiers,” said Duncan as he rolled the rigid corpse of a twenty-something male over using the toe of his boot. He grimaced at the sight of cratered flesh and muscle and dermis all hanging in tatters. And contrasting sharply on the pale skin was spattered blood, congealed and dried to a very dark crimson.

  Duncan went silent for a long moment while Daymon bent low to inspect the bodies.

  Finally Duncan added, “These folks weren’t fighters.”

  “And all the dead are dudes. There’s not one woman among them,” observed Daymon.

  “And what do you make of these?” asked Duncan, holding up one of the red and black playing cards.

  “Let me see.” Daymon took the card. Looked at both sides and said, “I’ve seen these before. Had a run in with a young guy in the Silver Dollar in Jackson Hole. After I dropped him with a Reacher special—”

  Looking bewildered, Duncan interrupted and asked, “Reacher special?”

  “Broke his nose with my forehead. I’ll loan you the books when we get back. He’s more of a badass than that guy in the book you gave me.”

  “Mitch Rapp?”

  “Yeah ... just one man’s opinion though.”

  “What about the cards?” prompted Duncan.

  “A bunch of military-looking guys, high and tight haircuts ... wearing camo. I’m pretty sure they were Bishop’s men. They were near the door when I bugged out. They were playing a game of Hold ’em using an identical deck of those cards.”

  “And that’s the only place you set eyes on them?”

  “Except for right now. Right here.”

  “Well whose eyes are bad now?” said Duncan, extracting an identical, albeit slightly waterlogged specimen from his hip pocket. “Found this at the quarry. It was in a puddle a ways off from Jenkins’ rig.”

  “And,” said Daymon, “what the hell does it all mean?”

  “To a veteran of the Vietnam war ... a warning to the enemy. A way to say ‘don’t fuck with us because we’re the baddest motherfuckers in the valley.’ Hell, I dealt a number of these myself after kicking some ass and taking some names—”

  “And ears?” asked Daymon.

  “Hell no. Not widespread at least ... that’s mostly crap from the movies. But come to think of it, there were a couple of shadowy types I knew who might have da
bbled in a little of that. But if I told ya then I’d have to kill ya.” The ice between them finally broken, he smiled broadly. “Hell, right now I’d probably hack a few off if the opportunity presented itself and the ears that I was hacking off belonged to those dirtbags that killed Logan. And when we get back, after I bury him, I’m going to pick Tran’s brain and see if he can’t decide once and for all what it is he really heard Bishop say.”

  Daymon looked away, north by west, at the sun playing off the reservoir and asked, “What then?”

  But the answer didn’t come in word form. Instead, out of nowhere there was a tremendous explosion that sent him diving for cover. And before he’d even hit the bricks there was a second percussive blast that stole his breath and set his ears to ringing.

  Everything had happened so fast. A rotter had somehow gotten around his blind side. But Duncan redeemed himself for his own slipup at the roadblock and drew down on the freshly-turned monster.

  “Motherfucker,” said Daymon as he rolled over onto his back. “First thought I had when I saw you draw on me was that you were having a flashback from Nam. Then I thought ... Daymon, you’re getting smoked by a big ass pistol.”

  Cordite smoke curling from the .45’s gaping muzzle, Duncan reached his free hand out, pulled Daymon to his feet and, without missing a beat, said, “Once I find out where Bishop and his Hold ‘em-playing buddies are, I’m going to go there and kill him ... very slowly, or die trying.”

  “Hopefully not the latter,” replied Daymon, hands shaking from the near death experience. Never before had he felt the heat and shockwave nor the crack of a bullet passing by his head, let alone two of them closely spaced and traveling nine hundred feet per second. “I owe you one.”

  “No shit,” replied Duncan. He clopped the taller man on the shoulder and without another word set out across the driveway heading back to the Black Hawk.