ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story)

by Chesser, Shawn

  After taking the right onto 92nd, Duncan sped south past a squat sprawling U-Store-It operation and over a two-lane bridge spanning Johnson Creek, which was dried to little more than a trickle this time of year. Six weeks plus of near-record temperatures hadn’t helped matters. Summer in Portland was usually a stretch of weather hovering in the mid-seventies that stayed around from July 4th on through Labor Day. Like a switch had been flicked, the sun would arrive on one and park behind clouds near indefinitely after the other. Bookends to a long stretch of wet gray weather is how Duncan described the rest of the year that was not summer.

  The two-lane dipped underneath Interstate 205 which was strangely quiet—the usual round-the-clock hiss of radials on cement nonexistent. For a short distance 92nd went curvy and was flanked by small copses of trees before straightening out and entering a shallow uphill climb. Some time later, with the Johnson Creek bridge showing up as a postage-stamp-sized rectangle of white pavement in the rearview mirror, Duncan hooked left off of 92nd to Johnson Creek Boulevard that, despite being a newer addition to the well-established route originating in lower southeast Portland, took off at an incredibly steep angle. As a result, the Dodge’s engine growled and the transmission clunked as it made the quick downshifts necessary to tackle the winding two-lane looming before them.

  To Duncan’s amazement the old truck handled the task without the tired V8 overheating or any of the other idiot gauges indicating that the engine was balking at the sudden load placed on it.

  Near the crest of the subdivision-riddled eleven-hundred-foot volcanic cinder cone, the road bisecting the Street of Dreams development that had propelled Mount Scott into being one of the area’s most sought-after neighborhoods ended abruptly at a “T” capped off by a large circular cul-de-sac.

  Duncan swung the Dodge around a full one-eighty and came to a slow rolling stop just inches from the curb. Bumper pointing downhill, he left the motor running, set the brake, and for good measure cut the front wheels toward the sidewalk.

  Satisfied the Dodge would be going nowhere, he leaned back in his seat and walked his gaze over the multi-story McMansions lining streets devoid of vehicles—static or otherwise. Figuring the cars and SUVs not already spiriting their owners out of town were likely tucked away behind garage doors this early on a Sunday, he shifted his gaze to the homes dotting the vast terraced development stretching away off of his left shoulder.

  Mirrored on the dozens of west-facing windows rising above him was a vast and blurry tableau that not only featured the distant west hills, jagged tops of city skyscrapers, and rolling landscape beyond, but also, duplicated many times over and reflecting off the east-facing windows dotting the terrain below, the rising sun in all its orange and red glory.

  The windows on the looming homes not shuttered or obscured by drawn curtains revealed only gloomy interiors. Duncan saw not one face peering out—living or infected. Which was what he expected since they hadn’t encountered a single ambulance or police cruiser since leaving Charlie’s place.

  “Hear that?” Duncan asked out of the blue.

  “Nope,” Charlie replied. “Don’t hear a thing.”

  “Precisely,” was Duncan’s immediate response. “It’s like the police and EMTs are all at church ... or took the day off entirely.”

  Simultaneously Charlie’s brow hiked up, and he cocked his head at an odd angle, listening for himself. “You’re right,” he finally said. “There are no sirens blaring today.” He scanned the sky. “Still no contrails. Nothing moving up there.”

  Duncan nodded and looked down the row of houses built on the nearest terrace. Suddenly he felt a cold chill rock his body and, like a seer’s premonition, knew without a doubt that if he came back to this very spot the same time tomorrow, the former Street of Dreams development would be the exact opposite—something out of his worst nightmares. And if he were asked to place a wager on this out of-the-blue gut-punch—an opportunity he rarely turned down—taking into account the government’s Keystone Kops’ approach to handling the purported outbreak as well as the ever-widening containment ring around the city proper, his money would be on Mount Scott, inner Portland, and all of her suburbs falling into total lawlessness by nightfall. Because in his experience, nothing was going to bridle human nature. Curfew or not, the evil lurking amongst the good were going to come out to play. How the sickness or infection or flu … whatever the name they stuck on the thing that was making people go homicidal and cannibalistic figured into all of this, he hadn’t a clue. He only knew one thing: he wanted to be as far away as possible come nightfall.

  Gut feeling aside, the sweeping one-eighty-degree vista made the unplanned detour all the more worthwhile. The sun was rising steadily and dawn’s soft light was painting Portland in a golden hue that belied all of the suffering Duncan imagined was taking place down there.

  All of Southeast laid out before them was visible with the naked eye. Several structure fires raged out of control in the nearby Brentwood neighborhood. Beyond Brentwood, in either Woodstock or Eastmoreland, a couple of city blocks were being consumed by licking flames. The smoke from the fires was drifting west by north and obscuring the heavily treed neighborhoods near the Willamette.

  Duncan motioned to the glovebox. “There’s a pair of binoculars in there. Can you dig them out for me?” He scanned the windows of the nearby houses again, seeing one pair of blinds behind a pair of multi-paned French doors snap shut. When he returned his gaze to Charlie, the binoculars were being offered to him.

  “These aren’t your momma’s bird-watching field-glasses,” Duncan said, taking the rubberized item from Charlie. He removed his Stetson and placed it on the seat next to him. He looped the nylon restraining strap over his head then held the binoculars up in front of his aviator glasses and spent a moment manipulating the applicable wheels to adjust fit and focus.

  Charlie shifted on his seat. Facing Duncan, he asked, “What are you seeing?”

  Duncan didn’t answer at first. Ignoring the neighborhoods directly below Mount Scott as well as the ones closer in, starting at the edge of the vast gray smudge he walked the binoculars down the river left-to-right.

  A pair of what appeared to be Black Hawk helicopters lazily cut the downtown airspace in a diagonal path following the river north. As the helos became specks on the horizon, he dragged his gaze southeast of downtown to where Interstate 5 crossed the Willamette via the bi-level Marquam Bridge. From a still shot on the local station he knew it was choked with passenger cars, SUVs, and eighteen-wheelers—a veritable parking lot in both directions. Beyond the span the usually full-to-capacity Riverplace Marina was only empty slips and deserted floating docks. And as relayed by the camera on the station’s helicopter, the river below the Marquam had been filled shore-to-shore with a multitude of white watercraft at anchor, which the reporter speculated were likely full of Riverplace Marina residents intent on riding out whatever was happening at that moment in time in the downtown quarantine zone.

  Wishing he could see through the drifting smoke now, if only to see the mayhem with his own eyes and reassure himself he had made the correct decision to skip town, Duncan trained the binoculars on the part of outer Portland they’d soon be transiting.

  The south-to-north-running stretch of 82nd Avenue visible from Mount Scott was a laser-straight stripe of gray totally devoid of civilian vehicles. Duncan walked the binoculars off of 82nd and up Flavel past Charlie’s place, but didn’t see much because of the businesses and mature trees lining both sides of the road. Moreover, the intersection where Flavel crossed 92nd was blocked from view by the U-Store-It facility.

  Charlie asked, “Do you see the National Guard?”

  “I can’t even see the intersection from here.”

  Duncan described what he saw as he walked the binoculars along the entire length of Interstate 205 open to scrutiny. It was mostly free of vehicles and the few he saw moving southbound were soon caught up in a roadblock consisting of a dozen static militar
y vehicles that looked to be grouping up for some kind of further action. In total, six Humvees were evenly distributed over six lanes. On either side of the grassy median sat a boxy Bradley fighting vehicle, one with its angled front end and cannon aimed south, the other covering the northern approach.

  “Explains the light traffic noise,” Charlie observed.

  “That it does,” Duncan agreed.

  Looking toward the base of the hill where Johnson Creek Boulevard curled off to the right, Charlie said, “And I don’t hear the V-twin engines.”

  “Or Humvees,” Duncan said solemnly. “I didn’t think they would follow us. And as hard as it is to admit … I figured they’d leave the dirtbags on the bikes alone, too. Hell, they have bigger fish to fry. Besides, Humvees are great for eating up desert and woodland and snow and ice. Hot pursuit over narrow surface streets … not so much.”

  Charlie chuckled. “Dirtbags. Priceless … I need to remember that joke.”

  Having seen enough, Duncan traded the binoculars for his Stetson. He was rattling the shifter into Drive when a voice boomed off to their left. In the morning still he thought perhaps Ronald Lee Ermey of Full Metal Jacket fame had crept up on them and was standing a foot off his left ear. In the next beat he was back in boot camp and preparing to drop and give whoever had just bellowed “Hey you!” twenty crisp pushups.

  But neither was going to happen, because the owner of the larger-than-life voice was an elderly man wrapped in a tartan bathrobe. He was looking down on them from a glassed-in deck attached to an earth-tone McMansion across the street.

  Raising an antique shotgun from behind one leg, the man said forcefully, “You don’t belong here. Get moving, or I’m going to call the cops.”

  Chapter 30

  Duncan had cranked the wheels away from the curb and popped the foot brake the second the man in tartan with the drill sergeant delivery had produced the shotgun. A few seconds later they were well out range of whatever the weapon was capable of throwing their way.

  “He meant business,” Duncan observed, stopping the Dodge short of 92nd by a truck’s length.

  “We’ve got to be careful … this thing has people acting out of character.”

  Shaking his head, Duncan said, “My truck in that neighborhood … I was in his shoes I’d have done the same thing.” He craned left then right and back again. Deeming the crossroad biker-free, he let the rig coast the rest of the way down the hill and made a tight right-hand turn without heeding the stop sign.

  “The smoke from the fires looks to be moving north by west,” Charlie said, pulling his shoulder belt on. “Good for us when we get into the gorge.”

  Duncan smiled as the truck rode the dip underneath the quiet Interstate and bounced on its springs as the road settled back on a straight tack. And he had every reason to smile. For one, he didn’t see a single soldier milling around the distant intersection that had been the scene of the gruesome double-murder, carjacking, and subsequent abduction—all of whose terrible outcomes he had been unable to alter. His smile widened when he saw there were no Humvees blocking the intersection. And most importantly, there was no yellow crime scene tape or detectives or strobing blue and red lights.

  Seemingly their luck had changed. But just in case, Duncan slowed down as they neared the intersection. He wanted to see exactly what measures the responding troops had taken. He figured their diligence, or lack thereof, would give them more of an insight into what was befalling the city.

  There was a soft thunk as the balding off-road tires met the bridge transition. Under the bridge the trickle of Johnson Creek sparkled like a live wire. Up ahead the stoplight and left turn arrow were dark.

  “The little car’s still there,” Charlie said.

  “I’m not planning on stopping. Just going to drive real slow across Flavel. You take a quick peek and tell me what the Guard soldiers are doing now.”

  Charlie snatched up the binoculars and leaned forward in his seat.

  At the intersection Duncan performed a slow-rolling California stop. He squinted to see down Flavel but saw only a pair of tan shapes off in the distance. He saw no soldiers. No police cruisers or ambulances with flashing lights. “Anything changed?”

  “Nope.”

  “How many soldiers are there now?”

  “Still six,” Charlie answered. “No dismounts. Two of them are topside behind the big guns … the rest are split between the rest of the rigs.”

  “Why don’t you guys and gals want to be outside your vehicles?” Duncan said, thinking aloud. “What do you know that we don’t?”

  Charlie answered for the soldiers. “It’s already getting pretty hot out there,” he said, lowering the binoculars and regarding Duncan. “Plus, they are wearing all that gear.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Charlie,” Duncan said, shooting his friend a pained look. “This ain’t Iraq or Afghanistan. And I’d bet you all the tea in China that those things don’t have any air conditioning in them. You think the snakes in D.C. would earmark our hard-earned money for creature comforts anyone other than them would get to enjoy?”

  Charlie sat back against the seat. “Point taken, sir.”

  Ignoring the “sir” part of Charlie’s statement, Duncan continued the slow creep across Flavel. Mid-intersection, he stole a quick glance at the left turn lane where they had recently averted the gunfight with the bikers. “Hell,” he said through clenched teeth. “The soldiers didn’t see fit to move the dead guy’s car.”

  “That’s not all,” Charlie said, as they came even with the little econobox. “They left the dead for the meat wagon to come and collect.”

  Hearing this, Duncan craned back around and over his left shoulder spotted the two black body bags laid out side-by-side near the car’s rear bumper. One was nearly flat, as if it had nothing in it. The wiry guy driving the compact, he thought. The other bag bulged considerably, no doubt containing the remains of the SUV driver with the horribly broken arms and legs. He muttered, “Not their job,” and swung his head back around in time to see a man in a small car come up quick on his bumper, flash him an angry glare followed at once by a raised middle finger for added emphasis.

  After obliging the man a casual sorry buddy wave, Duncan quickly got the Dodge moving north of the posted thirty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit.

  From Flavel north, save for the little car on their bumper, there was no other traffic until they hit Woodstock where it started to back up from the effects of a nasty crash half a block distant. As vehicles ahead began to reverse and jockey around in order to detour onto Woodstock and avoid the tangle of metal and flaring tempers, Duncan got his first up-close look at one of the infected that must have been dead and roaming the streets for some time. The thing had just staggered from between a row of chest-high shrubs fronting a parking lot set aside only for customers of Rapid Diaper Delivery and Grand Prix Motorcycle Repair. Odd to see those two disparate ventures sharing the same block, let alone a common parking lot, thought Duncan as the bloating corpse set a staggering course toward a woman who had just exited her wrecked car and was talking animatedly with the driver of the other. “Hunting,” was what Charlie said one reporter had called the infected’s main goal after dying and coming back sans pulse and respiration. And this thing that looked nothing like the infected young cyclist he and Charlie had unwittingly ferried to her execution was doing just that—angling straight for the petite Latina who was currently shouting and gesturing animatedly at the other driver.

  The turned man was nearing the back side of middle age, paunchy, and almost completely bald. The yellowish-white wife beater he had on when he died was streaked and spattered with so much dried blood that it almost appeared black. Some of the mess was obviously his, deposited there as it hemorrhaged from the gaping half-moon-shaped wound torn just inches above the exposed collarbone.

  But unlike the cyclist’s skin that still had a little pink tone to it when they’d handed her off to the soldiers, Wife Beater’s skin wa
s pale as driven snow. However, standing out starkly on the back of all four of its stick-thin extremities were deep purple bruises where the blood that hadn’t gushed from the neck wound had pooled after death.

  “Looks like the stiff that attacked Gloria,” Charlie stated as the thing reared its head back and drew its thin lips over still-bloodied teeth.

  “Except this one’s in the wild,” Duncan hissed as he looked over his shoulder and toggled the right turn indicator. “And I want nothing to do with it.”

  As the Dodge cut the corner at Woodstock, Charlie rose up off his seat and craned around just in time to see Wife Beater, arms extended and maw opened wide, fully eclipse the Latina. “Run, lady,” he bellowed, startling Duncan into nearly driving onto the curb.

  “If they ain’t running already,” Duncan proffered, as he regained control of the wheel, “then I’m afraid it’s too late for them. Hate to say it, but we’re looking at Mother Nature and natural selection tag-teaming the sheeple of the world.”

  “She slipped away,” blurted Charlie, eyes still locked onto the macabre scene.

  Duncan was about to expound on his assertion that those that weren’t already on the move were more than likely doomed to be just like the creature in the blood-drenched tank when a pair of booming reports reached his ears. They were gunshots, for sure; however, they sounded nothing like the crackle hiss of a .22. Nor did they ring with the hollow pop of a 9mm round. Without casting a glance at the rearview mirror for visual confirmation, Duncan said, “That was a shotgun.”

  Eyes narrowed to slits, Charlie slowly retook his seat and dragged the seatbelt over his shoulder. Clicking the clasp home, he said, “X gets a square. And you can’t unsee something like that.”