“Why aren’t they—” Wilson began.
“—shooting at us?” Cade finished. “I don’t know.” With the Oliver incident not too far removed, he held his fire but kept the window in his sights, hoping for a target to identify and engage if warranted.
Steiners trained on the house, Duncan said, “I have eyes on the first floor.”
“Copy that,” replied Cade, still targeting the upper right window, his rifle barrel unwavering.
A minute passed.
Nothing.
The wind kicked up, ruffling the curtains. Cade saw nothing but a dark void behind them. “Show yourself,” he growled as the two halves again went slack and came together in the middle. Though no match for the Steiners, he was certain the optics atop the rifle were sufficient to have revealed the muzzle to him had it still been present. Maybe they’re outgunned and retreated out back. With neither the manpower or combined experience to surround the house, that was a risk Cade was willing to take.
As if reading Cade’s mind, Taryn said, “My side is still clear.”
Wilson chimed in. “Our six is clear to the road, but we got rotters coming from the south. The ones we passed on the way to the drive are nearly to the turnoff and they’re eyeballing the farm.”
“We’ve got some time before Bridgett is set to rendezvous,” Duncan said in a low voice. “I’d rather spend it setting up our ambush than watching the paint peel off this house.”
Cade lowered his M4. “I’m going forward,” he said through gritted teeth. “Cover the windows.”
Wilson and Taryn edged around Duncan, who was already shouldering the SAIGA.
Cade flipped the 3x magnifier away, leaving just the quick acquisition sight atop the rail. With a sidelong glance at Duncan, he asked, “You have slugs in that thing?”
“Every other.”
“Make them count.”
Duncan said nothing.
Taryn and Wilson were crouched low and directing questioning looks Cade’s way.
Meeting Taryn’s gaze, Cade instructed her to keep her weapon trained on the breezeway between the house and nearby barn, the latter of which he explained was an unlikely place to spring an ambush since the massive double doors were shut and secured with a length of chain wound multiple times through the iron door handles.
Wilson crunched down his boonie hat with one hand. The M4 was clutched in the other. “What do I do?” he asked.
Cade pointed to his eyes with two fingers splayed into a V then quickly gestured to the feeder road with the same hand. “Keep watch on our six,” he said, eyes full of intensity. “I doubt if the Zs will catch up with us.” He flicked his eyes back to the Thagons’ home for a second then brought his gaze back to bear on Wilson. “But if they do, I want you to do them quietly with a blade. Think you can handle that?”
“He has to,” replied Taryn, her eyes flicking to her man.
Absentmindedly feeling for the knife on his hip, Wilson nodded and accepted the job with a sincere air of confidence.
“I’m going to start running for the house at one,” Cade said, beginning to tick down from five with one hand.
At the count of three, he had risen and was skirting the near side of the truck in a combat crouch.
When the count reached two in his head he was passing the front bumper and moving at a brisk pace. A half-beat later the count was over and he was sprinting toward the house in a serpentine pattern—changing direction every few feet to throw off anyone who might be drawing a bead on him.
Keeping his M4 trained on the front door, he came up on the short stack of steps with a full head of steam. At the last second, however, when anyone watching would assume he was about to mount the steps, cross the half-dozen feet of wooden porch and introduce his hundred and eighty hard-charging pounds to the front door via a strategically placed boot sole, he abruptly peeled off to the left.
Using the shrubs fronting the railing for concealment, he made his way to the far end of the porch where he snugged his rifle to his shoulder and quickly swept the muzzle to the right. Seeing nothing but scraggly, low bushes huddling against the house’s cement foundation, he made his way to the far northeast corner, went to one knee, and peeked around the corner. Nothing there save for more bushes and a sort of sunporch bumping off the far corner of the house. The all-encompassing windows were weatherproofed with opaque plastic that looked to have been riddled with gunfire. And giving the porch a life of its own, every time the wind kicked up from the south, the plastic sheeting would expand and contract, like lungs drawing a breath. Adding to the intermittent rustle of sun-aged plastic, someone or something inside the house was making a hollow knocking sound. He heard three or four taps, then silence. A few seconds passed and the sound was back.
Cade waited there for a few more seconds and learned there was no pattern to the number of taps, nor was the interval of silence between them constant. He envisioned the Thagons bound and gagged and crammed inside a closet. Then his mind went to the worst-case scenario: that the house was booby trapped with dead things like the rehab place and fix-it shop in Woodruff had been.
Cade tuned out the wind and foreign sounds and cleared his mind of the what ifs. He deployed the 3x magnifier, shouldered the M4, and surveyed the landscape to his left through the augmented optics.
The first hundred yards or so consisted of overgrown pasture land dotted intermittently with crumbling mole hills. Bordering the pasture, a wire fence ran left to right. A handful of yards on the far side of the fence, backstopped by the low mountain range of the same name, was the Bear River. Usually just a creek, it was now swollen with runoff from the early morning hail that still blanketed the foothills all around. The fast-flowing water made the long grass submerged along the river’s banks whip rhythmically to and fro.
After determining the perimeter clear of threats, Cade retraced his steps, stopping in front of the first window he came to. Both panes had been shot through. He counted more than a dozen bullet holes, most of which were outgoing. This told him that Ray and Helen had recently engaged someone from inside. And if he had to make a guess, it was the same people coming to pick up Bridgett at the 16/39 junction. Cade noted the time on his Suunto. Decided that as long as the dead encircling Bear River stayed put, he and the others would have plenty of time to decide how and where they would take the fight to Bridgett’s crew.
Rising slowly from a crouch, Cade cupped his hands and peered through the quarter-inch vertical seam between the drawn curtains. Though the interior was gloomy and shadowy around the edges, he could still see that the dark wood floor was polished to a luster. The room’s far wall bore paper that looked to have been hung in the fifties. Wide stripes in muted pink and seafoam green drew his eye to the coved ceiling, which was bordered by fancy crown molding and home to a light fixture sprouting six upturned brass sconces, each with a trio of crystals dangling from its conical base. Here and there the wall was marred with quarter-sized craters created by incoming bullets.
Suddenly the sounds were back. A steady tap … tap … tap, followed by a resonant bang. Still, he saw nothing moving inside as he noted the furniture, every piece of which looked to be from the sixties and would have fetched high dollar in Portland considering its burgeoning hipster community. The pair of low-slung couches, upholstered in avocado-green fabric, were pushed against the far wall. Strangely, one of them was left blocking the open doorway leading into what was clearly the kitchen.
Chapter 23
The Thagons’ kitchen was illuminated by the light coming in from the sunroom. The only thing moving in the kitchen were golden dust motes and a lone housefly. The counter was strewn with tin cans. Some of the cans, clearly empty, lay on their sides, jagged metal ringing what looked to be hastily pried open lids.
Doubtful Helen would have left a mess of that magnitude, he was thinking as he drew back from the window and retraced his steps to the wrap-around porch.
Going to a knee out of sight of the front door, he ma
de eye contact with Duncan and through a series of hand signals told him to send the Kids over one at a time—Wilson first.
Grinning because of the way Cade had silently designated Wilson—one hand caressing an imaginary afro—Duncan motioned the redhead over and sent him on his way. Keeping his SAIGA shouldered and trained on the upstairs window, he watched the spry youngster cover the seventy feet from the truck to the front porch running a poor man’s version of the serpentine pattern Cade had utilized. Once Wilson was on the porch and leaning against the wall by the right-side doorjamb, Duncan relieved Taryn of her rearguard task and sent her across the open ground.
To Duncan’s amazement, nobody sprang from the window to shoot at the brunette as she zigged and zagged her way to the stairs. That’s the way he would have done it if the circumstances were reversed. Taken a page from old Carlos “White Feather” Hathcock’s book. Ninety-three confirmed kills didn’t lie. Copying a tactic the famed Marine sniper had employed to pin down and decimate an entire NVA platoon, perhaps the shooter upstairs was just waiting for the group to get separated before putting one of them down in the open ground. Wound the female and let the others wring their hands deciding what to do next. Surely the men would feel compelled to save her. Then again, if someone was up there watching and waiting they had no idea that the first man they had let go across open ground unscathed possessed a lethal set of skills they likely had no counter for. Or, the pessimistic voice in Duncan’s head added as he rose and began a loping sprint for the door, maybe they’re allocating their rounds for the wizened old dude.
Duncan put his head down and clomped off toward the house. There was no fancy footwork. No cute head fakes to throw off a would-be sniper. He didn’t deviate left or right whatsoever. His only goal was to reach the stairs without falling down and making an ass of himself. And he succeeded, albeit out of breath and holding his side when he hit the porch and pressed his back to the doorjamb opposite Wilson.
Keeping his carbine trained on the curtain-shrouded picture window to his left, Cade threw his right leg over the top porch rail and clambered onto the porch. The weathered boards creaked as he went to his knees and swung the rifle around on its sling, letting it dangle vertically near his spine. In order to keep from presenting a silhouette for anyone waiting behind the drawn curtains, he dropped to his stomach and commando-crawled past the window. Once clear of the window, he quickly rose and crept the remaining twenty feet to where the others were waiting.
“Just like they taught you in boot camp,” Duncan mouthed to Cade as the Delta operator formed up across the door frame from him.
Cade said nothing. He did the fingers at the eyes thing again and then pointed at the porch, directing the others to look down.
Dots of what looked to be blood meandered across the worn boards from the edge of the doormat to the short stack of stairs.
“That’s the rabbit’s blood,” Wilson whispered.
Taryn nodded, showing her agreement.
Cade swiped a finger through a pencil-eraser-sized drop. Though it appeared dry—almost black and possessing a matte sheen—the arc of dark red left behind after he was finished proved otherwise.
“Hell,” said Duncan, his mouth near Cade’s ear, “it hailed this morning. This close to the mountain range, good chance they got rain, too.”
Cade shook his head slowly side-to-side. Then, with Wilson and Taryn both subtly nodding to show they agreed with Duncan’s theory, he reached out and stuck two fingers into the black mat by his knee. Left them there for a two-count and then held up his hand to show the others the result of his experiment. Slowly, as gravity’s pull kicked in, crimson tails sprang from his blood-slickened fingertips. As the others looked on, the runners reached his knuckles where the creases there provided a new path for the still very wet bodily fluid to congeal.
“Still convinced it’s from Ray butchering a rabbit days ago?”
Fingers slowly kneading the M4’s forestock, Wilson swallowed hard and said, “What do we do?”
Taryn looked to Duncan, then swung her gaze to Cade and let it hang there, obviously awaiting an answer.
“I’m going in solo,” said Cade. “Same as before. Duncan watch the house. Taryn the barn—”
“—and me, our six,” Wilson finished and swung his rifle around, training its lethal end on the feeder road.
Cade nodded as he looked each person in the eye, then turned to face the door.
Knock and wait to see if there are Zs, or go in unannounced?
Choosing to go the latter route, he turned the knob and pushed gently on the door to test its swing. It moved freely a quarter of an inch, proving it was unlocked.
Still muffled and hard to place, the knocking and banging began anew.
Cade cocked an ear and listened until the noises subsided.
Unsure of which approach was less likely to get him into a gunfight with a squatter, or shot at by the couple he was supposed to be protecting, he motioned for Wilson to swap places with him so he could get a better feel for the home’s interior layout before proceeding.
State Route 39
The blood-crusted nylon chafing Iris’s neck was beginning to be too much to handle for even her—a seasoned Watcher used to enduring discomfort for days on end in cramped attics and church steeples. For seemingly the hundredth time in the last ten minutes, she stopped to adjust the collar of the shirt she’d liberated from Mister Flippety-Flop. Holding the stiff fabric away with one hand, she attacked the tiny raised bumps dotting her upper body with the other. They were concentrated mostly in her underarm area and between her breasts and were beginning to bleed from her constantly scratching and picking at them.
After going at her chest and neck for some time, reluctantly she pulled both arms inside the soiled sleeves and went at both pits with all the vigor of a coonhound trying to dislodge a burrowing tick.
You’re a mess, Miss Doer, she told herself as a new pinprick of pain flared on her left temple. Before she could thrust her arms back through the sleeves and scratch that itch, a series of new attacks erupted down below, confirming to her that the unidentified insects inhabiting the shirt were now in her hair—upstairs and down.
For a brief second, she entertained the thought of stripping off the shirt and going on in just her bra and blue jeans. One glance at the dark clouds overhead quickly dispelled that notion. They were fat with moisture that could come down in the form of rain, hail, or, even worse, given a steep enough temperature drop, snow.
What she needed, she told herself as the feeding frenzy in her pubic region reached an untenable level of discomfort, was a vehicle and a razor—not necessarily in that order, unless the snow started up this second.
Before resuming the trudge east in search of a set of wheels, she jammed one hand into the front of her pants, pinched a tuft of pubic hair between finger and thumb, and yanked hard.
“Fuck me!” she wailed and drew in a breath. Still grimacing from the unexpected shock, she exhaled sharply and drew the sample into the light of day.
After placing the wiry black tumbleweed into her palm and sifting through it with her pinky, she closed one eye and brought it to within an inch of her face. Seeing nothing moving in the tangle, she brushed her palm off on her pants leg and went back to the well. Face screwed up in morbid concentration, she ripped and tore and came up with a fistful of short n’ curlies which received the same inspection that garnered the same result: Nothing to see here, move along.
And she did, cursing and hollering and begging God to make the radio in her pocket come alive with the voice of one of her own.
Chapter 24
After finding the Thagons’ front door unlocked, Cade had stepped across to the side opposite the handle and gently elbowed Wilson out of his way.
Now, back pressed against the house’s exterior, he leaned forward a few degrees and peered through the two-inch gap between door and jamb. From this new vantage all he could see was one arm of a winter coat hanging on a
coat tree to his left. It was close enough for him to touch. It was also bent at the elbow and obscured everything in his line of sight save for the blood-spattered rug on the floor. Simultaneously, he shouldered the door in a couple more inches and moved the sleeve aside with his free hand. Better. He could now see past the coat and beyond the foyer. But the sliver of light lancing in wasn’t sufficient to cut more than a few feet into the gloom. Triggering the tactical light affixed to his M4’s side rail illuminated a formal dining room, in it a table and chairs oriented lengthwise. Because of the angle, the white cone of light failed to reach further into the home. However, based on what he’d seen through the side window, he knew the sitting room full of chairs and sofas lay beyond. And through basic deduction, he placed the stairs to the second floor off to his right.
Knowing that swinging the door all the way in could lead to him unintentionally springing what Wilson had taken to calling a rotter trap, Cade called the old couple by name, then cocked an ear and listened hard.
A beat later the creaking noise was back, followed at once by the steady tapping. With the door now cracked open a hand’s width, it became obvious to him that the tapping noise was emanating from the kitchen area dead ahead. The creaking, however, was coming from somewhere upstairs. Maybe even the room directly above the foyer.
Glancing at his Suunto, he said, “Give me five minutes.” He regarded Duncan then patted the Motorola in his pocket. “I’ll radio once I’ve cleared the place.”
Eyes narrowed, Duncan said, “Holler if you need us.”
Cade made no response. He was already focusing on the task at hand. Going into the zone, as he called the heightened state of awareness achieved by pushing anything that might come to be a distraction to a secure place in his mind and locking it down.
Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 12): Abyss Page 13